Fred's Second Trial: Attack of the Dohlman

The thing was about three feet long, dressed in a dirty blue overall. The head was out of proportion with the rest of the body and lent it an aspect of clownish lunacy. The face though was anything but whimsical or endearing. It was painted a dull shade of white, its cherubic features sketched on in thick black lines. A pink mouth set in an eternally closed grin sat beneath its crude nub of a nose. Tufts of coarse red hair framed the horrid oversized face and served to compliment, in a grotesque way, the round black glassy eyes set below the painted on brows. All in all it was a nasty looking bugger.

"You are the ugliest doll I have ever seen," Fred commented as he stared at it.

"And you're the ugliest woman I've ever seen," it replied.

Fred gaped. But his astonishment was cut short as the ugly doll swiped at him with a really long, really sharp, really shiny knife. "With a face like yours toots, you got no right casting aspersions on my sweet mug!" the doll hollered as it came at Fred. Fred twisted out of the way but not in time to miss getting slashed across his arm. "Listen buddy," Fred yelled as he clambered up onto the bower to retrieve the pole. "I don't know what the hell you are, but I'm gonna kick your butt. And I just want you to know that it ain't no woman who's gonna mop the floor with you."

The doll sneered up at Fred. "Oh really? Well the last time I checked the only ones doing the mopping around here were the french maids, and it'll be a cold day in hell I let a man walk around in fishnets!" And with that he rushed to the side of the arbor and began swinging his knife like crazy over the top of the edge. By now Fred had pulled the pole free and he swung it down with all his might on the doll's hand while simultaneously giving the little monster a vicious boot to the head.

The doll crumpled to the ground, its knife lost among the bushes. Fred looked down at it triumphantly. The doll twisted its head around to stare at Fred. "So you want to play hard to get, huh? Well I'm gonna make our first date one you'll never forget!" Fred's face grew red and his cheeks puffed in and out. This little marionette wannabe was pissing him off. "Now get this through your thick wooden head!" Fred yelled. "I am not a woman!"

"Yeah, and I'm not a doll," it chuckled.

Fred then whipped off his mask, "SEE!"

"AAIIIIIIIGH! Put it back on! Put it back on!" the doll screeched. Fred did so, being completely taken aback by the doll's unexpected response. "Goshamighty," the doll shivered, getting control of itself, "you sure do remind me of my mother-in-law. Now she was one ugly woman, but you still take the prize!"

"AARRRGH!" Fred growled with a mad frustration. He didn't know what was worse; getting attacked by a three foot tall lawn ornament or having the thing keep calling him a woman. Without another moment's hesitation Fred jumped down from the bower and slammed the pole down onto the doll. "NOW-- (smack) LISTEN-- (smack) UP! (smack, smack) I-- (smack) AM-- (smack) NOT-- (smack) A-- (smack) WOMAN!! (smack, smack, smack)"

All of Fred's pent up rage drained out of his body as he beat the crap out of the wooden doll. And he had a lot pent up. The damn Aqualarians, their damn Trials, and their damn mysterious Elemental gods, had all come together to fill Fred with intense feelings of hate and fear. And he was sick of it.

When he finally stopped he saw that the doll was now nothing more than an unmoving heap of cracked wood and splinters. "Scratch one dohlman," Fred muttered to himself. He then checked to make sure he still had the Olympia blossom and headed out of the temple. Taking a deep breath and wiping his brow, he grabbed ahold of the rope bridge and began shimmying his way back. But halfway across he heard a yell from behind him. "What the hell did you leave for?! We were just getting to know each other! You're a tease! You're a tease! And I hate women who tease!" The doll man wasn't dead after all. And as Fred frantically tried to make it all the way across the rope, the doll was frantically cutting into it with his really long, really sharp, really shiny knife.

The doll finished first.

When the last thread holding the rope up was slashed in two, Fred suddenly found himself swinging across the chasm straight into a jagged mountain wall. He only had seconds to act. If he slammed into the wall he would be bashed into meat jam, but there was an outcropping below him that he just might be able to land on safely. So he loosened his hold and slid down the rope as it swooped down in a graceful arc toward the pointy crags of the rock wall.

And guess what. He made it! But not without paying a price. When he landed and regained his footing he immediately began hopping about and waving his arms in the air. The doll thought he had gone completely insane. But you'd be hopping around and waving your arms too if your hands were as tore up as his were. "Rope burns! Rope burns!" Fred screamed and then began blowing madly onto the red, meaty welts that dug into his palms. When the pain had subsided enough, Fred looked up at the edge of the opposite cliff where the doll still stood looking down at him. The doll waved. Fred waved back, but he only waved one finger. And then Fred began the long and arduous climb up the rock wall to the top of the cliff.

It was shortly before dusk that Fred made it all the way back down Mt.Toulon. This time the Aqualarians were even more disturbed to see him return. But he had passed the Trial fair and square, retrieving the Olympia blossom, and there was nothing they could do about it.

Astra again stepped up to him and spoke the words of ceremony. "You have passed the Trial of Air. You have taken the second step. You are welcomed into the company of LizBet. No longer are you g'guy, now you are (Astra had made sure she had the gender correct name ready this time) ch'kee." Fred nodded and found himself once again listening to the strange melody of the Muse Women. The sounds were different this time, but just as haunting. He didn't even notice it when Queen Astra draped his shoulders with a gossamer like cloak that shimmered in the light of the fading day.

1. On to the Third Trial!

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