The Ultimate Dragon Fighting Championship
Tales from the Land of Ononokin Book 7
John P. Logsdon
Christopher P. Young
The Dream
Gungren sat in front of a mountain of rocks.
There were small ones, big ones, round ones, and jagged ones. Each of them had their own advantages and disadvantages, especially to the discerning eye of a giant. A few of them stood out against the grain, of course, but Gungren would gladly launch any of their number far into the distance.
It was a thing with giants, after all.
A small shadow crossed the ground in front of Gungren. He looked down and spotted someone he knew, someone he had once spent a lot of time with, but he couldn’t quite place the name. At least not fully. He knew that it sounded something like “Winkiepiddle” or “Waspsniffle,” but he wasn’t sure.
“Gungren,” said the little man while wagging his finger in a chastising way, “you’ve got to get a hold of yourself. Throwing rocks like this can only lead you down a path of giantism again.”
Gungren looked at himself. As far as he could tell, he was a giant already. Then he frowned thoughtfully at the recognition that he had understood the term “giantism.” The fact was that he knew giants weren’t that bright. This additional rationalization seriously confused him because, again, giants weren’t that bright.
He glanced back down at the little old man who was wearing the pointy hat.
“I can’t help it, mister,” he said in his childlike voice. “I see a rock and I want to throw it.”
“I understand that,” came the gentle reply, “but you must resist.”
Gungren couldn’t think of any way to keep himself from his favorite pastime, though. And why should he anyway?
A little voice in his head told him that he was on the road to being a great wizard. That road was being blocked by him morphing back into a giant. The more things he did that were in line with what giants did, the faster his transformation would be.
He gulped.
“How do I resist?”
“There are many methods, actually,” said the old man.
“Name one.”
“Hmmm.” The fellow scratched at the pointy hat. This seemed silly to Gungren, but he assumed it was just something that little old men who wore pointy hats did when they were thinking. “Well, you could try aromatherapy.”
“What that?”
“I think it’s when you smell something bad when you want to do something you shouldn’t be doing.” The man glanced up, raising his hand to block out the sun. “This way your brain manufactures a learned distaste for the thing you shouldn’t be doing.”
“Hmmmm.” Gungren didn’t want to smell bad things. Of course, he had grown up in Restain, which was the land of the giants. They weren’t exactly known for smelling like roses. “I not like that one. What else you got?”
“Meditation is supposed to—”
“The only kind of medertation I does is throwing rocks. What else?”
The man took off his hat and threw it angrily on the ground.
“I don’t know, Gungren! It’s not my job to fix your addictions. It’s my job to tell you to fix them. I have enough trouble keeping my drinking to only magical support.”
A flicker of memory came back at this mention of drinking. “But you drink all the time, Master.”
Master? thought Gungren. This was so very confusing.
“My point exactly,” said the fellow.
“But I want to throw rocks.”
“And you can’t.”
The man picked up his hat and brushed it off. The color of his hair was red, but it was slowly turning to yellow. Gungren thought this was strange, but it offered up another memory that this elderly fellow’s name was Whizzfiddle.
“But I want to,” Gungren said in a grumpy voice.
“No.”
Gungren banged the ground with his overlarge fist.
“It my life and I want to throw rocks!”
“Gungren…”
“I want to throw them!”
“Gungren!”
“I WANT TO THROW—”
“GUNGREN!”
The little giant bolted upright.
He was in bed in his master’s house. It was dark except for the light that was floating just above Whizzfiddle’s hand.
“What happened?” asked Gungren as the dream quickly faded from memory.
“You were having that rock-throwing dream again, I’m afraid,” answered Whizzfiddle.
“Oh.” Gungren was sweating. He sighed sadly. “It getting worse.”
“Indeed.”
“I not know what to do, Master.”
Whizzfiddle patted Gungren on the shoulder and took a deep breath.
It had to have been the middle of the night because the sun wasn’t yet up and Gungren tended to go to bed not long after sundown.
“Let’s go have some tea and see what we can figure out together, shall we?”
“Is that your way of saying you want tea, Master?”
“Of course not,” replied Whizzfiddle as if he’d been slapped. Then he raised his chin a bit. “Okay, maybe, but we should still discuss a plan for your situation.”
Gungren climbed out of bed and followed Whizzfiddle out to the kitchen.
His body still felt strange after the adjustment done to him by the Fate known as Heliok. Gungren was in the midst of a three-part Fate Quest that was to help him become a wizard before the change spell that rested on him reverted. He had only a short window left to finish that third quest and become a card-carrying magic user. If he didn’t succeed in time, he would morph back into a giant. He’d no longer have any interest in doing magic, his thoughts would fill again with dreams of rocks, and everything that he’d learned over his time with Whizzfiddle would dissipate. But Heliok had also been changing Gungren’s looks after he completed each leg of the quest. The first change was to his teeth. They used to be bent, gapped, and yellowy. Now they were big, straight, and glowingly white. His body was once rotund, but it had been changed after completing the second quest to being thin. The only thing that still remained “normal,” in a manner of speaking, was his head. It was bulbous with bushy hair.
The kettle was boiling water as Whizzfiddle pulled out his new TalkyThingy.
“You like that better than the old one?”
Whizzfiddle nodded. “It’s a bit smaller, but not much, so that’s good. It has something called ‘video chat’ on it, too.” He flipped it over and shrugged. “Whatever that is.”
“Am there a manual?”
“Why would I need that?”
“To learn how that thing works,” answered Gungren while pointing.
Whizzfiddle gave him a studious look. He did this whenever he was about to say something that didn’t make any sense. At least that’s what it seemed like.
“Gungren, if you need to read a book on something in order to use it, then it’s not worth having.”
“Uh huh.”
“Besides, if you just press buttons and such it’ll eventually do what it should.”
Whizzfiddle began tapping the little squares on the screen. Apparently, this wasn’t the best idea since the TalkyThingy suddenly started to play the sound of a siren. It was an annoying sound, especially when it hit certain frequencies, and it was a fair bit louder than Gungren would have expected possible from such a small device.
“What in The Twelve is that?” yelled Whizzfiddle as he smacked the TalkyThingy repeatedly. “Shut up, you bloody noisemaker!”
Gungren snapped up the manual and s
tarted scanning the pages. He jumped to the index and found the word “alarm” listed near the top. He then jumped to the page it referenced, grabbed the TalkyThingy from Whizzfiddle, and pressed the red button that showed a little bell on it.
The siren stopped.
“Hmmmph,” said Whizzfiddle, crossing his arms. “I would have figured that out eventually.”
“Yep.”
“Fine.” Whizzifiddle picked up the manual and stuck it in his robe. “I’ll read the blasted book later. For now, let’s talk about your rock-throwing issue.” He briefly looked away. “Maybe there’s a book about that?”
“Could be,” conceded Gungren. “I’ll check tomorrow at the library.”
“Good idea. Aside from that, I would say that maybe you should wear gloves or something.”
There was no studious look this time, but Gungren was suspicious about his master’s idea anyway.
“What would that do?”
“Well, when you go to pick up a rock, you’ll not be able to feel it against your skin. This would serve to remind you that you’re not supposed to be touching rocks.”
“Actually, that not a bad idea, Master.”
Whizzfiddle wore a smug face, clearly feeling rather impressed with himself.
“I do have my moments.”
“But what if it’s just the throwing that I want to do? I mean, I also like to throw apples and tomatoes and stuff.”
His smug face disappeared.
“Valid point.” The elderly wizard started tapping the table with his index finger. “How about if I cast a spell on you that will give you a jolt of electricity every time you pick up a rock?”
“That another good idea.” Gungren was quite impressed, truth be told. “How would that work?”
“Simple. You touch a rock and you’d feel a jolt of electricity.” He shivered as if he were experiencing the feeling himself. “It’d sting something fierce, I can promise you that.”
“That might be a good detergent.”
“I think you mean ‘deterrent.’”
Gungren furrowed his brow. “That what I said.”
“Right.” Whizzfiddle peered up at Gungren from his chair. “Do you want me to do that, then?”
“Please do, Master. I need to keep the giant in me away for as long as I can.”
“Agreed,” Whizzfiddle replied with a vigorous nod. “Just drop a couple shots of whiskey in my tea and I’ll sort it out.”
The Diamond of Jaloof
Heliok knew that time was running short for Gungren. Soon he would be turned back into a full giant and then the three-part Fate Quest would be nothing but a washout. He could undo things himself, obviously, but that would go against the Fate interference code. He could go against that code, too, but that would just raise the ire of The Twelve, and Heliok had no interest in dealing with their incessant whining.
So he had to hurry.
His crew usually helped with these sorts of things. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much going on in Ononokin that would fit the complexity needed to satisfy part three of Gungren’s Fate Quest trilogy.
That’s when he saw the ticker-tape-style bulletin scroll across his data pad.
The Diamond of Jaloof has gone missing from the Museum of Finer Things in the land of Vaq.
Interesting.
Heliok pulled up information on what had happened and found that a petty thief delivered the diamond to a mob boss by the name of Teggins. He was stationed in Dakmenhem.
This got Heliok thinking. Having Gungren go to the Underworld to retrieve the Diamond of Jaloof from a crime syndicate and successfully return it to Vaq’s Museum of Finer Things would indeed be a challenge worthy of his final quest. Possibly too challenging.
He walked out of his office and stood at the top banister, looking down on those who worked for him.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing,” he called out. They did. “I have found the third quest in the series for our dear Gungren. It seems that the Diamond of Jaloof has been liberated from the Museum of Finer Things in the land of Vaq.”
Mooli, a member of his staff who was not the brightest bulb in the cupboard, said, “You mean it was stolen?”
Heliok often wondered how she’d made it this far in the land of the Fates. She was kind and helpful, but her lack of intellect showed at nearly every turn.
“Precisely so,” Heliok replied slowly.
“Do you know where it is now?” asked Lornkoo, another staff member who was Mooli’s perfect associate, at least as far as brains were concerned.
“Of course I do, Lornkoo,” Heliok replied more hotly than was necessary, “and so should you. We’re Fates, are we not?”
Lornkoo’s shoulders slumped. “Oh yeah, right.”
“One of the crime bosses in Dakmenhem has it,” explained Heliok. “His name is Teggins.”
Misty Trealo’s head snapped up at this revelation. She was the dark elf who had been brought up to help Heliok get the Fate’s belief numbers back to a respectable amount. Misty was an executive at The Learning Something Channel in the Underworld of Ononokin. She was producing the show Unreal Makeover: Gift of the Fates. Gungren was the star. The idea was that Gungren would have a part of his person altered over three quests. Then there would be a reveal showing his final look. The people in the Underworld would be so impressed that their belief in the Fates would jump by leaps and bounds. That was the hope anyway.
“So you’re going to send an apprentice wizard into the den of a crime boss in Dakemenhem?” Misty asked as if Heliok were stupid.
“That’s correct.”
“You do realize how dangerous that is, yes?”
“Fate Quests can be rather dicey, Ms. Trealo,” replied Heliok haughtily.
“So is losing the main character in our story for Unreal Makeover, Heliok.”
Heliok shrugged at her. “I admit it’s a risk, but each step of this quest has to progress in complexity, so unless you have something better, I suggest we move along.”
She didn’t reply.
“Good. I shall speak with Gungren immediately then.”
Making It Worse
Whizzfiddle and Gungren stood in the living room.
It had been a while since Whizzfiddle had done a deterrent spell, so he ran over it in his head. Technically, he had never connected the electric shock to someone picking up rocks, but he had once helped a lady who couldn’t stop buying jewelry. Every time she got close to her favorite jewelry store, her eyes would go crossed, making her walk into the local winery instead. A month later she’d asked to have the spell removed because she was tired of waking up with a hangover.
“Are you sure you want me to do this, Gungren?”
“I are.”
“I am,” Whizzfiddle corrected.
“You am what?”
Whizzfiddle had sworn off constantly correcting the little man, but he just couldn’t help himself.
“Never mind. Let’s just get on with it.”
He took a sip from his mug, but the hot liquid burned his lip.
“Still too hot. I’ll just grab a hit from my flask.” He spun open the top and drank in enough booze to fill his reserves. It was a decent hit. “Oooh, that’ll do it.” He cleared his throat and focused. “FLIPS-UM-FLOPS-UM-FLAPS-UM-FLINGS, TOUCH-UM-ROCKS-AND-OUCH-THAT-STINGS!”
A silvery dust fell upon Gungren’s head and slowly sank into his scalp. At least it looked like it did. Whizzfiddle honestly had a difficult time knowing for sure since the little giant had a pretty rough case of dandruff.
“Did it work?” asked Gungren.
“It should have, but I don’t have a rock with me for you to test with.”
Gungren stood up and started for his room. “I got one in my—”
And that’s when the blasted Fate known as Heliok blinked into existence directly in front of Gungren, effectively blocking his way. Whether or not Heliok had planned this was anyone’s guess, but Whizzfiddle wouldn’t put it past the Fate.
“No,” Whizzfiddle replied coldly.
He was not exactly fond of Heliok. The Fate had a way of being a pain. To be fair, Heliok felt the same way about Whizzfiddle. Whizzfiddle knew this because Heliok was not afraid to tell him so.
“Hi, Heliok,” said Gungren with a full measure of excitement. “You am have a new quest for me?”
“Indeed, I do.”
“Am it a good one?”
“Indeed, it is.”
“What am it?”
Whizzfiddle groaned. “What is it, Gungren!”
“I don’t know,” Gungren replied with a squint. “Him not told me yet.”
Whizzfiddle sighed.
“The Diamond of Jaloof has been taken from the Museum of Finer Things,” Heliok announced with a big grin.
Whizzfiddle looked at the Fate. “In Vaq?”
“You’ve been?”
“Sure, I’ve been. Everyone who is anyone knows about the Museum of Finer Things.”
“Then why’d you ask where it was?” Heliok asked. “Is there more than one?”
“Well, no...I just…”
“Right.” Heliok turned back to Gungren. “So, Gungren, your quest is to retrieve the Diamond of Jaloof and return it to the Museum in Vaq.”
“That not sound too hard.”
“Ah, but it will be your most challenging quest yet, my dear boy.”
“Why?”
Heliok’s eyes were glowing happily. That couldn’t be good. Whenever a Fate got all giddy about a quest they were about to dish out, it meant that quest was going to be pretty rough.
“Because,” Heliok explained, “it was stolen by a crime boss in Dakmenhem named Teggins.”
“Teggins?” said Whizzfiddle, spitting out the little amount of tea he’d been able to get past his lips. “Are you insane? He’s one of the most sinister crime bosses in the land. Gungren wouldn’t have a chance against the likes of him and his goons.”
“I can do it.”
“No, Gungren, you honestly can’t.” Whizzfiddle set the cup down and put his hands on Gungren’s shoulders. “We’re not talking about a simple ‘go in and take a jewel back’ kind of thing. Teggins is known for being exceedingly protective over the things he steals. And he’d just as soon kill you as look at you.”
The Ultimate Dragon Fighting Championship Page 1