The Karens of Middle Management — Episode 3: An Entrepreneurial Witch

Freddie Beyond the Veil was finishing lunch at the roadside tavern—blackened Krans meat and

delicious Bubosnic soup—when his stomach began imitating the mating calls of Sea-Worms. A sharp, wrong heat twisted low in his gut.

He heard it even above the collective murmur of patrons clinking their forks and muttering in low, grisly voices. The tavern was dim, lit only by hundreds of enchanted mirrors lining the walls, each with a burning candle reflected at its center. Real candles were expensive. Mirrors were economical, even if they were steeped in black magic.

Freddie BV glanced sideways at the old witch owner, tending bar, or at least pretending to tend bar. What one could do with a trowel and a work glove on glassware and corked wine was beyond him.

“I’m just saying,” Almeni said, setting his fork and knife neatly on the rim of his plate. “We need to start reading the fine print. We can’t keep taking contracts hunting misqueeks and hornwallers in the Desolation, only to find out after we’ve filleted them that they weren’t eating people at all—just being annoying and making poorly crafted lawn ornaments. Money’s all well and good, but it puts a thorn in my side if we’re serving the bad guys because you didn’t want to put on your glasses and read the bloody contract.”

Freddie BV and Almeni were bounty hunters, or “adventurers,” as most preferred to be called. Morals were optional. Almeni was trying to change that. It was quite annoying.

Almeni sighed and pulled a parchment scroll from his saddleback and unfurled it.

“One evil cyclops, Murville the Terrible, has been accused by the town of Ferryton—located just left of the Seas of Perfection, at the fork of the Caves of Misfortune—of harassing its citizens. The town hereby requests the extinguishing services of two licensed...adventurers,” Almeni did air quotes around the word, “for said evil cyclops. Three thousand ducats upon delivery of the cyclops’s eye as proof of completion.”

Almeni curled the scroll back up. “If you ask me, I think they’re trying to sell the eye wholesale.”

Freddie BV leaned over his horse. The worm-song was back, twisting in his gut. “Who’d sell the eyes?”

“Sailors like the gummy-bits,” Almeni said. “They think it gives them courage.”

“It would take courage to eat the eye of a cyclops, I give you that.”

Freddie BV tried to sit up. He belched.

“You all right there, Fred?” Almeni asked after one particularly loud worm-call. He raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Freddie BV’s stomach. It appeared to be performing a soliloquy. Almeni inched his chair slightly further away from his friend.

“Not sure,” Freddie BV whispered, as he felt the fail-safes within his intestines were not engaging properly. “I think the damn witch poisoned me.” The words tasted truer than he liked.

The old crone stopped scraping the bar with her trowel and glared at him.

“You adventurers always think you’re the center of the room. So tall, with your good hair and skinny, unattractive side-kicks—”

Almeni frowned. “Rude.”

“Morgan Powish! Come to check out the competition?” She pointed her trowel behind them, where a frumpy-looking man in a hairy Wompug suit was actively swigging an entire bottle of wine.

The room went silent.

All eyes turned to Mr. Prowish, who now popped the bottle from his lips and clunked it onto the table, obviously bewildered by the sudden attention.

“Ran out the Wobblers, I hear. Good people, the Wobblers. Always sold their blood soup at half price on Wednesday. Well, you ain’t running me out!” She threw back her head and cackled. “This is my tavern!”

All the candles snuffed out, leaving only cinders and wisps of smoke. The room turned gray.

“Smells like grave flowers,” Almeni whispered.

“The flower of dead men,” Freddie agreed. His stomach lurched again, hard.

The witch threw back her head and spat.

Morgan Powish fell dead exactly three seconds later. His left boot twitched.

“Well, I’m full,” Almeni said, as Freddie BV grunted agreement and they both rose to their feet.

“Where are you two off to?” The witch’s one good eye trained on them. “I’m not much a fan of you adventurers,” she said, the word like a slur. She smiled like a cat. “Why don’t you come and stay awhile? We can talk business!” She cackled again. “Work for me, and it’s free lunches for life! ”

“Sorry, prior engagement,” Almeni said. He and Freddie tipped their heads to her, as was the custom to show respect to the elderly, even if she was an evil witch over 1,000 years old, and headed for the door.

“Wait!” The witch screeched. “I’m not done with you yet!”

Freddie BV’s stomach continued to moan. He put one hand on the wood frame of the door, looked at his compatriot, and ushered him ahead first.

Almeni gave him a look, but continued, a little faster, fearing for his own safety, although it wasn’t quite clear from whom yet.

Freddie BV took a risk and let go. The mirrors flared.

As the door shut, explosions could be heard, the yelps of men, the crashing of glass. It smelled faintly of rotten eggs.

“Not all heroes wear capes,” Almeni muttered, glancing sideways at him.

Freddie BV grunted a reply, shuffling to his horse, half embarrassed, half quite impressed with the volume and velocity of the explosion created by his own body. He was a man, after all.

“Are you going to be okay?” Almeni noticed a glaring sweat on Freddie BV’s brow—a putty-like sheen on his sodden face.

Freddie BV crawled onto his horse. “I’m not at my best, Almeni. Let’s avoid the Crags of Despair and circle through the Blood Briar instead. I may need some extra time to recover.”

“The Blood Briar isn’t exactly relaxing, Fred,” Almeni said. “And we’re supposed to be in town for the cyclopes by tomorrow, or the contract goes up for bid.”

“I’ve been through the Blood Briar before,” Freddie said. “Got it through it just fine. More or less. It liked my old girlfriend.”

“But did it like you?” Almeni asked.

Freddie BV gave a noncommittal shrug. The trees seemed to lean in. Freddie could have sworn he heard his name whispered on the wind.

“Better?” Almeni asked.

“A bit.”

“Do you think it’s ethical?” Almeni tried. “If the evil cyclops isn’t really terrorizing their town as much as simply… existing…”

Freddie BV sucked in his cheeks. He had the distinct feeling someone was listening.

“Is the cyclops eating children?” Freddie BV asked hopefully.

Almeni sighed. “All I know is that they’re having a livestock problem and that the cyclops scares people. All that towering height, veiny forehead, giant bulbous eye.”

“Right.”

Freddie belched again, the sound causing all the birds in the trees to take flight, momentarily blotting out the sky.

“Could you please keep it down?” Almeni hissed.

The trees and thorn bushes on either side of them appeared to shiver, as if trembling in a breeze Freddie BV couldn’t feel.

Behind them, unseen, the witch followed. In the distance, a laugh echoed, sounding almost like a scream.