The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 by Charles Dean

give you this contract, and if you like everything you see here, just email that file over to us with a signed version of the contract. I’m really looking forward to seeing you in the future and watching your interview.” Rainer had managed to become even more robotic as he talked and handed her the paperwork.
    Kass took the contract, looking over it for a minute. How much time away from playing my game is it going to take to read all of this? she griped to herself as she looked back up at Rainer.
    “Now, I need to go cool off the girl--she seems mad for some reason--and catch a lunch with her. Do you remember the way out?” he asked as the two of them walked towards the door.
    “Yeah, I do. Thanks a lot for showing me around, and I’ll try to forget all the colorful remarks that were made earlier when I do the interview on air.”
    Rainer laughed and then clasped his hands together in a pleading motion, “Please do!” he said in an over-exaggerated fashion.
    “Alright, see you ‘round,” he said as they started to split directions, and he began walking back towards the interns’ area while she turned to walk to the elevator.
    “You too, and one more thing.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Kerrigan is a really amazing girl. Be nicer to her next time, will you?”
    “No problem. It’s what us spoiled brats are good at.” She flashed her teeth in the most mischievous manner possible and started back towards the elevator with her new contract.
    So much to read, so little boat time left to do it, she grumbled. It’s too bad the StormGuard Alliance doesn’t have an NPC lawyer to read this out for me.
     
    Qasin :
     
                  Qasin somehow found it comforting to swab the deck. The simple back and forth motion of the yarn mop across the floor served to keep his hands busy and away from his sword while the disappearing stains manifested in him an odd sense of pride and accomplishment he wasn’t exactly expecting when he first began. He had set out to do something, and it bore results. Even though it was a small, insignificant task compared to the one he had accomplished defending the Human Race and their allies on the beach, it was still a task that bettered the world. But, neither of those pleasant feelings were what made the simple cleaning chore so comforting.
                  Rather than either of them, it was the nostalgia. Before he was a King, he had been a soldier, and as any soldier who ever enlisted in an army can tell you, if they weren’t performing their task, training, standing guard or waiting around for orders, they were cleaning. They were polishing their swords, organizing the contents of their chests, or cleaning their floors. They were making their beds four times because the outcome had to be ‘just right’ for their commanding officer’s approval. Add this to the fact that the first few tasks for a run-of-the-mill sword-and-board infantry pawn only took two to three hours a day at most, and that meant that Qasin had spent five to six hours of every day cleaning. That’s why it was so comforting to return to an old task he had grown so familiar with for the first time in . . . How long has it been?
    Qasin looked up as he paused in thought, puzzled by a realization that sat on the tip of his tongue but never wiggled free, until he finally understood what he was looking at.
    “Eve, can your magic see what is going on in that town?” he asked his companion who was holding the wheel.
    “Yes,” she answered, “I can.”
    “And?” he asked as he put the mop back in the bucket.
    “And?” she sighed in a manner that seemed entirely out of character for her. “It’s exactly what you see: a battle.”
    “Eve, don’t dodge the question. You knew what I meant,” Qasin’s blood began to rise. It was just the type of skirting about the issue the councilmen had done in the castle around that forsaken council table.
    “It’s a battle, dear Qasin. A group of mischievous