Open Chronicles Dumb Ways To Die

[Harrier]

NORTH ABERRESAI SAVANNAH - THE COAST

I stared at the portal stone, and the portal stone stared back.

I'd used one before, of course. I'd made and sold portal keys - what serious magician hasn't? In another life, I'd even written a scroll on the linguistics of the whispers some claim to hear while traveling by portal. But for all that familiarity, what I was about to do set me on edge.

"Excuse me, miss, are you in line?"

There wasn't a line, just me and my wagon, and one other wagon that had just pulled up. I eyed the dwarven wagoneer. "No. Go ahead."

Several roads converged here. He pulled his wagon around mine with a nod. He'd built it small, round, and high-wheeled; it just barely fit in the circle of charred rock, and the portal stone almost brushed the wagon's keel. He and his small donkey squeezed under the wagon too. A moment later, he, the donkey, and the odd wagon had vanished.

Dwarves.

With a chuckle, I started unpacking my equipment. A barnacle-encrusted skeleton from Black Bay helped me out. I wasn't meaning to obstruct traffic, even though this set of experiments would take a while to set up.

 

[Harrier]

No doubt about it, these are the kinds of experiments that get archmages killed. I took my time setting up, checking everything. I'd brought minimal apparatus for each test, but I'd also brought any kind of protective measure that might be relevant. The College of Maesters and my better judgment would have dismissed most of it as superstitious, unproven pseudomagic, but today I felt like hedging my bets. Besides, I had all that junk on hand anyway - it sells like hotcakes.

Last of all, I set up ink, paper, and a possessed jade pen that started writing by itself. "Take this down, al-Kaateb," I said. "Commentate as you see fit."

The pen skritched helpfully. I use al-Kaateb for his knowledge, but it's not often I give him an opportunity to learn something truly new.

"The rune that the Maesters call queth is tied to a story of a mage who used it and returned soaking wet, claiming its portal stone was at the bottom of the ocean. I doubt that - the deeper one goes in water, the more crushing the weight - but he might have had appropriate wards and so forth. Deep underwater, in salt water, is certainly plausible. Supplies: one sealed bag of air. One length of cord. One block of oak, sturdy and prone to float, with a hole bored to the centre. One large cork. One nail. One disposable skeleton. One undead rat. One undead songbird possessed by the compelled spirit of a man who displeased me severely."

Skritch, skritch.

"I place the bird in the hole, tail first, then cotton wadding, then the rat, tail first. Then the cork, hammered tight. Please retroactively list the hammer. I nail one end of the rope to the block on the opposite side of the hole, tie the rope to the sealed bladder, and place the block beside the portal stone, cork side down. I command the skeleton to activate the portal stone by the means I have prepared."

All of the above vanished: the skeleton to crushing doom and release, the rat to gnaw through the cork before joining the skeleton in crushing doom and release, and the songbird to fly back to me once the block reached the surface.

Science is a beautiful thing.