Dr. Flagg sighed. "I’m sure we will, but we’d appreciate it if you’d foreshadow on your own time." He waved his hand and the conference room door swung open behind her.

"The future is uncertain," intoned Esmerelda not taking the hint.

"Yes. Thank you," insisted Dr. Flagg. He caused the door to bang against the wall a couple of times for emphasis.

"The paths to our destinies are enshrouded in the fog of mystery," continued Esmerelda.

Ubet leaped on the table clutching his head. "I sense… I sense… the inky black, er, blackness of your father’s minions in… Zantaria!"

"I must go to Zantaria to protect innocents from my Father’s corruption, even as I struggle to resist its dark temptations!" she stated. "Until we meet again!" She vanished as she had appeared.

"Good call, guys," said Agent fanning the black smoke with his cloak.

"Man, she was over the top, down the other side, under the bottom and halfway back up again," said Ubet.

Agent indicated her character sheet. "Plus, her back story was eight pages long."

"That was a close call," said Ubet. "We all would have been reduced to sidekick status hanging around her."

"Why don’t we go ahead and have a talk with the next applicant?" suggested Agent.

"Do we have to?" whined Dr. Flagg.

"May as well. We’ve got the room for the rest of the day," said Agent.

"I am Thundora the Femizonian! No man can defeat me in battle!" boasted the next applicant as she strode through the door. Not merely large and sweaty, but bulky, Thundora filled the narrow doorway with a mass that was ninety-percent muscle and ten percent scale mail. The rest was a huge double-edged axe.

No man can defeat in battle, Agent jotted on his notepad. "That could come in handy."

"Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself," suggested Ubet.

"’Little?!’ Is that some kind of crack?" snarled Thundora hefting her axe and looming menacingly over Ubet. "Like I’m some kind of little girl put here for your pleasure? Is that what you think?"

Ubet swallowed. "Uh, no," he argued.

Thundora turned and sneered at Agent. "You call yourselves men. I scrape better men than you off my boots on a regular basis! ‘Mighty Thrusting Sword’ indeed. More like ‘Mighty Limp Sword.’"

"Well, see about that name…" began Agent.

"Geez, wotta battle axe," whispered Ubet to Dr. Flagg.

"Yeah, and her weapon’s pretty impressive too," returned Dr. Flagg.

They both paused as if waiting for the rim shot.

Instead, Thundora went on: "Bah! Even if I didn’t already have a complete and utter contempt for all things masculine, I wouldn’t be seen with a bunch of weak little testosterone monkeys like you!" she snarled.

"So you came here for an interview because…" suggested Dr. Flagg.

Thundora stopped in mid-rant and there was a long pause. "Because no one likes me and I have nowhere else to go!" wailed Thundora.

"Okay, thanks for your time," said Agent.

"I’m hostile to men and women think I’m a wet blanket!" she continued.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have another winner," muttered Dr. Flagg.

"Even the Psychotic Militant Sisterhood said I need to lighten up," sobbed Thundora, huge muscular tears now rolling down her cheeks.

"Er, Beef," suggested Agent. "Why don’t you take Thundora downstairs and buy her a cup of coffee."

"Or some anti-depressants," added Dr. Flagg.

"I can get it myself!" snapped Thundora when Beef opened the door. "I’m not helpless, you know!"

Beef just shrugged and followed her out of the room.

"A lot of people think I have a great sense of humor," they heard her say as she headed down the stairs.

Dr. Flagg turned to Agent. "On those notices you posted yesterday, they didn’t by any chance say, ‘Emotionally stable need not apply.’"

"Listen," said Ubet, "am I the only one here who could use a drink at this point?"

When Agent and Dr. Flagg both assured him that he wasn’t, he offered to go downstairs and bring back a pitcher or beer and some mugs. He narrowly missed being stepped on by the unicorn the next applicant rode through the door.

"How the hell did that thing get up the stairs?" wondered Ubet.

The unicorn was white and preternaturally beautiful with a golden mane. The unicorn’s rider was also white and preternaturally beautiful with a golden mane. She sat sidesaddle and wore a flowing white gown. "I am Chastity," she said.

"Big surprise there," commented Dr. Flagg.

Agent squinted down at her character sheet. He was starting to get one of those headaches behind his right eye. "It says here that you’re a virgin, an empath and a healer," he read.

"I sense your pain," she told Agent. With that, the unicorn trotted close enough for Chastity to reach down and touch his brow with delicate alabaster fingers. Agent’s headache went away.

"Hey, thanks," said Agent.

"Mine is the power of love and purity," said Chastity smiling serenely.

"Oh, puh-lease," said Dr. Flagg rolling his eyes.

Chastity regarded him with eyes like soothing pools of blue. "I sense you are a very angry man. There is a bitterness about you brought on by an existence not of your own choosing." She and the unicorn moved toward him. "I can ease your sorrow." She reached down to caress his check with fingers like a butterfly kissing the dew off an April rose.

"You and your similes can just keep your hands off of me," warned Dr. Flagg pushing his chair back to avoid her touch.

Chastity looked at him sadly but not judgmentally. "Peace, friend. I mean you only good."

At that moment, Ubet returned carrying a tray with a pitcher of beer, four large mugs and bowls of peanuts and popcorn. He stepped in something the unicorn had left, skidded across the floor and went down with a crash sending beer, snacks and broken glass everywhere.

"I sense great pain!" gasped Chastity.

"That would be me," groaned Ubet, sprawled on his back.

At that moment, the room darkened and an ominous presence surrounded them.

"I sense," managed Chastity clenching her perfect teeth and clutching her pretty temples, "evil!"

The very cracks in the walls vomited forth hundreds of chittering malevolent, red-eyed ebony minions. The vicious shadowy gremlins raced around gathering up the broken glass because they liked broken glass and then merged into several large serpentine forms.

Dr. Flagg jumped out of his chair, got his back against the far wall and readied a spell to unleash against the threatening entities. Agent was even quicker getting to his feet, his magic dagger, Spirit of the Mongoose, in his hand. For his part, Ubet was focused mainly on not getting stepped on by the nervous unicorn. He rolled out from under the mythical beast’s cloven hooves right into the pile of unicorn poop that had been his downfall in the first place.

Meanwhile, from somewhere, there came music so loathsome and unearthly that it would have made Erich Zann smash his violin and stomp off the stage in disgust. The shadow serpents reared up and began swaying to the blasphemous music.

And then their master appeared.

The unicorn, being no fool, had had enough. He bolted for the door carrying the hapless Chastity with him.

The indescribable malevolent presence regarded Agent, Dr. Flagg, and Ubet for a moment. Then it spoke to them in a voice like a brain tumor: "Have any of you seen my daughter? I thought I was supposed to meet her here."

"You must have gotten your signals crossed," managed Ubet who hadn’t been as lucky avoiding the unicorn the second time. "She said something about meeting you in Zantaria."

"Zantaria?" said the vile entity in a voice like a suicidal urge. "That’s halfway around the world! Kids! They never listen." His exasperated sigh was like the dying breath of an entire people. "Oh well, thanks."

With that, the ancient and undying evil and his minions disappeared into a noisome black cloud that swirled away through the cracks in the floorboards like an inky black storm.

Agent slowly let out a breath and sheathed his magic dagger.

Dr. Flagg produced a small spray can of Simile-B-Gone™ from his cape pocket and used it up.

Ubet Choas struggled to his knees and cast a minor healing spell on himself to repair the direct and indirect damage Chastity’s unicorn had done to his small body. "Hey!" he exclaimed as he tried to wipe the unicorn poop off himself. "Its crap literally doesn’t stink! Amazing!"

"Ewww!" said the next candidate standing in the doorway. "That is so gross!"

The speaker was a slender brunette in her teens. She wore high-heeled sandals, designer blue jeans and a pastel-colored blouse. A small leather purse hung from one shoulder.

Dr. Flagg eyed her suspiciously. "So what’s your story?"

"My name is Tiffany Banks and I’m looking for some heroes who can help me get home to San Diego," she replied.

"Never heard of it," said Ubet.

"It’s in another – whatchamacallit – dimension," said Tiffany with a shrug.

Ubet glanced over at Dr. Flagg. "San Diego?" he asked.

"Not one of the ones I’m familiar with," admitted Dr. Flagg.

"So you’re not here to interview to join our team?" asked Agent.

Tiffany opened her mouth to say "As if," but changed her mind. "Will it help get me home?" she asked.

"Depends on what you can do," replied Agent.

"Well, I’m good at finding traps and monsters, and villains’ secret lairs," she offered.

"Well that’s useful," nodded Agent jotting something down on his notepad.

Dr. Flagg was not impressed. "And once you find said traps, monsters and secret lairs, do you usually need to have someone rescue you from them?"

"Well, yeah," admitted Tiffany sheepishly.

Agent scribbled out what he had just written and sighed.

"This is so not fair," complained Tiffany. "I’m not even supposed to be here. It’s all because of my dorky brother and his nerd friends. They were, like, playing Dungeons & Dragons™ in the dining room and I was just passing through on my way to the kitchen when one of them pulls out these dice that he says are magic. I mean, as if. He says a mysterious stranger gave them to him. Then he rolls them and everything goes all swirly and suddenly we’re here."

"Let me guess," said Dr. Flagg. "Your brother and his friends drag you along on a quest of some sort, right?"

"Uh huh," nodded Tiffany.

"Then they nearly score with some elf maidens, invent gunpowder, defeat a major villain and vanish back to San Diego, ditching you here," concluded Dr. Flagg. "If I had a copper piece for every time I’ve heard that story."

"I did not get ditched!" insisted Tiffany. "Like, I’m so sure they couldn’t have held the portal open for a few more minutes while I got my cell phone?" In response to the blank looks she was getting, she added. "I mean, we’d been here for months and my bonus free weekend minutes roll over if you don’t use them and… Oh, never mind."

"Okay," said Agent. "The thing is, we’re really not ready to undertake any quests until we get our personnel issues resolved here."

"Plus, we have enough trouble with anachronisms without having you adding to it," put in Dr. Flagg.

Agent ignored him and went on. "But if you check downstairs, I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone to help you out. This is an Adventurers Guild after all. If you’re still stuck here in a day or two, look us up again and we’ll see what we can do."

Tiffany looked uncertain. "But they sent me up here. Oh well."

"Tell me you didn’t just foreshadow an adventure with her," Dr. Flagg said as she left.

"I was just trying to be nice," said Agent.

"Speaking of nice, check out our next applicant," said Ubet. He had wiped himself more or less clean and climbed back up into his chair.

She had green eyes and a mane of thick red hair that went halfway down her back. Her charms were obvious and very visible thanks to her chain mail bikini from Frederick’s of Black & Decker. There was a dagger strapped to her creamy white thigh and a long sword adhered to her back by means unknown.

"Uh, name?" asked Agent following the inevitable silence.

The girl blinked. "Sorry," she said. "You’re the first person who’s ever asked."

Agent made a concentrated effort to focus on the papers in front of him. "Okay then, primary characteristic?"

"Chain mail bikini," she answered.

"Secondary characteristic?"

"I’m freezing."

"Check. You any good with that sword?"

"In this outfit, I’d have to be."

"Good enough for me," said Ubet. "You’re hired."

"What?" exclaimed Agent and Dr. Flagg.

"Could you excuse us a moment while we confer amongst ourselves?" Agent asked her.

"Sure. Take your time," replied Chain Mail Bikini. "I’ll just be over here striking some provocative poses."

Ubet grabbed Agent by the lapels. "You have got to give this to me!" he hissed.

"What’s the big deal?" asked Agent firmly grasping Ubet by the wrists and ending the assault on his wardrobe.

"I’m three feet tall and covered with hair and women like her don’t voluntarily associate with men like me. That’s the big deal!" snapped Ubet.

"That armor can’t be very practical," Dr. Flagg told Chain Mail Bikini in the meantime. "Don’t you have anything else you can wear?"

"Well, I had a chain mail thong, but it was giving me trouble with chafing and rust."

"Too much information!" exclaimed Dr. Flagg.

"Sometimes my top comes off in battle," she volunteered.

"Pleeeeze?!?" whined Ubet.

At that moment, Beef returned looking pleased with himself.

"It’s about time you got back," noted Dr. Flagg.

"Beef got date with Thundora later," he replied scooping up some of the popcorn and nuts on the floor and stuffing them in his mouth.

"Aw, Beef. That’s really sweet of you," said Agent, "But it’s not right to go out with someone just out of pity."

"No, Beef thinks Thundora really likes him," the barbarian assured him. He glanced at Chain Mail Bikini on his way to his seat at the table and shrugged.

"Can we please hire this one?" Ubet pleaded with Agent.

"Come on, Ubet, our lives could depend on her abilities and you want her onboard without even knowing what she can do," reasoned Agent.

"Perhaps then we should duel to see who can earn the honor of fighting alongside Mighty Thrusting Sword of Justice," suggested a new voice from the doorway Beef had left open.

The newcomer was reed-thin and dressed in black tights with a red sash around her waist and a katana strapped to her back. Her hair was black and short and she regarded the others with almond-shaped eyes.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Chain Mail Bikini thrusting her lower lip out in a cute little pout.

"I am Eclekta Ninja, Mistress of Tai Kwon Slo," she replied with a bow.

Agent flipped through the papers in front of him. "It says you’re a one-woman fighting machine," he said.

"Huh," mused Dr. Flagg. "Just for future reference, how many women in the typical fighting machine?"

"Ah! You are humorous," observed Eclekta without cracking a smile. "Now watch." With that, she leaped onto the table, banked off the wall, drew her katana while twisting in mid-air and swung it straight down at Chain Mail Bikini’s head.

"Hey!" protested Chain Mail Bikini parrying the shot with her long sword with a loud ‘k-tang!’ But Eclekta had already flipped through the air and landed cat-like at the other end of the room.

"Are you nuts?" demanded Chain Mail Bikini. "This is supposed to be my interview."

"Then, by all means, claim it from me," invited Eclekta.

Ubet tried to give the two women a standing ovation to show his approval of the idea and fell off his booster seat again.

Chain Mail Bikini gave an exasperated sigh and, in one fluid motion, snatched the dagger from her thigh and flung it at Eclekta. Both the dagger and Eclekta moved in slow motion as Eclekta bent backward at the waist to avoid the attack. The dagger, leaving a lazily rippling trail of motion behind it, embedded in the wall.

"Such attacks are of no use to one who has mastered Tai Kwon Slo," said Eclekta, but Chain Mail Bikini was already charging her, each link in her top straining to contain its ample load.

Eclekta leaped over the swinging blade and did a neat back flip off the wall.

"Y’know," commented Dr. Flagg, "this is much more interesting than just interviewing them. If we ever have to do this again, we should just rent an arena and let all the applicants duke it out."

"Hmm," agreed Agent nodding. "We could sell tickets; maybe turn a profit."

Meanwhile, Eclekta leaped off the mantle and narrowly missed the high ceiling. She came down at Chain Mail Bikini, katana over her head in both hands. "Anime Attack!" she cried.

"Notice how her face splits into three close-up panels?" asked Agent. "How does she do that?"

"Dunno," replied Ubet. "Nice reverb though."

Eclekta’s katana met Chain Mail Bikini’s long sword in a burst of sound and dazzling energy as the two women seemed to freeze in place at the moment of contact. Then both were forced backwards.

"An ordinary sword would have been shattered by that attack," panted Eclekta noticing Chain Mail Bikini’s weapon was still whole.

"It’s magic," breathed Chain Mail Bikini.

A tall, pale woman in a black robe entered the room and closed the door behind her. "I am here in response to your advertisement," she stated giving the melee at the other end of the room only a cursory glance.

"Why not? The more, the merrier," said Dr. Flagg.

Agent glanced at the newcomer’s paperwork, keeping one eye on the ongoing duel. "Hmm. Alignment: chaotic evil. Your interests include destruction, murder, feasting on the blood of heroes, and spamming. Are you sure you’ve got the right room? Because we’re basically good guys here," Agent told her.

"I was referred quite specifically to you," she replied.

Agent flipped to the references sheet. "Wait a second, you’ve got Ghaaznül the Vile as your first reference?"

"Yes, and he sends his greetings," she smiled revealing a set of needle-like teeth. The black robe fell to the floor. From the upper torso up, she was more-or-less human-looking except for the teeth and the glowing crimson eyes. Four giant spidery legs unfolded from her sides at mid-torso. Everything below that was serpentine ending in a scythe-like growth at the end of her tail. She reared up to her full height, which put her head within a couple feet of the ceiling, and spat a glob of spider webbing at Dr. Flagg. The sticky mass struck with enough force to knock the sorcerer backwards and adhere his head to the wall behind him. Dr. Flagg’s first instinct was to wipe the stuff off his face, which only resulted in his hands becoming stuck.

With the sorcerer unable to move, speak or cast spells, the demon turned her attention to Agent, but he was already on the move, hidden by the Stealthy Cloak of Midnight.

"Ugly spider-snake lady hurt puny Dr. Flagg!" Beef announced leaping up. "Beef will smash!" Beef’s club had originally been the trunk of a medium-sized tree, but the giant barbarian swung it as if it were weightless.

The demon scuttled out of the way of Beef’s powerful but clumsy attack and webbed his feet to the floor.

"If you ladies would like an opportunity to prove yourselves, now’s the time," Agent told Chain Mail Bikini and Eclekta from the shadows near the fireplace.

At the same time, Ubet Choas was on his feet and had conjured a Dwarfen Hammer of Smiting. The magical war hammer appeared above his head and flew at the demon. The creature grunted in pain as the hammer struck her square in the chest and then proceeded to fly around her and smack her several times before fading.

Agent took advantage of the demon’s momentary distraction to strike her from behind with Spirit of the Mongoose. Faster by far than its siblings, Spirit of the Rat and Spirit of the Cobra, Spirit of the Mongoose amplified Agent’s natural dexterity in battle to blinding speeds.

Despite being perforated several times, the demon brushed Agent away with one of her spidery legs.

Eclekta leaped into the fray, her face frozen in a combat grimace. The Mistress of Tai Kwon Slo sailed through the air to deliver a lethal kick at the demon’s head and froze momentarily in mid-air from several different camera angles. Then, somehow, she remained frozen in mid-air and her expression changed.

"Oh hell. Stuck again," she grumbled. "I hate it when this happens."

The demon smiled and then gave Eclekta a gentle shove with the tip of her tail. Eclekta floated out the window like a toy balloon. She drifted for a bit and then the effect wore off.

"Oh, no," she managed before plunging into the fountain below.

Chain Mail Bikini’s slicing blow narrowly missed its mark as the demon parried with her tail.

Beef freed his feet along with large chunks of floorboard and smacked the demon in the ribs with his club. Stunned, the demon scuttled for the relative safety of the ceiling.

Ubet sent another Dwarfen Hammer of Smiting after her and added to her collection of bruises and cracked bones.

Beef grabbed the snaky tail and pulled her down onto Chain Mail Bikini’s sword. Simultaneously, Agent was on the demon’s back cutting and stabbing with his dagger. Dr. Flagg managed to free one hand and unweb his mouth and eyes; that gave him enough freedom of movement to nail the demon with a quartet of magic missiles.

The demon howled in pain.

"Oh," said Chain Mail Bikini. "My top has come off in battle."

"Wha?" began Ubet turning to stare. The Dwarfen Hammer of Smiting he’d been conjuring dropped and struck him squarely on the coconut before flying wild and hitting Chain Mail Bikini in her exposed stomach.

The demon then wrapped her tail around Beef’s ankle and used him to swat Dr. Flagg. She then reached back with a pair of her spidery legs, grabbed Agent and tossed him on top of the pile before webbing the three of them into a solid, sticky lump.

"Well, that sure turned around on us in a hurry," commented Agent. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ubet unconscious on the floor and Chain Mail Bikini lying on her side clutching her stomach in pain.

"Beef has to pee," complained the giant barbarian.

"Not now, you lummox!" cried Dr. Flagg pinned beneath him.

The demon loomed over them, grinning.

"You’d think with a hall full of heroes downstairs, we could get a rescue," complained Agent.

"Get serious," chided Dr. Flagg. "The sounds of battle coming from a private meeting room at an Adventurers Guild hall? Who’d be naïve enough to walk into the middle of that?"

The door swung open and Plucki walked into the middle of the room. "I was wondering if you guys could validate my stable stub?" She looked up from the slip of paper she was holding and took in the scene. "But I see you’re busy right now," she finished weakly.

The demon turned and lunged at Plucki.

"Yikes!" she cried dodging out of the way.

"The only blood sweeter than that of heroes is the blood of innocents," hissed the demon licking her lips with her forked tongue.

"Eww!" cried Plucki, her eye twitching slightly.

The demon lunged again and Plucki ducked behind one of the fallen potted plants for cover. Plucki grabbed the plant by its stem and tried to put her Level Three Woodland Magic Certificate to practical use. Interestingly, she found that casting a spell during a performance exam in front of Professor Valdir and casting it in front of a demon that wanted to drink her blood were remarkably similar experiences. Who said school was different from the real world? The plant sprouted a wall of thorny vines.

The demon tore through the barrier effortlessly, but Plucki had enough time to get underneath the demon and drive her short sword between the monster’s ribs, to the hilt, right between the humanoid arm on the right and the adjacent spider limb.

The demon looked annoyed, then mockingly sympathetic. "Only magic weapons or blessed iron can harm me, morsel," she said expositing her weaknesses in the tradition of her demonic breed.

Plucki turned and ran again, this time only to trip over Beef’s club. She tumbled and rolled over on her back near where Ubet lay. Looking up, past the demon reaching for her, Plucki saw her salvation. She slid her bow off her shoulder and fired an arrow past the demon’s pointed ear.

"Is that the best you can do?" asked the demon shaking her head and picking her up.

Plucki’s arrow had embedded in the ceiling and nicked the rope holding the iron chandelier. She watched the rope unravel and finally snap. The heavy chandelier landed right on top of the demon; its tapered point pierced her neck, passed through her torso, exited just below her right rear spider leg, and staked her to the wooden floor. She dropped Plucki and looked really mad. "Too bad for you this iron has not been blessed by a priest," snarled the demon struggling to unspindle herself.

Ubet awakened and grabbed one of the chandelier’s candleholders. "Ghesundheit," he said offering the quickest and simplest blessing he knew.

"D’oh!" cried the demon. The chandelier glowed orange, as if it were melting. Then both the demon and the chandelier disappeared in a shower of cold orange sparks.

"You were magnificent!" exclaimed Agent pulling himself free from the rapidly dissolving webbing.

"Well, I had a little help from Plucki," admitted Ubet modestly.

"He meant the girl, simpleton," snapped Dr. Flagg squirming out from under Beef. "And I concur."

"Beef likes little Plunki," announced Beef standing.

"That’s ‘Plucki,’" corrected Plucki.

"Well, I can see which way this is going," said Chain Mail Bikini putting her top back on. She stood and winced. "Congratulations," she told Plucki.

"Hey, listen," said Agent. "You didn’t do any worse than the rest of us did. You’re welcome to stay on too."

Chain Mail Bikini glanced down. Her abdomen was already purpling where the Dwarfen Hammer of Smiting had struck her. The bruise promised to be large and multicolored. "I don’t think I’m going to be fit to be seen in public for awhile."

"You could wear a shirt," suggested Agent.

Chain Mail Bikini just stared at him as if he had asked her a question in a foreign language and shook her head.

Ubet leaped up. "Wait! I could cast a healing!" he offered.

Chain Mail Bikini looked down at him. "I think I’ll pass on the laying on of hands ritual. I’ll just pick up a couple of healing potions on the way out." She retrieved her sword and dagger and left.

"Dang it!" said Ubet snapping his fingers. Then he shrugged. "Anyone else need healing?"

Agent turned to Plucki. "Well, you’ve earned it. Still interested in the position?"

Plucki gave a delighted gasp. "You bet I am!"

"No," corrected Ubet. "Ubet am I. Plucki are you." No one laughed at the lame pun and Beef just scratched his head and said, "Beef not get it."

Ubet shut the hell up.

"Welcome to Mighty Thrusting Sword of Justice," said Agent.

"How long again before we can change that name?" asked Dr. Flagg.