The war proceeded in twists and turns. The replacement asked for the best of arms and armor to be forged for him, as he felt the stirrings of war in his blood from his career as a general. Unfortunately, since then, he had added quite a bit of weight. He was equipped with armor, he walked down the stairs to a crowd of admiring onlookers, and he fell down those stairs, and died.
The rebels’ cheer was short-lived. They could not agree on a campaign. Some wanted to execute the monarchists by hanging. Others wanted to execute them by ax. Some wanted to slay them and impale their heads on pikes, and some wanted to immolate them. As they could not agree, they warred with one another, formed conspiracies, and did to their comrades what they would to their foes.
In desperation the rebels petitioned the city in the desert to raise an army for them. They pleaded to their old enemies their cause for freedom and prosperity. The folk of the desert recalled how often they themselves paid for that same freedom and prosperity. They concluded this was a just cause, so long as they were able to plunder. At the first assault, the city’s defenses crumbled, and the soldiers raped and looted to their heart’s content. When the rebels could not pay them more, they promptly left and related to their families the astounding raping and looting they had accomplished. The monarchists and the rebels fought over ruins, but they were ruins dearly beloved.
Seeing this, the businesswoman thought it unwise to lend the services of the dwarves to either the rebels or the monarchists. Instead, she set them to working on an explosive that could be propelled through the air and into an enemy camp, ending the war effectively for one side or the other. The dwarves were ingenious smiths and constructed an ingenious bladder, but knew not what to put into it.
Our hero searched far and wide for deadly substances. He conceived of poisons, but no scorpion was willing to part with it. He conceived of fire elementals, but he was not willing to pay health insurance. He conceived of disease, but no corpse would have intercourse with him.
Our hero considered what he himself most associated with death, and thereby discovered what to put into the explosive.
He and the dwarves went to retrieve the gas from the former king’s palace, the king preceding the replacement. The businesswoman approved, and demonstrated its use on cattle. High in the air the bladder went; then it fell; and upon striking the ground erupted in a vast explosion of stench, where grass wilted. The goblins, whose village our heroes used as a testing ground, were found not to have died from shock, but from the wounds caused by tearing their noses off their faces.
Both sides were awed, saw the merit of this type of poison, and did not purchase it. Instead, they sought to create it on their own. They gathered all of their soldiers and chattel, had them eat as much cheese and lentils as they required, and relieve themselves into a trench. They then filled their own bladders with smell. On the very same day, at the very same time, both bladders went up into the air, blotting the sun, fell, and exploded; but they produced no effect, as both sides, in the past days, acclimated to their own flatulence. The war went on.
© 2025 Jay Lee