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The snake hissed, which wasn’t a problem compared to everything else, but it was certainly annoying. The snake’s vertical eyes stared at him as it hissed again. Hiss, hiss, hiss, it kept going and so Cato hissed in return.
“What in the devil are you doing?” Cato’s professor shouted. “Put that snake down!” The professor coughed. The smoke was getting thicker in the temple.
He looked around, trying to find some place to put the snake. The smoke from the rows of burning incense was making it hard for him to see clearly. But he found what looked like a counter and then he tried to put the snake down. Instead of slithering off of him, it stayed put and hissed at the professor.
The professor’s white mustache bristled as he returned to his chant before the strange little idol, the focus of the temple room. “Moaxa!” he shouted. “Voaxa! Kurala! Miyehu!”
Just then, a grim, reptilian face poked through the wall, eyes ablaze with preternatural light.
At the creature’s coming, the snake hissed as it slid off of Cato’s arm, going forth to render itself prostrate to the being they had summoned. The professor took no heed of it, but the professor took heed of him when Cato addressed the being with: “Greetings and salutations”.
“Greetings,” Professor Felix added, nodding deferentially to the creature. He turned to his assistant with a smug grin. “See?” he said. “You just need to know the right processes and procedures and they arrive quite easily.”
The assistant shrugged. He coughed once—the incense was finally getting to him. He looked at the entity and asked: “Did you want to be summoned here?” Honestly, he despised waking up early and the ritual had to be performed in the early morning, before dawn. Perhaps he was not the only one who had experienced a rude awakening today…
The grim reptilian face stared at the two, its eyes gradually turning red.
“No,” it said, voice booming. “I was asleep, actually. I hope you have a good reason for waking me.”
The professor’s mustache bristled. “Of course we do,” Professor Felix said, cheerfully. “Wait until you hear this…”
The baleful behemoth puffed out a hot breath that made the two men both sweat. It stared at them angrily, waiting for the answer to come. The professor turned to his student, expecting him to provide a response. Cato sighed. If he was going to make him do this, then he was going to do it his way.
“We don’t want to keep you any longer from returning to your slumber than we have to. Is there a better time to talk?” Cato asked the reptilian face gazing at him.
The lizard-like beast simply glared at Cato.
“I’m sorry,” the professor said, stammering. “He’s young. He’s an idiot!” Cato glared at him.
“What is it that you want?!” the entity snarled. “And be quick with it.”
“We… I… well, good sir,” the professor said, “we have a mission for you. There is a special jewel-“
“Oh dear god no!” the gruesome sauropod kvetched. “Not another jewel-finding mission! What is it with you puny humans and your relentless need to acquire jewels?”
“But, sir!” the professor exclaimed.
“The answer is no!” the lizard shrieked miserably. “No! No! And heck no!”
“Is there something you’d rather be searching for than jewels?” Cato asked calmly, seizing the moment.
The lizard stared at him for a moment then angrily glared at the professor. “You’re old and stupid—the young one knows his manners,” the entity huffed. “I would rather be searching for some gold chalices. Or anything metallic, really.”
“What if there were jewels embedded a chalice?” Cato asked quickly, before the professor could jump in.
The creature pondered. “That would be acceptable.”
The professor glared at Cato. “What in the blazes are you talking about?” he asked.
Cato winked. This was going to go his way for sure…
The professor returned his gaze to the large reptilian creature.
“I will seek a bejeweled cup out for you. I will return posthaste,” the creature spoke and began to sink back into the abyss.
The professor reached out and said: “Wait! We need this particular jewel-”
“This particular jewel encrusted cup,” Cato continued, smirking. He was going to be famous for this…famous among a certain circle, anyway. Damn his professor’s goals, he had his own desires. “It is the Grand Chalice of the ancient Soothra people.”
“The Soothra people?” the professor exclaimed, eyes aghast. “Why… they’re the ones who invented the Inexistable Calculus of the Circumaudient Void, aren’t they?”
Cato grinned, nodding.
“You filth!” the professor shrieked. “How dare you! That wasn’t in the plans.”
Just then, the walls of the underground temple began to glow hot orange and the temple shook.
“We’ve, we’ve got to run!” the professor said, mustache twitching. “Quick!”
Cato’s eyes darted to the entrance.
“I shall find your chalice. Farewell and I will see you soon, fools,” the reptilian creature cried out, fading into the black. The temple continued to shake as the professor stumbled out, coughing as he passed through the last wisps of the burned out incense.
Cato moved to join him, but he made one detour: he went and grabbed that damn snake. It took to his hold without issue. Cato then he went to run out of the temple, seeking the light of day.
“That was disgusting!” the professor shouted, dusting himself off. “Simply disgusting!”
“I don’t know,” Cato said as they settled outside. “Maybe it’ll all work out.” It definitely would, but he was not going to try to tell the professor that.
The professor glared at him. “Maybe if you weren’t such a doofus, we-“
Just then, the ground began to open up, silencing the two.
“Good grief!” the professor gasped.
The subterranean temple was mostly below ground to begin with, but the ground lurched, causing more of its insides to heave upward and onto the surface. Cato, snake curling tight around his arm, stepped back carefully. He hesitated for a moment then decided: he grabbed the professor and jerked him back too.
The temple screamed out and then plummeted back down, pancaking itself against the clearing of the jungle it had occupied. Chunks of decorative, carved stone were hacked up into the air by the collapsed structure—luckily, though, none of those stones hit either of them.
One of them rolled right before them—a grimacing stone portrait of the reptilian being they had just courted.
The professor stared at the stone, bound to the ground. His mustache shivered.
“Well isn’t that lovely!” he said, sarcastically. He sighed. He looked to his student: “Are you alright?”
The shock from all that hectic movement faded from him. “I’m fine,” Cato said, standing up. “But where did my snake go?” He looked at his arm. It was snakeless! When did that happen?
Cato spun around, looking for the snake. He soon noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, something flickering at the beginning of the proper jungle.
Well, they had to head that way, anyway…they could not stay here forever.
So Cato headed towards the jungle.
“Not yet!” the professor shouted. He chased after Cato. But Cato continued on. “That fool!” the professor fumed, muttering to himself. “He’ll be the death of me. I know it!”
But just as Cato breached the edge of the jungle, a plethora of snakes slithered out from random dark corners, hissing.
“See!” the professor cried out. “You ought to have just waited.”
“It’ll be fine,” Cato said with a scoff as his eyes locked onto his snake. He stretched his arm out, beckoning it forward.
The snake stared at Cato, defiantly.
“C’mon,” Cato said. “You know the routine!”
Cato moved his hand closer. The professor raised an eyebrow.
“C’mon snake!” Cato said, reassuringly. “It’ll be okay…”
The snake hissed and then relented. It slithered up his arm and Cato rose up, snake atop him. The professor scoffed.
The other snakes that were staring at them hissed one last time before fading into the dark.
“See? It’s fine,” Cato said.
The professor shook his head. “Well,” he said, changing the subject, “we’re in a right proper mess again, aren’t we? What in the devil are we supposed to do now?”
He sighed, then reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a small, silver flask with a beagle emblazoned upon the front. He popped the top, then took a swig.
“Are you drinking again?!” Cato asked, annoyedly. The snake hissed.
“Don’t worry,” the professor said, smacking his lips. “It’s boba tea. Don’t get your tendrils in a jumble, now!” He waggled the flask at him and then put it away.
Cato rolled his eyes. He surveyed the ruins.
Cato started to say: “I think we need to-“
But before he could say another word, a loud whoosh rang out. The two men froze, looking at each other.
They then turned to look at the reptilian being that re-appeared before them, burrowing out from the disturbed earth that once housed the temple. It stared at them, smirked, then spit up a massive, bejeweled chalice. The Grand Chalice of the ancient Soothra people, in fact. It was a bit taller than Cato and shone with the glimmer of the void itself.
“I have returned, quick as lightning, with that which you had requested,” the being said. “There were many tasty things accompanying it. I will keep those to myself.” It grinned at them—showing its large, glittering teeth and then shifted to the side, giving them easy access to the entire chalice.
“Thank you for your service,” Cato said, bowing, as the professor growled. The snake hissed softly, now circled on his arm.
“Well,” the professor said. “I guess we should start inspecting this thing.”
Cato nodded and stepped forward. “Do you have any pliers?”
“What in the devil would I need pliers for?!” the professor shouted.
The snake circled around Cato’s arm stared at him. It hissed again, directing its ire at Felix.
“Don’t you hiss at me,” the professor sneered. “I’ll turn you into a wallet!”
“Don’t be mean,” Cato chided. He pet the snake to soothe it. “Anyway. You don’t need pliers—I need pliers.”
The professor sighed. “Pray tell, why do you need pliers?”
“How else am I going to remove these gems?” Cato asked, as though was obvious. He pointed to the gems that decorated the Grand Chalice—the true treasure of it.
“Of course I don’t have pliers!” the professor exclaimed, his face pink with frustration. “This… this is the worst expedition ever!”
The great reptilian creature snickered. “Foolish mortals, arguing over a simple chalice. I’d offer to help, but I don’t have any pliers, either.”
Cato sighed. He looked at the chalice, annoyed. “Well, how are we going to get the gems off?” he wondered aloud. Here he was, so close to what he wanted, and such a simple thing prevented him from getting it!
“Do you really need to even do that here?” the professor asked. The snake glared at him. He glared back.
Cato rose up and stared at the professor. “Where else would we do it? Are you going to carry it all the way back to the University?” He stood next to the chalice, the top of his head at the same level as the lip of the giant cup.
The professor stared at the chalice, deep in thought. He reached up to one of the gems, pinching it with his fingers. “I’ll have you know, Cato, that was the top ranked pincher in my days at the Academy…”
“Pincher?” Cato exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“They didn’t let us do boxing or fencing,” the professor said, struggling with the gem, “due to the head injuries and too many fencers getting their noses lopped off. So they switched to pinch fights. I was the grant champ, three years in a row.”
“Pinch fights?” Cato laughed. “That’s… dumb.”
The professor was getting upset. He pinched the gem harder. “Dumb, you say? You couldn’t last half a round with me in the pinch ring.”
Cato laughed harder, barely containing himself. “I’m picturing you and some other poor fellow pinching at each other in the ring. Like a couple of crabs!”
The reptilian being snorted at their back and forth.
“Shut up!” the professor shouted at both of them. “I’m trying to concentrate!”
The professor kept pinching hard against one of the gems—a medium sized one that had a swirly blue pattern. He kept switching his position to get a better grip when Cato quipped:
“Back in the Academy…when was that? Two hundred years ago?” Cato laughed at his own jibe.
The professor growled and pinched harder than he ever had before. The gem popped out, plopping onto the ground. The spot that it once occupied on the Chalice began to swiftly ooze a black slime.
“Ick,” the reptilian creature said. “What a revolting odor.”
Despite the pungent smell wafting from the slime, the professor drew closer and asked: “Does anyone have a vial?”
“No,” Cato answered as he pocketed the gem casually.
The professor shook his head. “I’ll have to use my sandwich baggie, then. Good lord, will we ever come prepared on these endeavors?”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out the sandwich baggie.
“Is that…sanitary?” Cato asked. Definitely did not seem scientifically sound…
“It’s fine,” the professor said. “It was just peanut butter and jelly.”
“What kind of jelly?” Cato asked.
“Does it matter?” The professor sounded exhausted.
Cato hummed. “Maybe.”
“Apricot,” he answered with a grit in his voice.
“Apricot is disgusting,” the creature opined. The professor and Cato bristled at his low voice. The rumbling from it almost made the professor drop his baggie. “I despise the color.”
“I prefer grape, myself,” Cato said.
“Strawberry is superior. It is nearest to the color of blood,” the being spoke.
“What about pepper jelly, though?” Cato pointed out. “Seems like that would be even better in both color and taste.”
The creature remained silent, eyes closed—contemplating Cato’s point.
As that back and forth occurred, the professor carefully scrapped the ooze into his baggie with his pen. He had to shake the pen to get every bit of goo into the bag.
“All done,” he reported.
“Do you have any more use for this chalice?” the creature asked.
“Not at this time, feel free to keep it,” the professor said.
The large lizard-like being smirked and coiled around the chalice before Cato could object. And so the chalice and the creature became fused together—though, the creature was absorbing it bit by bit, growing gradually in size.
“Come along now, apprentice, we must study our findings!” the professor shouted. “Back to the University!” He shuffled towards the jungle and took off, giving Cato no time to respond.
Cato huffed, snake still coiled his arm, and followed tentatively. He glanced back to the chalice that was actively being consumed by the creature they had summoned. He would have more uses for that creature, but those would come in due time…
For now Cato palmed the gem in his pocket and bid his time. At least he had made a new friend…
The snake hissed in agreement.