a few short short stories based on the sequel to my novel, Kismet and Tell.
note: "chibi" is a term used in anime, meaning that a character has been drawn super-cute and short, to look basically like a child version of the character
CHIBI ADVENTURES IN SORCERY
Characters:
Riss – blue-haired mercenary sorceress supreme
Fiore – redheaded swordsman; Riss’s husband
Jenna – evil sorceress of black magic; wants revenge on Riss, her half-sister
Etienne – Riss and Fiore’s friend; sorcerer of grey (spiritual) magic
Arianna – blonde elf; Etienne’s lover
Elisha and Elyssia – Riss and Fiore’s children; twin brother (Elisha) and sister (Elyssia); black-haired elves
Note: All characters are chibi
Cartoon physics apply
Adventure 1: Jenna’s Wrath
Riss and Fiore are walking down a road. On either side is forest. Hiding behind a tree just a little ways ahead of them is Jenna. She is watching the couple, waiting for them to come close enough to her. When they are, Jenna jumps out from behind her tree, landing in front of Riss and Fiore. The couple stares at her in shock.
“Jenna!” Riss and Fiore cry out.
“Now, Marissa Cobalt, you will feel my wrath! Boulder Dash!”
A boulder falls from the sky. However, instead of falling on Riss and Fiore as Jenna had planned, the boulder knocks her to the ground instead.
A sweat drop forms by Riss’s and Fiore’s head.
Jenna’s arms and legs twitch beneath the boulder. “I’ll get you yet, Marissa Cobalt!” she says.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Riss says. “See ya, Jenna.”
Riss and Fiore walk off down the road.
Adventure 2: Etienne’s Dream
A blonde woman is standing in front of a tower window, staring out of it. Etienne walks up behind her and places a hand on her shoulder. His other hand is closed, hiding something small.
“Arianna,” he says, “I, uh, have something to ask you.”
The lady turns around, and Etienne gasps in shock. Arianna’s face is a skull, and there are snakes slithering from her eye sockets.
“Yes, Etienne, dear?” she says.
Etienne sits up in bed, screaming.
“What’s wrong, dear?” asks the blonde woman lying in bed beside him.
Etienne looks at her…and sees that her face is a skull.
Etienne sits up in bed, screaming.
A door on the side of the bedroom opens. “Are you okay, dear?” Arianna’s voice says from the door. “You woke the baby.” Then a skull-faced Arianna steps in to the bedroom, carrying a skull-faced baby.
Etienne sits up in bed, screaming. The front door of the bedroom opens.
“Etienne?” Arianna’s voice asks. “Are you all right?”
Etienne screams and pulls the bedcovers up over his head. A normal-faced Arianna looks in the room and raises an eyebrow questioningly at the sight of a quivering, blanket-covered Etienne.
Adventure 3: Jenna’s Wrath 2
Riss and Fiore are asleep beside a campfire in an open field, just a few yards from the fringes of a forest. In said forest fringes, Jenna is hiding behind a tree. She watches the sleeping couple, and when she’s certain they are fast asleep, she steps out into the field.
“Perfect!” she says. “They’ll never know what happened!” She starts chanting a spell and raises an arm towards the night sky. “Thunderbolt…”
Clouds form in the sky overhead and thunder rumbles. Riss and Fiore grumble and stir a little but don’t wake up.
Jenna stretches her other arm out to point at Riss and Fiore. “Striiii…” she starts to say, but a rat suddenly runs across her foot. “EEEEK!” she yells in fright and jumps around, trying to get away from the rat. The spell she was casting, though, is now ruined, and a lightning bolt shoots down from the sky and knocks her to the ground, where she lay, burnt and smoking. “Curse you, Marissa Cobalt! I’ll make you feel my wrath yet!” Then she falls into unconsciousness.
Fiore, now awake, sits up. “What was that?” he asks.
Riss, still lying on the ground, half-asleep, mumbles, “Just Jenna trying to make me feel her wrath again. Go back to sleep.”
“Oh,” Fiore says. “Okay, dear.”
He lies back down and falls back asleep.
Adventure 4: Jenna’s Wrath 3
Jenna sits on the edge of her bed, combing her black hair out. When she’s done, she settles down into bed, touches the magic globe on the bedside table to turn off the light, and attempts to fall asleep. Not long after, a noise in her room startles her into a sitting position. She touches the globe, and the light illumines the scene of a blonde man about her age who is holding a pair of panties.
“Uh-oh,” he says, and drops the panties to the floor and makes for the open window.
Jenna casts a spell and the man freezes in place. Jenna gets out of bed and walks over to the man.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks icily.
“Uh…um…well…you see…I…uh…”
“That’s what I thought. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Kal, ma’am.”
“Kal. Tell you what, do me an itsy bitsy little favor, and I won’t get violent.”
“Um…okay.”
“Good. Here’s what I want you to do.”
She whispers instructions in his ear then releases him. Kal wastes no time bolting out the window and running down the street to another inn a block over. He spots the window and climbs up to it. He opens the window and enters the room. He spots what he’s looking for on the floor. He makes his way towards it but trips over a sword partially hidden by a shirt. He falls to the floor face first.
Riss and Fiore waken at the sound. They sit up in bed and take a look. They see Kal lying on the floor, one arm outstretched and reaching for Riss’s panties.
“KAL!” Riss cries out when she recognizes him. “What in the gods’ names are you doing here?!”
Kal recognizes her voice and bolts upright. “M…Miss Marissa! I…I didn’t know! She didn’t tell me who it would be! You know I wouldn’t try to take yours again!”
“She?”
“A black-haired lady who looks kinda like you sent me here to steal your, uh, panties.”
“Jenna,” Riss says. “Let me guess, you got caught trying to steal her panties, and instead of punishing you, she sent you here instead.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right back,” Riss says. “Teleport!”
A nightgown-clad Riss appears on the street outside Jenna’s window and lobs a small Fireball inside. The Fireball explodes, sending a screaming Jenna flying outside to land at Riss’s feet in a burnt, smoking heap.
“Next time, Jenna, do your research,” Riss says and Teleports away.
Adventure 5: Jenna’s Wrath 4
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” laughs Jenna madly. “Now Marissa Cobalt will feel my wrath for certain!
“HAHAHAHAHA!” laughs Elisha and Elyssia from a cordoned-off area of the little house.
“Um, what’s so funny, Auntie Jenna?” asks Elisha.
“Never mind that. Go back to playing with your toys. Auntie Jenna has some planning to do.”
Jenna wanders off to a back room, leaving Elisha and Elyssia unsupervised.
“I’m bored with these toys,” Elisha says to his sister.
“Me, too,” Elyssia says. “Let’s go find something else to play with.”
“Okay.”
The twins easily duck under the rope strung up as a barrier and enter Jenna’s lab. As is typical of all little kids, they start touching and playing with EVERYTHING. At the sound of crashing glass, Jenna comes running back in. She sees Elisha and Elyssia standing beside a table, glass shards at their feet.
“What are you two doing?!” Jenna screeches. “That was my favorite magic globe!”
“Sorry, Auntie Jenna,” the twins say.
“Get back in your area!”
“Yes, Auntie Jenna.”
The twins return, and Jenna goes back to the back room. Not ten seconds later, the twins are loose again and messing around in the lab. Something else breaks, and Jenna comes running in and sends the twins back to their area.
Three more times this happens. And by then, Jenna is ready to start pulling her hair out. At last, the knock at the front door she’d been waiting for sounds, and Jenna sighs with relief.
“About time,” she says. “I was beginning to wonder if they wanted you back. Come on.”
Jenna drags Elisha and Elyssia out of the lab and upstairs to the front door. She pulls the door open, revealing Riss and Fiore standing on the step. Jenna shoves Elisha and Elyssia out to them.
“HERE!” she says. “You can HAVE them. I’ll make you feel my wrath some other way another time. I have to go clean up.”
Jenna shuts the door in their face. Riss and Fiore share a puzzled look. Elisha and Elyssia smile and wink at each other.
After finding a map on a grueling hunt, Vanx and his new companions decide to travel deep into the Bitterpeaks, where a fabled hoar witch's crystal palace supposedly sits hidden in a valley called Saint Elm's Deep.
After finding a map on a grueling hunt, Vanx and his new companions decide to travel deep into the Bitterpeaks, where a fabled hoar witch's crystal palace supposedly sits hidden in a valley called Saint Elm's Deep.
