Magorian

Rising Action!

Ch. : Video Killed the Fanfiction Star

The centaurs approached the man and the cave cautiously, as he was the first living thing they had seen besides the Amish in the great big desert. They hadn't seen any wombats or flying foxes or kangaroos or duck-billed platypi or spiny echidnas or tumbleweed anywhere! And Crocodile Dundee, Magorian was disappointed to find out, was just over three inches shorter than him! (The centaur was heartbroken to discover this, and bolted away in tears before Sinistra could ask for directions. The only thing in this wasteland, they concluded, was sun, sand, and more sun.

So there wasn't much evidence that the toothless old man really wasn't just a mirage. He might even have been a shapeshifter, thought Magorian, in a frightening train of logic.

Best not get too close- He might turn into a giant throwing star and slice us in half! He could morph into a firebreathing hellbeast from most lawless depths of hell and devour us in one fell swoop! Or even worse... he could turn into Cher!

When they did come to the cave entrance barricade, it was the toothless old man who talked first. He wasn't much to look at. His white hair seemed never to have been cut, for it reached the barren desert floor (oddly enough, he didn't have any facial hair). He was fully barefoot and dressed in grey rags. He had a gnarled-wood cane at his side to support himself with. (Keeping an eye out for intruders 24/7 could get tiresome after a while, especially alone in the desert without food or drink.)

"What dost thou seek? What hast thou sought? What will thou find?" he said rather cryptically in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

"Greetings. I am Magorian of Styjikuhler Forest. We seek the tribe of female centaurs that is said to reside in this region. Can you help us, stranger?" responded Magorian a bit uncomfortably as the old man's stare was relentlessly fixed on him.

"I will help you if you are deemed worthy. Will you walk through the Carnal Tunnel, over the Pits of Despair and across the Passage of Woe, the Roads of Infinite Evil and the Pass of No Return to reach the Hall of Nightmarish Perdition and get me the Brooch of the Damned?"

"Hells no!" said Magorian. Then he thought, The Savant must've been playing at least one too many RPGs recently, unwillingly foreshadowing what was going to happen in the chapter later on.

"Good, because you won't have to do any of that! Just get to the end of this cave and back- with adequate proof- and I'll tell you anything you want."

Sinistra gave out a sigh of relief as the old man open the barricade. She and Magorian proceeded to try and enter the cave until he stopped them.

"Wait! I almost forgot!" He cleared his throat and resumed his early Modern English mode. "Before a mortal can enter the Cave of Comparative Decentness, you must answer MINE these questions NINE!"

They just stood there, dumbfounded.

"Er... I don't get it," said Sinistra.

"Me neither."

"C'mon, that's an obvious Monty Python and the Holy Grail joke!" said the old man. "Don't tell me you've never seen that movie."

All he got were vacant stares.

"[sigh] Young whippersnappers don't know true cinema. You're probably still hopped up on new-fangled rubbish like 'Kool-Aid' or 'surfing' or 'hygiene in medicine' or 'opposable thumbs' or all that other new nonsense. Ah well. Now I shall test thee with these nine questions. Answer them correctly and I shall allow you to pass. Any one of you can answer. Standard procedure."

Question 1: What is your name?"

"Magorian."

"What is your quest?"

"To seek a female tribe of centaurs," Sinistra was glad Magorian answered that one too.

"What is your favorite color?"

"The one I created. I call it Ejacutrops."

"What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

After a moment of quiet speculation, Magorian chose to answer "43 wingbeats a second." Incredibly, he guessed correctly.

"What is the Capital of Assyria?"

"Nineveh," answered Sinistra.

"Whoa. Didn't think you'd get that one right. The Assyria question usually stumps anyone who gets past the swallow question. Now I actually have to think of the last four questions. Erm... ooh, I know! How many muscles are there in the human ear?"

"Six," answered Sinistra again.

"How many inches shorter than that centaur is Crocodile Dundee?"

"Just over three."

"You think you're so smart. Let's see you get this one right. How many icebergs are there in the world?"

"Approximately 320,000."

"I don't even know if that's right," realized the old man, "but I'll assume it is. Alright, let me think of the last question. Ooh, I've got the perfect one! It's a riddle; try to solve it!"

In multitudes I doth destroy
In installments I doth nourish
The great ancient civilizations
lived next to me to flourish.
I stamp out heat and deliver cold
Devour salt and living breath
Harbor creatures of antiquity
Yet few who linger in me escape death
I cleavage rock and disperse sand
Metal too will rust and rot
Though precious as I am,
live without me one cannot
What am I?"

"Hmm... it destroys and nourishes... it devours salt... and rusts metal? Water," answered Sinistra yet again.

"Dammit! Well, I'm out of questions. In you go." And he allowed them to enter the Cave of Comparative Decentness.

It was... well... pretty boring, to say the least. It was just as devoid of life as the desert outside. Nor blind worm nor strand of bacteria could be seen in its crystalline depths. If you could call them depths, seeing as how the cave was actually quite small and not as long as the outside feigned it would be. So they reached a dead end in about fifteen seconds, picked up a shell, and turned about face to leave.

Until, that is, the shell grew and turned into a giant monster.

Instantly, the story turned into an RPG with a turn-based battle system.

SHELL-SHOCKER appeared!
[Cue boss battle music from video game of your choice.]

Magorian: That was unexpected.

Sinistra: EEK! What the hell is that thing?

Magorian: A boss.

Sinistra: A what?

Magorian: A boss is a big thing you have to fight in video games to proceed with the rest of the game.

Sinistra: How do you know that?

Magorian: Oh, I'm quite well acquainted with video games. I wasn't the Tekken 2 champion of '99 for nothing you know.

Sinistra: But this is 1996.

Magorian: Whoops, I let out more foreshadowing. Sorry, not supposed to do that. Anyway, you see this spotlight shining on me? That means it's my turn to attack. Attacking lowers the enemy's HP. If it reaches 0, we win. And usually get some good equipment or item for some reason.

Sinistra: So the... Shell-Shocker... what a stupid name... can't attack because it isn't its turn yet? And after your turn ends, it becomes mine, then his?

Magorian: Yep.

Sinistra: Isn't that a little illogical? I mean, it's just sitting there, doing nothing, waiting for us to attack it.

Magorian: Shh. Logic is scary. Let's see what I have in my moves list. I hope I get some mega-gnarly-sounding attacks like Swift Fiery Hand of Death or Divine Flame Blast!
------------------
0 AP Horsekick
15 AP Dropkick
---------------------------
Great. That's the best The Savant could come up with. Hopefully my stats are good.
-----------------
HP: 1
AP: -12
----------------
What!!?? My stats are crap! It must be some glitch! How can I have negative action points?

Sinistra: What are action points?

Magorian: Points needed to make attacks.

Sinistra: Yes... that does seem like quite a pickle. Oh well, try your best.

Magorian: [sigh] Horsekick.

Shell-Shocker takes no damage. It laughs at your pathetic-ness. In fact, it kills you by looking at you.
Magorian fainted

[spotlight on Sinistra]

Magorian: WHAT!? Someone must have stuck a Gameshark into this fic!

Sinistra: Guess it's my turn.
----------
0 AP Move That Revives All Party Members, Amplifies Their Stats AND Deals Massive Damage to All Opponents
1 AP Get a Fruit Smoothy, on the House
------------
HP: Googolplex
AP: Like, infinity
-------------

Sinistra: I use my--

Shell-Shocker instantly faints due to character's total awesomeness. Item "Proof That They Went to the End of the Cave" acquired. Sinistra gets 30,000 Exp. Magorian LOSES 3 Exp.

Sinistra: Video games are fun!

Magorian: I vow never to touch one again. That match was obviously rigged.

Sinistra: Maybe you just can't accept that a girl is better than you at something.

Magorian: I had 1 life!

Sinistra: I can't wait to play Tekken 2 now. [snickers]
[Magorian mumbles as they double back and find the old man.]

Magorian: Here's your shell. Now tell me where to find what I seek.

Old man: Ooh... shiny...

Magorian: Old man?

Old man: [Whispering to shell] What price will you fetch on the black market, you pretty little thing?

Magorian: [waves his hand over old man's eyes] Hello?

Old man: [snaps out of it] Oh, yes, sorry- It's forty-nine paces to your left and eighty paces southeast. Off you go then! [He disappears in a plume of flame, and echoes of phobia of caves and shell monsters, and impending riches could be heard in his wake.]

So, they went forty-nine paces to the left and eighty paces southeast and found in the sand... a leafblower.

Magorian picked it up and proceeded to shake it, as if hoping to hear a female centaur rattling inside. Needless to say, nothing happened.

"What the hell? I don't want this thing!" Magorian's frustration increased to the point where he looked frightening.

Then, in a rather convenient and random plot twist, Dumbledore Apparated before them, struggling to catch his breath. (It was almost as if the author didn't know where to go with this storyline anymore.)

"Ma- Magorian! There you are. How on Earth did you get to Australia?"

"I walked," replied Magorian.

"What? How could you have--never mind. Listen- a dark wizard named Oigroig has taken my students hostage and promised he would kill them all unless I bring you to him."

"A dark wizard- named Oigroig?" asked Sinistra. Then both centaurs let out raucous peels of laughter. "Who in their sane state of being would name their kid Oigroig?"

"Can't you just vaporize the guy with your Jedi mind tricks like you always do, Dumbledore?" asked Magorian.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't have the Force!?" yelled Dumbledore. Then he resumed his normal collected voice. "Apparently, I lose my powers every seventh and eighth chapter of a story that starts with an 'M'."

The centaurs just raised their eyebrows.

"Aberforth put that curse on me in wizarding kindergarten over an argument over the average life expectancy of capybaras," he added, answering their unasked question.

"So, how are we getting there, Headmaster?" said his former colleague.

"Via portkey, of course," said Dumbledore as he produced a worn out old Chocolate Frog card (Elvira). They all stuck out a finger to touch it and Dumbledore counted to three.

"Five..."

"Three," corrected Magorian

"Right, three... two... one..."

And, with a pop and a violent swirl of magical color that could make Motm proud, they teleported to Hogwarts.

Ch. 8: Can't Wait for Chapter Nine

Magorian wasn't sure he liked portkeys much. All those spinning colors were beginning to make him nauseous. The in-flight movie was a foreign independent flick about the lemon curry industry, and he couldn't quite understand it, even with the subtitles (he was following along pretty well until the flamingos showed up). The food was atrocious- he wasn't sure if it was actually edible or softened plastic. The way it smelled convinced him it was really just landfill refuse. The chairs were extremely uncomfortable, especially for him, and the obnoxious French lady in back of him wasn't bothering to get her baby to shut up.

Magorian was sure he could handle local portkey travel, but he knew intercontinental portkey travel grew exponentially in time as the distance between the two points lengthened. He just wished he had some real entertainment to keep him amused, like watching bears dance or scaring little children with his spear. Twiddling with a piece of lint could only hold his interest for so long, after all. A glance at Dumbledore's twelve-handed watch told him that he was still only nearing the half-way point.

The centaur was just about to stuff the lint into the baby's mouth when something happened to the passenger next to him. All of a sudden, Sinistra began to shine, and the spinning tye-dye ground started to ripple. Magorian would have thought she was turning Supersaiyan if he didn't know better. Her horse half began to shrink and transform until she was a normal human again.

"Albus, the spell wore off." she said.

"Good- we couldn't have two centaur teachers! Not that there's anything wrong about being a centaur, Magorian." said Dumbledore, turning to him.

What Dumbledore saw was Magorian's jaw dropped to the very extent it could go. He realized he would have to explain what just occurred in a gentle, non-judgmental way.

"Magorian, you idiot, didn't you ever realize she wasn't a real centaur!? Whoops, that came out wrong..."

"I feel so used," replied Magorian.

"C'mon, Magorian, don't feel bad. It isn't your fault you couldn't tell. It was The Savant's. The sadist is just using you as a pawn to wantonly accrue more and more reviews for his own sick purposes," said Sinistra.

"Still, I should have known. Now that I think about it, there have been a lot of clues. Like when you didn't know where to defecate, and when you couldn't shoot a sparrow out of a tree."

"Using a bow is a lot harder than it seems, Professor," said the Astronomy teacher to Dumbledore.

Magorian tried to shrug this revelation off by doing a crossword puzzle. Unfortunately, it was a very hard crossword puzzle. The only clue he think he knew the answer to was 37 Across. Dammit! I know I know this one! What's a four-letter word for a David Bowie song? Jean? No, that was Jean Genie... Changes is seven letters... Definitely not Ziggy Stardust...

After a few more hours of staring into space, delving into the recesses of his mind to come up with the appropriate four-letter song title, the Elvira card suddenly dropped out of its magical axis and the colors vanished. The trio found themselves 30 feet in the air, and were falling rapidly towards what looked like a field. Sinistra landed on her feet, Magorian on his knees and Dumbledore on his buttocks ("Ow! Dammit, I already had cramps!") They were finally on the smooth grassy lawn of the Hogwarts grounds.

Magorian quickly stood up and let out his famed summoning call. Before the others could question him, a bear sprinted out of the forest and stopped near the centaur, panting in exhaustion.

"Oh, Ganglia, I missed you so much!" he laughed, scratching behind the bear's ears and feeding it a bit of ferret carcass he found in his saddlebag.

Dumbledore was not making the fact that he was impatient very subtle. "Quickly, chieftain, we must go quickly! Who knows what Oigroig could be doing to my students right now!"

Magorian and Sinistra tried to restrain their laughter, but it was no use.

"This is no time to laugh! We must save the children from Oigroig as soon as possible!"

"But how can someone named Oigroig possibly be a threat?" giggled Sinistra.

"Don't be fooled by his clownish name, Sinistra, he is quite a force to be reckoned with." Dumbledore sighed, realizing this was the point of the chapter where he had to divulge the main antagonist's history. "It all started when he was born a Squib. Out of resentment, his witch mother gave him a really awful name. All the kids his age made relentless fun of him, and he grew to abhor those blessed with better names. By about a week ago, his fortieth birthday, he had saved up enough money to but a dingy little semi-roofless apartment he calls his lair next to a science fiction paraphernalia store. Ever since then, he has been plotting world domination and the death of all people with decent monikers."

"If he's a Squib, then how did he obtain so much power?" asked Sinistra.

"I'm afraid that is as far as my knowledge of the matter goes, Sinistra. I suppose it's a plot hole. Enough dawdling!" Dumbledore interrupted himself. "We must save the school!"

"And we save the school by forking me over to him?" interjected Magorian.

"In a matter of speaking, yes."

"Great. I just blew a chance to get a harem to be sacrificed. What does he want with me anyway?"

"I have no idea, Magorian. Are you always this selfish? You're one person, and there are an as of yet undetermined number of children in there! (Even though there have been many fine essays on the issue.") Dumbledore said, pointing across the lake to the castle. Then he checked his watch. "We must ride, posthaste! It's already night!"

Sinistra rolled her eyes and addressed Magorian. "It's supposed to be night, seeing as how it was day in Australia."

And with that, they both mounted Magorian and rode off to the front gates. Once they neared it, they noticed something strange about the castle, but couldn't quite put their fingers on it. Their pairs of eyes scoured the castle for anything peculiar that might be on its ancient walls. It was Dumbledore who spotted the anomaly first; it made him regress his steps a bit and gasp.

"What is it, Professor, sir?" asked an alarmed Sinistra.

"L-look at the s-sign!" Dumbledore stammered in horror.

They did, and also gasped, for they too now spotted what was wrong with the castle. The sign that previously bore the inscription "Hogwarts" now read

strawgoH

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Sinistra. "They've turned the castle backwards!"

Every turret and buttress was now on the wrong side of the building.

"Who knows what he did to the interior of my school?!" yelled the old man.

"C'mon, Dumbledore, don't worry. We'll let Ganglia go inside first and test the water," said Magorian. When they did so, and Ganglia came back fine, they dared to open the tall oak doors and enter the Great Hall.

As they closed the large oak doors behind them and looked around, they were relieved. The only thing that seemed to have changed, the expected position reversal, was negligible, because everything in the Great Hall was perfectly symmetrical. Glad not to be blockaded by a surprise obstacle, they ran straight towards the end of the hall, not knowing really where to go and letting their feet do the decisions for them.

They were lucky, for what awaited them at the end of the lengthy hallway was exactly what they need to see. Wavering green text was written on the dead-end wall.

Bring the one named "Magorian" to me by eight o'clock tonight, it read. I simply refuse to have my tea any later. Bring him to me by then, Dumbledore, or I'll incinerate all your precious pupils. I'm at the top of the North Tower.

"What time is it?" panicked Sinistra.

Dumbledore checked his watch for the eighty-eigth time that day (it was now on his other arm), and his eyes popped out. 7:53. "I knew we shouldn't have wasted all that time outside! I swear, the only time you two ever engage in intelligent conversation is when we have no time to do it in! How are we ever going to get there on time?"

"I think I know a way," said Magorian. He rummaged through his saddlebag and took out a rubber ducky.

Dumbledore adjusted his half-moon glasses and squinted his eyes to make sure his vision wasn't tricking him. "How is a... rubber ducky... going to help us?"

"Well, Dumbledore, you're the headmaster, so you should know," he said cryptically.

Dumbledore looked puzzled for a second, and then the light of comprehension filled his eyes with their patented sparkle. "Ah, of course! I'm sorry, chieftain. You must understand, I've been headmaster for more than fifty years and it isn't difficult to forget about such obscure, seemingly unimportant things such as these. Nevertheless, I should have remembered that waving a plastic yellow idol in the Great Hall on a night of the waning gibbous moon opens a secret passageway to the North Tower!"

"Wow, how... convenient," said Sinistra. "Well, you'd better hurry, because it's already 7:95." (Wizarding time is metric.)

Magorian waved the ducky, and the bricks of the wall to his left (it was normally the bricks of the wall to his right) opened up and revealed a corridor with three bright blue Toyota rocket-cars. They took a second to admire their all-wheel drive and GPS/Onstar capabilities before they drove up the winding slope up the North Tower. (Magorian had to sit on the hood and maneuver the steering wheel with his arms to his back.) When they finally got to the floor hatch and crawled out of it, they saw something very different from what they were expecting to see.

Oigroig could be seen with a baseball bat in his hands, in a circle with all the children he was taking hostage, and four or five students was tied up in the middle of the ring, moaning through their gag and struggling against their bonds.

"C'mon, who wants to play 'Pummel the Dean Thomas' next?" yelled Oigroig to the circle. All of the kids soon raised their hands on stood on tiptoes, not in the least bit reluctant to be the one he picked next.

"Me! Me! Pick me!"
"No, me!"
"I wanna do it!"
"You already had a go, Zabini, it's my turn!"
"Please, sir, my name is Orla Quirke. I want to be the next one to smash him!"
Oigroig gave the bat to a grateful Orla, who immediately commenced to pound on the poor kid named Dean Thomas.

"What is going on?! What is this madness?!" exclaimed Albus, causing Oigroig to turn around.

"Ah, so you've come after all," Oigroig drawled. "You really needn't have- it turns out most of your students are exceedingly eager to join my cause. I wouldn't blame them if I were you. If your name was Draco Malfoy or Euan Abercrombie or any of the other names these undeserving human beings have been afflicted with, wouldn't you be just as unrelenting towards those endowed with normal names as they are right now?. I mean, seriously, would you rather be named 'Hermione Granger' or something normal like Hannah Abbot or Seamus Finnigan? I personally believe that it's good to let them vent like this."

"I'm sorry about this, Harry. But not really!" said Hermione as she stepped out of the ring and clubbed her immobilized friend a few times. Many others stepped out with her and began to bludgeon those with considerably better names than them, totally disregarding the presence of their principal.

"Enough!" screamed Dumbledore. He Gandalf-ishly smote the ground for effect. "Now, I don't exactly have the most regular name either, but you don't see me ever destroying people named 'Mark Evans' or slaughtering a town full of 'Browns', do you? Have you no self-control? You should all be ashamed of yourselves!"

"Shut up, Albus, you're not EVIL like I am. If I weren't EVIL, this fic wouldn't be very interesting," responded Oigroig.

"It still isn't interesting, sir. I've read fertilizer salesman handbooks that were more exciting than this rubbish," said Malfoy.

"Oh, excellent comeback, Draco, excellent! Draco Malfoy is one of many of my new followers, Albus, and I daresay that not even another one of your ickle speeches can twist their allegiance now. Especially now that I've become the height of cool buying a new Toyota (TM) Highlander EXE, with power windows and deluxe braking, maximized to give you perfect handling in the most rugged terrain."

Now, on to business. I came here to kill a centaur named Magorian. Are you Magorian?"

"Erm... maybe?" said Magorian.

"Good, good, Magorian is here. Which leaves one thing to do," uttered the villain. He lifted his cloak and revealed what was under it. Every inch of his shirt was embedded with a black cartridge that had a shark's silhouette on it. His entire upper body was riddled with Gamesharks!

That explains why he got so powerful, said the author from his laptop. And why Magorian was so weak during the battle last chapter.

"Ooooooooooh," said everyone.

"Yes, it's true!" roared Oigroig triumphantly. "I've got every code on me: infinite health, infinite ammo, infinite lives, all cheats and secrets unlocked, the works. You name the code, I've got it on me on one of these Gamesharks."

"That's hardly fair. I haven't got a chance against someone like you," said Magorian.

"You're right, it wouldn't be fair. That is, if we were in a fighting game or something. But I have something very different in mind. Very different indeed."

Oigroig and his main goons (Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom) all began to cackle evilly.

"Mwahaha! MWAHAHAHAHA! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" they cackled evilly.

Fame! That was what the answer to 37 Across was! thought Magorian.

"Man, I really can't wait for Chapter 9. Yep, Chapter 9 would be really swell right now," said Dumbledore, winking at the computer monitor in the sky.

"Psst. That's your cue to end the chapter on a cliffhanger," said Sinistra.

Oh, right.