Eldritch Quest part.08

    The Dangora swamp, Dorkaring isn’t liking the feel of this one, not one bit. He has climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and journeyed into the depths of a spider queen’s lair to get these gems and by his count and that of the compass there is only one left; but the damned magic compass is telling him half is in the swamp and half many mountains away. A local story teller told him the secret in the nearby town; a legend that long ago there was a Gem; the Moon Gem said to grant those who held it the power to fly, and levitate other objects of any size and weight. So great was its power that when the tyrant king demon who held it was defeated a sorcerer of incredible power was summoned to split the gem in two dividing its power. One gem was tossed into the waters of Dangora swamp, fed to a monstrous immortal catfish, the other was later given by the hero of the tale as a promise of marriage to a bunny-girl from the mountain tribe.

    Not that he really cares as he is now fishing, the story goes that in the swamp, in the deepest part, where the moon reflects day and night there the monster catfish dwells; one must catch ever larger fish here until the giant takes the bait. So for hours he has caught ever larger fish, including fish that should only be in the sea; something is not right about this spot.

  Something is on his line, stronger than before, its black back breaching the water, with a mighty tug of his enchanted rod (fishing pole) he pulls the beast free of the water. The giant black catfish however hangs in the air, and actually growls at him. It takes a big gulp and spit out a slimy ball that explodes upon the ground; Dorkaring leaps into the air over the slime ball, sword drawn and slices through the cat fish. Its body vanishes in blue flames, in the air half a gem hovers. He leaps up again grabbing the pink dome.

  “It really is half of a gem,” he says while pocketing it. He looks at the compass, the other half is some distance away.

   ******

   Through forests, beyond villages, past the wooded hills, through the cave of ice is the enchanted land of snow; a place of eternal winter, where the locals are not humans but bestial hybrids. Here in this frozen place he learns that his final prize is high in a forbidden castle, a rusted looking thing of towering shrapnel, and the legend he heard is different here.

  [Long ago the metal castle fell from the sky, its only passenger a power rabbit spirit, this female creature was seductive of form and great of power. She could enchant the crops making them grow big and strong, heal the sick, make it so the blind could see. An immortal and benevolent queen she became over the people who followed her teachings. One day a man came from a land from the south, a man who had also fallen from the sky. He was said to have defeated a demon in the south and with his great strength and charisma won the heart of the Bunny Queen, giving her a gem like a half-sphere on their wedding night. All was not well however as the man tricked her, and imprisoned her inside a mechanical golem, to keep both his prizes safe. The man revealed himself as a horrid shape shifting monster from a frigid world. Bonding his essence with the magical metals of the castle he cast this land in ice. The people built the great gates to try and keep out the coldest of the winds, and the fiends of ice that would be summoned by them.]

   Against the best advice of the locals Dorkaring presses through the giant wooden gates into the heart of the frozen beast. Here are fiends of ice, horrid demons of snow and frost, slain by his strength, even as he faces a cold he has never felt before. He makes his way past locked doors that move of their own accord in the towering frozen metal towers, past the shrieking metal horrors that fight alongside the snowy terrors. Above them all he finds a coliseum.



  “So at long last,” comes a man’s voice from all directions, “A champion has come to free this land of ice and snow from my clutches, to free the Bunny-Queen! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa! Fool! You will not succeed where no one before you has! I am Goown of Frozen Cyberia!”

   The building shakes as a giant egg shaped metal thing with one eye, a clear dome on the abdomen, and giant hammer arms and legs appears through a metal gate.

  “I am in here hero! So is the Bunny Queen!”

  The abdomen glows and shows a stasis chamber holding the Bunny-Queen, a beautiful and regale woman with a bunny’s tail and bunny ears, otherwise dressed in green and white robes, fuzzy slippers, and a pendant with a gold clasp around…the other half of the gem.

  “Harm me…” says the mechanical horror, “and you must harm…hey!”

  Dorkaring leaps into the air grabbing the sides of the clear part digging his fingers into the metal.

  “Impossible!” shrieks the machine shaking about trying to throw him off, its hammer arms and stomping feet unable to reach him, after all It would have been foolish to design this thing to hit the part it was designed to protect.

  Dorkaring rips the dome off, grabs the Bunny Queen and leaps far back, smashing his feet through the ice and stone of the coliseum floor so as not to slip.

  “Impossible!” shrieks the machine again, “How’d you? No human could that!”

  “uh,” says the Bunny-Queen coming to.

  “No!” shrieks the machine, “you…you don’t know what you’ve done!”

  The Bunny Queen blinks looking up at Dorkaring.

  “You’re safe now,” says Dorkaring, “I have you.”

  She starts to glow, her eyes sparkling green, “Where is he?” as if asking Dorkaring.

  “There…” she says as a wave of light erupts from her, erasing ice and snow in its path replacing them with flowers and vines.

  She glows bright and levitates from Dorkaring’s arms.

  She points at the machine, which is stepping backwards, “Traitor!”

 With a might gesture towards the ground she yells out, “Entangle!”

 Massive green vines erupt from the castle entangling the mechanical thing and ripping the top of the head off with the giant one eye. She flies through the air like  bullet up to the head. With a single gesture the head goes flying. Inside is a man at the controls.

  Dorkaring watches on as the man stammers, “M..majesty..I…”

  “You drugged me!” yells out the Bunny Queen, “you damned traitor!”

  She plunges her hands into the man’s chest and rips him open, it is not blood and bone however but metal and circuits. Within the man as the man within the towering golem is a small white rabbit.

  “M…majesty…” squeaks the rabbit before she grabs his ears.

  In a flash she is in front of Dorkaring again, floating, “I thank you kind hero for rescuing me from this traitorous Pooka, if there is anything at all in my kingdom I could offer you as a reward name it and it is yours.”

   “Well,” says Dorkaring, “how about that gem around your neck.”

  She touches it, the thing given to her by the traitor in her hands, “Yes,” she says, “take this trinket I have no use for a memento from a treacherous usurper.”

   With the gem in and Dorkaring leaves the Bunny Queen still holding the Pooka by the ears, with her promise that nothing will attack him on his way out. He will find the valley below unfrozen, a new spring has come to this enchanted land. Up in the tower, in the coliseum the Bunny Queen is silent as she stares down at the Pooka with hate in her eyes.

  “M…mages…” starts the Pooka silenced as the Bunny Queens roars like a lion, her face distorting, turning green, her ears becoming like thorny green leaves with serrated edges and her tail like a bungle of fluffy moss, her mouth widens with dagger teeth which close on the Pooka, crunching and ripping his tender rabbit flesh apart in bloody chunks as she devours him; torso, head, limbs, and one leg and half a thigh for last, yet all in an instant. As she licks the blood off her lips her skin changes back to peachy paleness, her ears and tail back to fluffiness.

  “Shouldn’t have made me sleep so long,” she smiles, “can make a Dryabbit very hungry.”

  She licks her lips again before she floats into the air, starting the spells to clear the clouds and let the sun in, spreading her power that creates the new spring that Dorkaring sees when he reaches the town again. As he leaves he puts the two pieces of the gem together and in a magical flash they bond to form a single gem.

  “Now,” says Dorkaring, “its time.”