Draconic Sphere Ω

Chapter 38: Demons, Eh?

It was very late when the party got back to the guildhall. There was almost no-one still out; just Francois and an orc lady smoking in a corner, with Wintergreen behind the bar – and Ezra sitting at the bar with her, dressed in plate armour.

"Where is Nightingale? Did you fail the mission?" demanded Ezra, wasting no time with pleasantries.

"Mission accomplished," said Dandelion, flashing the potion.

Ezra glanced at Wintergreen, who nodded. "Bar's closed, guys!" Wintergreen called.

"No last call, Winter?" said the orc lady.

"Not this time, Zindy," said Wintergreen. "If you want to pull yourself a beer, just leave the money behind the counter. Goodnight!"

*

Wintergreen led the group to Chekhov's apartment.

Inside, it looked more like a magical laboratory and a library than a living space. In one corner, behind a precarious stack of books, was a small bed. It seemed Chekhov's corpse had been placed there and a bedsheet pulled over.

Wintergreen opened a safe in the wall. Inside was a gauntlet embedded with six glowing gemstones, a golden ring inscribed with fiery elven letters, and a golden chalice adorned with jewels and holy symbols. Besides those was a small pile of gold coins, and a blue, glowing crystal that looked as if it contained a star. Wintergreen took the crystal and passed it to Ezra.

Ezra unceremoniously dropped the crystal into the potion. It quickly dissolved. The liquid began to glow with a brilliant light.

Ezra strode over to the bed, whipped off the sheet, and emptied the liquid onto Chekov's corpse.

A brilliant column of light shone down over Chekov. There was the distant sound of an angelic choir.

Brunhild shaded her eyes. It was hard to see. Something was happening.

All of a sudden, the light faded away. Brunhild blinked away the afterimages.

There was a person there. A... dwarf. A naked dwarf.

A male one, as it happened. Very male.

A confused, naked, male dwarf.

One who, apparently gathering what had happened, started grinning madly. "This is perfect! I need a mirror!"

Ezra tossed Chekhov some clothes. Chekhov ignored them and ran to the bathroom. "I look great! And young! Eighty-three is nothing for a dwarf! Woohoo!"

Chekhov ran back. "I feel great! I wanna go camping! This is amazing!"

"Put your clothes on and thank Wintergreen properly," said Ezra sternly.

Chekhov seemed to consider being contrarian, but Ezra's stare could have melted rocks. "Uh... thank you, Wintergreen. Thank you... like, a lot." Chekhov pulled on his underwear. "I guess Abraxas attacked?"

"That dragon? Yes," said Ezra sternly.

"Listen, Ezra, I..."

"You did not have a plan. You acted impulsively. You lost a dangerous artifact. Two of my friends died because of you."

Chekhov stammered, then hung his head.

"You will listen to me now," said Ezra. "We have determined that there is only one method to reliably prevent Andromalius from subjecting us to a fate worse than death. You will hate this method. You will listen to Wintergreen explain it. You will hate it, you will complain about it for up to one minute, and then you will do it. You will not put any more lives in danger with any hare-brained military schemes. You will not look for new loopholes. If you so much as quibble with a single part of what I just said," Ezra drew a glowing sword, "I will send you right back to where you just came from."

*

The next part went almost exactly as Ezra had outlined. Chekhov got halfway into the task of using Lacrie's Draconic Sphere on the new document before muttering to himself about "legal ambiguities". Ezra hacked a chair into two halves.

"Only joking, only joking," said Chekhov, before returning to his work.

When Chekhov was done, Wintergreen called Andromalius into the room. Andromalius narrowed his eyes dangerously at Chekhov. "Look!" cried Wintergreen, passing Andromalius the document.

Andromalius frowned and read it. His expression quickly turned to shock. "This is... impossible," he said. "You were lying. I know you were lying."

"Go clean the toilets, Andromalius," said Chekhov. "And don't delay. You know who I am."

"All the legions of hell together couldn't torture you the way you deserve," said Andromalius, walking out in slow, deliberate stomps. "I will have to seek new power and reinvent myself as a devil to even conceive of an appropriate torment." Andromalius finally left the room, but was still audible through the door.

"If I get my way, they will need to invent new words to describe the horror I will subject you to..."

At last, Andromalius' words faded out into an unintelligible rumbling.

Chekhov grinned weakly. "Demons, eh?"