An Amazon of Limited Means

Day 24-ish

Kitsilan turned over and felt around. Grass. Grass was good. She moved her hand a little further. Not grass. She tugged experimentally on the not-grass, and heard Kyle yelp.

"Ow! Hey—I've got a lump there."

Kits opened her eyes and let go of Kyle's hair. She focused past the irritated Rogue and made out first her stash and then the pile of gear beside it. Much of it looked way too unfamiliar.

"Kyle?" she croaked, sitting up slowly. There was the town waypoint near her feet. This must still be Harrogath. "Has Baal taken over the world yet?"

"Not that I've heard," Kyle replied, rubbing her head gingerly.

"Ah. So this must be…"

"Hangover," Kyle confirmed, stirring up their small fire.

"You sure?"

"Oh, yeah. After what we did, the party won't be over for another week."

Kitsilan passed her the kettle and coffee tin and considered this. Lifting the siege had been fun and all, but hardly anything to have made this kind of fuss about. She gave up. "Okay, I give up. What'd we do?"

"What didn't we do, is more the question," Kyle worked her bedroll into a comfortable pad against the stash and watched the kettle wobble as the water came to a boil. "After that barb quartet woke us up trying to harmonize on 'Sweet Sanctuary Suzy'—"

"I remember that. They needed a tenor."

"They needed a hook. Nihlathak tried to shoo them off home at one point, but by then you'd had a few with Cain and Qual-Kehk and wanted them to stay."

"Just till they'd got the middle chorus bit right. It's got those little claps and heel-taps—"

"Spare me. Drink the coffee. You lectured us all on the intricate mechanics of harmonic heel-tapping."

"Oh, dear," Kits moaned, as a wisp of memory floated by.

"And then Qual-Kehk said they'd had a tenor, but he was penned up in the Frigid Highlands," Kyle went on, "and if you were so keen on musical accomplishments, you should go out and bring him back."

Kitsilan held out her mug for more coffee. She didn't remember that part at all.

"And you said you would."

"I did."

"That no quartet could ever hope to succeed with two baritones, a bass, and a bass trying on a falsetto."

"Well, that's true enough."

"True or not, the whole Bloody Foothills had regenerated by that time."

Kitsilan shrugged. "Well, that was bound to happen, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but we weren't supposed to go wandering back through till you'd at least sorted out which part of your bow was string. If you used real arrows, you'd have shot your ear off before we made the second rank of catapults."

Kits winced. "We lived, though, right? I mean, we're here, right?"

"We lived. By the time we were done, nothing but carrion bunnies moved in that section. Well, aside from the leftover zombie barbs stuck in side canyons. You've leveled again, by the way. Twice."

"My gosh," Kitsilan said, blinking. "Did I learn anything useful?"

"Two sessions of Pierce and another Magic Arrow."

"Oh, good. I was afraid it might've been three more sessions of Penetrate."

"Anyway, every time we came back to sell off the loot, Nihlathak would wander by, humming off-key. And give you another pint, and you'd drink it just like you'd never heard of good sense."

Kitsilan groaned. No wonder her head hurt.

"Don't suppose you remember anything about whacking Shenk again? No? Jumping up on that catapult just north of him and shouting, 'Shenk the Overseer?! Shenk can't even see over his own belly!'"

"I didn't."

"He waddled right down off his platform to see to you, he did. With his own personal squad of Death Maulers and blow-up dollies trotting along ahead of him."

"More coffee? Please?"

"Certainly! You're a bona-fide, can't-miss Hero, you can have all the coffee you want."

"Is that sarcasm? Cos I only take milk and sugar."

"Eldritch the Really, Really Nippy was a bit more trouble. He—"

"Where was this?"

"Entering – no, charging – into the Frigid Highlands, we were almost surrounded by this pack of lively Enslaveds, and had to back right up into the Foothills again." Kyle paused, then added, "You did not trip over your boots. I was impressed."

"Was that where all the Imps were? I remember Imps. Thousands of Imps."

"Only a couple hundred, I think. They teleport a lot, though."

"They chitter, too. I didn't like that."

"Yeah? That why you chittered back at them?"

"Can we skip to the part where I did something right?"

"Hey, you did everything right—that's why the party's still on. Blind drunk on Harrogath Ale, shooting anything and everything that chittered, spat fire or even looked at us crossly. We raced up the far side of the Highlands and back down the near side, hammering down doors and beating down barricades, and whenever we found a pen full of Barbs, you'd demand to hear an audition before you would open the gate."

Kitsilan groaned again and shook her head. It was a tactical error which she regretted immediately. "I made them sing?"

"Like birds. But no matter, they're all home safe and everyone thinks you're just great. Really."

"Well, I hope I can—"

"Then you got me killed in Abaddon."

"I did what?"

"Not that I hold a grudge or anything."

"Oh," Kits tried smiling ingratiatingly and gave it up. "that's good."

"You were just bound and determined to poke into every nook and cranny out there, and a few high-powered Imps and Hell Lords were not gonna make you back off."

"What's Abaddon?"

"Some kind of Hell pit. There's a portal leads to it in the middle of the Highlands."

"Oh, that pit."

"Those Hell Lords hit hard."

"Was that the stone skinned guy?"

"Sin Touch? That's the one. Knocked me in the head twice, and that was that."

"Sorry."

"No worries. I did like that rolling dive you did into your portal just after I went down."

Kitsilan poured another mug. "What do they put in their ale, do you know?"

"No idea, just that Charsi bought a barrel off a trader once, but Akara caught us before we had more than a taste and Telekyned the lot to the river and us to the practise field. Said that Harrogath Ale and bows don't mix. Boy, was she wrong."

"Do me a favour: don't tell her."

"I won't have to. Remember that quartet? Now they've got their tenor back, they're working up a new gig, 'An Amazon Went a Questing-O', they call it."

"No!"

"Fraid so. But don't worry; if you don't want to hang around and listen to them rehearsing (you might want to, they've got some really intricate heel-taps worked into the chorus), Malah says that we should go find some frozen river or other and hunt up someone named Anya."

"Another lost Barb? Can't they keep track of anyone in this town?"

"Doesn't look like it. Malah thinks Nihlathak kidnapped her, and he's one of the Elders, and if that's the kind of thing they're up to, it's no wonder."

"Well, it'll be something to do, I guess." Kitsilan crawled back into her bedroll, pulling the edge well over her head and muffling the sounds of a nearby choral group swinging into a rousing encore. "Later."