Swords, Sorcery, and Sex in the World of Greyhawk - Chapter 5 - Part 3

Chapter 5: Doggy Style - Part 3

"How many Asian guys can grow beards like yours, huh?" Steve rubbed his beard thoughtfully. Truth be told, he'd wondered the same thing, but he liked having a beard so much he never questioned it.

"And you, Peter. You threw that creature 25 feet into a rock." Ashley insisted.

"Well, all this digging..."

"With one hand! No way you could have done that before." Peter nodded reluctantly. "And how come you moved after he cast that spell on us. He said any human...or dwarf, Steve...would have been frozen like the rest of us. What if you're not even-"

"Hey! Watch your mouth!" Peter yelled, suddenly angry. His hand balled into a fist and he charged to his feet.

"Woah there, big guy." Steve blocked his way. Peter's bull rush shoved him back, but Steve kept his feet, barely. Holding his hands against Peter's thighs he yelled. "She's just asking why the spell didn't work on you."

"How the hell should I know?" Peter asked belligerently. Ashley had gone even paler than usual, back up against the wall and eyes wide.

"Okay, it was a bad question, alright? Relax." Steve tried to pacify him, unusually loquacious.

Peter took a deep breath, forcing himself to unclench his fists; turning away from the others he sat and stared at the wall. What just happened? He asked himself. He'd never been that quick to threaten violence before, especially over something little like that. If Eric hadn't stopped him he might have beaten her to death. Not Ashley! Peter shook his head, trying to force the thought of what he'd done out of his head, but he couldn't. He probably just wrecked any chance he might have had of getting her to be his girlfriend. Head down, he groaned.

"So what's the alternate hypothesis?" Steve asked.

"Huh?" The others looked surprised that Steve stayed in the conversation. Usually monosyllabic grunts were all they could ever pry out of him.

"I dunno. Ashley reminded me of how my stats teacher always used to say it. No idea what it means, though." He crossed his arms, unwilling to say more.

"It means asking what other hypothesis would fit the facts. Mickey is doing it with wolves. Peter is turning into Mr. Incredible. I'm blowing up bats. Steve is...I don't know. Maybe Casmir's right and we've all been brainwashed. But before we accept that, maybe we should think about whether there's a different explanation." Ashley explained, looking thoughtful.

"How about this is all a really, really bad trip." Maria spat.

"Well, what if something happened to us when we came here?" Ashley ventured, ignoring Maria. She'd been thinking about this very question, and decided to share her conclusions. "Speaking of Mr. Incredible, remember where Superman comes from."

"You read comics?" Peter interrupted enthusiastically.

"Gimme a break, I had two older brothers." Ashley shrugged. "Anyway, on his own world he's normal, but when he comes to Earth the sun's different...or something - and he can do all this stuff. I forget exactly how it works, but maybe we're really us, but we can do something different here."

"So why are our bodies changing?" Erica asked, caught up in Ashley's thought experiment. "To match how our psyches express themselves here?"

"Huh. Transmorphic identity. Not bad for a sorority chick." Ashley admitted.

"Huh?" Peter looked confused.

"Or something like that. I read it in a book somewhere. Like when somebody takes a new body or changes shape or something, they can only do it for a while before their unconscious self-identity reshapes their new body into its image of the old one. I think."

"So..." Peter still didn't understand.

"So if our self-identity shapes our bodies, maybe it does it differently in different environments. On Earth magic doesn't work, so I wore black and pierced my nose and played RPGs and flirted with the whole Goth scene. Here Casmir thinks I'm a fairy."

"So I'm strong here because I think I'm Mr. Incredible?" Peter asked, finally getting what she was saying.

"Well, yeah..maybe...at some level."

"So what about Maria and I?" Erica asked. Ashley couldn't be right, she thought. She should have even more special powers than the others...she'd always been good at everything. No way was she helpless while these losers could do all this stuff. No way.

"I don't know." Ashley said.

"Maria has special accounting powers." Peter said with a laugh.

"Or special slut powers." Ashley followed up with a sneer.

"Shut up, bitch." Maria snarled, but her heart wasn't in it. She was so confused about what was happening to them all, she couldn't focus. She couldn't deny what she'd felt watching Mickey. It should have been gross, but even now...even now - she was getting hot just thinking about it. What was wrong with her?!

"Maybe Erica is turning into Celine Dion." Peter said.

"Too bad about your nose, girl." Ashley chuckled.

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One-eye Cove stood in the midst of an undersea lake. The cavern was vast, perhaps a mile across, and lay covered in a mirror-smooth lake of black water. Dry rock ran around the outside of the lake, and in the center was an island, an oval that bulged like an overgrown pear. The ceiling of the cave was hidden by wreaths of smoke that drifted up from the town to glow dully with the ever-present green light.

The edges of the island were covered by gentle slopes of water-smoothed stone, but the center rose abruptly, and it was there that humans had built their settlement. The town itself was surrounded by a wall of stones that followed the line of the central rise - not tall, but very thick.

Outside the wall, an cacophony of color unfurled from two gates, one on each side of town. Brightly striped pavilions vied for place with burlap tents and simple hanging enclosures. One camp stood apart from the rest, a pair of tents of gaudy silk. They could see figures moving like ants when their nest is exposed to sunlight, though none approached the isolated tents.

"There's the auction pits." Casmir pointed at an arc of buildings that fanned out to occupy the wharf.

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CONTENT TO BE ADDED

The temple of Jascar was the largest building in One-eye Cove, but that wasn't saying much. It was a rectangular structure of piled rock, with a few narrow window slits framed in wood. One end was topped by a dome that rose over the rest of the town. The tip was plated with silver, an eerie green in the moss-light. Jascar and the other two priests herded them through the streets, careful to keep the students together so their bonds weren't visible.

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CONTENT TO BE ADDED

Peter stared at one sign that read 'The Dry Boner,' with a picture of a skeleton warrior holding a sword in one hand, and a cock of knuckled bones in the other. When the door swung open as they passed, he could see women in chairs around the edge of the lobby, wearing nothing more than thin gowns. As he watched, a couple came through a door to the back. She kissed him, then took her place with the other women as he left the building.

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CONTENT TO BE ADDED

When they arrived at the temple, Casmir led them down an alley alongside the building to a smaller door set in the wall. A quick rap on the door brought no response. He knocked harder, staring at the door as if willing it to open.

"Wenzel." He sighed. "Would you mind?"

"Why don't we just go in through the front? It's not like everyone already didn't see us come it." Erica needled him as Wenzel walked back to the front of the church and disappeared. Cheven snorted and Casmir glared at them both, fuming.

"Um...sir? Is there a restroom in there?" Peter asked.

Casmir whirled, fists clenched.

"Shut. Up." He growled.

"Well, okay, but..." Peter shifted his weight from one leg to another. "This won't take long will it?" He asked, lacking the imagination to be intimidated by the smaller man.

"I. Just. Told.--"

"Casmir?" A wavering voice emerged from the door, where a narrow slit had slid open. A pair of milky eyes peered out from inside.

"You? Father Tain!" Casmir's voice broke in mid-scold and he bowed awkwardly.

"Yes, my child?"

"I've brought the out-worlders. The ones I sent you the message about yesterday."

"Yesterday..."

"The spies?" Casmir reminded him, face reddening.

"Oh, yes." The voice said. The others stared at the door expectantly. When nothing happened Casmir sighed quietly.

"Would you please open the door, Father?"

Continued in Chapter 5: Doggy Style - Part 4

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