ch: 10.5

Shai went downstairs to the party, she had been helping set up. Now she was changed into the party dress Jennah had given her and ready to receive their guest. Gary stepped up, still in his white suit but looking dashing anyway, the silly man. He took her arm and together went into the garden.

Notgary was still working the velvet rope, the long, long line vanishing in the distance. “Sorry, you are not on the list.” something that looked like a half boiled monkey attached to a lobster’s body hooted and gibbered with fury pointing her way. “She doesn't need to be on the list buddy, take it for a walk.”

Beside dark suited Notgary, a woman with short red hair in dark skirts and a jacket like Notgary's was checking her list. “Ye be not on the list. Shuffle off now and begone wastrel!” She was telling a house cat with saber-tooth fangs and an iron bell on a ribbon around it's neck rippling with unholy energy.

Notgary was drenched in beer but had his new tap driven in, the keg still foamed dangerously. The brown fountain had run its dark contents all across the table and it was beginning to pool on the ground. Notgary was trying to tidy it up, but could not resist the incinerating peppers. Notquite Shai slapped his hand, dropping the pepper back to the tray.

Bleeding Notgary was still hanging the whimsical and macabre decorations, but he was looking pale and wan. A Shai-lite was holding the ladder and asking for him to come down for a fresh bandage.

Notgary with the mop had traded in for a shovel and was piling noisome filth onto a wheelbarrow already dangerously full.

“Keep up the good work guys, party is about to start.” Gary looked up to Notgary up at the spinning wheels “Got the track cued up?” D.J. Notgary just kept bobbing his head while staring at the tabletop in complete focus, he did raise one hand in a thumbs up though. Gary turned to her. “Looks great, just gotta check with the bouncer.”

Shai-lite had a seven eyed aquatic aberration backed into a corner, flailing it's flippers and bubbling incoherent excuses. “I hae a skillet ready an it be time fer a fish fry. Dinnae try my patience lest I dredge ye in flour and have a snack. Begone!”

Notgary in the black suit was telling a human duck hybrid covered in seeping mold to shove off, when they walked up. A spider the size of a horse took its place, orange vapor drifting from its twitching mandibles. “I'm sorry Aclinthirios, it's a private party, I don't know how all these guys found out. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll warn them again.” He said to the terrifying mandibles just a few feet from his face.

Notgary shouted into the line, “Whoever brought the blasphemous ziggurat of tormented souls, Aclinthirios is going to reincarnate them all right now.” An eruption of unholy protest burst out down the line, alien profanities streaming from the hundred mouths of an alien obcenity against nature.

“Too bad, you leave that kind of thing outside someone's door and you lose it. Get lost, butthole. You know your ass is not on the list.” Notgary barked, as golden light and majestic choirs of arachnid voices sang praise to the god of spinners and weavers, somewhere outside the garden.

“Aclinthirios, is a great guy, he hangs out two etheric voids over, he's a god of life and rebirth.” Said Notgary turning to them. When he looked away something the color of rotten meat and shaped like a flattened pillow tried to tumble past.

Notgary’s hands flashed out, grabbing the unwholesome thing, before brutally turning it inside out and throwing it into the void. It shrieked piteously as it vanished in the distance.

“Next one that tries a run up, gets fed to the devourer of souls. He’s getting pretty sick of you clowns.” Notgary jerked a thumb at a darker patch of void in the near distance. “Nope, not on the list.” Notgary at the rope was not as polite as he had been.

Shai woke before Gary and watched him sleep for a while. When he started to stir she asked softly “who’s coming to the party foolish boy? Who be on the list?”

He stirred and mumbled softly “mm, s’secret, its secret.”

She leaned close. “Ye can tell me, I’m on the list too.”

He rolled closer, curling up against her bosom. “Silly, you can't be on the list, you invited him too.”

“Who, Gary, who is invited?”

“Told ya, secret.”

His big brown eyes opened fully and he was face first in boobs. “Good morning!” he said brightly while grabbing playfully at her.

‘The boy would have been useless without letting him have a morning tumble.’ She thought as they showered together, leaning into him blissfully. ‘Men are like dogs, they need the occasional treat to stay on the job.’ she purred to herself, while he scrubbed her back.

It was still raining but that is an Adventurer's life, or so Mikkel said, before telling Liam he was in charge, to “Test his independent leadership skills.” and that Mikkel would be staying in the house, warm and dry, purely by coincidence.

It was a wet and miserable band that returned triumphant, but grumpy. They had another wallow bear hide, and the skin and carapace segments of something like a goat with eight legs or a spider in a goat costume.

Gary had come up lucky, happening to find a small grotto filled with magical mushrooms and a small patch of magic mushrooms. As he was sorting his take into piles, Liam, Shai and Ivy were watching with interest. They had gotten in the habit of helping him go through the herbs and other samples that Gary collected almost on instinct now.

He would lay them out on the workbench, sort them and print the messages for the girls, who read them to Liam. Together they were putting together the local herb lore with the college’s information and adding in Gary’s identification abilities to get a comprehensive list.

Graycap mushroom, magical, toxic, reagent, component

Pillowpuff mushroom, magical, edible reagent, component

Magic mushroom, non magical, edible, reagent, component, psychoactive/hallucinogenic.

“So ye did find three different magical mushrooms, whae do they do boy?”

He pointed to the gray and white piles. “Those are magical, these…” He pointed to the larger pile. “are magic, I know what they do.'' He swept the other two piles onto a screen of mesh he conjured and slipped it into the rack with the rest of his drying samples. The others he took into his Pockets!. “Can't just leave these lying around… too magical.” He said with a wink.

Since that first day in the bath, Liam had been tending Gary’s garden at least as much as he did, he had a passion for growing things, flowers and herbs were just the beginning.

The grenadier pears Gary had planted had not thrived as the cannabis did, they struggled until Liam bought in a barrel of composted vegetable waste to add to their soil. He cloned and rooted more cannabis, managed the herb plot, pruned the berries back and was generally a man at peace with a trowel or pruning shears in hand.

When Gary began dusting the shady patch under the pear trees with spores Liam started asking questions. “Do you know what those are?”

Gary grinned, “Do YOU know what they are mister straight laced?”

“Do not screw with those in the woods Gary, if you run off naked and screaming again I'm going to chase you down and strangle you.”

Gary nodded, “That's more than fair.”

“Good, now help me with this vine.” Liam grunted, struggling with a very large tangle of vegetation.

Duskmoon vine, herb, low magic, reagent, crafting resource, edible, mildly psychoactive, mildly poisonous.

“The seed pods are edible.” Liam said. “They look like pea pods but taste like heaven. Ivy makes a soup that is just a hymn to joy on its own.” He held up a warning finger, “Don't eat the leaves or shoots, not unless you like explosive bowels.”

The vine was a lush green, twining over a tunnel trellis, draped in seed pods as long as his hand and trumpet shaped flowers that glowed in the moonlight as if illuminated from inside.

The poor thing had been trailing across some rocky soil under an oak tree when Gary found and dug it up. Now it was thriving and producing flowers and pods at a prodigious rate.

“These are really magically intensive, so when you find one if there are a handful of pods that's lucky.” Liam was saying as they hoisted the vine onto a new section of tunnel. “I’ve never seen it in flower before.” They were liberally dusted with great clouds of the white, feathery pollen particles and highly amused, when Ivy and Tawny came out looking for them.

“Look at these two idiots…” Ivy moaned.

“Duskmoon pollen?” Tawny asked. “Yeah, that’s a lot too. Go get the others. It's going to be a weird dinner.” Ivy licked her thumb, reached out and smeared a big wad of pollen off Liams collar and shoved it in her mouth.

“Might as well go along. Want some?” Ivy asked.

Tawny delicately plucked a trumpet flower and sniffed a great cloud of the stuff. “So be it.” She turned to the house. “Shai!” Tawny called sweetly, “Come get your pet idiot!”

To Ivy she said “I don't even know where these fools could have found one, never mind grow it this large.” She stamped her foot prettily at Shai when she emerged.

“Your pet monkey is going to be extra, extra tonight, so be ready.” Ivy warned her. Shai looked confused. “These two dustheads are going to be completely useless for anything…” Looking at Tallum she called him over. “Do you know what this is?” She asked the huge boy, pointing at the trellis and his pollen dusted friends.

“Flowers.” He said confidently.

“Ok, you are innocent. Shai? What about you?”

“Am I tae be digging in the dirt? Nae ‘would rather not.”

Ivy collected a huge fistful of the dust from the inside of Gary's shirt and pulled Tallum’s face down to hers. “This is for your own good.” she held out the now compacted mass. “Open up.” she popped it in his mouth. “Good boy.” She did the same for Shai.

“Duskmoons only bloom for a couple hours in the wild so most people don't associate them with fae dust.” she swept the gathered Bathers with her gaze. “That means these clowns are going to be even dumber than usual.”

Tawny and Mikkel stepped forward together. “When we get back to town we are taking that whole vine to the temple of Healer” Tawny said, trying to frown at them really hard. “It was selfish and irresponsible to keep it.” she told them very firmly, while inhaling deeply from her flower.

“Yes!” said Mikkel, “and I'm very disappointed in you all for being so irresponsible.” as he wiped a clot of white dust from the corner of his mouth. “Officially this is illegal in Wheatford since a party or parties unknown introduced this substance into the bonfire during Order’s most holy rites some one hundred and twelve years ago.”

“What happened?” Gary asked grinning stupidly.

“This is what happened.” Mikkel grinned stupidly back.

“What happened?”

“This, what we are doing right now.”

“They had dinner?”

Gary looked to his dumbly grinning friends and mentor while digging a clod of pollen from his ear.

“Ohh.” Now I feel stupid.” He said, licking the dust off his finger

“yeah, that was the point.” Mikel said.

The effect was actually quite mild and short lived, mostly it was just impossible to frown. His face refused, he tried faking one and nearly sprained an eyebrow. Shai seeing him in that condition had its own intoxicating effects. She was getting pretty grabby and fussy so he took her off to bed.

‘The girl would be useless tomorrow if I didn't give her an evening tumble.’ He thought as they showered together after, leaning into her blissfully. ‘women are like cats, they need the occasional treat to stay frisky.’ He growled to himself in ecstasy, while she scrubbed his back.

They did not remember their dreams that night, lost in a fog of exhaustion and pollen.

The morning was cool and damp as they headed out onto the trail that skirted the perimeter of the inhabited section of the valley.

With autumn in full swing, the team found another hive of spore wasps. This one was isolated and the day was wet, so it was a simple matter of building a fire under that tree and waiting far away. Liam and Tallum handled it with glee. Since they would be well clear before the spores returned to the disturbed hive.

Otho found and immediately killed and ate an immature trapdoor, to the retching horror of a very surprised Ivy. Fortunately for her the abhorrent discharge gets stronger as the creature matures, the hatchling was barely bigger than a man’s thumb and probably tasted like trash flambe with sewage sauce.

After lunch they were marching through watery sunshine tracking another mundane boar that had developed a taste for the garden beds near town. It was cagy, a late night commuter, hiding in the woods till well after dark. Otho tracked it down, and Liam Shai and Gary took it down with long spears. Ivy felt like touching food again so it was going to be pork roast at dinner.

Mikkel paused on the outskirts of a sunny glade as evening was coming on. “Last one for the day. It's an easy one, another Death’s head locust. Find it, kill it. All hands on deck.” Once again Otho startled the creature from cover. Liam’ spear was too quick for the thing to even get up to speed before it was nailed to a tree.

They drifted off to sleep together, Gary dreamed of sawdust, curly wood shavings and a girl that smelled of forge fire, bergamot and wildflowers.

The party was all ready, but the guest was late, probably lost in the swirling morass of eldritch horrors outside the velvet rope.

Dj Notgary was looking antsy, while keg tap Notgary was finishing up and completely drenched. The brown pool had spread a bit and mop Notgary was having trouble staying on his feet. A Shai-lite was trying to help, but slipping and sliding around was of limited value.

Headwound Notgary was shaky but still gamely decorating, his head freshly bandaged and a Shai-lite holding the ladder.

Chili pepper Notgary was currently blowing away and real Gary was off somewhere.

She couldn't disturb velvet rope Notgary, he had just finished throwing another sprinting abomination into the enormous dark red butthole in the sky that was the Devourer of Souls.

Well someone had to answer the door, if only to silence the knocking. She went to the foyer and slid the peephole open…

She awoke, still holding her musician and took a little nibble on his shoulder. He didn't stir so she let him sleep, relaxing in a comfortable silence.

Shai drifted in her childish dreams of travel and adventure. Only half remembered from childhood, slipping into those hazy memories it almost seemed like Gary was there, with her among her childhood friends. He seemed to pop up here and there in the background.

He was there, standing behind uncle Hurman in her vague recollection of her eighth birth day party, her last celebrated on the feast of Joy. He could not be there but he was, just as he looked in the waking world. A dark haired man among the giant redheads of her kin.

In the manner of dreams she found herself in the orphanage, training beside Liam, Ivy and Tawny who still followed Liam everywhere, but at a distance, since her second Contract with Healer. Gary was there, a grown man but still useless with that spear of his, at least he was trying hard.

Without any sense of movement she was fifteen, working at the forge, and Gary was there. Standing where her adoptive father, uncle… whatever, should be. He spoke in a clear voice. “I’m not Gary, you know. I’m the part of him you took with you when you visited the party the first time.”

“What does that mean?” She asked, confused by how much like Gary this one was.

“All the others are people he could have been, possibilities of who he could yet become or was once. I am a part of who he is, the part that you keep.”

She scratched her dream head with dream fingers while having a very real conversation with what felt like a real person. “So why are you in my dreams?”

He smiled sheepishly, just like Gary and coughed in the same awkward way. “You aren’t dreaming, I jostled some stuff while I was moving in and you needed to tidy up after me, sorry”

Sensing an opportunity she struck. “So, who is invited to the party?” she asked in the most casual way.

“Secret.” He said, as though that cleared everything up.

“You can tell me.” She coaxed.

“I did. It’s Secret” He said, looking mildly puzzled.

“Ohhhh! Who’s On First!” He said, as though that made any sense at all.

“I get you, the name of who we are waiting for, you and I… you and the rest of me… and me too..”

He mopped his brow, looking worn. “We are waiting for the god Secret, to complete our Contracts.” He sat down on a spare anvil in her old workspace, visibly weaker. “ I need to curl up in the place I made here and sleep, the rest of me is waking up now.”

He was gone, mostly. She could feel him somehow, tucked away in her ribcage, part of her now. The rest of him was waking up though. “Foolish boy,” She whispered as he began to stir. “Whae dae ye know o the god o Secrets?”

He rolled over and curled up against her. “Mm.. one of the moons…” He murmured. “Two moons… I don’t think one is real.”

She whispered even more softly, “Aye two gods of the moon, Beasts and Secrets, what dae ye know of Secrets boy?”

He was growing restless. “He won’t tell me because he’s not really Secret. He’s Knowledge, but I’m not supposed to know.”

He snuggled even closer, his face buried in her hair. “It's the other one that has the secret.”

When Gary woke Shai had her adorable little notebook out and was scribbling away with the tip of her tongue just poking from between those cherry kool-aid lips.

“That is just the thing to wake up to,” He sighed “what are you doing for the next forever or so? Wanna stick around?” He asked folding her in his arms.

“Shush fool. I be recording me dreams.”

He grinned evilly “Ooo! Dream journal… Do I play a role?” He began to attempt to peek over her shoulder in a very obvious way. Pantomiming his sneakiness. Her elbow in the ribs snuffed his enthusiasm. “Dream journals are for babies.” He sulked, pouting with overblown body language.

“Aye ye do be full of energy this morn, get ye up and be making some tea ere me head do crack wide open.” She groaned

“Didn’t sleep?” She swatted at him without looking.

“Go. Get me some tea ye useless man, ere I perish of yer nonsense.” He fled and returned with tea and breakfast shortly. She kissed him and shooed him away, “A lady dinnae wanna be seen looking haggard, skat man!”

She still looked tired when they convened outside to begin their last day in the field. “One trapdoor, a big one, and a patch of groundworms. Gary is the man with the trapdoor plan, Liam and Tallum back him up, it's big. That means Ivy stays here with the mutt, Shai, you and Tawny stay too, boys morning out.” Mikkel said cheerfully, seeming at least twenty years younger than a week before.

“I’m not as excited to see a foaming butthole, Mikkel, but you do you.” Gary Grumbled.

They picked up the scent about an hour from home, just a faint tickle of burning hair doused with sewage. “Just getting close enough to strike this one would have been a challenge.” Mikkel said, as they marched in close formation, staying within the ring’s aura.

The wooded mound was not quite a hill but would have been lovely, rising from the lowlands largely alone. A spring gushed from the foot of the little hillock and the view was splendid. If not for the colossal tangle of webs in the trees and on the ground. “Ohh it's big.” Liam said, sounding unsettled. Gary doled long spears out to the boys and they grimly marched up the hill, picking a careful way through the tangle.

It defied rational description. Even without what must be a truly legendary funk, the thing was unacceptable for polite company. Liam and Gary lined up, aiming their spears low on the “trapdoor”. If triggered the monster would raise its abdomen spraying sticky silk and filth, while the upper body would shoot down and out to strike with venomous fangs.

Their job was to; “Stab the shit out of it!” if it moved and; “Hold on like you hold your pecker in the moonlight!” It was all very technical. Tallum had the duty of actually shoving a few feet of wood and steel into that nightmare abyss of rancid pus.

Gary’s patented spear extenders gave Tallum a good twelve feet of stabbing goodness, but he would have rather had more, until Gary pointed out the ring’s range limit.

When they were set, Tallum gave a bull bellow and stabbed the shit out of the thing.

Literally, it sprayed foaming nope right up to the last few inches before Tallum’s lead hand.

So close that he could see it glistening with the moist promise of a lonely night sleeping in the woods if he got it on himself.

He held on with the fury of a teenage boy who has touched boobs and wants to keep touching them going forward.

His brothers, at the first sign of movement from the wounded horror, stabbed the ever living shit out of the terrible eight eyed monster, they too held on, determined to help their comrade in arms to keep touching boobs. Such are the bonds of true brotherhood.

When the bloated, sagging thing was dragged out it was as big as a draft horse. The fangs and poison sacks were easy to collect, once he was sure the thing was not going to pull a Jason Voorhees and jump scare him. Just to be sure he had Tallum nail the very dead monstrosity down with a fresh spear while he worked.

Another of Mikkel’s forked wands collected a titanic ball of silver silk, before they unceremoniously shoved the thing in its own hole and filled it in.

“Working with crafters has its benefits I suppose.” Mikkel said. “We used to spend hours trying to get that crap off our spears, disposable is the way to go.” He went on to regale them with the story of the only adventurer he knew who fell into a trapdoor’s web.

“...so Takka almost died of the venom, because the priestess of Healer was pregnant and couldn't get near enough to cleanse it without vomiting.” Mikkel almost fell off his pegleg laughing at the memory. “She married that boy, Sasha and Takka were a team right to the end.” He sighed looking sad and lost.

“They didn’t make it?” Tallum asked softly. “Gods no boy, they retired and live in a lovely cottage in the uplands near the park. My wife is who I’m thinking on right now.” He growled. “She is going to be insufferable when I get back. You know how women get when they are right about something.”

“The bathhouse in the Adventurer’s guild, the one you wouldn’t go to with your wife.” Liam nodded. “I Told You So is a classic for a reason.”

Gary stopped and called out. “Moment of truth guys. Time to take the ring off and see if we are sleeping in the woods tonight.”

Tallum looked shaky. “It sprayed a lot Gary… an awful lot. Can’t you keep the ring on?”

“No can do brother, flask is getting full. We do not want to over fill that bad boy.”

They lined up, and waited as the ring came off… one tentative sniff, then another. “Are we good?” Gary asked, never having inhaled the full effect.

“Nothing a bath won’t fix.” Mikkel pronounced. “If you make those rings, every Adventurer is going to want one, Gary.” He smiled slowly. “Trapdoors are so common and so disgusting, we are going to get rich.”

“I don’t care if I get rich, I don’t wanna be a slave!” Gary grumbled.

“An I would nae have me foolish boy stuffed full o Contracts wi War. He hae other commitments tae meet.” Shai said, as she slipped from the trees, chimes ringing.