Gaspard Regrets Everything and It's Only Been an Hour....
"The key to strategy is to never let your opponent suspect you have no strategy."
— Baron von Humbug, Memoirs of a Military Illusionist
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The sun sat lazily in the sky above the bumpy country road, shining over a patchwork of fields and thickets.
Somewhere near the middle of nowhere, two very out-of-place travelers trundled along with a donkey that limped, letting out a fart that startled a nearby squirrel into falling from a tree.
"We are exactly where we need to be," declared Blunt, chest puffed like a peacock in full delusion. He pointed dramatically at the horizon, which looked like the same patch of scrub they'd passed an hour ago.
"We're lost."
"This, Gaspard, is the perfect staging ground for Operation Flaming Phoenix." blunt raised a stick like a baton.
Gaspard, who was sweating under his rusted helmet and dragging a sack of turnips, didn't look up. "When exactly will the rest of our team arrive?"
"Soon. Very soon. In military time, that means 'any moment between now and now,'" Blunt replied, striking a confident pose atop a rock. "I am orchestrating a convergence maneuver. Like the Battle of Four Forks! Or was it Spork Hill? No matter! Flanking! Morale! Surprise! The donkey is key."
Justice the donkey punctuated this with a whimpering fart, which sent a flock of crows screaming skyward.
"Wonderful," Gaspard muttered. "We have gas-powered cavalry."
"Soon, the other will rendezvous with us at the designated rally point."
"What rally point? You've led us in three circles, the donkey's got a limp, and we haven't eaten since the last village where you tried to barter a sketch of yourself for bread!"
"That was a fine likeness."
"It was a stick figure with a mustache!"
Blunt waved off the insult. "Art is subjective."
"Tell me we have a map."
Blunt ignored him, drawing a crude diagram in the dirt with his stick. "Observe! The enemy will expect a head-on assault, but we'll—Justice, no!"
The donkey was enthusiastically chewing on Blunt's battle map, drooling over the carefully sketched circles and arrows.
"We are hopelessly lost," Gaspard moaned, watching as the creature chomped down what might have been their only plan. "And low on supplies. Because that thing has eaten more supplies than we brought."
Gaspard halted. "I refuse to go another step. Not without our mystery ally. This is madness."
"Madness!"
"Camping time!" Blunt declared, apparently unfazed.
They made camp.
Or rather, Blunt attempted to "camp like a true adventurer." He flung open a satchel and began laying out an incoherent pile of tarps, mismatched teacups, and forks bent at unnatural angles.
Gaspard, muttering dark prayers under his breath, gathered sticks and tried to coax a fire out of them while holding a turnip like it was a grenade. Justice wandered over to the tarp, chewing on what's left of Blunt's map.
"This is how true adventurers live," blunt said.
"This is how idiots die." Gaspard grumbled, blowing on a miserable excuse for a fire and began boiling a questionable turnip stew. His turnip stew hissed like it hated him, and he stabbed it with a spoon.
Justice wandered over and sniffed the pot.
"Don't even think about it," Gaspard warned.
Just as Gaspard was considering whether or not to throw himself into the pot, they heard music.
From the road came the creaking rumble of wooden wheels. A colorful wagon trundled into view, festooned in ribbons and painted stars. On the side:
THE GRAND PATENTED MORAL PUPPET SHOW — ONE NIGHT ONLY!
It screeched to a halt.
A stage unfolded, a curtain rose, and a moustachioed puppet popped up, yelling in a nasal falsetto:
> "FEAR ME! FOR I AM… THE BANDIT KING!"
Then the entire stage exploded.
Gaspard, Blunt and the donkey stared blankly at the performance.
Before anyone could fully process what was happening, a horse burst through the backdrop. Atop it, reins clenched in white knuckles, rode Fenella Quickwit, cloak aflame and hair wild, "OUT OF THE WAY!" she shrieked, before being unceremoniously launched off the saddle by a flying lute.
She landed directly on Blunt.
"Fenella!" he gasped, delighted. "You're early!"
"TWO DAYS!" she snapped, scrambling off him as chaos unfolded around them.
Three large men pursued her, with clubs in hand. One shouted, "Stop the thief!"
A man with wild eyes and a lute jumped down screaming, "FOR THE MUSE!" and smacked a pursuer in the face.
One giant marionette, with one eye peeking from a wooden mouth, and stuck in a giant marionette costume, rolled from the carriage's interior, "I CAN'T SEE! I SWEAR TO—IS THAT A GOAT?!"
Then slowly continued rolling into a bush, shrieking muffled curses. "I TOLD YOU THIS PLAN WAS STUPID!"
A random stranger burst from the wreckage, clutching a bottle of someone else's wine. "WHY AM I HERE?! WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!"
The hymnals suddenly exploded.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
A barrel rolled from the shattered puppet cart and cracked open against a rock, releasing a noxious cloud of fermented turnips. One of the pursuers fell flat, unconscious.
A chicken leapt from the wreckage, furious and on fire.
"Bravo!" Blunt shouted from under the horse. "This is theatrical warfare at its finest!"
Fenella, ducking a thrown axe, screamed, "This isn't the entrance I planned!"
"Two—!" she yelled, slapping Blunt with a puppet arm. "I SAID TWO DAYS!"
"You said 'in two days,' not 'exactly two days,'" Blunt replied, shielding himself with a stage curtain.
"It's been one and three bloody quarters!" she screamed while fending off a man with a forked stick.
At that moment, some men leapt from the trees, "Oi!" one barked, "They're smuggling gold! Get the cart!"
Gaspard screamed. "We're being punished! This is divine wrath!"
What followed after could barely be called a fight.
Blunt mistook a puppet sword for a real one and accidentally parried a bandit's blade. The bandit paused, confused, long enough for another to tackle him with her puppet body. "Ha! Who's wooden now?!"
Gaspard flung the boiling stew into a charging brute's face, slipped on his own shield, and collapsed into three more with a cry of, "I REGRET EVERYTHING!"
Justice the donkey panicked and kicked a marionette stand into someone's face, sparking a fire that licked up a tree.
Another one clung to a man's shoulders, whispering Shakespearean death monologues into his ear.
> "O THOU UNWORTHY KNAVE WITH BLADE, THY DOOM IS RHYMED, THY END IS MADE—"
The man screamed and fled into the woods.
Fenella, now dual-wielding puppets and explosive hymnals, began lobbing them like grenades.
The random stranger looted both bandits and the others, shouting, "I'M FREELANCE!" while rifling through everyone's pockets.
Gaspard, running in a zigzag to flee a swinging blade, deflected it with pure accident, and a scream. The blade ricocheted into a tree, causing a burning branch to crash down on a group of bandits.
As smoke curled into the air and bandits lay groaning, the last one stepped backward into a flaming tree, which toppled right on top of him, silencing the forest.
Smoke rose, and ash drifted. The chicken strutted through the wreckage.
Fenella, panting and covered in sawdust, began brushing soot from her cheek, and looked around. "So… I guess we're a team now?"
Blunt sat up, pulling a marionette string out of his hair, and grinned. "Told you. Military-grade strategy."
Gaspard crawled out of a barrel, covered in turnip and leaves. "I hate you all!"
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