Debts Due

After dealing with my alchemist friends I head back home, the one-walled shack I call home at least. I'm still a little twitchy about being in the city with Elizabeth on the loose. I'm expecting any moment she'll lift me up and throw me through a wall. I'm wondering if she's a part of any crew who's looking for the dungeon. Probably not, the thought of her working on someone else's team is almost unthinkable for me. Besides that's I suspect she's already a 1-Star. There's not much a newly formed dungeon could offer her other than money... which I guess is exactly why she'd be interested.

"Welcome home boss!" Cyrus says with a big grin as I come up on our camp. Logs have been chopped and put in a pile, debris has been cleared, a locking mechanism has been installed on the dungeon door, and he even put another wall up.

He certainly was the oddest kind of goblins I'd ever seen. "I was right to keep you busy." I say, taking all the credit for myself, as any evil overlord should. Still it was impressive that a goblin, any goblin could do this much work without supervision. It wasn't luck that'd saved Cyrus, it was survival of the fittest.

"Oh yes! You kept me right busy boss! Good hard work! None of that ambushing nonsense my brothers got up to." The worst part is I think he means it.

"Yeah I guess." I throw the Cauldron of Corruption out, and start throwing in ingredients for a Lust Draft. "I'll have another list for you tomorrow. I just spent all our money, and I need to sell some potions to earn it back."

"Whatcha making?" Cyrus asks, stretching to look over the bowl of the cauldron.

"Lust potion, I think I can convince the local whorehouse to buy a few. It'll at least make us enough money to eat."

"Speaking of which." Cyrus runs over the a campfire he'd been tending and brings over two plates, both of which have a steaming cooked and cleaned bird. "I figured you'd be hungry when you come back. Just a little roasted pheasant, resting in a wild mushroom sauce.

"And you... bought this?" I ask not believing he could have possibly had time to make dinner too. It smells really good.

"Oh no, I caught and cooked it myself. I figured you were about to use up all our money, so I wanted to do something to ease the old wallet, eh?" He beams at me and starts digging into his meal with a fork and knife.

Was that an insult?

Before I can object or eat, there's the sound of bush being pushed aside. More adventurers.

I stand to greet them, when three small green figures emerge from the night. I sigh, just goblins. "Finally found us huh?" Stupid things had probably been lost for days. Impressive that they didn't get killed by adventurers. "Well come on over here. You can stay, but we're not feeding you."

The goblins chitter and approach the camp. I notice one of them has a knife, so maybe they did find an adventurer. Then as the snotty little creature draws near, it rears it's arm back and stabs me in the thigh!

"AaAAAAAaah!" I scream, stumbling back against the cauldron, dagger sticking out of my leg.

"I stabbed him! I stabbed him good boss!" The goblin cheered accepting high fives from the other goblins.

"I'm your boss idiot!" I growl, and look at Cyrus who stuffed the entire fowl in his mouth in a panic. "Get the potion bag!" He nods and scurries over.

"Actually I'm the boss." A deadly female voice says, I look up and see the most horrible sight in all the realms. Elizabeth sauntering into the camp light, fully armored. Gotta say Matrowyn does good work, it was hard not to notice and appreciate the modifications that had been done to her armor to make room for the enormous tits I'd blessed her with. Two metals domes had needed to be added to the armor to make room for it all. I know I shouldn't be focusing on that at the threat of ****, but what can I say? I'm attracted to women who are about to kill me.

"Elizabeth." I hiss. "What are you doing here?" I feel those lovely prey chemicals dump into my blood stream. The rightful fear, and loathing I feel for this woman comes at me all at once. Since I've met her she's been my biggest asset and liability. I doubt she's here to make friends with me at long last. A shame because she's been such a effective factory of soilders for Bellowyn you'd think that would have awoken her to her true master, but alas we live in a lost and broken world.

She squints. "Finally going to kill you, I think." She says casually, and why not? She's killed bigger monsters than me. "Now that you've called the cavalry down on us, I know you're too dangerous and stupid to let live." She has me there. I can only imagine the panic she'd been in once the cavalry was called. That hoard of goblins was soley her doing.

"I'm the only person who can fix your curse." I say, never let a target forget the leverage you have over them.

"Oh I doubt that." She tosses me aa empty alchemy bottle.

"Restoration." I said, reading the label on the potion. "Yep that'll do it." That's a pricey potion, but well worth coin if you can afford it. It'll get rid of all kinds of things, curses, poisons, even a corrupted womb.

"I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"Good for you." I toss the bottle back to her. "You went to the doctor for medicine, you're a regular sage." That being said she had neutralized the only bit of leverage I had over her. Time to fight! "Cyrus the bag!" I look over and see my goblin clutching my potion bag, which carries a few healing potions, and an alchemist fire. He looks at me, looks at the goblins, then looks at Elizabeth. Then he's gone like a flash into the forest, and out of my life. "Cyrus you coward!" I scream after him.

Elizabeth laughs. "Well that was sad. After him boys."

"Yes boss!" The goblins go running into the forest, the third runs up to me, pulls the knife out of my thigh and joins the chase.

Now it's just me and Elizabeth. Our long awaited confrontation is finally here. I smile sheepishly, and press myself against the Cauldron. "The new tits look good."