The Bravos agree to work for Bartouse

"If anyone touches me, he loses his hand." Liv said glaring at Skye, who sheepishly backed away behind Fuu.

"It'll be fine, I'm sure." Fuu said, her confidence supported by Bartouse's eager nod.

The seven of them had been fitted into spare dresses that the barkeep had stashed laying around, and were stood lined up in the middle of the empty tavern floor of Ol' Shivey's Inn waiting for further instructions from their new patron.

The hand-me-down dresses seemed to fit some better than others, as they were almost exclusively designed with the idea that the woman wearing them would have a considerable bust. This left Becky, Robin, and to a lesser extend Fuu with a somewhat awkward bit of loose fabric. Becky in particular could feel the uncomfortable shift of fabric and air on exposed skin with her every movement. It fit so poorly that it felt like she was drowning in fabric, doubled up on itself. The others had insisted that it was all or nothing, so there was no backing out, for her or Liv.

"Its simple, I'm sure ye'll all take to it in no time." Bartouse insisted as he moved to step back behind the bar, though the massive size of the empty room and the way he rushed them along suggested he would have hired a bunch of goldfish if he thought they had some chance to get the doors open. "Just put some smiles on those pretty faces and don't disappoint our customers"

"Yeah! This is gonna be so much fun!" Emmaline cheered, with Robin joining in. "You guys are gonna love it, you just gotta show them what you're made of"

The trio of Becky's overflowing dress, Kiera's muscular bulk, and Liv's near unmitigated anger made for a pretty laughable response to Emmaline's optimism, but that didn't seem to slow down Bartouse at all as he plodded across the room to unlock the door and put his sign back up to draw in business.

"Just remember to keep your ears open." Fuu said as she pulled the group in to a huddle. She turned to give the three less comfortable women a serious look. "Once we get what we came for, we can all just walk away, alright?"

The promise seemed to calm them, but that calm was interrupted as Barthouse came striding back inside, yelling loudly in partial conversation with a member of the large group of rough-looking men he was drawing in behind him.

****

This chapter was a collaboration with gamer.1171(https://chyoa.com/user/gamer.1171) please check out her other writing!