Chapter 17 Part Two: Bish, Bash to Distraction

There was a shriek of dismay from Laite and an eep from Juicy Js, but from Wrute there was a snarl and the coin cracked in two! The two halves landed beside his group.

Wrute rushed forwards began whaling on the bubble, though to no avail.

Hammer got started on getting a pill from Madog and fitting his head into his hoopstick.

Juicy Js began flicking coins rapidly at the bubble, but of course Dookie’s defence was nigh-impenetrable. The coins just bounced off and into Wrute’s face. Who to his credit did not even flinch.

“Laite, don’t just stand around like a pillar tree! DO SOMETHING” Wrute yelled. Wrute then had to spit out a few krells that went into his mouth. He wasn’t about to open his mouth again to yell at Juicy Js though.

Laite didn’t exactly spring into action, but he did take something off his back. It shimmered into visiblity as he held it in his hands. It was a saw with one wooden handle.

“A saw?” everyone who was not Laite questioned.

“SAW MAGIC” Laite said triumphantly. Then be began wobbling the saw back and forth making a wub wub sound.

As with Juicy Js coin trick, nothing happened at first, then Dookie let out a gasp as she was cut. The defence of the bubble was meaningless if your enemy wasn’t even trying to pierce it. Dookie decided that she really needed to fix that problem.

“dookie!” Lofan called out.

She burst into action, quickly expanding her bubble then popping it by making another bubble in front of Wrute and making an explosion. At the same time Hammer flung his glowing head at Juicy Js.

She responded by firing krells at the head, not realising that Hammer was an impact dud. His head would not explode from something like that.

“Ow, ow, ow, hey stop that!” Hammer went as krells hit into his head.

To Juicy Js dismay Hammer exploded near her.

Dookie was exploding bubbles near Laite, but the invizard magician was flinging up low quality gems that he transformed into shields. He had however dropped his saw. Dookie was not particularly worried, Laite would run out of gems. She could have simply put a bubble around him and crushed him, but she didn’t want to kill him.

Hammer also had moved his body to keep Wrute back from Dookie, beating the bear back with his hoopstick. Or at least that was the idea. Wrute was proving to be a bit much, even with Madog worrying the bear’s ankle.

Juicy Js sadly for Lofan and his party was not out of the fight. She flicked a torrent of coins at Dookie, but Lofan surprised himself, manifesting his mind blade and cutting down most of the krells. He hadn’t been aware that it was so effective on physical things.

Wrute was clearly getting the upper hand on Hammer, unfortunately for Wrute, Hammer was an explodahead, and he had just grown a new head. Wrute tried to get back as soon as he saw the grinning bullethead, but it was too late. Hammer exploded and Wrute in spite of his bulk went sailing through the air, up over behind Laite and Juicy Js.

Hammer took the chance to harass Juciy Js. Lofan was not fairing too well, he was getting a splitting pain in his head which each krell he cut down. Dookie was methodically burning though Laite’s gem stock. The invizard was actually in tears about his precious reserve being used up.

Wrute unsurprisingly got up, it was going to take more than a single explosion to take him down. What was surprising was how he gave Laite a well placed thump on the head into unconsciousness and then threw the invizard into Juicy Js, knocking her out.

“Right, fight is over” Wrute stated.

Lofan, Dookie, Hammer and Madog stared at Wrute.

“what? what was that?” Lofan objected.

“Our job was just to distract you while a thief stole the artefact, I just caught a glimpse of the guy, so guess that is done. No more reason to fight”

Wrute sat down.

Lofan’s party looked that Wrute warily.

“You aren’t going to try to stop us dude?” Hammer asked, a bit disappointed.

“Nope, you might want to get going though, I barely caught a glimpse of the thief but he was real fast, didn’t see him once while we were camping here too.”

Dookie began moving, along with Hammer and Madog.

“wait” Lofan called. “who employed you and what are they likely to do with the artefact?”

Wrute stared at Lofan squarely with his one eye.

“Gildenstan Goldie, richest shewpog in cozzlanga, and what he is likely to do is the same thing he does with most things. Sell it to the highest bidder”

[There we go, second part! As promised!]