1- Metaphysics 101

“White is evil, black is good. White is evil, black is good. Green is not nature. Red is not fire. Brown is not earth, blue is not water, and, above all: I AM YOUR TEACHER!!! Wake up, you lazy lunkheads!”

Something had wakened Brian from his peaceful slumber. He emitted a long, slothful yawn, slouched back even further in his chair, and drifted back to sleep.

“The universe was created many years ago. Many many many many years ago. An aged and kindly old man did not, I repeat: did not, create the universe. A giant elephant did not blow it out its trunk. Cosmic beavers did not build it from cosmic sticks, powerful beings, of any nature, did not piece it together from bits of themselves or others, fireflies are not big enough nor intelligent enough to congregate in the creation of star matter. Immense lemmings did not solidify into planets after their suicidal leap from a higher plane, mighty dragons did not fight and create the cosmos in the upheaval, nor did a giant turtle excrete the universe. Now are you moron-children comprehending a single thing I’m saying?!”

Brian stirred slightly in his seat. In his dream, a giant head had risen from the oceans, an enormous reptilian head with huge complacent eyes and a trunklike neck that extended out of the water, higher and higher up it extended, then began to sink slowly. The waters were all in turmoil now, great waves stirring up from the bottom of the vast depths with seeming slowness due to their relative enormity, then the waters slowly receded as the massive creature sunk back down into the deep, giving only a brief cursory glimpse of a curving plain of rippled stone that might have been a shell…

“Brian Davis, WAKE UP!” Brian immediately did so, in a most distressed state. “Ugh! A turtle!” he exclaimed. The teacher’s face lost its stern composure for only a fraction of a second before he decided to camouflage what might have been amusement with anger. “Brain Davis, you disgust me.” At this, the teacher looked up at the other students as if he were a lawyer presenting a rather distasteful case. “Here we have a boy, no, a young man, who might be the brightest of the whole slackjawed ranks of you, who sleeps through his classes. Well, this class, at least.” He glanced back at Brian. “And the others, probably. One of the smartest kids in the whole lot, dozing and dreaming because he doesn’t give a damn.” The teacher began to strut about the room at this point, as if he were some prize cattle being displayed at a county fair. “So where does that place me, my young friends, who is hired to teach you and enlighten you at the expense of my patience and my sanity! I’ll tell you where that puts me!” And at that the teacher stormed out the door in a fit of ineptitude.

“Well, bugger all this for a lark.” Brian yawned lazily, pushing his longish and rather messy brown hair off his boyish face. “What’s on for the afternoon then, if this is off?” Another sleepy figure roused itself somewhat from the desk into which he had tried to bury his head with disputable success. “Dunno.” This boy, a fairhaired kid with sunken features, seemed to lurk even whilst seated, a quite impressive feat considering the businesslike nature of the factory-cut chair into which he was wedged. One more person made a movement at this point, a girl, although she remained silent, content to see what the other two would figure out. She was more bored than tired, and seemed to have an air of practicality and quiet calm that lingered about her even as she sat at her desk.

The other students hadn’t given up completely, yet. Some of them had actually been awake before their teacher had walked out, and a rare few had even cared about the lesson, albeit in some small, unsubstantial “well, I’m going to college one day” fashion. But none of them made any sign of complaint when Brian meandered out the door, accompanied loosely by Tim, and at a further distance by Angela. They just sat there, content with the peaceful non-learning environment that pervaded the classroom with or without the presence of their irritable teacher.

Tim looked marginally nervous as he crept past the other classrooms. “What if we get caught sneaking out?” he asked the unnamed leader of the unnamed gang. Brian merely shrugged. “Then we get held after school for awhile, which will stink for us in direct proportion to whether or not we get caught.” He turned around for a second to look at Tim. “And stop asking puerile questions.” At the apex of this turn, Brian noticed the presence of Angela with some gratitude. “You’re coming with us, then? That’s good.” He turned around sharply and continued down the hall. “The more the merrier.”

Unfortunately for the merry trio, the principal spotted them on the way out. But fortune was not far behind- with a flick of the wrist, Angela rendered them invisible. Obviously so, using a rather primitive technique, but the principal had the odd philosophy that if his students went out on self-designated “quests” every now and then, maybe they’d learn a little about life. So he ignored their wanderings, and went back to firing the Metaphysics 101 teacher.

Outside, it was a beautiful day. Tim stopped feeling guilty, and Angela stopped making them invisible. Brian caught himself in the middle of a skip and blushed, turning the movement into a half turn and a cough. “So…” he said to the air, then turned a bit more to face Angela. “You know works?” She nodded. “What sort, what level?”

“Shiftyskills, class B.” Tim’s jaw dropped, and Brian’s would have, too, had he not been one of those people who hates to show that sort of thing. “Not bad. And you’re Angela, right?”

“That’s right. And I know you. You’re BRIAN-DAVIS-WAKE-UP!!!” she screamed, and Tim burst into laughter. Brian smiled wryly. “That’s just what the teachers call me. My real name is Brian the Amazing, The Creator of All, Lord of Everything, One who is Cool… but I guess you can just call me Brian.” He smiled slyly, because he knew it rhymed with smiled wryly. Smiled Wryly would be a cool name, he thought to himself. “Or you can call me Smiled Wryly” he added. Tim began to look confused again, so he added: “And this is Tim, my best friend.”

Angela mimicked an exaggerated version of the wry smile. “Nice to meet you guys. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I came with you- besides, my works might come in handy.”

Tim smiled but looked quizzical. “If you’ve got B rank in Shiftyskills, then why did you use such a lowclass unsee?”

Angela grinned. “If the principal realized I was actually good at my works, he might start to feel that the school system was working.”

“We can’t have that.” Tim smirked, then thought about it a second. “If you’re going to name yourself Smiled Wryly, then I might as well be Smirked. Not bad, eh?” Angela laughed. “Smirked what?”

“Smirked Politely?”

“Smirked Diabolically?”

“Just Smirked,” said Tim. “No, wait, I’ll go with that- Just Smirked.”

Smiled Wryly smiled wryly. “Sounds good, Tim.” Tim just smirked.

“Stop that!” Angela interrupted their moment of inside jokes. “Well, you’ve mastered the mental word perspective that works require. What else can you guys do?”

“Tim here knows Madskillsyo, and I hit things with sharp metal objects.”

“So you’re a squire, probably, and Tim’s a… uh… little help?”

“I do Madskillsyo, which means I know random crap that comes in handy during quests. But I’m only C rank, not anywhere as good as you.”

Brian suddenly looked struck by inspiration. “Roight!” he cried out in a sudden, slight, Australian accent. “We have Angela, trained B rank in Shiftyskills, Tim “Just Smirked” who knows rank C Madskillsyo, and Brian “Smiled Wryly,” a squire trained in hand-to-hand combat with sharp metal things. Let’s go!” And giving out a mighty yell, he charged away, with Tim and Angela following confusedly but closely behind.

2- Trial Run: Yo’ Momma

After about five minutes of straight-out running, they finally got tired and stopped. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?” asked Tim. Brian laughed. “Away from that school, for now. Do you guys have any change on you? Let’s buy some stuff and go on a quest.”

“Quests cost money only without Shiftyskills, silly.” Angela strode into the nearest store and returned with a bag of supplies.

“Uh, is that legal?” Tim looked a bit nervous.

“Of course, when your family owns the store.” she grinned, opening up the bag. “Here’s a nice pointy sharp metal bit for you, Brian, and you keep the sack, Tim. It’s full of random crap, just like you.”

“Wow, thanks, Angela.” Tim didn’t sound too delighted, but Brian was admiring the shortsword with awe. “This is great- can I keep it?” he asked.

“Sure. It actually falls under the random crap category, too. My parents have a lot of junk in their store.” She pulled a dagger out of one boot, and a long thin tube out of the other. “Dagger and blowgun. Multiple interesting poisons. I’m set.”

“Shortsword!” Brian waved it about. “I’m defo set.”

“Got my random crap.” Tim looked a bit sullen. Brian noticed and tried to cheer him up a bit. “Random crap’s the best. You get a little of everything.”

“And you get to carry the sack!” Angela laughed, but stopped when she saw how miserable Tim really looked. Brian’s leadership, however, was not an incidental one, and he quickly came up with a solution. “You can be the official pimp.” Tim beamed. “Now that’s interesting!” And so the three set off on their quest, but only after affixing a “Pimps are People, Too” label to Tim’s sack of random trinkets.

They had made the decision to head towards the Great Woods, since there were many interesting quests there that hadn’t been completed yet, not to mention a bunch of interesting creatures such as elves and werewolves and so forth; in short, the decision had been unanimous. Brian led the group with his shortsword gripped in his hands, followed by Tim carrying the sack on his back, then Angela treading along in the rear trying her best to ignore the sexually suggestive jokes that passed for normal conversation between the other two.

The path that they followed started out as a faint animal track through the fields and meadows of the town, then gradually became deeper, and, well, more foresty as they entered into the forest. Luckily, one of Tim’s random crap skills was the ability to follow even a faint path through deep forest, so he took over the lead as the trail became obscured by dense bracken. Unfortunately, this meant that Angela ended up behind Brian, who tended to have less consideration for those behind him when it came to prickers and so on.

“AAH!” she shouted out as yet another branch flew back from Brian’s violent passage through the woods. “Would you please stop doing that!?” Brian shrugged, and started to use his shortsword to cut the branches aside as they walked. Unfortunately, this merely caused more splinters and pieces of wood to fly at Angela and annoy her more.

“Ow!” A particularly sharp piece of wood embedded itself into her arm, then another one hit her in the face. “AAAH! You bastard! Stop using the sword I gave you as a machete.” Brian paused for a second, and looked back at her in disgust. “It’s not bothering me.” He was bleeding from his arm, and doing a rather poor job at pretending he hadn’t noticed. “We’re on a quest, splud!”

The unusual word took Angela’s mind off the matter for a second. “Splud?” She asked. “What the hell is that meant to mean?”

“Splud. From s’blood. God’s blood, or Christ’s blood, or something like that, shortened to splud. But you can’t use it, it’s mine.” Angela shrugged. Then Tim appeared from the woods slightly ahead. “What’s going on with you guys? I just told a great pimp joke, only to find that my only audience was a bunch of squirrels. I could’ve sworn that one of them emitted a rather dirty old mannish `heh!` when I said the punchline, but still...” He looked miffed.

“There’s something you should know about the squirrels in this forest, and that one vital fact is-“ Angela was cut off by a sudden rustling noise coming from the brush on one side of the path. “What’s that?!” The trio spread out along the path, Brian clutching his sword in a sweaty grip, Angela holding her blowgun at the ready, and Tim reaching into the sack, grimacing as he felt something slimy, then making the sudden decision to use the sack itself as a weapon. “Steady…” Brian felt obliged to make some sort of order, but none of them were even considering flight.

Suddenly, a giant slavering wolf emerged from the bracken. It didn’t attack them immediately, but stood off at a distance, growling from deep within its throat. Its fur was thick and matted, and specks of foam flecked its muzzle, but it looked straight at them with its harsh yellow eyes, and seemed to be sizing up the situation with some degree of intelligence. Angela took the opportunity to fire her blowgun at it, but the animal saw the object and realized it as a threat in enough time to get out of the way.

“I think we might have a problem, here!” she called out. “He’s pretty bright for a wolf- my guess is werewolf.” Brian beamed with joy- “Finally, something I can kill and be proud of! No more ripping the wings off flies for me.” He took a swing at the creature, and missed miserably. “Damn.” The wolf dodged to the side and stood there, panting. He could have sworn it looked amused. “Yeah, I bet you’re only in wolf form cause you’re a lousy fighter as a human. In fact, I bet my human mother could kick your wolf mother’s arse.” Brian laughed cruelly.

“Uh, is that a good idea?” Angela looked nervous.

“Your momma’s so hairy, she’s got more fleas than a hedgehog! She’s so dumb she howls at the sun instead of the moon.” “Little help!” he whispered to the others.

“Uh, your mother’s so fat, she turned around and flattened an elven village. So stupid, she, uh…” Tim had exhausted his supply of yo’ momma jokes.

“…so stupid, she sit on a rainbow and skittles come out. Oh, wait, that’s a fat one.” Angela also was a little slow with these. But Brian was in his element.

“Yo’ momma drools so much, she was once mistaken for LongDrop Falls. Yo’ momma’s such a bad hunter, she once came back with her own tail in her mouth for dinner. So lazy, she dreams of sleeping. So clumsy, she once tripped over her own muzzle. Yo’ momma’s so slow, it takes her a fortnight to change from a wolf to a human, and then another fortnight for her to remember to walk on two legs instead of four.” Brian could have kept going, but the werewolf had obviously seen enough. Its features gradually lengthened out, the masses of hair falling away into it somehow; wolf’s paws changed into human hands and feet, and then the face withdrew, became human. The whole process took a few seconds, but the change was instantaneous in their minds, like when a 3d box is flipped inside-out in your head. “Enough!” the man screamed, and it was a man now, tall and angry, with dark features and a fierce look to his angular face. “Who the hell are you kids, anyway? And what have you got against my mother?!”

“Uh, you were trying to kill us a second ago.” Angela, always the voice of reason, attempted to explain the string of yo’ momma insults, but this was the last coherent sentence she could get out for awhile due to the fact that she’d suddenly realized that the wereman was horribly and utterly naked.

“Yeah, well kids like you annoy the hell out of me. Hacking away at trees like some sort of scarramouche-lumberjack-mongers. Going on a `quest,` I suppose. One of those yuppie-spawn-outing-adventures, I’m guessing.” His wolfish sneer came through in every sentence he stated, so bitter it unnerved even Brian.

“Well, yeah, sounds stupid now, but a quest, yeah.” His voice trailed off.

“I’ll give you a quest- bugger off, you pansy-arsed-machete-wielding-braggarts! The forest is for those who live there, it’s not a goddamn vacation spot for daft-loser scum like you.”

“But surely we can do some good… find lost gems, rescue lost maidens and children with special powers and so forth…” Tim suddenly realized the idiocy of what he was saying. “My, God. It’s a setup.” He looked disgusted.

His revelation was met with scathing sarcasm, as opposed to praise. “A setup!? You think? But I thought that all those darling little orphans and stunningly beautiful princesses were really in trouble! Doesn’t the world need Brave Knights in Shining Armor and Sage Magicians? What ever would we do without them? Wake up, quest-seekers, the forest doesn’t need you! If your kind stopped wandering in these woods and getting `lost` (mostly they just stay for dinner with an elf or someone and everyone in their town goes into panic mode, they send in a bunch of warriors and adventurers and innocent elves end up dead! Not to mention werewolves.) well, anyway, these things wouldn’t happen if you just stayed out of the woods. Please.” He looked defeated at the end of this ramble, not angry, and they would have felt sympathetic towards him if he’d had some clothes on and it hadn’t been so horribly awkward. As it was, both sides were pretty drained of anger at this point, with defeat on one side and shame on the other.

“Uh, here, you can have my cloak for now.” Tim handed his over, trying to avoid eyecontact and failing miserably, as there wasn’t anywhere else to look that wouldn’t cause more trouble. The man snatched the cloak from Tim’s grasp and drew it about him in one swift sure motion. “Thanks.” He sat down on a log and looked miserable. “My mother’s dead, you know. And she wasn’t a werewolf, she was human.”

“I’m sorry.” Brian felt slightly ill. I just wanted- to smite something, I guess.” Tim sat down next to the wereman. “He gets a bit carried away, sometimes. But he’s a good kid.” Brian shot a glare in his direction, but it went unnoticed. So he just sighed and sat down on the ground next to Tim. Angela silently took a place next to him, completing the circle, with the wereman on her other side. The sullenness was so thick you could pare it with an apple peeler or some other similar device.

3- Gamers

“Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do that would be useful? I mean, I understand the whole tourist industry/role-playing aspect of the woods is decidedly not helpful, but there must be something?” Brian finally said in despair, after the wereman had explained the basics of the RPG industry that was slowly killing the lives of everything in the forest.

The wereman sighed and pulled the cloak closer around him. The day was drifting into late afternoon, and a cool breeze began to rustle through the undergrowth. “Of course you could always try and deal with the actual problems the forest has, such as loggers and slash-and-burn farming, but that’s probably beyond you. And as for stopping the gamers and bravados from going on all those murderous quests, there isn’t much you can do either, not at your age. Adult yuppies have to deal with this stuff, not the young. That reminds me of another problem- many of the stereotypes that are propagated through the quests, what with the name-calling of the different races. If a troll calls another one of its kind a yuppie, it’s taken as an insult. Just as if you’d called one of your friends a troll. That’s where the painful stereotypes begin, and it goes on all the time.”

The wereman wiped a single tear from his eye, and his obvious misery almost enabled Angela to find the something within her that would forgive his horrid hairiness and the fact that he hadn’t looked the least bit perturbed about being nekked. Almost.

“I don’t even like being called a yuppie.” Tim spoke up at this point. “I mean, it makes me sound like some sort of spoiled brat who runs about, wrecking havoc without thinking about anything." A tear welled up in the corner of his eye, and he scuffed at the dirt with his boot angrily.

“And that’s exactly the stereotype that the other races have of, well, humans, I guess. But most of them don’t even know that word. You’re just yuppies to them, just as they’re just trolls or elves or whatever to you, when they have names they call themselves in their own languages.” The wereman laughed, but he didn’t look very happy. “This is the sort of PC stuff I start thinking about in my spare time, but it really is a problem.”

“Yeah, I can see it really is a problem. There’s got to be something we can do, though. Like find out exactly who is profiting from these quests and shut them down.” Angela looked murderous, and a tear of vengeful sympathy glistened at the corner of her eye.

“So the whole thing is some sort of sick power play for those in charge.” Brian still couldn’t get over it. “They capture some princess, put her in the custody of a warlock who’s willing to make a little money, and then wait for some block-headed adventurer (like me, he thought to himself) to come rescue her. But what is gained from this?”

“Power, perhaps. The ability to play games with the questers. I don’t really understand, but there must be something more than that, too. Something more tangible. But I don’t see how they’d make money off something like this, and frankly, I don’t have a clue as to who’s behind all this.”

“Well, looks like we’d have to follow a quest to find out, doesn’t it?” Tim asked imploringly. “I mean, then we could get to the center of it all, if we followed one of the games.”

The wereman looked annoyed. “Yeah, so long as you didn’t retain the attitude that almost led you to kill me, perhaps that would work. But you’re not going without me. I can give you advice, and I might be needed to stop you from killing things.”

“That’d be great! We’ll get inside a quest, that’s not hard, and we’ll find whoever’s running it.” Brian’s face creased with a sudden thought. “But we’ll have to be careful. If they find out that we’re trying to stop them, who knows what they’ll do to us.”

“Probably kill you.” The wereman stood up in another one of those swift sure movements he seemed to be so good at. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you- I’ve tried this before, not personally, but I’ve known others who once tried to find out how these things are run, and they didn’t last long. But they tried the direct way- stirring up attention about the fraud and trying to recruit as many people as possible. They didn’t last long, as I already said.”

Angela stood up and faced the others. “This is going to be bad, but I’m up for it. We have the advantage of surprise- no one would ever suspect a group of young questers such as ourselves as saboteurs. Besides, come to think of it, most people know the quests are rigged. Perhaps they don’t think about it, but when’s the last time a knight didn’t beat the dragon, when the ring of whatever power was not recovered? They must realize something’s up, but just be taking advantage of it themselves. Think about what the quests are. Status, power, money- people aren’t going to like being told that they’re rigged, that someone is running all this and playing with what they live for. We can’t ask for help from other questers, they wouldn’t want to believe us.”

The wereman smiled. “You’re smart- I was dreading trying to explain why you couldn’t get others to help you. I’m glad you see that.”

“Just common sense.” Angela blushed modestly. “Besides, we’ve come all this way, and it’s a helluva walk back to town.”

“Do you have supplies, though? Weapons? Armor? Equipment?” The wereman looked concerned for them. “The quests can be dangerous, and this one will be even worse.”

Tim dumped out the contents of the sack on the ground. “Might as well have a look through this stuff.” He picked out some items, while the wereman examined the “Pimps are People, Too” label with some interest. “Here we go- some chocolate Bars of Power, rope, lantern, Steel n’Flint, tent (whoa- compact!), I don’t see any changes of underwear.”

“Real men don’t change their underwear,” Brian stated solemnly.

“And real werewolves don’t wear underwear at all.” The wereman laughed. “You kids seem all right. I won’t be at your sides continually, but I’ll keep an eye out. Good luck.” He suddenly walked away from the group, morphing back into wolf form as he moved until his figure ran low upon the ground and disappeared silently back into the forest, leaving only Tim’s cloak lying discarded on the earth.

“I guess he’s not much of a people-person.” Brian looked a bit disgusted at being abandoned so quickly.

Tim walked over and picked up his cloak. “No, he’s more of a wolf-person, I’m thinking.” No one laughed. The woods seemed rather foreign now, as they’d suddenly lost the one person who seemed to know what was going on.

“Let’s get some sleep. It’ll be dark soon, and I’m tired.” Angela started to stake the tent in a rather professional manner. “I’ve had enough for one day, we don’t even know that guy’s name yet, and I don’t know whether to believe him or not. I’d rather sleep on what we know now rather than try to go any further.”

“Alright.” Brian decided to make it an order. “We’ll set up the tent now, get some sleep, then talk this over in the morning.”

“Right. Just what I was thinking.” Angela was in no shape to face Brian’s blazingly rampant megalomania. She merely crawled into the tent to get some sleep, mulling over the chauvinistic tendencies that one could not escape even in a group of three. “G’night.”

Tim grinned. “Mmmm. Chauvinisticness… so chauvanisticy.” Brian stopped his movement towards the tent and turned to look at him. “I am the leader here, you know. I figure I might as well be mildly aggressive.”

“Mildly aggressive?” Tim raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s just get some sleep.” Brian dove behind the tent flap and continued, muffled: “I could definitely use some sleep. Let’s just hope there aren’t any unfriendly werewolves out there.”

“I’m not even crazy about the friendly ones.” Tim looked a bit nervous. “I don’t trust that guy. The way he just ran away.” But no answer was forthcoming, so Tim just shrugged, piled his things back into the sack, and clambered in after Brian.

4- QuestStart

The next day dawned bright and clear, without a cloud in the sky. The intrepid explorers emerged from the tent one by one, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and yawning. They looked all cute and rumpled, like a group of baby squirrels emerging from their nest and looking all cute and rumpled, like the explorers, who looked like squirrels, and so forth.

“Goooooood morning.” Brian smiled widely, amused at his companions discomfort and at the fact that smiled widely rhymed with… nevermind. “Not morning people, I guess?” Tim had the appearance of having been run over by a large and particularly grubby wagon. He made no response other then looking confusedly in the direction of Brian’s voice. Angela didn’t look much better. “I think I was sleeping on a rock or something.” She rubbed her back painfully. “And my mouth tastes as if I swallowed a chipmunk.

“Yeah, kinda fuzzy.” Tim swallowed and looked mildly disgusted with himself. “Ugh.”

“Well, at least you guys are talking now.” Brian opened the sack and fished out some Bars of Power. “Mmmm. Breakfast.”

“And lunch, and probably dinner, too.” Angela didn’t look too delighted with the prospect. “Oh, well.”

“We might have to do some hunting.” Brian hefted his shortsword in one hand. “Who wants squirrel for breakfast?” He grinned, then strode into the woods. “I’m gonna get me some real food.” Tim groaned, and Angela looked decidedly not-happy. “Braggart-bastard,” she muttered, taking a determined bite into a Bar of Power. “Mmm. So chocolately.” A sudden yell of triumph burst from the undergrowth, then a small squirrel emerged from the brush and dashed directly across their campsite, followed closely by Brian, who was wielding his sword enthusiastically and screaming at the top of his lungs, “DIEEEE SQUIRREL!!!” Angela discreetly put out a foot and tripped him up as he ran past her. The sword skittered out of his hands and into the bracken, while Brian himself merely thumped heavily to the ground.

“Damn it, Angie. I almost had him.” Brian picked himself up off the ground painfully and stood up while Angela sat in the same position with a patient look on her face. “Squirrels are our friends, Bri.” She gave him a wicked look as she stressed the name to emphasize how much the previous “Angie” had annoyed the hell out of her. “And we have much to discuss. So eat some chocolaty goodness and repress your bloodlust until we find something legitimate to kill, like the people behind the quests.”

“Besides, that werewolf’ll get pissed off at us if he finds us murdering any of his little forest friends.” Tim paused for a second then continued. “And I could have sworn that squirrel laughed at my joke yesterday. I heard a distinctly dirty old mannish `Heh`.”

Brian smiled wryly, something he was becoming fairly adept at. “Not likely, Tim.” But then he turned serious and munched solemnly on his energy bar. “So which quest do you guys think we should follow?” Again, Tim’s Madskillsyo came in handy. “There’s a typical rescue the captured beauty, fight the ogres, slay the dragon and then kill his evil master one that should start not too far from here, in the heart of the woods.”

“How do you know that?” Angela looked a bit doubtful, but Tim only shrugged. “Just random crap I know, must’ve heard it somewhere and remembered it.”

“Sounds good to me.” Brian gulped down the last bite of his bar with a grimace and stood up. “Pack the tent up, Angela, and we’ll head out of here.” She sighed and began to do so, knowing that if she let herself get annoyed with his chauvinistic tendencies this early on, it’d drive her crazy later. “Sure, no problem.”

So they packed up their gear and headed off in the direction of the heart of the woods, where all good quests begin. As they walked, they discussed the problems that the werewolf had brought up, and tried to come up with a motive for running the quests.

“Whoever runs them must be extremely powerful and rich, as I see it.” Tim shouldered the pack higher up on his back. I mean, there’s a lot of money involved in these things. The heroes always come back loaded. And they must control all the monsters they meet.”

“That’s pretty impressive considering some of the stories I’ve heard. Dragons and griffins and warlocks and so forth.” Brian’s eyes shone. “I’d love to go up against something like that.”

Angela laughed. “You couldn’t even kill a squirrel this morning, now you want to go take on a dragon?”

“Don’t mock me, fair maiden.” Brian drew his sword and began waving it about again. “I have killed many a dragon in my day. With the help of my friend Tim the Pimp here, who’s got Madskillsyo, and knows how to use them.” Tim grabbed a branch up off the ground and held it like a wizard’s staff. “He lies not, wench. Beware my powers.” The two broke off into a mock sword-fight until the branch finally split in two, all while Angela looked on in mild amusement.

“That’s right, get that blade nice and dull so it bounces off the hide of the next squirrel you try to murder. Although I really don’t recommend that you try it again, since the squirrels in these woods-” But Angela’s warning was cut short by the appearance of a disgruntled elf, who was holding a stack of papers. He hailed them wearily as they approached, and handed a leaflet to each one. Brian could not help but flinch as he saw that the leaflets were made out of actual leaves. “Uh, thanks.” None of the three were so rude as to question the elf on why he was standing in the woods handing out pamphlets, so they examined the papers in quiet confusion for a moment, until Brian finally spoke. “So, um. What are these for?”

The elf stared at him in blatant disgust. He was tall and thin, and rather dirty, dressed in a faded green tunic and what appeared to be black pleather pants. “What do they look like, yuppie? They’re QuestMaps. You are looking for a quest, aren’t you?”

Brian swallowed. “Yeah. One with a dragon and a captured princess and-“

“Route 5; it’s the red trail on the map. But there’s already a group of adventurers on that quest.” He shrugged, an unattractive movement that brought his tight tunic further up on his neck and didn’t let it down. “Suit yourself, they might be dead already, anyway.”

“What’s with the continual pessimism?” Angela strode up to him. “If there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s pessimism.” An expression of disgust tightened her otherwise pleasant features.

The elf grimaced and straightened up, another gesture that looked painful in such an ill-fitting tunic. “If it was your job to stand around in the heart of the woods handing out leaflets printed on,” the grimace widened as he pronounced the word “leaves, and having to deal with quest-seeking yuppies drunk on mead and their own inflated egos, then you, my dear, might well understand my situation.”

“You could get another job, couldn’t you?” Tim suggested. “Or go on a quest yourself, earn some money.” The elf sat down on the ground and managed to look even more pathetic. “What questers would want me, a ragged elf dealt the pathetic job of handing out maps to those more able than him?”

Brian smiled wryly. “Well, here’s your opportunity. You’re not going to find any questers less able than us, nor in more need of help.”

The elf sized them up warily, a bunch of grubby kids hanging onto an odd assortment of articles in various stages of disrepair. “That’s true enough.”

“It’ll be fun.” Angela knelt down next to him and tried to look welcoming. “We could definitely use your help, I bet you know lots of useful stuff about the quests.”

“Well, I’m on my break soon anyway, so no one will miss me for a bit. Or ever, probably.” He stood up in a movement that somehow managed to convey pessimism, and held out a hand, looking only slightly more optimistic than he had appeared initially. “My name is Yersef, I know HomeEcSkills, C rank.” Brian, Tim, and Angela introduced themselves in turn, the latter a bit ashamed to reveal her higher rank. “I’m glad you don’t mind me coming with you. It’d be great to get away from this job for awhile.” Yersef pulled a pencil out of his equally pleathered pack which lay nearby, and scribbled “QuestMaps: Take One” onto the back of a leaflet, leaving it on top of the stack. “They don’t really need me here, anyway.” He put the pencil away and slung his pleather pack over his back, along with a quiver of arrows and a rather grimy-looking bow. “Let’s go.” And so the four of them headed away from the heart of the woods, in the direction indicated by the commanding red line on their leaflets.

5- Encounter

The initial “Let’s go” was followed directly by an absolute and unnerving silence. Tim and Brian marched along in the front, keeping an eye out for the elusive red markers. Angela walked along behind them, trying to avoid eyecontact with the elf, who she had quickly found to have a prevalent stench of an elusive and not-very-appealing something about him. Despite this, she would have spoken to him, but frankly, pleather scared her. So Yersef just kept to himself, looking more and more uncertain about his actual desire to be there. If he were the type of elf who thought to himself more often, “What am I doing here?” would have been running through his head. As it stood, none of them were thinking much of anything.

Finally, Brian decided that he’d had enough. He scowled and whacked the nearest tree brutally with his shortsword, saying an explicative that could be roughly translated as “Frankly, this quest disgusts me.” Tim looked up, startled. “What was that?”

Brian scowled harder, for effect. “What sort of a quest is this?” Red markers to show where the path lies, travel maps, sullenness!” He turned around and glared at Angela. “And aren’t we supposed to be fighting monsters?” Angela opened her mouth to respond, but Yersef beat her to it. “I told you a group of adventurers already headed out this way. They’ve probably killed everything and solved the whole situation by now.”

Brian’s scowl would have deepened if it hadn’t already maxed out. “Well that’s just great.” And they continued on in abysmal silence for another short while.

They had not gone much further before they heard the sounds of battle ahead. Brian’s face lit up. “Coo! Finally some real fighting!” He started running in the direction of the sound, while the others exchanged cautious “that kid’s a moron” glances. But they followed him nonetheless.

The forest opened up onto a large clearing, the trees and forest bracken giving way to lighter bracken and grass. A solitary figure on horseback appeared at the far end of the space, moving slowly and then faster in their direction. It gradually became identifiable as a knight on horseback, mainly made evident through the glisteningness and sword-waving aboutedness and horseness of the entire centauristic figure. Knight separated from horse and became identifiable as self with one swift leap off beast and one clumsy thunk on ground. He drew his sword from its sheath in a rather professional manner and began to advance towards a darker and more menacing figure that loomed hugely near the fringe of the woods. The great beast leapt forward towards the knight, emerging from its shadowy tree cover, revealing itself to be an enormous griffin. With a few swift swipes of its great claws and paws, the knight was pushed backwards and stumbled down to the ground. The beast dropped back onto its mighty haunches, preparing itself for one final, fatal leap- when suddenly a small boy (who bore a striking resemblance to the actor Jake Lloyd) rode forwards on an adorable pony and offered a bottle to the doomed hero. “Here, sir. Drink this,” he stated, holding it out appealingly until the knight took it. “Yippie!” he screamed, and dug his heels into the pony, riding off fast across the clearing. The knight didn’t question the lad, but merely downed a few swallows of the liquid and straightened up powerfully. “Take this, ye vile creature!” he pronounced deliberately and powerfully, waving his sword in vast elaborate movements. The griffin, who had merely been growling rather menacingly during the drink exchange, now began to look terrorized, rather like a hamster looks when it has been terrorized by, say, a cat or some other predator of hamsters. It began to back off warily as the knight swung at it in these overly expansive gestures. Finally it turned and fled, confounded by the knight’s new-found vigor.

The victor turned in a deliberate movement and downed some more of the liquid in another practiced action. Taking the bottle away from his face, he grinned expansively and held it out towards some unseen audience. “Quest.” he pronounced in a self-satisfied manner. “The drink of heroes.” Then the page appeared from out of nowhere, wearing a green and yellow “Quest” backpack and displaying an adoring look of loyalty on his aww-so-cute features. The knight did not acknowledge him, but merely continued holding the bottle whilst grinning mindlessly. Then a slightly British-accented voice came from the bushes: “Well done, lads, but I think we’re going to have to do it again, just in case.” The smile fell off the knight’s face like a daft man in a barrel might fall off Niagra Falls. “What!?” he roared, and took off his helmet to grimace, revealing a mop of dark curly hair above a face of expansive and rather haggard-looking 50-year old features.

More notes of complaint issued forth from further ahead, around on their side of the clearing. The group moved forward rather nervously to find themselves looking at another older and more experienced group of intrepid explorers, decked out in expensive gear and carrying a vast array of exotic items. There was a mean hairy-looking barbarian in a loincloth, a female elf dressed in a rather slinky assortment of clothes, and an ominous-looking dwarf who sat fingering a battle axe warily. They all glanced up briefly as Brian’s group approached, but quickly turned back, absorbed in the argument between the knight and the other as-of-yet unseen person.

“What do you mean we have to do this shot again? We’ve already done it about 15 times.” The knight scowled bitterly and grasped his sword in a more threatening manner. The source of his anger finally appeared, a thin man with a goatee who stepped out from behind a camera to stand squarely in the knight’s gaze.

“I’m telling you, it’s just not good enough. You’ve got to look more, well, delighted with it. It’s Quest!” he smiled, grinning broadly, “not Quest” this time he pronounced it in a fake tough-guy voice. “It’s all about the marketing.” He squinted convincingly through his blue-tinted shades, but the knight had seen enough. He merely made one final disgusted face and stormed back to his circle of fellow explorers. “That’s it.” he stated firmly. “Let’s get out of here.” The others all looked extremely relieved. The elf-woman was the first to get up, apparently having already packed. The barbarian and the dwarf took a bit longer, since they had to pack up their assorted weaponry, the dwarf shoving the axe into an already bulky sack while the barbarian strapped a giant stained broadsword across his back.

“Wait a second.” Brian broke away from his compact intrepid explorer group and raced up to the knight. “What exactly is this, anyway?” The knight looked down at Brian. “Commercial shoot for Quest.” He chucked the green and yellow bottle in Brian’s general direction, proclaiming sarcastically “The drink of heroes.” Brian caught the bottle easily, popped the top open, and took a swig. His face lit up. “This stuff’s great.” He swigged some more down before handing the bottle around to Tim and Angela, who swigged and grimaced in turn. “No, actually it’s pretty nasty.” Angela gulped it down painfully, but Tim had less discretion and merely spat it out on the ground. The director, however, looked delighted and shook Brian’s hand enthusiastically. “Perfect. Just perfect.” His grin stretched across his tanned face, and behind the blue sunglasses his eyes were probably sparkling merrily. “Congratulations, you’re the new image that Quest has been searching for.” Confusion seized Brian’s features, while behind him the knight made another final disgusted face and tromped off with his loyal group of equally disgusted questers. The griffin also made a disgusted face and ate the dwarf (who had been lagging behind a bit) in one single disgusted bite, but no one seemed to really notice and/or care, so Brian turned back to the director and asked innocently “So, would I be getting paid for this?”

“Of course!” The man beamed convincingly. “All the Quest that you and your party can drink- for as long as your adventure continues.”

“All right!” Brian grinned back, while the sullen disgustedness behind him shot up the charts faster than the infamous Ricky Martin.

“That stuff tastes nasty, Brian. And we’re on a quest. A real one.” Angela gave him a meaningful look, while Tim glared silently. The bottle of Quest had finally reached Yersef at this point. The elf took a whiff of it, coughed, then tried to pour it out behind him without attracting too much attention.

The negative atmosphere finally pierced the director’s thick skin of enthusiasm, so he instinctively tried to make amends. “It won’t take a second.” The convincing smile was splayed across all his features. “Besides, I’ll throw the page and his pony in to sweeten the deal.” Brian didn’t even turn to see what his companions thought of this. “Done.” And he shook the man’s hand in a definitive manner, ignorant of his companions’ reactions behind him.

The actual shoot didn’t take very long at all. It merely involved a lot of Brian standing around and grinning whilst holding the mighty yellow and green bottle in his hand in various poses, while the director shouted an assortment of phrases such as “Brilliant!” and “Work with me, now” as the rest of the group looked on in a sort of bemused disgust. When the director had taken his fill of Brian’s oh-so-photogenic features, he finally decided to introduce himself to the others. He strode over joyfully to where they sat in grim stoicness, and stated as welcome “The name’s Jim. And I’m glad to meet you all, so glad you stumbled across our little shoot here today.” He remained there, grinning benignly as Tim, Angela, and Yersef introduced themselves in turn. “Thanks.” He smiled as if he’d just been offered a present, then turned back to where Brian was helping the page secure twenty economy boxes of Quest onto the back of the poor pony. Then the five headed off into the woods again, leaving behind their newfound friend Jim and his now-satiated griffin.

6- Inner Conflict

After they left the clearing, the atmosphere became a bit lighter. Which was ironic, certainly, as the woods became darker and darker. Tangled trees reached up into the heights, choked by leafy vines and nests of various species of insects and birds. The dark loam surfaced at rare points under the layers of leaves and sticks that they walked upon, tripping them up into the moist soil. Nevertheless, they were joyful.

The sexual jokes and innuendoes between Brian and Tim resumed- Angela became offended in a vague sort of way and found herself following them at a slight distance next to the silent Yersef.

“So you know HomeEcSkills?” she asked cheerfully, hoping to start some sort of conversation. The elf nodded briefly. “That’s right. Rank C.” They walked along in silence for another few minutes before Angela mustered the will to have another go. “What exactly do you do?” she asked. Yersef paused for a second, and adjusted his pleather pack a bit more firmly on his back. “First-aid, cooking,” he paused for a second, “childcare.” Angela’s skills at looking interested were running out faster than something that runs out really, really, fast. It was obvious that this couldn’t continue for much longer, as in fact was the case- the conversation ended there. So they walked on in silence for awhile, looking rather miffed with life in general.

The horrible drawn out atmosphere of this interaction finally ended with a shout from Brian: “Look at that!” Ahead, the forest was ablaze. Smoke poured up from the dry branches in the treetops, perhaps a quarter of a mile in front of them. It didn’t look like it was spreading, so they rushed towards it to see if they could help, whoever or whatever there might be to help. Brian arrived there first, as he saw himself as the leader and knew that such a gesture would be appropriate. The others arrived just behind him, slightly less out of breath than their industrious leader, and took in the scene- the female elf they’d seen before in the knight’s group, only now lying unconscious on the ground and bleeding badly from several nasty cuts on her head, behind her oh-so-pointed ears. Yersef gasped in horror and rushed to her side, tearing some vital items out of his black pleather pack as he reached her. Unfortunately, the first-aid items looked as grimy as the elf himself, but no one had the heart to protest.

“Earnest” and “grimy” were the best words to describe the next half-hour that ensued. Yersef did his best to patch up the wound, but the elf still didn’t look in the best of shape. Her face was pale- even more so than an elf’s usually is, and she remained utterly still and silent throughout. The only sign of life was in her chest which moved up and down roughly in time with her slow ragged breathing.

When Yersef had finally finished, he kneeled back on his long legs and drew a deep breath. “She'll live” he stated briefly. “I think.” He looked exhausted, and miserable. “I’m only C rank. If I’d been A, or at least B…” Brian moved forwards with determination. “You did what you could.” The others added reassuring comments of their own, and for a second it looked like they were on the verge of another heartfelt moment, like the awkward and rather badly written one with the werewolf. Fortunately for me and for you, the moment passed. Angela wasn’t much for tears, Brian and Tim were too macho to let something like that happen again, and frankly, I don’t know if elves do cry.

They calmly roasted their food over the burning forest, then made an unspoken and unanimous decision to set up camp. The forest fire that had brought them to the spot had burnt itself out by now, so Tim started up another fire to cook some more food over, since quests can make a man pretty damn hungry. Yersef had lots of tasty dried jerky, ramen noodles, and other foodstuffs in his pleather bag, and, of course, they all had plenty of Quest to drink.

So they made themselves a nice meal and sat the night away in quiet tension beside the injured elf. Eventually, the four younger ones fell asleep, but Yersef took it upon himself to pass the night by her side, watching every ragged breath and movement.

The morning dawned bright and although the forest was blackened and charred from the fire of the day before, the sun shone bright and birds still sang, as is normal at interludes like this during quests. They awoke to find Yersef at the ashes of their fire, still watching over the elf they had found. He turned to them as they emerged one by one and gave them a tired glance. “She spoke briefly” he began “but only a few words. She’s still delirious and in very poor shape.” He threw a look of desperation in their general direction. “She really needs better help than I can provide.”

“Is it safe to move her?” Brian looked at the still form with a look of nervous horror. “I thought she’d be better.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face was gaunt for lack of sleep.

“How did it happen?” Angela summoned some empathy from the bowels of her cynical heart. “I mean, she seemed like such a nice elf. I mean, as elves go.” Privately, she made the decision to shut up, and promptly did so.

“She’s not dead yet.” Yersef frowned at her angrily. “Just watch her. Keep her warm. I’ll be in the tent. She’ll live.” And he disappeared into the tent after these few short bursts of sentences.

So they sat around by the fire, munching solemnly on breakfast and wondering what had happened to her. Eventually, the elf’s eyes opened and she spoke again: “Where…?” she looked about, dazed. “Oh- in woods.

“Is it safe to move her?” Brian looked at the still form with a look of nervous horror. “I thought she’d be better.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face was gaunt for lack of sleep.

“How did it happen?” Angela summoned some empathy from the bowels of her cynical heart. “I mean, she seemed like such a nice elf. I mean, as elves go.” Privately, she made the decision to shut up, and promptly did so.

“She’s not dead yet.” Yersef frowned at her angrily. “Just watch her. Keep her warm. I’ll be in the tent. She’ll live.” And he disappeared into the tent after these few short bursts of sentences.

So they sat around by the fire, munching solemnly on breakfast and wondering what had happened to her. Eventually, the elf’s eyes opened and she spoke again: “Where…?” she looked about, dazed. “Oh- in woods. Fire!” and fell back asleep. “Well, that was bloody useless.” Tim withdrew to the tent after this comment, leaving Angela and Brian alone to stare at each other in bemused silence. Suddenly, Angela had a horrible feeling of deja vu.

So they stood there in silence for awhile, looking rather uncomfortably at the prostate elf. Tim finally emerged from the tent, just as Brian finally made the critical decision to issue some sort of order. “Tim- watch her, make sure she doesn’t-” he paused for a second, “die, I guess. And Angela, you look over the QuestMap and see what’s ahead. As for me, I’ll, um, go find water.” Angela reached behind her and lifted up a full black pleather waterbag. “We’ve got water,” She stated, and took a swig, as if to prove it. “Not to mention nine-thousand bottles of Quest.” Brian stood still for a second, then sat down on the ground where he was. “Oh, yeah.” He looked rather dejected, and for a moment Angela almost felt pity. “I’ve got to stop doing this,” she thought to herself, and promptly wiped the emotion from her mind, turning to look Brian squarely in the eyes in the same moment.

“You, my friend, are an idiot.” And with that she picked up the QuestMap and glared at it studiously. Tim was busy occupying himself with various tasks involving the injured elf, such as taking her pulse from the elbow and other such uneducated tasks, trying to appear as if every word of their conversation was not horribly open to him. Brian just sighed and slumped down further into the forest floor, trying to disappear into some of the more innocuous-looking undergrowth. “This is not how quests are ‘sposed to… how they’re meant to go. We’re meant to be killing things, vanquishing the unvanquishable, slaying the unslayable. Not doing bloody commercial shoots,” he spat out with distaste. “And tending injured elves we don’t even know, or know how they got injured.” He looked up at Angela, but eyecontact was not forthcoming. So he did what any other typical kid would do under the same circumstances- picked up a twig from the ground and dug angry little circles in the dirt, scowling horribly.

Angela had maxed out her attention on the map, and now thrust it aside bitterly. “Look at you!” she pointed an accusing finger at Brian’s slouched figure. “Sitting there like some daft little kid, messing about in the mud because you can’t play games. Have you forgotten why we’re out here- now?!” Brian’s position stiffened, and his gaze could have killed a small creature if the emotion it emitted could be concentrated and put into a tiny and ominous-looking blue bottle then syringed out into a little critter of some sort.

“I haven’t forgotten why I’m out here- I’m out here for adventure- to improve my fighting skills and my rank. I don’t want to be a squire forever- if the game is what’ll improve my life, then maybe it’s something I’d like to keep around.”

“You bastard! How can you even…?” Angela gave up, disgusted, and turned as if to go into the tent. “How can I even… what?” asked Brian, his voice filled with cold anger. “Want to improve my life? Want to become something someday? Want to live- to love- to dream!?” he stood up, his voice shaking with righteous determination, much like some late-night preacher type in a 3am time slot. “Don’t you repress me, don’t you try to interfere with my life, Angela!” She turned around slowly at these words, then calmly and quietly she drew the dagger out of her boot. “If you’re not with us, Bri, then you’re against us.” She took a few steps forward. “What rank are you, Brian? How long have you had a shortsword?” Brian stood his ground. “You’re going to kill me?” he asked. “Throw a dagger through my heart?”

“That’s up to you.” Angela paused and looked evil. “If you go away, if you stay.” Brian laughed, even though his heart really wasn’t in it. “Angela, my dear friend Angela.” He drew his shortsword slowly rasping from its sheath. “Who gave me this dear, dear, sword. You’re going to get it back, in a rather painful manner of delivery, if you don’t choose your words more wisely.” He circled around her slowly, trying to look menacing and not doing a very good job of it. Angela, however, was in her element. Her features were in all-out Shifty mode and her countenance was akin to that of an escaped convict lurking on the gloomy docks of some unloved town. “Don’t press me, Brian.”

This, of course, provoked the opposite reaction. He lifted the sword clumsily and held it there for a second in abject confusion before deciding to bring it crashing down somewhere. Angela dodged out of the way easily and slipped the dagger into her other hand. “All right, you braggart-monger; now I’m in kill-mode.” Sliding inwards on his defenses, or lack thereof, she drew in for the attack. But suddenly, a loud and hacking cough interrupted their deadly intentions. Both turned to look at Tim, who was still standing there looking traumatized while the elf beside him slowly and painfully lifted herself up. “STOP!” she shouted, an effort which almost destroyed her. Angela and Brian exchanged one more brief, murderous glance, then rushed to her side.

“If she dies, Yersef will kill us both” Brian stated blandly, in an obvious effort to explain his failure to be chopping someone’s head off at this given moment. Angela refrained from response, opting to push the elf back down onto her makeshift cot in silence. The elf struggled against her efforts and glanced about in quick panicky movements. “Griffanth! Polyupe!” then, a last despairing cry, “WENDELL!?” One quick glance landed on Brian’s startled face and held his gaze. “What have you done to them!?” He began to stutter something out, but Angela beat him to coherency.

“We found you out here- alone. We’re trying to help. Just stay calm.” The elf refrained from the offered option of calm. “Who are you? Are they dead? Did you kill Wendell? I particularly liked Wendell…” She seemed to be rambling, so Brian performed the act that came first to his dazed mind, and slapped her on the face. “Control yourself!” he ordered, but the chances of him getting a reply plummeted after the slap due to the fact that the elf, in her fragile state, had merely opted to pass out. He stood there stunned by this response to his action, so Angela took the opportunity to slap him in turn, a slap that was, to be honest, really more of a direct punch to his, well, more sensitive parts.

Silenced for the moment, Brian took this chance to take a nice rest on the ground, clutching the offending regions and making soft noises to himself. Tim, meanwhile, retained his stance of standing frozen and looking quietly traumatized to himself, and Yersef slept on, peaceably, in the comfort of the black pleather tent that his black pleather pack had somehow mysteriously converted into.

7- The Evil Penguin of Death

The atmosphere had, well, degenerated at this point. Brian was out of the picture, painfully so, Tim had a rather dazed expression on his face, Yersef slept on, and the as-yet unnamed, I mean unintroduced, elf was unconscious yet again. As the only one in full control of her mind at this moment, Angela took it upon herself to try and convince the elf that consciousness is ever so much more fun than unconsciousness. Using a rag that Brian had so thoughtfully decided to wet with his own tears, she gently wiped down her forehead and tried to mutter something reassuring.

This merely resulted in one slightly soggy elf forehead, and not the slightest sign of response. However, it did seem to bring Tim around, or perhaps that was just a coincidence. Anyway, Tim’s look of confusion seemed to have frozen on his face, but at least he had regained some basic motor skills. He opened his mouth skillfully and in a few moments had actually relearned how to make sounds, and finally words. His first sentence: “What was all that about?” occurred a mere three minutes from his first small noise. Pretty damn good if you ask me, what with babies and speaking and all. You don’t see them churning out anything nearly as coherent as “What was all that about?” after anything like the time in which Tim had just- wait, this rambling is the epitome of all things daft. But that is a good thing… although not always. Anyway, Tim spake: “What was all that about?” Not to imply that he said it three times or anything-

Angela returned a quiet stare as her only response, but it was simply no match for the staying power of Tim’s frozen look of confusion. “If you’re going to defend Brian after all that he… implied, then, well-”

Tim spake again, something he was getting fairly adept at. “I think you both overreacted a bit there. He didn’t have to do that, but then you didn’t have to do that, well, the other that that you did.” He stopped, returning full-force to the state of confusion that, to be honest, he had never fully departed from.

Angela laughed, which came across as rather cruel. “Our friend needed to learn an important lesson about leadership. Sometimes pain is a most effective and necessary teacher.”

“So sometimes pain-” Brian continued, and poked Angela in the arm with his index finger, “is a most effective teacher.”

“Ow. Stop that” she replied, prompting him to continue.

“But you said that-” and now he poked her to enunciate each word “pain-is-a-most-effective-and-necessary-teacher.” Angela backed away from him slowly, menacingly. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

Tim grinned evilly, and picked up the sack. “I should just clobber you over the head with this right now, Angela.” The dagger was in her hand before he’d gotten to the “clobber.”

“Watch it, Tim,” she warned. This situation could have degenerated into something quite nasty, again, but fortunately for all of them, although not for you if you don’t like them, something again happened to stop this. The same thing, in fact, as my creative skills at creativity are not as creative as I would have created them had I been the creator. So again the elf coughed abysmally, and made some loud dying noises before finally pronouncing something coherent: “DON’T!” she gasped. But the dagger was already in Tim’s head and he was dead- nah, don’t worry; I’m just messing with you, I’d never kill off one of my main characters this early, what sort of evil bastard do you take me for! So, Tim lived on. (And no, he wasn’t even stabbed, he’s just standing there, he’s fine, don’t worry so much!)

And so the elf continued, painfully dragging out the words from somewhere deep inside her: “Evil… penguin… DEATH!” she poured her full effort into the last word, which pushed her over the edge into another horrendous coughing fit. The horrible choking hacking sounds broke out of her thin body in savage bursts, going on and on until finally she stopped and decided to look embarrassed instead. “I’m sorry, that really is disgusting” she admitted. “But I had to warn you- look what it’s doing to you!” Tim looked at Angela and Angela’s dagger, Angela looked at Tim and Tim’s idea of a weapon.

Tim gave Angela a frightened glance. “You were going to kill me with that!” he said. Angela looked at Tim’s sack. “You were going to kill me with that?” she asked, laughing. But the elf had a very serious expression on her pale face, and seemed worried. “It’s still here!” she muttered quietly. “It hasn’t left.” Angela and Tim exchanged glances of a slightly less evil nature than their previous glances, and approached closer to her side. As if aware of their increasing interest in what she had to say, the elf got all dramatic and began to gesture enthusiastically as she continued. “The evil penguin of death! It killed them, it made them hate each other” she whispered vehemently. “They tore each other to pieces, started the fire” another expansive gesture included the charred woods and the inside of Tim’s ear. “Watch it” he stated reflexively, ducking away. But Angela was held rapt by the seriousness of her words. “A penguin…?” she repeated.

“A penguin of DEATH!” the elf proclaimed, sweeping her arm across Tim’s face. “It’ll come, in the night, and it’ll get you!”

“Well, that’s generally how these things work.” Tim wasn’t overly excited about the prospect of a penguin of death, and so he was being sullen, as usual. But by this time, Brian had returned from his brief respite and so someone was there to look enthusiastic. “An evil penguin of death?” he asked, but his enthusiasm wasn’t quite up to par with his usual standard. In fact, he wasn’t being very enthusiastic at all. So Angela decided to have a go at it. “Yeah! An evil penguin of death. We must slay it!” she shouted joyfully, but this merely frightened Brian away into the woods, away from the shouting Angela, away from the cruel Angela who hits people… but not for long, for in the woods he found… An evil penguin of death! And so he ran, screaming, back to the campsite, back to the frightening but-not-quite-so-frightening-as-the-evil-penguin-of-death Angela, and back to safety. “There’s an evil penguin of death out there!” he proclaimed fearfully. “What does it look like?” asked Angela, who slid gracefully back into her position of calm in the face of danger.

“It’s- it’s evil! And it’s a penguin! A penguin of death!” Brian stuttered in traumatized bursts of sentences. “Um, an evil one!” Angela turned back to the elf. “How do we defeat it?” she asked calmly. The elf sat up and met Angela’s calm gaze equally. “I don’t know” she stated simply. “I ended up almost dead, with the rest of my party fully dead. If I’d known, things wouldn’t have ended quite that way.” So they all stood there for a moment, scuffing their feet in the dirt and trying to avoid eye-contact with each other. Finally, Tim decided to go get Yersef and explain to him that there was an evil penguin of death in the woods nearby, and that it was probably scheming.

Yesef came out of the tent in a panic, and hurriedly converted it back into his black pleather pack. “I’ve heard nasty things about those evil penguins of death” he proclaimed ominously. “There’s no way I’m going to stay around here with a bunch of stupid kids and get murdered by some malicious polar anomaly.” Then he saw the elf, the female elf dressed in rather slinky clothing, and changed his mind. “But then again” he stated “ how often is it that you get a chance to see an evil pigeon of whatever it was you were talking about?” He was still staring at the elf, and not doing a very good job of forming coherent sentences at the same time.

Nothing constructive seemed to be occurring, so, ever the practical one, Angela took out her blowpipe and her dagger and stood at the ready. “Get out your weapons and stop talking. We’re in serious danger here!” Brian grasped his shortsword in a slightly more ominous manner than before, Tim rummaged through the sack for awhile, gave up, and grabbed a stout branch up off the ground. Yersef readied his bow, and even the invalid elf attempted to look menacing with her longbow, although it didn’t seem likely that she’d have the strength to fire it.

Each one stood there in his respective fighting stance, waiting for some motion from the woods. The boughs of the trees moved about peaceably in a non-threatening manner. Small squirrels moved through the branches complacently. Absolutely nothing happened. But our stoic explorers did not give up- they held their places bravely, fighting the urge to move or yawn. Weapons at the ready, faces fixed in intent expressions, they were prepared for whatever might come.

Their determination finally paid off. A quiet rustling became audible near the base of a particularly ancient and venerable oak, then a small face appeared close to the ground. Bright eyes peered about intently, and a tiny beak moved back and forth as if searching for something. It looked innocent enough, but suddenly and inexplicably, Brian felt the need to hit Angela, and as his id was the size of his ego, he promptly did. A smack alongside the head is never a pleasant experience, and retribution would probably have come on full throttle if Angela had not been prepared for just such an instance. So, instead of hitting Brian back, she merely stood there, smiling peaceably. Of course, this was no such sort of animal that was defeated merely through resistance to its mindtricks, so along with the peaceable smile Angela promptly shot a poisoned dart into the creature, keeping her dagger at the ready in case the poison was not effective.

The evil penguin of death uttered one small, sad noise and fell forward onto its face. No more movement was forthcoming.

8- Captive

There wasn’t much to say after that. The elf, much shamed, turned reddish and, consequently, looked embarrassed. No one had much to say. They were all wondering in a vague sort of way how something as pathetic as the death penguin could possibly have brought death to what hadn’t looked like a particularly pathetic group of adventurers. Of course, it isn’t one of those things that you go about stating, so they were all pretty quiet about it. Except for the female elf who still doesn’t have a name, so consequently I’ll ask her so as to end this whole “female elf” deal, which really isn’t up there with the descriptions of say, Tolkien.

Brian turned to the elf, that is, the female one and not Yersef, and asked her what her name was. She looked a bit shocked at the ill-timing of the question, but that’s life. “It’s Laiyna,” she replied. “Laiyna Etherfield. But elves, er, people, I mean, sentient beings on the whole just call me Laith.”

“Laith?” Brian looked mildly amused, but stopped as it didn’t rhyme with anything interesting. “What sort of a name is Laith?”

“Well, for starters…” she began “Laith is the name of my Great Ancestress, Laith the Intrepid, who killed the mighty Beast and went on to slay the Dragon, before climbing the Mountain and then swimming across the River. She was the Founder of the Society, the Wise and-” suddenly, the elf stopped short. “Did you hear that?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“No, what the bloody hell are you talking about?” Angela chimed in unexpectedly. Tim shushed her and pointed out into the woods dramatically. “Over there!” he whispered loudly. The elf shushed Tim and pointed a little bit to the left of where Tim had pointed. “No, over there!” she proclaimed in a more self-confident, and therefore more correct whisper. “See?” The adventurers, if this pathetic band deserves to be called that, all peered out expectantly into the foresty bits, envisioning mandrakes and tigers and death penguins and griffins and… a small furry head stuck out from the bracken. “Meep,” it squealed, then withdrew into the relative darkness of the denser trees. A moment passed in silence, as they scanned the boundary of their campsite’s clearing for any sign of the thing’s return. Then another moment passed.

“What was that?” Brian blurted out, never one for the hushed conversation type of deal. Laith laughed, then grimaced from the remnant of pain from her previous wound. “It is what you think it is. Or, rather, what you would name it as. A meep.”

Tim smirked and Angela … would have made one of those “oh-how-cute!” animal faces but Angela was… Angela. Brian looked confused. “What’s a meep?” he asked. Laith looked a bit confused herself. “I… I’m not really sure. It’s just one of those cute foresty creatures that you see randomly from time to time, all furry and afraid of people. Not much is known about them, actually, as they’re such shy little critt-”

Suddenly, a noise like a thousand million bulldoz- er, chains- ah, a conundrum of shrilling fuzzy shapes and squeals and moving branches and bits seemed to flow from the earth itself. And the trees, yeah, the trees too. Because they’re there. Anyway, this flood broke forth, this absolute wave, nay, tsunami of adorable cute n’fuzzies burst from the bracken and swept into the campsite like a fur carpet on crack.

“AAAAAAAAAH!!!” they screamed, doing something as one for a change, rather than all this arguing and messing about and all that they usually fall into, and then, on their ten collective, wait, twel- no, (brian, angela, tim… screw it) a bunch of legs ran as one. The meeps swarmed across the clearing after them, little fuzzy feet churning, small eyes glinting, ears pushed back intently against their tiny bodies, running on all sixes like a swarm of small angry rodent-ish six-legged things, which, coincidently, they were. Brian screamed in terror, though he later denied this fact. Don’t listen to him. I know, man, I know. Since I wrote it. Yeah. Anyways, the author decided to keep her idiot ranting out of the story for at least the next ten chapters, Christ, ten chapters? Will I ever make it that far? But I must stop, since commentary is just so damned annoying in the middle of a story. Wouldn’t you agree?

Uh, so the flood of creatures swept like a forest fire after the group, who hastily grabbed up their mostly-packed possessions and ran flailing and shouting across the site and into the cover of the trees on the other side. A shrill scream from Laith stopped them all in their tracks: “They’re on this side, too!” she shouted, spinning around into Tim and heading off into the direction she had come from. The party spun around after her, only to find the original swarm of meeps still piling into the clearing, seemingly without end. Furry bodies tumbled over furry bodies, clambering for position, rolling over each other and clawing for position, all opening and closing their adorable little mouths in a proclamation of certain victory. “Meep!” they squealed, a million tiny battle cries energetically thrust forth from a million tiny mouths. “Meep!”

Drawing close to one another in the center of the quickly shrinking circle of non-meep-ness, Brain drew his shortsword. At the motion, Tim grasped his sack determinedly, and Angela drew forth her blow-pipe from some hidden pocket. The other, lesser characters all drew out their weapons, too, but that’s hardly worth mentioning, now, is it? (so I lied).

Brain grasped his sword and tried to look brave. “Get ready…” he warned, through clenched teeth. Tim took a swing with his sack, and sent some of the critters flying. Angela brought the blow-pipe closer to her face, and a couple of bows, however obviously worthless against this sort of thing, were nocked. The air hung heavy with anticipation, and even the unceasing flow of meeps seemed to cease, well, pause for a moment, as the two groups were just to meet.

But the meeps did cease. The circle stayed the same distance from the explorers, although more meeps still piled into the area, they merely clambered onto the meeps already present rather than try to crowd forward into the empty border space. Another awkward moment passed, in which Tim tried to step forward but was sternly warned back into place by the knashing teeth and harsh cries of the couple hundred meeps closest to him. Swinging the shortsword, Brian had no better luck, merely temporarily clearing an area for the length of time it took the sword to swing to pass by before the gap would close in once more. There was no escape, not without some serious gnawing damage and probable need of a tetnous shot. Our Intrepid Explorers were trapped.

9- Meep!

Standing in the diminished and furry circle, holding onto whatever scraps of sanity and weapons available to them, the group … waited. Sweat beaded on Brian’s forehead; ran down. A stray hair moved slowly in the wind in front of Angela’s face. Tim’s nose was running a bit from his allergies. The meeps just sat, holding their position, as if waiting for a signal from an unknown source; suddenly, they moved as one, as if on the cue of a signal from some unknown source… a path opened in the mass of meeps, they clambered fuzzily aside, leaving a swath of clearing open in the form of a path leading from somewhere in the woods right up to the explorers.

“Wha-” started Tim.

“WHAT DO WE DO?” shrieked Angela in a most un-Angela-like gesture of distress. “I’m sorry” she apologized, “but small furry things frighten me. My sister had a hamster once…” she trembled in terror at the memory. “It’s just-”

“It’s okay” said Brain. “We’ve just got to keep our wits about us.” Tim snickered, and Brian glowered at him. Both the snickering and the glowering were quickly cut short, however, by a sudden movement in the woods, at the end of the created path. “What’s that?!” Angela pointed, which was unnecessary as everyone’s eyes were already fixed on the motion of a figure… dark-clad… ten-feet high… floating towards them down the path. It came closer and closer; humanoid in form, it walked exactly as a human doesn’t, moving as if composed of random limbs and smooth gears, flowing in a loose-limbered stroll of forward-back motion, much like waves, only without the waves.

Laith fainted, much to the delight of Yersef, who grasped her in his arms dramatically and continued to look intent in that narrow-eyed, skinny way that only elves can pull off with any degree of grace. The figure continued to advance; small meeps cooed “meep” up at it lovingly as they crowded in behind it, closing off the path as it came closer and closer.

And closer.

And… CLOSER!

Yeah.

So, um, anyways, soon it was there. I mean, before them, as opposed to advancing frighteningly at them.

“Um, hello” said the mysterious figure. The group gaped as one, stricken as much by the content of the words as at the placid, friendly voice which delivered it. “I hope my meeps didn’t frighten you too much.”

“Uh… uh…” Tim’s rather extensive vocabulary had given out.

“’Course… not…” a hoarse whisper from Angela, “I think they’re cute…” The dark mysterious figure beamed, or seemed to, though its face was not yet visible- which was odd, since it was standing so close.

“Um…” continued Tim.

“Who are you?” finished Brian, his harsh decisive anger in sharp contrast with the confusion and silence that issued from the others. “And… and… splud! Why aren’t you being more evil?! This is a quest, damnit, not a… a… thing that isn’t a quest!”

The strange being at this point withdrew further into its robe, whatever trace of its face was before visible now sank back into the void of its cloak and hood. A rather ominous-looking cloud of smoke or mist rose from the figure, and it laughed evilly, great raucous harsh deep-sounding waves of maniacal laughter, seeping out in almost physically tangible waves from the being, raising the hairs on the arms of all present… even the meeps looked a bit puffed up at the sound, and some fidgeted nervously, making small sad sounds to themselves. Then the laugh turned into a cough, the cough into a small apologetic murmer: “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at that,” croaked the creature, it’s voice a bit sore from all the laughing. “I’m more of a pacifist, really.” The group exhaled as one, relief dripping off all of them like some viscous liquid, all except for Brian, whose scowl turned into a smirk of disgust before turning full circle back into a bitter snarl of dismay.

“What is your name?” Yersef called out the question, stepping forward in one smooth motion, for once acting in his true elf nature. “Call out your name so I can call it in turn to the Destined.” Cryptic, thought Brian to himself, maybe this has potential. But why am I thinking in italics? His thoughts were cut short by the stranger’s curt answer: “I am no one, elf, my name is not for the Sounding.”
[Then the author decided she’d been reading far too much Robert Jorden (shivers in disgust) and returned to her method of stupidity, as opposed to someone else’s!]

“Sounding? What are you talking about?” Angela stepped forwards sternly, made confident by Brian’s disgust and Yersef’s display of… something.

The figure, still without any visible facial features, still managed to look sheepish. “Um, I don’t know, really… I thought it sounded good! I made it up!” It sulked.

“S’ok.” Brian’s disgust had turned to disappointment. It’s just something they hire you to do for the quests, right?” It nodded.

“I, too, am sorry for my display of stupid Robert Jorden-ish melodrama. It just… seemed appropriate at the time.” Yersef hung his grimy head in shame.

“No!!!!!!!! It’s not okay!” The figure stood up, more determined than before. “I… I’m an imposter! I don’t even deserve your pity!” It sat down and cried. Angela succumbed to the one tiny fragment of motherly instinct within her and patted the thing on the shoulder awkwardly, incidentally having to reach up three feet above her height to do so. It sobbed.

“What do you want of me?” The looming hulk had melted down onto its knees in the clearing, sinking below the gaze of the explorers as if it physically hurt to bear their glances. Then it looked up, at Yerself specifically, and even though its eyes were not visible, the question was apparent in its nonexistent gaze.

The elf shifted on his feet a bit awkwardly, almost dropped Laith in his nervousness before he decided to put her down and take a seat beside the figure to try and clear this all up. “Look” he began, “I don’t exactly understand what’s going on here [the author gives a small nod of agreement at this] but I don’t think it’s your fault. People hired you… to be something you’re not. It’s only natural that the role should be impossible to fill with any degree of continuity to your real self- to you. Sometimes the two are hard to maintain together.” Yersef sighed, and moved his arm in a nervous gesture, closing and then opening his fist. “I know…” he paused for a moment, deep in his thoughts; “I used to hand out maps.”

Tim coughed uneasily, obviously trying to hide some emotion or other. “Uh, that reminds me, Yersef-” Angela shot him a quick what-are-you-doing look, which he saw obeyed, which proved fruitless since Brian took it upon himself to continue where he left off.

“We are on a quest” announced Brian dramatically, “A quest… to end all quests!” Tim smacked his forehead in what looked like a really painful gesture, as a mutual groan arose from the disgusted throats (yes, even their throats were disgusted!) of all present.

Suddenly, without any prior warning other than the foreshadowing in chapter- oh, wait, I forgot to put it in- without any prior forewarning, suddenly a great beast leapt forth from the woods behind the circle, snarling viciously and gnashing apart hundreds of meeps with every motion of its powerful jaws. The pathetic things scattered, no match for a gigantic wolf-monster. Except for the stupid ones, which stayed, and consequently were eaten, but that’s natural selection for you. “GYAR!” growled the wolf in a very pirate-like display of anger. “Eep!” squealed Angela, and Brian gave her a look. Angela was not being very Angela today.

Slowly, as though the eyes lost focus only to regain sight on something new, the wolf-shape shifted and changed, the hair sank into the hide, the hide sank into the flesh, the flesh- stayed flesh. And there was their friend, the (naked) werewolf. Brain, now used to this display, chucked the beast a cloak, as Tim pulled Yersef and Laith’s bows gently back from their deadly aim. “I know you-” started the dark, though now cowering figure, before it was cut off by the werewolf.

“My name’s Raoul” he started as an introduction, “I neglected to mention that earlier… that or the damn author forgot to name me” he muttered under its breath for a minute. “Anway, I’m angry! GRR!” The man continued to growl, standing there with Brian’s cloak in a forgotten puddle at his feet, reveling in his righteous anger and his, well, his nudity, I guess. Why not.

10- The Invisible Bullfrog

The werewolf stepped forward dramatically, and something went splut. “What was that?” he asked absent-mindedly. “An invisible bullfrog” answered Yersef matter-of-factly, used to these oddities of the forest.

“Oh” said Raoul.

11- The Purple Star

Raoul decided to try this whole dramatic thing again. “As I was saying,” he started. Angela gestured frantically at the cloak; glancing down, the werewolf picked it up and gave it back to its rightful owner. “As I was saying,

(to be continued...)