Salted Frog

"What do you take me for, does that even look like a female arm to you?"

The skeleton soldier dumbly stared at Maria as it dropped the arm and picked up another one.

The soul  flames in Maria's eyes began to flare. How could it be so stupid?

With angry strides Maria walked up to the skeleton  soldier ripped his head from his neck and tossed it a fair distance away from it's body.

The body turned from side to side before walking forward only to trip over a pile of bones. Snorting Maria went on her merry way. Since the useless fool couldn't use his eyes to tell the difference between a male and female arm he didn't need a head.

Maria surveyed around her, the battle field was littered with piles upon piles of gleaming white bones and the corpses of countless goblins. They might have killed an exponential amount of goblins but at least most of the hob goblins were still alive.

They had immediately raised their flag as soon as they saw the army of skeletons were never ending. They were called the undying tide for a reason.

Maria could not fathom what they were thinking; daring to challenge her Mistress a necromancer feared throughout the continent.

Did they really think they could win?

Besides devising schemes to steal gold goblins couldn't really do anything worthy of note.

Throwing another male arm to the side Maria was beginning to feel frustrated. Just how many female skeleton soldiers did her Mistress have? So far she had already gone through a few piles of bones yet she had only managed to find male arms.

Was her Mistress... what was that word again? Maria cocked her head to the side thoughtfully.

Sexist! yes that's the word sexist. How could her Mistress mainly have a male dominated army where did that leave her. Tossing another male arm aside Maria was beginning to feel helpless. She had to consult with her Mistress on finding more female skeleton soldiers.

"Why do you even bother? They clearly all look the same just pick one and be done with it?"

Marias soul core began to tremble as the soul flames in her eyes burned brighter and brighter. What was this little bastard doing here?

With a sneer Maria stared down at his bold head. "Have you finely decided to crawl out of your cubby hole?"

Pulling himself up into a dignified height, his chest thrust out his feet firmly pressed together. Maria was momentarily surprised until he rubbed his knobby fingered hands together like a pervert peeping on a naked woman, completely ruining the dignified air he tried to instill.

"Can't you see all the money laying around you" he said excitedly. Maria surreptitiously glanced around. All she could see was an endless see of goblin corpses and skeleton remains.

Seeing her blank expression, Gilbert coldly snorted. "This is why you could only amount to a mere servant girl when you were alive".

"Even if a  golden coin fell from the sky and told you it was gold you wouldn't know the difference between it and a pile of shit".

Before Maria had a chance to blow up Gilbert had already sped away. He had goblin blood to collect after all!

Maria calmed down her soul core and went back to her unfruitful task. She didn't care she really didn't care what the toad thought of her. It was true after all as a human the only purpose in her life had been to serve her master.

Even after her death the only difference was serving a different master yet she was still a servant and she wouldn't have it any other way. Dying had been the best thing that had ever happened to her. Although she was loath to admit she was somewhat grateful to Gilbert if he hadn't gotten her killed she would have lived a purposeless life.

Of course she would never tell him that the bastard was already to cocky for his own good he didn't need her to ascend him to the sky just yet.

Shaking off her unnecessary thoughts Maria sped up her search, she needed to organize the remaining skeleton soldiers so Gallow could get started on cleanup, she couldn't very well do that while walking around with one arm it would ruin her image in front of Gallow. She could only allow him to see her when she was at her most beautiful.

"Why are these fools still loitering around?"

Speak of the devil…

Maria became flustered, turning her body until only her left side faced Gallow, firmly hiding her missing arm from his view.

"I was just about to get started….."

"Then begin you know very well the longer they are left to wonder the more drained our Mistress will become. She should have already summoned them back by now.

Maria could only nod and hope that Gallow would soon leave she had an arm to find after all.

Seeing her nod Gallow turned to walk away before stopping and turning back.

"Have you found an arm yet?"

The soul core in Maria's chest froze

Marias voice trembled in embarrassment,  " ho-how di-did you know about th-that?"

"Gilbert told me of course".

Maria's one good fist clenched the bones of her fingers digging into her palm.

"Is that so". Maria's voice  was overly calm no sign of the volatile anger slowly burning up her insides could be seen.

She would only allow Gallow to see her most beautiful side as for Gilbert... it seemed like she would have to sprinkle the little frog with salt.