The Eternium Stone

The Hop-On Inn is a gorgeous little pub deep in the Garantan Forest, run by a Frogman and his Hare-folk wife. They serve the finest honey-roasted carrots for some 500 miles. And tonight they are full to the brim as folks from all around have come for ‘An Evening of Ensemble Entertainment’. All manner of being crammed into the pub—Fae and Foxkin, Ghouls and Goblins, Werewolves and Witches and more. To one side, taking up more space than most, a Minotaur and Centaur share a table with an Alligator, a Halfling and a Gnome—the main event, the band known as The Forest Five.

Up on the stage stand a pair of bards—the opening act. They’ve brought musical instruments but don’t appear to intend to use them. An antique guitar sits still strapped to their solo pack, to the dismay of some in the crowd.

Slowly the noise in the Inn simmers down to a moderate drone, and then a quiet murmur, and then to silence.

“I’m Roderick,” begins, well, Roderick. He’s a Merman, half fish, half man, and his torso ripples with muscles as he uses his crutches to stand before the throng. He’s handsome, with a square jaw and high cheekbones, and he speaks in a deep baritone with perfect elocution.

“And I’m Rodney,” adds Rodney, but you’d guessed that. Rodney’s Fishfolk, with a bright orange fish top and the trousered legs of a man below. His voice is a bit higher than Roderick’s, but somehow it complements his partner’s perfectly, like the sharp cheddar to a pinot noir. They’re a curious pair, not least because the Mermen and Fishfolk have been at war for centuries.

“And together we investigate stories from all angles,” continues Roderick.

“Expert Anglers, we are,” chimes in Rodney. “Must be why when folks see us, they say ‘Are they Fishermen?’”

Groans and chuckles ripple through the crowded creatures of the forest.

“We dig deep into crimes—some millennia old, some quite recent—and we find out the truth behind them,” says Roderick when the room is quiet once more.

“And tonight we bring you a doozy. The stealing…” Rodney says, pausing for effect.

“…of the Eternium Stone,” the pair say in unison. The crowd gasps. The Eternium Stone was an object of immense power, held by the now-deposed tyrant Skellington King. Its theft remains a mystery to this day.

“The Skellington King, who ruled the world with an iron fist…” says Roderick.

“Well a bone fist…” adds Rodney.

“from his undead grave fortress,” Roderick continues without missing a beat, “held the world captive through his possession of the Eternium Stone. A stone of power so great that whoever possessed it would be able to control reality itself.

“When the Skellington King needed to exercise this power, he would place the stone inside his chest cavity, conjure its power…”

“That means he’d think really hard,” Rodney chimes in.

“and then his will would become truth. Not his truth, all truth. The cost, as we all know, was that part of him would turn to gold.”

“Rumour had it that if the King could simply ingest the stone and hold it within himself he’d be all-powerful for all-eternity, but he didn’t do that. Do you know why, Roderick?” asks the fishfolk bard.

“Because he didn’t want to turn entirely into gold?” fires back the merman.

“It might have been that, but I think he just didn’t have the stomach for it,” says Rodney, mugging for the audience. Groans and chuckles ripple throughout once more, and it seems like they might be the soundtrack for the evening.

“Well it’s interesting you say that, Rodney, because he might not have been able to swallow the thing anyway. The stone was far too large to fit down all but the biggest mouths.”

“Ahh, so you’d have had no trouble then,” quips Rodney, his large fish mouth agape at the jape. More laughs roll through the tavern.

“Now the Skellington King was not a good man, nor a kind man…”

“Not a man at all actually Roderick…”

“and so when he shaped reality, it would invariably make things worse for folks. All were enslaved, beaten, downtrodden…”

“Ooh, we all remember this part, partner, let’s not depress the crowd…”

“Ok, ok,” says Roderick with a grin. “Well let’s just say it would be better for everyone if he lost his power. But tell me, Rodney, how do you rob a being of unfathomable power?”

“You know I wait on your answer with bated breath, Roderick,” the Fishfolk bard replies.

The Merman smiles warmly at his partner. “With a power greater still. The power of love.” The tavern’s soundtrack drops the chuckles and holds just groans this time. “Ok, so it’s a bit hokey, but it’s true.”

Rodney leans forward to the audience for emphasis. “We’ve done the digging. We know the truth. We visited the former King in his Mausoleum Gaol, and we interviewed people who were actually there that fateful night when he fell from power.”

“The Skellington King himself told us, it was the two most unlikely of friends who betrayed him. We all know Minotaurs and Centaurs have, historically, not gotten along.”

“The Minotaurs were too bullish, the Centaurs always horsin’ around,” says Rodney. The crowd in the taproom doesn’t react, but the silence is quickly broken by the raucous howling of the Minotaur and Centaur in the back, as the bullwoman and horseman double over in laughter at the gag. The rest of the inn quickly joins in.

“And The Skellington King used this animosity to his advantage,” Roderick continues once the laughter subsides. “He staffed his bone palace guard with Minotaurs and Centaurs, one watching the other to keep his treasures safe.”

“They weren’t the only ones, of course. He pit the Lycanthropes against the Cat-folk, the Birdmen against the Cat-folk, the Rat-people against the Cat-folk…”

“How did your people feel about Cat-folk Rodney?”

“I think the cat’s got my tongue there, Roderick.”

The Merman grins as his partner mimes covering his huge fish mouth. “But that’s what the terrible Skellington King did. He divided people, and that’s how he stayed on top.”

“But one day a handsome Centaur and a beautiful Minotaur found that despite the Skellington King’s magic, they had fallen deeply in love.”

“Bit like the pair up the back there, don’t you think Rodney?” Roderick asks, and the crowd wheels once again to look at the bandmates. The pair’s eyes widen in panic, much to the amusement of all others present.

“They are handsome and beautiful, that’s true,” Rodney says, and the centaur lifts his guitar above his face to hide his blushing.

“These two forbidden lovers knew, deep in their hearts, that their kin weren’t all that different. They loved the same foods, told the same myths, rocked out to the same tavern ballads.”

“And they thought if they could just do something about the Skellington King’s power, the Minotaurs and Centaurs might be able to see all of that,” Rodney says, holding the patrons’ attention as Roderick fiddled with something to the rear of the stage. “So they hatched a plan. They would sneak into the King’s throne room like spies in the night. But they needed a distraction.”

Roderick wheels around and interjects. “Lucky for them, the Centaur was a world-class guitar player,” he says, a guitar in his hands instead of his crutches. Roderick comically plays air guitar on his real guitar while Rodney quickly shifts across to catch his partner in his fins. “So the Centaur would entertain the King and his court with one of those ballads the two sweethearts loved so much while the Minotaur snuck into the throne room. There was just one catch.”

“You know we love a good catch,” Rodney says solemnly as Roderick drops the guitar and flicks his crutches back up into his hands in one smooth motion. “The Royal Ceramics Room lay between the Minotaur and the Throne Room. And while our gorgeous Minotaur was more stealthy than her four-legged boyfriend, there had long been rumours about the trouble her people had in pottery shops.”

Someone at the band’s table laughs and the rest of the bar joins in quickly.

“Luckily for our…” Roderick continues, pausing, trying to find the words.

“Horny heroine?” Rodney ventures, to more giggles.

“this was merely a hurtful stereotype,” Roderick says. “And our bovine burglar quickly found herself standing in the Throne Room, the Eternium Stone directly before her.”

Rodney stomps on the floor, silencing the room with his surprisingly heavy footfall. “But there was a problem! She could hear her boyfriend’s performance wrapping up! The epic guitar solo in Free Herd lasts 5 minutes, and it was coming to a close.”

“And so she did the one thing she could think of in the moment,” Roderick adds. “The one thing the Skellington King himself could not. She grabbed that great Eternium Stone, she popped it into her mouth, and she swallowed that thing whole.”

Rodney holds his fin to his heart. “Then she thought real hard about her and her Centaur living happily ever after together.”

“That’s why there was no difficult transition of power when the Skellington King fell,” Roderick says solemnly. “Why he just appeared one night in a gaol built just for him, humming along to a tune nobody else could hear. Why the world went from a divided place of hate and bitterness to what we have today. Almost all the ancient wars ended the moment the Skellington King went away—as if he was using the Eternium Stone itself to keep them going.”

“What about the Fishfolk and Mermen?” yells a Dwarf from the audience. He sits holding hands with an Elf princess, the two races once mortal enemies.

“Sadly some folks just don’t need any help to keep hating—even if they’re so similar it hurts,” Rodney replies, his performance slipping for a moment.

“Did the minotaur turn to gold?” yells a human, because of course the human is looking for holes in the story. “That doesn’t sound like a happily ever after to me.”

The bard duo look to the minotaur in the crowd, who is trying to appear as small as a massive cow-woman can. The onlookers follow their eyeline. Gasps ripple through the Hop-On Inn as the implication lands.

“You know, some say the gold thing was just a myth. Or maybe when the Eternium Stone was digested in the Minotaur’s four stomachs, the gold-changing process was muted. What I know,” says Roderick, “is that they’re a hero for all eternity for what they did.”

“And what I know,” adds Rodney, “is that with the right partner by their side, anyone can live happily ever after. That’s why love is the greatest power of all.”

There are no groans this time, just sincere ‘awws’ and warm smiles from the crowd. Roderick theatrically casts his crutches aside and flicks the guitar into his hands once more with his tail, actually strumming it this time to belt out an epic riff.

“I am Rod,” he says as the guitar wanes.

“And I am Rod,” says Rodney, effortlessly shifting to catch his partner before the two say, in unison.

“And you’ve just listened to the fish-or-men of the True Crime Rodcast!”

The tavern erupts in applause, and the two Rods take their bows together and make their way off the stage while the Minotaur and Centaur are shouted more rounds than they can ever hope to drink.

And if anyone was paying attention, they might have seen Rodney’s trouser leg climb up just a little as he helped Roderick down the steps from the stage. And if they’d been paying that attention at just the right moment, they might have seen the light catch it in the most peculiar way, as if a bright yellow gleam bounced off shiny metal.

Nobody was paying attention, though, and they disappear into the night.

Happily ever after.