Chapter 10

The next day we visited several of the places featuring stage shows. I admit to being disappointed, though Almo liked the shows a lot more than I did. Frankly, I was not turned on by watching a lot of naked women doing gymnastic stunts. The stunts were spectacular, especially those that were augmented by magic, but the effect of the bouncing boobs and splayed pussies was pretty well lost on me. Oh, well, the shows did turn on Almo enough to produce some spectacular sex that night.

Obviously, these shows were directed primarily toward men, and that probably explained why there were so many brothels in Crynot. There certainly were not many women in the audiences where we went to see the shows. Of course, I let Almo select which shows we saw.

On the third day we visited the local versions of comedy clubs, a form of entertainment that I had enjoyed back in NYC. Unfortunately, a lot of the humor was lost on me simply because I did not have the cultural background to appreciate the humor associated with the situations described. Oh, well, as far as I was concerned, I had made my pilgrimage to Crynot, and I was in no hurry to return. The only reason for me to go back was to be with Almo as he had fun. Actually, Almo was a little bit disappointed by Crynot, so I did not expect him to want to return any time soon.

The one saving point of our trip to Crynot was when I spotted Nux walking through town. I ran her down, and Almo came along to meet her. We went into a tavern and spent over an hour over watered wine talking about this and that.

At one point, I asked Nux what she knew about Malinor. She got real excited at that question and asked, “How did you find out about Malinor? He is the chief demon and a creature to be avoided at all costs unless you are notably strong, both physically and with magic.”

I said that I was curious about him because of the cave that we had discovered and the statue with his name on it. Nux suddenly jerked to attention and said, “Jill, you may have discovered the entry point for the demons and monsters from Hell to get to our land. This must be investigated further and in detail. Are you willing to show me this cave? A guide would be a great help.”

This was enough to make me want to follow up on what we had discovered. I’d had no idea of the importance of this find. A very short discussion with Almo resulted in us inviting Nux to join us in a repeat visit to the cavern with the statue.

We returned to Arillium in time to pick up all of the families and returned to our home. I am pretty sure that those who stayed in Arillium actually had more fun than Almo or I did. We assigned one of the empty rooms to Nux, and she moved in as a semi-permanent resident. We wanted Nux to teach us all that she knew about how to avoid being zapped by Malinor’s evil magic.

I led a squad to make sure that the cave, the chamber, and the idol were still where we had last seen them. Of course, the terrain between our home and the cave had changed, but we still had no trouble in finding the cave entrance. From there, there was no change whatsoever. We did encounter a shaman and a few of the small demons, but they were easy to defeat. We returned home to report that the cave and the rest of the stuff were still as we left it.

Meanwhile, Nux and Almo had gone over thoroughly what they could put together from what they had heard about Malinor, and it turned out that they had quite a bit of information about that master of evil. They had discarded a lot of the idle speculation about Malinor and had still come up with a very intimidating picture of what Malinor was like and what his powers were.

Their conclusion was that we could not eliminate Malinor permanently because he would be renewed by each and every bad deed that was done by a human. However, based on what was known about Malinor’s surges of influence on humans, he probably could be knocked down to insignificance for a period of 500-600 years. Well, that was worth doing, and we were going to give it our all to try to make it happen.

Nux was sure that our band of fighters would be enough to let us get to Manilnor’s control center, and we could fight him in person when we got there. The plan worked out by Almo and Nux was for us to invade the chamber containing the idol with our entire band. They would surround the idol and protect Almo, Nux, and me while we attacked the idol.

Malinor could feel everything done to the idol on his own body as action was taken against the idol. Therefore, we could expect him to send demon and monster troops against us as we attacked the idol. The idol was carved from a stone-like material that we could destroy with sledgehammers. Almo and I would apply the sledgehammers while Nux attacked the idol with her shaman skills. She would also aid the humans who were protecting us as the situation demanded.

Once that plan was accepted by the three of us, Almo teleported back to Arillium to purchase two sledgehammers. The sledgehammers would be left in our armory, and Almo would teleport from the idol chamber to the armory to pick them up when we were ready to use them. That would save us from carrying the weight of the two sledgehammers until we needed them. What we did with the sledgehammers after that would depend on how the situation developed.

We called a meeting of the entire complement of our people and explained the plan to them in as much detail as we could. We wanted them to understand what we were trying to do and why. The danger that we would all be in was carefully explained so that there would be no surprises from that point. We were greatly relieved when there was unanimous approval of the plan and an urging that we did not delay in going after Malinor.

Before we left the next day, Nux put a spell around the building so that nothing evil could enter, not even Malinor. I was surprised and pleased that Nux was so powerful. She had been modest and had not bragged about how strong her magic was, so I was surprised that she could shield an area from a creature as strong as Malinor. The reason that her magic was that strong was because the protected area was relatively small. She could not have raised such a strong protection for an area even as small as Arillium.

Almo could have teleported our entire fighting force directly to the idol chamber, but we did not want to do that for fear that we would allow a counter force to get in behind us without us knowing it. It was annoying to have to walk that far, but it was safer in the long run. Everybody who was staying behind had assembled on the flat roof to cheer us as we marched to what we hoped would be the downfall of Malinor and his minions.

We were careful as we advanced. I was wearing my special high speed boots and acted as a scout. At least, this worked out well, and we hoped that it was a good omen for the rest of our venture. It took us nearly three hours to reach the cave entrance. We entered the cave with Almo and Nux acting as point, and I acted as drag. Ten of our warriors were detailed to work with Almo and Nux, and ten were detailed to do the same for me. The rest of the troops were between our two groups and would be assigned as the situation developed. Opso commanded my group and Hena commanded the one supporting Almo and Nux.

It seemed as if the enemy knew that we were coming, and their strategy was tailored to fit that circumstance. Suddenly, out of the gloom ahead, a bunch of the small demons and satyrs attacked Almo and Nux. Of course, Hena’s detail rushed ahead to assist them.

The entrance to a side passage was on the right side of the main tunnel, and more small demons and satyrs rushed at the middle of our column. Opso was about to rush to their aid, but I stopped him. I had a feeling that trouble was brewing for our end of the column, and it should show itself in only a few seconds.

I had swapped my boots from the speedy ones to the normal boots before I entered the tunnel, so I was more ready to adjust my travel speed to that of everybody else. Opso had just returned to my side when two aurochs showed up behind us. Fortunately for us, the beasts found it necessary to stop and paw the ground before charging us. That gave us time to recognize the danger and mount a defense.

We were working on the principle that “a good offense is the best defense!” Opso had his two swords, one of poison and the other of lightning, in each hand and ran immediately toward one of the pawing aurochs. I had my enhanced sword of lightning and my baton of poison, so I was completely confident of victory as I ran toward the other aurochs.

Our magic swords immediately reduced the two aurochs to lifelessness. At that point, Opso led his men to help fight the small demons who had attacked the middle of our column. I took the time to change my boots back to the ones that embellished speed, both in motion and in attack speed. As it happened, this was going to be the first time that I wore the boots primarily to increase my attack speed.

I had hardly finished swapping the boots when I was attacked by several skeletons shooting fire arrows at me. Of course, I was wearing my armor with the increased defense against arrows, so they were not able to do much damage to me. All they were really able to do was to deflect my attention to them and away from the other fighting going on near me.