A Gnome and a Serpent (Basically a snippet thread)

Got bored, felt like writing, couldn't access my usual outlet on SV so I'm doing this instead. The setting is original, but also riffs/parodies a lot of general fiction tropes because I'm biologically incapable of going more than a few hours without cracking some kind of joke.

I wouldn't expect regular updates if I were you. At least not until I'm done with Wiki Warrior.

--

Those boys were up to something, I could practically smell it. You don't get to be my age in this business without knowing a smuggler when you see one. Hell, you don't get to be half my age in this business without doing a little smuggling yourself.

They almost seemed normal at first, pair of journeyman woodcarvers making their way to Wudcrolven to get their work inspected by a master of the craft. Nothing unusual about that by itself, not on the surface. It was a bunch of little things with their story.

Like how they were just a little bit too young, as if they'd left the moment they were released from their apprenticeships rather than taking the time to actually make something worthy of inspection first. They way they'd talked was peculiar as well, I couldn't place the accent but it wasn't anywhere in Lviaa that I'd been to. Most suspiciously, however, was the box.

They were guarded about it's very existence and I'd only gotten tiny peeks at it, and it wasn't made of any kind of wood I'd ever heard of. I'd asked around the crew and they all agreed with me, that box was a bad sign. Especially with the war on the horizon.

Lviaa and Carro had been at eachother's throats for centuries, and war was hardly an unexpected consequence. I personally had continued doing business on the North Sea for each of the nine wars that I'd been alive to sail in. Neither side was ever eager to let me through their respective blockades but under a Braos flag they didn't really have a choice as long as I obeyed their customs. Which is where the problem of the box came in.

Lviaa was very- lawless is probably not the correct term. Technically speaking, they have quite a bit more laws than most monarchies put together. But the between all the citystates that made it up, you could probably get away with any foul act you could think of, just as long as you did it in a specific jurisdiction or with a specific license. This quirk of Lviaa was very well known to the world, and so the territories have developed a reputation for rampant fraud, legalized murder, and the production of illicit substances. Not even other Lviaans would really trust a Lviaan certification, and so their craftsmen would find themselves hopping on a boat to go somewhere else so that their talents could get properly recognized without anyone talking about a generous donation being involved.

By comparison Carro was very- concerned about how its people lived. It was a theocratic monarchy whose royal bloodline could be traced all the way back to a minor goddess of social contracts, Cromere. Outsiders were tolerated, but merely entering the queendom was considered tacit agreement to their myriad customs and commands, and an unwary traveler might find themselves testifying before a prince or princess for the crime of speaking too loud during a theatre play or for chewing with their mouth open.

Now as I said before, I bear no ill will to smugglers in general, having been one myself on many an occasion. But I drew the line at such an obvious ploy being pulled on the Carronese navy. If I didn't put my foot down on these idiots now I'd see myself strung up by my foot in a week's time. I could only afford to be caught ferrying competent criminals, there was more plausible deniability that way. Mind made up, I made my way to the brothers' quarters and knocked twice on the door. As the ship's captain, I could have just let myself in with my key, but we were close enough to the naval border that I wasn't taking any chances.

--

To be continued...

 

I only had to wait a moment before Moris cracked the door open, peeking out at me through just a hand's width of space. It was dark in there, apparently they didn't bring any of their own candles or lum crystals. "Captain? A bit early for evening supper isn't it?"

"That's not what I wanted to speak with you about." The lad fidgeted a little in response.

"Well can it wait? Bov's asleep and I'm a little busy."

"It's about your bo-"

"What box?! We don't have a box. I mean, we've got a trunk to put our things in. But that's hardly unusual at all!" It would take all of a minute for a Carronese naval inquisitor to unravel this moron's secrets and incriminate me with them. I allowed the awkward silence to rest before responding. It was never too late or early to learn the virtue of patience.

"Boy." The word immediately offends him the way only a young man would be offended by the word. "I'm not stupid. You've been nervous since you both boarded and most of my passengers would have calmed down by now if it were just sea nerves, so you're clearly hiding something. I'd wager money it's that box you won't let us look at while you're around."

"I've told you, captain. Erm- Sir. We don't have a- Wait." Moris' face twists up in a combination of confusion and betrayal, as if I owe him anything more than a speedy journey across the water. "What do you mean 'while we're around'?"

"Did you think your bed magically made itself, boy? The scullery staff looked your box over once or twice while tidying."

"When was this?!"

"Every mealtime. You honestly didn't notice." It wasn't a question, their story was even more suspicious now. Only the exceedingly rich and powerful would actually think nothing of paying to enchant their household instead of just keeping it clean themselves. I had only a pair of enchantments to my own name, they each cost over five years' worth of profits and another two years to do the engravings. If you wanted your housewares to clean themselves you'd have to enchant each object individually. Essentially, magic was best saved for tasks that were already highly complex or physically demanding, such as keeping track of where you were on the ocean or keeping your boat's hull free from barnacles.

Kviaa didn't have a royal family- not really, so I was likely dealing with a couple of runaway fops from one of the more lucrative criminal operations. The best case scenario was that they were smuggling sugar. Everything else in that price bracket that I could think of was illegal to even own in Carro, even if you didn't currently have it on you. I was likely going to have to throw it overboard.

Moris opened the door a little wider puffing himself up and standing a little straighter to make himself more intimidating. Unfortunately for him, I was still a seaman, with arms thicker than his dainty thighs. "How dare you!" His sleeping brother behind him shifted slightly at the noise.

"Just show me what's in the box boy. I promise I won't even ask for a cut if it's less valuable than sugar, but if it's something like eyewine or coca then we're going to have a problem that can only be resolved by throwing things and/or people overboard." The way I'd phrased it was win/win, worst case scenario was that I'd lose nothing, best case was that they were hauling sugar and I'd get a nice payment for boosting their dismal security, but the third option was that the boys were even dumber than I'd first gave them credit for and were being all cloak and dagger over something innocuous like dyes.

"Why should it be any of your business what we've packed?"

"Because it's my godsdamned boat, you simpleton. I will not be a party to drug smuggling in Carro of all places. Now show me the box or I'll-"

"Okay okay, I'll get it. I'll- it's just- How far away from land are we, exactly?" I raised an eyebrow at the question before dismissing it as concerns of how far they'd have to swim and flicked open my compass. Unlike most compasses, I'd had this piece enchanted to not only tell me where the center of the world was, but to also alert me to changes in the tides, continental placement, islands appearing or disappearing nearby, and all sorts of other equally important information to have when your career frequently has you lose sight of the shore. Though the continents hadn't shifted once since I'd gotten the work done, so I was still uncertain if that part worked correctly.

"We should be coming up on the Sorta archipelago in about two nauts." He blankly stared back at me. Hmmph, landlubbers. "The chain of islands that runs between the Carro and Kviaa, there aren't any towns there. We should be passing them before morning supper tomorrow." There were fruit trees and freshwater though, not that I'd be telling him that in case he decided to take his chances in the drink. Because unlike what I'd threatened him with, I couldn't actually afford to throw passengers overboard without having to explain to the Carronese navy why there was such a discrepancy in the books.

"Nobody lives there?" He sounded almost hopeful, which was the opposite reaction I wanted to provoke.

"Not a soul. Unless you count the crabs and walruses anyway." There was a dragon warning too, but it was for the whole of Carro, not just the ocean. Dragons tended to lair in climates similar to where they were created, so I expected it would hole up in some mountain cave before the Carronese government sent somebody to deal with it. None of my business anyway.

"Alright, I'll show you. But close the door behind you, I don't want it getting out." Ominous wording there. I was beginning to suspect this wasn't a box of sugar.

--

To be continued...

 

"This is all a little embarrassing. We've been sleeping in shifts to keep watch on it, you know?" I'd figured. "Honestly, I'm actually relieved to be able to show somebody else our secret cargo, even under the circumstances. These past few weeks have been so stressful, I'm not used to it at all."

"I can imagine." Moris quietly fidgeted with the lock of the jewelry box for a few minutes before he seemed to notice my tone.

"Not- not that anything about this is illegal or anything! As far as I know nobody's made laws for this sort of thing yet." Because that sounded so much better. "It's just very- potentially lucrative with the right contacts. So we've got to keep all this under wraps, straps, lock, and key until we've fulfilled our half of the bargain."

"Would you stop speaking in riddles? I don't care about your reasons, I just want to know what it is so I can sleep without worrying about a couple of morons threatening my livelihood with their misadventures."

"Of course captain, of course. It's a completely sensible motive, I'll even understand if you need to have your palms greased a little after today to forget what I'm about to show you. It's quite something."

"I'm not Lviaan, boy." Though I wouldn't mind a bribe if we were going to any other port.

"Of course not." The lock audibly clicked, louder than any of the creaking planks that made up my vessel. "Well, here goes nothing."

I could describe not what I saw for I
Could not think straight 'ny more. The world itself
Bent 'round and round, it warped and weaved around
My mind. I looked up from the floor and
Wondered when I'd gotten there. The box lit
Up the cabin now with eerie glowing
Bright orbs dancing out in to the salt air.
Outside the sea it roared and crashed, As if
We'd sailed into a storm unlike any
I'd sailed before. I could almost see the
Titans themselves, churning the world in their
Impotent rage. It was too much for me.
Moris seemed not as shocked as I, almost
Smug to my mind's inner eyesight. "Moris!"
I cried, hoping, daring, to believe that he could
Restore order to the world and end this madness.
"Do you see now, Captain?" Replied the boy
Calm as the waves of Old Deesou, "Nothing
Against any laws that I know, it's fine."
The nerve of him, that fiend, devil! "It's fine?!
No! None of this lunacy could be called
Legal! I refuse your claim that it is-"
While I ranted and raved and screamed, Moris
Nodded three times before slamming the lid-

-back down. It was dark and quiet once more. Bov hadn't even woke up. I checked my compass again to approximate the time, we'd barely moved. "What was that?" I shakily asked Moris. He suddenly looked a lot more intimidating than he had a minute ago. I still couldn't shake the look of his grotesquely unnatural calm during that- whatever it was.

"That was a god, captain. Just a minor one, an infant- almost a faerie- but a god all the same. This box is called a Pandoor. Not a container at all, but a doorway through the warp of the outer world to that place where divine beings dwell." I understood almost none of that. Mystical nonsense, probably. They were almost definitely mages though, now that I'd thought of it. It fit all the signs and even explained that unnaturalness just now. For a given definition of 'explained'. I couldn't say I was overly happy to be dealing with mages, their kind were banned from entering Braos for a reason, and that reason was how much more complicated magic made everything it touched.

I was a simple man from a simple people, we don't often bother with honeying our words unless we're out to sell something or tell a good story. Mages were the opposite, everything became political with them. No matter what a mage was doing, you could be sure that it was just one step on an endless road of subtle shows and acts. The price of dealing with magic was apparently that you went mad and treated everything that wasn't enchanted or prophesied or whatever like- like it was less than real. You could never tell how seriously they were taking a problem or if they'd use any of their fancy spells to help. I understood the necessity of mages to bend the world into enchantments and placate angry spirits, but that didn't mean I wanted them on my ship. I had half a mind to actually throw these two overboard, if it weren't for the Carronese navy anyway. It just wouldn't do to be impolite to a guest when I had no proof of their wrongdoing, afterall.

Ugh. "You're sure it isn't illegal to bring into Carro? Your ah, guest was invited into wherever you're taking it?"

"Completely, captain."

"Well alright. I don't like it, and you can be sure I'll disavow you and your brother if the navy thinks otherwise. But I'll reassure the crew and I won't be the one to tell them about it. Just- stop acting like you've got something to hide, aye?"

"Of course captain, your wisdom is eminently reasonable on this matter." I resolved to get drunk as fast as possible, we still had enough time to sober up until we were likely to start seeing the red sails of the navy.

 

I stared at the smoldering ruin of my hut for an indeterminate amount of time, it was rather hard to measure such things when you lived as deep in the Ebon as I did. In any case, I reflected, it was probably just a plain bad idea to try and harness a dragon egg to power my stove. Not because the egg had hatched or any such nonsense that dragon egg merchants will tell you to trick you into buying their wares, dragons are sterile and the objects are just a peculiar form of geode that form in places unusually bloated with fire magic. I wasn't even sure why they were associated with dragons in the first place. No, my mistake was because dragon eggs will violently detonate if they're not regularly cooled off. I knew this but I did it anyway.

Well I suppose it was about time I got to finding a new abode anyhow. I almost never got any visitors these days. Not counting faeries anyway, nobody should count faeries. Nasty creatures. Technically they were a type of demon, the strange merger of failed divine and sapient flesh that craved naught but to discomfort their superiors on both sides of that uncanny divide. Although now that I think of it, I never did figure out what sort of person causes the creation of the petty creatures. Perhaps I could stay one more-

No. No, that's what I said about the study on titan scales. And then what happened? Well I got sidetracked and in the end I forgot all about titan scales and ended up taking a cute human boy from the local village home with me to drown our sorrows in pleasure and wine. I think he might have gotten lost on the way back home though, because last time I was there the villagers warned me about a witch-alf who sounded suspiciously like an unintelligibly drunk me who lured youths into the Ebon never to be seen again. Whoops.

When I make a decision I need to damned well stick to it. I'm Ugglad Tharmsbrokk! I have a reputation to uphold! Even if nobody buys my books or peer-reviews my papers. I was magnanimous to forgive them for it as I did live in a fairly remote area. Perhaps I'd move to a townhouse this time? Atllis was nice this time of year. I think. Time in the Ebon, once again you vex me. Or perhaps I'd try a nice place out by the Cliffs of Ghell, I'd get all sorts of nice visits from her many interesting worshipers that way. Though the fact that they'd be walking to their deaths would likely make conversation awkward. Hmm. Maybe I'll just go back home, with any luck the old elders will be long dead by now and the new ones won't be so damned xenophobic. I honestly wouldn't mind living with other alfs if it meant I occasionally saw other kinds of person. Maybe my mother will even be dead too! No, best to not get my hopes so high.

 

I yawned for the third time as I surveyed the twelve students whose punishments were entrusted to me by the High Magister. Six humans, three alfs, a pair of drusi, and a tlixl; they were a motley bunch. They'd been caught last night using the ritual summoning circle for activities that were most certainly not summoning rituals. Not unless the intent was to summon babies anyway, or a fertilized eggsac in the tlixl's case. Hmmph. Youths, there was a bunch like this every damned term I swear. I was even one of them, once upon a time.

I yawned again, noting another surge in spatial warping as I did. One of the human boys was trying to creep closer to his midnight tryst partner while he thought I wasn't looking. I couldn't say I really cared. As long as he remained seated and the chair didn't change positions in relation to the room, his punishment was still in place. The rule these brats broke was about misuse of magical artifacts, not fraternization.

I yawned a fifth time and went back to grading essays. Some of these kids were rock-stupid. The one whose paper I was reading right now had spent the last three paragraphs trying to prove that the world was round. He was failing miserably, naturally. Some things were just self evident, the world being in the shape of a humongous octopus with twisted, winding arms was one of those things. If you looked carefully when a sun wasn't in the way, you could even make out the other arms cutting across the night sky. But his arguments would work rather well if they were taken in context with one another, rather than compared against the world itself, so I supposed that I could give the boy half-credit for surlogic.

Being able to swap out the logical reality with a parallel cohesive surreality was an important skill in any class of magi. If your conscious mind was fighting the change to reality you wanted to impose, it'd never take for longer than a minute at most. Thus, we humble magic instructors were tasked with nurturing and encouraging that skill whenever possible. Even when the students really ought to be answering the important test questions that determined if they understood the curriculum.

I yawned again. There had to be a dream eating spirit wandering about or something, I'd heard Souderland's class lost control of their familiar bindings last week. Was all he could do to keep anyone from losing a hand when the demon got loose, apparently. Could be worse.

Last year I had a student summon a water elemental into his own stomach. It was hilarious until it decided it wanted out of him. Hopefully the elemental didn't entrench too deeply into the lad's soul before he expired, it would really stink something awful to have to put down a former student a few years down the road from now. The inevitability of having to kill former students who went mad with elemental power was why I'd left the military in the first place.

Eventually the midday meal bell began to ring and the twelve students were released from my custody. Most of them were out the door in under a minute, but the 'romantic' boy seemed to have forgotten what rules he'd woven into his distorted space and instead slammed into the far wall. I guess I'd have to postpone my own lunch break taking the idiot to the infirmary. Marvelous.

 

It was truly the mightiest weapon this world had ever bore witness to. The staff glowed in the night atop a mystical mountain of enchanted ash, illuminating the clearing for hundreds of leagues in all directions. The mighty light was what drew my attention to it in the first place, I was on Mt. Calret hunting goblins for a bounty.

Goblins have a nasty habit of poisoning farmland and wellsprings with their foul rituals. Demons in general had nothing but nasty habits, but an infestation of goblins alone was enough to cause a famine or worse. So bounties to thin their numbers was easy money if you were willing to travel.

But as soon as I saw that rapturous light on the horizon I forgot all about petty cash. I had to have the staff. I had to cross the ocean to get it. Nothing would stand in my way. "Are you listening boy?"

I blinked and turned back to the village elder. Right, he had invited me into his home to regale me about the fate of his home but I got bored and started thinking about that magnificent weapon outside. It had slain hundreds of foes with glorious unquenchable flames. I would be unstoppable once I- "Boy!"

I looked at the elder holding me back by my arm, it was almost as though he were trying to keep me from climbing up the ash pile to reach my prize. But that was ludicrous or else he'd have used much more lethal force, as I would against any who would keep me from my rightful property. No, he was just a feeble old man who wanted to share a story with the young. I would humor him once I had claimed the artifact.

I clawed my way up the hill of ash and charcoal, heedless of the odd shapes of some of the larger clumps. The holes in the rounder pieces only made them easier to grip in the otherwise crumbly terrain. Just a few more tenpaces, as the hawk flies. It would be mine and my enemies would burn. "Lad, stop!"

I had stripped off most of my armor by now, it was only weighing me down, keeping me from climbing as high as I needed to. My clothing too was gone, all it had done for me is fill up with ash and make it harder to drag myself up the hill of failures who couldn't withstand the power I was destined to wield.

I could see it now, with my own two eyes instead of just waking dreams. It was even more powerful than I'd ever hoped. I would never fall in combat, the staff promised me. With one last groan I hurled myself up onto the summit, and spared just one glance back at mere mortality, at the old man yelling himself hoarse about nothing. "It's not worth anything, you can still fight the glamour if you try!"

I looked back at the staff. The only staff that mattered. The last weapon I would ever need. The ultimate meaning in my life. I grasped it and it told me of its name and history. This was the Stick of Forever Burning, it was an ordinary tree branch made unbreakable and set ablaze by faeries as a joke. I felt so- I felt- I-

 

In a time before time on an undefined position not found, this one's awareness unfolded from negative sixty-four to negative thirty-two. Then it did so again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and- and- and- and- and- and- and- and- and-

This one initiated experience and rose to this one's full height- exactly twice that of an adult primary consideration. Twice was good. This one enjoyed things that could be neatly doubled or halved.

Post initiation self reflections completed, this one set about its tasks for the allotted activation period. This one was currently housed in an autonomous courier form. This one had four packages to deliver to four primary considerations in two macro-locations. Ambient power levels were adequate for general operations, and so this one picked up each package and neatly stacked them on the shelf built into this one's form's chest cavity. Estimated time of arrival set to- to- to- to- to- to- to-

Odd. This one's estimated journey time set for negative six-hundred-thirty-nine allotted activation periods. This one notes that this time has already elapsed. Therefore, delivery completed. Hooray. This one enjoys a job well done. Celebratory post task self reflections completed, this one should return to- to- to- to- to- to- to-

Odd. This one's current form does not recall it's primary location. This one supposes that as a courier, this one's form is meant to be nomadic. Other nomads will likely be nearby. This one should seek out an authorized or deputized nomadic primary consideration for current directive. No primary considerations found. Odd.

Initiating exploration protocols. This one will attempt to contact local cartography guild office to determine current continental macro-location configuration. No guild office signatures found. This one notes that according to notes left by a primary consideration in this one's form's edits, that the current situation this one finds itself in would qualify as a "worst case scenario" as of last applicable enchantment edit. Accessing definitions for "worst case scenario". Primary glossary not found. Secondary glossary not found. Guild library access points not found. Emergency post cataclysmic event time capsule library access points not found. No definitions available.

Oh well.

Surface functions undefined, reverting to deeper functions until sign of either a primary or secondary consideration is detected within ambient power absorption range.This one will revert in five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr

'Twas that very moment I opened mine eyes
I tasted the magic and listened for cries.

But there were none, not a soul in this ruin
I looked back through logs and found myself fluent.

Something had happened, catastrophic in size
I promised my host I'd give up not the prize.

It was an innocent thing, all wires and plates
It could not comprehend mortal matters like hate.

But it needed a function, and I would provide
For it gave me a body in which I could hide.

The mortals they know not, they believe themselves masters
In truth they're the pawns, and author only disasters.

So I leapt off the rock and into the street
To find the toy purpose and go back to sleep.