Chapter 11: Strange Things Are Afoot
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      "Now you have a good time, honey."
      "I will, mommy!"
      "Be back before dinner," the mother told her son.
      "I will," the boy replied.  "Oh, and mommy?"  The boy stopped just
before the door.  "I love you!"
      "I love you too, Garl-"
      Garland sprung awake.  He had been dreaming, but he couldn't
remember exactly what.  He looked around.  'Where... am I?'  he thought.
"Oh yeah..." he mumbled aloud.  "Gambler's airship..."  Garland slowly
rose.  The cot he had slept on was soaked with sweat, as he was.  "I
must've slept in my clothes...' Garland thought, as he looked at himself.
Even the black helm he recently purchased was still on his head.  He felt
strangely compelled to leave it on.  'Man, it's pitch black in here...'
he thought, looking around the room.  He stumbled to the door.  He felt
something strange, and was afraid to open it.
      Garland fumbled with the knob, and fell through the doorway.  He
found the room to be covered in blood, wall-to-wall.  He stood, shuddering
and wide-eyed, looking in astonished horror.  In the center of the room
stood the cloaked figure of Arran, his long-dead minion.  Garland tried to
speak, but no sound came.  Arran teetered unevenly back and forth.
      The cloaked minion spoke.  "I have completed my mission, master..."
The blood on the walls glistened.
      "Wh... what?"  Garland gawked.
      "The sky warriors, master..." the minion continued, staring blankly
ahead.  "I've killed them... all five... the two women and three men...
All killed, like you wanted."
      "What...?  What?"  Garland blanched, as he thought his minion might
have done the unthinkable.
      "I slit their throats, master.  All five..." Arran bragged in
monotone, still staring.  "They're in that room..."  Arran motioned
blankly to a door behind him.
      Garland swallowed hard, and took a step toward the door.  The blood
on the floor seemed to emit noxious fumes, and he felt as though he
couldn't breathe.  He came to the door.  He put his hand on the knob, and
turned.  A million images flashed through his head at once, then -
      Garland snapped awake again.  He wasn't in bed anymore.  He stood
before a closed door, in the main room of Setzer's airship.  He looked
around the darkened room, expecting to find pools of blood, and his fallen
minion.  He saw only the tools of gambling, and a few papers and such here
and there.  Garland was shaking.  He took off his helm and set it on a
nearby table.  He was coated in a cold sweat, and he felt like crying.  He
slumped into a corner, and tried to push the awful dream from his mind.
Then a terrible thought came to his mind.  He rushed to find his fiends
and host.
      Garland rushed into the room where Kraken lay for the night.  He
rushed up to the water fiend, and felt for a pulse.  'Thank heavens...'
Garland thought, and rushed off to Tiamat's sleeping space.  She was
sleeping in a chair, with a beguiling smile upon her face.  Garland was
about to test her for breath, but she stirred, so he decided that she was
all right.  He dashed off to the room where Kary slept, and rushed up to
her.  He checked for a heartbeat by putting his ear to her chest.  'All's
well here,'  Garland confirmed, and left to check on Lich.  As he left,
Kary purred, stretched, and sat up.  She had the funniest feeling...
      Garland found Lich sprawled out on top of an upturned table, eyes
open, yet dull.  "Oh my God!" Garland whispered.  He checked for a pulse.
Nothing.  He checked for breathing.  Nothing.  He checked for a
heartbeat.  Nothing.  'He's... dead!'  Garland thought, petrified.
      Lich started mumbling.  "Rats 'n' dust... 'n' some soup..."
      'Oh, yeah...'  Garland thought, relieved.  'He is dead, naturally.'
Garland gasped as he remembered his host.  'Setzer!'  He began rushing
towards the gambler's quarters, but whakked his side on a roulette wheel.
"OW!  SHIT!"  he shouted as he collapsed to the floor in the agonizing
pain one tends to feel when one whacks one's side on a table.
      Setzer lay in his bed, eyes open, looking at the ceiling.  He was
thinking about the times he and Daryl used to have together.  He also
thought of the mysterious woman who accompanied that annoying little
bastard Garland upon his airship.  He found her strangely intriguing, and
he wasn't sure why.  Just as he was about to slip into a disturbed sleep,
he was startled by someone shouting, "OW!  SHIT!"  Setzer put his head
between two pillows and mumbled about how much he disliked Garland.

		*	    *	    *	    *

      The next morning, Garland winced in pain as Kary inspected the
bruise on his side.  "That looks painful.  Honestly, cutie, you shouldn't
run around the airship at night,"  she said.
      "Ouch!  That hurts!" Garland complained.
      "Case in point," Kary replied.  "By the way, were you in my room
last night?"
      Garland looked up with a start, but didn't reply.
      "You were, weren't you?" Kary deduced slyly.  Garland braced himself.
"That's all right.  I don't mind.  What were you doing, anyway?"
      "I was... checking if you were alive."
      "Why?"
      "I... oh, never mind..."
      Meanwhile, above deck, Setzer was grumpily preparing to take off.
Lich had Garland's marked map, and was to serve as navigator.  Setzer was
not at all pleased with this situation.  He cracked his knuckles, and put
his hands on the wheel.  "All right," he said dryly, "where to?"
      Lich had found a lawn chair below decks, and had brought it up to
lounge.  He looked over the map.  "Lessee... uh... The Earth Orb is at...
Daryl's tomb!  To Daryl's Tomb, Geves!"
      "Hey!" Setzer shouted.  "How do you get off calling me Geves?"
      "You promised to help us, so I can call you anything I want!" Lich
replied, looking over an outdated shopping catalogue.
      "I don't have to work under these conditions!" Setzer ranted.  "I'm
the only driver you've got!"
      "Huh!  I could drive this flyin' bathtub any day of the week!" Lich
said, rising from his lounger.
      "Ooh..." Setzer growled, becoming furious.  How dare this jerk
insult Daryl's airship!  The wheels in Setzer's head began turning.  He
felt a Sun Flare coming on.
      "Whatsa matter, Gambler?" Lich taunted.  "No more words to whip?
You lizard faced son of a Jack-ass!"
      Setzer shook visibly.  The wheels slowed to a stop.  Dragon, dragon,
dragon... 'Jackpot!'  Setzer thought.  Expecting a great beast to rise and
obliterate Lich, Setzer was astonished when no such thing came about.
'Funny, it's never failed before...'  Tiamat came up from below deck.
      "Hey Lich, quit taunting him!" she said, beating the earth fiend
over the head with a box of poker chips.  "He's the only driver we have."
She turned to Setzer.  "Please excuse him.  He's very disrespectful."
Tiamat pulled Lich up by his hair and shook him, then sat in the lounger.
      "Uh, that's all right," Setzer said, watching her.  Suddenly he
didn't feel mad anymore.
      "As I was saying," Lich said, "we gotta go to Daryl's tomb.  I think
it's some kinda night club..."

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      In a small house in the village of Kohlingen, a certain Vectorian
soldier was madly ranting to himself about the things that bothered him
the most.  This soldier's most distinguishing feature was that he was
considerably not-so-tall.  "Heh-heh-heh... that guy caught me at a bad
time.  I was poorly equipped and surprised!"  This, of course, was utter
horse crap.  "Well, since I joined the legion of Akfek, I've got a lot of
great stuff to throw at him!"  The not-so-tall man madly scribbled his
master plan down onto a soiled sheet of crumpled paper.  "Nyeh-heh!"  He
leapt from his chair, and dashed into the streets, heading in the general
direction of the Magitek Armor.
      The soldier guarding the Armor went through a routine check of the
little man's identification.  "Mason?  Go ahead."  Mason snatched his
crumpled card and proceeded to choose the biggest suit he could find.
      "All-terrain Magitek Armor..." Mason raved.  "I'll find that guy...
and when I do..."
      The guard watched as the not-so-tall Mason trudged off to the south,
ranting and raving.

      ______________________________________________________________

      Not far away, Setzer brought the airship to the ground.  Daryl's
tomb was about three kilometers away.  The team started walking in that
general direction.  Setzer lagged behind, refusing to associate with
anyone but Tiamat if he didn't have to.  The fiends were just having a
jolly holiday, and making the most of it.
      "I can't wait!" said Lich excitedly.  "My orb's so near, I can
almost taste it."
      "Can you taste?" asked Kraken.  "You haven't any tongue.  Speaking
of which, how do you talk?"
      'Funny how much he looks like Cecil,' Setzer thought.  'I wonder...'
      Some distance ahead, the fiends could see an armored carrier
traveling in a path nearly perpendicular to theirs.  The carrier stopped
abruptly.  The driver, who wasn't very tall, looked directly at Garland.
"I'll be damned..." he said.
      Garland looked at the driver carefully.  "It... it's you!"
      "That's right!" the not-so-tall man shouted.  "It is I, Mason the
Vectorian!  I didn't catch your name when we first met..."
      "I'm Garland the Great," Garland replied.  "Nice robot."
      "Master, who is this?" Kraken inquired.
      "The guy who tried to mug me in Albrook," Garland replied.
      "Prepare yourself!" Mason shouted.  His mech-armor swung an arm at
Garland, who ducked.
      "Master, let me deal with him," Kraken requested.
      Setzer came up beside Garland's gang.  "Friend of yours?" he asked.
      "Hardly," Garland replied, dodging another swing.
      "Back off!" Mason shouted at the fiends and Setzer.  "This is
between me and him!"  He pulled a small lever.  "BOLT BEAM!"  A searing
bolt of energy shot from the magicannon in the Magitek Armor's torso.
Garland avoided the shot.
      "What a pain,"  Garland said, landing neatly.  "All right, prepare
to face my nearly ultimate attack..." Garland yakked half-heartedly.
"Orrest-fay Ump-gay rama-rama ding-dong..."  Mason launched a Tek-missile
at Garland.  Garland produced a glowing ping-pong paddle, and deftly
deflected the missile, completely obliterating Mason's armor.
      Mason stood, still holding the armor's control levers in his little
hands.  He cursed loudly, and ran back to Kohlingen, swearing that they'd
meet again.
      "Shall we go now?" Garland asked the rest of the party, who quietly
applauded his little battle.