Utter Astonishment or Bitter Disillusionment...

Well, with the battle royale the morning before and all the excitement of bashing through the obsidian and destroying the Verans, well, a few of them anyway, our group feels like they’ve earned the rest and glorious treasures!

The night passes without incident and early in the morning, while Wik and Martonis are off with their morning rituals and Morgan snorts and tosses muttering about, “them exercises being noisy – can’t a body get no rest?”

Antoinette awakens as Lucy exits the tent that Martonis erected for their use, but Ooma is oblivious to the whole morning routine.

Wik notices, from the corner of his eye, a shadowy figure following Lucy as she happily wanders from the staff to the outhouse, unmindful of the large, dark, furry creature following her. Wik stops his exercises immediately, snatches his short sword and follows sneakily. He sees Lucy enter the dilapidated toilet and notices the creature moving to stand slightly to the side, waiting.

Wik rushes up cautiously and silently and attempts to stab the animal, unfortunately, slipping on a pebble, the sharp point of his sword shaving a few hairs off the creature’s shoulder. The creature, naturally, rises, and Wik takes this as an act of aggression and shouts loudly, “Lucy is under attack! Lucy is under attack!” Repeating it, waking the others and alerting Martonis, who is some distance away in the field performing his rituals.

They all awaken, and, shaking the sleep from their bodies, they pull on their boots, grab their blades, and race to where Wik is hollering from.

They see an odd sight.

Wik, standing between the outhouse door and a large furry… ape?

About to attack the creature, Lucy rushes from the toilet, “No! No, no, no, no! Don’t hurt him!” She runs toward the ape, adroitly manoeuvring around Morgan who tries to catch her as the others shout in fear.

Lucy runs up to the ape and flings her arms around his neck. “Don’t hurt him!” She has tears in her eyes as she buries her face in its shoulder.

The party is stunned. Antoinette has an inkling. Ooma calmly tells everyone to “Chill out, dudes!” Before addressing Lucy. “Do you know this ...monkey?”

Lucy nods, “He’s my friend.”

The party is obviously confused and concerned.

“Your friend?”

She nods, “He’s here to protect me.”

“O-Kay,” Ooma says.

After a short bit, Lucy explains that when Morgan and she played pirates, and he planted the staff, it activated the powers. Now it is fully charged and ready to perform.

The party is stunned by her next revelation as she stands, turns and looks to Wik, her scimitar in one hand, her other hand resting on the jewelled dagger given her by Morgan.

“Morgan? You were given a bag of gemstones several weeks ago, may I have it please?"

Morgan shrugs, “I put that in a pouch to be couriered to you; didn’t you receive it?”

Taking a deep breath the child queen shakes her head. “We will do without them for now. Wik?" She turns to the evil elf, "It is time. You have to decide if you will come with us or perish here. I know you are good. I've seen you try to be evil. Three times I've tested you; you've not let me down." Her voice sounds very mature and grownup. "But no evil can triumph in this next quest; so, you have a choice to make." She stares at Wik. "Will you rescind your ill-advised goals and aid us? Or will we end this now?" Her eyes do not waver.

Wik looks around, sheepish. “I don’t know what you are referring to,” he whimpers. Lucy doesn’t speak, she simply stares until, Wik, feeling a little like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, speaks. He talks of ways to not accept, and is forced into a decision. He nods, bows his head, then lifts it and looks at Lucy, nodding. “For you, little queen, I will renounce my evil being, but I don’t see how I can become good. Chaotic, probably. Neutral, definitely.”

Her face is beaming, she asks him for ‘the’ ring. Wik does try to pretend he isn’t sure what she’s speaking of. “Wik, you know the one I want,” Lucy scolds.

“Okay.” He turns and with a swift flourish he produces the Malachite ring.

“Thank you Wik,” Lucy smiles. She looks to each of the others, Antoinette most tenderly. Her little girl voice speaks, "Antoinette, soon it will be over." She raises Wik's ring and the ground begins to shake and tremble. "You witch! Show yourself!"

Wik leans into Martonis, “You might want to be aware, there’s a lich after me.”

Martonis’s eyebrows rise and he takes a deep breath, “Why am I not surprised?”

From in the area of the barn a great crash and splintering of wood is heard and, before their horrified eyes a platform rises from the depths of the earth. A massive coiled white anaconda-like worm or snake with red glowing eyes and a massive mandible jutting out with ferocious spiked fangs, hisses, its forked tongue over a foot long. Surrounding the mighty beast are slithering pit vipers, masses of them roiling like an angry sea. "You called, child?" The spiky hedge grows thickly around the sides and back of the platform, creeping to protect the front.

Lucy fearlessly faces the beast. "This ends here." she shouts, "The Spell of Night shall be no more! Release those bound within your treachery or face death!" Her child-like voice rings clearly through the field. Throwing her dagger into the mighty beast, finding flesh and creating a rent about a foot long down the pearlesque hide and causing the beast to shriek.

“You will pay for that child," its voice hisses in Common, as it bends its head toward the party, it's fangs dripping saliva and its eyes, red glowing coals.

The party immediately crouches and forms into a well oiled fighting group as Martoinis casts a spell that sees a series of blades surround him, spinning and threatening any who want to shake his hand. Antoinette lunges with her unfamiliar blade, wishing for a two-edge sword but determined this blade will suffice for now.

Lucy runs forward and swishes her scimitar, just missing the creature, who laughs at her efforts. It pounces forward, missing Lucy, but just barely; the ape stands and readies itself.

Wik, Ooma and Morgan all slash, stab and fling arrows at the creature, slowly rendering it to shreds. The party takes some mighty damage as they fight this monstrous animal, over one-hundred feet long and around six-feet thick.

It taunts as it struggles. “Your sister, she lives, for now; why don't you join her? I'm sure, after so many years, she will be happy to see you!”

“You bastard!” Antoinette shouts as she thrusts her blade forward.

“And dear little queen. You have evaded me for the last time! Your Grand'Mere is waiting for you. Lay down your staff and join her,” its voice a high shrill.

“You witch! We have been patient,” Lucy screams as she throws a black bead at the beast, unfortunately it rolls off the back of the platform.

The others are trembling with effort, blood loss and exhaustion. The beast pleads with them also. “This is not your fight; not your battle; why do you interfere?”

The resounding answer is, “Because!” Ooma’s calls for oil with flaming rags, goes unheeded.

The walking Cuisinart is twice allowed to get close enough to rip the beast’s flesh to mince-meat. The others heave their new weapons awkwardly, slowly gaining control as Morgan uses his newly acquired dancing scimitar to offer a third arm for his attacks and is pleasantly pleased with the results as his blade swirls and twists, cutting the beast on its own. Yep, this might be a lot of fun.

Thrusting, parrying and casting spells they wear the creature down, slowly until, with a mighty and dramatic trill, it rises up to its full length and explodes in a shower of sharp ice crystals injuring everyone, some are hit with many crystals some with less.

The pit of vipers that surrounded the creature are killed as the shards fall thickest around the worm. Our bloodied and fatigued troops fall back onto the morning grass, now covered in melting icicles, gasping and reaching for wine and water skeins.

They also have many questions for Lucy and Antoinette.

In time they move back to the makeshift camp, heal their wounds and, drinking more than eating, they resolve to spend the rest of the day listening to the Veran still shrieking and trying to pierce the obsidian thicket and recovering – that beast was evil and brutal!

“I’ve used up nearly my entire repertoire of spells!” Martonis laments, then brightens, “At least we made it through alive.”

Lucy looks to Wik, runs to him and hugs him forcefully, looking up at him, her eyes bright with tears. “I’m so glad you decided not to pursue your goal,” she comments. “I would have despised having to kill you.” She hugs him again, then runs to Ooma, giving her a big hug, then Morgan and Martonis, before returning to sit with Antoinette.

“Soon,” she holds Antoinette’s hand. “Soon.”

Martonis leans over to Antoinette and gruffly whispers, “You my lady, I would like to have a long talk with.”

Antoinette squeezes Lucy’s hand, “I’m sure we will have plenty of time to talk after we defeat the evil that resides here, preventing the spell from being broken and the Wheel to continue its rotations.”

Lucy rises, “I’m going to make some more daisy chains,” she announces, wandering a few feet to a mound of daisies, where she sits, in the dappled sun, under a peach tree picking and threading the flowers on their stems while the adults converse and imbibe.

This change in the princess and in the body guard known as Antoinette has confused and confounded our exploring heroes and they are slowly processing what they’ve just been witness to, and what it all means...

o0o

XP:  2,400 EACH (You're now sharing points with Lucy and Antoinette…) EXTRA-XP for those who write a story (with the Tavern at its centre...); journal entry (of usefulness); or an insight into their character’s back story... 50xp x character level, for one entry per week… (Remember, I'm not psychic; I don’t know what you need or covet if you don’t tell me...)

o0o

VIDEOVERSION\PROOF

o0o

fledgling Dungeon Mistress,

khrys...

~*~*~*~