Ragnarok Fan Fiction ❯ MVP Anthology ❯ Phreeoni ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]
OK, I'm on a roll! This time... Phreeoni, possibly the strangest of the Boss Monsters...

The bard had been awake for hours, staring at the rising sun. A little boy was taking his family's laundry out to dry and noticed the traveller...

"What a strange man... All he does is tell stories and camp outside the Chieftan's house..."

Later that day, the people of Payon gathered once again to hear the bard's tales. This time, instead of a mandolin, the bard strummed on a tiny ukelele, an odd instrument to sing a story to. The bard smiled widely and hummed a few bars, then began his tale...

"Do you ever look up at the night sky and wonder, 'What is up there, out in the sky'? Do you see the moon and wonder what it is like? Do you ever think that maybe, up in the vast black-blueness of space, there could live something other than the gods of old?"

"This tale is strange, and possibly nothing more than an old wives-tale. But don't dismiss it as sheer fantasy... I'd like to think that someday I, too, can meet a beast from the heavens."

"Out in the desert town of Morroc, not all too long ago, something strange happened. A travelling sage observed a strange phenomena in the night sky; a luminous object fell from the heavens and crashed to the earth! Filled with the excitement of discovery, the Sage dashed out into the desert, taking with him rations for three days' field research. Upon arriving at the crash site, he realized, to his horror, that the object had crashed into a giant ant hill, one that the locals fondly referred to as 'Ant Hell'. Swallowing his fears in lieu of a great discovery, the sage pressed forward, his foodstuffs bundled tightly to his back..."

"Much to the scholar's suprise, the giant ants living in the hill ignored him completely. They were busy repairing the damages to their nest done by the giant object, which the sage noticed had come to rest about thirty yards from the pit's entrance. The sage seized the opportunity and began picking at a giant rock, most likely the object which had fallen. He noticed that it was hollow and crystallized, almost like a glass case...

"Suddenly, the sage felt something warm and slimy slap his back, and he turned around, much to his horror, to come face-to-face with a giant mouth and tongue. The monster owning these horrific features was like nothing the sage had ever seen, and his curiosity soon got the better of his terror. He realized that the beast had only been trying to eat the rations on his back, and he glady gave them to the gluttonous thing while at the same time luring it back to town."

"The people of Morroc were very frightened by the giant, grinning monstrosity that hopped into town that day. The thing flapped its rubber-like arms and gnashed its giant teeth, while its giant wet tongue wiggled about, tasting the air like a snake's... Upon seeing a cart of apples, the monster bowled the poor sage over and devoured the small wooden cart, wheels and all. This massive feast seemed only to whet its appetite; the monster went into a sort of berserker rage and devoured everything in sight, including a master armsmith's prized creation, a dagger which he swore to be lucky and which had cost him a fortune to create. The monster's hunger only grew, and it finally reached a point where the Royal Mage Academy had to be called in to subdue and imprison the beast back in Ant Hell, where it was theorized that the monster would devour the ants or be killed by their queen, solving at least one pest problem."

"Unfortunately, neither of these events ever occurred. Warriors and mercenaries have reported a strange beast wandering the caverns of Ant Hell smashing rocks with its giant flabby arms and then consuming them, all while gurgling and howling in a very disturbing fashion... And it is said that even the finest warrior in the land, weilding the legendary Balmung, was not able to slay the monster, or that it can regenerate after being slain... The good news, however, is that the armsmith's dagger, the Fortune Sword, was recovered."

With that, the bard produced a long golden dagger from his belt and bowed, and then retired for the day.
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