Nice Work, If You Can Get It (Human Diplomacy Quest)

[King Ghidorah]

As I stroll into town, I take note of my surroundings.

The village is nestled in a trough between two of the gentle, grassy hills which sprawl across the greater valley's eastern slope, and partially hidden within a broad wooded grove. The architecture of the dozen-and-half-or-so thatch-roofed buildings ensconced between the trees is strictly practical, the materials an even split between timber and the red stone which seems so prevalent in this area. The streets are laid out in a sort of haphazard grid, and like all of the roads I've seen since arriving in this vibrant little world, they're made of packed earth - though there are a few flat, red stones embedded here and there. Trees are scattered at random throughout, sometimes growing in the middle of the road, providing ample shade. 

There are many people here, dressed in simple clothes. They wear unadorned pants and shirts, or dresses (I have a vague understanding that this has something to do with gender, but the whole idea of clothes seems so very nearly pointless). They mill about the streets, walking between the buildings on mysterious peasant errands or unloading carts full of goods - doubtless produced by the surrounding farmlands through the efforts of people like Luke Darby. 

The air smells of growing things, stone, wet earth and manure (which isn't bad as far as words for excrement go - though the concept itself is frankly horrifying).

It's my first experience seeing a street from this angle. I would dearly love to just roam and observe, to understand all the tiny, individual threads of experience which come together to create this scene, but sadly, the participants have other ideas; As I stride down the central thoroughfare all activity grinds to a halt. A wave of paralyzed awe spreads outward as the people notice each other noticing me. Almost mechanically, all eyes are drawn to my lustrous golden form. I can't tell whether they sense the threat I represent, warned by some lesser mammalian instinct, or if they're just struck dumb by my superior height, my obvious strength and burnished bronze visage.  

I stop, and I watch. Typically, had I my proper stature, by now they would have already started to run.  

Treetops creak in the breeze. A pile of bundled grain rustles as it settles in its wagon-bed. A dog barks somewhere nearby. Among the people silence reigns. 

The whispers start slowly, at the far end of the street, rippling towards me in a mirror-image of the initial shock brought on by my arrival. Villagers and farmers turn to the nearest person and talk urgently, mothers comforting children and men speaking in hushed, serious tones. The volume rises, and people begin move, either coming towards me or going indoors. The latter group is mostly the young, the old, and the women. The former is composed almost entirely of men, either grim or nervous. Some of them have tools in their hands, the instruments of their recently abandoned tasks. 

I grin. I'm not sure what it is these wretches think they're up to, but I'm sure I'm going to find out, and in so doing I'll learn something about their little community. 

As they form a circle around me, I catch snatches of their conversation. 
  
"Is he an elf?"

"He's too tall."

"Look at his ears!"

"Forget his ears, look at his teeth."

"What if he's a Prime?"

"What if he's not?" 

"Oh gods, not another one..." 

It continues in much the same vein for almost a minute before I grow bored. I can only listen to them being insecure and uncertain - and is that a hint of anger? How intriguing. I haven't even killed any of them yet! - for so long before the temptation to obliterate them all becomes unbearable. They're so tightly clustered, such easy prey for my golden lightning... 

"Tell me about yourselves," I interject, my commanding tone cutting through their chatter. "I want to know about life in your village." 

It's a straightforward demand, but they don't know what to make of it. The murmuring starts again. 

"He wants to what?"

"What the hell?" 

"Who does he think he is?" 

"Imperious son of a bitch. I told you he was an elf!"  

"That was the rudest damn introduction I've ever heard!"

This time, it's one of their number who steps forward. He's a tall man, as human beings go, though still shorter than me, dressed in a thick apron and other sturdy fabrics. His hair is black and short, his face is flat and stony, and he looks fit (though I balk at applying that word to such a limited creature).  

"I'm afraid we're all a little confused about what you're doing here, friend," he says. "Harnburg's a human duchy, and this is a human village. Your kind - whatever your are - aren't welcome." 

I think about that for a moment, remembering Luke Darby's reaction to my appearance. It raises a lot of questions 

"So is it that you distrust anyone that isn't the same species as you, or are you afraid of them? Or is it disgust? Do you believe those who aren't human to be inferior? Does everyone in this valley feel the same way?"


I'd love too hear his answer - it would tell me so much about the fabric of his life and times - but he stares at me as though I've presented him with an unwelcome, unexpected, unsolvable puzzle. I ask another question.

"And what is an elf? I keep hearing that word, and I'd like to know whether or not I'm being insulted."   

Someone else, a thin man holding a pitchfork, speaks out. 

"And what'd you do about it if you were?" 

I stare at him. For the first time, it occurs to me that some of these people think they're holding weapons. If these men try to fight me - if they render more than the most passing and trivial of disrespect - I'll have to slaughter them all, and once I begin in earnest I don't think I'll be able to stop until this entire valley is in flames. As much as I'm looking forward to destroying them, and as brightly as the fires of their burning homes dance within my mind, I'd rather it not come to that before I have a better understanding of this place. There are still so many questions, such shades of meaning to be gleaned before I can fully appreciate their society. 

A demonstration is in order. 

I grab the pitchfork from the thin man's hands and I jam it into my own neck. The tines squeal torturously as they bend, harmless, against my unyielding golden scales! The assembled farmers and assorted villagers watch in stunned silence as I snap the now-useless implement in half and obliterate the remains by sending a single arc of astral charge booming through the space between my outstretched hands. Men scramble backwards, singed by arcs of stray power. Ashes and slag fall to the ground at my feet, and the smells of the village are replaced by the pungent tang of ozone and burning metal. I smile, my growling appetite for ruination momentarily appeased by the despoilage of a useful tool.

"I'd demand," I purr in the ensuing silence, "restitution. I am King Ghidorah, you hapless, tiny fools. You live by the grace of my curiosity - and you'd best choose your words accordingly."  

1272 words by the site word-counter.

-travel to a human duchy: accomplished

[King Ghidorah]

One of them, shorter and darker-skinned that the others, goes wide eyed and at the sound of my name. As the rest of the circle looks on he begins to shake so hard he falls over, scrambling backwards on his hands in the dirt. He moves like a creature being hunted. 

"Ghi-Ghidorah...! Kare wa Ghidorah desu!?"

The man turns and runs as though I've set him fire, colliding with trees and tripping over his own feet, heedless in his desperate need to get away. The whole time, until he's left the village and well out of sight, he doesn't stop screaming.

"Watashitachiha subete SHINU tsumoridesu!"

It's a reaction I'm familiar with, though I've never seen it from just one person before, but the spectacle has a profound affect on his peers; The crowd, such as it is, begins to thin rapidly. Men look around at the implements in the hands of their fellows, likely measuring their potential as weapons compared to the thin man's pitchfork, and remember they have somewhere else to be. At first they try to be subtle about it, drifting away from the group, disappearing through doorways and down side-streets - but soon the exodus begins in earnest.  

I turn my attention back to the sturdy, stony specimen who first addressed me directly. He's one of only six humans who remain on the street, the rest having found an urgent need to go indoors, hiding behind red stone walls. The half-dozen would-be heroes try to present a united front, but the little group betray themselves - furtive glances towards doors and shuttered windows, whitened knuckles and the pallor of their faces. 

All of their anger, suspicion and disgust has turned to fear. I can practically smell it, feel the tension rolling off their bodies in waves. There was a rhythm to their days, and I've shattered it into discord and uncertainty - a more subtle breed of destruction than I'm accustomed to, but unexpectedly satisfying nonetheless.  

The wind blows, whistling through the glen, rustling the leaves overhead. A large four-legged beast hitched to a cart beside a barn at the far end of town brays in its traces. The street seems much larger without any people in it, and the men facing me look very alone.

"What is it you want?" their grim-faced leader asks. 

I smile beatifically, crossing my arms over my gleaming chest.

"I thought I'd made that clear: I want to know about your village. I wish to appreciate its intricacies, and what makes it unique. I want to learn about your people, how they spend their lives, and how they view the world." 

The man appears at a loss for words. One of his supporters, however, a short, round man wearing pants with straps that hook over his shoulders, has the temerity to ask me why. 

"Because," I tell him, answering honestly, "I've never had the opportunity before, and there's so much detail that I've missed. Before coming here, there was a conflict of disparate scale."

The men stare blankly. It's frustrating that I can't seem to make myself understood, and yet I'm fascinated by their nervousness, by the internal conflicts I can see rippling across their faces. They're afraid of me, and something about that is tearing them up inside. 


Delicious. 

Under threat of destroying the town I march them into a barn on the outskirts of the village, and one by one I make them tell me their stories. I shout and cajole.  I stomp my feet and ask careful questions. I threaten to rip off each of their pinky-fingers. Between the six of them, it takes the rest of the afternoon. 

I learn about blacksmithing and dairy-farming and how to 'pick up' women - and why that's supposedly desirable (though I still don't entirely understand). I learn about carpentry and coopering and the manufacture of rope. I'm told about familial relations, and serfdom, and taxes. I learn about the concept of childhood, and how to ruin it with alcohol - and also about alcohol. I'm informed of the pain of a 'secondary' created with no purpose, and the opposing fury that comes from being torn from everything one knows only to have to start all over again in a new world (without the benefit of being Me).  

I learn that this town, Holmwood, is a hub of sorts for the local farms, with many businesses and a large market twice a week but very few permanent residents. I learn what elves are, and that these people seem to use prejudice to distract themselves from problems they could actually solve. 

It's a very engaging conversation, and the feeling of enlightenment when I'm done is practically electric. I leave the little group of men weeping in the road, unable to meet each other's eyes. Some of the things they've told me I think they'd rather nobody had known, and its left them desolate: living, yet horribly damaged. 

What a fascinating idea. I'll have to experiment further. Right now, however, the sun is setting, and I have it from the locals that the inn is the place to be. 

***

The Inn is the largest building building in town, and the only one with a slate roof. It's three stories tall, constructed of red granite blocks and massive timbers, with shuttered windows on the second and third floors, facing the road. There's a boardwalk out front, lit by four large lanterns and overshadowed by a wooden awning, with stables in the back.

With my proper and correct body, the entire affair would have fit snugly beneath my foot.

Lit by the limited twilight which filters through the omnipresent shade, the villagers clear out of my way as I approach down the central boulevard, parting and whispering in hushed tones. News of this afternoon's events has apparently spread.

I step onto the boardwalk, and I'm about to push my way through a pair of slatted wooden doors whose shape reminds me of my dearly departed wings, when something tacked to the stone wall beside them catches my eye. 

It's a flyer, a slip of greasy paper with words on it, and it reads thusly: 

Looking for: 

Rakish Individual of low moral scruples. 

Must be powerful, capable, willing to kill in exchange for payment. Primes preferred. 

Interested parties inquire within. Ask for Chatterly. 

Imperial Affiliates need not apply. 

I stop, studying it for a moment, crossing my arms while I try to work it out. The words that give me pause, that have me intrigued, are 'Rakish', 'kill' and 'payment'. 

I've never been paid for anything before, but I can't help remembering what Brock Coxley said to me shortly before his untimely demise - the suggestion that currency could be rendered as Omnilium.

Killing is, of course, a large part of my endgame here - I plan to kill everybody.  The more I've learned about this place, the harder it's become to hold myself back from razing it all - but I keep finding new things to explore, and I haven't even gotten halfway down the valley yet. A more immediate target for my destructive muse would go a long way towards tiding me over until my investigation of life in Harnburg is complete.

Finally, I like the word 'rakish'. I feel its tone captures my temperament very nicely. 

All of that is without even factoring in the hidden layers of this civilization which the mysterious missive promises to reveal, the suggestion of goings-on outside of the everyday course of events. 

Yes, I think I'm interested. 

I pull the flyer off the wall, and I step inside, glittering by lantern-light, leaving the doors squeaking and swinging jauntily in my wake. 
  

1252 words according to wordcounter.net

2624 words total. 

-travel to a human duchy: accomplished
-find a post soliciting for the services of a 'rakish individual': accomplished

Apologies if I messed up the Japanese. The only things I know how to say have to do with giant monsters attacking cities, and I'm not clear on how the grammar works. 

[King Ghidorah]

For the second time today - the second time ever - I find myself indoors. It feels strange, moving through such limited spaces, separated from the sky. Even stranger though is the sensation of seeing the inside of a piece of architecture. In my previous life I'd never dedicated much time to wondering what the interiors of the hives and habitats I destroyed were like, and now that I'm getting the chance to find out it's adding an entirely new layer to the memories.     

The barn where I interrogated those oafs was fairly simple, with nothing inside it but masonry, piles of hay (yet another word for grass!) and racks of arcane metal implements. The inn, however, is a delight. 

I'm standing in a large room with a high ceiling, occupying much of the first and second floors. Several iron chandeliers, five-spoked wheels hung with lanterns, dangle from heavy wooden cross-beams. A thick layer of sawdust crunches beneath my feet, and scattered formations of tables and chairs cluster at random across the floor. There's a low bartop with a man behind it to my right, and a shelf on the wall behind him holding several tapped kegs. An assortment of drinking-glasses and wooden mugs hang from hooks. A tattered sheet is draped across a door-frame near the end of the bar, and a stairway against the far wall leads up to a second-story balcony which encircles the room. All of the interior walls are wooden, and a fire burns merrily in a hearth at the end of the floor, far to my left. 

In spite of its stone construction, on the inside this place is a tinderbox. When the time comes, it's going to burn wonderfully. 

There aren't many patrons yet, so early in the evening, and those few ambitious drinkers who've already begun their slow slide to inebriation get up and leave when they see me coming, granting me a wide berth in their rush to the doors.  

I let them. It's not as though they're going to run far, and I have other business. 

I 'belly up' to bar (an expression gleaned from one of my erstwhile informants, although in truth the bartop only comes up to my thighs), and lay the flyer on the counter. I look toward the barkeep, stating my intent. 

"Bring me Chatterly."  

The barkeep is a stout, bald, dark-skinned man in a stained apron. His face is so wrinkled with disapproval and general world-weariness that it resembles an asteroid I once boiled, and his eyebrows are like a a scattering of ash atop the ridge of his brow. The man stays silent for a moment, looking me up and down, from the crown of horns protruding from my hair to my embarrassing (and by now quite dirty) trousers.  

"That guy is in the back," he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the raggedy sheet. 

I stare at him. The barkeep returns my glare with eyes like blackened pits, apparently unfazed. Suddenly, inexplicably, I'm reminded of the Anomaly: the mighty saurian warrior who took my head in another place and time. Unsettled, unsure, and quietly furious about both, I choose to overlook the man's impudence. 

I grunt my understanding a proceed around the end of the bar, brushing the curtain aside as I step through the doorway. The fabric has a surprisingly strong scent, tangy and dry, tickling my nose. 

The back room is small, and crowded. The floorboards are piled high with crates, barrels, and untapped kegs, and it stinks of spoilage and old meat. A black-gloved hand beckons me from an even-more-ragged curtain-hung door-frame on the opposite wall.  

"Oi. Biggun. In here."

I stride across the room and thrust the curtain aside - and for the first time ever I set foot in a kitchen. The floor is dirt, cool and hard, but there's a merrily blazing hearth, and an iron stove. The stone walls are lined with shelves that groan beneath the weight of jars and cans. Pots, cauldrons, knives and pans are stacked in the corners, and on every remaining available service.

The idea of having to prepare food, let alone creating an environment this elaborate to do it in, is nearly completely alien to me. The context it adds to these farmlands, and to the lives of the farmers, fills in a number of small-but-satisfying details.  

In the center of the room is a square, rough-hewn table, its surface chipped and scarred. Sitting at it are three men. All of them wear dark clothes, more finely crafted than the garments of the villagers I've seen - leather cloaks, puffed-out shirts, red scarves and oiled black gloves. Such extravagance likely reflects social status, though it seems backwards to me that a person with privilege should want to wear more clothes. 

One of them is big and bald, almost as tall as I and even more broad, with a face like a crater. Opposite him sits his lesser doppelganger - less tall, less bulky, less bald, and marginally less ugly (although in the case of these soft little bipeds such things are strictly relative). Both of them are playing with knives. 

The third man is seated at the head of the table, between the two hulks. He's short and solidly compact, with slicked-back gray hair. His hands are steepled calmly beneath his chin, and his thin, almost blade-like face reminds me of my own. 

"Which one of you is Chatterly?" I demand. 

The gray-haired man folds his hands and sets them upon the table.

"That," he rasps, calm and confident, "would be me. My associates are Cutter" - he points to the man with the caved-in face - "and Violent Angus. And you, I have to assume, are King Ghidorah. You've caused quite a stir. The townspeople are talking about sending a rider to Harnburg Castle." 

Violent Angus's knife slips mid-twirl and he cuts his finger, stifling a yelp. I hold up the crumpled flyer. 

"Tell me what this is about." 

"Hm. You aren't terribly concerned what other people think, are you? Very well. It's simple. I want you destroy something for me, and kill a whole gaggle of people in the process. In return, I'll give you a great big burlap sack full of gold - and maybe put the word around that you're not such a terribly bad person after all. Interested?" 

"Extremely," I hiss, referring to Chatterly's offer, his motivations, and everything else about him and his associates. "Tell me more." 

He stands and speaks, his tone almost jovial. "There's a trade caravan that's going to be passing through the moors fifty kilometers north of here the day after tomorrow. I want it destroyed - preferably burned.  No survivors."

"Why?"

Cutter snorts a laugh, wheezing through the scarred ruins of his nose. "Why 'e says... hrnk-nk-nk-hnk!" 

"Thank you Cutter," intones his master, dripping with patience, before turning back to me. 

"As far as you're concerned, treasure." says the gray-haired man. "I'll pay you for your discretion as well as your... expertise." 

I smile, showing my teeth. Violent Angus's face turns pale. " If you know who I am, and what I've been doing, then you know I'm far too curious a creature for that."

Chatterly studies me for a long moment before seeming to come to a decision. "Very well," he says. "The caravan I want you to destroy is transporting vital supplies to the County of Shatterdun. My employer doesn't much care for Shatterdun, and wouldn't mind seeing them put through some well-deserved hardship. Without those supplies, they're going to have a difficult summer. Does that satisfy your vaunted curiosity?" 

I spend a second trying to decide whether or not I've just been mocked. I'm not sure, so I smash the table, just in case - and for my own satisfaction. My fists descend in a mighty two-handed blow which splits it in two! A cloud of splinters fills the air. Cutter and Violent Angus both fall over backwards in their chairs. Chatterly takes a quick step back, reaching for something beneath his cloak. 

There's a brief period where nothing moves - three well-dressed men in a kitchen, a broken table, and me, shining like liquid bronze in the light of the fire. 

"I'm satisfied for the time being," I tell them, basking in the afterglow of a well-used thing's destruction. "But I'll want to know more about it later. Now tell me where and when, exactly, I can find this doomed caravan."   

1396 words according to wordcounter.net. 

4020 words total

-travel to a human duchy: accomplished
-find a post soliciting for the services of a 'rakish individual': accomplished.

[King Ghidorah]

Following my display of force, Violent Angus and Cutter pick themselves up off the floor and do their very best to look irritated and dangerous, not uncertain and afraid.

"I think," says Chatterly, all of the tension draining from his body, "That perhaps we should continue this outdoors." 

I'm satisfied enough by the lackeys' fear to agree to their master's suggestion. 

We spend the rest of the evening walking and talking. For hours we walk in circles through the village streets discussing the caravan Chatterly wants me to destroy - its defenses, its cargo and crew. All the while, I watch the village of Holmwood go through the motions of its evening rituals. The people vanish from the streets, retreating indoors or filtering out to the surrounding farms. Very soon the four of us are alone, lit by the dim glow of tame fires as we roam between the red-stone buildings and duck around trees: light from the windows of the town. 

Many times I stop beside those shining portals, and watch the goings-on inside while my well-dressed shadow continues to talk. I watch people eating their dinners, or sitting with their families. I observe a tinkerer at his bench and a smith working late in his shop, sweating by the light of the forge. At every stop, I interrupt Chatterly's ongoing briefing to demand an explanation.     

He provides me with every detail I ask for, so long as I don't inquire any further about him, or the reason (that is, his reason) why I'm going to ruin the caravan.  

By the time the lights of Holmwood have all gone out, there's little more left to say about my task. However my gray-haired employer (which is a term with a cloying whininess that, while horrible, captures its meaning well) isn't entirely convinced I've been listening. He insists on going over the details one more time.     

"It's critical that you understand," he says, standing beside an old stone well on the southern edge of town. Above our heads, tree branches moan in the midnight breeze. His cloak flaps, snapping sharply, and his henchman do their very best to loom menacingly in the dark - a power they don't actually (in my estimation) possess. 

"I do understand," I tell him, annoyed. I cross my arms over my chest and glare. "I walk north for a day, following the road out of Harnburg valley until I reach a crossroads with a large burned building nearby, and a signpost indicating Harnburg, Minis Tirith, and Shatterdun. Then I wait until the caravan arrives, and I destroy it utterly. After that, I come back here and you pay me what I'm owed. It's a not a complicated idea"  

"Yes," says Chatterly, irritatingly calm. "Capital. You might be surprised how many Primes have problems following basic instructions. Just remember - no survivors. And if you implicate me or my employer in any way, you'll get nothing." 

I grin. I would have burned the caravan for free had I run into it in the course of events, but the lure of currency, and thus Omnilium makes it a more urgent matter. The fact that he thinks he could keep me from my due reward is almost funny. If this well-dressed fool attempts to renege on this arrangement, nothing will stop me from finding him, taking what I'm owed and destroying him. Of course, that was his fate since the moment I set foot in this vibrant little world. But if he betrays me (and what an odd idea that is. The only creature that's ever been a position to betray me before is Gigan, and he was far too scared of me to try) it will happen faster. 


"In order to reveal something," I say, " I would have to know something. You still haven't told me anything about yourself, Chatterly. It's very frustrating. How am I supposed to properly appreciate you if I don't know anything about you?" 

Violent Angus frowns. "Hey. Wuzzat supposed to mean? Sounded like a threat. 'm an expert in threats, and I'm pretty sure that was a threat." 


Chatterly ignores him, putting up the hood of his cloak and pulling it tighter against the breeze.  

"I'll make you a proposal, King Ghidorah. If you complete your task to my satisfaction, I'll tell you more about the reason for this arrangement. Perhaps you'll even get to meet my employer. Do we have a deal?" 

My grin widens. Looking into his eyes, I fancy that I can see my fangs flashing in the moonlight.

"We certainly do."

***

I leave Holmwood in the early hours of the morning following a wide dirt road marred by hoofprints and the tracks of wooden carts, and walk for the rest of the night and most of the following day. North of the valley the landscape opens up into grassland and hills, speckled with sparse forests and sparser farms. The countryside is teeming with life - birds and insects (so many different kinds!), and four-legged beasts. I keep myself entertained as I travel by subjecting them to the cosmic fury of my golden lightning. I miss more often than not, but the successes make up for the failures, and I leave a trail of charred and broken bodies in my wake - small winged forms burning by the roadside and mammalian carcasses steaming in the grass as they cool. 

I meet few people on the road, and the rare travelers I do encounter do their best to avoid me. The first two I chase down. I drag them behind me by their legs as I march towards my goal, asking them questions until I feel informed enough to properly appreciate what they bring to the world. 

One is a farmer's son, traveling with the intention of finding something to do with his life that's more interesting than his father's business. He tells me about his childhood, the summoning of his family by a Prime in need of serfs, and the slow drudgery of his days. He talks of nights spent reading a book he bought for a handful of cheese from a traveling peddler, and his ill-defined romantic ambitions. He is a fairly simple young man, but his dreams are colorful and grand. He burns beautifully. 

The other is a fledgling wizard, though his meager powers prove to be no match for my own. Balls of fire and shards of ice are unable to overcome my effulgent natural armor, and mystic bindings prove futile in the face of my overwhelming strength. After I break his hands he tells me all kinds of things. I learn about the flying city of Dalaran, and the political structure of this place. I learn more about Minis Tirith, and its ongoing conflict with the great city of Coruscant, and about the little pocket-realities - so called 'verses'  - which make up the world I now inhabit. The mage tells me about his training under the masters of Dalaran, his research, and the quiet dignity of academia. 

I smash his body against a tree and leave him crumpled in the grass. The ruin of such a unique font of knowledge leaves me tingling.   

The sun is setting again by the time I reach the crossroads. In the middle of a broad field full of tall, dry grass and large, red boulders two dirt roads meet. A signpost stands beside it, and the blackened stone skeleton of a three-story building looms in the meadow nearby. It reeks of bygone tragedy, and as I explore the area, my scales gleaming like fire in the molten dusk, I keep tripping over old bones. 

Investigating the ruins yields little new information. They remind me of the inn in Holmwood, and I'd assume they were once a similar establishment. 

I wish I could have been here to see it burn. 

Satisfied for the time being, I settle down in the middle of the road to wait for morning, and the arrival of the caravan. 

1307 words according to wordcounter.net

5327 words total out of 5000 words minimum.

-travel to a human duchy: accomplished
-find a post soliciting for the services of a 'rakish individual': accomplished.

[King Ghidorah]

I spend the night staring down the northern road, focused on the spot where it vanishes behind a distant stand of trees - the spot where my victims will appear - filled with eager anticipation for the day ahead. The annihilation of the supply caravan is going to be more than just a gratifying exercise in total destruction: it will be a crucial test. 

When the caravaneers round that distant bend, it won't be this small, vulnerable, humanoid form they meet. For the first time since arriving in the Omniverse, I will assume something resembling my proper form.  The question is, what will it be? I know that something is wrong with the shape that slumbers inside me, that if I wish to truly be myself I'm going to need more power, but how close am I? The men and women who drive those trade-wagons, their lives and livelihood, are going to help me find out. 

It's sadly true that I'll be unable to glean any additional information from them after I ascend - the difference in scale will be too large, and whatever form I assume I can say with some certainty it won't be able to talk. However, Chatterly has made it clear that the caravan's guards and crew would be unlikely to humor my demands anyway, and he's told me enough about them to give me some idea of their lives and roles in the greater fabric of the Kingdom (which is a lovely, savage, snarling word, but a stupid name).

Besides, investigating every single person and place I despoil is never going to be practical - I'm simply not that patient. Sometimes, as much as the ruiner's knowledge of his subject adds to the beauty of an act of ruin, the old way is going to be best. It will, in any case, provide a pleasing contrast within the aesthetics of my wider experience.  

Taking all of this into consideration, turning it over in my mind and plotting the means and methods of the upcoming massacre, I while away the hours. 

Before I know it, the sun is coming up. I proceed to the ruined inn in the nearby meadow, station myself inside, and wait. 

***

The outriders come first - lightly armored scouts on horses, riding ahead to check for bandits lying in ambush. This I was told to expect. They approach the crossroads and begin to circle, waiting for the caravan to catch up. Soon it appears, lit softly in the orange light of dawn - wagon after horse-drawn wagon rounding the bend, with ranks of armored swordsman riding alongside. Teams of horses raise clouds of dust. There are four guards to a wagon, eight wagons in all - sturdy and wooden, loaded down with crates of supplies covered by tightly-secured canvas tarpaulins. This I was also told to expect.  

I wait until they've almost reached the cross-roads before I make my move. 

As I suspected, the mental trigger for my ascension proves to be the same psychological device I formerly used to emerge from my cosmic cocoon. Gazing out the charred window-frame at the wagons in the road I look inside to the sleeping knot of power within my well of astral charge, and I will myself inside-out. 

What's left of the building explodes.

My world turns white, as blindingly as white as the featureless landscape in which I first arrived, and then it catches on fire. I'm rising rapidly, a living column of flame a hundred feet high, crackling with power as I become something glorious! My perspective splits in two, then three, a familiar echo droning in my -our - mind, eclipsing our thoughts as the roar of the flames and the shriek of cosmic energy rises to a crescendo!

It ends as abruptly as it began, the cacophony of an astral catastrophe ending in a thunderclap - and leaving... what? We shift our weight. The taughtly-stretched skin of a golden wing rumbles, vibrating in the breeze. Our left head writhes, considering our body in a brief moment of independent curiosity.

It's not as bad as we'd feared. We recognize this form - three predatory heads, beautiful sinuous necks, two tails and wings instead of arms - but it's far too young: an adolescent, barely two-hundred million years old, scarcely a hundred feet tall and still weak. But we will grow - and our power is more than enough for the task at hand. 

The caravan is in chaos. The horses are panicking, frothing and trying to escape their traces, ignoring their drivers out of pure animal fear. They drag the wagons off the road, some of them overturning amid the sheer, heedless rush to survive! The scouts and guards are either forming ranks or attempting to flee. They were prepared for bandits, for rogue Primes and feral monsters - nothing could prepare them for us.

We unleash our golden lightning. Arcs of blazing cosmic energy as wide as cottages erupt from our mouths, itching pleasantly as the power leaves our throats, raining down upon the caravan. Wagons burst, turned to ash at the touch of our burning breath, their contents vaporized! Horses scream and tumble in their traces, cooked to death in an instant, hair scorched away, their flesh steaming! Men in armor fall where they stand, broiled in their own juices or simply obliterated! 

Wagoneers and their families disappear in flame, burning fast, like dry tinder. 

 

The clamor of armor and the ongoing shriek of mercenaries and their panicked mounts draws our attention to the scouts and guards who are still attempting to flee. We sweep a bolt across their path, halting their progress, and in three quick strides we're standing among them. We stomp men and horses into the earth, little more than an uneven texture beneath our mighty feet! A quick turn, sweeping our tails wide across the ground, churning the earth and knocking the guards not slain outright from their mounts - then its time to apply the lightning again. Crackling, leaping, arcing golden radiance puts an end to them all! 

With every footstep, the ground shakes. With every wingbeat, the wind howls. With every breath, thunder and flame. It takes less than a minute to reduce the entire caravan to ashes and meat amid a field of burning grass. Even the road has been destroyed, scarred beyond recognition by the weight of our tread and the impact of our lightning!

We roar in triumph! 

We remain diminished, but we are Ghidorah once again. 

 

1073 words according to wordcounter.net

6400/5000 words.

-travel to a human duchy: accomplished

-find a post soliciting for the services of a 'rakish individual': accomplished.

-follow through with the instructions: accomplished (and how!)

-do not implicate the person who contracted you: accomplished

Time to turn this in!

[King Ghidorah]

And now, the thrilling conclusion.

We stalk thunderously among the billowing pillars of black smoke which rise from the burning meadows and ruined caravan, our three serpentine necks undulating in an arrhythmic pattern as we examine our handiwork. The soft glow of the morning sun competes with the more severe light of the fires on the wagons, reflecting off the tarnished luster of our adolescent form's immature scales, flickering upon the golden expanse of our wings. Embers drift on the breeze, and the heady scent of cooked flesh, oxidized metal and burning wood rises high on the wind.

The smoke whirls as we flex our wings, and a manic warble rises in our throats. The destruction we've wrought here was simple, but the composition of it lends a beauty beyond its obvious merits. In particular, its suddenness deserves further consideration. The wagoneers and their outriders were taken completely unawares, obliterated in a scant handful of moments by a force they barely had time to recognize, let alone understand. Their confusion, their uncomprehending horror, added a poignant note of discord to their already-chaotic demise. 

Then, of course, we must examine what affect the destruction of the caravan is going to have on the places and people that relied on its services...

Our musings are interrupted by a sudden wave of vertigo. Our vision dims and we shudder, tremors rattling throughout our three-headed frame. The astral furnace inside us is sputtering, choking on tangled knots of power within this imperfect form. One of us falls abruptly comatose, then another. They dangle open-mouthed at the ends of long, limp necks. I am no longer us, but once again only me, and I can no longer sustain this shape. 

My world explodes once again into whiteness and flame, but this time I'm falling, tumbling downward as the blaze of cosmic fire lessens, until all that's left is the miniature, man-like shape to which I'm becoming infuriatingly accustomed. Even the cursed pants have returned.

For a moment I'm outraged, but then I open my eyes. 

Everything looks so different! The roar of flames, the smell, the heat, all of it is so deafening at this size, so immediate! The smoke and the steam, appearing as mere rising columns in my ascended state, now eclipse the newly-risen sun. The burning grasses have left a layer of ash and cinder on the riven ground, too thin to notice before. 

I take a step forward and nearly stumble into a massive pit. It's partially obscured by the smoke of a smoldering buggy, so I realize only belatedly that I'm looking at one of my own ascended form's footprints.   

This is fascinating - more than that, its giving me a whole new appreciation for my own unstoppable majesty. I stride across the carpet of ashes and glowing embers, circling around the hairless, steaming bodies of a team of horses. In the shadow of one fallen beast lies a man with no skin, sheathed in melted armor. A little way beyond that the corpse of a wagon looms, a pile of ashes and scorched metal, incinerated instantaneously by a direct hit from my golden lightning. A set of blackened human bones is seated near the front, grinning at nothing. A smaller skeleton sits beside it, hand on its shoulder, looking equally cheerful. 

The wind blows a swirl of cinders between us. I return their grin.  Somewhere in the middle distance, the sound of the fires grows louder as the blaze spreads across the fast-burning meadows, and something within my soul rises in kind. 

***

When I return to the village of Holmwood I'm surprised to discover that the people actually seem happy I've returned. As I move through the shade-shrouded streets the villagers pause in their menial tasks to smile at me. Some of them even wave.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. Pushing down the urge to burn the entire village and the land that it stands on I choose a villager at random, a stout man with very little hair, and pull him aside.

"Why," I demand, staring into his eyes "Are you all so happy to see me?" 

The man smiles nervously. 

"Well, uh... we all heard, is the thing. About you getting rid of the bandits in the woods? And stopping that crazy Prime up on the slopes? And then we tried to run you out of town - its no wonder you acted the way you did. So, uh, excepting Peter and those other hot-blooded fellows you roughed up... I guess we're all just glad you came back."

I stare at him uncomprehendingly, shining in the shade, my arms hanging limply at my sides. He must be talking about Brock Coxley and Dawnika Snow - but how could he possibly know about them? 

After several moments of ponderous silence, it comes to me: Chatterly. I don't know how, but it must be Chatterly! He said he'd convince the villagers I 'wasn't a bad person', and he's done it, twisting my destructive exploits to suit some bizarre, altruistic narrative.

My mind roils. On the one hand, the very idea that I would do anything for these people is maddening. It's so demeaning that its practically slander (which is a slithering, spiteful word, well chosen for its usage). On the other hand, if they believe I'm on their side, not only will they be more likely to talk to me, but it will add an element to their eventual ruin that I've never before had the opportunity to employ: across millions of years and tens of thousands of civilized worlds, not once have I been called a betrayer. 

The idea opens up whole new emotional vistas. I dare say it may change the flavor of the experience entirely! The insult to my already-battered dignity pales beside the promise of a new and heretofore unique twist on the act of annihilation.

Grinning madly, I brush the villager aside and stalk off towards the inn.

***

Chatterly isn't there. Instead, I'm met by Violent Angus. The lesser of Chatterly's henchmen is waiting for me on the boardwalk out front, leaning against the red stone walls.

"Where," I ask him, half-growling, "Is your master?" 

Violent Angus grunts. "Mister Chatterly ain't here. 'e says good job, an' that you should go to Harnburg Castle an' ask for 'im by name if you want to talk more. 'e says 'e'll answer your questions there, and that 'e's got another job for you - one that's a little more suited to a person what has your talents." 

"And what about my payment?" I hiss, not happy in the least. 

The scar-faced ape reaches into his cloak, and hands me a heavy leather bag. It rings with the clink of metal rubbing against metal. I probe through the internal lens of my Omnilium reserves, determining what this sack of shiny coins is actually worth, and find it to be roughly one Brock Coxley.

"Very well," I tell the servant grudgingly, actively deciding - in the name of weaving a greater tapestry of destruction - not to murder him immediately. Rainbow light rises as I begin to unmake the leather bag and its golden contents. "Consider me intrigued."