William Jones
Stories
10
Chapters
3,868
Words
2.6 M
Comments
0
Reading
8 d, 21 h
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Billy sighed with relief, and Layla did the same as they crossed the boundary of Hungrytown. "Damn, that woman scares me. It felt like she was watching us all the way to the border." Sitting down on a tombstone to catch her breath, Layla agreed. "She was. Every person in town, even the little brats playing games with Rolly, kept turning to watch us. I don't like that place, coffee, and pie excepted." "Yeah, it's difficult once you ascend to a high tower to come back down to earth. Hopefully, you don't…-
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Whatever Billy and Layla were arguing about became moot as Suzette and Ozzy walked into the kitchen with half of a pecan pie. "Sit and eat, Ozzy, and I can finish drying." The two nobles didn't have to be told twice to abandon the job. Billy looked at the gooey brown pie, took a tentative bite, and then a larger one. "Damn, this looks horrible, but it's pretty good. What's in it?" Suzette tried to remember the recipe, "Sugar, pecans, eggs, butter, a little flour, molasses, more sugar, a little bourbon.…
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The biggest building in Hungry Town was the home of Mama Laveau. It was older than the rest of the shanty town, with a foundation and first two stories of worked stone. Ozzy could just see the original outline if he used his imagination. Expansion after expansion had turned it into something else until the original building was mostly lost inside a shell of added upper stories, wooden balconies, wings to either side, and a wide covered porch on the front. The additions were mostly of wood, much repaired…
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"Who taught the damned ghouls how to backfill?" The tunnel that led to the crypts had been filled with layers of stone and earth. Not a barrier to workers with high STR and the Dig skill, but annoying. The ghouls came out of the ground from small crevices and crypts constantly. It was suspicious that they had filled an exit in. Rolly noticed a lot of boot tracks around the hole. "It's almost as if someone came out here and threatened to wipe them out every night." Layla looked at Billy, who was ignoring…
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"If I'd known some of you would take vacations before returning, I might not have waited for you. Next time you plan on dying, fill out the paperwork first." It had taken all of Billy's willpower to hold off getting his loot from the Gopher War. Suzette had mentioned to Layla that waiting for the dead people to return and doing it together could raise morale before the raid on a crypt full of flesh-eating ghouls. Layla pitched it to Billy as a team-building exercise, and he agreed. It tested his patience…
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Myrna hopped down to the front of the wagon. "Follow this street for half a mile until we get to a statue of silly human riding a wolf. Look for two buildings with green roofs and go down the alley between them. Then take third left turn after first right turn. Find the big building that looks like a circus tent. Myrna needs to go there." Ozzy nodded, not worrying about directions. He was sure she'd repeat them a half dozen times on the way. Traveling through the city with Myrna was like traveling with a…
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From inside the burning building came screams of rage and pain. The assembled butchers and apprentices backed away from the heat. Ozzy strode toward the closed doors, preparing to break in, when one of them pushed open from the inside, and a man with his clothes on fire staggered out. Stavros was badly burned and in pain. Ozzy grabbed him as he went by and pulled all the heat from around his body, instantly extinguishing the flames. Ozzy carried him away from the fire and set him down on the cobblestones.…
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Ozzy raced out the door, trailing smoke and fire in his wake. Several people got large flagons of beer and followed behind his clearly marked trail. Something interesting was going to happen, and they were curious. "Did you get a good look at those axes? I've seen Orc Warlords with smaller cleavers." "I was more interested in the sudden expulsion of exotic mana into the room. I can detect stray bits of both "That wasn't his only one. I used my orb's ability to detect his aspects. It drained my mana dry…
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Ozzy looked around quickly. He didn't see people who were angry or threatening. What he saw were people who were interested in seeing what was going to happen next. He needed to delay, at least until he got to his pie. Doris had just come out of the kitchen, humming some tune he didn't recognize. She ignored everyone and set down a platter with a huge porterhouse steak in front of Ozzy. Next of it, she set not one, but two pies. "You look like an apple pie sort of guy, but I'm not always the best judge of…
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Ozzy had never realized how loud a kobold could snore. As he pulled his wagon through the streets of Wolfsburg, Myrna was wrapped up in a blanket in the wagon bed, using a pile of coins for a pillow. Ozzy wondered how closely related kobolds were to dragons. His mentor in grilling had been delighted in the buckets of coins she had won and didn't seem to care that they were silver and copper. He'd mentioned going by a bank and exchanging them for a smaller stack of gold, and she'd hissed at him while…
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