“Look what finally came!” Cindy suppressed a sigh as her boyfriend Eric rushed in, clutching a battered cardboard package wrapped in a mix of packing tape and post-labels. She knew that look in Eric’s eyes. He’d managed to track down one of his ‘Cult Classics’ and she could expect an evening in, watching some 80’s gore fest in lurid standard definition, at least what made it through the chain of adaptors linking their perfectly good, state of the art plasma screen to a thirty-year old Goodwill bargain bin VCR…

Eric, too excited to notice his girlfriend’s lack of response, had struggled through the layers of tape and cardboard to open the box without, a notable feat, drawing blood this time. Spilling packing peanuts across the living room floor, he dug out the VHS cassette and held it up triumphantly.

“Tada! Behold: Kragor the Destroyer IV: Cult of the Serpent God!”

Cindy took the box and looked at the cover. Aside from a lime green sticker covered in what she assumed was the Laotian or Thai words for “Clearance-90% Off!” the box was 100% pure 80’s Cheese. The title was splashed across the top in a font that would have served perfectly for the logo of a metal band. Below, the box art was classic Vallejo, a burly, scowling barbarian raised an axe overhead while a beautiful slave girl in chains and an outfit that consisted of about two quarters, half a hanky and some dental floss, clung to his beefy thigh flashing bedroom eyes up at her savior.

Half an hour later, the two were in the living room. As Cindy brought in a couple beers and some popcorn from the kitchen, Eric slid the tape into the VCR. For a moment, there was a magnetic hum from the speakers which eventually resolved into the squealing guitar and pounding drums of some obscure power metal band as the opening credits rolled. Cindy took a long pull of her beer as Eric bounced in his seat excitedly.

The movie opened on a village, consisting of three tents and a thatched hut, populated by what appeared to be a Women’s Volleyball team that got lost at a Renaissance Fair. As the last of the credits faded away, the village came under attack by an equally confused hair metal band in leather jackets and aluminum foil ‘armor.’ As the lone hut went up in flames, the volleyball team was rounded up by the baddies and roped together to be dragged back to their lair.

The scene changed, cutting jarringly to a buff dude in a leather loincloth who resembled the figure on the box art enough that Cindy guessed he was the hero, Kragor. He was fighting someone dressed in a Halloween-store skeleton mask. No sooner was he slain by the barbarian hero then it was on to the next scene. A busty woman in a gauzy Princess outfit was trying to recruit the hero to take on the Cult of the Serpent God. He refused, until a scene later when a couple of the cultists appeared out of nowhere to kidnap the Princess.

And so it went. The hero fought more guys in rubber masks. None of the women, from the Princess to the kidnapped peasant wenches to the villain’s evil sorceress, could seem to keep their tops on for more than five minutes at a time. The entire special effects budget must have been blown on the goofy rubber ‘Snake Monster’ and the gore effects when several of the wenches, followed later by the sorceress and main baddy got chomped by it. Cindy rolled her eyes through it all.

That night, Cindy dreamed.

The young woman was wandering through a brightly lit sylvan glen, bird calls filling the air. Looking down, she saw she was dressed in a flowing medieval gown of blue silk, tied at the waist with a gold cord. Her hair, she could feel, was tied back in elaborate braids. She looked this way and that, trying to find, she knew, the barbarian hero who lived in these hills.

There was a rustle in the underbrush and a second later a figure emerged. It was a tall man, nearly seven feet tall and heavily muscled. Some part of Cindy’s conscious mind recognized him as the villain from that silly movie she’d been watching, but somehow he didn’t seem to silly wearing real armor of blackened, grimy steel instead of aluminum foil and the huge battle axe clutched in one mailed fist was a fully functional weapon, stained with reddish-brown blood from previous victims, instead of a plastic prop. Even that silly bat-winged helmet and glowing red eyes were a bit intimidating when that flaming gaze turned on her.

He raised his eyes, pointing straight at Cindy and in a demonic voice ordered “Capture her!” His henchmen, who likewise looked like proper minions of darkness instead of a rejected metal band, swamped from the trees, ropes and knives in their hands.

Cindy turned and fled with a shriek of terror, but it was futile. She might as well have been running in slow motion, each step dragging as if through thick, clinging mud. Before she’d gone a dozen paces, the henchmen were on her. She fought and struggled as rough hands seized the young woman, but in vain. Cindy’s arms were yanked behind her back and rough cords pulled tight around her wrists. More ropes wrapped her chest, pinning her arms to her sides. A dirty rag was thrust into her mouth and another band of cloth tied between her teeth to hold the gag in place.

When they had finished binding her, the knives came out. Cindy squealed as her dress was methodically cut away from her trembling body. To her surprise, beneath it she was dressed in a skimpy slave girl garment. It was made of polished brass and dark red silks and encrusted with gems, but covered no more of her nubile figure than the movie’s version had. Helpless, she was dragged before the Dark Lord and forced to her knees.

“At last, I have you now, Princess…” Cindy’s captor growled, reaching out with a mailed hand. She shrank back, trembling with fright. “You shall make a fine offering for the Serpent God! Bring her!” He turned with a flourish of his cape and strode forward. Cindy was lifted to her feet and dragged along by the henchmen.

As they walked, the world seemed to shift around them. Before she’d taken more than a dozen haltering steps, the sylvan glade was gone, replaced by a dark and blasted landscape of dead trees and withered grass, black storm clouds rolling ahead. Before them loomed the ominous presence of the Dark Lord’s fortress. Unlike the cheap matte painting in the movie, this was a terrifying edifice of black stone looming up from the tortured earth. Even the goofy snake-head which opened its mouth to admit the party inside…well it was still a little goofy but at least it didn’t look cheap.

The next thing Cindy knew, she stood in a high, vaulted chamber, deep in the bowels of the castle. Filling the center of the room was a deep pit, surrounded on all sides with spikes. A small platform jutted out, from which sacrificial maidens would be thrown to the monster that dwelt within. Cindy was led forward, still in the skimpy slave girl outfit, but the ropes had been replaced with chains. She struggled and fought with renewed vigor, not wanting to end up snake chow, but was dragged inexorably forward by the henchmen.

Waiting at the far end stood the Dark Lord and beside him a tall woman with long dark hair and pale skin. Her outfit, like that in the movie, consisted of a couple skull pasties and a long, narrow, black strip of cloth hung over her crotch, but like Cindy’s outfit it had a realism to it not matched by the cheap costume the actress had worn. As the woman began chanting an invocation to her god, the runes tattooed on her skin, glow-in-the-dark body paint in the movie, took on an eldritch glow that didn’t require a black light.

Perched on the edge of the platform, Cindy looked down and regretted it immediately. It was a twenty-foot drop to the bottom of the shadowy pit below her. Scattered across the sandy floor were piles of bones, some animal but far more disturbingly human. As the chanting continued, echoing in the vaulted cavern, a hiss came up from below. Slithering out from a dark hole dug into the far wall of the pit, an enormous snake appeared. It was no rubber monster. Fifty feet long, its dark green scales glinted in the torch light as it circled below the platform, waiting impatiently. As it looked up, its cobra-like hood flared, yellow eyes staring up at Cindy.

The young woman clamped her own eyes shut. “It’s just a dream.” She told herself, but she expected any moment to feel a rough shove, a brief sensation of falling and finally the jaws of the snake snapping shut over her. Before that happened, though, the chanting was cut off, replaced by gasps of shock and alarm. Turning, Cindy saw what had interrupted the ceremony. A figure had burst into the sacrificial chamber and stood, greatsword in hand. It was as if the figure on the movie’s box art had stepped off the painting and into Cindy’s dream. Oil-glistened muscles rippled as Kragor flexed, readying for battle.

With a laugh, the Dark Lord ordered his henchmen to slay the foolish hero. The two closest to the door rushed in, eager for the kill, but as soon as they came within range, Kragor launched into action. With blurring speed, his massive two-handed sword swung, cutting down both minions with ease. The others hesitated, shrinking back in fright from the display, but another angry order from their dark master forced them onward. Swords rang on swords as battle was joined, but soon enough Kragor dispatched the remaining henchmen.

“Finish the ritual! The time of the dark solstice wanes and the Serpent God must feed!” The dark lord told his sorceress, while he drew his axe and turned to face Kragor. The sorceress started chanting again, stepping towards the younger woman. Cindy tugged at her chains, but couldn’t get away. In desperation, she suddenly threw herself bodily at the sorceress as the other woman reached out to cast her into the snake pit. The sorceress gave a startled yelp as she stumbled back, falling over the edge of the platform. Cindy’s brief elation turned to horror as, overbalanced by her shove, she tumbled forward as well, falling into the pit below.

Fortunately, Cindy landed on the soft sandy floor instead of hard, broken and jagged bones. She rolled, chains jangling loudly as she tried to stop her tumble. Shaking her head, dazed, Cindy looked up, seeing the Sorceress staggering to her feet. She looked a little worse for the wear by her own fall and had somehow lost her top on the way down. The sorceress glared evil at Cindy and advanced, drawing a sacrificial dagger from…somewhere. “Prepare to die, bitch!” She cackled.

A hiss from behind warned both women of the pit's other occupant. The giant snake slithered from behind a hill of bones, forked tongue flickering out. By fortune, the sorceress stood between Cindy and the monster. She fell to her knees, throwing her hands up in supplication to the dark god she had fed so many other maidens to, but the dumb brute was ignorant of such things. It saw only one more meal in its pit.

With startling speed, the cobra’s head came down, engulfing the sorceress. The last Cindy saw of her were a pair of shapely legs kicking frantically as they slid down the snake’s gullet. For a moment, it lay still, enjoying its meal and Cindy began to hope it wouldn’t be hungry for seconds any time soon. Then it turned its yellow gaze towards her.

“Oh shit…” Cindy thought as the snake started slithering forward again. She kicked her shackled feet, trying to get up and get away but her bondage made any sort of escape impossible.

Before the snake reached her, though, there was a cry from above. Kragor and the Dark Lord tumbled over the edge into the pit. The Dark Lord’s armor, dented and bent by the barbarian’s greatsword, became even more so as he hit the ground hard with a loud clatter. The noise drew the attention of the snake. Somehow, perhaps understanding that the chained maiden before it wasn’t going anywhere and could be devoured at its leisure, it turned to investigate the new arrivals in its pit.

For a moment, the two combatants didn’t notice the monster’s approach, trading blows with one another. Then the snake hissed hungrily and both men turned. Cindy turned her head away as it struck, but when she looked back, it was the Dark Lord who was gone, devoured like his sorceress. The snake, finishing its second meal, loomed over the barbarian who stood defiantly, awaiting its strike. As the snake dived down upon him, Kragor sprung into action, thrusting his greatsword upwards. It speared into the roof of the cobra’s mouth, spearing into its brain, ending the terror of the serpent god and its cult forever.

Cindy slumped back with relief. She turned as the thudding tread of the barbarian came towards her. He stood over her, the Dark Lord’s axe held in his beefy hand. The next thing Cindy knew, she was scooped up in strong arms. The sacrificial pit faded from view. Now they stood at the battlements of the fortress. Or rather, he stood. Cindy knelt at his feet. Kragor had conquered the Dark Lord and he had claimed her as the spoils of his victory. As the barbarian hero raised his axe and bellowed his triumph, the young woman clung to his leg, awaiting the moment when he would claim his prize…

The beeping of Cindy’s alarm jerked her suddenly from her dream. The battlements and barbarian faded from view, replaced by the young woman’s bedroom, the skimpy slave girl outfit replaced by ordinary pajama.s

“Damn…” She thought grumbling. “Always when I get to the good part…”