Storm of Magic Aptitude Test

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The False Moon War: Chapter 9

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to Chapter 8

Chapter 9.  The Law of Six

Joe boggled from his position on the table.  There was nowhere to run or hide.

With exaggerated care, Akhseptsamex opened a foam lined black casket and removed a figure.  It was a fist sized leonine beast, carved from obsidian and bedecked with gold and enamel.  Wings sprouted from its shoulder blades and its spare pair of forelimbs terminated in enormous glittering blades.  The creature’s stinging tail arched up and forwards to poise above its head.  Akhseptsamex placed the arcane construct on the table.

“My champion is the Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops,”  Akhseptsamex indicated the obsidian behemoth.  “Special Rules: Ability to Fly, Causes Terror, Always Strikes First, Killing Blow, Flaming Breath (Strength 4).  Rulebook, pages sixty-six to seventy-nine.”

Twenty four inches away, Joe blinked in consternation.

“Don’t worry Joe, he doesn’t sound too bad.”

“He is also a level four wizard and Master of the Lore of Death.  Rulebook, page four hundred and ninety-nine.  Let us begin.”

“Joe, I think you are in the poo now,"  whispered Bob.

"Kneedeep," Joe agreed.

"Wait!  Doesn’t Joe have Special Rules, too?”

“What do you suppose his rules to be?”

Bob looked at his shrunken, transformed spawnkin and considered what made Joe unique among the forces of Lustria.  “Special Rule:  Chicken-stride.  When fleeing, three mystic cubes are cast for distance, with the lowest being discarded.  This represents the blessing of Los’tmabo’tl.  Rulebook, page seventy-six.”

Joe boggled at him. “Something a bit more heroic perhaps,  Ribbit?” he piped in a tiny voice.

“No.”  Akhseptsamex interjected, “Only I can make inexplicable, illogical or contradictory Special Rules.  If you give another rule, it must be in keeping with the true nature of your champion.”

Bob paused for a moment.  “Okay.  Special Rule:  Susceptible to Pain.  In any round of combat, the first unsaved wound Joe suffers causes him to emit a stricken, keening wail.  On a roll of six this will ward against harm because the attacker is startled by the irritating noise and fails his attack.  Rulebook, page forty-four.”

The Lord of Citadel nodded his acquiescence.  "Do you wish to use some Citadel Mystic Cubes?  They come in four dreary colours and have soulless dots on each of their impractically small sides.”

“The elite of Lustria have their own mystic cubes!”  Bob reached under the shell on his head and withdrew a pair of shimmering cubes.  Before he could place these last on the table, Akhseptsamex snatched them away to examine them.

The Lustrian mystic cubes were clearly priceless works of art.  Somehow the two prisms caught the light and reflected no less than eighty-three distinct and beautiful colour options.  Each of the facets was detailed with vivid representations of mighty beasts which were inlaid with pure gold.  In the hand, the cubes had a reassuring weight about them which would give their caster confidence in their ability to manipulate the Law of Six.

Akhseptsamex cast them on the war table several times to convince himself that they were not loaded in any way.  He glared hatefully at Bob and returned the cubes.  “They are works of art.  But no matter, I will defeat you in battle and then I will own you.  I will destroy your special rules and you will know the true meaning of nerfed!  Your awesomeness, your jauntily worn eggshell and your cunningly wrought dice will be the property of the Citadel forever!

“Let us then roll for the first turn."

Akhseptsamex’ drab die clattered to the table, revealing six boring hollow pits. “Ha!”

Bob unleashed one of his own.  The Mystic cube flashed like fire and finished its tumble showing the image of a six pointed, leering reptilian mask. 

“I deployed first.  First turn, Lizardmen. Rulebook, page one hundred and forty-four."

Bob leant over the table and imperiously commanded his avatar,  “Joe!  Run!”

Joe did not hesitate.  He turned and hopped his maximum allowance of four inches.

“My turn.”  The Citadel lord gestured and the Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops launched skywards for a twenty inch flight.  Only eight inches separated the two miniatures.  “Flaming Breath, strength 4!  Rulebook, page sixty-six.”

The animated construct released a cloud of corrosive vapour which obscured the tiny frog.

"I need but roll more than one to fatally wound your champion!  Rulebook, page forty-two."  the undead general grinned and trickled a die out of his bony fingers.

At the instant the cube stopped to reveal a single dot, the cloud dissipated to reveal Joe gulping miniature frog sized lungfuls of air.

“That was lucky, Ribbit!” he piped.

“No!  There is no luck.  There is only cold blooded probability. You had one chance in six to take first turn, and one chance in six to keep your one wound.  So far, one chance in thirty six.  However, the Law of Six will right itself.  King Balance commands it.”

“Lizardmen, Turn Two.  Joe. Run some more.”  Bob felt the strategy had been effective so far.  Joe hopped four more inches toward the table edge.

“There is no safety there.”  The lord gestured with his sceptre and the edges of the table burst into towering miniature flames.  "I declare a charge.”

Bob weighed his chances.  To flee would almost certainly plunge Joe into the flames.  “Joe! Hold!”

“He must master his terror first.  Rulebook, page seventy-eight.  On Leadership Level…five”

Bob paused, “I usually use 3 cubes for this…”

“You have but two.  Roll!"

Bob sighed and cast the exquisite pair of cubes.  They revealed a spiked lizard surmounted by three heavenly bodies, and a flying reptile with a pair of unfeasibly large testicles.

“Five!  Croak, how lucky was that?”

"Marhlecht!"  Akhseptsamex cursed.  “Thus far there was but one chance in one hundred and twenty-eight.  But the illusions you call “luck” and “life” will end now.”

Only twelve inches separated the figures.  The Citadel charge could not fail.  The Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops swooped to crash to the table top in contact with the hapless lizard-frog.

“Six Killing Blow Attacks, Strength six!”  The skeleton scattered a handful of crude dice on the table.

Among the ones and twos there glowered a cube which showed ugly pits in two rows of three.  One of the attacks would strike home.  Akhseptsamex snatched up the cube and rolled it again to reveal another six. The blow would be fatal.  The obsidian monster raised one bladed arm and swept it down to cleave the tiny frog.

“Killing Blow!  I have defeated your champion!”

There was a sound.  A stricken, keening wail which rose in intensity to an ear shattering crescendo.  The sound had words.  The sound had meaning.

"Waaa aa aaah!  Where is my tail?  My tail!  Waaaaah!"

The startled Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops recoiled in surprise.  This twitched his mighty blade off course.  Unseen by Akhseptsamex, Bob had rolled a cube which revealed a grinning, six pointed  death mask.

“Frogs don’t have tails.  Shut up, Joe.”  Bob savoured the words.  “Shut up, Joe.”

Joe peered behind himself.  “That was SO lucky!”

“There is no luck!  My champion charged!  You lose combat, Lizardman!  Will your soldier break and run?  Modified leadership value of four.  Rulebook, page fifty-four.”

Bob accidently picked up two of the tawdry citadel dice, which treacherously rolled a total of seven.  Joe would flee.

“I will never use these uninteresting and cursed dice again!” he vowed.  “Lizardmen should only use lizardmen dice!"

Joe was poised only four inches from the flames.  Bob retrieved the dice of the Old Ones.  “Chicken Stride requires the highest two of three cubes,” said Bob. 

He noticed the box marked “Arcane Items” from which the Citadel lord had produced the flying carpet / invisibility cloak.  Bob spied a mystic cube and fished it out.  The small, black cube contained millions of tiny pin-pricks of blinking light, each circling a sphere of pure darkness.

“Not the Cube of Darkness, please.  It cancels any magic spells which are in place."    Akhseptsamex looked nervous. "You can reroll one of your own dice, if you wish.” 

Bob shrugged and gently placed the tiny black cube on the table.  He tossed his brace of mystic cubes, rolling the well endowed terradon icon and a reptilian eye.  He retrieved the eye and rolled again.  Another one.

Joe leapt three inches, then stopped and cringed.  The flames were close enough to singe his slimy skin, but he remained on the table.

“Pursue, my Vengeance!”  The skeleton hurled three swift striding cubes at the table.  Three single dimples peeked back at him.

“Ribbit.  That was really lucky”  Joes eyes could not possible bulge any further without springing from their sockets.

“There! Is! No! Luck!  You have just had your one chance in….”  Akhseptsamex paused to calculate,  “…in….four million, one hundred and seventy-three thousand nine hundred and thirteen.  However, you still flee.  Rally and cease fleeing if you can!  Those flames look hot…..”

The opulent mystic cubes tumbled again.  An unblinking pair of snake eyes glowered at the Lord of Citadel.

He spluttered,  “You have rallied, but you can perform no other actions.  Citadel Turn Three.  No Movement.  Magic Phase!”

He cast a pair of tawdry dice which rolled up a six and a one.  Without pause he snatched six more inferior cubes and shouted as he hurled them at the table.

“Purple Sun of Xereus!  Rulebook, page four-hundred and ninety-nine.” 

Amongst the dross was a pair of malevolent, but uninspiring, sixes.  “Double sixes!  Irresistible Force!  You cannot dispel the magic!” he crowed.

An orb of purple edged darkness materialized before the Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops.  Joe’s froggy form  was consumed.

“Can your champion dodge Death?  Test on initiative one!”  Akhseptsamex nudged one of Bob's mystic cubes towards the saurus general.

Bob picked up the cube and stroked it against his scaly cheek.  He turned it in his hands.  He blew on it.  He tossed it from hand to hand.  He did a lucky little dance.

"Stop wasting time!  The game is now!"  The command pierced Bob's mind.  In fright he dropped the cube and it tumbled onto the table.  Its erratic bounces finally stilled.

A snake eye.  Akhseptsamex’ smouldering eyes almost popped out of their sockets.  His next utterance was unspellable, and darn near unpronounceable.

“Fine!”  he grated.  “Your turn four!”

“Croak. Resolve the miscast.  Rulebook, page thirty-four.” A tiny voice reminded.

“What?”

“Two sixes to cast Purple Sun.  Irresistible magic will reflect back on the caster.  Roll two dice.  Rulebook, page thirty-four.  Ribbit.”

With another unpronounceable curse, Akhseptsamex flung out two more dice.  They totalled three.  The resulting five inch wide explosion which caused a wound to the Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops.  Joe continued to gulp and blink.  He had escaped the blast unscathed.

One more die tumbled from the Lord of Citadel’s bony fingers.  Two.

With a yelp of fear, Akhseptsamex’ animated construct prepared itself to be permanently plunged into the Realm of Chaos.

“Lizardmen  Win.  Crushing Defeat.  Turn Three.  That was lucky!  Ribbit!”

Akhseptsamex raised his head.  His every insubstantial fibre radiated hatred.  “One chance in one hundred and sixty-six billion, two hundred and eighty-eight million, six hundred and ninety-three thousand nine hundred and twenty.  Give or take.

"However, you forget.  I make the rules."  He plucked a tiny rod out of the box marked Arcane Items.  “Earthing Rod.  Reroll any results on the miscast table.  Rulebook, page five hundred and four.  Ha!”

He threw two more of the treacherous Citadel dice.  Three dimples.  He howled as he flung one more against the furthest wall of the chamber.  The pathetic cube ricocheted to rest at his feet.  One dimple.

The Vengeance of Gaimsworkcheops vanished from existence with a whimper.

Somewhere else entirely, Queen Bias, sipped from a fine china teacup and smiled sweetly at her husband. 

King Balance glowered, red-faced, back at her.  He was bound and gagged and stuffed in the corner of the chamber that they would share for all eternity.

Akhseptsamex screeched in incoherent rage.  With a strength that did not seem possible, he grabbed the edge of the gaming table and flipped it over.  Joe's tiny froggy form was flung to the floor.  Dice, incomplete models, and other bric-a-brac scattered throughout the chamber.  Bob himself was knocked sprawling by the Lord of Citadel’s tantrum.

Joe hopped as quickly as his tiny legs would carry him to cower under the shelves which lined the walls.

Bob gathered himself to stand.  As he did so, he felt a cold, sharp edge under his scaly hand.  He investigated.  It was a cube.  A small, black cube which contained millions of tiny pin-pricks of blinking light, each circling a sphere of pure darkness. The Cube of Darkness.

Akhseptsamex saw what he held.  “Noooooooooo!”

Without hesitation, Bob cast the Cube of Darkness into the centre of the room.  It burst open like a black flower.  Every shred of magic power within the citadel was consumed by the tiny black sphere which hovered, for an instant, before returning to the null dimension which was its home.

The chamber erupted in chaos.  Not Chaos.  The regular kind of chaos.  This was the kind of chaos which ensues when every kind of warrior, beast and monster, of every allegiance, is simultaneously released from a spell of miniaturisation, within the confines of a single large room.

Troops of halberdiers, and packs of wolves vied for dominance.  Spiders, trolls and dragons chittered, bellowed and roared their annoyance.  Even great reptilian beasts of the jungle burst out of the boxes which had imprisoned them, and thundered from the room, smashing their own doorways because the original ones were too small to admit them.

As Bob cowered under the remains of the battle table, an iron like claw grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet.

“I salute you, General Bob.  I am T`hinker`er.”

The claw belonged to a doughty looking Lizardmen Saurus Scar Veteran.  Bob had never been treated with this much (any) respect by such an exalted hero.

“Take Joe with you, and escape.  I have a score to settle with this so-called Lord of Citadel.”  T`hinker`er held up a vicious implement.

“Is that a modelling knife?” Bob gasped.

T`hinker`er grinned evilly and advanced towards Akhseptsamex, who was struggling to rise from beneath a rabble of smurfs.  Or they might have been Halflings.  (Who cares?)

Bob spied a large amphibian which was cowering beneath some shelves.  He grabbed it and fled to the balcony.  Behind him he could overhear T`hinker`er, in a low and menacing voice, say "...and now Lord of Citadel, for the last time, I'm going to demonstrate the difference between a conversion and an original sculpture, even if it kills you!"

On the edge of the balcony, Bob tucked the frog under one arm and vaulted onto the back of a terradon which had just taken flight.  The flying reptile faltered for a moment, let out a high pitched squawk, and furiously beat its leathery wings to leave the Citadel far behind him.

Bob clasped the bumpy amphibian to his chest.  “Joe!” he wailed, “Why didn’t you turn back into yourself?  Why aren’t you talking to me?”

The sound of rushing wind as the terradon sped north east filled where Bob’s ear should have been, but he fancied there was another sound.  A stricken, keening wail.  The sound was coming from the terradon.

Bob peeked beneath the wing of the distressed terradon to investigate what was causing this upset.  There he saw Joe, restored to his normal form, hanging by his claws from the scrotum of the unfortunate flying reptile.

 “What the….?”  Bob looked carefully at the warty amphibian that he had been cradling in his arms.  A blot toad, which he had rescued by accident, scowled back at him with open hostility.

These loathsome creatures dwelt deep in the Lustrian swamps feeding on the eggs they found in ripperdactyl nests.  The winged ripperdactyls could be driven to a murderous frenzy just by the smell or sight of their natural enemy.

The ripper's distant and distressed cousin, the terradon, had suffered enough for one lifetime and plunged toward a leafy oasis where he attempted to brush his unwelcome payload off his tender parts and onto the crown of a date palm.  Bob and his new companion soon followed as the flying reptile shrugged them off its back.

“That was lucky!” an impressive kroxigor observed.

Bob had fallen from a great height to splash into the centre of the desert oasis where Mahtis, Rychek and Bessie had paused in their journey.  When Bob surfaced from the cooling waters he had a bumpy amphibian perched on his eggshell.

“Where is Joe?” asked Bob.

There was another sound.  A stricken, keening wail.  The sound had words.  The sound had meaning. 

“Waaa-aa-aaah!  Get off me!  Get off me!” it seemed to say.

Rychek, Mahtis and Bob peered upwards.  In the fronds of a tall, spiky palm tree, they could spy a distressed saurus warrior.  On his head was a collection of sticks which formed a nest.  On the nest was a large bird with long curved beak.  The saurus warrior and the ibis competed for the title of “most surprised”.

Joe flapped his arms ineffectually and toppled from the tree and landed heavily on a nonchalant bastiladon.  Bessie continued to munch on the delectable thorn bushes that grew around the waterhole.

“That was lucky,” observed Mahtis.  “Unless you count what happened to Joe.  Where have you been?"

Joe and the ibis recovered their composure.  “There was this evil ruler, who wanted to nerf Bob!”

Rychek shuddered.  If Bob were nerfed, what joy would remain in the universe?  There would be no point to existence.

The light around them seemed to dim as if a shadow had crossed the sun, just for a second.

“You have something that belongs to me.”

Silhouetted below the setting sun was a badly beaten skeleton.  He looked as if he had just gone two days against a saurus scar veteran and lost.  As he spoke, the sunlight flickered and dimmed again.

“Get behind us, Bob.  It’s you he’s after”  Rychek and Mahtis stood shoulder to shoulder in front of their friend.

“Do not play childish games.  I will take what is mine!”  The menacing skeleton was riding on a flying carpet of Arabyan design.  Around him was a faint aura which screamed, “Magical protection from mundane attacks!”

Joe stepped forward.  “Great Akhseptsamex, Lord of Citadel.  You win.  Bob, come forward.”

“You can’t surrender Bob to him!”  Mahtis protested.

“Trust me,” Joe mouthed silently.

Mahtis and Rychek grudgingly parted.  Bob stepped forward, with the toad still perched on his shell.

“Here.  Take him.  I never liked him anyway.”

Joe snatched the startled blot toad from atop Bob’s head and flung it to the Lord of Citadel.

Akhseptsamex looked at the slimy amphibian cradled in his arms.  “No, I didn’t mean……”

He was interrupted by a chorus of enraged screeches.  A ripperdactyl swooped out of the glare of the setting sun and raked its claws across the Citadel Lord’s thin shoulders, bowling him from his flying carpet.  As more rippers slashed him, Akhseptsamex curled into a ball, with the blot toad still clutched to his breast.  These frenzied killers were the very same that had been magically imprisoned within the Citadel.  They would continue their fearsome killing blows until the blot toad and its scent had been eradicated.

The four lizardmen climbed onto Bessie’s howdah and steered her gently away from the whirlwind of dust, leathery wings and frenzied claws.

As they slipped into the gathering night, Mahtis turned to watch the downfall of the Lord of Citadel.

“That was unlucky,” he remarked.

to Chapter 10: The Bad Lands

The False Moon War: Chapter 8

to Title and Contents
to Chapter 7

Chapter 8.  The Citadel

The solar engine on the bastiladon's back was a tiny island light in an ocean of blackness.  As the days in the endless tunnel stretched on to weeks, the solar engine gradually dimmed and the unusual vitality which energized the party also faded.  They became listless and docile.  Even Bessie's single minded plod slowed.

At some point in the interminable night, the rough, rocky floor of the tunnel had crumbled to sand which made the going more effortful.  When the last glow died, Rychek feared that Bessie would stop entirely and that this would be their tomb, but they were not plunged into total darkness.

As their eyes adjusted to the dark they could see that the walls and roof of the tunnel had receded to form a vast chamber.  The ceiling was dotted with tiny points of light which glittered as hard and as cold as diamonds.

Bessie trudged on towards a distant glow which was intensifying in the distance.  The glow overpowered the light of the diamonds and grew in power until, suddenly a fiery orb slid above the horizon.  All about them the ruddy glow revealed an endless sea of billowing sand dunes.

"This is a funny swamp," murmured Mahtis.

The rays of the early morning sun were captured by the parabolic mirrors atop Chotec's engine and were directed into the cube at the heart of the apparatus.  The front facet glowed anew.  In Lustria, the prism had glowed with a subtle greenish cast which echoed the light of the sun filtered through a dense canopy of jungle.  Here, in the deserts of Araby, the solar facet adopted a harsh, yellow-white hue.

The energizing rays also thawed the numb hearts of the lizardmen.  Soon they were prosecuting their quest with their usual vigour. 

"Our best infantry unit is Saurus Warriors with hand weapons and shields."

"No.  It's Temple Guard."

Rychek sat perched on Bessie's shoulder in resigned annoyance.

"Saurus Warriors!"

"Temple Guard!"

"Saurus Warriors!"

"Temple Guard!"

Clonk!

Rychek spun around in alarm to investigate the unusual sound.  He saw Mahtis holding two dazed saurus by the backs of their necks.

"Skink Cohorts with Kroxigor."  he rumbled.  The scaly giant shook the pair so that their heads lolled in a parody of agreement, then pushed them off the sides of the platform.  The sauri landed in the sand like two large sacks of tubers.

When the pair returned to their dubious senses they found that Bessie had continued her march without them.  There was no fear of getting lost, because her footprints in the soft sand clearly marked her path over the next dune, and the one after that.

The harsh sun beat down on the despondent pair as they trudged in pursuit.

"It's too hot," Joe observed.

"You are a big whiner.  My feet hurt," Bob replied without looking up.

"And you are a big sissy."

"Big whiner," Bob was having trouble mustering his usual enthusiasm.

"Big sissy,"  Joe was no better off.

"Big whiner."

"Big Chicken!"

Bob halted in his tracks.

"Who are you calling a big chicken!?"  he demanded with his claws on his hips.

As Joe ran away as fast as he could go, Bob felt a blissful respite from the sun’s glare beneath a deep shadow which was suddenly cast over him.

"Oh, Mahrlecht," Bob swore as he looked up into the undead eyes of a carrion vulture of stupendous size.

The creature scooped him up in a rotting claw and launched itself into the air with two beats of its decomposing wings.  Joe was snatched from the brow of the next rise.

The vulture rose on an invisible column of air until the enormous dunes below seemed no larger than ripples on a pond.  Joe fancied he could see a trail of marks in the sand leading to a black speck which was toiling through the desert.  The bird did not pause as it soared over the minute bastiladon and sped further eastward.

After some time, the carrion vulture tucked in its wings and stooped towards a toy castle.  The fortress looked like it had been designed by an emotionally challenged child.  Its massive walls were constructed of dreary basalt slabs.  The disturbingly phallic towers scattered along the outer curtain wall were surmounted by crowns of spiky battlements.  The inner keep maintained a hostile vigil through mullioned windows reminiscent of glowering eye sockets.  Every possible surface was decorated with skull motifs.

As their captor swooped lower, the sauri could see that the fortress was not a toy, but indeed a work of such scale and arrogance that only a madman could have commissioned it.  An emotionally challenged madman.

The huge vulture deposited them, without harm, on the flagstones before the yawning portcullis of the inner keep.  As Bob and Joe gawped in disbelief at the tasteless display of architectural brutality they were approached by an ancient dwarf.

The dwarf was lavishly dressed from his ornate helm down to his pointy velvet slippers.  Jewelled rings decorated every finger.  His magnificent snowy white beard and hair were gathered by bands of burnished gold and tumbled to trail along the floor.  His white eyebrows and beard obscured most of his features.  His most striking attributes were his hopeless, despairing eyes.

The dwarf regarded the guests in silence for a moment.  "May the Lord of the Citadel have mercy on you.  Please follow."

The dwarf turned to pass through the arch and revealed that his extravagant garb was but a facade.  His bare back and posterior were exposed to the elements.  Bob and Joe, who possessed not one stitch of clothing between them, shrugged and followed their guide.

The trio crossed an inner court and ascended a seemingly endless stair.  They saw no other inhabitants, but they heard the sound of anguished cries and mountains of coins being counted.  The citadel seemed to be populated by the despairing and the frustrated.

The lizardmen finally reached the top a pace behind their guide.

An icy voice spoke.  "You may go."

These words were directed to the guide.  The dwarf performed a curious bow.  the bow was not curious.  Just the fact that he turned away from his master and guests before bowing.  In doing so, he revealed a view barely more palatable than that of Morrslieb, the Chaos Moon, itself.

Bob and Joe examined their surroundings.  They were in a large chamber atop the keep.  Light was admitted through four bay windows which opened to each cardinal direction and led out to a broad terrace surrounded by dizzying voids.  The inner walls of the room were lined with shelves festooned with hundreds of boxes displaying brightly coloured and alluring images.

The dominating feature of the room was a table.  This was modelled to resemble a variety of terrain features from the real world, except that they were wrong.  Tiny trees writhed in anger, in places the surface of the ground gave way to reveal rockeries of skulls, and steep model hills reared above the plain surmounted by shrines to hate and violence.

Along one edge of the table were a collection of vials of brightly coloured potions.  Beside them were a scattering of cruelly bristled brushes, no doubt used for torture, but on a miniature scale.

The collection of colourless dismembered representations of tiny beings upon the table edge was most unsettling.  Each had a semblance of realism, but the proportions were wrong.  Some tiny warriors were burdened by weapons too large for their frames.  Others had armour which would clearly prevent effective movement.

Each one of the incomplete warriors had an expression of disbelief on its tiny face.  "What the mahrlecht?  How the did I end up in this situation?" seemed to be the consensus.

"Welcome, Bob."  their host stepped out of the shadows.  "I am the Great Pharaoh, Akhseptsamex.  I rule the Citadel.”

He was a skeleton.  His dusty bones were ornamented with Nehekharan headdress, jewellery and cloak.

The speaker continued,  “I see that you have met my little friends."

Bob and Joe cast about, looking for the "friends'' which the pharaoh had referred too.  Eventually Bob's eyes rested on the miniature warriors at the edge of the table.

"Oh, I see!" a gleam of understanding flickered on his face, "Your little 'friends'!  Where I come from, there is this guy that thinks his little 'friends' are real too!  You see, he comes from a remote area of Lustria, and it gets very cold and dark and lonely and...."

"Silence!"  The skeleton stamped his foot.  "They are real!  I have devoted a lonely eternity to ruling them!  Why can no one see that they are real?  Why doesn't my wife understand me?  She has banished me to the attic because she won't let me play with them in the house, but they are real!  Real, I tell you!"

Bob briefly contemplated a diplomatic way of telling the mighty Lord of the Citadel to get some perspective, when Joe beckoned him over.  He had opened one of the boxes from a shelf marked “Lizardmen”.  Inside, three extremely ugly flying reptiles were harrying a large toad for no apparent reason.  Some powerful magic spell had reduced them to miniature size.

"They ARE real,"  Joe mouthed.

Akhseptsamex had regained his composure.  "Indeed.  I have collected each of them from the corners of this world, and from fevered imagination.  People say I must be crazed...."

"Well, that WOULD explain it,"  Joe mouthed silently.

"Silence!  ...Well, I mean…. Raaarrgh!"  the skeleton thrust with his snake tipped sceptre.  There was a flash of unearthly light and Joe was transformed into the form of a large frog roughly the size of a human head.

"Noooooo!  What have you done to him?"  Bob protested,  "Joe, can you still talk?"

"I can still talk!  Ribbit!  That's lucky!"

"Noooooo!"  Bob clenched his fists in frustration, "Why can he still talk?"

"I am the Lord of Citadel.  I can do what I like!  Look at this.  For no particular reason I have made a magical flying carpet, which doubles as a cloak of invisibility.  And it also grants immunity from any attack other than Frenzied Killing Blows from flying reptiles!"  The skeleton rummaged in a box marked "Arcane Items" and pulled out a tiny rolled up rug.

"But that doesn't make any sense!  Ribbit!"

"It doesn't matter that it makes no sense.  All that matters is that fools will pay.  I offer many powerful items and units to bolster your army.  I decide what rules they fight by.  I make them available for generals to deploy.  At a cost..."

These last words were followed by a heavy pause.  The lizardmen understood that the cost would be great.  Eternal bondage at least.

"Truly, Lord of Citadel, you have no soul!  Ribbit."

"Why have you brought us here?  If it was just to turn Joe into an amphibian, then obviously I am grateful, but..."

"I brought you here because you, Bob, are too awesome.  If you were small and irrelevant, I might have ignored you, but you have special attributes.  You have Special Rules which are a threat to my reality."

"What do you mean?  Croak!"

"He,"  Akhseptsamex stabbed a bony finger at Bob's chest, "has two incompatible Special Rules.  He has the Rule of "Luck" and the Rule of "Destiny".  They are opposite, and they have no right to exist together.  It is the prerogative of the Lord of Citadel alone to make inexplicable, illogical or contradictory Special Rules.  It is what is expected of me.

"I will test this Bob's general-ship and mastery of the Law of Six in a game of skill and chance.  If he is over powered, I will emasculate him and break his power."

"Ha! Croak!  You can't change people.  In particular, you can't change Bob.  I have devoted my life to that cause.  Waste of time."

"Can I not change people?  Have you not met my White Dwarf?  He once had pride and dignity.  He was capable of discriminating thought.  Now he parrots whatever words I, the Lord of Citadel, place in his mouth.  In every marketplace he extols the virtues of the Citadel, and the Citadel alone."

Akhseptsamex leered and pointed his sceptre at Joe's froggy form.  The amphibian shrank until he was no more than a half inch tall.  The lord stooped to pick him up and placed him carefully on the central table twelve inches from one edge.

"Here is your champion, General Bob."

to Chapter 9:  The Law of Six