👾 Tales of the NPCs, April 2019 (Part 1 of 2)

For the 2019 season, I will not be playing Grianadhmad in the Traverse City chapter as a PC, only writing out occasional journal entries. Instead I have joined the Plot Team as an "intern" (my little joke), and will also be a full-time NPC, or Non-Player Character. NPC actors and actresses fill the roles of opponents in combat mods, as well as non-adventurer townspeople, merchants, dignitaries, and other personages that don't live with and work amongst the adventuring community.

To avoid any spoilers regarding this season's Traverse City plots, the stories I share here will be almost entirely narrative and objective. Very little information before and almost nothing after each mod will be written about. This will be a new experience for me as well as a new writing challenge, so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I plan to.

The Mystic Foxes

Summoned across the planes, he appeared in an unknown place. The sky was dark and the air was cold, but the smell of scary men and women still wafted through the trees and across the fields. Humans, elves, a dwarf, several wylderkin. The blue vulpen creature didn't have a den here but he still wanted to avoid them. But they would chase him, he knew, especially since they had put this token around his neck. A game, the tender had called it, like how kits chase each around in their youth to build up their stamina and speed. The people were to catch them, take their tokens, and then return them to the Order of the Thorn. So off he ran, seeing some of his other littermates, flashes of blue fur and twinkling tokens going off in different directions -- and all of them catching the attention of the men and women in the tavern and on the porches. The hunt was on.

He bolted into the woods towards some empty looking tents and cabins. There was a hill behind it with thick brush; he was quick and agile and would lose most of them up there. So only the best and strongest would follow him and catch him. Sure enough, of the five or six that had initially followed him, three gave up right away, two stayed at the base of the hill, and one tried to circle around to find an easy path up where he was. Must try harder than that, human, he thought. He scurried further up the hill between two close-growing trees and over a rotting log, then dove down the hill the other side and skirted around the ones still staring up at the wrong part of the hill to try and make a break for it on the other side of the big tavern building.

One of the humans was so fast! What an impressive champion! The fox turned up his own speed to force the man to give chase, clattering up a hill while the human ran alongside him up a wooden staircase. Then at the top, the man struck once but the agile fox dodged, slipping underneath his reach and following a winding path toward the lake shore. Then he felt impact and his back leg buckled a bit. The man was very fast! He'd catch the fox any moment and remove the token from his neck. At least then the fox could be returned back to his tender.

But the man hit him again, and again, very quick hits. Why was he hurting the fox? This wasn't a game! I am in danger! the fox tried to yelp to his littermates, but he took a hit to his side and the wind was knocked out of him. Then in a flash the man reached down with both hands - one hand to take the token, the other hand bringing the polearm down on its head.

---

Steve and Clyde

"This is the most boring post ever! Why did we get assigned out here?"

Sitting by the campfire, Steve rolled his eyes at his longtime Contract Apocalypse partner, Clyde, pacing back and forth between the hastily constructed shelters. "For the last time, just because it is boring doesn't mean it will be boring. We have our orders, we have to guard this skin changey guy. Which means sooner or later someone's probably going to come looking for him before our higher-ups have a safer place to put him."

"Well it's still the most boring job at the moment."

Steve agreed, but his complaint came from elsewhere. "I just don't want to get too near to him. He smells like toe fungus." Instantly he regretted his choice of words, because he was sure Clyde was going to---

"Oh yeah, did you ever get your toe fungus infection cleared up?"

"Yes I did, shut up. My point is, you don't hear me complaining about the guy or the job. Let's just do what we're paid to do."

"But why are we the ones that got chosen to do it?"

"Presumably they still haven't forgiven you for the noodles incident."

"Hey! HEY! You swore you wouldn't bring that up again!"

"Well YOU swore you wouldn't bring up my INFECTION!"

Clyde looked appropriately apologetic. "Okay you're right, you're right, I'm sorry." He sighed, and Steve turned his attention back to the fire. There was blissful silence for a few seconds before Clyde said, "Hey I'm gonna go take a piss. Don't let the guy go anywhere." Steve grunted in reply and Clyde walked off into the woods.

On the far side of one of the other shelters, Steve heard Tyra snigger. "They're never going to forgive him for the noodles incident."

"Yeah I know but I still try not to torture him with it," Steve said, then stood up and stretched. Technically he was the ranking officer in the group so he wanted to make sure their defences were tight enough. "Hey Tyra, since you're the closest to Fartblossom here," he stuck a thumb toward their captive guest even though Tyra couldn't actually see him, "make sure you keep your eyes on him. I'll have the other sentinels keep their eyes woodward."

"Yes sir." There was another pause, during which Steve wondered which way it was likely anyone would be coming for their guest, and who it might be, friend or foe, and when. Then Tyra piped up again, "You guys did pick up the first half of the payment already, right?"

"Uh yeah, Clyde was supposed to be taking care of that... ugh," Steve groaned. "Clyde?" he called out into the woods where his partner was taking the longest pee ever. "Hey Clyde!" No answer.

For the first time the skinchanger spoke up. "Maybe he ran off with the money."

Steve spun around and pointed at the man with his mace. "You, shut up. Tyra, keep your gaze on him." He turned back around and headed into the woods in the direction Clyde had taken. He really didn't believe Clyde would take the money and run; but also something seemed really wrong because he hadn't come back yet. "Hey Clyde, you drink a whole river or what? Did you pick up the payment?"

Dark had been falling for a few minutes so he had to pick his way carefully across the marshy, unkempt forest landscape between their ramshackle one-man cabins, hoisted up on stilt foundations. As he was watching his steps carefully, he saw a dark blotch on the ground up ahead. Oh shit, he thought, only half-convinced of who it might be until he got closer. "Clyde? What the hell! Clyde! Where are my sentries?!?"

Only the quietest of rustles caught Steve's ear and he absent-mindedly turned to his left to see two dark-clothed figures - adventurers, no less - crawling out from under one of the raised cabins. "Oh, I see how it is. Ambush a man while he's taking a whiz? So brave!" he growled, brandishing his mace and raising his shield. But then there was another sound behind him - under the cabin to the right - and he spun around to see two or three more of the bastards.

Before he could shout out a warning to Tyra or the underlings, one of the first adventurers with dragonscales on her face starting whipping at his limbs with her sword. He turned and tried to block and parry as much as possible but he was overwhelmed by the number of stealthy invaders and knocked down quickly. His last sight before he succumbed to death was of the dragoness dragging his bleeding-out body under one of the cabins where nobody would see him and have their suspicions raised.

---

The Fungus

It was dark, and wet, and unkept. It was comfortable here. A good place to thrive. It climbed the walls and thickened on the floors.
The human was too alarmed at the mold's progression by the time he came down to the basement to investigate the source of the smell.
He fled. He did not return again.
But others came. Two wylder kyns. A dog and a tiger. They were not scared, they did not flee. They did not leave. They needed to be made to leave.
The fungus formed a mass of similar size and shape to them from the walls. It slowly swung its flimsy tendrils to beat down the kyns, to weaken them, to scare them away.
Something was wrong, they did not scare away. They had a shield. They knocked the mass apart.
The fungus was a spore mind. It was not killed, but it had lost part of itself. And it was upset.
It formed another mass from another wall and came at them from behind.
The kyns knocked this one apart as well.
The fungus was getting angry. Its smell grew worse to indicate its displeasure. It formed another mass.
It slapped at the kyns. It hit the tiger kyn a few times. But the dog kyn was behind it. They knocked the mass apart.
They needed to ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ. They were undoing all of its work. It was not thriving anymore.
The smell grew stronger yet. The last of the mold came together. It focused itself, it thickened, it would drive them ᴀᴡᴀʏ.
The kyns were surprised by its resolve. But they still fought.
They struck the mass.
The mass began to fall apart.
Not wet anymore.
Not dark anymore...