Ch: 123 Bad To The Bone
Gary’s Island was firming up nicely, no longer a crumbling mote in the endless expanse, now it was a slightly more stable speck, drifting idly on currents of unknowable forces.
In the shattered ruins of a cathedral on his shady side, Morrigan was not having a good day.
“...Intruding on my host, during a time when you knew they wished privacy was low, even for you. The poor thing is a terrible prude about all his…” Marduk, God of Man’s Knowledge, waved his hands in the air in distaste. “Mortals and their… fluids.”
“Can it ‘Ducky’, I’ve read the introduction to your collaboration with that silly spider… ‘Autoeroticism Among Mortal Primates and Related Mammalian Species’... Workshop that title a bit, it’s not really grabbing me.” Her broad and lascivious wink sent shudders down his spine, not entirely unpleasant shudders.
“Don’t knock mortal sensations, they can be… intoxicating, if you are open to that sort of thing.” She whispered, as he stomped off, golden sandals kicking up the dry, dusty soil of the abandoned temple yard.
“Give my friends the courtesy they deserve, they are carrying a terrible burden for us, Morrie.” He tossed back, over his slender shoulder. “If you piss off Shai, she might pluck a few of your feathers.”
He slammed the gate after himself, it was petty and beneath an immortal, but some things just feel right.
“She’s a lot to deal with.” Velvet checked him off ‘The List’, as he returned from outside. “She’s on the list though… I gotta let her in.” The big man in black mumbled softly.
Marduk offered a tiny, pale, knuckle bump of commiseration and solidarity to the enormous avatar of his host. Shai-lite was hanging out by the gate, looking displeased with the occupant of the temple ruins.
“I shall keep close eye on that quarter, never ye mind…” She spoke quietly, but Marduk’s spine shivered, yet again.
#
Gary and Shai appeared, looking disheveled and a little sweaty, not long after he got back inside. “Still, ‘emotionally and hormonally volatile’ I see?” The small deity quipped, before ducking away in giggling ‘fright’ when Gary raised his flattened palm in the age-old, ‘paddling that behind’ threat.
“Quit yer saucy jests, Ducky, we shall nae linger long in this place, our bodies be…” She cut another hot eyed glance at her boy, who shivered with delight.
“Spare me… I already had to argue with that dreadful crow today. I see your point with her, she does not fit well.” the tiny, pale lad with golden curls sighed wistfully and dug the toe of his sandal in the lawn. “Brigid, however… we always did get along; she was among the last of the great fae to leave.”
“We can catch up later, Ducks. Kinda on a clock here, sorry.” Gary butted in.“What can you tell us about the wilds, why exactly do Order and War slip farther away out here?”
“Oh, That feels interesting, their gaze is still present, though… diffuse. Joy, Healer, Beast and the spirits seem unaffected.” He paused to mull things over, radiating divine wisdom and contemplation.
“Of your group, only Tallum has a Contract with Craft and he has never actually been here, so my insight is limited, I can’t feel his Contract with Craft. I will discuss this phenomenon with the others while you wake.” The pair were already vanishing, with mumbled coos of excitement and audible giggles. “Ugh, at least they seem to be enjoying themselves…”
Thirp descended from the upper story on a thread, sighing happily. “I am pleased by this increased intimacy, the boy thrives on it as you see, while I, myself, have fond memories of my mortal relationships.”
“Ohh! Spill the tea my dear, I have developed quite a taste for gossip lately, it must be Gary, making Secret all oversized and excited.” He sat down and assumed the form of a mist wrapped figure in a cloak of fluttering rags. The deity assumed a posture of rapt attention. “Go on, I am deeply curious…”
“Your prurient interests may be disappointed, lord Secret. My people do not link pleasure and reproduction, we form intellectual and emotional bonds with compatible entities.”
She strummed her words lightly, sounding high minded and the very picture of non judgmental superiority. Very ‘Jane Goodall Among the Apes’.
“My people operate on a more rarefied plane, intellectually.”
#
Gary sat on the back stoop, waiting for dawn. Xyll was perched upside down, also waiting for dawn and enjoying a few figs, her favorite by far.
“She says there's no living entities that she can detect, but a ward prevents her from going inside. She’s kinda shaky on what a ward is, Just that she can’t get close enough to tell much.” He scratched his head, while Shai poured another cup of coffee for them to share.
“It could be a natural beast or a person living there making it a home, that would deny her entry… or some old magical working left over from who knows when.”
Liam was at a table with the rest, scheming. “We should establish the house here, close, but not too close. Do your weird ghost bathtub thing too, in case more appear.” The young warrior pointed to a level section of hilltop adjacent to the ruin.
Herlick and Bannock both nodded, while Liam moved on. “We send a team in to explore, I’m thinking Gary, Me, Tawny, Tallum and Ivy, with Herlick supervising.”
Becky cut a sinister riff across his line. “Nope, I’m coming, I have the haunted harp.”
“Sorry Becks, They might need to do some ghost wrangling out here, who would do that if you come inside?” Gary was being reasonable, which made her suspicious.
“What are you really hiding? Do you know something?” Becky surged up aggressively, getting in Gary’s face. Shai pulled the agitated priestess back onto her bench with a sigh.
“We kinnae be certain, but that we should send in a few, an see what lies inside. I hae faith that they will return safe, sister.” Shai soothed and petted her sister into submission, while Vreek took the floor.
“The only things that have ever come from here are shades and husks, such as you have seen. Adventurers and Hunters sent to investigate could not approach, warded away by an aura of menace, fear and unlife.” He looked a little embarrassed, but continued.
“I attempted to enter, some years ago, in foolish bravado… I wet myself before coming closer than a stone’s throw.”
Gary weighed in quietly, sounding uncommonly thoughtful. “So the main difference is more and longer lasting spookies. That all started in midsummer, when I got here. So far they have all been haunted by a little piece of me, along with whatever they had to begin with.” He shrugged.
“When I go in there, things could calm down, or maybe get active. So far there haven't been any dangerous things…”
They rode out as the sun cleared off the fog, traveling up the remains of a wide, paved road. It was cut by streams in a number of spots, tumbling the pale stone slabs into shallow pools.
Fully kitted out, the band approached cautiously, in two groups. The planned raiding party rode a screening action between the wrecked fortress and the larger group with the kids. Becky rode on the edge of the group, sullenly glaring at the screening force, staying just within her position.
“Ooo! She’s really mad at us…” Gary mumbled, feeling her gaze between his shoulders, while he watched the ruin in the near distance. They cut up the slope and settled on a wide, flat section of hill, just slightly below the visible entrance to the ruin and about a hundred yards off.
Shai began the house conjuration solo, while Gary and the screening force kept a wary eye out. Herlick gave him a swat on the shoulder and sent him off to help with the work.
With thicker, higher walls, topped by coiled, spiny vines and acid berries, the house looked less inviting, but no less charming. The home party trooped inside and secured the gate, posting watchers at the corners of the walls. Shai and Becky watched them ride off, in silent worry.
#
The aura of the place was palpable, gloomy, dark and heavy, but the small troop had been washing up in Gary’s blend of a thousand things wondrous and profane for months now… it made little impression after constant exposure to the essence of ‘never-ever-but-always’.
“Can’t you send one of your shadow people in? Have them look around?” Tawny whispered, about twenty yards from the mass of tumbled stone and ivy.
“They don’t think or act as I tell them, they have their own agendas. Besides, they aren’t real ghosts, they might get hurt…”
He squared up in his bug armor and started heading for the empty portal, holding his strange bronze, two headed staff with its jingling rings. Liam fell in, spear ready, while Tallum and Ivy were still getting it underway. Herlick and Tawny brought up the rear, advancing in good order.
#
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Big stone blocks and miles of tangled vines dominated the scene. Inside the curtain wall, the grounds were strewn with rubble and mature trees. Those trees were often growing from the remains of even more ancient trees. This woodland in miniature gave ‘old growth’ a new meaning.
A golden barked fig tree growing in the remains of some outbuilding was at least twenty yards around the trunk. It bore ripe figs of gold, blushing to pink at the bottom, with a bright crimson navel.
Several oaks that looked centuries old, lurked here and there… Liam kicked his ankle, distracting the musician from the lovely trees.
The main keep had little still standing, while the rest of the compound was pretty much a woodlot now. It took some creative eyeballing to even make guesses about most of the crumbled ruins. Stable? Smithy? Brewery? Anyone’s guess could be right about any of the broken foundations.
They circled the keep, spreading out a little. Nothing moved aside from the Adventurers. On Liam’s signal, they advanced, entering the broken structure.
The walls ended three or four feet up in most places, no upper structure remained at all, just piles of stone and long rotted timber settling in the well of the building. The mess was stable, but provided awkward footing. Slowly they climbed onto and over the mound, surveying the remnants of a simple castle.
“Opening, ground level, north west side.” Keen eyed Ivy barked, moments after they reached the top.
A narrow rift skirted the remnants of a fallen inner wall, leading down into darkness. They edged over, armed and wary, peering over the edge in pairs.
Gary and Tawny went last, when they came back from the unstable edge, he was certain. “Yup, down there, it almost smells like home, but my old home… but not any part of it I recognize, just familiar and welcome.” He smiled wistfully, looking a little lost.
Tallum was already tying a sturdy rope ladder and a pair of thick knotted ropes to an oak tree, coiling the lot neatly nearby, ready for use.
Ivy was also hard at work, carving her ritual lines in the dirt with a hoe and carefully following them in salt. Gary got busy staking out poles, strung with spider silk rope, all around the opening, hanging ornaments and tassels of ribbon with a soft chant.
Jeremiah was a bullfrog…
Was a good friend of mine…
When he finished, he looked over his colorful, tasseled and decorated rope, ringing the split in the rubble. There was only one gap, with a high arching ribbon and spidersilk truss, forming a single entry.
He stood back and smiled with pride. “This ward will only let me or pieces of me pass. Anything else will have to break through, which sets off the alarm in the house.”
He smiled at his friends in a weirder than normal way. “That means all of you can pass to and fro without problems, cause you are all just infested with bits of me. Shall we reconvene at home for the next stage of the plan?”
Liam and Tallum were the last two out, still wary despite the mages’ assurances. They peered behind every tree and under every bush for hidden threats, while Gary played on his flute, trying to find any local wildlife.
None, the place was barren of animal life, not even bugs... not even wasps.
“Hey… guys… the fig tree. Keep an eye on that thing.” Gary said quietly.
“Something in the tree?” Laim asked in a tense whisper.
“Nahh, the tree itself…” While they spoke, a soft wet sound came from the golden fig. One of the six inch long fruits split open at the bottom, rupturing a small cloud of darkness into the shadows beneath the leaves.
“Ahh, that’s where the haunts come from… cover me while I go touch it… for science!” Tallum and Liam flanked him as he approached, with the others remaining back a few yards.
Gary fumbled out his crock just in time, as the nascent shade dipped right into his shadow, unleashing a big fat sugar wasp. “Oh! That was close! Don’t wanna get high on my own supply! That’s the first rule of the game!”
Carefully, he edged forward and touched a leaf.
Gallows Tree, Golden Ficus, Highly magical, Undead, Saprotroph, Detritivore, Edible? Unknown, Reagent, Component, This tree is haunted, Exercise caution.
He reached out and harvested a few figs, plucking them without incident. Gary turned back to his friends with a smile. “I think we can leave this tree alo…!”
Two strong boughs reached out and pulled the smiling musician into the canopy, snatching him up like a rag doll. His wailing yelp of surprise ended with a sudden, woody cracking sound.
At the top of the massive trunk, a hidden maw opened, swallowing the flailing boy entirely.
“It’s ok guys, don’t freak out…” His voice came from inside the massive trunk, slightly muffled but distinct. “It thinks I’m an actual undead, it just wants to eat me.”
Tallum lowered his billhook and Liam held back Shai’s murder shovel, for now. “Are you really alright?”
“Yeah, there’s a few minor undead in here, nothing too… Ugh! Gross!” With a musical chiming sound, Gary’s baton staff thing came into play, somewhere inside the tree.
#
The inside of the trunk was pretty well lit, numerous gaps and knotholes let in plenty of light, unfortunately it illuminated his new companions. Gary thumped down onto a thick bed of decomposed… we’ll just call it ‘matter’.
Any number of bones and skulls jutted from the disturbing soil, along with a collection of bones, slowly dragging itself his way. He scrambled up, dusting some filth away and retrieved his baton.
From the left, a shadow form with reaching talons oozed his way, avoiding any light beams in its path like creditors before payday.
He flexed his right arm, flooding magic and will into his enchanted baton. It let out an uncanny whine as rings began to spin in different directions around and through the heavy bronze mace head.
With a quick lunge he jammed the spinning metal weapon into the shade, tangling and abusing its ethereal form terribly.
“Sorry, but you aren’t one of mine.” With that, he twisted his wrist and lifted the softly wailing entity up, and plunged it into his shadow, like a brush into a soiled toilet. A few quick scrubs and the thing vanished with a soft whisper of relief.
He made small talk with his team outside while he dealt with the shade, turning back to the slow shambling skeleton, he burst out in surprise.
“Ugh! Gross!”
Skully the bonehead had company. Seven or eight feet of skeletal hands and wrists were joined together along a composite backbone, ending with a clawed, grasping arm. The front end was topped with a child’s skull, bare of flesh, but somehow no less abhorrent.
The thing’s jaw jabbered and flapped as it scuttled his way, not fast, but much quicker than Mouldy McShambles. The musician took a quick stutter step and jammed his baton into the slowpoke’s moldering ribcage. As its bones cracked and tumbled, he teed off on the skull, whipping the other mace head around.
Gary danced out of the field of scattered bones, dodging a lunge from the things arm end. “Don’t worry, just a nasty little bugger…” He shouted to his friends, while smashing four hands with one quick swipe.
Suddenly less mobile, it tried to get clever and grab his weapon. It seized the mace end and immediately the spinning rings began chewing it to bone shards with a terrible, grinding shriek of tortured bone and bronze.
Gary planted a boot on its spine, while he had it entangled and stomped viciously. He wrenched his weapon away from the jagged ruins of the grasping hand and took a swing for the horrid skull.
The wretched horror was quick, it jerked convulsively away, tearing itself in half, but his swing passed by so close, one of the rings scored a furrow in the yellowed bone of its dome.
Gary kicked the hand end aside, aiming to pursue the head. “I just gotta mop up this little… SHIT!”
Chasing the head, updating the team and not tripping over the uneven ‘ground’ left little bandwidth for other things, a point made clear by the pointy shards of bone jabbed into a gap in his armor.
The hand end was not out of the fight, it had limped up on its three functioning crawlies and jabbed him right in the tenders, dangerously close to his vital anatomy.
Blood ran down his inner thigh from a wound that felt more than minor.
Warning: Undead infection detected, Skelepede has intoxicated/infected you with ‘Undead Rage’ and ‘Hate for Life’. Sentient undead are immune to these effects. Toxin has no effect.
Gary took a stomp with his injured leg, grunting at the pain. Once pinned under his boot, he ran his mace all the way down the thing’s spine, shearing off all of its hands and fingers. He had another go at the jagged hand end while it was trapped, grinding that to bits as well.
He abandoned the weakly thrashing spinal column and resumed chasing the head.
“I’ll be out soon, one of them got a piece of me, now I gotta pay it back. Don’t worry. I’m already finished bleeding.”
Shouting at his family outside during a fight was less than ideal, so he buckled down. With a short leap he caught the head in a narrow corner, battering its spine and hands down, as it curled protectively around its skull.
He bashed down, severing the skull from the spine, pulverizing most of the neck bones in the process. He grabbed up the skull in triumph. “Bad form there… kids are off limits dirtbag.” He mumbled, feeling a little shaky.
He staggered over to a good sized knothole and wriggled his way out, dialing Familiar Stranger all the way up to: ‘Hey!LookAtThisLivingGuyOverHere,He’sReally Lively!’.
He blanketed the zone with as much of his living Animus and Will as he could, hoping to confuse the tree. It seemed to work. The tree ignored him now, just as it paid no mind to his friends, clustered around the monumental trunk.
“Lets get home, you might need to do a little sewing, Tawny.” She clucked and cooed over him while he limped on his magic cane, back towards home.
“What the fuck is a Skelepede?” He asked while Shai supervised his repairs. “Oww! Careful, that’s tender!”
“It’s a mid level undead, semi sentient and highly aggressive, was that what struck you, Their venom is danger… oh, right.” She sighed deeply. “Shai, watch for any discoloration or inflammation for the next day or two, Gary light duty for at least a day, no questions, no complaints.”
“I assume you destroyed it…” Khan muttered around his pipestem. “Good work, they are a challenge for most new iron ranks. You have certain advantages, but I would expect a team at your level to take one… not a solo job.” He grinned under his ‘stache. “Don’t get overconfident. Cocky Adventurers get buried early.”
“Tough to get overconfident when I just got swallowed by a damn tree. I see that Dannyl… nice work, make me a copy bro.”
Dannyl had his easel and colored pencils out, drawing something colorful and cute.
Chubby, chibi Gary was being hoisted aloft in the arms of a muscular, manly looking fig tree. Strong, heroic branches held him by one ankle over its maw as he struggled valiantly to keep the skirts of his pretty, frilly armor from slipping down.
He failed utterly in concealing his blue and white striped panties, with a darling little bow at the front. A speech bubble screamed: “Nooo! Don’t look!” In a happy, charming script.
#
“The fig tree is no threat, it only reacts to undead auras. Living beings do nothing at all. I just gotta confuse it with my aura when I approach. It won’t be anything more than a tree to you guys, you even could cut it down with no problem. Axio, you might wanna go look at it, you should really dig that thing.” He was in the bath soaking his injured parts, while concentrating on keeping Tawny’s stitches intact. His pool was getting pretty frisky lately.
Shai squeezed up to him and grabbed on tight. “Either Becky, Liam, Tallum, or meself, will be near thee at all times, boy of mine. I’d nae loose any of yer parts, certainly nae those!”
“That tree was a surprise… but not dangerous… I might take a cutting.” He mumbled.
Liam already hae, it be in one of yer magic flowerpots…” She shook her head slowly in wonder and mirth. “Magic flowerpots indeed… I hae hitched me wagon to a stone or a star… only time will tell, boy.”
#
At dawn, Gary, Becky, Ivy and Axio, formed up in the center, surrounded by Tallum and Liam at the fore and Herlick and Khan at the rear. The rest were kitted out in armor, as usual, while Ivy had ditched her usual robes, for the hunter’s leathers she wore for traveling and her antlered wolf mask.
“I can build you an armor Ivy, those leathers aren’t much protection…” Gary began quietly. “Where’s your staff?”
“I need freedom of movement, lobster boy.” She twirled her short mace around her buckler with a grin. “Close combat is my speciality, you never wondered why we don’t spar, you and me?”
“No, cause you’re little, a girl and a wizard… you’re gonna kick my ass later huh?” He caught on, while his big mouth was still digging a shallow grave for the rest of himself, but too late. Far too late.
Ivy had the kind of dense, compact body that could seem chubby or at least thick, at a glance. Her quickness, balance and strength were always reliable… Gary just never thought about her that way. In hindsight, she made him think of female olympic acrobats and power lifters, just quietly powerful and compact.
“Is it too late to beg for mercy?” He asked as they marched to the keep.
#
Axio made a quick visit to the fig tree, while Gary covered his aura with a blast of charismatic nonsense. A few quick puffs of spores and the fellow scurried back as pleased as he could be.
“I shall propagate those in my home… I don’t have an undead problem, but goodness me that is a marvelous tree.”
Nothing appeared, as they dropped the ladder and one rope down the fissure, in the early morning fog.
The two frontliners slid down first, landing after a very short, but steep incline of rubble. They formed up warily, looking for trouble. “Clear, next group.” Liam said just loud enough to be heard above, as he and Tallum made room for the musician and mages.
The girls slid down with grace and style, Gary stumbled a little, while carrying Axio. “You are very tall Gary, that seems dangerous… you should try being shorter. Not so far to fall!”
“Shush, hostiles.” Liam whispered urgently, over the sound of heavy movement below.
#