Vex thought she had joined a hunt. She had signed up for a hunt anyways- something about an exotic, nearly extinct animal that needed killing. And old men that needed the powdered bones so as to be able to get a kick out of sniffing the ivory residue. At the time, gold and alcohol had made the entire endeavour seem perfectly reasonable. And simple. She had seen a conjured image of the creature that this merry band of misplaced misanthropes was supposed to hunt. It was big and ugly, about the size of a chaos beast but had squat, stubby legs and a ridiculously oversized mouth with far too few teeth. Its torso looked like a living barrel. Go into a rainforest, look for one, kill it and then pull out with a nice, fat bag of gold. Simple.

Oh yes, it should have been simple.

Out of the band of twenty that had started on this fruitless expedition only three were left: herself, Dwom the dwarf and some little undead tyke named ‘Rin’. The rest were dead or soon would be dead. Out of a sense of concern for their collective security Vex and Dwom had agreed to carry all the provisions after all. As they ran from death she heard Dwom laugh and the tyke giggle. Behind them the creatures- what were they called… hippopotami? hippopotamus? hippos?- were pursuing them at ridiculous speeds. Who knew that such stubby legs could run so fast? Vex usually wasn’t particularly vain or proud about the things physical but she considered herself a fair sprinter. Faster, at least, than any two ton barrel with legs.

Apparently she wasn’t. They were gaining on her! Dwom was pacing her gamely, but he had more magical trinkets on him than most small kingdoms. Vex didn’t doubt that his speed was at least half or wholly magical. The tyke was pacing her too- but that was probably because she didn’t have lungs. And some creepy magic. And feet that didn’t get bogged down in the mud due to hooves. And a missing arm, and Hel, probably a missing brain. Any sanity that she had had in life had clearly been dispelled by death. Vex felt like crying. Or laughing. That she was actually the sanest one here- a she-devil of pure chaos… the world must have been laughing at her. No, it was laughing at her. Bloody, freakin’ Hel. Raku must have been watching over her.

(No, Dwom didn’t bear mentioning in the sanity race. He came from a clan of inbred, dumpy men that lived in caves. Even if he was made of pure awesome, nothing could survive that without going mad.)

"What the Hel are they?" Vex roared as she ran along. "What the bloody, freakin' Hel are they?"

“They’re probably angreh, angreh, annngreh moo-cows! Or horseys!” The wildly running, blond-haired zombie child exclaimed happily. Each kick of her feet from the ground sent earth and mud and dirty water flying upwards to kiss the sky before tumbling back towards its rightful home. Amazingly, all of it seemed to get on her dirty, too-short, once-lovely white dress. Despite missing an arm she seemed rather cheerful. “They got mad-mad because Dwom-Dwom-”

Dwom had the grace, or perhaps the exercise-induced grace, to look vaguely bashful. Or just winded. Or maybe constipated. It was hard to tell, what with his weather-worn face so full of old scars, burns and wrinkles that his skin actually resembled old bark. He was like a tree, Dwom was. But he was a mean old tree. Best not forget that!

“Because Dwom-Dwom said that he would ‘pulverize the bones of the hippo-pop-popotamus-hippopotamus!-’ in order to make ‘aphro…aphro…’” at this point the poor thing started to get a bit confused. Dwom, being the nice dwarf that he was, helpfully cut in: “a stimulant. And it’s hippopotami.”

Robyn nodded gratefully in his direction. “Yupyup! Hippoptomi probably don’t want to have their bony-bones be turned into dust! Nopenope! Robyn-rin wouldn’t like to have her bones be turned into dust-dust either!” She nodded so vigorously at these words she nearly fell flat into the shallow river-bed they were running in. Her feet actually slipped and slid- she almost hit the ground and her bones would probably be trampled into the very dust that she had stated as being a very, very bad sort of thing to happen to her- but Dwom, in an act that seemed particularly strange on an already strange day, actually caught her by the wrist and tugged her forwards.

At this point, a reader might wonder why Vex and her merry band of hapless me... errr... people-things, were running along a muddy riverbed instead of taking solace inside the large, leafy forest. With trees. And where the bloody living barrels couldn't very well barrel into too easily. Well that'd involve a rather long story- but hey, we have time, don't we?

Like all good stories of the sort, it began in a bar. A bar with a bloody itch in the air. An itch longing to be-



Not so long ago...

"So ye'd think that the half-orc woulda gotten himself the horse, the kingdom and the derring-do-gooder bride, now wouldn't ye?" The bard had been spitting. His teeth were half-missing. Vex was staring at him in something approaching morbid fascination. Not in the conventional sense of the word either- all his teeth had been halved. They were incredibly white though. It made Vex's eyes water and itch just to look at. "But that's where you'd be wrong! Once freed, the horse looked to and fro for all the great heroes of the land and founded a magnificent coalition of goodly creatures. They fought the Itch that had plagued their kingdom and-"

Vex continued to stare at the bard, the itch in her eyes be damned, as he nattered on and then shook her head. No, best not concentrate on such a disturbing tableau. She already knew the story and how it ended too. The legend of the Hourtecounty Itch Tales. They were all the same. "An evil creature killed something or someone or some kingdom or some itch so the hero took its revenge." Just sub in 'orc' and 'prince' and ye'd get the general idea of what it was. Vex very much would have preferred if it had been something along the lines of: "The prince forced his horse to wear cute little sweaters... so the horse took its revenge. By kicking in his chest."

Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet. Even if it was rather poorly written. She'd toss it off to some great writer sometime. Like the great Drate or whatever he was called. He deserved a beating in any case. She didn't know why she felt so- but she did. Even if she did want a favor. It was confusing. Like an itch she couldn't-

So caught up in her musings about friendlier things, Vex didn't even notice the hulking half-orc until he slammed into her, drenching her with what she dearly hoped was just yellow colored soup. She sniffed.

Darn. It. All.

"PATRICK!" She snarled. She was pretty sure his name was Patrick. And 'Half-Orc' didn't exactly have the same zing to it.

The adopted half-orc seemed scared and then his brain automatically went to its familiar roots: "Me name no Patrick, me name is Itch, Itch is me na-"

"Your name doesn't matter, Patrick... Itch... whatever!" She snarled. "This freakin' vegetable soup stinks like Heck! And I'll never get it off me! Why in Heck's name are you a waiter?"

The half-orc sniffed. Wrinkled his nose. "Joo smell pwetty."

For some reason Vex had the sudden urge to sniff herself. She didn't indulge. But she may have, just may have, tentatively touched her soaked garments in an ancient reflex of looking for perspiration before remembering where the compliment was coming from. Silly itch, tricks were for kids.

“Itch.... Itch!” The half-orc looked back and saw the bartender and almost sagged with relief. Vex smiled toothily. Such a stupidly dysfunctional family. Maybe she could- “Comeoverhere Itch!” The bartender shouted again. “Stop disturbing the guests!”

Vex was about to interfere when the door to the bar exploded. Literally. Vex watched the familiar sight of it as it arced through the air, crashing into the bartop and making yet another new patron piss in his pants in fright. Dwom the Destroyer was here. Instead of his usual theatrics he walked up to Vex in an imposing, commanding manner.

“I've got three questions for you.” The dwarf announced without preamble. Vex looked at him attentively. He had never seemed quite so serious. His beard was actually quivering.

Are you prepared to leave quickly? Are you prepared to kill rare and exotic animals for sake of simple profit? And are you willing to get massively drunk before doing any of these things?”

Vex smiled. “Why... yes.”