Copyright J.B. Norman
“Fear not, O ye sheperdless sheep,” Darkblossom says, striding forward. “By the grace of the great goddess Riqis, I have a plan.”
“Did you just splash them with water?” Matilda cries. “What is that going to do?”
“Let it play out,” Pela notes. “They might be made of sugar…”
The dark-haired Elven priestess does her haughty head-toss thing again. “It is not just water, O ye most imperious doubter. It was water harvested from the most holy, wine-dark Lethian springs which well up in the night-haunted grottos beneath the fanes of the Third Sanctuary of the Sisterhood of the Creeping Venom.”
“And?” Matilda asks.
“It bears a most powerful curse which will surely confound our enemies in the name of the great goddess Riqis,” Darkblossom explains. “The Third Sanctuary is also known for crafting a delightful lingonberry jam.”
She looks gravely at the Lyte Brigade.
“The jam is also cursed.”
“I, uh, I don’t think it’s working,” Nolan notes as the enemy keeps pressing forward, despite now drenched in the wine-dark water from the Lethian springs. If anything, they just seem angrier about being yet now.
And then, one of the enemies in the back of the group suddenly trips on the newly-damp ground. He goes crashing in the ones in front of him, and soon they’re all strewn in a heap on the ground.
Darkblossom throws her arms up jubilantly. “Look, O ye mortals who doth crawl upon the dusts of the earth like lowly worms!” she cries. “Inexorable and terrible is the will of the great goddess Riqis!”
“They tripped!” Amara protests. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
Nolan shrugs. “Well, it helped,” he notes.
“Tell me, O ye feckless infidels,” Darkblossom ventures. “Have you considered embracing the great goddess Riqis as the arbiter of your fate and mistress of your lives?”
Falcata shakes her head as the other members of the Lyte Brigade answers in the negative.
The Elven priestess reaches into her satchel.
“I have prepared several explanatory pamphlets,” she says.
Matilda leans in towards Nolan. “I told you she’s in a cult,” she notes.
“Maybe,” Tancred says, overhearing this. “But I can fix her.”
Nolan opens his mouth to speak. Amara pre-emptively reaches out the jealously cling to his arm.
“Wow,” Pela says, reading over the pamphlet. “Their dental plan is great!”
The others stare blankly at her.
“What? It is!” she insists. “You really need to step up your game, Nolan.”
Nolan coughs in his elbow. “I’m working on it,” he mutters. “It’ll be easier once we start getting more jobs.”
“Yes,” Darkblossom says. “O ye little green one! Accept the great goddess Riqis into your heart and thy teeth shalt evermore glisten as like unto diamonds and shall know no decay throughout all the long ages!”
She reaches into her satchel again and takes out a pen and a book that seems to scream when she opens it.
“Register thyself into the Register of the Faithful of the Great Goddess Riqis,” she urges.
“Okay,” Nolan mutters. “Now she’s starting to scare me.”
“Maybe,” Tancred, says. “But I can fix her.”
Why, yes, I did make a “the Frogurt is also cursed” reference…
Also, Feckless? Perfectly cromulent word. Insulting? Yes. Vulgar? No.
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