Ranma's Pawn
xxx
The ancient dungeons on The Island of Doom...
Actually, 'The Island of Doom' wasn't it's real name. It had never actually been given a real name. It was just an island twenty miles off the coast of Hokkaido that the locals had explored enough to find the eerie ruins. The nickname had stuck.
Home to unimaginable treasures... and monsters...
Theoretically, anyway. None of the local villagers had gone too far into the scary ruins, but until they were properly searched, there could technically be anything down there.
Many have entered... Few have returned. With tongues twisted by madness, these few survivors have told the same tales for thousands of years.
Incidentally, these survivors were usually related to the locals, who were by now making hefty profits off the adventurers who went through their village to the Isle, mostly by selling them equipment, waiting two or three weeks, and then sending a large group of people to hunt down their lost, hunger starved corpses so they could bury them and sell their equipment to the next batch.
Darkness and Doom await all those who venture down the endless stairs and into the Dark Halls of the Guardian
Ninja... Samurai... Sorceror... They have all fallen.
"And so, boy, you must be very careful not to slip when you go down there."
"You're not coming, Oyaji?"
"Me!? No. I'm... guarding the escape route. Very important job."
"Riight. Why am I not surprised."
Ranma took a moment to take a look at the door they were standing in front of. It was an arch made of three slabs of stone, the top of which was covered with arcane glyphs and runes. Two kneeling stone gargoyles were set on that slab, and a pentagram drawn within another circle of runes.
A year ago, in his blissful ignorance, he would have dismissed all of that as theatric imagery by whoever had built this place. Six months ago, he and his father had visited Jusenkyo, the Valley of Cursed Springs. They'd written that off as a load of bull as well. Now they transformed at the touch of cool water. His father into an oversized Panda, and himself into a girl. Now he knew full well that magic was real, just waiting to ensnare the unwary. So he was inclined to treat such places with a little more wary respect than he might otherwise.
"So, Oyaji. You go through a whole bunch of crap from your old sensei-whose-name-you-refuse-to-speak..."
"He was the dread master! He is sealed away, but for him to have died... No, the world is nowhere near so kind and fortunate a place. I dare not utter his name, lest it awaken him and he break free of his imprisonment."
"Yeah, great. So you searched through a bunch of his crap, then made me dig up more of his crap from a secret cache..."
"Digging is good training and I'll not have my son become a slacker!"
"... And then you drag me to these ruins in the middle of nowhere where we spend no less than two months exploring and mapping the tunnels until we find this door. Now the least you could do is explain why."
Genma scratched his jaw as he considered.
"Yes... Yes I suppose so. Very well! According to what the collections of the Master claim... there is a great deal of treasure in there, guarded by a demoness."
Ranma considered this for a long moment, then considered it again given his new knowledge of magics existence. Then he turned away from the door.
"I'm gone. Not fighting a demoness for you Oyaji... bad enough playing bait for guard dogs when I was a kid."
"Let me finish... in our case, the demoness is the treasure. If we play our cards right... she'll have to grant us a wish. For anything."
Ranma froze completely in midstep as that little tidbit entered his ears, percolated, and settled. Then he slowly turned his head to stare at his suddenly-not-so-worthless father.
"A-N-Y-THING? Even... removing curses?"
"It should be well within the powers of the wish to remove the curses." Genma confirmed.
"..."
Ranma spun back to the door with renewed vigor and an unholy gleam in his eyes.
"What the hell are we waiting for then, Oyaji? Lets-"
"Wait-wait-wait! Don't just go rushing in like an idiot! This is a demoness we're talking about here boy... and a powerful one if the scrolls are to be believed. Here... have a look at the picture."
Ranma did... and shuddered. It depicted a skyscraper high, monstrous, only vaguely female creature. The barbed tail of a scorpion, huge leathery wings, a forked tongue hanging out of jaws set with huge tusks and fangs that wouldn't be out of place on a boar or alligator, with flames coagulating around its swept back horns and feverishly glowing red eyes, an eyeball set in a mouth on its stomach, freakish tattoos all over its skin, and incredibly hairy digigrade legs ending in bloodstained talons.
"Okay... that's just plain disturbing on so many levels..."
"Precisely, boy. And remember, I said that's if we play our cards right. Mess up, and you might just be lucky enough that she'll kill you before she eats you."
"... Me. I notice there was nothing in that statement about her killing and eating you Oyaji."
"Of course not. I'll be here, safely outside the magic walls keeping her in there."
"Have I ever said just how much I hate you?"
"Many times. Now get down there and find the demoness, then follow the steps I've outlined on the sheet of paper."
"Yeah, yeah... sheesh."
Ranma pulled a torch out of one of their packs and took a moment to light it before starting down the stairs. There was a slight chill as he passed through the stone arch, as though he'd been splashed with cool water, and suddenly his danger sense began a slow drone.
Great. That meant this was all real. That, or the cavern roof above him was about to fall, anyway. But given that the danger levels seemed to be increasing the further down the stairs he went...
He reached the base of the steps and his danger sense flared as a giant being stepped out of the shadows.
"Well, well... What have we here? A puny mortal..."
Ranma took a moment to stare and mentally compare her with the picture. In actuality, this was something of a letdown... it looked like whoever had drawn the portrait had indulged in no small amount of artistic license. She wasn't anywhere near the skyscraper high behemoth she was depicted as. She was easily just over five times his own height, but nowhere near the Kaijuu levels he'd expected. She had the swept back horns... but rather than being set in a crop of other horns and spines on a bald head, they were poking through a short-cropped mane of fiery yellow and red hair. It looked... vaguely like the flames that the picture showed. If you squinted. Her legs were digigrade and ended in claws, but were, like the rest of her body save the scalp, hairless and notably clean. Her eyes were yellow, not red, and only had a slight glow to them. She had a tail, but it wasn't anything like the depicted chitinous scorpion tail, but rather a thin, leathery, whiplike one. Her tongue might well be forked for all he knew, as she was keeping it in her mouth and her teeth were relatively normal looking, except for the oversized canines. A noticeable lack of wings. And given that she was completely nude, two things were made supremely evident. There were no tattoos of any sort, disturbing or otherwise, and whe wasn't just 'vaguely' female. She was very, obviously, blatantly female.
If Ranma wasn't so busy smacking the crap out of that little voice in his head screaming 'Run the fuck away, dumbass!' he would probably be blushing and stammering at his first exposure to the female form. Instead, he just glanced down and quickly read the outlined 'Step One' on the paper in his hand.
"So, little fool... you seek the treasures of the ancient kingdoms long since laid to waste. But all you shall find here, mortal, is Death... and Darkness."
The demoness leaned down and blew out Ranma's torch like a candle. Deep chuckling washed over him in a soft breeze. Thankfully, step one was relatively simple. Just say, out loud and calmly...
"I call upon the Ancient Laws of the Nine Demon Lords to wager my soul and offer my flesh through the Challenge of the Mind!"
The chuckling stopped. For a moment there was absolute silence followed by a long, deep sigh. Then Ranma's torch reignited with a puff.
"Should have known. Alone... no weapons or armor... I took you for a stupid thief, but you're actually some sort of scholar, aren't you."
"Nope."
"No? Don't try to play me for a fool. Only a scholar could have learned of the Nine Demon Lords and their Ancient Laws."
Ranma ignored the demoness as he made a mark on the paper. Step One towards getting the wish... check.
"Step Two... Win the Challenge of the Mind. Dammit Oyaji, could you be any more obtuse?"
The demoness sweatdropped as the boy in front of her stuffed the folded sheet back into his pocket, grumbling darkly as he did.
"Ah. So you truly are not a scholar then. In which case I'd assume that the one giving you your orders is waiting safely outside the edge of my prison?"
"Soort of, but-"
"NO MATTER! Name your challenge, mortal worm, and I shall win your flesh and soul and that of every other that is sent after you. I've not lost a challenge of riddles for millenia untold."
"You've been down here for quite a while, I guess. What with the underground labyrinth and all. I don't think that many people actually made it all the way here, did they?"
"...So? What does it matter, mortal? I find it difficult to believe that things have changed too much in the past five hundred years."
It was at this point that Ranma proved, despite everything, he really was Genma's son. He couldn't lie worth a damn, didn't have a poker face worth crap when playing cards, didn't like to steal without a reason, had inherited all of the pride and arrogance from both sides of the family and combined them to the point that he was completely incapable of humbling himself enough to drop to his knees and beg for mercy if the situation called for it, and placed the value of 'honor' at roughly two or three hundred times the amount that Genma did, but he instantly understood that he had the upper hand here.
And for a wish that would get rid of his curse, damned if he wasn't going to milk it for all it was worth.
"Oh, well, you know. We might have changed a little bit. For example, lots of us make a point out of bathing regularly now."
"I'd noticed, and am pleased to hear that. Nothing smells worse than unwashed mortals in their filthy, stained rags."
Ranma ignored the way she was sneering at his own dust-covered gi as his mind began to work. The last time the demoness had been visited was back in the times when people would commonly wear armor and carry swords about to stab people that looked at them funny with.
Another common factor was that except for scholars and the nobility, pretty much everyone was completely uneducated. Which meant that while he was several years behind standard Japanese education levels, the demoness was used to matching wits with people who had no education whatsoever, and had no reason to believe that that had changed.
He liked those odds.
"Riddles, huh. Rules?"
"Standard. Three chances to guess a riddle correctly... the first of us to fail loses. The stakes are set. As challenged, I begin. The rungs of a ten foot ladder attached to a floating ship are set one foot apart. If the water is rising at the rate of one foot an hour, how long is it before the ladder is completely covered with water?"
Ranma began sweating heavily. He hated math. He really... wait. He paused and ran over the riddle again. Oh.
"Never, because if the ladder is attached to a floating ship, then the ship stays on top of the water."
The demoness grinned.
"Your turn."
Ranma took a deep breath and tried to think of a riddle. Something tricky, to finish things quickly.
"What is so fragile that when you say its name it breaks?"
"Silence. That one is older than the dawn of time."
Ah, or maybe not.
"My turn. What-"
xxx
Many hours later...
xxx
"Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet everyone misses me when I have flown."
Ranma considered the riddle for several long minutes before answering.
"Time."
"You're much better at this than the last quester who made his way down here."
"You mentioned him a couple of times before. Exactly what...?"
"He tried to fight me. I claimed both his body and soul and cast them into the deepest, darkest abysses of the pits of hell. Pretty standard actually. Then again, he was an irritating prick, all 'I am favored of the gods' this and 'hold still that I might smite thee, fell creature' that. Can't remember his name offhand... Ku- something. Whatever. You, now, I might keep around for a while. Spending eternity guarding treasure gets boring after a few centuries."
"That's nice. I almost feel sorry about using this next riddle... almost. Maybe I'll come back and visit you eventually."
"HA! And you have a sense of humor as well! Bring on your riddle, mortal."
Ranma shrugged and wiped away the trace amount of guilt he felt at playing upon the demonesses weakness. He'd done his best to 'play it fair', and had left this particular riddle as a last resort because he knew that it would be an instant win for him. To be frank, he'd come way closer to being stumped by the demons riddles a couple of times than he was really comfortable with. He was out of other riddles though.
"Okay. What object has keys that open no locks, space but no room, and you can enter but not go in?"
"..."
"Take all the time you need."
xxx
Three increasingly wild and ridiculous guesses followed by a brief explanation on the function of a keyboard later...
xxx
"GRAAAGH!"
"Okay. Step two... check. You look kinda upset."
"Upset? UPSET? Of COURSE I'm upset! I've been challenged and defeated! And not even by an ancient, powerful sorceror, or a warrior blessed by some divinity, but by... AAGH! I'll be the laughingstock of all the hells for the rest of eternity! Demons will talk... the Imps will openly point and laugh! Even the tortured souls will privately mock me! And that... that's nothing compared to when my father finds out about this..."
Well... well... well shit. Goddamn it. The demonesses voice had trailed off to a whisper near the end. Still perfectly audible, but still... Unlike Genma, he had no practice in ignoring upset girls, and right now as she sulked in a corner with thin tear trails coming out of the corners of her eyes, he felt like a grade-A heel.
"So basically, your life is completely and utterly ruined the moment you go back to hell."
"None of your concern, mortal. The treasury is through that door. Leave me to my misery."
"What happens if you don't go back, then?"
The demoness answered dully, as though she couldn't work up enough energy to yell at him.
"The magic of this room is set so that if I fail to protect the treasure, I'm sent back automatically. And even if it didn't, sticking around in this little room for the next few thousand years isn't much better than what'll be waiting for me in hell."
"'Kay. That's all I wanted to know. By the way..." He reread step three as he talked. "If Pops asks, someone screwed up the translation along the way... and there was no wish."
Ranma dropped the sheet and coughed into his hand to clear his throat as the demonesses head began to turn.
"Hear me, Keepers of the Ancient Laws! I call upon you now to fulfill my wish! Let the seals of magic upon this dungeon be broken! Let the Demoness who guards this room be released! Set her free!"
The last word echoed through the room and past the stairs, out the door and resonating through the outside cavern-room where Genma didn't hear it as he'd gotten bored and gone to sleep hours ago. As the word died down, small cracks appeared in the carved seal. Then large ones. Then the whole circle of stone dissolved into dust as the runes on the top slab of the arch splintered off and shattered against the floor.
"Free..." echoed softly through the entire cavern system, like a whisper born of the fleeing magic.
xxx
Next chapter:
"Well, that's a nice thought and all," Said the demoness, "But I think you haven't noticed yet that the door is still sized for a mortal, and there's no other way out."
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A.N.
None of this is my invention. PAWN is a webcomic about the demoness Baalath and a scholarly maiden named Ayanah. Funny, in a sappy DemonxHuman lesbian romance kind of way. (www dot pawn dot se) if you want to take a look at it yourselves. They've got five parts of the story up so far, and still haven't left the dungeon yet.
Of course, I'm not actually using Baalath. Similar setup, very similar, and you'd probably get a good idea of what she looks like with a picture of Baalath, but she's definitely different. Example, in part three, it's made clear that Baalath never actually personally harmed any of the adventurers that made it to her... they just all ran screaming in terror, pretty much. My demoness has, at the very least, consigned one member of the Kuno family tree to an eternity of fiery torment. I mean... not like she can really be blamed, but still.
Also, I didn't really like the way that Baalath slips almost seamlessly from 'I will take your soul!' to 'I will fondle your backside!' Maybe it's just me, though. And they all but come out and detail how Ayanah planned the whole sequence of events out ahead of time.
Meh.