Another tidbit....

A short piece I wrote when I was thinking about doing a Daria - Dragonlance crossover

The parties continued into the night. The warriors ignored how the peasants hadn't lifted a finger to help, refused them all the permits that they needed, tripled the taxi fare rates within the city, and shorted their linen exchange. The battle was over. They were victorious. Any excuse for a party. And a chance to lift as many purses as possible from the hung over crowds. Greyhound was expensive and the remaining warriors wanted to leave first thing in the morning. They had already heard about the upcoming "Winning the War" tax that was going into effect in the morning.

The frail figure nearly tripped over the broken walkway. She rubbed her foot as she considered blasting the block into the 572nd layer of Hell but decided that it wasn't worth it. She had already blasted three rocks there just this week. The rocks never learned. She drew in her robes tighter around her as she resumed her travel towards the Tower.

Daria the Cynic kept one eye on the broken stones and another on the closed and run down shops that lined the street. It had to be because of the Tower. Daria knew that having Magi as neighbors was usually seen as a good thing by the community. Increase in property values. Better schools. Free lunch meat giveaways whenever an experiment went wrong. Towns used to fight over where the next Tower was to be built.

"No more," Daria mumbled as she lifted her head to look at her destination, the Tower of Cynicism. Years ago, there had been more of them. Some said a total of five had been constructed. Some said eleven. There were only three left now that she knew of. She had taken her test and been officially recognized as a Magi at the Trump Tower over in Jersey. There was also the London Tower. Most of the "old guard" resided at that one. Every couple of years, they had to tear it down and move it to a new location. The official excuse was to insure the protection of the last few remaining wizards and their work. What was probably more likely was one of the old gizers knocked up the daughter of a local official or they had tried to cash too many worthless checks and they had been run out of town.

Daria paused again as a shiver passed through her. She wrapped her black velvet cloak even tighter around her as she stood a distance from the gate. Lows in the sixties my ass she thought with a curse as the back of her hand brushed against the religious symbol of her alignment hanging from around her neck. The dead smiley face with a bullet hole in the forehead never stopped making people pull back in horror and disgust. It also marked herself as a worshipper of her god, Nixon, and the lesser god, Checkers. Her mind drifted back to when she was first growing up and how she had followed the ways of the more neutral god, Whatever, and the goddess, Whenever. She had then worn the rainbow colored robes with the peace sign around her neck. The symbol had hung heavily as no matter what she did, she never felt comfortable with that alignment. The local high Priest by the name of Trent had taken the words of their holy book to heart and held services where ever and whenever he felt like it. A small smirk appeared on her face when she had one day sneaked into the priest's chambers and found all four men fast asleep draped across the furniture when they should have been attending service. They never understood where all the bowls of warm water had come from.

Daria approached the gate. This tower had remained empty for centuries. They had closed it down after the local fast food places had gone out of business. The wizards, without a ready source of nourishment, had packed up in disgust. On the day they had left, the local townspeople had gathered drooling over their good fortune as they had already presold the tower to a developer who planned on turning it into a Jack in the Tower. The head wizard of the tower had just locked the front door, left the empty milk bottles on the stoop, and left a note for the newspaper delivery boy, when one of the wizards, not getting his way, had thrown himself out of out of the upmost windows and impaled himself on the fence, cursing the local townspeople as he died. Her gaze fell upon the remains of the wizard's black fabric impaled on the fence near by. She pulled at it, tearing it away from the fence. For a moment, she could almost hear the cursed wizard's voice on the wind. "I'm George W. and I approved this curse....."

The motion at the gate awoke the guardians of the tower, Daria noticed. In a moment, a ghost like creature drifted through the gate. Daria noted that it was nearly naked and, um, happy to see her in its own strange way. She tried to focus on the spirit's face and the tattered football uniform that hung around it's body.

"I'm Tommy Sherman. It's 3 AM. Who disturbs me at this late hour?"

"Daria the Cynic. I have come to claim what is mine. I have come to claim the tower."

"You?" The creature snickered and took a long, hard look at Daria. "I don't think you have the..." It paused and it's eyes flicked down to Daria chest for a few moments. It smirked. "...endowment."

Daria's eyes glared at the creature. She knew that this was going to come up at some time. When a wizard passes his or her test, they are cursed in some form as a reminder not to give into their newly found power. Some are left with a constant cough, some gain a limp, some have their hair turn white overnight, and some become PPMB moderators. She had cursed herself hundreds and hundreds of times since that day for the smart ass remark she had given to the standard question about how important her magic was to her. She never dreamed that they would actually make her give up her right tit for her magic. Or her left one. Her gaze flickered down along the creature's body. Well, Jane would be impressed. Too bad she had gone off with the rest of the group.

"What shape my body is in makes no difference to the power I control. Unlock this gate or I shall have to use my magic to make you do so."

The creature took one look at Daria and began to spin around in circles, crackling at the top of it's lungs. "You?!?!? Just because you beat back the forces of Evil? Just because you found the magical device? I hear what they're calling you and your mighty band. The Heroes of the Pooper Scooper."

Daria frowned as the spirit started doing cartwheels in the air while yelling out "Pooper Scooper" over and over again. It wasn't her fault that the gods were idiots and created such silly magic items. Her group had left Lawndale in search of the famed musical experience, Alternapalooza. They had found the famed city, snuck in, and found the Mysterious Book of Yellow. Daria had been the one who read the thousands of pages and found what they were looking for. The location of the Good Time Chinese Restaurant. Daria sighed and reached into a small bag at her waist. She knew how to end this.

"Azarath... Metrion... ZINTHOS!" The creature pulled back in horror as an object appeared in Daria's hand. "Yes, it's a Care Bear. Keep it up and I'll create some My Little Ponies!"

"No, Mistress. Anything but that...."

"Now, are you going to open this gate or..." Daria wiggled the doll.

"Yes, Mistress. What ever you say, Mistress."

The spirit, bowing and scrapping all the time, opened the metal gate. It's high pitched noise brought the other spirits out of the woodwork. Their hungry eyes traveled over Daria's body. She let loose the garments hugging her body. The spirits went off in disappointment. Well, at least they won't be bothering me any more she thought.

She paused and turned slightly back towards the gate. He had doubted her. It wouldn't be good to knock off a spirit so soon. But maybe give an example to the others.

"nif'fum duts a si ekimrD!" A yellow ball of energy shot from her out stretched arm and slammed into the spirit. Yellow? It was never yellow. Daria's eyebrows came down in annoyance.

"Oh, I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. There they are all standing in a row. Big ones, small ones ... " The spirit went off into the night singing. Daria's frown deepened. That was suppose to be an Angst spell. Last time she bought a spell on eSpell she decided as she shook her head and entered her new home.