After consuming some local sausages made with ingredients derived mainly from eukaryotes —this being the narrowest definition that could accurately describe those aberrations— we left the city by the west side. There wasn’t a wall to mark where it ended, there wasn’t a signpost welcoming travelers to the place. There was only a building that was the last, a road that gradually was swallowed by the dunes, an illusion that loomed thicker with every step you took.

We were told by the woman, whose name I didn’t bother to learn, that we had to keep going westward until we found a group of three cacti, that the bandits’ hideout was north from that poorly thought out landmark.

Plantmark.

Whatever.

“Wait a second. Cacti among the dunes?”

“What’s the problem?” asked Mariana.

“You can’t have plants between dunes, dunes migrate. Yet, we have seen many cacti in dune fields here.”

“Maybe they stay below the dunes until they pass over?” suggested Mariana.

“Makes no sense, the lower third of dunes is generally what remains preserved in the fossil registry. The rest is eroded.”

“How do you know these things?”

“I knew geologists back at uni. It was either being lectured about sand or being lectured about rocks. I choose sand,” I said, and we kept on walking in silence. I could feel Mariana judging me for associating myself with the rock lickers.

We eventually arrived to the location of the impossible cacti. They were fat, round and full of leaves of the violent variety. It was like seeing three curled, green, overweight angora cats that had been struck by lightning and kept on sleeping as if nothing had happened.

We turned northwards and stayed alert. The hideout was supposedly carved on a boulder, and the bandits didn’t need to conceal it because it was easy to defend such a post against agents of law enforcement. Whoever reached their lair would be tired from the heat of the day or numbed down by the cold of the night, and the bandits would be in top fighting condition.

I had one advantage over other people, even over mages with water elementals like Mariana’s. I never had a drop of hero blood running in my veins. If the lass died, that was one less attack headed in my direction. Worst case scenario, I could become a monster by wielding Mar.

All things considered, the deal was just too sweet for me. I got to act like a good Samaritan in the eyes of the seer, I’d beat some people who deserve it, for a change, and Mariana would consider this her daily dose of walkies.

The boulder eventually appeared in the corner of my vision, and it could not have been a more obvious hideout if it had a neon sign on it. They even had a bull skull hanging above the entrance.

“Mariana, can you hide us with an illusion spell?”

She looked at me whale eyed, like I had spoken heresy, or even worse, pyrotechnics.

“I forgot how. I’d need to search between all my illusion spells,” she admitted, with an expression I would adjudicate to shame more than fear.

“Screw it, we are barging into this party like the FBI into a freshly made Facebook account.”

We walked up to the gates of the lair and I contemplated them. Mahogany. Hard, solid, dark, soft. Well worked mahogany. With rhomboid and creeping plants as decorations. I envied the man that had chiseled every one of her luscious curves, of those perfectly defined leaves. There were two knockers on it, one of each gate. They shared the vegetable pattern of the wood, and the rings were held by playful cherubs. The bandits had impeccable taste, or so it seemed. It would be a shame to put an end to the lives of such sophisticated gentlemen.

“Do I ram the doors down?”

“No, Mar, no. Let’s try some subtle infiltration techniques before resorting to Golden tactics.”

I used the knocker as its builders intended and waited, holding my hands relaxed in front of me to show I had nothing to hide.

“Who goes there?” a deep, powerful voice reverberated through the heavy wood.

“It’s me,” I casted the most powerful spell known to mankind.

“‘Me’ who?”

I had to think quick.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Ya boy.”

“All the boys are here, and so are the gals and Dulnu.”

I scratched the back of my head. “I… I am looking for work and heard you were hiring.”

“We are bandits. I think you got the wrong lair in the middle of nowhere,” explained the voice, now being more understanding.

“And I am unemployed.”

“Yes but, in this economy, we are not exactly hiring, my dude.”

“Could you give me an interview at least?” I begged, shoulders down, faking defeat.

“Are you willing to pillage, extort, pickpocket, steal, save pit bull puppies, and kill for the gang?”

I lowered my arms and relaxed my posture. These people were incompatible with my morals. “I kind of despise pit bulls.”

“Don’t call us, we will call you.”

And then, silence.

“Are you still there? Shoo. Go die in a dune or something,” was the last thing the voice said.

I grabbed Mariana like a battering ram. It was No-Knock warrant time.

Mariana’s head bludgeoned the gates after every swing, sending mahogany splinters flying in every direction. The desert gained a river that day, one that flowed directly from my lachrymal glands.

Finally, the doors came down together with my humanity, and I let Mariana go. I fell to my knees before the defunct planks, and started drying my tears with my hands. My belts were calling me gay. I didn’t care. They didn’t know the pain from losing a dear one. It was unhinging.

There was a man behind me now, he was brandishing a dagger and stabbing me repeatedly in the back. My health was going down in comfortable quotas.

“Why don’t you react? And, dog, why aren’t you defending him?” he said, frustrated, as he kept on giving me a Caesar massage.

“He is practically immune to stabbing wounds by now,” commented Mariana.

“Shit, you talk too? Coolest thing I have seen all day.”

Then the bandit, dressed in his loose desert robes and stained with my blood, picked Mariana up from the skin of the neck and carried her deeper into the cave.

“Guys, we got bait for the dog!” he announced.

I stood up and sent a rope of belts to grab for Marianas tail. He had seen her level, and still had taken her as bait for what in assumed were fighting dogs. I decided to equip Mariana, and the hand he was dragging her with became undone into ribbons of mangled flesh and fragmented bone. He stared at it bewildered for a few instants.

“The pits we used to rescue had done me worse,” he shrugged it off like he had not just witnessed his girlfriend torn to pieces.

I dragged Mariana back and wielded her like a sword. In a second, I had rushed, positioning myself behind the dude.

I slowly sheathed Mar into my belts

“You are already…”

“Dead?” asked the man with a trembling voice, barely turning to look at me. Then, his white robes tinted red at the height of the crotch.

“…an eunuch.”

He proffered a blood curdling scream as his genitals fell to the floor and his health bar evaporated.

I kept on walking deeper into the lair, letting the man bleed out on the floor, alone, undicked, and, hopefully, scared.

I arrived to a wide room chiseled into the natural tunnels, and, in the middle of it, lit by dim magical orbs, a ragtag bunch of individuals played cards.

A white Dogo by his side opened an eye and closed it back.

“Jefazo, se nos metió un trolazo.” Informed the dog, and this means something along the lines of “Esteemed partner, an intruder has found his way in, how shall we deal with them?”

I grasped Mariana’s tail with my right hand.

“Che, gil, ¿qué mierda le hiciste al pelotudo del portero?” growled the man that sat with his back towards me. He turned his head slowly, “Sorry, maybe you don’t speak my tongue, fucking gringo. I mean, good man. Please, tell me about the fate of the gatekeeper.”

“Argentina is known for its terrible public health system, and well, I gave him a free gender reassignment surgery. Lo despijé.”

He snorted, trying to contain a laughter. The other people at the table spoke in a murmur, discussing who knows what. They looked scared.

“¡Ah, un compatriota! ¿Qué carajo querés?” he asked, which roughly translates to “Oh, a brother in blood. How may I be of service, fellow of mine?”

The man got up from the chair, picking the sleepy Dogo by the tail. The dog had his ears cropped, as it is custom in dog fighting circles. This fellow was taller than me, his face was tan, and his short, dark hair reminded to a writhing shadow with tentacles as buckles, one that fell over his gorgeous eyes and manly… Disclaimer: no homo.

“Well, first of all, I’d like to talk in English so Mariana can understand us.”

I unsheathed my Golden sword.

“Uh, cuidadito, cheto, se te va a lastimar la Golden Retriever. Man, no hay raza más de yanqui catachotas.” Which would be along the lines of “Beware, my friend, you may hurt your Golden Retriever. There is no more beautiful dog breed on this earth or any other.”

He raised his Dogo “En garde!”

“We could talk this over.”

“Mataste al boludito de la puerta. Dejáte de joder.” Or “You have coldly murdered my brother in arms, it’s only right to settle this with a duel, as gentlemen would.”

“I came here on a rescue quest. We could avoid further bloodshed if…you know, you surrender the old woman’s daughter or niece or whatever?”

He started laughing out loud.

“Guys, guys, he thinks we kidnapped a woman!”

The others, with their yellowed teeth and alcohol breath, joined in the billow of laughter.

One of them, a bald, burly woman, pointed at me “You have got the wrong bandits, idiot!”

“And now you are going to die because of that.” The perfect Frenchman, who probably wasn’t French, but had the slim figure, the right nose, and the sass to get the citizenship any day of the week, raised his hands in an emphatic shrug.

“Fsht fsht fsht,“ said the blob of red slime that was sitting at the table and playing cards like everyone else, so I decided to forgo its introduction above.

“Sorry for undicking your gatekeeper, then. Do you know any other bandit lair around here?”

“La vieja chota nos debe de haber confundido con los mamertos estos del este. Igual te voy a sodomizar a espadazos.”

The dogo turned his head, leaving the slow instance to dedicate some baby goat eyes to his owner. Owner that had said something along the lines of “Disgraceful is this day, for it crossed our fates due to a misunderstanding. The madam must have thought the talented fellows to the east were part of our distinguished crew. I regret to inform you this, but the duel cannot be called off.”

I raised my guard and prepared for the upcoming assault.

“What’s your name?”

“Mis padres decidieron llamarme Lucas, Luquitas. Pero yo creo que deberían decirme Matador.” Which means “My parents decided to call me Lucas. But I prefer to be addressed as Matador.”