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Revenge of the Clichéd Characters Part Five

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GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!!!
Revenge of the Clichéd Characters
Part Five
by Tina Morgan

Part One: The Quest
Part Two: Call to Council
Part Three: Council Orders
Part Four: Into the Dark Wood, Sort of...

In our last installment, BOB the pixie warned Gregg the rock troll about the dangers of smoking but did the big dumb brute listen? Nooooo..... So we pick up with our heroes blazing through the magical passage between the Olde Wood and the Dark Wood.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" the chorus of screams and cries of agony echoed through the Dark Woods and sent a flock of bats screeching out of a nearby cave. Shar-rhea-a found herself lying astride Gregg's stomach and her bosom covering his face. Pushing up to her feet as quickly as possible, she ignored Sing's pleas for Gregg to tell him what he saw. Picking up the mouthy sword, she shoved it back into its sheathe. BOB dusted the ash from his clothes and glared at Gregg.

Cahil adjusted his weapons and clothes then glanced over at Gregg moaning on the forest floor.

"What's wrong, Gregg?" Cahil asked.

"The explosion," Gregg whimpered. "The flesh on my back is all lumpy,"

"Get up you stupid oaf!" Shar-rhea-a snapped. "You're lying on the naysayers."

"Oh." Gregg rolled onto his knees and pulled the vines over his shoulders. The naysayers fell to the ground, moaning and crying for mercy.

"Stop your whining and get up," BOB snapped. "Come on, At-"

Cahil flicked the pixie over before he could finish speaking.

"What'd you do that for!?" BOB demanded.

"You can't say their names," Shar-rhea-a said. "If you do, they'll be able to invoke the dark magic of the dreadful attorneys."

"What's that?" BOB asked.

"You've never heard of the feared 'lawsuit' magic?" Cahil asked. BOB shook his head and the two elves shivered in fear. "It's a deep magic that the mortals fear more than death itself. They say the only thing more powerful or horrifying than an attorney is the IRS."

His voice dropped to a whisper as if speaking the name aloud would raise a bevy of IRS auditors from the heart of the Dark Wood.

Shar-rhea-a scanned the area. "Where's Gritchy?"

"I haven't seen him since we materialized here," BOB said.

"The dwarf is lost, the dwarf is lost!" Sing's muffled voice echoed from his sheathe. Shar-rhea-a chose to ignore him as she searched the nearby woods. Cahil stood guard over the naysayers as Gregg pouted over the near destruction of his cigarettes. BOB curled up his nose when the troll found one that hadn't been bent and broken and lit it with glee.

"The dwarf was tossed, the dwarf was tossed," came a sing-song voice from the underbrush. Shar-rhea-a used her spear to part the weeds and examine the source of the sound.

"Whoa." Shar-rhea-a stopped and put her hands on her hips. "When did I get a spear? I thought I had a bow and arrows?"

BOB shrugged. "Don't look at me."

"She's YOUR author!" Shar-rhea-a protested. "My author doesn't make such mundane mistakes as switching an elf's weapons mid-story."

"Yeah, well," BOB said, "she didn't name me throughout the entire story so what do you want from me?"

"You're just upset that you're a minor character. If you'd been the protagonist, then you'd have been worthy of a name," Cahil said smugly.

Gregg picked up the dagger that Shar-rhea-a had exposed in her search of the underbrush. "Dudes, look, shiny."

"Great, more magic weapons," one of the naysayers muttered under her breath.

"Stupid writer," sang out Sing.

"Stupid blighter," the dagger responded in song.

"Ignore them, they are unworthy of your attention," Cahil said, taking the dagger from Gregg. "When Sing said that Gritchy had been lost, you said he'd been tossed. What did you mean?"

"Faerie dust tossed the dwarf, into the mist and out of the forest."

Despite the attempt to make the words sound like a rhyme, they came out off key. BOB shuddered at the effect. "Who are you and what is your name?"

"Song, is my name, murder is my game," the dagger replied.

"Where have you been all my life?" Sing asked.

"Waiting to be your wife," Song answered.

"Oh great balls of fire!" Shar-rhea-a protested. "First I lose my trusted bow and my companion and now I'm plagued with cutlery that can't sing or rhyme!"

"Goodness, gracious, great balls..."

"SHUT UP, SING!" Cahil shouted. "You're going to evoke to dark magic of the attorneys!"

*********

Gritchy curled up in a ball to minimize the impact when he landed but was unprepared for the hard surface that appeared under his shoulder. He rolled across the black ground to come to a halt against a large glass building.

“Uh oh, Shar-rhea-a, we’re not in Feyland anymore,” he said as he slowly uncurled and stood up. He looked around but his companions were nowhere to be found. Instead a group of humans in their business armor clustered around and several pushed small bits of paper at him. Occasionally through their chatter he caught phrases like, “How can I help?” “Do you know who did this”, “Did you see anything?”

“SHUT UP!” He waved his battle axe and they backed up a bit.

One older woman with a hawk like nose held her hands out in a placating manner. “Little man, are you alright? Do you require medical attention for your injuries?”

“Injuries?” Gritchy looked at himself in the reflection of the mirrored window. He paused to preen and pat his hardened leather armor. He was a fine figure of a dwarf.

“Your face…” began one of the men. Gritchy scowled at the man’s artificial scent and wondered how humans could stand so close to each other when they were wearing such vile concoctions. He thought they were self defense but these humans didn’t seem to notice. The man’s voice trailed off and he was squeezed to the back of the pack.

“Little man,” began the hawk like lady. She stopped as Gritchy shook his battle axe in her face.

“Why do you insult me?” he demanded. “I’m a dwarf, not a man!”

He tried to swing his axe at her but found his movements stopped. Growling under his breath about the stupidity of authors and their unjust ability to control his movements, he settled for making an offensive gesture at the woman.

“But, but,” she stammered. “I thought Little people preferred the term, “Little men or women”.”

“Maybe “little Humans” do, but I’m a DWARF!” Gritchy pounded on his chest to accent his point. “Why are you humans meddling in my affairs?”

A flurry of conversation broke out amongst the humans. Gritchy growled low and long as they discussed his mental stability and the unlikely possibility that he would make a good witness in a court of law. Finding their attention focused on each other and not him, he took a moment to read the large sign painted on the mirrored window. He couldn’t pronounce any of the long names but he understood the line at the bottom, ‘Attorneys office’. He’d dropped out of the magic stream in front of the worst black magic humans possessed, the dreaded Lawyers’ den! Trying to blend in with the concrete and pavement wasn’t working very well but fortunately for him, the humans were all busy arguing their right to represent him and whether they wanted to represent him. He slipped around the corner and ran blindly into the heart of the city.

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