He thought about it. He really did. For almost an hour. He stood there, confused, deep in thought. The shadows changed in shape and demeanor about him, and the creek burbled and sluiced by. Then, finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why do you have to make this so damn interesting?” he asked with a chuckle. He smooshed his heavy frame through the slimy clay bed, wetting his feet and knees in the process, and he practically swam to the tome that shone so brightly with both magic and destiny.
“That was well played,” he spoke to the sky as he recovered the tome and stuck it firmly into his rucksack. “Well played.”
Chapter 2: Ghost Dad
How to be an Adventurer—An Introduction
Welcome to a new world, neophyte, and be prepared to delve into its depths. In this place, we exist quite precariously between planes of existence, as I hope you know. We live in a land full of terrible, yet beautiful, magic. Power that infuses everything, though it is often unnoticed. You can find great things by wandering these lands. And you have already completed the first and most important step in any star-destined adventurer’s journey—take this. It is dangerous to go alone!
So, on to step 2. It is simple, really. Find companions! A tavern is the standard go-to for the man on a quest for an adventure. As the gods have willed, it is the divine cliché of our world. Go to a bar, get people drunk, talk to the bartender, hear some rumors about some cache, and easily gather together a well-balanced party of clerics, wizards, fighters, and rogues with which to slay monsters and gather treasure. The most important thing here is to have fun, and remember, in the bar, on the eve of your first adventure, always trust these armed adventurer neophytes because, well, that’s how it always goes. It is as the gods have told it to be.
It had been some days since his fateful expulsion from the tribe. Yenrab felt a small and lingering sadness, but he didn’t dwell upon it. It wasn’t his way. He’d been lumbering forward ever onward, not sure of his destination but trusting in the Great Bear to deliver him there. He marched and marched, pausing only to sleep, to sup, or to relieve himself, reading lines from the tome as he did so. How to be an Adventurer was a strange book indeed. It seemed to mock the whole premise, and yet, if he were truthful to himself, that was the way these things always worked in ballads. And he doubted that the book was actually written in Orcish. Orcs didn’t really adventure so much as get killed by adventurers. It had to be a glamour of some sort. Magicked pages made to fit the eye of the reader. He wondered what would happen if an illiterate paged through it. Perhaps the end of everything? Or maybe a massive tome full of wonderfully descriptive pictures?
Chapter one made it pretty clear what had to happen next. Yenrab was working his way down the west coast of the Reaches, looking for one of those many outposts and colonial towns cropping up from the hardened ogres, humans, and occasional demihumans of Icegard. Their nation was in the midst of a half-millennium-long civil war, and so people who got sick of the fighting were more and more often tasked with making new lands for their gardits on these wilder shores. Maybe these lands would bring them peace. More likely, they’d give them new things to fight about.
Still, the settlers had something that Yenrab sought. He had to find a tavern, whatever that was. The tome’s cover gleamed in his head as he thought about his future. How to be an Adventurer. Find a tavern. Get people drunk. It didn’t say I have to get drunk though. Lucky that.
And so, on the fifth day of travel, he shaded his eyes against the magnificent brightness of the sun and its resounding glare off of the waves of the Athatian Ocean. It was all so beautiful, and yet a bit lonely. He sighed an orcish bellow of contentment. Birds scattered up and outward from the trees, chirping in protest.
“My lord,” a balding, middle-aged man stated, rising out from seemingly nowhere as he hunched over a longish pipe. How he had gotten it to light was anyone’s guess.
“Holy Bear alive!” Yenrab stammered. Everything had been so quiet for so long now that he’d fallen into a kind of introspective fugue state, finding that he couldn’t remember much of what had transpired on the way. Still, even with that chasm in his memory, this didn’t seem right.
“I’m not the Holy Bear, but I might know a thing or two about him. So, this is where it all begins, eh?” The man rubbed the shadow of beard at his chin and then coughed a bit as he looked about appreciatively. It was all starting to get on Yenrab’s nerves a little bit.
“Ya know, I think, with all that just happened here, with the appearing and the lord part and now the ‘oh, this is where it all begins’ nonsense, maybe I deserve an explanation?”
“Humph,” the pipe smoker snorted, looking the young barbarian in the face.
“Maybe, young Yenrab, if you would hurry up the pace, you’d find out! A magic book about becoming an adventurer doesn’t simply fall into the lap of any passerby.” The man paused. “You can read the book, yeah?” he asked with a bit of hesitancy.
“Yeah, I’m reading it. Most of it isn’t there though. I thought, well, ya know, it would appear more and more to me as I did whatever it wants me to do.” Yenrab reached thick fingers through his rough strands of hair, scratching at his head. “But maybe it’s broken.”
“Everything is as it should be, Yenrab. Now, get a move on before it is all too late! Oh, and get a job, you lazy bum!”
Those final words seemed to echo and diminish after they were said. Yenrab just stared, trying to stamp down on the feeling that his life was becoming a bit overly dramatic and not just a bit cliché.
And then the portly middle-ager was gone. Which was a shame because, while Yenrab had expected such to happen, he had also expected sparks, smoke, or magical rainbows to play the man out. As magical visitations went, this didn’t rank highly.
Tracing a few equations through the air, he thought a bit on the matter—on how one could nail a scroll to a post near the ceremonial pit, and people could rank goods and services of other tribesmen. Then he mentally crumpled the paper with a bit of sorrow. The tribe would never allow it. They never let him do any of his ideas. And he had left them anyways.
Everything had been so slow and gentle these fine days, and he almost didn’t want to get there. Life was going to pick up. He knew this. Everything was going to change. He knew this as well. And he wanted it to. He really did. Especially after Ghost Dad, or whatever the hell that was, had made a brief point of chastising him for his plodding. But, you know, tomorrow. Not today. Or maybe the day after. He walked slowly along the edge of the ocean bluffs, occasionally pausing to look over the edge into the waves or to try to piss on some crabs scuttling through the sandy dunes. He laughed a bit when he finally got one. But he was a little sad when it stopped moving and sort of just slumped.
That seems like something I should get checked out, he thought, as he pulled his trousers back up from the ground. He was the sort of guy who dropped everything to his ankles when he peed. Easygoing, they’d say back in the tribe.
Raising a calloused hand up to shield his eyes against the glare of the sun, he could see a settlement in the distance. “Time to stop dragging my feet,” the man said aloud, shaking his head and chuckling to himself before breaking into a jog forwards.
Chapter 3: A Village and a Job
Yenrab stopped upon a small outcropping outside of town and took in a deep breath. A shadow covered his broad frame as a single cloud passed overhead. Still, he shaded his eyes with a broad and calloused hand as he looked forward over the settlement. It was rather distant, but it felt intimidating to the young man anyways.
He scratched at his chin, dislodging some sort of insect, and absentmindedly popping it into his mouth for a good chew.
Advice. That’s what I need.
Plopping his ruck down in front of him, he pulled out the sturdy adventurer’s guide and opened it to its table of contents. Much of it was unreadable, though a mental voice, perhaps Ghost Dad’s, reassured him that it wouldn’t always be so. He found this to be quit
e strange but not as weird as was this new entry bearing his name. Thumbing through the pages in haste, he came upon his entry into the great volume.
Yenrab Atsittab—An imposing and intimidating barbarian known for his love of animals, good morals, and bad hygiene.
The rest of the page was blank.
“Well, if that just doesn’t . . .” the barbarian griped and didn’t finish. It wasn’t much use complaining about a book written by Jerold Frey at the behest of the gods. Doing such things was blasphemous. Or so he assumed, at any rate.
He closed the tome and shoved it back into his ruck, the thing rocking a bit as he did so. The book gave good advice, but it seemed a little frustrating as well. He’d have to adjust to its ways before he went berserk and tore out all of its pages.
The thought made him smile way too much.
No, no, I need it for a quest. I think?
The way down from this height was rather steep. But the angle wasn’t too great, and all at once, the barbarian was just tired of walking. It was time to get a move on. Yenrab looked about him, keeping well aware of any possible dangers that might beset him, and then, pulling his rucksack back onto his shoulders and strapping it firmly against his body, he took a running leap. Yenrab soared for a moment and then his stout legs caught the ground, and he slowly surfed a wave of gritty, loose soil to a copse of trees.
Clever that, he thought to himself, his legs thanking him for the shortcut. Weaving his way through bushes and trunks, he made his way forward.
***
Yenrab walked into that colonial town, the first he had found in these Western Reaches and perhaps his ticket to a new life. And people stopped what they were doing. Orcs, humans, some half-orcs, and even a big dumb-looking ogre stared, the fires of their labor or the goods of their livelihoods left neglected in their curiosity. Yenrab didn’t like it. He paused, his eyes furtive as he slowed his pace through this strange and novel place. His eyes searched theirs, and he did just like they did, looking at the settlers warily.
Eh, he thought after a bit of it, this is nothing. They are just curious. And this is their home. I should have expected this.
He softened his gaze, giving them that open-eyed gleam that signaled, back in his tribe, merriment and laughter packaged into one large bundle of exuberant muscle.
No one budged. Yenrab shrugged and stopped looking at them.
Around him everything was new and wonderful. A city! Yet everyone was dressed in leathers, skins, and furs. It was disappointingly a lot like home. But there were things that were different. Like that thing over there. There stood a merry little sign festooned with dyed strips of paperlike aster bark, written in Orcish as well as a couple of other languages, posted here at the town’s entrance. “Place for Ships” the Orcish words read proudly. An astonishing name and not one he felt was regular for settlers, who seemed to like pretty words with extra meaning, or so the shaman had told him. Like that big, big city he had visited once with the old man. Gennopolis. The sound a disturbed magical fish makes when pulled from a lake and stomped on desperately as it breathes flame all over your boat. Not a practical name at all. Gennopolis didn’t even have a lake!
No, this was a small colonial outpost of little report with the tremendous name of Place for Ships. He’d be proud to have been its author. It was a very to-the-point name made by a very to-the-point person or by some ruler, that, well, he doubted was known for nonsense or tomfoolery.
Beyond the sign, he could see wooden ramps that led out into the ocean, with some large ships tied to them, triangles of fabric stretched across their centers. Newly risen buildings stood stout and proud on a grid-like pattern, wafting the aroma of sweet pine and oak, with a hint of sap, their construction so recent that their age could be determined through smell. Humans, orcs, and ogres lugged trunks of timber in through a different entrance in the wooden palisades, with men of trade awkwardly holding weapons at the gate, obviously both settlers and soldiers in this frontier home. Overseeing their work was a sweaty man wearing chainmail with metal greaves, a shield, and a longsword that gleamed bright in the light of noon. Obviously, a few of the soldiers here were professional, though not many.
He looked back at the people near him. Most of them had stopped staring, though a couple of dirty little children seemed to be making fun of him in the corner. He gave them a monstrous glare, and they squealed and scattered. He checked the faces of the adults again for some kind of reaction, but there wasn’t one.
Good news, that, he thought, relieved that they didn’t think of him as some random monstrous encounter.
He stayed rooted where he was, feeling both safe, and fascinated. He watched as they all scurried about like ants.
Make way for the queen! he thought, surprised at the bustle in their step. It was almost desperate the way they haggled, scraped, battered, and scurried.
Here money seemed to rule as the chief. He watched as they exchanged their coins, trading furs, crops, and machined materials from other lands. His eyes gleamed with childish delight as he spied a few fancy things that really looked quite nice. At one stall, a young man, awkward and gangly, weighed the merits of a light silver necklace in one hand against a golden brooch in the other. Both of them glittered and sparkled in the clear daylight as he swayed the chain gently, then held up and rotated the brooch above him into the sky. The merchant nodded and grinned, a gesture that the young man enthusiastically returned before diving his hand into his purse to purchase them both.
Yenrab felt more than a little jealous at the ease of the exchange. He could imagine a life such as this.
Upon the spirit of the Bear, I vow this, he thought. I shall end my days surrounded by pretty doodads. And cats. And maybe a dog. But definitely doodads.
At another corner, a sweaty orc was covered in blackish grit as he pumped a bellows underneath a heap of magma-like coal. “Hotter, damn you!” he growled at it as he readied it for work with iron and steel.
He felt silly. For a moment he had thought it was like the tribe. But this, this was not at all like the tribe.
“Oh my!” came a high feminine voice, followed by mirthful squeals.
Yenrab looked back and forth, then realized the situation. He had again become an object of curiosity.
“Jedrah above!” exclaimed the woman, obviously trying to get his attention. She stood dead center in the middle of the dusty street, her two companions a step back and flanking her from either side.
He spun his eyes to look at them. There he was, a gigantic beast of a man wrapped in smelly and raggish furs, brandishing weapons of steel made by people not his own. Of course, he was scaring the ladyfolk, in their leather vests, cotton shirts, and tanned fur trousers, hair zipped civilly into tails protruding from the backs of their heads. As women of Icegard, they stood tall and strong and wore short swords at their sides.
Yenrab looked into their eyes and realized that they were not at all intimidated. He blushed, realizing that it was he who felt overpowered. He wondered if he should flee.
“Who are you, my handsome man-monster?” asked the leader of the trio as they advanced on him. Yenrab looked back and forth, not sure at all what to do.
“Uhm . . . uh . . . I’m . . . uh . . . Yenner . . . Ab . . . Ats . . . uh . . . It . . . Tab . . . er . . .”, the teenager trailed off and coughed, his green-tinged face turning yellow as the red of his cheeks mixed hues with his genetic heritage.
“What a tremendous color!” gasped one of the woman’s companions in clear joy. “How absolutely delightful!”
“Ha, yes, for sure. So, Mister Ma Yenner Ab Ats Uh It Tab Er, is it? That seems like such a tragically long name for such a strong and tall man of the wild.”
The two girls tittered, their eyes narrowed with intent upon his humiliation. The locals about him stopped again what they had been doing, this time to see what fun the girls were laying down on the dumb barbarian.
The youth cleared his throat, deciding backtracking would only embarrass
him further. Puffing up his chest a bit he said, “It’s Yenrab for short.” His head swam, and he couldn’t really think right. Maybe it would help if they weren’t just so damn pretty.
“What do you think, ladies? Should I forgive him?” the leader asked, her left cheek showing a dimple as she grinned in joy to her companions.
“I think maybe he should pay the entrance tax first!” the woman to her right exclaimed, her auburn hair glittering as it caught the sunrays.
“Well, Mr. Yenrab, do you have money with which”—she paused and raised a calloused yet stately finger—“to pay the entrance tax?” she finished, prodding him after each word.
The barbarian felt off-balance. He patted about himself, making a show of being an honorable being, but he knew he didn’t have a thing. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to pay with. And yet—there, in one of his pouches, was a hard circular shape. Reaching in, he pulled it out to where it shone white-gold in the summer light. The ladies gasped, while some of the onlookers whistled. How did that get in there?
He examined it closely in surprise. One side said: “Adventurer.” The other said: “Destiny.” The Great Bear, his jaws open and teeth sharp, was stamped into one side of the coin, while the Great Bear’s hairy behind was stamped onto the other. He bit his tongue to stop from breaking into a sacrilegious chuckle.
“Is this enough?” Yenrab asked the gawking trio. He hoped he was using this gift, clearly given him by his totem, the way it was intended. Between the book and this, he had a feeling he was being pushed ahead into something he didn’t have any understanding of. Not yet, at any rate. Still, it seemed like the proper place to use this new and particular item.
How to Be an Adventurer- World of Gimmok Page 2