Jacq fumbled for the map in the dark as she tried to contain her panic. “We gotta get out of here!” she whispered loudly.
Seetha quickly folded the map into her belt and took another candle out. “The cellar doors,” she said, “let’s go.”
“Alright—wait! Wait!” Jacq suddenly stopped Seetha, something else having crossed her mind. “What if they got someone waiting outside?”
Seetha contemplated that possibility to be unlikely—at first. The Guild was going to come down the stairs any second now, but on the other hand a Rogue, or a magic using class type with ensnaring enchantments, could be watching the backdoor exit to pin them down in a pincer move. That notion suddenly caused her to look nervously at their only exit. Guild members were not known to be tactical, but then again they were also known to be dirty fighters. Principles and codes of chivalry were very secondary in the life of an Adventurer, so anything could go.
The scaly creature on the floor struggled to rise on its two legs like a newborn calf. Afraid that it would make more noise, Jacq quickly grabbed one of the cages and tried to coax it inside. “C’mon, c’mon uh—scaly? F-Fluffers,” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster under the duress. The cockatrice cocked its head low and hissed at her like a wary cat, causing her to keep her distance.
“Ugh, this is turning into a real shit-show,” growled Seetha. They were trapped like two mice in a bucket of cream, and no more smoke bomb or magic spell to aid them, the dread was dawning on her sooner than her friend. “Jacq, just leave that thing alone, and let’s go. We’ll have to risk it.”
“But we can’t leave her,” responded Jacq. “We gotta help her.”
“How? We don’t know how to turn her back to normal, and in case you haven’t heard, our biggest problem just bursted through the front door like hogs out of hell! We have to go!”
Jacq didn’t budge from what she was doing. “Seetha! We can’t leave her. We’ll find a way, somehow.”
Seetha hissed impatiently but didn’t argue any further. “Fine,” she relented, heading for the cellar door with sword drawn. “Just get that thing in the cage. I’ll go and see if the coast is-
She suddenly froze. They heard feet quickly pattering down the steps from behind the door Seetha had come in; it had been left unlocked. There was the sound of a young woman’s shrill screaming and cursing, sounding as though it was directed towards someone, and it sounded close. Dangerously close. Seetha cursed under her breath, plastering herself against the support beam and posed to strike.
Jacq too raised her own sword up; already was she resigned to fight to the death than face capture. Their relief was like a cool breeze in the desert when they saw that it was only their inside man.
“Are you two alright?” Leo asked, shutting the door behind him. He stopped, holding his hand up against his nose when he noticed the ghastly sight of the dead brigands.
“Sure,” Jacq chuckled weakly, “just another night of fun. How are you, by the by?” Offhand, she noticed his uneasy look and quickly stepped in front of the cockatrice.
“Another night, another penny, but…” said Leo, “What on earth is that behind—
“Look, we don’t have time for explanations,” said Seetha in a hurry, “or confabs. Here—take this pouch—it’s got about sixteen pennies and two silver florins. Think of it as a rebate, uh, sorta. Just tell the alderman that we’ll be back to split a bigger prize by the end of the week, but me and my friend have to leg it out of here tonight, because some backstabbing assholes from the Questing Guild are after us.”

For a moment, Leo only looked at Seetha indecisively. She pleaded to him with her soft eyes, and Jacq followed up with a coaxing nod. Some intuition inside of Leo convinced him to think better of it, so he took the coins from the Sword Dancer.

“Thanks, Leo,” Seetha smiled.

“I should be thanking you two, actually,” said Leo modestly. “You just saved this business from this foul crime ring.”

“Leo, is there anyone outside waiting for us?” Jacq motioned at the cellar doors. “Any guards or Guild members?”
“I-I can’t say for sure,” said Leo, “I’ve been inside since my shift began.”
“What’s happening up there?” asked Seetha.
“I don’t know, but it’s quite strange to be honest. I was serving another round when, all of a sudden, this strange lot just bursted through the front door playing and singing like drunken troubadours. They claim to be from the Questing Guild, here for the bounty on you based on their description, but that was some real shoddy bounty hunting work. The bard I get, but this half-human, the rogling, and the changeling? No bounty hunter would ever make their presence known so loudly.”

“Bartrius,” Jacq muttered. “And Avandra and Jixie. Three boneheads from the same troglodyte.”

“Alright, but what’s going on up there?” Seetha repeated. “And who was that screaming?”

“Well,” explained Leo, “this patron accidentally bumps into the changeling while scooting by, and then she pulled out her wand on him, accusing him of groping her fannies, right? My boss intervened, but next thing I know, she’s having it out with him all sudden-like.”
Jacq looked at Leo curiously. “Is this so-called changeling arguing with your boss an Imperial by any chance?”
“You mean a Cimbrian? Yes,” Leo nodded.
“Fat as a chicken? Pasty-faced, black haired with one, wash-away red dye on her bang?”
Leo gave her a confused look. “Ye-yes. Is she someone you know?”

“Oh, we’re someone she knows alright!” came a venomous voice.

Jacq and Seetha swore under their breaths. There came the metallic sound of a sword being drawn out as heavy boots thudded down the steps, revealing a half-woman half-elf armored in a studded brigandine beneath a red robe. Jacq and Seetha stood shoulder to shoulder, their own swords at the ready. The half-elf didn't seem impressed; going by the cocky grin on her face, she was actually enjoying this.

“Hello, Jacq,” sneered Avandra.

Jacq shook her head. “Avandra and friends. Figured that was you.”

Behind the half-elf, a man in the most garish breeches ever conceived by any tailor jumped down the steps, lute in hand and hair swaggering in rhythm with his ego. “Haha!” Bartrius laughed in self-satisfaction. “Well, well, if it isn’t the cripple-tripper. Did you like our performance, by the by? She wrote it with you in mind, with music by yours truly.”

He edged to the blue rogling who crept after like a thief, a humanoid creature with tiny horns, a prehensile tail, and yellow eyes that burned like her pyromaniac tendencies. “Yeah, your death music!” Jixie giggled, a tongue of fire flickered briefly between her rubbing hands. Leo stepped back in fear as the new arrivals filled the room, blades and magic fire gleaming in the cold cellar light.

Avandra was the first to notice the cockatrice lolling its ugly head to one side. “Your Úath is looking a little decrepit there, Rüzgârian,” she cocked an eyebrow.

Jacq met her gaze, her stance solid and unyielding. “Yeah, she’s aged better than your camel toe.”

Avandra’s grey eyes flashed with annoyance but masked it quickly with a practiced chuckle.

“So, what now?” Jacq continued. “Do I die now, or let you take me in, and die later?”

“You’re worth enough alive,” Avandra responded coldly, tapping her blunt fingernails along her sword like a spider. “Though given your steep debt to society, it’ll be better for you to repent, before you reach your deathbed in the dungeons.”

“Well, it’s a tough call, but you know what?” Jacq retorted with indignation: “go hump a pony, you Imperial half-breeds!”

The tension in the room cut sharply as the bounty hunter’s eyes turned back towards the Barbarian. “Oh Jacq,” Bartrius laughed, an opulently lethal sound that echoed through the cellar, “your words were always duller than your blade.”

Jixie smirked, the flicker of flames dancing along her fingertips. “And you,” she hissed at the Rüzgârian, “always had a way with making us want to burn things!”

Seetha turned back to her inside man. “Leo, you better get out of here before hell goes down,” she cautioned quietly. Leo nodded, backing away towards the stairs while keeping his eyes fixed on the scene unfolding in front of him.

Bartrius saw him from the corner of his eyes, thrusting out a hand on the doorframe and blocked Leo’s path. “Oh, what’s your hurry?” the bard lulled as he gazed at him with hungry eyes. “You might have heard of me, no?” Bartrius the Great? The Muse of the Millennium? The bard who fills the stages, among other things.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Fartrius,” Jacq quipped. “The last stage you managed to fill was stage four leprosy!” The room fell deathly silent at Jacq’s retort, save for a stifled laughter from Leo, who quickly covered his mouth to maintain his composure.

Bartrius winced, his usually haughty smirk fading into a sour scowl. “Always the sword over the pen, aren’t you Jacq?” he drawled at the Rüzgârian, twirling his lute pick between his fingers. “And that’s the thanks I get after composing an entire symphony to commemorate your indictment. I shan’t mince words with thee least thou spoils this lovely evening with sour notes—strike your colors now and cease this arbitrament of belligerence, for lo the wings of clemency may indeed ascend thee to thy purgatorial penance.”

Looks of confusion were streaked upon everyone’s faces, all save for Jacq who’s eyes glared with annoyed derision. This bard was really dragging this on for the sake of theatrics.

“Give yourself up, and we might go easy on you,” Avandra clarified.

“Why didn’t he just say that?” Seetha asked, in a tone that was meant to be rhetorical.

Bartrius whirled around in a foppish flair, facing Seetha. "Why, where would be the fun in that?" He answered, flicking an imaginary speck of dust off his ornate doublet. His eyes blew wide with exaggerated shock. “And here I was, under the impression that you, at the very least my desert rose, were well-versed in the grandiose language of the stage. How superfluously underwhelming.”

Seetha rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” she chimed in, “of which you lack all three.” At hearing this, the corners of Jacq’s lips curled into a smile. Bartrius gasped dramatically, his hand pressed to his heart as if wounded.

“Well, I thought you sounded really pretty, Bartrius,” said Jixie, her tail wagging.

Jacq tilted her head slightly, looking at Jixie as though she were just another annoying insect. “Yes, for a blue toad,” she huffed.

Seetha glanced back at Jacq with a worried look. Knowing Jixie, she was the near-exact meaning of a loose bolt on a hair-trigger, even for a Sorceress.

“That's what they always say before the inferno-crescendo,” Jixie grinned, her voice cackling eerily like a match striking against flint.

“Enough, pagan!” Avandra commanded in a vexed voice. “Get ready Fartri-I mean, Bartrius!” She quickly corrected herself, but not before Jixie snorted and the bard shot an offended look at the half-elf. “Last chance, traitor!” she barked. “Lay down your sword, or—”

Suddenly, there was a crash of plates and tankards striking against the walls, followed by a ruckus of howling, and what sounded like a flurry of fists colliding with jaws and hardy flesh. All heads in the cellar looked up with a start.

“What was that?” asked Seetha.

“Oh, bloody knell,” Avandra rolled her eyes before she turned back to the cellar door. “Watch them! Do not let them out of your sight!” she commanded as she brushed past Bartrius. Seizing his chance, Leo followed her up the stairs, unknowingly leaving the bard torn by a split decision.

Before he could make up his mind, Leo's panicked voice echoed down the stairs: “No, no! Please, my Lady, would you put that-" but was cut off by another crash of plates. A shrill scream erupted, but it wasn’t from Avandra.

Bartrius turned back to his captives, his bravado faltering momentarily as he met the expression of self-satisfied amusement on Jacq’s face. “She’s here, isn’t she?” she spoke like a mind-reader.

Bartrius shot her a frustrated glare but seemed too rattled to argue.“Now, you just stay right where you are…” he ordered hesitantly, taking a step towards the stairs. The shriek that followed was then drowned out by other noises: cursing, jeering, laughter, screams of fright, and the tempo of the band speeding up to accompany the sudden mood swing of the upper room. The panic-stricken sound of Leo could be distinguished by sharp ears, and by simply lonely mortals.

Bartrius broke and dashed up the stairs, his face drained of color. “I’m coming, my love!” he cried tearfully.

Jixie suddenly let out a delighted squeal. “Oh, I think things are about to get interesting!” She teetered on her toes with anticipation, her tail thrashing about wildly.

As soon as Bartrius’ heels disappeared from view, Jacq calmly stepped forward. “I think you should go see if they need a hand. We’ll be waiting right here,” she offered innocently.

Jixie nodded daftly. “Hey!” she called out after Bartrius. “Don't fight without me!”

Seetha only looked up at the ceiling in bewilderment, while Jacq’s face was beaming in elation. The chaos, though unexpected and perhaps anticlimactic, had become a cloak of darkness to veil the escape of the Rüzgârian and her Isyrian friend, so they would fight another day.

“Oh, Mandi,” Jacq sighed smugly, “never change. I think that’s our cue to leave now.”

Quick as lighting, Jacq scooped the cockatrice into the cage like water into a bucket, closing the cage door swiftly before the creature could retaliate with a sharp bite. Without further delay, the Barbarian and the Sword Dancer dashed up through the cellar doors, and finding no resistance or hinderance awaiting them outside, they ran off down the road and into the night.

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

“I jest thee not, Seetha!” Jacq restated the following grey morning as they walked. “It’s something I’ve been dying to share with you for a long time, and I feel like I should just get it off my shoulders before we go any further: I did not care for Critical Roll.”

The Sword Dancer, leaning up exhaustingly against a pale ash, stopped to catch her breath before she could retort elaborately. “What, you mean the admirers of it?” she asked.

Jacq shook her head. “No, not just those creepy critters, the series in general.”

That nearly made Seetha gasp. “How can you even say that?”

Jacq shrugged. “Didn’t like it.”

“But, it’s such a good series with great characters. Maybe it just wasn’t made for you.”

“That is what everyone always say,” Jacq rolled her eyes indigently. “Whenever I say—”

“Pike TrickyFeet, Vjord, Caleb, Perci, Imojen Te-mulch, ” Seetha pointed defensively, “I mean, how on earth can you —Molly Mock!”

“Look, no—I—Fine,” Jacq waved a hand. “Fine characters, did not like the story.”

“Why not?” Seetha asked in an interrogational tone.

“I couldn’t get into it; I just didn’t see the appeal.”

“Explain yourself. What didn’t you like about it?”

“…It’s pretentiously melodramatic, Seetha.”

“What?”

“It’s pretentiously melodramatic.”

“So? What does that even mean?”

“People keep saying that it’s so groundbreaking, but they won’t admit that it’s just a tone deaf, pompous presentation of overplayed tragic backstories, tasteless sex jokes, trite relationship drama, forced morals, and attention deficiency jumbled together by seven dickheads with father issues.”

“You take that back—they are not dickheads with father issues!”

“But why did it need to have seven authors to write it? That outta tell you something.”
“Because they were contributing their points of view to the series; and it’s written like that because it started out as an impromptu rough draft, which I found very creative, in my opinion. And anyways, the number of collaborators doesn’t necessarily equal lack of intelligent writing.”
“Well sure, but you can make the argument that they dumbed it down to be marketable to an audience that can’t even answer a simple math question.”

“You don’t know what you’re—first of all!” Seetha narrowed her eyes exasperatedly. “First of all, it’s appeal to a wider audience has no bearing on it’s quality. And people don’t go into Critical Roll to learn how to subtract 1.5 from 1; they come for the marvelous world-building, the timeless characters, and the adventures!”
Jacq rolled her eyes dismissively. “The world-building is just a boilerplate revision of our world, and don’t even get me started on those cliched and mellow scenarios you call ‘adventures.’ Every damn episode comes to a screeching halt when one of the quote unquote complex characters gets a contrived boo-boo in their soul and needs to talk about it for the next ten chapters!”

“Those so-called boo-boos are based on real life circumstances which audiences relate to, especially the parts with the twins dealing with family loss.”
“I know who you’re talking about, and sadly, I just don’t give a horse’s ass about them.”

“Oh!” Seetha glared. “Guess I’ll add ‘orphan hater’ and ‘uncultured swine’ to your pagan repertoire.”

“Whatever; right next to pillaging, blaspheming, and cripple-tripping, I’m sure. But at least I don’t foist this unhealthy expectation on writers to make the next Critical Roll, like Xantria Unlimited.”

“What? No, no, Xantria was just a spinoff. That one was actually pretty... terrible.”

“I’ll say.”

“So, did you at least like any of the characters?”

“Nope.”

“Not even de’Grog? I thought perhaps he would’ve been your favorite.”

“And why’s that?” Jacq scoffed. “Because I’m a dumb gorilla?”

Seetha paused. “…Touché. So, which novel didn’t you like? Part one, two, or three?”
“Well, that’s the thing… I’ve never even finished the ending of the first part. I couldn’t—

“You never finished the ending?!” Reacting to Seetha’s impassioned response, Fluffers squawked from her cage and barred her open maw. “I’m glad that you agree, Fluffers. It’s not really fair,” she said sarcastically. “And you! How can you say you don’t like something if you haven’t even given it a chance?”

“Look, I have tried on three separate occasions to get through it,” explained Jacq, “until I finally lost patience and just jumped right into ‘Mighty Nine.’ And then, I get to the part where they’re all doing the tarot card reading—

“Yeah, that was a great scene. I loved that scene. It was foreshadowing—

“It’s not a great scene! It takes forever getting the plot to move forward; they spend like three and a half hours at the inn. And the conversations they have are just boring—
—the conversations they have involve interpersonal interactions; something that you wouldn’t comprehend.”
—no idea what they’re talking about. It’s like they’re talking about a different... You know, that’s where I lose interest in it.”

“You know what, I don’t think you would even understand the sublime genius of, say, the fight on the Squall-Eater, the blueberry cupcake, or the crabgrass bit. You’d have to have a very high intelligence check to appreciate the method to the madness.”

The two women noticed Fluffer’s body twitch as she raised her tail up in the air. As if on some kind of cue, a colluded glop of white and yellow excrements jetted out from her backside and landed squarely on a patch of grass with a putrid splash.

“That is my answer to that statement,” Jacq looked back at Seetha smugly, “and I think Fluffers has rescinded.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Whatever.”

It was all Seetha had planned to say to Jacq after their mellow conversation soured into another argument about likes and dislikes that challenged the other’s worldview. “Now let’s wait up for a sec. I need to catch my breath; I’m—
“Whim…Pee!” Jacq mocked her with feigned gasps of air, followed by a derisive laugh. The Sword Dancer’s response was a narrowed stare. Ever the barbarian, and a pagan no less, her friend did not know when to quit. Gracefully.
Seetha narrowed her eyes and pressed out a halfhearted laugh from between her sweet, ebony lips. “Keep talking. See what happens.”

Jacq came back to the present. “The spot on the map should be one more mile away.”

“You could get better bearings from up there,” Seetha pointed at a lone oak on a great hill, not perhaps a half a mile away as the human runs.
“Better bearings,” Jacq chuckled. Setting her scaly pet down, she brushed ahead through the tree limbs and towards Seetha’s pinpointed location.

“Just hope for berries and no bears,” Seetha chimed in, just as the Barbarian had disappeared into the light mist that hung over the woods. The Sword Dancer, meanwhile, sat down demurely on a stump to catch herself up on their progress so far. There had been little time to jot down everything since their arrival at the inn last night, but thankfully she had the gift of long memory. Her first entry in her journal was: A village outside of the town of Ashinghamm has had a “fowl” disappearance of hens for the past two weeks before we arrived from Normiland…
Last night had been a sloppy work salvaged only by the erupt chaos that covered their escape, and the end of a minor criminal operation. The cockatrice and the arrival of the Questing Guild was an unexpected cap-off to that unpleasant experience.

Seetha hoped that the news of their progress would be sufficient enough to placate the victims of the now-departed hen thieves. Most of all, she hoped that Leo had the nous to remember the two unconscious brigands who, last seen, were giving each other a pleasant conjugal experience thanks to Jacq. In all of the commotion, they had forgotten about that loose end. Mother willing that, by the time she and Jacq were following the Winding Blue as prescribed on their unconventional map, those two man-pigs were sleeping off their splitting headaches behind bars.
The hour had past midnight when they had reached a clear distance away from all signs of civilization for them to safely make camp—by safe, that was, to be away from the reach of the Guild, and the Law. They had tempted fate enough times being strangers to the island’s tamed realms, but now they were venturing into a new landscape of brooding silence and viridescent shadows where the spirits and the beasts of the wilds held little familiarity to them, and no perchance for hospitality.
Their breakfast the next day had been brief; a pair of conies they’d caught to have with Seetha’s mixed brew of the closest thing they could get to black tea. It was slightly bitter as tea went, but serviceable. The two women were instilled with the stamina to resume their journey.

Being the more adapted of the two when it came to athletic ventures, Jacq never went too far ahead of the Sword Dancer, though she could’ve run for a whole night, and the rest of the day after without pause if she had the desire to do so. Her sword, its scabbard of horse hide leather strapped to her back, was no deterrent to her ability to run or walk or climb, and the weight of the cage she kept Fluffers in was laughable in comparison. The Sword Dancer’s aching legs and shriveling lungs were making her regret that hurrying their pace was ever a great suggestion, despite it being her idea to find the place on the map as expeditiously as possible.
To what little knowledge about these woodlands that she could recall, as she reflected her anticipation by humming the song from Pike's Pike Inn to pass the time, bears no longer laired on Angevin. The woodlands of Angevin now belonged to the more humble and less voracious pets of the elusive fae folks be they squirrels, sparrows, hares, chipmunks, foxes, and the marvelous red coated deers of Apple Downs, docile beasts that were the prized game of Angevin’s nobilities. The last great bear of Angevin had been put to the spear around 1095 Y.III.S, along with the last lynxes, wolves, wargs, and dire dragons. It may have been a fact that had brought her some relief once she had read of it in a elective course she took at the academy. To the barbarian woman, however, ever the devil-may-care fighter, it was a disappointment.
Nevertheless, she hoped that Jacq would come back soon. As a city dweller, she secretly never liked the notion of traveling through any kind of wilderness, and in spite of having an education, the fears from her childhood were shaped by such stories. These lands, so she heard, were pretty to behold in the morning and midday light, but it was just their luck to set out on a cold, cloudy day with little notion of time. She noticed, at second glance, how the birches seemed to close all around her in a palisade of crooked, white spears with their twisted branches weaving an oppressive ceiling overhead. She could see—or thought she could see—the misshapen roots as snakes tangled and knotted into an ouroboros beneath the moist earth. It made her slightly shift her legs uneasily, though she didn’t realize this at first. Sometimes, the fires of knowledge could not put out the dark conjurings of the imagination.
Seetha had not lived within one city long enough for the street lights to dim her vision, for after some time had passed she was just able to make out the tall, lithe shape of a woman. The same woman in that ridiculously revealing outfit with panther patterns, and a great sword that, thankfully, she did not carry for show.
“You see anything?” Seetha shot up from her seat, eager to hear Jacq’s report.
“Okay. You’re not going to believe this,” said Jacq as though she was beginning to share some more bad news than good. Seetha sensed that immediately, and she didn’t like it. “That spot on the map? Its an abandoned monastery,” explained Jacq. “It’s just past that ash tree, downhill, and tucked away on some large rock in a deep quarry. The only way across is over a stone bridge. It’s pretty old, but not that old that we can’t cross safely, that is if we watch where we step.”
“And, what’s the catch?” Seetha asked warily.
“I counted four strangers going into some kind of stone temple located near the back of the monastery grounds: three human men and one male rogling. Looked like they were passing down some climbing and excavation equipment through the doorway before going in, like ropes and picks and that sort of thing.”
“Well, that’s just perfect!” Seetha threw up her hands. “Looks like some bastards had the same idea: trying to steal our claim.”
“Not if we catch them by surprise,” Jacq said confidently.
“You don’t think the Guild could have gotten wind of the treasure this quickly?”
“Nu uh, it’s not the Guild. It’s more of those brigands we axed back at the inn, from the looks of them.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d know them blindfolded,” Jacq nodded, “what with the scent of stiff leather armor and unwashed bloomers.”
“Well, at least we know what we’re up against.” Seetha pulled out the map from her belt and spread it across. “Ok, you said you counted at least four of them, right? Where’s this stone temple? Anyone on guard?”
Jacq studied the map before she gave answer. “Let’s see, um, I managed to sneak in a little closer through here,” she said, tracing her finger from the southwestern edge through the center, “and all the way up to there. I saw some headstones around that stone temple, but no guards as far as I could see. Or smell.”
“Then that must be the cemetery… and that temple might be a mausoleum,” said Seetha. “What else did you see—or smell?”
“Nothing, but I heard hoarse voices that sound like pigs in a brothel, if you can believe it. There might be a cave beneath the ruins. Seetha, this whole thing can’t be some fluke. We’re finally on to something big.”
“Alright. But first things first: let’s take care of those guys.”
Jacq set Fluffers down to cover her cage with loose branches and leaves. “And, if we’re lucky, whatever we find in there is gonna buy our freedom.”
Seetha quietly drew her saber. “I thought pagans didn’t believe in luck.”
The Rüzgârian turned back to the hill with a glint in her eyes. “Guess we’ll find out.”