Hey you.
Yeah, you with screwy hair. Come here a second kid.
I need a favor. You see, the barmaid at this establishment is a good friend of mine. But she's a wee bit on the protective side, if you know what I mean. And she's gone and cut me off. The stubborn wench won't give me another drink. Says she's doing me a favor. Some favor. Depriving a suffering man his drink. It's down right cruel it is. I ain't nowhere near my limit. A big man like me can drink a lot.
So what I need you to do, Lad, is to go up to the bar and order me a pitcher of ale.
What?
Oh, well . . . You see, that's the other problem: I'm out of shillings.
Wait! Hold on a second. Just because my purse is empty it doesn't mean I can't pay you for the ale.
How? With a story, that's how. Stories used to be good currency to pay for things in old days. Not so much now. But a good story is still worth a pitcher of ale.
What kind of story? I'll tell you what kind. A story of high adventure and great tragedy. A story of romance and danger. A story that began over 1,000 years ago and still it has no end. I'm going to tell you the greatest story on earth. My story.
What's that?
Yeah, that's right. I said one thousand years ago.
Well, it's kind of you to say I don't look it. But the truth is I am over 1,000 years old.
Oh no you don't. I'm not telling you anymore. You want to hear the story you've got to pay the price. And tonight's price is one pitcher of ale.
That's a good lad. Hurry along now.
Ah, there we are. You're a fine young man, you are. Your parents raised you well. Mm.
Huh?
Oh right. My story. Let's see, where to begin...
I suppose my birth would be the place to start. Problem is, I don't recall the event all that well and I'm not sure exactly when it happened. I did sit down with a fine fellow once who figured out how old I was. He had a head for numbers, this guy. Me, I'm not so good with numbers and the like. But this guy was a real wizard. That night we opened a barrel of wine and passed back and forth a ladle till we drank it dry. All the while, I told him about my exploits and such. By taking careful note of consecutive historical events I participated in, this fellow was able to mathematically extrapolate my birth date to 1,109 years ago.
I don't know how he did it. Like I said, I don't have a head for numbers. But that sounded about right. And that was something like two hundred years ago that this happened, I think. So that would put me at something like 1,300 years old. Not that it really matters. I mean, once you pass 1,000, who the hell keeps count anymore.
I'll tell you this: things were different back then, that's for sure. For starters, there was no bubble. There was just empty air all around the city. People could come and go as they pleased. I don't know what the hell those crackpot magicians were thinking when they cooked up that awful idea. I mean, look at this lousy city. Hardly any light gets in. It's no wonder everyone's so pale. It ain't healthy, I tell you.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard all the stories about how they made the bubble around the city to protect us from the cursed lands outside and warring gods and all that. But let me put you straight kid: that's a crock of shit. There was nothing wrong with the outside world. Whoever dreamt up the bubble had ulterior motives.
Don't get me wrong, the outside world has gone to shit. That's a fact. I've been out there plenty of times on trading ships and other endeavors and I've seen with my own eyes how bad it is out there. But what I'm saying is, things didn't go to hell until way after they put up the bubble.
Back in the day, most of the surrounding country was farmland. I spent many years as a young man, traveling from farm to farm, finding work where I could. It was easy for a boy of my size and strength to find work, but I never stayed in one place too long. The problem was people tended to get spooked by the way I aged real slow. They didn't seem to like how thirty years would go by and they'd all get old and feeble and meanwhile, I'd only age about one year in that time. So I kept moving around. I still do. At the moment I'm moonlighting for the Crimson Guard---as if you couldn't tell by the uniform. I'm actually on duty at the moment, so you better watch yourself kid or I'll write you up. I'm just kidding with you, everyone knows the Guard's a joke. There's no law in this city unless you can afford it. But as a job, the Guard's not bad---it beats milking goats anyways. The benefits are great but the hours suck. I've been doing this Guard thing for a while now---twenty years or something. It's probably about time to move on.
I don't know why I age slow. I guess I could ask my parents but the problem is, I don't recall having any. I suppose I must have at one point, but they ain't been around lately, that's for sure.
What's that?
Hmmm. That's an interesting question. I never thought about it that way before. I suppose I could be a god. Or a demigod or something. But aren't gods supposed to have powers and stuff. I mean, besides the aging thing and the fact that I'm real big and strong, I'm more or less a regular guy. No powers to speak of. Unless, of course, you count incredible bad luck as a power.
I have the worst luck. It really is uncanny. Just watch and see. Odds are, before I leave this tavern tonight, somebody will burst in and make an attempt on my life. It happens all the time.
Who wants to kill me? Lots of people. When you've got feet as big as mine and you've been around as long as I have, you tend to step on a lot of people's toes. I've got all kinds of enemies. The worst of which is probably the Gobblers.
That's right, the Gobblers. You ever hear of them?
I'm not surprised. I'm not even sure that's their proper name but what they are is this cult that's hell bent on killing me. I doubt any of them really know why they're after me after all this time. But the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding.
It happened a long time ago. I'm talking pre-bubble here. Back in those days, I would do an awful lot of wandering out in the country and one night I happened upon this monastery way out in the boonies. It was late so I knocked on the door and asked for shelter for the night. The monks were very hospitable. They took me, fed me, and set me up in a little room. The problem was, they only gave me a little bowl of soup for dinner, so I got pretty hungry later on and I got up in the middle of the night and went wandering through the monastery looking for a snack. I went through one door and walked right into this beautiful courtyard full of fruit trees and bushes and flowers. And smack in the middle of this courtyard was a big, fat turkey. It was a real beauty. I wasn't sure how it got into the monastery, but I guessed it must have flown in over the walls. In any event, I figured it was a gift from the gods so I wouldn't go hungry.
I grabbed the bird, snapped its neck, and carried it inside to the kitchen where I plucked it, cut it up, and tossed it in a pot to make a nice turkey stew. Just as I was finishing up, the Arch Mage of the monastery came in---he being something of a night owl himself. He said whatever I was cooking smelled delicious so I poured him a full bowl of stew and we sat down together to eat. A few minutes into the meal, the Arch Mage asked what it was exactly we were eating. So I told him.
Instantly, he began to vigorously vomit up the soup. At first I thought it was an allergic reaction. But then he began to curse me and I gathered from his words that the turkey I cooked just happened to be the object of their worship. I guess you could say it was a god, to them anyways.
Well, I got out of there right quick. And the Gobblers have been hot for my blood ever since.
But you see, the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. You think they could see that and just let bygones be bygones. But I suppose it takes a twisted bastard to worship a turkey in the first place.
Now that's just a small sample of the bad luck I've gad. There's lots more. Take my hands for instance. You've probably noticed they're metal, right?
No, they're not gauntlets. These are my hands. Look. See that? The cuff is grafted into the skin. That's right. They're a part of me.
No, I wasn't born with them. Don't be ridiculous. What happened was I was doing this stint as a porter for this adventuring party---you know, I'd carry all their shit while they were having fun adventuring. Anyway, they were fighting this big ass monster at one point, and the wizard in the group decided this monster is just too much to deal with. So he decides to open an interdimensional gateway and push the monster into it. So he said his magic words and all that, and he opens up this big portal behind the monster. Problem is, somebody still has to push the big fellow through it and nobody in the merry band of adventurers was really up for it. So I end up doing it. No big deal, I give the big fellow the old heave-ho and in he goes. But my good buddy the wizard is in such a hurry to close the portal that he shuts the thing with my hands on the other side. So I'm left with stumps at the ends of my wrists, while my hands are out there, floating around in some other dimension.
Since then, I've generally tried to avoid hooking up with adventurers. Especially groups with wizards in them.
So, I spend about forty years trying to get by without hands. And let me tell you, it ain't easy trying to do everything with your elbows. Then by chance, I end up on the same airboat traveling between bubble cities as the world's greatest metal smith. I strike up a bargain with the guy and he makes me new hands in exchange for solemnly vowing to rescue his daughter from this evil prince guy that took her for his wife against his will.
Huh?
Oh, well, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure if I ever did rescue that gal. You see, I've got a bunch of memory blanks clogging up my brain. In any case, this was a while ago, so if I didn't rescue her, she's probably dead by now. I think it was a while ago, anyway. It's hard for me to keep everything straight. It's probably a byproduct of a millenium of hard drinking. That's why I've decided to cut back on the booze.
Oh. Well, tonight I'm making an exception.
So anyway, what's next? Should I tell you how these two birds hanging around me used to be Prince Gaby and Princess Zasha, the greatest lovers the world have ever known? It's a pretty good story, about a jealous enchantress and an evil curse. I'm still working on breaking the curse for them but it's a real stumper.
Or maybe you want to hear the story about how I saved the city, and they wanted to crown me king but I passed on the crown because I thought it would impress this milkmaid I was trying to bed at the time.
Or how about the time I accidentally found the Anarchs.
Or about the time I spent the night in the old school of magic with a magi co-ed and woke up in the morning to find myself sealed inside. It took forever to get out of there, and I ended up blowing up the whole place in the process.
Or maybe you'd like a tale about my famous great-grandson, Aquinas.
That's right, he's my great-grandson. I had a fling with his great-grandmother just before she married that king. They tried to hush the whole thing up, but if you check the records, it shows that she gave birth to their heir only six months after they were wed.
The stories don't stop there lad. I've got lots more.
But you know what? My throat's a little dry. Before I go on, how's about another pitcher?