Ugly Old Men

"In one age they had been heroes. Now they set forth to play the villains."

~o~

It had been an age of heroes. One that inevitably led to an age of peace. The dragons had vanished from Elibe, banished by the humans who had grown greedy and distrustful, but who had also obtained enough enlightenment to actually threaten the creatures. The dragons did not go willingly nor without a fight, but in the end they left.

The portal was sealed after them.

With fell deeds accomplished, the band of heroes took their followers and founded nations across the continent. Most of them died with honor in their own houses, but a few survived the age, growing in power and arrogance...

~o~

"It is said that the Archsage Athos vanished into the desert sands..."

"So what's on the agenda for today, Athos; chess, tidily winks?"

The old man fretted with his beard and considered his companion's words. "No, we've played those for the last few months, right after we got bored with old maid and tic-tac-toe."

"Well then, how about horse shoes?"

"No that was six months ago and you swore that you'd never throw them again when that dragon dude beat us a hundred times in a row." Athos frowned at the recollection. "That's when we decided to keep our games to ourselves unless we could guarantee that we would be the winners."

The dark mage frowned and thought harder. "Strip poker?"

"We agreed not to bring that one up again after the last debacle. Besides, it isn't any fun without some good looking dames to divest."

"Right." Nergal brightened. "Then how about tidily winks?"

Athos snorted. "You already brought that one up; your mind must be going, old man."

"Well at least my magic still lets me get it up, unlike someone I could mention."

"Yes and the only thing that you can stick it in is that magical womanequin that you created." The archsage glared across the table at his friend. "At least my magic would allow me my choice of women if I were actually interested in such things these days."

"Hell, if you could get it up, I'd let you borrow the womanequin for a spin." Nergal groused, clearly not amused by the turn that their conversation had taken. "Peace is boring. Too bad all the rest of those idiots went off and died on us."

Athos sighed "Yeah. Especially Elimine. Now there was a looker. It's too bad that we never quite managed to get her between the sheets."

"Yeah." The two magicians spent a few moments recalling the past before Nergal straightened up in his chair. "You know what we need? We need a big bad EVIL to come along so we can fight it. That would take care of our boredom!"

"Where are we going to find an EVIL? You know that we already kicked most of the dragons out of Elibe. They won't be looking forward to facing us again." Athos turned the idea around in his head for a while. "Unless we become the evil, then we could fight some heroes."

Nergal snorted. "We'd just butcher them with our spells before they could figure out what end of the sword to hold onto. No, if we're going to do this, one of us gets to be evil and one of us has to help the idiot heroes. That will make a fine game between us."

Eyeing his friend shrewdly, Athos asked the obvious question. "So who gets to be the great menace?"

"I do." Nergal grinned evilly. "I've always wanted to be an evil overlord. Besides, I use the dark arts, so it fits."

"Alright. Then make sure that you leave your key to the magical weapons storage." Athos matched Nergal's grin with one of his own. "I'll make sure that the very best men get a hold of some wonderful magical weapons to confront your menace."

"Muwahahahahah! Brilliant!" Nergal's laughter echoed in the tiny room. "I'll be looking forward to seeing what happens when they finally find out that their ultimate weapons aren't so benign as they might imagine. It's too bad that I can't pull of the whole 'benevolent tutor' facade, or I'd consider taking that role instead."

"So, my very old friend," Athos held out his hand. "Shall we?"

~o~

AN: Rated for crude humor by old mages.

This is my humorous take on the 'less than benign' Athos. After all, both he and Nergal were involved with the village of dragons and humans in the desert. Nergal just up and left to start his own crazy stint in the world, but what did Athos do? And yes, this is a little bit of conspiracy theory to it as well.

As for Saint Elimine... Female? Probably, at least from my standpoint. No other names on the list of ancient heroes even came close to looking female. Athos and Nergal needed something good looking to gossip about. -_-'

And if anyone else has tales of Athos/Nergal conspiracy, or less than benign Athos, let me know. I'd be interested to see another view on this.