Sean Gibson's Blog, page 4

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 9): Rap-Rap-Rapping on Rappahammer’s Hammer

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 9 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take.

Wait...where did all the content go?! You'll have to check out the collected Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple for the full story...coming soon! Watch this space.

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 8): Banger is in the Eye of a Beholder

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 8 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point comes at the end of this section of our tale!

Wait...where did all the content go?! You'll have to check out the collected Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple for the full story...coming soon! Watch this space.

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 7): A Half-Orc Walks into a Club

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 7 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point will come at the end of Part 8.

A Half-Orc Walks Into a Club...

AWait...where did all the content go?! You'll have to check out the collected Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple for the full story...coming in late September! Watch this space.

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 6)

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 6 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point will come at the end of Part 8.

Bring Back My Banger to Me, to Me!

Wait...where did all the content go?! You'll have to check out the collected Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple for the full story...coming in late September! Watch this space.

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 5)

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 5 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point comes at the end of this portion of our tale...weigh in with your votes in the comment section below by February 24!

Be Careful What You Wish For (Handy Advice)

AWait...where did all the content go?! You'll have to check out the collected Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple for the full story...coming in late September! Watch this space.

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 4)

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 4 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point will come at the end of Part 5!

Where There’s a Well, There’s a…Giant Dragon-Like Thing That Wants to Eat Us

“The Ballad of the Well of Wilkington”

Dramatis Personae

Heloise: a clever, beautiful, honey-voiced, silver-tongued bard of exceptional, perhaps unparalleled, skill

Grimple: a smarter-than-average hill giant (which isn’t saying much) with a penchant for getting enchantments cast on him that make him look like a gnome and for misleading, if not outright lying, to his clever, beautiful, honey-voiced, silver-tongued adventuring partner

Kevil: a not evil, possibly not incompetent wizard

“I neglected to mention this earlier, with all of the pinning me to the ground and talk about undead wizards, but you’re not actually saying my name right.”

“Huh?” Kevil’s words brought me out of my reverie. I shook my head and turned in my saddle to look at the wizard. “What are you talking about?

“It rhymes with ‘bevel,’ not ‘evil.’ I just figured that if you’re making up a song that’s at least partly about me, you could pronounce it right.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked suspiciously at our new companion, who I now suspected of reading my mind. “Who says I’m making up a song?”

“You keep muttering lines out loud, though you don’t seem to be getting much past ‘Dramatis Personae.’” Kevil gave me an annoyed look. “And I’m not incompetent. Just because I can’t undo an enchantment that only a handful of wizards could undo doesn’t make me incompetent. It makes me human.” He spurred his horse and rode ahead. He wasn’t a bad rider for someone who hadn’t spent much time on horseback.

I was glad to see the back of his spurs, as I’m certain my color had risen slightly. I had a bad habit of talking out loud when I was writing songs in my head, and I hated for anyone to hear unfinished work—especially when the work in progress was at its earliest stage, one where I was more focused on melody than words. And particularly when the story about which I was writing a song hadn’t actually happened yet.

To be fair to me, though, other than Kevil’s attempt to restore Grimple to normal—which had, for the most part, failed—I hadn’t seen him work any magic, so he truly might be incompetent, despite his own opinion on the subject. I did feel a little bad about mispronouncing his name, though, even if the way he pronounced it was stupid.

If you’ve got “evil” in your name, it should be pronounced evil.

We’d been on the road for three days, riding as hard as we could on mounts of middling quality (a result of both our lack of extensive funds and a paltry selection of palfreys in Bristow). It would be another two days of hard riding before we reached the Well, the latter part of which would be far from the well-kept (and well-patrolled) roads on which we’d been traveling. It had been a while since Grimple and I had been in a fight, and Kevil never had, so I was curious to see how we would handle skirmishes that might occur (which is a polite euphemism for “not really looking forward to it in the slightest, and, should an encounter occur, would very much prefer to be accosted by a handsome band of gentle centaur masseurs than poked and prodded by a band of marauding orcs” (or, more accurately, a “grope of orcs,” as a collection of orcs is properly called—allegedly, it derives from the orcish word for “group,” but I think we all know why it’s called a grope)). We were still on well-traveled roads frequented by merchant caravans, but I placed my hand on the hilt of my favorite dagger nonetheless, comforted by its stabby presence.

After another night of roadside camping (the surrounding area was safe, and it saved us from having to spend funds in taverns unlikely to be receptive to an offer of service from a traveling bard, no matter how talented and comely she may be), we rose and road hard toward our goal, knowing that the going would be much slower as we entered the forest in which we would find the Well.

Why, an astute reader might ask—and I’ve no doubt you are exactly that, given that you have such good taste in literature, as you are reading a tale penned by the preeminent storyteller in all of Balachor—would a Well be found in the middle of a forest, rather than in the midst of a town, where it would serve an actual, useful purpose? Excellent question, and the answer requires a brief digression of the type in which we bards specialize.

The Well of Wilkington started out as a normal well (uncapitalized), dug for the usual reasons—that is, to provide water to a thriving town—a thousand years ago. The well did its job, as wells do, and no one really thought much about it except when they were thirsty or needed to wash clothes or had some other water-related need that necessitated a trip to the old well. I say old because, by this point, some 800 years after it was first dug, it was pretty old. About 200 years ago, people stopped using the well regularly. Over time, a well might dry up, or a town might grow in a different direction and use a well less and less until it becomes abandoned or is filled in. Such was not the case with the Well of Wilkington, however. Rather, the well fell into disuse because it started causing weird things to happen.

It started innocently enough, or so the story goes. One of the townspeople was drawing water from the well when he happened to exclaim to a nearby friend, “I wish this bucket of water was ale.” Now, most anyone who’s not an idiot knows that using the phrase “I wish” is always a dangerous proposition, regardless of circumstance. Too much stray magic floating around waiting to be activated by those very words. Still, perhaps we can forgive this man for his momentary lapse of reason, particularly given his apparently extreme level of thirst.

Fortunately for him, his words not only didn’t bring him harm, they brought him beer. A big, sudsy, frothy-headed bucket of it. He didn’t notice at first, his mind elsewhere as he hauled the bucket up from the bottom of the well, but as soon as he pulled the bucket close, the white, foamy top caught his eye. He brought it close to his face, sniffed it, and shrugged. Looked like ale. Smelled like ale. Only one way to find out if it actually WAS ale…

He brought the bucket to his lips and sipped slowly; a second later, his eyes lit up as the ale, dark and hoppy, hit the back of his throat and filled him with warmth. Naturally, this development led to some rather excited reactions (the man’s friends, apparently, being as thirsty as he) and an assumption that the man himself had somehow developed magical powers. When subsequent attempts to turn other objects into beer failed, however, one of the slightly less inebriated, but considerably more hungry, onlookers thought to approach the well. He looked inside the deep well, dark at the bottom where the sun’s waning rays couldn’t reach and said, very understandably yet regrettably, “I wish you’d make me a fish sandwich.”

Needless to say, the man’s transformation into the object of his stomach’s desire startled his companions, who ran screaming away from the well (it’s unclear whether any of them considered eating the sandwich, perhaps fearing it might be considered cannibalism), and a legend was born.

Over the next several years, the legend spread, and visitors came from far and wide to test the well, now known as the Well of Wilkington (Wilkington being the name of the town in which the Well resided; let us award no points for creativity to the denizens of that now-defunct village for their naming of troublesome magical wells). Results, as you might imagine, were mixed—some people’s wishes were fulfilled beyond their wildest dreams, while others experienced mishaps ranging from minor inconvenience to death by raccoon consumption (as happened to the poor man who just wanted a fish sandwich). As the decades passed, fewer and fewer people came to try their luck at the Well, and the town of Wilkington began to shrink in fortune and popularity until, ultimately, it was abandoned by even its hardiest and most long-tenured families.

Now, it’s as much legend as anything, and only occasionally do those brave—or foolhardy—enough seek it out, especially given that the forest around it has grown dangerous.

And it was into that forest that Grimple, Kevil, and I now rode. Dapples of sunlight ricocheted through the thick forest canopy to create a patchwork of illuminated lattices amidst the darkened gloom of the primeval wood.

(Gods of Erithea…who says things like, “Dapples of sunlight ricocheted through the thick forest canopy to create a patchwork of illuminated lattices amidst the darkened gloom of the primeval wood?” Pretentious windbags, that’s who. Let me try that again.)

Only a little bit of sunlight could get through the trees, which made things pretty spooky.

(That’s better. Sometimes I get carried away, and then I realize that drunken morons have no idea what dapples are—and drunken morons are my core audience.)

The first half of the day was uneventful, and we came to a stop near a small stream. I was hesitant to let the horses drink from it, but Kevil led his straight to it. “It’s not the woods that are evil, Heloise,” he said, patting his horse’s neck. “It’s the evil monsters that live in them. So, unless they all conspire to take giant, evil poops at the source of this stream, this water should be safe to drink.”

“I’ve seen giant poops,” I said, looking toward Grimple, who, in his hill giant days, had had few reservations about going whenever he needed to go, regardless of where that might be and who might be around, “and I can tell you that I wouldn’t drink anything I found within a league of them.”

Kevil shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Grimple suddenly raised his hand and shushed us. He looked warily around, holding a finger to his lips.

I frowned. I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, and, with my keen half-elven ears (the top half, I should note—pointy as could be), my hearing was much sharper than his. After looking around for a moment, Grimple reached into his pocket and put something on his face. “Where did you get spectacles?!” I hissed, “and why are you wearing them?”

Grimple shushed me again, a stern look on his stupid gnome face as he looked and listened. I was beginning to loathe that big little bastard.

That’s when I heard it—and saw it. A cloud of…of…bats! Hundreds—no, thousands—of bats! They were headed straight toward us, flying low, beneath the cover of the trees. They’d be on top of us in a matter of seconds.

Grimple brandished his club, waving it about with a ferocity that was normally very intimidating, but looked ridiculous coming from a gnome. Kevil threw himself on the ground and pulled a blanket over his head. I was glad to see he was displaying such bravery in the face of danger.

I ducked down, but wasn’t particularly concerned. I mean, they were bats. Unless they were stupid bats, they’d use their sonar, realize we were humans (or, in the case of Grimple, human-like), and fly around us. My primary goal was not getting bat poop in my hair because that stuff takes forever to get out.

No, I was much more concerned about what was driving the bats toward us.

The wave of bats swept over us and, as I’d expected, passed right by. Save for a little incidental contact with wing or leg, I remained unscathed (and, thankfully, unpooped upon—though Kevil’s blanket wasn’t so lucky). Grimple, acting as hill giants tend to act in these situations, swung his club mightily and took down at least a half dozen bats with each swing. Once the bats noted the movement, they gave him a wide berth. A moment later, they were gone.

“It’s okay, Kevil,” I said. “You can come out now, our not-evil, possibly incompetent, clearly cowardly wizard.”

Kevil threw the blanket back and stood up, looking much less terrified than I imagined he would. “I wasn’t afraid; I just didn’t want to get pooped on.”

Hmmm. Kevil, the not-evil, possibly incompetent, eminently sensible wizard. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but we keep peeling back new layers. “Smart man.” I made a mental note to keep a blanket handy on all future adventures that presented even the slightest chance of encountering bats (or, as happened one time, flying elephants…a suit of armor would have been better than a blanket in that instance, though).

I turned to Grimple. “Are you all right, Mighty Hunter? Any wounds sustained in the heroic slaying of tiny fruit bats?”

“I’ll have you know, dear Heloise, that it is entirely possible that any number of those bats could have been vampires in disguise.”

“And your hitting them with an ordinary club would have done what, exactly?”

Grimple pushed the spectacles, which had begun to slip, up his nose. “It would have, ah, forced them to reveal their true form. Eh what?”

“Thereby starting a fight with vampires who might otherwise have left us alone. Brilliant.”

“What do you think stirred up the bats?” asked Kevil, looking around.

“Whatever it is, I doubt it’s something we want to tangle with.” I stopped and listened for a moment, but couldn’t hear anything that might have prompted the bats’ flight. “Let’s keep moving so we can…Gods of Erithea! The horses!” In all of the confusion, we’d failed to notice that our (stupidly) untethered mounts had fled. Crap.

“Well, bollocks,” said Grimple, taking off his spectacles, huffing a breath on them, and polishing them with his shirt.

“STOP IT WITH THE ACCENT!”

“You know he can’t, right?” said Kevil. Rather irritatingly, I might add. “Like I said before, it’s a strange effect of the attempt to dispel the enchantment having to do with an obscure application of Madras’s Fourth Principle of—”

“STOP IT WITH THE EXPLANATIONS.” I shook my head. “I need a moment to think.”

With no mounts, we were at least a few hours’ hike from the Well, based on my limited understanding of the geography and a rough map I’d sketched with the help of someone who had (allegedly) once visited the Well. I didn’t mind that prospect, but we still didn’t know what had spooked the bats, and we needed to get back to civilization afterward. That was going to be a long walk—especially without the extra rations stored in the horses’ saddlebags.

I sighed and shouldered my pack. “Come on—if we walk fast, we can probably reach the Well by nightfall. Without knowing what sent the bats scurrying we—”

“Shhhh!” Kevil held up his hand. Now the HUMAN was shushing me. I need to get my hearing checked.

“Look,” said Kevil a moment later, entirely too calmly, when a purple-and-blue wyvern—that’s a miniature dragon (and when I say miniature, I mean only 20 feet long), people—flew up over the trees and, following the same path as the bats, made straight for us. Unlike the bats, however, wyverns like to snack on humans.

Even Gimple looked unsure what to do, raising his club but looking at me for direction. “RUN!” I shouted, veering away from the clearing and diving into the nearest thicket of bushes that might provide some cover. Wyverns, fortunately, don’t have breath weapons—that is, fire or acid—like dragons, so I figured the bushes might at least make it harder for it to eat me.

Gimple did likewise, but Kevil just stood in the clearing, staff at the ready, his other arm at his side. He looked completely at ease as he studied the creature, which was headed straight for him and closing fast. “Kevil—move!” I shouted (though without leaving the cover of my thicket).

Kevil looked over his shoulder toward me. “For the most part, they’ve done an excellent job.” He raised his staff as the wyvern descended. “The visual is perfect.” The beast shrieked, an ear-splitting noise that left me cringing. “The sound spot is spot-on, too.” The wyvern opened its maw, sharp teeth glinting in the fading sun, and prepared to make Kevil a not evil, possibly incompetent, clearly stupid, and decidedly headless wizard.

“What they forgot, though,” said Kevil as he touched the wyvern with his staff just before it engulfed him, “is the smell.”

The mini dragon disappeared instantly when Kevil’s staff touched it; one moment it was there, the next it was completely gone.

I blinked. “What the…?”

“Oh, good show!” shouted Grimple. “Dear Kevil has slain the nefarious dragon—”

“Wyvern,” corrected Kevil, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Right—wyvern,” said Grimple, nodding. “He has slain the nefarious dragon with his mighty staff!”

“Mighty staff my ass,” I may or may not have mumbled. More loudly, I said, “What in the Seven and a Half Hells just happened?”

“It was an illusion,” replied Kevil with a shrug. “A pretty good one, but, like I said, they forgot to include smell. Wyverns…well, they stink. They’re like the skunks of dragonkin. If you’re within a half mile of one, you know it. When we saw it but couldn’t smell it, I knew it was illusory.” He smiled. “Illusions are kind of my specialty.” He frowned. “Which should, I hope, tell you just how complicated the enchantment Grimple is under is, Heloise.”

Kevil, the not evil, apparently not incompetent, rather resourceful, but decidedly uppity wizard. Well, I’ve had worse traveling companions. “I’m sorry, Kevil—I haven’t given you a fair shake. I guess I’m just frustrated by this whole thing.” I motioned to Grimple. “And by that miniature asshole.”

“By Jove! Heloise, dear, I’ve half a mind to—”

“Hush, Grimple.”

“Righty-o.”

“So, flock of bats, scary wyvern illusion…what’s next?”

Kevil shrugged again. “This is really more your line of work than mine.”

“Well, you’re proving yourself adept.” I looked at the rapidly fading daylight. “I think we’re going to need to find a place to camp. My guess is that we’re still at least a few hours from the Well, and that’s if we’re able to find it without any trouble. Let’s set a watch and get some rest. I’ll see what I can scrounge up for dinner and…what? What’s that look for?”

Kevil looked all around, spinning a complete circle. “Where’s Grimple?”

“Gods!” I pulled my knife from my belt. “Grimple!” I looked at Kevil. “If whatever sent the wyvern hasn’t killed him, I’ll take care of the problem for them.”

“Heloise!” came an annoyingly accented yell.

“Come on!” I shouted to Kevil, racing into the thicker part of the forest, Kevil hard on my heels (or, at least, as hard on my heels as an extremely pasty, pretty out-of-shape wizard could be when chasing after a lithe and winsome gazelle like myself).

We sprinted through the underbrush, thorns snagging our clothing and dead leaves and branches causing us both to stumble. A moment later, as the last of the sun’s rays filtered over the horizon, we entered another clearing, where Grimple stood waiting for us, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. “Grimple! Are you all right?”

“Smashing, dear Heloise, simply smashing.”

“Where did you go?”

“Well, if you really must know, I had to make my toilet, and I figured it would be rather more discreet if I were to distance myself from—”

My eyes went wide. “This enchantment really HAS changed you—normally, I have to bribe you to go poop somewhere else.”

“Yes, well…tally-ho. At any rate, I found this lovely clearing, and, lo and behold.” He waved his hand with a flourish at a stone structure behind him, one I’d failed to notice when we entered the clearing, but one I stared at now.

It was a well.

“Welcome!” came a deep voice from within the well, echoing off the stones. “Care to make a wish? Deposit one gold coin, please!”

Not just A well, apparently—THE Well.

We’d found the Well of Wilkington.

Can the Well restore Grimple to normal? Will Heloise murder him before we have a chance to find out? Does Kevil have any spells to get bat poop out of his blanket? Answers to those questions and more to come in Part 5…coming soon!

Update: continue on to part 5!

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 3)

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 3 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple! Be sure to check out Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well and Part 2: Off to See (and Hog Tie, and Coerce) the Wizard! Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the path our heroes take. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—the next such decision point comes at the end of this very chapter!

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Bludgeon…

I stepped back, nervous, as a form began to emerge from the magical cloud that had enveloped Grimple. I squeezed the handle of my dagger as I squinted, peering through the arcane haze, and as the smoke cleared, I saw…

A sickly gnome. The same sickly gnome Grimple had been before Kevil, the not evil, but apparently incompetent, wizard had tried to reverse the enchantment that masked Grimple’s true form, that of a very large hill giant.

I looked at Kevil, eyebrow raised. “Well, you get what you pay for. Or don’t get what you don’t pay for, I guess.” I sighed and motioned to my companion. “Come on, Grimple—we’ll have to think of something else.” I turned away and started to walk toward the front of the house.

“I say, by Jove, what the deuce has happened?”

I stopped walking. The voice was rich and pleasant, cultured and modulated. It was somewhere between a bass and a baritone. It was…

I turned around. It was Grimple!

“Pip pip, tally ho, and all that rubbish,” said my formerly mute partner, the voice completely at odds with his gnomish face (gnomes, incidentally, usually sound like chickens squawking underwater). “What news?”

I looked at Kevil, who could offer nothing by way of explanation, save for a very unhelpful shrug. “At least he can talk now, eh?”

“That’s not him!” I sputtered. “That’s some…some fancy-talking, uh, fancy talker!” Words were failing me, even as they appeared to be coming to Grimple more easily than they ever had.

“I assure you, Mistress Heloise, that he is I, and I am he.” Grimple stepped fully clear of the mist, and I noted that his cheeks seemed less sunken, the pallor was gone, and he hadn’t coughed once in the past minute. So, at least he had that going for him.

“Fascinating,” said Kevil, moving closer and rubbing his chin as he looked Grimple over. “Who did you say cast this enchantment?”

“This little bastard of a gnome illusionist,” I said, forgetting, for an instant, that I no longer needed to speak for Grimple. “I think it was because we beat him to a treasure.”

“Must not have been a very big treasure, given that you have nothing with which to pay me,” muttered Kevil as he circled around behind Grimple.

“Heloise, dear,” said Grimple in what I could only describe as a sheepish manner. I looked at him in shock. The only thing sheepish about him heretofore was his desire to play ram-the-lamb-with-ding-dong with a group of lady hill giants for the purpose of producing a host of little Grimples. “Your characterization of the situation, while possessed of some truth in the broad strokes, is not entirely accurate in the particulars—a result, I’m afraid, of some calculated dissembling on my part.”

“Oh, gods in Erethia…I can’t even…what did you even just say?” Prior to his transformation, getting Grimple to string together three two-syllable words was a feat; now he was tossing out two gold piece words like they were half coppers.

“What I’m saying, by Jove, is that there was something rather, shall we say, unusual about the illusionist.”

“What?” asked Kevil.

“Simply that he was, to put it tactfully, for fear of offending his people, post-living.”

“Post-living…he was a lich?” Kevil stepped back.

Grimple nodded. “Just so, and quite right.”

I shook my head. “So, wait—the gnome illusionist who enchanted you was an undead wizard?”

Grimple smiled again, patiently, and not, I thought, a little patronizingly. “No, dear—he wasn’t a gnome in the slightest. An elf, actually—well, formerly an elf. Dead now. Or undead, rather. Partially a skeleton, really—lots of ribs, hips, remnants of viscera, and other important inner workings of that nature quite visible.”

I suppose it would be important to note that I hadn’t actually seen Grimple get transformed. Clearly, my companion had played fast and loose with the truth when he had pantomimed to me what had happened. “I think we need the full truth, Grimple.” I grimaced. “And can you tone down the ridiculous accent? You sound like a Flandorian nobleman quoting Trembleswordian sonnets to impress some flouncing ditz of a courtesan.”

“I shall happily provide a full accounting of my transformation, but I fear the accent is beyond my control.” Grimple looked at Kevil. “Is there anything you can do, Master Kevil? Pip pip and all that with the magic?” He waggled his fingers.

Kevil shook his head. “I don’t think so. The enchantment you’re under is…highly unusual. I need to know more about what happened.” Kevil’s irritation at our invasion of his home and manhandling of his person seemed to have lessened, though I think it was only because he was so fascinated by Grimple’s condition. I wasn’t about to complain, though. The last thing I needed as we tried to sort out this mess was an apparently not evil, probably not incompetent wizard flinging spells at me.

“Alas. I did try, Heloise, dear.”

“At least stop calling me dear—I’m older than you. By three decades.”

“Can’t be helped, dear. Seems to be coming with the accent, I’m afraid. By Jove.”

I sighed. “Fine. Just tell us what happened.”

“Ah, yes, well…it seems there was the little matter of a gambling debt. You’ll recall, Heloise, dear, when I lost my Banger?” “Banger” was what Grimple called his club. He looked mournful recalling his dear Banger, so much so that I could almost overlook the “dear” thing.

“Yes…you told me that you had to part with the club to cover a debt, but that was all you said.”

“I may, perhaps, have committed a lie of omission, then.”

I ground my teeth in frustration. “We’re supposed to be partners! We trust each other with our lives!” I shook my head. “Dammit, Grimple. Well, what’s the rest of the story?”

“I say, I truly am sorry, Heloise, dear. I did not mean to—”

“Stuff it, Grimple.”

“Tally ho. As I say, my Banger was part of the debt I owed, but my opponent, to whom I owed a rather substantial sum by the end of the night, indicated that my dear club was not sufficient restitution.”

“Wait, why on earth were you gambling with a lich in the first place?” Kevil looked perplexed. “You know, don’t grab the pointy end of a knife, don’t eat the yellow snow, don’t gamble with undead wizards…these just seem like common sense life principles.”

“You pose an excellent question, Master Kevil, and I assure you that I would never have gambled with the creature had I known its true nature.”

Kevil nodded. “Disguised itself with an illusion, did it? What form did it take?”

“Well, I rather think that what form it took is unimportant, and perhaps if I can just move on to—”

“Grimple—out with it.” I tapped my foot impatiently.

Grimple sighed. “Well, if it’s absolutely imperative to the narrative…heh. Say, that’s rather a fetching rhyme, isn’t it?

“GRIMPLE!”

“Sorry, by Jove. The lich…well, he took the form of a rather, ah, well-proportioned hill giantess.”

I smacked my forehead. “Once again, your banger gets you into trouble.”

“I say, didn’t you mean to say ‘Banger’?”

“No—I wasn’t talking about your club. Not that one, anyway.”

“Fair enough. At any rate, when my opponent indicated that I owed a further debt and suggested that we meet the following night at a discreet location, I assumed that I might, perhaps, be asked to use my amorous skills to work off the remainder of my obligation. Needless to say, I am never one to welch on a bet, and so I met her…well, him, rather. It? What is the proper pronoun for a now-dead elven cross-gender illusioning arch lich?”

“Proper and polite form of address would be to ask the creature’s preference,” murmured Kevil absently as he continued to stroke his chin. He shook his head, as if bringing himself out of a trance. “So, that’s when the creature cast the enchantment on you?”

“Quite right,” said Grimple. “I met…the creature…at the appointed place; when I arrived, I saw its true nature, and before I could react—that is to say, run like hell—it uttered arcane syllables, pointed a wand at me, and, well, ‘poof,’ I believe, is the technical term. I became what you see before you, though I retain all of my strength.” He looked down at himself and shrugged. “I owe you a debt, Master Kevil, for restoring my voice. Such as it is, by Jove.”

“Putting aside your probably unforgivably breach of trust, you horse’s ass,” I said pointedly to Grimple, “what do you make of this, Kevil? Why didn’t your spell return him to normal? Not that he deserves it…”

Kevil began to pace, hands behind his back. He seemed to have completely forgotten that it was only moments ago that Grimple was pinning him to the floor. “I have a theory—but only a theory.” He took a few steps, turned, took a few more steps, turned again. “Enchantments cast by lichs are different than those cast by living mages. It’s as though…as though the way they access magic is different. Light is dark, up is down—that sort of thing. Like they’re coming at it from the other side. Which, in a sense, I guess they are. Consequently, when I cast my spell to dispel the illusion, it didn’t react with the enchantment in the way it would have if a living wizard had cast it. Instead, the effect was…unexpected. This situation is a bit like rolling dice—you know generally what the possible outcomes are, but you can’t predict exactly what you’ll get. Even knowing now that the enchantment was originally cast by a lich, I couldn’t do much more to counter the spell. I could try to dispel it again, but that might remove Grimple’s new voice and make, say, his arms revert to their normal appearance, but not the rest of him—which, I think, would be a worse outcome. It’s very tricky.” Kevil reached out and touched Grimple’s arm. “Yet, fascinating.”

“So, there’s no way to get him back to normal?” I asked.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do, no. That’s not to say the spell can’t be reversed, though. There are certain living wizards who have the necessary skills to do it, but they are very few indeed, and the odds of you getting in touch with one willing to help…”

“We don’t have the contacts or the gold. Noted. Any other options?”

“Well, the lich who cast it could certainly reverse it.”

“Grimple—if that is even your real name, you lying sack of hill giant dung—what do you think the odds of that happening are?”

“Oh, quite slim, Heloise, dear,” replied Grimple. “I highly doubt that if we go see the lich, he’ll wiggle his fingers and, ‘poof,’ Bob’s your uncle and I’m back to my normal, handsome self.”

“Well,” said Kevil. “There’s one other way.”

“What’s that?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“If the lich dies—or, rather, is destroyed, since it’s already dead—then the spell will automatically dissipate.”

“Ah, good, simple solutions are always the best. So, we’d just need to kill an impossibly powerful undead wizard.”

“Right.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Well, that’s just great. I guess you’re stuck, Grimple.”

“But…but…Heloise, dear, if I don’t regain my true form, how are we to continue our adventures effectively?”

“I’m not sure I want to right now, frankly.”

“What about that magical well you mentioned before, eh what? What was it? The Wishing Well of Wilkington? Perhaps that might do the trick.”

Kevil blew out a deep breath. “That’s playing with fire. I’ve heard about the Well, but if you aren’t careful what you wish for…”

“Heloise, dear,” said Grimple, almost gently. “I really must find a way to be myself again. And I need your help. I know that you are angry with me, but think of the song you can write after this quest…”

Dammit. He knew me too well. I hate to say it, but I was already imagining the epic yarn I could spin about us slaying an arch lich, or even the comical tale of visiting the Wishing Well of Wilkington, misphrasing our request, and my erstwhile companion ending up as a giant hill instead of a hill giant (which, at the moment, wouldn’t have bothered me at all).

“This may seem a bit forward, given that we just met, and that you both seem to be horrible people who tried to do me considerable harm, and assumed that I had poor grammar, which still bothers me, because I most certainly not…but, I’d like to come with you,” said Kevil, surprising me. “I’ve never, well, I’ve never been on a proper quest. I’d like to test my skills in the field, if you will.”

“By Jove, good show, Kevil!” Grimple’s eyes gleamed. “What do you say, Heloise, dear? I say, there’s magic in the number three…will you do it? Will you help me?”

I sighed. “Fine. But, we do this my way.”

“By all means, Heloise dear, by all means!” Grimple reached up and clapped me on the shoulder; I stumbled forward after the inadvertently powerful blow. “So, what shall we do? Pursue the lich, or visit the Wishing Well of Wilkington?”

I pursed my lips. Which would make for the better story? And, which would we stand a better chance of surviving? I guess I knew the answer to each question, but that didn’t make the decision any easier.

I was torn. Which path should I choose?

Heloise needs your help, Dear Readers! Should she choose the epic confrontation—and almost certain death that will result—with the lich? Or the sure-to-be-unexpected results of a visit to the Well of Wilkington? Cast your votes by January 10, and come back shortly thereafter for the next incendiary installment of our terrific tale!

Update: continue on to Part 4!!

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 2)

For those who dig fun, rollicking fantasy adventures, we hereby present Part 2 of The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple (for more background on the series and to read Part 1: All’s Well That Begins Well, click here). Periodically throughout the series, you, Dear Readers, will be presented with decision points at the end of installments, and it is YOUR collective feedback that will help determine the fates of our heroes. So pay attention and choose (un)wisely—your next series of choices will be presented at the end of Part 3!

On with our tale…

Part 2: Off to See (and Hog Tie, and Coerce) the Wizard!

Grimple cocked his head to the side, weighing our options. After a moment, he held up three fingers, pantomimed swinging his club, and coughed.

“Kidnap a wizard…well, it IS the most direct course of action, though clubbing one in the head probably isn’t going to be helpful, consciousness being necessary for spellcasting and all that.” I flicked the reins, spurring my horse into a trot. “All right. Let’s continue on to Bristow as we planned—I’ll perform tonight to cover our room, and then we’ll hunt down a wizard tomorrow. Sound good?”

Grimple nodded. Truth be told, I was coming to like this mute version of my companion—he never had been the most sparkling of conversationalists, and his voice sounded a little bit like a rockslide spewing out of a vomiting frog. Maybe I would pull the wizard aside and see if he could make Grimple look like himself to restore his very useful intimidating qualities, but still keep him quiet…

I wouldn’t actually do that, incidentally. I would just think about it. Really hard.

We reached Bristow a few hours later, just as afternoon was turning to dusk. There was an inn with the less-than-savory-sounding name of The Wicked Wench that I’d performed at a few times in the past, and I figured it was as good a place to head as any. After a brief negotiation with the proprietor (he proposed rooming arrangements that would have included his sleeping on top of me; I threatened to remove the head from his favorite ale, if you know what I mean—and not by blowing it off; he laughed; I discreetly slid a very sharp knife through his breeches until its tip came into contact with a much softer tip; he laughed again, nervously; he sweated; he peed a little; we agreed to very generous terms, including room, board, and half of the receipts from the entry fee he would charge for patrons to hear my performance; I cleaned my knife thoroughly—all in all, a pretty standard arrangement), we retired to our room to freshen up before the evening’s performance.

Grimple and I enjoyed a simple but filling stew before the show, and as the patrons filed in, I tried to do a little intelligence gathering. It seemed wizards were in short supply in Bristow, but there was one who lived in a cottage just north of the main section of the town who sounded promising—something of a hermit, relatively young but with well-regarded skills, and currently in town and not out adventuring (based on an eyewitness sighting earlier that day). Grimple and I nodded to each other, our target set, and I proceeded to turn The Wicked Wench into the Cacophonous Courtesan. No soft and stirring elven ballads in a place like this; tonight was all about drinking songs, and the louder—and more repetitive—the better. Sometimes you’ve got to give the people what they want.

After (too) many toasts to my unmatched skill by patrons both infatuated and inebriated, we retired to our room, slept soundly, and awoke the next morning ready to hog-tie ourselves a wizard.

We departed the inn shortly after sunrise, following a hearty breakfast of porridge, quail eggs, and freshly baked bread, and headed toward the northern end of town, which, at this time of morning, was eerily quiet. Nearly all of Bristow’s activity—social and commercial—was concentrated around the town square, so this was a quiet residential neighborhood that, based on the quality of the dwellings, housed some of the town’s more prosperous citizens.

“Quaint surroundings for a wizard.” I looked at Grimple, who coughed into his hand. “Well, according to the portly gentleman we spoke with, his house should be right at the end of this…there. That must be the place.” I pointed to a sign that hung amidst a group of plants and shrubs in the house’s front yard, a sign that said, “evil Wizard.”

“No respect for proper capitalization, these evil wizards.” I clucked my tongue. “Or, maybe he just thinks he’s some sort of magical ee cummings.” I shrugged. “I feel less bad about assaulting someone who affirmatively identifies as evil and shows wanton disregard for the rules of grammar, however. Come on…let’s case the place.”

I’d be lying if I said this was the first time Grimple and I had engaged in the time-honored art of breaking-and-entering, but the less said about our particular experience, the better, particularly given that we may or may not still have outstanding bounties on our heads. In short, however, I had no concerns about our ability to force our way—stealthily—into the wizard’s home. The evil wizard’s home. What a tosser.

Grimple could move with surprising stealth when necessary, and we made a quick circuit of the house. A window on the east side, which appeared to open into a guest bedroom, seemed the best point of entry. Of course, our first task was to figure out whether the wizard had set magical wards, which we assumed he had.

I reached into my pack and pulled out a long, winged rod with a two snake-like pieces of rubber wrapped around it—properly called a caduceus, but only scholars and douche bags call it that, so I’ll just call it a long, winged rod with two snake-like pieces of rubber wrapped around it. The rubber was enchanted so that in the presence of any magical wards, it would begin to…ah, yes—do exactly that. The snakes writhed up and down the rod, looking very much like, well, the type of dancers gainfully employed by establishments that proper ladies don’t frequent, but Grimple does. Interestingly, it’s not because he enjoys the sight of human ladies grinding against shiny metal poles…he actually just admires the poles, and is always trying to talk proprietors of such establishments into giving him one to take as a weapon. Grimple is a bit off, even for a hill giant.

Grimple gestured toward the house and raised an eyebrow as he watched my rod twitch.

Let me rephrase that.

Grimple gestured toward the house and raised an eyebrow as he watched my magical ward detector detect a magical ward. “Don’t worry,” I said, stuffing the rod deep into my bag (come on, people…I can’t rephrase everything), “I’ve got this.” I reached down into a pouch on my belt and pulled out a gold ring, slipping it onto my left middle finger (it was a bit big, and owing to that finger having once been broken in a bar fight, it had an enlarged knuckle suited for the task). I murmured a few words of elvish, which caused the ring to glow bright blue…a moment later, the wards around the house turned blue in turn before disappointing away into nothingness. Handy thing, this ring. Too bad it’s only got two more charges left.

“Should be clear now,” I said, “let’s go.” I pushed gingerly against the window frame, perhaps not quite as confident in my magic ring as I sounded. Fortunately, it seemed to have done the trick, as I was neither jolted into oblivion nor transformed into a salamander upon making contact with the house (what’s the deal with wizards and turning things into amphibians, anyway?). With the help of a small crowbar, I managed to jimmy the window open enough to slip inside. Normally, Grimple wouldn’t have been able to follow through such a small opening, but, in his current state, he had an even easier time of it than I did.

We found ourselves standing in the midst of one of the coziest and most welcoming rooms I’d ever been in. A beautiful bed, complete with a soft mattress and fluffy feather pillows, sat in the center of the room next to a stunning vanity. Little touches made the place feel charmingly homey—tiny lavender soaps, miniature knick knacks, a bowl of mixed nuts, complete with a nutcracker…for an evil wizard, this guy sure knew how to make a houseguest feel welcome.

Ignoring the incongruity of the room with the homeowner’s chosen profession, we crept into the hall. Up ahead, in what I assumed was the main living area, we heard a muffled voice muttering and cursing. I turned to Grimple and put a finger to my lips; he rolled his eyes, as if to say, “I’m a hill giant, not a verbeeg—I know enough to be quiet, you idiot.” I shrugged. You can never be too careful around evil wizards. Or hill giants.

We moved the rest of the way down the hall and I peered around the corner—sure enough, there was our man, stupid conical hat and all. His back was to us and he appeared to be examining a scroll. I pulled a gag from my bag (hmmm…there may be a song in there somewhere) and nodded to Grimple, who led the charge.

We burst into the room and, before the wizard could sputter out even a single confused syllable, Grimple had him in an unbreakable grip, arms pinned to his sides, and I was slipping the gag expertly into his mouth (it’s probably best not to ask why I’m so skilled at this particular activity). As Grimple held him, I took out some fine silk rope and looped it around his arms, handing it over to Grimple to make sure it was tied tightly. A moment later, Grimple nodded, satisfied, as the bound and gagged wizard lay flopping around on the floor like an angry mackerel, his ridiculous hat having rolled away the moment he hit the floor.

Whew. Step one accomplished. Now, for step two.

“Listen up, ‘evil Wizard,’” I said, kneeling down and cupping his chin to force him to look up at me. “We need you to cast a spell. Do as we ask and we won’t harm you; refuse, and my friend here—who is not, in fact, a gnome, but is, rather, a very perturbed hill giant who is under a permanent illusion enchantment, will pop your head off like the cork of a fine bottle of elvish bubbly. Only your head probably won’t bounce off the wall; more likely, it will splat. Not that you’ll feel it at that point.” The wizard’s eyes were wide. I smiled. I rather enjoy playing the heavy every once in a while.

“Now then,” I said, “clearly, I don’t want to remove that gag until we’re sure you’re going to cooperate, particularly since I wouldn’t trust an evil wizard any farther than I can throw one—though probably as far as Grimple could throw one. Which is pretty far, based on how far he can throw an undead cow.” The wizard raised an eyebrow. “Yes, they’re a thing.” I sighed. “Anyway, evil wizard, we need you to dispel the enchantment so that he—”

The wizard began angrily screaming through his gag; it sounded vaguely like he was saying, “meeville gizzard.” I looked at Grimple, who shook his head. The wizard persisted, thrashing and shouting. I slipped a knife out of my boot and held it to his throat, which calmed him down considerably. “Against my better judgment, I’m going to lower your gag…but, if you say one word in a language I don’t understand, this knife slides into your throat. Got it?”

The wizard nodded slightly, wincing as the tip of my knife dug into his pale flesh. “Good.” Grimple held his arms even tighter as I reached out and slowly slid the gag down.

“I’m not an evil wizard!” screamed the evil wizard.

I smirked. Always big and bad until they have a knife at their throats. “Oh? Then the sign out front, the one with the poor grammar, is just a funny joke?” I shook my head. “Look, you can be evil, but that doesn’t mean you should flout the rules of capitalization. Why, if anything, I would think that, as a wizard, you—”

The wizard cut me off. “What on earth are you talking ab…ah! I know what happened. Damn those little bastards! I’ll turn them into newts, all of them!”

“Seriously, what IS the obsession with lizards? And what do you mean ‘little bastards’?”

The evil wizard tried to rise to his feet, but Grimple held him firmly. “Release me at once! You can’t just break into a man’s home and treat him like some sort of thug. Take me outside and I can clear this up. Damn those kids!”

“Kids?” I looked at Grimple, who shrugged. It was such an odd request that I was inclined to grant it. “All right—walk slowly…if this blade isn’t touching your neck at any point, I start getting stabby.” The wizard let out a resigned sigh and nodded slightly again. Grimple let him get up and loosened the rope, though still held his arms, and I walked next to him, the point of my knife pressed against his jugular. He led us first to another room, a workshop; there, he asked permission to pick up a rag that he doused with a strong-smelling substance. After that, he directed us toward the front door and, a moment later, the three of us stood in front of his sign. “‘evil Wizard’ I read again. Seems pretty straightforward.”

The wizard stuck his toe out and moved a giant weed to the side, revealing a previously obscured comma. “evil, Wizard” the sign now read.

“Huh. You’re even worse at grammar than I thought.” I began to worry that a wizard this careless with punctuation wouldn’t be powerful enough to remove Grimple’s enchantment.

“Here,” he said, holding out the rag. “Use this to clean the spot on the sign next to ‘evil.’” I gave him a dubious look. “Put the gag back in if you want to! Just do it.”

I set the gag back in place, took the rag, and proceeded to clean. A layer of paint quickly coated the rag, its removal revealing the emergence of the letter “K.” “Kevil, Wizard,” I said. “What’s a Kevil?”

“I am Kevil!” shouted the perhaps not evil wizard as I removed the gag once again. “It’s my name. And I’m a wizard. Just not an evil one. And, for the record, I am actually quite a skilled grammarian. The notion that I would both fail to capitalize the first letter of a word on a sign and misuse a comma is preposterous. I’m not ee cummings. More like ee DUMBings, if you ask me.” He smiled, apparently pleased with his attempt at “humor. “Stupid neighborhood kids think it’s so funny to mess with my sign.” He shook his head in disgust.

“Hmmm.” I exchanged glances with Grimple, who looked sheepish. “Well, this didn’t go exactly according to plan.”

“No, I’d say it didn’t,” said the wizard. “In fact, I’d—”

I quickly put the gag in place. “Sorry about that—I just don’t want to be turned into an amphibian of some sort.” Kevil tried to protest, but I held up a hand to shush him. “Save it—all wizards are perverts with amphibian fetishes. I know it to be true.” In fact, I very much knew it NOT to be true, but it kept Kevil off balance and gave me a moment to think.

“All right, we owe you an apology for restraining you against your will. And calling you evil, I suppose, though just because you CLAIM not to be an evil wizard doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not, you know.” I removed the gag from his mouth. “Here’s the deal—we need your help. My friend here, Grimple—as you can probably tell, he’s not exactly your average, run-of-the-mill gnome.” Grimple still had ahold of Kevil so tightly that the wizard’s hands were starting to turn white due to lack of blood flow. “I mentioned my friend’s predicament earlier. We need to undo the enchantment, but we don’t currently have funds to purchase that sort of service.”

“And you thought hog tying me was a good way to get me to cooperate?”

Grimple and I exchanged glances. He coughed. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. I get a lot of bad advice from people I’ve never met.”

“Maybe if you’d just tried asking me, you moronic thugs…”

“Would you have said yes?”

Kevil’s harsh expression softened as he looked at Grimple. “I was an orphan…my parents died when I was two. A family of hill giants took me in and raised me as their own. I’d do anything for a hill giant who needed my help.” Grimple relaxed his grip.

“Really?” I said, somewhat incredulous.

Kevil ripped his arms free from Grimple, and, faster than we could react, whipped out a wand. “No! Are you KIDDING me? What family of hill giants would raise a human, you fool? Do hill giants even have families?” He looked at Grimple with distaste. “They’d probably just eat each other if they lived under the same roof!” Kevil brandished the wand. “Now then…let’s see…what should I turn you into…”

I looked at Grimple. “Five gold coins says it’s salamanders.” I looked at Kevil. “Pervert.”

“What? Why, I…what??” he sputtered. “Of course it won’t be salamanders! It will be…it will be…” he trailed off, looking thoughtful.

“It will be…?” I prompted, helpfully. I was curious to know what I was going to live out my remaining days as.

Kevil wrinkled his nose. “This is the longest conversation I’ve had in years.” He didn’t look old; not older than 30, certainly. “Hmmm.”

“Hmmm?”

“Let me just see,” Kevil muttered as he waved his wand around and then barked out an arcane syllable.

“Not geckos!” I shouted as, I shamefully admit, I dove to the floor and covered my head. I really don’t like lizards.

I looked back up a moment later to see Kevil staring at Grimple, stroking his beard. “Strange…very strange. It’s almost as if the enchantment is…bah! Only one way to find out.” He raised the wand again, uttered a few unintelligible words, and pointed the wand at Grimple. A flash of blue light shot from the wand, and Grimple disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

“What did you do??” I shouted. “Do you know how hard it is to find an adventuring partner who has the strength of five men and isn’t remotely interested in bedding me, you idiot?! Where am I going to find a replacement for him? Huh? HUH??”

“Oh, be quiet,” said Kevil. “Look.”

I looked at the spot where Grimple had stood a moment before. As the smoke began to clear, I could see a form starting to emerge from the swirly cloud…

Is Grimple alive?? Is he back to normal? IS HE A NEWT? Keep your eyes (metaphorically, not literally) peeled for our next installment, which will be posted in the next few weeks! In the meantime, Happy Holidays to one and all!

Update: click here for Part 3: Oh, What a Tangled Web We Bludgeon…

The Chronicle of Heloise and Grimple – A Serial Adventure (Part 1)

Hey, hey, hey—FREE STORIES!

Writing time being at a minimum these days, I thought I’d add yet another project to my plate (if I was half as smart as I am stupid, I’d be pretty dumb). So, I present to you an experiment in serialized storytelling—the idea is that I’ll release a piece of the story, offer options for which way the story can go at the end of each installment, and solicit reader feedback on which they prefer. Then, guided by the savvy masses, I will endeavor to write the next installment, and so on and so forth.

Whether this keeps going depends on whether anyone actually wants to read it, so please do voice your thoughts in the comments section below if you want to read more (otherwise, Part 2 may begin with the caption “Because you demanded it—the end of Heloise and Grimple!” (to steal a line from the cover of the epic final issue of Team America)).

My hope is that this will be a fun, rollicking fantasy adventure that you’ll want to share with your friends. With that said, and without further ado, let’s get to it…

All’s Well That Begins Well

“Let me get this straight—we need to go into the Cave of Doom, pass through the Chamber of the Seven Horrors (mustn’t forget the ‘the’), navigate the Endless Corridor of the Eternal Darkness, swim across the Lake of the Burning Hellfire, climb the Never-Ending Staircase of the Eternal Ascent, and defeat the Undying Undead Dracolich of Death (no ‘the’ there, one assumes) to retrieve your beloved daughter?”

“Yes, yes, exactly!”

“Hmmm. Right. So, if we do that, we’ll get what, exactly?” I did very convincing things, like stroke my chin and look pensive, so that the guy would think I was actually considering this suicide mission. I wasn’t.

“My, ah, undying gratitude?” The man wrung his hat in his hand, looking sheepish.

“And…?” I raised an eyebrow. A raised eyebrow, when used properly, is a powerful gesture—sardonic, yet still classy. Not unlike myself.

“But…my daughter…you’d have my undying gratitude!!” The man really tried to sell it with that double exclamation point.

I shook my head and let out a slow, deliberate sigh. I’m very good at looking remorseful. It’s a useful talent when it comes to negotiating with morons who need adventurers to go on quests. “Look, Mr…”

“Tallos,” said the man, helpfully.

“Tallos. Right. Look, Mr. Tallos…it’s not that my partner and I don’t want to save your daughter from the dracolich—because we do, I assure you—it’s just that the undertaking of this sort of quest is generally best handled by a party of three. And, as you can see, we are only two.” I pointed toward my companion, a sickly looking gnome, who nodded sagely and coughed. “You see, there are certain protocols in questing, and the Rule of Three…well, clearly, you can tell by the capitalization that it’s a very important Rule.”

“Is it?”

“It is. Why, if we were to undertake the quest and violate that rule, I shudder to think of the consequences.”

“What would happen?” Mr. Tallos blinked.

“Oh, all sorts of terrible things.” I clapped my hands together for emphasis, and to buy myself a moment to think of those terrible things. “Well, your daughter would certainly be eaten. And then there would be the plagues of demons. And all of the starving. From the crops that failed, of course. Not to mention the bunions. Oh, the bunions we would all get!” I leaned in close. “Truthfully, Mr. Tallos…the best thing my partner and I can do for your daughter is not rescue her. We’ll all be better off.” I tapped the side of my temple in what I hoped was a knowing manner.

“Not rescue her…?” Mr. Tallos blinked again. The poor man’s brain was clearly addled.

“There’s a good man—glad you understand. Not everyone so readily grasps the intricate logic of questing, you know.” I patted him on the shoulder, stepped back, and hoisted my pack over my shoulder. “We’ll be off, then. Best of luck to you, Mr. Tallos. And to your daughter.” I bowed.

“Oh…okay,” I heard Mr. Tallos mutter as Grimple and I mounted our horses and rode away from the village.

“Well,” I said after about 15 minutes of relaxed cantering. “That was a less profitable venture than I’d hoped.”

Grimple shrugged and coughed again.

“You know, this enchantment you’re under is proving to be something of an impediment to our ability to get decent quests.” Grimple was not, in fact, a gnome, nor was he in any way sickly, but a vindictive illusionist had cast a spell on him to alter his appearance (apparently permanently, much to my chagrin, though, to be fair, probably more to Grimple’s chagrin). In reality, he is a perfectly healthy hill giant. I’ll note that hill giants are hardly the most intellectually gifted of giantkin, though Grimple was smarter than most, but the enchantment had also stolen Grimple’s voice. So, while he retained his incredible strength, stamina, and fighting skill, he could not explain those facts to anyone, and few people, given the fact that Grimple looked as though he might communicate the deadliest sort of plague simply by standing near someone, were willing to give us the opportunity to show them what Grimple could do. The fact that he’d lost his club, an impressive weapon as long as a man and twice as wide (there’s a joke in there somewhere that a lesser woman wouldn’t be able to resist, but I’m no lesser woman), in a card game the day before getting hit with the enchantment didn’t help—if he’d been able to swing that about, people might have at least given us the benefit of the doubt, despite his appearance. Everyone loves a man swinging his big club around, right?

As it stood, however, we were reduced to seeking quests similar to the one we had just declined—high risk, low (or no) reward. Admittedly, they’re the kind of quests that make for good stories, but only if you survive them. And, given that I’m much better suited to telling stories than starring in them, I prefer to stick to the low-risk kind of adventure.

Grimple reached across his mount and tapped me on the leg with his pitiful staff, a poor replacement for his lost club that would have looked like a toothpick in his hands under normal circumstances. He raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the horizon.

“I don’t know. We’re not going to get any decent work with you looking like that, and we don’t have enough liquid assets to pay a wizard to remove the spell.” I shook my head. “We’ll have to push on to Bristow. I’ll sing for supper and rooms, and then we can figure out a plan.”

I’m a bard, incidentally—a traveling minstrel and storyteller—and a very good one at that. My voice is a lilting soprano, my songs and stories of the most exciting kind (many of them written by me, I might add, some of which are based on my adventures with Grimple…liberally embellished, perhaps, but all based on actual events), and as a buxom half-elf, I’m possessed of physical charms that tend to enrapture male members of an audience.

(And yes, even we non-lesser women enjoy a good double-entendre on occasion.)

Despite my prowess, however, it was unlikely that outside of the major cities, I’d be able to earn anything close to what we’d need to get Grimple’s enchantment lifted anytime soon. Wizards are damned expensive. And terrible dressers. Those pointy hats…

Grimple sighed.

“Believe me, this is just as hard on me as it is on you.” He shot me a look that communicated his feelings on that particular statement quite clearly, words or no words. “Fine. Perhaps slightly harder on you.” I shook my head. “But, I can’t think of a way to get the kind of ready money we need, unless…”

I trailed off and started to smile. Grimple looked nervous.

“I have ideas,” I proclaimed. “Mostly brilliant.” I paused. “Partly brilliant.”

Grimple raised an eyebrow.

“What if we didn’t need money? What if we got the magic in another way?” Grimple’s eyebrow remained raised. It was an impressive feet of muscle control. Then again, I’ve seen him lift a cow over his head with one hand, swing it around like bolas, and fling it at an ogre, so I guess this was only mildly impressive by comparison (relax, bleeding hearts—it was an undead cow…yes, they’re a thing).

“When we stopped in Alkara a few weeks back, do you remember the story I told that night?” Grimple shook his head. I sighed. That’s the problem with overexposure—even the most miraculous experience, such as hearing me sing, becomes mundane after seeing it too many times. “It was the one about the magical Wishing Well of Wilkington—the one that grants wishes in exchange for tossing in something of considerable personal importance. I talked to several adventurers before I wrote that, and I’m pretty sure the Well is legit. There’s only one potential drawback—from what I’ve heard, the wish has to be worded perfectly or else the consequences may be…unexpected.”

Grimple’s expression remained unchanged. “Okay, well, that’s one option. Second option: remember last year when we saved that town from the undead cows?” (See—I told you.) “Sure, they paid us a handsome reward, but the mayor was practically falling over himself to make it clear that he was permanently in our debt. Though he might have just been infatuated with me. That said, there are a couple of wizards in that town…he may have some pull with them. Maybe he can lean on them to do the job at a steep discount.”

Grimple shrugged.

“And, of course, we could always just try to kidnap a wizard and keep him tied up until he agrees to help. Though that’s probably the least brilliant of my suggestions.” I reined in my horse as we reached a fork in the road; Grimple followed suit. “Well…what do you think? Wishing Well of Wilkington, pay our old friend the Mayor of Bibbledon a visit, or find the nearest wizard and hog tie him for a few hours?”

(Friends—don’t leave our noble adventurers hanging! Weigh in with your opinion on which course of action they should choose in the comments section below by December 16, and tune in for the next installment of the story to follow sometime thereafter!)

Update: click here for part 2!

Oh, and the actual, full story is now available! See The Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple.

One Year Ago, I Gave Birth

Perhaps I should say that one year ago, WE, loyal readers, gave birth. (As the redoubtable Homer Simpson once pointed out to dear wife Marge, “it’s a uterUS, Marge—not a uterYOU”).

Fair warning: what follows is utterly self-serving (then again, that’s most of what I do, so you all should be used to that by now).

A year ago, I inflicted The Camelot Shadow upon the world. After some seven years of gestation, including pauses in writing for various durations for things like getting married, working a crazy busy job, grad school, and having kids, I finally reached a point where I said to myself, “Self…I don’t know how much better this is going to get iterating in a vacuum, or with nothing more than the input of your wonderful (albeit crazy) friends.” In the final stages of self-directed editing and revising, I danced with a few agents, but as with most of the women I dated back in my single days, while they were more than happy to sleep with this incredible hunk of man and take advantage of his otherworldly lovemaking skills, they were mortified at the thought of being seen with me in public, so they snuck out the door for a little walk of shame before I awoke in the morning.

(Okay, that’s a TERRIBLE metaphor, largely because my life up to and including my mid-20s was pretty much a virginal desert of untouched sand, broken only by the occasional (okay, more than occasional) oasis of self-love, and because these agents didn’t really want to do much more than shake hands with the book before giving me the old, “It’s not you, it’s me…well, maybe it’s really kind of you” speech and moving onto the next burgeoning young (sort of young?) Victorian-set pseudo-literary Arthurian semi-thriller writer.)

So, I decided to embark on the harrowing journey of self-publishing, which is basically like walking into a Taylor Swift concert and, in the midst of her singing [insert name of popular Taylor Swift song here, because I don’t know these things], going up to people and saying, “Hey! Hey! Do you want to hear a song I wrote?”

I don’t know how many books there are in the world. I’m pretty sure it’s more than seven, less than eleventy-billion. Somewhere in that range. It’s a big number. And avid readers would consider themselves lucky to get through reading 1% of the books they want to read in their lifetimes. In other words, getting people to want to read your book is hard even under optimal circumstances, with the muscle of a big publisher behind you; it’s nigh-impossible (though not totally impossible) when you’re the obnoxious guy at the Taylor Swift concert.

And, yet, here we are a year later, and I can honestly say that I look at this endeavor as a success. One of the primary reasons I wanted to write and tell stories is because so many storytellers and writers have shaped my worldview, gotten me through tough times, inspired me, or just entertained me and made me think or smile or laugh, and I wanted to be able to pay that forward. If I could write a book that helped even one person get through a tough day or spend a few hours distracted from a stressful job or fidget at the edge of their seat trying to figure out what was going to happen next, then I’d have achieved my goal. Sure, I’d like to be able to do that for thousands of people (nay, millions!), but so powerful was the compulsion to try to do for someone else what so many amazing writers have done for me that years of toil would be worth it if one person felt that way about the book.

I think I can say, probably with too much pride, but certainly with tremendous amounts of awe, gratitude, and appreciation for everyone who has read the book thus far, that I’ve achieved that goal. Heck, MORE than one person seems to have genuinely enjoyed a yarn I spun out of my very strange head. And, unlike other much-ballyhooed events in life that fail to live up to the hype, the feeling of knowing that someone somewhere out there genuinely enjoyed the hours they spent adventuring with Alfred, Will, and the other cast of characters in The Camelot Shadow was even more potently fulfilling than I could ever have imagined, and has spurred me to begin work on a sequel.

The fact that I’ve gotten to experience that incredible feeling is due in large part to the amazing people I’ve met through Goodreads. Never in my life, even having worked in commercial publishing, have I encountered such a dedicated and kind-hearted group of people who love, love, LOVE books and stories. Every time I pop onto GR, I’m inspired anew by how passionate people are and how much they care about the books they read, and how much they support and encourage the authors they love to keep going, to keep sharing their insights and wisdom and incredible gifts.

I’ve always been a reader and I always will be a reader and consumer of stories. They give me strength and hope and inspiration and ideas and courage. They make me a better, more fully formed person. Being able to contribute to that world, to that global conversation, even in the very, very small way I’ve been able to thus far, is as important to me as anything I’ve done in my life (notwithstanding contributing to the formation of the tiny humans who live in my house, whom I hope grow to love and appreciate what stories can mean to their lives as much as their dear old dad does).

I hope this is only the beginning. I have a long way to go. I can get better. A lot better. And I can’t wait to dig in.

In the meantime, happy birthday, Camelot Shadow. Sure, you’re a little slow to get going, and a bit too florid, and you exist in some weird niche that not too many people dig. But I love you anyway, you old tosser.