On Fire Oct 5th Corrila and the Magnificent 7
Oct 8, 2022 12:11:46 GMT
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Post by Corrila Daevion'lyr on Oct 8, 2022 12:11:46 GMT
Never let it be said that Corrila Daevion'lyr resists change. Unless I’m paid to. Trust me, I know that most people aren’t thinking about me the way I’m thinking about me but still. I can change. I can make it to a job on time, for a start.
Sort of.
“Newly established settlement of Ger Errind request aid in dealing with bandit problem. Some 50 miles south-east of Port Ffirst, as the coast turns. Gather a party, come quick. You'll be handsomely rewarded”
This time Ima do it right. I set out two days early and get myself a room at an excellent hostelry called the Cavernous Seashank where I set about a little light reading, keeping my journal up to date and reflecting on matters of the soul.
For about ten minutes.
Four hours later the fist fight over cheating at cards whilst stealing the dude’s wallet and lover seems to be going my way.
Eight hours later the smugglers rum high key slaps in the hold of the Orc ship.
An uncertain number of hours later I’m just vibing. Some asshole is dragging this oomf who’s been flexing about me and I’m not sure who any of these people are but no-one gets salty with my fam so it goes off.
Dawn breaks and I’m in my room, stepping over four unconscious lovers, one unconscious asshole and a bougie new pair of ankle boots that just don’t match my living-my-best-professional-bandit-killer-life vibe because I want to make a good impression on the client.
Who has already left.
Graveyards are full of the young and proud
For a minute I think I’m late but the whole sick crew are on show today - Lucky and Nakia who did the whole Eladrin emo gig with me back in the day and Prowler from the wagons of doom. For a minute I assume I’m prolly hallucinating again cos that’s an extreme dose of tabaxi in front of me, but this tiefling monk Leonida reassures me and then there’s Dig, a surprisingly swole kobold.
They explain its down the coast, where these villagers need protectin’.
I’m thinking maybe a village and bandits sounds like a lot of standing around in the countryside when I notice Jed, the Seashank’s landlord totting up my bill.
The chat breaks down like this.
Leonida: I'm a friend of Lucky's. He tells me you're broke.
Me: Nope. I'm here because I'm an eccentric millionaire.
Leonida: There's a job for six adventurers, watching over a village south along the coast.
Me: How big's the opposition?
Leonida: Could be five. Could be thirty five.
Me: I admire your notion of fair odds.
Leonida: Lucky tells me you faced bigger odds during the Travis County war.
Me: Well, they paid me six hundred gold for that one.
Leonida: He said you got that Selena thing cleared up in less than a month.
Me: Paid me eight hundred gold for that one.
Leonida: You cost a lot.
Me: Yeah. That's right, I cost a lot.
Leonida: The offer is fifty gold.
Jed: Hey, Corrila, I need a word.
Me: Fifty gold? Right now, that's a lot.
No season for gratitude
So we’re in this small cove, total village steez - mill, fishing boats, barns, town square, panicking villagers, old guy with no teeth, unusually attractive barmaid who seems to be the only one who can wash, horny old cowpoke spitting baccy juice on the stoop, the whole meal.
Achadin Greylake, this tall dwarf, turns out to be the mark. Sorry, client. The villagers were just a bunch of people turned up at the Dawnlands and Port Ettin was rowdy so they moved down the coast and found a fishing village.
“I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see a village like this,” I told her. “So much restlessness and change in the outside world. People no longer content with their station in life. Women's fashions — shameless! Religion! You'd weep if you saw how true religion is a thing of the past. Last month I was in Daring Heights, a rich town. Big temples — not like here, with a little church, priest comes twice a year. This was a big one. You'd think we'd find gold candlesticks, poor-box filled to overflowing. You know what we found? Brass candlesticks. Almost nothing in the poor box."
Lucky: "You took it anyway."
Me: "I know I took it anyway. I'm just trying to show her how little religion some people now have."
Anyway, we set up traps and take positions and wait. There’s four scrubs with us, let’s call them Bill One, Bill Two, Bill Three and Bill Four, villagers with a pick-axe or two.
My watch passes, I head for bed and there’s someone there next to me who I’m sure I know from somewhere.
“You can have it all if you want,” they say.
“Everything? I got everything. I can call bartenders and Faro dealers by their first names. Maybe two hundred of 'em. I got rented rooms I live in, meals eaten in hash-houses. Did I leave anything out?”
“Your family.”
“I don’t have a family.”
“You could make sure of that.”
Quick flashback for new fans....
My parental units were ships in the night. I guess they shipped themselves though, because mummy dearest’s drow aristocrat parents absolutely didn’t. They shipped their granddaughter off to a kindly duergar nursery as fast as possible before the neighbours found out whilst my brother stole the silver my mysterious father left for me before he fled.
“Keep those you want, destroy the rest.”
I turn to them and say, slowly and carefully, “I have been waiting for you for a long time.”
And before you can say issa bop I’m poking the coals on three funeral pyres and feel slightly mournful that I didn’t get to torture anyone first when there’s a hand on my shoulder and wouldn’t you just know it, it was all a dream.
Man, I was pissed.
Turns out there’s a bandit disco party on the edge of town, so let’s summon the fucking lions and make sure someone’s having that roasting I was just getting used to.
A high-stepper like me
The team are on the scene and there’s some solid manoeuvres all over the shack. Advancing here, bouncing over the top there, blades, spells and my little face eating kitty cats bounding towards the front door when I spot a window, figure it’s an elegant short cut, glide gracefully through the air getting ready to roll into action and bounce my nose off the glass because I didn’t see the fucking thing was closed.
So now I’m mad about not killing my grandparents and more mad about the face palm so I crash through the glass, take a view of the wandering souls beating the crap out of another weird elemental thing. A big gong sounds in my mind as if there’s something important I need to remember but my head really hurts so I zap the thing, its head blows off and there’s whatever passes for elemental brains smeared all over the walls.
Not bad if I say so myself.
“He has been judged by the Prowler,” Nakia intones over the corpse.
“And he has been fucked by Corrila,” I add with satisfaction.
And then it all spills out. The bandits were a lie, the elemental was out to steal a shard Achadin had since she was a lickle girl and I know what the gong meant.
This is a fucking quest sucking me in. It’s the motherfucking universe telling me something. Shit – la-di-di I likes to party, I don’t look for trouble and I don’t hurt nobody, I’m just a chick who rocks the psych, and when I rock the psych I fuck the guy right, by blowing his brains out with my psychic powers and that’s fine by me.
Places I’m tied down to, none. People with a hold on me, none. Men I step aside for, none. Insults swallowed, none. Enemies, none. Or at least, none alive. That’s the kind of arithmetic I like.
But the shard – a family heirloom, and suddenly a cowboy called Ahios is there and fuck me if I don’t find myself offering to keep Achadin safe.
The others look at me kinda funny and OK, I get it. “But think it through,” I say. “No-one in their right mind would comb the beer soaked floors of dockside dive bars or the all night warehouse gambling sessions or stolen hotel rooms, cheap flophouses and filthy storeroom corners for a precious elemental shard of immense power, right?”
They nod slowly.
“I’m in,” Achadin beams. And suddenly, wtf, I was meant to go kill shit with Arem, now I need to keep this dwarf lady safe. What is happening to my life?
But I can change.
With help from John Sturges and William Roberts
Sort of.
“Newly established settlement of Ger Errind request aid in dealing with bandit problem. Some 50 miles south-east of Port Ffirst, as the coast turns. Gather a party, come quick. You'll be handsomely rewarded”
This time Ima do it right. I set out two days early and get myself a room at an excellent hostelry called the Cavernous Seashank where I set about a little light reading, keeping my journal up to date and reflecting on matters of the soul.
For about ten minutes.
Four hours later the fist fight over cheating at cards whilst stealing the dude’s wallet and lover seems to be going my way.
Eight hours later the smugglers rum high key slaps in the hold of the Orc ship.
An uncertain number of hours later I’m just vibing. Some asshole is dragging this oomf who’s been flexing about me and I’m not sure who any of these people are but no-one gets salty with my fam so it goes off.
Dawn breaks and I’m in my room, stepping over four unconscious lovers, one unconscious asshole and a bougie new pair of ankle boots that just don’t match my living-my-best-professional-bandit-killer-life vibe because I want to make a good impression on the client.
Who has already left.
Graveyards are full of the young and proud
For a minute I think I’m late but the whole sick crew are on show today - Lucky and Nakia who did the whole Eladrin emo gig with me back in the day and Prowler from the wagons of doom. For a minute I assume I’m prolly hallucinating again cos that’s an extreme dose of tabaxi in front of me, but this tiefling monk Leonida reassures me and then there’s Dig, a surprisingly swole kobold.
They explain its down the coast, where these villagers need protectin’.
I’m thinking maybe a village and bandits sounds like a lot of standing around in the countryside when I notice Jed, the Seashank’s landlord totting up my bill.
The chat breaks down like this.
Leonida: I'm a friend of Lucky's. He tells me you're broke.
Me: Nope. I'm here because I'm an eccentric millionaire.
Leonida: There's a job for six adventurers, watching over a village south along the coast.
Me: How big's the opposition?
Leonida: Could be five. Could be thirty five.
Me: I admire your notion of fair odds.
Leonida: Lucky tells me you faced bigger odds during the Travis County war.
Me: Well, they paid me six hundred gold for that one.
Leonida: He said you got that Selena thing cleared up in less than a month.
Me: Paid me eight hundred gold for that one.
Leonida: You cost a lot.
Me: Yeah. That's right, I cost a lot.
Leonida: The offer is fifty gold.
Jed: Hey, Corrila, I need a word.
Me: Fifty gold? Right now, that's a lot.
No season for gratitude
So we’re in this small cove, total village steez - mill, fishing boats, barns, town square, panicking villagers, old guy with no teeth, unusually attractive barmaid who seems to be the only one who can wash, horny old cowpoke spitting baccy juice on the stoop, the whole meal.
Achadin Greylake, this tall dwarf, turns out to be the mark. Sorry, client. The villagers were just a bunch of people turned up at the Dawnlands and Port Ettin was rowdy so they moved down the coast and found a fishing village.
“I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see a village like this,” I told her. “So much restlessness and change in the outside world. People no longer content with their station in life. Women's fashions — shameless! Religion! You'd weep if you saw how true religion is a thing of the past. Last month I was in Daring Heights, a rich town. Big temples — not like here, with a little church, priest comes twice a year. This was a big one. You'd think we'd find gold candlesticks, poor-box filled to overflowing. You know what we found? Brass candlesticks. Almost nothing in the poor box."
Lucky: "You took it anyway."
Me: "I know I took it anyway. I'm just trying to show her how little religion some people now have."
Anyway, we set up traps and take positions and wait. There’s four scrubs with us, let’s call them Bill One, Bill Two, Bill Three and Bill Four, villagers with a pick-axe or two.
My watch passes, I head for bed and there’s someone there next to me who I’m sure I know from somewhere.
“You can have it all if you want,” they say.
“Everything? I got everything. I can call bartenders and Faro dealers by their first names. Maybe two hundred of 'em. I got rented rooms I live in, meals eaten in hash-houses. Did I leave anything out?”
“Your family.”
“I don’t have a family.”
“You could make sure of that.”
Quick flashback for new fans....
My parental units were ships in the night. I guess they shipped themselves though, because mummy dearest’s drow aristocrat parents absolutely didn’t. They shipped their granddaughter off to a kindly duergar nursery as fast as possible before the neighbours found out whilst my brother stole the silver my mysterious father left for me before he fled.
“Keep those you want, destroy the rest.”
I turn to them and say, slowly and carefully, “I have been waiting for you for a long time.”
And before you can say issa bop I’m poking the coals on three funeral pyres and feel slightly mournful that I didn’t get to torture anyone first when there’s a hand on my shoulder and wouldn’t you just know it, it was all a dream.
Man, I was pissed.
Turns out there’s a bandit disco party on the edge of town, so let’s summon the fucking lions and make sure someone’s having that roasting I was just getting used to.
A high-stepper like me
The team are on the scene and there’s some solid manoeuvres all over the shack. Advancing here, bouncing over the top there, blades, spells and my little face eating kitty cats bounding towards the front door when I spot a window, figure it’s an elegant short cut, glide gracefully through the air getting ready to roll into action and bounce my nose off the glass because I didn’t see the fucking thing was closed.
So now I’m mad about not killing my grandparents and more mad about the face palm so I crash through the glass, take a view of the wandering souls beating the crap out of another weird elemental thing. A big gong sounds in my mind as if there’s something important I need to remember but my head really hurts so I zap the thing, its head blows off and there’s whatever passes for elemental brains smeared all over the walls.
Not bad if I say so myself.
“He has been judged by the Prowler,” Nakia intones over the corpse.
“And he has been fucked by Corrila,” I add with satisfaction.
And then it all spills out. The bandits were a lie, the elemental was out to steal a shard Achadin had since she was a lickle girl and I know what the gong meant.
This is a fucking quest sucking me in. It’s the motherfucking universe telling me something. Shit – la-di-di I likes to party, I don’t look for trouble and I don’t hurt nobody, I’m just a chick who rocks the psych, and when I rock the psych I fuck the guy right, by blowing his brains out with my psychic powers and that’s fine by me.
Places I’m tied down to, none. People with a hold on me, none. Men I step aside for, none. Insults swallowed, none. Enemies, none. Or at least, none alive. That’s the kind of arithmetic I like.
But the shard – a family heirloom, and suddenly a cowboy called Ahios is there and fuck me if I don’t find myself offering to keep Achadin safe.
The others look at me kinda funny and OK, I get it. “But think it through,” I say. “No-one in their right mind would comb the beer soaked floors of dockside dive bars or the all night warehouse gambling sessions or stolen hotel rooms, cheap flophouses and filthy storeroom corners for a precious elemental shard of immense power, right?”
They nod slowly.
“I’m in,” Achadin beams. And suddenly, wtf, I was meant to go kill shit with Arem, now I need to keep this dwarf lady safe. What is happening to my life?
But I can change.
With help from John Sturges and William Roberts
