A Friendly Voidling

On a plateau some distance from the city, the general of the Rudellian army eyed the tall, sturdy walls of Glimmerhome. The war between the Rudellians and the Politellians had been ongoing for so long that no-one could remember what it was even about, and it had turned into something of a sport. This year it was the Rudellians' turn to attack, and they were damn well going to make it count. They'd had a great defensive season the previous year, and if they pulled ahead here, their lead could become insurmountable. Glimmerhome had been chosen as the target not out of any strategic considerations, but simply because the chief royal court mage was determined to finally solve the mystery of the Shed That Explodes On Tuesdays For No Apparent Reason. It was a poor excuse for attacking a city, but there was an advantage to being unpredictable, so he hadn't argued against it. His adjutant, peering through binoculars, commented, "I don't see any guards. The walls are completely empty, the gates are wide open and unmanned, and I can't see anyone."

The general pondered. What sort of trickery was this? He respected his opponents in the great game of war, and acknowledged their mastery. This was obviously some sort of trap, but where? Should he march the army in? Should he send scouts? Should they ignore the invitation entirely, and lay siege to the city? He applauded their fascinating and unconventional manoeuvre, which had made him doubt himself with no expenditure of manpower on their part whatsoever. "We will lay siege to the city as planned. Only once the encirclement is complete will we risk any scouts."

Anya inspected herself in the mirror. She was currently wearing a heavy, black gothic lolita style dress. To her it seemed rather impractical, but apparently it was 'fashionable'. Anya was even more confused about what fashion was now than when she'd started, having been dressed up in everything from ballgowns and trouser-suits to baby-dolls and exposed lingerie. There had been the maid outfit, in serious blacks and whites, the dress down to her ankles and with an accompanying cute, frilly headpiece. There had been the sexy nurse outfit, which was far too short, and hadn't seemed suitable for any clinical setting. There had been the cat ears, paws, tail and collar, which hadn't even covered any of the parts that clothing was supposed to cover, and had a really unusual, yet oddly pleasant, method of attaching the tail. That one had made Jill squeal in delight and turn so red that Anya was worried she had broken again.

"Oh my goodness, that dress. I don't know why, but it just matches you so well. It speaks to what you are."

Jill blinked. Why had she just said that? Anya was perfectly human, wasn't she? Well, whatever. She had a willing and beautiful dress up doll, and an entire store worth of clothes to play with. And then a few she'd need to retry once she was done. She blushed again at the thought of sexy kitty Anya, and wondered if they could return to the Marketplace of Affection with that outfit.

"Excuse me, mistress."

Anya and Jill both jumped, Anya reacting in the traditional Creature way by decapitating the sudden intruder with a freshly sprouted tendril. Drat, now she'd made a hole in the dress. She quickly went about repairing it, in case it made Jill hate her.

"My apologies, but I seem to have inadvertently become decapitated. If you would be so kind, would you please place my head back upon my body, mistress?"

Jill, not one to jump to conclusions, checked the front door. It was still closed and locked. She checked the rear door. It was equally closed and locked. So were the windows. "Before I reattach your head, who the hell are you, and how did you get in here?"

The head looked hurt. "I am but your lowly servant, mistress. And I simply entered the room."

"Why are you calling me mistress?"

"Because you are my mistress, mistress."

"I'm pretty sure I don't own any... any... whatever you are."

Anya, done with her repairs, poked at the collapsed and motionless body, this time using a more socially appropriate finger. "How interesting. It appears to be some sort of golem."

"Indeed, my lady. And of course you are my mistress, mistress, for you are the city mayor."

"I'm... pretty sure I'm not. I would have remembered something like that."

"The previous mayor resigned. There are many rules and regulations to deal with such a case, but here they were all rendered moot by the fact that you were the only eligible citizen remaining."

"What? There's a hundred thousand people here. How can I be the only one eligible?"

"They all fled the city, mistress."

A rather startled Jill took another look out of the window. The street outside did indeed have a deserted air about it. "What, everyone? They can't have, I mean, Anya is still right over there, for a start."

"I believe that she is what they were fleeing from, mistress."

Jill considered this. It was true that Anya could be a little bit scary, and had a tendency to sprout tentacles with rather more regularity than most people she'd met, but she wasn't that bad. At heart, she was just a sweet little girl, not to mention sexy as hell. But since everyone had run away, didn't that mean that her and Anya had the whole city to themselves? Apart from this golem, but with his head detached he shouldn't be able to get in the way. An inappropriate giggle escaped her lips. "Well, thank you for bringing this to my attention, but since the city is abandoned, why don't I put your head back on and then you can take the rest of the day off?"

"My apologies again, mistress, but you seem to have misunderstood. I did not come here to inform you of your appointment as city mayor. That happened some time ago. I came to request your orders as to how to deal with the Rudellian invasion."

Outside the city, the Rudellian general stood in his command tent. The encirclement was complete, yet there still hadn't been a single response from the city. The walls remained empty and the gates remained open. This was... suspicious. Was this really some cunning strategy from the Politellians? Or had something happened that had required the city to be evacuated, or that had killed everyone within? It seemed unlikely. Glimmerhome was a rather tough nut, and anything bad enough to crack it should have been noticeable half a continent away.

His adjunct stuck his head into the tent. "The scouts have returned, sir. They report the city completely empty, with signs of a rushed evacuation. No evidence of what caused the evacuation, thus far."

The general frowned. He knew where he stood with warfare. It was all about arranging matters such that his men managed to jab sharpened lumps of metal into the enemy before they managed to do the reverse. Sure, there was plenty of strategy involved, and sometimes even subterfuge, but at least there was an obvious end goal. Now he had a mystery on his hands, and he did not enjoy mysteries at all. They could claim this as a victory and go marching into the empty city only for whatever triggered the evacuation to wipe out his whole army. Conversely, they could sit out here for weeks besieging a completely empty city. Either option would make him a laughing stock. He couldn't just turn around and go home either, for the same reason. Maybe they should just pick a different city to assault, and pretend this never happened?

A sudden commotion from outside interrupted his thoughts. Secretly glad of the distraction, he headed towards the exit of the tent to see what was up, but by the time he got there, the noises had gathered a noticeable screaming component. An attack? From where? Had this been a ruse all along? He threw aside the tent flap and found himself standing before two young girls. One was wearing a full-bodied black dress that looked like it contained an entire warehouse worth of lace, and had more skirts than he'd had glorious victories. The other wasn't wearing much at all, leaving nothing whatsoever up to the imagination, and with a piercing gaze that felt like it was burning straight through him. Then he noticed some other details, like the way the black-dressed one was holding the head of his adjunct, which had some sort of tendril stuck into its ear. Looking around, he saw the body of his adjunct laying on the ground. And over there, next to the wood pile. And was that one of his legs he saw over there on top of that tent? And that pile of red, bleeding mush over there would account for the earlier screaming, perhaps? He promptly turned around and threw up.

"So, that's the general of the invading army? Is he ill?"

"It seems that he is, or at least this guy thought he was. Thought he was the general, that is, not that he thought he was ill."

"Right, so... what do we do now? Ask him nicely to go home?"

"I guess so? I mean, if they're invading, they probably don't want to be friends, do they?"

The general had seen many horrible sights during the war, but somehow the sight of these two young girls standing in the middle of the remains of his army, chatting away as if they were taking a casual walk in a park, breached all of his defences. He staggered back around towards the intruders.

"Who... Who are you?" He again glanced at the scattered piles of flesh, where the rivulets of blood tracing through the camp were finally starting to run dry. "What are you?"

"Right, introductions. I'm Jill, the mayor of Glimmerhome, and this is my best friend Anya. And we'd really appreciate it if you'd stop trying to invade."

Anya sprouted a big, dopy smile, staring blissfully at Jill with eyes glazed over. That introduction by Jill had been something of a tactical error, the upgrade from 'friend' to 'best friend' having caused several important parts of Anya's mind to crash. Fortunately, with the besieging army all dead and/or eaten, there was no-one left to take advantage.

"Mayor? You're dressed like a whore!"

"Oi, language! I'm a proper courtesan, thank you very much. Or was. I suppose the madam fled with the rest of them. Does that mean I own the place now?"

"Ooo, now my friend owns a shop where I can buy more friends? Why didn't I come to this world earlier?!"

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that... I think you've got the wrong idea about our establishment."

The poor general was completely lost here, and could feel his grip on reality steadily slipping. This can't be real, right? This is some illusion? Some plot from the Politellians? "Umm... Excuse me, but could you please maybe explain what's going on?"

It has often been claimed that simply viewing a Creature of the Void is enough to rob anyone of their sanity. This is yet another unfair superstition. It's true that trying to view one who's wearing a non-euclidean form can be dangerous, but no more so than viewing anything else that can't possibly exist in the given universe. Again, that wasn't their fault; it was the fault of the mages who kept summoning them to completely alien planes of existence and expecting them to immediately fit in, despite not giving them any prior warning of what the local fundamental laws of physics were. But right now, the form that Anya was wearing was a hundred percent humanoid. Well, maybe ninety percent, given the occasional tentacle. The point being, while she did indeed have a tendency to inflict insanity on all who saw her, it had purely regular rather than mystical causes.

"Right. As I said, we came to ask you politely to go home. We don't want to be invaded today."

Once again, the general's eyes were drawn to his surroundings. "That was polite?"

"They didn't want to let us see you. Then they started getting rather rude, and Anya had to tell them off."

Suddenly, running home seemed like a much better idea, ridicule be damned. "Very well. Since you do not wish to partake in our invasion today, we'll... I mean, I'll be off." The general gave a bow, grabbed a horse and some supplies, and rode away into the distance while gibbering madly.

Jill flopped to the ground, putting just enough care into the action to avoid landing in anything icky. "Thank goodness that's over. This mayor thing is hard! I'm glad I have you with me, or goodness knows what those nasty men would have done with me. Did you hear some of those comments they were making?"

"I thought they sounded very complimentary? The way they tried to grab us wasn't very nice though."

"Complimentary? That's... You really have no idea at all, do you? Right, as soon as we get back to town, I'm giving you an education."