by Robert Bevan
“We're here, aren't we? You don't have to keep selling me on the idea.”
When the trees cleared, the titular hole was clearly visible at the center of the glade. Purple vines radiated out from it, giving it the appearance of a puckered sphincter.
Chaz grabbed Fuckface by the shoulder and spun him around so that they were facing each other. “What are we going to find down there? If we run into any unexpected surprises, I'm going to force feed Cooper chili and cabbage every day for a month. I swear to God the only breaths of fresh air you'll get for the rest of your miserable life will be while his ass is spraying explosive diarrhea into that bag.”
My, but that was explicit.
“Intimidate is a Charisma-based skill,” Cooper explained.
Fuckface glanced at the bag tucked into Cooper's loincloth, terror in his eyes. “There's nothing down there bu the Dark Lord and the Green Mother.”
“Hang on,” said Chaz. “Hold the fucking phone. Who the hell is the Green Mother? And why is this the first we're hearing about her?”
Fuckface pointed at something past them. “That's the Green Mother.”
“Oh, shit!” Cooper raised Nabi, ready for action, as he spun around to look in the indicated direction. He didn't see anything that looked like anyone's mother. “Where? Is she behind that fucked-up tree?”
“She is the tree,” said Fuckface. “The Dark Lord draws his power through her roots.”
“What the fuck kind of tree is that anyway?” Its wide green trunk seemed to be made up of smaller trunks all twisted together, not unlike Julian's beanstalk in the Fertile Desert. The leaves were waxy and dark green on one side, and light on the other, like magnolias except that they were perfectly circular.
Only five are known to exist in the world. They bear neither fruit nor seed. As a group, they have no name like oak or elm. In the forests in which they grow, they each have their own names. This one we call the Green Mother. Her roots spread throughout the entire forest, nurturing the other trees.
Cooper scanned the clearing. “The other trees look kind of shitty. Has Green Mother been having some late nights with Meth Daddy?”
“What are you talking about?” said Chaz.
Cooper shushed him and listened for Nabi's response.
The flow of life can be reversed. The Dark Lord is taking advantage of the connection the Green Mother has with the rest of the forest. The Dark Ones feed his share of the animal lives they drain into the trees, where the corrupted energy flows back to him through the Green Mother's roots. But he also drains life from the trees themselves.
Morning Glory Hole was created long ago by an evil druid who sought to do exactly what the Dark Lord is doing. It is the entrance to a tunnel leading directly to some of the Green Mother's exposed roots.
“If she was exposing herself, why didn't anybody fill her hole?”
Chaz and Fuckface glanced uncomfortably at each other.
The druid was unable to endure the excruciating pain of the Green Mother's roots inside him. He was defeated, the evil was banished from the forest, and the raw magic released by the Green Mother's roots brought forth these beautiful morning glories. Such evil is all but unheard of in Glittersprinkles Grove.
“Sure,” said Cooper. “It's like one of those nice neighborhoods where you feel like it's okay to leave your door unlocked until you wake up one morning to find a hobo whacking off into your refrigerator.”
“Hey,” said Chaz. “What the hell are you even talking about now? Did you get any information about the hole?”
“I think Fuckface is telling the truth. It's just a tunnel that leads to that weird-ass tree over there. Not a whole lot of room for traps and ambushes and shit.”
“Maybe we should send him down first just to be sure.” Chaz turned quickly to Fuckface, like he was trying to catch some panicked expression.
Fuckface remained calm. “If you like.”
“Let's get on with it,” said Cooper. “I've got a storm brewing inside me, and I need to know whether or not I'm going to wipe with this bag.”
Chaz was still staring narrow-eyed at Fuckface. “On the other hand, maybe he's so eager to go first because he knows where all the traps are, and how to avoid springing them. Or maybe he intends to run ahead and wake up the Dark Lord.”
“Fuck it,” said Cooper. “I'll go first.” He grabbed a fistful of morning glory vines and started to lower himself into Morning Glory Hole. Had they been healthier, they might have supported his weight. But the vines were far more weakened than he'd suspected, snapping like undercooked noodles and dropping Cooper hard on his ass.
“Cooper!” cried Chaz. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It wasn't a long fall, and the ground is pretty soft. Send Fuckface down here.” He tried to mask the panic in his voice, suddenly having realized that he'd left Fuckface up there alone with Chaz who, at his best would probably struggle to fight off a goblin. If Fuckface took this opportunity to attack Chaz or run away, Cooper didn't know if he'd be able to climb out of this hole in time to make a difference.
Whether Fuckface picked up on any of that or not remained unclear. If he had considered making a break for it, the threat of the shitbag looming over him was one he was taking very seriously. The vines held his meager weight as he climbed down to join Cooper.
Chaz's failure to lower himself down gently seemed to have more to do with his lack of Strength rather than the vines'. He entered Morning Glory Hole with as much grace and dignity as Cooper had. When he got to his feet, he blew a few shaky notes into the satyr's pipes.
“I see the light.”
The pipes began to glow, illuminating the tunnel ahead of them and annoying Fuckface, who squinted and turned away from them.
Ravenus squawked down at them from the edge of the hole.
“What the fuck does he want?” asked Cooper.
“He wants to know whether he should join us or stay here and act as a lookout.”
“Tell him to stay up there. We're trying to kill a dude in his sleep. He's noisy as fuck.”
The tunnel was wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast, remarkably unremarkable for something of such significance. It was just that, a tunnel. A hole dug through not-very-solid-looking earth. Cooper suspected the only thing keeping the loose soil up top from caving in and burying them all alive was a network of morning glory roots, and in their current state, those weren't something he wanted to put a lot of faith in.
“Let's get moving,” he said, stooping to enter the tunnel and thinking even less of the evil druid who'd commissioned its construction. Would it have killed him to make it just a little taller?
At least it wasn't a long walk, or so Cooper thought. It felt a lot longer in a creepy dark tunnel that might collapse on them at any second than it had appeared from outside.
“Are we descending?” asked Chaz after a few minutes.
“Slightly,” said Fuckface. “The Green Mother's roots run deep.” He caught up to Cooper and pointed ahead. “We're nearly there now. Those old twisted roots sticking out of the side walls there. Those mark the threshold beyond which even we, his faithful servants, were sworn never to cross before he – Stop!”
Cooper and Chaz froze like statues.
“What is it?” said Chaz. “You better not be getting any ideas about turning on us. Do you need another whiff of the shitbag?”
Fuckface leaned in and squinted at something that Cooper couldn't see. “Bring the light closer. Look here.” He ran his finger along some invisible line until Cooper finally saw a razor-thin glint reflected in the magical pipelight, maybe half the breadth of a strand of spider silk. It ran diagonally from the top of the left wall of the tunnel to the bottom of the right wall.
“What is that?” asked Chaz.
“A trap.” Fuckface took the pipes from Chaz and examined the ceiling on the other side of the thread, then squinted back at the ceiling over the side they were standing on. “It's rigged to collapse on us if we wal
k through it.”
Chaz snatched his pipes back. “I thought you said there weren't any traps down here.”
“I didn't know there were. I never would have seen this one if the light hadn't reflected off it.” Fuckface scowled. “This trap wasn't meant for you. It was meant for us. Goblins can see in the dark. There would never be a reason for us to bring a light down here. He was hoping we would disobey him.”
“I don't know why you're acting all surprised,” said Cooper. “If you start working for someone who calls himself the Dark Lord and whose mission in life is to grow powerful by killing everything and absorbing their souls, you ought to expect him to be kind of an asshole.”
“It just stings a little, knowing it was there the whole time we were being loyal. At least until now, but this doesn't count. I've been coerced. I'm acting under duress.”
“We did our best,” said Chaz. “I guess now we turn around and go back to the Whore's Head?”
“As far as I can tell, there's only the one strand. We can crawl under it.”
“It doesn't bother you that we're standing under tons and tons of earth which is all being supported by a strand that could be broken by a butterfly fart?”
“I didn't ask to come down here,” said Fuckface. “This was your idea.”
Once again, Cooper resolved the issue by taking rash and irresponsible action. Unable to make out the strand now that the light wasn't shining right up against it, he squeezed as close to the bottom left corner of the tunnel as he could manage and marine crawled his way through until his toes were beyond the gnarled roots which marked the beginning of the forbidden zone.
“There,” he said after he sat up. “If I can make it through there, you two skinny bitches surely can.”
Fuckface crawled through confidently, followed by Chaz, who inched through at a snail's pace until Cooper grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him the rest of the way.
Chaz and Fuckface took the lead from there, Chaz shining the light directly ahead, and Fuckface keeping a wary eye out for traps. It was excruciatingly slow, and Cooper's back was beginning to ache from not being able to stand up straight.
“Come on, guys. Let's move this shit along. Getting buried alive is starting to seem like the better option.”
“Hush!” whispered Fuckface. “The Dark Lord slumbers just ahead.”
“Okay.” Cooper spoke as quietly as he could. “So the plan is for me to just walk up to this dude and give him a good solid death chop in his sleep?”
Fuckface looked up at Chaz.
“Oh, you're talking to me?”
“I can't imagine my input would be relevant,” said Fuckface.
Chaz gave Cooper a thumbs-up. “Yeah, good plan.”
Cooper hadn't been talking to either of them.
Yes. Swing true, Cooper. I want to feel the crack of his sternum and the last beat of his evil heart.
“It feels rude. Can't I at least wake him up first?”
Fuckface stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “That would be unwise. He has no doubt gained tremendous power by now. If you give him even the slightest chance to wield it, this will end badly for all of us.”
“Also,” said Chaz. “Waking people up is rude. So if you wake him up, and then kill him, that's two rude things.”
Cooper nodded. “You make a good point.”
“Hey, what's that?” Chaz held the pipes up to shine light on something else glistening in the dirt ahead.
Fuckface gasped. “Nothing! I mean, it's another trap. Stay away from it.”
“That's no trap. It's – Oh, shit.” Chaz turned around to face Cooper. “Cooper, don't –”
It was too late. At first glance, Cooper thought he was looking at two shards of a broken stained glass window. Then the realization hit him. Judging by the silent rage practically vibrating inside him, Nabi also recognized her own torn wings discarded in the dirt.
Hearing her tell her story before hadn't had quite the same impact as seeing pieces of his friend lying here on the ground. Cooper could now better understand Nabi's bloodlust. He was almost looking forward to cutting down the Dark Lord and even had to restrain himself from taking a swing at Fuckface here and now.
“Should we bury them?” he asked aloud to distract himself from Nabi's murderous thoughts. “Or maybe take them with us?”
Do with them what you will. They are no longer part of me.
“We'll leave them here then. Let's keep moving.”
Finally, they made it to the chamber. Cooper was relieved, in spite of the horrific scene in front of him, that the ceiling opened up a bit and he could stand up straight.
The Dark Lord, as advertised, was a dwarf. What Cooper hadn't been expecting was for him to be naked, suspended by the Green Mother's roots, arms spread wide like a fat naked Jesus.
The roots, as green as her trunk and branches, snaked around his arms, legs, neck, and torso, their tips buried in his every orifice. They were in his ears, nose, and mouth. Smaller roots slipped between his eyeballs and eyelids. He even had a thick root up his asshole and a thin one going into his pee hole.
Cooper, Chaz, and Fuckface cringed, all of them staring at the pee hole root.
“Killing him will be an act of mercy,” said Chaz. “I can understand how that first guy didn't make it. It must be excruciating. What kind of power is worth having to endure this? And who the hell is this dude who can just sleep through it?”
End him now, Cooper. Let him absorb not another ounce of life from the forest.
“Fine.” The thought of chopping the shit out of a guy with an axe while he was sleeping didn't sit quite right with Cooper, but he understood that any alternative course of action would put countless more lives at risk. He wiped the sweat from his palms onto his loincloth, then got a firm grip on Nabi's shaft with both hands. She was more than willing to take the lead on this one, so Cooper let his mind drift, almost to the point that he wasn't able to stop himself from cutting Chaz in half when he jumped in the way.
“STOP!” Chaz shielded his face with his forearms, vastly overestimating their effectiveness against Nabi's blade.
“Dude!” said Cooper, wresting his Will back from Nabi. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Could you not see that I was swinging a goddamn axe?”
“I know. I'm sorry. I just had a thought.”
“It was almost your last one, dumbass.”
Chaz took a few deep breaths. “I think I might know who the Dark Lord is.”
Cooper groaned as his intestines expanded and constricted inside him. The raisins were catching up to him.
“Are you suggesting he's someone other than this dude with the vine in his dickhole?”
“No, of course not.”
“Awesome. You've cracked the case. Nice work, Matlock. Now will you get the fuck out of the way so I can kill him?”
“Who do we know who is able to put their minds in complete and total vegetative stasis? Who could get penetrated in every conceivable bodily orifice at the same time and not even feel it?”
Cooper lowered Nabi and looked past Chaz at the naked elf suspended by tree roots. “The Dark Lord is Dave's mom?”
Chaz gave him a stern glare.
“Oh, come on. You totally set me up for that.”
“I was talking about Mordred. This could be one of his avatars, completely impervious to pain while another one is active. Fuckface said that they tried to ambush this guy a couple of months ago, right? Vague as that is, it fits in with a possible timeline of being shortly after Mordred looted the Horsemen's villa. He goes off on a killing spree with his new badass weapons. He quickly gains enough levels so that it's not even a contest when he gets ambushed by a bunch of goblins.” He gestured to Fuckface. “He has the knowledge of this place, a nigh-insatiable thirst for power, and is in a unique position to be able to endure the pain of having roots crawl up into his dick.”
“Wait,” said Cooper. “How does Nabi fit into this?”
“Mordre
d and his little minions catch a curious pixie. He's got a bunch of new magical toys he's eager to play with, so he uses his magical whatever to put Nabi inside his axe. The goblins were impressed.” He looked down at Fuckface. “Weren't you?”
Fuckface nodded. “Very much so.”
“Whoa.” Cooper was impressed with how accurate Chaz's story seemed to be. Then again, Fuckface might just be agreeing to fuck with them. “So how did Nabi go from being created here to being in –”
“Wait!” said Chaz, holding his palms up at Cooper. He turned to Fuckface again. “Mordred knew he was going to be chilling here for a while, and none of the goblins could effectively wield a weapon that large. So he decided to gift it to one of his other selves, the one who was currently most active. He sent a small envoy of goblins to...” He pointed at Fuckface.
“Meb'Garshur.”
“Damn,” said Cooper. “I was being sarcastic before, but you really Matlocked the shit out of that.”
Chaz frowned at Mordred like he wished he was wrong about him. “We have to take him back alive.”
“What?” cried Fuckface.
What? Are you mad? You don't understand what kind of power he's gained, what he's now capable of.
“We don't have a choice,” said Cooper. “This guy's our ticket back home, and he's kind of an endangered species now.”
“Besides,” said Chaz. “The fewer Mordreds there are in the world, the more powerful the remaining ones will become, since they don't have to split their awake time quite as much. Hopefully there aren't too many more of these gain-levels-while-you-sleep kinds of places in the world.”
You saw what he did to me with your own eyes, Cooper. Give me my vengeance!
“I really feel like a dick about this, but Chaz is right. We need him.”
Cooper felt Nabi trying to take full control of him. He fought back, using every bit of Will he had in him.
“I'm... sorry... Nabi. This is... too... important.”