Both wizard and farmer stared at one another, off and on, throughout lunch. Anxiety was painted across each face, but for different reasons: the Wizard was considering how to approach Angela about the missing Necronomicon. The book itself was a gorgeous volume bound in green leather and gold-rimmed pages, giving the impression that the contents inside were nothing abhorrent or apocalyptical. Angela, on the other hand, while the Wizard was watering her plants, noticed on her calendar that today was Spring 14th: the annual Flower Festival, in which girls and boys, men and women, who were going steady went out during the late evening to the church square to watch the blossoming trees. Angela, now that she lost her perpetual third wheel, and the fact that Vivi was usually out like a light immediately after dessert, was contemplating on how to ask the Wizard to the festival. The lunch went on in uncomfortable silence, Vivi occasionally breaking the silence as she attempted to eat her salad with her large and clumsy frog tongue.
Finally, the Wizard spoke up as Angela got up to clear the table. "I'm sorry..." he blurted out quietly.
"Oh, are you still going on about this morning? You did your time, now relax. You know, we still need to find out which Ancient One to summon. I was thinking Shub-Niggurath..."
"No, Angela, I..."
She turned to meet his eyes. Oh my gosh, is he going to...
"I lost the Necronomicon." He spat out quickly. The Wizard hated confrontation, and always lived a life of pleasing others as quickly as possible (though rare it may be) so that he could return to his hermit life. Angela only stared, looking utterly disappointed. "I'm sorry..."
Damn! She thought. I was definitely thinking of something else... "Don't worry about." She quickly scrambled to resume her normal bubbly self. "Hey, don't feel bad. I know I was all for using it to defeat Inazin, but..." she trailed off. That was her only plan of attack against her childhood friend. If not the Necronomicon, then what could possibly be used to take down a giant man covered in fishy scales with the head of a octopus? A harpoon the size of Castanet? A pressure began to build up around her, a force squeezed her lungs. Am I having a panic attack? She turned back to the sink where she left the lunch dishes, filling the basin full of soapy water. Seeing the Harvest Goddess now became a matter of top priority.
"Angela, do you think Inazin took it?"
She shrugged, keeping her back to him. It was possible: after all, that was who she got the book from. Or maybe Corona? Those two were likely still in cahoots, although he made no appearance at the Garmon Mines. It was originally his book before it was Inazin's. "It's possible, I guess. How did you lose it in the first place?"
The Wizard regaled her with the whole story of sneaking out to look through the grimoire atop the roof under the night sky when he seemed to fall asleep. When he awoke the next day, the book was gone.
"And you didn't hear or see anything?"
"No, nothing..." He searched and searched his memories, but nothing came to mind. "No, it was a very calm and peaceful night." He stood from his chair. "I think I need to return home."
Angela was startled, but the Wizard was prepared. "Only for a few hours. I may be able to pick up the book's whereabouts on my crystal ball."
"Or better yet, you could bring it here."
The Wizard looked puzzled. "Why?"
"Because you've gotten us into a real pickle here. Suppose Inazin did take the book, and decides to awake another Ancient One? Perhaps a lesser one, there are those in the book too. We need to come up with another plan of attack here now that the only idea we could come up with to combat Cthulu has now gone AWOL." Her shoulders slumped. The more she thought about the missing book, the lower her spirits dropped. That is, until an idea popped in her head, and she'd rather the Wizard not be around to get in her way.
"I suppose I could do that. And I need a few other things as well..." He turned to leave, opening the door. He hesitated with one foot in the house and one outside. "Just be careful while I'm gone. Don't let anyone in, and if...someone comes by threatening you, take Vivi and run to the Goddess. I'll hurry back." He rushed out the door. Angela hurried over to the window to watch him leave, but he was already gone.
A breeze shook the house, causing Angela to jump. Vivi gave her an incredulous look: What's got you so worked up? When the wind calmed and Angela convinced herself it was just one of nature's anomalies, another breeze shook the house even harder. Her old wooden furniture rumbled against the force, and her dishes and silverware clinked together. Angela held herself, rubbing her upper arms, her eyes darting all over the house, jumping every time the light changed and the shadows shifted. Despite herself, Vivi felt a little sorry for the farmer, and, abandoning any hope of eating her entire salad, hopped off the table and sat next to where Angela had folded into herself. She hated being alone, and what's more she hated to be hunted while alone. But the attempt at empathy from the pink frog filled Angela with a faint wave of hope, and she scooped the little creature up and held her close.
"I always had someone around," she consoled to Vivi. "All my life, I always had someone around, whether it was for guidance, companionship, or to help me against threatening magical forces. Never was I actually alone for more than an hour my whole life Vivi. If no one else, Grendel was always by my side, and if she refused to turn back into a human she walked me through what I needed to do to defend myself with my limited magical abilities. Now..." She took another precautionary glance over her shoulder, only seeing wall behind her. "Now, I'm alone. I trust the Wizard will come back, but who knows when?"
Vivi, unable to speak as a frog, only shrugged her small froggy shoulders. Angela suddenly felt very selfish, looking down at Vivi's sad state of body. At least Angela could do something: if she wasn't around, Vivi would have to fend for herself. Another wave of hair blew by, but Angela furrowed her brow and stood up, keeping Vivi in her hands. Her face was full of determination, and her eyes were challenging. Maybe it was just the weather, maybe it was Inazin playing games with her head. Either way, it didn't matter: like it or not, for the time being she was alone and it was high time Angela stopped pitying herself and do something productive. So the Necronomicon was gone, so what? She had something that could be just as useful up her sleeve: A deceased grandfather and enough necromancy supplies to reanimate an entire army. She sat Vivi on her safe haven of pillows, and went straight to work. Not before placing a slice of lemon meringue pie she got from the Brass Bar earlier in the day. Vivi looked up at her.
"For listening," Angela smiled. Vivi, never needing social etiquette when it came to sweets, dropped her face into the pie and began swallowing chunks like a shark engulfing a school of fish.
On his way out, the Wizard made sure to swipe one of Angela's crate he used the night before to pile supplies in it. He felt slightly winded after using a transportation spell (he never used them enough to where when the time came he could pull one off with aplomb), but he set to work, tossing books, potions, powders, relics and more into the crate. As for his prized possession-his crystal ball, next to his telescope in his heart-he had a special case to carry that in with plenty of padding. Unfortunately, the Wizard never really learned how to transport himself and objects to a location at one time, so he knew to only take what was absolutely necessary. When he felt the crate was full to satisfaction, he pulled a polished wooden case from a high shelf over his bed and clicked the locks open, revealing the insides lined with down and cloth to cushion the crystal ball. He turned back around to pick up the ball when it felt as if his lungs were emptied entirely of oxygen. An ominous black glow had surrounded his master's old crystal ball; beneath the glass clouds of blood red raged, as if a storm were brewing. The Wizard had never seen anything like it happen to the ball, not even when he was studying under his master so many centuries ago. Slowly, he approached the small table hold the ball, afraid something might jolt from it and attack him. It wasn't such a stretch of the imagination: after all, in a world where necromancers summoned demons bent on total annihilation, why couldn't a bolt of magical lightning erupt from his crystal ball and strike him? Could one of those lesser creatures Angela mentioned hide inside a crystal ball...? He wondered, never taking his eyes away from the orb.
As he got ever so closer, a voice, low and commanding, came from the crystal ball. A little closer, it said. The Wizard jumped a little further back, holding up his right forearm like a shield.
"Who are you?" He demanded.
You'll know soon enough. I'm a friend, nonetheless.
"Why should I believe you?"
You shouldn't, all things considered. But I am.
He was still weary of this new inhabitant who decided to take unwelcomed residence in his beloved crystal ball. "Then...what do you want?"
Only to make myself known. I'm grateful that you'll no longer be using my abilities to fulfill the lustful desires of this island's youth culture, I must admit. The voice's hint of humor was not lost on the Wizard, but did little to soothe his precautionary mood.
"You've made yourself known. Now what?" The Wizard began to inch his way back over to the ball, but even slower than before.
Not much. Except the need for the Necronomicon is unnecessary.
Perplexed, the Wizard decided this voice was no immediate threat, and pursued his now piqued curiosity. "If not the Necronomicon, then what? What are Angela and I to do to stop Inazin and Cthulu?"
It's not you or Angela who will stop Inazin and his gang.
"'His gang'? What do you mean? And who else will stop the oncoming calamity?" The Wizard was feeling annoyed now, and the voice choosing to speak in riddles was not helping.
There is more than one behind the summoning and commanding of Cthulu. And while you two will not play a direct hand in saving humanity, you two will prepare the one who will. In fact, only you and Angela can prepare the savior of all.
Before her, wrapped in a familiar column of light, emerging from a drawn circle of symbols and runes, knelt an aging man with a bald head but a full beard and mustache, the former of which reached to his chest. His eyes were missing from their sockets, but Angela knew every wrinkled, the characteristic designs on his cloak, and that snow white beard from anywhere.
"Grandpa?" She asked in a small voice. Vivi, having finished her pie long before Angela resurrected her grandfather, had sought shelter from the ruckus and the scary looking figure underneath the bedding. A small lump in the center of the blankets and sheets trembled.
The old man heard her, and looked Angela in the face with his unseeing eyes. "Angela...how long has it been?" His voice was old and dry, like the desert sands that they once lived in.
Angela began to choke up a little, and it took her a minute to answer. "Well over fifty years Grandpa."
"Where have you been, my dear?"
It hurt to hear him ask the question. When the dead is brought back through necromancy, they have absolutely no concept of their present state. Knowing his was dead for half a century and he not even know it felt like Angela was caring for an aging relative who was well in the grips of dementia. There was no point in trying to explain to the dead that that was in fact what they were; a necromancer and anyone else present during the ceremony and who wish to communicate with the dead had to simply play along. "Around. Grendel and I have been to many, many places." She looked down at her hands as they rested against her cloaked thighs. To her left sat the vials of unfermented grape juice and salt, to her right her staff and chalk. "I'm glad you recognized me Grandpa. Happy, in fact. I was a very little girl when you...I mean, when we last saw one another."
"Of course I recognized you. You're the spitting image of not your father or your mother, but of both. A perfect harmony of their most striking physical characteristics, like your father's eyes and your mother's small figure."
She blushed at that last observation. Jeez, leave it to a grandparent to point out when their little grandbabies finally become adults. "Grandpa, I have a question."
He chuckled. "You always did. Go ahead."
"Well, you see, the world is in trouble, and Grendel, the Wizard-a friend of mine whom I just recently met-and I do not know what to do. Someone...we don't know who, but someone summoned Cthulu through the Necronomicon. We don't know how to stop it. If you would close your eyes-" it gave Angela chills to say that to someone so clearly missing that important piece of anatomy, "-and concentrate, do you think you'd know what we should do?"
Simon was still a moment, looking past Angela at nothing in particular: Angela knew this to be one of her grandfather's quirks when he was considering an idea or issue. Finally, he bent his head and indeed closed his empty eye sockets and was even more still than before for some time. Angela began to grow a little worried, wondering if she had done something wrong, when his head suddenly lifted. With a smile, he answered her.
"You need to do nothing."
"What? Grandpa, have you lost your marbles?"
He laughed. "No, they're lying around here somewhere." That was his trademark answer whenever she asked him that, for as long as she could remember. "Trust in me, my dear. Have faith." He scanned his granddaughter from head to toe, stopping momentarily at her abdomen, then coming to a rest at her eyes. "Have faith. I love you very much, Angela."
She smiled, though his answer gave her no comfort, to hear him say that again after so long lifted her beyond the clouds. "I love you too, Grandpa." Slowly, his form began to melt. It would seem the unseen and unheard governors of the spiritual world felt she had gotten the answer to the question behind her summoning Simon, and they were now dismissing him back to the afterlife. When he was almost out of sight, she thought she heard him utter once more "Have faith", but she couldn't be sure if it actually happened or if it was her imagination. She threw off her cloak, gathered up and put away her supplies, and cleaned the chalk lines up, and the house looked as if nothing ever happened. Except for Vivi's still nervous whimpers. Angela picked up the pendant given to her by her grandfather, put it in her bedside table's drawer, and comforted the shocked Vivi.