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Money Makes the World Go 'Round


"That was obviously a disaster," Klaos remarked, reclining painfully against the pillar of an isolated shrine to Dwayna as Pai sat cross-legged next to him, chin in her hands as she idly fingered a bloody rip in her pants.

"Six thousand gold," she murmured, as if in a daze, and Klaos ignored her.

"Look, there's obviously a reason for it. It's not that we're not good, because we are. But two people can only do so much. I mean, yes, we did come very dangerously near to death. But we got surrounded, Pai. There had to be at least thirty of them."

"Six thousand gold."

Klaos gritted his teeth, trying to disregard the spurts of pain through his shoulders at every move.

"We've got to have better tactics. As in we have to stop using that strategy of me running up and getting knocked out, you firestorming till you drop from exhaustion, running away to recharge, coming back and barely finishing them all off, and spending the rest of your energy trying with your practically nonexistent muscle mass to drag me to a good camping spot to recover."

"Six thousand gold."

"Sensalis aren't intelligent. There're just a lot of them. If we spread them out and lured them all of in different directions, we might stand a fighting chance."

"Six thousand gold," came the faint, dogged reply.

Klaos lost his temper, reaching up despite the flare of stinging and smacking Pai upside the head, treated to a very satisfying yelp – and then, much to his displeasure, a similar assault that rang in his ears and send him reeling forwards with a small whine.

Both of them holding their heads in pain, he stared at her and grumbled at how she could be so physically weak and still be so proficient at slapping people.

"I wasn't really listening," she confessed forlornly, looking back down at the rip, "but I'm still in mourning. These pants cost me quite a lot."

"Oh really?" Klaos grunted, "Well, you know, bleeding out from many terminal wounds and ripping your clothes are practically the same, aren't they?"

Pai's doe-eyes magnified, as if she had either been hurt by his statement or had realized her mistake. Klaos felt a sudden wave of half-remorse and half-anxiety, and hoped dearly that she wasn't going to cry, for he always felt terrible when she did, even if he hadn't been the cause.

However, Pai appeared to have no such interest, for she punctuated her epiphany with a shrug. "I can't do anything about it. I'm not a doctor. Or a monk, for that matter."

"Well, it's a bit painful," Klaos offered irritably, "so either get a pine needle and test out your sewing skills or cauterize the hell out of me."

"I can't imagine that'll feel very good. Would you like to be knocked out first?"

"No. I think I'll develop some kind of mental impediment if I spend any more time unconscious."

The next moments were a mystery to Klaos, so sudden and excruciatingly painful were they, but to Pai, they were simply filled with a whole lot of fire, screeching death threats, and the unfortunate smell of charred flesh.

"I do hope Dwayna wasn't offended by that word," Pai said anxiously, settling back onto her calves and glancing up at the towering statue.

"Yes, well," Klaos managed to wheeze out, "I haven't seen her do so much as a miracle for me. I'm not fond of her."

"That makes the two of us," Pai replied, "Do you ever think that maybe we need a few more?"

Klaos waved his head about in a way that indicated that he was too tired or in pain to speak, and she translated it vaguely as 'no, I have not; explain yourself'.

"What I mean is," she obliged, "You've done well enough – well, maybe that's a bit of an – what I mean is – oh, never mind – with all this life-stealing business, and I've got my auras, but… I hear Sister Tai doesn't have much to do these days; I'm sure she'd like to come along. Perhaps we just need a real monk? And maybe a longbow… and an illusionist, and a spirit lord, and a fighter – a real fighter, I mean – "

"Unnghh," Klaos protested.

"Look, I'm just saying that you need to stop taking all the hits, and I need to stop casting and casting till I'm dead on my feet. You know, an extra something-mancer or other would really take the load off – "

"Unnghh!" Klaos said, panicked, and winced dramatically. "… money!"

Patiently, Pai sighed. "Yes, Klaos, they would get a share. But sometimes money needs to take a backseat to staying alive."

"Hah!" he managed to enunciate, pointing an accusatory finger at Pai's fragile, ripped pants. Embarrassed, she turned her legs so it was no longer visible.

Finally, with another majestic groan, Klaos pushed himself up to a halfway sitting position, and looked glumly down towards his leg, where a wide tear in the blue material opened up into a gory stab wound that was still oozing in a way that made Pai want to deposit her breakfast in the nearest shrubbery.

"I think," he said huskily, "that we need to do it again. Don't!" he exclaimed as she moved from her spot as if to come forward, "You'll do that thing!"

"What?"

"The thing where you don't tell me you're going to do it, and then you do it anyway. Oh Lyssa, I hate that! At least you could give me some warning – it's better than just a whole damn boatload of pain when you least expect it. I mean, needles are small and painless and when you do that thing with needles, nobody ends up crying or shouting, but when it's that painful, then I want some warning, not that stupid 'surprise!' nonsense."

"Don't be silly, Klaos. That only works once."

An earsplitting howl ripped through the air, and soon deteriorated again into a smattering of violent death threats.

As it so happened, a pack of stealthy Sensalis in the nearby bushes glanced nervously amongst itself and left in a hurry, not wanting to be present when the skinny five-foot beast in purple, who could make the formidable dark-skinned assassin scream so loudly, noticed they were there.