"This whole campaign isn't going too well, is it? Hogspleen, once again slouched in the familiar leather armchair, stared intently at the man opposite.
"Well. No. Not exactly according to plan, I have to admit. Blayde doesn't seem to want to die." Draykeep twirled the ends of his false moustache, having noticed that the waxed tips had started to fray somewhat.
"What happened to the chicken zealots?"
"Well. As planned they attacked Blayde in his office. All seven of them. And realistically he had very little chance of survival."
"But... ?" Hogspleen rubbed at his temples with finger and thumb.
"But... well... they failed. Added to that, Blayde has now ramped up security dramatically as twice in a month his office has been trashed and three times his life has been threatened." Draykeep tried in vain to keep the slight whine out of his disguised voice.
"Thanks to us."
"Indeed. Well, mainly thanks to the sneaky machinations of my fucking planning, mostly." Draykeep leaned slightly forward, alarmed at the sudden loud creak that sounded from his chair supports.
"And my gold." Cedric frowned at the cloaked figure before him.
"Well yes, that too. But now its time to up the stakes once again!" Draykeep punched his fist into the air by way of enthusiastic punctuation.
"Didn't you say that last time?"
"Yes. But this time the upped stakes are upped even fucking upper!" Not entirely certain of the grammatical correctness of his sentence, Parsifal moved swiftly on. "This time, Mr fucking Blayde is going to feel the fairly dangerous wrath of a... defender of justice!"
"Pardon my lack of enthusiasm, but which particular ‘defender of justice’ are we talking about here?" Cedric raised his left eyebrow in a questioning look, not even having the energy to bother with his right.
"Well... " Draykeep leaned even further forward, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "At great expense I bribed the night guard at the local loony bin and secured the release of... Captain Squirrelarse!"
Hogspleen stared at his contact, chewing absently on his bottom lip. He had the distinct impression that the cloaked person sat before him expected him to leap around with wild abandon. Closing his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts, he finally said...
"Captain... Squirrelarse?"
"Yes! Defender of justice and master of the acorn! This time Blayde will bite the fucking bullet and no mistake!" Even Draykeep was surprised at the sheer amount of drool produced by his false moustache. Sheepishly he wiped his hand across his mouth.
"And what ungodly powers does Captain... Squirrel... arse possess that makes him such a dangerous individual?" Hogspleen didn't really want to know, but fired the question anyway, just for the sake of trying to get his moneys worth.
"He has control over... acorns! Those little fruits of the tree bend to his will!" Draykeep made a dramatic gesture to emphasise his point.
"What control exactly? What does he do with the acorns to make them ‘bend to his will’?" Hogspleen stood and loomed over the desk, his questioning stare boring into his contact.
"Its complicated to explain."
"Try."
"He throws them. Quite hard. Acorns hurt, you know, especially if one of the little fuckers hits you in the eye."
"He throws them."
"Essentially. yes."
"And this is supposed to end the life of Mr Blayde how, exactly? Does he have a fatal allergy to acorns that we don't know about?" Hogspleen, underneath his calm exterior was a seething mass of frustration. He was annoyed at having spent so much gold, and annoyed that Regnac Blayde refused to die, and he was extremely vexed that he still hadn't gotten his eager hands around Tearz’ hot little bod.
"Not that I’m aware of. But there is one thing that everybody is allergic to!" Draykeep laughed loudly and quite manically. "That's the genius part of my fucking plan. Boom!" he shouted.
"What?"
Draykeep dropped his voice to a whisper. "Wait and see... soon Tearz will be all yours!"
"Whoop." Hogspleen sighed.
