The Ballad of Adler Young, Canto 2.5

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AT THE VULPITANIAN EMBASSY

>Percy: Note how strange it is that they would keep their files in the kitchen. Suddenly you are not alone.
>Percy: Suddenly regret your large luncheon of cornbread and chestnut dressing.
(Brave Percy) Deny, upon being questioned, that you are: (a) Percy, and (b) a squab.
(Vulps) Assume: (a) that this fur is telling the truth, or (b) he's being very Vulpitanian.
(Brave Percy) Flee with the files!
Percy, turn around in panic. See a most hideous creature standing in the doorway behind you.
Klown, make a grab for Percy.

Percy heard a sound behind him, and turned around to see two uniformed foxes and one very strangely-dressed fox enter the room. The strangely-dressed fox held a knife. The others carried a baster and a medium sized roasting pan. Percy noticed with alarm that the filing cabinet on the opposite wall was not a filing cabinet at all, but a large oven.

"R U Percy le Gobbly, teh lofolk squab?" the oddly-dressed fox inquired ominously.

"Nope," Percy replied. "Not me at all."

"You're not Percy le Gobelet?" one of the uniformed foxes asked suspiciously.

"Nope," Percy reiterated. "My name is Stanley, and I'm not a squab. I'm an agent."

"Conference," the strangely-dressed fox exclaimed, and the three foxes leaned together into a huddle.



"Wut do we do now?" the oddly-dressed fox whispered. "He sez hes not teh squab."

"He sure looks like a squab," the baster-wielding fox whispered back. "And he matches the description of Percy from the files."

"Ist ve not havink der roasted sqvab after all?" the pan-bearing fox sighed.

"Maybe hes doing that lofolk thing," the strangely-attired fox theorized. "U no, lying."

"Maybe, but how can we find out if he is or not?"

"Ax him sum moar questions?"

"How will that prove anything? He could just keep on giving incorrect answers."

"Zis vas very schneaky of him."

"Yes, if it wasn't depriving us of the main course for the Banquet, I'd say it was almost admirably Vulpitanian. He's a credit to the uniform."

"I vote we tackle him & search him 4 other signs he is teh one."

"I vote ve cook him anyvay. Who ist goink to know der difference?"

The foxes turned around, but Percy was nowhere to be seen.



"Absconded with the files the bird has," Adoyret Sam explained, fingering his beads as he entered the file kitchen. "Of you all, fools he has made. For a Klown not hard this is - but in you other two, disappointed I am."

>Adler-Relda: ... that giraffe girl ... seems to notice what you're doing and gives you a menacing glare.
>Estemere: Be too dull to hear the Elfmind.
(HM King Estmere) Hear a voice on your head.
Sweetcheeks: Believe that the strange face Relda is making means she is falling in love with you
Estmere, hear a garbled, partial elfmind message.

"Look there, at contestant number seven," Vulpsmarshal Sweetcheeks murmured while nudging Estmere slyly. "See the look in her eyes? She is beginning to fall in love with me, Sweetcheeks."

"Dude, are you crazy or sick in the head or what?" Estmere retorted. "That's not a look of love. That's a face you make when you've eaten too many horseradishes and you're feeling totally grody."

"No, believe me, I've seen that look on many a femme's face before," Sweetcheeks insisted.

"I can believe it," Estmere replied drily. "Actually, come to think of it, her expression remids me of a face my little bro used to make when he was trying to do Elfmind. I thought I heard him just a second ago, but there's no way he could be anywhere around here - is there?"

The giraffe femme leaned forward over the partition wall and glared at me.

"What are you doing here, Your Highness?" she thought at me sternly. "Return to your army immediately. Let us handle things here."

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NEARBY



"That's right, young elf," Detective Glenholm Webb stated smugly as he puffed on his pipe. "I suspect that Miss Charmina Chubb is none other than SALV Valerie Kraekenhoepfer herself, traveling incognito."

"She's put on a lot of weight," Lemmy observed skeptically.

"I suspect that may be a glamer or other magickal disguise. Now suppose you tell me about the vixen you've been trailing."

"I, er, don't think I should discuss that any further," Lemmy stammered nervously. "It was a mistake."

>Relda: No time for subtlety.
(Relda Faufox) Pick up your tin with half-eaten "pie."
(Relda Faufox) Throw said pie at the King to get his attention.
(Audience) Cheer madly! THIS is more like it!

At this point I realized I was out of options. The Sisterhood was going to dispose of Estmere according to their own plans. If they weren't going to take him to safety, and if I couldn't get through to him with an Elfmind message .. well then, I was going to have to do something to change the shape of the situation.



I quickly whipped my plate of horseradishes into the air and hurled it directly toward Estmere.

"PIE FIGHT!!!" the crowd bellowed excitedly as the plate seemed to fly in slow motion toward its target.

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IN THE HALL OF ANCESTORS

"It tasteth fine," one Ixie said, after sampling the sugar.

"I can detect no toxins or impurities," another stated, after tapping the sugar vigorously with her antennae.

The third Ixie decended and they began to eat.

>Ixies: Eat the sugar without a second thought

"OHH SHISHTERSH, THAT WAZH WONNERFUL," one of the Ixies declared a few minutes later as the other two hoisted her up between them. "I FEEL WONNERFUL. I LOVE THEE ALL, THOU KNOWESHT THAT?"

"It was quite good," another Ixie agreed as she sucked the last traces of sugar off her fingers. "But thou always overdoest it."

"Aye, thou'st never learned to pace thyself," the third Ixie agreed. "Try to save some for later. Thou'rt going to have one Netherhells of a headache, ere long."

"You have partaken of my sugar," Alice declared behind them. "That means now you are under my employ."