Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!stepsun.uni-kl.de!sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de!physik.uni-kl.de!kring From: kring@physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) Subject: [Welcome] BT: A Hectic Evening In A Boring Village Message-ID: <1993Sep14.025902.20093@rhrk.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@rhrk.uni-kl.de Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 02:59:02 GMT Lines: 237 ADMIN: This follows the brigands' attack (The Serpentines). Bakr and his three friends are going to the village of Eraton where a dragon has destroyed the fields. On the way they have been attacked by everything from wild boar to harpys to rock kobolds to brigands. The latter let them go when they heard that they were after the dragon, but the adventurers weren't so sure about that before. Now they have to fight the monster nolens volens, or the brigands will get them. Besides them there will be more heroes in the party, two of which they already met when Preg Kanthariol, the mayor's son, gave them the job. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakr's Tales: A Hectic Evening In A Boring Village ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- It got dark. Very dark. We had to light a torch to see the road. We were still on our way up the slope, and we were talking about our future. We had been given the choice between fighting the dragon and fighting the brigands, and we didn't like either. But if we chose the dragon we would have help, and on top of that it would be the honourable thing to do. Fate had made the decision for us. The inclination of the road decreased, and we reached the end of the forest. A few lights in the distance told us that Eraton lay before us. ----- The village consisted of twenty buildings on both sides of the road. Most houses were dark, but the windows of an inn on the right side were lit. Of course we stopped there; Tarik stayed outside with the horses. There was a discussion going on when we entered. Ziemi Smeisebal, the dwarf with the wooden leg, and the old rogue, Fulfur Worsegolf, were sitting at a big table, Fulfur looking bored and Ziemi fuming, and a guy in a fur coat was standing with his back to the door laughing and gesticulating. An extraordinary pretty young lady who seemed not pleased with the man was standing behind the counter. The fur coat turned around when the other three looked at us. His face was frightening. Ape-like, with huge eyebrows and sideburns, the eyes deep in their cavities, the skin around them dark and wrinkly. He gave us a cold and cynical look and sneered, "Ah, more fools! I offer my condolences to your upcoming death!" He smelt of various local alcoholic beverages. "I see you had problems on the road." He pointed to the wound at Compass's hand, the scratch on my face, and Ormgwen's bloody shoulder. "You are stupid to come here. Why not let that beast destroy this bloody boring village with its boring peasants! But you won't stop it anyway." Meanwhile the young lady had called a couple who had been in the kitchen, her parents, as I learned later. The innkeeper was a massive man who looked as if he had to eat what the guests and their horses left over. His ears would have carried a lighter man than him on a stormy day; perhaps that was the reason for his eating habits. His wife looked very fragile, but later I recognized that she only looked that way then because of the contrast. She looked good for her age, but she had a permanent grin that seemed to say, "I'd prefer if you drowned yourself in a lake as far away as possible from me, but now that you're here and I can't do anything about it I could as well smile." I guess that's one way of dealing with keeping an inn and having to be friendly to everyone for a few decades. "Where can we put our horses?" I asked, and the innkeeper's wife rushed outside, murmuring "I'll look after them." "Grrr!" said the animal in the fur coat when she passed him. She gave him the anxious look he seemed to have expected, and he laughed. The innkeeper approached us and told us that we were wounded. The animal laughed and said, "Even Seriel sees it!" I started to wonder if there was something the guy liked more than being kicked in the face. If yes, his behaviour was misleading. "Get the healer," Seriel called, but the girl was already running. "What for?" scoffed the animal. "They'll die anyway, together with the wreck and the half-dwarf!" "Enough already!" Ziemi stood up, his face a mask of anger, swinging a hand-axe. He hobbled towards the mocker, who laughed loud now. "If we die, we die for a cause, scum! That's more than one can say for you!" "Please don't! No!" Seriel imploringly stood at the side when the animal produced a dagger and teased the dwarf through the inn. "Mythreides, please! Just go away. Let's forget it. You apologize to Mr. Smeisebal, and..." Mythreides laughed again, and Ziemi's face got redder and redder. Compass drew his sword, but the dwarf heard it and shouted, "NO! I can do it alone! I'll show him what a half-dwarf is!" He jumped forward, Mythreides dodged swiftly and threw a stool at his non-wooden leg (Periklymenos sold here too, the inn was full with his handiwork). The dwarf stumbled and crashed to the floor, making a dent in it with his axe. Mythreides was very amused, and he showed it. It was obvious that Ziemi didn't have a chance against the man. I'm pretty clumsy but I don't think I could have fallen that badly in that situation, even with a wooden leg. Now he had difficulties pulling the axe out of the floor. This had to be the most awkward dwarf in the world. He stood up and threw the axe at his tormentor, who dodged again with a "Yoopee!" The axe stuck in the wall. Seriel took a sharp breath. Mythreides made a mock-courteous gesture indicating that the dwarf could retrieve his weapon, then threw a stool again when Ziemi rushed to the axe and was about to grab it. The victim crashed to the floor violently. That was enough. Compass charged, Ormgwen drew his two-handed sword, Seriel howled, Ziemi cried, "NO! HE'S MINE!" and Mythreides fled laughing through the corridor, followed by Compass and Ormgwen. I tried to help Ziemi stand up but he grabbed his axe and shouted at me, "KEEP YOUR FINGERS TO YOURSELF OR YOU WON'T GET THEM BACK!" I believed him. He limped after the others, leaving a trace of blood dropping from his nose. Seriel and I followed at a safe distance. I heard Tarik shout "Do you need me?" somewhere ahead. ----- The corridor was very short and led to a staircase. A door below the stairs stood open, still swinging. Ziemi approached it and collided with Tarik in the door-frame. "WHERE DID THEY GO?" Tarik pointed to the left, and the furious dwarf hobbled on. Seriel sighed with relief. I joined my merchant friend in the door and found that it led to the stable. He stopped me. "Compass said they don't need help. Would you please tell me what happened?" "The hairy one, Mythreides, insulted Ziemi and they had a fight. Mythreides was unfair, and the others intervened." The innkeeper's daughter appeared behind Tarik. "The healer's not at home." "Keep looking for him," commanded her father. "Ask the Kanthariols." She ran out of the stable. There was a short pause with absolutely nothing happening. It was refreshing. Then Tarik smiled and said, "Good evening. I'm Tarik Radan, merchant from Eschar. You must be Seriel Yabak. I just met your wife." "Oh. Yes, that's right. Please come in." "I'm Bakr ibn Ja'far ibn Musa al Mekneshi, magician from Eschar," I added. "Pleased to meet you. I gather you are after the dragon?" "Definitely." He led us upstairs and showed us our rooms. "Your luggage will be brought up. It's a bit late but I think the Mayor will come over soon, and probably the other half of the village too." ----- Tarik and me sat in the main room with Fulfur. "Mythreides was sort of right, you know," he said matter-of-factly. "We really don't have much of a chance." That was exactly what I was thinking. We had a reason to be here, we just didn't get the opportunity to bail out, but what was Fulfur's reason? I asked him. "Why are you here if you think that way?" "I'm tired. This hoard could be my big chance. Settling down somewhere..." The innkeeper's daughter entered with Preg and a sorrowful-looking bald and roundish man in his fifties, who identified himself as Sundron Kanthariol, the mayor. He claimed to be overjoyed by our presence, without losing his oh-I- have-so-many-problems face. He expressed his desire to find the healer whose position was unknown at the moment, and he apologized for the behaviour of Mythreides, who, as could be seen from the name, wasn't native to this village but had recently come from Mythros, and nobody knew much about him, not even where he lived, but he was a troublemaker and one should try to ignore him. Ormgwen and Compass entered. Caramon was trotting behind them. "We lost him. He was too quick." The mayor repeated his speech, then told us that in a few days the rest of the party would come here, and that we should visit him the next morning, and that he hoped that the healer would soon be found. Then he went away, taking Preg with him, who looked as if he would rather stay and chat with us. "That was the third time I heard that sermon," said Fulfur. "Compass, where's Ziemi?" "Still looking." "Mythreides has been teasing him yesterday too, and I wonder that he didn't lose his patience earlier." Once more the door opened. This time it was three peasants. One of them, apparently the oldest, introduced himself as Astron and the two others as Kalamatas and Mnogiatzes, and added that they would accompany us. "Oh. Then we will be... nine, ten people, plus those the priest brings from Ikonium." "Ten?" "Us eight, Ziemi and Baros." Astron added, "Almes the priest will come too, and the healer. And the hermit will show us where the cave is." Mnogiatzes, a sad-looking small man with a big moustache and a woollen cap, pointed out that Preg would like to come too but his father the mayor didn't allow it. "Uh..." I lifted a finger. "The hermit is a different person from Mythreides?" "Of course," said Astron. "What gave you that idea?" "We heard that nobody knows where the hermit lives and that he laughs a lot, and the same is true of Mythreides." "The hermit has been living in our woods for many years. He is strange but not evil. Mythreides is. He appeared a few months ago." The door opened, and a contrite brigand entered. It was the squinting one I had fought. Everybody except Fulfur, who didn't seem to know him, was unpleasantly surprised. Seriel charged him. "What do you want? Go away, we don't need you!" "We need the healer. Our chief is dangerously wounded." "That's his risk as a bandit. Go away." "He says he'll help the village with the dragon if the village helps him." "Hey, good!" exclaimed Compass. "The more the better!" "The healer's not here anyway," barked Seriel. "Yes he is." A young man stood in the door. "Sorry, I've been in the woods looking for herbs." He was blond, and one of his eyelids was hanging a bit. "I hear you need me." He came to our table. "Do the brigand chief first," said Tarik. "He needs it more than we do." "Where is he?" The squinting brigand gave us a thankful look. "Just outside." "Bring him into my house. Maybe you four should come with us." ----- Another brigand who didn't have any idiosyncrasies besides being hairy and scrubby waited outside somewhere in the shadows with an improvised stretcher containing his chief. The stretcher was brought into a house and put onto a bed in an interesting room full of flasks, crucibles, morsars, knifes, books, stones, and whatever. I couldn't watch what the healer did, for I had to look at all the interesting things in the flasks. Animal body parts, powders, fluids, herbs. There were labels on them but I couldn't read them; they were neither Chryseian nor Scharidian. A few of the books were Chryseian though, the subject being alchimy. "His name is Bakr," I heard Tarik say. "Hey Bakr! Don't you need healing?" "What? Oh! Sorry, I was admiring your... uh..." "I see that. Let me take a look at that face of yours." He put his hands on my face, looked grim, and I felt more warmth in his hands than one would expect from a non-healer. What was left of the pain was gone. Then he looked after the legs. "I'll do that tomorrow. I'm too exhausted now." "Thank you, sir. You're not Chryseian?" I asked him. "I'm from Hjalta in Waeland. My name is Rytold, by the way. It's a bit late. Come back tomorrow, and we can talk. I have to care for this man here now." "Oh, I thought you had finished him." "He still needs a few days rest, and a bit of care." We left. Seriel's lodging was almost empty again; only Fulfur was still sitting at his table drinking. We decided to call it a day. -- thomas kettenring, 3 dan, kaiserslautern, germany The most famous fictional academics are at the moment Dr. Faustus, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Frankenstein, Prof. Moriarty, Dr. Caligari, Dr. Fu Man Chu, Dr. No, Dr. Strangelove, and Dr. Lecter. Do you really want to go to university?