My Name Is . . .

Mission - Chapter In Progress

Chapter 1: "Start?" 

Chapter 2 - Mission

         In case you are unfortunate enough to not have the wonderful ability to feel psionic attacks, I have a word picture for you. Memory blood. Beautiful, I know. As the bandit’s head was sent through the psionic millstone, bits of his life stayed with me. The worst was learning his name, Senil. It made his death far too personal for my tastes. If I can call anything about that experience good, I would say that the best part was that it made my decision to stay or not very simple.

         I had to protect these people from…It.

         I began to stumble toward the other human bandit in the hopes of saving him also. The mental damage was severe, but he was still alive. Falling beside him, I tried to find the wounds under the blood, but before I could apply poultices, It finished the job. I recoiled, cringing at the fresh wave of nausea, and turned to glare at It.

         It stared back. No more feelings escaped into my head, but I detected that It cared for nothing but killing. I wasn’t even sure that killing held any pleasure for It any more. Glancing around, I saw that no one but me had realized that It had done anything but float around. That couldn’t be right. They must have noticed something in all the time that It had been with them.

         Or not. They weren’t even reacting to my sudden appearance.

         Alvin came out from under the wagon and announced that the guards had done a splendid job. He then sauntered over to the dragonborn as proudly as if had actually joined the fight.

         “Let that teach you to attack my caravan,” he exclaimed. From his belt, he pulled a mace as threatening and as large as a toy hammer and tapped the dragon’s skull. The resulting crater clearly proved that the mace was enchanted.

         Around me, the caravan prepared to leave. I sat, still dumfounded at the recent events, and watched. The small knight retrieved his horse and disappeared up the road. The larger had the gruesome task of dislodging his lance from the dragon’s corpse. Alvin visited each guard with a ten gold bonus. Lost in my thoughts, I missed the fact that he had stopped near me.

         “I said, would you like to join my guards. I can offer you fifty gold now and twenty per week until we reach Timmerest, the next town.”

         “I’ll think about it.” I turned away, ignoring the gold, and watched the rest of the caravan. The psion had tossed his gold aside. I was not pleased to have been right about his character.

         <But he hasn’t killed the caravan> Ah Gar’tung, ever the voice of reason. Looking back, I realize that I’ll have to thank him one of these days.

         <Yet>, my biased-self retorted.

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         When we made camp that night, the guards celebrated this last victory. With nothing better to do, I decided to learn about my new companions. The only one that stood out that night was the large knight. His name was Sir Alex. I noticed that he was carefully keeping himself sober as he chatted with the more loose-tongued guards. Whatever his purpose, he didn’t glean much. The drunks certainly talked enough, but their information was either contradictory or repetitive. The only bit that I found useful was the possibility that Alvin was not completely honest with his business dealings.


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NOTES
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Next morning we reached the town. It was large compared to Bek’s experience. The town was mostly traders.