Don't Look Now

“Huh, well this was unexpected.”

“Where are we?”

“To think, such a place would exist so deep underground.”

After three hours of exploring the cave, the four adventurers of the Rabbit’s Foot Guild encountered something unexpected.  Their job had been to discover what had happened to the research team that had been dispatched here two weeks prior, who had failed to make contact with their superiors back in the city.  After a long time attempting to follow the researchers’ trail, the formless stone walls of the cave eventually gave way to orderly brick walls, and then, to the interior of some sort of ancient underground city..

“Perhaps they just got so caught up in discovering a buried city that they forgot to head back home?”  Lumina, the group’s cleric and eternal optimist, tried to think of an explanation for the disappearance that didn’t include a pile of corpses.

“Not without their supplies, they didn’t.”  Melfy replied.  She pointed ahead, to a collection of packs and bags that seemed to have been discarded in haste, as if their owners had quickly tried to flee.  A warrior and the group’s leader, she was not one to sugar-coat the truth.

“I’m gonna assume they won’t be needing this stuff, then.”  Said Krysta, the rogue, as she began pawing through the abandoned possessions.  She likely would have pulled something out, if the last member of the group did not suddenly tense up in alarm.

“Something approaches.  I can sense its magic from here - it is powerful… and dangerous.”  Vhaja, the mage, did not speak often.  When she did, the group knew to pay heed to her words.  “It comes from behind.  Closer.  Closer.  It is nearly upon us!”

As one, the four warriors readied themselves for battle.  Melfy drew her sword in one fluid motion, twisting her body around to get a look at their approaching foe.  Krysta bent low to the ground, palming her twin daggers, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.  Lumina raised her magic staff aloft, preparing a defensive barrier should the need arise.  And Vhaja channeled her magic through the runes engraved on her fingertips, molding it into the shape of a bow with an arrow notched on its string.  Together, the four seasoned adventures turned to face the approaching menace, looking it directly in the eyes.

It would be the last thing they ever did.

A sound reverberated through the underground chamber: the crackling sound of flesh being transfixed into stone.  It was followed by a series of hisses, slowly subsiding, as a head full of snakes resolved back into flowing strands of dark green hair.  Next was a slight chuckle.   A woman’s voice, playful, yet bearing the cadence of a being both ancient and powerful.

“Lovely.  Four new additions to the collection.”

The words fell on deaf ears.

Little is known about gorgons, for the good reason that few ever survive an encounter with them.  From old texts, it is known that they possess the power to petrify, though accounts differ on the strength of the effect.  Some say the gorgon must make eye contact with a living creature to turn them to stone, and the gaze effects only the victim’s flesh and nothing more.  Others claim line of sight is not necessary, and they hold the power to transmute anything, much like the art of alchemy, converting all that surrounds them into lifeless stone.  As is usually the case with such matters, scholars argue endlessly over the details, trying to make their point when they have little concrete information to go on.

Surely, such scholars would be interested to see the state of the four adventurers who had recently met their end.  Not just their bodies, but their clothes and weapons had been converted to stone by this particular gorgon’s power, confirming that more than just flesh could succumb to her magic.  She illustrated the point by slowly shattering their brittle garments to dust, not stopping until the four of them were reduced to a quartet of perfectly sculpted nudes.  They did not, of course, offer any resistance, nor could they, for their minds were now blank and their bodies fully immobile.  As a cruel irony, their weapons were left intact, serving as an indicator for any future viewers that these victims were once fighters.

The gorgon spent some time appreciating her newest works, running a finger along each of their solid bodies, cupping a breast here, or caressing a leg there.  “Perfect,” she murmured to herself, before taking a step back to view the scene in its entirety.  The research group she’d caught a few weeks ago were nice, and there were nearly two dozen of them boot, but in the end she preferred quality over quantity.  These four were superior in every way to that lot, possibly her best work in years, if not of all time.  

She decided, after some consideration, that they would stay right here, just at the entrance to her lair, so that they would be the first thing any future visitors would see upon their arrival.  And, if all went according to plan (which it always did, for her) it would also be the LAST thing said visitors would see, before they joined her collection.  There was a reason that no one in the outside world knew this cave was the entrance to an ancient city - none who explored far enough inside ever made it back out.

Though schools quibble about the details, there is one fact of which they are all certain: gorgon magic never wears off on its own, and no known method exists to cure it.  In other words, those who fall victim to a gorgon will never return to the world of the living.  This, too, was the case for the four members of the Rabbit’s Foot Guild.  Melfy, Krysta, Vhaja and Lumina, now nothing but petrified stone statues, helpless and exposed, will be unable to do anything but stand in silence for the rest of time.  Their adventure has come to an end, permanently.

***

Well, here’s another utterly fantastic commission by the talented, cooperative, and, I assume, roguishly handsome Dvega .  Please pay his page a visit, and perhaps commission him yourself; his rates are reasonable, and his art is incredible.

This features the main cast of the fantasy world I’m working on, who often end up in situations like this.