Hawk pushed open the door and walked into the home. Riesz stepped back, suddenly uncertain. Seeing Riesz's hesitation, Duran asked, "What's wrong?"
"Is this a communist world or something? Haven't these people heard of locks?"
"We're a pretty open society," Duran said as he walked in.
Inside Hawk was busy talking to what appeared to be a dwarf. A badly-misshapen dwarf wearing a gaudy green-and-yellow jester's outfit and looked like a clown. No, wait, scratch that: the ball the clown would walk on top of.
Pity this world had yet to understand what a 'circus' was.
"You must be here to try out my Super Deluxe X-2 Cannon!" squealed the little man. He bounced up and down like the rotund little ball - er, dwarf-thingy he was.
"Er, yes. Yes, we are," said Hawk. He didn't show it, but it was clear that he didn't have a clue what Bon Voyage was talking about. (Somehow, it was clear. Maybe body language?)
"Just come out back, and I'll meet you there!" squealed the thing.
The three adventurers trooped out back. There, planted in the centre of the yard, was a Very Large Cannon. It was ornate and decorated with golden designs, but it clearly looked like it meant business. In fact, if one had an imagination one might wonder why the Goddess hadn't used this for a weapon instead of the Mana Sword: it looked like some astral firearm, partially buried in the ground and pointed straight at Forcena's general direction.
Duran shuddered.
"Hop in and you'll be on your way!" squealed Bon Voyage.
Duran and Riesz hesitated. Hawk muttered, "Wait for it - "
Bounce. "Gunpowder! I forgot the gunpowder! Just get some for me, will ya?" With that, Bon Voyage bounced back into the house.
"Okay...was it just me, or did that thing look more like a weapon waiting for the Goddess to claim than a safe way to travel?" asked Riesz as they went outside, well out of Bon Voyage's earshot.
"That should be banned by the Convention of Devices of Questionable Safety that are Clearly Weapons of Mass Destruction," Duran announced. "Where do you think inventors get money to to build these things, anyway? You'd think they'd all be starving artists!"
"He's probably funded by the Foundation of Devices of Questionable Safety that are Clearly Weapons of Mass Destruction," Hawk said absently. "I remember hearing him speak at the last meeting..."
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
"What's 'gunpowder'?" Riesz asked, breaking up Duran's train of thought. "I've never heard of it."
"Not a clue," Duran said.
"I could guess 'powder', but I have no idea what a 'gun' is," confessed Hawk. "It's definitely not a weapon of mass destruction."
"Well, we've got to start looking somewhere," Riesz said.
Hawk grabbed a villager. "Excuse me, but where can we get 'gunpowder'?"
"There's a place where the dwarves use it. I think it's located near the passage to Forcena," he answered.
"Well, there's our tip. Let's go!" Hawk said.
"Wait, you trust this guy?" demanded Riesz.
Hawk paused in mid-step and gave Riesz a look like she was stupid. "Well, yeah."
"You trust old men who spend their time walking into walls?"
"It's not a wall, it's a giant jar of wine," Duran said, rolling his eyes at the Amazon's ignorance.
"Look, which excuse would you rather have: 'yes, I trust the old man' or 'Square told me so'?" Hawk said irately.
"Goddess, we were just there and there was nothing great about the place!" Riesz yelled. "What if the Altenans there pick a fight with us?"
"They won't be there," said Hawk. "They're busy invading Forcena."
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
Riesz sighed. It didn't look like she had much of a choice. Standing in a port town that wouldn't send her anywhere wouldn't get her closer to her brother, kingdom or vengeance. In that order. Although vengeance was quickly moving up the mental order, seeing that she had something that was almost begging to get the stuffing beaten out of him. She couldn't even try to drown her sorrows in alcohol, seeing that the bars here didn't actually serve it. Riesz had not-so-fond memories of fending off drunks while trying to catch the attention of a very absent-minded bartender. You'd think that a princess and leader of an army would get a break now and then, but nooo...
"Well, shall we go?" Hawk asked as he edged away from Duran, who appeared to be thinking hard about something.
"By Jinn, why not?" Riesz said, acquiescing to Hawk's suggestion (as opposed to getting violent). There were bigger battles to fight.
The trip back down the Golden Road was rather uneventful. Although by now little Battums and Rabites were nothing, Riesz had something to say about those little Porons. Damn things would throw a dart at you and you'd go flying into a tree with a red number floating out of you. It hurt. The cave was also quite quiet, since the Altenans had all left.
"Well, now what?" asked Riesz as they stood at the silver Mana Statue.
"We ask Square for help," Hawk said.
"Of course, how could I have forgotten," Riesz asked, her voice dripping with cynicism and venom.
"Fairy, do something!" Hawk ordered, producing a tiny cage holding a ball of light with a flourish from his clothes. He held it out, grinning and pointing it expectedly at the statue.
An embarassing silence held over the trio for about a minute. "I don't think it's working."
"Um, I see. How about...Wisp!" With another flourish, Hawk produced a larger, squirming ball of light in his hand. It was so bright that the cave lit up in its presence. Immediately behind them the adventurers saw a piece of rock move aside.
"I see," Duran said. He nodded sagely as Hawk stuffed the spirit back into his shirt. "The dwarves used a trick of the light to hide the passage, but you changed the angle of refraction so it was revealed."
Hawk blinked. "No, Square moved it - "
"You changed the angle of refraction - "
"Okay, okay, I get it!"
They entered the opening and trooped down an impossibly long set of stairs. Riesz had a sudden urge to push one of the men down, just to watch his reaction.
At the bottom they turned into another cave opening, where they passed a dwarf picking at a tunnel. Through another tunnel, and the three immediately found themselves in what they assumed was the Dwarf Village, where all the dwarves lived. Duh.
"So, someone here should have gunpowder," Riesz said. "Dwarves use it, seeing that despite the fact that dwarves are excellent miners, nothing clears out rock like a good...um, whatever gunpowder does."
"Hey!" a nearby dwarf shrilled. "I resent that comment! There you go, stereotyping dwarves as hardworking expert miners!"
"Well, aren't you?" Duran asked curiously.
"Not all of us," the dwarf sniffed. "Our economy would crash if everyone here was, literally, a gold digger. Who'd make our clothes? How would we eat? What would you expect us to eat if none of us had basic underground foraging skills - rocks?"
"Well...what is it that you do?" Riesz asked.
"Mining," the dwarf said unhappily. "But don't loop me in like some other I-love-mining-and-have-no-other-life dwarf! By Gnome, when the Seven Dwarf Troupe finally left to go try their luck with human entertainment, we didn't realize that it'd be a huge PR catastrophe! Every human who found us here was expecting us to go singing or whistling to work, dancing in conga lines or something idiotic like that! I'm dwarf, you know! I have real aspirations!"
"So, um, what's your dream?" asked Riesz.
The scene blurred; Hawk instantly recognized it as a cutscene. The little dwarf seemed to glow and sparkle as the surroundings around him dimmed into shadows. He turned his eyes, sparkling with tears, upwards to the humans, clasped his hands, and in a beautiful soprano and decidedly un-stereotypical-dwarf-like voice he sang:
I wanna see, wanna see them dancin'
Walking around on those - what do you call 'em?
Oh - feet!
Flippin' your fins, you don't get too far
Legs are required for jumping, dancing
Strolling along down a - what's that word again?
Street!
Up where they walk, up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin' free - wish I could be
Part of that wo-o-orld
"Oi, Volts, keep it down!"
"Yeah, we got enough Disney from the Seven Dwarf Troupe, don't need you helpin' out!"
"But I wanna be human!" wailed the little dwarf. He lunged forward and wrapped himself around Riesz's legs. For all her skill in dodging enemy attacks, Riesz was completely unable to slide, wriggle or otherwise escape the blubbering dwarf. "Take me! Take me to your leader! Take me out of this Goddess-forsaken hole! I want to see the sun and breathe the fresh air - "
"Oh, now look what you've started..." Two dwarves came and managed to pry the little dwarf off of Riesz (not without, somehow, touching her boobs - damn dwarves must be lechers, Riesz decided, not enough women down here). "Sorry 'bout that - "
"About what, him or molesting me?"
" - we thought he was okay, but every time he sees a human he relapses, goes into a song and dance routine and begs for your almighty mercy to let him go to the surface."
"Yeah, well, he din't dance this time," the second pointed out.
"Wasn't a dancin' song," the first dwarf said.
"Hey, what are you humans doing here anyway? Thought the passage was sealed..."
"A sly trick of the light you had up there," Duran said, calmly elbowing Hawk in the gut.
"Gnome, we thought it'd be another hundred years before a human figured out basic optical physics! I mean, welcome to the Dwarf Village!"
"We'll be going now," nodded the second dwarf, dragging his sobbing companion away.
"Wait, do you guys know anything about 'gunpowder'?" Riesz yelled.
"Um, go talk to Ohm," said the first dwarf. "He's the one minin' outside."
The three adventurers rushed outside to find the same dwarf they had passed on the way inside, now crouched at the base of the wall he had been picking at.
"Hey, er, Ohm?" asked Duran. "Can you give us some gunpowder?"
"Well, I could," said Ohm, "but I can't." He held up a metal ball filled with slate grey powder. "This's my last supply and I need it. You'll have to speak to Watts to get more."
"Where's Watts?" asked Riesz.
"Somewhere in the caves, but I'll blast you a shortcut," said Ohm as he put the bag on the floor. He stuck a short fuse to a hole in the ball and lit it. "Um, you guys know what gunpowder is, right?"
"That thing?" Duran suggested, pointing at the lit ball.
"I mean, what it does?"
The three shook their heads.
"You guys might want to stand back now - "
BOOM!
An explosion rocked the cave. Fighter, Amazon and thief were thrown to the opposite end of the room, their flights cut short by the far rock wall, which they painfully slammed into (but didn't hurt them physically because, Goddess, that would just be crazy talk, getting hurt by hitting a wall).
"If those damn Porons ever get a hold of this gunpowder, I will kill someone. Brutally and painfully."
Sorry for the lack of updates... I don't really have an excuse, other than all the other ideas I had weren't as good as these. Writing's not exactly a skill I can simply tap; I have to be patient and wait for it.
I'm glad I did though. The Disney references really came out of left field and the chapter pretty much wrote itself. I was briefly considering the idea of a Britney Spears routine, but I'm sure you're all happier without it.
A singing, scantily-clad dwarf and two equally-scantily-clad back up dancer dwarves dance in, the lead singing in a decidedly-sexy-like voice, "Oh baby baby - "
"You can't stop us, baby! You KNOW you want us!"
MAKE THE BAD IMAGERY STOP!
Thursday, July 28, 2005