Bryan's Dungeons & Dragons Site

Category: Short Fiction

Short fiction pieces that were often written to accompany articles published in & Magazine.

  • Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Spore Spitter

    This was another of my brother’s monsters from our first campaigns. I re-created it from memory and updated it according to my current prejudices.

    The Spore Spitter was published in & Magazine, Issue 8, and this short fiction was included in the article. The Spore Spitter description is here.

     

     

    The woman found her elderly husband where she expected to find him, sitting in front of the tavern with a wine mug in hand, surrounded by listeners as he told stories. Foremost among the listeners sat their grandson Jake, his best friend David, and their tutor Bisonbit. At 16 the older boy tried to project an air of aloofness but was failing miserably. Leaning forward with a rapt expression on his face, he was as intent on the tale as the others.

    She could hear Hal snoring inside the tavern. Appearing a bit older, less lucky, and less wise than Trajan, that ex-adventurer was missing a few body parts and told stories in exchange for ale, at least until he passed out on a table. Then Trajan took over. He accepted a single mug of wine and regaled listeners with a tale or two. Maybe she was partial, but she thought her husband’s tales were better, told less emphatically and at a lower volume. Also, without ale sprayed on people who sat too close.

    Today there were a few strange faces, but many familiar ones, including a short, stout Sathean caravan guard. They saw him on a regular basis. Of Sathean heritage herself, this man was shorter than most and stouter than most, but not one for anyone with sense to tangle with. That described a lot of Satheans.

    The Sathean asked the old man, “What is the strangest beast you’ve ever fought?”

    Taking a sip of wine Trajan ruminated for a minute. “The strangest ‘beast’ I’ve ever fought wasn’t a beast.” Looking at his audience’s confusion he repeated, “The strangest beast I ever fought wasn’t a beast ” He took another slow sip of wine. “It was a plant.”

    Trajan and Etjar tramped down an old animal trail. From the look it hadn’t been used in a year or two, not long enough for the forest to reclaim it. Like most animal trails it meandered, following the terrain. Both men were young, tall, and fit. The route rambled up and down the rolling ridges but was not difficult walking. Behind them they could hear a woman swearing, then a yelled, “Wait!”

    Trajan continued walking but Etjar stopped. Realizing his friend had stopped Trajan turned and walked back to his friend. Etjar shook his head. “You really like irritating her, don’t you?”

    Laughing Trajan replied, “It’s something to do.”

    “Someday you’re going to wish you got along with her better.”

    “You getting sweet on her?”

    Etjar looked back to where the woman and a shorter companion were just coming into sight over the last rise. “She’s ok looking and good in a fight, but I can’t see myself kissing her.” Slyly looking back at Trajan, he said, “I would never get in your way.”

    “ME? You have GOT to be joking!”

    “There’s a fine line between hate and love, my friend. The way you treat each other it must be love!”

    Trajan looked darkly at his friend, spit, and they waited in silence while the two companions stumbled the final distance. As they reached them the Kerrean turned to continue walking.

    “Wait, you long legged oaf” The woman was easily a foot shorter than the tall, spare Kerrean. Typical for a Sathean she was barely above 5 feet tall and her stride shorter than his. Having bronze skin and broad features, she wasn’t exactly attractive by Kerrean standards. Both men had lighter skin and hair, a marked difference from the short, dark Satheans.

    “Yes, please wait!” the fourth companion begged. A gnome just over 4 feet tall, he had a shorter stride than the woman. He was strong for his size, not like a dwarf but he also didn’t have a dwarf’s impossible build with extra wide shoulders and oddly narrow waist. Gnomes sort of resembled a cross between dwarves and humans, although shorter than either.

    His panting may have been exaggerated, but Trajan stopped anyway. The gnome was a good companion and Trajan had already gotten a rise out of Marissa. For this minute at least. “How much farther to the temple?”

    Etjar looked at the mid-day sun. “Another 3 hours.”

    Trajan looked archly at Marissa and added, “If we keep walking.”

    The dark woman’s face grew darker and if looks could kill Trajan would be a puddle. Etjar cut in quickly, not wishing to listen to more of their wrangling. “There’s no rush. We’ll have a couple of hours of daylight to look the temple over, and we will start your search at first light.”

    The gnome was a scholar who paid the trio to escort him to a long-abandoned temple of Hate, a demi-god of abuse and suffering. Like most such gods Hate had few followers and its temples, once discovered, got sacked.

    Another hour saw the group topping yet another ridge. Below ran a small river that fed an equally small lake. Or maybe it was a large pond. “We’ll have to find a place to ford the river.” After the slower members of the band caught up they started down into the valley.

    They were almost at the river when Etjar stopped, holding his right hand up with the fist clenched, signaling a stop. Trajan and Marissa immediately scanned around them – when something triggered Etjar’s phenomenal senses and instincts it meant danger. Etjar peered around, listening intently. His eyes and mouth opened wide in shock and he like dropped a rock. A brown/black ball huffed through the space his head had just occupied and slammed into a nearby tree with a dull thump. It hit hard enough to partially crush itself and then slowly peeled off the bark and fell limply to the ground, oozing thick, white juices.

    “WHAT IS THAT?” Petteri shrieked!

    Yanking his sword from its sheath on his back Trajan tore his eyes from the crushed shape and made a good imitation of someone trying to look in every direction at once. A slight fluttering sound warned him and he lashed out with his hand-and-a-half bastard sword. Trajan’s slash bisected one of the flying things just before it hit Petteri, spraying him with white juices and causing the pieces to flash past him on either side. But the gnome never saw the thing, just the flashing sword which seemed aimed at his head. He shrieked again and threw himself away from the blade. Babbling, he scrambled frantically away from the big human.

    Marissa hissed out words that Trajan heard, couldn’t understand, and immediately forgot – magic words. Bright green spikes of energy flew from her right hand. Two punctured another of the flying blobs and the third punctured another, causing both to slam into the ground explosively with a spray of white juice.

    Trajan realized that Etjar was standing near him, long sword in hand and shield at the ready. Etjar was like that, moving so quickly that no one saw him move. Trajan felt confident now that his friend was ready to fight.

    Petteri was hiding under a bush, still unaware of how close he had been to being brained by the flying blob. Ignoring him, Marissa moved quickly to the big men, forming a triangle with each facing out, scanning their part of forest.

    “What is that thing?” Etjar whispered, his voice low.

    Marissa glanced down at the pieces of the one Trajan has slashed him half. “It looks like an apple inside, although it looks softer, more like a peach.” Sounding more curious than afraid she continued, ” I have no idea what it is.”

    With whooshing all around them, wave after wave of the things attacked. They had no self-preservation, blindly flying into the blades. Each dropped from minor wounds. After a couple more spells Marissa was panting – spell casting took a lot of the wizard’s energy and rapid casting depleted her quickly. She pulled daggers from her belt to slash and stab at her attackers. This worked for another minute until one flew between Etjar and Trajan to slam across the top of her shoulder, pitching her onto her face.

    Trajan had eyes on the back of his head. Yelling incoherently, he slashed his latest attacker in half, spun and straddled her prone body, hacking several things from the air in succession.

    The attack grew more intense and ended suddenly, with no warning. Abruptly no more things few through the air, they just lay splattered all over the leaves on the ground. Trajan looked everywhere for more.

    “Get off me you big oaf!” Marissa swore. Moving carefully Trajan stepped to one side, then reached down with a juice smeared hand to help her up. Marissa got to her knees and grudgingly accepted the proffered hand. Wiping ineffectually at her smeared clothing she peered around. Silence filled the air. Meeting his gaze she saw a different look there, totally different from the amused, condescending air he normally directed at her. For the life of her she had no idea what it meant. They stared into each other’s eyes for a pregnant minute.

    Etjar looked at Trajan with amusement, as the big man stood in unusual silence – few were the times that pair didn’t belittle or curse at each other. Then the moment broke, and the pair looked quickly away from each other. All three started scanning for more threats.

    Petteri scrambled out from beneath his bush, peering around fearfully. Dozens of the things lay around, all unmoving. Mastering his fear he poked one with a stick. When it didn’t move he prodded it again, and finally examined it more closely. “This isn’t an animal”, he commented in amazement. “It seems to be a plant.”

    His fear washed away in a wave of scholarly interest. He acted more like a small child, totally absorbed by his interest in the thing, a typical thing with gnomes. Trajan wondered how their race managed to survive. “Yes, this resembles a seed pod although it has some characteristics of the spores of a giant fungi as well.” He turned it over and pointed to a series of small regularly spaced holes all over the bottom and sides of the thing. “This must be how it flies! It jets air out through these holes! But how does it do that?” he trailed off in wonderment.

    “Bag a couple of them,” Etjar commanded. “We should leave here in case there are more.” Choosing the two least damaged ones Petteri pulled an empty sack from his pack, put them in it, and tied it to the back of his pack.

    Instead of their former pairs, they now moved in single file, weapons ready. Trajan led with the gnome behind him, the woman next (still picking at her smeared clothes), and finally Etjar. Moving cautiously, they reached the bank of the small river. It was about 40 feet across but they couldn’t tell the depth. “Let’s move upstream to look for a ford.”

    The gnome started to follow Trajan but piled into him as the big man suddenly stopped. Starting to berate the man’s clumsiness he stopped when he saw what had stopped the human.

    Less than 40 feet away stood what looked, at first glance, like a green tree stump standing 10 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. It was surrounded by a cloud of the flying black/brown things, all hovering in place with an air of menace. Marissa gasped. Swords raised in defense. The tense atmosphere could be cut with a knife.

    Trajan felt Marissa invoking a gentle spell, one that whispered out gently. Although he had no idea what the spell was, he could feel a sense of communion as it flowed past him. Trajan shivered. Magic spooked him.

    Glancing at the small woman he saw her intense concentration, her head moving in small nods. She scowled a bit and then relaxed, a small smile forming. Another tense minute passed and another. Finally the thing moved slowly away from the river on what appeared to be thick roots, its cloud of protectors moving with it. After it moved 50 feet Marissa said, “Let’s go, it’s letting us pass without a fight. Best we move quickly.”

    As they edged past it Etjar asked, “Where are we going?”

    “If I understood correctly there is a narrows up a ways with a tree fallen across it. We can cross there.”

    “You talked to it?” Trajan wondered.

    “I tried a spell normally used to talk to animals. There’s a different spell for talking to plants, but I don’t know it. That thing is more plant than animal, but the spell worked.” She frowned. “Not well, but well enough.”

    The gnome butted in, “It may because of the creature’s intelligence. In that it may be closer to animal than plant.”

    “Maybe so.” She considered it for a minute. “Probably so. But it agreed to let us pass as we are not contesting its territory and just passing through.” She paused again. “Killing a lot of its spores probably helped. I think it kills animals and lets them rot, and roots on the spot. We proved strong enough that it felt it better to let us go.”

    “Doesn’t matter why, let’s not come back this way.”

    “We skirted that part of the valley on the way back. A year later Petteri hired us again to escort him back to the temple. That time there was a band of goblins in the valley. Apparently, they thought the spore spitter was a god and made sacrifices to it.”

    “Really?” the bulky Sathean asked. He scowled, “Are you sure? Even goblins aren’t that stupid.”

    The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s what they said. It defended the valley and they composted their leftovers for it. Maybe even kill travelers for their compost pile.” He sipped his wine. “Funny that it remembered us, told the goblins to let us pass.” Trajan laughed. “I guess we were memorable.”

    Another sip of wine and he continued. “A couple of years later year Marissa and I passed through and the goblins and ‘spitter were gone, no idea if they just left or what. That was months after Etjar was killed.”

    The old man sighed and his eyes watered. The loss of his dear friend hurt deeply even after so many years. He swallowed the last of his wine.

    The Sathean asked, “Seems like a lot of people who traveled with you died. What happened to the wizard woman?”

    Trajan started to answer but his wife cut him off. “She suffered worst of all!” The look she gave the guard was dark indeed. “Far, far worse!” she stated emphatically. Leaning over she kissed her husband hard on the mouth. “He married her, settled down, and raised a family.”

    She turned to the boys. “David.” The boy looked at the woman, resentment on his face – he clearly wanted to listen to more stories. “Time for your lessons.”

    The scowl instantly changed to glee as he hopped up and raced to his favorite teacher.

  • Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Anyuri

    I’m not sure what inspired creating the Anyuri, but it’s a great foil for lower level parties in a high magic campaign.

     

     

    Trajan sat in Jannalanga’s tavern in Kerr with his wife, both sipping mulled wine from heavy mugs that preserved the heat. Hal had finished a fantastic tale of how he survived an encounter with a pack of shape shifting beasts, creatures that resembled smoky wolves whose outlines shifted. Normal weapons wouldn’t hurt them.

    Hal regaled his listeners with a fascinating and horrifying tale of how his company of twenty hardened veterans had been taken and eaten, one by one, only their stripped skeletons being found. Hal had been the sole survivor, escaping by cunning and skill.

    Of course, at this point in the telling of the tale the one-armed man was drunk enough that the details of his cunning and skill were hard to understand, and no one wanted to get close enough because the more he drank, the more he spit.

    People who had never been outside of Kerr found the story exciting … but the spit bath that accompanied it dampened their interest. His audience thinned and disappeared.

    Finally, Jannalanga escorted Hal outside to the hut where animals were dressed after slaughter. Hopefully he’d manage to hit the refuse bin if he spewed up his ale and lunch. Better there than in the tavern.

    Trajan felt every one of his eighty-five years. They had mostly been good years, but the cold weather reminded him just how many years he had survived. He slid his arm around the woman who had been his close companion for most of those years.

    Jake and David plopped down on either side of them, followed more leisurely by Bisonbit who sat across from them. Although only Jake was their grandchild, Marissa slid an arm around David and smiled broadly at Bisonbit. She felt a moment of guilt that she felt much closer to a boy and young man who were no blood relation – far closer than she felt for her son and four daughters, or her other grandchildren. Her youngest grandchild, his best friend, and their tutor were her most beloved. She glanced sideways at her husband; his expression proclaimed he felt the same way.

    David leaned forward and looked around Marissa at Trajan and stated, “Hal never saw anything like what he said. He probably had a nightmare after hearing you tell your story about anyuri.”

    Trajan laughed, replying, “Probably so.”

    An equally elderly man sat down across the table from the old couple, himself holding a mug of mulled wine. He nodded at them, saying their names in greeting, “Marissa, Trajan.”

    Out of the corner of his eye Trajan saw his wife of fifty-five years scrunch up her nose. She didn’t know him, either. “Do we know you?”

    “Once. A long time ago.” The man had an open smile that lit his face up like a bon fire, spreading light and warmth.

    “Billi?”

    The man laughed loudly, clearly pleased he had been recognized. “Even with this face, so different from the last time we saw each other, I hoped my old friend would not forget me!”

    “Not that I feel badly about it, but how are you alive?” Trajan asked, his tone incredulous.

    The visitor went somber. “THAT is a tale worth telling, unlike the silly fantasy told by that old jackass,” he said, nodding towards the side door out which the proprietor had escorted Hal. “If you have the time I’ll tell it.”

    Etjar led the group along an animal trail. Sometime in the distant past it had been a road, but nature always wins in the end, taking back anything men create – after they stopped tending it. The trail was too straight to be a natural animal trail, as animals tended to meander. Plus, there were spots that didn’t seem natural, like a hill had been cut down or gully filled – in the distant past.

    The forest was old growth hard woods. Viewing distances were generally good, although spots where large trees had died sprung up with new contestants for sunlight. On the cusp of a hillock the soldier stopped to rest and let the group catch up.

    His and Trajan’s childhood friend Billi had talked them into hiring on with an expedition to the east side of the Grav-Lach Mountains, more than a hundred miles east of Kieldar. An old monastery had been abandoned more than fifty years before in this wild area, and it was reputed the treasury had been left behind.

    It was also reputed that the most of the monastery’s complement had been killed by shadowy beasts of smoke, and the few survivors had fled willy-nilly to preserve their own lives. Marissa had searched for records at the Grand College of Kerr and had discovered that there had been a monastery, a disaster struck it, and only three survivors made it back to Kieldar. All three were permanently addled by their experience and while all told similar tales, they were discounted as madness. The details of their stories were not recorded.

    A merchant that Billi had worked for the past six years, Londo Severino, had financed the expedition. Marissa had also checked on his background – in his early fifties, he had inherited a moderately successful merchant business from an uncle and had managed to maintain the business for the past twenty-odd years. Billi had recently married Severino’s daughter Julia and they seemed destined to eventually inherit the business.

    Unfortunately, there were rumors that recent business decisions had been bad ones and the merchant needed an influx of cash.

    The trio had discussed the matter and decided to accept the commission … with the proviso that their fee was paid half up front, and the other half reserved at a major lending house in Kerr. Following a near disastrous commission with a professor that resulted in an encounter with an oculus despot, the trio had little trust for employers.

    During that discussion Julia had shown her temper, and Billi had shown that he had not changed – as a child and a teen, he was always one to talk people down from overwhelming emotion. The woman thought the fee far too high, but her husband echoed Marissa’s point that Kieldar was five hundred miles north of Kerr, the path to the monastery was only listed on maps more than a century old, and the dangers of the last leg were completely unknown.

    Other expeditions had set out on this same mission. None had returned.

    This added to the legend, scaring some off while encouraging the imaginations of others.

    Billi also pointed out that expeditions not returning could be a result of many reasons, none of which had anything to do with smoky monsters.

    Billi, always the moderator.

    Etjar had heard the tales but discounted them. If there was a treasury left behind it was either filled with junk or long looted. The story of the monks being slaughtered could be anything. It might be sheer fantasy, or maybe bandits or goblinoids had attacked. Marissa and Trajan agreed that they’d probably get paid for escort service, a bit of searching, and then more escort service. But they set their fee high enough to cover the possibility that something nasty would be encountered some time during the trip.

    In the end an agreement was reached, Severino was satisfied, and Julia kept silent but obviously thought the trio demanded too much. She ignored them as much as she could, and tended to reply only in monosyllables, snorting when Billi, Etjar, and Trajan reminisced about their childhood in Kerr.

    Etjar expected Marissa to be uninterested in their boyhood memories, but Billi kept her engaged, laughing at things both Etjar and Trajan had done, and poking fun at himself as well. Etjar expected the woman to harp too much on things Trajan had done … those two had a hard time holding a civil conversation. But she reigned herself in. Ahh … Billi the moderator.

    Looking back as the group straggled together, Etjar made a mental count. Five porters, Severino, Julia, and Billi, then six more porters. He shifted his shoulders. The chainmail armor he and Trajan wore was heavy, but it was worth the cost, both in money and discomfort. They had worn armor for years and were used to the weight, and both recognized that not having an arrow or blade buried in one’s gut was a good thing. Nay, a great thing!

    In contrast Billi wore boiled leather armor. It didn’t provide the protection that chainmail did, but it was a lot lighter and didn’t chafe as much. Of course, while Billi had seen action in years of militia service and caravan guarding, it was far less than what Trajan and Etjar had experienced. He valued the heavy armor less. Severino, Julia, and the porters wore no armor. So far it had worked out for them.

    The bandits they had encountered several days before had inflicted no harm, thanks to Trajan spotting them before the bandits saw them, and Marissa invoking a Fireball on them, killing half their troupe and sending the survivors fleeing in panic. Etjar and Trajan had each dropped a man at long range with arrows, ensuring the survivors didn’t feel safe even at a distance.

    Now the group approached their destination. Marissa and Trajan guarded their back – sniping at each other while watching in all directions. Etjar sighed. They did their jobs well and if danger appeared, they protected each other fiercely. But the pair just couldn’t have a normal conversation without picking at each other.

    Except if Julia was present. The abrasive woman represented a danger of sorts, so the duo closed rank against her. “I finally found one of Julia’s good points,” Etjar laughed to himself. Billi was deliriously in love, so he didn’t seem to recognize her nature, and her father catered too much to her. The porters all avoided her, although they were beneath her notice, so that wasn’t difficult.

    “We should start looking for a place to camp for the night.”

    Severino asked, “How far do you think we are from the monastery?”

    Etjar replied, “If the map is accurate, less than five miles.”

    “Why stop now?” Julia grated. “Why can’t we camp at the monastery itself?”

    “Because we won’t get there before it’s too dark to setup camp, and because we don’t go into any unknown place except in full daylight,” Marissa retorted, sounding like she considered the other woman an idiot. Which was probably true.

    Etjar quickly cut off Julia’s heated reply. Marissa could be short tempered with people besides Trajan, but normally reigned herself in with paying customers. But a month-and-a-half of traveling with the younger woman had eroded her patience along with her good sense. “We have no idea what condition the monastery is in, if it’s even there. Best to setup a camp on our own terms and investigate in the clear light of morning. The buildings may be in bad shape, no place to go in the dark.”

    “I’m paying for your expertise. It would be bad business to ignore qualified advice,” Severino cut in. He may dote on his only child, but he wasn’t completely oblivious to her charms – or lack thereof. He was also wiser than he sometimes appeared – by phrasing his reply in business terms, he had eliminated a hasty retort from his child.

    The porters all nodded at the result of the discussion. The men were porters, not fighters. Not that they couldn’t handle themselves in a rough-n-tumble, and all probably knew how to use the heavy knives they carried. But they weren’t professional fighters like Etjar, Trajan, and Billi. Or Marissa for that matter – she wasn’t a swordswoman, but she knew well how to use the staff she carried and was deceptively good with a dagger.

    Nearly two miles farther on they came upon a clearing on high ground. It didn’t offer natural protection, but the view in all directions was good. Etjar didn’t mention that in the dark the view wouldn’t be good, but Marissa could plant a Light spell out a ways to illuminate their targets, and the openings between the large trees made arrow fire useful. He and Trajan were good bowmen, and Billi had been pretty good when they served in the Kerrean militia together.

    The porters needed no direction in setting up camp. While Marissa, Trajan, Etjar, and Billi kept watch and Severino and Julia “supervised”, the men quickly dug a fire pit, found stones to edge the pit and control the fire, and started a fire. Others hunted the area for anything that resembled dry firewood, fallen branches and the like, collecting a good-sized pile.

    Severino laid his pad near the fire and the porters arranged it around him. Pecking order had senior men closer to the fire.

    Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar setup their camp away from the fire, where the light wouldn’t fully blind them. They lacked the warmth of the fire but carried heavier blankets to compensate for no fire. Julia had argued against it early on, but Billi setup with the trio. Given the choice of sleeping alone or with her husband, she gave in. After six weeks of travel she no longer grumbled about it.

    Although she did make it a point to make noises that informed the trio of what she and her husband did under the blankets. Etjar was more-or-less inured to her shenanigans by now, so he ignored it. He thought Trajan ignored it as well, but Marissa was continuously irritated by the younger woman.

    The porters milled around, finalizing their camp as the sun disappeared and blackness replaced it. Etjar was doing a final count when Trajan and Marissa spoke at the same time, “Two are missing.”

    “Count on them to be in step with each other,” he thought as he recounted. “Yup, two men missing.”

    “Londo!” As the merchant turned to face him Etjar continued, “Are two men still looking for firewood? We have enough.” The soldier didn’t want to cause unnecessary panic so he phrased his question as innocuously as he could.

    The tradesman and Billi both counted. “Where are Josh and Able?” Londo asked at large.

    The porters looked around at each other, doing their own count. One, a senior porter, shook his head negatively. “They went out looking for firewood, same as everyone.” Turning outward from the fire he shouted, “Josh! Able! Where are you? Sound off!”

    The silence of the mountain was the only reply, small insects making cheeping noises the only break in the silence. The porter opened his mouth to shout again. Trajan darted forward and muffled him, a gloved hand on the back of his head and the other over his mouth. “No need to yell again. What we need is silence to hear them.” He spoke loudly enough that all could hear. “Do you understand?”

    At the man’s frightened nod Trajan released him. The porter was the same size and build as Trajan, over six feet tall and well-muscled … but the soldier moved like a soldier and the porter understood the difference between their respective experiences. The soldier returned to his friends.

    “Why-” Julia retorted loudly. Her own husband clamped a hand over her mouth, his genial expression replaced by a harsh firmness that looked wrong on his normally amiable face. He whispered something in her ear. She shook her head negatively tried to pull away. He shook her gently, considering that he was holding her head, and whispered again, something harsh. At last, she nodded affirmatively, and he released her. She was unhappy with his treatment of her but complied with whatever he ordered. She had enough good sense to listen to her husband, although the look on her face said she’d make him suffer later.

    Etjar issued crisp orders. “We don’t know anything is wrong. Everyone go to your bedroll and sit. Silently. We will find Josh and Able but need to be able to hear them.” He didn’t ask if they understood; his tone demanded obedience.

    Billi gently pushed his wife towards her father. “Stay with your father,” he said softly. “We will handle this.” He looked meaningfully at her. “I need you to be safe.” He noticed that neither Etjar nor Trajan had drawn weapons, so he didn’t draw his either, but had his hand on the hilt.

    He turned to the mercenary trio. “Any ideas where Josh and Able are?” he asked softly, too softly to be heard by his father-in-law, wife, or the porters.

    The three knew enough to not give a visible sign; they needed to avoid a panic. “No idea,” they echoed.

    Marissa explained further, “Things are not looking good. Most tales are just that, but this one is looking ugly.” She grunted in unison with Etjar and Trajan. “We need to assume the worst. The best case is that we’re wrong.”

    “What do we do?”

    Trajan spoke first, “Act like we are in control and know what we are doing. It will give the others confidence.” He shrugged slightly. “It’s no different from being a sergeant in the militia.”

    “Do we have any idea what we are doing?”

    “No. But that won’t stop us.” Trajan’s tone was light but the glint in his eyes said he fully meant what he said.

    “I missed you two. You’re scarier now than when we were kids.” Billi looked at Marissa. “How long have you and Trajan been together?”

    Her instant wrath backed him up two steps. “We ARE NOT a couple!” she hissed.

    “Sorry, I just assumed-”

    Billi looked at Trajan’s now stormy face, then at Etjar, who sported a sardonic grin. Seeing Etjar almost imperceptibly shake his head no, he added, “I won’t make that mistake again.”

    Etjar noted that Londo and the porters watched them with concerned expressions on their faces. They had no idea why Marissa and Trajan were angry – even flamingly mad, as Marissa had not raised her voice. He took charge to set their fears at ease. “There’s no good reason to go out searching for the missing men in the dark. If they are hiding, or fell down a bank without us hearing them, we’re not likely to find them stumbling around in the dark. They’ll be found at dawn, if they don’t stumble in sooner.” To Billi he said, “I’m going to have an unhappy conversation with that pair when they give up on their joke and stumble into camp.”

    Billi looked puzzled, then he understood what Etjar was doing, and nodded his agreement. Etjar continued softly, “If something got them? That gives us even less reason to stumble around in the dark, and more reason to stay here and protect the ones we know are alive.”

    Etjar realized he had accomplished his second goal, distracting Marissa and Trajan from reacting to Billi’s words about them being a couple. They were both looking past Etjar, into the dark, focusing on potential danger and not making a newbie’s mistake of watching the person talking. About that time Billi realized he was looking at Etjar and recalled his militia lessons. His gaze moved off into the darkness, scanning vainly for movement.

    Etjar dropped his voice to a lower whisper. “Marissa, do you need to see the target for a Light spell? Can you set it to happen maybe a hundred feet out?”

    She frowned. “I can’t send it through a barrier, like a stone or wooden wall, but here in the forest I can set it at any point within range.” She grimaced. “The version I can cast has a short range, fifty maybe sixty feet.”

    Trajan shrugged lightly. “Then that will have to be far enough.” Glancing briefly had his right-side partner he asked, “What are you thinking?”

    “We listen carefully and if Marissa hears anything, put a light source about twenty feet in the air, as far out as she can.”

    Billi asked, “What will that do?”

    “Hopefully light up anything out there.” Glancing as Marissa he asked, “That spell lasts a long time, doesn’t it?”

    “About an hour and a half.” She scanned the darkness. “I know the better spell that lasts for years and has longer range, but it takes longer to invoke, and it takes a lot more energy.” Spells were grouped in ranks, according to the amount of energy the caster had to put into casting. The amount of personal energy for casting was a limiting factor for lesser spell casters, differentiating them from full wizards. Marissa was more than halfway to being a full wizard, but understood her own limitations. “I haven’t studied it recently, so I can’t cast it now, too many other useful spells to use in its place.”

    Trajan’s voice had a hard edge to it. “It would have helped now.”

    She retorted, “The Fireball I roasted those bandits with was a lot better than any type of light. You weren’t arguing then!”

    Etjar cut them off. “If there’s something bad out there, a Fireball might do us far better. We have what we have.”

    Trajan’s reply was cut off when a hoarse growl sounded behind them. Fast as they were, by the time they turned a porter was down, blood spurting from a ripped arm. A black shape that suggested a huge, bulky dog darted into the night.

    The other porters stood frozen as the man’s arm continued spurting. Julia snarled orders that were ignored. When no one moved she pushed through the kneeling men and clamped her hands on the gaping wound, trapping the spurting blood. She snarled at the nearest man, who shook himself into action and ripped the sleeve off his shirt. Moving forward he worked with her to bind the wound.

    Another growl sounded the warning as a black shape charged into the light, bowling over the man farthest from the fire. It savaged him in passing, then mauled another man before disappearing into the darkness.

    The first man wasn’t dead yet, but there was no healing his gaping throat. The second man was luckier, his shoulder ripped and bleeding, but not an instantly fatal wound. The beast had gone for his neck and missed.

    All the porters struggled to their feet, some drawing fighting daggers. The nerve of three broke and they ran into the darkness, shrieking shrill cries.

    Less than fifteen seconds later the shrill cries of panic transformed into agonizing howls of pain.

    “HOLD YOUR PLACE!” Julia took charge of the porters.

    “Marissa, put a light as far out as you can on the other side of the fire, where the things came from,” Trajan ordered. Etjar expected her to argue with his friend’s order, but that never happened when they faced danger. “Etjar, you and Billi take that side, we’ll take this one.” He gestured to a point to the right of where the light would be, but didn’t move. Marissa was casting and he turned towards the nearest darkness to protect her, watching for more attackers.

    A bright point of light appeared twenty feet in the air, maybe thirty feet on the other side of the fire. It lit an area of at least fifty feet in diameter nearly as bright as day, eclipsing the bonfire.

    The howls of the three men who ran continued on for a minute, then lessened. One of the men tapered off, dead or just incapable of crying any further.

    Trajan led the woman to their appointed guard spot. “Marissa, put another Light there,” gesturing past the area they had just vacated.

    Before she could start the spell a rustling of leaves and a trio of growls warned of the next attack. The beasts charged in from the dark, unguarded area, savaging three men before charging through the lighted area and into the darkness.

    Marissa completed the second spell, making another lit area on that side for the beasts to charge through.

    Etjar fought the urge to look back at his friends. He and Billi had their appointed areas to watch. Marissa and Trajan had theirs. Hopefully the beasts would not attack through the lighted areas.

    “This is going to be a long night … or a damned short one!” he thought.

    After a few minutes he asked generally, “How are the hurt men?”

    Severino replied, apparently in control of himself, or maybe faking it amazingly well. “We have two dead, two badly hurt, and two walking wounded. Plus the three in the woods.”

    As if his words were foreshadowing, a howl of agony came from the wood. One of the men was alive, but it sounded like he was being tortured.

    The surviving porters, all full grown, hard handed men – they started crying. Broken sounds.

    The man in the woods stopped screaming. Dead or unconscious.

    Severino asked, “What are our options?” He sounded like a businessman, calmly talking about trade. His attitude might not relax his men, but it couldn’t hurt.

    Trajan answered. “We have another hour or more of Marissa’s light spells. Keep the fire burning until then and build it up before the magical light ends. We have enough wood for a good fire until dawn.”

    “Can Marissa use more light magic?”

    “Yes, but she is saving her energy for spells that kill things like this.”

    Etjar thought, “What is he doing? We don’t have enough firewood and we have no idea if Marissa’s other spells will hurt these buggers.” He heard Trajan moving away from him. Not far, but out at least a few feet. Etjar fought the urge to turn and look. “I hope he knows what he’s doing!”

    Then he silently thanked Demeter for his attention being where it should be. Only a brief rustling of leaves warned the soldier before a creature was in mid-leap. The gods damned thing was fast! If his attention had wavered even a moment it would have got him.

    He side-stepped, drawing his sword and slashing in one motion through the space he had just vacated.

    In the split second he had to observe it, the creature resembled a large, bulky wolf. Instead of fur its outline resembled smoke tendrils, giving it a hazy outline. If he had been aiming at the creature he’d probably have missed, but he lashed out at the area he expected it to pass through, not the creature itself.

    His professional guess was good – he hacked the creature as it flew by him. The wound broke its momentum, so it crashed into the fire, scattering flaming embers, and catching its fur on fire. It howled its pain, an odd, broken, coughing sound unlike anything the soldier had ever heard. Scrambling to its four feet, it darted into the darkness, small patches of flame on its fur.

    The light emitted by Etjar’s enchanted blade shed more light than the fire, augmenting the light of the wizard’s spells. He noted that Billi’s longsword did not shed light. “Too much to hope he has an enchanted blade!” Magic – both spells and imbued objects – were fairly common in the world, but that didn’t mean everyone had them.

    Trajan had been talking for the benefit of the monsters. They apparently understood and coordinated attacks, one to ensure that Etjar and Billi were distracted. How Trajan knew they were intelligent eluded him, but his left-side partner was good in outguessing opponents.

    Three monsters charged Trajan and Marissa. She had enough warning – she screamed out bizarre syllables none could understand, sounds that echoed through the mind but passed without a trace. No matter now often Etjar heard spell casting, he could never remember anything of the strange words spoken.

    Four bolts of bright red force flashed from the fingers of her right hand, punching into and burning the beast that charged her. She caught it as it began the leap – the magical energy burned it and tumbled its leap. It hit the ground in front of her clumsily and rolled with legs thrashing. She had just enough time to leap upward so it passed under her. It struggled to its feet and ran, whimpering. A porternear it slashed at it with a belt dagger, but didn’t seem to hurt it.

    The other two hit Trajan from different angles. His hand-and-a-half bastard sword flashed from its sheath over his left shoulder, slashing downward at the beast on his right. His aim was off, the blade caught its side instead of splitting its skull, only cutting fur and flesh. Blood, red in the magical light of Trajan’s sword, sprayed the night.

    The other one hit Trajan in his armored chest, bowling him over, with the wounded one landing on top and then sliding off. Blunted claws did nothing on his chain mail armor, but the snapping jaws went for his face and throat.

    Screaming incoherently Marissa drew a dagger that also shed magical light, yanking it from its sheath on her hip as she threw herself on the unwounded beast. She stabbed it twice, the blade drawing blood from its ribs. It was bigger and heavier, so it shook her off and ran.

    As she stumbled to her feet the one Trajan wounded snapped at her with slavering jaws. It caught her right hand and probably would have ripped her hand off if the dagger had not been in the way. Instead it slashed its own mouth raggedly. Howling that same broken coughing sound, it fled after its companions.

    She dropped the dagger, her hand torn enough she couldn’t hold it.

    Etjar reacted to human howls of agony. Three other wolf things had attacked, downing three of the remaining porters. Two beasts grasped Julia’s wrists and dragged her across the leaves at a near run.

    Billi yelled, “JULIA!” and charged after her. At the edge of the light two dark forms tackled him, knocking his sword out of his hand. They dragged him after his wife into the darkness.

    Etjar took stock. Trajan was pulling himself to his feet. The blood on his armor didn’t appear to be his. At least not much of it. He moved to Marissa and immediately pulled clean cloth from a pouch, wrapping her hand. There was blood, but it looked like teeth scrapes. Definitely painful, but probably not bad – well, not according to the way they judged such things. “We’ll clean it later, hopefully they’re not poisonous,” he thought.

    Trajan knelt, picking up her fallen dagger. He grasped her left hand in his and slapped the pommel into her open palm. She reflectively grasped it, looking into his eyes with a frightened, uncertain gaze.

    Etjar tore his gaze from his friends. Two porters were left standing, both wounded. He wasn’t certain if the ones on the ground were dead, but honestly – they’d live or die – probably die. There wasn’t anything he could do for them. The living had to retreat to some defensible place and hope for dawn to come. He couldn’t carry them.

    Severino pulled himself to his feet. He had been bowled over by one of the beasts and had not been a recipient of fangs. “Julia?” he moaned.

    “No nice way to put it,” Etjar thought. “They got her. She’s gone.”

    “Noooooo,” he screamed.

    “Marissa, guide him along. Trajan, you ready to fight?”

    “Ready as ever!” He scanned the darkness. “What are you thinking?”

    “A couple of hundred yards back along the trail there is that rock outcropping. If we can climb it, we’ll be twenty or thirty feet up, it will slow down the charges. Hopefully prevent them.”

    “OK. All we have to do is survive that far. Grab your packs and let’s go!”

    “What happened to you?” Billi asked. “I was never told.”

    “Never told?” Marissa frowned, then shook her head and continued, “The beasts were loath to get too close to our weapons. It appeared that mundane weapons wouldn’t hurt them, but our enchanted weapons could and did. We didn’t kill any, but we wounded those that got close.”

    “We lost both porters before we made the outcrop,” Trajan interjected. “One collapsed and the other panicked and ran off. Marissa cast a climbing spell on me and I climbed the outcrop. It was too sheer to climb otherwise. I dropped a rope and pulled them up.”

    “First light was a welcome sight,” the woman breathed. “We heard them walking around our perch, but it was too sheer, they couldn’t climb it. As the sun came up, we heard them leave.”

    “When the sun was fully up, we climbed down and checked the camp site. All the bodies were gone as were some of the packs. We scavenged enough travel rations and bedding for the trip back to Kieldar.”

    “What happened to Londo? And to Etjar?” he said somberly. Then he smirked. “And how did you two, who were not a couple, end up together?”

    Trajan and Marissa looked at each other sadly. Marissa stated, “Etjar was killed by a bereaver a few years after we lost you.” She looked back at her husband. “After he died all we had was each other. We got past our childishness and made a life together.”

    Trajan’s eyes brightened. “A good life together.”

    “There’s more to that story.” Billi made it a statement, not a question.

    “Yes, but that’s the short version.”

    “Londo?”

    Trajan took over the telling. “We marched as soon as we had picked up what we could from the camp site. Severino wanted to find his daughter and you, but we made him leave. Even if you were alive, there was no way we could do anything for you.” He sighed. “We followed the trail to Kieldar, stopping only when we had to. That first night we setup camp on an inaccessible rock outcropping, but never saw anything. After the second night we decided we were not being chased. But we moved quickly anyway.”

    “Severino recovered physically but all his energy was gone from him. He sold out to one of the larger merchants and became a caravan master. We lost track of him, no idea what happened to him.” Trajan looked hard at Billi. “Not that I’m complaining, but how are you alive?”

    “THAT is a long story, for another time.” The expression on his face was hard to decipher. Trajan guessed he wanted to talk but for some reason was unwilling to do it now.

    Bisonbit stood up, taking the hint. He was a surprisingly perceptive young man. “Come on you two,” he said to Jake and David with as much gravity as he could. “Time for lessons.”

    The pair slowly stood up and followed their tutor, grumbling all the way.

    Billi exhaled slowly. “There’s a lot more to the story, but I didn’t want to tell it in front of the children.”

    “Bad stuff?”

    “Mixed. The Anyuri, as I learned they call themselves, captured us for food and slaves. They have no problems eating humans, although for the twenty-three years I was their captive, I refused.” His face showed his disgust.

    “So why did they capture you?”

    “Breeding.”

    “BREEDING?”

    “Their species is from another reality, one of the elemental planes, I think. A small number were trapped on our world and managed to survive. They have an oral history, but it’s unclear if their ancestors understood how they got here.” He drew a breath. “They have a limited shape change ability and can transform from their natural shape, which resembles the bulky wolves you saw, to a human-like shape.”

    “Their histories say that at first their numbers increased, but at some point the number of live births lessened. They’re about as smart as humans, and realized they were having problems with inbreeding.”

    Billi smiled. “It turns out they can, in their humanoid form, breed with humans. They are also class conscious, so they wanted me – plus you,” meaning Trajan, “and Etjar for breeding stock. We were warriors while Londo and the porters were beneath their notice. They intended us to breed with their females.”

    Marissa asked, “What would they have done with me?” She looked horrified.

    “Julia became one of the young male’s mate, as you would have.”

    “For breeding?” She looked puzzled.

    “Definitely not! Their females get pregnant as humanoids but change to their natural form to give birth. The resulting pups are their kind.” He shook his head. “If Julia had gotten pregnant the birth would have been human, and they didn’t want that. Making humans is worthless to them.”

    Marissa and Trajan both looked confused, so Billi expounded, “Anyuri mate for life, so the female selected for me became my mate. Human women were selected to provide a mate to the young males who would otherwise not have a mate. But to not produce children.”

    “So you became part of their society?”

    “Yes and no. I was mate to one of their females, but not treated like one of them. But more valuable than Julia, and far more valuable than the slaves.”

    Trajan frowned. He didn’t like what he was hearing. “Good thing we escaped. I don’t think I’d have tolerated them touching Marissa.”

    Billi let out an explosive breath. “It was hard, seeing that male with Marissa. I fought it at first, but my mate informed me that if I wanted Julia to live, I had to accept my place and I had to accept Julia’s.” He chuckled, a sound containing no mirth. “I would have resisted and made them kill me … but I wanted Julia to live.”

    “She lasted nineteen years, but most of it was just surviving. She hated her life. She dreamed of escape. She hated the one that she was mated with.” He let out a long breath. “At times she hated me because I accepted my fate to help keep her alive. The anyuri understood what Julia meant to me, and they used it against me.”

    “Then one winter she got sick and died.” He face showed that Billi felt the pain, even after all the intervening years. “Yeah, she was a bitch.” He looked up at Marissa and Trajan. “Yes, I knew what she was. But she was MY bitch. If I had loved her less, I’d not have given in, and they would have killed me.”

    “After she died I became obsessed with escape. It took several years. One spring I was gathering shoots near a river. When none were near me, I leaped off a cliff into the water and floated down stream for three days before climbing out on the opposite bank.” At Marissa’s questioning look he continued, “They are deathly afraid of quantities of water. They panic and hide during a heavy rain. There was no chance they’d cross the river to get me.”

    “I made my way down the river to the coast and ended up in one of the larger trading cities. I figured I was safe.”

    Billi shook his head. “I took a position working for a merchant, one that kept me in the city. Over a year later I was returning home after dark when I saw her.” He looked up at them. “I saw my wife. My mate. The anyuri. In her natural form.”

    He shook his head sadly. “Probably because of their otherworldly origins, they are unharmed by mundane weapons. I never owned a magic weapon, so I prepared to die; I had no way to defend myself. I had abandoned her and they took that type of thing VERY poorly. I expected her to take her vengeance.”

    “She shifted into humanoid form and threw herself into my arms, crying. She begged me to kill her instead of leaving her again. She was ready to die before she’d give me up.” He shrugged his lack of understanding. “They mate for life, and after twenty-three years I was her mate. That I was human did not matter.”

    Marissa and Trajan both had their jaws hanging open in surprise.

    Billi smiled a small, sad smile. “If you think her actions were strange, mine were stranger. I took her home and kept her as my wife. Which she was. It doesn’t matter that I had no choice or that I was already married when mated with her.”

    “We lived together for nearly thirty more years before she passed away. We had three litters while at the monastery, but she was beyond childbearing years by the time she found me.”

    “Litters?”

    “That’s what I call our children. We mated as humans, but she changed to her natural form once she knew she was pregnant and stayed in that form to give birth. In general, a birth is four to eight pups.” He laughed, “I had sixteen children, nine which lived to grow up. I have over ninety grandchildren and can’t even count my great-grandchildren.”

    “A year before she died, several of our grandchildren found us. They wanted us to go back to the monastery, but we refused. Our life was in the city after so many decades.”

    “So several stayed with us.”

    “Now that she’s gone, they’re taking me home, but I wanted to see Kerr first.”

    “Home?”

    “The monastery.”

    “Do you need protection?” Trajan asked. Both he and Marissa looked ready to act, even at their advanced ages.

    Billi laughed again. “No. I don’t have a lot of years left, but I’m going to spend them with family. I guess living with my wife on my terms, not hers, changed my feelings. I miss her so much, some days it’s hard to make myself get up. Being with my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren helps.”

    A young man and two women entered the tavern. They were too dark to be Kerrean and their skin had an odd black hue to it. Billi smiled at them, then turned to Trajan and Marissa. “It’s been good to see you. Time to go home.”

  • Other Characters – Weapon of Change

    The characters in these pastiches are made up as single-use characters. While it’s possible I might re-use any of them at some point, I rather doubt it.

    When dreaming up this one I could not fit any of my existing characters into the framework I needed to explain how a Weapon of Change works. I needed someone bright and someone with no knowledge, but none fitted. So Irminric and Gislhere were invented. I don’t expect to use Irminric again … but if I need a sage, Gislhere will reappear.

     

     

    Wisl of Coomb drummed his fingers on the table, visibly irritated and obviously expecting faster results. Gislhere sighed quietly. Illiterate nobles showed impatience while others searched for information they were intrinsically incapable of finding. But men like Wisl paid the fees that supported research and purchased yet more books and scrolls.

    The sixth volume checked had the reference the scholar sought. He looked up brightly at his temporary employer.

    “You found the information I need?”

    “Yes, my lord. Your battle axe is indeed an important weapon with a long history prior to your grandfather winning it in battle.”

    Kneeling with head bowed, the soldier waited while the senior priest completed the first part of the ceremony. The incense burned his sinuses and eyes, but the soldier’s patience and acceptance of suffering, lessons learned through hard experience, kept him in place.

    The priest completed his chanting in the old tongue, “Rise, Irminric, soldier of Donblas!” The soldier surged smoothly to his feet, no hint of cramping caused by thirty minutes of kneeling visible on his face or in his actions.

    Lifting the axe from the pillow the priest presented it to Irminric. Head bowed the soldier accepted the weapon, its weight nothing in his strong hands. “Do you swear to use this weapon for justice, to use it bravely and with good intent in your duties as a protector of the People?”

    “I do swear!” The young man’s face flushed with a rush of emotion kept barely in check.

    In an anteroom Irminric questioned the priest, “Oswald, you said that Donblas blessed this axe. What does that mean?”

    “This axe is imbued with powerful magics, different from what wizards place on weapons, but powerful none the less. Unlike wizard-built weapons this one does not bear a single level of power. Instead, its power varies with the ability of its wielder.”

    “When a wizard enspells a weapon he casts one or more spells upon the weapon and then binds the spells permanently to it. Priests do not wield such magics.” Oswald mentally debated a few moments on how to proceed. “We use the magics granted us by our god to perform a similar, but very different, thing.”

    Irminric frowned but before he could utter a word the priest drew a breath and continued, “This weapon began when I commissioned a weapon of the highest quality. It is constructed of a star iron and Mithril alloy – rust-proof, harder yet more flexible, and more accepting of spells than mere steel. We senior priests consecrated it and cast spells upon it, setting its direction and preparing it for blessing by Donblas himself!”

    Noting that Irminric listened intently as if spellbound, he continued, “Then we prayed to Donblas to bless the weapon. He did so, and the result is the weapon you now hold in your hands.”

    “This axe has an edge no non-magical weapon could have, and it will maintain that edge against most targets. It will strike creatures whose skin or hide are proof against mundane weapons, and will even pierce the skin of demons and other unnatural creatures! Its powers are greatest against undead monsters. Beyond that I don’t know for sure.”

    The priest spoke in a more heated tone, “Donblas’ blessing is a powerful thing, more powerful than all but a few other gods that might approach his strength. Until you use it, we don’t know all it may do.” In a softer tone the priest continued, “But just as important is the wielder. The more skilled the pious one who wields it, the more powerful the blade becomes.”

    Irminric’s knees buckled when the heavy sword slammed into his shield, but he kept on his feet. The necromancer’s human guards were without exception big, strong, and skilled in sword play. This one battering his shield was enough to nearly unman him.

    Shunting the guard’s follow-up strike aside with the shield, Irminric struck in return, his magically sharp axe splitting the guard’s shield down the middle and shattering his arm. Controlling but not slowing the motion of the axe Irminric spun it in a figure eight and decapitated his opponent.

    He staggered to help his men who were losing to the necromancer’s other guards. Two of Donblas’ soldiers were dead or dying, two were badly wounded, and the remaining two bleeding from minor wounds. Irminric hit the first guard from behind, dropping him instantly and carrying the motion into the second. The remaining two guards lost focus, turning to deal with a greater danger. The lapse in focus proved fatal as the soldiers used the distraction to bloodily end the fight.

    Irminric checked his downed men – both were dead. Pulling strips of clean cloth from a pouch on his belt, he quickly bound the wounds of the living. “Shock and loss of blood often kill when the wounds won’t.”

    “We’re outnumbered and badly damaged. Pick up Regenhere and Samlis – we’ll not leave their bodies for the necromancer to desecrate!” The least wounded men shouldered the dead and moved to follow their leader.

    Leading the way out of the building into the courtyard, Irminric stopped cold. In the moonlight stood the necromancer’s reinforcements – a dozen zombies – mindless animated bodies capable of using weapons and following simple directions such as “kill” – led by the stinking form of a wight.

    Zombies reacted relatively slowly so in the open the fast moving, well trained soldiers could defeat greater numbers. But the wight changed the odds badly – its touch burned with cold and sucked life from its victims. Worse than death was the fate of one drained of life by the abomination!

    Irminric lunged forward and hacked downward on the closest zombie, striking the joint between neck and shoulder. The super-sharp blade sliced through the leather armor cladding the undead thing, hacking through undead flesh and bone. Light flashed from the axe blade, bright to the human soldiers, blinding to the undead. The stink of the rotting bodies mixed with the stench of burned flesh – the flash burned the undead and staggered them.

    “AT THEM!” Irminric stepped past the nearest two zombies and hacked at the third. Its sword arm now gone at the elbow the zombie tried to hug the young soldier. Gagging at the stench Irminric stepped under the lunge and swung back to sever a leg at mid-thigh.

    Moving on, he battered the next in line with his shield, ducked a slash, spun, and decapitated the fifth that moved in on his left. Another burst of light illuminated the area and burned the zombies. Eight of the dozen were down and the remaining four reeled from the damage. The three surviving soldiers didn’t hesitate to attack while chance favored them.

    The second flash left the wight staggering in circles, stunned to insensibility. The magical axe’s third flash scorched the remaining zombies.

    “Your axe was handed down from father to son for twelve generations in the Willic family, until Irminric V lost it, along with his life, in battle against your grandfather.”

    “I know that, I know that!” howled the nobleman, hammering on the small table with both hands. “Why did it work so well for my father but not for me!”

    “Yes, I’m getting to that. This axe is very potent against the living dead, capable of slashing and hacking through their flesh, such as it is, with more facility than against the living. On a killing stroke it emits a burst of pure light that burns all nearby undead while any undead possessing a mind may be stunned.”

    “That is the powers of this weapon. Why it worked better for your father than for you? This weapon is blessed by Donblas. Devout followers of Donblas, as well as followers of Osiris and Heironeous his allies, are granted use of its powers. If you don’t follow Donblas, Osiris, or Heironeous the powers against undead won’t work.”

    The Baron of Coomb was uncharacteristically silent as he digested that information.

    Eyeing the nobleman, Gislhere continued, “Just as importantly, weapons of this nature gain a portion of their power from the wielder. The more powerful and skillful the wielder, the greater the powers of the axe. Your father was both a great axeman and a faithful follower of Osiris. My understanding is that you are neither, so until both conditions change you will never master this weapon.”

  • Council of Rendelshod – Greymen

    The Council of Rendelshod was composed of the characters from my original campaign, with my co-DM (my brother Kevin). While that campaign ended in 1986 (or so) the characters live on in my campaign world.

    Some of the characters – including Thorin, Meselda, Baldor, Susafras, Paprazzi, Edine, and Fay – are characters from the original campaign. Others, such as Kortag, were added to my own purposes long after our beloved characters graduated to NPC-hood.

    When I wrote this pastiche I debated on how to frame it for Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar, but wasn’t coming up with ideas. Then I thought of Meselda presenting to a bunch of scholars … and this one was born.

     

     

    Sitting in the third row in the largest lecture room of the University of Sathea, Ray was thrilled he had scavenged a token to attend the lecture. The five-tiered lecture room had seating for sixty, although easily twice that many managed to horn their way in, crowding the back of the room and the steps running up both sides of the tiers. The chattering and jostling of the many who had not wangled an invite made it hard to think, but at least he had a seat and a clear view of the lecture podium and the three shrouded tables next to it.

    The Professor’s Door behind the podium opened and in walked a diminutive woman, definitely under five feet tall. At first glance she was a dwarf with the characteristic stocky build, but only at first glance. Her features were different from typical dwarves, a bit softer and less rough-hewn. Some might even describe her as attractive, although dwarven women didn’t normally appeal to human tastes. From the surprised muttering Ray wasn’t the only one who wondered at her race.

    The woman stopped, momentarily nonplussed by the size of the crowd. She obviously expected a much smaller group, but after that short hesitation she stood her iron shod walking stick, its length nearly equal her own height, in a corner and stepped in front of the tables. After a moment of silence, the nattering voices increased to an even louder level, but tapered off as she waited patiently for the group to settle.

    Master Professor Taloquan chose that time to move from his prime seat in the middle of the first tier, covering the short distance to the woman in two long strides. Turning to face the audience the Master Professor motioned for quiet to a group that already nearly silent. “Settle down!” he barked in his usual gruff voice, his volume and tone even more pointless than his hand signals. “Today we have a visitor, Lady Meselda of the College at Rendelshod, who will tell us what she thinks she knows about the greymen.”

    Surprised muttering arose anew as the audience marveled at how much condescension the Master Professor packed into those few words. The entire room knew that Taloquan had argued ferociously against a foreign lecturer at HIS University. The Master Professor considered himself the foremost authority on demonic creatures and was quite put out that the department had seen fit to host an outsider lecture on his subject. His “discussion” with Dean Warmen had been heard a mile away, and during the two hour lecture that preceded this session he had made it clear that little, if anything, could be added to what he knew of the greymen.

    Completely unfazed by the professor’s dismissive tone, the woman politely thanked him and spoke to the assembly in a strong, clear voice. “Thank you for coming to hear me speak. Recent discoveries have significantly changed what we thought we knew of the so-called greymen.” With a twinkle in her eye, she turned again to the towering Master Professor and thanked him for inviting her.

    Murmuring rose again as the Master Professor’s hostile scowl softened to confusion as the diminutive woman calmly and politely faced down the bear of the University of Sathea. Rumbling something unintelligible he stalked back to his seat and flumphed down.

    Smiling at the audience, Meselda waited until the side talk ended.

    “What do we know of the greymen?” Holding up her right hand with fingers extended, she ticked off her points by closing fingers. “One, they are named aptly as their skin has a greyish complexion, a sign of poor health in mortal creatures. Two, they are immune to magic spells. Three, they cannot be hurt by non-magical weapons. Four, they have strong magic powers.” Closing her thumb to form a fist, Meselda intoned, “And five, greymen are a form of devil or demon, common in the Outer Planes from the Hells to the Abyss.”

    Returning her attention to the Master Professor, “Does that summarize what is known about the greymen?”

    Startled gasps of muted laughter showed Ray that others were astounded that Taloquan had met his match in a battle of wits. Having his entire two hour lecture trivialized to five short points left the massively overbearing human speechless. Glancing around Ray realized he wasn’t the only one enjoying the Master Professor’s discomfort.

    After ten full seconds of silence, she turned her attention back to the entire audience and continued, “As you are aware last week a group of greymen attacked a caravan only a mile outside the northeast gate of the City. Fortunately for the survivors of the caravan a group of Council members was nearby and assisted in fighting off the attackers.”

    The more knowledgeable audience members all snorted together. It was commonly known that the caravan guards were nearly wiped out and that a mere half dozen members of the Council of Rendelshod destroyed over twenty greymen and less than a dozen wounded greymen survivors managed to escape.

    “We,” obviously meaning the Council, “examined the bodies and discovered some interesting facts.”

    A first-year student dashed to the table closest to the podium, pulled the sheet off to reveal a very dead humanoid body, and franticly turned a crank that tilted the table top upwards to display the body to the audience. Just as quickly the student retreated with the sheet.

    The body was over six feet tall, skeletally lean but muscular, the skin a sallow grey uniformly across the extensively scarred body. The face, topped with short grey hair, appeared human of a racial stock not dissimilar from Sathean, a characteristically broad nose and chin. Other than being six inches too tall and grey skinned instead of bronze, the being might be mistaken for a Sathean. The cause of death was obviously the dished-in left temple, although the upper lip was torn and bruised.

    “While the skin coloration would indicate serious dis-health in a human, this specimen was very fit. Although the extensive scarring all over the body does lead one to believe that it led a more dangerous life than that of the typical scholar …”

    Smiling warmly she paused to let the audience titter, then continued, “Thin to the point of gauntness, he was very strong. Just prior to being killed he struck down three soldiers, two of which died from his blows. The third was fortunate that only his arm was broken.”

    “All of the bodies had the same general skin coloration, so we know the greymen are in fact grey.” Ray glanced at the Master Professor whose own coloration shifted to red as he digested her off-hand comment.

    At her nod the student helper displayed the second body. Perhaps a bit shorter than the first, this one had different facial features – the nose was broad but the chin was oddly narrow and the corners of the eyes were tilted down just a bit, giving it a decidedly odd appearance. This was like no human stock Ray had ever seen in the cosmopolitan Sathean Empire. The lanky grey hair was burned off above the eyes and the chin was similarly scorched, as was the left hand. An even half dozen black-charred holes were scattered across the chest.

    “These two greymen were in the area of a Fireball. This one”, indicating the first body, “shrugged off the magical fire without harm while this one”, pointing to the second body, “obviously didn’t. It also failed to shrug off the Force Bolts that ended its life.”

    Scanning the audience before speaking, Meselda stated, “Greymen are NOT immune to magical spells although it appears that some have resistance as do most demons and devils.”

    Master Professor Taloquan started to sputter a rebuttal but sputtered out as the small woman met his outraged gaze with her steely one. “The facts are clear. This one died from magic.”

    Looking around the audience Ray marveled at the utter silence, all side discussions completely shut off. Taloquan was the bear of the department, known for shouting down anyone he couldn’t beat with facts. This small woman, barely half his size, shut him up with a stare.

    Drawing in an angry breath the Master Professor intoned, “I suppose you have a reliable witness who can verify the cause of death?”

    A high-pitched barked laugh startled the room, drawing all eyes from the confrontation to the Professor’s Door. Unnoticed during the lecture, three figures had entered and stood by the wall.

    These three figures were a study in contrasts. The first was tremendous, a towering figure well over seven feet tall with broad shoulders and a blocky chest. His face wasn’t fully human, he was clearly a goblinoid half-breed of some sort.

    The second was also a half-breed, this one human and elf. He would have towered over most in the room, but seemed small in comparison to his larger companion. Over six feet tall, broad of shoulder and narrow of waist, he had long silver hair, elvish ears and nose … on a decidedly human face. Ray thought, “so much for half-elves all being beautiful“.

    The figure that had laughed continued this study in contrasts – a halfling barely four feet tall. Next to the others he looked positively tiny and defenseless. Stepping between the two tables he placed a familiar hand on the corpses’ respective arms. Looking Taloquan directly in the eyes and speaking in a reedy voice the halfling piped, “Meselda killed both of these pieces of … offal. Unless you’d like to join them I don’t suggest you insult her integrity again.”

    No longer did the halfling look small or helpless. If anything, he towered over the much taller human. The Master Professor recoiled from the gaze and words, fear etched on his face. Even the bravest in the room wouldn’t hold the halfling’s disturbing gaze.

    “Fay!” Meselda barked. “There’s no need for that.”

    Fay smirked at the professor, bowed gracefully to Meselda, and stepped back alongside his companions. Ray noted he did not turn his back on the audience. Shivering, Ray turned his attention back to the dwarven woman.

    The room was silent except for the alien sound of fabric rustling as people shifted. Stares directed at the halfling shifted to the dwarven woman, and a palpable sense of respect for her filtered through the room.

    Looking at the Master Professor the woman continued in the silence, “Yes, I think I am a very reliable witness.” A third time she nodded at the student, who this time hesitated before rushing to display the third body. His turning of this table’s crank was yet more frantic, and his grip slipped twice. Meselda waited patiently while the student’s face grew redder.

    This corpse was nearly a foot shorter than the others and had oddly bulging eyes. Although that might not be a racial feature, but a result of the dozen stab wounds in the chest and the gapingly slashed throat. “This one made the mistake of grabbing Lord Fay.” Gesturing at the halfling, who merrily waved to the audience, Meselda continued, “A very mundane knife inflicted these wounds.”

    “This one did not require a magical weapon to kill.” Oddly cowed the Master Professor did not reply to her contradiction of his lecture. Letting the thought digest, she added, “However, one of the leaders did prove immune to the mundane blades of the caravan guardsman, so some greymen are immune to mundane weapons.”

    “The leaders demonstrated some spell-like powers, but most of the greymen soldiers did not. Those that did exhibit powers didn’t have anything all that powerful, simple things like magical Darkness and a Lesser Poison Cloud.”

    Ray laughed to himself. Meselda Gilderlo of the Council of Rendelshod might consider those magics trivial, but few others in the lecture hall did!

    Pouring herself a glass of water from a pitcher in the podium, the dwarven woman surveyed the audience, apparently steeling herself for some final revelation. Her dry throat quenched, she continued.

    “The most interesting findings occurred after the battle. As you should all realize, regardless of external differences we are all pretty much alike inside”. Pointing to the Master Professor, an elf, then her three companions and finally herself, she said, “we all have hearts, lungs, stomachs, and guts – all performing the same function and in the same general places.”

    “Creatures of the Outer Planes are different. Even amongst demons the organs are often markedly different – in function, appearance, and location. Such creatures may have organs whose function we can’t easily identify. One of the most dangerous things about fighting an unknown demon is that vital spots are usually different. What kills one may simply make another angry.”

    “We dissected a dozen greymen after the battle. The results are conclusive. They are … human.”

    Bedlam filled the lecture hall and even the chastised Master Professor Taloquan lurched to his feet, shouting. The noise continued for a minute without showing any signs of abating, and if anything got worse as over one hundred strident voices got louder and louder, each trying to shout down the others.

    BABOOOOMMMMM!!!!

    An impossibly loud clap of thunder shattered the pandemonium, knocking some attendees off their feet and leaving an equally impossible silence. “Thank you, Lord Kortag,” Meselda said to the half-elf, who was apparently a spell caster of some nature. Smiling at the half-elf’s grave nod, Meselda turned back to her audience.

    “These creatures, regardless of appearance, origination, and powers – are VERY human. There are some differences that don’t quite match up, but the evidence is conclusive. These bodies are yours for examination. Draw your own conclusions. We will reconvene here at this same time tomorrow to discuss your results.”

    The staff standing in the corner flew of its own volition into her waiting hand, and the three companions swept out the Professor’s door behind her.

  • The Reavers – Gilderlo Hippogriffs

    This scene took place on the walls of Vigerfast, where the Company helped defend the city against the pashehah, creatures of Elemental Chaos. As with the Chaos Gargoyle this version is edited down from the original campaign journal that describes the event.

     

     

    David of Kerr took a deep breath and grounded his sword. The extended bout of heavy spell casting intermixed with swordplay had taxed him to his limits. All the bugs near him were slain and he took the opportunity to catch his breath and suck at his water skin, wetting his parched throat.

    Looking over the wall he saw thousands of crushed, hacked, and burned bug bodies. The dwarves held the walls, along with their elven and human allies. Casualties were high, but they held. By the skin of their teeth.

    “How different things are from thirty minutes ago,” he muttered to the air, thinking back …

    Thousands of the bugs had died trying to surmount the tall dwarven walls, but the dwarves and their allies beat back the first two waves. Casualties among the defenders were not high, but every defender who fell made them more vulnerable. Unlike in the epics where the defenders win with ninety percent of their manpower dead, in real life a loss of five percent was tragically significant.

    The first wave was beaten back easily, like the bugs were throwing their puniest forces at the walls to determine strengths and weaknesses. After twenty minutes of battle the surviving bugs simply retreated, leaving their dead and wounded. There was no signal; they just all retreated at once.

    An hour later another surge hit the wall. This one was more determined and focused, but still didn’t seem serious, at least not in retrospect – at the time it was bloody serious. The attackers were still the smaller bugs, which were certainly large enough to kill a dwarf, elf, human, or even ogre-mage. Their claws could snip a wrist like scissors a flower stem. But this time there were flying bugs, cylindrical bodies with biting mandibles and stingers, supported in hard, iridescent wings. These bit and stung, and a few managed to grab a defender, lift them up, and drop them into the mass below the wall. The lucky ones died from the fall; the unlucky ones were shredded into tiny pieces and eaten.

    Again, after twenty minutes the bugs retreated. Some dwarves jeered at them, but David knew something was wrong. The bugs didn’t do things like normal creatures, but even by that standard this seemed wrong.

    An hour after that retreat the bugs massed for the third assault. The previous numbers seemed overwhelming, but those assaults looked tiny in comparison. Larger bugs, ones with stingers, were visible for the first time, including three that were larger, slower, and more cumbersome. These three turned around and pointed their backsides toward the wall. Their rigid carapaces seemed to expand more and more, but at the distance beyond bow shot it was hard to be sure.

    One rippled like the hard shell was cloth, and a ball of green energy spat from an orifice on its hindquarters. The energy flashed across the distance and hit the wall a hundred feet to David’s right.

    The burst of energy struck the wall, carving a seven foot diameter hole through the hard stone like it was soft butter. The burst continued on, hitting the inner wall with identical result. It punched holes through several buildings in the external city and continued on into the mountain and presumably into the internal city. Anything in its path was simply gone. Two buildings clipped by the energy collapsed. Screams echoed through the city.

    As he turned his attention back, the other two energy bugs spat their energy blasts, punching two more holes in separate places. Following the discharge the bugs looked deflated, and slowly trundled away, while the masses around them charged. Flying bugs not previously seen filled the air.

    The defenders held the outer wall while engineers frantically improvised patches in the breaches in the inner wall. The retreat was painful and expensive, and the battle for the inner wall was going badly for the defenders, individual feats of heroism too numerous to count.

    David saw another wave of flying bugs coming at them from out of the sun. “Damnation! We’ve got to hold long enough for the women and children to flee!” He girded himself to sell his life as expensively as possible. He had expended most of his spells and his stamina for a long fight against clawing, stinging bugs was not good.

    Blinded by the sun he couldn’t see the new attackers clearly, but he saw the packed wave of javelins that whispered down at the defending forces. “We’re dead!” someone screamed.

    The javelins twinkled in front of the wall, the force of the throws coupled with gravity, driving them through the rigid carapaces of the bugs, wounding or slaying hundreds, blunting their attack. A second salvo of javelins slammed through the bugs, driving climbers off the wall. The wounded dragged their compatriots with them, the fall wounding more than the javelins had.

    “Hippogriffs!” David wondered aloud.

    Wheeling by, the attackers – revealed to be hippogriffs with dwarven riders, slashed their way through the mass of flying bugs – beaks and hooves and spears fouling glistening wings, sending the bugs crashing to their deaths on the backs of their land bound brethren.

    The bugs were faster and more maneuverable, but up close the hippogriffs inflicted far worse damage, and their riders were equally skilled with light spears that stabbed the bugs, fouling and destroying their wings before they could close. Some few of the hippogriffs and their riders fell to their deaths, though far fewer than the bugs that crashed down on their own.

    The flying bugs killed or driven off, the air cavalry launched several more salvos of javelins into the mass of bugs beneath the walls, while the defenders dropped oil and torches, burning the dead and living alike. The assault broke, the stench of burning bodies a price willingly paid by the defenders in exchange for their lives.

    “The Gilderlo Air Corps,” breathed a voice next to David. Turning he saw his companion Gilden, the dwarf’s axe gory with bug guts, his armor coated with it.

    “It can’t be – home is worlds away from here.”

    “Yet it’s them, there’s nothing else like them.”

    Down in the valley thousands of the gods damned things milled around. They were forming up for another assault on the walls.

    The mage had heard stories of the Gilderlo Air Corps since he was a child, he’d seen them fly in formation, but he’d not seen them in battle. He watched as the squadrons formed and dove in waves toward the bugs. This was different from their last attack; they were far more spread out. More energy bugs turned their tails up into the air and fired the energy bursts they normally used to tunnel through stone. A hippogriff was hit, one of its wings disintegrated so it plummeted with its rider into the mass, but the wide-spread, fast-moving animals were hard to hit.

    Puzzled, the mage watched the first salvo of javelins flashing downward as the hippogriffs pulled out of their dives. The first dozen hit large, widely separated bugs. Each javelin exploded into a fireball, but not like the spell. Each ball of fire was a torus, rolling out from the point of impact in an expanding donut more than man-high, burning everything in a huge circle. All the lesser bugs were burnt husks, but a few of the larger ones survived the magical fire. The next wave of javelins hit different groups of unburned bugs, scorching thousands more.

    The third salvo of javelins was different – David watched in amazement and then glee as a javelin hit a depleted energy bug with a crackle of electricity, and a bolt of lightning leaped to a nearby bug, then to another and another, hitting seven in addition to the first struck. The last energy bug had not fired its internal payload – it was still fat with the energy. It exploded in a sphere of green energy, scalloping out a 100′ hemisphere in the ground, disintegrating everything near it.

    David howled his appreciation, jumping up and down in circles. The nearby dwarves watched in stunned amazement as the bugs died. After long seconds they joined in the gleeful howling. The fight was long from being over, but the dwarves and their allies had turned the tide.

  • The Reavers – Chaos Gargoyle

    The Company from Kerr is the name the Eric and Patrick’s AD&D characters was called in the land of Shahrivar. Originally the group was Jake, David, Bisonbit, and the dwarven cleric Gilden. Later they were joined by David’s henchman Sam.

    After being killed one time too many, Sam retired before death became permanent. In his place David hired the druid Faraz, and Jake hired the monk Trilla. In the Giant Temple of Tharizdun they were joined by the oni noble Renki, and in the Hall of the Clerics of Tharizdun they were temporarily joined by the halfling wizard Orcanus.

    This line up was immortalized by goblinoid mothers, who for the next dozen centuries threatened their children that The Reavers, as the Company was known among the goblinoids, would come and take them.

    Later the Company was expanded by the addition of the dwarven rangers Lennart, Fredrick, Hakan, Mikkel, and Rolf. The cleric Racine joined them for a few adventures, as did Jake’s wife, the oni noble Ayazuna, and her father Junichi (who is Renki’s elder brother and eventually clan chief).

    This is a MUCH-abbreviated telling of the Company’s initial encounter with the Chaos Gargoyle and its destruction. This took place in The Giant Temple of Tharizdun.

     

     

    The group of seven moved slowly and carefully through the rough-hewn tunnel. Deep beneath the Hall of the Clerics of Tharizdun, they had defeated frost giant and human clerics, not easily but without casualties. They had an air of earned confidence that gave them strength. But the air here was different. Something felt wrong.

    Ahead bright light appeared, as the tunnel opened into some type of cavern. Moving cautiously forward they saw the huge cavern’s floor was dished so the center was about ten feet below the entrance, while the ceiling above that center was a whopping seventy feet above. Niches lined the walls, probably forty of them – each containing a statue identical to the ones that lined the ledges in the above levels. The hall above contained hundreds of these statues, winged humanoid figures about four feet tall. They looked benign but everyone was suspicious.

    Near the center of the room crouched a humanoid statue about six feet tall, vaguely human looking, wearing a sweeping cloak. Surrounding the statue were three frost giants and a dozen men. One of the giants chanted from a scroll in harsh tones, a language unknown to the party. The figures around the statue focused intently on it and did not notice the party. David and Renki, the ogre mage, quietly invoked spells. David’s Fireball hit the figures, instantly burning the scroll to ashes, and a few seconds later Renki’s Lightning Bolt followed.

    Several of the evil clerics slapped the stone floor in a roll of death. The druid Faraz’s sling stone missed its target, but Jake’s crossbow bolt struck the giant who had been holding the scroll, piercing his arm in a spray of blood that splashed across the statue. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the statue glowed with an inner, greenish light. Inexplicably the surviving clerics ignored their attackers, ignored their dead brethren, turning their attention totally to the statue. It visibly changed, converting from stone to some type of pseudo-flesh.

    Straightening from its crouch, its cloak divided and became wings. The bland humanoid face morphed beyond anyone’s worst nightmare and the hands became clawed caricatures.

    It launched itself at the frost giant who had been reading the scroll, biting and tearing. As the stunned onlookers stood frozen, it tore the giant to bloody chunks. Standing erect it glowed again. In response each of the statues in the amphitheater glowed and animated into smaller versions of the chaos gargoyle.

    Creatures of Elemental Chaos that had not been seen since before the beginning of known history again strode into the world.

    The lesser chaos gargoyles took flight, coalescing into four arrow-shaped groups, swirling around the huge room. Faster and faster they flew, tightening the circle with each revolution. Striking like lightning they poured over the remaining frost giants and humans in the room. The screams were shrill but thankfully brief.

    The party watched the carnage in shocked silence. David snapped out of it first, commanding, “Time to leave!” The party moved quickly back to where the passages to the northeast and southwest met the main tunnel.

    They heard a strange creaking coming quickly from behind them. Bisonbit the cleric stopped, pulled a wand from his belt, and spoke a short phrase from a long dead language. A “V” of lesser gargoyles was nearly upon them when a violent ice storm coalesced into being, filling the tunnel in front of him. The bitter cold and particles killed some or slammed them into the wall or floor. As each died it burst into powdered rock.

    But the survivors came through the storm as if it weren’t there. The gargoyles swarmed over the party, eager for mortal blood. The first chose Trilla and dove at her with razor-sharp claws and teeth. She warded off its first attack, then Jake hacked the chaos gargoyle in half with a single blow. It exploded into dust which momentarily blinded everyone.

    Ugly and vicious, these monsters of Chaos would easily butcher and shred unarmed, weakened, or surprised victims like the frost giant and human clerics. Against prepared, experienced soldiers their danger was lessened but still quite real. The party killed the last of the gargoyles while, thankfully, suffering only minor injuries. Dust from destroyed gargoyles hung in the air, limiting vision, although the humans, dwarf, and ogre mage were harder to see as they were coated head to toe in dust.

    As the last burst into powder Faraz turned to look down the tunnel and yelled out a warning. More were coming.

    Fourteen more gargoyles arrowed out of the corridor, much bigger ones than the party had already faced, but smaller than the great one – which had not shown itself during this battle. Faraz cringed mentally. He had thought the other gargoyles were dangerous enough, but these new ones? Without consciously thinking about it he tagged them medium, large, and extra-large.

    The two extra-large probably stood taller than Faraz, topping six and a half feet. These did not attack with the mindless ferocity of the small ones who went for the nearest target – these appeared to understand the level of danger and targeted David and Jake. The druid gave a mental sigh of relief that neither of these monstrosities considered him a great enough danger to warrant their attention.

    Two mediums followed their larger brethren in attacking David and Jake. A large and two mediums slashed at Renki’s wooden armor but the enchanted wood was up to the task. The remainder divided themselves amongst the other mortals. Faraz found himself frantically defending against two of the mediums. He had displayed courage during years of fighting goblinoids, but these creations from Before Time were too much. He felt his control slipping into the grip of fear.

    Mastering himself, the druid fought on, claws raking his armor and sometimes his flesh. Ignoring the pain he fought, knowing that when he stopped fighting he would die. As each gargoyle was destroyed it exploded in a burst of rock dust, obscuring the area and making the fight even deadlier.

    As the battle wound down the great one flashed overhead, flying hard beyond the fight. David yelled, “After it!” and all tiredly pounded after it. Running up stair after stair to the surface, the party struggled with exhaustion, blood dripping from wounds. After an eternity they reached the first level below the main temple. They knew they were running towards an inferno – all of the hundreds of statues on the shelves high above the floor were gone, most probably animated by the beast of Elemental Chaos.

    Partway up the stairway to the next level everyone could hear the sounds of combat, including strangled screams of agony from mortal throats. It didn’t sound as if things were going well for the clerics of Tharizdun.

    At the top they peered around a corner. Across a forty-foot-wide hallway was the huge main temple room, filled with humans, giants, and gargoyles all locked in combat.

    The scene in the worship room was a sight to fill the heart of a god of Chaos with joy. Pandemonium filled the room, masses of gargoyles attacking the human and frost giant clerics of the Chaos God. Rock dust filled the air, making vision to the other side of the huge worship room unclear. At least half of the mortals had fallen and things looked grim for the survivors. A giant smashed an extra-large gargoyle to dust.

    The Chaos Gargoyle, off to the side watching the battle with obvious glee, immediately snatched a small one from the air. The great creature glowed again like it had when it first animated, and its captive started glowing as well, and after a few seconds expanded and grew. Within thirty seconds it had grown to the size of an extra-large gargoyle, and wriggled free to attack a nearby human, messily shredding the hapless victim.

    Bisonbit exclaimed, “We must get the Big Bad Ugly One! It must be the key!” Renki agreed, “I have a Fireball remaining,” and she invoked the spell, the red bead flashing across the distance from her fingertips to the gargoyle, exploding just in front of it. Humans and frost giants shrieked in agony, and many of the small gargoyles burned to dust. The Chaos Gargoyle shrugged off the fire.

    David invoked Magic Missiles which flashed into the creature. Bisonbit and Gilden completed their spells within seconds of each other, one Flame Strike flashing down to immolate the area followed by the second. Within that area stood only the greater gargoyle, the unnatural beast burned by the second strike.

    “CIELDREN!!!” Jake screamed as he threw his sword, which transformed into the Hammer of Cieldren. As his spirit flew instantly across the distance with the hammer, Jake girded himself for the strike. The greater gargoyle turned to him – it perceived him. But that perception gained it nothing as he swung the hammer into its chest, the best and most powerful strike he had ever made.

    Jake blinked and was back in his body, just in time to catch the sword as it flew back to his ready grasp. The greater chaos gargoyle transformed back into a statue and fell to the floor with a crash. All the lesser gargoyles turned back into statues and fell. Those that fell from any height shattered on the floor, rock powder filling the air. Everyone was unable to see for several minutes.

    “What are we going to do with THAT,” Faraz asked, pointing to the statue of the greater gargoyle. The others nodded, they would not leave it for others to find and animate again.

    Jake drew his sword and hacked at it, breaking off a tiny chip. A moment later the hole filled miraculously and the statue was whole again. Circling the statue, the party discovered that non-magical weapons had no effect upon it, and only powerful ones would damage the statue. But the effects healed quickly. Strikes upon the lesser gargoyle statues were different – they shattered like the stone they were. But there were many dozens of them strewn across this level; destroying them all might take days.

    “I wonder what would happen if we dropped the statue into the ravine that surrounds this temple?” Jake wondered.

    “I don’t know, but it can’t hurt US,” David quipped.

    “Might not be enough to damage it,” Bisonbit ventured.

    “OK.” Dropping his pack Jake rummaged through it and extracted a potion bottle. Removing the top he downed it. After a minute he smiled and picked up the statue, which was almost too much even for his great strength and flew down the hallway and up the stairway to the top level of the temple.

    Trilla looked at David, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “Flight Potion.” He wrinkled his nose and added, “Let’s follow him.”

    Jake did not fly fast, so the others caught up to him as he reached the surface.

    “Get out of the way!,” he called as he flew straight up.

    The others crossed the bridge over the ravine as Jake flew upward. Flying with the heavy statue was slow and minutes passed as Jake and the statue shrank to a pinpoint in the sky. Then the pinpoint started growing larger and after a few seconds the watchers perceived the statue falling. It struck the roof of the temple with a tremendous crash, collapsing the roof. The greater gargoyle exploded into a cloud of rock dust forty feet high.

    For a few moments the cloud formed the outline of the gargoyle and then scattered with the light breeze that blew across the remains of the temple. Checking the ruins, the party discovered the top level was flattened, but the stairway down was mostly clear and the collapse had been limited to the top structure. Venturing down the party discovered that things had been shaken but not badly damaged.

    However, each lesser gargoyle statue had shattered at the moment the greater one did, filling the level with rock dust. They had to wait hours before the dust settled enough to venture down.

  • The Reavers – Oni Nobles

    I included a female oni as a prisoner in an adventure, held by evil giants. The idea was to see what Eric and Patrick would do with her.

    To my surprise they freed her and invited her to join them, and to my bigger surprise I rolled extremely well in the reaction roll. So Renki ended up joining the party as an NPC.

    At some point I dreamed up noble oni and wrote this very long pastiche for publishing. I also used it to define more of the end story for Marissa and Trajan.

    Note: I prefer the name “oni” taken from Japanese folklore, than “ogre mage” as the AD&D version is called.

     

     

    Jake was sweating hard, salt stinging his eyes as he practiced. He knew better than to complain as he knew what his grandfather would say: “Does an enemy care if your eyes sting? Fight or die!”

    Even in his eighties the old man was tough, at least on the training grounds. Elsewhere he was a kind man, but on the training ground he was a tyrant.

    But Jake was worried about him. Marissa, Trajan’s wife, had been sick often lately and the clerics of Demeter could offer little help. Healing magic could cure wounds and diseases, but old age was neither. Her sickness was taking its toll on Trajan as he watched his wife of more than fifty years get weaker and weaker with each successive bout.

    Practice started with a double-weight wooden sword, sparring with both Trajan and David, Jake’s best friend. Sometimes Trajan brought in others for sparring, giving both young men wider experience in terms of styles and weapons they might face. David favored spatha and shield, while Jake loved his grandfather’s weapon, a hand-and-a-half bastard sword.

    Trajan always ended practice with strengthening and endurance exercises, often chopping posts. “Your enemy doesn’t care that you’re tired, except that it makes it easier to kill you.” The steel practice sword was also double weight, although after an hour’s practice it felt like quadruple weight. “He who tires first, loses.” About the time Jake’s arms were falling off Trajan called a halt to the practice.

    Surveying the two young men whom he had trained for six years, since both were eleven … Trajan realized both were fine swordsmen in their own ways. Better than he and Etjar had been at seventeen. Maybe better than they had been at twenty-one. “All for the best,” he thought. “They’re not going to get much more training from me.” Days like this he felt every minute of his eighty-nine years.

    “I have presents for you.” He motioned to Bisonbit, who must have arrived a short while before.

    Walking over to a long bundle he had brought with him today, he unfolded the bundle to display two swords in ornate sheaths. The sheaths were breath taking, fine leather filigreed with platinum, dotted with red and black gemstones. In contrast the pommels were plain excepting a silver ball at the end of each. He presented the bastard sword to his grandson, and the spatha to the other young man he thought of as a grandson. From a smaller parcel he withdrew a similarly detailed dagger, which he handed to the young cleric.

    “Go ahead, look at them,” he commanded.

    Each young man drew his respective sword from its sheath, the “ahhs” singing in harmony. Both swords were of exceptionally fine manufacture, different from anything either had previously seen. Fancy scroll work was etched into each blade, an alien pattern they had not seen before.

    “Who made these?” David asked.

    “These were presented to Etjar, Marissa, and me by a clan of oni. We,” meaning Trajan, Etjar, and Marissa, “had saved one of their people from giants and we received these swords as a token of their thanks.”

    Both men’s eyes opened wide. The goblinoids – from kobolds to giants – were generally the enemies of humans. While the oni were not numerous nor frequently encountered, they had a fierce reputation due to their magical abilities as much as their combat abilities. The idea of saving one from anything was as beyond comprehension as being rewarded for it.

    Jake gulped, “You never told us about this!”

    The old man laughed. “There are a lot of stories I have never told you.” Shrugging his shoulders he continued, “but I will tell you this one now.”

    Trajan ran well behind the others, acting as rear guard. Hobgoblins had caught up with him twice, and twice the young soldier had shown the hobgoblins the danger of running too fast.

    Etjar led the fleeing group. By rights the elven scout Adelf should be in front, but he was too afraid he would run into something. Trajan would have made him lead at sword point if necessary, but Etjar, always smoother with people, took the lead instead. This saved the scout for later tasks, hopefully not at Etjar’s cost.

    Trajan knew he was tiring. He could run a paced tread all day, but the two short fights had sapped his strength. Each had taken less than a minute and left three or four dead or maimed hobgoblins in his wake, but the drain on his reserve strength was heavy.

    “A short life but a merry one!” he thought.

    Trajan’s consciousness was divided. Part of him concentrated on the trail in front of him, making sure he on the same trail as the others. If they moved slower, they could mask their trail, but the need for speed negated that possibility. Their trackers would surely follow.

    The remainder of his consciousness listened behind him, straining to catch the sounds of the pursuers getting closer. He heard the heavy tramp of something big behind him. Make that somethings. Definitely not hobgoblins or any of the man-sized goblinoids. Probably ogres.

    Well rested he could take on two ogres, maybe three. They reacted predictably and had difficulty with opponents who changed tactics quickly and randomly. But now? One he could defeat, two would be a problem, three would be fatal. His next battle would be the last. Trajan planned to give the others a better lead and hope they could escape.

    Trajan, Etjar, Marissa, and Adelf had met a pair of dwarves, twin brothers, who were seeking the ruined tower of a mad wizard. Well, all wizards were mad, but this one was rumored to be balmier than most. His ending was typical of the stories, his tower in ruins, his dead enemies scattered around him. And of course, an unnamed treasure in the catacombs below the ruined tower.

    The brothers had a map to the tower and instructions for getting into the catacombs. Having more greed than good sense the group linked with the brothers and started off on yet another adventure.

    Things went fine until they ran into a small army, mostly hobgoblins with a leavening of ogres, led by frost giants. Whatever they were doing and wherever they were going, the army wanted no witnesses so they detailed a detachment of hobgoblins and ogres to remove witnesses. An hours long chase began.

    Which was ending now, at least for Trajan. He could hear the lumbering ogres catching up. There were at least three, probably more. Things were not going to end happily for the human side of this engagement.

    Trajan dodged left behind a tree, hearing the thunk of a thrown spear embedding itself in the hard wood. Reversing course the soldier stepped out and slashed blindly across the space in which he expected the ogre.

    His instincts were right. He caught the ogre completely off guard, slashing across its belly. The magically sharp sword cut through the heavy furs it wore for armor along with the ropy muscles of its belly. Grey twining intestines burst forth, distracting the ogre from its prey.

    Stepping away from the preoccupied ogre, Trajan saw five more ogres charging him. “Damnation!” he scream out as his final battle cry.

    A greenish vapor puffed into existence around and in front of the charging ogres. Their lungs heaving with the exertion of running, they inhaled deeply of the vapor and instantly coughed and puked.

    Trajan stepped back to stay out of the vapor. This was nasty stuff, he knew. Being quite familiar with it the young soldier circled the mist, waiting for each ogre to stumble out of its grasp. As each did, he dispatched it. The last one was so busy puking up the contents of his toes he never knew that his compatriots had died under the human’s blade.

    “I expected you’d get yourself killed playing at rear guard all by yourself.”

    “GAWD that woman irritates me!” Trajan thought. “I thought you would be glad for the chance to see me get myself killed?”

    No love was lost between the pair. From the first moment they met the two irritated each other, at first unintentionally and later by conscious choice. It irked Trajan to no end that he owed his life to the exiled wizard. It occurred to him that she shouldn’t be there. “What are you doing here?”

    Looking at him like he was an idiot she retorted, “Keeping you from dying stupidly.”

    He raised an eyebrow. “But that would fulfill your prophesy.” She repeatedly told him he would die stupidly.

    She smirked at him. “Yah. But I’d have to listen to Etjar whining about his dead friend, the hero, for the next ten years. Better you alive than him whining. Maybe you’ll get yourself killed later when you’re not the rear guard.”

    Marissa typically got along well with Etjar, enough that Trajan was surprised the two didn’t have a “closer” relationship. She didn’t normally say anything negative about him, although she rarely passed up an opportunity to pick at Trajan.

    “Enough chatter. I’ll see if I can delay the pursuit.” She turned and walked back the way she had come. After a hundred yards she turned back and gestured to the soldier to get behind her. She started a low chanting and after a few seconds a gust of wind quartered across the battle ground, whipping leaves and branches up in a mini whirlwind, depositing them haphazardly back down in its wake. The bodies were unidentifiable leaf-covered lumps on the ground.

    Breathing heavily, she turned to catch up with the others. “It should take the next group some time to figure out what happened here and more time to figure out where our trail is. Maybe a bit of fear to slow them down,” gesturing at the lumps.

    Trajan hated to admit that at times like this she scared him. Her facility with magic was, well, magical and honestly frightening. Maybe that was why he went out of his way to irritate her as much as he did.

    That and because she deserved it.

    Walking at a fast pace they caught up with the others in less than thirty minutes. Etjar smiled his pleasure at the sight of his best friend and the wizard. “I was getting worried about you two, sneaking off together like that.” His forced smile and bluff manner unsuccessfully hid his very real concern.

    Marissa snorted with horror and disgust. “Sneak off with HIM?” She spit quite pointedly. “More likely a couple of ogres than him.”

    Trajan felt his face heat up. He retorted, “Thank Demeter I saved that ogres from THAT fate.”

    The battle between the two flared in earnest. Etjar stepped up to them and simultaneously slapped both on the backs of their heads, pushing their faces together. “Are you going to argue or run?” This shut them up as their black looks were directed at him instead of each other.

    Trajan looked at the others. Adelf ignored the whole thing. He didn’t understand human behavior and as much as he was part of the group, he maintained his distance, mentally and emotionally. Of course, if the elf understood human behavior Trajan didn’t think he’d act any differently. The young soldier was cautious of the elf, never fully trusting him.

    The dwarves looked scandalized. They had very little experience with humans and their society was a matriarchy, so the concept of a male treating a female in that fashion horrified them. They didn’t much like the way Marissa treated Trajan, either. The idea of two beings treating each other so rudely and coarsely visibly bothered them.

    Etjar? Etjar looked amused, like he knew something Trajan didn’t. That irritated Trajan the most.

    “Ok, let’s keep moving. We have some breathing room, let’s use it.” Trajan issued the command to help him push the unhappy thoughts from his head. He glared at the elf, who realized arguing with the powerful human was not a life extending move. He could push Etjar, but Trajan brooked no argument when in certain moods.

    The tall elf led the way without a word.

    Moving at a fast walk with Adelf in the lead, the party started making a large circle, looking to get out of the area. All thoughts of continuing to the ruined tower were gone. They needed to escape the goblinoid army and there was no value in leading them to the tower.

    Adelf stopped abruptly, holding his left hand up at shoulder level, signaling to the others. Instead of asking questions they all scanned around them, looking for whatever caught the elf’s attention.

    The elf pointed up a ridge to their right, made circling motions with his hands. Holding up ten fingers to the dwarves he pointed straight up the hill. This meant they should count slowly to one hundred then head straight up the hill. Meanwhile he and Etjar would circle to the left while Trajan and Marissa circled to the right. The idea was a pincer move with the dwarves as bait, er, distraction.

    The three groups took their time and converged on the top of the ridge from three directions, finding … nothing. An easily followed trail led down the ridge. Something big had shambled down the ridge, dragging feet and making it impossible to tell what it was, other than “big”.

    A half mile farther on they found what looked like an ogre, but bigger. Ogres ranged seven to eight feet tall – this one was nearly nine feet, stretched out on the leaves. He wore an unfamiliar type of well-crafted wooden armor, carried a well-crafted, steel tipped spear, and lacked the stupid brutishness that characterized every ogre Trajan had ever seen. He was unconscious and had a variety of wounds, all of which were closed and not bleeding, although there was fresh blood on his armor and skin.

    “What is it?”

    With some hesitation Marissa spoke. “I think it’s an oni. They’re somewhat related to ogres, but a lot smarter and with magical abilities. Much smarter. Much more dangerous.”

    “He’s definitely bigger. His wounds are partially healed, but he’s covered in fresh blood. Can’t be his.”

    “Kill him?” one of the dwarves asked, hefting his axe.

    The oni groaned and rolled onto his side. Weapons raised to strike him down. Trajan stepped between the dwarves and the downed creature, sword ready but blocking them. “Let’s not be hasty. He’s not hurting anyone right now and those ragged wounds look like the scars left by ogre spears.” Ogres often used stone tipped spears, painstakingly chipped into shape. Trajan had an ugly scar on his left calf that looked like most of the wounds on the oni.

    Etjar looked at him with an unspoken question. Trajan replied, “We can always kill him later if need be. If we kill first the questioning won’t work as well.” Etjar shrugged, leaving the decision in Trajan’s hands.

    One of the brothers vehemently said, “NO! Kill it now before it kills us!” Trajan couldn’t tell them apart. But he probably couldn’t tell them apart if they weren’t twins. Dwarves mostly looked alike.

    “Why do you spare me?” a voice like rocks rolling down a mountain asked. Looking down they could see the oni had opened his pain-filled eyes.

    “Right now I’ve got enough enemies after me. Looks like you have the same ones, so we might have something to talk about.”

    “I did not know humans have a sense of humor.” His pain-filled chuckle was like rocks grating together. Trajan had no idea what was funny about what he said, but if it got the conversation going, so be it. “You flee the frost giant army?”

    “Yah. Well, hobgoblins and ogres they sent after us.”

    “The giants move against a human community. They want no foreshadowing of the attack. It makes much sense that they kill you.”

    Trajan was well read, but he was guessing the oni to be better read, speaking clearly with a large vocabulary in what for him is a foreign tongue. “Why did they try to kill you?”

    “I chose not to ally with them. My people have no love for humans, none at all, but neither do we hate them. There is no value to my clan should I help in their endeavor.” He paused a moment before continuing. “Frost giants are not known for sufferance, nor politely accepting no as an answer.” He chuckled again as did the humans.

    Leaving his spear on the ground the oni slowly stood up. He towered over Etjar, Trajan, and Adelf who all stood over six feet tall. Marissa was just over five feet tall and the dwarves just under, so he nearly doubled their height. Trajan guessed he weighed at least six hundred pounds. “This could be an ugly fight,” he thought.

    Trajan realized the wounds looked better than they had. Marissa realized it at the same time and spoke for the first time, “You regenerate?”

    Trajan and Etjar both looked perplexed. “Regen -what?”

    “Magical rapid healing ability. That blood is mostly his, but his wounds heal very rapidly.”

    “I must eat.” His hands slowly moved toward a bag that had been slung over his shoulder. All weapons raised to attack position.

    “No, let him eat,” Marissa explained to the others. “Magical healing such as his uses the body’s resources. That’s why he was asleep, his body needed the rest to heal quickly.”

    The oni slowly withdrew a block wrapped in leaves. Unwrapping it revealed a white-ish, semi-translucent block that weighed probably five pounds. He bit a chunk off the end, quickly chewed and swallowed, and in another few bites consumed the remainder. “Thank you for your kindness.” He rolled the leaves up and put them back in his bag. “How shall we proceed? Do we talk or do we fight?”

    “You want fight?” one of the dwarves asked belligerently.

    “No. But relations between our peoples are rarely cordial. I have some hope that this situation will not devolve into fighting between us.” His gravelly chuckled sounded again. “I suspect we have enough enemies that we do not need each other to satisfy urges in that direction.”

    Marissa spoke again, “We probably do. Unless the group chasing you is the same as the one chasing us, we probably just doubled our list of enemies.”

    “True. But if we work together we can crush one group before they combine, and then the other.” He held a hand in front of his throat. “Truce and alliance?”

    Marissa took charge. Both Trajan and Etjar realized she was a lot smarter than either of them, and the demi-humans didn’t interfere. “On what terms?”

    “Mutual defense, none allows harm to come to others by action or inaction. The alliance will initially hold for one day and we will agree to not fight, harass, track, or betray each other for one day following the end of the truce. The agreement is renewable on the agreement of both parties.”

    The babble of arguing took a few minutes to quell. The dwarves were hard against allying themselves with a goblinoid of any sort. The elf, not normally one to agree with the dwarves on any topic, sided with them. Marissa and Etjar were for the alliance, while Trajan was undecided.

    The oni looked unimpressed by the arguing of the Little People.

    Trajan realized they needed a decision, and they needed it quickly. He made his.

    Etjar cajoled people into agreement while Trajan generally bashed people until they agreed. “Ok, bashing time,” he thought. “This is too much for either side to deal with alone. We have a better chance of survival if we work together.”

    The dwarves and the elf protested against this.

    “I can’t force you to do this against your will. Good luck, maybe the larger group will chase us instead of you. May we meet again in this world, and if not, in the next.”

    Turning his back on the trio he addressed the oni. “What form of swearing upon our allegiance will satisfy you?”

    This brought forth another round of protests from the demi-humans. “This doesn’t concern you,” he responded.

    As he turned back to the oni one of the dwarves spun him back around. “You going to side with that against us??” his face red with outrage.

    “NO! I’m siding with survival. You made your choice and I’m making mine.” He peered intently down at the dwarf. “Unless you’d like to change your mind?”

    The dwarf, although older than the humans, was far too young and naïve by his race’s standards. His feelings were obvious on his face. He didn’t want to separate from the three humans who were far more experienced – and deadly – then either of the dwarves. But neither did he want to ally with a traditional enemy of his people.

    “Decide now.”

    The two dwarves gabbled back and forth in Dwarvish, with passion. Finally the first said, “We agree.” Turning to the oni he asked, “How do you swear?”

    Before the oni could answer, Trajan turned to Adelf. “What about you?”

    The elf didn’t hesitate a second. “I’m staying.”

    “Trust that one to always decide in favor of personal survival at the expense of all else,” Trajan thought. To the oni, “How may we swear upon this alliance?”

    “I will swear to my war god, Orochi, that I will faithfully obey my word as long as you all do.” Looking at the dwarves he continued, “Will you swear the same by Avaya?” He named the chief dwarven god, their god of battle.

    Both dwarves nodded sullenly, not liking the chief dwarven god named by the oni. “What will you swear by?”

    Trajan thought a moment and said, “Etjar and I both follow Demeter.”

    The oni nodded, “That one is trustworthy.” Looking at Marissa he added, “And her?”

    “I can speak for myself!” Marissa bristled. “I, too, will swear by Demeter.”

    The oni nodded again. “Elves are poor at keeping their word with my people. Will you all swear to protect me against your companion as well as our enemies?”

    Trajan expected the elf to be outraged. Instead, his eyes narrowed. “If Adelf violates our agreement I’ll kill him myself.” Trajan didn’t bother to look at the elf, having a good idea about the stare he was receiving.

    “My name is Mamoru of the Clan Raiden. I do so swear as we have agreed by the spirit of Orochi.”

    The others named themselves and swore by their gods as well, even the elf, who did so with poor grace.

    As soon as they were done Mamoru pulled another block from his bag and ate it, and the others nibbled trail rations as well, plus drinking water. Retrieving his spear Mamoru led off to the northwest, continuing the circle the others had been following.

    Quickly he realized he had to slow his pace so the dwarves and Marissa could keep up. Pacing alongside him Etjar asked, “Where are you leading us?”

    “We must circle around them. Their tactics are not extensive, but they are hunters and we are prey. We must escape their lines. If we get far enough ahead they will stop chasing us.” He paused a moment before continuing, “More likely we will ambush them.”

    The group walked another hour in silence with no signs of pursuit. As they passed in the shadow of a ridge the elven scout hissed. All stopped as he peered around, his sense flaring. “Incoming!” he rasped, putting a tree between him and the top of the ridge.

    As the others moved a hail of large rocks, spears, and arrows flew among them. One rock hit a sapling, passing through it to leave a ragged stump. Another rock whistled by Trajan’s head, missing him by a hand’s breadth. Spears and arrows whistled by and some thunked into trees. One arrow skidded off a dwarf’s chain mail, ripping through his cloak.

    “Where are they?” rasped Etjar. He risked a look, which produced another hail of missiles. His tree took a solid blow and a glancing one from rocks, blows that shook it from roots to crown but didn’t break it. “Top of the ridge!”

    Marissa pulled items from a belt pouch and started chanting. At the conclusion she stepped out from behind her tree with her hands held out an arc of lightning flashed from the outstretched hands and impacted a frost giant, sparking on metal armor and burning him. Several ogres near him dropped to the ground, twitching into permanent silence. She slid back behind her tree as missiles from other locations passed through the space where she had been. “That was my best spell, almost my last.”

    Mamoru did the same, chanting a different song. He stepped to the far side of his tree, a veritable giant, also with hands outstretched. A gout of black liquid coalesced into existence and spouted at another giant, hitting her squarely in the chest. She screamed as the burning began, mimicked by ogres and hobgoblins around her who were splashed by the acid.

    “Susafras’ Acid Blast!” Marissa marveled. Invented by an arch mage of the Council of Rendelshod some eight hundred years before, she marveled at the power of the spell, one far beyond her meager skills.

    Missiles targeted Mamoru, but less than before.

    While the spell casters began their side of the battle, the others strung their bows. Etjar spotted a couple of hobgoblins circling to his right. The first took an arrow in the ribs, the second dodged and avoided a similar fate.

    Trajan, the dwarves, and the elf found similar targets. Trajan and Adelf hit their marks, the dwarves missed but broke the attempt to encircle them.

    “We need to move back, get them to chase us,” Mamoru hissed.

    “Provide him with cover!” To the oni he commanded, “You go first, we will dodge easier.” To the others, “On three. One, two, three!” The bowmen stepped out of cover enough to fire. As the arrows flew the oni ran, surprisingly fast.

    Quickly the big one was out of sight among the trees. “Marissa, you and the dwarves are next! On three. One, two, three!” Etjar and Trajan fired, two arrows each. The elf outdistanced the female mage and the two dwarves.

    Etjar’s anger was hot. “I’m going to pull that elf’s eyeballs out through his butt!”

    “Kill him later, goblinoids now! Shoot and zig zag like Belkin taught us.” Belkin had been their trainer in the Kerr militia, which both men had joined at age seventeen. Both owed a lot to the grizzled old one-armed veteran.

    Each stepped out from the opposite side of their respective trees, shooting a single arrow into the handiest target. Turning to run, each ran on a diverging course, then after one hundred feet turned abruptly back towards each other. Hail after hail of missiles targeted them, hitting where they had been or where the goblinoids expected them to be. Between the trees and the ragged running patterns both escaped without a scratch.

    Half a mile farther the land rose, a wide gully splitting it. The trail of the others led through the gully so Etjar and Trajan charged in pursuit. After half a mile the land dropped again, the gully petering out.

    “Hey!!!”

    Skidding to a halt the men saw the exiled wizard on the higher ground next to the gully. “We’re going to ambush them. Up here!”

    Following the woman, they made their way back to the middle of the high land, looking down into the gully.

    Mamoru hunkered down to their level, outlining his plan to hit their pursuers. “Kill the giants. Without them the others will break.”

    The bowmen had a few dozen arrows between them. Marissa had used all her spells but one, but had a scroll containing a Lesser Poison Cloud spell like she had used on the ogres earlier.

    Mamoru admitted that most of his spells were gone as well, but he had a Fireball remaining.

    “I didn’t know oni could use fire magic? I thought it was just cold magic.”

    “Most of my people are limited so, but I am a noble,” he stated proudly. “Nobles master magic similar to wizards. Plus we are mighty fighters. We must be greater than the commoners,” obviously meaning oni commoners, “so they will follow where we lead.”

    Ten minutes later the first hobgoblins ran into the gully. According to plan they would be left to continue at the risk that they’d find their way onto the ridge. Next came a phalanx of ogres followed by a trio of giants, one with clothing and armor damaged by acid, another with lightning burns.

    Marissa read her spell from the scroll, keeping her voice as low as possible, barely whispering the words of power. The characters on the vellum writhed as she read them, squirming off the vellum and coalescing into a greenish ball in the air.

    Just before she finished a stream of fire spurted from Mamoru on her right, hitting the middle giant and expanding into a sphere of liquid-appearing fire. The struck giant collapsed heavily while the other two spun to either side. The ogres near them dropped or screamed as they batted at their flaming clothing and hair.

    At the conclusion of her spell a moment later, the ball flashed into the gully and spread into a greenish cloud. The standing giants were too tall for it to affect them as their heads were above the cloud, but the ogres all started retching and choking. The acid and fire burned giant lay unmoving.

    The five bowmen launched arrow after arrow into the gully striking giants, ogres, and the hobgoblins who had turned back upon hearing the noise of the fray.

    The dwarves, who had the worst aim, concentrated on the giants, the biggest targets. Adelf focused on the unwounded giant while Trajan and Etjar shot whichever ogre or hobgoblin presented the best target at the time.

    The flurry of arrows left all three giants and a score of ogres and hobgoblins dead in their wake. The wounded survivors ran back the way they came.

    With typical greed the humans and demi-humans quickly searched the bodies for valuables. “We might as well make some profit from this,” Etjar quipped.

    Mamoru stood by impatiently. After a couple of minutes he commanded, “We must flee. There may be more coming.” Survival beat out greed and with a final riffle of an ogre the elf set out behind the others.

    The wizard commented, “I’m almost completely out of spells.”

    The oni nodded in agreement, “I, too, have no further combat magic to employ.” The dwarves and the elf were out of arrows, while the humans had three between them. “Best we don’t get caught,” Etjar commented.

    Moving at a fast walk the group quickly crossed several miles of light forest. They were starting to feel like they escaped when the elf stopped cold, right hand at shoulder height in a clenched fist. The party halted in fits as each realized the elf stopped.

    “I have bad news.” Adelf didn’t have to articulate the bad news – it appeared among the trees, four frost giants, a dozen ogres, and two score of hobgoblins.

    “This isn’t going to go well,” Trajan commented on the obvious. “How did they get ahead of us?”

    “Does it matter?” Marissa replied snippily.

    With a roar the hobgoblins charged and a moment later blasts of fire, acid, cold, and lightning burst amongst the attackers. Reeling from the attacks the surviving goblinoids struggled to defend themselves from a dozen oni who materialized in conjunction with the magical attacks.

    Reacting with the reflexes of trained soldiers, Etjar and Trajan charged to engage the giants, followed by the dwarves. The fight was furious, brutal, and ended relatively quickly.

    None of the humans or demi-humans suffered any serious injuries. One of the oni suffered a nasty slash down her right arm, but the wound was already closing. She quickly ate one of the unidentifiable white-ish blocks of food.

    Mamoru walked up to the clustered humans and demi-humans, who eyed the oni with misgiving. The oni eyed them back with distrust and hostility. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend may not hold true,” Trajan thought.

    “Our scouts report that this was the last group tracking us. Let us part ways on good terms.”

    The group sighed a collective sigh of relief. Etjar started to comment when an oni stepped forward, spear held ready. “NO!”

    “What means this?” Mamoru challenged.

    “We never deal with the Little People on friendly terms! Kill them while we can, to lessen their numbers!”

    “I swore an alliance of mutual defense with these Little People. You will NOT violate my oath!”

    “Only a fool or a weakling would swear alliance with such as these!” With that he lunged forward at Marissa, aiming to impale her with his spear.

    Obviously expecting the move, Mamoru reacted even quicker, snapping his spear across the attacker’s chest to stop him, spinning to strike him across the back of the head, stretching him headlong onto the ground. Twirling his spear, he spun again and drove the point into the prone one’s back and through his heart. Withdrawing the spear, he wiped the point on his fallen victim’s cloak. Four oni came silently and emotionlessly forward and picked up the body while a fifth retrieved the fallen one’s spear.

    “Thank you for keeping your word,” Marissa said softly while the others remained pointedly silent.

    “Do not thank me. I slew my younger brother because he would have shamed me by violating my word. For your sake. While he was a hot-headed fool who would have broken my word … he was my sibling.” His angry countenance was frightening to even the hardened soldiers. “It is best we not cross paths again. Farewell.” With that the oni turned to the west, carrying their fallen sibling.

    The group silently watched them until they were out of sight, then fell to looting the bodies.

    A few weeks later when the group was back in Kerr and had disposed of their spoils, a small man approached Trajan, Etjar, and Marissa while they were supping in a tavern near their boarding house. He carried a cloth wrapped bundle about four feet long. “Are you Etjar, Trajan, and Marissa?” he asked.

    “Who wants to know?” Etjar shot back.

    “I have been paid to deliver a gift to the people named, at this tavern.”

    “Who paid you?”

    “A man named Mamoru. He said you’d recognize the name.”

    The three looked at each other. “Yeah, we’re them.”

    The name laid the bundle on the table, turned, and left the tavern.

    Trajan carefully unfolded the bundle to reveal ornate sheaths holding a finely made bastard sword, spatha, and dagger.

    Jake’s eyes stung with tears instead of sweat. He, David, Bisonbit, and three of Trajan’s other students lowered the wide casket into the ground.

    Marissa died the same evening Trajan told them the oni story. The old man crawled into bed, cradling his dead wife in his arms, and went to sleep. He never awoke. They were being buried together.

    Jake wasn’t sure if losing both grandparents at once was better or worse. It wasn’t good no matter how he looked at it, but it was a mercy for Trajan to not have to live without his Marissa. At least Trajan would feel that way.

    Jake decided losing both at once was worse. Turning from his grandparents’ grave he discovered his way blocked.

    “What are YOU doing with that sword?!”

    Hallan, Jake’s father, stood angrily there with his hands on his hips, his body taut.

    Putting his hand on the sheathed sword Trajan had given him two days previously, Jake retorted, “It’s MY sword, Grandpa gave it to me.”

    “Gave it to you? That old fool had no right to give it away. It’s mine by right!”

    Jake reacted in blind hatred, his right hand swinging in an arc that intersected his father’s face. Hallan was taller by a head but Jake had far more muscle and led the blow with his hip, putting his entire body weight behind it. The sharp CRACK of the impact turned every head within one hundred feet, and everyone got a good view of Hallan picked off his feet and slammed into the soft, muddy earth.

    “DO NOT EVER speak ill of my grandfather again!” Jake’s instantly bright red face shown in the morning sun as he towered over his prone father.

    Slapped to the ground, Hallan would not be dissuaded. Looking at the spatha that David wore, Hallan rubbed his sore face and swore. “That one is mine, too! I’ll talk to the magistrate about you thieves!”

    “Good luck. I won’t be here.” Turning to David he stated flatly, “It’s time to do what we’ve been thinking about. Time to leave.” Jake stomped off with David in tow, ignoring his father.

    Struggling to feet Hallan vainly wiped the mud off his fine clothes. “I’ll see those two thieves in jail!”

    “Etjar, they are not thieves, and you know it,” Galafid said quietly. He sadly eyed the man while Bisonbit stared holes in the ground, prudently silent.

    Rounding on the cleric first of the Temple of Demeter, Hallan rounded on him screaming, “Don’t call me that! My name is Hallan!”

    “Etjar is the name Marissa and Trajan gave you at birth, naming you after their best friend who died protecting them.”

    “They named me after a FOOL!”

    “The only fool is you,” Galafid stated calmly, his always polite demeanor dramatically contrasting Hallan’s anger. “They named you after a brave friend to whom they owed much, including preservation of his memory.”

    “Naming you Etjar was a waste and a blot on a good man’s name,” Galafid thought. It wasn’t polite, but he called the man Etjar to his face to irritate him. Privately he thought of him as ‘Hallan’.

    The words were quiet, but the effect was forceful. Surprisingly the excitable Hallan shut up. Well, he calmed down. Shutting him up for long was another matter. “Those swords are mine by right. I am their son, and they should go to me. They are far too valuable to be left in the possession of idiots.”

    “Ahh,” thought Galafid. He should have remembered there wasn’t a sentimental bone in Hallan’s body, it was the value of the swords that invoked his ire, that and the idea that something of value didn’t belong to him. “Those swords belonged to Trajan and Marissa. Along with ALL their belonging, which they had every right to disburse as THEY pleased.”

    “What do you mean? Their house is MINE! By law!” Hallan’s face reddened further. Kerrean law awarded real estate to the eldest child, unless there were extenuating circumstances.

    Galafid thought, “If he keeps this up he is going to have a stroke.” Aloud he said, “Yes, it is.” Galafid’s calm never wavered. “But their individual possessions, parceled out prior to their deaths, are not.”

    Hallan emitted inarticulate sounds of rage, his body clenched in anger. For a moment it appeared he would attack the older cleric … but something in the man’s calm demeanor shut down the fool’s misplaced anger. Hallan knew a moment’s fear, for no reason he could articulate.

    “I witnessed the granting of items by Trajan and Marissa to various persons. Do you wish to dispute me in court?” The cleric didn’t smirk but gave the impression of a subdued smile on his plain face. That impression was the first emotion he had displayed since hearing of Marissa’s death.

    The strange intensity of Galafid’s mild statement shut Hallan up, something not often accomplished in a man so self-centered and self-important.

    “The house and land are yours by right. Their possessions that they assigned are not. Bother either of Trajan’s grandsons on this matter at your own cost.” The threat was obvious even to a man such as Hallan.

    Not surprisingly, anger overcame fear. “That boy is NOT a grandson!”

    “David may not be Marissa and Trajan’s grandson by blood, but that is exactly how they treated him these past ten years. Nor is he a boy. Confront him at your own peril.”

    With that Galafid turned and walked away, Bisonbit trailing behind, leaving the fuming man in his wake.

    “Bisonbit.”

    “Yes, sir?”

    “The look on Hallan’s face when he finds his parents’ house empty is going to be priceless.”

    Bisonbit, at age twenty-two having the mixed confidence and fear young men often have, nearly choked. Then he laughed, “Yes, sir, it will.”

    Galafid chuckled. “We will know when it happens. Everyone between here and Sathea will hear his screams of outrage.”

    Bisonbit DID choke this time, laughing at the upcoming discomfiture of the greedy man.

    “Jake and David are leaving Kerr.”

    “Yes sir. They have spoken of it repeatedly over the past couple of years. No one believed they would go.”

    “With Marissa and Trajan gone there’s no reason for them to stay. Talk to them. They may store their belongings in the temple where we will care for them until they return, regardless of how long that may be.”

    “Yes sir.”

    The older man stopped abruptly, turning to the younger man. Bisonbit nearly tripped over his feet, but with colt-like reflexes turned to meet Galafid’s eyes. The cleric locked gazes with Bisonbit, which immobilized the younger man. After ten seconds or so Bisonbit’s gaze glazed over. He was conscious but not really, under the effect of an unconscious geas, one of the most powerful spells any cleric could cast.

    “You will go with them.”

    “Leave Kerr and the Temple?” Even under the power of the spell the young cleric was surprised at the command.

    “Jake and David are mentioned in the Book of Muur. Those two young men are going to save the world from Darkness. And you with them.”

    “Darkness? ME?”

    Galafid stared at the young man. Very few reacted with any emotion when an unconscious geas was laid upon them. To react with powerful emotion, Bisonbit possessed much stronger mental strength than anyone had realized. If he survived the next few years, a powerful cleric he would become. “Yes, some unknown Darkness that will engulf the world. And yes, by all means, you.” Galafid took a breath. “You will stay with them, guide them, teach them. They will listen to you and follow you. Grudgingly, unhappily. But they will follow you until they are ready to lead.”

    Seconds passed then Bisonbit’s head jerked as if he had been nodding off and caught himself. Seeing the older man staring at him he recovered quickly. “Sorry, I was just thinking about what you said.” The young cleric had no conscious memory of anything while under the influence of the geas. To him, it felt like he had simply lost his train of thought.

    At Galafid’s nod he continued, “Jake and David are a pair of real knuckleheads. They will get themselves killed.”

    Swallowing he continued hesitatingly, “I think I had better go with them. I don’t want to leave the Temple, but I owe Marissa and Trajan too much to let those idiots get themselves killed.”

    “I concur. You had better catch them before they leave. Make sure they stop by the Temple.”

    “Yes Sir!” Bisonbit rushed off.

    “Just as well that I didn’t tell you that YOU are mentioned in the Book of Muur as well,” Galafid whispered to the young cleric’s back.

  • Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Oculus Despot

    On Dragonsfoot forums Stuart Marshall challenged others to re-write AD&D monsters for OSRIC. I took up the challenge. Then a few years later I wrote this pastiche for publishing in & Magazine.

     

     

    Jannalanga, the Rathian owner of the tavern, asked Trajan a question as she handed him a mug of wine. “The other day Hal claimed he fought and killed a creature, Ock cue lus dish pot?”

    “Oculus Despot.”

    “That’s it. I never heard of it, even in the stories told around here, other than Hal slinging his usual bull dung.”

    “Ahh, that’s no surprise. The oculus are deadly dangerous. Most who meet one don’t survive the experience.”

    “But you and Gramma killed one, didn’t you?” Jake asked.

    “No. No, we didn’t. We fought one and managed to drive it off without being killed.” He sipped his wine. “We were very lucky that day.”

    Adelf led the way, carefully picking his way through the ruins. Some eighty years before Agarmemnar had been a thriving commercial center, the jewel of the eastern seaboard. Success bred jealousy, and rivals had banded together to hire mercenaries to reduce the powerful city/state. The result was the ruin the party picked their way through, holes in the ground where wooden buildings collapsed and burned, stone buildings crumbled, evidence of fires still visible on the few remains amongst the trees, bushes, and weeds that reclaimed the formerly beautiful city.

    Senses flaring to spot dangers, Trajan still mused, “Funny, the two cities that led the gang that destroyed this city both fell within five years. The second stringers filled the openings and are still powerful today.” He snorted, “As they say, the second mouse gets the cheese.” He glanced at his best friend, Etjar, who was equally attentive thirty feet to his right. He knew that the third member of their tight team was thirty feet behind them, the small bronze woman with similarly flaring senses.

    As much as they adventured with Adelf, none of them trusted him. He had never done anything adverse, but none of the trio trusted that he’d risk himself to save the others if things went wrong. He was distant and gave them all the same feeling of unease. That said, he was a great scout, his abilities had saved them from more than one ambush. “As much as Marissa and I fight, she’d not let anything harm me any more than I’d let anything hard her.”

    But the elf? Best to not find out the hard way.

    They trusted their employer, Sugarro, even less. The sage hired the group to guide him and his men to Agarmemnar, as they had been here before. He and his crew of cut throats were seeking a wizard’s tower that supposedly had never been breached. He paid good gold to be guided there, half up front, half on arrival, with the understanding that the payment was for guidance only – they’d part ways once the tower was reached. If the tower had not been breached during the sack, nor during the eighty years afterwards? It was more hazard than any amount of gold was worth.

    For a sage Sugarro was a hard soul, trusting no one and never offering a crumb that he didn’t get good value for. His initial offer for their services as guides had been so low it was beyond insulting. All through the trip he acted as if they cheated him by charging their usual rates. In hindsight the big man wished they had asked for more. Maybe the sage would have been angered enough to find someone else who knew the way.

    The four agreed that the wisest course was to get their remaining money as soon as the tower was reached, and to leave immediately. They watched for treachery and had grown to expect it once they reached the tower. If Sugarro seemed untrustworthy, his men seemed even less so. It felt strange for a highly educated man to surround himself with scum of such low caliber.

    The suburbs of the city, outside the main wall, had been completely crushed. The invaders had taken everything of value and burned anything they could, tumbling stone walls. Some for fun, some to demoralize the defenders before the sack. Eighty years later the formerly cobble-stoned streets held back most of the shrubbery, but the places where buildings had been sprouted mini-forests.

    Small animals and birds could be seen, and intelligent eyes could be felt. Most of the survivors fled as soon as they could, although some never left the city. Treasure seekers continuously pawed the ruins for trinkets, while the permanent inhabitants avoided all, watching everything. It was not a good place to be alone, or unguarded, or uncareful.

    The city wall still stood in many places, rearing forty feet above the ground. It had been breached in numerous places. Treasure hunters had worsened the ravages as they sought imaginary caches hidden within the walls, tearing the stones out in their frenzied greed. Time had not been kind to the old stones.

    The buildings inside the walls were typically in better shape than those outside. More were made of stone rather than wood, and once the post-breaching carnival of slaughter, rape, and savagery had sated itself, the mercenaries left with everything they could carry, and the survivors of the city fled as well. Wooden structures had burned, but no serious effort was made to destroy anything that wouldn’t burn.

    “How much farther to the tower?” rasped Sugarro’s voice, unnaturally loud in the silence. He was seventy feet behind Marissa, his bully boys ranged protectively around him.

    “What a coward,” Trajan thought.

    Adelf, Trajan, and Etjar, stopped, and Marissa moved up between the two big men, as the party waited for the sage and his men. “I asked you how much farther?” the sage grated out, showing his irritation.

    Etjar answered, “In hostile or unfamiliar territory, we keep quiet and don’t shout.”

    “Are you telling me what to do?!” the man half shouted.

    “No, I’m telling you what WE do,” the bigger man mildly replied. Etjar was well over six feet tall, with a lot of muscle on a heavy frame. Trajan was an inch shorter and looked less bulky in comparison, but that was deceiving. He was about as strong as his friend, and had a faster temper. More than one fool had chosen Etjar as the more dangerous and discovered far too late that he’d made a bad decision. Not that there was a good decision in deciding which was more dangerous.

    All of the bandits fingered their weapons. “Sheesh, I think of them as bandits, not guards. Not that I think I’m wrong,” Trajan silently considered as he watched them for a first move.

    “There are a lot of unfriendly things in this place. It’s wiser to not call more attention to ourselves than is absolutely necessary,” Etjar continued. Then he, Trajan, and Marissa all backed away from the sage and his bully boys, not turning their backs until they were another twenty feet away, Marissa turning last. The men discounted her and didn’t appear to consider her a threat, a tremendous mistake on their part, but one that didn’t need correcting. Foes tended to focus on the two big men, ignoring the small woman until it was too late.

    The last mile to the tower was slower going. Trees and shrubs had shouldered their way between the cobblestones in many places, making the formerly straight avenues a meandering course. The foliage and wrecked buildings produced numerous ambush spots, so the going was even slower. Sugarro chafed at the slowness, but his neck wasn’t in the noose of an ambush. The guides would not be rushed.

    An hour later they came within sight of the tower. It wasn’t tall, maybe sixty feet, and was a squat forty feet in diameter. An eight foot wall, appearing untouched by time, surrounded it, keeping invisible the courtyard that was probably thirty feet across. The wall and its single gate stood out oddly after passing through the wrack of the city – both were untouched by the ravages of man, elements, and time. Nothing had been built within eighty feet of the wall, so a huge area – nearly three hundred feet across – contained nothing but the tower and its enclosing wall. Low weeds and grasses grew in the area, but nothing above knee height. The gate was open, showing more grass like outside the wall.

    His eyes gleaming, Sugarro heavily stated, “We are here!”

    Etjar eyed him. “You agree that we have fulfilled our commission? We have guided you to the tower?”

    Eyes closing to slits, the sage breathed, “Yes you have.” He snorted, “Begone!”

    Etjar, Trajan, Marissa, and Adelf moved into a defensive arrangement, facing the sage amidst his cluster of thugs. “We are owed a sum of two hundred gold crowns as the remaining payment for our services, as we agreed.”

    “I paid you well enough,” he grated out. “I deducted ten gold crowns for every time any of you were insolent. Be thankful I do not charge you for wasting my patience and take back what you were already paid. Leave now and I will spare your lives.”

    Swords rasped as the elf and the two big men drew their swords. “Whose life will be spared?” Trajan asked softly.

    A heavy weight slammed Trajan in the ribs, knocking him aside. A spear fell at his feet. It failed to penetrate his chain mail, but the impact bruised ribs. A ragtag shower of thrown spears rained upon them, and one of the sage’s men gurgled out his life after one drove through his neck. Another flight of spears wobbled after the first.

    “It’s a wonder they hit anything,” Trajan marveled at the raggedness of the flight. Then he touched his bruised ribs and remembered that luck could be good or bad, as the dying bandit discovered.

    A dozen unkempt men boiled out of the bushes, rusty swords in hand, their eyes gleaming in madness. They hit Sugarro’s men hard and slaughtered two in the first moments. But those men bought time – Sugarro rasped out words of magic and five bolts of red flaring energy erupted from the fingers of his left hand, each spearing a different target. Three of the men dropped with black holes burned in their chests. The other two threw themselves on the sage.

    A glowing dagger appeared in each hand and the sage – revealed as a mage – deflected sword strokes and slashed an attacker across the ribs. Trajan, Etjar, and Marissa backed away from the fight, forcing themselves to glance around for other dangers. They barely watched as Sugarro killed his second opponent with a deft stab while his men finished off the remainder, although another of the thugs’ number fell to rusty blade. Better skill and armor had paid off for some of the thugs.

    As Sugarro killed his opponents Marissa swore, “Damn, damn, damn – he’s more powerful than me by a lot!”

    Half his force down, the sage turned back to the party. “It seems there are dangers here. Would you like to earn back some of the money you owe me?”

    Trajan shook his head. “This jackass was beyond arrogance.” Then something happened that he had never heard before – Marissa screamed in horror. The woman had ice water in her veins, rarely showing any trace of fear. Something tickled his peripheral visions and h snapped his head to the left to see the thing that floated silently out of the bushes, the thing that evoked horror in the battle-hardened mage.

    To his dying day Trajan could clearly describe the horror that menaced them. It was a spherical, roughly five feet in diameter. The huge eye that filled the upper half of the sphere was locked onto the sage, while another eight or ten small eyes on stalks or tentacles waved around and looked at everything else. A huge mouth filled with jagged teeth occupied the space below the great eye, drooling slime. The rest of the body was rough looking, as if the skin was partially sloughed off, although it looked tough, even at a distance.

    Light flashed from the great eye, bathing Sugarro and his surviving men. The glow of one of his magical daggers winked out, and the sage screamed in horror as something unidentifiable happened to him. He dropped both daggers and clutched his head.

    One of the thugs screamed as rents appeared in his skin, blood gushing forth. Another readied his sword in a defensive posture, and the last one froze in place.

    Marissa howled out words of magic, and three bolts of cyan forth burst from her right hand, flashing across the distance to the thing. Two scorched the body and the third burned a small eye to ash.

    Adelf flung a pair of daggers and darted for the tree line. Marissa charged the thing, her staff at the ready. Trajan and Etjar stormed past her, Trajan putting his armored body between her and the thing. Even wearing chain mail he was faster than the much smaller woman.

    Out of the corner of his eye Trajan saw one thug turn and hack at the still howling sage, while the second started smoking and screaming. Then he had no more time for them, only time to bring his heavy sword down on the thing. A small eye stared at him and he felt drawn into it, an undefinable terror ripping at his conscious mind. His first instinct was to flee, and he wanted terribly much to do just that, but the sight of Marissa thrusting her staff into the great eye stopped him. Somehow, he mastered the induced fear and stood his ground. Still horrified, none the less he hacked at the thing again.

    Next to him Etjar suddenly slowed, his movements reduced to half their normal quickness. He was still fast enough to get in a lick, snipping off a small eye, but something was wrong, his normally graceful moves were jerky and forced.

    The light of the great eye flashed again, bathing Marissa. She rocked back from the thing and then inky darkness descended upon them, blocking out all light. Not even thinking, Trajan threw himself backwards and down. Some type of heat flashed above him, unseen but palpable. He rolled out of the darkness, which encompassed a sphere easily thirty feet in diameter.

    To his left Marissa stumbled out of the darkness, and far too long after that, Etjar on his right. Sheathing his sword his snatched his bow off his shoulder, quickly checking it for damage. It looked ok, so he deftly strung it and snatched two arrows from his quiver, nocking one and palming the other. He backed up as he scanned for movement.

    Marissa screeched more words of magic and a red pea flew from her finger into the darkness, apparently blossoming into a sphere of flame. Some of the fire licked outside of the darkness. An inhuman scream of rage and pain erupted from the hidden thing, and it rose out of its hiding, hovering on nothing. Trajan plunked an arrow into the central eye, and then a second. Etjar, normally a bit faster, got one off after Trajan’s second. Marissa screamed off another spell, this one producing a stroke of electricity that encompassed the thing.

    Continuing to bellow, it went straight up and then arced over the tower. Trajan hit it with another arrow and missed with the second. They watched as it faded over the tree line. Etjar was still moving slowly, but his movements returned to normal after a few minutes. About the same time the darkness disappeared as instantly as it appeared.

    On the other side one of the sage’s henchmen stood, burned to a cinder. His armor still glowed red from the heat and he must have balanced just right to remain upright. The sage himself was on his face, his back both burned and badly hacked, very dead. The last henchman had been caught in the Fireball and burned to death.

    Marissa watched as Etjar and Trajan checked the bodies for valuables. The henchmen had some minor coinage, nothing of enough significance to pay for this journey.

    Sugarro, on the other hand, had numerous pouches filled with many items Trajan knew would make Marissa ooh and ahh, implements necessary to cast spells. That was something. Trajan pulled off the pouches and stuffed them into his pack. He found minor coinage, nothing like the two hundred gold crowns the bastard owed them.

    The big man found a small sack crumpled in the bottom of the sage’s pack. Trajan was going to throw it aside when some instinct made him look inside. To his surprise, the sack was not empty, it was filled with small bags, plus five books. From the outside it was an empty sack, but it was clearly not empty.

    “Really great magic!” he marveled.

    Reaching in, he hefted a small bag. Definitely coins, and from the weight probably gold. Yeah, there was probably enough to pay the bill, plus some extra for treachery. “This bag is bigger on the inside than the outside. There are bags of coins here, probably enough to make this trip worthwhile!” Extracting a book he showed the cover to Marissa, thinking he knew what it was. “Plus there is this!”

    Her eyes glowed and she hopped up and down in excitement. Rushing forward she planted a kiss on his lips and ripped the book from his hands, so focused on the book that she didn’t realize she had kissed him.

    “What is it?” Trajan asked in surprise. The mage was far more likely to kick him than kiss him.

    “It’s a spell book, I think it contains spells of the next rank up from what I know!” Carefully turning pages she glanced up with bright eyes, “I won’t know until I have time to study it! I will need to use magic to read it!”

    Pulling out another book he held it up. She greedily grasped at it, but he held it out of her reach. “I need a kiss for this one as well.”

    “A KISS? You must be joking!”

    “I got a kiss for the first one!”

    “No you didn’t!”

    Etjar interceded. “This is not the time or place for you two to fight. Let’s leave before that thing comes back.” Marissa looked like she wanted to argue but subsided at his glare.

    Trajan put the books back in the bag. “What about the tower?”

    “What about it? We were paid to guide them here. We weren’t going inside, and after fighting that thing, I have no interest in anything except leaving.”

    Both Trajan and the mage nodded in agreement. Trajan changed the subject, “What was that thing?”

    Marissa responded, “It was an oculus depot. An unnatural creature that can invoke magical powers through its eyes. The beam of the great eye can destroy magic items and stop a spell caster from invoking magic. She pointed to the roasted thug. “And the small eyes can do many things, including heating metal to red hot.”

    Trajan instinctively rubbed his chain mail armor and glanced in the direction in which the thing fled. “Ok, I agree that leaving is good.” He paused, looking around, “Where is Adelf?”

    “That coward fled immediately.”

    As he stuffed the non-descript bag into his pack, he waggled it. “Are we going to share this with him?”

    “Share what?” Etjar asked innocently. Marissa laughed. Adelf didn’t share the danger so he deserved none of the rewards. There would be words when they found him, maybe more than words.

    As Trajan led the way back to their camp Etjar said in a low voice, “You did kiss him when he pulled out the first book.” The woman looked aghast. “And he liked it. I expect you’ll have to kiss him for the other books as well.”

    “That is NOT going to happen,” she stated in disgust. “I will never willingly kiss that man!”

    The big soldier laughed, “Never say never …”

    “What powers do the eyes have?” Jannalanga asked.

    The elderly woman spoke, “It depends on the oculus, the exact powers vary from one to the next.” She ticked points on her fingers. “The little eyes of the one we fought could charm men into being its thralls, heat metal to red hot, cause wounds at a distance, cause slowness, cause fear, and invoke darkness. The big eye evoked an anti-magic ray that could de-magick all but the most powerful magic items, and it may temporarily prevent a spell caster from casting spells.”

    “Others? I heard of one that could kill with the big eye, and the powers of the small eyes are too numerous to list.” She locked eyes with her husband. “We were very lucky that day.” She planted a kiss on her husband’s lips.

    Jake piped up, his young mind not understanding the somber atmosphere. “You didn’t share the loot with the elf?”

    She laughed, “No. When we got back to camp, he was trying to convince the sage’s valet and horse wrangler that no one was coming back. He wasn’t doing well.”

    “We explained that Sugarro was dead, and the men believed us. They actually looked happy.” Snorting, she continued, “They tried to take all the horses. We left them walking for their trouble.”

    “What about Adelf?”

    “We split the coins we found on the sage’s henchmen with him, a pitiful dozen gold crowns worth of silver and copper coins. He wasn’t happy, he didn’t believe that was all we found, but he knew not to argue with us.” She sipped her wine and continued, pain in her eyes. “We didn’t see him for nearly two years after that, when we made our last trip with Etjar.”

    David was unusually somber. “That was when Etjar was killed by a bereaver?”

    “Yes. When Trajan got me back to camp afterward, the elf had taken everything of value including the horses. We had to walk and the bereaver’s strike hurt me badly. Trajan carried me most of the way.” She leaned over and gently kissed her husband on the cheek.

    The old man rested a fond hand on his wife’s shoulder and interjected, “We caught up with him a few months later, after we destroyed the bereaver and gave Etjar a decent burial.” His somber mood turned comical, “The elf saw me first, turned to run, and she,” he nodded at his wife, “popped his knee with her staff.” He pantomimed someone tumbling head over heels, and snorting with laughter said, “Adelf didn’t run too well after that.”

    “Trajan beat him black and blue, then strung him up in a tree.”

    “You killed him!!!”

    “No, we hung him by his ankles. That really put a hurting on his knee.” Trajan continued, laughing.

    “Served him right for running out on us, leaving us to die.”

    “How long did you leave him?”

    The elderly woman snickered, “No idea. We just left him. He either got himself down or someone took pity on him.”

    “A few months later he got caught stealing in Kerr and the authorities hung him by the other end.”

  • Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Gree-Kin

    As noted I the introduction, this was the first pastiche I wrote. The idea of Trajan and Etjar being childhood friends, and meeting up with Marissa on the road made sense. But they needed some shared trial to bond them. Being tracked for hundreds of miles by carnivorous monsters seemed like a good idea.

     

     

    “Hal, did you ever fight a gree-kin?” asked the boy, his eyes shining with excitement.

    “Gree-kins? Huge monsters that suck your brains out your nose?” The old duffer quaffed half his ale, dribbling some down his chest. He snorted in disgust, spraying ale from his mustache in a three foot arc. “There’s no such thing. It’s just a fairy tale.” With that he sucked down the remainder of his ale.

    David’s eyes dimmed with disappointment and chagrin. Boys his age were easily excited and just as easily discouraged. He turned his crestfallen gaze to his best friend Jake.

    Jake sniggered with contempt as only an eleven year old can, dismissing the old man. “He doesn’t know anything. Gree-kins are real. Besides, most of his stories are cow manure.”

    The old man swatted at the defiant boy but came nowhere near close. Both boys fled out the door, laughing. Seeing there was no story the few others in the tavern wandered out behind the boys, onto other business. With his audience gone, and more importantly no more free ale, Hal grumbled unintelligibly for a bit then started his afternoon nap.

    It was late afternoon. Trajan watched as Hal swiped at the boy and then as the few travelers left the tavern. Trajan mused that Hal had stayed awake longer than usual. “He must be getting old if he didn’t make up a story to cadge more ale from those travelers. Can’t be that he’s too drunk.” Hal emitted a snore that rattled the windows. “Maybe he is that drunk.”

    Walking out of the common room of the inn/tavern, Trajan found the boys sitting outside, going back and forth about gree-kins. Sitting down between them Trajan cut off their arguing. “So you want to know about gree-kins?”

    Volatile as children are, both boys dropped their argument and rounded on the old man with excited questions. It took him a minute to quiet them down so he could get a word in.

    “Gree-kins are not a fairy tale. They are VERY real. My best friend Etjar and I met some while traveling with an exiled wizard and a small group of pilgrims who were coming up from Sathea to Kerr. We ran into the pilgrims and the wizard north of Sathea and we all agreed we’d travel together for safety. Their safety. The weather was good and the traveling was easy. Too easy …”

    Trajan and Etjar strode the dirt road, their long strides eating up the distance. Both were big men, well over six feet in height, young and powerful. Anyone observing would realize these two could travel from Sathea to Kerr in a far shorter time than their companions bringing up the rear. Periodically the pair stopped to wait for them to catch up.

    The dirt road meandered through the lightly forested hills, although it was more straight than not. Sometimes the forest grew dense but it was mostly scattered clumps no closer than forty feet from the road. Later the forest road would grow claustrophobic amongst dense trees, but here it was bright and open. It was the trade route between Sathea and Kerr and both the Empire and the City cooperated to keep the brush from encroaching on the road, which reduced the frequency and success of ambushes.

    In contrast to the Kerreans, the Sathean pilgrims were easily a foot shorter, their swarthy features another contrast to the fair Kerreans. Although they were fit and healthy men, their shorter strides could not keep up.

    Bringing up the far rear of their procession a young Sathean woman in riding clothes struggled along, trying to keep pace. She didn’t appear to be used to walking, her clothes more suited to horses, and her limp demonstrated her feet were unused to this effort. Over her brown riding clothes she wore a dark green vest that was covered with many pockets. Clothes too heavy for the weather and a weighty backpack made her struggle worse.

    As she shambled up to the resting group the young woman, whose plain face was coated in road dust, grimaced when the others made to resume walking. “Wait,” she snarled. “I need a rest, too!”

    Trajan had little patience and nothing resembling tact. “If you walked faster you’d get more rest!”

    “If you walked slower I wouldn’t need to!” These two rubbed each other the wrong way from the first moment they met. Etjar tried to jolly her up, but she snapped at him as well. She glared at everyone as she sat down, pulling her canteen from her pack to clear the dust from her throat. None of the men moved until she got up twenty minutes later. Trajan would bait her and argue, but even he had enough sense to not invoke her ire more than he had.

    This scene repeated itself during the long day, making the long day even longer. Trajan’s attitude towards the woman didn’t make things easier.

    As the sun edged toward the horizon Trajan and Etjar started looking for a defensible site for a camp. The sun was still barely above the trees when they found a site, a ring of large rocks sixty feet across in the middle of a much larger clearing. Now in their early twenties, they had been training, working, and fighting together for nearly fifteen years. They didn’t discuss the decision. Both knew this was the spot, dropped their packs, and started preparations for the night.

    The leader of the pilgrims, a squat man named Hax, accosted them. “What are you doing? We have another hour of daylight for travel!”

    Etjar, always more genial than Trajan, answered promptly before his friend could stick his foot in his mouth. “We need a good, defensible spot for tonight’s camp. We may find one farther on, but by the time this one is prepared it will be close enough to dark anyway.”

    Hax bristled and started to reply but Trajan cut him off. “We are camping here. If you don’t like it pick a different one.”

    Hax looked like he wanted to argue, but his compatriots distracted him and started work to setup the camp. At the soldiers’ direction the pilgrims collected brush and made a ring outside the rocks. While this wouldn’t stop anything determined to get into the camp, it would slow them down and give some warning. Hax grudgingly assisted the preparations with poor grace.

    About the time they were finished the woman, Marissa, trudged up to the camp site and dropped her pack.

    “Glad you’re here to help,” Trajan jibed her.

    Etjar appreciated that she was too tired to do more than glare at Trajan. “This is going to be an interesting trip, even if these two don’t kill each other,” thought Etjar. Trajan took charge and organized watches. “We all take two hour watches in pairs. Stay awake and pay attention to what is around us.”

    “Why do we need to keep watch?” growled Marissa and Hax at the same time, turning to glare at each other as much as Trajan.

    Etjar cut in, “Because we don’t know what’s out there and we’re all going to live longer if we’re warned and awake before something kills us. Would you rather be warned after you were killed?”

    Trajan laughed and bit back the response he was going to make. “We don’t know what is out there. I’d like it to be nothing, but we’d best not count on nothing.” For the easily irritated Kerrean, that could pass for a polite rejoinder.

    He paired Hax and Marissa for first watch, figuring the tired woman would be hard to wake later on and feeling the need to punish the thankless Hax by pairing him with her. Etjar and one of the pilgrims had the second watch, two other pairs of pilgrims had the third and fourth, and the last man had watch with himself for the last stretch before dawn. “Anyone who doesn’t want to share the responsibility can travel on their own.”

    Etjar shook his head. Sometimes it seemed like Trajan went out of his way to irritate people.

    While everyone grumbled they all, including the woman, wanted the two soldiers with them. Trajan and Etjar were big men, heavily armed and wearing chainmail shirts. Trajan wore a hand-and-a-half bastard sword slung over his shoulder, while Etjar bore a long sword and shield. They carried themselves with confidence and were no doubt experienced in dealing with trouble.

    The pilgrims and the woman all carried walking sticks that could maybe double as fighting sticks, but Trajan guessed none had ever had to save their own lives with one. Maybe knock a few heads, especially the woman, but not anything serious.

    The pilgrims arranged their bedding together, as did Trajan and Etjar. Marissa set herself up away from both groups, although given her prickly nature it wasn’t likely that any of the men would make any moves in her direction.

    Trajan was in the middle of an oddly comforting dream which somehow involved Marissa (later he couldn’t remember for sure) when a shout woke him. Used to snapping from deep sleep to instant alert, he was on his feet with his sword drawn before he was even aware that he was awake. Nearby Etjar was in the same exact state, sword and shield ready.

    An impossibly tall creature, hairlessly naked and looking like an emaciated, dark green giant, had crossed the brush line and had knocked one of the pilgrims to the ground. He grabbed the other guard with hands larger than dinner plates and bit into the man’s forehead with a horrible grating of teeth on bone. The five foot tall human looked like a doll in the giant’s claws. The Sathean screamed like a mortally wounded rabbit, sharp and piercing. The creature bit again, crunching through skull. The scream shut off as quickly as it began, although the man was definitely not dead. Before he or Etjar could react, the giant turned and bound over the brush and out of the light.

    Hax and the other sleeping pilgrims had just pulled themselves to their feet, while Trajan noticed that the woman was on her feet, standing ready with her staff in hand. His opinion of her rose two notches.

    “What was that?” blurted Hax. “We have to go after them! To save Horrus!”

    Trajan started to reply, but Etjar cut him off. “Did you see that thing move? It was running as fast as a horse. No way we could catch it … and besides, if we did catch it we wouldn’t be doing your friend a favor.”

    “We can save his life!”

    “Did you see what it did to him? It bit the top of his head off. If he lived, which isn’t likely …” Etjar spit and looked queasy. “We wouldn’t be doing him a favor,” he trailed off.

    Trajan interjected, “I am NOT chasing that thing into the dark. Your friend had really bad luck and I don’t want to share it.”

    Marissa cut in, “Besides, we don’t know how many of them there are. Chasing into the dark is stupid. Especially after someone who is already dead.”

    Hax turned visibly red in the firelight and made to argue more, when the second guard moaned. His shirt was ripped and six parallel claw marks were visible across his chest. They didn’t look deep and hadn’t bled a lot, but they looked puffy and his face looked feverish. As they watched he sat down on the ground with a barely controlled thump.

    Rushing to him the woman checked his face and his wounds. “Poison,” she said, “the claws inject poison.” In the light of the campfire they could see the wounds were already inflamed and puffy. “Nasty stuff.” He moaned again. Dashing to her pack she pawed through it, taking what seemed like forever to find a small copper bottle. Before she reached the wounded man, he uttered another small moan and released his breath a final time, relaxing into death.

    Swearing in a language none of the others recognized, she slid the bottle into a pocket on her vest. “Even if I had been quicker, it would not have mattered. The poison was too virulent, he was already dead.” Shuddering lightly she continued, “He didn’t have a chance.”

    “We’ll bury him when it gets light.” Turning to his pack Trajan strung his bow. “It’s a couple of hours until dawn. Get some sleep if you think you can.” Hax started to argue but his remaining followers shushed him. It didn’t appear they were happy with the turn of events but didn’t want to alienate the two soldiers. Hax grumbled more as Etjar strung his bow and lay down with it across his chest, a quiver of arrows close by. Marissa lay back on her pad while the surviving pilgrims formed their clump. Their dark looks at the others showed their dissatisfaction with the general reaction to the attack and deaths of their two fellows, but they said nothing the others could make out.

    As the others lay down Trajan sat as far from the fire as possible while still remaining within the circle of rocks, gazing into the darkness with his bow in his hands. He didn’t bother to keep awake the pilgrim who was supposed to keep watch with him.

    Time passed, maybe an hour, and Trajan felt a change in the night air. Not moving a muscle, he listened carefully both with his ears and his mind. Something moved silently in the darkness.

    He stood, drew the bow, and fired in one swift motion. The arrow traveled less than one hundred feet into the darkness when it impacted something with a meaty thunk. A shocked moment later a shrill scream pierced the night, wakening the sleeping humans. Etjar was on his feet instantly, his bow drawn and pointed in the direction of the scream. Trust him to arise from a sound sleep ready and able to fight. Marissa was just a moment slower, while the pilgrims uttered confused cries as they struggled with their tangle of bedding.

    The soldier shot another arrow into the shape he barely perceived in the darkness, shooting by instinct as much as sight. The shrill scream cut off as suddenly as it started, leaving a stunning silence in its wake.

    A pair of growls came from either side of the falling shape, and Trajan’s third arrow missed its target as two huge humanoid shapes hurdled the barrier, both intent on the dwarfed human soldier. He blocked a slash with his bow but the force snapped the bow in half and ripped it from his hands.

    The second shape spun him from his feet as its claws opened his left arm from shoulder to elbow with three neat cuts. As he fell the second clawed arm slashed across his back, snapping links in his chain mail shirt, opening bloody gouges. As the first one moved in for the kill an arrow sprouted from its side, followed by a brother. Screaming in pain and rage the creature spun and charged Etjar. He dropped his bow and swept his sword from its sheath, lighting the scene with its magical glow, slashing and blocking the ugly claws. The claws must be made of something as strong as steel because the magically sharp sword failed to cut through, screaming in a clash sounding like metal on metal. The light of the sword surprised the creature as it back pedaled.

    Meanwhile the second creature yanked Trajan from the ground in preparation for biting into his skull. Before it could bite three bolts of brightly green glowing magical energy punctured the creature’s side, leaving burn marks on its dark green skin.

    Dropping the helpless human in a sprawled heap it turned at the woman who struck it with magical energy. Rushing her with unreal speed it raised its claws to slash her to ribbons. Frantically casting another spell she completed it just as it reached her. A fan of flame burst from her right hand, striking it in the face and leaving blisters in its wake. Recoiling blindly in agony the creature slashed futilely at the air and turned to flee. Moving with the same unreal speed it cleared the rocks and piled bushes in a single leap to disappear into the darkness.

    The other feinted at Etjar and bound over the barrier to join its companion in the darkness.

    Trajan groaned and his face was already covered with the sheen of perspiration. While he didn’t look anywhere near as bad as the pilgrim had before he died, he didn’t look good. The woman rushed to his side, plucking the small copper bottle from her pocket, unstopping it, and pouring its contents into his upturned mouth. Nearly choking on the liquid he managed to swallow most of it. A minute passed and his breathing steadied.

    “What is that stuff?” Etjar asked.

    “A potion that is an antidote to most poisons. I got to him quickly enough.”

    “But not soon enough to help Hessan,” Hax sneered.

    Rounding on the man Marissa snarled, “No, not soon enough. We didn’t know they were poisonous.”

    Hax started to snarl in return when Etjar poked him in the shoulder hard enough to spin him half around. “Be thankful we were here. If we hadn’t been you’d all be brainless now.” He looked thoughtfully at the man. “Although I’m not sure anyone would notice.” Normally a tactful man Etjar instantly dredged up insults when the mood took him. The smaller man backed off with fear and anger on his face.

    Turning back he saw Marissa kneeling, cleaning Trajan’s wounds. The wounded man started to thank her but groaned when she scrubbed hard at one wound. “Hey, take it easy, won’t you!” he complained.

    “If you ducked faster I wouldn’t need to do this. Stop whining.”

    Etjar shook his head. When they decided to kill each other, he wasn’t betting which would win.

    Three days later the trio stumbled up to the southern gate of Kerr along with a single pilgrim. Hax and the others lay dead behind them along the road.

    “They killed the other pilgrims?”

    “There were six of ’em, two adults and four half-grown young-uns. After I killed the one young-un the big ones kept after us, trying to ambush us.”

    “What did they do?”

    “Kept trying to ambush us. Instead of straggling we had to stay bunched up. We lost Hax and another pilgrim ‘cuz they got too far from us. Almost lost the wizard, too. We finally killed both of the adults and another of the young-uns. No idea what happened to the other two.”

    “You didn’t like the wizard, did you?”

    “Nope. She and I rubbed each other the wrong way from the first moment we met.” Trajan was about to expound further on the topic but David interjected another question.

    “Gree-kins are poisonous?”

    “Yes, David, gree-kins are poisonous. Deadly poisonous. Most people don’t survive a clawing.”

    “Why did they keep attacking you?”

    “Gree-kins mostly travel alone and attack lone travelers. The group we met was a family, and after I killed the young-un the parents seemed bound to kill us all.”

    “Why do they bite people’s heads off?”

    “They don’t bite heads off, they crack the skull so they can eat brains. And they don’t suck brains out through your nose.”

    “Why …”

    “DAVID!” Standing beside them was a young man or an old boy, depending on point of view. He had arrived unnoticed in the flurry of questions and answers.

    “Bisonbit!” Jake and David yelped in harmony.

    “Time for lessons. Get your butts moving or I’ll kick them all the way to the temple!”

    Trajan cut off the grumbles. “Time for you boys to get to your lessons.” Silently he added, “And spare me from more questions.” ‘Why’ was David’s favorite question, no matter what the previous answer was. As much as Trajan liked the boy, some time off from him was good.

    The two boys trundled dejectedly off behind the older boy …

  • Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Gas Spores

    My brother and I created dozens of variations on the original gas spores from AD&D. Nearly thirty years later I wrote this pastiche – because I felt the need to write another one and gas spores popped out at me when I perused my monster notebook.

     

     

    Hal was in rare form and it wasn’t even noon yet. A family of nobles from the southeast had stopped at the tavern, slumming it, and the obviously spoiled teenaged son had been enraptured by Hal’s questionable stories. Enough that they had kept buying ale which he steadily pounded down.

    While entertaining when told sober, the one-armed man’s stories drifted from made-up into the realm of sheer idiocy as the ale content of his veins increased. Not that it mattered to Hal, he’d never see these people again and was drunk enough to last until the next morning, when a pounding headache would give him the impetus to tell stories to garner more ale.

    He didn’t even realize that his audience had left him in disgust. Just as well.

    As the family turned away a boy of maybe twelve years spoke up. “Hal doesn’t know anything. He lost his arm when he got run over by a wagon when drunk. Which he usually is.”

    The father looked down his nose at the boy and was about to tell his guard to run the boy off. “The monster Hal says he saw was a gas spore, not an oculus despot. Ask Trajan, he’s fought with both.” With that the boy turned and walked out onto the porch.

    Following him outside, the nobles found an elderly man sitting with an equally elderly woman, and in front of them another boy. The man was tall and fair, she short and dark. The guards nervously fingered their weapons. Although elderly and unarmed, the pair had an air about them that would make any good bodyguard nervous. Characteristically the nobles had no clue.

    “Tell them about gas spores,” the boy commanded.

    The old man laughed. “David, is Hal telling his tale of killing an oculus despot in one blow again?” At the boy’s nod he continued, “No one kills an oculus with one blow. Hal encountered a form of gas spore.” He laughed again and looked at the old woman who smiled back at him, an unexpectedly predatory smile. “We have, too.”

    Trajan moved cautiously forward through the temple’s first cellar. He reached back and the linkboy behind him slapped another burning torch into the extended palm. The big man gently threw the torch underhanded to land about thirty feet in front of him, rolling a couple of feet. Thirty feet behind him was Etjar with another linkboy, standing in front of the previous torch.

    The temple cellars were vast, obviously shaped from existing caverns. The ceiling was barely visible in the torch light, probably twenty-five feet above the soldier’s head, and for the most part he could see the walls on either side of him. The walls of this part of the cellar were stacked with crates ranging from three feet to six feet in size. No telling what the contents were, anything from stored foods to extra furniture to statues and decorations. Some were obviously ancient.

    Trajan determinedly put those thoughts out of his head – their job was to find whatever had killed several servants, and either kill it or drive it off.

    A voice called from behind, the Chief of Guard who was to guide them. “The bodies should be in the next section, unless something has moved or eaten them.” Twenty feet behind Etjar stood Demorov, Chief Guard of the temple of Athena in Kerr. With him was the third member of the hired trio, a diminutive woman as bronze as Trajan and Etjar were fair. She was a wizard, their backup and secret weapon against the nasties they expected to find.

    The soldier threw another torch as he moved past the last one. Scanning the ceiling and walls for danger, he spotted two lumps on the floor at the edge of the light. Instead of reaching back for another proffered torch he opened a small pouch on his belt and brilliant light filled his fist. Closing his eyes tightly against the glare he tossed a small object at the lumps. Daylight showered from the object which struck the floor next to the lumps and bounced another five feet.

    This light outclassed the torches the way the sun outclasses the moon. The ceiling and walls were brightly lit and he could see far past the lumps.

    The lumps? Looked like bodies … excepting the clothing was wet looking and shredded. They looked wrong.

    “What’s wrong with the bodies?” a woman’s voice screeched behind him. “Well, her voice doesn’t really screech but by Demeter’s hair, she irritates me,” thought Trajan.

    “Something’s odd,” he retorted.

    Even sixty feet away her exasperation was palpable. “HOW?” This time she did screech.

    The soldier bit back his first retort. Drawing a breath, he managed to civilly state, “Clothes are torn, things look wet, maybe slimy.”

    “Check it out!”

    “In a minute.” She said something else but Trajan pointedly focused on not being killed. Nothing on the ceiling, crates and barrels were pushed against the walls, no place to hide. Nothing in sight. Nothing out of place except the bodies looked strange. “ Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” he asked himself.

    As hard as he was ignoring Marissa, Trajan’s sense of self-preservation reacted to her cry of danger. He saw a shape flying down toward him on his left. It wasn’t fast but was fast enough. He started to move away from it at an angle but instantly realized the linkboy was frozen in terror, staring at the thing.

    “Oculus!” Etjar and Marissa both screamed in harmony.

    The trio had fought an oculus despot, a floating horror that resembled a huge eye with a gaping maw and a lot of tentacles on top. The true danger wasn’t physical, it was thing’s intelligence and varied magical powers. They had barely survived that scrap and Trajan wasn’t happy to be within a hundred miles of another one.

    “I’m an idiot!” he yelled as he reversed course, snatched up the linkboy, and ran, shielding the boy’s body with his own. In his peripheral vision he saw an object flash by and then was thrown forward in a burst of flame that burned the back of his neck and his arms. He landed on the boy but managed to roll and not crush him.

    His training forced him to struggle to his feet. The kid was either ok or he was not. Survive first, assess damage later. “What happened?”

    Marissa answered, “Etjar threw a dagger at it. It just exploded, like a Fireball.”

    “Oculus don’t explode!”

    “This one did!”

    The pair started to go back and forth, per usual, until Etjar cut them off. “Survive now, argue later.” They both opened their mouths to argue with him but shut up at his withering glare. “Sheesh! They’d rather fight with each other than live!” he mused. “They need to kill each other or get married.”

    “Ok, what happened?”

    “Just what I said, Etjar threw a dagger at the oculus, hit it near the big eye, and the thing just exploded. Not exactly like a Fireball, but close enough.”

    Etjar examined the area, there were shreds of leather-like flesh scattered all over. He poked at the bits with another dagger but didn’t touch them with his hand. Lying nearby was the dagger he threw, the edge wavy and melted looking. He didn’t pick it up.

    The first linkboy struggled painfully to his feet and staggered towards his compatriot. The boys hugged each other, turned, and ran at the fastest pace the injured boy could manage towards the stairway up. Demorov spoke for the first time, snarling at their shadows to return or he’d beat them. Trajan was just as happy to not have children in danger.

    Demorov started after them but Trajan yanked him back. “Don’t worry about the kids, we have more important things to worry about. We don’t need kids underfoot.”

    The Chief was a big, tough man but Trajan manhandled him like a rag doll. While his first instinct was to fight, the Chief was smart enough to realize he wasn’t going to win. The big soldier saw a momentary glint of fear in the other man’s eyes and made a mental note to speak for the boys to the high cleric, AND to watch his back where the Chief was concerned. Assuming they survived.

    Etjar saw the interchange and distracted the Chief, at least temporarily, with reality. “Look at this!”

    One of the bodies had shredded, soggy clothing and looked deflated, like the body was all there but sunken in. Raw flesh was visible, but it didn’t look normal, it looked more like old meat left out in the heat. In contrast the other had undamaged, soggy clothing but appeared bloated.

    Etjar scooped up the light coin and tossed it farther ahead. He moved slowly towards the coin, scanning everything as the others looked at the bodies. Demorov drew his sword and made to puncture the bloated body. Marissa screamed a warning and Trajan moved like lightning, interposing his armored back between the mage and the body, scooping her up and running. Fast as his reflexes were, he only made two strides before the fool with the sword stabbed the body.

    A smaller burst of flame erupted from the body, scattering bits and pieces of the body before several other equally small explosions went off in rapid succession. Trajan was thrown forward, landing hard on one forearm as he fought to keep his crushing weight off Marissa. He screamed at his broken arm and fell off it onto his side.

    Marissa howled at him to get off her and managed to get leverage to move him. She swore at his clumsiness as metal disks scattered across the floor. “Where did those come from?”

    Etjar came running back. A quick glance showed Demorov in a dead heap, badly burned with chunks of metal sticking out of his flesh, a mixture of copper, silver, gold, and even platinum slugs, all roughly the size of common crowns, coins.

    Marissa was still grouching at Trajan’s clumsiness as Etjar looked him over. The left arm was badly broken but not bleeding much. No veins or arteries cut. Walking about behind him the big soldier felt a chill. The broken blade of the Chief’s sword extended askew from Trajan’s left kidney.

    “Shut it, woman!” She glared at him but he spun her around so she could see Trajan’s back. Her defiance went limp when she saw the broken sword jutting from his body.

    “That’s bad,” she whispered. Trajan just moaned. “He saved me.”

    Etjar’s hyper acute danger sense spun him around, a trait earned in too many battles with too many strange things. Floating at the edge of the light was two more of the oculus. They floated slowly towards the trio. The soldier still held the melted dagger he had thrown at the first one, so without thinking he flung it into the closer one. The dagger struck and the thing instantly flashed into a fireball, engulfing the one behind it and igniting a second fireball.

    Three other shapes loomed from the darkness. Etjar despaired, “I can’t move Trajan, as badly wounded as he is I’ll kill him!”

    “I’ll stop them, but they have to be close together.” She moved towards them, waving her arms to attract attention. All three moved towards her, slow as a slow walking man. She used the time to circle and lead them from her friends. At one point the closest got to about fifteen feet away, and she could see that while the thing resembled an oculus at a distance, up close it looked partially formed. The great eye was not really an eye, and the eye stalks on top were just tentacles with light spots at the ends.

    Circling several times, she got them to group together and walk quickly backwards to gain distance. At fifty feet she immediately invoked her favorite magic, one that never failed. Three lances of red energy flashed from her fingertips, one striking each sphere. The strikes were so fast the three exploded instantly, leaving her seeing spots. She did see that as the last one exploded it produced a spray of gems which scattered in all directions. She absently grabbed a few that landed close to her as she hurried back to the pair.

    “How is he?”

    “Not good. He’s lost a fair amount of blood, that blade ripped him apart internally.” Etjar, normally a paragon of strength, wrung his hands. “If we can get a cleric here fast enough we might save him, but he has minutes.”

    Tears stung her cheeks. She often hated Trajan but as he lay there dying she felt a wrenching loss beyond anything she had experienced, even beyond exile from her school and homeland. “I wish I could heal you,” she cried; her magic didn’t lend it self to healing. The mage realized she was sobbing uncontrollably.

    “Sheesh, woman! Stop your caterwauling!”

    Blinking through the tears she saw Trajan sitting up facing her, his arm unbroken, the unendurable agony of his rended insides wiped from his face. She grabbed his head and kissed him hard and long.

    “What was that for?” he asked in puzzlement.

    Seeing that she was unable to answer, her face flaming red, Etjar responded. “You were killed. You had a sword blade rip your guts out and your arm was broken.”

    “Right …”

    “Marissa wished you healed, and you were.”

    “Right …”

    “I’m not joking, you idiot. Besides, if you weren’t dying why else would Marissa kiss you instead of kicking you in the head?”

    Trajan blinked. THAT made sense. “How did she get the magic?”

    Etjar shook his head, “No idea.” Shrugging, he continued, “What if it came from those things, like the metal slugs and these gems?” Bending, he picked up a rough amethyst the size of his thumb, one Marissa dropped when she grabbed Trajan.

    Laughing, Trajan said, “You mean I could wish I had a thousand more just like that one?” A pile of identical stones appeared in front of him, empty air one moment and a pile of gems the next. The laugh drained off his face.

    All talking at once they made wish after wish, none of which were granted. All trace of embarrassment gone, Marissa rounded on Trajan, “You fool, I wasted a Wish saving your worthless hide!”

    The nobles were entranced. The father, whose supercilious expression was gone, asked, “Were the stones valuable?”

    Laughing the elderly woman answered, “No, not really. They were cheap stones and what little they were worth was spent decades ago.”

    Looking disappointed, the noble pulled a gold crown from a pocket and arrogantly tossed it on the wooden floor. “My thanks for your story.” With that he led his family and guards off.

    Jake and David scrambled for the coin, fighting for it. Bigger and stronger, Jake won. He presented it to Trajan who declined it. “Take it inside and give it to the proprietor, in payment for my current bill and towards the near future’s bill.” He waited a beat and continued, “and get a mug of chocolate for you and David. If Bisonbit arrives as expected, get him one, too.”

    Differences forgotten, the boys scrambled through the door.

    The woman tugged on a gold chain around her neck. Hung on it was a finely cut amethyst, very large, which sparkled in the sun. She kissed him hard on the mouth and said, “Well, maybe … they weren’t that worthless and all were not spent …”