“You have to come,” FeeTwix says, “Enway will be there.”
“So?” Ryuk looks away, just in case his face has turned red.
“She’s pretty cute for an elf,” Zaena comments. “Much better than that bitch Tamana.”
Ryuk swallows hard. Remember, he thinks, the Tamana in here is an RPC that betrayed you. The Tamana up there was … different. Even with this thought, he still finds it troubling to hear his teammates talk ill of Tamana.
“Now where has that goblin run off to?” FeeTwix asks, looking down the adjacent hallway. “It shouldn’t be taking him this long.”
“Do you think he ran into trouble?” Ryuk asks the Swede.
“I think if he did, we’d hear him scream, fart, the clink of weapons, or at the very least, we’d hear Wolf bark.”
“He may have stopped to drink yet another potion. Who is keeping track of his potion consumption? He’s lucky we don’t need those!”
“Don’t worry, babe, the Fickers have been donating tons of potions. I’m just slowly giving them to him, almost as rewards.”
The three stand there quietly for a moment, listening for any indication that Hiccup has got into some shit. What they hear, after about a minute of listening, is the increasingly loud patter of paws.
“Is that … ?” FeeTwix steps back just in time.
Wolf bursts out of the opening, a smug look on his face. Sitting on top with his legs clamped around the wolf’s body is the cantankerous goblin.
“What?” he asks as he scratches Wolf behind the ear. “That fickin’ pathway was practically vertical. So I took a ride. Why are you all looking at me like that? He doesn’t mind, hell, if anyone else wants to hop up, you’re more than welcome too. But I get to sit in front. I’m nobody’s little lap bitch.”
FeeTwix nods, clearly impressed. “Now I can add ‘seeing a goblin riding a giant wolf’ to the list of things I never thought I’d see. Bad news, though, that path ahead looks really thin. I don’t think you can both get through there in your current form.”
“Fine, fine.” Hiccup pats Wolf on the head. He lowers his body, and the goblin hops off. “But I got first dibs on the canine taxi once we’re in the clear again.”
(0)__(0)
“This place is practically bristling with treasure!” FeeTwix announces, his finger raised in the air. “Seriously, guys, if we didn’t have a mission to handle, or a concert to get to, I’d say we hang back here and get as much damn treasure as our lists can carry.”
“I’m with Twixy,” Hiccup says at the back of the line. “Fick the Shinigami, fick Tamana, Marbles the Second, and the Knights for that matter. Fick the concert too. With money, all our problems will be solved. Hell, we can just rent a place in Jatla, you know, one of those high end apartments on the upper west side of the city, and have our own concert!”
“Those apartments?” Ryuk asks, imagining the run-down, two-story buildings on the upper west side of Jatla. Most of the places, from what he could tell, were missing walls and ceilings. A few were without doors and the public urinals that surrounded each building only added to the eyesore.
“What? Fick, Marbles, not all of us can afford the nicer things in life, but if we get that treasure, these four fickers – notice I said four, I’m not done vetting the elf – would be living high on the hog. Or horse. Is it high on the horse? Fick, you know what I mean. Damn, it’s bright ahead. Howzabout one of you bend a little so Uncle Goblin can take a peeksee? Fick, why am I at the back of the group again?”
“Because you were too scared to be the first,” Zaena calls back to him. “Now shut up for once; your constant rambling is driving me insane.”
“It looks like some sort of … of statue room,” FeeTwix says. “Yes! A room dedicated to the goddesses. This should be interesting! Everyone get ready for screenshots!”
The four Mitherfickers and their big bad wolf enter a chamber with impossibly high ceilings.
Light from outside comes in through slits in the ceiling revealing eight female statues, each chiseled into the rockface. The gothic statues fall somewhere between beautiful craftsmanship and horror, especially the statue of a woman with her arm outstretched holding her fist through a skull.
Hiccup immediately moves to a statue of a woman with piles of rupees around her feet. He places his mechanical hand on the rupees, bows his head, and starts to pray in Thulean.
“Don’t mind him,” Zaena tells Ryuk after she catches his confused glance. “That’s the Goddess of Luck.”
“Zip it, Liz, I’m trying to pray,” Hiccup says before launching back in. “Boom nana boom rana boom lana boom pokhla; boom nana boom rana boom lana boom poklha.”
The air on Wolf’s neck stands to attention.
“What do you see, boy?” FeeTwix asks, but before he can say anything else, Wolf takes off down another hallway.
“Boom nana boom rana … all dogs have a mind of their own, Twixy, parsing matters … boom lana boom pokhla … ”
Ryuk steps in front of a statue of a naked woman, her belly cut open and a dragon’s tail slipping into it. “This one is very interesting.”
“I like this one.” FeeTwix stands before a statue of a woman with a giant hammer slung over her shoulder. She’s muscular, buxom, and she wears a crop top and a pair of tight shorts, the only one of the statues not in some sort of dress.
“That’s the Goddess of Tradeskills. She’s popular, especially amongst the various smiths across the continents. Let me see your Marble Gun, Ryuk.”
Ryuk unholsters it, pops the mag out for safety reasons, and hands it to the Thulean, the business end of the gun pointing downward.
“See here?” she says, touching the Thulean carved into his weapon. As she does so, the words light up green. “That’s her name there, and this part is asking for her blessing.” Her ears twitch. “Do you hear that?”
Wolf’s yelps ricochet down the long tunnel ahead.
“Heads up!” FeeTwix shouts.
“Goblin, right; FeeTwix, left; Ryuk, back as far as possible!” Zaena calls out. The Thulean quickly hands Ryuk’s gun back to him and positions herself in the center of the chamber. She rises into the air, suspended by her ghost limbs.
The rest of the Mitherfickers take their position, Hiccup grumbling at Zaena’s perceived racism. They hear Wolf’s yelps growing louder, accompanied by the patter of hooves against the stone floor.
“Whatever it is, it’s fucking big!” FeeTwix, in his element, has one of the largest weapons Ryuk has ever seen in his hands. It’s silver, with a Kevlar tipped base handle attached to the central power unit and a plasma shell counter flashing red on its side. “BFG 9000-S12B,” the Swede tells his audience as it powers up. “Don’t leave home without one!”
“Fickin’ hell, Twixy!” Hiccup calls over the rumble coming from the tunnel. “That thing is going to fick up your life bar, tactical vest or not!”
A healing potion appears in the Swede’s semi-gloved hand. He quickly stuffs it in the pocket of his overcoat. “That’s what this is for!”
Wolf blasts out of the hole with true fear in his eyes. He blazes past Ryuk, and as he does, Ryuk sees the horns of a dark-skinned bovine.
Underground Auroch Level 20
HP: 666/666
ATK: 221
MATK: 0
DEF: 342
MDF: 119
LUCK: 1
Hiccup screams like a sissy as the muscled auroch tears into the chamber. The beast immediately tosses FeeTwix off his feet, who just so happens to squeeze the trigger of his futuristic weapon, blasting the Goddess of Luck statue to kibbles and bits and leaving a hole in the wall big enough to fit a dumpster.