"The complete plans for the coup are all here. My people, we are ready for this!"
The Fruit Baron held the leather portfolio aloft, waving it with fervour and determination in the air. His charisma had long held the room but now all eyes feasted on the manuscript. The Barons murmured and nodded in unison. Victory would surely be theirs, and soon. They could almost taste it.
"We shall be triumphant; we shall overcome this tyranny under which we are subjugated! The Pizza Baron will have no choice but to bow to our demands and we will install our own choice of High Baron to rule the land."
The glasses thudded in agreement on the tables once more, the ground vibrating with the stomping of feet. Hands clapped wildly in support as cheers rang out.
"We have people in position already. We have been receiving inside information for some time. Words so many words have been spoken on this. But now, my friends, now it is time for action! We need each and every one of you in order to succeed. Your continued patronage is vital to the success of the mission and your loyalty will be duly rewarded, mark my words, my fellow peers."
Delilah could not believe what she was witnessing. But she was no longer staring at her father. Only one thing now held her gaze; the bound leather tome gripped tightly in the palm of his hands, and there and then she vowed to make its acquisition her most urgent priority.
Delilah started! Her wandering thoughts interrupted rather abruptly...
"Who goes there?"
The voice boomed as the double-barrel emerged first out of the shadows. Delilah and Henry froze. Their instinct to run was overshadowed by the realisation that as they had let the horses free in their haste on arrival, they now had no way of immediate escape.
"Well, who are you, show yourself and speak!"
Delilah glanced across into Henry's ashen face. Eyes clenched tight, mouth grimaced, expression pained; he was the picture of defeat. She had to think fast. She smiled, this was something she was good at! She stood up and spun around.
"Halt sir, and lower your weapon. Do you not recognise a Baron's daughter?"
she demanded.
"Erm...what?"
The guard stumbled and stammered over his words, taken aback at the unexpected and audacious response.
"Delilah...what are you...?"
"Hush, Henry," she whispered back fiercely.
Henry's mouth hung open, as he stared back at her in disbelief. What was she thinking?
"Good man, I am Delilah, daughter of his Lordship, the Fruit Baron. Can you not tell that I am obviously lost? Why else would I be on foot in the middle of the night so far from my home? My groomsman, my father's obedient servant, and I were out riding. The weather turned on us and we got terribly lost. We dismounted a few hundred yards from here to take rest in a nearby copse and as the weather improved, we decided to seek aid as our horses wandered off in the night. We saw the light from this here open window and thought we would see if we could attract somebody's attention. Thankfully, we did!"
The commotion outside the window had attracted the attention of the Barons inside and a few of them had approached the window to investigate further.
The guard was still trying to decide how to respond to the young girl and her companion when another voice boomed out of the window.
"Guard lower that weapon immediately! Delilah! Henry! What the heck is going on out here?"
Henry trembled. This was going to be a long night!
This is my entry to @dibblers.dabs "The Tale of Two Pizzas" - the first collaborative novella on the Hive blockchain. You can catch up on all the action to date here and here.
There are only 2 hours remaining to get an entry in for this week but follow @dibblers.dabs and look out for the next interim chapter in a few days time.
Photo sourced in Canva Pro
@clixmoney I wanted to highlight this fabulous collaborative initiative by @dibblers.dabs that a few of us are involved in to bring the first collaborative writing of a novella to the Hive blockchain. It has been running for 12 weeks already and you can see from the archive post who the contributors are thus far. I hope I have used your tags appropriately in bringing this wonderful project to your attention🙏
Thanks a lot. Yeah, the tag is used appropriately. It's a great collaboration. I'll check those who are participating in it and let them know about #dcc. Thanks for brining this to me !
🙏You are very welcome. Thank you for providing a platform to support such efforts 🙂!PIZZA
@samsmith1971! The Hive.Pizza team manually curated this post.
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Thank you for the manual creation and support. It is much appreciated😍🙏
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Thank you for this 😊🙏
You're welcome @samsmith1971 😊👍
BTW, it would be much appreciated if you support our proposal on Peakd, ecency,
https://peakd.com/me/proposals/147
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Proposal now read and supported/voted 👍All the very best.
This is a great work, nicely done
thank you kindly. I enjoyed writing it.
You are welcome
@wrestlingdesires, here's my entry for this week. Just sneaked across the line with an hour to spare! hee hee
Delilah - trust a belle to come up with something clever :D
lols, she does have a track record of thinking on her feet.
Another excellent story ❤️ I am so loving this storyline 🙌🙌
Thank you, I'm starting to think that I am living and breathing her lols. Her story needs to intersect soon with some of the others I think. They will all need to start crossing paths sooner or later.
Yes they will :) I love the way this last week worked out!
Isn't it fun to really get into a character ❤️
!PIZZA !ALIVE
!PIZZA to that. I keep ending up writing my entries in about 2 hours flat; not my usual approach as I like to sleep on what I've written and go back and tighten it up... reading it again I see some glaring sentences that could be cut back for economy lols. Like the Barons hearing a commotion on the outside sentence. I could have lost half the words and said the same thing...aargh. oh well. I always plan my week but you can't plan for family needs too and maybe I bit off a bit too much this week. I left my Dreemport entry til yesterday and then my youngest wasn't well and is off today from school. I managed to finish the article I was on and tried to get through the Dreemport one but no such luck...i have the backbones for next week's challenge though potentially ha ha
Why not try for this week? I just got mine in ❤️ A quick one is better than nothing.
!PIZZA !ALIVE
You Are Alive and have been rewarded with 0.1 ALIVE tokens from the We Are Alive Tribe, and it's paid for by the earnings on @alive.chat, swing by our daily chat any time you want.
You Are Alive and have been rewarded with 0.1 ALIVE tokens from the We Are Alive Tribe, and it's paid for by the earnings on @alive.chat, swing by our daily chat any time you want.
