Chapter 10 - Fantasy

“Did we make the right choice, Jim?” Red ducked under a moss-covered bough as we trudged through the grey swamp. Instead of her usual bandeau binding, shrug-style denim jacket, and short shorts, she was wearing a leather miniskirt, an ornately-carved bronze breastplate with a massive red stone set in the chest, matching faulds and greaves, and light leather sandals. Her blindingly-white midriff and thighs were still keenly on display, though this time sporting many red lashes from the whipping branches of the infant trees in the swamp. She held a grey sapling back with the glass orb at the end of her wand and allowed me to pass.

“If we don't take care of the Groondul, it will continue to ravage the countryside and destroy the livestock. Schwartzdorff will not be able to last the winter without the herd,” I hacked at a tall patch of thrush with my khopesh. I rapped my punch-buckler against the tree next to me and lept across a small boggy ditch. Chain mail is not light and though I felt robust in physical form, the garb was quite unwieldy. “Plus, the villagers promised us access to an ancestral burial mound which, I have on good authority, contains a ferrous meteor and several large chunks of various tektites. There is a Terk blacksmith in Crenshire who will assist me in making a billet of Wootz steel imbued with Celestial might if we help. And you heard from the farmer's daughter that there is an Umpheze jeweler in Gargeaux that can carve pallasite into gemstone settings for your wand and plate that will amplify your spellforce by a significant factor.”

“I meant the move to Suom,” she rolled her eyes and cast a levitating spell, gliding over a murky patch of pond I was working my way around.

“I know you meant that,” I smirked. “It was just a weird way to phrase that mid-conversation. We have been discussing the logistics of the transition this entire trek. What else would you have been talking about?”

“It was a bit unnatural to ask that way, wasn't it?” She shot a fireball from the end of her wand at a green patch of lingering miasma. It ignited with a whoosh, leaving a small black patch behind. “It's this role-playing. Makes me speak like a character in a story,” she turned and smiled at me as I mashed my punch-buckler through some rotting wood and hoisted myself over a mossy stump. “Either way, answer my question. Did we make the right choice?”

“I do not know,” I shrugged. There was a hard-packed trail ahead of us leading into a rocky outcropping. I sheathed my khopesh in the loop at my hip and unhooked the crossbow from my back, knocking a bolt and sighting down the length as we approached a blind bend around a mound of rotting earth. I signaled Red to swing wide so as to maintain some distance between the turn. As expected, a bog hunter lay in defilade, waiting to ambush us unawares as we rounded the corner. I aimed and pulled the hand lever, releasing the string and letting the bolt fly at ferocious speed into the skull of the monster.

The bog hunter reared on its hind legs then, roaring loudly as the viscous black blood oozed from the bolt sticking out from the scaly hide of its skull. I very quickly knocked another bolt, pushed my foot into the stirrup, and pulled the string back over the notch. The beast landed with a thud back onto all-fours and slithered our way at full charge, covering the ground quite quickly. Behind me, I felt a tingling at the back of my neck as the hair stood on end. I turned to see the crimson cabochon on Red’s plate glow an iridescent orange as blue lines of energy crackled out from it and formed a jagged bridge with the end of her outstretched wand. With an aggressive flick of the wrist, the bolt surged forward in a staticy blast of purple arcane energy. It struck the bog hunter with explosive force, blowing it back several feet and leaving a smoldering crater in the trail where it stood previous.

Undeterred, it rolled back onto its feet and again began its writhing advance. I sighted again down the body of the crossbow and squeezed the level, releasing the notch and sending a second bolt whizzed across the rapidly closing distance, penetrating the soft fleshy area between its shoulder and neck. The beast howled again, struggling to wiggle its forelimb, significantly slowing its forward progress. I threw my crossbow far to the side to keep my fighting area clear and pulled violently at the handle of my khopesh. The loop unsnapped, freeing the oddly shaped sickle from its hold. Sword in hand, I lunged at the creature and swung low with my right hand, slamming my punch-buckler into its flat, turtle-like face, forcing it to again rear back on its hind legs. Now standing near seven foot tall at the shoulder, the grey-black creature’s soft underbelly exposed, I planted my left foot forward and to the outside of its torso and slashed an uppercut across the smooth, individually-articulated yellow plates of its chest, planting my right hand on the bottom of the pommel, levering the curved tip of the khopesh upward.

Once my sword was free of the slice and allowed to rotate upward into empty space, I used the momentum to spin me around in a pirouette and dropped my weight low, using gravity to add more kinetic energy to my spin as I transferred the blade to my right hand and slashed the creature at the knees of its stubby rear legs. I then let the momentum carry me into a second spin, pulling the blade upward at a diagonal, and into a defensive parry, delicately sweeping the ball of my right foot back behind me and centering my weight, halting the spin and leaving me in a solid upper-guard stance, ready to slash downward and complete the X-strike. This, however, proved to be unnecessary, as Red had queued up another shot of dark magic and blasted the monster while I had been crouching.

Instead of oozing or gushing blood, a dull purple glow lingered between the now-gaping chest wound, slowly fizzling out with a chirping hiss. I had cleaved clean through its legs and tail and the bog hunter hinged backward onto itself, blood sliming out into a goopy, toxic pool in front of it. I stepped wide, blade still at the ready and angled in front of me, and crouched down to retrieve my crossbow. I snapped the khopesh back into the hip loop, knocked a fresh bolt in the crossbow, and sighted down the length again, swinging back around the blind curve. I took several careful steps forward and scrutinized the grass and trees. Satisfied, I slipped my foot back into the stirrup, de-tensioned the string, and returned the bow to the hook on my back.

“Well that was entertaining,” Red panted, pupils dilated wide as sweat beaded on her brow. Her complexion had gone from rosy to pasty.

“Quite,” I was panting myself, the adrenaline subsiding and exhaustion starting to set in. I walked back over to the bog hunter and rolled it onto it’s stomach, careful not to get its toxic blood on the end of my sabatons.

“Anything of value we can get off it?” Red delicately circled around it and over to my side.

“The hide is worth quite a lot and the gizzard can fetch a pretty penny if you know the right alchemist,” I darted my head to acknowledge her, but kept my gaze fixed on the bog hunter’s cloudy, lifeless eyes. “But I do not have any potassium salts to neutralize the blood, and it would take an hour or more to skin. Also, I do not about you, but I am not known for carrying jars of mercury to preserve the gizzard.”

“Oh,” Red looked somewhat disappointed.

“Yes,” I shrugged and slowly backed my way toward the path again. “You cannot really ‘loot’ these things like you can the bandits and brigands we slay. It is quite the ordeal to harvest anything useful from an encounter like this. When we get back into town, we can tell the mayor of our kill. She may wish to send a couple toughs out this way to salvage whatever the scavengers leave behind. I looked around for a landmark and saw a tall blue boulder peaking out from a low glade.

“Oh,” she fell in step behind me as we continued on down the path. “Do you think she’ll reward us?”

“I mean,” I shrugged as I led us down the wending trail. I could just make out a small shack at the end, a yellow light barely twinkling through the blue shadows, “that is not really the point. Any reward they offer us would come from the town’s coffers and would be tantamount to taking food directly from their mouths. I do not mind accepting gifts in the form of artifacts or relics, but I am not interested in gifts of treasure that would detract from the livelihood of hard working people trying to eek out a meager existence.”

“You accepted quite the tidy sum of gold from the people of Gargeaux,” she fell in step abreast of me.

“Yes,” I scanned the ground to make sure there were no exposed roots or loose rocks to trip over, “but Gargeaux is a prosperous suburb of Crenshire with colonial ties to Normaize. Which is to say, they are not hurting for money or resources.”

“So, even if they offer us a reward, we aren’t going to take it?” The rosiness had started to return to her cheeks as she frowned and hung her head.

“No, if she offers us cash or supplies, I will decline,” I kicked a dead branch laying across the path out of the way. “But, if they offer me some antique piece of equipment or a tract of property, I may accept.”

“And has such a thing happened to you previously?” She pointed her wand at a low hanging branch and moved it out of the way with a shimmer of air.

“Indeed,” I smiled. “I probably have four or five run-down farms in various hamlets across the countryside I use as safehouses, and I cannot count the times some destitute village insisted I take some rusty breastplate kept under an alderman’s bed, passed through generations from some heroic ancestor. They are useless, usually, so I will refurbish them and hang them on a wall as a trophy for a job well-done. Once or twice, though, I will run across a rather special barn find. Most recently, I received a rather ornate spearhead for clearing out a den of kobolds that had been ransacking the village’s chicken coops. It turned out to be made of exceptionally high-quality steel and seated with a gemstone that allowed it to penetrate mage barriers. I would love to use it once I find a decent shaft to mount it on.”

“Wow,” she raised her eyebrows and shook her head, “You seem pretty well-traveled.” We were quickly approaching the swamp shack. I could see some shadows moving around behind the yellow lantern in the window.

“I spent several years exploring before I joined the Ascetics,” I shrugged again. “Joy loved it here,” I smiled. “This is one of the few places I have of my life before her and I have always refused to let her loss taint the memories of my time in this world.” The dusky shadows had shifted to full-on night as I twisted the iron knob of the swamp cabin open. There were two women laying together on the straw-covered bed in the corner and a small dragon whelp curled on the end of the rucksack they were using as a pillow. There were two longswords leaning against the side of the bedframe, and both had removed their breastplates, which lay at the foot of the bed.

“Hello,” I said to them with a chipper smile as I poked my head in. “Do you mind if we bivvy with you here for the night?”

“Sir Jymi?” the black-haired rear spoon propped herself on her elbow. Her buxom form was barely hidden beneath her stained linen tunic. “Is that really you?”

“Bless me, if it is none other than the Lady of Quint,” I smiled widely and shook my head.

“As I live and breathe,” she vaulted over her flaxen bedfellow, her voluminous chest bouncing wantonly until she pressed it firmly against my own with a spine-cracking squeeze.

I returned the hug and released, prompting her to do the same. “What brings you out here to the Fens?”

“Hello,” she ignored me and walked over to Red, sizing her up. Her tight leather pants sat high around her muscular waist. She cocked her hip and planted a calloused hand on it. She angled her head down slightly and flared her eyebrows a few times, her pale brown eyes sparkling in her soft, round face. “How dare you fail to introduce me to your companion,” she knelt, took Red's hand, and planted her full lips on the back of it ever so delicately, a small imprint of her black lipstick left behind. “You continue to have as good a taste as ever, Jymi.”

“Dinna,” I furrowed my brow and held a hand up to my side. “Really?”

“Oh hush now, Jim,” Red wiggled her hips a bit, and flared her own eyebrows. “She's right. How dare you fail to introduce us.” The Lady Dinna stood and smirked, eyes fixated on Red.

“Red, this is the Lady Dinna, Mistress of Quint,” I leaned my head toward Dinna. “And Dinna this is,” I leaned my head toward Red then paused and looked at her, “Wait, what do you go by here?”

“I am the Crimson Witch,” she straightened her back and wobbled her head with a haughty frown, “but you can call me Red, as most do,” she smiled again.

“You poor thing!” Dinna extended a hand and rested it on Red's branch-whipped tummy. “So many lashings, it must be so painful,” Dinna pulled her body close to her hand and closed most of the distance between them.

“She is right there, Dinna,” I held my hand out again and pointed to the small waif still curled on the bed. She was stripped to her dressing gown and remained apathetically unmoved.

“A farm girl from Schwartzdorff,” Dinna turned her head barely to acknowledge her, never breaking eye contact with Red. “Here before I arrived.”

“I'm on my way to Quint for work,” she cooed, wiggling her hips. “The Lady offered to escort me past the Fens if I promised to keep her warm for the night. A promise I intend to keep, no matter the competition,” she leered at Dinna.

“A fine blade and plate for a farm girl,” I nodded at her steel.

“My father was a sellsword before he retired to the countryside. He passed not so long ago. Now that his estate is sold, I may finally venture to the city,” She sat up on the edge of the bed, her skinny frame now hidden only by her billowing gown. “Now, I beg the Lady return to bed with me, it is ever so lonely and I am too afraid to fall asleep without her protection,” she laid back down, this time with her back toward us, and wiggled her hips again.

“How can I refuse such an offer,” she arched her eyebrows at Red and held up her hands before returning to bare hay-stuffed mattress with a few long strides, wrapping herself around the golden minx. “Follow us to Quint,” she twisted her torso and made eye contact with Red, “Present yourself to the Keep and we will find you accommodations and feast.”

“Would that we could,” I plopped myself down in the corner of the shack and pulled the thick wool blanket out of my pack. “We are to fight the Groondul tomorrow, and then head to Crenshire with our loot.”

“A shame,” Dinna returned to her cuddle. “Do not mind us if we are noisy,” she chuckled audibly. “I did not intend to get much sleep tonight.”

Red flopped down next to me, pulled the wool blanket from her own pack, and rested her head on my shoulder before waving her wand and setting it next to us. We were enveloped in a glassy black bubble of mage energy, immersed in a deep silence with only faint purple illumination. “It will be a long day tomorrow,” she pulled her blanket up tight and smiled softly. “I am more tired than interested,” she yawned and fell silent.

I kissed the top of her head and leaned my cheek against it, then fell into my own deep slumber.



***


“I don't know if I want to leave,” Red scuttled her blanket into her pack. The hut was empty when she brought down the barrier.

“We have to,” I stuffed my own blanket into my hip sack. The enchanted bag was seemingly bottomless, though in actuality it held a set amount of items, size agnostic. “The Groondul hunts at night and there is only a brief period of time in the morning when we will be able to confront it before it returns to its lair.”

“You're doing it again,” she furrowed her brow and pulled her mouth into her cheek.

“As are you,” I smirked and winked.

“I don't think I want to leave for Suom,” she stood and affixed her item bag to her own hip. “I think I just want to move into Dain and get lost in here,” she made her way across the blue-grey room to the door and held it open to the twilight. “At least for a little while.”

“You can access the Realm from Suom, too,” I checked the buckles on my armor and grabbed my khopesh from the corner where I had rested it. “What difference does it make what your cell looks like and where it is located if you will be locked in the infinite expanse of the Realm regardless?”

“I just,” she hung her wand arm limp and hugged her shoulder as we left the hut into the cool, oppressive air of the Fens. “I didn't leave the same square mile for decades. Now, you're asking me to venture off to what is essentially an entirely new world. I don't think I can do it.”

“Yes, but after you left the cult, you wandered and enjoyed your wandering,” I sighted a large circular footstep with large talon-like marks radiating from the stamped divot.

“And I drank myself stupid until I finally wandered into Smithsborough,” Red noticed my attention and waved her wand. A pink mist rose out of the footstep and all the other footsteps in its path, creating a smoky trail

“Then, you discovered the Church and got your drinking under control,” I unhooked my crossbow and carefully set off in the direction of the pink puffs.

“And then I found out that everything I believed was a lie and that God does indeed play dice, and tried to kill myself,” her foot sank into the muck as she tried to follow me. She waved her wand and her next step planted firmly on the mud.

“But you did not, and you took up painting beautiful things and crafting fine creations,” I continued to slowly trudge through the knee-high bog.

“Then I discovered I was riding on the back of a planet-eating galactic cybermonster trying to outrun the heat-death of the universe and tried to kill myself again,” she got frustrated with my slow progress and waved her wand again. I felt my entire body become weightless as my next step planted on the loamy earth like stone.

“But you did not, and you decided to experience the limitless expanse of human creation and unlocked the depths of your imagination,” the sun was starting to peak over the horizon as the inky dusk slowly gave way to pale white. “And here we are, hunting an imaginary monster in an imaginary world, lusting after imaginary people and fiending for imaginary treasure.”

“It's too much,” she scanned from side to side, not resting her gaze on anything. “I don't want to have to deal with being alive anymore. I just want to stay here, with Dinna, and move to Quint.”

“Even as a Mine you will need to shit and eat,” I paused to knock the drawstring and sighted down the bolt. I could see a large figure shifting just at the horizon, lumbering toward a rocky crag. “Unless you go Synthetic or don't mind waking up to ravenous hunger and a set of ruined trews.”

“If I try to kill myself in the Realm, I will just Cut,” she too noticed the looming shadow and began walking slower, wand at the ready.

“Unless you push the Cut,” I held my crossbow up and hovered my hand over the lever.

“If I make a mistake, I can just undo it and try again,” She sidled up next to me and matched my gait.

“Unless you live in a Real-time world like this one,” the Groondul grabbed a boulder and easily moved it to reveal a cave entrance. I squeezed the latch and the bolt whizzed out, connecting on its shoulder. The Groondul roared and swung around, seeing us, and charged.

“No,” Red said finitely and planted her feet square with her shoulders. She layered her hands on each other in an “X” in front of her, wand at the fore, and closed her eyes. A black aura formed around her and sucked in any peaking twilight as her wand channeled rich purple arcane energy into the gem mounted at the end of her wand. She threw her hands to the side and opened her eyes so violently her head snapped back and in an instant unleashed a laserbolt of magical force from the gem on her chest. It caught the Groondul in its own chest, just to the left, sending it several yards back in a flying helical spin.

The Groondul writhed slightly and then slowly made its way to its feet. I took the opportunity to knock another bolt and again sighted down its shaft. I squeezed the leaver and began dashed forward at full tilt, hesitating only to sling the bow back across my back. I unsnapped my khopesh mid stride as the bolt planted firmly in the Groondul's left eye. It howled with a ferocious intensity and angled its head for another charge. My shoulder connected with its midsection, but my momentum halted entirely mid-tackle. The Groondul wrenched its right arm toward me. I barely caught the forearm with my punch buckler as it swept me away like a broom moves dirt. It lined up and began charging at Red again.

“I said no!” She screamed as she made a wide arc from behind her, ending with her arm stretched fully forward. An electric lasso flung from its end, wrapping around the creature and paralyzing it in place.

I quickly rolled to my feet and shook the stars out of my head. It took only three long strides before I planted my right foot to the side of the Groondul and pulled up on my khopesh in the most dramatic upper-cut I could muster. The blade bit cleanly into where its right leg met its torso, but refused to go farther. My neck muscles strained and my thigh bulged as I resisted the counter-force of the iron-like hide, but it was too much and broke my grip, the force of my own effort sending me wheeling back and scrambling for balance.

“What part of 'no' don't you understand,” Red flung her wand upward, sending the beast flying into the air, and then pulled it down forcefully, slamming it into soft earth, embedding it in the bog. The electric chain broke and the monster recovered, again beginning its advance, though this time at a shambling gait and not the manic charge, rapidly closing the distance to within feet of her. Red threw her arm downward and pointed her wand at the ground. This sent her flying in the air, levitating just above the monster. She spiraled the tip of her wand again, and in an instant, traded places with the creature, who immediately went hurtling toward the ground.

After finally finding my footing, I again charged the Groondul, catching it in the torso mid-air, and pile-drove it into the loamy earth beneath. It resisted me, but I punched it in the face several times with my punch-buckler, milky orange blood forming at the corner of its mouth. Finally, it bucked me off, sending me sprawling backward. I landed hard on my back, knocking the wind out of me.

While I gasped for air, Red held her wand to her chest, a white ball forming at the tip. “Goodbye,” she whispered with a smile as she moved the growing white orb in front of her until her arm was stretched fully out. The ball, now several feet across, slowly glided toward the relentless Groondul. Red collapsed in a pile as it connected with the creature, rays of light beaming out as the beast shrieked a howl loud enough to send a murder of nearby crows flying.

The light grew so intense I had to avert my eyes. When I was finally able to look, all that remained of the Groondul was a burnt husk, contorted on the ground before me. Red lay unmoved, save the slow, rhythmic heaving of her chest. I scooped her up and carried her into the cave. There were scattered corpses of farm animal carrion, and it reeked of rotting meat. At the back lay a small, greasy nest of grass. I flopped her limp body down into it, the effort sending shooting pains through my side, probably from a cracked rib. Adrenaline now worn off, I flopped down next to her, back to the wall, and faded away.

***


“Jim?” Red poked my shoulder with her wand. “You ok?”

The pain was now more intense, sending sharp darts with every inhalation. “No, but I'll live,” I groaned as I groggily blinked the sleep from my eyes. My shield side was numb and buzzing, my lead shoulder was swollen and bulging, and the ripped muscles in my sword arm stung like hot death with every move. “How are you doing?”

“Loopy,” much of her hair had ripped loose from her braid and her normally-rosey face was sheet white and sunken. “You tanked the beating,” her eyes were bleary and unfocusing, but she smirked a wild grin in roughly my direction.

“Tell me about it,” I groaned. Standing was misery. I planted my punch-buckler firmly against the wall and elevated my bag of bones to something resembling upright. It had been quite a while since I had felt pain this intense. I reached into my hip pouch and removed a small red potion. I downed the contents and returned the empty flask to my pouch. The pain dulled and subsided slightly and I slowly felt feeling return to my arm. “You wouldn't happen to have a mending spell prepared, would you?”

“Nope,” she shook her head, “I have none hung and tapped out all of my mana. I can prepare one if you'd be interested in spending the night here,” she furrowed her brow and looked around.

“I'll muscle through,” I reached into my pack and this time manifested a wine skin. I took a long belt of an alcoholic liquid that was definitely not wine and sputtered out a cough. “I want out of this fetid shithole.”

“I'll drink to that,” She reached out and took the skin. She closed her eyes and shook her head, flattening her face and popping her eyes wide, a bit of drool rolling down as she cough herself. “That is vile,” she handed it back and wiped her chin.

“We're still a few centuries away from cheap, quality sanitation,” I winked and stuffed the skin back in my sack and began slowly stumping toward the cave entrance. The midday sun beat hard on my face and I shielded my eyes as we emerged into the relatively clean air of the swamp. I took a deep breath, small twinges of pain still lingering in my side.

“Can you shift?” Red grabbed my bicep.

“I thought you said you used all your spells,” I furrowed my brow at her.

“No, I said I did not have any mending spells hung and that I am tapped out of mana,” she winked and in an instant we were standing in front of the Inn fireplace in Schwartzdorff.

A wave of dizziness washed over me and I suddenly felt like I wanted to vomit. Every inch of my body suddenly burst into bright icy pain, then burning-hot itchiness, then nothing, blackness all I could see or think before returning to normal, if a bit disorientated. “Ow,” I said as I lolled around for a second trying to catch my balance.

“I still had my Recall Hearth prepared and it's free to cast,” she smiled as she wandered over to the tavern side, wobbled slightly, caught her balance on the edge of a table, turned her head to smirk at me, then continued on to the bar a bit more confidently.

“Tell that mayor lady what's done is done and go grave robbing or whatever,” she shooed me away and turned to the barkeep. “An ale,” she turned back to me. “Hurry,” she cocked her head to the side, “or I'll be gone to Quint before you return.”