Polynya

“Ha! You already said that, Liz.” The goblin returns to his tray of food and greedily wolfs down another dragon wing. “From what I recall, you were the first one to die, or was it FeeTwix?”

She turns to him and her eyes narrow. “Choose your next words carefully.”

“Yeah? Well fick you too.” He waves his hands in the air, tossing lemon pepper sauce onto the wall. “Any-fickin’-hoo, Tammy will get hers, as soon as I get mine.” He pops another dragon wing in his mouth. “And boy fick, are these good! I’m telling you guys, this place has one helluva chef!”

“Riptak jatla blanktakh boomboom morrha.”

“My mother wasn’t a whore, at least on the weekdays, and a prerequisite for being a goblin is to be greedy and filthy, as I’ve told you. That said, I’m far from stupid, Liz, and seriously, if you’re that fickin’ mad at Tammy, why don’t you walk your scaly ass down to their guild, let yourself back in, and again have your ass handed to you by someone practically half your level.”

Hiccup’s platter of dragon wings flips up into the air, scattering the sauce and the food onto the bed. A short ax appears in his hand and he points it at Zaena.

They hold each other’s gaze for a moment and she’s the first to look away.

Zaena huffs, her eyes turning to little slits. Hiccup starts picking his wings off the bed and eating them. “Got to eat them while they’re hot,” he reminds Ryuk.

FeeTwix: You want to take the lead or should I?

Ryuk: I got it.

Skill level up!

Skill: Inspire Others

Level Two: By inspiring others, you induce them to follow your orders. Higher levels allow for manipulation of enemies and random strangers.

Requirements: LUCK > 8

“There are a number of things that need to be discussed,” Ryuk tells his guildmates, “and before we get to Tamana, and what happened, I’d like to share with you what I witnessed in the basement of the Shinigami’s guildhall. I think it’d be best to start there.”

“I was going to ask about that,” FeeTwix says, his eyes blue as ever.

“It was a door.”

“A door?” Hiccup uses his clawed finger to scoop a hunk of lemon pepper sauce off his chest armor. He sticks the finger in his mouth and sucks on it for a moment. From there, his finger goes into his nose, where he digs around briefly, finds something worth examining, examines it, considers eating it, reconsiders, and flicks it in Zaena’s direction.

“It was a door to another dimension, a portal of sorts.”

“The room was?” Zaena asks.

“No, the room was empty; the door was in the center of the room. Imagine a door right here in front of us.” Ryuk points at an empty space. “The door was open, which is why I could sense so much algomagic. Inside was a completely empty void filled with stars. That’s not all … a voice spoke to me from inside this space.”

Hiccup’s eyes go wide. “Gee fick, Marbles, don’t scare me this late at night!”

“What did the voice say?” asks the Swede.

“It beckoned me forward, asked me to enter the space.”

“For fick’s sake, that’s the last thing I would have done.” Hiccup starts biting the nails of his one good hand. “Fick, I hate ghosts.”

“Don’t worry, Hiccup, I’ll protect you,” FeeTwix offers.

“Yeah? Good. At least someone cares.”

“I don’t know if it was a ghost or not,” Ryuk says. “I couldn’t see it completely, but what I could see looked like a giant snake that for some reason – and this may be my imagination here – she seemed human.”

“The snake was a woman?” Hiccup nods to Zaena. “Everyone knows female snakes are especially evil. Just look at Liz over there. She’s practically half-snake!”

FeeTwix steps in front of Zaena and stops her from lodging one of her throwing knives in the goblin’s throat. “Relax, babe,” he says. “We’re all upset right now in our own ways. Hiccup,” he turns to the goblin, “keep your bullshit to a minimum. Otherwise, I’ll equip the haunted doll I have in my inventory list and let her play with you.”

The color drains from Hiccup’s face. “That doesn’t sound like a good type of play.”

“Believe me, it isn’t.”

After his guildmates have settled, Ryuk continues. “The woman used her power to pull me towards her. I fired a black marble at the doorframe just in time and the door slammed shut. That wasn’t the end of it. As soon as it shut, it was like a hurricane had spawned in the middle of the room or something. Tiles were flying and I barely, barely made it out in time.”

“And then you ran up the stairs and found us battling the final mage,” adds FeeTwix.

“That’s exactly what happened.”

Hiccup grimaces. “And then that bitch Tammy stabbed us all in the back. What, Marbles? I can’t call her a bitch now? Don’t cringe at me!”

“You most definitely can,” Zaena seethes, “and I will call her much worse when I stand over her lifeless corpse.”