'A' is for Incompetence

‘ThERe wEreN’T ALwaYs DrAGonS iN thE VallEy,’ Eldanord spat in as hushed a tone as he could manage.

‘Well, I’m just saying there weren’t,’ Gray replied.

‘We had a Lich problem,’ Eldanord explained. ‘I thought it would be a good idea if we had some dragons to help us fight them. It’s not my fault they got a little out of hand.’

'You can say that again,' Gray snorted, peaking out from the rock they knelt behind to observe the gaggle of baby dragons.

‘I mean, how was I supposed to know they’d choose sex over killing zombies?’

‘No, quite right, I’d have made the same supposition.’

The two wizards eyed each other, Gray shifting his bodyweight from one knee to the other before casting his eyes around the forest canopy above them.

‘Well what about you?' Eldanord asked. 'How’s your little project going?’

Peering down one of the folds in his top Gray noted that only three lights were shining on the amulet, and pretty dimly at that. ‘Not well, apparently.’

‘Well, there you go,’ Eldanord turned his attention back to the baby dragons that were fighting over… over… ‘What is that?’

Squinting Gray said, ‘I don’t know, is it… it looks like… a bag? Like a refuse sack or something?’

‘It would have to be a pretty strong refuse sack to put up with that.’ Eldanord was searching through his pockets for something.

‘Yeah, there's something glooping out of it... A snake? Sausages? Um, do Sausage Snakes exist? Anyways,' he said, shaking his head, 'it isn’t really our problem.’

Eldanord found what he was looking for and held them to his eyes. ‘Ah, Gray…’ he said, passing the opera glasses to the other wizard. ‘I think it might be.’

Annoyed Gray held them to his eyes and adjusted the tiny brass wheel before saying, ‘Oh.’

‘Yes.’

Sighing Gray said, ‘Well, that explains what happened to Azeroth.’

There was a moments respectful silence before Eldanord asked, ‘What, ah… what kit did he have?’

Lowering the glasses Gray thought for a moment and said, ‘He had some rather fine forearm braces.’ Putting the glasses back to his eyes he added, ‘No sign of them I’m afraid.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Umm… Stealth boots.’

‘Are they…?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t he have some very good Night Vision balm?’

‘No, he used all of that in the last cave section.’

‘Oh, right.’ Eldanord rubbed his bearded chin. ‘So nothing salvageable?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Gray said, passing the glasses back. ‘Listen, um, it’s best if we don’t mention this to the others.’

Eldanord nodded. ‘Yes, agreed. Bad for morale etc.’

‘Well, we can't get anything with this lot here, we should best head back.’

Picking up their empty sacks the last two wizards on Faerun made their way back to base.

***

Operations. Observation Room. Ground Control. They had called it many things, and indeed tried it in many places, but somehow they always reverted to this one cramped room which had been dug off the corridor between the kitchen and the bathroom.

Eldanord leaned back in the chair and stroked his chin. Reaching across the desk he moved a crystal, shifting it into the light from the single candle so multicoloured shards were cast onto the wall in front of him. He watched as the shapes coalesced into what looked like bodies slumped against a cavern wall. One of them shook as if wracked by coughs, a crimson mist speckling the floor in front of him before he slid over, a pool of blood soaking silently into the dirt.

Tutting, Eldanord waved his fingers and muttered some words, conjuring up an unseen servant and instructing it to take the bodies back to the edge of the lake next to the labs secret entrance.

The candle flickered as the door creaked open. Eldanord raised his face and was confronted with the terrifying visage of a lich, sunken cheeks clinging to a long-dead skull, dull orange embers burning deep within its eye sockets. ‘Alright Tommo,’ it rasped. ‘Training not going well?’

Eldanord bristled, once again regretting the drunken night when he revealed his given name to his ‘friends’ assembled at the table. ‘It’s Eldanord,’ he corrected. ‘And no, they’ve been killed again, by the kobolds this time.’

‘Bloody hell, I’m never going to meet them at this rate’. The dark liches bones clacked and grated as he maneuvered himself into the other empty seat, a gentle waggle of his bony fingers causing steam to rise from a mug of brown liquid. ‘Where are the biscuits?’

‘None left I’m afraid, Gray must have finished them on the night shift.’

Gray. Mage name Strombillero. Called himself The Great Strombillero, but as far as Eldanord knew the only great thing he had done was hide from the Undead Tide when it rolled through the campus eradicating all the other wizards.

‘I shall crush him when this is done,’ was the liches response, punctuated with the cracking of knuckles as he picked up the mug and brought it to his parched lips.

‘Well never mind, I think we need some more volunteers,’ he said, nodding at the image of the battered corpses being dragged down the roughly hewn tunnel. ‘We’ll try for a trip to The Farm tomorrow and see if we can find some biscuits for you then.’

‘But they were my favourite, I told him not to eat them all.’

Eldanord sighed. This was his life now, herding a group of suicidal cats at the behest of a bunch of immature brats. ‘We’d best get Jill down there to do her thing.’ He reached for the silver hand bell on his desk.

Lurid blue electricity leaped from the liches extended pinky, shocking Eldanord before he touched the bell. ‘I do it,’ the lich chimed with glee.

Nursing his stinging hand, Eldanord watched as the undead arsehole picked the bell up and tinkled it noiselessly, the exasperated face of the alchemist appearing on its glossy surface moments later.

‘What now?’ she growled. ‘They haven’t died again have they?’

‘Yes. They died. You fix them then come to dinner with me?’

Jill smiled and said ‘Oh, Grolf, I’ll fix them, but I’m so far behind on my work...’

‘Ok, I come to you,’ replied the lich with a rictus grin.

‘Maybe Grolf, but if I don’t get my work done the whole project grinds to a halt.’

‘I come to you with… Peak-neak,’ This sounded very much like the first time the lich had tried to use this word, the syllables drawn out almost beyond recognition.

‘Helms Balls, would you two cut it out?’ Eldanord said, snatching the bell off the undead lord. ‘Jill, we appreciate your work. These ones were bashed about pretty bad, could you give them a once over and let me know how many more resurrections they have in them?’

‘Oh, hi Eli, yeah, no problem. Has Finchley dragged them back yet?’ She insisted on using the pet name the others had given the unseen servant, despite Eldanord telling her it was likely a different corporeal entity each time.

Checking the crystal image on the wall he replied, ‘Ahh, yeah, just dropping the last one down now.’

‘Ok, I’ll get on to it,’ she said, ringing off but not before the lich shoved his way back into view, eyes flaring briefly as the tiny crystal she wore on a necklace plunged back into the alchemists ample cleavage.

‘You’re an animal Grolf’.

‘What? I’ve been dead for five hundred years, women haven’t been so... accessible... to me.’

‘Well she may well be the last viable woman on Faerun so she’s not for you.’

‘Because you want her for yourself?’

‘At least I’d be saving the human race.’

‘I could save them,’ the lich retorted.

‘With what? The mother of all res-erection spells?’ The lich seethed at this. Eldanord didn’t like to think what might be passing through the malevolent pit that caricatured its mind. ‘Anyways, I have some spells to prepare if we’re going to get you some more biscuits tomorrow.’

The lich regarded him for an uncomfortably long moment before creaking out of his chair and leaving the room. Eldanord relaxed a little, but knew he’d face worse in the morning - anything aboveground was enemy territory, and each time they ventured out they risked their lives, not to mention they'd have to steal they're 'volunteers' right from under the liches heavily fortified and defended camp. Shuddering, he reached for his most well-thumbed spellbook.

***

Jumping up Jill grabbed the mushroom pate sandwich that was the cause of her leaving her usual station in the lab. Gods how she was sick of mushroom… and the term ‘pate’ was very loosely applied here. She would literally kill for some meat and fresh vegetables, salivating at the thought of a nice juicy tomato or some crispy lettuce.

Back in the lab she scanned the jars on the shelf, selecting one containing yellow granules and another of crushed herbs, both nearly empty. Extracting a spoonful of each she deposited them in a round bottomed jar, its glass scratched and scorched from years of use. This she clamped over a small burner which she lit with a taper from one of the many thick candles in the room. She cast a practiced eye over the equipment - a glass dome was suspended above the pot of pitch and the round bottomed jar, designed to collect the vapours which were transferred by a hose to a condensing coil and small flask where the essence would drip, drip, drip over the next twenty minutes or so. This she would turn into a salve or a drink, depending on what it was meant to heal. Sliding open a drawer she took out a tin of clear gunk, frowning at its slightly tarnished hue, she mumbled ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ before measuring out a healthy spoonful and tapping it into a mixing bowl. ‘If they want better ointments they’ll have to get me better ingredients.’.

It would take a little while for the vapours to burn off so she busied herself with other tasks, taking note of what they had and what they’d need. The latter list was depressingly the larger of the two and she chewed the end of her pencil mulling this problem over.

If she upped the concentration of herbs and dropped the pollen the physical wounds would heal more but leave nerve or tissue damage under the skin. Her eyes strayed to the large jar at the end of the bench containing a puddle of phosphorescent liquid. There was no doubt that she’d have to make another run to the well, tomorrow, maybe the next day but definitely before the weekend. ‘Weekend,’ she chuckled at the archaic reference to a time long gone. Next to the glowing jar stood a framed etching showing herself with a dwarf, and a human fighter; a timely reminder that this particular journey contained a larger element of risk than she was perfectly comfortable with.

***

Gray reached up, touching his gently vibrating earing and sent a pulse of will through it, completing the connection. Jills voice swam into his ear a moment later.

‘Hey Gray, how’s it going?’

‘Good Jill, just packing the last few things for the trip out.’

‘Okay, I need you to grab me a few things if you can.’

Gray winced before saying, ‘No problem, what do you need?’

‘I’ve scribbled a list, send Finchley to pick it up.’

A list, just adding one or two things was a major pain in the… ‘No problem, I’ll send him now.’

‘Good, good.’

Jill seemed hesitant. ‘Was there anything else Jill?’

‘Yes, I’m going to need to make a trip to the well.’

Gray’s breath got tight. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘When?’

‘We used a lot of Juice on Azeroths team. I know I have enough for one more batch so it depends how these guys do but… probably before the weekend.’

‘That soon? Can we not eke it out a little more?’

‘I’m eking as much as I can, Gray,’ Jill said. ‘Even with just the three of them I’m only healing them enough to get them back on their feet, which is why they’re falling so easily I guess.’

‘Yes, that makes sense,’ Gray said, thinking about the kobold battle.

‘But look, if I could get some more Juice we might be able to get them right through to Graduation.’

Graduation. A wry smile formed on his face. So euphemistic. ‘Okay, look, don’t go on your own. If Eldanord and I aren’t back take Grolf.’

Gray couldn’t be sure but Jill may have suppressed a chuckle. ‘No, I think I’d be safer on my own.’

Gray smiled. ‘Okay, look, just wait for us to get back then okay?’

‘Okay, take it easy out there.’

‘I will, I’m sending Finchley now.’

‘K, bye.’

The earing crackled with cold as she wrung off. Damn, they really had pinned a lot of hope on Azeroth’s party. He rolled a hood into a tight cylindrical shape and stuffed it into a corner of his knapsack before going to his shelf and selecting a number of pouches and tiny stoppered bottles. He didn’t expect trouble but as his old Master said ‘prepare to fail and you will succeed’.

The next day this sort of wisdom would get the pair of wizards all the way to The Farm before failure noticed they were gone and hastened to catch up to them.

***

Miranda stared off into the middle distance, letting the sunlight flood over her pallid skin. She had chosen a spot equidistant from the pophole to the chainlink fence, the scars on her legs and back testament to what happens if you didn't keep your distance.

Closing her eyes as she squatted Miranda clenched her jagged teeth as hard as she could, one hand reaching down to grab a handful of coarse grit, sieving it through the fingers of both hands to catch a reasonably fine dust.

It wasn’t coming. Exhaling she tried again, squeezing her eyes and concentrating for what felt like an eternity before the hot spray of liquid hissed onto the ground. Once it stopped she dusted the fine powder between her legs and down the face of each thigh, rubbing whatever she had left under each armpit. Dignity had long since abandoned this place.

Standing she noticed another girl gawking at her, green eyes peering out from her pale, grimy face. The girls hands crabbed through her tangle of dark hair, stopping occasionally to pull something out, inspect it and either flick it away or pop it into her mouth. SHe smiled at Miranda, revealing that she, too, was missing many of her front teeth.

'What are you looking at?' Miranda snarled, but to her surprise no noise came out.

With an audible snap her world went black.

She gasped as she was upended, the ground seemed to fall away. Miranda pinwheeled her arms and legs in an attempt to stabilise herself, wind whistling as she flew through the air, a painful shower of thorns and branches arresting her movement. Someone grabbed her hair and tugged her, pulling her back in a jerking motion. She grabbed her assailant by the wrist and, twisting her torso, Miranda sank what remained of her teeth deep into her attackers flesh. A series of blows rained down on her, forcing her to let go but not before the coppery tang of blood filled her mouth. She crashed to the ground, blinking hard as daylight returned.

‘Stop. STOP!’ a voice said. There was a man, wearing a colourful cloak of many greens and purples, with traces of pink and yellow too. His hands outstretched in front of him as he pleaded, ‘We’re not here to hurt you, we’re flaming saving you for Azuths sake!’

Blood ran down his arm, dripping into the scrubby grass at his feet.

‘Saving me?’ Her voice was a palpable shriek.

‘Saving you, yes, we’re here to take you away.’

‘Oh, a toofer,’ came a voice behind him. An older man stepped into view, dressed in much darker robes and with both his hands raised in a similarly placating manner. ‘It’s okay, we’re the good guys.’

Risking a glance behind her she saw the other girl, the one who had been picking lice from her hair, huddled in a protective ball in the middle of the same bush.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ A tremor crept into Mirandas voice as her eyes flicked between her two assailants.

‘It’s your lucky day sweetheart,’ said the man inspecting his wrist.

‘We have chosen you to lead the fightback,’ continued the other guy.

Mirandas eyes tried to take in everything around her as she shook her head and asked, 'Fightback?’

‘Against the lich, against the undead…’, the first guy began, using his sleeve to staunch the blood that was trickling down his arm.

She flung herself back onto her feet and bolted, uphill, away from the camp and the lunatic that had pulled her from it. She managed ten steps before her foot snagged on something, sending her crashing to the ground, limbs awry. Trying to get up she found the roots on the ground had wrapped around her, pinning her to the spot. ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Let me go! I have to get away!’

Her world went silent again but this time she could see the two men gesticulating, one at her, the other towards the fence, where a series of black orbs appeared, two on the near side of the fence and one from within, which proceed to float up into the air, drifting towards them in spurts and fits as if caught by an erratic wind. Both men reached into the darkness as it arrived, pulling it down to their feet before the black dissipated revealing another naked figure, scrambling backwards, looking from one man to another. Then she noticed the figure wasn’t quite naked- it had a belt, from which hung the unmistakable coil of a Quartermasters whip.

***

It was a noise no living human could make, like the old childhood trick of blowing through a blade of grass between your palms, but this air vibrated long dead vocal chords and was powered by pure hatred. It could only be interpreted as one thing - ALARM! – and it rang shrill across the valley.

Eldanord cut it off with a well aimed silence spell, but not quite soon enough and now answering alarms echoed all around them.

‘Balls,’ said Gray.

'Get the runner back up, we need to leave.’ Eldanords arms worked the magic in the air, plunging different zombies into balls of darkness before they could home in on them.

‘What about this one?’

Eldanord hesitated. On the one hand they needed every body they could get, on the other…

QuarterMasters. Not undead; very much living people who had bargained their way into positions of authority. Authority over their naked, grubby kin crammed shoulder to shoulder inside the barn, magically rid of disease but not of the faeces they were caked in. Kin that were coshed on the head and harvested for whatever bodyparts the lich generals needed. ‘Leave her, she’s a fucking QuarterMaster,’ Eldanord spat at her.

Gray levelled his staff, the blunt tip pressed hard against the quartermasters scrawny, naked chest. ‘Slowly, the whip.’

‘I’m not a bad one,’ the girl said, unclipping the whip, holding it up for Gray to take.

‘Toss it over there,’ he said. ‘Out of reach.’

She did so, adding ‘It’s just a job.’

A ball of fury slammed into the prone quartermaster catching both wizards by surprise.

It was the other girl, the toofer. ‘You killed my son!’ she screamed, raining blows down with her fits, elbows, knees - the ferocity was overwhelming.

There was another zombie shriek off to their right, and an answering cry far too close now. The wizards glanced at each other. 'You get this one, I'll get the other one.

Gray wrapped his arms around the waist of the girl on top, scooping her up and throwing her over his shoulder. Years of emaciation had reduced most of the prisoners to just skin and bone, despite the daily exercises they were forced to do in the yard before each meal. The girl still thrashed, lashing out at his head and kicking uselessly at the folds of his cloak. ‘Stop. STOP!’ Gray commanded. She did, instantly, going slack at the command of the spell. Gray hesitated, ‘You sure we should leave her?’

‘Yes,’ Eldanord narrowed his eyes at quartermaster. ‘We have what we came for, leave her for her Masters.’

‘Wait,’ she pleaded, kneeling now, grabbing at the hem of his cloak. ‘You have to take me - I can help.’

‘Get your bloody hands off me.’

‘No, I'm innocent,’ she said, turning her palms upwards. ‘Honestly, I just handed out the food.’

‘You handed out death!’ he screamed, a wave of force seeming to boil from his outstretched hand, sending the quartermaster tumbling away.

The wizard turned, issuing a spell-ridden command to the girl who had tried to run. Her root-based bindings melted back into the earth allowing her to rise and fall laconically into step.

Gray gave one last look at the Quartermaster, whose body was shaking in a fit of coughs as the dust settled around her. It wasn’t just that they had bargained their way into a better position – it was the fact that the undead, the zombies, had one job – to keep enough people alive to supply whatever bodyparts were needed for the ongoing war between their lich masters - and they couldn't do that job without the complicity of the Quartermasters. They were the ones who enforced the laws, who made sure that everyone in the camps remained fit, healthy, and ready to have an arm or a leg cleaved off at a moment’s notice. They traded their brothers and sisters, their sons and their daughters, for a little bit of comfort for themselves. Without them, without their brutality, the regime could not exist.

Shaking his head Gray turned, hunching low and ducking through the undergrowth to catch up to the others. As he reached the treeline there was a crash and a series of reedy shrieks - zombies burst forth from three different points in the clearing.

Now here's the thing about zombies - everyone thinks they are slow and aimless, shambling along or at most lurching haphazardly after their prey. They are not. They do not feel pain. When they are cut they do not bleed. Ripping whole muscles off is a minor inconvenience - the spirit which imbues them simply uses a different set of muscles to propel themselves... their bodies are mere machines that can be patched up with fresh parts when need be. And the milky eyes of all three zombies locked onto a set of these fresh parts that was trying to get away. All three zombies broke into a run towards Gray.

Yelping in horror Gray threw himself through the bushes, damn near tripping over Eldanord and the rescuees as he did so. 'Shit!' he exclaimed, making frantic move it gestures as he did so. 'Go!'

Eldanord, eyes wide, grabbed the other wizard, pulling him down and gesturing frantically to the woods in front of them. Not thirty feet away sat a fully grown dragon.

Gray's jaw dropped as the dragons head swung in their direction, it's golden eyes narrowing with menacing intent.