by Ramy Vance
But it didn’t stop there. The donkey’s head forced itself out and was followed by sharp, stone claws which made way for the five-inch squat body of a stone gargoyle. It had been carved with an impressive set of pecs and biceps and short, stubbly wings.
The gargoyle must have been sculpted by someone who was obsessed with the human form, Suzuki thought. That and donkeys.
“Well, look at you, little dude,” Stew exclaimed. “Where did you come from?”
The donkey gargoyle bashfully looked away. If stone could blush, the gargoyle was doing it right then. “From underground,” the donkey gargoyle said.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a familiar.”
“I’m looking for a human.”
“Uh…do you want to be my familiar?” Stew said in a tone that mirrored a toddler asking another toddler if they wanted to be friends.
“Would you be my human?”
“I’m down!”
The conversation was oddly simple, which by Suzuki’s estimation meant it was perfect for Stew. The donkey gargoyle smiled and nodded its agreement. It wobbled over closer to Stew and threw his arms around Stew’s leg.
Stew started to take a step back before he caught himself and awkwardly petted the gargoyle’s head. “What’s your name?”
The gargoyle looked up with its disconcertingly innocent eyes. “Good and Bad,” he said. “Because sometimes I’m good. But other times…I am very, very bad.”
“Uh…err…okay. Nice to meet you. But Good and Bad is a bit of a mouthful. How about I call you ‘GB?’”
The donkey gargoyle nodded with unbridled excitement.
Stew turned and waved at the other Mundanes. “Guys! I got a familiar.”
Sandy knelt to pet Niv’s ears. “Thanks,” she said.
“My pleasure,” Niv replied.
Manny’s voice boomed over the entire garden. “Recruits,” he shouted. “I trust you have found your familiars by now. Please return to the lake so that we may begin the Ritual of Digesting.”
The Mundanes looked at each other. “Digesting?”
Fred clutched Suzuki’s shoulder again. This time Suzuki didn’t flinch. Fred leaned forward so his hot breath was on Suzuki’s ear. “This is the fun part.”
One by one, the recruits surrounded the lake with their familiars. Manny floated in between them, checking each familiar and recruit with his many eyes. Most of the recruits squirmed under the scrutiny. The familiars did not seem to notice, other than Fred, who looked extremely uncomfortable.
That’s a weird look for such a demonic creature, Suzuki thought. What would make something like Fred feel uncomfortable?
Manny floated in front of Suzuki and Fred while the imp’s scales bristled. “So, you two are deciding to leave for Middang3ard together?” Manny floated up to be at eye level with Fred.
“Yes.” Fred sneered. “The human and I believe we will make a good team.”
Manny eyed Suzuki. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Suzuki replied. “Can’t you see the chemistry?”
Manny looked hard at them with all of his eyes. Suzuki tried his best to give a convincing smile as Fred grinned widely as well, his serrated teeth shining brightly.
“Very convincing.” Manny sighed as he floated away to a higher vantage point. He cleared his throat, and all of his eyes narrowed. “If you are all comfortable with your hosts, I invite you to begin the Ritual of Digesting. Kneel before your familiars, and they will complete the ritual for you.”
The recruits looked warily at each other, but most of them knelt quickly enough. The rest took a few more moments but nonetheless knelt. Suzuki touched his knee to the ground and looked into Fred’s pitch-black eyes.
Fred smiled devilishly. “Finally, human,” Fred growled. “I can be free of this hell.”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
Fred leapt onto Suzuki’s chest and he felt the imp’s hot scales against his mouth as Fred tried to pry his mouth open. They both fell to the ground and wrestled with each other as the rest of the familiars began completing the Ritual of Digesting.
Next to Suzuki, GB was braying loudly, stamping his feet on the ground. Stew backed up slowly.
Sandy was being cornered in a similar way. Niv bowed his head at Sandy, his horn shining brightly. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sandy,” he muttered softly. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“What the fuck are you all doing?” Sandy shouted.
“Completing the ritual.”
Niv jumped onto Sandy and knocked her down. He shoved his horn in her stomach and she screamed as the small, magical animal burrowed in. She gasped and rolled on the ground as she tried to pull Niv out, but it didn’t stop the creature. He burrowed and burrowed with his horn and his legs, and as Sandy screamed, the almiraj disappeared.
Sandy stopped screaming. She felt her stomach. There was no blood. No wound. Nothing. “Huh. I’m OK. I’m OK!” She turned to the others wearing a manically wild smile, “That was…huh…hey guys, it’s not that bad!”
Fred pried Suzuki’s mouth open, his eyes locked on the human’s. There was something almost intimate in the way that Fred was looking at Suzuki. The fear that had been pulsing through Suzuki’s veins a moment ago disappeared. Then Fred opened his mouth and boiling hot magma poured from his gaping maw. Suzuki tried to jerk away, but Fred was stronger. The heat of the magma felt as if it were boiling Suzuki’s skin before it even touched. Suzuki tried to scream, but the magma poured into his mouth, and he felt his entire body catch flame.
But he didn’t burn.
It was just a feeling that soon passed. Fred’s body fell over lifeless. Suzuki felt his face, his mouth. Nothing bad had happened. If anything, he had a minty taste in his mouth. At Suzuki’s feet lay Fred’s body. It shriveled into a thin black husk and broke into a million pieces that drifted away in the breeze.
Around the lake, the rest of the recruits had finished the bonding process. None looked to be too shaken. Manny cleared his throat to catch the recruits’ attention.
“As I said before,” Manny lectured, “your familiars will allow you to enter into Middang3ard proper. If you have not figured out by now, your familiar is now residing within your body. The level of interaction you have with your familiar will vary from recruit to recruit. They are your responsibility. Let me iterate again, your familiar is your tether to Middang3ard. Always keep that in mind. Now that you are fully equipped, I ask you, are you ready to be a brother of the MERC?”
“Aye,” the recruits shouted.
Suzuki murmured a weak, “Yes.”
“I ask again,” Manny shouted. “Are you ready to face the depths of hell, to stand against the Dark One for all we hold sacred and beautiful? Are you ready to be a brother of the MERC?”
Another resounding cry came from the recruits.
Makes sense that a Beholder would be OCD about war chants, Suzuki thought to himself. Or it could be some kind of contract.
“I ask again,” Manny repeated. “Humans, are you ready to risk limb, life, and soul for the safety of your realm? Are you ready to be a brother of the MERC? Can I get an A-fucking-men, humans?”
Suzuki cast a glance at Sandy and Stew. Sandy’s face looked a little pale, but she was smiling widely. Her hands were balled into fists. Stew was grinning as well. His chest was puffed, and he looked as if he were imitating his ideal of a soldier. Above them all, a massive vortex had opened in the sky. Suzuki looked up, and he could see millions of stars swirling and stretching and taking the shape of lands that he could have only imagined.
“Fuck it,” Suzuki cried out. “Amen!”
The familiar fishhook hit him again, only this time Suzuki flexed his stomach and there was no pain.
Then the world turned to nothing and they were gone.
13
When the world came back into existence, the garden was gone.
Suzuki was on his
feet, his stomach gurgling but holding. They were somewhere else now, somewhere less bright and pristine than the Garden of Familiars. They were somewhere dirtier with air that was thick and musty.
It took Suzuki a minute for his eyes to focus before he realized that they’d been transported to a murky swampland. Massive cypress trees stretched out of the swamp water into the sky. A dim, red sun shone through the overstretched leaves. A network of wooden pathways had been built into the wetlands. Off in the distance was a village which the pathways connected to. There was a large log house in the middle of the village. A heavy plume of smoke poured from the log house’s chimney.
Manny floated to the front of the company of MERCs. “Come on, recruits. It is time for you to be outfitted. Today is the first day of your glory. I must leave you here. Although you are but paupers, soon you will know glory. Soon you will bring honor to your race. And soon we will put an end to the Dark One’s reign of terrors.”
As Manny talked, he started to fade away. He was gone within a couple of moments, leaving behind a troop of bewildered new recruits.
New recruits for whom Reality was starting to settle in.
They had all been dropped into a world they knew nothing about, completely weaponless, with something crawling around their insides now.
Suzuki wondered where Fred was exactly. The imp couldn’t actually be in his body, resting in his ribcage or anything like that. Fred must be taking up some kind of psychic space in his mind or something like that. Maybe he had bonded physically with Suzuki. However, there were more important questions that needed to be answered at the moment.
Some of the recruits were hesitantly shuffling toward the village in the distance.
They were all dragging their feet…every single one of them…unsure what to do next.
Suzuki was unsure too, but what he did know was that standing on the outskirts of a town build near a swamp in Middang3ard probably wasn’t the best place to mull it over.
“Come on,” Suzuki said as he pushed his way through the crowd and to the front. “We should check the village out. It’s at least a place to start.”
Stew and Sandy forced their way through the thick crowd of recruits until they were standing next to Suzuki at the front of the pack. And so they marched forward to whatever awaited them.
As they walked, Suzuki would regularly check over his shoulders to see how the rest of the recruits were taking everything in. No one looked comfortable. Suzuki smiled and waved for the recruits to follow him.
“We gotta put on a show,” Suzuki whispered to the Mundanes. “Everyone is freaked the fuck out.”
“I’m freaking the fuck out,” Stew responded.
“Yeah, but we don’t have to let everyone know,” Sandy added. “I get it, Suzuki. People freaking out all over the place isn’t good.”
The Mundanes led the recruits down the creaking wooden pathways, up to the giant log house that was churning smoke. They stood in front of the doorway, Suzuki unsure of the proper course of action. He had no idea what was behind the door. If it was something terrible, there was no doubt he was going to be blamed for whatever happened.
Still, they had to do something, and it didn’t make sense that Manny would drop them in the middle of enemy territory without any weapons. Even if this was some elaborate ploy by the Dark One to kill off players who had shown any slight promise during Myrddin’s tryouts, this would have been one roundabout way to do it.
So Suzuki lifted his hand, made a fist, and knocked on the door. Behind the door, a harsh voice called, but it was muffled. Suzuki could hear furniture being shuffled around, scraping the floor. The door suddenly swung wide open, and a gruff-looking dwarf with a burn scar on his forehead appeared.
He eyed Suzuki and the Mundanes, before stepping out and looking at the rest of the recruits.
The dwarf’s frown turned into a smile that stretched from ear to ear. “Took ye long enough. Name’s Gorgol. Come in, and let’s get you little shits processed.”
Gorgol swung the door open wider and the Mundanes stepped into the log house. The rest of the recruits trickled in after them.
The log house did not carry any rural charm inside. Its interior was that of a log house that extended much farther than it appeared to from outside. The walls were lined with tall filing cabinets which were packed tightly next to each other. Tables and desks covered the floor. There were benches for waiting at the far side of the building.
Inside, dwarves and humans sat behind desks, each of them with a mountain of paperwork piled before them.
The log house looked like a cross between a medieval mess hall and the DMV.
“Is it everything that you were hoping for?” Fred asked.
Suzuki jumped and looked around for the imp, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was then that Suzuki realized he hadn’t heard a voice, at least not heard it in the proper sense, but rather felt it.
He’d felt it within him, almost like when he was thinking to himself, but different somehow.
“Fred?”
Fred cleared his throat, which made no sense because Fred obviously wasn’t talking through traditional means. “In the spirit. Or something close enough to it. Also, you don’t have to speak out loud. I can hear you well enough if you just think. You should get in the habit. I’d hate to see what would happen if a group of goblins heard you talking to yourself in the middle of a quest. I imagine they’d eat you alive. Something of that sort.”
“Where are you?”
“Within you. Part of the bonding experience. It would be a little conspicuous to have your familiar constantly on your person. This gives me a way to retreat without having to open a small pocket dimension. You are my pocket dimension human. Think of yourself as a glorified taxi.”
“Except you don’t get to decide where we’re going, right?”
Fred growled low, under his breath, but said nothing else. While Suzuki searched the rest of the MERC recruits to see if they were also communicating with their familiars, Gorgol came up to Suzuki with a stack of paperwork and a quill pen. “Excuse me,” Gorgol said.
Suzuki jumped at the sound of the dwarf’s voice. “Oh, shit. I didn’t see you there.”
“You’re a little on the jumpy side, aren’t you, recruit?”
“You just caught me off guard.”
“Better work on that, as you’ll find a lot of things will catch you off-guard in Middang3ard. Now, if you don’t mind, please fill these out and come back to me when you’re done.”
Dwarves were moving through the crowd of recruits and handing any empty hands paperwork. The recruits made their way to the benches that filled the log house’s halls. The Mundanes stuck together and grabbed seats next to each other.
Stew was already groaning about the paperwork. He held his papers in an awkward position on his lap.
Sandy didn’t seem to mind at all. Or if she did, she didn’t show it. She just got to work, filling out the forms.
Suzuki opened the packet of forms and checked them out. The first page was almost as generic as a doctor’s form. Age, sex, height, weight, and that sort of thing. There was also a section dedicated to ethnic and cultural heritage. Suzuki noticed there was nothing that flagged him for English ancestry.
Suzuki leaned over to Sandy. “Hey, have you heard from Niv?”
Sandy nodded her head but didn’t look over from her paperwork. “Yep,” she answered. “It’s pretty fucking weird. He’s pretty funny, though.”
Suzuki turned to Stew, who was tapping his foot neurotically and chewing on his pen. “How about you?”
Stew jumped up as if he had been prodded with a stick. “What?” was his hazy reply.
“Have you heard from GB?”
“Only when we first got here. I don’t think the little guy likes to talk much. He’s a great listener, though.” Stew gripped his paperwork and wrung it in his hands. “I didn’t think I was coming to Middang3ard to fill out paperwork.”
“Guess bureauc
racy is everywhere.”
“My mom says the world runs on paperwork,” Sandy added.
“Your mom works at the DMV. Of course, she would say that.”
“I’m just saying that it doesn’t look like she’s wrong.”
It took Suzuki nearly twenty minutes to fill out his paperwork. When he was finished, he wandered around the log house, looking for Gorgol. He hadn’t paid too much attention to any of the dwarves that he had seen before, and now that he was looking for one in particular, he found it difficult to tell them apart. All of them were short, bearded, and had a glint in their eyes that made it seem they could attack you at any moment.
Now though, he was starting to pick out individual faces. Even different demeanors. None of the dwarves pushing paperwork reminded him of the rough and tumble MERCs he had seen at the Garden of Familiars. Not that these dwarves looked soft by any means. They just appeared to be concerned with other things.
When Suzuki finally found Gorgol’s desk (he’d passed it twice before he realized that was the dwarf he was looking for), he delicately put the papers down in front of him.
Gorgol looked up and smiled. “Thank you.” Gorgol’s smile never wavered despite taking form after form after form. It was as if he could do this all day, every day, and never get bored. Once the papers were in his hand, he gestured to the benches behind him. “Please take a seat.”
Suzuki did as he was asked. Gorgol waved his hand and a holoscreen popped into existence in front of them. He scrolled through the screen, waved it away for another one, and spent some time looking at the new screen.
Then he snapped his fingers and the screen disappeared. Gorgol grabbed another, thicker stack of paperwork and handed it to Suzuki. “Please take care of these,” Gorgol said. “Bring them back when you are finished, please.”
Suzuki took the stack of paperwork and sighed. “No problem.” He turned to make his way back to the Mundanes, who were also saddled down with entirely new packets of paperwork. They all gave each other looks of disbelief, but accepted their fate and dug into this new batch.