Sneak Attack Range feat
JoeGKushner
First Post
I don't recall seeing an official feat.
However, AEG's book Feats has one and I believe that it's culled from either AEG's Swashbuckling Advnturers or AEG's Mercenaries book.
Game balance question not asked, but as a GM, I've never allowed it.
However, AEG's book Feats has one and I believe that it's culled from either AEG's Swashbuckling Advnturers or AEG's Mercenaries book.
Game balance question not asked, but as a GM, I've never allowed it.
Ruined
Explorer
What's this? I'm editing my Ceramic DM entry! Muhahahah
Working for the Weekend
“You shouldn’t be here,” Gavin said, furtively looking around the office. “I am trying to work.” He puffed up his chest with self-importance.
Tinsdale found himself envious of his friend’s job. Even with his position in litigation, he found himself with only sixty hours of work a week. But Gavin, in his lucrative programming job, easily clocked eighty hours a week. Even with the nice suits he had acquired, Tinsdale paled in his friend’s shadow.
“I’m sorry Gavin. I just had an odd premonition this morning. You do know what day it is…”
“Sure I do. It’s Samhain. But that doesn’t mean anything to us anymore.”
“Of course it does…” Tinsdale poked out his bottom lip and set down a snow globe he had been examining. He would have to get one of those for his office. Gavin always had the best trinkets.
“Please Tinsdale. You’re probably just spooked because of all the children dressing up.”
He could feel his cheeks color. He had sensed ill tidings on the wind this morning while polishing his silverware. Yet Gavin was right: the imagery associated with Halloween had probably enhanced those feelings as the day pressed on. So many children reveling in worship of ghost and goblins were unnerving.
There was a rustling by the door to Gavin’s office. The glass was opaque, so you could only see shadows of those outside. A tentative knock sounded at the door, interrupting their conversation.
“Curse you Tinsdale, that’s probably my supervisor. I can’t be seen socializing on company time! She probably has more projects for me.” A dreamy look appeared in Gavin's eyes at the thought. He turned upon Tinsdale, pushing him towards another door. “In the server closet, now!”
Tinsdale found himself rushed into a cramped room dominated by a rack of whirring computers. He watched as Gavin pushed the door close behind him, failing to close it completely. His friend had nothing to worry about – Tinsdale would never jeopardize his job (unless he could take it for himself). He squirmed in the closet, as there wasn’t much room beside the noisy computers.
“Come in.” he heard Gavin say, followed by an exclamation of “Moinker!” That sparked Tinsdale’s attention. Why would Gavin curse in their native language? He leaned against the doorjamb, trying to catch a peek through the crack in the door. Three figures stood in the room with their backs to him. Each wore an oddly familiar white suit.
“I’ll not go back, you know. I have work to do!” There was a rough sound, and Tinsdale could finally see Gavin as he was shoved into his chair. He looked worried.
“You face the Face, faerie!” The voice was deep and raspy. Tinsdale strained forward, bracing himself against the racks, hoping to get a better glance at the strangers. This time it paid off, as one of the trio turned to examine the room. It had a monstrously large orange head with shaggy brown hair. As the creature’s gaze passed over the closet door, Tinsdale clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream. If only he could have stopped his bladder as well…
“I think not, hobgoblin!” More words ushered from his mouth, but these were not the dialect of their home, but instead were drawn from the arcane tongue. Bluish sparks of energy formed between Gavin’s fingers as two of the monsters closed in on him. Then there was a loud crack and the pair was hurled across the room.
“Run, Tinsdale!” Gavin screamed. Tinsdale faltered, still unsure if he should reveal himself. It wouldn’t be so bad to hide here. He still had half an hour before his deposition… “Run!”
The last plea shook Tinsdale from his stupor. He threw the door open and looked about the room. The two hobgoblins struck by the blast were on the floor with thin trails of black smoke rising from their chests. They were groaning, as the blast had only stunned them. Gavin was struggling with the third assailant, yet Tinsdale knew there was nothing he could do to help. He was, after all, only a lawyer. Taking his friend’s advice, he fled from the room and abandoned him to his fate.
Emerging onto the street in a blind panic, he ran down the sidewalk with his arms waving frantically in the air. People stepped to the side to avoid him. He knew he needed to get away from the hobgoblins, who probably wanted nothing less than to roast his head on a spit. They knew where to find Gavin at his job, so they might know to find him at the firm, or even worse, at the courts. Tinsdale doubted if citations of contempt would slow them down.
As he reached an intersection of roads, he saw something that could potentially save him. Off to his left, barricades blocked traffic access to 9th Street. Beyond he could see people marching to the tunes of a poorly choreographed parade. There would be a number of people there, offering a great place to hide.
Tinsdale slowed to a walk and moved through the barricades, nodding briefly to the police officers stationed there. He considered beseeching them for aid, but decided against it. They looked hard at work watching for wrongdoers, and if there’s one thing Tinsdale could respect, it was hard work. He had briefly pondered a career as a policeman, but that whole prospect of danger strongly went against his beliefs.
“Nope. The one thing I don’t need is danger. Not me…” He took a glance to his rear hoping to see Gavin sprinting to catch up with him, but there were only the policemen standing idly in the street. He let loose a sigh and moved into a crowd currently entranced by a series of fire trucks crawling past.
People were dressed for the occasion, no few of which gave Tinsdale pause. Little boys in masks and cowls. Little girls with butterfly wings. Large girls wearing fishnets… oh, perhaps they weren’t in costume. Tinsdale did his best to blend in with the masses. This was an enjoyable distraction, although the nagging voices in his head reminded him that not only was he on the run from vicious assailants, but also he would be late for his deposition this afternoon. Judge O’Rourke was not known for her patience.
“Look at the funny man, mommy!” the girl with the translucent wings said in a screeching voice that carried above the crowd. Tinsdale winced, knowing that she was pointing to him. How appropriate that a girl dressed as an insect would laugh at him. Some things never changed.
To his relief, Tinsdale noted that she was pointing out into the street where the procession continued.
To his horror, he saw that she was pointing to an orange-faced man wearing a white jumpsuit decorated with bizarre caricatures.
A hobgoblin.
And there were at least five of them, each searching among the spectators as they walked. As horrible as their appearance was, not one of the oblivious crowd participants noted their presence. They blended perfectly with all of the other costumed freaks.
Tinsdale willed himself to be still as the bestial gaze of the hunters passed over him. If he could only act disinterested, like one of the crowd, then these hobgoblins would miss him. Sure, they had found Gavin with ease, but that was Gavin. He had probably announced his presence on the Internet or in one of those computer games he worked on. Tinsdale however, was a modest, mousy type, and knew how to not draw attention to himself. As he continued the mantra in his head, the patrol of hobgoblins moved past his spot.
A peal of laughter erupted from Little Miss Butterfly beside him. “Look Mommy! That man wet himself!” She pointed directly at him, drawing laughter from nearby patrons, and the attention of the hobgoblins. As he watched with horror, one of the nearby creatures looked directly at him and pointed.
“I hope a witch flies in your room and turns you into a frog tonight!” Tinsdale sneered at the little girl, and then bolted off into the crowd. The mass of humanity seemed to congeal around him, slowing his pace to a crawl. He could only hope that this would also slow his pursuers, for he dared not look behind him. People shoved and complained as he moved past, the air moist with the heat of hundreds of bodies. Were he not running for his life, he knew he would pass out from the stench.
As soon as he found an accessible side street, Tinsdale broke from the crowd as fast as possible. His mind raced, trying to think of who he could call for help. Sadly, his only real friend was Gavin, and calling him was no option. If he were still alive, Tinsdale doubted he would want to talk to him. He wouldn't want to talk to Gavin were roles reversed. Even though it made complete sense at the time, he had abandoned Gavin in his hour of need. The man would likely carry a grudge.
Two hobgoblins emerged from the mouth of the alley in perfect time for Tinsdale to run straight into their arms. The foul odor of the crowd was nothing compared to the stench wafting from this pair. There was no escape from their clutches, and Tinsdale had never studied witchcraft like Gavin. Poor Gavin…
“Fellows, can’t we be reasonable about this?”
A dull clang heralded his descent into darkness.
***
Searing pain woke Tinsdale from his concussion-induced sleep. He immediately sat up, realizing the pain was not at his head, but instead at his feet. He couldn’t reach them, as his hands were bound together. So were his ankles, now that he examined them. His feet didn’t look to be on fire from this angle, but they sure felt like it. He tried to scrape the soles against the wood he sat upon, but it helped none. All he could see was that there was some kind of blackness along the soles. He dearly hoped it wasn’t his skin turned to ash, not that he could do anything to stop that.
After a few minutes and a good amount of tears on his part, the pain in his feet lessened. Only then was he able to take stock of his surroundings. He was in the bed of a pickup truck speeding under dimming skies. How long had he been unconscious? He wasn’t alone, as there were two hobgoblins and his friend Gavin, tied up the same way he was.
“Gavin! You’re alive! I was so worried…” Gavin shot him a foul look and remained silent. “Oh please Gavin; it was a horrible, stressful situation…”
“You left me!”
“You told me to run.” Tinsdale tried to raise his hands in protest, forgetting that they were securely tied.
“I didn’t mean it!” Gavin said. There was an uncomfortable silence, which brought Tinsdale’s mind back to his throbbing feet. He looked and noted that Gavin’s feet were also covered with a tarry black substance. Small zigzagged lines marked the bottom as if they were crude approximations of commercial sneakers.
“What’s on our feet?” Tinsdale asked.
“Some kind of tar and magic runes. I believe they did it to prevent me from casting spells of lightning.”
“But I can’t cast lightning. Why’d they do it to me?” Tinsdale turned to get the attention of one of the hobgoblins. “I can’t cast lightning, see?” His captor snorted, blowing his fetid breath into Tinsdale’s face.
The drive continued for upwards of an hour, taking them away from the city and off into the hills. Passing cars became fewer and fewer as they moved away from civilization. Tinsdale vaguely seemed to recall this area, although he rarely chose to leave the city.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” he absently asked, not expecting an answer from his sullen friend.
“I’d imagine we’ll do what they said. Face the face.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yeah,” Gavin said, his lips curling down into a frown. “The Face.”
***
If Tinsdale had thought the initial pain of his tar-covered feet was bad, he had not considered the agony of walking on them. The only benefit to the covering was that he did not feel each miniscule pebbles that blanketed the path they walked upon. Otherwise, the march was one of pure misery, randomly punctuated by shoves from their guards.
They had driven into a rugged area of stony hills sparsely populated with brown grass. The sun had begun its descent to the accompaniment of an insectile chorus. Ideas of rescue or escape took on a humorous tone in Tinsdale’s mind. He considered yelling for help, wondering how the echoes would sound. No, he knew this area, and he knew what awaited them below.
They were prodded down a path to a series of buildings that had suffered greatly over the years. Masonry had fallen apart, leaving chimneys with no rooms to heat. Small sections of walls acted as cemetery markers where palatial buildings had once stood. As they navigated through the ruins, they approached one central structure that possessed more integrity than any others. Tinsdale could feel the place before him for what it was – a holy place.
As they entered the building, both he and Gavin were pushed to their knees. The ceiling of this structure was only half there, allowing the light to stream down upon the features of the walls. Two passageways flanked the opposing wall, rounded by arches formed from brick. Below the two archways was a yawning portal that led into the depths of the earth. The effect was that of a giant face formed from broken masonry. Yet the pair knew it was much more than that.
“FOOLISH CHANGELINGS!” a voice boomed out amid a backdrop of grinding stone. As it spoke, the passageway-eyes seemed to light with every word. “DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HIDE FOREVER?”
“Well, yes…” Tinsdale began, receiving a blow to the head from an unseen hobgoblin hand. “No,” he corrected. “No, your… eminence.” How did one properly address a great immortal that manifested itself as a stone face? It could probably kill them both with a solitary breath, so he hoped he wasn’t offending it.
“YOU CHOSE TO ABANDON THE WILD HUNT AND LIVE IN THE WORLD OF MEN? DO YOU THINK YOURSELVES CLEVER?”
“Well…” Gavin began, earning them both clouts on the head. “No, no. We were foolish, Lord… Face?”
In truth, they had been clever. They had volunteered to go with the Wild Hunt as it ran across the mortal world, but it was a ruse on their parts. When their Sidhe brethren had been distracted by the world of man, the two of them had stolen off to hide in the glorious city. Once the night of Samhain had ended, the barrier between worlds had strengthened, effectively trapping them in the present world.
Contemplating their current predicament, Tinsdale mused that moving to a different city would have been truly clever.
“OUR KIND CANNOT STAY IN THIS DREARY REALM. WHY RISK ALL, ABANDONING OUR CAREFREE WORLD?”
Tinsdale stole a look at Gavin, wondering how to explain it. No good excuse came to mind, and so they spoke the truth, in unison.
“We wanted to work.”
“WHAT?” the voice of the Face boomed out. Tinsdale imagined he could hear grunts of disgust come from the hobgoblins behind them.
“We wanted jobs like the man-folk,” Tinsdale began. “We’ve been loafing for centuries, and we wanted the change. Our lives were so boring. You can’t imagine how many days I spent lounging by streams, hoping for something to do.” He stuck out his tongue as the horrible thought.
“OUR KIND DOES NOT WORK! THAT IS THE PROVINCE OF MEN. YOU SHALL BE TAUGHT A LESSON THAT WILL NEVER BE FORGETTEN.”
This was better than Tinsdale had hoped for. The year he spent working in the courtrooms could finally pay off.
“What horrible, yet justly deserved punishment will we receive, oh great Face?” In response, the rocks around them rumbled as if in deep thought.
“Might I suggest years of toil in the Mines of Boria?”
“NO…” the voice said in a distracted voice.
“Perhaps tending to the Endless Orchards day in and day out?” Gavin suggested. Tinsdale nodded, mouthing the words ‘good one’ to him.
“NO…”
“If I may suggest…” Tinsdale began.
“SILENCE, CHANGELING!” Mollified, Tinsdale clamped his mouth shut.
“YOU ARE CLEVER ONES, I SEE THIS NOW,” the Face announced. “YOUR PUNISHMENT IS THUS: YOU SHALL FOREVER RESIDE IN THE FROLICKING GLADES.”
They waited, ready for the twist that would make it unbearable. When the Face remained silent, Tinsdale prompted it. “And…?”
“AND NOTHING!"
It dawned on them that this was the very thing they had sought to escape. A life surrounded by the laziest of the lazy, with no tasks to be done, and no responsibilities to attend to. It was a life without meaning!
“SERVANTS, TAKE THEM AWAY!” The Face said, with its eyes dimming as it settled into silence.
“Please reconsider, Great Face! Perhaps we could de-thorn roses for a century or two?”
“How about mucking the Great Stables?”
“Anything but this…”
Working for the Weekend
“You shouldn’t be here,” Gavin said, furtively looking around the office. “I am trying to work.” He puffed up his chest with self-importance.
Tinsdale found himself envious of his friend’s job. Even with his position in litigation, he found himself with only sixty hours of work a week. But Gavin, in his lucrative programming job, easily clocked eighty hours a week. Even with the nice suits he had acquired, Tinsdale paled in his friend’s shadow.
“I’m sorry Gavin. I just had an odd premonition this morning. You do know what day it is…”
“Sure I do. It’s Samhain. But that doesn’t mean anything to us anymore.”
“Of course it does…” Tinsdale poked out his bottom lip and set down a snow globe he had been examining. He would have to get one of those for his office. Gavin always had the best trinkets.
“Please Tinsdale. You’re probably just spooked because of all the children dressing up.”
He could feel his cheeks color. He had sensed ill tidings on the wind this morning while polishing his silverware. Yet Gavin was right: the imagery associated with Halloween had probably enhanced those feelings as the day pressed on. So many children reveling in worship of ghost and goblins were unnerving.
There was a rustling by the door to Gavin’s office. The glass was opaque, so you could only see shadows of those outside. A tentative knock sounded at the door, interrupting their conversation.
“Curse you Tinsdale, that’s probably my supervisor. I can’t be seen socializing on company time! She probably has more projects for me.” A dreamy look appeared in Gavin's eyes at the thought. He turned upon Tinsdale, pushing him towards another door. “In the server closet, now!”
Tinsdale found himself rushed into a cramped room dominated by a rack of whirring computers. He watched as Gavin pushed the door close behind him, failing to close it completely. His friend had nothing to worry about – Tinsdale would never jeopardize his job (unless he could take it for himself). He squirmed in the closet, as there wasn’t much room beside the noisy computers.
“Come in.” he heard Gavin say, followed by an exclamation of “Moinker!” That sparked Tinsdale’s attention. Why would Gavin curse in their native language? He leaned against the doorjamb, trying to catch a peek through the crack in the door. Three figures stood in the room with their backs to him. Each wore an oddly familiar white suit.
“I’ll not go back, you know. I have work to do!” There was a rough sound, and Tinsdale could finally see Gavin as he was shoved into his chair. He looked worried.
“You face the Face, faerie!” The voice was deep and raspy. Tinsdale strained forward, bracing himself against the racks, hoping to get a better glance at the strangers. This time it paid off, as one of the trio turned to examine the room. It had a monstrously large orange head with shaggy brown hair. As the creature’s gaze passed over the closet door, Tinsdale clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream. If only he could have stopped his bladder as well…
“I think not, hobgoblin!” More words ushered from his mouth, but these were not the dialect of their home, but instead were drawn from the arcane tongue. Bluish sparks of energy formed between Gavin’s fingers as two of the monsters closed in on him. Then there was a loud crack and the pair was hurled across the room.
“Run, Tinsdale!” Gavin screamed. Tinsdale faltered, still unsure if he should reveal himself. It wouldn’t be so bad to hide here. He still had half an hour before his deposition… “Run!”
The last plea shook Tinsdale from his stupor. He threw the door open and looked about the room. The two hobgoblins struck by the blast were on the floor with thin trails of black smoke rising from their chests. They were groaning, as the blast had only stunned them. Gavin was struggling with the third assailant, yet Tinsdale knew there was nothing he could do to help. He was, after all, only a lawyer. Taking his friend’s advice, he fled from the room and abandoned him to his fate.
Emerging onto the street in a blind panic, he ran down the sidewalk with his arms waving frantically in the air. People stepped to the side to avoid him. He knew he needed to get away from the hobgoblins, who probably wanted nothing less than to roast his head on a spit. They knew where to find Gavin at his job, so they might know to find him at the firm, or even worse, at the courts. Tinsdale doubted if citations of contempt would slow them down.
As he reached an intersection of roads, he saw something that could potentially save him. Off to his left, barricades blocked traffic access to 9th Street. Beyond he could see people marching to the tunes of a poorly choreographed parade. There would be a number of people there, offering a great place to hide.
Tinsdale slowed to a walk and moved through the barricades, nodding briefly to the police officers stationed there. He considered beseeching them for aid, but decided against it. They looked hard at work watching for wrongdoers, and if there’s one thing Tinsdale could respect, it was hard work. He had briefly pondered a career as a policeman, but that whole prospect of danger strongly went against his beliefs.
“Nope. The one thing I don’t need is danger. Not me…” He took a glance to his rear hoping to see Gavin sprinting to catch up with him, but there were only the policemen standing idly in the street. He let loose a sigh and moved into a crowd currently entranced by a series of fire trucks crawling past.
People were dressed for the occasion, no few of which gave Tinsdale pause. Little boys in masks and cowls. Little girls with butterfly wings. Large girls wearing fishnets… oh, perhaps they weren’t in costume. Tinsdale did his best to blend in with the masses. This was an enjoyable distraction, although the nagging voices in his head reminded him that not only was he on the run from vicious assailants, but also he would be late for his deposition this afternoon. Judge O’Rourke was not known for her patience.
“Look at the funny man, mommy!” the girl with the translucent wings said in a screeching voice that carried above the crowd. Tinsdale winced, knowing that she was pointing to him. How appropriate that a girl dressed as an insect would laugh at him. Some things never changed.
To his relief, Tinsdale noted that she was pointing out into the street where the procession continued.
To his horror, he saw that she was pointing to an orange-faced man wearing a white jumpsuit decorated with bizarre caricatures.
A hobgoblin.
And there were at least five of them, each searching among the spectators as they walked. As horrible as their appearance was, not one of the oblivious crowd participants noted their presence. They blended perfectly with all of the other costumed freaks.
Tinsdale willed himself to be still as the bestial gaze of the hunters passed over him. If he could only act disinterested, like one of the crowd, then these hobgoblins would miss him. Sure, they had found Gavin with ease, but that was Gavin. He had probably announced his presence on the Internet or in one of those computer games he worked on. Tinsdale however, was a modest, mousy type, and knew how to not draw attention to himself. As he continued the mantra in his head, the patrol of hobgoblins moved past his spot.
A peal of laughter erupted from Little Miss Butterfly beside him. “Look Mommy! That man wet himself!” She pointed directly at him, drawing laughter from nearby patrons, and the attention of the hobgoblins. As he watched with horror, one of the nearby creatures looked directly at him and pointed.
“I hope a witch flies in your room and turns you into a frog tonight!” Tinsdale sneered at the little girl, and then bolted off into the crowd. The mass of humanity seemed to congeal around him, slowing his pace to a crawl. He could only hope that this would also slow his pursuers, for he dared not look behind him. People shoved and complained as he moved past, the air moist with the heat of hundreds of bodies. Were he not running for his life, he knew he would pass out from the stench.
As soon as he found an accessible side street, Tinsdale broke from the crowd as fast as possible. His mind raced, trying to think of who he could call for help. Sadly, his only real friend was Gavin, and calling him was no option. If he were still alive, Tinsdale doubted he would want to talk to him. He wouldn't want to talk to Gavin were roles reversed. Even though it made complete sense at the time, he had abandoned Gavin in his hour of need. The man would likely carry a grudge.
Two hobgoblins emerged from the mouth of the alley in perfect time for Tinsdale to run straight into their arms. The foul odor of the crowd was nothing compared to the stench wafting from this pair. There was no escape from their clutches, and Tinsdale had never studied witchcraft like Gavin. Poor Gavin…
“Fellows, can’t we be reasonable about this?”
A dull clang heralded his descent into darkness.
***
Searing pain woke Tinsdale from his concussion-induced sleep. He immediately sat up, realizing the pain was not at his head, but instead at his feet. He couldn’t reach them, as his hands were bound together. So were his ankles, now that he examined them. His feet didn’t look to be on fire from this angle, but they sure felt like it. He tried to scrape the soles against the wood he sat upon, but it helped none. All he could see was that there was some kind of blackness along the soles. He dearly hoped it wasn’t his skin turned to ash, not that he could do anything to stop that.
After a few minutes and a good amount of tears on his part, the pain in his feet lessened. Only then was he able to take stock of his surroundings. He was in the bed of a pickup truck speeding under dimming skies. How long had he been unconscious? He wasn’t alone, as there were two hobgoblins and his friend Gavin, tied up the same way he was.
“Gavin! You’re alive! I was so worried…” Gavin shot him a foul look and remained silent. “Oh please Gavin; it was a horrible, stressful situation…”
“You left me!”
“You told me to run.” Tinsdale tried to raise his hands in protest, forgetting that they were securely tied.
“I didn’t mean it!” Gavin said. There was an uncomfortable silence, which brought Tinsdale’s mind back to his throbbing feet. He looked and noted that Gavin’s feet were also covered with a tarry black substance. Small zigzagged lines marked the bottom as if they were crude approximations of commercial sneakers.
“What’s on our feet?” Tinsdale asked.
“Some kind of tar and magic runes. I believe they did it to prevent me from casting spells of lightning.”
“But I can’t cast lightning. Why’d they do it to me?” Tinsdale turned to get the attention of one of the hobgoblins. “I can’t cast lightning, see?” His captor snorted, blowing his fetid breath into Tinsdale’s face.
The drive continued for upwards of an hour, taking them away from the city and off into the hills. Passing cars became fewer and fewer as they moved away from civilization. Tinsdale vaguely seemed to recall this area, although he rarely chose to leave the city.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” he absently asked, not expecting an answer from his sullen friend.
“I’d imagine we’ll do what they said. Face the face.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yeah,” Gavin said, his lips curling down into a frown. “The Face.”
***
If Tinsdale had thought the initial pain of his tar-covered feet was bad, he had not considered the agony of walking on them. The only benefit to the covering was that he did not feel each miniscule pebbles that blanketed the path they walked upon. Otherwise, the march was one of pure misery, randomly punctuated by shoves from their guards.
They had driven into a rugged area of stony hills sparsely populated with brown grass. The sun had begun its descent to the accompaniment of an insectile chorus. Ideas of rescue or escape took on a humorous tone in Tinsdale’s mind. He considered yelling for help, wondering how the echoes would sound. No, he knew this area, and he knew what awaited them below.
They were prodded down a path to a series of buildings that had suffered greatly over the years. Masonry had fallen apart, leaving chimneys with no rooms to heat. Small sections of walls acted as cemetery markers where palatial buildings had once stood. As they navigated through the ruins, they approached one central structure that possessed more integrity than any others. Tinsdale could feel the place before him for what it was – a holy place.
As they entered the building, both he and Gavin were pushed to their knees. The ceiling of this structure was only half there, allowing the light to stream down upon the features of the walls. Two passageways flanked the opposing wall, rounded by arches formed from brick. Below the two archways was a yawning portal that led into the depths of the earth. The effect was that of a giant face formed from broken masonry. Yet the pair knew it was much more than that.
“FOOLISH CHANGELINGS!” a voice boomed out amid a backdrop of grinding stone. As it spoke, the passageway-eyes seemed to light with every word. “DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HIDE FOREVER?”
“Well, yes…” Tinsdale began, receiving a blow to the head from an unseen hobgoblin hand. “No,” he corrected. “No, your… eminence.” How did one properly address a great immortal that manifested itself as a stone face? It could probably kill them both with a solitary breath, so he hoped he wasn’t offending it.
“YOU CHOSE TO ABANDON THE WILD HUNT AND LIVE IN THE WORLD OF MEN? DO YOU THINK YOURSELVES CLEVER?”
“Well…” Gavin began, earning them both clouts on the head. “No, no. We were foolish, Lord… Face?”
In truth, they had been clever. They had volunteered to go with the Wild Hunt as it ran across the mortal world, but it was a ruse on their parts. When their Sidhe brethren had been distracted by the world of man, the two of them had stolen off to hide in the glorious city. Once the night of Samhain had ended, the barrier between worlds had strengthened, effectively trapping them in the present world.
Contemplating their current predicament, Tinsdale mused that moving to a different city would have been truly clever.
“OUR KIND CANNOT STAY IN THIS DREARY REALM. WHY RISK ALL, ABANDONING OUR CAREFREE WORLD?”
Tinsdale stole a look at Gavin, wondering how to explain it. No good excuse came to mind, and so they spoke the truth, in unison.
“We wanted to work.”
“WHAT?” the voice of the Face boomed out. Tinsdale imagined he could hear grunts of disgust come from the hobgoblins behind them.
“We wanted jobs like the man-folk,” Tinsdale began. “We’ve been loafing for centuries, and we wanted the change. Our lives were so boring. You can’t imagine how many days I spent lounging by streams, hoping for something to do.” He stuck out his tongue as the horrible thought.
“OUR KIND DOES NOT WORK! THAT IS THE PROVINCE OF MEN. YOU SHALL BE TAUGHT A LESSON THAT WILL NEVER BE FORGETTEN.”
This was better than Tinsdale had hoped for. The year he spent working in the courtrooms could finally pay off.
“What horrible, yet justly deserved punishment will we receive, oh great Face?” In response, the rocks around them rumbled as if in deep thought.
“Might I suggest years of toil in the Mines of Boria?”
“NO…” the voice said in a distracted voice.
“Perhaps tending to the Endless Orchards day in and day out?” Gavin suggested. Tinsdale nodded, mouthing the words ‘good one’ to him.
“NO…”
“If I may suggest…” Tinsdale began.
“SILENCE, CHANGELING!” Mollified, Tinsdale clamped his mouth shut.
“YOU ARE CLEVER ONES, I SEE THIS NOW,” the Face announced. “YOUR PUNISHMENT IS THUS: YOU SHALL FOREVER RESIDE IN THE FROLICKING GLADES.”
They waited, ready for the twist that would make it unbearable. When the Face remained silent, Tinsdale prompted it. “And…?”
“AND NOTHING!"
It dawned on them that this was the very thing they had sought to escape. A life surrounded by the laziest of the lazy, with no tasks to be done, and no responsibilities to attend to. It was a life without meaning!
“SERVANTS, TAKE THEM AWAY!” The Face said, with its eyes dimming as it settled into silence.
“Please reconsider, Great Face! Perhaps we could de-thorn roses for a century or two?”
“How about mucking the Great Stables?”
“Anything but this…”
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