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Immortal Peasants

by Jeff Querner and Angelo Bertolli

Everett Speartip III crept down the long door-filled hall. Every twenty feet, his elven feet passed an Earth Elemental, a 12 foot high living rock monster standing motionless. At the end, he crept open the last door into the darkness. Before his second leg stood in the room, magical torches burst open dispelling the darkness. At the other end of the room, a cloaked and helmed wizard sat staring at him from a platinum throne. The very familiar-looking mage stood up and walked towards Everett putting his arm around the elf's neck.

"Hello, Everett, my dear friend!" shouted Gandalph. Everett knew him well, but had not believed how much power Gandalph had acquired since they last met. "It is wonderful for you to visit me!"

"...the Earth Elementals..." Everett stuttered in perfect awe.

"I know what you're thinking! Those rock-heads are very weak alone, but when joined together, they make an acceptable militia," blurted Gandalph.

Everett said nothing.

"Come you must take a look at my summer castle. It isn't anything compared to my home, but it's humble," Gandalph said, casting a teleportation spell on Everett and then on himself.

They appeared in a large billiard room. "This is my game room," said Gandalph sitting on a chair next to a chess table. "Do you play?" asked Gandalph interrupting Everett's thoughts of how big this room was compared to his castle. "Yeah," he replied, sitting down. Suddenly, his chess pieces began moving. "Everett?" Gandalph noted staring at Everett. Everett returned the stare to his pawns who were moving around his side of the chess board. "Everett??" repeated Gandalph. Just then a few small pieces jumped onto a large piece, making it shrink into a blob before disappearing. "You sure are bad at mental chess!" Gandalph said aloud. "Your pawns killed your king and established a democratic government!" Gandalph's eyes then looked back "Ohhh... you must of been playing Advanced Mental Chess!"

"Uh, yeah," said Everett, still wishing to keep his powerlessness a secret.

"I just couldn't get into that. How do you moderate the strings of time if your Paladin of Darkness opens a dimensional door and then casts a timestop spell into the vortex of ethereality?" asked Gandalph turning to Everett to find him gone.

Everett had decided to leave the room to take a look around the rest of the castle. Two hours later, he had made it to the next room. Obviously a music room, Everett look at the hundreds of instruments and then sat at the organ.

Everett touched the B flat. In a fraction of a second, billions of sounds blasted out of the organ, shooting magic missiles at the walls, polymorphing a few harps into small amphibians, and causing a meteor swarm to hit a small kingdom two continents away. Everett hunched his eyebrows in an evil look and began to stretch his hand to run across the keys of the piano.

"There you are!" shouted Gandalph, "Why did you leave? I want to show you my wheat fields," Gandalph said casting another pair of teleportation spells on them.

As they looked upon the daylight of the outside. Splinter, Gandalph's former halfling apprentice, turned the corner and opened a scroll, reading it.

"All sing for Gandalph Thebard, 764th the slayer of the Lich, 497th the killer of the Nightshade, 929th the defeater of..."

"Yes, yes, they know, they know," Gandalph said calming Splinter who had obviously not grown since the last time Everett saw him. A glow that caught Everett's infravision eye and he turned to see the manifestation glow of the Immortal, Odin.

"An Immortal!" shouted Everett.

"A peasant..." corrected Gandalph. With that the rest of the Immortals began singing, and continued cutting the wheat.

"Gandalph the Great!
Gandalph the Great!
Beware of he who rules the world,
But has the heart to let us Immortals stay,
All we have to do is cut and hurl,
And then he says, 'Can you live? Yes you may!'
Thank you, Gandalph!
Thank you, Gandalph!"

As Everett watched, Gandalph flew around the field inspecting the Immortals, telling them, "Keep singing!" or "Hey! Stop using your powers! I want this wheat cut by hand!"

"I'm tired," said Everett.

"Me too," agreed Gandalph, teleporting them yet again.

They both appeared in a 30 by 20 kilometre swimming pool/bathtub. Surrounding them was a horde of nude women. "Who are they?" Everett squealed.

"These are my 30 wives, of course," Gandalph replied. Everett started to say something, but then decided not to. "You can take a few 'for the road' if you want to," said Gandalph.

"Sure, that one," replied Everett.

"Sorry..." smirked Gandalph, "she's wizard locked."

Everett then noted something and said, "Gandalph, why are you still wearing that helmet?" Gandalph took it off and the palace disappeared and Gandalph became the low-levelled wizard Everett remembered.