Whose Bull is That?

"So, let me see if I have this straight," the dwarf asked his companions, who were covered in dirt, feathers, some gunpowder, water, and oil. "I leave you all alone for a day to resupply. And in that single day... this happened?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," the dog-eared humanoid replied.

"Okay, so I'm going to have to be clear with you all," the dwarf noticed. "Let's start from the beginning of this adventure: after I left, you guys thought you would make a lot of money quicker by having Awdue and Ishtar shapeshift into livestock... that you immediately sold to the local rancher."

"Hey, it worked!" the orc protested. "We gagged them to make it look convincing."

"Yes, it may have worked," the dwarf replied, "but then you all forgot the one main detail. Livestock gets taken to the butcher. And what happens at the local butcher to livestock?"

"It gets... slaughtered?" the blue-haired female elf asked.

"Yes, Shu, it gets slaughtered," the dwarf replied. "Which you guys realized almost too late as Awdue and Ishtar were then transported to the butcher's slaughterhouse, and they were confused as to what was going on since you never talked to them about being sold to a rancher."

"We were planning to break them out!" the orc defended herself.

"You went to the ranch that evening," the dwarf replied. "Adding breaking and entering to your list of crimes! However, you failed to consider the possibility of the rancher trying to reach his quota and would have sold them the same day! So you guys rushed over to said slaughterhouse, and proceeded to, instead of talking things out with the people in charge, decided to fight all of the people just doing their jobs!"

"Meaning...?" the elf asked.

"Meaning that you're adding assault and battery," the dwarf answered. "That's even talking about the destruction of private and public property you did!"

"What destruction of private property?" the orc demanded. The dwarf turned to the bull in the room, who looked calm after a healthy rampage, with part of a door hanging from his horn. "Oh, the bull! Yeah, we still don't know whose bull this is."

"We're going to come back to this bull and its owner, later," the dwarf commented. "Besides, it's far from the only animal you all let loose!"

"Name one other animal!" the dog-eared man scoffed. The dwarf didn't have to, as a chicken flapped by them, landing on his head. "Okay, we lost track of Awdue and Ishtar!"

"They were a cow and a pig, respectively!" the dwarf replied. "How did you get them mixed up with chickens, bulls, turkeys, and sheep!?"

"Well, we thought they would have realized what was going on, and decided to prank us in retaliation by switching animals," the elf replied.

"They were still trapped in the slaughterhouse," the dwarf pointed out. "There'd be no reason to switch animals!"

"Well, bulls are also categorized as a steer, so...."

"Noted," the dwarf said. "Unfortunate counterpoint to your argument, they, in order to prevent the animals from mating, separated the livestock by gender once secured."

"Oh, come on! Let us have something!"

"You lost the right to a 'something' when you decided to release all of the livestock onto the streets, where it escaped and tore up half the town, and made this year's--by sheer coincidence--annual 'Running of the Bulls' thing more complicated by adding several more unplanned bulls, a herd of sheep, extra cows, a few goats, and hundreds of birds onto the streets! You're damn lucky I was able to save several people from being gored to death or trampled! Even luckier that I can sound like a convincing bounty hunter and arrested you guys sooner than the town guards could get their hands on you! That was the only way you would have gotten locked up instead of killed on the spot!"

"So... are you going to get us out of jail, or what?" the orc replied, looking at the dwarf stopping to catch his breath and unhook the door from the bull's horn.

"How about I let you guys sit here for a few days so I can do my own thing and pay off all of the damage you guys caused, plus comfort a now traumatized Awdue and let Ishtar work on her novel? Once they calm down, they'll probably not be as inclined to kill you for nearly getting them turned into someone's dinner, and then from there figure out how to justify taking you guys out of town. Oh, and I'm starting to pay the damages with all three of your shares from our last job!"

All three of the dwarf's companions looked at him. "You're... you're not seriously going to leave us in here, are you?" The dwarf answered him by pulling himself onto the bull and riding it out of the jail. "Gargec! Get back here and pay our bail, you jerk!"

"I have to find out who's bull this is!" the dwarf replied. "Also, Awdue mentioned something about wanting a pet, so maybe this hen will do for now. Have fun with community service!"

"Gargec!" all three of his companions called after him.