Chapter 9: Fortunately for our heroes and heroines, he had eaten their kinds before.

Madog was mildly distressed when she(she was a dudette rather than a dude, as it was) woke up. It didn’t help that she fell off the shoulders of Hammer. Still, she had calmed down and accepted her situation. She had been abandoned by her pack, she could smell their scent far away. She had decided that these two walkers and their delicious smelling strange talking hat would be her new pack. She was sad that she wouldn’t get to eat the hat.

She trailed beside Hammer, the one who had that wonderful burnt smell. They were in the mountains. All around them as they climbed were the icy pillars that contained rocks. Madog was carefully sniffing the scents, along with the scents of the rocks, some kind of tasty food smell and the usual scents of the mountain there was something else an elusive scent that seemed to shy away from her nose. It bothered her, but she was distracted from her investigation by the talking hat speaking in its small squeeky voice.

“there is an awful lot of these rocks here, glad they aren’t becoming frisen”

Hammer replied to the hat, Madog did not know why the talking hat was pack leader.

“Why aren’t they? I’d not mind another dust up”

“I’m err… guessing they can’t, um, rise if they aren’t… uh, disturbed, regular risen, um, work that way” The bearer of the hat spoke, Madog viewed this creature as the bottom of the pack.

“seems likely, and no you can’t go disturbing them Hammer, we don’t need distractions” the hat commanded.

Hammer backed off from the ice pillar he was going to hit.

“I like distractions” he muttered glumly.

They soon stopped abruptly.

“well, that looks like a distraction.” the hat complained.

Before them standing on a rocky shelf was a black knight mounted on a creamy gloat.

“Nyahaha” The gloat laughed, looking down on the adventurers. Madog began growling.

Gloats can be found on any mountain on Elcon. They are shaggy haired fourlegged creatures, with cloven hooves. They possess a single twisting horn on their goaty head. What stands out most however, is their bright red throat sack that inflates when they give out their distinctive laugh. The are creatures of poor disposition as if you find yourself in trouble, a gloat will simply stand by and laugh at you. Indeed these creatures derive sustenance from the woes and frustrations of others.

Many a denizen holding onto a precarious ledge on a mountain has heard noises, hoping for deliverance, only to see the head of the gloat, laughing above them at their plight. Supposedly the meat of a gloat that laughed at you is incredibly satisfying.

The gloat continued to laugh at the adventurers as they got closer, until the rider got fed up and gave the nasty beast a clout on the side of the head. As they warily got closer they could see that the black knight was curiously equipped.

His shield was a pot lid, indeed, most of his armour was potlids. The lids belonged to the various pots tied to the sides of the saddle on the gloat, these pots were filled with all manner of supplies and ingredients. The knight’s helmet was in fact also a pot, the rear of his breastplate was a frying pan and his lance was a two pronged fork. A huge spatula was strapped to his back. His gloves were oven mitts. His arm and leg armour were graters.

Little bits of grey scaly skin poked through quilted cloth beneath the knight’s ‘armour’, including a stumpy tail.

The cooking-utensil knight seemed vaguely familiar to Dookie, she felt that she had read about him before, but she could not place a name.

“Ho! Travellers! I suggest ye turn back, this mountain is quite dangerous at the moment, though I will not myself be dissuaded from my quest! Let it not be said that Sir Nitup Boilntover Freeminsonhigh is a coward!”

“what might your quest be? sir nitup?” Lofan asked, though he had a bad feeling about the answer.

Dookie could not place the name, though it too was familiar, she was sure she had read about this denizen before. Hammer was busy comforting Madog, who was glaring at the gloat which just sneered smugly at her.

Sir Nitup clanked a bit.

“Why, I seek the legendary artefact, the Kindling! With it I will make the perfect fire for cooking, long have a chased every rumour I’ve come across and found nothing but magical bric a brac!”

Lofan nearly moaned, it was worse than he thought, it was rotten fortune to encounter a being after the kindling.

Dookie gasped, she had remembered who and what Sir Nitup was. He was the Basteling, the only one of his kind, a being obsessed with cooking. It was said that it was a great misfortune to be a creature that the Basteling had never encountered before as it was prone to cooking and eating anything it had not eaten before. The Basteling was said to have a certain amount of honour, but could be completely villainous in pursuit of its cooking, as evidenced by it having no remorse about eating denizens that it had not eaten before.

“Oh, we are also after an artefact in this mountain!” Hammer blabbed.

Lofan almost choked. Dookie whispered what she had remembered to Lofan. Lofan almost choked again. Unique denizens tended to be quite strong and difficult to subdue, and often impossible to kill.

Sir Nitup sighed. “Oh, do you know whether this artefact is the one I seek?”

Hammer looked to Lofan, Dookie too was curious as to the nature of the artefact they were searching for, Lofan had not told them.

Lofan thought quickly, this was a brilliant chance to mislead this dangerous cook-knight. He could claim that the artefact was not in fact the Kindling. He was about to claim so, when another thought came to him.

Whatever it was that had frozen the rocks seemed to be on their path to the Kindling, and it was clearly a dangerous being, perhaps having the Basteling could be useful, one dangerous being to take on another. Lofan knew that he could claim he didn’t know what the artefact was, thus the Basteling would quite probably accompany them.

Lofan knew that whatever the freezing creature was it could hurt Hammer, but he was sure that the Basteling would not have the power to harm Hammer. Thus, Lofan made his decision, though had he more time, he would have realised that the Basteling had clearly eaten explodahead before.

“I don’t really know what the artefact is to be honest” he lied.

Hammer was mildly surprised but thought nothing of it, Dookie however, realised that Lofan was lying, but she kept her mouth shut.

Sir Nitup the Basteling hummed and hawed.

“how troublesome, but I know what I shall do! I shall challenge ye to combat!”

Lofan was displeased that this hadn’t gone the way he wished.

The Basteling however, was not finished talking.

“If ye lose, I shall retrieve the artefact myself, and if it proves not to be the Kindling, deliever it to ye. If ye win, I shall accept yer strength and join you for the rest of this quest!”

His gloat laughed “Nyahaha”

He set his fork on his shield rim and kicked his heels into the gloat.

“Have at ye!” He shouted, and charged at Lofan’s companions.

Dookie and Hammer dove to the sides as the gloat bounded across the snow and rocks.

“can’t you hit him with a bubble?” Lofan called out to Dookie, while hanging onto her head.

“I-i can’t” She wailed.

Lofan looked at Sir Nitup’s fork. His suspicions of the weakness of Dookie’s bubbles was confirmed.

“your bubbles can only be popped by anything needle like right?”

Sir Nitup was swinging round for another charge, Hammer had attached his head to his hoopstick and was coaxing a pill from Madog.

“Yes… um he’d just pop it” Dookie said glumly.

“well, just put a bubble around the gloat then!” Lofan explained.

“Oh, of course”

Hammer had gotten a pill and quickly devoured it. His head began to glow brown. The cook-knight bounded forwards on his gloat. He had almost reached Hammer when a bubble formed around the gloat, the saddled snapped and fell off, pushed away by the bubble, the gloat ran in place for a bit.

Sir Nitup for his part, was quite surprised and found himself flying forward, still seated on his saddle, right into Hammer’s hammer. Hammer exploded his head with a laugh as he hit the Basteling. The cook-knight went flying off.

Lofan was half relieved and worried that Sir Nitup had fallen off the mountain, they were quite far up, in fact, Lofan could not see the ground beyond anymore. However, when Dookie popped the bubble the gloat was in. It promptly rushed over to a cliffedge and began to laugh.

Lofan knew then that Sir Nitup was hanging off that edge.

“Help him up would you?” he asked Dookie and Hammer.

“Well then, I guess I’ve be joining you fine folk” Sir Nitup commented as he was hauled up.

The Basteling saddled his gloat again, and in short order, they were off again. Madog still did not like the gloat.

As they climbed the mountains Sir Nitup regaled them with stories of the things he was eating, some were quite appetizing, but Lofan could have done without hearing just how is own kind tasted. He decided the Basteling was not a pleasant creature. Dookie knew this from start, and Hammer just kind of tuned out Sir Nitup. As an explodahead, he didn’t have much interest in cuisine.

Before long they came to the mountain of no great importance, and what greeted them was a ghastly grinding noise, and looking up, they saw the outline of the being that had frozen the rocks.

Towering in their path was a frost hydra.