by Baron Sord
“For a pretty big friend.” She patted my arm affectionately.
“How big a friend?” I flirted. I couldn’t resist.
“That remains to be seen, Tarzan.”
I laughed. “You’re the best, babe. I mean Layna.”
“Did you want to use the scrying pool,” the clerk asked, “or fawn over each other like a couple of love sick Grumlees?”
“What’s a Grumlee?”
Layna teased, “You don’t get out much, do you?”
“This way,” the clerk said, leading us through a marble archway. We walked down a short hallway and turned through another archway. This far back from the entrance, the place was pretty dim. In the center of the chamber was a round marble pool about 6 feet across and 3 feet deep. The three of us circled around it.
“Who are you going to contact?” the clerk asked.
Layna looked at me.
“Aw, shit. What was his name again? S something. Sah—uh… shit.” What was Jason’s character name? Slayer? Sepultura? Savatage? Avenged Sevenfold? Yngwie Sepulsteen? “Sigurd Därksvärd! Sigurd fucking Därksvärd!”
Layna snickered.
The jerky clerk sneered, “Was that with or without the fucking? You need to be precise.”
“Sigurd Därksvärd.”
He nodded and waved his hands over the pool and started mumbling in Latin or some other dead language I’d never heard before. Slowly, the pool started to shine and ripple all by itself. The light grew brighter and brighter until the entire thing was brighter than a spot light.
I squinted my eyes against the glare.
Seconds later, the light dimmed to a mild white glow and the water calmed.
An upside down face appeared. Well, to me she was upside down, but to our clerk she was right side up. She wore a white hat similar to his, and a similar white gown. Looking at him, she said, “Greetings, Novax. You’re looking good.”
“Salutations, Pollotine. This isn’t a social call. I need to locate someone.”
“Oh! Sorry. I didn’t see you had customers.” Pollotine blushed. Total cougar. She was at least 5 years older than he was. “I presume the person sought is here in the Floating City?”
“So sayeth the sacred Overseer.”
“Novax, how many times do I have to remind you, the Overseer isn’t sacred. The Overseer simply is.”
“Polly! Not now.” He was clearly embarrassed.
“If you insist. We can continue our philosophical debate later.” Pollotine looked upward, catching my eye. “Are you the seeker?”
“I, uh…”
Novax muttered at me, “Say yes.”
“Yeah. I mean yes.”
Pollotine smiled at me. “Very well.” She closed her eyes and started mumbling in the same language Novax had. Her eyes popped open. They glowed bright white. “Do you have a message?”
“Yes! Tell Jason, I mean tell Sigurd, I’m in—” I glanced at Layna.
“Cliffside,” she said. “In the Leviathorne Rainforest. In the Freelands.”
“Cliffside,” I repeated. “In the—”
“Yes, I heard,” Pollotine said. “Is that it?”
“I guess?” I glanced between Novax and Pollotine’s image. “Do you need a return address? My email address? Uh…”
“Be patient.” She closed her eyes and started mumbling again. Then stopped. Then did nothing for about two minutes.
I couldn’t take it. I said, “Do we—”
“Shhh!” Pollotine hissed.
I rolled my eyes. This place needed phones. This was ridiculous.
Her eyes popped open. “He’ll be there in two hours.” The glow in her eyes faded. “Thank you for doing business with the Guild.” Her image and the light in the pool started to fade.
“Wait! Is that it? Can I talk to him?”
Pollotine’s image faded away to nothing.
“Wait! Where am I supposed to meet him?” I looked at Novax for an answer.
He shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“It’s a big city!” I was pissed! All that money and I couldn’t even got a straight answer!
Pollotine popped back into view. “Sorry. He said he’d meet you on the roof.” As quick as she appeared, she was gone.
“Which roof? This place has a thousand roofs!”
A voice echoed up from the pool, “The main roof.”
“Which main roof?!” I was shouting.
The pool went dark.
Novax clasped his hands together and bowed. “Thank you for doing business with the Guild. Come again soon.”
Who was he kidding? These guys were shysters!
“Let’s go, Layna,” I grumbled and stormed out of the scrying pool room.
“She did say the main roof,” Layna encouraged.
Man, I couldn’t wait to get back to the real world where they had smart phones and internet maps. This place was a joke.
—: o o o :—
“Main roof? Do you mean lily pad?” A purple Koboglin said in rocky English. His accent was thick and he spit a lot when he talked, but I could understand him.
Layna and I stood with him on an outdoor walkway near the Divination Guild. The little Koboglin held a bunch of exotic tropical flowers in a basket, selling them for a gold coin apiece.
“Lily pad?” Layna said. “Is that on the roof?”
“Yesses,” the Koboglin said. “They call it Lily Pad.”
“But it’s not an actual lily pad?” I asked, picturing a giant frog pond with giant man-eating frogs that would try to swallow me and Layna whole. This was Reternity, so it wasn’t out of the question.
“No. Like stable.”
“For horses?”
“Flying horses.”
“Oh!” Layna gasped. “Of course. That’s how your friend is getting here, Logan.” She didn’t yet know Jason was my brother. “I should’ve known. He probably has a flying horse of some sort.”
“More like a flying donkey,” I chuckled. I said to the Koboglin, “Which way there?”
He pointed. “Up, up, up. Then two more upsses.”
“So, 5 ups?”
He started counting on his fingers, folding them down one at a time. Only had 3 and a thumb. The missing one was a stump. After he’d folded down all 4, he looked at me, confused. “Yesses.”
I smiled and patted his shoulder, “We’ll find it, bud.”
As Layna and I turned to go, he tugged the back of my loincloth, “Buy a orchid for your lady?”
“I totally would, but I’m out of cash. Sorry, bud.”
“Oh,” he sagged, disappointed. Based on his raggy grass skirt and raggy grass shoes, he wasn’t getting rich selling jungle flowers.
I felt bad. “I wish I had gold to spare, but I really am broke. Would you, uh, trade for a throwing knife?” I held one up.
“Ehhhh…” He wasn’t interested. “I need for food.”
“A leather glove?”
He smirked. “Leather worse than tree bark. I not so much hungry.”
“Not for eating, bud. I meant for selling.”
“Oh…” he shook his head, “…no.”
“Sorry, man.”
“But no flower make your lady sad,” he said gloomily, really meaning himself.
“It’s okay,” Layna encouraged. “I don’t need one. It’s the thought that counts.”
“Is a flower that countses,” the Koboglin said, smiling big, showing his checkerboard smile of missing teeth.
“Maybe next time, bud,” I chuckled, trying to keep it light for his sake. “Let’s go, Layna.” Then I stopped myself as recognition sunk in. “Wait a second. Do you know a guy named Moggor?”
“Moggor? He my cousin! You know him?”
“Know him? I saved his ass the other day. Some Wartnose Koboglins were trying to steal his canoe.” Since I didn’t have any money, the least I could do was cheer the guy up.
“No turds?” He meant it like, No shit?
“No turds,” I grinned. “Me
and my pals helped Moggor fight them off. What was their leader’s name? Braggak. Total dick.”
The purple Koboglin scowled, “He evil frog turd! I hate he. He try to throw me over waterfall when I boy. He suck tapir dong. Biiiiig tapir dong! Suck suck suck!” The guy was smiling now. “He like to kiss big long dong! I hope you kill him.”
“Nah, but I did make him eat some ass.”
“Hesh hesh hesh,” he spat each time he laughed.
“What’s your name, bud?”
“Groggor.”
“Nice to meet you, Groggor. And thanks for the directions. Next time I’m in town, I’ll buy all your orchids, man. Promise.”
Groggor smiled. “You take flower for lady.” He sorted through his bouquet and found the biggest one, a purple one with a bright yellow center. “Is Clawtooth Orchid. We grow special. Only grow on Clawtooth land. You take.”
“Aww, man. Thank you, Groggor. Seriously. But you should keep it so you can sell it.”
“No, no, no.” He was already jamming it in my hand. So fricking generous.
“Are you sure, bud?”
“Yes, yes. For you lady. Make her love you. Promise.”
“Whoa, it’s not magic is it?”
Groggor looked embarrassed. Layna did too. She was blushing. Groggor waved me down, so I leaned over and he whispered in my ear. “No real magic, but she love you anyway.”
I smiled, “Gotcha.”
“Here, take.”
“Thanks man.” I turned to Layna. “For you, my lady.”
“Awww,” she giggled, blushing bright red.
We thanked Groggor again and walked away.
“He was so cute,” Layna said.
“Maybe we can adopt him.”
Her laughter was a sweet song I wanted to hear all day long.
—: o o o :—
The gist of Groggor’s instructions were simple enough: climb any ladder that went to the next level.
The higher we climbed, the fewer huts there were. The last level before the top of the cliff had but one largish hut with low palm frond walls forming a countertop and a grass roof. More of a booth, really. A palm tree shaded it from the intense sun. A fat elephant with a broken tusk sat inside with his feet up on the wicker countertop. His arms were clasped behind his head. A fraying straw hat was perched over his eyes. He snored loudly, his trunk rolling and unrolling like a party blower, I shit you not. Even made a reedy trumpet wheeze each time he exhaled.
SNORT! Wheeeeeeze!
SNORT! Wheeeeeeze!
SNORT! Wheeeeeeze!
You get the idea.
“This place kills me,” I chuckled.
Layna smiled up at me, “It grows on you.” She was sniffing the purple orchid and gazing up at me. In the bright sunlight, her blue eyes glowed like the heavens.
“Yeah, it does.” My heart pounded looking at her. She was so fine it hurt. I was the luckiest motherfucker in existence.
A carved wooden sign was tied below the front counter of the booth. The carving was painted and clearly depicted a large green lily pad
“This must be it,” Layna said, pointing at the sign.
“Should we just go up?” I nodded toward the ladder that led to the top of the cliff.
“Maybe we should ask him first?”
“Who, Snoozy?”
SNORT! Wheeeeeeze!
Layna giggled.
“I heard that,” the elephant guy said. Like everybody else here, he was dressed for the heat. A bright orange linen skirt to cover his junk, and no shirt. The only thing he was missing was a Hawaiian print on his skirt and a lei around his neck.
I took a moment to examine him.
Elephantum Pilot
Level: 13
Health | Stamina: 1375 | 500
Mana | Mind: 705 | 475
Size: Very Large
Armor: 190
===============
Good | Evil: 122 | 7
Law | Chaos: 55 | 60
===============
“You the pilot?” I asked.
His trunk curled up and pushed his straw hat back just enough to reveal one eye. “You flying somewhere?”
“Actually, we’re waiting for somebody.”
“G’wan up then. I’m sleepin’.” He let his hat drop and his trunk pointed toward the ladder.
I tried not to laugh when I said, “Okay, I have to ask. What do you pilot?”
Without lifting his straw hat, he said, “Same thing as everybody else. Winged beasts.”
“Yeah, but what kind of beasts?” All I could think was, what the hell could carry an elephant and his passengers? A winged elephant? It didn’t add up. The only thing I could imagine was a winged blue whale, but that didn’t seem right either.
“What are saying, friend?” He sounded irritated.
Not that you’re ginormous, I didn’t say. Since my curse had been lifted, I blamed my evil thoughts on the heat. “Nothing. Just curious.”
“Don’t get too curious. Unless you want me to introduce you to my little friend.”
“Huh?”
His trunk pointed behind him.
From his irritated tone, I expected to see something like Tony Montana’s M-16 with the grenade launcher from Scarface. Instead, leaning against the back of the booth was a huge halberd that looked big enough to cut a horse in half. Dangling from the base of the blade like a bad wig was a very large dried grass tassel.
“Looks like your friend needs a haircut,” I chuckled before hustling Layna up the ladder.
The Elephantum snorted a single amused laugh before resuming his snort-snoring.
The top of the Lily Pad was a sight to behold. A huge flat plateau of rock offering a 360 degree view of the Cliffside Canyon and the rest of the jungle below. This was the first time I’d been able to appreciate the vastness of this place. In every direction, as far as I could see, was jungle. Green, green, green. I’d never seen anything like it back in the real world. Crystal blue sky overhead, puffy white clouds sailing in the distance. The cleanest air I’d ever smelled.
Out in the open, the hot sun was extreme. Luckily, several 30 foot diameter lily pads were suspended about 10 feet above the ground on the perimeter of the plateau at random intervals. They were supported by a lone green stalk that curved from the lily pad into the rock.
“These look magic,” Layna said, running her hand along one of the stalks. “I’ve never seen anything like it in the rain forest.” The bright green light filtering through the translucent lily pad coated both of us. It was 20 degrees cooler underneath, but seemingly more humid.
A soft breeze cooled us.
“We’ve got two hours,” Layna said. “Do you want to learn the saber?”
“Should be plenty of time for me to master it,” I joked.
She smirked, “Did they add a Cockiness attribute to your character sheet that I don’t know about?”
“Yeah. I pumped mine up to 69.”
“You’re awful,” she lied. Then she reached into her pants and pulled out a sword. Unlike the big two-hander earlier, this was a single-handed rapier. Light, thin, and surgically sharp, but far too large for her pocket.
“Okay, what’s up with the magic pocket?”
She smiled and shrugged without answering, then bent her knees into a casual crouch and whipped her sword through the air, the tip of the blade leaving a trail of sparkling golden energy in the shape of a rune of some sort.
“Did you just write something in the air with the tip of your sword?”
“It’s a saber. And yes, I did.”
“You gonna tell me what you wrote?”
She smiled, “It’s a blessing.”
“Oh.”
“Draw,” she said confidently, pointing her saber at my hip.
I pulled mine awkwardly out of the scabbard. I wasn’t usually this clumsy, but you try looking cool when a supermodel is giving you a look like Layna’s. “What do I draw? A stick man? A cloud? A fish? Name it and I’ll dra
w it.” I moved my blade in my best impression of a stick man. “How come mine didn’t make sparkly magic?”
“Because your blade isn’t bonded to you.”
“How do we make that happen?”
“We don’t. You have to commune with a higher spirit power.”
“Are we doing that?”
“No. Today is swordplay.”
“I’m all about the swordplay,” I flirted. “In fact, I’d be up for some swordplay later tonight if you are,” I winked at Layna.
Her sword corkscrewed and scraped down the length of my blade. It went flying through the air and landed 20 feet away, stabbing the ground perfectly vertically. A fork of lightning shot out from where the sword point was buried 6 inches deep in the rock.
CRACK!
A minor thunderclap followed, bouncing off the nearby canyon walls in a hollow echo that reminded me of an M-80 firecracker. It seemed totally out of place in the natural paradise of the jungle.
“Oops!” Layna blurted, embarrassed. “I forget about the lightning bolt.”
“Nice going,” I said sarcastically as I walked toward the sword to retrieve it. After wiggling it back and forth for nearly a minute, I yanked it out. “Try not to do that again.”
“Don’t worry, the sword only fires one bolt per day.”
“Oh, great. So you wasted it,” I chuckled.
She winked. “Better to waste it on the rocks than me.”
I smirked, “What are you saying, Layna?”
“That you don’t know what you’re doing and I’m taking the proper precautions,” she giggled.
“So you did that on purpose?”
She shrugged.
“Fair enough,” I chuckled.
For the next hour, Layna showed me the basics of fencing. She was even better with her rapier than she was with her spear. As always, I was impressed to say the least.
Layna has taught you a new skill: Basic Swordplay. Level 1. The more you play with your sword, the longer you can last in bed— I mean battle. That’s also what she said. Increase your Speed and/or Accuracy to improve your chance of success.
+1 to your Speed!
+1 to your Accuracy!
I chuckled at the corny description. Sometimes it seemed like this game was tailor-made for me. Maybe it was.