The Ballad of Adler Young, Canto 2.5

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SpoilerSee it with pictures at https://www.patreon.com/posts/23155115
or https://adleryoung.tumblr.com
But Tumblr is axing all "Adult" content next week. The Ballad is not "adult" but I have already heard anecdotal stories of people's blog posts being misidentified as NSFW by the scrub bots and taken down, only to be put back in the wrong order after appeal. So they might make a complete hash of my archive. Who knows?

Ethel's cool and kinda hot!
wonder if the tone Ethel used was a "By Any Means Necessary" Tone. How do you feel about outright killing someone in cold-blood?
>Adler: If Ethel gives you trouble in your future, maybe you can defend yourself by dancing with her.
Adler: Ethel's wishes must be met, REDRUM! REDRUM! REDRUM!

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With mixed feelings of awe and dismay, I watched Ethel leave. That femme was dangerous! She was devastatingly beautiful, adorably cold-blooded, and her Wiles abilities were beyond compare! If she came back, I was definitely going to have to go on the offensive, just for my own protection. Perhaps if I whisked her off her feet with some elvish dance moves, she would be too overwhelmed to try manipulating me, and then I'd have the upper hand!

But for now, I had to try to parse her wish. When she said she wanted Jerry gone, did she mean .. did she mean for me to kill him? I wasn't sure if I could do that. On one hand, he was just a lowfolk, so it shouldn't be a problem .. but on the other hand, I had never killed anyone before - well, except for an entire city full of innocent elves, but that wasn't on purpose! Nor was that gang of brigands on the road to Athstead .. come to think of it, I guess I was rather deadly after all. Just like a true heir of Irenaeus!

>Lure Jerry into the sewers under Albic Tor and leave him stranded there
>Adler: Whatever you decide to do, you should study your mark to get a build on his personality and habits. You can always scry-spy, as a matter of fact.
>Adler: Maybe you can make Jerry gone by sending him on a quest. Perhaps a treasure hunt. That would make him gone while not getting either of the sisters angry. And you have a scrying tower, so you might be able to find some treasure for him to hunt in the lowfolk world.
>Adler's hair: Demonstrate why elves don't usually braid their hair by re-enacting shampoo commercials. They don't want to deal with the volume.

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But no, I thought as I pulled the braids out of my hair. No, I could not kill Jerry. Not because I cared about him at all, but because of how such an Unseelie action might affect me. I was going to have to find a non-lethal way to get rid of him.

My first idea was to lure him into the Maze of Mirrors in the Albric Tor Underworks, where he would get forever lost and never return. On further reflection I realized that this was basically the same as killing him; I would be abandoning him to die in an underground maze. Also there was the logistical problem of getting him through the Gate which was tuned to reject anything from the lowfolk world - and even if I could do that, how would I get him across the poisoned field, into the city, and into the maze without entering it myself?

For all that, if I could get him into Faerie, it would be far simpler to just shove him out the door and let him breathe a nice lungful of the Plague of Battles. But then, that would be the same as killing him.

Maybe I could send him on some kind of quest, since he seemed like the type who was always chasing after wealth. Hmm, yes, this idea had possibilities, but I would need to identify some sort of treasure for him to find .. or else concoct some way to send him on a wild goose chase without actually lying (because ELVES DO NOT LIE!!) .. and how exactly was I going to communicate with him?

The problem was too complex.

I needed to focus on something simpler and more immediate.

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I walked under the dolmen and pulled the Chanson du Percy out of my Elfintory.

Now then, how could I get this object into Faerie?

I stepped over the threshold of the Gate, and I could feel the book pulled from my hand as I passed through. I stepped back across and looked at the book lying on the floor of the dolmen chamber.

Hmm. Clearly, it was impossible to physically carry a lowfolk object from their side to my side .. but what if ..

I studied the ground carefully and tried my best to memorize the size and location of the book. Then I stepped through the Gate, into the room underneath the scrying tower. I concentrated and visualized the book just as I had seen it a moment ago, then reached out mentally, as if to apport it ..

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EALA! The book materialized in my hand!! I did it!