Davan looked up and saw dark clouds moving in. He shrugged. Sudden storms were no real novelty in Kansas, especially during tornado season. He simply increased his pace to try and get back to the office before the rain started. He also silently cursed the weatherman, who had said it would be 100% sunny today. Davan usually brownbagged it on days when rain seemed likely. He stopped and looked up. Something wasn't quite right, he realized. The clouds looked normal, if threatening...he couldn't quite put his finger on it. After a moment, he resumed his walk back to the Capitol building. Then it hit him as he felt the faint breeze generated by his movement. There was no wind. Dark clouds were sweeping in at high speed...without any wind. There was ALWAYS wind with a storm. Something was wrong here. He increased his pace as the clouds swallowed the Sun, casting the street into dark shadow and causing the streetlights to flicker wanly to life. Other people on the street were hurrying as well, ducking under awnings or rushing for their cars. They just thought it was a normal storm, if maybe a strong one. They were wrong. As Davan rounded the last corner and the Capitol came fully into view, he felt a rumbling. Not from the sky...from the ground. Then the Capitol exploded. Davan was hurled to the sidewalk, stunned and bloodied by a flying piece of marble facade. Had someone bombed the building? He forced himself up on one elbow and tried to see the wreckage, see if there was any chance any of his friends and coworkers had survived. The Capitol was gone, replaced by a dark spire that reached up into the clouds, clouds that now covered the sky from horizon to zenith. And still there was no wind.... @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- \\ // -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ .|,Coherent Comics Presents \\ // #3 - Cornix Horribilis --X------------------------- E }X{ ARCHS copyright 2002 by the '|` A Superguy Tale // \\ Dvandroid (Dave Van Domelen) @>-`-,-`-,-`-,`-,-`-,-`-,-`- // \\ -'-.-'-.'-.-'-.-'-.-'-.-'-<@ The quartet walked along the Golden Path, down what seemed to be a tunnel of pinkish light shot through with blue lightnings. "Now, why are we doing this?" Kat asked as she walked. "To get to the other side," Stan smirked. She reached over to smack him. "I mean this whole 'quest for weapons' stupidity. The Dvandroid gave us the Tarsus, and he's clearly a mouthpiece for the Writer..." "I think they're called Authors here," Anna interrupted. "Whatever. For the gods of this place," Kat snarled. "And as such, why couldn't he have just given us the mystic weapons too? Then we could go straight on to this Dark Sorceror or whatever and kick his butt up to somewhere between his ears." "Drama," Sig.Lad replied. "Our new abilities are based on Drama, and so are the weapons. Just giving them to us wouldn't be very Dramatic, so we wouldn't get as much out of them. It is the struggle to find the weapons that will give them their strength." Stan nodded. "Raw power can get things done more quickly, but you always pay the price if you do things in a boring way. Taking dramaless shortcuts is often a sign of the Darkening [see Constellation #34-36 - Ed, putting down the security deposit for a swank new apartment], unless you're Limp-Asparagus Lad. And even he's probably at least a little vulnerable." "It's contrived, but when you think about it, so's gravity," Sig.Lad concluded. "Sure, you can get around it, but you had better not ignore it completely, or you'll fall on your hinder." "To extend the metaphor," Anna chimed in, "think of this quest as dragging your sled uphill. Once we're done, we can just slide down to victory, taking advantage of the 'potential drama' we built up." "I should've stayed on my homeworld," Kat sighed. "Hey, looks like there's a, um, dark at the end of the tunnel." Indeed, a faint dark spot could be seen at the end of the glowing tunnel of energy. It expanded rapidly, and suddenly the Exarchs had left the Golden Path. They found themselves on a steep, forested slope, the light of the setting sun casting flickering dappled shadows across their faces. A man could be heard cursing in the middle distance as a donkey brayed in protest. "The Tarsus says we're in someplace called 020HACKNSLASH," Sig.Lad looked at the armband as if it was talking to him. "Sounds friendly," Stan said, keeping his voice low. "Should we go see a man about a donkey?" "I'll go first," Kopikat held out a hand to wave the others back. "We have no idea how badly we'll stand out here, I can get a look at the man without being seen." Without waiting for a reply, she seemed to melt into the trees. After a minute or so, she reappeared. "Medieval peasant," she reported. "We'll look like idiots. Well, you will," she corrected as a dull brown cloak grew out of her body and wrapped itself around her. "The man's trying to get a donkey to pull a cart full of food up the mountain. And he has a fairly good imagination in terms of the profanity he's directing at the donkey." "Yeah, we can hear most of that," Anna smirked. "It doesn't all make sense, but I suspect something is being lost in the translation." "Translation?" Stan looked at Anna. "Well, the bandits in the last Altiverse were dubbed," she shrugged. "Odds are we'll be getting some sort of translation for whatever the locals speak. It's a pretty common plot device, and we absorbed a lot of Plotdevicium energy [Back in Exarchs #1 - Ed, padding his part]." "Sounds like the donkey's moving again," Sig.Lad observed. "I say we shadow the drover, he's got to be going somewhere. As opposed to the nowhere here," he gestured at the trees. "And I'd rather not be wandering around the woods after sunset." "Ditto," Anna agreed. The sun had dropped noticeably by the time they reached the treeline. The drover took his cart a few dozen meters farther up the path and then started unloading it. "Ooookay, so I was wrong. There's nothing here," Sig.Lad frowned. "Kat, could you ask the good man what the heck is going on?" "We need to get you guys some regular clothing so I don't have to be faceman all the time," she sighed, then stepped out into the clearing. "Good sir," she called out a bit stiffly. "I am a traveler from afar, and I admit to being confused by what you're doing with those goods." The man nearly jumped out of his skin when Kat started talking, and was still clutching his chest when she stopped. "This is no place for a lady," he finally sputtered. "Or anyone at all, after dark. Up there," he pointed to a cave barely visible in the waning light, "is the lair of the Dragon of the Eastern Range. This," he pointed at the goods he'd hauled up the mountainside, "is our village's tribute, so that the dragon will not burn our houses and devour our children." He dumped the rest of the load unceremoniously and grabbed the rope tied around the donkey's neck. "If you wish to see the morning, you'll run for the bottom of the mountain as fast as you can...even I must be gone soon after sunset, though my position as tribute bringer gives me some latitude. Now run!" His words were punctuated by a blast of fire from the cave. With that, he urged the donkey down the path. It seemed almost eager to be on its way. Kat nodded and ran for the woodline, but stopped once she'd rejoined the others. "Let me guess," she rolled her eyes. "We go towards the danger." "Naturally," Sig.Lad nodded. "Onwards and upwards. Where better to find a legendary weapon than in a dragon's hoard?" "Why not go down to the village and see if we can get better weapons and armor before trying it?" Kat countered. "I...don't think we need that, actually," Stan broke in. He'd spent the last minute carefully sniffing at the air. "Kat, can you do olfactory analysis?" "A bit. What are we looking for?" Stan narrowed his eyes and looked at the cave, which was emitting another burst of fire. "Petroleum fumes." Kat's eyes widened. "You're right! I'm getting complex hydrocarbons, a bit of sulfur and some ethanol. And cheese dip, but I'm guessing that's not from the 'dragon breath' flames." "A dragon that needs a flamethrower doesn't really scare me so much," Stan explained, then checked to make sure none of his arrowheads had broken open. "Right. Kat, you try to sneak in first. Maybe dragons on this world just drink napalm, but if there's a mechanism in there, you can disable it before we try to go in," Sig.Lad ordered. Rather than replying, Kat just flitted into the shadows. The cave flared up every few seconds for a minute or so...and then stopped. "Come on in!" Kat shouted from the cave mouth. When the others reached the cave, it was clear that the "dragonfire" was coming from a pipe that ran down the center of the tunnel. Kat had turned a valve near its tip, shutting off the flow of fire. "Whoever's running this probably knows someone's here," Sig.Lad said, "so let's get to him before he has time to prepare a defense." After a few dozen meters of twisting tunnels, they entered a middling large cavern lit by flickering lamps. A complex apparatus squatted in the center of the cavern, emitting puffs of smoke and a strong smell of burning oil. "So, here's the dragon," Anna observed. "Now what? There's three more tunnels out of here. Do we split up?" "No way," Kat insisted. "I think we'll have to," Sig.Lad countered. "Our Comm.thingies [LNH standard issue communicators - Ed] are fried, so we can't really stay in contact, but Kat should be able to hear any shouts for help. She'll stay here and keep an eye and ear out...our host might have a secret way in and try to double back, after all. And if any of us hollers, Kat can come running. Anna, you take the left tunnel, Stan the right, and I'll go down the middle." "This is stupid," Kat pointed out, helpfully. "Stupid like a fox," Stan countered. "Or something." The three Exarchs disappeared down the three tunnels, leaving Kat to fume alongside the "dragon". * * * * Sig.Lad saw no other side passages as he went, but kept looking back just in case someone or something popped out of a concealed door. He held his sword out ahead of him at the ready. Finally, the tunnel widened out into a poorly lit cavern. He slowed down. Then the cavern flared to light. Not quite enough to blind him, but enough to make him throw up an arm in front of his eyes. "I am the all-powerful Macarius!" a voice came from the whole cavern. "You have seen too much, and now must die!" Sig.Lad took a defensive stance, but still couldn't see where the speaker was. "Oh, KAAAAAT!" he shouted. Then he *felt* a disturbance behind him and whirled to parry a savage downstroke. His sword chipped and nearly broke, and he whirled away to get some distance. His opponent was a wiry red-headed man in a robe, the hood of which had fallen back. He was holding a sabre with a shimmering blade that seemed almost to be made of clouds. The man pulled a flask from his cloak and threw it at Sig.Lad, who leaped high into the air, narrowly avoiding a fiery explosion. "So, Macarius," he taunted. "Ever hear of Ham.net?" Sig.Lad jumped back from a strong, if somewhat clumsy, lunge. "Well, probably not, now that I think of it. Anyway, there's a scene where Ham.net and Rec.art.es are dueling," he carefully deflected another stroke, trying to keep his damaged blade from taking too much force on it. "And Ham.net forces an exchange of swords. That scene always confused me, until I found out how it was done. Watch carefully!" With that, Sig.Lad executed a quick maneuver that gained him Macarius's sword and forced Macarius to take his own damaged blade or be totally unarmed. Wind swirled around the cavern, knocking Macarius to his knees and raising Sig.Lad off the floor entirely. "Is this the weapon of air?" Sig.Lad asked himself. WELL, IS IT? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHERS? HOW WILL THE EXARCHS DEAL WITH MACARIUS, ASSUMING THE LITTLE WEASEL DOESN'T GET AWAY? Answers to some of these questions...okay, all of them...will be found in the next...Superguy! =========================================================================== Author's Notes: Well, I picked up a Latin dictionary today, so I can crank out even more bad Latin titles, yay! If you know Latin, keep it to yourself. }-> Anyway, I sorta cheated this issue. I didn't write it in one sitting like I'd hoped. I was kinda blocked on what to do once they arrived in the new Altiverse, so I wrote everything up to that point and slept on it. I'm so ashamed.