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<blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 1797932" data-attributes="member: 2795"><p><strong>How I Got My Ass</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">It's my shift on guard duty. Garl, this is dull! And the Suss has absolutely the noisiest crickets and cicadas I've ever heard. A drunken ogre could stagger up on us, and I'd not be able to hear it coming. So, since I'm bored, can't really hear anything except bugs, and it's getting too dark under the canopy to really see much, I figured I'd write some more. This time, how about a story from several months ago, before Mupp and me came to Ulek?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Mupp and I hail from Spinter's Hollow, or, as I like to call it, Sphincter's Hollow or just the Sphincter. Our hometown is a terribly dull place situated in the Kron Hills. The Sphincter is built atop, hanging on to, and within a limestone bluff that drops into Blackberry Pond, so called because of the thick patches of blackberries that grow around it. The top of the bluff is actually a wide plateau that slopes gently down to the arid plains on the opposite side. Blackberry Pond is fed by infrequent rains, an artesian spring, and outflow from the lower caves which are almost entirely filled with water that also comes from natural springs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">The one really great thing about the Sphincter is the skitfish. By Garl, I love skitfish! For you big folk who aren't in the know, skitfish are kind of like salmon, but they live in underground in cave lakes and rivers. They aren't blind like many subterranean fauna, but instead have an antenna tipped with a sac of leathery tissue that glows brightly when the skitfish are excited or hunting. Skitfish don't spawn underground. They swim to the surface, to places like Blackberry Pond, returning year after year. During spawning at night, the pond glows like the full moon, and we have a grand time catching skitfish by the net full. Once filleted and lightly breaded, skitfish is best served grilled with a thick, bittersweet blueberry sauce. The Skitfish Festival is the high point of the year, and we all eat and drink until we're fit to burst, go home to sleep it off, and then do it all over again the next night.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">The skitfish's sac is also useful. It can be harvested, and the phosphorescent liquid is used in the production of sunrods. It can also be fermented with malt, barley, and hops to make skit-ale. It's a sensitive, pale ale that goes great with blackbread and skitfish roe. Drink too much of it, and your eyes glow. During the Skitfish Festival, you hardly need a lantern to find your way home with all the drunks staggering around.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Anyway, my mother's brother, Uncle Zadok, lives on the downslope of the plateau. He raises tough hill ponies and donkeys. Some of his ponies even get bought up by the jarl for war-training. Zadok and some of his hired hands were out working the paddocks after nightfall one evening. There were storms coming, and Zadok didn't want his stock getting caught out in them. While they were trying to get the stock into the stables, a band of kobolds attacked. Cursed little demons! Too lazy to work for what they need. Zadok got a nasty blow to the head, and one of his hired hands was killed. The kobolds made off with a half dozen ponies, including Zadok's two best studs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">It takes what seems like forever for anything important to get down in the Sphincter. The jarl, Hoboam Filbrick, is the major source of the blockage in the Sphincter, to keep up with the metaphor. He's a got a pretty tough guard, including some well-trained cavalry, but Garl forbid he should want them to actually do anything soldierly. Zadok went to court to present his grievance, but all Hoboam promised to do was to "look into things." Well, we Jangles aren't ones for just sitting around while people look into things. Mupp and I told Zadok we'd try to track the kobolds and the ponies back to the <em>krevtiks'</em> lair. <em>Krevtik</em> is hard to translate into Common, but it has a little bit do with a body's parents' marital status and a whole lot do with barnyard animals. It's kind of an adjective, a noun, and a very colorful verb all rolled up into one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Now neither Mupp nor I are what you'd call accomplished trackers, but a gang of kobolds leading a half dozen ponies leaves a reasonably noticeable trail, especially in the soft earth below the bluff side of the plateau, which is where the kobolds were heading. There's a veritable maze of canyons not too far to the south of Blackberry Pond, and the jarl does a lousy job of guarding all the ways in and out. The kobolds infest those canyons like roaches, hiding out in dozens of caves.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Fortunately, we didn't actually have to track the kobolds into the caves. In the nearly two days since their raid, they'd made scant progress into the canyons. Near as we can figure, the kobolds had a falling out over exactly what to do with the ponies now that they had been stolen. Stupid, stupid. You figure out how get rid of the merchadise before you steal it, not after. Rank, stupid amateurs. Mupp and I crept to within sling range, and we both opened fire on one particularly fierce-looking kobold, assuming that he'd probably be in charge somehow. Both sling bullets hit home. Mupp says that it was his shot that cut open the kobold's brow, pouring blood into its eyes, but his shot glanced off its shoulder. Still, even though it was sorely wounded, the damned thing didn't have the decency to die or at least be knocked out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">In the next instant, we were ducking behind rocks as javelins clattered all around us. A few of them even had iron points instead of just being the sharpened sticks that kobolds normally throw. We both got off lucky, praise Garl. Not so much as a scratch, but more trouble was coming. The wounded one did turn out to be one of the leaders, and he ordered his faction to charge our position! I'd wouldn't have believed it unless I'd seen it. Kobolds charging a position. I guess they figured that since they had us outnumbered nearly three to one that we'd be easy pickings. The wounded leader stayed back. So did another rather tough-looking kobold and four others. Matter of fact, they actually backed even farther away in order to just watch the fight, or so we thought at the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Mupp's and my sling bullets dropped one of the kobolds as they were charging. Then we had just enough time to draw our rapiers before they were on us with their spears. We went back-to-back just like we did during our school days when our classmates would pick on us for being twins. Twins are quite rare among gnomes, and have something of a bad reputation because of some tales about how Urdoth Cavehaunter, a sort of legendary bogey who had twins that ate children. Neither Mupp nor I are particularly strong, which isn't unusual for gnomes, but are both cat-like quick. We had two kobolds skewered in nothing flat, and managed to either parry or dodge their spear thrusts. That left two facing us, the wounded leader, and the other group of five that had hung back.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">That's when the magic missile hit me. Turns out the other leader was a sorcerer. By Garl! Those missiles hurt! I staggered, nearly falling into a spear thrust, but Mupp managed to pull me out of the way. The spear point deflected along my leather cuirass and caught Mupp in the meaty part of his leg. The puncture wasn't deep, but it certainly didn't help much. We spun in place, switching foes. I feinted high as another magic missile hit me from behind. Spots swam before my eyes, and I was barely able to capitalize on the opening left by my feint. That kobold died before it hit the ground. Mupp managed to slash a nasty cut on the other one's forearm, and then Mupp began to sing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Praise Garl! The strong, steady stanzas of Roaring Raska's Elegy echoed off the canyon walls. I've heard that poem hundreds of times. We all had to memorize it as children. But when Mupp belts out those words, it puts fire in the blood! We spun again, switching places. I rammed my rapier through the wounded kobold's neck from front to back. The kobold sorcerer cast some other spell, but thank Garl it wasn't another magic missile. To this day, we still don't know what it cast. Mupp laid hands on me, and I could feel some of my wounds knit themselves back together. A bard might not ever learn too many spells, but the few Mupp does know are quite handy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">By this time, all that was left were the sorcerer, his guards, and the one wounded leader, who lit out of their as fast as he could when he saw the last of his faction fall dead. There was nothing between us and the stolen ponies now except the sorcerer and his guards, and so we charged just as Mupp started the second refrain. The sorcerer's guard met us about half way. Mupp and I jumped apart and caught one on his flanks. That kobold never knew what hit it. The other three got in a couple good licks, but we fought like we were possessed. The sorcerer hit me with another damned magic missile, and so I tumbled away from the guards, rolled up right in front of it, and its sickly yellows eye got as big as saucers. Mupp killed another kobold guard, leaving him facing down two of them with me to deal with the sorcerer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">And deal with it I did. When it started that damned arcane yammering again, I right away swung the basket of my rapier across its jaw hard enough so that I heard bone break and saw pointy, little teeth fly. Mupp was on the defensive, parrying and dodging for all he was worth, and getting more and more tired. The sorcerer started to back away from me, blood pouring from its shattered mouth, but I pressed the attack, knocking it down and pinning it to the earth through the torso. Their leader's death cry brought the other two to their senses, and they acted like kobolds are expected to act, which is like cowards. They turned tail and ran, and neither Mupp nor I were inclined to give chase.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">We sat in the dirt and blood near the dead for quite a while, I think, breathing hard and wincing at our cuts and bruises. Then, we rounded up the ponies. They'd run up a cul-de-sac during the brief battle, and we didn't have too much trouble getting them together. We pushed on all night, and made it back to the Sphincter around sunrise. We were both filthy, caked with dirt and blood, and thoroughly exhausted. I collapsed on the settee as soon as we were in Zadok's home. Mupp stayed up and told Zadok and the rest of the family all about our adventure, including the bit about his sling bullet hitting the one leader in the head.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">Aunt Sashama fixed a veritable feast for us the next evening, including skitfish with blueberry sauce and two kegs of skit-ale. All of our eyes were glowing that night. Our parents, Durandababel and Muluppa, vacilated between pride and condemnation for our brash actions. Even our older brother Duruppa, normally the apple of everyone's eye, was congratulatory. Duruppa is part of the jarl's guard, and he was very outspoken even in the jarl's court about how the guard should've went out to help Zadok. Towards the end of the evening, Zadok said he owed us for our "heroism." Mupp, trying to play it noble, said no gifts were necessary.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Garamond'">But not me. I knew Mupp and me were planning on leaving the Sphincter to seek our fortunes elsewhere, and so I asked Zadok for a pony. Unfortunately, Zadok didn't think we were <em>that</em> heroic - the old skinflint! - and he gave me a donkey instead. And that, my diary, is how I got My Ass.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mark Chance, post: 1797932, member: 2795"] [b]How I Got My Ass[/b] [FONT=Garamond]It's my shift on guard duty. Garl, this is dull! And the Suss has absolutely the noisiest crickets and cicadas I've ever heard. A drunken ogre could stagger up on us, and I'd not be able to hear it coming. So, since I'm bored, can't really hear anything except bugs, and it's getting too dark under the canopy to really see much, I figured I'd write some more. This time, how about a story from several months ago, before Mupp and me came to Ulek? Mupp and I hail from Spinter's Hollow, or, as I like to call it, Sphincter's Hollow or just the Sphincter. Our hometown is a terribly dull place situated in the Kron Hills. The Sphincter is built atop, hanging on to, and within a limestone bluff that drops into Blackberry Pond, so called because of the thick patches of blackberries that grow around it. The top of the bluff is actually a wide plateau that slopes gently down to the arid plains on the opposite side. Blackberry Pond is fed by infrequent rains, an artesian spring, and outflow from the lower caves which are almost entirely filled with water that also comes from natural springs. The one really great thing about the Sphincter is the skitfish. By Garl, I love skitfish! For you big folk who aren't in the know, skitfish are kind of like salmon, but they live in underground in cave lakes and rivers. They aren't blind like many subterranean fauna, but instead have an antenna tipped with a sac of leathery tissue that glows brightly when the skitfish are excited or hunting. Skitfish don't spawn underground. They swim to the surface, to places like Blackberry Pond, returning year after year. During spawning at night, the pond glows like the full moon, and we have a grand time catching skitfish by the net full. Once filleted and lightly breaded, skitfish is best served grilled with a thick, bittersweet blueberry sauce. The Skitfish Festival is the high point of the year, and we all eat and drink until we're fit to burst, go home to sleep it off, and then do it all over again the next night. The skitfish's sac is also useful. It can be harvested, and the phosphorescent liquid is used in the production of sunrods. It can also be fermented with malt, barley, and hops to make skit-ale. It's a sensitive, pale ale that goes great with blackbread and skitfish roe. Drink too much of it, and your eyes glow. During the Skitfish Festival, you hardly need a lantern to find your way home with all the drunks staggering around. Anyway, my mother's brother, Uncle Zadok, lives on the downslope of the plateau. He raises tough hill ponies and donkeys. Some of his ponies even get bought up by the jarl for war-training. Zadok and some of his hired hands were out working the paddocks after nightfall one evening. There were storms coming, and Zadok didn't want his stock getting caught out in them. While they were trying to get the stock into the stables, a band of kobolds attacked. Cursed little demons! Too lazy to work for what they need. Zadok got a nasty blow to the head, and one of his hired hands was killed. The kobolds made off with a half dozen ponies, including Zadok's two best studs. It takes what seems like forever for anything important to get down in the Sphincter. The jarl, Hoboam Filbrick, is the major source of the blockage in the Sphincter, to keep up with the metaphor. He's a got a pretty tough guard, including some well-trained cavalry, but Garl forbid he should want them to actually do anything soldierly. Zadok went to court to present his grievance, but all Hoboam promised to do was to "look into things." Well, we Jangles aren't ones for just sitting around while people look into things. Mupp and I told Zadok we'd try to track the kobolds and the ponies back to the [i]krevtiks'[/i] lair. [i]Krevtik[/i] is hard to translate into Common, but it has a little bit do with a body's parents' marital status and a whole lot do with barnyard animals. It's kind of an adjective, a noun, and a very colorful verb all rolled up into one. Now neither Mupp nor I are what you'd call accomplished trackers, but a gang of kobolds leading a half dozen ponies leaves a reasonably noticeable trail, especially in the soft earth below the bluff side of the plateau, which is where the kobolds were heading. There's a veritable maze of canyons not too far to the south of Blackberry Pond, and the jarl does a lousy job of guarding all the ways in and out. The kobolds infest those canyons like roaches, hiding out in dozens of caves. Fortunately, we didn't actually have to track the kobolds into the caves. In the nearly two days since their raid, they'd made scant progress into the canyons. Near as we can figure, the kobolds had a falling out over exactly what to do with the ponies now that they had been stolen. Stupid, stupid. You figure out how get rid of the merchadise before you steal it, not after. Rank, stupid amateurs. Mupp and I crept to within sling range, and we both opened fire on one particularly fierce-looking kobold, assuming that he'd probably be in charge somehow. Both sling bullets hit home. Mupp says that it was his shot that cut open the kobold's brow, pouring blood into its eyes, but his shot glanced off its shoulder. Still, even though it was sorely wounded, the damned thing didn't have the decency to die or at least be knocked out. In the next instant, we were ducking behind rocks as javelins clattered all around us. A few of them even had iron points instead of just being the sharpened sticks that kobolds normally throw. We both got off lucky, praise Garl. Not so much as a scratch, but more trouble was coming. The wounded one did turn out to be one of the leaders, and he ordered his faction to charge our position! I'd wouldn't have believed it unless I'd seen it. Kobolds charging a position. I guess they figured that since they had us outnumbered nearly three to one that we'd be easy pickings. The wounded leader stayed back. So did another rather tough-looking kobold and four others. Matter of fact, they actually backed even farther away in order to just watch the fight, or so we thought at the time. Mupp's and my sling bullets dropped one of the kobolds as they were charging. Then we had just enough time to draw our rapiers before they were on us with their spears. We went back-to-back just like we did during our school days when our classmates would pick on us for being twins. Twins are quite rare among gnomes, and have something of a bad reputation because of some tales about how Urdoth Cavehaunter, a sort of legendary bogey who had twins that ate children. Neither Mupp nor I are particularly strong, which isn't unusual for gnomes, but are both cat-like quick. We had two kobolds skewered in nothing flat, and managed to either parry or dodge their spear thrusts. That left two facing us, the wounded leader, and the other group of five that had hung back. That's when the magic missile hit me. Turns out the other leader was a sorcerer. By Garl! Those missiles hurt! I staggered, nearly falling into a spear thrust, but Mupp managed to pull me out of the way. The spear point deflected along my leather cuirass and caught Mupp in the meaty part of his leg. The puncture wasn't deep, but it certainly didn't help much. We spun in place, switching foes. I feinted high as another magic missile hit me from behind. Spots swam before my eyes, and I was barely able to capitalize on the opening left by my feint. That kobold died before it hit the ground. Mupp managed to slash a nasty cut on the other one's forearm, and then Mupp began to sing. Praise Garl! The strong, steady stanzas of Roaring Raska's Elegy echoed off the canyon walls. I've heard that poem hundreds of times. We all had to memorize it as children. But when Mupp belts out those words, it puts fire in the blood! We spun again, switching places. I rammed my rapier through the wounded kobold's neck from front to back. The kobold sorcerer cast some other spell, but thank Garl it wasn't another magic missile. To this day, we still don't know what it cast. Mupp laid hands on me, and I could feel some of my wounds knit themselves back together. A bard might not ever learn too many spells, but the few Mupp does know are quite handy. By this time, all that was left were the sorcerer, his guards, and the one wounded leader, who lit out of their as fast as he could when he saw the last of his faction fall dead. There was nothing between us and the stolen ponies now except the sorcerer and his guards, and so we charged just as Mupp started the second refrain. The sorcerer's guard met us about half way. Mupp and I jumped apart and caught one on his flanks. That kobold never knew what hit it. The other three got in a couple good licks, but we fought like we were possessed. The sorcerer hit me with another damned magic missile, and so I tumbled away from the guards, rolled up right in front of it, and its sickly yellows eye got as big as saucers. Mupp killed another kobold guard, leaving him facing down two of them with me to deal with the sorcerer. And deal with it I did. When it started that damned arcane yammering again, I right away swung the basket of my rapier across its jaw hard enough so that I heard bone break and saw pointy, little teeth fly. Mupp was on the defensive, parrying and dodging for all he was worth, and getting more and more tired. The sorcerer started to back away from me, blood pouring from its shattered mouth, but I pressed the attack, knocking it down and pinning it to the earth through the torso. Their leader's death cry brought the other two to their senses, and they acted like kobolds are expected to act, which is like cowards. They turned tail and ran, and neither Mupp nor I were inclined to give chase. We sat in the dirt and blood near the dead for quite a while, I think, breathing hard and wincing at our cuts and bruises. Then, we rounded up the ponies. They'd run up a cul-de-sac during the brief battle, and we didn't have too much trouble getting them together. We pushed on all night, and made it back to the Sphincter around sunrise. We were both filthy, caked with dirt and blood, and thoroughly exhausted. I collapsed on the settee as soon as we were in Zadok's home. Mupp stayed up and told Zadok and the rest of the family all about our adventure, including the bit about his sling bullet hitting the one leader in the head. Aunt Sashama fixed a veritable feast for us the next evening, including skitfish with blueberry sauce and two kegs of skit-ale. All of our eyes were glowing that night. Our parents, Durandababel and Muluppa, vacilated between pride and condemnation for our brash actions. Even our older brother Duruppa, normally the apple of everyone's eye, was congratulatory. Duruppa is part of the jarl's guard, and he was very outspoken even in the jarl's court about how the guard should've went out to help Zadok. Towards the end of the evening, Zadok said he owed us for our "heroism." Mupp, trying to play it noble, said no gifts were necessary. But not me. I knew Mupp and me were planning on leaving the Sphincter to seek our fortunes elsewhere, and so I asked Zadok for a pony. Unfortunately, Zadok didn't think we were [i]that[/i] heroic - the old skinflint! - and he gave me a donkey instead. And that, my diary, is how I got My Ass.[/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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