Pumpkin Madness

         It had been sabotage. There could be no other possible reason why the portal had malfunctioned. These were the thoughts that went through Lisa Evangeline Cross' mind as she faced certain bubbling death. Around her, she could hear the shrill barbaric cries of the Pumpkin-men as they circled in a strange ritualistic dance which, she calmly noticed, involved a fair amount of stomping. Below her was the real problem: a cauldron full of boiling gray liquid--definitely not water she decided-- awaited, its enormous balloon-like bubbles bursting at the surface with a sick squelching sound. Strong bonds attached her hands and feet to a long wooden pole placed horizontally on top of the fuming basin. Not for the first time in her life, the witch found herself facing a hopelessly desperate situation.

         The bet had been a relatively simple one for a witch of her calibre: all she had had to do was open a portal to a Yonderworld, go through it, and bring back a handful of soil.
         Everything had gone smoothly until the "bring back" part: the portal had sealed itself shut before she could return, leaving her face to face with a horde of surprised and angry creatures who could probably have been qualified as humanoid if not for the large pumpkins that they had in the place of normal heads.

         What a lame way to die, thought Lisa as the noisy dance continued around her. The top student of Mnemosyne boiled alive by a mob of pumpkins with limbs.
In truth, there was a small chance she could escape, but it involved reaching a small silver medallion pinned to the side of her right shoe near her ankle, something she wasn't exactly in the best position to do at the moment. If she ever made it out alive, she swore to exact her vengeance on the idiots who had played this stupid prank on her. She didn't intend to kill them, but the humiliation she had in mind was much worse than death. The witch was sweating profusely now because of the sweltering vapours; hopefully, dehydration would get the better of her before the boiling liquid did.

         Then, all at once, the dancing stopped. A silence as thick as tar replaced the previous cacophony, interrupted only by the constant bubbling of the stone cauldron. The Pumpkin-men stood stock still as if turned into statues. Lisa turned her head to see the cause of the sudden absence of activity. She wished she hadn't; an enormous Pumpkin-man standing fully ten feet tall loomed above her, its massive head blotting out the moonlight, a frozen expression of anguish carved into its jack-o'-lantern face. "Graaaargh!" it roared.
         "Graargh?" repeated Lisa. "Stupid and inarticulate. How typical for an oaf your size."
         The giant grabbed the pole by the bottom and swung it up to its face so that Lisa was turned upside down and looking directly into the hole that must have been its nose. She glared at the giant defiantly.
         "That wasn't very nice," came an offended voice from somewhere inside the giant jack-o'-lantern. "I was only trying to uphold my image as the terrifying tribe leader of the Pumpkin-people. You didn't have to be so insulting."
Lisa laughed, partly at what the giant was saying, and partly at the very fact that it was saying anything at all. "Sorry, but I don't feel any particular inclination to act politely toward someone who's going to boil me alive," she told it.
         The giant looked disappointed, although its features obviously could not express it very well. "What a shame," it replied. "That was the first conversation I've had in a long while. The little ones here can't speak, you see." It indicated the hundred or so smaller Pumpkin-men, who were now beginning to show signs of impatience. Lisa somehow managed a shrug. "You shouldn't keep them waiting," she told the giant.
         "Or at least put me back right side up. I feel like I'm about to empty the contents of my stomach."
         The giant chuckled loudly, amused by the girl's nonchalant attitude. Normally his prey would be squealing so noisily that he really had no other choice than to plunge them directly into the boiling cauldron to shut out the sound. This one was different. He turned the pole so that Lisa was facing him properly, stabbed it into the earth and sat down.
         "Where do you come from, girl?" he asked. "I should like to know more about you."
         Great, thought Lisa sarcastically. Now it was hitting on her. She decided to play along nonetheless. A wrong decision as it happened.
         "Mnemosyne Witch's Academy," she replied. The giant jumped up in surprise, and the earth groaned under its weight.
         "You're a witch?" it demanded.
         "And If I am?"
         "Then I'm afraid we'll have to eat you as planned. We didn't always have pumpkins for heads, you see. A drunken witch came by a few years ago and placed a curse on our tribe. Since then, most of us lost our ability to speak and became unable to function normally in society. You might say that we're doing this purely out of hatred... and you'd be absolutely right." He grabbed the wooden pole, strode forward and placed it back in its original position on top of the cauldron. "Such a shame," he said, giving the witch one last glance. Lisa smiled.

         Click, went the silver medallion at her ankle. Rotate ninety degrees counter-clockwise. Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise. Rotate ninety degrees counter-clockwise. Thanks to the giant swinging her around like an oversized sludgeball bat, the summoning medallion had been activated. The small disc pulsed and glowed bright crimson, the intensity of its light increasing with every passing second. A strange humming noise made itself heard, gave way to a high-pitched whine, and then became a deafening whistle. Soon, the very air around the witch was vibrating. The bewildered Pumpkin-men hissed and jumped back, their honed instincts sensing imminent danger.
         Shrrrap! With an almighty rip, the very fabric of space was torn asunder and a dimensional gap split the sky apart. A huge lump seemed to stretch part of the sky downwards, pulling open the fissure which now looked like a large mouth ready to spit something out. Splotch.

         Something fell into the cauldron. The gray liquid, which had been boiling a moment before, had instantly become a frozen block of gray ice. The sudden change in temperature caused a large cloud of steam to form around the cauldron , which emitted a loud hiss. "What the..."
         Someone's voice came from beyond the screen of vapour. The giant Pumpkin-man, finally recovering from his stupor, approached cautiously. "Your magic tricks don't scare me," he warned. "Anything you try is completely--" The cauldron exploded and a huge chunk of stone sent him flying several feet backwards. Lisa herself, still attached to the pole, was rocketed into the air following the trajectory of a wide parabola and landing upside down again with a twang as the wooden pole lodged itself into the soil. Decidedly, this was not her day. When the smoke from the explosion cleared, it revealed a handsome adolescent with silver hair and rich clothing. He seemed understandably irritated. "What the hell am I doing here?" he asked. The youth brushed away flecks of debris that had gotten into his hair; a small blue triangle decorated the middle of his forehead. Lisa couldn't believe her eyes. She had brought a whole new level of trouble upon herself now: the witch had unintentionally summoned a deity.