Chapter 12: Barrels are Broken, a Barbecue is busted and a Bat is Chucked. One is not like the other.

Golbassy and Habi were still lost. They could have asked for directions, but that would have just been asking to be directed into the depths of some gang’s lair. There weren’t many honest folk in the town of Cozzlanga and there especially weren’t many lingering around the grotty alleys.

The alley they were in currently seemed to have a large bat population. A camp of bats was dominating the paths, squatting upside down on clotheslines and huddled around various fires that they had just recklessly lit in the alley. It probably would have worked better if they just sat on the ground, but that is bats for you. It isn’t completely baseless that they end up as the butt of several jokes, bats do have a tendency to be a bit well, batty. Still, it is a bit mean to make bat jokes, though, not that bats themselves care, they are quite fond of making jokes about their own strange behaviours.

Golbassy was not at all thinking of bat jokes, Habi was, but that was because she had a bit of a mean seam to her. Golbassy was unsurprisingly enough thinking of the events that led to her flight from her home.

“I keep thinking about, and I can’t understand it Habi, why would someone, one of my siblings go that far to get at me? I can’t think of who it would be… and Uncle Dalbert, he wasn’t a nice man, but he was our uncle, and I don’t think even nasty people deserve to be murdered like that. Oh why Habi? Why does this all have to happen to me?” Golbassy bemoaned.

Habi thought for a few moments before replying.

“Why does anything happen to anyone Golba? You aren’t alone in being faced with this kind of stuff, think of all the stories you’ve read, at least you aren’t facing the trials that Oy the Eternal did”

“Yeah, in the stories, lots of people get through… maybe I’ll end up fishing in peace for the rest of my days until being swallowed by a big ugly dumbfish.” Golbassy mused.

Habi decided not to remind Golbassy that sometimes people didn’t make it through, in the stories or in life, she mainly didn’t mention it because it wasn’t helpful and besides, there were indeed people who got through their troubles, what use would it be to assume one would never escape?

“So, you’ll give up being a reading maniac to become a fishing maniac then?” Habi remarked.

“Oh don’t be silly, I could never give u…” Golbassy paused.

She looked around. There was not a sign of a single bat, the fires had been left as they were.

“Where did all the bats go?” She wondered aloud.

Habi could not sense a single one near, they had left in an awful hurry, she was about to say as much when a howl tore through the air.

Golbassy crouched and covered her ears, as she did so she realised that the howl had been a very odd howl-like woof.

“G-Golbassy! I’m sensing something absurdly ferocious intent! RUN, NOW!”

Golbassy didn’t question Habi, she just started running, though aided by Habi it was more like she glided, Habi the robe flapping open like wings.

She bounded through the alleys, paying no heed to direction other than getting as far away from the dangerous presence that hounded her and Habi. She didn’t even dare look back.

* * * * *

Sabin the blokkit was having a good day, he was currently stacking barrels, taking them off the porter who had brought them to his employer’s inn. His boss was in a good mood and when she was in a good mood, he was too. He had found in his breakfast, porridge, a crystal oat too. An oat of solid crystal, he considered it a lucky charm, he was sure that from his life from now on was going to just keep getting better.

He cheerfully waved the porter away and sighed happily, ready to leisurely move the barrels into the cellar.

Then a blur of gold and blue leapt onto the barrels, then doing a second leap over onto the roof of the bar. Sabin quickly acted, steadying the barrels. He spun around, ready to chew the stranger out for their reckless behaviour, but the stranger was nowhere to be seen.

Sabin, grumbling, was about to finally get to work when something else crashed into the barrels. He shrieked as an shaggy oblong form scrabbled its way up onto the roof and the barrels crashed all around and on top of him.

Most of the barrels were broken, Sabin lay under the wreckage, wet and miserable. He took out his oat crystal, looking at it bitterly!

“A good luck charm, ha!”

He spitefully flung it at the bar. It shattered, and as it did so mystical purple light splashed about and the wreckage of the barrels and the wasted fluid came together to form a barrel boned being of liquid. It laughed.

“I Haumpellex have been summon… wait, what is with this meagre form? Barrels and brew? INSOLENCE! For your failure, I banish thee to a dimension that is pretty unpleasant! My home dimension!”

Then it breathed purple mist over Sabin, and poor Sabin was no longer in Elcon. Haumpellex just shook his head and went inside the bar for a drink, it had been a while since he had a summoning that bad.

Moments later, there was the pattering of feet.

“Woah, there is a total mess here, what a waste!” a voice said.

* * * * *

Rostafan was not having a good day. He knew it would be bad when his roommate, Wald, a parsnip asked if it was ok to have some friends over. Rostafan didn’t think it was ok, he didn’t like being the token non-vegetable at a party. He didn’t know why Wald’s friends were all vegetables anyway, well except for Tanika, she was a cucumber, but that almost counted. Rostafan was a rebcubre, a denizen of Elcon that normally takes on the form of a small unassuming red ape-bodied being. Something neither fruit nor vegetable.

They have three blunt claws on their hands and two on their handfeet. Instead of a head, their beak and single green eye are located on their torso. They are most known for transforming into a clawed fanged, shoulder horned beast of destruction, twice the size a rebcubre normally is, that glares with a fiery green eye.

Rostafan was not really assertive enough. He had of course ended up cooking an insect barbecue for them on the roof. He sometimes wondered if they only tolerated him because how safe he made them feel and how good a cook he was. What he didn’t know was that all of Wald’s friends preferred Rostafan’s company. They found Wald a bit stiff at times.

So there Rostafan was, idly barbecuing some roundbottle beetles and a segment from some giant insect he never wanted to encounter. Next thing he knew a robed figure crashed into Wald, sending them both into the barbecue.

“AAAAAAAAAAA I’m being roasted, I’m being roasted!”

Wald came off the worst of the exchange, Rostafan quickly put him out though. The stranger was fine, somehow managing not to catch any of the flames.

“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry, I have to run, I’m sorry”

Then the stranger was off, gliding over the roof-tops.

All in all, Rostafan felt fairly good about the encounter.

Then it came, the shaggy one. Rostafan felt the battlewarp take him, his claws, size, horns and fangs growing. He faced that absurd thing, he could hardly believe it was possible for it to exist. He fought well, but was in the end overcome.

* * * * *

Golbassy was not exhausted, Habi had been doing most of the work, and a living robe didn’t easily get exhausted.

“We aren’t losing it!” Golbassy complained.

“I know, but what are we supposed to do about it?”

Golbassy thought about it, she couldn’t think of how to get rid of it.

“It must be tracking us by scent!” She said, as they continued gliding.

“Oh, hey, look there, one of the bats from earlier!” Habi remarked, and indeed frantically flapping before them was a reddish black bat.

“Hey, those bats were pretty grimy, I’ve got an idea, let’s catch up!”

The bat was not faster than Golbassy. The bat in question, Zoy had never been a great flyer. Zoy had been teased for it all her youth. When she joined the swipewings, she never got mocked again, because the Bossbat of the swipewings himself had stunted wings. A few of the gang tried to betray him a while back, when his top enforcer turned to the side of justice.

However they underestimated how sneaky Bossbat was, he pretended to give up power only to set them up to get caught by his former enforcer. Zoy’s admiration of her gang leader however was of no help when Golbassy caught her by the leg and tossed her directly at the pursuer.

Golbassy got away and the plan was effective, the shaggy thing tumbled down into the alleys with Zoy.

The plan was however effective in a manner different than Golbassy expected, not that she ever found out.

After a while, the patter of feet came towards the shaggy thing and Zoy.

“Dudette! I thought I trained you better than this! Bad doggie, no playing and licking people when you are on the job!”

There was a whimper, well two whimpers, one belonged to the dog, the other to Zoy.

“I’m drenched… I’m drenched” Zoy whined, covered in dog drool.

* * * * *

Golbassy and Habi landed in an alley way.

“You know…” Golbassy caught her breath. “We could have caught our bearings by climbing up on a roof sooner”

Habi moaned.

“So, have we escaped?” Golbassy asked.

“Well, there is good news and bad news, which do you want first?”

“Good news!”

“We seem to have lost whatever that thing was, but well, we are kind of surrounded”

A mean looking turnip stepped out of the shadows and leered at Golbassy and Habi. An assortment of disreputable rogues joined him and more blocked off the way behind Golbassy and Habi.

“Led us on quite the chase dearie!” he said.