The True Endgame

Book 9: Chapter 8:

“Just like old days, huh, Fenny?” Oleander asked as he sat between Fenrir and Corwin on a bench. “So much for hanging up your troll hat.”

“At least I’m trolling for a better reason this time,” Fenrir answered. “Before, we went after anybody who annoyed us. Now I’m only going after players who deserve it. I mean, from the sounds of it, they’re even worse than we ever used to be in terms of who they target and how fucked up they are.”

“You know, we might go up against some of our former subordinates by picking a fight with them. It wouldn’t surprise me if a bunch of DB members joined them if they came to play this game.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that for a second. There were lots of people who wanted to grief everybody. Sounds like the EB are giving them that opportunity now.”

“Yeah. Well, it should be fun at least. It’s been a while since I’ve really gotten to embrace that side. The only time I ever get to be sadistic anymore is whenever Cor is feeling extra masochistic.”

“O-Olly, please,” Corwin said. “I know that everybody already knows… but it is still embarrassing when you bring it up around others.”

Oleander smirked and ran a finger down Corwin’s chest, over his abdomen, and then stopped with the tip of his finger right against his crotch. “What’s wrong? This guy down here doesn’t feel like he’s embarrassed at all. If anything,” Oleander paused to giggle, “it feels like he’s begging to come out and show off to everybody.”

“I—but… you—you must think about the others around! They may not want to see us behave like this!”

“It’s fine,” Fenrir said. “Honestly, I’d be concerned if Olly wasn’t touching you all over and being as gay as possible. I’d think that somebody is trying to pretend that they’re Olly if that happened. Also, I’m used to this.”

Oleander’s smirk evolved into a grin. “Oh, as gay as possible? Trust me, we’re nowhere near that level. But if that’s what you’re expecting, I should probably live up to your expectations and assure you that I’m not an imposter.” With that, Oleander climbed up onto Corwin’s lap, straddling it, and wrapped his arms around Corwin’s shoulders before bringing his lips to the other’s neck.

It didn’t take long for Corwin to tilt his head back and moan as Oleander bit and sucked all over his neck.

Meanwhile, Fenrir sat there drinking the tea that he got from one of the other players who set up a small tea stall nearby. He looked, and was, completely unphased by the two’s public display of affection—and lust—right next to him. “Yep. That’s about what I’d expect.”

But while Fenrir might not have been bothered in the slightest by the lovers’ public display, somebody else was.

And that somebody else had a hammer that she used to bonk them both on the head.

“Seriously, can’t ya two go get a room or somethin’?” Tabitha asked before crossing her arms over her chest. She might have had a body that looked young enough that the game wouldn’t even allow her to participate in any sexual activities with, but she looked more mature than ever as both her clothes and face were covered in dirt and grease. And for once, she had her hair down. Her short, orange twintails that were usually held up above her shoulders were let loose to roll down over shoulders for once.

“Teehee,” Oleander giggled and stuck his tongue out. “But, to be fair, this entire world basically is private. It’s private from the real world. That means the entire world is our roo—”

Oleander’s head received another bonk before he could finish his absurd belief. “No,” Tabitha said. “Movin’ on now. Ya wanted me, wolf boy?” she asked Fenrir.

Fenrir nodded. “Before I get into that, it’s rare to see you with your hair down.”

“This annoyin’ bastard wouldn’t shut up about how cute my hair was. Gave me some weird vibes. Let my hair down and he shut up and left. I might keep it like this for a while now.”

“Well, that might be a good idea. You’re nowhere near as cute with your hair down.”

“Oi. Just because that’s the plan doesn’t mean ya get permission to tell a girl she ain’t cute.”

“Would you rather me lie and say you’re cute?”

“My hammer is good for smackin’ more than just horny people.”

“What’s that say when you have to intimidate people into calling you cute?”

“Three. Two. One—”

“Alright, alright! You’re cute. There. Happy?”

“Annoyin’ mutt. Anyways, what’d’ya want? I doubt ya wanted me to meet ya just to make me suffer seein’ your face.”

Oleander laughed and said, “Tabs is savage today.”

“How else am I goin’ to be when I can’t get a single moment to focus on what I want to do without somebody creepin’ on me or some mutt feeling needy wanting attention? Ya would think havin’ so many girlfriends would satisfy him, but apparently not.”

“It’s true. Fenny has always been really needy.”

“I—I’m not needy,” Fenrir whined.

“Fen, I love you, but you’re the neediest person I’ve ever met. I still remember all those years ago after we first became friends. You wanted to hang out like every single minute every single day. You were so clingy,” Oleander cooed. “And you always sounded sad whenever you remembered I actually had a life and other people who wanted to do things with me.”

“Gross,” Tabitha said. “Can’t stand clingy people.”

“I—I wasn’t that bad! I was just… lonely,” Fenrir said.

“And then,” Oleander continued, “every single time a girl actually showed a little bit of interest in you, you’d act like they were the best thing in the world, cling all over them, and scare them away and make them never talk to you again.”

Fenrir blushed and covered his face up. “Please stop. I wanted to discuss plans, not cringe at my past self.”

“It’s a good thing if you cringe, Fenny. It means you’ve grown. And by grown, I mean that it means you’re still just as needy and clingy as you used to be, but you’re good at hiding it now.”

Fenrir leaned forward, still keeping his hands over his face. “I’m happy that I have a friend who knows me this well, but I also hate you for knowing me this well.”

“Love you too, Fenny.”

A sigh left Fenrir’s lips as he took his hands away from his reddened face. “Love you. A-anyways, now that we’re done bullying me—”

“Who said anything about being done bullying you? Remember that time you bought a bunch of stuffed animals because—fwah!”

Fenrir yanked Oleander off of Corwin’s lap to pin him down against the bench, holding a hand over the smaller boy’s mouth. “Please.”

Oleander grinned behind Fenrir’s hand and licked his fingers, causing Fenrir to pull his hand away. “Fiiiiiiiine. I won’t bring up the cringiest story I can think of, even though it’s a classic that everybody deserves to hear at least once in life.”

“Thank you.”

“No, go on,” Tabitha said. “I want to hear this.”

“Nah,” Oleander said. “If Fenny genuinely doesn’t want me to say it, I won’t.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna pressure either of you no matter how much I want to hear it.”

Fenrir thought about it for a few seconds, wearing an obviously conflicted expression on his face, before sighing and hanging his head low again. “You… you can tell her, but you have to promise not to ever bring it up around any of my girlfriends. I don’t want them knowing how cringey I used to be.”

“A-ah… about that,” Oleander said. “You see… they’ve asked me all sorts of questions about how you used to be, so… they already know everything. Teehee. My bad.” Oleander rubbed the back of his head while sticking his tongue out.

“Y-you… you… told them?”

“Only because I knew they wouldn’t judge you for it! And I was trying to help you! I thought they’d like you even more if they heard about stuff like that. You know, like, they’d find it endearing and think you’re cute because of it.”

Fenrir looked around while using a hand against his forehead as a visor. “Anybody see a shovel? I have to dig us a couple of graves. I’m killing you and then myself.” Unfortunately for him, there were no shovels to find. So, he sighed again instead. “You told them all these stories but they still love me… I don’t deserve them.”

“Relax, Fenny. What you did wasn’t even all that bad. It was just the outcome that made it super cringe.”

“Just… just get it over with. We can’t make Tabs this curious and then not actually tell her what happened.”

Oleander rubbed Fenrir’s back before looking at Tabitha to begin the story. “So, you see, there was this one girl who played with us for a little bit. About two weeks. Now, Fenny here fell for her super hard and fast. We were only like seventeen at the time, and it was the fastest I ever saw him fall for a girl. Like wow. He became totally obsessed with her overnight. But like, he wasn’t being creepy about it or anything. He already knew by that point to try and hold back or else he’d scare her off. Anyways, she was in a pretty bad position in real life. Her parents had super high expectations for her and screamed at her about how it’s time to grow up and everything, and they threw out all her ‘childish’ stuff. That included her giant stuffed animal collection.”

“She ever get out of there?” Tabitha asked.

“No idea, she stopped appearing after what happened next. So anyways, Fenny was totally in love with her. She liked him, too, but she was distracted by everything else in her life and wasn’t really willing to enter a relationship or anything at the time. But even so, Fenny wanted to try and make her feel better. So, he bought a ton of stuffed animals—like, a ton. I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuffed animals here. A complete army of them. Then… to a girl who he only knew for two weeks and never met in real life before… he started trying to get her address out of her.”

“Ya dumb dog.”

“I know,” Fenrir whined.

“So,” Oleander continued, “she wasn’t happy about that and thought he was a mega creep. Then she started thinking he was only being nice to her because he wanted to like, stalk her in real life or something. He wanted to surprise her with what he bought, so he didn’t let her know the real reason for asking. Well, until she blew up at him in front of everybody and accused him of being a stalker and harassing her, and shouting at him about how he ruined the first online group she felt comfortable in, and that sort of stuff. When he finally told her why and showed pictures of all the stuffed animals as proof, she still shouted at him about how inappropriate that was, told him not to waste money on stupid things like that, and told him that nobody would ever like him unless he could stop being such a creep. Then she left and never came back online under any of the accounts we knew.”

“I wonder if Ilo would kill me if I ask her to,” Fenrir said. “She likes how people taste, I think. Maybe not as much as she likes rowboats, but I might be a good enough snack for her.”

“Yikes,” Tabitha said. “I expected something bad, but that was… that was way worse than I could have guessed it would be. Ya dumb, pitiful dog.”

“I know.”

“Well, at least your heart was in the right place. Ya just didn’t exactly have any tact about it.”

“I genuinely just wanted to try and make her feel better. I mean, yeah, I liked her, but I would have done that for somebody even if I didn’t like them that way.”

Tabitha placed a hand atop Fenrir’s slouched head and rubbed between his ears. “I know. You’re a dumb dog, but ya ain’t a bad dog. Anyways, I’m curious now. Whatever happened to all those stuffed animals ya bought?”

“I donated them to animal shelters.”

“Animal shelters? Why not like, to kids or somethin’?”

“There are enough people donating toys to kids already. Most toys get sent to be recycled because of that. I remember reading that there was an overabundance of stuffed animals especially. So, I figured that animals like stuffed toys, and shelters probably are too busy spending money on things more important than toys, and I doubted that there were many people donating toys to animal shelters when they were probably donating food and stuff instead, so I went with animal shelters.”

“Hehe, remember what happened next?” Oleander asked. “Mr. Local Hero.”

“Shu-shush. If they knew the whole story… they wouldn’t have praised me so much.”

“What’s up?” Tabitha asked.

Oleander smirked and answered, “You see, the animal shelters went to the local news about what Fenrir did. Nobody as young as him ever donated so many stuffed toys to animal shelters before, so they wanted to praise him for it. I figured they were also probably doing it because it might inspire others to donate. But anyways, he made it into the local news for being a ‘young hero’ who cared so much about animals. They had no idea he only did it because he had nothing else to do with all the stuffed animals after failing to send them to the girl he liked.”

“I still feel guilty over getting all their praise,” Fenrir said.

“They thought you were even more special after you denied being interviewed. Denying all those interviews and rewards from local businesses only made you seem like an even bigger humanitarian who didn’t want anything in return for your good deeds,” Oleander cooed before bursting out into a fit of giggling, unable to hold back any longer.

“This is abuse. I’m divorcing you.”

“You finally admit you’ve been my hubby this whole time?”

“I am, but not after this.”

“Oh well. At least I still get the satisfaction of knowing I beat your girlfriends to marrying you. Now I have to beat anybody else to marrying my Cor.”

“O-Olly,” Corwin said, “it is not as if anybody else would ever be allowed to wed me. I… I am yours and yours alone, for now and forever.”

Oleander couldn’t help but to glow with a smile that put would make even the brightest sun look dim as he threw his body back atop Corwin’s, cuddling and rubbing his face against Corwin’s chest with an intensity that Fenrir never saw before.

Not only that, but Fenrir couldn’t help but to be impressed by Corwin’s line. I would steal that if it wasn’t for dating multiple girls. Maybe I could modify it…

Then there was Tabitha who was cringing even more at the lovebirds than at the stories about Fenrir.

“What’s wrong?” Fenrir asked her.

“I can’t stand PDA. Also, if anybody ever says somethin’ that cheesy to me, I’m goin’ to whack them so hard that they fly out of the atmosphere,” Tabitha answered.

“Not a fan of cheesy romance?”

“I don’t like romance.”

“But you liked Marija, didn’t you?”

“Look. When I like somebody, I imagine myself lookin’ at them every now and then and occasionally touchin’ their muscles. Maybe we’d do somethin’ together once every few months. But the rest of the time, we’d act like the other person doesn’t even exist, and we’d be happy that way.”

“Now that you’ve said all that, I can imagine you having like… twenty kids and hating every single moment of it, but loving it deep down inside without ever admitting to it.”

“I’m gonna find a shovel to kill ya and dig a grave for ya with if ya ever say somethin’ that repulsive again. And two women can’t have kids.”

“You could adopt.”

“I—… well… yeah, I guess. I mean… I probably never told ya, did I?”

“How am I supposed to know if you ever told me if you don’t tell me what it is?”

Tabitha narrowed her eyes at Fenrir before being the one to sigh this time. “I’m only tellin’ ya this since I feel guilty knowin’ some of your personal stories without ya knowin’ any of mine. Anyways, I’m adopted. Dad left my mom and didn’t care about either of us. Mom blamed everything on me and got rid of me. That was when my real mom and dad decided to adopt me. Mom—I mean my real mom now. The one who adopted me and actually raised me. She couldn’t have kids, so they took me in. Ran their own repair shop where they fixed anythin’ and everythin’ that came in. Taught me all the ropes. Anyways, my point is that they’re the best people I know and gave me the best life a kid could ask for all because they adopted me. I don’t have any interest in havin’ my own kid, but… I ain’t opposed to maybe adoptin’ one or a few. Figure it’d only be the right thing to do. Pass it on, ya know? They did it for me, so I should do it for somebody else.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me. Sounds like you have some amazing parents.”

“Best parents I could ever ask for.”

“Also, this should go without saying, but I want to say it anyways. Nothing was your fault. The woman who gave birth to you was just a bitch.”

“Heh. Trust me, I know. But thanks, dog boy. Appreciate it.”

“No problem. Want a hug?”

“Ya know, I’m tempted to whack ya upside the head for even askin’. But, I guess I am in the rare mood for one, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve hugged somebody. So sure. Consider it a special treat and never even think about asking for another one for the rest of your life.”

“Too bad you’re not cuter. I usually only want to hug cute girls.”

“Oi. Don’t make me—”

Fenrir wrapped his arms around Tabitha and hugged her.

“Hm-hmph. Enjoy it while it lasts,” Tabitha said.

“I will,” Fenrir said.

The next second, Oleander lunged at them to wrap his arms around both Fenrir and Tabitha. “Group hug! Also, see what I mean? Fenny is so needy. Always wanting to hug everybody. Even though he getes to hug his girlfriends as much as he wants, he still wants to hug his normal friends all the time. Such a clingy puppy.”

“Li-listen, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hug my friends. It’s only right for friends to express affection to each other.”

“Speaking of hugs and affection, Cor, I’m not going to take the cage off unless you get in on this hug right now.”

Corwin’s cheeks turned an extreme shade of red as his hair practically stood up as if affected by static. “O-Olly! Do-don’t bri-bring that up in front of the others!”

“Too late. Now, do you want it to stay on, or do you want—”

Corwin joined the group hug before Oleander could finish his teasing threat.

“Oi, Corwin,” Tabitha spoke up. “If this bratty little deer is makin’ ya uncomfortable, just let me know and I’ll smack some sense into him with my hammer.”

“It… it is fine,” Corwin said. “I know I may tell him not to say such things, but… he always asks me if it is alright for him to tease me like so… and I always tell him… that it is… a-and that… I even enjoy it… so there is no need to worry. However, I do appreciate that you are looking out for me, so thank you.”

“And here I felt bad and was worried he might be teasin’ ya too much. Instead, you’re just as depraved as he is.”

“That’s my Cor for you!” Oleander cheered.

“Olly,” Fenrir said, “where… where did you even get a cage?”

“We have a blacksmith who felt bored and wanted to try making something new.”

“That’s all I need to know. Thank you.”

“You sure you don’t want more details? Like what it’s made out of? How big it is?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Fiiiiine.”

“Alright,” Tabitha said. “I’ve had enough of this hug now. Everybody let go or else I’m getting my hammer out.”

Everybody let go.

“Wait, ya actually listened? On the first try?”

“I don’t want hit,” Fenrir answered.

Oleander and Corwin nodded.

“Huh. Looks like my trainin’ has actually worked. Good,” Tabitha said, crossing her arms over her chest and nodding a couple of times. “Feels like I’ve trained some cats by sprayin’ them with water bottles, but replace cats with degenerates and water bottles with a giant hammer. Anyways, if we’re done bein’ all personal and stuff now, what’d’ya want me for? Ya still never told me.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Fenrir said. “Anyways, you’ve heard about the plan to deal with the End Bringers, right? We’re going to show them what real trolling is.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. Not sure what exactly ya plan on doin’, but it sounds like it’ll be fun.”

“Right. Well, we’re not going to only troll them. Trolling is going to be most of the plan, but we have to prepare real defenses against them, too. Or rather, we have to take the fight to them before we ever even need real defenses in the first place. If they attack us with all of their might, no matter how well we try to defend this place, we’re probably screwed. Large scale PvP is completely different than fighting undead sea monsters. I don’t plan on us going on the offensive too hard, but I want us to be able to deal some serious damage to them with as few people as possible. I want us to weaken their forces before they ever even reach us while putting barely anybody at risk.”

“What do ya mean by that?”

“They turned monsters into makeshit submarines and used those to get close to us undetected. I want you to make us a real submarine. One capable of going on long voyages without having to surface, capable of holding supplies and a crew of about five people, and I want it armed with long-range weaponry to assault coastal positions from a distance.”

“Ya… ya want what now?”

“Basically, a submarine with trebuchets on top. Or cannons. Whatever you can do that will be able to deal the most damage from the farthest distance. It also needs a method of blowing itself up with such a massive, annihilating explosion that it doesn’t leave behind a single scrap of debris.”

“…”

“To summarize, a submarine that’s going to go on a suicide mission, deal a lot of damage, and then blow up before it can be captured while taking out its would-be captors. Oh, and I want there to be an emergency escape ship built into it for the crew to escape on. I don’t want us to lose a single life. Imagine, a crew of about five people taking out potentially hundreds of them and dealing massive damage to their infrastructure before escaping without ever being in any real danger. Old me would have said to just let them be suicide bombers who sneak in, blow things up, and then blow themselves up. New me says to kind of do the same, but keep our people alive.”

“Ya know this is a fantsy setting, right? They probably got away with makin’ their submarine because it was usin’ a monster. But if ya want me to make a real submarine, I ain’t so sure that the overseer is gonna let that happen. She doesn’t want us usin’ anythin’ that’s too advanced, remember?”

“That’s why I’m asking you to do it. Are you forgetting that you’re the girl who was able to invent an engine for The Shoebill? If anybody is able to get away with making something modern in a way acceptable for a fantasy world, it’s you. I have faith in you. Wait, I just thought of something else. We could put some of those gatling guns on top, too. So it’ll have long-range and short-range weapons. Think you could make some of those gatling guns yourself?”

“Ya seriously want me to make you a full-on proper war submarine, don’t ya?”

“I do.”

Tabitha sighed and lowered her head… before looking up at Fenrir and smiling. “I’m in. I’m gonna need a lot of materials though, and I mean a lot. Deer boy, that blacksmith still bored?”

“Probably,” Oleander answered.

“Good. If he wants to experiment with some new things, I’ve got some ideas and am gonna need some help to get this done. Dog.”

“Yeah?” Fenrir asked.

“I’m gonna need all the steel oak ya can chop, and I’ll need to graft some of The Shoebill’s living wood onto her.”

“Why?”

“Because I ain’t lettin’ ya blow her up.”

“I don’t want the enemy capturing her and using her against us. And if there’s living wood, and they capture her, that gives them access to it.”

“Then I won’t let her get captured. Ya think I can’t make her strong enough to resist attacks while bein’ fast enough to get away from danger?”

“What if they send monsters after her?”

“I’ve got plans for that. Ya know those vests covered in metal spikes that farmers give their guard dogs sometimes? Imagine somethin’ like that, except our girl can shoot these metal spikes out of her in every direction. Anythin’ that tries latchin’ onto her is gonna get a mouth full of spike impalin’ them, and that’s just the first idea I have to fight off anythin’ that might want to try and take a bite out of her.”

“But… it would piss them off if we let them think that they’ve won and captured it, and then we blow it up.”

Tabitha sighed. “Fine. How about this? I’ll make a smaller submarine to go with it. One that we’ll make look like somethin’ went wrong and can’t escape. The real submarine escapes and they get to feel happy that they’ve caught the smaller one, and then the small one blows up and wipes them all out. Deal?”

“I can live with that. Deal.”

“Good.”

“Also, you’re thinkin’ too small with cannons and trebuchets.”

“Am I?”

“You are. If I’m buildin’ a submarine, I’m givin’ it some missiles. So it can surface, fire its missiles, and get away.”

“Mi—… missiles? How? I trust you to make fantasy versions of things, but missiles? How are you going to make a fantasy version of those?”

“We’re gonna have to do a lot of minin’, I can tell ya that much. Ya know how we fuel The Shoebill’s engine with fire stones?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, we’ll use those for the fuel. Put enough of them in one place and they’ll give our missile all the thrust it needs. Then I figure I could create a mechanism working on a timer in the tip of the missile that uses wind stones to shoot out bursts of wind at specific moments to guide it. So the missile could launch then, after five seconds, the mechanism goes off which shoots a long enough burst of air to turn the missile horizontal. Then it goes off a few seconds later to tilt it downward to aim it straight at the target. The problem is the payload. Elemental stones explode, but they explode like… firecrackers. Nothin’ too impressive. We’re gonna want a bigger explosion than that. We need to figure out a payload that is light but explosive. Figure that out and I’ll give ya missiles that’ll make everybody whine online about how unfitting and overpowered they are. They won’t be bunker busters or anything, but they’ll annihilate any soft targets above ground.”

“Tabs… your mind is beautifully overpowered.”

“Aw, shucks. I know.”

“I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to think of something like that.”

“Just never popped into mind before. But as soon as ya said submarine, I started thinkin’ about nuclear subs. ICBMs. That kind of fun stuff. Hypothetically, if we were to send some players real good at math with some measurement tools with the sub, they could calculate the adjustments needed for the wind stone mechanism, sail out to a distance far enough that they’d never be spotted from land, launch the missiles, and head on back here before those edgy bastards even know what’s comin’ their way. Our girl should never even be in any danger as long as her crew behaves.”

“I love it. But I still want to let them think they’ve captured a decoy only to blow it up in their faces. I want them to have no idea who it is that’s screwing with them while we act like we’re innocent little carebears up here who just want to be their friends.”

“I getcha. Well, I’ve got some ideas, so I can go get started on the blueprints right now if there’s nothin’ else that ya need. Wait. What’re we gonna do about spies? They might have some up here already who figure out what we’re doing.”

“Remember those underground tunnels leading from the ocean into the mountains?”

Tabitha smiled. “Yeah?”

“We’ll build it and dock it in one of those. It’ll never be seen above water anywhere near our territory. Nobody will know that it exists except us and its crew. Well, the End Bringers will learn that it exists, but they’ll have no idea who it belongs to. I doubt they’re expecting us to create something like this. Unfortunately for them, they don’t know that we have the best engineer in the game.”

“You’ve thought this out.”

“I came up with the plan in about five minutes, so I’m glad you approve.”

“Heh. Anyways, anything else ya need or can we get started on creating our new girl?”

“I need another hug.”

Tabitha cringed. “Ya really are needy. That was the only one you’re gettin’ from me for the rest of the universe’s existence. Try touchin’ me and I’ll smash your hands into dust.”

“Alright, alright. I won’t try hugging you. You’re not cute enough to hug anyways.”

“I think I’ll smash your hands anyways.”

Fenrir grabbed Oleander to place the smaller boy in front of him before jumping back a few feet. “I’ll get started on sending people out for resources! Good luck with the blueprints!” Fenrir shouted, waving back at Tabitha.

The moment that Fenrir was out of sight, Tabitha smiled and shook her head. “Dumb dog.”

“You totally like being hugged, don’t you?” Oleander asked her.

Tabitha pulled her hammer out and looked at both Oleander and Corwin.

“W-why me?” Corwin asked.

“You’re tainted by him. Can’t let the taint spread,” Tabitha answered.

“Oh, trust me,” Oleander said and wiggled his eyebrows. “There’s plenty of taint spreading already.”

Tabitha stared at the two with the most blank expression that anybody ever saw from her, put away her hammer, and walked away. “I’m done.”

“Hi, Done, I’m Olly.”

Tabitha pulled her hammer out once more. “Never mind.”