//------------------------------//
// Talking Striped Horses from the Ninth Layer of Hell 
// Story: The Warbringer’s Companion 
// by Pony Paradox 
//------------------------------//

“I can’t believe you fools fell into my trap!”

Crap.

Did I really choose to come to this place? I’m pretty sure I asked. In fact, Gruumsh didn’t even want to send me... so why the hell am I here? So far, it’s been nothing but one shit storm after another. Well, things were about to get a whole lot worse. And why is that, you might ask?

For starters, more killer plants. I was starting to sense a theme here. This hours variety was a bunch of vines that suddenly sprouted out from the ground, tangling us into a gigantic knot. Of course, my fire lugies had worn off hours ago, and even with his rage, Grunts current form was still too weak to just yank himself free. Ruska, it seemed, had been clever enough to avoid the trap, and had run into the woods... not that I thought she was gonna save us, the way she was now. I assumed Grunt was ‘ordering’ her, through that freaky psychic link they had, to stay away. I was being held upside-down by one of my ankles (or are they fetlocks?) and once again, my precious hat was just out of reach. And the disembodied, feminine, all around malicious voice was back, too. 

And I still hadn’t had a bite to eat.

“Thow yourthelth, vile temptreth!” Did he really just say that?

“Hey... d’you think you could turn me upright? I’m getting kinda dizzy!” I had to have my priorities straight.

An echoing laughter filled the air around us, sending shivers down (or, in this case, up) my spine. I had heard this very same kind of laugh many times before in my life. The Lich King Asgaroth laughed like this when he trapped us in that maze dimension. Gro’thak the Barbarian laughed like that his army had us surrounded. I laughed like that while I was being tied to a harpoon, with the intention of being shot at the Kraken. It was a laugh of impending victory (or, in my case, a maniacal lapse of judgement), tinted with a hint of malicious intent. It almost never bode well (especially during said Kraken encounter).

“I will admit, you two gave me some trouble. I suppose it was my own fault for trying to make a sport out of killing you. No matter. Now that I have you, I see no reason to hide myself.” Boy, this chick really didn’t know anything about cliché villain tropes. She could have killed us right there, but instead, she decided to show herself? That’s, like, the first step towards being defeated! What, was she going to tell us her evil plan, too?

The creature which stepped towards us from the unnatural fog surrounding the entangled clearing was vaguely humanoid in appearance, possessing a shape which could be accurately described as female. Instead of clothing, she appeared to be covered head to toe in some kind of thick bark, with several small branched poking out at odd intervals and sprouting leaves. Her face was free of bark, but nevertheless appeared wooden and gnarled, giving her a rather ugly appearance. Atop her head, like a gaudy hat, sat a large, sickly pink flower. She was grinning at us like she had just remembered some really funny joke, but didn’t want to share it. I really hate it when people do that.

“I can only hope that the others are as easy to catch as you were!” I was right. Here comes the ‘evil plan’ monologue.

Or not. Extending her arm to the right, a large, spiked club began to take form from the bark-like appendage. Huh. So she really was just going to just kill us. I couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or terrified.

“Wait! Aren’t you forgetting something?” I shout at her, desperate for any kind of distraction. She aimed her bemused expression at me, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I don’t think I am, little fool. I’ll kill you both, and be one step closer to overall victory. It’s really rather straightforward.”

“How would killing uth bring you clother to victory?” Grunt asked, picking up on my desperate gambit like the sharp little orc he apparently was now.

Now the plant-thing looked incredulous. “What could I possibly gain by wasting my time sharing my designs with my victims? That would only serve to distract me from my goal. After all, do you really think I would share my life story with every one of my victims?”

“Well, you just gonna kill us anyway, right? What are you gonna lose?”

“My patience, for one thing. This drivel is wearing thin on me as it is.”

“But wouldn’t it be tho muth more thatithfying to you if we knew who had defeated uth, and why?”

She deadpanned. “No. I tire of this game. Prepare to return to the pathetic gods who sent you here!” She raised the large club above her head, ready to crush the life out of me, when a flaming projectile caught her unexpectedly in her right shoulder. 

The bolt itself did very little damage to her, but the flame spread quickly, engulfing much of her left side. With an unearthly scream, she began to flail, desperately trying to douse the flames which were beginning to consume her, when another blazing bolt grazed the flower atop her head, igniting her there, as well. With her concentration broken, the vines holding us in place began to retract into the ground as the spell dissipated. Naturally, I landed on my head. Grunt recovered more quickly, and soon his rage was reactivated, and he was charging towards our flammable enemy.

However, before he could reach her, she conjured some kind of bright flash of light, blinding me for a few moments and causing Grunt to stumble. When we recovered, we could see a badly charred woman sprinting towards the edge of the clearing, and Grunt gave chase. Grunt was always way faster than anyone else I knew, and he closed the distance quite quickly. He raised his Warbringer, intending to sweep her feet out from under her, when suddenly, she jumped - right into the side of a tree.

Now before you laugh, you need to understand that I literally mean right into the tree. As in, she hit the tree, the bark rippled, and she disappeared inside of it, leaving nothing behind but a trail of smoke and a frustrated barbarian. In a fit of rage, Grunt struck the tree. While his sword didn’t quite go all the way through, the force of his swing was enough to send the large tree crashing towards the forest floor. I held my breath, wondering if this was the end of her, but the angry disembodied voice which echoed from the woods dissuaded that notion.

“Damn you! Damn all three of you! Your clever tongues distracted me, and made me vulnerable!” Sure, let’s go with that. It was totally planned that way. Yup. “Do not think, however, that you have seen the last of Fiona, Queen of the Spriggans, and champion of the Queen of the Air and Darkness!” Well. That was both cliché and long winded. And what kind of name was Fiona for a queen of Spriggans? 

Well, I didn’t really have much time to contemplate things, considering the flaming missiles which, moments ago, had come flying out from the fog. I wondered if the mysterious sniper had saved us intentionally, or if ‘Fiona’ had simply been a convenient target. Either way, being in the middle of the clearing had left me with no cover, so running was a bit pointless. Instead, I fumbled with my hat, before gazing in the direction I assumed the shots had come from.

“So, uh, yeah. Scary rhyming sniper lady. Are you gonna try to kill us again? Because I’m getting a little sick of things trying to kill us today. Our luck can only hold out so long, ya know?”

“I apologize for my past transgression; it seems that I have learned my lesson.” I was right... it was that same, creepy rhyming voice from before, though I still couldn’t see the source. It was a distinctly female voice, heavily accented, and far less malicious than the other mysterious voice we’d been hearing all day. “I hunted you for being strangers, but the small one proved you were no danger. She came to me, so full of strife, and brought me here to save your life.”

Wait... small one? She brought her here? Was she talking about Ruska?

“Good... I was hoping thhe would find you.” Wait...

“You mean... you planned this, Grunt?” I was shocked. There was no way.

“Well... yeth,” he began. “After the thniper attacked uth the firtht time, thhe thudden’y sthopped thooting after I grabbed Ruthka, remember?”

“Uhh...”

“And then, thhe tried to warn uth about the big bear thing that tried to kill uth.”

“Right...”

“Well, thhe was obviouthly thtill going to be interethted in uth, but wathent going to make any dethithins until thhe thaw how we handled the bear.”

“Hey... not so many s’s... you’re getting hard to follow”

“Thorry. Tho anyway, we probably lotht her while we were being chathed, but thereth no wat thhe mithed uth burning down that pothethed glade.”

“Okay. I’m still not sure I -”

“Tho, when we got catpured, I knew thhe would be nearby. I thent Ruthka to find her, becauth I athummed that thhe had mithtaken uth for the reathon thingth were going all thrange around here.”

“Indeed, that had been my folly. Have I mentioned I was sorry?”

Grunt took a deep breath, before finishing his convoluted plan.

“I altho figured that the thpriggan wath her true target, tho if thhe were to find uth being held captive by the monthter, thhe would uthe her thniping thkills to aid uth!”

(I would like to take a moment to apologize for the excessive lisp. I suppose I could have had Grunt explain things without it, but I really wanted you to appreciate what I had to go through to understand that garbled mess of t’s and h’s. Thanks for understanding. We now return back to the previously scheduled... whatever this is.
-Fizzle)

I opened my mouth to say something... and then I closed it. Then, I opened it to say something else. Still nothing. Half of my brain was trying to understand that Gods-forsaken lisp. The other half was trying to comprehend how Grunt had actually thought all of that out... and how he was actually right. Thankfully, a slur of rhyme interrupted my thoughts before my brain could explode.

“Forgive me, please, if this is rude, but I really feel I must intrude. Out here, we are sitting ducks. If we don’t seek shelter, we’ll be -”

“In trouble?” I finished, intending to cut off the expected expletive. 

“... out of luck.”

Oh, come on. You were thinking it, too.

“Do you have a plathe in mind?”

“Fourteen miles to the west, you’ll find a cave where you can rest. Beneath the weeping willow tree, you’ll find the place where you should be. A small and cozy little cave, and it has a spring where you can bathe.”

“What about you? We still haven’t even seen you, and I think we have some questions to ask.”

“A cure for your Joke must be brewed. I’ll also rustle up some food.”

My stomach gurgled rudely at the thought of food. That was good enough for me. I didn’t know what she meant by ‘joke’, however. Frankly, at this point, I didn’t care. We had been running and fighting all freaking day, and I was ready to just curl up and sleep.





Thankfully, “Beneath the weeping willow tree” was not quite as riddelish as I was expecting. There was literally a gigantic willow tree, sitting on top of a bluff, and underneath was a small cave. Now, when I say small, I’m not saying it was tiny. A large cave would potentially run for miles through tunnels and caverns. This was about as spacious as a small house, and the entrance was just covered enough that you would have to be looking for it to find it. A small, cool spring dominated the left side of the cave, just as the mysterious rhyming stranger promised, and there was still more than enough room for three people to set up camp (assuming the third wasn’t totally huge. I wasn’t going to discount anything), plus a bear. The first thing I did was lay out my belongings.

I had lost a great deal of personal effects since I started this journey the day before, and I had very little left to work with. Thankfully, I had scavenged the rest of my pepper potions, though they were a bit covered with dirt and ash. I was nearly hungry enough to eat them all right then, but thought better of it. I had a few random extract ingredients left over, but those would be easy enough to replace. I still had my patented potion injectors, which was good, and a small jar containing samples of the blue flowers I highly suspected were responsible for our current appearances. I really wanted to boil them down to their base components to learn what caused the transformative effects, but alas, I was lacking not only a lab, but hands, as well. 

Speaking of which, my hooves were scraped, chipped and cracked in several places from the mad running I’d been doing today, and were really sore. I didn’t know much about the things, given my particular aversion to the subject, but I assumed that badly damaged hooves were not a good thing. At any rate, dipping them into the spring felt really good, and hopefully, doing so would wash away the dirt and other contaminants from the cracks and wounds.

Grunt was also once again scraped and bruised, though his wounds were all superficial. He fussed rather adamantly when I tried to remove a splinter... however, in retrospect, hooves weren’t exactly the proper tools for the job. Still, it was nice to know that neither of us were too much worse for wear.

Ruska was, of course, unharmed. She did still share in Grunt’s minor aches and pains, but even baby Ruska was a tough girl.

I spent the next hour examining one of the golden coins I’d found.  The first thing I noted about the coin was that it was smaller than a standard coin, as I knew them. As strange as it might sound, it was also more... round. Almost as if more thought was placed into the dimensions of the coin then into it’s volume. 

Upon further inspection, I could tell that the coin itself was not actually pure gold - what, I’m an alchemist, remember? If I couldn’t tell the approximate the carat amount of a piece of gold just by looking at it, I would be a pretty shitty alchemist. The weight was off, and it wasn’t quite soft enough. I would call it only forty percent gold. Maybe another forty percent bronze, but I would need my kit for proper testing.

While most coins were stamped rather sloppily with either a letter, or a simplified coat of arms, simply to broadcast where said coin was minted, these ones had a more intricate  (and slightly disturbing) design. It appeared to be two winged horses, circling a small globe. One was engraved completely, where the other was merely an outline. The result was that one appeared to be darker than the other. On the other side was a half and half image of a sun and moon. There were also small characters around the rim, but I couldn’t recognize them.

Grunt and I waited for the mysterious rhyming woman. We waited, and we waited. Minutes turned into hours, and we waited some more. As the sun started to set outside out little hidey hole, I had arranged and rearranged out belongings nearly thirty times, just to stave off the boredom. Still, our benefactor had not arrived.

You would think that talking to Grunt would be a great way to pass the time, right? But the funny thing was... I actually prefered talking to him when he had nothing to say. It was... simpler, then. More importantly, I never used to have to decipher his language. I mean, I could understand him and all, but get smart Grunt talking about something that interested him, and it was all fthfhththfhfth for hours. That starts to wear on a guy.

Eventually, Grunt started humming and clapping his hands, while Ruska did a little dance. It was cute, but it didn’t hold a candle to their usual show. Did I fail to mention Grunt and Ruska’s accordion hijinks? Another one of the big guy’s hidden talents was playing the squeeze box, and over the years, he and Ruska had made something of a routine out of it. If you’ve never seen a massive bear dance on two paws while a nearly equally massive orc plays the accordian, well then you haven’t really lived. it fills a hole in your life that you didn’t even know was there. I remember once I had made this super rare poison, and Red needed a cunning plan to sneak it into this Dwarven King’s chalice. There we were, arguing about the best way to go about things, when suddenly Grunt starts playing the accordion. Ruska hops up, starts dancing, and soon the entire hall, King, counselor, guards and all, are singing and clapping along. No one even saw Red sneak right up to the throne and add my secret sauce to his beer.

What followed, I imagine, is a thousand years of peace for the Ironhill clan.

Eventually, despite my rumbling belly, I felt my eyelids becoming heavy. I really, really wanted to stay awake, at least until I had some of the food our unseen ally promised us (the Spriggan had called her a Zebra hours ago, but I had never heard of such a race), but sleepiness and boredom really do not mix well. It was not long before the dimly lit cave (and Grunts cheerful humming) faded into nothing.





I stood once again in my proper, anatomically correct body, amidst a vast field of tall yellow grass. 

Yeah. Dream sequence. I really am going there. Deal with it.

The field stretched before me in every direction. High above was nothing, and I felt as though I could see up into forever. As I stared into the infinite sky, the world was lit by a flash of light. Suddenly, it was no longer filled with nothing. Though the sky was still dark, in it’s center was set a blazing celestial body, half sun and half moon. I could nearly picture the not-quite-gold of the coin it was carved into.

Then, just as suddenly, something else filled the sky. Two massive, horse-like creatures, one black and the other white, took to the sky, each laying claim to one half of the impossible orb. The white horse claimed the sun, and it’s mane was all the colours of the dawn. the black horse called the moon it’s own, it’s mane the ethereal darkness of the night sky.

Suddenly, the two beings looked at me, and my heart filled with dread. They were smiling at me, but their smiles looked sad. I didn’t care. I turned from them, and I ran. I ran and I ran, for what felt like miles, and yet the horrid, winged equines never seemed to fall behind.

As I rad, I suddenly felt my body begin to transform. First, my hands and feet vanished, to be replaced by hooves. Not pointed, goat like hooves like before, but flat, dull horse hooves. My jacket began to cling to my body, and suddenly morphed into a fine layer of greenish fur. My hair became longer, and I felt... something... grow from my posterior.

I tried to scream, but I could feel my mouth changing as well, so that the only noise I could create was a long, hellfueled whinny.





I awoke in a cold sweat to the comfortable smells of boiling lavender and sulfur, a scream still on my lips.

Grunt, who was sitting not all that far from me, looked worried. “Fithle? Ith everything alright?”

It took me a few moments to calm down, and a few moments longer for my eyes to adjust to the dancing light of a nearby fire.

“Oh Grunt... thank the gods it was just a dream! There were horses, Grunt - Horses! Some kind of... God horses! Two of them! A White one and a black one, and I think they had something to do with the sun and the mood, for some reason. It was horrible!”

“You know, Fithle, you’re probably going to want to get over that whole hippophobia thing of yourth. Altho, Thae arrived.”

“Since when did you care whether or not I liked the things? Also... they who?”

“What? Not they... Thae. With a thee. Arrg... never mind! Thee for yourthelth!” To make his point, Grunt motioned across the cave, where a large cauldron was bubbling over a fire. I could barely make out some kind of shape, just on the far side of a thick sheet of (Probably benign) green gass.

“Ah. So the small one finally awakes. Good. There are many potions yet to make. The tall one says you are alchemically inclined. Perhaps you might add your experience to mine?”

I rubbed some of the sleep from my eyes, and yawned. “So wait... you’re an alchemist, too?”

“I have dabbled in the herbal arts. Such a useful practice in these parts!” I still couldn’t get a good look at her, which was it’s own brand of maddening. All day, I’d been hearing a voice with no face to attach to it. Now, here she was, right in front of me, and I still had no idea what she looked like. What I did know, however, was that her ‘alchemical equipment’ was more than a touch out of date, and her technique rudimentary. Yeah, I bet she really could benefit from my experience.

“Well...” I started out in my patronizing way as I began to close the distance between us, “While I won’t discredit herbology’s part in potion making, I think it’s important to remember that herbs and spices only go so far towards achieving a desired effect. For example...” I take a small handful (hooful?) of reddish dust from the floor as I explain, “This cave dirt is high in magnesium. In a large quantity, this has the potential to make a pretty cool explosion! However, with just a little bit, judging from the smell of your concoction...” I rubbed my fore hooves together, sprinkling a small amount of the magnesium-rich powder into the pot, where it ignited with a rather impressive spark and puff of smoke. Immediately, the green vapour began to dissipate. “... it should be just enough to burn off some of your excess vapours, without negatively affecting the reaction of your base chemicals!” 

My face was full of pride as the green gass slowly began to fade away. However, as the room began to clear, and I could start to make out the creature before me, my pride slowly melted first into incomprehension, then into grim understanding, and finally, into abject terror. 

Standing unnaturally on it’s hind legs was a true perversion of nature. It’s flat, unshorn hooves gripped a stirring stick, which would undoubtedly be used to beat me to death. It’s grizzly, pointed ears were filled with all manner of self-mutilations. I couldn’t tell if the strange markings all over it’s body were some kind of tribal tattoo or simply the ‘natural’ coloration of it’s mangy hide. It’s elongated snout seemed to sneer at me with an unearthly hunger. 

“Well, you may colour me impressed! Of us two, sir, you are the best!”

As the devil steed spoke its demonic rhyme, I did the only thing that could plausibly be done in my current situation.

With a squeal, I fainted.

















Hippophobia: An intense and irrational fear of horses and horse like creatures. Yes, it’s real. And no, it doesn’t include hippopotamuses. Grow up, would ya?
~ The more you know, by Fizzle the Goblin ~