Ink, Blood and Curses - 06/01 - Varga
Jan 20, 2022 19:05:38 GMT
Jaezred Vandree and stephena like this
Post by Varga on Jan 20, 2022 19:05:38 GMT
The Adventure of the Three Books
In which a drow designs an advertising campaign, a half-orc succeeds in two cold sales, and multiple combinations of relationships and deaths are considered.
We travelled to Harnash. Been wanting to go there for months. It looks impressive. Gyms, huge corridors, lots of pretty people. A weird disc stuck in one of the hills with sideways buildings on it. Well, they aren't sideways in relation to the disc, just to the ground. Lots of orcs. Not our usual small angry kind. These are tall and muscular and… look a bit vain.
Made a tour of the city. Zola kept sticking to Sorrel. I think she might like her. She's from the Witching Court... Maybe I should've asked her about the Huntsman. But then, maybe he's just binding his time to accept my challenge at the worst possible moment. Don't want to be rude and rush him. Nobody wants to hit it off by being rude. Maybe I'll just invade one day, we'll see.
Enough of my romantic phantasies, though. We were on a mission. It was a stupid one. A tabaxi raided a bookshop. One could already guess where the stupid will come from. Why would you even bother? Bookshop?! Really?! Of course he killed the owner and became cursed with some sort of weird book-selling vampirism. Like, what did you expect? The best thing that could happen if you raid a place that sells books is getting hit with one on the head. Never try stealing anything that hurts more than it costs!
But he did. And we had to sell their last three books before the tabaxi died of hunger and the orc would lose the opportunity to die at all. Those two didn't seem too concerned though. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they enjoyed being locked in the bookshop with each other. Locked in a bookshop… Fate worth than death, to be sure!
We got instructions how to sell the books. Tayz removed the curse the one about chitin and carapace, and Zola immediately came up with an idea how to sell it. We had an epic staged fight in the middle of the street. Sorrel pretended to be a tortle, Zola and me attacked her. As we were fighting, Tayz flew around shooting fireworks, and Kelne narrated our fight, saying that we learned from the book that helped us fight better. Weirdly enough, lots of people believed such a blatant lie. Learn to fight from a book! Huh! One lady even bought the book from us.
One sale down, we went to the second one. It was a romance novel. Mom used to sell those after hers and dad's silver anniversary. Guess she was feeling nostalgic. But this novel was written by a guy who didn't want anyone to know he wrote it.
'Buy this book, or everyone will know you wrote it,' I said as soon as we've met him. 'The whole city will know. All your coworkers will know. Things growing in dark corners will know.'
He was so terrified he even let his guards go. He gave us a bottle of brandy as a payment.
'Sorrel, try it,' I said, still keeping up the appearance. No need for the guy to know he was off the hook. 'Are we happy, Sorrel?' I asked as she took a sip from the bottle.
Sorrel nodded.
'We're very happy.'
We were just about to leave when the wine storage we were in got attacked by four thugs. An orc with a shield, two crossbowmen and a minotaur with a huge axe demanded people to hand in their wine.
Now, by that point I was really annoyed. This huge city that's full of orcs but doesn't even deign Gruumsh with a mention, like they were created by a sky disc instead. This couple of idiots who got themselves stuck in a bookshop. This mission to sell books of all things. Others wanted to go, and I'm usually not the one to break up the raiding party, but somebody had to have some principles in this city.
'Sorry, fellas. But nobody raids a place I'm raiding,' I growled and turned to face the attackers.
Others sighed but stayed. It's good to have supportive friends. Tayz flew on the balcony. Kelne tried to charm the attackers, but they were too determined. Must be some good booze here. Sorrel retreated into the shadows. Myself and Zola stayed up front for all the fun. As I considered how very polite everyone was to leave the thugs to me, the orc leader fled to the back from Tayz's attack, and started shooting spells from there. He paralyzed Zola, and the minotaur started hacking at her.
Honestly, I've never been so embarrassed. I'm always the one to point everyone their lack of manners. And here we are, in a city of orcs, and our opponents act like some uncultured rocks from the bottom of the lake! Shields, spells, and taking free swings when there are unparalized opponents available! I'm sure I was blushing up to my ears. For the first time in my life, I was actually enraged when fighting. At least Bahgtru had someone to be proud of in this backwater!
'You!' I pointed my flail at the orc caster. 'You're a coward; and you're a cheater,' I added, pointing my axe at the minotaur. 'You're both going down, and getting a very stern talking to from Luthic when your souls get to Nishrek.'
Admittedly, due to Sorrel's multiple strikes, the minotaur was an easy target and went down from a couple of hits of my flail. I couldn't quite reach the orc leader, so I settled for taking down one of the crossbowmen. I might have gotten a couple of extra bolts in my shoulder, but in my rage I didn't care. Kelne tried to calm the leader down, but honestly, she might have as well tried it with me at that point. Sorrel finished off the leader, and I took out the second crossbowman. True to my word, I only killed the minotaur. The others survived. That was fine.
I had a punishment in store for them.
One that would make them wish they were dead.
'You're gonna buy this book from us. And your life,' I said to the leader when Kelne and Tayz finished bringing him back to consciousness. 'Since that's an offer you can't refuse, I guess there's only the matter of price. You'll work off your debt here. And at the Spinecracker bookshop. You'll be bringing them books as needed. Do we have a deal?'
Of course we had a deal. The cowards were too scared to argue.
'What is the moral here?' I asked loudly, looking over both our opponents and the guards, who did jack shit during the attack. 'The moral is, don't interrupt a half-orc with a book mid-raid!'
I don't think they were smart enough for such deep observations, so I left. On our way back to the Spinecracker we bought some more books. They're bound to sell fast. All soapy romance about young girls who go against the system. All 23 of them. I'd honestly be interested in reading one from the system's perspective. One against two dozen opponents sounds like a fun story.
We were quite surprised to see both the orc and the tabaxi back at the shop. Their deal was that tabaxi had to stay in the shop until all the books were sold, and orc couldn't die before that. They both seemed to hate the arrangement. And yet both of them stole away a book to keep it in place. This isn't healthy*.
We got our reward, and I, with some sadness, realized that in this city of orcs, I was the only orc doing the right thing. Which might be sad if I think about it, so I won't.
*the case was later investigated by a well-known Harnash school of enchantment wizard named Och Beetrot who named the associated condition The Trecorvum Syndrome
In which a drow designs an advertising campaign, a half-orc succeeds in two cold sales, and multiple combinations of relationships and deaths are considered.
We travelled to Harnash. Been wanting to go there for months. It looks impressive. Gyms, huge corridors, lots of pretty people. A weird disc stuck in one of the hills with sideways buildings on it. Well, they aren't sideways in relation to the disc, just to the ground. Lots of orcs. Not our usual small angry kind. These are tall and muscular and… look a bit vain.
Made a tour of the city. Zola kept sticking to Sorrel. I think she might like her. She's from the Witching Court... Maybe I should've asked her about the Huntsman. But then, maybe he's just binding his time to accept my challenge at the worst possible moment. Don't want to be rude and rush him. Nobody wants to hit it off by being rude. Maybe I'll just invade one day, we'll see.
Enough of my romantic phantasies, though. We were on a mission. It was a stupid one. A tabaxi raided a bookshop. One could already guess where the stupid will come from. Why would you even bother? Bookshop?! Really?! Of course he killed the owner and became cursed with some sort of weird book-selling vampirism. Like, what did you expect? The best thing that could happen if you raid a place that sells books is getting hit with one on the head. Never try stealing anything that hurts more than it costs!
But he did. And we had to sell their last three books before the tabaxi died of hunger and the orc would lose the opportunity to die at all. Those two didn't seem too concerned though. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they enjoyed being locked in the bookshop with each other. Locked in a bookshop… Fate worth than death, to be sure!
We got instructions how to sell the books. Tayz removed the curse the one about chitin and carapace, and Zola immediately came up with an idea how to sell it. We had an epic staged fight in the middle of the street. Sorrel pretended to be a tortle, Zola and me attacked her. As we were fighting, Tayz flew around shooting fireworks, and Kelne narrated our fight, saying that we learned from the book that helped us fight better. Weirdly enough, lots of people believed such a blatant lie. Learn to fight from a book! Huh! One lady even bought the book from us.
One sale down, we went to the second one. It was a romance novel. Mom used to sell those after hers and dad's silver anniversary. Guess she was feeling nostalgic. But this novel was written by a guy who didn't want anyone to know he wrote it.
'Buy this book, or everyone will know you wrote it,' I said as soon as we've met him. 'The whole city will know. All your coworkers will know. Things growing in dark corners will know.'
He was so terrified he even let his guards go. He gave us a bottle of brandy as a payment.
'Sorrel, try it,' I said, still keeping up the appearance. No need for the guy to know he was off the hook. 'Are we happy, Sorrel?' I asked as she took a sip from the bottle.
Sorrel nodded.
'We're very happy.'
We were just about to leave when the wine storage we were in got attacked by four thugs. An orc with a shield, two crossbowmen and a minotaur with a huge axe demanded people to hand in their wine.
Now, by that point I was really annoyed. This huge city that's full of orcs but doesn't even deign Gruumsh with a mention, like they were created by a sky disc instead. This couple of idiots who got themselves stuck in a bookshop. This mission to sell books of all things. Others wanted to go, and I'm usually not the one to break up the raiding party, but somebody had to have some principles in this city.
'Sorry, fellas. But nobody raids a place I'm raiding,' I growled and turned to face the attackers.
Others sighed but stayed. It's good to have supportive friends. Tayz flew on the balcony. Kelne tried to charm the attackers, but they were too determined. Must be some good booze here. Sorrel retreated into the shadows. Myself and Zola stayed up front for all the fun. As I considered how very polite everyone was to leave the thugs to me, the orc leader fled to the back from Tayz's attack, and started shooting spells from there. He paralyzed Zola, and the minotaur started hacking at her.
Honestly, I've never been so embarrassed. I'm always the one to point everyone their lack of manners. And here we are, in a city of orcs, and our opponents act like some uncultured rocks from the bottom of the lake! Shields, spells, and taking free swings when there are unparalized opponents available! I'm sure I was blushing up to my ears. For the first time in my life, I was actually enraged when fighting. At least Bahgtru had someone to be proud of in this backwater!
'You!' I pointed my flail at the orc caster. 'You're a coward; and you're a cheater,' I added, pointing my axe at the minotaur. 'You're both going down, and getting a very stern talking to from Luthic when your souls get to Nishrek.'
Admittedly, due to Sorrel's multiple strikes, the minotaur was an easy target and went down from a couple of hits of my flail. I couldn't quite reach the orc leader, so I settled for taking down one of the crossbowmen. I might have gotten a couple of extra bolts in my shoulder, but in my rage I didn't care. Kelne tried to calm the leader down, but honestly, she might have as well tried it with me at that point. Sorrel finished off the leader, and I took out the second crossbowman. True to my word, I only killed the minotaur. The others survived. That was fine.
I had a punishment in store for them.
One that would make them wish they were dead.
'You're gonna buy this book from us. And your life,' I said to the leader when Kelne and Tayz finished bringing him back to consciousness. 'Since that's an offer you can't refuse, I guess there's only the matter of price. You'll work off your debt here. And at the Spinecracker bookshop. You'll be bringing them books as needed. Do we have a deal?'
Of course we had a deal. The cowards were too scared to argue.
'What is the moral here?' I asked loudly, looking over both our opponents and the guards, who did jack shit during the attack. 'The moral is, don't interrupt a half-orc with a book mid-raid!'
I don't think they were smart enough for such deep observations, so I left. On our way back to the Spinecracker we bought some more books. They're bound to sell fast. All soapy romance about young girls who go against the system. All 23 of them. I'd honestly be interested in reading one from the system's perspective. One against two dozen opponents sounds like a fun story.
We were quite surprised to see both the orc and the tabaxi back at the shop. Their deal was that tabaxi had to stay in the shop until all the books were sold, and orc couldn't die before that. They both seemed to hate the arrangement. And yet both of them stole away a book to keep it in place. This isn't healthy*.
We got our reward, and I, with some sadness, realized that in this city of orcs, I was the only orc doing the right thing. Which might be sad if I think about it, so I won't.
*the case was later investigated by a well-known Harnash school of enchantment wizard named Och Beetrot who named the associated condition The Trecorvum Syndrome
