Mettle & Steel: Parts One & Two
Mettle & Steel, Part 1
“All dogs have fleas.” Course they do. Mutts rooting around in the gutters, anyway. I’m sure there’s some high-strung pure-bred pup somewhere up in the white castles of Edinhal who’s never felt the sting of a flea on his perfectly manicured rump, but I’ve never met it.I joined up with my current band of mutts after too many days of baby-sitting them damn caravans. Back and forth across the plains, day after day, same rocks in the distance, same sparse clouds too far away, same whining voices. Not sure how I stood it. Guess I didn’t, in the end.
Captain Wilberforce seemed to have his head on straight. No caravans for him. He’ll take the gray fens and the tangle-vines over consoling some fish-monger about the poor state of the weather. So I signed me up.
Course, then we got into the marshes, and I was almost - almost - missing the banter of merchants and their bloated wives.
The beast we were tracking - a great troll towering three feet over the tallest of us - a lanky gap-toothed boy named Finn - had hunkered itself into a narrow cavern. Too narrow for us all to fit into and swing our swords about properly. Just wide enough for one man, or one troll, to walk down.
Wilberforce looked around at the four of us and [[Does he send me in? 7 - complication: Disguising Song]] nodded.
“Right oh, boys, and Alma, of course. We find ourselves in a bit of a bind here, but trust in the old captain, eh? Now here’s the plan.”
A few moments later, I stood a stone’s throw from the cavern’s entrance, hiding in the brush - though I suspected the sunlight flickering off the edge of my longsword would give me away to anyone looking closely enough. Captain Wilberforce, standing right bloody next to me, took a small metal device from his satchel, and scraped it with a little metal stick.
I wouldn’t have expected anything so little could produce such an ear-splitting screech. Like something dying, or someone being tortured, even. Though it wasn’t quite right. I know the sounds people make when they’re dying.
I could feel sweat beading on my forehead as the little box shrieked beneath Wilberforce’s torture. Something thumped inside the cave.
Then it roared.
Then it was on us.
I braced myself as the pig-faced creature rushed towards us, but it brushed my sword aside with one meaty fist and went straight for Wilberforce, who dropped his abused box in a huff and whipped his short sword forward. I was shocked at the speed the pudgy man showed as he stepped to the side and delivered a frightful blow to the beast’s side.
Alma, not stuttering, came in from her side with a vicious strike from her axe. Green-black blood spattered the brush.
An arrow from Fox whizzed by my ear, setting itself with a sick smack into the beast’s thick hide.
The troll was finished with taking hits, and decided to hand out one of his own, and for some reason it had to be at me. One meaty fist bashed into my head, dazing me for a moment as I tumbled to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Troll take a swing at Wilberforce as well.
Metal crunched as the beast landed a heavy fist directly on top of the captain’s head. My gut sank as the Captain crumbled.
Alma roared in fury, rushing to defend the dead captain. She sank her sword into the beast's back, but it didn’t go down.
Another arrow from Fox barely pierced the creature, just making it even more angry.
Finn was done. I couldn’t smell the piss running down his leg, but I knew it was there. No shame in that, boy. This thing showed no sign of being done with us.
And it wasn’t.
It took a swipe at Alma, but she braced herself behind her shield. Enraged, it swung again, this time knocking her off her feet. The troll took a step and raised its fists over its head.
Scared, sometimes, is a good thing. It gets your heart beating, gets your blood moving. Well I was terrified. I picked myself up and rushed at the troll. The damn thing wasn’t about to get another one of us.
I rammed that sword straight through the bastard’s spine, feeling something snap as I did. The beast moaned once, then its legs gave out underneath it. Half a second later it was on the ground, and I put it out of its misery. Damn monster.
It had killed my captain.
An hour later we had burned the troll’s remains and were halfway into digging Wilberforce’s grave. The ground was soft, but stank of marsh water.
“It ain’t right, burying him here.” Finn said, tossing another shovel full of dirt over his shoulder.
“Ain’t nowhere right for the Captain to be buried yet.” I said, not turning from the work. “He were a good man, and too young to have his brains knocked in.”
Finn sniffed, “Yeah, but can’t we at least-”
“What?” Alma asked, her face sour and damp with sweat. “You want to haul his body all the way back to that little ram-shackle village for some reason? Bury him on some nice sunny hillside? Dead is dead. Don’t matter where it is.”
Finn silenced himself at Alma’s barking. Smart lad. Big heart. It’d be a miracle if he survived this business for any amount of time.
When the grave was deep enough, we looked at the sergeant’s body, still slumped against a tree. Blood stained his chain armor, already dry.
“Think he’s got anything valuable on him?” Fox asked.
“You ever think about anything besides gold?” Finn asked, disgusted.
Fox grinned wryly, “Women, friend. That’s what the gold is for.”
Finn grimaced, “You’re disgusting, y’know that? Captain’s dead and all you’re thinking about is what you can get out of it?”
“I’m just being practical.” Said Fox.
“You’re being a right bugger.” Said Finn.
I shook my head, staring at the two whelps. “You’re both idiots. Yes, we check his pockets, but any valuables go back to his family, if he’s got any. We bury him in his gear, like a proper soldier. We can keep anything useful, he wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”
Alma grunted her agreement, and started to check Wilberforce’s body.
[[What does she find? - Paralyzing Crown]]
After a moment she took a letter from the Captain’s inside pocket. It was unsealed, crumpled, and sweaty. The ink had run, but the two of us working together were able to get the gist of it.
Someone wanted to hire the captain to kill a prince. The prince. The one who was supposed to be crowned king next month.
The reward? More gold than either of us had seen in our lives. Combined.
“That’s a lot of gold.” I whispered.
Alma stared, wide-eyed at the little slip of paper. “I never liked royals anyway.”
“Do you think the Captain was going to do it?” I asked.
Alma shrugged. “He’s always been a monster hunter, not an assassin. Why do you think anyone would hire him to kill the crown prince?”
We both came to the same horrifying conclusion at once.
The crown prince was a monster, and we were going to put him down.
Part 2
The thing with trolls, Captain Wilberforce had told us, is that they have a tendency of not being as dead as you’d hope. That’s why you’ve got to burn the body, which we did. Which meant there wasn’t any evidence we’d killed the damn thing.
Well, we shoulda thought of that before we got all the way back to town without some kind of trophy. No teeth, no bits of eyeball, nothing. So the mayor told us he was going to pay us “nothing.”
Captain didn’t die out there so we could get paid nothing. We took an extra two days marching back and forth to the spot where we’d killed the troll, and eventually made our way back with a pair of large, scorched fangs.
I couldn’t believe how hard that flimsy little man stared at the fangs. Like the four of us had faked him out, hadn’t actually killed the thing, “lost” our captain somewhere along the road. Did he think we were a bunch a newborn chickies what couldn’t find their mum?
And then, when he finally admits that the teeth probably were troll fangs, he tells us to wait around another two days while some of his own men go out to verify the troll’s den is empty.
So we found ourselves sittin’ in this pub, the Rosy Elephant - I kid you not - drinking beer that tasted like it had been through an elephant.
To top it off, we were about broke.
Fox kept eye-balling a group of drunks shooting dice across the way.
“Tell you what, Stilts,” he said to me, “You just give me your coin, and I’ll toss it in with mine, and I think we might just double our money over there.”
The drunks looked angry, all except one anyway, musta been winning, that one.
I looked at my seven copper pieces, shrugged, and tossed them over to him. Why not? We’d be getting paid in the morning.
Fox grinned, grabbing the coins all too eagerly and making his way over.
A moment later, Fox slunk back.
“Lose all our coin?” I asked.
He didn’t respond, other than setting his head on the counter.
“Figured.”
That night, the four of us met up in our room. Fox and Alma sat on one bunk, Finn and I took the other.
“So, we’ve got the earnings from one kill to split between us in the morning, then what?” I asked.
“That letter,” Finn asked, gulping, “it wanted the captain to take out the Crown Prince?”
I nodded.
“And you think he’s a monster?” Finn continued.
Another nod.
“Then we kill the Crown Prince.” He said, his fingers twitching slightly.
“You think it’s that simple?” Fox asked, an eyebrow inching up his forehead. “We’re talking about the Crown Bloody Prince. Guarded by the best warriors in the whole country, surrounded by castle walls, and to top it all off, he’s apparently some bloody monster?” He shook his head. “This is a nightmare, and we don’t even know if it’s true. We don’t even know who sent the Captain that letter.”
“I know.” Alma said. “I saw the Captain talking with a young lady at the town we stopped at last - Brookfield. I didn’t recognize the face, but she had a sigil on her cloak, house Torwin.”
“House Torwin? The traitors?” Finn asked, his eyes bulging. “I will not be caught working for an exiled house!”
“Hopefully,” I said, “None of us will. But it’s worth looking into. If the Crown Prince is what they think he is, that might be why they were exiled in the first place.”
There was silence from the group.
“Are you all in then?” I asked.
One by one, they nodded. Whether for Gold, Glory, or to make things Right, I don’t know why they all agreed, but it was settled. We would make for house Torwin.
That two-legged upright rat. The town mayor decided that since only four of us had killed the monster, the captain’s share wasn’t included. 25 silver pieces each. I couldn’t believe it. Still, threatening the town mayor over 25 pieces of silver wasn’t quite what I’d like to be locked up for.
And of course it was raining again.
The four of us trudged in foul spirits from the Rosy Damn Elephant back to Brookfield. It was a three day journey, and the rain hardly let up long enough for us to take a deep gulp of dry air. Felt like I was a craw-fish, pulling along the bottom of a river, armor clanging against my softer bits. Ah well. Better than guarding caravans across the plains.
None of us saw that first black-feathered arrow, but we all heard it.
And I felt it. The black-feathered arrow stuck into my shoulder, and I immediately hit the dirt, water splashing up around me. “Get down!” I yelled, and heard the others following orders.
Except for Finn, stupid boy. He took a moment to ask something first, but I didn’t hear it. An arrow smacked hard into his gut, and I could see the shock a moment later as he started to crumble. Don’t go dying on me.
I sat and listened for a moment, trying to determine where our enemy was. One wide green head peaked over the heads of grass, barely visible in the rain. I motioned to Alma, and we spread into the grass.
I heard a slice and a gurgled scream. Alma had taken one down. Doubtless there were more.
Fox made his way over to Finn. I could smell blood, it wasn’t good.
“Don’t touch it!” Finn cried. Well, at least the kid was alive.
We were all low in the grass, too hard for the goblins to get an accurate shot at us, but we were on their level, and this was their hunting ground.
One shot out of the underbrush right by me. I blocked his strike with my shortsword and lifted my shield. Swinging at him only took the heads off a few strands of grass. Damn thing was quick.
I heard clanging and another inhuman scream. Alma was doing well.
There was a gasp from behind me, but I couldn’t turn to see with this goblin right in front of me, I just hoped Fox and Finn would be alright.
With a grunt I struck forward, driving my sword into the monstrosity in front of me. It died with an ugly grin plastered across its face, gibbering as I pulled my sword from it’s chest.
No more of them came out of the underbrush for me, so I turned back to the road, staying low.
A dead goblin lay a few feet from Fox, a vicious cut across its neck. Served it right. Still, the bloody wound in Fox’s side showed it wasn’t a one way fight. Damn. We had to get out of here, and now we had two wounded.
“Alma!” I called quietly. The short woman came out of the brush next to me, wiping dark red blood from her axe.
“I think we’re clear, for a moment.” She said, though her eyes still darted back and forth through the grass.
“We should move, but these two don’t look good.”
Alma nodded, dropped her pack, and set about patching up Fox and Finn. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get them moving again. We were still a day out from Brookfield, and the smell of blood would draw more goblins, or worse.
[[Do we make it the rest of the way back to Brookfield safely? 7- complication: Communicating Servant]]
We didn't make it to Brookfield.
Hours after our encounter with the goblins, staggering along as best we could, we heard a cry for help.
Did I not have enough to do already?
The cry was from a man dressed up nice. He reminded me of the merchants I used to puppy-guard. Pasty face, hair back in a pony-tail, nice black jacket trimmed with silver buttons. The blood dripping down his arm would stain that.
He claimed that he’d been running for half an hour or so. Came down from a nice vineyard up the hill, a vineyard with a rather unique issue.
Every third day, the master of the house would take on an entirely separate persona, becoming violent and unpredictable. Today he’d taken his grandfather’s sword from atop the mantle and started swinging it. Thing was apparently still quite sharp, leaving the servant with the wound on his arm.
Course, the other two days, the master was one of the best men on the face of the earth - or so the servant said.
We were still a day out from Brookfield. There were goblins in these fields who’d be tracking us, waiting for us to drop our guard. Two of my allies were badly wounded.
We decided to help out that servant, on a few conditions. One, we’d need safe lodging for the night. Two, we’d need a proper reward if we finished the job. He said his master would be all too happy to help. The strange moods were a deep worry to the master as well as everyone else.
Any shelter in a storm? Maybe. But this was a stretch for sure.
***
The mansion rose three stories above ground level, and each story was decorated with a different style. Good grief. If you were a noble I suppose you could afford anything. Even public embarrassment.
The servant showed us to the door which opened smoothly on its hinges, and we were greeted by the sight of a large hall. The blinds had been opened, letting plenty of light in. Even so the place was cavernous. No one was inside.
“When you do find the master, you may need to restrain him. He’s quite aggressive today. Just don’t leave any lasting wounds, if you can help it.”
I nodded to the servant and turned to the group. Fox and Finn were still holding their wounds, barely upright. Alma continually clucked after them like a mother hen. I guess it was on me.
“You all stay here. I’ll go find the master of the house.”
Alma looked up skeptically.
“How bad can one sour noble be?” I asked.
Never should have gone into that damn noble’s house. Someday I’ll learn.
Footnotes
But this guy? He lives in the damn shit. They're the most accurate words for his life.
It's odd taking on a personality so different from my own and trying to convey it accurately, but I won't lie, it's some of the most fun I've had in playing solo.
This is still Maze Rats by Ben Milton, available on DriveThruRPG. As I was playing I included notes on several of the questions I was asking, and the results they gave, so I've left them in as a subtle reminder that I have almost no idea what's going to happen next, and that's just plain thrilling.
Until next time!
-Hilander.
Comments
Post a Comment