Cain, Isaac, and Mundo staggered out of the bar, laughing, singing, their arms on each other’s shoulders, except for Cain who was too short to reach anything but their legs. So he put his arms around those instead.
“I love you guys!” he hiccupped. “We gotta get drunk like this more often.”
Isaac laughed. “Yeah, but next time, let’s do it with girls.”
“Deal.”
That’s when they bumped into Kendira’s unconscious body. They stared up at her tightly-shut eyes and then over where the rest of their friends—Siarra, Kim, Malkav, Eric, Vic, Quentin (who wasn’t really any of their friends), Adam, and Grandpa—lay just as pale, just as bloody, just as motionless. The drunkenness slowly began to fade.
“Shit…” Mundo said. “Every time you go AFK, I swear.”
“Want to pick their pockets?” Isaac grinned.
“I think only Rogues get the Pick Pocket skill....”
But that didn’t stop Isaac from reaching into Kendira’s robe and wheeling out a gold coin about half his size.
“Get us a damn Cleric!” somebody screamed. It was Malkav, who still lay squashed on the cobblestone path, still listening to Grandpa’s rambling stories, still trying to kill himself in hopes that he would really be dead.
“Can’t you just return to your binding point?” Mundo asked.
“I’ve been screaming ‘RETURN!’ for the last fifteen minutes! It’s not working!”
Cain rubbed his ale-soaked beard. “Come to think of it, it wasn’t working for me before either…”
Mundo stared at him. “You died? …In the Abbey? How the hell does somebody die in a newb town? You can’t even duel in the city. You’d have to, like, drown yourself in somebody’s garden.”
“Well, they all managed to die.”
“Yeah, what the hell happened to you guys?” Mundo asked Malkav.
“Long story. Longer than the old this geezer is telling me. Now hurry up and find a damn Cleric before I make like Van Gogh and cut my ears off!”
Isaac rolled another coin out of Kendira’s robe. “The hell is a ‘Cleric’?”
“It’s like a Priest, without the little boy touching.”
“Where are we going to find one of those?”
“Cain,” Malkav said. “You said you died and couldn’t revive yourself too?”
“Yeah…”
“So you got a Cleric to rez you?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, where is she now?”
“…Wouldn’t you rather have a Priest?”
“We don’t have time for that!”
“…How about a Paladin? I know a Paladin who lives just on the other end of the sea. I can be there and back in two days.”
“Cain, just go get the Cleric. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Cain muttered a number of curses under his ale-stained breath and then dragged his stubby dwarf legs up the cobblestone path towards the Temple of Life, where the Clerics and Priests resided. A light rain followed him from the still dark skies.
“What’s his problem?” Isaac asked.
Mundo helped Isaac stack the coins he was filching. “Are you kidding? Knowing Cain, he probably made some stupid comment to the Cleric about trying to get her into bed.”
“So?”
“Clerics are disciples of Dai Celesta, goddess of chastity and purity. They wouldn’t so much as be seen in public with their arms exposed, let alone listen to sexual offerings from a midget with a beard.”
“Ah, shut down.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if she rezzed Cain, killed him, and rezzed him again.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this ‘Cleric’ turned out to be an old hag or a nun…”
“With Cain, you never know.”
Cain soon appeared from the Temple of Life, followed by a young girl in a petal pink robe that, sure enough, reached her wrists as well as her ankles and neckline. It had a small hood too, but she had that pulled down, exposing her whitish-blonde that was rolled into a bun with braided strands falling down her back from the bun like wiry legs from a spider. The strands bounced as she walked, some distance behind Cain, paying no mind to the sprinkling rain that doused her robin face. She couldn’t have been older then eighteen, even in her mature attire, with puddles for eyes and soundless, almost hovering, footsteps.
“Damn,” Isaac said, dropping the coin in his hands. “Yo, she can touch me any time.”
Mundo shook his head. “Cleric, holy light, divine providence, belts of chastity—what don’t you get?”
“She’ll want me.”
“Dude, don’t you already have a girlfriend?”
Isaac looked over to Kim, sprawled out in the bloody fountain with a fish jumping over her head, and shrugged. “What the girl doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“Be glad she didn’t hear that.”
“Hey, you have your fantasies and I have mine.”
“Here,” Cain muttered, coming to a halt in front of the group. “I brought your precious Cleric.”
The girl in the pink robe waved. “Hi there, I heard there was a group of travelers in need of resurrection.”
“Yeah,” Mundo said.
The two of them stared at each other for a minute.
The Cleric was the first to break the awkward silence. “…Well, where are they?”
“Uh, right in front of you… All around, on the ground, in bloody piles—are you blind?”
“Oh, right!” the girl said, slapping her forehead. “I always forget to look down. Silly me!”
Mundo and Isaac glanced at each other.
“Well, I didn’t say she had to be smart,” Isaac said.
Giantess World
