Another Account of Spurious Reckoning - 2

After dinner small cups of a warm, sweet liquid, which tasted vaguely like coffee, were passed around. As we sat sipping on it, some of the men started playing some rather peculiar instruments. The sounds of stringed instruments, skin drums and vocal cries filled the air. The younger women joined in with singing and dancing. They gracefully twirled around, did backflips and leapt in the air in smart synchronisation. The two girls who had served us dinner were also part of the dance. I held the gaze of the shorter, more petite one.

After what seemed like the main routine the girls split up and went to their huts. We were initially disappointed, but Prantis Bababa came up to us and told us we could share the girls’ huts that night. Apparently they had invited us during the dance, but their subtle customs were lost on us.

The remainder of the night was fascinating in the least. Scheznik and I were in separate huts. The girl I was with, whose name was Lehaka, proceeded to undress me, all the while babbling away in Ablalai, while I nodded appreciatively. She then sprinkled various fragrant leaves and flowers around the room, the floors of which were a soft carpet, before undressing herself. She continued chattering in the local dialect as she lowered herself over me. It was a liberating night of exploration and conversation that I could not fathom.

The following morning we were woken early and joined the men folk as they trekked to the quarry. The sun was already rather high in the sky before we reached the quarrying yard, which was filled with gleaming, crystalline rocks. There were already men hard at work, and we were given the necessary implements and shown how we were supposed to carry on with the excavation.

After a hard days work, all we had to show for our troubles were a few small lumps of crystalline rock. The rock was not very easy to chip away, and our arms ached from the constant work. As the sun started to set, we made our way back to the village. Here we were shown the cube farm – a large room where they went about the actually ‘cultivation’ of the cubes.

Here the women went about sorting the crystals the men had brought back into various sizes. There were huge vats around the room, filled with various liquids, within which the larger chunks of rock were dissolved. The resulting solution was then, poured into various cube moulds. The women would carefully polish one of the smaller crystals and this was dipped into the liquid in the cubes by means of a string. The crystals would be left in the solution for a few months. We looked around the farm, and saw cubes in various state of growth. Once the entire liquid had crystallized the cube could be carefully extricated and used in the telling of fortunes.

Prantis Bababa made one of his usual magical appearances, and gave us a guided tour of the farm. He explained how the different liquids from which the crystals were created gave the crystal different properties, how some liquids crystallized faster than others. At this point, Scheznik interrupted and asked Prantis Bababa, what the quickest crystallizing liquid would be. Prantis Bababa showed us a thick, silver liquid, which looked like mercury.

“I say we make our crystals from those, so we can leave quickly”, said Scheznik”

“Uh, tarry a moment” Prantis Bababa said, “are you sure you want to cultivate the crystals that quickly”

“What properties will this liquid give the cube?” I asked.

“One would not be able to tell the future” said Prantis Bababa, “but the cubes that result from this blend are always highly entertaining.”

“How long would it take?” asked Scheznik.

“It is an overnight affair!”

“That settles it” said Scheznik, “I’m getting myself one of these.

“Don’t you want to try out different ones Scheznik?” I asked.

“Well you can wait if you want to, but I have a couple of women waiting for me back in the city!”

Scheznik is Scheznik, so I shrugged and we went about setting up two moulds, with the viscous liquid, and set the crystals in them. Our cubes would be ready the next morning.

Dinner was served as usual. This time Scheznik and I decided to help out with the cooking, much to the amusement of the village women. We served out the food and handed plates out to people, and joined in the dancing too. Everyone was thoroughly entertained!

After another great night, this time with some of the women we had made the vegetable gravy with, we were excited to see the cubes we had cultivated. We made our way to the cube farm, and went to where our moulds were kept. Prantis Bababa was already there.

“You are here” he said, rather pointlessly.

We looked at the moulds; the liquid had solidified, into a translucent, gray cube. With the help of Prantis Bababa, we carefully removed the cubes from the containers. They were unbelievably light. Scheznik actually threw his cube in the air a couple of times. One could look through the cube and see distorted figures of the objects on the other side. Streaks of blue and gray ran through the cube, they were pieces of art, avant garde nonetheless.

“So how do we use these?” Scheznik asked Prantis Bababa.

“One must look into it and concentrate, each cube works differently for different people, depending on what you think of.” Prantis Bababa replied.

We decided to set off back to the city, if we left now we would make it in time for dinner. We bid our hosts farewell, and headed back to the little room where we had left our bags. After changing back to our old clothes I started packing the cubes.

“Wait, don’t you want to try them out?” asked Scheznik.

“Now? Shouldn’t we head back?” I asked.

“Come on, let’s see what our cubes do.”

“Alright, lets.”

So we kept our cubes in front of us and peered into them. I stared through the cube, but all I could see was a skewed perspective of the room.

“I don’t think it’s working.” I said, turning to Scheznik, when he vanished in front of my eyes.

Now I was left not knowing what to do, and Scheznik had disappeared too. I continued looking into my cube trying to focus, wondering where Scheznik could have gone. The quarry, the farm, the forest. The forest? As I looked through the cube, I noticed the distorted refractions slowly morph from the pale brown of the hut to various shades of green. I looked around and found myself in the middle of the forest we had crossed but two nights ago.

“Scheznik?” I yelled.

There was a rustle in the bushes near by. “Scheznik, is that you?” I asked. Unfortunately it was not, a large boar walked out of the bushes. It grunted when it saw me, and prepared to charge. I turned around ready to run, when I noticed that I was attired in battle gear, and had a broad sword in my hand. The boar was already making its way towards me. I stepped aside and swiped at it with the sword. The boar shrieked in pain, and collapsed, then it disappeared in a puff of smoke, and a gold coin remained where it had fallen.

I picked up the coin, it was real gold, and rather heavy too. I put it my belt, where I noticed I also had a dagger, and some vials of various liquids, marked ‘life force’, ‘mana’, ‘heat’ and so on. On my back was a large shield, which I tried to use, but the broadsword was too heavy to wield with one hand, so I had to secure the shield to my back once more.

“Scheznik!” I called out once more.

Another rustle in the bushes, this time it sounded like something much larger than a boar. I gripped the sword tight and readied myself for whatever would come through. Scheznik jumped out of the bushes into the clearing, he was dressed in pretty much the same way I was, and he had a short staff in his hand.

“Darius!” he said, “great you made it!”

“Yeah, though I have no idea what’s going on! Is this the forest we have to cross?” I asked

“I’m not sure.” He replied.

“Any idea what’s with the clothes and weapons?”

“No, but it’s a lot of fun, how many attacks did you survive?”

“Just one boar.”

“What a loser! Get ready now, there are some spirits coming through here!”

“What?”

As soon as the question mark emerged from my lips, two screaming wraiths appeared through the surrounding foliage.

“Check this out, Darius.” Scheznik said as he positioned himself and shot out a blast of blue light from his staff at the banshee which screeched and disappeared.

The other wraith lashed at me with some sort of whip and caught me right on the arm. I dropped my sword screaming in pain.

“Oh, come on Darius!” shouted Scheznik as he sent another blast at the second creature, and ran into the bushes.

I picked up my sword in my good hand, and followed him into the forest. We ran for a while before we stopped at another clearing, gasping for breath. Scheznik was laughing. “Isn’t this so much fun?”

“No it isn’t, my hand is killing me! What were those things?”

“I have no clue, but for your hand, drink a bit from one of those life force vials”

I looked at my belt, and picked out the life force vial. “Are you sure?” I asked him. “Trust me.” He replied. I took a quick swig from the vial, the warm liquid ran down my throat and I already felt rejuvenated. The marks from the wraith’s whip slowly disappeared from my arm. “This is crazy!” I remarked.

“I know!” said Scheznik.

We continued making our way through the forest, trying to find a way out. “Looks like our cubes were some sort of teleportation devices” I said.

“The cubes!” Scheznik shouted for joy.

“What?”

“We can use the cubes to get back!”

“Where are they?”

“In the pouch on your belt!”

“What? How is that possible, this pouch is too small to hold the cube, the cubes were much bigger…”

Scheznik interrupted me mid-sentence to pull out his cube from his pouch, “it’s quite magical he said.” Thoroughly amazed I put my hand into my pouch and pulled out my cube. We sat down on the forest floor, and looked into our cubes. I pictured the hut, imagined myself in normal surroundings. Scheznik had already disappeared. He seemed to be a natural at this. A large amount of concentration later, and I found myself in the hut. We were back in our normal clothes. Both Pico and Prantis Bababa were there too, with wide grins on their faces.

“These cubes are amazing!” said Scheznik.

“Pico is taking you’ll back to the city, I trust you have enjoyed your stay”, Prantis Bababa said in his droll monotone.
“Yes we’ve had a wonderful time,” I said “But what sort of cubes are these?”

Prantis Bababa smiled, and bowed and made the clicking sound, that we had first heard when we had arrived at K’na-Ablala. We bowed and did the same. Pico picked up his bag and headed out towards the forest, we picked up our luggage and followed him.

As we left Kna-Ablala, I looked back to get one last glimpse of the village. It wore a deserted look, Prantis Bababa was the only person in sight, standing outside the hut where we had cleansed ourselves.

“Those are Intended Game Cubes” he said, as we walked back to the city.


I love my little puns! Did anyone figure out the other gamer pun in this account?