PHINALI

Chapter Five: Pacifism

"Ungh... Toma..." Kei mumbled, asleep.

This frustrated Tobe. The group only had about ten minutes until the entire excavation teamwas to leave, she still wanted to get her pick of the weaponry. Kei wasn't waking up.

She grabbed Gnome's stick and bashed Kei's head.

At last he opened his eyes."What?"

"We're leaving in a moment. Get up."

"That's a pity, I was having rather a nice dream."

'So we heard," Tobe rolled her eys and left the room (where she left is is beyond anyone's guess, however).

Kei sat up and looked around the room. It was huge, plush sort of place commonly reserved for Donald Trump and any one celebrity who never stooped to appearing in a talk show. The bed he was in alone was an amazing king-sizer with brass fixtures. Kei frankly couldn't care less about brass fixtures, but they did make the bed look cool. Two ornate door were open from Tobe's exit.

It took Kei a moment to register what happened after the fight last night. Or more accurately, it took Dark a minute to notice he was clueless and fill him in.

[Last night Tobe led y'all to Amon Manor, signed us up to get more cash, and convinced Big Amon to let us stay here.]

[Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me.] Kei stood up, rubbed his eye, and walked into the hall. A maid, carrying a nondescrepit pile of trays, saw him, screamed, and accidentally fell down a flight of stairs.

[Your clothes are at the foot of the bed,] Dark burst out in obnoxious laughter.

[Thanks for warning me, man...] Kei grumbled.

A few minutes later, a fully clothed Kei walked into the grand entrance hall of Amon Manor. Tobe was speaking with a man sporting a nifty goatee. Kei recognized him, his memory of before slowly returning, as Amon.

"Look, all I'm saying is, after cheating me on the kiwi you could at least let me borrow some high-quality stabbing material!" Tobe was arguing.

"And all I'm telling you is that the rooms I gave you three more than make up for it, but I suppose since your lot are getting me money, you can have them..." Amon conceded.

Tobe curtly thanked him and walked out of the beautifully carved doors. Gnome, previously standing behind her quietly, followed.

Kei made a point a point not to gain the ire of such a rich and evidently powerful man and repeated the course of action his companions took.

Once everyone on the money-gaining excavation team was on their slightly archaic mode of transport (a cart pulled by lizardlike horses) Kei was vaguely stunned.

The entire team consisted of himself, Gnome, Tobe, Daryl, a driver, Dark (if those last three counted) and two other people. One was a muscular and tall man, with more body mass than most oxen, the other a young, wiry girl.

The girl spoke first. "Who are you weirdos?"

"Arla, don't be so rude," The muscleman admonished. He was large, but something about his voice made him seem no older than Kei and the others. He had olive slacks and a clean white shirt, his hair blonde and buzz cut. He somehow reminded Kei of Matthew, had they been of similar build.

The little girl, evidently named Arla, frowned, then said with a slightly more polite tone, "Who are you?" She was dressed in all black, but her relatively sane demeanour and light brown non-died hair ensured Kei that she was no goth.

What Kei found odd, however, was that on her head were two ears which he recognized as those of an Afwhobble.

Daryl, noticing her species' scent, jumped out of Tobe's hand and onto Arla's lap.

Tobe, slightly hurt in rejection, answered, "I'm tobe, these guys are Gnome and Kei. The little traitor there is Daryl."

Arla and the Afwhobble were nuzzling each other. Tobe fumed. "And Who are you guys?"

The man smiled warmly. "I am Mattau."

Tobe forgot her anger in amazement. "So she's... THE Arla who died a year ago? My baby's touched a zombie Amon!"

Mattau sobered. "She's not dead. I'm afraid we were just claimed to be dead. Amon Prime made us leave the family. I blame myself."

Tobe gave him a sympathetic glance. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault."

He continued. "I asked for the day off and she had to stay inside. Of course she'd try to leave, and without me t stop her she succeeded... Everyone thought she was done for when she was found in the woods, injured... but she was mauled by a Were-Afwhobble.

"Naturally when she survived Amon could neither announce that he was wrong, nor could he live with a 'freak' for a niece. So she was commonized. I left to protect her.

"Then when we heard about this excavation we decided to join to earn money and that's about all of our story... I'm afraid it wasn't very pleasant."

Arla and Dary began giggling (in Daryl's case it was more squealing, but there's no use in arguing semantics) and rather ruined the moment.

The cart began to move. For the duration of the journey, they had a good laugh watching Kei try to teach Gnome the art of Irish folk singing.

"Now if Daryl gets hungry, get her some berries or something, If anything bad happens to her, I will singlehandely beat you to death with your pelvis while Gnome grinds your vital organs into beer, is that clear?" Tobe threatened the cart's driver, leaving Daryl with her. That finished, they entered the cave.

Kei liked the inside. It was enormous, almost palacially breathtaking. The rocky platform they stood on was one of hundreds, supported by stone columns reaching from the ceiling to a glittering ake almost 200 yards below.

The entire place glowed a calming, almost sorrowful, shade of blue.

Tobe sighed in awe. "Is there anything in Phinali more beautiful?"

Kei turned very slowly and asked, "Phinali?"

Tobe asked as slowly as Kei turned. "You don't know... Phinali?"

Kei uneasily shrugged. "I have a guess that I won't like the answer, although my guess would explain quite a lot."

"What is your guess?"

"That I'm in another world. More likely, luckily, is that this is all a dream and therefore you shouldn't make any sense because I got a concussion when I ran into that mailbox!"

Tobe wrinkled her nose. "This can't be a dream. I'm real!"

"'I think, therefore I am'?"

"What?"

"Renes Descarte's theory."

"Who?"

[If thinking proves existence, does that rule most of Congress out?] Dark quipped inside Kei's head.

[At least you know about my home,] Kei said to the usually quiet homonculus.

[Actually I took that joke from your your head. On that note, why is it that ninety per cent of your thinking revolves around the a certain girl doing this thing where-]

[Strike one to my privacy, there,] Kei replied and returned his focus to the real world. "Hey, where'd everybody go?"

"Gnome is still here for Kei!" Gnome said, hugely startling Kei.

"Ah!" Kei yelled. "Hey, weren't you calling me Not-Gnome a while ago?"

"Kei is respect-worthy now!" Gnome explained, as though that were a decent explanation.

[He's polysyllapic, there's a new trick!] Dark joked, [That one's original, by the way.]

Gnome led Kei back to the group, which had moved down a series of platforms to another walkway below. They were searching for traces of civilization (and therefore treasure, subsequently resulting in more money for them once they returned to Amon).

Mattau stood behind the group, guarding. He wasn't the most educated man, having spent his entire life training his muscles, not mind. Arla was tutored from birth, however, and was squatted to examine something. Tobe was shifting thrugh surrounding rocks.

"See, that crack looks just like the one on the wall, it's some kind of a crest!" Arla was arguing with Tobe.

"No, if this really was some sort of box then it would open like this," Tobe pulled on the box, there was a clicking noise, and it opened. "I stand corrected."

"Yeah, but what's in it?" Arla wondered, picking up the box. Kei saw it now, a fairly uniform hollow rock, split down the middle and lying open. It was empty.

Suddenly something entered the haze behind the group. "Look out!"

Mattau jumped and instinctively flipped to where Kei motioned, landing on the being. It was an octopus, dry and standing on its many appendages. It bucked, grabbing Mattau and waving him about. Throwing him to the ground, it released a thick spray of dark gas, almost ink-like but less staining.

There was a minute-long pause (one minute thirty-seven seconds, Kei counted) before the purple smoke cleared, and once that happened, there was much cause for alarm. Mattau was lying on the ground, dizzy, and neither Arla nor the octopus were anywhere in view.

[Dark, quick, do your stuff and beat it up, wherever it is!] Kei asked.

[I'm sorry, kid...] Dark quietly apologized, [I'm outta energy after last night... Y'know, hunger and stuff. I'm only an extension of you... I had to take a bit of something close to you just to be able to communicate like this.]

[Right...] Kei sighed, then said, "Gnome, could you go get that thing? Mattau's kinda out of it..."

"Yes, Kei!" Gnome held his stick fencer-style and pursued the fleeing calamari.

In that same direction, there was another dark figure. An Afwhobble, only 9 feet in diameter and dark green. Kei and Tobe crept closer to the scene, loopy Mattau staying behind.

"Sweet!" Tobe whispered in awe, "An Ogre 'Fwhobble!"

Kei, not particularly orgasmic at the sight of a large mammal, had the presence of mind to watch it beat up the octupus (and swat Gnome away like a fly)

Nobody noticed until then, but Arla had been so emotionally shattered she morphed into a Were-Afwhobble fully, grey and sinister.

Inevitably, or as inevitably as the omnipresence of Murphy's Law can be, there was another stroke of bad luck. The Ogre Afwhobble, which only joined the fighting because it had mistaken Ala for its young, took Arla and repeated the same action as the land octopus.

Mattau began to get up, and the entire group, Gnome included, ran after with no time wasted in philosophical debate.

-

That morning, in Kei's hometown, Toma was waking up at eight A.M.(a common activity for that time of day). Her parents were out of town for the week and thus her day was open to any suggestion conceived. She thought as as she went about her morning routine (spelt rooteen by most in that town, which was depressing for her intellect)

Go to a museum? No, she'd memorized most of the exhibits years ago.

Party? No, that would require preparation. Maybe she should just settle for finishing the yard work.

The more she pondered as she combed her hair, the more it became appealling. She'd get Kei over to help, spend the rest of the day in her welthy family's swimming pool. After all, she realized, if anything would reduce Kei to a mindless babbling worker, it was the possibility of seeing Toma in a bikini.

No, she told herself, don't think that way, it's coneited and rude.

But true. It was quite funny how stupid he was, like how he thought wearing sunglasses would coneal his staring at her breasts.

She walked downstairs to get some breakfast. A muffin was all she could find.

Anyway, she returned to thinking, if she called him then and left a message it would be about an hour until he woke up (well, probably longer, but he was normally up around nine) There was a new TV show on in half an hour anyway, Destroyer of Melons.

She dumped crumbs of her muffin into the garbage disposal, dish in the sink, and reached for the phone.

FINI PHINALI FIVE