Deviant Artists

A rainy night had fallen upon the Crystal Hill Art Gallery long after the last staff member locked up the building. Ironclad doors with heavy bolts sealed off the front and back entrances as well as the individual rooms where art was displayed. Discouraging thieves became even more of a requirement as the double paned windows were guarded with steel bars. If this wasn’t already a museum for art, it could easily double as a prison for the worst kinds of criminals.

Even the dark of night couldn’t suppress the shimmering beauty of the pearlescent marble statues. Curvy goddesses barely covered in silk tapestry. Armor-clad warriors carrying the heaviest weapons. Seductive mermaids with the sweetest grins. They all shined and reflected off of one another in the moonlight pouring through the stained glass windows. A dark paladin covered head to toe in spiky armor stood angrily across from a thickly muscled female orc warrior, who also looked ready to rip someone’s head off.

A bolt of lightning flashed in the night sky and as if on cue, the dark paladin and orc statues cracked and splintered, shedding large chunks and spraying specks of dust across the room. The cracks became deeper canyons until their marble coating was completely destroyed, revealing living versions of the warriors the art portrayed.

The dark paladin, Golo Quinn, dusted his hands and armor off while Junie Axel, the orc, kicked pieces of marble across the room like soccer balls. “Goddamn, am I glad to be out of that,” she said.

The two of them met in the center while Golo summoned a glowing orb with his palm and gazed around the room they successfully infiltrated. “Look at all of this crap…Look that this!” he growled. He shined the ball of light towards the goddesses and mermaids in particular. “Who in the hell wants to pay thousands of gold pieces just so they can have women in their rooms they’ll never be able to fuck?!”

“I bet if we found that Golden Dagger, we could carve better statues out of our own shit. Where the hell is it, anyways?” complained Junie as she dusted her leather armor off.

“Beats me. For all we know, the fuckers who built this place could have hidden it among one of the ‘masterpieces’. It could be in one of the mermaid’s bras for all I know. Or it could be up somebody’s ass. I guess we’ll never know until we start looking.”

Cracking her neck in both directions, Junie asked, “How do you want to do this? Should we sneak around like cat burglars or should we just wreck the shit out of everything?”

Golo shook his head. “It’s a little late for the cat burglar shit considering how we got here. I say we just smash everything to pieces. The art sucks anyways, so who’s really going to miss it? Plus, if we actually find the goddamn dagger, we could make our own pieces and sell them to the stupid curator for a cool payday. Come on, help me with this door.”

“My pleasure,” said Junie with a vomit-breathed smile. She effortlessly yanked one of the warrior statues off of its pedestal (while accidentally tearing its leg off) and started ramming it against the iron door. Though the dents in the door resembled meteor craters, the statue was just another worthless pile of dust afterwards. “Looks like it’s going to be harder than we thought. I wonder if any of these jerk-offs in armor are really that tough.”

“Only one way to find out.” Golo sent the ball of light floating overhead while he wrapped his arms around a mermaid and yanked it free, also with little effort. This time, he swung the statue like a baseball bat against the door, detaching its head, then its torso, then crumbling the flipper into powder. The door had even more massive dents, but it still wouldn’t budge. The dark paladin growled like a beast.

The two would-be thieves continued this process of ramming and smashing statues against the door until the entire room was caked in dust, causing Junie to sneeze a glob of yellow slime all over one of the goddess’s detached breasts. “Now that’s what I call a money shot!” she chuckled before burping loudly.

The iron door resembled a battered semi-circle rather than a symbol of security. All it took after every statue was desecrated was a spin kick from Golo’s metal boot. The twisted door crashed to the ground while Junie coughed and waved the smoky air out of their solitary confinement.

“Quit being a wuss and help me find the damn dagger,” said Golo while marching over the fallen door. He held out his palm and brought the ball of light back into his grasp, shining it over various paintings with nature scenes. Snow-covered mountains, enchanted forests with faeries, relaxing beaches with nude models, they all made Golo cringe and curl up in his suit of armor.

“If you spray some more dust in my face, I could sneeze again and create better paintings than these pieces of trash,” joked Junie while wiping her nose with her finger.

“Or you could jerk me off over a sheet of paper, either one sounds more profitable right now. Why would anybody think that painting trees is interesting?! They’re trees! They’re goddamn trees that don’t do a damn thing!” yelled Golo, who then punched one of the paintings and ripped it off the frame.

“Allow me!” said Junie as she and her accomplice went around ripping up paintings and cursing at them. Shredded canvases lined the floor and raging attitudes had the burglars banging their fists against the wall. They were no closer to finding the Golden Dagger. “This is horse crap!”

“Yes, I know how badly these paintings suck.”

“No, Golo, this is actual horse crap! Where the hell is that dagger?!” Junie folded her arms in frustration and slammed her back against the wall. The ridged frame of the picture behind her sent shockwaves of pain through her spine. She roared and held her wound while Golo pointed and laughed at her.

“Why, you little!” Junie turned around and started punching the hell out of the painting, bruises the size of molehills forming on her knuckles with every strike. Ignoring the pain in her hand, she ripped the picture off the wall and revealed something that instantly calmed her anger. “Oh my lord.”

Golo’s laughter turned to confusion. “What?”

“I don’t believe this. I knew it! I knew it was hidden among one of these pieces of garbage!” Junie stuffed her non-aching arm into the hole and pulled out a source of brilliant light that rivaled Golo’s fluorescent sphere. A pearl handle poked out of a leather pouch that the orc held in her hands like a kid receiving a Christmas gift. After a while of trying to contain her giggly fits, she pulled the handle and revealed the source of her and Golo’s greed: the Golden Dagger. The one artifact that could create pieces of art out of stone despite the user’s underachieving skill level.

Junie dropped to her knees and gazed upon the dagger with neon eyes. “This is beautiful. This is a work of art on its own.” Even though Golo wore a horned helmet that covered his face, the orc could tell he was smiling too. “We’re going to be rich…we’re going to be bloody rich!”

Holding the dagger like she was about to murder somebody with it, she tested its powers on the wall next to the mini-vault. Instead all she ended up doing was ripping a few chunks of wood. Nothing artistic, nothing glorious. “What the hell’s going on here?! Is this stupid thing just as worthless as the rest of the crap in here?!” She tried stabbing the wall again and had the same result: a whole lot of nothing. “This thing sucks! We wasted our time in here!”

Junie threw the dagger to the floor only for the magical artifact to float in the air before it had the chance to crash. The wide-eyed, shaky thieves slowly backed away from the artifact while it danced and spun around, shooting golden dust every which way and rendering the ball of light redundant.

With a mind of its own, the dagger stabbed itself into the wall and carved a proper piece of art within seconds. It was detailed. It was lifelike. It was…a mosaic of Junie Axel crapping her pants, to which Golo Quinn laughed himself into soreness yet again. The orc stomped her foot and complained, “Really funny, smart ass! Really goddamn funny!”

Junie lunged for the Golden Dagger’s handle only to have it fly away and carve yet another masterpiece out of the wall: Golo doing a striptease with a saggy gut hanging low. The dark paladin threw his gauntlet to the ground and shouted, “What the hell is going on here?! Is this some kind of joke?! When did a shitty piece of art become such a smart ass?!”

The anger tapered off into shaky fear as the dagger pointed at both Junie and Golo. Was the maniacal artifact going to fling itself into one of them? Was this how they were going to die? At the blade of a dagger with a sense of humor? Not yet. The dagger found more empty wall space and carved out a message for the intruders: “Frauds”.

Golo gazed at the message with hatred while Junie’s body convulsed in the corner. The dark paladin threw down his other gauntlet and yelled, “Frauds?! We’re frauds?! We’re not the ones carving these ridiculous-looking statues and painting these faggy pictures! We’re not the ones who suck! I purposefully stayed away from art class so that I wouldn’t have to make these pieces of shit!”

The dagger carved out another message on the wall: “Lazy”.

“Why you!” belted Golo as he chased after the floating dagger with his footsteps quaking the ground beneath him. The chase led him around the entire gallery, his legs aching and his heart thumping like a war drum. He jumped in the air whenever the dagger soared too high, but his heavy armor caused his shoulders and legs to burn with pain afterwards. He hunched over for a quick breather and even ripped off his helmet, throwing it to the ground and cursing.

The Golden Dagger spun around in the air before finding another empty space to carve a message into. All the weapon could muster were the letters L-O-S-E before Golo found a second wind and lunged at the blade with the last of his rage. His hands gripped the pearl handle with such force that he almost broke it off as it struggled for freedom. “I got you now, you little prick! Hold still! Junie, get your big ass over here and help me!” The orc remained cowardly in her corner. “Now, damn it!”

The orc took her time in getting up while Golo wrestled with the struggling blade on the ground. Junie slowly tiptoed towards the scuffle and hunched over her cohort, not wanting to jump in too soon. And then the blade jerked upwards and brought the dark paladin to his feet. Now it was Golo’s turn to hold the weapon like a murderer. “Wha…what are you doing, buddy? Golo?” pleaded Junie.

With a complete loss of control over his hand, Golo brought the Golden Dagger down upon Junie in a series of rapid-fire stabs that decorated the walls and shredded paper in blood. The dark paladin screamed, “No!” as his friend was being mutilated, but he couldn’t even release his grip. The blade kept raining down upon the orc until she was nothing more than a pile of broken bones, shredded skin, and pooling blood. The knife flew freely from Golo’s grip while the dark paladin pounded the floor repeatedly, tears welling in his eyes.

“What the hell did you have to do that for?!” Golo screamed, wiping an angry tear from his eye with his finger. “She was my friend, damn it!” The dagger lowered itself down into Golo’s field of vision and illuminated it with its golden glow. Dancing and prancing in front of him, the dagger’s light showed him a vision of beauty created from the madness of violence. Junie wasn’t just a mere corpse. She was a sculpture of something more beautiful than her wicked soul could become. “A mermaid? Seriously?! You…you made a mermaid out of my friend?!”

The Golden Dagger carved out another message on the wall: “Profit”.

“I…I don’t understand…you want me to sell this to the curator?”

One final message was sent loud and clear to the boohooing knight. It wasn’t he message he wanted to see carved out. It was the message he needed to see: “True art!”