Hunzrin turned out to be a tall, dark-skinned drow with a long scar splitting his face in half. His black robe was in perfect condition; underneath it, he wore a chainmail adorned with silver ornaments. He looked at Sour, furrowing his eyebrows and putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“They’re some big guys from the Rock,” one of the cultists said.
Hunzrin raised his hand, immediately silencing the crowd. He winced slightly and looked at Fafhrd, who missed the cue and kept talking.
“Wait, The Rock is in it too?” the barbarian whispered. “I liked him in Fast and Furious.”
“I prefer more ambitious movies,” Hunzrin said.
“Yes, and your uncle directed Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore,” Fafhrd replied, rolling his eyes.
“Enough of this nonsense!” Hunzrin exclaimed. “What news do you bring from The Rock?”
“You may cease searching for the adventurers who massacred Chandara’s group,” Sour replied. “Chuuls got them.”
“Oh really?” Hunzrin raised his eyebrows and smirked. “That’s very interesting because we found a half-fried chuul at the ridge near the village. Something seemed very suspicious, so we went to the village. Guess what we found.”
“Charred ruins and a lot of corpses?” Sour shrugged. “We know way more than you do.”
“Some of those corpses seemed pretty old,” Hunzrin replied. “They couldn’t come to the village on their own, so either someone brought them there or there was some kind of an undead infestation… Which would mean a presence of a skilled necromancer.”
One of the drows from Hunzrin’s guard walked to him, limping slightly. “There was a necromancer in that group,” she said. “Some little piece of shit, like a gnome or a halfling.”
Sour looked at the female drow. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Chandara Tanor’Thal,” the drow replied. “They had another gnome or other shit who threw a bomb at me.” She took her hood off, revealing a nasty burn mark on her face. “Also some archer, a big guy with a sword, and something like a demon or a succubus. When we came back to retrieve the bodies, one of our soldiers was still, uhh… excited. Even though his guts were all over the place.”
“A succubus, you say?” Sour smirked. “Maybe if you didn’t spend your time thinking of succubi, you wouldn’t be so glaringly incompetent.”
“And who are you to say that?!” Chandara exclaimed. “I didn’t spend the last week digging through corpses to listen to some random fucking smartass from The Rock telling me I’m incompetent!”
“Enough, Chandara!” Hunzrin exclaimed. “Adventurers, undead… Someone’s on our ass.”
“Genius.” Sour rolled her eyes. “And yet, when we came to this camp, it was guarded by two pissheads. If it continues, we’ll have to bring you back to the Rock so you’d explain why this place looks like a cheap brothel.”
“Exactly.” Gray Mouser stood up. “In fact, we’d better go there. Those undead are truly an alarming sight.”
“They ripped that old crazy innkeeper to pieces,” Hunzrin said. “But we found no trace of his daughter.”
Charlene looked around and tried to hide behind the pony known as Lyra Heartstrings. Luckily, no one seemed to pay attention to that – Sour was quite good at stealing the spotlight. Some of the cultists decided to gather their belongings and pack their tents, but Hunzrin stopped them with a short gesture.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “My orders say that we must maintain the outposts.”
“And now we change the orders,” Gray Mouser replied, trying to look down at the drow, with predictable results.
Hunzrin winced. “And who are you? I demand written orders from The Rock, not some random halfling.”
“Fafhrd, show him the orders.” Gray Mouser muttered.
The barbarian walked to the drow and punched him. Or rather attempted to do so – Hunzrin dodged with grace and spun, producing a long knife from under his robe. He was about to stab Fafhrd, when something heavy hit him in the knee, knocking him off balance. He didn’t fall, though, but when he recovered, he saw some short humanoid aiming a big, complicated crossbow at his face.
“What the hell?” he asked, looking at the new attacker. “You have goblins at the Rock too?”
“Gmork Gartenzwerg, at your service.” The artificer smirked. “Gmork is a half-orc and this is Gmork’s full-auto crossbow. With one turn of this crank, ye will become a drow pincushion.”
“You’re the ugliest half-orc I’ve ever seen and the bar is already low,” Hunzrin muttered.
Gmork aimed the crossbow. “Shall Gmork show ye its features?”
“Umm…” Gray Mouser looked around. “I don’t want to interrupt, but about a hundred drows are aiming their bows at us.”
“Don’t worry, this baby holds thirty bolts,” Gmork patted the crossbow.
“I said ‘a hundred’,” the halfling muttered. “Sure, we can hope they’ll go full circular firing squad and shoot each other, but I’d rather not be in the middle of all this.”
“Don’t worry, Gmork got this,” Gmork replied. “They won’t shoot their leader.”
Chandara smirked at the half-orc and aimed her bow at Hunzrin. “And that’s where you’re wrong, my little green friend. I’ll gladly take Hunzrin’s–” Her voice drowned in a fit of macabre coughing when Gmork spun the crank of the crossbow, unleashing a torrent of bolts at her. The other drows aimed their bows, but Hunzrin stopped them.
“Good riddance,” he said, looking at Chandara’s body. “Still, my people are aiming at you and if someone here is becoming a pincushion, then I’m afraid it’s you.” He smirked. “Still, this whole story seems absurd.” He sighed. “Guess it’ll be best to take you to the Rock for some questioning…”
“Look on the bright side,” Fafhrd said. “We wanted to go there anyway.”
“Still, not like this.” Sour sighed. They were all tied, lying on a hay wagon pulled by the pony known as Lyra Heartstrings and guarded by no one else but Finnan Tealeaf and Perrin Tosscobble, who took additional effort to gag Gray Mouser and check the ropes binding him every few minutes.
Charlene rolled her eyes. Her hands were tied, but she waved her fingers at Fafhrd. Is the elf bitch ever happy?
“Maybe she doesn’t realise that soon we’ll meet The Rock,” the barbarian replied. “I’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“I can hear this,” Sour muttered.
“How do you know we’re talking about you?” Fafhrd asked. “It’s not like you can understand Charlene.”
“I’m guessing from your tone,” Sour replied. “Also, I’d like to remind you that Sunny and Sugarcoat are dudes and it’s not like Sugarcoat can talk right now.”
“Mhm.” Gray Mouser, also known as Sugarcoat, tossed in his restraints and tried to kick one of their guards.
“I wonder what will they do to us at The Rock,” Gmork muttered, looking at the massive wall of stone getting closer and closer to them. “This place doesn’t look very friendly.”
“It smells of sulfur and dead bodies,” Sour said, sniffing the air. “Which is quite a feat for a bunch of moronic cultists who use a squid as their sigil.”
“Maybe it’s a dead whale.” Fafhrd shrugged. “Those things smell even worse after they explode, you know.”
“The bones around us look more like elephants.” Sour looked around. “Where did they even get elephants here? They just don’t live here.”
“Well, not anymore,” Fafhrd muttered, looking at the rock in front of them. “This looks like a challenge.”
“Only a barbarian could take a look at this and call it a challenge.” Sour shook her head, staring at the large door in the stone wall. It was made of gold, with squid-like engravings on it. It was also covered in what looked like a collection of old blood stains, flies circling around them.
I’d say we are thoroughly fucked, Charlene gestured when Hunzrin walked to the door and knocked. And not in the fun way.
“Don’t worry, we’ll come up with something,” Fafhrd replied.
You will? You mean, you don’t have a plan already? Charlene rolled her eyes.
“That’s how we usually roll.” Fafhrd looked at Finnan Tealeaf and Perrin Tosscobble. “If we don’t know our escape plan, how will they know it?”
This is ridiculous. Charlene sighed.
“Nah, that’s just–” Fafhrd paused as the cart drove past the gate and deeper into the dungeon, illuminated only by a handful of torches. The smell of old blood and rotting flesh was almost unbearable. The barbarian could see something moving in the darkness as they rode across a large, underground hall.
“Trust me, it doesn’t look better with night vision,” Sour muttered.
“Mmmh?” Gray Mouser asked.
“Shut up,” Perrin Tosscoble said. “Soon, you’ll meet the Chancellor and we’ll see if he really sent you.”
“The Chancellor?” Fafhrd asked. “Does he look like The Rock?”
Gods fucking dammit. Charlene shook her head. If my hands weren’t tied, I’d go with a facepalm, but at least I can imply it.
The cart stopped. Several drows walked to it, prompting the adventurers to get it. Gray Mouser got yanked out of the cart and put on his feet, but Gmork stopped the cultists with a hand gesture.
“Gmork will go himself,” he said.
“If someone touches me, they’ll get stabbed.” Sour jumped off the cart gracefully.
“Your hands are tied,” Fafhrd muttered, dropping on the stone floor.
“As if that ever stopped me before.” Sour smirked. “Just wait until–”
“Hunzrin.” The word cut the darkness like a knife made of ice. A tall, slender cultist walked to the drow. His robe looked cleaner and more expensive than those of other cultist; its hood was covering his face. “Why did you come here?”
“He doesn’t look like The Rock,” Fafhrd the Barbarian whispered. “More like Chancellor Palpatine.”
Charlene sighed, moving her tied hands to somehow convey her thoughts with gestures. Well, what did you expect from the guy called The Chancellor? Tool’s bassist?”
“Well, you could make some kickass gig in this hall,” Fafhrd replied.
Shut up and take my hand. Charlene furrowed her eyebrows.
“Those people walked into our camp, claiming that they’re your messengers,” Hunzrin said to the Chancellor. “They beat up the guards and this little, green, uhh…” He looked at Gmork and shrugged. “This goblin killed Chandara with this thing.” He showed Gmork’s crossbow to the Chancellor.
“Good riddance.” The Chancellor took the crossbow and looked at the crank. “The most unusual mechanism. I don’t think any of my artificers could produce such a thing. Also, I don’t recall sending any messengers.”
Fafhrd hissed. A sudden wave of hot air engulfed his hands for a moment, but when it disappeared, he felt that the rope binding them turned into ash and some charred remains. He looked around and saw Charlene, who smirked at him. Her hands were also free.
“Wait, so you are a mystic after all?” he asked.
One more word and I’ll burn your tongue off, Charlene gestured. The tiefling on the left has your sword. Until then, you can use a halfling as your weapon.
“It is very interesting that those guys showed up just when we got reports of these adventurers who defeated Chandara’s group.” The Chancellor furrowed his eyebrows. “Bring them to the torture chamber. I want to know everything about them before we let the beast feed on them.”
“As you wish.” Hunzrin bowed and walked to Fafhrd. “You’ll go first, big guy.”
“Well, there’s one thing…” Fafhrd smiled sheepishly.
“What’s this?” Hunzrin asked.
“Talk to the fist!” Fafhrd exclaimed, punching the drow, who dropped on the ground. The barbarian spun, grabbing Finnan Tealeaf and hitting the nearest guard with him.
One of the cultists screamed, his robe engulfed in flames. Charlene rushed to free Gray Mouser and Gmork while Sour managed to cut her binds with a small knife she had hidden up her sleeve. The knife was currently in the guts of the nearest cultist, who was lying on the ground and coughing violently.
“Run!” Fafhrd tossed Finnan Tealeaf at the tiefling cultist and grabbed his sword. He didn’t have to tell twice; his friends followed him, Charlene burning her way across the crowd.
“Not so fast!” Perrin Tosscoble rushed to Gray Mouser, grabbing his robe. The cleric turned back and at the same moment he got stabbed in the chest. Perrin smirked when Gray Mouser dropped on the ground. “That’s for Shaena Tealeaf,” he muttered.
This was, however, his final blow in this battle. Sour managed to regain her bow and shoot an arrow right at the halfling’s knee causing him to fall next to his victim.
“You missed,” Fafhrd said.
“Nah, someone who killed Sugarcoat deserves to survive.” Sour shrugged. “Maybe he’ll buy an inn now.”
“I’ll better check if she’s alive.” Fafrhd rushed through the crowd of cultists, beheading two of them, and grabbed Gray Mouser’s body. “You okay there?”
The halfling coughed, spraying blood around. “I have a knife in my lung,” he whispered.
“I can take it out,” Fafhrd replied, punching a cultist who got in his way.
“Did you ever listen to Nurse Heartless during the first aid classes?” Gray Mouser rolled his eyes.
“Only when she talked about getting shot,” the barbarian replied. “You know, in case Twilight and Moondancer ever went full Pumped-Up Kicks.” He looked at Gray Mouser. “Are you okay?”
“I’m one death saving throw away from dying and I just heard a tiny voice that sounds exactly like our DM, telling me that you really shouldn’t have mentioned Pumped-Up Kicks.”
“Don’t worry, Lemon will fix you.” Fafhrd smacked his forehead. “Wait, she died already and her new character can only make the world burn. But maybe I can stabilise you?”
“I don’t trust your wisdom checks that much.”
Suddenly, a half-orc cultist charged at Fafhrd, only to fall on the floor, with an arrow sticking from his back. Sour waved to the barbarian, pointing at the dark corridor leading deeper into the mine.
Fafhrd ran towards her. Gmork joined him, somehow managing to overtake him despite much shorter legs. They reached the corridor, followed by cultists and a wall of fire created by Charlene.
“Where do we go now?” Fafhrd asked. “Also, is there a healer in the house?”
“Gray Mouser’s alive?” Sour asked. “I can stabilise him, but we need to get out of there if we want to heal him.”
“Worry not, Gmork found a getaway vehicle.” Gmork pointed at the floor. There were tracks on it, complete with several minecarts standing on a sidetrack.
“Oh great, underground rollercoaster,” Fafhrd said. “Where’s Charlene?”
Suddenly, they saw the innkeeper’s daughter running towards them. She was pale; her eyes were sunken as if she didn’t sleep for days. Behind her, the hall was burning, but some cultists already gathered around Hunzrin and the Chancellor to form a search party.
I need healing. Charlene staggered, resting herself against the minecart. Burning things with your mind is a sure way to get exhausted quickly.
“What is she talking about?” Sour asked.
“It’s hard to burn stuff,” Fafhrd replied. “Also, we need more healing.”
“Later,” Sour said, hopping onto the minecart. “How do you even steer this thing?”
“Ye really don’t,” Gmork replied. “It has brakes and ye can kinda change direction at junctions, but otherwise it’s a fun ride. Ye never know what ye get.”
“Works for me.” Fafhrd jumped into the cart, dropping Gray Mouser on its floor. “I don’t see any seatbelts.”
“Where we’re going, we don’t need seatbelts.” Gmork released the brakes and the cart started to slowly roll forward. The corridor was going down, deeper underground, so it quickly accelerated. However, they could still hear the voices of the cultists and the sound of more carts rolling.
“Okay, hold this.” Sour gave Gmork her bow and looked at Gray Mouser. “How do I even stabilise a stabbed halfling?” She sighed and turned to Fafhrd. “Humming the ER theme doesn’t help, you know.”
“It’d help even less if I went for healing.” Fafhrd rolled his eyes. “Also, you’d better hurry. Gmork can’t shoot a bow that is bigger than him.”
Several bolts flew past them, followed by a spell that hit the wall, causing a few bits of shrapnel to hit the cart.
“They still have Gmork’s crossbow,” Gmork muttered. “At least they won’t know how to reload.”
“I think I have some healing potion somewhere,” Sour muttered. “They didn’t take it.”
“Maybe because you stabbed the first two guys who tried to search you.” Fafhrd turned to Charlene, who’d grabbed his sleeve. “What?”
Charlene waved her hand. I have a potion of supreme healing.
Twilight furrowed her eyebrows and looked at Lemon. “You don’t have a potion of supreme healing.”
“It’s right there, on my equipment list,” Lemon replied, pointing at the large stack of papers in front of Twilight. Only now she noticed that Twilight did may have actually read it – some parts were marked with highlighters in multiple colours and sticky notes.
“It’s not,” Twilight said. “You may have thought that putting your equipment list in the middle of an erotic story featuring Charlene’s parents was a clever move, but I actually got to that part. Well, I actually didn’t expect this story to turn erotic, which made it pretty awkward since I was reading it in the toilet. Also, while you do have some interesting items in your bags, the potion of supreme healing is not one of them.” She grabbed Lemon’s notes. “Other parts I read consist of an unrelated vampire story, featuring a fetish I didn’t know I had, another story of Charlene’s father that features things I never knew existed, several pages of random gibberish which, after reading it backwards turned out to be a salad recipe in French, a detailed plan on how to murder Sugarcoat, Charlene’s statistics and character traits, and a nude portrait of, as far as I can tell, Juniper, sketched with pencil and finished with Conté crayons. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You included several pieces of information we didn’t want to know about,” Juniper replied. “May I see that portrait?”
“Here you go.” Twilight found the right page and passed it to Juniper.
“Not bad.” Juniper turned to Lemon. “Can I keep it?”
Indigo looked at the paper and at Juniper. “Well, they aren’t that big.”
“Like you know anything about, uhh… art.” Juniper rolled her eyes.
“I’m aerodynamic,” Indigo replied. “Speaking of, let’s get back to the mining carts. I’m waiting for the flooded corridors and the giant boulder part.”
“Isn’t that from Daring Do and the Temple of Doom?” Sunny asked.
“It is, but since we’re already in the mining carts, I expect no less.” Indigo smirked.
Twilight sighed. “Okay, let’s go with that…”
“Too bad no one has a potion of supreme healing.” Sour said, leaning over Gray Mouser. “But we gotta work with what we’ve got.” She reached to her pouch and found an old vial. “Let’s hope it’s not past its expiration date.”
“We’re all gonna expire anyway.” Gmork tossed Sour’s bow to Charlene and pulled the brake lever. “Everyone to the left!”
They rushed to the left, balancing the cart. The wheels screeched as it entered a sharp turn. Behind them, some cultist fell off the cart and dropped into a bottomless pit; his companions, however, were still after them.
“Okay, I hope this works, I don’t want to waste it on a halfling.” Sour poured the contents of the vial into Gray Mouser’s mouth. The necromancer slowly opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling.
“By the power of Tharizdun,” he muttered.
Sour rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”
“I gained immense wisdom,” Gray Mouser muttered.
“If you turn yourself into a zombie, I’m kicking you out of this cart.” Fafhrd looked around and saw another cart, filled with cultists, approaching them on a parallel track. “Or maybe I’ll throw you to them.”
“No need.” Sour grabbed her bow from Charlene and shot at the cart, hitting some cultist’s arm. “And you could be useful for once,” she muttered. “Can you do the fire thing again?”
Charlene flipped her off and made a few definitely unfriendly gestures.
“She’s too tired after the last one,” Fafhrd said. “Also, she told me to ask if your parents were, by any chance, siblings.”
Sour shot another cultist. “Tell her to eat shit. And fall off her horse, though it seems we left the pony named Lyra Heartstrings back in the hall.”
“Watch out!” Gmork exclaimed.
Two cultists jumped into their cart. One of them was a gnome, who ended up balancing on the rim of the cart. Gmork helped him by pulling the brake, causing him to fall on the track. They heard a sickening crunch; the cart shook, but after a while it sped up, as steady as before.
Half-gnome and a gnome in two halves. Charlene dodged the other cultist, pushing him towards Fafhrd.
This one, however, was a half-orc, and it wasn’t easy to get rid of him. He tackled the barbarian, causing the whole cart to shake and almost pushing Sour out of the vehicle. The half-orc roared when Gray Mouser grabbed his ankle, causing his skin to rot. He raised his leg, trying to shake the halfling off, but then Gmork tripped him. The cultist fell forward, snapping the brake lever.
Letting out a powerful scream, the half-orc got up, but Fafhrd was faster. He grabbed the broken lever and stabbed him in the back. The scream turned into a cough as the half-orc spun around wildly, hitting Sour and knocking her down. Fafhrd grabbed him and after a few painfully long seconds managed to lift him, throwing him at the cultists’ cart.
“Is everybody okay?” Fafhrd asked, watching as the cart derailed, crashing into a pillar.
“I got stomped on by a half-orc.” Gray Mouser coughed. “I’m most definitely not. Gmork, are you crazy?”
“Nah, Gmork spent his whole childhood tripping orcs.” Gmork shrugged. “As ye can guess, Gmork wasn’t exactly popular.”
“I wonder why,” Sour muttered, getting up and shaking her head. “Did we lose them?”
“Yes,” Gmork replied. “We’re also lost, unless we somehow repair the brakes.”
“Aren’t you an artificer?” Sour asked.
“Yes, but he threw away our brake lever.” Gmork pointed at Fafhrd.
“I impaled a half-orc with it!” Fafhrd exclaimed. “I didn’t think you’d need it after that!”
“After cleaning the guts, it’d be a perfectly usable brake lever.” Gmork shrugged.
“I can stop the cart with my boots, like Daring Do,” the barbarian said.
“Who?” Gmork asked.
“The famous, uhh… barbarian.” Fafhrd shrugged. “Not as famous as Conan the Barbarian, a pirate and a mercenary, who later became a governor of California and got his own late-night talk show. He also–”
“Everybody to the right!” Gmork exclaimed. The cart swerved violently, almost derailing at a sharp turn and ran through a set of inclined loops, spiralling deeper into the dungeon. It crashed through a wooden wall, sending splinters around, and slowed down a bit, going up the hill.
“This is the worst day of my life…” Gray Mouser muttered, coughing. “Punctured lung, lousy healing potion, broken ribs, and now this.” He leaned over the rim of the cart to throw up. Charlene immediately pulled him back, as a giant boulder missed his head by a few inches.
“She says ‘mind your head’,” Fafhrd said.
“I’d rather mind my clothes.” The necromancer looked at his robe, now adorned with vomit and blood. “How do we even stop this piece of junk?”
“By crashing it, I guess.” Sour lowered her head; the corridor was getting more and more narrow and it was clear it wasn’t dug with elves or humans in mind. The cart took another sharp turn when the ground suddenly evened out.
Running across a large hall, the cart wobbled on uneven, rusty tracks. It slowed down a bit, but it still hit a buffer stop way harder than it was supposed to. Gmork gasped, squeezed between the cart wall and Fafhrd, who was trying to get back on his feet.
Sour jumped onto the stone tiles and looked around, her eyes adapting to darkness. “I don’t know who lived here, but judging from the frescoes on the walls, they had an unhealthy obsession with fire, elephants, and cheese.” She shrugged. “Seems we met some good dwarves.”
Charlene looked at Fafhrd and made a complicated pattern with her fingers.
“She said those are just dwarf skeletons.” The barbarian picked up a skull lying next to the buffer stop and shrugged.
“Yes, that’s what I mean by good dwarves,” Sour replied. “They’re dead. How’s our friendly neighbourhood necromancer? Maybe they’d tell us what’s going on here.”
“Our necromancer is currently half-dead, lacking three-dimensional vision, and probably still having a hole in the lung.” Gray Mouser coughed. “I may try something, though.” He looked at the dwarven skeletons, trying to find one that was more or less complete, or at least not covered in dust and cobwebs. “Did we get to fucking Moria?”
“If we find a dead guy with a book, then yes, probably,” Gmork replied.
Gray Mouser turned to Fafhrd and pointed at the skull the barbarian was holding. “Give me that. This one looks talkative.”
“How can you tell?” Fafhrd asked.
“He’s smiling,” the halfling replied.
They’re all smiling. I think that’s the part of being a skeleton. Charlene smirked. Also, if the little one tries to make dwarven skeletons his personal army, I’ll have to cut the bitch.”
“What did she say?” Gray Mouser asked.
“Don’t bring back too many dwarves,” the barbarian replied.
“I’ll try.” Gray Mouser turned to the skull. “Okay, Yorick, tell me what the hell happened here.”
The skull moved slowly with an odd, low-pitched buzz and spoke in an oddly stilted manner. “You have. One. Incoming Call. From. The Chained God. Would you like to. Pick up. The call?”
Gray Mouser froze. “Oh shit,” he muttered before passing out.
“I’m considering turning you into a huecuva.” The disembodied voice filled the halfling’s whole mind. Gray Mouser tried to open his eye, but it didn’t change much – the true form of Tharizdun was so incomprehensible that the necromancer could as well stare into complete darkness.
“I’d prefer being a clerical lich, but I’d have to sacrifice an innocent and I’m afraid none of my companions qualify,” Gray Mouser replied. “Unless, of course, Charlene is a virgin, though given who plays her, I don’t have high hopes, so–”
“Shut up!” Tharizdun exclaimed. “Can you imagine a lich of your height? I barely can and I’m a fucking god here. Also, a lich who braids the hair on his feet. Now that’d be new.”
“I stopped braiding hair on my feet.” Gray Mouser blushed. “Around the time I tried to sacrifice a hamster and it didn’t work out. Of course you know this because you’re apparently a fucking god here.”
“Doesn’t stop you from looking like a bundle of sticks.” The Chained God chuckled.
“Of course I could be hallucinating because of blood loss and breathing troubles,” Gray Mouser said. “That’d explain a few things. Will you tell me, oh great Tharizdun, who is behind all this? I’d rather not become a huecuva before learning that.”
“Well, it’s a certain Demon Prince who has the gall to pretend to be Asmodeus to gather enough followers to give the old man a one-way ticket to the moon. Or maybe put him in chains. Wouldn’t be the first one.” The Chained God chuckled. “I’ll leave that for you to figure out. If you do, maybe you’ll become a proper lich one day.”
“That’s not something you hear everyday,” Gray Mouser muttered.
“Just like you don’t see one-eyed halfling liches often, but hey, I’m a fucking god here, right?”
“You’ve already said that,” Gray Mouser replied. “Also, I think I figured it out.”
“Great.” If gods in their true forms were capable of smiling, Tharizdun would most likely do just that. “Now come back and tell your future victims…”
“Don’t look at me like that!” Sunny exclaimed. “I didn’t give Twilight vodka this time.”
Lemon chuckled. “I swear, if she says again that she’s a fucking god, I’m gonna–”
“Would you rather see me as a mad scientist?” Twilight asked. “The thing is, I don’t get to play a god often, so I may be getting a bit drunk with power.”
“Happens to all of us.” Juniper shrugged. “So, what did you figure out, Sugarcoat?”
“Well, which guy we know is a Demon Prince who likes octopuses, tentacles, and other seafood?” Sugarcoat asked.
“I take ‘Cthulhu and friends’ for a thousand dollars,” Indigo said. “I mean, we got killed by the Great Old Ones so many times that I almost learned to pronounce their names.”
“Well, I suspect Dagon,” Sugarcoat replied. “But unless this cave connects to some big underground ocean, I don’t think we’ll see the guy. Now, I wonder why he is recruiting all those odd followers.”
“Maybe he’s preparing some giant sacrifice.” Sour smirked. “One day he’ll drop that mine on everyone’s heads and call it a day, or whatever gods do in such cases. I guess we should grab as much gold as we can and run from this party before this happens. Maybe he plans to turn everyone into merfolk.”
“Yeah, that’s not something we’d want. Sour Elf getting wet.” Indigo chuckled. “Then someone will feed you after midnight and Dagon will be the least of our problems.”
“Oh, Sour gets wet just fine…” Lemon chuckled while Sour nudged her with her elbow.
“I don’t think so,” Indigo replied. “I remember what she said last time we got caught outside by the rain.”
Sour and Lemon looked at each other and laughed, causing Indigo to blush furiously.
“It’s not about the rain, right?” Indigo facepalmed. “You two only think about one thing.”
“Two things, actually.” Sour smirked.
Twilight shook her head. “Well, since Sour and Lemon obviously need to get a room, maybe we’ll continue the game next week? Or anytime they calm down.”
“Now that you put that mental image in my head, I have to agree,” Sugarcoat said. “Shame on you, Lemon. We’re about to unravel the mystery.”
“I thought our objective was to get the money and run before an angry god rips our asses off and turns them into Christmas decorations,” Sunny replied. “Unless you want to kill the god, which will be interesting to watch, though preferably from a safe distance.”
“We’ll see,” Sugarcoat said. “But for now, I’m preparing for a showdown…”