Real life often cuts into the quality and size of a 'piece' of the story, and this is an example of that.

It didn't seem terribly unedited to me, though. Ozzie's last part of the mission has him looking for help as he said he'd do in the piece with Dash.

We also see an interesting rogue type here.. hmmm..

 
Ozzie staggered into the Council of Loathing. He wasn't dripping blood anymore, but his clothes were still ragged and stained, his hair was a mess. The receptionist gave him a distasteful glance as he fished in his pocket.

"I... oh no. I've lost my ID badge. Er? Miss? Excuse me? Thank you. I've lost my ID badge, but I'm an employee of the Guild of Merchantry's Department of Membership. Desk seven. My number is three seven five two nine two one zero..."

The receptionist waved him into silence and leaned into the speaking tube. "Security?"

Ozzie tried to protest, in his own unique way, but two burly seal clubbers hurled him out onto the street. He scanned the square. Dash had already vanished. He sat down on the step, head in his hands, wondering what to do.

"Scuse me, mate," said a voice as it sidled up to him. How does a voice sidle? Some people are shifty enough to pull it off... like the woman now sitting down next to him. If the sidling voice wasn't enough of a clue, the leather waistcoat, silk cravate, fingerless gloves and top hat clearly marked this person out as a nogoodnik. Or possibly a hobo, but she didn't seem to be anywhere near drunk enough or stenchy enough for that.

Ozzie took this all in, then asked in a very small and frightened voice, "Er. Yes?"

The woman grinned. "I couldn't help overhearin' right now whereby you would be havin' a manner of conundrum right at this present moment involvin' that there council buildin' there."

"Oh. Yes, uh, yes I am," sniffed Ozzie, shifting a few inches away from the strange woman.

"Well now. I might could be able to assist."

"Indeed?"

"Might could, might could," she said idly. "Course, nobody rides for free, eh?"

"I haven't any meat on me right now, I'm afraid," said Ozzie, drawing himself tighter into himself.

The woman grinned again, flashing white teeth and confirming her non-hobo-status. "Nah, nah. Nothin' like that, friend. I seen you just now conversin' all amicable with one of the KOKOL's large toupees."

"Large tou... oh, big wig?" mumbled Ozzie. "Mr. Dash?"

"Dash, that's the fella. Most indeededly. If you could see by your where to what be gettin' me an audience with the chap, I'm sure I could help you out."

Ozzie frowned. "How? And anyway, he's gone. And we're very busy."

"Missin' princesses, I know."

"How do you know that?"

"Everyone knows, squire! It's the Seaside Talk of the Seaside Town," laughed the woman.

"Oh."

She smiled. "If you wanna rescue Jen Pi and that Goblin lass, you'll have to make your noggin up right sharpish, no?"

"How did you know THAT?"

She winked. "I know lotsa things. Such as how to get you into that there building where you can work your administerial magic."

He looked around nervously. "This wouldn't be..." (he lowered both his head and his voice) "...illicit, would it?"

"Illicit? Nah, nah mare. Nothing like that. First step, I return these here minutes to the Nice Sorceress' last charity meat-dive to the recpetion area, tellin' that lady up there on that fancy desk about how I found 'em on the street there. All charitable like."

Ozzie gasped as she produced the papers. "Where did you get them?"

"Well I nicked 'em, didn't I," said the woman as if talking to a simpleton. "While her attention was taken upwhat by your number recital back there." She caught Ozzie's expression. "It's sound mate, honest. Really it was just to see how perspicacious her perspicacity is this afternoon. Not very. Which is good for you since you'll be sneakin' in."

"Sneaking?" mumbled Ozzie. "Even if I approved of this plan, I'm no good at..."

"Approve?" laughed the stranger, "You don't have much choice if you want to save them there royal heirs. Anyway, don't you worry about the sneakin' part. She won't notice nothin'."

"What about-"

"Them security goons are surely like to be distracted by the nudie mags I slipped into their breakroom."

"Why did you do that?"

"For a laugh. I do it quite a bit," shrugged the woman.

"Who are you exactly?" asked Ozzie incredulously.

"You can call me Jones for now. But right now I'm your deus ex machina, love, and you should take up this here offer up now if you know what's right."

"Okay... Miss Jones. I guess I don't have any options."

"That you do not, young man," said the woman who looked to be about five years younger than Ozzie (what? I know his profile says indeterminate, but Ozzie knows his own age! Probably to the minute, in fact).

He stood up and turned to face the door. The woman nodded and went in first, and after a second. Ozzie heard a commotion going on. He struggled with his conscience for a moment, but fear for the safety of the princesses - and fear of what Dash would do to him if he screwed up - overrided his deep seated respect for law and order. He scooted inside, glanced at the two women arguing at the desk, and - knees knocking, palms sweaty, trembling like a newt - he hurried past them and into the corridor. He ducked past the security guard's door - the frosted pane of which was all steamed up - and straight towards the office he needed.

Filling in forms is boring, unless you're someone like Ozzie, so I'm going to skip all that nonsense. Now if you're someone who likes form-filling, and that whole conversation before was boring because it didn't have enough triplicates and slashes, I must apologise. But I'm kinda running out of time here, also since I was due to go out about half an hour ago. :P

Anyway, Ozzie filled out those forms in lickety-split time and what's more, he enjoyed it. And right on time, he left for Market square with three freshly-requisitioned mages in tow. Meet Eric the Battlemage, Linda the Stealthmage, and Darren who has the skills of both clairvoyance and a small degree of teleportation, but with very limited range and - because he foolishly thought he was in the wrong game and took Wizard rather than Sauceror - limited times per day.

And what became of the mysterious Jones? Well now, that's a story for another time.

Verrry interesting.. well there's about one sentence that really sets up the Finale, but the rest of the story set it up.
Well, as we said, real life took a bit of a toll on this one, but it was a decent enough 'wrap up' for Ozzie, setting him up for the Finale.

Next up is a piece with Cattaras, Becky and Sir Fumblies, although the first half of the spotlight is on a couple Knob Goblins.. hmm...