The reminder of the taste the hinky-punk's life force fast forwarded Benna's memory to when she and Lucryllan arrived back to the hotel Shangri-oo-la-la. Upon walking up to the steps of the lobby, Benna's strange psi-stalker senses tasted an acrid flavor trying to enter her mind. At that moment, Turag joined them in the lobby. "By....the....look....on....your.....face.....Bena....you.....sense....it.....too...." "What is it boss?" Benna says. "It feels wrong." "Some...one...is....trying....to.....track....our....movements....and....thoughts....Bena....let's....meet....in....the....K-Dawg...." The Irregulars minus ThorFrid (who was still preoccupied with her conjugal-flagellation in room 269) met up in the parking garage of the hotel were the K-Dawg was parked. "Do you think we could use magic to sever the link?" Ask Sister Rebecca.. "Or even better," added Benna with a bit of anger in her tone from the violation she was feeling. "How about using magic to shove it back at them?!" "Be....calm....child....it....may....be....best....to....use....this.....link....as...." "A weapon!" Nosmo added. "I am pretty sure that I could teleport one of Turag's farts through this link and send them all running." Benna and Nosmo laughed together, lightening her hazy mood. Lucyrllan was not amused. He verbally scoffed at the joke. He was in the brig of the K-Dawg raising the other two hinky-punks from the dead. One was decidedly being stubborn. Lucryllan was not the usual necromancer, in the fact that he never forced a being to return from the dead. Though he held the power to subjugate the dead as he pleased, he still believed strongly in free will. He saw it as his gift to them, rather than their slavery to him. This particular hinky-punk did not feel being brought back was a good idea. So Lucryllan had been having a divination debate in a strange airy language for the past 15 minutes with a dead magical wildcat. Turag was not even phased by Nosmo's teasing... "....a....way....to....find....out....who....is....be....hind.....this...." "Should we wait for ThorFrid?" Benna ask recovering from her hearty laugh. "....no.....but.....I....need.....Sister.....Rebecca....and.....your.....friend's.....special.....talents...." 'Your friend?' Thought Benna. Had Lucryllan not proved himself of Turag's friendship yet? She knew that Turag was viciously loyal to the one's he called friends, but he kept that circle of friends very tight. It was not easy to earn his trust "Sure, Boss. I'll see if he is done with his project." Benna made sure not to mention or talk about Lucryllan's necromancy in front of Turag. It was bad enough that Luc was a newcomer, and she already knew Turag got really weird around what most people thought of as dark magic. Lucryllan's only redeeming quality with his use of necromancy was that he did it with honor. This made it tolerable to Turag, but not always palatable for his staunch ethics. "Luc, Turag needs your skills. Are you done, yet?" Benna asked making sure he wasn't in some trance. She made that mistake about 6 years ago while they were trying to survive in a wasteland dimension where they were trapped together for almost eight years. Last time, he came out of the trance too soon and became possessed by a demon named Kalirathymus. She ended up with a scar on her thigh from a hellfire burn that she did not care to have repeated. "Behold! I have named them Golitha, Tal, and Merna." The necromancer said gleefully introducing his three new wildcat zombies. She noted that Luc was always happiest after raising something from the dead. His somberness and arrogant nature always faded for a bit just after creating a new creature. "It is Elvish for the three bones in the middle ear that allows hearing. In your primitive language, I believe you call them the incus, malleus, and stapes." "That didn't last long," mumbled Benna under her breath. "Were you saying something about Turag?" "Yes. He believes that we might be able to find out more about who or what has been spying on us. But he needs your help." "If I am needed, it would be derelict of me not to help those of less fortune. You may inform him I will join him." "Uh, Earth to Luc!" Benna replied annoyed. "You can tell him yourself. He just over there." She pointed to the cockpit area of the K-Dawg Mark V. Turag handed Lucryllan the device he had been working on in room 118. It looked like a steam punk version of a cyborg's brain. He told Lucryllan that it was a battery of psychic potential energy. "First the dog, and now the new guy?" Rebecca blurted disdainful. "Its because he has a penis, isn't it? Just wait until the Ministry of Inhumane Resources hears about this in my report!" She huffed rather loudly. After trying to explain to Sister Rebecca that this was not a gift to Lucryllan, but a one time use tool, she eventually agreed to help. Lucryllan and Sister Rebecca with the aid of the technowizard battery and guidance of Turag began a ritual. Tut, Benna's massive mutant bulldog companion provided a mind link that allowed everyone to work together. After several minutes detecting, tracking, identifying, and isolating the psychic feed, Turag determined that source on the other end was too powerful to do anything with. As a group they agreed that the connection needed to be severed. Turag activated a few switches on the steam punk brain causing it to pulsate loudly five times. After the fifth surge of energy, it discharged an audible psychic explosion. Each of the group felt a sudden intense headache piercing behind their right eye. They all grabbed their heads in pain. As quickly as it came on, the pain was gone. "You could have warned us ahead of time it was going to hurt like the Caucasian Eagle ripping out our brains." Rebecca complained. "By Apollo and all that is holy, will your willful abuse of us women ever end, Turag?" Turag was about to respond when a large rumble and crack was felt and heard just out the K-Dawg. ------ ThorFrid was in the middle of an erotic version of Cecil DeMille's Ten Commandments just as Moses was about to divide the Red Sea and lead all the Israelites on dry ground, room 269 shook violently. There was a large crack sound. ThorFrid sprang to her feet knocking Pharaoh Ramsey II from his advantageous position overlooking the Red Sea, onto his back side on the marble floor. He gave a yelp as his bare butt hit the cold stone floor. ThorFrid bit her lip seductively, as she loved to take advantage of a bad puppy yelping, but she knew that rumble meant trouble. And where there was trouble her friends, The Irregulars, were probably at the cause. She grabbed her clothes and armor and ran out the door stark naked...as usual. "Pharaoh is not done with you!" The naked man shouted stumbling over half naked women lying on the floor stoned out of their minds on some street drug named X-O Dust. "He is about to unleash the full wrath of the snake God Apophis, God over thunder and earthquakes and modern-day vibrators!" ------ Benna was the first to see what the caused the cracking sound. She relayed what she was seeing to Sister Rebecca, who inside the protection of the K-Dawg was also blind as a potato underground. "There are two...no three large, very large creatures with clubs walking slowly towards us." "Clubs?" Asked Rebecca confused at this point from so little detail. "Yeah, ya know, big sticks you swing around like in those old colourful motion pictures with the grey rabbit and that dumb bald hunter guy with the funny voice?" Benna tried to expound. "Huh?" Rebecca said even more perplexed. "There....not....clubs....they....are....part....of....the....creatures....hands....." "Great! Only Turag knows how to describe something accurately?!" Rebecca said exacerbated at the irony. "So not only will we be crushed to death before I know what hits me, I will have to thank him when we're done!" "See! I knew you knew what a club was." Benna threw in defending her ability to describe the situation. "....they....are....golems.....made....of.....EverIce ™ ...." "Hold on a minute." Rebecca said. "Turag threw in a registered trademark on EverIce ™ ? And how did I even know that?" "Tut's mind-link." Benna said just realizing what was going on. "Tut is still connecting our thoughts, good boy." "This is correct." An unfamiliar voice sounding like a gruff Peter O'Toole entered their heads followed by a meditation bowl being hit and resonating at a perfect E⁴ at 329.628 Hz. "Namaste." "That's Tut?" Rebecca asked about to fall over the Cliffs of Insanity from all of this confusion. "Well thank you, Tut...for allowing me to thank a dog, rather than a chauvinist long-necked pig." "....they....seem....to....be...." "Will someone casting a bondage spell on that guy's mouth? I don't need anymore descriptions. Tut has me hearing your very thoughts." "Bondage! That's it!" Turag's voice entered their mind without any delay. Tut was giving them access to Turag's thoughts. "You're a genius, Rebecca. I can cast an entangle spell on their legs. That should give you guys enough time to take them down. I also need to check up on Rex and my father once all this is over. Mom will probably want a letter, too. I don't want her to get worried or jealous that I have sent an unbalanced portion of letters to Dad over those to her. I'll need to tell her about my meeting with Plato, and how I suspected all along that Silas was a dragon. They all have that special twinkle in their eyes. It was one of the first things I noticed about Silas...." "My apologies, m'lady." Tut interrupted the thought stream. "That one goes on and on. I will make sure I filter those for the group. Namaste." A meditation bowl chimed again in the back of their minds, bringing an odd sense of peace. At once they broke from their reverie from the crashing sound of the golems approaching the K-Dawg. "I got this!" Benna said confidently. She placed the crown fro Father Christmas on her head, dividing herself into two identical Bennas (except for the original Benna still wearing the brass holly leaf and daisy wreath crown). The original jumped into the co-pilot's chair. The duplicate climbed the circular staircase to the right turret. Each Benna locked onto the three ice golems. And fired! The K-Dawg had guns that were both made from high-grade Coalition State standard issue armaments and Turag's magical technowizardry. They had been used to mow down a self-healing robot army division, take down an ice dragon, and even neutralize the powerful Morgan La Fey. Yet, as the dust from the weapons settled, the three golems were no worse for wear. Not even a scratch could be seen on their EverIce ™ hides. "Turag, that bondage spell is looking might handy right now." Rebecca conceded. "Just think of them as three classy women minding their own business, probably taking about how this is the day that they will finally get the raise at work bringing them up to their rightful equal pay. That seems to always do the trick." Without speaking, Turag opened the tungsten alloy durasteel door of the K-Dawg and shot his quantum entangler pistol at the three ice golems. Gray energy in the shape of a bullet launched from the pistols barrel. In mid-trajectory, the gray energy expanded creeping out like steel tentacles of a Chlorophytum comosum . The long finger like spindly tentacles struck two of the golems' legs, and wrapped around tightly. Confident that he instinctively knew how to deal with this threat from magic knowledge from his dragon heritage, Nosmo stepped out of the K-Dawg mid transformation into his true form as a royal frilled dragon. The K-Dawg lurched to its side from the magically displaced mass increase. As he left the vehicle, the shocks of the wheels caused it to jolt back and forth like a beached whale trying to get back to the sea. Nosmo plant his feet, digging his claws into the concrete floor of the parking garage. Energy built from his chest, then expelled a ball of arcane fire. The plasma ball hurled and exploded on all three of the EverIce ™ golems. Through the flames, each of the golems step forth unscathed. Lucryllan, excited to try out his new 'associates', commanded Golitha, Tal, and Merna to attack the left most golem. They scrambled in a pack out of the K-Dawg, and towards the left most golem just as ordered. Upon reaching the ice beast, the towering giant took its pike tipped right arm, and drove it through Merna. Turns out Merna was right. She was better off dead. Her decaying body went limp once more. It slide slowly off the impaling arm of the ice golem. At this moment Benna's memory recall froze. She tried hard to clarify what was happening in this exact moment. She saw herself safe, for now, in the cockpit. Her double, still alive, in the turret. Turag extending his gun arm out of the side hatch of the K-Dawg maintaining concentration over his entanglement spell. Nosmo frustratedly putting more energy into his blast. Sister Rebecca looked disdainfully reminiscent on the gray bind cords around the golems' leg. Lucryllan stood crossed arms strategically considering his next move as the pawns moved on to the field. ThorFrid could be seen running stark naked fast approaching the flank of the golems branding her war hammer. Benna then remembered the two zombies and the arm of the golem. The hard ice shell of the golem seemed to peel back as if burned by acid when being touched by the zombie hinky-punk. That was it! That was the memory she was looking for. ------- The exploded image of her duplicate self still fresh on her mind, Benna thought of something crazy. She leaped out of the co-pilot seat, and jumped on the back of Tut. Tut knew what she was think due to the mind-link. Tut jumped out of the K-Dawg's door and into the air, flying up, over and out of the golems' reach. Benna then reached into her deepest psychic energies and focused them into her telekinesis powers. Her hair raised up in the air whipping at the tips violently. Her eyes went white haloed with pink fiery energy. She extended her hand, seizing Golitha, Lucryllan's zombie cat. With the strength of an adult legendary dragon, she wielded the zombie like a...club. She bashed it with explosive force against two golems. The impact of necrotic energy was devastating. The nigh impenetrable icy shells fractured into thousands of cracks, surged with magic energy, then exploded. Shards of EverIce ™ exploded in a moderate radius impaling in all directions. ThorFrid narrowly missed the deathly ice daggers. Nosmo realized Benna's action. He altered his blast from fire energy into necrotic death energy and focused his aim on the final golem. This one also shatters and explodes in a smaller radius. Everyone stood still for a half a minute in awe of the raw power unleashed. They all took a sigh of relief it was all over. Benna took off Father Christmas' crown as Tut took her back to the ground. She noted at that moment the crown still shiny and polished had a small crack on its right side. She passed her thumb over the crack and thought of the image of her dying double. ------- Having put the ice golems in the past, the Irregulars moved the K-Dawg to the port where they met Benna's contact Wrather Ell O'Nelley. The legendary dragon Plato also met the group to ride across the Atlantic to England. Docked in the harbor the group could see the massive cargo ship, the Ölstein Crossbow floating low in the water with a full load. O'Nelley smuggled the Irregulars and the K-Dawg on board comfortably in their quarters. They were supposedly inspectors, and were promised to not be harassed or bothered by the crew. The massive ship embarked from the harbor headed for England. After a couple of days of good sailing, the clouds began to darken. The ship screamed to a halt as it hit something. The Irregulars raced to the deck to see what had happened. They saw that the cargo ship was frozen in a land mass of ice in the middle of the Atlantic. Off in the distance of the barren waste of ice, an ominous pyramid structure loomed from the uneven surface of the icy landscape. The temperature was so cold a thin layer of ice could be seen forming on the surface of the skin when exposed to the air. With this sort of environmental phenomenon and the sighting of an ominous pyramid floating in the middle of the Atlantic things just got stranger...
