It was dark in The Pit. And dank.
If Steven had ever wondered what several tons of meat in various stages of digestion and decay smelled like, there was no longer any need. The Beast seemed to have been spitting up a lot of things and leaving them on ledges within The Pit itself. Steven supposed Executioner Bailiff probably didn't jump into The Pit looking for things his beloved pet had failed to swallow.
Steven didn't know how deep The Pit went, but he'd managed to land on a ledge a number of feet down. Below him, partially coiled around its own body and partially resting on a particularly wide ledge, lay The Pit Beast, snoring softly to itself. Apparently it did sleep.
It seemed prudent to collect all the metal on one of the upper ledges and then heave it out of The Pit, rather than going all the way to the top for every load. There was far more metal down here than Steven could hope to bring up all at once. And he hadn't even gotten a close look at The Beast itself yet. Though of course he'd already gotten closer than he would have liked.
At this range, even though only a faint circle of light penetrated from the top of The Pit, Steven could see The Beast had a number of sores on its body that probably weren't usually there. He supposed they were caused by The Beast rubbing against the metal it had spat onto ledges as it lunged in and out of The Pit. The horrible stinking slime he'd encountered on the dagger and gold bar he'd unburied was present, oozing thickly from The Beast's open jaws and puddling underneath it.
Though he didn't have a weak constitution, Steven nonetheless felt a little might nauseous from the smell, and the sickly squelching noise he generated as he began to move along the slime bedecked ledges towards the recumbent and snoring Beast made him feel a little ill as well.
When he reached the ledge on which The Beast rested (really it was more of a platform, being much wider than any of the other ledges Steven had traversed to reach it), Steven became aware that the electric blue portions of The Beast's body (which was the majority of it) glowed faintly. Up close, what had looked like black spots at a distance were revealed to be rough, somewhat sharp protrusions that seemed as if they might be made of igneous rock.
Steven had gotten a close look at The Beast's 'head' before, but always in motion, and usually while he was sick with fear that it might eat him. Right now he was just sick from the smell, though he did feel significant dread about what might happen to him should The Beast suddenly waken.
Three tentacles reached out beyond The Beast's actual mouth, each as long as Steven was tall, and were tipped by claws like the talons of a falcon that were each as long as Steven's arm. They formed a ring around the actual jaws of The Beast, which most people never lived to tell the tale of having seen.
The mouth of The Beast was basically a round, purplish pink hole ringed with row after row of razor sharp teeth. Teeth which, at present, had metal of every conceivable kind caught in them. The entire mouth of The Beast was coated thickly with dark green slime.
Actually climbing into the mouth of The Beast seemed like a huge mistake, but that's what Steven had come down here to do, and he figured that he should do that sooner rather than later, or else risk getting literally caught in The Beast's throat when it awakened.
Normally the area past the teeth rows was contracted, so Steven couldn't tell what lay beyond. But right now The Beast was relaxed, and Steven could see that it was basically an open tube past the teeth, coated in slime but otherwise not terribly menacing. He could also see more bits of metal, such as a sword a few feet in, half buried in The Beast's flesh. Unhappily, he knew he'd have to actually climb into The Beast itself, not merely reach in and pick bits of gold bars and daggers and arrowheads out of The Beast's hundreds of teeth. It was an unlovely proposition, but there was no backing out now.
Freedonia needed her Pit Beast, and this seemed the only way to save it.
So Steven took a deep breath and carefully crept into The Beast's mouth, stepping over each ring of teeth as he came to it. Just past the last ring of teeth, Steven must have stepped on something sensitive or else The Beast was having some kind of weird dream, because it suddenly gave a low moan and shifted. The movement knocked him prone and, for a moment, he was caught full in its contracting throat, but after a few seconds of this, it let him go and relaxed again with a gurgling sigh.
This actually happened a couple of times as Steven worked his way down The Beast's throat until he stopped finding any more bits of metal. The Beast held onto him longer each time, and there was something quite distressing about the tone its sighing took each time it released him. Steven didn't like any part of it, but somehow the sighing moan at the end was the most unsettling.
At least The Beast didn't seem to be too sensitive when it came time for him to yank blades and arrows and other sharp bits of metal out of the sides of its throat. He supposed that if you were going to swallow live prey whole (which seemed to be what The Beast ate by design), you had to have a pretty tough throat, as live prey tended to struggle on the way down.
Back outside The Beast's throat, Steven pulled bits of things from the teeth of the creature, and then began the slow and laborious work of moving the metal from ledge to ledge. There were several pounds worth of swords, metal bits of shield, armor, pieces of money and arrowheads. And of course it was all loose stuff, and there was always something trying to fall off the top of the pile and into the black depths of The Pit. The effort left Steven gasping for breath, and then choking on the stench.
For a time he almost forgot The Beast itself, preoccupied with making sure he didn't miss a single piece of metal, and ensuring that the stack stayed on each ledge long enough for him to climb up. Then he had to take items from the stack without rendering the stack unstable so he could make a new stack on a higher ledge. And so the process repeated.
Somewhere near the top of the ledge, he was disturbed by a sudden noise below. Looking down, he saw that The Beast was moving. It yawned widely, belched, and then slowly raised its head. The clawed tentacles seemed to spot Steven and The Beast regarded him for a long moment as he crouched next to a huge pile of metal. Then something very strange occurred.
Even though The Beast seemed to have no expression, Steven suddenly got the impression that it was trying to look pleased, or perhaps affectionate, or maybe even...
Steven had not noticed a tongue in its throat, but evidently it had one somewhere back there, for it suddenly lunged forward and planted something sloppy, wet, warm and squishy on him. Steven tried not to shudder at the moist thing wrapped briefly around him, squeezed and then withdrew, leaving him more slimy than before and now soaked and dripping as well.
The Beast then sat back and watched the rest of the metal removal process with apparent approval. As best Steven could tell, it was grateful. He still didn't think he'd be doing any recreational jumping into The Pit in future however. For Steven, one trip into The Pit was more than enough.
He also made a mental note to let Executioner Bailiff know that cinnamon didn't actually seem to bother The Beast. Perhaps it was squirrels that The Beast was allergic to.
There was a party for some reason that Steven couldn't quite divine. It seemed that, ever since the reception hall had been built, Lord Spaulding used any excuse to throw a party in there.
Members of the Tredony Consortium were in there, apparently to express their gratitude at not being tossed into The Pit. Faced with the need to cut down on executions, Lord Spaulding had reasoned that the Consortium seemed to be carrying a lot more metal on their persons and so it would be best to cut them from The Beast's diet. Having been down in The Pit himself and having collected metal-based objects formerly belonging to both Aarbyville Pirates and Tredony Consortium, Steven was unconvinced that this was true. In any case the Consortium seemed to be taking this as a declaration of allegiance. The Aarbyville delegation was nowhere to be seen, but Steven knew from Adora that they were not far away, and it was possible that they were massing their forces for something.
But the Burdleyites were present as well, apparently celebrating the fact that the monarch of Freedonia had somehow replanted their forest after some unidentified person had burned it down. By the look Amie gave Steven on hearing this, he suspected her wizard friend had something to do with it. Steven had also found a few items in The Pit that were of Burdley origin. But he'd given everything he'd dug up to Executioner Bailiff, who had done away with all the metal one way or another, so the mystery of the two lost Burdley scouts remained unsolved.
Whatever was being celebrated, it clearly wasn't what Amie and Steven had done, though a number of people who'd seen him jump in The Pit came and congratulated Steven on still being alive, and complimented him on remembering to bathe before attending this event.
"And the knight gets all the credit again," Amie sighed, sipping her mug of cider.
"Credit for jumping into a Pit and surviving," Steven pointed out, "Nobody seems to know why I did it. I don't much want a reputation for recklessness."
"At least you have a reputation," Amie told him, "the only thing anyone seems to know about me is that I make Drunk-Me-Not and Mystic Grog potions, and that I might yell at them for being stupid after I give them their reality escape potions. I do make other potions, you know. And cast spells. But unless it's to get drunk fast or avoid getting drunk at all, nobody's interested."
"Perhaps it's your perspective that needs adjustment," Steven suggested cautiously, declining a drink that Irving the Servant tried to serve him.
"What do you mean?" Amie asked guardedly, her eyes narrowed behind her ever-present mask.
"You think people are stupid," Steven said, "You've told me as much. If that's all you ever think about them, of course you'll be angry at them, and that's all you'll ever see them as. Even if they do something that isn't stupid, you'll explain it as luck or happy accident. You have to practice viewing people in a different light if you want to see them differently. It's your choice, Adept Amie."
"You just don't understand how hard it is to be cruel and not be able to help it. I don't do it for fun, you know," Amie spat, then continued bitterly, "Even if I thought better of people, they still wouldn't be giving me any credit for anything I do around here. Everything of significance that I do is kept secret 'for the good of the kingdom.' Just once, I want to do something that I can get credit for."
"Any idea what that might be?" Steven asked calmly.
"Some," Amie admitted, "When I was looking through the archives for information on the Pit Beast, I found some scrolls concerning something called the Philosopher's Stone. There were hints that the Stone could grant immortality, cure all ailments and even transmute other metals into gold. If I could craft such an item, I'd go down in history with the most famous wizards of all time."
Steven didn't know the names of any wizards besides Amie, but he decided not to say so.
As Amie paused to take another sip of her beverage, Steven noticed some sort of activity towards the middle of the hall. Most of the guests had wandered to the side of the room where the kegs were, leaving a big, open area in the middle of the room. An area of apparently divine flatness, if the sudden brightness coming from the ceiling was any indication.
"It's about time," Amie muttered.
Guard Rupert and Minstrel Rhianwen stood in the middle of the sparkling brightness that had manifested, holding hands. From nowhere, an old man clad in white appeared in midair, and gently floated down to the floor. This was the Officiator. No one knew where he came from, or even if he was a real person at all. What was known was that all marriages were conducted by him. No one knew when the practice had started. In fact, many people thought it had simply always been.
"We are gathered here today," The Officiator began slowly, peering at bride and groom, and then at the surrounding crowd, "Well, actually, I don't know what you all came here for. But these two are here to get married. And so they are. Bye now," with that, he floated up, and gradually disappeared, along with the evidently heavenly light.
With a squeal of delight, Rhianwen threw herself at Rupert, startling him as she flung her arms around his neck and gave him a smooch. Knowing Rupert quite well, Steven could tell he was trying not to blush and that his knees had gone all rubbery but he was trying not to show that either.
"Well I guess now it's a Wedding Reception Hall!" declared Lord Spaulding with raised glass after the room settled momentarily into silence.
There was a great deal of cheering, clinking of glasses, and everyone seemed eager to congratulate everyone else on witnessing such a fine marriage. Steven couldn't help but notice that Rupert and Rhianwen quietly and hurriedly slipped out amidst the chaos.
"Great," Amie remarked sarcastically, sipping her drink again, "There will be new little Ruperts running around the kingdom in no time. Just what Freedonia needs."
After a moment's contemplation, Steven decided to let the slight against his friend slide. This time anyway. It struck him that Amie seemed to be in a surpassingly sour mood, even for her.
"It's not just a lack of credit that's bothering you, is it?" Steven asked gently.
"No," Amie sighed, "It's the Pit Beast. We saved it this time, but if Lord Spaulding doesn't make a new policy for dealing with criminals, this will just happen again."
"I'm sure he knows that," Steven said mildly.
"He does, but he told me to make the decision," Amie replied, "Either we search prisoners before throwing them in The Pit or else we find some other solution besides The Pit for dealing with them. Personally, I'm in favor of granting mercy and a second chance to criminals, but I don't think Lord Spaulding would go for it."
"You?" Steven asked, with raised eyebrows, "You favor mercy?"
"Just because I hate people doesn't mean I want them dead," Amie informed him.
"I suppose I just assumed..." Steven trailed off.
Amie stared at him for a lengthy moment, then said, "I don't believe it. You favor the death penalty? Even after going in The Pit and seeing what it's like for yourself?"
Steven was silent for a moment, then he said, "I used to hate The Pit. And the stocks, for that matter. I didn't care for Freedonia's brand of justice."
"What happened?" Amie asked when he paused.
"A Witch cursed me," Steven replied.
A curious look on her face, Amie said, "You'll have to tell me about that sometime."
"Yes," Steven agreed thoughtfully, "I shall."