If there was one thing that he was thankful for, it was that he had not borne witness to what had occurred around both himself and the moronic teenage for too long before they both had been dropped on the outskirts of the forest. Whoever or whatever had spirited Vaile and Axis away from the much-compacted Arachnaerok had done so by way of a psychedelic kaleidoscope of random bullshit that would make those old depictions of acid trips look tame, and Vaile, at least, was glad he only had to deal with it for around a half-second before it spat him out where he was.

Axis, though, looked to be a bit worse for wear, as he was foaming at the mouth and convulsing for a good few seconds before he returned to his senses or lack thereof. Vaile could have put the blame for that bad trip on any number of heads, but he could not say for certain which Tamed Being was responsible, as there were too damn many for him to even begin to hazard a guess.

“Hey, you done with your little seizure?” Vaile said with mild concern as he kept Axis lying flat on the ground. The poor fool was trying to get up, but Vaile was using his own busted stat block to keep him down, though not out of concern for his health and safety.

After all, he did not want to use a revival item on someone like Axis, and he knew that Monarkea, among others, would be rather cross if Axis died too soon. He did still have a role to play, even if Axis himself wasn’t aware of what it actually was.

“I see funny colors!” mumbled the still incapacitated teenager as he tried to move. “Pretty lights, funny sounds… I can taste the rainbow!”

“Just stay down, you idiot….” Vaile grumbled as he held Axis down. It was a nuisance to be sure, but thankfully help arrived to keep the teen from killing himself before it was the appointed time.

“Need a hand? Or several?”

Vaile turned his head to the side and noticed a few people waiting to help him. They all were members of the Races, or at least they would have been had they not joined up with the former Red Mountain Bandits, which was now the restored Trelawny Kingdom. It was funny how a simple change in one’s allegiance would immediately revoke your status as a member of the Races and turn you into something… else, but Vaile didn’t really care for learning about that kind of thing.

“Well, well, well.” Vaile said in honest surprise before deciding to crack a joke. “Never expected to see a former Bandit Queen here. Don’t tell me you’re after my booty too?”

“As much as I’d love to plunder that sweet, sweet booty of yours,” Nora, the Queen of the Trelawny Kingdom (which was quickly becoming more of a Monarchical Criminal Republic with herself as its head of state and more) replied in an equally joking manner, “I’ve already got a number of people writing smut about us, and I don’t think they need more material. Then again, I didn’t expect that you’d be into that, to begin with.”

“I’m not.” Vaile said back. “But whoever said that I was referring to something sexual?”

“And whoever said that I was, pervert?” Nora snapped back.

“Fair enough,” Vaile admitted before waving her and a few others over. “Help me keep this loon from killing himself.”

Nora and the others with her obliged, and Axis was held down long enough for the effects of whatever bad trip he was experiencing to wear off and replace his delusional, addled state with something only marginally less delusional and addled, but altogether more normal by his own standards. Of course, the trip through whatever and wherever the two of them had gone did have some lasting effects, as it further reduced Axis’ already minuscule mental ability by around 50%.

“There we go.” Nora let go of Axis and watched as Vaile lifted the teen off of his back and into an upright position. “It was nice to see you again, but I think it might be best if we reconnect more thoroughly in another place and time, much as I would like to say otherwise…”

“Really?” Vaile asked. He was pretty sure that Nora wanted to talk more and be around more as well, and he did kind of feel the same way. She wasn’t nearly as obsessive and extreme as many of the others he had dealt with had been, and she was, of those who had stuck their noses into Monarkea’s ‘game’ the most grounded and sane of them.

“Yeah,” Nora said in a disappointed tone as she gestured to her fellows, “we were gonna do the whole ‘bandits holding people up’ shtick, but both Arachnaerok and Queen Fay kinda ruined that for everyone involved. I’d rather not try and go through that charade right now, as the mood has been utterly ruined.”

Vaile nodded and shrugged. He did understand that feeling all too well. If there was one thing he at least could relate to, it was that the best ‘events’ required two things in equal amounts; presentation and an appropriate mood.

The spider and the fairy had ruined both of those things, but if Vaile knew the fey-folk as well as he thought he did, he knew that at least one of the two was loving both the response from Arachnaerok and from everyone nearby where Vaile was currently positioned, and it certainly wasn’t Arachnaerok, Nora, Axis, or himself.

“A shame, really.” Vaile said as he held Axis by the shoulder as the teen attempted to wander off, his feet now grinding against the ground in a movement that was taking him nowhere. “Still, though, it was nice to see one of the few sane people that have been on my side for once.”

“Yeah,” Nora replied as she waved Vaile and Axis onward. “We’ll meet again. Soon, hopefully.”

…

“Boss, didn’t you want to-?”

“Shut it.” Nora spat as she took out a book and began to write in it. “I need silence. This smut isn’t going to write itself, you know? Hmm… oh, I can think of a few scenes where I can get that ‘booty’….”

The others looked at each other and shook their heads. She would be like this for a while, and once it was done and published she’d have more ideas flung at her from all across the Alliance….

“Heheh…. Oh, yes… swiggity swooty, I’ll take that booty…”

“Ugh… this is going to be hell to proofread and copy...”