Lirsti and Illúvetar: Part 3

Trotting to the Slaughter

Tetravigesimal castle. The epitome of magical reseach. A grand structure bustling with activity, except tonight. The halls were quiet. The only active place was the great council hall and active it was.
Wizards and adventurers filled the galleries surrounding the central podium suspended in mid-air, attached to the catwalk. The room was full of loud bustling conversation and arguments.
A well dressed, robed magician entered the room and strode down the catwalk to the central podium. He stood in the center where the blue light from the magic orbs shon over him, and he cleared his throat into the voice amplifier. The room went silent waiting for him to speak.
Meanwhile, in a nearby pig farm, some startled pigs were looking around themselves confusedly. In fact, they were startled that they were pigs.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” squealed the one.
“I wish I was, old fruit,” said another. “You really are a pig.”
“Hey, you’re not any better looking,” defended the first.
“Where’s the dwarf?” asked the second.
A pig who had been sneaking away on the tips of his trotters saw that the game was up and bolted away will a shrill.
“Get him!”
The other two bared down on the escapee and wedged him to the ground from either side.
“Don’t run, Bacon. You’re still needed to do some explaining. Isn’t that right, Lirsti?” laughed the one.
“Yes, yes, Illuvetar. He’s not going anywhere we aren’t going. First order of business is to un-swine ourselves. But I don’t have much magic-juice left in me after the portal spell.”
After a moment of pensive thought, another pig trotted up to the three. “Hey. Hey-hey hey.” It grunted.
“Hello, friend,” saild Illuvetar.
“What do you want?” asked Lirsti.
“Help me,” pleaded the ‘dwarf’.
“The humans are gone,” said the newcomer. “No food! No food!”
“The people must be doing something,” said Lirsti. “My guess is a council assembly. Now we just need to find a way to–”
“For the king!” screeched Illuvetar charging head first into the wooden fence which snapped under the inertia of his porky bulk.
“That’s one way, I suppose,” said Lirsti.
***
“… And for some reason, spells are acting unpredictably.” The arch wizard spoke from the central podium. “If we don’t find out what is causing this, who knows–” The wizard stopped when he saw two pigs clippity-clopping along the catwalk towards him dragging a reluctant third one after them by the tail. “What is the meaning of this?”
The pigs stopped and one let go to run straight at the podium to apparently knock it off. The wizard on the podium pulled up his sleeve with one hand to cast a spell but he was too late.
But the podium wasn’t knocked over. Instead, as the pig came into contact with the one magic orb, he was lifted into the air by the said magic and quickly transformed into his human form. The galleries gasped.
“Lirsti!” exclaimed the wizard. “What… How…”
At first Lirsti didn’t reply but rather turned to the other pigs. The one who had been trying to run away had given up and was lying dejectedly on the ground. Lirsti turned them back into their true forms: Illuvetar and a dwarf.
Once the transformation was complete, Lirsti solemnly looked towards the arch wizard. “I am here merely to be a harlinger.” The entire room waited. “We… found the improbability orb.”
The arch wizard relaxed. “Surely that’s a good–”
“And we lost it,” said Illuvetar, poking his head out from behind Lirsti.
Without looking, Lirsti pushed Illuvetar’s head away with a sigh. “More like it lost itself. This dwarf is responsible.”
“That’s right,” said Illuvetar. “He made me do it.”
“This would explain all the magical mishaps,” said the arch wizard. “I’m afraid that there’s nothing else to be done but to exile you three until the orb has been found. And, dwarf…”
The dwarf looked terrified.
“… This is for you.” as the arch wizard spoke, sparks flashed from him and embedded themselves onto the dwarf’s right shoulder – forming a six-sided star tattoo. “You have the choice to do what you will but the curse I have placed on you will punish you every time you disobey either of these two… nitwits.”
“Hey–” began Lirsti.
“You have twenty-four hours to prepare.”

Lirsti and Illúvetar: Part 2

Prions and Prisoners

“No!” cried Illuvetar.
“Look what you made him do, you miserable little dwarf!” shouted Lirsti at the tree-stump sized man. “Do you have any idea how precious that stone was – the power it contained?”
The dwarf looked startled. “I –” he began. “I’m sorry. I… Just like gems.”
“Fool!” shouted Lirsti, smacking his palm against his forehead.
“Look,” said Illuvetar. “You may or may not have premeditated this, but either way, you’re going to have to come with us.”
“What?” protested the dwarf. “I don’t want to! You can’t make me!”
Lirsti’s eyes were suddenly filled with fury. “Oh, my little friend,” he said menacingly, we can make you and you will come.
As the dwarf cowered away, Lirsti wasted no time in conjuring a fiber cord and using it to bind its hands. Before it could start hurling curses at them, a gag was applied to its mouth.
“Ok, what do we do now?” wondered Lirsti.
“I’ll say,” said Illuvetar, “this quite a pickle. Let’s take him back to Tetravigesimal castle. There they can question him and perhaps we can find out what had happened to the orb.”
“Hmph,” sulked Lirsti.
“We can torture him,” added Illuvetar.
This cheered Lirsti up who then smiled and walked on along the road.
The dwarf looked at Lirsti’s back and then at Illuvetar with eyes that pleaded to hear the words “We’re only joking.” But those words never came. Illuvetar just whistled a tune and led the dwarf along the road. He then caught up to Lirsti.
The road meandered through tall, dense trees. Light beaded playfully through the canopy and offered to illuminate the adventurers and dwarf’s path. For a long time no-one spoke. There were also no other sounds to be heard other than footsteps of three individuals on a dirt path.
The silence was broken.
“Goodness me. What’s that?” gasped Illuvetar.
Lirsti’s eyes narrowed. “Prion guards.”
At this, the dwarf’s eyes widened and he started squirming. The two adventurers pulled the dwarf well into the wood where they could still see the road.
“Shut up,” hissed Lirsti.
The dwarf stopped squirming but still continued to whimper quietly.
A few moments later, some hunched soldiers walked into sight where the three of them had been standing. The prion guard’s tentacles protruded from their helmets and appeared to taste the air.
“What’s this?” sparked the one in a robotic voice.
“It looks like a Jewelry box,” sparked another.
Illuvetar patted his pocket and cringed when he felt no jewelry box.
“It was probably left here a long time ago,” sparked a third one.
“No. This is not true,” sparked the first one. “These tracks are fresh.”
The three observers’ instincts kicked in and they were bolting into the deep forest before they could hear the rest.
Occasionally they would hear the prions behind them but never were the sounds too close for comfort (relatively speaking).
“Woah!” said Illuvetar, nearly falling into a hole in the side of the hill. It was a neatly concealed cave entrance.
The three lowered themselves into the hole with Lirsti going first. They waited in the mouth of the cave. Soon they heard the hobbled footsteps of the prions.
“Take a look in there,” sparked a prion.
Lirsti gave a panicked look at Illuvetar who gestured deeper into the cave. They quietly made their way further in but the dwarf slipped and fell – yelping as he collapsed by Illuvetar’s feet.
“In there!” electrified a prion. “Get them!”
Illuvetar drew his sword. “Cast a portal spell, chap!”
“Not enough time to pick a destination,” said Lirsti with a worried look on his face.
“Do it!”
Lirsti closed his eyes and with a dazzling display of arcane prowess, he summoned a magical portal. Lirsti jumped in, then Illuvetar. The dwarf weighted up his options, rolled his eyes and jumped in after them.