Mister Easting sat in his plush chair as he faced the two people across his desk, his gloved hand brushing his graying beard as he studied the two carefully. Yes, these two would suit his purpose perfectly. Finally Easting would no longer be forced to live in the shadow of his cousin Westing and his accursed Westing Game.
And to add another slap in the face, he wasn't even invite to participate either. Well, two can play at that game. Oh yes, soon the whole world will remember the Easting Game and he will achieve the popularity he rightly deserved.
"So what is it that you want?" the hooded figure asked impatiently.
The girl companion in the obvious dress of a sorceress was a bit less forward as the other one.
Smiling to himself inwardly, Easting replied, "Well you see, I have a challenge for you."
"In the Valley of Tears you'll find a cabin with only a sparse amount of equipment to survive an entire night there. The challenge will be very difficult to complete, but the reward will be well worth it. For completing the task that I've assigned, I will grant your innermost heart's desire or whatever you want. Your choice."
The words of Easting rang in the two travelers' ear as they trudged up the treacherous slope of the Valley of Tears. Well in truth only one of them was actually scaling the slopes, while the other was gripping onto the previous one's cloak to scale the slope. After trudging up the slopes, they finally came to smoother land. Too bad a blizzard had just deposited itself on the two making visibility all but nigh.
"This stinks," Lina shivered as she followed closely behind Zel. "And why the heck aren't you freezing like me?" she demanded yanking Zel's cloak in frustration and sending him straight into the snow. "Oops."
"Try to act a bit more professional about this," Zel grumbled as he picked himself up and brushed the snow off. "If you're so cold then turn back."
"Fine I will," Lina growled as she turned to look down the treacherous slope she just came up. She had no clue on how to get back down at all.
"Are you going to go or do I have to push you?" Zel inquired as Lina shot daggers at him.
"Oh forget it and let's go," Lina cursed as she trudged past Zel and cleared a path in her own way.
Zel watched her go with a slight smirk, she was always so determined to not admit defeat. Well he knew she couldn't last as long as he could in this freezing temperature, she was not trained on how to endure it. Zel could remember the number one rule about trudging through cold areas. Never let anyone know how cold you really were.
"Blasted it's cold," he shuddered when Lina was well out of sight. After regaining his composure, he quickly chased after Lina through the rough blizzard.
He found her quite easily from her constant moaning and cursing about the cold weather.
"Having fun?" he inquired.
"I'm going to sock you," Lina threatened as Zel merely kept walking. Damnit, I wish I could use magic to fry that arrogant jerk.
"What the heck are these?" Lina asked looking at the bracelet that the servant had clamped onto both Zel's and her arm.
"They're inhibitors, they'll prevent you from calling up any kind of magic for this little task," Easting explained.
"What! You never said anything about that!" Lina yelled slamming her hands on the desk.
"True, but I didn't say anything about not using it either," Easting remarked as he smirked at them oh so arrogantly. "Besides isn't any wish you want worth it?"
Lina couldn't find any retort to that.
"So how are long are these things activated?" Zel asked looking at the bracelet.
"Twenty hours, that should be the time for you to get there and come back after the night. Once the time is up, the bracelet will automatically detach themselves," Easting smiled as Lina cursed.
"Damn inhibiters," Lina cursed as she glared at the bracelet. Trying to wrap herself in her cloak she muttered, "Where is that blasted cabin?"
"I think that's it over there," Zel said pointing at the image of cabin through the glare of the blizzard. Upon catching sight of the cabin Lina went running straight toward it kicking up aload of snow that covered Zel.
Wiping off the snow, Zel grumbled as he followed her. As he reached the front porch region of the cabin he looked down at Lina, who was now buried up to her neck in snow from the running. She was desperately trying to reach the doorknob that was just out of her reach.
"Need help?" Zel asked as he opened the door.
"Just pull me up," Lina cursed as Zel did just that. "Shelter!" Lina cheered as she dashed by Zel into the cabin only to stop in surprise.
The cabin for better speaking was a wreck, a giant one room structure with numerous cracked windows lining the wall. There were numerous cracks along the wall that let the cold air come blowing in and snow had seeped in through most of the corners.
"Dismal isn't it?" Zel muttered as he shut the door.
"How the heck are we suppose to survive? There's nothing to eat here," Lina whined as she fell to her knees.
"Well we would had have something to eat, if you didn't eat it all on our way here," Zel retorted as he walked to the overall center of the place and looked around. "Yup, looks like there nothing there," he sighed.
"This stinks," Lina complained as she crawled to where Zel was. "I'm cold and hungry!"
"Whining about this won't help," Zel commented as Lina blew him a raspberry and left it out. "You can put it back in now,"
"I kant," Lina tried to say with her tongue stuck out.
"So it seems that your tongue is frozen," Zel muttered before he shrugged. "That'll allow me to get some peace and quiet."
Lina being unable to yell at him, decided to follow an old proverb.
Actions speak louder than words.
So Lina did that by kicking him across the cabin.
"This will in no way help us," Zel muttered as he slid off the wall. Getting up, Zel sighed, "I guess the only way is to try to thaw it out," Zel said as he looked at her.
He looked closely at her for a moment as he knew what must be done.
Zel shoved Lina's tongue back in her mouth.
"Gaah, that hurt!" Lina cried before she realized she could speak straight again.
"See, it works. Your mouth is normally 98 degrees and so it's perfectly capable of freeing up your tongue," he said before Lina punched him.
"Jerk. You could have warned me," she cursed as Zel muttered to himself.
"If this keeps up we're going to start wanting to kill each other," Zel warned as Lina laughed at the comment.
The sound of Lina's hungry stomach interupted the two.
"Great, as if that wasn't all my worries," Zel grumbled as he sat down.
Lina complained about the cold as she curled up and tried to stay warm.
"Let's get our mind off the cold. We'll talk about something," Zel suggested as Lina merely shivered.
"I'll start then. I enjoy eating crabs on occasion." Lina droned as Zel nodded. "You see they have really hard shells to bite through. But if you break through it, you can eat all of the nice tasty stuff inside." Lina drooled and Zel didn't like the gaze he was getting from Lina.
"Oi Lina are you feeling alright?" he asked edging back a bit.
"Of course," Lina smiled, "I was just wondering how weak and brittle stone gets in the cold."
Zel was officially getting uncomfortable at the way the current situation was going.
"You aren't suffering cabin fever by any chance?" Zel asked.
"Oh no, I'm just hungry. So very Hungry...I must feed!" Lina growled as she glared evilly at Zel. "So how are you feeling?" she inquired.
"A bit disturbed," Zel muttered as he gaze at the ceiling looking for help, but only caught sight of a string with the ball at the end up there. "What the heck is that?"
"Spaghetti and meatball!" Lina cried as she leaped up and chomped on the string causing the trap door to open.
An object came crashing out of the opening straight onto Zel.
Lina, done eating the string, looked at what fell on Zel as she exclaimed, "A blanket!" She happily pulled the blanket off of Zel as she wrapped it around herself.
Zel was not quite as ecstastic as Lina about the discovery as he saw what the blanket was covering, "It a corpse!"
Zel frantically push the frozed dead body off of him as he scooted a few spaces back. Lina paused from her happiness to look at the corpse.
"Whoa tough break, the blankets mine," Lina said to the corpse as Zel sweatdropped.
Lina was most definately going loco.
"I think we should dispose of it," Zel said as Lina was too busy trying to get warm with the blanket. Shrugging as he picked up the body, he muttered, "Well I hope we have better luck than you did. Hmm, so your name is SephZero." Zel muttered reading the name tag on the corpse as he opened the door. "Well goodbye."
The corpse landed in the snow and shattered into a million pieces as Zel winced a bit.
"Ouch," he muttered as he turned to go back inside.
The sight inside was not so pleasent as Lina was wrapping herself up in the blanket, gazing shifty eyes at Zel. Slowly closing the door, he took a seat across from Lina as he crossed his arms in an attempt to keep some heat to himself.
"You want it," Lina muttered glaring at him.
"What?" Zel muttered.
"Don't try to feign ignorance. I can tell you want it. But I'm not going to let you have it," Lina chuckled evilly as she tightened her grip on the blanket.
Things were getting really scary now.
"Lina," Zel said trying to reason with her. "You can keep the blanket for all I care."
"Oh don't try to lull me into a false sense of security," Lina mocked waving her finger at him as she gripped the blanket. "You're just waiting for me to fall asleep and then - "
"I've heard enough," Zel interrupted as he got up and walked to one of the walls. "Why don't we just try to get some sleep," he said as he curled up and tried to get some sleep.
Lina on the other hand just looked at him. As she pulled out the dagger, she smiled wickedly. Good, he was asleep now. Now I can feast. Lina crawled slowly up to the sleeping Zel as she gazed at his leg.
Looking at the dagger she had for a moment, Lina tossed it aside. I'll just bite right in. Lina seized one of Zel's leg as she opened her mouth and chomped down.
Zel gripped his leg protectively as he cried, "What the heck are you doing?"
"But I'm hungry," Lina whined giving him a cute face. "Please just let me nibble on it at least?"
That's it. It was time for Zel to draw the line and he did.
"This is my side of the cabin and that's your side," Zel stated as he divided the cabin in half.
"But your side has the door," Lina protested.
"And there's a reason for that," Zel muttered as he kept one eye on her as she clutched the blanket. "So why don't we try to get some sleep," he protested as he sat down, but still looked at Lina.
This wasn't good, if Lina was going crazy then things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.
Lina however was happily playing with snow, which wasn't bad until he realized that the snow man she made was a duplicate of Zel lying on the floor. Picking up her dagger from the floor, she was starting to cut off pieces of him that she wanted and those she didn't. Even more disturbing was the fact that she was eating the parts as well.
"You're going to get cold doing that," Zel warned as Lina merely frowned at him.
"Well, if someone here wasn't so selfish and just let me eat part of him, I wouldn't be doing this," she remarked.
"Why kind of crazy logic is that?" Zel asked.
Silence touched down as the two finally devolved into a staring contest.
"You want to eat him," a voice said to Lina.
"I know that, tell me something new," Lina muttered.
"Well, how about we wait till he's not paying attention and then thwack, he's all yours," the voice offered as Lina smiled. That did sound like a nice plan.
"Okay, I'll do it, but I get all of him," Lina said.
"Fine with me," the voice laughed as Lina raised an eyebrow.
"What's in it for you?" Lina asked as the voice choked.
"What?"
"What are you in it for? How does all of this benefit you?" Lina asked again.
"Let's just say, I want to make sure you're well fed," the voice offered.
"I can live with that," Lina chuckled as she glared at Zel.
Meanwhile Zel was having his own episode with a voice.
"Man you can't stay here," the voice cried frantically.
"Why is that?" Zel asked impatient at the voice whinyness.
"She's gone loco," the voice stated.
"No, she's just hungry and cold," Zel muttered as the voice sneezed.
"You have got to be kidding me. Look at her she talking to herself. That is a sure sign of insanity," the voice commented.
Raising an eyebrow at the concept, Zel said, "Then what about me? I'm talking to myself."
"Okay forget that last statment," the voice groaned. "You've got to get out of here," it warned him.
"And into that blizzard, forget it," Zel muttered.
"Oh like staying with a cannibal is any better," the voice snapped back.
"Oh do shut up!" Zel yelled.
"Okay, but watch out?" the voice warned.
Zel looked up just in time to see Lina lunge at him. Being a chimera, he managed to easily catch her in mid-flight and toss her back on her side as he yelled, "Stay on your end."
Lina went smack into a pile of snow.
"Hey, that's mean!" Lina protested sticking her head out shivering. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she muttered, "That was uncalled for."
"It's going to be a long night," Zel grumbled as he shook his head sadly.
Lina sighed as she looked at Zel shivering a bit and asked, "Are you really cold?"
Blinking at her comment, Zel said, "Well if you want to know the truth, then yes I'm cold. I've been freezing since we first stepped foot in this blasted cabin. So yes, I'm extremely cold. Thank you Miss cannablistic blanket hogger."
"Well if you want the blanket so bad you can have it," Lina offered him her blanket.
"Never mind, you need it more then me," Zel muttered rejecting the offer.
"No, I insist," Lina said as Zel still refused. "Oh come on, you know as well as I do. It's better to take your life than let the weather do it. So I'll let you use the blanket to hang yourself."
Zel stared at Lina, shaken beyond words.
"And besides, it'll make your flesh some much more warmer than if you freezed to death," she giggled as a sweatdrop appeared on Zel and froze stiff.
Flicking off the sweat drop Zel muttered, "Well I geuss you're right that I'm probably going to die. So I might as well tell you this. If I die, I want you to make sure that I'm dead when I'm buried. You see there was this tale about two people trapped in a cabin like this, freezing and starving to death. So he buried his dead friend, but every morning he would wake up to find the dead friend lying there next to him. Well it ended up that this guy sleepwalks and kept digging the body out and leaving it in the cabin every night. Well later a group stumbled upon the cabin and found two dead bodies there. One of them died several weeks ago and the other a mere hour ago. With both having an icicle through the back."
Lina was shivering after Zel had finished and it wasn't because of the cold now.
"So anyway, speaking of that, I remember this tale about snow demons that lurk around here eating people," Zel suggested.
"Alright," Lina crie. "If I promise not to eat you, will you stop telling me all these scary stories!"
"Fine," Zel sighed as he looked at the frozen sweatdrop from earlier.
"Zel," Lina muttered.
"What is it?" Zel asked absently as he tossed the sweatdrop aside.
"There's something written on this blanket," Lina muttered as she show Zel the side.
Taking the blanket, Zel read the first three lines written there, "Slayer's Blanket Scenerio. SephZero's failed edition. The Death of Zelgadiss Grayword." A shiver went down Zel's spine as he continued reading the blanket as it recounted everything that had happened, "And so Zel persisted in reading the blanket and crazy Lina sneaked up behind him. With her dagger poised, she was determined to take the initiative. Unfortunately, Zel was too busy reading to notice her and so she struck!"
Zel's scream echoed throughout the cabin.
"That stung!" Zel cursed rubbing the spot where Lina had hit him as she looked at her broken dagger in shock.
"I could have sworn that your stone skin would be brittle enough now Zel," Lina muttered looking at the broken dagger sadly.
"Well just remember that snowmen are not to be trusted," Zel muttered as he tossed the blanket in Lina's face.
"And why is that?" Lina muttered untangling the blanket from herself.
"Well sometimes they wait outside to eat you, but that's only a legend," Zel remarked as he settled down by the wall and held his sword out in front. "So get's some sleep or I'll use this one you."
Grumbling, Lina finally decided to go to sleep despite the protest of her stomach and that voice.
Taking a sigh of relief that it was finally done, Zel closed his eyes to get some much needed sleep.
THWACK
"Owwwww!"
"I said get some sleep."
"Phooey..."
And so dawn quickly came and the inhibiters detached themselves allowing the two to use their magic again. After a brief spell battle in the cabin as Lina tried to eat Zel one last time, the two made their way out and left. Of course, there was that strange snowman watching from around the back corner of the cabin, but that was just another mystery.
"What do you mean we didn't do that task right?" Lina screamed slamming her fist on the desk and breaking it in half.
"We climbed the Valley of Tear and spent a night in the cabin just as we agreed. We almost got ourselves killed for all that trouble," Zel stated as Easting merely snorted.
"The fact is you went to the wrong cabin," Easting snapped.
"What?" the two muttered.
"You went to some crazy haunted one where a snowman came alive and froze a dude to death and stuffed him into an overhead compartment. It also cursed the blanket to kill anyone who used it," Easting explained as the two turned pale.
"Then where was the cabin we should have been at?" Lina asked meekly.
"It was on the other side of the place," Easting stated as the two felt to the ground. "Since you failed to stay at the right cabin, I'm afraid all you did was for naught," he sighed as Lina started to seeth.
"Damn it all! Dragu Slave!"
"That wasn't nice," Zel muttered looking at the ruins of Easting estate.
"Who cares," Lina growled as she started to walk away.
"Well he's just as bad as his cousin," Zel sighed as Lina looked at him confused. "His cousin once faked his death and made all these people that were connected to him in a way play these crazy games to gain his inheritance. I believe the incident was called the Westing Game."
"Wow, they're both a bunch of crackpots," Lina sighed as Zel blinked.
"Lina?"
"Yes?"
"Why is that blanket from the cabin still draped around your shoulder?"
"What do you mean? I left that blanket back in the cabin."
"But it's on your shoulder."
"What?"
"It's moving!"
"Throw it off."
"Look out it's coming right for us!"
And so the curse of the blanket continued to haunt all that disturbed its rest. And was promptly Laguna Blade'd by Lina and fried to a crisp by Zel with a Burst Flare. So that's the end. You can stop reading now. No really, I insist that you stop reading anymore of this fic. Are you listening to me?
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