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…
Garbage Area on the outset wasn’t that different from any other dessert, being fairly hot during the long days, and very cold during the long nights. In this story, let’s just say the day was pretty long, so when the duo were riding for several hours now, it was still as hot as hell out there, and it wasn’t looking like it was gonna stop being such for a while now.
DeVita rode the dune-buggy/greaser through the sandy plains with the same grace as a toddler. Considering last time he rode this thing was twenty months ago, this was actually impressive. Compared to most who would drive through here, he enjoyed the dusty air and the unyielding heat of the desert quite much. He saw it as its own kind of beauty, one which doesn’t fall to standard views. Schwartz, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so good under the dry heat, heaving and waving his hand just to get some cool air. The blubber, the glistening skin, the overall fishy nature were all perhaps reasons why sizzling desert environment just didn’t sit well with him.
DeVita, knowing his friend’s tells, and pulled up a canister from between their seats.
“You need a drink bud?” he asked.
Schwartz nodded giddily and grabbed the canister to take a large swig from it. Usually, Schwartz would carry few large water canisters himself, or apply his water-retaining gel, which usually helped him during these types of jobs. He would still need to drink lots of water anyways, but with the shortage of money as of late, he couldn’t pack himself full enough of water. Thankfully, the car had a large bin at the back specifically made to carry water everywhere, which DeVita filled the canister with
“Alright, we’ve been out here for a while now, get the map!” DeVita ordered, after letting his friend take large enough gulp.
The shark-man reached into his back-pocket, and pulled a crumpled piece of paper that was supposed to be their map. They were getting closer to one of the four main kingdoms, as the target in question was situated somewhere there. It also meant the dangers of something far less violent, yet equally vicious, and more posh as well. The outside of the kingdoms were well prepared to greet with guards capable of taking down scavengers, and while they may not kill them on the spot, they will find time to execute them later. There were many reasons why they wouldn’t go easy on them (including many being responsible for killing important figures), so the duo made sure to target a particular place, and not veer into trouble, hopefully.
“I dink it’sh on… the…left…? Or…uh…wait’…” Schwartz kept muttering under breath, spinning and poking with map with his huge nose.
“Give me that!” DeVita grabbed the map impatiently and placed it on the wheel.
“Its one of those a-bandun cities?” Schwartz asked.
“Could be…ah geez let’s take a break,” he suddenly announced and ungracefully stepped on the break pedal. It was for the most part his lack of knowledge on how these damned machines supposed to work, but the maneuver caused the whole thing to tilt forward into a stop. It was so sudden, that most of the water spilled out of Schwartz’s canister onto their feet.
“Awww…” mumbled Schwartz, gazing at the spilled contents with his small, dopy eyes.
“Don’t worry we have a ton more in the back,” DeVita reassured. He then kicked the door open with the same force as he did the pedal, enough to make its hinges squeal. He went to open the trunk, and found the large metal box full of water containers, plus some other small items, like guns, knives, blowtorch, air pump, skeletal-themed teddy bear and other.
DeVita took one container and grabbed a telescope he found lying behind the box. Coming to the front, he flung the water into Schwartz’s hungry hands while taking the ‘scope to have a good look over what was coming for them over the horizon.
The first thing he saw was an outline of a building, more or less a watchtower. He tried to observe some more to find where the other buildings where, though they were barely visible. Still, according to their map If he was correct, based on the map earlier, this was one of those Ghost Town, one of many victims of Devil’s Bowl. These places tend to get ravaged by one of many occasional natural disasters, and thanks to the nobles from the kingdoms suddenly getting too interested in playing with territories, many, MANY ended up left as garbage. You wouldn’t believe how many towns they ended up abandoning by then, it was almost as if they were cursed by karma to be driven out each and every time.
DeVita put away the telescope into his pocket and reached into the car to search for the request paper again. Meanwhile Schwartz was already draining his second bottle.
“What did I tell you about saving your water?” DeVita grumbled.
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t complain about needing to use toilet later.”
They were coming to the town created by house of Gluttoria’s “Avant Micul Dejeune”. Apparently, in this one of their firsts’ attempt at creating their own marketplace, and they ended up abandoning it a week later, due to “disappointing agricultural production.”
He looked at the mission briefing again. As he read through, he realized that it was more or less a retrieval quest. Sure, it did mention them having to deal with some sort of weird, nobles-obsessed bud, but the whole thing was essentially about returning stolen goods. And the goods in question was an all important immortal.
Immortality within Garbage Area wasn’t unheard off, so that part wasn’t surprising. That said, no one should ever take immortality seriously. Either they are unable to die from their old age, are essentially bound to places with mythical artifacts that’s over million years old, or it was just one extremely lucky fella. Still, the sum for getting that guy was 500000 mony (Whoo-wee!). Now, was one immortal man really worth all of that mony?
Who cares!? Five-month worth of rent, here we come!
DeVita heard the car groan, as Schwartz reached behind to get another bottle.
“Buddy, didn’t I taught ya ‘bout saving for the road? STOP DRINKING ALREADY!”
“Sorry,” Schwartz replied, “But dey are thaking them.”
“…What? Taking what? Who!?”
“Those little fellash.”
DeVita head shot up and then quickly dove into the car, and to his horror, noticed the red and black colors dance on the seats. If there was something, far beyond evil that they could face in this Devil’s Bowl, that would be its imps. Those wretched, ugly, malicious little imps. Small, humanoid creatures made of bone strapped with red skin, black long tails and spikes adorning their heads, they would occasionally attack any careless scavenger, robbing them of all of their belongings. And once you’ve been robbed by them, it was impossible to get it back. One scavenger even had the bad luck of being visited by them during his sleep, and had not only his rations and weapons were stolen, but also his clothes, piercings, teeth, tongue and even an eye!
“WHERE THE HELL DID YOU SHITS COME FROM!!?” DeVita roared at the small monster, throwing the rear door open.
One of the imps in the middle of destroying the backseat looked at him and hissed. The rest kept taking things indiscriminately: magazines, tools, a bag, a bunch of letter pulled from below, a stash of money, a bunch of wool and spring that belonged to the seat itself. And before long, DeVita found them pulling out food and water stash.
“Okay, that’s it! Get them out, Schwartz, FAST!” DeVita yelled for his friend.
The latter, as fast and as ungracefully as he could, stumbled out of the car. The lizard himself already jumped into the backseat, doing what he could to grab stuff out of imps’ hands. Funny enough, there’s a common advice given when dealing with imps and that is to never jump head first into a group of them.
“Ackgh! Get ehm off of meee!!!” DeVita screamed, shielding his eyes and mouth as the little demons started crawling over him, digging into his close and flesh with their tiny and sharp, nails.
“Duh..!” Schwartz danced between trying to reach through the back seat, but every time he did, the imps would shriek and pinch his fingers. He would keep pulling hand back and then get lost as DeVita kept screaming.
“GO AROUND THE CAR!” yelled Devita, finally giving instructions.
Schwartz bashed the door down with his blubbery body and immediately waddled over to the rear door. He awkwardly fiddled with the door handle, trying to get his blubbery fingers to work it until he finally swung the thing open. And just like a spring, DeVita flew out with a screech, clawing the imps off of himself. Schwartz waddled over to help, batting those monsters with his hands, trying to pull his friend out. He finally was able to get his friend out to safety, with the imps finally began to run away from the car.
“Get back here!!!” DeVita screamed like a madman, as he squirmed out of Schwartz’s hands, to the latter’s surprise, and ran after those damned things.
Schwartz had no clue what his friend was doing, only to see him pull one knife from his pocket and throw it after one imp. It bullseyed right at the small-monster body, making it dissipate in ash, and drop a box of knives it was carrying.
DeVita dashed to get back his new knife collection, giving a sigh of relief as soon as they were in his hands. Meanwhile, the rascally little devils have all managed to hide right into the sand, carrying everything that they had stolen from the car. When checking it, DeVita saw that not only had they stolen almost all of the rations and tools that were inside the car, but also parts of the car itself. One tire deflated, while the other fell over, a while door was taken, several lights and based on what he could tell from the half-way opened hood, some engine parts too.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” DeVita sighed.
With the car out, they were essentially stuck out here, with no option of even going back if things get dicey. It took them most of the day just to get to the proper location, and with no resources, they might as well concede to Ace’s bony friend. On the other hand, they can reasonably walk the rest of the way.
“Duh, whath do we do with it’?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita placed the boxed knives into his pockets. Taking one more look at the car, just to make sure it really was devastated, he went to take the map from Schwartz’s pants. Turning to where they should go, he began walking.
“We’ll deal with it after we finish business with the bigger fish,” he said, and motioned the shark to follow him.
Schwartz couldn’t help but look at the car himself, making a droopy expression over the loss of transport. However, he never doubted in DeVita, so they both continued onward, as Schwartz took one more swing from his water canister.
As both walked, they did not notice that someone was watching them from afar with a pair of stolen binoculars.
“His highness…Needs hear…Proud be….” Said the dessert fox, before diving right back into sand.
…
The sun had set by the time they reached the town. The two made their way to the closest building towards them, a tall look-out tower. Once DeVita decided that they can stop for a rest, Schwartz took this chance to fall flat on his face and belly. He made a sound similar to a baby-whale’s mother call, which DeVita was familiar enough to consider it his groan.
“Alright get the sheets out. I’ll look around the area and the building. Once done, we’ll hide ourselves for the night.”
Schwartz, without looking up or making a noise, reached deep into his pockets to get some of those sheets out. DeVita, making a quick breather, went on to work.
Scanning the outside, the tower was small, but looked functional, completely made of stone. He found the entrance later and saw the inside leading to a spiral staircase. Seeing how the tower bulged at the top, they’ll probably have the space to sleep once they reach the top. He also found a wooden lid on the ground, and once lifting, saw a small storage inside it. Compared to the dry atmosphere of the tower’s insides, the storage was wet and had a pungent smell. He found some boxes with liquid, and checking them, only found them filled with wine. Other than that, there was nothing else. Which was weird based on the amount of space there was in the storage.
He exited out the building, and saw Schwartz still lying down on his face.
“Alright had a look’see and have a pair of bad news. One, there’s no water here, so you’d better still have some in your canister.” He bent down to check the canister in Schwartz’s hand and shook it, it being less than a half full. “Two, we’re going up.”
“Awww, but’ I hathe sthairs!” Schwartz complained with his noise still in sand. DeVita could only pat him in motivation.
And so, the duo made their way up the elaborate, dimly lit staircase. As expected, it was still fairly sturdy, and while occasional cobweb might prop-up when they glide their hands on it through the wall, the place was pretty clean. After a short while, the two reached the top, and Schwartz had already lost his breath from all this walking. Letting his friend lie down, DeVita checked around, the bulb inside’s containing sturdy wooden floor, and not much else. The cold night air breezed through the windows, and DeVita moved to one of them. After the tower, they were a few steps away from the town itself, so at the very least, there wasn’t a need to worry about walking long distances.
It was also rather quiet. But then again, they probably all fell asleep. Who in their right mind does crime when they should sleep? Bah!
“Alright, we have until tomorrow to make our plan of action. Here’s what we gonna do…”
DeVita walked to his friend, who was still on the floor. With a huff, he pushed him to lie on the back, only to find the shark’s face showed incredulity.
“Whatsamatter?”
“Uhhh….Are you..?”
“Making a plan!”
“Oh! But’ shince when?”
“…Just get up.”
He led the portly shark to a nearby corner. Using the moonlight, his knife and the map, DeVita started his demonstration.
“Okay, listen up…First, we need to lure that prince out, who I think is likely over here,” he pointed to the center of the town on the map, and then to the building far from them from the window. “That is the main castle, and everybody loves castles, and I’m pretty sure he does too. Call it a hunch. Then, once we capture him, we take him here, torture some info and maybe have him find some guys who could put our car back together. Then, take him, the immortal, leave the place, return the car, and BOOM, we won! Then we rub in to the faces of those for weirdos, ask for a $70000 reward because we can, get a better renting space, flaunt it in front of Cassandra, maybe have a night out with the boss, eh? Sounds good right?”
Schwartz nodded enthusiastically.
“Dat sounds amazing, boss!”
“You got that right. Now, we probably could also start pondering on them resources. So far, we got some Molotovs, and after that...”
DeVita saw Schwartz’s big maw open wide as he yawned. Soon enough, DeVita felt one coming up from him.
“Ah geez, guess we tuckered ourselves out,” he brought his fist to his face and covered the toothy mouth. He checked through the windows again and came back to pull the sheets from Schwartz’s pocket. One he put on the floor for himself to lie on, another he covered Schwartz.
“DeVita... Can you tell me that story?” Schwartz asked him with another yawn.
“Which one?”
“About the flower? It feels atmospheric.”
“There you go using big words. You gonna make yourself sounds smarter than you are,” DeVita said before lying down, both of their faces directed straight at one another.
“Sorry…”
“Ah don’t be. Flower, eh? Guess that’s good. So, here’s the moral, don’t lose sight of what you do, no matter what people bribe you with. This is a story about a flower, who wanted to grow in a dessert…”
…
It was then closer to the middle of the night. The moon still shone high up in the air, illuminating through the window, and the only sound heard was that of Schwartz’s loud, gurgling snore. DeVita was making yet another turn in his bedsheet, until he felt something pass by him. The lizard’s eyes opened immediately, and on instinct, he stood straight up and looked over his surroundings.
Aside from moonlight’s glow, there was nothing entering the inside of the room they were in. Jumping up to his feet, the lizard stared out of the window. The cold air was freezing his face, but he continued scanning the area, and could barely see anything with the shadows from nearby buildings. There was something there, but he had no idea what. So, without much of a concrete reason to stay awake, he went back to his dirty bed-sheet, ready to fall asleep.
A sound of explosion then woke up both of them on the spot.
“What the-!“
The room was lit up brighter than if they were inside a lamp. The magnificent wheel of bombastic colors shone all over them, as thunderous clapping of fireworks sounded right above them. Schwartz, who was still feeling sleepy, could help but stare at everything around him.
“Duh I didn’t do nuthin,” he said innocently.
“I know that!”
A loud blast of explosion came from right outside their window, enough to shake the whole room. This one had combination of green, blue, purple and pink, filling the room with cotton-candy cloud.
“C’MON, WE NEED TO GET DOWN!” DeVita yelled in-between his coughing fits.
“WHAT!?” Schwartz yelled back, completely disoriented from his surrounding.
DeVita with adrenaline and anger filling his veins, pushed and punted the big shark blob to his feet. They both ran towards the stairs, trying to keep balance as they flew down, with the tower shaking from to the chaotic beat of the murder-fireworks.
“WELCOME, MY DEAR GUESTS, TO THE LA GLUTON DOMAIN!” A loud voice spoke, presumably through a megaphone. DeVita already had come to hate the nosy stuffiness it seemed to exude.
They finally reached the ground floor after managing to hear about fiver more explosions. The door was still looked from before, so DeVita started working on a plan. It might not be the the best plan, but on-the-fly thinking were very rewarding in places like these. Pulling the lid off of the basement, he dove right in and seconds later brought out a box full of wine. Picking one, he turned to Schwartz, who still in sleepy state carried his bedsheet with him. With knife in hand, he uncorked the bottle and ripped a part of the bedsheet, to Schwartz’s dismay, and prepared for himself at least on weapon he knew could be of use: a Molotov.
“Now we’re talking.” He pulled the box closer to his shark friend and gave a sharp order to “Pick it up!”
Schwartz followed his lead, and ungracefully brought them up in the air, with DeVita reprimanding him to be more careful. DeVita dashed the door, and with some force opened it slightly. Schwartz moved closer, trying to be as subtle as he possibly could with a box full of bottles. A crazy array of light was entering right through the gap, from pink to blue to green to purple to gold, enough to tire their eyes out. Whoever was ambushing them enjoyed being needlessly excessive. Technically, exactly like a noble would. Frankly though, the fact that through all this light, he couldn’t see any other shadow besides the buildings’ was the most worrying part.
“Now, now, no need to fret, for it is I, Cornelius LaGluttoria!” Once again emanated the loud voice. Before long, DeVita suddenly felt the stone tower shaking. “I have come, my dear pair of trespassers, to offer you a chance to see my GLORIOUS glory, and finally come to understanding that you two had NO chance of EVER of going against ME! Now, how about both of you come out and face me, like good little bugs you are?”
The two exchanged glances, coming up to the same conclusion.
“Duh-Who is that’ mook?” Schwartz asked DeVita, who smirked in return.
Funny enough, based on what he said, even if he is an imposter, he definitely knew how to be a noble. Those twenty nobles were the ones responsible for prosperity of their kingdoms, and they usually grew a sense of self-importance larger than anyone had any right to be. DeVita wasn’t familiar with them personally, not that he’d care to learn anything about the kingdoms, he did for sure knew that seven of them represented vices, and this guy sounded like he represented gluttony.
It was then that he heard a familiar noise. Something shuffled right beside him, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He couldn’t have felt any happier to hear it. It was one thing if you had no idea where they were coming from, but now he had a plan. And all that was left was to execute it.
DeVita make a clicking sound with his tongue, a sound Schwartz was familiarized to mean to be “ready.” DeVita slightly opened the door some more. Surveying what he could, the colors helped to make the shadows even easier to see, in a way, he had counted up to seven of them sneaking behind the building. One of them, he noticed, had something resembling a firearm. Meaning even if they would run out straight, they are likely to be shot down.
This left with singular other possible option.
“As soon as say it, run after me.” DeVita took out his ever useful lighter-knife. Which was a knife, that doubled as a lighter, which made up for the fact that it couldn’t stab anything worthwhile.
“Okay…” Schwartz whispered.
DeVita lit up the sheet piece, and checked the door again. He already heard someone stepping in closer.
“On my mark…”
DeVita lowered his knees and held the burning bottle high. He visualized their path in his head, based on his one time viewing from the top.
And then he jumped right out and threw the bottle right above himself.
“Run after me!”
“Okay!”
The pieces fell onto the bigger group of bandits, the ones DeVita and Schwartz passed as they ran their way into the town. As DeVita considered, it would be better to hide inside one of the buildings instead of wildly panicking outside in the dessert. Especially if they could get into one of the shelters. These things are impenetrable, made to help survive the desert. And even if they get found later, at the very least they could get a breather.
“Dhose are very pretthy colors!” Schwartz said, his head turned upwards instead of forward.
“Yeah yeah, we’ve- Shit, they’re here!” DeVita bumped Schwartz to the side, make them both turn.
A handful of bandits popped right from behind their nearest building. Each of them armed guns, knives and scowls, a combination you definitely did not want anywhere near the entrance to your safehouse.
As DeVita lit another bottle, he yelled, “Keep running!” to Schwartz. He threw the bottle straight into the second to the middle bandit, then bumped Schwartz from behind. The poor shark was looking more and more lost from the panic. DeVita ran right in front of him, already finding another building they could enter, and have his big buddy follow right behind.
They navigated through the twists and turns, as few more bandits slowly started to show up. The buildings were, while undeniably still good-looking, far from being well-kept by anyone. So this make the sudden appearance of so many of these bandits all the more surprising. You’d think if that guy managed to house so many in this one place, they would at least add their own personal touches. Like, you know, scratches, cigarette marks or piss stains. All they had was dust.
Something that DeVita has started to consider it to be extremely weird by the eighth time they managed to jump in on them. To reiterate, there weas extremely large number of bandits. DeVita threw his bottles at them, but the number left in the box kept decreasing, leaving them less and less options to escape with.
“Dammit, this is a pain in the asshole!” DeVita then bumped into Schwartz’s blubbery side.
“Duh, why did you do dath!?”
“Cause we need to get inside that building!” DeVita yelled. Considering how deep into the town they were, they could simply just enter into any building they wanted. But as for the bandits that were tailing them, he took the rest of the cloth that was left and lit it up.
“Now slam it right behind us!” DeVita pulled Schwartz’s arm, who followed his lead without freezing up. In a semi-large swing of the box, he smashed it against the ground, alongside the burning cloth thrown by DeVita.
With this chance taken, they both entered inside the narby building and closed the door shut. DeVita took time to breathe, finally realizing how tired he was from all of this. Wiping sweat, he then patted his partner’s higher shoulders.
“It should keep those idjits busy. Find the storage and open it for me, ya hear?!”
Despite orders given, Schwartz would not move. DeVita checked on his partner, trying to figure out what made him suddenly stop, and wondering if the guy needs some water. After all, they did run all this way.
But then something clicked inside the room.
“Not another step.”
DeVita sighed in defeat.
“When the hell did they…” He grumbled, but before long he had someone grab his hand and pin him to the hard stone wall.
“Hey, did you hear how he called us?” One of the bandits laughed loudly, presumably the “funny guy” of the group. “He said we were ‘idjits’! Man, you must feel so bad to suck!!!”
DeVita was able to turn his head enough to get a good glimpse of them. Overall, about six, not too big of a number. The “funny guy” stood farther back and based on his girth, while fitting for an otter, can be dealt with swiftly. The other three, including the guy pinning him, were average, with lithe build. No one looked with hard skins, and one even had a hobble. The last dude, a human with lizard’s eye, appeared the most properly intimidating.
And he seemed to be calling the shots based on the order given, “Strip him.”
DeVita gritted his teeth and hissed, but the bandits have already started pulling out weapons from his pockets.
“You better not do anything, blubberfish,” the leader told Schwartz.
When he felt reaching down to his breast-pocket, DeVita immediately growled out, “Don’t you dare!”
“Look boss, Behemoth Cutter 3000tm!!! That’s some expensive shit!”
“If I see you put one more of your finger on it, I swear on my mum, I’ll slice ‘em off-“
DeVita felt the knee land right in the middle of his back. It took him few minutes before he could properly breathe.
“You aren’t the one making demands here. Not anymore.”
He kicked the door the down open with one foot and everybody followed him. As he was pushed by a recklessly eager bandit, DeVita couldn’t help but look at a group of them playing around with a piece of cloth. Which happened to be very familiar to him.
“By the way,” the lizard-eyed man said, stopping their group near that one, “what exactly were you thinking, throwing those bottles at us? Impromptu molotovs?”
DeVita didn’t answer, just stared at the ground, where laid multitude of pieces of broken bottles.
“Cause, you know, not every type of alcohol is flammable, you know that?”
Thinking on it, DeVita couldn’t help but finally notice how something was missing throughout their whole chase. More specifically, something fiery. Must’ve forgotten to check.
“Did you guys just found it lying around in the building somewhere?”
The guy approach closer to DeVita. Between the two of them, there was a significant difference in height and bulk, but that didn’t matter. As his uncle used to say, as long as you show no fear, or even better, intimidate them into fearing you, even sleeping in jail will be a breeze.
“I’d say ya got lucky, lizard-eye.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
“That said,” DeVita continued, “whose to say you’ll continue to be lucky? Maybe one day, you’ll lose that precious eye. Not saying how, but I’d worry.”
The eye man chuckled.
“Lose an eye, huh? Like this?”
He promptly plucked the lizard eye from its socket. Motioning the other bandit, the guy let go of DeVita, who reactively caught the eye as it was tossed to him. Before he realized what happened, a fist shot straight into his gut.
DeVita reeled a bit, before finally letting out in a small, wheezy tone, “Ooh, I am so gonna kill you…” and then coughed.
The man scoffed, took back his eye and pushed DeVita back to his holder. Finally coming to, DeVita immediately noticed something, which he hadn’t paid attention to until few moments ago, and that was their weapons. White barrel, golden handles, elaborative and unnecessary wings…those were definitely the arms that belonged to the nobles! These things were extremely devastating in the wrong hands, capable of turning healthy men into meaty toothpaste. They are also notoriously hard to get by, as are most of the weapons handed to the nobles’ guards.
So how did they get a hold of them? DeVita began clicking his teeth. Without a knife, it tended to be hard to think for him, so he needed to find a way to get his hands on one.
Soon, they stopped right in the middle of the streets, the widest out of all of them. An array of light was moving near them, already illuminating more and more of the street as if someone took the sun and was now riding it.
“Duh, what do we do now?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita squinted a bit at the incoming monstrosity. It was becoming harder and harder to look. Even Schwartz, when he checked on the guy, had basically shut his eyes. The ground shook more as the thunderous and deafening motor noise was brought closer to them alongside it. Slowly DeVita came to realization why so much money was offered to them for this quest…and it probably had to do with the sheer armory this man seemed to be bringing.
And so, within the loud, rumbling noises, DeVita began to yell,
“Number one,” he started, using all of his lungs just to make sure his words reached Schwartz, “don’t say anything! Number two, don’t do what I wouldn’t do! Number three, follow my lead!!!”
“Oh, ok,” Schwartz calmly and inaudibly replied with his smile. DeVita accepted it as is with a sigh.
The trembling and growling grew louder, and soon enough, they couldn’t see anything at all thanks to the light. DeVita felt a tinge of fear, suddenly realizing that with it being so bright, those bozos could kill them just as fast as if they were in the darkness. Should they risk it and start attacking before anything could happen to them? A sense of preservation is necessary, his uncle once told him, but so was not running around like a chicken. There was no use in panicking.
And then, a loud voice announced via speaker,
“Well done, my dear servants, Mwhohohoho!” His laugh came from his nose and rumbled a bit before nearly snorting like a pig. It was almost forced, too.
The light dimmed, enough that, after having to be forced to see nothing but the shine of their inner eyelids, everyone could finally lift them a tiny bit. It was still shiny, but DeVita could actually figure out what the monstrosity actually was. And it was a VERY large thing, almost the size of, if not bigger, than the buildings surrounding it. The front was that of a protruding, bulbous front which showed a row of metallic boards that come across as teeth down the middle. The sides were adorned with lights, the source of all of that blindness they endured. Going higher to the top, sat on his throne a fat-looking man. And he wore the most gaudiest of clothes, those stupid looking shirts, vests and pants that nobles love on themselves, and hair just as bright and colorful as the lights. DeVita tried to eye a bit more, but his vision still needed time to adjust.
“HEY, HOW ABOUT YOU FINALLY MADE SOME SUNGLASSES FOR US!!?” A bandit yelled from afar. “WE CAN”T SEE SHIT WITH YOU SHINING LIKE THAT!!!”
The “noble” from above wouldn’t answer, and DeVita pretty much knew why. As far as acting goes, it wasn’t far from how nobles are. From the need to accessorize to making their presence well known. Even more so, disregarding the complaints of the lesser, or even choosing to deal with the problem by simply eliminating complainers. If the guy wasn’t even a real noble, he could definitely pass as one, that’s for sure.
The bulbous machine then began rumbling, once again. That said, the noise was more akin to vibration, the machine suddenly restructuring itself. The throne, from what DeVita glimpsed, folded on itself, allowing the noble to stand up. His body then started to move downwards, thanks to the teeth in the middle separating, revealing a gigantic staircase built within it. With over hundred steps and more, DeVita wondered if the mook was really gonna go all the way down. But then he realized that he wasn’t moving at all, and instead it was the stairs. The vibratory rumbling continued as the noble got closer and closer to earth, showing him descending with his arms out wide. As he reached halfway down, a fanfare started to resound, a distinct one which DeVita didn’t really remember to whom it belonged it.
Because he hated these sounds.
Finally, after spending whole twenty minutes of getting his freshly installed light-bulb of head down to them, the noble finally touched the ground. In his hands he was holding a pair of sticks, one appearing as a scepter with a large emblem embedded on it, while the latter was a chicken drum, which upon closer look also happen to be not real. Also, for a moment, DeVita wasn’t sure if what he saw was right. Despite the grossly rotund form of his torso, his face was extremely thin and well-sculpted. Furthermore, he was a “human”, and last he heard, the Gluttoria’s were pigmen. He did hear both species were pretty close to one another, but something about this didn’t make much sense.
This noble then tapped his chicken drumstick against the side of the machine, and as if by magic, a carpet appeared below him. Plain red, with bright golden trim. He then marched (or waddled? That mook really tried to make himself waddle) all the way to DeVita. All DeVita could think, watching that gross, overinflated man walk to him was, that there was a lot of stuffing under that fat coat of his. Some of it came out of the seams, too. Then he looked closer to his hair…mane?...whatever it was, it was obviously a wig. It was just a bit hard to see due to billions of different lights shining at you from every which way.
“So, it seems we have been visited a very lovely pair of gentlemen,” the noble target announced with a huge smile. DeVita felt like there was something in that guy’s mouth. “Of course, considering how important I am as a part of the prestigious twenty noble families, that should’ve been obvious! It would’ve been far more outrageous if I wasn’t targeted by some ne’er-do-wells! So which one of them sent you after me?” The fat suited man raised DeVita’s mouth to him with the scepter. All DeVita could think was that it was probably an egg. Small enough to play in your mouth. “Was it from Ira family? The Vious? Oh, of course! How could I forget my own ilk. Perhaps they also wanted to rid themselves of their so-called ‘shame’, but not to worry, I know exactly how to answer that. So…well?”
DeVita looked up and down the costume. The patches sewn together completely amateurishly, with visible seams, pieces sticking out, and he even found a row of needles. If anyone with a sense of fashion, and DeVita was one, saw the whole thing, they would laugh. He would too, of course, but he was more annoyed.
“I am talking to youuuuu~” the noble drew out the “u” for emphasis. That said, he seemed to be losing patience. “Hellooo! Do you even KNOW who I am?”
DeVita, with hands held tightly behind him, said nothing, at first. He then relaxed his posture, cleared his throat and checked his teeth with his tongue.
“Look here, buddy,” DeVita finally answered. His voice carried as much intimidation as one would to an overly-dressed goose. “I respect the fanfare, and the whole get-up too, really nice, but I think you’ve been talking to a wrong guy here. We aren’t trying to assassinate you! We are just a pair of travellers, looking to learn more about the these here ruins.”
The noble eyed him suspiciously.
“Look I’m honest! I even made a fool of myself by throwing unflammable bottles here and there. And come on, tell me, is it really a crime to be interested in the beauty of architecture? See as you chose this place, I think you’d also believe it very, very much! Y’know, my mama used to say, so how ‘bout we-“
“You should stop monologuing here,” the noble cut him short.
DeVita’s mouth hanged wide open. He actually felt fairly offended by that.
“Minions!” The noble yelled. None of the bandits seemed to be interested in the whole thing. “Do these brutes remind you of someone? Hmmm?...You!”
From behind DeVita, the lizard-eyed came forward, “Here’s some knives we found on him.”
“Can’t a lizard collect knives as a hobby, for devil’s sake!?”
The noble took the collection package and the Behemoth Cutter 3000tm, and eyed them closely.
“Hey, you better not touch ‘em ya bastard!”
“You aren’t talking here, prisoner!” The noble replied calmly. “And do try to be a bit more proper in how you act in front of a noble, like moi. I, am Darrold DeLa Gluttoria, a straight descendent of the original founder of Gluttoria’s noble family. And lest you wish your head to be rolled on the ground, you WILL refer to me as your majesty, immediately!”
DeVita rolled his eyes with exaggeration. So that’s who they were dealing with. For that he gained another bruise to the gut, courtesy of a nearby bandit, on Darrold’s order.
“The Behemoth Cutter 30000tm, a pretty expensive set,” the Lizard-Eye continued. “You don’t usually find these anywhere, either.”
“A man can be of culture, buddy,” DeVita coughed a bit, “now hand them over unless you want me to wipe sand with ya!”
He returned to standing straight. Darrold eyes then seemingly focused.
The Lizard-Eye said, “If you wanted something more collector edition, you should have gone for the ancient relics, or maybe pretty gemstone. This is a knife that is sold to scavengers.”
“A scavenger!” Darrold exclaimed triumphantly, as if he came to an important discovery.
DeVita eyes darted.
“What are ye talking ‘bout! We’re just a pair of…dapper gentleman with a knife collection!” He lied with a twisty smile. “I mean, we are nobodies, complete and total-“
“There’s a note on the back, ‘If lost, return it back to DeVita, AKA The Knife & Fork Duo, AKA This is mine you sonovabitch!’” The Lizard-Eye read.
Darrold starred intensely at DeVita.
“…Who just happen to be a big fan of them. I hear they have good fashion sense!”
“My, how interesting…” Darrold’s smile grew through his filled cheeks, enough to give a glimpse of the egg in his mouth. “Minions, open the hatchet!”
DeVita watched as a pair of bandits go behind the fat noble and pull against one of the teeth from the machine. From behind it, they brought out a huge, black sack, tied with a golden rope. They moved closer to DeVita, then quickly opened the bag, and threw it to him. Out from poured gallons and gallons of golden coins and jewels, spreading into a large patch in the sand. There was so much, DeVita didn’t even notice his jaw unhinge and hang below him.
“I am a very simple noble, you see,” Darroled began talking. “And as a simple noble, I enjoy owning LARGE sums of money…”
DeVita’s brain took time to soak it all in. So much cash, enough to get them through several months of rent payments! Maybe, even get him all the knife collections in the world! Or maybe…maybe open their own Scavenger Post! The possibilities are endless!!!
“Now then, since we’ve shown it all, what is your opinion, my good fellow.”
DeVita made a small noise, almost chuckling. “Well, I say-”
“Actually, I was talking to your silent friend, over there!” Darrold cut him off.
“…Eh, what?”
The noble waddled past DeVita. Pushing his captor to turn both of them around, DeVita saw the noble walk up to his shark friend. The shark kept gazing at everything, only realizing what just happened when the noble started talking to him.
“I know, exactly what is going on,” he announced. “You thought you could fool me, but the truth is, you ARE exactly the type who wouldn’t say anything!”
The shark looked confused, and DeVita was flabbergasted.
“No-no you see, this is my partner, he isn’t-“
“I know EXACTLY how this works. And you will not confuse me! The size is power, one who consumes all, one who has no care in the world, one who has others do what has to be done, that is a sign of STATUS!” Darrold’s voice was loud and manic. Darrold turned and starred dreamily up at the shark, “Now, what say you know, oh silent one? I have made a generous offer for you…will you accept it? Will you join my ranks, and in return, get glorious money you’ve NEVER seen before?”
“…Duh…”
Schwartz’s eyes wandered. He looked at DeVita, who quickly and with enunciation mouthed words: DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! They were dealing with an idiot, better not mess it up.
“Monoth…May….Impotent?”
DeVita eyes bugged out. His mouth went to rapidfire: NO ARE YOU AN IDIOT, STOP TALKING!
Schwartz then bobbled his head with a grin. Then proudly, he said, “Money doesn’t matter! Take it back where you belong!!!”
DeVita made a sound that was very reptilian in nature, with a bit of cat to it. The golden boy looked very shocked, his minions were confused, while Schwartz bore happiness on his face like a toddler would
“Well, I see now. You two are far more respectful than I imagined. Well, in that case, it seems we must opt to another way to do this.” He snapped his fingers and called upon one of the bandits. “Minions, throw both of them into prison! We shall see what we can do with them!”
Darrold turned sharply, and began walking away. The captors then prodded Schwartz to go forward, who did after five times.
As he passed by DeVita, he asked, “I did good, right?”
“Oh yeah…real nice…” DeVita hissed through teeth.
The adventures in Garbage Area seemed to be still continuing. Let it be known, anything can happen there.
…
-----------------------------------------
…
Garbage Area on the outset wasn’t that different from any other dessert, being fairly hot during the long days, and very cold during the long nights. In this story, let’s just say the day was pretty long, so when the duo were riding for several hours now, it was still as hot as hell out there, and it wasn’t looking like it was gonna stop being such for a while now.
DeVita rode the dune-buggy/greaser through the sandy plains with the same grace as a toddler. Considering last time he rode this thing was twenty months ago, this was actually impressive. Compared to most who would drive through here, he enjoyed the dusty air and the unyielding heat of the desert quite much. He saw it as its own kind of beauty, one which doesn’t fall to standard views. Schwartz, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so good under the dry heat, heaving and waving his hand just to get some cool air. The blubber, the glistening skin, the overall fishy nature were all perhaps reasons why sizzling desert environment just didn’t sit well with him.
DeVita, knowing his friend’s tells, and pulled up a canister from between their seats.
“You need a drink bud?” he asked.
Schwartz nodded giddily and grabbed the canister to take a large swig from it. Usually, Schwartz would carry few large water canisters himself, or apply his water-retaining gel, which usually helped him during these types of jobs. He would still need to drink lots of water anyways, but with the shortage of money as of late, he couldn’t pack himself full enough of water. Thankfully, the car had a large bin at the back specifically made to carry water everywhere, which DeVita filled the canister with
“Alright, we’ve been out here for a while now, get the map!” DeVita ordered, after letting his friend take large enough gulp.
The shark-man reached into his back-pocket, and pulled a crumpled piece of paper that was supposed to be their map. They were getting closer to one of the four main kingdoms, as the target in question was situated somewhere there. It also meant the dangers of something far less violent, yet equally vicious, and more posh as well. The outside of the kingdoms were well prepared to greet with guards capable of taking down scavengers, and while they may not kill them on the spot, they will find time to execute them later. There were many reasons why they wouldn’t go easy on them (including many being responsible for killing important figures), so the duo made sure to target a particular place, and not veer into trouble, hopefully.
“I dink it’sh on… the…left…? Or…uh…wait’…” Schwartz kept muttering under breath, spinning and poking with map with his huge nose.
“Give me that!” DeVita grabbed the map impatiently and placed it on the wheel.
“Its one of those a-bandun cities?” Schwartz asked.
“Could be…ah geez let’s take a break,” he suddenly announced and ungracefully stepped on the break pedal. It was for the most part his lack of knowledge on how these damned machines supposed to work, but the maneuver caused the whole thing to tilt forward into a stop. It was so sudden, that most of the water spilled out of Schwartz’s canister onto their feet.
“Awww…” mumbled Schwartz, gazing at the spilled contents with his small, dopy eyes.
“Don’t worry we have a ton more in the back,” DeVita reassured. He then kicked the door open with the same force as he did the pedal, enough to make its hinges squeal. He went to open the trunk, and found the large metal box full of water containers, plus some other small items, like guns, knives, blowtorch, air pump, skeletal-themed teddy bear and other.
DeVita took one container and grabbed a telescope he found lying behind the box. Coming to the front, he flung the water into Schwartz’s hungry hands while taking the ‘scope to have a good look over what was coming for them over the horizon.
The first thing he saw was an outline of a building, more or less a watchtower. He tried to observe some more to find where the other buildings where, though they were barely visible. Still, according to their map If he was correct, based on the map earlier, this was one of those Ghost Town, one of many victims of Devil’s Bowl. These places tend to get ravaged by one of many occasional natural disasters, and thanks to the nobles from the kingdoms suddenly getting too interested in playing with territories, many, MANY ended up left as garbage. You wouldn’t believe how many towns they ended up abandoning by then, it was almost as if they were cursed by karma to be driven out each and every time.
DeVita put away the telescope into his pocket and reached into the car to search for the request paper again. Meanwhile Schwartz was already draining his second bottle.
“What did I tell you about saving your water?” DeVita grumbled.
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t complain about needing to use toilet later.”
They were coming to the town created by house of Gluttoria’s “Avant Micul Dejeune”. Apparently, in this one of their firsts’ attempt at creating their own marketplace, and they ended up abandoning it a week later, due to “disappointing agricultural production.”
He looked at the mission briefing again. As he read through, he realized that it was more or less a retrieval quest. Sure, it did mention them having to deal with some sort of weird, nobles-obsessed bud, but the whole thing was essentially about returning stolen goods. And the goods in question was an all important immortal.
Immortality within Garbage Area wasn’t unheard off, so that part wasn’t surprising. That said, no one should ever take immortality seriously. Either they are unable to die from their old age, are essentially bound to places with mythical artifacts that’s over million years old, or it was just one extremely lucky fella. Still, the sum for getting that guy was 500000 mony (Whoo-wee!). Now, was one immortal man really worth all of that mony?
Who cares!? Five-month worth of rent, here we come!
DeVita heard the car groan, as Schwartz reached behind to get another bottle.
“Buddy, didn’t I taught ya ‘bout saving for the road? STOP DRINKING ALREADY!”
“Sorry,” Schwartz replied, “But dey are thaking them.”
“…What? Taking what? Who!?”
“Those little fellash.”
DeVita head shot up and then quickly dove into the car, and to his horror, noticed the red and black colors dance on the seats. If there was something, far beyond evil that they could face in this Devil’s Bowl, that would be its imps. Those wretched, ugly, malicious little imps. Small, humanoid creatures made of bone strapped with red skin, black long tails and spikes adorning their heads, they would occasionally attack any careless scavenger, robbing them of all of their belongings. And once you’ve been robbed by them, it was impossible to get it back. One scavenger even had the bad luck of being visited by them during his sleep, and had not only his rations and weapons were stolen, but also his clothes, piercings, teeth, tongue and even an eye!
“WHERE THE HELL DID YOU SHITS COME FROM!!?” DeVita roared at the small monster, throwing the rear door open.
One of the imps in the middle of destroying the backseat looked at him and hissed. The rest kept taking things indiscriminately: magazines, tools, a bag, a bunch of letter pulled from below, a stash of money, a bunch of wool and spring that belonged to the seat itself. And before long, DeVita found them pulling out food and water stash.
“Okay, that’s it! Get them out, Schwartz, FAST!” DeVita yelled for his friend.
The latter, as fast and as ungracefully as he could, stumbled out of the car. The lizard himself already jumped into the backseat, doing what he could to grab stuff out of imps’ hands. Funny enough, there’s a common advice given when dealing with imps and that is to never jump head first into a group of them.
“Ackgh! Get ehm off of meee!!!” DeVita screamed, shielding his eyes and mouth as the little demons started crawling over him, digging into his close and flesh with their tiny and sharp, nails.
“Duh..!” Schwartz danced between trying to reach through the back seat, but every time he did, the imps would shriek and pinch his fingers. He would keep pulling hand back and then get lost as DeVita kept screaming.
“GO AROUND THE CAR!” yelled Devita, finally giving instructions.
Schwartz bashed the door down with his blubbery body and immediately waddled over to the rear door. He awkwardly fiddled with the door handle, trying to get his blubbery fingers to work it until he finally swung the thing open. And just like a spring, DeVita flew out with a screech, clawing the imps off of himself. Schwartz waddled over to help, batting those monsters with his hands, trying to pull his friend out. He finally was able to get his friend out to safety, with the imps finally began to run away from the car.
“Get back here!!!” DeVita screamed like a madman, as he squirmed out of Schwartz’s hands, to the latter’s surprise, and ran after those damned things.
Schwartz had no clue what his friend was doing, only to see him pull one knife from his pocket and throw it after one imp. It bullseyed right at the small-monster body, making it dissipate in ash, and drop a box of knives it was carrying.
DeVita dashed to get back his new knife collection, giving a sigh of relief as soon as they were in his hands. Meanwhile, the rascally little devils have all managed to hide right into the sand, carrying everything that they had stolen from the car. When checking it, DeVita saw that not only had they stolen almost all of the rations and tools that were inside the car, but also parts of the car itself. One tire deflated, while the other fell over, a while door was taken, several lights and based on what he could tell from the half-way opened hood, some engine parts too.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” DeVita sighed.
With the car out, they were essentially stuck out here, with no option of even going back if things get dicey. It took them most of the day just to get to the proper location, and with no resources, they might as well concede to Ace’s bony friend. On the other hand, they can reasonably walk the rest of the way.
“Duh, whath do we do with it’?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita placed the boxed knives into his pockets. Taking one more look at the car, just to make sure it really was devastated, he went to take the map from Schwartz’s pants. Turning to where they should go, he began walking.
“We’ll deal with it after we finish business with the bigger fish,” he said, and motioned the shark to follow him.
Schwartz couldn’t help but look at the car himself, making a droopy expression over the loss of transport. However, he never doubted in DeVita, so they both continued onward, as Schwartz took one more swing from his water canister.
As both walked, they did not notice that someone was watching them from afar with a pair of stolen binoculars.
“His highness…Needs hear…Proud be….” Said the dessert fox, before diving right back into sand.
…
The sun had set by the time they reached the town. The two made their way to the closest building towards them, a tall look-out tower. Once DeVita decided that they can stop for a rest, Schwartz took this chance to fall flat on his face and belly. He made a sound similar to a baby-whale’s mother call, which DeVita was familiar enough to consider it his groan.
“Alright get the sheets out. I’ll look around the area and the building. Once done, we’ll hide ourselves for the night.”
Schwartz, without looking up or making a noise, reached deep into his pockets to get some of those sheets out. DeVita, making a quick breather, went on to work.
Scanning the outside, the tower was small, but looked functional, completely made of stone. He found the entrance later and saw the inside leading to a spiral staircase. Seeing how the tower bulged at the top, they’ll probably have the space to sleep once they reach the top. He also found a wooden lid on the ground, and once lifting, saw a small storage inside it. Compared to the dry atmosphere of the tower’s insides, the storage was wet and had a pungent smell. He found some boxes with liquid, and checking them, only found them filled with wine. Other than that, there was nothing else. Which was weird based on the amount of space there was in the storage.
He exited out the building, and saw Schwartz still lying down on his face.
“Alright had a look’see and have a pair of bad news. One, there’s no water here, so you’d better still have some in your canister.” He bent down to check the canister in Schwartz’s hand and shook it, it being less than a half full. “Two, we’re going up.”
“Awww, but’ I hathe sthairs!” Schwartz complained with his noise still in sand. DeVita could only pat him in motivation.
And so, the duo made their way up the elaborate, dimly lit staircase. As expected, it was still fairly sturdy, and while occasional cobweb might prop-up when they glide their hands on it through the wall, the place was pretty clean. After a short while, the two reached the top, and Schwartz had already lost his breath from all this walking. Letting his friend lie down, DeVita checked around, the bulb inside’s containing sturdy wooden floor, and not much else. The cold night air breezed through the windows, and DeVita moved to one of them. After the tower, they were a few steps away from the town itself, so at the very least, there wasn’t a need to worry about walking long distances.
It was also rather quiet. But then again, they probably all fell asleep. Who in their right mind does crime when they should sleep? Bah!
“Alright, we have until tomorrow to make our plan of action. Here’s what we gonna do…”
DeVita walked to his friend, who was still on the floor. With a huff, he pushed him to lie on the back, only to find the shark’s face showed incredulity.
“Whatsamatter?”
“Uhhh….Are you..?”
“Making a plan!”
“Oh! But’ shince when?”
“…Just get up.”
He led the portly shark to a nearby corner. Using the moonlight, his knife and the map, DeVita started his demonstration.
“Okay, listen up…First, we need to lure that prince out, who I think is likely over here,” he pointed to the center of the town on the map, and then to the building far from them from the window. “That is the main castle, and everybody loves castles, and I’m pretty sure he does too. Call it a hunch. Then, once we capture him, we take him here, torture some info and maybe have him find some guys who could put our car back together. Then, take him, the immortal, leave the place, return the car, and BOOM, we won! Then we rub in to the faces of those for weirdos, ask for a $70000 reward because we can, get a better renting space, flaunt it in front of Cassandra, maybe have a night out with the boss, eh? Sounds good right?”
Schwartz nodded enthusiastically.
“Dat sounds amazing, boss!”
“You got that right. Now, we probably could also start pondering on them resources. So far, we got some Molotovs, and after that...”
DeVita saw Schwartz’s big maw open wide as he yawned. Soon enough, DeVita felt one coming up from him.
“Ah geez, guess we tuckered ourselves out,” he brought his fist to his face and covered the toothy mouth. He checked through the windows again and came back to pull the sheets from Schwartz’s pocket. One he put on the floor for himself to lie on, another he covered Schwartz.
“DeVita... Can you tell me that story?” Schwartz asked him with another yawn.
“Which one?”
“About the flower? It feels atmospheric.”
“There you go using big words. You gonna make yourself sounds smarter than you are,” DeVita said before lying down, both of their faces directed straight at one another.
“Sorry…”
“Ah don’t be. Flower, eh? Guess that’s good. So, here’s the moral, don’t lose sight of what you do, no matter what people bribe you with. This is a story about a flower, who wanted to grow in a dessert…”
…
It was then closer to the middle of the night. The moon still shone high up in the air, illuminating through the window, and the only sound heard was that of Schwartz’s loud, gurgling snore. DeVita was making yet another turn in his bedsheet, until he felt something pass by him. The lizard’s eyes opened immediately, and on instinct, he stood straight up and looked over his surroundings.
Aside from moonlight’s glow, there was nothing entering the inside of the room they were in. Jumping up to his feet, the lizard stared out of the window. The cold air was freezing his face, but he continued scanning the area, and could barely see anything with the shadows from nearby buildings. There was something there, but he had no idea what. So, without much of a concrete reason to stay awake, he went back to his dirty bed-sheet, ready to fall asleep.
A sound of explosion then woke up both of them on the spot.
“What the-!“
The room was lit up brighter than if they were inside a lamp. The magnificent wheel of bombastic colors shone all over them, as thunderous clapping of fireworks sounded right above them. Schwartz, who was still feeling sleepy, could help but stare at everything around him.
“Duh I didn’t do nuthin,” he said innocently.
“I know that!”
A loud blast of explosion came from right outside their window, enough to shake the whole room. This one had combination of green, blue, purple and pink, filling the room with cotton-candy cloud.
“C’MON, WE NEED TO GET DOWN!” DeVita yelled in-between his coughing fits.
“WHAT!?” Schwartz yelled back, completely disoriented from his surrounding.
DeVita with adrenaline and anger filling his veins, pushed and punted the big shark blob to his feet. They both ran towards the stairs, trying to keep balance as they flew down, with the tower shaking from to the chaotic beat of the murder-fireworks.
“WELCOME, MY DEAR GUESTS, TO THE LA GLUTON DOMAIN!” A loud voice spoke, presumably through a megaphone. DeVita already had come to hate the nosy stuffiness it seemed to exude.
They finally reached the ground floor after managing to hear about fiver more explosions. The door was still looked from before, so DeVita started working on a plan. It might not be the the best plan, but on-the-fly thinking were very rewarding in places like these. Pulling the lid off of the basement, he dove right in and seconds later brought out a box full of wine. Picking one, he turned to Schwartz, who still in sleepy state carried his bedsheet with him. With knife in hand, he uncorked the bottle and ripped a part of the bedsheet, to Schwartz’s dismay, and prepared for himself at least on weapon he knew could be of use: a Molotov.
“Now we’re talking.” He pulled the box closer to his shark friend and gave a sharp order to “Pick it up!”
Schwartz followed his lead, and ungracefully brought them up in the air, with DeVita reprimanding him to be more careful. DeVita dashed the door, and with some force opened it slightly. Schwartz moved closer, trying to be as subtle as he possibly could with a box full of bottles. A crazy array of light was entering right through the gap, from pink to blue to green to purple to gold, enough to tire their eyes out. Whoever was ambushing them enjoyed being needlessly excessive. Technically, exactly like a noble would. Frankly though, the fact that through all this light, he couldn’t see any other shadow besides the buildings’ was the most worrying part.
“Now, now, no need to fret, for it is I, Cornelius LaGluttoria!” Once again emanated the loud voice. Before long, DeVita suddenly felt the stone tower shaking. “I have come, my dear pair of trespassers, to offer you a chance to see my GLORIOUS glory, and finally come to understanding that you two had NO chance of EVER of going against ME! Now, how about both of you come out and face me, like good little bugs you are?”
The two exchanged glances, coming up to the same conclusion.
“Duh-Who is that’ mook?” Schwartz asked DeVita, who smirked in return.
Funny enough, based on what he said, even if he is an imposter, he definitely knew how to be a noble. Those twenty nobles were the ones responsible for prosperity of their kingdoms, and they usually grew a sense of self-importance larger than anyone had any right to be. DeVita wasn’t familiar with them personally, not that he’d care to learn anything about the kingdoms, he did for sure knew that seven of them represented vices, and this guy sounded like he represented gluttony.
It was then that he heard a familiar noise. Something shuffled right beside him, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He couldn’t have felt any happier to hear it. It was one thing if you had no idea where they were coming from, but now he had a plan. And all that was left was to execute it.
DeVita make a clicking sound with his tongue, a sound Schwartz was familiarized to mean to be “ready.” DeVita slightly opened the door some more. Surveying what he could, the colors helped to make the shadows even easier to see, in a way, he had counted up to seven of them sneaking behind the building. One of them, he noticed, had something resembling a firearm. Meaning even if they would run out straight, they are likely to be shot down.
This left with singular other possible option.
“As soon as say it, run after me.” DeVita took out his ever useful lighter-knife. Which was a knife, that doubled as a lighter, which made up for the fact that it couldn’t stab anything worthwhile.
“Okay…” Schwartz whispered.
DeVita lit up the sheet piece, and checked the door again. He already heard someone stepping in closer.
“On my mark…”
DeVita lowered his knees and held the burning bottle high. He visualized their path in his head, based on his one time viewing from the top.
And then he jumped right out and threw the bottle right above himself.
“Run after me!”
“Okay!”
The pieces fell onto the bigger group of bandits, the ones DeVita and Schwartz passed as they ran their way into the town. As DeVita considered, it would be better to hide inside one of the buildings instead of wildly panicking outside in the dessert. Especially if they could get into one of the shelters. These things are impenetrable, made to help survive the desert. And even if they get found later, at the very least they could get a breather.
“Dhose are very pretthy colors!” Schwartz said, his head turned upwards instead of forward.
“Yeah yeah, we’ve- Shit, they’re here!” DeVita bumped Schwartz to the side, make them both turn.
A handful of bandits popped right from behind their nearest building. Each of them armed guns, knives and scowls, a combination you definitely did not want anywhere near the entrance to your safehouse.
As DeVita lit another bottle, he yelled, “Keep running!” to Schwartz. He threw the bottle straight into the second to the middle bandit, then bumped Schwartz from behind. The poor shark was looking more and more lost from the panic. DeVita ran right in front of him, already finding another building they could enter, and have his big buddy follow right behind.
They navigated through the twists and turns, as few more bandits slowly started to show up. The buildings were, while undeniably still good-looking, far from being well-kept by anyone. So this make the sudden appearance of so many of these bandits all the more surprising. You’d think if that guy managed to house so many in this one place, they would at least add their own personal touches. Like, you know, scratches, cigarette marks or piss stains. All they had was dust.
Something that DeVita has started to consider it to be extremely weird by the eighth time they managed to jump in on them. To reiterate, there weas extremely large number of bandits. DeVita threw his bottles at them, but the number left in the box kept decreasing, leaving them less and less options to escape with.
“Dammit, this is a pain in the asshole!” DeVita then bumped into Schwartz’s blubbery side.
“Duh, why did you do dath!?”
“Cause we need to get inside that building!” DeVita yelled. Considering how deep into the town they were, they could simply just enter into any building they wanted. But as for the bandits that were tailing them, he took the rest of the cloth that was left and lit it up.
“Now slam it right behind us!” DeVita pulled Schwartz’s arm, who followed his lead without freezing up. In a semi-large swing of the box, he smashed it against the ground, alongside the burning cloth thrown by DeVita.
With this chance taken, they both entered inside the narby building and closed the door shut. DeVita took time to breathe, finally realizing how tired he was from all of this. Wiping sweat, he then patted his partner’s higher shoulders.
“It should keep those idjits busy. Find the storage and open it for me, ya hear?!”
Despite orders given, Schwartz would not move. DeVita checked on his partner, trying to figure out what made him suddenly stop, and wondering if the guy needs some water. After all, they did run all this way.
But then something clicked inside the room.
“Not another step.”
DeVita sighed in defeat.
“When the hell did they…” He grumbled, but before long he had someone grab his hand and pin him to the hard stone wall.
“Hey, did you hear how he called us?” One of the bandits laughed loudly, presumably the “funny guy” of the group. “He said we were ‘idjits’! Man, you must feel so bad to suck!!!”
DeVita was able to turn his head enough to get a good glimpse of them. Overall, about six, not too big of a number. The “funny guy” stood farther back and based on his girth, while fitting for an otter, can be dealt with swiftly. The other three, including the guy pinning him, were average, with lithe build. No one looked with hard skins, and one even had a hobble. The last dude, a human with lizard’s eye, appeared the most properly intimidating.
And he seemed to be calling the shots based on the order given, “Strip him.”
DeVita gritted his teeth and hissed, but the bandits have already started pulling out weapons from his pockets.
“You better not do anything, blubberfish,” the leader told Schwartz.
When he felt reaching down to his breast-pocket, DeVita immediately growled out, “Don’t you dare!”
“Look boss, Behemoth Cutter 3000tm!!! That’s some expensive shit!”
“If I see you put one more of your finger on it, I swear on my mum, I’ll slice ‘em off-“
DeVita felt the knee land right in the middle of his back. It took him few minutes before he could properly breathe.
“You aren’t the one making demands here. Not anymore.”
He kicked the door the down open with one foot and everybody followed him. As he was pushed by a recklessly eager bandit, DeVita couldn’t help but look at a group of them playing around with a piece of cloth. Which happened to be very familiar to him.
“By the way,” the lizard-eyed man said, stopping their group near that one, “what exactly were you thinking, throwing those bottles at us? Impromptu molotovs?”
DeVita didn’t answer, just stared at the ground, where laid multitude of pieces of broken bottles.
“Cause, you know, not every type of alcohol is flammable, you know that?”
Thinking on it, DeVita couldn’t help but finally notice how something was missing throughout their whole chase. More specifically, something fiery. Must’ve forgotten to check.
“Did you guys just found it lying around in the building somewhere?”
The guy approach closer to DeVita. Between the two of them, there was a significant difference in height and bulk, but that didn’t matter. As his uncle used to say, as long as you show no fear, or even better, intimidate them into fearing you, even sleeping in jail will be a breeze.
“I’d say ya got lucky, lizard-eye.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
“That said,” DeVita continued, “whose to say you’ll continue to be lucky? Maybe one day, you’ll lose that precious eye. Not saying how, but I’d worry.”
The eye man chuckled.
“Lose an eye, huh? Like this?”
He promptly plucked the lizard eye from its socket. Motioning the other bandit, the guy let go of DeVita, who reactively caught the eye as it was tossed to him. Before he realized what happened, a fist shot straight into his gut.
DeVita reeled a bit, before finally letting out in a small, wheezy tone, “Ooh, I am so gonna kill you…” and then coughed.
The man scoffed, took back his eye and pushed DeVita back to his holder. Finally coming to, DeVita immediately noticed something, which he hadn’t paid attention to until few moments ago, and that was their weapons. White barrel, golden handles, elaborative and unnecessary wings…those were definitely the arms that belonged to the nobles! These things were extremely devastating in the wrong hands, capable of turning healthy men into meaty toothpaste. They are also notoriously hard to get by, as are most of the weapons handed to the nobles’ guards.
So how did they get a hold of them? DeVita began clicking his teeth. Without a knife, it tended to be hard to think for him, so he needed to find a way to get his hands on one.
Soon, they stopped right in the middle of the streets, the widest out of all of them. An array of light was moving near them, already illuminating more and more of the street as if someone took the sun and was now riding it.
“Duh, what do we do now?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita squinted a bit at the incoming monstrosity. It was becoming harder and harder to look. Even Schwartz, when he checked on the guy, had basically shut his eyes. The ground shook more as the thunderous and deafening motor noise was brought closer to them alongside it. Slowly DeVita came to realization why so much money was offered to them for this quest…and it probably had to do with the sheer armory this man seemed to be bringing.
And so, within the loud, rumbling noises, DeVita began to yell,
“Number one,” he started, using all of his lungs just to make sure his words reached Schwartz, “don’t say anything! Number two, don’t do what I wouldn’t do! Number three, follow my lead!!!”
“Oh, ok,” Schwartz calmly and inaudibly replied with his smile. DeVita accepted it as is with a sigh.
The trembling and growling grew louder, and soon enough, they couldn’t see anything at all thanks to the light. DeVita felt a tinge of fear, suddenly realizing that with it being so bright, those bozos could kill them just as fast as if they were in the darkness. Should they risk it and start attacking before anything could happen to them? A sense of preservation is necessary, his uncle once told him, but so was not running around like a chicken. There was no use in panicking.
And then, a loud voice announced via speaker,
“Well done, my dear servants, Mwhohohoho!” His laugh came from his nose and rumbled a bit before nearly snorting like a pig. It was almost forced, too.
The light dimmed, enough that, after having to be forced to see nothing but the shine of their inner eyelids, everyone could finally lift them a tiny bit. It was still shiny, but DeVita could actually figure out what the monstrosity actually was. And it was a VERY large thing, almost the size of, if not bigger, than the buildings surrounding it. The front was that of a protruding, bulbous front which showed a row of metallic boards that come across as teeth down the middle. The sides were adorned with lights, the source of all of that blindness they endured. Going higher to the top, sat on his throne a fat-looking man. And he wore the most gaudiest of clothes, those stupid looking shirts, vests and pants that nobles love on themselves, and hair just as bright and colorful as the lights. DeVita tried to eye a bit more, but his vision still needed time to adjust.
“HEY, HOW ABOUT YOU FINALLY MADE SOME SUNGLASSES FOR US!!?” A bandit yelled from afar. “WE CAN”T SEE SHIT WITH YOU SHINING LIKE THAT!!!”
The “noble” from above wouldn’t answer, and DeVita pretty much knew why. As far as acting goes, it wasn’t far from how nobles are. From the need to accessorize to making their presence well known. Even more so, disregarding the complaints of the lesser, or even choosing to deal with the problem by simply eliminating complainers. If the guy wasn’t even a real noble, he could definitely pass as one, that’s for sure.
The bulbous machine then began rumbling, once again. That said, the noise was more akin to vibration, the machine suddenly restructuring itself. The throne, from what DeVita glimpsed, folded on itself, allowing the noble to stand up. His body then started to move downwards, thanks to the teeth in the middle separating, revealing a gigantic staircase built within it. With over hundred steps and more, DeVita wondered if the mook was really gonna go all the way down. But then he realized that he wasn’t moving at all, and instead it was the stairs. The vibratory rumbling continued as the noble got closer and closer to earth, showing him descending with his arms out wide. As he reached halfway down, a fanfare started to resound, a distinct one which DeVita didn’t really remember to whom it belonged it.
Because he hated these sounds.
Finally, after spending whole twenty minutes of getting his freshly installed light-bulb of head down to them, the noble finally touched the ground. In his hands he was holding a pair of sticks, one appearing as a scepter with a large emblem embedded on it, while the latter was a chicken drum, which upon closer look also happen to be not real. Also, for a moment, DeVita wasn’t sure if what he saw was right. Despite the grossly rotund form of his torso, his face was extremely thin and well-sculpted. Furthermore, he was a “human”, and last he heard, the Gluttoria’s were pigmen. He did hear both species were pretty close to one another, but something about this didn’t make much sense.
This noble then tapped his chicken drumstick against the side of the machine, and as if by magic, a carpet appeared below him. Plain red, with bright golden trim. He then marched (or waddled? That mook really tried to make himself waddle) all the way to DeVita. All DeVita could think, watching that gross, overinflated man walk to him was, that there was a lot of stuffing under that fat coat of his. Some of it came out of the seams, too. Then he looked closer to his hair…mane?...whatever it was, it was obviously a wig. It was just a bit hard to see due to billions of different lights shining at you from every which way.
“So, it seems we have been visited a very lovely pair of gentlemen,” the noble target announced with a huge smile. DeVita felt like there was something in that guy’s mouth. “Of course, considering how important I am as a part of the prestigious twenty noble families, that should’ve been obvious! It would’ve been far more outrageous if I wasn’t targeted by some ne’er-do-wells! So which one of them sent you after me?” The fat suited man raised DeVita’s mouth to him with the scepter. All DeVita could think was that it was probably an egg. Small enough to play in your mouth. “Was it from Ira family? The Vious? Oh, of course! How could I forget my own ilk. Perhaps they also wanted to rid themselves of their so-called ‘shame’, but not to worry, I know exactly how to answer that. So…well?”
DeVita looked up and down the costume. The patches sewn together completely amateurishly, with visible seams, pieces sticking out, and he even found a row of needles. If anyone with a sense of fashion, and DeVita was one, saw the whole thing, they would laugh. He would too, of course, but he was more annoyed.
“I am talking to youuuuu~” the noble drew out the “u” for emphasis. That said, he seemed to be losing patience. “Hellooo! Do you even KNOW who I am?”
DeVita, with hands held tightly behind him, said nothing, at first. He then relaxed his posture, cleared his throat and checked his teeth with his tongue.
“Look here, buddy,” DeVita finally answered. His voice carried as much intimidation as one would to an overly-dressed goose. “I respect the fanfare, and the whole get-up too, really nice, but I think you’ve been talking to a wrong guy here. We aren’t trying to assassinate you! We are just a pair of travellers, looking to learn more about the these here ruins.”
The noble eyed him suspiciously.
“Look I’m honest! I even made a fool of myself by throwing unflammable bottles here and there. And come on, tell me, is it really a crime to be interested in the beauty of architecture? See as you chose this place, I think you’d also believe it very, very much! Y’know, my mama used to say, so how ‘bout we-“
“You should stop monologuing here,” the noble cut him short.
DeVita’s mouth hanged wide open. He actually felt fairly offended by that.
“Minions!” The noble yelled. None of the bandits seemed to be interested in the whole thing. “Do these brutes remind you of someone? Hmmm?...You!”
From behind DeVita, the lizard-eyed came forward, “Here’s some knives we found on him.”
“Can’t a lizard collect knives as a hobby, for devil’s sake!?”
The noble took the collection package and the Behemoth Cutter 3000tm, and eyed them closely.
“Hey, you better not touch ‘em ya bastard!”
“You aren’t talking here, prisoner!” The noble replied calmly. “And do try to be a bit more proper in how you act in front of a noble, like moi. I, am Darrold DeLa Gluttoria, a straight descendent of the original founder of Gluttoria’s noble family. And lest you wish your head to be rolled on the ground, you WILL refer to me as your majesty, immediately!”
DeVita rolled his eyes with exaggeration. So that’s who they were dealing with. For that he gained another bruise to the gut, courtesy of a nearby bandit, on Darrold’s order.
“The Behemoth Cutter 30000tm, a pretty expensive set,” the Lizard-Eye continued. “You don’t usually find these anywhere, either.”
“A man can be of culture, buddy,” DeVita coughed a bit, “now hand them over unless you want me to wipe sand with ya!”
He returned to standing straight. Darrold eyes then seemingly focused.
The Lizard-Eye said, “If you wanted something more collector edition, you should have gone for the ancient relics, or maybe pretty gemstone. This is a knife that is sold to scavengers.”
“A scavenger!” Darrold exclaimed triumphantly, as if he came to an important discovery.
DeVita eyes darted.
“What are ye talking ‘bout! We’re just a pair of…dapper gentleman with a knife collection!” He lied with a twisty smile. “I mean, we are nobodies, complete and total-“
“There’s a note on the back, ‘If lost, return it back to DeVita, AKA The Knife & Fork Duo, AKA This is mine you sonovabitch!’” The Lizard-Eye read.
Darrold starred intensely at DeVita.
“…Who just happen to be a big fan of them. I hear they have good fashion sense!”
“My, how interesting…” Darrold’s smile grew through his filled cheeks, enough to give a glimpse of the egg in his mouth. “Minions, open the hatchet!”
DeVita watched as a pair of bandits go behind the fat noble and pull against one of the teeth from the machine. From behind it, they brought out a huge, black sack, tied with a golden rope. They moved closer to DeVita, then quickly opened the bag, and threw it to him. Out from poured gallons and gallons of golden coins and jewels, spreading into a large patch in the sand. There was so much, DeVita didn’t even notice his jaw unhinge and hang below him.
“I am a very simple noble, you see,” Darroled began talking. “And as a simple noble, I enjoy owning LARGE sums of money…”
DeVita’s brain took time to soak it all in. So much cash, enough to get them through several months of rent payments! Maybe, even get him all the knife collections in the world! Or maybe…maybe open their own Scavenger Post! The possibilities are endless!!!
“Now then, since we’ve shown it all, what is your opinion, my good fellow.”
DeVita made a small noise, almost chuckling. “Well, I say-”
“Actually, I was talking to your silent friend, over there!” Darrold cut him off.
“…Eh, what?”
The noble waddled past DeVita. Pushing his captor to turn both of them around, DeVita saw the noble walk up to his shark friend. The shark kept gazing at everything, only realizing what just happened when the noble started talking to him.
“I know, exactly what is going on,” he announced. “You thought you could fool me, but the truth is, you ARE exactly the type who wouldn’t say anything!”
The shark looked confused, and DeVita was flabbergasted.
“No-no you see, this is my partner, he isn’t-“
“I know EXACTLY how this works. And you will not confuse me! The size is power, one who consumes all, one who has no care in the world, one who has others do what has to be done, that is a sign of STATUS!” Darrold’s voice was loud and manic. Darrold turned and starred dreamily up at the shark, “Now, what say you know, oh silent one? I have made a generous offer for you…will you accept it? Will you join my ranks, and in return, get glorious money you’ve NEVER seen before?”
“…Duh…”
Schwartz’s eyes wandered. He looked at DeVita, who quickly and with enunciation mouthed words: DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! They were dealing with an idiot, better not mess it up.
“Monoth…May….Impotent?”
DeVita eyes bugged out. His mouth went to rapidfire: NO ARE YOU AN IDIOT, STOP TALKING!
Schwartz then bobbled his head with a grin. Then proudly, he said, “Money doesn’t matter! Take it back where you belong!!!”
DeVita made a sound that was very reptilian in nature, with a bit of cat to it. The golden boy looked very shocked, his minions were confused, while Schwartz bore happiness on his face like a toddler would
“Well, I see now. You two are far more respectful than I imagined. Well, in that case, it seems we must opt to another way to do this.” He snapped his fingers and called upon one of the bandits. “Minions, throw both of them into prison! We shall see what we can do with them!”
Darrold turned sharply, and began walking away. The captors then prodded Schwartz to go forward, who did after five times.
As he passed by DeVita, he asked, “I did good, right?”
“Oh yeah…real nice…” DeVita hissed through teeth.
The adventures in Garbage Area seemed to be still continuing. Let it be known, anything can happen there.
…
And FINALLY continued this bit. Warning, a bit long.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…
Garbage Area on the outset wasn’t that different from any other dessert, being fairly hot during the long days, and very cold during the long nights. In this story, let’s just say the day was pretty long, so when the duo were riding for several hours now, it was still as hot as hell out there, and it wasn’t looking like it was gonna stop being such for a while now.
DeVita rode the dune-buggy/greaser through the sandy plains with the same grace as a toddler. Considering last time he rode this thing was twenty months ago, this was actually impressive. Compared to most who would drive through here, he enjoyed the dusty air and the unyielding heat of the desert quite much. He saw it as its own kind of beauty, one which doesn’t fall to standard views. Schwartz, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so good under the dry heat, heaving and waving his hand just to get some cool air. The blubber, the glistening skin, the overall fishy nature were all perhaps reasons why sizzling desert environment just didn’t sit well with him.
DeVita, knowing his friend’s tells, and pulled up a canister from between their seats.
“You need a drink bud?” he asked.
Schwartz nodded giddily and grabbed the canister to take a large swig from it. Usually, Schwartz would carry few large water canisters himself, or apply his water-retaining gel, which usually helped him during these types of jobs. He would still need to drink lots of water anyways, but with the shortage of money as of late, he couldn’t pack himself full enough of water. Thankfully, the car had a large bin at the back specifically made to carry water everywhere, which DeVita filled the canister with
“Alright, we’ve been out here for a while now, get the map!” DeVita ordered, after letting his friend take large enough gulp.
The shark-man reached into his back-pocket, and pulled a crumpled piece of paper that was supposed to be their map. They were getting closer to one of the four main kingdoms, as the target in question was situated somewhere there. It also meant the dangers of something far less violent, yet equally vicious, and more posh as well. The outside of the kingdoms were well prepared to greet with guards capable of taking down scavengers, and while they may not kill them on the spot, they will find time to execute them later. There were many reasons why they wouldn’t go easy on them (including many being responsible for killing important figures), so the duo made sure to target a particular place, and not veer into trouble, hopefully.
“I dink it’sh on… the…left…? Or…uh…wait’…” Schwartz kept muttering under breath, spinning and poking with map with his huge nose.
“Give me that!” DeVita grabbed the map impatiently and placed it on the wheel.
“Its one of those a-bandun cities?” Schwartz asked.
“Could be…ah geez let’s take a break,” he suddenly announced and ungracefully stepped on the break pedal. It was for the most part his lack of knowledge on how these damned machines supposed to work, but the maneuver caused the whole thing to tilt forward into a stop. It was so sudden, that most of the water spilled out of Schwartz’s canister onto their feet.
“Awww…” mumbled Schwartz, gazing at the spilled contents with his small, dopy eyes.
“Don’t worry we have a ton more in the back,” DeVita reassured. He then kicked the door open with the same force as he did the pedal, enough to make its hinges squeal. He went to open the trunk, and found the large metal box full of water containers, plus some other small items, like guns, knives, blowtorch, air pump, skeletal-themed teddy bear and other.
DeVita took one container and grabbed a telescope he found lying behind the box. Coming to the front, he flung the water into Schwartz’s hungry hands while taking the ‘scope to have a good look over what was coming for them over the horizon.
The first thing he saw was an outline of a building, more or less a watchtower. He tried to observe some more to find where the other buildings where, though they were barely visible. Still, according to their map If he was correct, based on the map earlier, this was one of those Ghost Town, one of many victims of Devil’s Bowl. These places tend to get ravaged by one of many occasional natural disasters, and thanks to the nobles from the kingdoms suddenly getting too interested in playing with territories, many, MANY ended up left as garbage. You wouldn’t believe how many towns they ended up abandoning by then, it was almost as if they were cursed by karma to be driven out each and every time.
DeVita put away the telescope into his pocket and reached into the car to search for the request paper again. Meanwhile Schwartz was already draining his second bottle.
“What did I tell you about saving your water?” DeVita grumbled.
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t complain about needing to use toilet later.”
They were coming to the town created by house of Gluttoria’s “Avant Micul Dejeune”. Apparently, in this one of their firsts’ attempt at creating their own marketplace, and they ended up abandoning it a week later, due to “disappointing agricultural production.”
He looked at the mission briefing again. As he read through, he realized that it was more or less a retrieval quest. Sure, it did mention them having to deal with some sort of weird, nobles-obsessed bud, but the whole thing was essentially about returning stolen goods. And the goods in question was an all important immortal.
Immortality within Garbage Area wasn’t unheard off, so that part wasn’t surprising. That said, no one should ever take immortality seriously. Either they are unable to die from their old age, are essentially bound to places with mythical artifacts that’s over million years old, or it was just one extremely lucky fella. Still, the sum for getting that guy was 500000 mony (Whoo-wee!). Now, was one immortal man really worth all of that mony?
Who cares!? Five-month worth of rent, here we come!
DeVita heard the car groan, as Schwartz reached behind to get another bottle.
“Buddy, didn’t I taught ya ‘bout saving for the road? STOP DRINKING ALREADY!”
“Sorry,” Schwartz replied, “But dey are thaking them.”
“…What? Taking what? Who!?”
“Those little fellash.”
DeVita head shot up and then quickly dove into the car, and to his horror, noticed the red and black colors dance on the seats. If there was something, far beyond evil that they could face in this Devil’s Bowl, that would be its imps. Those wretched, ugly, malicious little imps. Small, humanoid creatures made of bone strapped with red skin, black long tails and spikes adorning their heads, they would occasionally attack any careless scavenger, robbing them of all of their belongings. And once you’ve been robbed by them, it was impossible to get it back. One scavenger even had the bad luck of being visited by them during his sleep, and had not only his rations and weapons were stolen, but also his clothes, piercings, teeth, tongue and even an eye!
“WHERE THE HELL DID YOU SHITS COME FROM!!?” DeVita roared at the small monster, throwing the rear door open.
One of the imps in the middle of destroying the backseat looked at him and hissed. The rest kept taking things indiscriminately: magazines, tools, a bag, a bunch of letter pulled from below, a stash of money, a bunch of wool and spring that belonged to the seat itself. And before long, DeVita found them pulling out food and water stash.
“Okay, that’s it! Get them out, Schwartz, FAST!” DeVita yelled for his friend.
The latter, as fast and as ungracefully as he could, stumbled out of the car. The lizard himself already jumped into the backseat, doing what he could to grab stuff out of imps’ hands. Funny enough, there’s a common advice given when dealing with imps and that is to never jump head first into a group of them.
“Ackgh! Get ehm off of meee!!!” DeVita screamed, shielding his eyes and mouth as the little demons started crawling over him, digging into his close and flesh with their tiny and sharp, nails.
“Duh..!” Schwartz danced between trying to reach through the back seat, but every time he did, the imps would shriek and pinch his fingers. He would keep pulling hand back and then get lost as DeVita kept screaming.
“GO AROUND THE CAR!” yelled Devita, finally giving instructions.
Schwartz bashed the door down with his blubbery body and immediately waddled over to the rear door. He awkwardly fiddled with the door handle, trying to get his blubbery fingers to work it until he finally swung the thing open. And just like a spring, DeVita flew out with a screech, clawing the imps off of himself. Schwartz waddled over to help, batting those monsters with his hands, trying to pull his friend out. He finally was able to get his friend out to safety, with the imps finally began to run away from the car.
“Get back here!!!” DeVita screamed like a madman, as he squirmed out of Schwartz’s hands, to the latter’s surprise, and ran after those damned things.
Schwartz had no clue what his friend was doing, only to see him pull one knife from his pocket and throw it after one imp. It bullseyed right at the small-monster body, making it dissipate in ash, and drop a box of knives it was carrying.
DeVita dashed to get back his new knife collection, giving a sigh of relief as soon as they were in his hands. Meanwhile, the rascally little devils have all managed to hide right into the sand, carrying everything that they had stolen from the car. When checking it, DeVita saw that not only had they stolen almost all of the rations and tools that were inside the car, but also parts of the car itself. One tire deflated, while the other fell over, a while door was taken, several lights and based on what he could tell from the half-way opened hood, some engine parts too.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” DeVita sighed.
With the car out, they were essentially stuck out here, with no option of even going back if things get dicey. It took them most of the day just to get to the proper location, and with no resources, they might as well concede to Ace’s bony friend. On the other hand, they can reasonably walk the rest of the way.
“Duh, whath do we do with it’?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita placed the boxed knives into his pockets. Taking one more look at the car, just to make sure it really was devastated, he went to take the map from Schwartz’s pants. Turning to where they should go, he began walking.
“We’ll deal with it after we finish business with the bigger fish,” he said, and motioned the shark to follow him.
Schwartz couldn’t help but look at the car himself, making a droopy expression over the loss of transport. However, he never doubted in DeVita, so they both continued onward, as Schwartz took one more swing from his water canister.
As both walked, they did not notice that someone was watching them from afar with a pair of stolen binoculars.
“His highness…Needs hear…Proud be….” Said the dessert fox, before diving right back into sand.
…
The sun had set by the time they reached the town. The two made their way to the closest building towards them, a tall look-out tower. Once DeVita decided that they can stop for a rest, Schwartz took this chance to fall flat on his face and belly. He made a sound similar to a baby-whale’s mother call, which DeVita was familiar enough to consider it his groan.
“Alright get the sheets out. I’ll look around the area and the building. Once done, we’ll hide ourselves for the night.”
Schwartz, without looking up or making a noise, reached deep into his pockets to get some of those sheets out. DeVita, making a quick breather, went on to work.
Scanning the outside, the tower was small, but looked functional, completely made of stone. He found the entrance later and saw the inside leading to a spiral staircase. Seeing how the tower bulged at the top, they’ll probably have the space to sleep once they reach the top. He also found a wooden lid on the ground, and once lifting, saw a small storage inside it. Compared to the dry atmosphere of the tower’s insides, the storage was wet and had a pungent smell. He found some boxes with liquid, and checking them, only found them filled with wine. Other than that, there was nothing else. Which was weird based on the amount of space there was in the storage.
He exited out the building, and saw Schwartz still lying down on his face.
“Alright had a look’see and have a pair of bad news. One, there’s no water here, so you’d better still have some in your canister.” He bent down to check the canister in Schwartz’s hand and shook it, it being less than a half full. “Two, we’re going up.”
“Awww, but’ I hathe sthairs!” Schwartz complained with his noise still in sand. DeVita could only pat him in motivation.
And so, the duo made their way up the elaborate, dimly lit staircase. As expected, it was still fairly sturdy, and while occasional cobweb might prop-up when they glide their hands on it through the wall, the place was pretty clean. After a short while, the two reached the top, and Schwartz had already lost his breath from all this walking. Letting his friend lie down, DeVita checked around, the bulb inside’s containing sturdy wooden floor, and not much else. The cold night air breezed through the windows, and DeVita moved to one of them. After the tower, they were a few steps away from the town itself, so at the very least, there wasn’t a need to worry about walking long distances.
It was also rather quiet. But then again, they probably all fell asleep. Who in their right mind does crime when they should sleep? Bah!
“Alright, we have until tomorrow to make our plan of action. Here’s what we gonna do…”
DeVita walked to his friend, who was still on the floor. With a huff, he pushed him to lie on the back, only to find the shark’s face showed incredulity.
“Whatsamatter?”
“Uhhh….Are you..?”
“Making a plan!”
“Oh! But’ shince when?”
“…Just get up.”
He led the portly shark to a nearby corner. Using the moonlight, his knife and the map, DeVita started his demonstration.
“Okay, listen up…First, we need to lure that prince out, who I think is likely over here,” he pointed to the center of the town on the map, and then to the building far from them from the window. “That is the main castle, and everybody loves castles, and I’m pretty sure he does too. Call it a hunch. Then, once we capture him, we take him here, torture some info and maybe have him find some guys who could put our car back together. Then, take him, the immortal, leave the place, return the car, and BOOM, we won! Then we rub in to the faces of those for weirdos, ask for a $70000 reward because we can, get a better renting space, flaunt it in front of Cassandra, maybe have a night out with the boss, eh? Sounds good right?”
Schwartz nodded enthusiastically.
“Dat sounds amazing, boss!”
“You got that right. Now, we probably could also start pondering on them resources. So far, we got some Molotovs, and after that...”
DeVita saw Schwartz’s big maw open wide as he yawned. Soon enough, DeVita felt one coming up from him.
“Ah geez, guess we tuckered ourselves out,” he brought his fist to his face and covered the toothy mouth. He checked through the windows again and came back to pull the sheets from Schwartz’s pocket. One he put on the floor for himself to lie on, another he covered Schwartz.
“DeVita... Can you tell me that story?” Schwartz asked him with another yawn.
“Which one?”
“About the flower? It feels atmospheric.”
“There you go using big words. You gonna make yourself sounds smarter than you are,” DeVita said before lying down, both of their faces directed straight at one another.
“Sorry…”
“Ah don’t be. Flower, eh? Guess that’s good. So, here’s the moral, don’t lose sight of what you do, no matter what people bribe you with. This is a story about a flower, who wanted to grow in a dessert…”
…
It was then closer to the middle of the night. The moon still shone high up in the air, illuminating through the window, and the only sound heard was that of Schwartz’s loud, gurgling snore. DeVita was making yet another turn in his bedsheet, until he felt something pass by him. The lizard’s eyes opened immediately, and on instinct, he stood straight up and looked over his surroundings.
Aside from moonlight’s glow, there was nothing entering the inside of the room they were in. Jumping up to his feet, the lizard stared out of the window. The cold air was freezing his face, but he continued scanning the area, and could barely see anything with the shadows from nearby buildings. There was something there, but he had no idea what. So, without much of a concrete reason to stay awake, he went back to his dirty bed-sheet, ready to fall asleep.
A sound of explosion then woke up both of them on the spot.
“What the-!“
The room was lit up brighter than if they were inside a lamp. The magnificent wheel of bombastic colors shone all over them, as thunderous clapping of fireworks sounded right above them. Schwartz, who was still feeling sleepy, could help but stare at everything around him.
“Duh I didn’t do nuthin,” he said innocently.
“I know that!”
A loud blast of explosion came from right outside their window, enough to shake the whole room. This one had combination of green, blue, purple and pink, filling the room with cotton-candy cloud.
“C’MON, WE NEED TO GET DOWN!” DeVita yelled in-between his coughing fits.
“WHAT!?” Schwartz yelled back, completely disoriented from his surrounding.
DeVita with adrenaline and anger filling his veins, pushed and punted the big shark blob to his feet. They both ran towards the stairs, trying to keep balance as they flew down, with the tower shaking from to the chaotic beat of the murder-fireworks.
“WELCOME, MY DEAR GUESTS, TO THE LA GLUTON DOMAIN!” A loud voice spoke, presumably through a megaphone. DeVita already had come to hate the nosy stuffiness it seemed to exude.
They finally reached the ground floor after managing to hear about fiver more explosions. The door was still looked from before, so DeVita started working on a plan. It might not be the the best plan, but on-the-fly thinking were very rewarding in places like these. Pulling the lid off of the basement, he dove right in and seconds later brought out a box full of wine. Picking one, he turned to Schwartz, who still in sleepy state carried his bedsheet with him. With knife in hand, he uncorked the bottle and ripped a part of the bedsheet, to Schwartz’s dismay, and prepared for himself at least on weapon he knew could be of use: a Molotov.
“Now we’re talking.” He pulled the box closer to his shark friend and gave a sharp order to “Pick it up!”
Schwartz followed his lead, and ungracefully brought them up in the air, with DeVita reprimanding him to be more careful. DeVita dashed the door, and with some force opened it slightly. Schwartz moved closer, trying to be as subtle as he possibly could with a box full of bottles. A crazy array of light was entering right through the gap, from pink to blue to green to purple to gold, enough to tire their eyes out. Whoever was ambushing them enjoyed being needlessly excessive. Technically, exactly like a noble would. Frankly though, the fact that through all this light, he couldn’t see any other shadow besides the buildings’ was the most worrying part.
“Now, now, no need to fret, for it is I, Cornelius LaGluttoria!” Once again emanated the loud voice. Before long, DeVita suddenly felt the stone tower shaking. “I have come, my dear pair of trespassers, to offer you a chance to see my GLORIOUS glory, and finally come to understanding that you two had NO chance of EVER of going against ME! Now, how about both of you come out and face me, like good little bugs you are?”
The two exchanged glances, coming up to the same conclusion.
“Duh-Who is that’ mook?” Schwartz asked DeVita, who smirked in return.
Funny enough, based on what he said, even if he is an imposter, he definitely knew how to be a noble. Those twenty nobles were the ones responsible for prosperity of their kingdoms, and they usually grew a sense of self-importance larger than anyone had any right to be. DeVita wasn’t familiar with them personally, not that he’d care to learn anything about the kingdoms, he did for sure knew that seven of them represented vices, and this guy sounded like he represented gluttony.
It was then that he heard a familiar noise. Something shuffled right beside him, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He couldn’t have felt any happier to hear it. It was one thing if you had no idea where they were coming from, but now he had a plan. And all that was left was to execute it.
DeVita make a clicking sound with his tongue, a sound Schwartz was familiarized to mean to be “ready.” DeVita slightly opened the door some more. Surveying what he could, the colors helped to make the shadows even easier to see, in a way, he had counted up to seven of them sneaking behind the building. One of them, he noticed, had something resembling a firearm. Meaning even if they would run out straight, they are likely to be shot down.
This left with singular other possible option.
“As soon as say it, run after me.” DeVita took out his ever useful lighter-knife. Which was a knife, that doubled as a lighter, which made up for the fact that it couldn’t stab anything worthwhile.
“Okay…” Schwartz whispered.
DeVita lit up the sheet piece, and checked the door again. He already heard someone stepping in closer.
“On my mark…”
DeVita lowered his knees and held the burning bottle high. He visualized their path in his head, based on his one time viewing from the top.
And then he jumped right out and threw the bottle right above himself.
“Run after me!”
“Okay!”
The pieces fell onto the bigger group of bandits, the ones DeVita and Schwartz passed as they ran their way into the town. As DeVita considered, it would be better to hide inside one of the buildings instead of wildly panicking outside in the dessert. Especially if they could get into one of the shelters. These things are impenetrable, made to help survive the desert. And even if they get found later, at the very least they could get a breather.
“Dhose are very pretthy colors!” Schwartz said, his head turned upwards instead of forward.
“Yeah yeah, we’ve- Shit, they’re here!” DeVita bumped Schwartz to the side, make them both turn.
A handful of bandits popped right from behind their nearest building. Each of them armed guns, knives and scowls, a combination you definitely did not want anywhere near the entrance to your safehouse.
As DeVita lit another bottle, he yelled, “Keep running!” to Schwartz. He threw the bottle straight into the second to the middle bandit, then bumped Schwartz from behind. The poor shark was looking more and more lost from the panic. DeVita ran right in front of him, already finding another building they could enter, and have his big buddy follow right behind.
They navigated through the twists and turns, as few more bandits slowly started to show up. The buildings were, while undeniably still good-looking, far from being well-kept by anyone. So this make the sudden appearance of so many of these bandits all the more surprising. You’d think if that guy managed to house so many in this one place, they would at least add their own personal touches. Like, you know, scratches, cigarette marks or piss stains. All they had was dust.
Something that DeVita has started to consider it to be extremely weird by the eighth time they managed to jump in on them. To reiterate, there weas extremely large number of bandits. DeVita threw his bottles at them, but the number left in the box kept decreasing, leaving them less and less options to escape with.
“Dammit, this is a pain in the asshole!” DeVita then bumped into Schwartz’s blubbery side.
“Duh, why did you do dath!?”
“Cause we need to get inside that building!” DeVita yelled. Considering how deep into the town they were, they could simply just enter into any building they wanted. But as for the bandits that were tailing them, he took the rest of the cloth that was left and lit it up.
“Now slam it right behind us!” DeVita pulled Schwartz’s arm, who followed his lead without freezing up. In a semi-large swing of the box, he smashed it against the ground, alongside the burning cloth thrown by DeVita.
With this chance taken, they both entered inside the narby building and closed the door shut. DeVita took time to breathe, finally realizing how tired he was from all of this. Wiping sweat, he then patted his partner’s higher shoulders.
“It should keep those idjits busy. Find the storage and open it for me, ya hear?!”
Despite orders given, Schwartz would not move. DeVita checked on his partner, trying to figure out what made him suddenly stop, and wondering if the guy needs some water. After all, they did run all this way.
But then something clicked inside the room.
“Not another step.”
DeVita sighed in defeat.
“When the hell did they…” He grumbled, but before long he had someone grab his hand and pin him to the hard stone wall.
“Hey, did you hear how he called us?” One of the bandits laughed loudly, presumably the “funny guy” of the group. “He said we were ‘idjits’! Man, you must feel so bad to suck!!!”
DeVita was able to turn his head enough to get a good glimpse of them. Overall, about six, not too big of a number. The “funny guy” stood farther back and based on his girth, while fitting for an otter, can be dealt with swiftly. The other three, including the guy pinning him, were average, with lithe build. No one looked with hard skins, and one even had a hobble. The last dude, a human with lizard’s eye, appeared the most properly intimidating.
And he seemed to be calling the shots based on the order given, “Strip him.”
DeVita gritted his teeth and hissed, but the bandits have already started pulling out weapons from his pockets.
“You better not do anything, blubberfish,” the leader told Schwartz.
When he felt reaching down to his breast-pocket, DeVita immediately growled out, “Don’t you dare!”
“Look boss, Behemoth Cutter 3000tm!!! That’s some expensive shit!”
“If I see you put one more of your finger on it, I swear on my mum, I’ll slice ‘em off-“
DeVita felt the knee land right in the middle of his back. It took him few minutes before he could properly breathe.
“You aren’t the one making demands here. Not anymore.”
He kicked the door the down open with one foot and everybody followed him. As he was pushed by a recklessly eager bandit, DeVita couldn’t help but look at a group of them playing around with a piece of cloth. Which happened to be very familiar to him.
“By the way,” the lizard-eyed man said, stopping their group near that one, “what exactly were you thinking, throwing those bottles at us? Impromptu molotovs?”
DeVita didn’t answer, just stared at the ground, where laid multitude of pieces of broken bottles.
“Cause, you know, not every type of alcohol is flammable, you know that?”
Thinking on it, DeVita couldn’t help but finally notice how something was missing throughout their whole chase. More specifically, something fiery. Must’ve forgotten to check.
“Did you guys just found it lying around in the building somewhere?”
The guy approach closer to DeVita. Between the two of them, there was a significant difference in height and bulk, but that didn’t matter. As his uncle used to say, as long as you show no fear, or even better, intimidate them into fearing you, even sleeping in jail will be a breeze.
“I’d say ya got lucky, lizard-eye.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
“That said,” DeVita continued, “whose to say you’ll continue to be lucky? Maybe one day, you’ll lose that precious eye. Not saying how, but I’d worry.”
The eye man chuckled.
“Lose an eye, huh? Like this?”
He promptly plucked the lizard eye from its socket. Motioning the other bandit, the guy let go of DeVita, who reactively caught the eye as it was tossed to him. Before he realized what happened, a fist shot straight into his gut.
DeVita reeled a bit, before finally letting out in a small, wheezy tone, “Ooh, I am so gonna kill you…” and then coughed.
The man scoffed, took back his eye and pushed DeVita back to his holder. Finally coming to, DeVita immediately noticed something, which he hadn’t paid attention to until few moments ago, and that was their weapons. White barrel, golden handles, elaborative and unnecessary wings…those were definitely the arms that belonged to the nobles! These things were extremely devastating in the wrong hands, capable of turning healthy men into meaty toothpaste. They are also notoriously hard to get by, as are most of the weapons handed to the nobles’ guards.
So how did they get a hold of them? DeVita began clicking his teeth. Without a knife, it tended to be hard to think for him, so he needed to find a way to get his hands on one.
Soon, they stopped right in the middle of the streets, the widest out of all of them. An array of light was moving near them, already illuminating more and more of the street as if someone took the sun and was now riding it.
“Duh, what do we do now?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita squinted a bit at the incoming monstrosity. It was becoming harder and harder to look. Even Schwartz, when he checked on the guy, had basically shut his eyes. The ground shook more as the thunderous and deafening motor noise was brought closer to them alongside it. Slowly DeVita came to realization why so much money was offered to them for this quest…and it probably had to do with the sheer armory this man seemed to be bringing.
And so, within the loud, rumbling noises, DeVita began to yell,
“Number one,” he started, using all of his lungs just to make sure his words reached Schwartz, “don’t say anything! Number two, don’t do what I wouldn’t do! Number three, follow my lead!!!”
“Oh, ok,” Schwartz calmly and inaudibly replied with his smile. DeVita accepted it as is with a sigh.
The trembling and growling grew louder, and soon enough, they couldn’t see anything at all thanks to the light. DeVita felt a tinge of fear, suddenly realizing that with it being so bright, those bozos could kill them just as fast as if they were in the darkness. Should they risk it and start attacking before anything could happen to them? A sense of preservation is necessary, his uncle once told him, but so was not running around like a chicken. There was no use in panicking.
And then, a loud voice announced via speaker,
“Well done, my dear servants, Mwhohohoho!” His laugh came from his nose and rumbled a bit before nearly snorting like a pig. It was almost forced, too.
The light dimmed, enough that, after having to be forced to see nothing but the shine of their inner eyelids, everyone could finally lift them a tiny bit. It was still shiny, but DeVita could actually figure out what the monstrosity actually was. And it was a VERY large thing, almost the size of, if not bigger, than the buildings surrounding it. The front was that of a protruding, bulbous front which showed a row of metallic boards that come across as teeth down the middle. The sides were adorned with lights, the source of all of that blindness they endured. Going higher to the top, sat on his throne a fat-looking man. And he wore the most gaudiest of clothes, those stupid looking shirts, vests and pants that nobles love on themselves, and hair just as bright and colorful as the lights. DeVita tried to eye a bit more, but his vision still needed time to adjust.
“HEY, HOW ABOUT YOU FINALLY MADE SOME SUNGLASSES FOR US!!?” A bandit yelled from afar. “WE CAN”T SEE SHIT WITH YOU SHINING LIKE THAT!!!”
The “noble” from above wouldn’t answer, and DeVita pretty much knew why. As far as acting goes, it wasn’t far from how nobles are. From the need to accessorize to making their presence well known. Even more so, disregarding the complaints of the lesser, or even choosing to deal with the problem by simply eliminating complainers. If the guy wasn’t even a real noble, he could definitely pass as one, that’s for sure.
The bulbous machine then began rumbling, once again. That said, the noise was more akin to vibration, the machine suddenly restructuring itself. The throne, from what DeVita glimpsed, folded on itself, allowing the noble to stand up. His body then started to move downwards, thanks to the teeth in the middle separating, revealing a gigantic staircase built within it. With over hundred steps and more, DeVita wondered if the mook was really gonna go all the way down. But then he realized that he wasn’t moving at all, and instead it was the stairs. The vibratory rumbling continued as the noble got closer and closer to earth, showing him descending with his arms out wide. As he reached halfway down, a fanfare started to resound, a distinct one which DeVita didn’t really remember to whom it belonged it.
Because he hated these sounds.
Finally, after spending whole twenty minutes of getting his freshly installed light-bulb of head down to them, the noble finally touched the ground. In his hands he was holding a pair of sticks, one appearing as a scepter with a large emblem embedded on it, while the latter was a chicken drum, which upon closer look also happen to be not real. Also, for a moment, DeVita wasn’t sure if what he saw was right. Despite the grossly rotund form of his torso, his face was extremely thin and well-sculpted. Furthermore, he was a “human”, and last he heard, the Gluttoria’s were pigmen. He did hear both species were pretty close to one another, but something about this didn’t make much sense.
This noble then tapped his chicken drumstick against the side of the machine, and as if by magic, a carpet appeared below him. Plain red, with bright golden trim. He then marched (or waddled? That mook really tried to make himself waddle) all the way to DeVita. All DeVita could think, watching that gross, overinflated man walk to him was, that there was a lot of stuffing under that fat coat of his. Some of it came out of the seams, too. Then he looked closer to his hair…mane?...whatever it was, it was obviously a wig. It was just a bit hard to see due to billions of different lights shining at you from every which way.
“So, it seems we have been visited a very lovely pair of gentlemen,” the noble target announced with a huge smile. DeVita felt like there was something in that guy’s mouth. “Of course, considering how important I am as a part of the prestigious twenty noble families, that should’ve been obvious! It would’ve been far more outrageous if I wasn’t targeted by some ne’er-do-wells! So which one of them sent you after me?” The fat suited man raised DeVita’s mouth to him with the scepter. All DeVita could think was that it was probably an egg. Small enough to play in your mouth. “Was it from Ira family? The Vious? Oh, of course! How could I forget my own ilk. Perhaps they also wanted to rid themselves of their so-called ‘shame’, but not to worry, I know exactly how to answer that. So…well?”
DeVita looked up and down the costume. The patches sewn together completely amateurishly, with visible seams, pieces sticking out, and he even found a row of needles. If anyone with a sense of fashion, and DeVita was one, saw the whole thing, they would laugh. He would too, of course, but he was more annoyed.
“I am talking to youuuuu~” the noble drew out the “u” for emphasis. That said, he seemed to be losing patience. “Hellooo! Do you even KNOW who I am?”
DeVita, with hands held tightly behind him, said nothing, at first. He then relaxed his posture, cleared his throat and checked his teeth with his tongue.
“Look here, buddy,” DeVita finally answered. His voice carried as much intimidation as one would to an overly-dressed goose. “I respect the fanfare, and the whole get-up too, really nice, but I think you’ve been talking to a wrong guy here. We aren’t trying to assassinate you! We are just a pair of travellers, looking to learn more about the these here ruins.”
The noble eyed him suspiciously.
“Look I’m honest! I even made a fool of myself by throwing unflammable bottles here and there. And come on, tell me, is it really a crime to be interested in the beauty of architecture? See as you chose this place, I think you’d also believe it very, very much! Y’know, my mama used to say, so how ‘bout we-“
“You should stop monologuing here,” the noble cut him short.
DeVita’s mouth hanged wide open. He actually felt fairly offended by that.
“Minions!” The noble yelled. None of the bandits seemed to be interested in the whole thing. “Do these brutes remind you of someone? Hmmm?...You!”
From behind DeVita, the lizard-eyed came forward, “Here’s some knives we found on him.”
“Can’t a lizard collect knives as a hobby, for devil’s sake!?”
The noble took the collection package and the Behemoth Cutter 3000tm, and eyed them closely.
“Hey, you better not touch ‘em ya bastard!”
“You aren’t talking here, prisoner!” The noble replied calmly. “And do try to be a bit more proper in how you act in front of a noble, like moi. I, am Darrold DeLa Gluttoria, a straight descendent of the original founder of Gluttoria’s noble family. And lest you wish your head to be rolled on the ground, you WILL refer to me as your majesty, immediately!”
DeVita rolled his eyes with exaggeration. So that’s who they were dealing with. For that he gained another bruise to the gut, courtesy of a nearby bandit, on Darrold’s order.
“The Behemoth Cutter 30000tm, a pretty expensive set,” the Lizard-Eye continued. “You don’t usually find these anywhere, either.”
“A man can be of culture, buddy,” DeVita coughed a bit, “now hand them over unless you want me to wipe sand with ya!”
He returned to standing straight. Darrold eyes then seemingly focused.
The Lizard-Eye said, “If you wanted something more collector edition, you should have gone for the ancient relics, or maybe pretty gemstone. This is a knife that is sold to scavengers.”
“A scavenger!” Darrold exclaimed triumphantly, as if he came to an important discovery.
DeVita eyes darted.
“What are ye talking ‘bout! We’re just a pair of…dapper gentleman with a knife collection!” He lied with a twisty smile. “I mean, we are nobodies, complete and total-“
“There’s a note on the back, ‘If lost, return it back to DeVita, AKA The Knife & Fork Duo, AKA This is mine you sonovabitch!’” The Lizard-Eye read.
Darrold starred intensely at DeVita.
“…Who just happen to be a big fan of them. I hear they have good fashion sense!”
“My, how interesting…” Darrold’s smile grew through his filled cheeks, enough to give a glimpse of the egg in his mouth. “Minions, open the hatchet!”
DeVita watched as a pair of bandits go behind the fat noble and pull against one of the teeth from the machine. From behind it, they brought out a huge, black sack, tied with a golden rope. They moved closer to DeVita, then quickly opened the bag, and threw it to him. Out from poured gallons and gallons of golden coins and jewels, spreading into a large patch in the sand. There was so much, DeVita didn’t even notice his jaw unhinge and hang below him.
“I am a very simple noble, you see,” Darroled began talking. “And as a simple noble, I enjoy owning LARGE sums of money…”
DeVita’s brain took time to soak it all in. So much cash, enough to get them through several months of rent payments! Maybe, even get him all the knife collections in the world! Or maybe…maybe open their own Scavenger Post! The possibilities are endless!!!
“Now then, since we’ve shown it all, what is your opinion, my good fellow.”
DeVita made a small noise, almost chuckling. “Well, I say-”
“Actually, I was talking to your silent friend, over there!” Darrold cut him off.
“…Eh, what?”
The noble waddled past DeVita. Pushing his captor to turn both of them around, DeVita saw the noble walk up to his shark friend. The shark kept gazing at everything, only realizing what just happened when the noble started talking to him.
“I know, exactly what is going on,” he announced. “You thought you could fool me, but the truth is, you ARE exactly the type who wouldn’t say anything!”
The shark looked confused, and DeVita was flabbergasted.
“No-no you see, this is my partner, he isn’t-“
“I know EXACTLY how this works. And you will not confuse me! The size is power, one who consumes all, one who has no care in the world, one who has others do what has to be done, that is a sign of STATUS!” Darrold’s voice was loud and manic. Darrold turned and starred dreamily up at the shark, “Now, what say you know, oh silent one? I have made a generous offer for you…will you accept it? Will you join my ranks, and in return, get glorious money you’ve NEVER seen before?”
“…Duh…”
Schwartz’s eyes wandered. He looked at DeVita, who quickly and with enunciation mouthed words: DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! They were dealing with an idiot, better not mess it up.
“Monoth…May….Impotent?”
DeVita eyes bugged out. His mouth went to rapidfire: NO ARE YOU AN IDIOT, STOP TALKING!
Schwartz then bobbled his head with a grin. Then proudly, he said, “Money doesn’t matter! Take it back where you belong!!!”
DeVita made a sound that was very reptilian in nature, with a bit of cat to it. The golden boy looked very shocked, his minions were confused, while Schwartz bore happiness on his face like a toddler would
“Well, I see now. You two are far more respectful than I imagined. Well, in that case, it seems we must opt to another way to do this.” He snapped his fingers and called upon one of the bandits. “Minions, throw both of them into prison! We shall see what we can do with them!”
Darrold turned sharply, and began walking away. The captors then prodded Schwartz to go forward, who did after five times.
As he passed by DeVita, he asked, “I did good, right?”
“Oh yeah…real nice…” DeVita hissed through teeth.
The adventures in Garbage Area seemed to be still continuing. Let it be known, anything can happen there.
…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…
Garbage Area on the outset wasn’t that different from any other dessert, being fairly hot during the long days, and very cold during the long nights. In this story, let’s just say the day was pretty long, so when the duo were riding for several hours now, it was still as hot as hell out there, and it wasn’t looking like it was gonna stop being such for a while now.
DeVita rode the dune-buggy/greaser through the sandy plains with the same grace as a toddler. Considering last time he rode this thing was twenty months ago, this was actually impressive. Compared to most who would drive through here, he enjoyed the dusty air and the unyielding heat of the desert quite much. He saw it as its own kind of beauty, one which doesn’t fall to standard views. Schwartz, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so good under the dry heat, heaving and waving his hand just to get some cool air. The blubber, the glistening skin, the overall fishy nature were all perhaps reasons why sizzling desert environment just didn’t sit well with him.
DeVita, knowing his friend’s tells, and pulled up a canister from between their seats.
“You need a drink bud?” he asked.
Schwartz nodded giddily and grabbed the canister to take a large swig from it. Usually, Schwartz would carry few large water canisters himself, or apply his water-retaining gel, which usually helped him during these types of jobs. He would still need to drink lots of water anyways, but with the shortage of money as of late, he couldn’t pack himself full enough of water. Thankfully, the car had a large bin at the back specifically made to carry water everywhere, which DeVita filled the canister with
“Alright, we’ve been out here for a while now, get the map!” DeVita ordered, after letting his friend take large enough gulp.
The shark-man reached into his back-pocket, and pulled a crumpled piece of paper that was supposed to be their map. They were getting closer to one of the four main kingdoms, as the target in question was situated somewhere there. It also meant the dangers of something far less violent, yet equally vicious, and more posh as well. The outside of the kingdoms were well prepared to greet with guards capable of taking down scavengers, and while they may not kill them on the spot, they will find time to execute them later. There were many reasons why they wouldn’t go easy on them (including many being responsible for killing important figures), so the duo made sure to target a particular place, and not veer into trouble, hopefully.
“I dink it’sh on… the…left…? Or…uh…wait’…” Schwartz kept muttering under breath, spinning and poking with map with his huge nose.
“Give me that!” DeVita grabbed the map impatiently and placed it on the wheel.
“Its one of those a-bandun cities?” Schwartz asked.
“Could be…ah geez let’s take a break,” he suddenly announced and ungracefully stepped on the break pedal. It was for the most part his lack of knowledge on how these damned machines supposed to work, but the maneuver caused the whole thing to tilt forward into a stop. It was so sudden, that most of the water spilled out of Schwartz’s canister onto their feet.
“Awww…” mumbled Schwartz, gazing at the spilled contents with his small, dopy eyes.
“Don’t worry we have a ton more in the back,” DeVita reassured. He then kicked the door open with the same force as he did the pedal, enough to make its hinges squeal. He went to open the trunk, and found the large metal box full of water containers, plus some other small items, like guns, knives, blowtorch, air pump, skeletal-themed teddy bear and other.
DeVita took one container and grabbed a telescope he found lying behind the box. Coming to the front, he flung the water into Schwartz’s hungry hands while taking the ‘scope to have a good look over what was coming for them over the horizon.
The first thing he saw was an outline of a building, more or less a watchtower. He tried to observe some more to find where the other buildings where, though they were barely visible. Still, according to their map If he was correct, based on the map earlier, this was one of those Ghost Town, one of many victims of Devil’s Bowl. These places tend to get ravaged by one of many occasional natural disasters, and thanks to the nobles from the kingdoms suddenly getting too interested in playing with territories, many, MANY ended up left as garbage. You wouldn’t believe how many towns they ended up abandoning by then, it was almost as if they were cursed by karma to be driven out each and every time.
DeVita put away the telescope into his pocket and reached into the car to search for the request paper again. Meanwhile Schwartz was already draining his second bottle.
“What did I tell you about saving your water?” DeVita grumbled.
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t complain about needing to use toilet later.”
They were coming to the town created by house of Gluttoria’s “Avant Micul Dejeune”. Apparently, in this one of their firsts’ attempt at creating their own marketplace, and they ended up abandoning it a week later, due to “disappointing agricultural production.”
He looked at the mission briefing again. As he read through, he realized that it was more or less a retrieval quest. Sure, it did mention them having to deal with some sort of weird, nobles-obsessed bud, but the whole thing was essentially about returning stolen goods. And the goods in question was an all important immortal.
Immortality within Garbage Area wasn’t unheard off, so that part wasn’t surprising. That said, no one should ever take immortality seriously. Either they are unable to die from their old age, are essentially bound to places with mythical artifacts that’s over million years old, or it was just one extremely lucky fella. Still, the sum for getting that guy was 500000 mony (Whoo-wee!). Now, was one immortal man really worth all of that mony?
Who cares!? Five-month worth of rent, here we come!
DeVita heard the car groan, as Schwartz reached behind to get another bottle.
“Buddy, didn’t I taught ya ‘bout saving for the road? STOP DRINKING ALREADY!”
“Sorry,” Schwartz replied, “But dey are thaking them.”
“…What? Taking what? Who!?”
“Those little fellash.”
DeVita head shot up and then quickly dove into the car, and to his horror, noticed the red and black colors dance on the seats. If there was something, far beyond evil that they could face in this Devil’s Bowl, that would be its imps. Those wretched, ugly, malicious little imps. Small, humanoid creatures made of bone strapped with red skin, black long tails and spikes adorning their heads, they would occasionally attack any careless scavenger, robbing them of all of their belongings. And once you’ve been robbed by them, it was impossible to get it back. One scavenger even had the bad luck of being visited by them during his sleep, and had not only his rations and weapons were stolen, but also his clothes, piercings, teeth, tongue and even an eye!
“WHERE THE HELL DID YOU SHITS COME FROM!!?” DeVita roared at the small monster, throwing the rear door open.
One of the imps in the middle of destroying the backseat looked at him and hissed. The rest kept taking things indiscriminately: magazines, tools, a bag, a bunch of letter pulled from below, a stash of money, a bunch of wool and spring that belonged to the seat itself. And before long, DeVita found them pulling out food and water stash.
“Okay, that’s it! Get them out, Schwartz, FAST!” DeVita yelled for his friend.
The latter, as fast and as ungracefully as he could, stumbled out of the car. The lizard himself already jumped into the backseat, doing what he could to grab stuff out of imps’ hands. Funny enough, there’s a common advice given when dealing with imps and that is to never jump head first into a group of them.
“Ackgh! Get ehm off of meee!!!” DeVita screamed, shielding his eyes and mouth as the little demons started crawling over him, digging into his close and flesh with their tiny and sharp, nails.
“Duh..!” Schwartz danced between trying to reach through the back seat, but every time he did, the imps would shriek and pinch his fingers. He would keep pulling hand back and then get lost as DeVita kept screaming.
“GO AROUND THE CAR!” yelled Devita, finally giving instructions.
Schwartz bashed the door down with his blubbery body and immediately waddled over to the rear door. He awkwardly fiddled with the door handle, trying to get his blubbery fingers to work it until he finally swung the thing open. And just like a spring, DeVita flew out with a screech, clawing the imps off of himself. Schwartz waddled over to help, batting those monsters with his hands, trying to pull his friend out. He finally was able to get his friend out to safety, with the imps finally began to run away from the car.
“Get back here!!!” DeVita screamed like a madman, as he squirmed out of Schwartz’s hands, to the latter’s surprise, and ran after those damned things.
Schwartz had no clue what his friend was doing, only to see him pull one knife from his pocket and throw it after one imp. It bullseyed right at the small-monster body, making it dissipate in ash, and drop a box of knives it was carrying.
DeVita dashed to get back his new knife collection, giving a sigh of relief as soon as they were in his hands. Meanwhile, the rascally little devils have all managed to hide right into the sand, carrying everything that they had stolen from the car. When checking it, DeVita saw that not only had they stolen almost all of the rations and tools that were inside the car, but also parts of the car itself. One tire deflated, while the other fell over, a while door was taken, several lights and based on what he could tell from the half-way opened hood, some engine parts too.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” DeVita sighed.
With the car out, they were essentially stuck out here, with no option of even going back if things get dicey. It took them most of the day just to get to the proper location, and with no resources, they might as well concede to Ace’s bony friend. On the other hand, they can reasonably walk the rest of the way.
“Duh, whath do we do with it’?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita placed the boxed knives into his pockets. Taking one more look at the car, just to make sure it really was devastated, he went to take the map from Schwartz’s pants. Turning to where they should go, he began walking.
“We’ll deal with it after we finish business with the bigger fish,” he said, and motioned the shark to follow him.
Schwartz couldn’t help but look at the car himself, making a droopy expression over the loss of transport. However, he never doubted in DeVita, so they both continued onward, as Schwartz took one more swing from his water canister.
As both walked, they did not notice that someone was watching them from afar with a pair of stolen binoculars.
“His highness…Needs hear…Proud be….” Said the dessert fox, before diving right back into sand.
…
The sun had set by the time they reached the town. The two made their way to the closest building towards them, a tall look-out tower. Once DeVita decided that they can stop for a rest, Schwartz took this chance to fall flat on his face and belly. He made a sound similar to a baby-whale’s mother call, which DeVita was familiar enough to consider it his groan.
“Alright get the sheets out. I’ll look around the area and the building. Once done, we’ll hide ourselves for the night.”
Schwartz, without looking up or making a noise, reached deep into his pockets to get some of those sheets out. DeVita, making a quick breather, went on to work.
Scanning the outside, the tower was small, but looked functional, completely made of stone. He found the entrance later and saw the inside leading to a spiral staircase. Seeing how the tower bulged at the top, they’ll probably have the space to sleep once they reach the top. He also found a wooden lid on the ground, and once lifting, saw a small storage inside it. Compared to the dry atmosphere of the tower’s insides, the storage was wet and had a pungent smell. He found some boxes with liquid, and checking them, only found them filled with wine. Other than that, there was nothing else. Which was weird based on the amount of space there was in the storage.
He exited out the building, and saw Schwartz still lying down on his face.
“Alright had a look’see and have a pair of bad news. One, there’s no water here, so you’d better still have some in your canister.” He bent down to check the canister in Schwartz’s hand and shook it, it being less than a half full. “Two, we’re going up.”
“Awww, but’ I hathe sthairs!” Schwartz complained with his noise still in sand. DeVita could only pat him in motivation.
And so, the duo made their way up the elaborate, dimly lit staircase. As expected, it was still fairly sturdy, and while occasional cobweb might prop-up when they glide their hands on it through the wall, the place was pretty clean. After a short while, the two reached the top, and Schwartz had already lost his breath from all this walking. Letting his friend lie down, DeVita checked around, the bulb inside’s containing sturdy wooden floor, and not much else. The cold night air breezed through the windows, and DeVita moved to one of them. After the tower, they were a few steps away from the town itself, so at the very least, there wasn’t a need to worry about walking long distances.
It was also rather quiet. But then again, they probably all fell asleep. Who in their right mind does crime when they should sleep? Bah!
“Alright, we have until tomorrow to make our plan of action. Here’s what we gonna do…”
DeVita walked to his friend, who was still on the floor. With a huff, he pushed him to lie on the back, only to find the shark’s face showed incredulity.
“Whatsamatter?”
“Uhhh….Are you..?”
“Making a plan!”
“Oh! But’ shince when?”
“…Just get up.”
He led the portly shark to a nearby corner. Using the moonlight, his knife and the map, DeVita started his demonstration.
“Okay, listen up…First, we need to lure that prince out, who I think is likely over here,” he pointed to the center of the town on the map, and then to the building far from them from the window. “That is the main castle, and everybody loves castles, and I’m pretty sure he does too. Call it a hunch. Then, once we capture him, we take him here, torture some info and maybe have him find some guys who could put our car back together. Then, take him, the immortal, leave the place, return the car, and BOOM, we won! Then we rub in to the faces of those for weirdos, ask for a $70000 reward because we can, get a better renting space, flaunt it in front of Cassandra, maybe have a night out with the boss, eh? Sounds good right?”
Schwartz nodded enthusiastically.
“Dat sounds amazing, boss!”
“You got that right. Now, we probably could also start pondering on them resources. So far, we got some Molotovs, and after that...”
DeVita saw Schwartz’s big maw open wide as he yawned. Soon enough, DeVita felt one coming up from him.
“Ah geez, guess we tuckered ourselves out,” he brought his fist to his face and covered the toothy mouth. He checked through the windows again and came back to pull the sheets from Schwartz’s pocket. One he put on the floor for himself to lie on, another he covered Schwartz.
“DeVita... Can you tell me that story?” Schwartz asked him with another yawn.
“Which one?”
“About the flower? It feels atmospheric.”
“There you go using big words. You gonna make yourself sounds smarter than you are,” DeVita said before lying down, both of their faces directed straight at one another.
“Sorry…”
“Ah don’t be. Flower, eh? Guess that’s good. So, here’s the moral, don’t lose sight of what you do, no matter what people bribe you with. This is a story about a flower, who wanted to grow in a dessert…”
…
It was then closer to the middle of the night. The moon still shone high up in the air, illuminating through the window, and the only sound heard was that of Schwartz’s loud, gurgling snore. DeVita was making yet another turn in his bedsheet, until he felt something pass by him. The lizard’s eyes opened immediately, and on instinct, he stood straight up and looked over his surroundings.
Aside from moonlight’s glow, there was nothing entering the inside of the room they were in. Jumping up to his feet, the lizard stared out of the window. The cold air was freezing his face, but he continued scanning the area, and could barely see anything with the shadows from nearby buildings. There was something there, but he had no idea what. So, without much of a concrete reason to stay awake, he went back to his dirty bed-sheet, ready to fall asleep.
A sound of explosion then woke up both of them on the spot.
“What the-!“
The room was lit up brighter than if they were inside a lamp. The magnificent wheel of bombastic colors shone all over them, as thunderous clapping of fireworks sounded right above them. Schwartz, who was still feeling sleepy, could help but stare at everything around him.
“Duh I didn’t do nuthin,” he said innocently.
“I know that!”
A loud blast of explosion came from right outside their window, enough to shake the whole room. This one had combination of green, blue, purple and pink, filling the room with cotton-candy cloud.
“C’MON, WE NEED TO GET DOWN!” DeVita yelled in-between his coughing fits.
“WHAT!?” Schwartz yelled back, completely disoriented from his surrounding.
DeVita with adrenaline and anger filling his veins, pushed and punted the big shark blob to his feet. They both ran towards the stairs, trying to keep balance as they flew down, with the tower shaking from to the chaotic beat of the murder-fireworks.
“WELCOME, MY DEAR GUESTS, TO THE LA GLUTON DOMAIN!” A loud voice spoke, presumably through a megaphone. DeVita already had come to hate the nosy stuffiness it seemed to exude.
They finally reached the ground floor after managing to hear about fiver more explosions. The door was still looked from before, so DeVita started working on a plan. It might not be the the best plan, but on-the-fly thinking were very rewarding in places like these. Pulling the lid off of the basement, he dove right in and seconds later brought out a box full of wine. Picking one, he turned to Schwartz, who still in sleepy state carried his bedsheet with him. With knife in hand, he uncorked the bottle and ripped a part of the bedsheet, to Schwartz’s dismay, and prepared for himself at least on weapon he knew could be of use: a Molotov.
“Now we’re talking.” He pulled the box closer to his shark friend and gave a sharp order to “Pick it up!”
Schwartz followed his lead, and ungracefully brought them up in the air, with DeVita reprimanding him to be more careful. DeVita dashed the door, and with some force opened it slightly. Schwartz moved closer, trying to be as subtle as he possibly could with a box full of bottles. A crazy array of light was entering right through the gap, from pink to blue to green to purple to gold, enough to tire their eyes out. Whoever was ambushing them enjoyed being needlessly excessive. Technically, exactly like a noble would. Frankly though, the fact that through all this light, he couldn’t see any other shadow besides the buildings’ was the most worrying part.
“Now, now, no need to fret, for it is I, Cornelius LaGluttoria!” Once again emanated the loud voice. Before long, DeVita suddenly felt the stone tower shaking. “I have come, my dear pair of trespassers, to offer you a chance to see my GLORIOUS glory, and finally come to understanding that you two had NO chance of EVER of going against ME! Now, how about both of you come out and face me, like good little bugs you are?”
The two exchanged glances, coming up to the same conclusion.
“Duh-Who is that’ mook?” Schwartz asked DeVita, who smirked in return.
Funny enough, based on what he said, even if he is an imposter, he definitely knew how to be a noble. Those twenty nobles were the ones responsible for prosperity of their kingdoms, and they usually grew a sense of self-importance larger than anyone had any right to be. DeVita wasn’t familiar with them personally, not that he’d care to learn anything about the kingdoms, he did for sure knew that seven of them represented vices, and this guy sounded like he represented gluttony.
It was then that he heard a familiar noise. Something shuffled right beside him, discreetly, but not discreetly enough. He couldn’t have felt any happier to hear it. It was one thing if you had no idea where they were coming from, but now he had a plan. And all that was left was to execute it.
DeVita make a clicking sound with his tongue, a sound Schwartz was familiarized to mean to be “ready.” DeVita slightly opened the door some more. Surveying what he could, the colors helped to make the shadows even easier to see, in a way, he had counted up to seven of them sneaking behind the building. One of them, he noticed, had something resembling a firearm. Meaning even if they would run out straight, they are likely to be shot down.
This left with singular other possible option.
“As soon as say it, run after me.” DeVita took out his ever useful lighter-knife. Which was a knife, that doubled as a lighter, which made up for the fact that it couldn’t stab anything worthwhile.
“Okay…” Schwartz whispered.
DeVita lit up the sheet piece, and checked the door again. He already heard someone stepping in closer.
“On my mark…”
DeVita lowered his knees and held the burning bottle high. He visualized their path in his head, based on his one time viewing from the top.
And then he jumped right out and threw the bottle right above himself.
“Run after me!”
“Okay!”
The pieces fell onto the bigger group of bandits, the ones DeVita and Schwartz passed as they ran their way into the town. As DeVita considered, it would be better to hide inside one of the buildings instead of wildly panicking outside in the dessert. Especially if they could get into one of the shelters. These things are impenetrable, made to help survive the desert. And even if they get found later, at the very least they could get a breather.
“Dhose are very pretthy colors!” Schwartz said, his head turned upwards instead of forward.
“Yeah yeah, we’ve- Shit, they’re here!” DeVita bumped Schwartz to the side, make them both turn.
A handful of bandits popped right from behind their nearest building. Each of them armed guns, knives and scowls, a combination you definitely did not want anywhere near the entrance to your safehouse.
As DeVita lit another bottle, he yelled, “Keep running!” to Schwartz. He threw the bottle straight into the second to the middle bandit, then bumped Schwartz from behind. The poor shark was looking more and more lost from the panic. DeVita ran right in front of him, already finding another building they could enter, and have his big buddy follow right behind.
They navigated through the twists and turns, as few more bandits slowly started to show up. The buildings were, while undeniably still good-looking, far from being well-kept by anyone. So this make the sudden appearance of so many of these bandits all the more surprising. You’d think if that guy managed to house so many in this one place, they would at least add their own personal touches. Like, you know, scratches, cigarette marks or piss stains. All they had was dust.
Something that DeVita has started to consider it to be extremely weird by the eighth time they managed to jump in on them. To reiterate, there weas extremely large number of bandits. DeVita threw his bottles at them, but the number left in the box kept decreasing, leaving them less and less options to escape with.
“Dammit, this is a pain in the asshole!” DeVita then bumped into Schwartz’s blubbery side.
“Duh, why did you do dath!?”
“Cause we need to get inside that building!” DeVita yelled. Considering how deep into the town they were, they could simply just enter into any building they wanted. But as for the bandits that were tailing them, he took the rest of the cloth that was left and lit it up.
“Now slam it right behind us!” DeVita pulled Schwartz’s arm, who followed his lead without freezing up. In a semi-large swing of the box, he smashed it against the ground, alongside the burning cloth thrown by DeVita.
With this chance taken, they both entered inside the narby building and closed the door shut. DeVita took time to breathe, finally realizing how tired he was from all of this. Wiping sweat, he then patted his partner’s higher shoulders.
“It should keep those idjits busy. Find the storage and open it for me, ya hear?!”
Despite orders given, Schwartz would not move. DeVita checked on his partner, trying to figure out what made him suddenly stop, and wondering if the guy needs some water. After all, they did run all this way.
But then something clicked inside the room.
“Not another step.”
DeVita sighed in defeat.
“When the hell did they…” He grumbled, but before long he had someone grab his hand and pin him to the hard stone wall.
“Hey, did you hear how he called us?” One of the bandits laughed loudly, presumably the “funny guy” of the group. “He said we were ‘idjits’! Man, you must feel so bad to suck!!!”
DeVita was able to turn his head enough to get a good glimpse of them. Overall, about six, not too big of a number. The “funny guy” stood farther back and based on his girth, while fitting for an otter, can be dealt with swiftly. The other three, including the guy pinning him, were average, with lithe build. No one looked with hard skins, and one even had a hobble. The last dude, a human with lizard’s eye, appeared the most properly intimidating.
And he seemed to be calling the shots based on the order given, “Strip him.”
DeVita gritted his teeth and hissed, but the bandits have already started pulling out weapons from his pockets.
“You better not do anything, blubberfish,” the leader told Schwartz.
When he felt reaching down to his breast-pocket, DeVita immediately growled out, “Don’t you dare!”
“Look boss, Behemoth Cutter 3000tm!!! That’s some expensive shit!”
“If I see you put one more of your finger on it, I swear on my mum, I’ll slice ‘em off-“
DeVita felt the knee land right in the middle of his back. It took him few minutes before he could properly breathe.
“You aren’t the one making demands here. Not anymore.”
He kicked the door the down open with one foot and everybody followed him. As he was pushed by a recklessly eager bandit, DeVita couldn’t help but look at a group of them playing around with a piece of cloth. Which happened to be very familiar to him.
“By the way,” the lizard-eyed man said, stopping their group near that one, “what exactly were you thinking, throwing those bottles at us? Impromptu molotovs?”
DeVita didn’t answer, just stared at the ground, where laid multitude of pieces of broken bottles.
“Cause, you know, not every type of alcohol is flammable, you know that?”
Thinking on it, DeVita couldn’t help but finally notice how something was missing throughout their whole chase. More specifically, something fiery. Must’ve forgotten to check.
“Did you guys just found it lying around in the building somewhere?”
The guy approach closer to DeVita. Between the two of them, there was a significant difference in height and bulk, but that didn’t matter. As his uncle used to say, as long as you show no fear, or even better, intimidate them into fearing you, even sleeping in jail will be a breeze.
“I’d say ya got lucky, lizard-eye.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
“That said,” DeVita continued, “whose to say you’ll continue to be lucky? Maybe one day, you’ll lose that precious eye. Not saying how, but I’d worry.”
The eye man chuckled.
“Lose an eye, huh? Like this?”
He promptly plucked the lizard eye from its socket. Motioning the other bandit, the guy let go of DeVita, who reactively caught the eye as it was tossed to him. Before he realized what happened, a fist shot straight into his gut.
DeVita reeled a bit, before finally letting out in a small, wheezy tone, “Ooh, I am so gonna kill you…” and then coughed.
The man scoffed, took back his eye and pushed DeVita back to his holder. Finally coming to, DeVita immediately noticed something, which he hadn’t paid attention to until few moments ago, and that was their weapons. White barrel, golden handles, elaborative and unnecessary wings…those were definitely the arms that belonged to the nobles! These things were extremely devastating in the wrong hands, capable of turning healthy men into meaty toothpaste. They are also notoriously hard to get by, as are most of the weapons handed to the nobles’ guards.
So how did they get a hold of them? DeVita began clicking his teeth. Without a knife, it tended to be hard to think for him, so he needed to find a way to get his hands on one.
Soon, they stopped right in the middle of the streets, the widest out of all of them. An array of light was moving near them, already illuminating more and more of the street as if someone took the sun and was now riding it.
“Duh, what do we do now?” Schwartz asked.
DeVita squinted a bit at the incoming monstrosity. It was becoming harder and harder to look. Even Schwartz, when he checked on the guy, had basically shut his eyes. The ground shook more as the thunderous and deafening motor noise was brought closer to them alongside it. Slowly DeVita came to realization why so much money was offered to them for this quest…and it probably had to do with the sheer armory this man seemed to be bringing.
And so, within the loud, rumbling noises, DeVita began to yell,
“Number one,” he started, using all of his lungs just to make sure his words reached Schwartz, “don’t say anything! Number two, don’t do what I wouldn’t do! Number three, follow my lead!!!”
“Oh, ok,” Schwartz calmly and inaudibly replied with his smile. DeVita accepted it as is with a sigh.
The trembling and growling grew louder, and soon enough, they couldn’t see anything at all thanks to the light. DeVita felt a tinge of fear, suddenly realizing that with it being so bright, those bozos could kill them just as fast as if they were in the darkness. Should they risk it and start attacking before anything could happen to them? A sense of preservation is necessary, his uncle once told him, but so was not running around like a chicken. There was no use in panicking.
And then, a loud voice announced via speaker,
“Well done, my dear servants, Mwhohohoho!” His laugh came from his nose and rumbled a bit before nearly snorting like a pig. It was almost forced, too.
The light dimmed, enough that, after having to be forced to see nothing but the shine of their inner eyelids, everyone could finally lift them a tiny bit. It was still shiny, but DeVita could actually figure out what the monstrosity actually was. And it was a VERY large thing, almost the size of, if not bigger, than the buildings surrounding it. The front was that of a protruding, bulbous front which showed a row of metallic boards that come across as teeth down the middle. The sides were adorned with lights, the source of all of that blindness they endured. Going higher to the top, sat on his throne a fat-looking man. And he wore the most gaudiest of clothes, those stupid looking shirts, vests and pants that nobles love on themselves, and hair just as bright and colorful as the lights. DeVita tried to eye a bit more, but his vision still needed time to adjust.
“HEY, HOW ABOUT YOU FINALLY MADE SOME SUNGLASSES FOR US!!?” A bandit yelled from afar. “WE CAN”T SEE SHIT WITH YOU SHINING LIKE THAT!!!”
The “noble” from above wouldn’t answer, and DeVita pretty much knew why. As far as acting goes, it wasn’t far from how nobles are. From the need to accessorize to making their presence well known. Even more so, disregarding the complaints of the lesser, or even choosing to deal with the problem by simply eliminating complainers. If the guy wasn’t even a real noble, he could definitely pass as one, that’s for sure.
The bulbous machine then began rumbling, once again. That said, the noise was more akin to vibration, the machine suddenly restructuring itself. The throne, from what DeVita glimpsed, folded on itself, allowing the noble to stand up. His body then started to move downwards, thanks to the teeth in the middle separating, revealing a gigantic staircase built within it. With over hundred steps and more, DeVita wondered if the mook was really gonna go all the way down. But then he realized that he wasn’t moving at all, and instead it was the stairs. The vibratory rumbling continued as the noble got closer and closer to earth, showing him descending with his arms out wide. As he reached halfway down, a fanfare started to resound, a distinct one which DeVita didn’t really remember to whom it belonged it.
Because he hated these sounds.
Finally, after spending whole twenty minutes of getting his freshly installed light-bulb of head down to them, the noble finally touched the ground. In his hands he was holding a pair of sticks, one appearing as a scepter with a large emblem embedded on it, while the latter was a chicken drum, which upon closer look also happen to be not real. Also, for a moment, DeVita wasn’t sure if what he saw was right. Despite the grossly rotund form of his torso, his face was extremely thin and well-sculpted. Furthermore, he was a “human”, and last he heard, the Gluttoria’s were pigmen. He did hear both species were pretty close to one another, but something about this didn’t make much sense.
This noble then tapped his chicken drumstick against the side of the machine, and as if by magic, a carpet appeared below him. Plain red, with bright golden trim. He then marched (or waddled? That mook really tried to make himself waddle) all the way to DeVita. All DeVita could think, watching that gross, overinflated man walk to him was, that there was a lot of stuffing under that fat coat of his. Some of it came out of the seams, too. Then he looked closer to his hair…mane?...whatever it was, it was obviously a wig. It was just a bit hard to see due to billions of different lights shining at you from every which way.
“So, it seems we have been visited a very lovely pair of gentlemen,” the noble target announced with a huge smile. DeVita felt like there was something in that guy’s mouth. “Of course, considering how important I am as a part of the prestigious twenty noble families, that should’ve been obvious! It would’ve been far more outrageous if I wasn’t targeted by some ne’er-do-wells! So which one of them sent you after me?” The fat suited man raised DeVita’s mouth to him with the scepter. All DeVita could think was that it was probably an egg. Small enough to play in your mouth. “Was it from Ira family? The Vious? Oh, of course! How could I forget my own ilk. Perhaps they also wanted to rid themselves of their so-called ‘shame’, but not to worry, I know exactly how to answer that. So…well?”
DeVita looked up and down the costume. The patches sewn together completely amateurishly, with visible seams, pieces sticking out, and he even found a row of needles. If anyone with a sense of fashion, and DeVita was one, saw the whole thing, they would laugh. He would too, of course, but he was more annoyed.
“I am talking to youuuuu~” the noble drew out the “u” for emphasis. That said, he seemed to be losing patience. “Hellooo! Do you even KNOW who I am?”
DeVita, with hands held tightly behind him, said nothing, at first. He then relaxed his posture, cleared his throat and checked his teeth with his tongue.
“Look here, buddy,” DeVita finally answered. His voice carried as much intimidation as one would to an overly-dressed goose. “I respect the fanfare, and the whole get-up too, really nice, but I think you’ve been talking to a wrong guy here. We aren’t trying to assassinate you! We are just a pair of travellers, looking to learn more about the these here ruins.”
The noble eyed him suspiciously.
“Look I’m honest! I even made a fool of myself by throwing unflammable bottles here and there. And come on, tell me, is it really a crime to be interested in the beauty of architecture? See as you chose this place, I think you’d also believe it very, very much! Y’know, my mama used to say, so how ‘bout we-“
“You should stop monologuing here,” the noble cut him short.
DeVita’s mouth hanged wide open. He actually felt fairly offended by that.
“Minions!” The noble yelled. None of the bandits seemed to be interested in the whole thing. “Do these brutes remind you of someone? Hmmm?...You!”
From behind DeVita, the lizard-eyed came forward, “Here’s some knives we found on him.”
“Can’t a lizard collect knives as a hobby, for devil’s sake!?”
The noble took the collection package and the Behemoth Cutter 3000tm, and eyed them closely.
“Hey, you better not touch ‘em ya bastard!”
“You aren’t talking here, prisoner!” The noble replied calmly. “And do try to be a bit more proper in how you act in front of a noble, like moi. I, am Darrold DeLa Gluttoria, a straight descendent of the original founder of Gluttoria’s noble family. And lest you wish your head to be rolled on the ground, you WILL refer to me as your majesty, immediately!”
DeVita rolled his eyes with exaggeration. So that’s who they were dealing with. For that he gained another bruise to the gut, courtesy of a nearby bandit, on Darrold’s order.
“The Behemoth Cutter 30000tm, a pretty expensive set,” the Lizard-Eye continued. “You don’t usually find these anywhere, either.”
“A man can be of culture, buddy,” DeVita coughed a bit, “now hand them over unless you want me to wipe sand with ya!”
He returned to standing straight. Darrold eyes then seemingly focused.
The Lizard-Eye said, “If you wanted something more collector edition, you should have gone for the ancient relics, or maybe pretty gemstone. This is a knife that is sold to scavengers.”
“A scavenger!” Darrold exclaimed triumphantly, as if he came to an important discovery.
DeVita eyes darted.
“What are ye talking ‘bout! We’re just a pair of…dapper gentleman with a knife collection!” He lied with a twisty smile. “I mean, we are nobodies, complete and total-“
“There’s a note on the back, ‘If lost, return it back to DeVita, AKA The Knife & Fork Duo, AKA This is mine you sonovabitch!’” The Lizard-Eye read.
Darrold starred intensely at DeVita.
“…Who just happen to be a big fan of them. I hear they have good fashion sense!”
“My, how interesting…” Darrold’s smile grew through his filled cheeks, enough to give a glimpse of the egg in his mouth. “Minions, open the hatchet!”
DeVita watched as a pair of bandits go behind the fat noble and pull against one of the teeth from the machine. From behind it, they brought out a huge, black sack, tied with a golden rope. They moved closer to DeVita, then quickly opened the bag, and threw it to him. Out from poured gallons and gallons of golden coins and jewels, spreading into a large patch in the sand. There was so much, DeVita didn’t even notice his jaw unhinge and hang below him.
“I am a very simple noble, you see,” Darroled began talking. “And as a simple noble, I enjoy owning LARGE sums of money…”
DeVita’s brain took time to soak it all in. So much cash, enough to get them through several months of rent payments! Maybe, even get him all the knife collections in the world! Or maybe…maybe open their own Scavenger Post! The possibilities are endless!!!
“Now then, since we’ve shown it all, what is your opinion, my good fellow.”
DeVita made a small noise, almost chuckling. “Well, I say-”
“Actually, I was talking to your silent friend, over there!” Darrold cut him off.
“…Eh, what?”
The noble waddled past DeVita. Pushing his captor to turn both of them around, DeVita saw the noble walk up to his shark friend. The shark kept gazing at everything, only realizing what just happened when the noble started talking to him.
“I know, exactly what is going on,” he announced. “You thought you could fool me, but the truth is, you ARE exactly the type who wouldn’t say anything!”
The shark looked confused, and DeVita was flabbergasted.
“No-no you see, this is my partner, he isn’t-“
“I know EXACTLY how this works. And you will not confuse me! The size is power, one who consumes all, one who has no care in the world, one who has others do what has to be done, that is a sign of STATUS!” Darrold’s voice was loud and manic. Darrold turned and starred dreamily up at the shark, “Now, what say you know, oh silent one? I have made a generous offer for you…will you accept it? Will you join my ranks, and in return, get glorious money you’ve NEVER seen before?”
“…Duh…”
Schwartz’s eyes wandered. He looked at DeVita, who quickly and with enunciation mouthed words: DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! They were dealing with an idiot, better not mess it up.
“Monoth…May….Impotent?”
DeVita eyes bugged out. His mouth went to rapidfire: NO ARE YOU AN IDIOT, STOP TALKING!
Schwartz then bobbled his head with a grin. Then proudly, he said, “Money doesn’t matter! Take it back where you belong!!!”
DeVita made a sound that was very reptilian in nature, with a bit of cat to it. The golden boy looked very shocked, his minions were confused, while Schwartz bore happiness on his face like a toddler would
“Well, I see now. You two are far more respectful than I imagined. Well, in that case, it seems we must opt to another way to do this.” He snapped his fingers and called upon one of the bandits. “Minions, throw both of them into prison! We shall see what we can do with them!”
Darrold turned sharply, and began walking away. The captors then prodded Schwartz to go forward, who did after five times.
As he passed by DeVita, he asked, “I did good, right?”
“Oh yeah…real nice…” DeVita hissed through teeth.
The adventures in Garbage Area seemed to be still continuing. Let it be known, anything can happen there.
…
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 50 x 50px
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