Dead Reckoning - A Barman's Tale
Apr 11, 2018 11:55:50 GMT
Tugark (Retired), Nuno (Rholor), and 2 more like this
Post by andycd on Apr 11, 2018 11:55:50 GMT
The taproom of the Three Headed Ettin is often busy of an evening. Between the adventurer population carousing and townsfolk who want to drink with great warriors, it's often loud and frequently raucous. Bards take the stage regularly to be heard over the din, as do adventurers
In amongst all of this, one evening, Coll - your friendly innkeeper, occasional bouncer and landlord for most of you - steps up to the stage, and begins to tell a tale of his own.
"Now most of you know that I don't go out with you all on your adventures very often," he yells to the room. "But I had the occasion to venture out of this bar the other day, and I almost died." He grins viciously. "What a great day that was!"
"You may have heard Lachlan's 'high coos' earlier, so you may know the general idea. Some of you've been after some necromancer type for a while now - you've found ghouls on an island, a cursed church and all sorts. This time, my old tenant and newly self-appointed High Priest Rholor called for folks to come see him as he'd been having visions."
"Now I know what you're thinking. And yes, some of us assumed he was high. But it turns out that part didn't happen til later. Anyway, Rholor did some honest-to-goddess oracle-ing for us. Spouted a whole bunch of things about petals and shades and pillars. If you want to hear it, you'll have to ask Demik, as literally no one could agree on just what was said. But the short of it was that we decided to head north to see what we could turn up."
"A few days and one definitely classified meeting later, we were in the Feywild standing before a great rotten tree. And when I say great, I mean it took us three hours to reach it because we could see it plainly from that far away. Found our way inside it and found a big lake."
Coll pauses and takes a drink from his now familiar green jade tankard. "Folks, some of you may not know this, but when humans are in a pitch-black cave deep underground, we can't see to well. Biggest fault of our species quite frankly. So Demik and I were relying on torchlight alone and still managed to not fall in to this underground river we were walking alongside. We both dove in and grabbed hold of people (also did you know Demik could turn into a fish person? I did not. This job never gets old.), but our favourite (and only) druid fell over a waterfall into a lake."
"There are some things in life which are inevitable. Death and taxes are the classics, but also, any bard can tell you that if there's a great underground lake in a dark cavern, it's going to contain some terribly gribbly out to rip you limb from limb, so frankly I don't think many of us were surprised when great tentacles reached out and grabbed hold of Daisy."
"Now I said some things were inevitable. And when you're standing atop a waterfall seeing now three of your companions in hot water (the water was freezing, I'll have you know) being grabbed by a monster you cannot even comprehend the size or nature of deep in this lake, and you know that if you go into that water, you aren't going to be able to see a damn thing, the outcome is indeed inevitable. I dove straight into that lake, grabbed hold of the nearest tentacle and began beating it to a pulp."
"I can't really give you a very visual description of what happened next. But if you want to picture a handsome man with his legs wrapped around a giant tentacle underwater while another tentacle is wrapped around his waist, then you do that in the privacy of your own rooms."
"Anyway, we were doing ok. I got eaten, I think - certainly felt like a lot of teeth, and then suddenly I wasn't being et, and it all went a little quiet in that black abyss. From what I gather, Lachlan turned it into an owl. Magic, am I right?"
"We gathered round this tiny creature and then beat it within an inch of its life. Good times."
"After that, everything else was just caves and a big necklace. Apparently it's signficant for a big ritual, but I'm sure you'll all deal with that another time."
"The important thing though, is that we beat a bloody enormous kraken thing, and I have the trophy to prove it." He pulls a cloth off a large, long object that has been hung up over the bar all evening, revealing a huge, 15 foot long tentacle, varnished and preserved for eternity, with a plaque listing the adventurers who joined together to kill it.
"So next time you've had one too many and I ask you to kindly go home," he says, cracking his knuckles. "Take a look at that before you think I can't throw your ass out of here." He bows and steps down back to the bar.
In amongst all of this, one evening, Coll - your friendly innkeeper, occasional bouncer and landlord for most of you - steps up to the stage, and begins to tell a tale of his own.
"Now most of you know that I don't go out with you all on your adventures very often," he yells to the room. "But I had the occasion to venture out of this bar the other day, and I almost died." He grins viciously. "What a great day that was!"
"You may have heard Lachlan's 'high coos' earlier, so you may know the general idea. Some of you've been after some necromancer type for a while now - you've found ghouls on an island, a cursed church and all sorts. This time, my old tenant and newly self-appointed High Priest Rholor called for folks to come see him as he'd been having visions."
"Now I know what you're thinking. And yes, some of us assumed he was high. But it turns out that part didn't happen til later. Anyway, Rholor did some honest-to-goddess oracle-ing for us. Spouted a whole bunch of things about petals and shades and pillars. If you want to hear it, you'll have to ask Demik, as literally no one could agree on just what was said. But the short of it was that we decided to head north to see what we could turn up."
"A few days and one definitely classified meeting later, we were in the Feywild standing before a great rotten tree. And when I say great, I mean it took us three hours to reach it because we could see it plainly from that far away. Found our way inside it and found a big lake."
Coll pauses and takes a drink from his now familiar green jade tankard. "Folks, some of you may not know this, but when humans are in a pitch-black cave deep underground, we can't see to well. Biggest fault of our species quite frankly. So Demik and I were relying on torchlight alone and still managed to not fall in to this underground river we were walking alongside. We both dove in and grabbed hold of people (also did you know Demik could turn into a fish person? I did not. This job never gets old.), but our favourite (and only) druid fell over a waterfall into a lake."
"There are some things in life which are inevitable. Death and taxes are the classics, but also, any bard can tell you that if there's a great underground lake in a dark cavern, it's going to contain some terribly gribbly out to rip you limb from limb, so frankly I don't think many of us were surprised when great tentacles reached out and grabbed hold of Daisy."
"Now I said some things were inevitable. And when you're standing atop a waterfall seeing now three of your companions in hot water (the water was freezing, I'll have you know) being grabbed by a monster you cannot even comprehend the size or nature of deep in this lake, and you know that if you go into that water, you aren't going to be able to see a damn thing, the outcome is indeed inevitable. I dove straight into that lake, grabbed hold of the nearest tentacle and began beating it to a pulp."
"I can't really give you a very visual description of what happened next. But if you want to picture a handsome man with his legs wrapped around a giant tentacle underwater while another tentacle is wrapped around his waist, then you do that in the privacy of your own rooms."
"Anyway, we were doing ok. I got eaten, I think - certainly felt like a lot of teeth, and then suddenly I wasn't being et, and it all went a little quiet in that black abyss. From what I gather, Lachlan turned it into an owl. Magic, am I right?"
"We gathered round this tiny creature and then beat it within an inch of its life. Good times."
"After that, everything else was just caves and a big necklace. Apparently it's signficant for a big ritual, but I'm sure you'll all deal with that another time."
"The important thing though, is that we beat a bloody enormous kraken thing, and I have the trophy to prove it." He pulls a cloth off a large, long object that has been hung up over the bar all evening, revealing a huge, 15 foot long tentacle, varnished and preserved for eternity, with a plaque listing the adventurers who joined together to kill it.
"So next time you've had one too many and I ask you to kindly go home," he says, cracking his knuckles. "Take a look at that before you think I can't throw your ass out of here." He bows and steps down back to the bar.
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