Day 105. 76 pages, 33,838 words.

Naturally, as soon as I returned home and was foolish enough to tell Creepy what I’d learned, he insisted that we embark on our own attempt to find the lost 1500, and steal the glory from the hands of the Barbarian horde across the road.

“For honour,” he said earnestly.

“Since when did you care about honour?” I asked, and pointed at the plate in his hand. “You’re right this second eating a breakfast of leftover sushi from a band of samurai to whom you swore a solemn oath to hold their table at the food court sushi buffet while they went to a job interview, and then you took their sushi and ran away giggling.”

“They were only rōnin,” Creepy said with a roll of his eyes. “They were going to a job interview, Hatboy.”

“Not really the point.”

“Anyway, I worded the oath in such a way ‑ ”

“Can I just point out,” I did my best to head off the insanity, although I could not for the life of me have said why I bothered anymore, “this is a quest of which it’s apparently said that no one adventurer can ever hope to succeed, so a whole house-full of Barbarian adventurers have actually joined forces to do it?”

“Counterpoint,” Creepy said, “there’s two of us – three if you count Yool, the gratingly buff Christmas tree who has been here the whole time – so we meet the criteria.”

“Not by weight,” I said, “and I say that with due acknowledgement of the fact that you’re scarcely even a contributor in that category.”

“Counterpoint the second,” Creepy declared, brandishing his chopsticks. “A single Barbarian qualifies as a house-full of Barbarians.”

“That’s … not a counterpoint.”

“It renders the concept of numerical qualification invalid as a quest criterion.”

“No it doesn’t.”

Creepy pointed his chopsticks at me, close enough so I could see the wasabi on the tips. “We’re going, Hatboy.”