Balanthalus stepped into the temple entrance.
An eerie kind of sound filled the air. It was to random to be music,
yet too beautiful to be mere noise. Before entering, he had sung
a stormsong to the Muses and guardians of fate to protect him, and he
realized he would need it. The prize he sought was powerful,
but the perils he faced were just as potent. Ahead of him, an ancient
temple which had not given up its prize in several millennia. Behind
him, two . . . no, three deadly foes. And at the point where he was,
well, it was actually pretty safe, if a bit drafty. But bards cannot
tell tales of slight drafts.
The bard stepped forward, carefully leaping over
the trigger to an arrow trap. Unfortunately, he landed right on a
perfectly concealed trigger to a pit trap. The floor gave way around
him for ten feet in each direction. However, by a nigh miraculous
twist of chance, his arm became entangled on an overhanging vine just as
he was losing his balance. The vine tore in about half a second,
but it was just enough time for the bard to make a desperate swing/leap
to the other side of the pit. He landed on the very edge of the pit,
balancing precariously on solely his right big toe, which was itself only
three inches to the left of what appeared to be another stone trigger.
Bal carefully stepped forward, then nearly passed out, realizing it had
been a good 90
seconds since his last breath.
He slowly moved further, avoiding multiple traps
along his way. He looked up, and sighed to see three different possible
paths. Shaking his head in frustration, Bal charged down the center
one. After about a minute of travel, the bard felt the passageway
rumble. The walls started to shake. Had he set off another
trap? The wall . .. it was not collapsing . . . . "By the Muses!"
cried Bal. The wall was coming alive! A large creature made
of rubble formed itself out of the wall and roared at the bard. Balanthalus
pulled out his rapier and muttered, "Here we go . . . "
Bazil and his grimy skinned lover moved slowly up
the stairs of the central tower. They talked as they went along,
of cheese, of French irregular verbs, but mostly of what they were going
to do to the master of the castle. (The word "entrails" was used
a little too often for this writer's taste)
When they reached the top floor, they saw two guards outside
the main chamber. Bazil quickly conjured an image of a nice and shiny
rock, at which the guards' eyes lit up and they said "ooh, sparkly!" Unfortunately,
the ogress (who was apparently a very distant relative of the Borkowski
family somewhere in the space-time evolutionary sequence) did the same.
The guards, startled, drew their swords clumsily. They only managed
a scream or two before one was beheaded by a rather large club and the
other was burnt to a crisp by Bazil's firebolt. As the bodies fell
to the floor, a sinister voice from inside the room said,
"you could have just knocked, you know," and the door to the chamber
swung eerily open.
"I have been expecting you," the wrinkled old figure
on the throne said at their entrance. "Welcome to my castle."
As Bazil watched in fear, the figure changed into the form of Cordicello.
"You are a man of some talent. Tell me, Blackhand, is THIS who I
am?" "Or, perhaps I am the last of the Firstborn," he said, changing
into Darqueson, "or his bastard son?"
"You are none of them, old man. Soon, none
but the worms will care to know your name," spake Bazil as his staff began
to glow.
The wizard began to laugh as he pointed to Bazil,
then to the ogress. Bazil watched in horror as the energies of his
spell simply fizzled and his companion shrunk to the size of a hubcap.
Laughing, the old one said, "You have no idea of the powers you oppose.
Even the dumb ox of a warrior and the competent but puny bard are stronger
than you, and I will kill them both as well! You are a small man,
in every sense of the word. I believe I shall kill you now, and .
. . "
His voice trailed off as he looked around, seeming
to follow air molecules around the room with his eyes. Bazil tried
to use this momentary distraction to strike, but found he could not move.
"Fine," he thought to himself, "I'd probably just screw that up too.
The old one is right. Why am I even trying to fight against him and
the handsome, powerful bard?"
As Bazil went through another mid-life crisis, the
old man got a frightened look on his face and turned to him. "It
seems I should let you live after all . . . to do me service."
"Why should I help you?" asked Bazil.
He sighed. "Look, we've been over this.
I will kill you, but at this point, the bard represents the greatest threat.
It will increase both of our chances for survival if we stop him now.
He is on the verge of something very powerful, so powerful in fact that
I would rather not risk confronting him myself. I will open a portal
to the entrance of the temple where he is, and you and your pint-sized
lover must do the rest."
The old man chanted, and Bazil felt he could move.
A glowing blue portal opened on the west wall of the room. Bazil
didn't like the idea of doing his enemy's dirty work, but he didn't seem
to have much choice . . . .
The USS Argio glided through the water at high speeds.
Julian sat looking sheepish on the deck after an argument with the bed.
If he was going to be on a ship of living furniture, he really WOULD have
to learn to control that bed-wetting habit.
"Land ho~!" the wardrobe shouted woodily.
Julian stood up and spied the small isle rapidly approaching. His
dreampt encounter with the golden-eyed moarch filed away for future reference,
he rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the coming battle.
He and his furniture army should be able to get through the temple's traps
faster than a lone bard, he thought, and he soon would have him.
Julian was slightly sobered as he neared the shore.
It seemed a skeleton crew was walking onto the beach out of the sea to
guard the entrance to the temple. They would be a problem.
Skeletons have a nasty habit of not staying dead. On top of that,
Juilan saw a strange portal forming on the beach, and immediately sensed
Bazil. He gripped his sword, saying, "Well, I may not win out, but
this is gonna be one hell of a fight. Yeehaw!"
Meanwhile, inside the temple, Balanthalus stood over the rubble of the rubble moster. After binding a few minor wounds, he got his bearings. He sensed that a great convergence of forces was about to take place, and briefly considered going back to join the epic battle. But he knew that he must maintain his lead if he was to obtain his prize.
"May the gods be with you," he whispered to his skeleton crew, as he charged down into the deepest depths of the temple . . .