Casual Heroing

“Blimey! This chicken is delicious!” Penelope says while cutting it apart elegantly and taking only small bites. Excellent table manners. Good for her.

I occasionally stare at all the cleavage she’s showing, asking myself how she didn’t get herself arrested or something. In any medieval town worth its salt, she should have been abducted by the evil Lord two-point-five seconds after landing her feet at the citadel's entrance.

“You are a fabulous cook, Joey.”

“Meh. So and so. My chicken is decent. I’m not a poultry specialist.”

“What’s your specialty, then?”

[Single-Minded Focus]

She has a file on me. Penelope is the one who put people in the criminal underworld to gather information on me. Joey, don’t let yourself be fooled just because that juicy chicken threatens to drip on those massive--

I take a deep breath.

“Why did you put people onto me?” I ask abruptly, a bit tired from our exchange and also slightly worried about Princess Bianca now. I’ve not been using my skills much, but I really needed some clarity here to think without being ensnared by those massive mounds of flesh.

“I needed to know if it was safe to approach you. You are not exactly loved by the Elves around you – that’s why I had to make sure you weren’t another homicidal maniac.”

“Another?”

She slowly rests the fork on her plate with but a smirk on her face.

“You don’t know who Cassandre is, do you?”

“You do?”

“I know about her, but I never approached her directly.”

“Listen, Penny, would you mind being more direct?”

“I really don’t like that name, Joey,” she says with a neutral face, all the friendliness and flirting wiped away. “Call me Penelope, please.”

She’s got issues.

“Cassandre is a murderous, crazy woman, then?”

“Do me a favor; fetch me some water, please,” she says, coughing gently. “This chicken is a bit dry after all.”

I look at the woman before me and then at the juicy chicken she has just badmouthed. I put on a smile and step forward, scoop up the plate, and start eating it with my fingers.

“What are you doing?!”

“Food is not for entitled little shits,” I wink at her. “You can play with me, Penny, but this chicken is perfect. If you got complaints, it means you are not hungry enough.”

I shove yet another piece of the greasy chicken into my mouth.

“You must be kidding!” she says, outraged.

I chew with my mouth open, loud and clear. I’m adding some moans to have her understand whom she’s dealing with. No messing around with my food, lady. It doesn’t matter how hot you are.

“Fine,” she says while getting up. “Enjoy your meal, you barbarian. I’ll be in the living room.”

“Oh, I will,” I say with a smile, giving her a little salute.

I really don’t care about her name. What I care about is the file she has on me. And the fact that she knows about Cassandre. Wait. Didn’t I get a file on Cassandre from Robin? Or not? Didn’t I ask for something? MAN.

“Penelope,” I raise my voice to reach the other room. “What do you have on Cassandre, exactly?”

No answer.

“Oh, come on,” I say as I move to the living room, finding her sulking on the couch.

Everyone is so damn weird in this world, I swear.

“What?” she says, laying the accent thick.

“Who’s Cassandre?”

“I’m surprised you don’t actually know. It’s not like her past is a mystery. You hired every single Fellow there is; didn’t they give you a file on her? Even just as a courtesy since you seem to know her.”

“They might have,” I admit guiltily. “I might have forgotten to read it, though.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, sir. You could double-check with a truth stone.”

She looks at me with an eyebrow raised and then relaxes.

“My reports on you were definitely correct about your attitude, then. Good.”

“Listen, Dr. Jekill, can you tell me about Cassandre, or do I have to go look for my file?”

Please, tell me about her. I have a warehouse worth of documents, and I did not catalog them in any way.

“She’s a former [Warlord].”

“Come again,” I say with wide eyes.

“A former [Warlord]. Are you deaf?”

“[Warlord], as in a Lord who wages wars? And she makes baguettes now?”

“Well, she can’t leave the citadel. That’s why she’s making baguettes to live.”

“What?”

“Sirens destroyed the village of half-giants she was leading. Basically eradicated them while she was abroad. Sirens are not stupid enough to attack her on the academy’s grounds, but she is a target. If she ever moved from here, she would be killed on sight.”

“Ok, sorry. WHAT?!”

“Joey, Cassandre is--”

“Ok, ok. Wait a second.”

I whip out one of the best cigars I got from [[The Secret Leaf]] and light it up. This is the stuff that comes at six silvers each. The stuff I bought there with Marcellus the first time was ‘supposedly’ the best, and it came at three silvers. This is a completely different quality, but the owner doesn’t sell cigars of this level if you are not a known quantity.

“Are you going to smoke?”

“Yeah, is that a problem?”

“No. Would you mind giving one to me?”

“Sure,” I say, clicking my tongue. “There you go.”

As we both start huffing and puffing, she starts to explain better what went down with Cassandre.

“She came to this world around ten years ago. She kicked up a major fuss. It took her months to put together a terrifying army. She built guns and bombs. Everything you could think of that we should have never tried bringing here. Then, she apparently came to the Nine Towers Academy with a few of her men, and that’s when, coincidentally, the Sirens attacked and leveled the place to the ground.”

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“She went a bit cuckoo after that. But then, she simply decided to stay here. Never made a move, as far as anyone knows. A few [Assassins] tried their hand at killing her, but no one has ever come back from those missions. Some say that if she had been back in Leggiadra, the half-giant city, they might have won the battle. Sadly, it was a slaughter. I don’t know how much you know about international politics, but I assure you that the Sirens are tyrants, if not even terrorists, by our standards.”

“Probably just going back to their old ways,” I say while thinking about what she just told me.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know who Lakaner is?”

“No? Sounds like a Vanedenis. Is that a friend of yours? Am I supposed to know him?”

Lakaner of the Marigolds, one of the great legends of the Vanedenis, already forgotten by the rest of the world.

“Did you know that the Sirens were quite a people-eating lot? Well, Lakaner was the [Royal Gardener] who became a [Hero] and slayed the [Queen of the Abyss, Heiress of Forbidden Knowledge] Nerea. The First was a cannibal [Queen] who found out about some blood rituals and weird stuff to empower the Sirens through people-eating. Lakaner said, ‘not on my watch, pal,’ went down there, took her head, went back to the Royal Palace, took the head of the current Vanedeni [King] or something, and yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“You really know an awful lot about the Vanedenis. I shouldn’t be surprised since the lost [Princess] came back from the legends to save you.”

“Eh, it’s actually surprising that people don’t know this story. It’s pretty cool. Sure, my ‘teacher’ just loves to teach me about their history, but even you have to admit that a guy that single-handedly decided to end a blooming Tyrant is pretty cool.”

“[Queen of the Abyss, Heiress of Forbidden Knowledge],” Penelope mutters.

“Yeah, I know. It’s a mouthful. The higher you go, the more stuff gets crammed in your class.”

We both fall silent for a moment, each in their own thoughts.

Cassandre’s a [Warlord] who’s basically exiled here. Well, that’s not good. If she wanted to meet me, she might want my help to hatch a plan to get her revenge. Not that kicking a couple of Sirens would be against my morals, but still. I don’t want to enable a possible mass murderer to come to power and be responsible for genocide, you know.

“Anyway, let’s change the topic for now. What happened in the market exactly?”

I proceed to recount the insane scene that went down.

“Blimey,” Penelope says, “let’s go check on the guy who got hurt. Your pig might have snapped the bone in his leg.”

“What?”

“You don’t plan on being responsible for hurting him?”

“I mean, he hurled a knife at my pig. If he got a bad injury, that’s on him.”

“Sure, but if you don’t want to create even more problems for the rest of the Humans, why don’t we go check on him? I’m a [Doctor], you know?”

“[Doctor]?” I start sweating as she says that.

“Yes. Are you surprised?”

“Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you wanted to play doctor?” I say, adding my customary wink.