Author's note:

The following chapter, much like the rest of this story, is a commissioned work. Details for commissions are on my profile. I'll be upping my rate by the end of 2024, but anyone who commissions 4 or more chapters from me will be grandfathered in at the current, lower per-word rate.

That in mind, I also have this habit of giving out holiday discounts to customers who commission me after Thanksgiving, on top of the first-time customer discount, so don't wait! Be the first one in line!

Anywho...

Review responses

to guest (Nov 12): This fic is actually crossing over with Wrath of the Righteous already. I myself used to play TTRPGs before my play group fell apart. D&D 3.5e was my jam, partly because 4e was too combat-oriented and partly because at the time, Wizards of the Coast had word documents for their core Player and Monster Manuals free to download on their website. In fact, I was the DM of my group; probably why I prefer to have a vague idea of how I want my stories to go and filling in the gaps, vs. the more traditional author's route of writing an outline and then a complete draft.

to Thunder Dragon: Ah, but to what end? Our boy seems content to simply meander around with good company and simple pleasures, the occasional life-or-death struggle notwithstanding. He's much like Buster Scruggs in that regard.

to Maglad: To answer your question and for the benefit of anyone else who may be wondering, the TTRPG elements of this story are a combination of things from Pathfinder 1e, D&D 3.5e, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous video game. That said, TTRPGs are games meant to be fair and balanced for an adventuring party of players, while a fighting anime like Queen's Blade has no such need for balance beyond what makes sense narratively. So, while I and the story's commissioner use the stats and official info from certain entries as guidance, if we were to assign ability scores and stats to the Queen's Blade cast, most of them would be overpowered multi-classers, given the feats of speed and strength most of them either pull off or match while fighting each other.

High in the sky, Laila descended from the heavens with a heavy sigh. She'd given her report of the Echidna-Claudette "fight" to the Head Angel smoothly enough, but then…

"Rrgh, why does Nanael have to be such a b-" Laila caught herself. "-ad apple?!"

Nanael had requested to be in charge of the Queen's Blade broadcasts, but the Head Angel had decided to give it to Laila instead. So, naturally, Nanael chided and belittled Laila for every little possible thing, including how she "failed" to referee the fight between Echidna and Claudette. Laila was glad Nanael hadn't gotten on her case about getting friendly with a handsome human like Rowin and his friend Leina, or she might've started a second War In Heaven right then and there. Nanael was awful, especially when it came to her opinions on humans.

So, Laila decided to take a page out of Echidna's book and follow the wild elf down the road. She was far enough away that she was sure Echidna wouldn't notice her; she could only take so much derision in one day. Echidna would find Rowin and Leina for Laila and thus, Laila could make sure they were okay. Or, at least, she could make sure Rowin was okay. Leina, as a Queen's Blade competitor, was more or less on her own. The same need not be said of the handsome minstrel.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"I really wish I could afford your luxury, Lady Tomoe."

Tomoe didn't reply with words. Her blush, so fierce it could've passed for sunburn, spoke for her.

True to his word and despite the occasional cough from a parched throat, Rowin indeed carried the woman who'd helped him to the river. Though he'd given his promise to Shizuka before the dark sandstorm engulfed them, plans had changed after Shizuka, held bridal-style in his arms, had recounted her tour of the tunnels and everything else that occurred after she was swallowed by the sand.

At which point, Rowin had dumped her on said sand, claiming she'd already gotten her free ride, and picked up Tomoe instead.

"How long do you plan to carry her?" Leina asked, her brow creased.

"All the way to the river," he answered, before turning and coughing lightly.

"Really…" Tomoe shyly crossed her arms over her chest. "This isn't necessary."

"That makes one of us," Rowin replied.

"Really, Lady Tomoe, relax while you can," Shizuka said, a chiding tone in her voice. "We've still got a lot of walking ahead."

She fell in behind Rowin before leaning on his lower back. Rowin had hiked up his long coat like a hooded cloak, to stop his fair skin from being sunburnt. Thus, Shizuka's alabaster cleavage contorted right to the curve of his spine.

"So enjoy it," Shizuka murmured suggestively.

Leina harrumphed. Shizuka was pushing her barely-decent body into her friend's personal space, while she'd been stuck carrying his pack. It was miraculously light despite the mandolin and other things Leina had seen him store in it, but that was beside her silent point. She was tired, too; where was her princess-carry? After all, she was the closest among them to a princess.

Soon enough, they reached the river, where the four of them proceeded to have a long, long drink. As luck would have it, a rotten log happened down the water while they were drinking. It tainted the water slightly, but it also provided an opportunity. After they'd stripped their feet of cloth and stuffed their shoes inside one another, Leina's armored boots the only ones still worn, they'd carefully mounted the thick log and rode it down the river.

Rounding the bend, Leina on point with Rowin behind, the desert on their right flank gave way to arid plains, then greener fields. Once trees began to dot the landscape, they paddled ashore and said goodbye to their log.

Dusk had come as they found a beaten road towards greener pastures, the river still within sight. The four spent the next while setting up camp under a tree, gathering kindling to start a fire. Rowin got to work on making a fire plow while the other three wandered close to the woodlands, looking for dry sticks. Shizuka and Tomoe became more acquainted with the ways of the land thanks to Leina's upbringing in County Vance, and Leina learned about the ways of courtly politics from Tomoe and Shizuka's opposite standings with Hinamoto nobility.

Shizuka turned to Leina, her stockpile only halfway to a proper fagot, and said, "So, Leina, you slept with him yet?"

Crack! Leina fell forward; her breastplate broke the stick she'd been reaching for.

"Shizuka!" Tomoe squawked, the first such sound Shizuka had ever heard her make. "That's highly inappropriate, not to mention personal!"

"I'm just speaking your mind, Lady Tomoe," Shizuka replied cheekily. As Leina stood up, Shizuka picked up part of the now-broken stick. "So, have you?"

"N-No," Leina admitted. "Why would I?"

"Geez, you two are such prudes!" Shizuka bemoaned. "Because he's brave, smart, fun to be around, and he throws himself in danger for people he barely knows. Besides…" She tapped Leina's sword. "You were staring kunai at our backs when he was carrying Lady Tomoe."

"That's because I was stuck being a pack mule!" Leina insisted.

"Aha!" Shizuka declared. "So you did want him to hold you!"

"That's enough, Shizuka," Tomoe said.

"Never figured you for the jealous type, Leina."

Tomoe yanked Shizuka back by her shoulder and made her drop a few sticks. "We've had a long day, so there's no need to make it longer."

"Okay, fine," Shizuka said, re-gathering her sticks. "Still, why don't we ask him to travel with us? Having a stud like him to ride could make the trip more fun!"

It was a testament to Leina's relative inexperience that neither Shizuka nor Tomoe sensed her urge to reach for her sword. She'd never taken a life, so her anger had no real killing intent behind it. Nevertheless, the way Shizuka spoke of Rowin just then… It infuriated her, far more than the teasing had. She was going to give the other woman a piece of her mind, and why shouldn't she?

…No… Rather, why should she?

Leina pondered this question as she found a thick, fallen limb to complete her fagot. She turned it over in her mind as she walked back to the campsite, where Rowin had finished carving a fresh fire plow. She looked at him as she squatted down and began laying the sticks cabin-style.

She'd known this man for only a few days. Her servants back at County Vance shared a longer history with her than Rowin did. She'd grown up with suitors from other nobility thrust in her face by parents looking for an arranged marriage. Leina herself had never entertained the idea of marriage; her father and Claudette only ever talked about her role as an heir.

So, as she sat against the tree and watched him pour the smoldering embers from his fire plow into the tinder at the center of the log cabin, she wondered what about Shizuka's comments made her so angry. Leina had traveled alone before. In fact, she'd been planning to do so before going with Risty, then again after Risty had left her. Why would Rowin be any different?

"Whew," Rowin sighed, sinking against the tree and cranking his arm around. "First thing I'm doing at the next sign of civilization is getting some flint and metal."

"I don't mean to impose,' Tomoe said, bowing as she sat across from him, "but are you well enough to play your biwa?"

Rowin blinked. "My being what now?"

Tomoe gestured to his pack, where his stringed instrument's neck was sticking out from under the top flap.

"Oh, my ukulele!" He undid the ties and pulled out his music maker. Surprisingly, the pack didn't deflate from the sudden lack of contents. "Give me a minute to get warmed up, and I- cakgh!"

Rowin's cough preceded another, followed by a fit. Leina recoiled at the putrid smell of his breath. His coughing smelled as wet as it sounded.

With a final hack, Rowin thumped his chest, rattling his chainmail. "Guess not tonight."

"Oh well." Shizuka put her hands behind her head and lay down on the warm ground. "I'm ready to call it a day."

She patted her midriff. "How about you, Lady Tomoe?"

"Yes. Thank you, Shizuka." The priestess lay on her back, perpendicular to Shizuka with her head resting on her friend's soft skin. Tomoe sighed and seemed to sink into the ground.

Leina looked at Tomoe with envious eyes.

Shizuka grinned at her. "Wishing for a pillow?" She cupped her pale breast and gave it a squeeze, looking at Rowin. "Wanna borrow mine?"

Leina went from envy to sourness. Shizuka laughed. "I'm just kidding!" She smiled and shook her head at Rowin, before mouthing, No I'm not.

"Shizuka, if you continue to heckle our companions, I will find a new place to rest," Tomoe said with her eyes closed.

Shizuka laid a hand across Tomoe's robe. She was about to say something when Rowin scooted beside Leina and slid an arm around her back, pulling her close.

"What?" both women said.

"Hope you don't mind," Rowin said, "but you look like you need a hug."

He laid the side of his head on top of Leina's. "Besides, my neck hurts something fierce when I try to sleep sitting up."

Leina was blushing, and Shizuka… Shizuka was glaring at Rowin for ruining her fun. Rowin raised his eyebrows and smarmily mouthed, Still thirsty?

"We still need someone to keep watch…" Leina mumbled.

Shizuka stared at the sky for a moment before closing her eyes. "Don't worry about it. No one's going to sneak up on me."

Feeling Leina's weight lean into him more, and her body go limp with relaxed sleep, Rowin decided to keep his eyes open anyway.

Just in case…

XXXXXXXXXXXX

A fair distance from where the unlikely pair of pairs were sleeping, another unlikely pair was on the hunt for justice. One was a woman in a red cloak, a clawed gauntlet on one of her hand and eyes as sharp as a falcon's. The other was a small wolf pup, ragged and fuzzy from a lifetime spent outdoors, whose nose twitched as it glided across the grassy ground.

The burned remains of this small hamlet had been picked clean by neighbors and loved ones of the victims, drawn by the smoke of the burning hovels the morning after the massacre. Yet, the smell of their burned, despoiled flesh still lingered, as did the corpses of the livestock who'd been senselessly slaughtered and burned to death in their pastures.

The wolf pup lifted its head and faced the woman.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" the woman asked. The pup tilted its head at her. "Then we find them again, wherever they went."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Leina awoke to a muffled cry of surprise. She felt Rowin's weight on her body still, and saw Tomoe hurriedly sitting up. She also caught some leftover wobble in Shizuka's bosom, making Leina wonder if the chaste priestess had rolled into Shizuka's breasts in her sleep. Shizuka stretched and groaned, sitting up herself.

"Aaah… That's got to be the best snooze I've had in a week," said Shizuka. "How about you two?" She grinned. "Sleep enough to get morning wood?"

Rowin opened an eye, then knocked on the tree he was sitting against. "Right he-heere! Uh-haugh!" His cough sounded worse than before.

The quartet spread out to find food. Leina and Tomoe found some cactus fruits towards the more arid land of the desert, while Shizuka was able to kill a few jackrabbits. Rowin restarted the fire with some coals leftover from the previous night. After a messy but filling breakfast, they broke came and followed the riverside road they soon spotted.

A signpost marked a fork in the road. To one side lay what sounded like a town, and on the other side, the sign read "Elven Forest".

"Perhaps the town has a bath," Tomoe suggested. She gestured to her dirty robes. "I've yet to wash off the sand from the storm."

"Yeah!" Shizuka pumped her fist. "Let's go enjoy some good heat!"

The two started walking, but stopped when they noticed they weren't followed. Leina was looking at the path to the Elven Forest, and Rowin was looking at Leina.

"Then this is goodbye," Leina said. She bowed politely. "I wish you the best on the rest of your journey."

This stopped the foreign pair, confused, in their tracks.

"Why?" Tomoe asked. "Surely, it would be better for you to travel with us."

Leina shook her head. "From here, the way to the capital is through the Elven Forest. I have to get there as soon as possible if I'm going to catch up to Risty."

Shizuka looked at Rowin. "What about you, big guy?"

Rowin shrugged. "She's got a-" Rowin's cough returned. It devolved into a hacking fit before he sucked in a deep breath and got it under control. The women didn't miss how his complexion looked a bit paler than it had the day before, despite spending a day in the desert.

"I said I'd go where she goes, so that's where I'm going. Hope to see you two again, though!"

The Hinamoto women glanced at one another, then bowed.

"Then we wish you the best as well," Tomoe said. "I hope we'll meet again at the capitol."

"If not sooner," Shizuka added. She grinned as she pushed her exposed cleavage together with her arms. She didn't need to look to know where Rowin was looking.

Nor did Leina. A small wrinkle on her lip, she took Rowin's arm and pivoted them towards the forest, not looking back.

After perhaps half an hour of walking, the small talk gave way to a question Leina had wanted to ask since they'd parted ways with Shizuka and Tomoe.

"Did you mean it?" Leina looked at Rowin as she walked… and tripped over a tree root. "Wah!"

Rowin watched as Leina flailed, spun around, fell backwards with her sword outstretched… as she then slashed the tree above herself and executed a near-perfect backward-roll that saw her back on her feet, the branch she cut falling past her left arm and leaving two apples perfectly impaled on her buckler's prong.

By accident.

"Mean what?" Rowin said.

Leina gawked at the apples, then the tree, then her sword, which had bits of wood clinging to where the tip. "Did… Did I… How did I do that?"

"Do what?"

"All of…" She pointed at the impossible luck she'd just had a few seconds ago. "That."

"Appears so, yeah," Rowin said nonchalantly. "Now, what did you mean, 'Did I mean it'?"

"That you're not coming with me because I'm…" Leina hesitated, less certain of her question given what had just happened. "Weak?"

"What, to be your watchdog?" Rowin asked. He waved his hand. "Nah."

He pulled out his ukulele before putting his face to his arm and catching another cough. "You seemed to handle those bandits well when I met you, and you got out alive from that Menace girl's trap." He pulled an apple off her buckler, a delicious green fruit with a tint of red near the stem. "More than most could say, I think."

"But, even so…"

"But nothing." He took a bite. "Just because you couldn't handle some necromantic mind control doesn't make you weak."

Leina frowned and studied the ground. He said that so casually…

"Besides," Rowin continued, "it's a matter of record. I travel with Tomoe and Shizuka, and I meet a spoiled princess, an army of undead, a pervy scepter, and find my friend bewitched. I travel with the friend, and I meet her sister, an actual angel, and that Echidna woman. "

He grinned and nudged her. "Think I like my chances more from sticking with you."

"Urgh, Echidna…" Leina still wasn't over that humiliation in the fight pit, nor did she like how she'd caught Echidna oozing all over Rowin while Leina had been fighting for her life. Not to mention, she'd been the one who'd stolen Risty's money and forced Leina to fight in that fight pit to begin with. Echidna was more a snake than her underwear.

"Still not sure what to make- cauh!" Rowin coughed, spitting apple bits onto the ground. "Kh-hrm! -make of her. She's had plenty of chances to get the drop on you, but she hasn't."

Leina shielded her bust with her arms. "She likes toying with me. I think she might've kissed me, too, after her snake bit me."

"Glad I didn't let my guard down," Rowin said. He reached around and pulled Leina against his side. "But, if we run into her again and she starts trouble, I'll deal with her. Pretty sure she likes toying with me, too."

…ng!

They both perked up. Was that…

Clang!

Definitely: steel meeting steel, and it came from up ahead. Leina took off running, but Rowin stumbled a bit as he struggled to stow his unused ukulele. His coughing returned, only this time with a drier taste to it than before. Rowin chased Leina as the smell of the forest turned wet, reeking more of marshland than typical wood rot.

He doubled over as another fit of coughs overtook him. He thought he heard voices, all women, joining the sounds of battle, but he wasn't paying attention.

No, his attention was on his arm. In covering his mouth while he coughed, Rowin's arm was now covered with a visible layer of dust.

…Not good.

Author's note:

Those of you who've played a lot of desert-themed Pathfinder or DnD might recognize the symptoms. Rowin certainly does.

Regardless, as always, leave a review. Give me your thoughts. The commissioner reads the reviews, as well, so you might give one of us a brilliant idea.