by Josh Powell
Pellonia said to Arthur, “We choose—“ and Ohm and Pellonia both set their hands on the chests.
Both chests opened, their lids covered in fangs dripping with venom and huge tentacled tongues. The tentacles shot out, wrapping around Pellonia and Ohm’s arms, pulling their arms inside. Gurken, Maximina, and Apocalypse froze, unsure which chest to attack.
Hoots and hollers came from behind. Arthur and the Pellonias were laughing hysterically. Rufus and the man in the silken cloak moved their arms rhythmically and chanted. A sphere of solid blackness rose behind them and they turned, gesturing at it.
The chests bit deeply into Pellonia and Ohm, venom seeping into their veins. Maximina dropped an anvil on the Mimic biting into Pellonia, and Gurken swung his axe, shattering the chest into tiny wooden shards. Apocalypse disgorged a white-hot ball of flame at the other chest, scorching it. Flames licked as the Mimic screamed in pain, releasing Ohm from its wicked bite.
“They’re both Mimics!” Arthur laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. He could hardly breathe. In between gasps for breath, he said, “We… snuck… in here… earlier. While… you were… resting last night. And… took the Sphere. Hahahahaha. It was the Pellonias’ idea… to put the Mimics here… Hahahaha. Oooooooo. That was good. That was really good. Anyway, good luck with the venom. You’ll likely be dead in the next few minutes.”
The Lightning Brigade turned and walked from the room. Arthur led the way, the Pellonias following behind, and Rufus and the man in the silken robe mystically controlling the Sphere and pulling it behind them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Berserker and the Poison
MAXIMINA PULLED TWO potions out of her magical sack, a dark red potion with golden sparkles, and a slightly less dark red one without sparkles. She poured the one with sparkles into Pellonia’s mouth and the one without into Ohm’s.
Pellonia’s eyes fluttered open.
“What… what happened?”
“Save your strength, Pellonia,” Gurken said. “No need to talk now.” He patted her on the head.
“I’m fine,” Pellonia said. “Whatever Maximina gave me seems to have done the trick.”
“My poor brave, deluded Pellonia. I’m afraid that Mimic poison is fatal. You shall be missed.” Gurken rubbed his nose.
Ohm, awake once more but frowning, perhaps because of a decided lack of attention from the rest, said, “I’m afraid Gurken is correct. Mimic poison is fatal to elves.” Ohm began to strum a sad funeral song on his lute.
Maximina rolled her eyes. “Pellonia will be fine. I gave her a universal antidote potion.”
Gurken and Pellonia looked relieved.
“You gave one to me as well?” asked Ohm, smiling.
“Sorry, Ohm. I only had the one. I gave you a potion that delays the onset of poison.”
Ohm’s eyes grew wide.
“If there are universal antidote potions available, why would you carry one that just delays the onset of the poison?” he asked.
Maximina shrugged. “I can think of several scenarios where delaying the onset of a poison instead of curing it would be quite helpful.”
Ohm’s eyebrows scrunched together. “And is this one of those scenarios?” he hissed.
Maximina smiled. “Sadly, no. But it’s what I’ve got.”
“It’s fine,” said Ohm. “Mimic poison affects dragons differently anyway.”
“It doesn’t kill you?” Maximina asked, hopefully.
Ohm shook his head. “No. It won’t kill me.”
“Well, that’s good. What does it do?”
The frown on his face gave way to a lazy smile. “The more immediate affet es entossedification… intossicadation… we geht dronk.”
“I thought the potion was supposed to delay the effects of the poison?” Pellonia asked. “He seems drunk to me.”
“Mahgic pozzions geht dragooooons dronk too. Look at the pretty lights! Do you has any moh pozzions?”
“Great,” Gurken said. “He’s hallucinating. No more potions for the dragon.”
“No. Look,” Pellonia said, pointing down the hall.
A blue light whizzed through the air in the hallway, circling around, as if gesturing for them to follow.
“Ooooooo,” said Maximina, reaching into her magic sack and pulling out a big jar and a crossbow with a net attached to it. “Will o’ the wisps! I’ve been looking for some of those!” She took off running down the hall. Gurken, Pellonia, and Apocalypse followed, Ohm stumbling along in the same general direction.
“That’s a good plan,” Pellonia said to Maximina. “I mean, I want to get back at The Lightning Brigade as much as any of us. But — and I’m just thinking out loud here — where will we get a severed head? I imagine they’re pretty rare.”
It was dark in the caves under Arendal, and Pellonia sat with everyone in a small circle around a jar crammed full of will o’ the wisps. Their faces glowed a bright blue in their combined light.
Maximina looked at Pellonia blankly. “I can’t be expected to come up with all of the ideas,” she said. “It really will work though. Everyone’s heard of the Hand of Venka.”
“I haven’t,” Gurken said.
Ohm dropped his head over to look at Gurken. “Ohh, ets good. The Han of Vekna,” he said, slurring his words. “A myskital… mastical… magic hand of a god. You put it against an arm with a stump, no hand, an it attaches itself. Then, you use et to blow stuff up! Boooom! Buuurp!” A stream of fire emitted from the bard’s mouth as he belched, scorching Gurken’s eyebrows and singing his beard.
“Sorry,” Ohm said. “Et’s deficate… deffcult… hard being a bard-dragon. Harder than I thought. Nobody ‘preciates me anymore. Im’ma get some sleep now.” Ohm lay down, stuffing Apocalypse under his head as a pillow. Apocalypse screeched and dragged himself out from under Ohm’s head, he was indignant, but Ohm was already passed out.
“Rumor has it,” said Maximina, “the last wizard to find the Hand cut off his own hand to attach it.”
“And you think,” Gurken said, “that because that wizard cut off his hand to attach the Hand, when Arthur finds the Head of Venka, he’ll cut off his own head? Doesn’t seem likely.”
“Oh, it’ll work,” Maximina said. “Wizards are quite power mad. The Hand is a powerful artifact.”
“But there is no such thing as a Head of Venka artifact, right?” Pellonia asked.
“Well, no. But there is an Eye of Ve—”
“So why would he think that this is the Head of Venka, when there is no such thing?”
“We’ll have to spread some rumors,” Maximina said, wrapping an arm around the sleeping Ohm. “Fortunately, bards are a rather expert at that. Then, when Arthur cuts off his head, we spring into action! We defeat the rest of The Lightning Brigade, take back the Sphere of Annihilation, and save the world!”
“It’s a terrible plan,” Pellonia said.
“At least it’s a plan,” Maximina said.
“Oh, indeed,” said Gurken. “It has the shape of a plan; it’s specific, and has actual steps for accomplishing the goal. Maximina is an excellent planner.”
Pellonia rolled her eyes. “It isn’t an excellent plan just because there are a sequence of actions that could lead to a goal. That’s the bare minimum to be considered a plan.”
“I never said it was an excellent plan,” Gurken objected. “I only said she was an excellent planner. There’s a distinction.”
“Do you have a better plan?” Maximina asked.
Pellonia sighed. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Good, I even have something else to add, sort of a finishing touch, if you will.”
“There’s more?” Pellonia asked, her voice raising an octave.
Having returned to the surface of Arendal and spent a considerable amount of time in taverns, Ohm was able secure jobs by accepting the establishments offers to play in exchange for exposure. For once, the bard had a use for exposure, that is, to spread rumors about the Head of Venka and
the mystical Sword of Venka which could be used to cut off someone’s head and replace it with Venka’s. As exposed as Ohm was, he still was not able to acquire a suitable patron.
Having set in motion the various rumors, they returned to the dungeons of Arendal and set their trap into motion.
Pellonia watched in the dim light as Arthur entered the room, followed by the rest of The Lightning Brigade. She peeked out, hidden against a wall in the shadows across the room. The “Head of Venka” sat on a pedestal in the middle of the room, the “sword of Venka” on a second pedestal next to it. Gurken, Maximina, Ohm, and Apocalypse were safely tucked away in a side corridor, waiting for her signal.
The room was large enough that Pellonia could just barely see and hear The Lightning Brigade, but could only make out part of what they said.
When they saw the head, they grew quite excited, chattering to each other in rapid succession. Arthur picked up the head, examining it.
“Mumble mumble mumble …has both eyes… mumble mumble,” the wizard said.
Maximina smacked herself in the head, whispering, “We forgot to remove an eye! They’ll never fall for it now!”
“Mumble mumble… grow back… mumble mumble,” said one of his Pellonias. Arthur nodded.
Melody went over and picked up the sword. Maximina stifled a chuckle. There was another round of rapid discussion. Finally Arthur set the head back down on the pedestal and knelt on the floor. Melody walked behind him, raised the sword, and struck Arthur in the neck. Blood spurted and Arthur screamed. His head did not come off cleanly. Melody hacked at the neck once more, twice… the screaming stopped but Melody had to saw at the neck a bit before the head finally came off.
The Pellonias retched, vomiting on the floor.
Pellonia was about to give the signal to charge when amazingly, the remaining members of The Lightning Brigade began to argue and gesture some more. Apparently, Rufus wanted the head for himself. Pellonia drew back into the shadows.
They argued for a few more moments, then the other wizards set the Head of Venka onto Arthur’s headless corpse. It fell off.
There was a lot of hand waving after that, and some shouting. Finally Rufus said, “mumble mumble mumble… waited too long… mumble mumble.” Melody cut his head off, it was cleaner, seeing as she’d had a bit of practice and they quickly stuck the head on his corpse. It fell off, too.
“Seems like a lot of heads falling off of people today,” Pellonia mused.
Seeing that they were down both Arthur and Rufus, Pellonia decided they had a large enough advantage, leapt from the shadows, and yelled “Charge!”
Gurken ran through the hall, followed by Maximina running on the ceiling, Apocalypse sailing through the air, and Ohm jogged behind them strumming his lute.
Maximina pulled to a stop and said, “Oh, no! Gurken, it’s a—”
Gurken slashed his axe into Melody’s head, which wore a a shocked expression on her face. It passed clean through, meeting no resistance. Apocalypse let loose a gout of flame at the three Pellonias. They screamed and covered their heads. The flames passed harmlessly through them. Pellonia lunged at the mysterious man in the cloak, passing through him and landing on the floor with a clatter.
“—n illusion,” Maximina finished. She sighed.
A booming laugh echoed through the halls. “Ha ha ha haahaaahaa. Oh, that’s rich. That’s good. That was delicious, Pellonias.”
“Thank you,” came the sound of three Pellonia voices.
The Arthur with the decapitated head, Melody, Rufus, the three Pellonias and the mysterious man in the silken cloak all vanished. An orb floated in the air above them, beams of light retracting into it. The orb flew over to the hallway entrance where The Lightning Brigade now stood.
“As if I would cut my own head off…” Arthur chuckled. “…in order to gain more power. The Phage…” Arthur pointed to his head, “is in this head. And in this one.” Arthur pointed at Melody. “And here and here and here,” Arthur said, pointing at the Pellonias. “It would be rather self-defeating to cut off our heads when that’s where the Phage reside.”
“Who is this poor fellow anyway? Where did you even get a severed head?” Arthur asked, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
Everyone looked at Maximina. “What? Why is everyone looking at me?”
The Lightning Brigade sauntered over to the pedestal. Arthur picked up the head and studied it.
“Caput Mordent!” Maximina yelled.
The decapitated head’s eyes opened and it bit Arthur’s hand savagely. Arthur screamed and tried to toss the head away, but it maintained a vice-like grip with its teeth. Melody and the Pellonias laughed while Rufus ran over and tried to yank the head off of Arthur… the decapitated head, not Arthur’s head.
Melody walked over and picked up the sword from the other pedestal and struck the head with it. The force of the blow knocked the head from Arthur’s arm, tearing a bit of flesh from Arthur with it. The head landed and split open from the shock of the landing, and the gash opened from the sword’s blow.
“Now you’ve done it,” Arthur said, glaring at Maximina.
Arthur got up off the ground, his eyes narrowed. “You’re… going… to pay… for that!” he bellowed. “Nihil Prius!”
The room, being a fairly large one with hard surfaces all around it, had to this point echoed every noise back at them. The echoes ceased, all sounds dulled, and the little creaks and ticks happening all around them stopped. A black speck appeared in front of Arthur and grew into a dark sphere the size of a small dog. The Sphere of Annihilation.
The Sphere moved through the air slowly towards Maximina, who still clung to the ceiling. It bumped into the pedestals that had recently held the head and the sword and the pedestals crumpled and dissolved, sucked into the sphere. Arthur picked up the biggest chunks of the severed head and lobbed them into the Sphere. The head dissolved when it struck, no sound escaping for anyone to hear. The silence was deafening.
Maximina screamed, or it looked like she was screaming. Her cries did not make it past the Sphere as it inexorably moved towards her. Pellonia jumped up and ran towards Arthur, but the three Pellonias tackled her and held her down. Gurken charged, but the orb of ice fired a bolt at his feet, a solid chunk of ice binding them together.
Maximina backed away along the ceiling, but the Sphere moved ever closer. She took a crossbow from her magic sack and fired it at the Sphere. There was a brilliant flash, but even the flash dissolved and pulled back in on itself and into the sphere. Not even light could deny the Sphere. The Sphere moved forward.
Ohm strummed his lute. It sounded dull and lifeless as the Sphere sucked the vibrations from the air. Apocalypse sat on his shoulder.
Arthur looked at Melody and pointed at Gurken. “Kill him,” Arthur said.
Melody looked at the dwarf and smiled, sword in hand. The dwarf struggled on the ground, feet bound and helpless.
The Sphere drew closer.
Melody raised the sword and…
The Sphere drew closer.
Melody walked right past Gurken, striding towards Ohm.
“What are you doing?” Arthur asked. Distracted, The Sphere momentarily stopped its advance.
“You’ve got it wrong, wizard,” Melody snarled. “The dragons have got to die! They’re our true foe!”
Ohm’s eyes grew wide; he stopped playing and ran. Apocalypse bounced along on his shoulder, emitting an uneven growl as he went.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Pedant and the Plan
“RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR…” APOCALYPSE GROWLED as he bounced on Ohm’s shoulder, pursued by Melody. Melody waved around the sword she took from the pedestal as she gave chase.
“Oh, dear,” Rufus said.
“What is it, Doofus?” Arthur asked. “Can’t you see I’m a little busy now?”
“It’s just that I, uh, I recognize that sword, m’lord.”
“You do? From where?”
“It�
��s the sword I gave to our operative with instructions to give to the dwarf.”
“Not the…”
“The very one, sire. The cursed dragon slaying sword. I’m afraid she’ll be rather occupied for the time being.”
Melody pursued Ohm as he ran in a large circle around the room, flames spewing from Apocalypse in unsteady jets, failing to hit anything of import. “Die, foul beast!” she cried, scurrying after him.
Arthur rubbed his eyebrows with both hands. “Must I do everything myself?” he asked.
“M’lord, I coul—“
“Silence!”
Arthur walked over to the side of the room, not to where Melody was, but to where she would be. As Ohm ran past, Arthur waved a hand and said, “Ostium Apertum!” A shimmering disc appeared in the air, and Melody ran right through it. It closed behind her.
“Now,” said Arthur. “Where were we before being so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes!” He concentrated and the Sphere of Annihilation moved towards Maximina once more.
“Can’t it move any faster?” Gurken asked.
“It’s awfully slow,” Pellonia said. She had ceased struggling against the Pellonias, but they still held her down.
Arthur glowered at them and concentrated even harder, beads of sweat forming on his brow. The Sphere seemed to move ever so slightly faster.
“Maximina,” Gurken shouted, “when it gets too close, just move out of the way!”
“That sounds like a good plan!” Maximina shouted back. “I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it.”
“You’re welcome,” Gurken yelled back.