Again, a Quest

Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.

Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2006 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.

The rays from the rising sun pour in through my window. I slowly wake, the light burning my eyes.

I hate mornings.

I roll out of bed, and stagger across the room to the table next to the window. The jug and bowl are there, where I left them last night, the jug filled with water from the well. I pour the water from the jug into the bowl and start my morning ablutions. When you reach my age, you start to take comfort in the little ceremonies of life.

I squint in the mirror, trying to get my face in focus. The fuzzy shapes in the mirror slowly resolve into my features. My hair - what is left of it - is unkempt, and I need a shave. I keep meaning to fix the mirror to the wall rather than leave it balanced on the table next to the bowl, but then I would have to stand in front of it every time I want to use it.

I can hear the day's entertainment outside. An adventuring party arrived last night, and camped outside the gates. I assume that they wanted to wait until daylight before venturing in. As if it makes any difference.

I pull my clothes on. Although they have not yet reached my venerable age, they are still quite ragged. Clothes just do not wear as well as they used to. I gird my loins with the old rope I use as a belt. I really ought to get a new one - indeed, I really ought to get a new set of clothes - but they are so comfortable now that it seems a shame to replace them.

I pour the remaining water from the jug into the kettle to boil for tea. A few moments tending the cooking fire and I can start thinking about breakfast.

I took a look at the graveyard at first light.

The villagers were right. From what I can see through the gates, the caretaker has maintained the graves in a respectful manner, and the place is generally tidy and well kept. The gates are in decent repair and have been securely locked, the better to keep the straying undead where they belong.

The mausoleum in the middle of the graveyard is clear of moss and ivy, and its metal gate has clearly been painted recently. The inscription over the doorway is unreadable at this distance, but I have no doubts about what is graven there:

A kettle boils on the fire, alongside a pot of watery porridge. Once again, I am reminded that not all people in the world live in poverty because of a vow. At least on this occasion the old man can be offered something more - although it is so difficult: sometimes it seems none are offended by charity so much as the poor.

I was half-way through my breakfast when the party knocked on my door.

Looking at them, they are almost the typical adventuring party. The leader is clearly some form of holy knight - all gleaming armour, honour, chastity and totally inept at dealing with the common people. Next to him sits a warrior, slightly on edge, with his hand on his sword.

The other two members of the party are not seated. The mage - a rather pretty raven-haired young lass - is over by the cooking fire, attempting to cook some bacon from their supplies, and the party thief - a nasty piece of work - is standing in the shadows by the door, trying not to look as if he is casing the joint. He is one of the "leather because it looks good brigade". I bet he has a complete set of spare big-buckled leather belts in his pack.

All in all, an interesting exercise in group dynamics. The paladin was taken aback when I invited them in, and clearly shocked at the state of my little hut (for all their vows of poverty, I bet he seldom came across the real thing in his monastery). At least he offered to supplement my meal (or as he put it, "Good Sir, allow us to share our food with you this fine morning.").

This brought fourth some sarcastic muttering from the thief. I didn't hear what he said, but I saw the paladin's fists clench when he said it. The mage gave the thief a very black look. I don't think any of them are particularly fond of the thief.

Speaking of fond, I suspect from the looks she gives the paladin that she is more than rather fond of him. Not that the big lunk has noticed, mind you. Judging by the looks she is directing his way I foresee that - provided they survive the tomb - he will shortly be having a crisis of faith - or at least a crisis of chastity.

The fighter is clearly a dour survivor. He keeps a hand on his weapon, an eye on the threats, himself to himself and well out of the party arguments. He is the sort that sees everything, but says nothing.

Over the meal, the mage tries to pump me for information. Not that there is a great deal to tell. Yes, I look after the graveyard. Yes, that is the Tomb of Thevros the Undying, built by his own hands. Yes, the inscription on the mausoleum is the one they are expecting. With this party I think I will give them the translation, but I don't think I will tell them where it comes from - the paladin might be shocked, and he seems a nice lad.

Once again I toy with the idea of making a sign with this stuff on, along with "Graveyard Opening Hours: Terce till Vespers". That way I might at least have my breakfast in peace.

I manage to get a little information myself - not that I need it, as adventuring parties are all too predictable. They are on a quest to find some holy object or another, and in return for information vital to their quest, a sage has charged them to retrieve "the Belt of Thevros the Undying, scored with unwritten sigils graven in the blood of virgins". "Retrieve" is obviously the new "steal", although the gods only know why the sage wants the blasted thing in the first place.

After breakfast, I pick up my tools and unlock the graveyard. The party wander off to the tomb and set up shop on the paved area in front of the tomb. It took a long time to make that, but it was better than letting the various idiots scuff up the lawn. I leave them to their preparations, and start making my rounds. Flowers to plant, grass to cut. You know the drill.

At length, the party finish their preparations and start make their way into the tomb. I allow myself a moment of quiet amusement listening to their thief swear at the door having spent a good quarter of an hour looking for traps.

After doing a little planting, I retire to my hovel, where I can watch the fun in a degree of comfort.

Stupid party. Stupid Mission.

This isn't my sort of party to begin with. Sir Orion snooty-nosed Stargazer looks down on me on those occasions where the poufy knight actually bothers to acknowledge me, Saroc the Disemboweler promised to demonstrate how he got his nickname if he caught me near his pack one more time, and Little Miss Shadowfire spends all her time mooning over Sir Poufy Knight rather than paying any attention to a man like me. Ha! I make one offer and she treats me like... she's probably frigid anyway.

Even spiking her drinks - the usual plan B - didn't help. I didn't realise mages could do the wine to water trick. Besides, after a few attempts the paladin hoisted me up by the neck and suggested that I leave the drinks alone.

To cap it all, once we get to the stupid graveyard, we all get hauled into the caretaker's mud hut (not a thing worth pinching) and have to dole out some of our supplies and waste most of the morning while Miss Ice Queen pours out all her charm on the old geezer. In my old gang it would have been a few questions with a hot knife if required. Much quicker and easier on the supplies.

Stupid tomb. No traps anywhere (wasted a lot of time on the front door proving that). No sign of anything valuable - not that Mr Nose-in-the-Air Paladin would let me lift anything. Oh no. We might be off to steal some magical belt from one tomb or another, but you just try checking someone else's grave for valuables and you get lecture after lecture about desecrating the grave and robbing from the dead.

Just chambers with rows upon rows of alcoves, with a mixture of coffins and corpses dumped in them. New coffins and bodies near the entrance; older ones as they got deeper in. Each alcove with a name and an occupation. Fighters, mages, priests - and one alcove with a rotting coffin marked "Reserved for Aunt Lavinia".

No traps, no treasure and no wandering undead. Ha!

Finally, we reach a chamber with a single stone sarcophagus in the middle. I get my hammer out to smash the lid, but put it back when I see Sir Pouf preparing to deliver another lecture about desecration. Instead, he and Saroc struggle to shift the lid a little, leaving me to grope around in the dark.

Good job the old guy is long dead. There are traces of rotted material, but no sign of a belt. However, my fingers close round what feels like a gem the old boy had laid on his chest. It's small enough to palm, so at least I will get something out of all this.

Oh shit!

Gods damn it! I knew that idiot thief would get us into trouble again.

There he is, rummaging around in the sarcophagus when suddenly he starts screaming that something has got hold of his arm.

We manage to pull him away, and whatever it is in the sarcophagus is indeed hanging on to his arm. We manage to break its grip, but in the process Lynx manages to drop something, and then I'm damned if the stupid idiot doesn't try to stick his hand back in the sarcophagus to get it back.

I manage to drag him away. Just in time, as everyone else in the tomb seems to have woken up. Sir Orion somehow manages to plough a path through the sudden horde of undead, with Shadowfire in his wake. Even now the fool of a thief is trying to fight his way back to the coffin.

The undead pull him in. I try to fight my way towards him - you don't leave your companions in the lurch, no matter how disagreeable they are - but the undead overwhelm me as well. The last thing I feel before the darkness overtakes me is the chill touch of their hands.

Shadowfire's scream alerts me to Saroc's predicament. I manage to pull him from the milling corpses and struggle to carry him out of the tomb. Lynx, gods rest his soul, is beyond help. Shadowfire attempts to discourage pursuit with a blast of magic, but the undead seem strangely uninterested in chasing us.

As we stagger out of the tomb into the afternoon sunlight, Shadowfire helps me support Saroc. The gardener calls us over to his hovel, and we lay Saroc down on the old man's bedroll.

I am worried. He is as cold as the grave, and appears not to be breathing.

As soon as we laid Saroc down I dug out the bandages and unguents and put Orion to work cleaning and bandaging his wounds. He said something about Saroc not breathing, so I take the old man's mirror and hold it under his nose.

To my relief it mists slightly. Saroc is still alive.

It is only as I put the mirror back that I notice something wrong.

I am holding the mirror with my right hand.

The reflection of my arm is on the left.

The mage carefully put the mirror on the table.

"Thevros the Undying, I assume?" She asks.

I smiled. She is only the second of my visitors to actually work that out.

I notice the glance they both throw at the rope round my waist. "No, that is not (ahem) the Belt of Thevros the Undying, scored with unwritten sigils graven in the blood of virgins. I lost that belt a long time ago. To a young priestess, as I recall."

"A mighty priestess indeed, to overcome the hordes of undead at your command." noted the paladin.

"The undead only attack people who actually steal from the tomb. Your fighting friend down there would have gotten clean away if he hadn't gone back for the thief. Actually, the priestess didn't get as far as the tomb. She recognised me right away, and challenged me to a game. Beat me hands down, too!"

"What game?" asks the mage.

I hesitate. Well, this part of the story is quite embarrassing.

"Strip Poker." I admit at length.

"What?" they chorus in disbelief.

"Strip Poker, damn it!" I yell. "Well, she was a pretty little thing, black as a cushite, and I am as susceptible as any to offers from an attractive young lady."

The conversation flags while they finished bandaging their fallen comrade. I build up the fire a little and help the paladin move the bed closer to the fire, the better to drive the chill from the fighter's bones.

"So, what did this belt do?" asks the paladin at length.

"Held up my trousers?" I respond. "I really have no idea why people wanted that belt. There was nothing magical about it at all."

"And the 'unwritten sigils graven in the blood of virgins'?"

"Well, when I was very much younger, I tried doodling patterns on it, and the only thing I had available was my blood. You do stupid things like that when you are a teenager."

In the mean time, the mage was rummaging in the thief's packs. Eventually, she pulls out a couple of leather belts with even more ornate buckles than the one the thief had been wearing, and hands them to me.

"Since Lynx is no longer with us, perhaps you might like these belts of his. Now...", she jabs her arm with a dagger, "...How did you do that engraving?".

We stayed with Thevros for the remainder of the week waiting for Saroc to recover enough to travel. Thevros turned out to be a mage of sorts himself, although his interests lie mainly in gardening rather than magic.

We offered Thevros anything he liked in return for the freshly engraved belt, but he assured us that he liked the simple life, and that there was nothing we had that he really wanted. All in all, it is not a bad way to live, I suppose.

Orion is a little worried about the belt as it is clearly not what the sage is expecting, but it is genuinely ' the Belt of Thevros the Undying, scored with unwritten sigils graven in the blood of virgins' - or one virgin at least. That will be enough to satisfy any spells designed to detect truth.

Thevros did give me one gift when we departed - a prize for being the only person ever to actually ask for the belt. It is small gold ring with a diamond set in it. Completely unmagical - in an arcane sense, that is - but a fine piece of work none the less. He said that he was sure I would find a use for it.

I shall. The feast of St. Oswald approaches.

Footnotes:

The inscription on the mausoleum comes from the old student's (drinking) song 'Gaudeamus Igitur', written in 1781 by Christian Wilhelm Kindleben. The words and translation were taken from the Annotated Pratchet File, and are:

For those unfamiliar with the old-fashioned (monastic) offices, Terce is 9 am. and Vespers is at sunset (originally 6pm).

The Feast of St Oswald falls on the 29th of February.