Chapter 45

“So, Miss Olivia,” Tori said, affecting a somewhat silly manly voice. “What’s it like bein’ the bodyguard of a sorceress like that Lady Shadow?”

“Wait, Tori is playing Rolf?” Rhia asked, glancing at me.

“Well, what’s your goal with Rolf?” I asked.

“Um, well ... I guess I was planning on seducing him and trying to get information out of him that way,” Rhia said. “Getting these guys drunk didn’t work, so laid might.”

“And I can’t be in both scenes as they happen at the same time,” I pointed out. Then I smirked a little. “I already gave Tori her character notes, she knows what to do.”

Rhia chuckled and shrugged, then blew out a quick breath to get back into character as she turned to Tori.

“It’s actually a lot of damn work,” Olivia replied to Rolf. “Lots of travel, which has been fun for the most part. The occasional deadly encounter with a monster in the depths of some forgotten wilderness. The worst are the wizard duels though - can’t do a whole lot when two sorcerers decide they don’t like the look of each other’s faces.”

“Hm,” Rolf grunted. “Sounds downright nasty.”

“Downright is right,” Olivie smirked. “What’s it like being the second in command of a Gang like yours?”

“Heh,” Rolf said. “Sounds about the same as what you put up with. Follow orders, march across the forest, get into a scrap with the Duke’s men, or some merchant guard, and march back across the forest again. Keep these lunks from killin’ each other in between. No wizard duels though.”

“Hope it stays that way,” Olivia grinned. “Do you boys ... party, deep in the woods? More than this spot, this seems like a once in a blue moon situation.”

“Oh, we have ... the occasional, uh, thing,” Rolf answered. “When we ‘liberate’ some good stock, ale or whiskey or mead. Things can get downright festive.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Olivia grinned. Then she sat forward in her seat, leaning toward Rolf and boldly putting a hand on her upper thigh. “I do enjoy a good festivity, don’t you, Rolf?”

“Charisma check,” I interrupted the scene.

“Not Diplomacy?” Rhia asked.

“This is more of a raw seduction, rather than a reasoned or emotional argument,” I said. “Don’t worry, the DC is lower to match.”

Rhia rolled a fifteen total, and I gave Tori the pre-arranged signal.

Rolf leaned forward toward Olivia, bringing their faces closer together. “I do like a festivity now and then,” he said. Then, more boldly and definitely more lewdly and direct than Olivia had been, he reached a hand up under her chainmail top and groped one of her breasts firmly.

Rhia let out an embarrassed snort as she tried not to giggle, and Tori didn’t hide her grin as she palmed one of Rhia’s big tits under her shirt.

“Alright, I think we can see where that is going,” I said. “Elyse, roll your check.”

Elyse rolled her die and it spun for a full three seconds as the girls all waited with bated breath before breaking into cheers.

Houndsfang was watching Renee after her declaration and demand, weighing what he’d seen and heard. Finally, he leaned back, still watching her with those predator’s eyes as his voice rumbled in the dark of his throne room. “If it’s ambition you seek, then you’ve found it,” he said. “Ambition and knowing when to seize an opportunity. My ambition will make me Duke, and unless the King fails to stop the Dark Lord in the east and we all get swept into the End, I’ll sit on his throne too before I draw my last breath. In a week I’ll take Duke Unger’s castle, and along with it his widowed daughter - a widow I may have ‘accidentally’ created when I caught her husband hunting in the Owedswood two fortnights back. Then all I need to do is wait for Unger to return from court in the fall and I’ll kill him on the road, leaving me the heir to the duchy.”