“. . . so there we were, just the three of us, mind you, and remember, our clothes were five floors away at this point….”
“What’s going on, Hot Stuff?” Massha hissed from her position above me. “I know you’ve heard this story before. Heck, I’ve heard it four times myself.”
“Keep your eye on the dragon,” I advised her. “And be ready to act fast.”
I was going through the motions of reacting to Aahz’s story and fielding the impatient questions of my assistants as best I could, but my real attention was focused on the dragon’s head. My strategy was already working. Aahz’s droning account of past glories was starting to take effect.
The dragon’s eyes were definitely starting to glaze.
“. . . of course, after all that, I just had to take her home with me. It was the least I could do for the poor thing under the circumstances.”
Aahz was winding up his story already! I had to keep him going just a little bit longer.
“Was that the party where you met Tananda?” I said, deliberately feeding him another cue.
“Tananda? No. That’s another story completely. I met her when I was sitting in on a cut-throat game of dragon poker over at the Geek’s. We had a real pigeon on the line, the kind of idiot who would bet a busted Corp’s a’ Corp’s into a Unicorn Flush showing, you know? Well, I was a little low on funds just then, . . .”
Guido was getting restless again. “Boss, how much longer are we gonna….”
“Not much longer,” I interrupted. “Get hold of the rope. We’re about to move.”
“. . . now I was holding Ogres back-to-back … or was it Elves? No, it was Ogres. I remember because Tananda had Elves wrapped up. Of course, we didn’t know that until the end of the hand. Anyway, as soon as the Geek opened, I bumped him back limit, and Tananda . . .”