Artur strolled across the blasted earth barefoot, because supernatural creatures don’t need expensive sneakers.\u00a0 Or common sense, apparently.\u00a0 I could tell he was looking at something about the wreckage that I wasn’t, or couldn’t.\u00a0 Maybe it was magical, or maybe he was a part-time private investigator.\u00a0 Nah, that kind of thing has been done before.<\/p>\n
“Thorns,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Watch out for your feet,” I replied, helpfully.\u00a0 I should never, ever, EVER sound like my mother.<\/p>\n
“No, these aren’t–,” he broke off and gave me a Look.<\/p>\n
I and Nikolai moved a little closer to the stair.\u00a0\u00a0 The stairs were huge, definitely not made for your average human stride.\u00a0\u00a0 The whole entrance looked like nothing more than a landing strip, if done in early 70’s Dungeons and Dragons.\u00a0 (That’s a kind of fashion experience, honestly.)<\/p>\n
Nikolai sniffed the air and then shook himself.\u00a0 He didn’t like it.<\/p>\n
“Do we have a plan?” Artur asked.<\/p>\n
“Did you want to tell me about the thorns?” I shrugged.<\/p>\n
“I..”\u00a0 He shook his head.\u00a0 “I am just making a guess from what I see.\u00a0 You do know that torch is horrendous?”\u00a0 He was changing the subject.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to shred the shirt.”\u00a0 I frowned.\u00a0 It hadn’t quite gone out, but you couldn’t really count it as “lit” either.\u00a0 I blew on it a few times, making a small flame erupt.<\/p>\n
“What is your plan?” he asked again.<\/p>\n
“I was hoping to come up with one when we finished hopping down those stairs.\u00a0 If that didn’t work, I was hoping to wing it.”\u00a0 I shrugged.\u00a0 “I figured the Dragon wanted something.\u00a0 I’d try and negotiate with it and get Doloise out of there.”<\/p>\n
“Not a sword amongst us.”<\/p>\n
“I have a pen,” I pointed out.\u00a0 “That’s mightier.\u00a0 That fight scene in `Grosse Point Blank’ is one of my favourites.”<\/p>\n
“Why should we know how Dragons reproduce?\u00a0 Excuse me,” he rolled his eyes, “How they `make with the squishy’ for all you juveniles out there.”<\/p>\n
“Nikolai, he’s trying to hurt your feelings,” I mock-pouted.\u00a0 Although that was going to be a new punchline of a joke, that spells age in dog years.\u00a0 Um, if I could make it funny somehow.\u00a0 “What, you think we should use thorns?”\u00a0 I looked at the wood shards.\u00a0 Funny.\u00a0 I could almost see that, yes, the shards all did kind of look like thorns.\u00a0 “Are Dragons plucked from bushes?\u00a0 Dragonberry pie?”<\/p>\n
“They’re rare.\u00a0 Very rare.”\u00a0 He sighed.<\/p>\n
“And delicious with whipped cream.\u00a0 Look, all I wanted was a bunch of new folks to talk magical theory with, especially from a different cultural perspective, and I got dragged into this whole crazy situation.\u00a0 `Save Ivan’s heart!\u00a0 Oh wait, I took it and gave him the power to talk to the dead.\u00a0 But he only talks to his dead lover and I’m jealous, so I’m going to steal your fairy and get your fairy’s Daddydragonkins on your case. ‘\u00a0 You know, if I had a chance to sign up for this crazy stuff, I would turn it down!\u00a0 I feel like Bilbo Baggins – I want my ham and my eggs and a good sleep-in until noon.”<\/p>\n
“The reluctant hero?” Artur asked, quietly.<\/p>\n
“Not a hero, not a burglar, not even a particular preference for ham and eggs, but that and the song about the dwarves in the five fir trees are what I remember off the top of my head when I think of the book.\u00a0 No, really not a hero.\u00a0 I don’t even really believe in Dragons.”<\/p>\n
Artur chuckled.\u00a0 “There is definitely a wisdom in your words.”<\/p>\n
“Don’t get me started on your Vasilisa.\u00a0 If she was so wise, what was she doing hanging out with us for a few cryptic moments?”<\/p>\n
Nikolai shivered and let out a faint whimper.<\/p>\n
“I want to know why a spell would do that,” I pointed at the dog.<\/p>\n
“Because he’s built of the things that Viktor found particularly doggish in nature.\u00a0 To hunt the evil, to protect the master, to need attention, to run, and to sense.”\u00a0 Artur was at least willing to answer that.<\/p>\n
“Sounds like a dog enough to me.\u00a0 Do the spells get used up?” Nikolai came over to get scritched behind the ears again, and I obliged.<\/p>\n
“There is probably some kind of trigger that activates it as a chain of events.\u00a0 It’s actually a brilliant use of magic, if more temporary than the figurines Viktor probably had learned.\u00a0 At least we won’t have to feed him.”<\/p>\n
“Figurines?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Mind on the quest,” Artur said, pointing down.\u00a0 “What’s plan B?”<\/p>\n
“`Get her.'”<\/p>\n
“That’s it?”<\/p>\n
“It’s plan B.\u00a0 Plan C is, `run in circles, scream and shout.'”<\/p>\n
“Hashbrown world, man, hashbrown world.”<\/p>\n
“Some of us aspire to be grater than that,” I winked.<\/p>\n
“As we balance on the tater-totter of life?” he tried.<\/p>\n
“Shouldn’t you be making a vodka reference?\u00a0 You are Russian, are you not?”<\/p>\n
“French fries aren’t from France, you know.”<\/p>\n
“You realize, we’re standing on the precipice of a dungeon, about to meet a Dragon with our bare hands, a spell turned into a dog, and bad jokes.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, we have more to it.\u00a0 Ancient grudges, and thus revenge is on our side.”<\/p>\n
“So much for the pure heart.”<\/p>\n
“What do you say?”<\/p>\n
“Excelsior!”<\/p>\n
We entered the dungeon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“What is your plan?” he asked again.<\/p>\n
“I was hoping to come up with one when we finished hopping down those stairs. If that didn’t work, I was hoping to wing it.” I shrugged. “I figured the Dragon wanted something. I’d try and negotiate with it and get Doloise out of there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-five"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}