My Beloved

My sister came to know closely the girls I rescued during our road trip to Rookridge, something in the process of sewing new clothes to replace their torn and rancid dresses bonded them. I stayed far away from all that, instead spending my days scouting and clearing the way for our journey. While they recovered from their ordeal and built up the capacity to move on both physically and spiritually, Dogmeat and I took to the cliffs and caves and camps of the North Road like otters to water. More like orca's to water, actually.

Like any good Hero, I couldn't hike a stretch of wilderness without at least three violent encounters a day. Perhaps there is something to Hammer's accusation of violent people attracting violence, or perhaps the absence of Heroes in the last few centuries to clear the roads and byways like proper EXP junkies has led to a super surplus of monsters, predators, and outlaws. Either way, I'm the beneficiary as I hunted down four small groups of bandits and three more hobbe gangs. 

It was in one such dark and dank place in the world, where evil and magic live, I discovered My Beloved. I'd thought previously that my utilization of the combination Charged Flourish into Assassin Rush peak Hero. Naïve. For a mere thousand EXP I'd discovered a new truth, deeper than the sea and more profound than the night sky. Multi Arrow plus blunderbuss equals My Beloved. One spell at base level multiplying my projectile output by three - though the magical projectiles hit half as hard as the real ones - and applies target tracking. Wondrous. 

Chicken Chaser thought he was hot shit when he sniped down Jack-of-Dragon with Multi Arrow plus Skorm's Bow, and respect where it's due, twas a great feat, but the Chicken Chaser will never know the intense satisfaction of my use of Multi Arrow and a common blunderbuss. And I do mean my use. My achievements in Will, like any Sparrow's, are entirely self taught, and though I may know to guide my power into more advanced directions than other Sparrows, at the end of the day I'm still a boy feeling things out, and arriving at different solutions to those provided by the Guild of Heroes. In my most recent meditations on the Will, I'd discovered Sparrow's natural capacity to channel ambient Will to fuel spells, and while this process is certainly slower than simply utilizing my own internal supply of energy, the end result is far more magic use over time, and a modicum of control over the form the spells take. 

I suspect my ease of utilizing ambient Will has something to do with how few Will users are currently active in the world. Though I'm just shooting from the hip here, it's one of the few explanations for why Sparrow's can utilize so much more magic output than Chicken Chasers, who would need a mountain of potions and mana augments to hope to match any old Sparrow's magical endurance. When utilizing ambient magic to fuel my use of Multi Arrow, the spell takes a few seconds of precious time to charge, but during this time I am able to play with the spell a bit, such as changing the tracking trajectory for use in tight spaces and choosing single or multi targeting. One spell, four enchanted shots, however many projectiles I choose to load into the simple seven bore smooth barrel, times three. It turns into a God honest laser circus every time I pull the trigger, and I am all for that. Its an experience like none other, dare I say sensual, nay, sexually satisficing. What need has a man for intimate companionship when he's carrying a battery of energy weapons in his holster? 

I entered the dark chamber before me and fired my blunderbuss, the result a torrent of brilliant arcing icy blue trails lighting up the cavern like the Fourth of July and the dozen hobbes within wailed in shock and then in pain as thirty .38 caliber lead balls slammed into them. The tough little things survived the first shot, but remember, these aren't your daddy's flintlocks, and I had the next scattershot load ready to fire before any of them even could ask themselves the hobbe equivalent of 'what the hell was that!' Four shots, a dozen dead hobbes. Math is on my side, Reaver!

I took the next level of Accuracy, and the magic of Hero Morphing added another handful of inches to my frame, stretching my clothes to fit over my new taller form. My poor boots looked ready to quit despite the magic resizing. They'd been put through a hell of a lot lately. 

Dogmeat kindly barked, alerting me to a hidden treasure within the chamber, and after kicking a dead hobbe away and some mild utilization of a short handled spade, I'd found myself with a filthy gold and emerald necklace taking up space in one of my pockets. I patted my good boy on the head, the dog worth all the work it took to get to this level. Though I don't condone thievery, the price desired by the Bowerstone Bookstore for their dog training manuals would make even a well off man loath to purchase them. As a dog enthusiast it was only right that I borrow those manuals without asking. Once I turned Dogmeat into an obedient tricked out treasure hunting war hound, I returned the thick tomes, no harm no foul. 

Well, lots of harm as I saw my beautiful tri colored lab tearing bloody chunks out of one little hobbe that God forgot to put the quit into. I shuddered at my recent familiarity with that kind of mauling, but it's what I trained the beast for, and better than when I saw him latched on to a bandit's groin the day prior. Some fates can even make you feel sorry for a career murderer with likely other equally dark sins blackening his shadow. 

Deeper into the cave I felt a heavy miasma making the air itself feel heavy and sluggish. As is their way, I found several hobbes going about their business completely unbothered by the sounds of slaughter from the chamber not far off. Each of these large and pale, with crude staves in hand which they use to stir small muck filled holes in the cavern floor. The stench of blood nearly drove out all else, sacks of slaughtered meat hanging from the ceiling dripping their essence into the muck below. I saw one of the large pale hobbes raise his crystal topped stave into the air, its apex glowing a fell green, and it cast a bolt of slow moving light into one of the holes. 

A sudden screech filled the cavern, and the spell caster reached down into the hole and pulled out a filthy baby hobbe. Suddenly I felt the need for a flamer, the heavy flamer. I settled on another application of Multi Arrow to my blunderbuss to clear out the room, lighting up the laser circus again. When the smoke settled I navigated the chamber carefully to an oak and iron chest on the other side. Lifting the top, I felt the rush of hitting big at the casino, my clairvoyant sense for money alerting me to five hundred gold coins within. I savored stuffing my pockets, purses, and haversack with over fifteen pounds of gold. 

With the cave cleared of hobbes I settled in for some Will grinding. I began channeling Heal Life, a process slower than I'd like, taking a full two minutes to charge the spell, and even then it felt far less potent than utilizing my own Will supply. Converting raw natural Will to healing magic felt like dragging along a willful toddler, and I can understand why someone just feeling their way through things and channeling natural Will entirely would miss a spell like this, but I can now train Will without exhausting myself and opening me up to a 'need it and not have it' scenario. It might not be as fast and glamorous as the way other Sparrows gain Will, but I'm not afraid of long hours and dedicated work turtle and the hare style. 

I cut the process off after an hour and made my way back to our camp so I'd arrive at the agreed upon time. Our mule draw cart loaded with trade goods, bandit loot, and excavated treasure only traveled twelve or so miles a day, partially because of the icy and hilly conditions, but also due to me getting up every morning and spending half the day on force recon. I prefer my escort missions to allow a long enough leash for me to destroy the enemies before they get to my NPCs, and the North Road gave me exactly that. 

Our camp smelt something fierce, like a rat infestation, as we kept the wolf hides I'd accumulated in the brain derived tanning solution. Tannin moves slower in the cold, so a process that would be finished already in summer might not even be finished by the time our slow procession reaches our destination. I want to look cool in a wolfskin coat already, but life doesn't care about what we want. 

"Ladies." I greeted the trio working on lunch together. 

"Stay down wind." Rose demanded of me, "You stink like rotten eggs." 

"They never mention that bit in the stories." I complained in good spirit, "Battle seems a lot less glorious when every shot sends out a cloud of the worst smelling farts, and that cloud is full of grit that'll cling to you."

"Did a lot of battling today?" Rose asked as she pulled pork out of a bowl of water and began chopping the now less salty cuts. 

"Aye." I nodded, "Fought a bunch of hobbes in a cave system that went deep into the earth. Cleared the whole thing out and brought a whole bunch of treasure back. I also found out that hobbes don't actually need children to make more hobbes. They can be made of some muck and magic." 

"Obviously they couldn't all be children, Sparrow." Rose scoffed as she slid the cuts of meat into a pot hung over the campfire.

"Obviously?" I frowned.

"Obviously." Rose insisted.

"How obviously?" I inquired.

"If all hobbes were lost children, then there wouldn't be many hobbes." Rose shrugged. 

"I thought… that rural women have like fourteen children each, and like twelve or so become hobbes." I reasoned it out loud and found myself sounding a bit thick.

"Guess that approximate is a lot more approximate than proximate." Rose mocked my meta knowledge.

"That's the spirit, Rose." I gave her a thumbs up then frowned, "But now that I know that there isn't a soft limit on the number of hobbes in the world, and that they can be whipped up whenever, I now have to live with the idea of entire cities of those things living underground. Thanks, Rose, you're a good big sister giving me new things to be afraid of. Or fantasize about. 'The Hidden City of the Hobbes: Book Nine of the Adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow'" 

"Captain Jack Sparrow? Who's he?" Rose continued that mocking tone. 

"We'll see who's laughing when I'm sailing the seas on a magical frigate crewed by ghost pirates. Delivering my wares from port to port, labor costs zero." I smiled fondly at the idea. 

Sailors charge premium for their services. Dangerous and skilled work for rough and tough men. Who needs to pay ghosts anything?

"Still, what's up with the 'Jack'." Rose inquired. 

"Well, Sparrow is an okay name for a child, but when I grow up it won't exactly inspire people. So I'll be Jack Sparrow, pirate captain, wandering trader, Hero extraordinaire! Men will want to be Jack Sparrow, women will want to be with Jack Sparrow, and I'll be Jack Sparrow. A man's name that stays true to my roots." 

"Yer name is Mayes." Rose announced. 

"Wot?" I wotted. 

"Did you think Mum and Dad named you Sparrow?" Rose once again assumed her big sister picking on little brother tone.

"No one's ever called me anything else." I frowned, "Sides arseface on occasion, or brat. Sometimes tyke." 

"Well, they named you Mayes, after one of the greatest Heroes from back in the old days." 

"I guess when you betray a mute, no one has any reason to spread that bad bit of news about." I mused, "Well, Rose, Maze was a cunt." I informed her, "Henceforth, this citizen shall be known to all as Jack Sparrow."

"You can't just change yer name like that." Rose shook her head.

"Sure I can." I insisted, "I even used the same line used by the town criers when a Hero changes his title." 

"Yer mental, Sparrow." Rose insulted me.

"Mental is as mental does." I shot back in a tone that made Rose frown. 

While the ladies finished cooking lunch, I beat my clothes clean as best I could and wiped myself down, grateful for my heroic constitution as applying even warm water to my preteen bod rapidly turned cold in this weather. Ultimately I didn't achieve a satisfactory state of sanitation, but one day my affluence will create effluence, I'm sure. It'll just have to wait for me to finish with all my outdoor adventuring and any warfare I'll need to engage in to unite Albion as a kingdom. 

I joined my companions for a lunch of salty soup, pork, onions, potatoes, and carrots. I welcomed the warmth, still chilly from my wipe down and set about my business of demolishing my bowl about as enthusiastically as Dogmeat went about demolishing his tough serving of soaked salt beef. Even after soaking, preserved beef is still tough as boot leather, so my faithful and handy friend got yet another workout for those powerful jaws of his. 

"Two guards came by while you were gone looking for a pair of lost children." Rose informed me, "Seeing as we were a trio at the time, I sent them on with their business." 

"Hmmm." I acknowledged. 

I'm not sure of the communication line between Theresa and Lucien at this time. I know they have had direct dealings in the past, but does she double deal on the whole mentor slash guide thing and work both sides that completely? It would seem so, considering the timing of some of Lucien's interventions. If that is the case, why aren't we coming up against stiffer opposition? We certainly needed to flee Bowerstone, but beyond that the effort to find us doesn't seem to be as inevitable as it should. 

Maybe that is just the optimism of a rabbit that doesn't realize it's already caught in a snare. 

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I think that does it for the Road to Rookridge part of this story. 

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