How to Be an Adventurer- World of Gimmok

by Damien Hanson

“No more nonsense, Bern,” the barbarian admonished. “Got it?!”

  “Cross my heart, bro,” Bern Sandros promised him, crossed fingers well hidden behind his back. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Carric Smith sped out of the entryway, and Yenrab lumbered along in his wake. The crumpled and confused tavern folk took to their feet behind them, screaming insults and hate as they did so.

  The party grouped together on the porch, with the mob scrabbling up and forward like the newly risen dead right behind them, and a huddle of confused drunks before and about them.

  They were confused and afraid. It was a strange place with strange people, and they had no idea what they could do.

  “Quick, over here. I can get you to safety!” the man with the coiffed blond hair beckoned to them from the steps up the porch.

  Bern looked and grimaced. Destiny, he thought, a cloud of rage settling over his face.

  “I have a place where you can weather this. It happens more commonly than you might expect,” he informed them in quick words, his eyes darting to the forming mob. “Though not nearly so late in the season, usually.”

  He gave them a wry eye.

  “Your band is a bit of trouble, isn’t it?” he asked them all with a grin.

  There was a barrage of confused responses.

  “No!”

  “Not at all!”

  “Sometimes.”

  “It sure is!” Tracy beamed ecstatically, enjoying every second of it.

  “We gotta go somewhere, gang,” Yenrab pronounced, looking back over his shoulder. “Those cityfolk back there aren’t going to just put us in a cage and call over the shaman to judge us. The Great Bear has us in his thoughts, and this guy just told us he’s here to help. Lead on, friend!”

  The man’s teeth practically gleamed, the moon’s rays glinting off of its clean and meticulous surface, as his lips turned up into a mischievous grin, and he turned to lead the way.

  Chapter 26: On the Path to Destiny

  How to be an Adventurer—So You Angered a God

  Well, it was bound to happen. You picked up a magical book after someone told you it was your doom, and now, doom is being promised.

  Don’t fret! The idea of doom is something adventurers should embrace. Because, well, it happens to us all eventually, now, doesn’t it?

  The stalwart adventurer should stride, strong and firm, into the face of overwhelming fate because, unlike overwhelming combat, fate can be manipulated and changed.

  Look about for divine help and guidance. If one god promises doom, at least one other is looking out for your victory. Expect more friends, unexpected advice, and maybe even a heartfelt talk to get the party back on track. For in the center of the maelstrom always lies the calm of the storm.

  ***

  “So, what is your name, stranger? And why are you helping us?” Yenrab asked as they fled the scene.

  “I am Svein Novogord. I hail from Corster. I am a former pup to the House of Novogord, though those days are now at an end . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Don’t talk if you don’t want to,” Carric said in a kind voice between heaving breaths. Running with a lute and a harmonica wired to your head isn’t the easiest task around.

  “It’s a long story better told over drinks somewhere safe, I expect,” Svein said, almost entirely unwinded as he loped ahead of them.

  “Well,” allowed Yenrab as he himself ran in a stride forward upon wild and untamed legs. “You still haven’t told us why you are here to help.”

  “I’m new to the city, newly away from my homeland, and looking for work. It’s late in the season, and adventurers don’t seem very common here this time of year. Something I wish I had known before I had left . . .”—Svein paused, not out of breath but not certain how to proceed—“although I suppose it would not have made any difference about my departure.”

  “Dude, stop doing that. Moody gaps in your narrative are just annoying.” The party was surprised. Tracy was never irritated, and yet he certainly seemed to be now.

  “Okay, okay,” the human surrendered, also surprised at the rancor manifesting in the Freemeetian. “So, I saw you all go in, and I thought, well now, there’s a group that might need a sword arm. And so, I waited. Then I heard the ruckus and figured you’d pissed off the locals in some fashion. And so, I prepped a quick escape for you lot. And, the way I see it, if you let me join, equal shares yadda yadda; we can all camp out at my place for the night, and you can let me in on future missions.”

  “Yeah. Yeah! Sounds good,” huffed and puffed Yenrab.

  The others gasped or stated their consent.

  “No worries, my friends. A bit of bad luck repeated is a good omen where I come from. Now, over that hill, right around that general store, and . . .”

  “What did I say about pauses, Svein?” Tracy asked in a firm voice.

  “Right. Forgive me. Alright, just follow me. We are about there.”

  ***

  The party slipped up and around the general store, a place that normally seems bland, but the style of the town really gave some life to it, even in the dead of night. Up ahead was a small house in need of a bit of repair. An obvious rental but also a great place to shake off the night’s travails.

  The noble took a place at the door, and as a show to his breeding, opened the door for his new companions, ushering them into his new but temporary abode.

  “Welcome to your home away from home.” Svein grinned. “Now, what are we all going to be doing together?”

  “We are going to figure something out. Right now,” Carric exclaimed. The rest of the party looked at him, worried.

  “This thing took me over, guys. It took me over and told me that we all leave right now and throw the book into the sea or else we burn forever.”

  “Huh,” their new friend Svein responded, suddenly regretting his decision to cast his lot in with them all.

  Fishing into Yenrab’s gigantic pack, Carric fished out the ever-glowing tome and threw it as hard as he could at their new friend. It wasn’t very hard.

  “Ouch,” he stated out of reflex, not at all hurt but backing off from them a bit more regardless.

  Yenrab nodded, impressed with the display.

  “Yep, you are one of us.”

  Bern snorted. “Welcome to death row, you unlucky bastard.”

  “I’m, well, what? I am a man of consummated union,” Svein stumbled out, a bit wary but also intrigued.

  “We haven’t checked it all out, guys. Svein, pick up the tome,” Tracy commanded, looking quite intense as he did so.

  The noble warrior hefted it up easily. The rest of them looked at each other and nodded.

  “Can you read the title?” Yenrab asked. Bern scowled, becoming crankier by the moment.

  “Well, yes. I suppose that is what this is all about?” he asked politely. “None of you read the Corsteran dialect? You don’t have to hit me with books you can’t read.”

  “Mate, we can all read the damn thing. It just means you are trapped in this god trap with the rest of us,” Bern Sandros added, quite upset.

  “Ah, well, I didn’t expect such a group of language scholars,” Svein replied in a little bit of a huff. He was starting to lose his patient cool.

  A dark cloud rode the waves of Carric’s face as he watched and listened. He couldn’t shake the terror of the bar, and wasn’t about to put up with this nonsense.

  “Look, listen, and hear. This book reads in every language and has been giving us advice on how to become great adventurers. And that apparently means that we all get to be great heroes with great songs about us, but we also die. Which is fine because, you know what, I think and breathe that stuff, but it also apparently means that gods and demons can swoop in and keep you from ever making the music you love, and this is all just making me crazy!” he finished as he snatched the book back and opened it up to its table of contents. He scrolled the text with his finger, then stopped and scowled.

  “Guys,
” he added, looking up at all of them, “I can make out an entry for gods.”

  ***

  The God Gharag was not always such. He lived in a time so long ago in an era wildly different from today.

  Gharag, back when he was a mortal, lived a life of misery. His father was killed and the new chief of Tribe Heartstabber exiled the goblin and his family from the tribe. In the wilderness, the man quickly showed tremendous ability in everything he attempted or performed. After achieving adulthood, Gharag returned with his family to the tribe, standing well-muscled and tall for his race, with a cunning mind and a silver tongue, and an agility unmatched. And he challenged the brute Koan Gengan for leadership. The chief tried to refuse combat, and Gharag turned the tribe against him, winning them over and gaining command.

  As chief of Tribe Heartstabber, he reformed the tribe. They raided a series of ruins, methodically, finding relics of past greatness and martial prowess. They ventured out of the swamps and into the mountains, finding and taming warg pups and creating the first warg cavalry. These beasts, with their gigantic wolf bodies, both agile and deadly, were practiced upon until their warriors were well-trained and coordinated, well-armed and well capable.

  Then he subjugated the other tribes.

  Like Tribe Heartstabber had once been, the other tribes were little more than disorganized mobs, often fighting without armor and with bone or stone weaponry, with hunting bows dispersed between them. The force of swamp and forest, capable cavalry riders, concentrated knots of skirmishers with real, battle-primed forest bows, well-armored infantry shock troops and shield bearers, and even individual special heroes trained separately for their early show of special talent and enthusiasm, shattered them all. Each tribe surrendered and vowed allegiance to the tribe. An alliance formed against him, but it too was shattered in battle. With the Great Swamp united, Gharag sent spies and bought information, realizing quickly that the human kingdoms, of what is Nemedia today, were in chaos. And so, he spent the time training, giving goblins the best of the equipment available, and forming all of the lizardfolk, ogres, trolls, and other humanoids of the swamp into their own units with their own disciplines and specialties.

  The first target was the war-weary nation of Carcasan. Gharag led an army of humanoids of a size and discipline it had never encountered previously. Towns and the broken hulks of forts fell quickly, and humans fled as the force enslaved and pillaged, but as Gharag had commanded, they never burned, and the troops took great pains to keep the structures intact. It was more than a war. It was a colonization.

  The Carcasans called upon the rest of the Eleven kingdoms to come to their aid. And they were refused. Not only did these kingdoms have their own tremendous problems to deal with, but also they wished to see Carcasan fall so that they all could take a piece from the inferior humanoids who were now felling it.

  And so, it came to be that Gharag conquered Carcasan, repulsed the rest of the Eleven kingdoms, and then conquered them as well.

  The goblin created a caste system in which goblins were the top race, and everything descended from there down to the worst of his enemies, the humans, who could serve as nothing but the lowliest of slaves. His ministers created a system that combined the feudalism of the humans with the tribalism of the goblins, making a new empire that now rewarded talent regardless of their social class, though still well aware of race and caste, and gave great autonomy to its lords, while giving Gharag’s line an inherited future. Gharag’s advisors set up bureaus of magic and technology in Gharag’s name as his goblins and allies occupied the cities and fortresses left behind, creating a humanoid culture that came to create, research, and design their own weapons, magic, and civilization.

  And then, even as the empire that he had created continued to spy, battle, conquer, and expand, he himself realized his end goal. His destiny.

  Gharag Heartstabber, emperor over the Goblin empire, left his mortal coil and became a god.

  ***

  “Nicely told,” finished Yenrab with a bout of clapping, as the rest looked at the bard with tremendous unease.

  “Nicely told?” asked the bard, well upset by what he had read.

  “Well, yeah. This is Ghourogos Nemaden Slavsar. Some of my tribe worship him. I just didn’t know the common colloquial,” Yenrab said, with a bit of embarrassment.

  “What?!” the rest of the party plus the newly added Svein asked in tremendous surprise.

  “Well, yeah. The humans used to keep us all trapped in horrid and uninhabitable places, and then hunt us for fame and glory. Then Ghourogos Nemaden Slavsar saved us. So some worship him.”

  “What?!” the rest of the party, the newly added Svein, asked, again, in tremendous surprise.

  “So our mikellehcor told me,” the large barbarian stated, suddenly seeming so far away from there.

  They all looked at each other.

  “Anybody here ever really study history or religion?” Carric asked with hope.

  There was a distant clatter of dice. They all heard it, but they all felt downfallen when it finished.

  “Nope.”

  “Nah.”

  “Not really my thing.”

  “Haha. Yeah. That figures. Destiny picked us because we are dopes. Alright, well, we have this!” Carric exclaimed. “All of us. Gharag is the guy who made the Goblin empire and he hates us. But, remember, the adventurer’s tome said that someone else is also on our side. Maybe it is time to find out who that is.”

  ***

  Svein Novogord, once a nobleman of Corster, had questions. He had lots and lots of questions.

  What the hell am I getting myself into here? he thought, struggling to put it all together. And why are gods involved?

  It shouldn’t be this complicated. He picked the group because they were adventurers and he wanted to adventure. It was supposed to be simple. Go save people. Get rewards. Fight things. Not all of this! Destiny was a thing that was well-known among the people of Corster. It was a heavy thing, one that could well break a man if it was carried for too long or if its weight was too great for that initial bearer. It certainly wasn’t something he wanted to walk into without a lot of information made available beforehand.

  And so he began his litany of questions.

  “So what, uh, what is that book, and why did you hit me with it?” he started, feeling that it was as good a place as any.

  “This is How to be an Adventurer. Apparently written by Jerold Frey. Or so it says in Orcish,” Yenrab answered.

  “And Icegarditian!” added Carric.

  “I see it in Elven common tongue, but also in Elfmeetian crawl slang,” responded Tracy, beginning to do some bizarre repositioning of his body.

  He was, well, was he? Yes, he was going to do a headstand. That made absolutely no sense to the confused and distressed human.

  Svein looked at Bern, the human rogue or assassin. He couldn’t exactly tell which.

  “And you, Bern Sandros?” he asked his racial peer.

  “It’s written in Nemedian common because of course it is. It’s destiny, bro, and you are stuck in it with the rest of us,” the rogue answered, his face drawn up in a resentful grimace.

  “Alright. Okay. Well, the next question then,” the noble fighter responded. “What does it tell us to do?”

  “Die, mostly,” Bern remarked before anyone else could answer.

  “Giant bear balls, Bern: just knock it off,” Yenrab threw in. “The books gives us advice, and sometimes mocks us, but it never tells us exactly what to do. It more fills in the blanks as we go on.”

  “Aha. So I see. And that whole throw-the-book-at-my-face thing?”

  Carric piped up, “That was to see if you were part of this whole quest. We saw it drop through another guy’s fingers like it wasn’t there. I figured I should check,” Carric said. “Plus, I was angry and just wanted to throw the book. As they say in bard college birds, one stone.”

  “Now what does that mean?” asked Tracy from his headstand, his fac
e slowly getting redder as it filled with blood. “It sounds dirty.”

  The bard laughed. “Well, it isn’t. It just means that you need to strategize and be efficient. If I can get two birds stoned with one herb, that just makes everything that much easier for all of us, well, doesn’t it?

  “Are you killing these things?” Yenrab asked, his eyes strange. “For pleasure?”

  “No, no, no. Just some whisper fungus, smoldered, will make people silly and relaxed. We say it makes you like a stone. Stoned.”

  Svein shook his head again, wondering which of the gods above had selected him for this ragtag quest.

  He opened his mouth to ask another question, but then Tracy peeped up from his corner.

  “Can you hurry this up, Svein? I’m gonna pass out soon, and I’m not going to stop until you stop asking questions that you can, really, just figure out on your own in the next half a day or so.”

  The nobleman made a strange sound, something that seemed to come from deep within his intestines, and then sighed, before hurrying the whole process along as requested.

  ***

  The party conversed with their new partner, giving him the details in a quick but informative manner. He stayed polite and quiet, reflecting on it all as the sorcerer’s face got redder, and his stance began to sway. Then they all stopped, shocked, as they were interrupted by a knock at the door. The party jumped with a bit of nervous fright.

  “Settle down, my, uh, good friends,” Svein said with a nervous smile. “And hide. I suspect the villagers, and well, I am a noble. I have experience with angry peasants. With my words and presence, I believe that I can reason with this riff-raff.”

  Bern Sandros gave out an unbelieving, “Phaw!” Still, they looked about and did as they had been told to do. The adventurers hid themselves into various nooks and crannies. Some did it much better than others. Meanwhile, the blond-haired noble adopted a properly aristocratic stance, sighed, and opened the door.

  “Greetings, mob—uh-oh. Who the heck are you?” he asked, quite taken aback.

  A woman clad in leather and wool, dark-green and brown in color, stood at the door. A bow was strapped to her back and two blades graced her hips.