A New Party Member Joins!
Ketra’s plan was insane.
I liked it!
Ketra assumed her draconic form and all three of us piled onto her back, this time with no objections from any of us. The vrocks ended up descending upon us almost immediately. Ketra held them back with a blast of lightning that caused several of the creatures to disintegrate back into the nightmarish ectoplasm they were born from.
Seriously, ectoplasm isn’t remotely as cool as they depict it in Ghostbusters. It’s basically liquid evil. I mean, it looks cool, don’t get me wrong. Whenever someone is throwing shadow stuff in a movie or fantasy novel, they’re usually throwing ectoplasm. It’s the raw stuff of the Underworld and comes in immaterial, semi material, and tears through steel like it was tissue paper. The shadow vrocks were made of the latter.
“I hope you know what you’re doing!” I shouted.
“Not a bit!” Ketra said, taking flight across the frozen city before us.
“That’s my job!” I shouted back.
The plan—if you can call it a plan—was just to fly as fast as humanly (dragonly?) possible across the cavern while the shadow vrocks nipped at our heels. I would have preferred something a bit more cautious—and this was me talking—but I certainly couldn’t argue with the results.
“Shoot them!” Ketra called out as our enemies descended from all directions.
Actually, prepared for combat today and rested, I hurled fireballs and lightning at the attacking shadow monsters. The magic tore into their bodies, sending them back into their base otherworldly matter.
“I can’t! I’m holding on!” Trace’e shouted, clinging for dear life to one of Ketra’s wings.
“Coward!” Other Steve shouted, conjuring a demonic great sword and going after a shadow vrock, slashing it across the chest.
As if the universe was punishing his hubris, one of the vrocks struck him across the face and caused him to fly off the side. That would have been a perfectly justified ending to the lawyer blackguard if not for the fact I grabbed him with a glowing hand, then pulled him back.
“You’re welcome!” I shouted, ducking another shadow vrock’s attack before swatting it away with the shapeshifted Merciless Staff.
“Fine! I’ll cast something!” Trace’e said, closing her eyes and lifting her hands in the air before muttering something in very badly pronounced elvish.
Much to my surprise, a glowing nimbus of sunlight appeared around Ketra’s form and incinerated a half-dozen vrocks that had started to claw at Ketra. It also drove the remaining hordes of demonic creatures backward. We were about halfway across the city, and I didn’t hesitate to release a half-dozen more spells off to destroy more of the monsters surrounding us.
Equally surprising to Trace’s magic being useful was the fact that my own spellcasting was far easier in terms of channeling the energies. As much as I’d “cheated” to make it easier than in the books, it was now possible to combine tactics, channeling, and invocation into one easy trio of actions. The link between “real” magic and Dungeon magic had blurred rather than one replacing the other.
I wasn’t sure if Jacob had taught me much about being a god, other than vague platitudes about great power equaling great something or other, but at least I hadn’t entirely wasted my time here. There was an old saying that a complete amateur was more dangerous to a seasoned swordsman than a fellow veteran, and I was proof of that concept. Unfortunately, I could no longer rely on raw power and dumb luck if I was going to survive.
But why do you need skill to survive? I could almost imagine Cloak’s voice speaking to me. You’ve made a paradise, haven’t you? One where superheroes and villains don’t have to fight in the street every week.
It wasn’t Cloak’s actual voice, or Lancel Warren in this case, as it wouldn’t have the mocking tone I was imagining above.
There will always be more fights, I said, not quite convincing myself.
You were supposed to usher the Age of Heroes to its death, the false Cloak taunted me. If not the paradise you created, then what does that mean?
I don’t know, I said, suddenly afraid. That was when I realized I wasn’t just imagining the voice. It was coming from this place, and I remembered we were in Hell, or at least some place that was immediately adjacent.
I may not have been the most informed occultist out there, but I’d had enough encounters with the Underworld to know Hell wasn’t fire pokers up the ass or burning forever. It could be, mind you, but that was mostly because one hundred percent of Hell’s inhabitants were assholes to one another. The more insidious and horrifying nature of Hell was the fact it was a place that caused you to torture yourself.
Imagine a lifetime of regrets, imposter syndrome, and insecurities before having all of those turned against you. I found that infinitely worse than actual torture-torture. Ironically, it meant that the purest of evils were incapable of experiencing the worst Hell had to offer. Those with no guilt or shame were incapable of even knowing they were being tortured by Hell. Because they couldn’t dream of Heaven, they didn’t know what they were missing. They made up most demons and were incapable of growth or self-reflection.
Yeah, it sounds stupid but that’s cosmic philosophy for you.
Which one was I? The Good who had done Evil, the Bad who had failed to be better, or the Evil who was in denial? At least I wasn’t the Ugly. I was People Magazine’s Sexiest Male Supervillain last year. Don’t bring up the fact that I literally rewrote reality as an asterisk to that—I was a runner up in the original timeline. Either way, I was almost overwhelmed by the guilt of all my failures.
“Gary, more fireballs!” Ketra shouted and shook me out of my crushing depression.
“Fireballs, ahoy!” I shouted, blasting an entire flock of the creatures with the largest one I’d ever summoned.
“We’re almost there!” Trace’e called out.
“Almost is not there!” Other Steve cried out, swinging his great sword around repeatedly like an orcish Kurgan.
“Keep tight!” Ketra shouted.
I grabbed tight to one of her loose scales and buried my fingers between the spaces, which was oddly slimy, and sucked in my breath. The other passengers did the same and we were aimed directly at the Tower of Everfrost. Specifically, a very large, cathedral-like, stained glass window on its side.
“This is gonna suck,” I muttered.
Ketra breathed out her lightning once more and shattered the window of the tower before we broke plenty more of it when she passed through its remains. The shadow vrocks pursuing us broke off before entering the Tower of Everfrost as if it would be entering a fire.
That was not a good sign.
Either way, Ketra’s gigantic dragon body entered the interior chamber that seemed to be some sort of demented chapel to the King Below. It reminded me a bit of a Castlevania level because it was unnecessarily huge, had free floating candles, and there was art depicting either Jacob or someone equally faceless conquering the world. I didn’t get to pay much attention to events, though, because Ketra’s massive frame crashed against the ground, destroying multiple pews as well as depositing us right in front of a stone altar surrounded by statues.
“Ow,” Ketra muttered, clearly having broken multiple bones. She was handling it like a champ, though.
“Heal, friend dragon!” Trace’e said, her hand glowing as she waved it over the injuries she spotted.
“Yeah, we haven’t gotten the treasure yet!” Other Steve said.
“Shut up, Steve,” I muttered, sliding off Ketra and debating whether I could do anything to help.
One of the things that Jacob had taught me was to try to divorce my brain from the D&Disms that underpinned Dungeon magic. But also to respect them. Basically, I was the one who put the rules in place, so they didn’t need to be in place but because I’d put them in place, I had to understand them because the rules shaped the magic.
Which, blah-blah-blah magic.
Blah-blah-blah, the Force.
After that, I’d tuned out and started humming the disco version of the Star Wars theme.
Either way, there wasn’t much I could do and simply kept my hand on Ketra as she was patched up as much as possible. Once that was done, she transformed back into her human form and began casting her own healing spells on herself.
Which, good for her.
Obviously not needed, I decided to check out the altar and found the four statues around it were dressed in clothes. Hats, coats, pants, and shirts while only the flesh and hair were transformed into stone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out they’d been people who were turned to stone.
“Well, they’re dead,” I muttered. One of the things I’d learned about magic was that a lot of the things we learned from cartoons were false. A person turned to stone was as dead as a human being turned to ashes.
Except, when I patted one of them on the arm, I felt warmth as well as a pulse.
What the hell?
“Stone stasis,” Ketra explained to my confusion. “It’s a common tool of the magically created monsters that Jacob put to guard the Tower of Everfrost. They freeze people in place but keep them alive and preserved until the monster can use its saliva to restore them. You know, for eating.”
I stared at Ketra. “You know, I’m starting to think Jacob has a bit of a dark side to him.”
“Jacob Riverson. The God of Evil? That Jacob?” Trace’e pointed out.
“Yes,” I replied, ignoring her sarcasm. “Seriously, Jacob has an inner mad architect here. He and Acherak should compare notes.”
“Gary—” Ketra started to say.
“Acherak is the villain from Tomb of Horrors. Except, he’s a demilich, not a lich. However, a demilich is a super-lich rather than a lich because they’ve mostly transcended the physical plane,” I replied. “Which is just stupid naming as far as—”
“Gary!” Ketra interrupted. “Can you help them?”
I blinked; the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Probably because I was an asshole. “I think I have a Stone to Flesh scroll. I never bothered to learn the spell because, well, it just turns a statue into a dead body. Man, there was egg on a lot of faces when people thought it would work like the ones in the book.”
Yeah, okay, maybe introducing Dungeon magic to everyone hadn’t been a completely great idea. I’d put a warning on the books, though. Who could have realized that people would often ignore them and assume it would do what they thought it should do rather than what was written? Oh, right, anyone who knew anything about people.
“Uh huh,” Ketra said. “Just do it.”
“I only have one, though,” I replied.
“Choose but choose wisely,” Trace’e said. “For, okay, I forget the rest of the saying. Something-something will give you life. Oh, forget it.”
I wondered if they had internet streaming on this world. “I’ll pick one and maybe we can find if any of these guys know what we’re facing here.”
“Obviously not well,” Other Steve grunted before sniffing the air. “What kind of scummy graverobbers actually try to rob Hell? Despicable.”
I ignored Other Steve’s obvious sarcasm and tried to pick who I’d turn back. Maybe I could help the others later, but I was more interested in the now. Who was the leader? Who might know the most? What might they know? In the end, some details jumped out at me about this group: not the least that they were from my world.
You might think that was a premature decision, but I learned this by checking their wallets, which were in their decidedly non-petrified pockets, and noted that most of them were from Atlas City, Florida. They were also part of the American Dungeon Magic Association, Tabletop, and LARPers League—which already made me feel bad about their deaths.
In the end, I chose the last of them by their armor. They were an androgynous-looking man dressed in a specially formed practical suit of reinforced carbon-fired plate that was designed for maximum mobility. But it was the insignia that cinched it for me. They had put the original Ultragod symbol, the one from the 1940s, with the UG in a star on it. Call it a little weird but everyone else’s heraldry was skulls or dragons as well as an ad for an internet stamp service. At least no one had Shoot-Em-Up’s logo of a Klan hood with two crossed Confederate pistols. One guy had worn a t-shirt of that while in line to get my autograph at ComicCon.
No, he wasn’t dead.
My kids were there.
Either way, I pulled out the scroll and read over it for a few minutes before stuffing it back in my bag. I’d left a spell slot open for just this sort of occasion. Don’t argue with me about this not being how scrolls or spells work. Screw the rules, I make them.
“Okay,” I said, clearing my throat and raising my hands in the air, wiggling my fingers. “Let me remember the spell incantation: Stone to Flesh!”
Ketra rolled her eyes.
The others looked enraptured as Disney pixie-dust twirled out of my fingertips and twirled around one of the statues. The stone slowly crumbled away from their face, and they fell to the ground, seemingly stunned by their return to living flesh.
“Double EXP bonus for style!” I shouted, holding my hands in the air.
“Shh!” Ketra loudly made the noise with a finger across her mouth, defeating the purpose of a shh, looking annoyed. “You don’t know what you’re going to attract.”
“Monsters, I’d wager,” I replied, less than serious about our circumstances. After all, we’d already lost two of our party on this ordeal. “But this group might prove to be more helpful to me than any contents of an Unspeakable Vault.”
Jacob had told me it was six months to an hour between this dimension and his. Which was possible. I didn’t know much about planar physics and parallel realities, but that sort of thing happened. People spent months in fairyland only to come back and find only hours had passed or the reverse. Nazi Puncher, always a favorite, had missed the entire latter half of the twentieth century by stopping in Valhalla to beat up the Norse Gods’ Germanic imposters created by Loki. Man, that guy had needed some therapy.
But what if Jacob had been lying? What if our worlds were closer together and I’d abandoned my family for months? What if it was possible to return to them right now? Both answers offered troublesome possibilities. While I’d rather the second be true, I didn’t want the first to be true solely for the ramifications. I’d come to like Jacob and was hoping my Obi-Wan wasn’t my Svengali. Look it up if you don’t get the reference.
“Gary Karkofsky?” the freed adventurer said, further confirming they came from my world. They had a light Londonium accent, which basically was Royal Pronunciation English but from a weird steampunk country ruled by supervillains.
I looked down. “Yeah, so I’m told.”
“Hi,” the man said. “I’m…Larry.”
“Larry what?” I asked, having already stolen their wallet and found out their name. It had been alongside a Trans Alliance membership card and a Foundation junior agent card. They were about twenty, which made the latter questionable but not impossible. Their hair was stark white, which I took to be dyed, and mixed European and Asian ancestry.
“Larry…Karkofsky,” Larry said, lowering his voice. He sounded embarrassed. I couldn’t imagine why.
“Wow, you are a superfan,” I replied, basking in their adulation. Okay, yes, the fact they had my last name may have had a bit more to do with my freeing them from being turned to stone than the fact they had an Ultragod symbol on their armor. I just didn’t want you to feel I was shallow. I mean, I am, but I’m not totally shallow. Like ninety percent tops.
Larry looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t exactly going to go by my old family name. They weren’t terribly understanding.”
“Ah,” I replied. “Changing the subject now. So, you’re what, like a knight of something?”
“Paladin,” Larry said, embarrassed. “It turns out you can be one with Dungeon magic if you make the proper oaths and hold to a Lawful Good code.”
“I’m so sorry,” I replied. “I’ll patch that out when I update Dungeon magic again in a month. Why are you on Fantasy Planet?”
“The World Between,” Ketra corrected, apparently listening in with the others.
“Whatever,” I replied.
“I’m kind of looking for you,” Larry said, once more making me think they were a superfan. “I hired on with this group of adventurers because an omen spell told me you were going to be here in a few months. I think you can help me find my birth mother.”
Find his birth mother? Named after me? Ah crap.
I sucked in my breath. “Oh wow. Again? Listen, I apologize for missing your first twenty years. I’m quite careful about this—”
“Not you,” Larry said, pausing. “Albeit I can understand why you would make that mistake. As far as I know, you aren’t my father.”
“But the name…” I trailed off.
Larry frowned. “Actually, I chose Larry Karkofsky because there was a poster of you in the government office where I legally changed my name. The eighty-year-old lady behind the counter was a fan. Not enough Jewish supervillains in her opinion. It worked out well, though, because you turned out to be handing out free magic and that saved a lot on polymorphing myself. Plus, hey, I got superpowers in the process too.”
“Oh, thank God,” I replied. “No offense. Any future children I have, I want to be there for. I missed the early childhoods of my kids due to cosmic retcons. Who is your mother and why you do you think I know her?”
This wasn’t the place to be having this conversation but, and this will shock you, I was easily distracted.
Larry looked abashed. “Well, you married her. So, I figured you knew where she got off to.”
“Wait.” I stopped all movement and stared. “What?”
“Her name was Mandy Colton.”