Nametag:rook

               HEADS OR TALES 

               The city of Hammercoin is one of the ten great cities. These
               cities are called 'great' because their population numbers in
               the tens of thousands. Such tax bases and man power means
               walls and security and jobs and homes to be had. It means
               poverty and slavery and imprisonment to be had. Few move to
               these great cities out of desire but out of need and fewer
               still leave these great cities out of freewill but out of
               fear.

               Ruled by kings or councils or families these cities passed
               and enforced uneven laws to enrich themselves and their
               friends. And gathered up people and lands about them as one
               would harvest wheat; to be consumed or bartered. Constant
               tensions without and within the halls of unjust rule meant
               constant oppressions without those self same luxuriant spear
               bristled halls. 

               And still the people would come. Fleeing war, fleeing famine
               to each city. To fill its markets and its jails. Desperate
               for hope.

               Hammercoin was noticeably different than the other nine great
               cities. First off; it had never been meant to be a city. It
               sprung up by accident and thus took a more natural path. A
               path of chaos and least resistance. It was a city of
               necessity and greed. A city of guilds.

               Hammercoin was different secondly; in that the people ran the
               city, more or less. The city held the home offices of each
               and every guild. The guilds truly ran the city. But each
               guild held its members in dues and equality. The members
               voted for their leaders. And voted for their selection of
               offered choices. It was a bastard form of democracy; abet a
               capitalistic indirect primordial democracy before a truer
               democracy would be invented tens of thousands of years from
               hence on a stony beach in yet to be born Greece.

               With no other balancing force but the unions of the guilds to
               rule it; Hammercoin was the most free, most dangerous, most
               successful, and most despised by all the other cities ruled
               by kings, and councils, and families. 

               It was the first and last city on Earth, where the rulers did
               not blame those they ruled for its problems. For they would
               aught be but blaming themselves. 

               As such it was the only city to contain in its labyrinth of
               streets not one, not two, or even three, but FOUR streets
               full of nothing but taverns, public houses, bars, and whore
               houses.

               And it was the only city that contained one such
               establishment called, THE DRUNKEN DRAGON.

               The Drunken Dragon was not as large as some or as small as
               some but it was always packed like none. The crowd was always
               boisterous and loud and proud and pissed drunk at any given
               hour. 

               The simple main room had a fire place at each end and sturdy
               tables for dancing upon. The bar was set in the center of the
               room with a large trap door for entrance to the cellars and
               kitchens. 

               It sold brandy and wines as cheap as ale and ale as cheap as
               well water.

               The food was simple but delicious fare, and it boasted a
               tobacco shop and a general goods and trade shop in either
               corner. 

               It was the unofficial official bar of the Adventurers and
               Explorers Guild; who had their guild hall just around the
               corner past the stables.

               It offered single bed lodgings in ten rooms above and a
               privet room for privet parties in back. A representative of
               the Thieves Guild was always on hand to watch over the rooms
               and belongings as The Drunken Dragon paid for such
               protection.

               It's success however laid in the frequent visits by none
               other than Red Sonja. The teenage sassy lass loved her booze
               and her boys and turned a night of revels into a celebration.
               And she was in house tonight. 

               The owner, a man as wide as he was tall, and he was
               impressive in both, had been a famous adventurer throughout
               his life who now had settled down to the joyful mirthful
               simple splendor of tales.

               For that was the true secret of The Drunken Dragon. It was a
               place where stories were told. Over the shouting, the roar,
               there would be these hissed for eddies of attention and
               someone would tell of their tale.

               The booze, the food, the rowdy crowd were all just the
               trappings for gathering to hear the whispering of horrors or
               the laughing of bawdy events. The bar its self was little
               more than a stage setting for a dozen or so stories told in
               the hours between sleep. And none told better tales of
               adventure than the tall slim huge breasted Red Sonja.

               The bar was named after her; from one of her adventures where
               she escaped a dragon's cave with arm fulls of loot after
               getting the serpent drunk in a drinking contest.

               If you could pry the teenage girl from her table top orgy
               with eight well hung men and get her standing, however
               unsteady, upon the stone bar its self and kept her well fed
               with spiced wine. She could tell stories to blush a bard.

               And this night pried from the legs of her spent stallion she
               was dragged off a table top and thrust up upon the stone bar
               where the owner and a hundred more hushed a ring of awe and
               silence as she drunkenly took a tankard and drained it and
               with the large sharp gray eyes of the wolf mellowed with wine
               she snickered and sighed.

               "There is a city far to the south called Kole. It is not as
               fortunate to be at the center of so many crossroads of trade
               as Hammercoin. Nor does it have a luxury of so many guilds
               with their own Hall guards to defend its city. And streets
               full of merchants with their own caravan guards as well to
               protect their vested interests in the city at any given
               time."

               "No. Kole sits alone at the edge of the map. Surrounded by
               hills and forests and swamps all filled with bandits. For
               Kole's mines are rich and its people well skilled in metal
               work."

               "Craftsmen do not make good soldiers. Their time away from
               their skill is money lost to all. A good soldier is made in a
               few months of training and a battle or two. But a good smith
               takes a life time and more. Apprentices make the sword sing.
               Carrying the song beyond the grave. Into music rather than
               mere notes."

               "But lonely Kole can not support more than a garrison for its
               wooden walls. It can not reach out into the dens of thieves
               for fear of losing the few they have in general defence. For
               the mines maybe rich but the grain mills run half full in
               even the best of years." 

               "Still people are industrious in face of challenge and in
               Kole they arrived at a unique solution to the constant raids
               upon their caravans and to their homes; the many of which lay
               outside their wooden walls."

               "They hired bounty hunters. More so than any city I have
               known. At any given time you can find a dozen at least
               walking its muddy city streets. Paid in slender silver bars
               straight from the furnace refinery at the mines. Still warm
               to the touch. Little glittering loaves."

               "You can see them checking the always full job board. For
               many from even distant cities post bounties in Kole; such a
               haven it has become for runaway thieves and murders; those
               hills and forests and swamps. The kings road makes it an easy
               access to a dozen city gates but no kings army marches that
               far south."

               "So Kole became an unwitting hub of bounty hunters. A trade
               many of us have dipped a finger or two in; when packs are
               light and purses lighter."

               "So great had the need become for these bounty hunters that
               The Bounty Hunters Guild decided it needed to set up a hall
               of sorts there to keep things situated. So a large canvas
               topped wagon arrived and parked its self next to the job
               posting board and that was the guild hall's presence. A man
               named, Filks, and a lone all around guard, steward, stable
               hand, jack-of-all-trades, named Gurney set up shop."

               "I arrived in Kole. Penniless, with holes in my soles, and an
               empty gut and parched gullet, looking for work of any kind.
               It could have easily been with the thieves if I had stumbled
               upon them first. Though they were unaligned with the guilds
               and acknowledge no allegiance."

               "But as luck would have it; I found my self standing before
               the job's board and next to the canvas wagon with belly
               growls and limbs shaking with famines borrowed weakness."

               "Filks saw me right off. He was in the back of the wagon at
               his makeshift desk; quill dancing madly at his constant
               reports and finance sheets. He was troubled. As men are, if
               you but offer to listen to their woes, they will often spot
               you a supper. A little nip-slip doesn't hurt as well. So he
               talked. I ate and sometimes I listened."

               "His problem was a simple one. Those simple such problems
               that drive us to distraction because one is not sure if they
               are really quiet there."

               "It went something like this; a bounty hunter named Boglins
               took a job, returned with the severed head of the bounty and
               claimed his prize. Paying the guild its due share. Then
               Boglins went native, so to speak. He turned thief. Began to
               raid farms and caravans and was seen sneaking into town and
               stealing from merchants shops."

               "So up goes Bogins bounty onto the job board. A man named
               Wicks took it. He comes back with Bogins head as proof of his
               claim to the bounty. He gets his pay and pays his dues to the
               guild and then HE goes feral. He starts to raid the silver
               caravans, the merchant houses and shops, the farms and trade
               routes."

               "Up goes Wicks onto the job board and a man named Stevens
               takes the job. Comes back with Wicks head and takes his prize
               and pays the guild its share and off he goes and yes almost
               immediately he is attacking the trade routes the caravans the
               people in their beds."

               "Now for a town relying on bounty hunters to keep them safe
               from thieves to see these bounty hunters turning against them
               one after another had the locals and their representatives
               feeling a might uneasy. And that unease was being directed in
               focused turn at Filks as he was the sole immediate
               representative of the Bounty Hunters Guild."

               "Now, Filks out of some desperation sent his most trusted
               Gurney out after Stevens. And back comes Gurney with Stevens
               severed head. But true to form Gurney slips back out of the
               town and starts to unleash his own little onslaught of
               pillage upon the land."

               "This was the situation of Kole and the consternation of
               Filks when I arrived."

               "Naturally, he guessed at some kind of spell. That was
               turning these men to become what they themselves had spent
               their lives destroying."

               "But here was the thing, and it was as such as it always is,
               that being that there was a, 'here was a thing,' that was
               driving Filks to such despondency. For Filks had an odd vague
               sensation that had been building with each man that had
               turned and which Gurney had driven home to him. That the men
               were not the men they were supposed to be."

               "He had no proof. He could not even list his suspicions. But
               he had lived and worked alongside Gurney for eight long years
               in the guilds keeping. And there was something just not
               'Gurney' in the Gurney who had brought back Stevens head. But
               he could not say what it was that made him think or rather
               feel this was so."

               "A man named Mathews had just taken Gurney's bounty not an
               hour before. But Filks offered me some much needed coin if I
               would but go after this Mathews and simply watch him take the
               bounty."

               "That I could so easily do so was again one of the queer
               elements of the situation. For each man who had set out to
               collect a bounty had no problem finding the quarry. For each
               bounty had made no attempt to hide himself but camped always
               in the same exact place as the man he had previously slain?!"

               "I suspected some kind of enchantment. In which the soul of
               the slain man took over his attacker and then used him to
               continue his former life of pillage and theft."

               "As such I left the town of Kole fed, if not provisioned, and
               headed in the directions given me with the belief I would
               quiet possibly be killing two men that afternoon; Gurney and
               Mathews."

               "I reached the campsite at dusk. Only to have been beaten to
               it by Mathews by what must have been mere moments. For there
               as I crouched down amongst the hill and rocks I saw Mathews
               confront Gurney."

               "Gurney had been no common man and thus was no common thief.
               Mathews was offering to take him back to town to stand trial.
               He would undoubtably get prison rather than the hangman's
               noose."

               "To this, somewhat questionable kindness, Gurney was
               laughing. Gurney was wearing a sword but made no move to draw
               it. And a somewhat frustrated Mathews after a few false
               starts and feints reluctantly plunged his sword into Gurney's
               chest. It was a good sword in competent hands and ran almost
               up to the hilt."

               "Gurney just laughed and laughed and plucking up a wood axe
               from a kindling pile he grabbed Mathews and threw him bodily
               to the ground. Then he wrestled him to a stump and with a
               single one handed blow chopped off his head."

               "I was frozen open mouth at this for it was not what I had
               expected. Then to my increasing confusion and horror; Gurney
               pulled off his own head from his neck and placed Mathews head
               there in its place. He then set Gurney's head upon the stump
               and grabbing the headless body of Mathews carried him a short
               distance from the camp and tossed him down a shallow ravine."

               "The body now wearing Mathews head as alive as one could
               like; plucked out the sword from its chest and tossed it
               aside and then yanked up Gurney's head off the stump and set
               off to town to claim his bounty?!"

               "I saw no immediate need to follow him as I knew he would
               collect his bounty and then leave the town and return to camp
               and continue now as Mathews to keep to his wicked ways."

               "True, I could report what I had seen to Filks but with no
               real proof in hand all this would gain me was a few more
               coins at best and his increased doubts to his own mind and
               mine."

               "I decided to search the camp. It seemed a perfectly normal
               camp. A bit unkept but with no signs of any unwholesome
               magical trinkets lying about."

               "I took a look in the small gully where I had seen the
               creature, for I could no longer consider it a man, toss the
               headless body of Mathews, and sure enough, was not surprised,
               to see the bodies of a dozen headless men in various stages
               of decay. Apparently this had been going on far longer than
               Filks had become suspicious that something was wrong."

               "A body that lived on its own accord. Obviously impervious to
               death by sword. Which could take upon its neck the head of
               any man and the head would live!"

               "Usually if I can not hack it to pieces I can fuck it to
               submission. But something told me this body which only
               pillaged but had never been known to rape; would have little
               use in a hot sexy teenage girl other than to use her for
               further filling his grange of dead bodies."

               "I rationalized that I had several hours before the creature
               would return to its lair and I set about using that time as
               prosperously as possible."

               "As expected the creature returned to camp well into the
               night and set about lighting its camp fire. As I in secret
               watched it for a short span of time to see if it would give
               away any telltale secrets of its possible mortality but there
               was nothing. It behaved as any man named Mathews should in
               his camp alone at night behave. Betraying nothing of its
               hideous secret or supernatural intelligence of its being."

               "I had noticed a few things about it that gave it away
               slightly as being something other than a normal man. First;
               it had returned to camp in the dark bereft of any lantern or
               torch for light. Second; I noticed there was no bed roll or
               tent in the camp and the creature made no semblance of
               needing any form of sleep. Third; there was no fodder or
               horse and no sign of food or drink for man. Though there were
               hand carts full of plunder ringing the camp in disarray."

               "I guessed that no horse would let such a creature back it.
               And that it had no need for sleep or food. That it would so
               aggressively seek out to steal and pillage seemed utterly
               bizarre to me. For what are material riches for one who has
               no earthly wants. Almost as odd, that it would now set about
               building a camp fire it so obviously did not need nor have
               any use for? So was I kept in check by perplexity. Until just
               after midnight who should appear upon horse back at the camp?
               But the Master of the Mines. A man named Sterling."

               "He chatted with the creature now wearing Mathews head and
               set about loading up his saddle bags with the bounty reward
               coin and then picking through the piles of stolen loot; small
               bars of silver, precious jewels, rings of gold and silver,
               more stolen coins, and such, all made their way into the
               saddle bag of his horse and the one he pulled in tow."

               "All the while the creature stood well back from the skittish
               horses. Until, well packed with ill gotten goods, Sterling
               removed a large gourd with a corked topper and leather thong
               from his saddle horn."

               "The creature seized this when offered and yanking off its
               head poured the black foul liquid down its gapping severed
               throat. Until every drop was gone. Then it replaced its head
               as Sterling yanked back the gourd and making no effort to
               hide his disgust he returned to his horses."

               "A flesh Golem. I had heard of them but never seen one. I had
               seen a wood Golem, and fought a stone Golem, and in the
               streets of Fallen Star you can see hundreds of clay Golems
               toting burdens and loads about. But I had never seen a flesh
               Golem. The wizardry of such is so rare, so dark, so
               forbidden."

               "I stepped out of the bushes double leaf by nights shadow and
               full into the campfire light. To the astonishment of Sterling
               who eyed me in rapt confusion. To Mathews, he but stated it
               odd that a bounty hunter should be sent so soon. Sent before
               he had stolen anything or done any crimes."

               "Mathews made for his wood axe and Sterling shrugged and
               smirked at this as he moved a little closer to his horses."

               "I pointed out that it would be odd indeed for the obviously
               male body to show up wearing 'MY' head. And let both the man
               and the creature get a good look at my body indeed. Don't
               think you can pull it off. I said and then gave them a good
               laugh."

               "He'll just kill you and toss you. Sterling said to me. But
               as quick as lighting I stopped both men by saying that the
               flesh Golem had to take the head of whoever it kills as its
               own or its spell would be broken and it would die."

               "They looked at each other a bit nervous then. It was a
               gamble. A risk. A full bluff. I had no way of knowing how
               Sterling had come into possession of that hideous thing but I
               was certain he was no wizard and had no skill to craft such a
               creature himself. He may know some basics on how to keep it
               alive with some ill brewed broth. He may have learned that
               much. But I was certain he nor of course the creature knew
               anything other than that."

               "The creature stopped dead in its tracks; axe raised,
               hesitating, confused. Seeing this Sterling snarled and drew
               his own sword claiming he would kill me. He had some training
               that was for sure. But I have made my life by the blade. And
               upon my blade he quickly died."

               "Seeing this the creature was enraged to see his master die.
               He came upon me now caring not for the breaking of spells. I
               circled around and baited it."

               "It stepped full into the pit I had dug; the mouth well hid
               with twigs and leaves. The trap's earthen floor well covered
               in wooden spikes. It fell impelled. Pinned in place in a
               dozen deep wounds by the tall wooden shafts."

               "From the piles of loot I rolled the three small barrels of
               lantern oil that I had previously eyed and poured them into
               the pit. Following it with a torch. The thing squirmed for
               minutes and burned for hours. When there was naught but a bit
               of blackened bone and ash; I filled back in the pit. Packed
               it down hard."

               "It was well into daylight then. I stirrup to horse back and
               leading my second horse laden with stolen treasure headed as
               far away from Kole as hoof could carry me. Filks could keep
               the rest of his promised few coins. This was payment enough
               for my labor!"

               The room exploded in cheers and roars of laughter and Red
               Sonja raised her newly filled stein and led them all in song.
               It was an old song. Taught to her years ago by a drunken
               dragon.

               ************************************************************
               *************************************************************

[
top
]

 

 Script created with Final Draft by Final Draft, Inc.