As the Damsels left through a door in the back of the stage rather than through the crowd to the front door, I was surprised that nobody got off their stools and crashed through the door to the back. Perhaps they were thinking the same thing I was but they were too hesitant to make their motives known. I however felt that this was a personal quest and that if I didn’t make my move, it would be lost forever. I was also in a rush because I figured that Rory and his father wouldn’t be able to shoot the breeze about life, the universe, and everything forever and that I wouldn’t want to keep them waiting for too long.
   I waited until most of the patrons had left or got up to get refills on their drinks before the next performance, finished my Pecha, and walked casually towards the door the Damsels had gone through. Nobody yelled at me to stop so I continued my trek over to the door. I was about to twist the knob and go in when I heard voices arguing in the room beyond. Instead of barging in, I sidestepped from the door so I’d be invisible to the crowd behind a red gossamer curtain, and opened the door slightly so I could see what was going on.

“I thought that the performance went pretty well,” the blond Damsel said. She was sitting across the room from the other two Damsels brushing her golden locks with a lavender-colored brush. Her voice was very angelic. I felt like I would definitely need to meet her.
“Yeah. Easy for you to say,” the red-headed Damsel exclaimed. “You’re the one everyone was looking at.” She gestured to the other Damsel, a raven-haired girl who looked as if she wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. “Me and Brittany here are like your back-up dancers.”
“I can’t help that most people are attracted to blondes.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t the ‘Kylie Rapunzell’ show,” the redhead said, “We’re the Dream Damsels.”
“Oh c’mon,” ‘Kylie’ said, “Not everybody was looking at just me…”
“Oh yeah. What about the guy at the bar in the blue robe? He seemed to be hypnotized staring at you…”
Hearing the redheaded Damsel mention me got my attention. I was the only guy at the bar wearing a blue robe. I was caught by such surprise that I almost bumped the door open wider. Surely they’d be angrier if the guy they perceived was hypnotized by ‘Kylie’ barged into the room. Oh sure, just the kind of stigma I needed: to be a stalker to the stars. I shifted slightly so the curtain obscured me better and went back to listening.
“That’s just one person.”
“Yeah, but the way he was staring at you, he might as well have been undressing you on stage!”
“I would never let a man do that to me; at least not until I’m married.”
“Well aren’t you the paragon of chastity and virtue,” the redhead spat. “We’re supposed to be a group of girl dancers and while Brittany and I are actually doing the right dances, yours are more like what a ballerina would do. A child ballerina that is.”
“Samantha,” Brittany murmured, “There’s no need to belittle the way Kylie dances.”
“Why not?” asked Samantha
“Because…”
“Why?”
“It draws people into watching us, doesn’t it?”
   Samantha seemed to give this some thought. During the silence that followed, she and Brittany had changed out of their dresses into what I figured were street clothes. Samantha was dressed like a schoolgirl with a bright crimson tartan skirt, a black sleeveless shirt with ‘DREAM DAMSELS’ written across the bottom and an ‘SH’ monogram on the left side, and had her hair in two long ponytails.
   Brittany, on the other hand, was dressed in an almost unconscious impersonation of a well-to-do pirate: she wore a sleeveless black and white striped shirt with a sky blue windbreaker over it and a skirt of the same color. The skirt was not too short and not too long: a happy medium for both the wearer and anyone who saw it. There was a ‘BM’ monogram on a coat-of-arms insignia on the lapel of her windbreaker. She was also wearing a sky blue beret that had the words ‘DREAM DAMSELS’ written across the band.
“Brittany makes a very good point,” Kylie said, placing the hairbrush on the nearby vanity and getting up to get her street clothes from the closet. “Who cares who is the most popular of the three of us; all that should matter is having fun putting on the show.”
   There was a moment of silence as Samantha seemed to think this over. During the lull in conversation, Kylie came out of the closet where she had apparently undressed. She came back out in a medium length black dress with violet bands around the base and the shoulders. I dare say she looked way cuter now than when she was in “full-on prom” mode.
“She has a point there, Sam…” Brittany began.
“Well!” Samantha cut in, “It would also make a difference if you were an actual member of the Damsels, and not just a temporary replacement for Hiroko*16.”
“What happened to her anyway?” Kylie said.
“Oh, she said something about visiting her grandmother in Mykost.” Brittany said, “Apparently she’s very sick.”
“Anyway!” Samantha said, with venom in her words, “What’s going to happen when Hiroko comes back and nobody wants her to be in the Damsels because they’d rather watch a blonde dancer with zero talent and a holier-than-thou attitude instead?“
“But you said that I draw fans…”
“Yeah, drooling ones like that blue robe guy…”
“He wasn’t drooling…”
“THAT’S IT!” Samantha shouted, “I want you out of the group right now! I’m sick of you thinking you can change the way the group does things because it apparently goes against your personal beliefs or something like that. You’re just an understudy! You’re not a real Damsel! Go!”
   Kylie looked around, from the red-faced Samantha to Brittany who had taken the opportunity to examine the floor’s shine from the lamps of the vanities in the dressing room. She looked like she was going to say something to Samantha, perhaps a witty retort to her accusations. But Kylie burst into tears and started running pell-mell to the door, the door I happened to be standing outside of. Quickly I dove from the stage, knocking over several empty water glasses in the process, and had just settled into one of the chairs when the dressing room door banged open and Kylie Rapunzell came running out. As she came down from the stage, she slowed down a bit probably so she wouldn’t run off the stage and into the tables. She happened to glance up from her crying and notice me and all my blue robed wonder.
“Are you…*sniff*…stalking me, or…something?” she asked.
“No,” said I, “I was just sitting here having a drink while I wait for the boat to be ready. Your group’s performance was spectacular. Here, have a seat. Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.”
   She seemed to think about it for a moment and then took the seat directly across from me. Her crying was slowly coming to an end at this point, perhaps because I had complimented her on her performance, but every once in awhile, she’d sniffle and have to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief with a large yellow “K” embroidered on it.
“What’s the matter?” I inquired, not about to reveal that I knew why she was crying. She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure that she should answer. I was about to give up on prying into her personal feelings when she slammed her hands down on the table, knocking an empty water glass over.
“Well…they kicked me out of the group. Apparently I’m too pretty to be dancing in their troupe.”
“You are very pretty…”
   Oops. Wrong thing to say, I thought. She’s going to get mad and leave, and once she goes out that door and leaves the Shack forever, so would my chance to get to know Kylie a little better. But instead of getting out of her chair and running out the door, she looked down out of embarrassment and murmured something that sounded like “Thanks”.
   While she took the time to collect herself, I got up to get us some drinks: a L’Orange for Kylie and a third Pecha for myself. The Shack at this point was pretty much empty. Besides us and the barmaiden, three armored fellows sat at a table in the corner. One of them was a Neophyte dressed in green armor that looked as if the helm was ringed by fangs. He was conversing with a human man wearing a coal-black trenchcoat and wrap-around sunglasses. He had long greasy black hair that looked like his face peered out from between black curtains. The third man was lightly armored with short cropped blond hair. The blond warrior had just returned to his table as I passed him going towards the bar,  and I could of swore I heard him tell his mates that somebody he knew was a “degenerate”. The only other word I caught from him was either “father” or “mother” and his Neophyte friend responded in a low voice that sounded almost as if he was hissing. The man in black only nodded.
   When I returned to Kylie with drinks in hand, she was no longer crying. She was looking at me with surprise when I sat back down and handed her the L’Orange.
“Oh, that’s OK…”
“I insist,” I responded, “You’ve been through a traumatic experience. I don’t know about you,” I paused, taking a sip from my glass “but stress makes me thirsty.”
“I hear that.” She exclaimed with slight enthusiasm and raised her glass in a toast-like fashion. “Here’s to you…”
“Mikhalangelo Velleous,” I said, raising my glass and clinking it to hers, “but most people call me Slim Oracle.”
   As soon as I said my name, I heard the sound of sudden silence. I turned slightly towards the other occupied table and saw that the three armored men had ceased their conversation and seemed to be riveted on mine. The Neophyte hadn’t turned around yet, but the man in black had looked up and his blond friend leaned over to whisper in his ear.
“My name’s Kyrie. Kyrie Rapunzell.” She said, drawing my attention away from the three armored men, “but most people call me Kylie. They keep telling me I look like that other…what’s going on, why aren’t you looking at me?” she interjected, probably noting that I wasn’t looking at her much during her introduction.
“Well, Kylie Rapunzell, it’s nice to meet you and everything, but I’ve got to be going.”
“Why for? What’s going on?”
“I’m not quite sure.” I whispered, “But I think there are bounty hunters in the Shack, and I think they’re after me.”
“Why? Are you a criminal or something?”
“Not exactly. There’s this religious outfit called the Order of the Blue Hand, see, and they’ve been after me because I survived an ambush of theirs and I’m not quite sure, but I think those three gentlemen over there are bounty hunters in the Order’s employ.”
“Nuh uh,” Kylie piped up, “You’re just being paranoid. They’re probably jealous that they didn’t get to meet the rock star like you did.”
   Kylie regarded the three with a look of almost contempt. The man in black had returned to staring at his interlocked hands laced around a green glass bottle that contained an unknown liquid that exuded a whiskey-like aroma. The blond man was watching him without much interest; he almost seemed to be falling asleep sitting up. The Neophyte, however, had finally turned around. He caught Kylie looking at him and he gave her a very coy wink through his fang-ringed helmet, which caused her to react with so much surprise she almost tumbled out of her seat.
“So,” I said after she recovered from her little fright, “am I just paranoid, or are we going to have to make a quick exit?”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” she asked.
“Seeing how you’re no longer a Dream Damsel and nothing’s keeping you here, I figured I’d invite you to come with me and see the world beyond this stage?”
   She seemed to give this some thought. While she made up her mind, I got myself another Pecha and drank it at the bar. Asking Kylie to come with me was a bit sudden. I already knew that there was nothing keeping her here in Daggerra other than, maybe, her family. I had forgotten that I was already traveling around with another Neophyte, a Neophyte vampire at that. Even though Rory’s mask prevented him from acting on his lust for blood, who knows if it’s enough if I introduced another Neophyte into the equation? By asking Kylie to come with me, I suddenly realized that I could be leading this former dancer to a slaughter and she knew nothing about it.
   When I returned to the table, she wasn’t there. I glanced around the bar looking for her, and caught a glimpse of the front door closing behind a short figure. I ran to catch up, pulling out the Screaming Mace and readying myself for a hostage situation between me and the three men: with Kylie Rapunzell as the bargaining chip.
   When I got outside, I saw the green helmeted Neophyte run towards a scuffle that was going on down the street from the Shack. I ran a little ways behind him hoping he wouldn’t turn around. He didn’t, for whatever was going on in the scuffle seemed to have absorbed his full attention. When he and I got close enough, we could see what was happening.
   The blond man had Kylie pinned with her arms out and both his hands pressing onto her neck. Since he was so much taller than she was, she looked as if she was standing on an invisible crate. The man in black was kneeling on the ground near a large tree, cradling what looked like the remains of his shattered shades. He had drawn a weapon that looked like a skeletal serpent but it lay on the ground as the man was gathering the pieces of his shades. I thought about running to grab the sword, but the green helmeted Neophyte was looking towards the man in black so I couldn’t get it without exposing myself. The Neophyte was shouting at the man in black.
“Slasssssh…” the Neophyte yelled with an audible hiss, “get up and help ussss with the girl.”
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on me, little man?” I said, causing the Neophyte to turn around. He had a tanto in one hand and an elongated sai in the other and looked like he was going to gut me right there. Then the blond man spoke:
“Slim Oracle,” the man said, “We’ve been looking all over the continent for you.”
“Let her go, it’s me you want.”
“True,” the blond man said, releasing Kylie from the hold, “but how can I be sure you’ll go quietly once I do.” As he finished his sentence, he had drawn a sapphire-colored brandistock and had it pointed at Kylie, who had blindly ran straight into the Neophyte in front of me. He brought her back towards the blond man and now the three of them faced towards me.
“Drop that massssse, Ssssllllim, or I’ll ssssllllice your girlfriend’s throat!” the Neophyte in green threatened.
“Now now, Snakeman,” the blond man responded, “I think that High Priest Milord will enjoy this extra bonus. Not only did we catch Slim Oracle but we also got ourselves a potential recruit for the Order. Renounce your sins, girl, or face death by my brandistock.”
   At this point, I figured my adventure was pretty much over. All this time as a fugitive from the Order of the Blue Hand and I get captured while enjoying a drink at a bar in Daggerra. Not only were they going to finally get me, but they also get Kylie as a new recruit for their cult. I half-wondered if they found Rory. Maybe the three of us would be reunited one more time before they were brainwashed by the Order and before I get executed.
   Right when I was about to surrender to the blond man and his comrades, Kylie did something truly amazing, well for a former dancer anyway. While the blond man had the brandistock pointed at her back, she gracefully sidestepped to her right. The blond man tried to follow her movement but every time he caught up with her, she continued to strafe around him. I could see him getting annoyed with her antics and right when he yelled at her to stop, she did. She had done this dance so fluidly that she was now standing at the man’s rear left. When he turned to find her, I took my opportunity.
   While Kylie was annoying the blond man by strafing him, the Neophyte called Snakeman was watching her move and attempting to mimic her. No matter how hard he tried, he was always a step and a half behind the former Dream Damsel. When she stopped, I saw Snakeman raise his sai as if to throw it at her like a three-pronged dart. My opportunity involved sneaking up to him and elbowing him on the top of his helm. The fangs ringing his face fell out as did his tanto. They stuck into the ground at odd angles. Snakeman himself went down as if poleaxed. The sai stapled one of Snakeman’s hands to the ground entirely missing his fingers. Even if he was still conscious he couldn’t pry the sai out of the earth. Slash was still gathering up his shade shards and now had his back turned to us.
   When the blond man turned to find Kylie, she tripped him to the ground. His brandistock went flying and landed inches from my feet. She yelled to me to throw her the brandistock and I let it fly through the air like a javelin, the point facing away from her. She caught it effortlessly, gave it a little twirl, and pointed the brandistock at the blond man’s throat. I looked over to see if Slash would interfere. He was now standing beneath the tree wearing the remnants of his shades. One lens was missing; the other had a smudged imprint that a high-heeled shoe must’ve made. Apparently when they took Kylie out of the Shack, she must’ve got the chance to kick Slash in the face. He raised his skeletal sword as if to charge at me and Kylie, but instead put it away and spoke the only words I ever heard him say:
“Impressive. Until we meet again.”
   He pulled his trench coat shut in a flourish and vanished on the spot with a loud crack.
   When I turned back around, the blond man was apparently reacting to this turn of events.
“Woman, I have no parley with you.”
“You and your friends kidnapped me!”
“True,” the blond man spoke, “We needed to use you to get Slim Oracle to surrender.”
“What makes you think he’d surrender if you used me as a hostage?” Kylie asked, giving the brandistock a pendulum-like sway over the blond man’s neck,” We just met five minutes ago.”
“We thought it was an act to fool us. We thought you were a contact that would be providing Slim with a hideout or information on where the Blue Hand are operating from.”
“How would I know any of that?”
“Don’t feign ignorance, Snakeman recognized you.”
“Where does that stuttering freak,” She pointed the brandistock at the Neophyte who was slowly trying to get up without realizing his hand was pinned to the ground, “get the idea that he knows me?”
The blond man took the opportunity to sit up while Kylie had the brandistock pointed at Snakeman. Surprisingly he made no move to take the weapon from her.
“Snakeman told me you used to be in the Blue Hand.”
   Seriously, what’s with everybody I meet being somehow affiliated with the Order of the Blue Hand? Kuclin was a former bounty hunter in the Blue Hand’s service, Slash and Snakeman were also bounty hunters (I think), and the blond man was a priest in the Blue Hand itself (I could tell from the insignia on his chest). Now my new friend Kylie the former Dream Damsel turns out to be a Blue Hand affiliate too. At least Rory isn’t. Or is he? I’ve learned my lesson at this point. Don’t trust anybody.
   I gave Kylie a look of “Is it true?” and she replied that yes, she used to be. However, when High Priest Milord heard that she had joined a dance troupe, he excommunicated her. It was no big deal really, she said, for she had joined the Order of the Blue Hand in order to become a lay healer and not a militant priest. The blond man huffed at that remark; apparently he didn’t view himself as a militant.
   She was excommunicated a month before the Maiko Massacre and was a moderately good healer in her own right. Her reasons for touring with the Damsels was two-fold: touring the realm allowed her to practice the healing arts she learned as a Blue Hander and secondly because the missing girl, a Neophyte by the name of Hiroko Ellor, was a close friend of Kylie’s and requested that Kylie stand in for her while she cared for her sick grandmother in Mykost. At the same time, Kylie’s main goal in touring the realm was to find someone highly knowledgeable in the healing arts that could teach her how to prevent people from dying; apparently Kylie had made another promise to this Hiroko girl.
I was getting confused at this point. If Kylie and the blond man were members of the same group, then why didn’t they know each other? Was Snakeman, he of the hissing accent, a Blue Hander as well? I asked these questions of the three people before me. Snakeman was too busy trying to free himself from the ground and hissing expletives as he struggled.  The blond man was surprisingly helpful in this regard.
   His name was Rofa Maule and he had joined the Blue Hand almost immediately after Kylie left. They had never met before today. He claimed that he was drawn to the Order of the Blue Hand because he always wanted to be a cleric but his father, the head of an underground trade cartel, disapproved of his son’s aspirations. Rofa joined up anyway, claiming his father was a degenerate and that he was muddying the name of all Maules, and that he would bring it back to its previous glory, which must’ve been quite great. Rofa’s first assignment for his new master was to find me. He told me that Snakeman wasn’t a Blue Hander at all; just a bounty hunter working for some other outfit that Rofa knew nothing about. Apparently their third companion was from this same organization because Snakeman took orders from Slash and not Rofa even though the mission to capture me was an Order mission.
I asked him how many other groups of Blue Hand priests and bounty hunters there were. He thought about it and said that there was at least two other teams out there scouring the realm for me. Rofa told me that before his group set out, the first group’s priest returned to Valern and said that his two companions had ditched him in the middle of the Green Forest Zone at night. Apparently he had called the younger one of them a bounty hunter and the other, who was older and apparently insane because he carried a katana made of wood and not metal, and wore no armor, got mad and said that they were “witch hunters” not “bounty hunters”. The second group of bounty hunters Rofa told me about were apparently highly-trained assassins with long kill lists. I was told I was lucky that they didn’t find me.
   After I had learned almost everything I needed to know about these four, I heard the sound of twin foghorns going off followed by an amplified voice saying, “All aboard the Cassandra. Next stop: the city of Mykost. All aboard!”. I thanked Rofa Maule, asked Kylie to give him back his brandistock, and me and her left to catch the boat. As we walked to the boat I mentioned to her about Rory. Almost as if on cue, he was coming out of the house the Claviculas lived in. I waved to Vomer and his wife, a female version of Rory who had been asleep inside with a beauty mask on of some type, because it almost appeared that Rory’s mother looked like a stereotypical storybook witch.
   Rory looked at Kylie, who was regarding him with almost puzzlement. I hadn’t gotten around to telling her about Rory’s mask so she must think that Rory is some kind of mask-wearing weirdo. I handled the introductions, seeing how neither of them was taking the initiative.
“Kyrie Rapunzell, this is my friend Rorikori Clavicula, Rory for short. Rorikori Clavicula, this is my new friend Kyrie Rapunzell, Kylie for short.”
“Wait, who are you again?” Rory asked me in jest.
“Why I’m Mikhalangelo Velleous, Slim for short.” I replied, also in jest.
“But there’s no ‘Slim’ in ‘Mikhalangelo Velleous’, is there?” Kylie replied, in what I think could be construed as jest.
“Technically yes there is,” I answered, “Take the ‘s’ and and one ‘l’ from ‘Velleous’ and the ‘i’ and the ‘m’ from ‘Mikhalangelo’, and you get Slim.”
“Yeah, but how do you get the ‘Oracle’ part?” Rory asked.
“That I don’t know.”
   After wasting time observing the fact that all three of us have long names and nice short nicknames, the Cassandra could wait no longer and decided to depart from fair Daggerra, leaving me and Rory behind in its amethyst and cream-colored wake.