Chapter 8: Being popular is hard

They weren’t lost, not quite yet. Lupix and her band owed this to two things. The first was that they really only needed to head upwards and out of the underground. The second was that the land itself was aiding them.

The land of elcon has a kind of mind of its own, not a terribly advanced mind, as magicians trying to talk to it have found, but more a idle kind of mind, fickle and driven by whim. Without rhyme or reason land helped or hindered those travelling across it.

You could walk between to villages for several years, then one day come across a third village. If you were fortunate, it’d just be another village, if you weren’t it’d be one of those creepy villages that either have denizen eating denizens or strange magic that bring up all sorts of trouble.

As much as the land is thoughtless, it does hate those that blight it, it won’t care about miners, but if some being started corrupting ores and making plantlife sick, it’d do its best to make travel awkward for said beings.

Elcon hid things, moved things about and generally made mapmakers cry.

So, for a while Lupix and the band were making good upward progress. Then, climbing up a steep tunnel, there was a great rumbling, like elcon was laughing. It probably was.

Lupix, Koul, Am ‘P’, Specker and Mik, all of them froze. Then there was a cracking noise. Koul getting an idea of what was coming next, grew big, and gathered up Lupix (who held the sand they got tight) and the conepeople. As well that he did, for in the next moment, the cracking turned into a roar as the ground they were on crumbled like so many thick indigestible dry crackers.

Rocks pelted him as they fell down and down, most of the progress they had made being taken away. Finally, the ground stopped falling apart and Koul rolled, a red bouncy ball down a mound of earth and minerals. He came to a stop and released Lupix and the conepeople.

The band felt eyes staring at them. Looking around, it seemed they were in a Tailless Slug Forgehome. It also seemed that they, and quite a large amount of rubble had fallen on what was now ruined machinery. Broken pipes jutted out here and there, steam hissing out of a few, there was a trashed conveyor belt. Scattered all around were red mind crystals, and broken carts.

Yes, the forgehome was a red eyes one. Lupix’s sole comfort was that at least these weren’t the same tailless slugs as eariler.

<It’s them! The Moosikhs!> One slug cried out!

“You’ve got to be kidding me” Mik complained.

<Let’s capture them and gain their powers!>

<For the Free Slugs Forgehome of Darkred Minerals!>

There was quite a large number of redeyed tailless slugs, they had a large number of machines too.

“We could take’em” Specker boasted.

*****

There was a large clanging, and a ‘bwhoooom’ as the door of the cage was shut and lit with crackling red power, trapping the band inside.

A large dark green red eyed tailless slug was leering at them somehow.

<Soon, we shall claim the secrets of moosikh for ourselves, then the blues and other fools will shake with fear!> he gloated.

Then it laughed. Lupix supposed this was the overseer of the forgehome, going by size and the gloating.

The overseer left, setting two slugs and a machine as guards. The slugs hadn’t taken the band’s instruments for some reason.

Koul sat down, a little dishearted. He would have been fine had he been on his own, but it is very difficult to fight and protect at the same time. He couldn’t take on a whole colony of tailless slugs and their machines on his own.

“Well, what now?, I could try pulling the bars apart, I don’t like the look of that crackling energy but give me a nod if you want me to try it princess.”

Koul had a feeling that part of the reason for the ominous energy was to keep denizens like conepeople in the cage.

Lupix shook her head. She didn’t want Koul to do something so reckless. She hoped this wasn’t the end of her journey.

“This all reminds me of a ballad!” Am ‘P’ remarked.

“Oh? What one?, there’s lots of songs about prisons” Specker asked.

“The Binding of the Golden Oink”

“That isn’t about prison at all, or related to what’s happening! We aren’t even hunting anything!” Mik protested.

“Yes, but there is cages in it”

Mik didn’t think this was a strong connection.

Lupix smiled, remembering the ballad herself, she had heard it once being sung by a cleaning servant. She particularly liked the part where the hero cursed to speak like an oink (clearly a piglike beast) had gotten around the curse by singing.

It was then that Lupix made a loose connection herself. She came to a realisation. The sand spirits had said that she had been stripped of words by the weight of the song she learned, and that she’d be fine if she sang. They hadn’t said that she could only sing the spellsong, just that it stripped her of words.

So, Lupix concluded, that she could sing other songs without words. She was sure that it’d bring the snuffers down on them, but that was better than being trapped in a cage. Lupix gently shoved Koul away, and opened her mouth to sing.

What came out at first was more like a cough and a few sparks than song and fire, but then Lupix really got going, much to the surprise of the band and their jailors. It was a wordless aria of triumph and freedom, first sung by Voch Wethwaver, a fire howler long before Lupix’s time.

Voch had composed the song while imprisoned by crazed animate plants. The plants had locked him in what had been his vegetable cellar and put a muzzle on him. He had made the song by humming, as with the muzzle on him, he had been unable to open his mouth wider.

It has been said that after he had freed himself he wore the muzzle when trying to think of new songs. Then again, this was a useful ending for merchants wanting to sell a muzzle as “Voch’s original muzzle”.

Voch had named the song “I’m free now and coming to get you you fiends, ahahaha!”. Voch was not known for his good taste, in fact before the incident with the insane vegetables and the muzzle he had been a terrible singer. The way he said words had been as the famous singer ‘Ready’ said “Like a unholy combination of braying gruff goat and scrabbling claws”.

He was still terrible with words after the incident, he just sang without them, much to everyone’s delight.

What Lupix sang was in fact the second version Voch had made. This was not hummed.

Lupix’s voice soared, and her fire spread its wings as if it was a bird and not flame.

The cage first shook, then exploded outwards, and the band’s jailors, flew back as flame and exultation burst past.

They stared in awe and terror, as Lupix stood, one hand extended to the ceiling as she sung a flock free firey birds around her, the other on the neck of her thunder-lute. Koul quickly shook off his surprise, and beat out rumbling victory on his rockshake drums.

Mik followed their success between the beats of victory with her cap trumpet. Specker’s conish band ball thrummed the tailless slugs defeat and Amp ‘P’ just furiously let music escape, notes freed utterly from the keys of his xylophone.

Lupix then pulled her paw across her thunder-lute, and with a bang, the song was transformed. This was Lupix’s speciality, she had no great talent for making music, but for her, taking a song and changing it was a breeze.

Picking thunderclaps from the strings Koul understood what Lupix was doing as soon as she started marching.

She had made Voch’s song into a marching anthem. The cone people quickly got up on top of Koul’s torso and he began to march after Lupix. The tailless slugs they came across fled, certain from the force of the music they had already lost.

Lupix continued to sing flame, birds that sang of their foe’s doom. They marched out of the prisons and through the Forgehomes, none could stand before them, and Lupix if she hadn’t been singing would have laughed, for she had not sung in so long, it came out of her, a raging joyous inferno.

In short order they came to the gates of the Forgehome. Guarding the gates was the Overseer in a massive multiple armed shiny black machine, several other tailless slug piloted machines with him.

They had not fled, they would not flee. Though Lupix and her band’s song pronouced that they had already won, The tailless slug would not give up, indeed to the Overseer this only proved the power of ‘moosikh’.

<You shall not pass here! We shall claim the moos…>

The Overlord was cut off by what sounded like a cross between an explosion and pipe organ music.

It cut through Lupix and their band’s song, it surprised them enough that they stopped, the rush of freedom and triumph fading. Then in an ominous bang of laughter and rapid manic exploding pipe music, the gate of the forgehome blew open.

When the smoke and flames cleared, they saw him, standing on top of the shattered machines of the Overseer and his people.

“Someone’s been a bit noisy, KaKakakaka! Well, thanks to that I’ve found you, FIRE HOWLER!”

It was the Firelord’s Grand Snuffer.