Outta The Labyrinth

“Ready, Princess?” says the Dwarf.

I greet the glint in his eye with a smirk and tease my blade under the labyrinth’s final keystone.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s sack this War Room an’ beat it.”


Stone grinds against stone, the rumble shaking fear into the torch’s fickle flame till the hidden chamber’s secrets open up before us.

A wild heat swells my breast, whipping my tresses hard against my back as I gasp for breath. It is greed and it is lust and it is more, and I care not what fearsome guardians hear my hearty groan of desire.

“So, what’s it got, this T Shirt? Invisibility? Super strength? Decipherable washin’ instructions?”

The Dwarf folds his mighty arms and assumes a stance three parts oratorial foreboding and three hundred parts shortass ridiculous.

“Know ye, O Princess, that the hallowed Warrior Forum T Shirt promises riches for all, whether they be male, female, dwarf, elf, gnome, hobbit, giant, batfiend, lizardfolk, miscellaneous chimeric bugaboopants —

“K, I get the idea —”

“— fat, thin, tall, short, black, white, olive, yellow, red, blue, magenta, rough of hide, rubbery of flesh, unusually scabrous beyond the bounds of all known beastly exteriors —”

“Yeah, yeah, I gotch —”

“— clumsy, cackhanded, adept at acrobatic swordplay, gifted at numerical reasoning yet unable to engage in conversation without appearing to possess the emotional IQ of an undersea cucumber-cum-polyp — ”

“Hey, gotta stop you there, pal. It’s almost 2016, an’ eons-long Tolkienesque preamble has kinda been superseded by the elevator pitch. Just give me the lowdown on the frickin’ T Shirt willya?”

The Dwarf’s lips curl his mustache into a lewd erection of follicles. “One size fits all. Slips snugly over glockenspiel ribcage or matriarchal squidos alike.”

Huh. Last time I was this unimpressed, I spat out my date before I’d finished chomping on his foreplay burger and fries, just so I could make it home for Big Bang Theory.

“That is it?”

“It,” says the Dwarf, smile beaming, “in all its monumental glory, that is. Like I said, this is a treasure suitable for anyone and everyone.”

Man, this goon is insufferable; his knock-kneed limp betrays balls too easily kicked, and the cut of his helmet has been bugging me since we began our descent.

Running him through would be cruel, so I make with the Claude Fu and bowl him over for an hour’s shuteye.


It’s just me now, alone in the dark.

I touch my kitten talisman to my lips and slink into the chamber’s deathly gloom.


My prize hangs from a spear sunk into the flagstones.

I was expecting a raised dais and a force field, or maybe a cage suspended from the ceiling by chains, but it is Black Friday so I guess the Mods got better things to do — why construct an elaborate boss chamber when you can shop online for hugely discounted copies of How To Ban Warriors And Exasperate People?

So, yeah, this should be a steal.

Booty: you are mine.

Gonna effect a nonchalant swagger, pluck hallowed shirt from spear with a flourish, then skip out into a horizon of Warrior Forum glory, bubbling with the sublime bliss of incontrovertible supremacy.

Ha! Then maybe I’ll chill with some celebratory yoga, just to max out on being a veritable goddess.

But, wait — this is a boss chamber, right?

So where in hell is the fricking boss?


You in here? Or is it just me and my own dumb echo?

I just take the darn shirt, is that it?

Just grab it offa the spear — voila! — an’ wait for you to come duel to the death?

Hey lookee — I got a goofo hat also!

An’ a Freelancer shirt, all for bein’ a coolio freebooter.

I got the lot now, alla my prizes — so where are ya?

Where are ya? Huh? C’mon.


Oh, I do not like this.

I do not like this at all.

The chamber is empty, no one here but me.

But something weird just churned me up, and I am scared.

Of all the guardians fate could bid me slay, there is none I fear more than the one whose gaze now falls upon me.

She is coiled deep inside my vacuous heart.

And she rises from her slumber, dares me to utter even the faintest whisper.


Princess?

You gonna destroy me, ain’t ya?

I stroll outta here with alla this stuff, an’ you gonna destroy me.

Cos nuthin’ leaves this place without kiss of gratitude.

The tighter you grasp your prize, the less you win.

An’ it ain’t your prize, you are jus’ stealin’.

Gonna die here, ain’t ya?

Throttled by greed till your bawdy proclamations dry an’ crisp to a hollow rattle, jus’ cos you wanna clothe yourself in glory.

So gowan, be my guest: steal what you wanna.

Thanks ain’t yours to steal, not even from me.


I stand in the gloom’s unflinching silence, willing my fingers to soften open.

Gonna put everything back where I found it.

Gonna walk away, laden with nothing.