Chapter 11:
"What is that," demanded the Warrior Princess? "Fire-Wolf," Olesia replied. "Phoebe got this one from a pack that's been living south of the kingdom. They're used to trees." He wouldn't be burning everything in sight. More to the point, Olesia wouldn't have to be worried for injuring any of the army's riding-animals. Ingrid stood there a moment, staring at the younger woman, as she cared for her riding-beast. It was a shocking exposition from her youthful helper. The hard-bitten older woman couldn't help but think that Olesia might have made a better ruler of the Fire Kingdom than the current king. Certainly, she would have done a better job as a leader than the imbecile currently running the Muscle Kingdom.
"What's the plan for today," Olesia asked? "We're going to finish the sweep through the Peanut Kingdom," Ingrid replied. "There's seven more castles that might be hiding soldiers. I intend to disarm the entirety of the kingdom and leave garrisons on the land to prevent the locals from rising against us." It wasn't anything like Olesia had been expecting. She'd expected that they would be simply riding through the former Wildberry Kingdom, hunting people who didn't belong there. It saddened her a little seeing the hunger and poverty currently afflicting the Nut-People. Still, Billy had taught her that sometimes you had to go through the depths of ugliness to get out the other side. With the rebel army out of the picture, the Empire could now come in and get about the job of caring for these people.
"Be ready in an hour," Ingrid announced in her typical imperious tones. Olesia nodded. She'd be ready. The enemy soldiers typically threw in the towel after seeing her face. That had let them take down eight castles without much of a fight. They'd hardly needed to hurt anyone, and Olesia was delighted by that. She keenly felt Billy's concerns about the loss of life. The world had truly seen enough of death.
Back in the Candy Kingdom, Finn the King awoke to the scent of a familiar perfume. Opening his eyes, he found Drew standing over him with a chart in her hands–a scene he could recall from a hundred other times in his misspent life. "Hey," he greeted her. Face closed, the pretty doctor put the chart aside in favor of stuffing a thermometer in his mouth. He was used to that. He didn't get kisses from this woman. He got this.
"So," Finn burbled, as she looked at the temperature on the thermometer. "How long was I out?" "Four days," Drew replied. "Beating before or after I get out of bed," he asked? For answer, the older woman threw herself on him and cried and cried. It was a side of Drew that he'd never seen before. With his remaining hand, the Hero of Ooo reached up and stroked her short, brown locks. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I keep promising to change, and I keep failing..." The tall doctor shot to her feet, shouting, "I can't do this! You'll... You'll break my heart!" Before he could say another word, she ran out of the room, leaving him with only with her scent and a painful silence.
As he was pondering climbing out of bed to go after her, Hurletta came in. With a glance over her shoulder, she asked, "what's wrong with her?" "Nothing that a new husband won't cure," Finn replied. The Slime-Princess stared at him in a sort of puzzled shock. Calmly–as if he hadn't heard his wife suggest she was dumping him–Finn greeted his Finance Minister. Hurletta sat herself by his bedside, declaring, "you've looked better." "Thanks," he replied. It was deadpan, and it was a little weird and off-putting. She'd only ever seen him like this once before. After the body-snatcher had controlled him. The memory made her shiver.
Turning to his long-time friend, Finn the King declared, "I'm sorry. I guess we won't be going dancing for a fair bit." He had to get himself out of this place, and he would likely be pig-piled with work when he did. "Billy's taking care of it," Hurletta replied. Finn's face snapped over. There was emotion there. Maybe even worry. "He's doing fine," Hurletta told him. "He's keeping us all from stepping on each others' tits." That image made him laugh. He knew where she'd gotten that. He'd once blurted out that he had stepped on his dick with Bonnie. It was an earthy saying he'd gotten from Jake. It was a warning not to do thoughtless, stupid things.
Hurletta laughed with him. The pair laughed and laughed until, just as suddenly as he'd started, Finn stopped. "I want to thank you for being my friend all these years," he said. The slime-woman stared at him. "I... wasn't always fair to you," he said. The plump woman flushed and glanced away. "I wasn't always a plump humanoid," she retorted. Taking a breath, she replied, "thank you for putting up with my antics. You were more than kind, and you always let me down easy." The King took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "I don't want to talk like this," she sighed. "Like one of us is going away." Glancing up, she said, "let's talk about where we're going to go dancing when you get out."
The two chatted for the better part of an hour, with Hurletta focused with razor-sharp clarity on talking about nothing. It would have been odd to Finn if he didn't understand what she was thinking and feeling. Honestly, he felt those things himself. He wouldn't have been able to say goodbye. That was important to him. He'd always feared not being able to say his goodbyes. Unfortunately, he couldn't sit here chatting about nothing forever. He needed to know what was going on. "What's been happening," he asked?
With a sigh, the slime-princess said, "like I said, we're holding. Billy's doing good work. He had some challenges to his authority early on, but he shut them down. Fionna's raising hell in the infirmary, demanding to be let out. She wants to get back to the Grey Forest to finish the work on the barrier. Nadia's been putting her off. Sarah's... been... odd. She's awake at all hours of the day and night. She says she's working on the remedy or cure or whatever for what the Dipped did to the Elbow Kingdom, but we're not really hearing anything more than that. Mostly we've got things straight though."
Sharing a conspiratorial chuckle with him–and blushing more than a little–Hurletta said, "I'm getting good cooperation out of Aysun now. She's handed off all the records for the Emerald Mines. Maybe that hot beef injection got her squared away..." Finn blushed himself. He'd sort of had to admit that happened after Aysun admitted not being on the pill. Moving on, the plump woman told him, "Ingrid's moving on the Peanut Kingdom now. She's been liquidating the remaining castle garrisons and occupying them. After, she'll move against the men in Wildberry Kingdom." Finn absorbed all of that, sorting through all the risks in his mind. From time to time he would ask a question or two, showing he was still the man she'd known from her youth. Finally, it was time for her to go. She had her appointment with the counselor to get to.
Back in Peanut Kingdom, Olesia rode up to the line of departure to find Princess Ingrid waiting on horseback with her officers. Finn had been pretty adamant about getting the world back to the sort of small-scale warfare that had characterized the Peace of the last few centuries. Swords and horses and occasionally a few guns in the hands of the combatants, and nothing more. It was an uglier, more personal form of war, and few had the stomach for that.
Turning from her little conference, the tall woman asked the newcomer, "are you ready?" Olesia nodded. In spite of the fact that she'd done this a few times now, she still felt the butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She found herself wondering how Billy managed, when he'd been doing this since he was sixteen. He'd been a regular at it since he was seventeen–a year younger than she was now. A part of her thought that maybe boys did find this easier, though Princess Ingrid was nothing to judge by.
The army moved out, marching down to the latest target of conquest in the Peanut Kingdom. The inhabitants had sent back the envoy, crushed into a box, with the lid sealed on tight in a cruel act of defiance. His people thought he might recover from the injuries inflicted by being squished into a space that was a little too small even for a slime-person, but the message was well received. Castle Harrow wasn't surrendering without a fight.
The Castle sat atop a rocky outcropping in a beautiful mountain valley. It was a sight that Olesia had come to appreciate since coming down out of the burning north. Even though she spent her days now in a strange sort of fear for the risk of hurting or damaging the fragile life around her, the young woman had come to treasure every moment here. The sights often stole her breath, even if she was a little cold just now.
As the army marched into position, Ingrid led the way up onto a rocky knoll, planting the Finn-Flag, as it had come to be known. Born from Ingrid's imagination, the banner was a raging bear on a green field, representing the fierce hero himself and the grasslands he'd called home most of his life. Almost immediately, the tall princess drew her spyglass and trained it on the battlements. Olesia quit her wool-gathering and gawking and focused her own senses. She had her part to play here too. "It's stone," muttered Ingrid. "It's all fucking stone." Even the roof.
Scanning back and forth, she continued to curse and mutter. "Machicolations," she grumbled. "I was hoping for hordings." Hordings could be fired by her little companion. They'd become as much death-trap for the defenders as they were meant to be for the enemy. They would have been, if Harrow Castle had need of them. The castle's owner had been both insightful enough to include them in the design and wealthy enough to afford them.
"I'm sensing fires," Olesia burbled. "Lots of them." Ingrid never stopped her ceaseless scanning. "Big enough to jump through," she asked? There was a real risk there. She always asked, but she never pushed Olesia to do it. The family had come to value the plucky little princess. She wasn't planning to be the one to get the elemental snuffed–not when Ingrid had the numbers to take the castle at one throw of the dice. She had ten-thousand men here. With a gasp of surprise, Olesia broke concentration, shouting, "pull them back!" Ingrid's head snapped around in puzzlement. "P-pull them back now," howled Olesia. "I... there's water. I felt it... There's lots and lots of water."
The troops had been about to march into position around the castle. Most of them were borrowed soldiers from the Slime Kingdom, and by now the enemy likely well knew that. Stocks of boiling water meant one thing. They were throwing a bit of a hot shower-party for the slime-folk. While the filthy creatures seemed to have become a lot more resistant to water, Ingrid wasn't quite ready to take the chance. "Pull them back," she shouted! "Blow recall!" The bugler raised the horn to his lips and sounded the signal for the troops to turn around.
The tall woman turned to the elemental, and it was plain on Ingrid's face that this had better not be a joke. "I was touching the fires, when I felt water," Olesia told her. "There was water splashing into several of them at once... I took the risk of looking a little closer, and I think I saw kettles. Massive kettles of water at each fire..." Resting a gauntleted hand on her shoulder momentarily, Ingrid told her, "good work, Princess Olesia." It was a momentary touch, but it made the plump girl feel warm. It was nothing like she'd been used to being treated at school, where she'd been picked on as a fatty.
In short order, the officers were climbing the knoll to Ingrid's side. "What happened," demanded Colonel Barth. "You were walking into a trap," Ingrid announced, in her imperious voice. Nodding at Olesia, she said, "that one sensed water. Lots of it. They were going to boil you alive." That gave the hostile soldier pause. His eyes flicked back to his men. The slime-folk had become accustomed to ducking the touch of water. Their transformation had done little to change that natural aversion. Boiling water might well have killed hundreds of his men and sent the rest fleeing in a panic. They needed a new plan.
Back in the Candy Kingdom, Finn had gotten out of bed, climbed into a robe, and gone hunting his wayward wife. Questions for the guards had quickly brought him to the suite Fionna was sharing with his newest grand-child, Nadine. He found Drew doing the blood-work for Fi's child herself. She never left anything to chance when it came to family, even though it tended to bring her more than a few sleepless nights. The soft skritch of his slippers on the tile floor caused her to turn around, bringing them face to face.
"Here to collect my beating," he said. The tall doctor stared at him–almost through him. Yeah, things were different. He'd really screwed the pooch this time. Testing the waters, the big man stepped towards her. When she didn't run away from him, he took that as a positive sign. Step by painful step he crossed that space, terrified the whole way that she would tell him to stop. Finally, he was standing before her, staring into her pretty brown eyes. Her hair had been getting longer since she quit working in the clinic, and he found himself taking by the urge to run his fingers through her dark brown locks. But there was a gorilla in the room, staring them both down.
As if in acknowledgment of that, the pretty doctor announced, "I handled that poorly." She might have been talking about making salad. "You handled that like a normal person," Finn retorted. Slipping his arm around her, the big man said, "I... can't say I don't like the difference. I think the only other time I've seen you like this is when you were looking for a baby-daddy." She snorted in derision. One had just volunteered himself out of the blue. Finn chuckled, "yeah, that's the Drew I'm used to, but it isn't always a healthy Drew." She stared at him. "You made me face my emotions and my fears," he reminded her. "Maybe you should do the same."
Nodding, she stepped back from him and said, "there's a reason I passed responsibility for you to Dr. Chips, Finn. Things became different when I came to have a dog in the fight. I... stand to lose more than just a patient... It's more even than just a friend. I'd... I'd be losing a defining piece of my life, and I'm just not ready for that. I faced death every day in that clinic, but I never faced the death of someone I really cared for." He opened his mouth to speak, and she cut him off, saying, "don't... You don't mean it. You're not capable of meaning it. I've known that as long as I've known you. I... was a fool to fall in love with a man I can't ever really have."
Those words hit him like a kick in the balls. Nodding, she said, "it's not Bonnie or Phoebe or Simone or Emeraude. We... We're all in this boat. I share my husband with the tens of millions of people across the face of this shattered world. And sometimes... it sometimes feels like those nameless faces own him more than I do." He stared down at her feet, and she knew she'd hurt him. "That needed to get said," she muttered, "but it doesn't mean I want to walk away, Finn. If this is what I have... It's far richer than the nothing I had before this." Turning, she said, "I have work to do." She was closing the conversation–telling him that she needed space. Nodding, Finn turned to go. Standing in the doorway, he said, "I'm always here in your corner." "I know," she replied.
Back in the east, business at Harrow Castle had moved on, and now a pair of eyes stared out at the kitchens of the massive castle, observing the scene with sinister intent. They were making ready to cook up lunch, gathering up ingredients. She'd have to be quick about this. She'd come to learn that there was often water in abundance in a flesh-creature's home and no more so than in their kitchen. She'd have to terrify these people and send them running before they could even think about using the weapon they had near to hand. Taking a breath, the plump princess gathered herself and went stepping through and out of the fire.
The terror struck the inhabitants of the kitchen almost immediately. She'd chosen the fireplace farthest from any water, and she'd purposefully chosen the one where the head cook was working. The terrified man dropped the roast he'd been preparing in favor of beating out the flames on his apron–and then beating feet out of there. He was soon joined by the scullery maids and assistants, who fled the scene in a panic, with no thought at all given to mustering a defense.
She was supposed to gather on clothing when she'd chased off the cooks. That had been Ingrid's plan, but Olesia knew better. This wasn't the time for modesty. If she did what she was supposed to be doing, nobody would be hanging around to ogle her charms. Striding forward, burning feet singing the floorboards with each step she took, the plush princess strode out of the kitchen and into the great hall, where a pack of soldiers was gathered to get lunch.
The gathered officers of the Army of Ooo had batted ideas back and forth at a whirlwind pace, trying out bits of this and that to get through or over the walls without having to risk two-thirds of the army at one shot. Olesia had watched as a growing sense of dismay overtook them. The majority of the army–the cream of their force–were soldiers out of Slime Kingdom. Those men risked horrifying death just stepping up to the walls. There simply weren't enough Banana-Guard or Froyo-folk here to make the difference, and the rump of Ingrid's personal army was patrolling further south and east against the risk of attack from across the water by the mystery army that had attacked the lizards.
They'd twice looked to Olesia for some kind of intervention–intervention that Ingrid had squashed. She'd pointed to the obvious. With its stone walls and slate roof with sheets of lead in places for good measure, Harrow Castle was impervious to Olesia's fire. And while there was every possibility that the Flame King could burn her way through those walls, Phoebe was in hock with her people for the ugly wars just fought, with hard feelings to assuage over her 'absences'. Phoebe wasn't coming personally to help them with this. This was Olesia's job to carry as a member of the Royal Family, if only be association.
Some of the men in the hall stared at her, struck dumb by the beautifully terrifying sight. Others grew instant boners. All got moving immediately when the young elemental set the stoutest of their number ablaze at his seat. Ignoring his horrifying screams–blotting them out of her mind–the plump woman strode forward, growling, "leave here now. Let nothing delay your feet."
Trouble came to Ernst von Blucher's world when the great hall began spontaneously emptying itself of his men. He'd been in a pretty fine mood when the enemy went into full retreat before even testing his walls. He'd imagined they'd caught sight of what he had waiting on them. Boiling water. Lots and lots of boiling water was waiting on the wretched slime-creatures, should they test his defenses. He had fuel to keep the fires burning for weeks if he had to. He'd promised his cousin that he would keep Harrow Castle and block the enemy's advance into their kingdom, and he'd been certain of keeping that promise. Until now.
It took two tries to stop one of the men in his headlong flight to get an answer. That answer had led to Ernst's own knees turning to water. An elemental. Here. Inside his castle. Somehow an elemental had managed to enter his heavy, stone-built castle, with its iron-clad doors. An elemental was roaming at will through his castle.
The lord of the castle found himself rushing around to try and gather the garrison back together, when several of them were actually trying to fling open the gates to flee. That task was helped not at all by the thunderous sounds of explosions inside the castle as the elemental slaughtered any who would have stood to fight. Twice more the Lord had to rally his men. He gathered up the bravest and had them lie in wait with kettles of water to douse their terrifying enemy as the elemental crossed one of the castle's open spaces.
The men waited there, with Ernst standing on the third floor of the opposite building, waiting to give the order. Minutes ticked into eternity, and the sounds of those thunderous blasts trickled to a halt, leaving a deafening silence. It was almost as if they had all dreamed the horrifying event. And then, just when he was considering sending men back inside, the blasts started anew. Only they were coming from inside the manor. With him. The Lord of Harrow Castle turned in the direction of those horrifying sounds. His family came rushing down the hall towards him, with his wife and daughters squealing in terror.
It was inside. With them.
The deafening sounds of those blasts came closer, and his daughters squealed in panic, even as his son reported that his soldiers had thrown back the gates and fled. They'd abandoned the water-kettles and everything else, shedding armor and weapons both, and fled. He could hear the sounds of those brave enough to stand, as they met their fate. Floor by floor, the creature moved up into the manor, though fewer and fewer stood in opposition. Finally the last and most loyal of the guards burst into the chamber where the Lord stood with his family, with death not far behind. Indeed, Ernst moved forward, drawing his useless sword and pistol, prepared to sell his life for his family as an ominous glow lit the hallway outside, marking the appearance of their foe.
She was utterly beautiful, with heavy, yet perfect breasts that swayed with each and every step, broad hips that wig-wagged back and forth, and even a dainty cleft that seemed too small for her ripe curves. Her pretty face suggested youth, and her burning gaze was sharp. She was utterly beautiful, which added to the incongruous irony of a naked woman with hair afire striding down his hallway casually setting fire to any of his guards who dared to get in her way. The courage of two of the Lord's men melted. One dared to actually hold his wife as a shield.
The burning woman set fire to that man's hair, causing him to go diving out the window, screaming as he fell. The plump peanut-woman fell in a faint. Shaking off his shock–and the massive boner tenting his pants–the Lord rushed forward, shouting for his guards to follow. Forming a slim blade of flame, the elemental woman turned his blow and drove her blade up to the hilt in the Lord's chest. Indeed, the handful of men who opposed her met a similar fate, as she killed them with ease, right up until the young boy threw a glass of water at her face. In a haze of pain, Olesia reflexively burned him right to the floor, only realizing when the cobwebs cleared from her mind that he was only a child. Shocking the two young girls, the plump woman then knelt at the child's side and gave vent to a horrified wailing that curdled their blood.
In the Wildberry Kingdom, the self-proclaimed Prince Peanut, woke from an uneasy sleep. He'd been having a horrid dream of Finn the Human dangling him over the glass pit in the old factory. The evil being in the pit was leering up at him, laughing at him and all but salivating over the prospect of being fed. He'd awakened as the King of Ooo pronounced his sentence as death for his treason. Now his mind struggled to put the terrors of the night back in their place, as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior of his tent.
It was Ludwig that had awakened him. Ludwig was at the entry of his tent, a pensive frown on his face. Bad news. It was certainly bad news. Crawling from between the sheets, the formerly plump peanut-person stood there a moment, rubbing his eyes and scratching. He'd not been sleeping well, and when exhaustion had come up on him in the middle of the day, he'd just gone with the flow. He was worried about his lands. He was worried about his wife. He was worried about his daughters and niece. They were at risk in the hands of Finn the Human, and, though the blonde ape had never showed a willingness to harm innocents, there was always a first time for everything. "Alright," muttered the prickly peanut, "what is it now, Ludwig?"
His fellow noble announced, "Harrow's fallen, sire." Rolf, who'd been reaching for a pitcher of water, dropped his cup on the floor in shock. Harrow Castle was his strongest fortification. He'd expected the castle to hold for days, even with an elemental positioned against them. The stone walls and slate roof should have repelled fire. Unless the ape has now decided it's fair game to use those dreadful things against righteous people, he thought. He'd always been terrified that the dreadful warlord the idiot princesses had appointed would do such a thing. He was a man. He knew how seductive power could be. He wouldn't have hesitated a moment to deploy a couple of those machines to liquidate an inconvenient enemy.
His eyes flicked to the direction where the ruined factory lay. Ludwig knew what he was looking at. "Sire," he rumbled. "You would lose your soul..." "If he can take Harrow, Ludwig," the Peanut-Prince muttered. "We don't know what happened," his lieutenant replied. "Let us endeavor to find out..." "I need an edge," Rolf growled. "I need something. Chelsea's pipe-dreams of super-weapons won't keep us alive. When they've finished our kingdom, they'll be here, Ludwig." "Just let me find out what's going on," the older man insisted. "Ok," muttered Rolf.
Late that evening, after hours spent cleaning up the mess, the Warrior Princess found her young charge sitting beside the fire that she would likely go to be in. She'd been there for hours–really since she'd come back from the castle. Ingrid had seen this before. The younger woman was in a profound state of grief over the things she'd seen and done. That was the great terror of war. Even did you come back with no physical hurts, you often came back with terrors of the mind that were much harder to ease.
"You're upset," burbled Ingrid. Olesia looked up from her pensive stirring of the fire. Her expression suggested that the tall woman was intruding. Squatting beside her, the tall woman opened with, "you're not a soldier. This is the life I was born into. I don't expect you to like it..." "It's the cost of war," the plump woman interrupted. "A third of the men in my family are soldiers. I know what war is like." The tall woman's expression said it all. Princess Ingrid didn't quite believe her. "This is why I agreed to do this...," Olesia murmured. "The cost of war has to be paid, but I aim to reduce it to the barest minimum I can manage. I accept that war is needed to preserve the peace, but I take no joy of it." Looking up at the older woman, she said, "I will mourn for those I have to murder. It's part of who I am, but I will keep going because this has to be ended so the world can see peace again."
Nodding, Ingrid stood up, announcing, "fair enough, Princess Olesia. For what it's worth, I think you'd be a worthy member of this family." Slapping the young woman on the shoulder with her heavy iron glove, the tall woman turned to go. She left an embarrassed Olesia Okonski staring at her back. What did that mean? Did she know about the younger woman's dream? Was she saying that Olesia should pursue William? The thought made the young princess giddy.
In the Grey Forest, Barry Baines had his mouth wrapped around the plump, suckable titty of Ms. Darcy Abel. Valerie Augustine had gotten a bit of an attitude after the ugly confrontation with his wife's second cousin. Ball-Busting Bronwyn had been a bit of a terror and a shit after she had an agreement signed with Billy the Human, and she'd ridden Valerie like a flea on a dog to get her daddy's employees through the forest and out the other side. The wood-nymph had gone into a snit over the whole thing, and she'd basically told Barry to go fuck himself.
Of course, there was plenty of other wood-nymph snatch to be had here. They were practically giving it away for free! A nice steak dinner. A little wine. They'd be your friend for life! Barry had settled on Valerie's assistant, Darcy, who was hot to trot for a little of the cash Barry had been flashing at her boss. It had taken a little while to seal the deal, but once he'd gotten the little bitch on her back, she'd been an animal for it. Indeed, after dinner tonight, she'd basically torn his clothes off when they got back to her place. She'd thrown him on his back and proceeded to ride him like a bucking horse.
They'd gone two for two already, and Barry was into it, ready to go one more round. He had his hands all over that hot little body, stroking her curves and feeling those hot little knobs of hers. They weren't the big knockers his wife, Vivian, had, but they looked dynamite on the little wood-nymph. He was ready to shoot off when the door burst inward, admitting three burly humanoids.
A blue-skinned fellow leveled a hand-crossbow and shot Darcy in the back of the head, killing her instantly. As the little woman fell forward onto him, Barry freaked, backpedaling and crawling out from under her corpse. One of the killers simply strode forward, grabbed her by the hair and hurled the body on the floor. The man with the crossbow handed it aside to the third man, as he announced, "you've not been performing as you should, Mr. Baines." "J-j-jeez," howled Barry, as he took in the sight of the corpse and the men surrounding him. "You've been wasting time," declared Fedir Brutko. Spitting on the corpse, he added, "fucking whores instead of working." "W-what," Barry babbled?
Rolling his eyes, Fedir demanded, "do you know why you're here?" "W-what," Barry gobbled? His eyes were alive with terror. "Do you remember what you're supposed to be doing here," Fedir elaborated? "W-what," Barry responded? "Where are you from," Fedir demanded? "W-what," Barry gobbled? "Do they speak common in 'What'," asked one of the other men? "W-what," Barry babbled? "Common," growled Fedir! "Do you speak it, motherfucker?" "W-what," gobbled Barry? Hard eyes narrowing on the hapless patsy, the mercenary drew a silvery short-sword from under his coat and growled, "say 'what' again! I dare you!" Nodding, Barry said, "I-I speak common..." "You were supposed to bring the men who came to you here through the barrier," Fedir growled.
Changing tacks, he said, "let me ask you, do you remember Lady Chelsea?" "Y-yes," Barry gobbled. Nodding to himself, Fedir demanded, "does she look like a low-class whore?" "W-what," Barry babbled? The mercenary stabbed him in the shoulder, causing him to howl in pain. "Nooo," Barry howled! "No! S-she's a rich opera singer!" "Then why did you try to fuck her like a whore," Fedir demanded? "W-w... Nooo... I swear...," Barry pleaded! "You were supposed to be bringing in eighty men a day," Fedir growled! "You brought in zero." "I'll fix it," Barry howled! "I swear! I'll get it done!" "Nighty-night, fucko," Fedir rumbled, as he began to stab the fool. Both his companions stepped forward and plunged their swords into the hapless party-bear. They stabbed him again and again and again, spattering blood everywhere. He was moaning softly when they were done, his eyes wide with shock. Leveling the little crossbow at the spot between his eyes, Fedir shot him dead. Without another word, the trio left, shutting the door behind them. A little cash to the landlady, and the visitors were quickly and easily forgotten.
Finn's in hock with the wives. Olesia goes balls-out to win. And a gratuitous Pulp Fiction reference. :)