7
White Has No Balls
The tomb’s magic deposited Kit in near total darkness, though thankfully her elven eyes thrived in low light. She could easily make out the dark walls towering over her, until they met the ceiling high above.
A labyrinth then. Dripping water sounded in the distance, and she spied a faint glow coming from what she presumed must be the center of the labyrinth.
As an experienced gamer Kit was neither surprised nor unprepared. Since she was still using the well actually trope her intellect remained higher than usual, and she could effortlessly memorize this place.
She considered shifting into fox form as that would offer greater mobility, but while foxes had decent night vision it was nothing like that of the elves. She leaned into a trot, and began hugging the left wall.
Minutes passed quickly as she wound her way down one featureless wall after another. She was rather disappointed in Bert, until the maze spilled her into a vast coliseum. She’d reached the center. There were a dozen other entrances, but a quick glance suggested she was the first to arrive.
The coliseum had been plucked from ancient Rome, with rows of descending stadium seats that were short enough to double as stairs. They stopped at a simple sandy arena, and in the center of that arena stood a pedestal.
Atop that pedestal sat a glowing green-white bottle, blazing with magical power. Far more so than any potion should contain. The fabled super-heroism they’d been promised.
“Okay, perhaps I was wrong. Well played, Bert.” She glanced around once more, but no one had emerged. Kit started down the coliseum steps, making for the potion as swiftly as her slender legs would allow.
“Huaaahhhhh!” came a deep, familiar voice. Nutpuncher streaked into view from his hiding place between two steps, and in that moment she understood why he’d chosen gnome.
Kit had no time to react, and the monk landed before her, then launched a flurry of blows at her crotch, and it hurt, damn it. She staggered backward and raised a knee to protect herself.
“Flatulent wind!” she growled, even as she raised her staff. The tip began to glow, and Nutpuncher was seized by a terrible gale that emanated from her staff. The living stench sent the tiny gnome sailing out over the arena floor, wobbling like a football.
Nutpuncher rolled with the fall, and came to his feet near the pedestal clutching at his shoulder. “Thanks for the lift, Kit!” He turned and sprinted toward the potion.
Unfortunately for Nutpuncher both Crushstuff and White had also arrived.
The ogre charged down the steps with his gleaming axe gripped in both hands. His attention was fixed on Nutpuncher, so Kit turned to White. The penultimate wizard necromancer was bound to be the more dangerous of the two, and she had no idea what his class was even capable of.
“Oh, how I’ve waited for this.” White grinned cruelly in her direction as the dark elf ambled down the coliseum steps. “This time there’s no one here to alter my character sheet at the last moment. This time we have a real wizard’s duel. Fitting, I think, that the winner will overcome those cretins and seize the potion. You are the only threat here. The only one close to my equal, though let’s be honest…not very close.”
Kit only had a split second to decide what to do. The odds of her beating White were non-existent. He was likely to have absurd defenses, and those defenses would have been crafted specifically to neutralize her.
“That’s the problem with the way you think, White. It’s all about you. But I’m not alone.” She returned White’s cruel smile, and began to cast a spell, “Quod dico facies!”
A bolt of eldritch energy, dark and malevolent, shot from her finger. Not toward White, but toward Crushstuff. The spell slapped the ogre in the face, the dark magic seeping into his warty skin and disappearing within.
“A dominate spell,” White snarled, clearly annoyed. “I should have foreseen that, and countered it.”
“Stop White!” she roared, pointing at the smug dark elf.
“Okay.” Crushstuff shrugged, then the ogre turned and charged out across the sand toward the dark elf. He was a good sixty feet away, which meant it would take a couple rounds to get there. That left White plenty of time to react, unfortunately.
“Ah, Kit,” White lectured, his tone oozing that special brand of patronizing prick he’d so mastered. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. You are powerful, in a conventional sense, but I am so far beyond you.”
The air around White rippled, and he disappeared just as Crushstuff brought his axe down in the space he’d occupied. The blade of the axe slammed into the stone, which sent rock shards spinning outwards in all directions.
Crushstuff spun, the ogre’s expression comical. “Where did he go?”
“Right here,” White called…his voice coming from the center of the arena.
Kit spun to see the necromancer standing next to the pedestal. He gripped the potion in one hand, and casually removed the stopper.
Nutpuncher came flying into view once more, and skidded across the sand in a streak of frizzy blue hair. His fists rocketed into White’s crotch over and over and over…to no apparent effect.
“Ah, Nutpuncher, my little friend.” White reached down with his free hand and patted the gnome’s head. “You made a good effort, but you are outmatched, I’m afraid.”
“Why can’t I hurt you?” Nutpuncher blinked up at the wizard-necromancer, and Kit was stunned into inaction as she waited for the answer, and her turn in the initiative order.
“Two reasons,” White explained, magnanimously, as he blessed them with his knowledge. “First, I have an invisible shield that absorbs the first 100 hit points of damage I’d take each day. Second, after seeing how potent Crotchshot’s trope was I purchased the eunuch flaw.” His smile grew more predatory. “I have no balls, my young friend. I am completely immune to your cursed fists.”
“You. Awful. Bastard. You thought of everything.” Nutpuncher sat down on
