"Hold on now," Todd began, gripping his morning star tightly and scanning the surrounding area. "where did that rascal go?"
"He's gone now, Todd." S said as he waved to the bald, mustachioed and now injured man jogging back to his weird cart with a pained limp every few steps. Imagine his surprise when he gets back and realizes he ended up the least injured out of his little group. "It's over, you got him."
"Oh! Wonderful. Okay then, back to the horses. If we move fast, I am confident I can get us back on schedule posthaste."
"Right, I, uh, dunno about that." S said, looking at Todd's damaged arm, which was pretty grotesque at this point.
"What do you mean?"
"Try moving your left arm."
"Hm? Alright. What seems to be the problem?"
"Look at your left arm, Todd." S said, unamused. Which was pretty impressive, considering the image before him. Perhaps his companions were beginning to rub off on him.
"Hm? Why- Oh. Would you look at that, it's not moving."
"Right. C'mon, let's get you healed up."
"I suppose I am in no state to drive like this."
"Right."
"But where are we going?"
"Don't worry about it."
-at?" I asked.
"Screaming skeleton head." Sis said, very matter-of-factly. "Means S is probably done with whatever."
"Oh. That's good." His thing took significantly longer than ours did. Granted, I probably could've at any moment just walked over and helped, they weren't really far away at all, but I didn't wanna be the guy that shows up at the last second all like 'ooh, hey there guys what did I miss' just as john mcbadguy gets his final climactic punch to the face, y'know?
I peeked outside the cart. I made sure to use the holes, juuuust in case.
Yep, they're walking back.
Hm. Y'know, it's kinda hard to tell from way up here, but something looks a little off about Todd. But what?
Ooooh, he's missing the chains on his armor. Yeah, that must be it. Man, that sucks. I thought those were cool.
"Yeah, looks like they're coming." I said.
"Uhuh." Sis simply responded.
Thus, we briefly waited for them to return. And in the mean time I thought about how pissed I was that those bandit guys interrupted my snack time.
Y'know what, I think I let 'em off too easy. I'm still miffed. Hold on...
"What happened to you guys? You alright?" The bald mustachioed man asked his companions, utterly aghast at their injuries. He couldn't even comprehend how they were able to get back to the cart like this without their horse, let alone what could have even caused injuries like these.
"Not entirely sure." Said Hook, as he painfully applied another enchanted adhesive bandage to himself. It wasn't a long term fix, but it meant they'd be some kind of alright until they got some proper healing.
"Think it was ghosts." Parrot suggested, doing the same thing as Hook. It wouldn't be long until they were out of bandages.
"Indeed, that seems reasonable."
"Ghosts?" Hat asked, he'd considered writing them off as delirious, but then he remembered the whole skeleton thing and decided that maybe ghosts weren't really all that farfetched. "How do you mean?"
"It's a reasonable assumption. 2 things attacked us, one we couldn't see but still talked and hurt us, and one that looked like a little girl, but was obviously impossible. Then we somehow ended up in here. Gotta be ghosts. Place is haunted."
"Indeed, ghosts."
"Ghosts."
"My, that's unnerving." Hat began, trying to make sense all this information. All that, on top of the guy he just fought, not to mention what the captain/boss was up against... There was somethin' wrong about that carriage. And that's coming from a guy who regularly hangs out with a skeleton without a penis. "What- Ow-"
"What happened?" Hook asked.
"Feels like something just tapped me in the back of the head, but I'm not sure wh-"
"Ghosts."
"That's ghosts."
"Ghosts..."
. . .
"We should leave as soon as possible."
"Capital idea."
Ah. There we go. That'll show 'em for interrupting me. Or trying to rob us, or whatever those random bandit schmucks were trying to do, I dunno.
. . . Uh, just to be clear, that wasn't me just kicking someone while they were down and already retreating. That was a reasonable and normal release of pent up emotion.
Anyways, S and that Todd guy showed up pretty quicklYYAAAH WHAT THE F-
"Holy sh*t, that's gnarly." Sis said with a laugh as Todd got closer and we saw that is arm looked a lot like his shield did, which is to say broken and shattered in a million different places. Eek.
The noises I made were a lot more reminiscent of trying not to vomit, as opposed to Sis's apparent amusement. And vulgarity.
"Hold on now, why are we at the carriage?" Todd asked, somehow not in excruciating pain.
"To make sure your arm doesn't fall off." S said, before looking over at Sis. "Right, think you can do anything about this?"
"I guess I could try." Sis said with a shrug and a chuckle. "But I've not really healed all that much before, I seriously doubt I'd be able to fix all that."
"H-how'd that even happen?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Rapscallion with a warhammer got a lucky hit." Todd explained. "Regrettably, I must have gotten sloppy."
"The skeleton guy did that?" How? He literally doesn't have any muscle!
"Skeleton?"
"Oh, uh, did the other guy also have a hammer?"
"No, I don't believe so."
"S-so you fought the... Describe the guy you fought."
"No different from anyone else. You know, I must say, despite the circumstances, it's always nice to see a strong woman on the field of battle."
Really? Oh, well that's nice- wait, no violence is ba- wait, no, how the heck did he not notice that they were a skele-
"That was a chick?" Sis asked with a confused look.
"I presume, after all they didn't seem to have a-"
"Right, we don't have time for this." S said, despite clearly trying to hold back his amusement. "Do you think you can at least not make it worse?" S asked Sis, who was chuckling, probably about what Todd was likely about to finish his sentence with.
"I dunno. That a thing that can happen?" She asked.
Ah. Yikes.
"Right. Uh... Shoot. What to do about this..."
"S-should I go grab a healing potion or something? Do those exist here?" I asked.
"Right, that could work, but they're kind of a waste."
Noted. I'll probably ask more about this later, when there isn't, y'know, that in front of me. Also, glad he didn't question that last bit.
"I-I guess we could take him to pa-" I began to whisper, before remembering that she's in Starsford. How inconvenient.
"Oh!" S said after a moment, and I swear for a moment I saw a lightbulb appear over his head. "Michaus mentioned taking you to the church that one time when he thought you were injured, right? Holy dudes are usually heal-y types, we could go see if they can do anything."
Oh yeah, that's true. Y'know, now that I'm thinking about it, armor guy does kinda strike me as a healer, for some reason.
"Yeah that work-" I began, putting my hands together. "W-wait, what about-" I said, kind of trying to subtly gesture to Todd with my head. Didn't I just talk to myself about letting less people know about these things?
"Don't worry, he won't notice." S said, totally normally.
"Th-there's no way-"
"He won't."
Aaaah... Well, despite everything, I have a really hard time believing that... But I would have a pretty hard justifying not helping a guy out when his arm looks like that... I guess one more guy doesn't really matter all that much...
"Alright." I said with a sigh, opening a hole here and behind the church back in Basenholm.
Thus, we all returned to the place we basically just came from a few hours ago. Cool.
