"Just Another Post" or "Coming Soon to Theater near You"
Welcome Story Fans to Another Exciting Post!
That's right D'shai, tonights post should be something really amazing.
The sky is clear and the winds are blowing from left to right across your radio dial and the characters should be hitting the field any moment now.
I'm really excited about this post, D'Shai. The writers have had a few days to think strategy and I think the readers are really going to have their hands full with this very hungry duo.
Let's look at a replay of last week's matchup:
Us said:
“Brother Theo, the streets are covered with kobolds and grey skinned dwarves, and at least some of them are armed. Additionally, regular patrols consisting of four centaur ants – the same as the ones we fought both in Icemist and again on the way toward our present position – circle the rim of the crater. I can’t be sure of how many patrols are in the rotation.”
Look at that great use of the basics - prepositions, adverbs, these guys are really on a roll.
You can say that again, D'Shai.
Look at that great use of the basics - prepositions, adverbs, these guys are really on a roll.
And now a word from our sponsors:
Tip O' The Day said:
Feeling confused? Unsure of where you're headed? Why not use a compass?
And we're back, just in time for the start of this great exhibition! Here's the wind up, the pitch, and...
*****
Ander winced as he rubbed his sword arm and ambled along, keeping pace with his slowly moving companions. “Remind me not to try to lift you over a ledge again, Brother,” he murmured in low tones, “I always thought old men wasted away to nothing, not packed on weight like a bear ready to sleep away the winter.”
“This old bear has more than a few years left in him, cub,” the priest rumbled, “though I’m not sure how many I’ll get to live out if this plan of yours doesn’t work.”
Ander chuckled quietly, “Meepo’s plan, Brother. Credit where credit is due.”
“Credit indeed,” Ashrem sniffed. “Walking directly into a nest of creatures preparing to tear the flesh from our bones does not qualify as a plan.”
“Is that what they’re doing?” gasped Pack as his face went pale. “I thought you said they were building roads!”
The woodsman bent over to clap his friend on the shoulder “I don’t think he meant that literally, Pack. And Ash, it’s not all that bad, in fact…”
Ashrem cut off the young warrior, “Look ahead of you, Ander.” The woodsman glanced forward toward where Meepo walked hand in hand with Aurora a score of paces in front of the four warriors. “That little, scaly, dogfaced cretin is planning on not only leading us directly into the den of a powerful madman intent on child sacrifice, but leading us there while drawing as much attention to us as mortally possible. We are placing our lives, the lives of one half dozen of Icemist’s children, and the lives of the gods know how many countless others in its dirt encrusted claws. Can you truthfully say you are comfortable with this ‘plan’?”
Ander sighed heavily, “Ash, we went over this before. There’s just no way for us to make it all the way down to where those kids are unless we let Meepo announce us and use the kobolds as a cover. Even if we manage to get all the way down to this Master, break the children out, and make for the hills we’re going to get caught. You know this, Ash. Bones! You’re the one who brought it up to begin with!”
The woodsman fumed for a moment and then continued, “Look, Ashrem. I’m not exactly happy about having Meepo talk us up to the kobolds in order to get to this Master in the first place, but we decided – as a team – that our best chance is to bluff our way into see that bone-dust bastard, talk to him if we can, kill him if we have to, and get the kids out in the confusion.”
“The lad is right, Ashrem,” said Theo. “We really didn’t have much choice in it.”
“You are not telling me anything that I do not already know, Brother,” growled the scout. Ander could swear he heard a touch of anger and annoyance in his friend’s voice. “I however do not believe that that
thing is the right one to speak on our behalf.”
Pack’s voice rose up from between the Ashrem and Theo, “Meepo’s always done right by us so far, Ashrem. He might not be very smart or anything…”
“You have a gift for understatement, my friend,” Ashrem said under his breath. Ander didn’t think the halfling heard the remark as he rambled.
“…but he guided us past the goblins when it counted, and if it wasn’t for him I think Yusdrayl would’ve tried to get rid of us from the beginning, though I guess that telling us where the kids were was a way to do that anyway, and she did try to get us killed when she sent us after the rats without telling us, and…”
“I think he understands, Pack,” Theo rumbled, interrupting the bard much to Ander’s relief, “I think he understands.”
The companions walked in silence as they neared the first kobold checkpost. “Well, whether we are ready for this or not,” Ashrem said, “it starts now.”
Ander looked ahead to where Meepo hailed the kobolds in his native tongue. Aurora had stopped while Meepo ran forward, his hands in the air. The woodsman gripped his ironwood staff until his knuckles turned white. “Yes my friends, that is does.”
* * *
Kobolds swarmed around the companions, fading in and out of the shadows of the moss-light, stomping and chanting in their strange speech. It was all the woodsman could do to keep from bashing the little creatures as they danced about the small band. When the small celebration seemed to be dying down, Ander leaned forward over Aurora’s shoulder and whispered, “What’s going on?”
Aurora beamed as she answered back a little louder than Ander would have liked. “Meepo just told them that he is the Dragon Keeper and that he has come here to free them from the slave driver that rules over them and take them to their new master.”
“What!?,” was almost all the response the young man could muster. “What happened to the plan? What happened to the ‘we’re here to see the Master’?”
“I warned you, Ander,” Ashrem hissed between growls obviously meant to ward off any kobold that strayed too close to the scout. “If we pull back now, we may still be able to cover our trail enough to limit the inevitable pursuit to a manageable level.”
“Ander, Ander look!” Pack cried, nearly choking the woodsman as he yanked on the larger man’s cloak. “Do you think they’ll let me go next?”
The young warrior looked to see Meepo being hoisted on the shoulders of his kin while they yipped and barked excitedly. “Isn’t it amazing?” Aurora said, a smile plastered on her pretty face. “He’s also telling them that we’re here to help and that they should give us passage so that we can go kill the Master! We’ll be able to get straight to the Master and get the children!”
Ander tried to give a half-hearted smile back at the young sorceress, but his stomach threatened to rebel. To make matters worse the kobolds had begun yanking at his clothes trying to pull him forward toward the keep-topped rock formation at the center of the city. Surprised growls and yelps from his companions told the woodsman his friends faced a similar situation.
But without warning the throng of kobolds suddenly vanished as the thunder-like claps of slavers’ whips resounded through the square. Within heartbeats the only kobold in sight was Meepo, who stood defiantly in the middle if the street. He seemed rooted to the spot between two camps: the companions and a company of armored grey skinned dwarves.
The leader - at least Ander assumed it was the leader - moved forward toward Meepo. The dwarf stopped inches from the Dragon Keeper’s face, staring at the kobold as if his glare alone should have been enough to break the shorter creature’s resolve. Suddenly the dwarf began spitting words out that sounded more like grinding stone than any language. The verbal onslaught continued, emphasized occasionally by a whip crack and followed by laughter from the remaining dwarves, but through it all the small kobold held his ground never once wavering in his own glare. When the lead dwarf finished, a cruel smile just visible through his beard, he leaned back as if already amused by what the kobold might have to say in his defense.
As if reading the woodsman’s mind Aurora leaned back into the young man’s chest to again translate: “I am Meepo, Dragon Keeper of the Blood Claw Clan,” she whispered while Meepo rattled on in his native tongue, “and I have come with the mercenaries carrying a package the Master sent for. Move aside, or I will make you move aside.”
“Great. We need to get ready for a fight,” Ander whispered back as the amused look vanished from the dwarf’s face as fast as the kobolds had scattered before him just moments before. Ander glanced over his shoulder and saw Ashrem’s hand already moving toward his sword. He caught the scout’s eye as the dwarf shouted at the kobold. He signaled to his friend with a slight movement of his head toward the back of the dwarven company, but before he could give the order to attack he heard a strange chant from Meepo.
The kobold’s voice was filled with power. It did not request, it commanded in a familiar way. In fact, its tone was the same as Aurora’s when she…
He’s not going to…
Meepo brought his hands up underneath his jaw and roared, but instead of sound coming from his tiny maw, fire flowed from it, singing the dwarf leader.
Bones! He just cast a spell!
Ander wasn’t alone in his surprise, as the leader fell flat on his backside, patting out the wisps of flame in his beard. The other dwarves looked for a moment like they would cause a hue and cry, but were suddenly surrounded by a horde of kobolds. The dwarves gave way, obviously afraid of what a crazed mob of the short scaly creatures would do. Around the friends, the kobolds chanted with Meepo leading them. The woodsman looked to Brother Theo, who simply shrugged and moved after the throng.
Ander sighed and walked after them,
I think that’s the last time I ever underestimate you, Meepo the Dragon Keeper.
*****
Next Time!
"Does Anyone Actually Read These Things?" or "Is This Thing On?"
Thanks Enk! When I tried posting to it, it wouldn't let me...???
Ya gotta love that! I guess his love for Aurora is having a positive effect on his minimal intelligence.
