Grebok’s fist shot out like it was on rails.
Teeth ground and cracked in the jaw of Rorg, an ork’kin he dared to eat paste in second grade. Grebok forgot the incident soon after. Apparently, Rorg hadn’t.
They were in the mountains of Friendmonger now and the road grew more perilous. Friendship rings formed clans and factions out here in the wild.
Lord Chuckles head-butted one of Rorg’s grabbier buddies but came away equally staggered by the exchange. “Gah! What do you have under your skull? Another skull?”
The hard-headed cretin curled his fat lips into what was probably a cruel smile. It looked more like a pig with gas, a mowhawk, and a tribal tattoo. “R’rerek Hardskull,” the creature introduced himself. He pointed a stubby, calloused finger to another tattoo on his chest, where his name was written upside down, presumably in case he forgot it.
Chuckles kicked him hard enough to smear the ink. A roar of air escaped the foe as he collapsed to his knees, desperately trying to get his lungs to take air back after a messy breakup.
“R’rerek Ironlung more like it!” the Avatar shouted. He looked around to see if anyone heard that. Grebok was busy fighting that first ork’kin, Sparky was entangled with some elf-broads (they were dudes), and Gunther was picking his butt and sniffing his fingers. More genius wasted, Chuckles thought, frowning.
“Orcs are gay. You guys are teh fail,” Gunther opined from his seat. He turned to focus in on the weasel’s fight. “Yeah, tear her dress! Let’s see some boobage! Make them lez out!” Sparky looked over at the office geek in repulsed confusion. Which earned him a kick to the ribs, much to the office geek’s apparent delight. “Hawhaw, fagger.”
Sparky weaved in and out of the two elves. They were feisty little guys, but he didn’t just stick “wonder weasel” after his name for no reason. His back leg kicked the legs out from under one, while the other got a nasty bite on the shoulder.
Grebok ducked an incoming blow. “Rorg still called Paste-Eater in my village. No one marry Paste-Eater!” his assailant cried, indignant.
The Son of Drogmar threw an uppercut, and followed through with an elbow to Rorg’s exposed throat. Lastly he put a kick into his side that sent the heavy beast stumbling downhill. He bowled over the gasping R’rerek and in turn the still-standing elf.
Sparky scuttled out of the lumbering path of the paste-eater and made a break for higher ground.
“You look like a giant ape pecker!” Gunther heckled from the sidelines. “Wonder weiner!”
As their enemies writhed around in an awkward pile of green and porcelain flesh, the Shadowstories took their opportunity to make their egress. Lord Chuckles looked out from the mountain path to see what progress they’d made. Precious little, was the report.
Gunther followed with a slow lope. “You guys should all shower together. Because of how gay you are. Mirror-door sucks. It’s a stupid name for a planet. Darkblackshadow is a cooler name. That’s the name of my level 900 Wizard Dragon Knight King Rogue. He’s really awesome. He can wield three weapons at the same time, and… and….” He continued talking after this, but everyone tuned him out at roughly the same time.
“Man, fuck this place.” Grebok silently vowed he wouldn’t accept any more friend requests. He didn’t even know who half the people staking a claim to his acquaintance were anymore. He was still puzzling over who the Goddess Bl’art was
“New friend request.”
Grebok turned tiredly. They all squinted at the shadowy silhouette of this latest applicant: Tall. Cowled? Caped! “The lemming man!” He announced, already forgetting his vow.
“Friendship confirmed.”
“Fuck yeah, friendship confirmed. Finally, someone I actually—no. No. Come on, no.” Grebok backpedaled into Sparky.
“Fuck’s your problem?” Sparky growled.
“Death.” Grebok uttered like a curse (not invectively, like damn, shit, or godsblood; more like the kind of curse old gypsy women were always accused of).
Sure enough, the tall shrouded figure that faded into view, carried an overlarge scythe like the reaper of legend. In a dramatic show he slipped the hood from his head.
One by one, the Shadowstories gasped in anticipatory horror, only to find themselves slightly disappointed. They expected a perpetually grinning skull with glowing eyes, or some rotted zombie face, or maybe some Edvard Munch’s The Scream shit. Not… this.
It was a little known fact that Death looked like Jason Priestley. The personification of the inevitable end sighed, knowing what would come next.
“You know you look like—” Sparky started but was cut off by an upraised hand. It wasn’t even a skeletal hand. It was fleshy and mannish (and slightly girlish), like Jason Priestley would have.
“Yeah. Yeah I know,” Death nodded, “Jason Priestley, right?”
The giant weasel shook his head at first, but stopped, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess a little.”
Chuckles stepped forward, again reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. When his hands closed around nothing he attempted to look innocuous.
“Why do you want to be my friend?” Grebok took mighty umbrage behind his bolder companion.
“Oh, I’m everyone’s friend. Eventually.” Death smiled, all proud of himself.
Lord Chuckles rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, very clever.”
“You like that?” If Death had a horn, he’d be tooting it.
“Get on with it, what are you doing here?” Chuckles waved his arms in all directions to make sure he got it all.
“No one’s dying out there anymore. Everyone’s here,” he mimicked the Avatar’s spastic flailing. “So, Death comes to the Infi-Net.” He presented himself with a flourish. The response was underwhelming. “Bah, you don’t know,” he dismissed.
Grebok inched his way further up the path. “I ain’t dead, you got that?”
“No, but that guy is.” Death pointed down the path to R’rerek.
Sparky cuffed Chuckles in the back of the head. The Avatar shrugged unapologetically.
“You didn’t do it actually. Congenital heart failure,” Death supplied, ever-helpful.
“Death is a tool! Metal Death rulezzz!” Gunther threw some sort of faux-metal hand gesture.
The Son of Drogmar stopped inching away. “Wait, how can he die? Is anyone even really alive around here?”
“They are now, Bunky. I just said that, even.” Death cinched up his adorable unshaven face at the Miradorian. “Not your sharpest knife, is he?”
“He’s street smart,” Chuckles exaggerated.
“Good luck with that.” Death started down the path toward the dead ork’kin.
They all stood around for another couple seconds. “Sooooo…?” Sparky gave voice to everyone’s impregnated expectation.
Jason Priestley turned back to them. “Oh yeah, you’re free to go… for now.” He winked. “Am I right?”
Gunther gave Death the finger, then with both hands, then made both fingers into little laser pistols, then made little “pew, pew, pew” noises.
Sparky grabbed the increasingly smelly office nerd by the collar and drug him up the path. “Gidoffa me, homo! Go lick ferret sack!” he kicked, and shrieked.
Not for the first time, Sparky found himself put off by Gunther’s newfound officiousness, but at the same time probably respected him more.
“I hate that guy,” Grebok mumbled to himself, half-turning to look back down the path.
Death was looking right at him. He waved at Grebok with R’rerek’s limp hand. “See you soon, Grebok.” He supplied a comical falsetto voice for the dead ork’kin.
Grebok shivered and quickly rounded the path toward the peak.
Chuckles caught up and clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly. He even thought better of a Don’t worry, you’ll probably die from robot-gonorrhea. joke. He was a good friend, he concluded.
They continued upward but it wasn’t long before they stopped short again.
Death stood in front of them on the path again. His hood once more hiding his pretty head.
Grebok freaked out a bit. “What? What do you want, man?” He rolled up his sleeves and invited confrontation. “You wanna do this? Let’s do this! You’ll never take me alive!” He was nigh hysterical.
The gaunt, shrouded figure, shrugged. “If this is a bad time, I can come back later.”
“L-lemming man?” Chuckles asked hesitantly. He looked back down the path as if somehow he had passed them along the way.
Sparky sniffed the air. “Yeah, that’s him.”
The Lord of the Lemmings waved spritely.
