Wicked Amusement Ch. 01

"Oh! Yes!" Larya looked at her staff and nodded, impressed. "That's clever. You can tell that?"

"I always had a quick eye." Alma grinned. She had such a pretty smile. "But it made me wonder. What is an honorable druid going with a man like that?"

Larya grimaced. "Hopefully not much further. I just need to get a special antitoxin from the town nearby."

"An antitoxin?" Alma seemed to perk up.

"For a...friend." Larya sighed. "She was poisoned. We need the antitoxin to save her. We've gotta deal with these elf criminals, and it's gonna be really—"

"I can take you to the town."

Larya's eyes lit up. "Really? That would be wonderful!"

Alma laughed. "It's not far. And it's a ranger's duty to help those in need! I would be happy to." She gave Larya a funny look that made mice scuttle about in Larya's belly. "But I'd need some time to pack, and your friend seems impatient to be on the move."

"Oh, he's fine." Larya rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure we've both had enough of each other. He'll just be relieved he doesn't have to help anymore." She knew she was beaming like an idiot, but she couldn't help it. Alma was a much more desirable traveling companion, and not just for her looks—a rat with a cyst in its eye would be better company on the road than Snatch, Larya felt. Alma seemed genuinely nice.

Alma didn't say anything for a moment, intently studying her feet. Then the ranger made eye contact with Larya again, and Larya felt a little bit dizzy. "So...he will not be back for a while, then."

The room suddenly seemed very warm to Larya.

The ranger's left hand began fiddling with her tunic's neckline laces, though not quite untying them. She smiled; such a sweet, generous smile. "You are very beautiful, Larya."

Larya felt a fluttering in her chest. Oh, boy.

~~~~

It had gotten dark very quickly.

Snatch slashed roughly at the brush with his scythe, snarling under his breath. Too quickly.

In the dungeon, Snatch's sense of direction was perfect. It was impeccable. He could weave his way through a maze that would make a minotaur shrug and settle for only eating half her sacrifices. But out here, in a pitch-black forest?

Hell, he almost missed the druid.

But he knew he was better off without her. He slashed away a low-hanging branch. She'd found a ranger. They would get the damn job done. He would drop into the elf town, see what couldn't be stolen, and make off into the night with no-one the wiser. Hopefully, he'd even break even from all this.

What a mess. He didn't regret helping the doppelganger or anything—that had been a pretty basic moral question, and he saw that now—but there was no way he was going to go to all this trouble to help her out again. It wasn't his fault she got poisoned. The druid could sort it out with her new 'friend'.

Oh, and that was another thing. He rolled his eyes. The first night out, they'd stopped at an inn, and Larya and the innkeeper's son had scampered off to make merry almost immediately. The only problem was, she'd been the one with the money. He'd practically gotten his lights punched out trying to explain himself when he couldn't pay up.

In fairness, Snatch wasn't very good at explaining himself to people. But he was sick of working around the damn girl's libido.

Why the hell is it so dark? he wondered. He had no idea where he was. All he could see was black.

And, he realized, a small light off in the distance. Had that been there before?

Well, it was better than nothing. He made his way over, slashing one last time at a nasty brier that dangled too close to his eyes for his liking.

It was a small clearing. There was nothing especially interesting in it, really, except for all the weirdly glowing plants. And the stag lying at the base of a glowing tree, fast asleep, little silver beads dangling from its antlers. And the bloodied human body lying next to it, its lower torso a gaping, gory cavity.

Snatch stared at the scene, befuddled. Half of him was screaming, Treasure! The other half was just screaming.

Snatch wasn't much of an adventurer, but he knew he was supposed to be cautious around weird things like this. So he approached very slowly, watching both the stag and the body. He wasn't watching the silver beads, but something about them put him on edge, made his head buzz. Just like the ones back at the cabin. Some sort of protection spell, maybe?

He looked at the body's face and let out a vile oath.

The stag's eyes opened.

TO BE CONTINUED

~~~~~~~~

Next week will be a long-overdue chapter of Sea Slimes, in which Snatch deals with a wicked jellyfish girl and we find out just what happened to the mermaid Nerka. Let me know if you'd like to see more of this story!