At the sight of our forces the battle pilgrims stop the procession, and the carts turn around, ready to retreat out of the mountain pass if necessary. The battle pilgrims ride ahead, and are led by a stunning woman on horseback. She wears plain steel armor, with a white cloth trim. She holds a huge lance in her right hand. Slung on her back is a long cavalry sword, and in her left hand is an embellished heater shield.
The entire thing is steel with a wooden cover over the center with the embellishments.
She rides forward, and speaks up. “For what purpose have we been met with such a display of heretical force.”
Milo steps forward. “Well, we have a number of treaties with necromancers, as well as a large presence of them here in my establishment, and so we were worried you would try to, uh, for lack of a better word, purge them.” He puts his fingers up, and air quotes when he says purge.
She growls deeply. “Take me to Milo, the leader of this town, so we may negotiate.”
“I am Milo.” He explains quickly.
She raises an eyebrow, and chuckles. “Were you pressured into this by those necros, your poor weakling?”
Milo frowns. “No. I was not, and I do not appreciate your rudeness.”
She laughs. “Whatever, now let me drive out those bastard necros for you.”
Milo frowns even deeper. “No.”
She sighs, and repeats herself. “This is happening.”
Milo growls once more. “No It isn't.”
She snarls, “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.”
She stabs forward with her lance, but before it reaches Milo the Ogre steps forward, and lops off the head of the lance.
Her horse wheels around, and she retreats back with her small force of 5-8 battle pilgrims. Milo runs back, and meets up with me again. The plague pilgrims seeing this immediately strike out at our forces. They run forward, their weapons carving through skeletons like butter, only met with the occasional resistance of the more powerful undead.
The plague prophet starts wiping out entire groups of skeletons, until he is met by the undead bear, and praying mantis, who tag team him, with the occasional help of the skeletons surrounding them. The battle pilgrims charge forward, circumventing the main force of undead, and heading straight for Milo, and Alistair.
The thunk of a lance impacting the ogre's belly resounds throughout the battlefield. The ogre responds with a swift chop of his knife. The battle pilgrim slides off the back of the horse before it hits, but it kills the horse almost instantly with a beheading blow. The ogre tears the lance from its chest, and throws it like a spear at the dismounted battle pilgrim who parries it away with his sword.
With a resounding clang, the ogres off hand backhands another battle pilgrim off their horse, and into the mud. Yet, they stand unharmed, and charge forward, sword raised high. Their sword sinks into the flesh of the monster's fatty thigh, before he is once again batted away like a rag doll.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“STOP! STOP!” A resounding voice fills the air, and a short man appears amidst the ranks. He is a little over 5 feet tall, wearing priestly robes busting at the waist from his generous waistline. His pudgy cheeks hang down like a bulldog, clean shaven, and his already thin hair is receding.
Alistair glances in the direction of the man. “And who are you?”
At the same time the female battle pilgrim, spins her horse around. “Priest Auschwitz! Please return to your carriage!”
The pudgy man spins upon the women, his girth swings slightly behind him before it catches up. “You! I heard you! You think I couldn't hear the way you spoke to that poor man!” He points his finger at Milo, sitting in the backlines, trying to avoid the conflict.
“Well, sir.” The woman tries to speak.
“No! We have seen how the intolerant attitude has landed us in the past! Wounded, and crippled, and I will not have you starting a holy war while I'm in charge! I understand your intentions are good, but your methods have failed you, as they clearly have many times before! That's the only possible way you would be assigned to such a simple task!” After a thorough chastising the woman shrinks in her boots.
He turns to Alistair, and Milo, and begins to waddle slowly in their direction. “Hold on!” he puts a finger out, and continues to waddle forward. “I'm a much more tolerant negotiator than her.” He finally arrives at the table where the two men sit, and he snaps his fingers. A chair appears. Simple, and made of wicker.
He drops the chair into the mud by the table, and sits down. “Ok. Let's negotiate. I want to build a church. I don't want to be persecuted for anything I do, and I want our people to be equal in the eyes of the law.”
Milo
I nod. “Very agreeable terms, and I wouldn't be opposed to any of them. Do you have any form of income other than donations I guess?”
The man nods vigorously. Some of our members, like templars, paladins, priests, even a couple visiting battle pilgrims, will venture into the dungeon. Sometimes we’ll do sales, like baking cookies, or food to fundraise.
I nod vigorously, and put my finger up. “We charge a flat 10% for any independent dungeoneers. ANything they sell we take 10% of, any money they pull out, we take 10% of. Anyone affiliated with a guild we've made a deal with gets 7% instead. Can we just kind of lump the church in as one big guild.”
The priest tilts his head, and quirks his lips. “No… Not really.”
I put my finger up again. “Tell you what. We’ll charge anyone who is in a direct contract with your church, as part of your guild, and only charge them 7%. If they aren't in a direct contract, and just independent, ill assume them independent, and 10% it is. If they are affiliated with another guild, they will get the rate we charge that guild.”
The priest nods, and thinks. “That sounds…. Perfect!” he throws his arms up, in happiness. “Where can we build a church?” He exclaims.
I chuckle, and take a piece of paper from my pocket, and jot down the location of my secretary. “How many square feet do you think you'll need? For the property not the house.”
The priest tilts his head. “Can I get 3,000 square feet?” He asks with a slight cringe. I shrug, and jot that down on the paper.
“I said aiming for 3,000, but negotiable. She'll talk with you. Also are the plague pilgrims staying?” I point at the plague pilgrims.
He smiles at the note, and shakes his head. “No, they’ll leave for another mission within a day or so.”
I smile, and shake his hand. “Perfect! Also, don't cause any trouble. If you break any laws we’re gonna have a problem.”
He gasps in mock shock. “We would never!” He chuckles, and stands, dusting off his robe. “Good day!” He waves, and walks back to the caravan.
Everyone blinks in surprise as a figure roughly equal in height to Auschwitz, bumps into him, shoves him aside, runs up, and hops atop a horse before riding off into the distance before anyone can respond. “What the hell.” I mutter under my breath, but I don't do anything about it.