"Are you sure this is the epic quest?" Bozo asked suspiciously. He gestured at Warren's castle before us. "It doesn't feel like an epic quest. This feels like we are gonna be putting a dog out of his misery."

"The kid as a fair point." Ursula admitted. "The castle is teetering on the edge of collapse. Look there," she pointed at several towers that were missing like a child's front teeth. "There're several places parapets have fallen down similar the roosters after they've stolen some Ossis wine."

"Wait!" I snapped my head around like an owl to stare at her. "You said you didn't know how it kept disappearing!"

She flipped her hair back dismissively "You were all ranting and hollering, you were upsetting everyone for miles. I had to do something about it."

"You could have told me the stupid chickens did it!" I pointed accusingly at the roosters that were huddled dismissal under Bozo's leather trench coat. When the downpour had started we donned the leather coverings we had appropriated from the fallen Warrens. The chickens had decided that Bozo was now a house for them to hunker against. They clucked and turned their heads to glower at me.

"Hey, don't get them riled up!" Bozo ordered in a hushed voice. The poultry had not been the kindest when they had scrabbled under his leathers and he now sported a few scratches and scrapes. The fact he wasn't missing an arm was a pretty good indicator of how careful they were being with him.

The hen clucked her rebuke towards me as well.

She was not thrilled to be sharing space with the males and she had pecked one quite emphatically when he had attempted to join her in the helmet.

Ursula watched the exchange with amusement. "I didn't tell you about the wine because they swore me to secrecy. Also it was sort of funny to watch you spend an entire week trying to plug non-existent cracks in the barrels."

I just gaped at her.

"If you are done with the domestics." Headless said in a muffled voice beneath Bozo's jacket. "I would prefer to get somewhere dry so I don't have to smell wet, molding feathers."

The hen clucked in agreement and pecked one of the rooster's claws to drive home her dissatisfaction. There was a brief moment of flapping feathers, clucking and clawing at each other within Bozo's coat. They settled down when Bozo threatened to evict them.

He turned a glare towards me "Get me out of this rain now, or so help me I will dig a hole and bury you all in it."

"Going a bit edgelord, aren't you?" I joked.

He did not bat an eye.

"Kid's getting a backbone." The Plain One observed with a hint of satisfaction. "Bout time."

He leveled the glare towards her "I am housing three dead chickens and a talking head strapped to my back. Get this sorted now."

"Fine." I said with a gesture towards the giant bridge roof covered bridge. "But you notice the bridge itself is about ready to fall apart so we can't just skip across it."

There were bracers in place to keep other parts together. The bracers were roughly trimmed trees, they were nailed together by rusting spears and swords. Other places were held together by spider webs that were two stories high. Apparently the puppets had lured spiders into those areas by sacrificing themselves. I made that assumption because of all the bundles of webbing wearing leather.

Ursula nodded her head in agreement. "Right, so no traversing the bridge. What is the plan?"

I looked at the underside of the roof above the bridge. "That does look intact."

"But we can't just walk on the ceiling." Bozo said, his words were less precise than they usually were, what with the chattering of his teeth. "So, next plan."

I looked at Buggy thoughtfully. "We can't but she could."

---

"Why am I the one stuck here?" Bozo asked from his awkward position strapped to Buggy like a piece of luggage.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Because we need someone to watch the ground below us." I responded crisply. Ursula and I rode on the grave beetle's underside in a more comfortable position. The insect was climbing along the ceiling of the bridge's roof with easy. She seemed highly pleased with her part in this adventure and was making little burbling chitters of pleasure as she coasted along.

From within the muffled folds of the Warren coat Headless could be heard. "You're going to get us all dismembered, or crushed, or vaporized!"

"You're already dismembered, why do you care?" Ursula asked in a lazy tone of voice. The Bone Order member was combing her hair again. I thought she was being oddly fastidious but something told me not to press the question.

Instead I wisely redirected the conversation to our goal. "We just kill all the Warren's except for Warren prime."

"I would prefer we kill off the one creating all the other Warrens. Otherwise what is the point of coming here?" Bozo asked.

"He has a point!" Headless agreed.

Buggy hit a bump and Bozo bounced upwards, squashing the Wight. She started cursing about what she believed Buggy did in her spare time. I was pretty certain the head was wrong. Buggy did not have interest in large trees nor did the insect have any interest in their use in exploring body openings.

The hen started clucking out and soon the roosters were crowing. They arched their backs and the light could be seen between the rotting feathers and the bones from their spine. I wandered for the thirteenth time how they were able to make such loud unpleasant screeching sounds without lungs. But I am a fellow that can remove his head and keep talking...

So I guess I don't have any room to talk...

Thankfully we had reached out destination and Buggy dropped from the ceiling and flipped over. I didn't have time to react and was plopped into a large puddle of mud. Ursula of course had hopped out of the way and landed beside the insect without getting a drop of mud on her snow white dress.

Bozo threw up from the abrupt inertia and I almost felt bad. He spent some time washing his face and cursing. Even Headless was impressed by his vocabulary and said as much.

Once he was done being all needy about getting his face cleaned we moved into the castle. We did appreciate removing the trench coats that smelled of Warren.

"Not sure why you spent so much time making your skin all tidy." I commented "We are just gonna get more gore on us when we start fighting Warren."

A Warren rushed out at that moment and I pitchforked him.

"Behind you!" Headless shouted.

We turned to see a veritable sea of the feathered bird brains.

I grinned with all my pearly whites showing "Time to show how I feel about Epic quests!"

Ursula drew out her sword and stars blazed in a crown above her head. Bozo drew his own sword and shield, moving into a decent approximation of the Plain One's fighting stance and blocked an attack. Before he could move forward into his own slicing action the roosters launched themselves at the hapless Warren. The birds slashed him open from neck to hip. His insides spilling out like an overturned bowl of spaghetti. One of the undead birds stopped to gobble down the entrails and Bozo had to fight to not throw up again.

"Keep it together!" I ordered as I snapped off a Warren's beak and used it as a makeshift sword to impale another.

The non-eating rooster did his ear splitting screech and dropped several of our adversary to their knees. Brain matter started to ooze out of their ear holes as the undead screaming bird unleashed his dominant voice upon them. He rushed at the closest and drove his beak through one ear and out the other. He made a little satisfied warble. Clicked his beak and attacked the next, and the next and the next. It was a blur of violence that I could appreciate.

I started to sink into old habits of fighting. I eye gouged one Warren and shoved him onto the dagger of his brother-puppet. I grabbed a crumbling brick and smashed another enemy's head in with it. I then took the crumbled bits that had broken off into my hand and threw those into the eyes of a few others.

In a real fight there aren't any rules, the point of the fight is to make the other fella (lass or non-binary) stop.

Stop what?

Why whatever meathead reason you want.

Person attempting to kill you?

Eye gouge.

Person attempting to steal your money?

Eye gouge.

Person wants to talk about star signs.

Eye gouge... Well eye gouge anyone but Ursula, she literally summons stars and talks to the dern things. Sometimes I suspect they whispers the secrets of the universe into her ear. So, if Ursula wanted to talk about star signs every single undead creature listened.

But I digress, eye gouging and fighting is about making the other person stop. When all other forms of communication fail, speak with your meat hammers.

It was only when I grabbed a Warren, pressed my teeth against his throat and tore out his petrified muscles and tendons that I realized this was no ordinary fighting lust.

I blinked and shoved the Warren away.

I spat out his flesh and blearily looked around.

I had gone into a full undead destructive lust. There were Warrens all around me. Twisted into grotesque shapes and angles from my brute strength. There were still more pouring from windows and stairwells. I shook my head; attempting to clear the desire to rend and destroy.

Something was wrong. I had crafted this Farmer body to not have the normal impulses of the undead. I had designed every fiber of this body and knew it as well as the rows of carnivorous Gtoo flowers. This wasn't me. I looked around for the source.

Ursula stood atop a few hundred of the black feathered fellows.

Headless was shouting out directions to her hapless carrier knight. The roosters were dancing in the blood of several Warrens.

And then I saw him.

Warren prime.

He saw me and raised a glass in salute to me. "I haven't seen you in person since the night you tried to kill us all."

"Warren." I growled, I had been intended it to be casual. But the destructive lust wouldn't go down.

"Good to see you again, Elric." Warren prime said pleasantly. "I think it is time we talked."