[SPEAKER_00]: The case of Nogel's house, chapter 3, an Aggie McPherson mystery, and a shorthand missile tale by Matthew C. McLean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin O'Woke in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was on a bed, he realized, the room faintly illuminated by her, fire down to its embers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without moving, he looked around to see a chamber made a perfectly fitted, but asymmetrical stones, no windows, only a single door.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the back of his head, I've always tried to call out to tell him something was a miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bed, though, was comfort beyond compare, a luxury akin to anesthesia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to find some balance between the bed sensuous slumberessness and his minds pleading Corbin stretched.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reached his arms above his head and swung them down to his hips, interrupted when his left arm encountered a solid object that rose in the bed's otherwise perfect form.
[SPEAKER_00]: The subtle change caused the voice in Corbin's head to jump several decibels.
[SPEAKER_00]: His kind made it for life and he hadn't shared a bed in years.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shot up, had royalings so he couldn't make it to placing his feet on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin, the voice next to him's bow.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: The boys, soft, feminine, and none familiar, caused Corbin to push through his nausea to stand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He placed his hand on the wall to balance himself, finding that the stone was intensely warm.
[SPEAKER_00]: He blinked trying to look at the door, he'd only seen a moment ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was only then that he realized he was naked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you leaving so soon, the soft voice to ask from the bed?
[SPEAKER_00]: The question left an impression in Corbin that he had a choice in being here that perhaps he had arrived to his own volition.
[SPEAKER_00]: His mind felt heavier than a rock with a hangover though.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could remember an old friend, came here, an earth elemental that loved mead and that their hangovers were calamitous events akin to earthquakes.
[SPEAKER_00]: but he couldn't remember how he arrived here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Balanced by the wall, Corbin Rista look over a shoulder, on the bed was a woman lit like a waning harvest moon in the firelight with smooth skin, a strong figure, and beautiful dark hair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the embers her eyes glow to reddish gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spoke, you just got here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin shook his head, but it didn't dislodge the cement around his brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could only mutter, you're not my zery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman stood up, she'd sliding from her, even in his current state, Corbin was struck by her magnificence.
[SPEAKER_00]: She smiled with the same easy confidence his wife had possessed, a certainty that she would have her way.
[SPEAKER_00]: With her black hair and curvacious figure, he could almost convince himself that this was his ory, that her death had been a terrible dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's Zirri?
[SPEAKER_00]: He felt the question pull at his mind, wrapping around the memories of his wife, and pushing them toward the same dark well where the memories of how he got here now dwelt.
[SPEAKER_00]: He struck her then, fast and hard with the back of his hand, all the anger and loss snapping out of him in the blow.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the focus, Zirri had taught him he was able to transform his hand into the black
[SPEAKER_00]: and grab this pertinent stranger by the neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know who's or who is, then I know I shouldn't be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even through the tough skin of the claw that was now as right hand, Corbin felt the softness of the figure's flesh quickly giving away to an unyielding warmth, not unlike the room's stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The confidence fled from the creature's eyes replaced with a burning anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: The golden red dare Corbin realized was not a reflection of the fire, but from whatever magic this thing, this place possessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tightening is talent around it's neckiest, what are you and what is this place?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thing in front of him began to change, becoming taller and thinner, a forked tongue rolling out of its mouth as its legs lengthened, threatening to pull Corbin from the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The raven hair curled away from its face, skin pulling tight, and let's nose disappeared, and its mouth stretched wide.
[SPEAKER_00]: A sound like steam is skipping from a grave, became its rancid breath as its spoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: We could have had so much fun, you and I.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin wasn't beyond fear, but he wasn't naive to the ways of transformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He might not have expected this, but this simulacrum certainly hadn't expected him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The extended is metamorphosis in both hands and feet, digging into the stones with his talents to keep his stance, raising the other as to stab the creature's eyes from its face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Raven's eat lizards thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tongues slipping out in civil and civilables.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're much more than that here in the House of Noggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not for long, Corbin replied before growing a sharp beak to snap the tongue out of Noggle's beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin was covered in viscera by the time he heard the knock at the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blinking away the burning in his eyes, he looked to see McPherson peeking through the Judas hatch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Presumably standing on her tiptoes, she was barely able to get her chin up above the portal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The inspector, lit from behind, was identifiable by Corbin by her stature and voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh good, it's you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corgan blinked again, trying to clear his head, looking down at his bloody hands he remembered he was naked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I seemed to have lost my clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look around, a male voice made unrecognizable by fear and uncertainty came.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the other men had their clothes on when they left, they might still be with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: misunderstanding the last sentence, Corbin's foe hold his head to look for the other men in the room, but found only the corpse of the thing he had dismembered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The strange chunks wriggling on the floor, and a pool of black liquid made him feel like he was likely to vomit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're focusing on something else, he asked, who is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get you out of here, McPherson replied.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, Corbin barely got the question out before Light streamed in from the tortslet hallway.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson was there, Lockpick still in hand, kneeling next to the door as mechanism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to her, head frenetically searching up and down the hall, was a scrawny bispeckled man, sweat covering his pale paint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make first and stood, slipping your lockpicks into the interior pocket of a blazer.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Oliver Derby.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe you have met.
[SPEAKER_00]: Half and again, as tall as McPherson, Oliver peaked around the door frame and saw the carnage.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it were possible, he became payler, glass is sliding down his nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: With nothing cogent in his mind, Corbin said, I didn't know you could break locks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think reality is a factor in this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson pushed Oliver into the room and closed the door behind her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pretend that this will give us some privacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin looked over a shoulder to the thing he had massacred.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we might be safe in here for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson gulfaw had vanishing any realism of that idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin were in a ghost house created by a deal with the Ogreudown.
[SPEAKER_00]: The algorithm, that got Corbin's attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: What had this happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson hooked a thumb and Oliver, asked the professor here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, Derby began to answer then stopped, slating off the pink backpack.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said it on the floor by the fire, away from the still wriggling pile of parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took this from the house, out from the bag, he pulled a perfectly round, nearly flat stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there wasn't a house here when I took it, but I dug it out of the park.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why in the name of the seven winds would you do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: All of her cringed, retreating from Corbin's harsh tone, I was being blackmailed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't think to tell me this when you hired me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it gets better.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miss Chiffin McPherson's voice graded on Corbin.
[SPEAKER_00]: She elbowed Oliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell him by who?
[SPEAKER_00]: a student day up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was having inappropriate relations with McPherson poked Oliver egging him on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her name was Attentia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin found his heads swimming again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attentia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attentia frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shock raised Oliver's eyebrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin dragged Derby to standing, pulling the smaller man closer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I know her?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I know the first sorceress of Keck?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin shook Derby, rattling him until his glasses at a skew.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will eat your eyes for this little man.
[SPEAKER_00]: With an unusual disregard for her dress, McPherson placed her hands between the two men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't know, at your own fault for not recognizing the portrait of Nogo when we came in.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should have listened to Zarymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin dropped Oliver to turn his anger onto the analyst.
[SPEAKER_00]: How dare you?
[SPEAKER_00]: How dare I what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Make Furison's question was as solid as the floor they stood on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not the one to shame to my own heritage.
[SPEAKER_00]: eagerly seeking to steer the conversation away from his own wrongs, Oliver said, what
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson turned Oliver to wipe the gore on her hands off onto his shirt, or part exclamation say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a surprise tone that would have gotten him turned off faculty, staff, all are responded with a name like Corbin Halverson, like straightening a child's dress, McPherson set Oliver's glasses straight on his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a professor of local history, you're pretty ignorant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you think that Chief's ancestral name was Francis?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin burned with his own anger as he remembered meaning Zary in the state boarding school that had branded him with the name of his father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Zary had refused to give up her name for the Anglo one that they had tried to force on her, despite everything, the starvation, the beatings, the shackles.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time she escaped and then returned for him, he couldn't even remember what little Ex-Koma she had known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin turned from this to search for his pants.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chows it as a hand, he said, fine, we're in a house that shouldn't exist, that's it's on a hole that wants to swallow mankind.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we do about it?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't be serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver spoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that kept Corbin from throttling him was the look of utter contempt that McPherson leveled at the professor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You idiot.
[SPEAKER_00]: The darkness the ex-comesh were enslaved to is still down there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been waiting for a chance to rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've given it the chance it's been waiting for.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson not at behind her at the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you think the army of men we snuck past here was imaginary?
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw the look in the rise.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only reason you got past them is because you look like them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin chuckled them kindly, wondering how McPherson its knuck all over past his own wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your plan McPherson?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hoping between the three of us, we might be able to figure out a way to use the stone to seal this place back into the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson bent down to the round flat stone that Oliver had pulled from the backpack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin felt his disgrace again, knowing he couldn't recognize the symbols on its face.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was brought in here before, McPherson continued, it sealed the mine into Stuart Noggle's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say we use it as a depth charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both Corbin and Oliver responded in confusion, causing the inspector to point out the
[SPEAKER_00]: That thing had to come from somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we can find the hole that crawled out of, dropping the stone down might do the trick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or without the proper incantations it might just drop like a rock, corporate encounter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know how to read the symbols on the stone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Agh, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver spoke quietly, but his tone washed over the rising anger between Corbin and Agh.
[SPEAKER_00]: The runes on the stone are, they're a sacrificial right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure it's in spoke softly and slowly as if to a frightened animal.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you saying Oliver?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin watched the smaller man's Adam's apple move up and down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Castillo never left Knuckles' house, and neither did the stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He must have been the sacrifice that sealed the mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before McPherson could speak Corbin found his anger again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, guess who just volunteered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver boggled at the pair, protesting before I rose to place a common hand on a shoulder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver, does the stone specify what the sacrifice has to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson disappeared the stone into her coat as she stood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then let's take this a step at a time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver muttered, wiping the sweat from the bridge of his nose before resettling his glasses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the door rumbled in its frame, rattling the Judas hatch open to show a solid wall of brackish flesh, glistening greenish black in the firelight, moving past the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: A long quiet moment went with it, only broken by Oliver's squeaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin made to answer when a smell like boiling sulfur caused him to choke.
[SPEAKER_00]: He glanced at the bedmaid he had dismembered, while their attention had been elsewhere, its separate parts had bubbled into a single dark green slime that oscillated, pushing at the edges of its boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a pitch in his voice that hung by very thin thread, Oliver asked,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Corbin answered, Augerum Den don't die, they just reassemble.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver's shakily tried to pick up his backpack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to find my wife and get out of here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin felt no small amount of satisfaction as McPherson slapped him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You looked her right in the eye when we came in here and she didn't blink.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to get rid of this place if you ever want to see her in the light of day again.
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson looked back at the door, it's Judas Hatch now empty of everything but the torchlight of the hall beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay Corbin, we'll lead the way, Oliver, stay close behind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bones used in feathers bristled up the once pale skin of his arms, Corbin stepped forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oliver, eyes wide, and dodging between Corbin's talons and their mains at the Algrudem, refused to move.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin pointed a claw at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is nothing little man.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't move, you'll see how far I can take this metamorphosis.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then I will fly my way out of here and forget your name before the next sunrise.
[SPEAKER_00]: With his threat hanging over him, Oliver Stum will toward the now silent door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless, Corbin and McPherson approached it as if the portal might spring open of its own accord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reaching for the handle, McPherson stopped and glanced at Corbin.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were, you were bluffing about flying out of here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin could feel his ears beginning to disappear under the plume of black feathers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He croaked, you left me down here first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, come on!
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson caused both men to jump as she stood straight raising her voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're fine!
[SPEAKER_00]: Corbin stared at McPherson as he felt his eyes, rather painfully, changed color and shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I look fine to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: McPherson gave her tiniest herumpf, acknowledging Corbin's superior position.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just try to give me some warning if you decide to go to low.
[SPEAKER_00]: No guarantees analyst.
[SPEAKER_00]: Using the title of our occupation seemed to play Kate McPherson, who reached for the door handle.