Chương 297: Day Two Hundred And Ninety-Five

Dear Diary, Holy. Shitballs. On. Toast. I mean, if this is the ultimate result of working to be my Best Self? Sign me the fuck up. I will accept all the issues of this subscription. My inner Chaos Gremlin won't stop screaming about this shit. Okay, so after Loki confirmed that I am to all appearances Vanir, not to mention apparently legally Jotnar and Aesir too, Jarl Karlson looked up at Loki, then turned to me and said, "I will see you tomorrow at midday on the Jarl's Green."

On the one hand, I figured if I needed it, Loki could just scry up the location of Jarl's Green, because My God is Best God. I know. On the other, less constantly interrupted hand, I'd already shown off my Translocating every damn place skills, so they wouldn't make much of an exit.

Instead I gave him a reasonably deep bow, enough to stick my ass out a little what with The Dress' boots and all, then spun myself around and strutted out, deliberately flaring The Dress' skirt to see if I could piss everyone here off just a little more. Then I felt a little guilty, because walking out through the front door took us right through the mostly still writhing line of Thralls lying in a now messily merged pool of their own blood. I stepped up to them and bowed.

"Nice try, boys, but this is the day you will always remember as the day you almost captured Champion Tabitha..." That's about when contrary to all laws of Physics as I knew them, my foot went out from under me and I landed ass first in a pool of blood. Loki facepalmed and kept heading for the door.

After having my hands and ass slide out from me once each, I managed to use the nearest Thrall's crotch as a brace to help me kip up to my feet, at which point I spun, bowed, fixed The Dress' northerly wardrobe malfunctions, then backed out the door my own self.

When I caught up with him in a long general purpose room with tables pushed up against the walls, side doors leading into smaller rooms along the sides, and at least four hearths, he'd gotten his laughter under control enough that I felt like I could ignore it and launch into a rant about what really bothered me.

"What the ever loving fuck, Boss? I've gotten traction on a blood slicked altar, on smooth and melting ice, on the side of a goddamned snow-shedding roof while it had snow on top and ice underneath, and I'm pretty sure I got traction in actual liquid mud at one point. How the fuck did I wind up on my ass in there?" He smiled fondly down at me, reached down and ruffled my hair with a few fingers, then booped my nose just a little harder than might be friendly.

"First, and I must insist you answer this seriously, which roof?"

"Uh... Northbridge, I think. The big building there, think it's the inn. Did it in Southbridge too, but wasn't thinking of that one when I said it." He nodded, "Fair. So, which god damned those shingles?" I shrugged.

"I dunno. Just a phrase." He shook his head.

"No. No it's not. Not for us. It is a literal thing. A literal thing wherein should we say something or someone is damned of the Gods, and they aren't already? They become so." I strode alongside him in silence for a little bit.

"Shit. So I just fucked up some poor asshole's roof?"

"Indeed."

"Well then. Guess I've got some roofing work to do next time I get a break, huh?" He nodded, looking proud for some reason, then as he opened the really big doors at the front of the hall, where a half dozen lizard-guys stood guard while totally ignoring both Loki and I, said, "your immediate impulse to set to rights that which you have wronged is commendable.

However, unless you plan on doing so exclusively to allow your wife to watch you crawling around on all fours pounding on things with a hammer, blessing the roof will negate your damnation." I cocked my head.

"Can I do that from here?" He made a tossing away motion.

"You could indeed. However, I find that to thoroughly undo something I've done? I prefer every advantage. In this case, physically laying your hand on the roof in question while blessing it would give your blessing significantly more weight than your damnation."

"Huh. Good to know." I thought for a half second before something else random popped into my mind.

"Wait, I'm pretty sure I've called people goddamned motherfuckers before and you never said anything. What's up with that?" Outside the big building we found a few others arranged in a horseshoe with the Jarl's hall at the center. One building had a guy hammering on some metal. Another, at one tip of the horseshoe, stank of tanning chemicals, which I knew because I'd had to play cheerleader when Bonnie and Raven made the Dragonslayers' armor.

Beyond the buildings was a big open grassy area the size of a couple football fields. Fluffy little white sheep grazed in pairs and small groups dotted across it. Loki scanned the terrain, so I did so as well as he said, "Two reasons. First, in every instance I've heard you before, you were speaking of someone you would describe as a 'consummate motherfucker, in a bad way'. In the case of the Jarl, I recall you thinking something along the lines of 'ripping his prostate out through his left ear hole'.

Damnation is a weapon, daughter, and sometimes an indiscriminate one. But I would hardly tell you to avoid pointing a weapon at someone you intend to violate in as many cruel and creative ways as you can." I nodded along. The field wasn't squared off; closer to a flat ended oval. It also didn't have much in the way of clearly defined boundaries.

"I get that, and I get the whole 'don't point weapons at something you don't want gone'. I am Vulcan's Mom, after all. Now what's second." He smirked at me, "something I was tempted to Blend you out of asking about." He sighed, shaking his head, but clearly not at me this time.

"I'm glad I didn't. It would be untoward, given your own efforts at parenting, to be less than that for you." I shook my head.

"Nah. Doesn't work like that, Dad. When you're Momming? You just try to do everything you do for them at least a little better than your own 'rents did for you. Then encourage your kids to pass that on. Set up a self-reinforcing cycle of improvement."

"So wise for one so young. Are you sure you're my daughter? Or did you just trick me into thinking so?" I laughed up at him.

"Like father like daughter! What's second?" He smiled, sighed, and said, "'Conrad' made those boots. He made them at a time before you first called him Son, when his power stood far less than it does now." He looked me in the eye until I made a 'yeah, yeah, go on' gesture.

"Trickster Gods are often... nay, almost always Gods of Story. In some cases? Gods of Story become Trickster Gods. The overlap is impossible to deny, really. Stories gather around us. They drive us. We empower them, and when we play to them, they can overwhelm... well, even the greatest of us, it seems."

"Stories."

"Yes."

"So, I've got to avoid stories now, or I'll wind up living in them? Like, forced to play them out, butt of my own slapstick and shit?" He smiled down at me, real fondness hidden behind fake disappointment.

"That is, indeed, one possibility. Or you would not be covered in blood from the neck down... wait, no, there's some in your hair." I snorted, shaking my head to spray little red droplets everywhere.

"One possibility. Like there's... any... wait..." My mind raced, and I gave into the Flash Grin as it stretched my mouth and eyes wide open.

"Really?" He nodded, and I squealed.

"Meet me back here tomorrow?" He nodded again.

"Thanks, Boss. You're the best." I know.

"Hey, Son? You around?" He popped up from behind me, and I gave him a big old happy Mom hug.

"Hey, son? I need a couple things for tomorrow. Could you help me out?"

"Of course, Mother. What did you need?" The next morning I stood at the far end of the Jarl's Green, the tiniest bit bleary, but otherwise utterly pumped after a night of helping Conrad out, mostly with descriptions and explanations, but he also had me escort him to gather up some materials for what I wanted. I stood there almost alone, save for The Dress and my son's support. Loki had overwatch, and I'd told everybody else to stay the fuck away; if this backfired, I'd deal with it.

If it didn't, I'd bring them in as I needed them. I was absolutely ready to show this rapist prick exactly what it meant to Fuck Around with Phileo. The front doors of the big hall swung open. First a double line of Thralls marched out, at least a few hundred. A dozen of them limped more than marching, but I'd fix that shit later. The Warriors I'd seen lounging around in the Jarl's throne room came next, sauntering in an undisciplined crowd, followed by a single file line of lizard dudes.

As they marched, they slowly spun their pole arms, and did some fancy D and C that wound up with them marching four abreast, four deep, surrounding the shorter, yet somehow more dangerous looking Jarl in their center. The Thralls split off at the edge of the field, moving to surround the Green. The Warriors just kinda clumped up, taking the better spots along the edges of the Green as their spots to spectate.

Finally the big lizard dudes rotated into a wedge pointing away from the Green, the Jarl standing right on the edge of the Green surrounded by his big green regenerating bodyguards. Fourteen of them even had full arms. The remaining two looked like a certain Merc with a Mouth when he'd recently lost some limbs.

"You ready to do this, Jarl?" He threw his cloak back, doing his best 'constipated and angry about it face' before he called out, "I do not acknowledge your right to challenge me." Before I could respond, he continued, "but I acknowledge your bloodline as declared by Lord Loki. You shall have your Trial By Combat." With that he stuck two fingers in his mouth, which gotta say impressed me with how strong his stomach must be to do that, and whistled.

At first I thought I'd wound up on the wrong battlefield and he'd called up a Transformer or some shit, because it sure as shit looked like the goddamned Hall stood up. And up. And up. By the time it got fully to its feet, I realized that the fucking super-sized Jotnar had to have been lying behind the Hall previously. Once on his feet, he tromped his way to the Green, only taking like six long steps to get there, and one more to step over the Jarl and his scaly fuckers, coming to a rest just inside the Green.

For me? The Green was an oversized stadium. For him? It was maybe the size of an open sided MMA ring, or a Sumo wrestling ring. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. As I looked up, and up, and up to the hairiest nose I'd ever seen, the Jarl called out, "do you still wish to continue with this Trial?

I swear that should you concede now, You will walk free before the end of day Tyrsday, after we see to you receiving your Just reward for your disrespect yesterday." I had a little trouble keeping my voice steady when I called out, "uh, two conditions. Oh, yeah, definitely gonna fight this, but two conditions. Well, three."

"Who are you to dictate conditions to me?"

"Uh, Daughter of Loki? Dude that faced down One-Eye in Loki's cave and told him to pack his shit and go, after which he packed his remaining shit, sans Gungnir, and went? Look, fuckstick, I'll get to you in a bit, but three conditions. One, I wanna talk to your skyscraper that walks like a man before the fight. Second, if you don't get your ass in this ring before Big Boy here hits the ground, you forfeit, and all your shit are belong to us. Third and finally? I'mma give you a gift before we start.

A service-type gift, even. You cool with all that?" Dipshit Karlson replied, "you would service me before you die? Well, this I certainly can't refuse." His Warriors echoed his coarse laughter. Kitten? Send Marie? A moment later I felt the warmth of Marie's presence heating the metal spine along my back.

"Since you insist on, as noted, cosplaying a massive dick, you need the right haircut." I turned to Marie, "if you would please take care of that before you return home, Murder Mittens my marvelous Maenad?" She smiled down at me, leaned over and planted a kiss on my forehead, then disappeared. A second later I heard a faint sound from the far end of the Green, like someone tearing thick cardboard. I'd seen a flicker of black dress and white fur behind him for a second, but only because I'd watched for it.

Big chunks of his hair fell away where she'd... hell, with how much crap he had holding his helmet hair in place, she'd basically carved it into the business end of a cock. Pretty fuckin' impressive work, what with the pieces of his helmet still flying through the air and Marie already gone. Before he could do more than reach for his now phallic hairstyle, I called up to the big guy.

"Hey! Tall, Fair, and Hairy! You got a name?" A head the size of a panel van nodded down at me, and the ground rumbled as he stepped forward and answered, "Olaf Skanson the Large. Duelist and Champion of Jarl Karlson."

"Okay, Olaf. He payin' you good?" He shrugged.

"He paying you enough to die?" He just laughed at me, reaching into a pouch at his waist and pulling out a handful of... pebbles? Bee bees? Whatever, they looked pretty small in his hands, maybe the size of one finger joint. He flipped one to his other hand and tossed it into the air. A sound not entirely like a car accident echoed out when it hit his palm.

"Okay, Olaf, here's the deal. If you walk slowly to the halfway point, say you surrender and lie face down on the ground? You live. Hell, I'll even honor whatever contract you've got with Karl Jarlson over there. Not your fault your boss is a dick."

"If I don't?" he thundered. Not shouting, just lungs the size of tanker trucks.

"Then I kill you, probably in the most embarrassing way possible, vaporize the meat off your thighs, and take your femurs home as presents for my wife." I mean, shit, if I gave her both of them, neither one would be an excess one for me, right? Not like she'd chew on them or some shit. Ah hell, now I really hoped she would, and that nobody had good enough eyes to mistake my sudden intense readiness for an entirely different kind of grappling for a loss of bladder control.

Fuck it, not gonna kink shame myself for getting off on killing fuckers who practically screamed, 'shoot me in the face!' He hadn't said anything so I called out, "just like with Jarjarl Binkson back there, you've got until the Duel officially starts to surrender, and then your thighs are my own personal chew toys. Got it?" He snorted, blowing a cone of snot across the field, making me glad I hadn't closed with him.

"Green good for you as the field?" I nodded, "Your utter lack of anything resembling a respectful funeral." I reached down between my legs with one hand, reaching into my nekkid side boot with the other. I held up the hand I'd palmed a pair of bright crimson panties in earlier, because if you think I was gonna take my panties off just to drop them you don't know me well. I hadn't been wearing any, because I was all revved up and just That Bitch.

"We start when these hit the ground?" I held my hand out and let go, watching his eyes the whole time. Just as I heard, "what did that whore do to my hair!" from the other end of the Green, he twitched. He'd been holding a pebble between one thumb and forefinger, the rest of them cupped in his palm, but he flicked one out of his other hand with his middle finger. I Translocated just before it hammered into the ground in front of where I'd been standing, careening across the Green like an old school cannonball.

Moving dozens of feet at a time, I Translocated toward him. He stepped toward me, a quick walk rather than a run, alternating between flicking stones at me with his left hand and throwing them overhand with his right. Well, for a value of 'overhand' that was mostly wrist. When they hit the ground, the ground exploded outward like artillery had landed.

A crash from behind me, and on my next Translocation I did a one eighty to see one of the Thralls splattered across the landscape where the first stone thrown at me had skipped across the Green to take him full in the chest. Which was by no means full any longer.

"Okay, asshole, fuckstains who do collateral to the cannon fodder on their own side get special attention!" I mean, I'd kinda figured I'd be doing this, and brought along toys old and new just for it, so it's not like he wasn't getting special attention of the 'only that crazy bitch Tabitha could get off on this' kind anyhow, but there's a certain banter standard to uphold with this shit, right? My next Translocation spun me back to face him, maybe ten feet from his right shin.

Holding the end of the braided crimson leather cord by the end with the perfect wooden loop in my left, I grabbed the end with the shiny black metal spike in my right. I called out, "okay, Jarl, fight's over, you'd best get to getting if you're gonna," then flung the spike directly at the big fucker's shin. He had what looked to be a whole dead cow skin strapped across it every few feet, but ain't no fuckin' leather in the world what's gonna stop a spike Conrad specifically crafted to sink into Giant bone.

I ran, leapt, and used the cord to swing myself up and around Olaf's calf. I Co-Located, handed myself the ring end, threaded the spike end of my Co-Located self's rope dart through the loop, then collapsed into her as I threw my new spike into the back of his calf. He screamed and spun. Not, like, 'omigod I are deaded!' scream. More like 'fuckin hornet bastard!' scream. More concerning than the scream was the rock he flicked down at me.

Mostly concerning for him, because I'd already Co-Located in front of his other leg and hammered that me's rope dart spike into his other shin while he hopped on the leg I was putting my not very cheap awful excuses for climbing gear into, screaming and clutching at the bleeding gash where he'd shot himself in the calf with his rock. At that point I figured I needed to speed things up, because I'd already told Jarl that this shit was almost over.

Humming ' Bad Reputation' to myself, I Co-Located another half dozen of me around Olaf, hammering spikes into the front of his legs, the backs of his arms, his ass cheeks, until from behind he looked like he had thin streamers of blood all over him. The whole time he swatted at me, entirely ineffectually, throwing rocks every which way. I even saw one of Jarl's lizardmen drop. Y'know, boss? I think duBois is right. Olaf's gotta be a hundred feet tall, but he sucks as a Duelist. It appears so.

Are you done playing with your food? EW! You think I'm eating him? You did intend to chew on his femur, did you not? Well, yeah, still do, but that's, like, a chew toy. I'm not gonna swallow. I don't like him that kinda way. With that I Translocated just out of arm's reach of the Jarl.

"Remember, you fuckstick wannabe, if you're not on the Green by the time he hits the ground, you forfeit. And if you're not face down in surrender, I'm gonna play 'she loves me, she loves me not' with pieces of you until I get a result I like, then yeet the rest to the Circle with Bears in." As his face twisted, I pulled my other rope dart out of my boot and Translocated to the topmost wooden loop. This rope dart? One end had a wooden sphere the size of a billiard ball. The other end glowed blue.

I slid that end through the first wooden loop, tossed it at the next, Translocated there to catch it and thread it through, then hopped my way down his back, loop by loop, threading my new rope dart through each and every dangling loop. My feet hit the ground, and I pulled my son off my back, dropping my Blend from him as I did, one hand slotting his bolt in place while I aimed him straight up Olaf's chutney chute.

"Just like we planned, son," I whispered, then called out, "good bye, Olaf. Have fun riding to Valhalla on that itty bitty fat chick." I squeezed Vulcan's trigger, then Translocated to within about fifty feet of the Jarl. I didn't bother looking back; I heard the ripe meat cleaver thunk of Vulcan's bolt violating Olaf's Jotnar bussy, the explosive shattering of his skull, and the squelching of Vulcan's bolt pulling Olaf's boots out of the mud, leaving him briefly airborne all as one sound.

A moment later I gently dropped my smug bastard of a son next to where I stood as an explosion blew my hair forward while he smugged at me. I didn't bother to look back, because Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions. Also I needed a second to catch my breath, because once Vulcan finds a joke he likes, he will absolutely repeat that shit on every possible occasion.

I was halfway through raising my arms to my sides in a Stark-Jericho pose, maintaining my footing as the earth shook with Olaf's impact, still shaking hair out of my face, when the Jarl hit me. It wasn't anything fancy. Hell, he hadn't even drawn a weapon yet. He'd just rushed me, keeping pace with his own fucking scream, and shoulder checked me hard enough to knock me straight backwards, halfway across the Green in an absolutely flat arc. Fortunately there was something soft to cushion my impact.

The ruptured asshole, atrium sized rectum, and assorted perforated bowel bits formerly belonging to Olaf. Olaf really needed to eat more fruit, maybe cut back on the pickles and smoked meat. Y'know, in his next life. I Translocated back to where the Jarl had hit me, spinning one eighty as I did, because I didn't figure he'd stopped on a dime, letting my next gift from Conrad absorb my spin. Turns out swordstaves are actually traditional Scandinavian weapons, and adding an extra blade?

Just 'improved the visual balance of the weapon', according to Conrad. Oddly enough? Jarl had stopped on a dime. Or rather, stopped and faceplanted with one hand on Vulcan's butt. I leapt in without a sound, swinging overhand and cutting that hand off mid-forearm, Translocating back out of reach before my blade even hit the ground.

"NOBODY TOUCHES MY SON'S BUTT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND LIVES, BITCH!" With that I hopped back, spun my new toy around until I held it behind my back, cracked my neck, and growled out a falsetto, "okay you cunt. Let's see what you can do now..." With a roar he sprang to his feet, shoving himself upright with one hand and one stump, coming at me with an ugly looking dagger in one hand, swinging his stump at me with the other.

I danced backwards, my staff spinning, carving a slice off his stump and the pinky off his left hand as I did.

"Shit, sorry, didn't mean to get all flirty." Then he came at me in earnest, the same blinding rage-driven speed that he'd charged me driving his knife and stump at me like the worlds most fucked up perforation machine. Fuck it, he wanted berserk speed? Anybody touching any of my kids, even the evil as fuck one whose go-to prank was fuckin' incestuous side effects, was gonna wind up coleslaw.

"Tra la la, tra la la, la, tra la la, tra la la, la," I sang as I danced and spun and swayed away from him, my spinning sword staff slicing into him with every rotation. Blood flew. Karlson screamed with rage. And somehow, from somewhere, an entire fuckin' chorus joined in with my song. I laughed my ass off and said, "so, you wanna play!" as while I imitated the business end of a mincing machine, drums and electric guitars joined in.

Blood sprayed in an omnidirectional fountain as a voice that couldn't have been far from Apollo's sang about bananas. Less than two minutes later, as the song wound down and the man literally tried to worm his way forward and bite my kneecaps off, I sectioned his fuckin' brain into deli slices. When he slumped down to the ground, leaving my entire body as red as The Dress, except maybe a few bits speckled white and gray, I turned to the Warriors all standing there staring at what used to be their Jarl.

I amplified my voice to carry to fuckin' everywhere in sight and shouted, "okay, anybody else doubt my ownership of whatever Jarl Coleslaw here owned until moments ago?" A chorus of 'no's trickled out from everywhere except the lizard dudes, who just thumped their pole arms into the packed dirt twice, motionless otherwise. Okay, fourteen of them did, the other two just sorta clung to theirs, because babby hands don't do pole arms well.

Much better suited to crew served weapons, but try giving these primitive fucks anything like good advice.

"I didn't HEAR you!" Credit to the Thralls, I got a rousing chorus of 'no, ma'am!' from all edges of my Green, and the Warriors at least got energetic enough I saw their lips move. Couldn't hear them over the collective growl of the lizard men's 'no!' though.

"Okay then." I slung my sword-staff across my back and fished a letter out of The Dress' skirt side boot as I walked over to pick my smug, gleefully blood drenched son out of the mud.

"Whichever one of you dumb fucks can show me where, uh," I looked at the letter, trying not to get it too blood drenched to read, "Jarl Swanson lives? Doesn't lose his earlobes and left testicle." Remarkable how fast even fuckin' barbaric fuckstain morons can move when given proper motivation.