Riss Cobalt, sorceress supreme, and her husband are drafted to perform in a farcical play based on part of their history.
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The Play’s the Thing:
An Adventure in Sorcery
Mini AiS #19
The street we walked down was fairly crowded. But it didn’t seem that way to us. There was plenty of space around us. The closest person was at least 5 yards away. Why is that, you ask? Did they keep their distance from us because we reeked of some foul odor or something? Not in the least. It has to do with my reputation, you see. One look at my blue hair, and everyone recognizes me as the infamous, violently tempermental mercenary sorceress, Marissa Cobalt, and so they stay as far away from me as they can to avoid doing anything to make me angry. So, if no one wants to be near me, then where do the “we” and “us” come into play, you wonder? I was travelling in the company of my dear husband, of course. That’s right. Husband. It’d take too long to explain, and is a whole other story in itself. Suffice it to say that ever since the redheaded swordsman Fiore Ferio and I had met about three years ago, we’d been practically inseperable. And we’d come here to Lystara at this time to spend some quality time together, taking a break from family life and leaving the twins Elisha and Elyssia in the care of their “Aunt” Arianna and “Uncle” Etienne, our dearest friends.
Well, enough rambling. On with the show.
Fiore and I spied a tavern ahead, and in silent agreement we made our way to it and entered the establishment. No sooner had we taken seats at a cozy little table in a corner and opened the menus than the tavern door opened. Instinctively, Fiore and I looked at the door. We were just in time to see a couple of haggard-looking young men not more than twenty years of age stagger inside. They stood in the doorway and looked around the tavern. They seemed to be looking for someone in particular. One young man, who had dark hair, spied Fiore and me. He sighed and a look of relief crossed his face. Then he nudged his friend, who had blonde hair, and pointed at us. The two men then made their way over.
Fiore and I looked at each other, sighed, and lowered our menus to the tabletop. We knew why they were coming.
“Miss Marissa Cobalt,” said the youngster with dark hair as the duo reached our table. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but...”
“But we were wondering if you and Master Fiore might could kindly help us out,” said the blonde man.
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “Of course you are,” I said frankly.
It was just as we’d expected. Someone always comes to me with their problems, hoping that I’d be willing to help them out. And usually I am. So long as the price is right.
And for some reason, my eating time is a popular time for people to bring their problems to me.
“So, does that mean you’ll help us?” the dark haired youngster asked, his green eyes bright with hope.
“No,” I said bluntly.
“No?” the two youngsters asked in disbelief. They hung their heads, crestfallen.
“It just means that I expected that you were here to ask for my help,” I said by way of explanation. “That’s all.”
The two young men looked up with expressions of relief painted on their faces.
“Whoa!” I said, holding up a hand and cutting them off before they could speak. “Not so fast!”
“Yeah,” Fiore said. “First, tell us what you want Riss and me to help you with. Then we’ll decide if we’re going to go along with it.”
“We want you to join us in our play!” the two said simultaneously and enthusiastically.
Fiore and I jumped to our feet. “You want us to do WHAT?!” we cried out together in astonishment.
“We want you to help us perform our play,” said the dark-haired youth. “Right, Alak?”
“Right, Blak,” said the blonde youth.
“Alak and Blak?” I thought. “How...original. Oh, well. Must be brothers or something.” Aloud, I said to the youngsters, “You want...us...to help you with your...play?”
“Yes!” said Alak and Blak eagerly.
“And...how are we supposed to do that?” Fiore asked.
“You see, we have a play to perform tonight,” said Blak, “and a couple of members of our troupe have walked off suddenly. This is opening night, and we can’t just not perform the show. It’s already been sold out. So we need to replace the two missing members. That’s why we came to you.”
“What do you want us to do?” I asked.
“We’d like to you take their places in the show,” said Alak.
“What about understudies? Didn’t you have them?” Fiore asked.
Alak shook his head. “We’re a very small theater troupe. We could barely afford to hire everyone we need for this play, let alone hire extras as understudies.”
“Well, couldn’t you have just gotten two other people to fill the spots?”
Blak shook his head. “No. No one else would do.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The two who walked off were the stars of our play,” said Alak, “and only you two would be able to take their places.”
I sighed. “Enough beating around the bush,” I said. “Just tell me, why us?”
In answer, the two young me handed Fiore and me each a copy of the script for the play. One look at the title, and our eyes widened. “WHAT?!” we cried in shock. The title was: The Infamous Marissa Cobalt and the Death of Dark Lord Yangul. Dread welled up in my stomach at the thought of how different the playwright’s take on those events might – nay, would - be compared to my actual memories of that experience. For if Fiore was supposed to be a main character, I figured it was a safe assumption that the play would be VERY different from what had actually happened.
Morbidly curious, I opened the script and scanned the first page. My eyes widened and I fainted from shock.
Fiore slapped me awake and, once I got over my anger at him by clunking him on the head, I looked over the rest of the play. I fainted a few more times during the process, and Fiore roused me each time – wisely not slapping me awake again to do so. He found a more...pleasant...way to do so.
“WHERE IS HE?!” I screeched as I threw open the door. “WHERE’S THE GUY RESPONSIBLE FOR WRITING THIS ABOMINATION OF A PLAY?!”
Fiore and I had followed Alak and Blak back to the theater once my husband had managed to revive me for the final time. I had fumed the entire journey to the theater (all of two blocks). As we walked, I tried to plan what sort of punishment I’d deal to the so-called playwright.
Taking one look at me and my angry expression, the various members of the little theater troupe who were in the immediate area turned and ran as far away from me as they could.
We were in the backstage area of the theater. To my left were the black curtains hiding the stage and auditorium. All around me were various stage props – scenery items and various items to be used by the actors. And coming into the room from a door at the far end of the room was a big, burly man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard. He held a rolled up copy of the script in his hand.
“What’s all the ruckus?!” he called out as he entered the area.
“It...It’s Marissa Cobalt, Master Thespa!” said a trembling redheaded youth that, having chosen that particular door as his escape route, was on his way through the door at the same time that the big, burly man was coming out.
“Marissa Cobalt, huh?” said Thespa. “Well, I don’t care if it’s Marissa Cobalt or Dumarh Himself. No one can just come in here and disrupt my play like this.”
He walked up to Fiore and me and looked me in the eyes. His blue-grey eyes held no fear. But they did hold anger. I made sure he saw the same in my sapphire blue eyes.
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” Thespa growled.
I waved my copy of the script in his face. “What is meaning of this... monstrosity?”
Thespa scowled. “Monstrosity? MONSTROSITY? How dare you call it that?! It’s a masterpiece! My best work ever!”
I scoffed. “A masterpiece? This garbage? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Garbage? GARBAGE?” Thespa’s face was turning red, his body shook with anger, and I could see veins rising under his skin. I thought he would pop a blood vessel soon. He had one hand wrapped very tightly around his rolled up script copy.
“Uh, Riss,” Fiore said. “Are you sure it’s such a good idea to make this guy angry?”
I ignored my husband. “There is not an inkling of truth in this whole story,” I told Thespa. “I cannot allow such a farce to be performed before unsuspecting innocents.”
Thespa snapped. He let out a roar that would make even a dragon cringe and jumped at me, hands outstretched for my throat.
“Yipes!” I said, and jumped back out of his reach. “Down, boy!” I said, hitting him over the head with my rolled up script and knocking him face first into the floor.
Fiore and I dragged the unconscious man to a nearby chair and set him in it. Then I slapped him awake.
“Huh?” Thespa asked groggily. “What? What?”
“Ready to talk sensibly now?” I asked curtly.
“What’s to talk about?” Thespa said with a growl. “The show will go on, whatever you say or do.”
“No, it won’t,” I said, raising the rolled up script threateningly, and was rewarded with a flinch from Thespa. “Unless...”
“Unless?”
“Unless you make some changes to it.”
“What?! No! I’ll not change my masterpiece!”
I bopped him on the head with the rolled up script. “Change it! Or else your play won’t be performed.”
“Uh, Riss,” Fiore said, “did you forget that the play can’t be performed anyway, since there’s no one to play the lead roles? That’s why Alak and Blak asked us to come here, right?”
“Oh, right,” I said sheepishly. “Look, Thespa, let’s make a deal. You make the changes that I want, and Fiore and I will fill in for the two actors who ran off on you.”
Thespa eyed me skeptically. “What kind of changes did you have in mind?”
“Oh, well,” I said, “Fiore can’t be the villain. Yangul was a guy, not a girl. And I’m not kissing any women. You left out two important characters. And I’m not kissing any women. And...” And I proceeded to list some more changes I wanted. As I did, Thespa’s eyes widened.
“I might as well rewrite the entire play!” Thespa said frantically.
“That’ll work, too,” I said.
Thespa hesitated, reluctant to agree.
“Make the changes,” I reiterated, “or this play’ll never get performed.”
After a few moments, Thespa agreed to make the changes.
An hour before showtime, Thespa handed me the revised script. Thespa watched me as I looked it over, wringing his hands nervously. I frowned slightly as I looked it over, and my peripheral vision caught sight of his downcast expression. When I fiinshed the examination, I handed the script back to Thespa. I didn’t smile, but I did give him a slight nod of approval. The script hadn’t come out exactly as I’d hoped. It was still a far cry from historical fact. But it was definitely far better than the original script had been.
At my approval, Thespa grinned and ran off, waving the script in the air and calling out to his troupe to be prepared to put on the revised play.
Fiore looked at me. “Riss?” he asked. He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew what he was thinking.
“I know, Fiore. But, we’re caught up in this whether we like it or not. We’ll just have to make the best of it. Thankfully we now have a somewhat decent, albeit still not exactly historically accurate, play.” I sighed. “Well, come on. We have to get ready to make our stage debut.”
I grabbed his hand and dragged him off to the dressing rooms. I could sense his continuing reluctance to go along with this whole thing in the way he dragged his feet. His soft groaning was also a clue.
Fiore and I stood in the wings, staring at the curtain in front of us. We were in costume and waiting for the curtain to rise. We weren’t all that eager for the curtain to go up, either. Neither of us really wanted to be in this play. Moreover, we didn’t want to be seen in our costumes. I certainly didn’t. Me, the infamous Marissa Cobalt, be seen in such a ridiculous outfit as what I was wearing? I’d sooner die. Maybe I was already dead, and this was how I was being tortured in the Nether Realm.
But then the curtain rose, and the audience applauded. Fiore and I just stood where we were, frozen by stage fright. Someone shoved us from behind, and we went staggering onto the stage. Fiore, in a tarnished suit of chain mail and helmet, nearly tripped over the rainbow patchworked cloak he wore. And I nearly tripped over the moth-eaten quilt that served as my cloak and that I wore over the almost-too-small fuscia polka-dotted bikini that was for some inexplicable reason my costume.
We stopped in the middle of the stage and faced the applauding audience, our faces blazing red with embarrassment. Behind us, the scenery depicted what was supposed to be a temple facade, but looked nothing like it.
My keen hearing then picked up a whispered discussion between a couple of guys in the front row:
“Hey,” said one. “Check out that cute girl!”
“Yeah!” said the other. “She sure is a beauty! And look at her blue hair! It almost looks real! Hey, maybe that’s really Marissa Cobalt.”
“Nah,” said the first. “It couldn’t be. There’s no way Marissa Cobalt would be involved with this poor excuse for a theater.”
“She would if she were paid enough.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s true . So maybe it really is Marissa Cobalt.”
Before I could tell them that I was doing it for posterity and not for prosperity, a coarse “Psst” came from stage left, and Thespa’s rough whisper came to us. “Why are you two just standing there?!” he said. “Get on with it!”
With a sigh, Fiore and I turned to face the “temple”.
“Is this the place, Miss Marissa?” Fiore asked
“It has to be, Fiore,” I said, and pointed to a sign over the “door”. “See what the sign says? ‘Welcome to the Temple of the Dark Lord Yangul. Admittance: Adults -5 gold pieces; Children 12 and under - 3 gold pieces .” Inwardly, I groaned. It was such a ludicrous play. But it was better than it had been. At least, I hoped it was.
“So, do you have enough money?” Fiore asked.
“Um, I thought you had the money,” I said.
“What?!” Fiore said, his voice a mix of shock and anger. “Then how are we supposed to get inside?!”
“I don’t know! Think of something!”
“Me?! This is your quest! Remember? You think of something!”
“Why you....!” I said, and followed it up with a punch to the side of his head.
As Fiore tumbled to the ground, two peopled entered from stage right. One was a young woman wearing a wig of long blonde hair. She wore a white nightgown that was supposed to be a princess’s gown. The other entrant was a middle-aged man in a green lounging robe instead of a sorcerer’s robe. A small groan escaped me as I shook my head sadly and thought, “Why me?”
“Don’t worry, Miss Marissa,” the blonde lady said. “We’ll help you. We have enough money to cover your admittance into the Dark Lord’s temple.”
Fighting back tears of misery, I pulled Fiore up off the stage floor, forced a smile onto my face, and turned to the newcomers. “Thank you, Arianna, Etienne,” I somehow managed to get out.
The two newcomers then joined Fiore and me and we walked towards the “door”. Smoke suddenly filled the doorway of the “temple”, and a man with long black hair and wearing a black sorcerer’s robe stepped out on the stage. “It’s not fair!” I thought, annoyed and more than a little insulted. “Why does HE get the good costume?”
“Marissa Cobalt,” the man said. “Welcome to my temple. Please, come inside. I have a proposition to discuss with you. Alone.”
“What sort of proposition?”
“A proposition....of marriage.”
“What?! No, thank you. Not interested. I’d sooner die.”
The man frowned. “That....can be arranged!”
Suddenly, Fiore had his hands around my neck and had started to choke me. But he wasn’t really choking me, of course. This was only a play after all. Anyways, I stuggled for a few moments, then managed to hit Fiore in the stomach with my elbow. He gasped and I managed to break free. I turned to face him.
“Fiore?!” I said, sounding surprised. “What in Dumarh’s name is with you, attacking ME like that?!”
“Not Dumarh’s name, Marissa Cobalt,” the black-robed man said. “MY name. Yangul, the Dark Lord and god of Evil. That man and your two friends there are under MY control now.”
With that, Fiore and “Arianna” and “Etienne” ganged up on me, looks of malice on their faces. I gulped. “Sorry about this guys,” I said. Then, a few deft punches and kicks later, they were on the ground, unconscious. I turned to face “Yangul”.
“That was a cheap trick,” I said, my voice dripping with ire. “Using my friends like that against me. If you want to kill me, do it yourself, you coward.”
The audience then cheered. “Yeah!” someone called out. I think it was one of the guys from the front row that I’d heard earlier. “You tell him, Marissa Cobalt!”
I smiled slightly. “Maybe this play isn’t so bad after all,” I thought. “So what if it isn’t accurate as to what really happened, and the costumes and scenery are below standard. The audience finds it entertaining. I guess that’s all that really matters.”
“Fight you myself?” the fake god said. “Sounds fun. You’re on, Marissa Cobalt.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
I raised my hands in front of me, readying myself for anything he might try. He pulled a magic globe from his robe that glowed with a red light. “Fireball!” he called out and tossed it at me. I nimbly dodged it. Inwardly, I groaned at the cheap special effects. But I did understand the need to not use magic in such a setting. And besides, I didn’t want the audience to know I was playing myself in this play.
“That the best you can do?” I teased my adversary. “Some Dark Lord you are. Here, have a REAL Fireball!” And I tossed him a red-glowing magic globe of my own.
He managed to dodge it, as well. “Nice try. Are you sure you don’t want to be my queen? We could rule the world together. And you’d have unimaginable power.”
“I told you before, no thank you!”
He growled and tossed another glowing magic globe at me. I tossed one at the same time. They collided and shattered.
“Looks like we’re evenly matched,” the man said.
“Seems that way,” I said. “But how are you at....swordfighting?!” I brushed my quilt...er, cloak, aside and pulled out a wooden sword.
“Yangul” chuckled and pulled a wooden sword from his robe.“Let’s see just how good you really are,” he sneered.
He struck at me, and I blocked. I returned the strike, and he blocked. We traded blows like this for a few minutes. As we did, I was able to tell that the actor was actually a decent swordfighter. It made me wonder what he was doing working for such a poor theater troupe. While my thoughts wandered, I was careless and the man actually hit me a glancing blow on the arm. “Yangul” chuckled and the audience gasped. That brought my attention back into focus on the swordfight.
“Pretty good,” I said. “But enough playing around.” I redoubled my efforts and launched an assault on my nemesis, levying strike after strike to keep him busy so that he had no chance to strike back at me. The assault paid off and I managed to back him up against the “temple” and to knock the sword from his hand. “And now your evil mechanations in Andor are over, Yangul,” I said. “Peace shall once again prevail in this world.” I raised the wooden sword and slashed. “Yangul” rolled his eyes back in his head and slumped to the ground. I sheathed the wooden sword and turned to face the audience. As I did, Fiore, “Arianna”, and “Etienne” rose and came to stand beside me.
“And thus did I, Marissa Cobalt, fulfill destiny and defeat the Dark Lord Yangul, thereby restoring peace to the world of Andor. And should evil ever threaten the world once more, I shall be there to fight it.” I groaned at the lame, melodramatic speech. But the audience cheered madly and gave a standing ovation. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
Then curtain closed on us and as we turned around Thespa came running up to us.
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said, shaking my and Fiore’s hand emphatically. The two other actors wandered on off, probably back to the dressing rooms. “The play was a complete success! More so than I’d imagined it could be.”
“Yes, well,” I said, extricating my hand, “glad we could help. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go change out of this ridiculous costume. Come on, Fiore.” And with that, I grabbed Fiore’s hand and dragged him along with me to the dressing rooms.
As we were leaving the dressing rooms after having changed back into our own clothes, a young girl, a stagehand, stopped us.
“Master Thespa told me to tell you that you may keep your costumes a memento, if you’d like,” she said.
“Thank you, but no,” I said. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with that costume again.”
Fiore looked at me, a glint in his eyes. “Oh, now, come on, Riss. That costume wasn’t that bad, was it? I thought it was very becoming on you. The bikini was, anyway.”
His look and tone completely changed my mind. I giggled and rushed back to the dressing room to get the bikini. Then I grabbed Fiore’s hand and dragged him with me out of the theater and down the street at high speed to the inn we were staying at.
The third in The Seventh Circle Series. Join the Seventh Circle and friends as they battle against the forces of the Black Order, the four demons, and contiune their quest to find the Soulstone.
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