Saga Of The European King

The King found Bernadetta Leathervest deep in the Maize storage deck on Oranje's flagcanoe. Oranje and all of her captains and battlechiefs were meeting on board in her luxurious chambers for a pre-invasion lunch. It was the perfect time for the King to strike – to decapitate the United Statesian attack force before the campaign had even begun. He'd already sent Astrid Gimmerleck to shore so that she could advise the European army to not target the flagcanoe, he'd drawn his remaining Adventure Friends together and got them all psyched up and confident and they were so ready, but here was Bernadetta, crouched in a puddle in the bowels of the ship, holding Cyclops' Bane unwaveringly above the entrance to a rathole, her breathing shallow, drenched in concentration. A rat would spawn and run from the hole every thirty seconds or so and as soon as the freshly-spawned rat poked its little head out of the hole and got its first look at the wide and wonderful world it found its little ratty self in, Bernadetta would bring Cyclops' Bane down like a magical metal cobra, brush the rat's gushing body away with the back of her hand and go right back to waiting. Perched on a barrel beside her was a vial filled with bubbly green liquid. The King identified it as a Medium Strength Potion Of Strength.
“Honoured Mrs. Leathervest,” said the King, not wanting to but also wanting to interrupt the ritual of stab-squeak-brush-wait. “We must be ready to strike very soon. Your King would know what it is you are doing.” Bernadetta did not take her eyes off the rathole. Stab-squeak-brush-wait.
“Pass me that potion, would you please, Your Highness?” she said. The King dumbly passed the Medium Strength Potion of Medium Strength over to Bernadetta who drank it quickly, without wasting a single movement. The King was by this point officially puzzled.
“Why would you waste a Medium Strength Potion of Strength on the slaughter of rats, good lady Leathervest? And why a -medium- one? Surely you have about you all of the most potent magic potions we have gained in our travels?”
“It only works with the green potion,” stab-squeak-brush-stand. The King blinked. Somewhere between stabbing the last rat and standing up, Bernadetta had become huge. Her muscles, which had before been rippling, were now tidal waves, she had grown to be almost as tall as her clothes were a shade brighter.
“Two thousand, nine hundred and seventy four rats. That's how many I had to kill do I could level up to an odd-numbered level. And if you're benefiting from the effects of a Medium Strength Potion of Medium Strength when you hit an odd-numbered level, the stats boost from the potion becomes permanent.”
“By my Father's lost belt!” murmured the King. He wasn't sure whether he should be impressed or not. “How long have you been coming down here to kill rats?”
“Every night. I wasn't earning any XP from the pranks everyone was pulling so I had to get in shape somehow.”
“Don't you sleep?” Even the King had to sleep. Not all the time, but he still had to eventually.
“You can offset the negative effects of fatigue by eating a turkey leg or some beef jerky every hour.” she said, flatly. So that's where all their turkey leg rations had gone! “Your Highness, you must put me in the assassination party. I'm strong enough now to tackle Oranje.” The King blinked again. The plan was for Bernadetta to wait outside of Oranje's quarters with Cajun and hold off the crew of the flagcanoe by deception and then, when it inevitably came down to it, naked violence.
“Good friend Bernadetta, I need Colonel Glowfist with me in the assassination party. He and Roxy Tripfoot will support me as I take on Oranje head-to-head. I'm always the one who fights Oranje. She's my ex. You can't fight her, you hardly even know her,” he said.
“Your Highness, with the highest and awesomest respect, that's why you're never able to beat her. She's your nemesis – she's always exactly three levels above you. But now that I've boosted my Strength and Constitution above even your own, I stand a much better chance of wiping the floor with her.” The King absorbed this reluctantly with patience and grace. “There's another thing -” she added, “I'll need to use Cutty.” The King's eyes bulged comically, but still with patience and grace. This was too much!
“Cutty?!” he said.
“Yes, Cutty.” said Bernadetta. “If I invest the skill points I just earned from this last level-up into a few more proficiency levels in longswords, I'd be just as skilled as you with a blade and it would give me another huge advantage over Oranje since she's a scythe-wielder. She's an Agility-aligned fighter so she gets a big Defence bonus against any opponent a tile away from her, but her chance-to-hit is reduced by a quarter in close-quarters, unless she switches to wielding a dagger but I don't think she'd do that because that Moonmetal scythe of hers gives a big boost to her Constitution and confers the Stun ability she relies upon so heavily.” The King handed Gappy over to her, mostly to make her stop talking.
“Hey, what's going on, Chief? We're a team, me and you, right? You can't break up our team.” Bernadetta ignored Cutty even harder than the King was trying to as she unscrewed his handle. “Look, just make her promise that she'll give me back, okay, you're the King, Chief, you can tell her – what's going on down there, it feels -” Cutty stopped right there. Bernadetta had pulled a long strip of parchment out of Cutty's handle. She held it and arm's length, between her thumb and forefinger and squinted carefully at the writing upon it. She took a pen out from her inventory and clicked it meaningfully.
“What are you doing?” asked the King. He was slightly perturbed. He didn't even know that Cutty's handle could be unscrewed. He'd never poked around down there, out of respect.
“There's a hack for these talking swords to get them to shut up,” she said, distantly, while she scratched a few marks onto the parchment with her pen, rolled it back and screwed on the handle. Cutty did not say a word.
“But that's his thing!” spluttered the King. “You can't make Cutty not talk – then he'll just be – he's just -”
“A plus one longsword with a load of resistances built in, yeah,” said Bernadetta, waving Cutty through the air to get the heft of him. “We could do better but it's all we've got right now.” She slid the silenced sword into her scabbard, dropped Cyclops' Bane neatly into her inventory - “We'll have to flog that,” she muttered – then she clapped and rubbed her hands at the King, who was frowning heavily. “I'm ready, Your Highness. Point me in the right direction and I'll clean her clock.” The strange thrust of Bernadetta's tactics troubled the King but he wasn't exactly sure why... Cutty was a sword, just a sword, when you came down to it. Why -couldn't- anyone else use him? And if Bernadetta had found a sneaky way to get the most out of a level-up, all the more power to her, right? It's like she broke any rules or anything. What the King wanted, more than anything, was for Oranje to stop bugging him so he could get back to the whole 'killing Winter' thing. He had little doubt Bernadetta could live up to her boasts – he had seen how capable she was and how lightly she had got off from their fight with the President Of The United States, even though she had fought just as hard as anyone. Maybe, he thought, it would be best if he set aside his unease at the idea of her fighting Oranje directly and just saw thing thing through.

They went upstairs to the upper deck to meet the other Adventure Friends. Astrid had been gone for long enough – she had almost certainly got the European forces at Normandy organised by now. And so, after a little pep-talk and some inventory juggling, they ran up to the deck, killed the guards, Colonel Glowfist and Cajun took their places outside and then the King, Bernadetta and Roxy Tripfoot walked right into Oranje's fancy quarters. Oranje and her contingent of battlechiefs and megacanoe captains were really surprised to see them. When she saw them, she stood up, spilling her maize-wine, and at that very moment the first volley of falling Rock People smashed through the decks of a nearby megacanoe and Oranje knew that she and all her command staff and officers were trapped in a room where they would be fought to death. Before anyone could say anything or meaningfully react to the sudden chaos that was erupting outside, Bernadetta stood forward, pointed Cutty at Oranje and said, “You. Ugly bitch. Let's go.”

And then there was one heck of a fight, let me tell you.

End Of Chapter 90