Kathy's eyes peeled open slowly, her body a single throbbing mass as she groaned and sat up. She looked around, taking comfort that all of her allies were also getting up before really taking in the chamber they had arrived in. The floor, walls and ceiling were all composed of roughly hewn black stone blocks, the floor made level through some construction process. The chamber was perhaps fifty feet long and twenty feet wide, with torches lit in sconces every few yards along the walls. The chamber had the dank, chill air of a prison or dungeon.
Ahead of them stood a queer throne composed of melded bones and stretched human skin, a prop out of an old Hammer film. Seated upon the throne was a creature she initially thought rather silly-looking. It was a humanoid fellow with the head, talon-feet and feathery hands of a raven, wearing a black-and-white checkerboard suit. His button shirt was pale pink, a half-black, half-white two tone tie hung down from his throat. She couldn't quite make it out, but some sort of sigil shimmered on the tie like a pin. His eyes appeared too human, and his teeth, exposed in a broad smile, were improbably dagger-like.
After taking him in for a few seconds, she didn't feel he was silly, but rather outlandish and a little terrifying. She struggled to stand, and Byron was up an instant before her, helping her up. He had another hellfire shotgun in hand already, and took aim after hauling her up. Daggeuro, to her left, drew out Boon and Bane with a rasp, and soon everyone had weapons in hand.
The raven-thing raised one black feathered hand in a gesture of command. "Hold, please," he said, a dark mirth running through his tone. His voice reminded Kathy of the Joker from the early 90's Batman cartoons. "Let us not come to blows, my guests."
Daggeuro took two steps forward, brandishing his blades in a guard stance. "Are you the one called Destroyer?"
"I am," said the creature, beak curved in a cartoon grin. He rose from his throne, which turned black, melting down into the floor, a phantasm. "But that is not my name. Allow me to introduce myself," he said, reaching into his suit coat and pulling out a cordless silver microphone. "I, am Quoth," he announced, his voice amplified over unseen speakers. He made a twirl with his hand and bowed grandly, then straightened.
"You're meat," Byron hollered, firing his weapon. Twin balls of roaring hellfire streaked out with a deafening boom, but when they reached Quoth, they passed through him, causing his image to waver and nothing more. Byron lowered the gun, dropped his head and shook it. "An illusion, of course. You're not really here."
"Of course not, Byron my old friend," Quoth said, chuckling. "Do you think me mad? Oh, wait," he said, one finger pressed against his beak. He stage whispered, "I am." He vanished for a moment, reappearing in the blink of an eye only a few feet away dressed in a ratty professor's suit with faded elbow patches and thick-rimmed glasses. Behind him now stood a chalkboard with a simple drawing of a three-dimensional cube. In his hand was a wooden pointer with a rubber tip, which he thwacked against the picture. "You folks are here, within my Compound. I trust you're here to try and rescue your friend, the fairy King Ovin," he said, imitating a stuffy academic, eyes half-lidded as if bored. "In order to reach him, you'll have to traverse the Compound and hope to cross paths," he said, looking at the group. "Of course, doing that, many of you will wind up in here," he said, tapping the board. When the pointer struck, a chalk scraping sound filled the air, and a picture of a clock and a headstone appeared to the right of the cube. Quoth smiled broadly at them, flashing his teeth. "An early grave."
"Are you quite finished," Senta snarled, stepping toward the creature. Quoth once more blinked out of existence for the briefest moment, reappearing as two miniature versions of himself, one on each of the gotrin's shoulders. The left was in his original attire, but with fluffy white angel's wings on his back. The right was as himself, but with a red trident-tipped tail and hypodermic needle in hand.
Both Quoths said, "Probably not a wise idea." The Quoth-devil jabbed the syringe into Senta's neck and pressed the plunger while the Quoth-angel flapped his wings and drifted away, a harp materializing in his hands to play for a few measures. Senta slapped at his neck, his paw coming away slick with blood.
Kathy blinked, and once more Quoth was before them, standing twenty feet away with his microphone. She saw from the corner of her eye that Senta was wobbling, trying to stay upright. "What the hell," she blurted, catching the gotrin as he fell to his knees. She looked up at Byron, whose jaw was set, eyes narrowed upon the raven-thing. "I thought you said this was an illusion."
"Quoth has enough power to make even illusions carry weight sometimes," Byron said sternly. "Reality is just another set of rules for him to bend."
"Quite right," Quoth exclaimed, cackling madly, doubling over, stamping his clawed foot theatrically. He straightened up suddenly, snapped his fingers, and a velvet curtain dropped down behind him. "And in here, the rules are ever-changing, always in drift. Through this curtain awaits your trials, my good guests! Will you play my game? Or would you prefer a swift and merciful death?"
Kathy took her bow in hand and swiftly knocked an arrow back, releasing it the moment she had Quoth lined up. The arrow stopped mid-flight, and turned to ashes, blowing away as Quoth flapped one hand toward her.
"I suppose we have our answer," he said softly. The raven-thing then began to fade, and moments later, he was gone entirely, his silver microphone dropping to the floor and rolling out of sight under the curtain. Kathy saw how everyone, even Senta, recovering slowly, was now looking at Byron. His face had turned ashen, his eyes glossy with the threat of tears, hands trembling. When he'd been speaking with Jago, she had come to her own conclusion about the significance the Destroyer held for him. Now, he confirmed her suspicions.
"You're wondering how I could know that creature," Byron croaked, sniffing hard to draw back his tears. "He's the one who took me to his world several years ago, and made me what I am. He was the one who Awakened in me a much lesser version of his own powers.
"Quoth was my maker, and we are all in danger of getting killed."
There was a long minute of absolute silence after Byron finished speaking, one pregnant with possible ramifications. Thankfully, it was Daggeuro who took the first action, which was to sheath Boon and Bane slowly, pointedly. Everyone else followed suit, and Byron sagged where he stood, shaking his head.
"You are not responsible for any of this," Daggeuro said gently. "This Quoth feels like a creature on par with the gods. No matter how you feel about the source of your powers, remember that it is how they are used that tells us of your spirit."
"De doggy man speaks true," Dimanche followed up. "Dat ting is purest malice and madness. You may be a bit crazed, but he is just wicked." Kathy put her arm around his waist, squeezed him tight.
"Thank you," Byron said, relieved.
"This does beg the question, though," said Senta, standing on his own strength again, "how you ever got away from him in the first place."
"Quoth has someone he answers to, someone who he has to work for," Byron said. "I realize that might seem impossible, but there is something even worse than ol' bird brain." Vernon sucked air through his teeth, whistled appreciatively. "I know, right? But his master, whatever he is, can't take direct action himself. He has to work through intermediaries. I never quite learned why that is."
"Hardly matters," Daggeuro said, twirling one finger.
"Right," Byron breathed, thinking back. "I spent most of my time in his world in a kind of dungeon cell. My guard was one of the strangers, a kind of elite footsoldier for Quoth's master. They answer only to Quoth and his lord, and they're nasty pieces of work. Anyway, mine was named Roderick, of the Blade. He's the youngest stranger, the most recently turned."
"Wait, 'turned'," Kathy asked. "What are these guys, vampires?"
"No, but the concept is similar. All strangers were once human," Byron explained. "I don't know what the entire process entails, but they have to be willing to make the change. Anyhow, Roderick has plenty of power, but he's impatient. One day, when they were starting to let me wander around on my own for a little bit at a time, I told Roderick I wanted to do my day's training early. He took me to the room where they had me practice manifesting with the cards, and I wrote 'breathable pond'. The middle of the room turned into a pond, and he told me to try going in the water to try it out. I went in, and it worked, I could breath, so I just went to the bottom and waited until he came in after me to make sure I wasn't dead."
Kathy thought she could guess what happened next. "So you swam out and dismissed the manifestation, didn't you?"
"I did, but it didn't work the way I'd hoped," Byron said. "The pool disappeared, but not before spitting Roderick out into a wall at high speed. He was knocked out, so I took his keys from his belt and ran like hell. I don't remember how, but I wound up at a door that led back to our world. I tried a few keys, got the right one, and went through. I got lucky," Byron admitted. "I don't even know how I knew I was at the right door."
"What's important is that you made it out, and now we're here," Kathy said. "You have an advantage we can use; you know this thing, how he works."
"If he is as insane as we've just seen, dat might not be of much help," Dimanche pointed out. "I know we need to get moving, and not much else." They all agreed, spreading out in a wedge formation, Daggeuro in the lead with Boon and Bane at the ready again. Next came Byron and Kathy, with Dimanche, Senta and Vernon at the rear. The kennin warrior stepped up to the curtain, looked back at them, and nodded.
With a grunt, he twitched aside the curtain, and their minds all skipped a moment.
King Ovin sat in his plush chair, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to be doing here. His seat was centrally located in the room, with two men seated at wide counters on a lower level, a wide window spanning the front of the room. He looked out into the darkness, stars spinning past, as though they were all moving through it.
Something shimmered on screen, a strange, bird-like vehicle of emerald green appearing before him. Someone behind him exclaimed, "Captain! Romulan Warbird decloaking off forward bow! They are powering up their weapons' systems!"
Without thinking, Ovin blurted out, "Raise defenses!" He had no idea what he was doing, but he was determined to learn quickly.
When Kathy's mind caught up to what had happened, she felt the urge to giggle threaten to overwhelm her. She was looking down at Daggeuro, who had, in the blink of an eye, been transformed into an average Scottish Terrier in fitted armor. Boon and Bane had been turned into tags bearing images of the blades, next to another tag on his collar which read 'Toto'. She would have laughed, except she looked down at herself to discover she was wearing a simple blue dress with yellow blouse over ruby red slippers.
"Aw, crap," she said. A look around revealed them standing in the middle of the Munchkin village, the little folken walking away from them. Byron, standing to her right, looked disturbingly natural with metallic flesh, woodsman's axe in his hands. Behind her, Vernon looked normal, but Baron Dimanche had straw sprouting from his open suit coat and top hat, and Senta's fur had taken on the dark golden-yellow hue of the Cowardly Lion. "Well, welcome to the merry ol' Land of Oz," she said.
"Bollocks," Daggeuro snarled, turning around on all fours, craning his neck up at Kathy, who had a basket slung over her right arm. Everyone's gear appeared intact, except for Daggeuro's, which had vanished with is change in stature and form. "Let's figure out what we need to do here and move on. I don't care for this at all."
Byron took off at a jog after one of the Munchkins as the others surveyed their surroundings and one another. Senta raised one golden eyebrow at the cyclops. "Why aren't you affected?"
"I'm not from your reality originally," Vernon replied. "I came through a kalpa many years ago, fleeing war in my Ether Plane."
"Then you may be at least partially immune to whatever trickery Quoth sets against us," Daggeuro said.
"This isn't too terrible," Kathy said, crouching down to pat Daggeuro on the head. He growled at her, lip curling up. "You're cute this way."
"Don't make me lift my leg on you." Byron came jogging back over, clunking and clanking all the way. "Well?"
"Little guy said we should do like they said in the song, follow the yellow brick road," he said. "I personally vote Kathy clicks her heels and wishes us the hell out of here right off."
"That's right," Kathy blurted with a broad smile. "The Wizard said she could have used them any time, remember? Okay, everybody huddle up." They all gathered close to Kathy, who clicked her heels together thrice and said, "There's no place like home." She paused, looking around expectantly. Nothing happened. She repeated the process, and again, nothing happened. "I don't get it. This should have worked!"
"All right, wait," said Byron, holding up one steel finger. "The Munchkins just finished their tune, and Dorothy didn't know about the slippers' power yet at that point. So, if we have to go along with the story, even partly, we can't use them yet."
"He's right," said Daggeuro. "We have to travel toward the Emerald City if we want to pass through this test, I suspect. Kathy? Lead the way." Despite her new clothes, Kathy still had her weapons and bag, and she led the way with Byron, Daggeuro right by her heel, Vernon, Dimanche and Senta following right behind.
They left the Munchkins behind, followng the yellow brick road.
Time flowed strangely in this realm. Kathy could swear they'd only been walking five minutes when they came upon the corn field where the Scarecrow's mount stood, yet it felt like at least an hour. The Scarecrow wasn't on his post, but instead there stood thereupon the bloated, fly-blown corpse of an elf in an advanced state of decay, his eyes pecked out, stomach split open. Railroad spikes had been driven through his arms and feet to hold the poor man in place.
Kathy felt the air grow still around her, smelled the putrid stench of thickening fluids on and around the corpse. Daggeuro padded right up to the side of the road, then disappeared into the corn for a minute before returning, head hung down.
"I knew him," he said. "Lieutenant Veshim, of the Faded Army. He and his unit disappeared eight months ago while on a supply gathering outing. We assumed they'd been slain by specters or loyalists."
"We don't know dat dey weren't," said Dimanche, stuffing straw back into his blazer absently. "Dis could be anodder illusion." He looked away over at the body. "A very well crafted one." He sighed. "Who am I kidding? We shouldn't linger here." Kathy agreed, and she led them on down the road once again. None saw the corpse slide down from its post to follow them through the corn.
A little while later, they came to the Tin Woodsman's shack, though the metal man was not there, already a role filled by Byron. Kathy eyeballed the apple trees just down the road with caution, though. She could see faces in the trunks, felt their watchful eyes upon the company.
"We might have a fight ahead of us," she warned, drawing out her axe. Dimanche readied a ball of green fire in each hand, coming up alongside her. "You see them?"
"I do, though dis spell makes me uncomfortable right now. I'm a bit flammable right now."
"Then douse it for now," Kathy suggested. "Just be ready to use it in case they get hostile." The company got within twenty feet of the living trees when one of them lobbed an apple at them, missing Kathy by a foot. "Bastards are supposed to wait until we pick a few," she grumbled.
Dimanche didn't hesitate, hurling three balls of swirling green fire in rapid succession at the trees. The first one missed its mark, but the second and third struck true, each taking a target full on in their screeching faces. Flames erupted up their trunks, eating into their limbs and branches. The trees uprooted themselves and tried to run this way and that, spreading the damage around to their fellows.
Within a couple of minutes, the entire orchard was ablaze, the harpy shrieks of the dying trees forcing the company to try and cover their ears. Dimanche didn't bother, opting instead to kneel down and cover Daggeuro's for him. In his current form, the kennin warrior would have been otherwise helpless.
When they could no longer hear the din of scream through their hands, they all continued their march along the yellow brick road. In the trees along the other side of the lane, they could see the bodies of Munchkins hanging from old ropes, a grim and constant reminder that this was not Oz as intended.
And as they passed, those same said corpses reached up with jagged claws and cut themselves down, joining the undead elf in following after the company.
Kathy stood between Byron and Dimanche, staring ahead after having come around a bend in the road around a hill. "Well, this presents a problem," she observed. Some fifty yards ahead stood a large roadblock gate, beyond which were two white Bobcat plows, a bulldozer, and dozens of construction signs. Winged monkeys and gorillas dressed in workman's garb were tearing up the yellow brick road.
"I don't recall this ever showing up in the movie," Byron commented. "Makes a sick kind of sense, though. What better way to foul things up short of killing one of the characters?" The minions of the Wicked Witch didn't seem to have spotted them yet, and Kathy saw that there was, just ten yards ahead, a perpendicular road crossing their path made of deep blue bricks. It led off to the left into what looked like a shadowy woodland inhabited by gnarled, blackened trees.
"Come on," she said, angling off the yellow brick road toward the blue across the grass. The others began following, and they were perhaps thirty yards away from the maw of the woods when simiam shrieks of alarm rose up behind them. Kathy looked back, drawing out her assassin's blades. "Shit. Incoming!"
The flying monkeys were coming for them, nearly a dozen of them wielding sledgehammers and spears. One of the smaller ones wore an acetylene tank on its back, torch blazing in its right hand. Byron had a hellfire shotgun manifested in hand in a moment, and he shot the torch-wielder just right.
The tank and monkey exploded in midair, the thump bowling him and Dimanche, standing close together, to the ground. Kathy leapt back as a winged gorilla landed before her, stabbing downward with his spear. She parried a follow-up thrust, spinning in close to stab it in the stomach and throat, twirling away to face her next assailant.
Vernon lunged and rolled back and forth with two of the heavier-set minions, breaking one's leg with a fierce angled swing of his warhammer before being bashed aside, his armor holding strong. He tumbled himself aside from a killing blow, rising up into a crouch and punching his attacker square in the groin.
It hurts primates just as bad as people, it turned out.
Senta wove about like a deadly whirling dervish, his knives drawing blood with almost every flicker. The gotrin made almost no sound as he worked through the attacks and defenses he faced, an unsettlingly quiet killer.
Baron Dimanche used the creatures' wings against them, buffeting them with gusts of wind magic, then hurling bolts of electrical force into their chests.
The battle was over quickly, and Daggeuro, having fled to the woodland entrance, yipped and yapped at them to hurry over before reinforcements came. Kathy led them into the woods, Byron and Dimanche right behind her and Daggeuro. The murky air hung damp on their skin, and soon they smelled the putrid odor of the sickly yellow puddles flanking the blue brick road.
Following the twisting, bending path, they finished up before the open gates of a dark ruby castle. The courtyard ahead of them was filled with what looked like undead Munchkins and elves, all moaning and shambling about mindlessly. There had to be around a hundred of them at least, some few now recognizing there was food nearby.
Byron stepped forth, grinning savagely. "Allow me to handle this," he said. He took a yellow card from the pack at his hip, a pen clipped to its side, and scribbled down a single word. He tapped the card and threw it down, and with a flash of yellow light, a World War II Howitzer on a tripod stand appeared, hand crank readied for use.
Byron grabbed the crank and weapon pivot handle, and opened fire. The 'sput-sput-sput' of the weapon rang out, drowning out the moans and groans of the undead leveled by its bullets. He turned the crank steadily, sweeping the barrels from side to side, clearing row after row of the zombie elves and Munchkins. When the ammo belt ran dry, there were only six or seven undead still before them.
Vernon and Senta swept in ahead, taking care of the last few, allowing the rest of the company to step into the courtyard of the ruby castle. They visually swept the area, locating two means of entry; there were large, ornately decorated oak doors fronting the main keep, and a second, smaller servants' door around the south side, set into the ruby wall.
Kathy made a swift executive decision, jogging toward the servants' entrance. When everyone was together, she sheathed one blade, grabbed the door handle, and pulled the door open. Beyond stood a dimly-lit castle kitchen, worn and grimy-looking in the failing fluorescent light.
As she stepped through the doorway, Kathy felt a slight pressure in her head, which instantly vanished when she opened her eyes. She turned to face the company, almost yelped when she saw Daggeuro standing before her, returned to his normal kennin form. She grabbed at her throat, felt the chain mail singlet just below her neckline, and sighed with relief.
Everyone had been reverted to their normal form, and all were smiles. "This is much improved," Senta whispered. "But we should still be wary. You three seem to know something of this land we've been stuck in. What is this place?"
"No idea," said Byron, moving slowly about, opening cupboards on squeaking hinges. "We lost our frame of reference when we left the yellow brick road."
"It isn't the witch's castle," Kathy said. "At least, not of the west. Could belong to another witch, though."
"Not Glinda," Daggeuro said, leaning over a sink to inspect it. "She'd be a lot tidier than this." He heard something down in the pipes, a gurgling, and as he leaned down to listen, a gout of rusty brown water came splashing out, wetting his head. "Blarg," he blurted, backing away. The water splashed and began swirling out of the sink, slopping onto the kitchen floor. The water soon began to fill upward into a column of swirling sewer fluid, coruscating and splashing droplets wetly about.
"What is this," Senta snapped. Nobody knew, and nobody replied. The column slowed down in its rotation, no more water coming from the sink. Tiny flecks of blue light, the shade of the brick road they'd followed to the ruby castle, sparkled dimly at them. Kathy looked over to Byron, who was taking a bracing stance.
"Get ready," he rasped. The column exploded outward, and once more, they were all cast into darkness.