Chapter 11: Fate, Faith and Fat Chances.
“And here’s Chaz going ‘huh?’ in five… four… three….”
“I mean… shut up!”
“HA HA!”
“Weren’t we going to, oh… RETURN SOMEWHERE?!”
“Oh. Right.”
“Define ‘worse’.”
“By ‘worse’, I mean ‘we just had to hose down the whole room, because Alys decided to tell me all about that movie she watched last week called The Exorcist, visual aids and all’.”
“Ew.”
“Exactly, except it was more like HOUAAARGHBLE! For five minutes straight.”
“Well, he was standing around inside that tower he said he was going to, so I guess he hasn’t been up to much this past… week or so.”
“He had at least ascended ONE of the floors of the tower, though.”
*cough* “Sounds like you had fun.”
“Then why the hell did we need to go to ANOTHER bonus dungeon looking for that wand if it isn’t going to help at all?”
“But before you answer that, Rune, may I wonder why we chose to do all the side quests, guild quests and other side quests before we went to the Ladea tower? Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to just go straight there and get that wand?”
“No! No, it wouldn’t. Because we live in a time where evil happens every thousand years, but where time doesn’t really matter outside of this, and trust me; if we had gone straight to the tower, and straight up to the top room without taking all the bonus loot, you two would still have ‘felt something’ after we got our hands on that wand.”
“….”
“OK, that came out a little dirtier than I intended, but my point still stands.”
“I’m almost literally in your face. Yes, standing right beside your bed, looking all over you lying there. Can you hear me now, Alys? Can you hear me?”
“Yes! Shut up!”
“Oh, Christ! Now I’m going to have to deal with his bossy nature because it’s Alys’s last wish. That’s a lose-lose situation if there ever was one.”
“Um… OK. Just… give me a few seconds to finish yelling at Hahn’s belt. It offends my sensibilities.”
“YAAAAAAR!”
“OK, there. So….”
“With your slow swing… and your fancy bandanna…. and… whatever sword you… pick up.”
“I can’t run Murder Incorporated all by myself, Alys. You can’t go. Not like this.”
“Chaz….”
“Besides, weren’t you really hankering for a spot in the Aiedo graveyard?”
“Are you trying to make me feel better now? Because it’s not working. Oh well, I guess I’ve outlived my role as a mentor, and you all know what happens to mentor characters in stories about young, plucky heroes, eh?”
“Yes, and sometimes, I curse you for teaching me how to read.”
“Oh well, it’s been fun. You be a good kid now, Chaz. OK?”
“Well….”
“Not much more to say here, I guess.”
“And she didn’t even get a coffin. What kind of a cheapass town at this? What did you go to school for five years for, Hahn?”
“Look, we specialize in weapons and armor. We can’t think of EVERYTHING.”
“Yeah, you specialize in weaponry, but not the kind of items you might need after being subjected to said weaponry in the most hurting of ways. Not much for planning ahead, are you?”
“Fair enough, but you sure pick some weird moments to start an argument.”
“I dunno. I haven’t tried so far tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, I’m a big boy now. I can stay up late if I want to.”
“You’ll always be Shorty to me.”
“Define ‘pretty bad things’.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just saying you like to hear yourself talk. Anyway…”
“Hey, who died and made YOU my father?”
“…..”
“Oh. Never mind.”
“Hi. Been at the pool?”
“Um… what?”
“Well, you’re wearing a swimsuit. And boots? That’s a weird fashion statement. Not that I’m complaining, mind.”
“I… just took off my chest plate and claws. And you should presumably be glad for the latter one.”
“Because you’d claw out my face?”
“….well, OK, I only like to make people think I would.”
“…yeah, I’m going to try my hardest to ignore the sexual subtext here. We can get back to the whole ‘experience’ part later when it wouldn’t come across as quite so thoughtless.”
“Your swimsuits look fine just the way it is, but I’d still like for you to put that chestplate back when we leave tomorrow. You know, safety and all that.”
“And then you’re going to call up the guild for someone to actually PERFORM those actions, right?”
“Ye-..wait, no, we weren’t. We’re not THAT lazy.”
“Hah! Yeah, I totally couldn’t see that coming. You’ll ‘come up’ with a ‘plan of action’. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? At least until you find out that a ‘plan’ is merely the words on a paper, and does not necessarily relate to the one holding the pen once the chips are down. Did the principal come up with a ‘plan of action’ before calling us and putting it in our hands.”
“In the interest of not being sacrilegious, I…. have decided not to touch upon that one.”
“Thank you for your discretion, Uncle Bad Touch.”
“We got some more stabbing to do, and I’ll be damned if we don’t put that wand we climbed a whole tower to get to good use.”
“You can’t STAB with a wand. Well, you can try, but it’s not exactly super effective.”
“Yes, I know. But we went to get that wand so that we could demolish Zio’s anti-stabbing shield. That was the whole damn point, wasn’t it?”
“…no, I’ve got nothing. This is way too literal.”
“And we are back.”
“Back to the ‘invisible’ shield still being quite visible.”
“Yeah, yeah, you can see it now, but that’s only because you chose to mash your face into it, your humid breath shorting out the energy in it. And don’t you pretend that isn’t true.”
“Wait, is that it? ‘One, two, three’, and that’s what it takes to bring down the barrier?”
“Yep. Made you wish you paid better attention in crypthology class, huh?”
“And just as I thought things couldn’t possibly get any more retarded. Well, thanks for proving me wrong. I wonder if there’s any places out there that have something even dumber than this for a password.”
*and for those who wonder…*
“You can’t be serious. Why would you choose such an obvious password?”
“Because the last time we chose something complex, we accidentally locked ourselves out of the inner temple for a whole year.”
“Yes, of course. And I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to kill you now.”
*life is short. Anyway…*
“That doesn’t make any sense to me — you’d think someone who can and wants to cause immediate death would be more important than something that has spent several years trying to do the same. But then, I’m not a wizard, and therefor probably not smart enough to know the difference.”
“Sarcasm on the other hand…”
“Well, at least that sounds sensible.”
“More castle walls, huh? I guess this is going to be like that cellar in the academy.”
“Um… or not?”
“I think we need to walk on the left side of the road, though.”
“We have a road? That’s a first, and it’s even underground.”
“Yes, this station was working on inventing the subway system before Zio took over.”
“Because the walls of tunnels are so much more interesting than sandy wastelands? Yeah, can’t argue with that, I guess.”
“Otherwise, this’d be the shortest dungeon trek ever, and we don’t want that, right?”
“Nooooo, of course not. That would be much too convenient, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, HELL yeah. I really hate people who keep doing the wave during sporting events, and now, with the Wave-Shot, I can finally do something about it.”
“Um… it doesn’t work quite like that. Well, it does, but it’d take a little more time than you expect, and will probably lead to more screaming and panic than you’d feel comfortable with in whatever mindless manslaughter you’re planning.”
“You should really introduce that idea to Zio, though. He seems like just the kind of bloke who would totally go for that sort of thing.”
“Is that just an opening? No gates or door or anything?”
“Yeah, and it just occurred to me that it’s kind of silly how we can’t see anything past that area. I’m assuming that the lights are off, so I guess we’ll all be flailing around in the darkness since nobody here brought a flashlight. Or do you have an extension that you haven’t told us about yet, Demi?”
“No light source-related ones, no.”
“Flailing around in the darkness it is.”
“What the hell are they doing? Pushups?”
“YOU DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME A HUNDRED! NOW!”
“Pushups?”
“No, Meseta.”
“On the road again. I just can’t wait to get on that road again…”
“NO SINGING!”
“Well, aren’t you just a lovable little Grinch.”
“Oh, look; another door. What am I? A Jehova’s witness?”
“Hi! I’ve come to tell you about the sword. And by ‘tell’, I mean ‘stab you’.”
“I guess the people behind said door won’t have to worry about what happens after you die, because we’re going to take care of that right now.”
“What the…”
“It’s a floating kegger.”
“PARTY ON, DUUUDES!”
“Is it just me, or does that look like a hat?”
“Hmmmm….”
“So… what are the fabulous advantages of joining the Magic Guild?”
“You get to wear this fabulous outfit.”
“….right.”
“I think it’s just you.”
“Ooh. More loot.”
“Hurry! Open it before…”
“…D’OH!”
“What’s with all the flying hats lately? Has there been some big hat sale in a wind tunnel right next to a gamma bomb testing area or something?”
“Well, that’s just right, ol’ neighborly of you. You MIGHT want to retract your claws before patting my shoulders, though.”
“I think he’s attacking you, shorty.”
“Well, gee, that explains the deep gashes in my shoulder. Good thing that’s where I’m most heavily armored.”
“And the treasure is… CRMC gear? What does that even mean? Carmack gear?”
“Crush the MC gear.”
“Crr… OK, I can’t come up with anything else. I think it’s the four letter thing.”
“Well, let’s give it to Demi, then, and move on.”
“Ah, another one of those omnipotent repair kits. Do you think we can use it to repair this floor, or is it just another medicinal substance for robots?”
“Androids.”
“Whatever.”
“Christ, this place has more doors in it than the Beatles’ home in Yellow Submarine.”
“Yeah. I think we could just throw ourselves over this ledge to save some time. It’s not that high up, so it probably won’t hurt that much.”
“I think I can see the light at the end of this tunnel. Well, the darkness, that is.”
“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you try to surprise me for once, Nurvus. All these gateways are getting tedious.”
“Weeheeheeell. Are we on our way to wave to the commoners now? Because man, I’m all tingly in my wavy-arms.”
“Good thing there are railings, though. Now if I could only cause some railing-related deaths here.”
“It’s not railings. It’s full on barriers. I can’t see a thing.”
“Do you want me to describe the big, empty room, or do you want me to find you a box?”
“Oh, thank God that was over, because now we can return to the old yellow line. Seriously, did Zio run by here pissing his robes now that we have the old, wooden wand of ultimate emo emasculation, and we’re just following the yellow piss road?”
“Ew. And yes, probably.”
“So, we’re fighting a tower?”
“I bet that’s not something you get to say every day.”
“Well, I demand to be known as the ‘tower toppler’ when we’re done with this fight.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Oh! Did it summon another enemy, or did it actually warn us about it? I GUESS THE WORLD WILL NEVER KNOW!”
“I guess it set up us the-..”
“DON’T YOU DARE!”
“Whaaat?!”
“And now we have… uh, toppled the… well, the tower.”
“And my life is finally complete.”
“Yes, whatever, but we still have a bom-.. er, a mine to defeat.”
“More goddamn doors, and we’ve already spent all our Jehova’s Witness jokes. Well, all of one of them.”
“And the yellow line stopped too. I guess someone finally got control over their bladder.”
“Or put on a diaper.”
“”This place sure got balls.
“It’s actually kind of nuts.”
“Explode me now, mines. Please.”
“So, what kind of a big, open room is this anyway?”
“I dunno.”
“Um… but it’s underground. You wouldn’t dig a large area like this unless it served some kind of purpose, right? And no, building random bridges over it doesn’t count.”
“Because it looks impressive?”
“It’s a plasma claw. …how does that even work?”
“Sure. It’s a claw made of plasma. That’s totally logical.”
“Yeah, whatever. Just put it on and let’s go.”
“Haven’t we already fought these guys? Are they all tech-savvy now?”
“The guy on the right is. But then, he’s always been.”
“The line between techniques and technology is very fine.”
“Eh, he’s kind of greneric.”
“Plus, the big shoulders look is SO last millennium.”
“FINALLY! NOW I’M A BRO…SE TOO!”
“Eh, I’ve had that spell for… like forever.”
“OK, I have no idea who this is even for.”
“AND IT’S MADE UP OF MORE THAN FOUR LETTERS! SPACED?! CAN DO, SIR!”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Follow the yellow line.”
“I guess he ran out of diapers.”
“HOORAY! It’s another big, open space. But this time, we don’t have any kind of railings protecting us.”
“And look who’s waiting for us on the other end.”
“Wait, one step further? Does that mean that if we turn around and leave, you’ll let us live?”
“Nope!”
“So, what difference does it make what we do?”
“Um….”
“You didn’t think through what you just said, huh?”
“Oh, shut up, or I’ll kill you all.”
“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”
“Are you trying to talk me to death?”
“Well… it was worth a try.”
“Here we go again.”
“Will he do it? Will he summon floating scaryface again?”
“Yep. Predictable as always.”
“SILENCE! YOU SHALL FALL IN THE FACE OF EVIL!”
“Better than falling FOR the face of evil.”
“Doesn’t look like much of a kisser, though. Unless you like them with a little bite.”
“Sure, joke all you want, but you’re still gonna die.”
“And hey, now that the shield is down, Rune is all UP in that grill.”
“Not that we’re complaining, though, because we’ve got a whole load of hide to tan off his back for killing Alys.”
“Not to mention the towns he destroyed. Oh, this is going to be good.”
“Wha… how… ONE hit, and he goes down? That’s….”
“But… what about my revenge? I wanted to carve that out of his face with my axe. I AM EXTREMELY UNSATISFIED!”
“I would have liked to string him up on the wall too, but… eh, he’s finished, so I’m satisfied.”
With the lord of darkness defeated, our heroes sigh in relief. But their joy is shortlived when they realize that the greatest darkness is still ahead. Zio answered to a greater evil, so their journey isn’t quite over yet.
“WHOOPEEEE!”
“YATTAAAAAAA!”
“WHOTTAWHOTTAWHOTTAWHOTTAWHOTTA!”
“GERONIMOOOOO!”
“You guys are weird.”