Previously on The Chronicles of Baby Wizard: 

The Evil Wizard Zeltazar stole all the world’s mountains so he could take their magic for himself. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for everyone else, Baby Wizard tracked him down with the help of his new best friend Sophie the dragon. Zeltazar sent these two dumb trolls, and this one kinda smart troll, to smash our heroes but instead they joined forces. Now they’ve rallied all the creatures in the mountains to fight against Zeltazar the Bad. But can even such a badass army hope to defeat a Wizard backed by the power of every mountain ever? If you can’t wait to find out, then don’t! Instead, read:

 

The Chronicles of Baby Wizard: Baby Wizard in the Valley of Mountains: Part III: The Big Battle 

 

Baby Wizard sat astride his best friend Sophie raising aloft the magic sword the king had given him. It wasn’t really much, as far as magic swords went. It had EverSharp cast on it, which was pretty standard for magic swords, and other than that, its only power was to amplify your voice so people could hear it for like a hundred miles around. Oh, and also the ruby in the hilt glowed whenever you wanted it to, which was a nice touch. 

“You’d better say something,” said Sophie as she slowly beat her wings to remain hovering in the air. 

“I know, I know,” Baby Wizard whispered trying desperately to think of something inspirational.

“I KNOW I KNOW,” rang across the mountains as the giant army looked around confused.

“Shit!” said Baby Wizard.

“SHIT!” boomed across the stacked-up mountains. Deep in his cave, Zeltazar chuckled.  

“Maybe put the sword down while you get your thoughts together?” advised Sophie.

But Baby Wizard knew it was too late for that. He was gonna have to go with it and hope that improv class he took last fall was worth it.

“I KNOW, I KNOW. THIS SHIT SUCKS,” he yelled as Sophie flew up and down the ranks of the troops. “BUT WHAT ELSE IS NEW? GRIFFINS! HOW OFTEN HAVE PEOPLE COME TO COLLECT YOUR OLD TOENAILS WITHOUT PERMISSION SO THEY CAN MAKE THEM INTO CUPS THAT LET YOU KNOW IF THERE IS POISON IN THE WINE?”

“Like all the freakin’ time!” yelled the griffins.

“FROST GIANTS! HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU BEEN AWAKENED ONLY 1000 YEARS INTO YOUR ANCIENT SLUMBER?”

“Yeah! Right as I’m about to finally doze off!” yelled this one Frost Giant who was sick of that.

“GOATS! WHO DO THESE MOUNTAINS BELONG TO?!”

The goats couldn’t talk, but they all stood on their hind legs and did a little dance that was taken to mean, “Us!” Everybody really liked it. 

“THESE MOUNTAINS HAVE BEEN YOUR HOME FOR COUNTLESS MILLENNIA!”

A couple of goblins who had just moved to the mountains recently looked around a little sheepishly, but then some bears who were their neighbors gave them a thumbs up, and that made them feel more included.  

“PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS COME INTO YOUR HOMES AND TAKEN WHAT THEY WANTED! NOW ONE OF THEM HAS TAKEN THE HOMES THEMSELVES! HE SAYS HE OWNS THEM, BUT I SAY FUCK THAT SHIT! WHAT DO YOU SAY?!”

“Fuck that shit! Fuck that shit!” all the creatures started chanting. 

That’s when Zeltazar suddenly appeared in a puff of smoke on top of the peak of the highest mountain. 

“Oh hello idiots,” he said. “I heard your dumb speech, and it cracked my shit up. I have the magical power of all the mountains at my disposal, so go ahead and start your attack whenever you feel like dying.”

Baby Wizard and Sophie turned slowly around to face their foe. 

“AND MOST OF ALL…” said Baby Wizard pausing for dramatic effect,  “FUCK YOU!!!”

So saying, he made the ruby on his sword glow as bright as he could while charging at the evil Wizard. 

“Whatever,” said Zeltazar, yawning. “See you in Heck.”

Then he waved his staff and pulled a move that even B.W. didn’t see coming. All the mountains suddenly stood up and came to life. They stretched their mighty rock arms, slicked back the trees that were their hair, and started lumbering toward the army.

“We’re boned,” thought everyone at once.

Everyone but Baby Wizard and Sophie, that is. Instead, Sophie flew even faster while Baby Wizard simultaneously cast RockSmash, SuperSlash, and ExtraSharp on his already enchanted sword. They flew right past the lead mountain and Baby Wizard cut its earlobe clean through with one swipe. A boulder the size of a house fell through the sky and landed in a small lake at the bottom of the valley, splashing water a hundred feet into the air.

“OW!” boomed the mountain. “What you do dat fer?!”

“OH, YOU WANNA KNOW WHY?” asked Baby Wizard, holding his sword higher than ever. “I’LL BE HAPPY TO TELL YOU WHY. BECAUSE…”

“FUCK YOU!!!” shouted the entire army at once, rushing into the battle. 

All the mountains gave a giant yell and rushed forward. They were so mad, they started pulling parts off of themselves and throwing them into the army. One boulder knocked out a group of griffins like a bowling ball hitting a bunch of pins. 

“Striiiiike!” yelled the mountain, but then a group of fairy-death-sprites flew straight into his eyeball, dug it right out of his eye socket with their fairy magic, and shattered it right in front of his face. 

A dozen cave bears stood on each other’s shoulders and started gnawing on the knee of one of the smaller mountains. The mountain reached down to slap them but then stumbled over, knocking over a slightly larger mountain, which fell over and knocked down a really big mountain. All three of them collapsed in a heap, causing shrapnel the size of castles to fly through the air. One extra-sharp piece pierced the heart of a great golden dragon that was about to let loose a burst of its hottest flame. Instead, it exploded turning the air for miles around into a hot gas that melted both rock and flesh alike. All the nearby mountains became piles of molten slag that took out an entire unit of pegasi as they trashed about in their ghastly death throes. 

The battle raged on for days, neither side stopping to rest or even have lunch. The whole goat army was lost pretty early on when the fighting caused an earthquake that opened up a giant crack in the ground that swallowed them up. This was pretty demoralizing as, even though they weren’t the best fighters, they were kind of like the spiritual mascots of the good guys. 

But in the second week, a funny thing happened. Not like “haha” funny, but more like weird. The mountains stopped trying so hard. Sometimes they would just sit down in the middle of the fight like they forgot what they were even doing. This wasn’t a wholly ineffective technique, as it still squished a lot of creatures, but it was still very strange. After a few days, the mountains pretty much stopped fighting altogether. What was left of the good army looked at Baby Wizard like, “Ummm… what now?”

Before he could think of what to say, a tiny little clod of dirt came out from behind a tree and cleared its throat with a cute little “Uh-hmm.”

Sophie landed clumsily in front of it. (One of her wings had a big rip in it now and it made landings a real nightmare.) A bruised and bloodied Baby Wizard crawled from her back and over to the clod of dirt.

“Um, hi,” said the clod as everyone stared. “Look, sorry about all this, but if you don’t mind, I think we’re done here, and we’re really tired so maybe we can just stop fighting now?”

“I’m sorry,” said Baby Wizard, “who are you exactly?”

“Oh, my name is Clod,” said the clod. “I used to be a molehill, and then some evil jerk captured me and used my magic to capture Jay over there.”

“Hello,” said a small hill waving its not-so-big hand. 

“Yeah and he used Jay to capture me,” said a slightly larger hill, stepping out from behind a pile of rubble that used to be its husband. 

“Oooooooh shit!” said Sophie. “I get it.”

“So you guys don’t wanna fight anymore?” asked Baby Wizard.

“We never really did want to,” said Clod. “The evil wizard just used all the power he accumulated to make us. But every time one of the mountains got destroyed, he lost some of his power over us. It was kind of a stupid move to make us all sentient, because the more power he lost over us, the more we figured out what was going on, and we started fighting against him in the psychic realm. He really isn’t very smart, so that didn’t take long.”

“Where is he now?” asked Baby Wizard.

“He oder hee,” said this one mountain, who lumbered over and spit Zeltazar out of its cave mouth.  

The evil wizard landed on the ground right in front of Baby Wizard, groaning and covered in mountain spit. 

“Oh, ummm, hey there, fellow wizard,” said Zeltazar, totally groveling. “Sorry about all that. You know how things go. You come up with a plan to get a little power and things just kind of spiral out of control. Happens to the best of us, right?”

Baby Wizard balled up his tiny, little fist and thumped Zeltazar right in the face. He didn’t use any spells though. He just used his normal baby might, so it was really more insulting than painful. 

Everyone laughed and cheered, but only for like a few seconds. 

As they looked around, they saw that most of the mountains were either melted to lava or smashed to pea gravel. Not only did they kind of feel bad for the mountains (after all it wasn’t really their fault), but as Baby Wizard said during his big speech, the mountains were their homes. Now they had no place to live, and they all knew (especially the goblins) that villagers weren’t going to let them move into town. (Or if they did, they’d charge them double rent and be total jerks about it.)

Baby Wizard looked around at all his new friends and saw how sad they were. He knew how hard they had fought, and he wanted to help them out one last time. 

“Hold on a minute, I’ll be right back,” he said. Then he cast a spell called ShadowCat that let him phase through solid objects. 

He slid down, down, down into the crust of the Earth, going deeper and deeper. On the way down, he saw huge veins of gold and precious gems. He saw entire ancient kingdoms that had been buried by time. He saw dark, mysterious creatures whose purpose was known only to themselves. But he ignored all of that as he went deeper still. He went through the entire crust of the Earth and down into the boiling-hot liquid mantle, where, unbeknownst even to them, the hearts of dragons are forged by the ageless lava dwarves. Still, Baby Wizard plunged onward until finally arriving at the Earth’s white-hot iron core. Without hesitation, he slid into the core’s very center and cast ConsciousnessMerge. Normally, this is a spell wizards use to figure out what a bird is thinking or to get their dogs to take themselves for a walk, and even then it takes a fair amount of energy. Now Baby Wizard was trying to merge his consciousness with the entire Earth.

Shhhhh… listen. If this story has taught you anything, it should be that mountains are super powerful magical objects, and the Earth, well it’s basically one big mountain hanging in space. B.W. knew he couldn’t control it, but he could, he thought, ask it a favor.

“Hello tiny one,” the Earth thought at Baby Wizard.

“Hello, the Earth,” Baby Wizard thought back. 

“That was quite the battle you fought,” thought the Earth.

“Thank you,” thought Baby Wizard.

“I know why you’ve come,” thought the Earth, “and honestly it’s not the kind of thing I normally do.”

“I know,” thought Baby Wizard, “but I thought maybe just this one time… Besides, you look so beautiful with your mountains spread across your face like stars.”

“Appealing to my vanity won’t work,” thought the Earth, blushing a bit despite herself. (Back on the surface, the world suddenly turned pinkish red, which was super confusing for everyone).

“Pwetty Pweaseeeee,” thought Baby Wizard, who wasn’t above relying on his cuteness when he needed to.

“Oooooooh fine,” thought the Earth finally. “I suppose it sets a bad precedent to let you wizard types think you can just go around moving my parts wherever you like. Plus, that Zeltazar seems like a real asshole. A few thousand years imprisoned in my bowels ought to teach him some manners.” 

“That seems fair,” Baby Wizard thought, smiling. 

“Okay, off with you then,” thought the Earth. “You really aren’t supposed to be down here, you know.”

“Of course,” thought Baby Wizard. “Oh and if it’s not too much trouble, I do have one more small favor to ask.”

Back up top, the army looked on with their mouths hanging open as the destroyed mountains were being sucked down into the ground. The mountains started racing along under the surface, causing giant waves and scaring the heck out of pastures full of cows. Within the hour, they were all back in their original locations and in their original shapes, save for one that was now 60 feet north of where it had started. 

Everyone was standing around too shocked to say anything, when Baby Wizard popped back out of the ground like a cork shooting out of a champagne bottle. He was emitting a glowing aura, and his once dark wisps of hair were now bright white. He floated over to Sophie and handed her a few gold nuggets and gems he had managed to grab as he rocketed to the surface.

“Here,” he said. “I hope this will help you start your new horde.”

“What?…” started Sophie.

“How?…” said Cronk.

“But?…” said one of the griffins who had survived. 

“Baby Wizard!” said Sophie, finally regaining herself. “How did you do all that?!!”

“I’m no longer the Baby Wizard you knew,” he said. “I have seen things that no mortal has ever beheld. I have communed with the very Earth itself as we merged consciousness. My mind now contains the knowledge and wisdom of countless eons. I am now The Toddler Wizard!” 

Sophie had to admit, he did look taller. 

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Epilogue

 

It took Sophie and Toddler Wizard several weeks to get back home, especially since Sophie’s wing was still healing. Toddler Wizard offered to fix it, but Sophie insisted he needed to rest. They hung out a bit with Gengleferd, Nerb, and Cronk, who were going the same direction to get back to their own mountain. They learned a lot about bridge construction and how to make an entire sheep into a pie. Halfway home, they stopped and gave the sword back to the king, and he threw them a big banquette as a way of saying thanks. Pretty much everyone in the kingdom showed up, and Sophie spent most of the dinner telling her friend Eric all about their adventures. 

Finally, one day Sophie swooped down and landed near Toddler Wizard’s small cottage. He crawled down from her back and looked at her. Neither knew exactly what to say.

“Well…,” started Sophie.

“Yeah…,” said T.W.

“Wanna come over Thursday for dinner?” Sophie asked. “I actually do wanna try making one of those whole-sheep pies.”

“Sure,” said Baby Wizard, “I’ll bring a bottle of ale. Six work for you?”

“Six it is!” shouted Sophie, taking to the sky. As she flew away he could see her wing was almost back to normal. 

He waddled over toward the mountain near his hut, now located 60 feet north of its previous location.

“Hey!” he called down into the pit next to it. “How’s the bike park coming along?”

“Oh hey Baby Wizard!” yelled one of the kids as he stopped riding his BMX. “It’s great! We got one of the ramps up to 10 feet! Although, to be honest, we really wanted a 20 foot one.  Um… I don’t suppose you’d… you know… I mean, would you mind maybe using your magic to move a little dirt around for us?”

“Nope,” said Toddler Wizard, floating down into the hole. “No problem at all.”

 

The End