Tillytown was a hamlet, one of many in the kingdom. It consisted of a dozen buildings, sprinkled haphazardly on a hill and surrounded by a low brick wall. The tavern, stable, blacksmith and magic shop formed a small cul-de-sac near the front gate. The main road branched at this point: one path lead into the cul-de-sac, and the other up the hill to Lord Vingol’s castle. The rest of the town consisted of identical log cabins, arranged in no particular order and which nobody ever entered nor exited.
Heavy steel boots thudded down the cobblestone path. “Stop, thief, in the name of the law!” cried a dozen identical voices.
A tall figure, clad in immaculate plate mail, wielding a sword twice as tall as himself, stood on top of the blacksmith’s hut. The guards, clustered around the bottom of the hut, pushed and shoved at each other but remained totally helpless to find their way up.
“Stop, thief, in the name of the law!” the guardsmen cried again in unison.
The tall figure reached into his pocket and pulled out a live cow. Easily lifting it with one hand, he tossed it down at his pursuers. Half of them were crushed to death instantly with a mighty splat! The poor bovine, none the wiser, trotted off and began chewing some hay from the stables.
Even as they stepped in the eyeballs, intestines and assorted gore that had once been their brothers-in-arms, the remaining guardsmen were undeterred. If anything, they clustered even closer, futilely charging at the wall where their companions had met a sticky end.
“Stop, thief, in the name of the--”
Duane had seen enough. He turned away from the window, only to find that Lord Vingol had returned to his throne, idly munching on the same lamb shank he had been working on since last night. “My lord, did you see any of that?”
Vingol slowly and dramatically put down his lamb shank, then stood and walked until he was directly in front of Duane. There he remained, motionless, staring with a blank expression.
Duane cleared his throat. “My lord, surely you--”
“HAIL, CAPTAIN! CATCH ANY ROBBERS, I HOPE!?” Vingol shouted the entire statement at the top of his lungs. It was exactly how he began every conversation.
Duane sighed. “Never mind, my lord. Go back to your lamb, it’s getting cold.”
Vingol became solemn instantly. “May the chosen one put an end to these dark times,” he growsed.
Duane turned back to the window. The slaughtered guardsmen had been stripped down to their loincloths and arranged in the shape of a giant cock. As the captain watched, the blood-splattered knight entered the blacksmith’s shop with his victims’ armor and weapons; moments later, he emerged with a sack of gold twice as large as himself.
“The chosen one is a dick,” Duane muttered under the sound of Vingol’s munching.
When Duane arrived on the scene of the massacre, he found Jimmy the Thief pawing over the corpses.
“Jimmy, they’re stripped already. All you’re gonna find is their willies.”
Jimmy shot up like a bolt from a crossbow. “You didn’t catch me doin’ nuffin’!” he cried. Despite being named Jimmy the Thief, he had never actually stolen anything. “I was just checkin’ for a pulse, tha’s all. I love me the guards, keepin’ the town safe from bandits and all.”
Duane glanced at the body Jimmy had been looting. It resembled a pile of bright red pudding with a hand sticking out. “Yeah, they sure do keep us safe. Say, is Fred in? I need to get their armor back.”
Jimmy scratched his shaven head. “Yeah, he’s in. Might be closin’ up early though, he just--”
“Gave all his gold to the Chosen One. Yeah, I know. Thanks, Jimmy.”
Duane followed a pair of bloody bootprints from the side of the building around to the front. The letters LOL had been crudely carved into the wall next to the front door. Stepping over the ruined pieces of the door, long ago smashed down by the Chosen One, Duane entered Fred’s smithy.
Crash! A gigantic pile of helms, shields, leather jerkins and steel boots came tumbled to the floor, bouncing on the tiles and ricocheting off the walls.
A loud stream of curses came from the top of the stairs. “Argh, Jimmy, now you’ve done it! If I catch you down there I’ll have to—AAAAAA!”
Another series of crashes and bangs as a man-sized shape tumbled down the stairs and came to rest on one of the fallen shields. It was Fred the smith.
“Oh, Duane! It’s you! Say, could you help me up?”
Duane picked Fred up and leaned him against the shop counter. A massive man with a mop of red hair, Fred had been strong once.
Once. In one of his earliest rampages, the Chosen One had removed Fred’s left leg, left arm, left eye, left ear, left testicle, and the left half of his beard. He only survived because the Chosen One had cast a healing spell after removing each appendage. Duane can only imagine how he’d managed to get himself up the stairs, let alone how he continues forging armor and weapons to sell.
“You’ll be gettin’ the usual, I presume?” Fred asked, hooking his arm around a wall sconce for support.
“Yeah. I have the writ here,” Duane replied, taking a bank note from his pouch and placing it on the counter. “I have to get the next bunch of guards suited up before the Chosen One comes back and splatters them all again.”
“It’s not good to speak ill of the Chosen One like that. He’s a great man, you’ll see.”
Duane heaved a great sigh and turned back to the smith. “Fred, look at yourself. He bankrupts you at least once a week. He turned you into a pogo stick. He married your daughter, then sold her to cannibals for a magic dagger. Why do you still kiss his ass so hard?”
Fred mulled it over for a few seconds, genuinely confused. For a moment, it almost seemed like a flash of awareness crossed his face. Duane waited with held breath. Could this finally be it?
Suddenly, Fred’s frown turned into a bright grin. Beaming at Duane, he said, “He took care of those bandits for us! Rescued my daughter, he did.” He wagged his finger on the last statement, as if to add dumbass, how could you forget?
Duane wanted to reply. He wanted to tell him that had been several years ago, that his daughter had been a spoiled brat anyway, that the Chosen One had only done it to get the winged helmet that he had sold right back to Fred for cash. He wanted to argue that surely, the Chosen One’s crimes since then must outweigh the one good deed that anybody in this god damn town knows about?
Instead, Duane robotically picked up the bank note and dropped it on the floor.
“What’s that for, then?” Fred asked, unable to move from the wall sconce holding him up.
Duane didn’t reply. Instead, he went over to the forge and kicked over the quenching bucket with a loud clang. The dirty water spilled over the floor, quickly reaching the bank note. The fragile sheet is ruined in seconds, the ink smudged and washed away by the sooty water.
“I’ll send somebody for the armor later.”
Without another word, Duane left the shop.
