The villagers stood around the new memorial, some crying, some staring off into space as if they'd seen a ghost. All but the smallest children mourning. The news had arrived only hours ago, but it had already begun to sink in for many. On rumor of whose coming had the beasts of the night slithered back into their dens? Whose name was intoned which left bandits to confess and beg for mercy? Whose threats put the most untamable warlords in their place? Every trip he took back and forth across the land bridge, Bora Ragedance helped the people of the Isthmus sleep more soundly at night, and now he was dead.
One of the men spoke, weakly "what do we do now?"
"We mourn, and we pray" an elderly woman said.
"No, I mean what are we going to do without him?"
"Yeah!"
"The night creatures are already beginning to stir again, like you said they did when you were a child, Dana."
"I hear there are already bandits stalking the roads."
"We've got to do something!"
"We can't do anything. We were never strong enough to slay the beasts ourselves. We must pray."
A scowling youth piped in "I say let the selfish bastard have his rest. Earned it or not, that "hero" you all worship was just another one of those monsters! Remember he ate half our sheep?"
"We sold him the sheep."
"He made us trade them to him in return for the property the bandits stole from us! How is that justice?"
An ancient-looking man crept in amongst the crowd and lifted his voice; "It doesn't matter how much of your lunch he ate, he killed half the beasts who killed three-fourths of your ancestors! This discussion is over. Go home!"
A few youths prepared to lash out again, but ultimately said nothing. After a minutes of silence, the crowd slowly dispersed and the people went back into their homes.
Before dawn, one of the villagers bravely stepped outside. No bogeymen descended on him, but he still felt like he was being watched. Eventually he went back inside, but only to grab something. Nobody stirred, and as the sun appeared above the horizon he trekked to meet it, hammer and shield slung across his back. Ketas Glossknives never knew who his parents were; the monsters had made sure of that. But he knew who it was that avenged them, and to whom he would return the favor.
Outside Bakerswalked Ketas stopped, and as quietly as possible he crept towards a den, the entrance recently used by the look of it. Just as he was about to step down into the abyss, he heard a twig break not far behind him. He swung around just in time to meet a naked dwarf as it lunged at him. The stocky man collided, but could not topple Ketas, who hesitated before swinging his hammer to meet the prone dwarf. With a satisfying smack, the head of the hammer struck a root! The dwarf had rolled to the side and picked himself up, saying "oy, laddy, I'm not just going to let you do that. Old Nique aint too old to play fistycuffs with you beardless thugs!"
The dwarf reached for a large stick on the ground, but before he could reach it Ketas had swung to meet his midsection, again missing. With Ketas now exposed, the dwarf delivered a painful punch to the thigh, knocking him off balance. Despite being staggered, Ketas kept his shield between him and the dwarf and blocked the next fist sent his way. They glared at each other, before the dwarf tried teasing Ketas into letting down his guard again, and again, and again. Slowly the inexperienced warrior bested the naked murderer, scoring a critical hit on a shoulder, then a knee. The dwarf, no stranger to combat, parried some of the blows, dodging a few more, but could not wrestle the hammer from the man's hand. Bruises and fractured bones began to accumulate, until finally the dwarf succumbed.
Ketas, having never witnessed death, beleived he'd bested his quarry and took the time to rest. The fight had left him exhausted and it seemed it would never end. In a few short minutes the dwarf groggily came to, and rolled himself over. Ketas stared in horror for a moment, before lifting his hammer one last time and slamming it down on the pitiful creature's chest several times. The body heaved one last time, Nique's eyes locked with his own for a minute before they rolled to the back of his head and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Ketas vomitted. Stumbling away from the grotesque sight, he collapsed. He lay there and wept for some time. Although he was by no means a young man, he had never killed another before, and the experience would be at the forefront of his mind for the rest of the day.
Before he made it into town to search for a place to stay, Ketas came upon a second lair. Gathering up the last of his courage, and spurred on by the knowledge that most of these dens were abandoned, Ketas descended into the darkness. Quietly he crept into the darkness, following the wall to his right a short while until the tunnel opened into a small room. In the dim light he could just make out a small round stone. It was warm to the touch, and the texture was waxy. An egg! Ketas stuffed it into his bag and began to make off with his prize. He didn't make it far before two lightly glowing eyes appeared in the hall in front of him. The creature must have been tiny, but Ketas was terrified nonetheless. Without thinking he swung, cleaving a handfull of dirt from the wall behind the creature, which ducked and lunged for his legs with a hiss. The pair struggled briefly before ketas kicked the beast against a wall, causing it to let out a yelp of pain. Before the beast could fully recover Ketas swung his hammer down into its gut, then struck again at the legs. The thing cried again, and curled up into a fetal position, lifting only one arm in some weak hope of blocking the blows. Ketas stopped at the sight of surrender, not wanting to see death creep into the eyes of another creature tonight. The creature sobbed in its heap for a minute while Ketas stood over it, wondering what to do now. Kill it, even after having accepted its yield? Walk away and let this potential murderer survive to take revenge?
Before he could come to a decision, the beast began to speak in a raspy voice, "No more. You can have the egg, just let me live. I swore I'd never kill another again, and I'll swear it again a thousand times, I gave up killing! Please just leave me be!" The creature continued to sob, and Ketas slowly sidestepped it, and fled down the hall. That night he slept uneasily in the home of total strangers, who prodded him until he reluctantly admitted he had killed a dwarf by the name of Nique and beaten some sort of animal-person into a coma. They congratulated him! Congratulations for killing someone! Well done! It seemed ridiculous to him at the time, but eventually he'd come to learn that these were the first steps of utter confusion and self-depriciation taken by every great hero.
The next morning Ketas set out into the wilds. Instead of hunting people of dubious innocense he would turn to killing wild animals. It went well enough, as it seemed. That night, though, as he returned to town a man came to him, and begged him to go to the town keep. When he arrived he was greeted by only one man, the only surviving member of the ruling family of Bakerswalked. The man told him they needed a new hero, someone not just to patrol the streets but set out to look for trouble. Ketas looked like he had the guts. Bandits, you see, began to stalk the town by night, and could be found in the sewers and dungeons beneath the town. Ketas agreed to do it for a sum of one hundred denars per head. An immense fortune for a farm boy such as himself. From then on the fighting didn't bother him as much. These men needed to be killed, and he made a point of not trying to identify with them in any way. Three heads later, and toting a sizable sack of loot, Ketas was set to make a living in Bakerswalked for a decade if he so chose. But he did not. He left town the next morning, eastwards again, to scope out a camp of kobold bandits he'd heard about.
Sure enough, the bandits were real, and really kobolds. Or so he thought; he'd never actually seen a kobold before, but the tiny, big-eared, smewhat hairy men before him matched the description well enough. He crept up quietly, but failed to close the distance before a sentry raised the alarm. Some of the band scattered, but notably the sentry and two other guards raised arms against him. He fought bravely, and succeeded in killing them before the rest of the band could muster their weapons for a counter-attack. Unfortunately, he had only a badly crippled hand and leg for his trouble, and he hobbled off, thankful that they did not pursue him.
Back in town, Ketas considered his options. He couldn't afford to risk going after bandits anymore with his injuries, and although they mostly healed within days his hand remained nearly useless. Two weeks of gluttonous partying later, a young lad ran crying back into town, yelling about seeing a monster in the woods. He claimed it spoke to him. It - she - demanded to see Ketas. Without considering it too deeply, Ketas decided he'd at least put the boy's fears to rest by investigating. He didn't notice the full moon creeping up over the horizon.
Soon, Ketas stood where the boy said he'd been jumped, and saw nothing. He turned around to go home, and there it was, standing in the middle of the trail. The beast-woman! A lizard twisted into humanoid form with brown scales and faintly glowing eyes. He recognized her form almost instantly as the creature he'd beaten weeks earlier, but she seemed... larger than he remembered. Much larger. She quickly hissed, "Remember me?" and then she lunged at him. They collided, and he toppled over. She slashed at him, but her claws met his shield. His hammer, held with his shield arm, met her ankle, sending her sprawling on top of him. Reaching around the shield with her serpentine neck, the beast clamped her jaws firmly on Ketas' arm. His left hand was already useless, so he didn't think much of it, but the beast did not stop there. Releasing his arm, she attempted to strike out again, but was met by the side of his shield, fracturing her jaw and causing her to pull back. Ketas climbed to his feet, and the fight continued. Ketas was unable to deal any significant damage, forced to hold his hammer and his shield at once on his right arm. He was left-handed, and hadn't had much practice as yet fighting like this. The beast, having been laid low by her broken ankle was now disadvantaged in that she could not pursue the assault with the same ferocity. Bruises began to accumulate, but it was clear the exhausted human would not have the strength to finish the job. Eventually, the beast slunk away. With a smirk that said "I've won."
Before he'd made it back to town, Ketas fell ill. He thought it was the effects of blood loss at first, but... Blood loss didn't make every inch of your body crawl as if being devoured by a thousand burning maggots, right? It was soon unbearable, and he collapsed in a heap. When he woke up, everything was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! His clothes were nowhere to be found. He only felt more exhausted, and yet he reached out with his left arm and found that he could work his hand again! Stunned, he bolted upright, and checked for the bite wound. It had vanished. The miriad of other scars he'd accumulated were also gone.
Hours later he'd stumbled back not into town as he'd hoped, but to the site where he'd originally collapsed. There his clothes lay in tatters. He begrudgingly tied the remnants into some semblance of dignified legwear and a strap for his backpack, hefted his hammer once more with the appropriate appendages, and... He had no idea. He knew he must have transformed into a werebeast. That's what the bitch was, was it not? And werebeasts propogated through bite wounds, which she'd inflicted on him. He couldn't go back to town now... So he fled westwards. A day's travel and he was in another village. He stole from one houses' clotheslines some ill-fitting clothes and continued into the evening until arriving in the next town. There, he begged to stay the night and was accepted. The next morning Ketas woke early. Everyone else was still asleep, but he went outside to watch the sun rise, and an hour later when others were awake he asked them about the surroundings. They provided him a map, and pointed out several rumored fortresses of the insane dwarves. If nothing else, he could visit those.
Didn't take many screenshots. Sorry about that. :\
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Topic: The Museum: Adventure mode succession world (DF 34.11) (Read 782993 times)