Published at: 2012-09-23 Revised at: 2012-09-23 08:00:00
Chapter 1: Pumpkin Soup Jake English sat on one of the numerous vacant bar stools of the La Roux, it served as a round-about restaurant and a bar, the owner was almost always drunk, although sober enough to run the establishment; quite well really. As he waited for his drink, he looked around; It wasn't too busy at this time of year but the income was high so there wasn't much need for many customers anyway, it was the only legal bar on that side of the Mindfang River so only wealthier people went there. Jake was wealthier then most, not dastardly wealthy but still, his rewards for a gold coin or two were in no case scarce. Jane Crocker, one of the waitresses of La Roux, who happened to be a good friend of Jakes, walked calmly out of the kitchen with a bowl of steaming hot pumpkin soup and headed towards him.
"Oh Jane, you witch, you shouldn't have."
"Oh but I did! I know how hungry you get after one of your adventures! I should go with you one of these days!"
Jane was average height and wore oval rimmed glasses, with dark copper hair that complemented her features nicely. She was wearing her light blue work shirt, a long skirt of a darker blue and an apron. Jake chuckled.
"Certainly, quite sure the Tinkerbulls would love to meet you. Good gracious, I'm starving and I didn't even notice."
Jane smiled at her friend and set the bowl on the counter.
"Dig in! It's on the house."
She turned on her heal and went back into the kitchen. After she left he heard a familiar slurred voice:
"Heeeey English, seems as if you have a bit of a thing for Jaaaaney…"
Roxy, one of the owners of the restaurant and waitress, had ducked under the counters door and sat herself down on the stool next to Jake, not quite dismissed of her duty for the day. The adventurer looked at her, startled.
"Wha-what? No I don't like her quite like that, Roxy. I don't really know what gave you that idea."
She smirked.
"Well, just making sure." She leaned in closer and looked in his eyes, which were protected by thickly framed glasses, and pressed a finger to his muscular chest. "She's mine you know…"
Jake nodded, uncomfortable in this confusing situation; she smiled and smacked him on the shoulder.
"Well then, I'm going to go back to the kitchen, help Janey and stuff. I'll see you later, adventurer."
And she did just that, leaving with a wink; she let Jake eat in relative peace for the rest of the evening.
Brobot had culled off half of the guards, leaving the man to the rest. Said man could have sworn that the imps were just puppets, no blood, no left-overs. But there was no time to dwell on such things. They left the main arena of the Redglare Gardens and made their way to Piisonics' bridge.
"Roxy Lalode! How dare you say such a thing?"
Jane Crocker stood with her hands by her side behind the rusty gates that lead to the back gardens of La Roux with Roxy tagging along, Jane holding two black trash bags in each gloved hand.
"I'm just sayin', it just seems as though you have a thing for him."
Jane rolled her eyes with a frown and strutted to the back garbage disposal, depositing the two bags and then turning to face Roxy; eyes glittering with fury.
"I don't have a thing for him! I have a thing for…"
She trailed off and her face flushed, she turned away.
"For…?"
Jade scoffed and hurriedly walked away. Roxy called after her:
"Hey! Now you have to tell me!"
"No I don't!"
She yowled back. But the other woman would have none of that nonsense so Roxy ran and eventually caught up with her, she grabbed her hand; causing Jane to look at her. "Please?"
Jane sighed and scowled.
"Alright, do you really want to know? Fine, I'll tell you then. I… I have a thing…"
Roxy rolled her eyes.
"Out with it, woman."
"Fine! I do quite have a thing for Sherlock Holmes, he is ever so handsome, don't you think?"
"Pff, no way. You're lying, sure it's true that you have a huge fan-boner for that guy but I can tell that you're lying to me. Or did you forget who the smarter one here is?"
Jane huffed when Roxy smirked at her but didn't take her hand away.
"If I tell you, you're going to have to promise me something!"
"Yeah, sure. Shoot."
Jane looked at her shoes, because wow, those seem interesting right now!
"You'll still be my friend if I tell you…"
"Alright, we can still be fr-"
Roxy was cut off by a loud voice coming from the bar.
"GOG DAMN IT ROXY! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
"Shit."
Jake English had just finished his pumpkin soup when he came in. A tall man with platinum blond hair, a black outfit with a symbol that looked suspiciously like an orange hat on his tank top, and weird triangular shades; extremely sweaty and accompanied by a robot. He looked as if he could put up a good fight if they went for a round of gentlemanly fisticuffs. He and the robot wore the same type of shades, although the robot wore ruby looking ones, even if Jake couldn't see how it was possible for such a battered man to have the funds for rubies and certainly not in that amount. They both were battered quite badly, the robot, having been an almost copy of the man except for the expected metal body, had dents from battle; both fresh and old and the man that had walked to the counter had scars, like the robot they varied in stage of healing, if it had been healing in the case of the metal figure, bruises and scratches speckled the man's tan figure and his lip was evidently bleeding.
"GOG DAMMIT ROXY! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!"
His voice was even however loud it came out, his lip twitched just the slightest as if he was trying his hardest not to show any emotion. Jake could hear the familiar sound of heels on the worn stone floor of the bar over the chatter of the few people that still actually went there in the fall, even though the man had shouted, the costumers had been indifferent; they were drunk anyway so what's another drunkard to them? When Roxy finally arrived, Jane was by her side, looking flustered.
"Calm your tits, I'm here. What is it?"
Jake couldn't be sure but he thought he had seen the man roll his eyes behind the sharp pointed shades, they were dark and he could only see the ghost of the man's eyes, their color and complexion brutally dulled by the dark tint; so he couldn't know for sure.
"Took you long enough, I could have been dying you know."
It was Roxy who rolled her eyes this time.
"Well you didn't, did you?" "You're talking to me, what do you think?"
"Pff just shut up and tell me why the heck you were yelling, we have customers here ya' know."
"Weeeell," The man drawled, Jake noticed for the first time that he had but the slightest accent, and turned to the robot that had yet to say anything. "Brobot, you still have the bag?"
The robot, or alleged Brobot, as it seems, nodded a fraction and produced a brown leather bag which seems full of things such as an old and worn looking paper that was sealed with a strong looking thread that was being taken out of the protective bag at the moment.
"This," The man removed the thick thread and uncurled the paper "is one of the reasons, the rest is in the bag."
Jane's eyes widened and she spoke up enthusiastically.
"Oh my gosh, is that a map?"
The blond man smirked at her.
"Yep."
"If I can interfere for a moment," Jake could feel the man's eyes on him. "I was wondering where you acquired that map."
There was a glint in Jakes eyes, another adventure! And so soon too!
The man's smirk didn't falter as he said,
"It's a secret."
Jake matched the other man's smirk with a scowl.
"What do you mean by that?"
The man's smirk widened into an almost smile, while Roxy was in one of the nearby barstools, watching as intently as a cat seeing their prey with Jane by her side still.
"I'll let you on this secret just because I don't have the time for this, you'd better be feeling special, Jake was it? Well, it's because I stole it from the Lord Of Assholes, Sir Eridouche Ampora."
Jake looked at the stranger with wide eyes, bottle-cap lenses making his eyes look bigger than they were in fact, with his mouth ajar.
"Are you actually saying that you broke into the Royal Fort and stole the lords' treasure?" The man arched an eyebrow into a perfect "well duh" face, well, for a man who had been wearing shades through all this time and had yet to show any actual emotion; it was a feat in its self. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying here. Do I have to draw a damn picture for you to understand?"
Jake just stared at the man, still shocked at the news of someone, asides from himself, being able to break into the Royal Fort and the flattering, that too. Roxy spoke up out of the blue:
"Wow, Dirky Jerky, I didn't know you actually had the balls to do something so, severe, and get away with nooo-one looking for you!"
Dirk, so that was his name, most likely; the odds of someone naming their child "Dirky" were low, although "Dirk" is a rare name also. Jake nodded in agreement, mostly to himself but agreeing with the woman that he had befriended all those years ago as well. Dirk hummed in indifference, the pokerface he had come in with back in place, and handed the re-sealed paper to Brobot. "No, actually that's why these douche-bags came looking for me."
A second later, Dirk and Brobot where behind the counter, leaving nothing to prove that they had been there in the first place. Roxy, Jane and Jake shared a look of bewilderment that only lasted a heartbeat, a heartbeat also used for Jake so he could face his finished soup. Not a moment later, a big troll walked in to the bar as two medium looking trolls followed, one of the smaller trolls being Lord Ampora himself.
"Thith' where that ''Dirk'' guy ith' th'uppoth'ed to bee?"
The bigger troll nodded and said:
"Affirmative, our sources have enlightened me that this is indeed the correct location."
His voice was gruff and made Jakes skin prickle, he was judging from the color of the sweat that had gathered on his brow and on his face and by the looks of it, he was a blue blood. Blue bloods where lower then highbloods but where still considered royalty when needed.
"Wwill you hurry it up already! I left Fef alone in the Gardens an' Mee is too busy doin' wwhatevver the glub she does at this time a' the day to wwatch her!" Jake had heard about Sea-Dwellers speech pattern, sometimes they would repeat a letter or even choose a letter or two as a favorite and highlight them in some way. "Untwith't your pantieth' and wait a th'ec ed, I'll check the place out," As suddenly as Dirks and Brobots disappearances the trolls' eyes began to spark blue and red lights, Jake sat there on the bar stool bewildered as the sparking eyed troll took of his muti-tinted glasses in such a manner that it looked as if he was taking them of to go to bed. After a minute or two of waiting the troll closed his eyes and reopened them a second later to reveal that his eyes where back to normal, or the equivalent of normal for a troll, a mere human can never know for sure. Relocating his oddly coloured glasses back on to the bridge of his nose, he turned to the highest blood in the group. "Th'orry ed, he'th' not here, he might have already eth'caped."
Jake was confused, how would they be fast enough to be able to escape so quickly? His attention was brought back to the three trolls that where standing in the entrance of the bar, the loud cussing that was coming from the one in the front was enough for a few patrons to turn their heads.
"Cod dammit! Cod dammit all to the deepest of reefs, even deeper than where the wicked Gl'bgolyb lies!" That earned a gasp or two from the customers and even a sly comment about how that was a very wicked thing to say indeed, Jake didn't know much about the troll culture but he did know that Gl'bgolyb was a horrid monster that ate trolls and enjoyed human flesh and that it was either the highest bloods' job to feed the creature, or Lusus as trolls call them, or they would witness The Vast Glub, or would somewhat hear it. If The Vast Glub where to happen, all the beings in the universe would die, something neither race would want. "Equius!" It was evident that the purple caped troll had calmed down but it was just as evident that he was still disturbed by the news of his prey being so difficult to catch. "Go rally up a team, I wwant a full party by the end of the day. That map wwas important and I'm not goin' to let some loww-life scum take it from me!"
At that the other troll, a yellow blood, as was proved by his psionic ability, scoffed. Apparently yellow bloods where low on the blood social scale thing-a-ma-bob, but the psionic troll didn't comment. After a few minutes of arguing with the blue blooded troll, and a comment or two from the yellow, the Lord grumbled something illegible and with a flurry of his cape, he left the La Roux with the bigger troll. Surprisingly, the yellow blooded troll approached the counter where Roxy was sitting with her legs crossed, black leggings and black skirt nearly matching the dark wood of the fairly old counter wood. Her shirt was a simple white Tee with but a pink cat head on the front, she smiled at the troll.
"Hey, Sollux! Long time no see!" "Ha ha, very funny RL'." Jake saw that Dirk and Brobot came into view, rising from behind the counter. If Jake was confused before, now he was utterly baffled.