[While on a rescue mission gone crazed, a holy warrior and a rogue fight bandits, demons, and the urge to rip each other's clothes off.]
The mission, rescuing a princess, could be going better.
Séa is an earnest paladin, honest and gullible. Tash is...
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Upon entering the tavern, Ghomarck removed his pointed hat. Thinning white hair flowed around his prominent eyebrows to join his full beard at collar level. Séa's letter had been signed, "Ghomarck of the circle, Royal Court of King Pharing of Omnius."
He looks like a wizard from a story book, the ones who do all the clever, magical things.
Pipe smoke thickened the dusky tavern air. Hunched, seated hummocks marked patrons who muttered woozily amongst themselves. The late hour and amount of mead consumed had bogged down previously lively dice games. Without calling for ale, Séa and Ghomarck settled at the table nearest the door.
Quavery candlelight accentuated deep creases in the wizard's face as he leaned forward across the eating-board. With gnarled knuckles he rapped the worn, pocked tabletop. In a subdued voice, he rasped, "By order of the King, we must—" He quieted even more. "—rescue a princess."
The young woman across from him set her helm on the table and folded armored arms. Séa drummed her fingers on the plating that covered her bicep, creating a tuneful accompaniment similar to rain striking a tin roof. "A princess?" Her voice rang clear in the dimly lit tavern.
"Shh!" The mage's eyes scanned the tavern interior. "Not so loud."
Doubt skewed the armored woman's face. She stage-whispered, "It sounds melodramatic, that's all. Do we even have any princesses around here? The King's a bachelor."
The wizard leaned farther forward. "I suppose that on this side of the border she's considered a comtessa or something. But she's important and she's being held against her will."
The woman's doubt reached her clear eyes, which began to narrow. "I guess I appreciate the invitation, Master Ghomarck, but I'm just a humble servant of the one-eyed god. This doesn't really sound like the sort of mission I went to school for. Plus, I'm supposed to take my turn with cow milking and butter churning next week."
Toward the end of her speech, her eyes widened and drifted downward to where a thin column of smoke rose. "Uh ..."
His nose wrinkled. "Egad. Is that a— Did you fart?"
Séa's lips compressed to a straight line. "No. The candle set your beard on fire."
Tendrils of rancid smoke wafted upward, only partially dispersed by the wizard's frantic swats at a smoldering patch of whitish chin hair.
Just then, the tavern door creaked, then slammed shut. With a flap of cloth and a puff of cool night air, a hooded figure whipped in and settled next to the armored woman. Dark eyes in an almond-shaped face gleamed for a moment in the dim light until deft hands twitched at her hood to cover her face in shadow. A wry alto voice announced, "Well, here I am." The hood twitched. "Ye gods. Did someone fart?"
