INSIDIOCY.
The remaining bandits were rounded up in short order and secured to the back of the carriage for the walk to town. But it soon became quite clear something was up, they slowed down within five minutes of setting off, and Errol (who was looking rather proud of himself) was entrusted to run on ahead and fetch a doctor because Mibbet was pretty sure murky purple was not a normal human colouration. “Yeah, they’ve been poisoned,” Rosalind said helpfully.
By the time Errol returned with the doctor, the bandits were fast asleep. They had tried waking them up, but besides grumbles along the lines of “just five more minutes, mum,” they were completely unresponsive. Even when Mibbet waved one of Errol's old socks under their noses.
It took half an hour before Errol, and the doctor returned. Doctor Foster was a tall man with brown hair; he looked like he had escaped from the cover of one of Rosalind’s romance novels. (Not helped by the picture-perfect cliche nurse who clung on his every word.) To make this even worse, he had a tendency to POSE and seemed to be trying his level best to make everything he did portrait friendly.
He quickly examined the Bandits and gave a *Gasp*. “There is nothing I can do here, Princess; these men have been dosed with the insidiousa poison. “
*GASP* “Insidiousa”, Sir Leeroy replied (while Mibbet wished these people would just gasp normally rather than saying Gasp, it was weird.) “Dark guild then, even if you did wake them up, they’d remember nothing, that stuff gives you Amnesia.”
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Meanwhile, Ed was doing a very a thorough job of cleaning all traces that may lead back to him. It seemed the Princess was going to be more troublesome than he had imagined.
He was going to need backup on this job; he really wasn’t keen on sharing the profits. But he had a contract. Ed didn’t like that this job was turning much bigger than anticipated, but a deal was a deal, and the guild had a reputation to protect. So he fished round in his pouch until a bird caller was produced. Traditionally in this circumstance, an Owl or a Pigeon was expected. But this was the dark guild; they had to one-up everybody, so the letter was tied to the leg of a messenger Raven.
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In the middle of a nameless swamp, there lived a fly. Nothing unusual about that, right? This fly, however, was occupied by a witch. Not that the witch could do much, flies as you may have noted, are not known for their intellect, nor their conversation capability.
Deliah was fed up, this stupid bloody fly kept flying over predator territory, and all she could do about it was flash scary mental images to drive it away. There was only one thing that left Deliah somewhat confused, she could understand a fly being chased by frogs, lizards, and basically anything of an insectivore persuasion. But what she could not understand was why the hell ANGELS kept trying to catch her. She didn’t know and had no desire to find out, so at the first sight of divine down, she was off. It wasn’t even as if it was an isolated incident either, at least once a week, without so much as a by your leave, one of the buggers would pop in and chase her clean across the swamp.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
She’d tried setting up in the grossest and most disgusting places she could find (much to the delight of the fly, who started liking the guiding hand that led him to an all you can eat buffet.) But apparently, that did nothing but make her feel nauseous, as contrary to the popular adage, Angels rush in where fools fear to tread. At least she seemed somewhat smarter than the average fly (not that that was a particularly tough competition or anything.) But even so, she wished the Angelic Assholes would either explain themselves or sod off and leave her to her moping. They had been at it for weeks; right now, she would kill for a slice of cake (not chocolate cake, though, after this, she would never be able to look at chocolate the same way ever again.) A nice restful nap and a fire. But she would quite happily settle for GETTING HER BLOODY BODY BACK.
That didn’t seem to be on the cards, though, so it was time for her to remember she was the brains of this outfit and start acting accordingly. She carefully steered the fly (after much thinking she’d chosen the name grundle for him,) away from the swamp and anywhere else frogs and other fly eating creatures may dwell. She had no desire to find out if being eaten was good for the health of a cursed witch in the wrong body........... Hey, what was that? Deliah saw a bright glow in the distance, and in a manner most ill-advised for those with angelic involvement, went towards the light. She couldn’t help herself; the fly brain was a powerful thing on the stubbornness front. After a little effort, though, she managed to overpower that instinct, ignoring The Angel cussing in a most unbecoming manner from behind her as she made good her escape.
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Cassie swore to herself as yet another carefully engineered trap failed, she had tried everything, yet somehow this fly constantly outwitted her. (Being outwitted by a fly wasn't very good for one's self-esteem even if you know there's a human in there somewhere.)
It took everything she had in her to not just smoosh the little git for that alone, but the boss needed the fly alive, and when a God says they want something just so it isn’t an Angel’s job to argue. “would have worked better if the little sod had been a moth.” She muttered to herself; at least she’d managed to set up tracking on it, so it wasn’t getting away. But when joining the heavenly host, this was not exactly what she had signed up for. Hot wingy girls in nighties? Now that she could get behind, fly hunting? Not so much. This was going to be a long job.