The Rock God’s Assistant, Ch. 1

“Even the mighty Bat Loaf needs a hand now and then.” said Niann, in a way that totally did not summarize the beginning of the story. “You need an assistant.”

Bat thought for a moment. Usually Niann, his beautiful wife, was at his side and she could help him keep a handle on things. Attendance at the Academy of Rock Justice was booming, and there was a great deal to do. However, certain events happened atop the legendary Tarrasque that were complicating matters greatly for the two of them – namely, the birth of Tarrasque Loaf. He was a wonderful little boy, but due to the blessing of Nathaniel, the newly-crowned God of Pain, he was inhumanly strong and was manifesting powers most toddlers did not possess. An epic-level parent, or at the very least a party of a dozen of his senior staff, was necessary to make sure the destruction was kept to a minimum. As it turned out, Leomund’s Secure Shelter worked as well protecting the outside world from its contents as it did protecting its contents from the outside world. But you can’t just keep the little fellow in a cage all day, Niann decided to spend the majority of her days as a stay at home rock-n’-roll mom for the time being.

It was pretty clear to Bat, especially after that completely unrelated quote at the beginning of the story, that he needed an assistant. But who? It wasn’t as if he could just hire a pencil-pusher to make sure all the GP wound up in the right place. Bat’s work was that of Rock Justice, and on a bad week his personal assistant would wind up burnt to a crisp or possessed by a demon who was seriously into genital self-mutilation. He needed someone who could back him up in a fight, and Niann’s shoes were very large and very sexy, and it would be difficult to fill them in a way that wasn’t lame or gross or involved the career-foot equivalent of a muffin-top. Plus, Bat had grown accustomed to having certain needs addressed in the field, especially on longer trips, and not having Niann there complicated things somewhat. Sure, there were always those wands that cast pornographic illusion spells, but he found them somewhat beneath him. He preferred other things beneath him, namely Niann and sometimes a succubus or three.

So it was that Bat Loaf, like so many other times before in his career, unwittingly looked through time and space to discover the best way of deciding anything: a giant 1980’s style tournament. Surely this would produce the best candidate for the job. It was a foolproof plan, and nothing strange or unpleasant would ever result from it. OR WOULD IT?