“Borg,” Nadi managed to gasp, “help!”
Borg nodded and moved slowly to stand before the doctor, who smirked. “You’ll fall just as hard and as quickly, you overgrown pebble!” The statue glowed and released its energy once more, striking Borg squarely in the chest.
“Heh. Tickles…a little,” he said, looking down curiously at where eldritch energy crackled down toward his abdomen. “Stings, too.”
The doctor looked confused. “What are you?”
“What are you, you maniac?” growled Whiska, climbing slowly, and painfully, to her feet. “You owe us money!”
“Maybe,” said Rummy, cradling his injured arm against his body, “we worry less about the debt the good Doctor owes us and more about our ability to remain alive, without which, I’m told, it’s difficult to spend money anyway.”
“No way! This sack of excrement owes us gold. We’re not leaving here until—” The rest of Whiska’s comment was cut off once again as a tendril of energy snaked around Borg’s blocking body and hit her tail, making it spasm and twitch as she yowled. “Fine! We’ll do it your way!” She bolted for the front door.
“I think our rodent friend has the right idea, Nadi.” Rummy backed slowly toward the door, his mace clutched in his hand, though, for the second time that day, he looked down at it and shook his head, thinking that he would be just as well equipped for this fight if he were holding the rotting carcass of a particularly ugly muskrat. “Come on!”
“I’m not leaving Borg!” Nadi circled around the rock giant and stabbed with her sword; in return, she took a hit from the statue that sent her tumbling. She came to rest at Rummy’s feet.
“You mean the guy who said that the thing that just knocked you on your backside tickles? I think he’ll be fine. Come on.” Rummy grimaced as he reached down to help Nadi to her feet, the energy from the statue coursing up his arm and giving him a painful jolt.
“That’s it…run, little dwarfling, and take your haughty companion with you!”
“Haughty? Really?” Rummy shook his head in a rare display of disgust. “Do you want to call me industrious and avaricious while you’re at it? Because all elves and dwarves have the same character traits, right, you power-mad racist? Well, the joke’s on you, because I’m not even a little industrious.” He looked at Nadi. “I’m not such a big fan of this guy. Why did we agree to work for him?”
Nadi gritted her teeth as she got back up. “It’s not my fault! He came highly recommended—he was supposed to be one of the city’s most prominent leaders, a doctor known for his kindness and efforts to help the poor!”
“Oh, I plan to help them, all right—help them to die in agony! Ahahahahaha!” The doctor threw his head back and cackled, honestly cackled, in the way that only a delighted and insane wizard, or maybe a hen laying a double egg, can.
“Borg!” yelled Nadi. “We need to go—you’ve got to get out of there!”
“I don’t think…the wizard…is going…to pay us,” replied Borg.
“Borg’s keen powers of observation appear to remain intact even when he’s under duress,” noted Rummy as he ducked out the front door.
Nadi reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a tiny pellet. “Borg, when I say now, run!”
The wizard cackled again as he hit Borg with another jolt of energy; this time, the giant grunted, apparently beginning to feel the cumulative effect of so much magical energy. “Running is…hard.”
“Just do it!” She threw the pellet at the doctor’s feet; smoke exploded from it, obscuring everything in the room and turning the doctor’s shrieks of laughter into coughs. “Now!”
Nadi hurried toward the door, holding her breath and waving her hand in front of her face to try to clear her stinging eyes. A moment later, she emerged into the night air, coughing and hacking and looking anxiously behind her.
Whiska and Rummy were nearby, weapons at the ready. “Where’s Borg?” asked Rummy.
“He should be right behind me—I told him to run.”
“You know that a rock giant’s top speed is about as fast as a snail’s saunter, right?” replied Rummy.
“Come on, Borg,” muttered Nadi. “Come on!”
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, the rock giant’s massive silhouette appeared in the doorway and he strode toward them. “Smoky,” he said.
“Let’s not dilly-dally, shall we?” said Rummy.
Nadi stared hard at the house; smoke billowed from the front door and obscured the view through the windows. “Where is he?”
“Taking a smoke break?” Rummy looked at his companions. “Come on, that’s funny!” He shook his head when no one laughed. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on,” said Whiska. She held her staff up and pointed it toward the door, launching a massive fireball that exploded when it hit the doorframe. “Heh heh. Fire.”
“Coming, Nadi?” said Rummy.
Nadinta tore her gaze from the house. “We need to stop him.”
“Look, generally speaking, you know I’m on board with righting the wrongs and stopping the bad guys. It’s why I decided to give this adventuring thing a go. Well, that and the treasure…though we haven’t found much of that. And some of us are hoarding what little bit we’ve found.” Rummy looked pointedly at Whiska, who sniffed and harrumphed. “But…this guy’s out of our league. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we’re traveling with a giant rock”—he inclined his head toward Borg—“we’d all be smoking corpses right now. I know we haven’t been doing this very long, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that sometimes you just need to walk away and live to fight…or run away again, I guess…another day.”
“I hate to say it, but pube-beard is right,” said Whiska.
“Pube-beard?” muttered Rummy. “I admit that it’s not as thick as a full-blooded dwarf, but I think that’s a little bit—”
“I don’t think any of my magic is going to be much good against the old bag of skin,” said Whiska, ignoring Rummy, “and I’m the most powerful weapon we’ve got. We need to run, Nadi.”
Nadi ground her teeth. “What do you think, Borg?”
“Smoke break. Heh. That’s…funny.”
“See? I told you,” said Rummy.
Nadi rolled her eyes. “Fine, but we’re coming back at some point. We just gave a lunatic a weapon of immense power, and every single person he hurts with it is on us.”
“Maybe we need a better vetting process when it comes to our potential employers…”
“Not now, Rummy. Come on—before he comes after us.” Nadi sheathed her sword and strode off at a brisk pace, matched by Whiska, with Rummy and his little legs, and Borg and his inability to move with anything resembling haste, struggling to keep up.
Chapter 7
A CLARION CALL FOR NOBLE AND HEROIC WARRIORS
The steadfast and resilient residents of the village of Skendrick sent forth a call for aid and succor from a band of heroic adventurers whose might and courage would enable them to sally forth and seek out the mighty wyrm in its lair and, by virtue of their strength at arms and magical might, slay the awesome beast and lay claim to its treasure hoard.