Slayers: The Enchanted Circlet
“So, let me get this straight,” Gourry said, mournfully
upending a sack and shaking out meager crumbs. “We have no food.”
“Mmmhmm,” Lina said grumpily, trying to ignore him and her
gnawing hunger as she laid under a tree, half-dozing.
“And we also have no money,” Gourry said next, tossing
aside the empty sack and plopping onto the ground, sighing.
“Nope,” Amelia replied. “We spent the last of it on that
meal at the last inn we visited.” She kicked a rock and sighed. “Miss
Lina ate
the entire thing all by herself.”
“So what? I’m the most important member of this group and
that means I get the first call on any grub we find.”
“That’s not fair, Miss Lina!” Amelia complained. “You’ve
eaten the last three meals all by yourself! Mr. Gourry and I have been
forced
to eat – “ Amelia’s sentence was cut off as Gourry clapped a hand over
her
mouth.
“Now Amelia, what have I told you about saying things like
that?”
“Been forced to eat what?”
Lina asked dryly, glaring at the both of them. “Have you been holding
out on
me?”
“No, no! You’ve got it all wrong, Lina – ACK!”
“You’re hiding food from me! Tell me where it is! Tell me
tell me tell me!!!” Lina shouted, shaking and hitting Gourry.
“Miss Lina, please stop! All this fighting isn’t going to
help us find any food!” Amelia unsuccessfully joined the brawl in an
attempt to
pull the combatants apart.
“I knew it! I knew you’d been hiding food from me! Out with
it, where have you put it? Is it roast turkey or some beef stew
or…or…or…!
Waaah!” Lina stopped shaking Gourry and instead plopped down in the
dirt path,
whining. “I’m soooooo hungry. I’ve barely eaten in days.”
“Gee… I feel bad for Miss Lina,” Amelia said to Gourry some
distance away. “She’s taking this really bad. I wonder how hungry she
really
is?” The predictable roar from Lina’s stomach answered that question,
followed
by Lina’s glare.
Just some distance away, yet another band of bounty
hunters, heroes, and the like had gathered to try and capture the evil
Lina
Inverse and Gourry Gabriev to obtain the 500,000 gold piece bounty on
each of
their heads. Unlike the other groups, though, this particular group was
at
least putting some thought into their plans. After following the three
of them
for the past two days and seeing the unfortunate charred would-be
heroes
littering the trail, it had seemed wise to them to be cautious in their
attack.
“The first phase is complete,” one of them said to the
titular leader. “We’ve managed to buy up, hide, or carry off any food
for a mile
around them as they’ve traveled. There’s no doubt that they must be
starving by
now.”
“I heard the witch’s stomach from here,” another lookout
said. “Trust me, they’ll be fighting for scraps at this point.”
“Perfect,” the leader said, turning to another member of
his group. “Now. What about the next part of the plan?”
“Well, um…” she stammered.
“What’s wrong? Spit it out!”
“We went to the cave like that strange wizard told us to,”
she went on, recounting an event a few days past in which a strange
hooded
sorcerer had clued them in on a special way to capture the fugitives.
“And we
found those ancient relics that he said would be there, but…”
“But what? Don’t tell me you lost them or something!” the
boss snarled.
“N-no! We were very careful with them,” the woman said
quickly. “But what we found when we discovered the artifacts was that
one of
them had already been broken. We only have one of them, not two.”
“Hmm… that means we’ll only be able to disable one of the
sorceresses,” the leader mused, thinking. “It’s a minor inconvenience,
but no
more. To be truthful, I didn’t think we’d have any trouble with that
little
girl. She’s too clumsy to be of much trouble. It’s the evil Lina
Inverse that
we need to be careful of. Now…” He turned back to the woman who had
retrieved
the old and worn-looking circlet. “What exactly is this supposed to do?”
“It’s an artifact that can render female sorceresses
helpless without actually hurting – “
“I know that, but
how does it accomplish that fact? Perhaps you’d be willing to run a
quick
experiment for us?”
The woman looked around at the other members of the group
and read their faces. She was being punished for failing to retrieve
both of
the circlets, and she knew it. There would be no sympathy for her.
Taking a deep
breath, and with trembling hands, she fastened the circlet around her
forehead.
The boss smiled slightly.
“Now, try and cast a spell.”
“Sooooo hungry…” Lina whined, hobbling down the dirt path
with the help of a stick and keeping up a constant stream of
complaints. “I’m
going to starve to death soon if I don’t get something to eat!”
“Lina, you’re only wasting your strength by complaining
about it. If you just be quiet and walk, we’ll get to the next town
that much
faster.”
“But what are we going to do, Mr. Gourry?” Amelia asked.
“We have no money either. We can’t afford to buy food and we don’t have
any of
our own. You’re not saying that we should… steal food, are you? Heroes
of
justice would never break the – “
“Put a sock in it already!” Lina said. “Look at it this
way. We can’t continue to uphold justice and all that if we’re all DEAD
OF
STARVATION!” Lina growled. “Now keep looking for food.”
Gourry had stopped walking at Lina’s shout, and for a
moment it was quiet. “Hey, do you two hear something? Listen… I’m
pretty sure I
can hear a woman laughing.”
“You’re just hallucinating,” Lina grumped, whapping Gourry
with her stick as she tromped by. “Quit being stupid and help me look
for – “
Lina went quiet, sniffing the air. “Hey!!! Do you guys smell that too?”
“Smells like…” Amelia took a few more sniffs. “I don’t know
what it smells like, but whatever it is, it smells GOOD!”
“Food!!!” Lina shouted, abandoning her walking stick and
charging off into the woods in the direction of the smell. The others
were
right behind her, eagerly babbling and trying to guess what kind of
treat
awaited them, of course not giving a thought to who might be the owner
of the
food. Not even Amelia raised a protest about the assumed heist of what
they
decided was roast quail.
Bursting out into a small clearing with an equally small
cookfire, they indeed found a small quail on a spit roasting.
Strangely, there
was no tent, or anything to indicate that someone might be camping
there, just
the fire and the food, and that was really all they cared about at the
moment.
“Hey! Gimme some, Lina! That’s not fair! We should share
that!”
“Oh, you two can have what’s left after I’m done,” Lina
said, reaching the meat first and holding it out of the reach of the
others.
“But Miss Lina, all that will be left are bones! Mr. Gourry
and I will starve!”
“You two have that stash of food you’ve been holding out on
me with. You’ll survive.” With that, Lina took a big bite of the roast
bird as
Gourry and Amelia looked on in dismay.
“Mmm… it’s so good… hey!!!” Lina protested as Gourry
quickly snatched it from her and stuffed his mouth with three quick
bites.
Gourry in turn lost the quail to Amelia, who got a few bites in before
Lina
snatched it back for good and vacuumed up the remaining bit of meat.
“Ahh… that was delicious!” Gourry proclaimed, tears of joy
streaming down his face. “The most wonderful meal I have ever eaten!”
“Yeah!” Amelia said, stifling a big yawn as she did so.
“But it made me really sleepy. I think I’ll just lie down and have a
nap for a
while…”
“Don’t be silly, we can’t sleep… now…” Lina’s protest
trailed off as she slumped back against a tree, eyes closed and snoring
loudly.
Gourry, true to form, hadn’t even said a word and had just slumped over
face-first into the ground, snoring away.
“Ooh, that was such a nice rest,” Lina yawned, stretching
as she woke up some time later. Blinking herself awake, she luxuriantly
stretched her limbs out, working off the sleep-induced heaviness that
was
keeping her legs from moving – “Hey!” Lina cried, eyes snapping open
and
becoming instantly alert.
She found herself tied loosely to a log, ropes looped
around her legs securing her in a sitting position with legs stretched
out, but
strangely without any restraints on her upper body. All around her were
more of
those idiots who had come to try and claim the bounty on her head, the
so-called heroes and bounty hunters that were flocking from around the
land to
try and defeat the evil Lina Inverse. They’d managed to capture her,
probably with
a drugged quail… they were clever enough to exploit that, but
apparently less
clever than they would have liked to be. Her sword was gone, but… [i]These morons don’t know I’m a sorceress,[/i]
Lina thought with some satisfaction. A quick spell would scatter them
and allow
her to work herself free at her leisure.
“Awake yet, Lina Inverse?” the boss asked her with a sneer
on his face. “Good, right on schedule. Soon enough we’ll collect that
500,000
gold piece reward for your capture, so you just sit there and don’t
move, okay,
little girl?” There were rough, derisive chuckles from the assorted men
and
women in the small band.
“Little girl?!” Lina snarled, a vein throbbing in her
forehead to let everyone know that the leader had hit one of her sore
spots. “I’ll
show you a little – “
“Now before you go about casting spells, why don’t you take
a look at the little circlet on your head, girl?” the boss said,
cutting her
off. “And take a look at your pals.” He gestured to Gourry, who was
looking
miserable, although he had a right to be, currently hung upside down
from a
tree limb and wrapped liberally from head to toe in rope. A woman with
a sly
smirk on her face and a scimitar in her hand stood just beside him.
“Make any
trouble, and your pals will be the ones to pay for it.”
“You jerk! How dare you do this to us!” Lina searched her
own bonds with her strangely free hands, looking for a knot or some
other weak
spot in the rope that she could exploit. The leader grabbed her hand
roughly,
smirking.
“Don’t think that you can get away just because you’re not
completely tied up,” he said. “And I told you not to make trouble.” To
a pair
of his followers out of sight in the brush, he said, “All right, give
her
another treatment.”
This statement was followed by two snickering voices and a
loud wail from Amelia. Immediately a struggle commenced, with the two
men
yelling at each other and Amelia shouting at them, trying to cast
spells. “Stop
it!!” Lina screamed, struggling more. “What are you doing? Don’t touch
her or I’ll
kill yo – huh?”
Amelia’s loud yells had changed to something more like
frenzied laughter. “NAhahhAHAHHAhAhAHAHAheheheh no no please mister
don’t do
thahahahaahahaat!!! Oh ohheheheheheheahahahahah no not there! Don’t
touch my
feeeeheheheeheheheheheeet!! AhAHAHahAAHAHAHah stoppit noooooo please
pleheheheheheheze save me Miss Liiihihihihihihihihhiiiiina!!!”
Lina’s anger had quickly been replaced with confusion. “Ah…
uh… what the hell is going on here?” she demanded of the leader, and
also
remembering the circlet that they’d put on her head, wondering what it
would
do, and trying to think of a way out of the situation.
“It’s quite simple, really, almost too simple if you think
about it,” the boss said rather dramatically. “You’re a sorceress, so
you know that
to cast a spell, you need several seconds of concentration, correct?”
“Yeah, so – oh, is that what this is?” Lina smirked,
remembering her visit to Seyruun and the scuffle with Zangulus and
Vrumugun
(Author’s Note: I was too lazy to look up the proper spelling) there.
When
captured, her captors had placed on her a circlet that shocked her
whenever she
tried to cast magic. Clearly, these hoodlums had left her arms free so
she
could try to cast something and then snicker at her misfortune when she
got zapped.
Wouldn’t they be surprised when they found out she could maintain her
concentration even through the pain of being shocked…
“Not quite what you think. You see, we realized that most
spellcasters train to be able to cast a spell even while being attacked
or
while in pain. Therefore simply shocking you or something to that
effect isn’t
going to keep you there. No, what we needed was a way to disrupt your
concentration more effectively – and we’ve obtained an ancient artifact
designed for keeping female spellcasters where they’re put.” He grinned
at
Lina. “Go on. Try to use a fireball or even cast the Dragon Slave.”
Provoked by his remark, Lina began to channel her magic for
a fireball into her hands – and as she did so, felt something strange
occur in
her body. It felt like invisible fingers were poking her sides, and it
was a
most… most… Lina couldn’t even concentrate enough to think of a word
for how it
felt, and this realization also brought her spell to an abrupt halt.
Apparently the group had known what to expect from this and
burst into derisive laughter. Gourry, still hanging upside down, asked
mournfully: “What happened, Lina? I’ve seen you cast spells even while
being
beaten silly… or wait, is it that time of the month again – “ A rock
somehow
managed to strike him on the head. (Author’s Note: For those of you who
haven’t
seen Slayers, yes, they DO talk about this.)
“Shaddap!” Lina hissed, glaring at the laughing bounty
hunters and “heroes”. “Why you – just you wait…!” Lina again started to
cast a
Fireball spell, this time determined not to lose her concentration. And
that
strange sensation came back, fingers poking and wiggling against her
sides and
ribs, a feeling that actually – [i]Oh no![/i]
Lina realized suddenly what was going on here, and burst into a minor
explosion
of giggles. “That tickles!” she cried reflexively, hugging her arms to
her
sides in a vain attempt to ward off her invisible tormentors.
“You get it now?” the sorceress who’d been forced to test
the circlet sneered. “There’s no way you can concentrate enough to cast
a
spell, and the more you try, the worse it tickles!”
[i]She’s right,[/i]
Lina mused to herself. “I guess having one of the most beautiful and
luxuriant
bodies on the continent must have some drawbacks.” This statement
caused the
laughter to cease and dead silence to reign for a moment while everyone
present
sweatdropped.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lina,” Gourry groaned. “Honestly, who
could think that an underdeveloped girl like you – “ Another
mysteriously
launched rock managed to strike him on the other side of the head,
causing two
matching bumps to rise.
“I’ll show you underdeveloped!” Lina snarled, unthinkingly
preparing another spell to blast Gourry with – and breaking off into a
flood of
laughter as she felt fingers skitter up and down her sides, all over
her upper
body, tickling her all over. Even after she stopped trying to cast a
spell, she
still felt tickling sensations on her bare feet, going up and down and
up and
down her fair, beautiful soles… Not until she opened her eyes,
shrieking with
giggles, did she realize that some of the gang had pulled her boots off
and
were tickling her feet themselves.
“What are ya gonna do, little girl?” one sneered. “Cast a
spell on me? C’mon, I dare you! Hit me as hard as you can!” he
chuckled,
tracing a finger up and down her arch.
Lina’s ego, which was a little too big for her own good,
rose to the bait again and she gritted her teeth through the giggles,
yelling,
“I’ll make you eat those words, you jerk – AHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAH!!!”
The
magic-induced tickling took place again, tickling now under her arms
and on her
ribs too, seemingly getting worse each time she tried to defy it.
About that time, the two men who were charged with keeping
Amelia under control decided that it would be fun to join in the
festivities,
and with Amelia sitting on a rock with her arms tied overhead to a tree
branch
and her ankles tied together and held in the crook of one of the men’s
arms,
they had an equally helpless target to devote their attentions to. The
one
holding her legs chuckled. “Kitchy-koo, little girl! Tickle tickle!” he
teased,
skittering his five fingers lightly on her feet, causing a girlish
giggle to
come from Amelia’s mouth.
“Oh noooohohohoho please! Don’t do thahahahahahahahahahahhat
don’t tickle plehehehehehehehehze no!!!” she cried, tossing her head
back and
forth while giggling madly. “Oh Mr. Gourry!!! Miss Liihihihihina!!
Pleheheheheheheheheeeeze save me!!!”
“No one’s gonna save you,” sneered the other man, who
stepped behind her so he could have a shot at her underarms and sides,
nicely
exposed from the way she was tied up, and finding that Amelia wiggled
quite a
lot when she was tickled even the slightest bit. Her upper body
wriggled and
tried to bend away from his hands, giggling all the while from the
tickling on
her feet, and trying to ignore the derisive teasing from her two
tormentors.
“Nahahahaheheheeheheh no no NOOHOOHOHOHOHOAHAHAHHAHEAHE!!!
AHHAah AHAHheEH EHAH HA oh stop stoppit
AHHAhaHheehehHAHAHAHAHEAEHehheehehAHAHaha!!!”
“Ooh! I think I found a good spot!” one of the proclaimed,
drilling his fingers under her arms again and getting the same result
as
before. “Damn, this is the best technique for fighting sorceresses
ever! I
could fight ‘em all day like this! Couldn’t you?”
“You bet!” And they both laughed and continued to make
Amelia do the same.
Gourry meanwhile was peacefully swaying back and forth from
his tree branch, being rather unable to do anything but filing away the
effectiveness that tickling Lina seemed to have for future
disagreements and
arguments. Lina was in a pretty pickle herself, because when she
started to
cast a spell to blast all these jeering jerks it tickled all over her
upper
body, worse and worse each time, and when she stopped they’d start
making fun
of her again and tickling her sometimes on her feet.
The cacophony of laughter in that small clearing of forest
was incredibly loud, and Gourry wondered why no one had heard it and at
least
come to take a look out of curiosity. About that time he figured that
trying to
find a way out of this predicament might be a good idea, since he had
no desire
to be turned in to someone for a large bounty. His Sword of Light was
gone,
unreachable by far, along with Lina’s sword, but…
Lina was meanwhile desperately trying to think of an idea
for escape, since she had realized these goons weren’t happy unless she
was
laughing herself silly, whether that meant they had to do it or she
inflicted
it upon herself, at this rate she was simply going to overload and lose
her
mind or something like that… With startling suddenness the idea hit
her.
“Thahahahahahhat’s it! I’m gonna gehehehehehhehet you all!” she
laughed, as
their fingers descended upon her feet once more, she began to cast
another
spell.
The tickling hit her with doubled intensity now. There were
spectral fingers and hands all over her body, driving her mad with
laughter,
but she held the magical energy even though it did nothing for her but
make the
circlet go off and tickle her worse. Lina abandoned the notion that
she’d be
able to look dignified doing this and just laughed her head off,
twisting her
upper body and head around and pounding the log with her fists in
ticklish
helplessness, but she still didn’t release the magic, triggering the
mechanism
on her forehead over and over again, sending waves of tickling through
her
body.
“AhAHAH AHAHha AHEhehAHAHAHA hAHAAH
ahehehAEHEHEAaheheeheheha ahAHA AAaAAHahaHAh!!! AHHAAHAHEhahEHAhe
AhhaHAHA I’ll
get you ahahHAHHE eheh just… you wait!!!
AHhaAHAHHEhehehEHehEHEHeHEHEHEHEHEHAHHAHAH!!!!”
“You’re not in much of a condition to do much of anything,”
the boss sneered, enjoying the show with the rest of his gang.
“Lina! What are you doing?!” Gourry cried, wriggling back
and forth in an attempt to snap the tree branch. “You’re not going to
be able
to cast a spell like that! Stop it!”
“Hey, boss!” one of the men cried in dismay, pointing at
the worn circlet that adorned Lina’s forehead.
“Oh crap!” he yelled, seeing what his men saw, that the
circlet had an unstable-looking magic aura around it, and it seemed to
be
disintegrating before their very eyes. “She’s overloading it! It’s
going to
break!”
[i]Yes![/i] Lina
thought in triumph. [i]As I thought, this
thing is so old that it can barely work anymore…[/i] In that
moment, the
circlet shattered, and Lina felt the tickling sensation vanish from her
body.
“Quickly, you fools!” the boss screamed. “Get her before she – “
“[i]Fireball![/i]”
Lina yelled, launching her trademark spell at the clustered men and
women
around her, scattering them with a massive explosion. “Ha…ha…ha!” she
panted.
“Don’t think… that something so stupid… as tickling… can stop the
mighty… Lina
Inverse! Ha ha ha ha!”
“That’s nice, Lina, could you get me down now?” Gourry
asked, wincing. “I have a huge headache from hanging upside down for so
long.”
“A head like yours should ache,” Lina shot back as she used
a quick burst of magic to burn her ropes off. “Hey, weren’t there two
others –
“ The sound of Amelia’s girlish laughter caught her ears.
These two, apparently so caught up in their fun, hadn’t
noticed the explosion that had carried off their cohorts. So when Lina
and
Gourry crashed their party, their faces went pasty white. “Uh… uh… bye!”
“Hold it!” Gourry demanded, grabbing the nearest one by his
shirt collar and holding him. “I want to know something from you… how
did you
know where to find us, and how to use a food trap against us? You
wouldn’t know
that if you were just another one of those wandering bands out to get
the reward
for us…”
“D-don’t hurt me! I’ll tell you!” he squeaked. “It was when
we decided to seek the reward for Gourry Gabriev, some woman said that
she knew
how to get some inside information…” He commenced with the story he had
heard.
(Author’s Note: This is a cheap segment of the story meant
to work in all the main female members of the first season. So sue me.)
Late one night in Sairaag, a certain quiet, shy,
long-haired girl had blown out her candles and clad in her nightgown,
had gone
to bed. Not long after she had fallen asleep, another woman, clad all
in black
gear, had slipped into her room by way of the window. She landed
quietly,
taking a thorough look around for anything that resembled an
anti-intruder
defense or a trap… Seeing nothing, she silently padded to the room’s
door,
making sure that it was locked. With her preliminary check done, she
returned
her attentions to the sleeping girl, and with quick, practiced motions,
used
something resembling a soft, silky, yet strong rope to bind the
sleeping girl’s
ankles and wrists to the posts of her bed.
This of course awakened her, though as she was not the
quickest of minds, it took her several seconds to come to, and by that
time,
the intruder had already placed a cloth-covered hand over her mouth.
“Stay quiet,
girl, and you won’t get hurt,” she said quietly. “Scream and it’s all
over for
you, got that, Sylphiel?”
Sylphiel (Author’s Note: You did see this coming, right?)
nodded, eyes wide open in shock and not a little bit of fear. “A-all
right…”
she said softly.
“Now, I know that you know Gourry Gabriev fairly well,” she
said, reaching into her tunic and withdrawing two dark objects that
Sylphiel
couldn’t see in the darkness. “I’d like to know where he was or where
he is
going.”
“I… I don’t know,” Sylphiel said hesitantly. “He didn’t
tell me anything.”
“Come on, do you expect me to believe that he left without
even telling anyone where he was headed?” the woman asked, brandishing
those
familiar but still obscure objects in her hands. Sylphiel let out a
little
gasp. Were they… knives? “Surely you must know something about where he
was
going.”
“N-no, Gourry dear didn’t tell me anything about where he
was g-g-going eheheheheheehheeh!!! Ahahhaahahahahahahahahah stop that
tickles!”
Syphiel protested squeakily, feeling something soft yet stiff brush
against her
sole. “HEeheeheheeehehahahah!!” She tried to wiggle her foot away but
it was
bound to the post of the bed.
“Ah ah,” the woman teased, “stay quiet, or you’ll be in
trouble… Now, if you just tell me where ‘Gourry dear’ went, I’ll stop
and leave
you alone and never bother you again.”
“B-b-buuhuuuhuhuhut I don’t know…! No,
pleheheheheheheheeze!” Sylphiel cried as the feathers swept up and down
both of
her arches. “Stahahahahahahahaap! Nooohohohohohho pleehheheheheheeze it
tickles!!! I don’t knoooooooow!”
“Tsk, tsk, I told you to be quiet!” the woman teased again,
drawing a strip of dark cloth from within her sash and tying it over
Sylphiel’s
mouth. “Now I’ll let you think about it for a few minutes before I ask
again,
okay?” With that, she proceeded to tickle all over Sylphiel’s feet with
her
dark, stiff feathers.
A muffled cacophony was going on beneath the gag.
Sylphiel’s head tossed back and forth, the cloth wrapped around her
face
stifling the full volume of her laughter as her soft, sensitive feet
were
tickled gently and precisely by the woman in the ninja suit at the foot
of the
bed. She waited for a few minutes, chuckling at the girl’s attempts to
get free
without making too much noise, and then removed the gag from her and
asked,
“Now, are you going to tell me where Gourry is?”
“I don’t know!” Sylphiel burst out, almost in panic.
“Gourry only said that he was going to go adventuring, and that was
all! He
didn’t even say where he was going to go!” Sylphiel squeezed her eyes
shut,
knowing that wasn’t going to satisfy her strange assailant.
But it had seemed to placate her, amazingly enough. “Going
adventuring…? Well, that at least gives me a place to start… You see,
Sylphiel,
there are a couple of well-known places where adventurers stop by. Now
I can
make inquiries with my contacts there to see if they’ve seen anything
of
Gourry.”
“Wh-what do you want with him?” Sylphiel asked, afraid that
she might have betrayed him to a terrible fate.
“Nothing that concerns you, my dear,” the woman said,
loosening the knots on her silken ropes enough so that given a few
minutes’
time, Sylphiel could work herself free. “In fact, neither I nor anyone
I’m
associated with will ever bother you again. Pleasant dreams,” she said
with a
chuckle, swinging out the door…
“…and that’s how we found out where yous was goin’,” the
bounty hunter concluded, swallowing past a very dry throat as he
watched
Gourry’s expression remain neutral through the whole story.
“What [i]is[/i] it
with you guys and tickling, anyway?” Lina asked. The bandit froze. But
it was
just an idle question from the sorceress. “Ah, whatever. Gourry, show
him the
road. Consider yourself lucky not to be fried,” she said, blowing a
mock kiss
to him. “And don’t try following us again. Otherwise you’re not going
to enjoy
the results.” Nodding frantically, the bounty hunter scrambled off down
the
road.
“That was definitely one of our weirder adventures,” Lina
said as they set off towards Sairaag again. “Well, at least we got a
meal out
of all that. Come on, let’s get going.”
“Sure. Say, Lina, I didn’t know that you were ticklish,”
Gourry mused.
“Only if you want broken fingers, Gourry.”
That bounty hunter ran down the road until he came upon the
town in which his band had just been in. Perhaps they’d all missed the
huge
bounty on the two fugitives’ heads. But like a true bounty hunter, he
had
planned for what he would do in case of failure. In this case, it was a
special
assignment from the very same person who had dropped the hint about the
ancient
artifact to them.
He entered a dark, unused building on the edge of town.
Inside, it was very dark, because all the windows were boarded up and
only a
few rays of light made it inside from the cracks in the structure.
Withdrawing
some sort of strange magic device – he was a bounty hunter, quick,
agile and
good at fighting, not with magic devices – he followed the instructions
he had
been given and walked into the darkness. “I did as you said,” he called
out to
the darkness. “I-I have here what you want.”
An indistinct figure glided out of the darkness to take the
device.