The reason became clear. The tray was empty. Nutpuncher had eaten all the tacos. He must have stolen hers too. For some reason Kit found that terribly amusing, and began to giggle.
“It’s so good having you home, sweetie.” Her mother moved over to the corner where the kitty litter box was, and quickly replaced the contents. She set the box on the corner of the table, next to Kit. “Katty-Kit is out in the forest hunting birds. He’s too fat to catch them. I think they sometimes taunt the poor thing.”
Kit nodded, but wording had become difficult. She picked up the box of granola, and shoved a handful in her mouth. “Mmm. Crunchy. Kind of dry? Do you have any milk for this?”
“That’s kitty litter, dear. Please don’t eat that.” Her mother gently pried the box from between Kit’s fingers and took it away. “I’ll have more tacos ready in a bit.”
Kit’s mind became foogy. Foggy? Froggy? Gooey. Yes that was definitely the right word. Her Brian wasn’t working right. Brain wasn’t working right.
She looked around for more granola, but someone had stolen the box. Kit peered suspiciously at the unconscious gnome, and then at her mother, who merely smiled back.
Perhaps someone else had taken the granola.
“So where are you and your friend off to, dear?” Her mother’s words took a long time to reach Kit, and she fought to catch each one like a child grasping at bubbles. The words popped, one by one.
What had her mother been saying? Oh, yes! What was she doing?
“Nutpuncher and I are trying to find Bert. We’re going to kill another dark lord.” She smacked her lips and looked around the table. “Do you have any more of that granola?”
Kit slumped over on the table and promptly fell asleep.
22
The Dark Lord White
The Dark Lord White, version 2.0, sat atop his newly constructed plastic throne, built from thousands of sporks, taken from the villagers he’d slaughtered to construct his new empire. He’d have preferred to use swords to make a throne, but most average commoners couldn’t afford a real utensil, much less a weapon.
So White accepted the indignity of plastic instead of iron. For now, at least. Who could he conquer who owned swords?
“Sir Patrick, attend me!” White bellowed the words, and they echoed through his necropolis.
A few moments later unhurried clanking sounded in the corridor outside the throne room, and then Sir Patrick strolled lazily into the room. He performed the most perfunctory of bows, and then settled his spectral gaze upon White. “Yes, my lord?”
“What news from the swamps?” White knew it unlikely anything had changed, but he had nothing else to do while he waited for the tomb to finish upgrading to a Keep of Deadly Death.
“The trolls have scattered, your lordship, as expected. Respectfully, this is a futile endeavor, as I warned it would be.” Sir Patrick planted the blade of his sword against the stone and leaned on it. “A troll cannot be permanently killed, as your lordship no doubt knows.”
“I thought fire would kill a troll.” White’s eyes narrowed. Was the death knight having a go at him?
“Indeed.” Sir Patrick gave a hollow laugh. “But a troll will merely regenerate. Trolls crave attention. It revives them. The only way to deal with a troll is to ignore them, or if you are powerful enough, to ban their IP.”
“Are you implying I’m not powerful enough?” White raised an eyebrow, and considered disintegrating the death knight. Then he’d have no one to talk to, since Crushstuff was out leading the army, and he had no idea where Kit and Nutpuncher had vanished to.
No doubt they were off trying to make up the experience gap, which would be all but impossible. As soon as his keep finished he would get an experience point every time his empire received a sacrifice. He planned to gain a lot of experience points in that manner.
“I wouldn’t dream of implying such a thing, my lord.” Another perfunctory bow, too precise to be mocking, unless that itself was mockery. “I have no doubt you could ban the trolls if you wished. Why, the Dark Lord Bert did so…more than once. I’ve rarely seen Bert take such rapid action. He did not like trolls. Or spam.”
There it was. White couldn’t do it. Bert could. It was most definitely mockery. But White would not let the death knight see that he’d scored a point. He kept his face an impassive mask. “I will ban them myself. Return to your post.”
The problem, of course, was that White wasn’t truly a dark lord. He didn’t possess the trope, and thus lacked the power to manipulate the game world. No matter how many powers he’d given himself, nor how powerful his Super Karen trope was, nor the fact that he had seven hundred hit points, none of it would allow him to do the things Bert could do.
Unless he could find Bert and take the trope. That was the problem he must solve. Locate the dark lord, and take from him the source of his power.
Accomplishing that would require sorcery he did not possess. Unfortunately White had only used the base rules for spells known, and had focused largely on necromancy. That meant he lacked spells like Greater Scry. Normally he would force Kit to perform such menial spells, but somehow she’d discovered a spine.
That could be a real problem. Her increased intellect put her nearly at White’s level, and her experience as a gamer, combined with having seen all of White’s former plans, made her the single largest danger remaining in the world.
He needed to find Bert, and he needed to find Kit. And he needed to
