Tales of D&D: "Enter, Orf the Berserker"

Orf was lazily soaking in the pale moonlight by the edge of a lake when he noticed a little green fairy approaching over the water.  He stood slowly, his mail shirt jingling as the giant rose.  The massive axe upon his back glittered dangerously as he stood.  Orf was a half-giant berserker on a quest to find the best beer in the world, a quest which he had finished just a few hours before.

Orf was totally enraptured by the little green glowing thing that was yelling something at him.  He decided to grab at it but it began to fly back to the middle of the lake.  Orf would have none of that.  He swam swiftly after the little shrieking speck.  Eventually they reached an odd tower and the fairy flew up through a window.  So, Orf followed easily hauling his bulky figure up the side of the structure and through the window.

The fairy was nowhere to be seen and all was silent up there now.  He appeared to be in the top of some sort of stone structure, the walls were about twenty feet high but there was no roof.  Orf wondered at the practicality of having a building in a lake with no roof.  It seemed like one would get rather wet living there.  He made out the shape of a door in the darkness and he walked over, opened it and peeked around whispering "hellooooooo, anybody home?".  No one answered but Orf did notice there were caltrops strewn all over the place.

Orf thought that was also not very practical, someone could step on one and get hurt.  So, he moved them out of the way of the door directly across from him and pushed that one open.  That is when all hell seemed to break loose.  There was a flash of light and a bang like nothing he had ever heard before.  Also, Orf quickly realized he was on fire!  "What the devil is this!  What's going on here!" He bellowed as he swatted at the flames.

A voice yelled out to Orf saying something like, "calm down, who are you?"

Orf turned around and around and did not see anyone, his ears were still ringing from the thunderous noise that had just gone off.  He yelled, "where the hell are you voice?!"  The next thing Orf knew a large tarp had been thrown over him.  This really freaked him out, he tore the tarp off and, not noticing the flames had been put out, swung wildly with his axe.  He managed to hit the door frame putting a huge crack in the wall there.  "Then he yelled out, "who is there, show yourself!"

A voice from above answered coolly, "I am up here you idiot, I just put out the flames."

Orf looked up and saw a cat-person perched on top of the wall.  "Oh, hello there friend!  Have you seen a little green fairy around here?"

The cat person struck his forehead with his palm.  "Are you serious?  Is that why you have been taking down all of our traps?  ....wait... Idiot, did you take the alchemist fire off that door over there too?"

"What alchemist fire?" Orf replied.

The cat-man looked frightened and ran across the wall to peer down into the room on the other side of the door.  As he did so sounds of combat came floating across the night air.  Orf finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, the caltrops were put there on purpose!  It was time to fight stuff!  This got Orf excited.  He ran and started climbing up the wall after the cat-man.  But as he did so he saw the cat-man run past him in the other direction.  Probably to help out his buddies Orf thought.  He heard someone yell "doppelganger", but Orf did not know what this word meant.

Just then he noticed something else.  He barely caught a dark blur go through the cracked door over the remaining caltrops.  He could hear the thing's heart beating in the corner.  Orf knew this had to be an enemy so without a moments hesitation he did a running leap off of the wall, turning in the air, he brought his massive axe down with all the might he could summon.  Whatever unfortunate being had been there was now a red vapor settling on the small crater that had been formed by the impact.

Two more villains stood paralyzed at the door staring at the scene.  There rising before them was a half giant who wiped the vaporized remains off his face with a devilish grin.  He wrenched the titanic battle-axe from the stone in which it was wedged with a grating piercing metal on stone sort of sound.  They cowered as he laughed, the red of the mist now matched the red in his eyes which were now drunk with bloodlust.  The battle had just begun.

The Chronicles of Edwin, Ch. 14 "Gigantic Nostrils in Space"

It was now Saturday, five days after the incident on the road, and Edwin had nearly forgotten about the O'Connor girl. The news story about his rescue had died down on TV and had been replaced by a story about some cats that could dance. What was now foremost on Edwin's mind was the fact that there was a dragon somewhere out there and it was testing him, Edwin, of all people. He could hardly imagine what it would be like to have a pact with a dragon, or, actually, he was quite good at it as he had been imagining just that for many years now. So, it was pretty much all he could think about pretty much all of the time. In fact, when his mother came and knocked on his door, he was on his bed playing with one of his many dragon figurines.

"Edwin?" she said.

"Yes?" he said as he opened the door and picked some things off the floor so she could actually walk in.

"There is someone at the door for you, says he's brought a message from General O'Connor?  Isn't O'Connor the name of that girl you so bravely rescued" she said with a wink.

Edwin turned a deep crimson.  "Mom!"

"Well, he is downstairs waiting for you so hurry up and put a shirt on." She left Edwin's room, picking up a few pieces of trash and muttering something about a slob on her way out.

Edwin was not sure what sort of message the General would have sent.  So, he got up, put on a shirt, and went down to see the messenger.  When he got to the bottom of the stairs he recognized the soldier immediately. It was Parker Donaldson, he one of the guys who had escorted him home after the incident on the road.

"Parker! Whattup man? Issac here too?"  Issac Kelimba was the other soldier who had accompanied Edwin home.  The three of them had become fast friends and stayed in touch online mostly.

"Haha, hey, Issac's got other assignments today.  But you might run into him tonight."

"Really, what's going on tonight?"

"Well, that's what I was sent here to tell you, actually..." Parker cleared his throat, stood at attention, and gave a rigid salute.   "General O'Connor wishes to send his regards to your family and would like to invite you, Edwin Felspar, to his personal quarters for dinner this evening. The General sends his sincerest thanks to you for protecting his daughter from that horde of brigands that attacked, he would like to meet you and talk about suitable reward."

Edwin nearly fell over laughing.  "Man, you looked so serious saying all that!  ...and what that about the hordes of brigands?  I don't remember having to fight a soul."

Parker blushed but did not seem to mind.  "Hey, it was orders and we got a way of doing things in the military you civvies just wouldn't get.   But, yeah... now that you mention it, I don't remember any hordes of brigands either.  It is what he said though, so... whatever.  Are you going to come?"

"...I ...I'm not really sure.  Will you and Isaac be there?"

"I don't actually know, the General didn't actually invite us... I could ask though.  Since you requested us...  Guess you'll find out when you get there."

Just then Squiggers popped up from behind Edwin.  "Can I come too???" she squealed.

Parker laughed, "who is this?"

"Oh, she is my familiar spirit.  I forgot I had not introduced you two yet.  At that time she was exhausted after performing a pretty intense healing spell.  Her name is Ariel, but you can call her Squiggers. A real trouble maker she is."  She kicked Edwin at that last remark.

"Well, pleasure to meet you... er, Squiggers?"  Squiggers giggled at the face Parker made saying her name out loud.  "I don't see any problem in you coming... um... do you eat, like, people food?" Parker said.

"I only eat the souls of the damned and drink the blood of crushed beetles!  Muahahahahahaha"  Ariel said as she posed dramatically, cackling on Edwin's shoulder.

Edwin flicked her off and rolled his eyes.  "She does like flower petals and can't eat meat, but whatever they're having should be fine.

Squigers mumbled something about beetle blood not being as bad as it sounds as she hovered back onto Edwin's shoulder to pout.

"Well, I'm sure something can be arranged, haha." Said Parker.

Edwin noticed Parker was starting to glace at the door.  "I guess you have to get going then?"

"Yeah... sadly, I have to go join the patrol out on the highway."  Parker already looked bored out of his skull just thinking about it.  He brightened though and said, "I guess I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah, remember to get that permission and I guess I'll see you then... oh wait, what time should I be there?"

"Oh, that's right!  I completely forgot that part, totally unprofessional!  They will send a carriage for you latter, should arrive around five."

"That works for me, take care bro."

"You too.  Bye!"  Parker gave a salute before leaving to high-tail it down the street where the rest of his troop were begrudgingly awaiting his arrival.

Back in his room, Edwin began sorting through his laundry trying to figure out what to wear. He first sorted out the things that could not be mistaken for clean along with the things which should have been clean but had remained in contact with the dirty articles far too long.  Then he organized what was relatively clean by amount of wrinkles.  Of that lot, he had to decide if he would dress up more or keep it kind of casual.  He figured to make a good impression he would wear a nicer polo that fit him fairly well, not so loose as to look baggy but loose enough not to show off every fat roll.  He then found some pants to match, blue jeans of course.  That was about as nice as he could get, nothing else fit, or it would fit just as long as Edwin refused to breathe or move.  Edwin stood in front of a mirror to see how he looked.  The fact that Keely would most certainly be there was the furthest thing from his mind, or so he wished.  He sucked in his stomach and tried various poses to see what angles he did not look like total dough-boy from and after flexing a few times he swore he would start to work out.

Now, what to do for the rest of the afternoon?  This was sometimes a very hard thing to figure out. Some days, it was as simple as, I want to shoot virtual stuff - video games on the scryver console. Others, he preferred to talk with friends online.  Sometimes, and increasingly rarely of late, he would read a book.  If nothing else, he would listen to music and write or draw. Whichever hit him as the best outlet for whatever creative impulse he had at the moment. Of course, heaven forbid he should clean his room or do something constructive, that was always out of the question.  Edwin sat down, thought a moment, looked at the mess in his room, and began drawing.

He did not really know what he would end up drawing, but the shapes were flowing unusually well that day.  Edwin realized pretty quickly that he was drawing a dragon, but it was very different form his usual drawings.  First of all, 90% of his dragons were left-facing profiles and this was from behind. Secondly, the proportions seemed much more natural and organic. Usually Edwin took a fair amount of artistic license and drew in a cartoon like style.  The most unsettling thing though, was when he finished, he could have sworn he saw the dragon move, or more precisely, blink.  He shook it off as having stared at the paper too long.  In the end, he was quite happy, it was possibly his best work yet.  He could not help wishing it actually was real.

After drawing Edwin played some games on his scryver console and the time flew by.  It was late afternoon when Edwin saw the carriage come up.  It was really ornate, jet black with gold or gold colored trim.  On the side was the purple shield of the Imperial Army.  This all seemed a little fancy to Edwin, but this was a general's house he was going to after all. Feeling like royalty Edwin quickly put his stuff away and tucked in his undershirt. He rushed down the stairs and out the door yelling a brief so long to his family. Soon he was riding in the little carriage toward the army base and the general's house.