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Valley of the Zards

 
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11/19/2013 23:00:08   
Inkwolf
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Valley of the Zards—An Adventurequest Worlds story

A cold wind whistled through the stones of the imploded cathedral. Kyber Moonbow shivered, pulled her rhison hides closer around her, and stuck her feet under the warm white lion beneath the table. Silverclaw growled slightly, but didn't stop gnawing the lemurphant shank bone.

"We're going to have to do something about this place before winter," Kyber said, looking at the gaps in the stone walls. "Like maybe renting an apartment in the Sandsea."

There was a disapproving sneeze from under the bed, and a cloud of dust emerged, to be swept away by the wind.

Wap! Wap! Wap! From outside came the sound of repeated impact against stone.

"That blasted moglin has taken up handball now," Kyber muttered. "Well, it's less annoying than basketball. Remember all the racket when he kept throwing rocks in the old cauldron? Bong, bong, bong--I had headaches for weeks." Another puff of dust gusted from under the bed.

Wap! Wap! Wap!

Silverclaw snarled.

More dust spurted out, followed by another angry sneeze.

"Don't blame me, Mister P," Kyber said. "I did my best to train you to be a battle pet when I made Horc Evader, but you just sat there and let me be mauled by that dragon!"

Wap! Wap! Wap!

"And stop sneezing at me!"

There was silence under the bed. Then came the sound of gnawing.

Wap! Wap! Wap!

"And no more chewing on the bed!" Kyber shouted. "It's held together with vines as it is!"

Wap! Wap! Wap!

"All right, moglin," Kyber growled, charging out through the broken walls. "You like sports, lets see how you like being punted--oh!"

It was not the pesky moglin in the yard. Kyber skidded to a halt in front of a dark-skinned woman in a white cloak, who was nervously knocking on the stone wall near the doorway.
" Miele!" Kyber recognized the visitor. "How have you been? How are things over at the Sisterhood of the Dishpan Hands?"

"It's good to see you again, Kyber," Miele said. "Everyone is well at the temple...but...I need your help."

"Well, don't just stand there, come on in. I'll make you some tea." Kyber led the way into the dilapidated ruin, but Miele hesitated.

"Don't worry," said Kyber. "I know the place looks like it's about to cave in, but magic holds it up. So far."

"It isn't that. Your...your pet. Is he...is he..."

"Silverclaw won't hurt you. He's very well trained. I'm just giving him some exercise while Xavier Lionfang's in the dungeon."

"Oh, lions," said Miele dismissively. "I didn't mean Silverclaw. What about the...the..." Her voice lowered to a strained whisper. "The...dust bunny."

"No need to worry. Mister Puffinstuff has been hiding under the bed since I brought Silverclaw home," Kyber told her. "He won't come out."

"Poor thing, I suppose he's afraid."

"No, just sulking. Come on in."

Cleric Miele entered the derelict cathedral, and Kyber hastily kicked a few of Silverclaw's chewed bones under the bed, where Mister Puffinstuff received them with another offended sneeze, and kicked them back out. Remembering how fussy the Sisters were about cleanliness, Kyber sat downwind, as Miele placed a handkerchief over the seat of the splintery chair and sat on it.
"Tea?" Kyber offered. Miele glanced at the single unwashed cup, and declined politely. "Well, what is it you need my help with?"

Miele's eyes filled with tears--or perhaps they were just watering from the cold wind, or the clouds of enraged dust coming from under the bed. "I've lost something, and need a hero to find it for me."

"Will the mission involve a series of mindless tasks which involve repetitively slaughtering innocent monster bystanders in large numbers?"

"Probably."

"Bring it on.”

“I knew I could count on you, Kyber! At least—I hoped.”

“So, what’s the trouble?”

Miele sighed, and sat silently for a few moments. Finally she said, "It's a long story. Let me show you a cut scene."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Temple of the Sisters of the Dishpan Hands.

A group of the temple clerics huddle anxiously around a complicated mechanism. Cleric Citra presses several buttons. Cleric Ivory pulls a lever. A small explosion occurs. Steam and goo ooze from cracks in the machine.

Cleric Dawn: Alas! We have failed! I fear that this device will never function correctly again. The survival of the Sisterhood is in the balance, and if we disband, the impact on all of Lore can only be--

Cleric Joy: Don't despair yet. There is still hope. I understand that the Blue Mage Warlic has a magical orb of incredible power which may be the key to repairing the Sacred Caffomovar. A Skyguard ship is in town on a mission. I will ask the captain to take someone to Battleon and fetch the device.

Cleric Miele: I will go! Where is this ship?

Cleric Casca'de: Why not just type /join batt--

Other clerics: SHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Cleric Joy: Good luck, Cleric Miele! All our hopes go with you!

-------------------------------------------------------

Battleon: The Magic Shop

Warlic the Blue Mage holds a shiny, translucent globe. Oddly colored lights skitter across its surface and within its heart.

Warlic: You must very cautious with this.

Cleric Miele: I understand.

Warlic: I don't think you do. This object is unique and mysterious, and I have had very little time to study it. It was discovered floating in the time void. It has both magical and etheric energies pulsing within it, in incredible amounts. I sense that it somehow connects the time void, the elemental plane, the physical plane, and the etheric plane. If it were to be damaged or destroyed, it is possible that our entire universe might simply be unmade. Possibly even all universes. The safety and protection of this item is of unspeakably vital importance.

Cleric Miele: I'll try not to drop it.

Warlic: Okay, here.

----------------------------------------------

The Temple of the Sisterhood of the Dishpan Hands


Cleric Miele: Cleric Joy, I have brought the object of power!

Cleric Joy: Good work, Cleric Miele! But we no longer need it. Cysero dropped by, and fixed the Sacred Caffomovar.

Cleric Dawn: It occasionally extrudes socks, but the cappuccino is actually better than ever. The sisterhood will survive after all!

Cleric Miele: Thank goodness! I know I could never live without my morning caffeine. I will return the Orb of Vague Powers to Warlic.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Aboard the Skyship Ebullient


Cleric Miele: Thank you so much for taking me back to Battleon. Warlic will want the Orb of Vague Powers back in his care as quickly as possible.

Skyguard Captain: No problem, the Skyguard exists to serve the kingdom!

(The ship shakes)

Cleric Miele: What was that?

Skyguard Captain: (Looking through telescope) It felt like a sonic impact. But where did it--SKY PIRATES! We are under attack! Battle stations, everyone!

(Cleric Miele clutches the orb as the ship lurches and spins.)

Skyguard Captain: They have a wind elemental! And it's HUGE!

(The giant elemental churns the air, and the ship spins, helpless and out of control. Miele screams as the wind pulls her off her feet and nearly sucks her over the side--only grabbing the railing saves her from flying off the ship. Lightning flashes and rain spatters the deck as the sky pirates prepare to board.)

Pirate Captain: Har har har! Ye thought you could outrun Cap'n Windy Wiggums, did ye? BOARD HER, SCALAWAGS!

(The pirates swing over on ropes, only to be sucked into the whirlwind.)

Pirate Captain: What the--? I thought ye had that thing under control!

Pirate Mage: I seem to be experiencing..er..some technical difficulties...

Pirate Captain: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!

(The pirate ship is pulled into the air elemental where it spins and twists out of control, breaking into pieces.)

Pirate Captain (spinning in the air) Ye've not seen the last of Windy Wiggums, ye Skyguard groundlubbers! AAaaaaaaaaa!

Skyguard Captain: Quickly, veer to starboard!

(The ship breaks free of the elemental and moves away.)

Cleric Miele: Are we safe? Where are we, Captain?

Skyguard Captain: That elemental blew us far off course. We are flying over uncharted territory!

Skyguard Lieutenant: Captain, damage to the ship was severe, but if we are careful and lucky, we can make it back to Battleon in a week or two.

Cleric Miele: A week or two?!

Skyguard Captain: There is no helping it. If we stop for repairs or deviate from course, the ship may go down. Lieutenant?

Skyguard Lieutenant: Yes Captain?

Skyguard Captain: Stop humming that Voltaire song and get us moving.

Cleric Miele: A week or two! I have to guard the orb for a week or two! If only I had thought to fill a few canteens with cappuccino before leaving the temple…

(Suddenly the ship is jolted. The Orb of Vague Powers flies out of Miele’s arms and over the rail.

Skyguard Captain: What was that? More pirates?

Skyguard Steersman: No, sir! A strange flying beast collided with the ship!

Skyguard Captain: Beast? What kind of beast?

Cleric Miele: That doesn’t matter! I dropped the orb! If it is damaged when it hits the ground, THE UNIVERSE MAY COME TO AN END!!!!

Skyguard Captain: ….

Skyguard Lieutenant: (Puts his fingers in his ears.)

Cleric Miele: What good do you think THAT will do?

Skyguard Lieutenant: What? I can’t hear you…

Cleric Miele: Captain, you MUST stop the ship! If the orb has landed safely, we must retrieve it! If it was damaged, we may be able to repair it!

Skyguard Captain: I’m sorry, but the collision has made the ship even more unstable. Stopping is out of the question.

Miele: But the orb---

Skyguard Captain: --will not be helped by an airship falling on top of it. I promise you, as soon as we reach the skyport, we will dispatch a vessel to bring you back and retrieve it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So,” Kyber said. “Do you have any idea at all where the orb is?”

“Certainly. The Skyguard made a map for me, pinpointing the general area in which the orb fell overboard.” Miele pulled out a parchment covered in crisp lines, neatly lettered coordinates and, for some reason, drawings of gears. “From the airship, it seemed that the area was a valley between volcanic ridges, covered by deep jungle.”

“It won’t be easy to find that orb, and if it’s damaged, you ought to have a good wizard to contain the damage,” said Kyber. “Maybe we should let Warlic know—“

“Oh, NO!” Miele’s eyes widened in horror. “I can’t tell Warlic! He TRUSTED me with that orb! What will he think of me? We absolutely, positively MUST bring the orb back safely ourselves, without Warlic knowing.”

Kyber’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You don’t have…a THING for Warlic, now, do you? A little crush? A mad passionate desire for the Blue Mage?”

“What?” asked Miele. “No! Seriously?”

“Good,” Kyber nodded. “I’ve got dibs, then.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Let’s go."

(To be continued.)

Discussion thread


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 1/16/2014 8:00:26 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 1
11/24/2013 11:16:16   
Inkwolf
Member

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)

< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 11/24/2013 11:31:35 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 2
11/29/2013 17:54:15   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 3

The sound of the churning river was silenced for an instant as Kyber crashed through the water to the maelstrom of bubbles below. She kicked her way to the surface and sucked in a gulp of air as the rushing current tumbled and swept her through the rocks. They were not pointy as she had feared. They were round and smooth and covered by slimy algae. Each time she desperately tried to halt her wild river ride by grabbing at one of the boulders, her hands simply slid off.

Occasionally she saw a flash of brighter white which she hoped might be Miele or Silverclaw, but she was spun around, slammed into a rock, or pulled under by the current before she could be certain.

At last the river widened and slowed, the surrounding cliffs giving way to sandy slopes. Kyber struggled for the shore as she saw Silverclaw dragging his sodden pelt onto dry land.

Kyber had barely managed to stand in the shallows before Miele was swept by, sputtering and gasping. Kyber grabbed her arm and tugged the cleric toward the bank. They staggered out of the river, coughing and dripping.

"I have never been so wet in my life!" Miele said, trying to wring some of the water out of her tattered, slime-streaked robes.

"What do you have to complain about?" Kyber grumbled, pulling riverweed out of her hair and carefully probing her bruises. "I was just starting to get dry from the LAST dunking." Silverclaw shook himself, showering the two women with a deluge of muddy river water.

"Well, we aren't likely to be able to get back up the river and up the cliff," Kyber said, looking around. Beyond the sandy bank was a small clearing surrounded by thick jungle. "We'll set up camp here, and once we're rested, we can start the search for the Whatsis Orb."

"The Orb of Vague Powers." Miele sneezed, searching her pockets. "Where is that handkerchief? I know I packed an extra."

"But we should probably let the Ebullient know where we are, just in case they go looking for us," Kyber added. "Let's have the flare gun, I'll signal them."

"It's for emergencies," said Miele. "This isn't one, yet."

"Doesn't not having a spare hanky count as an emergency in Dishpan Hand Land?"

Miele glowered.

Kyber saw her treeant club floating by and charged back into the river to grab it. She frowned as she carried it back to shore. "Odd. This feels like the right branch, but there's not a face on it any more. It's just a plain old wooden club."

"Maybe it will go back to abnormal when it dries out," Miele said.

"I hope so. I can't tell which side to hold up, so that it doesn't crack when I whack someone with it."

Straightening up and pushing her hair back, Miele spoke. "Okay, Kyber, your next quest is to gather some nice, dry firewood, so we can dry out."

There was a roar from the jungle, and some strange, menacing squawks.

"I don't mind scouting," said Kyber hastily. "But I don't want to leave you here, unarmed and with no protection. Let's fire off a flare and get that nice, attractive Captain What's-his-name here to look after you while I go questing."

"Out of the question," Miele said, but Kyber thought she detected just a hint of wistful hesitation.

"Ooookay," she said. "Then let's summon somebody to back you up. Maybe Cleric Dawn or Cleric Joy...or Warlic."

Miele looked more horrified at every name mentioned. "Let's not," she said. "They are all very busy people, and we don't want to bother them with our little problems."

"Little problems? The possible end of Lore? The potential destruction of the universe?"

"Oh, all right," said Miele. "When you put it that way, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to signal Captain Cogburn."

After a few moments of waiting patiently, Kyber said, "Well? Flare gun, please."

"I...I can't find my backpack," said Miele.

"Oh, come on!" said Kyber. "They're magic, remember? They don't get lost!"

"Well, maybe the river is magical, and swept it away somehow," said Miele. "Don't argue with me, I say I can't find my backpack, and I MEAN it."

"Um..." Kyber scratched her head nervously. "I don't actually seem to have mine, either."

They stared at each other in consternation.

"Wait a a minute. Cast a spell," said Kyber.

"What kind of spell?"

"ANY kind of spell. How about a cleaning spell? You're covered with slime and mud and riverweed, and knowing you," said Kyber, "I can't believe you haven't already cast three or four of them."

"I've been trying!" Miele said, her voice rising to a shrill tone. "Nothing is happening!"

"That shouldn't be possible. Magic can't just...stop." Could it? Kyber felt a chill that had nothing to do with her wet Horc clothing.

"It must be because of the Orb of Vague Powers," said Miele. "Somehow it's made the valley non-magical. Maybe the effect will spread--Warlic said that the orb might destroy all of Lore!"

"Well, yeah, you mentioned that," said Kyber. "But I didn't take it too seriously. I mean, dearly as I...respect Warlic, he DOES say that sort of thing a lot. He said it about Etherstorm, and he said it about that underground mana creature, and he said it about--"

"Yes, and all those times Lore was in jeopardy!"

"Well, it wasn't all that hard to save it," Kyber muttered. "Okay, okay, let me get some firewood. It shouldn't be too hard to light a fire without magic. You stay here, and keep a watch for the Ebullient, and try to flag them down."

Kyber walked into the jungle. There were plenty of fallen branches, and she soon had an armful. The light flickered down greenly through the leaves, and calls of strange birds and unknown creatures sounded eerily in the silence.

A scream came from the riverbank. Kyber dropped her bundle of wood and ran for the beach. Bursting out of the foliage, she saw a large, blobbish, reptilian creature lurching out of the river toward Miele. The unarmed cleric was scrambling for rocks to throw at the dragon-sized beast.

Whistling for Silverclaw, Kyber hurled herself at the monster, swinging her treeant club. It connected with the blubbery beast with a dull thump instead of its usual satisfying thwack. She struck the creature again, but it was concentrating on Miele, and paid her no attention. Kyber changed her attack from randomly smacking the creature's rubbery hide to a direct aimed blow on the monster's eye.

The thing bellowed, and snapped at Kyber. Its toothy maw seemed to split half its body from front to back. Kyber barely dodged, and landed another blow on the thing's nose.

The monster released a blast of fetid, moist air and water from its nostrils. The powerful jet knocked Kyber off her feet and rolled her through the sand, sending the wooden club flying. Ignoring Miele's stream of hurled rocks, the nightmarish reptile heaved itself after Kyber, opening its jaws.

Silverclaw hit it in the face. Spitting out the small animal he had just captured in the jungle, the lion raked the monster with four sets of claws, then leaped away and bit at one of the beast's fin-like paws. The monster bellowed in rage and pain, a sound like mighty battle horn blowing.

"Well done, Silver," Kyber shouted. Snatching up the club, she returned to the fight, calling attack instructions to the battle pet, though Silverclaw seemed hardly to need it. Under the barrage of rocks, wood, tooth and claw, the creature decided it had had enough, and turned back toward the river. Kyber hastened its departure with a final blow on its fin-tailed backside, shouting, "And the seahorse you rode in on!"

The beast slipped under the flowing water, disappearing for a moment, then resurfacing as nothing more than a scaly, dark bump. It gave another hornlike call, and answering hoots came to it. Other bumps began to appear, some drifting from up the river, others simply rising to the surface.

"I've decided that the riverbank is not the best place for our base camp after all," said Kyber, turning toward the jungle. Her companions were already running.


To be continued!

( Discussion thread)


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 1/11/2014 16:38:13 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 3
12/5/2013 18:27:34   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 4

Kyber was grateful when Miele stumbled to a halt, collapsing exhausted on the forest floor. She dropped beside the cleric, gasping, "It's probably safe to rest now."

"What was that thing?"

"I've never seen anything like it before," Kyber admitted. "It looked like it was part whale and part lizard. We're probably safe calling it a whalezard."

"We're probably safe calling it nasty!" said Miele. "Did you get a whiff of its breath? Ow!" The cleric smacked at her neck. A tiny green creature dropped to the earth, then buzzed away.

"The mosquitos are tough here," Kyber observed.

"And strangely leathery," said Miele, slapping another.

Kyber felt a tickling on her bare knee. She looked down to find a scaly green ant crawling across her leg. Overhead a pair of leathery things fluttered, squawking.

A sudden sense of danger made her stand up and stare at a spot where the ferns were quivering. "Miele, I think we should--"

She cut off as a large creature reared up out of the underbrush. It was snakelike, with fiercely taloned paws, and hissed at her through a mouthful of enormous, curved teeth. Kyber brought her club up to wallop its lower jaw, causing the reptile to wince as its teeth smacked together. She whistled as she swung again, and dodged a slash of claws. By the time Silverclaw came roaring to her aid, the creature had had enough, and slithered away hastily under cover of the jungle plants.

"Snakezards, whalezards, parrotzards, antzards, skeeterzards," Kyber muttered, dropping to sit next to Miele again. "I don't know what kind of party the lizards had in this place, but I want to be invited to the next one."

"Look at this," Miele said worriedly. She had rolled up her sleeve to reveal a bloody scrape that ran along her arm from the elbow to the wrist.

"Ouch," said Kyber. "Was that from the river? If we had our backpacks, I'd get my healer kit on, if healing would work without magic. I guess we're lucky I was outfitted in Horc Evader. As long as Silver can hear my commands normally, my skills aren’t dependent on magic. I suppose Warrior would have worked as well, but Warrior's such a bore--"

"That's not the point," Miele said. "I've been resting for some time, and it hasn't healed at all." She prodded at the wound. "It's just getting sort of crusty around the edges."

"Weird," said Kyber. "Maybe our rate of healing is normally accelerated by Lore's magic. How's your mana regeneration? Oh, wait, never mind."

"I wonder," said Miele nervously, "if, without magic, we respawn when we die."

Kyber had a sudden queasy feeling. On a nearby tree, a scaly, spiky, toothy green caterpillar crawled. A hawkzard swooped past and snatched it up. Kyber watched the empty spot on the tree bark, waiting for the caterpillar to reappear.

It didn't.

Somewhere in this adventure, there was bound to be a terrible, powerful monster or two, and she would have no healing, no way to summon help, and no second chances. Kyber stood up.

"We should get on with the mission," she said. "We don't want this to spread any further. Have you had any melee combat training?"
"Not really, "Miele admitted. "I'm a mage, and not a fighting mage. But we can probably find a branch I could use as a staff. Auto-attack is better than nothing, right?"

They did find a suitable branch easily enough, though it was rough around the edges, as they had nothing to cut it with.

"It's a pity Mister Puffinstuff isn't here," Kyber muttered.

"Yes," Miele said darkly, giving the staff a vicious swing. "This staff could use a good test target. Honestly, how could you ever trust a creature that goes around spreading dust and dirt wherever it hops? That thing was bound to turn on you sooner or later."

"He's just been under a lot of stress. If he was here, he could nibble that staff into the perfect shape for you," Kyber said. "I have to say, I was really impressed at how quickly he gnawed through your bridge. That's a skill that could be put to good use."

"Whatever," said Miele. "I believe the first quest I gave you was to find the Orb of Vague Powers. That still sounds good to me."

"All right, let's go, then. My best guess is to head away from the river."

The two adventurers made their way through the jungle, followed by Silverclaw, who frequently bounded away to devour hapless small animalzards that happened to cross his path. Kyber cursed having left her trusty Drow saber in her backpack as they beat their way through brambles, brush, tangles, and occasional vicious beasts.

"Whew," said Kyber after a particularly rough battle. "Can you believe the incredible biodiversity of the jungle around here? Bunnyzards, penguinzards, saber-fanged catzards, bearzards, walruszards, platyzards..."

"Define biodiversity," Miele snapped. "They're all Zards, and they all want to kill us."

"You don't like animals, do you?"

Miele ground her teeth. "We NEED to find that orb! Are you sure we're not just going around in circles?"

"No, I'm not sure. Do YOU see any golden arrows marking our path? This is the wilderness, Pumpkin," said Kyber. "I grew up in the wilderness." She frowned. "At least, I think I did. Before I wandered into Swordhaven, I only have a vague recollection of having been raised by trees."

“We need to know where we are. Climb up that big tree and have a look around,” said Miele. “And if it’s one of your step-parents, tell it hello from me."

The tree had no branches for the first thirty feet, but Kyber was an excellent climber and managed to shin up the enormous stump, finding handholds in the bark. The tree was ancient, and stood high above the rest of the forest. Kyber clung to the highest limb strong enough to hold her weight, surveying the scenery for some time before lowering herself once more to the ground.

“Well, what did you see?” Miele asked.

“There was a wonderful, cool breeze, and slowly fanning their wings in the treetops were thousands of magnificent purple butterflyzards. Possibly chaorrupted.”

“No sign of the orb? Or the airship? Or any landmarks?”

Kyber shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing but trees surrounded by ridges.”

“I wonder if the airship entered the area of no magic and crashed,” Miele said. “I do hope they’re all right.”

“Me, too,” said Kyber. “Hey, we don’t know how high up the effect extends. They may be perfectly safe, as long as they don't land. Let’s keep moving.”

Several hours of plowing through the wilderness later, the light began to fade.

“Time to make camp,” said Kyber. “I’m starving. Let’s roast up some of that weaselzard that just tried to kill us.”

Miele made a face. “Are you sure it’s edible? Have you ever eaten weaselzard?”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“And a last time.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“That’s my point. The first part, I mean.”

Kyber shrugged. “We’ll roast it and see how it goes. First I have to start a fire without magic.” She stood in thought for several minutes. “I think I heard you can strike sparks off steel and flint. Miele, why don’t I make up some hammocks for us out of those vines, and you hunt around for a piece of flint.”

“I can look for a rock, but I wouldn’t know flint if it bit me.”

“That’s okay, we haven’t got any steel, either,” said Kyber. “I was going to try to use this brass thingy on my armor. If brass works instead of steel, maybe any old rock will work, too.”

“Okay. Find a rock. I’m on it.”

As Miele rummaged through the bracken and forest loam, Kyber sat on a rotting log and began knotting vines together. Before long she had constructed a pair of hammocks.

“I found these,” said Miele, dumping an armful of rocks at Kyber’s feet, and woefully trying to dust the dirt off her tattered white sleeves. “Will they do?”

“We’ll find out,” Kyber said. “Let me string the hammocks up, first.” She climbed a nearby tree and began to tie the vine nets to the overhanging branches.

“Isn’t that awfully high?” Miele called.

“They need to be. Lots of zards crawling around on the ground, right?”

“I suppose,” said Miele doubtfully. “How exactly are we supposed to sleep in those things?”

“Like this.” Kyber swung herself easily into one of the hammocks and lay nestled in its cradling vines. “Haven’t you ever used a hammock before?”

“Never.”

“You’ll get used to it in no time.”

“If you say so.”

Kyber enjoyed a moment of relaxation before getting back out of the hammock and returning to the ground. Gathering a handful of dry twigs, she knelt down and began striking the brass buckle against one of Miele’s rocks. Miele awkwardly climbed the tree and got into the hammock, to which she clung like a frightened baby moglin.

“Going to bed before dinner?” Kyber asked. “Roast weaselzard—yum!”

“Save me some leftovers,” said Miele. “If you’re alive in the morning, I’ll have it for breakfast.”

After some time of failing to strike the slightest spark, Kyber tossed the rock aside and tried another, with no more success. “I think there’s something wrong with these rocks you found,” she called.

Miele shifted in her hammock. “Well---AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!” THUMP!!!

Kyber jumped to her feet. “Miele! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” came a muffled, weak voice from a pile of bracken. “My fall was broken by a lot of brambles and moss and nice, soft thorn bushes.”

“Please be careful,” Kyber said, helping her up. “You can’t make sudden moves in a hammock. And you might not respawn if you break your neck.”

“I’m okay,” Miele said again weakly, and climbed back up the tree.

Kyber couldn’t find where she had dropped the brass buckle, and gave up on the rocks. “I think I also remember you can start a fire with friction. I think I remember how it was done.”

“That’s nice, you-- AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!” THUMP!!!

“Miele!”

“I’m…okay…”

As the cleric determinedly headed up the tree again, Kyber took a leather lace from her Evader uniform and made a small bow with a springy tree branch. She found a short, thick stick, and a slab of broken wood. Twisting the leather thong around the short stick, she sawed the bow back and forth, making the short stick spin and drill into the wooden slab.

Kyber kept it up for over an hour, sliding the bow until her arm, shoulder and back screamed with pain. Once or twice she thought she saw a tiny wisp of smoke rise from the slab. Finally, as the light faded from the jungle entirely, she saw the flicker of a tiny spark.

Then the stick broke through the hole it had drilled into the slab, the thong snapped, and the springy branch whipped Kyber across the face, leaving a stinging welt on her nose and cheek.

She barked a sudden, loud and heart-felt curse into the silent jungle night.

“AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!” THUMP!!!

“Miele?”

“I…I think I’ll take my chances with the Zards and sleep right here,” said Miele faintly.

“No you won’t,” said Kyber firmly. “Come on, I’ll make sure you don’t fall again.”

Climbing up with the shaken cleric, Kyber tied her firmly into the hammock, trussing her up like a fly in a spider’s web. She returned to the ground. The faint light of the moon barely made it through the dense foliage, but Kyber groped for the remains of her fire-making tools.

She found the broken bow, and looked at it in disgust before tossing it aside. “I wonder if I’m hungry enough to eat raw weaselzard,” Kyber said. “You do it all the time, don’t you, Silver? In fact,” she added as the weaselzard disappeared down the white lion’s gullet, “you’re doing it right now. Ah, the heck with it.”

Kyber climbed the tree once more, easing her aching body into the hammock. “Hey, Miele,” she called. “How are you doing over there?”

The cleric’s voice was quiet and shaky. “I think this has been the worst day of my life.”

“Cheer up,” sad Kyber. “Things will be better in the morning.”

But they weren’t.


To be continued!

( Discussion thread)


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 12/5/2013 18:38:34 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 4
12/11/2013 22:38:00   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 5

The first thing Kyber noticed when she woke the next morning was that she could barely move. Every muscle was stiff and aching. She groaned, but only slightly. Even breathing hurt.

What did I do yesterday? she wondered. Okay, so I did some quests, fell off a cliff, got smashed in the rapids, got smacked around by a whalezard, fought forty or fifty assorted zards, did some tree climbing, and tried to make a fire. Nothing that should make me feel this awful. I must be getting soft from sleeping in a bed at night.

She tried to take a deep breath, and couldn’t. There was a terrible pressure on her chest.

“Am I having a heart attack?” Kyber muttered. Then she opened her eyes, and nearly did.

Sitting on her was a hulking, man-sized beast with long arms, a flat face, and enormous, shaggy cheeks surrounded by a mane of spikes and scales. It opened its mouth to reveal crooked, yellow, square teeth and shrieked in her face.

Kyber shrieked back.

She tried to struggle out of the hammock, but the weight of the monster had her trapped. It bounced up and down on her chest until she heard the snapping of vines. She felt a last, heavy push as the thing leaped off of her to grab an overhanging branch and dangle from it. Kyber started to slip through the broken hammock, and managed to grab one of the vines. All around, more of the creatures swung from branches, hooting and screaming. When Kyber tried to climb the hammock remains, a pair of the things were sitting on the branch above, and they pummeled her with their heavy, clawed fists. Kyber gave up, let go, and dropped to the ground.

On the next branch over, Kyber could see Miele, still trussed up in her hammock, with a gang of the apelike zards pounding and kicking at her. The treeant club lay on the ground where it had fallen, and Kyber snatched it up and headed for the tree, but it was too late. The vines holding Miele to the branch snapped, and the cleric, still bound in vines, fell to the ground.

Kyber ran to her. She shouted and swung the club, but it was not necessary. The creatures did not continue their attack, but remained in the tree, hooting and cheering their victory. Kneeling beside Miele, Kyber struggled to free her companion from the tangle of vines. Soon Miele lay in the middle of a pile of shredded vines, silent and unmoving.

“Miele!” Kyber shouted. “Miele, are you all right?”

“Noooooooo,” Miele moaned.

“Where does it hurt? Do you have any broken bones?” Kyber asked anxiously. “How can I help?”

The cleric’s eyes opened. They were bleary and bloodshot.

“Coooofffeeeeeeeee,” Miele moaned. “Neeed….coooofffeeeeeeeeeeee….”

“Coffee,” said Kyber. “Miele, is that all? Because we’re in the middle of the jungle, you know.”

“Coooofffeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Kyber sighed. “Come on, let’s get you on your feet. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Cooooffeeeeeeeeee…..”

“Other than that. Come on, Miele, get up.”

“Why? Are we going to a coffee shop?”

“Um, yeah. Eventually. Really, really eventually. Come on, now, up you come.” Kyber helped the whimpering cleric out of the ruined hammock, and steadied her. Miele wobbled from side to side. “There, now, isn’t that better?”

“Cooooffeeee……”

“For now, let’s just---eugh!” Something warm, wet, and very smelly hit Kyber on the side of the face. She put a hand to the spot and pulled it away, staring in revulsion as the zard apes screamed their delight. “Oh, for—I can’t believe what they’re throwing. Come on Miele, let’s get out of here.”

“Cooooooofffeeeeeeeee……”

Kyber put a supporting arm around Miele’s shoulder and led her away from the tree. As they departed, three more missiles splattered against Kyber’s back, and one struck her head, sending a trickle down the back of her neck.

“Oranguzards,” Kyber snarled through gritted teeth. “I’d better get extra Loremaster credit for discovering all these new species.”

“Coooooffffeeeeeee….”

“STOP SAYING THAT,” Kyber snapped.

“Esssspressssssooooooooo………”

As they walked, Kyber’s stiff muscles loosened, but she still ached. The absence of any noticeable healing was unnerving. What will Lore be like if this spreads, she wondered uneasily. Imagine spending days or weeks recovering from some measly little fist fight with a gorillaphant.

Beside her, Miele shambled along mumbling to herself, her eyes barely open, seeming more undead than alive. The smell of oranguzard dung became ever more pungent as the day warmed, and the clouds filling the sky with gloom and rumbles of thunder showed no inclination to accommodate her with a clean shower, so Kyber was grateful when they came to a small pond.

“I’m going to have a wash,” she said. “Want to join me?” Maybe a good dunking would wake the caffeine-deprived cleric up a little bit.

“Nooooo,” Miele moaned. “I got wet enough yesterday, and it’s humid, and it takes forever to dry out.”

“YOU got wet? Ha. You made me and Silverclaw work the Natatorium, remember?”

“You’re never going to stop bringing that up, are you? Anyway, you’re the one covered in monkeyzard poo, not me.” Miele yawned.

“Yeah. How exactly did that work out?” Kyber dropped her club and walked into the pool, clothes and all. She ducked her head under the surface and scrubbed as Silverclaw lay on the bank looking at her as if she was insane, as he always did when she bathed. Miele stood leaning against a tree, snoring slightly.

The water was cool and refreshing. Kyber’s feet sank into the soft silt of the bottom, and every time she took a step, she had to pull her foot from the sucking grip of the mud. The reflections of leaves fluttered across the surface of the water, and Kyber began to feel strangely dizzy and light-headed. She stopped moving, her feet sinking further into the mud.

A slight movement under the water caught her eye, bringing her almost back to alertness. Were there fish in this pool? They ate raw fish on Yokai, sometimes—she had tried some. She was certainly hungry enough to eat a raw fish.

Kyber saw another movement under the water, and reached out to snatch at it. The movement sent a wave of dizziness through her. Her knees nearly buckled and she struggled to keep her balance. Vaguely she became aware of a noise that had been going on for…she wasn’t sure how long. It was Miele shouting. After a moment, she realized that Miele was shouting, “Kyber! Kyber!”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said, or tried to say. “It seemed to come out more like, “Flbh baff mbeee.”

Miele kept shouting, but Kyber’s attention was riveted on the surface of the pond. For some strange reason, it was coming up to hit her in the face.

Kyber heard a ripping sound, and felt a sharp pain on her shoulder. Another ripping sound was followed by a pain near her elbow. Ri-i-i-i-p! Her side this time. She wished it would stop so she could go back to sleep. It hurt. In fact, she hurt a lot, everywhere.

She opened her eyes.

“Kyber, thank goodness!” Miele’s panic-stricken eyes stared into hers. “Are you all right? I’ve almost got all of them. Hang on!” There was
another rip, and this time the pain flared from her ankle.

“Yow!” she protested. “Why are you tearing my skin off?” She tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness swept through her head. She yelped again as something was ripped from the back of her leg, and, and then from her arm. Raising her arm, she saw a pink, skinless circle, which quickly turned dark with oozing blood.

“That’s the last of them,” Miele said. “How are you?”

“Lousy. The last of what?”

Miele’s face pinched with revulsion. “I-I guess they must be leechzards. You were covered in them.” She gestured toward a large rock.

Kyber managed to rise to her feet and stumbled on wobbly knees to look. On and around the rock lay a couple of dozen squirming creatures. Kyber picked one up. It was green and scaly, and it changed shape as it tried to escape her grip, one moment a pudgy blob no wider than her palm and as thick as her wrist, the next moment stretching as long as her arm and thin as a finger. At one end of the thing, a round mouth opened and closed, revealing a spiral of tiny teeth running from the outer lip to the central gullet.

“You went pale,” said Miele. “I didn’t realize until I pulled you out of the pond that they were draining your blood. You were nearly eaten alive!”

“Why, you little vampire,” said Kyber to the squirming thing. She found her treeant club, held the leechzard pinned on the rock, and brought the club down on its head end.

A wet smack sent splatters over the rock, and the squirming stopped. Kyber lifted the creature to her lips, slurped it down, and swallowed.

Miele shrieked.

“Now that’s what I call revenge,” said Kyber. “And lunch. Want some?”

It was some time before Kyber felt strong enough to go on, and Miele had stopped gagging. Rain began to fall as they struggled through the brush. At first it was only a light drizzle, but it increased and intensified until sheets of water were pounding down on their heads and shoulders. They struggled on, the sound of pounding rain and thunder filling the night.

“We have to stop!” Miele shouted over the roar. “This is ridiculous!”

“Let’s keep going,” Kyber shouted back. “We’re hardly having to fight anything. We must be making great time.”

“We’re not fighting anything because nothing but us is stupid enough to be out here!” Miele yelled.

Kyber opened her mouth to retort, but a searing blast split the air as lightning struck one of the enormous trees. Kyber’s skin was still tingling with electricity when she noticed that the tree was falling toward her. Grabbing Miele by the shoulder, Kyber tried to drag the cleric to safety, but the tree struck and cracked another of the forest giants, and that one hit another, and it tilted, twisted, and toppled toward the earth. Kyber lost her grip on Miele when the cleric tripped and fell, and as she turned back, she was knocked off her feet by a flying chunk of broken tree.

She stayed where she was, covering her head as the rain and broken branches pounded into the earth around her. When the forest had finally ceased to collapse, she called for Miele.

"Over here!"

Kyber made her way to the cleric, and found her huddled under the shelter of an enormous split tree trunk. Kyber joined her, dropping to the wet ground, and laughed as she started to wring some of the rainwater out of her clothes and hair. "Hey, what do you know, we're still alive!" Her expression changed. "Where's Silverclaw? SILVER! SILVER!"

"You can save your breath," said Miele. "He went missing as soon as the rain started. He's smarter than we are. I imagine he'll turn up in the morning, if the rain has stopped."

"In some places it rains for months at a time," said Kyber. "I should go look for him."

"Oh, just SIT DOWN!" Miele shouted.

Kyber looked at her in surprise. Miele was huddled, looking scared and miserable, and very, very wet. "All right," said Kyber, sitting back down in the puddle of rainwater that had run from her leather garments.

Outside, the rain continued to pour. Under the broken tree, Miele continued to sit silently. Kyber yawned and stretched. She scratched her head. She twiddled her toes inside the leather Horc boots.

Finally she cleared her throat. “Hey, Miele, do you want to hear the story about how I fought Ultra Vordred and defeated him? We fought for three hours…or, well, anyway, we would have if some friends of mine hadn’t turned up. There we stood, face to face across a field of shattered bones—“

“No, I do not want to hear it.”

“Oh. Really?” Kyber thought for a while. “How about the time when I went on a mission for the Academy as a young student, and nearly lost a battle with a potted Trollolla plant?”

“No.”

“How about this time when Artix and I were out—“

“NO! Kyber, I’m trying to THINK!”

“What about?”

“What about? About what we’re going to do!”

“Well, that’s obvious,” said Kyber. “We have to keep looking for the orb.”

“Yes, we do,” Miele agreed. “But, Kyber, look at us! We can’t go on this way! We have no magic, no tools, no food—“

“I offered you some of the leeches.”

“—no clue where the orb is, no idea where WE are, and no hope of rescue!”

“There’s always hope,” said Kyber. “The Ebullient—“

“We haven’t seen the Ebullient for two days,” said Miele. “We don’t have the flare gun any more, and they have no idea where we are. They may have crashed due to the lack of magic, for all we know.”

“Well, Skyguard will—“

“The Ebullient won’t be overdue at the skyport for days! Skyguard has no reason to come looking for us, and any rescue ship might also crash into the magic void. Kyber, I need you to take this seriously—we’re helpless, and nobody knows where we are, and nobody’s going to come looking for us!”

“Take it easy,” Kyber said. “Of course they’ll come looking for us! They can’t get along without me. I’m the Hero of Lore!”

“Oh, that’s what they say to everyone who comes into Battleon swinging a sword,” Miele snapped. Her eyes widened suddenly, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Kyber stared at her. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly.

“Kyber, never mind, I was just—“

“What do you mean?” Kyber demanded. “Who is ‘they’? I’m the Hero of Lore! I took down Escherion! I battled Wolfwing! I brought peace to Bloodtusk Ravine!”

“Yes, you did,” said Miele. “Forget I said anything. Hey, did you notice it’s getting darker? Do you think it’s just more clouds, or—“

Kyber seized her arm. “Tell me,” she demanded. “What is it you’re not saying?”

Miele looked away. “Well,” she finally said, “yes, it’s true, you did all of that.” She took a deep breath. “But so did a lot of other people.”

“What?”

“Well, villains respawn, just like everyone else,” Miele said. “And, um…lots of people have saved Lore. Lots of times.”

Kyber stood up and turned away. “I always wondered why there was so much traffic around when I battled my way into the enemy stronghold,” she muttered. After a few minutes, she spoke more loudly. “How many?” she asked.

“Oh, well, a few…” Miele said. When Kyber turned a fierce glare on her, she continued more quietly, “…hundred…”

Finally she added, in a voice barely above a whisper, “….thousand.”

Kyber turned away again to stare silently into the dark forest.

“Kyber—“

“So, a few hundred thousand people are the Hero of Lore, eh? Are a few hundred thousand King Alteon’s greatest champion? Are a few hundred thousand the one person Artix trusts more than anyone?” Kyber asked. She took a deep breath. “Did Warlic tell a few hundred thousand that they were special and that their fate was bound together with the fate of Lore?”

“Well,” Miele said. “Probably not all of them.”

“Right,” said Kyber. “I understand. I’m going to go out and stand in the rain for a while.”

And she stepped into the darkness.

To be continued!

( Discussion thread)


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 12/11/2013 22:55:00 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 5
12/17/2013 20:07:03   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 6

The rain pounded down like a million tiny hammers on Kyber Moonbow. It plastered her hair to her head, ran down the back of her neck, and poured off her clothes in rivers. If some of the water dripping off her face was saltier than the drops falling from the sky, she figured it was nobody's business but her own.

The sound of the rainfall behind her changed slightly. "Kyber?" She didn't look around, and Miele sighed. "I'm sorry. I just wanted you to take the situation seriously. I really didn't mean to say that."

"It's probably better that I know the truth," Kyber said, keeping her voice steady. "I've been living a lie. I'm not the Hero of Lore."

"It isn't a lie!" Miele said. "You ARE a hero of Lore. You're just...a little more redundant than you thought."

Kyber made a noise that not even she was sure was a laugh. "Well, anyway, I may be expendable, but you aren't. The Sisterhood of the Dishpan Hands is certain to come looking for you."

"Me? I'm just a minor NPC with a tiny part in an unimportant quest on one of Lore's least populated servers," said Miele bitterly. "If we're really lucky, someone might notice I'm gone and file a bug report in a week or two."

"So," said Kyber. "It seems the only thing to do if we mean to save Lore is to go on looking for the orb, and try to deal with the problem without magic, with no hope of respawning, and with no chance of aid or rescue."

"Yes."

"Well, then, since we're getting soaked anyway, we may as well keep walking." Kyber strode away into the rain-battered darkness. She could tell from the sound of the splashes, cracking branches, and occasional curses that Miele was following.

They walked on wordlessly through the night storm. Their course was random. It could not be otherwise, in the absence of known landmarks, marked paths, and any visibility beyond a spear's length. When they found obstacles in their path, they simply changed direction. It was, after all, impossible to be more lost than they were.

Kyber's mind and legs had both gone numb with weariness long before the sky began to lighten and the rain to slacken. A bright red beam of light penetrated the forest, and Kyber turned toward it. The two adventurers stumbled into a clearing, bedraggled and utterly soaked.

On the horizon, the sun was just peeping over the ridge, under the edge of a blanket of cloud. The storm was passing, only the ragged end of it still leaking over them. Kyber felt her spirits lift as light flushed the clearing, and morning birdzards began singing their rain songs.

A familiar, creaky growl sounded near her ankle. Kyber looked down and yelped, raising the treeant club. "Look, Miele, the face is back!" She swung the club. "I missed that face. It always gave my attacks that extra bite."

"Magic," Miele gasped. "We're back in the magic!" She whooped.

"My backpack! It's back!" Kyber rummaged among her belongings. "Oh, fantastic! I have dry clothes, fortune potion munchies, swords and axes and maces and helmets and...uh...Miele, is that really necessary?"

"Yes," said Miele, and continued casting cleaning spells. "My dirt meter is off the charts!"

"Well, clean up quickly," said Kyber. "We need to get back to Battleon."

Miele stopped. "What? We can't do that. There's no warp point here, we have no way to get back."

The face on the club flickered and winked out. Kyber frowned at it, then took a few steps away from the jungle. The face appeared again.

"We don't need to come back here," said Kyber. "The AoE of no magic is spreading. We need to get Warlic here to deal with it."

"Warlic's a mage. What good do you think he can do here, with no magic?"

"Not much himself," said Kyber. "But he can send a few hundred thousand of those other Heroes of Lore into the jungle."

"There is ALREADY a hero here to deal with it," said Miele.

"Just one, and not much of one," said Kyber. "Warlic can send some heavy hitters in, like necromancers and leprechauns and some of those guys who hang out around the fountain in Battleon smuggling illegal lemurphant calves in their shoulder armor."

"But they--but they....wait, what? Do they really?"

Kyber shrugged. "I don't know. But there must be SOMETHING inside those giant shoulder pads. Boxed lunches, maybe."

"I always thought they were ego overflow tanks," said Miele.

"Maybe they're--uh...this is beside the point," said Kyber. "Lore needs saving."

"Yes, but it needs saving quickly," said Miele. "There is no time for setting warp points and marking paths and getting another skyship to haul us back here, even if it's all possible without magic. And, oh, necromancers will be TONS of help without their magical undead minions."

The face on Kyber's club flickered out again, and she took another step over the magic boundary to make it reappear. "We could summon Warlic here," Kyber suggested. "We don't need a warp point to goto someone."

Miele's eyes narrowed. "Oh, stop it. You've been talking about summoning him since we got here. I'm starting to think you just want an excuse to spend time with Warlic."

"Who, me?" said Kyber. "No! Of course not! That's ridiculous! Maybe." She shuffled her feet. "Actually, now I think about it, Warlic's the last person I want to talk to right now. A few hundred thousand, eh?"

"It might actually be over a million," said Miele. "Ooh, I have a thought! Before we do anything rash, like summoning wizards, let's see if we can signal the Ebullient!" She rummaged in her backpack as she spoke, emerging with the shiny brass flare pistol.

"What good will that do?" Kyber asked.

"They might have supplies that will help us when we return to the jungle," said Miele. "Like scientific firestarters and weapons, and food and--"

"Food? Well...maybe," said Kyber. "But I still think--"

"I'll let you fire the flare gun," Miele said, waving the pistol enticingly.

"All right, you win," said Kyber. "Gimmee."

They hurried away from the magical boundary, to make the Ebullient's approach as safe as possible. When they had put a couple of miles between themselves and the edge of the magic, Kyber lifted the flare pistol and pointed it into the sky.

She pulled the trigger. The pistol recoiled into her hands, spewing a cloud of acrid powder smoke, and a missile shot into the sky, to explode into a blindingly bright beacon. They watched as the red spark slowly descended and vanished.

An hour later, there was no sign of the skyship.

An hour after that, there was still no sign.

After a further hour, the treeant face flickered out again.

Kyber stepped back into the magic. "That does it," she said. "Time to summon Warlic."

Miele seized her arm. "Kyber, please...please don't"

"You're being ridiculous. So you dropped the orb, under extreme circumstances. Accidents happen. It's much better to admit it and get the problem fixed than to--"

"Kyber, there's something I have to tell you," Miele said. She looked as if she was about to burst into tears. "I haven't been totally honest with you."

"No?" Kyber brightened. "You mean that I really am the Hero of Lore?"

"Not that."

"Oh."

Kyber waited. Just as she was about to speak, Miele burst out, "That cutscene I showed you? When I came to ask for your help?"

"I remember," said Kyber. "What about it?"

A strangled sob rose from Miele's throat. "Kyber, it's...it wasn't...Kyber...I hacked the cutscene!"



To be continued!

( Discussion thread)


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 1/11/2014 17:06:41 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 6
1/11/2014 17:26:42   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 7

"You did WHAT?!" Kyber exploded.

Miele didn't answer. She sat sniffling, sheltering from the scattered raindrops under an armored breastplate she had taken from her backpack.

Finally she said, in a low voice, "Kyber, do you know what I do? All day, every day?"

"When you're not hacking cutscenes, you mean?" said Kyber. "To the best of my knowledge, you work to cleanse the chaos from Lore. And drink lots of cappuccino."

"No," said Miele. "Well, sometimes. But mostly what I do is stand around the temple and wait for some hero to come in so that I can tell them, 'You do NOT want to become Chaorrupted, Hero, so you must always take care when battling Chaos. It can be VERY painful if you are Chaorrupted unwillingly. The Chaorruption will creep through your veins like acid, a virus corrupting your humanity - your personality, will, and physical form.'"

"Hey," said Kyber. "I remember, you said that to me."

"All day!" Miele's voice rose and became shrill. "Every day! Waiting and waiting, hoping that someone will come in and I can deliver my ONE LINE!"

"Okay, I get it. What does that have to do with hacking cutscenes? You did it out of boredom?"

Miele sniffled again, and seemed to collapse. "Okay," she gulped. "Here, let me show you the scene I changed."

------------------------------------------------

Battleon: The Magic Shop

Warlic the Blue Mage holds a shiny, translucent globe. Oddly colored lights skitter across its surface and within its heart.

Warlic: We must very cautious with this.

Cleric Miele: I understand.

Warlic: I don't think you do. This object is unique and mysterious, and I have had very little time to study it. It was discovered floating in the time void. It has both magical and etheric energies pulsing within it, in incredible amounts. I sense that it somehow connects the time void, the elemental plane, the physical plane, and the etheric plane. If it were to be damaged or destroyed, it is possible that our entire universe might simply be unmade. Possibly even all universes. The safety and protection of this item is of unspeakably vital importance.

Cleric Miele: I'll try not to drop it.

Warlic: It wouldn't matter what you tried not to do. There are rules that govern the magic of Lore. It's a matter of simple magical physics that any mysterious object that could conceivably cause a world-threatening catastrophe WILL cause a world-threatening catastrophe. However hard you tried not to drop it, it would, indeed, get dropped. I think I had better come along, so that we can have all the quests, paths, puzzles and warp points installed before the disaster occurs.

(Rolith enters)

Rolith: Warlic, you're urgently needed at the castle! That sink where you dump your magical experiments has started trying to eat passing courtiers.

Warlic: Uh, I'll be right—

(A party of heroes enter)

ZombieBob666: Hey, we were passing by and saw the Journey to the Center of Lore button! We're here to save Lore!

Warlic: Wonderful! Thank you, ZombieBob666/ xxxRalphxxx / ReddDDragon / CindyLove for agreeing to help.

ZombieBob666, xxxRalphxxx, ReddDDragon, CindyLove: You know you can always count on me, Warlic!

Warlic: Recently, I've been sensing some disturbances--

Rolith: Uh, the sink?

(Sora to Hoshi enters)

Sora to Hoshi: Professor Warlic, you have students waiting to turn in their Elemental Mastery homework! And, by the way, when are you going to do something about the hundreds of elemental cores that Kyber Moonbow brought in? I'm tired of tripping over them.

Warlic: Don't worry, I'll--

(Cysero appears)

Cysero: Hey, man, did you miss your cue? There’s a party of adventurers wandering through the Twilight Slums looking for you, and they’re starting to get a little testy.

Warlic: I--

(Another band of adventurers appears)
Nancy the Fierce: Hey! What’s with this ****? We’ve been waiting to get our ******* Shurpu Blaze tokens for over ninety ******* seconds!

Warlic: I’ll be with you in a—

Nancy the Fierce: Get the ******* lag out, dude!

Rolith: The sink, Warlic…

ZombieBob666: Uh…hello?

Sora to Hoshi: You remember, Warlic, when you took on this professorship, I asked you if you were sure you’d have time for it among your other duties, and YOU said—

CindyLove: Do you think we should file a bug report, Bob? This quest is frozen.

Warlic: I will be with you in a moment!

Miele: (coughs)

Nancy the Fierce: WHERE ARE MY ******* SHURPU TOKENS?!

Rolith: The…sink…

Miele: Um…

(Adventurer enters)

WilberforceQ: Hi, I’m just doing Chronospan, and I was supposed to come get your approval for—

Warlic: NO! NO! I NEVER agreed to that quest, and it is NOT in my contract!

WilberforceQ: But the Warlic golem said—

Nancy the Fierce: I ******* shoulda stayed on ******* Runescape.

Warlic: That golem is NOT me and can NOT make decisions for me!

Nancy the Fierce: GIVE ME MY ******* TOKENS!

WilberforceQ: But I can’t finish the quest….

Warlic: FILE A ******* BUG REPORT!!!

Nancy the Fierce: Language, dude.

Cysero: Uh, Warlic, chill. H. E. R. O. E. S. are L. I. S. T. E. N. I. N. G.

ReddDDragon: HAY! We cn spel, u no!

Warlic: Oh, CAN you?

Miele:….

Warlic: Cysero, will you do me a favor? The Sisterhood of the Dispan Hands needs their coffee machine repaired.

Cysero: I’m on it. (disappears)

Warlic: Sorry, Miele, I can’t allow the Orb to be used. I simply have no time to run another quest chain! (Exits, followed by everyone but Miele)

Miele: You don’t have time to run a quest chain. I have time. I have loads and loads and LOADS of time. I have more time than I know what to do with!
(Miele stands in the shop, alone, for a few minutes. Then she grabs the orb and runs off with it.)

-------------------------------------------------------------


"You STOLE the orb?" Kyber demanded.

"Yes," said Miele quietly.

"Even though you KNEW this would happen?"

"I didn't know THIS would happen," Miele objected. "I only knew SOMETHING would happen. I figured, as long as there's no Chaos Lord involved, how bad could it be?"

"How bad?! How about the unmaking of our entire universe and all other universes?!"

"Oh, that would never happen," Miele scoffed.

"How could you possibly know that for certain?"

"Because it wouldn't advance the storyline," said Miele. "In any case, what's done is done. We need to deal with the situation as it is."

Kyber nodded. "Okay, you're right. I still think the best course of action is to inform Warlic."

"Kyber, Kyber, Kyber," Miele sighed, standing up. "Have you even stopped to consider what we are dealing with here? This is a completely new quest. Nobody has ever done it before. Nobody, unless there is some great disturbance in the universe, will ever do it again. And I chose YOU to be the one and only hero who saves Lore from this threat."

Kyber stared back into the jungle. "Just me? Seriously? None of the other million or so heroes?"

"You were my very first choice."

"Why?"

"I don't really know," Miele admitted. "Maybe because you look unusual. Maybe because you almost fell into the pool of chaos at the temple. Maybe because you're the only hero I've ever met who actually collected enough elemental cores to make Rank 6 in Elemental Master."

Kyber nodded. "Okay, so you picked me because I'm a funny-looking, stubborn klutz. I guess I can live with that." She shuffled her feet. "I guess it does seem like Warlic is stretched kind of thin these days."

"Absolutely."

"We'd be doing him a favor by dealing with this ourselves."

"Yes!"

Kyber sighed and caved in. "All right. Wherever this orb is, we can be certain it's at the center of this non-magical aura. Get anything you want out of your backpack now, because we're going back in there."

Miele gave a yelp of joy, and started rummaging through her gear. Kyber sorted her own equipment, pulling out the items that seemed the least magical and the most practical. In the end, she knotted a cape into a makeshift pack, containing a change of clothes, her arcane battle armor, her sky pirate goggles, her drow saber, and an ugly steel dagger she had picked up on a quest somewhere and forgotten to sell.

Then she hoisted the bundle onto her shoulders and stared into the wilderness. “We’ll have to be careful,” she said. “We have to avoid injuries if we can, and death at all cost.”

“I’m ready,” said Miele, coming to stand beside her.

“If we use that peak as a landmark, we can check every so often to make sure we’re following a straight course.”

“Which peak?”

“The one on the ridge. The one shaped like a Zard tooth.”

Miele frowned. “They are ALL shaped like Zard teeth.”

“Yes, but the one that is exceptionally so.”

“If you say so. You can be in charge of navigation, then.”

“Right.” Kyber nodded. She took a deep breath. And once more, she stepped out of the magic.


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 1/16/2014 8:15:23 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 7
1/12/2014 18:23:39   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 8

The fortune potions went bad on the third day. Miele regretfully tossed the last of the slimy meat-bones into the bushes. Silverclaw sniffed at them, then turned his nose up and kicked dirt over them. The lion had reappeared the moment the trees had stopped dripping leftover rainwater on them, and shaken himself off to douse them in a shower of wet, muddy water.

“Does he have to do that EVERY TIME he gets wet?” Miele had complained, and Kyber had answered, “Well, I don’t know if he HAS to. But he does it.”

“Do you see anything?” Miele called up to Kyber now.

Kyber was perched in a tall tree, surveying the surroundings. “I’m having a little trouble finding our landmark.”

“It’s the peak that looks like a Zard tooth, remember?”

“Yeah, but…they ALL look like Zard teeth.”

Kyber ignored Miele’s exasperated shriek, and simply enjoyed being in the tree. She was bruised from battling zardbeasts, scraped from a tumble down a slippery hill, scorched from a close encounter with a hot geyser, and her ankles were covered with bite marks from the attacks of an evil and yappy Zardihuahua.

She was not feeling quite as bold and adventurous as she usually did.

“I don’t think much planning went into this jungle,” said Miele from below. “In all the jungle adventure stories I’ve read, there are fruit and coconuts growing all over the place. I think we found a defective jungle.”

“We should file a bug report,” Kyber agreed. “I mean, we’ve battled tons of dangerous wild beasts of the land, air and water, but where is the obligatory lost temple? Where is the quicksand? Where are the hostile natives? Hey!” She sat up suddenly on the branch.

“What is it?” Miele asked.

“I see smoke!” said Kyber. “It looks like somebody has a fire going! There really may be natives!”

“Or maybe it’s the crew of the Ebullient,” said Miele hopefully.

“Maybe,” Kyber admitted. “But my money is on the chance that we find a bizarre local population made up of some strange and unholy cross between man and zard!”

“Um….you mean Zardmen? Like we have back home?”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess.” Kyber swung down from the tree, landing beside the cleric. “In any case, we should investigate.”

“Absolutely,” Miele agreed. “If it’s the Skyguard, we can join forces.”

“If it’s friendly natives, we could trade for tools and supplies!”

“And if they’re unfriendly…” Miele swung her staff. “I’m getting pretty good with this. I think I leveled, back when we faced that last pack of okapizards.”

With new energy, they charged through the underbrush. They paused only occasionally, either to beat off attacking zards, or so that Kyber could climb a tree and see if they were still heading in the right direction. Each time, Kyber worried that the tiny plume of smoke might be gone, but it remained there, a wavering dark line in the sky, closer every time she found it.

It was nearly evening when their progress came to an abrupt halt.

“Another ravine?” Kyber complained. “We already did one of those!”

“Well, this one will be different,” said Miele. “We have no way to gather bridge materials this time.”

“Maybe we could build a bridge out of weaselzard pelts, if we tied enough together,” said Kyber thoughtfully.

“Maybe we could just climb down and climb up the other side,” Miele suggested. “It’s misty down there, but I don’t hear a river.”

Kyber made a non-committal noise. “Actually, there seems to be a lot of heat rising from the gorge,” she said. “There’s probably a stream of lava or a lake of boiling mud at the bottom.”

“I guess I can probably cross the absence of a volcano off my jungle adventure bug report list.”

“Probably.”

Miele sighed. “I guess we could walk along the edge and hope there’s a way to cross or go around.”

“Not an exciting plan, but a plan. I’m in.”

They set off walking along the edge. From time to time, Kyber checked the location of the smoke plume. It remained there, but as the sun lowered and the jungle began to darken, it grew harder and harder to see.

“What is that noise?” Miele asked suddenly.

Kyber listened. “Sounds like some kind of zard to me.” She ignored Miele’s glare, and hurried along. Coming around a large bluff, Kyber stopped. “Miele!”

“What is it?” The cleric hurried to join her.

“Look!” said Kyber triumphantly. “There’s our way across!”

A mossy outcropping of rock stretched across the ravine, forming a natural bridge. It was green with moss and trailing vines, and…

“Zards!” said Miele despairingly.

“Well, I guess we know what was making all that noise,” said Kyber. “Hmm, they kind of remind me of that pterodactyl king in Dwarfhold. Wait, no…they remind me more of the Karasu in the Cloister. I think these are Karazards.”

The reptiles clung thickly over the rocky span, and hundreds wheeled overhead through the air.

“Maybe they won’t mind us walking through quietly,” said Miele.

“Ya think?” said Kyber.

“Your next quest is to find out.”

Kyber raised her eyebrows, but Miele only crossed her arms across her chest and tightened her lips. With a slight groan, Kyber started off. “You stay here, Silverclaw,” she ordered as the lion made as if to follow. “I have a feeling they won’t like you much, especially if you start snacking on them halfway across.”

Kyber moved as quietly as a shadow through the trees, and stopped at the edge of the jungle nearest the bridge. The entire bridge seemed to be plastered with the leathery green birdzards. Their beaks were as long, powerful and sharp as those of the ordinary Karasu, with the addition of some nasty teeth and spikes. Their eyes were as beady and wicked, as well. Kyber looked back to where Miele huddled in the bushes with Silverclaw. Miele motioned her onward.

Stifling another groan, Kyber left the trees and walked toward the bridge, as quietly and casually as she could manage. At first the birdzards ignored her. As she drew closer, though, one fixed her with a gimlet eye. Kyber nodded in a friendly way and continued. More and more of the Karazards turned sharp beaks and eyes in her direction.

Kyber hesitated at the bridge. Every eye was fixed on her now, the Karazards as unmoving as the stone bridge itself.

“Nice evening for a walk,” Kyber remarked in a reassuring tone.

The Karazards did not move.

Kyber set a foot on the bridge.

The next instant, her boots were almost skidding from her feet as she ran from the explosive roar of a thousand opening wings. Like living arrows, the Karazards launched themselves at her. Kyber sprinted with more speed than she had ever believed possible, heading for a thicket of close-growing saplings where the Karazards’ wings would be hampered by the close foliage. Diving into thick brush, she huddled for cover. The shrieks of the enraged Karazards shrilled through the forest until the very trees trembled. The saplings rattled against each other, buffeted by scaly wings.

Eventually, the tumult died down. Kyber waited until the very last hostile zard had fixed her with a final look of contempt and flapped back to rejoin the flock on the bridge, before stumbling back on wobbly legs to where Miele waited.

“You must have antagonized them somehow,” said Miele. "Maybe we could try again when they’ve calmed down.”

“It’s no good,” said Kyber. “That bridge is covered with nests full of eggs. The Karazards are guarding them.”

“Oh.” Miele brightened suddenly. “I have an idea. If we move the eggs, there will be no more reason for the Karazards to guard the bridge. Okay, Kyber, your next quest is to gather twenty Karazard eggs and move them to that empty ridge over there.”

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” Kyber demanded.

Miele looked at her reproachfully. “You know, you have a much more positive, can-do attitude in your cutscenes.”

Kyber dropped to the ground with a snort. After a while she said, “Maybe we could disguise ourselves as Karazards and sneak across the bridge when it’s dark. It’s worked in other quests.”

“I suppose,” said Miele. “Though I kind of hoped our very own, unique quest would be more original than that.” She sighed. “Okay, Kyber, go out and kill some stuff until we have enough hides to make Karazard costumes for all of us.”

Kyber jumped up. “Karazard hides, I suppose?”

Miele shrugged. “A zard is a zard is a zard.”

“Right,” said Kyber. “Excellent. Come on, Silverclaw, let’s go kill stuff that’s green, scaly, leathery…and not quite so scary.”

( Discussion thread)


< Message edited by Inkwolf -- 1/16/2014 8:08:40 >
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 8
1/18/2014 12:39:59   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 9

"Let's see you do better with no thread or needle or scissors or magic!" Miele huffed.

"I wasn't criticizing," Kyber said. "All I said was that it's lucky we'll be trying this in the dark." She raised her arms and tried flapping the leathery...wings. Or tail. Or whatever. Beside her, a green, scaly...object writhed in an unsettling way. "Silverclaw!" Kyber said sternly. "Are you trying to eat that costume from the inside? Because if you are, stop it. Now!"

With a growl, the Karazard-lion ceased its weird movement.

"Well, I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be," said Kyber, hitching up the scaly leggings. "How about you?"

"Just a minute," said Miele. "I can't seem to get the beak to stay straight."

A few moments later, she said, "Okay." Kyber nodded, and the three moved quietly toward the ravine. Or at least as quietly as was possible while peering through the flexible and uncooperative eyeholes of recently vacated Zardskin, and tripping over dangling ends of hide.

They stopped at the edge of the forest. In the moonlight, they could see masses of Karazards huddled on the bridge. Apart from the occasional stretching of wings or the shifting of position, all was quiet.

"Now remember," Kyber whispered. "Keep quiet, don't touch the eggs, and whatever you do, Silverclaw, don't try to eat anything!"

Miele nodded, Silverclaw growled, and Kyber held her breath as she stepped out of the trees.

The nearest Karazard raised a scaly head and peered at them. Kyber did her best to imitate the walk and attitude of a Karasu, and the muttering vocalizations of the birdzards at rest. It must have been sufficient, because the sentry zard settled and closed its eyes once more.

Kyber looked back to see that Miele and Silverclaw were following. Miele was also striving for a birdlike gait. Silverclaw looked more like a dead Karazard being schlepped along by an outsize ant, but as long as he remained between the two of them, Kyber hoped he would escape the flock's notice.

Teeth gritted, she stepped onto the bridge, and hesitated. From the forest, the sheer mass and bulk of the bodies covering the bridge had not been evident. Karazard was pressed against Karazard, without a gap between them. She looked back at Miele and Silverclaw, who simply stared at her through their zardskin masks and waited. Kyber took a deep breath and pushed herself in between the scaly birdzards.

To her relief, the Karazards moved aside at once. She continued through the throng. Occasionally one of the creatures muttered a sleepy protest, and once a spiky beak snapped near her ankle, but for the most part, the zards shifted at a nudge, to allow her to pass. Ahead, Kyber could see the nesting area.

Unlike true birds, the Karazards left their eggs open to the moonlight, rather than setting on them. The central stretch of the bridge where the nests were concentrated was almost free of Karazards, apart from a few wakeful nurses, who seemed occupied in turning the eggs.

When she stepped onto the nest-covered span, Kyber's initial relief at being out from among the dangerous Karazards and their strange, scorched odor quickly changed to horror. For the first time she realized that the flock had given them cover and camoflage. Now they would be out in the open, walking right past the most wakeful birdzards on the bridge.

Gathering her courage, she stepped out with her best bird imitation, being careful where she placed her feet. The nests were large bowls of dried vegetation, glued to the rock with what looked like dried vomit, and filled with leathery eggs the size of a human head. The scent of rotted meat and guano mingled with the sulfur fumes rising from the gorge below. There was definitely some kind of volcanic activity going on down there. Without the flock surrounding her, there was no barrier to prevent her from hurtling over the edge and into any lava pit that might lie below, should she loose her footing. The nests were closely placed, with little or no bare rock between them, and she walked awkwardly, balancing on their edges, marveling at the fact that she could miss being among the killer reptiloids.

Approaching the first of the nurse zards, Kyber made some subtle Karazard mutterings in her throat, but the creature did not even look up from its turning of the eggs. Kyber relaxed slightly, and looked back to see how the others were progressing.

She froze.

Silverclaw had worked his head clear of the disguise. He stood over a nest, one of the large, leathery eggs clutched in his jaws.

Kyber was unable to move or think for an instant. Then she fixed the lion with her fiercest glare, signalling covertly and desperately, but firmly, for him to drop the egg.

Silverclaw stared back unblinking. A trickle of drool ran from his jaw, stretching and extending to touch the ground before breaking off. His tail twitched.

Then he lowered his head and let the egg roll back into the nest.

Kyber let her breath out slowly, her heart hammering against her ribs. Turning forward again, she stepped right into the middle of a nest. An egg rolled under her foot, exploding like a balloon and drenching her with yolk and slimy albumen. Her foot slipped in the goo, sending her plunging into the midst of another clutch of eggs. She tried to struggle up from the mess of slippery shells and slime, wiping yolk out of her eyes. It was impossible to see. The zardskin mask had twisted around her head somehow, but she could hear the nurse Karazards shrieking an alarm, the flock squawking, the screams of Miele and the roars of Silverclaw. She tore away the mask, got to her feet and groped for her weapon, but a blinding pain shot up her leg, and she collapsed.

Knife-sharp talons sliced through the zardskin costume, piercing her skin. Kyber yelled as she was yanked into the air, two karazards carrying her between them. Ahead she could see Miele and Silverclaw being similarly carried, and she waited for the sickening sensation of being dropped, left to fall into the volcanic depths of the ravine.

The Karazards did not drop them. They continued to fly for the edge of the ravine, and over it. Kyber was just feeling grateful that she had less distance to fall, and wondering whether she could get her club out and force the Karazards to drop her, when they did.

After a drop just long enough to be frightening, Kyber landed with a crunch on a huge heap of broken branches and bracken, bouncing up to roll to the bottom of the pile, where she landed headfirst on the rocky ground.

Kyber groaned. Her head spun, and a sharp, jolting pain ran up her leg from ankle to knee every time she tried to move. Something snuffled wetly at her face. She opened her eyes to find herself staring, upside down, at a wet muzzle full of bared, gleaming, sharp teeth.

"I don't suppose that's you, Silverclaw, is it?" she asked.

The mouth opened to emit a piercing, squealing roar. Saliva dripped from the creature's knife-like tusks and spattered over Kyber's face from the vibrating blue forked tongue.

"Nope," Kyber sighed. "Ah, nuts."



( Discussion thread)
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 9
2/10/2014 18:50:39   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 10

Kyber struggled to reach a weapon, but the Zardskin costume was twisted around her, making it nearly impossible to move. In the moonlight, she could not make out much of the shape of the beast drooling over her, but it was big.

Unable to disentangle herself, Kyber tried to roll. She managed to free one arm, but when she tried to stand, she collapsed again.
The creature snarled and lunged at her. A wooden staff thwacked across its nose.

“Miele!” Kyber shouted. The cleric moved between Kyber and the vicious zard, raining blows down on its head.

“I’ll hold it off! Just join me when you can!” Miele yelled back.

A few minutes of wrestling with the zardskin, and Kyber had broken free, but another attempt to stand ended with her lying on the ground again, clutching her leg, teeth grinding in pain.

“Are you coming?” Miele shouted, desperation in her voice.

“I think my leg is broken!”

“Well, that’s just…peachy.” Miele whacked the monster across the chops, but it had enormous talons on its paws, and slashed at her, driving her back until she nearly stumbled over Kyber. It snapped at her, and Miele lost a sleeve from her robes, and nearly an arm.

Kyber grabbed her gear, and threw everything she could at the beast—a dagger, a sword, a helm. It was difficult to aim while lying on the ground. None of the missiles did any damage, except the helm, which hit Miele on the back of the head.

“Ow!” she yelled. “Do you mind? I’m trying to fight, here!” Kyber scrambled around, hoping to find a rock or a sharp stick, or something. Anything! She needed a weapon!

She HAD a weapon, she suddenly remembered.

“Silverclaw!” she shouted. “Silverclaw!” As loudly as she could, she started whistling the attack signals.

The zardbeast seized Miele’s staff in its teeth. Miele heaved on it, trying to pull it free. The teeth tightened, and the wood groaned under the pressure. Kyber thought she heard a crack.

Then a white streak arced through the air. Silverclaw, almost glowing in the moonlight, snapped his teeth shut on the creature’s ear and hung there.

The zardbeast opened its jaws to give an agonized squeal, freeing Miele’s staff, and she renewed her attack. Miele clubbed the beast without mercy as it tried to shake its head free from the lion.

Finally, Silverclaw was torn loose, and the beast thundered off into the darkness, bellowing. A deep growl issued from the lion’s throat, slightly muffled by the scaly slab of zard ear that dangled from his mouth.

“What do you mean, your leg is broken?” Miele asked anxiously. “Which one? This one?”

“OW! YES, THAT ONE!”

“Sorry.”

Kyber muttered several muffled, unintelligible words under her breath.

“Don’t worry,” said Miele. “I don’t think there can be a chat ban in effect here. Curse all you like.”

Kyber did.

“Feel better now?” Miele asked.

“No!” said Kyber. “I mean, I have to be grateful that the Karazards didn’t just shred us or drop us into boiling mud, and thank you very much for saving my life just now, but we’re in the middle of the wilderness, and I can’t walk! A quick death might have been preferable.”

“It will be all right,” said Miele. “I’ll carry you, if I have to. Or we could build a travois and pull you along. Maybe Silverclaw can pull it.”

“Some hope,” Kyber growled. “I tried to take him through a town with a leash law, once. The minute I tugged on the rope around his neck he flattened himself out on the ground and dug in all his claws. It would have taken a team of mules to move him.” She gingerly felt the bump where she had landed on her head. Her brain was starting to work again, finally.

“Juvania did give me a couple of lessons in non-magical healing,” she said. “But they were way back when I was a noob, and I barely remember them. I think we need to make a splint for my leg.”

“Right,” said Miele. “Let’s do it! What’s a splint?”

Soon Miele was looking for suitable straight branches, and hacking them down to size with Kyber’s sword, while Kyber used her dagger to slice the zardskin costume into long, thin strips. As she worked, she caught Silverclaw staring at her intently.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “Just because I’m down at the moment doesn’t mean I’m not in charge. Me master, you lion. I am NOT prey.”

Silverclaw yawned and went back to gnawing on the zard ear, but Kyber did not like the message of the sneaky, surreptitious glances he gave her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Binding the leg was a painful and awkward process, but eventually it was done as well as they could manage. Miele cut the end off her wooden staff and padded the top with zardskin to make a crude crutch. If Kyber put little to no weight on the broken leg, she could hobble slightly.

After trying the experiment of moving around, Kyber dropped back onto the pile of branches. “That’s better,” she said. “Now, we need to get out of here.”

“I think we should wait until morning,” said Miele. “It won’t do your leg any good if we fall down a bottomless pit or something in the darkness. You get some sleep, if you can. I’ll keep watch.”

In other circumstances, Kyber would have argued, would have insisted on taking the first watch. As is it was, she simply nodded her head, lay down on the brush pile, and was out like a candle in a hurricane.

She awoke to the sound of battle. There was a faint light in the sky, and Miele and Silverclaw were whacking at another zardbeast. The ground was littered with three or four huge, dead zard carcasses. Kyber yawned and stretched, and moved her leg, wincing. She stood up gingerly, leaning on the crutch. She could not put any real weight on the leg, but thought she could probably move around, without too much pain.

“You ought to get some rest, too,” she called to Miele. “When you’re done with that, you can take a nap, and I’ll keep watch.”

“Lovely,” said Miele, whacking the zard over the snout with Kyber’s sword. Kyber wondered why she had that hysterical note in her voice, but supposed that it was just the stress of questing.

Kyber sat down again. From the brush pile, she had a good view of the surrounding area. She stared ahead and slowly turned her head to the right. When she could not turn it any further, she looked to the left.

“Hey, Miele,” she shouted. “Have you noticed? We’re walled in. There are cliffs to every side. Like we’re in some kind of crater.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” shouted Miele, holding the sword up to deflect the creature’s head-butt attack. Her battle moves, Kyber noticed, were all appropriate for staff fighting, but inefficient for swordplay. It was a wonder the cleric hadn’t cut her own hand off.

“And have you noticed all the nasty-looking zards in here with us?” Kyber continued. “I think the Karazards are using this crater as a corral, to gather food for their babies when they hatch. It explains why they didn’t kill us.”

Miele didn’t answer. Kyber added, “I notice that most of the zards are asleep. Maybe you ought to try to fight more quietly.”

Miele smacked the blade down on the creature’s head with what looked like particular fury. With a snarl, the zardbeast bounded away. Silverclaw chased after it. Miele just dropped down on the edge of the brush pile, exhausted.

“Okay,” said Kyber. “Your turn to rest. You must need it.”

“Can’t” said Miele. “We need to get out of here before the rest of those Zards wake up. It’s been hard enough fighting off just the nocturnal ones.”

“I don’t think I’m up to cliff climbing.”

Miele didn’t answer. Kyber looked around again, searching for an escape route, and racking her brains for a plan.

The cliffs seemed an insurmountable obstacle. Around the edges of the crater, a few unhappy zards clawed at the stone walls, or even tried to climb them. An enormous thing Kyber thought might be a zardephant lumbered around the outer perimeter, pacing along the cliff and occasionally putting its forefeet against the wall, stretching high enough to see over the top. Kyber felt sorry for the creature. If it had not been so enormously massive, even a small leap might have allowed it to clamber up. But it could only catch a brief glance at freedom before dropping to all fours again and moving on.

“Miele,” said Kyber. “Skin those dead Zards.”

The cleric looked up at her blankly. “What?”

“It doesn’t have to be neat. We need strips of hide. Lots of them. We’re going to make a rope.” Kyber gathered up the remains of the Zard costumes they had worn to infiltrate the Karazard rookery. The uncured hides were hardening, but there was a small pool of water inside the crater. She slid painfully down the brush pile, the leather bundle tucked under her arm, and dropped it all into the water to soak. Then she pulled her dagger and joined Miele in hacking at the fresh carcasses.

By the time the skins had been harvested, the sun had risen, and so had most of the Zards. Miele and Kyber sat on the brush pile, frantically knotting and braiding Zardhide strips into rope. Fortunately, most of the zards seemed perfectly happy to leave the two adventurers alone, busying themselves with fighting each other and devouring the remains of the skinned Zards. Silverclaw had tried to defend the carcasses, but Kyber called him off sharply, and now he lay beside her on the brush heap, making indignant growls and snarls as the Zards devoured what he considered his rightful breakfast.

At last the rope was complete. Kyber carefully tied a harness around the sulky lion’s powerful chest and shoulders.

“Right,” said Kyber, sliding down the brush pile. “Let’s hope this works.” She lifted a meat-covered Zard bone. “Silverclaw! I saved you a treat! C’mon, boy!”

The lion didn’t move from where he lay, he just gave his tail an angry twitch.

“Ah, man, what a time for him to lose his appetite,” Kyber grumbled.

“He’s a cat,” Miele said. “Give me that.” She took the meat bone, and began waving it back and forth enticingly. Silverclaw pretended to ignore it at first, but Kyber saw his eyes twitching back and forth as he watched the meat. Then his head started twitching, and finally his hindquarters as he prepared to pounce.

Miele slowly backed toward the cliff, the lion following. Suddenly she hurled the bone upward, over the edge of the cliff.

There was an outraged bellow from the Zardephant as Silverclaw scrambled up its back and leaped onto the cliff top, trailing a long string of braided zardskin.

“Quick, grab the rope!” Miele said.

“Wait, let him get a little further from the edge.” After a few moments, Kyber seized the rope and held on. The rope was nearly jerked out of her hands, then stopped moving.

“Good,” said Kyber. “Hurry, climb up!”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” asked Miele. “What if I pull Silverclaw over?”

Kyber snorted. “Not a chance. I told you he hates leashes. As long as there’s any tension on the rope, he will be lying flat on the ground, with every claw dug in. It would be easier to pull Desoloth down the street.”

Miele nodded, and without further argument, started climbing the rope.

Half an hour later, Kyber said, “Seriously, don’t you clerics exercise at all?”

“We—oof—don’t climb—oof—ropes!” Miele gasped.

“You want me to climb up first? Even with a broken leg, I’m pretty sure I’ll be faster.”

“NO! Oof. I’m making—oof—progress. I’ll get to—oof--the top.”

“Yeah,” said Kyber. “But I’d like to be out of here before dark, if possible.”

Miele didn’t answer, just continued making her slow, inchworm-like ascent up the rope. Kyber sat on a rock, and turned to look around the crater. The zards were keeping their distance. In fact, they seemed much more interested in what was in the sky than what she and Miele were up to.

Kyber was about to look up and see what they found so interesting when a pair of Karazards swooped into the crater and took off bearing a boarzard and a terrestrial catfishzard. The rest of the zards scattered in a panic.

“Miele?” Kyber called.

“I know!”

“Hurry!”

“I KNOW!”

Miele did seem to be climbing faster, now. Kyber watched as the cleric reached the lip of the cliff, half afraid she’d have to try to catch her and watch her start from the bottom again. But Miele achieved the top of the cliff without incident. Kyber began tying the end of the rawhide rope in a harness around herself, waiting for Miele to reappear.

Three more Karazards seized animals from the crater before Miele reappeared. “I’ve turned Silverclaw loose and tied the end of the rope to a counterweight,” she called. “Are you ready to be pulled up?”

“Yes, hurry,” said Kyber. “I think the eggs have hatched, and signs indicate the babies are very hungry.”

“Right. Hang on.” Miele disappeared, and Kyber wondered how long she would be left waiting this time.

A moment later, a large boulder dropped from the cliff, and Kyber shot into the air. Apparently, Miele had meant it literally when she said to hang on. In less than a second, Kyber flew up over the edge of the cliff, and was dragged across the ground to smack into the broad trunk of a very hard tree.

When Kyber had blinked the stars out of her eyes, she found Miele helping her to stand and propping her up with the crutch staff.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to get moving, NOW.”

Kyber nodded. It made her dizzy. “When the world stops going in circles and there are less Karazards in the air, I’ll climb a tree and see if we can find that fire we saw—“

“No,” said Miele. “I know where we’re going! This way! HURRY!”

“What? Why? How do you know?”

Miele seized Kyber by the front of her armor and glared. The cleric’s dark eyes were bloodshot, and had a crazed, barely human expression.
Miele bared gritted teeth and hissed, “I…smell…COFFEE!”

Discussion thread)


AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 10
3/12/2014 9:58:47   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 11
Kyber frowned as she peered through the thick foliage. In the clearing ahead lay the wreckage of an airship. Swarming over it with hammers, rocks, and makeshift tools, its crewmen seemed to be struggling vainly to repair it, or at least trying to look busy while pointlessly beating on the hull. The men wore Skypirate rags, not the trim uniforms of the Royal Skyguard. There were as many Darvirs and Draconians as scruffy humans puttering with the ruined ship.

Sitting on an elaborate chair made of bones, in front of a large campfire, sat the pirate captain. A nervous crew member seemed to be making some sort of report to him. Kyber could not hear what was said, but the captain leaped to his feet, seized a burning log from the fire and hurled it at the pirate’s head.

“Blast and doom!” the captain roared. “I gave ye twenty-four hours to get the Floatyboaty skyworthy again. It’s been more than a week, and ye can’t get her an inch off the ground! Don’t come to me with whines and grousings, just get that ship afloat!”

“It won’t fly without magic.” The voice was haughty and disdainful, and clearly did not come from any of the cringing pirates. In fact, it seemed to come out of the sky. Kyber searched overhead, but did not see the source of the voice until the captain hurled another flaming brand in its direction. With a vine tied around his ankles, dangling like a pendulum from a high branch, was a man Kyber recognized from Miele’s cutscene. It was the pirate mage.

“Magic is YOUR job!” the captain screamed. “You’re up there because you’re a fraud and a slacker! If you’re ready to magic us up some repairs, I might let you down. Maybe even without fifty lashes!”

“There’s no magic here, I told you,” the mage said in exasperated condescension. “No doubt that’s why I lost control of the elemental in the first place. The flows and ley lines have been interrupted somehow.”

“Well, UN-interrupt them!”

The mage shrugged. “I am only an elementalist. You need some hot shot celebrity magician like Cysero or Warlic or—“

The captain snorted. “Aye, that’ll happen when me bum sprouts feathers. QUARTERMASTER! Until the ship is repaired, cut everyone’s Moglinberry juice ration in half…AGAIN!”
Kyber could hear the low groans and mutterings of the crew. She leaned further into the shrubbery to try to get a head count, then jumped when a voice spoke into her ear.
“You’re missing the point,” said Miele. “Look it’s right there.”

The cleric pointed to the campfire. Kyber stared and searched. “What, the orb?” she asked. “I don’t see it.”

“No, the COFFEE!” Miele hissed. Looking again, Kyber saw a speckled blue coffeepot sitting on a stone beside the Captain’s chair. “Okay, here’s your quest,” said Miele. “Go in there and grab that coffee pot. Whack any pirate that gets in your way.”

“Um,” said Kyber. “Have you forgotten that respawns are off? I may be morally flexible, but I draw the line at permanently killing fifty or sixty people so that you can have a cup of joe.”

“But they’re PIRATES!” Miele insisted. “And you’d probably only have to kill forty-ish before the rest ran off.” She stood there, breathing hard for a few minutes, and finally, grudgingly, said, “I suppose I see your point, though.”

“Right.” Kyber stood. “I’m going to try having a word with the captain. You stay hidden in the bushes, and keep Silverclaw with you.”

Leaning on her crutch, Kyber hobbled toward the campfire. When she was halfway there, the captain saw her and barked out an alarm. Kyber was immediately surrounded by Sky pirates, who held the points of their cutlasses at her throat, and who were clearly grateful for the interruption of their useless repair attempts.

“Take it easy,” said Kyber. “I’m only here to talk. Am I right in supposing I am addressing the famous skypirate Captain Wet Willy?”

“WINDY WIGGUMS!” the captain roared. In a more moderate tone, he added, “But the mistake is understandable. Cap’n Wet Willy is my cousin.”

“My mistake,” said Kyber. “Sorry.”

“And if I’m not much mistaken, you must be the famous hero, Kyber Moonbow, aye?”

Kyber nodded, then her eyes narrowed. “Wait. How do you know my name?”

“Why, shiver me timbers, EVERYBODY in Lore knows of the great Kyber Moonbow!”

“It’s written in the upper left-hand corner of the screen,” said Miele, popping up behind Kyber, and making her jump. “Hello, Captain, we meet again. Oh, thank you, don’t mind if I do help myself.” She began swigging coffee directly from the pot.

“The upper whaaaa….?” said Kyber blankly.

Miele pointed vaguely into the air. Kyber stared, but could see nothing. “Oh, don’t look like that,” Miele suddenly said to the pirate captain, who was, Kyber noticed, gaping with his mouth wide and eyes bugged out. “She already knows about the Savior of Lore scam.”

“Ye blabbed?!” Windy Wiggums gasped. “Sink my boots, but I wouldn’t want to be in your place when the Goldnames find out!”

Miele shrugged. “Then they’ll have to find someone else to tell heroes they do not want to become chaorrupted.” She returned to swigging coffee.

“Well, whatever,” Kyber said. “The important thing is for us to find the source of the magical disturbance and put an end to it.”

“Not much hope of that,” called the mage from up in the tree. “Without a clearly defined set of quests and goals, you’re about as useful as a stray dog.”

“I don’t need someone to give me quests!” Kyber said. “I’m perfectly capable of saving Lore without a shopping list of monsters to kill. I can think for myself, you know.” Probably, she thought.

“Is that so?” said the captain. “And can ye think of a way to get our ship afloat?”

“Maybe possibly kinda sorta,” said Kyber, sinking to sit on a boulder near the fire. “But your ship looks in pretty bad shape. I’m surprised you haven’t just walked out of here and found a new one.”

“I told you that was the best plan,” the mage sneered from up in the tree.

“Quiet, you!” the captain bellowed, throwing another burning branch skyward. “A captain never leaves his ship! Besides, I will need it to haul my glorious sky pearl out of here!”

Miele choked on her coffee, spitting a mouthful into the flames. “Sky pearl?” she and Kyber asked at once.

“Aye!” said Captain Wiggums. “The first thing we found when was were forced to land in this savage wilderness was a gleaming orb of stunning beauty. ‘Tis a treasure worth an entire fleet of skyships!”

“I’d love to see it,” said Kyber and Miele in unison again. Kyber subtly jabbed Miele in the ribs with an elbow.

“Fat chance,” said the mage.

“I SAID BE QUIET!” Wiggums yelled. “It be true that the pearl is momentarily out of my possession, but once the ship is fixed, we will have ample time to recover it.”

“Really?” said Kyber. “How did you come to lose it? Maybe I can help you get it back.”

Captain Wiggums looked at her, a sudden gleam in his eye. “Perhaps, indeed, ye might be the solution to this little problem of mine. And what be ye wanting in return?”

“Oh, maybe just a ride in your skyship out of here,” said Kyber.

“And for you to release that poor mage up in the tree,” the mage called.

Kyber frowned up at him. “And why would I care about that?”

“Because it would be a nice thing to do,” the mage smirked. “And you have a Good rep of 10.”

“Right,” said Kyber. “I really don’t need any more Good rep.” After a few moments she sighed and added, “Okay, a ride in your skyship and to let that poor mage out of the tree. I get dizzy looking at him.”

“And another pot of coffee,” Miele demanded, holding out the empty pot. “Stronger this time.”

“Done!” said the captain. He hoisted himself to his feet and hobbled over to the tree, where he severed a rope with his cutlass. The mage yelled as he fell to the earth.

“Come this way,” the captain said. “But be ye quiet. Yer life may depend on it.”

Discussion thread)
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 11
4/18/2014 12:45:40   
Inkwolf
Member

Chapter 12

The skypirate captain led the way through the forest. Kyber suspected him of choosing the most rocky, uneven and difficult path he could find. Just navigating it in the splint was difficult, to say nothing of remaining quiet. She made her way with her teeth gritted, partly because of the pain, partly to hold back the litany of curses, complaints and accusations that were longing to burst from her mouth.

When she nearly stumbled and fell on a rocky slope, Miele grabbed her and wrapped Kyber’s arm around her shoulders. The cleric nearly carried her through the rest of the journey, but Kyber was still relieved to sink to the ground when Captain Wiggums finally crouched to peer over a moss-covered boulder, whispering, “We’re here!”

Kyber remained lying on the ground as the others stared through the concealing foliage at…whatever it was. She didn’t really feel up to caring at the moment. Sooner or later, she supposed, she’d have to get up off the ground again. But not yet. She closed her eyes and simply listened to the rustling of leaves and the excited whispers of Miele and the pirates.

She suddenly felt much better after a few minutes, and got back to her feet to hobble over to the others and have a look.

“Oh, my,” she said. And then she added, “Oh, great. Just great. What is this, the nesting season?”

In the clearing below, an enormous zardbeast sat. It was a scaly, gigantic bird, with a heavy, sharp beak that looked as if it could split the hull of a skyship with a single jab.

“Roczard, I suppose,” said Miele.

“It’s like a karazard times a thousand,” Kyber grumbled. “The little ones were bad enough, and this one is a boss monster if I ever saw one. And speaking of little, Miele…wasn’t the Whatsis Orb about the size of a bowling ball? What the heck?”

The Roczard was seated on a round, glowing globe nearly as large as itself. The orb’s light flickered out for a few moments. Kyber felt the pain in her leg diminish.

“She keeps growing,” said Captain Wiggums in worshipful tones. “When I first set eye on the sky pearl, she was no bigger than a trobble, and only flashed off and on. Now look at her. She be grown tall as a gorillaphant, and glows almost all the time. She be the most splendiferous treasure this old pirate could ever hope to show off at Yulgar’s. I just need you to drive off that blasted, wretched, overgrown chicken what’s gone all broody over her, and we’ll all get out of here as soon as the ship’s skyworthy again.”

“That…is one big chicken, though,” said Miele. The orb flickered out again, and Kyber’s leg felt a bit better. Kyber quickly pulled out her treeant club. Faintly, she could just see the features of the branch’s grouchy face. Then it vanished. She looked at the orb and saw it was glowing again.

“Magic,” said Kyber. They looked at her blankly. “I think that when the orb glows, it’s sucking the magic from Lore. When it flickers out, we have a little of the natural magic trying to come back.”

“Magic?” The pirate mage’s eyes lit up. “You mean, when it’s not glowing, I can do magic again?”

“I think so,” said Kyber.

“Arrr!” said Captain Wiggums. “Then ye can be fixing the Floatyboaty whenever the pearl’s lights is off!”

“Yes, I could be,” agreed the mage. “Or…”

The orb’s glow flickered off again. The captain and crew members squealed as lightning crackled over them. “Ha ha!” crowed the mage. “You dared to disrespect a weather wizard! Now taste my revenge!” The pirates ran squealing in terror as the mage chased them, zapping them with electricity and cackling madly.

“Rest,” said Kyber to Miele. “We need to heal before fighting that thing.” They sat quietly, leaning on the mossy boulder.

Abruptly, the sound of lightning stopped. Through the trees of the forest, Kyber saw the mage come running past, wild-eyed, and chased by a mob of angry, cutlass-waving pirates. The orb was glowing again.

“How is your leg?” Miele asked.

“Better,” said Kyber moving the limb. “I don’t think it’s quite ready, though. How are you feeling?”

“Lots better, thanks,” said Miele. “The coffee helped.”

Lightning crackled, and the electrified pirates ran past, yelping, and being chased by the furious mage. Kyber rested.

The electrical zaps stopped again, and the mage ran past, pursued by bellowing pirates.

“I think that splint is ready to come off,” said Kyber. “Do you still have my dagger?”

“I thought you had it.”

“Darn, we must have lost it.”

“I still have your drow saber. Hang on.”

“Try not to cut my leg off.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

Electrical zapping started again, and the pirates ran by, screaming, as the mage pursued them with curses and shouts. Miele sawed at the leather thongs holding Kyber’s splint together. It felt good to have the thing off at last. Kyber flexed her leg.

“It works again,” she said. “Still kind of aches, though. Why do you suppose we haven’t been getting these little bursts of magic all along?”

Miele shrugged. “Maybe it only works like this close to the orb.”

The mage ran by, pursued by pirates.

“Weren’t we meant to be quiet?” Miele asked. “How is the Roczard reacting to all this noise and shouting and zapping?”

Kyber peeked over the rocks. “It’s looking this way. And it seems kind of annoyed.”

“I suppose we’d better get ready for the boss fight,” said Miele.

“Another shot of magic or two, and I should be ready,” said Kyber. “I wonder what would happen if my hand was in my backpack when the magic shut off?”

“Let’s try not to find out,” said Miele.

At the sound of crackling electrical bolts, Kyber quickly opened her backpack and randomly pulled out everything she could reach. By the time the screaming pirates ran by, there was a small mountain of armor, weapons, scrolls, accessories and resources piled on the forest floor.

“You carry a lot of junk.” Miele commented.

“I spend most of my ACs on storage space,” said Kyber, rummaging through the pile. She pulled out a gold and white suit of armor, an enormous pair of white wings, a haloed helmet, and an ornate and beautiful sword, which normally sparked with magical energies.

“Ummm,” said Miele as Kyber equipped the gear. “You aren’t looking very Horc Evaderish.”

“This is a job for a Paladin,” said Kyber. “With any luck, I may be able to use a Heal or two, when the magic is available. Are you ready?”

Miele got to her feet, gripping the saber. “Whenever you are.”

“Silverclaw?”

The white lion got to his feet, snarled, and bounded away into the forest.

“What? Where is he going?” Miele asked.

Kyber watched the lion disappear into the trees with disappointment. “I have no power to command him, when I’m not using Horc Evader,” she said. “I had hoped he would fight with us anyway, but so be it. Are you ready?”

“I said so already, didn’t I?”

Kyber nodded. “Well, then, let’s do this.”

Together, they leaped over the boulders and charged the enemy.

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