How to Boil Water

"Ah, my friend, welcome to my castle!"

Rubicante gave him a piercing stare for that. While his overly dramatic cloak hid the lower part of his face, Cagnazzo could imagine him frowning at that. "You should know that I consider you no friend."

Cagnazzo gave him a smile for that. Of course, he would consider Rubicante no friend either. He could respect him, yes, since he did have considerable power and used it with a seemingly effortless grace. But the fiend of fire was far too cautious to make the best use of his power. Strangely enough, he was also too honorable for his own good. He berated Cagnazzo at times for being unreasonably deceptive and cruel. Cagnazzo called that being intelligent.

Just out of his sight, there was a snort and a boney rustle. "You didn't offer me any such greetings," Scarmiglione said, huddled up in his cloak like the decrepit corpse he was.

"You weren't put in charge of anything," Cagnazzo said, sweeping the cape of his kingly disguise around. "When you do something significant, I might show you such respect."

"He only did it to annoy me," Rubicante said. "And I only came to improve his plans by removing silly mistakes."

"Hey now, my plans have already succeeded flawlessly," Cagnazzo said, gesturing around to the grand throne room. The large tapestries and the imposing throne were all still marked for the honor of Baron, yes, but it was all to his glory. "I had some pesky doubters to deal with, but I got rid of them and tarnished their names without incident."

"You've turned all the servants and knights that I've seen into monsters," Rubicante said dismissively, then put his hand to his chin. "No, not you. A good deal of it is Golbez' magic, not yours."

No, remain calm. Cagnazzo didn't want to lose his cool in front of his peers (even as he felt they were beneath him in truth). "But it was my idea. He helped some in making it less noticeable to human senses. Here, why don't I show you both around? I've made some improvements in case someone thinks they can stop Baron from overtaking the world so that it is rule by the elements, not by the mortals. That is our ultimate goal, remember?"

"It's to make the world better, though I fear you would make things worse," Rubicante said, smug as always. Cagnazzo tightened the king's lips; no, stay cool…

"What about Barbaricca?" Scarmiglione asked. "I thought you invited her."

"Maybe she hasn't come yet because you're always such a pervert around her," Cagnazzo said dismissively. Why did this cruddy fiend have to be called up for the element of earth? He was so weak and seemed to think that dying repeatedly improved himself.

"That's too bad," Scarmiglione said, ignoring the insult. "Never mind, I'll show myself around. I've noticed something interesting already, more so than listening to you two bicker." He chuckled and scuttled off.

Once he was out of the room, Cagnazzo grumbled "I hope I don't have to clean up some mess after him."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did," Rubicante said. "I won't be helping with that."

"I wasn't asking for help," he said. "But come along, I'll show you some great traps."

And they were great, at least in Cagnazzo's opinion. Outside of important rooms, there were timed hidden arrows for those who lingered too long in eavesdropping. Any rooms that servants worked in had spike traps he could trigger if they got out of line. The entrance hall to the throne room was already designed to funnel visitors so they could be examined first; Cagnazzo had made it so that the walls could be moved to crush any undesirables. And over at the stairs leading down to the dungeons, there were spears to impale any who tried to escape and impeded the progress of those who followed them.

"I'm surprised that you don't have any water based traps in here," Rubicante said, looking over the fire spouts in a side room. "You are the fiend of water, not traps."

"Well I don't want to be too obvious," Cagnazzo said. The truth of it was that this old castle didn't have enough watertight rooms to make good water traps. There were things that he could do with the moat, but other than fellow water spirits, who would come in a castle through the moat?

"But it looks like you've cut the work force of this place drastically," Rubicante said, glancing around. He snapped his fingers at a fireplace to put a fire there, then ran a finger over the mantle. "Terrible upkeep. Your castle is going to quickly become a dump."

"Who cares as long as I'm king?" he said. "I can inhabit the moat if I want, so I don't care about the castle itself. The power is the important thing."

"You make for a pitiful king," Rubicante said. "You let Golbez do whatever he wants with Baron's greatest strength. This power is not impressive."

That was enough to make him snap. "Why do you insist on always making me boil? If you think you can do better at trapping a whole castle, I'd like to see you try. I'd even work with you."

"It's not the traps, but your unbelievably poor management of what you were given," he said.

"And what have you accomplished, hmm?" Cagnazzo hissed. "I've taken over a kingdom but as far as I can tell, you've taken nothing."

Rubicante crossed his arms over his chest. "I've taken a kingdom as well, but I don't care to rule it. I'm poised to make another respect the elements. Yes, you have taken Baron and made it a force to be reckoned with, but that is with the assistance of Golbez. It could be argued that he did all the real work beyond your pitiful borders. Yet I've done my task alone."

"Are you calling me weak?" He went to grab Rubicante's arm, but only got his cloak. "I could snuff you out in a snap."

"We're working together at this time," Rubicante said, quiet and stern. "Do you want me to tell Golbez that you're flirting with becoming a traitor?"

Cagnazzo narrowed his eyes at him; he really wanted to snuff this jerk out. But just as he was weighing angering Golbez against having to tolerate Rubicante much longer, a rapidfire thudding of arrows came from the hall. Who was out there?

Cagnazzo had invited them over to check out Baron Castle. Barbaricca figured it'd have nothing on the Tower of Zot, but it'd been a while since she'd seen him. Besides, he'd invited all of them to visit this time. That meant that the hunky Rubicante would be there too. And that horrid wretch Scarmiglione, him too unfortunately. Nobody liked him. Still, it'd be worth it to deal with that lich if she got another chance to flirt with Rubicante. Maybe she'd even be successful in winning his attention this time.

Humming happily, Barbaricca flew with the jet stream, curving and speeding over the planet below. Once she spotted the castle, she descended in a spiral and gusted herself into an open window. The heavy curtains were flung aside for a dramatic entrance. Barbaricca smiled, but only for a second as she realized that there was no one in the room to be awed at it. It would have been the perfect moment to impress anyone.

Walking was too pedestrian, so she drifted around the halls. It was quiet and still, which made it a place she didn't like. Part of that stillness had to do with the heavy stone walls that didn't let air flow as it liked. And a reason for the quiet was that there was hardly anyone around. No humans. That was curious, since castles were usually residences for those who ruled over others, with plenty of servants. Baron should have an army too, even if Golbez was focusing on their aerial strengths.

The quiet did make it easy to hear voices from a room ahead. From the hall, the words were indistinct. "You make..." it was Rubicante! That deep smooth voice was unmistakable. "...do whatever… greatest… this power… impressive."

And it was Cagnazzo who answered him; he could disguise his voice and did so frequently, but when he spoke naturally, there was a distinctive burbling to it. "Why… me boil? If you… do better… I'd like… with you."

"Hmm, what is this?" Barbaricca murmured to herself. She drifted closer to the wall and crept towards the door, trying to be unnoticed.

"It's not…" it sounded tense, but so scandalous at the same time. "But your…. of what… given."

There was a hiss, maybe something passionate? Then whispering that Barbaricca couldn't hear. She paused in her creeping before she would get seen. Seconds later, a flicker of movement caught her eyes. A barrage of arrows came flying down the halls, forcing her to shield with her hair. As more arrows got trigger in another hall, she had to duck into the room. She found the pair in a compromising position of Cagnazzo gripping Rubicante.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" Barbaricca asked. "I got bothered by arrows, which triggered other arrows."

"What?" Cagnazzo asked, letting Rubicante go.

"Didn't you realize that with the way the castle halls are connected, your arrow traps will trigger each other?" Rubicante asked. "They're all going to be firing at nothing now."

Cagnazzo muttered, glaring at her. "Do you know how long it's going to take to clean up all those arrows and reset all the traps? What were you doing out there?"

Smiling back (because that would annoy him), Barbaricca said, "Just seeing if it was alright for me to come in. Maybe even join you too, hmm? Anyhow, that's your mess, not mine."

"We can agree on that at least," Rubicante said before vanishing into a puff of smoke. She felt disappointed in that; couldn't he stick around to give her more than just a few words?

"Urgh, why did I even bother to invite you?" Cagnazzo muttered, turning to dash out the fireplaces with a burst of water.

"Because you're madly in love with him?" Barbarica said, delighted at the idea even though she'd rather have Rubicante to herself.

Even his human guise didn't hide his appalled reaction to that. "What?! No! Why the hell would I be in love with that jerk?"

"You two were awfully close together whispering to each other when I came in," she said. Even if it wasn't true, it was great in that he hated the idea. "Haven't you heard that a powerful hate is often a farce for a passionate love?"

"That is not true!" he snapped, right before a random explosion from elsewhere in the castle interrupted them. "Oh, what now?"

Following the explosion and the racket of battle, Cagnazzo found Scarmiglione cackling in a hall to a different area of the dungeon. There was a violet glow coming from a staircase at the end of the hall. "What have you done now?" Cagnazzo asked.

"I've done something magnificent," Scarmilgione said, immensely pleased with himself. "Just look at him."

Someone floated up the stairs, a close mirror image of what he currently looked like. It was the real king of Baron, a vicious looking spear in his hand. While Scarmiglione messing around with corpses wasn't surprising, the gold shine in the king's eyes was a worrisome sign. "It's the usurper, finally showing your cowardly face."

"Hmph, it's the weakling who thought he was worthy of being king," Cagnazzo said.

The old king took his spear in both hands.

Meanwhile, Scarmiglione cackled. "He is, and I fused his soul with that of Odin."

"What?!" Cagnazzo asked, feeling an awful sluggish chill in him.

"You will be brought to justice," the old king said right before he threw a massive bolt of lightning down the hall.

"You should have left him dead!" Cagnazzo said, firing a tidal wave back. "Now we have to put him down again."

"We?" Barbaricca said. "Nope, your mess, you deal with it." She then whisked herself away with a gale that hit everyone else in the hall.

"No, don't ruin him!" Scarmiglione insisted. "He's a masterpiece!"

After knocking the king back down the stairs, Cagnazzo sealed off the stairway so that the corpse wouldn't bother him. Scarmiglione took off in a huff because of that. That left him with a castle full of arrows and dud traps to clean up. And not many maids left to handle it for him.

"This day has just been awful," Cagnazzo said to himself. "But what idiotic thing made her think I was in love? Ugh."

He shook his head and headed off to clean up all the arrows.

Being inspired, Barbaricca wrote a story about Cagnazzo and Rubicante. They would deny it adamantly, so they didn't have to see it. But she could share it with her underlings in the Magus Sisters. "Oo, this is really good," Cindy said.

Mindy giggled. "Oh yes, I love all the banter."

On the other hand, Sandy was puzzled. "But why those two? Rubicante is a hunk, yes, but Cagnazzo is creepy monster."

"Well they hate each other," Barbaricca said. "They hate each other with such venom that the only thing keeping them from killing each other is the fact that we're supposed to be working together under Golbez. If that broke into love, they'd be just like this, not able to keep their hands off each other. We'd just have to use some charm magic and boom, they'd be all crazy for each other."

"Hey, we should do that some time for a laugh," Cindy said.

"Maybe," Barbaricca said. "But not until I've won Rubicante's heart for myself. I might have to use charm magic on him for that too. We just have to find some way to do that."

"We'd be glad to help you on that," Sandy said, getting immediately agreement from her sisters.

Barbaricca smiled, glad they were her friends and minions. "Wonderful! Now we just need to find a way to make this happen."

They plotted happily for quite some time, coming up with preposterous schemes that were more fun than actually reasonable. But how would she earn Rubicante's love? Maybe if she got as strong as him, then he'd respect her enough to give her a chance.