08-13-2015, 01:19 AM
I’d been tracking them for days now. An orcish war party. They’d attacked my new home, where I’d settled since I wound up in this weird-ass shithole. They raped, burnt, pillaged. They’d carried off the women and impregnated the village’s virgins with half-monstrous spawn.
Ragin’ Roger Krugman doesn’t play that way, baby. I was outnumbered, and I’d lost the support of the town guard a long time ago. I was never as good as The Grey Man at dealing with other people. The fact that everybody here spoke English, with few people fluent in other languages, really compounded the issue. They’d found my manner to be too gruff and split off from me a couple of days ago.
I saw the beasts’ leader wearing one of their suits of armor a while back, too.
Now, following the smaller set of footprints—a scouting party, composed of goblins—your boy could hear the sounds of distant gunfire. I smiled as I heard the sound, realizing that the orcs were outgunned. For all I knew, they were outnumbered too.
First thing’s first. Creeping steadily along, I saw my quarry. They were fleeing right towards me, but their backs were turned—they were throwing darts up into a tree. The four that were closest to me ran nearly straight into my reach. Perfect. Grabbing two of their tiny bodies, I quickly whirled my arms back in a wide circle, hefting them up and over my shoulders, building up momentum before slamming each of the two screaming goblins into their dizzied and frightened companions. They didn’t get back up. Probably wouldn’t for quite a while. It made me feel pretty cool, too.
No time to brag, though; there were people to help. I could relay how cool my thing I did was after I—whoop, hold up. I had to take a dive as some darts whizzed past my ear, the remainder of the goblinoid troops trying to suppress me as they routed from the fight completely. I pulled my laser pistol from its thigh holster and started returning my fire, hoping to . The goblins, likely due to the lack of decent training that accompanies a lifestyle of nomadic barbarism, decided it’d be better to turn and flee altogether rather than engage me. Which was really good, because I’m pretty sure those darts are tipped with some kind of venom and oh, man, I really hate being poisoned. I’ve had the pleasure of being poisoned and of being shot, and let me tell you, on a personal level, the “poisoned” option is way, way worse. Getting shot stops hurting a lot faster, for one...
I could go on, but the battle still raging in the distance needs me more. Switching from my pistol to my trusty heat burst rifle, I leapt up into a sprint and dashed through the dense foliage. The sounds of heated conflict and familiar scent of gunpowder and war lead me to a wide, open clearing, where the orcish menace were locked in heated battle against… ugh, shit, it’s a hodgepodge of random weirdoes.
Well, it was pretty clear from the action that everything that wasn’t an orc here was trying to kill the orcs here, so that made them my friends for the time being. I rolled down and started firing towards the advancing mob. It would prevent them from advancing any more, allowing the others time to deal with their own respective threats—which seemed like a good idea, since they had some kind of awful, giant monster thing with them.
Okay, I said to myself, looks like we’ve got a couple robots—both of which looked like they could use a hand. Couple soldiers, looks like. What’s the deal with that horse thing? Ugh, I don’t even know what half of these things are supposed to be, but I guess they’re fighting orcs…
My eyes found cover, and there appeared to be a man behind it, as well. A short, ruined stone wall. Well, they had only arrows and the big monster, so I guessed it’d be good enough. Rising, I continued my fire. A hail of arrows launched towards me; I clenched my butthole and ran faster than a speeding plasma bolt, diving behind the cover. I felt the ground shake from the force of the near-misses that could have ended my life, and pressed hard against the low wall. Plus, I landed wrong on my shoulder during that roll, so that would probably make trying to help fix this situation even more “fun.”
A shocked gasp from the man next to me brought my attention back to him. He was dressed in a style befitting a gentleman explorer of yesteryear—middle 1900s, maybe? I never paid attention in history class, that shit bored me to no end.
More importantly than where he was from, the dandy fellow had an arrow jutting out of his thigh. Shit, that won’t do. I looked up and spoke, yelling over the sounds of pitched battle. “What’s your name, friend?”
“I—it’s Clayton?” the stranger answered me, apparently bewildered by my sudden appearance. I took a break from our conversation to rise up slightly and fire blindly into the mob once more with the heat burster, then knelt back down, an arrow very nearly messing up my sweet hairdo. “Clayton, huh?” I repeated, “Well don’t worry, Clayton. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve taken care of plenty of arrow wounds in my day. You’re gonna be just fine. I’m here to help you. All of you. Just trust me.”
He spoke as though he was about to object, so I just went ahead and pulled the handkerchief hanging out of his pocket into his mouth. “Bite down on this if it hurts too bad,” I warned him, removing my shirt to use as a tourniquette, and drawing my knife. The look of fear in his eyes was palpable. There were tears as I gently tried to turn the shaft, to see if it was lodged in bone or merely the man’s flesh. I assessed the wound; it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. No bone damage; that head would come out easily enough. “Sorry,” I said, briefly explaining why I’d twisted the damn thing. “When removing an arrow, getting the head out is the hardest part,” I continued, “but like I said, it’s not in the bone, so this will be pretty simple. Then I’ll wrap it and you can cool it back here. You should just use your other leg to pop up from here and keep shooting after this, if you can. If not, hey, I understand. This is gonna huuuuurt.”
He didn’t seem very reassured as I tore away the shaft, using my knife to widen the gash somewhat. “Yep, there she is, Mr. Clayton,” I said dryly, using the edge of my knife to gently pop the thing out, at which point I finished the removal using my fingers. The gut tying the arrowhead to the shaft was just about dissolved from Clayton’s blood, too. Good thing I got here or the head would’ve been much harder to retrieve, and he’d have probably died from infection after the battle, although that’s assuming nobody else knew what to do. Still, from the looks of them, why would they? I only knew because of how insane Grey’s training is in terms of planning for every contingency.
A strong gust of wind hit us then, messing up my perfect, beautiful hair. God dammit. I sighed and glance up over the wall; the orcs had been whipped into disarray by some powerful gust of wind, being generated by the weird horsey thing. Whatever, this whole place is just weird, I’d already gotten used to this kind of nonsense happening. I knelt back down to return to my work.
“Alright,” I assured Clayton, “Here comes the really fun part.” I didn’t really think that he’d heard me, since he was busy screaming into the handkerchief and pounding his fist against the wall, but he was about to feel even worse. I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at me, pain and rage in his eyes, still grunting loudly from the pain. I showed him the bottle of styptic in my hand and he winced, shaking his head as if to decline—but he didn’t resist. He closed his eyes and waited for it to hit him, and for that I respected him. He screamed once it started coagulating the blood over his raw flesh, of course, but hey, I would’ve done the same thing.
A quick wrap of my shirt later, Clayton had a suitable bandage. “The name’s Roger Krugman, by the way…” I told him. You know, in case I get killed. “I’m gonna go help those guys who are fighting the big horrible monster. You hang in there.”
And with that, I left my cover. It seemed as though the two warriors engaging the troll-like thing had a pretty good grasp of what they were doing, so even if I couldn’t make it in time, I could rendezvous with them and we could strengthen ourselves through numbers. As the pirate-looking guy closed in to deliver the killing blow, the troll began to turn around—it had glimpsed him out of the corner of its eye, Thinking quickly, I held my rifle aloft with one arm and drew my pistol with the other. Volley after volley of concentrated energy battered the beast, turning its attention back from the pirate and allowing him the glory of following through with the killing blow.
Grey once called my desperate tactic of using a rifle and a pistol akimbo-style “showoffish” and “inefficient”. If only he could see me now. I rushed over to the old captain and his ally, the blond-haired female.
“Lt. Roger Krugman, Grey Paramilitary Solutions, happy to help,” I quickly said to them, tossing business cards out of my pockets and into their hands. Hopefully they’d think to look at them later. I put my pistol away and whirled back around. “Now let’s see what else we can do to get the others on track!”
Ragin’ Roger Krugman doesn’t play that way, baby. I was outnumbered, and I’d lost the support of the town guard a long time ago. I was never as good as The Grey Man at dealing with other people. The fact that everybody here spoke English, with few people fluent in other languages, really compounded the issue. They’d found my manner to be too gruff and split off from me a couple of days ago.
I saw the beasts’ leader wearing one of their suits of armor a while back, too.
Now, following the smaller set of footprints—a scouting party, composed of goblins—your boy could hear the sounds of distant gunfire. I smiled as I heard the sound, realizing that the orcs were outgunned. For all I knew, they were outnumbered too.
First thing’s first. Creeping steadily along, I saw my quarry. They were fleeing right towards me, but their backs were turned—they were throwing darts up into a tree. The four that were closest to me ran nearly straight into my reach. Perfect. Grabbing two of their tiny bodies, I quickly whirled my arms back in a wide circle, hefting them up and over my shoulders, building up momentum before slamming each of the two screaming goblins into their dizzied and frightened companions. They didn’t get back up. Probably wouldn’t for quite a while. It made me feel pretty cool, too.
No time to brag, though; there were people to help. I could relay how cool my thing I did was after I—whoop, hold up. I had to take a dive as some darts whizzed past my ear, the remainder of the goblinoid troops trying to suppress me as they routed from the fight completely. I pulled my laser pistol from its thigh holster and started returning my fire, hoping to . The goblins, likely due to the lack of decent training that accompanies a lifestyle of nomadic barbarism, decided it’d be better to turn and flee altogether rather than engage me. Which was really good, because I’m pretty sure those darts are tipped with some kind of venom and oh, man, I really hate being poisoned. I’ve had the pleasure of being poisoned and of being shot, and let me tell you, on a personal level, the “poisoned” option is way, way worse. Getting shot stops hurting a lot faster, for one...
I could go on, but the battle still raging in the distance needs me more. Switching from my pistol to my trusty heat burst rifle, I leapt up into a sprint and dashed through the dense foliage. The sounds of heated conflict and familiar scent of gunpowder and war lead me to a wide, open clearing, where the orcish menace were locked in heated battle against… ugh, shit, it’s a hodgepodge of random weirdoes.
Well, it was pretty clear from the action that everything that wasn’t an orc here was trying to kill the orcs here, so that made them my friends for the time being. I rolled down and started firing towards the advancing mob. It would prevent them from advancing any more, allowing the others time to deal with their own respective threats—which seemed like a good idea, since they had some kind of awful, giant monster thing with them.
Okay, I said to myself, looks like we’ve got a couple robots—both of which looked like they could use a hand. Couple soldiers, looks like. What’s the deal with that horse thing? Ugh, I don’t even know what half of these things are supposed to be, but I guess they’re fighting orcs…
My eyes found cover, and there appeared to be a man behind it, as well. A short, ruined stone wall. Well, they had only arrows and the big monster, so I guessed it’d be good enough. Rising, I continued my fire. A hail of arrows launched towards me; I clenched my butthole and ran faster than a speeding plasma bolt, diving behind the cover. I felt the ground shake from the force of the near-misses that could have ended my life, and pressed hard against the low wall. Plus, I landed wrong on my shoulder during that roll, so that would probably make trying to help fix this situation even more “fun.”
A shocked gasp from the man next to me brought my attention back to him. He was dressed in a style befitting a gentleman explorer of yesteryear—middle 1900s, maybe? I never paid attention in history class, that shit bored me to no end.
More importantly than where he was from, the dandy fellow had an arrow jutting out of his thigh. Shit, that won’t do. I looked up and spoke, yelling over the sounds of pitched battle. “What’s your name, friend?”
“I—it’s Clayton?” the stranger answered me, apparently bewildered by my sudden appearance. I took a break from our conversation to rise up slightly and fire blindly into the mob once more with the heat burster, then knelt back down, an arrow very nearly messing up my sweet hairdo. “Clayton, huh?” I repeated, “Well don’t worry, Clayton. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve taken care of plenty of arrow wounds in my day. You’re gonna be just fine. I’m here to help you. All of you. Just trust me.”
He spoke as though he was about to object, so I just went ahead and pulled the handkerchief hanging out of his pocket into his mouth. “Bite down on this if it hurts too bad,” I warned him, removing my shirt to use as a tourniquette, and drawing my knife. The look of fear in his eyes was palpable. There were tears as I gently tried to turn the shaft, to see if it was lodged in bone or merely the man’s flesh. I assessed the wound; it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. No bone damage; that head would come out easily enough. “Sorry,” I said, briefly explaining why I’d twisted the damn thing. “When removing an arrow, getting the head out is the hardest part,” I continued, “but like I said, it’s not in the bone, so this will be pretty simple. Then I’ll wrap it and you can cool it back here. You should just use your other leg to pop up from here and keep shooting after this, if you can. If not, hey, I understand. This is gonna huuuuurt.”
He didn’t seem very reassured as I tore away the shaft, using my knife to widen the gash somewhat. “Yep, there she is, Mr. Clayton,” I said dryly, using the edge of my knife to gently pop the thing out, at which point I finished the removal using my fingers. The gut tying the arrowhead to the shaft was just about dissolved from Clayton’s blood, too. Good thing I got here or the head would’ve been much harder to retrieve, and he’d have probably died from infection after the battle, although that’s assuming nobody else knew what to do. Still, from the looks of them, why would they? I only knew because of how insane Grey’s training is in terms of planning for every contingency.
A strong gust of wind hit us then, messing up my perfect, beautiful hair. God dammit. I sighed and glance up over the wall; the orcs had been whipped into disarray by some powerful gust of wind, being generated by the weird horsey thing. Whatever, this whole place is just weird, I’d already gotten used to this kind of nonsense happening. I knelt back down to return to my work.
“Alright,” I assured Clayton, “Here comes the really fun part.” I didn’t really think that he’d heard me, since he was busy screaming into the handkerchief and pounding his fist against the wall, but he was about to feel even worse. I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at me, pain and rage in his eyes, still grunting loudly from the pain. I showed him the bottle of styptic in my hand and he winced, shaking his head as if to decline—but he didn’t resist. He closed his eyes and waited for it to hit him, and for that I respected him. He screamed once it started coagulating the blood over his raw flesh, of course, but hey, I would’ve done the same thing.
A quick wrap of my shirt later, Clayton had a suitable bandage. “The name’s Roger Krugman, by the way…” I told him. You know, in case I get killed. “I’m gonna go help those guys who are fighting the big horrible monster. You hang in there.”
And with that, I left my cover. It seemed as though the two warriors engaging the troll-like thing had a pretty good grasp of what they were doing, so even if I couldn’t make it in time, I could rendezvous with them and we could strengthen ourselves through numbers. As the pirate-looking guy closed in to deliver the killing blow, the troll began to turn around—it had glimpsed him out of the corner of its eye, Thinking quickly, I held my rifle aloft with one arm and drew my pistol with the other. Volley after volley of concentrated energy battered the beast, turning its attention back from the pirate and allowing him the glory of following through with the killing blow.
Grey once called my desperate tactic of using a rifle and a pistol akimbo-style “showoffish” and “inefficient”. If only he could see me now. I rushed over to the old captain and his ally, the blond-haired female.
“Lt. Roger Krugman, Grey Paramilitary Solutions, happy to help,” I quickly said to them, tossing business cards out of my pockets and into their hands. Hopefully they’d think to look at them later. I put my pistol away and whirled back around. “Now let’s see what else we can do to get the others on track!”