Epilogue

Occasionally Rachel had her doubts that Damsel Tracia's death was not her fault. The healing chamber helped reduce psychological problems, but it could only help so much. She was never fond of big dogs after that and never wanted to go back to Chaos, but that was more the result of having children to worry about than lack of willingness. She retained just enough guilt that she found herself urging Rolly to go on missions sometimes. That was fine with Stephanie, who wanted to go even more than Rolly did it seemed.

Rachel was OK with Stephanie sharing their bed every so often, and she quickly figured out that Rolly had been getting full service from his Companion when Stephanie went along. They worked out a deal. Stephanie would bring sexy clothes back for Rachel in exchange for Rachel not holding the 'indiscretions' against her. The deal was made when Rachel had her tongue on Stephanie's clit and two fingers inside her warm depths, rubbing against her G-spot, so Stephanie claimed that she had agreed under duress. Rolly wasn't even in the house at the time and stayed out of the argument. The unspoken rule in the house was that Rolly and Stephanie couldn't get together on their own on Earth. That didn't hold for Rachel and Stephanie, but they often timed their seductions of each other so that they would get caught by Rolly, knowing that they would then be punished for being naughty girls.

Paper could go through the portal, so Rolly could take Susan pictures of the family as the children grew up. Rachel stopped at two, a girl first and then a baby boy.

Aunty Stephanie found herself telling bedtime stories to Paula's kids about a little boy and a little girl who lived in a lonely castle, who one day found a magic room in the attic. If they fell asleep in the room they would wake up and the room would open in a new land that was full of adventures. The stories were so good that both Paula and her mother convinced Stephanie to start writing children's books. Stephanie was successful enough that after she got her CPA she went into business for herself, which kept her busy at tax time but not so much at others. That let her write and develop videogames for the books. Susan's mission reports helped provide ideas for adventures for Stephanie to write about.

She ended up buying all of the Hansen place and selling Rolly the strip by the stream. She then let Rolly and Tommy sharecrop her farm.

One of a hero's jobs was to recruit new heroes, it was without a doubt the job heroes were the worst at doing -- most simply trained a replacement, if they lived long enough -- so the strip was turned into a medieval village, complete with wattle and daub huts. Stephanie talked one of her old history professors into taking students out there to help build it and do maintenance work. It was part of a plan to draw medieval martial artists together to practice mounted warfare skills, something that was sorely needed by new heroes on Chaos. The overwhelming majority of horseback riding instructors on Earth preferred that their students not carry swords and crossbows during lessons.

Before the medieval training center concept was hatched Rolly had been traveling around to the various medieval martial arts societies and was often invited to teach swordsmanship, as was natural, since he was the only one who had been trained by a real medieval swordmaster rather than by a modern fencing master or someone in the Japanese or Chinese tradition. He did it partly to stay in practice and partly in hopes of meeting other heroes or prospective heroes.

Stephanie's medieval village and renaissance fair was, on the surface, a marketing tool for her books. Rolly didn't think it would be prudent to say, "Afraid of getting killed on Chaos? Come to Rolly's Ride 'O' Rama and learn how to get where you are going and how to kill people from horseback."

There were certain key phrases on Stephanie's website that were designed to draw heroes there by being picked up in a Google search. These included "at the crossroads of modern and medieval times," and "where you can experience the chaos of battle." There was also a picture of little kids with paper crowns on their heads sitting on a horse named 'Cassandra.'

In addition to the "Fun for the whole family" events, there were also serious western martial arts workshops. The farm was close enough to the freeway and associated econo-motels that it was easy for people to stay around for a few days.

Rolly found out an easy way to tell the heroes from the civilians at the events. The heroes all had short staffs because a staff had to fit in a box that was "a woman long." The civilians generally had an eight foot long quarter staff or a six foot long bo.

Stephanie vetted out perspective heroes for character. If they pinched her ass and said, "Hey baby, wanna go some place and fuck?" they were losers. Caretakers might like them, and damsels might like them, but Stephanie didn't believe in exporting shoddy merchandise off world. It was often the girl-shy, sometimes homely guys that got the chance to die for pussy. Rachel joked that Cassandrian women were too good looking anyway; they need some ugly genes in the population.

A good proportion of the men who showed up to the events came with replica everything right down to wooden swords balanced exactly like the razor sharp swords that sat on their walls. Rolly had a stick; usually that he cut himself the day before. It was what he and Rotrington had practiced with in the gold field. Old Rot would use a stick against Rolly's blade and vice versa so that the blades didn't get nicked. Sometimes Rolly would wrap his stick with duct tape at the events to make the blade silver so that no one would throw it to a dog for a game of fetch.