Anoril
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Leon and the Linus
It was a few days since Leon had died. It was also a few days since he’d come back to life.
There was a pleasant lull over No’bell. All activity had slowed and apart from the occasional patrol unit, Cysero’s Defenders remained in the town. Most of them were still recovering. A lot of Defenders had, like Leon, been killed in the battle and brought back to life by that…thing.
However Leon knew that around the private army of Cysero’s Defenders, peace was just war waiting to happen.
And the war came to Leon while he slept. It was completely silent in No’bell. Even the birds and animals had been silenced. Silenced by them.
“Leon,” a voice hissed through the darkness, “Leon!”
Leon turned over in his sleep. His eyes just opened and just for a second but that was all that was needed to wake him up fully. There, right in front of his eyes was the tip of a long narrow dagger.
Leon climbed out of bed, making as little noise as possible. The dagger had disappeared but Leon could sense that the wielder was still in his room.
“Leon…” it whispered spookily. “Don’t be alarmed. Pleasssse.” The voice had a low yet high quality about it. It was the voice that no one in his or her right mind would trust. And the dagger in the dark didn’t exactly help Leon to feel comfortable. After all ‘A dagger in the dark’ is just a shot from ‘A stab in the dark’.
Leon padded across the floor to switch the light on. “Wait,” said the voice, “Try not to be alarmed when you see me. We’ve met before.”
Leon turned the light on and looked around for the source of the voice. “Little Goblin? Is that you?”
“Yesss,” said the sneevil.
“You look...different.” Leon commented.
“Yesss. They finally made a ninja uniform that can fit a sneevil.”
“Okay, what do you want?” Leon said, “No offense but it is quite late.”
“No to me,” said LG, “But I have a job for you Leon. An assassination.”
Leon gulped, “I’m not killing anybody.”
“Really?” LG smiled, “You didn’t sssseem to mind when you were killing all thosssse poor Yeti.”
Leon protested, “They were mon…”
“Yessss? Oh I ssssee. Jusst because something isss not human it means that you are allowed to kill them?” LG’s smile grew, “Well there’s a elf a few doors down. Perhaps I should pay her a visit.” LG turned to go
“No,” shouted Leon, thinking what Anoril would do if Liaju was harmed. “LG, when you founded Cysero’s Defenders, you said not to kill any human.”
LG’s smile vanished. “No I did not. Anoril made that rule. I would have been perfectly content to kill in the service of Cyseroooo.”
LG spoke again, “It is not a human I’m asssking you to kill anyway.”
“A monster?” Leon asked.
LG’s teeth gritted, “Ah yesss. Here.” LG passed Leon a small drawing of a penguin.
“You want me to kill Linus?” said Leon, scandalized.
“Kill. Incapacitate. Whichever is easiest.” LG jumped down from the bed getting read to go. “It’s not just any Linus. It’s the Linus king we want.”
“Wait.” Said Leon again, “Why me? Why not Anoril? Why can’t you kill him yourself?”
“Well…I think Anoril is…busy. And well…as for mysssefl…all the sneevil assassins have had a go but for some reason we can’t lay a dagger on that sssspecific penguin. It hassss to be you. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Here are the details of where to find the linus. Now go back to sleep.”
The sleeping draught that LG had slipped Leon kicked in. Leon fell into a dreamful sleep. A dream full of Linus’. In the morning he’d be more than willing to kill one.
***
Leon awoke the next day. He wouldn’t even have remembered his meeting with Little Goblin if it weren’t for the twelve-inch dagger stuck into his bedside table. A vision of the small penguin flashed into his head and with it came a surge of rage that he’d never felt before.
Leon looked at the map LG had given to him. Well map is a loose term. It was two houses for No’bell and some green sticks for Surewood. And in amongst the sticks was a small black and white dot, Linus. Obviously Sneevil were no artists.
He crept through the trees. Even though it was mid-day the trees were creepy. Leon imagined small penguins peering out from behind trees, giggling at him.
***
It was roughly an hour after he started he managed to find the linus, or linuses. There was a whole gang of them. All clustered around one linus that was sitting tall on a tree stump with a crown perched neatly on it’s head. Well they looked weak enough. A dozen or so mini butlers, how hard could that be?
Leon strode into the milling mass of Linuses. As one, the penguins moved back. One however wasn’t fast enough. Leon caught it as it waddled away, he punted it far and hard.
As he brought his foot back for another swing he realized what a mistake he’d made. The king linus revealed a small red gun. Leon stared for a second. The linus fired.
Suddenly the whole world was getting much, much bigger. Leon looked about and then up. The grass reached his waist and the throne was now at head height. The linus king was looking down on him. “Uh oh.” He said and ran.
The linus king said simply, “Meh.” The herd of linus gave chase.
***
If a few hours ago someone had told Leon that he’d be 2 inches tall and be running form a herd of chubby penguins he would only have assumed he was speaking with Cysero himself.
But here he was. Running through the grass which on occasion he had to stop to push his way through. Jumping over pebbles. Splashing through trickles of water. How humiliating. Not too mention the herd of Linus chasing him just a few feet away.
He turned back on himself sharply. The linus that was behind him skipped over him. This gave Leon a chance to duck under a small log out of sight. “Phew,” he said without realizing how ridiculous it sounded. Phew? Was everything fixed? Was he back to the right height? No he’d escaped death…for now. But they’d find him.
He had to get back to No’bell. Then he might be able to find Soma or someone who could return him to his right size. But No’bell was ages away. He did a quick calculation in his head. No’bell had been about a mile away when he was the correct size. Now that he was two inches tall it was to him… “Whoa! Damn it!”
***
Leon found an empty hole. At least he thought it was empty. Inside right near the inky blackness lay a huge spider. About the size of a person’s thumb. To Leon it was about the size of a dog. He took care of the insect…arachnid fairly easily, he’d fought bigger after all. He waited till night, listening to the sounds of the world and the linus. “Damn the linus, Damn all the linus!”
“Damn the wha?” said a squeaky little voice.
Leon grabbed his midget sword, “Who’s there?”
The voice replied from the darkness of the night, “I should ask you the same question. I mean…Leon? It can’t be you can it?”
“You know me?” said Leon, bewildered.
“Yeah, it’s me Klye.” A head appeared in the hole. A mouse’s head.
“Oh my god!” was all Leon could say. Klye, how could the Defender’s old mouse have ended up here?
Before Leon could inquire further Klye said, “So um…how come you’re down to my size? I always thought of you as a big man.”
“It was a…” Leon paused, how would it sound to say that a penguin shrunk you?
“Linus? Yeah they’ve been shrinking loads of stuff. This whole area of the forest is getting smaller. Luckily the sneevil are here too.”
“Lucky? How? do what? Yahoo now?” Leon’s brains had pretty much fallen from its casing.
***
It was nearing midnight now and the frost had set in again. Luckily for Leon he had Klye other wise he’d probably have frozen during the night. The mouse enlarged the hole that Leon was spending the night in. Klye explained, “Well you see around these parts in Surewood there’s been an increase in linus power. Sure some say linus are cute but they never see what those little guys get up to when their backs are turned.
Basically you get two types of linus. Regular and Royal. The royal linus are allowed to use the linus weaponry such as the shrink ray they got you with. They also get to wear them hats.”
“A while back there was this one linus. He was a regular one. He was some kind of show pet for some rich gambler person. Well this gambler liked to pamper his linus. Even got a few adventurers to raid a sneevil base and bring back a crown and a shrink ray for the linus. I mean talk about an animal lover.”
“Then the gambler lost it all and the linus escaped. Somehow the pampered little thing managed to survive in the wilderness. Ever since then linus numbers have been growing and other things have been shrinking.”
Leon nodded, “Alright but why did this linus cause the numbers to grow?”
“Well,” the mouse continued, “Before that nobody thought that you could change a regular linus into a Royal linus. But then suddenly you can. There’s a linus rebellion. The regular against the royal. Clans of regular linus all worshipping one royal linus. The linus Monarchy is in dis-array. Nobody’s sure anymore who is pure bred Royalty and who just stuck some hat on their head.”
Leon almost laughed, “Right,” he snorted, “So penguins do have a difficult legal system. You said something about sneevils?”
“The sneevils actually helped us out here. You see the only real difference between the Royal and regular linus are those shrink rays. Well the sneevil stole them. Hid them in their boxopolis. Now there’s limited amount of shrink rays left. So that means less Royal linuses. Now only the linus that belong to adventurers can hope to be given a shrink ray.”
“Klye,” started Leon, “I was sent to assassinate a linus. By a sneevil.”
“Really? That’s interesting I suppose. Well…that would mean that…the rumors are true.”
“Rumors? What rumors?”
“Well I heard from stoat that there was actually a linus that managed to get in and out of the boxopolis without being detected. With all those ninja there…” the mouse paused to think then said, “Did this linus have…was it a royal linus?”
“Yeah…” said Leon slowly.
“Did he have a cohort of other linus about him?”
“Yeah…Why?”
“It makes sense. You’re a linus. Of course you’re going to tag along with the guys that can get hold of ray guns. And it makes sense that this sneevil would want the linus dead. You don’t want an army of linus shrinking your boxopolis into nothing.”
“So then why would LG not just kill the linus himself?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not your concern anymore. We just need to get you biggligated. Atleast then you might be able to handle a penguin in a fight. Go to sleep. I know someone who may be able to help you. I’ll be back by morning.”
***
Klye arrived back in the morning just like he’d promised. With him was a curiously strange looking man with dark skin and a turban. “He’s in here” squeaked Klye to the man, gesturing to the hole.
Leon was wakened by Klye’s squeaky voice. He climbed out of the hole.
“Ah here is our little man!” the man’s voice was accented to say the least. He offered hand to Leon who grudgingly climbed on. “Ah yes, a linus attack for sure. I is sure I can fix! My name by the way is Ali. Ali Salman.” Ali walked over to a cart and began rummaging around in it. “Ah yes here it is!” Ali pulled out a gun identical to the linus ray but blue. “Before I fix you, you make purchase yes?”
“What?” said Leon incredulously.
“You buy from my stall!” Ali said in a smiley voice.
“Look pal. I have no money that’s actually of legal size.”
“Okay I biggligate you if you promise to make purchase!”
“What? Okay fine just put me back!” said Leon frantically.
Ali aimed the gun at him, fired and stood back. Suddenly the world seemed to shrink around Leon. He was growing, growing…grown. In fact Leon felt like he’d over shot by a few centimeters.
“Thanks doc.” Said Leon to Ali Salman.
“You make purchase!” said Ali.
“Fine. Give me that…cape,” said Leon pointing to a cape on Ali’s moving stall. Ali handed over the cape and took his money. “Thank you,” said Leon.
“Not a problem!” said Ali, turning to go, “Please visit my store again. Ali left.
“Now,” said Leon turning to Klye, “About the linus problem…”
“No, you have more important matters to attend to. In No’bell. I’ll carry on here. See you around Leon.”
The mouse scurried away, Leon watched him go and wished him well, before making his way back to boring old No’bell. If he ran he could still catch the breakfast in McDrakels.
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