‘Take the Pearl?’ Flann queried. The mellifluous tones made harsh by the rasping cough of infectious disease.
‘Yes Flann,’ replied Quintain, who quivered in his loins at the thought of doing something without Zyf to guide him. ’I’ve got it,’ he continued, muttering under his breath, ‘Dumbass!’
‘I worry though, will we be out of here before those dragons wake up? It’s a crying shame that Zyf’s not here,’ Flann sighed an uneasy sigh with all the world-weariness of one born to mediocrity, yet immune to the seductions of women, ‘he means well, if only I were half, nay one quarter, nay again, one-one hundredth the leader and inspiration he is.’
All the party shook their heads and sighed meaningfully while staring off into space imagining the mighty Zyf; such an obvious point, Flann could have been a second-assistant-privy-cleaner-in-training to kings, if he hadn’t decided to become the greatest liability in the history of magic.
‘Oh Flann,’ sighed Emma, bosom heaving, ’let’s get out of here quickly so that you and I,’ and here the delicate maiden blushed, ‘…can discuss Zyf’s length…uh, at length,..um, I mean discuss Zyf at length!’
‘Now, now Emma. First things first,’ said the zero, combing his manfully touseled back hair in a non-gender specific way, ‘I need to imperil the world and all of you…again!’
‘Smuj is going to throw-up now!’
Flann turned to see the hulking and valiant, but not overly bright (though substantially more intelligent than the sorceror) Smuj, who was sheepishly holding a large chunk of ice. A chunk ripped out of the ice sheet covering a white dragon.
‘Bethehokey, Smujjer, Whoid ye haav t’go’an do soomthing loike thaat?!’ This from Dannis an eccentric, beard-covered, druid with a tragic speech impediment. ‘Naow t’ings caan’t poosibli gat ony wars.’ And just as the druid mumbled his prediction the room began to shake.
Coolly clenching his hemorrhoid, Flann demanded his panicked party members to guide him out of the room, away from the dragons as he had just experienced a case of fright-blindness. Sadly the slick ice proved to be too much for Smuj, Dannis, his dog Frik, and the newly returned Zyf, who had miraculously appeared out of the Astral Plane, looking none the worse for his heroic extra-planar encounter with the demons and acolytes of the most unholy Syn!
As the room rotated further and much of the party began to fall, Flann swiftly cast Featherfall, saving himself and leaving the rest of the party to tumble across the frozen cave floor. The two huge ancient spell-weaving white dragons, now unfrozen, advanced on the hapless heroes. Quintain apparently pled for the company’s life in Draconic, while clutching the valuable pearl to his chest.
The dragons, incensed by his cowardice, sprung to the attack!
Moving with the speed of lightning, Flann wet his trousers valiantly
warming much of his nether bits just in case the wyrms breathed their
ferocious winter breath!
‘For the Honor of Myn!’
Zyf shouted as his conjured dagger struck its target again and again,
occupying the first beast and giving the party a much-needed opportunity
to regroup.
‘OH NOES! SMUJ POOPED ’EM!’ yelled the incontinent warrior as he fled the room, overcome by dragonfear.
‘W-w-wait for me Smuj!’ Quintain screamed, holding onto the giant half-orc for dear life. Quintain’s frantic efforts proved a minor hindrance to the doughty, though panicking, barbarian and Smuj quickly broke free and fled. Though far slower than the fair Emma, whose womanly humors were also overcome by the presence of so much sorceror urine.
Flann looked at the display by his cohorts and laughed a big, deep, maniacal guffaw of panic and fear. ‘SEE YA LATER LIZARD!’ was his battle cry as he flung fireball after fireball into the surrounding icy walls creating a dense fog to hide in.
‘Pew pew!’ retorted the beast’s clutchmate as it nonchalantly flicked Flann with its tiniest claw as it flew by, sending the feeble caster into a nearby wall.
‘What should I do next?’ thought Zyf methodically and logically as he beheaded the flying beast and strode across the icy floor towards the fallen ne’er do well. ‘If only you had one-one thousandth my constitution, grit and moxie, you could have weathered such a measly attack!’
‘Z-z-zyf, I can’t keep this up much longer!’ Shouted Quintain as he flitted here and there, trying vainly to distract the remaining dragon.
‘SMUJ WILL HELP! OOPS!’ Said Smuj as he slipped and fell into the room.
‘Ah, d’ye naid me haalp? No? Waaall Oi’ll mayke shuuuure dat Frick and de byes is ok!’ said Dannis incomprehensibly, from the other room.
‘Oh no! Not Flann again!’ said Emma for the millionth time during this adventure, sexily sidling up to the powerful dwarf. ‘Wait, Zyf, wait and I’ll give him the coup de grace, so we won’t have to put up with his shenanigans any longer!’
Flann stood up, ‘Ha ha! Not to worry everyone, I have perfected my possum technique! Works nine times out of ten, y’know! Oh, here comes the other one!’ And, danged if he didn’t faint dead away.
‘Fine, you stay here and practice your mime skills,’ commanded the brilliant Zyf, ’I’ll just finish off this pathetic dragon, too.’ And, sure enough, he did. Later saving Emma, Quintain, Smuj and Flann single handedly from some sort of ungodly ice zombies with precise applications of his signature finishing move, The Figure Four Leg Lock.
And didn’t it make you swell with pride to read it? I know it did me.