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Post by ThornesQuest on Mar 6, 2013 12:31:06 GMT -5
Once Naomi reassured them that Elzbet was not going to thump them all into apple sauce, the gnomes descended on the barely lamented Trog's trove like a swarm of hungry locusts, while Naomi helped herself to what she thought might be useful - a leather helm, a pair of sensible boots (she resolutely refused to wonder what had happened to their original owner), a medium-length sword and a dagger with an interesting jewel on the pommel.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2013 19:07:39 GMT -5
"Yep, it's official: I'm lost," Naomi said to herself, there being no one else around with whom to share this insight. Something rustled in the underbrush beside her now-defunct Ford Taurus. Naomi peered through the car window, wondering if she'd feel better for spotting the source of the noise or being unable to find it. What a time for her cellphone to be out of juice!
Sighing, she crawled over to the passenger seat, looking to see if exiting the car on that side in her sandals would be any safer. Regrettably, the passenger side was no safer with a steep sided, really deep ravine just inches from her wheels alongside the car. She told herself that there was no reason - no reason at all! - for the Taurus to spontaneously leap to the right, but her gut tightened at the sight of the precipitous drop, and she edged back over to the driver's side.
Before her nerves failed her, she opened the driver's door, and stamped her left foot down into the brush, as if with her sandal and blind luck she could squash the rustling critter. A small grey creature - a ferret? a weasel? - sprang out of the brush and scampered away into the woods on the far side of the road.
"She's here! She's here!" the creature squeaked as it ran.
That was when Naomi realized that she had not just taken a wrong turn back at the covered bridge, but had fallen into some kind of rabbit hole; no wonder the Taurus had just ... died: machines likely didn't work on This Side. "Dammit, Wonderland always creeped me out," she muttered, taking the useless cellphone and throwing it at the creature.
She had had a definite choice back at the crossroads: to follow the main highway or to take a side road that led over a quaint covered bridge; in her inimitable style, she had, of course, chosen "quaint". Now, she was beginning to wish she had taken the highway, even with all that it entailed. She turned to the left and began to trudge through the over-grown roadway toward the bridge; surely she could just walk over it on foot and find her way back through the rabbit hole.
As she backtracked what she thought had been a short drive, Naomi kept hearing things whispering and moving about in the brush to her right. Even more worrisomely - she could hear her English prof telling her that wasn't a word - was the fact that the bridge, which, when she had begun walking was a brown square blur about a half a K away, now seemed to be retreating from her. She stopped, and looked back for her car, only to find that it had disappeared.
When she turned back towards the bridge, it was no longer in sight and the road in that direction had narrowed to a muddy path. When she dressed that morning, she'd known she was going to regret wearing sandals. With both car and bridge no longer in sight, and no choice but to accept her footwear, the next decision was pick a direction, which she solved by flipping the quarter she found in her jeans pocket.
As the coin spun in the air, she realized that it no longer showed Queen Elizabeth on one side and a moose on the other, but now featured a curious glyph and a portrait of a stern-looking king with pointy ears. "What have you gotten yourself into?" Naomi asked herself aloud as the coin landed portrait side up and it grinned evilly at her.
"Why whatever mischief happens to those who go down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass,over the rainbow just be careful for what you wish." came a voice from the bushes, making Naomi jump as she had not expected an answer to her rhetorical question. A short dumpy woman stepped out from the shrubbery and smiled merrily at Naomi. Naomi couldn't say who or what she had expected to step out into her view, a white rabbit, a dormouse carrying his teapot, a Mad Hatter but not a Disneyesque Fairy Godmother who was busily pulling twigs from her hair.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The woman smiled, showing pointy teeth. Whoa!!! Naomi had always thought of herself as a survivor and now she turned heel and despite those stupid fashion choice sandals dug her toes in and sprinted away from the small woman as fast as she could.
"Head her off!" the woman shouted behind her.
Naomi was startled to a sudden halt when the path was suddenly blocked by a group of angry looking gnomes. Gnomes, she thought to herself, why did it have to be gnomes? Naomi pushed her gnome issues aside and took stock of her situation, quickly assessing her options, which she decided were few, as she picked up a good stout stick and planted her feet firmly on the soft loam under her.
In keeping with the way her day was going, the ground beneath her feet promptly gave way, and she tumbled down about eight feet to land in what she thought the gnomes had set up as a troll trap. Hitting the bottom hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs, leaving Naomi blinking and gasping, as her gaze went upwards to see the gnomes and the strange woman peering down at her. That was distressing enough, but then another figure loomed, huge and terrifying, behind the cluster of gnomes: a troll!
She may not like gnomes, but she had bigger ones with what she believed in her heart would be wholesale slaughter so she sucked the air back into her lungs and screamed.."Behind you...look out...monster!"
"No, no, dearie," the strange woman said in an overly sweet tone. "The monster here is you!"
The troll gave the lie to the woman's statement by picking her up by the waist and casually tossing her over his shoulder.
Well as far as Naomi could make out as the gnomes fell into confused disarray was the Troll was being a troll and that the woman was in danger so despite her better judgement she shouted "Get me out of here and I will help!"
Most of the gnomes ignored her shout - they were a bit preoccupied dodging the troll's lumbering and clumsy attempts to swat them - but one sturdy young fellow threw a rope down to her. Without hesitation Naomi gripped the rope and holding her stick as best she could climbed up hand over hand till she reached the top. The sturdy young gnome who had helped her gave her a cheery smile, and the two of them waded into the fray together, a fray that was mostly marked by gnomes being seized and tossed aside.
Naomi was sure she couldn't overpower the troll, so talking to it or escaping seemed like the best bets - maybe both at once. Naomi never thought that field hockey had any practical application when forced to play in high school, but now she was able to use that thick stick and the training she had undergone to her advantage, bringing its heavy knobby end down on a bunion on the trolls foot.
The troll opened its maw wide to howl its pain, displaying fearsome teeth and a complete lack of dental care, and then, clutching its injured foot, it fell onto the ground, luckily missing squashing any gnomes on the way down.
Troll down! it was time to smack his arm or hand as the cheery helpful gnome pulled the short lady away and the other gnomes proceeded to batter the large predator with their weapons till his captive was free! Naomi switched from field hockey to baseball: she rested her stick briefly on her shoulder, thought of the Jays winning the World Series in 1993, swung the stick and knocked the troll's head right out of the park - literally!
As she watched the head sail out of the park, or whatever, Naomi pointed over at the fence, and asked a gnome "What's over there?"
A rather grumpy gnome glanced at her and then answered "I wouldn't worry about it. You can't get there from here!" and then proceeded to chuckle as he went to the short woman and made sure she was alright.
Naomi exchanged mystified glances with the cheery young gnome and then stuck her hand out - down - to him: "I'm Naomi."
The gnome didn't reach out for her hand, but he looked up at the other lady and she nodded. With the permission of the older woman, the cheery young fellow smiled and said, "Hello, Nay Oh Me, I am called Frittle."
<Any port in a storm> thought Naomi as she nodded to the gnome "Can you please tell me,Frittle ..." her words petered out and she shook her head trying to figure what question to ask as a million suddenly raced through her head.
Frittle seemed to understand her confusion, for he smiled kindly. "Did you come from the land of the crazy steel, in your magic carriage?"
It took Naomi a moment to translate his meaning, but then she nodded and said, "And now here I am in ... what is this place called?"
Frittle scratched at his beard as he considered this question "Well depends on who you be asking Nay-Oh- Me but our scholars call it Braeshire..but mostly we just call it home."
"Are troll attacks a common problem here in Braeshire?" Noaomi ask (smiling within herself at having been given the name of "Nay Oh Me"; she wondered if Frittle would start calling her "Nay" when he got to know her better).
"Well, the thing is - the trolls themselves are not so common around these parts, but when you see a troll, you can be pretty sure there's going to be trouble."
"No time for chit-chat!" the old woman scolded Naomi and Frittle.
Naomi looked around and blurted out, "Why not?"
"Now that you're here, Nay Oh Me, we can begin the Quest, of course!" Frittle said.
"Okay, maybe not Wonderland," Naomi muttered to herself.
"There's a ... quest?" she asked aloud, looking from Frittle to the old woman.
"Of course there's a quest, why do you think we brought you here?" said the old woman. She smiled, which might have softened her features if it hadn't been for the pointy teeth which now showed again.
"So, it wasn't my fault I drove the wrong way?"
"What the use of assigning blame?" Frittle said, but he hung his head in a way that told Naomi he had been blamed - but for what?
"If I help with this quest do I get to return home?" Naomi inquired softly thinking getting back to this 'QUEST' might be best for now rather then placing blame.
"Well now, that depends, doesn't it?" said the old woman.
"Depends on what?" Naomi said with a bit of a growl in her voice as all these run-about answers were getting on her last good nerve.
"It depends on whether you can defeat the dragon," Frittle said, still hanging his head in shame.
"And why would it be up to me to slay the the thing?" Naomi asked incredulously before she snapped, "AND STOP ACTING AS IF YOU'VE DONE SOMETHING WRONG!"
Frittle continued to hang his head and then mumbled, "But I did: I released the dragon ... and the trolls; I caused all our land's troubles."
"Oh, Frittle. I'm sorry I snapped at you like that," Naomi apologized. "Tell me what happened."
"I've always been unforgivably curious," said Frittle, "and you know the saying: curiosity killed the gnome."
"Come on, this way, we can talk on the move," the old woman grumbled, pointing to a winding path. The small group started along the path the gnomes taking up what seemed preset positions as the older woman Naomi and Frittle in the middle of this formation.
"It all started when I found ... this," Frittle said, lifting up an ornate medallion that hung on a silver chain around his neck. "It was just sitting there on a rock."
"And you just had to pick it up, didn't you?" the old woman snapped over her shoulder.
Frittle looked chagrined and then said "Anyone would of,with it all shiny and sparkling in that single beam of sunlight" the comment only garnering a snort from the older woman. "No one else would have placed it on his heart and spoken the words engraved on it, though," Frittle added (he was clearly a very honest young cheery gnome, as well as a curious one).
Naomi shook her head at this confession. "But you did not know it would release a dragon, so that brings us to another thing which is why do you need me?"
"The prophecy, of course!" the old woman snapped over her shoulder again, while still striding along purposefully through the woods - which proved to be a mistake, as she tripped on a tree root and fell flat on her face before anyone could catch her.
Frittle and Naomi rushed to help the woman back onto her feet "Okay and now may I ask what prophecy?" inquired Naomi brushing dust off the woman as she spoke.
The old woman flapped her hands at everyone fussing around her, as if trying to shoo away annoying gnats. "The prophecy was pronounced by a very wise woman years ago, as she sat in a bathtub full of tree sap and its unusual properties allowed her to enter a precognitive trance."
Naomi exchanged quizzical glances with Frittle (he nodded, almost imperceptibly) and then could not help asking, "Was that wise woman ... you, ma'am?"
The older woman glared at the pair and harrumphed "Of course not!" she snorted "It was Great Aunt Brambalyn and I remember her in that tub speaking of the time of the freeing of the dragon and the other world hero who would come and put all to rights."
"And you believe that I'm this ... other-world hero?" Naomi asked.
"Why else would you be here if you weren't?" the old woman said with a knowing grin.
Naomi blinked "Because I can not follow a map to save my life but believe me I can not fix my own problems let alone someone else's and a dragon at that!"
Frittle frowned and said, "No one's asking you to fix the dragon's problems; we don't care if she has problems."
"No, you're asking me to fix your problem, and your problem IS a dragon!"
"I hear you saying 'your'," the old woman mused, "but this problem of the dragon is not just ours, but also yours, my dear Nay Oh Me, because Great-Aunt Brambalyn's prophecy was very clear: you cannot return home until you slay her - the dragon, that is, not Great-Aunt Brambalyn."
"Slay the dragon?" Naomi shrieked.
"Of course, slay the dragon," said Frittle, and he produced from his jacket pocket a worn copy of one of Naomi's favourite books - Barbara Hambly's "Dragonsbane". "People in your world are good at that sort of thing!"
The book looked like one she had dropped on a bus a few months ago and figured gone for good and so she just had to take it and look inside to see her 'This Book Belongs To Naomi Wilson' pasted on the inside cover.
"Are there little wormholes that open up to this place on the bus?"
Frittle took back the book and peered at it form every angle "I don't see in any holes worm or otherwise and what is a bus?" he asked looking to the older woman for her input on this matter his ever present smile spreading across his face once he was sure the book was unharmed.
Naomi sighed: clearly there were forces at work here that had been shaping her life for some time; did that mean that she WAS supposed to slay this - ulp! - dragon?
"So do I go get a sword first of all?"
"Don't you already own one?" Frittle asked.
Naomi shook her head and felt a dull pounding starting behind her eyes "No in fact I took field hockey because I felt I was way to clumsy for fencing and swords are not our first choice of weaponry in my world not for hundreds of years."
"Oh dear," the old woman sighed. "You're going to have to find one then, right?"
Naomi had almost given up arguing at this point. "Any idea where to start looking?"
Frittle was eyeing her over-large purse slung over her shoulder: "You don't have anything useful in your Bag of Carrying?"
"The deadliest thing in my purse might be a ball point pen which I might be able to stab someone in the eye with, though if I hit someone with this I might injure them..but I doubt it would do more then make a dragon laugh." said Naomi ruefully eyeing her over-sized slouch bag.
"Well, when this is over, you'll have more useful things in it," he said with a smile. "Gold and gems. Camping supplies. Your Bag of Carrying can fit a tent in it, yes?"
"Never mind FIT a tent; that Bag of Carrying could BE a tent," the old woman observed as they all started walking again.
"Only if you are a gnome," muttered Naomi as she trotted along with the woman, Frittle and company "And where would I get a sword if I must have one?"
"I expect the troll will have quite a selection of swords and other weaponry in his lair," Frittle said cheerily.
"Don't worry Nay-O-Me," comforted the older woman as two gnomes covered in leaves for camo approached them "We gnomes recognize superior workmanship and magic easily so you will get the best but for now it seems the scouts have found said lair."
The scouts led the party to a dark cave mouth, and then somehow all the gnomes melted back, and Naomi found herself at the front of the group facing the dark opening, wondering if the troll she had beheaded had had a wife, or a brother, or the like.
"Thog! Is that you! You better have brought home something to eat or by by the Dragon, you'll be sleeping on the floor again!" a rather angry female voice hollered from deep within the cave.
Briefly, before the terror set in, Naomi wondered if her imagination had actually conjured the troll wife; why hadn't she simply imagined a clowder of furry kittens lurking in the cave?
"Damn it, Thog! Answer me when I'm yelling at you!" the troll's wife hollered again as her eight foot tall, well defined and muscular body came into view. "You're not Thog. Where is he?"
"He ... um ... that is, Thog ... um ... had a little accident," Naomi stammered, while she tried to surreptitiously edge backward, out of reach of Thog's beloved.
"Oh? He's had an accident, eh?" she sighed with a raised eyebrow. "Come on in and tell me about it. Want some tea?"
Clinging to the idea that her imagination was driving the troll's attitude (and perhaps her very existence!), Naomi, accompanied by the fear-filled gasps and moans of the gnomes behind her, entered the home/cave of Thog's widow.
"So, details please," the She-Hulk like woman said as she started puttering about what could be considered a kitchen. "What happened and will he be coming back any time soon?"
"Well, no, he won't be coming back ... ever," Naomi said (honesty being the best policy, she had always believed).
"Well, no loss there," she said as she turned to the table with cups of steaming liquid. "Trog was the dumbest of them all. I can finally move back into a house. I just don't know what I'm going to do with all this stuff."
Naomi looked around at the hoard that the "dumbest of them all" had acquired in his lifetime: there were swords, helms and shields, as well as small casks that could only be described as treasure chests.
Taking a sip of the brew that had been placed in front of her Naomi choked a bit before she could help herself "Strong ..very strong...." she found herself gasping out "but perhaps I could take a few of those things off your hands..if it would help you"
"Sure. Help yourself," she said with a grin and a blush. "Just, uh, stay out of the box with the pink bow. That's, uhm, a little more personal if you catch my meaning. I'm Elzbet. It's good to finally have some company."
Naomi didn't want to appear ungracious, so she forced herself to consume all of the strong, hot tea before she began to explore Thog's hoard.
It tickled at her throat and made her want to cough if she swallowed too much of it at once.
"You're new in the area, aren't you?" Elzbet asked at one point. "Need a trust worthy guide?"
Naomi was weighing a thin whippy blade in her hand and glanced towards Elzbet "Very new, greener then grass about how things work here and a guide is always a wise idea and I am Naomi."
Then her eye traveled in the direction the blade happened to be pointing, and she realized that she was looking at a medallion on top of a jumble of coins and jewels: it was identical to the one Frittle had apparently used to awaken the dragon.
"Elzbet, can you tell me more about that medallion? I think I've seen it some where before," Naomi asked as she pointed it out.
Elzbet reached forward and grabbed the medallion. "Oh, that silly thing? I think Trog shoplifted it from a curio shop over in the Secret Market - he said the vendor had a dozen or so of them and wouldn't miss one."
Picking up the pendant Naomi slipped it on over her head and felt a tingle run down her spine like an electric current going from head to toes "So yopu said something about a guide?" she asked again.
"Yeah, I know a fair bit about the area," Elzbet commented proudly. "Good places to camp at night and such. I also know the best towns to get supplies."
"Perhaps we could check out the Secret Market?"
"Sure, it's a bit of a hike from here," Elzbet advised.
"That's great and I have a feeling that it will not seem so far by the time all things are settled and oh just so you know I am with a group of gnomes who are waiting outside your home,hope it's okay." Naomi smiled a bit sheepishly at this confession.
"Do you want me to clear them out for you?" Elzbet asked with a wicked grin. "Them vermin is hard to get rid of, once they settle in, y'know."
Naomi considered it for a moment - if she got rid of the gnomes, maybe she could go home?
Then she thought of Frittle - sweet Frittle, who was, she now suspected, unnecessarily taking the blame for the dragon's appearance - and shook her head: "No, they're my friends, so I'd like them, at least Frittle and the old woman, to come along with us to the Secret Market, please."
Elzbet wrinkled her nose. "Gnomes? Friends?" She stared at Naomi for so long Naomi began to wonder if she should run. But then Elzbet shrugged.
"Aye, then, I can show you the way to the Market - you and your Frittle and them other vermin if you insist - and then I can sell the rest of Trog's what-nots there, too, whatever ye're not minded to take."
Now Naomi just had to tell the gnomes. She didn't think they were going to take it well...
However, perhaps it would sweeten the deal for them if she shared some of Trog's treasure trove with them.
"My friends might be able to help lighten your load some too...and well it makes sense to as the Boy Scouts tell us 'Always be prepared' making our journey less hazardous." Naomi gave a sweet smile hoping this might incline her new found companion more friendly to the gnomes.
Once Naomi reassured them that Elzbet was not going to thump them all into apple sauce, the gnomes descended on the barely lamented Trog's trove like a swarm of hungry locusts, while Naomi helped herself to what she thought might be useful - a leather helm, a pair of sensible boots (she resolutely refused to wonder what had happened to their original owner), a medium-length sword and a dagger with an interesting jewel on the pommel.
(Did I miss any?)
"Take these," the old woman whispered as she discretely pushed a pouch into Naomi's purse. "Don't lose them!"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2013 23:07:26 GMT -5
"Each one is an individual spell," the old lady explained. "You can use them separately or combine two or three of them. But be careful, some combinations will work wonderfully, but others could blow you to bits."
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