by Joe Solmo

“Move over,” Weebly whispered to me, trying to get his bearded face closer to the door I was trying to listen through, how rude of him to interrupt my eavesdropping. It was hard enough to listen through the solid oak door without the little beard-ball making a racket trying to cuddle up to the door. I elbowed him in the ribs to dissuade him from getting any closer, I had to lean down to do it. Now that he was right next to me I could smell his beard, it smells could only be described as old, sour milk mixed with feces and beer. I guess now I will have to call him Stink Beard. Another nickname for the crew, that’s all we needed now.

I could hear Drejnin’s baritone voice reverberating through the wood, but it was hard to make out the words. Skittessa’s voice was a lot easier to make out, but I almost blushed listening to those words. The whispered promises of pleasure were almost too much to listen too, if the dwarf wasn’t next to me I might have had a physical reaction, but Stink Beard kept me in check.

From what I could make out through the door it seemed that Drejnin was more interested in the pleasure part of her explanation, then his past. It seemed kind of unlike him to think that way, but then again, women make fools of men all the time, and she was a woman among women if you catch my drift.

“Dearest husband, it has been a long time since we have shared a bed. It is a shame it will probably be the last. It was one thing we agreed on,” she said in her sultry voice, muffled through the door.

“Tell me then, if you are my wife, why are you here to kill me?” Drejnin asked.

“Your father has sent me, dearest. Is it true that you do not remember your father?”

            “I don’t remember much from before I arrived in this place through something called the Sun Door,” his baritone voice said.

            “What a pity, lover,” the goddess responded in her husky seductive voice.

I could hear movement inside and there weren’t any intelligible words for a while, just muffled noises. My imagination ran wild with what was happening behind the oaken door.  Go on, I know what you are thinking. Call me perverted, you know it will make you happy. Would you, dear reader, be any different?

I heard not only the commotion coming from behind the door but now I could hear Hall talking excitedly downstairs. It didn’t sound like an emergency, so I cursed him for being so loud and strained to hear the naughty stuff going on in the inn room. I gave up when I heard heavy footfalls coming up the worn stairs behind me. To take out my frustration I pushed Weebly away from the door too.

“Eavesdropper,” I called Stink Beard. Eh, maybe the name will stick.

“Where is Serius,” shot Drejnin’s voice from the top of the stairs behind us. I spun with a look of confusion on my face. What the hell?

“Drejnin, you are in there,” I said pointing to the room. Now the sounds of love making could be heard away from the door. That goddess was a screamer. The Dreymorian looked to the door and craned his head to try to hear better what was happening in there, and you were going to call me a pervert! Guess all us guys are the same, eh?

“Serius!” Drejnin said with more than a hint of anger in his voice and he shoved past me, slamming his huge shoulder against the door, which cracked under his mass. I guess using the handle was beneath him. Stink Beard and I exchanged confused glances and followed the large man into the room where it sounded like a chaos demon was let loose.

There was so much happening all at once it was hard for me to take in. In the bed was three people, Skittessa was on top of Drejnin with a knife in her hand, and under Drejnin was poor Dead-Eye awoken rather rudely from his nap. In order to make things even more confusing, Drejnin stood at the foot of the bed looking at himself. Yah, you read that right. The goddess leaped off of Drejnin as we approached the bed, and with cat like reflexes landed on her feet at the end of the mattress, completely naked. Her eyes ran back and forth between the two Drejnins. Boy did she look angry. The Drejnin on the bed flickered. That was the only way I could really describe it, he flickered between Drejnin and some other form. The form had a gray-blue featureless humanoid shape that had large, cat-like eyes, and a small slit of a mouth. Instead of a nose it had two small slits, which flared. Elongated limbs stretched away from an emaciated torso. After a few flickers back and forth, the Drejnin form equalized and settled in place.

With a crooked smirk the bed Drejnin rolled off of Dead-Eye and stood up, not concealing his nakedness, and started to shift into another familiar form.

“They were having sex on me!” Dead-Eye squeaked with a stern look on his face. “Right on top of me like I wasn’t even there.”

“What is the meaning of this!” Skittessa said as she watched Drejnin change into the dontu bodyguard Serius.

“Now Drejnin, I can explain,” Serius said raising his hands in a defensive gesture, but couldn’t seem to get the smile to leave his face. This was going to be good.

“Why would you have sex on me? I didn’t even get a say in it,” Dead-Eye said straightening his clothes and looking around for his flask.

“We didn’t know you were there,” Serius said, not taking his eyes off the visibly pissed off Dreymorian.

“Oh no, not poor Dead-Eye. Everyone overlooks him. He ain’t worth a shit, just a stupid drunk. I know how it is, you all can go to hell, where is my flask?” he ranted looking through the blankets on the bed.

“Shut up,” the real Drejnin said in his deep baritone voice to the crack shot of our group. It was the first time he spoke after seeing himself on the bed. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking or feeling, hell I didn’t know what I was thinking yet, but I had a feeling this was pretty awkward enough to be enjoyable to watch.

“I made love to a … a… Dontu?” Skittessa said sheathing her blade finally and sat down on the edge of the bed cupping her face in her hands.

“Serius, this is the most screwed up thing you have ever done,” Drejnin said.

“The most screwed up thing I have done that you remember,” the dontu corrected. “I probably did something a lot worse at one time. Who knows what I am really capable of,” he continued his explanation. “This was the first woman we have really seen since coming here, I had to take a shot at it, and that was the best way.”

“You impersonated me,” Drejnin said with a total lack of emotion. It gave me chills to hear it. This was a Drejnin I haven’t seen yet. “This I know is forbidden, I remember that much at least, and you took advantage of this woman-goddess,” he said.

“I am going to have to burn these clothes,” Dead-Eye said horrified.

“Do you believe she is a goddess?” I asked trying to redirect the rage I saw in Drejnin as he turned towards Dead-Eye.

“Yes, I do. When I entered the room, I remembered something from my past, a similar event. This wasn’t the first time I have walked in on you making love, is it Skittessa, my wife,” Drejnin said.

She replied with a smile, “You do remember some things then. This time it was as you say, but last time it was not making love. Last time it was pure lust that drove me into your brother’s arms. It is a shame you killed him, my husband, he was a great lover,” she said as she put on the small amount of clothes she wore. Why bother?

“Don’t kill me, Drejnin,” Serius pleaded taking a step back from the bed towards the grimy window on the far wall.

“If he was going to kill you, you would be dead by now, at least from what I learned from past experience,” Skittessa said.

“I will not kill you Serius,” The Dreymorian said. “There is too much left missing from our lives, we must get back. We are brothers in this even though you serve me. I don’t want this happening again, though,” he finished.

“I swear it, my Lord,” Serius said in all seriousness.

“Does that make you a god then?” I asked the large Dreymorian. Was Dreymorian what the gods called themselves? Maybe that was the name of their race.

“I think I’m going to be sick. They were doing weird stuff,” Dead-Eye said and pushed his way towards the door.

“I…do not know,” Drejnin said honestly turning back to the woman.

“It is funny what one can remember and what one forgets. He can remember my cheating on him but not his station in life, interesting,” Skittessa said.

“Some things are more important than others,” Drejnin retorted. It seemed that betrayal still burned him.

“So, tell me, wife, what was my station in life before coming here?” he asked of the goddess. A rumbling started almost immediately and my first thought was earthquake. Everyone looked around at each other and decided to head downstairs, before the building toppled on us. When we got down to the common room we found the place empty so we continued on out the door, all of us except Skittessa. I guess the young mages spell worked, she couldn’t leave the building. The shaking got a lot louder once we were outside, but that wasn’t what I focused on. It was the stench of the burning bodies of the villagers that Drejnin’s wife slaughtered for what reason we still haven’t gotten from her.

Everyone was out front looking around as the Inn creaked with the threat of falling over, but the other buildings didn’t seem affected. They must have been made of a sturdier material, my phony engineer eyes surmised. Everyone turned and waited at the door for Skittessa, once we were outside, the brothers drew weapons, not knowing what was going on, just seeing us flee the inn and her still standing there furious.

“Are you doing this?” I asked her, but I was only an insect to her, I don’t even think she heard me. It was just like any other woman.

“Release the spell,” she said looking around for Skrat, but he wasn’t out here with us. Where was he? “Quickly!” she finished with what seemed like panic in her gorgeous eyes.

There really wasn’t anything we could do without Skrat so I don’t feel guilty about what happened next, although a part of me thinks I should feel something. I decided I would drown that part with alcohol later until it forgets anything happened. Behind Skittessa a swirling portal started to open, purples and black mixed into a spiral leading to the center. I thought it was pretty impressive looking, then pink and red mixed in the spiral. I looked at Skittessa, being pulled apart, distorted as her body was drawn into the portal. The scream she let out wasn’t anything like the one she was belting out upstairs. This one had primal fear in spades. I almost felt bad for her.

Drejnin took a step towards her, but Serius caught his arm.  “You will be sucked in too, Lord,” he said with what looked like genuine concern.

Like I said there was nothing we could do, a strong breeze started up as things farther from the portal started to get pulled towards the vortex. After a few seconds, I felt myself being pulled towards it. Skittessa’s screams were now reaching a pitch I don’t even think Dead-Eye’s dates could hear as her body no longer resembled human, then it happened. With a loud sick pop, what remained of her flesh let loose and she exploded in an orgy of gore. It didn’t leave a mess though, everything swirled into the vortex to disappear inside. Within a second of the last part of her going through it closed, and left us all standing there, as the building collapsed, sinking into the basement of the inn.

“Well, what the fuck was that?” Dead-Eye said after a second.

We all stood there for a few moments, no one spoke. What the hell could we say? He only one that could answer Dead-Eye’s question was Drejnin, maybe. It all depended on the large man’s memory. Once again, I felt sorry for the man. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have whole parts of your life missing. I mean I wish I could forget some of the things I have done in my life, but to not know so much, it was a curse.

It had to have been about an hour before anyone spoke, but still the question went unanswered. Was she dead? Was that a portal to whatever plane of existence she came from? Drejnin either didn’t know or wasn’t saying and didn’t look like he was in the mood to ask questions.

Skrat still hadn’t shown up and Zeeg was getting concerned for his brother. Sreg asked me if he didn’t show by night time if I would want to go with him to track down his brother, I agreed. I was just happy to have something planned to take my mind from the horror I witnessed a little while ago.

I am a paid soldier, a mercenary. I have seen a lot of blood in my time. Amputations, deep wounds caused by blade or blunt weapons, but nothing compared to watching an eight foot beautiful goddess get completely ripped apart and swirled into nothingness. I would have to admit that was a first for me. I hoped it was a last, but as I looked at my companions I wondered what other horrors I might witness before I closed my eyes for the last time.

I did hate the boredom of being a guard back at the temple so I had no one to blame but myself for my predicament and I wouldn’t want to go back. It can’t all be sunshine, I told myself as I began to get the urge to do something, it was still a hour before sunset though.

I saw Weebly approach Drejnin and they spoke quietly. It seemed the little man was consoling him. What a funny thought. I’m sorry the wife you couldn’t remember turned into a swirling bloodbath. Here is my shoulder if you need to cry, three feet too low, I pictured the dwarf saying.

The brothers kept mostly to themselves during this time, Dead-Eye was talking to Hall and Myder, who was feeling better now that Skrat had worked his magic. Speaking of Skrat, he still hasn’t shown his face yet. I wondered what that little Magi could have gotten himself into. It was going to be dark soon.

Without someone to talk to I began to look through the rubble of the Inn for anything that might prove useful. I made my way over the pile towards the back room where the kitchen was located. I hadn’t eaten today and I was hoping there was something back there edible. I looked to the sky as I climbed over the broken boards and roof shingles and noticed some dark looking clouds on the horizon, great it was going to rain. I should have known really, I mean it wouldn’t have been a complete day for me unless the goddamn sky opened up and dumped buckets on our heads.

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