Terran

“Are you Terran” said the stranger.
“I might be it depends on who is asking” I say looking up from my beer.
“ Lets just say that I’m an interested party” said the man as he pulled up a seat.
“I don’t remember asking for company” I said feeling rather annoyed.
“Well sir you might feel a little better after this offer I'm about to make you” said the man as he took off his rain soaked cloak.
“I'm not sure what kind of offer you have but--”
“Sir, my name is Conin and I'm prepared to offer you 100 gold flin to just retrieve a small package for me” said the man as he reached into the bag he was carrying and grabbed a bag that clinked delightfully with the sounds of money.
“Well” I said “I just might be a little more receptive to your proposition at this point” moving a little closer to the man.
“ Okay then” the man said as he started to tell me what he wanted me to do.
“Recently I came to be an acquaintance of a man of a certain stature in the kingdom who, for lack of a better word robbed me blind” said the man.
“I run a business, that we shall not get into, and the man came to me asking me to do a service for him and for payment the man promised me 5000 gold flin and a artifact of certain power which--”\
“No” I said felling a little awed at the sum the man had just flung around as if it was pocket change “I won't do it”.
The man looking rather surprised “But sir a few moments ago you were so very receptive of my offer and now..”
“I am truly sorry sir” I said thinking of what that money could have bought me “but I don’t get involved with anything that has to do with magic”.
“But sir this is a very important task for which I think you are the best candidate for which to accomplish the task I have” the man said.
“Sorry I wont do it” I said with a sense of finality.
“Well then, it seems you won't be moved but I have one last offer for you” the man said “The gentlemen of which we spoke of gave me the 5000 gold flin but refused to give me the package, and I am prepared to offer you 3000 out of that 5000 gold flin to retrieve that package the man refused to give me”.
Stunned at the offer it took a second for me to respond “Give me a day or two to decide” I said now taking this proposition very seriously.
“I'm sorry to say this but I will need the answer now” Conin said.
“Well then the answer is no” I said felling a sense of regret over the loss of all that money.
After sitting in the common room of the inn for a few more minutes I stood up and prepared to leave, but as I got up to leave another stranger entered the inn and went straight to my table.
“Are you Terran” boomed the massive man glaring down at me.
Feeling rather annoyed at having two people know my name and where I was and having to look up, to look him in the eye, I answer “Yes and you must be the giant wench of Bright wall” .
“What did you say to me” yelled the massive man.
“I said aren't you the giant wench of Bright wall” I said looking at him.
“That’s what I thought you said and you wont be saying anything anymore” he roared as he pulled a cudgel from his belt, and swung it at my head.
I ducked under his lumbering swing and grabbed his forearm and brought it down on my knee, after hearing a nice crunch from his elbow I let his arm go as the cudgel dropped from his now useless hand, and punched him in the throat. As he dropped to his knees clutching his throat I grabbed him by his long greasy hair, which stank like a horse stable.
“Now big boy lets ask you a few questions, why did you want me, how did you know my name and who sent you?” .
The man just knelt there for a moment before answering me “I don't know who it was, some man outside gave me, and four other men 25 gold flin to come in here and kill you”
“What four other men” I said as I felt two pairs of hands grab both of my arms.
“Well look at what we caught” said a voice from behind me.
As the two large men holding onto me turned me around I quickly saw that the common room had emptied except for my five friends and I.
As I looked into the face of the leader of this gang of thugs I felt as if I had seen this face before
“Wait your that murderer I got payed to capture last month” I said feeling a sense of shock “I gave you to the town of Morn, there is no way that they let you out”. There's a saying about Morn, If your caught in Morn, off your head will be torn, they have a rather barbaric way of killing you. They tie you to a tree, they then tie your neck to a horse, they then stab the horse in the rump and see who wins, your neck or the horse.
“Well I got saved by our mutual friend Conin and now I get to hear you scream, like I would have if I had stayed in Morn” said the murderer whose name was Hulan.
Pulling out a wicked looking knife Hulan had an evil glint in his eye as he advanced towards me. As ideas ran through my mind I acted. I went completely limp in the hands of my captures they seemed very surprised and loosened there grip, I took full advantage of that to rip my arms from their grasp and fell on my rump. I then swept their knees out from under them and as they fell on there backs I hit them in the solar plexus as hard as I could and one on the left screamed out and the one on the right just started to throw up. As I rolled backward I heard a thud as a knife landed in the space my body had just occupied.
As I jumped to my feet I saw another of my friends come running at me, as I dodged out of his way I stuck my leg in front of his and grabbed him by the neck and propelled him around me, and slammed his face into the floor so hard you could feel the vibrations. As I looked up I saw that Hulan had gotten his knife pried out of the floor and came running at me with the knife above his head preparing to swing. As he swung down I grabbed his wrist and pushed backwards, he struggled as hard as he could but I just overpowered him and pushed his arm further and further till I heard a loud pop and his arm fell to his side. As he screamed out I grabbed him by the throat and pushed him back to a wall.
“Now Hulan, I'm going to ask you this question once or I'm going to spill your guts on the floor, why did Conin save you and why did he want you to kill me” I said looking him right in the eye.
“He needed a manservant willing to do anything and he heard of my ruthlessness” he choked out.
“Okay that answers the first question now answer the other” I said applying a little more force to his neck
“You had seen his face, you knew what he wanted and how much he wanted it, he needed you dead, he's done this to other mercs along the road” he said his face turning a bright red from lack of air.
Felling a sense of foreboding I asked him a final question “Did one of these mercs happen to be named Pern”
With a gleam in his eye he answered me “That boy cried like a woman as I slit him open, why, he your friend”
With a roar I pulled my left hand back and slammed it into his face over and over again, I stopped really feeling any resitance after the fifth or sixth hit but I kept pounding till my arm gave out, by the time I dropped him on the floor I was covered in his blood and his face looked like a pile of raw meat. As I turned around I the first guy to come into the inn had stood up and was looking at me in a state of pure terror and ran out of the inn as fast as he could.
I felt a sense of detachment as I walked out of the inn. My first, my best, my only friend Pern was dead. I had been kinda worried about him after I sent a few letters to him and had gotten no answer, but what he just said had confirmed it. I walked around for I don’t know how long but I know that the sun was up after I snapped out of it, and once that happened I was filled with a burning anger. That pile of wizard garbage had killed my best friend and had tried to kill me because he had asked us about getting a package for him. That morning I started to get ready to find out where he was going and exactly what he had wanted. I felt a sense of regret about beating Hulan to death since he probably knew all of these questions and more but I didn’t really care. I had killed Pern's murderer and now I was going to kill the man responsible for it.
As I asked around town about what his carriage looked like and what direction he went when he left town, I found out that he had sold his carriage and walked out of town, I felt a sense of elation that I might be able to catch him so soon. So after gathering my few supplies, my bow my camping supplies, and my trusty old sword. I soon bought a horse with the money I had from the last job I had completed and started out of town going in the direction that the wizard had.
As I got a few miles out of town I saw sign of a campfire along the side of the road. As I hopped off my horse I got an uneasy feeling, but I kept going as I looked around the campsite I saw some horse tracks and swore. As I got back onto my horse hopeing to make up some time on him I heard a thwack and swung around and there was a goblin standing there with a bow, I swore softly thinking this wizard really didn’t want to be followed and was powerful as all hell.
As the goblin pulled another arrow and notched it I sprang into action charging at the goblin as I pulled out my sword. As the goblin released the arrow I had my sword fully drawn out and as the arrow came flying at me I swung my sword and knocked it out of the air. As I got closer to the goblin it dropped its bow and tried to pull out a dagger but he was to late I was on him. I swung my sword down at his hand reaching for the dagger and loped it off. The goblin kinda looked at it strangely and then roared at me and tried to grab my neck with his other hand but I stepped backwards and chopped that hand off also, right then the fight seemed to go out of the goblin and it was rather easy after that to take off his head with a swing.
After I had cleaned my sword of the corrosive goblin blood I quickly cleared out of there in case Conin had set any more traps. As I galloped along the road I thought of this Conin, he seemed to be powerful since he had summoned a goblin and I could find any evidence of a summoning circle during my short inspection of his camp, but he was also undeniably evil just leaving a goblin there on the side of the road which had many travelers. Usually goblin are difficult as all hell to kill but after a weapon kills a few goblins it's able to kill them more easily, that’s why in dark wizard plagued land where wizards summon wave after wave of goblins many weapons are hundreds of years old, and the loss of a family weapon is as serious as your house burning down since its so much harder to kill goblins without the weapon. I was just happy Conin didn’t know I came from one of those such families and that this sword was 350 years old and had kill hundreds if not thousands of goblins.
Feeling a sense of determination to avenge my friend and rid this land of one more evil wizard I grimly galloped along the highway. I camped later that night not having seen another camp along the way and feeling rather worried that I was much further behind Conin than I thought I was.
As I woke the next morning I quickly broke camp and started to travel further down the highway but pretty soon I saw smoke in the distance and felt hope that maybe I had caught Conin. As I galloped to the camp I hoped to find him.
As soon as I was near the camp I jumped off my horse and crouched down and started to sneak closer to the source of the smoke. As I came into a clearing I saw it wasn't a campfire it was a smoldering gypsy caravan with bodies strewn around it. I felt kind of sick as I saw what had been done to the family, the woman had their skirts above there heads and the men didn’t have any heads. I walked into the camp not expected to find any survivors but came upon one woman clinging to life.
“Who did this to you” I asked as I knelt beside her
“Goblins” She choked out with blood filled spittle flying from her mouth that's when I look down and saw the gaping hole that was her midsection
“Kill me it hurts so much” she begged me
Feeling so terrible about this and knowing that those goblins could only have some from one source I grabbed my sword and plunged it through her head to end her misery.
As I clean my blade I was filled with a righteous anger that he would do this to anyone. I walked back to the road and got back on my horse and tried to leave the camp far behind me. After traveling for a few hours I came to a town. As I entered the town I felt a sense of foreboding but continued on.
As I walked around the town I didn’t see one person come form their homes to greet me, I didn’t see one dog, I didn’t hear one child and I felt creeped out. After walking a little further I smelt something that smelled like pork, and being hungry went to investigate. As I walked further into town I saw a fire and something roasting on it, as I got closer I realized that's what the smell was. As I walked a little closer I realized it wasn’t a pig though, it was a person. I swore loudly and yanked out my sword and swung around looking around just in time. As I did a 180 I saw a goblins jumping out from all directions.
As they charged at me I felt a sense of dread knowing this might well be my last battle. As I dodged under a hatchet flying at my head I thought of Pern and how I wouldn’t be able to avenge him. As I hacked off the arm of one goblin I spun around and loped the head off of another one and got a feeling for myt situation. It was about 20 goblins versus me, and even with my ancient sword I felt lie I wasn’t going to be getting out of this.
I began to try and fight my way into a area where the would be able to get behind me so I fought my way out of the circle and then started to back up. I took down one goblin ad he tried to jump on my head by kind of skewing him with the sword and flinging him over me like. I took out another as he mistepped with his thrust at me but I knew that this was a losing battle and felt a sense of hopelessness.
When one goblin stepped in on me I swung at him but missed and that was the one mistake I made and that was all that was needed, the goblin grabbed my arm and threw me to the ground. Pretty soon all of his friend were around us beating me.
“Stop, I want him alive” I heard a voice yell as I slipped into the blackness.
“Wake up” I heard a voice say as I was drug into consciousness.
I popped my eyes open and immediately flexed as hard as I could but felt my hands were secured but I felt my right wrist move a little.
“Ah, Mr. Terran, how nice to see you” I heard a unfortunately familiar voice say beside me.
“Conin you pile of dung let me out of these restraints so I can talk to you”I said glaring at him
“Ah no can do I'm afraid you see, I need to keep you tied up”
“Why would you need to do that” I asked straining a little more against my restraints
“Well you see that package I wanted you to retrieve happened to be in this town since the owners carriage broke and the thing about it is the artifact needs a blood sacrifice to get working and my little goblin friend got a little hungry and ate the whole town before I got here” he said with a mad gleam in his eye
“Why are you doing this” I asked him “What could possibly make you want to work with goblin to get something”
“Well you see I could have summoned a whole host of creatures but I felt as if I needed to get acquainted with my future forces, you see the artifact uses your sacrifice to summon me a whole horde of goblins of which I plan to take over this kingdom”
“You mean you have the Chalice of Mogde” I said feeling a sense of such intense dread it seemed to hurt me
“Why such a smart little boy” Conin said as he turned around “Now where is that knife I will be needing to cut you into tiny little piece so I can get my invasion going”
As he turned around I pulled against the restraints tthat tied me to the chair as hard as I could and the chair arm broke with a loud bang. As Conin turned around I pulled my knife from my boot and threw it at Conin's head. Conin screamed and tried to cast a spell but my knife hit him in the eye and he collapsed on the floor. As the door banged open a goblin came in and charged at me but stopped dead and turned his head. He looked over at Conin and screamed a guttural scream and began to disappear, because as soon as a wizard dies his summoned creature go back to the place from which they were summoned.
As I cut myself free I felt a sense of amazement that Conin's plan was defeated by a loosely tied rope. I soon grabbed the Chalice and started to leave.
I later dumped the Chalice in the deepest water in the ocean that I could find as I crossed the ocean to tell Pern's mother of his death.