Abduction

Rose winced when she saw Balin die. It was instant and hopefully painless, but uncomfortably sudden. After that, she slipped away. She didn’t know if that woman could see her; it’s not as if she bothered looking at everything she was aware of. It seemed best to hide, or at least to break line of sight.

She briefly flickered back to Gil, just long enough to ensure that her body was being securely transferred back to the Evac location along with Hellawes. Then, she arrived in the bedroom of the woman that Gil was certain to be the target.

Queen Iseult, mother of the unfortunately captured Queen Isolde, was a stately blonde woman of perhaps 40. She was not pretty in a girlish way, but she could be described as handsome, with a strong jaw and a straight, slightly large nose. It was a face that could demand respect, at least if paired with any level of competence. Her hair was mostly wrapped up in some kind of bonnet, and her neckline showed a very modest amount of her respectable breasts.

She waited with her hands folded in her sleeves and Rose’s quill carefully worked into the lining of her dress, lips quivering in fear. Rose settled within her head, just as a passenger, and was quietly impressed at what the woman was thinking of.

Dosage. The queen was wondering if she’d prepared the monkshood properly before applying it to the small dagger she had hidden in her sleeve, and wondering if she had time to add more. Rose liked this girl already, though she also knew that it would be a borderline pointless gesture so long as Rosa was still around. She gave the woman a nudge, just a small one. Kusai would survive an assault. She needed to hold out for a shot against the woman, Rosa.

The door abruptly shattered inward, causing Iseult to jump in her seat. She was no assassin, and if Rose hadn’t steadied her hand, she would have likely killed herself with the poisoned blade on accident. Instead, she got to see the blood splattered face of the man who had arrived to spirit her away, and killed every brave man in the entire castle. Iseult glared at him, cold hatred in her eyes.

“Eh, not bad.” He said, pulling out a cell phone and checking the screen. “You related to that other Irish bitch, the one at Cornhole?”

“It was Cornwall,” a sultry voice called from the hallway.

Rose felt the revulsion and terror in Iseult’s heart, each growing in equal measure.

“What have you done to my daughter, you brute?” She asked, nearly snarling.

“Nice!” He said, leering at the woman. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve taken very good care of her.”

He leaned in and his breath wafted out in a cloud. Iseult, an exceptional chirurgeon among other things, had worked with corpses who smelled far sweeter. The dagger itched in her grip. She wanted desperately to drive it into this man’s gut, but she espied the woman in white behind him. She needed to endure his attentions for a time.

“May god forgive you, for I shall not.” She bit the words out.

“I think you might.” He said, and pulled down his trousers.

Something strange happened. Rose had, in the past, always had a degree of overlap with those she possessed. She was the voice in the back of the head, the intrusive thoughts, an alternative perspective dimly aware of the fact it was an intruder. She had always, on some level, shared the thoughts and opinions of the one she possessed even as she shaped those thoughts towards her own ends. Even before she met Gil, she’d more than once nearly forgotten who she was when making an escape attempt in a borrowed shell.

So it was immensely jarring when she saw Kusai’s unwashed genitalia, looking like a fleshy mushroom in all the worst ways, and reacted to it exactly as one might expect… and felt from Iseult a sense of not disgust, but awe. As if she saw a beautiful cathedral, a masterful painting, and a sumptuous feast all in one. It was so entrancing, so magnificent, that she near completely forgot about the repulsive man attached to it. Rose was fairly sure that if she hadn’t been present, the woman actually would have at least momentarily forgotten everything except the 4 inch long shaft Kusai was shoving into her face.

“What, don’t know what to say?” Kusai said smugly in his grating voice, “I know, it’s pretty nice. You can touch it if you like.”

Rose had absolutely no interest in doing so. She wasn’t even particularly interested in Gil’s penis, though she’d need to get around to bearing a few heirs at some point. Iseult, in contrast, started to pull apart her sleeves so that she could reach out with a quivering hand.

Rose seized control of the treacherous hand, realizing that the intention of killing Rosa was doomed, and used Iseult’s medical knowledge to drive the poisoned dagger into his femoral artery with a spark of Sting’s power to pierce his unnaturally tough skin.

“What the fuck!” He roared, lashing out with his hand and pushing her away with enough force to throw Iseult bodily across the room. Blood spurted out of his wound, running down his leg.

The Queen, once his penis was out of her line of sight, vomited as she realized what she’d almost done. She nearly choked on it too, and would have if she hadn’t been able to roll onto her side despite a broken arm. She powered through it, barely, because she knew she’d very possibly die if she vomited while laid out on her back. She wasn’t quite ready to seek death deliberately,

Rose and the Queen’s minds smacked back together in an instant, and in a flash of desperate hope Rose forced the woman’s bones to mend at an accelerated rate. Rosa was here, rushing in to heal the bastard. She was distracted. A knitting needle stood nearby on the queen’s table. It was a long shot, but Flechette’s dead eye accuracy might be barely enough to drive the needle through something important from a few feet away.

She never found out, as it took too long for her to force her borrowed body to heal. After she healed Kusai, Rosa shot a venomous look at Iseult and the Queen’s body froze completely. Kusai stalked over to the Queen, his cock still swinging free, and grabbed her around the neck.

“The fuck?” Kusai asked, “What are you? Some kind of shapeshifter?”

He looked in the air above Iseult’s head.

“Rosevalda Durst?” He asked, “Who the fuck is that? Whatever. Where’s the real queen?”

“She’s paralyzed, hot shot,” came the sultry voice again, revealed to be from a red haired woman with generous proportions and a surreal, out of place appearance. “Just grab her and let’s head back, ok? Jaheira can make the girl sing, right? Wouldn’t it be good to know about this new guy throwing his hat into the ring?”

At a glance, Rose could tell that this woman had more independence. Rosa trailed him, eyes fixed on him like a well trained hound. Jessica Rabbit slinked through the door like she owned the place, lighting a cigarette and examine the room with a casual air. Strange, given that Jessica was a T3 next to Rosa’s T6.

“Shut up, slut.” Kusai growled, dispelling the assumption that the woman willing to talk back to him was his second in command or something. “I know that. I think I’m gonna have a little fun, first.”

He grabbed the cloth of Iseult’s bodice and ripped it like wet paper, leering as her breasts were exposed. His recovering erection pressed against Iseult through her skirts, and her mind flooded with the memory of it. She instinctively started grinding against him.

Rose could tell where this was going. She supposed it was possible there was more valuable information she could gather here, but she was more than willing to leave that on the table. If she or Gil were at risk, maybe, but she would not endure such indignities or Iseult’s abhorrent eagerness on Lucan’s behalf.

••••••••••

There were a few reasons that Gil woke up the few bandits he had on hand before fleeing to meet up at the Evac point. The first was that it was a basically neighborly thing to do. They were his allies and he could render aid, simple as.

The second reason, far more pragmatic, was that he was still nowhere near a good enough horseman to transport not one, but two semicomatose women. Not without using another character card up to make Bayard sapient, and he wasn’t sure he was going to keep the horse past the next few days. He didn’t want to waste a character card on something like that.

Unfortunately, they were a lot less help than he’d been hoping. The blue haired woman hadn’t left much in the way of marks, but the two guys were barely able to walk even after he cast Cure on each of them. He’d needed to burn precious minutes hauling the two onto their horses and tying them in place, by the end of which Hellawes was already groggily sitting up. Her hands were basically nonfunctional, but she was awake enough to ride behind one of the men.

In short, it was a sorry group indeed that arrived at Nimue’s location next to a wooden archway, formed by a fallen tree but big enough to fit Echidna. Speaking of the dragoness, she was already most of the way back, and she was mostly alone. Gil winced; less than half of the men he’d sent with her were still alive, and the number fell by the moment.

She did have a prisoner with her, so that hopefully meant she’d also managed to damage the ship. Taking town two T3s at the cost more than a dozen T2s, a T3, and a T5, was a terrible trade. Not even the fact that he’d impressed Nimue was much consolation. Worse, she’d brought a flying woman who was whipping up clouds of focused dust and blades of air to slash away at her bleeding flanks. The end of her tail was just dragging along, which implied some level of spinal damage to Gil.

Thankfully, Opal didn’t notice him immediately, focused as she was on battering down the Wall that was Echidna. It’s a rare woman indeed who can dodge a surprise lightning bolt from behind. Admittedly Gil had already encountered one today, but that hopefully meant he had reached his quota for quite a while. Also discounting the rapidly approaching name Hinata Hyuuga making a beeline back towards him at this exact moment, of course.

“Go go go!” He yelled at Nimue, who calmly snapped a twig and walked through the archway.

He could stil see her, as well as Echidna, as he galloped through. When he looked back after a few minutes of hard riding, though? No sign of Kusai’s team with one very important exception. He called a halt, and whipped around towards the blonde woman slung under Echidna’s arm, still crying from a stray handful of acid droplets.

He took one look at her and didn’t see any expensive looking jewelry. That was one threat down. She’d also be a lot better at fighting Echidna if she had a shroud, not to mention being automatically upgraded to T4. That left one major, obvious threat to check for.

“Does the man you came here with use Runic magic?” He demanded,

“What?” She asked in a confused southern drawl. “What are you talkin’ about?”

She was either genuinely confused or a fantastic actress. Gil didn’t intend to drop his guard completely, but if she really didn’t know what the hell he was talking about that meant that Kusai definitely didn’t qualify for the Apportation perk, which would have allowed him to use this woman, Cindy, as a teleportation waypoint even across dimensional barriers. Not unlike Rose’s relationship with her ghostly anchors, really.

Gil steadied his breath, and started pumping Echidna and Hellawes with healing magic. Between the Magic Ring boosting his ability to draw in energy and the magically rich environment of the fairy path, his mana was refilling faster than it did in the Lands Shrouded in Mist. He intended to milk that for as long as he could.

“Alright everyone.” He said as he worked. “I know it didn’t feel like it, but we came out of that one relatively well. We took out a few of theirs, we know what they are capable of, and the real knights will be in a much, much better position to manage the next fight. Even the men we lost will return, thanks to the nature of this war.”

He didn’t bring up that Anguish’s castle fell and none of its defenders would rise, nor did he put any weight on Balin’s death.

“Echidna, what of the ship?” He asked, ignoring the rumbling from the few surviving men.

“Oh, that’s right!” Cindy said, rallying, “Y’all killed my baby! That airship’s somethin’ special and I don’t know if it’ll ever fly again! What in hell am I supposed to do now?”

Gil smiled at her, a rueful smile he tried not to make predatory.

“You, my dear, are going to answer a few questions.” He said, then glanced at the T3 above her head. Exactly the value his ante was calibrated towards. “Impress me, and who knows. Maybe we can figure out a place for you later.”

Cindy snorted.

“Look, fella, I don’t know if that works on other girls, but my loyalty’s written in blood.” She said, “None of those bindin’ things work on me.”

“Maybe,” Rose said, waking up behind Gil and immediately joining the conversation, “But we have ways.”

Gil smiled over his shoulder.

“Could you have made that sound even slightly less creepy, dear?”

••••••••••

And upon that very day, in the castle of King Ludd Silver Hand, sometimes called Nudd or Nodens, a raven alighted upon the walls.

And King Ludd, well versed in the ways of taking the shapes of animals, did say, “Hail, enchanter. I know not your name, but you are welcome in this house of mine should you obey the laws of hospitality.”

And the raven did regard him and said “I thank you, great king, for your hospitality. Alas, I fear your hospitality shall be sorely tested afore long.”

And King Ludd did say, “For what reason do you say this?”

And the Raven replied, “There is a warrior, greater than any you have seen before, who seeks to steal away the fairest maidens in all of these blessed isles.”

King Ludd was sorely troubled by these tidings, and said, “And this warrior seeks to take away my daughter, Creiddylad?”

And the Raven said, “Aye, a maiden of the tuatha would be to him a rich and bountiful prize. He will certainly come to your lands afore long, and perhaps Gwythyr ab Greidawl and Gwynn ap Nudd might set aside their feud to face him together. Alas, their might alone shall not be enough, even joined with yours.”

And King Ludd said, “What then, do you suggest? For no mortal enchanter would dare say such things to me without some manner of intent behind it.”

And the Raven said, “I have asked for King Arthur to stand against the peril, and his armies may yet prevail. If he does not, or the foe evades him, then instead your castles walls will be knocked down lest all the fairest maidens of these isles be gathered here. Elaine, Lynette, Rhiannon, and even mine own sister Ganieda. All the fairest maidens of the land.”

And King Ludd found this accounting strange, and said so. “And what of the enchantresses? What of Morgana La Fey, Vivienne, and Nimue? Surely their magic may aid us in this?”

And the Raven said, “Nay, Morgana is in no danger and would thus not seek quarrel with this foe. Nor any of the ladies of the lake, though I know not why. Nay, it shall not be their magic but the finest knights in all the land who shall stand against this foe. All the protectors of these fairest maidens.”

And King Ludd was troubled, for he cared not for the company of so many men who were not of his kind.

King Ludd then said “Very well. I shall accept these ladies as my guests, but their protectors must camp upon the lands beyond my walls.”

And the raven said “Very well, though I pray these fields will not be watered in blood.”

••••••••••

So how do we get the intel out of Cindy?

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