Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 34. Wizards are Dicks

Deep beneath what was left of Hawk Mountain, the wizard was practicing gratitude. Yes, he was technically trapped in a crystalline carbon crypt until he died an agonizing death from dehydration, but, considering the circumstances, there was still a lot to be thankful for:

1. He was trapped under something transparent, which allowed him to see by the light of the remaining pockets of lava and his iPhone 5S (the bigger models tended to clunk around in his robe pockets too much.) He had slowly worked the phone free from his pocket and was able to look down at the phone and play Fruit Ninja, for at least a couple hours, to pass the time and to help him forget the shame of having peed himself in fear when the diamond dropped.

2. A giant diamond was the only thing strong enough to protect him from the cave-in. Otherwise he would have been one squished wizard.

3. His connection to the Fox God's marble allowed him the ability to control any technology near him. And golems were a form of dwarven technology.

These golems had fallen through the floor of the showroom above the cavern in a twisted mass of elephantine action figures. The wizard telepathically bid them to stand and use their hands to shovel out the rubble from around the diamond as best they could. Now the golems were bent over in a circle with their hands dug under the edge of the gem that imprisoned Aloe Vera.

If golems could breathe they would have all taken a deep breath. If golems could speak they would have grunted with the effort. But they couldn't, so they didn't, they just all squatted down and deadlifted that goddamned diamond up and off of the piss soaked wizard.

Aloe rolled out from under the diamond, exposing his surprisingly shapely legs to the eternally demure golems as the wet end of his robe bunched up around them, stood up, and stretched. He silently commanded the golems to turn the diamond on its side and begin to spin it.

The entire diamond became a drill that the wizard casually walked behind with his hands clasped haughtily behind his back. The glowing lava lamp golem of magic glass walked behind the wizard, leaning over him and holding out his arms to shield him from any falling debris.

There were thirty golems in total, which is a lot of golems, but even still they made slow progress. It ended up taking three days to drill out of the mountain. The wizard never took a break, he never went to sleep. He stopped only to get down on his hands and knees and drink from a puddle on day two. Other than that, he walked behind the diamond, and he muttered to himself, which you couldn't even hear over the constant rumble of the spinning diamond drill.

On the morning of day four, they burst through the side of the mountain, sending an agitated wake of vultures screaming from the corpse of the decapitated dire bear.

The team of golems set the diamond down flat next to the bear, and Aloe commanded the lava lamp golem to lift him up on top of the diamond. The vultures, famished because they had lost their source of mole corpses AGAIN , quickly returned to resume tearing strips of stinking meat from the headless bear. Aloe commanded the golems to stand in a single line, arms crossed, in front of the diamond, and snapped his fingers to summon Destroyer, his faithful steed, to the scene.

Because Destroyer had not been dissipated into a pure equine spirit and been sucked back up into the stone nostrils of his Horse God, he had known that the wizard had survived the mountain's collapse, and he had stood dutifully on the other side of the mountain, waiting for Aloe to either reappear or die. The wizard had, much to Destroyer's skillfully hidden chagrin, reappeared.

"Destroyer I need you to climb to the top of this diamond with me!" the wizard yelled down to Destroyer. Aloe was covered in dust and bruises, noticeably thinner, and too exhausted to be properly rude to Destroyer, whom he addressed by his given name instead of calling him a dumb fucking horse.

"Of course," said Destroyer, who trudged up the side of the diamond.

The wizard was busy using the dregs of his magical power to manifest a remote control drone. When Destroyer reached the top of the diamond, Aloe climbed astride him and smiled, sending the drone off to take like a million pictures of the wizard, who sat astride his huge beautiful horse, on top of a giant diamond, next to a cyclopean, decapitated dire bear covered thick as ticks with croaking, ravenous vultures, behind a line of scowling golems, including one made of magic glass and filled with lava, who the wizard bid to backflip while he yanked on Destroyer's reins and shouted at the horse to stand up on his hind legs.

After centuries of using the marbles to subjugate a million multiverses, Aloe had finally done it. He finally had the perfect album cover.

Spent, and satisfied, the wizard's exhausted, bloodshot eyes rolled back into his head and he slid off a startled Destroyer and tumbled down the diamond like a rag doll.