Chapter +√36

  WARNING: This Chapter Contains (a) Peak

  “It’s like they’re looking straight at me,” Sol observed, staring into the magic orb in his lap. He could see Gwen, Gia, and his grandkids sitting on a picnic blanket, pointing at him.

  “It’s because they can see you, husband,” Veris answered. “That Cursed Orb of Scrying allows you to track others’ whereabouts, but the drawback is that they can see who is tracking them. And it’s very obvious too. Pretend you are a humongous planet-eating man in space, looking at all those tasty balls of dirt and gas orbiting around you. That’s how they see you. A figure above the clouds.”

  “So like a god?” Mimi asked.

  “Sort of. More around the realm of a cloud-being. A detailed snowman of the sky.”

  “I like snow,” Bird remarked. “Spent a while up on Blizzcliff, meditating and stretching.”

  “So you do practice mioga…” Sol mumbled.

  Sunbreak was currently headed for the Mountains of Musselheim, beyond Binglesnort. After taking care of their mime problem, Mayor Binglesnort and Mr. Brown sent them off with some food… and a written recommendation to the clown college located in Top Town.

  Ahead, the road curved upwards into Musselheim Pass. Originally, the path was a riverbed, so you could say this place was canyon, except for the fact that the mountains were formed after the canyon was created. So its a bit of both. An anomaly. A popular theory amongst current geophysicists and seismologists is that a large-scale earthquake, unlike anything ever recorded before, occurred within the last, eh—forty years, forcing the mountains to form rapidly like pimples after a heavy dose of buttered popcorn. Now, you must be saying, ‘Surely they would have recorded such a thing! People didn’t just come into existence forty years ago!’ And many people share that sentiment (except for the Bumpers, those maniacs), but the thing is, there are no surviving records of what happened. It was as if, during that brief stretch of time, recorded history just… stopped. So in reality, the Mountains of Musselheim are actually mountains slapped on top of a canyon. And because of this, the size disparity between the top and bottom is very, very, large, making traveling between them take very, very, long. This leads people who decide to end it all wondering why they didn’t just use the popular ‘K.Y.S.’ spell on the way down. The longer the in-flight service, the longer you have to reconsider your life choices, but at the end of the day, its too late.

  Regardless, as Sunbreak entered the pass, the walls of the canyon-mountain mix stretched ever so far upwards, showcasing its layers of striped browns, oranges, reds, and grays until hitting the thick, teeth-like, igneo-morphic slabs lining the top; tips bending downward into the pass like a curious child looking into an anthill. It was as if they were walking along the midrib of a venus flytrap. A perfect place for an ambush, really. I mean, imagine if someone kicked down a giant boulder on top of them. It wouldn’t do much, but the spectacle is still nice to think about.

  So, they walked and walked. A bit of the river was still around, so fresh water wasn’t hard to come by (Besides, Veris kept some emergency sustenance in her pocket dimension, but Sol really didn’t want to use it. He wanted to gather supplies during the journey instead of before the journey). There were some Stone Golems here and there that they had to fight, but they were no biggie. These really annoying pterodactyl-like creatures called Canyonaitors hassled them a couple of times, but a little magic-EMP discombobulated their natural navigation systems enough so they would crash, getting their pointed beaks stuck in the walls and ground. The only other dangerous creature they ran into was the Mammonitor Lizard. It’s exactly as it sounds. A ginormous monitor lizard with venomous spit and humongous tusks; perfect for goring creatures unlucky enough to be funneled into this mountain pass, turning their circulatory systems into a scrumptious blood jello. The size of this thing took up nearly a third of the traversable width of the pass.

  “Alright! Let’s beat this thing—Hey! Wait! Whaddya doin'?” Sol was lifted up by Veris’ magic and followed her center-of-mass as if they were connected via a rigid invisible pole in the air.

  “Sorry honey,” she said, magically donning her obsidian armor and crown. “But it’s time for the rest of us to have some fun now. We’ve been only killing the little guys. Personally, I want to fight one of the bigger ones.”

  “Oh foo,” he sulked in his wheelchair.

  “Hey Mimi!" Bird shouted. "I could use some taunting buffs here!”

  “Way ahead of you!” Mimi switched to her metal side and aggressively sang the scribbly, annoying orange music notes at him. “RaAaAaAaA!”

  “Come here my lizard friend!” Bird said as his clothes ripped off once again. Hang dong, bro.

  The Mammonitor Lizard’s tongue ‘flppps’ increased in pace, tuning into Bird’s big stick policy. Then, with barely any buildup, he rushed at him, tilting his head forward to prepare his tusks for insertion.

  SCOOP! GRIP!

  A failure. Bird had clasped his hands around each tusk trying to push back; his calloused feet tilling the ground trying to stop the charge. Finally, after about fifty feet, and some strength buffs from Mimi, he did it. This was a struggle, and the various stab attempts made with the lizard's venomous tongue didn’t help either. His head dodged left and right, but there wasn’t much he could do without some help. Great, the thing was now tail-whipping him too.

  “Uh… Veris?” Bird said questionably, body getting repeatedly tail-whipped.

  “Wait-wait,” she replied in thought. “I’m trying to figure out what spell I’m going to use.”

  “Hurry uh-uuuuuup!" Mimi sang with a worried look on her face.

  “Really? Now?” Bird reacted, annoyed. “Just attack it with fire or something!”

  FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP. A spray of playing cards pelted the Mammonitor’s tough hide.

  “Hint! Lizards are cold-blooded!” Domino called out to Veris mid-throw.

  “Oh yes, you’re right,” she remarked.

  “So fire, right?” Bird shouted. “If it’s cold-blooded, shoot it with fire! Heat it up!”

  “No, not fire Bird. Ice!”

  The seams in Veris’ armor glowed a light blue, along with her eyes, and suddenly a gigantic rotating magical icy hexagon appeared above the lizard. Out of it fell a chilly mist, and then—

  FSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH.

  Instead of the cold flowing in, the heat was getting sucked out. Hot to cold. The basics of thermodynamics. Heat rises, and in this particular scenario, it was rising fast! Everything directly under that hexagon felt its body temperature leave them from their head, including Bird. But as a warm-blooded creature, he had a bit more resistance than the giant lizard in front of him, which would assuredly require more energy to maintain itself. Its movements started to slow. The tail stopped its incessant whipping. It needed to get away from this space, but this stupid orc was holding it in place. It stopped its tongue-probing and instead looked up to Veris, gauging her distance. At this rate, it had one shot at stopping her. Better make it count.

  SPIT!

  “There it goes,” he thought, “headed straight for that bloody demon. C’mon, hit her right in the dome! Melt her face off! My spit may not be acidic, but a lizard can dream! Almost there annnnnd—”

  WHOOSH. The shot missed by a frankfurtian-meter.

  “Fuck. Goddamn heat squigglies!”

  And just as the lizard thought-barked every single possible racial slur against the orc, elf, demon, the cloaked figure which he just threw a couple random ones out there, and that stupid human sitting in the air, its movements slowed to a stop. The hibernation reflex had finally kicked in. It’s blood-mandated sleepy time, baby. Say goodnight forever, Manny the Mammonitor Lizard.

  CRJAISHSADHJK!

  “Haven’t done that in a while,” Bird remarked, watching the lizard’s head fly dirtily off, having struck it with his Footy Flail. Oh look! That’s its T1 vertebrae right there! Along with a pitiful amount of blood! AND the rippy skin! “Now, let’s collect all of this meat!”

  DINK! Bird’s carving knife bounced off the lizard's thick, scaly hide.

  “Dang, this skin is really tough,” he said.

  “Let me loosen it up,” Veris replied, then stuck her hand into the head-socket of the lizard and cast a blood-magic spell. Like before, the seams in her armor glowed a crimson, her eyes and veins too. Rustling sounds were heard from underneath the hide. Then, all at once, it detached from its body slightly, hovering due to the pressure from a multitude of miniature blood-jets hitting its underside.

  “What did you do?” Mimi asked.

  “I warmed up the blood, upping the pressure on it until it pierced the lower layers of the skin and forced its hide away from the meat. Don’t worry, I’ll re-infuse the blood back in. It shouldn’t look like there is any damage at all.”

  “Thanks,” Bird replied. “Now let me just cut a line across this and…”

  SCHHHHHHHHWIP. The cut allowed the lizard hide to unwrap around its body.

  “Here we are,” Bird handed the hide to Veris, who stored it in her pocket dimension. “Now we just have to carve the meat.” He looked over the lizard’s exposed body, left to right. “Yeah… this may take awhile.”

  “No it won’t,” she replied, and cast another spell. This time the pocket dimension’s portal widened enough to fit the entirety of the lizard. Then, a steel color briefly glinted across her eyes, and a grid of sharp blades appeared in the portal’s entrance. “Honey,” she levitated Sol to the backside of the lizard, “do you mind transferring our reptile friend here inside?”

  “Sure,” he answered.

  SLAP! FWOOM!

  He slapped the Mammonitor’s jiggly butt; soft like its underbelly, and it launched forward clean through the knife grid then rapidly decelerated due to the change in space-viscosity inside the portal. A moment later, the body parts separated; diced like cheese, and the pocket dimension shut.

  “Cool. Cool-cool-cool. Now we’re set for food,” Mimi remarked. “Those circus-themed lunch boxes the clown gave us wouldn’t have lasted us too long.”

  “We should probably continue forward, guys,” Domino suggested.

  “You’re right,” Sol nodded. “Let’s get going.”

  Walking. Walking. More walking. So much walking. But finally, the path started to curve upward. Sunbreak would have to climb out of the canyon and through the mountains now. Oh boy. But five minutes up the incline, a peculiar thing happened: A thick n’ tall tan backpack abruptly landed in front of them with a deep THUD. Dust and pebbles got kicked into the air.

  “What the hell is that?” Sol jumped.

  “It looks like a backpack,” Mimi answered, examining it.

  “Well, if it came from above, then…”

  Everyone tilted their heads up to the face of the mountain. There was a spot. A teensy-tiny beige spot. Falling. Growing. Coming right toward them.

  “aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

  It was a gnome, screaming and waving his arms frantically with his eyes closed to his coming demise. Domino grabbed him by the leg just before he hit the ground, and he hung there with his pointed brown hat slightly bent against the ground, still screaming and waving with all his might. Death is a boson of fear.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

  The gnome’s screams slowly calmed to a stop, having come to one of two conclusions: Either he was dead and he was in some sort of afterlife, or he had survived the fall by some wondrous miracle. Slowly, he opened his eyes and perceived his reality. What met him was the ground. Certain death was right there, and yet, he was spared just before it touched him.

  “I’m… I’m alive? Ho-ho, I’m alive!” He flexed his abdominals to bend upwards and look at his cloaked savior whose face was covered by a simple smiling mask. “Oh thank you—OOF!” But suddenly he found himself stuck in the ground by his cone hat, unable to free himself. He wiggled in place. “Uh-ho, I’m not sure what just happened, but can I get a little help here?”

  “Bird,” Sol commanded.

  “Right,” he nodded, then pulled the gnome out of the ground like an onion and set him down.

  “Ho-ho! Thank you for saving me, old chum!” he responded with glee, then looked at the rest of the party. “Or should I say, old chums!”

  “You’re welcome,” Bird said, then signaled for the rest of the party to move on.

  “Ho-ho-no! Where are you going?” The gnome got in front of them.

  “Through the mountains,” Sol answered.

  “Of course you’re going through the mountains! I mean what’s your destination?”

  “The Valley of Dim,” Mimi answered.

  “Dim? Ho-ho, that’s great!”

  “Why is it great?” Bird said, bored.

  “Because I need to go that way too!” The gnome thumbed himself.

  The party looked at each other.

  “Do we really need to take this guy, Sol?” Mimi asked.

  Sol took a hard look at the gnome. He was short, of course, approaching middle-age, and he had a gold monocle on his right eye. His brown heart beard was a little scruffy from being out in the wilderness for a while, and his outfit was that of an explorer: beige, with many pockets, re-sewed in certain spots. Underneath it he could tell it was lined with some kind of fur for insulation. Finally, the gnome had some dirty hiking boots on. Broken-in. Perfect for climbing a mountain. And by the heavy duty pack nearly spilling with survival materials nearby, Sol guessed that this little fella had much experience traveling solo. In fact, now that he was looking at him, he seemed quite familiar.

  “Have I met you before?” Sol asked.

  “Um, ho-ho-no, I don’t believe we have met,” the gnome responded. “But! You may have heard of me before!” He bowed. “I am Dotus the Explorer, or ‘Traveller’ as some others call me. You may call me ‘Dot’ if you’d like! A privilege for my saviors, ho-ho!”

  “Oh yes, I remember now. I believe I read one of your books.”

  “You have? I mean—of course you have! Which one?”

  “I think it was something along the lines of: Fantastic Artifacts and Where to Find Them, or something.”

  “You must mean my Hyper-specific Magics, Magical Artifacts, and the Places and People That Have Them series, no-ho?”

  “That’s the one,” Sol pointed.

  “Ho-ho! Matter-of-fact, I’m currently on the prowl for the next set of artifacts to be featured in the next volume!”

  “You should really shorten the name,” Mimi remarked.

  “Yes, I do believe that would make it easier to remember. Why not shorten it to what my husband said?” Veris added.

  “A common complaint amongst my fans, nyo-ho,” the gnome responded. “But it’s too late to change the name now.”

  “Why?” Mimi asked.

  “Legal troubles,” Domino answered. “There’s another book with a similar name to what Sol suggested.”

  “That’s core-ey-ho!” the gnome replied. “Plus, that author turned out to be quite the weird-ho! I wouldn’t want my works’ name to be associated with them! Ho-ho-no!”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Mimi leaned to her side to whisper to Bird, “Look who's talking.” They chuckled together quietly.

  “Plus,” Dot continued, “that author’s work is fictional, while my work is all real and based on facts! Very-much-so-ho!”

  “Sol?” Bird huffed. “Are we going to take this guy?”

  “Mmmm… no,” he answered. “Let’s go.”

  The gnome jumped in front of them again, “WAIT!”

  “What. Is. It?” Bird forced through his teeth.

  “Please! I need your group to help me through the mountains! I was so close to the end but I fell! Woah-ho-ho!”

  “How?” Sol asked.

  “A wind gust!”

  “A wind gust threw you off the mountain?” Veris raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes!” he hopped in place. “It’s a major problem we gnomes have! Despite our whimsical prowess, we are so small; we are so short! Strong gusts have always been a challenge for us! Don’t even get me started on the Whirling Winds Disaster! Ho-oh, so many gnomish lives were lost that day, no-ho-ho…”

  “Fine, we’ll take you,” Sol decided.

  “Sol, like, what the hell, man?” Bird judged his friend’s judgement.

  “C’mon Bird, I’ve read this guy’s work. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be on this journey in the first place. And he seems to be able to take care of himself most of the time. If he needs our help, he must really need it.”

  “Yes! Yes! What he says is true! Ho-ho!” The gnome nodded and pointed rapidly at Sol.

  “Hmph,” Bird sighed, “fine.”

  ? Up the mountain and past the mountain and up the mountain and through the mountain and up the mountain and punch-a-hole through the mountain to the Valley of Dim we goooo! ?

  The Mountains of Musselheim were weird. Very weird. And it wasn’t just the canyon-mountain geologic anomaly that made it weird. It was whoever the Smartypants McDumbfuck that created the pass that made it weird. The trail curved and spiraled around the mountains. Wrapped around itself from above. Somehow floated across open space, creating bridge-nexuses of many paths. It was crazy. Really crazy. And the party soon appreciated the gnome’s presence, otherwise they would’ve wasted time trying to navigate. Questions popped into their minds: How did trade carriages even get through here? Was there some kind of skip-to-the-end developer path at the start that only a select few knew about? Why was this the maze on their journey and not the y’know—actual hedge-maze or labyrinth located in some mystical underground ruin or in the backyard of a snarky noble’s estate? And most importantly, how did they miss this Escher-esc monstrosity before they entered, and why didn’t they decide to go around it?

  Nevertheless, the party found the place where the gnome fell. It was a couple miles above where they started, right at the foot of a cave. The path actually curved back around to the frigid peak of the first mountain, like one of those dungeons where you can see its end from its beginning, but have to go through the whole thing just to add five meters to your displacement. It wasn’t the end of the road per say, but it was the end of its confusion. The path actually continued past the cave; about an hour’s worth of a straight shot until it curved diagonal-down into the Valley of Dim. There was something there, right before the downward slope, but they couldn’t make anything out besides its color: red. Regardless, Dot stopped them at the foot of the cave.

  “Here!” he said. “This is where I fell!”

  “Here?” Mimi repeated. “It doesn’t seem too windy.”

  “Yeah,” Veris agreed, shivering. “I mean it’s a bit g-gusty, but it’s not enough to throw anybody off. I would say the low temperatures are the more p-p-prevalent danger—”

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOSH. The party’s faces jostled in the column of air funneling out of the cave at their feet. Their hair reaching for the skies behind them like sunflowers stretching for sunlight.

  “WA-HO! HELP! HEEEELP! I’M ABOUT TO FLY AWAY AGAIN!” Dot screamed, wiggling his arms in the air until he grasped onto Bird’s pants for dear life.

  RIP. RIP. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP. TEAR. They tore off again.

  “OH-HO-NOOOO!” Dot frantically gripped the air for something again, and then firmly grasped onto something hard; something perfect to hold as the wind finally calmed down. “Whew, good thing this girthy rod was he—HO-OH MY GOODNESS! I’M SO SORRY, MY ORC CHUM!”

  Yeah. He gripped that rod. Bird’s rod. The one attached to Bird near his pelvic region. His crotch rocket.

  “Grrrrrrr,” Bird growled. “Let go, you bumbling little exploratory beige thumb-tack!”

  “Sorry. Ho. Sorry,” Dot did as he was told, then wiped his hands on a handkerchief.

  “Veris,” Sol gestured.

  “Right,” she nodded, and immediately produced another set of clothes for Bird from her pocket dimension.

  “I’ll just… stay over here, ho-ho,” said Dot, walking over to Sol’s wheelchair. “Anyway, that cave is precisely where I need to go. Wind Tunnel Cave. Aptly named, isn’t it? I believe it’s home to an artifact!”

  “Is it the source of the wind?” Veris asked.

  “Ho-ho, precisely!” he snapped his fingers.

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH.

  “WO-OH—ACK!” Dot briefly floated upwards before he was stopped in place by Veris’ magic. “Oh, thank you.”

  “Mhm,” she nodded. “Now, let’s go in.”

  The party entered the Wind Tunnel Cave, and about every thirty seconds or so another gust of wind would blow. At first it was easy to walk through. Then, as they got deeper and deeper, it increased in intensity. Soon, they couldn’t make headway, and were actually getting pushed back. They had to hide behind these sets of incredibly convenient boulders to block the wind. And eventually, they could see the source of their troubles through the loud, eye-drying column of moving air.

  “HO-HO THAT MUST BE IT!” Dot pointed at the baby blue vase with wind lines painted on its side; its opening pointed down the length of the cave. It laid on a fancy marble pedestal, inserted into a v-shaped holder. “THE CRIMBLECK VASE OF WINDS!”

  “GREAT, NOW LET’S LEAVE,” Bird turned around.

  “NO-HO-HO! I MUST GET CLOSER. I NEED TO INSPECT IT IN ORDER TO WRITE A DETAILED DESCRIPTION IN MY BOOK!”

  “UGHHHHHH,” Bird groaned, harmonizing with the gale.

  Once the pressure stopped, the party dashed for the vase and Bird ended up swiping it from the pedestal.

  “Here,” he handed it to the gnome.

  “Thanks, orc chum!” he responded, then clicked the button on his monocle to zoom in. “Ho-ho, this is certainly the Crimbleck Vase of Winds by the Crimbleramble writing. Hmm. Hm-hm. Ho-ho—Oh-wo-ho? What’s this? ‘For display purposes only?’ What the he-he-hell that does mean?”

  “I think that means, ‘For display purposes only,’” clarified Domino.

  “Ho-hegads! Then that means…”

  “It doesn’t actually do anything?” Mimi completed his sentence.

  “Then what was making the wind?” Sol wondered aloud.

  A giant, red reptilian eye opened up behind them, its nictitating membrane producing a moist glick. The party turned to face it. Then, out from the shadows came a orange-yellow dragon’s head, which promptly opened its toothy jaw to let out a big—

  “YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNN!”

  The resulting wind gust put the Enhanced Fujita Scale to shame. Slobber, freakishly bad breath, and forces enough to slash the skin assaulted the party as Veris cast her Gravitational Anchor spell to prevent them from moving. If she could do that before, why didn’t she? Mana conservation, people. Mana conservation. Once the yawn ended, the dragon stared at the intruders and squinted, letting out a trill of low, bassy vibrations signalling its aggression. Instantly, the party got into a fighting stance—well, except for Dot, who hid under Sol’s leg-blanket. Sol weakly put up his fists, and the party waited for the flying lizard’s first move.

  “VMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM,” it grumbled, which vibrations resonated in everybody’s bodies. “VMMMMMMMMM—OH?” It lifted its head up in recollection, revealing a feminine voice. “Master Veris? Your Majesty, is that you?”

  “What?” She relaxed.

  “It’s me, Quesocoatl.”

  “Queso?”

  FLASHBACK ALERT! FLASHBACK ALERT! WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO! WE GOT A FLASHBACK OVER ‘ERE! PREPARE THE CURTAINS! PREPARE THE FILM! RUN THE MNEMONIC PROJECTOR!

  Veris’ mind played a roll of dreamy footage. Y’know, the kind that has the foggy white vignette around its edges? In it was a younger version of herself; nine years old, maybe; practicing her magic spells in the grand hell-grass hell-yard of her parents’ hell-mansion. Ashy ground. Sooty air. The million-degrees heat felt perfect on her pink skin. Breathe in. Smell that sulfur! This was Old Mal, her family’s omelet. Young-Veris, part of the Maltencia royal family, wore a thin, crackly black rock dress. Her horns were still growing and her amber eyes were big and innocent. Little charcoal drills fell to the sides of her head, and she had a fang poking above her lip. She was mighty cute, for a demon.

  “Ice!” she yelled, and frosty spikes pelted the ground. “Fire!” Flames burst from her hands. “Earth!” A rock statue of herself uncovered itself from the ground and glinted. “Air!” A gust of wind propelled her upward. “Gravity!” Waves of bendy space kept her floating in place. “Lightning!” Electricity arced from her hands and burnt a hole into the ground as she cackled with an evil, pompous tone. “Ho-ho-ho-ho!” (For lore reasons, these 'ho's are different than the gnome's 'ho's. People can he-ho differently, y'know?) Then she stopped, floating to the ground. “Now, what’s next?”

  As Veris sat there thinking about the endless possibilities of magic she could cast, something caught her attention: a high-pitched rumble from within the hell-forest in front of her.

  Vmmmmmm. Vmmmmmm.

  She felt it within her body. It sounded like crying; a call for help. Perfect. She could take advantage of the situation and have herself a nice hot meal. So, she cut through the woods, hell-leaves crunching beneath her boots, and came upon a clearing. In front of her was the bottom of a hell-cliff face. At the bottom: a crying cheese-colored baby dragon. It looked like it was hurt: its wings were bent wrong, and some blood was pouring out of a bit-off piece of its scales, exposing its fleshy pink skin.

  “Oooooh, a delicacy,” Veris thought, coming out of the bushes and tip-toeing over to her prey. And, just as she was about to take a big bite out of the baby, some rustling stole her attention. She turned around just in time to see a pack of demon-wolves circling her.

  “GRRRRRRRR,” they growled.

  “Ho-ho-ho!” Veris chuckled. “You think you can steal my meal? Fat chance you minging pack of canis gehennalupus!” She prepared herself for an attack.

  “HELL-WOOOOOO!” the pack leader howled, and the rest of the demon-wolves started to attack, but Veris was ready.

  “Ice!” Frosty spears pinned a demon-wolf to the cliff face. “Fire!” The vortex of flame burned another to a quick crisp. “Earth!” A column of rock rapidly shot from the ground, launching the third wolf into a tree, knocking it out. “Air!” Simply put, Veris removed the air from the fourth wolf’s lungs, causing it to pass out. “Gravity!” She whisked the fifth one into space. “Lightning!” ZAP. “Again!” ZAP (again). The sixth and seventh wolves’ fur pricked up before they slammed into each other like attracting magnets, out of commission. “And… Oh, I got it: blood!”

  The last demon-wolf; the leader, found itself frozen in place, and a second later, it began foaming at the mouth. Its legs shook and it ultimately collapsed onto the floor, drooling with one leg stuck in the air, mid-handshake with Death. The young Demon King, at this point in time a Demon Prince, had just induced cardiac arrest in the poor thing. Such a feat she would use on countless enemies in the future. Failing on only one occasion.

  “Fantastic!” She dusted her hands. “Even more things to eat! Father would be so proud of me! Now,” she turned to the dragon, “time for the main course…” She creeped closer to the innocent looking baby reptile on the ground, then once in prime position, bore her fangs and went for another chomp—

  “Did you… save me? Thank… you…” One of the dragon’s eyes opened weakly.

  “Huh?” Veris stepped back, surprised. “No, I didn’t come to save you. I came to eat you! To consume you and steal your energy for my own selfish needs!”

  “I can’t… exactly hear right now. But please… save me… and I’ll serve… to the best of my… ability.”

  “A dragon servant?” Veris thought. “That would definitely be a good look for me. But baby dragons are sooo delicious! Muh… muhhhhhhh.”

  Vmmmmmm. Vmmmmmm. The dragon’s cry for help resonated through Veris’ body once again.

  “Oh fine! I’ll just get father to order some dragon later!”

  Using gravity magic, Veris lifted the baby dragon up and brought it back to the castle infirmary, where the nurses healed it back to health.

  Later that day, the dragon woke up to the sight of Veris, scrambling down a plate of… dragon meat. It automatically decided to ignore the awkward situation, mainly because this realm had no qualms against such societal conventions.

  “Thank you,” it started.

  “Oh, you’re awake!” Veris put the plate down and patted her mouth. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better.”

  “Great! Now, you said that you’d be my servant if I saved you, correct?”

  “Yes,” it nodded.

  “Ho-ho-ho! Then, what should I call you, my servant?”

  “We dragons decide our own names once we become adults. But since I am your servant, you decide.”

  “I decide, hm?”

  Veris inspected her new servant again. What was its most distinguishing feature? Its sharp talons? No. What about its weirdly present eyelashes to denote that it’s a girl? Of course not! It was its color. A yellow-orange. It reminded Veris of cheese. Cheesy cheese. The cheese that you would dip hell-nachos into to. A fire queso.

  “Rejoice, for your name is now Quesocotyl!”

  The dragon smiled, “Quesocotyl… I will cherish my name forever. Now Master, who am I swearing my fealty to?”

  “Demon Prince Veris Fiya Maltencia!” she said with pride.

  At this point, present day Veris; Demon King Veris; Queen of Dawn Veris Fiya Solaris-Maltencia, relived a montage of her time growing up with Quesocotyl: playing together, flying on her back, eating, killing, torturing, the usual. A grand recollection of their happy days filled with laughs and bloody screams. Not to say that she isn’t happy now. But nostalgia exaggerates feelings good and bad, and sometimes even makes you feel virtual ones that were never present in the first place.

  “Um, Veris?” Sol poked her stomach.

  “Wh-wh-what?” She shook her head, and the rest of the party was either staring at her, or playing cards at a table in the newly lit part of the cave.

  “You were standing there, unresponsive for a full five minutes. What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. It was as if I experienced some sort of mandatory flashback segment that retroactively provided context for the present situation.”

  “Like one that is actually called back to multiple times in the story? Or one that is a one-off, never to be addressed again because the author either forgot, or was simply lazy?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe? I’m not sure.”

  “...What?”

  That was not a yes or no question. Every answer Veris just provided, with the exception of the last, was wrong. But the last could be seen as a refusal to answer the question. A centrist approach. So, one could make the argument that was not an answer either.

  The cave was quiet for a couple of seconds until Dot said, “Bullshit,” and forced Bird to slam his face down into the table and collect all the cards in the middle of it.

  “I’m cutting out fellas,” Queso told the others as she scooted herself over to Veris and Sol.

  "Alright," said Mimi.

  “Suit yourself,” Domino shrugged.

  "Mm," Bird grunted.

  “Veris, are you okay?” Queso asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m quite alright. But Queso, you got so big!”

  “That’s because of time. Y’know, time passes. It’s a thing,” she nodded.

  “If I may ask: What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back in Old Mal, watching my parents?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Really?”

  “No. It’s actually quite short. They wanted me to take some time off while they went on vacation in the hell-alps. So I did. Flew through their hellgate and arrived here earlier today. I used to rent this place on LairDnD.” She took out her MagiPhone and tapped it a couple times with her talons, showing them. “See?”

  There it was. Pictures of the inside of the cave, matching their surroundings. This place is what some in-the-know people would call a 'pad.’ Hanging neon magic orb lights strung across the ceiling, color easily changed through a MagiPhone app. A broken-in comfy couch with snack crumbs stuffed between its creases. A bean bag chair placed randomly in the room, not matching the grand color scheme. A flatscreen MagiTV with multiple MagiGame consoles attached, wires easily tripped over. A ‘so-artsy’ coffee machine corner. A fridge filled with an assortment of sugary, carbonated oozes. Posters and figurines of anime characters on and around the walls. It was a 'pad’ alright. But the listed price was 50 gold on the account of the god-awful trek it took to get here. Something that Queso didn’t have to worry about because she’s a dragon. She can fly.

  “Oh yeah, there it is,” Veris squinted. “Has everything you need, huh?”

  “The essentials,” she answered.

  “Looks very well-lived in,” Sol commented. “Did the owner actually leave you all of this stuff?”

  “With the exception of the furniture, no. That’s all mine. The owner died from overwork in the middle of my last rental period and had no living relatives. So while it’s actually considered the kingdom's property now, it’s so far out of the way that nobody has been here to check up on it. I’ve been squatting here whenever I have time off. In a sense, it is mine now.”

  “That’s… okay, I guess. Not legal, but okay,” Veris replied.

  “So what are you guys doing here? I heard you’re on another quest?”

  “That’s right.”

  “For what?”

  “Should we tell her, Sol?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he responded.

  “We are looking for the Bad Back Brew,” Veris declared, the contents of which made Dot’s ear twitch.

  “The Bad Back Brew? The brew specifically made to cure back pain? To un-bifida your Spina bifida? Artifact 241? That Bad Back Brew?” He said, now hyper.

  “Yes,” Sol clarified.

  “Ho-ho! Why?”

  “The chair you idiot,” Bird grunted.

  “Oh-ho,” the gnome glanced at it.

  “And since we are on the topic Dot,” Sol continued. “Would you mind telling us where it’s located?”

  “Um sorry, no-ho can do,” he crossed his arms.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m under N.D.A.”

  Bird got up from his seat in a threatening fashion.

  “And before you resort to threatening me, my orc chum, I couldn’t even tell you if I tried.”

  “And why is that?” he responded.

  “Artifact 500. Whatever it was, it caused me to lose part of my memory. Specifically my memory on locations. I had to spend a year figuring out where my house was! Not fast enough to save my marriage, oh-ho-no…” Dot trailed off, sadly. “But what I do know: is that Michael knows! The King of Michael?” He paused. “Oh-ho, that’s why you’re going through the Valley of Dim!” He lowered his fist into his palm. “I understand now!”

  “We’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anybody, Dot,” Sol said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, old chum, I won’t! I forget many things that don’t have to do with artifacts! Like remembering to spend time with my wife, ho-ho-no…” He shook his head.

  The party looked at each other as Dot wiggled himself back into a functional state.

  “And in the spirit of artifact hunting, Queso, where is the real Crimbleck Vase of Winds?”

  “No that’s it,” she pointed at the vase.

  “But this,” Dot held it up, “it does nothing. It’s just for display!”

  “Exactly. This ‘artifact’ was just here to increase the land value enough so the owner could list it on LairDnD. There's a minimum requirement.”

  “So… it’s not real?” the gnome questioned.

  “Nope,” the dragon clarified. “Trust me, I broke into the suspiciously locked storage room and everything. There’s nothing but food and porn in there.”

  “Oh…” he looked at the floor, defeated.

  “Um, so do you guys wanna rest here for a bit before your next leg?”

  “Yeah, why not,” Veris shrugged, then turned to Sol. “Are you good with that, honey?”

  “Mhm,” he nodded. “Actually I’m quite hungry. Do you mind if we use your kitchen, Queso? We have some mammonitor meat that we can cook up.”

  “Mammonitor? Really? Wait, don’t tell me that was the one down at the bottom of the canyon. Manny?”

  “It had a name? Oh shit, should we have not killed it?”

  “Oh no-no-no, I’m glad you killed him. That guy was an asshole, stealing dragon eggs and such from the other inhabitants of the mountains here. Our community may be small but the people on the local MagiNet forums have been very vocal against his actions. Enough to make slanderous memes about him.” She showed them another thing on her phone:

  “Okay, now I do feel better about it,” Veris smiled.

  “Great,” Queso put her phone away. “I’ll go ahead and put on some Diablo Kart while we cook up the meat. Woo-hoo, let’s party!”