“I’ll say. You almost clucking drowned!” the Purple Puma retorted, “Really, you’d think somebody as young and in shape as you would know how to handle themselves after falling into a river during a fit of passion.”

“You’d, heh, you’d think,” Krumbunculus did not mention to her that if he were as old as he had been before being cursed he would have been able to cast a series of rapid-succession spells that would’ve made him drown-proof, head-trauma-proof, and, indeed, waterproof. No, he’d keep that information to himself, he figured.

“But you know what they often say,” the Purple Puma chuckled, clearly doing everything in her power not to leap on Dr. Krumbunculus and continue their water-adjacent makeout session, “Young men with a propensity for drowning need a strong, criminally inclined woman around. To look out for them, and such.”

“I mean,” Dr. Krumbunculus shrugged, “I’ve heard of worse things.”

“But, um, maybe we shouldn’t mash faces again. At least, near the Mammasais River. Or probably any River. Or near a canyon, or a deep lake, or any sort of dangerous physical abberation.”

“Yea, that’s fair,” Krumbunculus nodded, wringing a fish out of his hair.

“Unless, I mean, unless you’re into that. Unless you’re into the danger of it all.”

“Eh. Not really.”

“Okay. That’s fine. Just, you know. In case you change your mind, you know. If you were into it because it was risky, I mean, it’d be okay, you know? Do you know what I mean?”

However, Dr. Krumbunculus was not presently concerned with whether he knew what she meant or not, and indeed he was not even listening to the Purple Puma. Instead, he was staring at the clouds, deep in though. He was pondering how on Gurth he’d find someone willing to help him steal an ancient spell tomb from the local middle-poor wizardry archives, in order for him to finally become his old self again, literally and figuratively. Yes, he’d finally gotten over all the stress of falling down a cliffside and into a river and hallucinating a world made out of gelatin to the point where he could finally marinate on that most troubling of questiong, which indeed was—how, and with whom, was he exactly going to get all this stealing done with?

“Krumbunculus, are you listening to me?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Really? What was I saying, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know, something or other,” Dr. Krumbunculus had barely garbled these words out of his mouth than an idea struck his mind with an excited tingle. “Oh my cock! It’s so obvious!”

“What?” the Purple Puma frowned, “What’s obvious? What I was saying to you? I’d hope it was obvious, I mean, it ought to be obvious to you what I was saying to you, especially if you were listening to me, but you know I’m getting the vibe that, just like many other men, you just don’t really seem to care what I have to say to you about much of anything, no matter what—”

“For the love of cock, shut up already! Hamn, can you run your mouth. I’ve got a question for you, miss Puma.”

“Shoot!”

“Well, I—”

TWNNNG

“ACK!” Dr. Krumbunculus near leapt into the air as an arrow impaled his left butt cheek.

“Hey, I tried to warn you,” shrugged the Purple Puma.

“What the clucking hen is going on?!”

“It’s the Royal Gourd! Which, consequently, is what I was trying to tell you about while you were staring off into the clouds being rude to me.”

TWNNNNG

“AAAGH! My other butt cheek!” Dr. Krumbunculus swiveled aroudn haggardly to look at the Gourd member, who was running towards the riverside with a crossbow, “Let’s get the cluck out of here!”

“That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time, you know.”

“Stop rubbing it in!”

TWNNNNG

“AAAAAAAGH! My originally impaled butt cheek!”

“Your ass is gonna look like a pincushion,” chuckled the Purple Puma.

“Stop laughing at me!”

She did not stop laughing, but the Purple Puma did grab Krumbunculus’ wrist and subsequently fire a grappling hook out from a compartment in her hip belt. It wrapped around the branch of a faraway tree on the other side of the river, away from civilization. With a click, click, click yanked them out of the aim of the Royal Gourd member just in time to miss another speeding arrow.