(Bonus chapter for "Crow_13," 1/5)
At dawn the next day, Murphy appeared before the Blackflame Pass encampment with a strange assortment of ogres, bugbears, and goatfolk, making quite a spectacle of himself.
The army of bizarre monsters caused an unnecessary commotion and was, quite naturally, stopped by the Blood League retinue. But when they heard Murphy explain that these odd-looking fellows were the newly established "Transian Foreign Legion," even the well-traveled captains of the Blood League retinue were dumbfounded.
There was nothing particularly hard to understand about the explanation itself. But Your Excellency, Governor of Transia, did you want to listen to the vampire joke you were telling?
Did you know that during the previous few Black Calamities, the gnoll armies had been aided by plenty of conspicuous ogres and bugbears? Good grief, you really had become so desperate to strengthen your own forces that you were resorting to anything and grasping at straws.
Might I suggest you get your head checked, sweetheart?
According to the rules at Blackflame Pass, dangerous creatures from the Dark Mountains weren't allowed through. But Lord Murphy's "connections" were certainly powerful enough; once the matter was reported, a written order from Lady Heather soon gave the creatures the green light.
Of course, the price of pulling strings was that the wise and mighty Governor Murphy was summoned to Lady Heather's office. After she lectured him at length, he painfully wrote a five-hundred-word letter of self-criticism and swore, in the name of the Blood Eagle Clan, never again to use those damn words that would "hurt the dwarves' feelings."
But expecting a vampire to keep such a vow was a joke. The advantage of vampires having no gods was on full display here: to them, an oath like this was no more binding than toilet paper.