...
Darth Stosh, his lightstaff fully extended, carefully made his way down the dark corridor. As he neared La Gar's quarters, he used his Sith power to create a invisibility barrier around himself, and then stepped into the strange room. Paint had been flung onto the walls to create an illusion of dripping blood, and brackets held a display of weaponry for all to see.
And La Gar and Sheriff Cracken were together in the room.
'How much longer can we hold this up?' Cracken was saying.
'As long as we need to. The king is weak, my dear Cracken; he will not suspect.'
'But I fear he does. I fear for YOU.'
'Don't. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself.'
'I do not doubt you can. But to continue to smuggle the treasure, and to do so under his very nose, well I-'
'Treasure!' Darth Stosh gasped. He felt himself grow weak at the knees as he imagined mountains of shiny silver and gold. So that was what La Gar was after!
'-and from his very own mines!' Cracken finished.
'His mines!' Stosh mentally exclaimed. Why, the double-crossing?! Why hadn't HE thought of doing that?
No- he was there to make sure people only did what he wanted, wasn't he? Yet wasn't he working here on behalf of the king?
'There's only one thing for it,' Stosh muttered, 'and that's to take the treasure for myself. Then I can set up a Sith school! I'd be working for myself.' His eyes narrowed. 'Yes?myself. And La Gar will NOT get in the way?oh, my dear Gar, you had better watch out.'
Several tens of metres away, the Merry Rogues minus Charlotte and Rachel and Wes lay trying to formulate a plan. For four chapters they had now been stuck in the room, whilst the author gave them few lines and constantly ignored Iliana - but that was all to change.
'Look!' Ili cried out, startling the others. Maid Hobbie had almost forgotten she had existed. 'A crack!'
'You're cracked, more like,' muttered Friar Tycho, but he went and had a look anyway.
'Sithspit! Hobbie, she's right. There's a crack appeared in this wall.'
Maid Hobbie peered at the wall. 'It's a weak point probably in the brick. Well spotted, that girl! Little Horn, do you think you-?'
'Of course.' Little Horn drew his lightstaff and poked it into the crack. Soon the crack had widened, and daylight appeared. 'Everyone - dig!'
The others all began to scrape away at the brick, Lady Mirax positioning herself some metres back to pile the discarded bricks away against the other wall. Soon a sizeable gap had appeared.
'I can see grass!' Ili yelled.
'We're free!' Maid Hobbie said.
?
Meanwhile, Hosho, Sir Wedge, Tainer Two and Lady Iella had armed themselves with blastswords and bowblasters and were headed for King Rickety's palace.
'Um, Hosho, do we actually have a plan?' Tainer Two asked.
'Of course!' Lied the Commander. 'But I can't tell you?yet.'
'Oh.'
'Hey - there it is!.' Sir Wedge exclaimed, just as the four emerged out of the bushes to be faced with a high brick wall.
'Look!' Lady Iella exclaimed. She pointed to where a hole had been made in the wall. As they watched, Maid Hobbie emerged from the hole and stepped into the bright sunlight.
'Maid Hobbie! What the-' Sir Wedge said, surprised.
Events had suddenly taken a very unexpected turn?
________________________
Charlotte Hood was shaking her head vehemently. 'No?no, I won't believe it. I can't.'
Tarris Vaal looked genuinely distressed. 'I'm sorry, Miss Hood, but it's the truth.'
Charlotte, since we had last left her, had not only discovered who the curse was placed upon; but also a very painful truth. If the discovery of the former had left her gob-smacked, then the recent discovery of the latter had literally knocked all the stuffing out of her. It was Tarris - a man she barely knew - who had allowed Christian to reveal the identity of the person; it was Tarris who had then gone on to explain further a truth that he had not disclosed to anyone in such a long time he had forgotten it himself. He had never had any real need to divulge such information before.
Charlotte eventually stopped shaking her head and leant back against the wall, her head aching. 'I have to get out?tell everyone?' she muttered. But she knew that her hope was futile; she wasn't going anywhere whilst those chains lasted.
Meanwhile?
'This is fun!' Derek yelled, taking the B-Dewback into a tight nose dive. Strangely, no-one else appeared to share his appreciation of the B-Dewback's capabilities; save for Nat, who was humming quietly to herself in a corner and was dreaming of decapitating Lady Rachel and claiming Wes Scarlet for herself, everyone else was too busy trying not to throw up.
'Merry Rogues!' Lady Rachel blurted out. She didn't trust her stomach to be able to say anything more. She was a pilot herself; but that didn't mean her body was able to cope with the loss of the B-Dewback's inertial compensator.
'So there are! Hold on, folks.' Derek came hurtling towards the ground at such a speed that Wes Scarlet feared they must crash; but at the last moment Derek slammed on the brakes, cut the engines and half-landed/half-plonked the B-Dewback down on the ground. Groaning loudly, and looking not a little bit green around the gills, so to speak, Lady Rachel, Jenique Loran and Wes Scarlet clambered out of the battered ship and collapsed on the ground. Nat came skipping out of the ship; but then she WAS Nat.
'Drink. Alcohol. Hockey. Save me,' Jenique said. The way the words came out of her mouth made the phrase sound like a line from a song:-
'Drink, alcohol, hockey, save me.
The absence of these things does plague me!
A crazy spin I've had in a ship-
A little al-co-hol I need to sip.
Why do I get ig-nored?
Why am I here getting bored?
I need some friend to take me away
I need to know that I'm okay?
'It would help if you sang in tune,' Wes Scarlet complained.
Maid Hobbie, Little Horn, Friar Tycho, Lady Mirax, Ili, Sir Wedge, Lady Iella, Hosho and Tainer Two all exclaimed loudly at the sudden and unexpected appearance of their missing members; they all stood there stupefied for a while, then rushed over to help their comrades up and administer comforting hugs.
'Jenique Loran!' Tainer Two shouted in surprise.
'Kell Tainer! Well hello!'
'Huh?' Hosho looked from one to the other.
Tainer turned excitedly to Commander Hosho. 'You know I told you about that barmaid who gives me the free meals? Well, this is her.'
'It is?' Wes Scarlet looked taken aback; he turned to Jenique, viewing her in a new light. 'I thought she was a customer at the pub, rather than a barmaid.'
'It was my day off,' Jenique explained. 'Don't you see, by working there I get free drinks.'
'Ah-ha!'
'Well, I'm very glad you've found each other,' Maid Hobbie said, 'But there's still the question of Charlotte
Hood. She needs rescuing.'
'And Tarris Vaal and Christian,' Sir Wedge added. He was pleased to see all his old friends together again.
'I want my rent,' agreed Lady Iella.
'Mo-ther,' Lady Rachel admonished.
Nat and Iliana were laughing loudly to one side; Nat was indicating with motions of her hands the journey they had had in Derek's B-Dewback. Iliana was saying proudly, 'and I discovered the crack; they needed me to spot it for them.'
Maid Hobbie and Friar Tycho looked at each other and gave helpless shrugs, as if to say, 'what shall we do?'
Then Friar Tycho spotted some ripe strawberries on a nearby bush and ran off to go and stuff himself full of the red, juicy fruit.
Maid Hobbie sighed. 'Order! Order on the grass floor. We STILL need to rescue Charlotte Hood! We need to form a coherent rescue party! WILL PEOPLE PLEASE LISTEN AND CO-OPERATE???'
Everyone suddenly fell silent.
'Thankyou. Now, here's my plan.'
