"Adventures of a Fearless Crusader, Briggie the Sausage Maker"

Note · 55 gp · Weight 2

By Berthimel from Pitax The Sharp Word Publishing Company "For dinner, the wounded were served cabbage soup. This didn't surprise them in the slightest. They'd had the same dish for dinner for a week. The hospital's residents used to be lucky enough to get potatoes and even turnips sometimes. But about a month ago, the knights of the order of the Thrice Holy Shining Sun and Dissipating Darkness Scimitar of Our Beloved Goddess Sarenrae accidentally shot a catapult the wrong direction, and annihilated the cart of the farmer who supplied the hospital with these vegetal delicacies. Ever since, the wounded only had cabbage soup for dinner, occasionally with a bit of protein when the odd cockroach crawled into the pot. After enjoying their delightful meal, the wounded stuffed their smoking pipes with something which rather more resembled hay than tobacco. Their bad habits demanded the inhalation of some smoke or other after mealtime, but with these practical matters happily resolved, they fell to talking. 'Which demon you think is the most dangerous?' asked Wuzlich the Spearman, scratching the stub of his leg with the stub of his arm. 'I think it's abrikandilus. Those monsters are cunning and sneaky, almost like Varisians. And their teeth are even sharper! Look!' He illustrated his point for his comrades by holding up his remaining fingers — two and a half of them. 'It depends the way you look at it,' answered Greglie the Artillerist, though she could hardly look at it at all: her eyes were covered with bandages. 'Your abrikandilus are easy pickings. But balors are a different thing! He hits you with his whip, and your eyes pop out!' She waved her pipe energetically, casting its contents into Wuzlich's face. While the latter was coughing and brushing himself off, Briggie joined the conversation. 'Baloors and brikandilus are all right, I suppose, but I'd say there isn't a demon in the world scarier than a regular louse. Of course, the other demons can teleport places, but the louse doesn't even need to do that! Wherever you look, it's already there!' Then he stuck his hand under his shirt, pulled out the subject of his speech from somewhere in his armpit, and demonstrated it to his friends. 'You can run away from a big demon with a whip, but who can run away from lice? They sting everyone, from the foot-soldier to the general. Even the Queen herself isn't immune. Now you might say it doesn't do much harm. — After all, how much blood can one louse drink? But I'm telling you, think how much soldier's blood they've drunk all together. It's got to be a whole sea, wouldn't you think? More than all the demons in the Abyss! And if anyone tells me a louse isn't a demon, then ha-ha to them! Could a monster like that come from anywhere besides the Abyss?'"