Then Shaman Bisquik shook his head and stood up. My rage rose with him.
“How dare you!” I spat, low and dangerous. “How could you do this to people? How can any insane power trip be worth, worth turning people into things? Into mindless mockeries of everything they stood for?” I pointed the wand at him. “How can you do this?”
Unrepentant, Bisquik snarled at me. “Bisquik tired of having nothing!” he snapped. “Now, Bisquik have slaves! Dead slaves no argue! Now, Bisquik more important than somebody!” He reached for his scepter again. “More important than you!”
I set off the last charge of Lightning Bolt.
Bisquik, faster than a cockroach, jumped back and dodged it, and the bolt grounded itself in the clockwork behind him. To my surprise, the lightning didn’t stop with the initial zap, but continued to crawl amongst the gears and cogs and tightly wound springs of the giant clockwork machine, which began, slowly, to turn. Above me I heard gurgling, pumping sounds from the altar room as ancient waterworks chugged to life.
“Bone-licker tribe,” he cried, “attack the squishy-skin!” but, led by Smart Mouth’s deliberate indifference, the other goblins shuffled their feet and did not move.
[Reputation check (Bone-Licker Goblins): Success]
I grabbed up my dagger and at jumped at the witch doctor. He didn’t have time to go for his scepter, but instead raised the Gloves of the Ossian Puppetmaster. Inches away from him, I felt the shadow projections reach out and grasp my neck, squeezing the fragile bones there.
[-1 Hit Point, Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 3/25]
I struggled to resist, but the magic was too strong.
Bisquik was trying to twist my neck around; I was fighting him enough to keep it from breaking, but not enough to get free. He doesn’t have to break anything, though, if I can’t breathe.
[-1 Hit Point, Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 2/25]
[-1 Hit Point, Bludgeoning damage]
[Hit Points: 1/25]
[Achieved Level 6]
[Class acquired: Ranger, 3 (Total: Ranger 3, Rogue 2, Monk 1)]
[Granted abilities: Favored enemy1 (undead)]
[Granted, (1d8) maximum Hit Points: 8]
[Hit Points: 9/33]
From somewhere deep inside me I felt a welling of strength, and upsurge of power, riding up and past my dimming vision on a remembered thread of Master Brandon’s voice: Remember, all power comes from within, and it extends exactly this far away...
I could not reach Bisquik with my hands. I could not change him. I do not have power over him. I only have power over myself.
So, how can I change myself?
Instead of fighting the Ossian Gloves around my neck, I suddenly relaxed, twisted, and rolled with the force—swinging my feet up and over while I used my own head—held fast in his magic—as an anchor point. Shaman Bisquik was utterly unprepared for that, or for the way my heels thudded into his temple, back to back, sending him sprawling on his tail.
The shadow projections dissolved as he lost concentration, and I landed lightly on the ground. I never even gave him time to stand up. I just darted forward using Cat Kata and planted my dagger up and under his solar plexus. The room went momentarily dark as the flames buried themselves in his heart, and when I pulled the dagger out and light returned, the shaman’s eyes stayed dim and dark, closed forever.
Around me, the rest of the goblins cheered. Smart Mouth had surreptitiously gathered up most of Bisquik’s stuff, adorning himself with all of the shinies. When he reached for the scepter, though, I stopped him.
“All yours, Dragon Boss.” He stepped back.
I picked up the scepter.
The garnet in front of me gleamed such a deep red that in the firelight it looked almost black. I considered the gem, staring into the emptiness inside of it. Empty, just like me.
“Voice, is that it? Did we just fail everything?”
There was no answer.
“Voice?”
Then, in the echoing chambers of my thoughts, there was a different voice, humming tunelessly. Great, even my imaginary voices are abandoning me. I wandered over to the edge of the great cogwheel, looking down into what seemed, for all practical purposes, a bottomless pit. It doesn’t look that bad. I scooted closer.
I sat down on the edge of the pit, and thought about my friend. Around me the great gears clicked and clanked into motion, lit by the occasional crawling arc of electricity.
They said you couldn’t bring an undead back, but maybe they didn’t know everything. Maybe no one had thought of it from the right perspective. I looked down into the depths. Maybe I just can’t help him from this side.
Death and glory, the scepter seemed to whisper. I am that of which you speak, I am the darkness that you seek...
I swung my legs, letting my thoughts drift past. It would so easy, to take up the scepter, and bloodbind it to me. You could do a better job, it seemed to say. You could bring your friend back, just like you remember him, just like you want him to be. All you have to do is trade one life, for another.
A clatter then, as if something was thrown down on a desk.
“Victoria.” I tested out the name. Named for victory.
“Can I still call you Voice?”
I looked down at the pit one final time, but the darkness no longer called. Victory is not to be found there. I stood up lifted the scepter, and smashed it on the ground as hard as I could, letting out the last of my anger in the strike. Bits of garnet shattered and ricocheted, and I smashed it a few more times, for good measure, before finally going over to look at Ramsey’s ashes. I sifted through them with my hands, and found several charred but unburnt objects: his leather roll of thieves’ tools, the key to his apartment, and one glass bottle. I wiped the ash off the label.
Potion of Cure Disease.
Of course. I thought. He always had one more up his sleeve, just in case.
&
nbsp; I made my way back up the ramp on foot, herding the goblins ahead of me. Led by Smart Mouth, who was telling exaggerated stories of my deeds, they at least seemed disinclined to try and eat me. Below us, the great gears turned, the clock ticking towards some final, unknown hour.
The lake room with the altar in it was almost as we had left it; a pile of bones on the floor, the stone slab, the still functional duping machine... but the giant pump in the middle of the room was now on, sucking deep currents out of the lake and sending them upwards. The occasional crawling arc of electricity hopped between gilded gears and glistening gems.
I consulted my map, and puzzled out by inference that “upwards” in this case meant through some forgotten series of pipes that eventually turned into the city’s old wishing wells. Ramsey said they once pumped out the purest water in Triport.
I wasn’t willing to go that far, but was willing to concede that it might work for my purposes.
“Alright, you lot.” I told the goblins, who were playing with the disassembled skeletons. “Help me get this machine here onto that island in the middle of the water.”
“Why?” asked one, suspiciously.
“’Cause Dragon Boss say so!” Smart Mouth growled back. He was now wearing the feathers and bangles, and most of the goblins didn’t argue with the feathers. Things must have been pretty bad under Bisquik, to shut up a damnation of goblins.
“Because,” I explained, “I don’t have a float pallet anymore, and I don’t trust you lot to carry a hundred potion of Cure Disease all the way up to the surface for me.”
“And if you do what I say, the surface dwelling squishy-skins will give you all lots of money for a long time, which you can use to buy stuff, so you won’t have to steal it. Then the squishy-skins won’t hurt the goblins, and the goblins won’t hurt the squishy-skins, and everybody can live in peace.” I hope.
The goblins turned out to be surprisingly strong swimmers; they got the machine out to the pump station with a minimal amount of fuss and absolutely no one-way trips to the bottom of the lake. I used Ramsey’s tools to rig the machine up next to the pump, and then carefully borrowed some pipes to hook up the output tray to the receiving slot, so that half of whatever came out would be going back in. Then I took a second pipe, and after only one unintentional attempt to launch myself into the wall via a jet of pressurized water, managed to hook the other half of the output tray into the pipe’s system.
[Trapsmithing check: Success]
“Ok,” I told the onlooking and mystified goblins. “Here goes nothing.”
I took out Ramsey’s last potion, prepped the machine until all the lights came on, and poured it in.
The machine rattled and whirred, and then the sparkling green elixir of Cure Disease began pouring into the output. I scooped up a bunch and put it back in the top, and kept doing that until the elixir was doubled and doubled again, exponentially, while the duping machine hummed and clanked. A few drops spilled on me, sinking into my skin, and smelling like fresh grass and crushed sage. When we had as much liquid coming out as the machine could make, I switched the pipes over and let the machine pour it into the giant pump.
With a huge, shuttering groan, the pipes took on the Cure Disease elixir, and rushed it through along with the clear, cold lake water, up and up and out, and eventually, out of the wishing wells.
For you, Ramsey. I thought, looking up, tracing the imaginary course of the magic up to the surface of the city. One life, for many.
[Race for the Cure: Quest Update!]
[Final objective: Delivery – COMPLETED]
I let out a sigh.
I felt a grin stealing across my face. “Somehow, I think the Church is going to be pissed. They’re not going to make a cent off this! So much for the scarcity based economy when everyone is happy and healthy.”
The goblins were looking at me expectantly. I turned to them, pulled out my flaming dagger, and did a quick Autumn Leaf kata, just for the light effects as I swung the dagger around. They oooh’d and aaaah’d appreciatively, and when I had their full attention, I spoke.
“From now on, I, Dragon Boss, grant dominion of these tunnels to the Bone-licker tribe!”
They cheered.
[Reputation Points earned: 10 (Bone-licker Goblins) (Total: 25)]
“In exchange, you must keep the tunnels safe, and not steal things from the people on the surface.”
They didn’t cheer.
“However, you will not need to steal things, because grateful squishy-skins will soon be throwing coins down these wells, which you can gather here from this lake! These coins are yours, to buy things with! Anything you want!”
They liked this part, and cheered again. I turned to Smart Mouth. “And you’re the boss while I’m gone, got it?”
He grinned from ear to newly feathered ear. “Got it, Dragon Boss!”
I agreed. I put on my waterbreathing ring, whispered a Light spell onto it, and dived into the lake, where I had noticed the intake pipe for the pump system. In theory, it would carry me all the way up and out the wishing wells, and into whatever havoc they’re about to cure, or create.
Ok then.
As my friend once said, ‘Infamy, here I come!’
Epilogue
The worst part was, he could still see. He’d always thought you were supposed to close the eyes of the dead so you wouldn’t have to look at them, all dull and creepy, but no, Ramsey now realized, it was a kind of mercy. It was so the dead couldn’t see you.
He’d pretty much known he was screwed when the shaman got hold of his bones, forced him to the altar, and held him there while the scaly little megalomaniac waved his scepter around, writing runes of subjugation in the air. He’d thought, watching the glowing garnet descend towards his face, bright as a plague star, filling his vision, that he was going to die.
He was right.
He wished, afterwards, for it to have been the last thing he ever saw, but no such luck.
Ramsey felt himself die, felt his heart go from whirring like a hummingbird to not moving at all, felt his lungs fall and not rise again, felt his limbs go cold. I’m so cold. Why is being dead so cold?
Above him, the bright light had appeared, just like Sam said. Ramsey had felt a surge of hope, and reached for the light, but his limbs did not move, still trapped in the prison of his body. He’d tried with everything he had to break the chains of magic that bound him, and then he’d cursed the shaman blue, and then he tried some more, but his corporeal body did no more than twitch. Eventually, ignoring his pleas, the light faded, and took his hope with it. He’d thought then that this was as bad as it gets, but he’d been wrong yet again.
The worst part was watching his body, his very own corporeal body he’d worked hard on for his entire life —feeding it protein whenever he could, and if he was really quite fond of pastries, well, his midsection probably still had a few lean years left before he’d really have to worry about keeping the pounds off—watching it turned into a tool to hunt down the woman he loved.
I never even told her, he thought, in between the screams. It didn’t matter how he hollered though, it was too late to say anything now, and his loudest
protestations only came out as groans and grunts. He’d alternately cried and cheered as Sam fought off his corpse, begging her, unheard, to put an end to it, and finally she had. That’s my Sam. Too brave for her own good most of the time, but she had the kind of courage, the real, bone deep, doesn’t-know-how-to-not-do-good kind he would have followed to the end of the world.
And now his world had come to an end. The material realm faded as Sam blasted apart the shadow animating him, and left only this endless night of trees. Ashes to ashes, he thought. Dust to dust. He tried to stand up, but speaking of dust, the dirt around his feet was surprisingly thick. He dragged one foot through it, but his toes seemed to reach out and grab the ground, and the other foot was already stuck, like in thick mud, melding to the ground and becoming one with it. “What?” he asked, indignant all over again, and afraid. “I didn’t...” but his voice was going, and he didn’t want to be part of the ground, part of this forest. So this is why you can’t resurrect an undead. It’s not a matter of the body, it’s a matter of the soul...
He reached out a hand toward the sky, feeling for anything he might grab onto to pull himself up, but his hand froze too, spindly fingers elongating into twiggy branches. NO! Not like this! How long would it be, silent and unmoving, before he forgot everything he used to be? Forgot what it was like to be a halfling, forgot what it was like to win a hand of cards, forgot the taste of pastries, and what it was like to be warm. How long until I forget everything except how to hate?
Ramsey closed his eyes (though it didn’t seem to make any difference, trees didn’t have eyes, after all) and prayed. For reals prayed. It wasn’t even one of the official prayers the Church taught for free on Sundays, more like a fevered, formless thought, offering anything, anything to whatever god would listen, and answer...
“There you are!”
Huh?
A doorway opened in the air in front of him, spilling red light into the Forest of the Night, and disgorging a demon. Ramsey knew it was a demon, by the horns and tail and slightly flaming skin. The demon held up a piece of paper.
For A Few Minutes More Page 26