My epic saga in a foreign land thus continues. When I last left off, I had just received the gift of pants.
The pants that had been given to me were standard peasant garb, but I was considerably more appreciative of their various protective and aesthetic qualities than the drapes that had previously adorned my midriff. Indeed, they were not fit for someone of my station, but none of the lords and ladies of my realm were accompanying me, so I had no reason to fear embarrassment.
I was grateful to be clothed again but it occurred to me that I knew nothing of the land that I had unwillingly ventured into. It was evidently populated by Saxons and talking owls, so I assumed that it was somewhere beyond the river Rhine, but I lacked anything in the way of a map. The people of the inn were only able to give me sketchy directions at best, but I ascertained that my assumption had been an apt one. According to their suggestions, I was very far from home. Their inn was the last bastion of civilization for many leagues, flanked on all sides by the wilds. There was an old Roman road rumored to lead westward though. It had been lost when the regions last garrison had withdrawn centuries prior but somewhere, beneath a bed of foliage, it ran towards my home. I thanked the good people for their help and made off towards the setting sun.
Before departing I had gathered up one of the Saxon axes from the ruins of the metallic hulk. Their axes were clumsy weapons, ill weighted and forged from metals of low quality but it would be safer to be armed than not. My departure from the inn had been hasty, which in retrospect was a poor decision on my part. I came to the realization that I had neither asked for food nor drink to sustain me on my journey home. The folk at the inn seemed more than willing to aid me but I had succeeded in destroying the Saxon's death machine, which was pretty cool. I didn't feel like I'd be able to top that, so I needed to get out of the inn before people expected more from me. I just really wanted to avoid letting them down after having exceeded their expectations in such an ostentatious fashion. Regardless, I was glad to have an axe at the very least, because the woods I was walking through seemed hostile. I could feel the withering gaze that the denizens of the forest cast upon me as I trod through their territory. It was unrelenting.
Confrontation was inevitable and came in the form of a stout creature. It had something akin to a bears head and face with the hooves of a deer and a multi-sectioned, hairless body sort of like an ant made from the pink flesh of a skinned goat. It's abdominal chamber was decorated with bright spines that oozed a pungent and viscous discharge. The abomination called out to me, "Halt! I shall now pose a riddle to you, do you accept?" The skin on its abdomen undulated as the beast spoke, illiciting gags from my own person. I responded as best as I could, given the circumstances, "Vile perversion of nature, I shall attempt to answer whatever riddle you ask of me," and in a lower voice muttered,"...but I doubt that your query will be comprehensible if your horrific visage is an indicator of the mania that lurks beneath the surface of your persona." It disregarded the latter half, straightened its back, spines gently trembling, exciting more of the discharge out of the porous quills, and said unto me, "What creature wears both a hat and walks backwards with the sunset?"
"That doesn't make any fucking sense," quoth I.
"What does yonder human mean? The answer is quite obvious if one ponders upon its nature. Does yonder human imply that I may be following a line of inquiry that lacks a truthful answer for the sake of sexual stimulation by means of deceit and trickery? Does yonder human not see my spiny hump twitching? Does yonder human not realize that this is an indication of mental keenness, not an indication that one is overly enjoying some variety of voyeuristic pleasure derived from observing members of lesser species struggle with an inherent lack of comprehension regarding riddles?"
I would have killed it, but I really didn't want to touch the creature, it just looked gross. I swore to myself that if any of it's discharge touched me, I would burn this entire forest to the fucking ground. The abomination was positively frothing with anticipation of my answer, it was too much. The contents of my stomach flew from my mouth and covered the beast, plastering what little hair it had on its face.
I had never before vomited on a foe. The creature was stunned into silence, I was nervous because I didn't have the appropriate tools to facilitate oral hygiene, which was troubling, what with the miscellanea of acids and biles that had just passed through my mouth hastening the natural decay of my teeth. The creature continued to pulsate gently. It was as if a hundred smaller beasts were pushing upon its abdominal cavity at the same time, their tiny hands manipulating the shape of its flesh, prodding and plying at junctions in the musculature of its rear. I expelled the remainder of my stomachs contents.
"Yonder human, what is this bounteous gift you have given unto me?" quoth the abomination. It was about to begin speaking again, but I gestured that it should hold its silence. The creature gazed at me curiously. I spoke back, "You are the fucking worst." It quivered some more and licked its upper lip... slowly, with a forked reptilian tongue.
Rather than continue emptying the reserves of bile in my body, since my stomach had long since ceased to be full, I decided to turn away from the abomination and continued on my journey. It was unlike me to avoid confrontation, but the thing was gross. Unfortunately, life can never be so easy. The beast called after me, "Yon human, you have still not answered my question! I thank you for the nourishment you have gifted upon my face, but you must answer my riddle!" It was difficult, but I kept my back to the creature and kept ignoring it. The beast called again, "Yon human! YON HUMAN!" but alas, I would not give it my attention.
Frustration had obviously grabbed hold of the creatures psyche and it began to thrash about, writhing on the floor of the forest, spreading its vile discharge on the branches and leaves that covered the top soil. "Answer me!" it screamed, arching its back in a tremendously unnatural fashion. Indeed, the entire concept that this creature embodied was unnatural, but the position it had found itself in was exceedingly so (unnatural, that is). The creature let out a wail, something akin to a death knell, and the skin peeled back from its rib cage around the abdominal section. The pitch and intensity of the wail increased as the flesh blackened and split, it had my attention, but perhaps it was too late. The rib bones splayed open, rending the abdomen down the center, the spines on the back contracted inwards, and terrible gout of gore sprayed forth, splashing the trees and bushes immediately around the seemingly dying beast.
The death dirge stopped suddenly, but the body retained its unnatural posture. Slipping forth from the remnants of the creature and sliding out onto the slick forest floor came a small, oblong, grey sack. It sat immobile momentarily, then ruptured in a flash of violet light. A portal of some sort manifested itself from the sack and beasts poured through it, clearly aiming for my person. I judged their intent as malicious and readied my crude Saxon axe. The first beast was upon me, with a body akin to that of a small bear, I was not afraid to slay it, for it didn't look totally gross. My axe cut into its skull and split the head in twain. Blood erupted from the wound and sprayed in an unending stream. The second beast I caught in the chest with my weapon. I tore the dull iron head out and it too was followed by a veritable fountain of blood. I was, at this, point, standing ankle deep in gore. I decided to strike out at the next animal with my fist for fear of drowning. The point where I struck immediately swelled up, ruptured, and the hole ejected a geyser of blood. "What the shit?" quoth I.
The three bear-things had ejected enough blood that I was now wading through their fluids. It hampered the other beasts that were trying to make their way over to me, which was fortuitous, but it seemed like every injury delivered upon one of them immediately resulted in a horrid wound violently exploding outwards and inundating the area around me. The clumsy beasts would strike a tree and instant death would follow, or perhaps they would bump into one another too roughly. Any strike resulted in imminent destruction, always followed by that same sanguine release. I could not imagine the maximum capacity of blood their bodies could hold, but it seemed nearly infinite as the blood began to soil the cloth around my chest.
It seemed that I was destined to drown in a mire of gore, which, in retrospect, sounds really badass, but Fortune was on my side. She called from a spot atop a tree branch yet to be sullied by the blood of the beasts. "Northfist, I can take you from this cursed place and put an end to the profuse bleeding out of these creatures, but you must do something for me." I did not like making deals with any variety of god, but I was also averse to the idea of drowning. I asked her, "What do you want?" and she replied, "Slay my clit." I was all, "What?" and she was all, "You heard me," and I was all, "I don't think I did," and then she was all, "You definitely did." This exchange continued for several more moments. I tried to explain that I was a good Christian, or at least, I thought I was a good Christian and often pretended to be one. I had never really made my religious beliefs explicit. I would contend that they really just served me whenever convenient, but I'd never had a goddess make sexual advances on me before. Lesser deities perhaps, but nobody important. Anyways, I took the deal because "slaying clit" didn't sound as bad as dying.
Fortune pulled me from the pool of blood and used magic or some shit to force the bodies of the beasts back through the portal that had opened and closed it behind them. Apparently deities have the power to do these things? I don't know. Anyways, she was all, "Alright, I've fulfilled my end of the bargain, now it's your turn." But she said it in a really lame voice, like the kind of thing you hear really bad actors say to one another when they have no idea what they're doing, it really killed the mood. Then I saw that she was really sweaty and probably hadn't washed. And she had a faint mustache filling in her upper lip. It really was turning out to be just as bad as the blood pool. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not horribly picky, I'll have my way with all sorts of stuff, but I was just getting a lot of bad vibes off of her, you know? Like, I can handle a mustache, they're not a permanent sort of thing. If you really want to get rid of it, you can shave it or something. I was just a little shocked that she was evidently taking such poor care of herself. It's her prerogative if she doesn't want to shave her lip, I'm not going to force anybody to do anything they're uncomfortable with, but I just needed her to understand that not everybody is into that. It spoke multitudes about her personality. She seemed genuinely filthy and I have a lot of trouble getting into that. I had just punched a bear from another dimension in the face, I felt like I could do better.
She made a lurid gesture in my direction. I shuddered. This wasn't going to happen, so I told her, "Fortune, I'm not really in the mood, can you just maybe return me to that pool of blood? I'm not a bad swimmer and I felt fairly buoyant, blood is certainly thicker than water. I've just been dealing with a lot of things lately, what with being abducted and whatnot, and I don't really feel like... umm... slaying your clit or whatever." Fortune seemed a little bummed out, I think she was really intent on receiving oral sex, but she told me it was cool. She said she wouldn't return me to the blood pool, probably because she was trying to impress me or something, and gave me this really awkward smile baring her weird teeth and misshapen mouth, which was sort of gross, but I managed a wan smile and thank you in return before she sent me off.
My run-in with Fortune had left me somewhat rattled. Death had stalked me before, in fact, on a previous adventure I had wrestled Death, but on that occasion I had felt in control of the situation, I didn't require divine aid. To drown in a pool of blood or be coerced into shamefully mouth-banging a gnarly vagina - and so far from home - well, the notion was appalling. I had to make all haste to resume my journey home. I regained the forest road in short order. My journey back into my lands was fraught but not nearly as eventful as that first day.
Twenty-five days into my trip the forest began to change, the sparse vegetation and tall coniferous trees gave way to thick flora and broad deciduous leviathans. Truly, I was nearing the land I called home. Two days later I crossed a river that I was almost certain marked the outermost border of my kings territory, I was only hours away from habitation, I could feel it in my bones. When I finally came upon the first town, life looked to have not changed considerably since I'd been taken from my bed. I approached a villagers and called out, "Who is your lord and where might I find him?" The voice that responded did so in a strange dialect. I could still understand it, but it twisted and contorted words in ways that defaced my native language. The villager, while cruelly tongue-bashing his words, said something about his lord being a certain noble whose family I had never known to be influential; lechers and drunks, the lot of them. I had no interest in speaking to distasteful lords, so I decided I would press on down the road.
Incidentally, the road led past the lords castle and two of his sons happened to be out with their retainers taking a walk. They were dressed flamboyantly, with alternating blues, yellows, and reds repeating along their shirts and pants, which were comically over-sized and puffy. I gave the slightest nod of acknowledgement as I walked past, a typical gesture between lords when they meet. It is a greeting for equals, but what I had forgotten was the present state of my clothing. It had been of peasant Saxon origin to begin with, now it was tattered and bloodstained from a months hard journey. My hair hung down in thick strands, bound together by grit and sweat, and my beard had engulfed the lower half of my face. That I did not prostrate myself on the ground in front of the youths was evidently an affront, for one called, "Look at this savage who refuses to acknowledge his betters!" Or at least that is what I gathered he had said from the ridiculous dialect. I turned to regard the two youths, both of which were frowning, clearly disgusted, when the one ordered a member of his retinue to strike me; to force me to kneel before them. The subordinate walked up to my side, raised a mailed fist, and swung it at my face. I did not want to make enemies of this family, so I absorbed the impact, which left me momentarily seeing a blinding white light, but my pose neither sagged nor gave any indication that I'd been phased by the strike. I intended to impress the youths through sheer force of personality.
"A good strike!" quoth I. It was their turn to be startled by the way that I spoke. The one, who had until this point remained silent, remarked that I sounded akin to a distant and long-dead relative of his. Indeed, this branch of the family did seem far-removed from proper civilization, likely a concession by my king to settle these petty nobles in the farthest reaches of his realm. Now that I had made contact with this group that I had longed to ignore, I felt that I could, at the very least, ask for some provisions, perhaps a sword of decent iron. I had every intention of paying them back later by using the gold from my fiefs coffers. The arrogant youth who had formerly ordered his man to strike me repeated that order again and the subordinate raised his gauntlet once again. Unfortunately for him, I had no intention of letting him hit me again and delivered a blow to his throat, which dropped him to the ground, where he groped at the soil while gasping for air. Blind rage stole over the lad as he screamed at me for "defying one of my betters." I repeatedly tried to reassure him that I was in fact, at the very least, his equal, but more likely his superior as his impure and muddled provincial family of swine-rapists and petty criminals was nothing compared to the lineage of princes and saints that I descend from. This was apparently the wrong thing to say as the boy drew his sword and charged at me, bringing the blade down in a clumsy and rather slow arc, which I dodged (without exerting myself). His sword came down hard and buried itself in the soil, which gave me an opportunity to strike, so I punched my fist through his chest and tore his heart out. Everyone was super impressed but sort of scared or something. Anyways, the brother to the shithead I'd just killed freaked right the fuck out and ran off screaming about murder most foul. Presumably, he was trying to find someone to take vengeance upon me. This suited me just fine, as I picked up the dead guys sword and bailed, not wanting to be present when an entire town was riled.
I ran for several hours before exhaustion overcame me and I was forced to make camp. I had only been resting for a few hours when a posse of men clamored into the clearing I was sleeping in looking for violence. They were men sworn to the father of the noble I had slain and told me that they were there to deliver their lords justice. They apparently didn't care that I'd just punched a hole in a guys chest and charged at me. I cut most of them in half, length-wise, because that's gnarly. The other ones I just stabbed in the stomach and left for dead. I didn't have time to be dealing with angry posses, I'd been away from home for too long.
I walked for four days when I finally came upon the mill that marked the boundaries of my fief. I danced about and yelled profanities (in a good way) at a group of people. They were stoked for me.
