As I escorted my new guests back to my tower, I scowled hard at the street ahead. My coat flapped behind me, slapping at the air as though just as outraged as I was.
What kind of twisted mind would cast a curse which teleported an innocent young woman's underwear into the pockets of somebody nearby?
Curses were usually annoying. Sometimes painful. They could cripple, maim, or slowly suck the life out of someone until they were a dead husk.
But to humiliate like this?
This spoke of a kind of deviancy rarely seen in even the most mookiest of mooks.
Snarling up at the heavens, I vowed to find the mook behind these wicked curses. Find them and fling them into the many-mawed monstrosity within the void to chomp and chew upon their souls for the rest of eternity.
"Mister Taran?" Poppy's voice called nervously.
I blinked, remembering my guests. They must have thought me mad as I waved my arms and shouted at the sky. Hopefully they wouldn't bring it up in future.
"Yes?"
"Umm, aren't we getting a little close to the Evil Tower of Wistandantilon?"
"What?" I stopped, staring at her in confusion. "Evil Tower of what?"
"Wistandantilon?"
"Never heard of it," I said, looking around for a street sign to tell me where it was.
She pointed at a dark tower which loomed above the surrounding buildings.
Its pointed roof speared towards the sky, clad in dark tiles which looked to suck the light out of the air around it. Even in daytime.
The windows were thin slits. Some were lit with warm light, but most stared with malevolent gazes into the city. Unblinking. Depthless. Eternally dark.
Thick black mist crawled up its dark stone walls like inky tentacles which reminded me of the Old Twit's. Come to think of it, that's exactly what they looked like.
I scratched my head.
Had I accidentally opened more portals than I could recall?
"That's not the Evil Tower of Whatever You Said," I told her. "That's mine. And it's a lot nicer on the inside. I just leave it like that because it stops people from knocking on the door! Come along."
"But we were told to stay away from it because it would make our curses even worse!"
"What?" I had never heard such blatant twaddle. "How can a tower make a curse worse?"
Clover looked at me like I should know the answer to that. "Because it's evil?"
"It's not evil," I said. "I told you. It's mine. Perhaps it needs some dusting. And there's a few curtains missing in most of the rooms. But that doesn't mean it's evil. And it certainly can't make your curses any worse. Honestly, who's putting such rubbish into your heads?"
"Our teacher."
"At the Mage Guild?" I shook my head in disgust. "A teacher is teaching students that curses can be amplified simply by approaching my tower? Ridiculous. I see the Head and I have plenty to discuss tomorrow. I will have to ask Mudge to make extra biscuits. It will be a long meeting."
"If you're Mister Taran, who is Wistandantilon?"
"No idea. Never heard of him." I shrugged. Then cocked my head as something occurred. "But the emperor may have mentioned him. I wasn't listening."
Violet gasped. "You've met the EMPEROR?"
"Yes," I said, tightening my lips. "We have met. HE is NOT a gentleman, and that's all I will say on the subject. I mean, honestly. Scania? Bah!"
With that, I stalked angrily towards my tower, my head filled with memories I didn't like. Mostly that I regretted not punting the odious little man into the void where he belonged.
I felt the Old Twit give a heavy and oppressive nod of agreement.
"Stupid Scania," I muttered. "And a pox on the Imperial line."
"Mister Taran!" Poppy spluttered. "You can't say that about the emperor!"
"Can't I? Why not?"
"You'll get into trouble! The guards won't like it. And the Duke definitely wouldn't."
I tried to remember if I'd met the duke. I had a vague memory of a fat man in a chair and a widening yellow puddle around his feet.
"Ugh," I winced, remembering the awful smell. He ate asparagus. A lot of it. "Let's forget about that, shall we?"
"It would be for the best," Clover agreed, looking into the shadows as though expecting imperial guards to leap out of the shadows. Poor girl. I felt like the three of them had been through so much that they felt everything was persecuting them.
"And my name," I called, suddenly remembering something else. "Is Taran. Not Mister Taran. Or Missus Taran. Or Papa, Mama, or Uncle Taran. And definitely not Bro, Big Bro, or any other hideous thing like that. It's just Taran. I worked hard to avoid titles. Don't start throwing them at me now."
The lane leading to my tower was clean of trash.
It had to be.
Anyone putting their trash into my lane were immediately eaten.
Not by me. By my void cat. The creature hunted from the shadows, its tentacles lethal to anything with a pulse. Cockroaches, rats, or humans. It didn't matter. It was happy enough to eat anything.
I had found the creature during an adventure within the void. I believe I was collecting void crystals from a moon which orbited a dark black planet which orbited a dark black star. Odd planetary systems like that are the best places to find void crystals.
But also the best place to find Shoggoths.
Shoggoths are slumbering creatures who wake when they detect life around them. On waking, they shuffle around and attempt to end that life.
That life at the time being me.
I wasn't too excited about being ended and had been busy dicing them up with void magic and then dumping their bodyparts into the void. The Old Twit claimed to have a toothache at the time and needed me to cut up his food.
A void cat, abandoned and lost, had felt my spells and decided to attach itself to me.
Literally.
After peeling it off and teaching it to not try nipping off my limbs again, we sort of became acquaintances and it has followed me since.
Its name is No'dhulnyareth. Many worlds across many planes of existence have tales of his deeds. He is called the Destroyer of All.
He eats anything.
I call him Noodle.
At the end of the lane, a small bridge crossed over a wide moat which circled the tower. Filled with bubbling acid, the bright green glow from below cast eerie shadows and toxic fumes hissed like little ghosts from its boiling bowels.
It didn't smell nice, and the ladies covered their noses.
The little courtyard was clean, tidy, and had been swept very recently.
That was the work of my butler and housekeeper, Grimsby. The man was a lich, and I mean that literally. He'd transformed his body with the art of necromancy and was now unable to die.
He was also unable to sleep, so kept himself busy by indulging his own personal obsessive compulsive cleaning disorders. Hence the well-swept courtyard.
Without warning, I suddenly sprinted for the door, meaning to grab the handle and twist it to fling it open before-
The door whipped open just before my fingertips found the handle and a tall man with an immaculate suit and tie peered down his missing nose at me. His eyeless sockets glowed with cold blue light and he drew back the remaining skin of his cheeks into a calm but neutral smile.
"Welcome home, sir," Grimsby said. "I've taken the liberty of making up three rooms for your new guests."
I scowled at him. I don't know how he knew to do so. The man was like that. Too good at anticipating my requirements.
"Very good," I growled. "Thank you, Grimsby."
The three ladies scuttled up behind me, gathered into a tight little group as they stared up at my butler with a mix of horror and terror. An interesting mix which only made me want to scoop them into my arms and let them know just how hard I was going to work to protect them forever.
"Ladies," I said. "This is Grimsby. My butler. He's a good man. Mostly. Please, come on in."
"Sir," my butler smoothly moved aside and motioned towards the shoe racks positioned carefully by the door. "Ladies. Allow me to take your coats and shoes."
The girls entered.
The door closed behind them without Grimsby needed to push.
They stared into the dark shadowed entrance and then, as one, let out a scream which nearly burst my eardrums.