by Robert Bevan
“But what about Bosley?” asked Cooper, who had obviously been fully engrossed in whatever Chester was talking about. “How did he react to Eli running off with Leopold’s eldest daughter?”
“Bosley?”Chester hunkered down to a squat and cupped a hand around the side of his mouth. “He’s the one paid for the gods-damned taxidermist!”
Cooper’s eyes widened as he placed his fingertips over his mouth. “Fuck me!”
Chester raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly. “I know, right?”
“Excuse me,” said Julian. “I hate to interrupt, but I’d like to know more about the job.” Hoping that a little farm lingo might ease the transition, he added, “Daylight’s a-waistin’.”
Chester stood up and frowned. “So it is. Well, ain’t much ‘splainin’ needs done. You fellers take all the time you need and kill as many ankhegs as you can. When you’re done, come on back to the farmhouse, and I’ll give you one gold piece for every head you bring back.”
“Yes, sir,” said Julian.
Chester sat down, and the carpet began to pivot in the air toward the farmhouse. “Good luck!”
Julian waited until he lost sight of the back of the carpet through the corn stalks. “He’s gone.”
Tim and Dave stood up and stepped out from behind the dead ankheg. Between them stood the shirtless, shaken, but very much alive goblin. His leg was nicely healed up, the hole in his forehead had disappeared, and even the burns on his torso had disappeared.
“Hello,” said Julian, attempting a comforting smile.
The goblin responded with a timid nod of his head.
“My name is Julian. It’s nice to meet you, Gobber.”
“Julian!” cried Dave. “No!”
The goblin’s timidity evaporated in an instant. Its red eyes grew wide. “Who you callin’ a gobber, you big-eared bitch?” He pushed Dave out of his way and started marching toward Julian.
“Huh?” said Julian, taking a step back.
“I’m pretty sure that’s like the goblin N-word,” said Dave.
“What?” cried Julian, crashing backward through stalks of corn. “I’m sorry! I thought that was your name!”
“Oh, you a funny man,” said the goblin. “We gonna see how funny you is with no teeth.” He was somehow incredibly menacing for a three-foot-tall creature.
“Come on, man! We just saved your life!”
“You ‘bout to wish you hadn’t.”
Cooper stepped in front of the goblin. “Just calm the fuck down. Julian didn’t mean anything.”
“This don’t involve you. Best you just step out the way.”
“That’s my friend,” said Cooper. “So yes, it does involve me. If you’d just take a second and chill – The fuck?” Ravenus swooped in and pecked furiously on Cooper’s head. “Ow! Fuck! Knock it off!”
“Ravenus!” said Julian. “What are you doing?”
Ravenus narrowly avoided Cooper’s fist and settled on top of Juliian’s quarterstaff. “I’m sorry, sir. I sensed you were being threatened.”
“Not by Cooper.”
“Dave?”
“No.”
“Surely not Tim.”
“No.”
“But that only leaves…” Ravenus cocked his head to the side. “You felt threatened by a goblin?”
“I inadvertently made an offensive remark… for which I’m very sorry.”
“But he’s just a goblin,” said Ravenus, just before getting knocked off of his perch by a flying ear of corn.
“Nice shot,” said Cooper. The goblin grinned.
“I deserved that!” Ravenus said from behind several rows of corn stalks.
“You speak elven?” asked Julian. It was the only explanation for him being able to understand what Ravenus had said. Well, either that or he was just a major dick.
“That’s right,” said the goblin in a British accent. “I speak a couple other languages too.”
“Hey hey, none of that shit,” said Cooper. “You guys speak English.”
“What’s English?” asked the goblin.
“Or common,” said Cooper. “Whatever the fuck it’s called. Just knock off that crazy bird language bullshit.”
The goblin looked confused, but Julian didn’t feel like explaining how game languages worked.
“What’s your name?” asked Julian.
“They call me Nutcracker.”
“Do I want to know why?”
Nutcracker grinned. “Not firsthand.”
“Have you guys sorted all of your shit out?” asked Tim. “We should try to kill an ankheg or two before night falls. You’re welcome to join us, Nutcracker.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“We’ll cut you in on the coin,” said Tim. “Besides, have you given any thought as to what you’re next step is? I mean, your master thinks you’re dead.”
Nutcracker laughed. “I don’t reckon he can tell one of us from another.”
“Why don’t you just leave?” asked Julian. “I don’t see any walls or guards or anything. What’s to stop any of you from leaving anytime you want?”
“You seen that big stone Mister Chester wear ‘round his neck?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s what’s called a property stone,” said Nutcracker. “Now I don’t know the magic behind it, but they got a wizard at every slave auction. They take blood from a newly purchased slave and do what they do. Whatever it is binds us to that stone.”
“So what happens if you try to leave?” asked Julian.
“I tried a few times,” said Nutcracker. “You reach a certain point and you just want to come back.”
“Interesting.”
“Same thing happens if you get a mind to do harm to Mister Chester. Like right now, for instance. He done murdered me today, but if he was here right now, I couldn’t bring myself to lay a hand on him.”
“Because of the stone?”
Nutcracker nodded. “Mmm hmm.”
“What if you destroyed the stone?”
“I seen a couple fools try it once,” said Nutcracker. “They snuck into the house and grabbed it. This was before Mister Chester took to wearin’ it ‘round his neck all the time. They banged on that thing with hammers and rocks for a good twenty minutes before Mister Chester come ‘round on that flying carpet of his. He shot them both dead, and they ain’t put so much as a gods damned scratch on the stone. Damn thing’s nigh-indestructible.”
“Have you thought about –“ The ground rumbled beneath Julian’s feet. “What was that?” he asked, having a pretty good idea of what the answer was.
“Take this!” said Tim, tossing his short sword to Nutcracker. He loaded his crossbow.
Nutcracker snatched the sword out of the air by the hilt and made a few practice swipes against some corn stalks. The stalks weren’t exactly worthy adversaries, but Julian could tell that this little goblin knew his way around a sword.
“What’s going on?” asked Ravenus, poking his head out of the fallen ankheg’s giant eye.
“Ravenus,” said Julian. “Fly!”
Ravenus flapped his wings, spraying Julian with a bit eyeball goo, and took to the air.
Julian, Dave, Tim, and Cooper stepped this way and that, like they were in a drunken square dance, trying to figure out exactly where the approaching ankheg was most likely to emerge.
Nutcracker stared straight at a certain spot on the ground, sword held high with both hands and pointing down.
The ground disintegrated exactly at the point where Nutcracker had predicted. The massive bug emerged. Brown exoskeleton with a red underbelly, it was easily fifty percent bigger than the previous one.
Nutcracker dug into its underbelly with his sword as it burst out of the hole, putting a nice big gash in its side.
The ankheg swiped at Nutcracker with one of its massive legs, sending the goblin flying into the maize. The little guy had some fight in him, sure. But he still only weighed about forty-five pounds.
When the ankheg had fully emerged from its hole, it was as big as a city bus.
“Yah!” said Dave, swinging his mace at the creature’s head. The ankheg dodged Dave’s clumsy swing, knocking the weapon out of his hands with a swipe of its mandibles.
“Shit,” said Dave as his mace disappeared down the ankheg’s hole.
The ankheg made a sound like an old person snoring, only much much louder, and opened its mandibles wide, spraying a jet of dull green liquid into Dave’s face. It sizzled on contact.
“Yah!” cried Dave. It was decidedly different in tone and pitch than his previous ‘yah’. He covered his face with his hands and ran around like a headless chicken. “My eyes! I can’t – Wha? FUUUUUUCK!” He accidentally followed his mace.
“Ha!” said Cooper. “Dave just got cornholed!” He swung his axe with both hands. The ankheg raised its center leg to deflect the blow, but wound up minus a leg for the effort.
Tim fired a bolt into the creature’s back for whatever good that did. It seemed more distracted by its missing leg.
Julian didn’t know what else the day had in store for them, and thought it best to conserve his magic for now. He brought his quarterstaff down hard on the ankheg’s rear end, but failed to smash through its hard shell.
Understandably pissed off about its severed leg, the ankheg grabbed Cooper with its two front legs and brought its mouth down on Cooper’s head. It immediately released him, hissing and standing upright on its hind legs, leaving itself wide open for Nutcracker to charge out from the corn stalks and plunge Tim’s short sword deep into its soft underbelly.
There followed a moment of hesitation, as if the ankheg couldn’t decide if it was dead yet or not. Tim made the decision for it, firing a bolt right into its face.
Nutcracker rolled out of the way as the giant beast’s body smashed a previously unmolested section of cornfield.
“Nice work,” Julian said to Nutcracker.
“Yeah,” said Nutcracker. “Um… you too.” Julian didn’t think he meant it to be as condescending as it sounded.
“Hey Dave!” Tim called down the hole. “You okay down there?”
“Yeah,” Dave shouted. “Never been better.” His tone suggested otherwise.
“Do you need some help getting out?”
“No,” said Dave. “You guys should come down here. I think I found something.”
“What is it?”
“Some kind of stone surface.”
“Probably just bedrock.”
“Dude,” said Dave. “I’m a dwarf. I know stone. This is man-made.”
Tim looked at Julian. Julian shrugged.
“Okay, fine,” said Tim. “We’re coming down.”
The incline of the tunnel was steep enough to slide down, but Julian made his way down carefully, afraid that the whole tunnel could collapse at any minute. Corn roots held the soil together most of the way down, so at least there was a bit of comfort in that, but not quite enough to offset the anxiety he felt at the slightest possibility of being buried alive.
“Hey Dave,” said Cooper. “Do you think you could heal me? I got scratched by that ankheg.”
“Sorry,” said Dave. “My face melted off. I just used up my last Heal spell for the day for that.”
“Damn,” said Tim. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“It wasn’t. I only used two spells for myself. The rest I used on Nutcracker.”
“How many spells did he need?” said Cooper. “He’s a goblin. They only have what, like four Hit Points?”
“He must have Fighter levels,” said Tim. “He handled my sword pretty well.”
Cooper snorted.
“That came out wrong.”
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” asked Nutcracker.
“Give me your dagger,” Dave said to Tim. Tim held the weapon out in Dave’s general direction, but it was obvious that he couldn’t see. Even Julian’s Low Light Vision was barely functional this far down. Dave, Cooper, and probably even Nutcracker had Darkvision, and could see perfectly fine with no light at all.
“With the proper leverage,” Dave grunted as he worked the dagger between two stone tiles. “I should be… able… to…” He sighed as he hefted the three-foot-square, two-inch-thick slab of stone from the place it had been resting, undisturbed, for who knew how many hundreds of years. He slid it onto identical slabs further down the ankheg tunnel.
“I don’t know about this,” said Julian. “Something feels wrong.”
Dave peeked inside. “You guys!” He sounded more excited than Julian had ever heard him sound before. “We’ve hit the fucking jackpot!”
“What is it?” asked Tim.
“Gold!” said Dave.
“Gold?” said Nutcracker.
“Sacks of it!”
“Let me see!” said Cooper, crawling past Julian.
“Hey,” said Tim. “Stop pushing.”
“You guys keep your voices down,” said Julian. He had a strong feeling in his gut that something bad was going to happen.
“Damn it, Cooper,” said Dave. “Wait a second. There isn’t enough room for – Waaaah!”
Dave crashed into the floor below them. The sound of his armor slamming into the stone floor made it pointless to continue reminding anyone to keep their voices down.
“Oops,” said Cooper. “Um… are you okay?”
“Fuck you!”
“Don’t worry, guys,” said Cooper. “He’s okay.”
“What’s down there?” asked Tim.
“It must be some kind of treasure vault,” said Dave. “There’s gold, but there’s also a bunch of these tiny stone statues everywhere. Whoever this belongs to must have a thing for rats. The detail on these is exquisite. I can’t even find any chisel marks or anything. And there’s hundreds of them. Take a look.”
“Not bad,” said Cooper, holding a little rat statue in his hand.
“Not bad?” said Dave. “That’s a magnificent work of art. I’d love to meet the guy who makes these. It’s too bad he wastes all of his talent on rats though.”
“Artists are weird,” said Cooper. He passed the stone rat to Julian.
Dave was right. It was an impressively detailed piece of stone work.
“We can admire the art later,” said Tim. “Tie one of those gold sacks to the end of this rope. Cooper, you go back up the tunnel and pull when I tell you to.”
The first sack of gold came up with no problem. It was almost as big as Tim. The comparison was easy to make, as Tim gave it a great big hug and crotch thrust when it surfaced.
“We are getting the fuck out of here tonight,” said Tim. “Ready for round two?” He hopped down into the cornhole.
“Holy shit!” said Dave.
“What’s wrong?” asked Tim.
“Guys!” cried Dave. “I’m not alone down here. Throw me the rope, quick!” A few seconds later, he cried, “Pull!”
“Jesus Christ!” said Cooper as he, Julian, and Nutcracker pulled on the rope. “Dave has put on some serious fucking weight.”
“What the hell?” said Julian. They were barely making any progress. “It’s like he’s made of…” Julian suddenly remembered the rat statue. “Oh shit. Cooper! Rage now!”
“Good idea,” said Cooper. “I’m really angry!”
Julian watched as Cooper’s elongated shadow on the fallen cornstalks widened. Suddenly they all started moving backwards very quickly. Tim came out of the hole first. What followed was exactly what Julian feared. The other end of the rope was wrapped around the forearms of a terrified-looking stone statue of Dave.
“Fuck!” said Tim. “He’s turned to stone.”
“What could do that?” asked Julian.
“Could have been a number of things,” said Tim. “Medusa, basilisk, cockatrice, I don’t know.”
“Can we, um… fix him?”
“Not without a high-level wizard,” said Tim. “And likely a shit ton of money.”
&n
bsp; Julian nudged the sack of gold with his foot. “We’ve got a shit ton of money.”
“That still leaves us short a wizard.”
“Old Man Belmont lives just up the road,” said Nutcracker. “He’s a wizard.”
“A powerful one?” asked Tim.
“They all powerful ‘round here,” said Nutcracker. “This is the Garden District. Rich folks retire here. Most of them is powerful wizards and clerics. Mister Chester’s the exception, havin’ done made all his money on corn. I can take you there if you like.”
“I thought you couldn’t leave the farm,” said Julian.
“Oh I can go that far,” said Nutcracker. “No problem.”
“How are we going to carry him?” asked Tim. “Cooper’s Rage won’t last more than another few minutes.”
“I can summon a horse,” said Julian. “We could just drag him behind. I don’t think he’d feel it, would he?”
“I’m not as worried about that as I am about breaking him.” Tim picked up the stone rat and handed it to Cooper. “Squeeze.”
Cooper wrapped his gigantic sausage fingers around the stone rat and squeezed. The veins in his forearm bulged out like coaxial cables. After a muffled crunch, he opened his hand. The rat was in at least five or six pieces.
“Yeah,” said Tim. “I don’t think dragging him behind a horse is going to work.”
After about thirty minutes of trial and error, they managed to rig up a harness out of Cooper’s leather bag and the rope still attached to Dave’s arm. They were fairly confident that, if they took their time, they’d be able to carry Dave and the sack of gold between two horses before Julian’s Mount spell duration expired.
“Okay,” said Tim. “Do your thing.”
“Horse,” said Julian. A sturdy gray draft horse popped into existence in front of him. “Horse,” he repeated, and a brown horse of similar build appeared right beside it. The perfect horses for this particular situation. His magical skills were improving.
They tied Dave facing headfirst between the two saddlehorns just above his center of gravity so that , if left to his own devices, his feet would fall to the ground. Once Cooper and Tim were mounted, Julian tied Dave’s feet to Cooper’s waist. Julian and Nutcracker mounted the other horse. As long as the horses walked together, they would be fine.