5d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  Julian smiled gratefully. “That sounds wonderful. We'd love to come in.”

  “You forget your place, elf,” said Butkus. “You are hired hands. How about you finish the job you're being paid to do?”

  Cooper grabbed his crotch. “How about you eat a dick?”

  “These boxes aren't going anywhere,” said Count Fabulazzo. “Come inside and rest for a bit. The wagon can be unloaded any time.”

  Butkus was right that they had been hired to do a job. If there was any drinking to be done tonight, Julian certainly didn't want to rely on his friends to get any work done once the Barrier Island rum started flowing.

  “Between the four of us,” said Julian, “it shouldn't take us long to move these boxes.”

  Count Fabulazzo looked disdainfully at Butkus, then smiled at Julian. “Just put them there on the shelves wherever there's space. When you're finished, change out of those wet clothes and put on one of these cloaks.” He indicated several stacks of folded purple laundry on the shelves. “You should all be able to find one that fits.”

  “It's very courteous to have those ready for your guests,” said Julian.

  “To tell you the truth, I don't receive that many visitors.” Count Fabulazzo gestured to the cloaks again. “Aside from the Trog'bahar cultists, of course.”

  Dave looked confused. “The cultists hike all the way up this mountain to bring you clothes?”

  “Not exactly. They come here to convert me to their religion. They're the whole reason I purchased the hell hounds in the first place.”

  “Oh,” said Dave.

  “The hounds get fed, and I get free cloaks. Everybody wins.” He clapped his hands together. “That reminds me, I must see the hounds to their kennel. Butkus, would you care to join me?”

  Butkus jumped at the sound of his own name, then seemed to have to piece together everything the count had said after it. “No, thank you. So kind of you to offer, but I think I'll stay here and help the lads unload the wagon.”

  To Julian's surprise, Butkus actually did help unload the boxes. It helped him avoid eye contact with everyone after his latest display of cowardice. Julian was grateful for the help, seeing as they were effectively a man short, what with Tim lying in the corner with his hand down his pants again.

  “Samantha,” Tim groaned in a state of semi-consciousness. “Angela!”

  Cooper stopped mid-stride on his way from the wagon to the shelves. “Is he whacking it to Who's the Boss??”

  “Moooooooooona!” Tim moaned.

  Julian, Cooper, and Dave cringed at the grisly confirmation of Cooper's theory. Butkus shook his head and continued working.

  The wagon was nearly empty by the time Count Fabulazzo returned from herding his hounds to their kennels.

  When the last box was placed on the shelf, everyone sorted through the folded rose petal scented cloaks to find ones large or small enough to fit their various body styles.

  Julian found a long and slender cloak. Close inspection revealed irregular seams and faint brown stains, suggesting it had been ripped to shreds, bled through profusely, then mended and washed. On the bright side, it was warm, dry, and comfortable.

  After everyone else had changed, they went to work on Tim. When Cooper started wrestling Tim's hand out of his pants, Julian knew that it was up to either him or Dave to pull Tim's pants off.

  He walked briskly back to the shelves announcing, “I'll find a cloak to fit him.”

  It wasn't until he returned that Dave, pulling off Tim's pants while looking away from his junk, shot Julian a scornful glare, having finally discovered his motives.

  Cooper removed Tim's vest and shirt, leaving Tim's hands free to go straight back to his crotch.

  “Sophia,” Tim groaned as Julian pulled the cloak down over his head.

  Julian thought back on what old TV show Tim might have switched over to. “Is he having a go at The Golden Girls now?”

  “There was a Sophia he had a thing for in high school,” said Dave.

  “I never understood what he saw in her,” said Cooper. “I think I might have preferred the Golden Girl.”

  Julian pulled the cloak down over Tim's shoulders. “Maybe let's not bother putting his arms through the sleeves, lest he be a danger to himself and others.

  Trog'bahar's cultists must have been primarily human. Julian's cloak fit well enough, but was a bit loose. Cooper and Dave's cloaks stretched tight around their considerably broader chests, making them look like discount street hookers. Tim, with the bottom of his cloak going far lower than his feet, and his hands doing whatever they were doing to his junk, looked like a purple worm with an erratic heartbeat.

  Count Fabulazzo led them into the interior of the tower. Rather than go back out into the rain, they entered through what Julian thought of as the garage, where they'd unloaded the wagon. In the kitchen, a large elk carcass butterflied on a solid oak table, among a set of bloodied butcher's tools. Most of the internal organs were missing, as were the ribs and most of the muscles on its left side.

  “This fine fellow is what we'll be eating tonight,” said Count Fabulazzo. “I brought him down myself a week ago.”

  Julian found it strange that the carcass wasn't crawling with maggots. If it was producing any foul odor, it didn't compete with Cooper.

  “What do you do to preserve the meat?” asked Dave, apparently having the same concerns as Julian.

  Count Fabulazzo shrugged. “I've never pressed my cook on the issue, but I expect he uses the same methods that anyone does.”

  “Salt? Refrigeration?”

  The count frowned quizzically at Dave. “Necromancy.”

  Julian and Dave glanced at Butkus, who nodded with halfhearted interest. He'd looked appropriately horrified at the announcement of where their cloaks had come from, so Julian felt a little better about the explanation of how the meat was preserved.

  Count Fabulazzo, carrying the basket with all of their wet clothes, continued through the door leading out of the kitchen. “I apologize for such a modest dinner. I sent all the servants home to get ahead of the storm, and I wasn't sure whether you'd make it here or not.”

  The room they were in now was nearly completely circular, taking up all of the tower's ground floor which wasn't taken up by the kitchen and garage. An impressively large hearth housed a roaring fire directly opposite the kitchen door.

  Count Fabulazzo pulled down a large U-shaped wrought iron bar until it came to rest perpendicular to the wall. Julian guessed its purpose was to support a curtain which would contain the fire's heat to an area big enough to provide warmth for two or three people if one didn't want to burn enough fuel to heat the entire tower. But the count had a different use in mind for it now. He began hanging up their wet foul-smelling clothes, and Julian rushed to help him, taking in the rest of the room as he did so.

  To the left of the hearth, shelves lined the curved wall. There were a number of books, scrolls, bottles, and various other odds and ends scattered about, but there was plenty of shelf space left. Julian hypothesized that the count might be a mid-level spellcaster working his way up.

  At the base of the shelves was a large desk which appeared to have been carved out of a single block of black granite. A luxurious egg-shaped chair, carved out of the same black granite, was upholstered on the hollowed inside with puffy black leather. It looked like a remarkably heavy piece of furniture, which accentuated the impressiveness of the fact that it was floating two inches off the floor.

  Cooper seemed less impressed with the chair than Julian, taking little more interest in it than as a place to dump Tim. The chair turned easily and silently as he pivoted it to face the desk, presumably so no one had to watch Tim continue to fondle himself and drool.

  In the center of the room stood a table that didn't seem to match with the rest of the furniture, like it was put there specifically for its current purpose, to hold the modest dinner the count had laid out for his guests who may or may not be showing up. Slice
d elk meat, which Julian was thankful to see was cooked, three logs of cheese, each a slightly different shade of yellow, and loaves of brown-crusted bread, each about as big as Julian's head.

  “Please help yourselves,” said Count Fabulazzo when he and Julian had finished hanging up the wet clothes.

  Cooper didn't need to be told twice. Ignoring the two-pronged silver forks and dishes which had been laid out, he ripped a loaf of bread apart, grabbed a handful of elk, and cut slices of cheese off two of the cheese logs.

  Count Fabulazzo watched in fascination as Cooper placed the top half of the bread atop the pile of meat and cheese, completing his sandwich.

  “How delightfully barbaric!” squealed the count, clapping his hands giddily. He picked up a loaf of bread and made growling noises as he ripped it in half. Julian, Dave, and Butkus followed suit, but only Butkus seemed to take anywhere near the same level of childlike delight in it that Count Fabulazzo did.

  Butkus and the count tore into their sandwiches like rabid wolves, really hamming up the barbaric savagery inherent, to them at least, in eating layered food.

  When the first round of sandwiches were done, Count Fabulazzo went into the kitchen and returned with a tray full of glasses and a large glass decanter filled with caramel-brown liquid.

  The Barrier Island rum was rich with spices, almost like a liquid pumpkin pie that got you drunk. It was smooth going down, and did more to warm Julian's insides than the roaring fire in the hearth.

  While they drank, Count Fabulazzo hounded Cooper with questions about his homeland. Instead of making something up, Cooper responded with stories about people he knew in Mississippi. It was a surprisingly plausible description of a barbarian upbringing.

  When the bottle had no more rum to give, Butkus declared it was time to retire for the night. The rain had stopped, and traveling downhill would almost certainly be easier than going up, but it would be best to waste as little daylight as possible.

  Count Fabulazzo led them up four flights of stairs running along the interior curved wall of the tower to the guest bedrooms, of which there were two. Upon entering one of the rooms, Julian's eyes were immediately drawn to the curtains and bedsheets, which were obviously made from repurposed robes of former devotees of Trog'bahar.

  Butkus decreed that one bedroom was for him alone, and the other was for “the help.” It was a needlessly dickish gesture, as each room had a bed large enough to accommodate three grown men comfortably.

  But nobody complained about not getting to share a bed with Butkus. Cooper was more comfortable sleeping on the floor anyway. Julian, being an elf, required no sleep. Dave and Tim were short enough to sleep sideways on the bed and there was enough space between them that they might as well have been in different time zones.

  Cooper and Dave fell asleep pretty quickly, and Tim had passed out during dinner. Julian hadn't seen Ravenus since they unloaded the wagon, but a few otherwise inexplicable tingly sensations in his genital area told him that Ravenus had met a number of nice female birds in the area. Good for him. Wherever he was right now, their Empathic Link reassured Julian that he was safe and content.

  Julian sat on the floor, alone with his thoughts, until his mind drifted off to the sound of Cooper's rhythmic snoring. Four hours later, he came out of the trance, which passed for sleep among elves, to the sensation of pins and needles in his ass.

  Cooper had gassed up the room pretty bad by that point, so Julian decided to go for a walk and see what there was to see during the wee hours of the morning. Count Fabulazzo had granted them permission to explore the tower as much as they liked, as long as they didn't try to force open any doors which were locked.

  Julian had no interest in snooping around some guy's house, but he was curious as to what the view was like from the top of the tower. So he climbed five more flights of stairs until the stairwell ended in a room about the size of a small closet with a wooden door at the far end.

  The door opened with a gentle push, and Julian was taken aback by the magnificence of the star-filled sky. On top of a tower on top of a mountain, the view was so much more dazzling from here than it was from ground level.

  Beholding the vast wonder of the infinite beyond made Julian feel tiny and insignificant. It made him feel at peace to know that whatever mistakes he made in life, the universe would keep on existing. It made his testicles ache.

  Julian was considering the universe's effect on his testicles when a voice startled him from behind.

  “Hello, sir.” The joviality in Ravenus's voice seemed a little forced.

  Julian turned around and looked down at his familiar. “There you are. I've been wondering where you'd gone.” He looked back up at the sky. “Have you taken in this view? It's positively stunning.”

  “It was lovely, sir.”

  “Is there something on your mind, Ravenus? You seem... I don't know. Preoccupied?”

  “I was actually enjoying the company of a lady, if you take my meaning, sir.” Ravenus looked back and Julian followed his gaze. A brown hawk was hiding shyly in the shadow of the crenelated wall. She raised a wing when Julian spotted her.

  “'Sup?” was all Julian could think to say in response.

  “She became … startled when the door opened, sir.”

  “Oh, I'm sorry.” Julian thought for a moment, then Ravenus's meaning clicked in his mind. “Ooooh... That explains my balls.”

  Ravenus cocked his head sideways, then shook off the curiosity. “Of course it does, sir. If we might discuss that at a later –”

  “I'm going, I'm going.” Julian waved to Ravenus and his lady friend before entering the stairwell and closing the door behind him.

  Two hundred and forty-seven steps later, Julian was at the bottom of the tower. He let himself out through the side door where the wagon was parked. The night sky was still dazzling, but not as vast and infinite with so much of it blotted out by the tower and surrounding trees.

  He considered going for a walk further up the road to see if he could find a nice clearing from which he could take in more of the sky while he prepared his spells for the coming day, but he stopped at the gate. If he tried to leave, the sound of the gate might set off the dogs and wake everyone up. Besides, the woods were bound to be crawling with monsters which might shy away from a party of five, but would be quick to attack a lone elf.

  Looking through the gate, Julian was pleasantly surprised that the road seemed to have mostly dried up. The rainwater had apparently hauled ass down the mountain after the storm cleared. If the weather stayed like it currently was, they should have an easy ride home in the morning.

  Julian sighed. Morning was still hours away. With nothing to read, not a lot of area to explore, and not even Ravenus around to keep him company, he decided to use his time as productively as he could. He'd transcribe some of his unused spells for the day onto scrolls, either to be used later or to be sold for a few silver pieces to spellcasters even crappier than he was.

  The the wagon had some recently cleared shelf space he could use as a desk. He made his way back to the tower's “garage” and found his bag, along with his friends' bags, in the back of the wagon. He pulled out his scroll tube and flattened a blank sheet of paper on one of the shelves. The shelf, unfortunately, was too high for him to sit, but too low for him to stand while scribing. Even with his elven Low Light Vision, the near complete darkness strained his eyes as he penned the magical symbols floating around in his mind onto the page.

  It was uncomfortable and tedious work, and for the lackluster benefit of having one more shitty Magic Missile spell at his disposal, but at least it killed the time. He was about three quarters of the way through it when he heard the tower door open.

  Butkus looked as surprised to see Julian as Julian felt at seeing him.

  “Elf,” said Butkus. “What are you doing here?”

  Julian shrugged. “Killing time. Elves don't sleep.”

  “Listen, I apologize if our exchange became a tad heated
yesterday. It was just the road weariness talking, you know?” Butkus offered what Julian assumed was supposed to be a friendly smile. A glint of gold shone from one of his teeth not visible behind his default scowl.

  “Think nothing of it,” said Julian. “I understand. We both said things that weren't very nice. Water under the bridge.”

  Butkus nodded. “A fine saying. Does that come from your people?”

  “You could say that.”

  “The weather seems to have cleared, but I think it best not to tempt the fates. We should set off back to Cardinia as soon as possible.”

  Julian rolled up his half-completed scroll and shoved it back into the tube. “You'll find no argument here.”

  “Then would you mind conjuring up a couple of those horses for me? I'll get them hitched up and you can go up and wake your friends.”

  “Sounds good,” said Julian. He hopped out of the back of the wagon and walked to the front. “Horse!”

  A sturdy brown horse appeared between Julian and Butkus.

  “Horse!” he repeated, and a white horse appeared.

  Julian stood in front of the two horses and placed a palm on each of their cheeks. “Butkus is going to hitch you to the wagon. You two behave yourselves and do as he asks, okay?”

  When he caught Butkus staring at him, he felt the compulsion to explain. “They're magical horses. They're sometimes uncooperative with people other than the one who summons them if they aren't explicitly instructed not to –”

  A shrill scream tore through the otherwise silent night air. It came from somewhere in the middle of the tower.

  “Shit,” said Julian. “I'd better go see what happened.”

  Butkus nodded vigorously. “You do that, elf.” He hurriedly started hitching the horses to his wagon.

  Julian swung open the tower door, sprinted through the kitchen, and raced up the stairs. When he got to the third floor, he found Tim and Count Fabulazzo standing outside a door that Julian remembered having been closed before.

  Tim was confused and angry, hopping around like a caterpillar who'd been interrupted mid-metamorphasis. Count Fabulazzo, who had obviously been the one doing all the screaming, was staring into the room stricken with horror.