by Robert Bevan
“I don't feel right staying here while y'all are going out puttin' yourselves in danger.”
“It could get dangerous here too,” said Katherine. “Remember, Frank said there's a good chance you might get a visit from another Mordred. You might even turn out to be the instrument of the gods that keeps Denise safe.”
Randy thought hard about Katherine's bullshit proposal. “I reckon you might be on to something there.” He nodded resolutely. “Alright, I'll stay here and guard Denise and the Whore's Head Inn with my life. Let's go down to the cellar, Denise.”
Frank waited for a few seconds after the door closed behind them, then turned to Katherine. “Where did you have in mind?”
“Nazere.”
“I've heard of that place,” said Fritz. “Isn't that a frozen island that's ruled by an evil Ice Queen?”
“It was, but –”
“I don't like it,” said Frank. “Too risky. We'd have to book passage on a ship with a tied-up prisoner wearing a bag of shit on his head.”
“That's not a –”
“And then once we get there, what are we going to do to keep warm? Where are we going to stay? What are we going to eat? No, we have to move fast and stay off the grid. We can't risk –”
“FRANK!” said Katherine. “Shut up.”
My, but that was satisfying.
When she had everyone's undivided attention, she continued. “The Ice Queen is dead, the island is now a tropical paradise, and I have a ship.”
Frank sucked up his pride and cleared his throat. “I'll admit those additional details make this Nazere place a more favorable destination to consider.”
“Also, the Ice Queen had some kind of mining operation going on. What better place to keep a prisoner in the dark than an abandoned mine tunnel? And she would have had to have some way of feeding all those sailors she enslaved, so there must be some food stored on the island.”
“I like it,” said Tony the Elf. “An island would give us visibility for miles in every direction. Even if Mordred did find us, we'd have a better chance there of seeing him coming and mounting some kind of defense or luring him into a trap.”
“What about the dice?” asked Stacy. “Hiding on an island isn't going to do us anymore good than hiding here if Mordred gets his hands on those dice before we do.”
“And Tim,” said Katherine. She felt she had enough leverage now to be a little assertive. “I'm only offering the use of my ship on the condition that I have everyone's word we intend to take Tim alive.”
Everyone nodded their agreement except for a grumbling dwarf in the back, but Frank shut him up with a harsh look. That would have to do.
“Julian and I can go after Tim,” said Stacy. “We know a recruiting station for the Rat Bastards. I might be able to squeeze out some information on his whereabouts.”
“Great idea,” said Katherine. “Because Tim reacted so well the last time he saw you two together.”
Julian looked at Stacy. “She's right. You should take Cooper with you. He's closer to Tim and less likely to arouse any jealous feelings.”
Cooper farted. “That cuts deep, man.”
“I'll go after the dice,” Julian continued. “Hopefully, they're mostly still up on the Crescent Shadow. The mission will require more finesse than force, so I'll take Cheese.”
“It's Chaz,” said Chaz.
“I'm sorry. What did I say?”
“Cheese.”
“I was close.”
“I don't want to go back up to that flying island. I almost died there. Why can't I go to the tropical island?”
“Because you just tried to fuck us all over by getting Mordred to send you home first,” said Rhonda. “You'll go wherever the hell we tell you to go, or you'll be tied to a chair in a mine shaft with a bag of shit on your head.”
Frank frowned nervously at the door. “Good luck to all of you. I wish we had more time to think of something less hasty and desperate, but Mordred knows where we are and could be on his way here right now. We can't risk losing the one thing we've got going for us.” He turned to Katherine. “Where's this ship of yours?”
“It's docked in the harbor,” said Katherine. “Where the hell else would it be? It's a goddamn ship.”
“Where the hell else indeed,” said Tony the Elf, rubbing his chin in thought.
“I don't get it. Was that supposed to sound profound or something?”
“I was just thinking. If I was Mordred, and I was planning to come and rescue this particular Mordred, I'd probably check in periodically to see if I'd been moved.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah?”
“Most places we'd move him wouldn't offer him many clues. His vision and sense of smell are pretty much completely blocked by the shitbag. And as long as we keep him in a quiet place that's roughly the same temperature, he's not going to gather much from his senses of hearing and touch. But a boat is a dead giveaway. The roll of the waves, the cawing of seagulls, the salty spray in the air. We can't hide all that. He'll know he's on a boat right away. And like Katherine said, there's only one place in the city where we'd be leaving by ship.”
“Good point,” said Rhonda. “And then there's the matter of hauling a bound prisoner through the city at night.”
Katherine smiled. “None of that is a problem.” She held up her Bag of Holding. “As long as I keep replacing the air in here every ten minutes or so, he won't have any idea where he is.”
While everyone busied themselves making last-minute preparations for the various journeys they were about to embark on, Katherine helped herself to another pint and wondered what Tim was getting up to. Killing Tanner had been a dick move, but at least he sounded like he was moving forward with some kind of plan. Everyone here was so quick to jump to the worst conclusions, but maybe Tim actually knew what he was doing and would surprise them all.
Chapter 3
His tiny balls emptied, Tim sighed and lay flat on his back. Lissa disengaged her face from his junk and lay next to him. His dick looked like half a Q-tip just barely poking out from a nest of Brillo. The first time things had heated up between them, he'd used a Hair Clip of Disguise to take his true human form, both because he thought Lissa might prefer that to fucking a midget and because he missed his old dick. But she said it made her uncomfortable.
Tim supposed there was some logic in that. Maybe in this world, that was the equivalent of putting on blackface before hopping in bed with a woman of color. Blackface reminded him of the last time he saw Katherine, suspended in a cage beneath the Crescent Shadow. Why the hell had she painted her skin black? Could it be that she missed Tanner's dong and was trying to court other drow? He wanted to believe that she wouldn't do anything so tasteless, but he honestly couldn't be sure.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Lissa, running her fingers through Tim's forest of chest hair.
“My sister.”
Lissa frowned and removed her hand from Tim's chest, and Tim considered how fucked up a thing to say that was while he still had an erection.
“Not like that!” said Tim. “And not while you were... down there.” He nodded at his dick, which was now thankfully deflating back beneath the Brillo. “I'm just kind of worried that she might get herself into trouble. I was counting on the island jumping before I pulled those cages back up. The desert was supposed to bury the half-drow's body forever. Now Dave tells me she's gone off on some harebrained quest to get me resurrected.”
“If she succeeds, she will learn much from the half-drow. This would not be good for any of us.”
Tim laughed. “That's one thing you absolutely don't have to worry about. She's broke and homeless, and her only friend in this world is a wolf. Back home, she could barely scrape together enough cash to get shitfaced every Saturday night. I don't see her being able to raise the kind of money it would take to pay for a Resurrection spell. Don't get me wrong, I love her. But I shudder to think of how she's getting on without me to keep her out of trouble.”<
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Lissa smiled and ran the tip of her finger around his left nipple, which Tim assumed was supposed to be arousing, but it actually just tickled.
“Let us speak no more of your sister tonight then. Pleasure me with your mouth the way you did on our first night together.”
Tim glanced down at her bush, which she seemed to be growing competitively. She had a nice enough body to look at and touch, but her crotch smelled like the dumpster behind a Long John Silver's.
“I was really drunk that night.”
Lissa's smile faltered. “Do you find the act... distasteful?”
She couldn't have picked a better word.
“Fuck no!” Tim lied. He scrambled to think of something to follow that up with. “The alcohol just loosens up the tongue is all. You don't want me to go in there all rigid.”
Lissa snuggled up closer to him and whispered in his ear. “I might like it rigid.”
Tim considered holding his breath and taking the plunge. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, after all. Then he reconsidered, recalling their first night together. Lissa was a squirter, and he'd practically been swimming by the end of it. He finally had a good thing going, and it would all come crumbling down the second he threw up in her snatch. Going in mildly drunk was too risky. This mission required being properly shitfaced.
He scooted to the side, far away enough from her so that he could turn and face her. “How about this? Let's have a few drinks while my weapon reloads, then I'll go down on you so hard it'll make the last time seem like a kiss from your grandfather.”
Lissa cringed.
“Sorry,” said Tim. “That was unnecessarily gross. But you get the idea, right?”
“Very well, but only if you agree not to put your finger in my anus this time.”
“You said you liked that.”
“I like to please you,” said Lissa. “But it was uncomfortable, and sore all the next day.”
Tim felt embarrassed and a little disappointed, not to mention a bit vexed that she hadn't considered the suffering he'd gone through all the next day with that taste in his mouth. But he was willing to let it slide. That was a small price to pay for being able to numb his tongue before diving back down into that putrid crotch tunnel.
“Agreed.”
Lissa rose from the bed and slipped on a translucent green silk robe, but allowed the front to stay open. She went to a nook in the wall which may have been designed to house an urn or display a trophy or something, but was currently serving as a bar, where crystal decanters held liquids of various colors. “What can I get you?”
Tim leaned over the side of the bed to dig through his bag for a flask. The one on top was nearly empty, so he chugged down the last of the stonepiss inside it. “Whatever that green shit was we were drinking the other night.”
“Ansithe?”
“Sure. That might be my new go-to drink of choice.”
“How can you be so fond of it when you don't even know what it's called?” asked Lissa. “It usually takes years to develop a taste of ansithe, and most people don't bother for that very reason.”
“Then why do they even make it?”
“Its original use was medicinal. In more barbaric cultures, and in places where clerics are too few and far between, some people still practice the healing ways of the ancients, slicing open people's bodies and physically tending to their innards. They use ansithe to numb the patient. Over time, some of those patients who survived several of these treatments acquired a taste for it, and began to drink it recreationally.”
Tim wouldn't say he'd acquired a taste for it exactly. In truth, it was only marginally more palatable than the fermenting rat's nest between Lissa's legs. But he liked the way it made him feel, or rather fail to feel.
He tossed her his empty flask.
Lissa caught it effortlessly. Her Dexterity was on par with his own.
“I can pour it in a glass, you know.”
“I've gotten used to drinking from a flask,” said Tim. “It doesn't feel right any other way.”
She filled his flask with ansithe and poured herself a glass of something pink, then returned to the bed.
“Tell me,” she said, handing over the flask. “How did you first meet this Dave?”
The question smelled fishier than her tuna taco.
“Is that what this is all about? Are you using Gather Information on me?”
“I do not understand.”
“You suck my dick, then start in with the interrogation? Who put you up to this? Zippo? You can tell that rat-faced motherfucker that if he wants to ask me a question, he can come in here and suck my dick himself.”
Tim swished the first mouthful of ansithe around in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. The stuff had to be made from ogre bile or something equally horrific. But damn if it didn't start working immediately upon hitting the bloodstream. He was still annoyed at getting asked to spill his guts right after he spilled his load, but the booze was taking the edge off.
“You are being paranoid,” said Lissa, wrapping her arm around Tim and pulling him in to rest his head on her tit. It felt simultaneously motherly and arousing. “Nobody put me up to it. I take your seed in my mouth because it pleases me to give you pleasure. But people are talking, and certain members of the team are wondering what is so special about this mysterious fat dwarf you were so keen to recruit.”
“We met in Mrs. Kittinger's first grade class at West Jefferson Elementary School. Are you satisfied?”
“You speak nonsensical words in a bitter tone. Remember that you are new here yourself.”
Tim sat up and turned to face Lissa. “I didn't ask to be a Rat Bastard. You chose me.”
Lissa frowned. “Are you unhappy here?”
“Of course not. I'm thrilled to be a part of the team. But I might be even happier if you all would stop second-guessing me.”
“Distrust is part of our nature,” said Lissa. “Especially toward dwarves.”
Tim frowned. “That sounds kind of racist.”
“They are slow and graceless, ill-suited to this line of work. Some fear your Dave is more of a liability than an asset.”
“Dave has uses. He's a cleric.”
“We tend to be distrustful of clerics as well.”
“What party doesn't have use for a healer?”
“Riley and Bisby both are practiced in minor healing magic. The nature of our pursuits is such that we seek to avoid engaging in combat whenever possible. Our healing requirements are well met.”
“Then how about because he's my friend and I've got personal business with him I have to attend to?”
“We have already allocated much time and resource to your personal business, and for what? A silly trinket and a fat dwarf.”
Tim rolled off the bed and took a swig from his flask. “Aren't you forgetting about the guns? How much territory have we gained because of me? How many rival gangs have we shut down literally overnight because I gave us an unstoppable edge?”
“No one is questioning the value of what you have provided us,” said Lissa. “We are very grateful, but where is the benefit in any of that if we are eternally beholden to you?”
“Don't be so dramatic. You're not eternally beholden to me. And I'm not asking you to put Dave out on field missions. I just need to keep him around where I know he's safe until I get the things I –”
RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP
Someone was banging on the door.
“Who's there?” Lissa called out while Tim grabbed one of his guns from a side pocket in his bag.
“It's the new guy,” said Riley from the other side of the door. “There's been some trouble.”
“Shit.” Tim pulled on his pants and tucked the gun down the back. The cold steel against his ass gave him a chill. He didn't want to run out there brandishing a piece, but neither did he want to go unprepared for whatever trouble Dave was getting himself into.
As long as Lissa needed time to put on some less rev
ealing clothing, Tim threw on his shirt as well, but didn't bother to button it, making better use of the time that would take by gulping back as much ansithe as his throat would allow.
Lissa opened the door and walked hurriedly alongside Riley down the corridor as she spoke. “What happened?”
“I don't know the finer details. Something to do with Vaeryn. Torgo is most displeased.”
“Shit,” Tim repeated, jogging behind them. Torgo was the team's muscle, reserved exclusively for missions which required something to have the shit smashed out of it. He was extremely jealous about his elven lover, Vaeryn, who was the only female other than Lissa on the team. Tim had gotten more than one warning growl from Torgo for his gaze even accidentally wandering in the direction of Vaeryn's stunning cleavage.
It wasn't long before Tim could hear the sounds of a one-sided fight. Torgo was shouting and Dave was whimpering. With all the weapons in the hidden sewer complex, Tim tried to think of it as a bright side that Torgo was merely beating the shit out of Dave, as murdering him would have been a pretty simple and straightforward affair. Then again, Torgo seemed like the sort who would prefer his murders to be more drawn out and hands-on.
When they arrived on the scene, they were just outside the bathroom, which featured not only toilet stalls, but an actual bath. Dave was naked, crouched in a fetal position to protect himself as well as he could from Torgo's repeated kicks. Vaeryn stood a few feet away, dressed only in a loose robe that left very little to the imagination.
Had Dave fucked her? Tim was impressed. He would have thought Vaeryn was way out of Dave's league. Then again, Torgo was no prize either. Poor Dave was in a sorry state, black and blue and bleeding all over, but damn. It might well have been worth it.
“TORGO!” shouted Tim, drawing his weapon. It was the sort of gun an old woman might carry in her purse, but it had the least amount of recoil of the guns he'd swiped from Walmart. That was an important thing to consider for someone who only weighed forty pounds. Besides, nobody here would make that association except for Dave, and Tim was pretty sure both of Dave's eyes were currently swollen shut.