Stormchasing - Wil - 05.11.19
Nov 14, 2019 0:55:51 GMT
Anung Un Rama and Queen Merla, the Sun-Blessed like this
Post by Wil Frozendagger on Nov 14, 2019 0:55:51 GMT
Wil sat down with the swill they called ale in the Seashank at his preferred table, thinking on the quality of the alcohol that he had sampled ever since he had gotten to Kantas. Back in Luskan, this was about the best he could have ever expected for the money he earned, but ever since sampling the wines and whiskeys of this land, this couldn't even compare. It was a simple thing for Wil, who had been regularly drinking since he was twelve, but for a newcomer he'd have to imagine that this would be almost sickening. Still, booze was booze, and he certainly wasn't going to start staying in the Flourished Hook any time soon, not until he slays another dragon turtle or something similar. Still, the events of these days were plenty for a good story at the very least.
And so he beat out a small rhythm on his table, one, two, three.
"Why in the hells is it so quiet in here anyways? I can hear the woodworms biting! Jed you should probably do something about that, just saying. Anyways, it looks like you maggots haven't had much of a day (I mean do you ever?) so why don't I tell you about mine?"
Of those patrons with enough presence of mind to attend to Wil's words, a fair few, the ones who didn't know him by now, were beginning to get agitated at the insults levelled at them and it was clear to see, but that didn't stop the errant Luskanite.
"Hey, listen, this is a good one, alright? A thrilling tale of great journeys, tactical espionage action, ruthless violence, grand betrayal, whirlwind romances- okay that last one was bullshit, down you horndogs!" He jokingly reprimanded a couple of men in the corner who had perked up at that last point, to a couple of good chuckles. "And let me spoil something right off the bat, this one ends with me slaying a giant myself!"
"Bullshit!"
"Oh fuck off Wil!"
"This guy I swear..."
"Hey whose fucking story is this anyway?" Wil shouted as his nails grew for a brief moment to about a foot in length, sharp and black and dripping with corrosive liquid. He remembered the first time he had shown the guys that trick and suddenly it seemed like nobody had any quarrels with him anymore. Sometimes they needed reminding. "That's what I thought.".
"Anyways if haven't already heard, in Kul'Goran, war were declared. But seriously, if you actually haven't heard, where's that rock you've been living under and do you have space for two? So it's been a total disaster, towns razed and everything, those giants aren't holding anything back, and Kul'Goran's getting pretty desperate, you know?"
"Yeah they'd have to be if they wanted you."
"I heard that! I mean you're not completely wrong but at the same time, if I catch you..." Wil made a cutting motion at his neck with his right hand. "So yeah, myself and a group of others were sent to gather some intel, let me tell you about these guys; So we had this paladin type, you know the ones, all shiny armour and 'justice is my sword and my conviction is the strength to wield it' and the rest of it, guy by the name of Varis." He stated this to reactions of vague recognition. Was he a big deal? Wil didn't quite know. Didn't matter right now anyway. "Next up on our menagerie of weirdos was this crazy looking half-orc guy with purple fucking hair of all things! Now when you think of half-orcs you think of proper scrappers right? Well there was a bit of that there but I knew he was more magic like myself, but yeah, a right piece of work, that Mystigon. Right next up we had two lasses-"
Wil let his arms fall back to his sides as he was interrupted by some cheers and a wolf whistle.
"Fellas, come on now, I haven't even described them yet, do better! Right, two lasses, one was a pretty straight laced half-orc, called Kalta, can’t really say much more about her to be perfectly honest except that she came out here to fight and I got that. Now, the other one, Serpentine, well, if Mystigon was just a piece of work then she was the rest of it, let me tell you. You guys know Menace right?"
This statement was met with more cheers than Wil thought was reasonable, justified, or right.
"Yeah he was there…" Wil stated offhandedly. "And of course, let me not forget the finest of our motley crew, last but not least, the most powerful, well spoken, handsome and most excellent of the bunch, all that and a bag of the finest potato fries, it is of course yours truly!"
"Yeah whatever Wil, get on with it!"
"Ahh, you hate me cos you ain't me!" Wil gave a mocking hand wave of dismissal while wearing a cheeky smile. "Alright so, we meet up at Daring Heights and thrown through the portal, never a good feeling, we meet up with our squad leader, big guy called Torven, one of those half-minotaur half-genasi guys, big and blue and feathery with these weird curved weapons on him. He gives us the intel, he tells us that we’re gonna skip all the bullshit, no middlemen, we’re going straight up top to the big man himself, grab some ordnance, win the war! Problems being he was in a massive mobile tower and also was a fucking storm giant, but hey, we got this, right?”
By this point Wil had gotten up and was seated on a table, cross-legged, surrounded by a fair few of the patrons, with the rest keeping an ear perked on the story being told.
“Now, I don’t know if you know this but Kul’Goran is windy. Like, real fucking windy. If I was doing this properly I would say something like ‘the wind howled with a furious vengeance, blasting its ire on the very land that formed it, uncaring and unrelenting’ but you guys don’t really care for that stuff, do you? Yeah, it was fucking windy. And the people of Kul’Goran, resourceful as they are, have found a way to exploit that wind; put a bathtub on wheels and put a sail on it. I wish I was joking. So Mystigon has decided that I’m the arse of the hour for some ungodly reason and makes me ride with him, Serpentine joins us, Kalta and Menace are with Torven and Varis does his paladin thing and summons a shiny fuck-off stag to ride. I mean when you can, right? So off and away we go, cruising on the wind, nary a care in the world, when eventually we chance upon a battlefield, and it’s giants, minotaurs and genasi alike, sprawled out on the floor, and there left standing were some elves, would you believe, out there in tribal clothing. Torven tells us that this is bad news and we have to deal with this, so you already know what time it was. I came swinging with my magic as usual, Mystigon turns out to be a lightning wielder, Kalta turned out to be pretty versed in magic as well as the martial arts, Varis did some shit to scare the crap out of them, not sure what, Menace did his thing, whatever, and Serpentine… No shadow of a lie, lads, from the beyond Serpentine summoned what I could only describe as a gigantic demonic ape that, as you can only imagine, went apeshit. So yeah, call it a slaughter. And when blood is spilled in Kul’Goran, something weird happens. It gets drawn into the earth, draining its victims of all its blood until there’s nothing left but a husk. Don’t get yourself into fights you can’t win there, fellas. We were able to keep one alive and he told us that they were just trying to stop the fighting and that everyone was alive. As it turns out, all the minotaurs, the genasi, even the giants, were only unconscious, and our side was quickly coming back around. We left the elf with them and moved on.”
Wil was now around four ales down and was only getting more and more incensed with each sip he took.
“Back on the road and a couple more days, we made it to the mountains, a bit more journeying and we finally found the tower, massive thing raised up and pulled and pushed by a whole bunch of ogres. So as we’re pondering over what we’re gonna do, Mystigon and Serpentine send their familiars over to scout the tower. Now I have no idea what the fuck she did but soon after she comes back to us and says we have a minute, so now we’re panicking cos what the hell does that mean? Minute later, fire giant bursts out the door, that’s what. Well at least we’ve got the door open and we might be able to stealth our way, right? So Varis sends his stag as a distraction for the ogres so we can try to sneak along, except Varis, who unleashes his damn wings and flies up to the roof. Wings, I hear you ask? Yeah, turns out he’s angelborn, because of course he is. He gave us enough of a distraction for us to slide our way under the tower, Torven and Menace head in through the door whilst Mystigon, Kalta and Serpentine were preparing to fight the fire giant. Now, you guys all know my priorities but Torven and Menace kept bitching about needing more people to help grab the documents, which I guess was fair, cos you know, giant sized and all, so begrudgingly I went up into the tower with them and that’s when shit got out of control. Literally directly across from me is the storm giant we’re looking for, massive and grey and fucking scary, and he’s looking at me, I’m looking at him, we’re looking at each other and as he closed his fist I felt him trying to take over my very mind. Obviously, me being me, I wasn’t about to let that happen and I shook it off, problem was however was that the two bastards either side of me weren’t so resistant. The rat bastard Torven led us straight into a trap and Menace was a backstabbing traitor, big surprise! I mean they were forced but that’s still fucked up, so I was like ‘oooooh shit, you ain’t taking me today, I’m not dying again’ so I used this.”
Wil began to rummage about in his things until he found what he was looking for; an empty clay jar.
“Now I know this looks like nothing special but I knew for a fact that this had an elemental in it and the way I saw it, I was up shit’s creek without a paddle so now might be the time to use it, so I chucked the fucker at Menace and vaulted straight out of the door, stuck the landing like a champ of course-”
“You sure?”
“Yes of course I’m sure! Anyways, I get back to the battlefield and those guys are all duking it out with the fire giant, the demon ape is back once again and so I line up my magic perfectly and strike him right in the shoulder, I bet you I broke a few bones. Next thing I see is Varis flying out the door and with two swings, he takes the fucker’s head clean off!”
“So you lied about killing it yourself!”
“Yeah I lied like you lied to your wives about where you are, guess we’re even now! Okay, maybe I didn’t kill the thing myself but it got you listening didn’t it?! Anyway, we stole its sword, sent the demon ape on the ogres and hightailed it, cos fucking with a storm giant gets you fucked is what we learnt. Now, since you guys paid so much attention to that, don’t you think that I deserve to get paid with monetary compensation?”
“What? Why?”
“Naah mate.”
“Ahh, screw you guys, you’re no fun anyway!”
With that, Wil got off of his soapbox and resumed his seat, satisfied at the hum of conversation that had propagated throughout the tavern, another story well told. Different clientele want different things and Wil was more than happy to deliver. Stories were people’s lives and legends and nobody could resist a good one, this Wil knew for sure.
Even so, that half-orc Mystigon, he spoke of things, strange things that made Wil uneasy. Apparently pacts could be broken and reforged with another, but he wasn’t too sure whether that was a good idea, for the aboleth…
No. Everything was fine for now, but the strange man was certainly persistent in wanting Wil to visit. It seemed his story was about to get even more interesting...
And so he beat out a small rhythm on his table, one, two, three.
"Why in the hells is it so quiet in here anyways? I can hear the woodworms biting! Jed you should probably do something about that, just saying. Anyways, it looks like you maggots haven't had much of a day (I mean do you ever?) so why don't I tell you about mine?"
Of those patrons with enough presence of mind to attend to Wil's words, a fair few, the ones who didn't know him by now, were beginning to get agitated at the insults levelled at them and it was clear to see, but that didn't stop the errant Luskanite.
"Hey, listen, this is a good one, alright? A thrilling tale of great journeys, tactical espionage action, ruthless violence, grand betrayal, whirlwind romances- okay that last one was bullshit, down you horndogs!" He jokingly reprimanded a couple of men in the corner who had perked up at that last point, to a couple of good chuckles. "And let me spoil something right off the bat, this one ends with me slaying a giant myself!"
"Bullshit!"
"Oh fuck off Wil!"
"This guy I swear..."
"Hey whose fucking story is this anyway?" Wil shouted as his nails grew for a brief moment to about a foot in length, sharp and black and dripping with corrosive liquid. He remembered the first time he had shown the guys that trick and suddenly it seemed like nobody had any quarrels with him anymore. Sometimes they needed reminding. "That's what I thought.".
"Anyways if haven't already heard, in Kul'Goran, war were declared. But seriously, if you actually haven't heard, where's that rock you've been living under and do you have space for two? So it's been a total disaster, towns razed and everything, those giants aren't holding anything back, and Kul'Goran's getting pretty desperate, you know?"
"Yeah they'd have to be if they wanted you."
"I heard that! I mean you're not completely wrong but at the same time, if I catch you..." Wil made a cutting motion at his neck with his right hand. "So yeah, myself and a group of others were sent to gather some intel, let me tell you about these guys; So we had this paladin type, you know the ones, all shiny armour and 'justice is my sword and my conviction is the strength to wield it' and the rest of it, guy by the name of Varis." He stated this to reactions of vague recognition. Was he a big deal? Wil didn't quite know. Didn't matter right now anyway. "Next up on our menagerie of weirdos was this crazy looking half-orc guy with purple fucking hair of all things! Now when you think of half-orcs you think of proper scrappers right? Well there was a bit of that there but I knew he was more magic like myself, but yeah, a right piece of work, that Mystigon. Right next up we had two lasses-"
Wil let his arms fall back to his sides as he was interrupted by some cheers and a wolf whistle.
"Fellas, come on now, I haven't even described them yet, do better! Right, two lasses, one was a pretty straight laced half-orc, called Kalta, can’t really say much more about her to be perfectly honest except that she came out here to fight and I got that. Now, the other one, Serpentine, well, if Mystigon was just a piece of work then she was the rest of it, let me tell you. You guys know Menace right?"
This statement was met with more cheers than Wil thought was reasonable, justified, or right.
"Yeah he was there…" Wil stated offhandedly. "And of course, let me not forget the finest of our motley crew, last but not least, the most powerful, well spoken, handsome and most excellent of the bunch, all that and a bag of the finest potato fries, it is of course yours truly!"
"Yeah whatever Wil, get on with it!"
"Ahh, you hate me cos you ain't me!" Wil gave a mocking hand wave of dismissal while wearing a cheeky smile. "Alright so, we meet up at Daring Heights and thrown through the portal, never a good feeling, we meet up with our squad leader, big guy called Torven, one of those half-minotaur half-genasi guys, big and blue and feathery with these weird curved weapons on him. He gives us the intel, he tells us that we’re gonna skip all the bullshit, no middlemen, we’re going straight up top to the big man himself, grab some ordnance, win the war! Problems being he was in a massive mobile tower and also was a fucking storm giant, but hey, we got this, right?”
By this point Wil had gotten up and was seated on a table, cross-legged, surrounded by a fair few of the patrons, with the rest keeping an ear perked on the story being told.
“Now, I don’t know if you know this but Kul’Goran is windy. Like, real fucking windy. If I was doing this properly I would say something like ‘the wind howled with a furious vengeance, blasting its ire on the very land that formed it, uncaring and unrelenting’ but you guys don’t really care for that stuff, do you? Yeah, it was fucking windy. And the people of Kul’Goran, resourceful as they are, have found a way to exploit that wind; put a bathtub on wheels and put a sail on it. I wish I was joking. So Mystigon has decided that I’m the arse of the hour for some ungodly reason and makes me ride with him, Serpentine joins us, Kalta and Menace are with Torven and Varis does his paladin thing and summons a shiny fuck-off stag to ride. I mean when you can, right? So off and away we go, cruising on the wind, nary a care in the world, when eventually we chance upon a battlefield, and it’s giants, minotaurs and genasi alike, sprawled out on the floor, and there left standing were some elves, would you believe, out there in tribal clothing. Torven tells us that this is bad news and we have to deal with this, so you already know what time it was. I came swinging with my magic as usual, Mystigon turns out to be a lightning wielder, Kalta turned out to be pretty versed in magic as well as the martial arts, Varis did some shit to scare the crap out of them, not sure what, Menace did his thing, whatever, and Serpentine… No shadow of a lie, lads, from the beyond Serpentine summoned what I could only describe as a gigantic demonic ape that, as you can only imagine, went apeshit. So yeah, call it a slaughter. And when blood is spilled in Kul’Goran, something weird happens. It gets drawn into the earth, draining its victims of all its blood until there’s nothing left but a husk. Don’t get yourself into fights you can’t win there, fellas. We were able to keep one alive and he told us that they were just trying to stop the fighting and that everyone was alive. As it turns out, all the minotaurs, the genasi, even the giants, were only unconscious, and our side was quickly coming back around. We left the elf with them and moved on.”
Wil was now around four ales down and was only getting more and more incensed with each sip he took.
“Back on the road and a couple more days, we made it to the mountains, a bit more journeying and we finally found the tower, massive thing raised up and pulled and pushed by a whole bunch of ogres. So as we’re pondering over what we’re gonna do, Mystigon and Serpentine send their familiars over to scout the tower. Now I have no idea what the fuck she did but soon after she comes back to us and says we have a minute, so now we’re panicking cos what the hell does that mean? Minute later, fire giant bursts out the door, that’s what. Well at least we’ve got the door open and we might be able to stealth our way, right? So Varis sends his stag as a distraction for the ogres so we can try to sneak along, except Varis, who unleashes his damn wings and flies up to the roof. Wings, I hear you ask? Yeah, turns out he’s angelborn, because of course he is. He gave us enough of a distraction for us to slide our way under the tower, Torven and Menace head in through the door whilst Mystigon, Kalta and Serpentine were preparing to fight the fire giant. Now, you guys all know my priorities but Torven and Menace kept bitching about needing more people to help grab the documents, which I guess was fair, cos you know, giant sized and all, so begrudgingly I went up into the tower with them and that’s when shit got out of control. Literally directly across from me is the storm giant we’re looking for, massive and grey and fucking scary, and he’s looking at me, I’m looking at him, we’re looking at each other and as he closed his fist I felt him trying to take over my very mind. Obviously, me being me, I wasn’t about to let that happen and I shook it off, problem was however was that the two bastards either side of me weren’t so resistant. The rat bastard Torven led us straight into a trap and Menace was a backstabbing traitor, big surprise! I mean they were forced but that’s still fucked up, so I was like ‘oooooh shit, you ain’t taking me today, I’m not dying again’ so I used this.”
Wil began to rummage about in his things until he found what he was looking for; an empty clay jar.
“Now I know this looks like nothing special but I knew for a fact that this had an elemental in it and the way I saw it, I was up shit’s creek without a paddle so now might be the time to use it, so I chucked the fucker at Menace and vaulted straight out of the door, stuck the landing like a champ of course-”
“You sure?”
“Yes of course I’m sure! Anyways, I get back to the battlefield and those guys are all duking it out with the fire giant, the demon ape is back once again and so I line up my magic perfectly and strike him right in the shoulder, I bet you I broke a few bones. Next thing I see is Varis flying out the door and with two swings, he takes the fucker’s head clean off!”
“So you lied about killing it yourself!”
“Yeah I lied like you lied to your wives about where you are, guess we’re even now! Okay, maybe I didn’t kill the thing myself but it got you listening didn’t it?! Anyway, we stole its sword, sent the demon ape on the ogres and hightailed it, cos fucking with a storm giant gets you fucked is what we learnt. Now, since you guys paid so much attention to that, don’t you think that I deserve to get paid with monetary compensation?”
“What? Why?”
“Naah mate.”
“Ahh, screw you guys, you’re no fun anyway!”
With that, Wil got off of his soapbox and resumed his seat, satisfied at the hum of conversation that had propagated throughout the tavern, another story well told. Different clientele want different things and Wil was more than happy to deliver. Stories were people’s lives and legends and nobody could resist a good one, this Wil knew for sure.
Even so, that half-orc Mystigon, he spoke of things, strange things that made Wil uneasy. Apparently pacts could be broken and reforged with another, but he wasn’t too sure whether that was a good idea, for the aboleth…
No. Everything was fine for now, but the strange man was certainly persistent in wanting Wil to visit. It seemed his story was about to get even more interesting...
