[Sticks]

Prologue

Good day dear and gentle reader, it has been quite a while since we last met and had a tale centred around the Mystical Realms.

Indeed much has happened since we last met, dear and gentle reader, and if you have not caught up with the events of the previous saga, take you time to visit here first. I’ll still be here dear and gentle reader, I can wait.

..ooO0Ooo..

We all caught up at last? - Good!

When Earth fell in the unexpected war between Earth and the Mystical Realms, it was a great shock to one and all. How could a technologically advanced civilisation be defeated by creatures formed from our own myths, fables and fantasy literature? But so it was. With unlimited supplies of man’s most lethal nuclear weapons, the ability to deliver them anywhere with impunity, with no fear of retaliation, humanity never stood a chance and so the leaders of Earth had no option but to surrender to save as many lives as possible.

The Earth now belongs to Brameana, the daughter of the supposedly long dead tyrant, the Lord Low Troll, not that the Lady High Troll really cared about our world. Its conquest was a merely means to an end so she could claim a throne she felt was due to her.

But wars throw up unlikely heroes and villains.

During the Rwanda conflicts, neighbours behaved abysmally and murdered even the children of their other neighbours because they belonged to the wrong ethnic group. During World War Two a manufacturer of munitions in Germany assisted many Jews to survive the Nazi persecutions.

Now you may observe dear and gentle reader, that I said “supposedly long dead tyrant”, for if you have caught up on the most recent saga, (go there if you have not done so already, I can wait), you will have learned that the Lord Low Troll had not perished after all in that now long distant civil war on the Mystical Realms.

The Lord Low Troll, had by cunning somehow survived and had played dead in the wilderness of the Walong mountains. There he eked out a living in semi retirement visited only by his faithful fixer, Meetal the kobold

This small underground dweller had learned how to cope in the outside world, away from the usual subterranean places kobolds inhabit. He had served faithfully the Lord Low Troll in his hey day

He would skulk the corridors of power to warn his master of plotters, who would then be swiftly arrested and executed.

He effectively assisted the Lord Low Troll during his reign of terror, run a secret police service on the sly, and many were disappeared.

If dirty work had to be done, for which the Lord Low Troll could not be seen to be involved, step forward Meetal.

It is not known how many knew of Meetal’s culpability in propping up the regime of the Lord Low Troll. Who knew how many knocks on the door at midnight were due to Meetal spying on citizens. How many were convicted and executed for crimes they were innocent of, just for political expediency, because Meetal had planted evidence.

It is possible that only Meetal and his master the Lord Low troll kept this to themselves, if there were at all interested in keeping score.

Suffice it to say, Meetal was the archetypical lackey of a brutal dictator, looking out for his master from the shadows.

So what did Meetal get out of it? This is uncertain; maybe it was because he got to share in the opulent life style of his master, the Lord Low Troll. He did after all develop a refinement and a taste for the high life, not normally enjoyed by other kobolds.

It was also rumoured that the Lord Low Troll thought more of Meetal as a son than his own son, with whom he did not have that close a relationship with.

When the civil war came, at the prompting by the long gone Spirit of Lust, all this ended and it was hard on Meetal, Fortunately, for Meetal he had hid in the shadows and had been able to creep back into society after the civil war, unlike his master out in the wilderness. But it was not the same. The other trolls had turned their backs on his master, and forgot what he had done for them. They even dared to blacken the name of Meetal’s master and accused him of treachery.

To Meetal, The Lord Low Troll just did what needed to get the job done. So when he heard of a new player that might help restore his master’s fortune he had gone to inform his master of unfolding events. However as you will have read dear and gentle reader, events unfolded in unexpected ways.

If it were possible, the brutality of this new regime was even more than Meetal could stand, and so he pleaded with his master to be allowed to escape from the new regime and live out in the desert, hardly a place for a kobold. This regime was so brutal, Meetal was prepared to give up what little creature comforts he had left, for the life of an ascetic.

But as I said before, dear and gentle reader, wars, as in this War of the Realms, tend to throw up unlikely heroes and villains, for the Lord Low Troll had one more task for his one time minion. Meetal is to leave not only the safety and comfort of the Lord Low Troll’s secret cave, but for the first time he is to leave the Mystical Realms altogether, travel to a subjugated Earth and search for a human who had been an ally of the Lord Low Troll during his days in power.

To this human, Meetal must carry a message from the Lord Low Troll. In that search would Meetal be heroic or villainous?

When one is called from one’s comfort zone and do something extra-ordinary, how do we stand the test?

Meetal is about to find out.

[Sticks]

Episode I – He’s Leaving Home

The Walong Mountains
The Mystical Realms

Meetal and his master journeyed into the desert together. It seemed almost like old times, Faithful Meetal and his master, the Lord Low Troll, however Meetal felt very ill at ease.

Skulking into the lair of the now Lady High Troll at the port town of Faldon to overhear her plans was one thing, but now Meetal was to travel to another world. And a world under occupation by those if they knew, would be his master’s enemies.

It was pleasing that his master thought so highly of him a mere kobold, that he could be entrusted with such a mission, but to the Realm of Mortals?

Even before the War of the Realms that the humans had lost, he had heard many scary things from that world. The humans had not gone down the route of magic, they had gone down the route of machines and something called tek-no-lagy, what ever that was. Long before the civil war, just before his master had suffered a defeat in the courts, their realm had flirted with such things, imported from the Realm of Mortals, but after that war, they returned to the ways of magic and hard graft.

Meetal looked around the wilderness, now that it was dark he could see better than in the daytime. Like all kobolds, he did not see so well in blazing sun, but he had learned to adapt and use his sense of smell and keen hearing. He had had to back in the days when he and his master was still in power.

No! Meetal must not stay in the past, for Meetal has an important mission for his master. But why oh why must it be on that other world?

“Well Meetal my old friend” his master said to break the silence of the night, “We are almost halfway there”
“Yes my liege” Meetal replied, “But are you sure it will be safe from there he asked, dimension gateways are powerful magics”

Meetal’s master stopped and looked up at one of the moon’s and sighed, apparently ignoring Meetal’s question. “Meetal my old friend” his master began, “Sometimes when I come out into this desert I hear the cries”
“Of the wilderness animals or the dragons my liege?” Meetal asked, noting the change of subject.

His master lowered his head and shook it, “No my old friend, I hear the cries of those who had to be eliminated when I was younger”

Meetal was shocked, why his master was having self doubt about how they had had to rule the Mystical Realms all those cycles back. This was not like him in the glory days, when his master would readily sign death warrants to execute political opponents and rebels, sometimes on trumped up charges. It was not like him at all as when he would order troll snatch squads to the Realm of Mortals and grab the spirits of virtue and vice who would dare to break the sacred law banning the interference in the affairs of mortals.

“But my liege” Meetal whined, “Most of them deserved it. They were breakers of the law, they were rebels. We did what we did to keep order sire”

“I tried to tell myself that my friend” his master replied in a said voice, “Yes indeed some were criminals who probably deserved it, but some probably not”
“But we had to do what we had to” Meetal insisted.
“I know my old friend” His master conceded, “But I still hear their screams, especially those we executed for expediency, but were wholly innocent”

“Innocent my Liege?” Meetal said, before he could stop himself. “I’m sorry my liege, I spoke out of turn” Meetal swiftly apologised.

“Oh Meetal” his master replied, “There are things I had to do before you and I were acquainted, things that one can not boast of”
“But I’m sure my liege they were necessary” Meetal reassured his master
“Maybe they were at the time, but that does not help when I am in bed at night in my cave listening to the desert winds and they sound like their cries.”

Meetal’s master stopped and swallowed, and Meetal could here raw emotion in his voice as his mast was just able to continue. “Now I hear the cries of those humans who were slain because of what I did or did not do all those cycles ago”

“My Liege?” Meetal asked in confusion, “That was not you, that was the Lady High Troll her consort Vabalavich and that new treacherous Clan Chief of the Manjura”

“By Lady High Troll you mean Brameana?” Meetal’s master asked

Meetal nodded, still confused. “I do not understand my liege” Meetal pressed, “This troll is from that treacherous clan of trolls who cowardly ran from their home lands to the Far Islands and made unholy alliance with those bugbear fiends you spoke of. She has nothing to do with you, or do you mean you should have sent an invasion force to those accursed islands”

“There is so much blood on my hands because of her” Meetal’s master said cryptically

“I still do not understand my Liege” Meetal replied, “but if you wish me to find this Mr Vee I will try” he added, guessing that he was not going to get a coherent answer.

“I knew you would not let me down my old friend” Meetal’s master sighed, then as if to change subject he pointed to yet another mountain in the distance, “We must go there as an outcrop of loadstone should cover us from prying eyes when I open up the gateway to the Realm of mortals”

Meetal peered at the mountain, “That will take us to suns up to reach there, and then you will have to return to the cave in the heat of the day”

“Do not worry about me” His master assured Meetal, “I have grown used to the ways of this desert”

Meetal was still puzzled with his master’s fascination with the Lady High Troll, what was she to his master. Meetal knew better than to ask. All he knew was that for some reason he detected a hint of fondness and sorrow in his voice when he spoke of her, and yet utter contempt when he mentioned Vabalavich, the drow consort. As for the third party that Clan Chief of the Manjura who had once been deputy to the son of Meetal’s master, he did not speak of him.

It was rumoured that the Lady High Troll had made her drow consort governor of the Realm of Mortals so she could turn her attention to running the Mystical Realms as absolute ruler, with the reluctant loyalty of all the other troll clans that were not of the accursed Ghetto clan.

Slowly they trudged through the night, looking at the moons and the stars.

Meetal was also keeping an eye out for those who might wish them ill, after all his master still had enemies from the old days who would gleefully kill the pair of them, if they were not convinced he was already slain.

As they trudged across the cold desert sands, Meetal reflected back to the start of the civil war that ended his life of comfort and opulence. At the beginning of that terrible war, everyone believed that in a pre-emptive attack by the orcs, his master had been brutally slain, with his head placed on a pike staff. But it had not been his master who had been slain at the start of the civil war. Oh no

It had been Midah, his master’s twin brother.

Only Meetal had known of this brother, as Midah’s existence had been kept secret, how Meetal did not know.

Midah had been useful, although during the reign of his master as the Lord Low Troll. Midah was not as bright as other trolls due to some sickness of the mind since birth. Midah was devoted to his brother the Lord Low Troll, and sometimes Midah had stood in for his brother on occasions. When Mida took his brother’s place, Meetal would keep watch to make sure anyone asking awkward questions was swiftly dealt with.

Meetal’s master had told Meetal that Midah was better than any doppelganger as his loyalty was guaranteed and doppelgangers could be detected with the right magics.

It was Midah who had been slain that day when the civil war had broken out. Meetal had spotted that the Arch Orc was consorting with a hooded figure, and that the orcs were not fighting amongst themselves as they usually did. Meetal had carefully told his master this, and so he had left under cover of darkness leaving his brother to fill in, so he could direct a counter strike.

They had planned to bring Midah out to safety, but the war started before they could, and after the death of what others thought was his master, the troll clans fractured with some siding with the orcs, those treacherous tolls. His master was devastated, but comforted himself with the fact that even though his brother could never have served in the troll army due to his sickness of the mind, he had in the end made the ultimate sacrifice by saving the life of Meetal’s master.

A big blag object swooped down towards the troll and the Kobold, screaming as it dived on them.

“Dragons!” Meetal yelled, very conscious that they were in the open with no chance of cover.

But his master stood firm and just held out his arms and yelled at the creature.

The black creature swished past and flew off.

To Meetal’s relief and embarrassment it had turned out to be some large bird.
“Carrion Eagle” Meetal’s master said out loud, “He must have thought we had perished in the sands”
“I am sorry my Liege I shouted so” Meetal apologised, “I really though it was a dragon come to take us”
“Never mind my old friend” his master reassured him, “They do look like dragons to the unwary”
“You are so clever to identify them my liege” Meetal replied, still feeling ashamed at his outburst of terror.
“I only know them because I have resided here for so long, my old friend. But come, we must make that mountain so you can be on your way”
“Yes my Liege” was all Meetal could reply.

From then on they walked towards the mountain in almost silence save for the occasional nocturnal animal, which Meetal’s master readily identified.

Who would have thought that there was so much life in what Meetal thought was a forbidding wilderness and wasteland.

As the first of the two suns started to peek above the horizon they finally reached the foot of the mountain that had the fabled loadstone rock. Loadstone was at a premium in some parts of the Mystical Realms, as it could be used by navigators in ships to help them find their way, or it was used by some in protection from magic potions.

There was this other use, that Meetal’s master knew of, related to those potions. It was said that if one found a large outcrop, then one could safely use a dimension jump orb without being detected.

Meetal spotted another small cave, and from it came the sound of running water.

“Once you have gone my old friend” Meetal’s master told him, I will fill up my waters skins and head back.
“You will be alright my liege” Meetal queried.
“I have done this before, my old friend, as well as the loadstone there are some fine Harag roots. They do not grow so well back at my cave. If anyone asks, I was merely gathering a supply. They give the Targon berry wine and added zing”

The second sun now peeked above the horizon as they reached the outcrop of loadstone, and there they stopped.

Meetal gulped

This would be it, travelling to another world.

Slowly Meetal’s master pulled from his bag a black cloak that was lined with red silk, and gave it to Meetal. Slowly Meetal put it on, but did not pull the hood up.

Then his master handed Meetal an iron talisman and then began to explain it’s working. “Hold this in the direction of Mr Vee and it will glow with a green light. I had it made some years back. Mr Vee was given a similar one years ago. If he is still alive and has his talisman, it will alert him that you are on his world searching for him”
“But what if Mr Vee is dead my Liege” Meetal asked, “Killed in one of those fire storms that the Lady High Troll used to subdue the humans into submission”

Meetal’s master thought for a moment. It was obvious that such a possibility had not occurred to him. But what was Meetal to do if that was the case.

“Then my dear friend there will be no green glow but if that is the case then there is someone else, if they are alive, you are to seek”
“Who my liege” A puzzled Meetal asked.

Meetal’s master seemed to paused and then said, “Mr Vee awe” and then he stopped. “Mr Vee has a daughter. I am not sure if she knows or knew he was her father, but Mr Vee spoke highly of her and that she was in the same line as him. Making sure that the humans did not interfere with us”
“And this will find her?” Meetal asked holding up the talisman.

His master nodded. the talisman will, if she survives, glow a yellow light if you point it in her direction. If you meet with his daughter, tell her that a friend of her father wishes to make a deal to help free her world of the forces of that wretched drow”

“And The Lady High Troll” Meetal chipped in.

For a slight moment anger flickered across the face of his master. Anger at Meetal. But then it subsided to a look of sadness, “Yes my old friend, your are perfectly right, I will help free their Realm of that Drow and Brameana.

Meetal put the talisman on.

There was one final thing for his master to give him.

It was a blue orb

It was a dimension jump orb!

Slowly Meetal’s master instructed him how it was to be used. He told him the incantation to open a wormhole and how to target it at a specific location and more importantly, how to shut it off.
One thing Meetal was, was a quick study at times. To be an efficient informer and sneak, back in the glory days he had to be. Even so the details on using a dimension jump orb seemed daunting.

Ideally Meetal would have wanted more time, but that was not an option. Meetal then recited back to his master the instructions about the orb to his master’s satisfaction.

Meetal was now ready to open his first ever worm hole to the Realm of Mortals, but to where on that world.

“My Liege” Meetal asked, “Your friend Mr Vee”
“Yes Meetal my old friend?”
“Do you know where about on that other world he lived?”

Meetal’s master thought long and hard, and then replied, “That world is splintered into many lands as they did not until their fall have a one world government. Mr Vee came from one of the most powerful of that world, a place called the United States of America. I believe that with his penchant for secrets and subterfuge on behalf of his land, He used to reside in the capital city of that land. A place called Washington DC”

Then Meetal’s master’s head drooped

“My Liege?” Meetal asked.

His master looked up at Meetal with sad eyes, “That was one of the first cities to have one of those smaller atom bombs detonated in it”
“Atom bomb?” Meetal asked in confusion
“Sorry my old friend” His master replied, “The smaller of those fire storms that Brameana used, they were caused by what humans call atomic bombs. The larger one were caused by what they call hydrogen bombs”
“Maybe he survived?” Meetal ventured
“Perhaps” His master sighed, “If not seek his daughter as I said”
“If both are dead?” Meetal asked quietly
“I will be here for an hour or so gathering the Harag root, come straight back as soon as you have found no signal and meet me at the cave with the spring. There we will work on another option”

Meetal took a deep breath and pulled up the hood of his cloak. Instantly Meetal disappeared from view. He was now invisible.

Slowly Meetal started to process of opening the gateway to the Realm of Mortal. He was going to land in that city where this Mr Vee was last resident, even if it was destroyed.

Meetal stopped.

Would it be safe?

Meetal pulled down his hood and reappeared. “My Liege, I planned to go to this Washington DC, but you said it was hit first”

It seemed that his master could read Meetal’s mind, “A good idea, it should be safe to land there by now”

“Yes my Liege” Meetal replied and redid his cloak of invisibility, gulped and restarted the orb.

In front of him a blue dot started to swirl and quickly it became a vortex.

A wave of fear crept over metal as he gazed into the vortex. He had seen them from a distance and had seen troll snatch squads use them many a time. This was his first time using one.

If there had been a god of Kobolds, Meetal would have been offering intensive prayers right now.

Meetal closed his eyes then opened them and pushed through the swirling blue vortex.

Suddenly Meetal felt a weird sensations as if every part of his being were suddenly ripping apart although there was no pain. He was conscious of being in a long tunnel of blue swirling light. As he passed along through this vortex he seemed to get glimpses from outside, or he thought he did. It seemed like he was flying between giant bubbles, unimaginably huge. Then it seemed they weren’t bubbles, but he was flying between what seemed like infinitely big sheets, rippling with gigantic undulations.

Was he actually seeing this? Was his imagination running wild? What Meetal did wonder was how did the troll snatch squads that used to go to the Realm of Mortals to arrest the Major Spirits of Virtue and Vice, learn to deal with all the wonders that Meetal seemed to be observing.

Maybe they were focused on a mission, where as Meetal had been dreading going through the vortex to a land he had never journeyed to. Maybe what he was experiencing was just his imagination.

Then he thought he felt himself coming together again and in the distance a light rapidly approaching.

Suddenly there was a grey sky in front of him, with a giant cloud in the sky that seemed to for many leagues in all directions, with no sight of this world’s solitary sun.

Meetal stepped forward out of the vortex which still swirled behind him.

Quickly Meetal came to himself and with the blue orb issued the incantation that caused the blue vortex behind him to evaporate in seconds.

He was now standing on another world, one which was completely alien to him. For one thing, they only had one sun to light and warm their world, when it was not obscured by the never ending cloud in the sky. They only had one moon.

Meetal looked around.

It was a city in ruins, caused by the Lady High Troll’s firestorm.

Meetal then remembered his master back on his world who would be collecting Harag root in case he had to give account as to why he was on that mountain, should the magic loadstone not have hidden the working of the dimension jump orb.

From what his master had said of this strange realm, he would be able to tell by the single sun in the sky, where their North and South were, if only he could see their sun through the large cloud.

Meetal briefly scanned the sky, and was just able to make out through the cloud, where the single sun was located. Now he could start to get his bearings on this strange world.

He then pulled out the talisman he had been given and slowly turned around. When he was facing south, he discerned a faint yellow glow.

The daughter was alive!

Slowly Meetal turned to face the other direction, and in the direction, he guessed as West of North East, the talisman glowed green. His master’s friend was alive after all.

For a moment Meetal contemplated going straight back to tell his master the good news. His master would be so pleased to learn his friend was alive and maybe they could...

Suddenly a familiar scent hit Meetal’s keen nose. It was a scent well known on his own world, but well out of place in this strange Realm of mortals. It was the scent that comes when someone was teleporting in. Someone from Meetal’s world was about to teleport in. A horror overcame Meetal as he registered what it was, and he fled from where he had landed as fast as he could go down stream of the howling wind. Quickly he flung himself behind the remains of a ruined building. If he was right then his master’s cloak of invisibility would be useless.

As Meetal watched from his improvised cover he saw a drow materialise where he had been standing moments before.

However this drow was not brandishing his usual sword, although it hung from his belt. It was one of those weapons that the humans used, “tubes that spit death.”

How had this drow found him, and so quickly

It was pointless taking on a drow, even if there were not armed with those human weapons. Drow could use dark magics, especially if, as his master suspected, they were from the Hadreth Order of the Drow.

The other problem was that these drow would easily see Meetal, as they could see invisible beings. Even worse, they might sense the magic from the cloak of invisibility.

Carefully Meetal pulled back the hood so that it stopped working. He just hoped nobody else would see him. His master had meant well in giving him such a magic garment, but he was not to know that Meetal’s arrival would correspond with the arrival of a drow. Meetal would have to use his usual skills to try and skulk away, but for now he had to keep very still.

Meetal listened in as the drow spoke into a black box like object. He seemed to be talking about something called Sky Guard, what ever that was. Then as he listened, he discovered that whatever this Sky Guard was, it had spotted the blue vortex by which he had travelled to the Realm of Mortals

Instantly he feared for his master. Would this Sky Guard, whatever it was lead the drow to where his master was back on his world. Meetal eyed the blue orb and silently pleaded to nobody in particular not to give his master away. Then he turned his attention back to the drow, who was still talking to the black box thing.

Astonishingly the black box was talking back, although Meetal had trouble picking out what it was saying. What kind of magic was this? Was this the tek-no-lagy he had heard his master mention, a means of replicating magic with machines. It seemed so far fetched to Meetal, but there it was.

From what he could make out the box was convinced that Sky Guard had picked up Meetal’s arrival, and the drow had not been able to catch whoever did it.

Meetal watched in awe and terror as the drow started to sniff. Then the drow pulled out some crystal on piece of twine. This was bad, a crystal of detection

Suddenly the drow turned rapidly away from Meetal and levelled the “tube that spits death” at something in the distance.

“Halt or I fire” The drow yelled in one of the human tongues. Meetal could identify that the humans called it English.

Dare Meetal make use of this diversion to skulk away?

He had to, if there was going to be any confrontation, the area could soon be swarming with Ghetto Trolls, bugbears, orcs or who knows what.

Keeping one eye on the drow as it started to interrogate two human survivors, possibly oldsters by the look of it, Meetal crept further round the ruin he had been observing from and when he had made sure the drow could not see him, he ran with all his might to another ruined building and along another street.

Meetal had to keep on the move, especially if the drow were onto him. He desperately wanted to travel back to the mountain and warn his master if it were not too late, but would that not bring more drow courtesy of that Sky Guard thing.

Through burnt out streets Meetal hurried, always trying to keep in the shadows. He had no idea how powerful this Sky Guard was, plus the drow had a crystal of detection. Such items were a trackers dream and no cloak of invisibility would thwart such a device.

Then he came to a board that had obviously been erected since what his master had called an atomic bomb had blown up in the city.

On it were pieces of paper. For a moment Meetal’s curiosity got the better of him and he went up to look at it.

The pictures were of humans, with names written by many hands underneath each picture of a human. Meetal pondered for a moment on what this could be. Why had humans put pictures of faces on a wooden board in the midst of a shattered city?

He looked a little closer and read one of the pieces of writing under the image of a young adult female human. It gave a name, followed by this short piece

You were my dearest sister and I miss you terribly every day. I pray you are not dead, but if you are then we will meet each other again in heaven, you will not be forgotten, my dearest twin

A lump went down Meetal’s throat. It was a shrine to all who had perished in the attack on this city of Washington DC.

“No” Meetal quietly cried out, “I’m so sorry” he apologised to the pictures of all the fallen”. Meetal bowed his head and remembered how he had seen the Lady High Troll and her drow consort in the port town of Faldon while they were gathering these devices that were to cause so much death to the humans and result in his world own falling to this wretched troll of the accursed Ghetto clan

“If only I had known” he choked out, “But what could I do?” he pleaded to the pictures of the dead people.

But what could he have done?

Meetal had to get a grip, there was nothing he could have done. He had heard how the authorities had tried to deal with the invasion of Faldon, but the troll army had been vaporised by one of those infernal; atom bombs. If he had tried to warn the Central City, it would have done no good, given how the former Deputy Clan Chief of the Manjura had also thrown in his lot with the Lady High Troll. In fact it was this treacherous troll that made sure all the trolls loyal to previous order were on that doomed mission.

The truth was that the troika of the Lady High Troll, Drow Consort Vabalavich and the Deputy Clan Chief of the Manjura could not have been stopped by the time the invasion of Faldon had played out. They had carried out a very effective surprise attack which nobody saw coming.

Even so this did not help Meetal’s pangs of guilt at not being able to stop this carnage

Meetal had to stop this self pity and reflection. Meetal had a job to do, find this human called Mr Vee and let him know that somehow his master has a plan to free Earth from the rule of the Lady High Troll and her consort.

Meetal also had to make sure he kept several steps ahead of the drow, who had somehow spotted his arrival.

If only he could warn his master – but for all he knew it might be too late. Poor master. Everyone had said he was evil for just wanting to maintain law and order on The Mystical Realms. They said he was tyrannical, but with different races, there needed to be a firm hand.

Meetal tore himself away from the board and after checking the talisman of location, did his best to head off in a north easterly direction. He just hoped this Mr Vee was still in this city, for the soonest he found him, the soonest he could get home from this alien world. Again he just hoped his master was safe.

Where Meetal could he kept to the side of the buildings that remained, but for what he had been told was a capital city it seemed awfully empty and devoid of life. Was everyone killed off by the fire storms, if so where were the bodies

From what Meetal could tell of this city, there were quite a lot of open green spaces. As he skulked through what remained of the city, he spotted the occasional human, but Meetal was adept at hiding. Years of practice in the corridors of power when his master was in charge, back in the glory days. Of the humans he did see, some were coming to tend the other boards with pictures on. Others came and wept at certain spots.

They seemed quite a weak sentimental and pathetic race to Meetal. To Meetal, death was always just around the corner, especially for Kobolds. They would do one bit of weeping and wailing and then move on, they had to, for kobolds were not very popular, having a reputation of being creatures of the dark, and therefore by definition, evil. A little unfair Meetal always thought, even goblins had a better reputation. Kobolds therefore had no time to dwell on the death of family members or friends; it served no purpose and could be a dangerous distraction.

And yet as Meetal watched the occasional human, or as he passed other boards with pictures on, he was constantly reminded, that all the sorrow and grief these humans were suffering, was caused by those from Meetal’s world and he felt ashamed, which was not characteristic of a kobold.

The smell of death was still present in the air, well to Meetal with his heightened sense of smell it was.

Meetal thought back to the start of the civil war, if only those infernal orcs and those treacherous trolls had not got rid of his master then none of this would have happened. Did those who committed this atrocity against the Realm of Mortals not take thought to how this could reform their world? His master clamped down on those who would interfere with the affairs of mortals for a reason, the protection of his world should such interference cause a cataclysmic feedback.

Again Meetal has a job to do. Meetal must not live in the past

Suddenly a scent wafted across his nose, forcing Meetal to locate a hiding place. It was a scent not out of place on his world, but like the earlier drow teleporting in, definitely not of this world.

Meetal watched in fascination as four Ghetto trolls and one bugbear dragged a young female into the middle of the street.

The bugbear was carrying a rope with a noose at one end.

The bugbear faced the human female and then in the tongue known as English spoke to the human telling her how she had been found in an unauthorised part of the fallen city after curfew.

The young woman pleaded that she had not known of any curfew and had come to Washington DC try and find her brother, who had been missing since the first of the firestorms visited on this world.

The bugbear did not flinch or show any pity, she had broken the curfew and must die.

The woman’s hands were tied behind her back and the bugbear threw part of the rope over what looked to Meetal to be a sign post of some description. Then he took the noose and placed it over the woman’s head and made sure it was firm around her neck. All the while the woman was crying and pleading for her life, but to no avail.

Then one of the trolls pulled the rope so the woman was hanging by her neck with her feet about half Meetal’s height above the ground.

Four trolls and a bugbear executing a young female human, “My” Meetal thought, “Even in our day there was never any need for that” He had watched plenty of executions in the past. Some of them, his sneakiness had brought about, but for just arriving at this city at a certain time even to Meetal seemed excessive.

The sound of the female human throttling cut Meetal through like a knife, but why? He had witnessed plenty of executions like this on his world, but they were of criminals, rebels and those who would stop his master doing what needed to be done. This woman was not guilty of a crime deserving death.

The trolls tied off the rope and then stood guard to make sure nobody recued the woman and that her execution was complete. Even with invisibility, Meetal had no means to rescue her, so he had to watch as the woman kicked her feet in the air until she stopped. The trolls continued to wait with the bugbear standing impassively for quite an age. Then the bugbear looking at what could be an amulet announced that the woman was dead and that they would leave her body hanging as a deterrent to others and a show of force.

It was obvious that the Lady High Troll was trying to out do what some slanderously said of his master the Lord Low Troll.

Meetal waited an age, watching the body of the young woman twist in the wind, until he could be certain that the troll patrol had gone. Then Meetal came out of hiding and slunk away. How many executed humans would he come across he wondered.

The death of that woman brought home to him the urgency of his mission, the sooner he found this Mr Vee and the sooner they did what ever deal his master had in mind, then the sooner these executions would be stopped.

Oh and the sooner he could return to his world

Meetal pressed on, heading as best he could in the West of North Easterly direction, but still no sign of Mr Vee. He only knew he was alive because the talisman said he was.

Maybe he is in another city, Meetal started to wonder and to fear. On his little legs, it would take ages to find him.

“Oi you” a voice suddenly behind him shouted.

Meetal froze, there was the sound of metal on metal

“Yes you Kobold” the voice came again with a sneer

“You idiot” Meetal thought as he realised he was not invisible as he should have been, “I forgot to secure the clock of invisibility after I saw that”

Then Meetal stopped and realised something even more horrendous. They knew he was a kobold. He must have been caught by a patrol. Slowly Meetal turned around, expecting to see a drow, bugbear or a troll of the Ghetto clan, but instead there were two men armed with “metal tubes that spit death” pointing at him.

Between them stepped to Meetal’s utter horror, one of the kobold’s sworn enemies, a fully armoured gnome

“So” the gnome sneered, “I never thought I would live to see justice deliver into my hands such a wretched creature like you”

Meetal was speechless

“This is a good day” the gnome continued, “Not just any stinking kobold delivered into my hands, but Meetal of the Jarran tribe, the stinking kobold that helped that other tyrant the Lord Low Troll stay in power for so long”

“What shall we do with it” one of the men asked

The gnome narrowed his eyes, “I say we kill him now, as most likely he is working that long dead tyrant’s daughter, the Lady High troll”

To be continued

[Sticks]

Episode II – A question of betrayal

Sometimes you think you know someone, and then you find out something about them that they had kept secret.

How does that affect the relationship then?

Meetal the loyal kobold servant of the Lord Low Troll, who was believed to have been killed in the civil war, has been sent by his master to Earth, now under occupation by the forces of Brameana, the Lady High Troll. He has landed in Washington DC looking for the man his master has sent him to find, only to have his arrival picked up by something called sky guard. Although he escaped the drow sent to investigate, he has run into two men and one of the sworn enemies of all kobolds, a gnome.

Not only has he been captured, but Meetal has been recognised by the gnome as the lackey of the Lord Low Troll during his reign of terror and accused of working for The Lady High Troll, the daughter of his master

+ + +

“Daughter?” Meetal spluttered

“Aye” The gnome sneered, “you worked for her late and unlamented father and now you are working for her”

Meetal shook his head and repeated the word “no”

“Oh so you are going to try and sell your services to her then?” the Gnome replied, “just like you did with her father”

“No Meetal” whined.

“Liar” The gnome answered back and pulled out a small tube that spits death and got it ready to work it’s deadly work

“Er Taval” one of the men interjected, “Remember what the Voice of Hope said”
“He’s a spoil sport” the gnome sneered and continued to point the weapon at Meetal
“Maybe” the man replied, “But he has given strict instructions we are not to kill except in extreme circumstances”
“But this is the stinking kobold that helped prop up one of the worst tyrants on our world” the gnome objected, “and knowing him he is probably working for that dead troll’s daughter”
“I’m not” protested Meetal, “And he never had a daughter” Meetal added, “My master had a son, not a daughter”

“Oh please” the gnome went on, “Please don’t feign ignorance on me, how can you not know that the Lady high Troll is the daughter of the late Lord Low Troll. That was why she nuked that city in England, because someone from there made her dear daddy look bad”

Meetal looked perplexed, If she was his daughter, why had his master not mentioned this? Could that be that why he kept calling her by her name instead of her adopted title? No she can’t be his daughter, Master would have said

“It looks like he doesn’t know” the man chipped in.

The gnome looked at the man who had spoken with disdain and put his weapon away after making it safe. “Ok” the gnome said grudgingly, “We’ll take him prisoner see if we can get the truth from him back at our base”
“Can’t you just use that ESP mojo?” asked the other human.

“I’m not telepathic you fool, and besides kobolds are immune to that anyway. That was why the Lord Low Troll used them”

The two men grabbed a shocked and confused Meetal and carried him round another ruined building to a grey horseless carriage.

Meetal’s arm’s were then tied behind his back with some kind of material he had never seen before. It was definitely no rope he had ever seen. They were in flat strips with a sharp point at one end and some kind of buckle at the other and made a clicking sound when they tightened it, and it bit into his wrists.

“Bind his eyes” the gnome insisted, “We don’t want this kobold scum seeing where our resistance cell is located”

At this one of the men found a rag from inside the horseless carriage and blindfolded Meetal as he was bundled into the horseless carriage.

Meetal was beside himself with confusion as to what to do.

Gnomes hated kobolds and kobolds hated gnomes as a general rule, so even if Meetal told the truth, this gnome would refuse to believe it. But how can he tell the full truth, if this gnome knew his master was alive and where he was living, assuming that Sky Guard thing had not tracked him down already, they would not listen, they would send a mob to kill his master just because his master when he was in power did what needed to be done.

But if Meetal tried to keep quiet, no doubt they would torture him, and Meetal hated pain. This was a terrible quandary. If these individuals were against the Lady High Troll like him, they might never believe he was on the same side as them.

Then there was the other matter, why were they insisting that the Lady High Troll was the daughter of his master? Was it not well known that his master only ever had one child, a son by a troll concubine courtesy of the Delethon clan? But then why did his master keep using her birth name and not her title?

As Meetal lay in the horseless carriage he heard the gnome recite an incantation. Meetal could just about follow the elvish language, it was an invisibility spell.

Then the horseless carriage started to move, to where Meetal could not tell. After a while he heard shouts from others and claims from the gnome that they had captured a notorious war criminal from the civil war and suspected collaborator with the new regime occupying the Realm of Mortals, except they called it Earth. Earth what a dull name for a world?

Why name a world after what you find in the ground? That did not make sense to Meetal.

Then the doors of the horseless carriage were opened and Meetal was dragged from it and taken into some building.

He felt a knife cut the material binding his hands and then he was forced to the ground while they removed his tiny back pack with the items. Then they removed his cloak and all other clothing he was wearing. Not once did they allow him to remove the blindfold. Then they got some proper rope and tied it around both his wrists so he was hanging against a wall, just barely able to stand.

They left Meetal like that for what seemed like ages, and then Meetal heard footsteps approaching him; they were those of the gnome.

Meetal felt the sharp point of a blade against his chest.

“I should run you through right now kobold scum” the gnome growled.

Meetal held his tongue. With such hatred between the two races, it would be pointless arguing and if he opened his mouth, he might loose his tongue.

“You are working for the Lady High Troll” the gnome accused Meetal, “Why don’t you confess right here and now”.

Meetal shook his head, only to feel the gnome’s right hook on the left side of his face.
“Liar” shouted the gnome, “You are a collaborator, like all kobold scum” the gnome added.

“Please Sire I am not” Meetal whispered, in pain from the beating by the gnome.

“Don’t give me that” the gnome retorted, “You collaborated with that other monster” and thenthe gnome hit Meetal again with his other fist on the other side of Meetal’s head.

Meetal then felt the cold blade of the gnome’s knife against his throat.

“It doesn’t matter kobold scum, I’ll say you confessed to being a spy for the Lady High Troll anyway and so I slit your throat” the gnome growled, “It’s more than you deserve kobold scum” the gnome then added with venom, “Because it will be too quick”.

Meetal heard a door open and the gnome turn away, “What is it now?” the gnome asked in an irritated manner, “I’m interrogating this traitor”

“I can tell” said what Meetal thought sounded like an elvish voice.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” The gnome asked
“From the bleeding of the kobold’s jaw I cane see he gave you answers you did not like”
“Just let me get on with my job” The gnome insisted, “I’ll get a confession out of him and what he is doing for that Lady High Troll and then I will give him his just desserts”
“Oh really” The voice sounding like an elf replied, “Some interrogation, from where I am standing it looks more like you are allowing tribal issues to get the better of you”

“And why not” The gnome retorted, “Kobolds are scum, period and they have no right to live and this kobold is the worst of them all. Do you not know how many were tortured and killed because this particular kobold collaborated with the second worst troll in history?”
“Second worst troll?” The elf voice queried
“Well now I count the Lady High Troll as worse than her father” The gnome replied, “At least he was not guilty of the mass slaughter of humans like she is. Look at this city and the others she attacked.”
“Ok Taval, maybe she is worse than that other tyrant, but what proof do we have that he is working for her?”
“He’s a kobold” the gnome retorted
“That is not really proof is it” the elf voice countered.
“He still deserves to die for what he did under her father’s reign” the gnome insisted. “Just let me slit his throat and be done with it, I want to watch that scum die for what he did”

“And that Taval”, the elf voice replied, “Is why I am taking over the interrogation”
“What!” Screamed the gnome, “No way, he’s my collar and I want him dead now”

“Step one foot towards him Taval and you will step no further towards him. And sheave your knife now”
“This is not fair” the gnome shouted, “The Lady High Troll’s father had my brother executed because he questioned the taxes he imposed”
“I will be interrogating the kobold” the elfish voice insisted impassively
“And we all know that” the gnome began to say before the elf voice interrupted.
“Silence, you have your orders from the Voice of Hope”

“And that’s another thing” the Gnome went on, “How do we know this Voice of Hope is not a collaborator, telling us to tone down our resistance”
“GO” the elf voice insisted.

Meetal heard the door slam as the gnome left muttering to himself.

“Now you are here” the elfish voice then said, speaking to Meetal, “I see no need of this”

Suddenly the blindfold left Meetal.

As Meetal’s vision returned, he was able to see it was an elf standing before him.

“So it’s Meetal isn’t it”

Meetal nodded and then quietly pleaded, “Please Mr Elf I am not working for the Lady High Troll”

“And why should we believe you?” the elf asked, “If the gnome is right you did work for a blood thirsty tyrant”
“And so did the elves?” Meetal whispered before he could stop himself.

The elf walked right up to Meetal, “We worked with the trolls and the troll council”
“Who was lead by my master” Meetal replied

The elf walked away and then turned back to Meetal, “True, but the Elf High Council strongly objected to some of the Lord Low Trolls excesses”

“Just words” Meetal replied, “You never actually did anything, that was why master tolerated you”

“Perhaps” The elf conceded, “But we were not in your league if our gnome is right. You helped prop up a most dictatorial regime that reigned over The Mystical Realms”

“We were not as bad as that wretched Lady High Troll” Meetal countered.

The elf sighed, “Well at least the Lord Low Troll did give devotion to the one principal we shared, that his daughter has not”
“The Sacred Law” Meetal continued

“Indeed” The elf replied, “Meetal of Jarran, I can see you are just a pathetic little creature like many hangers on in the days of the Lord Low Troll, I see no need of those”

Suddenly the rope ends came off from Meetal’s hands and he collapsed on the floor, however before he could get up he was surrounded by a force bubble created by the elf.

“This is a little creation of my own” The elf remarked, “It prevents the air getting in. If you want to breathe, we will need to have satisfactory answers”

“You won’t believe me, so why did you not let the gnome finish me off” Meetal asked, “At least that would have been quicker”
“Too quick” The elf replied, “We need to know why you are here, how did you get the three magic items you had on you and who you are working for”

Meetal shook his head as he started to gasp for breath, “You gnomes and elves say you work for good and that we are evil and yet you do things like this. You are no better than what you accuse us of being”
“I’m not here to debate philosophy with you, just tell us what we need to know” The elf pressed, “And then you can breathe”
“Why? Afraid to admit that you might be as evil as you say we are?” Meetal asked

Meetal was tempted to reveal all, but with the gnome so hostile how could he put his master at risk

The shield dropped allowing air in. Meetal looked up at the elf. Meetal was short, the elf was tall. The elf was armed and Meetal was naked. No way could Meetal tackle an elf, or at least not this one.

“You make a good point, many a good individual can be manipulated by circumstance and situation to do things they would not believe they would do” the elf said, “but note this, kobold, your former master’s daughter has made many desperate”

“She is not his daughter” Meetal insisted, “My master had a son by a Delethon troll”

“Are you really so obtuse?” The elf asked
“Huh?” Meetal asked

“So you did not know your master had a daughter as well” the elf pressed.
“He had a son only” Meetal insisted, “He would have told me otherwise”
“Oh really, then why didn’t he?”
“Why didn’t he what?”
“Tell you he had a daughter” the elf continued to press.
“Because he has er I mean didn’t” Meetal replied he was slipping up by using the present tense there, “Master only had a son”

“Assuming you are not lying, it looks like your master never got the chance to tell you then” the elf sneered, “And you were so loyal to him, how does that make you feel about your former master”
“Master knew of lots of things” Meetal responded, “Sometimes he told me it was best I did no know certain things”
“And you just accepted that?” the elf asked
“Master knew best” Meetal replied
“Even when he reigned as one of the most brutal tyrants in our history?” the elf countered

“Master had to be a strong ruler, if people thought him to be a tyrant that was because we had to, to keep law and order” Meetal insisted
“And you were so good at helping the Lord Low Troll, as you say, keep law and order?”
“I did what ever it took to help my master” Meetal said with pride, for the moment forgetting his current situation
“And despite your loyalty, he never trusted you to tell you he had a daughter” the elf pressed

Meetal for a moment was confused, Why did they keep insisting that the fiend known as the Lady High Troll was his master’s daughter?

“Why did he not tell you?” the elf pressed

“Because it’s not true” Meetal blurted out, and then with emotion insisted, “My master had a son, by a Delethon consort”

The elf shook his head, “I’m afraid your master did have a daughter. It seems many cycles ago he had a wife from the Ghetto clan in secret”

“Lies” Meetal insisted, “Master never married. He did not even marry the mother of his son”

The elf ignored the outburst and continued, “The Lord Low Troll sired a daughter with his secret wife, but when he became leader of his clan his wife and daughter were sent into exile because it would not be expedient to reveal their existence”

“Lies” Meetal shouted, “Who is telling these lies?”

“This is merely what the Lady” the elf began

“She Lies” Meetal screamed, then in a quieter but angry voice went on, “Master was a great ruler and this Ghetto troll seeks to sully my masters name by making up these lies to link herself with such a great ruler as my master”

“Well for one thing she has presented a ring with the crest of the Lord Low Troll’s family” The elf remarked, “And how can you say your master was a great ruler when he was a blood thirsty tyrant”

Meetal narrowed his eyes at the elf, “My master had a difficult job. As I said, my master needed to be firm to keep law and order”
“What you call firm many others called tyrannical” the elf countered, “Your master oppressed many and extorted punitive taxes on the many while you both lived in opulence”

“We had to” Meetal insisted, “The so called opulence was to give Master the air of authority he needed to maintain his rule, and taxes were also needed to pay for the troll armies”
“To oppress the multitudes” the elf interrupted.
“To maintain law and order” Meetal insisted “You do not know what it was like elf. There were so many races in the central city alone, many of them rivals of others, all willing to kill each other with out a moment’s thought. We saw that in the civil war when the orcs went slaughtering those of the fairer races. Some villages were attacked by trolls or orcs, sometimes by those from other villages of the same race.”

“So that was your excuse kobold” the elf sneered, “Your regime maintained rule by fear and oppression just to keep the peace”

“And we did” Meetal whined, “look what happened when they got rid of master, chaos and more bloodshed. Even the humans needed what you call tyrants”
“What do you mean?” the elf asked

“The humans who ruled from this very city” Meetal explained “They went in and removed what they said was a tyrant from another state, and look at all the bloodshed and chaos that came from that act of removing a tyrant. It would have been far better if they had supported him and helped him to maintain law and order”

“I thought” the elf said coldly, “You did not interfere in the affairs of mortals, that is, the Sacred Law, is it not?”

“Studying humans is not interfering” Meetal spat back, “Master said that many a time. We found out their ways but did nothing to influence them, unlike certain spirits of vice and virtue. We did not violate the Sacred Law like this abomination known as the Lady High Troll has done”

“So if you detest this Lady High Troll so much as you claim, maybe you can tell us why you are here?” The elf pressed.

Meetal was silent for a moment then asked, “How do I know you are not working for her?”

“You don’t” the elf replied, “How do I know you are not working for her? You indicate you are against her and will not believe that she is the daughter of your late master, but kobolds can be good liars. You yourself indulged in subterfuge and spying to do your master’s bidding, how can anyone trust you”

“I am a loyal kobold” Meetal insisted, “I did what I did to help my Master maintain law and order”
“So you say kobold” the elf pressed, “but your ability to obfuscate and dissemble according to Taval could easily be used if you are in the service of that Ghetto Troll”

“I would never work for the Ghetto Trolls” Meetal murmured, “Not after what my master told me what they did. It is a pity that every last one was not exterminated from our world. We would not have seen the Sacred Law violated if the other troll clans had been more thorough”

“So” said the elf, “You advocate what the humans call genocide”
“They committed a heinous crime” Meetal replied
“And that justified the wholesale slaughter of an entire troll clan” the elf asked

Meetal just glowered at the elf, how come he did not know what the Ghetto had done all those years ago and what they had done now.

“No matter” the elf said dismissively, “It is obvious you are working for someone. I could easily assume a cloak of invisibility was something you had kept from your time serving the Lord Low Troll, it would have been useful to you in your duties. The talisman is a trinket that you found, but a dimension jump orb, someone in authority had to have given you that. Someone like the new Clan Chief of the Manjura. So who are you working for?”
“Not her” Meetal said without thinking, he just wanted them to believe he was not working for that Lady High Troll.

“So you are working for someone then” the elf put to Meetal

Meetal winced; he had been tricked into revealing more than he wanted to. The elf would surely be pressing him to find out whom, but if they found out they would go after his master.

“You can tell us” pressed the elf, “We are just as much against this Lady High Troll as you claim to be, and what she has done to both worlds”
“So you say” Meetal retorted

“Touché as they say on this world” replied the elf, “But we do need an answer”

“But if I am not working for that Ghetto abomination or her minions, what does it matter to you” Meetal countered.

“We have specific rules from The Voice of Hope to make sure we do not make matters worse for the humans”
“Who?” Meetal asked

“We ask the questions” the elf answered, “Anyway” he went on, “we need to make sure that you are not willingly working for your master’s daughter, which it seems you are not, after that we need to see if you are working for someone else who may have you working for your master’s daughter without you realising it”

“She is not my master’s daughter” Meetal snapped back, “My master does not have a daughter. Master has a son”
“Had a son” the elf corrected, “His son was allegedly murdered by the humans in a prison cell, which was why the Lady High Troll destroyed the city he was killed in”

Meetal was stunned by this news and for the moment forgot where he was as he shook his head in despair, “Master does not know. Poor Master has lost his son” Meetal whispered not realising what he was letting on.

Instantly the elf homed in on this slip, “You can’t be” the elf said in a shocked tone, “He was assassinated at the beginning of the civil war”

Meetal put his hand to his mouth and cursed.

“Why would you a kobold be so upset for your master about the death of his son, if your master were dead” the elf said in an accusing tone, “You used the present tense and you spoke true”

The elf then produced a clear crystal that was glowing with a blue light, Meetal recognised it, and it was a crystal of veracity.

“So the Tyrant is still alive” the elf sneered, “You are working for them after all” at this the elf then drew his short sword.

Meetal held his hands together in a begging gesture, “Please I am not working for that Ghetto Troll”

The crystal remained “True blue”

The elf put the tip of his sword against the kobold’s throat, “There are many who would like to see you and your master pay for what you did during his reign”

“But you needed us” Meetal whined, “We kept the peace for many cycles”
“Through fear, arbitrary arrest and executions” the elf countered
“But there was law and order” Meetal sniffed, “Master loved law and order. Master kept us from chaos. We needed Master”

“So kobold” The elf asked, “What does you master want with the Lady High Troll”
“To stop her” Meetal replied, closing his eyes and waiting for the elf’s sword to pierce his throat.

“Well you believe what you are saying” The elf told Meetal, “So far I have not detected any falsehood in you. How does he plan to defeat her?”
“I don’t know” Meetal replied
“Then why are you here on this world”

Meetal hesitated; the elf or the gnome would most likely kill him and then go looking for his master.

Looking for his master, yikes they will most likely torture Meetal to find out where is master is now. Meetal has failed his master

Meetal closed his eyes and pushed his body forward to try and ensure the sword did it’s work and pierced his worthless neck, so Meetal would be silenced for ever to protect his master. The elf was too quick and withdrew the sword.

“Very noble for a Kobold” The elf remarked, “You think we would waste time hunting your master down”

Meetal held his tongue

“We have no interest in the tyrant at this time” the elf went on, “So why are you here on this world”

Before Meetal could answer, the elf produced the talisman his master had given to him, “This is a talisman of location” the elf said, “So you are obviously here to find someone. It is enchanted to find two people, one a parent and the other a child”

Meetal just hung his head in shame at revealing that his master was still alive

“So what does the Lord Low Troll want with this person?” The elf asked
“He wants to do a deal with him” Meetal whimpered
“To defeat the Lady High Troll?”

Meetal nodded.

“How?”
“I don’t know?”
“Who is this person?”
“A human my master knows”

“Graeme Andrews?” The elf ventured

Meetal bristled at this name, “Not him, that Human made my master look bad” he growled.

“Really” The elf responded, “I thought it was that griffin judged that threw out the charges against him, if I recall, to charge a Human with the offence of conspiracy to interfere in the affairs of humans is a nonsense in law”

“My master does not seek that human” Meetal growled
“He’s dead anyway” The elf remarked in a matter of fact way, “He along with his family were killed by the atomic bomb blast the Lady High Troll sent to that city of Dublin”

“No more than they deserved” Meetal growled

The elf ignored this remark and pressed further, “So who is the human your master seeks. Is it the parent or the child?”

Meetal closed his eyes again, it was useless holding anything back from this interrogator, “I do not know his true name”
“Is he the parent or the child?” the elf pressed
“Not the child” Meetal whispered as he slowly shook his head

“Did your master give you a name you are to use?”

“Mr Vee” Meetal choked out before he broke down in tears of shame, “I was meant to find a Mr Vee and I failed. Meetal is so sorry”
All the elf said of this was one word, “Him?”

Then Meetal recomposed himself briefly, “Now you know, please kill me, I beg you”

“I can not do that” the elf replied
“Then get the gnome to kill me, he will enjoy that”

“I am sure he will, but I will not allow that” The elf insisted
“But why, I am but a worthless kobold that has betrayed his master and deserves to die”

“Because you have a task to do Kobold” The elf told him as he handed him a small green vial

“Drink this” instructed the elf, “It will heal you of the injuries the gnome inflicted on you”

Obediently Meetal quaffed the potion and immediately its healing power took effect and it was like Meetal had never been touched.

“I don’t understand” Meetal protested, “You hate my master you want to punish us for what we had to do”

“We and your master for now seem to have a common enemy” The elf told Meetal, “We can not afford distractions until after the Lady High Troll is defeated and both realms are free. Elves have worked with the trolls before, and by helping you complete your mission for him, he will owe us a life debt, so, should his price be to return power again, we will be in a stronger position to curb his excesses”

Meetal looked up at the elf in silence, he still felt worthless and ashamed for cracking, and could he trust this elf not to hunt his master down and slay him.

Suddenly they heard a commotion through the door and yelling. One of the humans came through the door.

“Jadric” the human said in an agitated voice, “An orc patrol have found us somehow”

“How?” The elf said sternly
“We don’t know” the human replied
“I never brought them, I never brought them” Meetal whimpered, expecting them to blame the kobold.
“Get the Kobold’s clothes and belongings” The elf ordered
“Sir?” the human asked
“Do it” ordered the elf, “He’s on our side this time so I need to make sure he completes his mission”

Meetal could just about hear the sound that the “Metal tubes that spit death” make in the distance. Humans used them, but were orcs now using them as well?

The man returned after a moment with Meetal’s things.

“Get Dressed” ordered the elf, “You have a long journey ahead of you”
“Huh?” Meetal gulped

“Mr Vee was last heard of in the ruins of the place the Humans called New York City” The elf told Meetal, “and using the distance measure of the humans it is about two hundred and four miles from here”
Meetal frowned, ”What distance is a mile?” Meetal thought

As if to answer his unspoken question, the elf added, “That is about sixty eight to seventy leagues”

As Meetal got dressed, the sound from grew louder and Meetal could hear shouts of orcs. This was bad

The elf grabbed Meetal’s hand and muttered an enchantment. Within seconds the two were in the street watching as an army of orcs and bugbears were destroying a building, presumably the one Meetal had been taken to.

Suddenly the elf pulled Meetal behind another ruined building, so they would not be seen.

Meetal slowly peeked around the corner, and was just able to spot the drow who had teleported in after Meetal had arrived on this world. He seemed to be ordering the orcs to do something.

Meetal watched in morbid fascination as the orcs pulled back. The humans in that building along with the gnome had no escape route from what Meetal could tell.

Suddenly from the drow’s hands erupted a giant fireball.

It totally incinerated the structure where they had been.

That was the end of that resistance cell, and it must have been Meetal’s fault, after all the drow must have homed in on his dimension jump orb. Meetal felt it through the bag he was carrying.

“I am so sorry about your people” Meetal told the elf, barely audible above the shouts and cheers from the orcs and from the sound of the fire
“Meetal we need to go” The elf commanded, “We need to hunt down a means to get to New York”

“You’re not going anywhere” a familiar voice came, it was the gnome

He was standing behind them, holding a small tube that spits death in his hand.

“What is the meaning of this Taval” the elf asked
“Walk away Jadric” The gnome retorted, “It’s time that this kobold scum got what was coming to him”

“I can not do that Taval” the elf replied, “This kobold is on a mission to try and help free both our realms”
“How did you find us” Meetal asked, “We thought you were inside”

“Shut your trap scum” The gnome shouted back
“Not so loud or you will attract the orcs” The elf ordered

The gnome shook his head and laughed, “Who do you think summoned them?”

“Why?” the elf asked, “Why betray your comrades?”
“You already did that by refusing to execute that kobold scumbag here” the gnome retorted, “I knew that if you were trapped you would use one of your fabled dimension door spells to get out, so I made a deal with that drow and he gave me this.”

The gnome then held up a small amulet, “This trinket apparently lets me follow the routes of dimension door spells

“And to use a human expression, what were your thirty pieces of silver” The elf asked
“Mining rights for me and my clan” the gnome replied, “She may be a blood thirsty tyrant this Lady High troll, but this time us gnomes are going to make sure we get on her good side, well at least I am. I was going to wait, but you denied me the satisfaction of doling out justice to this worthless wretch of a kobold”

“So you betray us because I refused to allow you to beat the kobold further” the elf asked, making sure he was between the gnome and Meetal.

“You elves have always been throwing your weight around, especially under the rule of the trolls” the gnome went on, “We backed the wrong side when we threw in our lot with your kind, in my opinion we should have been backing the drow all along. They wanted an insider in a resistance cell to try and find this so called Voice of Hope, but a kobold with an unaccounted dimension jump orb is too bigger catch for them to pass up”

Meetal shook his head in despair, not only had he betrayed his master, but his very presence had brought the down fall of what few had been involved in fighting against the oppression of the Lady High troll and her drow consort, Vabalavich.

“Now Jadric” the gnome went on, “You have one chance to escape, so leave that snivelling wretch for me to deal with”

“Never” the elf replied

“Have it your way” The gnome responded and a loud noise rang out from the metal tube that spits death.

Meetal saw in horror as the elf sank to his knees and started to smoulder. Meetal took advantage of the distraction to fasten his cloak of invisibility and then started to scurry away.

“Running like the coward you are” Shouted the gnome and started firing the tube that spits death, ever closer to where Meetal was, but Meetal was only just fast enough to beat the gnome’s aiming arm.

Now Meetal had to get away from this treacherous gnome, but he was unsure if gnomes could see invisible creatures like the drow. Meetal would have to use all his skill to try and get away. Luckily for Meetal, kobolds were slightly faster than gnomes when it came to running, mainly because he was not encumbered as much as the gnome was. Also Meetal was adept at sneaking from his former days.

After about half an hour running and sneaking, it seemed that Meetal had eluded the gnome, and possibly the drow, but he needed to keep moving, soon they might bring in magic locators to track him down. They might even use that Sky Guard thing that detected his arrival on this world to track him down

Even if he could keep several steps ahead of his pursuers he had other problems, for one he had to find this “New York City” to continue his search for Mr Vee and some how get there and at about seventy leagues or there abouts it would take almost forever on foot.

To be continued

[GypsyGoth]

Good story Sticks

*eagerly awaits next part*

[Sticks]

Episode III – A question of culpability

They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.

But in which direction?

Meetal a kobold and the long time faithful servant of The Lord Low Troll, presumed by others to have been killed at the start of the Mystical Realms Civil war some time ago has been sent by his master to the Realm of Mortals to find a human called Mr Vee.

Meetal’s master has a plan to free the conquered World of Mortals from the rule of the Lady High Troll, and wants to put his offer of help to this Mr Vee.

However Meetal has two main problems, firstly a drow and a gnome who has gone over to the side of the Lady High Troll are out to stop him, secondly, the last reported place Mr Vee was heading for was some city called New York, about seventy leagues away

+ + +

Meetal looked up at the grey sky and then at the talisman of location as it glowed green.

”At least he’s still alive” thought Meetal, and then put the talisman away.

Meetal did not dare try and think how long his little kobold legs would take him to cover seventy leagues to another city. And who was to say that by the time he got there that this Mr Vee might have travelled even further away.

If only his master had given him a ring of teleportation, or something like that, he would have found this human already and gone back to the relative safety of his own world.

Meetal was now running at a medium pace through streets lined with various buildings. The further north he went, the more the buildings got smaller and the more there were of them. Some of them seemed to be built with wood, and some a combination of wood and some red stone like material Meetal had never seen before.

A number of the dwellings were set back away from the road, and sat in small plots of land, with plants and trees that had obviously been cultivated.

This put Meetal in mind of his Master’s cave back on his world, where he eked out an existence from the vegetables and herbs he grew outside of his cave. These buildings had to be dwelling places. Was the function of these plots of land similar to that small plot of land by his master’s cave?

As Meetal looked, some of the small buildings seemed to still be inhabited, whether by humans or occupiers from his world, Meetal could not be sure. Outside quite a number of these dwellings were metal horseless carriages.

Then Meetal came to a stop, he noticed from one of the dwellings a male human youngling wandering out of one of the building. Just then what seemed to be the mother ran out and grabbed the youngling.

“What do you think you are doing Brad” the mother shouted at the youngling as she picked him up
“I want to try and find daddy” Meetal heard the youngling say, before the youngling burst into tears.

“I told you Brad he’s gone to heaven” Meetal heard the mother say with emotion in her voice. Then she told the youngling, “We need to wait for Mr Brown to come back from work with what the trolls will give us. We can’t go out of the house without permission” the mother added before looking round and saying, “Brad, suppose there had been a patrol”

Then the mother took the child inside the dwelling building and closed the door.

What was this heaven place Meetal wondered, was it another city or another country? From the way the mother reacted, there was obviously some enforced curfew of some sorts, but it seemed that some people were allowed to go to work. This did not make sense, but then it did not have to. Meetal had a mission.

Meetal pressed on through the streets, it was now getting on for the evening and the light was failing. If only this world had more than one Sun, then it would not be getting as dark as early as this.

As Meetal continued his journey through the failing light, he noticed that there were plenty of dwellings, but hardly any ventured out. There would occasionally be humans arriving back in horseless carriages. A number of the dwellings had light coming from the windows.

Then he came to a larger road with metal signs.

Meetal peered at the writing, but could not fathom it. It might be in that tongue known as English, but Meetal had only learned the spoken version not the written version. Unlike his master. Master was a clever troll and knew all sorts of things. How ungrateful they were on his world to consider Master a criminal as some had openly said.

Lucky for Meetal, few knew that he worked for his master.

But that gnome knew and that elf did as well.

How?

The elf may have found out through the now defunct High Council of Elves, as for the gnome, that was a mystery.

Meetal started walking along this big road. Occasionally a horseless carriage of some description would drive past. Some of them looking like that one that Meetal had once seen at the port of Faldon,

except these were not carrying those strange metal cylinders. Some of them carried various things. Some of them carried humans and some trolls, some bugbears and some carrying orcs.

It was becoming painfully obvious to Meetal what was going on, on this world of occupation.

This strange world had an infra structure that needed to be maintained, and the occupying forces were using the humans as slave labour to maintain their prized possession, while at the same time enforcing a curfew to reduce the risk of the humans rising up against their new overlords.

As Meetal had reflected on the characters of the three individuals who had seized power in his world and had conquered this one, he had come to the conclusion that the drow was the most intelligent one. The treacherous Clan Chief of the Manjura was really only interested in becoming clan leader and gaining rule of the Central City and Karam Tag Chou.

The Rachtal clan leader had been executed for high treason along with the last of the humans left on his world, and because of the shame that brought on the Rachtals their custodian ship of the sacred citadel of emperors had been forfeited to the Manjura clan, who continued to guard the dimension jump orbs.

As for that abomination known as the Lady High Troll, A Ghetto Clan Troll at that!!! she had seemed to have been more driven to get power of his world, and to add insult to injury as it were, she was proclaiming herself to be the rightful and legitimate daughter of his master, The Lord Low Troll.

How could she, when everyone knows master only had a son

The elf had to be wrong; Master would have told Meetal if he had a daughter, and he had not done so.

But still there was this nagging doubt, master kept using her birth name and not her title, most very un-troll like. Everyone knew that when a troll took any title, then previous names and titles were abandoned.

That was the law and tradition of the trolls, was it not?

Maybe Master did not want to dignify this usurper with such a title. That had to be it Meetal concluded, but still there was that nagging doubt.

Meetal looked at the talisman again, he would have to cross a large road he had ventured across, so carefully especially as the light was falling. Meetal kept watch to make sure there were no horseless carriages and then scampered across the road, through some bushes into what seemed like another set of dwellings.

One of the other things he noticed was that these humans went in for trees in a big way on some of these streets. On his world trees were relegated to forests and the mountains. Here trees were almost everywhere, and it seemed to Meetal that the humans had planted them there on purpose.

Why?

There were not enough of them for building things or even as firewood

Humans were odd and maybe a bit weak in comparison with some of the races on his world, but that was no excuse for violating the Sacred Law about interfering with them.

Then Meetal came across another horseless carriage, in the middle of the road.

This time there was a human driver sitting at the front and with him an accursed Ghetto troll. Two bugbears with heavy crossbows stood outside and beside the horseless carriage. Two orcs were approaching a dwelling building.

Meetal, hidden by his cloak of invisibility started to approach the orcs to see what they were doing.

The orcs banged loudly on the door.

The door opened slowly and behind it was a small female human with an infant youngling in her arms.

“We are here to collect workers for night shift” one of the orcs demanded, “Do you have men at home who have not worked in the heat of the day?”

“No sir” the female human whimpered and shook her head, “I live alone with just my daughter. My husband was one of those killed by the”

“Food” Meetal heard the other orc growl, “So succulent. Give me that youngling human” the orc demanded, “I’m famished”
“Please” pleaded the female human, “She’s my only daughter”

“Give me it now” the orc persisted and then the orc pushed the door open, he was determined that this youngling would be his to eat.

Meetal even though he was a mere kobold, could not stand for this flagrant piece of interfering and without thinking, drew his dagger and ran as fast as he could towards the orc.

Meetal was within two sword lengths when the other orc intervened instead, grabbing his fellow orc and pulling him back and snarling at him “We are not here to fill your belly, now get back to the truck”

Meetal came to a stop and sheathed his dagger; he was not needed after all.

The orc who had tried to grab the youngling trudged back to the horseless carriage moaning that he was hungry and besides as occupiers they should have a few perks. The lead orc as it were then issued some kind of apology through the open door and said that they would send an extra food ration in the morning and that orc would be moved to other duties.

The orcs had left the door open, and as night was falling Meetal crept into the dwelling unit, as he wanted to see that this female and her youngling were alright.

Meetal found the female human in what seemed like a kitchen sitting on the floor sobbing as she held her youngling who was also crying.

If there was a reason why Meetal was on this world, this was it. Maybe he was a kobold, one of the most scorned races on his world. Maybe he had been instrumental in the executions of political opponents. Maybe like all kobolds he did have a philosophy that said that the strong should dominate as it was with the wild animals but this was lawlessness; this was a violation of the Sacred Law.

Meetal wondered if he should show himself to the female, perhaps not a good idea.

Then the female human called out to what Meetal could only assume was her dead mate. Then the human female spoke how she and their youngling would be better off dead if all they thought of her youngling was food for orcs. Maybe next time the orcs would eat her youngling.

Meetal was horrified, thanks to the orc, this female human was considering killing herself and her youngling. For a moment he hesitated, strictly speaking he should walk away and not interfere.

No! There had already been interference, and did not his master maintain that if interference had been done in contravention of the sacred Law, then action should be taken to reverse the effects of that. He had asked to do that many cycles ago, but was stopped by a stupid griffin judge.

There was no griffin judge now to get in the way

Meetal unfastened the hood on his cloak of invisibility.

“No please, no” screamed the human female, “Please not my baby” she wailed as Meetal appeared in front of her

Meetal held up his hands and stepped back, “I mean you no harm” Meetal told the young female in his best English, “I not hurt either of you”
“Please” the human female continued, “Please don’t take my baby”

Meetal gave an indignant look, “I’m a kobold, not an orc”
“What?” the female human replied
“We do not eat human younglings” Meetal told her, “I saw that oaf of an orc try and grab your youngling and I came to fight them for you, but the other orc denied me the honour of glorious battle”
“How?” The female human asked, “You’re tiny and they are so huge”

“I would have at least tried” Metal replied looking at the floor utterly crestfallen, and then he looked back at the human female, who still had a look of terror in her eyes. “Please do not kill yourselves” Meetal pleaded, “I only became visible because you said you wanted to be dead”

“What’s the point?” the human female replied, “My husband is dead, we’re ruled by monsters from some other world and now they want to eat my baby”

“What is your name?” Meetal asked
“Joanna” the female human replied
“Is Baby the name of your youngling?” Meetal then asked
The female human shook her head in confusion, “No her name is Susan. A baby is what new born people are called”

“Well Joanna” Meetal went on, “I am on this world at the bidding of my master a once mighty troll who lead our world before he was betrayed by traitors. Master would never have done what these others have done to your world. Master has a plan to rid your world of these er monsters as you call them. Master wants your world to be free”
“Why would he?” The female human asked, “It was a troll who killed my husband with that nuke and all those people across the world. I thought the trolls stuck together”

Meetal sighed, “Joanna, Master may be a troll, but he is not of the clan of that abomination that calls herself the Lady High Troll. Her clan have no honour unlike my master’s clan, or they were until the new clan leader took over”

“But how can he free Earth?” the female human asked

“I do not know” Meetal admitted, “All I know is that I am meant to find a human called Mr Vee, but I have been told he is in a city called New York, but it is so far and as you observe I am so small”

“I wish I could drive you there” the female human replied, “but the trolls will only allow only certain people to drive around, the rest of us are confined to our homes and we have to live off of rations that are delivered to us each morning when they pick up workers for the day shift”

“I wish I could do more” Meetal sighed, “These trolls broke the Sacred Law”

“Sacred Law?” the female human asked

“It is” Meetal began, “our most Sacred Law, never to interfere in the affairs of your world. By attacking your cities and taking over your world this abomination of a troll and her cohorts have broken that Sacred Law. Now” Meetal went on, “I know things are bad, but please do not take your lives. Do not let them win” Meetal pleaded

“But it seems so hard” The female human sniffed, “I want to go out when I want, but I can’t. We are only allowed to go out at designated times accompanied by what ever creature they send to escort us, it’s like being in prison”

Meetal looked at the female human. He noted that she was wearing a top. Back on his world, female trolls who were single were not allowed to do that. They had to go about their way completely topless, as troll males who may want to seek a mate needed to see if female trolls had the suitable assets to nurture young. He knew that in the central city some of the other races also adopted that practice, for fear of upsetting some of the traditionalist trolls. He was not sure what the rule was concerning widows still capable of bearing youngling trolls. Only the Ghetto trolls did not observe this custom, and as they were the only troll clan allowed to come to the Realm of Mortals now, human females were lucky not to have this imposed upon them.

Meetal thought it best not to mention this facet of his world, but the enforced curfew did seem more like something the drow would come up with, particularly that Vabalavich troll consort. Vital people allowed going to their place of labour, while others were kept confined.

“I have to go now” Meetal told the female human, “I have a long way to go. I was told it was two hundred and five of that distance you call a mile, whatever that is”
“But its dark outside” the female human objected
“Kobolds see better at night” Meetal told her

The female human got up off the floor carrying her daughter, “I have a friend, my husband’s former manager, who is allowed out as he does something to do with maintaining the roads. According to Viceroy Vabalvich he is classed as a key worker, he may be able to help”

Meetal frowned, “How will you get hold of him”

The female human muttered something and then said, “I forgot, the phones are only working for certain people except for nine one, one.”

“This mean you can not get in touch with your friend?” Meetal asked.

The female human went into another room with her youngling and flicked something on the wall causing it to be illuminated without candles or oil lamps.

More human tek-no-lagy.

The room had what appeared to be soft furnishing and a wooden table. The female human put her youngling in a small chair like object, and sat down so she could rock the small seat to and back to try and settle her youngling

“Every day when he drives to work, he drives past the house, and if he spots this” the female human told Meetal as she took some kind of plant in a pot made of a material he had never seen from a big wooden box like thing against a wall and then placed it next to a window.

“He drops by to see us” the female human continued. “He should be here in the morning, but if the trolls or the orcs are dropping off the rations he comes back later”

“So I need to stay the night here to wait for him” Meetal ventured
“It’s all I can offer” the Human female replied

Meetal looked outside the window, if he was right, it was about the late evening. For a brief moment Meetal wondered about sneaking onto the horseless carriage he had seen outside collecting workers to labour through the night, on what Meetal could not guess. But no, for all he knew they might have the ability to detect him. Also what about that drow and that gnome, the trolls orcs and bugbears might be warned to watch out for him.

Meetal could not take that risk.

“Ok” Meetal told the female human
“Do you need anything to eat?” the female human asked

The reminded Meetal, that he had not eaten since the end of day meal the night before on his world. Because of their travelling to the mountain with the loadstone on his world, so they could use the dimension jump orb, they had had to miss the break of day meal.

But would it be right to take what may be meagre rations from this human and her youngling?

But she is offering

But does that make it right?

But Meetal needs to keep up his strength if he is to do Master’s bidding and help undo the damage of that accursed troll

Then Meetal had another thought, If he stayed the night with this human, would he be putting her at risk if they tracked him here

“I thank you for your kind offer” Meetal slowly said, “But my arrival in your world was discovered and I my existence was betrayed by a gnome to the drow. If they found me here, or discovered you had helped me, they might execute you”

“Isn’t there anyway I could hide you?” the human female asked.

Meetal shook his head, “If they use magic to track me they would find me here”

“Next door” the human female ventured, “Both the people there died when DC was nuked, the house has been lying idle ever since”

Meetal considered it for a moment and then shook his head, “They are looking for me and they will not stop, especially that gnome. If I stay anywhere too long they will find me”

“If only you could stay”, the human female went on, “my husband’s manager could put you on a truck up to New York, or what’s left of it”

This was certainly a quandary. If Meetal stayed the night, he risked capture and possibly the execution of this female human and her youngling, but he was hungry and if they could help him reach this Mr Vee he needed to seek…

Meetal then thought of the dimension jump orb, maybe he could find out from this human female where this New York was, take the orb back to his world and then go to that city.

That was too risky, especially with that Sky Guard thing whatever it was

Meetal yawned!

“Please stay” the female human urged him, “You look tired”
“But I do not want you executed” Meetal insisted
“Then eat something here and sleep next door”

“Ok” Meetal mumbled.

The female human went back into the kitchen and then called out “What do kobold’s eat”

Meetal had to think again, what human food would be edible? In the past Meetal had dined on things like roast elk, fish domestic birds and of course his master’s dreaded concoction. The other kobolds had dined less favourably on fish, small wild animals, birds, eggs and what ever berries they could forage. Sometimes if they were lucky they might bring down an elk. Unlike goblins, they did not go in for farming, they were hunters.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much” the female human called out, “Just ready meals”

“I will try one of those” Meetal said as he wandered into the kitchen, “I do not expect you will have standard kobold fare”

The female human took the two ready meals out of a large metal white box. Meetal could see other items in there, which he could not recognise, but it did seem awfully cold in that white metal box. So humans used cold to preserve food instead of salting it. The ready meals were further contained in two smaller boxes, made of something almost like paper, but stiffer. When the female human removed them from the box, they were in trays made of some strange material Meetal had never seen.

The female human then placed the two trays in a smaller metal box with a glass front and pressed parts of it, which made a strange beeping noise.

The female human then pressed another button and the metal box started to hum, and a light shone through the window.

After a fairly short time, the metal box made another strange beeping noise and the female human retrieved the trays and placed them on a table.

Amazingly they had gone in so short a time from being as ice, to being piping hot.

Meetal climbed up onto a chair and kneeled down on it; while the female human sat opposite after obtaining what Meetal assumed was some kind of cutlery. One was a knife, albeit not a sharp one and the other had four metal prongs on it.

Meetal watched briefly as the human female started to use them. The strange one was for picking things up with, sort of like a small ladle, while the other was a knife.

Meetal slowly following the human female’s lead as best he could started to consume the ready meal. It consisted of thin slices of possibly a cooked meat of some kind, with some odd vegetables he had never seen before and something round, which the human female said were Yorkshire puddings, and that the ready meals had come originally from a store catering to a tribe of humans called British. The whole ready meal was coated in some dark liquid, which the human female called gravy.

Meetal could taste that the ready meal had a higher level of salt than he was used to back on his world, save for the salted meats sold in the market in the Central City on the Low plain. At least it was more palatable than the gagh root stew his master had developed a fondness for. In terms of quantity there was not much, but Meetal suspected this was all she could get for her and her youngling daughter.

So the drow’s plan was to keep the humans starving to keep them docile.

Meetal and the female human finished up the ready meal, and then surreptitiously the female opened a door from the kitchen to another plot of land. She then said how she and her mate used to tend it, but under the new law of the drow, trolls and bugbears, she was confined indoors and was not able to go outside without permission from the drow governor assigned to rule what was once a capital city of this once super power.

Meetal shook his head in despair; this was good growing land going to waste, because of drow authoritarian rule, but then that was typical of the Hadreth order of drow. Brutal oppression, denial of even the most basic things, like going outside into one’s own plot of land, so that these can be granted later as privileges for loyalty. This Vabalvich, the Lady High Troll’s consort was ruthlessly efficient in what he did. He had even been unanimously elected as head of that order, even by the previous head of that order.

The human female then pointed at a gap in the fence where Meetal could get through to the property that was left deserted by the deaths of its owners.

Meetal went straight for it, and through. This plot of land was also overgrown and unlike the home of the human female, it was in utter darkness. Slowly Meetal crept up to the dwelling. He reached a wall

Suddenly a creature leapt at him. Meetal was so startled he did not have time to draw his dagger. He fought off the attacker with his bare hands and quickly it dropped off of him ran for a bit away and hissed at him. It was some kind of animal Meetal could not identify.

Meetal, his heart racing from the attack by the weird animal, Meetal found a broken window and opened it so he could clamber in.

In the gloom he looked briefly around the room inside this house and sighed. Why did they call kobolds evil, when there were others who caused so much death, destruction and pain not to mention that distasteful chaos Meetal hated. The gnome accused him of so much, but Meetal did what he did for the preservation of law and order.

Meetal did not feel like exploring the rest of this dwelling, so after attending to personal matters in the plot of land outside, he settled down to sleep.

+ +

“Thought you could out run me scum” shouted the gnome

Meetal tried to move but something was holding him, he had been bewitched.

“You good for nothing kobold” the gnome went on, “My queen will make me ruler of all gnomes with your capture, although you were killed trying to escape. Shame about that you kobold scum”

Meetal tried to speak, but he could not

The gnome pulled Meetal to his feet and dragged him outside through the front door.

“Now see what your treachery has done” The gnome yelled at him with anger in his voice.

Meetal blinked, and there to his horror was a gallows freshly erected outside in the street. Swinging on them lifeless and dead was the human female alongside her youngling

“No!” Meetal was able to exclaim

“You killed them both you kobold scum” the gnome growled, “You killed them when you talked to them, You killed them when you accepted sustenance and a bed from them”

Meetal looked at the two dead bodies swinging in the wind.

Then he saw the drow who had been hunting him since he first arrived in this world. “Why should this site bother you?” The drow asked, “After all how many executions under your master did you bring about”

“But they were rebels and criminals” Meetal protested, “These were innocent” he added pointing to the gallows.

“All are guilty” The drow retorted, “Especially you”
“How do you feel kobold scum” The gnome chipped in, “How many deaths on this world are you responsible for”

“Those two” Meetal wept as he broke down sobbing

“Oh no” the gnome replied, “You are responsible for every last death on this world”

“No” Meetal whined

“One stab of a dagger into a troll’s heart and you could have saved them” The drow taunted
“You had your chance at Faldon”, the gnome went on, “But like the snivelling coward you are you scurried away to write your note to Master”

“One stab of a dagger into a troll’s heart and you could have saved them” The drow repeated

“But I was out numbered” Meetal protested

“Just keep telling yourself that” the gnome grinned, “We are going to hang the entire street and it is all you fault”

“Gnome, we have a better idea” the drow said with an evil laugh and pointed in the sky.

Meetal looked and in the distance he saw the faint sign of a blue vortex opening in the sky

“We are opening these up all across this world” the drow went on, “And then we will send the fire storms to wipe every last living thing from this world, and it is your entire fault because you did not use your dagger to strike at a troll’s heart”

Meetal watched in terror as he saw a giant fireball rapidly expand and race towards him.

“No!” Meetal screamed

“Everyone will die like this female and her youngling” sneered the gnome.

“No” Meetal cried

Meetal then noticed other blue vortices in the sky, and more fireballs in the sky.

“Take a look from above kobold scum” The gnome then said and grabbed Meetal.

Then they were floating above the strange world looking down. Meetal saw countless fireball erupting all over the world of humans, scorching and destroying every last living thing.

“You are so pathetic” the gnome told him, “You had your chance and you sneaked away”

Then Meetal was outside of his master’s cave.

Meetal’s master came and looked at him, “Oh Meetal you stupid, stupid kobold, you had a chance to prevent so many deaths and because of your cowardice everyone has died”

Then his master turned his back on Meetal and went back into his cave.

“No” Meetal wept, “I tried, but I could not find Mr Vee, he was not in that city I landed in”

“But one dagger thrust to a troll’s heart and it could have been all stopped” came the drow’s voice behind him.

Meetal swung round, to see the drow with one of the metal cylinders he had seen that time in the port town of Faldon.

“We forgot to set this one off you stupid kobold” the drow said with venom

The metal object suddenly erupted into a fire ball, and Meetal was unable to get away, and was engulfed.

+ +

Meetal opened his eyes.

He was still in the dwelling next to the female human and her youngling.

Was that all just some sick nightmare or had the drow been using mind magic to try and find him along with the gnome.

Meetal was terrified, what if the female human and her youngling had been executed.

Meetal crept along the floor of the dwelling he had been sleeping in until he could get to a window overlooking the street without being spotted.

It looked like that the dawn was approaching, a dawn on an odd world with only one Sun to warm it and to light it.

Meetal looked for the gallows with the two victims hung upon it, but saw only an empty road.

Maybe it was a nightmare; at least Meetal hoped it would be. If it was, the nightmare had a point. When Meetal had been in that tavern while scouting out this new strange troll, he could have prevented what she later did. He was supposed to be a sneaky kobold. He should have guessed she was bad news when he saw that she was aligned not only with bugbears and drow, but also with that accursed Ghetto troll clan. Meetal should have killed this Lady High Troll when he had the chance, and deep down Meetal had always felt this, ever since he had seen the executions of the human leaders and their families in the Central City.

The fall of both worlds had been because Meetal was a snivelling coward.

No! That was stupid, there was no way Meetal could have got near her to kill her. Every time Meetal ran it through in his mind, he knew there was no way he could have got near her, let lone got away afterwards, but still he felt guilty that he was almost in a position to stop her, and he did not.

It was just a stupid dream, based on Meetal’s guilt at what he had been unable to do. At least he hoped it was.

Slowly Meetal climbed out of the house into its plot of land.

Meetal sniffed the air

No scent of gnomes, trolls, orcs bugbears or drow.

Slowly Meetal made his way down the fence of the plot of land and found the entrance to the plot of land that the human female’s dwelling stood in.

Meetal pushed through the hole.

All at once he heard a sound he had heard before.

A metallic sound.

It was the sound of a metal tube that spits death as it was prepared to enact it’s deadly power

“So you’re the varmint that’s been pestering Mrs Peters” a gruff human male voice growled, as Meetal felt a cold metal tube placed on the back of his neck.

To be continued

[GypsyGoth]

I'm beginning to like Meetal, and thank goodness it was a nightmare.

[Sticks]

Episode IV – Monsters are people too

Ever battled against other’s preconceptions?

Ever been written off because you were stereotyped?

Have you ever done this to others?

It is easily done

When Meetal the kobold came to the Realm of Mortals, he fell victim to this as he was accused of working for the Lady High Troll who has conquered the Realm of Mortals and the Mystical Realms, only because he had worked for the Lord Low Troll.

But Meetal despises the Lady High Troll, but even so he seems to have fallen foul of a bad preconception, this time by a human

“I ought to drop you right here and now” the gruff male voice went on as the metal tube that spits death was prodded against the back of Meetal’s neck, “Except those no good troll friends of your might hear this.

Then Meetal heard the unsheathing of his dagger as the human behind him pulled it out from his belt.

“Nice blade” the male human said, “I might keep it after I run you through with it”

“I never harmed this Mrs Peters you speak of” Meetal whimpered
“Only because you didn’t get the chance to” retorted the male human, “I know all about you kobolds, because you work for evil and I’ve fought and killed a lot of your kind albeit while playing Dungeons and Dragons.”

“But I’m the first kobold to visit your world” Meetal whined

“Mr Travers” Meetal heard the female human call out. For a moment Meetal closed his eyes in relief, she had not been executed as his dream had depicted, but for some reason this male human was convinced that Meetal was the enemy. Even more confusing he was even claiming to have fought kobolds and to know all about them, how could this be?

“You go inside Mrs Peters” the male human called out, “Kobolds are evil and would kill you as soon as look at you, and I should know because of what it says about them in Monster Manual”

“But he didn’t touch us” the female human insisted
“Only because he never had the chance to” the male human growled, “I wish I could have come last night, I would have sorted him out”

“Mr Travers” the female human insisted, “he offered to leave because he was worried him staying here would mean reprisals against Susan and I”

“Look, everyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons know that kobolds are lawful evil” The male human insisted, “You don’t reason with them you kill them”

“Mr Travers” the woman replied, “This is not that role playing game and I looked into his eyes, he’s not evil, He wants to help us”

“Help us?” The male human said with incredulity, “how can a measly kobold help us, at best they’re cannon fodder”

“Please Mr Travers” Meetal begged, “I never harmed anyone here. I’m meant to be searching for someone called Mr Vee because my master has a plan to free your world and mine from the Lady High Troll”

The male human took the metal tube that spits death away from Meetal’s neck, “I’m watching you” he growled

Slowly Meetal trudged to the house where the female human was standing at the back door of her dwelling, carrying her youngling daughter.

The female human stepped back to allow Meetal to enter the dwelling as the male human followed with the tube that spit’s death.

“Please Mr Travers” the female human asked, “He’s not dangerous”

“How long before the trolls arrive” the male human asked.
“About forty minutes” the female human answered.
“Are you going to complain about that orc?” The male human asked with a hint of anger in his voice

“I daren’t Mr Travers” the female human replied.

The male human shook his head and then pointed at Meetal, “So what do you want me to do with this kobold”

“He says he needs to get to New York to find this person who may be able to free Earth”
“Why ask me?” the male human asked
“You might know of some truckers going up highway ninety five” the female human responded

Meetal watched as the man’s eyes narrowed.

Meetal dropped to his knees and held his hands together and begged, “Please Mr Travers, I do not know what lies this monster manual you speak of has said about us kobolds, but I need to find this person by the name of Mr Vee. My master has sent me on a mission. Master wants me to pass on a message that he will help you humans against the Lady High Troll and that drow consort Vabalavich”

“And who pray tell” the human male asked, “Is your master?”

“He was once the former ruler of our world until he was deposed by traitors and orcs” Meetal replied.

“Oh really” the human male said with scepticism in his voice, “What is his name?”

Meetal for a moment was perplexed, but then remembered that this was not the Mystical Realms, the humans here might not know who his master was. Slowly Meetal answered, “He went by the title of The Lord Low Troll”

At this the human made a clicking sound on his tube that spits death and pointed it at Meetal’s head, “That’s the Lady High Troll’s father” the male human snapped, “You’re working for her aren’t you?”

Meetal violently shook his head, “lies, lies” he squealed, “Master had a son not a daughter, she’s lying”

“Please Mr Travers not in the house” the female human interjected.

“But if this kobold succeeds” the male human objected, “who’s to say this Lord Low Troll won’t just take over from the Lady High Troll”

“Master does not want to do that” Meetal pleaded, “Master and I hold to the Sacred Law, Master would leave you to be free and not interfere in how you govern your affairs”

“Sacred Law?” the human male queried

“It means it is against their law to interfere with us” the human female explained.
“Sort of like the Prime Directive off of that old Star Trek TV show”

The human male took away the tube that spits death again, “I thought he was dead” the human male said to Meetal, “that Lady High Troll said he was murdered at the outbreak of some civil war you had”

“That was Master’s twin brother Midah who died” Meetal sighed as he looked down at the floor, then he looked up at the humans with tears in his eyes Master and his brother were so devoted to each other. We were not able to save him in time and those treacherous orcs killed him”

“Mr Travers” the female human spoke out, “I for one believe him, and if he can help take our planet back, we should help, after all things can’t get any worse. All you have to do is put him on a truck to New York”

“Ok” the human male replied, “But I’m warning you kobold, and funny stuff and you’re ash, got that?”

Meetal violently nodded

“Who would have thought a kobold being quested” the human male muttered.

Meetal had no idea what this talk of Star Trek, Prime directive and TV shows was about, but it did seem that what ever this Prime Directive was, it was similar to the Sacred Law and held in equal reverence by the humans. As for this Dungeons and Dragons, what game was that? Humans only came to the Mystical Realms in regular trips when those treacherous trolls had made a pact with a bunch of humans belonging to something called Eye-Dee-Ee-See, and they never played such games. As for that tome, “Monster Manual” who could have written so many lies about kobolds.

Meetal put on his cloak of invisibility and followed the male human outside to his strange looking horseless carriage. The human male held the door open and ordered him to get in and make himself seen” With great effort, Meetal obliged.

Meetal was then ordered to get down off of the seat and hide in the inside front part where the humans would put their feet. This male human did not want Meetal seen by others, but did not trust him enough to ride while he was invisible, however given that some, like the drow could see invisible races, that was probably just as well. Also if they had magic detection amulets, an operating cloak of invisibility would show up as if it were a cloak of bright light.

The human male started the strange horseless-carriage and it moved off.

During the drive, there was an uneasy silence. Meetal was understandably frightened by this human male, so decided that the best course of action was to keep still and shut up. For all he knew he could be going to hand Meetal over to the troll authorities.

But would that not endanger this human male’s faithful but dead servants mate and her youngling?


After driving for a while, Meetal heard the male human say certain words that seemed out of context. The next thing he knew was that the male human had grabbed from somewhere a blanket and flung it over Meetal and the strange carriage he was riding in was coming to a stop.

Meetal’s keen hearing could detect from outside the footsteps of a troll. Most likely from that accursed Ghetto clan. Meetal tried to slow his breathing as much as possible. This human was probably right to put the blanket over him, for if he was using the cloak of invisibility, they might have had an amulet of magic detection and he would have been found out.

“Where are you going Human” Meetal heard the troll demand.

“I have a crew near interstate ninety five sir; we are due to start bridge maintenance there this morning. Consort Vabalavich himself sir ordered that we carry on with this work” the human male replied, adding “I have my permit to be outside and to drive here”

“And what is that under the blanket beside you” The troll then asked
“One of the guard dogs at the depot died last nigh sir” the human male went on, “I said I would take the body away and dispose of it”

“I’m sure there are plenty of orcs who would be glad of the carrion. Why did you not call them?” the troll snapped back

“I would have sir, but we believe the dog got at the rat poison and I didn’t want to risk the life of one of your colleagues”

“Your concern human” the troll sneered, “is well noted, but knowing what orcs eat I would not have thought they would have come to harm”

“Do you need to see the dead dog sir?” the male human asked

What was this human playing at? Meetal wondered. There is no way Meetal looked like a dead dog, (whatever creature that was)

There was an uncomfortable pause before the troll replied, “I do not have time to inspect dead carrion. Dispose of the beast and then make sure your workers make a good job of those bridges” the troll ordered.

“Yes sir” was all the human male replied.

There was some shouting of trolls outside of the horseless carriage and the male human started it up again and they started to move.

After a moment the male human broke the silence between him and Meetal. “That was a troll check point.” He said as he pulled off the blanket from Meetal.

“Oh” was all Meetal dared to squeak out

The silence then returned between them as the male human continued to pilot the horseless carriage, at what seemed to Meetal speeds only to be imagined.

All the while Meetal thought back to his nightmare, What if they did find out that the female human had given him sustenance? would they execute her and her youngling like he had dreamed. Meetal did not dare ask this, not with this male human anyway.

This male human was still convinced that Meetal was his enemy. This human male had admitting to slaughtering many of his kind in a game called Dungeons and Dragons, but why had he not heard of his fellow kobolds being rounded up for such sick games.

Meetal knew that before his master’s time there had been so called games where spectators watched hapless slaves and petty criminals fight each other to the death, whilst others betted on the outcome.

His master had, like him, found them distasteful and a waste of good slaves. One of the first things his master did in office was to see to their abolition. With acts like that, why did they keep insisting that his master was a blood thirsty tyrant? Meetal hated them referring to his master so, even though his master claim not to mind.

What had his master told Meetal?

“I heard those same claims as well. They were in fact quite useful. I saw a job that needed to be done, and if that perception was there it was of some use as it frightened most of the population into behaving themselves.”

No!

As far as Meetal was concerned this was a slur against his master, because he had had to make hard choices when he served the residents of The Mystical Realms.

Meetal glanced back up at the male human and then he averted his eyes. Even if this human had the blood of unknown kobolds on his hands as he claimed, now was not the time to avenge their deaths. Besides, even though amongst other kobolds Meetal was seen as a bit of an outsider, surely he would have heard of kobolds going missing.

From what he could remember, all other kobolds he knew of were accounted for. What is more, to his shame, they were one of the first races to surrender without a fight to the accursed Lady High Troll.

That day was a black day for kobolds, as indeed it was for the other races.

Maybe that was unfair – she had been given enormous firepower with stolen weapons from the humans that could wipe out whole cities at the blink of an eye.

Now who was the race deserving the term monster?

“We’re here” the human male announced, “This is a truck stop just before the interstate”

Meetal climbed onto the seat and peaked out through the window

To his astonishment Meetal saw huge metal boxes being pulled by other horseless carriages.

“Put this blanket over you and get out” the human male ordered.

Meetal took the blanket and wrapped it around himself as best he could and then struggled to open the door.

“You’re useless” the male human snapped and got out of his horseless carriage, went around the front and opened Meetal’s door.

Meetal noticed that the male human was still carrying his dagger. Meetal said nothing, after all what use is a dagger anyway against tubes that spit death, especially from a human who claimed to have slaughtered countless kobolds in some game called Dungeons and Dragons.

Meetal got out of the horseless carriage and did his best to follow the male human as he walked across to a number of other male humans.

Meetal stopped short of them as he noticed in the distance what could be a bugbear.

The first male human stood there talking to what looked like a human to Meetal, but unlike the first male human, his skin was black.

Meetal had seen such humans back on his world in the Central City on the Low Plain. They had come from a place on the human’s world called Africa. Meetal had watched in horror as these humans, along with their younglings all were hanged on massive gallows after being declared enemies of Brameana, the Lady High Troll.

This male human was obviously talking to an African human, but what were they saying?

Meetal then saw the first male human give the African Human his dagger, and then the first Human came over to where Meetal was standing.

“I’ve spoken to my friend Howard” the male human told Meetal, “He’s hauling construction equipment to New Jersey which is on the way to New York. We used to play dungeons and dragons together, so he knows all about you kobolds as well, and I’ve warned him about your kind”

Meetal looked up at the male human with tears in his eyes, “Whatever you have heard about us kobolds sir” Meetal wept, “They are lies. We are not evil. I beg of you sir, if you ever play this Dungeons and Dragons not to slaughter our kind. We will pay what ever tribute you want, please don’t kill us”

The human just grunted and got back into his horseless carriage and in minutes he was gone.

Meetal then trudged over to the African Human male known by the strange human name of Howard.

“So you’re the Kobold that thinks he’s going to save the world” Howard opened with.

“No sir” Meetal replied, “My master has promised to do that as soon as I have managed to find this human called Mr Vee. Master said he wants to do a deal with him to make your world free”

“Aren’t kobolds meant to be cannon fodder rather than going on quests?” the human called Howard then asked

Meetal looked at him with a puzzled expression, whatever the expression cannon fodder meant, it did not sound good. “Cannon fodder?” Meetal asked

The human called Howard sighed, “That means in Dee and Dee you guys usually get creamed early on”

“Does that mean you slaughter us?” Meetal asked with trepidation. If this human before their fall went around slaughtering kobolds for mere sport, Meetal had to be careful, less they decide to kill him too, like they admitted to killing his compatriots.

The human called Howard frowned, “Yeah I suppose you could put it that way”

Meetal looked at the ground again, and then up at this large African Human called Howard. “Please spare my life sir” Meetal pleaded, “At least until I have passed my master’s message on to this Mr Vee?”

The human called Howard then grinned and laughed. To Meetal this was not a good sign.

“You think we went killing kobolds for real?” Howard asked

Meetal looked up at him, “Your friend said how he had slaughtered many of us when you went to play something called Dungeons and Dragons. I just wondered if he had killed any I knew. Did you kill male kobolds only or were not even our younglings spared”

The African human shook his head briefly, “Dungeons and Dragons is what we call a fantasy role play game. We just used paper and pencils, several books and dice and sat round a table drinking a few beers. We never actually killed anyone for real in that game.”

“But he said he had slaughtered many kobolds” Meetal replied, now confused.

“Only on paper my little friend, they weren’t real kobolds we killed” the human called Howard reassured Meetal, “Now we better get you into my truck before the bugbear notice you.”

The human called Howard motioned for Meetal to go to a specific giant horseless carriage.

The door was quite high up so the human called Howard opened it and picked Meetal up in his big strong black arms and placed him inside and then closed the door. Meetal did exactly what he had done in the other horseless carriage and slipped down in front of the seat, out of sight.

The Human named Howard then entered by the other door and climbed in with great ease. “Where are you?” he asked

“Down here Mr Howard sir” Meetal replied.
“You ain’t gonna be comfortable down there” the human called Howard responded

“Mr Travers had me ride like this so the trolls did not see me” Meetal answered.

“As soon as we hit the interstate, I don’t think they will be a problem, so you might as will sit up on the seat properly”
“What about check points” Meetal whined
“We all know where they are my little kobold friend. This is a big planet and they can’t be everywhere. The only way they keep us in check is by the use of those nukes they have”

“Are they what caused the firestorms?” Meetal asked with apprehension.

“Yup” the human called Howard responded as he started up the Horseless carriage.

This horseless carriage sounded a lot louder than the other one he had ridden in, no doubt because of it’s colossal size. On his world, even a stone giant or a dragon might have trouble moving a load of this size, but this strange contraption seemed to do so with little effort.

Meetal could sense his question about the firestorms had upset this human, so decided to keep quiet.

It was a while before the human announced that they had got onto the place called interstate ninety five. At his behest, Meetal climbed up onto the seat.

“You better buckle yourself in my little kobold friend” the human called Howard instructed Meetal.

All Meetal could utter was “Huh?”

With his eyes on the long road in front, the human reached over the top of Meetal and grabbed at a small piece of metal attached to some belt made of material Meetal could not recognise and pulled it across him and then down to some other contraption, where the metal bit locked in, constraining Meetal to the seat.

“I promise I will not do any Funny stuff” Meetal spoke up, “Why did you wish me tied up”
“Are you talking about the seatbelt?” the human called Howard asked, “It’s not to tie you up, its to protect you should we have to stop suddenly” the human explained. Then the human thumbed his own belt so that Meetal saw he was wearing one too.

“I’m sorry” Meetal apologised
“Don’t sweat it” the human replied, “This must all be so confusing to you” he then asked

Meetal could just nod. Then Meetal thought for as moment, “I’m so sorry for those you lost in the firestorms” Meetal said quietly

“How did you know about that?” the Human called Howard demanded to know
“When you mentioned that the firestorms were caused by these things you called nukes. I could tell it caused you pain” Meetal explained

“I suppose even a kobold could pick that up” the human called Howard replied, “My wife and children were visiting Detroit when the Lady High Troll nuked that city”

Meetal looked down, “I’m so sorry” he whispered as tears trickled down from his eyes to his snout.

“You didn’t kill them” the human called Howard replied, “That b***h the Lady High Troll did”

Meetal kept silent about his involvement, or to be more accurate lack of action that day in Faldon, where he could have prevented this if he had just used his dagger on that abomination of a Ghetto troll”

After a while Meetal asked, “The death of your family, is that why you kill us kobolds on this game you and Mr Travers spoke of”

The human called Howard sighed, “Nah, Dungeons and Dragons was around long before all this happened. The way the game is supposed to work is that we each take on some kind of adventurer class and we start as low level characters. As you find treasure in the game or fight monsters you gain something called experience points which means you increase in level. As you increase in level you get more what we call hit points, meaning the character you play is harder to kill. Kobolds just happen to be monsters that are thrown at first level players because in the game they are quite weak in comparison to other monsters”

“So you think I’m a monster then?” Meetal asked.

“I’m sorry my kobold friend” the human called Howard apologised, “You’re just like one of us, only different looking”

“Mr Travers said I was evil because it said so in some tome called Monster Manual” Meetal ventured, “Is that why we are called monsters?”

The human called Howard shook his head, “No. That book was just a list of creatures and how they were used in the game mechanics. Even we humans appear in it, although with some humans, monster is the only way you could describe them”

“And you or Mr Travers never killed any of us kobolds for real?” Meetal then asked

“Not a single one” the Human called Howard said. After a brief pause he then added, “I always thought that game was hard on your kind. It billed you as some kind of low level critter to be thrown at first level characters, yet according to folklore kobolds were described as being quite helpful to humans”

Meetal went quiet and reflected, his Master had been right to keep the Sacred Law. Their world had been shaped by the collective unconsciousness of the humans. There was always a danger according to his master that interfering with humans could have repercussions on their world. His master had always said he had a soft spot for kobolds as it proved the wisdom according to him of the Sacred Law.

According to Meetal’s master, kobolds were once as respected as some of the other minor races, but something happened in the Realm of Mortals, and they became pariahs and outcasts. Maybe it was because this Dungeons and Dragons game. Maybe it had altered the perception of humans about kobolds and this must have fed into the collective unconsciousness making kobolds the outcasts they had became.

It was so unfair; kobolds were no worse or better than some of the other smaller races inhabiting the Mystical Realms.

Meetal then settled down to looking out as they drove along this long road. Meetal had never seen such a road of this length as it seemed to go on and on. The longest one he had ever seen was the one running the entire length of the Central City and out into the desert for about a couple of leagues or so. Elsewhere for longer journeys, the roads became mere tracks, of variable width, depending on how many people travelled the route.

“We’re hunter gatherers” Meetal said to try and make conversation. This male human was friendlier than the one called Mr Travers, but Meetal was still wary. Being friendly was a tactic he had used himself in the service of his master when it was his job to find out information about coup attempts during the glory days.

“I knew few people who were like that” the Human called Howard replied, “By the way do you have a name?”

“Meetal” Meetal replied

“Is that your first name or your surname?” the human called Howard then asked.
“I do not understand?” Meetal replied
“My first name is Howard and my surname or family name is Brown” the male human called Howard explained.

“Oh” Meetal responded, “My kobold tribe is the Jarran tribe, so my full title is Meetal of the Jarran, but I have not seen them in several cycles, and when I heard that Mr Travers”

Just then Meetal found himself being overcome with emotion and breaking down like a youngling, which was not normal for a kobold of his age. It seemed he was becoming like those humans who had stuck pictures on those memorial boards he had seen in that city called Washington DC.

“You thought he had killed your family” Howard ventured

Meetal found himself nodding, “I miss them Mr Howard” Meetal sobbed, “When I joined the service of my master some of them said I was betraying them to work for a troll and they had me ostracised from my tribe”

“So your master’s a troll?” the human called Howard inquired
“Yes” Meetal answered, “He was once a leader of our realm and I helped him keep law and order among the many races”
“I suspect that would have been tough” the human empathised

Meetal nodded, “Master had to be tough so people said slanderous things about him”

“I knew a commander at boot camp who had the same attitude” the human replied
“So you understand?” Meetal asked

“Yeah” the human replied, “In the end we all respected him for it”
“They did not, they over threw my master” Meetal sighed, “The believe he is dead”
“But he’s not?” the human asked
“He still lives Mr Howard, it was Master who sent me to find this Mr Vee”
“In New York?”
“So I was told”

Meetal then pulled out the talisman of location and held it up. The Green glow indicated they were travelling in about the right direction.

“That like a GPS?” The human asked
“A what?” Meetal asked
“Sorry Meetal, is that what you are using to find this Mr Vee”

Meetal put the Talisman away and nodded. If this human wanted, he could easily overpower Meetal and steal it, but instead he continued to keep his hands on some wheel device, which seemed to be used to steer this behemoth of a horseless carriage.

After a pause the human then asked, “Do you like music Meetal”

“Master used to have musicians at court, but I did not have many favourites” Meetal answered
“Did you have any hunting songs?” the human asked
“No sir, we just kept silent so as not to alert our prey”
“I used to go hunting with my old man” the human revealed, “We kept pretty quiet too when we were stalking deer”

Meetal thought it best not to enquire what a deer was, but it was clearly an animal the humans hunted for food.

“We’re not so different you and I Meetal” the human called Howard said. Then he reached up and from somewhere pulled a shiny metal looking disc and then placed it in some device to his right.

Within second some strange melodious sound erupted from all around him.

Youtube video

“This is the late Johnny Cash” the male human explained.

Meetal sat through the strange music, it was nothing like anything he had ever heard at court, and he was not sure if he liked it or not, however the human called Howard seemed to like it because he tried to sing along to it.

Very odd behaviour

+

Meetal observed that it was approaching the middle of the day, according to this strange world’s single sun when the human called Howard pulled over off of the very long road and drove into some kind of parking area for other similar horseless carriages like the one where Meetal met this more friendly male human. The earlier human male had called that place a truck stop, so maybe this was another one.

“Stay in the truck and I’ll get something to eat” the human called Howard told him, adding “If you need the bathroom I’ve got a small chemical toilet in the back” pointing towards a section behind the seat, obscured by a black curtain he had not noticed before.

“Why would I want to bathe in a toilet or a latrine?” Meetal asked, confused by this expression and slightly disgusted at the thought of it..
“Sorry Meetal” the human apologised, “If you need to use the toilet I have a small one back there. We sometimes refer to rooms that have them as bathrooms even when there is no bath there”

“It’s all so confusing this language of yours” Meetal complained
“Yep it is that” the human called Howard admitted, and then he got out of the horseless carriage and headed off to some building.

Meetal went into the section of the horseless carriage and found this chemical toilet, and attended to personal business. In this section Meetal observed there was also a small bed. So this human lived in this horseless carriage.

So some humans like this African human lived a nomadic existence, how very interesting

Meetal waited in this bedchamber area of the horseless carriage peeking through the curtain until he saw the human called Howard coming back, then quickly he slipped onto the passenger seat and kept his head down to minimise the risk of being spotted.

The human called Howard climbed back into the horseless carriage and handed Meetal some strange cup of liquid with a tube sticking out the top. He then handed Meetal two items wrapped in paper. They felt warm.

“I got you a burger and fries and a diet coke” the human said.
“Thank you” Meetal said and then eyed the meal he had been given. Most races on his world did not eat during the day, only at the beginning and end. Humans were peculiar in that they ate during the day as well.

Meetal got the human to show him how to unwrap the food so he could eat it.

The burger seemed to be some kind of meat, sandwiched between two bread like things, along with strange vegetables. There was also some kind of source which seemed to drip onto Meetal’s fur which the human called catsup

The burger tasted strange but not unpalatable; however the meat did seem overcooked for Meetal’s liking. As for the vegetables, they were nothing like he had ever tasted, but out of politeness he endured every mouthful.

As for the fries, they seemed to only have slight flavour. They were long thin and yellow with a lot of salt on.

The drink was ice cold and seemed to have bubbles in it and made Meetal’s teeth hurt due to the cold.

After they had finished, the human called Howard started up the horseless carriage again, and soon they had returned to the big long road.

During the afternoon, the two of them chatted about their respective worlds, before the Realm of Mortals and the Mystical Realms fell to the forces of The Lady high Troll.

The human said how the highway were on used to be a lot busier, but since the fall a lot of people were prohibited from travelling unless they were critical to maintaining the infrastructure.

Meetal told how the female human was not even allowed to go outside her dwelling on to her own plot of land to tend it.

The human called Howard sad that this was because she lived near one of the cities that had been hit by the firestorms, but in other places humans had more privileges, and maybe in time once they had shown loyalty to the new overlords the harsh curfew laws could be relaxed so it was like other parts of this world.

Then towards the evening they were finally starting to get near the fabled New York City

In the distance both of them spotted a load of other horseless carriages stopped on the big long road.

The human called Howard suggested Meetal climb into the back where the bedchamber was.

They were coming up to a random check point!

Meetal hid as far back as he could, and for a moment he was tempted to use his cloak of invisibility, but no, that could be fatal if drow were around.

The horseless carriage slowed to a stop.

Carefully Meetal listened as the human called Howard asked someone outside what was up. The other voices seemed to be humans. It seemed that some humans had chosen or were coerced into working for the new regime of the Lady High Troll, or to be more accurate, her consort, as he was more interested in running this world on her behalf than she was.

Then he heard a sound he had been dreading, the voice of a drow.

The drow was asking if the human called Howard as he had driven through Washington DC, had seen a kobold in his travels. Apparently according to the drow, a gnome loyal to her imperial excellence had recognised this kobold as a criminal at large, wanted for various crimes back on the Mystical Realms.

“Oh no!” Meetal thought for if the human tried to lie, then the drow would detect it. The only way for this human to survive and possibly escape execution, was to turn Meetal in.

To be continued

[GypsyGoth]

Good addition, I liked Meetal misunderstanding Dungeons and Dragons.

[Sticks]

Episode V – Deceptions and Dilemmas


”It never rains but it pours” is a well known saying, but what does it actually mean?

It most likely means that trouble never comes in small bits but in large doses

For the people of our world, that was when the governments of the world were forced to surrender the entire world to a troll and a drow and their forces at the point of a gun as it were.

To a small kobold by the name of Meetal, one time special servant and fixer to the former Lord Low Troll it is being sent on a mission to our world to find a human by the name of Mr Vee where he has been interrogated by an elf and a treacherous gnome; been accused of being in league with the troll who conquered our world and enduring the strange customs of the humans.

But now things are really bad, while catching a ride with a human to New York City where Mr Vee was last heard from, they have run into a check point, staffed by collaborating humans and a drow who will be able to tell if the human Meetal is riding with is lying.To make matters even worse they have asked the human if has he seen Meetal.

+ + +

Meetal held his breath waiting for this human called Howard to give him away by either telling the truth and giving him up, or by attempting to lie and being detected by the drow outside.

“What does a kobold look like?” Meetal heard the human called Howard ask.

Was this the human’s plan – to try and bluff without deception?

The drow sighed and then Meetal heard him give a fairly accurate description of a kobold, and then directly asked the Human called Howard if he had seen such a creature.

“I did sir” the human called Howard admitted.

Meetal shook his head, after all, could he blame him. Lying to a drow would most likely be a death sentence. The human had obviously chosen to be truthful and sell Meetal out. Meetal felt for where his dagger should be. Instinctively he was thinking about plunging his dagger into the back of this human’s neck to prevent him talking.

Then he remembered the human still had his dagger, and Meetal felt ashamed. This human had shown him some kindness, and would have delivered him safely to New York had it not been for this drow checkpoint, besides that would definitely have given himself away and it would have been to no avail.

Meetal then continued to listen to his fate.

“I saw such a creature at a truck stop outside of DC, just before the interstate” the Human called Howard replied.

Well technically that was true

“You say he’s a criminal?” The human called Howard then asked, putting the drow off balance as it were.

“We ask the questions” The drow voice retorted

“Sorry sir” the human replied, “But from what I saw of him way back there, he did not look much of a criminal to me”

“Can you say what this kobold was doing when you saw him” the drow then asked

“He seemed to be just standing there when I first saw him” the human replied

That bit was true as well – but the drow is sure to ask the question that will trip this human up

“There were a number of trucks heading down south at that truck stop” the human called Howard pointed out, “have you tried them as well in case he has stowed away”

“I said we ask the questions” the drow snapped back

“Sorry sir” the Human called Howard apologised, “I just wanted to suggest some other places you could look”

“That is so helpful of you human” the drow sneered, “As if we needed help from your kind”

Then there was the voice of a human from outside, “You say you saw the kobold at that truck stop, any chance he could have stowed away on your truck”

This time the human called Howard seemed to get angry, “I have hauled goods from Mexico across the border, so I know how to secure my load from freeloading stowaways. There is absolutely no way anyone or anything could stowaway on my truck with out my knowledge”

“You seemed stressed by that question” the drow then interjected

“Oh no” Meetal thought, it seemed that the human called Howard’s attempt to bluff his way passed a drow was coming unstuck

“So would you be if you were stopped a few miles short of where you’re supposed to be to be accused of no knowing how to secure your own g_d damn truck”

“There is no need for that language sir, I didn’t mean to criticise your professionalism” the other human replied, “I just wondered if this kobold could have slipped into your truck to hitch a ride”

“If that critter tried to stowaway on my rig” the Human called Howard insisted “I would have spotted it and dealt with it. When you cross the Mexican border, you can’t afford to let anyone stowaway on your rig. US Immigration does not like it”

“Ok Human” the drow interrupted, “If you did not see this kobold criminal stowing away on your vehicle, did you see it stowaway on any other vehicle?”

“Sorry sir” The human called Howard apologised, “I did not notice him trying to get on to any other truck”

“So you see a kobold, and you do not bother to see where it goes?” Meetal heard the drow enquire accusingly

“No sir” the Human called Howard admitted, “There have been so many fairy tale creatures from orcs to bugbears to trolls and drow anything else floating around, I didn’t think anything of it sir”

“We are not fairy tale creatures” The drow retorted, “We are nothing like fairies”

“Sorry sir that was a figure of speech” the human called Howard apologised again

“One final question human” The drow slowly intoned, “What are you not telling us?”

”This must be it” Meetal winced, in spite of this human’s best efforts, the drow was intensely suspicious and was not buying that this human called Howard did not have Meetal in the bedchamber section of this horseless carriage.

“You got me sir, I may have broken the speed limit a few times on this trip to try and make the delivery schedule” the human responded with, “I sometimes get a lead foot when I’m behind schedule”

“I am not interested in your petty traffic rules of your former empire Human” The drow retorted, “However when we allow more of your kind to patrol these freeways of yours you had better watch out for that lead foot of yours if you do not want it cut off”

“Yes sir, sorry sir” the human called Howard grovelled

“Now get this rig out of my sight I need to report back what you saw to Washington DC” the drow ordered.

Meetal’s draw dropped

Had this human actually outwitted a drow?

The horseless carriage started up and then slowly began moving. Meetal stayed where he was.

After the horseless carriage had been going for a little while, the Human called Howard called out to him, telling him to come forward.

Slowly Meetal crept out from behind the curtain and got up onto the passenger seat. This time he reached for the metal bit on the strange belt like material. He tried to pull it, but it would not come.

“Release it and pull it slowly” the Human called Howard told him.
Meetal did as he was told, and this time it started coming down, even though it was quite heavy for him to pull.

Slowly Meetal drew the metal thing across himself and inserted it successfully into a similar catch mechanism that the belt around the human fitted into.

“No offence Mr Howard” Meetal then said, “But I would never have expected a mere human to be able to deceive a drow”

“None taken” The human called Howard remarked, “I used to have a grandma who could spot a lie at fifty paces, but she was not so hot on half truths, so we majored in them. The drow go on about how much they can spot a lie that we know not to even try. Thanks to my grandma I know exactly how to get around them. And to tell the whole truth, after my grandma, they aren’t so hard to fool if you know what you’re doing”

“I would never have dared to do that to a drow” Metal replied, “They always frightened me with their powerful magics and the ability to spot falsehoods”
“That’s what they count on Meetal. They know that we know they can spot a lie so many tell the whole truth, but a half truth is not exactly a lie is it? I did not tell one untruth to that drow back there, not a single one”

“No you did not Mr Howard” Meetal admitted.
“He just took my truthful answers and made of them what he thought he heard. It was the same with my grandma. Grandpa however, he was a different matter” the human called Howard continued. Then after a pause asked “So why do they call you a criminal Meetal”

“They called my master a tyrant” Metal replied, “And maybe because I helped my master keep law and order they call me a criminal because they believe they can not put my master on trial because he is supposed to be dead, so they want me to answer for what they believe are his alleged crimes”

“They were denied a show trial of the main guy so they go after his lackeys then” The human called Howard suggested, “Just like they did at Nuremburg”.

“I know not of this Nuremburg you speak of, but I suppose you could put it that way” Meetal answered, “We had to do many things to keep law and order, not all of them may seem that honourable”

“Like Murder? He human called Howard suggested

“No!” Meetal snapped back, “We did not commit murder, we may have had executions , but all those who were executed were properly tried” and convicted
“Based on evidence you collected?” the human replied.

For a moment Meetal could not talk, and then slowly spoke up, “They were rebels and criminals”

“They threatened law and order” the human said finishing Meetal’s sentence for him.

“You don’t know what it was like” Meetal whined, “Many races, each at each others throats. They wanted law and order ad my master gave it to them”

“A bit like the old Yugoslavia then?” the human called Howard said quietly

“Huh?” Meetal asked

“It was a country that used to exist in a place we call Eastern Europe” the human called Howard went on, “It was run like a dictatorship, but when the dictator who ran it was gone it split apart into civil wars with atrocities on all sides”

“That’s what happened in my world when they over threw my master” Meetal replied.
“So you master was like a dictator”
“My master kept law and order and kept people safe” Meetal insisted

“Well to be honest Meetal, I see little difference between this lot and what you say your master did”
“Except My Master never broke the Sacred Law” Meetal spat back, “Master would never have interfered with humans they way this abomination who calls herself the Lady High Troll has done. Master would never have unleashed the firestorms on your wolrd and he would never have enslaved it. Anyway Master has a plan to undo the work of this Lady High Troll. Master wants you to be free”

“There it is!” the human called Howard suddenly exclaimed.

Meetal peered out of the front window at this strange sight.

In the distance was what looked like a massive city even greater if that were possible than the Central City back on Meetal’s own world. This city had some very tall towers on the edge, however towards the centre there seemed an absence of these tall towers. Further out from the centre there were other towers but they looked blackened and some of them were in ruins.

The Human called Howard pulled his horseless carriage over to a stop and then sighed, “I get all tight when I see this Meetal, and I thought nine eleven was bad”
“Is that New York City?” Meetal asked
“Yup” the human called Howard responded, “I have to turn off soon to go to Newark in New Jersey to deliver my load”
“So is this where I get out?” Meetal asked.

The human sighed and then started the horseless carriage up again, “No! As soon as I drop my load, I will see if we can drive into New York City, what’s left of it, to see if we can find this Mr Vee of yours”
“Thank you” Was all Meetal could say at that point as he gazed at the city that had been so hard hit by one of the Lady High Troll’s fire storms.
“Well” the Human called Howard added, “If your master can do what you say he can do, and kick this troll’s butt I owe it to my family to make sure she, her drow consort and all those trolls, bugbears and orcs are sent packing as well”

“Oh” was all Meetal could say at this point.

This human had lost his family to that accursed troll and her plans, so he seemed to be joining his mission. Would his master mind if Meetal was given help? Would it really matter if it got the job done quicker?

The Human called Howard continued to drive his gigantic horseless carriage with determination, especially as this world’s single sun was starting to set, as he pressed onto this place called Newark, New Jersey

Luckily there were no further checkpoints and they arrived at some construction site as darkness fell, except the humans had strange light things that almost turned the night into day.

A Ghetto Troll was supervising along with a couple of orcs, So Meetal hid in the passenger compartment of the horseless carriage. Luckily there were no drow present.

While they were unloading Meetal decided to get his bearings. From the position that the Sun had set and this world’s solitary moon was rising, Meetal was able to determine a rough north and south.

He took out the talisman of location and checked that it was still glowing yellow and Green.

For Yellow, that still seemed the same as in Washington DC, somewhere south, but for green, it was still approximately north and east, but that was not in the direction of this New York City, unless he was in the most northerly tip!

Meetal waited for the Human called Howard to get back in, and drive off of the construction site before he came forward. It seemed odd to be driving anything in the dark. On his world, when the suns went down, you made camp and started the end of day meal. For this human it seemed business as usual.

“I’ve been told to go to a certain truck stop and await further orders” the human said as Meetal got into the seat.

“I understand” Meetal said, “thank you for getting me this far”
“Hey Meetal, I told you earlier, I aim to follow this through”

“But will that not get you into trouble Mr Howard” Meetal asked
“What can they do? Kill me” the human remarked, “They effectively did that when they murdered my family. The troll can shove it”. Then the human asked, “Now where about in New York is this Mr Vee guy?”

“I do not know” Meetal admitted and got out the talisman of location and pointed it in the direction which made it glow green.

The human brought his horseless carriage to a stop, and then pulled out a very large but flimsy tome.

The human called Howard then pointed to a black ball like object attached to the window. Meetal looked at it. Floating in it was a ring with strange markings on it, but it seemed to indicate direction.

If only Meetal had learned to read the human’s language

Then the Human called Howard opened the tome.

Maybe Meetal could not read the human’s written language, but at least he could recognise maps. This tome was just maps. It must be what they call an atlas.

The Human got Meetal to keep the talisman pointing where it was glowing green, glanced at the object on the window in front and back down at the Atlas.

After much mumbling, the Human called Howard then declared, “If that thing’s correct, our Mr Vee has moved up to Massachusetts at least.

“Oh no!” Meetal exclaimed, “Is that far?” Meetal asked

“Put it this way Meetal” the Human called Howard replied, “I need to go to that truck stop like they ordered me to so I can get more fuel at least, then at first light we head out there”

The human called Howard then restarted the horseless carriage and drove to another large area with more huge horseless carriages pulling large metal boxes.

The human then pulled along some tall structure with tubes and then he got out. Meetal, once again hid in the back away from prying eyes so could not see what the human called Howard was doing, however he did hear metallic sounds from below as two items were brought together.

After a while the human called Howard came back in and drove his horseless carriage to some parking bay with other similar horseless carriages. The he explained to Meetal, that this truck stop had something called a motel and that he would be staying there for the night. Meetal asked if there were any drow around, and the Human called Howard shook his head.

“I have a cloak of invisibility then” Meetal explained, “I would like to see this motel”

The human called Howard made a blowing sound and then said it would be ok.

The Human called Howard got out of the horseless carriage and stood by the door. Meetal got onto the seat in front of him and did up his cloak of invisibility. Then gently, the human lifted him out and placed him on the ground.

“Stay close to me” the human called Howard ordered.

Meetal did his best to comply and ran to keep up with the human as he approached a building near the edge of this area with horseless carriages and their giant metal boxes.

The Human went to one door, which he called reception and from there was given a key and a piece of paper. He then walked across to another door and opened it with the key. Meetal followed the human called Howard inside the door and undid his cloak of invisibility when he was sure he could not be seen by others.

The human called Howard flicked some switch and light filled the room. Then he closed the door and went and closed the curtains in the main window.

Meetal then looked around the room.

There was a large wide human bed, and some other chairs. Meetal looked for a kitchen but could not find one, only what the humans called a bathroom, although it had no bath, only what the human called Howard called a shower. Meetal asked about the kitchen and was told that in normal times people who stayed here usually ate out or ordered something called “takeout”

Meetal asked if he would be getting this take out and was told that this would depend if the drow would allow this kind of business.

”Those accursed drow” Meetal thought, the Hadreth order yet again clamping down on normal freedoms to ensure compliance, if not loyalty.

The human called Howard looked at the piece of paper, “We’re in luck Meetal” he told Meetal, “These are a list of approved takeaways that our drow overlords allow in this area”. The human then picked up some object looking like a strange bone off of some base unit which had a number of buttons and held it to his head. The bottom of the bone like object was connected to the base unit by some brown spiral cord and after a short time, the human started to speak into it. Then he placed it down on the strange base unit. As he did so the base unit rang a small bell.

“I’ve ordered Chinese” the human told Meetal, “It should be here in thirty minutes”

“What is Chinese” Meetal asked

“It’s food cooked to certain recipes that they allegedly do in a country called China” the Human explained

“China?” Meetal replied, “Is that a big land”
“One of the biggest” the human replied, “they were one of the last countries to surrender to the Lady High Troll, especially after they were threatened with a nuke on Beijing”

“What type of cooking do they have” Meetal then asked
“Lots” the human answered, “A lot of them are rice dishes so that’s what I’ve ordered. I’ve told them I have someone visiting me for dinner so I could get two lots of cutlery. Usually they supply spoons for those who can’t manage chopsticks.”

“Chopsticks?” Meetal then asked

“Never mind Meetal, about them, I’ll give you a spoon, it will be less messy”

The human called Howard then sat down in one of the chairs and brought out from somewhere a small flat pouch made of leather and pulled from them some pictures and showed them to Meetal. They were of this human male and a female African human and of a female youngling.
“They were my life” the human called Howard told him, “And now thanks to that b***h they’re gone”

Meetal shook his head and lowered it saying he was sorry. If only Meetal had not been such a coward that day at the port of Faldon and stuck his dagger into that accursed troll’s heart

“I don’t blame all your kind” the human called Howard said to Meetal, “Some of us know that some of those from your world have been working against this regime waiting for the day when we can take back both our worlds”

Meetal shook his head in confusion, “How?”

“The Voice of Hope” the human called Howard told Meetal, “Some say he may be a human survivor from that top secret government agency that had dealings with your world and some believe he may actually be from your world”

“I do not know who this voice of hope is” Meetal said in a subdued voice. Meetal so wanted to apologise to this human for his culpability in the death of the human’s family.

But if he did so this human might take revenge on him or at the very least refuse to help any further

Meetal decided to keep quiet about that fateful day in the port town of Faldon and left the Human called Howard to use the facilities of the bathroom and then stretch out on the bed while they waited for this “takeout Chinese” the human had ordered.

After a while there was a knock on the door.

Meetal dived behind the large bed. Best not to use invisibility in case this was the drow.

The human got up and reached for his leather pouch and slowly went to the door.

From his place hiding behind the bed Meetal listened as this human called Howard spoke to someone at the door. Then the door was closed and the human declared that it was safe to come out.

Meetal came out from behind the bed and noticed that the human was carrying four boxes that looked like they were metal. On top was some small bag. There were also two metal cylinders which the human called Howard said were “sodas”

The human placed everything on the table and started opening the boxes.

A strange aromatic scent filled the air

“I ordered sweet and sour chicken and two extra cartons of egg fried rice” the human declared.

Meetal got onto a chair and kneeled at table as two of the boxes were pushed his way. One had small things looking like white seeds with bits of yellow in them. The other was some kind of white meat mixed in with vegetables and a red sauce.

The human handed Meetal a strange ladle like thing, he called a spoon

The human instead of using his spoon was using two thin sticks to eat with, and seemed quite skilled at it.

Meetal looked at the spare set of sticks and then at his paw and decided to use the ladle instead.

The sweet and sour chicken took him by surprise, but mercifully it was not as bad as his master’s gagh root stew. The other box, referred to as egg fried rice was blander, and had a delicate flavour and was more to Meetal’s liking.

As for the sodas, it was similar to the drink he had earlier in the day, except the human called Howard had had to open it for him.

As Meetal ate, he still burned with guilt.

This human was showing him intense kindness and trust. They were going to sleep in the same room. Now there was no question that Meetal would do anything untoward to his benefactor here, but the human did not know that. In his long career Meetal had learned that sometimes it was more expedient to treat others well.

But yet Meetal felt responsible for the death of this human’s family, along with countless others.

If Meetal had had his wits about him, and was not so concerned with staying alive, he could have prevented all of this calamity with one thrust of a dagger in to the heart of that accursed troll Brameana, the Lady High Troll

After the meal, the human went to a strange box in the corner of the room which had glass on its front and moved a dial.

The glass window on the box filled with light and strange images and emitting sounds. The Human called Howard said he was switching on to see the news and weather.

On the glass front was the image of a human female reading some kind of script, talking about how Lord Vabalavich was closing in on those terrorists who followed the false messiah called the “Voice of Hope”. There were also reports of how some humans in other parts of this world were being allowed out of their homes after swearing allegiance to her imperial highness the Lady High Troll. There were also accounts of executions of other humans who were accused of being enemies of the Lady High Troll. With these accounts, the image of the female human on the glass front said there was rejoicing at their being brought to justice.

Then the image of the female human vanished to that of an elderly human male. At this image, the human called Howard, sneered the word “collaborator”. This elderly human apparently was a leader of one of this world’s many strange religions. (Did these humans not know these so called gods the humans worshiped were merely meddlesome Major Spirits of Virtue or Vice?)

This Elderly human was saying how the humans deserved to be conquered and that “Almighty God” had brought this about because of sins, whatever they were, such as “homosexuality” whatever that was, “fornication”, another word Meetal was unfamiliar with, “avarice” The only word Meetal knew and other words Meetal did not recognise. The elderly human went on that like some race called the Assyrians, The Lady High Troll was his god’s chosen instrument as a rod of his anger.

The elderly human went on that humanity as part of it’s repentance was to obey the rule of the Lady High Troll, that his “Almighty God” had now put over all humans.

The image then went back to the female human saying how this human was to be made head of something called “The Christian church on Earth”

After a number of other accounts about how humans were to be more obedient to their new overlords, the image then changed to a human male in front of something looking like a map. This human then went on to describe how on the morrow the weather would be.

After he finished, the human called Howard turned another dial on this strange box and the glass front became dark again and the box became silent.

Meetal wanted to know what this human called Howard meant by the word “collaborator” but as he had been so angered by the image of that elderly male, he held his tongue.

It seemed obvious; somehow this human was doing the bidding of that accursed drow consort Vabalavich by using one of the religions of this world of humans to make the other humans comply with the rule of the Lady High Troll. He was declaring that the ceasing power of this world and the slaughter of so many innocents was the will of some deity as punishment for crimes Meetal had never heard of. No wonder the drow liked him

No wonder his human travelling companion treated him with contempt. He was ingratiating himself with the new regime by delivering humans who would be more subservient to the rule of the drow consort.

But was Meetal so different? After all, did not some say he did the same with master?

No! Meetal saw that master was strong and could see what he was trying to do, so Meetal had offered to serve his master to help maintain law and order.

The Human then lay on the large bed, and Meetal opted to lie on a piece of furniture called a couch. It was more his size.

Slowly he drifted off to a troubled sleep, as he worried about the female human and her youngling he had left behind in Washington DC, his master, was he still alive or had this “Sky-guard” thing found him? And all behind his troubled sleep was the guilt he felt at not committing the cold blooded murder of a female Ghetto troll that one time in Faldon.

He had tried to tell himself yet again, that he would most likely never got near her, let alone got away after killing her, but that was not good enough, he should have at least made an effort.

+

Meetal found himself on a dark plane, and this was not like any other dream

“Oh no” he thought to himself, as it was obvious this was, it was a dreaded drow dark space.

Meetal was asleep, but while he dreamed the drow was telepathically searching out his unconscious mind, but as the drow who had been summoned when he first arrived in Washington DC had not seen him, they must be using someone else in order to home in on Meetal.

The female human?

Then Meetal saw him in the distance.

It was the gnome

If the gnome reached him, then the drow might have access to his mind, find out his location and then they would teleport in and put Meetal and the human called Howard to the sword. They might even send another firestorm on the area.

What if they found out about the other humans who had aided him?

What if they found out about his master still being alive?

“You can run but you can not hide Kobold scum” the gnome shouted in the distance as initially he was facing away from him.

Then the gnome turned around, “There you are you scum” he shouted, “So you went north after all”

“Wake up Meetal” Meetal whispered to himself

It was now imperative that Meetal wake himself up, but this blanket use of the dark space must mean that the drow had guessed he was still on this land mass called the United States of America. The gnome was being sent in to pinpoint his position. Already they had now worked out he had not gone south as the gnome was heading in his direction.

If the gnome reached Meetal on the dark space, all would be lost.

“Wake up Meetal, please” Meetal shouted to himself

The gnome in the distance was hurrying up and closing in on him shouting threats and obscenities.

There was only one thing Meetal could think of, so he took his left forearm and bit into it hard with his sharp teeth.

+

The pain was excruciating, but it did the trick and Meetal was freed from the drow’s dark space as he was woken with a start. Meetal sighed with relief; he was back on the sofa in the motel room.

Slowly Meetal took out his left arm from under the blanket that the human called Howard must have put over him.

His arm was bleeding and there were clear bite marks, even though in the real world he had not touched his arm. His biting himself on that dark space had injured himself in the real world, and the wounds looked deep just as if he had bitten his arm in the real world.

But it might already be too late, the gnome would be able to tell the drow that Meetal had gone north, and what with what the Human called Howard had said, they would probably start tracking down which horseless carriages were heading north, including the one he was on.

Meetal gently pulled the curtain aside to look at the solitary moon to try and gauge the time. The drow had picked well, from Meetal’s best guess, it was a little after the middle of the night, a time when it was guaranteed he would be sleeping.

Meetal thought about waking the human, but what would that achieve? The human needed his rest for driving that beast of a horseless carriage further north to find this Mr Vee. Would it be safe for Meetal to go back to sleep, because the drow might be biding his time along with the gnome, waiting for him to drop off to sleep again.

But oh how Meetal’s left arm throbbed Meetal needed to tend to it as soon as possible, but he saw nothing he could use to bind it with.

Meetal wandered into the bathroom and saw two small pieces of cloth hanging there; he had noticed that the human called Howard had used them to dry his hands, so they were obviously towels.

Meetal pulled one down and bound his arm as best he could. It was all he could do to stifle the pain.

Then he tiptoed back into the main room and sat on the sofa, holding his arm.

However he was still weary and his body was crying out for sleep.

+

Meetal was standing in the wilderness of the Walong Mountains on his home world

“Oh no I fell asleep again” Meetal wailed, “Wake up Meetal”

Meetal looked around for the gnome, for the moment he was not there, but why was he here in the Waylong mountains, had they discovered where his master had been hiding.

Meetal felt his throbbing left arm. There was no other option, so he lifted his arm to his mouth.
“You don’t want to go doing that do you?” said a voice behind him

Too Late!

Meetal turned around to see a figure he did not expect to see.

A Leprechaun? or at least it looked like one.

Meetal shook his head and backed away

“You don’t fool me gnome” Meetal nervously said clearly shaken and ashamed that his lack of will power to try and stay awake had obviously betrayed his master.

“Now heavens to goodness do I look like a blasted gnome” the figure looking like a leprechaun replied in a strange accent.

Meetal continued to shake his head, “You’re that gnome who has gone over to the side of that abomination of a Ghetto troll” Meetal answered, “You only look like a leprechaun because of that drow with you”

“How do you know about him” the figure looking like a leprechaun asked looking concerned

“I was there when you told me and the elf that you had betrayed your comrades for mining rights for your clan”

“So you’re talking about some other drow not major…” then the figure looking like a leprechaun stopped and wagged his finger at Meetal, “I almost gave away too much myself”

“I will not be a traitor” Meetal said quietly and reached for his dagger, so he could do himself in. But it was not there

“So you have met some other drow” the figure looking like a leprechaun remarked, “And I assure you that I am not a gnome, I’m a leprechaun” The figure then looked around and then commented, “The wilderness of Waylong and the Waylong Mountains”

Meetal did not answer; he was not going to give his master away, oh why, could he not wake up.

“I wouldn’t go biting your self again just yet” the figure looking like a leprechaun interrupted, “Whoever you are my kobold friend, this is quite a bleak area of our world for a kobold to consider as a place to run and hide in, but that is of no matter at the moment”

“You’ve got me Gnome” Meetal pressed, “Why do you not teleport in and kill me instead of keeping me hanging on like this”

“For one I do not want to attract the attention of the drow here on the Realm of mortals and two I am not a blasted gnome”

“I fell a sleep” Meetal went on, “I was in a drow dark space and he was using a treacherous gnome who had met me to come in and find me. I bit myself to wake myself up before he could reach me”

“So that would be why we detected a dark space being used by a drow after all this time” the figure looking like a leprechaun muttered.

“Why are you making me dream of this wilderness” Meetal asked, “Why are you not finishing me off like drow and gnomes do to us kobolds”

The figure looking like a leprechaun sighed and shook his head. Then he looked up as if someone was speaking to him and then he spoke to Meetal, “We are from the resistance against the Lady High Troll. Now we do not have much time kobold. We detected that a drow here on Earth was looking for someone using dark space magic. We managed to infiltrate their dark space just before you did your arm biting trick and spotted that they were targeting you, a kobold of all things. As you are the only kobold on this world and we are slightly better at dark spaces than that drow you speak of we were able to find you first and block that drow. Now this drow is still searching you out and the longer we block him, the more likely he is to find us. We need to know why you are here on Earth”

“I will not betray my mission to possible servants of that accursed Lady High Troll” Meetal snapped back”

“For crying out loud” the figure looking like a leprechaun swore, “we are the resistance against the Lady high Troll and if you are on some kind of a mission to take her on we need to know what it is”

“Why?”
“We do not want you making things worse for the humans by following some half baked hair brained scheme to try and take these guys on. Too many humans have been slaughtered as it is”
“My master has a plan to defeat her” Meetal snapped back

“Your master” the figure queried, “What is this plan?”
“Master did not tell me, my master wants to put it to a certain human” Meetal replied for the moment forgetting to guard his tongue, “As soon as I find him he will do a deal to free the humans”

The figure looking like a leprechaun looked very stern, “And who is this human and who is your master?”

Meetal shook his head, “You want to stop me. You don’t want my master to speak to Mr Vee”

Then Meetal closed his eyes and winced

“I’m a stupid kobold” Meetal whined, “I’ve betrayed my master”

Meetal opened his eyes to see the figure looking like a leprechaun was talking to someone Meetal could not see. Then the figure looking like a leprechaun spoke to Meetal, “I have to go now, I know of this Mr Vee. He is declared an enemy of Brameana, so if you are against the Lady High Troll, I hope you find him.” Then the figure looking like a leprechaun winked his eye and said “Before I go I need to do his”

At that the figure looking like a leprechaun fired a green bolt of light at Meetal’s left arm. Meetal’s arm was in agony and it felt like it was burning and he gave a large yelp

+

Suddenly Meetal was back on the sofa in the motel.

He was awake.

Slowly Meetal undid the makeshift bandage on his arm to see how the figure looking like a leprechaun had further injured his arm.

But it was healed – the bite marks were gone

“What’s happening here” a familiar voice came, “I heard you holler in pain”

Meetal looked up, it was the human called Howard

“I’m sorry I woke you” Meetal apologised
“That’s ok, it might be an idea if we get an early start anyway. Maybe we can find an approved diner and” then the human stopped. “What happened to your arm Meetal. You have a blood soaked towel there; maybe I can look at it and get a first aid kit”

“It’s healed now” Meetal ventured

“I don’t understand” the human replied, “Do you guys heal super fast?”

Meetal shook his head, “When I went to sleep” Meetal began, “The drow tried to track me down by entering my dreams and using what we call a dark space”

“Did he find us?” the human called Howard asked

Meetal shook his head, “In that dark space dream I bit my arm and that woke me up”
“And your arm was injured as if you had bitten it for real?” the human asked
Meetal nodded.
“Like in Nightmare on elm Street” the human asked

All Meetal could say to that was “huh?”

“Then how is it healed?” the human called Howard asked
Meetal looked down at the floor “I stupidly fell asleep again, I am so sorry”
“And the drow found you?”

Meetal shook his head, “I don’t think so, it looked like a leprechaun, and he claimed to be part of the resistance. He accused me of doing something he called half baked and hair brained”
“That means a plan that is not thought through completely but appears to look good on the surface” The human interrupted, and then added, “If he is using expressions like that, he must have worked closely with us humans”

“I was incautious and I stupidly told him who I was seeking” Meetal admitted
“What did he say to that?”
“He said he hoped I would find this Mr Vee and fired some green light at my arm. It made it feel like it was burning and it woke me up. When I looked at my arm, it was healed”

“Would a drow have done that?” the human called Howard asked, “Healed your arm” he added to clarify.

Meetal shook his head, “If that were a drow, we would be dead by now”

“Hey Meetal” the human called Howard said with a smile, “It sounds like you may have met the Voice of Hope by the sound of it he’s a leprechaun that escaped that nuke on Dublin. He healed your arm and woke you up so that drow wouldn’t find you”

Then Meetal looked up at the human called Howard, “You don’t understand Mr Howard, that first time the drow almost found me”
“But he didn’t Meetal, you managed to stop him”
“But he now knows I’m heading north” Meetal insisted with his voice quivering in fear, “And the drow will not stop looking until they find me”.

The human called Howard thought for a moment, “Is this invasion of your dreams a standard drow search technique”

Meetal nodded, “It can be”

“But what if you fall asleep again?” the human called Howard asked

“Then the drow could find me and kill us both” Meetal admitted.
“That means we’ve got to find this Mr Vee pretty fast”
“But I do not know where he is Mr Howard” Meetal whined, “All I know is that an elf said he was last heard of in this New York City we are next to, and now he has moved on”

To be continued

[GypsyGoth]

I want chinese after reading that. And hope this gets made into a movie one day so I can get a cuddly Meetal toy

[Sticks]

Episode VI – A question of guilt and culpability

Ever heard of the expression “between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea?”

In earlier times the Devil was the longest seam on a ship, at the bottom and caulking it was a really nasty job to be given. Usually it was a punishment assignment, whose meaning is preserved in the saying “you’ll have the Devil to pay”

Nowadays it has a similar meaning of “between a rock and a hard place”, i.e. being placed in an impossible situation.

For Meetal the kobold, sent to Earth by his master, a former ruler of the Mystical Realms believed by others to be long dead, he has now been placed in an invidious position.

Meetal is on a quest to pass a message offering a deal to the humans to rid themselves of the rule of the Lady High Troll to a human called Mr Vee. He had been told that this human was in a city called New York, but when he got there with the help of a human trucker called Howard; found that this Mr Vee had moved further north.

To add to his woes, a drow is seeking him out after his entrance in to the world of humans was detected. Thanks to a treacherous gnome this drow knows who he is and is using special magic to try and hunt him down, by invading his dreams should Meetal try to sleep…

+ + +

Meetal looked up the human called Howard, “I was just told he was last seen in New York” he whined, “The elf never said how long ago that was, I’m so sorry”

“We’ll find him Meetal” the human called Howard insisted, “We have to”

Meetal looked down at the floor again, and then took out his talisman of location and moved it around so that it glowed green.

“See” the human called Howard insisted, “He’s still alive, we just have to drive north until we find him”
“But what if I fall asleep?” Meetal asked

“We will just have to make sure you are stocked up with coffee” the human replied
“Coffee?” Meetal asked

“It’s something we drink if we need to stay up late” the human explained
“Is it cold?” Meetal asked, thinking of the drinks called sodas that this human called Howard had bought for him.
“It can be served that way, but usually it is served hot” the human answered further and then added “Now we better get moving since we are up against the clock”

Meetal went “huh?” and looked at the human with a confused expression

“That means we don’t have much time” the Human said to Meetal

The human then went into the bathroom and started using the facility he called a shower to wash himself. This shower thing seemed to work with what sounded like artificial rain. Meanwhile Meetal got his items together and put on the cloak of invisibility, although he did not yet do it up.

Meetal then started wondering, was it fair to put the life of this human at risk by staying with him? But then how could he find this elusive Mr Vee without transport, especially if the next time he fell asleep the drow could intercept him.

While the kobold was contemplating this, suddenly the box with the glass front suddenly burst into life.

Meetal scrambled away from it, it was obviously enchanted and under the power of the drow. Meetal was unable to help himself giving a small yelp.

“What’s the matter with you?” The human called Howard said as he came into the main part of the room with just a towel around his middle and carrying a small long black box.

Meetal pointed at the box with the glass front in terror, “It ca-ca came on all by itself” Meetal forced out, “The drow must have found us”

“Sorry about that Meetal” the human said, “After you fell asleep last night I found the remote for the TV. I just thought I would put it on for the weather and road reports”

“It’s not magic?” Meetal asked quizzically

“Not really” the human responded, “I think it works on infra-red” he added showing Meetal the long black box. Meetal noticed it had various coloured button on it.

The human stood there while some image of a man talked about how the weather would be and then started discussing the state of the various roads around the local area. Predictably a lot of these reports were how New York City was still blocked, because of the results of “Her imperial majesty’s justified instrument of power” as the human on the glass screen described it.

“Why don’t you just say nuke” the human called Howard shouted at the curious box with the glass front.

Meetal held his tongue; it was obvious that these humans whose images were being put on this glass screen had to watch their words for fear of upsetting their new overlords.

After gleaning the information he wanted the human then pointed the small box in his hand at this strange box with a glass front and once again it fell dark and silent.

The human called Howard then got dressed and got Meetal to do up his cloak of invisibility so they could go outside.

Meetal then followed the human as he left the front door and closed it. He then went to the door where he had picked the keys up the night before, dropped off the keys and then headed for his horseless carriage.

After checking that it was safe to do so, Meetal undid his cloak of invisibility so the human called Howard could see him to lift him up into the front part of his enormous horseless carriage. Meetal then retreated to the small room behind the curtain, while the human got in.

“I’m going to see if I can get a load going up north” the human called out to Meetal as he started up the horseless carriage.

It was obvious that both of them would be sacrificing the break of day meal in order to travel early

Meetal sat in the semi gloom behind the curtain, now terrified of falling asleep, in case the drow with the aid of the gnome found him. It was bad enough that he had discovered that he was travelling north and not south. All they had to do was to track down those who were driving these horseless carriages, who were headed north from that city called Washington DC. For all Meetal knew, he was riding in the only one headed north and it was a only matter of time before they tracked him down.

After quite a time the horseless carriage arrived at some large port which seemed to go on forever. It was far bigger than Faldon, which Meetal had thought a decent size harbour, especially as Faldon was the major port for those travelling to and from the Far Islands on his world.

There was also row upon Row of giant metal boxes, the likes Meetal could never have imagined. Also there were gigantic cranes that were lifting these giant metal boxes off of huge ships, the likes of Meetal had never seen before. Even the biggest of the stone giants would be dwarfed by them.

In the distance Meetal spotted a drow and a bugbear, along side some other humans. All of them had strange hats on that looked like they were made of some hard material.

“I’m going to see what load they want me to haul and try and get one going north” the human called Howard told Meetal.

“What about the drow?” Meetal asked, “They know I came north”
“It’s a chance we’ll just have to take” the human replied, before opening the door and climbing out.

Meetal then sat on the bed in the small room behind the curtain in the horseless carriage and waited. That was all he could do, it was too dangerous to venture outside.

Meetal took out the talisman of location again and held it up so first it glowed yellow and then green. Why did his master not have a ring of teleportation that would have been so much easier?

Meetal then lay back against the wall of the small bed chamber listening to the sounds of the port outside. They were loud and strange, but this only put him in mind of what he should have done in that port town of Faldon

If only he could roll back time and do what needed to be done, then the Sacred Law would not have been so violated.

But No! Meetal kept going over this old ground, there were too many Ghetto trolls and bugbears with her that night, not to mention that drow consort, and besides his mission then was not there to assassinate her, but to report back on her to his master.

But she was consorting with drow and bugbears as well as being a Ghetto troll it was obvious she was up to no good, so he should have acted

“But I never knew she was going to violate the Sacred Law” Meetal spoke back to the accusation.

Then to his horror, he was no longer in the horseless carriage, he was in a dark space. Meetal brought his left arm to his mouth to bite it again; he had to wake himself up.

“Don’t do that” screeched a squeaky voice, as what looked like a pixie materialised in front of him.

“No, No” Meetal whimpered, “You’re that gnome and that drow”

“No we are not” the voice squeaked, “I would have teleported in to speak to you but the Voice of Hope said it was not safe. The drow are looking for us and they may detect us if we show up in a populated area”
“What would a pixie want with a kobold” Meetal asked with scepticism in his voice.

Meetal opened his mouth and thrust his forearm in to give himself a really big bite.

“We know where Mr Vee is” the figure looking like a pixie shouted.

Meetal pulled his arm away, “How can you?” he asked, then he realised, the gnome might be stalling for time. He tried to reinsert his arm to his mouth, but found himself paralysed.

Maybe if he bit his tongue?

Just then he found he was unable to move his mouth, the drow had won! All was lost!

“We don’t want you hurting yourself” the figure looking like a pixie told him, “and we understand your disbelief. I can not belief this situation either, that a pixie and a kobold are on the same side in our opposition to the Lady High Troll”

Meetal was desperate to wake himself up, this could be a pixie, but then it could be a clever ruse, to stop him from hurting himself to escape this drow’s dark space magic.

“We know this Mr Vee you seek” the figure looking like a pixies went on, “As soon as you told the Voice of Hope, we searched for him ourselves”

“So” Meetal said through gritted teeth, “You invaded his dreams”

“No we could not” the figure looking like a pixie replied, “He has a protection amulet, so we found our way in through another. One who was once one of our world and also one of this world, but they became totally one of this world. We thought they had been slain by the works of Vabalvich and the Lady High Troll, but they still live. We went in through them and they told us where Mr Vee is as they are with him”

“How do I know you are not working for that abomination” Meetal got out.

“You don’t” the figure looking like a pixie squeaked, “You will just have to trust us” he added.

The figure of the pixie then turned round to speak to someone that Meetal could not see and then turned back to him, “Look for Mr Vee in a place called New Hampshire. He was making for a town there called Rochester”

Then the figure of the pixie squeaked, “Got to go” and promptly vanished

Meetal suddenly opened his eyes, as he was being physically shaken by the human known as Howard.

“Thank G_d for that” the human told him your awake, “Did you see the gnome?” he asked with a note of concern.

Meetal felt woozy and disoriented.

The human climbed in and sat opposite Meetal.

“I’m sorry Mr Howard” Meetal whimpered, “I did not mean to fall asleep”
“Stuck inside here its no wonder you did” The human called Howard replied, “Since that drow has not showed up yet, it looks like we got away with it”

“I was on a dark space” Meetal admitted.
“What did you see?” the human asked, “The gnome or the leprechaun?”

Meetal shook his head, “It was appeared to be a pixie Mr Howard. A pixie and he said that Mr Vee was in a place called New Hampshire heading for a town called Rochester”

The human called Howard blew through his teeth, “Now that would make sense, direction wise”

“What about your load?” Meetal asked
“I managed to bribe an official to give me a load to take to Vermont” the human called Howard replied, “A slight detour will not be that suspicious. I just have to drive over and collect the load.

“Will it take long to load up?” Meetal asked.
The human called Howard shook his head, “This is a container truck. They just unhook the empty container and swap it for a full one”

Meetal frowned and remembered the enormous cranes he had seen on arrival.

The human called Howard then got into his seat and started up the horseless carriage.

Meetal continued to hide behind the curtain at the back.

It seemed to take ages to Meetal as they stopped and he then heard the sounds of the big metal box at the back being unhooked and then the sound of the giant crane as it removed the large empty metal box.

Meetal then tried to hold his breath as the gigantic crane loaded the full metal box onto this horseless carriage. Meetal kept imagining that the box would slip and come crashing down on him. But it didn’t. There was the loud sound as it was placed on the horseless carriage and then there were the sounds as it was obviously secured. Compared to how long it would take to unload a ship and load up wagons back on his world, it was surprisingly quick.

Then the human called Howard announced that they were getting underway and the horseless carriage started driving through and away from this enormous port.

“We will be driving through Jersey City” the Human called Howard called back to Meetal, “And we will be getting back onto interstate ninety five at Fort Lee, that way we will bypass most of the blast zone where New York was nuked”

After a while Meetal crept forward and into his seat on the human’s right side. The Human called Howard then passed him some strange hat, the human called a baseball hat. He suggested that it might hide Meetal’s face, so people might just think that Meetal was a human child riding with their father.

Meetal put it on his head and looked out the side window across an enormous river the human called Howard said was the Hudson River.

Across the river Meetal could see closer up the devastation wrought by one of that accursed Ghetto troll’s firestorms, although the humans had been making valiant attempts to clean it up, it would take many cycles for such a task to be accomplished from what Meetal could see.

As Meetal saw it all, again his mind just kept going back to that one night in the Port of Faldon, when with the thrust of a dagger into a troll’s heart he could have saved so many lives., but he had just observed from the shadows

The human called Howard manoeuvred the giant horseless carriage as this very long road he called an interstate started to almost turn back on itself as they started to head towards the large river. After a while, the human suggested that Meetal climb into the back behind the curtain, as they were coming across something he called toll booths. Meetal clambered into the back and peeked out from behind the curtain to see a number of arches across the road, before they got onto the bridge. Meetal watched as the human passed what appeared to be some pieces of paper and coins to another human. Then they were free to drive across the bridge. This Meetal could understand as even on his world there were some who claimed the right to bridges over streams, rivers and gullies and exacted a toll out of all who would cross them. Maybe humans were not so different.

And what a bridge it was! This bridge was bigger than any bridge Meetal had ever seen on his world. For a start it had a massive arch at the beginning of it.

As they were crossing the bridge Meetal climbed back into his seat, as the Human called Howard assured him that that was the only toll bridge they would have to cross

The human called Howard said that the bridge used to be called the George Washington Bridge, but had been renamed the Lady Geerol Bridge in honour of the Lady High Troll’s late mother.

The large road, the human still said was part of Interstate ninety five then went passed an area with many buildings, some still showing signs of damage from the firestorm that had been sent to this city.

The human called Howard said they were passing an area called the Bronx and after that they would go along the Bruckner Expressway and then turn north, as that was the direction this expressway turned.

Meetal just gazed at the large amount of buildings and the destruction in the distance.

Finally they turned north and were on their way up towards this place called New Hampshire, where Mr Vee supposedly was.

All the while, as they drove along this road, Meetal saw buildings either side of the road.

At a place called New Rochelle, the human called Howard brought the horseless carriage to a stop at a place he called a diner, and went in and got “take out” which consisted of a bag of something called “Burger and fries” and this time instead of the sodas, he brought back two cups with lids of a hot liquid he called coffee.

Meetal was now used to the burger and fries from the day before, but the coffee was new. He sniffed it and tried to drink some of it.

He spat it out! – It was hot

“Sorry Meetal” the human apologised, “I should have warned you about that. By the way I brought some milks if you want any”

“Milk?” Meetal queried, “Do you still drink milk? I would have though you would have been weaned off of that by now?”

The human called Howard gave a small laugh, “I think this is cow’s milk, not human milk. We humans drink quite a lot of it”

Meetal looked at him quizzically and said, “Oh really”

The human took from the bag a small pot, made of strange white material that seemed to bend as if it were a small leather sack, and peeled some metal top off of it. Then he deposited the contents in his cup of the liquid called coffee.

“Would you like to try some Meetal?” the human asked.
“Ok” Meetal said sceptically
The human then opened one of those small pots and emptied it into Meetal’s cup. From what he could feel it did not seem to cool it much.

“Do you want another milk?” the human then asked
Meetal just nodded to be polite, and another small pot of this milk was added to his coffee.

By now the coffee had ceased to be a black liquid and was now dark brown in colour.

“Sugar?” the human then asked

Meetal had no idea what that was, but thought best to play along and accept what appeared to be white crystals held in small twists of paper.

Meetal observed that his human travelling companion was having little difficulty consuming the hot liquid, and so he tried again, this time blowing on it gently and sipping only a small bit.

It tasted bitter!

“Will this help me stay awake?” Meetal asked
“Well I hope that that’s at least is its saving grace” the human called Howard replied, “I’ve tasted worse, but not by much”

So even this human found this drink bitter, maybe it was like some kind of potion of healing they had on Meetal’s world back home, some of those tasted awful.

After the brief meal, they were off on the road again and the human called Howard told Meetal that after a place called New Haven they would be changing to another big road called Interstate Ninety One, and that hopefully by dark they might hit the state border of New Hampshire.

All Meetal felt he could do was nod and say thank you, and then secretly hope that there were no more check points

After they had been driving for a while they reached New Haven, which like his Port Faldon was on the coast. Then they changed to Interstate Ninety One and headed inland. By now there were fewer buildings on either side of the road, as it appeared to go through semi wilderness areas from Meetal’s perspective. All the time they either listened to what the human called music, which was unlike anything Meetal had ever heard of or they would talk about their respective worlds.

Meetal was of course careful with what he said as he could sense in this human a fair degree of decency and some of the things he had had to do during the glory days when his master ruled the Mystical Realms, which were expedient at the time, might by some seem underhand and unethical. Even though the human had seemed to understand and had referenced similar situations on this world, Meetal was worried about saying something that might anger him and jeopardise his ride.

Meetal therefore let the human do most of the talking, and where possible described various aspects of his world and how the various races, co-existed.

One aspect of his world that this human called Howard found fascinating was how it had two suns and four moons. To Meetal this was normal, for him he found it disconcerting that the world of the humans only had one sun to light and warm it and only one moon to light the night sky.

How could humans live like this on a world so inadequately provisioned?

As the horseless carriage drove though leagues of wilderness, some of it farmed, they started driving through more areas where there were more buildings of sort. Some time after the middle of the day, the Human called Howard said they were soon passing by a place called Bradley, and that it once had what he called a thriving airport.

Meetal had asked what an airport was to which the human had said it was where they caught things called aeroplanes to travel to other places, before his world was conquered.

Meetal asked if they were like his horseless, but the human wistfully said that there were some kind of flying machines that took humans and cargo long distances.

“Why do they not fly now?” Meetal asked

The human called Howard then explained how that it had been part of the strategy of the drow consort and the Lady High Troll to release onto his world the dreaded gremlins, which prevented all aircraft from flying.

Meetal opened his eyes wide when he heard this and said “Gremlins?”
“You know about them?” the human asked

Meetal nodded, “My master worked with the leprechauns who had treaty with that country you call Ireland to capture them the last time they came to your world. They were never to be released because they feed on the fear of those who are about to die and can not prevent it”

“Well those Es Oh Bees” the human said with anger, “They released them, and first they used them to kill our president and then they used them to deny us air-superiority”

“So nobody can use these aeroplanes you speak of” Meetal asked
“Only those under drow control as they have the only access to amulets against gremlins” the human replied, “For the most part it is now only us truckers who are allowed to travel any distance as they need us to keep this world they stole from us functioning”

“I am really sorry Mr Howard” Meetal apologised

At that point the horseless carriage drove over another large bridge over a wide river

“You’re not to blame” the human called Howard told Meetal, “Those thugs that did this to our world they are the ones to blame for all this”

Meetal closed his eyes and without realising it uttered the words that persisted to haunt him, ”But I could have prevented all this”

“What do you mean by that?” the human called Howard suddenly asked

Meetal shook his head and put his hands over his eyes, “I’m so sorry Mr Howard” he sobbed, “Some cycles of our moons ago I had told my master I had seen a new troll who might challenge those who took over after my master was deposed” he began,
“Was this the Lady High Troll?” the human called Howard asked

Meetal nodded, “Master sent me back to find out her name and who she was and I did just what my master asked me to. Mr Howard, I was in the same tavern as her when I saw that she was cavorting that wretched drow consort and worse of all Ghetto trolls. She was even consorting with bugbears of all things. Oh Mr Howard, I was in the same tavern as her as she spoke to bugbears and drow, while other trolls from the Ghetto clan were disembarking their ships to join the others that were in that tavern that night. I was there and I failed to try and kill her with that dagger that Mr Travers took from me and gave to you. I’m so sorry Mr Howard, I failed to kill her and because of my cowardice your family…”

Meetal could not continue for a moment, then he recovered composure slightly “I will understand if you wish no more to help me or if you wish to take vengeance on me.” Meetal told the human, “I owe you a blood debt I can not pay”

“That’s bull!” the human called Howard said angrily, “Meetal I can’t believe that you hold yourself responsible for the whole of Earth being conquered because you did not kill this one troll?”

“But I failed you all and I am so sorry” Meetal sobbed, “I know I have no right Mr Howard but when you kill me please make it swift”

The human brought the horseless carriage to a halt.

“This is it” Meetal thought, “He will surely kill me now, and I thoroughly deserve it”

“Meetal” the human began, “Was she on her own?”

Meetal shook his head

“So if you had tried to attack her” The human called Howard asked, “Would you have been able to get to her”

“I don’t know Mr Howard” Meetal replied, “If I could have sneaked up to her past the bugbears”
“Wouldn’t the drow have spotted you?” the human asked
“They hardly miss anything” Meetal replied, “I was so surprised how you managed to deceive that drow yesterday”

“Ok Meetal, did you know she was going to attack Earth?”

Meetal shook his head, “I swear Mr Howard, Master and I had no idea, I saw she had brought a horseless carriage with metal cylinders but I knew not what they were. I was just hoping they were just going to depose those who had deposed my master”

“Why would you want that?”
“Because Mr Howard they were not keeping law and order as efficiently as my master did. There were occasional riots between some of the different races from time to time. My master would never have tolerated that”

“Anyway” the human called Howard cut in, “So you didn’t know what she was going to do”
“No sir”
“And if you had tried to attack this troll in a crowded tavern there was a good chance you would have been stopped and possibly killed”
“But I should have tried Mr Howard” Meetal insisted, “I should have tried”
“Did your master tell you to kill her?” the human asked

Meetal shook his head, “No Mr Howard, he just sent me there to find out who she was?”

“Meetal look at it this way” the human began, “If you had tried to attack this troll, they would have killed you and they still would have attacked Earth”

“But I did not try” Meetal said as he dropped his head in shame as tears filled his eyes.

“And what good would that have been” the human called Howard said quietly, “If you had you would not be here to find this Mr Vee to try and free both our worlds from the Lady High Troll”

“But your family?” Meetal asked looking up at the human as tears rolled down his snout.

“I could blame myself for their deaths” the human responded, “My wife and child wanted to come with me as I was hauling over to Alaska but I told them I would loose too much time if I diverted to Detroit to pick them up, so I asked them to stay there until I got back. I play this over and over again Meetal, if I had not been so eager to deliver my load in on time and if I had diverted, then possibly they would never have died when Detroit was nuked”

“But this hurts so much” Meetal sobbed, “When I saw all that destruction, pictures of those missing in Washington DC on wooden boards and I just kept asking why did I not kill her when I had the chance”

“I know Meetal” the human called Howard sighed, “We can’t bring them back, I mean, if I had diverted, whose to say that I would not have been caught in the blast myself, if I look at the time scales, I could have been and where would you be”

“Still not far from that city Washington DC” Meetal ventured

“Exactly Meetal. Meetal there are times in life when we wish we could have done things differently, and times we wish we could turn back time and change things”
“But…” Meetal tried to say before he was interrupted.
“We can’t Meetal. You may have met her in that tavern, but even though it may not seem like it now, you did the right thing. Meetal, by the sound of it you would not have stopped her”

“But I should have tried” Meetal insisted
“And I should have diverted to Detroit, but where would that have got us. We never started this war, maybe we were spared so we could help take the war back to those two and free our two worlds”

Meetal just looked at the human called Howard in silence, he was right, Meetal even with his abilities to move in shadows would never have stood a chance of getting near that accursed Ghetto troll, let alone getting away.

“You Meetal” the human called Howard then told him, “Are nothing like the kobolds we fought in that Dungeons and Dragons game”

Meetal looked at him in confusion.

“Kobolds were never expected to have consciences” the human replied, “And I think I can trust you with this” he added as he retrieved from the ceiling of the horseless carriage Meetal’s dagger and handed it to him.

“Thank you” Meetal said, still choked with the emotion of his feelings of guilt.

The human called Howard then started his truck up again, “Ok Meetal, we’ve got a job to do” he said gruffly and for a while they drove in silence.

It was about the time of day when this strange world’s solitary sun was low in the sky that the human called Howard announced they were crossing the state border between Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Meetal wondered if this meant that there would be a checkpoint, like they had on his world, when one country had a land border with another along a main road, usually in order to raise money for taxes.

But when they got there it seemed a fairly non descript piece of road, with forest on either side, and no checkpoints or border guards.

“I had hoped we would have got to the New Hampshire border before dark” the human called Howard observed as they drove past this rather arbitrary border, “We spent too much time at that dock getting the new load”
“What do I do?” Meetal whined, “As soon as I sleep the drow could be on to me”

“Do you kobolds have the ability to go for long periods without sleeping?” the human asked.

Meetal shook his head then suggested that perhaps they should part company so at least the human might not suffer if the drow came in the night.

“No way!” the human exclaimed, “We will find a way”

Meetal was silent, the night was falling and the drow and the gnome would be using a dark space to find him while he slept. Whoever that leprechaun or pixie was, assuming they were not part of some elaborate drow deception, they could not be relied upon to block the drow’s dark space search. Even if they did, as the figure looking like a leprechaun said it would tip the drow off to the rest of the resistance.

The horseless carriage drove past another forest through a settlement called Springfield. Then the human pulled off of the main road and head for a place he called Broad Street Truck Stop and parked the horseless carriage.

“You will need that invisibility cloak” the human told Meetal, “For when we go to that hotel” he added pointing to a several story white building in the failing light.

Obediently Meetal followed the instructions and made sure the cloak was on, but not done up so the human could see him to lift him out of the horseless carriage. Then Meetal did the cloak up and became invisible.

As they were walking across a large area that seemed like some kind of endless paving, he heard something like a banshee approaching.

Had they been unleashed on this world as well as the gremlins?

But no, it was a smaller horseless carriage, with two humans inside, both in a uniform of sorts. This horseless carriage had a small bar on top with lights, and was making the banshee sound..

The horseless carriage came to a stop just in front of the human called Howard, and the two humans inside got out of the horseless carriage to confront the human called Howard.

“Are you Howard Brown?” One of these humans asked
“Whose asking?” the human called Howard replied in an irritated manner
“We are” the first human responded.
“That your truck sir” the other human chipped in
“Why?” the human called Howard asked
“We have a warrant to search it and a warrant for your arrest on suspicion of consorting with an enemy of the Lady High Troll” the first human answered, “Now assume the position”

Meetal had no idea what “assume the position meant” but it was obvious that his travelling companion did as the human called Howard placed both hands on the front of this other horseless carriage, while the other humans ran their hands down him obviously looking for concealed weapons.

Meetal was glad he had his dagger back, if they had found that, all would be lost

The two other humans took out two metal bracelets that were joined together and used them to restrain his travelling companion’s hands behind his back. Then while one of these new humans opened the back door of the small horseless carriage on its left side, the other human forced his travelling companion in. and then the door was shut.

Meetal was in a quandary, and in a split second decided to quickly jump in to this horseless carriage through one of the open front doors, and then he scrambled between the two front seats, and lodged himself behind the front seat on the horseless carriage’s right side.

“Meetal” the human called Howard whispered
“Sssh” Meetal replied.

His interjection must have worked as his travelling companion refrained from further talking to him

The two of them watched as one of the other humans in uniform went up to the front of the horseless carriage driven by the human called Howard and opened it.

It was lucky that Meetal kept his back pack with him at all times, they should not find evidence he was there

Meetal did his best to try and see what this human was doing in that horseless carriage, and after a while they emerged shaking their head. They had found nothing

Then this other human walked towards the back of the large horseless carriage

“Hey” the human called Howard shouted, “That’s a sealed container on the orders of Consort Vabalavich”

The light was fading fast now, how long would it take to search the giant metal box on that horseless carriage Meetal wondered. To Meetal’s surprise the human just returned also saying something about an imperial seal. Obviously something brought in by that infernal drow.

The two other humans returned and got into the front seats of the horseless carriage and closed the doors.

“What’s going on?” the human called Howard demanded to know

“A definite enemy of the Lady High Troll was spotted at a truck stop just north of DC where you were at” the human in the left front seat replied.
“I know” the human called Howard told them, “I have already been asked this by a drow just south of New Jersey”

“And you told them he may have gone south and yet the imperial drow have established he travelled north, just like you have”

“Just like many others from that truck stop” the human called Howard objected.

“And they will be picked up too I imagine” the human in the front left seat replied, “Meanwhile we have to take you in while they bring in a drow interrogator to do their mind probe mojo” and with that he started this small horseless carriage.

“Mind Probe?” Meetal thought, “If they have a trained telepathic drow they will know I have been with this human for certain”

Meetal found his hand moving to his dagger. He stopped himself and felt ashamed for this instinctive reaction.

Then he realised, he had few choices to evade detection, and one of them would be to kill his travelling companion and then if possible these two other humans, but that would alert the drow for sure as to where he was, plus he was still along way from this place called Rochester in New Hampshire and this Mr Vee, the goal of his quest.

As this horseless carriage drove to who knows where, to meet the drow interrogator what was Meetal to do?

To be continued

[GypsyGoth]

Took me a couple of sittings to get through, very good addition.

[Sticks]

Episode VII – First Blood

It is said that a British prime minister was once asked what the hardest part of being prime minister was. The answer given was “Events dear boy, events”

There are times in our lives when we get swept along by events. It is like being carried down river in a swift running torrent that came out of nowhere.

It is said at these times the true heroes come to the fore and also you get to see people’s true colours.

Everybody can be really Mr Super Cool, when things are going well, but when events happen?

Meetal is now caught up in events as his travelling companion who was taking him north to find Mr Vee, was arrested on suspicion of consorting with a known enemy of the Lady High Troll. This enemy is Meetal himself. Meetal has hidden himself aboard the horseless carriage taking his travelling companion to who knows where, where a drow interrogator is set to use telepathic means to find out if his travelling companion knows of Meetal

+ + +

The small horseless carriage drove through a short road and then turned left onto a long road with what through the failing light appeared to be dwellings and shops on either side. Meetal also noticed many side roads joining this road. There were also not many people out in the dusk, maybe they had a curfew here similar to the one back in Washington DC, where he had seen that female human hanged by the bugbear and the trolls.

“Where are you taking me?” The human called Howard asked.
“Springfield Police Department on Pearl Street” the human who was not driving answered”
“And what has this kobold done to be declared an enemy of this Lady High Troll”
“He does not have to have done anything” the human in front replied, “The drow don’t have to give a reason. They can declare anyone an enemy and the penalty is death”
“As is the penalty for consorting with enemies of the Lady High Troll” the other human in front added
“And you guys go along with this?” the human called Howard asked
The humans in front of the horseless carriage did not answer.
“I don’t suppose you have ever heard of the Vichy Regime?” the human called Howard asked
Again the humans in front declined to answer.

After a short while the smaller horseless carriage turned right onto yet another long street. To Meetal these were almost like the streets in the Central City on the Low Plain on his own world, except it was not as dusty and there were trees dotted along the road. Unlike the other road, there were not as many shops and there were taller buildings. He could also see lights emanating from metal poles. Some where yellow, but there were also light assemblies where there were different colour lights in a vertical line. These strange lights only seemed to appear where another road crossed the road they were driving along. It seemed that they were being used to control the flow of other horseless carriages.

The horseless carriage then turned left along a long road with buildings on the left and a long metal fence on the right behind which were trees on a large bank. To Meetal this was obviously some kind of defensive structure, similar to some troll defences he had seen in some troll homelands back on his world.

The horseless carriage then turned right onto another leafy road, where the road was split in two by some green island which went between the two halves of the road which carried different directions of traffic. These islands also had more trees and sometimes there were gaps in these islands in the middle of the road.

Suddenly the horseless carriage turned completely around, as it turned left and went through a gap in one of the large green island. Meetal did all he could to hang on so his invisible presence would remain undetected.

The small horseless carriage doubled back on itself for a short distance and then it stopped outside a large building made of a strange red stone Meetal had not seen on his world.

The human who had been driving this horseless carriage turned something Meetal could not quite see, and it’s noise stopped. The human in front who had been driving then opened his door, while the other human in front did the same.

Meetal looked to see which front door he would exit out of, but they were too quick and closed them. Meetal would have to leave via the back door when they pulled out his travelling companion.

The human who had been driving, opened the back door and pulled the human called Howard out. There was just sufficient time for Meetal to scramble across the back seat, swing his legs around and jump out before the other human closed the door.

Meetal was now outside, but was taking a big risk. If the drow was looking on, he would see through Meetal’s invisibility. Meetal would have to play it as if he was doing his normal hiding in shadows. He had no idea how perceptive humans were, only that they did not see invisible creatures.

After a brief moment’s thought, Meetal chose to hide behind the human in uniform pushing his travelling companion along, while he kept look out and sniffed for any tell-tale sign of the presence of a drow. If there were, Meetal would have to undo his cloak so as not to attract attention by it’s magical aura, and hope he could slip past the humans using his conventional skills at skulking in shadows.

All the while the human called Howard was protesting that he had a load to deliver for Vabalavich to this place called Vermont, but this was to no avail as the other humans seemed to ignore his protestations.

To Meetal, these humans seemed to be acting like the troll militia his master would use from time to time to round up potential subversives, but this time they were working for the Lady High Troll.

From what he could tell there was so far no sign of the dreaded drow interrorgator

Meetal followed the three humans into the building and quickly they came to a large hall with other humans in similar uniforms. More human militia?

The human called Howard was moved to a desk, behind which another human in a slightly different uniform sat.

“This is Howard Brown” one of the humans holding Meetal’s travel companion announced, “arrested on suspicion of collaborating with a declared enemy of the Lady High Troll and ready for interrogation”
“The drow interrogator has not arrived yet” the human behind the desk told them, “He should be arriving by heelo as soon as they get one of those anti gremlin gizmos.
“I thought he was just going to teleport here like other drow do.” One of the humans in uniform said with irritation in his voice.
“They said he would have done, but he is bringing someone who has met this enemy, by the name of Taval”

Taval! Meetal recognised the name. The drow was bringing the gnome along, but what reason for this could there be?

“I thought drow could teleport others with them” the human holding Meetal’s travelling companion.
“Apparently this is someone who can not be teleported” the human behind the desk answered

”I could have told you that” Meetal thought, ”Everyone knows that gnomes can not be teleported”

“We’ll just book him in and take him to holding then” the other human who had picked up Meetal’s travelling companion suggested, “Are there many people in holding today?”
“Nah, it’s been a relatively quiet afternoon” the human behind the desk answered “Although Ted’s down there sleeping it off after another of his infamous drinking sessions”
“We’ll need to sort him out” the human holding Meetal’s travelling companion replied, “This can’t go on. Did his old lady report him?”
“No, Brad found him trying to get into the car next to his, he was so out of it, he did not realise”
“Well that’s the end of his driving privileges then”

Meetal watched on as these three humans in uniform talked about some other human who by the sound of it could not handle drink well. They had had problems back on his world, occasionally with orcs, dwarfs and the occasional kobold, humans again were not so different.

After this discussion Meetal followed his travelling companion as they moved him from this hall to another room, all the while being careful to avoid bumping into other humans.

Meetal watched as they took his travelling companions hands and put them on some pad and then placed them on what looked like pieces of card. They then made him stand in a room while they pointed some box thing at him while he held a board with writing that Meetal could not read on. All Meetal could see the box thing doing was making a clicking sound and flashing a light at his travelling companion. It did not make any sense.

Then his travelling companion was made to empty all his pockets, remove some strange bracelet from his left wrist, which had leather like strapping, a small metal buckle and a circular disk which had markings and two small metal rods that went round a pivot. They even made his travelling companion remove the belt from what they called his pants.

Then they marched his travelling companion to a dungeon, where they locked him in a cage while Meetal stayed outside.

And then the other humans left him.

There were other cages, but only one other inmate in this dungeon, presumably the human overtaken by drink.

The human called Howard whispered, “Meetal, you still here?”

Meetal went to undo his cloak of invisibility so he could become visible to his travelling companion.

“What ever you do, stay invisible” the human called Howard continued, “They have See-See –Tee-Vee in here”

Meetal had no idea what this See-See –Tee-Vee was, but he stopped himself undoing the cloak anyway.

“I’m here” Meetal whispered.
“You need to get away as soon as you can” the human called Howard told him.
“I can’t leave you Mr Howard” Meetal whined, “They will kill you”
“My life was over when my family were wiped out” the human called Howard sighed
“But they will know I was here” Meetal insisted.
“Have you got that dagger on you?” the human asked

Meetal was suspicious at this question, and was rightly so for in the next breath his travelling companion asked Meetal to kill him to prevent the drow finding out about Meetal and this mysterious Mr Vee up in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Meetal was stunned by this request, so much so that the human called Howard asked if he was still there.

“There has to be another way?” Meetal whispered in panic. Even though in the past information gathered and occasional evidence planted by Meetal in the service of his master in the old days had lead to the execution of others, Meetal had never actually killed any other being directly. He had always skulked in the shadows and never engaged in combat.

“I can’t think of anything else Meetal” the human called Howard whispered, “When that drow gets here I’m dead anyway, and I would rather it not be at their hand”
“But” Meetal tried to say, before he was interrupted.
“Meetal, just do it” the human called Howard insisted, “they will see me go down on the See-See –Tee-Vee, they’ll come in here and you can escape”

“Please no Mr Howard” Meetal whispered
“What’s the matter” the human called Howard asked, “I thought you said you helped get evidence on your world that lead to numerous executions to keep law and order”

“But I have never directly killed a being before” Meetal admitted, “Many were put to death, because of what I found on them, or evidence I had to leave, but I never took a life myself”
“I thought you said you kobolds were hunter gatherers” the human called Howard retorted.
“I was never good with the spear” Meetal whined, “That was why I left my tribe, I was useless at the hunt, but my master said I had other skills which I could use to serve him”.

The human called Meetal, held out his hand, “Give me the dagger then, and I’ll do it” he told Meetal.

“Who on Earth are you talking to” the other prisoner suddenly said, still slurring his words through his obvious intoxication.

Both Meetal and the human called Howard stared at him in shock. This other human was meant to be sleeping off the after effects of too much drink, now this complicated matters.

“I said” the other human asked, “who are you talking to, some of us are trying to sleep”
“My friend there” the human called Howard replied, pointing at where he guessed Meetal was.

The other human, now sitting on his bed looked in Meetal’s direction.
“Can’t you see him?” the human called Howard asked the other human.

Meetal was perplexed by this, what was Mr Howard doing?

“I’m drunk, what’s your excuse” the other human snapped back, “Are you loony tunes boy”

“I’m a man not a boy” the human called Howard replied angrily, “You come here and say that”

This was an aggressive side to his travelling companion Meetal had never seen. The other human tried to get up off of the bed, but sat down quickly, “I’ll think I’ll pass on that” he said quietly and then went to lie down again.
“Just like the coward you are” the human called Howard shouted at him.
The other human waved a clenched fist, save for one finger at the human called Howard, and lay down again.

Soon the other human was sleeping again, but still the main dilemma remained and again the human called Howard asked Meetal to kill him and then save himself.

“I can pick locks” Meetal whispered, “I could open this lock and then maybe the door, and we could sneak out”
“They would spot us on the See-See –Tee-Vee” the human called Howard insisted, “Or had you forgotten about that”.
“What’s See-See –Tee-Vee?” Meetal whispered back
“I’m sorry Meetal” the human called Howard replied, “It stands for Closed Circuit Television”
“What’s that?” Meetal asked

The human called Howard pointed to some sort of box on a stalk in the ceiling. It seemed to have something looking like a spyglass on the front. “That is See-See –Tee-Vee” he explained, “They are watching us on that”

Meetal looked at it but could not understand how such a device would act as a scrying device. If only he had a protection from scrying talisman, but then would that work against these strange human devices that functioned without magic? Probably not, for if it was not magical, then it could not be blocked by magic means, but then he did not possess such an amulet, so the question was pointless.

Meetal reached inside his small bag he had with him. Being invisible made it difficult to find what he wanted, so he closed his eyes and felt inside for what he was after. Something he always carried, but rarely used, his sling and a stone

This would be a hard shot, not being able to see his sling. He felt his way to getting the sling ready, all the while the human called Howard was calling out to him.

Meetal whizzed the sling around his head, and then flung it at the box like object.

His stone hit the ceiling beside it be the length of a troll’s hand breadth and then fell to the floor, now fully visible as it was not covered by the magic of the cloak of invisibility.

Meetal swore and reached in to find another stone. He could find only one, he hoped it would be enough as he did not fancy trying to find the other one that had missed it’s mark.

He whizzed the sling around his head and flung the stone at the strange box, hoping he had compensated from his miss last time.

The stone flew from the sling; as it did so, for a brief moment anyone looking that way would see this stone emerge from nowhere and then smash right into the spyglass front of this strange box that scryed without the means of magic.

“What was that?” the human called Howard demanded to know.

Meetal looked around briefly for other such boxes, in case there were more, but could not see any, so pulled back the hood of the cloak, so he reappeared.

“I have dealt with that See-See –Tee-Vee” Meetal said proudly.
“And as soon as they find out, they will be in here like a shot” the Human called Howard countered.
Meetal was crest fallen, his sudden triumph was now likely to turn sour. “I will try and work fast” Meetal replied with hurt in his voice. Here was Meetal trying to help and all his travelling companion was doing was complaining.

But then maybe he had a point, after all this was his world

Meetal grabbed his lock pick set, from his bag and began to work on the lock on the cage incarcerating his travelling companion. His record to date had been forty beats of his heart, but then they were the simple locks back on his world. He had no idea if he could crack a human lock.

“Meetal you better hurry up” the human called Howard told Meetal, as the lock began to seem more difficult than the non human locks he had cracked in the past.

Then the human called Howard asked, “Even if you could get me out of here, how do we get past a whole police precinct”

Meetal had not thought that far ahead, he was more focused on cracking the one lock that threatened his reputation of being able to crack any lock he found. It looked like other locks, but it seemed more complex than those back on the Mystical Realms.

Meetal heard another lock opening, someone was coming, and he was too late. Quickly he pulled up his hood and vanished into invisibility again.

A human in uniform opened the door to this dungeon and came in.

“How long do I have to wait?” the human called Howard asked this other human
“I have no idea” the other human replied and then looked up at the strange box on the ceiling and then at Meetal’s travelling companion. “You throw anything at this camera?” he asked

“No sir” the human called Howard replied, “How could I you took everything off of me”

“What the noise” the human in the other cage mumbled as he seemed to wake up again, “Can’t anyone get any sleep around here?” he asked
“Ted I might have known” the human in uniform remarked in a sarcastic tone. Then he took out a bunch of keys, and opened the cage containing the human who was worse for the drink.

Meetal saw his chance and positioned himself behind this human. The human put the keys onto his belt as he was angrily pulling open the door to that particular cage. “You are always causing trouble Ted” the uniformed human growled.
“I haven’t done anything” the human worse for the drink slurred as he sat up.

Meetal moved in, and with his pick pocketing skill, lifted the keys from the uniformed human. At once they became invisible. Meetal also noticed a black box with some kind of short rod coming out of it, and lifted that too.

The human in uniform was too angry with the human who was worse for the drink to notice them go as he went into the cage and pulled up the human worse for the drink by the top part of the garment he was wearing.

CLANG

The cage door shut, and there was the sound of locking. Meetal then took the keys and unlocked the door to the cage holding his travelling companion.

“What the heck is going on?” the human in uniform shouted and reached for his belt, “My keys” he yelled

Meetal pulled the hood back on his cloak and appeared in front of everyone, “Now we can go” he told his travelling companion.

“How?” the human called Howard shouted, “You’re forgetting a whole police precinct on the other side of that door”

Meetal took off his cloak and offered it to his travelling companion. “This will make you invisible Mr Howard”

“What the heck is that troll doing here” the human in uniform shouted.

“I’m a kobold if you don’t mind” Meetal snapped

Then the human in uniform appeared to realise the situation and started shouting for help.

Meetal had to think fast, the human was right, how could they get past all those humans in uniforms?. If they tried to leave, only one of them could be invisible, and the human in uniform Meetal had locked up would summon assistance. There was no way out.

Unless!

No! That was too risky and was the cause of Meetal’s misfortune to be discovered on this world in the first place

But Meetal could think of no other way out.

Meetal took from his back the dimension jump orb. He knew how to make it go back to that place in the Waylong Mountains with the loadstone, but would that Sky Guard that observed his entry to this world track him there. Then of course he would have to immediately return back to this world. Meetal believed he could operate it so they would land near his travelling companion’s horseless carriage.

But then the re-entry would most likely bring a drow like it did the first time because of that sky guard thing.

What was the most risky form of escape, the cloak of invisibility, or the dimension jump?

“What is that?” the human called Howard asked pointing at the blue orb.

“I can use it to get to your horseless carriage” Meetal hurriedly said.
“That’s great Meetal, except they have my keys, so I won’t be able to get in and drive it” the human called Howard responded.

“Oh Dear” Meetal whimpered as he got flustered, he had been trying to help, but had made the situation worse.

Then he remembered his lock picking skills again, even though he had not been successful picking the locks to the cages in this dungeon. “I could try and pick the locks” Meetal offered.

Meetal held the orb, ready to command it to open a route back to the mountain with the loadstone outcrop in the Waylong Mountains.

Then everything went still.

Meetal looked around, everyone apart from him was frozen in time. It was obvious what this was, it was a time stop spell, and only certain races knew how to do such a spell. One of them was the drow.

“Oh no!” Meetal whimpered, “It’s the drow interrogator” he wailed.

And suddenly, there in front of Meetal appeared a drow, just as he feared.

Meetal shook his head and sunk to his knees.

It was all over and he had failed.

“So” the drow said in an irritated tone, “You are this kobold looking for this Mr Vee person”

“I do not know where he is” Meetal whimpered.

Then it hit home, Meetal was carrying the talisman that would betray this Mr Vee and his daughter to the drow and The Lady High Troll.

There was nothing else for it, but to make the supreme sacrifice.

Quickly Meetal drew his dagger and made to stab himself to death. On this world, all those from his world, plus what they were carrying would become ash. Meetal would have to die, to save Mr Vee and his daughter.

“I think not” the drow said as he flicked his right wrist wrenching the dagger from Meetal’s grasp with his telekinetic powers. The dagger flew to the drow, where he grabbed it safely by the hilt.

Meetal looked up at the drow, it was obvious that they had sussed that he was not acting alone. They would no longer need to use the mind probe on his travelling companion; they were now going it use it on Meetal.

“Using a cloak of invisibility” the drow began, “What were you thinking? Any drow running a detection of magic spell would have pinpointed you. Such magical items are like beacons to the drow”

“We only wanted to preserve the Sacred Law” Meetal whimpered, “Master always kept the Sacred Law, even if..”

“Whatever” the drow interrupted and then continued, “I do not have much time, even though as the humans would put it, I have a few tricks up my sleeve which are beyond the average Hadreth foot soldier”

“Huh?” Meetal gulped

The drow continued, “Ever since we detected the dark space that Hadreth drow set up last night, I have been searching to find out what kind of creature they would be searching for, and I am surprised to find it is a kobold of all races. An elf I would understand, maybe a leprechaun, but a kobold? Anyway it is of no matter. I would have been with you sooner, but I had to wait for transport to take me to where it would be safer to teleport”

“I don’t understand” Meetal whispered

“It’s simple my dear kobold friend” the drow went on, “Not all drow agreed with what the Hadreth have done under the leadership of Vabalavich. It is my regret I did not move on that traitor sooner, but we are where we are. Now Kobold, I can hold a Time Stop spell for only so long, do you have any idea what your master’s plan is?”

“So you are not that drow who is coming to interrogate this human” Meetal asked, pointing at his travelling companion

“That will be a mere Hadreth foot soldier” the drow said dismissively, “Now you did not answer my question, do you have any idea what your master’s plan is?”

Meetal shook his head, “Master said he wanted to discuss that with Mr Vee alone”

The drow gave an irritated sigh, “So what was you plan of escape from this predicament you have got yourself into” he asked before spotting the blue orb, “Oh I see, you run away back to our world and re-appear elsewhere on this world” the drow sneered, “Very cunning plan except it won’t work. The Hadreth drow will be onto you in a heartbeat as soon as you return to this world”

“I know” Meetal sighed, “They spotted me with something called a sky guard when I first arrived, whatever that is. I only just got away from where I landed in time”

“That’s obvious” the drow replied, “They were not expecting anyone to come to this world so you took them by surprise the first time, otherwise they would have got you sooner and you would be dead. A second time they will be looking out for you on that infernal sky guard thing”.

Meetal looked puzzled, “What is Sky Guard?” he asked

The drow sighed with irritation again, “For your information, these humans under a previous regime devised a series of something called satellites which they placed in what they call orbit around this world. They called it Sky Guard. This sky guard system of theirs can detect our intrusion into their world somehow. When this world fell to Vabalavich, and his puppet ruler, the Lady High Troll, they kept the system going to try and track us down, which is why we have to be careful”

“What do you mean by the Lady High Troll being a puppet ruler?” Meetal queried, “She was the leader and instigator of this violation of the Sacred Law, just so she could seize power back home Meetal added with venom.”

“Oh please, this obsession of yours with this so called Sacred Law is sotedious” the drow sneered, and then the drow asked with incredulity “You didn’t believe that that female troll was the driving force behind this invasion did you?”

“She wanted to conquer this world so she could seize power back home” Meetal repeated

“Oh my dear kobold friend” the drow went on, “I know this Vabalavich. He manipulates others and convinces them that his schemes are their ideas. Like so many other times in his past, he would have planted all sorts of ideas into her head and made her think they were her own. But unless I have seriously under estimated him, an invasion of a whole other world is beyond even him. My dear kobold friend, I suspected he was in partnership with someone more his equal in power than that jumped up troll who calls herself the Lady High Troll and daughter of the late Lord Low Troll or that usurper troll in the Manjura clan, but alas I could never figure out who. I even thought it might be a human accomplice. I’m afraid my mistake was waiting too long in the hopes of catching both traitors and bringing them to trial before the Drow High Council. He moved against us first”

This was like a hammer blow to Meetal, and suddenly the way his master had spoken with venom more against the drow consort than the Lady High Troll seemed almost to make sense. Meetal remembered the claims that she was saying she was his master’s long forgotten daughter.

lies of course

Or were they? Could this accursed Ghetto troll really be his master’s offspring?

“Master had a son” Meetal growled, mostly trying to reaffirm to himself, that this accursed Ghetto troll was not his master’s daughter. Would master not have said so if she was?

“She may be his daughter, she may not. Kobold I don’t really care” the drow sneered, “All we do care about, is that for a season, our resistance and this Mr Vee you seek are on the same side, and we would hate to jeopardise his welfare”

“You want stop me and my mission” Meetal accused the drow

“Us stop you?” the drow asked, “Look around you kobold, with your incompetence you have done a perfectly good job of that yourself. You use that orb to try and get out of here, and you will bring down the drow foot soldiers to where you land back on this world for certain. Continue to use that cloak of invisibility and they will hunt you down that way as well.”

“I have to complete my mission” Meetal whined, “We have to free the humans and restore the Sacred Law.

“Do you really want to assist this kobold and this human” the drow then asked someone else Meetal could not see, “Would that not be too risky”

Just then two orbs of white light appeared on each side of the drow, and there was high pitch whispering. They had to be fairies

“Very well” the drow responded to their inaudible question, “Take them back to the human’s vehicle. It is too dangerous to take them anywhere else, and transport their possessions as well for they will need them. I believe these law enforcement humans have other property belonging to the human, they need to be retrieved as well in case the drow can do psychometry. What ever you do, don’t get caught, I suspect the drow foot soldier will be attracted here sooner by the display of magic here tonight.”

“Are you going to join us?” Meetal asked timidly of this drow who seemed to be on their side.

“No!” the drow replied bluntly “I have a boat to return to as I have other duties. I just hope the eyes of Vabalavich or his minions are elsewhere, preferably here and on you rather than at me and that boat”

The drow clicked his fingers and then everything went white for Meetal, before it went black.

+

“Wake up Kobold” Meetal heard as he came round.

Meetal was in the bed chamber of the horseless carriage belonging to his travelling companion. Beside him on the bed was the human called Howard. He was still unconscious and completely naked, as was Meetal. The creature waking Meetal was another fairy.

“The belongings of this human are at the foot of the bed in that bag” the fairy told Meetal pointing to a small red cloth bag, “Your clothes and belongings and his clothes are over there to” it added pointing to two other bundles at the foot of the bed. The fairy seemed highly irritated when it mentioned these items

This was typical of fairies, they themselves went unclothed, and when ever they teleported anyone, they always left that individual’s clothes behind. Something about being small and that teleporting a clothed individual, was just beyond them, so they said. Normally the person teleported would not see that set of clothing again or anything else they happened to be carrying, but obviously this drow must have insisted the teleport them as well, at the risk of discovery. It was obvious why he had ordered them so. Their activity would attract the attention of any magic detection spells as they flitted too and fro and away from a solitary drow teleporting away after casting a time stop spell, but that would mean anyone detecting magical activity would also be attracted to this horseless carriage.

“This human will wake soon” the fairy told Meetal, “When he does you must both be careful, the human law enforcers are hunting for you. They were here looking for you an hour ago, but one of us cast a distraction spell on this part of the vehicle where he sleeps and they went on their way. We were lucky they were humans that were searching. You will not be so lucky if that drow interrogator or his gnome companion comes here”

“But how can we get away in this horseless carriage if they are hunting us?” Meetal asked, however before he could get an answer the fairy vanished.

Again typical of fairies – no wonder his master was irritated by them

Meetal reached for his clothes and put them on as fast as he could, and peaked out from behind the curtain into the rest of the horseless carriage.

It looked like the dawn on this world was breaking.

They had been here all night! Who ever that other drow was, Meetal and the human called Howard had obviously been used as bait and a distraction so he could escape. That was typical of a drow to consider others as potentially expendable. Even the fairies were considered expendable to him, as they must have had a gruelling time, keeping Meetal and his companion safe from the humans in uniform and any others who were collaborating with the drow. But with Meetal coming round, they must have thought their work was done, which was again typical behaviour of fairies.

As Meetal peaked through the curtain, he spotted in the distance another small horseless carriage, like the one the previous day. They were obviously waiting to see if this horseless carriage belonging to his travelling companion was going to move.

Meetal looked back at him human travelling companion, he was still unconscious. Meetal wondered if he should he wake him just yet.

Maybe it would be better if they parted company, after all, this human had been detained because of him and with the drow on to them there was no way they could get to this place called Rochester in that land called New Hampshire.

But would they not capture and execute this human anyway?

Meetal felt conflicted. He did not want his travelling companion to die, but a whole world and his master were depending on him.

Even his master had once said that the hardest thing he had had to do was to sacrifice someone he cared about, for a greater cause. At the time his master had said that, he had never elaborated further, so Meetal assumed it must have been someone his master fought with in a troll – orc war that had occurred well before the civil war. As Much as Meetal liked this human, and as much as this human had shown Meetal kindness, Meetal had a duty to fulfil. For a greater cause, he would have to abandon his human travelling companion to his fate. He had no choice.

Meetal had to find this Mr Vee and pass on the message from his master. Sure it would have been nice to ride this horseless carriage all the way, but if that was not an option, Meetal would have to try on foot; at least it was better than trying to get there all the way from that city called Washington DC.

Meetal, gathered his belongings. He wished he could say goodbye ore at least leave a note, but alas, even though he could read and write on his world, Meetal only knew the human Language called English to speak. He had never studied its written form like his much more clever master had done.

Meetal peaked through the curtain to make sure as best he could that it was safe to come out from behind the curtain. The horseless carriage belonging to the human collaborators was of concern. If the occupants in it were looking in the direction of this horseless carriage, would they spot him climbing into the front. Meetal felt for his cloak of invisibility, but remembered what that drow had said about it’s use attracting drow with magic detection spells.

But for the short time it would take to get into the front, would that still be too risky?

“Oh dear” Meetal moaned

He forewent the cloak and did his best to push the curtain out, so he could slip onto the seat from underneath the curtain, instead of pulling it aside.

He made it

Meetal quickly scrabbled to get off the seat and down just in front of the seat so he was not in view. Now he had to wait, in case he had been seen. Meetal looked at the doors trying to see, which one was least likely to be seen opening by the collaborating humans in their horseless carriage.

It looked like it would be the door that the human sat by as he drove this horseless carriage.
But then he remembered the big drop to the ground. Meetal would have to open wide the door and then somehow climb down to the ground. After which he could not close the door.

Meetal looked back up towards the curtain. Oh how he hated to leave, but he could see no other option.

Meetal shook his head in despair. It was obvious that when he was gone, the human called Howard would probably think Meetal had been captured and they were done with him. The human would attempt to drive off only to be recaptured and executed, but again, what could Meetal do? The mission was of upmost importance

Meetal climbed back onto the seat and kept low down so he would not be seen. For a moment he studied the door and then listened in case the Human called Howard was stirring.

Should Meetal at least wake the human so he could say goodbye?

No! This human was so adamant in joining Meetal’s quest, and this time it was not possible

The human was still out for the count and it grieved Meetal that he had to leave his human travelling companion to his fate, but again, Meetal had no choice.

Meetal grabbed the door handle, and although it was stiff, Meetal was able to open the door. Next he pushed with all his might, for the door to him was heavy. Finally the door swung open. Meetal waited again, in case the opening of the door had roused the human called Howard or had alerted the humans in the other horseless carriage.

The human was still fast asleep and there was no sound of others approaching.

Meetal turned around on the seat so he was going out feet first. Again he stopped, in case the human was rousing, but no he was not.

With effort and dexterity Meetal lowered himself to the ground.

“What are you doing” came an unexpected squeaky voice. It was another fairy
“If this human drives this horseless carriage we will be captured” Meetal replied, “I thought it would be best if I went alone from here” he added.

“But I put those humans in that police car into a sleep you stupid kobold” the fairy said angrily, “I expected you to wake the human so you could drive out while we kept that drow tied up elsewhere”

“Is that so” another voice came from behind.

It was the gnome, and he was holding a tube that spits death pointed right at him.

Suddenly, the fairy vanished

“Typical fairies” the gnome sneered, “Always running away when things get difficult, but we’ll catch them eventually. These Hadreth drow have a little more smarts in the magic department than other drow”

Meetal just stood there speechless

The gnome then continued, “When we came last night, I could tell there was a distraction spell here as like all gnomes we have a certain resistance to magic”

“So you are going to summon the drow” Meetal asked
The gnome shook his head, “not before I put a bullet in you kobold scum for all those gnome friends of mine you had executed.”
“I thought the drow wanted me alive?” Meetal accused the gnome
“They do” the gnome said with venom, “But I will just say you were shot trying to escape. Since your body will turn to ash, whose to know. But first hand over that talisman, I recognise it, it’s a talisman of location and you are searching for someone that the Lady High troll might just be interested in”

Meetal fingered the talisman of location, it was clear they wanted to find whoever Meetal had been sent to find, and that Meetal could never allow.

Meetal pulled out his dagger. He would have to move fast and make sure when he killed himself it was quick, so the talisman would be destroyed when his body turned to ash.

“Oh no you don’t” shouted the gnome as he rushed up to grab the talisman from Meetal’s neck before Meetal could do himself in.

As the gnome rushed forward, he tripped over a hole in the ground and smashed into Meetal’s arm. The gnome then let out a sudden gasp of pain.

The gnome had been in such a rush to grab the talisman that he had tripped and fallen onto Meetal’s dagger and had been inadvertently stabbed.

The gnome pulled instinctively himself away from Meetal, and Meetal could see blood seeping out from the wound in the gnome’s chest

Meetal in shock let go of the dagger and it clanged to the floor, covered in the gnome’s blood. The gnome dropped his tube that spits death and started to stagger. The gnome lunged at Meetal in an attempt to grab the talisman again, but Meetal was just able to overcome the shock at what had just happened, to step away from him.

The gnome sank to his knees clutching his chest. He pulled from his belt some kind of box like object with a flexible rod attached.

The gnome pushed a button, held it to his mouth and tried to speak, but blood was coming from his mouth. The gnome dropped the object and started to smoulder.

The gnome fell forward and Meetal jumped back, just in time as the gnome burst into flames.

In a few blinks of the eye, the gnome was now ash in the wind.

Meetal sank to his knees and put his hands on his head. He started to shake and tears streamed from his eyes, He cried out “No” loud and long. Meetal also wanted to vomit and he started to wretch.

Meetal had accidentally had his first kill

“Taval, Come in” came a strange voice. Meetal looked at the floor where it was coming from. It was from the strange box like object that the gnome had tried to speak into. The voice coming from it was calling for the gnome that Meetal had just killed by accident.

“What’s going on” the voice of the human called Howard came from above. He had just woken up and was at the open door of the horseless carriage, still naked.

“The gnome Mr Howard” Meetal wept
“You mean the one you said had betrayed the resistance cell back in DC”

Meetal nodded. “He was here Mr Howard” Meetal gasped, “My dagger. The gnome. He tripped and fell onto it. I didn’t mean to, I swear, it was an accident. It was for me. Mr Howard, the gnome, he’s dead”

Then a wave of nausea hit Meetal again, and he tried to be sick

Yet again, the mysterious box burst into life, demanding that the now dead gnome respond immediately

To be concluded

[GypsyGoth]

Meetal must be fun to write, as he is a lot of fun read about

[Sticks]

Episode VIII – A kobold’s got to do what a kobold’s got to do

Ever felt like Atlas, the mythical Greek god with the world on your shoulders?

Everyone was reliant on you, and if you did not make it, you would be letting everyone down?

Sometimes people are like that, in that they lay on people unfair and unrealistic burdens. A lot of the time it can be that people are just palming off onto you their responsibilities instead of dealing with them themselves.

There is the old story of a manager who saw his people with monkeys on their backs, (the monkeys symbolised problems they had). The manager offered to help them but all he did was just remove the monkeys from other people’s backs. He ended up with a whole load of monkeys on his back.

But what if they are depending on you?

This seems to be the case with Meetal the kobold and ex-fixer to the Lord Low Troll. His master wants him to find a Mr Vee, and pass on a message that he wants to do a deal to free the world of humans from the tyrannical rule of the Lady High Troll and her drow consort, Vabalavich.

Meetal has been told by a pixie that this Mr Vee is in a place called Rochester, New Hampshire, but Meetal is stuck in Springfield, Massachusetts. The drow are looking for him and his travelling companion, and now he has accidentally killed a gnome, who had switched sides to work for the Lady High Troll, and a strange box the gnome was carrying, is insisting that the gnome speaks to it

+ + +

“Taval, Come in” the strange box on the floor squawked again.

“GET IN NOW” the human called Howard ordered Meetal.

Meetal was still trying to be sick as the image of the gnome turning to ash burnt itself into Meetal’s conscious. Meetal had seen many an execution, even up to and including the female human he saw hanged when arrived in Washington DC, but this was different. This gnome had died at close quarters and at Meetal’s hand and it sickened him to the core.

Meetal felt himself being bodily lifted into the horseless carriage. The human called Howard had jumped out of the door and was lifting a dazed Meetal into it.

As the human climbed in, metal scampered to the other seat, still feeling dreadful.

“This is yours” the human called Howard then told Meetal as he handed him back his dagger. The blade was stained in the gnome’s blood. Meetal still in a state of shock, took a small cloth from his bag and wiped the blade, before putting it back into his scabbard.

The human called Howard then sat down, stark naked, in front of the large stirring wheel and leant as he normally did when starting it. He straightened up and banged his hands on the wheel.
“D**n” he swore, “Those b*****ds have my keys”

Meetal then remembered the bag with the human’s belongings and scampered into the back to retrieve them..

“Where are you going” the human called Howard shouted.

Meetal did not reply, but grabbed the bag that the fairies had brought and came forward to the seat and presented the bag to his human travelling companion. “The fairies brought this along with another bag of your clothes” Meetal whimpered.

The human snatched the bag from Meetal and looked through it. In the space of about five heart beats the human found what he was looking for, a bunch of keys, took them and leaned over and started the horseless carriage.
“I have no idea how far we are going to” the human started before he saw the smaller horseless carriage, similar to the one the previous day when he was captured by the two humans in uniform. “Oh s**t!” he exclaimed.

Meetal noticed where he was looking, “The fairies said they had put a sleep spell on them” Meetal told him in a soft voice.

“Buckle up” the human called Howard then ordered
“Are you not going to get dressed?” Meetal then asked, still feeling out of it caused by the sight of the gnome dying at his hand.
“No time”

The human called Howard drove the large horseless carriage away from the area where other such horseless carriages were parked.

They drove past the other small horseless carriage, and Meetal could just about see the uniformed humans, still gripped in their magical sleep spell.

The human called Howard then turned a sharp left and the sound from this horseless carriage was louder than normal, along with squealing sounds from it’s wheels.

His human travelling companion was driving with grim determination, especially as they were now being hunted. How the drow had not caught up with them was a mystery.

The road they were on was narrower than the big road the human had called an interstate, and Meetal felt nervous at the speed they were going. To his right he could see that big interstate road, but he could not see how they would get onto it.

The human called Howard caught Meetal looking at the interstate, “We need to get to State Street before we can get anywhere near that” he told Meetal.

“Will they not look for us there” Meetal asked
“I guess” the human grunted.

The horseless carriage sped along the narrower road, and it seemed but good fortune that there were no other travellers on this road at this time. After a while, the human started to slow the horseless carriage down, and then started to turn right to go under a bridge carrying the interstate road.

Skilfully the human drove under the bridge and then turned left onto another road just past the bridge. The human then started to increase the speed of the horseless carriage as it started climbing what seemed like a small hill. Then the human took another left turn onto a road that seemed to be turning round and up towards the road called an interstate. This small road seemed very narrow and on either side were walls of some white stone.

The road snaked around to the right, with massive buildings on the right as it got closer to the level of the larger interstate road, and then this narrow road merged onto the interstate..

The human called Howard punched the middle of the wheel he was using to steer, and from the top of their horseless carriage, there was a mighty sound like the battle horn of the orc armies.

Meetal saw other horseless carriages appearing to scatter as the human took this massive horseless carriage to the fastest speed it could go.

The interstate seemed to be bearing round to the right, but then there was a turn off which the human called Howard then took, “If we are going straight to Rochester we will need to take Interstate Two Ninety one”
“Not Interstate ninety one?” Meetal asked
“Nah I was only going to take that if they had not cottoned on to us” the human called Howard replied, “Lucky for us I know how to disable this trucks transponder”

The human called Howard then announced that he was going to “put on the local police band” as the interstate two ninety one went past the town more than the original route he had planned and then reached across towards Meetal and turned some kind of knob on a black box.

Immediately a new sound came into this horseless carriage from this black box.

It seemed to be some kind of conversation, but it seemed to be about them.

It was saying how there was no sign of the gnome and that the “officers” at the “Broad Street Truck stop” were not responding and that something called “Another unit” was being “dispatched”

“It won’t take them too long to figure out what we’re up to” the human called Howard commented, “I don’t know why there weren’t more cops watching my truck, but I suspect they think we were hiding in the local area”

“The fairies said they used a distraction spell” Meetal told the human, “creatures that are not resistant to magic would look at where we are and their attention would be distracted elsewhere and onto other things”

“So it’s like being invisible without being invisible” the human called Howard ventured.
“You could put it that way Mr Howard” Meetal replied and then looked at his travelling companion with tears in his eyes, “The gnome was immune to it”
“So why did he not call it in?” the human called Howard asked
“He said he wanted to put something called a bullet in me Mr Howard” Meetal replied, “I never meant to kill him Mr Howard, I never meant to kill him”
“The way I see it Meetal, it was either you or him” the human called Howard said to Meetal, “You just got the drop on him first” he added.

“This is Officer Harris” interrupted the black box, “We found officers Travis and Jefferson, they’ve been attacked somehow and rendered unconscious and the suspect’s rig is gone”

“I didn’t think they would find out so soon” the human called Howard said back to the black box.

“I’m sorry I could not do anything more to help?” Meetal whined
“We’re not caught yet” the human called Howard replied, “We just keep going until we can not go any further”
“I feel so useless Mr Howard” Meetal went on
“Well you managed to get us out of that police station somehow” the human called Howard said back as he stared at the road ahead.

“That was not me” Meetal whispered and hung his head in shame.

Then another announcement came through the black box, calling for “All units” to be on the lookout for something called a truck. The voice on the black box then went on to describe the horseless carriage Meetal was riding in.

As Meetal looked forward as they passed under a bridge, to his horror on the road to his left with horseless carriages coming the other way, was yet another horseless carriage that held the collaborating humans in uniform.

The pair of them waited for the black box to report seeing them on this interstate, but for some reason, the conversations on the black box remained instructions to look out for their horseless carriage.

Could those humans in that other horseless carriage have not seen them?

As they drove, they listened in to the black box as it relayed conversations of what the human called Howard called cops discussed the continuing hunt for Meetal’s human travelling companion and possibly Meetal himself.

It also mentioned how the drow was increasingly angry at their lack of progress and whether these “cops” had made contact with the gnome that Meetal had accidentally killed. At least on this world there had been no body to try and hide after it had incinerated

As they drove along, the human called Howard got Meetal to grab his clothes, and then with Meetal’s help, he got dressed while sitting at the wheel. Some of the time Meetal got to hold the wheel that steered the giant horseless carriage and that he found nerve wracking.

After a short while chilling message came through the black box saying that they needed to find the human called Howard Brown and Meetal fast, because if were not found with in a set time, the town would be “nuked” by the drow.

“That’s a fire storm like the one that killed your family” Meetal said in horror
“I know” the human called Howard replied through gritted teeth, “And we’re still too close to Springfield”

“I have to go back and give myself up” Meetal then said, “It was my fault that those other firestorms killed your people, I don’t want anymore to die because of me, it would be a violation of The Sacred Law”
“Don’t be so stupid Meetal” the human called Howard told him, “Anyway I thought we went through all that, there was no way you could have possibly killed that Lady High Troll in that tavern”

Meetal pulled out his dagger and waved it at his human travelling companion, “I do not want to be responsible for more human deaths” he insisted, “Take me back”
“Put that away” the human called Howard told Meetal
“I mean it” Meetal said, trying to be more forceful, “I can not have a whole town as you say being nuked because of me”

“And if I don’t, are you going to try and kill me?” the human called Howard asked angrily, “After all we’ve been through”

Meetal put away the dagger and broke down crying, “I’m so sorry Mr Howard, I just don’t want any more humans to suffer like you have”
“Meetal you’re forgetting the other humans” the human called Howard told him
“Huh?” Meetal asked
“All of the rest of the people in this world hoping for a miracle that they may be liberated from the rule of this Lady High Troll” the human called Howard went on, “And maybe you are to be that miracle”.

“But all those people who will die” Meetal objected

“To be blunt Meetal” the human called Howard, retorted, “What’s a few thousand people compared to a few billion”

Meetal shook his head; his human travelling companion was prepared to sacrifice a whole town just so Meetal could meet this Mr Vee. Was this cause really worth that? What would his master say?

The human called Howard continued, “There was once a great French man, who for a time ruled most of a place we call the continent of Europe, and he once said, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs”

Meetal looked at his human travelling companion with confusion, “What’s an omelette?” he asked

The human called Howard shook his head and gave a small laugh as he started to get the horseless carriage to start bearing round to the left, then the human produced the strange box like object with a small rod that the gnome had been carrying.

“Hey you got your ears on” he said into the object, “Your gnome dude said I could leave for Vermont and that’s what I’m doing northbound on ninety one so you can just stick it” he added before rolling down the window and throwing the box out onto the road. “Just in case that has a GPS chip” he explained to a confused Meetal

Meetal looked at the human called Howard aghast. “If the drow was listening he will know it’s a lie”
“Well let’s just hope he wasn’t listening then” the human called Howard replied.

The horseless carriage sped over a bridge over another road as they listened to what appeared to be confusion apparently about what Meetal’s travelling companion had said into that box like thing.

The horseless carriage went through a road with yet more trees one either side. Meetal had never seen so many trees before that were not in a designated forest. Humans must really care about trees

Then they headed over a small river

Then a thought struck Meetal, What if the drow used divination, after all Meetal still did not have an amulet of protection from scrying. He decided not to worry his travelling companion with this worry has he had enough to be concerned with.

They passed under a bridge and then another one in rapid succession. The human called Howard started to slow the horseless carriage down. Meetal’s travelling companion said it was so they could make a tight turn as they got onto a road called Interstate Ninety Eastbound

The horseless carriage turned onto a smaller road as it turned right and as it followed the road around Meetal saw some kind of archway system across the road, similar to what they had seen when they had passed over that large bridge back in New York.

They were toll booths

Again the human called Howard swore, saying how he had forgotten about the “Massachusetts turnpike” being a toll road.

The human called Howard then turned the knob on the black box, and it fell silent

“If we try and crash through” the human called Howard told Meetal, “The drow will be onto us for certain, but if we stop, they may have been warned to look out for us”

“What do you want to do?” Meetal asked with terror in his voice
“I have a fast ticket for this” the Human called Howard replied, “I just hope it works”

Slowly the human called Howard drove the horseless carriage to the toll booth on the far right, while Meetal went and hid in the back.

Driving slow was good, best not to attract too much attention, but it would make it easier for them to be stopped.

As Meetal huddled in the darkness behind the curtain, he listened to the human called Howard as he navigated through the toll booth.

Meetal found his eyes closing; he was starting to drift into sleep.

NO! Meetal shook his head, he should not be tired at this time, assuming he had slept through the night, guarded by the fairies from the inevitable hunt there would have been when he and his human travelling companion vanished from that dungeon. Why was he suddenly feeling sleepy? The only thing he could think of was that the drow who had been trying to apprehend him was trying to force him into a dark space by casting a sleep spell at a distance.

After a very short time, they were moving again.

The human called Howard must have turned the knob on the black box as Meetal heard it burst back into life. It was saying how their horseless carriage was being tracked on that interstate ninety one. How could they, this was very odd

“Hey” the human called Howard yelled, “It seems like they bought it”
Meetal crept forward onto his seat and belted himself in.
“Bought it?” Meetal queried
“That means, they believe I’m taking Interstate ninety one” the Human called Howard beamed, then his face darkened, “But I tell you one thing, that was weird back there” the human called Howard said to Meetal, “It was like nobody wanted to know I was even there”

“The distraction spell?” Meetal ventured
“I thought that was over when we woke up” the human called Howard said
“I thought so as well Mr Howard”
“Maybe there’s a similar truck to mine and they are off on a wild goose chase”
“Why would they want to chase these wild creatures, what ever they are” Meetal asked with confusion
“That’s an expression Meetal” the human explained, “It means someone is doing something which takes a lot of effort but will not get them any results, like those bozos looking for us on interstate ninety one”
“But why chasing these wild creature?” Meetal pressed, “And what is a goose?”
“A Goose is a type of bird Meetal and if you chase one you won’t ever catch it” the human called Howard replied
“We would not chase such a bird” Meetal said in a matter of fact manner, “We would approach them down wind quietly and take them down with spear or blow pipe”

The road started bearing to the left and the human called Howard sped the horseless carriage up, but not as fast as he had been driving. The reason became obvious, as just past two bridges they had gone under, the road ahead seemed to be bending to the left.

At full speed there would have been no way the horseless carriage could make the turn. Then the road bent round to the right as they approached another of those big roads that his travelling companion called “inter states”

As they got onto this road the human called Howard picked up more speed, “We’re still too close to Springfield if they want to follow through on that nuke threat” he remarked

Meetal gulped, knowing the drow as he did from the limited dealings he had had in the past, it was possible they might follow through if the local human collaborators failed to hand him and the human called Howard over. As for this Hadreth order, from what his master had indicated, these drow were more extreme that other mainstream drow, if that were possible.

Meetal rested his head against the door and gazed out at the scenery flashing past him.

Suddenly it was dark

No!

It was a dark space!

“Meetal wake up” Meetal cried out

Suddenly metal was back in the horseless carriage, “Wake up Meetal” the human called Howard was saying to him as he was leaning over and shaking metal by his shoulder, “Stay with me”

“Sorry Mr Howard” Meetal whined

“Were you in that dark space thing you mentioned before” the human called Howard asked

Meetal nodded, “I think he tried before Mr Howard” Meetal admitted, “when we were at the toll booths, but I was able to catch myself then”

The human called Howard frowned, “Can drow make you fall asleep at a distance”
“I’m not sure Mr Howard” Meetal replied adding “Especially with drow of the Hadreth order”
“Hadreth order?” the human called Howard asked
“According to my master, were an order of warriors and intelligence gathers amongst the other drow, but their use of secrecy and some dark magics corrupted them even by the standards of other drow.” Meetal explained, “The Drow High Council thought they were useful against the elves and kept them on, but when your world fell, the Hadreth overthrew the Drow High Council and put them and their families to the sword, just like they did with the human leaders of this world and their families.”

Meetal hung his head and sobbed for a moment and then looked at the human called Howard with tears running down his face, “I saw your leaders and their younglings hanged, and I will never get that out of my head all because”

“Because nothing” the human interrupted, “There was no way you could have done anything Meetal, just like there was no way I could have got my family out of Detroit in time before that nuke killed them so there is no point going over that time and time again”

After a brief pause the human called Howard uttered, “These Hadreth sound like the Knights Templar”
“Who?” Meetal asked
“A bunch of human knights hundreds of years ago who were accused of heresy and black magic. Some say they became some kind of secret society” The human called Howard answered
“Are they dangerous?” Meetal asked, “Could we contact them if they are still around to help deal with the Lady Low Troll?”

The human called Howard gave another laugh, “I’m afraid not. They were only accused of heresy because somebody wanted to get hold of their wealth. They were later exonerated but by then it was too late, and as for secret order, as far as I can recall people say they are Templers just to make themselves look good”

“Oh” Meetal said in a disappointed tone

“Getting back to the point Meetal” the human called Howard went on, “These Hadreth drow can cause you to fall asleep and go into a dark space from a distance. Does that mean he knows where we are?”

“If he did Mr Howard we would be dead” Meetal answered
“We have to keep you awake”
“I am trying Mr Howard” Meetal protested
“I know” the human called Howard said quietly

The horseless carriage continued along this long road and as Meetal looked at the talisman of location, part of the road seemed to be bending round into the wrong direction. The human called Howard assured Meetal, that he knew this road and that they would start heading north around a place called “Wells State Park” and around Auburn, they would really be heading North.

Throughout the journey the human called Howard kept talking to Meetal to make sure he was awake.

Meetal kept saying how periodically he kept getting the urge to sleep and it did not seem like normal fatigue, and only by biting on his forearm could he stay awake

If only he had an amulet against magical attack

They also kept waiting to hear if the town of Springfield would be visited with a firestorm the human called a nuke.

It did not seem to come

Then they hit Auburn, and after travelling south again in a loop of road the landed on what the human called Howard referred to as Interstate two ninety.

Now they were really heading north.

Then the attacks stopped, Meetal was no longer having to fight against being made to sleep so the drow could find him on the dark space.

Had the drow given up? that did not seem likely, drow, especially of the Hadreth order never gave up, so what was he up to?

As far as human collaborators were concerned, that still filled them with unease, were they still looking for them on that long road up to that place called Vermont where they were supposed to have been going?

Occasionally they would see a small horseless carriage like the one the day before when the human called Howard was taken by the humans in uniform, but then they just ignored them.

What was going on?

They passed by town after town, and yet nothing.

They transferred onto what Meetal’s travelling companion called Interstate four ninety five and still they seemed to be unchallenged.

The drow had to be up to something, but what?

Again unhindered they continued north and passed without event onto what Meetal’s travelling companion called Interstate ninety five.

It seemed all too easy, there were not even any random check points. The Human called Howard suggested that was because they tended to have them near any of the cities that were nuked, because they were seen as important locations.

Since there were only so many Ghetto trolls and bugbears on the Far Islands, where they seemed to have been hiding all these cycles, this would kind of make sense. As they had weapons of fire, called nukes they could make the local humans who kept law and order do their job for them, leaving those from Meetal’s world to concentrate on those more important locations from a symbolic viewpoint.

It seemed like an obvious drow strategy. Maybe that was why that strange drow who had rescued Meetal and his travelling companion was thinking that the Lady High Troll was not the ultimate leader, but that detestable drow, Consort Vabalvich.

At one point the human called Howard referred to waiting for another shoe to drop. Again these human idioms confused him, but this one he seemed to understand. The pair of them were waiting for the drow who had been pursuing Meetal and his companion to strike. Drow were known for their deviousness, the Hadreth, doubly so.

Then the human call Howard announced that they had crossed the “State line” and they were now in New Hampshire. He then turned off of the interstate into what he said was a rest area as he “needed to go”

The area seemed like those other places the humans called truck stops, and while the human went to attend his personal business, Meetal used the onboard facilities to attend to his. Then he slipped out of the back, and down to hide in front of the seat. He did not want to stay in the darkened area behind the curtain, lest the drow resume trying to make him sleep at a distance.

Even with being in the front, where there was more light, the amount of time his human travelling companion was taking lead Meetal to think of home, such as it was and how he had wanted to get away from the new brutal regime by hiding in the wilderness of the Walong Mountains.

Meetal’s eyes suddenly became heavy, so he shook his head, he must not day dream or that drow might sense an opening.

“You are a long way from home my kobold friend” came a voice that sounded like rushing waters from where the human normally sat.

Meetal almost jumped out of his skin. He looked up and there looking down at him with eyes that seared deep into him, was what looked like a human, but this human seemed to be emitting a bright white light.

Meetal dropped his jaw in horror; the drow had obviously found him and must be using astral projection that was the only explanation Meetal could think of.

“Fear not” the illuminated humanoid figure spoke, “For I have been doing what I can to assist, but I am with sorrow for I can not intervene for much longer. Oh my poor little kobold friend you and your human friend have no idea who you are dealing with all this time”

“I do not understand” Meetal was just able to squeak out.
“I know” the illuminated humanoid figure sighed in his terrifying voice, “All this calamity was set in motion long before you came across Brameana of the Ghetto in Faldon”

“You know of that” Meetal asked
“We know many things Meetal” the figure went on, “But we are hindered from openly intervening on behalf of humanity”
“You hold to The Sacred Law?” Meetal asked
“Not yours” the figure replied, “but something similar that was imposed”

Meetal looked up at the figure in awe and horror, What was this creature if it was not the drow

“You were so brave, or will be” the illuminated humanoid figure went on.

Then he was gone

Meetal found himself waking up with a start as the human called Howard was getting in. He remembered coming through the curtain and sipping down in front of the seat, but then nothing else although he seemed to have this feeling that something terrifying and wonderful had happened, but not what.

Meetal concluded that he had stupidly allowed himself to go to sleep, but somehow he had got away with it and the drow had not sensed him sleeping. What ever dream he must have had, it had faded and Meetal could not recount what it was.

The human called Howard had brought more of what they called, “burgers and fries” and had brought more of that bitter hot drink called coffee. A wise move if it could help Meetal stay awake.

As they were eating, the human called Howard looked at the item of jewellery he had on his wrist and then fiddled with the black box between them, saying it was almost time for a “News cast”

A female sounding voice came over the black box, talking about how a known enemy of the Lady High Troll was being hunted down on the road to Vermont. She also talked about how a place called “Mount Rush More” was to be reworked to remove the faces of human discredited leaders to be replaced with the new glorious rulers of all humans, the Lady High Troll and the imperial aid, Consort Vabalavich.

From Meetal’s human travelling companion’s reaction, there did not seem anything else apart from the first report that concerned him, and he informed Meetal that it was a clear run to a place called Portsmouth, where they would pick up a “highway” to Rochester.

Then they would have to hunt for this Mr Vee in that town so Meetal could pass on the message to him from his master.

After they finished eating, the human called Howard started up the horseless carriage and drove back onto the road called interstate ninety five.

Again, the horseless carriage drove along with no sign of interference from the drow or any one else. Also there were no check points still. The human called Howard told Meetal how he did not like it one bit and continued to wonder what the drow were planning.

Meetal was wondering that too. Maybe they had realised that Meetal was headed for somewhere and someone and would take action once they got there, but how?

“I’m afraid that I may be leading them to this Mr Vee?” Meetal whined
“That’s a possibility Meetal” the human called Howard replied
“But my mission is to see this Mr Vee so your world can be freed” Meetal added
“I don’t know what the answer is there Meetal, but I’m in too deep now to give up.” Human replied, then with his left arm reached for something behind him and placed it between him and Meetal.

It was a tube that spit’s death

“I have this in case of hijackers” the human told Meetal.
Meetal looked at the tube with a sense of fear and foreboding. He had a dread now that this mission might not end well. This whole mission had in fact been one of his most difficult, since being the only kobold around he could not blend in, and the one magic item that should have been useful, the cloak of invisibility had proved to be more of a liability because it’s use made Meetal more detectable to the drow and their detection of magic spells.

As the minutes past and they got nearer to their destination, the more Meetal had the sinking feeling that he might be walking into a drow trap, and also bringing it on this Mr Vee and his travelling companion.

His thoughts also went back to that female human and her youngling back in DC. Had they been caught and punished for putting Meetal up? There was no way to know.

They had to press on and see this through

The horseless carriage approached a town called Portsmouth, which the human said was state capital. Meetal thought this would mean checkpoints with bugbears and trolls and possibly drow or orcs. If there were any they did not show, and the horseless carriage turned onto what the human called Howard said was “You-ess four” and this would be the last major road up to Rochester.

Along this road they passed over a long bridge over what seemed another huge river. The human called Howard said this marked the boundary between New Hampshire and a place called Maine.

They skirted around a town called Dover on this long road, and on the horseless carriage travelled towards it’s final destination of the town of Rochester.

Finally they reached what human called Howards said was a local into the town of Rochester. As they travelled along the road Meetal noticed that it initially had trees on the left and dwellings on the right, and then the trees gave way to other buildings that were a mixture of dwellings or trading buildings.

Meetal pulled out the talisman of location and held it up so it would shine green. As they drove further into the town it still gave off the green light, indicating they were closing in on this Mr Vee he had been searching all this time.

On coming to the joining of a number of roads, the direction of the green glow indicated that Mr Vee, was now to the left, along a road, the human called Howard called Main Street.

The human got ready to steer the horseless carriage to go up the road, but Meetal asked him not to. If the drow were tracking this massive horseless carriage, maybe Meetal should now go on foot.

The human shook his head, “If they are tracking us down Meetal its best to make sure we have as many numbers on our side as possible.”

Meetal felt crest fallen. This was not really his travelling companion’s mission, and in fact he had been more than helpful in getting him this far, however knowing the drow as he did, Meetal felt that because of the lack of interference from the drow, they might be entering a death trap.

The human called Howard started to drive the horseless carriage slowly along the road as Meetal held up the talisman of location. They were only just passed the first side road, when the talisman indicated that Mr Vee was to the side of the road just outside a squat square building, just past a wooden pole carrying wires.

The human called Howard, pulled level with the building and brought his horseless carriage to a stop.

“You follow me out of my door” the human then said, as he opened the door and grabbed the tube that spits death.

Meetal watched as his travelling companion climbed out and then went to his door and lowered himself and all his belongings out of the horseless carriage.

His human travelling companion stood holding the tube that spits death while Meetal hid behind him while he peered round.

The talisman pointed at a red horseless carriage, just outside the building.

Inside sat four people. A human male that looked really old sat where they would if they were not driving this horseless carriage, a female adult human sat next to him A female driver of horseless carriages that would be unimaginable on Meetal’s world. In the back sat two young female humans.

Meetal looked around and sniffed the air. He could not smell drow, orc troll or bug bear, but then the drow were clever.

“It is him in that horseless carriage” Meetal whispered
“You mean that Jeep?” the human called Howard asked.
“Yes if that is what it is called”
“Stay behind me” the human called Howard instructed Meetal

The human started to walk up to it with his tube that spits death hanging loose by his side, Meetal following close behind.

The female adult spotted them and started the horseless carriage called a jeep up.

Without thinking Meetal ran out from behind waving his arms, screeching “Mr Vee, Mr Vee, Stop Stop My Master needs to talk with you please”

“Meetal” the human called Howard shouted.

The elderly human got the adult female to stop the horseless carriage and Meetal began to run towards it for the moment forgetting his earlier fears.

Suddenly there was the sound of lightning and the scent that Meetal recognised and feared.

Meetal turned round to see the drow he had seen in Washington DC materialise next to the horseless carriage belonging to his travelling companion.

The human called Howard also heard the drow materialise and turned to face him.

It was too late

Before the human called Howard could use his tube that spits death, the drow fired a bolt of energy into Meetal’s travelling companion, killing him instantly. The force then carried his lifeless body the distance that Meetal was tall.

“No!” screamed Meetal

The drow looked down at Meetal, “Consort Vabalavich was right” he sneered, “He suggested you were seeking someone important to the so called resistance and now thanks to the electronic tracking and listening devices and we had the humans plant on this vehicle I have them, very nice of you kobold point them out to us”

Meetal turned back to look at the horseless carriage and then at the drow. The drow was chanting some kind of spell and pointing at the horseless carriage. Everyone in the horseless carriage seemed to be gasping for breath. The drow was doing a suffocation spell, a speciality of drow assassins.

Meetal pulled out his dagger and ran towards the drow, or tried to as suddenly he found himself immobilised. The drow then used his other hand and with a force blast pushed Meetal away with such force that Meetal landed on his back. Luckily because the drow was using most of his concentration for the suffocation spell, the force was not lethal and Meetal was still alive, but the others would be dead soon if he did not act fast.

The drow was now fully concentrating on killing the humans in the horseless carriage called a Jeep by denying them air. The drow had obviously discounted Meetal as quite a lot of the races did with kobolds back on his world. While the drow’s attention was diverted, Meetal scurried over to the dead body of his travelling companion and grabbed the tube that spits death, pointed it at the drow, found the lever that he remembered activated these devices from when he had seen the gnome use a smaller one to kill the elf back in Washington DC.

For about a heartbeat, the drow seemed to notice what Meetal was about to do, but for the drow it was too late. Meetal pulled the lever on the tube that spits death and hoped it had been primed to fire.

BANG! – BANG!

As the tube that spits death sounded twice, Meetal felt it kick him in the chest, winding him and knocking him over. He looked up and looked to see if the drow was still there.

He saw no sign of the drow. Meetal looked around at the smaller horseless carriage that looked like a Jeep, he could see that the humans in there were just about recovering. He had stopped the drow just in time. He knelt down at the dead body of his travelling companion, closed the dead human’s eyes and wailed and wept. Yet another human killed because of Meetal’s failure that one time in the port of Faldon.

Meetal looked up and saw that the elderly male human had got out of the horseless carriage and was approaching him. Meetal stood up and took from his pack a small scroll that his master had asked to give to Mr Vee. Meetal then took his talisman and pointed it at the elderly human just to be sure, it glowed green.

The elderly human then produced an identical talisman and said “Snap!”
Meetal looked at him with confusion, he thought the standard human greeting was “hello”

As the Elderly man got closer he bent down to talk to Meetal “I am Mr Vee, so what did my old dear departed friend the Lord Low Troll leave me” he asked Meetal, “I know what some said about him, but I was sorry to hear of his demise” the elderly man added

“My master is not dead Mr Vee” Meetal choked out, “He asked me to bring you this” Meetal squeaked out as he handed the human called Mr Vee the small scroll; “he is offering to free your world of that abomination who calls herself the Lady High Troll” Meetal tearfully added.

The elderly human opened the scroll and glanced through it making no comment and put it away in his pocket. Then the human looked across at the dead body of Meetal’s travelling companion, “I’m sorry about your friend” he told Meetal as way of consolation
“He was a warrior more worthy than I” Meetal admitted, “I owe him so much”
“As do we all” the elderly human called Mr Vee muttered

“Who’s that?” A voice of a young female human came from behind, “He looks so cute”
Meetal turned around; one of the young females had got out of the horseless carriage called a jeep and had walked over to see who this elderly man had come to see. She looked a few cycles older than the other young female human still in the red horseless carriage, but still yet a few cycles off of full adulthood for a human.

The elderly human called Mr Vee turned round to speak to the young female, “Mazy go back to the Jeep”
“Aw, Mr Vee” the young human female protested, “I just wanted to see who the Voice of Hope said was being sent to find us” she said with an assertive tone

While to two were arguing, a certain aroma suddenly hit Meetal’s nose causing the hair on the back of his neck to rise.

The drow had not been killed; he had merely dematerialised away from danger due to a honed instinct and now he was re-materialising

Meetal spun round to see a dazed drow as he materialised, “You foolish runt” the drow said with venom and pointed his handin Meetal’s general direction, but it was not pointed at Meetal or even Mr Vee, but straight at the young human female.

It was clear that the drow was slightly disorientated from his emergency dematerialisation otherwise he would have been pointing at Meetal. It was clear he was readying a new deadly force blast.

Meetal had only a heartbeat to decide what to do and impulsively he used all his might and shoved the young female human out of the way.

Suddenly a searing pain ripped into him as he took the full force of the blast that had been aimed at the young female human and he was thrown to the ground.

Through the intense pain, he thought he heard what sounded like the sound of another tube that spits death roar out and the rush of flame that was similar to how the elf and the gnome went when they incinerated on death.

Meetal lay on the ground in agony. He knew he was dying, the force blast would have ruptured his insides and now he was coughing up blood. Meetal’s vision was fading and he thought he could feel that parts of his body were starting to heat up ready to burst into flame as Meetal died. Soon Meetal would be like the gnome he had killed that morning, nothing but ashes in the wind.

“Hang in there my little friend” he thought he heard someone say in a voice that sounded like many rushing waters that sounded familiar, but he could not place.

“Don’t worry about me” Meetal thought he heard his dead travelling companion tell him, “I am going to see my family again and we will be together again for all eternity”

Meetal was obviously hallucinating as his life ebbed away

As pain overwhelmed him he thought he felt himself being lifted up and his body being ripped apart, although that bit did not cause pain, or was their so much pain it did not matter. Meetal would be dead soon

And then it all went black.

. o O 0 O o .

Meetal opened his eyes

The surroundings seemed familiar, but no it couldn’t be

Was this place some kind of afterlife that the humans believed in?

Could the whole trip to the world of humans have been a dream?

Meetal tried to get up, but felt dizzy.

“Easy there Meetal” came a voice he recognised but seemed out of place if this was his world. It was the voce of that young female human who had called him “cute”, whatever that meant

A wet cloth was placed Meetal’s forehead.
“You need to rest Meetal” the young female human told him, “You’ve been unconscious for about three hours.”
“What?” Meetal mumbled

The young female human continued “Madron your master did not have enough herbs for the full instant healing potion the trolls have so he did what he could with other herbs he was growing and I have been watching over you since he treated to you” she explained and then added, “We almost lost you Meetal, you were almost bursting into flames when Mr Vee took us to your world.”
“Where is my master” Meetal weakly asked, and why do you call him Madron?”
“Madron is what he told us to call him; he said it was the name given to him by his mother but he abandoned it several years ago” the young human female answered, “Mr Vee and your master have been discussing things outside. Madron said after he had spoken with him he would be gathering something for this end of day meal you have”

Suddenly the implications of what this young human female was talking about finally registered in Meetal’s brain. Meetal came to his senses and grabbed the towel and forced himself to sit up in spite of the protestations from the young female.

Now he recognised the place, it was his master’s cave in the wilderness. Meetal was home!

Meetal then looked up into the face of the young female human he had saved. She was sitting by his bed, stripped to the waist in accordance with troll tradition for single females. He could tell she was slightly shivering in the coolness of the cave. She instantly folded her arms across her chest, briefly apologised and slowly forced her arms down beside her sides.

Meetal looked into the gloom and saw what must be the garments she wore on the upper part of her body and then back at her. From what he knew of humans, especially with one not quite into adulthood such a sight was not for anyone’s eyes and it distressed Meetal that she felt obliged to go against her culture. Had his master insisted on this? Surely he wouldn’t would he?

“You’re cold” Meetal uttered, “Please put that back on” he told the female human pointing at the rest of her clothes, “I will not mind”

“I’d like to Meetal but I will have to ask Madron, your master” the young female human replied, “When Mr Vee told me of troll customs I thought while I was staying here I ought to follow the troll customs so as not offend you or your master by wearing any tops as I am a single female”
“Please clothe yourself fully” Meetal asked the young female human, “That is a custom for troll females only. It is not for humans or even kobolds. I will not be offended. I do not wish to see you suffer the cold so as I know humans feel the cold more keenly than any other race”

The young female human folded her arms in front of her slender body again, “I will still need to ok this with Madron, as I’m staying here for a while as his guest I ought to fit in with his rules”
“As you wish” Meetal sighed and shook his head, “But what’s going on?” Meetal asked, “Why are you on my world?”

“You saved me” the young female human replied, “I helped Mr Vee with getting you here, So I asked if I could stay here and look after you, after all I did use to be the Spirit of Caring apparently and I would like to see the world where my natural father came from”

Meetal shook his head still in confusion, “What about you human family on your world”

“I lost all my human family in the attack on New York” the young female said with emotion choking her words as she tried to speak, “it was a miracle I survived at all”

“Was Mr Vee in New York looking for you” Meetal asked

The young human female nodded as a tear rolled down her face.

Just then they were interrupted by another familiar voice, it was Meetal’s master. “So you are on the road to recovery my dear friend”
“Yes master” Meetal replied, “For a moment when I awoke I thought I had died” Meetal then admitted

“You almost did” Meetal’s master answered, “But my other old friend Mr Vee decided he could not allow you to become as ash and so he used the orb to arrive just outside with the co-ordinates I gave in my missive. I may not be an elf physician but I know a trick or two”

“But Sky-guard” Meetal then asked
“Mr Vee assured me that for a season he has the means to temporarily as he put it, put sky guard into a maintenance cycle” Meetal’s master replied. Then Meetal’s master looked at the young human female, “Why did you undress so my child?” he asked her, “I never told you to”.

The young human female stood up and put her hands behind her back, “Mr Vee told me about your customs sir” she answered back, “Single females must topless, it is your law”

Meetal’s master interrupted the young human female, “So male trolls can assess if a potential mate can satisfactorily nurse any younglings they may have”

“Yes” the human female replied, “As I’m on your world and under your roof I am fully prepared to”

Meetal’s master interrupted a second time, “Those are troll customs my child, and if I were to impose them on a human female such as yourself against her own culture, as is from your part of the Realm of Mortals I would be breaking the Sacred Law against interfering with the affairs of humans”

“Sir?” the young human female asked

“Get your clothes back on my child” Meetal’s master said for clarification.

The young human female said a “Yes sir” and then went and put her top garments back on. Meetal could tell from her expression that she was more comfortable wearing them than not.

Then Meetal summoned his strength to speak to his master, “How did it go with Mr Vee?” he asked, “When will Earth be free of that abomination the Lady High Troll”

For an instance Meetal thought he saw a flash of anger across his master’s face. His master then deliberated for a moment, “That will be up to the humans my old friend; Mr Vee is back on his world to take my proposal to the humans. It is up to them now if they want to accept my terms”

..ooO0Ooo..

So my dear and gentle reader your following Meetal along this journey draws to a close. Meetal had considered himself villainous due to a perceived sin of omission, which was hardly fair as had been pointed out to him that sometimes we see actions we could have taken if only circumstances could allow us to, but those circumstances were never really there. For if he had tried to kill Brameana that night, he would not have got far.

So was Meetal a hero or a villain? Well to some he will always definitely be a villain. As we saw although Meetal had in the past done questionable things for his master, for he truly believed he was working for law and order. Many people believe that they are serving a noble purpose and resort to questionable means, but beware; the end can never really justify the means.

In this little adventure without saying as such, Meetal aspired to be heroic, and for a moment that almost cost him his life.

But, dear and gentle reader, this is hardly the end of this grand story, even if Meetal’s small but not insignificant part is for a while at the end. As in life there are many unanswered questions, such as who did that other drow, the one who helped, suspect this Consort Vabalavich was in league with?, And who was that figure in white? Mysteries for another time

One would like to go on, but that is for others to take up, as we come to then end of our slightly longer than normal tale of Meetal’s quest on the world of humans.

Good Evening

..ooO0Ooo..

This story arc, The War of the Realms,
will continue in the New Year in
The Mystical Realms Sagas,
Season Ten

Assuming I can get to do season ten

[GypsyGoth]

Great story Sticks, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading about Meetal, not the usual hero in my fantasy novels, that was part of his appeal.

And I loved the links, they helped explain the stuff I didn't understand and I learned some new facts. Plus the images broke up the text nicely.

I found the tale fun, exciting and sad at times.