Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

"That is the spell I was telling you about, Lord," Moira said to Jerry. "The one we could not find."

Wiz frowned. "There was a copy in my notes. Well, it doesn’t matter. It won’t take long to rewrite it and I’d want to translate it to run under the latest version of the compiler anyway."

Wiz made another mark on his slate.

"That’s it then. Okay people, split into your teams and let’s get cracking. We’ve got a lot of work to do here."

"Are you sure this will work?" Bal-Simba asked dubiously as Wiz, Jerry and Moira showed him the team’s latest creation.

"It will if they try to use demon_debugon it," Wiz assured him. "The basic spell is a modification of the one I used to create the watchers against the Dark League."

"And it will harm no one?" the giant black sorcerer pressed.

"It can’t do physical damage to anyone, Lord," Jerry said confidently. Of course, what it can do to their mental state…

"Amazing," Bal-Simba said as he studied the creature on the table before him. "Where did you get the idea for these things?"

"Where I get all my best ideas," Wiz said jauntily. "I stole it."

"Lady, Lady come quickly!" Mayor Andrew pounded frantically on the door and looked fearfully over his shoulder toward the village square. "We are beset!"

"Unnugh?" Alaina rolled over in her bed and tried to shake the mead fumes from her head. She threw the dirty bedclothes aside and stumbled to the door, cursing as she banged into an overturned stool.

"Not so loud," she grumbled, fumbling with the bar. "Not so bleeding loud." She threw open the door and glared at Andrew. "Now what is it?"

In answer he pointed back into the village. Pale translucent shapes floated here and there over the houses, flitting down the streets and hovering before windows. Now and again a bone-chilling shriek broke the night’s silence.

Alaina gathered herself. "Magic, eh? Well we’ll see about that." She snatched a grubby cloak from the hook beside the door and threw it over her night dress. Barefoot and with her hair in disarray she marched toward the square with the mayor trailing close behind.

One of the ghostly shapes floated down out of the night sky at her, gibbering as it came. Alaina stopped short and flung her arm up to it.

" demon_debug BEGONE," she commanded in a cracked voice. " exe!"

The pale form stopped in mid-flight, shuddered and dropped to the earth, coalescing and changing form as it did so. By the time it reached the ground it was a small green man-like thing with a bald head, pointed ears and a wide mouth. In the flickering light of the mayor’s torch, Alaina could see that the little creature was bright green.

It blinked once, extended a foot-long tongue and licked one of its eyebrows, like a cat grooming itself. Then it smiled up at her nastily.

"Ya know, Lady," the little green man said with a distinct Brooklyn accent, "ya really shouldnna have done that."

"I tell you we are overrun with these things!" Alaina screamed into the communications crystal. "They are everywhere."

One of the little green men sat on top of the image formed above the crystal, his legs dangling down in front, as if he were sitting on top of a television instead of in mid-air. She brushed at him like shooing a fly, but her hand passed through the little man’s legs. He stuck out a foot-long pink tongue and gave the hedge witch an especially juicy raspberry.

From where he sat in the Council’s great hall, Wiz couldn’t see the little green man. But Alaina’s gestures told him clearly what must be happening.

"How long have you had this problem?" he asked sympathetically.

"Since last night. These things are driving us mad and when I call for help, you make me wait for near a day-tenth before anyone will speak to me. Nothing but that terrible music in the background while I wait."

Alaina put her head in her hands. The day had been the worst of her life. In laying the banshees she had created dozens of the little green men. Now they were all over the village, getting into everything, making rude and obnoxious comments to everyone and not giving anyone a moment’s peace.

Worse, there was nothing you could do to them. Magic didn’t seem to work and physical objects passed completely through them. Mayor Andrew was nursing a broken hand after trying to hit one of the little creatures that happened to be standing in front of a post. He was so angry at Alaina he wouldn’t even come to her for healing.

"I am sorry about the wait," Wiz told her. "We are very busy here and none of our service representatives, ah wizards, were immediately available." Out of the corner of his eye, Wiz could see all the communications positions in the great hall filled with wizards talking to people just as he was. But this one was special. Part of the reason Alaina had to wait was he wanted to handle this village himself. "Now, about these little green men. How did they appear?"

"First there was a plague of banshees and when I tried to exorcise them, we got—this." She waved her hand helplessly. "Oh, I would rather the banshees," she moaned.

"We have not been able to re-create your problem here," Wiz told her. "There is nothing in ddtthat could produce an effect like that."

"I didn’t use ddt, I used demon_debug," Alaina said.

Wiz frowned and pursed his lips. "Well, as you know, demon_debugwas not our spell. We cannot be responsible for the consequences if users attempt to apply spells with unauthorized modifications."

Alaina moaned again.

"However," Wiz went on, "we have encountered this problem before. The spell you used was not thoroughly tested before release and contained some serious bugs that interact destructively with certain kinds of magic. In fact, we find it actually attracts those kinds of magic. You were quite fortunate, you know."

"Fortunate?" Alaina asked miserably. Now three of the little green menaces were dancing a jig between her and Wiz’s image. They were accompanying themselves with their own singing and none of them had the slightest sense of pitch or rhythm.

"Fortunate," Wiz said solemnly. "It might have been dragons."

"Eh?" said Alaina, straining to hear over the caterwauling.

"I said it might have been dragons," Wiz shouted.

Now the green creatures had split up. Two of them were playing nose flutes which droned together like out-of-tune bagpipes while the third took center stage to perform a solo—and extremely rude—version of the Highland fling.

"Help us, Lord," Alaina shouted hoarsely over the racket of the demons. Wiz winced and muted the sound from his crystal.

"As it happens we do have a beta version of ddtRelease 2.0. It should be very effective against these secondary demons." He pursed his lips severely. "However I would strongly suggest that you do not use any unauthorized spells from now on. The incompatibility problems are likely to become much more severe."

"Anything," Alaina said fervently. "Anything at all. I’ll burn every copy of demon_debugI can get my hands on. Just rid us of these monsters!"

"I’ll get a messenger off with ddtRelease 2.0 right away," Wiz told the hedge witch. "And remember, no unauthorized spells."

He left Alaina blubbering thanks as the image faded.

"That’ll hold her," he said as he turned away from the now-dead crystal to Moira. "What’s the matter?" he asked as he caught her look.