a Place of Refuge

"No, you misunder—"

"I misunderstand nothing," said Bozz cutting off the man. "If only this new crop would speak properly, but alas, it seems each season we see dimwittedness grow." The mage gave Bozz a dirty look but Bozz ignored him. "This 'place' is a refuge. It is a tower of warmth in an icy night, it is a repository of cool in an afternoon inferno. We live at the Edge of the Waste and this place is a School and an Observatory and a Hospice."

"But how did—"

"We find ourselves here?" said Bozz finishing the magic-user’s thought. "How did you? By sheer Fate. I am a firm believer in Wyrde. She rules the lives of many on this world. Although as a child I followed my mother’s gods, and as a youth I went willy-nilly after Berlin and her warrior ways, as a man I find the greatest sense and fullness in Wyrde."

The other spellcaster gave Bozz another dirty look. "Wyrde is gray; I follow the Light."

Bozz rolled his eyes at the words. "And where was your Light-Bringer when you were—" Bozz stopped. His heart began to beat much too fast, he felt poor of a sudden and beads of sweat formed on his brow. ~~I haven’t spoken that name in years…~~

"I worship the Lady Drachma, goddess of Light which is Brighter than the Sun," answered the mage not even noticing Bozz’s sudden discomfort. "There is order and chaos, good and evil, nothing more; heroes are heroes and monsters are monsters."

Within a laboratory, one of many specialized cells within the vastness of the Black Tower, the doctor stood looking over the patient. He had a metal mechanism of wire frames, hinges, mirrors and magnifying spectacles securely fitted upon his head. Within one hand was a scalpel while in the other was a sponge. He stood overlooking the comatose dwarf, he stood in complete and utter nudity, he stood with implements in hand and an itch in the upper dermal area of his right butt-cheek.

"Damn you to helas and back again, you friggin homunculi!" said the good Doctor. You see, it was because of the homunculi (that’s plural, homunculus if you’re only talking about one) that Vincent had to go through such severe measures whenever he did his medical procedures. As everyone in Havnheim knew, life is a tricky business. There are varying hypotheses and theories about the spread of disease, the ways of Death and even how babies are made*** and all of these are of utmost importance when slicing and dicing babies and their grown up counterpart adults!!!

Vincent had spent many long years studying the most ancient and the most recent treatises on the homunculi and their ways. He came to agree with many a naturalist that the creatures hated whitewashed rooms – and so all his laboratories were whitewashed. He also agreed that the creatures loved the warmth of clothing – and so he did not allow any piece of clothing to enter into his laboratories. These ideas were confirmed, by the way, by the only homunculus that Vincent has ever come to even grow indifferent to: Klaw. Klaw lives in the Black Tower but tends to stay as far away from Vincent as possible, I mean indifference does not mean that Vincent likes him! Klaw is a five inch (thirteen centimeter) tall homunculus. It is green and bumpy and looks to have been created from parts of a toad. And it's presence is only even then tolerated for it is Vincent's friend Bozz’s semi-favorite pet/friend.

With machinery clacking and clicking, a bronze hearth heating the room, and the itch taken care of (while we weren’t watching, thank goodness!) the Doctor began to proceed. Now, proceed is a term of arte, it means to make an act of scientific significance which may carry great consequence and great peril. In the case at hand, if the proceeding succeeds the dwarf will live, if it fails well, so will the dwarf.

With deft cuts and incisions Vincent sliced away the first epidermus, and then pulled away the second and the third. What he found in that tissue was far from settling – the ravenous toxins of a quality he had not seen… ever. The flesh was curling in places, discolored and granulated in others and this was not helped in the least by the numerous wiggling, waggling, undulating worms that infested every puck and pore of the near- dead dwarf. The mage had mentioned something about vipers but Vincent had never seen a viper capable of dealing this kind of punishment.

After a time, with much sweat upon his brow and nose and cheek, the Doctor cupped the dwarf’s two stomachs in his hands and lifted them out of his body and onto the table, he made careful not to kink the attached intestines. With the body cavity now free he peered and witnessed a most nauseating sight: there squirmed a brood of long-necked reptiles, sucking the gastric juices that still sloshed from the perforated ponch! The primary organs seemed intact, but it was obvious that once the slithery monsters grew a tad more they would consume the liver, the heart, the lungs, and probably burst forth from the dwarf's belly button, or even erupt from his very chest.

More time, a few bouts of vomiting, much cutting and bleeding. Vincent douses the body with brandy and takes a few sips himself before plugging the bottle. He massages the heart with an elixir and dusts the lungs with a powder. He prays to the god of the deep, deep desert that his hands be stable. More incisions, a few extractions, intestines and other organs replaced, and then quiet rest.

The dwarf was sown with the strongest thread, his fresh flesh salted only slightly, more alcohol in the necessary places, and a few prayers. Doctor Vincent was finished. The question is: is the dwarf finished as well?

***one of the two leading theories of procreation is that Maternity, the goddess of babies and sister to Eternity (the goddess of long winter nights and unhappy marriages), gallops about the world looking for men and women who happen to be 'doing it' and if she is in a fanciful mood inserts her wand of fruitfulness into the bellybutton of the gal in question and plants a baby.

the other leading theory is that within every man’s tongue live sixty-two babies, real tiny babies, really tiny. When a man finds a woman who is a) willing to laugh at his jokes, b) willing to sleep with him on the first rape, or c) willing to marry him and become his legal sister, property, or accessory (depending on which nation one hails from and its legal systems) then Maternity sneaks up on the man while he isn’t looking and zaps one of his little babies with her wand; this in turn allows the little baby to swim from the man’s tongue and onto the woman’s tongue and later to slide down her throat into her tummy where the baby continues to grow. It is for this reason that male-male kissing is outlawed in most civilized nations.

a third theory, but not taken seriously by many, is that the world is full of tiny human babies, they happen to be carried in tiny sacks by a race of tiny creatures known as homunculi. These homunculi also happen to carry sacks full of sickness. Whenever they have an inkling they run up the backside of women and shove a baby into their ear. The baby will eventually fall (unharmed) into the stomach of the woman where the baby then grows. In the case of illness, however, the homunculi are willing to shove those into every orifice they can get to, and they don't descriminate between women or men, human, dwarf, gnome or animal.

1. Is the long and draining procedure a success? Will the dwarf or the mage open up to their mysterious benefactors? And will they be able to get back to their respective lands, nations, and authorities before all hell breaks loose?

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