The Ballad of Adler Young, Canto 2.5

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>Typantronn: It seems to go right over your head that Adler taking all your winnings is meant to be a punishment. Offer up all the food you have to Adler with pride.
>Adler: Look down at the bag of crawling, pulsating bugs. Well, dig in.

"Here is my stash, Sire," Typantronn said, handing me a surprisingly large bag.

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"Behold the best grub the forest has to offer," she exclaimed as I opened the bag and stared down into a writhing mass of aphids, earwigs, caterpillars, and literal grubs.

"Be not shy, Sire," Typantronn continued, noticing my hesitation. "Dig in! Eat hearty! What's mine is thine, and there's plenty more where that came from!"

"I'm, er, not accustomed to eating such things raw," I murmured truthfully. "I don't suppose you have a cook-pot?"

"Alas, no."

>While you're stuck here you can alway work on your grammayre.

I pondered for a moment and tried to visualize the interior of the Royal Kitchen. There were cabinets along one wall, and inside those cabinets some pots ... I imagined a stew cauldron ... I pinpointed its location ... I grasped it with my mind and willed it to be here before me .. I whispered an appropriate phrase of Gramarye ...

And I was looking at a medium-sized stock pot. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it would do!

Typantronn: It may be a good idea to gather up more delicious grubs for your Lord Randall, he looks famished.
>I mean you could try turning this sack of worm into something slightly less terrible to eat, like rice or fruits.
>Or work on your stew making. I bet even insects and mud could be made in a decent stew if you could just have a couple bay leaves...

"Impressive work, Sire," Typantronn observed approvingly. "But that is a large pot, and thou lookest hungry. I shall fetch more tasty bugs for thee!"

"Wait," I interrupted. "What I need more than that is some herbs, some starchy roots and leafy greens. And some water. Can you find those?"

"Yuck," Typantronn grimaced. "Truly there is no accounting for taste. But if thou desirest to ruin thy bug repast by making a complete hash of it, then I shall comply forthwith!"

I apported sticks from the forest as Typantronn flew back and forth with cups of water which she dumped into the pot, and various possible ingredients which she laid on the ground beside me.

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After constructing a cook fire, I set the pot on top of it and began to work on my stew. As I stirred it, I thought over the current situation.

Adler: You where hoping that Lady Hawke with the hooks for hands would maybe killed Jerry but it would seem they have joined forces and become stronger.
> Hmph souds like the intolerant rabits could be a great way to get rid of the crazy cult or the other way around. Kill two birds with one stone.
>(... Okay so the last time you tried using an ennemy against another, the results were... mixed, but hey it did work in getting the duchess out of there so there was something to it.)
>Maybe you could try elfminding your former minions, Ethel and Percy. It's been while for them buthey, maybe see if you can't trade a couple favors.
>Actualy when you turned this mercenary in a little girl, you effectively gave hi..her asecond lease on life.. you wonder would lowfolks be into it what with htis silly thing they do of getting 'old' and dying form it ?

Apparently Lady Hawke had neither killed nor restrained Terry, but had instead joined forces with him. Her wealth and his madness would make a dangerous combination!

I needed to know more about the rabbits before I could devise a strategy against them. My plans could change after the Ixies came back with detailed information, but I began considering the possibility of turning the rabbits against the shoe cult, and vice-versa. I had already had pretty good results pitting my enemies against each other .. admittedly I still was surrounded by a hostile forest, but at least the Duchess of Daisies had been forced to leave the island I was living on. That cut the number of threats in half, which is what I'd call success!

I wondered, with a pang of bitterness, what Ethel and PJ were doing. What if they'd figured out a way to have children? They would have churned out a whole brood by now. I shuddered at the thought, and felt genuine relief that I wouldn't be able to check on them until after I had returned to the scrying tower. I bet Ethel was old by now. That's what lowfolk did; they got old, and then before you knew it they died.

Hmm, this made me think of Oak. When I turned her into a little girl, had I re-started her lifespan from a younger point? Would she now live a full .. what, eighty years .. plus however old she'd been before I transmogrified her? If that was the case, this could be a boon to offer my followers. Lowfolk in the stories were always desperate to prolong their pitifully short lives - and who could blame them?

>Angela: Start using some of the advanced wiles techniques you were taught as as spy. No malicious purposes, he won the contest with Sam, so that means he wins your heart. He's head over heels for you, he just doesn't it know it yet.
>Adler: You know, Angela's grotesque deformities actually make her look kinda cute.

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"LOL wut's cookin, hotstuff?" Angela giggled, interrupting my reverie with an embarrassingly obvious Wile.

I glanced over to reprimand her for not helping Typantronn bring supplies, but as I looked at her I noticed that she was actually kind of cute, in a bizarre and unnatural way.

So instead I decided to give her a taste of her own medicine, and fired back with some Wiles of my own.

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"Hey doll," I purred. "Why don't you fetch me a couple of mushrooms?"

"EEEEEEEE!!!1!!" she squealed.