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Chapter 7 - Dorothy’s Week 3 - Flames of Love

Relationships were messy things. They tended to fail more often than they succeeded, and to an outsider looking in, they often seemed more like a big waste of time for everyone involved. Despite the loneliness she carried within her heart, Dorothy occasionally counted herself lucky she'd never had to deal with romantic problems of her own.

She'd seen how bad they could get, as evident by the source of Dorothy's current stress headache- a pair of Silver-ranked adventurers known as Orlandis and Milse.

The two were an unlikely duo. Orlandis was a hedge knight looking to prove himself and the bastard son of Lord Vickamor Sturven. House Sturvan was among Cransmere's least influential noble families, but Orlandis dressed like that wasn't the case. He overcompensated for his status by wearing elegant plated armor and touting a shield emblazoned with an inverted version of his father's sigil. The crest of House Sturvan was a red rooster crowing at the sun, whereas his own featured a black one doing the same to the moon.

Milse was Orlandis's direct opposite in many ways. Where the knight showed off with his attire and was desperate for attention, the young Pyromancer looked as if she lived in squalor. She always wore an oversized brown robe riddled with stitches and patchwork. Rather than something anyone would actually wear, it looked more like a burlap sack with two additional sacks serving as big puffy sleeves. Atop her head was a brown witch's hat with an impossibly wide brim, and flowing all the way down to her bare feet was a fiery red and orange mane of un-brushed hair.

Some called them the Bastard Lord and the Pyro Pauper, but most were content with calling them what they were; annoying.

Dorothy had yet to see if the two could spend more than a single second in each other's company without bickering over something. That alone would've been annoying enough for most people, yet Orlandis and Milse went the extra mile over their refusal to be apart from one another. It was as if they operated on a wavelength only their partner could understand, and they hated each other for it.

The two were also fucking, and everybody knew.

As Milse levitated one of the cafeteria tables into the air by raising her wooden, hook-ended staff, Dorothy could only think how fortunate it was that so many of their little disagreements took place at the Guild.

"How dare you, you lying, cheating piece of shit!" Milse's voice roared with the fierceness of an explosive flame. "There's a reason your father's never going to legitimize your stupid ass, fuckwit!" The table was shot at Orlandis with all the ease of an ordinary projectile.

Orlandis was on the other side of the cafeteria, enjoying an early dinner after returning from a brothel trip. He blocked the table with a thrust from his shield, his strength splintering the furniture into dozens of smaller pieces from the impact.

"I don't get what you're so mad about, damn it!" He screamed back at her. "We're not even going out, so how is it cheating?"

Dorothy winced at the table, which would now have to be replaced or fixed by a mage. The worst part of this wasn't even that Orlandis and Milse were fighting. It was that dumb and dumber were being encouraged by bitch and bitchier, who were watching the spectacle unfold while drinking and smoking over at the Guild's bar.

"Don't tell me you're, like, gonna let this limp-dicked milk drinker walk all over you, Milsy?" Britni laughed, spiced mead dribbling down her chin as she lifted her flagon up high. "You deserve so much better."

"I do, don't I...?" Milse replied with bitterness in her voice, easily susceptible to outside influence in her blind rage.

"Like, no doubt about that, giiiirl," Tiph had a shit-eating grin on her face, giggling like hell thanks to the potent steezweed joint in her hands. Steezweed was supposed to make people more chill, but all it did to Tiph was rile her up and make her an even bigger bitch. "What you need to do is totally kick his ass, make it so he learns his place, yeahhh? That's the only use for men like him."

Britni laughed and Tiph shared a smile with her friend. They were feeding off of each other, as they always did. In a way, they were similar to the squabbling lovers. Britni and Tiph only brought out the worst in each other, and they were already pretty bad in the first place.

If she wanted to mitigate this precarious situation, Dorothy needed to ignore the audience. She was at the doorway to the cafeteria, having just heard the commotion, and rushed to its source. She was closest to Milse, so she went up to her and started pleading.

"Milse, I know you're upset, probably for a good reason, but I've told you so many times that the two of you can't do this here! Every time this happens, you-"

"It's not my fault. It's his! It's always his!" Milse screamed through her teeth. "That stupid dumbass is so desperate to make a bastard of his own that he can't even wait three days for me to come home from seeing my parents back in Hollobell!"

Mages were so lucky they could use the Warp Stone Network, Dorothy thought to herself. She wished she could touch a big blue rock and teleport off to somewhere far, far away.

"Okay, yes. That's a very fair reason to be upset..." Dorothy lied, willing to say anything to make their fight stop even a little sooner. She'd heard that Orlandis did officially ask Milse out- several times, at that, but the mage never gave him a proper response.

There were differing accounts, but combining them painted a picture of pride, stubbornness, and a refusal to own up to her feelings. Dorothy kept her nose out of the personal affairs of her adventurers save for cases where it threatened the Guild but believed Milse had no right to get so upset or expect Orlandis to be faithful if she wasn't comfortable with legitimizing their strange relationship... not that Dorothy would ever tell her that. Pyromancers were just about at the top of the list regarding adventurers you never wanted to risk pissing off.

"...But if you're going to fight, please take it somewhere where you won't cause me Goddessed know how much property damage! I'm begging you!"

"I'm begging you," Tiph repeated in a mocking parody of the Guild Mistress's voice, throwing on an exaggerated yawn at the end.

Britni started to laugh even harder and spilled some of her booze on both the fashionable pink halter top she was wearing and in the crevice of her cleavage. "Isn't it, like, adorable how hard she tries to be taken seriously?" She sneered.

Dorothy's eyes twitched dramatically with stress. Britni was often drunk and obnoxious, but these past couple of days made Dorothy question whether or not she'd forgotten if she issued a quest to the bitchy Viking that tasked her with forever abandoning sobriety. Ever since she'd gotten back from the big Cordycepper job, Britni had been lazing around drinking at the Guild's bar or at some other unlucky establishment. She was hoping that Britni was reaching the end of her bender by today, but Dorothy should have known better than to hope.

Whatever. The two of them weren't worth worrying about right now. Britni and Tiph were unlikable bitches, but they weren't the ones threatening to burn the whole Guild into the ground over a stupid squabble. Then lay squarely on Milse's hands, and she was dead set on ignoring Dorothy's plea.

She lifted up the second table but worsened the situation by lighting the damn thing on fire. Dorothy stressed over what to do as the projectile flung itself across the room to Orlandis, blocking and shattering it again. Rushing to the still-burning pieces, Dorothy took her jacket off and smothered the flames from each part as the bar girls laughed at her.

Orlandis wasn't going to sit there and take this for much longer. He ripped his sword from its sheath, an elegant rapier with a beautiful enchanted emerald set in its pommel. "You're treating this like a way bigger deal than it is! Besides, it's not like I do this all the time!"

In his defensive anger, Orlandis charged his weapon with glowing green energy stemming from the jewel. He slashed the air, creating a crescent-shaped wave of air toward the mage. It would cool her off with any luck, but Milse refused to let it touch her. The mage raised her staff, magically ripping off a bunch of the floorboards to serve as an impromptu barricade from his whirlwind garage.

"Stop, damn it, stop!" Dorothy pulled her hair and rushed back to Milse's side. "Didn't you hear him?! It was just this once! An honest mistake, can't you find it in your heart to forgive him? I bet he missed you! Didn't you, Orlandis?"

"Who in all of Arrark would miss-" Dorothy summoned a threatening aura from somewhere deep within, scowling at the knight. She was too timid to keep it up for very long, but it worked like a charm. "I mean, yeah," Orlandis coughed. "I only went to Pillow Princess because I missed you. I've never even gone to a brothel until now!" He claimed, conveniently omitting how his friend Tansy had earned a two-for-two discount that he didn't want going to waste.

Milse regarded her partner with immediate skepticism but slowly lowered her staff. "...Really? This was a one-time thing?"

"Honest," the bastard lied, omitting how close he was to earning that same discount.

Dorothy again made the mistake of getting her hopes up, only for Tiph to dash them into pieces. "No way," she laughed, her bright pinkish-red eyes sparkling with trouble. "That guy? Pretty sure I've seen him popping out of just about eeeevery brothel in town!"

"What?!" Orlandis and Milse exclaimed simultaneously.

Tiph then nudged Britni in the elbow, signaling she should get in on this fun, too. "Oh yeah, same. And that's still not enough pussy for daddy's special boy over there! You know he tried hitting on me the other day, right? He, like, totally wouldn't stop complaining about how annoying you were and how badly he wants a real woman to take care of him. For real."

"T-That... that is a bald-faced lie upon my honor!" Orlandis was a stuttering, nervous mess. Not only was that a lie, but also an egregious one. Every red-blooded male in the Guild knew better than to go anywhere near Britni or one of her crew. He was terrified of her, and never in a thousand years would he have the spine required to hit on Britni.

If only Milse wasn't as naive as she was quick to anger. The shabbily-dressed Pyromancer took the Baddest Bitches at face value, her hand trembling as she gripped her staff. Tears were pulling down her cheeks, anger rising to critical levels.

"I... can't... fucking... believe you!!" Milse seethed. "After everything we've fucking been through?! RRGH!!" Her staff rose into the air, the room growing to a sweltering heat.

Flames roared in a spiral pattern around Milse's body, and directly in front of her, a single spark flickered into existence before transforming into a glowing magic circle. More and more of her mana was funneled into it, the magic growing stronger from her emotional outburst. Dorothy recognized what was happening and began to panic harder than she already was. Then, she darted off to the nearest supply closet.

"From the plane of ash and cinder, I call thy name," Milse chanted. The magic circle brightened into an even fiercer color until a fire in the shape of a hand emerged from within, followed by an arm, a shoulder... "Inferno invoked, scorch all who stand in my way! Rise! Rise, and-"

When Dorothy returned, she was brandishing a tool necessary for the survival of any Adventurer's Guild. The alchemists called it a fire extinguisher- a metal canister with a nozzle attachment containing a chemical mixture that snuffed out any flames no matter how strong. There were few things adventurers liked half as much as setting fires, so every Guild in Karnalle was stocked with plenty of these for just such an occasion.

Aiming the nozzle straight at the summoned monstrosity, Dorothy screamed, "Do I really need to remind you not to go summoning fire elementals inside the Guild, Milse?! This is a wooden building!" She ejected the extinguisher's contents onto Milse's magical circle, smothering the foamy solution all over the fiery entity before it could fully emerge from the Elemental Plane of Fire. "And besides, I've told you both again and again not to have your stupid lover's quarrels-"

"We're not lovers!" Both Orlandis and Milse agreed, dropping their resentment for one another to ironically band together in support.

"I don't care," Dorothy marched toward the mage. "The next time you fight in here-"

Milse pointed her staff at Dorothy, declaring, "What are you even going on about? I don't see how this is any of your business, anyway!"

The Guild Mistress reached a critical point, dark fog covering her trembling mind. Her breathing was rough, and all she could do was laugh. "Not my business? Really? You think that what happens in my Guild isn't my business?" She was so close to losing her cool. Closer than ever before. "You telling me you believe that destroying my cafeteria isn't my business?! What in the name of the Goddesses Above and Below is my business, if not that?!"

Milse had never seen this side of Dorothy before. No one had. It was intimidating and almost inspired her to apologize. She would've if Britni weren't there to downplay the situation.

"Like, who even gives a shit? This place is a dump. It might even look better after it's burnt down, right?" The boss of bitch laughed, finding amusement in how Dorothy acted so out of character. It made her want to push and prod, see if she could squeak even more entertainment from the typically mousy little woman.

Dorothy did her best to ignore Britni, but the words were so cruel it was easier said than done. She closed her eyes and fought against the part of herself telling her to not take this treatment from of her adventurers, knowing a battle for Britni's respect was one she'd lose.

With Britni fueling her indignance, Milse bit down on her lower lip and averted her eyes. She felt guilty about how she'd distressed Dorothy, but not overly so. "What's the big deal?" She grumbled, rationalizing it. "Just take the repair costs from our accounts like you always do. It's not like we won't pay for the damage."

"I shouldn't have to keep doing that!" Dorothy huffed. "The two of you should have learned your lesson the last time and the time before that, but no. You keep going at each other's throats, causing trouble for me and everyone else around you!"

In her rambling, she inadvertently pointed the nozzle of the extinguisher straight at Milse's face. Perhaps it was because she was a Pyromancer, but Milse didn't react well to this. She flinched several steps away from the Guild Mistress, clutching her staff defensively.

"Whoa, there!" Tiph dramatically gasped, smoke wafting from her nostrils. "Are you, liiiike, gonna spray her down with that shit? That's totally gotta be against your conduct code or whatever."

"What? No, of course not. I-"

"Real treacherous shit right there, Dorth," Britni clicked her tongue. "Colder than the icy peaks of Niflheim. Are you gonna let her treat Milse like that, bastard?"

Like a puppet on a string, Orlandis danced at Britni's command. "Hey!" He crossed the cafeteria, grabbing Dorothy's wrist and wrestling the extinguisher from her hand. "Can't you see you're freaking her out? Don't go pointing that stupid thing at her!"

"Why would you even care, I-" at a loss for words, Dorothy pulled her hand from the knight and rubbed at it. He'd grasped her harder than was polite, speaking to the depths of his desire to defend Milse.

"What do you think you're doing, dumbass? I don't need you trying to protect me, stupid..." Milse looked away from Orlandis, drawing the wide brim of her impossibly large hat over her face to hide her growing blush.

"What I'm doing is looking out for you," Orlandis scratched the back of his head and exhaled. "It's not like anyone else will- and we both know I can't leave you alone, even if I tried..."

"...Landi?" Milse's voice was tender, soft. Scarcely more than a whisper. She stepped forward, ignoring the presence of their Guild Mistress entirely while taking her partner's armored fist in her tiny hand. That small gesture led to the two staring longingly at one another for several moments, their eyes meeting in a silent exchange.

"I'm sorry, Milse. I-"

Dorothy stopped paying attention, knowing where things headed from here. Her job was done- Orlandis and Milse were going to make up and then go somewhere else to celebrate said make up.

The wise thing to do would've been to leave the Guild and flag someone for repairs, but as much as she tried to ignore them, Britni and Tiph were still getting on her nerves. She couldn't do much about the alchemist, but there was one resort she had against Britni. Dorothy marched toward the bar where the unfriendly faces were waiting for her.

Britni guzzled the rest of her current flagon of mead and threw it over her shoulder at the bartender, a somewhat portly man by the name of Norman Melville, whose only notable feature was that he neither excelled at his job nor caused Dorothy any trouble. He handed Britni another flagon as if on command, despite the fact she didn't even ask for one.

"Just like fucking always, you just had to come along and ruin the show. Didn't you, you total nag?" Britni drunkenly scoffed. "So damn lame."

"Suuuper lame," Tiph agreed, huffing another hit from the joint before blowing in Dorothy's face.

Dorothy coughed and waved the smoke away but ignored their taunting. "Britni," she started off stern, emphasizing her name. "You've been drinking nonstop for days at a time. I know you want to celebrate after getting back from your big quest, but-"

"But what?" This attitude was amusing, and Britni wanted to see if she could make up for the lost entertainment by squeezing some out of Dorothy. "Are you, like, gonna do something about it? I'd like to see you try."

"Y-Yes, actually," Dorothy stammered, confronting Britni being much more difficult in execution than it was in concept. "I am. Starting today, you're not getting another drop of alcohol from my bar."

Again, Britni could only laugh. "I'm not? That's news to me. Last I heard, Vikings take what they want. If I want booze from fatso over there," she gestured with her thumb at Norman. "Then he'll give it to me."

"N-No, he won't," she stared at the bartender, steeling herself to command him. "Don't give Britni anything else. Don't let anyone buy anything for her, either. If Coye gets pressured into buying a bunch of drinks all at once, it's probably for her, so don't give him any. Is that understood?"

"Plain as day," the understated bartender nodded and looked at the ground, purposefully avoiding the evil look Britni was indeed giving him. "I'm sorry," he told the intimidating bully in response. "I don't want no trouble."

"Wow," Britni couldn't believe Dorothy was standing up to her to this extent. "If you were anyone else..." she didn't finish the sentence, but leaving it hanging was perhaps more threatening than completing it. "Whatever. I guess I'll just take my money elsewhere, bitch."

That stung. It wasn't like the bar was a significant source of the Guild's income, but every little bit helped, and Britni was the bar's most frequent customer by a long shot. Dorothy thought back to how she'd been walked all over by Blanche the day before and decided she wouldn't let this keep happening. She had to try and establish some level of authority, or else they would never take her seriously.

"Good, then you won't be needing this-" Dorothy reached for the flagon of spiced mead in Britni's hand, foolishly trying to wrestle it from her. Dorothy was reminded of who she was dealing with when it didn't budge even an inch. Fear took over as Britni's drunken expression tightened, signaling to the Guild Mistress what a big mistake she'd just made.

"Go ahead," Britni warned. "See what happens if you don't let go in the next couple of seconds. By the Gods of Asgard, I would love for you to fuck around and find out."

Terror struck Dorothy like lightning, her hand reeling away from the flagon. Britni smirked and drank the entire thing right in front of her, again throwing it over her shoulder when she was done. "That's what I thought," she teased, sounding even more full of herself than usual.

"Careful, Brit! She's like, tooootally shaking! I think someone's about to have a panic attack. You don't want to, liiiike, accidentally kill her, do you? Something tells me you have a weak heart, don't you, Dorothy? It must be all that extra weight you've been packing on. It's, like, sooooo not good for you." Her eyes cold and her smile as malicious as ever, Tiph took one last drag from her joint before reaching out and snuffing it against Dorothy's tie, ashes falling onto her chest.

"Ah! Tiphanie, what the fuck?!" Dorothy recoiled and brushed the ash and fresh burn mark reflexively in a panic. She wanted to make a stand here, do something to punish these two troublemakers, but all of her bravery was used up after trying and failing to take Britni's drink away from her. All that remained was the mousy Guild Mistress who couldn't stand up to a fly.

"You're right, Tiph," Britni stood from the barstool and started walking toward the exit. "This isn't funny anymore, it's just sad. No use in sticking around. Wanna hit the town?"

"Suuuure," Tiph followed after her friend, playfully patting Dorothy on the shoulder as she walked past. "I'm down for that. Gotta find some way to have fun around here..."

The two laughed as they left the cafeteria, closing the door behind them. Dorothy was defeated in every sense of the word. She could barely stand straight, breathing was a struggle, and her knees threatened to give out. Tiph's observation was closer to reality than Dorothy was comfortable admitting. Her heart was pounding, reverberating with a faint pain she brushed off as mere stress.

"You okay, ma'am?" Norman could see she wasn't faring well- anyone could've. He was about to come and help, but she raised her hand, gesturing for him not to leave the station.

"Fine. I'm... fine, thank you... I just... think I could use a moment's rest..." relying on the integrity of her wobbling legs, Dorothy somehow made it to the nearest barstool. She sat, slumping over the countertop in her typical fashion.

"You really don't look fine to me," her employee pointed out the obvious.

She contemplated complaining. Norman wasn't someone she was close to, but he generally listened to her when she talked. That was more than most of her employees could boast. After a meaningful exhale, Dorothy started, "I don't know. It's just been one thing after another lately, more than I can keep up with... personal problems... things would just be so much easier if I didn't have to waste my time thinking about stupid shit every hour of the-" Dorothy was interrupted by the latest round of stupid shit, which was echoing from the nearest bathroom door.

"Gods, yourself fucking hot when you're mad at me, you ragged little bitch," Orlandis growled, his voice amplified by his passion.

"Shut... shut the fuck up, you bastard, and get that thing inside me al-AHN!" Milse moaned in ecstasy from what must've been sudden penetration.

"Fuck," her partner groaned in time with a loud slapping sound emanating from behind the closed door. "Say it again, Mil, fucking say it!!"

"Fuck me harder, you fucking bastard!!" Milse's cute, shrill voice called out, emphasizing his trigger word while pointing out his psychological hang-up to everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Dorothy clasped her temples hard and ran her fingers through her hair, her fingernails stabbing into her scalp as she physically vibrated with stress. In a rare moment of above-average competency, the bartender read the mood and went for one of the most potent truapple cider bottles on the shelf. Norman placed it on the bar in front of Dorothy, the sound of glass on wood momentarily stealing her attention away from the powerful cacophonous reverberations of hate sex.

"I think this kinda goes without saying, but it's on the house," Norman joked.

Dorothy eyed the green bottle with interest. She wasn't much of a drinker, as even a little taste could make her tipsy, but tonight was calling for something of a different magnitude than a simple binge-eating session.

"You're right. I paid for it, might as well have a taste..." Dorothy rationalized with a mumble as she uncorked the bottle.

Norman was going to set a glass down, but she started drinking straight from the neck. Gulp after gulp, Dorothy guzzled the sweet cider. It was a deceptive liquor. The taste and mouth feel made it seem like it would go down easy, but it was a chore to actually swallow at first. The more she drank, however, the more it seemed to massage her irritated throat. She'd worn it out from raising her voice, something Dorothy rarely ever did.

Dorothy had already downed a third of the cider when she removed the bottle from her lips. Before she could go back in for more, the door to the cafeteria opened.

"You in here, boss?" Tammy stepped through. "Just got back from that errand you asked for. Anything... I... miss?"

The devastation was all the answer Tammy required. She noticed the destroyed tables, the ruined floorboards, the fire extinguisher residue, and the unmistakable sounds of skin on skin coming from the bathroom. Even more tellingly was the dead inside stare on Dorothy's face as she weakly looked toward her receptionist.

"Not much," Dorothy uttered, a powerful churning in her stomach erupting out of nowhere. The alcohol lurched back up her esophagus, and she vomited right then and there.