The stairs spiraled out into the open air as a thin bridge ran from the stairwell to the larger grant tower, now flying a pink flag with a butterfly on it.
The doors opened as Nicole sat on her throne, smiling and enjoying a golden chalice of wine, draped in the cursed robes and wearing a crown made of carved dragon’s skull shards, held together with the remains of Hafth’s crown. Her black eyes and bright glowing green pupils pulsed in the dim light as the torches burned a strange green.
“Uh, honey…we’re ready to go home.” Vinn smiled.
“I am home. We have a kingdom now, Vinn. King Vinn, as soon as the ceremony is completed.
“Not gonna lie, that sounds sick as hell, but I think you may have had too much to drink.”
“She’s not drunk on wine Vinn, she’s drunk on power. She’s wearing the robes.” Gizzy whispered.
“I haven’t taken them off. I’m a god in these robes, and now that you’ve brought me the rest of the artifacts, we can finally finish this. Unite them and make me permanently the one true god.” She growled.
“Nicole, we came here to DESTROY them.” Reminded Gizzy “Not keep them.”
“You’re all enjoying yours. Why shouldn’t we keep them? The moment we destroy them and leave, these idiots will just go to war and kill each other, form alliances and enemies and new kings will rise from the bloody battlefields. Kings will always rule the weak, so why not gods, with the power and foresight to rule in the right ways? Peace, sharing, prosperity. No more death and slavery and war.”
“Nicole, you’re wearing a skull crown and evil robes, drinking wine from a dead guy’s chalice on a throne you stole from the dead king. Where’s Nathan?" Gizzy asked.
“In locked the dungeon. He’s fine. He just annoyed me. He’s got food and beer and hookers, he doesn’t even REALLY want out.” she shrugged.
“Begs the question of why he’s locked in the dungeon, then. Nicole, you’re going full power mad. These items corrupt you. We’ve all felt the effects and we only use them sparingly. If you’ve been wearing those robes since we left, you're not in control of yourself, and we can’t trust you.”
“How are you showering?” Dee cringed.
“In the robes, obviously, I’m not taking them off while I’m still technically mortal, but I’m not gonna turn into some stank-bitch. They dry fast when you burst into flames. It’s fine."
“Well we have a problem then, because we’re bound to these items till death, and that means even if we wanted to…which we don’t, we can't give them to you. They won’t work for you unless you kill us all and bind them to yourself” Gizzy said, drawing the sword. “And I can’t take destroy the robes with you in them.”
“Honey…what have you done?” Vinn said, walking closer and making her recoil nervously. “This isn’t you. I know you. You’re in there, but you’re not…flying the ship.”
“I thought you’d be proud of me. Vinn, we can have anything we want. Land, stuff, servants, our own zoo, but like a humane zoo where the animals get a lot of room to be free, we can have our own holidays, or just have Halloween every week. We have a dragon now, her name is Blueberry. Anything you want.”
“I want my wife back, so we can go home, where we belong.”
“This is home now. Home is where the heart is, Vinn.”
“Where did yours go exactly?” he asked. She looked shocked and offended, tearing up and at a loss for words as she huffed and blinked.
“Vinn I stopped a war, I took over 3 kingdoms without killing anyone, except one dragon in self-defense. A lotta people fell off things and killed each other, but like Gizzy said, humans die all the time, like hamsters. You just look at the overall loss and compared to an ongoing war, this is nothing. It’s all based on fear and respect, they love me, they think I’m their god, why is it okay when Gizzy does it but when I do it better, suddenly I’m the villain?” she asked.
“Nicole wake up.” Gizzy snapped. “I AM a villain. I’ve committed murder and genocide, I’m a fucking monster and people despise me behind my back and praise me in fear to my face. I don’t sleep at night over the shit I’ve done, and I don’t have a heart. You know how many assassinations attempts I've survived and how many I haven't? I’m a soulless, immortal deity of destruction. You don’t wanna be like me. You’re supposed to balance that out. You don’t think I wanna bring these weapons home and hack half the council apart for defying me?” she growled as the blade glowed brighter. “They Do NOTHING but defy me, challenge me. They should all offer their heads as payment for their insults, and just imagining them all headless and silent brings me unspeakable joy right now. THAT is what being a god is like, and just holding this blade brings out the worst in me. What do you think those robes are doing to you? Look at me!” she roared, stepping closer. “is this what you want to become, really?” Gizzy asked, eye glowing blue and teeth extending, fangs and canines bore.
“That’s why they need to be given to me. I’m a god of love and patience Damnit, now give me the stupid fucking sword right now you maniacal overlord bitch!” she barked, stopping and breathing heavily, She blinked and had a moment of confusion, unsure if she said that or Gizzy, unable to fully grasp who it sounded more like. She blinked a few tears down her face and both her and the years froze in disbelief.
“See?” Vinn said. “She’s right. I wouldn’t marry Gizzy if you put a gun to my head. No offense, we all like you Gizzy, but I don’t want a dominant overlord wife, I want a goofy little gamer girl who collects movie memorabilia and snuggles when she’s sad. Where is that, Nicole?” he asked.
“She’s right…I’m right here.” She sobbed. “Vinn I’m scared.” She added.
“I know. Just take off the robes, we’ll destroy them, and you’ll be back to yourself in no time." he promised.
“But the people…they’re too stupid to rule themselves.”
“I know, but it’s not our world to control. We’re just here to save it from the chaos that is controlling YOU right now. After that, it’s their world to fix. We killed the dragons and the kings…except the dragon you still have, apparently, for some reason. We have the artifacts together. We can finish this.” He said slowly, hugging her. He gently pulled on the robes and peeled them off, removing his shirt and covering her like a kid wearing an adult’s oversized T-shirt like a tunic.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“What about Blueberry, we can’t kill her.” She insisted.
“We don’t have to.” Gizzy said. Taking out a flask from her coat. “I have one of willow’s potions. We can set her free and she’ll just be like a normal dragon, but not if she's linked to you through those damn robes. She’ll lose her chaos magic and fly away, probably have a family of her own. You just gotta let her go. She's wild, she needs to fly and hunt and be an animal. I’ll give her the potion and get Nathan, and we can destroy these things and go home.” She said.
“Okay. Will she miss me?” Nicole asked.
“Fuck if I know, it’s a chaos dragon. But it’s not a pet, it’s a wild animal that needs to be returned to its normal mortal form to live like a dragon, not a chained pet with cursed frost magic.” She said placing the lunchbox in the center of the cold fireplace central to the throne-room. “The house has a lot of uses. Everyone step back.” She said, digging out a red key and turning the dial.
“What’s all this sticky stuff on it?” Nicole asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” Gizzy shrugged.
The house expanded into a ring of metal and glowing red lights, the center swirling like a pit to hell.
“What the shit is that?” Nicole asked.
“Antimatter blender. That’s part of the reason the house converts matter into energy and back, and why anything living inside it, when it shrinks, gets turned into soup. Don’t get super close and fall in. Just throw the robes in.”
“Yea, tripping and falling seems to be the leading cause of death for witches here. So that’s why you carried that thing around despite it being pretty much ruined and broken for half the mission? It’s a damn garbage disposal for god weapons?” Nicole asked.
“Yyyyyyep. Also the reason I didn’t tell you guys. Figured it might prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep using the beds in there.”
Nicole threw the robes in, and they burned up with a haunting scream, her eyes losing their glow and returning to their normal white with pupils of burnt bronze. “I’ll go take care of the rest.” Gizzy said as she left to get Nathan and give Blueberry the potion. Vinn removed his shield, feeling the urge to keep it, and with hesitation, he tossed it into the vortex of red flames. It shredded and burned up, Vinn feeling a slight weight lifted and a slight sadness that he no longer had the power to protect everyone.
“Move, hoes.” Dee said, hucking the bow in without hesitation. “I hated that thing. I couldn’t hit shit, it kept whispering to me. No thanks. Fuck that. Not for me.” She shrugged. Gizzy returned with Nathan, no longer chained up but slightly drunk. Nicole felt the air move, the flapping of wings as a blue object passed the window and flew higher, circling the tower.
“I guess she’s free now. It’s better that way." Nicole sniffled.
“Someone take this damn sword, I can’t toss it out.” Gizzy said as Dee pried it from her hand and Gizzy looked like she was in pain as it was tossed into the vortex. “God the balance on that was so good. You know how hard it is to balance out a 6 foot blade properly? Damnit I’m gonna miss that sword.” She said pushing a button on the rim of the stone ring and the vortex stopped spinning, turning light blue and shimmering like water. “Okay, it’s no longer on blender mode. That’s our return gate. Nicole, you and Vinn first, I gotta set the thing to a timed burnout. Nobody can have this technology or power.” She sighed. They held hands and hopped in, Gizzy nudged Silverback, who hopped into the water with a flicker. Dee looked up at Gizzy and squinted. “They can’t hear us can they?” she asked.
“They’re in another dimension and timeline. They wouldn’t hear a nuclear war if it happened.”
“Willows magic is bullshit, we know that. You just let a chaos dragon fly away and gave it a placebo potion? After all that to destroy the god bits, you didn’t just let it go. What did you give to that dragon?”
“Herbal tea...and about 3 pounds of CRC13 high explosives wrapped in meat.” She yawned, lifting up her phone and pressing the code in, a bright flash and a faint thud in the distant skyline following.”
“Oh, that’s fucked up. Like I get it, but damn. Poor Blueberry.”
“That thing burned villages and ate people alive. Get in the hole, before the thing closes.” She said, holding her hand and jumping in. The gate blinked a few times and then imploded, leaving a smoldering hole in the floor and several confused guards staring up at the king's room, now with no floor and a brand-new skylight.
Gizzy and Dee landed harshly in the grass as the others stood and stared with confusion.
“What took you so long?” Vinn asked Gizzy. “We were waiting like an hour.”
“Must have been some time dilation…oh, this is a problem.” She said, turning 360 and looking up at the sky.”
“Where are we?” Dee asked.
“Same place, different time.” Gizzy said. Look, same moon, same star patterns.”
“Where’s the castle?” Nicole asked.
“The portal increments are not exact, the damn planets rotate, Nicole. We’re probably miles from the same exact spot, looks like Thalebrook-ish region. Judging from the mountains south and the fields north. Narrows it to about a 40 mile radius.
“So we gotta walk all the way back to the castle and do the gate again?” Nicole asked.
“Um, no…it’s significantly worse than that. That gate was a one way thing. That’s why we rushed the mission. The window was about 33 days. I may have neglected to realize the days here may not be exactly 24 hours due to time compression. We missed the opening. It just looped us back, and the gate closed.”
“So how long before the thing happens again where we can open it?” Nicole asked.
“Uh we can’t. The portal and the house are gone. They self-destructed in the past. Even if the Delmar lab realizes we’re still here and stuck, they can’t send a rescue team until the galactic alignment lines up with Delmar again. That’s assuming they can lock on to the right time.”
“How long?” Nicole asked slowly.
“Something in a ballpark of…227 years. Give or take a decade.”
“So…” she blinked. “We’re just stuck here...forever.”
“Oh yea. This is super fucked. There is a slightly good thing.”
“Please.” Nicole blurted. “Please inform us of the good thing right now, please.”
“I did anticipate that we might need assistance, so I sent a delayed loot package to arrive the last day before the gate closed…which apparently was further back than I…um, I thought. So that should still be here. It’s not set to self-destruct until the security battery ran out, or if someone tampered with it. So we’re stuck here BUT, we get more stuff.”
“Where’s the loot crate, Gizzy?” asked Dee.
“No idea. It was supposed to make a big red beam to the sky on the last day and nobody saw it or was looking for that on the wrong day. That means, assuming we jumped ahead in time less than 200 years, it should be active and within something like a 40 mile radius.”
“So it has a return gate in there, right?” Dee asked.
“Nnnnnope.” Gizzy winced.
“So it has a distress beacon we can send out to the Delmar lab, right?”
“Also nope.”
“Feel free to lie to us right now. So it has something that in some manner may potentially get us home, right?”
“It’s a loot crate, not a liferaft. We’re just here now. Permanently. As in 227 years when these 3 are long dead, and we have basically just accept this as home and probably forgot what Delmar even is. Stuck…done. As in there is no fixing this or any way I could have predicted this glitch, and it’s not my fault, but this is where we live now, and that’s it. The 3 hour tour became a shipwreck, Welcome to Gilligan’s island, folks. Start making coconut radios and shit. This is Gizzigan’s island.”
“Well…” Dee pondered. “Fuck.”
“Yep. They can’t all end happily ever after. Roll the damn credits.” Gizzy sighed.
-In loving Memory of Blueberry the dragon.
1308AD to 1378AD.
No dragons were harmed in the filming of this book.
37 horses died, and one duck.
Sorry PETA.
Shit happens.
Due to a complete lack of anyone reading this (making it pointless leaving this note to nobody), there will be no more sequels or Delmar books as of now, and possibly permanently. If you somehow got this far and want more content, drop a comment, otherwise I'll assume only bots are clicking this book, and if I can get just a few people that remotely give half a shit about a real ending to this probable waste of my life, then I'll do it. That's a promise. I have the outline, just not the demand or motivation. If not, then, well, you’re not reading this anyway, so why bother saying any more?
Save the team, comment on this book, or they just all die on some godforsaken world on a disappointing cliffhanger. It’s up to you now. If it ends here, it’s because nobody spoke up or saw this.
