not another one!
Man, I debated whether or not I should post the beginning of this. Two of the names might seem familiar from the most recent Greg-post because, yes, this will be a story about the future generation of gay monsters.
Unfortunately, I can't, like, post more yet because it will Give Things Away.
Head Ogre Heels
Flint knew he wasn’t supposed to be down here.
The fact that it had taken him two hours and three different lock-picks to get beyond the first door - plus the seven heavy-duty boundary and alarm spells he’d had to disarm afterwards - was a pretty clear indication of “off-limits.”
Flint smiled gleefully. He loved off-limits, because the coolest stuff was always off-limits. Whatever was down here, his Uncles really didn’t want anyone to find it.
The stairway spiraled deeper into the ground, and it narrowed the longer he walked, until he was forced to hunch over to keep from hitting his head; his shoulders brushed the sides of the walls, and the damp stone soaked his t-shirt.
The rough stone scraped his skin, and Flint winced, trying to imagine what could be worth this much trouble. Maybe it was leprechaun gold? Or some kind of ancient spellbook library? A demon-summoning chamber? The possibilities were endless - he was almost sorry he was going to find out and put and end to all his speculation.
Abruptly, the path ended at a massive door. It was made of iron and wood, standing well over ten feet tall. The surface shimmered with a barrier spell, and Flint grinned. Exactly thirty-four seconds later, the barrier spell had been disarmed and Flint pushed the door open with a heavy creak.
He shook his head. Trust the ominous door to creak.
When he entered the room, he had to stop and whistle lowly. The room was filled with shelves of books and piles of treasure; an old dragon skeleton stretched high across the ceiling; blue ever-burning fire gleamed in sconces set around the room. And in the center, on a raised dais was -
Oh, shit. It was a sarcof - a sarkopha - a coffin. Oh, shit. He gulped, but inched farther into the room.
The flickering blue light played over the massive stone coffin; it was covered in crazy carvings he wasn’t even going to try to decipher. The room was deadly quiet, except for the steady drip of water trickling down the walls.
He was in a dead guy’s tomb! Oh, man, his brother would be so jealous; Malachite was always going on about the ancient monster burial sites he uncovered and their important historic value, blah, blah. The funny thing was, the coffin didn’t look that old - the inscriptions were sharp and fresh-cut, and the stone gleamed like it had been freshly polished. That only made it creepier.
He took a few tentative steps toward the coffin. The lid was carved with a life-size version of whoever was buried inside - it was one of those deathmask things Malachite had told him about. It was a real ancient practice, supposed to do - something mystical. He hadn’t been paying attention to Malachite, he’d been too busy trying to level up in Monster Megadome Smashers; his brother should have known better than to try and talk to him when he was playing video games.
He finally reached the edge of the coffin and stared down into an exquisitely carved stone face. He found himself holding his breath. Either the sculptor had been eager to stroke the dead guy’s ego, or the guy buried inside this giant stone thing was so handsome that for just a second, Flint could sorta understand necrophilia.
Long stone eyelashes rested peacefully on high, masculine cheekbones. The thin, aristocratic nose was long and pointed, casting a shadow across well-shaped lips that, even reposed, curved in a faint, mocking smile.
He couldn’t help himself - he reached out and stroked two fingers down a stone cheek; it felt smooth and - warm?
The stone eyes opened and blinked.
“Eyaaagh!” Flint screamed eloquently, and jumped back. He stumbled and tripped over his feet, and his flashlight clattered to the floor and went out. The pale blue light from the magic-fire torches suddenly seemed very ominous.
“Oh, for - hello?” said a deep voice from the stone coffin. “Look, you shouldn’t be down here, I’m supposed to give anyone who finds me a terribly predictable speech about ancient curses, death, and a thousand wailing tortures, etcetera. You understand.”
“What?” Flint said, and he sounded really stupid, even to himself.
“BEGONE FROM THIS PLACE!” the voice thundered, reverberating around the room with enough power to shake the floor. Flint yelped and crab-crawled backwards, his heart thudding in his chest.
“WHOSOEVER TRESPASSES WILL BE - ugh, I can’t do this. Would you mind stepping closer? I hate talking to the air.” A sigh drifted over from the coffin.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Flint said, scrambling up. He gripped his flashlight so hard that his knuckles cracked, and made his way slowly to the stone figure on the coffin.
He looked down into a beautiful, sneering face.
“My God,” said the stone man, “You really are blindingly stupid. A disembodied voice coming from a man carved on a sarcophagus - “
Sarcophagus, Flint thought hysterically, oh, that was the word.
“ - asks you to step closer and you just do it? It’s obvious you have the instincts of a lemming, and a particularly ignorant one, at that. What if I was some horrible, ancient, evil being?”
“Uh, are you?” Flint asked. A little belatedly, he realized.
“That depends on whom you ask,” the stone man replied with a sour twist to his lips.
“Okay,” Flint said, thinking fast, “how about this: am I in any immediate danger of the dying-painfully variety?”
“Seeing as how I am trapped in a stone prison, no.”
“Oh,” Flint said, relaxing. “Phew.”
“Oh my God,” the stone man said, his lips twisting down into a scowl. “Are you a fool? What if I was lying? Where is your survival instinct, you pathetic excuse for a monster?”
“Hey!” Flint said, becoming annoyed. “People in stone coffins shouldn’t throw, uh, stones! I mean - are you lying?”
Stone eyes closed in a pained grimace. “If you are any example, I despair for the future of monsterkind. What is your name?”
“It’s Fli - wait a sec. I’m not giving you my name! Names can be used for dark spells.”
A light of approval glinted in the stone eyes. “Ah, so it can be taught. Might I suggest a trade? My name for yours? That would put us on equal footing.”
“How do I know you won’t lie?” Flint asked suspiciously.
“You don’t,” the stone man replied, his lips quirking.
“Fine,” Flint said, making a decision. “It’s Flint.”
The stone man sighed and his face shifted from side to side; Flint realized that was what it looked like when a stone carving tried to shake its head. “So, your name is Flint, you’re naively trusting, impulsive, idiotically brave, and you don’t think well on your feet. Have I left anything out?” he sneered.
“You forgot ‘occasionally violent,’” Flint said, and smacked his flashlight down on the stone man’s stupidly perfect nose. The nose sheared off and flew across the room.
The stone man looked at him aghast. “You little wretch! Do you know how long it took them to carve that? I will add an inability to appreciate fine craftsmanship and a reckless disregard for property to the list of your many failings.”
“Is this why they keep you locked up in a faraway basement?” Flint demanded angrily, his face heating up. “Because you’re so goddamn annoying that no one can stand you?”
“No,” the stone man hissed, his lips pulling back from sharply carved teeth, “It’s because they’re afraid of who I’ll kill if they let me run around.”
Flint took a step back, then another. “I’ll just, uh, find your nose, huh?”
His only answer was a growl.
Flint took off in the direction he thought he’d seen the nose fly; he found it sitting innocuously next to a clump of fungus in the far corner. After quickly dusting it off, he made his way back to the stone man. “Sorry,” Flint said. “Should I just, like, stick it back on?”
“No,” said the stone man. “Why don’t you spit on it first? Or better yet, reattach my stately nose with crazy glue - that should improve things.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Flint mumbled, as he pressed the nose back into place and watched the crack seal itself shut.
The stone man wiggled his nose a few times and then sneezed, glaring at Flint. “Let me smash off your nose, and we’ll see how you take it.”
“Geez,” Flint said, “I said I was sorry about breaking off your nose. It’s just, I’ve got troll blood, and sometimes it gets the better of me. My mom was a nymph, so she was all pacifist, but my dad was a reformed mountain troll. He could have a bit of a temper, and he died before he could teach me - “
“Shut up,” said the stone man, staring at Flint incredulously. “I don’t care. Spare me your very uninteresting life story.”
“Hey,” Flint said, “You’re a real bastard.”
“Thank you,” said the stone man, looking genuinely pleased for the first time.
Flint fiddled with his flashlight. “So . . . what’s your name?”
The stone man studied him. “Vel.” The laughing crinkle at the corner of his eyes made Flint think he wasn’t telling the truth.
“Really?” Flint asked.
“It’s the only name you’re going to get,” Vel replied, looking amused.
Flint inspected the coffin curiously. Vel’s stone hands were crossed over his chest, and his long, delicate fingers curled loosely around a wicked-looking dagger. Elaborate stone vines had been carved over his body like ropes, trapping his hands and legs. “So what’d you do to deserve such a cool magic burial when you died?”
“I’m not dead,” Vel muttered unhappily. “I’m in a cryo-magical state that prevents decomposition and preserves my spirit.”
“So, this is like a timeout?” Flint asked.
“Yes, if you have to put it in such simplistic terms in order to understand it,” Vel snapped. “Consider it a semi-ethereal timeout for a half-alive man.”
“Someone buried you alive?” Flint asked, sick revulsion catching in his throat and making his face pale. He had a thing about being buried alive, after that time a tunnel had collapsed on him when he visited one of Malachite’s excavations.
Vel gave him a hard look that had nothing to do with the fact that his face was carved from stone. “Yes. In order to teach me a lesson, I’ve been hidden down here for who knows how long, allowed to contemplate my sins so that I might mend my nefarious ways.” Vel’s voice was cool and mocking, but hinted at an underlying bitterness.
“Did it work?” Flint asked, intrigued, as he leaned closer.
“Break the seal on the coffin,” Vel suggested silkily, “and you could find out. Just take the knife from my hands and spill a little of your blood across my lips. That’s all it takes.”
The melodious voice floated through him, and Flint’s hands were reaching to obey before he realized what he was doing. “Whoa, fuck!” he yelled, leaping back. “You’re an ogre!”
Vel’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Yes,” he answered peevishly.
Flint’s eyes were wide in shock and, if he admitted it to himself, a little awe. “You used a Voice on me! Holy cow! I thought all the ogres with Voices were long gone. Holy cow,” he repeated. “My brother is gonna be so jealous when I tell him I found an ogre with a Voice. Even a kind of dead one.”
Vel’s smile was unpleasant. “However will you prove it? Won’t your brother think you’re lying?”
“No, because he’ll hear you talk - “
“Will he?” Vel asked, arching an eyebrow in a patronizing way. “Or will he simply see a dusty old sarcophagus with some detailed, if boring, carvings?”
Flint glared. “I get it. You won’t talk.”
“Not for anyone but you,” Vel purred, his grin just shy of malicious. Flint couldn’t stop the involuntary shiver that raced down his spine, and a new, speculative light entered Vel’s eyes.
“Although, if you let me out of this stone prison, I could put my mouth to other uses,” the ogre suggested.
Flint laughed. “Nice try, but you should know that trolls have an immunity to the Voice. It comes from being so closely related to ogres.”
“Yes, but you’re not a troll, are you?” Vel asked. “Half troll. And you’re not bad looking, for a mongrel. With a little work, you could be very attractive.”
Flint sat down on the edge of the coffin. “Pfft, try telling that to the guy I’m ga-ga over.”
Vel’s nose scrunched up in displeasure. “Why would I do that?”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Flint replied testily. “It’s not like you could really talk to him. Heck, I can barely talk to him.”
“Please,” Vel said sarcastically, “don’t inflict your petty relationship problems on me. I’ve endured enough agony to last several lifetimes locked in this bloody tomb.”
Flint brightened. “Hey, that’s it! You can’t move, but you can listen. And I bet you hate being all alone down here.”
Vel squinted up at him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, you blasted child. And I want you to quit thinking it.”
“I’ll visit you,” Flint promised. “That way you can have some company to help you work out your issues - which I can tell you have in spades, my stony friend - and I can have someone to talk to. It’s win-win!”
“Except that I would be forced to hear you prattle on about things I do not care about,” Vel said, sounding horrified. “Don’t even think about bothering me again!”
“What are you going to do?” Flint asked, grinning. “You can’t get up and walk away.”
“Don’t you think,” Vel said, a cruel twist to his lips, “that’s it is unutterably pathetic that you would force confidences on a stone man who can’t escape your self-pitying rambles? Don't you have any friends?”
Flint winced. Ouch, that stung. “Yeah, it's sorta pathetic,” he admitted, standing up. He turned his flashlight on and headed toward the door.
“Don’t expect tea and biscuits when you come by tomorrow,” Vel sniffed disdainfully behind him.
Flint grinned, half-turning around. “Wouldn’t think of it. Sweet dreams!”
“They never are,” Vel murmured cryptically as he left.
Unfortunately, I can't, like, post more yet because it will Give Things Away.
Head Ogre Heels
Flint knew he wasn’t supposed to be down here.
The fact that it had taken him two hours and three different lock-picks to get beyond the first door - plus the seven heavy-duty boundary and alarm spells he’d had to disarm afterwards - was a pretty clear indication of “off-limits.”
Flint smiled gleefully. He loved off-limits, because the coolest stuff was always off-limits. Whatever was down here, his Uncles really didn’t want anyone to find it.
The stairway spiraled deeper into the ground, and it narrowed the longer he walked, until he was forced to hunch over to keep from hitting his head; his shoulders brushed the sides of the walls, and the damp stone soaked his t-shirt.
The rough stone scraped his skin, and Flint winced, trying to imagine what could be worth this much trouble. Maybe it was leprechaun gold? Or some kind of ancient spellbook library? A demon-summoning chamber? The possibilities were endless - he was almost sorry he was going to find out and put and end to all his speculation.
Abruptly, the path ended at a massive door. It was made of iron and wood, standing well over ten feet tall. The surface shimmered with a barrier spell, and Flint grinned. Exactly thirty-four seconds later, the barrier spell had been disarmed and Flint pushed the door open with a heavy creak.
He shook his head. Trust the ominous door to creak.
When he entered the room, he had to stop and whistle lowly. The room was filled with shelves of books and piles of treasure; an old dragon skeleton stretched high across the ceiling; blue ever-burning fire gleamed in sconces set around the room. And in the center, on a raised dais was -
Oh, shit. It was a sarcof - a sarkopha - a coffin. Oh, shit. He gulped, but inched farther into the room.
The flickering blue light played over the massive stone coffin; it was covered in crazy carvings he wasn’t even going to try to decipher. The room was deadly quiet, except for the steady drip of water trickling down the walls.
He was in a dead guy’s tomb! Oh, man, his brother would be so jealous; Malachite was always going on about the ancient monster burial sites he uncovered and their important historic value, blah, blah. The funny thing was, the coffin didn’t look that old - the inscriptions were sharp and fresh-cut, and the stone gleamed like it had been freshly polished. That only made it creepier.
He took a few tentative steps toward the coffin. The lid was carved with a life-size version of whoever was buried inside - it was one of those deathmask things Malachite had told him about. It was a real ancient practice, supposed to do - something mystical. He hadn’t been paying attention to Malachite, he’d been too busy trying to level up in Monster Megadome Smashers; his brother should have known better than to try and talk to him when he was playing video games.
He finally reached the edge of the coffin and stared down into an exquisitely carved stone face. He found himself holding his breath. Either the sculptor had been eager to stroke the dead guy’s ego, or the guy buried inside this giant stone thing was so handsome that for just a second, Flint could sorta understand necrophilia.
Long stone eyelashes rested peacefully on high, masculine cheekbones. The thin, aristocratic nose was long and pointed, casting a shadow across well-shaped lips that, even reposed, curved in a faint, mocking smile.
He couldn’t help himself - he reached out and stroked two fingers down a stone cheek; it felt smooth and - warm?
The stone eyes opened and blinked.
“Eyaaagh!” Flint screamed eloquently, and jumped back. He stumbled and tripped over his feet, and his flashlight clattered to the floor and went out. The pale blue light from the magic-fire torches suddenly seemed very ominous.
“Oh, for - hello?” said a deep voice from the stone coffin. “Look, you shouldn’t be down here, I’m supposed to give anyone who finds me a terribly predictable speech about ancient curses, death, and a thousand wailing tortures, etcetera. You understand.”
“What?” Flint said, and he sounded really stupid, even to himself.
“BEGONE FROM THIS PLACE!” the voice thundered, reverberating around the room with enough power to shake the floor. Flint yelped and crab-crawled backwards, his heart thudding in his chest.
“WHOSOEVER TRESPASSES WILL BE - ugh, I can’t do this. Would you mind stepping closer? I hate talking to the air.” A sigh drifted over from the coffin.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Flint said, scrambling up. He gripped his flashlight so hard that his knuckles cracked, and made his way slowly to the stone figure on the coffin.
He looked down into a beautiful, sneering face.
“My God,” said the stone man, “You really are blindingly stupid. A disembodied voice coming from a man carved on a sarcophagus - “
Sarcophagus, Flint thought hysterically, oh, that was the word.
“ - asks you to step closer and you just do it? It’s obvious you have the instincts of a lemming, and a particularly ignorant one, at that. What if I was some horrible, ancient, evil being?”
“Uh, are you?” Flint asked. A little belatedly, he realized.
“That depends on whom you ask,” the stone man replied with a sour twist to his lips.
“Okay,” Flint said, thinking fast, “how about this: am I in any immediate danger of the dying-painfully variety?”
“Seeing as how I am trapped in a stone prison, no.”
“Oh,” Flint said, relaxing. “Phew.”
“Oh my God,” the stone man said, his lips twisting down into a scowl. “Are you a fool? What if I was lying? Where is your survival instinct, you pathetic excuse for a monster?”
“Hey!” Flint said, becoming annoyed. “People in stone coffins shouldn’t throw, uh, stones! I mean - are you lying?”
Stone eyes closed in a pained grimace. “If you are any example, I despair for the future of monsterkind. What is your name?”
“It’s Fli - wait a sec. I’m not giving you my name! Names can be used for dark spells.”
A light of approval glinted in the stone eyes. “Ah, so it can be taught. Might I suggest a trade? My name for yours? That would put us on equal footing.”
“How do I know you won’t lie?” Flint asked suspiciously.
“You don’t,” the stone man replied, his lips quirking.
“Fine,” Flint said, making a decision. “It’s Flint.”
The stone man sighed and his face shifted from side to side; Flint realized that was what it looked like when a stone carving tried to shake its head. “So, your name is Flint, you’re naively trusting, impulsive, idiotically brave, and you don’t think well on your feet. Have I left anything out?” he sneered.
“You forgot ‘occasionally violent,’” Flint said, and smacked his flashlight down on the stone man’s stupidly perfect nose. The nose sheared off and flew across the room.
The stone man looked at him aghast. “You little wretch! Do you know how long it took them to carve that? I will add an inability to appreciate fine craftsmanship and a reckless disregard for property to the list of your many failings.”
“Is this why they keep you locked up in a faraway basement?” Flint demanded angrily, his face heating up. “Because you’re so goddamn annoying that no one can stand you?”
“No,” the stone man hissed, his lips pulling back from sharply carved teeth, “It’s because they’re afraid of who I’ll kill if they let me run around.”
Flint took a step back, then another. “I’ll just, uh, find your nose, huh?”
His only answer was a growl.
Flint took off in the direction he thought he’d seen the nose fly; he found it sitting innocuously next to a clump of fungus in the far corner. After quickly dusting it off, he made his way back to the stone man. “Sorry,” Flint said. “Should I just, like, stick it back on?”
“No,” said the stone man. “Why don’t you spit on it first? Or better yet, reattach my stately nose with crazy glue - that should improve things.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Flint mumbled, as he pressed the nose back into place and watched the crack seal itself shut.
The stone man wiggled his nose a few times and then sneezed, glaring at Flint. “Let me smash off your nose, and we’ll see how you take it.”
“Geez,” Flint said, “I said I was sorry about breaking off your nose. It’s just, I’ve got troll blood, and sometimes it gets the better of me. My mom was a nymph, so she was all pacifist, but my dad was a reformed mountain troll. He could have a bit of a temper, and he died before he could teach me - “
“Shut up,” said the stone man, staring at Flint incredulously. “I don’t care. Spare me your very uninteresting life story.”
“Hey,” Flint said, “You’re a real bastard.”
“Thank you,” said the stone man, looking genuinely pleased for the first time.
Flint fiddled with his flashlight. “So . . . what’s your name?”
The stone man studied him. “Vel.” The laughing crinkle at the corner of his eyes made Flint think he wasn’t telling the truth.
“Really?” Flint asked.
“It’s the only name you’re going to get,” Vel replied, looking amused.
Flint inspected the coffin curiously. Vel’s stone hands were crossed over his chest, and his long, delicate fingers curled loosely around a wicked-looking dagger. Elaborate stone vines had been carved over his body like ropes, trapping his hands and legs. “So what’d you do to deserve such a cool magic burial when you died?”
“I’m not dead,” Vel muttered unhappily. “I’m in a cryo-magical state that prevents decomposition and preserves my spirit.”
“So, this is like a timeout?” Flint asked.
“Yes, if you have to put it in such simplistic terms in order to understand it,” Vel snapped. “Consider it a semi-ethereal timeout for a half-alive man.”
“Someone buried you alive?” Flint asked, sick revulsion catching in his throat and making his face pale. He had a thing about being buried alive, after that time a tunnel had collapsed on him when he visited one of Malachite’s excavations.
Vel gave him a hard look that had nothing to do with the fact that his face was carved from stone. “Yes. In order to teach me a lesson, I’ve been hidden down here for who knows how long, allowed to contemplate my sins so that I might mend my nefarious ways.” Vel’s voice was cool and mocking, but hinted at an underlying bitterness.
“Did it work?” Flint asked, intrigued, as he leaned closer.
“Break the seal on the coffin,” Vel suggested silkily, “and you could find out. Just take the knife from my hands and spill a little of your blood across my lips. That’s all it takes.”
The melodious voice floated through him, and Flint’s hands were reaching to obey before he realized what he was doing. “Whoa, fuck!” he yelled, leaping back. “You’re an ogre!”
Vel’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Yes,” he answered peevishly.
Flint’s eyes were wide in shock and, if he admitted it to himself, a little awe. “You used a Voice on me! Holy cow! I thought all the ogres with Voices were long gone. Holy cow,” he repeated. “My brother is gonna be so jealous when I tell him I found an ogre with a Voice. Even a kind of dead one.”
Vel’s smile was unpleasant. “However will you prove it? Won’t your brother think you’re lying?”
“No, because he’ll hear you talk - “
“Will he?” Vel asked, arching an eyebrow in a patronizing way. “Or will he simply see a dusty old sarcophagus with some detailed, if boring, carvings?”
Flint glared. “I get it. You won’t talk.”
“Not for anyone but you,” Vel purred, his grin just shy of malicious. Flint couldn’t stop the involuntary shiver that raced down his spine, and a new, speculative light entered Vel’s eyes.
“Although, if you let me out of this stone prison, I could put my mouth to other uses,” the ogre suggested.
Flint laughed. “Nice try, but you should know that trolls have an immunity to the Voice. It comes from being so closely related to ogres.”
“Yes, but you’re not a troll, are you?” Vel asked. “Half troll. And you’re not bad looking, for a mongrel. With a little work, you could be very attractive.”
Flint sat down on the edge of the coffin. “Pfft, try telling that to the guy I’m ga-ga over.”
Vel’s nose scrunched up in displeasure. “Why would I do that?”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Flint replied testily. “It’s not like you could really talk to him. Heck, I can barely talk to him.”
“Please,” Vel said sarcastically, “don’t inflict your petty relationship problems on me. I’ve endured enough agony to last several lifetimes locked in this bloody tomb.”
Flint brightened. “Hey, that’s it! You can’t move, but you can listen. And I bet you hate being all alone down here.”
Vel squinted up at him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, you blasted child. And I want you to quit thinking it.”
“I’ll visit you,” Flint promised. “That way you can have some company to help you work out your issues - which I can tell you have in spades, my stony friend - and I can have someone to talk to. It’s win-win!”
“Except that I would be forced to hear you prattle on about things I do not care about,” Vel said, sounding horrified. “Don’t even think about bothering me again!”
“What are you going to do?” Flint asked, grinning. “You can’t get up and walk away.”
“Don’t you think,” Vel said, a cruel twist to his lips, “that’s it is unutterably pathetic that you would force confidences on a stone man who can’t escape your self-pitying rambles? Don't you have any friends?”
Flint winced. Ouch, that stung. “Yeah, it's sorta pathetic,” he admitted, standing up. He turned his flashlight on and headed toward the door.
“Don’t expect tea and biscuits when you come by tomorrow,” Vel sniffed disdainfully behind him.
Flint grinned, half-turning around. “Wouldn’t think of it. Sweet dreams!”
“They never are,” Vel murmured cryptically as he left.