To read the previous adventures of Sabine, click here. To support us on Patreon, click here. The story continues below. Sabine kept pace with Silfde and his intoxicated menagerie as he gestured all about the
To read the previous adventures of Sabine, click here. To support us on Patreon, click here. The story continues below.
Sabine kept pace with Silfde and his intoxicated menagerie as he gestured all about the mansion. “The larder’s over thataway, plenty of pies and sausages. Mama’s flower patch is over there, the hydrangeas are lovely right now—”
“Actually, Smythe just emptied his stomach all over those,” one of Silfde’s friends said.
“All right, probably better to stay away from there then.” He then used two fingers to point up at an ominous chamber visible from the courtyard laid all with black brick and surrounded by spikes. “Dad’s chapel is up there. If you choose to roll around on the alter, I won’t judge, I’m just begging you to wear a lambskin. Nothing good comes from demonic crabs or hell spawn.”
“Uh huh.” Sabine did her best to contain just how appalling she found this young man. It seemed simple enough to just stick him with the athame while they were walking, but then would all of his drunken friends knock her down on the way out? Would she have to fight off the giant doorman? She didn’t want to rush it. “Uh huh.”
No, no, no, you’re doing this wrong, Dahkhal said. This little bastard is the one who’s going to set off the spell, you need to get close to him.
Through grit teeth, Sabine asked, “And how do I do that?”
“What was that, pixie girl?” Silfde asked.
He’s a deacon’s son just entering adulthood, Dahkhal said. For the sake of the gods—you’ve been married ten times! Do you not know how to tell a young man exactly what he wants to hear?
“Uh… you’ll have to tell me how to put one of those lamb things on.” Sabine spoke quickly. “You know, I’m— used to— uh—” she racked her brain for some come on one of her husbands had once tried. “I don’t like wearing boots when I muck out the pigpen, if you know what I mean.”
If Dahkhal possessed the anatomy, he’d have balked. How? How are you so unbelievably awful at this? Sabine wasn’t sure if he was snarling in fury or cackling in disbelief. Indeed, she wasn’t sure he knew either.
The jellyfish would have gone on, but a chorus of, “Oooohs” rang out from Silfde’s friends as they returned to the main courtyard and drowned him out. Someone in the entourage called out, “Dirty girl. Dirty, dirty girl.”
It was then, despite all of Dahkhal’s protestations, Sabine started to suspect she could do absolutely anything at Silfde’s party and no one would suspect a thing. At least as long as she played stupid.
“You’ve earned yourself a seat of honor, you nasty thing.” Upon the return to the center of the festivities, Silfde sat down in his throne, spread his legs apart, and patted one of his knees. “Sit here with me, pixie girl.”
Struct’s tome of Eldritch lore leaned against Silfde’s chair. Sabine missed the intention of his knee slaps and sat down right between his legs. The party host let out a high-pitched, barely audible cry of pain as her weight hit his privates.
“Oooh, what do we have here?” She leaned down, grabbed, and opened the book.
“That—” Silfde cleared his throat when his voice remained an octave too high. “Ahem! That is my father’s magical tome. It can do extraordinary things, like refill kegs with mead, or document embarrassing things my friends are doing.”
Sabine noticed a page toward the back of the book as it shimmered. She flipped to it and held the book up for Silfde to see. “The Ultimate Party? What’s that?”
“It’s a spell guaranteed to make tonight the greatest night of our lives.” As Silfde spoke, an elegant scrawl rolled across the page as if it was being written by an unseen hand.
Below the spell’s title laid the instructions:
Offer up six elements described in the back of this tome to complete the ritual.
Underneath that, where the text appeared to write itself, sat a list:
He who is man stumbles to become like fish
The worlds above and below are rearranged such that the floor wraps around one’s being
What was consumed becomes unconsumed and laid bare upon the earth
“That’s odd.” Silfde squinted at the page. “Where’s your entry? It’s supposed to say—” he flipped to an index at the back of the tome and read aloud: “She comes who exists to make something more of the simple man’s woes.”
Damn it, the pixie girl is supposed to be part of the ritual too, Dahkhal said. Quick, distract him before he overthinks it. Talk about rolling around in more hog crap or something—
“I’m bored!” Sabine drew out the word. “Take me dancing, Silfde, dancing.”
Dahkhal let out a loud, No, damn it, don’t—
Silfde stood up so fast he knocked Sabine off his crotch, grabbed the mercenary by the wrist, and led her toward one of the long tables in the center of the courtyard. “Fantastic idea! It’ll even help the ritual.”
“Wait, what—”
The deacon’s son yanked her onto the table and the assembled crowd cheered as he led her in a sloppy, drunken dance. At the same time as this, the unseen hand documented within the cursed book, Feet shall go where bread once sat.
Well done. Table dancing is one of the most classic and classy of all celebratory rituals, Dahkhal said. That’s, what, four rites done now? You wanna set the curtains on fire and speed this up?
With a teeth clenched snarl, Sabine said, “Shut up.” After another moment’s consideration, she changed up her dance moves to raise the ring to toward her mouth. “Wait a minute—is the book itself generating the spell? Could I just grab it and run away?”
I… actually, maybe? Dahkhal said. Seems like an awfully mundane solution. But you get a certain distance away, it isn’t within the same party anymore.
Silfde slipped up closer to her. “You say something, lovely?”
With an uncomfortable laugh, Sabine said, “How about you get me a glass of that mead you were hyping up?”
“She’s got the mead. The mead for need.” Silfde paused to consider what he’d just said, added, “I am very drunk,” turned, and stepped off the table. The step was poorly judged, he fell down and faceplanted right in the center of the courtyard. Again, his friends whooped.
Sabine took off at a dash toward the throne. All of Silfde’s companions were too deep in their chortling to pay her any mind as she rushed and grabbed ahold of the evil tome. If she could just get out of the house—
“Hey, Silfde. Someone at the door I’m supposed to check with you about—”
With a sinking heart, Sabine looked upward. Just on the other side of the courtyard entrance stood Flailock Von Macington, his checklist in one hand, the enormous flail in the other. He was about to go on before their eyes met.
After a hiccup, Silfde pushed off the floor and asked, “What is it, Flailock?”
“Had a girl at the gate, said she’s a dream pixie. Said she couldn’t come in because her name was misspelled on the guest list or something pedantic.” As he spoke, he pointed a finger up at Sabine. Somehow, even the digit was muscular. “But her—I threw her in the fjord. She wasn’t invited!”
Sabine sensed as the book in her hands started to shimmer. She flipped to the page that bore The Ultimate Party, as the unseen hand started writing, She shall crash the—
With a shout, she said, “Oh come on! You told me I was welcome here, didn’t you, Silfde?”
“I—hic—I don’t want you to go, whoever you are. That’d make me a bad host.” Silfde pushed back onto his feet. “She can stay, Flailock.”
As if on command, the words stopped writing themselves and disappeared, letter by letter.
Still, the hardened look on Flailock’s face hadn’t dissipated. In fact, given another moment, it shifted from annoyance to fury. “Wait a damned minute—I remember you! The south-central crucible—you were a serving wench for my brother, Mason Von Macington!”
The triumph Sabine momentarily felt melted away as she suddenly recognized both the giant’s face and his rough accent.
Von Macington? The one who sent you for drink and lambskins before every tournament? Dahkhal said. Didn’t he die of—
“My brother died of a venereal disease because of her thievery.” Macington hefted up his enormous flail and began to swing it over his head. “Master Silfde, you must let me take my revenge on this harlot.”
“Silfde, no.” Sabine hugged the book to her chest. “That—um—that would be bad party hosting.”
“It would be far worse party hosting to deprive me of my vengeance,” Macington said. “And your friends of witnessing this battle.”
Before Silfde could even think of objecting, his friends started to form a circle around the center of the courtyard. Several started pushing Sabine closer inward. With a hard swallow she reached for the athame as she was forced closer to the vengeful brick house of a man out for her blood.
The evil book in her arms shimmered. Under the list of rites necessary for the ritual came three simple words: Fight! Fight! Fight!
To Be Continued…
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