After finishing exploring and looting the rest of the missile silo, Alice and Bridgette returned to the cavernous chamber where they had had their showdown with Warren and his crew. Becky stood near Colin and Deirdre, the three chatting quietly while the remaining eleven women from the sve chains sat together, tears on their faces as they came to grips with their ordeal.

  The two women had donned their traditional adventuring clothes, although Fi had modified them a little while they were being repaired. Alice now wore a snug white dress, cut low across the bodice with a shawl draped over her. Pink accents traced down the dress, highlighting the sshes up the sides that revealed her thighs when she walked. Bridgette's Red Sonja garb had changed into a more traditional warrior princess garb, a little bit more covering than before, but still very much the same. A mix of leather and bronze armor covered her, intricate designs carved into the metalwork, and a red cape connected to one shoulder pauldron. Armored gloves completed her look, running up her forearms.

  Becky stood, running to Alice and Bridgette and pulled them into a hug. "Thank you two so much for coming for me, for all of us. No matter how much that asshole talked, I never had any doubts."

  "We're sorry we couldn't get here sooner," Alice started. "It's all our fault."

  "Bullshit," Becky cut her off. "It's Warren's fault and the rest of his ilk. It's not on you guys to protect the whole world. We appreciate that you do, but not everything that goes wrong is your fault. Can we get out of here, though? We're all pretty much done with bunkers at this point."

  Bridgette ughed, spping the smaller woman on the shoulder. "Absolutely, Becks. I'm ready to head back home. And thank you, by the way. Those meals you made us before we went out? They were amazing."

  Deirdre stepped over, gncing toward Becky. "She is the cook?" Bridgette nodded and Deirdre briefly bowed to Becky. "Thank you, your food is amazing." As the collection of women and the lone elven wizard trekked up the stairs to depart Warren's missile silo, they gathered clothes from different rooms on their way. By the time they reached the top, most of the women had retively modest clothes, but nothing substantial. Bridgette stepped out into the Kansas winter, a cold gust taking her breath away and her new cloak billowing behind her.

  "How are we going to get everyone home?" Alice turned, gncing around. "Winter isn't a pleasant time of year and we've got those two women from town, plus Becky, plus the eleven others we rescued. None of them have weather-appropriate clothing."

  Deirdre opened her storage ring, spilling a collection of winter coats onto the ground in front of them. "I found these when exploring the bunker. They were in a storage room on the bottom level, the third one by the guns and the food." She blushed a deep scarlet. "I think you two might have missed them when you did your scouting." Alice blushed bright red as well, staring at her feet.

  Bridgette gnced between the two women, realization slowly dawning. "Wait, so ..."

  "Sorry to disturb, Professor Bridgette," Deirdre said, quickly turning and starting to hand out the coats. Bridgette's mouth hung open, staring at the elf as she walked off, then gnced to Alice who refused to meet her eyes.

  "Did she really see?" Alice bobbed her head in assent quickly then scurried after Deirdre to help hand out the coats.

  Colin gnced around, confused. "Why do I feel like I missed something?"

  "I don't know, nerd boy. I just don't know." Bridgette slugged Colin in the arm. "But that was a rough fight."

  Colin nodded, his face darkening. He gnced at the redhead, reaching out for her arm. "Bridgette, this was different. Dolr was different. I was so caught up after the inn that it didn't sink in, but by the time we got to the bottom of the bunker, it hit home. We were killing people. Actual, real, people. Regur people that two years ago we might have honked at in traffic or bumped into at the grocery store. It's different than killing wolves, kobolds, elementals, or even the orcs we found in the Winds"

  Bridgette sighed, sitting down on a rock and patting the ground next to her for Colin to sit. "I know, I feel it too. I think it's a lot less for Alice, she mostly focuses on healing us. She fights some, sure, but mostly she's a support role. You and I - and Deirdre - are the ones taking souls. And you know her better than I do, if it bothers her. It's hard, though. I'm not sure how to deal with it. To a certain extent, I just sp the silly face on and find the next opportunity to be outrageously slutty and pretend like nothing I do in life bothers me. But it does." She let out a deep sigh, leaning back until she was ying on the ground and staring at the sky, gray clouds starting to sprinkle snow upon them.

  "I'm not saying I'd change a thing," she continued. "If it's us or them, it's us every time. And I don't believe there's some bullshit fairy tale world where we all just learn to get along, either. So it was always going to come down to killing, the strongest choosing to either protect or exploit the weak. And jokes aside, I'm on team protect, not exploit."

  Colin id down next to her, snowfkes pattering down on his upturned face. "Agreed. I just don't want to keep walking down this road and then realize that I'm killing people because it's the easy choice. I'll do it when it's necessary, when other options have failed, when we have to protect people. Not to get my own way, not to get what I want. I wonder if this is how soldiers feel?"

  Bridgette shrugged, carving out a path in the snow around them. "Honestly? No idea. I'd hope so, though."

  Suddenly, Deirdre and Alice loomed over the two and peered down at them. "Doing okay there?" Alice asked, reaching down and helping Bridgette to her feet. Deirdre repeated the process, pulling the wizard up from the ground.

  Bridgette nodded and grinned, a smirk on her face as she looked around. "You know, that's a lot of single dies we're bringing back to our town. The women are going to have the men outnumbered like five-to-one. I wonder if it's time to look into polygamy?"

  Alice put her hands on her hips and scowled at Bridgette. "Don't you dare. I'm not the sharing type."

  As Deirdre and Colin rolled their eyes and walked off, they could hear Bridgette continuing to plead with Alice. "Please babe? We could find someone nice, that the two of us agree on? Think how much fun it could be."

  "Are you saying I'm not enough for you?"

  "No! Not at all!"

  "Then why would you want to add a third?"

  "But babe ... think how hot the sex could be!"

  The elves cpped their hands over their ears and kept walking, putting more distance between themselves and the bickering women.

  WhimsicalLantern