Wasteland Warlords Episode 2 - 5 Tajira’s Totally Reasonable Request

The idea of wading into a potentially hostile dungeon—even one composed of RVs and motorbikes—without their weapons made Clay’s skin crawl. Every survival instinct he had said this was a terrible idea, no matter how friendly the creatures in the Sooq seemed to be. But after a quick nod from Griff, he reluctantly slipped the M4 sling over his head and motioned for the others to do the same. It was a dangerous gambit, but even unarmed they weren’t completely powerless, he reminded himself.

Griff could sling some deadly magic, Alex had the power set of an Incant—even if a relatively new one—and Clay had a few spells tucked up his sleeve. Joe… Well, Joe had his mouth, which was really his most potent weapon, and Chonk if things got really bad.

“I can’t believe I had to leave Bertha,” Joe muttered as they followed the goat demon through the camp. “A Poulan Pro’s not a weapon, she’s a way of life.”

“You think I like walking around unarmed?” Clay hissed under his breath. His hands itched for a gun or the Lesser Wand of Inferno. If this meeting went down the tubes, all he had to protect his wife and brother was changing the color and brightness of lights. Stupid spell sure as hell didn’t seem so cool now.

Inhuman creatures stopped flipping burgers and hanging strings of flamingo lights from their awnings to stare with gaping maws as Clay, Alex, Joe, and Griff passed. Bacon Bits looked out at them from Alex’s hip with an adorable superiority only a dragon in a pig’s body could muster.

At one point, Chonk tried to go after a plate of brats fresh off the grill, but Griff, moving with the speed of a man half his age, caught the little half-mech bandit by the ringed tail before he made it onto the picnic table and ended their peaceful parlay before it even began. After that, Chonk stayed tucked firmly under Joe’s arm, chittering and scolding every time they passed a campsite in the middle of making lunch.

Finally, they passed into the shadow of the massive battlewagon. The goat demon led them around the corner into the meager shadow cast by the slightly pitched sides, where the tiki hut had been set up.

A tall, slender cat woman stood behind the bar, pouring a fruity-looking drink into a mock coconut. She had sandy fur peppered with gray and a long, sinuous tail like a gracefully aging cougar, and the tufted ears of a lynx. Those ears swiveled toward them as they approached, but she popped open a bright pink umbrella and dropped it into the drink before looking up. Her golden-brown eyes were lined with dark fur.

“Be welcome, y’all,” she purred, shooting them a feline smile that revealed a pair of deadly-looking fangs. Her accent was straight out of one of those period romances about the genteel south that Alex liked to watch. “I am Tajira, Dungeon Lord of the Sooq, merchant, trader, and haggler of great renown, and not a bad hand with a drink shaker, if I do say so myself.”

Bacon Bits snorted. “I am the Great Blue Wyrm of Santa Clarita. Coming from so far away, you may not have heard rumors and tales of my glory, but I assure you—”

“Oh, we mustn’t discuss business before we settle the dust in our throats,” Tajira interrupted the pig. “Sit, y’all, make yourselves at home! How’s about I mix you up something cool and refreshing? I make a mean Blue Lagoon.”

“Hell yeah. You had me at sit!” Joe said, dropping onto one of the fold-out stools. He plopped the mechacoon on the bar in front of him and whispered at the top of his lungs, “Mind your manners, Chonk. This is a classy establishment.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Dungeon Lord.” Griff swiped off his hat, making a gallant bow.

The cat woman chuckled as she dragged brightly colored bottles and a Margarita machine out from under the bar.

“Please, we’re friends,” she purred. “Call me Tajira.”

“It’d be my honor, Miss Tajira,” Griff said, his blue eye twinkling. “I’m Griff. This here’s Clay, Alex, Bacon Bits, Chonk, and the lad on the end there is Joe.”

“It’s pronounced Lumberjack Joe.”

While Griff made the introductions, Clay pulled a stool out for Alex so she didn’t have to juggle it and the teacup pig, then sat on the one beside her. He wasn’t a big fan of fruity frou-frou drinks, but Tajira didn’t seem like the type to keep beer on tap. Besides, turning down a Dungeon Lord’s hospitality at their first meeting was probably a bad idea. He did slip his Monocle on, anyway, so he could tell if she mixed in anything deadly.

Already Chonk was chowing down on a coconut bowl full of peanuts.

Joe popped one of the salty snacks in his mouth and eyed the décor. “Nice place you got here, by the by. Very tasteful.”

“Well, bless your heart for saying so!” She started scooping ice into the blender. “I do like to think I’ve added a little color to this dusty, drab ol’ world. No offense, but this Earth of yours is certainly no Otherwhere—that was the part of Hearthworld where I spawned. The delophinia were just rampant there—the prettiest flowers you ever did see.”

“Been through there once or twice back in the old days,” Griff said. “I might be looking outta half the number of eyes I was back then, but even I can see that the delophinia’re only the second prettiest flower to come out of Otherwhere.” The old weed blinked at Tajira.

It took Clay a second to realize the old timer was winking at the cat lady.

“Oh, you!” The old cougar was a lot quicker on the uptake, letting out that purring chuckle again.

Alex turned her face away from the flirting old folks and raised her brows at Clay. Are you seeing this?

Clay gave her the smallest of facial shrugs. If Griff wanted to fraternize with the dungeon lord, he must know what he was doing.

The scream of the margarita machine made conversation impossible for the next minute. When it was done, Tajira fussed over pouring the drinks and sticking colorful paper umbrellas into them.

One at a time, she pushed the finished drinks across the bar. For a split-second, she looked like she was going to shove Clay’s glass off the edge of the table like any douchebag housecat, but she only grinned and flourished her claw-tipped fingers at the icy concoction.

“The Blue Lagoon ala Tajira. See what you think of that.”

“Thanks.” Clay’s monocle wasn’t showing any dangerous effects from the brilliant blue slush. On the contrary, the drink supposedly gave a temporary boost to Stamina with a side-effect he’d never seen before that read Refreshing – 1 hour.

He took a polite sip. Blue-raspberry flavored slush ran down his throat. It sent out the customary burn of liquor, then immediately on the heels of that, a cooling wave washed through his body, spreading out from his stomach. He felt like he’d just stepped into the air conditioning after a long, hot day trenching lines by shovel.

Next to him, Alex mmmed. “That. Is. Amazing. You are the queen of drink-making.”

“It’s been said that I do know my way around a cocktail,” the cat woman purred. She propped her elbows on the bar top. “To tell y’all the truth, I wasn’t expecting to make any for outsiders today. The Sooq’s not normally open for trade on the day we pull into town. We like to take at least twenty-four hours’ rest after our journeys.

“Driving takes it out of you. But I told the sentries we just had to make a concession for such a strange litter. This is the first time the Sooq has seen humans enter peacefully in…ever.” Tajira glanced sidelong at Bacon Bits, who was rooting around in a blue drink almost as big as she was. “And I’ve never seen them working with mobs and NPCs.” Her golden eyes twinkled at Griff. “Even handsome silver foxes such as yourself.”

Griff cleared his throat and got real interested in something across the way.

Clay covered his smile with his drink; it was the first time he’d seen the old weed embarrassed. Apparently, Griff could dish out the flirtatious remarks, but he couldn’t take them.

“So tell me, y’all, what is it you seek here?” Tajira purred.

Bacon Bits took the cat woman’s remarks with a lot less grace. The little oinker was full of booze and thoroughly offended.

“I am no mere mob off the street,” the teacup pig said, squirming out of Alex’s hands and trotting across the bar toward the cat woman. Her gait weaved a little as she went, and her tiny snout was stained blue from whatever food coloring went into the drink. “I am the Great Blue Wyrm! Terror of Santa Clarita!”

Tajira smiled lazily. “A Great Blue Wyrm dungeon lord? You’ll have a name, then.”

“I? Of course I have a name! Even the lowliest of dungeon lords—” Bacon Bits hiccuped. “—has a name! At present, however…” She sat down hard on the bar, floppy ears drooping, pig shoulders slumping in an exaggerated pout. “I cannot pronounce it. It is this accursed form—hic. My mighty dungeon lord name is beyond this puny, unforked tongue’s capabilities.”

“That’s why we call her Bacon Bits,” Joe volunteered helpfully. “We’re too dumb to say her real name, too.”

“I am not dumb!” Bacon Bits squealed. Without warning, she charged at her flannel-clad naysayer in a drunken fury.

Even using Swine Rush, the little oinker wasn’t going to do any damage—she was weaving crazily and could barely keep her hooves from tripping over themselves—but Alex scooped her up before she could get to him.

“Joe.” She shot a warning glare at him over Bacon Bits’s head.

“I was mighty!” Bacon Bits’s rage had flipped with the lightning speed of the wasted into an obnoxious wailing. “Great Blue Wyrm! But now I’m just a pig! A pig-wyrm! A pirm!”

“It is so very sad when the mighty fall,” Tajira said, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

“There’s no reason to rub it in,” Alex snapped, scratching Bacon Bit’s head consolingly.

“Y’all have to forgive me,” the cat woman said. “I just find it so funny when those who claim a spot above their place in life realize just how low they sit on the totem pole.”

Recognizing the protective flash in his wife’s eyes, Clay decided he’d better step in before she attacked a Dungeon Lord on behalf of a pig’s hurt feelings. If Alex considered someone part of the family, she would kick ass and take names for them—and apparently in the bare day or so they’d known Bacon Bits, Alex had decided the piglet was part of the family.

“We didn’t come here to talk about Bacon Bits’s dungeon,” Clay interjected. “We’ve got a bigger problem on our hands right now. You’ve heard about Incants, right? Humans who kill dungeon lords and get their powers?”

Tajira shot him a condescending smirk. “Honey, I just handed a drink to one.” Her tail twitched toward Alex. “Don’t tell me about Incants. I knew about Incants before you silly Earth creatures thought up a name for them.”

“Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” Clay cleared his throat. “Anyway, we’ve got a pissed off Gearhead Incant on our tail. We want to help Bacon Bits take back her dungeon.” And get Joe and me powers, Clay added mentally, deciding that it was probably smarter not to mention their eventual plans to assassinate a dungeon lord to a dungeon lord. “But we can’t get clear of this Incant long enough to think, let alone fight the rival who deposed her.”

“If you’re about to ask for some help killing him, I’ll have to stop you there,” Tajira said, drawing a claw across the bar. “The Sooq doesn’t interfere in petty human squabbles. That just wouldn’t be befitting of a dungeon.”

“I used to be in a dungeon,” Bacon Bits snuffled morosely.

“We’re not asking for help killing Gearhead,” Clay said. “We’ll take care of him ourselves as soon as we can. But Bacon Bits mentioned that you might be willing to sell us a cloaking spell or magical item that could keep us hidden from his drones. That’s all we’re asking.”

“Drones?” Tajira tapped her furry chin. “You mean a type of mechanical underling that spies and attacks at great range for this Incant? I may have just the thing. Y’all ever hear of a Camera Obscura?”

“Isn’t that the trick where you use sunlight and a hole in a darkroom to project an image from outside?” Clay asked.

“You’re suspiciously smart for a jarhead.” Joe squinted at him. “Who’d you steal those brains from?”

“Not now, Joe,” Alex warned. “We’re trying to talk like grown-ups. Read the room for once.”

“Or a coloring book,” Clay suggested.

Joe snorted and bumped Clay’s fist over Alex’s head.

“See, short stack? There’s always time for a jarhead joke.”

Alex sighed. “I apologize for the children I brought with me, Dungeon Lord Tajira.”

“Don’t even worry about it, honey,” Tajira purred. “You’re right on an Earth level, tom cat,” she said, looking at Clay, “but the sort of Camera Obscura I’m talking about is a magical item, not a trick of the light. We Hearthworld throwbacks define it a little differently.” She slid feline eyes to Griff. “I imagine you’ve heard of them.”

“Heard of ’em, but never seen one in person.” The old weed held out leathery hands, framing a box the size of an old smartphone. “’Bout yea big, supposed to obscure you from tracking spells, enemy underlings, and scrying devices for a set amount of time.”

Clay nodded. “That would do the job. We’d like to buy one from you, if you’re willing to sell.”

Tajira’s eyes lit up. “You want to become a trading partner with the Sooq? It’s quite unheard of, I have to admit, such an illustrious dungeon as mine dealing with humans—even if one of them is an Incant. But perhaps an exception could be made if those particular humans showed that the partnership would be worth our while.”

“We scratch your back, you scratch ours,” Alex said.

“Well, bless your heart.” Tajira showed her fangs in a feline grin. “I guess humans aren’t as stupid as the wasteland wildlife guides say after all! As Dungeon Lord, it falls to me to see to our collective welfare. We require safety and security, of course, but as you’ve seen, we can easily provide those for ourselves,” she said, waving a paw at the battle wagon and its smaller cousins. “But what good is security without happiness and satisfaction? Just about worthless, I say. And how can merchants of such high caliber as ourselves find satisfaction without the constant in and outflow of rare and valuable artifacts? Why, without that, how could we even call ourselves merchants?”

Clay was pretty sure he saw where this was going.

“But you’re not interested in risking your neck for those rare and valuable artifacts,” he guessed.

“Tell me, tom cat, who’s gonna turn a profit if the merchants are all dead?” Tajira’s dark-lined eyes narrowed. “Respawns don’t come along for us mobs like they used to, and it’s not good business to get killed off seeking that which you wish to sell. Better to make brave, bold, adventuring friends who’ll assume the risk for you—for an appropriately high reward, of course.”

“I’m starting to see a pattern here with you dungeon lords,” Joe said, casting a baleful eye from Bacon Bits to Tajira. “Do we have ‘rubes’ written on our forehead or something?”

“I think it’s the jorts under tin pants that give it away,” Alex said.

“Hey, breathability is a major factor in desert tactical gear. I’m just the only person here smart enough to implement it.”

The cat woman chuckled. “I’d never take advantage of y’all. I’m as fair as a summer day—you want something, we want something. We’re helping one another out, as all good friends ought to. And to prove it to you, I’ll not only give y’all the Camera Obscura in exchange for a certain artifact, I’ll make you official trading partners of the Sooq. The first humans to wield this title, you’ll be welcome to buy, sell, and trade with us and any affiliated marketplace. We have seven convenient stationary locations around the wasteland, and we’re working on opening an eighth in Palmdale by next month.”

Right then, she sounded more like a used car salesman than a Dungeon Lord, and she still hadn’t given them any info about the artifact she was looking for.

Obviously, Griff was thinking along the same lines as Clay.

“If you don’t mind my askin’, Miss Tajira, what exactly is this quest item you’re so all-fired to get your paws on?” The old weed rested an arm on the bar. “Where it’s at might be a useful bit a’ intel, too, seein’ as you’re plannin’ on sending us to fetch it for you.”

Tajira leaned closer to Griff, her tail snaking sinuously over her shoulder to tap him on the nose. He straightened up, a bit of red coloring his scar-crossed face.

“The item I seek is the Greater Saltshaker of the Troll Gourmet,” she drawled. “A magical spice shaker which perfectly complements any dish on which it’s used, bringing out the essence of its flavor without ever over-seasoning. Rumors and gossip have come to me of its location. All tales point toward a dungeon located east of Santa Clarita, out in Soledad Canyon. The Funhouse.

“It was the sort of thing y’all humans called a ‘carnival’”—Tajira did the air-quotes thing, which was especially strange coming from a creature Clay wouldn’t have guessed had a context for the gesture—“before the joining of our two worlds. After the Merge, Smilerfax the Enigmatic seized control of this smattering of entertaining rides and fried foods and turned it into his own labyrinth of traps, riddles, and puzzles—while retaining the fried foods.” She leaned forward and whispered softly as though imparting some great secret. “He was a big fan of funnel cakes and deep-fried Oreos.”

“Who’s not?” Joe shrugged.

“Smilerfax had quite the legendary sweet tooth. Word is, he recently passed. Clogged valves of the heart.” Tajira shook her head as if that were a damn shame. “In going, he left behind the Funhouse Throne and one Greater Saltshaker, along with the rest of his treasures and forgotten relics.”

“If he’s dead, why not just walk in and get it yourself?” Alex asked.

Tajira smiled sweetly at her. “All those aforementioned traps and puzzles remain. Smilerfax was renowned for his love of creating deadly consequences for failure. I can’t ask any of my underlings to risk their lives to retrieve the Saltshaker. And it’d be just plain irresponsible for a Dungeon Lord to put her throne at risk to do something so menial herself.”

Bacon Bits pulled her blue-stained snout out of Alex’s drink long enough to slur, “That is why dungeon lords have minions.”

“To send them on suicide missions,” Clay said flatly.

“Yes,” both Dungeon Lords answered together.

“Riddles? Puzzles?” Joe shook his head. “Huh-uh. Nobody said there was going to be a test. I left all that baloney behind when I graduated high school, and I’m not going back willingly, no matter how classy this mobile bar of yours is.”

“Not even for a thousand gold?” Tajira purred enticingly. “Y’all could make that much easy, selling loot to our merchants. The prices we give for goods from official trading partners are fifteen percent above what we offer strangers, and fifteen percent lower for every item you purchase from us. At those rates, you can’t afford to refuse. Of course, there’s also the Camera Obscura. I won’t relinquish that for anything less than the Shaker, but I think y’all will agree that dropping off the enemy’s radar is cheap at any price.”

Clay’s eyes widened as a prompt flashed in front of his eyes. Non-Incants couldn’t level, gain experience, or access their Character Sheets—unless they had an item like the Monocle of True Seeing, anyway—but they could see things like item descriptions. In all the time he’d been in the Wasteland, however, this was the first time he’d ever seen a magically generated Quest Prompt.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Trading Rights!

Tajira, Dungeon Master of the Traveling Sooq, has agreed to give you the Camera Obscura in exchange for finding and returning the Greater Saltshaker of the Troll Gourmet. The Saltshaker is currently located in the Funhouse, former Dungeon of the recently deceased Smilerfax the Enigmatic. To sweeten the pot, Tajira has also offered your party the right to trade with the Sooq.

Objective: Retrieve the Greater Saltshaker of the Troll Gourmet from the Funhouse and return it to Tajira.

Reward: Camera Obscura; option to trade for goods and services at the Sooq; buying and selling prices within the Sooq are improved by 15%

Failure: Reject the quest or fail to retrieve the Greater Saltshaker of the Troll Gourmet

Penalty: Rejecting Tajira’s generous offer of friendship could prove to be hazardous to your health…

Restrictions: None

Accept quest? Yes/No

╠═╦╬╧╪

Clay’s eyes flickered over the penalty clause. Rejecting Tajira’s generous offer of friendship could prove to be hazardous to your health… Although none of the mobs they’d met so far in the Sooq were overtly hostile, there were a lot of them, plus they had them completely surrounded. It was the kind of offer that was hard to refuse. When he saw the vacant gazes of the rest of his party, he knew they had also received the notice.

“Why do you hesitate?” Bacon Bits squalled suddenly, huge tears dripping off her tiny snout. “Your assistance is the only way to regain my—hic—former glory, and her assistance is the only way you can gimme assistance! Hic—” the little pig’s whole body jumped with the hiccup. “It all falls apart unless you accept, and yet you sit here, getting no saltshaker or camera! Please—hic—oh please, Alex, make them gimme my dignity—I mean my dungeon—back!”

Alex picked up the drunk little pig and put it over her shoulder, shushing and patting its back like a fussy baby. She looked at Clay over Bacon Bits’s head.

“We said we’d help her,” Alex insisted. “What’s one more dungeon, anyway?”

To an Incant with near-instant health-regen, inhuman stamina, and monster-sized strength, one more dungeon was nothing. To a couple of regular humans, like Clay and Joe, it was basically life and death—but then so was everything else out in the wasteland. If the Funhouse didn’t kill them, it was looking like a distinct possibility that Tajira would. And Alex was right, they’d given Bacon Bits their word. If they wanted to take out the little oinker’s rival dungeon lord, it was looking like they couldn’t avoid a side trip a murder carnival.

“You worked at the county fair three summers running,” Clay said to Joe. “Three years’ worth of running those rusty death traps full of screaming, sticky brats, helicopter parents asking you if this ride’s safe and how often you disinfect the lap bars, and annoying high school kids throwing cheese fries at you—and you’re scared to raid a dinky little carnival?”

Joe straightened up in his seat.

“Looky here, Lumberjack Joe’s not scared of anything.” He tapped his chest. Chonk stopped shoveling peanuts into his mouth long enough to see what his human was getting riled up about. “I rode the Hammer that summer the counterweight snapped off and almost took out the 4-H barn. When the Tilt-a-Whirl engine freaked out, who climbed on and rescued Elise Rae Taylor? You’re looking at him, buddy—and she even went out with me once after that. Nobody knows carnivals like me.”

“This quest was tailor made for you,” Clay agreed.

Joe let out a world-weary sigh. “Guess it’s true what they say—you don’t choose the carnie life, the carnie life chooses you.” He locked eyes with Clay. “I’ll do it under one condition. I’m leading this Funhouse tour. You guys do what I say, when I say, and if anybody wins a jumbo prize, I get to keep it.”

“That’s two conditions, but deal,” Clay said, shaking his brother’s hand before Alex could protest. She shot him one of those you’d better know what you’re doing looks.

Clay was pretty sure he did. About seventy-five percent sure. Well… maybe sixty. Either way, it was better to let Joe think he was running the show than try to drag him along against his will. Plus, he really did have a ton of experience with carnivals. Some of that had to eventually come in handy, right?

“That settles it.” Joe hopped off his stool, chugged the last of his cocktail, and slammed the empty upside-down on the bar, startling Bacon Bits out of her drunken snooze with a porcine squeak. “As we used to say back at the county fair, remember to keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times, kiddies, because we are not liable for injury, not insured for your death, and we sure as heck ain’t turning around for lost body parts.”

“Then y’all are accepting my quest?” Tajira purred.

Clay nodded and hit ‘Yes’.

“We’ll do it,” he said as the prompt vanished.

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but I know how heroes and adventurers work. We’re still friends, but I’ve got to make sure y’all are gonna bring the Greater Saltshaker back to me if you get it, not run off and sell it someplace else.”

The cat woman reached across the bar and patted Griff’s arm. Metal clinked, and a heavy-duty iron shackle snapped closed around his leathery wrist. The old weed jerked instinctively away, but it was too late.

He was chained to the tiki bar.

Tajira gave them one of those feline grins. “A little insurance policy. I’m keeping the silver fox ’til y’all hand the Saltshaker over.” She patted his forearm. “And don’t y’all worry none, I’ll take good care of him in the meantime.” She paused and leaned forward, feline fangs glinting in the tiki torch light. “Just don’t take too long…”