Bodiccea (Chapter 19)
Template:Bodiccea nav Jerhyn was waiting outside the palace as Bodiccea approached. He looked nervous, but he always looks nervous at this stage of the game. Or maybe it's just me, Bodiccea thought, smiling to herself. "Hi, sweetie."
"Hello! I have most urgent news for you! When the troubles began, the --"
"Baby, as of this second, your troubles are over. But before we do anything, we need to talk matrimony. 'Bodiccea, Warrior Queen' is just too good a title to pass up. Hell of a lot better than 'matriarch'. Who came up with that, anyway? That's something you'd call some old woman with 20 kids and her tits hanging down to her waist."
"You don't understand! The harem guilds took shelter in the palace --"
"Ooh, the harems. Tell you what: seeing how you're king and all, we'll split them 50-50. Order me 2 dozen boys -- nah, make it 5 dozen -- none of them older than 19 or so. They're so cute at that age. I'll take care of the qualifying endurance tests... hmm..."
"Miss Amazon, the harems are no more! They came to hide in the palace, and all was well, until one night when a horde of hell-spawned invaders came up from the deeper cellars! The poor girls were slaughtered --"
"Poor baby. Don't worry, you can get more girls, if you think you'll want them. You won't, but you're so adorable I'll indulge you."
After taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, Jerhyn said, "If you want, you may have the harems. They are a remnant of my father's reign, I never liked them. The entire city is in peril! My men have all been slain trying to push the demons back, and the enemy stands poised to overrun us all! My palace is --"
"Wait... you don't like the harems?"
"No! As I said, my father built them. I don't even like being in them."
"But what about the girls?"
"Oh, yes... them. My father kept many there, but I never saw the point. After I became lord of the city, I sent them away. I thought of redecorating... something more tasteful and understated, perhaps in a floral motif."
"Flowers?" Bodiccea asked quizzically.
"Yes! Tulips and lilacs, I thought, but then the harem guilds begged me to let them stay inside once again. I suppose it wasn't so bad having the girls around, really. They loved listening to my Barbara Streisand CD's."
"Barbara Streisand?" Bodiccea said in confusion.
Faintly smiling, Jerhyn went on. "There was a group of traveling decorators here once, five absolutely fabulous fellows with all sorts of fantastic ideas! I would have hired them to redo the entire palace in a heartbeat, but Drognan advised against it. He said they... had a poor reputation of some kind."
Eyes widening, Bodiccea nodded quietly.
"It is of no importance. My palace is open to you! I can do little to compensate you for your heroic efforts on behalf of my city, but any valuables you find within are yours, except for my teacup collection. Especially the Royal Doulton ones. In fact, if you can find them, and make sure they haven't been broken --"
"Um, yeah, ok, sure. Teacups. Fine. Uh, excuse me. I have to go get Heather."
Over at Atma's, Heather was sitting at an empty table. "Heather?" Bodiccea said, "Come on. We're going into the palace."
"Is something wrong?" Heather asked, quickly getting up to join her.
"He's gay," Bodiccea pouted, stamping her foot. "Why are all the cute ones gay?"
"He is?"
"Heather, a guy could not lie to me about something like that. Let's clear the palace and find the damned Sanctuary. I wanna get to Act III."
"But --"
"Heather, I'm not in the mood, ok?"
"Ok."
Inside the palace, the upper levels were empty and silent. Bodiccea spent a few cathartic moments kicking over pedestals, breaking statuettes, and punching holes in all the screens and draperies. In one side hall, they found the city guard's former headquarters, with a stack of undistributed wanted posters:
WANTED: Amanita
Height: Leggy as a colt.
Weight: Lean as the best pastrami at Doris' Deli.
Eyes: Won't call 'em limpid pools; more like, brown.
Hair: I knew a drill sergeant who kept it longer.
Sex: Yeah. So what's your problem?
Distinguishing features: One look tells you this dame is trouble.
On charges of:
Defamation of character
Smoking in a prohibited area
Sorcerer abuse
Conduct unbecoming to a straight female
Reward! Call LGPD for more information. Keep our city clean.
Bodiccea snorted, and turned a poster over to write on the back:
WANTED: Bodiccea
Height: Can look down on you
Weight: Nunuvyerbeezwax
Eyes: Perfect green
Hair: Perfect blonde
Sex: Sure! But not with you
Distinguishing features: Stampedes of awestruck men wherever she goes
On charges of:
Breaking hearts
Wounding egos
Palace abuse
Conduct unbecoming to anyone less outrageously fantastic than she is!
Reward! Call LGPD for more information. Keep our city clean.
"That oughta do it," Bodiccea said with a smile. "Let's get downstairs."
"Sure..." Heather paused to read the poster. Quietly, she crossed out the first two charges and wrote in 'Being a drama queen' and 'Posession of an ego the size of Cleveland.' Then she followed Bodiccea downstairs.
The harems... ah, everybody knows what Jerhyn's harems are like. Guards and harem girls lay scattered in bloody bits, and most of the monsters were skeletons: Horror Mages and Horror Archers. There were also Dune Beasts, but no one takes them seriously, with good reason. The mages used ice bolts, and Bodiccea spent most of the level wishing she had something with Cannot Be Frozen on it. The lack of leeching was another annoyance.
The cellars were just as boring -- skeletons, Dune Beasts, more skeletons, Blunderbores, and more skeletons. Bodiccea experimented with switching between Fend and Jab, depending on how many targets she had. Supposedly, having a Decoy nearby gives Fend another stab, but Heather would start giggling if she ever cast it again. Heather, for her part, hit level 22 in the harem, and level 23 in the second level of the cellars. The loot was of poor quality, the only noteworthy finds being charm of greed #24 and a charm of frost; surprisingly, one which Bodiccea could actually use.
As they finished off the last monster in the cellars, Bodiccea looked at her experience bar: level 24, only a hair away from level 25. So close... she went through the portal, hit the Arcane Sanctuary waypoint, and ran off to get away from Heather. The first thing she found was a goat. Shrieking, Bodiccea jumped straight for the thing -- it looked up, bleated in dismay, and died in a flurry of blood-spraying stabs.
"YES!" Bodiccea happily shrieked, allocating stat points. "Ok, let's go home."
"Aren't we going to finish? You usually finish an area once you've started."
"This was special, Heather. I can already feel that Trellised armor and a brand spankin' new War Fork in my hands. I wonder if I'll get any of those charms of inertia?" She stepped on the waypoint, and the dusty walls of Lut Gholein appeared around them, red in the light of the setting sun. Then, without warning, the whole city shook. "Wha... ?"
"I don't know!" Heather said. "Hey, the sun went out!"
For an instant, it was completely black. The world came back for a second, shuddered, and suddenly they were suspended in an endless void.
"That's not the sun, Heather. We already did that quest."
"What is it? I can't feel my feet!"
A sound echoed through the blackness... it was a voice. A voice like that of an angry deity, swearing and casting down curses on something called the Microsoft corporation. "Oh, fuck," Bodiccea murmured. "I think we just crashed."
"Oh, no! Did we lose anything?"
"I don't know, but if I lost my level, I am gonna give somebody such a pinch..."