My companions helped me to my bed and I was asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. Strangely, though, I didn’t find myself in the Dreamlands. Not sure why, but it might have been the exhaustion from my injuries. Which was unfortunate, because that meant I had normal dreams.
Nightmares, really.
I don’t recall everything, but Greta was in pain. There were loud, angry voices, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. It did sound like an interrogation, but again, no idea what they were asking.
They had her strapped into one of those archaic torture devices. The ones that have a crank that slowly pulls limbs from a socket. Every time she refused to answer them, the crank would turn on its own. Or by the will of the man questioning her.
I couldn’t see his face, but there was something familiar about him. Unique among the people in the room, he never raised his voice, though the tone seethed with quiet rage. I got the feeling that he saw Greta as no more than a bug to be squashed.
And he wasn’t the only one there. I recognized three others. Two I spotted immediately. One was Segrit, the other, Vasily. The third, who I didn’t notice at first, I recognized from those lewd drawings as Queen Elvanna. There were several others as well, but I didn’t recognize them.
Eventually, I heard a popping sound as the device ripped Greta’s arm from its socket. Her scream of agony was so loud that I woke with a start. I sat bolt upright in bed, and was covered in sweat. “That couldn’t have been real,” I said, trying to assure myself that it was nothing. It was all in my mind. I was just worried about her. There was absolutely no way they would be able to discover that she had helped us.
I cleaned the sweat from my body with magic and checked the time. It was early, but I had gotten enough sleep to be ready for the day. Still, I doubted anyone else would be up yet. Not for at least an hour or two.
Since I couldn’t get back to sleep, I knew that would leave me with nothing to do but nurture that ball of worry in my stomach unless I found something else to do. “Cortana,” I said. “I need a hula hoop.”
“Specify parameters,” the VI responded.
“Use my dimensions to determine a size based on common sizes for commercially manufactured hula hoops. Make it out of that polymer that becomes rigid or collapsible when exposed to electricity so I can keep it in my bag when I’m not using it. Also, make it flash different color lights as I use it.”
“Parameters accepted. Cost to construct will be forty one gold pieces. Continue with transaction?”
“Yeah.” That was one expensive toy, I know. But I could afford it.
I played some music and danced for an hour. It was good to shut off my mind and just focus on dancing for a bit. By the time I was done, I had put the nightmare mostly from my mind. It was still there worrying me a little, but I could focus on what I needed to do.
I prepared my spells and then changed into my other clothes. It was time to go back to the witch look. I kept the white hair from the wolf look, though. I wanted Greta to recognize me when we got finished and I went back to her.
I knew Gregor was awake because I could hear noise coming from his room. It almost sounded like he was throwing things in there. Burin peeked his head out of his room to make sure everything was alright, and Terry came in from the library. Not sure what she was researching, exactly, but it looked like she had been at it for much of the night.
“We almost ready to head out?” I asked the other two.
“My spells are ready,” Burin said with a nod. “Just need to eat breakfast.”
“Coffee,” Terry grunted. “And cake.” She then plopped down at the table, which was filled with some delicious smelling breakfast offerings.
“Will you let Gregor know we’re almost ready to head out?” I asked the dwarf.
“Can do,” Burin said with another nod.
I sat down and nibbled at a few of the things on the table. Even after my exertion, I wasn’t hungry thanks to magic, but I still enjoyed flavors. And there were some delicious things to be had. The only thing I missed out on was some kind of small cakes, which Terry had stuffed into her guitar case for later.
Nebula – who had once again appeared after I’d prepared my spells – nosed around the table and ended up eating most of one of the fish dishes by the time the men joined us. She climbed up onto my shoulder and took her favorite perch as the others finished eating.
Outside, I had Nebula fly into the air to see if she could spot anything. She came back down a few moments later. “There’s a lot of movement out there,” she informed us as she returned to her perch. “Scouts scurrying about, to and fro. I couldn’t get a good look at them, however.”
“More giants?” Burin asked.
“No, certainly not. I thought I heard hoof beats on the wind, so they’re probably riders of some kind.” I’d never seen a horse that a giant could ride, so she was probably right.
“Maybe enemies of the giants?” Gregor suggested.
“Only one way to be sure,” Burin answered, marching purposefully into the lightly snow-dusted evergreen forest. “Hello?” he called. “We don’t have to be enemies! Please, no need to hide in the forest! Come say hello!”
Four centaurs came our way. From their body language, I could tell one thing. They were TERRIFIED of us. And I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. “Why do they look so nervous?” Gregor asked me.
“No idea,” I responded.
One of the centaurs shouted something at us in a language I didn’t recognize. None of my companions seemed to comprehend either. After a moment, he shouted again, this time in a different language. And yet again, none of us understood them.
“It appears that it is lucky I came along,” Nebula said stretching on my shoulder.
“You speak their language?”
“Not exactly.” She bounded onto the ground and slowly approached the wary centaurs. “Please do not be alarmed by my companions. Like kittens, they have not mastered the many-natured speech of the world.”
Despite the fact that I understood what she was saying, the centaurs seemed to understand as well. “We have been told to escort you to our chieftain. He has questions for you,” the lead scout said and Nebula translated.
“Ask him where we are,” Terry told Nebula, who relayed the question.
“Iobaria, in the lands of the Rashalka tribe located within the Hoofwood,” Nebula relayed the centaur’s response. “He wants to know why we’re here.”
“We’re here to kill witches,” Burin said.
Nebula relayed his words, then added, “Please do not take anything the dwarf says too seriously. He is not very bright.”
“Hey!” Burin said. He cast a cantrip and began to glow. “See, I’m very bright.”
Before we set out, Terry managed to wheedle one of the centaurs – using Nebula to translate, of course – into giving her a ride. Something about how her short legs would slow everyone else down. The centaur, whose humanoid torso was that of a very fit – and very shirtless – man of maybe twenty five, agreed and helped her onto his back, where she promptly fell asleep.
The nerve of that girl. What’s the good of getting onto the back of Mister Washboard Abs if you’re just gonna fall asleep as soon as you’re there? She should have enjoyed the ride, holding on tight to those powerful pecs of his, pretending to be afraid of falling.
I was going to have to have a talk with her later.
It took several hours to reach the centaurs’ village, which was more of a camp, really. It was filled with huts made of a bunch of hides stretched over wooden frames set in a half-circle around a large central fire pit. The scent of roasting fowl filled the air.
I wasn’t the only one who smelled the roasting pheasants. “Wait. Do you guys eat meat?” Burin suddenly asked.
Why wouldn’t they? I mean, they’re human at the top. But I guess they might also have a horse’s digestive system? I was never much for biology – except anatomy – but I’m not sure anyone back home would know anyway. I’d bet scientists back home would be like kids in a candy store if I brought some of them some centaur corpses.
I wasn’t the only one confused by his question. “Of course,” came the response translated by Nebula. “Why would we not?”
“Never mind,” Burin said, looking embarrassed.
The scouts led us to the tent at the center of the crescent, which looked a lot grander than the others. As we passed, many of the people in the camp watched us with a combination of curiosity and fear. In truth, it was a bit unnerving.
Two of the scouts remained outside while the other two escorted us inside and introduced us to their chieftain, Korak Kaag, a centaur who looked to be in his late forties, but even so was broad shouldered and built like one of those guys from the old barbarian movies. Sadly, unlike the scout, he was wearing a shirt of lamellar armor.
“So,” the older centaur said, speaking Taldan much to our surprise. “You must be the ones who came forth from the witch’s hut. My scouts tell me that you slew eight frost giants, but surely they exaggerate.”
“You’re right. We only killed seven,” Burin said. “The hut killed one of them.”
I must be honest, I wasn’t entirely paying attention. I was staring at Scout Washboard McSixPack trying to figure out exactly how centaurs mated. For academic reasons. I mean, wanting to have sex with a centaur would be some kind of furry thing, right?
“Truly? I wish that I had a group such as yours within my tribe, to talk of killing so many giants in such a matter-of-fact manner. But why not use the hut to fight them? Surely it was more dangerous than necessary to face them head on?”
“We have no idea how to control the hut. It seems to listen to our friend sometimes, but ever since we killed the witch and took the hut, we haven’t had much time to figure out how to use it.”
The centaur regarded the dwarf skeptically. “You stole the hut from the witch?” he asked suspiciously.
“Right,” Burin confirmed. “After we killed her. Now we need to stop the other witch.”
There was silence in the room for a moment as the centaur chieftain considered how to view this news, only broken as Terry said, “No, pop, I don’t wanna kill the puppy…” in her sleep.
“You killed Baba Yaga?” Korak Kaag asked, ignoring the girl’s mumbled outburst.
I think that might have been the point where Burin realized that he had not been as clear as he should have been. “What? No. We serve Baba Yaga, sort of. We killed Nazhena and are searching for a way to stop Elvanna, who seems to have committed treachery of some kind against her mother.”
“I do not know this Nazhena, but I have heard of Elvanna. So, you seek to combat the queen of Irrisen? What, then, brings you all the way to this land?”
“The Hut,” Burin and Gregor answered matter-of-factly in unison.
The chieftain shook his head, amazed at the literal mindedness of my companions. “No, I mean, why are you here?”
“Oh!” Burin said. “That might take some explaining. Do you know what a Black Rider is?”
That comment brought me back to reality and out of fantasy centaur make out land. “We’re looking for Artrosa. There’s apparently something we need there to continue our journey.” We were going to be here all day if I let Burin try to explain the whole Black Rider thing to the centaurs.
“Ah yes, the old monument. I have heard stories of a labyrinth that lies beneath the statues. But there may be a problem. Two nights past, something attacked one of our fellow clans that lives on the plains near Artrosa. Any outsiders who tries to pass through there will likely face scorn, if not outright hostility. I am certain that you could easily win your way past them, but I would not like to see friends who have suffered as they have suffer further.”
“Is there nothing we can do to earn their trust?” Gregor asked.
The centaur smiled. “In truth, I had hoped that you would ask. Our scouts helped them track their attackers to their den, a cave that can be accessed through a sinkhole several miles from their camp. Unfortunately, the opening is too small for our people, but I think the four of you would not have such trouble. If you could enter the den and reclaim what was stolen, I am certain that our friends would let you pass.”
“What was taken?” Burin asked.
“Several of their children were stolen by the creatures.”
“We’ll go now,” the dwarf offered immediately.
“I admire your enthusiasm, but it will take some arranging to even get you to the sinkhole without being attacked.” He spoke to one of the scouts, who saluted and left. “A runner will leave immediately to inform them and ask their permission to attempt a rescue. You should be able to set out first thing in the morning. Until then, I will have a tent set aside for the four of you to rest. Please, accept the hospitality of my camp until then.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But tell me, when we arrived, I noticed that everyone seemed afraid of us. Why?”
“We know that it is only a matter of time before Baba Yaga turns her armies against us and conquers this land in the name of eternal winter. We feared that you were sent ahead to prepare the way for her coming.”
“Oh. Oh! OH!” Burin said in realization. “Guys! I think we may be serving a bad person!”
I face-palmed internally. “Yes, Burin. We know that already. But Elvanna’s trying to cover the whole world in eternal winter NOW and thus is a problem for NOW. Baba Yaga may be a problem, but she’s a LATER problem and she’s the only solution we have at the moment to the NOW problem of Elvanna.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that.”
After some minor small talk, Korak Kaag’s men showed us to one of the huts he had set aside for us. Centaur women brought us some food as Burin tucked Terry into one of the beds of furs at the back of the tent.
That night, while sleeping, we were attacked by demons. They were andrazkus – demons formed from the souls of people whose overarching sin was a hatred of women – and they tore their way into the tent in the wee hours of the morning. Only Gregor had been awake, having needed to get up and stretch a bit to work out the kinks of sleeping on the ground.
The demons focused on Terry and me, which made sense. And they died quickly for it, even if a sleepy Terry absentmindedly threw a grenade in the middle of the fight before trying to go back to sleep. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. Nothing a couple wand charges couldn’t heal.
The centaurs apologized for not spotting the demons as they had snuck into camp. We believed them, so we told them it was fine.
In the morning, we rode on the backs of some of the centaurs – and of course I took full advantage of being on the back of Scout Washboard – to make better time getting to the entrance to the invaders’ underground lair. Chief Korak had sent someone who spoke our language with us to translate – in case Nebula wasn’t available for some reason – a young centaur woman by the name of Erdija. I’m not gonna lie, she was hot. But I was okay with not being the one riding her back, as I figure she might have objected a little more vehemently to any slips of the hand.
As we rode, we spotted smoke rising in the distance. “Does someone live that way?” Terry asked Erdija.
“Just the old hermit. We trade with him from time to time,” the centaur answered.
“That does not look like normal chimney smoke,” Gregor said.
“Should we check it out?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t we focus on rescuing the children?” Burin asked in response.
“It is not but barely out of our way,” Erdija said. “We can at least ride by and see if he needs help.”
The hermit’s house was a sturdy, two story building made of well-placed stone blocks held together with mortar. Even the roof appeared to be made of stone shingles. As we approached, it was clear that something was horribly amiss.
The house’s front door was wide open. The source of the smoke appeared to be the burnt remains of an outbuilding – perhaps a shed or something of the like. So we came to a stop and did a quick search.
There was no one inside the home, but we did find something in the rubble of the shed. “What is this thing?” Terry asked, indicating the half-charred corpse of a small creature with wild hair and pure white eyes.
“That looks like a derro,” Burin responded. “They’re creatures that come from the darkness underground and kidnap people so they can experiment on them to try to find out how surface dwellers can survive the sun’s light. They usually eventually return their victims, but not without damage. Limbs are often missing, and even those who show no outward trauma are often maddened by the ordeal.” He paused for a second, his face becoming determined. “We have to hurry. If these things have the children, the longer we take, the worse things could be.”
“Wait,” Gregor said. “I’ve been studying the tracks while you were looking through the rubble. These derro creatures were not alone. I see many tracks for small things, then some for another – perhaps a dwarf – that are of many ages, so it is likely these are belonging to this hermit. But there is another set of tracks, only just as old as those for these derros. And these tracks appear to be for someone the size of a human.”
“Do derros ever work with humans or anything human-sized?” I asked Burin.
“I’ve never heard of it. They’re all quite mad, from the tales I’ve been told. So they don’t generally work well with others not of their race.”
We made haste to the sinkhole. Once there, we left our guides outside the entrance to watch for anyone else coming our way before heading inside. It wasn’t long before we encountered resistance.
Once we reached a decent sized chamber, a pair of cytillipedes – massive centipedes infected by cytillesh fungus – skittered out of the cavern walls. They flashed us with their bioluminescence, confusing Burin long enough for one of them to grab onto him with its massive mandibles. Overall, though it wasn’t much of a fight.
“This is definitely the lair of derros,” Burin said. “They’re the ones who infused the centipedes with the fungus.” I knew a little about the monsters themselves, but I hadn’t heard that they were created by derros. Neat. Gregor extracted the venom from one of the cytillipedes for Terry before we moved on.
We soon came to some kind of underground building whose walls were lined with pots of glowing cytillesh, which cast a blue hue on everything. We took a left and came to a large door. It was locked, so Terry unlocked it. Worried about traps, Burin had us step back as he opened it.
The door was indeed trapped. It fell right off of its hinges and clanged to the ground with a terrible cacophony that sent a chill down my spine.
Sensing a presence, Terry spun and fired at some invisible thing moving behind us. It turned out to be a derro armed with a dagger. Gregor made quick work of him, knocking him out with a few blows of his fists, but there were others who came from the hallway on the other side of the fallen door.
Also, the spike of adrenaline brought on by combat caused that strange chill in my spine to amplify, leaving me confused enough that I managed to injure myself in the process of trying to draw my wand for some reason I can no longer fathom. In the end, though, I regained control and we ended up defeating the additional enemies.
We used ion tape and rope to bind the unconscious enemy, then clamped his wrists in the manacles attached to his belt for good measure. Then we woke him. And that’s when things got kind of weird.
Remember that weird language I just woke up knowing one day? Well, that language was the same language spoken by the derro. I’m not sure who was more surprised that I spoke that language: Me, the derro, or my companions.
We learned that the derros had indeed captured the centaur children, but had as of yet been unable to do any experiments. Apparently, a vishkanya – a race of humanoids whose very blood is a deadly poison – had arrived and used some kind magic to bind the derros to his will. It was this vishkanya who had forced the derros to go after the dwarven hermit.
Terry asked several follow up questions about the hermit and the vishkanya, but the derro didn’t know the answers she sought. But her sudden interest caught my attention. “Is there something important here?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It could just be a coincidence. In fact, it has to be. There’s no way that old fool is all the way out here in Iobaria.”
After getting directions to where the children were being held, we took the bound derro out to the centaur scouts. We’d let them decide what to do to him and any others we took alive. They agreed to keep an eye on him and we headed back in to continue our search for the children.
The hallway led to two doors. The first led into the underground tunnels that connected to the rest of the subterranean world. The second led to a room whose ceiling was pockmarked by numerous small holes. “It’s a trap,” Burin said.
“It looks that way,” Terry agreed. “There are two loose tiles. One on the floor by that door there, the other on the wall on the far side.
“Everyone wait in the hall. I’ll try the wall panel first,” the dwarf said. “It might shut off the trap.”
The wall panel didn’t shut off any trap. Instead, it released a latch which led to a vault of some kind. Burin then went and stepped on the loose floor tile, carefully holding his buckler above him. Arrows shot from the ceiling and clanged uselessly off of his armor. He waited a minute and stepped on it again. There was a soft click, but nothing happened.
“I think it’s safe,” Burin called to us. We moved in and quickly scanned the vault for any useful items. There were several, including a half charged healing wand, some kind of magic shirt, a headband that protected against fear and an enchanted dwarven helmet.
We then scooped up as much of the gold and gems as we could – because you never know if we’d have time to do so later – and headed into the door next to the trapped floor tile.
“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid,” a voice with what sounded like an Italian accent said. “If anyone knows where Geiser is, it’s you, old man. So tell me where he’s gone.”
“Heh,” a gruff voice said. “I’ve had whores hit me harder than that.
“You’re kidding.”
“I never kid about whores. Look, I don’t know where the kid went. But you can be damn sure that even if I did, I’d never tell you.” He then cried out in pain as someone struck him again. “That’s more like it. Now you’re putting some feeling in it!”
“We have to help him!” Terry whispered, her voice filled with urgency.
Burin charged in first, growing to his larger size as he did so. Then Gregor came in behind, teleporting past the dwarf to attack whoever was there. “Well now, I wasn’t expecting any guests,” the Italian voice answered flamboyantly. I heard the sound of a sword being drawn at lightning speed.
“We came to save the children, ya sodding fop. Helping this poor fellow is just a bonus,” Burin said as he struck with his axe. I saw a flash of metal as a thin blade deftly deflected the dwarf’s mighty swing.
I could hear Gregor trying to strike the man, but I could also hear his blows being deflected as well as his grunts of frustration as it happened. Terry rounded the corner and took a shot. “You always were a pain in the ass, Niccolo,” Terry said as she did so. I heard the sound of metal on metal as somehow the man deflected at least one of her rounds. Holy crap.
“Terry? You would not believe the amount of effort I went through trying to find myself in your company again. And here you are, just falling into my lap, right where you belong.”
“Niccolo, stop being a creepy pedophile.”
“Oh, come now Terry. You cannot imagine just how much I want to stick something long and hard in you right this very moment.” What the hell was this dialogue?! It certainly wasn’t doing anything to dissuade my suspicion that Terry was older than she appeared.
“Would you two stop yapping and someone untie me?!” shouted the gruff voice from before.
“In a moment, once his corpse stops twitching,” Terry said.
Meanwhile, I was trying to cast my spells, but kept getting interrupted by crossbow bolts from a couple of derros that had come out of a door at the far side of the room. And the one time I got a spell off, I discovered that derros apparently have some kind of resistance to magic that I’d have to overcome.
Nonetheless, we were winning. That Niccolo couldn’t withstand the onslaught of my three companions, even with the aid of some kind of minor derro spellcaster. It wasn’t long before the last surviving derro dove past a natural rock formation that jutted up through the room and dashed past me.
“We’ve got this!” Terry shouted. “Don’t let him escape!” The creature had proven resistant to my magic already, so it wasn’t like I could just easily hit him with a fireball or something. No, I needed another solution.
That solution flexed her claws, gently kneading my shoulder. “Nebby! Time to chase!”
Nebula let out a yowl and leapt forward. As she did, I cast my spell, imparting it just as she left my touch. She became a cat-girl in midair and tore into the back of the fleeing derro with her claws. Blood spurted from his wounds.
He made it about thirty feet before collapsing from blood loss.
We quickly returned to the others, arriving just in time to find them standing over the corpse of Niccolo. “Now untie me!” said the one-armed dwarf strapped to the crude table.
“In a moment,” Terry said, holding up her hand. “He’s still twitching.”
Gregor stomped down with his left foot and I heard a sickening crunch. “There. Is no longer any possibility of a problem.”
Terry moved over and untied the dwarf. As soon as he was free, he punched her. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?” Terry asked, indignant.
“I live out here!”
“Why do you live HERE?!”
The dwarf ignored her. “That was some good fighting,” he said to Burin. “There’s something familiar about you. You wouldn’t happen to be a Burin, would you?”
“I am, sir. How did you know?”
“I knew one of you predecessors. Decent sort, a bit crazy on the battlefield. Probably because of that demon he had in his belly.”
“My demon’s smaller, so you don’t have to worry.”
The one armed dwarf shook his head in disbelief. “Lad, demons don’t just get smaller.”
“I know. But Segrit stole most of the demon in me.”
“Ah, a Segrit. I should have known. Always trouble, those ones. Demons in bedsheets, though. Worth every bit of crazy.” He turned to Gregor. “I guess you fought as well as could be expected. But even three on one, you let that ass parry way too many of your blows. Does Sergei just let anyone into his school these days?” He knew about Burin and Gregor? Damn, these people get around.
“Sergei lets no one into the school any longer. He is dead, murdered by Man Who Would Not Die.”
“Sergei’s dead? That’s a damn shame.” Suddenly, he caught sight of me. “Well, hello! And what might your name be?” He walked over to me, a lecherous look in his eyes.
“Now’s not the time, Pop,” Terry said.
“Hush, you. I’m talking to my future ex-wife here.”
He was definitely not my type. I mean, he had the rugged scars thing going, and he was well muscled. But he was far too short. Also, there was that other thing. “Sorry, but I’m already married.”
He shrugged. “That didn’t stop my fourth or fifth wives. Don’t worry. Your panties will end up on the floor of my bedroom yet.” He turned back to Terry. “You and I need to have a serious talk. HE has gotten control of his dragon again and he wants you. BAD.” That just opened even more questions.
“It wasn’t my plan. There was this dragon, and then I died. And some other stuff happened. So now I’m here.”
“She and Burin are stuck together by some kind of magic bond,” Gregor added to the one-armed dwarf’s amazement.
Burin, having finally shrunk back to normal. “Excuse me, sir, but have you seen a bunch of centaur children anywhere?”
“Oh, them? Through that door over there. I think that one derro over there has the keys to the cells.”
We rescued the grateful children, who instantly warmed up to the “talking kitty” and escorted them to the surface. We then had Cortana produce enough plastic explosives to collapse the tunnel at Burin’s suggestion that we find a way to do so.
It was getting late, so we decided to take up the dwarven hermit on his offer to stay the night at his place while the centaur scouts escorted the children back to their families. Erdija promised she’d meet us first thing in the morning to show us to Artrosa.
Sadly, none of us had remembered the part about derros being unable to survive in sunlight, so we didn’t have a captive to take to the centaur village for trial or whatever. But after hearing the children talk about how frightened they had been, I didn’t think I’d lose any sleep over what had happened to him.
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