The Kandron Affair - Part the Eleventh.

Hullo everyone!

Here is Part the Eleventh. Yes, I know I’ve deviated from the storyline a little bit concerning the Malarites, but there’s only so much “bash, bash, bash” you can have in such a space of time and word count before it gets boringly repetitive, and this isn’t all that serious and faithful a serialisation anyhow. See the spin-off novels to the “Onslaught”, “Legions” and “Scourge” sets of Magic the Gathering for further examples of this.

Chapter 11 – An Extreme Lifestyle

“To boggan?” I said in disbelief. “How in the name of Lolth’s enormous, erm, thorax, does one boggan?”

“No, Kandron, I don’t think you get it, as usual,” Darik replied. “Tobogganning is where you, like, use a small one-person sled to freefall down a snowy mountainside – “

“You mean,” I went on. “Sliding down a mountain with a shield strapped to your arse?”

This, dear reader, was the exchange that was prompted by how we were to descend a particularly steep slope down from the werebadger-infested plateau towards the upper end of the Shaengarne River. And, unsurprisingly, it was the most sensible suggestion that we’d had all day. Oberron’s idea was the worst of the lot; for he had come up with, “putting our twust in the eternal gwace and pwovidence of Towm,” or, in layman’s terms, the Great Leap Forward. I had respectfully declined his method of descent thought (“Oberron, shut your piehole.”) and taken counsel from other members of the party as to how to solve this little problem.

“Well Darik, that is not a bad idea. Just one small problem,” I had said to him. “We’ve only got one bloody shield!”

Darik was lost for words at this.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” butted in Shayla, her face lighting up as she suffered a stroke of genius, “Why not levitate four of us and have those four link hands while the toboggananing member of the team pushes us along?”

“Yes,” I said in a mock serious tone. “I can just see myself afterwards… Kandron H. Devore, finest swordsman, hero of the Realms, and budding quadriplegic.”

Shayla was incensed at this. “Well I defy you to come up with something better!” she snapped at me, her red eyes narrowing at this. “I’m not afraid to try it.”

“Ahh, feckit,” swore Talyn. “I suppose it’s worth a shot.”

Oberron wordlessly agreed with them.

“Alright,” I said with some hesitancy.

“So, we’re all in agreement, then,” remarked Shayla. “Now,” she said, in a rather husky voice, slowly strolling towards us, chest pushed out, addressing the remainder of the party. “Which of you, big, strong, men is going to give me a little… push?” Upon hearing this, Darik started to grin in what he thought was a suave, debonair manner, and smooth out his beard, Oberron went bright red and muttered something about “a complete lack of mowals”, while Talyn winked salaciously and preened himself rather.

“I’ll do it,” I said, and stepped forwards. Shayla snapped out of seduction mode and set about setting the whole contraption up. The premise was that I was to guide the passage of an upturned shield down the slope while a twenty-foot length of rope, tied about my waist, was used to pull the remainder of the team along while they were levitating. Problem was, there was a disparity in weight somewhat, because the way it was going, I would have ended up suspended ten feet above a steep drop from a bank of levitating individuals, which was a situation I was not greatly disposed towards. So to attempt to remedy this, it was decided that I should carry everyone’s pack as well.

This was painful. In fact, the whole affair was so heavy that I was almost incapable of moving, and any impact with a solid object would have consigned me to a concussive and messy end. So, when it was all set up, I seized a handy branch, and pushed off down the slope with it.

Well, in all honesty, at first it was quite exhilarating. The wind went rushing through my hair, and I felt I was doing a pretty good job – and the rest of the party were being town along quite nicely. After all, there was just under a quarter of a ton on my end pulling them along. Unfortunately, things started to become rather nasty when I noticed a sadistically placed rock which was right in my path, and shaped like a wedge… a wedge that I was at the thin end of. In vain I tried to push myself to one side of it, but succeeded only in almost compromising both my legs.

“AARRGGHHH!!! FECK FECK FECK FECK FECK FECK – “ swore Talyn as he noticed the hazard approaching inexorably.

“Heheheheh… GREAT FUN!” yelled Darik, referring to this particular rock.

Shayla simply blanched with terror, and I remember myself screaming something like “HAIL LOLTH FULL OF GRACE, GET ME OUT THIS DAMNED PLACE!” before I hit.

The upturned shield was scooped up by the rock and sent me unexpectedly flying through the air. Taken by surprise, the shield flew out from under my feet, wheeling off into the distance… Things were looking less than rosy.

Much swearing later, I dropped into the snow with a bone-crunching thud. Thankfully my head had landed just inches from a similarly sharp and protruding stone, and the baggage had miraculously not crushed me to death when it all landed on my back. And, by a further stroke of luck, I had landed on the only vaguely flat section of the entire mountainside, where the snow was held up by a natural barrier of rather crumbly-looking rocks, which were rapidly disintegrating…

Of course, the inertia provided by my downhill towing caused the levitating members of the team to continue drifting along their chosen course, and they came to a halt just in front of me. At the same time, the screen of rocks gave out, and the levitation spell ended, causing all of us, and our packs, to go rolling down the slope in an unruly heap, where, through the general bedlam, a smallish wooden hut was visible at the bottom of the mountain.

At this point, things looked so bad that the sting of twenty tentacle rods on one’s back was little more than a peck on the cheek…

Of course, our little ride had to come to an end at some point, and it did.

With a crunch.

The wooden wall of the hut was not built to withstand such forces as were provided by us, and it collapsed about us, bringing the rest of the hut with it. Thankfully, it slowed us down enough so as not to cause us to impact on the stone chimney breast, but it did cause much noise and the five of us piled up most embarrassingly in a heap, and the baggage crashed down on round us.

I untied the rope that had been put round my waist, and as it came undone I felt my skin blistered and scraped from friction burns where it had been. Scrambling to my feet, I stretched my back straight from where it had been crushed under the weight of everyone’s packs, and reacquainted each team member with their kit.

However, in the chaos we had completely failed to notice the occupant of the hut. He was a human of youngish to middling years, buck naked apart from a pair of six inch heels and a rhinestone choker. A pile of discarded clothing in the corner implied that he had been practicing a salacious and quite possibly obscene dance act. Well, I thought, best place for it. I would come out somewhere remote to practice something like that. Not that I ever would engage in a bottomless go-go dance under any circumstances.

Frightened and embarrassed he charged out the ruined hut screaming bloody murder…

“Shut the feck up!” yelled Talyn after him as he fled.

There was no reply.

“Well, we might as well have a rest here,” I mentioned. “I’m aching all over, and I’ve got friction burns round my waist. I don’t think I could move out at all, and it is getting dark.”

This was the general consensus amongst the team, so we put our heads on our packs and went to sleep.


“Kandron?”

A quiet, thoughtful, feminine voice murmured something in the velvet blackness, and my eyes snapped open and I noticed Shayla a few feet away from me. All the others were fast asleep.

“Are you feeling okay?” she said.

I looked back at her. “Yes, I’m completely fine – ARGH!” I replied, the last part being due to the fact that as I twisted to face her, bolts of pain went shooting up and down my spine.

There was a weighty pause.

“You sure?” she asked me, her hand subconsciously resting on my shoulder, and slowly slipping onto my upper arm.

“Of course I’m sure. I’m just, ahh, tired, that’s all. And I think I’m a bit bruised all over, and tensed up, and all that.” I murmured.

Shayla flexed her fingers. “So am I, especially round my back. Oh well, I suppose it’ll be gone by morning,” she said, and slipped back under the covers.


Shayla’s backache might have gone by morning, but mine had not. My arms felt like dead weights, and moving them caused my shoulders to grind, my back felt like it had iron rods embedded in it, and my legs felt as if they barely supported my weight. This was more than a little inconvenient.

It was even more inconvenient when we noticed a mob of Malarites advancing, with the bottomless go-go dancer veck at the front of the pack. As we came out the shack, they surrounded us and drew their weapons.

The lead Malarite stepped forward.

“You there! You are in contravention of our sacred Code!” he yelled at us. “You were caught breaking and entering the property of our noble Brother Harriet here!” He indicated the bottomless go-go dancer.

“Well,” began Talyn. “Should we nat have dropped in ter join ye?”

Oberron surreptitiously, or as surreptitiously as he could, extracted his mighty weapon and put on an allegedly righteous face. “He is a peddler of gwoss immowality and othew such wank deeds!”

Darik began to give off his trademark Dirty Snigger, but was stopped when Shayla mentioned how Oberron’s inability to pronounce the word “rank” we’d already had enough innuendo about. Our dwarven companion looked rather downcast at this revelation.

“Well,” said Brother Harriet, “I was subjected to the fright of my life when… when a drow who was tied up and carrying several large bags came barrelling into the side of my house! It’s not a common occurrence, you realise.”

I was enraged at this, but I bit my lip to quell such anger, drawing blood. How could an insignificant rivvil have any claim against me? It was an accident, an utter accident, and if it was anything, it was his fault for having built such an inconvenient hut. Couldn’t he see that hit was at the bottom of a steep mountain slope, and occasionally people coming down it were apt to come on a little too fast and crash into his abode? I looked him straight in the eye, and replied with, “Well, it’s not a common occurrence seeing a rivvil wearing nothing but a pair of six-inch heels and a rhinestone choker prancing about like a maniac, a maniac, on the floor, now is it?”

Brother Harriet ground his teeth together. “You wouldn’t possibly understand!” he spat out. “Bottomless go-go dancing, what a feeling! Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life! Hmph, you’re just an unfeeling Drow philistine!” Brother Harriet’s eyes watered with the first vestiges of tears.

The lead Malarite stepped forward to break things up. “I support Brother Harriet in this action. We should applaud his bravery in being the first of us to exhibit his tendencies in the open. After all, I too am not ashamed to show my true colours to an outsider…” And with this, the lead Malarite flung off his robe to reveal that, underneath, he was dressed in nothing but a black leather posing pouch and some sort of leather strapping not unlike the strapping I wore over my armour to hold all my kit together.

I began to feel rather scared at this.

“Yes!” piped up another Malarite. “Let us all follow our leader’s example!” he declared, and all the Malarites dropped their robes to reveal similar questionable garments.

“You see,” said the leader, slowly advancing upon us. “We are not really Malarites…”

We would never have guessed. “We are simply,” he went on, “an alternative lifestyle community, constantly working towards the grand ideals of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love!” His face lit up with joy at relating his grand aims. I, for one, just wanted out.

“Well,” began Oberron. “Deception by pwetending to be Malawites isn’t vewy twuthful,”

“Hmm,” went on Shayla. “And as for him there – no, not you, the one with the leopardskin thong, yes – you’re not exactly beautiful. I mean, you’ve got a beer gut on you the size of a small whale.” The leopardskin-wearing… person… looked rather shocked and upset at this, and he began to sniffle at the nose.

“Ahh, feckit,” swore Talyn. “Ye’re nat exactly very free. Stuck up here in the middle of nowhere, just badgering aboyt from arsehole ter breakfast… Why not go and feckin’ do yer stunts in the middle of Luskan fer once in yer feckless loives?”

And it was Darik who had the last word. “Hur hur hur… I just hope there isn’t all that much love round here at all! Unless you count the arctic boars! Hur hur hur…”

“On the contrary,” began the lead, erm, go-go dancer veck. “There is plenty love up here in our enclave. However, it is not necessarily of the cumbersome, erotic love that you ‘civilised’ people generally mean when you say the word, ‘love’. Our love is nothing of the sort – indeed, we find that such forms of emotionally-demanding erotic love is fickle and changes with the winds, so to speak. We prefer to engage in a far different form of love, the non-sexual platonic love that you see between all our members here – hence, our lack of prudery, our general outgoing demeanours, and similar such expressions of platonic, friendly form of love. For, as was written by – “

“You mean,” I interrupted. “You’re just fishing for excuses for your general campness, and you’re too embarrassed to be seen for what you really are, which is why you disguise yourselves as Malarites?”

“ – that work, of course, being regarded as one of seminal importance on the subject of different forms of love, be they erotic, platonic, or nostalgic, we see how there is no need for such – “

“Yes, I think I get the idea now,” I snapped at him.

“ – yet we must constantly ask ourselves, is this the true root of the problem? Or is there some, deeper, more profound reasoning behind the conclusion that he comes to, and is corroborated by the equally important treatise – “

I fell to my knees in despair and screamed. “MAKE IT STOP! I’ll do ANYTHING! JUST SHUT UP!”

“ – this, of course, brings us back to our original discussion point, being the comparative merits of platonic and erotic love between adult males – Anything?!” he said in disbelief. There was a murmur from among the crowd.

Flashes of obscene, filthy, and immoral acts crossed my mind as I realised the sheer stupidity of what I had just said, considering the garb of these individuals. A lecherous grin on his face, he sidled up to me and attempted to show off his pecs (which were remarkably unremarkable), and abs (which were similarly similar), and general muscularity (which was impressively unimpressive). He then whispered his proposal into my ear…

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Right. You will guarantee the safety of myself and my comrades, if I am to perform an… act… for you and yours?” I replied.

Darik cringed at the thought of this, Shayla had to avoid weeping, and Oberron blushed virulently.

“Yes,” said the lead “Malarite.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

Four potato-sack like thuds were heard as my compatriots fainted in disbelief at my actions…


We’ll take a break now. See you next Part. Heheheheh.

Finally! I love this story. Nice chapter