Chapter 106: Ch: 98 Would You Like To Play A Game?

Ch: 98 Would You Like To Play A Game?

“I can’t believe they’re staying in the haunted grotto…” 

Rufus yipped, from a cozy little burrow down hill and across the road. A not even slightly haunted burrow, thank you very much. “Can’t they smell it? The otherworld pushing right through?”

 

“Humans, Coyote. Humans can’t smell their own farts without a noise to alert them. That’s why they have buttcheeks that touch.” Badger complained. “Close the flap, it’s damp out.”

#

 

“Sorry Gary, I thought it was just a spooky legend…” Khan mumbled.

 

“Next time, I choose the campsite. Could be worse, they’re friendly… I guess…” Shadowy, black, fox sized forms flitted through the air, swooping and darting at the invisible aura of mild deterrence surrounding the house and garden. 

“Ghost bats, or bat ghosts? I am supposed to be a professional at this… I should be inclusive. Batpparitions.” 

Gary shrugged. “You guys hang out, I’ma go have a chat with them.” He mumbled around his pipe stem. “Yeah, Batpparitions, that’s a keeper.” He scribbled it down in his notebook with satisfaction. 

 

Outside the ‘Zone of Exclusion’ (as he liked to call it when feeling pompous) the figures flitted and buzzed cose by, but never touched him, not even close. He stood in the dark for a while, waiting, nobody came by.

With a shrug, he drew his trusty recorder, now freshly cleaned and waxed. A high, piping reel skittered and danced among the stones, touching the flying figures and passing through. Likewise his gifts and their entangling threads missed the creatures entirely.

“Huh… Weird.” He reached out and touched one as it passed near, dipping a finger in its swirling dark cloud form.

 

Vampire fruit bat, undead, vegetarian, agricultural pest, vector of undeath, noncorporeal, normal rank, threat:null 

 

“Well, they’re harmless, as long as they stay out of my garden… I guess.” Gary said as he came back inside. “None of my usual tricks worked on them. I could maybe get aggressive but… I don’t wanna.”

 

He strolled the garden, plucking fruits here and there. A few apples and plums, a handful of figs, a few grenadiers that were getting overripe and some loose citrus. He tucked it away and went back out the gate. 

Piece by piece he tossed out the fruit, and watched it get swarmed. They didn’t actually eat it, the fruit simply withered and blackened into a shriveled mockery of itself. After a few minutes the creatures flitted off, to do whatever they did.

He touched a black, tiny apple and got:

 

vegetable/fruit waste/compost/mulch

 

All the blackened fruit gave the same response, regardless of what it started as. One grenadier pear was not quite entirely blackened when the shades abandoned it. 

It was shriveled and withered but, with a dark greenish cast, rather than black, or the fruit’s former golden color. Gary gave it a touch.

 

Gallow’s fruit, undead, plant/fruit, toxic, vector of undeath, inedible, highly magical, seed carrier, reagent, component.

 

It felt light and hollow, a few things rattled loosely inside when he shook it gently. With a bronze knife and great care he pried one of the seeds out of the rind and touched it.

 

vegetable/fruit waste/compost/mulch

 

“Hey Liam… ever heard of undead fruit?” He asked, grinning wide and madly.

#

 

Liam had not, neither had the others, including the two veterans. “Wish we had a dryad along… I get the feeling Rocky didn’t even notice the batpparitions…” Gary said, while Liam cut the rind of the fruit in his garden shed.

 

“Ghost bats, Gary, no one is calling them that. Didn’t your weird power tell you their name and information?” Liam muttered. 

The intense young warrior carefully sorted several dark, veiny seeds from the dry, inedible and rather animal looking remnants. At a touch Gary’s power put it firmly in the compost category.

 

vegetable/fruit waste/compost/mulch

 

The seeds were a different matter and highly suspicious.

 

Shade Tree, seed, Undead, undifferentiated, unknown, detritivore, saprotroph

 

Liam wrapped them in a cloth and tucked them in a small glass jar. “No playing with the unknown on the road. Wait till we can ask an expert.” Liam cut him off before he could even get started.

“But… ghost trees… I gotta know.” He sat on a bench, still smoking and thinking.

 

“Boy, don’t be the kid that stays up all night planning for the festival and then sleeps through the event.” Khan said, plucking Gary’s pipe away and puffing a few gray clouds. 

“Slow down, go to bed, there is more road and more work ahead. We will be crossing a bit of the fringe, an isolated and well traveled portion, but wild.”

 

“What can we expect?” Liam asked, taking the pipe in turn and stuffing it with something dangerous.

 

“One day through the high desert, it should be uneventful but the fringe…” Khan shrugged. “Once we start heading down the valley proper we will be in human lands again.”

 

“I saw that Liam… double secret probation.” Gary said softly, as he stole the pipe and stashed it. “So the desert is kinda no man’s land?” He asked, as Liam handed him a pipe and he puffed happily. 

“Where does that take over the underside?” Gary asked… before looking at the pipe in deep confusion. “Too strong man. S’too strong…” He scolded his brother, around his pipe stem. “Now I can’t slap it down on the pantie kine…”

 

“Bedtime!” Luna chirped happily, dragging her grinning empty mustache off to their carriage house. “Men, hopeless without directions.” She muttered, as the others started migrating to bed.

 

Gary tossed the last vampire fruit bat a grenadier pear, as he passed one of his trees. It sailed over the garden wall and right through the entity, who followed it down and out of sight, with a silent flap of its shadow wings.

“I wonder how smart they are… they seem like animals…” He muttered to Shai, as she helped him upstairs. “I am totally… fine. Was this always a spiral staircase?”

 

“Nae, and is still nae one. Daft man, Liam hae best find a new interest. We shall all be enfogged by his arts.” She slapped his cheeks gently a few times to wake him up as she got him ready for bed.

 

“Mmm, might work better if you slapped my face cheeks love.” He giggled, sleepy and silly.

 

“I be nae trying tae wake yer face lover…” She said with a sassy grin. “A kiss will wake him!”

 

The poor boy never stood a chance.

#

 

“None of your tricks tomorrow, Gary.” Khan said over breakfast. “Moving quickly is all well and good in civilized lands, but in the wilds, a little more caution is warranted. Even so close to home.”

 

“I hear you.” He caught the kids' attention firmly. “Amy, Wilford, if you can’t reach out and touch one of us, you are too far away. That’s the rule all day. No wandering off or goofing around.” 

“Ye need nae worry boy, these children will nae leave me side…” She finished waxing Wilford’s pomp’ and gave it a final chocolate kiss swirl. “Now tis once more only me poor mad boy, wi his hair all in a haystack…” She sighed, caressing her compact plait of coppery loveliness. 

 

Gary reached over, dipped a finger in Shai’s pot of pomade and gave his head a thorough tousle. With elaborate care, he placed his lobster helmet on his head and buckled it closed. “Nobody knows what it will look like when the helmet comes off… will it be glorious? Or maaadnesss!” He moaned the last part, while zombie walking at the kids. 

“Oh, smells nice in here…”

#

 

They formed up in the morning fog and cracked the gate open. Shai sat in the cart seat, while Gary rode one of his skeleton horses with empty motor mounts.

He pedaled along the smooth road, keeping up with the horses with ease, silent save for the soft clatter of gears and the rumble of his wheels. 

“I still don’t get how you don’t fall over…” Liam called over the cart noise. “...and why is your cart only noisy when you aren’t making music?”

 

“That’s not the cart, it’s the magic of music… and a side effect of my Entrainment gift, it’s an illusion. Any outside listener would hear all the rattle and clatter too.” He smiled benignly. 

“Music has a lot of magic in it… or does magic have a lot of music in it?” He mumbled… until his front wheel hit an uneven paver, sending him for a wobble. “Oh! Yeah!”

 

They rode in a tight group, with Khan trailing slightly and Luna leading by a bit. Two riders on the flanks rode with spears tucked in their stirrup irons. Dannyl and Liam were flanking all morning, giving off an air of casual alertness.

 

Things were arid and sandy, with only the occasional creek or slow moving rivulet wandering the wastes. Cacti dominated, mostly low spiny, mean looking things that the horses did not want anything to do with. 

The cool fog of morning burned off before second bell, leaving tiny droplets, gleaming in the sunshine. Every cactus spine had a glimmering jewel at its tip for a few shining minutes.  

 

Tiny, fast moving birds and insects flitted about, gathering those precious droplets. Butterflies, just waking up and moths, changing shifts passed in the morning sunshine. Hummingbirds and dragonflies buzzed and flitted among them. 

 

A few tall varieties of spiny succulent appeared farther out in the sand, with long spines and beautiful, wispy flowers that dangled long petals in the gentle breeze. Fewer birds and insects visited those, despite the showy flowers and spines glistening with dew.

Khan saw where Gary was looking and grinned. “Giant sundews, let’s stop for a break and take a look at one.” 

 

Khan heeled to a stop in a lovely little spot, obviously a popular stop. A small spring bubbled up from the downslope side, becoming a small stream that vanished into the sand after a few dozen yards. 

The ground was packed into a tough and dusty clay surface, studded with small stones, but better than the coarse pebbly sand. 

A few pointy and tough plants clung to the edge of the tiny spring along with a single palm tree, the only tree of any real size nearby. 

Shai and the kids spread blankets in that paltry shade and set out lunch, while the boys hauled water and distributed fodder from Gary’s stores for the horses and ponies. 

Tawny and Becky gave the animals a nice rubdown and brushing, eliciting happy chuffs and ear twitches.

 

After lunch, Luna, Herlick and Bannock supervised the horses in a sandbath among the dunes, they had a fine roll and thrash in the soft drifting sands away from the road.

Khan led the youngsters over to a nearby ‘giant sundew’.

Long spiky tufts of leaves pushed tall stalks of flaming red and orange blossoms into the air, perfuming the breeze around their little clearing. 

They navigated the spines and thorns, with Wilford on Dannyl’s shoulders and Amy on Shai’s. Liam and Gary took the lead and blunted the pointiest intrusions with machetes or by simply trampling them under their armored legs. 

 

There was a small clearing around the cactus, at Khan’s word they stopped a few yards short of the bare area. Tall and straight, three long stalks shot from the thorny mass in the center of the little space. 

Gleaming droplets still clung to the pointy spines, shining under the full afternoon sun. Even in early spring the moisture should have been long gone. 

 

“Monster cactus?” Gary asked.

 

“No, a natural herb. It’s a sundew plant grown large, spiny and carnivorous. The droplets are a mildly toxic sap, sticky if you are  a bug or small bird. The spines can pierce human skin, but they move too slow to be a real threat. Just don’t sleep under one. Look around the base.” 

Sure enough, the barren soil around the pointy plant was strewn with beetle and butterfly wings, tattered feathers and the occasional beak or carapace.

“They only grow in the poorest soil, so really there is no point bothering them. Down in the marshes they are a favored garden plant. The mosquitos there are a menace.”

 

“I’m gonna just touch one, is that safe?” Gary asked.

 

“Certainly, just don’t linger and let it curl around you… it takes about two minutes.” Khan nodded and gestured with the universal ‘get on with it’ hand wave.

You are reading story In the Key of Ether at novel35.com

 

Gary dipped in and tickled the plant on a wet, sticky spine.

 

Giant sundew, herb, low magic, carnivorous, inedible, toxic, venomous, reagent, component

 

“If alchemy is on your mind, you can purchase refined products in town very reasonably, let’s not get all sticky and covered with partially digested bugs out in the desert… ok?” Khan snapped, when he saw the look in the boy’s eyes. 

“These things are common, get messy on your own time.” He clapped and called out. “Now we all know about the pretty, icky flowers. Now let’s go back to the clearing and check each other over for spider-ticks and scorpion lice…”

 

“Those both sound awful…” Gary murmured. “Are they common?”

 

“Thankfully no, they are rare near human lands, still best to watch out. Always check near your camp for bloodcutter ant swarms in the desert.” Khan said, without further elaboration.

 

“Blood what?” Gary demanded and received nothing but a grin from the veteran.

“You can’t just say ‘bloodcutter ant swarms’ and walk off…” 

 

“Sure I can, I’m doing it right now. You’ll see. The sundew was the first thing that will be new here. I promised Luna she could feed you to the ants…”

 

Gary looked to Shai and Liam, they just smiled. Even Dannyl was grinning like he knew something. “Becky… come on, a hint?”

 

“Nope. Too good to miss. We are all going to enjoy this one. Oh! Look Luna! It’s us!” Becky cheered and waved as they exited the brush and needles.

She and the two knights were giving the animals a final brushdown after a roll in the sand.

 

“All right, everyone line up.” 

Once they formed a ragged line she walked up and down, scanning them with her normal and other eye… except Gary. She flipped her patch back down and huffed. 

“All right boy, everyone else is clean, we have to check you the hard way. Follow me.” Luna led the whole troop over a low dune and down to a scrubby area of thorn bushes and loose stones near the fast vanishing stream. 

Near a twisted and blasted tree, a cone of smooth clay rose from the pebbly soil. 

 

“Come closer boy, stand near the tree. There are many dangers in the wilds, dangers that must be recognized early, if you wish to have a long career.” Khan joined her and continued the lecture.

 

“Luna’s gift of sight from the spirit of Air allows her to see auras, magical emanations and contaminants. She can, at a glance, look us over and know if anything has hitched a ride.” He said, while stretching with Liam. 

 

“I can’t look at you, boy, not with my gift. You send me loopy and I vomit. We can’t use the rituals Tawny and Ivy know, either. Even Becky and Shai learned the spells and can perform the needed exams… but not on you.” Luna said, as she and Shai stood on either side of him.

 

“Aside from the nasties like scorpion lice, itchy little bast.. Jerks.” Gary’s ‘my kids are listening’ glare was getting pretty good. 

“Anyway, aside from unpleasant vermin, there are a few real nasties in the deep wastes and beyond the fringe, vigil worms spring to mind.” A shudder passed over the Adventurers. “We have little ears today so we will just say… icky.” Luna reached down and booped each little nose with a calloused finger.

“We are just going to demonstrate how we check for and treat all manner of nasties in the wild, without magic spells. Watch close kids, it’s important, and perfectly safe.”

 

Luna reached out with her spear butt and tapped the clay cone jutting from the earth. Massive ants boiled out in swarms. The nightmare insects were as big as a mouse, with pincers that took up more than half of their heads. They had huge heads,  tiny midsections and fat, round abdomens. 

Their dark, blood red carapaces, eight sturdy legs and two sets of face weapons made them even more terrifying. One pair of jaws was huge and jagged for grasping and shearing. Another set came equipped with vicious cutting edges.

“These are bloodcutter ants, you should always watch for them if you are lost or alone in the wilds. Let’s demonstrate why. Shai…?”

 

“Gary, dae ye trust me?” Shai asked, in a worrisome way. He nodded mutely. “Good, good,” She soothed. “Relax, dinnae thrash about an ye will be unharmed.” She looked him right in the eye. “Sit down by that swarm an let them crawl all over ye.”

 

“Nope!” He noped harder than he had ever noped before.

 

“Tis safe, tis needful at times an tis a thing ye should nae fear, nor should ye avoid the experience now boy. Come wi me, we shall both endure it.”

 

 She took him by the hands, kissed him deeply and slowly pulled him closer to the withered tree. “Dinnae squash any, they will nae like it an may pinch, an ye get stompy or swatty.”

  She held his hands, and stared into his face as crawling, creeping bugs got… everywhere. They climbed his legs, clambered into his shorts, front side, backside, every side. The creatures peered in his ears and crawled through his hair. 

The things crawled, nibbled, pinched and scuttled over every inch of the pair, then as one, skittered off, seeming disappointed.

 

When the shivering and heebie jeebies went away, he brought up the information released by their creepy, crawly touch.

 

Bloodcutter ant(s), eusocial insect, carnivorous, fae beast, normal rank, non aggressive parasite specialist, threat:null/low 

 

Liam fished in Gary’s storage and dropped a thick line of sugar around the colony and watched happily as they swarmed over and quickly carried it all below.

“Got to pay for the job, that’s only fair. It’s tradition.” Liam said as he dusted the sugar off his grabby little hands

 

“No, it’s a simple ritual, just like I used on the dryads, you just think it’s tradition.” Gary replied insufferably. “Those ants are fae creatures, probably of the summer court. Dang that was creepy.” He shuddered again and checked himself for crawlies again.

 

“They will search out any parasite, blood sucker, aura vampire or vermin, on any mammal or reptile that doesn’t attack the nest.” Tawny weighed in, while brushing the last few ants safely away from Gary’s stomping feet. 

“If the victim holds still they will even excise burrowing threats and suture the wounds closed with those remarkable bladed appendages. They are blessed by lady Healer.” She announced with absolute surety.

“Many warriors will tell of comrades, alive today because they stumbled, injured and bleeding, into a nest of these darlings. They cannot resist closing wounds, it is in their nature.”

 

“Those warriors will also tell you that it hurts like… having your injuries sewn back together by ants. The ants don’t care if you scream, just don’t smush any. They don’t like that, obviously.”

 

“That’s crazy…” Gary mumbled eying the creatures as they scurried about checking for any missed sugar. 

 

“If you see a camp site frequented by humans in the wilds, there will be a nest of these nearby. Always feed them if you can… but I guess you know that now.” Khan said. “Ok, lessons are over, get ready to move.”

#

 

The kids bunked down for a nap in the cart while Gary and Shai took the flanks. “I don’t know about my outrider being mounted on a… whatever that is.” Liam complained, from beside the wagon with Tawny.

 

“It’s the thing that is going to make my life easier. Every time I get on a horse, they just decide where to go and how fast. They just do what they think is best…”

 

“Are they usually right?” Becky asked, from her happy pony friend’s back. 

 

“Shut up Becky… and yes, always… but that’s not what’s important.” He complained, while navigating a tricky patch of road. 

“Think of this, a squad of heavy, mounted foot, who don’t need to worry about their horses getting hurt, spooked or chased away while they are ‘busy’...” He sang out, breathing deep and slow, keeping a steady rhythm.

 

“Interesting… that thing could never replace a trained warhorse…” Luna murmured. “So many horses could be freed up for safer work…”

 

A sharp blast from Khan’s horn brought their attention to the front. Annie’s chocolate brown form, with Khan, pennant flying from his lance made a brave sight, trotting back their way.

“Trouble?” Gary asked, while he fumbled for his ‘horn signal cheat sheet’ with one hand steering a wobbly line.

 

“One blast means incoming party, intent unknown. If he blew that, he has been spotted by an unknown party of men who have not posed any threat. Otherwise, a minor threat is approaching.”

 

“Ok, let’s limber up.” Gary’s face vanished behind his weird bug mask as the rest of his helmet seemed to embrace the new armor piece, of its own accord. 

The awful mandibles that formed the cheek guards of his helm seemed to make pinchy movements, as if in anticipation of a snack.

 

“Swing out wider, check our flanks and rear quarters Gary, stay close. Shai, you know the drill. Foot, on the kids and cart. Dannyl, we follow Khan and Luna.”

 

Gary pedaled a few yards off from the wagon and slowed, scanning the northeast and their trail for threats… just mostly barren sand and stones, with patches of plant life.

He stood on his pedals and took a long look. Nothing moved beyond butterflies and birds. He glanced over to Shai and got an unambiguous ‘all clear’ wave from her, high up on Socks, the friendly mare. 

 

Back at the cart, the cavalry were in a close knot debating with Tawny when the rearguard returned.

“... would be foolish, we have children along and a task from the duke. Unless you are certain, we should pass it by and report it in Port Clement.”

Gary took his cue from the veterans and Shai, listening to the convo, while keeping his head on a swivel, scanning the brush and sand nervously.

 

“So what’s coming? Men? Monster? Icecream truck…” He paused, befuddled by his own question. “Ooh, next project. Summer’s coming.” His eyes kept searching though, paranoia can be healthy at times.

 

“Scorpion nest, giant sand scorpions, awful things. About a quarter mile off the road. Looks like a brood just hatched too.” Khan shrugged. 

“Good road etiquette would be to either eliminate them or post warnings. I think we can do better than that if Gary wants to play a game.”

 

Half an hour later Gary was pedaling through the bush, pursued by a swarm of scuttling, venomous, pinching horrors. Everything that could move out of the area did, with quickness. He whistled a few phrases from ‘No One Like You’ to keep them on task when they strayed. The Scorpions seemed appropriate.

As he flew up the narrow trail, his army of hungry new friends clattering along behind, he heard his woman’s sweet violin and felt her gifts at play.

 

At the foot of a low mesa, near a winding bit of greenery and a wide clear river, stood the ruins of an adobe settlement. 

Low walls, spiked with flint sherds, surrounded a small town. Square mud brick buildings with tile roofs and the desiccated remnants of fruit trees and gardens told of a small community in the desert.

Webs and cocoons covered the small village, draping off walls and dead trees, waving raggedly in the breeze. Spiders crawled everywhere, massive, shiny bodied brown and gray bloated horrors crawled and dangled everywhere in the town.

 

He shot down the remnants of the overgrown road, blasting through webs and trailing threads and into the main street. He cranked like a madman, pushing his machine along in a blur. 

When he came out the other side, festooned with white and gray streamers of silk, the music of his family embraced him like a warm hug. He skidded to a stop, swatting his clinging guests with armored gauntlets.

“I’m really beginning to suspect you planned this Khan…” He stammered, pale and shaken, as Amy and Wilford used brooms to brush all the tangled webs and clinging, hand sized vermin off him. Swatting and stomping the monsters with vigor, his kids made short work of the job.

 

“Icky.” Wilford said calmly, as he smushed the last crawling horror.

 

Webwinder hunter, arachnid, beast, eusocial, low intelligence, carnivorous, venomous, poisonous, moderate magic, normal rank plus, low intelligence, hostile, moderate/high threat as a colony. 

 

“Yes Wilford, Icky, but only because they are out of balance.” Luna lectured softly. “They have taken over where they should not, we will correct that today… the God of Beasts will be pleased.”

“In their natural environment, these things get snacked on by the other local wildlife and don’t become a problem. They managed to get up here a few decades ago and the people just…” She shrugged.

“Spiders are a hard no for a lot of people… scorpions too.” She smiled at Gary benignly. “No adventuring party will go out without at least one member able to scan for parasites because the ants are so… intimate and crawly.”

A dark gleam came over her face as she spoke. “While the spiders are making the scorps feel welcome… you went through the bush for a fair piece boy. There’s a nest a bit over that way.”

#

 

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