"We should take dat one too," Dregz insists stubbornly, pointing at the dead Drow.  "Der more bodies der better it will be."

"Yes." Jurz agrees with with Gregz,  "Der Queenie said shes wanted what was making der trouble, an it was de dark elfs who was making der troubles." Jurz agrees with Dregz.  "Der gnomey fings was doing what she said."

"Pfffftt bodies ain't good fer nuffin. If yer could do magic right we coulda taken her a prisoner ter play wid... Take der body if yer can carry it but me, I'd take her der head, heads make real good trophies. Puts it on a pike, evryone likes a good head on a pike. My old tribes Shaman had a bunch o heads on one side o his hut, said he had dems der fer some kinda magic e called Feng Sway."

"Dat works." Jurz agrees and starts to hack the head off of the dead drow.

Dregz shrugs.  Parading the head is good enough for him, particularly if it saves a lot of heavy lifting.  The little goblin looks around for a long pole to use to stick it on.

"I'll take da body.  I fink da queen will like da snakey arms too."  He waits until Jurz has the head off then lifts the body, he ties the arms around his shoulders to even out the load.  He offers Dregs his longspear to mount the head on.

"Der snakey arms are gone," Dregz points out sadly, his tone indicating that he too is very disappointed by that.

"Oh, well den ..."  Bulldust tosses the elf body back down the stairs.  In an afterthought he dashes back downstairs, reemerging soon after with a armful of red cloth and assorted weapons.  "I got all dere lil red hats.  I fink de queen will like dese.  An you can ave dis spear fer da head."  He hands Dregz a halfspear he found in the redcaps' room, then hurries to catch up with the others.

Dregz smile happily as he takes the spear from Bully.  He won't be able to carry spear AND his Holy Book, but he's more than willing to hang on to it until Jurz finishes cutting off the head of the offending Drow.

The group quickly makes their preparations then heads out the front door of the ruined house. Jurz proudly carries a shortspear with the drow priest's head impaled on top. Dregz clutches his Holy Book and a bundle of parchment sheets in both hands. Minmorc carries the securely tied redcap prisoner across his shoulder. Bulldust carries a substantial bundle of captured redcap weaponry and ushers Shelby Wright along in front of him with his stone-ball-and-chain clutched in his manacled arms. Riza, Raven, Moffdust, Oopses and Arlein form the tail of the procession.

This time the 6 goblin guards realise that these are the murderous bunch of heroes (or heroic bunch of murderers) sentenced to clean out the sewers and 4 of them quickly fall in behind to guard them. The other pair of goblins races forward down the street.

When this little procession reaches the marketplace they are met by a group of 4 orc guards and another group of 4 ogres in the red uniform of the Queenz Guardz with its golden flaming sword emblem on their tabards.

The ogres lead the way northward from the marketplace with the orcs falling in at the rear of the procession. Dozens of other goblins, orcs, hobgoblins and other races follow along excitedly asking what all the excitement is about.

When the procession reaches the palace the group and their ogre escort are soon ushered in to see the Queen again. She sits on her throne in the giant fire god's temple as before and she doesn't waste any time before speaking her mind.

"You are back already? You better not be trying anything stupid. I am in no mood for games!"

She waves a hand and a side door opens on its own. Die-Arda marches in leading Rog by a rope that is tied around the dog's neck.

Minmorc will stride forward to stand half way between the Queen and the group. "Yer, Queeniness, wees come back coz we found a mobba tough little buggers inna secret hidey hole." Minmorc will dump his captive between them. "We dun killed most but Bully dun good an caught dis one. Dere boss wozza mad dirt elf, I fink his god was err.. Err.. Eet Nul or summat. Not sure coz he died real quick so we dun brung yer his head. We reckon dey bin hackin up yer Gobbos, dey woz near der bodies an dey had lotsa bloody blades." As he talks Minmorc will gesture at the head and then he'll point at Shelby. "An we found dis feller woz dere prisoner, calls imself Shelby an e says e gots a message fer yer. E reckons its portant, e knows dat if it's not, ees dead." Minmorc will turn to stand side on and will bring out Vera, pointing slightly at Shelby and clearly barring the way to the Queen.

Riza stands off to one side, this time waiting and watching the conversations back and forth.

Bulldust respectfully takes off his red bonnet in the presence of the queen.  He lays out the captured weapons and nine dirty red caps on the floor.  Then he distances himself from Shelby (in case he transforms or explodes or the queen hexes him or something) and stands near Moffa.  He decides it would be best if he does not speak.

Moffdust bobs her head respectfully at the Queen as she enters the throne room, then stands of to the side with Bully. She hopes Shelby doesn't turn out to be the Queen's nephew. She glances about the room to see if anything has changed.

Jurz grins when he sees Rog and waves the head on a stick around enthusiasticaly, then grins and lets the dark elf head fall off into the pile  of stuff the others have deposited before the queen.

"Do I give der Queen dese ?" Dregz asks Jurz quietly, rustling the sheaf of parchments.  The little goblin thinks the presentation is going really well thus far, and wouldn't want to spoil it.

The Queen scowls at Jurz and points her finger at the drow's head.

"Put that back on your spear and bring it to me!" she commands him.

Then she peers at the bound up redcap prisoner with a sneer on her face.

"Redcaps! Stinking little fey! How many were there? Did you kill all the rest of those nasty little vermin?" she asks the group in general.

Then she looks thoughtful for a moment and asks, "What were they up to, I wonder? We shall see. The Queenz Guardz are very talented at persuading prisoners to talk, so they shall have this redcap to play with."

"Take him away," she tells one of the ogres. "I want to know everything the drow told them."

Then she turns her attention to Shelby Wright.

"A tiefling, I presume? So what is this message you have for me, Mister Tiefling?"

Jurz shrugs in response to Dregz questions, after all the sheets didn't seem to hold any spells or sensible writing - but nor were they soft enough to perform the other important service well.

Then  he stabs the spear back into the drow head, and forces it well into the gory artefact, before hoisting it upright and carries it across to the queen.  Once there he offers her the spear.

Bulldust nods emphatically when the queen asks if all the redcaps were killed.  He hopes she can count all the way up to nine but does not want to be the one to suggest that she count the caps herself.  He just listens and tries to stand still.

In reply to Bulldust (msg # 366):

Seeing bulldust start counting his fingers and stop, "da hatz, do da hats

Minmorcs whole face scrunches up as he tries to figure out how many red caps there were. "Der wiz a lotta red caps, pretty sure dyes dead coz when yer burn em lots or puts a big hole in em dey went aargh, pfffff an all dat was left was a toof... We can show yer der toofs. Oi, Dregz, show der Queen der toofs and der papers."

"Ise only got one of der teeth," Dregz apologises generally, very much in awe of the mighty Queen, but dutifully holds it out for inspection.  The papers he will also hand over, though given the druid's evaluation he's not sure how useful they will be.

Moffdust may have some notion of making a pretty necklace of the teeth so she does not speak of them to the queen. She continues to gawk around the room.

The Ogre-Mage Queen looks at the tooth then at the pile of red hats and pokes them around a bit but doesn't take them.

"Ten," she says thoughtfully, then looks at the prisoner and amends that to "Eleven!"

She nods in satisfaction and takes the bundle of papers from Dregz. She starts to glance through them disinterestedly then something catches her attention and she flips through them far more animatedly.

"Erythnul? You served Him?" she snarled at the impaled head on its spear. "You thought to draw my people to Him in terror and fear of the death that stalked the streets while they slept? You black-hearted little bastard!"

She stared at the drow's head with fury in her eyes and seemed almost on the verge of leaping up to grab the severed head and crushing it in her bare hands. But slowly her fury abated and she sat back gazing thoughtfully at the severed head-on-a-stick.

"You know, that could almost have worked. Could have worked, if you had come to the right place and spoken to the right person first, you fool."

Shelby Wright shuffles forward awkwardly with the stone still held in his arms. He glances around nervously but seems to grow in confidence when he sets eyes on Minmorc and even more when his gaze swings to the Queenz Guardz.

He turns back to Queen Moldavite and begins his tale.

"Yer Majesty, I's had a dream! It's a big dream, a powerful dream. I's had a dream where all mens ain't created equals. I's had a dream where the strongest is all onna same team and the colour of that team is red! Red with big muscles in it!" He points at the ogre guards in their red tabards. "Red with big spikes on it!" He swings around and points straight at Minmorc. "A Mighty Red Team and their Mighty Queen! Youz'll be unbeatable!"

He pauses, panting and short of breath as the excitement almost overwhelms him. After a few seconds he forges on with his tale.

"I was up in the hills about a week ago, Yer Majesty. I found a good safe spot to sleep under a tree what had got struck by lightning – I knowed it was a safe spot cos lightning never strikes twice inna same spot, does it? Specially when youz takes the lightning rod outa the tree, right? Well that's when the dream started, you see? And in the dream we are part of this team, Yer Majesty. You and me and all yer ogre guards in bright red uniforms with lotsa spikes and big red helmets. And the crowds are cheering and the spikey ball is thrown and an orc inna green uniform catches it and he doesn't stand a chance cos yer ogres chase him down and rip him apart and grab the spikey ball and carry it to the goal and it's a touchdown and the crowd goes wild and youz are the CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!"

He stands with arms upraised, his eyes glowing with passion and his chest heaving as he stands there panting with excitement.