Day Two-Forty-Two: Water Hurled

I live in an upside-down kingdom no longer. Yay!

Queen Daena set her husband straight in a vicious shouting match. She used the giant bullhorn from the boxing fight a few months back to SCREAM at King Jeffrey in his tower. I'm pretty sure he tried to shout back, but, lacking a similar bullhorn, he was forced to capitulate.

And I? I bought a new shirt today. Got it off some travelling entertainer dude, since all the normal merchants are gone. Better safe than sorry. (Yesterday's shirt had stains. YOU figure out what they were, I'm not gonna comment.)

But hey! Speaking of travelling entertainers, the many and sundry bards have returned! And with 'em is my good friend Edmund, whom I found rhyming away in the Beefiary! We greeted each other nice 'n cordially, and he's looking a hell of a lot better than the last time we met. Y'know, when King Jeffrey slagged on his beautiful, poetic ode.

… why DID Edmund come back? I'd have lifted my backside to this stupid castle long ago, if Jeffrey did anything like that to me.

…

… wait… my short story…

AGH, THAT BASTARD

Anyway, Edmund's back. Says he's gonna be performing at the wedding festivities with the many other bards. The king has 'em all learning some special song for the walk down the aisle. I dunno what it is, but I'm sure it's idiotic and completely unsuited to the occasion.

Today's entry sounds pretty good so far. Unfortunately, eeeeeeverything goes downhill from here, 'cause the king decided to give his guards and soldiers a job for the day: patrolling the forests outside the castle. Sounds easy, unfortunately wasn't.

The woods 'round these parts aren't terribly thick. We're on the Indy Plains, and the plains aren't known for their overly-dense vegetation. Mostly just empty space. (Hey, I just got the name. Plains are plain. Get it? That's, like, an adjective. AND a noun. Grammar, diary.) There are outcroppings of trees, though, and the king wanted them cleared of animal life before the wedding. Just in case.

In case of what? I have no clue. Logic is set to NONE with this man.

Here's the kicker. King Jeffrey decreed that his new, fancy, super-shiny set of mythril weapons was NOT to be used during the hunt. He doesn't want to dirty them on the likes of common forest animals. He ALSO didn't want to dirty the OLD weapons on the likes of common forest animals. So what were we to use as weapons?

Water sacks. BIG OL' SACKS OF WATER. Must've weighed thirty pounds each. We were told to bludgeon any animals we found to death with our giant sacks. My sack felt so unlike an actual weapon that I was able to carry the thing around without dropping it.

Off we went! The lot of us (the Omega Corps excepted, naturally, because they look silly enough as they are) were sent out into the surrounding lands to kill anything that moved with our giant, burdensome sacks of water. After a solid six hours of chasing after cheeky birds, I'm pretty sure that the combined force of some seventy-five men, working in tandem, managed to kill NOTHING.

Except our thirst. Did I mention today was the first day of summer? The rains disappeared, replaced by SCORCHING HEAT! That was just great, it was. A good time to have a big ol' sack of water in your arms.

We gave up in the evening, because by then King Jeffrey had a new decree: everybody was to attend one of Celine's dance recitals, set to the music of a couple dozen bards playing a sequence of old folk tunes. I was perfectly fine with that. One of the smaller squads never came back from the hunting expedition, so I assume they got eaten by a sloth or something.

That's... tragic. Seriously, it is. A bunch of perfectly good and capable dudes may have just DIED because the king's a flip-floppin' idiot. And he didn't even need the Neck to get 'em killed! Yeesh.

The discontent grows. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another strike by the end of the week, and, frankly, I'll be happy to see it come. RUINATION OF WEDDING OR NOT, I'll be happy to see it come.

Hm.

I wonder if those dudes disappeared because they were sick of Jeffrey and figured it would be best to pretend to be dead. And then just bolted.

If so, that's… that's a good idea…

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Water Man