Jim the Hostelier stands. “If the goblin is waking soon, I’d better have breakfast ready. And you three? What will you be having?”
“Konakhchani Rohva.”
“Ah, over easy then?”
Zaena nods.
“And what do you think your goblin companion would like?”
“No telling, but make it as greasy as you possibly can.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” With that, Jim promptly steps into a different room.
“So the plan,” Ryuk says. “We need to take the next airship out of here.”
“Not a problem,” says FeeTwix. “I’ve already booked one.”
“Can you go blue for a moment?”
His eyes flash blue. “They really hate it when I do that. There are close to two million people livestreaming my feed, which isn’t the largest number I’ve seen, but it’s pretty damn good.” He sighs and runs his hand through his blond hair. “They are exhausting me a bit, to be honest. But no matter. I had a full night’s rest. I’ll get over it!”
“There are several things we need to discuss, the first of which is payment to your banker friend for the loan he gave us.” Ryuk takes a seat on the arm of the couch. “We’re up about fifteen thousand rupees. I know that isn’t enough, but … ”
FeeTwix snaps his fingers.
“What did you just do?”
“Check the coffers.”
A number appears on Ryuk’s display: 75, 309. His eyes light up. “Where did you get this kind of money?”
“A check came in and I converted it to rupees.”
“A check for how many days?”
“How long have we been associates? Three or four days now?” He counts on his fingers for a moment. “Okay, there was the first day at the Hills of Hilshire. The second day in Aramis. The third day at the zombie kill-for-all and the betrayal. Okay, four days. This is the fourth day. It was a check for the ad reads and stream views from just before our first meeting to the fight last night. Do you want me to transfer the rupees to my fan?”
“Yes, please,” Ryuk says, “and if you want to keep track of guild finances, by all means. That’s a lot of rupees!”
“It won’t always be this high of a payment. TwitchTube Red included a 25% bonus for having so many unique views in such a short time.”
“I see. Well transfer it, before he-who-shall-not-be-named gets word.”
“Done. Zaena updated me on everything that happened last night. I ran a few polls from my fans and they are suggesting we land in the city of Talini. The people that inhabit that city are the same people who built the catacombs beneath Porthos. They’ll know something, although they are notoriously religious and pretty uptight.”
“Been there,” Ryuk says, recalling the people prostrating around a stupa with a square top. The Talinians would prostrate themselves for several days straight, ripping up their arms and legs.
“My guess is that we’ll likely have to do a quest for them to cough up the info we need. At least we’ll get some levels by doing so and explore Polynya, another plus. Anything else we need to discuss before I go live again?”
Ryuk moves closer to FeeTwix and speaks in a low voice. “We have sensitive information we need to protect. The Shinigami, or whoever else is trying to come to our world, doesn’t seem to know about coming through a humandroid’s body.”
FeeTwix raises an eyebrow. “I’d forgotten about that myself.”
“We didn’t tell Tamana, thankfully, but we need to be careful who we disclose this information to. Our main goal needs to be to get in touch with the Knights, and not just any of them – with their leader, Sophia.”
“We’ll get their attention,” FeeTwix says with a grin. “Just get me in the city and let me do the rest. I already have fans there willing to help out, if we want to go that route. Now, for the goblin!” His eyes flash black. “Hey, everyone! Okay, reading through some of your responses, okay, yes, good idea. Hot water? No way. The room already reeks. Leave the goblin here? Not a bad idea, but he has been useful in the past, I think.” FeeTwix looks to Zaena who shrugs.
“What the fick are you going on about, Twixy?” Hiccup stands in the doorway armored up with his golden helm tucked under his arm. His pink hair is slicked back over his head and his mechanical arm gleams as if it’s been polished. He yawns and burps at the same time, which throws him off balance.
“Hiya, Hiccup!” FeeTwix shoots the goblin his biggest shit-eating grin. “Good news! The Fickers, aka your fan club, have reached thirty-three thousand members, just like you told them to do yesterday!”
The goblin narrows his eyes at the Swede, and as he does, he brings his finger to his nose and digs around for a moment. “Come again?”
FeeTwix clears his throat. “Remember yesterday? You said you wanted thirty-three thousand members, and boy fick, here they are!”
“Boy fick? What did I tell you about stealing my line, Twixy? If the Fickers really want to impress me, they’d bring their numbers up to fifty thousand. If they really, really wanted to impress me, they’d stop watching your feed and go out there and get themselves a piece of prime cooter.”
“You heard the goblin! Bring those numbers up to fifty thousand and get yourselves some cooter!”
Hiccup pinches the bridge of his nose for a second, doing his best to hold in his early morning disdain. He points his brass finger at Jim, who has just exited the back room, and gives him the lasso signal. “Get our fickin’ breakfast to go, Jimmy. Two dozen dragon wings with garlic honey pepper spice this time. There’s an airship going out at the Morning Hour of the Faun and the captain owes me a favor. And one more thing.”
Hiccup moves his brass finger from Ryuk to Zaena to FeeTwix.
“When we find Tammy and New Marbles, I get to be the one that kills New Marbles. We clear here? Sure, our Marbles here probably wants revenge, but that kiddy ficker exploded my head and I’ll be damned if I ever die that way again! I’ve been having ficked up nightmares all night, believe you me.” His eyes flash with concern as he mumbles, “Fickin’ hell if I’d put my chalupa anywhere close to an ink shadow, and I don’t know what the fick it kept trying to do to my bunghole, but it was … Fick me, what the hell are we doing here?”
“You, um,” FeeTwix giggles.
“What? I was what?”
“You were talking about killing New Marbles then you went off on a rant regarding a weird dream you had about an ink shadow coming close to your chalupa and it doing something to your goblin hole,” Zaena says.
“The fick you say, Lizzy? Why the hell are you talking about ink shadows, chalupas and bungholes? You’re really ficked in the head, you know that? Back to New Marbles. That little marble flinging bitch’s bitch is mine.”
“Only if I get to kill Tamana,” Zaena grits.
Ryuk starts to say something, but lets the moment pass. It is useless defending Tamana, and maybe a bit stupid as well. He saw what happened, and even though he knows there may be more to the story, his guildmates are right to feel vengeful.
“Which reminds me … ” The goblin digs around in his back pocket for a moment and produces a yellowed piece of parchment. He unfolds it and walks it over to Ryuk.
“And that is?”
“Well, if you’d take a clear look at it, you’d see that it’s our new fickin’ logo.”
Ryuk takes the piece of parchment with two fingers and turns it over. Hastily drawn on the document are two skulls, each with a pair of wings. The skulls hover in the air just over the hilt of a sword facing downwards.
“Our logo?”
“Yeah, the Mitherfickers. Everyone needs a logo. Where would Horse Piss be without that picture of the big horsey dong filling a mug with beer?”
“Let me take a look at that.” A plastic glove appears on FeeTwix’s hand and he takes the parchment from Ryuk. “Always keep a pair in your list,” he says under his breath.