Adventures in Questing - Part I

My eardrums rang as the sword lodged itself in the support beam above me, where my neck had been not seconds before. I’m used to orcs trying to remove my head, but usually in the aftermath of a particularly profitable card game (which is quite common as Orcs are quite bad with numbers).

Collecting myself, I took advantage of the slight respite of the orc trying to remove his blade and recalled my training. Many years of endless meditation and sparring flooded back to me in an instant. I ducked out of the way of the man currently attempting to lop my head off with his extremely large and incredibly sharp broadsword, turned, and ran like hell. I threw open the door to the inn, launched myself at my horse, and missed, planting my face directly into the mud. My horse, a large grey mare, looked at me and shook its head, clearly done with my shit. Yeah, me too, bud.

I got up, dusted myself off the best I could and mounted her. Looking back at the inn, I saw the door slam open, and the man who was trying to liberate various body parts from the rest of me seemed to have given up on his sword and found himself a large hammer. Great, I thought to myself, now I’ll get crushed to death instead of beheaded. I spurred on my loyal steed, and she bolted off.

Unfortunately, I only made it about 3 feet, as I realized too late I had forgotten to untie the reins. I heard a terrifying tearing sound, and to my horror, looked down to see the skin on my mount’s neck ripping like cheap fabric. The force from the taught reins had somehow been enough to rip the horse’s head clean off its body. The head flung away from the rest of its body, spun around the fence it was attached to and slammed into my attacker, who was sent flying and landed on the ground about 10 feet away. The rest of the horse’s body, myself included, folded over its now limp legs, and slid in the mud. As we came to a stop, a sharp pain in my right leg told me some terrible news. I was pinned, and now Mr. Hammer over there could use my head in the same way the bard in the last town used a watermelon.

I leaned my head back, straining my neck trying to get view of the horse blood drenched, hammer wielding, and frankly uncomfortably varicose orc. He struggled to get to his feet, feeling the pain I would imagine one would feel after being hit with a horse head. He retrieved his hammer, which I could now see was not in fact a hammer, but the aforementioned sword with a large piece of wooden beam still stuck to the end. I tried to pull myself free of the horse’s weight, to no avail. The half-orc stumbled toward me, with fire in his eyes.

“You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth, imp.” His voice was deep and gravely, and he spoke with a lisp. It seemed that the impact with my horse’s decapitated head broke one of his tusks off. I hear orc-tusks fetch a nice price on the black market…

“Well that’s implying I’m worth anything!” I responded, hoping that I could talk my way out of getting crushed and/or dismembered as I have dozens of times before.

“You’re worth 10,000 crowns.” He smiled, clearly thinking about all of the things he could buy with that absurd amount of money. Even for me, 10,000 was a lot. There had to be a mistake.

“Are you sure you didn’t miss a decimal point somewhere?” He didn’t respond. Either he didn’t know what a decimal point was, or he didn’t care. As previously mentioned, the Orcish educational system leaves a lot to be desired; too much of a focus on athletics.

“And now, those 10,000 crowns are going to set me up quite nicely once I turn you in.”

Turn me in? I thought, that implies alive, right? I should ask.

“Turn me in?” I said, “that implies alive, right?” The hulking orc, who had finally limped his way over to my trapped body knelt down beside me.

“Well that’s where it gets tricky, imp. You see, they want you alive. I, on the other hand -“ he motioned to his broken tusk and moved in very close to me “- I sort of really want to crush your skull with my bare hands, squeezing your eyeballs like those jellies they make in Viraka, but slow-like. I want to feel you suffer. I want to see the light leave your eyes as I run my knife across your -”

They say that the breath of an orc could kill a man under the correct circumstances. I always assumed that was just another racist stereotype, coined to demonize and already marginalized people. However, in this particular moment, I believed it. His breath was absolutely rancid, something similar to the smell after dumping the previous night’s dinner into your cathole. Shit, piss, and day-old stew. Needless to say, despite the Orc’s horrifying description of his violent desires involving my person, I couldn’t focus on anything other than his breath. As his rotten, milky, thick haze of halitosis crept over all of my senses, my vision started to blur. I could feel myself getting woozy, and eventually, everything went dark.

It might be a good idea to go back a little bit. Yes, I know it’s contrived but I’m a sucker for clichés. My name is Cyril Vash Ent Mont. I’m what they refer to as a Quarterling, or a Q’ling. Like a halfling; half elf, half something else. Except you know, a quarter. My father was a half-elf, my mother was human. My mother was extremely doting, possibly to a fault. She was a healer, a lover of life. Losing her was one of the hardest moments of my life.

My father died shortly after I was born. He was selected for a Quest but was unable to complete it. Every 100 years or so, some maniac tries to end the world. After the first two or three attempts, the Collective of Kings decided to implement The Quest Initiative. Every time one of these patchwork crazies arrives at some malevolent conclusion about how corrupt our world is and how it needs purifying or some megalomaniac thinks everything will suddenly get better if he’s in charge, The Council of Court Witches identifies one lucky elf-kin to stop them. Usually the elf-kin ends up with a motley crew or misfits, fights a few baddies, loses a few friends, and defeats the great evil and saves the day.

My father was selected by the council, but before he could set off on his Quest, Eilrich the Undead Dragon (not a dragon) moved forward with his plan and completed his ritual, sacrificing the young kidnapped maiden and subsequently found himself being digested by his own undead dragon (actually a dragon). Typical crazed necromancer fare. Usually they wind up hacked to death by a skeleton, drained by a wraith, or even the odd disappearance into the void. Frankly, Dragon-man wound up pretty lucky as far as necromancy accidents go.

I had what I would consider to be a pretty normal childhood given the circumstances. I grew into adolescence much earlier than human peers, hitting my pubescent peak at age 6. But like my peers, stayed there until I hit about 18 years. So beyond the perpetual awkwardness and general prejudice to my circumstances, I lived as trauma free as a half-breed bastard can.

After the death of my mother, and probably much to her chagrin, I found my calling in thievery. In adulthood I looked human enough where my magical skills could be played off as talent. Over my thirty year career, I stole from the greatest palaces in the continent, pilfered treasures from all Twelve Kingdoms, and had been personally slapped by the wives of at least a dozen nobles.

When the orc approached me at the inn, I assumed it had something to do with the outstanding warrants in the western three kingdoms, which the inn bordered. I would soon find out that I was incredibly mistaken.