The Wizard

Øregård

It took seven trips up and down the stairs to get all his body parts into the lab. Mevner was covered in thick gooey dark green blood. He anatomically arranged Øregård's pieces on the large work table in the middle of Melock's lighthouse laboratory. 

Grimble assembled pliers, metal plates, wire, and strips of canvas. He started a fire, filled the cauldron with water, and retrieved what was left of a book on monster construction from Melock's bedroom. Its spine was blackened but Grimble remembered it. He propped it on a small stool and flipped through the pages.

"We should start by reattaching the head to the torso, then the right arm." 

Tasks far easier said than done; it was approaching the wee hours of the morning before they finished. Connecting all the torn arteries and nerves was a real challenge. They stapled muscles and stitched the flesh back in place, used plates and bolts to connect bones back together, and got one arm mostly reassembled. 

"You're a natural, my talented new friend." 

It was Grimble who handled the intricate work. Mevner bolted and stapled after Grimble connected functional body structures. The sticky, smelly, gunky business stained everything and everyone a blackish green. It was surprising just how much liquid the lifeless body still contained. 

"You've taught me more about anatomy that I ever dreamed of knowing. You're an amazing surgeon, a true master."

Grimble ignored the compliment. "Now, put your ring on his finger." 

Mevner did. And that very moment Øregård's eyes blinked. 

"Whoa! Did you see that?"

By dawn they had his torso back together, intestines shorter but complete, and the upper half of one leg reattached. 

Mevner sat in a chair and the moment he fell asleep his astral projection stood up and took the next shift, working away with Grimble. The thrill of assembling such a huge monster excited the gnome tinkerer far too much to even consider sleep. This was his true calling, after all, his passion. 

By midday, Mevner was awake again and back at it. They both ate and continued to work. Femurs bolted together, thigh muscles melted back into shape, knees painstakingly reconstructed, fibula, tibia, tarsals, metatarsals, and phalanges all carefully put back into place. Øregård's hulk of a body was beginning to take shape again.

"He's breathing. Look." 

"Give him some of your healing potions."

Mevner prepared a large cylinder full of an odd smelling mixture. Melock's lab was a literal pharmacy of magical ingredients. He poured some into Øregård's mouth and massaged it down his throat. 

He began breathing heavily. His large barrelled chest heaved up and down. 

"I told you he was alive! I knew we could put him back together!" Grimble was delighted with their progress. "Give him more. That old dragon should have known better. You can't just leave an ogre laying around. You never know who might come along and put him back together." 

Mevner gave him another drink and this time Øregård swallowed. 

"More." The creature's throaty request echoed off the stone walls.

"Øregård, you're alive!"

"More."

Mevner gave him the whole batch. "I'll make another batch."

"More."

Øregård didn't move, didn't look around, but he had spoken. His crudely assembled wreck of a self laid there struggling to pull air in and push it back out of his damaged lungs.

After 72 straight hours of surgical assembly, healing spells, and potion making, Grimble and Mevner both fell into a long sleep. The bandaged, stitched, stapled, and reassembled ogre slept on the table warmed by the fire. 

"Ozgold...Mage Ozgold."

The sudden sound of a deep gruff voice formally calling his name shook Mevner from sleep. Sitting up with legs dangling off the table was a green mummified monster with black shaggy hair. He attempted to stand up and stretched to his full nine feet of height. Then his left leg snapped under his weight and broke in half. He fell back onto the table with a grunt.

"Øregård!" Mevner ran to him and helped lift his dangling bleeding leg. 

More cutting, stitching, bolting, and stapling followed. Grimble rebuilt the torn and damaged leg a second time. 

"When all this scar tissue heals you're going to be unbreakable my old friend." The gnome whispered into the giant's ear. 

"Mr. Grimble Grumble, the dragon." A large green arm lifted off the table and made a fist. 

"Yes, yes, we know about Luhng's escape, old friend."

"Redwing. Redwing released the dragon. Hex left before he came, but she knew." 

"What do you mean she knew?" Mevner interjected. 

"She collected all her belongings and rummaged through his room, then took all their things and vanished. I asked her to stop. She looked at me and said she was sorry. She knew Redwing was coming. Where is the Wizard? Where is Melock?"

"Melock is dead, old friend." 

The moment Grimble said this, the ogre went into a rage. He smashed his arms on the table and made to get up again. 

"Wait, Øregård, you have to rest." Mevner pushed him back down. 

"Who killed the Wizard?" The bulgy blue eyes of the monster welled as he ground his big square teeth together. 

"It was Nicholas. I tried to stop him and he did this to me." Mevner raised his scarred hands, which only seemed to upset Øregård further. 

"I will kill Redwing. And take the dragon's head!" He punched the table again and again and again.