The thing about being a battlemaster was, in Alea’s opinion, that you were the fucking master of the fucking battle, and other people ought to fucking listen to you. But did they?
Like fuck they did.
So. Instead of pressing on to catch Sunblight offguard after the battle in the forge, they all just threw themselves down for a nap. To be fair, the Muzgardt Duergar agreed to keep watch and all, but trusting a bunch of treacherous deep-dwarfs really went against the grain, and Alea couldn’t sleep.
To make it worse, Testikles started messing around with the magic hat he’d taken off the Barb Devil thing. At first nothing much seemed to happen, but between one instant and the next…
‘Look at me! I’m Milo! Look!’
The voice was pure Testikles – deep and heavily accented. But the really bizarre bit was that he actually, yeah, actually looked just like Milo. He stood there, rubbing his eyes and sobbing like a little bitch, and if you didn’t know you’d swear you were looking at gods-damned Milo Tealeaf.
‘Stop that,’ said Alea. ‘It’s fucking weird, Testikles.’
‘Boo hoo! Oooh, boo hoo hoo hoo!’ He rubbed his eyes and moaned in despair. ‘I want to fuck my ugly statue and then I want to shit all over Poo-Mad’s floor because I am Milo, and I am very sad. Boo hoo!’
Iledove awoke, yawned, and coughed. ‘Gahh,’ she said. ‘The air in this place is filthy. My mouth tastes… unholy.’
‘Look at me,’ came a weird falsetto voice which sounded nothing at all like Iledove, but somehow emerged from a horribly convincing replica of the paladin. ‘I’m Iledove! Be good! Everybody be good!’ The not-Iledove stomped around with a stern expression on her face. ‘Evil is bad! I must smite evil and make everybody be good. Wipe your feet! Don’t smile! Don’t fart! Farting is evil!’
The real Iledove, dazed with sleep, rubbed at her eyes and looked to Alea. ‘What in Helm’s name is going on?’
‘Testikles,’ Alea said. ‘Magic. Fucking. Hat.’
‘Goodness!’ said Iledove. But it really didn’t sound like that was what she meant.
‘Listen to me, everybody,’ came Testikles voice, but it took Alea a moment or two to recognise the armoured woman he had become. ‘Listen to me! You’re not listening! Stop ignoring me!’
Gods, were her tits really that big? Alea glanced down, and frowned. No way! Clearly, the magic hat disguise was guided by – well, by the mind of the wearer. And since Testikles had no mind to speak of… Fuck! Was that what he saw when he looked at her? Instinctively, she turned to one side and hunched her shoulders.
‘You have to listen!’ Testikles whined. ‘I hate you all because nobody ever listens to me.’
Iledove giggled, then looked guiltily over at Alea. ‘That’s not even a little bit funny,’ she said. ‘That’s just awful. You don’t sound like that at all, Alea.’
Alea wondered whether telling a Paladin to fuck off would get you sent to Hell. She decided to play it safe.
The whining-woman image melted alarmingly and reformed into a passable, if slightly short, version of Jeoff Moonlifter. ‘Look at me!’ he said in Testikles voice. ‘I am mysterious! I can make your bum explode! Give me all your spores or I will put fire on your dick!’
‘Fucking hell, Jeoff,’ said Milo, awakening in a corner. ‘You sound just like that fuckwit Testikles!’
“Jeoff” giggled, and melted into the familiar scarred, hairy visage of Testikles Hagslayer, barbarian warrior of the Boar Clan. ‘I fooled you, Milo! It was me! I pretended to be Jeoff.’
‘Fuck my life,’ groaned Milo.
Alea shook her head. ‘Iledove. You speak Dwarf?’
Iledove nodded.
‘Can you find out whether any of this lot knows where to find Sunblight? There’s a giant fucking chardalyn dragon out there annihilating the Ten Towns. I want to finish this Sunblight once and for all so we can get on with smashing up his stupid toy.’
Iledove nodded and trotted off. Moments later she was back. She pointed to a fuck-off big barred gate in the north-east corner of the forge room. ‘Throne room,’ she said. ‘Somewhere through there.’
‘Great,’ said Alea. ‘Let me check it out. Meanwhile, why don’t you see if these lazy bastards will fight alongside us?’ Not waiting for a reply, she pulled herself to her feet. An hour or so of nap-time really hadn’t done as much as she’d hoped. She was sweaty and itchy as hell, and all the armour didn’t help. Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. Various bruises and stabs and burns also hurt, and fuck it all, she was ready to kill Death itself if it meant a hot bath was in the offing.
But there was no bath lurking behind the big gate, and worse still, there was a stonking great iron padlock holding it closed. Alea closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. ‘Milo?’ she called. ‘Get your ass over here, and bring your lockpicks with you.’
A wail of misery was her only answer.
‘Milo’s sad, Alea,’ called Iledove.
‘He’s always sad,’ Alea called back. ‘Unless he’s shitting on somebody’s floor. Just bring the little shit over here.’
Jeoff sauntered over, with Testikles and Skrote the Pig in tow. Moments later Iledove arrived, cradling a sobbing Milo in her arms like some kind of unnatural, demented child. ‘He’s really sad,’ said the Paladin. ‘I’m a bit worried.’
‘Right,’ said Alea. ‘Put him on the floor here. Show him the lock.’
‘The other dwarfs aren’t going to fight alongside us,’ Iledove said, plopping Milo down in front of the lock. ‘They’re going to rally the others, whatever that means.’
‘It means they’re a bunch of shit-headed cowards and they figure we’re expendible,’ Alea said. ‘We win, they cheer. We lose, they cheer and make nice with Sunblight. Because they’re shits. Open this gate, Milo!’
The skinny little halfling sobbed. He grabbed the lock in his hands and twisted violently, but the smooth metal slipped his grip and the padlock bounced violently against the metal bars. Milo sobbed.
Alea breathed deeply and slowly. Patience. That was the key. ‘Milo?’ she said.
Milo sobbed. With his eyes closed, he said, ‘What?’
‘Have you got your tool kit, Milo?’
‘Course,’ said Milo scornfully.
‘Use it to open the padlock, Milo,’ Alea said.
Milo hung his head and sobbed. He fumbled around under his tunic and brought out a couple bits of blackened metal. A little bit of fiddling and poking, and the lock sprang open with a loud click.
Milo sobbed even louder. ‘Aiee!’ he shrieked. ‘The whips! The knives!’
Jeoff nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s the mindflayer memories. Wow. He’s really fucked up.’
‘It is as though the lock was like unto the very gate of death,’ said Testikles. ‘Milo has unleashed his own darkness upon himself.’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ barked Alea. ‘Come on. Let’s do this.’
A short distance on the far side of the gate, the passage opened out into a really big cavern, lit by – yes, yet more fucking braziers. On the far side of the cavern, near a couple tunnel entrances, four duergar were dragging a screaming, struggling, insectoid sort of thing with a bag over its head. Two of the duergar had made themselves big. They had ropes around the gigantic creature’s… err… neck?
Then the duergar caught sight of Alea and the others. For a moment, everyone was silent.
And then Testikles spoke in a loud, commanding voice. ‘Ho, brothers,’ he shouted. ‘It is I, Sunblight’s son. I return with allies. What is it you do here?’
Alea stared, unbelieving – but yes, there it was. The little idiot had used his stupid magic hat to transform himself into the likeness of the duergar whose head he’d ripped off – the same head, shrunken to tiny size, that he now wore like an amulet on a chain about his neck. With a sigh, Alea felt for her arrows.
And then, like some kind of insane miracle, she heard one of the duergar reply.
‘You are returned early, lord! What is this?’
‘Early,’ said Testikles. ‘Yes! I returned. Me! With these allies. So now you can go. Yes.’
It was easily the worst impression Alea had ever heard. The little shit wasn’t even speaking in Dwarf tongue. It was the same heavily accented Common Speech that he always used. Yet somehow, the four deep-dwarves were lapping it up.
‘We can’t go, really,’ said one of the small ones. ‘We’ve got this prisoner?’
‘Prisoner!’ shouted Testikles. ‘We will interrogate him!’
The duergar looked at one another uneasily. The biggest of them shrugged, and looked at Testikles. ‘So… we take him to the torture room?’
‘Torture!’ growled Testikles. ‘Yes! We can do that. Torture him! We are torturers. All of us. I brought torture allies! Let the creature go and we will torture it!’
‘Let it… go?’ said the biggest duergar. He looked almost sick at the prospect.
‘Yes!’ Testikles snapped. ‘In Sunblight’s name I command this!’
The four looked at each other again. At last, the two big ones dropped their ropes and all four ran off, leaving only the enormous insect-thing.
‘Look what I did!’ said Testikles, clapping Nildar Sunblight’s hands together and skipping about. ‘I was clever and I fooled them! Now we have a new friend!’
The creature roared, and ripped the coarse cloth bag off its head. It had huge, curving, viciously sharp mandibles which clack-clacked menacingly.
‘Yeah, fuck that,’ came Milo’s voice – and somehow, he stepped out of a shadow right behind the gigantic bug, burying his vicious dagger into its back.
‘No!’ shouted Testikles, but it was too late. The huge bug charged Skrote the pig and bit him viciously. Skrote replied by raking its belly with his tusks, opening a huge gash that oozed yellowish ichor.
‘For Helm!’ screamed Iledove, whacking the beast with her sword. Her weird new polar bear loomed up out of the darkness and slashed the thing too. Milo darted in and cut at it, and while the bug was still getting its shit together, Jeoff waved his hands and did a thing and suddenly the head of the creature disappeared into some kind of … blackness?
‘I hated that things eyes,’ Jeoff explained. ‘Didn’t like the way it was looking at me.’
‘You! Hurt! My! Pig!’ Testikles chopped at the beast with his battle-axe, chitin and ichor flying in all directions. The huge bug collapsed in a heap, lying on its back with its legs curled up, but apparently Testikles wasn’t done. Bits flew in all directions. Jeoff grabbed up a many-jointed leg and looked at it speculatively before stuffing it into his pack. Milo acquired the massive, beetle-like mandibles, and the little barbarian finally called it quits after wrenching loose the dead thing’s antennae. ‘Don’t hurt my pig!’ he growled at the gruesomely dismembered corpse.
Alea looked around carefully. The four guard-duergar hadn’t come back. No doubt they thought ‘Nildar’ was crazy, and they were waiting for the big bug to do its wicked work. Deal with them when the time came. In the meantime, there was a rough, open tunnel exit to the north and another to the north-east. There was also an impressively carved set of stone doors to the south.
Milo trotted into the northern tunnel. He came back after a moment, shaking his head. ‘Long, long tunnel sloping down,’ he reported. ‘Echoing, stinky, very warm. Might as well be headed straight for the Underdark.’
‘Figures,’ Alea said. ‘Fuckers had to come from somewhere, didn’t they? Imagine tunneling here all the way from the Underdark.’ She wasn’t precisely sure where the Underdark actually was, except that a lot of people much farther south were always banging on about it. It was some kind of colossal cave system, apparently, just chucky-jam full of Drow and Illithids and all sorts of other irrelevant underground types. Down south, you wouldn’t dare to call yourself an adventurer if you hadn’t been down below to raid the Drow coffee shops, or whatever.
It was on Alea’s list. One day. ‘Try the big doors,’ she said. ‘That’s a whole lot more like a throne room entrance, eh?’
‘Whee!’ shouted Milo. He ran full tilt at the stone doors with a roar and kicked them wide open, tearing them off their hinges so they fell into the hallway beyond, apparently trashing a couple duergar who had been lurking behind them.
Unfortunately, the hallway was lined with embrasures on either side, with more duergar poking comically oversized crossbows out. Things were nearly silent except for the groaning of the duergar lying under the stone slabs that had been doors – and then Testikles stepped up. And oh, Gods… he still looked like that Nildar Sunblight.
‘Bow down,’ he shouted. ‘Bow down for the son of Sunblight has returned with mighty allies!’ He put his hands on his hips, threw back his head and posed heroically in the doorway. And he still wasn’t speaking any kind of Dwarf tongue.
A long, long moment passed. Finally, one of the Duergar spoke. ‘Milord?’ he said. ‘Uhhh… wow. You’ve been away a long time. We weren’t sure you were coming back.’
‘Yet I have returned!’ boomed Testikles. ‘With new friends for the cause!’
‘Uhh… yeah. The friends who – I mean, you killed that prisoner?’
‘The prisoner wouldn’t tell us what we wanted to know! We executed the prisoner! Do you doubt that we executed the prisoner?’ Testikles was really getting into it now, growling and roaring and waving his arms. How the fuck were the Duergar still not shooting at him? They must have been really scared of their Sunblight bosses.
‘No! No! You executed that prisoner. You executed the hells out of that prisoner, yes. Yes. It’s just… you sort of sound like a surface dweller after all this time!’ The deep-dwarf who spoke cringed back behind the safety of the embrasures.
Testikles eyes bulged like they were going to pop. ‘Surface dweller? Surface dweller! How dare you! I should have you executed! I should… tear you apart with my teeth! Lucky for you I’m busy! I must take these important new allies to Father, in his throne room.’ He paused. Nobody moved or spoke. ‘You know. The throne room?’
Another long pause. Finally, another of the duergar spoke. ‘You’ve… forgotten the throne room is just down this hallway?’
‘Forgotten?’ said Testikles. ‘Err. No. Yes. Wait. Uhhh… on the surface for a long time. Yes. I kind of lost my head.’ He giggled.
Alea’s stomach turned cold. Lost his head? Was Testikles… Gods forbid, was Testikles trying to be witty? Surely the end of the world was at hand! No time to contemplate, though. He was already turning, clapping his hands.
‘All right, important new allies,’ the little barbarian bellowed. ‘Follow! I will take you to my father’s throne and you may pay your respects!’ And with that, he marched down the hallway between the embrasures like the guards and their big-ass crossbows didn’t exist.
Fuck. And Milo trotted right on down the hall with him, right over the top of the toppled stone doors, over the crushed, moaning Duergar underneath without so much as a glance. Fuck! Alea gestured to Jeoff and Iledove, and hurried to follow though her skin crawled as she walked past those fuck-off enormous crossbows. Fucking halflings! They were going to get her killed one of these days. She just had to hope there’d be enough money in the kitty to pay for a resurrection…
More stone doors barred the far end of the hall, but Milo just flung them open and Testikles marched on through. ‘Father,’ he cried. ‘It is I! I am returned from my very long and important mission among the surface dwellers and I have valuable new friends!’
As Alea slid through the door, a grating, reptilian voice called back from somewhere in the dimly lit hall. ‘It were better you had died, my son! What need have I of such as you?’
And there he was: far end of the hall, sitting on what looked like an entire throne made of that stupid chardalyn stuff. Xardorok Sunblight himself. He had a chardalyn crown and a chardalyn gauntlet, but the rest of his mis-matched clothes were shabby, dusty and tatty. His long hair fell lank and greasy past his shoulders, where it got involved with his equally nasty beard. His skin was stained and pallid and his eyes were filmy and bloodshot. Aside from the crown and throne thing, Sunblight basically looked like your entry-level hobo.
Alea glanced around. sizing up the room. A few Duergar guards, looking confused. And why wouldn’t they? A handful of those quaggoth things in a corner, doing something weird with what looked a big mushroom guy. The mushroom guy was missing an arm. Or not missing, exactly, since it was lying on the floor nearby. It looked like it had been freshly ripped off. The mushroom guy wasn’t enjoying himself, apparently. For some reason he was pumping out glowing, golden spores that drifted around in the air and the quaggoths were grabbing them and shoving them into big jars they carried. They didn’t seem to care about Testikles and the rest of them. They just wanted those spores.
Weird.
‘What need of me?’ Testikles said. ‘Ha! Don’t you know Grandolpha Muzgardt means to overthrow you? Her people are everywhere! You are in terrible danger!’ There were two more sets of doors either side of the big, impressive entry doors they’d used. They were smaller doors, and obviously they’d let the fuck-off crossbow guards into the throne room in an emergency. Testikles crossed to one of the doors, and pulled a big spike out of his carry-all. ‘Even your guards are compromised,’ he said, and tapped the spike into the door-frame, wedging the door firmly in place.
‘What are you doing?’ growled Sunblight. Alea tensed, but apparently Testikles line of bullshit was still working. Who could tell? Maybe in the piss-poor light with the fucking brazier smoke Testikles and his magic hat were somehow more convincing? Or maybe there was something else at play?
‘I need you not!’ Sunblight said, running his non-gauntleted hand over his throne. ‘I have my beautiful chardalyn. What else is there?’
‘What else?’ said Testikles. He crossed to the other guard door and banged in another spike. ‘What else? Have you forgotten your sons? Your honour? This chardalyn has warped your mind, father!’
‘No!’ said Sunblight, pulling himself upright on the throne. ‘It’s you who are warped. You’ve become a… a… surface dweller!’
‘You hear?’ said Testikles to nobody in particular, or perhaps everyone at once.. ‘He’s not right in his mind. Father! This is an intervention! We are here to save you from yourself!’
Alea knew a cue when she heard one. ‘Yes!’ she chimed in. ‘We fear for your well-being because of the chardalyn. We’ve come to help you, and save your clan! You must renounce your chardalyn and call back the dragon! She took up a useful position in a corner, where she could cover the room. Jeoff slid in beside her, while Iledove and Snowflake the Ethereal Polar Bear took a place on the opposite side of the main door. Milo and Testikles stood together in the centre of the room, with Skrote nearby.
Sunblight rose to his feet. He was noticeably shaky. The chardalyn really must be getting to him. ‘Kneel!’ he cried in a quavering voice. ‘Kneel before Sunblight!’
‘No, father,’ Testikles said. ‘It’s Nildar. Nil-dar, not Neil!’
Before Alea could decide whether or not that was another attempt at wit, Sunblight threw out his chest and grew. It was shockingly fast. One moment he was a normal sized hobo dwarf in weird clothing, and the next he was really, really big hobo dwarf. Lucky for him his magic made all his clothes grow too.
‘Now you will die!’ cried Sunblight. He hurled some kind of spell at Testikles, who grunted and swayed as if struck by an invisible force. ‘Die! As you should have long since aiieeeyaarrgh!’
Milo appeared from behind Sunblight’s leg, clutching a bloodied knife and giggling madly. How had he got round there? The sneaky little bastard! Well – good enough. Alea nocked an arrow to her bow. It was on.
Credit to him. Even with the shit flying, Testikles hung onto his pretence. He ripped off his clothes in a gesture all too familiar to Alea, leaving only the stupid magic hat. Now he looked like a naked Duergar warrior with a very small boner. Remembering the boobs incident from earlier, Alea chuckled. Evidently Testikles thought Nildar was practically dickless.
‘You grow weak, father,’ Testikles shouted. ‘Your time has come!’ He leapt high and chopped brutally at the enormous Sunblight, carving huge wounds in the old Duergar.
Sunblight howled with laughter. ‘Feel my vengeance!’ he cackled, and from nowhere, flames engulfed Testikles.
The barbarian staggered, but held his ground. ‘Even your flames have grown feeble, father. Now you will die! For the good of the clan!’
Beside Alea, Jeoff blazed off a spell and flames broke out among the quaggoths. Snowflake the bear charged amongst the hairy beasts as they beat at the flames, tearing and ripping and hurling one against the wall.
Okay. So the quaggoths were under control. Alea put a couple of arrows into Sunblight just on principle, and instantly regretted it. The arrows flew straight and true, but the moment they struck their target, flames sprang up around her, singeing her clothes as she rolled to escape. How was he doing that?
Skrote the pig squealed horribly and charged into the chaos around the quaggoths. The doors that Testikles had spiked were vibrating, banging as the guards behind them tried to break through. Iledove charged into the quaggoths as well, screaming ‘For Helm!’ and turning her sword all bright and shiny. A quaggoth head rolled across the floor, mouth agape.
Milo giggled. He’d slipped back from Sunblight, and he took the opportunity to get in some target practice with the crossbow – but just like Alea, the moment the quarrel struck Sunblight, Milo was surrounded by flame. ‘Fuck!’ Milo screamed. ‘Ow! Shit! Bugger! Fuck!’
One of the quaggoths poured a bucket of glowing spores over the one Snowflake had killed, and of all things, the dead monstrosity only went and got up, didn’t it? It looked all undead-like and nasty, so Iledove made a sign at it and screamed, ‘Avaunt! In the name of Helm, avaunt thee, vile fetch!’ Except exactly nothing happened, and the revived quaggoth took a chunk out of Iledove in passing.
Sunblight pointed at flaming Milo and laughed horribly. Heh. Alea could have told him not to waste his time – and sure enough, Milo laughed right back at Sunblight, while simultaneously emitting a river of tears and snot. Milo was a seriously fucked up little halfling.
Before Sunblight could get his act in gear. Testikles was back in action, waving that axe like it weighed nothing. ‘This is for your own good, father! Die for the clan!’ Blood flew and Sunblight howled, but once again flames erupted around Testikles. Sunblight hauled out a sword the size of a small girder and walloped Testikles with it, but the barbarian only staggered and growled. Alea bit her lip. Testikles was a tough little bastard, but how much of this shit could he stand?
Behind Sunblight, the chardalyn throne burst into flame, and Jeoff cackled.
‘Nice one, Jeoff,’ Alea said. Gritting her teeth, she put another arrow into Sunblight and rolled away, but this time she was too slow and the revenge-flames caught her, blistering her skin and singeing her clothes. Bastard!
A squeal from the corner signalled a moment of triumph. Skrote the pig had somehow freed the fungus guy from his shackles, and it looked like he might join the fight, or at least not hand over any more of those fucking revive-the-dead spores to the bad guys. But then the door spikes finally gave way, and a couple Duergar guards came out, firing wildly in Testikles general direction. Testikles laughed. ‘Your guards are weak too,’ he crowed. ‘Everything about you is weak, father, except for your stink!’
‘Fuck! Ow!’ said Milo, rolling away with a crossbow bolt sticking out of him. ‘Don’t annoy the crossbow guys, okay? Or wait – yes! Annoy them, Testikles!’
Two more guards burst into the fray. The numbers were changing too fast to keep track. It seemed to penetrate even Testikles rage-addled mind, and he shouted, ‘Revolution! Revolution! Join us! Father has gone mad and we are revolting!’
The battle raged. Still more Duergar guard rolled in. Iledove took out another quaggoth, while Milo shot Sunblight again and the pair laughed at each other as the flames licked up around the mad little halfling.
‘Look out!’ Alea called, but it was too late. One of the quaggoths threw a bucket of glowing, golden spores over Sunblight, whose eyes closed as if in ecstasy. His gaping wounds began to glow with the same light as the spores. Sunblight laughed, and laid into Testikles with his big-ass sword, but Testikles was light on his feet. Leaping and spinning, the Boar Clan warrior carved enormous gashes across Sunblight’s gross, overgrown body. Blood and spores sprayed, covering Testikles in a macabre coat of scarlet.
Sunblight staggered.
Jeoff grinned, his long face like a skull. ‘Now, I think,’ he said, and pointed his lethal fingers at Sunblight. ‘Have some of this!’
Three brilliant rays of flame leapt from the mage’s fingertips, spearing through the air and spreading as they went. Almost slowly, they burned into Sunblight’s eyes and as he opened his mouth to scream, the third ray went down his throat. For a moment, Sunblight seemed to light up from within, and then his guts ruptured, spraying the room with smoking, bleeding organs and viscera.
After that it should have been just clean-up, but the Duergar and their quaggoth allies were still wretchedly numerous. Snowflake chomped down on a quaggoth, eating its arm – which was really disturbing because you could actually see vague shadows of quaggoth flesh entering the ethereal bear’s digestive tract. Ugh. Would the digested quaggoth be visible as a turd in the bear’s intestines?
Skrote charged a quaggoth and stomped it to jelly.
Alea managed to nail the big quaggoth who’d spored all over Sunblight. It roared and screamed and tipped up its bucket, but there were no spores left and it died watching Iledove slaughter another of its kin with a twist of her sword.
Milo took the opportunity to suck down some kind of healing potion. He made a face, and hid behind the flaming throne.
To Alea’s horror, the exploded corpse of Sunblight was now glowing. Spores were everywhere, and flesh was regrowing over all the wounds. She cast a despairing glance around, but only Testikles was close – bleeding, burned, smashed, and dotted with crossbow bolts. ‘Look,’ she shouted, pointing at Sunblight’s reanimating body. ‘Do something!’
Testikles swayed, but he took a deep breath and leapt, axe raised high. Down came the axe once, twice, and Testikles screamed: ‘Lay down your arms or I will cut them off like I cut off these legs!’ He kicked the tree-trunk sized legs away from the body, where they twitched horribly. ‘The king is dead! Long live the king! I am the king! Me! Fuck you! Fuck you!’ He chopped at the corpse, hurling blood and gobbets of flesh and spores in all direction.
Jeoff made with the flaming rays again, detonating the crotch of one of the Duergar guards and crisping one of Sunblight’s arms before it could spore its way back to life. The crotch-shot Duergar fell apart at groin level, the top half screaming and crawling away as the bottom half twitched and smouldered. Meanwhile, Snowflake bit the head off a quaggoth and Skrote stomped five kinds of greasy fuck out of the Duergar who’d been trying to fight Iledove.
And that really was all. Or it should have been. Suddenly there were Duergar falling over each other to surrender, begging for mercy, and generally grovelling. Alea put up her bow. Iledove backed off. Testikles kept grimly chopping Sunblight’s corpse into smaller and smaller pieces… but Milo and Jeoff glanced at each other, then ran to close the doors.
Jeoff grinned. ‘Oh no,’ he said to the blubbering Duergar. ‘There’s no ‘surrender’ here.’
‘Not today,’ added Milo, licking the blade of his knife. ‘Not for you.’
It probably didn’t help that Iledove hacked apart the last surviving quaggoth at this point. The terrified Duergar looked at each other, then vanished en masse.
‘Fuck!’ said Milo. ‘They’ve turned invisible!’ He cocked his head, sniffed, listened, and then sprang. A screaming Duergar appeared in Milo’s arms, begging and pleading, but Milo shanked it over and over and over. Blood went every direction, but most of all it went on Milo, joining the rest of the blood, organs, and bits of rotting flesh that decorated him. Milo giggled.
‘Look,’ said Jeoff. ‘Sunblight’s head is trying to reanimate.’
Alea glanced at it, and yes: the enormous head was twitching. The jaw worked, and the tongue waved about. Of course Milo ran over and pissed on it. Alea grimaced, and turned to Fungus Guy while Iledove offered some healing to a very grateful Testikles who had finally reduced the entire monstrous Sunblight corpse down to pieces about the size of a fist, scattered hither and yon across the room.
Fungus Guy turned out to be something called a ‘Myconid’. He was apparently a bit special amongst the Myconids, who were some kind of sentient mushroom people that liked to hang out in the Underdark along with all the other weirdy-types down there. His name was ‘Pleurota’, and he was some kind of king, or so he said.
‘I am very grateful to you for my rescue,’ he told Alea.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Sorry we didn’t get here sooner.’ She looked at the place where his arm was torn away from his body. ‘That… uhhh… that looks painful.’
‘They were harvesting my spores,’ Pleurota said. ‘They can reanimate the dead, creating useful servitors. I… I can offer you some of my spores as a reward for freeing me, if you have a use for reanimated servants.’
‘Eh,’ said Alea. Reanimation was a bit nasty, when you came down to it. ‘Not exactly my thing, but –’’
‘Did somebody say ‘spores’? I’m quite interested in spores, moulds and fungi,’ said Jeoff, hurrying to join them. ‘I would be very pleased with such a reward.’
Milo wandered over, still covered in blood, mucous, and unspeakable fragments. He watched Pleurota as the Myconid filled a bucket with spores. ‘That reanimation thing is a bit handy,’ Milo said. ‘I think you should join us.’
Pleurota bowed his head. ‘I could not,’ he said in his strange, breathy voice. ‘In any case, I have been away from my family for too long. I wish only to return to my home in the Underdark.’
‘The Underdark?’ said Milo, far too casually for Alea’s liking. ‘Oh. Rigghhht. Yeah. Hey, uhh… don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but we were down that way a while ago, and, uhhh… we may have killed a whole bunch of things that looked a lot like you. A whole lot like you,’ he emphasised. ‘So there’s probably no point in going back for you, right?’
‘You went to the Underdark?’ Pleurota seemed stricken.
‘No we fucking didn’t,’ Alea put in, but Milo nodded violently.
Pleurota trembled. ‘My family… they are dead?’
‘No,’ said Alea. ‘Or… probably not, anyhow.’ But Milo was nodding even more violently than before, and Pleurota gave a little scream then ran off towards the Underdark-tunnel with surprising speed for a sentient mushroom.
Naturally, Milo gave chase. ‘Come back here,’ he shouted, waving his knife about, but before he could get far Testikles caught up with him and hoisted Milo above his head like a strong-man with a bar-bell. Milo kicked and screamed and waved and giggled, but Testikles simply carried him back into the throne room and put him down.
And of course that was when Milo decided to sit on the chardalyn throne, which was still on fire from Jeoff’s magic. Jeoff got excited by the idea and volunteered to put the fire out, but Testikles simply walked up and used the Axe of Ashrem to smash the Chardalyn Throne of Xardorok Sunblight into itty bitty fragments, which he scattered around among the itty bitty fragments of Xardorok Sunblight.
And good riddance, too.
‘Okay, folks,’ Alea said. ‘Job’s done. We’ve gotta get out of here before Grandolpha Muzgardt changes her mind about not attacking us.’
Milo pouted, and Jeoff frowned.
‘Don’t be like that,’ said Iledove. ‘Remember, there’s an entire chardalyn dragon out there just waiting for us!’
‘Yaaayy!’ cheered Milo, clapping his hands and splattering blood everywhere.
‘Fuck my life,’ muttered Alea.
The Last Bastion 