By the time everybody was resurrected, the dark clouds had given way to the setting sun, burning a red hole in the horizon. Kim stood knee-deep in the fountain, trying to push the marble statue she had cracked with her head back in place. The rest of the guys stood on the brim of the fountain, watching her, powerless to do anything helpful. Siarra, Malkav, and Kendira were the only ones not by the fountain; the first two sitting and standing, respectively, in the wet grass, and the latter close by, wringing out the water from her robe. The Cleric had left to get some water, but she was on her way back with a pitcher in each hand.
Siarra hugged her knees to her chest. “At least it’s only a game…”
“That we can’t seem to get out of,” Malkav added. It was a point probably best not bringing up.
“I don’t know what Gena did, but it’s made all this dangerously real.”
Malkav tried again to shut off his game helmet, but to no avail. They had all been trying the same for over an hour, until Kendira and the Cleric began giving them strange looks for why they were all rubbing their own heads. It was like their subconscious (their conscious selves in the real world) had been completely extracted from their bodies, leaving them stranded in this fantasy land.
“Do you know anything about that imp?” Siarra asked Malkav. “Gena said she had some help from him.”
“Yeah… That was Narsis. He used to be one of us before he…ratted us out.”
“For what?”
“Things that cannot be discussed with outsiders. You understand.”
“I understand you’re a dork,” Siarra rolled her eyes and looked again to the sunset. “Well, I guess we won’t be going to school tomorrow.”
“What a shame.”
“Yeah, I know you’re crying inside.”
Kendira finished wringing out her robe and released the cloth, letting it fan back to her feet. “I don’t understand it… I thought for sure the Necromancer was here for the head of the sacred beetle.”
“Sacred beetle?” Malkav echoed.
Kendira nodded, putting her hands to the collar of her robe and slightly lowering it, revealing a necklace with the head of a golden beetle hanging above her breast. “I’ll tell you the tale that Master Luna has told me many times… It begins many, many centuries ago, when the races of Men and Women were equal—in power, in strength, and in size. Together they shared this land in what you might call a utopian ideology. It was back then that Women looked to the aid of Men for reproduction and comfort and protection. Women were never so powerful. They brought life into this world, but it came at a steep price—namely, that their focus was so much on their insides that their outsides became weak. They could not perform hard labor. For that, they needed Men, who could provide food, shelter, and as civilization grew, money.”
Kim had just finished repairing the fountain and the rest of the team gathered around Kendira in a half-circle, listening to the same tale that they heard every time they started the game. The Cleric joined them and passed out fresh glasses of water.
Kendira paid no mind to the latecomers. “…Not all Women liked the old ways. Many were betrayed by Men—abused, beaten, raped, left alone and in desperation. But there was nobody to protect them, for the leader of the kingdom was a terrible tyrant known as a ‘king’—a term long since abandoned by the race of Women. This king had many Women, whom he freely bred with for pleasure and power. And unto his children, he would place gifts and blessings, land and money…as long as they were male. If they were female, he had them beheaded, for fear that they would ‘marry’—another long since abandoned term that describes a male and female who wish to torture each other for life and call it love—outside of the family. And since Men ruled in those days, though not nearly as cruelly as Women today, the man would be able to seize the king’s property through his daughter. …That was what happened to the king’s first daughter, a young and spirited lady known as Sorena. She was ruined—corrupted, even—by the man pretended to love her for her father’s wealth. In time, the man grew more powerful than the king and had him killed, taking over the land that rightfully belonged to Sorena. But unlike the king before him, he refused to share his fortune. He had many Women and children, both male and female, that he killed in turn, for fear that they were grow jealous the way he had. The only one he kept alive was Sorena, his first love, and she was but a trophy to him, like so many Women were to so many Men…”
“Over time, Sorena grew more and more enraged, not just with her villainous husband, but Men in general. She watched as they ate through her castle home, wasted away her father’s wealth, and turned the Women of the kingdom into mere sex objects with value no higher than a leg of chicken. …That’s when Sorena vowed to have her revenge. She escaped, with the aid and accompaniment of many other disgruntled Women, and formed a dark secret alliance in the land that were call Forsaken today. There, with the power of ancient clairvoyants, she forged a sacred beetle that contained the four elements of the earth, each working in perfect harmony with the others to ensure survival, to regain the balance lost by the race of Men. With this and her army of Women, she marched against the former kingdom of Ellewyn, to defeat her husband and end his reign of evil forever… She did. But her hunger didn’t end there. She continued on, like a siren on the dark shores, and destroyed every Man she came across—human, child, or god. The beetle had consumed her. The clairvoyants were pulling Sorena’s strings, although their reason for hating Men are unknown, even to this day…”
“Sorena, now called the Dark Lady Sorena, never did achieve balance among the races. For the rest of her days, she looked at Men with scorn and hatred, seeing only her husband’s face looking back at her. She saw Men as lesser and soon they began to become lesser, in both size and number. Their need to Women began to shrink as well. It soon became obvious to Women that Men were only need to protect them from other Women… Women alone, though, could survive quite well. Soon Women were able to reproduce on their own and Men became little more than a nuisance on Earth. If they hadn’t found a way to reproduce asexually too, they wouldn’t be here today.”
“Holy shit,” Isaac yawned. “Doesn’t this chick have a fast forward button?”
Siarra was a little bored as well. “Yeah, come on, Kendira. We know the story behind the sacred beetle… Except for Malkav, but he’s a newb.”
“I am not! I’m a Rogue…”
“…Then as you know,” Kendira continued, “Sorena was killed by her madness. It was then, by will of the goddesses, that the beetle be broken into five separate pieces and spread across the lands of Neverquest. The four pieces of the beetle’s body formed each of their corresponding elements—air, water, fire, and earth. The fifth, the head of the battle that I hold here, is the most sacred of all the pieces. It, like the head of any creature, gives life, balance, and sense to an otherwise chaotic world. For you see, our very world, the world that you see before you now, is held together by the threads of this beetle… Without the head, Earth would be a mad torrent of hurricanes and floods, bursting with volcanoes and earthquakes, until all life ceased to exist… Then the Forsaken would rule again.” She paused for a moment. “Master Luna has guarded the head of the beetle for as long as I can remember, but for all her cosmic power, even she refuses to let it leave the Abbey. Instead, she entrusts me with it when she is gone—for she fears the creatures of the Forsaken outside these comforting walls, as do we all. …But I fear, even here, the beetle is no longer safe… The Necromancer will be back before long, realizing what she left behind. Even worse, I fear, is that Sorena’s soul is returning to our world.” Slowly, Kendira pulled the necklace over her head. “…You may wonder why Ellewyn, a land run exclusively by females, fears the reincarnation of Sorena. Though it’s true that she supports the leadership of Women, she would refuse to give Men even the most basic right to live. No creature deserves punishment that terrible. That is why we cannot let Sorena rule again. …Like the old concept of marriage, we are now bound to our fate…”
She laid the necklace down on a tree stump in the center of the circle, stepping back for all eyes to gaze upon its splendor. It glittered, a melted gold, in the dying sun’s rays.
“What are we going to do with it?” Malkav asked.
“We could use it against Sorena!” Mundo suggested. “Her power is weak. The beetle’s is strong. With it, we could destroy her!”
“You can’t wield it, idiot,” Siarra said. “It only answers to Sorena.”
Mundo turned his fiery gaze upon her. “And what would a Sorceress know of this matter?”
Siarra pulled out her staff, raised it over Mundo’s head, and then proceeded to whack him numerous times into the earth like a hammer striking a nail. He eventually fell unconscious.
“In either case, my granddaughter is right,” Grandpa said, puffing his pipe. “We cannot use it.”
“Who asked you, old man?” Isaac said. “You’ve been high on that shit for over an hour. You don’t know what’s going on.”
“Silence, I am a great Wizard!”
“…Then we have only one choice,” Kim said. “The beetle must be destroyed.”
Always the reckless fool, Cain rose and gripped his axe. “Then what are we waiting for?” He charged at the beetle, as if it was going to fly away or something, and struck it with the blade of his axe. But he was struck back by a sparking gold beam that deflected and his blow and knocked him to the ground.
All fingers pointed at him and laughed.
“What a dumb ass,” Eric said.
“I’m getting kind of sick reviving you all,” the Cleric sighed, putting one hand on Mundo, the other on Cain, and casting her revival spell.
“We cannot destroy the beetle,” Kendira continued. “It’s the keystone of our whole world. Without it, we don’t exist… Although I hate to say this, I must agree with Mundo. The only thing that was able to defeat Sorena the first time was her own madness—the madness infused within the beetle. If we could recover the remaining four pieces of the beetle’s shell, there’s a chance that we’d be able to defeat Sorena once and for all.”
“And if we fail?” Eric asked. “What happens when Sorena takes back what is hers?”
“We cannot fail,” Kendira said. “One of us must take the beetle, recover the missing pieces, and use Sorena’s own power against her. Only then can piece be returned.”
“Oh, oh!” Eric said, waving his arm in the air. “Pick me, pick me!”
Cain leaped to his feet. “I will be dead before I see the beetle in the hands of an Elf!”
“Dude, I’ve only been an Elf for, like, an hour!”
Suddenly, the council of misfits broke into a heated argument that only grew louder and more violent by the moment; the loudest and most violent moment being when Siarra became bringing her staff down on more heads, crushing the guys one by one. The Cleric was kept busy trying to revive them all. Only Malkav stayed quiet, hiding in the shadows as always. Grandpa watched him with a keen eye between the gray smoke of his pipe.
“We’ve had this date since the beginning!” Cain roared at Eric, chopping him with his axe.
Grandpa got hit by a stray body—most likely that of Quentin—which knocked the pipe from his lips. Enraged, he rose to his mighty six-inch height and shook his hands. “ENOUGH! You fools are the most foolish fools I have ever seen!”
Malkav remained in the shadows, breathing rapidly. He knew what he must do. Quietly, amongst all the pandemonium, he stood up. “I will take it…” All eyes now turned to him. “…I will take the beetle. I will defeat Sorena.”
Then there was silence. They stared at him, the powerful expression on his face, the determination in his eyes, the steady hold of his knees… And then they all burst out laughing.
Giantess World
