In Which Klaos Blackadder Should Shut Up
"Do something!" Pai
screamed over her shoulder.
Had she bothered to
look, she would find that Klaos had long since expired, his voice
drowned out by the whizzing of arrows and fireballs and
Deus-quid-scit.
Klaos waited.
Eventually, a white light appeared. Klaos swam towards it, then felt himself spit out of the water, landing on –
"Tiens, vous etes
mouris encore?"
"Shut up. And stop
speaking languages."
"Sed si claudebo
meum os, non possum dicere lingos – cur dixis hunc?"
"Klaos! And what were
you doing to help! You're an assassin! So far you've tried
tanking and using necromancer skills! Use your head for once!"
"What? Head-butt
them? I mean, ... ."
"Permission to speak
granted," offered Panuku warily.
"Yes, sah!" Klaos
Blackadder stood to attention and saluted Panuku, to much laughter
from all but the sergeant major himself.
"Well, sah –"
"Get on with it,"
growled the irritable assassin.
"Erm, well y'see
when I'm under pressure, I, erm, kind of, well, forget, erm, and,
erm, well, it's like this, um, I uh..." Klaos looked around at
the assembled raised eyebrows. "Well, I just use neccy skills,
'cosh that's what I do under pressure, um..."
"Apart from speak in
languages," interjected Pai.
"Wait!" Screeched
the unfortunate adventurer as the others began to wander once more
towards the beach, "I think I have, um, an idea. Uh..." His voice
trailed off again as the others turned back to him.
"Do go on," drawled
Vhang, "You know we love to hear your brilliant plans for mass
extinction."
"Well," began
Klaos, feverishly working himself after having gotten past the trying
first comment, "I'm already feeling kinda weakened, scis,
after having died so much, so, I mean, if we're all too weak to
fight and kill them like that, why don't we just, erm, tank them to
death?"
There was a moment's silence as the stunned party members digested this new plan for, well, mass extinction.
Vhang was the first to
speak, "Brilliant! You know, young fellow, I think you've really
hit on something there! Wonderful idea! You just run along now and do
a test run for us and we'll wait right here where we can't be got
at and wait for you to tell us how it works out, hm?"
Panuku's even more
venomous tongue lashed out at the hapless youth, "And what have I
taught you all these years? You're an assassin dammit! What
does that tell you, eh?"
"Well sir," began
Klaos, his head bobbing as it did when speaking words that could
later end him in a lot of blood and bits of bone if he wasn't
careful, "You've taught me how to: cheat, swindle, trick,
defraud, dupe, con, bamboozle," He emphasized the last
syllable to much sniggering, "lie, fib, perjure,", again
to a chorus of giggling "steal, pinch, pilfer, rob, thieve, pocket,
purrrrrloin," rolling his 'r's for effect, "sneak,
slip, steal, skulk, creep, slither, scramble," his voice
flew upward on the last one, reaching somewhere near a high C sharp
before ending back in his normal register, "erm, slay, kill,
murder, eliminate, snuff out", wrinkling up his nose, "oh,
and retreat, recoil, withdraw, give ground, leave, flee"
again whizzing up (to a high D sharp this time). "Erm, that's all
I can remember, sir."
By now the party was in tears rolling about on the ground, all except for Panuku, whose face was red enough to fry an egg on - if you wanted to get that close.
Klaos made a hasty exit
back towards the beach, figuring that not even the his brother Miki
would want to get that close to Panuku and seeing as he was related
to everyone in some way shape or form except for the few that cleaned
out the latrines, they might as well protect him from harm.
As Klaos ran down the
hillside, the rest of the party, watching their chances of reprieve
scramble away, quickly sobered up and were left facing a very
angry Panuku who, at any moment, might decide to snuff them out
instead of his former pupil.
It isn't finished. In case you didn't notice. It's called a "cliffhanger"; you'll learn what they are in English class some day. Lurbe.
