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The crew had finally arrived in Grault after their short vacation from their job as couriers, which in turn was a vacation from their job as freelance adventurers. Although the trip there took an extra three days not counting the two spent goofing off in the woods with a bunch of forest crazies, they had managed to arrive in one piece, along with 95 percent of the Air Grumpkin and all of the shipment for the Arms Party. The trip required Taint to use the second stick of Gravity dynamite, as halfway to Grault the plane dropped straight down in to a small lake. Quick thinking and a quicker match, both belonging to Taint, kept most of the plane's delivery cargo dry, however most of the dynamite, being loose on the floor, was ruined. Taint was in a bad mood.

Gently touching down on the Grault airport at 6 miles per hour allowed the Arms Party to have plenty of warning of Taint's arrival and dispatched thirty or so of their best men stationed in Grault, outfitted in armor designed to lessen the chance you'll lose a limb in an explosion, to the landing strip. Accompanying them were Mr. Slane and Barch, a high ranking officer in the Arms party and his Sasquatch bodyguard. After Taint assured all the men that he was not going to throw any dynamite at them, and after Taint assured his own crew he was not going to launch dynamite out of a gun at them, The crates containing goods unknown to Taint's crew were removed from Air Grumpkin and they were given their payment. A dozen sticks of dynamite, thirty feet of rope, a box of nuts and bolts, Three tubes of caulk, six large boxes of matches, three fuel vouchers, twenty three cases of cigarettes, six loose packs of cigarettes, and after a breif period of haggling, seventeen loose cigarettes. The loose cigarettes were directly out of the cigarette case of Mr. Slane, and were given up when Taint's peaceful negotiations turned into namecalling and threats because Slane was trying to screw him.

After a bit more yelling, Taint also managed to convince Slane to have his men load the goods on his plane, but was held in a submission hold by Barch until he admitted that the damage to Air Grumpkin was his own fault and not a conspiracy set by the Arms Party, again, to screw him. Barch also got him to admit that he often plays hopscotch and eats doileys. Taint came very close to having his arm ripped out of its socket when he insisted that doileys are not something you eat.

The Air Grumpkin's last working engine kicked in again and through a clever use of piling up the rope infront of the landing gear, the crew managed to get the plane inside a tarmac. Taint spent the day messing around with the busted engine while Myen, Valk, and Topaz each left with six cases of cigarettes each and went to town to barter for supplies and replacements for the things that Loz's men declared to be theirs, and also to find a decent restaurant. As the hours passed, Taint managed to swipe enough parts from neighboring tarmacs to get the engine back to working order, and hammered the bent propeller back in to a shape that might provide lift to the battered aircraft, and rewarded himself by picking up a bottle of booze and that day's newspaper.

The crew returned with enough food to last them the week, some new clothing, and a new curtain with curtain rod, and began to resituate the bunks as Taint got mildly drunk and read his newspaper. Around 10 PM, he wadded up his newspaper and threw it on Valk's seat before walking back to the bunks where everyone had begun to relax for the night.

"Let's go to Grilldo's." Taint said, with an innocent gleam in his eyes and a happy but not insane smile on his face. His three crew members dreaded those four words. Grilldo's is the worst restaurant in the kingdom.

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- the Maid <- 4:33:11 pm, monday, july 30th, 2007 pdt