Chapter ??

  Bog Business

  “Thanks for letting us stay, Queso,” said Veris.

  “Of course, Master Veris. You are welcome to stay anytime you want,” she responded.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to travel with us?” asked Mimi. “That humanoid form of yours could be very useful as a disguise.”

  “Oh yes, I use it all of the time when I go shopping. But I’m more comfortable like this, in my base form. Maybe I’ll join you sometime in the future. Maybe when you need it most—like some kind of final battle in those MagiMovies. Who knows? But for now, I’m going to enjoy my vacation as I see fit. Please excuse my selfishness, Master.”

  “No-no, I understand Queso,” Veris nodded. “Alone time is important. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “I gotta say, you kick ass in Diablo Kart!” Bird remarked, wiggling his MagiPhone. “Here’s my Magi-ID in case you want to play anything else on the ‘net.”

  "Sure," Queso said, taking out her phone.

  Bird tapped them together, transferring their contact information.

  “So, how do we get to the Valley of Dim from here?” Sol asked.

  “It’s very easy, Your Majesty,” Queso pointed. “Just walk out of my cave, turn left, and go straight. You can’t miss the way down, there’s literally no other way to go. Unless you want to backtrack, of course.”

  “I see, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Sunbreak exchanged their goodbyes with Quesocotyl and went on their merry way. Following her directions, they exited the cave and made a left, walking for about another hour until they came to a dip: a bright red plastic slide; similar to what you’d see in a McDawnolds playplace. It took on a perfect logarithmic slope, right into the fourth quadrant of the xy-plane. By all known laws of physics this thing shouldn’t even exist; floating like this with no support. But as it is with magic, anything is possible. Physics is constantly broken. Safety violations went out the wazoo; merely suggestions for those who don’t like fun. This was a slide, alright. A straight one. But nonetheless, a slide.

  “Um… who’s going first?” Mimi asked, anxiously looking down at it.

  “I’ll go!” Bird answered, happily.

  “Okay.”

  Mimi immediately stepped out of the way and gestured for Bird to go. He took his place and scooted forward; his enormous gravitational potential energy commencing its conversion into kinetic energy. His tusks aerodynamically cut through the air and his hair flapped back in the wind, occasionally getting in his mouth and causing him to spit. But that wasn’t the only thing to flap, his pants had somehow slipped off, leaving his little green dude to wave at any of Musselheim’s inhabitants looking his way in the breeze.

  “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!” he yelled, excited.

  The rest looked on, then at each other nervously.

  “It doesn’t seem too dangerous,” Veris commented.

  “Mhm, but how am I going to get down, honey?” Sol asked.

  “You aren’t going alone, that’s for sure. Let me see if I have something in my pocket dimension to make the trip more comfortable…” Veris reached into the spatial hole that appeared at her side and rummaged through it.

  CLANK! CLATTER! SPILL! COLLAPSE! Things seemed to jostle around in there. It must be filled.

  “Mimi, maybe you should go next while we figure this out,” Sol suggested.

  “Nah, I think I’ll stay here—WOAH—Errrrrrrrrr!”

  Mimi got shoved down the slide by Domino. When there’s a hot sun, that means somewhere there’s a hot slide basking in its glory, absorbing its radiance. And if there’s a hot slide, then any fool unlucky enough to go down it on their knees would have their epidermis rub off in a fiery brimstone challenging that of Old Mal's atmosphere. Mimi was that fool. Once she hit the curve, her knees squeegeed along the slide’s surface and her face contorted with pain. A sharp, radical pain. Something that we’ve all felt before, or at least felt by proxy. Her ears twitched and her teeth clenched, enough for her voice to squeal into oblivion. This hurt. Big time. And once the initial shock ended, she unfolded backwards onto her butt and immediately applied some healing magic the rest of the way down. If only she had brought some aloe vera with her. As for Domino, all he did was salute and engage in the fun, torpedoing himself into the plastic fun-canal.

  “Those squeaks sounded horrible,” Sol commented. “I could feel her pain from here.”

  “Hm?” Veris said, having pulled out a long wooden crate, a blanket, and a cushion. “Did I miss something?”

  “Yeah. Mimi slid down on her knees! It looked like it hurt!”

  “Aw man!” Veris complained. “I mean—ooooof, that sounds horrible! Hm.” She frowned, fakely.

  “Veris, we’ve been married over forty years. Everybody knows you’re a sadist. You don’t need to hide it.”

  Her cheeks reddened, “I’ll have Mimi describe her experience to me in detail, later.” Then she spread the blanket at the slide’s entrance, placed the crate on top of it, and shoved the cushion inside in a meager attempt at comfort. “Here, let me help you in.”

  Sol found himself levitated into the crate while Veris shoved his wheelchair into her pocket dimension. Next, she climbed inside the crate behind him, her pink thighs bracing him for the way down. They were soft, like thick pink pillows. Perfect shock absorbers. Many men have lusted for such a thing, and Sol knew this as a fact. Oh the saucy, desperate, and downright disgusting letters he’s been sent by down bad fans! Oh the saucy, desperate, and downright disgusting letters he’s incinerated in the royal fireplace! He relished in his wife’s squish, but tried not to show it outwardly. Needlessly to say, her thighs were comfortable against his cheeks, but if needed they could crackle into hard rock at a moment’s notice. A demonic trait. Both textures had their uses.

  The duo found themselves settled in the crate, as comfortable as they could be in this situation. The space was a bit cramped, but good enough for the brief but intensive journey that lay ahead.

  “Are you ready, hun?” Veris asked.

  “Ready,” Sol nodded.

  With a magical puff of air the crate tilted over the curve. Down they went. Almost straight down, actually.

  SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWOOOOOOOO!

  As the wind pelted their faces, or should I say, they pelted the wind, Sol and Veris’ skin jostled from the speed. Their eyelids flapped too, drying out their eyes and causing them to water in a useless attempt at re-hydration. It was nearly impossible to speak to each other, so they focused on their current situation instead: they were falling, and the mountaintops disappeared as they descended further into the canyon. Their crate tried to lift away from the track, but Veris used some gravity magic to push it back. Right before the bottom they hit the slide’s curve, going from a steep decline into an almost horizontal stretch. In his old age, the G-forces made Sol momentarily pass out, his back cracking from the rapid shift. If his party were composed of any normal people, like bakers or stamp collectors or something, they surely would have died or at least suffered a spinal injury. An intense case of whiplash, maybe? No matter. Their present speed made both the canyon’s colorful ridges and the snow-peaked mountains above them rapidly part like buildings in a sped-up city drive-thru EDM music video, squeezing at their approach and stretching at the edges of their field of view. All they could see was the plastic path ahead of them, momentarily clouded by a sonic boom. And soon; only a few seconds later; the mountains started to shorten, and the canyon began to level out. The red-orange clay around them transitioned into a greenish-black color, turning into clumps of loose dirt and mud. And finally, as they slowed to a stop, blackened trees began to prop up around them, covered in a hanging moss that looked like the hands of a heaven-hell trying to reach down from above. The end of the line was a creaky lichen-stricken wooden dock. And just off the edge of that was a murky blackish-brown-green bog. The Valley of Dim. They made it.

  “Right then,” Veris nodded, levitating her husband back into his wheelchair and climbing out of the slide.

  “Domino!” Mimi shouted into the fog. “I know I can’t speak with you directly, but what you did was a major dick move!” Her voice echoed to no response. “Tch,” she rubbed her freshly healed knees that were still kind of raw.

  “Well, that was fun!” Bird said, walking around the dock and looking down into the bog. Staring back at him was just… ‘Ew’: a wiggly algoid wall with hardly any reflection to speak of. If he did have a reflection, we would see him frown.

  BZZZZT. BZZZZT.

  Mosquitos hastily took note of the party’s presence. Assaulting them with their pointy blood-suckers; mechanisms for itch. Sol watched one land on his arm. Despite his magnificent defensive stat, the damn thing had pierced his skin with its proboscis and started to drain a minutia of crimson-oil from his organic pipes.

  “Just when I thought I finally got away from the mosquitos plaguing North America, they show up here to torment me again!” he complained.

  “North America?” Mimi repeated. “Is that a country? Sol, where the hell is North America?”

  “What do you mean? It’s where I’m originally from: North America. The United States.”

  “I thought you were originally from Genes?”

  “Er yes, but before that!”

  “Before?”

  “Yes, before. I reincarnated from another world: Earth.”

  Everybody in the party stared at him.

  “WHAAAAAAAT?” They simultaneously shouted.

  “Why are you all acting so surprised?” He wondered. “I’ve mentioned this multiple times before. Like—a year into our journey? C’mon Veris,” he looked up at her, “I’ve told you before, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m just fucking with you guys,” she shrugged. “He told me before we got married. Like the day after we met.”

  “See?” He looked at the rest of the party.

  “Sol! What? No! I don’t—I don’t think you’ve mentioned this before!” Bird exclaimed, unsure of his memories.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Mimi stated, confidently. “I’m quite sure he hasn’t. An elf’s memory is pretty good since we live for so long. I’m one-hundred percent certain that he’s never told us, Bird.”

  “Oh,” Sol looked up in contemplation. “Um, I thought I did. Sorry! He-he.” He smiled and rubbed the back of his head, shyly.

  “This is a big deal, Sol. Like—Geneesus dude, this isn’t something you just blab about when talking about mosquitos, of all things. This is something you tell us in private, after calling a meeting!”

  “Okay, but why is it so important?” Sol shrugged.

  “Well for one,” Domino butted-in, “it certainly explains your strength.”

  “Yeah, and your weird ideas!” Mimi pointed.

  “And the weird customs that you’ve spread across your lands!” Bird spread his arms.

  “And that brings up other questions,” Domino held the bottom rim of his mask like a chin. “What of your old world’s history?”

  “And magic! And science!” Veris nodded along.

  “Don’t forget the delicacies!” Bird rubbed his stomach. “The teas! Their mioga techniques!”

  “Okay, okay, I get it!” Sol answered. “I’ll need to get permission to answer some stuff. But in terms of magic: Earth had no magic.”

  “No magic?” The party exclaimed.

  “No magic,” he clarified. “Nada. Nothin’. All science, baby.”

  “So like, how advanced was your society... compared to the one you and Veris have built?” Mimi wondered.

  “It’s hard to really say. It was about even with what we have now? Of course, some things magic does better than science. And other things science does better. So like, we didn’t have those hellgates and teleport spells for instant travel. But we had flying machines called airplanes that could get you around the world within a day or two. Oh,” he hit his fist against his palm, “did you guys ever notice how almost every piece of magitek that we have is called Magi-Something?”

  They nodded.

  “Well, take away the ‘Magi’ part and we pretty much had a fully scientific analogue to it. Phones, TVs, computers, the internet; a lot of the stuff had similar functionality to what we have here. I would say the infrastructure for it was a little better over there, though.”

  “What about conflict?” Bird asked.

  “Mm, instead of swinging swords and casting spells, we developed weapons called guns. I mean we have those here: MagiGuns; magitek charged with magic—But I’m talking about completely physical stuff. Their metal projectiles, bullets, could tear through the greatest of humanoid armors, depending on the caliber. And forget about mages if they did exist there! In a direct confrontation they’d most likely be bodied before they could even cast a single spell. But if they had the element of surprise, then they could win. And then, of course, we had the nukes.”

  “Nukes?” Bird repeated.

  “Yeah. Nukes. Bombs with a incredibly large explosion radius. They’re not as powerful as me at my full power, mind you, but they could definitely deal some damage, wiping whole cities off the map! Cities like Veris and I’s city, but bigger, taller, filled with glass. And you know poison clouds? Well, imagine those being left over afterwards—except they’re invisible, and they cause your skin to peel off over the course of a couple weeks. ‘Radiation’ we called it. And you won’t know you’re dead until it’s too late. It was actually better to be vaporized by the bomb’s initial blast than to be exposed to its fallout.”

  “Oh my,” Mimi’s eyes went wide. “And every country had these?”

  “Not every country, but the more prominent ones, yes. Enough so that nobody would use them again after the first two times. They became a deterrent. If anybody were to use them, then everybody else had orders to use theirs and then the end of the world would occur. M.A.D.: Mutually Assured Destruction was the plan. ”

  “Oh damn.”

  “We were in the middle of the third global conflict before I died. World War III.”

  “You had world wars?” Veris said, shocked.

  “Yes. And we were lucky nobody used nukes… yet. I’m not exactly sure if they did, because y’know, I died before ever having hope of seeing the end.”

  “So like, what was the cause? Old beef and stuff?” Mimi asked.

  “For the smaller scale ones, yes. Others: economical and ideological reasons. Resource wars, with some racism thrown in there.”

  “So like, the elves had their own country. The humans did, too. What about orcs, demons, dwarves, and the others?”

  “No-no. There were only humans,” Sol nodded.

  “Only humans?” Mimi exchanged glances with the rest of the party. “What happened to the other races?”

  “Never existed. Or should I say, only existed in fiction. The world we are living in would be perfect setting for a fantasy reader online. Sorry—on the 'net.”

  “How the hell were you humans racist against each other, then?” Bird said.

  “Skin color, eye-lid shape, accent, height, average dick size,” Sol pointed at his own features.

  “That’s reaching!” Bird’s jaw hit the floor. “Are you sure there weren’t any other intelligent species?”

  “Not counting dolphins, elephants, and octopi who were just barely too stupid. There were multiple species existing at one time. Actually, they would all be what you consider 'human.' We weren’t even that advanced back then. Still using stone spears and stuff. But we killed them off. This occurred way before written history. Tribe warfare type shit. And it gets worse. Much worse. Every single thing you can possibly think of we judged each other for. Stupid things: Gender, fan bases you were subscribed to, sports teams, medical injections, political opinions—honestly, I don’t even know how we got as far as we did. But I can get into all of that later. First, let’s figure out how to get out of this place. It’s stinky, gloomy, and quite frankly, disgusting.”

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  BLUP, BLUP, BLUP. Gas bubbles popped on the sloppy bog’s surface.

  FLUSH. SLAM!

  “SOME-BODY WANTS A WAY ACROSS THE BOG? DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT?” yelled an old elven man, bursting through a decrepit outhouse door with a bundle of flies following him.

  “Oh man, what’s that stench?” Mimi remarked, holding her nose.

  “WHAZZAT?”

  This old guy was a different breed of elf when compared to Mimi. His ears were horizontally stretched; sticking far out to the sides like a 2x4, ending in a point. Each one had two semi-rusted ear trumpets sticking out of them, collecting sound from the party’s direction like an inverse megaphone. His dark grey eyebrows were bushy. His outfit was nothing but overalls and fishing boots, with no undershirt to speak of (if there was one it would be stained). His eyes were a dark green, somewhat mimicking the bog. And If you couldn’t infer already, he was hard of hearing.

  “Nothing,” Mimi replied.

  “EH?” He leaned in.

  “YES, WE WANT TO CROSS THE BOG,” Sol answered.

  “WHAT? YOU WANT TO CROSS THE BOG?”

  “HUH?” Sol put his hand up to his own ear to listen.

  “SAY AGAIN?”

  “HM?”

  “PLEASE SPEAK LOUDER. I’M HARD OF HEARING!”

  “YES…?”

  The party stared at the two old geezers failing to communicate, somewhat in amusement and somewhat in worry.

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Veris got in-between them. “SIR—YES, WE WANT TO CROSS THE BOG!”

  “FANTASTIC THEN!” The elf pumped his arm in understanding. “ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF!” He bowed. “MY NAME IS BOG ELFMAN!”

  “BUG OFF, MAN?” Sol questioned. “Now that’s very rude!”

  “BOG. ELF-MAN,” he clarified.

  “Oh…”

  “ANYWAY, BEFORE I CAN HELP YOU CROSS, I’LL NEED TWO THINGS!”

  “And what would that be?” Mimi asked.

  “SAY THAT AGAIN?”

  “AND WHAT WOULD THAT BE?”

  “I’M GLAD YOU ASKED, SISTER!”

  “Sister?” she murmured.

  Bog held up his shriveled fingers with muck lines plaguing their nails. “ONE: THE SLIDE FEE!”

  “Slide fee?” Bird wondered. “Hang on, there was a fee to use the slide?”

  “HM? SPEAK LOUDER, SONNY!”

  “THERE’S A FEE TO USE THAT SLIDE OVER THERE?”

  “YES!” Bog nodded. “I BUILT IT MYSELF! DIDN’T YOU SEE THE SIGN?” He pointed at the slide’s exit.

  “Sign?” Everybody said simultaneously as they turned their heads.

  Yup. There’s the sign. Stained. Warped in nature. Shoddily constructed. Located just to the left of the red half pipe. It reads: “Bog’s Direct-To-Dim Slide. 1 GP per customer," painted in mud.

  “Um, WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT SIGN AT THE END OF THE SLIDE, INSTEAD OF AT THE BEGINNING?” Veris asked.

  “THERE WAS ONE AT THE BEGINNING!” Bog answered.

  “NO THERE WASN’T!” Mimi yelled back.

  “Oh,” he looked down in thought, then back up. “IT MUST’VE FALLEN OFF! SOMETIMES IT GETS REALLY WINDY UP THERE.”

  The party raised their eyebrows.

  “Well, it’s just one gold each,” Sol shrugged, rustling in his pocket. “Let’s just pay it.”

  “Yeah,” Bird nodded, understandably, and checked… somewhere on his body.

  “Mm,” Veris said with a straight face, reaching into her pocket dimension.

  “Alright,” Mimi gave in, and opened her steel-leaf coinpurse.

  “Already ready,” Domino responded, coin shining in the vaguely hand-shaped blob protruding from his dark cloak.

  Each member gave Bog his payment.

  CLINK!

  “THANK YOU!” He pocketed the gold. “NOW, THAT BRINGS US TO NUMBER TWO!”

  “AND WHAT IS THAT?” Sol asked.

  “YOU SEE THAT MAGIAIRBOAT OVER ‘DERE?” He pointed at the dock house that the party somehow missed. Sticking out of it was the back of a MagiAirboat. Compared to a normal airboat, there was no gigantic fan to speak of. However, there still was the circular shell for one, with a slot for a different kind of mechanism at its center.

  The party nodded.

  “WELL, THE DANG AIR EMITTER POPPED OFF ON THE WAY BACK FROM MY LAST CROCKAGATOR HUNT. I MANAGED TO GET BACK, BUT I SUSPECT ITS STUCK IN THE BOG SOMEWHERE.” Bog tapped his chest with both of his hands. “I AM MUCH TOO OLD TO GO TRUDGING AROUND THE BOG MYSELF, BUT IF YOU GUYS CAN GO COLLECT THE EMITTER FOR ME, THEN I’LL HAPPILY FERRY YOU ACROSS DIM FOR FREE!”

  “It’s not exactly free, we are still paying you with our help,” Mimi crossed her arms.

  “WHAZZAT, SISTER?” He shoved an ear horn into her face.

  “NOTHING, MR. ELFMAN!” She cupped her mouth into it.

  “MHM,” he grunted, loudly.

  “OKAY, WE’LL HELP YOU!” Sol responded.

  “Sol, couldn’t we just fly over it?” Mimi whispered to him.

  “No-no,” he whispered back. “Like I said: no ease of travel. Plus this guy is SCREWED if we don’t help him. And, have you ever ridden a MagiAirboat before? They’re fun!”

  “Ugh, fine,” she sighed.

  Bog was just smiling at them, his brain trying to comprehend the murmurs. Sol gave him a thumbs up.

  “WHOOPIE!” He smiled and pulled out a slimy parchment out from under his overalls. “HERE’S A MAP OF THE PATH THROUGH THE BOG I USUALLY TAKE. JUST GO PERPENDICULAR FROM THE DOCK AND YOU SHOULD FIND THE EMITTER SOMEWHERE BETWEEN HERE AND THE CROCAGATOR NEST.”

  The map was very simple. First there was a house symbol with a crude depiction of Bog’s face on it, smiling. Then there was a straight dotted line through the bog business filled with crappy trees. No curves or anything. Just a straight line. And at the end of it was a group of three crockagator heads, or at least, that’s what the party assumed they were. The drawings were more like triangles with cartoon eyes.

  “How is this supposed to help us?” Mimi whispered.

  “Maybe his mind-map is more filled out?” Veris responded.

  “I don’t know, maybe it is this simple,” Domino guessed.

  “His drawings are ass,” Bird said outright. Didn’t even bother to shush his voice. The old elf probably didn't hear it anyway.

  Sunbreak looked up from the map. Bog didn’t seem put off from the comment, and instead was looking up and down at the map and them.

  Yeah, he didn’t hear that.

  “THANK YOU FOR THE MAP, BOG,” Sol folded it into his pocket. “WE’LL BE ON OUR WAY NOW.”

  “YOU’RE WELCOME!” He smiled. “I’M GOING TO COOK UP SOME LUNCH WHILE I WAIT.” Bog entered the house built on the more stable side of the dock. Nothing to really describe here. It’s a proverbial shit-shack.

  “Here, put these on you guys,” Veris handed each member of the party a pair of dark green rubber fishing boots from her pocket dimension, then began fitting a pair on her husband’s feet, even though he probably wouldn’t need them.

  “Where’d you get those?” He asked her.

  “Remember the poison swamp we went through? On the way to slaughter the Slitherer?”

  “No…?”

  “Bird got poisoned,” she clarified.

  Sol thought back—back when Bird was a bit more stupid. He dove head-first into that purple gooey swamp before anyone had a chance to stop him, and his still-body floated to the top. Everyone had to rush to retrieve him, and Veris used her blood magic to slowly separate the poison from his blood. He managed to wake up in the middle of the operation, then screamed like a coked-out banshee.

  “Oh yeah,” Sol nodded to Veris just as she popped the boots onto his veiny feet.

  Mimi switched into her goth-metal form before putting her own pair on.

  “At least they’ll match a bit better with this outfit,” she bargained.

  SLIP. SLUP. CUP. The sound of air seals being formed were heard from each of their feet.

  “Everybody ready?” Sol prompted.

  “Ready,” Veris answered.

  “All good,” Mimi nodded.

  “Yes,” Domino answered plainly, the boots comically sticking out from beneath his cloak like clown shoes.

  “ALL RIGHT! LAST ONE IN THE BOG IS A RRRRROTTEN EGG!” Bird immediately dove into the bog, causing a thick, goopy splash. The non-newtonian liquid partially resisted his entrance, acting like a murky lake of oobleck. He was stunned for a moment, then his body sunk in with a glup.

  Everybody slapped their foreheads, waiting for the inevitable problem to arise. But it didn’t. No—Bird resurfaced, spitting out the bog in a viscous fountain then smiling at them, mud stuck in his teeth. He was perfectly fine.

  “I can’t believe we’re trudging through this icky poop-like goop,” Mimi complained. “It’s demoralizing.”

  “Oh stop complaining, we’re almost at the halfway point, methinks,” Bird replied.

  “Methinks?” Mimi raised her eyebrow. “When did you start using archaic language?”

  “What? I couldn’t hear your question over the wet slaps of my filthy grippers.”

  “Whatever,” Mimi rolled her eyes, then cracked a little smile.

  “They’re soooo getting together sometime in the future,” Veris whispered into Sol’s left ear, who was levitating just above the muck with her magic.

  “I agree,” Domino whispered into Sol’s right ear.

  “They’ve already screwed once," Sol’s eyebrows raised with spice. "It’s only a matter of time.”

  “What are you three whispering about?” Mimi turned around.

  “It’s a secret!” Veris replied, then stuck out her blue tongue.

  Mimi scoffed, “Children. Utter children. Really, I’m the adult here; over a thousand years old.”

  “In human years, yes!” Domino clarified. “But not in elf years! You’re still very much a young adult!”

  “Shut it!” Mimi flipped the bird at him, making him disappear. In this world, that meant laying the back of your index finger against the front of your ring; nail to Distal phalanx; bending them into place with the middle finger hooking around the ring, intersecting at the ring’s top digit crease; the Distal interphalangeal. Both the thumb and pinky touch underneath, out of the picture.

  “Hey, I think I see something!” Bird pointed ahead, nabbing their attention.

  A light stone tablet inscribed with some sort of symbol, partially stuck out of the bog.

  “You think that’s it?” Mimi wondered.

  “It looks like a wind rune!" Veris responded.

  “Sweet, let me dig it out!” Bird leaped out of the bog and hastily skipped across it, utilizing its ooblecky properties, until finally sinking in front of the rune. He gripped it, then pulled. “MMMMMMMMM!” A vein appeared on his forehead. “MMMMMMMMM!"

  POP!

  “Got it!” He shoved it under his arm and smiled at the party.

  “Uh, Bird?” Sol pointed out.

  “What?”

  Sol pointed harder and the image zoomed out. An incredibly sharp triangular strip of jagged teeth surrounded Bird.

  “Oh,” he murmured.

  SNAP! The jaws shut and out from the muck a dangerous species of fauna appeared. As the bog slowly slipped off, slapping against then liquefying in the pool below, its form was made clear: a simple brownish-green triangle… with googly eyes stuck on top. The rest of its body was exactly what you’d expect from a reptile, except its tail’s tip was also a triangle. But its head, oh its head, was so, so stupid. A textbook crocagator, exactly as Bog Elfman drew it. Maybe he really was a good artist?

  “ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAARRRRR!”

  Despite its funny face, the crocagator’s frightening teeth were now on full display; its jaw unhinging at a ninety degree angle. But quite to Sunbreak’s surprise, a green palm was sticking straight above its throat. It was Bird, and he formed his hand into a fist and punched the thing’s nacho-shaped uvula. It immediately shut its trap with a worried expression.

  “GULP, GULP.”

  It began dry heaving like a cat with a hairball, then threw up Bird like one too. He slipped across the bog, naked, before sinking and resurfacing, ready for action. He then spun around fast, launching all the goop off of him and lunged for the top of the crocagator, wrestling his arms around its chip-like mouth.

  Veris and Mimi found themselves questioning this thing’s very existence. Neither of them were particularly well versed in ecology. Something this dumb-looking couldn’t possibly exist, right? Right?

  “Guys!” Sol snapped them out of it.

  “Right!” Mimi began her music: a hillbilly inspired tune. Beer blowing, washboard scrubbing, hee-hoos, burps and gulps—with some electric banjo and throat-destroying shouts in there. Once she reached a flow state, the party momentarily glowed a strong red and blue with a wee; a strength and magic buff; while the crockagator glowed a dim red and blue with a sad woo; a strength and magic debuff.

  “Yes!” Veris shot her hands above the reptile's direction, glowing a mix of brown and blue. The bog began coalescing above its head, but at this point the shape was too globular, too bumpy to resolve.

  SLICE! THUMP!

  “EHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” The crockagator screamed. Its tail had just been cut off by Domino’s throwing kunai. It still wiggled and splashed around, despite being disconnected. Bird then poked it in its great googly eyes. “EUUUUURAHHHH!” Its jaw unhinged again, allowing him to reach underneath and remove one of its sharp teeth.

  “TAKE THIS!” He shoved the tooth through the top of the thing’s nacho-snout, piercing all the way through its tongue and lower mandible, locking it closed like a bolt.

  “Bird! Hop off!” Veris commanded.

  “What?” he looked up. There was a giant boggy hammer floating there, dripping all over the place. “Shoot!” He dove off.

  BANG! BANG! The oobleck hammer solidified against the tooth embedded in the crocagator’s snout, causing it to complete its dig, leaving a red-green-brown oozy hole in its wake.

  “EHRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr….” The pain was just too much to bear for the poor nacho chip creature. Its jaw momentarily lifted then slammed onto its tongue, making it stick straight out. Amidst its final breath, Its eyes transformed into giant 'X's. It had perished.

  “Whew!” Bird wiped the sweat from his head. “Nothing like a bit of wrestling, eh?”

  “I wonder why it was away from its nest?” Mimi said.

  “Maybe the rune drew it out?" Veris pondered. "Magic can sometimes irritate creatures."

  “Or, it was using it as bait, hoping to trap Bog,” Domino suggested.

  “That would make sense,” she rubbed her chin.

  “Speaking of runes. Bird, do you have the one we were looking for?” Sol asked.

  “Uhhhh,” he checked his naked body, “hang on.” He crawled back into the crockagator’s mouth, down into its stomach, and returned with the rune—and his clothes—in hand; all slimy.

  “Ew,” everybody stuck out their tongues, even the simple face on Domino’s mask did too.

  “WELL, HOO-EE! I’M MIGHTY GLAD YOU GOT MY WIND EMITTER BACK!” Bog retrieved it from Sol. “NOW, I JUST GOT TO SLOT IT BACK INTO PLACE. WOULD YOU GUYS WANT SOME ICED TEA WHILE YOU WAIT?” He held up a glass jar filled with a dark, murky body of water and a couple of ice cubes. Condensation slid down its side.

  “OH BOY, TEA!” Bird said, excitedly. “I’LL HAVE SOME!”

  “HERE YOU ARE!” Bog handed it to him, then went to fit the rune into the back of the air-boat.

  “BOTTOM’S UP,” Bird chugged it while the rest of the party looked at him, worried.

  SLAM!

  “AHHHhhhhh… That hits the spot.” He noticed their glances. “What? It’s just iced black tea.”

  The great collective breath of relief occurred.

  “THERE’S MORE IN THAT MAGIFRIDGE BEHIND YOU,” the old elf pointed at it, still focused on fitting the rune.

  “I guess I’ll try some,” Sol said. Bird reached into the fridge and handed him one. He gulped it down quickly and burped. “Yeah, that’s just regular black tea alright.”

  Bird pointed eagerly at the others, and they nodded. He reopened the fridge and threw each of them a jar, which they promptly popped the tops off and downed. Domino was away from view for a moment before returning with his jar empty. Everyone seemed satisfied.

  “UHHHH. UHHHHHHHHH?” Bog was hesitating at fitting the diamond rune into the square rune receptacle, until he turned it forty-five degrees and slotted it in. “THERE WE GO!”

  “ALL READY, MR. ELFMAN?” Veris asked.

  “ALL SET! JUST THROW THOSE JARS ON THE SHELF OVER THERE AND HOP IN!”

  The party did as they were told, climbing in one at a time. The MagiAirboat rocked a bit, but eventually everyone got seated in front of old elf.

  SQUISH.

  The seats were metal, layered with a thin coat of slime. Not comfortable in the slightest, and would stain their butts, but at least wouldn’t get too hot with all the splashing. The old elf inserted a key, then pressed the big red ignition button. The wind rune's symbol; depicting a gust of wind (duh), glowed a serviceable white, ready to be of service. Bog gripped the lever to his right, pressing the small square button on top with his thumb to release its lock, and pulled it back.

  “REVERSING!” He shouted right into Mimi’s ear, annoying her. “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!” There was no reverse siren on this thing, so his voice had to make do. “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!”

  The MagiAirboat backed out of its shack. How exactly? Well, the wind rune produced a wind tunnel without the need for spinning metal blades. Quite a simple substitution. Runes acted like programmable batteries for magic spells, which usually required dwarven craftsmen to work together with mages—most likely elves—to create. Over time, this solved dwarf-elf racism. Thanks the Kingdom of Dawn!

  “ANNNNND,” Bog shoved the lever forward, “WE’RE OFF!”

  WHIR-WHIRRR-WHIRRRRRRRRRRRR. The airboat launched forward, fast; the flame decals on its side coincidentally becoming apparent in the brief areas of light. You would expect this thing to have trouble moving so quickly through the non-Newtonian fluid, but it didn’t.

  “HOW’S THIS THING MOVING SO WELL THROUGH THE BOG, MR. ELFMAN?” Veris asked.

  “HUH?” He replied. The whirring was much too loud.

  Veris shouted directly into his ear horns, “HOW IS THIS THING MOVING SO WELL THROUGH THE BOG?”

  “OH! THAT’S QUITE SIMPLE! DO YOU SEE THOSE RODS OUT FRONT?” He pointed out, and the party leaned forward.

  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

  “YEAH!” Veris replied.

  “THIS THING HAS A SECOND WIND EMITTER DOOHICKEY ON THE FRONT TOO. YOU CAN’T SEE IT, IT'S UNDER THE BOG. THAT THING WIGGLES—er—VIBRATES VERY FAST, AND THOSE RODS AMPLIFY THE VIBRATIONS IN FRONT OF THE BOAT! OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"

  “I SEE!” Domino shouted. “SO THE RODS RESONATE WITH THE WIND RUNE’S VIBRATIONS, SENDING GREATER VIBRATIONS OUT INTO THE BOG, BREAKING DOWN ITS DILATANT PROPERTIES!”

  “...SURE!”

  “THAT’S VERY INTERESTING!” Veris remarked.

  “I’LL SAY!” Sol added.

  MMMMMMM…MMMMMM—MMMMM…MMM.

  SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! The MagiAirboat began to launch off the bog’s surface, land, sink, then launch off again. Everybody grabbed onto the railing, and each other.

  “I THINK! THE FRONT EMITTER! IS STALLING!” Veris shouted.

  “IT DOES THAT! THE THING’S OLD! DON’T WORRY! IT’LL FIX! ITSELF IN A! BIT!” Bog yelled back.

  Mimi’s stomach grumbled, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “WHAT?” Everybody said.

  Mimi gagged, then threw up over the side, “BLEAAAAAAAAUGHHHH!” She hastily took hold of the railing after almost falling off. Adrenaline surged through her body as if a piano wire was snaking through her veins.

  BAM! Bird stomped his foot into the floor of the boat.

  MMM—MMM—MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. The rods began vibrating properly again.

  “I FIXED IT!” Bird yelled at Bog.

  “NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE! GOOD JOB, SON!” He gave him a thumbs up.

  “WELL, UH…” Bird blushed and flicked his hand, dismissing the old elf’s complement.

  “WHAT’S THAT?” Sol pointed to the figure standing on the dock that they were rapidly approaching. It was another elf.

  “HEY BOG—WHAAAAAAAAAA!” The MagiAirboat smashed through the dock, sending the friendly elf flying.

  “WHAT’S WHAT?” Bog stared at the party, blankly.

  The party glanced at each other, worried. This man clearly was not fit to drive.