A it is then.
.
Jadugarr considered the task, and finally agreed to do as the bowmaster asked. "Anything to help my kinfolk", the horse-elf/man/dwarf/pig/whatever said, striking an impressive pose for a passing commoner.
Jadugarr began walking out of the settlement, when a peculiarly dressed kentaur trotted up to him, jangling all the way due to a few bells stuck on to a ridiculous lopsided hat he was wearing, and introduced himself to Jadugarr as Rakbin Dixilcitu, more commonly known around these parts as
"Smiley".
Jadugarr grunted, and then offered his name to the odd kentaur in return. This was met with a most unusual comment.
Jadugarr was taken aback for a moment, and then simply grunted again and began walking west, in the direction of the cave. Soon, a jangling noise started behind him, and he turned around to find the apparently color-blind kentaur standing proudly before him, bells tinkling softly as a huge grin spread across his face.
"Eya! Where are you off to?"
Jadugarr replied; "I'm going down into a cave to find a cyclops and rip its eye out. That good enough?"
'Smiley' Rakbin considered this for a moment, and then excersized his namesake facial expression and said "Coo! Sounds fun! Can I come?"
Again, Jadugarr was confused by this peculiar upstart. After a time of consideration, he said yes. Upon hearing this, the jester (for that was surely what this kentaur fancied himself as) did an odd little jig, the bells on his hat and other clothing setting off a veritable cacophany.
Well, Jadugarr thought, at least he'll distract the cyclops.
And so this now-merry now-troupe set off to the west in search of glory, fame, and... Well, that's really all you get for slaying beasts these days, now isn't it? Cash is a bit tight in these times. In fact, nobody seems to have any money anymore, except for goblins and shopkeepers. Where they get it from, nobody knows.
Along the way, Smiley kept humming or softly singing a small tune. When the nearby woods were quiet (a none-too-common occasion), Jadugarr could pick up on a few of the lyrics. He appeared to be singing a little ditty about "Brave, brave Sir Rakbin".
Damned fool thinks he's a knight, Jadugarr thought to himself. It wasn't any stranger than the rest of him, though.
Eventually, they came upon the pit-like entrance to the cave. Jadugarr reflected on a simpler time, when caves were horizontal instead of vertical, and then crouched down to begin the descent. A sharp jangling noise followed his movements. Damn that fool...
"Eya! What're you doing?"
Jadugarr briefly considered detailing the finer points of stealth to the jester, realized that he wouldn't be able to grasp the concept, and then stood up and walked normally into the cave.
The inside of the cave appeared to be a tunnel network dug into bright red sand. At first glance, it looked like a gloomy corridor of hell, rife with demons and tortured souls, their burning agonies shouted out into the blackness of the abyss for eternity, and their-
"Dammit Smiley, back off!" Jadugarr roared, once he realized that the jester had snuck up on him and begun whispering this demonic imagery into his ear.
The fool giggled impishly, bells seeming to laugh along with him as the jostled about on his loony cap. But the jester had planted a seed of fear inside Jadugarr's mind. It really did look somewhat hellish down here, and he had heard of that special demon of such dark places as these. Jadugarr's mind was flooded with the horrific tales of torn flesh and mangled limbs, leering skulls the only remains of foolhardy adventurers who dared step into the foul beast's domain...
Giant Cave Swallows. Jadugarr shivered slighty at the thought. He gathered his frayed nerves, tied them into a sturdy rope once more, and ventured deeper into the cave.
As they made their way through the tunnels, Jadugarr would unconsciously speed up his pace, causing Smiley to lag behind. When he realized this, he would stop for a few moments and wait for the jingling, jangling, tinkling and giggling jester to catch up. The unfortunate side of this was that the jester was easily distracted, and would oftentimes find a very interesting pebble or sand pattern while running to catch up, causing him to crash blindly into Jadugarr. This loud and disorganized ballet continued for some time, until they stepped into a small chamber and heard a massive voice bellow at them.
"I AM CANYOU VOICECHAT!", the beast yelled at them. Apparently the villagers had misheard the beast's name.
The cyclops took a deep breath and shouted again at the adventurers; "PREPARE TO DIE!".
Jadugarr quickly let out his whip from the tight coil it had been in, readying it for battle. With his shield hand, he quickly grabbed up a fistful of sand from the cavern floor. If he could land some of the grainy particles into the creature's only eye, it would be significantly weakened.
Jadugarr stood a few feet away from the approaching cyclops, and hurled his sand at the beast, hitting it harmlessly in the chest. The beast was quite sweaty however, and so all the sand stuck to its torso, making the cyclops look slightly reddish and even hairier than he already was.
The massive one-eye crashed into Jadugarr, bowling him over onto the sand. Although he had managed to position himself during the charge so that he was not harmed, he now found himself in the very bad position of lying on the ground underneath a hairy, sweaty, sand-encrusted and very angry cyclops.
The cyclops punched at him again, but Jadugarr brought his shield up and deflected the blow with a rich *bong* sound. Jadugarr attempted to seize this opportunity, and cracked his whip against the creature's abdomen. This cause no more effect than a loud smacking sound as the whip bounced off of the fiend's thick skin.
This went on for some time, Jadugarr fighting from his prone position and blocking every blow the massive humanoid threw at him, while returning his own equally ineffective lashings.
Smiley was standing completely motionless, obviously transfixed by the spectacle of these two warriors fighting each other. "WHY DON'T YOU GRAB SOME DAMNED PRICKLE BERRIES AND ENJOY THE SHOW?!" Jadugarr hollered at him, blocking an otherwise direct hit from the cyclops as he did so.
For a moment, Smiley looked like he was about to take the suggestion to heart, when he finally realized why he was there and began moving towards the pair.
Jadugarr blocked yet another punch and then attempted to stand up in order to give himself a better position to fight from. However, it was at this moment that Smiley decided to join the fight. From Jadugarr's position.
Jadugarr began to crawl out from underneath the jester's hooves when Smiley attacked the monster, his blows flapping against the cyclops' hide. And then a sickening crunch as the cyclops swung his arm in an arc and landed it against the jester's left arm, mangling it beyond recognition.
Jadugarr stood up just as Smiley was falling down to take his place on the cavern floor, momentarily stunned by the powerful punch. Jadugarr aims a snap at the towering beast's left arm, only to have it glance away again. In the mean time, the cyclops had apparently changed objectives from Jadugarr to the jester, and grabbed Smiley's right thumb with his bicep. This was not an easy move for the massive beast, and he had to double over and position his arm in just the exact spot in order to grab that exact digit.
Jadugarr, realizing that simply smacking the cyclops with his whip would do no good, changed his tact. He lashed out at the creature's neck, wrapping the whip around it tightly. The cyclops, noticing this, shoved jadugarr onto the ground before returning his attention to the prone jester, kicking the kentaur's equine posterior in a most literal fashion, loud snapping noises emanating from the point of impact.
But Jadugarr had what he wanted. He shifted his grip on the whip's iron-inlaid handle, and set his body into the sand for purchase. Unfortunately, the cyclops realizes what is happening, and grabs at the makeshift noose before it can be tightened sufficiently. In response, Jadugarr hooks his left rear leg around the monster's left ring finger. Not an easy task, by any means.
Jadugarr attmepts to stand up again, but the cyclops bowls into him, knocking him over and loosening Jadugarr's leghold on his finger. Again, Jadugarr reaches out and grabs the monster's right third toe with his shield, only to have the grip once again broken so easily.
Jadugarr stands up as the cyclops turns his attention back on the prone jester, pummeling his left front leg into a mush. Jadugarr attempts to hook Canyou's neck with his whip again, but the beast sees it coming and steps away with frightening speed. Jadugarr follows him, and lashes out at the neck again, this time with the cyclops backed up against a wall and unable to dodge away.
They fight with each other like this for some time, the cyclops repeatedly ripping the whip away from his neck and Jadugarr persistently snapping it back into place, only to lose his hold before it can be tightened.
After a time, the cyclops turns a frustrated blow at Smiley, adding a bruise to the jester's not-insignificant list of injuries. When Jadugarr attempts to place the chokehold again, the cyclops instead grabs onto Jadugarr's helmet, shoves him out from underneath it, and uses it to crush to jester's chest bones in a horrifying crunch.
Jadugarr finally decides that his whip will get him nowhere in this fight, and hurls it at the beast. Needless to say, a flying piece of line does little against such a large creature (or any other, for that matter), and the cyclops continues with squishing the jester's hindquarters into a paste unabated.
Still the jester clings to life, although barely. At this, Jadugarr hurls himself at the cyclops and uses his hand instead of his whip to grasp the creature's throat. This is quickly released as the cyclops runs into him again and bowls him over yet again, and Jadugarr frantically grabs the beast's thumb with his leg.
Using this as a distraction, Jadugarr pushes thought of strangulation from his mind for a moment, and focuses on the orb centered in the creature's brow. That moist, shiny, rage-filled eye. A fitting prize by any means.
Jadugarr grabs hold of the cyclops' face, and begins to squirm his hand frantically in order to not only keep his grasp, but to pluck out the fiend's eye as well. Something which is apparently none-too-easy for someone who is constantly being knocked over by a giant one-eyed brawler.
After more wriggling and adjusting, a most strange thing happened. The cyclops simply fell over, rivers of sweat rushing down his body while heaving breaths shook his chest. The thing had tired itself out!
With new vigor, Jadugarr continued his fruitless attempts at doing something to the hulking son-of-Poseidon.
Jadugarr was beginning to feel slightly tired himself, and gave up on trying to strangle the damn lump of flesh. He began working his way around the cyclops towards his whip.
After picking up his whip again, Jadugarr began feverishly whipping the cyclops. This, unfortunately, produced similarly disheartening results.
Jadugarr went back to attempting to strangle the beast with his hand. At one point during the goings-on, Smiley woke up from his blackout and then passed out again unhelpfully.
And so it went on. Jadugarr attempting to find purchase on the cyclops' writhing neck, and his hand continuously slipping away due to the sweat.
All the while, the cyclops would throw an arm or a leg at the kentaur in an attmept to harm or dislodge him in some way, and this eventually took its full toll and the beast, as he passed out and began to snore uproariously in Jadugarr's arms. Now, perhaps, the kentauri warrior would be able to hold his hand still.
And indeed, not long after the creature had fallen asleep, he managed to place a chokehold on the cyclops and began to throttle it. After some time, jadugarr remembered something, and released his hand from the beast's throat, moving it farther up to its head and, more importantly, eye. With a plunging movement akin to a vulture tearing a strip of emat from a carcass, the large eye was torn forcefully out of the cyclops' head, leaving a gaping hole behind.
This pleased Jadugarr immensely. As although the creature was still knocked out, he felt he had gotten some form of vengeance against the cyclops, which was quickly suffocating due to the mass of mangled bones blocking its airflow.
Jadugarr decided to make the creature's last dreams as unpleasant as possible, and snapped the creature's neck, causing the body to go limp, including the hand which had been holding Jadugarr's helmet up to this point.
This done, Jadugarr sat back and quietly watched the great cyclops die in front of him. When that was finished, he picked up Smiley and began to carry him out of the cave, heading back to the settlement to give the news of glorious victory.
.
.
That's not actually a drunk, she (yes, she) was just some peasant who happened to have a high enough level of adventurer blood in her veins. And you may have saved my life back there, Smiley. Remember to wear more bells.
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Topic: Death and Glory! (Read 58244 times)