How to Be an Adventurer- World of Gimmok

by Damien Hanson

  Carric stifled a belch and spat on the ground. Svein did the same. Even Tracy looked a bit disturbed as he picked at what seemed to be a bit of old leather.

  “What in the hells?!” asked Svein, keeping the exclamation quiet but still managing to convey the real feeling behind the statement.

  Yenrab sniffed and poked around. “I’d think it was some sort of animal if the place wasn’t so sentient. It reminds me of my grandma’s hut.”

  “That’s revolting,” Svein admonished him, his nose on fire.

  “Yeah, that describes Grandma I suppose,” the barbarian chuckled with fondness. “Ya know, though, I never minded it that much. Different strokes for different folks.”

  Then he frowned. “Grandma was an evil hedge witch who sold her soul to some demonic being, though, too. Not only was she not afraid of disease or what people thought of her place, she was also unnatural and a bit evil. I don’t think we want to meet whatever lives here. Not when we are here uninvited and when we are not family.”

  Bern spoke up, “I wonder if it isn’t meant to be a warning. The Thieves’ Guild in Nemedia City seeded its entrances with horrid piles of junk, garbage, and corpses.”

  “What a bunch of barbarians!” Svein exclaimed and then looked at Yenrab in surprise at both the half-orc and himself. The barbarian just laughed at his discomfort.

  “We could just sit here talking, but I feel like we need to move on and get stuff done,” Yenrab stated, pointing at the next door out of here. It was quite nice, and though it showed the rot and scrapes of old age, it also looked sturdy and well-built.

  “Now that is part of the original design and build, I’m thinking,” supplied Carric with his bardic knowhow. “Someone with knowledge of the craft built that.”

  He squinted at it a bit more.

  “I’d tell ya when, but I don’t really have any idea, unfortunately. Not a lot of people study nor make songs about the history of doors.”

  “Well, let me tell you something I do know, Carric Smith,” said Bern Sandros with a grin. “It doesn’t matter. Because, as far as I am concerned, doors are just a lull between actions.”

  “Damn. Ya know, that’s a good one, Bern,” Yenrab spoke with admiration. “I feel like that is something that could well be, well, I don’t know, maybe put on a paper somewhere and rolled up on a wall so everyone could see it and think that thought?”

  “Hmm. That is a neat idea,” ventured Svein Novogord, shaking his blond locks a bit to dislodge something gross and sticky from the tunnels before.

  “No, but yes. Guys, you’d need more than words. You know how a lot of first-year bards get jobs as criers because no one wants to read the papers stuck to the walls,” said Carric with enthusiasm. “I think you’d need something like that. A paper permanently enchanted with a magic mouth spell that says the words, again and again, on repeat, in the voice of a crier! In fact, we could call it that. A crier!”

  “I’d buy one,” Tracy admitted, poking his head up from a pile of bones, having apparently collected several.

  “Well, there goes that idea,” responded the bard with a laugh. “Permanency spells aren’t cheap anyways.”

  “And it would be bloody annoying, bro. All the time, on repeat? It’s how I imagine marriage to be like,” Bern joked.

  “Excuse me,” asked Tracy with fake outrage, her female voice extra feminine as she laid it down.

  The party laughed, and then the rogue shushed them all at once.

  “I think I heard something. Guys, Yenrab was right. We’ve gotta move on. But, first, let me check this door.”

  ***

  The party had experienced enough to know to be cautious. When things get dark and dank, those with common sense know to tread a little more carefully. And those who have had training and have then experienced some real danger, after that original youthful foolishness over success at mayhem, know it that much more. They could feel that this was time to be deceptive and stealthy. That the very being who slept here was nearby and that it wasn’t friendly.

  The party trod, light upon their feet, readying their weapons and magic and taking positions at each corner of the room while Bern watched them, waiting for his cue. After each of them had nodded their preparedness, he put his ear to the door and listened, repeating his actions of before with thorough and professional mantra.

  There were sounds. Quite distinct sounds to a rogue with training. Bern listened to the clack, clang, and scrape of a large kitchen utensil against something tremendous and hard, probably an iron pot or, perhaps, even a cauldron. Whoever or whatever it was cackled and muttered, though both actions seemed involuntary and part of its nature, much as a cat might purr when happy or a dog might pant when hot. The voice sounded feminine to the human rogue, but harsh as well, as if it belonged to something not of this world.

  Something magic and bad by the sounds of it. I better warn the others. But, well, hells, it might hear us. Then again, we’ve been talking an awful lot, and it hasn’t heard a thing.

  He looked back at his teammates and began to use his thieves’ cant, that language of arm, hand, and finger motion beloved by the deaf and those who do not wish to be heard. They stared at him with curiosity.

  He gave them the finger. No one reacted.

  Hahaha. Gods above, I didn’t realize that I could do that this whole time. These guys have no idea what I’m saying.

  Then the man frowned as he thought hard to himself about the situation they were in.

  This is just nonsense, really. I’m going to have to teach them a bit about the cant. Something easy and basic so I don’t have to give up surprise. Sure the thing hasn’t heard us yet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to though. I’ve gotta stay alert and stay alive. I need to figure out how to get this back to them without talking anymore.

  He thought back to some of the games he and the street urchins used to play back when he was naught but a dirty lad doing adult errands for food and the occasional bit of sweets.

  Charades. That’s what this here calls for. Charades now and a bit of a lesson later on.

  Bern thought a bit more, perhaps hyperbolizing his face in doing so as to make them all understand that he had a plan. A good plan even, or so he hoped his face conveyed. First, he picked up a few pebbles and leathery bits of flesh from the floor. Then he thrust his hand up into the air, pointed at the door, and pantomimed a monster by baring his teeth and clawing at them.

  Tracy got excited. “Oh—”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, for a smattering of flesh and pebbles had arced well and splattered not just about her face, but also into her mouth and throat. The rest understood the meaning well. Be quiet. Even Tracy understood, silently choking, her face turning redder and redder, and she tried to fish and gag the bits out without noise.

  Bern paused and then pointed at her and massaged his throat, up and down. She copied him, triggering a reflex that forced the disgusting debris down into her stomach, allowing her to breathe again. As her color came back, she glared at him with disgusted and murderous intent.

  He grinned with absolute hilarity, afraid he might laugh.

  Moving his hands again, he pointed at Yenrab, and swung about pretend axes while silently bellowing and leaping forward. Yenrab nodded. Unfinished and well amused at this point, Bern pretended to smell his armpits, and then pretended to throw up. Svein cracked a large and silent laugh, as did Carric, but Tracy was still angry, and, well, Yenrab just wanted to go.

  As the man on the corner always told us, you can’t please them all, the assassin thought.

  Then he pointed at Svein and faced the door, an imaginary sword in one hand and a shield in the other. But they were confused by that, the rogue never having used one before, and his hand very much not looking the way it should. Svein pantomimed eating something with a strange look on his face.

  No, no! the rogue did in thieves’ cant, and then paused with a silent, but very theatrical, sigh.

  Swinging into silent
action, Bern Sandros did his best to protect himself against swarms of imaginary arrows. Tracy caught on to the action and did the same.

  Svein still looked puzzled, but he held up his own shield and pointed at it, as if to ask, “This?”

  The rogue took that to mean he understood and then pointed over to Carric. He pantomimed a princess lifting her dress up and stepping daintily over dirt and grime. The bard understood it quite well, and flipped him a middle finger. Apparently, one member of the party had a bit of thieves’ cant, after all! The assassin smiled and pointed at him and then to the right, then followed it with cant meaning stay back and on the right flank.

  He wasn’t sure how much the bard understood, but he felt that he had conveyed the right idea.

  He looked to Tracy, who also flipped him off. However, the many-gendered person often did strange things. Just to be sure, the human flashed him thieves’ cant to the meaning of Tracy is a dumb idiot.

  He was quite relieved when, in response, he got a jumbled mess that kind of meant the same thing.

  Bern pointed at the half-elf, and then pointed him to the left. Tracy repeated his action. The assassin pretended to fire magic. The Freemeetian half-elf did the same. Bern Sandros paused and grimaced, an act that Tracy dutifully followed.

  Great, the man thought.

  The rogue moved and scanned the door one more time for traps, and then edged it open just a little, checking it for tightening wires or some sort of device above. There was nothing there. Relief flooded through his body.

  Now all of them could hear the cackles and the mutters, and they all tensed. It was deep-throated and husky, something that felt dangerous.

  This thing sounds like some sort of witch or hag. A magic-user. I bet if we hit her fast, we can end this whole thing before it ever begins.

  Again, the thief wished they all knew the cant. But every little bit of conversation could alert their enemy to danger, and he couldn’t risk it.

  Okay. Well, I think we all have the battle plan right. We all hit her at the same time if we can. I go low, Yenrab goes high, Svein hits the middle, and Carric and Tracy swing to the corners and fire magic and missiles before we get there. Wait, wait, wait! I didn’t signal me! Okay, one more time.

  Bern signaled Carric again. A come here gesture, followed by a gesture of kicking the door, and then a hard wing of the arm to the right and a gesture of firing his crossbow. The bard nodded and moved near, to the left side of the door.

  He signaled Tracy next, doing almost the same, but to the left and offering up a bit of a comical reenactment of throwing spells. Or so Tracy thought as she struggled not to laugh whilst moving into place.

  I believe that was absolutely necessary, he thought in relief.

  To Yenrab, he offered a pantomime of a chop and an overhead slash. The man gave him an annoyed look that screamed that he had well understood the first time.

  To Svein, he offered the gesture of a simple slash while, pointing at himself, he knelt and stabbed. Svein understood this final caption and looked well pleased with the plan. His face was eager.

  They get it. They honestly get it! Also, Svein can hear it isn’t undead. That is nine heavens plus another plane, he thought with excitement.

  The wanna-be assassin was pleased. If everything was as his well-trained and acute hearing portrayed it, this was going to be a breeze.

  The party stood tensed and ready to begin.

  Chapter 29: Deal of a Lifetime

  The door flew open with a crash, revealing a large and spacious room that was cluttered full in one corner with sacks and piles of things, and was dominated in its center by a mess of tables, counter tops, a cooking pit, and a large cauldron. A hunched and fat figure with wild, frazzled, gray hair turned her head over her shoulder and bared carnivorous teeth in a surprised snarl.

  Each of them swung out in tactical acumen, though the bard, Carric, had to do a bit of an around since the door swung in front of the corner he was supposed to reside in. Still, he and the sorcerer hit their corners well before their outliers. The snick of a fired mechanical bolt sounded just a second after Tracy had sprayed out twin blasts of flame from her outstretched palms.

  Though the room was full of tables and countertops, it was not arrayed in such a way as to impede the blitz that the rest imposed upon the surprised and shocked thing they found within.

  She shrieked in surprise and fright.

  Bern leaped and skidded underneath one table to slash her upward from the floor, tearing a bloody canal into each of her thighs.

  Just a fraction of a second behind him, the nobleman warrior slapped into the edge of the table, and with a long and extended thrust, he stabbed through her stomach and a bit out her back. The thing screeched and then coughed. Strange and otherworldly blood spewed from her mouth, black, acrid, and sulfurous in stench.

  And Yenrab leaped as only a barbarian can. He rose up from before the tables had even been an obstacle, flying high above them all with inhuman athleticism. It was a glorious and magnificent sight. And a well-planned and mathematical one as well, for his arc swung just over her, and he severed her shoulder and arm from her body in a bloody coup d’état from above. He gave the thing a look of pity as it slopped to the ground.

  Eat what you kill, we always said. But there is no way any of this is going into my mouth, he thought with intuition.

  The thing itself spilled ichor everywhere, dead in too many places to count.

  Everyone was silent. They looked at each other. Then one broke the silence.

  “Man, that was awesome.” Bern grinned, standing over top of the monstrous wretch.

  Sometimes battles with impressive enemies are done in the wink of an eye.

  ***

  “That was awesome?” Carric asked from his corner of the room. “Didn’t we just kill an old woman?”

  Svein looked at him with guilt.

  Tracy gave him a surprised look and then, keeping eye contact, deliberately moved onto the corpse and began dancing. More ichor oozed from the multitude of holes.

  “Does this at all look like a world sentient?”

  The bard frowned. He felt like he should feel bad. The being on the floor before them looked so much like an ancient woman. One who had suffered from a myriad of various ailments and a great deal of poverty throughout her life. But there were many tells. Unlike the villagers, who often mistook older witches for hags, he knew that the human-looking skin was simply unfortunate camouflage.

  “No, I guess not,” Carric responded, now seeing the evidence in a different light.

  Tracy gave him a weird look again.

  “The Grand Sorcan gave us warning of things like these. There are many. And they aren’t from this world,” he said as his gaze held, and even penetrated, the bard’s remorseful eyes.

  “He said he didn’t know for sure, but truly, he expected that they were created to mislead and subdue us through compassion. I suspect that thing there is a hag.”

  Yenrab seemed disturbed.

  “Ya know, I wasn’t kidding when I said that stuff about my grandma. Was she a hag?”

  Tracy let out a light laugh. “No, my friend. This here was a monster. A real monster. Something from a different plane of existence altogether. Or so the Grand Sorcan told us. Think about everything we have seen so far. The monster here ate things raw and in a bestial manner.”

  The barbarian snorted. “That sounds like Grandma.”

  Tracy paused, appraising the large man, and then continued.

  “It had claws instead of nails. I mean look at it! And look at how it has all sharp wolves’ teeth instead of, you know, normal teeth.”

  Everyone looked down. A multitude of canines gleamed up in a silent, angry, and hungry, always so hungry, scream at its slayers.

  “Are we sure she didn’t do that to herself? Ya know, Grandma’s teeth looked exactly the same. Every time she lost one, she did some magic and added a wolf’s tooth to her mouth.”

  The growing
exasperation on Tracy’s face was a sight to behold. The man was talkative, rude, and often irregular. But here he was finally getting angry.

  “Yenrab. Just look, okay? Did your grandma have blood like this?

  The blood pooled before them. It still wasn’t that fearsome crimson red that often signaled sin, terror, and a coming torture of the mind. Its blackness was tinged with crimson, but it spoke to the very soul of the men assembled there. Each and every one of them could feel that a good deed had been done in this awful place by dispatching the thing that had been here feeding on their fellow creatures.

  Everyone, that is, except for Yenrab.

  “I don’t know,” he said with doubt. “No one ever stabbed her. She died of old age.”

  Tracy looked at the others with a patience that was beginning to waver. His face cracked a bit, and he started to laugh in a manic fashion.

  The others looked at each other with concern. Svein started walking to the door, but Carric stood in front of it.

  “Hey, man, you can go if you want to, but like Tracy said before Yenrab apparently broke him, someone has to do all of this.”

  Svein looked at him hard, and then nodded and turned about.

  Yenrab waved his hands about behind him.

  “Alright, alright, it doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about stuff that does. Is everyone okay?” Yenrab looked about him with concern evident on his face, but then relaxed. He saw no blood but that of the stiffening monster before them. Still, his question, given with feeling and compassion threaded through his voice, had them all examining each other with detail. It wasn’t every day that a monster of legend died without ever having had the chance to strike back. The party took quick stock of their armor and their body parts, looking everywhere for something malignant and magical that would otherwise have escaped normal detection. In the grand scheme of things it is rare that any difficult thing comes off so easily without some sort of hitch.

  The assassin, Bern Sandros, again broke the silence.

  “Good here.” The human grinned. “Swole and ready to roll,” he added, flexing his arms.