Chapter Seventy-Seven

Your wait for the big Lord guy of the Inquisition is long and boring and you’re beginning to think that maybe being polite isn’t the best thing ever. After all, the crumpets they had were only okay, and the tea was in a tin instead of those little bite-sized baggies you had at Daphne’s place.

The room is nice enough though, all dark red woods, with a bunch of paintings hanging on the walls of landscapes and gardens and such. There’s a big table that takes up a chunk of the room. It’s got more square tentacles than Abigail’s room before you improved it.

You’re trying to think up a polite way to go tell the Inquisition to hurry it up, when the door at the far end of the room opens up and a bunch of people slip in. They form a long line at their end of the room.

Most of them are dressed entirely in white, with strange blindfolds on and little sticks in their hands, but their hats are little more then headwraps, so they can’t be that important.

The people following them in, though, do look important. One is a big old guy, tall and broad shouldered. You know right away that he’s the big boss. He’s so important that there’s a skinny guy next to him carrying his hat.

Crazy.

Also, you want that hat. It’s got feathers, little chains, a poof, and a big golden medallion at the front. You could change the medallion to have a picture of Abigail on it!

The other guy is dressed in a long coat and has a sword by his hip. You can’t quite remember where, but you’re pretty sure you saw him before.

And finally there’s a skinny woman that looks a few years older than Abigail. She has classes too, and is wearing white robes and a very pointy bucket-hat.

The important one stands tall at the opposite end of the table as you, across from all the tea tins that you emptied out of the cabinet in the corner. “I am Lord Shooksword of the Inquisition for the protection of humanity. I have been told that you wanted to speak with me.”

You nod, then remember that you’re supposed to be polite. “Yes. I am Dreamer. And I did want to talk to you,” you say.

“You barged in here, disabled the exterior guard and did... unspeakable things to those who tried to apprehend you,” he says.

You wait for him to continue, then you wait some more. “Yes,” you say at last.

“Is there any reason I shouldn't just try to get rid of you?” he asks.

You nod at this. “Yes. Because you won’t even if you tried. It was be a big waste of time. Time I could be spending with Abigail.”

“Abigail Normal?” he asks.

Oh, right! You realize that you forgot to tack on your new name after your shorter name. That was quite silly. “Yes. That’s my Abigail. She’s why I’m here.”

“She sent you here?” the guy with the sword asks.

“No,” you say. “I came here for her, not because she sent me. See, some guys that wear hats like this.” You point to the bottom of your hat stack. “Were very rude to us. And those people are your people. So after getting rid of them I came here because you guys are bothering us and I want you to stop.”

You wait for a response, then remember your manners.

“Please,” you add.

“I don’t think you understand what is happening here,” Shooksword says.

“Well you’re not explaining, and I’m not caring all that much, so that’s pretty normal,” you say.

Mister Lord Shooksword tightens a fist by his side and stands even taller. “What did you do to subjugation squad beta?”

“Who?”

“The group we sent to capture and restrain you,” he says.

“Oh, then. Some of them I ate,” You say. “I took the hat of the biggest, most important one.” You point to your hat as evidence. “And the rest I’m using to experiment. They’re next to my body.”

The woman gasps, a hand pressing up against her face. “What are you doing to them?”

“Mostly patting their heads in different ways to see what happens,” you say. Abigail explained the ‘scientific method’ to you, but it’s too much note taking and doing the same thing but different, so you’re just trying all sorts of things all the time and you’ll see what works best. It’s sorta like that.

“We want our men returned,” Shooksword said. “And we want you gone.”

You blink. “I guess I could give them back,” you say. That would be kind of polite, wouldn’t it. “And then I’ll leave here, and you’ll agree to never ever bother me and my friends?”

“We will do no such thing,” sword-guy says.

You look at him a bit longer, then it clicks as one of the tentacles moving memories around in your brain accidentally bumps into a metatentacle on the way to grab something else. “Oh, you’re that guy from chapter forty-four,” you say.

“What?” He asked.

“Submit yourself for cognitive hasard testing afterwards,” Shooksword says.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Look,” you say. “I’m not telling you to do something, I’m telling you to not do something.” How can they not understand that not doing things is so much easier than actually doing them?

“Our entire mandate is to protect people,” Shooksword says.

“The only people I’ve been hurting are yours because you won’t just let me have fun with Abigail,” you say right back.

This man, you decide, is very thick.

***