5.


"This is somewhat better than my expectations," Scott was speaking enthusiastically as the two walked. "You know I never played this game before. I thought it was blasphemous!"

Oh, Scotty boy. The fun you've missed. You really fit the bill. But Bobby did not say it aloud; he merely smiled sympathetically at him. "Glad this changes your mind."

Scott suddenly became distant. "Oh. No… it's just that, while you're in it, take everything it has to offer, right?"

Bobby nodded knowingly. "Here we go. Soon we'll meet up with Ray and Hank."


"Now, do I have that spell? No? I'll just look inside my backpack, then. You guys have to wait. Hmmm… I'm sure it was here the last time I checked. All right, let me take out everything…"

Scott poured everything out of his bag. There were a lot of scrolls and a thick book of spells. Ray joined in the search. "Here it is!" he said finally. Giving the scroll to Scott he added, "You're the only one who has enough intelligence to break the scroll."

"Oh, well, great!" Scott weighed the scroll in his hand thoughtfully.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Bobby impatiently asked.

Scott stared guiltily at the scroll. "How does one break a scroll?"


Jean, Emma, Jubilee, Rogue and Jim sat in scandalous silent and horror. Thunder rolled twice and lightning flashed now and then outside.

"I'll go and switch on the lights," Jim said, breaking the silence.

Jean, still in great disbelief, slowly spoke. "I can't believe this. I can't believe what you've said is true!"

Jubilee shook her head. "There is always a snake in a heaven."

"But.. Warren! He's so… so manly!" Rogue protested. "It's impossible!"

"That's what they go for, sweetheart," Emma said coldly. "Manly, big muscles and all that. Warren fits the bill to a Q."

Betsy was almost in tears. "I cannot believe my ears at first, either. But it was so clear! I… I'm not sure anymore…"

Jim watched with a solemn, fatherly heart as she began to break down and cry. Faithfully he went to the shelf, took out a cocoa powder and started to make some hot cocoa.


Used scrolls lay silently before them. Ray watched another fall onto the ground as another unsuccessful spell was cast, or un-cast in Scott's case.

"Scott, you have to do - NOTHING! Just break the seal and then let the spell be!"

"But I can't! I have to know what will happen!"

Bobby sighed. "Don't think! Don't think about anything! Don't expect anything! Just break the scroll and wait!"

"Have you ever stirred your coffee without thinking that you are increasing the entropy of the universe?" Scott asked angrily back.

"Entropy my ass," Ray muttered under his breath and stood up. "Scott, I want to say something."

The two stopped arguing at the tone of his voice.

"I suppose you even think when you pee, don't you, Scott? Or even when you are defecating?" Scott's face turned red, but he said nothing.

"Oh shit! You do!" Bobby said in disbelief.

"Shut up, ice balls," Scott retorted, his face beet red.

"There are times you do think before you act, but now is not the time." Ray glanced at Hank's frozen form. "This is the time not to think before doing. This is the time to take chances without thinking of the consequences."

Scott stared at his feet for a moment. Then to the surprise of them both he cracked open the seal, and a column of comforting green light shot upward before coming down on Hank. Slowly the light seemed to peel away the stony surface of Hank's form.

A moment later Hank, drowsy and slightly disorientated, stood there as if merely a second had passed. He looked about and smiled when he saw the two, but his brows shot up in surprise when he saw Scott.

"Stars and garters, it's Scott Summers! What are you doing here?!"

"Becoming a priest," Scott said stiffly.

Hank laughed aloud. "Oh. You don't have to become. You are a priest." With that Bobby and he laughed aloud together.

While the two laughed until tears formed in their eyes Ray leant over to Scott. "Did my advice work that good?"

It was Scott's turn to smile. "No. I thought while I broke the seal."

Ray's eyebrows rose. "Indeed. Of what?"

Still with that cynical smile Scott replied with pleasure: "You are one son of a female dog."


Their journey, however, was still very long, yet they have no idea what waited for them. The four walked through thick forests, mossy grounds, lichen-covered fields, swamps of foul odour, hills of treacherous slopes and fought countless enemies. Added to their lists of random enemies were foul wizards, slayer orcs, wraiths, darklings, highwaymen,… the list went on that Bobby had three pages long of them.

"It's roughly one day's journey now," Hank said as they rested for the day. Scott was resurrecting Ray who 'died' earlier that day after one intense battle with a team of highwaymen and a foul wizard as their leader. Ray's use of Daze did not affect them, and the highwaymen were immune to Sleep.

"Stop talking, Hank. I'm trying to concentrate. Bobby, remember to cast Cure Poison on him when he appeared. He still has that poison from the highwaymen's dagger."

Ray's body began to glow from inside as Scott pressed his finger against a symbol for Resurrection in his spell book while one hand touching Ray's head. Bobby meanwhile touched Ray's hand as he pressed the Cure Poison symbol in his book.

When he opened his eyes there was light coming out of them, briefly, then it was gone. Ray sat up and Bobby cast Cure Poison quickly, fearing the poison still running in his vein would take effect as immediate as he had been resurrected. Fortunately the tell-tale sign - green light escaping from the outline of Ray's body - was there, and he need no longer to worry.

"Hey," Hank asked as they rested later on, " welcome back to the living. How does it feel to be dead?"

Ray threw a pebble at him; a Magic Stone, actually. It does only minor damage, but it was still painful. "Actually I felt like I was sleeping before these two interrupted my sleep. It was about the best sleep I ever had."

Bobby shook his head. "The ungrateful Lazarus. We should have let him be," he said to Scott. The latter nodded.

"How far are we from the big 'X' ?" Bobby asked.

Hank told him. "We might be there before sunset tomorrow if there were no encounters along the way. By the way, what's out there? What's waiting for us there?"

Bobby knew they waited for him to answer. But he could merely shrug and shake his head. "I don't know, guys," he said finally, apologetically. "I don't know."

After a moment's silence passed Scott burst out. "Well, screw the big 'X'. I'm hungry." He lifted up a rat-like creature and skewered it on a stick. "Fancy something exotic?"

The rest looked at him as if he had just risen from the dead.


So, what's waiting for them? Will Scott eat that thing? Do we even care?