Circle around, my children, and hear me tell the tale of Gathre Thinaip Upi Sufol, "Gathre Bridestring the Priest of Scenarios".
Gathre began life just like you all. A human. He was born in 1026, and for almost twenty-five years, he lived a fairly normal life, gaining moderate skills with shield and armor, learning to swim a bit, but above all, learning to wrestle.
At long last, Gathre decided to become an adventurer. He began playing adult hide-and-seek with town citizens. When he felt he had trained his stealth sufficiently, he ran to the ocean and began to swim in it. For weeks on end, he swam in the ocean, becoming a respectable swimmer and giving him tremendous speed and stamina.
He returned to town and asked the mayor for a mission. The mayor frowned at the request, but pointed him to a nearby cave, Oozedank the New Reticent Hole, wherein dwelt a colossus.
At the very entrance to the cave, Gathre Bridestring was stopped by an antman. Where most of us would have grown discouraged, he continued to attempt passage. In the hours of struggle that followed, Gathre learned much about the ways of real-world wrestling. At the end, Gathre used his newfound skill to switch from wrestling to boxing, beating the antman into submission.
Gathre spent a full three days fighting just inside the entrance, gaining skill at a frightening rate. Eventually, he stumbled a little deeper, and found an iron man. Yet again, Gathre distinguished himself, as he walked straight up to the metal body and began to punch at it just like any other foe. The iron man's metal body resisted his blows, and again the battle lasted for hours. In the end, one choice punch sent the iron man's head flying clean off!
In a moment of brilliance, Gathre noticed that the dead iron man's body had frozen still, just like a statue. And what a statue! Slowed by its weight, Gather hauled it back to town, where he sold it for great profit.
Most of us would count this a success, but Gathre merely purchased some real armor, then went right back into the pit of despair. He spent more time toying with the smaller enemies, learning how best to use his armor, before eventually venturing deeper once more, to again find an iron man, which he killed.
The process repeated many times, each time bringing Gathre back to town with an immense statue, and leaving with more armor. In the end, having bought out the useful armor for several villages in each direction, Gathre had an epiphany. Once or twice while he was fighting, he'd ran into a second iron man while carrying the corpse of the first, and had simply used it as an impromptu mace, to good effect. So Gathre went into the weapon shop and bought himself the best mace in the store, a nice flail.
Back in the cave, it was like night and day. Where before the weaker enemies would take a few minutes to wear down, the flail reduced them to a bloody mess in under a minute. Even the iron men fared little better, and so Gathre continued deeper into the cave.
As he explored one of many twisty passages, each much like the rest, he heard a terrible growl. Turning, he came face to face with the colossus.
Only a few swings into the battle, and Gathre was attacked from behind by a ratman, who missed. Automatically, he swung the flail over his shoulder, causing a sickening CRACK as it connected with the ratman. The ratman left him alone, and so Gathre forgot about it until the colossus collapsed some minutes later, when he turned to find the ratman passed out from pain after his single offhand hit. Gathre smiled. He liked his new flail.
From Oozedank, Gathre went to Boltpits the Blighted Sewers and then The Calamitous Echo of Skewering, two more caves with two more colossuses, and more iron men. At the end, he had so much coin that it was slowing him down, and so he left all his silver and copper in a bag at the town hall, leaving instructions to use it well if he didn't come back for it within a year.
From there, Gathre Bridestring moved afar, until he came to a town troubled by kobolds. They sent him into the kobold cave, Sweetechoes the Scenario of Brides, to dispatch the kobold spearmaster and end the threat.
The kobolds took even less effort than the iron men had, and overnight, Gathre killed half of them, including their spearmaster. So impressive was the carnage, Gathre was given his last name and title: Gathre Bridestring, the Priest of Scenarios.
From there, Gathre moved further east, almost to the edge of the world, and invaded the goblin fortress, Tritenightmares. He barely even counted it as a challenge, notable only because there he became a true master of stealth, able to move as fast in shadows as in light.
Onwards went Gathre, taking out the goblin fortresses of Stolenbad, Hexcraft, Drumplague, Liemess, and Futuremaligned. In the end, it began to bore him, and so he sought out the nearest town, to ask what needed to be done.
The mayor directed him to Regalhells, where dwelt a monster too terrible to describe. Eager for the challenge, Gathre descended into the cave.
After dispatching a few small critters, Gathre rounded a corner and came face-to-face with the nightmare of most any adventurer: The Giant Cave Spider.
However, as has been mentioned, Gathre was no ordinary adventurer. He looked the monster straight in its many eyes and swung his flail. It attacked, and he dodged. He broke one of its legs. It attacked again, and glanced off his armor. He smashed another leg to pulp. For a full three minutes the battle drug on, until finally, the spider was dead, and Gathre still had nary a scratch.
But merely felling one great foe was not enough for Gathre. He had been long bored by easy goblin prey, and thirsted for more. He delved deeper, and felled a second Giant Cave Spider. And a third. And a fourth.
Ahh, but the fifth Giant Cave Spider got lucky, sinking a fang into Gathre's left hand by sliding around the shield. Gathre did what he could, but in the end, the poison was too much for him, and he fell unconscious.
And yet, even unconscious, Gathre was no easy foe. His armor, long melded to his form, deflected all but the best of attacks, and so the aftermath of the fight drug on for two hours until, exhausted, the giant cave spider sunk to the floor, none of its eight legs strong enough to support it anymore. From the ground next to Gathre, the spider continued to tear at him until, after another 15 minutes, his breath left him.
Let this be a lesson to you, children. Train hard, think things through, and don't let your confidence fade, but never forget that you are mortal.
And never let us forget Gathre Bridestring the Priest of Scenarios, the adventurer who slew colossuses, kobolds, goblins, and even giant cave spiders, and in the end died a warrior's death, making a giant cave spider fall over due to exhaustion, long after it had disabled him. Even unconscious and dying, he fought hard.
To Gathre Bridestring!
Edit: Well, I'm clearly not an araneologist. s/compound eyes/multiple eyes/
[ March 25, 2008: Message edited by: FunnyMan ]
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