This is my collection of D&D themed writing that I've either commission or received as a freebie through Gaia Online.
Content:
1. Lesson number 1 /// Degar Bolar, early years // written by litrouke 2. Sweet dreams /// Lieselotte Lehmann, current year /// written by barefoot friar 3. Practical /// Degar Bolar, adventure years /// written by Maxx D
Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:14 am
Lesson number 1
Degar Bolar
Written by litrouke
Degar caught sight of the town at dusk. The streets glimmered sedately in the twilight, lit by lanterns and mounted torches, not the high-heaped bonfires of orcish camps. He trundled down the last hill leading into town – if these could be called hills, considering how gently they sloped. The journey here had been pleasant and too brief. He would miss the warmth of the earth and the blades of grass slipping between his toes.
Indeed the dirt path turned stony as he neared Vestmound. As the sun lapsed beneath the horizon, Degar wandered through a loose cluster of houses, each attended by a modest farm. The houses had thatched roofs – they would go up in a blaze, he reckoned, and the fields not far behind. But for now they stood quiet and whole, their families gathered around feasting tables, not strewn bloody around the walls. Degar was betting on the fact that his clan would never raid this far east, not without some catastrophic defeat that exiled them from their usual romping grounds. He thumbed the auga charm that hung from the leather strap on his wrist. Prayers be to Gruumsh that his calculations were right. [auga = eye; symbolic of Gruumsh’s single eye]
The buildings thickened, houses giving way to the occasional storefront. He passed a tavern, an apothecary, and then a something he didn’t recognize, with small strange tools littered across the counters dimly visible through the dark window. Something human, he thought, and a thrill ran down his spine. Something different from anything he knew.
With the buildings came people, chatting and rambling about in groups. Strange to see so many eyes instead of the tops of his brothers’ heads. A few of the humans even surpassed him in height. He paused to take in a lofty feather of a man, so tall yet bone-thin that Degar wondered how he did not splinter to pieces under the weight of his own clothes. The feather noticed Degar’s gawking with a frown. As he leaned in to speak with his group of companions, Degar hurried off. He slipped through a few sidestreets and arrived at another major thoroughfare, where he tucked himself innocuously into its crowds.
He wandered the streets, avoiding too much attention, until twilight faded into night. By then most of the humans, lacking dark vision, had slunk into their homes. Their exodus reminded him of little mice scampering away into burrows and snuggling up for the night. The few who remained outdoors were mostly revelers, although he passed the occasional solitary figure, hooded and kept company by a long pipe and smoke. He felt threatened by none of them. It would not be until much later that Degar could name the feeling he experienced that night, as he ambled unarmed through a slumbering town. It was not until he learned more Common that he could call the feeling secure. Tranquil. At peace with himself and the world. But at the time, listening to his feet slap gently at the stones and echo into the empty night, he couldn’t decide what this thing in his chest was. Some kind of muted happiness, he decided, like the brief window of time between feasting and falling asleep by the fire.
But that reminded him – he needed a place to sleep. Before he left the vrasim [assassins], he had palmed a pouch of coins found on a corpse, but it did not provide him with much money. And he needed to preserve the coins for food, which he could no longer hunt and provide for himself in the midst of a town. So he searched not for an inn, but some enclosed space in which he could lay out his bed roll. He came upon an alley that, while not enclosed, already housed several sleeping bodies. He reckoned that it was unlikely he’d find a cave in the heart of Vestmound, so he entrusted himself to the locals’ advice and claimed a spot in the alley.
The alley stank – but stank differently, he thought in excitement, than the usual brawny miasma of smoke and carcasses. The filth here stung his nose brightly, like urine, or acid. He considered waking the man next to him and asking if it really was urine – or acid – but the human looked sickly at best. More likely dying. Degar wondered that no one had put the old thing out of his misery yet, white-haired and liver-skinned as he was. Maybe when he woke the human, Degar would ask him that instead.
Finally, well into the night, Degar settled down and rested his head on his bed roll. Above him, he could glimpse stars through the parallel strips of building. Constellations he didn’t recognize, but could come to learn. The waning moon lurked behind a cloud, only its tail visible, a wink of silver in the somber sky. Degar winked back at it, and then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Degar had to give the thief her dues: he would never have caught her, had the old man next to him not sounded the alarm. Well, sounded the alarm might be an exaggeration. But the sharku [old man] did wake, jolting into consciousness with a bloody wet cough. In turn, this startled Degar from his rest – the cough sounded like a death gurgle, blood burbling through a softly-slit throat.
Expecting an ambush, Degar sprung to sitting. His darting eyes immediately located the thief: she was frozen at the end of the alley, assuming human eyes would miss the crouched shadow of her presence. But Degar could see clearly the hood drawn over her head and beneath it the glimpse of her face, taut with well-trained fear. She had a small bag clutched in one hand. As Degar watched, she lowered her other hand to the sleeping figure beneath her and plucked something from the folds of his robe. Quickly she tucked it into her bag, and that was when Degar realized she was a thief, not an assassin as he had anticipated.
She straightened up, finished with that victim, and crept down the alley to the next. She was moving away from Degar, which meant that she had already passed over him. Fortunately, he knew that he had nothing worth taking – right? Frowning, he waggled his hand. No weight. No auga charm.
Kurv! [Whore!]
He shot to his feet. The scrabble of sound alerted the thief. This time she must have sensed the threat, for she did not freeze, but fled.
Degar yelled at her to stop, but the shout did nothing except raise complaints from the alleymen still trying to sleep. He ignored them and snatched up his bed roll and pack. If only he had woken while she was nicking his charm, he could have told her that it was a worthless thing. The little eye, carved from bone, could only be held by orcs; Gruumsh cursed any other holder. And it was no good selling it to an orc, for they all possessed one already.
Degar hurtled after the thief, bare feet whacking against the stones and echoing through the narrow streets. She knew the town well, its winding paths and tiny gaps between buildings, but Degar’s dark vision betrayed her every hiding spot. As he gained on her, he called out again, “I don’t kill – need charm!” but his croaky Common was swallowed up in the pounding of her feet and heart.
He watched the thief skid down a particularly narrow alley, and he sucked in his breath. This wouldn’t be an easy fit. But he barreled in, shoulders knocking dust off the stone walls. Thanks be to Gruumsh that his shoulders didn’t measure as wide as his brethren’s. The thief stood at the end of the alley, arms clutched to her chest. But she was facing Degar, not looking for an exit – did she mean to make a stand here? Attempt to slay the threat? Degar slowed his pursuit. If she were preparing a spell, in this narrow hell of a street –
It wasn’t a spell, but an ambush. A door opened to his left, three humans streaming out of it. Behind him more men hurried to clot the alley’s entrance and prevent his escape. The men in front of him bristled with shortswords and daggers; he trusted that those behind him carried the same.
“Hold,” commanded their leader. At least, Degar assumed he was their leader. None of the men appeared to be warriors, their bodies unencumbered by muscle or armor. The man who had just spoken did not distinguish himself in height or broadness from the others, nor did he wear any convenient chain of skulls around his waist. The only difference Degar could discern between the man and his followers was the man’s skin, the darkest Degar had seen on a human. It was a deep black that Degar would have called burnt if it didn’t look so firm and healthy.
Degar said, “Greetings,” like the many townspeople he had overheard today.
The thieves stared at him. Maybe humans only said greetings to other humans, Degar thought.
The leader echoed, “Greetings?” in a grimace, as if he could taste rot on the word.
Degar tried a smile. “Yes, greetings. I was tried to talk to…” He gestured at the woman behind them. “Vajodhar… [thief] I don’t know the Common word. A take-things person.”
The leader narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I got it.”
“What is it?”
“What?”
“In Common. A take-things pers—”
“Thief,” he spat.
Degar repeated, “Thief,” to himself. A soft word for a hushed profession. Degar liked that. “Yes, I was wanted to say to the thief… It was good.”
The humans faltered, one of them lowering his blade. They glanced at their leader, whose scowl remained undeterred. He said in scathing disbelief, “You wanted to congratulate her on stealing from you.”
“Not from me,” Degar shrugged. “Many people.”
“…right. So you chased her across town and cornered her in an alley, all to stay that.”
Degar hesitated. But what else could he claim? “Yes. Orcs have good, very good watching.” He tapped under his eye. “And hearing. Hard to kill a sleeping orc. But she thiefed a sleeping orc – very good skill.”
The leader joined his comrades in lowering his weapon. He hissed a sigh through his teeth, shoulders lowering as well. Degar thought him a little orcish, in spirit if not in form: gritty and gruff and disgusted with everything that came out of Degar’s mouth.
The leader growled, “What are you, a half-orc?”
If it helped his situation, then Degar supposed he was. So he nodded, and the man made a dark sound in his throat.
“Is that why you don’t have tusks?”
Degar tried not to bristle. He felt a rare heat warm his neck – a feeling common to his brethren, he had been told, but alien to him. Mutely he nodded again, and the man seemed to find that acceptable. He waved off the thieves behind Degar; he heard the rustle of retreating boot and blade.
Degar rallied his voice as the heat faded from his head. He asked, “Can you teach me?”
The leader’s eyes flicked to him. In the dark, the human’s pupils were blotted wide. Degar bet his eyes were dark in the day as well, the same coal color as his skin.
The leader said, “What the ******** are you talking about.” Definitely orcish.
“Teach me thiefing.”
“Stealing,” the man snapped, exhausted with babysitting this child. “And no. What do you think we are, cutthroats? We don’t need some bloodthirsty ******** rube here to ******** things up.”
Degar did not recognize several of those words, but he wagered he knew their meaning.
“I’m not bloodthirsty. Half-orc,” he insisted. “I’m not that. And – ” he said with a lippy smile, as he had learned that humans found his toothy grins threatening, “who thinks a orc is a thief? No one looks at me. And – ” he ignored the leader’s exasperation, “if this, if ambush of you, I look strong. Good guard.”
The leader waited, eyebrows raised, for another argument. Degar stuck to his smile. Briefly he wondered whether the human could even see it in the dark.
“What’s your name, orc?”
“Degar.”
“So what does Degar get out of this deal?”
Degar hesitated, and then he shuffled back a shy step. The human caught onto his confidential look and reluctantly followed him. Isolated in the middle of the street, they leaned close for a private conversation.
Degar confided, “I don’t like stabbing.”
“…and a b***h in heat doesn’t like c**k.”
“It’s truth,” Degar argued. “I don’t lie.”
And how could he be lying? Didn’t humans know that orcs are too stupid to lie?
“Right. Then what do you like?”
A good question – one that Degar couldn’t remember having been asked before. “I like… talking. Planning. Good plans.” Degar wished he knew the word for strategy, or schemes, but the man seemed to understand him.
In fact, the leader said begrudgingly, “You do speak half-decent Common.”
Degar brightened, head perking up. “Do I?”
“For an orc,” he scowled, lest Degar misinterpret any of his words as approval. “So you can say a few words in Common, and you can look tough. But do you have loyalty? Do you even know what that is?”
“Yes. Yes, I know; I do. I do loyalty.”
Not to his clan, maybe, and not to the vrasim, he supposed, and not always to Gruumsh, but… Well. Degar was sure he could find an example of loyalty somewhere in his life. And he liked this human and his sharp-cutting eyes and how words jutted out of his mouth like spikes – even if his body was far too lean to house so much weaponry.
Degar asked, “What’s your name?”
“Abram. Give me your pack.”
“What?”
“If you are loyal, then prove it. Give me your pack.”
Slowly Degar slid the pack from his shoulder. It didn’t hold much – some tack and jerky, a carving knife and spare leather. Still Degar hesitated. Abram didn’t snatch it from his hands, but waited until Degar had come to peace with the surrender and passed it over.
Then Abram said, “Even for an orc, you’re a ******** idiot – gullible isn’t the same thing as loyal. Lesson one: never give a thief anything you want to see again.” Degar’s pack disappeared behind Abram, handed off to one of the lingering thieves.
“Too late,” Degar shrugged. Looking over Abram’s shoulder at the woman, he said, “She has my thing. Before the pack.”
“Regi? What of yours did she take?”
“The auga – Gruumsh’s eye – that!”
The girl had procured the pale charm. Abram jerked his head to order her forward. She came quickly, though against her will, and he nabbed the charm from her hand. He studied it a moment.
“What is this? Bone?”
“Yes.”
Abram grunted and shoved the charm at Degar. Gratefully he retied the leather around his wrist. But didn’t this violate lesson one? And if that had been a real lesson, did that mean he had been accepted as a thief?
Degar pushed his luck and asked, “And my knife?”
“You don’t need a knife. Lesson two: all a good thief needs is confidence, a quick mind, and a free hand.”
Degar grinned and raised his empty ones. “I have two.”
Abram grimaced, even as Degar noticed the flicker of a smile from another thief. At least someone appreciated his wit. Black eyes fixed on Degar, Abram said, “Do not make me regret this, orc.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He certainly understood disappointing people well enough. “I understand much.”
“We’ll see about that,” Abram sighed. “In the meantime – welcome to the den.”
_________
Auga = eye Vrasim = assassins Sharku = old man Kurv = whore/b***h Vajodhar = thief
The package didn’t stare back at her, obviously, for lack of eyes.
But she continued to stare at it all the harder, eyes narrowing as if hoping it would sprout legs and run away.
It was very… pretty. In a totally mysterious-package-shows-up-on-your-doorstep, ominous kind of way. The kind of way a poison apple looks – shiny and red, totally asking for you to take a bite, so inviting that you know it’s a trap and that if you so much as run your tongue along the skin you’ll drop deader than a vampire at an Italian restaurant.
She hazarded to stick her booted toe out the door and push it to one side. The ribbon bounced. Nothing else happened.
Screw it! She wasn’t taking chances. She slammed the door and drooped her shoulders. Nothing exciting ever happened to her. But when something tried to, damn it, she wasn’t going to be fool enough to let it happen without it being on her own terms. And that was that! Decision made. Her word was final.
Mr. Grin placed his chin on his hands, his elbows on the counter, and his butt in her chair. His eyes twinkled. “Is it your birthday?”
“No.” She paused. The days blended together in her mind, a sickly blackish-green oil smear. “Wait… no, ok, no it’s not.”
His eyes twinkled. His grin grinned wider. “Seems like you’ve got a secret admirer.”
She threw her hair over one shoulder. “Of course I do. But which one is foolish enough to try starting s**t?” Pausing again, she ran a quick catalog in her mind. Last Tuesday – NO, it was Sunday, or was it Friday? Some snot nosed boy barely out of his puberty years had come in looking for a remedy. Sick mom, dying dog, “insert sob story here”, so she’d given him one of her spare potions. In exchange he’d offered her money, but it was such a low amount that she’d refused, asked for something more fun. A vase of flowers from the marketplace. White and dewy bird-down pure, all twisted up like a corkscrew. It had been a whim, nothing more. She’d wanted the place to smell less crappy and was simply too bored with the idea of lacing her shoes up and trekking outside herself. Now, looking back, asking for something so “romantic” was a major mistake. She’d deluded some idiot village boy.
But if this was the case, the box probably did have some gift in it. Chocolate. If it was chocolate she’d go ahead and bring it in. If it was something stupid like jewelry she could always put it on the dogs for a laugh. If it was love poetry… she could always use more toilet paper?
As she opened the door and snatched the package up, she could feel Mr. Grin’s smart remarks forming, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “It’s no big deal,” she insisted. “I just like chocolate.”
“I’m sure you do.” The bite in his voice followed her down the hallway. She shook her head to wave it off. Jackass. There was no way she’d share now. With a glare set on her face, she sidled off into her room, hoping to not set the dogs off to barking. Safe inside with no ruckus ringing in her ears, no smart remarks reaching her, she settled down on the bed and placed the present on her lap.
A thought struck her. It could be a trap.
A trap would, at least, be a change.
She ripped off the ribbon. Next came shreds of the shiny periwinkle paper all over her rug. Finally, all that was left was a plain cardboard box. With gentle touch she shook it. No sound. Hesitation flying away, she tore the tape and looked inside.
How incredibly underwhelming. It was a sleeping mask, quilted out of black fabric and embroidered on the front with a pair of closed eyes. Eyes with copious amounts of eyelashes. She picked it up, held it at arm’s length, and pinched the bridge of her nose with her other hand. Fine! The simple fact of the matter was nothing fun was going to happen ever, and since she couldn’t have any fun ever the universe was deciding that she also couldn’t have chocolate. She dropped the mask back into the box. As she did, a small clip of paper detached and drifted down onto the bedspread.
It read: “Sweet Dreams!”
Of all the insufferable…!
Needless to say, it took her all of five seconds to throw the box back together and shove it far beneath her bed. That was that. Let it rot there.
The following days were so slow that she had to stop and check that her time-clotting dust hadn’t started leaking out of its bottle. It hadn’t. Business had just slowed to a desperate crawl through desert sands. Where was the oasis? Where was the sweet embrace of death? The doldrums got so bad that at one point she actually considered taking the dogs for a jog.
Instead she grabbed a needle and some thread and got about to embroidering evil eyes on all her cloaks. The task was one she’d been meaning to do for a very long time. She’d kept putting it off. Because It was boring. But at this point anything to fill her time with pointless busy-work was gonna have to do.
Three days later. A knock on her door made her jump, which she felt very silly for. Oh well - at least no one was there to see. She stuffed her fifth cloak (almost done!) under the counter and straightened her back. “Come in. It’s unlocked.”
No response. Her eyes narrowed with such intensity that it was a wonder the door didn’t catch on fire. Was there any chance of her getting up and walking all the way across the shop front to let whoever it was in? No chance in hell! Then again, she was very bored. She jumped up and tried to not run. Couldn’t let anyone know how excited she was for even the smallest, dullest bit of company.
A burst of fresh air pushed against her face as she cracked the door open. It had started to rain. Puddles were forming along the brick wall bordering her property. Worms were coming up, and birds down to meet them, pecking and clawing in the newly crafted mud. This is all she saw. No one was there.
She knit her brows together and let the door close. How incredibly foolish, to think that something could ever change.
Just then Mr. Grin came ambling in from the back. His claws were occupied, holding a bunch of bags - weekly shopping for the business. He greeted her with a nod. “Couldn’t get it open.”
“Oh. So you’re the one who knocked. For a second I thought…” She paused and pushed her fingernail against her lip. “Nothing. I thought someone was doorbell ditching.”
The look Mr.Grin gave her was something akin to understanding. It was always surprising to her that she could read emotions out of that mess of teeth. He dropped the packages across the counter and stretched his arms up towards the ceiling. “Getting chilly. You should turn in.”
He was being awfully… nice. Lotte tugged the shawl closer to her body. “But I have so much work to do…!”
“Bullshit. Go to bed.”
“… If you’ll make some tea.” The words sounded like the pouting of a child. But despite herself, she knew he made the best chamomile. And suddenly, yes, at the suggestion, she was getting drowsy. Clumping her feet across the floorboards, she made her way to the bedroom. It wasn’t even dark yet, dusk just beginning weave bands of loose gray through the sky. How would she sleep with the light…?
Putting on a show of grumbling, she stripped off her clothes and threw on a thinner nightgown. By the time she’d gone under the covers Mr. Grin had appeared. He offered her a tea cup and saucer.
“Thanks.” The steam wafted up through her nose and she held it in her chest, trying to muster some sense that she was still alive. When days melded together and nothing seemed important, it grew harder to convince herself of that fact. She could, after all, be lost in some condemned purgatory, made to wander out her days because of past sins (probably murder, or just being really petty).
Mr. Grin waited until she took a couple sips. Then he held his claw out, and she saw, pinned on one of his nails… the mask. “Thought it might help. It’s still light out.”
Oh. Well, he wasn’t wrong, and at this moment there was no point in fighting. Defeat pushed her shoulders down, made her body sag. She took the mask and held it in between her thumb and forefinger. Funny how she could feel her heartbeat travel from her chest to each fingertip, through the fabric, only to meet the pulsing of the other finger.
Weird though. She was deluded. “I guess I do need sleep.”
“That’s right. You’re far too annoying when you’re exhausted.” And with that, away he went.
Lotte pushed the mask down past her wispy hair, settled the band on top of her ears, and let darkness overcome her.
She woke, and it was dark. This wasn’t too strange, except that… didn’t she have a glowing toadstool sitting on her desk? Panic threw her hands up to claw at her eyes. Oh, and then she remembered, the mask.
Heaving a great sigh, she slipped it off and held it at arm’s length. More trouble than it was worth. Now, based on the light outside her window, she’d overslept to a few hours before midday. Mr. Grin was going to have a field day in the teasing. Grumbling, she threw the covers off and stretched.
Then the first groan came.
Weird. Did Mr. Grin groan like that? The answer was no. It was such a distinctly unsettling sound that she found herself throwing on her clothes without hesitation. If something bad was going to happen, she didn’t want it to happen while she was in her nighties. Then she threw her witch’s hat on, as an afterthought. Because if something bad was going to happen, she might as well look fabulous.
She tiptoed down the hallway. No dogs rushed to greet her. Without thinking, she called out. “Hey, Grin. Mr. Grin? This isn’t funny.”
He must have thought it was hilarious, because he didn’t appear. She reached her desk and ran a hand along its dusty surface. Sturdy, worn and familiar. Nothing was wrong and nothing bad was going to happen because of some sleep mask.
Tap-tap-tap. The knocking on the front door made her jump again. Damn it all, this wasn’t very witch-like! She went to throw the door open, to yell and scream and curse whoever was messing with her. But she stopped in her tracks as soon as she realized the tapping wasn’t going anywhere. It continued in a near steady, frantic pace. Maybe a bird beating its beak on the window pane…? She hurried to peer out.
Oh. Ohhh. ********. Zombies.
There were at least five of the buggers spread out across her yard. Gross and mutilated flesh hung off the one at her door, bobbing back and forth as it continued to walk into the wood, not unable to notice that its progress had been deterred. She looked closer. It was a villager. She recognized the face from the market stalls. This man… had sold parchment to her at a very unreasonable price.
She checked the door, clicked the locks into place. Then she went back to her desk. Then she went to a shelf and stared hard. Then back to her desk.
Ok, so a zombie plague had hit the village. The ones outside couldn’t be salvaged, but they would need to be killed, and disposed of properly, and there would have to be rituals performed to ensure they didn’t return from the dead (again), and surely those living would need her services in this time of need.
She grabbed the shawl from under her desk. As she threw it on, a jolt when up her body. It concerned her at first, until she realized that it was nothing too sinister. Just a bit of excitement. Ok, ok… a lot of excitement. This could, potentially, be… fun?
When Lotte woke it was pitch black. She clawed at her face again. The mask ended up being flung across her room, where it landed on a bookshelf, its embroidered eyes staring at her so innocently.
Strange… last thing she remembered, she’d been staking the village ale supplier through the head.
But now she was back home, in her bed, her body melded into the mattress so well that she wondered just how long she’d been lying there. She looked out the window and saw she’d overslept. It was almost midday. Deja-vu encompassed her.
“Sleep well, sunshine?”
The look she gave Mr. Grin was enough to make even him back up. She flung her sheets back and riled herself up to face him. “What’s going on? Where are the zombies?”
His look of innocence matched the mask’s. “Zombies, dear? Zombies?”
“Yes! Disgusting, hulking, shuddering masses of undead flesh! They were everywhere… I was killing them in droves!”
“Sounds terrible.”
Lotte balled her fists. “No, no, no! I was having a perfectly swell time! You can’t tell me that it was all just a dream?”
Mr. Grin seemed to contemplate this. Then he folded his hands and took a deep breath. “It was all just a dream.” Then he patted her shoulder, a sweet gesture that was totally meant to be condescending. “Listen, you should really clean up the kennel today. And feed the dogs. They haven’t been fed in two days - you’ve been slacking! They’re liable to nibble your ankles off, and I don’t blame them.”
Her eyes grew wide. “THE. ZOMBIES!”
His eyes were already as wide as they could be. “FEED. THE. DOGS!” Then he turned heel and left her there to fume.
It was impossible. It as impossibly unfair! She’d been having such an adventure. Dreams like that were so rare, made her so hungry for more, but at the same time made her almost feel sated -
A thought struck her like a… well, like her shovel was striking the ale man’s zombified skull.
The note.
Sweet dreams.
It took an entire half a minute for the realization to process through her brain. The mask had given her a good dream. An exciting dream! A taste of what her life could be, if only she wasn’t stuck in this dead end job in this backwater village. She crossed the room and plucked it up from the shelf.
Lotte stared at the mask.
The mask stared back (it had eyes, kind of. It could do that).
The dogs began to howl in the other room. Mr. Grin was letting off a steady string of swears. Lotte laughed out loud. With a satisfied smile, she tucked the mask between two spell books and headed out to face her terribly boring, unfulfilling and completely tasteless life.
But man, she couldn’t wait for bedtime to come around.
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:18 am
Practical
Degar Bolar
Written by Maxx D
"...wear something more practical." He groaned, in the most guttural, orcish way, that expressed an exasperation he couldn't put into words. It wasn't that sheer robe clung to her skin and her...massive tracts of land wasn't flattering, it was...straight out something else that he wasn't quite keen to articulate either, and completely inappropriate.
It was completely inappropriate.
"I'm a bard," she almost purred, smoothing down the silky folds like they needed help, which they didn't. "It is practically the most bard...ishly practical outfit I could have. How does the old guild slogan go again - " and she paused to pretend at thinking, a finger put to her lips, pushing down on the plumpness rather deliberately.
"I ******** my way into this mess, and I'll ******** my way out."
She was completely inappropriate. If Degar was drinking, the mead would have been everywhere. He choked on dry air and heaved to her giggles.
"Fine." He said, averting his eyes as the giggles started to sound rather delightful, and they shook her bosom, "but if you run into a pack of enemies like that, Gruumsh help you -"
"That's what I have you for, isn't it?"
It was light, airy, perfectly bard...ish. But its unprecedentedly, unbelievably innocent faith hung in the air.
And it almost compelled him to turn around, because the bolt that struck his chest made him wonder whether she was smiling, at that very moment.
"Put something over that, bard," he growled, slinging their supplies over his shoulder. "We have to get through the forest by sun-dawn. The branches might snag your precious silk."
"Now that's practical," a sing-song phrase, and she took his pelt instead.
