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"Well? Did you tell him?""No."
"Why not?"
Edwarde was talking to Rugar in the tavern's common room the next morning about the "night on the town" that Lomilyth had taken her on the previous night. Flayer was also up, but he or whatever had gone off into a corner muttering something about "practicing." All the Mind Flayer seemed to be doing was staring a spoon on the table.
"Well, ummm….he been…distracted."
"Distracted how?"
Rugar glanced at the Lich in a worried fashion.
"Umm….never mind."
"Tell me!"
"You get upset."
"No I wont."
"You always get upset when Lomilyth kill someone!"
"He killed someone!"
"No! He just…how you say? Cut someone?"
"Oh. That's not so bad."
"On the hand."
"That's not bad at all."
"So much that hand fall off."
"Oh my."
"But person still alive!"
Edwarde sighed heavily. Once, a long time ago, he had spent a great deal of time practicing sighs, coughs, sneezes, and other activities having to do with breathing. Most people didn't have to do this, but then, most people had lungs.
"So he was distracted by the person whose hand he cut off?"
"Not exactly."
"Then how was he distracted?"
"Him kept waving hand."
"Lomilyth was distracted by waving his hand around."
"Yes."
"That's weird."
Just then Lomilyth barged into the room in his typical manic style.
"HELLO EVERYONE! GOOD MORNING!"
Edwarde glanced at the elf and did a double take. Even Flayer seemed surprised.
"Lomilyth, what's that?"
Flayer was pointing at one of the elf's hands. Lomilyth seemed to have an extra one. It was clearly not an elf hand.
"Oh this? After I bought some guy a drink last night, he offered to 'lend me a hand' so I took him up on the offer!"
The elf grinned insanely and waved the detached limb about.
"Isn't it cool?!"
"HA! HA! HA!"
Lomilyth looked over at Rugar, who was putting on a show of enjoying the elf's jest.
"YOU SO FUNNY LOMI!"
Flayer and Edwarde gazed at the orc in silent disbelief. Meanwhile Lomilyth tossed the adoring half-orc the hand.
"Why thank you! Here: you could use a hand yourself!"
Lomilyth bounded out of the room, in search of whatever passed for entertainment in his mad, crazed mind.
"Give me that!"
"No! Lomilyth gave it to me!"
Rugar had his eyes closed and was stroking his own cheek lovingly with the disembodied hand.
"I've got to try and get that back to…to whosever hand it is!"
"No! Is mine!"
Flayer regarded the two for a moment, shrugged, and went back to staring at his spoon.
* * * * *
"Me can't tell him"
Rugar was bemoaning her fate to Edwarde, who in a rather grumpy mood after dealing with a recently unhanded bar patron. Thankfully, the man was now two-handed, but he was still upset.
"You know, in this case that may be a good thing."
"But me luuuuv him! You say that luuuuv will find way!"
Edwarde shuffled about nervously.
"Well, most of the time, that's true – but that still doesn't always make it a good idea."
The two of them were in the town's market, keeping an eye on Lomilyth. Flayer had retired to his room with his spoon. He said something about the sun being hard on his skin. At the moment, Lomilyth was negotiating the price on some wine.
"Who do you think you are? A highwayman? The least you could do is wear a mask and ride a horse!"
"Do you think I could get better prices?"
"I think you better lower this one or I'll kill you!"
Rugar looked alarmed.
"Should we stop him?"
"Nah, it's a merchant."
"Hmmmm…good point."
The merchant didn't look phased at all.
"Hey buddy, if you kill me, no more wine."
Lomilyth spat out a small sample.
"I'd be doing this dump of a town a favor."
"I was talking about the rest of the townspeople."
"I'm not afraid of any of them."
"I wasn't talking about one of them."
Lomilyth may have been crazy, but he wasn't stupid. Or at least not often.
"I'll give you 2 copper."
"If you make that 5 silver we have a deal."
"I'll make it 3 and you can keep your life."
"At least you know how to haggle."
As the three of them wandered around the market, Rugar hit upon an idea.
"Me knows! You could tell Lomilyth you luuuuv him!"
"Eh? What?"
"You not shy like Rugar! You tell Lomi!"
"But I don't love him!"
"Silly Lich! You tell Lomi have secret admiring for Rugar!"
"What if he kills me?"
"Ah…Rugar already think of that. You already dead."
Edwarde scratched his skull. He had to admit that it had the whole dead aspect covered.
"Please help Rugar for luuuuv!"
Edwarde opened his jaw and shut it. Rugar's eyes were so sincere, her expression so hopeful. Perhaps if he arranged things correctly, he could see to it that Rugar was let down gently…
"All…Alright. I'll do it."
"Thank you Edwarde!!"
Rugar swept the Lich up into a hug that lifted him off the ground.
"Hey! Put me down!"
Against all reason, Edwarde found that he enjoyed being hugged. Maybe it was that most people had run screaming from him for the last hundred or so years. Maybe it was simple contact with another life form (or contact with a life form at all, since Edwarde was dead).
Rugar smiled down at him so broadly that her large, yellow fangs could be seen and her green skin dimpled.
"Edwarde is Rugar's best friend! Rugar never have such good friend!"
Edwarde gazed back up at her worriedly. This was going to be tricky…
* * * * *
"I…ah…have something to tell you."
"If it's about that hand, I'm already mad at you for stealing it."
"I didn't steal it I gave it back to its owner!"
"Well, he gave it to me."
"No he didn't!"
"Yes he did, he said 'unhand me!' so I obliged him!"
Edwarde glared at the elf. It took a bit of doing, but he had managed a bit of "alone time" with Lomilyth. By way of inducement, the Lich had offered some wine. The two of them sat in a corner of the inn.
"But, as a point of fact, this is not about the damn hand."
"Yeah, then what is it about?"
Lomilyth gazed warily at him over his cup as he took of sip of the wine.
Edwarde hesitated. Now that it came down to it, he was reluctant to try and broach the subject. While having one's arm ripped off did not hold the same consequences for a Lich that it did for most others, getting the bits back together was rather annoying.
"There…there seems to be someone who is…who has their eye on you."
"Wha? You mean the cops? That's easy enough, just tell me who it is, I'll take the eye, problem solved."
Lomilyth giggled as he took another sip.
"The 'eyes' will have it. This 'eye' will do!"
The elf went on for a bit with his puns as Edwarde stared at him and wondered how to proceed.
"I meant 'eye on you' as in fancied, liked, felt attraction for."
"You mean some other guy who thinks I'm a girl? I got the answer for that right here:"
Lomilyth patted his axe, which had unaccountably materialized.
"No, this one is female."
Lomilyth paused.
"A chick? You mean I can grab a slice?"
"No, you can't chop them up!"
"No, I get me some nookie, indulge, screw, fuck!"
Edwarde's jaw dropped. As he rummaged about on the ground to find the errant bone, Lomilyth went on blathering.
"Wow! That was cool! If nothing's holding your bits together, why don't they fall apart?"
Edwarde reattached his jaw bone and glared at Lomilyth.
"Look punk, there's a very nice girl who likes you – I can't for the life of me…"
"I thought you were dead."
"…death of me figure out why. But she's a nice girl and you will also be nice…or else."
"Or else what?"
"I take it that you are refusing?"
Lomilyth noticed that there was a black bit of not-so-nice energy forming in one of Edwarde's skeletal hands. Lomilyth could have sworn that he was grinning.
"You're not fooling anyone – you're too much of a goody-goody to kill me."
"Oh, I'm not going to kill you…"
"On second thought maybe I'll try the whole kind and caring bit!"
Edwarde looked crestfallen.
"Right. So you're going to be nice."
"Nice."
"And not try to, you know, do the wild thing…"
Lomilyth looked at him without comprehension.
"…give in to your primal urges, try to consummate your relationship…"
Edwarde's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
"You know, have sex."
"YOU MEAN DON'T TRY TO FUCK HER RIGHT AWAY?"
Edwarde gritted his teeth.
"Yes."
"OK"
Lomilyth grinned insanely.
"So who is she?"
Edwarde took in the elf's twitching smile.
"She can introduce herself."
Lomilyth looked confused.
"So how am I supposed to know which girl is the one I'm not supposed to fuck?"
"Does that happen a lot?"
Lomilyth paused and looked depressed.
"No."
"So just be nice to any girl who talks to you for next day or so."
"OK!"
Just then Lomilyth said something else in a different sounding voice. The lich was watching him, so he knew that the words were coming from the same body. Otherwise, he wouldn't have believed it.
"But I'm just going to get down to it."
"What?"
"What? What?"
"What did you just say?"
"I didn't say anything."
"But I heard you…"
Edwarde was convinced that whoever he was talking to was being sincere. Then the lich had an "oh, he's squawking mad…" moment.
"Never mind."
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