GM Zero/GL's Giantslayer! (Inactive)

Game Master GM_Grandlounge

several months ago

As the overcast autumn sky gradually lightened in the predawn morning, mists meandered and loitered about the base of her tree and across the expanse of forest about her. Here and there, a robin trilled for attention and not far off a woodpecker hammered away. Lidia sat cradled among three tree branches, noiselessly, motionless, her eyes half-open, her breathing slow and mellow, watching a small bird in a nest two feet from her face. The truth was that she rarely slept now for more than half an hour at a time, just here and there throughout the day and night, whenever her eyes became too heavy and she happened to be in a somewhat safe spot. Trees like this were a favorite haunt, and she had perhaps a dozen such trees through the territory she wandered and called her own. Caves were nice too, and tussocks in the middle of the little rivers that moseyed cheerfully down into the swamps. But never for too long —usually whenever she sank too deep into sleep, her body would rouse her protectively back to wakefulness. Just in case. Oftentimes she lingered like this on the edge of sleep, mesmerized by some small element of her surroundings, like now with the bird.

Its mother no longer returned to feed it. It had been slowly starving for days. Once Lidia brought it a worm, but the tiny thing wouldn’t take it, it’s instinct to remain motionless overcoming its hunger. Now Lidia just watched it, in a slow monotonous vigil, waiting for it to die, thinking about what it must be thinking, looking back at her. She wondered if it dreamed when it shut its eyes.

A rustle of leaves and a snort made her snap her head down and to the side. There it was. She’d been in this tree waiting for it off and on for three days. It was a big black bear whose tracks she’d picked up almost a week before, and although it had eluded her skill to find it, she’d managed to work out the rough circuit of its preferred hunting path, and she’d set herself up to wait for it. And now it was coming. Slowly and silently, she shifted her position to balance squatting on a large branch and drew out her bow…

The bear shambled along, snuffling the air as it went. It smelled a dead animal somewhere nearby, and its mouth hung open with sticky ropes of drool hanging from its lips, only somewhat controlled by a tongue that actively curled about its nose from time to time. And then it found the meat, a dead squirrel half buried in the leaves near a tree. Perhaps it missed its jump. It nuzzled down close to it, judging how far gone the meat was. No more than a few days. Just a mouthful really, but better than nothing.

A sharp pain in the back of its neck caused the bear to buck and jump away. It was like a hornet sting, but more sudden and intense. A swipe of the paw struck something like a stick and the pain grew. It howled in anger and confusion and rolled briskly over onto its back, trying to dislodge the offending object. And then a second pain, just as bad but right into its chest. Now the bear could smell fresh blood, its own. It roused itself to its feet and began to lope off in retreat the way it had come. And then a third pain, in a back leg, near the knee. It let out a roar of fury and tore off into the arcadian wilderness, mists parting and folding around its wake as it vanished from sight.

Lidia climbed down quickly, taking a moment to stretch her legs and back and checking the ground. Her first arrow, the one she’d sent into the bear’s neck, was now broken off. The fletched shaft, having been snapped roughly in half, had hung by a few threads of wood fiber as the animal had thrashed about, and had finally dropped off as it had bounded away. And the arrowhead was still in the beast’s neck, definitely near the spine. But the chest shot was the killing shot, though it would take time. Even now, the beast’s lung was filling with blood, and it left a conspicuous bright red trail of droplets and smears along the ground. The final arrow was just insurance, to make sure it couldn’t get too far too quickly. She sauntered off in pursuit, whistling cheerfully.

She followed the bear for over an hour before discovering it in a small ravine near a brook. It laid on its side, panting heavily and grunting out ragged little coughs. She watched it for several minutes, assessing how far gone it was, then began to circle in closer. A crow was already about, calling out exultantly from a nearby tree. The bear smelled her and tried to stand up, giving out a really fearsome and threatening growl. It was enough to make Lidia stop in her tracks. Slowly, slowly, she squatted down onto her haunches and crossed her arms, to wait. She held her hunting knife in her right hand. The bear continued to pant and growl for another two hours, growing weaker all the time, at one point even rousing itself to limp off about 50 feet away before dropping again onto its side in exhaustion. Eventually the growls gave way to whines and wheezes and wet coughs. It was time. Lidia came in close, moving up behind its back as quietly as she could manage, then with a quick and savage lunge, plunged her knife down into the temple of the bear’s skull. The bear shivered and bucked and she gave the blade a hard twist, then let go and jumped back. The creature thrashed about incoherently for about a minute then finally lay still. Two crows now cawed nearby, yammering back and forth. She waited another couple minutes, just to be certain, then crept close again and yanked her blade out. Nothing. She touched the tip of her knife to the bear’s half-open eye. Nothing,

Lidia yipped like a fox and skipped on top of the dead bear and then jumped up and down twice, triumphantly cawwing back at the crows. Then without more delay she went to work.

First she drew her knife down vertically from the bear’s neck to to groin, her knife riding over the bones and only sawing through the fur and skin and fat. She began to shear the pelt away from the body, working quickly and expertly. Once the abdomen was exposed, she could see the bulging purple masses of the liver and the spleen through the semi-opaque membranes. It only took one growl of her stomach to compel her to cut into the belly and slice away a large, juicy, bloody chunk of the edge of the liver and instantly plunge the steaming, gory organ into her mouth. It was chewy and messy but she hadn’t eaten anything but a few chestnuts for three days and it tasted like heaven. The blood oozed everywhere, pooling on the ground and dripping down her face onto her tunic and her breeches. Her hands were so greasy and bloody you couldn’t see the natural color anywhere. She didn’t care. She ate two more hunks, then carved out the rest of the liver and tossed it several yards off. The crows quickly accepted the offering. She stood and went to the stream to take a long drink and wash off her hands and face. Then she got back to work.

Most of the rest of the day was spent cutting up the bear. Slicing the pelt away was not difficult, but rolling the carcass off the skin was decidedly a chore for a gaunt girl of tender years. Eventually she was reduced to the expedient of carving up the carcass into big meaty pieces and peeling those off the pelt one at a time. Scooping out the entrails was the most unpleasant part, with steaming half-liquid bear feces pouring out of the delicate already-decaying bowels from several spots as she pushed and pulled them free of the bear’s belly. The heart and lungs pulled away easily with a thick wet *schlup*. Skinning and sawing off the head took the better part of an hour.

In the end, she was left with the parts which were useful and portable. The pelt, with perhaps fifty pounds of bear blubber still attached, the bear’s claws, a gall bladder full of dense, gooey bile, and several strips of meat cut from the beast’s loins. She laid her prizes on the pelt, then gathered it up in both hands and began to laboriously drag it away, leaving the carcass to the forest. The load was heavy and her hands were greasy and she was tired, but she knew she had to get to her cave before she could rest, and that was an hour’s walk even without dragging a hundred pounds of bear bits. Her load weighed nearly as much as she did. And she was leaving a broad sweeping trail across the forest floor, so obvious and simple that anything could have followed her. But she had no choice — it was too heavy to move any other way. To calm her anxieties, she reveled in her prize. The pelt would be a good warm blanket for the winter, the meat would feed her for weeks, and the claws and bile would sell nicely. And the fat was the reason she needed to drag the pelt off to the cave.

She arrived after sundown. The inside of the cave was pitch dark, but she knew her way around easily. Under some rocks, she moved aside an old wooden orc shield, and from the hole beneath she hoisted out her pots and pans and other bits of cooking gear. Starting a fire in the dark wasn’t easy, but fortunately the night was clear and dry, and a waxing moon gleamed cooly overhead. Once the blaze was started, she set up her tripod over the campfire and settled down to scrape the fatty tissue off of the bear pelt, dropping the greasy chunks into a big iron pot next to her. She’d have to do it in batches, but that only increased her satisfaction, knowing that she had enough material to last her for months. Once her pot was perhaps half full with blobs of dull yellow and rusty red tissue, she moved it to the fire and began to cook it. She kept the fire low so it wouldn’t get too hot, added some water, and let it simmer for over an hour, during which time she allowed herself a short snatch of sleep curled up in the back of her cave. When she emerged, a liquid soup of bubbling grease crowned by jagged brown hunks of gristle and blood and meat awaited her. She positioned a large glass jar on the ground and covered the opening with some old linen cloth, secured in place with a leather thong. Then, slowly and laboriously, hands protected by leather gloves, she poured the soup onto the cloth, letting the liquid fat collect in the jar below. Once this was finished, she collected up the linen cloth and bundled it up and hung it from a nearby tree branch. The cracklings would be her snack for days. Then she began the process again, scraping away a new load of fat to render.

By the time morning came, she had 4 full large jars of congealing bear fat, solidifying into a nice pale yellow tallow. And this wonderful smelly grease she would smear onto her skin and hair liberally every morning. It would help to keep her warm in the cold months and keep away lice and mosquitoes in the warm months. The pelt, now scraped clean of all flesh, was staked and stretched on the ground near the cave. It would be that way for days, and she would scrape it and wash it several times over that period. In truth, she could have left it here like this and gone off to town to sell the claws and the gall bladder, but a new thought had come over her. The pelt would bring her a lot of money if she sold it, and there might still be time to hunt down another bear before winter set in. And there were a lot of things she craved that only money could buy. By the time the pelt was properly stretched and cured, she had resolved to sell it. Packing away her gear in the cave, she hoisted the pelt onto her back and hiked off toward a nearby village.

She followed a branch of the Blind River up into the little crossroads hamlet of Pretty Hill. It was unclear for which of the miserable little scrubby sloped nearby mounds the village was named. Perhaps fifty souls clustered in a handful of buildings, but it was near a crossroads and so it saw a fair amount of traffic, and it had an inn. Pretty Hill was one of several villages Lidia would bring wares into for trading purposes. Typically she slipped in and slipped out quickly, so that even the bored and suspicious small town eyes would have little chance to notice her. The trader here was a tinker and cooper affectionately named Old Croak, thanks to an old battle injury which had damaged his throat and left him perpetually hoarse. Old Croak was willing to barter for all sorts of goods, and usually gave fair value, though he usually seemed none too welcoming to Lidia when she showed up in his shop.

Lidia arrived in Pretty Hill as she sun was setting, caked in greasy sweat, her lips chapped with thirst. Old Croak was sitting outside with two other men, smoking a pipe and talking easily, but all three men stopped talking as she came near, watching her intently under their heavy brows as she struggled up close enough to speak.

“I brought stuff to trade.” she said, breathing heavily, her lank hair hanging limply about her face. One of the men made a distasteful face and waved her air back at her. Old Croak looked at her silently for a long moment before drawling out “Oh. You did eh? Well, I closed up an hour past. Come back tomorrow maybe.” He pulled on his pipe and then shrugged. “Or don’t.” he offered in a neutral voice.

Lidia grimaced and looked up at the sun, still settling over the horizon. She could hear voices singing from the town’s inn and could smell mutton. She forged ahead, unslinging her pack and laying it out on the ground in front of Old Croak. “I killed a bear.” she said. “This is its pelt. I cleaned it real good. Plus I have its claws and the gall bladder. I know you have an herbalist here who uses that. I suppose I could just take it direct to her…”

Old Croak scowled and spat, but leaned forward a bit. “YOU killed a bear?” he asked dismissively.

Lidia nodded. “Shot it with three arrows, then stabbed it here…” She pointed to a hole in the pelt near the ears. She blushed and kicked the ground, but held Old Croak’s gaze. He regarded her, and sighed heavily, shaking his head.

“I’d buy them claws.” said the other man next to Old Croak. He grinned at Lidia. “Make a champion necklace, it would.”

Lidia shrugged. “I’m just looking for a fair price. I don’t care who gives it to me. And there’s some things I need.” She never took her eyes from Old Croak. “Then I’ll be gone.”

He harrumphed a mirthless laugh. “Til next time you stumble across something you figure on bringin’ to me.” He leaned over and lifted the pelt, pulled at the fur a little and gauged its freshness, then sniffed it. “I’ll give you 30 silver for the lot. Pelt, claws and all.”

Lidia had been hoping for 50 silver and said so. They settled at 35. She immediately bought a bag of salt and a bag of corn meal and four apples. Then she pointed to a bottle of whiskey.

“That’ll cost your 10 silver.” said Old Croak gruffly.

“Give me two then.” answered Lidia with the first edge of anger in her voice.

*****

The sun set and Lidia had drunk half of her first bottle. She loitered behind the inn, listening to the music from the voices singing inside accompanied by a tinny flute and a loud, boisterous drum. She cradled the bottle tenderly in one arm — she recognized the song, but didn’t know the words. She closed her eyes and let her head loll to the side, letting the pale moon illuminate one cheek. A warmth spread through her and a strange tingle of pleasant excitement. Slowly she began to rock her weight back and forth from one foot to the other, her slim hips swiveling in a slow almost elegant rotation. A monotone hum thrummed in her chest and her free arm levitated above her head toward the sky. Her head lolled to the other side and she hugged her bottle closer and the slow sinuous dance encompassed her whole torso in its gentle gyrations. She continued this way even after the song ended and another one began inside.

From a nearby dark window, two young men were watching her.

“You mean she just lives in the forest, like a dryad?” said one of the men, who was really not much more than a boy.

“Or like a witch.” said the other. “It ain’t natural, dancing alone like that. If she is alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Might be she’s dancing with evil spirits. Might be she’s doing a spell.”

“I think she’s kinda pretty. You know, if you cleaned her up. How old you think she is?”

The other man, who was really not much more than a boy, shrugged. “Who can say? Witches and hags can look any age they want. Probably dryads too. Look at her — wearing pants and boots like that, like she wants to be a man. She’s wicked, you bet on it.”

“More wicked than boys who spy on girls through dark windows?” said a third voice, Miss Esmerelda, the old widow who did the washing up and the cooking. The young men turned to her and sneered.

“Who’s spying on who?” they challenged. But then when they looked back to the swaying girl, they could see that she had stopped. And was now staring direct and cold and hard right at them. Caught between two unfriendly feminine stares, the young men shambled off, grumbling. Old Miss Esmerelda put down her water bucket and came to the window.

“It don’t cost nothing to sit by the fire, if you want to come in, honey.”

Lidia shook her head and turned away. A heavy gasping sound made it clear she was beginning to cry.

The older woman made her way outside, but Lidia was already marching away. The widow jogged and caught up with her. “Hey. Are you all right?” she asked as she drew closer.

“I’m fine.” was the defiant answer from a choking throat.

“My knickers you are!”

Lidia stopped, then after a moment held her half-empty bottle aloft. “I’m just a little drunk. And a little …” She didn’t finish her thought. Her arm lowered and her shoulders sagged.

“Lonely?” ventured the old woman.

Lidia looked at the moon. “More like empty.” she said, then wiped her eyes and turned back to face the other woman. “I was thinking about a bird. I spent days watching it die. And suddenly, I felt like I was doing the same thing to myself. Like I was outside myself, watching myself die. And then I heard those … men talking about me. And then I realized that no one is going to care. Or miss me.” The tears came now and her face crunched up in anguish and she shook out a single heavy sob of despair. “And they shouldn’t. There’s nothing to care about. I’m mostly dead already.”

She took a long drink from her bottle then shook it threateningly at the older woman. “I worked for two solid days and nearly broke my back getting here, because I wanted one of these. And its nearly gone already. And now I’m going to go climb into a tree or curl up in a mud hole and sleep it off before I creep back off into the swamp. And tomorrow will have nothing for me but a growling belly and an urge to piss.”

She threw the bottle as far as she could. It smashed against the distant night.

Esmerelda regarded her cooly, unimpressed. “Well then come inside and wash up. You’re absolutely filthy. In the morning things will look better. I’ve heard Old Croak talk about you. The story is that you were captured by orcs and now you live like a wild thing in the forest, killing them for revenge.”

Lidia snorted a sour laugh at this. “Well you heard wrong. I don’t hunt orcs. I avoid them as much as I can. Because they have no mercy and no souls and they kill for sport — only a fool would go looking for them. And besides, I’m no better than they are, so what right do I have for revenge?” Lidia took a step toward Esmerelda. “I don’t belong in your town. These people don’t want me here. I don’t belong anywhere. That’s why I live in the woods. It’s where empty wicked people like me live.”

The older woman took a step back at this aggressive posture from Lidia. “Suit yourself.” she answered softly, sadly. She turned to go but stopped.

“My husband died two winters ago and left me alone in the world. I was alone and didn’t see a way forward. It’s easy to give up on yourself when life takes away the stick you’ve been leaning on. But I have a new family now, and a new life, and I’m mostly happy.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Stop drifting. Stand for something. You’re not an animal and you’re not an orc. You’re a human being and so you know right from wrong, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” said Lidia angrily.

Esmerelda turned away. “Apparently, neither do you.” she answered. She started walking away. Lidia watched her go for a while, then turned and left Pretty Hill, the strange conversation in the dark with a woman she didn’t know rattling around her head…