Gemstone Kingdom Pt. 01

1

----

Jacob knew he shouldn't be here.

Despite the Glow Charm of his sword casting a blue bubble of light around him, the dark was suffocating. He'd been in dark dungeons before, but none as abysmally dark as this.

This was blacker than black.

This was like anti-light.

Nevertheless, he pressed on, his mission compelling him to venture further into this subterranean maze.

It was all because of a rumor.

He'd heard it from a drunk traveler in the pub back home in his village. While bussing tables in the course of performing his thankless job, he overheard the man rambling about this legendary gemstone allegedly stashed in a defunct dungeon just outside town.

Jacob knew the dungeon. It had a foreboding entrance at the base of the Mystic Mountains, a narrow doorway tucked between two enormous boulders. Children used to tell stories about it, dare one another to step inside. They would tease each other until one of them finally entered. A courageous boy might make it three steps before chickening out and hustling back outside.

Because the very air of this dungeon was frightening. Walking through the dark, one had the sensation of whispers puffing against the nape of one's neck. As if ghosts were following behind you, very, very closely.

Nobody knew its history. Most other dungeons Jacob entered were once used by the ancient dwarven peoples of this region, miners who left behind their magic gemstones for young men like Jacob to find. His growing collection paled in comparison to the knights who served in King Eckrigard's court, but he was proud of them.

Their magic brought him pleasure.

One doubled his vertical leap. Another nominally improved his strength. A ruby red gemstone he fought a revenant for replayed past memories like stageplays by way of a charm titled Reminisce.

He had a light purple gemstone that turned him half-invisible when activated. His coworker, Natasha, mocked him for this one. "Why on Eralar would you ever need to become half invisible?"

This particularly flustered him because the last person in the world he ever wanted to look silly in front of was Natasha. Friends practically from birth, Natasha didn't know Jacob harbored a terrible crush on her. With sandy blonde hair, bright, blue eyes, and lovely tan skin she earned from long afternoons swimming in the Green River, she'd been at the forefront of his mind ever since puberty. He knew her to have the smoothest skin in the village and he loved how light glimmered across her thighs when she wore her barmaid's dress. She was so pretty. His obsession with her looks was so intense it nearly bordered on jealousy. Like he wished he could be as gorgeous and smooth as she was so he could enjoy that beauty all the time.

Of course, his infatuation wasn't just skin-deep. Natasha was his best friend. Nobody understood him better than she, and when his parents died of the plague when Jacob was seventeen, she took him in until he sorted things.

That was four years ago. In the time since, Jacob carved out a decent life for himself. He rented his own room from Gerald, the tavern's proprietor. With the use of his father's sword, who had been a soldier before retiring to the countryside with his wife, Jacob did a little adventuring as a side hustle. Fetching lost travelers, killing rabid wolves, things of that nature.

And, of course, hunting for gemstones.

The magical crystals littered Abathina, leftover from the time of the dwarves. The best ones had largely been picked over by the knights in the First Age of Men, passed down over the generations, cementing the Abathina hierarchy.

But Jacob, like other gemstone enthusiasts, believed there could still be valuable gemstones out there. Maybe even ones better than what the knights possessed. Waiting for the intrepid adventurer to come and find them.

Like the drunk traveler.

"It's the most powerful stone of 'em all!" he slurred. "S'posed to grant the user unmatched abilities, charms like no other!"

Gerald waved his hand dismissively at his sauced patron. "Poppycock."

"It's true!" the man insisted. "Heard it from a wizard."

Gerald laughed dismissively, but Jacob hovered near to eavesdrop. "What wizards would a lush like you know?"

"Agothar the Wise!" shouted the drunk.

A burst of hearty laughter erupted from Gerald -- which was quite boisterous, for Gerald was a barrel-chested bear of a man. "You expect me to believe you know the king's personal wizard?" Gerald contended.

The lush uptilted his chin. "I'll have you know," he said, waving an indignant finger in the air, "that before a stretch of bad luck befell me, I was a renowned squire."

"Who was your knight?" Gerald pressed.

The finger fell to the bar as the drunk answered in a lower voice, "Sir Peter."

"Sir Peter!" Gerald laughed again. "The disgraced knight who fled the tourney of Black Hill?"

The traveler dumped the remnants of his beer down his gullet before continuing, "Doesn't matter, because after I find the lost gemstone of Bal'qur, my woes will be no more!"

"The what now?" Gerald asked, dubious.

"The lost gemstone of Bal'qur!" the drunk repeated. "A dwarf whose story I've tracked to this quaint little corner of Abathina. He was to be the next ruler of all dwarvendom before his own sister betrayed him. Stashed his mighty gemstone in the dungeon beneath the Mystic Mountains just before the Snowfell Pass."

Gerald threw his rag over his broad shoulder and leaned his elbows against the bar between them. "And what's this lost gemstone supposed to do, hm?" he asked.

The drunk opened his mouth, but for a long time no words formed on his tongue. Jacob waited with bated breath, wondering if the man had just suffered a stroke. But finally he answered, "Prosperity. The gift of whatever your heart desires. For the small cost of a precious object."

Jacob missed this last bit because he was already daydreaming about a charm that granted the user whatever their heart desired.

And so, the next morning, while the drunkard slept, Jacob set out for the dungeon, praying there was truth to the story.

Because, while Jacob was happy, the truth of it was he never wanted to get stuck in his small, provincial village. He always wanted to travel the world like his father had. He wanted to see the sun set over the Forever Ocean, catch the fireworks at the opening ceremony of the elf festival in Garaboon, float down the mighty White River in a swanky passenger ship.

He wanted to feel close to his father in a way hanging around his gravestone never felt.

Those creepy whispers slithered across the nape of his neck and Jacob spun around, holding his sword up to strike. Of course, there was no one. Only dark. Endless, inky-black dark.

He could get lost in here if he wasn't careful. How long had he been feeling his way down this stony corridor? His legs were beginning to ache. It had to be several hours. If he gave up and turned back now, he might not make it out before nightfall.

Which meant he wouldn't see the entrance. No light would seep into all that dark as he neared the exit, showing him the way out.

Panic settled over him like a bucket of ice water. His skin retracted, the hairs on his forearms standing on end. "So stupid," he chastised himself. "I should've known better."

The whispering sound crossed his neck again and he stiffened. What the hell was that?

He didn't care to stand around and find out.

Jacob turned back the way he came -- or, at least, he thought it was the way -- and began sprinting. Holding his hand to the wall to make sure he didn't run into it, he hurried for the exit. No matter how fast he sprinted, however, the whispering voice always kept up with him.

And he could almost hear words.

A name.

His name.

"Jacob." Mocking. Like there was something funny about it.

"Stop it!" he shouted in vain.

The voice laughed.

He spun around and cut his sword at the air. "Show yourself and I'll show you what's funny!"

Instead, the voice whispered, "Watch your step, cutie."

And in the next instant, Jacob plummeted through the ground, screaming as he slid into a sandy chute.

2

----

Jacob stopped screaming after a while. The length of the chute simply made it impractical to scream all the way down. Instead, he turned his thoughts over to survival. The speed at which he fell didn't seem likely to kill him when he finally landed. However, the depth at which he would now be stranded seemed an insurmountable obstacle to his dungeon escape.

The angle of the chute and its sandy walls made climbing back up an impossibility. He also didn't know how far from the chute's exit end he would land, making it difficult to jump back inside it.

So perhaps he ought to pray for a pit of spikes at the end of this ride. A quick end to spare himself the tortures of hope, starvation, slow death.

As he resolved to plead with the gods for this conclusion, he fell into a pile of bones. Their brittle ribs and femurs snapped beneath his weight as he crashed to the floor of a cavernous chamber.

Jacob collected himself and stood, patting bone dust off his clothes. He raised his glowing sword to better view his surroundings. The space looked enormous. The walls sparkled, flecks of crystals reflecting the light of his blade back at him.

It was largely empty, with one conspicuous exception.

Before him, stationed atop a plinth, rested a dazzling, opalescent gemstone. No bigger than a coin, with a teardrop shape, it shimmered brilliantly in the gloom.

"Hello, adventurer," spoke an impish voice. Jacob recognized it as the same that whispered his name just before he plunged into the chute.

His eyes searched the chamber for its origin, but came up empty. "Where are you?"

"Right in front of you, silly," the voice said.

Jacob turned his eye to the gemstone. He'd never known one to carry a conversation. Sure, every gemstone whispered the name of its charm to its user when activated, but they didn't exactly have personalities.

Yet here was a gemstone that acted too familiar for Jacob's taste.

"You mean to tell me you're the gemstone?" he asked for confirmation.

"What were you expecting?" the stone rejoined.

"Not this," Jacob answered, edging closer to the pedestal.

"Should a highly sought after gemstone with powers unmatched be conventional?" queried the stone.

"No, I suppose not."

As he reached the pedestal, the gemstone's light beamed from its core, filling the vast emptiness. Suddenly, Jacob saw that there were skeletons everywhere, laid out across the floor.

He blanched, his face turning as white as their skulls.

"Be not afraid," the stone told him. "They were not worthy."

Jacob hard swallowed. "Am I?"

"Good question. Shall we find out?"

Jacob turned back to the stone. Shivering hands reached for it, hesitating at the last moment. "What if I'm not?" he wondered aloud.

"Ask yourself this," said the stone, "is what you want worth more than anything you presently have?"

Jacob thought about adventures, about seeing the world and escaping his village. He thought about feeling close to his father. He thought about Natasha, perhaps convincing her to join him.

To him, it seemed a no-brainer. Nothing he possessed could match the joy these things would bring.

He closed his left fist around the gemstone.

Violet light flashed in his vision, veined with neon blue and electric white. It seemed to lift him from the cavern floor, because he felt weightless, detached from everything.

The light held him aloft with a texture like velvet. In fact, its sensory overload enfolded all his senses. The smell was something like lilacs mixed with the sweetness of fresh baked cherry pie. The taste was vanilla and honey. The sound reminded him of the chimes hung in front of Mrs. Nibbling's bakery.

As it caressed him, he felt his clothes tearing away from his body. In seconds, he was nude and the light pressed up against him.

Like a hand, it grabbed hold of his cock.

"Hey, whoa! What are you doing?"

Like a lover's whisper against his ear, the gemstone replied, "Executing the trade."

Suddenly, the bit of the drunkard's story he'd ignored echoed from memory. For the small cost of a precious object.

"Oh, no..."

But he sensed that if he refused now, he would wind up like the rest of those corpses, rotting away in the dark surrounding the gemstone.

He pictured life without his penis. Would it really be so bad to lose? Sure, he'd enjoyed it, but frankly, it wasn't being used all that much.

It seemed the light read this response and in the next moment dissolved Jacob's penis, leaving behind a neat, hairless furrow in its place. A vagina? To go with it, his body underwent several other revisions.

His hips swelled outward. His skin softened, shedding excess hair. His buttocks inflated, as did his bosom. A pair of jaunty little breasts ballooned beneath his collarbones, topped with hot-pink nipples presently erect at their zenith.

"Holy shit!" Jacob screamed, though his voice didn't sound like his own. The transformation had altered it, lifting the pitch, feminizing the tone. "I'm a fucking woman!"

"Trade complete," the gemstone's voice whispered.

The light carried Jacob skyward. After a short journey through its dazzling colors, Jacob found himself outside the cave, fully nude, in his new womanly form. His sword stuck in the ground beside him, the opalescent gemstone now embedded in its hilt.

Jacob glared at it. "What did you do to me?"

The gemstone tittered. "Isn't it obvious?"

"You made me a girl?" he spat.

"I've given you untold powers for the cost of a precious object," the stone replied.

Jacob stuffed his hand between his legs, praying he might still find his cock dangling between his thighs. Instead, he felt the lips of a new organ there, sensitive to the touch.

He yanked his hand away, then bowed to examine the other new pieces of his anatomy. Two modest breasts jutted from his chest. The mid-morning sun colored them in warm shades, darkening their pale flesh.

Curiosity met with a prurient impulse and Jacob fondled himself.

The feeling was exquisite, both for his hands and his tits.

A soft, feminine moan escaped him.

He slapped his hands over his mouth.

"Would you like to review your new abilities?" the gemstone inquired.

But the footfalls of an approaching traveler distracted Jacob. "Unless one of them is producing clothes out of thin air, I have more pressing issues at the moment!"

He plucked his sword from the earth and dove into a bush.

When he peered through the leaves, he expected to see the drunk shambling toward the dungeon's entrance.

Instead, he saw Natasha.

3

----

Jacob hunkered low in the bush, praying Natasha wouldn't see him. Twigs jabbed at his breasts, leaves tickled his unfamiliar nethers, but he kept still and quiet and waited.

"Jacob!" Natasha shouted.

Why is she looking for me? he wondered. And how does she know I'm here?

"Jacob?" she called again. She drifted over toward the dungeon entrance and peered into the darkness. "He couldn't have been so stupid," she thought aloud. "Could he?"

Yes, indeed I could have, thought Jacob in his bush.

Natasha cast a glance over her shoulder at the footpath that slithered past the cave. There were no other travelers, only her. If she ventured into the dungeon, there'd be none to know where she went.

Don't do it, thought Jacob.

But he watched her lift a foot and take one big stride past the edge of light.

"Don't!" he shouted, leaping out of the bush.

Natasha retracted her foot, turned, and screamed at the naked woman with the blue-glowing sword lunging at her.

When Jacob realized how this must've looked, he cast his sword aside, then covered himself as best he could, cupping his new vagina with one hand while shielding his tits with a forearm.

"Natasha, it's me!" he said. "It's Jacob!" He prayed she would believe, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Natasha stopped screaming, but her mouth still hung open. Her eyes narrowed as she examined this unfamiliar woman before her. Until she realized this woman was not so unfamiliar. "Jacob?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me!" But he didn't sound like himself. His voice belonged to the girl he now looked like.

"Jacob, you're..." Natasha trailed off, observing his new body with wonderment.

"A girl, I know," he finished for her with a sigh.

"Jacob, you're..." she repeated, still processing this whole crazy situation.

"Naked, I know," he finished for her, his soft cheeks reddening.

"Jacob, you're... pretty," she finally finished for herself, eyes widening with the revelation.

Jacob grinned wryly. "You think I'm pretty?" But then he shook his head. These were not the circumstances under which he desired her compliments. No, this situation was disastrous, and no amount of twinkling in Natasha's eye could assuage his embarrassment and fear.

Natasha took a step toward him and Jacob's body grew tense. "Jacob," she said, "you're very pretty." Her hands alighted on his shoulders and he could've sworn a spark fired from her warm fingertips into his skin.

Distracted by her touch, Jacob struggled to ask, "How-how did you know I was-was here?"

She dropped her arms to her sides and shot him a look. "I came to fetch you for breakfast and you were gone," she said. "Then I remembered what that drunkard said last night and figured, with your gemstone obsession, you'd be stupid enough to go looking for it."

Still holding his tits and crotch, Jacob smirked. "Guess you know me pretty well."

Natasha rested her hands on her hips and popped one to the side. "I'm your best friend, of course I know you well." She smiled. "Better than anyone else in Abathina."

"Better than anyone else in all of Eralar," Jacob corrected.

She flicked her eyes up and down his exposed body again, which set a peculiar fire blazing deep within his belly. Its fire licked at his skin, beading with perspiration. "I take it you found some sort of magical gemstone." She tittered.

"Shut up," he said, without really meaning it.

Footsteps sounded down the way. They both snapped their attention to the road. In the distance, a pair of rough looking men came ambling toward them. "Shit!" Jacob cursed.

"Into the cave!" Natasha instructed.

Jacob turned and sprinted for the darkness, feeling his new buttocks jostling with every stride. Natasha followed behind him, the two huddled close just beyond the edge of the light.

They watched as the burly men crossed in front of the cave. One paused, causing Jacob's heart to skip. "Did he see us?" he whispered.

"Quiet," Natasha warned him.

The man looked over toward the dungeon entrance, took three long strides in its direction. Jacob could hear his heart thudding against his ribcage as if desperate to escape. He couldn't blame it. If he could've escaped this body and situation at this moment, he would've done so.

The man paused when his pal shouted out to him. "Remus! What you on about?"

"Lookee here," said Remus.

The second man joined him near the bushes. "What's that?" he asked.

Remus grinned. "Looks like some fool's sword, Bemus."

Bemus bent forward and retrieved Jacob's weapon from the bushes. Jacob's previously galloping heart now sank with dread. Just leave it, he begged silently, knowing of course they wouldn't. These weren't the type to pass up an easy score. They looked like bandits, not the sort you wanted to run into on an empty stretch of road.

As Bemus turned the sword over in his hands, Remus pointed at the new gemstone gleaming in its hilt. "Lookee there, Bemus!"

Bemus grinned. "Should fetch a pretty penny from the knights at Black Hill," he said.

Remus, seemingly the dimmer of the two, jumped excitedly and clapped. "No rats for dinner tonight, eh, Bemus?" he said.

"That's right," said Bemus. "Tonight, we eat like nobles."

As they carried his father's sword off down the footpath, Jacob heard the gemstone's voice whisper in his thoughts. "You'd better not let them haul me off, darling, or your sacrifice will have been for naught."

"Well, it's not like I'm well equipped to stop them!" he snapped.

"Who are you talking to?" Natasha asked.

Jacob huffed. "The gemstone!"

Though he could not see her in the pitch-blackness of the dungeon's entrance, he could still picture Natasha's quizzical, dubious expression. "It speaks to you?" she questioned.

"I'll explain after we get my sword back," he said, making to leave.

Natasha grabbed his shoulder and held him back. "You're naked," she informed him, as if he'd forgotten.

"Naked or not, I need my father's sword! The gemstone's in the pommel!"

Natasha thought for a moment, then ripped a bit off the end of her dress. She wrapped it around Jacob's widened hips, then tied its ends together. She tore off another section and did the same across his breasts. "There," she said. "You're still pretty naked, but at least you're not nude. One girl to another, you don't want to be caught in the buff out there. Especially when you're that cute."

Each time she paid him this compliment, something funny happened to his body. It was like it had begun to melt, and a curious warmth bloomed between his soft, round thighs.

But he pushed these confusing thoughts out of mind and raced out from the cave, Natasha following close behind him. "What's your plan, smart guy?" she called after him.

"I don't know," he said, "got any ideas?"

4

----

Jacob and Natasha trailed the two bandits, Bemus and Remus, by several hundred feet while keeping off the path, rushing from bush to bush in their furtive pursuit.

As Jacob raced stealthily from one place of cover to the next, he chastised himself for being so careless. How could I have left the sword in the bush like that? he thought. He pictured the knights he'd seen passing through their village, with their glinting armor embedded with gemstones. He'd have bet they rarely removed their panoplies, and even when they did, never let them out of their sight.

Something as priceless as a powerful gemstone should always be kept close.

Of course, Jacob didn't have a suit of armor. Whenever he took his gemstones along on an adventure, he carried them either in a small drawstring pouch worn around his neck, or simply jangling in his pockets.

In retrospect, these choices seemed foolish, too, but the loss of a gemstone that made its user half-invisible was, frankly, no great loss, despite his own personal attachments.

Bemus and Remus paused at a fork in the road. Jacob and Natasha knelt down behind a bitterberry bush and kept very still.

"Maybe we should just bum rush them right now," Jacob whispered.

Natasha glared at him. "Are you kidding? Look at them, they'd cut us down in a heartbeat."

"You don't think we could take them?" Jacob asked.

But instead of answering, Natasha stifled laughter.

"What?" Jacob inquired.

"I'm sorry," said Natasha, shaking her head.

Jacob shot her a look. "It's my voice, isn't it."

She nodded.

"Don't be an asshole," said Jacob.

"No!" Natasha insisted. "Actually, I like it."

There was that look again, the same she used when first laying eyes on Jacob. With it came the peculiar feeling in his body, like he was dissolving. He cleared his throat. "It takes some getting used to," he said, doing his best to pitch his voice low, but failing to match his pre-transformation register.

"You sure it weren't left?" Remus asked Bemus at the crossroads.

"Course I'm not sure, you dummy!" Bemus shouted back, slapping Remus upside the head. The longer Jacob observed the pair, the more obvious their relation became. They were brothers, born to unimaginative parents.

"If we don't bum rush them now, then when do we get my sword back?" Jacob asked.

Natasha smirked at him. "Still thinking with your boy brain, Jakey. You have to be more cunning, sly, like a girl."

Jacob scoffed. "Alright, hotshot, what's your genius plan?"

"Patience," Natasha insisted, turning back to watch the bandit brothers.

Jacob, however, continued staring at his best friend, enraptured for the umpteenth time by her lovely features. The high cheek bones, the cute little nose, her big blue eyes and full pink lips. Then his gaze drifted lower, to the torn end of her dress.

She'd removed a good ten inches and now her frock barely reached beyond her crotch. Hunkered down in the bush like this, he could even see her undergarments, a triangle of tan fabric that blended into her tan skin.

Her thighs were firm and smooth and glistening. How he wanted to touch them.

His hands settled on his own thighs, the texture of which shocked him. His own thighs were now smooth. He idly stroked them while gazing at Natasha's legs, in his mind joining the two together in a budding sexual fantasy that was abruptly interrupted when Natasha said, "Come on, they're moving again!"

Jacob shook himself out of his daydream and hustled to the next bush.

They did this for several miles, racing from bush to bush, keeping out of sight, until the two men approached the village of Barth. It was the village nearest to their own with a slightly more disreputable demographic. Precisely the sort of place one expected a pair of brothers like Bemus and Remus to hang out.

Jacob and Natasha stopped outside town. "Dammit," Jacob muttered.

"What?" Natasha questioned.

"We can't go in there," said Jacob.

"Why?"

"We look like prostitutes."

Natasha's face brightened when he said this, which bemused him.

"Why are you making that face?" he asked.

"Because I've just thought of how we'll get your sword back."

Jacob narrowed his eyes to dubious slits. "How?"

"One of us distracts them while the other sneaks up behind, hits them over the head, and grabs your sword!"

Jacob shook his head. "How are we going to manage that? Put on a puppet show?"

A mischievous grin stretched across Natasha's face. "You're going to put on a different kind of show."

It took Jacob a moment before the meaning of her words dawned on him. "Oh no," he said.

Natasha laughed. "You said so yourself, we look like prostitutes."

"Then you distract them while I sneak up behind them," said Jacob.

Natasha crossed her arms before her chest in such a way that her boobs squeezed together, momentarily distracting Jacob. "You know I'm the stealthier one between the two of us."

Jacob groaned. She was right. He was more a brute strength and swordplay kind of guy when it came to confrontations. But without his sword, that strategy went out the window. He sighed, staring down at his body and the two strips of Natasha's dress covering his privates. "I'm certainly dressed the part," he said. He looked up at Natasha. "But do I really look it?"

Natasha bit her bottom lip. "Uh huh."

"You don't think I need like, I dunno, makeup?"

"Nope. Although," she stepped forward, mock-applying rouge to Jacob's cheeks, "with a little pigment here, you'd be irresistible."

Jacob swatted her away. "Oh my god, stop," he said. But in truth, he preferred she continue. It was a budding desire only just making itself known, to explore his feminine side.

"Hurry," Natasha said. "Before they go into one of the bars and we lose our opportunity."

Jacob huffed. "Alright."

"And don't forget to make it sexy," Natasha told him. With a spank, she sent him down the road, and though he scowled over his shoulder at her, secretly he enjoyed the contact.

He scurried down the street, then slowed as he passed the brothers. Butterflies took flight as he spied them from the corner of his eye, both of them staring at his new assets.

Oh my god, this is insane, he thought.

Nevertheless, he was in it now, and as he cast a coquettish glance over his shoulder at the brothers, he spied Natasha getting ready with a length of board stolen from an apothecary's dilapidated porch. No one else traversed the road, now was the perfect time.

Don't mess this up, he told himself.

Jacob paused and leaned against the corner of a stone building, from the looks of it another of Barth's taverns. Inside, a noisy ruckus was already underway. The villagers of this town started their drinking early.

With a smile and a girlish laugh, Jacob reeled the bandits toward him. He struck a bawdy pose, jutting one hip to the side and thrusting his perky breasts forward. He felt incredibly silly. But at the same time, somewhere deep down, he also enjoyed the exercise.

"My, you're awful pretty," said Remus.

"Don't mind my brother, miss," said Bemus. "He don't know how to screw. He'll just watch. How much for a taste of that exquisite body of yours?"

As they approached, Jacob's pulse throbbed so loudly he could hardly hear anything else, least of all his own thoughts. If he could've, he would've heard something along the lines of, holy shit I'm basically naked and these two terrifying men are practically drooling all over me because I guess I'm a hot woman and this doesn't make any sense but I'm not dreaming and why am I slightly aroused and also where the hell is Natasha?

And then she appeared, sneaking up behind the two bandits, wooden board raised overhead. She paused a moment to appreciate Jacob's performance, her eyes touring his new curves.

Then the board crashed down upon Remus's head and the dullard hit the ground with a heavy thud. Before Bemus fully turned to face her, she swung the board to the right and knocked him out, too, his unconscious body collapsing atop his brother.

"Holy shit!" said Jacob. "Good job!"

Natasha snatched his sword up and handed it to him. Then she fished in their pockets and came away with a few coins. "Celebratory drink?" she suggested.

"In Barth?" he questioned.

Natasha shrugged. "We already kinda fit in, don't we?"

Jacob looked down at Bemus and Remus, passed out on the ground. "What about them?"

Natasha waved a dismissive hand through the air. "When they wake up without any money, they'll hit the road."

It seemed risky, but Jacob found that he couldn't say no to the alluring glint in Natasha's eye. "What the hell, let's get a drink."