“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. ”
― Anatole France, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

It had been three days since Karl had been released from the sickroom and he was back to training. Today’s schedule included practicing throwing the pilum. Karl was glad that his new body possessed increased strength, for he did not believe that his human body could have handled this much stress in so short a time. Let’s just say that he wasn’t known for physical strength back home.

Despite the ease with which he manipulated the plum, the chainmail armour which he was made to wear was beginning taking its toll on him.

“Throw!” called Adler

Karl again heaved the weapon to its target, which was a carving of a nondescript Nāga etched into large slab of wood. The pilum immediately impaled the target in its “chest”.

The others scored similar hits, one even hit what appeared to be the target’s… ahem, nether regions, causing just about every male present to visibly cringe.

“Good men you get five minutes rest and then I want all of you running ten times around the training grounds with full equipment! Now go!” Adler said loudly making sure everyone heard the order.

Karl decided to sit on a bench beside another Drake named Zōlak (albeit he did differ from Froă, and thus was probably a different sub-species), a large muscular minotaur named Kaine Thunderhorne, two humanoid felines; one resembling a tiger and named Khan, the other a black panther by the name of Taka and two Diamond dogs named Septus and Salinas.

The last individual on the bench was a stone Golem who said that he had been “cursed to be a Gôlh”. He did not specify what a “Gôlh” was. Whoever had done the cursing had named him Boulder, as the curse had more or less erased his former identity.

Not the most inconspicuous bunch, but they were good company. Fortunately because he was going to share a tent and probably the biggest part of his day with these guys. For most of these guys it would be the first time they ever did the Ironhoof route just like him with as only exceptions Kaine and Khan who seemingly knew each other from the past. They had told them a few stories about the swamp, although they did add to it that they only did the route twice on the calmest moments that the route had ever known.

They spent the five minute pause in silence, as no one really wanted to waste their breath with small-talk.

“Okay, your five minutes are up. Get your asses off of that bench! I wanna see all of you running ten laps around the complex. What’re you doin’, waiting for an invitation? Let’s go!”

Adler belted out his orders in a tone that would make the toughest drill sergeant flinch. Everyone grabbed their gear and got to running in formation. Adler taking the lead alongside his second in command, a minotaur by the name of Turok Stonebreaker (nicknamed “Bonebreaker” by just about anyone who met him).

“Are you sweating already men?!” Adler asked.

“Yes, sir!”

“That’s good! Otherwise we might need to pick up the pace! Hey, you know what, let’s do that anyway!”

And so the Griffin started running slightly faster, forcing the others to increase their pace.

“In that swamp we’re going to meet pirates and monster snakes! Do you know what to say when you meet them?!”

“We say nothing and let our weapons do the talking, sir!” Karl and the others replied in chorus.

“Damn straight! We get paid to fight, not to talk!” Adler replied content with the answer.

The exercise was definitely one of the more difficult that Karl had been put through since the beginning of his training. He had made some small calculations about the equipment he had been given: he knew that a standard Roman soldier’s equipment would be around 30 kg (this, somehow, was one of the few precise details he remembered from history class). His own equipment resembled that, but seeing as he was far greater in size than a normal Roman and his equipment was scaled accordingly, he believed it was fair to say that his equipment was much heavier.

Even with his new body this exercise was brutal: walking with this stuff was bearable, but running? He dearly hoped that this would be the one and only time that they would be put through this, but had little confidence.

The ten rounds passed far too slow for him, but when they were finally done he was glad that he could get out of his get-up. The dark olive-green tunic he had been given was drenched with sweat, the stench was, luckily, bearable, only making the air around him thick and warm with a faint undertone of an unpleasant smell.

Karl was also the one who had the least trouble with cooling back off, with the exception of Boulder, who didn’t show the smallest amount of fatigue. Hell, the dude was made out of rock! No muscles to be worn out!

The others, however, had either the problem of fur or, in Zōlak’s case, total lack of sweat glands.

It was no surprise that Zōlak immediately hurried himself to the nearest shaded spot. After a small rest, Adler lined everyone up in front of him.

“Good work, men! You have performed admirably! Return your equipment to the maintenance service… and move your asses over to the bathhouse as fast as possible! You guys smell worse than a rotting corpse.” Adler ordered.

“Yes, Sir!” All the men said in chorus.
“And don’t forget; you guys are allowed to leave these grounds after dinner until 10 PM, but not a second later. Is that understood?!” Turok asked, although it was more a statement than an actual question.

“Yes, sir!”

“Good! Now I want to see your asses back here tomorrow, same time as today! You may go.”

Immediately Karl and the rest scattered, all trying to get to the maintenance service first. It was a kind of friendly competition that they held with each other. That, and Karl really wanted to be first to the bathhouse.

He ended fourth, but all he cared about was getting into the bathhouse. He first took a towel and shorts and headed to the changing room, where he saw various other mercenaries busy undressing, including his friend Locust who, like everyone else, was also (somehow) wearing the standard olive green tunic and wooden sandals, although they looked more like horseshoes. Locust motioned to a spot next to him and Karl immediately headed over.

“Karl! How’s it going?” Locust asked, happy to see his friend again.

“Great; my team’s pretty good. Some rather… interesting characters. Yours?”

“They’re cool. Are you here to relax or just to clean up?”

“Both. Running around with full equipment one is no joke!”

“Tell me about it! My wings are killing me! They’ve been pressed down against me all day!”

The two finished undressing and with a white towel and dark olive-dram shorts to cover himself, Karl headed to the cleaning service where you could get your clothes cleaned free of charge. Locust followed, his towel covering his entire body except his head. After both had handed in their clothing they proceeded to the heated baths.

Both of them laid their towels and sandals near the side, careful to not step on the burning-hot floor before carefully entering the hot bath where various mercenaries were swimming or chatting with each other. A green-scaled lizard made his way over to Karl and Locust.

“Karl! I see you did manage to find this place after all.” Zōlak joked, referring to Karl’s first day, on which Karl had asked where the bathhouse was while standing directly in front of it.

“Very funny Zōlak. I guess you managed to cool off again.”

“Yeah. We Drakes are no different from regular lizards: our temperatures change pretty easily. Not always the best thing, but in this case I do believe it’s an advantage.”

“You are in Karl’s team?” Locust asked.

“Yeah. The name’s Zōlak if you hadn’t already heard. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same. Name’s Locust as noling here manages to understand my real name.”

“Believe me I tried, but it didn’t work out so well so I just named him Locust.” Karl told Zōlak who nodded in understanding.

“I see. So I assume you are with the scouts.” Which earned him a nod form Locust.

“Thought so: Changelings are usually either scouts or light infantry unless we’re doing some sort of infiltration. At least that’s what Kaine told me.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, I noticed you always wear that amulet. Why is that?” Karl asked, curious, as a Froă also wore such an amulet.

“This thing here?” Zōlak said as he held the amulet. “My kind naturally produces toxic saliva. This rune makes sure I can produce as much as I need to keep my mouth moist without needing to worry about poisoning somebody.”

“Ah, that explains a lot. Ti’s beautifully made.”

“Here, you can take a closer look.” Zōlak offered as he held it out.

“I wouldn’t do that. Magic and I aren’t the best of friends.”

“How bad?”

“The kind of bad that you may need to recharge that thing. I naturally suck up a lot of magic to the point that it’s potentially poisonous.”

Immediately Zōlak pulled the amulet back.

“Yeah, never mind. I really don’t want to pay those stupid unicorns a hundred bits just to reload it.”

“That sounds like a shit ton of money just to recharge a little thing like that.” Locust noted, as he kind of knew the Equestrian prices.

“Yeah, can’t lock us up too long otherwise business goes down, so they decide to rip us off any chance they get. Oh well. The pleasure of knowing that without you those snobs would be in such deep shit gives me a bit of pleasure. It’s one of the reasons why I joined the guild.”

With that, the three continued to make small talk. Some of their respective team members joined in as time went on.

After a little while, Karl decided that he’d had enough of the baths and headed towards the saunas. Here, Karl made sure that his skin never made direct contact with the hot stones providing the heat for the steam. Karl and the others didn’t stay here for too long as the temperature reached over 60°C, and Karl wasn’t really someone who really liked saunas all that much anyway.
He held out for five minutes or so before he and everyone else for everyone really looked forward to getting on to the next part. They headed to the massage room. Most of the masseuses were young, but there were a couple of more elderly women too.

A big sign was placed by the door, reading in large letters: “ALL LEWD ACTIONS TOWARDS MASSEUSES STRICTLY FORBIDDEN” and, in smaller letters, the punishment was listed as a ban of three days (at minimum) from the facilities. This might not sound too bad, but since there were no personal baths, this ban would mean the only other alternative would be bathing in the ice-cold river.

Not to mention that you would miss three days of these massages!

A whole group of masseuses began walking their way and each signaled one of the guys to come over. Karl was picked out by a middle-aged female griffin. While she was definitely not as… youthful as the other girls, she still possessed a lot of charm.

“Alright, big fellah. Just lay down on the table on your stomach.”

She gestured to a table between Khan and Septus. He did as requested and waited for whatever she had in mind for him.

She used her talons to apply some oil to Karl’s body.

‘Oh boy, this woman knows how the job is done!’ Karl happily thought to himself as she professionally worked her way all over his body loosening up some knots relaxing his muscles in the process. The fact that he was able to feel the massage through his thick hide

After his entire body was done she picked up a tool Karl recognized as a strigil, which was used to remove sweat, dirt and dead skin cells. She firmly, but still somewhat gently started using the strigil until every last bit of grime was gone. He thanked her and left towards the next stop.

Normally that would be the cold baths, but luckily this society had already discovered that a cold bath isn’t really all that healthy and that a normal swimming pool would be better, so after rinsing off the massage oils, everyone gathered in the giant pool where they swam and talked with each other for a while.

A short while had passed when everyone realized that they probably should hurry the hell up or get punished for not being on time for dinner. Karl and the others went to gather their clothes, which had been washed and dried by this time.

After getting redressed, Karl and the others slowly made their way towards the dining room where they all sat themselves at a large table running the length of the room while waiting for some servants to serve their food.

The dinner consisted of some kind of meat with some sauce, two slices of bread and what Karl guessed was red cabbage. As a drink Karl simply took a glass of water.

Locust, who was sitting next to him, got a blood soup (don’t ask how they got it) with some chunks of meat in it. The Changeling had told him that Changelings gained most of their powers and nutrients from feeding off of love, but that meat still offered a decent amount of both proteins and fats to maintain physical functions and through blood Changelings still managed to gain a bit of love. Locust had assured him that the amount of love he would get out of the soup would equal of what Karl would get from nutrients and proteins from a quarter of his medium sized steak (He called it steak mainly to ease his mind. He had no idea what the hell kind of meat it actually was).

However, the love energy gained from the blood was also vastly inferior to the one gained directly from a host. Seemingly, love gained through the mental link was automatically refined (or something like that) to make it more productive and efficient, much like how oil must be run through a refinery to produce more useful and efficient products.

Taka was busy telling a story of his he experienced in the southern regions of Camelu near the border of Zebrica.

“So I see this rich fellah, a big camel who was carried along on a sedan chair with a big mob in the streets watching him. I was like ‘Hey, what’s happening here’, so I move through the crowd to get a better look at this guy.

“Nothing too special; he was sitting alone in that carriage, just looking at the crowd, nothing too strange, and I was like ‘Oh, it’s one of these “events” again!’ Seriously, why people go out of their homes to see some fat stuck up idiot pass I don’t know, so I turned to leave.

“Now as I was leaving the mob suddenly got extremely enthusiastic and I was like ‘What the hell is it now?’, so I turn around just in time to see a whole rain of Zebra Pieces (that’s their currency over there) flying straight at me.

“I was completely unprepared so I get hit straight in the face and those Pieces fall all around me. I was thrown totally off balance and before I could recover I get tackled by the crowd all swarming over me to get those Pieces!

“Holy shit, it felt like I was being assaulted by a horde of angry chickens at feeding time. It’s a good thing that I was wearing a cross protector; otherwise I doubt there would be anything left of my sword down there.

“So after a little while the crowd finally went away, leaving me in the dust. Everyone just continued doing with what they were doing, leaving me laying there on the ground for a good five minutes like I wasn’t even there!

“So after five minutes I finally managed to stand back up and I made my way back to the hotel. I got out of my armor to see how bad the bruises were and suddenly ONE Zebra Piece, ONE stupid Piece falls out of my armor and I was like ‘Are you shittin’ me? All that for one stupid Piece! So I’m angry as Tartarus and suddenly the door opens and room a servant comes in. This boy was a small Camel kid and he asks,
‘Mister have you seen the noble today? There was a big event today in the main street.’ [Taka imitates the kid’s accent.]

“I was like ‘Yeah you could say I was right in the middle of it.’”

“Oh really?” He asks, ‘Did you manage to get any Pieces?’

‘Yeah, one.’ I said, ‘Why?’”

He says, “I will buy you as much bread as you can buy for that one piece if you give it to me.”

“Now for you folks who don’t know, in Zebrica they use the same system as in Equestria. Nickel’s one, copper’s five, silver’s fifty, you get the point. So ?I say, ‘Yeah, sure; buy me some bread’, thinking it was a copper Piece, and I gave him one of my own Nickel Pieces as his own share.

So I wait for like five damn hours for my loaves, and I was like ‘Where the hell is that kid?’ All of a sudden, I hear big commotion in the street. I was like ‘What the hell is it now?’ I just waited for a while longer and the kid suddenly re-enters my room without bread.

I ask him where the hell my bread is, and he signals me to follow, so I follow thinking he left it downstairs or somethin’. We arrive downstairs and he goes outside and I was like. ‘Did you leave my bread outside?’” Everyone nodded and Taka continued.

“I headed outside and in front of the hotel stood this big-ass cart filled with loaves of bread.

‘Look mister I got your breads!’ The kid happily says. Turns out that Copper Piece turned out to be a really dirty Gold Piece, meaning I now had one hundred loaves or bread. Turns out that each time that rich guy comes to town and does that little money rain, he always adds one Gold Piece to it.”

Karl and the others were now laughing their lungs out at the misfortune of their colleague.

“I kept three breads to myself, I gave ten or so to the hotel and the rest was given away to the population. The rest of my stay in that little town I got a VIP treatment.”

Taka finished his story right before the bell rang again, signaling that everyone was allowed to leave the room.

Instead of immediately heading outside, Karl headed towards the barracks to grab some stuff. He opened his locker and took out a small letter, which he had been given by Rover before heading off on his journey.

Whilst heading towards the bridge, Karl admired the guild’s buildings. Whilst much was solely meant for the mercenaries, some buildings like the bathhouses were also open to the rest of the population. He saw various groups of mercenaries just talking or hanging around a bit on his way to the central bridge where the guards merely glanced at him.

He still got various looks from almost everyone, but there was no one brave enough to risk a confrontation, so nobody made a remark about his appearance. Karl slowly made his way to the address given in the letter, which he reached within three quarters of an hour.

****
It was in an industrial area near the river on the northern outskirts of the city. The address belonged to a medium sized warehouse which looked abandoned. After a little while of searching he found a door with a bell. Karl sounded the bell and patiently waited for any kind of response.

The door opened slightly and a gruff voice issued forth.

“What you want?”

“I’ve got a message from the alpha of the Hoovetown Hills Diamond Dog Pack for… Max?” Karl held out the envelope.

The door opened. revealing a beige-furred Diamond Dog. “Alright, you follow me.”

The dog locked the door behind them before motioning Karl to follow him.

The hallway was not in the finest condition, but at least it looked like it was being maintained, unlike the outside of the building. They headed to the first floor, passing a few more Diamond dogs who just looked at Karl suspiciously. They stopped in front of a door which was probably once the office of the warehouse manager.

The dog signaled Karl to wait as he knocked on the door before entering and quickly closing it again, preventing Karl from seeing what was in the room. Karl was not really feeling comfortable: this entire situation reminded him way too much of organised crime, and he didn’t want to end up on the bottom of the river with weights tied to his feet. Further thoughts were silenced as the dog opened the door again and signaled permission to enter before leaving, presumably back to the door.

Karl cautiously entered the room. The room was actually pretty cozy; on the floor laid a red carpet, the walls were a darker shade of green and in the hook stood a small flower, the wall opposite of the door contained windows looking into the main storage room, on his right stood two large bookcases and to his right was a desk with two chairs for guests and in the big chair sat a Diamond dog who resembled Rover quite well against the right wall stood a filing cabinet.

“Welcome uh…” the dog started whilst motioning to one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

“Karl Kempf, but just call me Karl.” Karl introduced himself as he headed towards the chair.

“Welcome Mr. Karl, I hear you have a message from my brother with you.” That explained the resemblance.

“Yes, indeed.” Karl handed him the letter as he sat down. Max opened the letter and started reading it carefully.

“I see, so it seems my brother finally managed to regroup his pack again and with your help, he’s… *expanded* into a small town. That’s definitely what we need.”

Karl raised his remaining eyebrow at that.

“My brother asks here for me to send some reinforcements and resources his way. Seems like he’s planning on making a stronghold of that little town. An excellent idea, wouldn’t you agree?”

“From what I know, yes.” Karl replied, unsure of what to think.

Max nodded before continuing. “You don’t really realize what this means do you?

“Not really.” Karl admitted honestly, in his world conquering a town like Hoovetown was nothing spectacular.

“This is the first home-turf Equestrian defeat of this scale in centuries, but somehow I doubt that it means much to you.” This dog was good, this stuff indeed meant nothing to Karl.

“However, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’ll send help.”

With that Karl prepared to leave.

“But I need help with something of my own, first. After all, the sun comes up for free, but that’s about it.”

“Help with what?”

“It’s two things, actually. The first thing is an ancient Nāga artifact that recently has been discovered by some pony scientists. A stone tablet with text on it.”

“And you want it, I guess?”

“No; the organization I have a debt to wants that tablet. I don’t mess around with the kind of shit that would drive friends to backstab each other. These guys are above my league.”

Karl nodded that he understood, not really liking the idea of stealing something and getting himself in such a game.

“And the second thing?”

“First, proof you’ve got the skills and the stones to get that tablet. Then I’ll tell you part two. The less you know, the less you can tell an interrogator.”

“There’s one little problem. I’m in the mercenary guild, so I don’t really have time to *do* much of this.”

“Bullshit. In five days, the guild celebrates the anniversary of its founding. It’s been thirty years now, I think. It’s a big event in the city. The party celebrates the day they wouldn’t have to give fuck-all about the nobles for once. Plenty of time to sneak off, break into the museum and steal that tablet wouldn’t you agree?”

“I guess so.” Karl replied unsure.

“You know, I’m surprised I had to tell you that. I’d think you’d know. Do you have a partner or do I need to arrange one of those too for you?”

“I think perhaps I can convince a Changeling to help me out.”

“Excellent choice. Now, this is the last time we meet before the heist, so follow me. I can give you all the info you need. Emphasis on *need*.”

With that Max stood up and walked towards the door followed by Karl.

****

“So you understand the plan?” Max asked after having briefed Karl.

“Yeah, but are you certain that this information is trustworthy over five days? That is, how do you know that things won’t change over time?”

“Yes, and should there be unforeseen circumstances then you shall be notified.”

“Hey boss, doesn’t he need a partner?” One of the dogs asked.

“He has a possible Changeling partner.” Max replied, making nearly all the dogs “OWH!!!”

“You know a Changeling?” Another dog asked enthusiastically, getting close in Karl’s face.

“Yes, I have a Changeling partner.”

“Awesome! What’s it like?”

“Uhm…” Karl was not really sure how to answer on that one. “Well uh, I guess it’s pretty cool. Just need to make sure you feed them good, twice a day.” Karl finally replied awkwardly remembering the previous night.

**** Flashback

The barracks were quiet as everyone was sleeping except for one: Locust the Changeling was hungry!!! He had been a bit sick today, so he had not eaten so much during his last ‘feeding session’ with Karl and now he was paying the price for that. He was wriggling in his hammock which was hanging above Karl.

He really didn’t want to bother Karl at this hour in the night, but after a while the unpleasant hungry feeling actually made his stomach hurt until he couldn’t deal with it anymore. He prayed Karl wouldn’t be too pissed off. He used his wings to land on the floor careful to make sure his buzzing did not awaken anyone.

“Karl!” He started as he stood on his hind legs trying to awaken the slumbering human with his fore hooves. “Karl! I need to ask something!”

Karl meanwhile was having a rather pleasant dream in which he was having a date (actually, he didn’t know what the hell to call it; date just seemed most accurate) with the Nāga woman. She had just showed off a couple of her tricks that she could do in the water and now she was slowly, seductively advancing on him.

When she was relatively close to him, he heard something that sounded like Locust.

“Karl, can I have a snack?”

‘A snack? The fuck does he mean by that?’ He thought confused.

He quickly glanced at where the sound came from which was a little bit to his right. There, he saw a large table full of crisps spontaneously appear. Much to Karl’s dismay, they were paprika flavor.

“Sure thing. Knock yourself out. Go all the way!” He quickly said, having enough of the interruptions. He had more important things to deal with at the moment.

“You sure?” Came a confused reply.

“Yes, now shut up and dig in!”

With that, he turned back to the Nāga. By now she had crossed the remaining distance and slowly started leaning in for the kiss. Their lips touched and a sweet, sugary citrus taste entered his mouth.

He slowly pulled her in an embrace, deepening the kiss, when suddenly he felt her tongue begin to explore, probing between his lips. He happily obliged and started wrestling with her tongue for dominance. He did everything he could to make sure the kiss lasted as long as possible. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the kiss as much as possible for the last few seconds before he would have to take a breath. Karl found himself leaning back until he was flat on the ground. The Nāga curled her reptilian tail loosely around one of his legs, pressing her body even closer. Fireworks of endorphins and dopamine exploded across Karl’s brain, raging euphorically along his neurons.

Karl cracked his eyelids open, wanting to stare deeply into the golden eyes of the Nāga, savouring the moment.

Instead of yellow humanoid eyes, Karl found himself looking into blue insectoid ones. Locust pulled back trying to regain his breath and fortunately due to being low in oxygen.

Karl managed to keep himself together long enough for his brain to properly register the situation.

“Locust… What... in the holy… mother… of CRAP? What did I tell you about asking permission and about tongue?!”

“You said it was alright! I believe your exact words were: ‘Go all the way’.” Locust defended himself whilst making sure to not wake up anyone.

Karl wanted to retort, but found himself without any valid arguments. He didn’t know what was worse: that he thought Locust was a woman and he had hoped of going all the way, the fact he tongued him, or the fact that he himself had asked for it. So he just sighted.

“Did you at least get what you wanted?”

“Sure did. That was a good meal. If anything, I’m a bit too full. How am I ever supposed to fall asleep now?!”

“Don’t know. Not my problem. I need to get to bathroom ASAP!” Karl said before stepping out his hammock and quickly hurrying off to the toilet (while desperately trying to hide his full-on erection from his friend).

**** End Flashback

“Yeah. Definitely make sure they get two good meals before they go to sleep. Otherwise, certain, uh… *things* might happen. Just trust me on this one, alright?” Most dogs looked confused, but nodded anyways.

“Okay. So that heist is in five days. See if you can get that Changeling on board. If not, let me know so I can appoint a dog as partner to you.” Karl nodded that he understood before being led out of the warehouse.

Before closing the door, Max added, “Oh, and one more thing: remember if everything goes to shit, make sure to not mention my name, understood? Not only will they not believe you, but it also makes me a bit more pissed.” Max told him as he patted the dagger he had in his belt.

Karl merely nodded before hurrying away as quickly as possible without it looking indignant.

“And so it starts again.” Karl sighted as he made his way back to the mercenary camp.

Author's Note

hello everybody I know it has been a long time, but in my defenseI have updated each week. My editor has edited one of the previous unedited chapters namely chapter three.

That was not exactly what I had in mind, but one chapter more done I guess. I hope you have enjoyed the new chapter and leave some support behind if you did and I will create more chapters in the future.

If you feel like it tell me what you found funny in the chapter and until next time.
Editor: Vlasislas32
Author: TheShadowOfZama