Being a dark lord was much harder than he’d assumed, and he believed that the eye had a good deal of experience in that area. Enough to teach Bert the basics, surely.
Bert entered the volcano where the eye resided, and called up in a soft voice so as not to wake the rest of the monsters. “Hullo! eye person. Bert need help.”
The eye blinked a few times, and then leaned down to peer at Bert. Its voice was also very quiet, and Bert rather liked that his new friend appeared to be considerate of others. “Oh, good evening. I thought everyone had gone to bed. Nights are terribly lonely, you see, being a lidless all-seeing eye. I don’t ever get to rest.”
“Not sound like much fun.” Bert sat down, and withdrew an elf cookie from his pack. He offered it to the eye, but the eye shook back and forth so Bert plopped it into his mouth.
“There are upsides. So what is your problem, my diminutive friend?” The eye leaned closer, which warmed Bert quite nicely, even though the eye was no longer on fire.
“Bert not sure how to pay monsters.” He looked up at the eye, and poured out his feelings. “Bert also scared that adventurers will come. Bert not real dark lord. Only have one hit point. What if they kill Bert, and take rock?”
“Mhm.” The eye nodded sagely. Bert tried to remember the gesture so he could mimic it later. “I understand completely. I got into the forging business because I felt inadequate, you see. I think every dark lord does, except the overconfident ones and they don’t last long. Now I can’t help you with the gold problem just yet, but I can help protect you. What you need is some armor. I know just the thing.”
Bert leapt to his feet. Armor! He only had one hit point, but if he raised his armor class high enough then no one would be able to hurt him. Well, except with spells. Or area effect attacks.
“Will armor protect Bert from magic?” Bert shifted from foot to foot while he waited to find out if the armor could work.
“Definitely!” The eye bobbed up and down happily. “I’ll teach you to forge the ancient and powerful Armor of Plote. The e is silent, usually, but I think it sounds more fancy with the e.”
“Plot armor?” Bert hopped up and down. “Sound great! How Bert make?”
“It’s not very hard.” The eye leaned down to indicate a small anvil next to a forge, which Bert hadn’t really paid much attention to. “The materials are already there. But I want to warn you…plot armor works great right up until it doesn’t. By itself it won’t keep you alive. Why, talk to Isildor about plot armor. You can’t. He’s dead.”
Bert bit his lip again. He dearly wanted plot armor, but he also needed to know about its limitations. “How Bert avoid dying like, ah, is-a-door?”
“Hmm.” The eye moved higher and adopted a pensive sort of pose. “That’s a great question. I’m afraid I failed in that regard. I lost. But if I had it to do over, you know what I might have done? I might have prepared a scapegoat so that when the adventurers came to kill me they had another target.”
Bert considered that. He believed he could acquire a goat after he finished working on the armor. There were goats all over the mountain, probably. Didn’t goats live on mountains? He would have to go and see.
First he needed his new armor though. He glanced over his shoulder, up the stairs and into the maze. It was the middle of the night. “Will making plot armor be loud?”
“I’m afraid so, though I suppose you could muffle it with a spell.” The eye lifted both corners in a shrug.
Bert blinked several times. He had magic! He could make the entire process quiet. Bert raced down to the anvil, and grabbed the hammer with both hands. It might take two or three spells, but he had plenty of spell points.
“Make hammer quiet,” Bert whispered. The magic left him in a whoosh, and spun around the hammer. That was a start. Now it would make no noise when it hit the anvil, or the armor. But Bert was still a tiny goblin, and big metal plates were heavy. He’d need another spell. “Make Bert strong!”
Magic flowed through his entire body right down to his toes, and into his nose, and it tickled. When the feeling passed Bert noted that he now had muscles on his arms, legs, and chest. It wouldn’t last, but that was okay. He only needed it long enough to forge his plot armor.
“Okay, so what Bert do?” Bert raised the hammer and glanced over his shoulder at the eye.
“It’s super simple.” The eye drew up into a somber pose. “Repeat these words, and use a deep menacing voice, okay?”
“Okay.” Bert nodded. The hammer was growing heavy even with the strength spell. He hoped there weren’t many words.
“Deus Ex Machina!” The eye roared, loudly enough that some of the monsters probably woke up.
Bert lowered his volume and hoped it would work anyway. “Doos ex makina!” He brought the hammer down on the anvil in a shower of sparks, and poof…a suit of menacing black armor appeared all over his body. It was warm to the touch, and even had a cup holder on the belt.
For the first time Bert looked a proper dark lord! A bit short, perhaps, but very intimidating. He peeked at his character sheet and blinked when he realized he had a 997 armor class. The highest he’d ever seen had been 54, and that had been one of White’s characters. Most people had less than 20.
“Okay!” Bert set the hammer down and turned toward the eye. “Bert will go get
