Neverquest – Part 143

Characters: Vic, Eric, Cain
Location: A log cabin, somewhere in the forest
Time: Day 5 – Late morning

“Oh, hell no,” Cain said. He had been pacing in the cage for almost an hour now. “I didn’t come this far to be killed by a couple of hillbilly chicks.”

“I believe the proper term is ‘urban-impaired,’” Eric said.

“Shut up, Elf boy.”

“Hey, I’m just glad you got more meat in your pinky finger than I got in my whole body.”

Cain’s eyes narrowed. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, after they finish chowing down on a furball like you, I’ll just pale in comparison.”

“That’s only because you’re as pale as the ass of a Cleric!”

“You watch your mouth!”

“Why the hell should I? It’s a Cleric that got us into this mess.” He dug his fist into the palm of his other hand. “If I ever see that Aisha again, I’ll…”

“Bear wrestle her toe? Scissor cut her tongue? Maybe you can fence her eyelashes.”

“You’re not helping the cause, Elf.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for impeding on the mighty Dwarf’s ability to better this situation for any of us.” He held out his hands. “Please, go ahead, good sir. Continue with your great plan of escape.”

“Well…I haven’t come up with one yet.”

“Maybe that excess body hair is preventing any ideas from leaving your head.”

By instinct, Cain reached for his axe. “Or maybe I’ll spend the last few hours of my life chopping off your—hey, I still got my axe.”

“Egads, you’re right!” Eric cried out, grabbing his trusty bow. “In the haste to cook us, these foolish pre-colonial Women must have forgotten to strip us of our weapons.”

“I don’t think I’d want them stripping anything from us.”

“Well, come on. We can use our weapons to cut through the bars.”

“…Hold on, guys,” Vic said. “We’re in a primitive cage, dangling above a boiling cauldron of who-knows-what. If we try to escape, the only thing we’re going to accomplish is a quicker death for us all.”

“Ugh…” Eric sank to the cage floor. “How come everyone wants to eat us anyway?”

“We must’ve gotten the short end of the stick.”

Cain locked his sights on Vic. “Eh? Is that a Dwarf joke?”

“No… I mean, when we left them, at least the rest of the guys had Women for protection. Siarra, Kim, Kendira…”

“And we got stuck with that bitch, Aisha.”

“She’s not a bitch, Cain!” Eric snapped. “It was your big mouth that forced her to do what she did.”

“Oh, yeah. I was just making small talk with her and I thought to myself, ‘Hey, you good-looking stud, why don’t you ask the big bimbo Cleric how many men it takes to fill a scepter. She’s blonde, so she’s sure to try it out for herself.’”

“Now I know you’re not making fun of blonds, Beardy McScruff.”

“And what if I was, Blondielocks?”

Vic held up his hand. “Wait… Someone’s coming.”

“What do we do?”

“Oh, I know!” Eric said. “Follow my lead.”

A few seconds later, the front door to the cabin opened, spilling the embers of the late morning sun onto the floor, and the dark-haired country girl stepped inside. She was carrying a laundry basket, so she used her hip to shut the door and set the basket on the table.

“Mmm, somethin’ smells good,” she said. Then she strolled into the kitchen and stirred the cooking pot. “I haven’t had me a good Man-stew in a long time, I reckon.” She started humming to herself and then glanced into the cage, which was eye-level with her now. “Why, what’s this? Are y’all playing possum with me?”

Vic, Eric, and Cain were all on their backs, eyes closed, pretending to be dead.

“That’s not funny. Accordin’ to this here cookin’ book, How to Cook Men—and Eat Them Too, y’all ain’t supposed to be dead ‘til after you been in the cookin’ pot for at least five minutes.”

Cain and Eric snickered.

“Oh, Brenda’s gawna kill me when she finds out…” She prodded the cage with her index finger. “Come on, little guys. Y’all gotta wake up so I can cook you.”

“We can’t,” Cain said, keeping his eyes closed and his body still. “We’re dead.”

“Aw, shucks! How come every critter I come near ends up dead? No wonder Brenda won’t let me have a pet no more…” She turned back to the cooking pot. “All I wanted was a little taste of the last one. Poor little doggy.”

Still on the cage floor, Eric and Cain looked at each other and shrugged. Vic sat up.

“What are you doing?” Cain hissed at him. “Get back down. This girl’s got fewer brains than an eggplant, but I think she’ll notice if you’re standing up.”

“I want to see if she has the key on her.”

“Get down!”

Cain grabbed Vic’s ankles and pulled him down just as the country girl peeked in the cage again.

“Well, I reckon I ougtha tell Brenda her lunch is dead,” she said. “She won’t be very happy about this.”

They waited until they heard her footsteps getting softer and the front door close before they lifted their heads.

Vic’s mouth was still agape over what had happened. “…I guess size doesn’t mean everything.”

“Not when you’re comparing a body to one’s brain,” Eric said. “I guess we now know how Men have survived for a thousand years in this world.”

“I almost feel sorry for her.”

“Don’t,” Cain said. “She was going to eat us.”

“And probably our little dog, too,” Eric added.

Vic shook his head. “Well, no matter. She didn’t have the key on her.”

“Dude, forget the key,” Cain said. “We can use my axe to escape.”

“Have you forgotten about the boiling cauldron below us?”

“Yeah, I must have let our imminent doom escape my mind.” He spit. “Of course I remember the cauldron. But unless you think the girls are stupid enough to let us go, I don’t see any other way out of this.”

“I don’t know,” Eric said. “Maybe we can convince them that we’re magical genies and will each grant them a wish for our freedom.”

“That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“And that was the dumbest girl I’ve ever met.”

“He’s got a point,” Vic said.

Cain grabbed his axe again. “We’re not telling them that we’re genies. They already think we’re dead and that’s good enough.”

“Dead!?” came a voice from outside the cabin. Then the door was busted in and the blonde country girl stormed into the kitchen, looking down at Cain with an axe in his hand. “Do these look ‘dead’ to you, Mel?”

“I reckon they don’t,” the brunette said. “But I coulda swore…”

“You swear too much, Mel. You’re just like Ma.”

“Are not!”

“Are too!”

“Silence!” Eric said, rising to his feet. He walked to the side of the cage facing the girls and waved his arms in mystical ways. “We are magical genies who have—”

“What kind of fools do you take us for?” the blonde asked. “Everyone knows genies ain’t real.”

Eric paused for a couple of seconds and then began waving his arms again. “We are magical fairies who—”

“Fairies have wings.”

“Yeah, you ain’t no fairies,” Mel said. “I know. I seen them before.”

Eric lowered his arms. “Leprechauns?”

“Nope.”

“Pixies? Oh, can we be pixies?”

“No.”

“Dude, stop insulting our masculinity,” Cain said. Then he turned to the girls. “We are muscle-bound superheroes.”

“I don’t believe any one of you,” the blonde said. “Except…you.” She pointed at Vic, who was trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible in the corner of the cage. But now all eyes were on him. “I recognize your sword. You’re a Paladin, ain’tcha?”

“A…a Knight, actually,” Vic said.

“Yeah, I heard of them!” Mel said. “Them Knights got some kind of honor code. Like they can’t tell a lie to save their life or something.”

The blonde nodded. “Right you are, sis.” She wrapped her fingers around the bars of the cage. “Come, Knight. Tell us who you are and maybe you won’t have to make friends with our bellies.”

Eric and Cain stared at Vic.

“…Dude,” Cain said. “Don’t screw this up.”

“Tell them we’re pixies!” Eric said.

Slowly rising to his feet, Vic joined his friends at the side of the cage and looked up at the girls. Even at eye-level, they were a sight to behold. Somehow, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to his size in this world….

“Go on and tell them,” Eric said.

“Yes,” the blonde smiled. She was missing two teeth. “Tell us.”

Vic cleared his throat. “W-we…um…”

“Spit it out already. I hate when my lunch gets cold.”

He tried again. “We…we come from a world not unlike this one, but men and women are all the same size, you see. Well, actually, men tend to be a little bigger on average, but we’re all treated the same. And me and my friends here were playing this game called Neverquest—which is this world—but one of our friend’s friend’s sort-of-friend-but-really-arch-enemy trapped us here. Only she’s trapped her now, too. So we were looking for a way home and we can across this young mage named Kendira who told us a story about a sacred beetle that sounded like a rip-off of something from our own world, but we were all too scared to notice at the time and we agreed to go in search of this thing in order to stop Gena, who was our friend’s friend’s sort-of-friend-but-really-arch-enemy, who trapped us here. So we teamed up with this Cleric, Sister Aisha, and split into two groups. We were supposed to do battle with the nefarious Terragolem of the Enchanted Forest, but before we could locate him, we found ourselves stuffed inside Aisha’s scepter, hurled down the side of a canyon, and were quickly washed downstream by the angry current. When we were at least freed, it was by the hands of Joan and Raven, who were two girls we knew from high school who also must have been trapped in the game. We joined up with them, but we were attacked by ninjas, who killed Raven and forced Joan to eat us. Fortunately, we escaped and built a raft, which we used to sail further downstream and wound up here, where we hoped to find just a little help because we have no clue where we are or if we’re ever going to find our way home again, so why don’t you help us already?”

They all continued to stare.

“…Put in the veggies, sis,” the blonde said. “We’re gonna have us a heaping helping of Man-stew. Mm, mm.”

“No, wait!” Vic said.

“What?”

He looked at his friends and then back at the girls. “We…are pixies. And now that you’ve caught us, we must grant you three wishes.” He hung his head. “And that is the truth.”

The girls’ eyes lit up.