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Inkwolf -> RE: Valley of the Zards (11/24/2013 11:16:16)
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Chapter 2
The heat of the jungle struck Kyber like a blast from Cysero’s forge as she warped to Miele’s side, the rhison skins she wore riffling in the humid breeze. For once she felt grateful for the amount of skin the Horc Evader uniform left bare.
“Oh, good, you’re here!” said Miele. “Have you got everything you’ll need?”
“I think so. Twelve suits of armor, sixteen assorted weapons, various changes of helm, cape and underwear, a couple of hundred scrolls, and a lot of odds and ends I happened to pick up and am not sure I should get rid of.” A sneeze and a burst of dust exploded from the pack’s opening. “Oh, and Mister Puffinstuff, of course. You gotta love these weightless, invisible backpacks, right? I wonder how they work.”
“It’s magic,” Miele explained, and turned to speak to the Skyguard captain beside her, ignoring Kyber’s mutter of, “Well, duh!”
“Thank you so much for flying me out here, Captain,” Miele said.
The captain gave her a charming smile and touched his cap. “We will return to pick you up at the end of the day. In the meantime, my crew will be conducting a survey of this region from the air, so that a permanent warp point can be installed.” He handed Miele a chunky brass pistol and a box of cartridges. “If you are in any danger and need us to come get you, please fire one of these flares. But I’m sure you will be perfectly safe with Kyber and Silverfang protecting you.” The captain reached down to pat the lion, and pulled his hand back hastily as Silverclaw snapped at it.
“Nearly got a finger that time,” Kyber commented. “Bad boy, Silver! Slow reflexes like that will get us killed in battle.” Looking ruffled, the Captain went aboard the airship without another word. Miele and Kyber watched the magnificent vessel rise to the sky and sail off through the clouds.
“I wonder,” said Kyber as the ship disappeared over the ridge, ”how hard it would be to get some Skyguard training…”
Miele sighed. Her face was filled with gloom, and Kyber wasn’t certain whether it was the quest, the feeling of being isolated in the wilderness, or just the sudden departure of the handsome Skyguard captain that was depressing her.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road,” Kyber said, clapping her on the back. “First things first. Have you ever handled a firearm before?”
“Well, no,” Miele admitted.
“Best you give that flare gun to me, then,” Kyber said. She reached for it, but Miele snatched it back and hugged it to her chest protectively.
“NO! I mean, no, I’d better hang on to it. The captain entrusted it to me, and anyway, I’m the leader of the mission, right? Anyway, you’re not exactly known for your sophisticated weaponry skills,” she added, casting a dismissive glance at Kyber’s Treant-log club. It glared back with silent malevolence. “Have YOU ever used a firearm?”
“Of course I have!” said Kyber indignantly. Why, she had flattened the heads of six dwarves with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun in a bar fight at Inn Ternet last Mogloween! However, she had never even seen a gun with actual projectiles before. This might be her only chance to ever fire one. “At least let me carry it. To be certain it doesn’t go off accidentally, or explode, or something.” Of course, it WOULD go off accidentally. Sort of accidentally.
“I’m sure it won’t,” said Miele firmly. She slipped the rounds into her backpack, polished her fingerprints off the pistol with a handkerchief, and put it away as well. “So clean and…and shiny,” she said with a sigh.
Pooh, she likes it, thought Kyber. I’ll never get my hands on it. Out loud she said, “Well, then, what’s my first quest?”
“First quest?” said Miele blankly. “Oh. Um, your first quest is to find the orb and see if it’s damaged, and if it isn’t, bring it back, and if it is—“
“Whoa, one thing at a time,” said Kyber. “I can tell you haven’t done this before. So, I’ll go out and find it, and report back to you, and then you can tell me what you want me to do next.”
“Seriously? Isn’t that tedious, time-wasting and inefficient?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s how I get my daily exercise,” said Kyber. “Running laps between quest and NPC keeps me fit, healthy and in peak aerobic condition.”
“If you say so. You’ll like Thunderforge. There are lots of stairs.”
“Awesome! My buns could use some tightening.”
“So,” said Miele. “The quest—“
“I’m on it!” said Kyber, and loped away through the thick tropical foliage. She was back in thirty seconds.
“That was quick,” said Miele. “Did you find it already?”
Kyber shook her head. “I think we have a little problem.” She led Miele through the jungle to the edge of a precipice. A deep ravine split the ridge. Far below, a fluming white river ran over rocks that could barely be seen from this height, but which Kyber suspected were hard and pointy.
“Quest?” Kyber prompted, after Miele had stared blankly at the gorge for several minutes.
Miele started. “Oh, my. I don’t suppose you could jump across?”
“It’s remotely possible,” said Kyber. “It’s also remotely possible that Michem might one day give me that Paladin Loremaster armor he’s always dangling over my head, but I’m not betting my life on it. Oh, and before you ask, yes, I do have several pairs of wings in my backpack, but I have not noticed a tendency to take off when wearing any of them.”
“Oh, my,” said Miele again.
After several more minutes of waiting, Kyber said, “I have an idea. Let’s fire the flare gun and get the skyship back here to fly us over.”
“No,” said Miele.
“I’ll fire it, if you’re afraid,” said Kyber innocently. “Guns are loud and smelly, and you won’t want it getting soot and smoke and powder burns all over your nice, clean, white robes…”
“I said, no,” said Miele. “Skyguard has their job to do, and we have ours.”
“Fine,” said Kyber. “We should summon Warlic, then, and he would probably help us out, what with the universe possibly ending and all. He’ll have to come sooner or later anyway, to set the official warp point.”
“NO, no Warlic summoning! I told you--”
“Then what do we do next?”
“Give me time to think!” Miele snapped. “I haven’t led a quest before!”
“Sorry!” Kyber held her hands up and backed away. She settled down on the edge of the gorge and looked down. “This would me a great place for a bungie jump,” she muttered. “I’ll have to talk to Artix about it. I’m sure he’d want to try it.” She lay back and looked up at the clear sky, through the waving palm leaves and forest branches. Exotic birds called and fluttered from limb to limb.
A muffled sneeze came from within her backpack. “Hey, Mister P, you should come out here and enjoy the view,” Kyber said. “You’d like this place.”
The dust bunny peered out of the backpack, with a bitter, suspicious stare toward where Silverclaw was rolling in the dirt, flattening the underbrush.
“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s a meat lion. He doesn’t eat dust. Come on out.”
After another moment of hesitation, Mister Puffinstuff slipped out of the backpack. He took a hesitant, wary hop, watching Silverclaw from the corner of one eye. The lion ignored the dust bunny, yawned, stretched, and started licking one paw.
Mister Puffinstuff took a few more cautious, experimental hops. “See, isn’t this nice?” said Kyber. “The three of us, getting along peacefully. Like a family.”
The dust bunny looked up at the forest canopy. He sniffed an exotic flower. A few hops further on, he nuzzled a colorful tropical butterfly, dodged when it took flight, and relaxed. He hopped a few more times, and stopped to nibble a tasty plant. He took a hesitant hop toward Silverclaw.
With the speed of an aether serpent, Silverclaw slammed a taloned paw down on the little creature. Dust exploded in all directions from the impact, re-integrating a moment later into the hapless bunny, who streaked back into the backpack with a single leap, slamming the zipper closed behind him.
“Mister Puffinstuff!” Kyber cried. “Are you all right?” She struggled with the zipper and finally managed to open the backpack and look inside. “Mister Puffinstuff? Awwwww, I’m sorry, Puffles. I really didn’t think he’d…um, what are you doing? Are you gnawing on my Paladin gear, now? Ah, come on, dude, I paid ACs for that sword…”
“Kyber?”
“Eh?” Kyber looked up. Miele stood there with a look of eager triumph on her face.
“I have your first quest,” said Miele. “We’re going to build a bridge! I need you to bring me the lumber from twelve treeants!”
“Right,” said Kyber, standing up. “That’s more like it. Will any treeant do, or does it have to be that weedy sapling at the farm?”
“Doomwood treeants!” said Miele. “They have the toughest wood. Can you handle it?”
“Yeah, their bark is worse than their bite,” said Kyber. “And that’ll give me another chance to try for the Loremaster armor, too. Come on, Silverclaw, I’m going to show you the biggest scratching posts in Doomwood. And we’re going to discuss your manners.”
It was a routine assignment, and soon Kyber was back with six stacks of boards, a shiny new Lightguard token, and (surprise, surprise) no Paladin Loremaster armor.
“Next,” said Miele, “I need you to bring me six vine whips from the Wisteria in the—“
“Guru forest,” Kyber finished. “Stop pouting, Silverclaw, I’m sure we’ll eventually attack something meaty you can have for lunch. Off we go.” She warped out, and after a very gory (or rather, very veggie-juicy) battle, she returned with the requested whips.
“And now,” said Miele, “I need you to go to the Natatorium. It’s been said that they’ve developed a miracle fertilizer made from liquefied seaweed and kraken spit, and we need at least seven bottles. You ought to be able to get them from the Merdraconians.”
“By asking politely, no doubt.”
“If that works. If not, wallop them with that tree branch of yours and sic the lion on them. Everyone says you’re good at it. Really good.”
Kyber sighed. “Sometimes it’s hard for a Good character to justify the means we use. Can’t I take a shovel to the Rhison pens in Bloodtusk instead? Kitty doesn’t like getting wet.” Silverclaw huddled pathetically and mewed.
“Who’s in charge of this quest chain?” Miele demanded. “Natatorium, on the double.”
“Fine,” Kyber said, and warped away. This quest took a considerable amount of time, as very few of the Merdraconians seemed to be carrying the fertilizer, and those who did usually failed to protect the fragile glass vials from being shattered by the grouchy log Kyber was dusting them with.
Finally she returned to the jungle ridge, her clothes and hair sodden and dripping. Silverclaw looked even more miserable, his mane hanging limp and shedding a small river, and the wet fur giving the impression that he had been reduced in size and weight by a quarter. He growled and grumbled, wet whiskers dripping with outrage.
“Oh, hush,” said Kyber. “Most cats LIKE seafood.”
Silverclaw shook himself, dousing Kyber in a new deluge of water as Miele approached. “Wonderful, you got the fertilizer!” she said. “I have your next quest, whenever you’re ready. Those vine whips are made from preserved Wirevine seedlings. We need each of them to sprout and grow to hold the bridge together. I’ve planted the seedlings already. Please dose them with the miracle fertilizer…when you’re ready, that is.”
“I’m ready,” Kyber said, tucking loose strands of wet hair back under her Horc headband. “This sounds like one of those easy quests, anyway.” She pried the corks out of the bottles and poured the stinky mixture on each of the whips Miele had planted near the edge of the ravine.
The reaction was incredible. At once the whips began to leaf out, grow and spread. Miele quickly began weaving the growing vines around the treeant boards. The beginning of a bridge waved in the air and started to stretch over the gorge.
“Can I help?” Kyber asked.
“No, it’s okay. I know what I’m doing,” said Miele. “Oh, wait, I do have a quest for you. Return to the Temple of the Sisters of the Dishpan Hands and fetch me a double cappuccino. Pumpkin spice with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and no socks.”
“And…that’s a quest item, vitally important to our mission to save the world?” Kyber inquired.
“Yes,” said Miele firmly. “I think better with caffeine.”
“Okay,” said Kyber. “But I suspect you’re abusing the NPC/Hero relationship, here.”
Some time later, Kyber returned to the ridge. By now she was dry, though battered looking. “Got it. You wouldn’t believe the quest chain Cleric Joy made me go through to get this, though. And then—oops! I’m sorry!”
Miele stared in horror at the spattered brown stain on her otherwise pristine robes for an instant, then cast a quick cleaning spell. “No harm done,” she said, sipping the hot cappuccino. “First spell they teach us at the Temple.”
“Oh, good,” said Kyber. She looked at the vine and board construction spanning the gorge. “Nice bridge! Are you ready to go?”
“Wait.” Miele continued sipping the cappuccino as Kyber tested the strength of the newly-grown bridge. The vines appeared to be strongly rooted on both sides of the gap, and had sunk thorns deep into the wooden planks. The fresh green wood was also sprouting twigs and leaves, and growing new bark. The entire bridge was alive.
“Nice work,” Kyber said. “I’ll have to get some of that fertilizer for Andre.”
Miele downed the last dregs of her cappuccino, looked around for a trash pail to deposit it in, sighed, and cast a cleaning spell on the cup before tucking it into her backpack. “Okay, I’m ready!”
Silverclaw bounded onto the bridge, and Miele followed. Kyber took the rearguard position, and was halfway across when she heard a familiar noise.
“Okay, Mister P, what are you chewing on now?” she asked, peering into the backpack.
But the gnawing sounds weren’t coming from the backpack. It took Kyber a few moments to locate the source of the sound, and when she did, her eyes widened.
“Mister P, NO!” she shouted, running back. The dust bunny, a furious light of rebellion in his eyes, was gnawing the vines that anchored the bridge. Silverclaw came charging back over the bridge, nearly knocking Miele over the side.
“RUN!” Kyber shouted to the cleric. Confused, Miele came running after her. “THE OTHER WAY! THE OTHER WAY!”
But it was too late. Just as Silverclaw gathered himself for a final leap that would have sent the treacherous bunny dispersing into clouds of dust, Mister Puffinstuff gave the vine a final, fierce bite, and it snapped. The remaining vines gave way under the weight of running adventurers, and Kyber’s last sight, as they fell, was of a triumphant Mister Puffinstuff, twitching his ears with righteous wrath.
To be continued!
( Discussion thread)
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