“Are not. Are they?”
“They are,” Ethan said with a nod. “Why do you think they burn at the stake?”
“I don’t know why they burns, but we’re nots a smelly witch.”
“Don’t think so, at least. Hey, what if we made one?”
The last bit was probably meant to be whispered, but the nervous edge in the ettin’s voice at this point was a good indicator that the thing probably wasn’t worried about Ethan—or at least, wasn’t thinking about him.
Ethan remained quiet as the two heads argued more, tone and tempo rising.
“You’s made a witch, you did!”
“You’s the one that said to use that stump! This is your fault!”
“Well, you’s the one that painted its face and got the witch’s hair!”
“Then I’s going to be the one to smash her ugly head in!”
“No!” Ethan called out, trying to infuse his voice with terror in an effort to stall for more time. “Please don’t turn me into a frog!”
The ettin leaped from behind the boulder, coming down ten yards ahead of it with a mighty crash. In one hand, it carried a club the size of a horse while all four eyes of the monster carried the look of crazed madness.
Ethan scrambled away as the brute closed the distance, but to Ethan’s surprise, the giant didn’t go after him. Instead, it swung its club in a high overhead arc, smashing it down on their decoy’s head. Pumpkin flew in every direction like it was the final sacrifice at a Gallagher event. The witch’s body cracked under the blow and then split when hit a second and third time. But even then, the two-headed giant did not relent. It let loose a string of obscenities as it pounded its creation over and over, all the while screeching about how she would never have a chance to turn him into a frog.
“That’s a good and dead proper witch right there,” one head said.
“Course, nows we’s all out of distressing damsel,” replied the other. “What we do now?”
At this point, Ethan realized he was standing a little too close for comfort, something that seemed all the more troubling when the ettin turned and gave Ethan toothy grins with both heads.
Barnaby attacks!
Ethan jumped at Narrator’s intrusion into his head, and then again as the ettin took a swing at Ethan like his head was the ball, and it was the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded. Ethan prayed as hard as he could as he dodged.
The club whiffed by, failing to connect with Ethan’s skull by less than an inch.
Luck point used!
Barnaby missed!
“Hang on a sec. Luck?” Ethan said, rolling to his feet. “I can use my luck?”
“You can also use your feet and get out of there!” Zoey called out. She was several dozen yards away at the tree line, cutlass in one hand, pistol in the other. “Run!”
Ethan did not. He needed an ettin head, and knowing he could tap into his immense luck reserves changed things. A lot. After all, a good crit, either in speech or combat, might be all it would take to bring this monster down so he could get into Weynock and be back to finding his dog.
“Barnaby, is it?” he said, pulling the pistol Zoey had lent him from his waistband and trying to buy some time. “Why don’t we talk this over?”
The ettin grunted, eying the weapon. During the brief lull in combat, Ethan tried to find the perfect place to fire a shot, which wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded. What was the anatomy of an ettin anyway? Did they have one heart or two? And where were those hearts, exactly? On either side of his chest or both in the middle? Or could he shoot one in the head and have the whole thing drop? Or would the other one still be able to control half the body and hop around on one leg while batting Ethan till the sun went down?
“You ought to be more grateful, you know,” Ethan said. “I did save you from that witch.”
Barnaby howled and charged.
Ethan reflexively pulled the trigger to his gun. The weapon kicked like a mule, belching smoke and fire, before flying out of his grasp. The shot struck Barnaby in the right shoulder.
Ettin hit!
Ettin barely wounded!
Critical failure!
Weapon dropped!
Narrator seemed to take great pleasure in pointing out that last point, which ended up bothering Ethan more than the pissed-off, barely wounded giant who was about to turn him into paste.
“Hey! I’m not the one with the dice, damn it!” Ethan said. “Give me some better rolls!”
The loud rapport of a black-powder pistol cracked through the air. Barnaby twisted sideways, looking over his shoulder as if a bee had stung him a moment ago. A few dozen yards away, Zoey dropped her first pistol, raised another, and fired. This shot caught Barnaby in his left throat. The giant stumbled backward, clutching the wound. Though it was momentarily distracted, Ethan could tell neither shot had done any serious damage.
“Ethan, run!” Zoey yelled.
Ethan balked as he realized he was at a decisive point in the battle. While the ettin was focused on Zoey, he knew he could either opt for a sneak attack or run away. The latter would no doubt yield him many a song by local bards for gallantly chickening out, while the former could end the battle right then and there.
Opting to be the hero, Ethan sprinted forward and leaped through the air with his cutlass ready, intent on severing both of the ettin’s heads with a single blow. As he flew at his target, he prayed that he’d spend every last bit of luck in this final exchange to finish things once and for all.
His plan, as far as he was concerned, was perfect, even if he didn’t precisely understand how the mechanics of everything worked in game.
A split second before he could land his blow, Barnaby spun around and promptly knocked Ethan into a low orbit with a single well-placed strike of his club.
Chapter Fourteen
Smacked
In the dark world that had to be the limbo that separated life from death, Ethan could still hear Barnaby arguing with himself. The ettin’s voice sounded distant as if it were at the far end of a long, empty tunnel.
“Oooh! Looks. I killed the squishy in one hit.”
“You dirty goblin gagger. That’s a filthy lie.”
“That’s his bloody goo all over the ground, ain’t it? I bet that’s half his brains, it is, and squishies can’t live without their brains. Even I knows that.”
“No, you stupid sod, I mean, I’m the ones who killed the squishy. Not you. That was my swing.”
“My club.”
“My aim.”
“Bah! Fine. We both killed him. Where the other squishy go?”
“She buggered off, I thinks.”
There was a snort of disgust. “Figures. Let’s find some horses. I need a snack that’s still wrigglin’ when I’s puts it in me mouth. He’s no good all dead like that.”
“Oh, I like horses. Fills me right up, they do. Remember to pull off the shoes this time. Nearly broke me tooth on that last one.”
The ettin left, voicing its pleasure on good horse steaks as it did; all the while, Ethan wondered how long it would take for him to finally die. Surely not that long, given that his brain had been forcibly evicted from its home in his skull.
As he waited, he decided death wasn’t nearly as scary as he had thought it would be. Then again, he had met Death already, and he wasn’t all that scary, either. Hopefully, whatever awaited him in the next life would treat him well. He also hoped his dog would be there waiting for him, but felt his throat tighten and his eyes mist as he feared he’d never see Anne again.
After waiting a bit and realizing Death was taking his sweet time in collecting him, Ethan tried counting to pass the time while in limbo. He got to twenty before he decided he should probably count something other than numbers. Sheep? That was for sleep. What animal was a reliable choice to summon the Reaper? Something that saw or dealt with a lot of dead things? Rats? Vultures? Funeral directors?
Ethan settled on the latter but spruced up the counting
with the other two as well. He pictured tall, pale men in black suits with vulture emblems on their jackets while jumping over rats. Ethan got to the count of twelve before he heard Maii’s voice clear as the bright blue sea.
“You know, if we’d let him die, we could’ve gotten some boots out of all this.”
Zoey sighed. “We’re not letting him die.”
“But the boots. They could be ours.”
“They’re not even nice boots,” she said.
“Nice enough to trade for some mead.”
“Sure about that?”
“At least a mug’s worth,” Maii replied after a pause. “Well, half a mug. We could split it. A swallow each. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable? You’d have to clean the blood off of them, of course. Or maybe lick them clean. Do you lick blood as much as you suck it?”
Zoey huffed. “You just want to eat him, don’t you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” the jackal replied. “I do need to grow, you know, and I don’t think he’ll let me dine on you.”
“I won’t let you dine on me, either.”
“All the more reason I could eat him in your stead,” Maii replied. “Then you could have the ring. I’ll even let you have a bite first.”
“Tempting, but no. I’ll pass.”
Maii grunted with displeasure. “I don’t see why you got to eat him, and I don’t.”
“I nibbled,” Zoey corrected.
“I could nibble, too, you know.”
“True, but we both know you won’t stop.”
“A technicality at best.”
At this point, Ethan realized he had enough wits that he could probably wake up if he tried, which he did. Groggy and unsure of what sort of predicament he’d find himself in, Ethan slowly opened his eyes.
Zoey and Maii stood nearby. The jackal sat near his feet while Zoey stood a little closer. Golden rays of sunlight came down from above, striking her head and shoulders just right to give her a heavenly look, which was more than enough for Ethan to forget the conversation he’d been privy to moments ago. “Are you an angel?”
“Me? An angel? Ha!” she said with a snort. “Fallen, maybe. If Saint Pete wrote down even a tenth of the crap I did in college, I’d be lucky to get a referral to hell. Now come on. We’ve got to go before he comes back and decides you look enough like a horse that you might taste like one.”
Ethan’s brow dropped, and he blinked a few times to get the rest of his surroundings to come into focus. Heaven did not surround him. The forest that he had been traveling did. His cutlass lay off to the side by a couple dozen yards, and farther away, he thought he could spy his pistol, too. Stiffly, he sat up and rubbed the back of his head before cringing as pain laced through his ribs. “Oh, for the love of all,” he moaned. “That hurts.”
“I can’t believe you’re not dead,” she said. “How much damage did you take?”
Ethan shrugged and then immediately wished he hadn’t. “I didn’t catch that part.”
“Check your combat log,” she said.
“I have one of those?”
“Yes. It’s on the back of your character sheet.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because when you got it, you hadn’t seen any combat, so it was blank. Did you want me to have you stare at a blank piece of paper? Because I could if that would make you feel better.”
“No, I guess not,” he said. Ethan rummaged around in his pockets until he found his character sheet. Slowly, he unfolded it. The front had changed in two places. The first line he saw was near the bottom, and it read:
Health: Gravely Wounded
And the second that caught his eye sat near the top. It was one of his stats, his luck stat to be specific.
Luck: Depleted.
“What the hell?” he asked, staring at the sheet.
Zoey leaned over. “That explains why you didn’t run when I told you to.”
“What does?”
“You tried to sneak in an uber crit, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “It was a good plan, you know? Charge in with Glamborleg before he realized what was going on. Not sure what went wrong, though.”
“Stats matter, you know. You didn’t take into account that the ettin had a higher initiative than you,” she explained. “He got to swing first, and when he connected, all that luck you threw into the exchange saved your life instead of ending his. I told you he wouldn’t go down easy.”
“Oh. Huh,” Ethan said. “I guess I should’ve taken all of that into account. How was I supposed to know he got to swing first?”
“You could’ve started by realizing he was moving before you, or I don’t know, read the manual as I suggested because backstabbing is not currently part of your repertoire of abilities,” Zoey said. “I’ve still got it if you want to check it out.”
“No one has time for that,” he said with a wave of his hand. When she shot him an angry look, he amended his statement. “Okay, if we have time, I will. But there are more pressing matters we need to direct our attention to.”
“Like what?”
“Like finishing off that ettin so we can get our crowns,” he said. “Then I’ll need a good tavern, bad rum, and plenty of wenches.”
At first, Zoey gave him a sour look. Said look, however, quickly morphed into a mischievous one.
“What?” he asked.
“I would love to see you tangle with these quote-unquote wenches.”
“As would I,” he replied. He then turned to Maii. “I thought you were going to help.”
Maii coolly licked his front paw and used it to clean his muzzle. “I did make you look a lot more dead than you were, which you still haven’t thanked me for,” he said. “And I can still help finish the brute off, provided you keep him entertained long enough to find out what he’s terrified of.”
“Okay, I can do that,” Ethan said as he stiffly pushed himself to his feet.
“You might want to drink one of your health potions before we go,” Zoey said, motioning to his pack. “They’re the red vials you picked up in your shack.”
“Right,” Ethan said, grabbing one and downing it all. Relief washed over him in a matter of seconds, and after a minute or so, he felt as if most of his strength had returned. “Now, come on and let’s catch up before my sense returns and I decide taking him on again is a really, really bad idea.”
# # #
Ten minutes later, Ethan’s sense hadn’t returned, mostly because he didn’t have much of it to begin with—a fact he was quickly coming to terms with. If his actions as of late hadn’t reinforced the idea, along the way, he took another look at his character sheet, specifically, his stats.
“This has to be some sort of typo,” he said. “This can’t be right.”
“How’s that?”
“My intelligence is lower,” he said, double-checking that yes, indeed, that was what he was staring at. He tried flipping the sheet over a few times, thinking that maybe it was a trick of the light. It wasn’t. The number fifteen that had once been next to the letters INT had been replaced by an eight.
“It’s been nearly halved,” he went on. “Is this a temporary thing from getting knocked silly?”
“Any debuffs listed? They’ll be beneath your primary stats.”
Ethan checked. “It says ‘humbled 1m.’”
“Humbled?” Zoey repeated, perking. “Quick, look at the rest. See what else changed.”
“Why?”
“Just do it before it wears off!”
Maii trotted next to her and plopped down on his haunches. “This could be good,” he whispered.
She waved an annoyed hand at his face. “Shh.”
During that brief exchange, Ethan pored over his character sheet, trying to see what, if anything, had changed since last he’d seen it. It wasn’t an easy task, and he realized he was having a hard time recalling exactly what it had said before. But when he reached the section on traits, his eyes st
opped scanning the parchment. His brow dropped, and he twisted his mouth to the side as he took in what he saw. “It says I’m rash.”
“And there it is,” Zoey said with a heavy sigh. “Damn.”
“I’m not rash, though, am I?” Ethan asked, more to himself than anyone else. As he went on, his voice grew more and more downcast. “I mean, I guess I did screw up with the guard. And I probably could’ve planned our encounter better with the ettin, all things considered, but rash? I’m not that stupid, am I?”
Zoey wore a pained look on her face, and she bit down on her lower lip before answering. “When you were with Madam Nataliya, you didn’t pick anything that bolstered your wits, did you?”
“No. I mean, I’m sure I did,” Ethan said as his mind furiously tried to recall the specifics. After a few beats, his memories started to solidify, and he had his answer. “I don’t remember the questions, exactly, but I do know she said I was very clever—which, we’ve definitely seen as being true.”
Zoey cursed softly. “And there goes the humbled. Guess he’s back to thinking he’s a genius.”
Ethan glanced at his character sheet, and it was all that he remembered and more. “I probably read that wrong,” he said. “It probably said bumbled, not humbled, on account of my brains being clobbered. Besides, with this cursive handwriting, it would be easy to mistake an ‘h’ for a ‘b.’”
Maii grinned as he nudged Zoey once more. “You’re going to regret not letting me eat him when you had the chance.”
“Hey, you, be nice,” Ethan said, showing off the ring he wore. “No one is eating anyone in the group. Don’t make me use my ring on you.”
Maii’s head dropped as he gave a reluctant reply. “As you wish.”
“Since we’re not completely headlong into danger yet, do you think you could maybe read a touch of the manual?” Zoey asked. “Or at least realize that your continued insistence on this is making me annoyed. And when I’m annoyed, I like to eat to my heart’s content. Savvy? I’m tired of being polite about this.”
The Pirate (Captains & Cannons Book 1) Page 13