Autobiography of a Fantasy Character – To Slay a Beast

Last we saw our dear Hero, he was descending into the depths of the dwarven mountain mines to slay a mighty beast. If you missed any of the previous instalments in this series poking fun at a bunch of fantasy tropes, here’s a quick rundown with links:

• Origin Story // In which Hero grows up in Quaint Village, Mentor is mysterious, Incentive dies, Villain’s backstory is disclosed, and Hero discovers his singular purpose: to save the world.
• The Journey Begins // In which Hero and Mentor set off to save the world, horses are invincible, Hero is wounded, Mentor is characteristically mysterious, and they take refuge with the elves.
• A Refuge Disturbed // In which Hero falls instantly in love with an elf princess, hour-long ballads are sung, Hero tries to impress the princess and makes a deadly mistake, but Deus Ex Dragon comes to the rescue.
• A Side Quest // In which our fearsome trio escapes certain death, romantic tension blossoms between Hero and the elf princess, and everyone is kidnapped by dwarves.

The platform sways as the dwarves lower me down the pitch-black mine shaft. My torchlight flits over the smoothly carved sides, and my heart thunders in my chest. Those blasted dwarves gave me no weapon, just their bellowed order to kill the Gorlab beast and take the gem it stole… or else my friends will die.

“Great.” My voice shakes.

But then I remember I don’t need a weapon—I am a weapon. Mentor’s teachings rush back to my memory, along with everything I learned from El’liaenwil’s father, the Elf King.

Using my magic will undoubtedly draw more attention from Villain’s dark forces, but I don’t have much of a choice now, do I?

My wooden platform strikes bottom, and I stumble off the edge onto a surface that crunches and slips under my feet. I swing my torch around. The floor is covered in white rock. Wait—it’s bone.

The platform lurches back into the air and out of sight. There’s no escaping my side quest.

With a gulp, I nudge a bone fragment with my foot. How many of those short, loud-mouthed fellows came down here to fight the Gorlab and met a crushing death?

“What even is a Gorlab?” I mutter to myself. Only one way to find out. I venture heroically forward into the cave. “Here, Gorlab Gorlab Gorlaaaaab,” I call out.

Something rumbles in the darkness. Is that another quake signifying the approaching end of the world? Or the mysterious beast himself?

A fireball zooms over my head, and I barely duck in time.

The Gorlab, then.

I straighten, glowy magic tingling in my hands. I can’t think of anything more clever to shout than, “Show yourself!”

And he does. A mysterious red glow fills the cavern, conveniently illuminating a great, hulking beast—three times the size of the dragon I flew here. The thing is all horns, claws, and teeth. Hundreds of gems are wedged between the hardened scales covering its back like chunks of rock. Its eyes glow yellow, and a barbed tail tinged in green curls around its feet. Another fireball sizzles from its jaws and splashes at my feet, striking a dwarf skull. If it hadn’t been bleached bone already, the poor fellow would’ve lost all his hair just now.

I launch a bolt of magic from my hand, and it strikes the Gorlab’s armored chest.

The beast roars.

I roar back. “I’ve come to kill you, Gorlab! But first you have to return the Dwarf King’s favorite gem!” I dearly hope it’s not any of the shining stones jammed between its lumpy scales.

The next fireball swallows my torch whole and nearly takes my arm with it.

So this time, I use both hands to strike the Gorlab with magic. It’s such a powerful blast that the floor cracks. The Gorlab stomps closer, and the cracks widen.

I jump back, but that’s when the floor collapses, crumbling away into a gaping pit. The Gorlab jumps clear just in time, but I go sliding down the edge with an appropriately guttural hero scream.

I land, mercifully, on a flight of stairs just a few feet below and slide down about a dozen before I regain my footing. The stairs are carved into the side of the pit in a deepening spiral leading down who knows how far. Heart in my throat, I peer over the edge. At the bottom, the red glow intensifies.

The Gorlab roars again, and the mountain shakes as if on cue. Then the Gorlab leaps down onto the stairs behind me, sending pebbles cascading into the pit.

Time to run. I leap down the stairs two, three at a time, nearly falling over the edge as the Gorlab bounds after me. Great chunks of the staircase break off beneath its thunderous steps. I run faster.

It could easily fry me where I am, not a quarter-turn around the pit ahead of it, but the chase is more dramatic. I could attempt a bolt of magic over my shoulder, too, but that would also kill the drama. Better to run like my life depends on it, because it does—and so do my friends’ lives.

With a throaty bellow, the Gorlab takes a mighty leap over my head, landing twenty steps below me. I skid to a stop.

“We could do this the easy way or the hard way!” I yell. “Give me the gem and I’ll tell the Dwarf King you’re dead. Or not, and I’ll make sure you’re actually dead!”

The Gorlab clearly has a one-word vocabulary, and that word is ROAAARRRR! It remembers its fiery breath and shoots a stream of flame toward me.

I put up my hands and deflect it with a magical shield. The fireball seems to absorb my magic, sparks of white light zipping across it like lightning as it rebounds toward the Gorlab. It strikes its head and sends the creature tumbling down into the pit.

But as it falls, its barbed tail swings around and slices across my chest. I crumple to my knees and watch the Gorlab plummet to its death far below.

I should be happy about completing the most difficult part of my side quest (assuming the gem is easy to find), but I’m bleeding.

The mountain groans in response. Worried that a cave-in will bury me under a thousand tons of rock, I push myself to hurry down the remainder of the spiraling staircase.

By the time I reach the bottom, however, my pace has flagged. A strange numbness is spreading through my limbs. I peel back my tunic to examine the wound. It’s green. The tail must have been poisonous.

Luckily, there’s a shiny red gem sitting atop a pedestal here at the bottom of the pit, and it’s where that eerie red light is emanating from. The Dwarf King’s favorite gem—located.

Not so luckily, my legs give out before I can take another step. I don’t even feel the ground when I collapse. I lie there, gasping, wondering if my lungs are about to stop working just like my legs did.

That’s when I hear El’liaenwil’s voice in my head. It’s like she’s right next to me, whispering in my ear…

Well, not really, but I’m delirious.

“Hero,” my El’liaenwil-thoughts whisper to me. “Remember what my father gave you.”

“Hnnngh,” I reply.

“The elven ward-gem, you idiot,” she snaps.

I frown. How dare she be angry at me? I’m in the middle of dying in my attempt to save HER life.

“The necklace, dummy! Grab it!”

Oh, now I remember. The Elf King had given me and Mentor fancy necklaces that are supposed to ward off any poison. I can barely move now, but my hand inches toward my neck, where the blue gem hangs on a golden chain. When I finally clench it in my fist, healing power rushes through me like sunshine.

I sit up. “Huh. I feel fine.”

I half-expect my imagined El’liaenwil to say something like, “Well, of course you do, stupid boy,” but now that I’m not delusional and dying, her voice is gone.

I snatch up the shiny gem and hurry back up the stairs with new energy. The climb is nothing more than a little workout until I reach the first broken section, the gap in the steps yawning too far for me to jump.

Or too far for me to jump if I wasn’t a magical Hero. I take a running leap, and even though no one taught me levitation before, I fly across with ease. Having practically limitless magic sure is nice.

It’s not long before I return to the cavern and float right up the mine shaft to the main level, much to the surprise of all the dwarves waiting for me.

“HE HAS RETURNED!” they bellow. The mountain grumbles in the background.

“I KILLED YOUR GORLAB BEAST AND RETRIEVED YOUR GEM,” I shout back as I float to the ground, loud enough to rival their impressive volume.

Raucous cheers usher me right back to the Dwarf King’s throne. He takes the scarlet gem from me and grins so wide I can see his teeth through his wild beard. “AT LAST! AT LAST! HERO HAS RETURNED THE KEY OF THE MOUNTAIN DEPTHS TO US!” With that, he hops off his throne and sticks the gem into an empty indentation in its seat.

The mountain stops rumbling, just like that.

Mentor and El’liaenwil are freed and returned to me. “You did it, Hero!” Mentor exclaims. “You’ve returned the first key to its rightful place!”

“Oh, is that what I did?” I wonder.

The Dwarf King settle back on his throne happily, concealing the gem’s glow under his rear.

El’liaenwil approaches me and fingers the necklace. “You used the ward-gem?”

“It saved my life.” I beam at her and clasp her hand in mine, over the jewel.

She pulls back. “Do you know what that means?”

“That your father is pretty wise,” I reply.

With an arched brow, she turns away.

I wilt a little. What did I do wrong? I thought she would be happy I just saved her and Mentor. But I say nothing. She would tell me if there really was a problem. Maybe she’s just tired from being held captive by dwarves.

“WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR GREAT SERVICE, HERO,” the Dwarf King bellows, as if he hadn’t just held my friends hostage to force me to comply with his wishes. Oh well. It worked out in the end. “GO YOUR WAY, AND REMEMBER… WE WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR DARKEST HOUR.”

After being stocked with hearty provisions, we leave the mountain caverns behind and find our dragon waiting outside. My ears are ringing from all the shouting, but it’s nice to be out under the open sky again.

Except all around, the trees have died, their skeletal branches desolate.

“What happened?” I gasp.

Mentor’s face is grim. “Despite returning one of the keys, the Villain’s power is reaching farther. If you don’t finish returning the rest of the keys—there are three altogether, by the way; perhaps I should’ve told you earlier—then he will end this world as we know it. Our future is resting on your shoulders, Hero.”

As if I didn’t already know.

El’liaenwil hops onto the dragon’s back. “Where to next?” she asks coldly.

Mentor looks off toward the horizon, where the blackened, bare trees stretches as far as we can see. “We are nearly upon the border of Distant Land, the home of Villain himself. Hero, Princess… we are headed to the Night Forest. If legend holds true, a Dark Night of the Soul may lie ahead. For all of us.”

Well, well, well, what do you think lies ahead for Hero & Co.? Let’s hear your theories!