by Griffith, KF
That stirred the crowd up a bit.
“Do you really think they’d let him play?” asked a dumpy looking ogre at the back of the crowd.
“They probably wouldn’t be happy about it,” said Slipknock, “but they’ll follow their own rules. They always do.”
“Besides,” said Grelda, “even if they tested him themselves they’d get the same results that we got. I’m certain of that.”
“If what they say is true, kid, are you gonna play?” one of the ogres asked.
“Of course,” I said. “I don’t know much about the game, but I’ll learn. It looks like it’s the only way I have any chance of getting back home. And even if that wasn’t true, I’d still play so that we could get the money to save the Flaming Goat. Brunda, Baerwald, and Elganbok are my friends. I’ll do whatever I have to do to help them out.”
Brunda had a big smile on her face, and she turned back to the crowd. “Are you all gonna stand there and let a kid show you how to be a real ogre?”
“NO!!!” they all shouted as one.
“Then let’s get ourselves a team together!” she shouted. “We’ve got nine days until the big game.”
PART III
THE BIG GAME
Chapter 18: Getting In
We arrived at the stadium before the sun was up. There was a huge crowd of ogres milling around under the streetlamps as they worked their way through the stadium courtyard and towards the main entrance. There were vendors with carts pushing their way through the crowd, doing their best to grab the crowd’s attention.
“Genuine team flags!” cried one vendor. “Get ‘em right here!”
“Programs! Get yer programs!” yelled another.
“Flea powder!” barked yet another. “Stop the itchin’ before it starts!”
“Hot pusbuns for sale, here!” shouted an ogre near the main entrance.
That last one sounded gross and made my already nervous stomach churn even more. I put my hand over my belly.
“Mmmmmmm,” said Elganbok as he stopped and sniffed the air. “Pusbuns. That does sound good.”
“Keep yer mind on the game, dwarf!” shouted Brunda. “You ate enough for three ogres at breakfast this mornin’ back at the Goat. Unless you’ve got a giant gutworm, there shouldn’t be room left inside you for a pusbun.”
“That was a good breakfast, Brunda,” said Baerwald.
“I wanted to make sure you boys had enough fuel to get you through the day,” she said. “Can’t risk havin’ you run out of energy during the big game.”
She looked at me. “I didn’t see you eat much, Grady Burr.”
“I’m a little nervous,” I said. “Not much of an appetite.”
“You’ll do just fine runnin’ on nerves,” she said. She patted me on the back. “First-game jitters can be pretty good fuel.”
We shoved through the crowd and worked our way to the player’s entrance around the side of the stadium. It was a big iron-barred gate with a sign that read: Ring Bell For Service. We rang the bell, and out of the dark tunnel leading into the stadium hobbled a little old ogre with a big key ring.
“Didn’t think you were going to make it,” he said very slowly. “Didn’t think you were going to show.” This guy talked slower than anyone I’d ever heard.
He unlocked the gate and pushed it open wide enough for us to squeeze through. “You’re the last team,” he said. “The others have been here for hours.”
He looked us over and stopped when he saw me. “No children allowed in the player areas,” he said.
“He’s not a child,” said Brunda. “He looks like one, but he’s not.
Slipknock rifled through his satchel and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He handed it over to the gatekeeper.
The gatekeeper looked it over slowly and then looked up at me, then at the giant, then at the dwarf, and finally at Brunda. He shrugged his shoulders. “Seems authentic,” he said.
“Follow me.” He handed the document back to Slipknock, locked the gate, and headed back into the dark tunnel at a snail’s pace.
He led us down into the lower levels of the stadium. At the bottom of the stairs there was a long, dark hallway with blue flogiston-powered lights at the far end. “Keep going until you get to those lights, that’s Player Registration,” he said as he turned away.
“Let’s go,” said Elganbok. He trotted away towards the blue lights.
We reached Player Registration just as they were closing up shop. A pair of ogres were putting folders in file boxes and gathering up office supplies, bustling away at their tasks with their backs to us, as we approached the counter.
Baerwald coughed. “Excuse us . . . .”
Both of the registration ogres spun around instantly. They both wore glasses and pushed them up onto the bridge of their noses at the same time. “Can we help you,” they said in unison. They looked at each other and smiled.
“After you,” said the one on the left.
“Oh, after you, I insist,” said the one on the right.
“Are you quite sure?” said the one on the left.
“Absolutely,” said the one on the right. “I handled the last registration. It’s only fair that you should get to have some fun, too.”
“Why thank you,” said the one on the left. “Can we help you?”
Brunda stepped forward. “We’d like to register for today’s competition,” she said. “We’ve already applied and been accepted. I’m the team owner.”
Slipknock stepped up and handed Brunda a folder that he’d pulled from his satchel. Brunda offered the folder to the ogre on the left. “Everythin’ should be in order.”
Both of the ogres looked at me. “No children allowed in the player areas,” said the ogre on the right.
“He’s not a child,” said Brunda. “There’s paperwork there that proves it. He’s been pre-tested by these B.O.R.I.A.L. agents,” she pointed towards Slipknock and Grelda. They nodded. “His name is Grady Burr.”
“That’s an unusual name,” said the ogre on the right.
“I get that a lot,” I said.
The ogre on the left pulled my document from the folder, looked it over, and handed it to the ogre on the right.
The ogre on the right examined the document closely, holding it up to the light. “It’s authentic.”
The ogre on the left flipped through the rest of the documents in the folder, calling out our names and looking up to see who answered. Every time the ogre on the left called the name of the next player, the ogre on the right used a big rubber stamp on the document. Name, stamp. Name, stamp. We were registered in less than a minute.
“You’re all set,” said the ogre on the left.
The ogre on the right pulled on a chain hanging above the counter. “Head through that door and you’ll find the armory. You’d better hurry. It sounds like the qualifying rounds have already started.”
The sound of the roaring crowd came down from above us and through the door that had just opened. I could feel the stadium shake as the crowd stomped their feet.
Baerwald looked down at me. “Pretty exciting, huhn?” he said.
I have to admit it, I was starting to fell pretty charged up about getting on the field. Even though, technically, I’d never played the game before.
Chapter 19: Loadout
We walked through the door and into the armory. It was a long room with huge furnaces and forges blazing along both sides. The sound of clanging metal and the smell of smoke and fire filled the air. It was uncomfortably hot.
“Don’t just stand there, you bilge-livered idiots, get on the conveyor belt!” bellowed a big ogre that looked remarkably like a pig. I would have laughed if he didn’t look so angry. He was staring right at me.
“What is this? What’re you tryin’ to pull?” he marched directly towards us. The ogres that were in his path scattered as quickly as they could, scrambling to get out of his way.
“No children allowed . . . .” he started.
Brunda stepped directly in front of him and held up her hand. “We know, we know. We’ve heard it before. No children allowed in the player areas. We’ve passed through two levels of security already.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting out of our way, we’d like to get our loadouts for the competition.”
All of the ogres working the forges and furnaces had stopped working and were watching quietly. The big pig-looking ogre stood there with his brow furrowed as he worked his jaw up and down, grinding his teeth.
“Well?” said Brunda.
The pig ogre guy opened his mouth for a moment, closed it again, raised his eyebrows, and waved us forward towards the conveyor belt. “Get that thing runnin’ you morons!” he shouted at the ogres working the chains, pulleys, and levers all around us. He turned back to his work as if we’d never been there. “And get those forges heated back up!”
The workers scurried back to work, and the loud pounding noises started all over again.
We stepped up onto the conveyor belt platform, and a lady ogre wearing some kind of microphone headset walked towards us. She walked past a row of cages that were about the size of big vending machines. The cages were hanging by chains from a track that ran along the ceiling for the entire length of the armory room. There weren’t any doors on the cages, so it looked like you could step right into them.
“Please keep your limbs inside your cage at all times,” she said. Her voice blasted through loudspeakers so that we could hear her over the din of the armorers working. It felt like we were getting ready to go on a ride at an amusement park.
“Your cage will stop at each station,” she went on. “At the first station you will be given your goggles, a complimentary bottle of Instawhup, and your player number. After the first station, each time your cage stops you will be given a randomly determined piece of equipment from that station. Do not reach out of your cage for your equipment!” She walked back and forth in front of us as she spoke. “The station technician at each station will hand the equipment to you while you remain inside your cage. I repeat, do not reach outside of your cage.”
She signaled for one of us to get into a cage. Elganbok stepped up and hopped across the gap into the first cage. It jumped to life, jerked forward, and moved along the overhead track away from us.
“After you’ve received a piece of equipment from each station, you will exit your cage and go to the Special Items Vault,” the lady ogre said. “Once there, you will select a single piece of special equipment to aid you in your quest for victory. Or survival.”
She paced back and forth along the platform calling out “Next!” every time she wanted someone to get in the next available cage.
One by one we each got inside a cage and trundled down the line towards the Special Items Vault. I was the last one to go, so I got to listen as players from my team shouted out when they got a piece of equipment that they liked. Or complained when they got something they didn’t.
I hopped in my cage and it started moving immediately.
The ogre lady turned to Brunda, Slipknock, and Grelda and said, “You can wait for them in the locker room. Come this way, please.” Brunda waved at me as she walked away.
My cage moved forward and stopped at the first station. There were three attendants bustling about, bumping into each other, tangling and untangling themselves from dangling cables, and scooting around their various carts and containers.
The first attendant hustled over and handed me a pair of beat up goggles with a vacuum tube sticking out of the side of one of the eyepieces. “Those should fit,” he said without looking at me. He moved out of the way so that the second attendant could hand me a purple bottle with a faded label on it.
“That’s your Instawhup,” she said. “Compliments of today’s sponsor, Insta Industries.”
“What’s it do?” I said before she could move away.
She looked at me as if I had three heads. “That’s why they don’t let kids in here. Little smart alec. Everybody knows what Instawhup does. If you can’t remember, read the label. That’s what it’s there for.” She walked away.
I read the label: INSTAWHUP, The very BEST drink for BOOSTING ENERGY!
GUARANTEED 5X ENERGY BOOST! That seemed clear enough.
The third attendant came up to my cage carrying something that looked like a combination between a drill and a gun on the end of a set of long cables. “Turn your left side towards me, so I can get a clear shot at your arm,” he ordered. He waved his drill gun around impatiently.
“What are you going to do with that?” I said. “I thought I was supposed to get my player number from you.”
“You are,” he said. “Now, gimme your arm.” He grabbed my left arm and aimed his drill gun at my upper arm, halfway between my shoulder and my elbow. He pulled the trigger before I could pull away. There was a flash, and I could smell something burning. It was me. My arm smoked where he’d shot me. “Not bad,” he said. “Lucky number 13.”
He blew away the smoke, and I looked down.
I was terrified that I was going to see a big patch of burnt flesh, but instead I saw a brilliantly colored tattoo of the number 13 surrounded by multicolored flames.
“That is so cool!” I said.
“Don’t get too attached to it, kid. It’ll disappear when the game’s over,” he said. “If you live that long.” He laughed as my cage moved on to the next station.
At the second station, the ogre attendant opened a rusty metal cabinet and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with pink liquid. He turned to face me and shook the bottle. “Eyeballit II, baby!” he said. “This’ll let ya see the heat signature of other players, even through walls and such. Nobody’ll be able to sneak up on ya when ya drink this stuff. You’re gonna love it,”
When I took the bottle, I saw that there was a full-sized ogre eye floating in the liquid. “Is that real?”
“Of course it is. It wouldn’t work without the eye in there, now, would it?” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He tapped the conveyor belt button, and I moved forward.
The third station attendant was waiting for me with a big green ogre toe on the end of a chain. “That’s a Toejammer. We been getting a lot o’ these today,” he said. “That’ll make anyone that’s around when you throw it trip and fall. They’re pretty handy if you’re getting’ chased.” He hit the button before I could say anything.
At the next station, I was handed a pendant with a fossilized bug trapped inside a polished gemstone. It looked like a big dried ant frozen in clear crystal. “That’ll make it so that you can lift ten times your own weight for thirty seconds,” said the station attendant. “Once you’ve used it, you need to give it about two minutes to recharge, got it?”
I nodded.
“That’s Buggamite, that is.” He mashed the conveyor belt button, and I moved down the line.
The fifth attendant held out his hand when my cage stopped in front of his station. He looked like he felt sorry for me. In his hand were three fossilized teeth.
“Chewemups,” he said. “You’ll be able to chew through anything when you swallow one of these. I guess they could turn out to be useful . . . maybe. Just remember not to swallow whatever it is you’re chewing if you use them.” He handed the teeth to me.
As I moved away from him towards the last station, I could hear him mumble, “Poor kid. Probably never even going to get the chance to use ‘em.”
I could hear what sounded like an argument coming from the last station as I got near it. That was weird because it looked like the attendant was all by himself. He was facing away from me waving his arms around and shouting.
“No! I will not take you up to watch the qualifying matches,” he said. “You’ve got a job to do. You’ll get to see plenty of action with your player.”
“But what if he’s a loser?” said a voice. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from because there was no one else around.
My c
age stopped directly behind the attendant. He turned as if I’d surprised him. “Here he is now,” he said. And then, “Oh.”
“See! I told you he’d be a loser. He’s just a kid,” said the other voice. “They’re lettin’ kids play now? Really? Things sure have changed since I died.”
That’s when the attendant held up a shrunken head, and I could tell where the voice was coming from.
“Lucky you,” said the attendant. “You randomly got stuck with a shrunken head. Boy, the ogreball gods sure must be mad at you about somethin’.”
“Hey, wahttaya mean by that?” asked the shrunken head. “I’m one of the best strategists this sport has ever seen!”
“And one of the crabbiest,” said the attendant as he tossed the shrunken head to me. “Good luck with him, buddy. He’s good, but man is he a pain in the butt.” He whacked the conveyor belt button and we moved forward.
The shrunken head was talking into my palms as I held it in my hands. That felt really creepy, so I lifted it up by the chain that was attached to his little metal cap.
He spun around quickly and snarled at me, “If you wanna get any useful advice from me, you little squirt, you’re gonna hafta treat me with some respect. Got that?”
“Uh, sure. I guess,” I said as I held him out at arm’s length. I saw that his eyelids had been sewn shut. “Your eyes . . . .”
“Yeah, they’re sewn shut. So what? I’ve got ‘the vision’ now that I’m dead . . . or was dead . . . technically, I’m still dead . . .” he shook himself and started again. “What I’m tryin’ to say is that I can see just fine with my eyes like this. Get used to it.”
The cage jerked to a stop and I stumbled out onto the armory floor.
“This is gonna be great!” said the head. “I haven’t played much lately. I can’t wait to see who we’re up against today. I love this game!”