A night at the Snake's Garter

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It was just another middle-of-week night in town. I had been staying around here for a few weeks now looking for fame and fortune, but mostly Fortune. She wasn’t having anything to do with me though. I checked the message board in the square and noticed a slip of parchment with my name on it. Throg the Warrior (yeah, like that’s his REAL name) wanted to meet me tonight with some mutual friends at the Snake’s Garter Tavern. That’s one of those non-official type taverns that doesn’t pay its taxes or anything. You’re just as likely to get food sickness as you were to get drunk on really cheap beer. But, it being middle of the week and all, after sunset, and since my throat was parched from not haven had a beer in at least 20 minutes I figured “what the hell – let’s go see Throg.”

Trapesing around THAT part of town isn’t a good idea for large groups of strong men. Fortunately, I’m not a large group of men. I can sneak along pretty well and in no time at all I was there.

You would think that when a person stumbles into a tavern every shady person inside would stop and stare at you. But this was the Snake’s Garter and no one gave me a second glance. I caught sight of the group at the big table alongside the dance floor. The floor itself was empty except for a couple of Mage pet’s that were “dancing” in the middle of the floor. I say it like that because I have never seen anything “dance” like that except for this one time when I caught sight of two Skar rustling around in some bushes. I am pretty sure it wasn’t sex, but I’ll be damned if I could say what it was at all. I ran like hell and never found out for sure. Anyhow, as I crossed the dance floor taking steps to avoid the two pets on the floor, I noticed the band playing along. Must have been a big night at the Garter as they had three bards with a goblin banging away on some drums doing a poor job of keeping time. The Mage pets didn’t seem to mind though. I sat down in the middle of the gang and a short haired girl with several small daggers hung from leather strips hanging from her neck danced up to the table.

*“Hey Hun! I’m Mindy and I’ll be serving you tonight – what’ll ya have?”*

*“Beer. COLD beer. And not the moose piss your giving the goblin. What is that nasty smelling stuff anyways?”*

*"Oh him? That’s moose piss.”*

She shook off somewhere as Throg pulled a rather large parchment from his vest.

*“Hey. What I got here is a map of the area beyond the fields and forest off in that way”.*

It should be noted that Throg pointed off towards the goblin at this point. It should also be noted that Throg gets lost while crossing the dance floor. This was not the first time we had met here to discuss this map. We all glanced at the map again and took note that absolutely nothing on it had changed since last week’s meeting.

*“We still need some things before we go after this score and I hope you’re all doing you jobs to get the supplies we need.”*

The meeting went pretty well with each of us piping in what we had done to put this all together. My turn came and I reported that I heard nothing, nor had I seen anything to indicate that anyone anywhere in town had even hinted at going in this direction. As the resident tavern crawler, I had made the rounds a number of times and all the signs pointed to us having a full uninterrupted run at our target. This put most of them at ease, except for the mage whose pet was now being twirled by the other mage pet on the dance floor. Those guys really need to find a new hobby. Watching his concentration on his pet and then watching the pet led to an unexpected surprise though.

There across the floor was Fortune herself. She is simply the most goodest prettiest girl in town. And every time I get near her I turn into a stammering idiot. She is also a hell of a swordsman. No one flirts with her. But there she was with her back turned to me. That amazing form was bent over her table as she addressed her crew. Her legs were perfect. Very long and athletic. I love a woman who can hold her own and Fortune was exactly that. Those amazing legs reached up, up, and on to her bottom. I can only assume that somewhere a long time ago some god had lost a bet to her mum as this was the very definition of ‘blessed’ if there ever needed to be a description written.

Throg chose this moment to talk.

*“Gads. What’s SHE doing here. I don’t understand why anyone would want her on a trek like this”.*

*“Well “*, I answered, *“it probably has something to do with the fact that she could shave your jawline from there with that sword of hers and the fact that her breastplate barely covers her, um, plateable areas that much. She sure is nice to look at.”*

And, of course, she would choose this very moment to turn around and see me smiling at her figure while pointing and talking to Throg. She rolled her eyes at me and turned away wrapping her cloak around that body so that I could no longer see. Amazingly, even with the cloak those curves were still pretty amazing and I continued to look. Kierry, that nice little Enchantress that likes to hang with us for some unknown reason (although I am pretty sure it has something to do with laughing at me whenever possible) decided NOW would be a great time to cast a little spell on me. Just a little something she had been working on to get me through a single sentence when speaking to Fortune. So, on my feet and pushed along by a couple of the group and I found myself next to Fortune, trying to get her attention. She stopped what she was doing and looked directly at me and smiled. It just isn’t fair when she does that. It’s like sending a Ogre into the arena with a ground squirrel. I’m not the ogre.

*“Well?”* she asked, half knowing and half expecting me to stammer at her like I do every week.

So I take a deep breath and say

*“Hiyum Fortuna um will hi oh am I, uh, what, uh hold on a minu um hey! I am so happy to look, er um, see at you, oh, um , I mean uh”.*

I’m not sure it was her mercy or impatience that she stopped me with a

*“Try again next week sweetie”*

and then she kissed my forehead. The greatest pair of lips in the known world had just brushed against my forehead! Just 4 inches above my own lips! WOW! I mean, um, WOW! It felt as amazing as I always thought it would. The quiet sniggering around her table brought me back down to Terminus level and I glanced slowly at them. I took time to recall every detail about each of them. The chick with harpy claw said it was creepy and told me to git. I hung my head and walked slowly across the dance floor back to my gang. Several of them were laughing at me too.
As I walked up Kierry said

*“I’m sorry – I really thought it would work”*.

I smiled at her and said

*“Oh it worked fine. I’m just a little disappointed is all.”*

Everyone knew how I felt about Fortune and this quiet little revelation made everyone stop and stare for a moment.
Throg said

*“What gives, man?”*

I turned and looked at her and her crew again. She smiled and some of them waved. That rat faced dung-beetle butted ass of a thief of hers waved a specific digit at me (NOT the one you think).

*“They are staring at the exact same map as ours”* I said.

I took a long pull on my beer. It was VERY cold. The place where she kissed me felt like magic. She winked at me and smiled then turned away.

It may very well have been the single best night of my life.

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