Bob POV

“UP AN’ AT ‘EM KIDS! Rise and shine cuz the grapes ain’t wine!” Aah, what a day to camp out under the stars. As my three trainees stretch out their stiff bodies, I stoke the campfire, pull out my trusty skillet, and start making some eggs and bacon. Today is the day that we take care of the queen’s gnoll problem in the local hills and as everybody knows, you can’t fight or adventure on an empty stomach.

A few minutes later, Nathan is cleaned up, ready to eat while the other two are still groggy. Evidently, he’s still tired by the way he grumpily shovels his food away.

“You awake yet, Nathan?”

“Ugh.”

“No worries, I can wait.” In the meantime, I can gather some berries in from the nearby bushes. When I come back, I find that Nathan and Riley have finished eating and are sitting around while Serina is still asleep. Hmm… letting food go cold is bad. I should rectify that.

Two blueberries should do the trick. Two quick flicks lodge them in Serina’s nose and wakes her with a start.

“Huh? Hoo? Wha? Wher is dis pwace? Amb why arr yuu laughing?” After glaring at her friends, she finally sneezes out the berries and gives me a glare. Maybe throwing berries at her nose wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Now I have two less blueberries to eat.

“Eat up, we’ll be heading for the hills in ten minutes. We’re going to be solving a little gnoll problem so make sure you’ve got your weapons ready. Most aren’t violent, but a certain tribe has been stirring up trouble lately, impeding the trade caravans and therefore, my delicious food and spices. I was thinking of letting some other guys, maybe Bill, take care of it, but I couldn’t resist after hearing that it involved my precious food. You need the experience, too.” Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to get in the way of me and my food.

…

“Bob, may I ask why we’re just walking down an open path between that is clearly ambushed?” Nathan asks.

“Well-”

“Yeah! Why the heck do we have to trek all the way out here? It’s dirty, and stinky, and there’s bugs everywhere! I think I ate a few. Ew.”

“...Are you done interrupting? If so, I can explain myself. And bugs are an excellent source of protein. Don’t forget that.”

“Ew. Just hurry up and explain the plan.”

“Thank you. Okay, the reason why we’re walking in the open like this where an ambush could happen is because we are waiting for an ambush to happen.”

“““WHAT!!!””” Really, they find the oddest of times to be perfectly in synchronization.

“Sheesh, quiet down a little. You’ll scare off the little critters.”

“Why?” “For what reason?” “I knew you were an idiot since you first made those dumb lasagna tacos.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s to get it over with quickly. With them in the open, we don’t have to track them down. Let them come to us, then just bop them on the noggin. Done and done. Also, don’t think that I didn’t hear that, Serina.”

“That’s the plan, so if you have no more questions, shall we sing a song to pass the time?”

“Sure.” “If you wanna.” “No.”

“A one, a two, a one-two-three. OOOOOH!!! Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!”

…

Boring.

It’s so boring.

I sang the song three times through so far and nothing’s happened. Serina didn’t bother to sing, Riley sang through five verses, and Nathan was slightly better, sticking around for half of the first song.

Why can’t those gnolls just attack already so we can get this over with? Let’s try this.

They’ll attack us in three, two, one… nothing.

Eh, nothing left but to sing some more.

“OOOOOOH! Ninety-nine bottles of b-”

“Bob! Look out behind you!” Nathan suddenly shouts. Ducking, I look back to see the other two diving for cover and Nathan deflecting an arrow with his dagger. Nice reflexes.

Ah, and here come two gnolls rushing from out of the hills. They must be the ones assaulting the trade caravans, or at least some of them. I doubt two would be a problem for most, especially if they have guards with them.

Now that’s odd; they seem to be covering their ears and crying. I wonder what they’re wailing about. Better get my frying pan ready, just in case I need to crack some eggs. It’ll only be a few more moments before they’re within earshot now.

“Stop! Make it stop! For the love of the great Wo’den, make that infernal singing stop!” yells one gnoll in black rags, wielding a rusty short sword.

“I should have never left home today! I’d do anything to make it stop singing!” cries another in a potato sack and armed with a club and odd pieces of armor.

“Bob? Should we be doing something about that?” “Hehehe… Let’s see how effective my axe is against their armor.” “Meh, do I have to do anything?”

“Nah, just leave this to me. You can take care of the next ones. Your concern is touching, Nathan, but unnecessary.” Not to mention, Riley sounds like she’s more likely to create a bloodbath than send them on their way and Serina is just being a big meany as usual…

“There! That’s the one! We need to kill it before it can start singing again!” With a nod, the two gnolls rush forward, one with sword upraised, the other with its club trailing to the side.

Time to get cooking!

Still wailing about how horrible my singing is, they swing at the same time. You know what, this makes me feel a song coming on.

“Somebody’s in the kitchen with Bo~ob!” Stepping back, their swings miss and hit the dirt.

“Somebody’s in the kitchen I kno~o~oh!” The two split up and try to flank me. Smart, but not smart enough.

“Somebody’s in the kitchen with Bo~ob!!!” They swing again but I parry the blade, disarming the one with a shortsword before throwing him into his companion.

“Playing the ol’ banjo!” There, fighting over. “And that is how you deal with two opponents, my young padawans.” Let’s see what we have here.

“Hey, where’s your leader?” I ask the more coherent one which happens to be mister no sword now.

“EEK! I’ll do anything, just don’t sing any more!” Well that’s rude; I just asked a question.

“Hey! I just wanna know where your leader is. I need to talk to him.”

“Okay! Okay! Our leader is-” *bonk* The one with a club hits his companion on the head. It appears that he’s the smarter one.

”Shh! Stupid. They can absolutely, positutely, no know that he’s hiding behind that hill over there.” I guess not.

A loud smack comes from the same direction of the hill and another gnoll stands up with his face in his right hand, the other raised in surrender. He has a bow strapped to his back and wears tribal looking painted leathers along with a stone knife at his hip.

“Honestly, you two bumbling buffoons always manage to screw things up. And you four, why don’t we go back to my cave to talk. It’s too open here to discuss things without interruptions.”

A/N Just putting this out there, but if the plot seems forced...

Spoiler: it’s a secret that’s because it is.

Just making some progress, however disjointed. The chapter hit 1.25k words and I felt it was time to stop so I did. It’s better than nothing and letting NK stagnate.

Right, moving on, don’t forget to check out A-Zero by BeeBaBoop and vote on which chapter you liked more… sorry for the delay. Writing slumps suck.

P.s. Boop should be posting his chapter soon, the poll is set to a 30 day close but is likely to close earlier, and RRL is being plagued by spotty 522 errors so posting it now.