Lemon hit the strings of her lute for the last time and took a large swig from the bottle of rum. Next to her, Gmork hiccuped, watching the skeletons dancing on the deck of the ship. One of them spun the helm, causing the ship to take a sharp turn, but it didn’t seem to bother the rest of the dancing skeletons.
Lemon started to play the lute again, this time using the bottle as a slide. Next to her, a skeleton ran his fingers across his ribs, making them sound like a washboard. Gmork chuckled and gave the skeleton his bottle of rum. The skeleton took a sip, causing alcohol to spill down his spine.
“Hey, watch out!” Gmork laughed. “Do you think they can play their bones like a vibraphone?”
“Vibraphone?” Lemon shrugged. “Is that even an instrument or some kind of a battery-powered Trenderhoof?”
“Nah, it’s like a xylophone on steroids.” Gmork shrugged. “Wait, why Trenderhoof?”
“Why not?” Lemon asked.
“You’re gay.”
“And you’re allegedly straight, but that doesn’t stop you from ogling Fleur whenever you have a chance,” Lemon replied. “Why Fleur, though? I mean, that’s some really bad taste.”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me why Trenderhoof.” Gmork’s character faded a bit, revealing Sunny Flare, though she kept speaking with an accent. “I mean, you say Fleur is a mark of bad taste?”
“You had a crush on Trenderhoof yourself!” Lemon exclaimed. “I mean, didn’t you two–”
“No, he almost ran away halfway through the first episode of Elfen Lied,” Sunny replied. “I’d rather get a battery-powered version, though.” She took another sip from her bottle. “And then it got worse. I showed him my fanfiction.”
“Smooth,” Lemon muttered. “Was it the one with a horse?”
“No, the one with a tank full of dying schoolgirls.” Sunny smirked. “With fire and bowels, and everything.”
“Never show someone your fanfiction on a first date.” Lemon downed her bottle and burped. “Though I’m not an expert on relationships. I ended up with Sour Sweet.”
“Eww…” Sunny winced. “I mean, I don’t mind, but still, eww. Let’s change the topic before I throw up, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Lemon shrugged. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
“I recently played some online chess and I sacrificed my queen three times in a row.”
Lemon furrowed her eyebrows, trying to focus. Reading the label on the bottle of rum helped, but only slightly. “Did it work?” she asked.
“Twice, but in the third game I didn’t calculate that my opponent can just decline the sacrifice, I ended up down the exchange and two pawns, but I sacrificed the other rook as well and got a draw by threefold repetition.”
Lemon nodded slowly. “Dude, I have no idea what you’ve just said.” She scratched her head. “I mean, like, I know some of these words.”
“Only Sugarcoat understands me.” Sunny wept, wiping her nose with Lemon’s sleeve. “Isn’t that sad?”
“No, it means you’re both in the chess club.” Lemon sighed and looked at the empty bottle. “Do you have more of that?”
Suddenly, the door of the mess opened and Fafhrd the Clueless Barbarian walked in with an expression suggesting that he was rather pleased with himself. “Sorry, girls,” he said. “Traffic jams.”
Indigo furrowed her eyebrows, noticing that Lemon and Sunny were half-sitting, half-lying on the floor, watching a video of dancing skeletons on one of Sunny’s numerous laptops, and surrounded by empty bottles of rum-flavoured beer. She shook her head and poked Sunny with her foot. “We only got here twenty minutes late and you already got drunk?”
“We wouldn’t get late if you didn’t insist on getting snacks,” Twilight said, walking into the room with Sour Sweet, Sugarcoat, and a thin girl with glasses neither Sunny nor Lemon recognised. Which, given their state, came as no surprise.
“Hey, I didn’t want to get hungry,” Indigo replied. “I’m not myself when I’m hungry.”
“Well, maybe then you’d finally be your character,” Sugarcoat said. “Though I agree on the snacks. This session is already shaping up to be great.” She looked at the girl next to Twilight and sighed. “So far, the highlight of the day was you ordering them.”
Indigo smiled sheepishly. “Well, what can I say…”
“Two large burritos, six tacos, some nachos, large diet coke…” Indigo turned away from the blue-skinned girl standing behind the counter and looked at Sugarcoat. “Do you want something?”
“I guess I’ll settle on a burrito.” Sugarcoat shrugged. “Jalapeño sauce and pork.”
“Habanero for me,” Indigo said. “Unless you have–”
“No, you’re not taking Carolina Reaper.” Sugarcoat looked at the girl behind the counter. “She’s an anonymous chillihead. Nothing more than three hundred and fifty thousand on the Scoville Scale for her.”
Indigo groaned. “Hey, I’m–”
Sugarcoat crossed her arms. “Do I have to remind you what happened when we went to Mexico on vacation, we accidentally met Rainbow Dash in the middle of Tijuana and you two idiots ate the Carolina Reaper peppers on a dare?”
“Hey, it was fine!”
“Eating it, yes.” Sugarcoat chuckled. “Later, though… ‘Indigo, what are you doing in the toilet for so long?’ ‘Dying, I hope’.” She shook her head. “And I thought this trip couldn’t get any dumber after you asked me why the air in Mexico isn’t tinted orange like in the movies.”
“Shut up, Sugarcoat.” Indigo looked at the menu. “Do you think we should buy Twilight a quesadilla?”
Sugarcoat shook her head. “Unless you want a disaster bigger than you and Carolina Reaper, then sure, why not. Otherwise, have you ever heard of a thing called lactose intolerance?”
“No, I’m not a fan of grindcore,” Indigo replied. “Unless it’s a metalcore band, then I can maybe check it out.”
Sugarcoat groaned. “Tharizdun, give me strength…”
“Okay.” Twilight shook her head and grabbed a taco. “Maybe we’ll start? Last time you stole a pirate ship and turned the dead crewmen into skeletons, which is probably why Sunny’s mom thinks we come here to worship Satan. Anyway, you sail towards–”
“Wait.” Sunny lifted her finger. “Can we, like, address the elephant in the room?” She turned to the bespectacled girl next to Twilight. “Not that I think you’re fat, it’s just a rhetorical figure.” She hiccuped. “Who the hell are you?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention.” Twilight smiled sheepishly. “This is Juniper Montage. She wants to take part in a casting to some fantasy movie and she wanted to train by playing NPCs. Juniper, this is Sunny Flare.”
“My uncle works with her mom,” Juniper said. “We’ve met before, although right now she probably doesn’t remember.”
“Yesh, perhaps.” Sunny shrugged, looking at the empty bottle of beer.
“You don’t have to introduce me,” Sugarcoat said. “I mean, my boyfriend is her cousin and we’ve met before. Like, what idiot brings his own cousin to a date?”
“Knowing Sandalwood, he hoped for a threesome.” Indigo chuckled. “Also, I remember you, Juniper. You turned into a demon and almost ruined the mall, didn’t you?”
“Long story.” Juniper chuckled. “And it wasn’t really my fault.”
“Happens to all of us.” Lemon walked to Juniper and tried to hug her, only for Juniper to wiggle out quickly. “I mean, who in this town didn’t turn into a demon?”
“No, Sour Sweet on her period doesn’t count.” Sugarcoat dragged Lemon away from Juniper.
“Fuck off, Sugarcoat,” Sour muttered. “Also, Juniper, don’t ever let Lemon play Vampire with you. Or if you do, tell me about it.”
“What do they mean by playing Vampire?” Juniper whispered to Twilight.
Twilight sighed. “You’ll regret finding out.” She sat down and looked into her notes. “Okay then. After a week of an uneventful cruise–”
The arrow split the apple on the skeleton’s head in half and embedded itself in the mast. Araralei the Sour Elf smirked and put her bow down. She was getting better and better at aiming; this time she only put an arrow through the skeleton’s eye socket once. He didn’t seem to mind, as he kept smiling at her.
“Hey, check this out!” Fafhrd the Totally-Not-Indigo walked to her with an axe in his hands. “Gmork got me this. It’s my weapon for close combat, so I don’t accidentally hit everything with the sword.”
Sour looked at the axe. It was only a bit shorter than the sword. “Do you even know what close combat is?”
“Do you?” Fafhrd shrugged. “I mean, you’re an archer, so–”
“I carry more daggers than you can count,” Sour replied. “If I had a crossbow, I’d put a bayonet on it.”
“Try to put one on the bow.”
“I’d ask Gmork for it, but well, he’s not in the mood for doing that right now.” Sour pointed at the half-orc, who was currently dancing with Lemon and several skeletons. “Also, where’s Gray Mouser?”
“Under the deck, performing some ritual.” Fafhrd shrugged. “Guess controlling so many undead is straining her a bit.”
“I think she gave some of them some autonomy.” Sour looked at the skeleton who tried to eat an apple, but it kept falling out of his mouth.
Suddenly, another skeleton fell from the crow’s nest and smashed on the deck. Sour looked at the broken hand which raised its finger and pointed at the front of the ship. She looked there and furrowed her eyebrows.
“What do your elf eyes see?” Fafhrd asked.
Before Sour could reply, Lemon walked to her, staggering and strumming the strings of her lute. “Roses are red, running is hard…” She hiccuped. “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!”
“Can I shoot her?” Sour asked.
“Be my guest,” Fafhrd replied, gently pushing the drunken tiefling away. Gently for a barbarian, anyway.
Lemon tripped over the broken skeleton and collapsed, but this didn’t faze her; she grabbed the skull and smiled at it. “Hello, handsome.”
“Let’s toss her overboard.” Sour sighed. “Also, I can see the land. With a big, black spire looming over it.”
“Guess this is our destination,” Fafhrd said. “Is there anything else in there?”
“There’s a coastal town that seems to be in the shadow of the spire. Which is odd, since the sun is behind us, so it’s not possible.”
Fafhrd furrowed his bushy, ginger eyebrows and looked at the sun. “What does it have to do with anything?”
“The shadow of this thing should be behind it, not in front of it.” Sour rolled her eyes.
“So this is something dangerous and magical?” Fafhrd asked.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go there.”
When the ship entered the port, nobody was there. The pier was completely devoid of life and not even an old, one-eyed sailor-turned-beggar witnessed the ship full of skeletons that stopped by the mooring. The colourful band of travellers that walked out of it also received no attention.
“What will we do with all these skeletons?” Araralei the Sour Elf asked.
“Oh, they can take this ship wherever they want,” Gray Mouser replied. “When we get back, we’ll be rich enough to buy an entire fleet.”
The skeletons raised the sails and the ship started to slowly move forwards.
“Hmm, we should have maybe left it as a getaway vehicle?” Sour asked. “Or as a weapon. Remember that one time when we played Call of Cthulhu and Indigo rammed the altar with a monster truck full of explosives and proceeded to shoot the cultists with an AK-74 until everything exploded? Would be awesome if someone did this with a ship.”
“If I recall correctly, it was IWI Tavor.” Indigo chuckled, dropping her Fafhrd accent. “I mean, Sugarcoat keeps giving me Israeli rifles for some reason, and I also dual-wielded UZIs after I ran out of ammo.” She smirked. “Man, my best death ever.”
“You’ll have more of that when I’m back as a DM,” Gray Mouser chuckled. “Okay, we need to find some locals. This town seems too quiet…”
“Yeah, let’s find an inn and get wasted!” Gmork exclaimed, slurring a bit.
“You’re already wasted, idiot.” Sour muttered, walking down the pier. “Come on. Maybe we’ll find someone who isn’t retarded.”
Suddenly, they saw some woman in rags running towards them. She dropped on her knees in front of Sour and bowed. “Great elf warrior!” she exclaimed. “Great warriors! Finally! Oh, great elf warrior, we’ve been waiting for you!”
Sour rolled her eyes. “I said, ‘someone who isn’t retarded’.”
“Hey, if you don’t like my acting, you can fu–”
Sour grabbed a bow and shot at the woman, who dropped dead in front of her.
“Remind me, what part of true neutral are you?” Gray Mouser asked, walking to the woman’s body. “Hmm, I think I can help her.”
“Using necromancy?” Sour furrowed her eyebrows and looking around in case there were any witnesses.
“Hey, that’s better than shooting a random woman because you didn’t like her acting.” Gray Mouser rolled his eyes. “Now the rest of the citizens will fuck us up and we don’t have a ship.”
Lemon hiccuped. “Wait, where’s our ship?”
“Did you fall asleep?” Sour asked. “Sugarcoat sent it back because she thought we’d become rich!”
“I may have fallen asleep for a moment.” Lemon pointed at the dead woman. “But her hair smelled nice and she had a very soft shoulder…”
“What?” Indigo asked.
“I can confirm,” Juniper said. “She spent the last fifteen minutes sleeping on my shoulder, but she just looked too cute to wake her up.” She turned to Sour. “Also, did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby? Why did you shoot me?”
Sour’s lips formed a smirk that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh, you know nothing about my head, honey. Do you want to find out?”
“Do I?” Juniper whispered to Sunny.
“Nah, she’s a crazy bitch.” Sunny shrugged and grabbed a bottle of beer. “Want some?”
Sour stood up. “How about shoving that bottle up your–”
“Enough!” Twilight exclaimed. “Lemon, stop falling asleep! Sour, stop shooting NPCs and threatening people! Sugarcoat–”
“I did nothing wrong,” Sugarcoat said.
“For once.” Twilight sighed. “And Sunny, I want some.”
“What?” Sunny asked.
“Some beer, of course.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I know how many more bottles you have stuffed there.”
“I know, I just never thought you’d be the type to do some underage drinking.” Sunny shrugged. “Though on the other hand, everyone thinks Indigo is constantly drunk, but that’s just how she rolls.”
“Hey, let’s not forget about seventh grade,” Indigo said. “I don’t know what was the idea behind Twilight and Moondancer’s chemistry project, but they started making booze and got drunk on fumes or some shit, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Sunny shuddered. “I still have nightmares about Moondancer chasing me with a syringe and yelling that she’ll give me cancer.” She turned to Twilight. “What exactly was in that syringe?”
Twilight took a large sip of her beer. “It may have been urine for all I know. Moondancer wasn’t exactly stable back then.”
“Implying she is now,” Sour Sweet muttered. “I’m not the one to talk, but at least I don’t have a plan to kill everyone I met.”
“Interesting,” Juniper said. “I need to talk to her one day.”
Sour Sweet shook her head. “You really want to become an anonymous corpse in some back alley one day, don’t you?”
“Been there, done that,” Juniper replied. “I played a corpse in one show. I just had to shoot a few flashbacks and then I had Stormy Flare standing this close to me–” She made a wide gesture with her hands, “–flip her sunglasses and say ‘looks like the jig is up’. You know, because I was an Irish burglar beaten to death with a banjo.”
“Ah, those later episodes really got ridiculous,” Sugarcoat muttered.
“On a side note, lying on the autopsy table in your underwear is not fun,” Juniper said. “It was cold and my back hurt.”
“Underwear, you say?” Lemon asked. “What was it?”
Twilight took another sip of her beer. “Lemon, shut your mouth. Let’s get back to the game.”
Sour woke up with a terrible headache. The light was shining through the bars in the window, making her unable to focus, even despite the fact that she was an elf. Also, it seemed to shine in her eyes only; the streets below were still covered in the shadow of the black spire.
She looked around. Her bow was missing and so were the arrows. When she rolled on her back, she found out that at least one of her knives was still in its place.
“I thought you’d never woke up,” Gray Mouser said, looking at her. “Rise and shine, Sour Elf, before they hang us.”
“Why would they hang us?” Sour asked.
“You killed that woman at the pier, remember?” The halfling rolled his eyes.
“Didn’t you bring her back to life?” Sour asked. “I mean, un-life, but no one noticed the difference so far.”
“Yes, but it turns out they don’t like elves here,” Gray Mouser replied. “Or any magic user. They wanted to arrest Lemon too, but she sang them a song and seduced the commander of the guard.”
“Typical Lemon.” Sour groaned. “And what about the rest? Are they plotting to get us out?”
“Don’t worry, after a while you can get used to getting hanged.” Gray Mouser smirked. “Also, I wouldn’t count on that. They were pretending they didn’t know who killed that woman until the mayor said he’d give a thousand golden coins to anyone who knew something about this case. Gmork whacked you over the head with a stick bigger than him.”
“Fucking halfling.” Sour got up and started pacing around the cell. “When I get out of here, I’m gonna feed him his balls.”
Gray Mouser raised his hand. “I’d like to point out he’s a half-orc.”
“And half-halfling.” Sour shrugged. “So, uhhh… a quarterling?”
“Half-gnome.” Gray Mouser rolled his eyes. “Please, don’t confuse gnomes and halflings. Halflings are respectable members of modern society, while gnomes are Mother Nature’s half-baked bastards.”
“What’s the difference?” Sour asked. “It’s all a bunch of little shits.”
“Halflings life in comfortable burrows, although mine is currently a bit less comfortable after my compatriots tried to burn it.” She shrugged. “I only brought a dead kid back to life, why did everyone act like it was a big deal? Meanwhile, gnomes live in mines and other shitholes, their cooking tastes like crap and they think they’re some kind of dwarves or something.”
“In my forest, we call dwarves ‘target practice’,” Sour said.
Gray Mouser nodded. “Well, then you’re always welcome in my burrow. It’s pretty cozy if you don’t mind rat bones. Also, I think the villagers destroyed my pentagram.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever see the light of day again,” Sour replied. “Unless our friends are planning to bust us out of prison. I wonder where they are…”
The small castle on the city outskirts was basically a ruin, with half of the roof missing and an actual tree growing in the middle of one of the rooms. Its sole inhabitant, however, was an actual sorcerer. A balding man in a black robe with multiple patches had been banished from the town a long time ago, but he still remembered the day when the dark spire appeared on the horizon.
“It must’ve been the deed of some powerful god,” he said. “It just appeared overnight and the cultists came soon after. Sometimes they’d pay for advice or wares with coins like this one.” He looked at the coin Gmork showed to him. “However, soon their numbers grew and they started to kidnap kids and desecrate graves… We sent twelve greatest warriors, along with a thirteenth one who wasn’t from here, but they never came back.”
“Hey, I know this one!” Indigo exclaimed, startling a ginger cat which was walking on the table and hissing at Lemon. “I watched The 13th Warrior with my sister.”
“Hard times started for our town,” the sorcerer continued. “Those cultists are preparing something. The merchants started to disappear and soon we may starve.”
“What ‘bout the king?” Gmork asked, taking a sip of beer. “There must be sum king ‘ere.”
“The king doesn’t care about our little town.” The sorcerer shook his head. “I wanted to hire an army of adventurers, but I need gold for that. If I only caught them…”
“Who?” Lemon asked.
“Little blue creatures,” the sorcerer replied. “I could use them to make gold.”
“Gold, you say?” Lemon’s eyes lit up. “Little, blue creatures? Too bad we already sold Sugarcoat to the mayor and Gmork is more green than blue, although Sunny–”
“Hey, maybe he means Nac Mac Feegle?” Gmork asked.
“Wait.” Indigo stood up. “Don’t you get it? The way this guy looks, that ruin we’re in… I might be a barbarian, but I’m not helping Gargamel to catch Smurfs! One has to have rules!”
“Dude, what?” Lemon asked.
Indigo raised her eyebrows. “Why is everyone so surprised that I know things?”
“It’s because the only reference you’ve caught so far is Smurfs, of all things.” Gmork hiccuped. “Even funnier because I didn’t, but well, I’m slightly tipsy.”
Indigo sighed and turned to the sorcerer. “Okay, Juniper… Wait, I can just call you Gargamel, because why not. We’ll beat the crap out of these cultists for all the money we find in their fortress. Deal?”
“You and who else?” the sorcerer asked. “I mean, your friends don’t exactly look like warriors.”
“Well, we have an elf archer and a pocket-sized necromancer, but–” Indigo slammed her forehead. “Oh, crap, I forgot they’re imprisoned.”
“Just great.” Gmork sighed. “They may have been hanged, for all we know.”
“It was your idea, you bloody runt.” Indigo slipped into barbarian mode, grabbing an axe and waving it over the half-orc’s head. “We’d better go before it’s too late!”
“We can always seduce the cultists!” Lemon exclaimed.
“I’ll seduce your ass with this if you don’t move!” Indigo shouted, waving her axe.
“Kinky,” Lemon muttered.
“Oh, shut up!” Indigo exclaimed.
The mayor of the town knew how to keep his approval ratings high. In a place ravaged by cultists and forgotten by gods and monarchs alike, a public execution or two was enough to keep morale in check. Especially since, at least in this part of the world, seeing an elf being hanged was a rare treat. A halfling was even rarer, although this came with a few technical difficulties.
“I’m gonna need more chairs,” the executioner said, looking at Gray Mouser. “Also, how much do you weigh?”
“I don’t know, last time I was getting hanged, they wanted to go with a short drop,” the necromancer replied. “Also, I can revive your assistants, if you want.”
“Nah, they were bad anyway.” The executioner looked back. Two of his assistants were lying dead on the floor. while two more restrained Araralei the Sour Elf. “Where did she hide that knife?”
“Elf secrets,” Gray Mouser replied. “I’d watch out, she probably has a few more.”
“You’re not helping!” Sour exclaimed. “Also, I’m not telling you how much I weigh!”
“Short drop, then,” the executioner said. “Just for show. We have quite a large audience outside and most of them are betting whether elves shit themselves when they die or not.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do they?”
“Come closer and I’ll tell you,” Sour replied.
“No thanks.” The executioner looked at his dead assistants. “We’re running late anyway and–”
Suddenly, the door burst open, slamming the executioner in the back and pushing him on Sour, who didn’t waste time, freeing herself from the assistants’ grasp and stabbing him in the throat with another knife. She spun in place, kicking one of the assistants and sending him flying towards the wall. The other one dodged the initial blow, but then he didn’t even notice when Sour stabbed him in the eye, proving once and for all that elves were superior when it came to speed.
“We came here to negotiate!” Fafhrd the Barbarian exclaimed.
“With whom?” Gray Mouser asked, looking at the executioner. “Though then, he wears a hood. No one will notice that he’s a zombie.”
“We were going to tell the mayor that we can free them from the cultists and that we need you for that. You’d be free if you survived,” Lemon replied.
“Exactly, like in Dirty Dozen,” Fafhrd the Barbarian said. “Though we may not tell the mayor that his executioners are currently unavailable.”
“I’m working on it!” Gray Mouser replied. “Also, Sour, stop trying to stab Gmork, okay?”
“That treacherous little motherfucker?” Sour exclaimed. “Why would I?”
“For an elf, you have an interesting vocabulary,” Gmork said.
“There are no words in Quenya or Sindarin to express what I feel about you,” Sour spat.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Gray Mouser got up and looked at the executioner, who stood up and saluted in an oddly stilted manner. “Now, let’s find the mayor. We need someone to tell people that the show is cancelled.”
“Knowing the mayor, he’ll want to hang someone else or the audience may get pissed,” Lemon said. “Trust me, I got to know him a bit.”
Gray Mouser snickered. “In the biblical sense?”
“Shut up, Sugarcoat.” Lemon rolled her eyes. “I’ll better talk to him. Even when you’re sober, you all have diplomatic skills of a baboon with a pair of cymbals.”
Gmork hiccuped. “Don’t take too long! The guy is old, he may not survive that.”
Lemon only sighed.
Twilight took a sip of her third beer and rolled the dice. “Okay, you successfully convinced the mayor that it’s better to set your friends free so you can help the town get rid of the cultists.”
“That’s it?” Lemon asked. “I hoped I’d get to roleplay with Juniper a bit.”
“It’d take too long,” Twilight replied. “And it’s getting late too.”
“Yes, and despite what you may think, I don’t really swing that way.” Juniper moved her chair away from Lemon. “I mean, you’re cute and stuff, but come on.”
“I wanted to engage in some diplomatic relations,” Lemon replied.
“Yeah, sure,” Indigo said. “Sunny’s mom already thinks we’re trying to summon Satan here. Let’s not convince her that we’re shooting porn instead.”
“She already thought that when we tried to shoot an anti-drug PSA, remember?” Sunny chuckled. “Also, Twilight, don’t you think it’s enough?”
“Of the game?” Twilight asked. “I mean, you’re leaving the town, so we may as well–”
“I meant beer, but whatever,” Sunny replied. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
“Yes,” Twilight said, a bit too quickly. “Also, we’re a bit behind the schedule because of you all constantly trying to screw each other over, so if you want to continue, then why not.”
“Well, we gained some money recently, so we may as well visit a merchant first,” Indigo said. “I’d need better armour. And a helmet. And I guess we should all get horses, because so far only Lemon has a pony.”
“I’d like to remind you that all the merchants in town were slaughtered by the cultists,” Sour Sweet said.
“Right.” Indigo sighed. “What about Sunny? She’s the artificer, right? We need some magical items.”
“Trust me, you’ll get magical items,” Sunny replied. “Also, in case magic fails, I always have good, old barrels of gunpowder. Perfect for any cultist in any universe.”
“Fine,” Indigo said. “Let’s go, then!”