BECMI Chapter 182 – A Master at Work

We came gliding into town with a rather large number of the local hynfolk gathered to meet us and wondering what happened. Some had knives and slings and spears and bows and short blades, and some had trowels and rakes and heavy tankards and rolling pins.“Good evening!” I greeted them all. “Doom! Doom upon you all! Clear out of the way of my magnificence or I shall rend your flesh from your bones and sell your gristle for soup broth!”

Everyone following me blinked at me. So did the tensed hyn.

Then someone snickered, and they all burst out laughing in my face, as not a single one of them could believe what I was saying was the truth.

Lying successfully is quite difficult when you know , after all.

“I mean it! We’re all dreadful Zanzyran mages and their slaves, here to conquer you all, lay claim to all the Shires, and you will be our chattel for ten generations and more!” I stated pompously.

The laughter grew even louder, and the weapons came down further.

“Can you not see the ferocity of this mighty lupin?” Chekwort looked about as dangerous as an overstuffed pillow. “The raging lethality of this deadly rakasta?” Owshiva blinked her big golden eyes before rolling them expressively and looking away in total embarrassment. “This terrifying native of the Principality of Fuirenze poisoned his grandmother, drowned his father, and arranged for his uncle to slip on the ice and fall on his own dagger three times!” Nico blinked, then straightened up, polished his knuckles on his shirt, and beamed. “That Freir beauty has had six men duel themselves to death over her, and is wondering which of you is going to be the seventh!”

Most of the young male hyn there immediately blushed as Laurentine narrowed her large green eyes and her gaze roved over all of them.

“And of course this elf of the Sidheduiche will steal off all your children and sell them off to the fey, leaving goblin changelings in their place to eat all the truffles and sweetcakes on you all!”

I was saying it all with a perfectly straight face, and they couldn’t help grinning widely at the so-obvious lines, despite all the threatening words and gestures accompanying everything. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ????????????????????⟡????????????????⟡????????????

I glared at them all, and the hyn all grinned back at me.

“I can see you are all suitably intimidated now. Probably by this Caergard savage so barbaric he doesn’t even wear undergarments sometimes.” It was another bald lie, and they all jeered the Mick as he just looked at me and rolled his eyes, too.

“Thus my future subjects, direct us to a proper inn with repast worthy of such illustrious and dreadful tyrants as ourselves, or woe upon you all!” I threatened them, shaking my fist at them.

“Mama Frita’s has the best pies in town!” a young hynn piped up proudly, and if there was a bit of challenge about Auntie Sheckla’s and Miss Bernadin’s, nobody really overrode her.

“Then lead on, faithful retainer, and show your mistress to her evening meal!” I declared with total pomposity and a completely blank face. “There shall be cream and berries, or this town will TREMBLE before my wrath!!”

The only response was more laughter, and the crowd of hyn started to melt away… except for the rather large remnant that was following along to see how this all turned out.

The Mick leaned back to whisper to his sister, who was watching this all wide-eyed, and asked, “Did you know she could do that?”

“I… how could she say all that with a straight face?” Isadora protested in disbelief. “She’s giving orders like some deranged caricature of an ice queen, and they are just eating it up!”

“Ye know she’s lying through her teeth, aye?” the Mick grinned.

“Aye and… so do they…” she blinked. “Oh, that is so unfair…”

“Aye. It’s not that they THINK she be lying. It’s that they KNOW she be lying. She just be entertainment right now, and we be her entourage of clowns.”

Isadora was torn between her noble status as a wizard of Zanzyr, and the pure novelty of the situation, surrounded by bustling laughing hyn escorting them to the best inn in town.

“BEHOLD! My terrifying monstrous steed and most fearsome and horrible lord of the night, DUUM!” she called out, and all the hyn went ‘ooooh!’ and ‘aaaah!’ as Duum materialized out of nowhere, great black wings spread wide and hovering above them without flapping his wings in the slightest.

His monocle and the elegant top hat with the crimson band and ostentatious scarlet feather looked particularly frightening, they did not.

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“I say, Mistress, there are no giant frogs in the vicinity at ALL,” he said down to her in quite the posh version of her own Transyvian accent. “I was assured that the frogs in the Shires were the absolute best!” he protested indignantly.

“Well, doubtless they already ate them all, then,” I returned in a bored tone. “Must you always think with your stomach?”

“You promised me a fine meal in the Shires, and there are no frogs!” he reminded her stiffly, as all the hyn grinned even wider.

“Fine! FINE! I still have the scorpion tail. How much butter do my faithful minions have available to them?!” I demanded archly.

There were a few blinking eyes. “Well, how much do ye be needing, er, Mistress?” grinned an older hyn with proud handlebar mustaches in a farmer’s bib overalls.

“About forty gallons.” The hyn all blinked. “It was not a small scorpion. Did you think I would waste my efforts on some piddling horse-sized scuttler when one the size of a house was available, minion?” I demanded coldly.

“Oh, of, of course not, mistress!” he replied hastily. “Lads, how much butter do you think we can scare up for this little scorpion tail the Mistress be saying she has?” he looked around urgently.

Numbers began to be called out, and suddenly hyn were running away in all directions, for farms and cellars and their cold storage chambers, suddenly eager to see what a tail that required forty gallons of butter to make would look like.

We set up outside the inn, which was of a good size and capable of taking humans and other large travelers passing through… but wasn’t really sized for Bats the size of Duum. In seconds a fine patio of colorful bricks, wide tables, a full awning covering all, stone chairs, and empty flowerpots all around was in place beside the inn, much to the delight of Mama Frita.

I ordered proper flowers to be placed in the holders to accentuate my glory, and within fifteen minutes they were all filled up proper-like in a nice mix of colors, too.

Then the stone trough was pulled up out of the ground, and it was pretty long. More than long enough to accept all the butter that was coming, to the delight and awe of the hynfolk as they came up with crocks and urns and churns, pouring and dashing it all out into the trough… whereupon it all began to heat up and melt very swiftly.

Butter was added, spices that sparkled and tingled as they left my fingers were dropped into it, and then I pulled a Scroll out of my sleeve and tore it apart.

Yeah, that was indeed a twenty-foot long scorpion tail. The meat of it glowed pristine white, and the side pieces from the claws were hunks of glowing muscle five feet long themselves.

“The things I do for ungrateful mounts,” I sniffed, and Duum, a half-dozen hyn children lifted up on one wing and tumbling down it, over him, and back down to the ground on the other while shrieking with delight, just sniffed, although he was watching and licking his lips as closely as anyone.

“How long be she toting that around for?” the Mick asked anybody in general, and they had no idea.

A blade of force, all black with a bright red edge to it, popped up in midair, and began to spin first, the cries and shrieks coming from it increasing in speed and volume, until it was a warbling, screaming circle of black death edged in red in midair.

I sent it down the line of meat, and there was only the slightest muting of sound as it spun down the length of all three cuts of meat, slicing through them without effort. Pale white flesh fell into the bubbling, hissing butter with sizzles of liquid meeting, and bubbles of gold refracting the fading sunlight danced through the air as the spinning blade abruptly flashed into the distance and vanished.

The boiling and bubbling and hissing was hard to resist, and the smell was absolutely incredible.

“Are you all attempting to water the lawn?” I asked the onlookers, as they gaped and drooled at the sight, and the meat slowly turning over and over with gestures of my hand. Duum in particular was dripping steadily and uncaringly onto the green.

“Needs water, it do, Mistress!” one of the bolder hyn shot right back. “Is, is Duum there going to eat all of that?” he asked in wonder.

“Of course not. He is a glutton, but his stomach isn’t that large. I shall have to dispose of the rest of it somehow… Perhaps the fish in yonder pond might enjoy it.”

There were howls of anguished protest as everyone went looking for cutlery and bowls, darting this way and that with great speed and somehow not causing any accidents as they lined up for their share.

I just stood there impassively, watching it all with not the slightest change of expression to my face.

A few minutes later, I brought the whole mass of meat up and out of the butter with. Golden glory dripped off of it all, glowing and steaming, the smell was indescribable, and nigh two hundred stomachs all seemed to rumble in unison as the white flesh, crinkled here and there with salivating brown crispiness, was lifted up for them to admire.

I cut twice, up and down, and the filets were quarted and went flashing out to all those bowls and plates held up desperately for attention. “Doubtless wasted on hapless minions who cannot appreciate good food,” I deadpanned, and they cheered wildly as their portions dropped into place, the entire party somehow served in less than thirty seconds.

Duum did get a huge chunk of pincer and tail flesh just for himself, gliding forward with jaws wide as both floated there. One dewclaw came up, crimson light shimmered in a dangerous blood-red arc, and he sliced off a serving for himself effortlessly, snatching it up instantly.

His of delight was matched by shocked groans and moans from all of the eating hyn, who were valiantly restraining themselves from gobbling up this incredible delight and pacing themselves to enjoy it more as it melted on their tongues with butter and salt and pale flesh and what spices were those and wow…

There were a LOT of tankards of pale wine being served at the same time, and Mama Frita was hurriedly making a lot of bread and custard, while loaves were arriving from bakers from all over the town to take advantage of what had to be the most magical hot butter bath ever.

Soon enough there was a virtua scorpion tail broil going on, as corn, potatoes, shrimp, fish chunks, and other things joined the butter in rather large numbers, whole bushels of them being brought in and peeled and chopped up and fed into the hot golden trough of goodness. In no time at all, most of the town had shown up to join in, and if that happened to include a lot of hyn who were now garishly bright blue and green, well, they tried not to look at us as they enjoyed all the food being served, too.