Zicab Showbabies the Diversion of Armor was tasked to slay a hydra far to the west in goblin territory. The trek was long and brutal, with wild animal attacks and numerous goblin and kobold raids every step of the way. This was expected. The first sign that things were going to go wrong was that he mysteriously lost the contents of his backpack - containing amongst other things, all of his wealth in precious stones and artifacts. "There goes the retirement nest egg," he thought. Little did he know the portent of those words. It turned out the goblins were better armed and armoured than his trusty companions. Nevertheless, he safely brought most of them within reach of the lair. He decided to set camp for the night and assault the hydra the next day. As dawn broke, he got up and gathered his gear and set off. But while standing in front of the lair contemplating the assualt - he realised he had been separated from his companions because they were too sleep addled to follow him properly.
Alone, faced with the choice of fighting a hydra to take over its cave and get shelter, and with hills bristling with fully armed goblins all around, he decided to leave his fate to Armok, and charged the hydra's lair. He got some good hits on the hydra, and stabbed it in the lungs, but it rushed him repeatedly, and he couldn't evade it. One of the great beast's heads got ahold of his shield arm and tore it clean off at the elbow. Realising he was overmatched, bleeding heavily and faint from the loss of blood, Zicab ran, with the hydra in hot pursuit. Trailing blood behind him, Zicab ducked into a copse of trees, hid himself, and snuck away from the rampaging hydra. Gripped by a fit of sentimentality, he looped around and went to the hydra's cave and retrieved his lost arm from the battlefield.
The desperate trek back, defeated and nursing a stump for an arm, was a continuous string of nightmares, each one waking into the next. First came the bogeymen, but he was well armoured and armed, and he made short work of them. Then goblin crossbowmen ambushed him, but he charged them, zig-zagging through the trees for cover and batting their bolts straight out of the air before dispatching them. He was stalked by a cougar, but turned the tables on it and the hunter became the hunted. He was attacked by a monstrous sea-serpent on the beach, which came out of the water in its blind animal rage to attack him. He killed the great beast and butchered it for food. It could have fed an army. Eventually he made his way to the abandoned temple of the flying, frozen-venom spitting, snail titan he had defeated many moons ago, and took rest in its eerie pillars. The temple was in safe territory, and the rest of the trip back was uneventful, except for another cougar.
Zicab made his way to Whispgloss and contemplated his adventuring career. He counted the notches on his belt, and found he had killed 111 named beasts, men, kobolds and goblins, and 19 nameless creatures. He chuckled to himself. He had faced hydras, dragons, titans, a cyclops, a giant sea monster and sent them all straight to hell, but everybody runs out of luck sometime. Penniless and down an arm, the greatest hero the allied human lands had ever known retired a pauper, and went back to living a quiet peasant life in the countryside.
Some notes on Zicab's career:
He was a peasant. I didn't try any skill buffing. His combat skills were all obtained on the battlefield.
He once dodged into water, and was saved by his swimming skill.
In the later portion of his career, his armour saved him numerous times, mostly from goblin pot-shots and from the bogeymen who attacked him on his last mission. His helm also once deflected a direct halberd strike to the head from a goblin master.
Given all the horrors he has faced, Zicab fears Elephants and Camels the most. More than once has he emerged as the sole survivor of goblin raids where elephants were around.
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Topic: Survival in 0.31.18 (Read 9910 times)