Tahsi Senior, who, despite naming his son Tahsi Junior, only really considered himself to go by just Tahsi, sat in his throne. He was wearing the ceremonial garb of the cult of Chox, which included a long, white robe and a big chef's hat. He was, surprisingly or not, eating a remarkably stale loaf of bread with glee, relishing each sour, brittle bite.
"I can't believe it's gone," he said to himself as he finished the bread, right before he was interrupted by the sound of the hallway door being kicked in.
The cult leader's eyes went wide. "Who's there? And just so you know, if you want any bread, I'll have to go into the breadbox to get it, because I just finished my current loaf. So let me know if you're coming."
He got up and made his way over to the door, which he had forgotten to lock. He approached it, and he could hear the sound of metal scraping on metal, followed by a loud thud, and then silence.
"That sounded kind of bad," he said. He pulled the door open and stuck his head out. "Hello? Anyone there? Is everything alright? Is there anyone else in the house? Did you guys kill each other?"
He looked around the dark hallway and saw nothing.
"Huh. That is just strange," said Tahsi. "I wonder what happened."
He turned back into the room and grabbed the largest bread knife on the table. He held it up to inspect it and then returned to the hallway. "Well," he said as he walked into the hallway, "time to go see what's going on."
He walked down the hallway, peering into each room as he passed. "Hello? Is anyone here?" he said. "I'm just going to check on everyone. This is my temple, and I need to make sure it's safe."
He walked into the family room and saw that it was empty except for a large man lying on the floor with an arrow sticking out of his chest.
"Oh no," said Tahsi. "Is that the high priest?"
"Tahsi!" rasped the high priest. "Tahsi, please, help me!"
"At once, your priestliness!" said Tahsi, leaping to attention and kneeling before the high priestess. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook him gently. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
The high priestess groaned in pain as she tried to rise. He was wearing a rather fetching white dress and had a great deal of blood on her face and arms.
"No, I'm fine," said the priest with a cough as blood sputtered out of her mouth. "I'm fine." The blood had stained his dress.
"Oh my gods, you're going to die, aren't you?!" said Tahsi. "Quite possibly."
"Stay right there! Let me get you some bread," said Tahsi. He scurried off to the hall and rummaged through a cupboard. Finally, he found a breadbox with a nice, stale loaf of sourbough. He ran back to the priest and held up the bread.
"Here you go, your priestliness!" said Tahsi. "Can you take a bite?" "I think I'm too weak," she rasped.
"Don't worry!" cried Tahsi. "I'll tear off small pieces for you!"
"No, I'm... I'm too weak to chew!" cried the priest.
"It's fine, it's fine!" said Tahsi. He shoved the bread in his mouth and started to chomp down quickly. "I'll chew it for you! It'll lose some of its textural charm, but I assure you its many delicious flavorings will still be intact for you! And it literally will give you hp so really this is a good idea you should accept the bread! You'll be fine!" He chewed rapidly with his mouth open so that he could talk at the same time. "I just need more bread after this one."
The high priestess coughed up some blood onto Tahsi's face. He wiped it away with his sleeve and fixed her with an intense stare as he chewed on another piece of bread that was already in his mouth as he spoke.
"Do you have any more bread?" said Tahsi. "Because I'm worried I'm going to end up eating all of this and not giving you any. I'm pretty hungry myself right now."
"No," said the high priestess between coughs. "I think I'm done for." She closed her eyes as more blood dripped from her mouth.
"NO!!" Tahsi cried. He pulled her mouth open and spat a mouthful of soggy bread mush into her mouth. "Swallow! Swallow, gods damnit, swallow!"
"I don't want to!" cried the high priestess. "Please let me spit this out!" he wailed.
"No! You can't spit out, you have to swallow! YOU HAVE TO SWALLOW! YOU'VE GOT TO SWALLOW! YOU CAN'T SPIT IT OUT!" He shook her until she swallowed some of the bread mush that was now in her mouth. "Good girl! Good girl! Good girl!" He filled her mouth with another mouthful of bread mush as he continued to shake her back and forth until she swallowed more of it that way too.
The high priestess coughed up more blood and now chunks of bread onto Tahsi's face, but he just kept shaking her until she swallowed more of the mush until finally she stopped coughing up blood and more bread into his face.
"Wow," said Tahsi as he wiped his face off with his hand. "That was an ordeal." He leaned back against the wall and took several deep breaths until he had finished wiping his face off with his holy hand rag. "Well? Did it work? Did it heal you?"
However, it didn't seem like the high priestess was doing any healing. Instead, it looked like his face was turning purple!
"Ah, shit!" said Tahsi as he leapt back to attention and knelt over the high priest. "Are you choaking?"
The high priestess' only hacked as her face got bluer and bluer. She had stopped breathing entirely now.
"Well," said Tahsi, "that was not very effective." He knelt over her body for several minutes while he stood guard over her corpse until finally he gave up on that plan and tore off a piece of her dress so that he could wipe up the blood on her face and keep the high priest 'presentable' and 'priestly.'
He carried her body out of the hall and laid her down near a crack in the wall where he used a rag to wipe up as much of the blood as he could while still leaving a decent amount left for any passersby, who were bound to come looking for their missing priestess soon enough. Then, he sat down next to her, took a bite out of his bread, chewed it thoughtfully for a moment, then spat out the remains of it into her body before wiping up the blood that was splattered on his hand rag with it so that he could wipe off his face yet again. Then, he looked at the high priest, dead as a sardine.
"Damn," said Tahsi. "I really thought that extra bit of bread might do it. Guess he was just too dead to manage."
He took another bite of bread while waiting to see if anyone would come looking for him or the corpse he'd left behind.
"Hello?" called Tahsi. "Hey, the high priest died! I need a new one, stat! Hello, any assassins here? Apparently I kind of sealed the deal for you, not intentionally of course, but still! So, um, I'd like my cut of your fee now, seeing as I did your job!"
Nobody answered.
"Oh my gods," said Tahsi. "Fuck, what if you're going to assassinate me, too? Well, you know what? Good fucking luck! I've got more healing bread that you can shake a poisoned arrow at! Yea! Just you fucking try me, mister hidden assassin man, and I'll show you exactly how much healing bread I've got!"
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He continued to sit there chewing on his bread while waiting for someone to try to kill him or look for someone else to kill him or something else to happen at all before finally giving up on all that and started chowing down on his bread with even more of a voracious spirit.
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Oglo reclined in his leather chair, smoking a cigar and sipping on whiskey compliments of the cult of Chox. He was looking at the newest issue of playKobold, which had come in just yesterday and which had been delivered by one of his cult members directly to his door. It was a special issue devoted to the Kobolds' latest conquest of the city of Bouldershoulder and all of its scaly, female inhabitants, many of whom had large bosoms and often even larger asses.
But all this ecstasy had to end when a terrible knocking on the door interrupted his bliss. Oglo shoved the magazine in the low drawer of his mahogany desk.
"Ehrm-- come in!" he said.
It was Surki! She was looking quite sexy herself in her sheer cult robes, but Oglo could tell from the look of concern on her face that his bedroom eyes were not welcome at this moment.
"What's wrong?" he said, puffing his cigar. "He's dead. He's fucking dead."
"Who, Tahsi? Already? Why, isn't that good news!" said Oglo with a smile and a sip of liquor.
"No, you idiot!" said Surki. "The high priestess! He's dead!"
"She's dead?" spat Oglo in confusion.
"Yes, he's dead!"
"I can't believe she died," said Oglo. "How'd that happen? Wasn't it a fake arrow and fake blood? You know, just like we'd planned?"
"Of fucking course it was! She's dead because she's dead!" said Surki angrily. "That asshole had just finished wiping up all the fake blood with his hand rag when she died! I saw him do it!"
"But how?" said Oglo. "Like, how did he die?"
"She choaked," said Surki.
"He choaked?!" Oglo sputtered.
"Yes, she choaked," said Surki. "Tahsi wanted to heal her to save her life, so he gave him all this bread."
"Oh my gods, him and that fucking bread," said Oglo. "Back when I lived in Thres, you know, everyone knew that his bread fucking sucked. It was the worst, grossest, most bitter bread anyone had ever tasted and every single person who ate it got food poisoning within hours!"
"Well that's true," said Surki with a sigh. "But it wasn't food poisoning that did the high priest in. It was just choaking. Tahsi kept shoving bread down her mouth, just force feeding her bread over and over again endlessly without gvivng her a chance to breathe.. That's what killed her."
Oglo blinked. He took a drag from his cigar and pondered the situation. “Well, this has kind of fucked up our plans, hasn’t it?” he said eventually.
Surki sighed again and shook her head sadly. She made no mention of how she’d known about what Tahsi had been doing and had stopped herself from doing anything to stop him. She hadn’t want to implicate herself and risk Tahsi catching wind of what they’d been plotting. And she definitely hadn’t wanted to ruin the surprise that Tahsi had absolutely known about, but hadn't done anything about because he was too damned greedy and selfish and needed the money to leave town and go start her own cult somewhere else where there weren't any Kobolds around who were smart or obsessed with bread.
Oglo shook his head slowly from side to side. “What a fucking mess. I can’t believe that worked out so well for me! I should have been a fucking doctor or a big fucking snake charmer! It would have been so much easier!” He took another drag from his cigar and then waved for Surki to follow him into the bedroom where he kept his condoms and magic potions.
Surki went along with him obediently, but as soon as they were in there Oglo suddenly stopped and looked up at Surki with an expression that was both confused and curious at the same time. He held out his hand for a moment as if he were about to say something, but then something in his mind clearly changed and instead he gave a prolonged grunt and reached out for one of the bottles on the dresser instead.
“Surki. Um. Would you like a drink?” he asked. “After all, our plan got royally fucked today. The high priestess is dead, and who knows what the fuck we’ll do now. So let’s relax with a nice big drink!”
Surki nodded eagerly and took the bottle from his outstretched hand. She sniffed the contents for a moment and then downed it in one go before handing it back over to Oglo.
“Fuck’s sake, Surki!” Oglo said. “I thought we’d get glasses! Do you know how strong that shit is? You’re going to be absolutely shitfaced!”
Surki giggled cutely and took another gulp of the last drop of liquid from the bottle before handing it back over to Oglo again. She then turned around to face Oglo completely, which confused him momentarily until she leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks, that was yummy,” said Surki. She sat on the bed.
“I guess I’ll open a bottle up for myself,” said Oglo cautiously. “But I don’t think I’ll drink as much as you. I can still drive a fine horse while shitfaced, but I don’t think getting behind the wheel of a fine steed is going to be something I can manage tonight."
"You're such an idiot," said Surki with a giggle. Then she looked up at Oglo with wide eyes and took another gulp of the bottle's contents in one go before handing it back over to him for a quick refill before she took another big gulp of it herself again.
“Surki, you’re drinking like a fish!” said Oglo.
“What else is there to do at this point?” sighed Surki. “I mean, the priest is dead! And we were going to kill Tahsi anyway, but now who knows what’ll happen? So why not have one final drink before we totally ruin everything? Life is short, you know? And at this point we have nothing to lose by having one final drink together."
"That's true enough," said Oglo carefully. "But I would prefer it if you didn't have too much because I don't want you to get too drunk!"
"I'll try not to get too drunk," said Surki as she took another gulp of the bottle.
“Also, what did you mean, one final drink? Do you expect us to die or something?” asked Oglo suspiciously. “I mean, I’d like to stay alive for a good while, to be honest, so I don't think I'm going to drink as much as you seem to think I will!"
"Nope!" said Surki with a nod. "We're going to drink our fucking faces off, and if we die, we die! But also, hopefully we won’t die. Because we have some unfinished business."
"What sort of business?" asked Oglo curiously. "Did you manage to sell off all your magic potions? Because we could probably kill Tahsi with one of them.”
“No, no, we need a new high priest , and we need one stat. We shouldn’t kill Tahsi,” said Surki. “We should promote him. Make him high priest.”
“Um, what the fuck?” said Oglo. “Are you fucking shitting on my chest with this, Surki?”
“Not literally,” said Surki. “I mean, unless you want me to. But I’m not fucking with you. We should bump him up. He can be leader and high priest. It’ll be good for him, keep him busy and distracted while we find someone else who can help us kill him."
"Oh," said Oglo slowly as he considered this option. "Well...you know, that's certainly possible." He paused for a moment. "You know what? That's actually a really good idea."
"Yeah," agreed Surki with a nod. "It's also a good idea because the bastard deserves it."
"Well...yes," agreed Oglo reluctantly, "I suppose he does." He paused again for a moment before continuing on. "But you realize that means I'm going to have to give more money to him as well?"
"Yep," said Surki cheerfully as she took another big gulp of the bottle's contents before putting it down on the bed next to her and rolling over onto her stomach so she was resting on the bed. "And you know what? If he doesn't like it, he can bugger off and find another cult."
"Well...yeah," agreed Oglo slowly as he took another swig of his own drink. "That's true enough." He paused for a moment to consider this very real possibility that Tahsi might quit being their high priest and leave them alone forever because they'd made him a leader and he didn't like it. But then he thought about it some more and realized that was unlikely for two reasons: one: Tahsi was too in love with
bread to focus on being the high priest; and two: Tahsi was too afraid of not being able to eat bread. "We could do that," he agreed finally as he took another swig of his own drink and then stopped drinking so quickly that he burnt his tongue on the alcohol in it. "But..." He paused for a moment to consider this very strong possibility that Tahsi would quit working for their cult altogether. “Surki, this shit has to work. We have to make sure Tahsi stays so that Isabelle comes here. I must destroy that player, Surki, I must. I will bring Isabelle here and gut her and eat her intestines in front of all her friends!"
"I know you will," said Surki cheerfully as she snuggled down into the bed and closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep now."
“Yes, yes, go to sleep,” said Oglo. “Go to sleep, Surki, and I will plot!”
And plot Oglo did. He got out spreadsheets and schematics and scrolls and wrote diatribes. And he knew exactly what he could do to make sure Isabelle came to Chox and played right into his hands. Yes, he would ensure his own success.