FSE

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TRIGGER WARNING: It's marked as "For All Ages" here on SF, but it does have violence, fantasy fighting, and death in it. Be warned.

A Note from the Author:

I am not in control of this story.

Like any tale, it has its own characters, a plot, a beginning and, eventually, an end. But this story will be driven by more than words on a page. This story is driven by chance.

Throughout the tale, I will be using the basic rules of Dungeons and Dragons. Whenever a character needs to barter with a merchant, land a blow, or even just get in someone's pants, I'll roll a die. The outcome may be shifted by a character's proficiencies or disadvantages, but in the end, the result of this adventure will be determined as much by these dice rolls as by my writing.

Some characters may die. Hell, some could die within the first five chapters. That will be out of my hands. It feels weird to say that. I sincerely do hope that doesn't happen, but it could. Characters might suffer incredible loss or take an unexpectedly easy victory or two. Part of the thrill of this kind of writing is that I have to adapt to that: the randomness of it all.

So, without further ado, let the adventure begin.

***

Fara and Katok Brightmoon watched their only son walk away from them, toward the town on the horizon, and their hearts were full of worry. His eyes, the last they'd seen before he turned away, were dark green and shining with eagerness for adventure, while his fur was mostly stony gray like his father's, though his tail and ears held traces of his mother's brown. This was not all he had inherited from his parents.

As tight as his wife's grip on his shoulder was, Katok was grateful for his abilities. Any normal wolfkin's shoulder might have been ground into dust by now.

"You realize of course that of any parents in the world we likely have the least excuse to worry about our son," she said, smirking slightly.

"Wise as ever, Fara," he said. She laughed softly, but her face fell shortly after.

"But then again..." she said, "we may have more reason than most to worry."

Katok gave a short sigh, and there was a silence.

"I give it a day before he lets everyone know about his secret," he said.

"Two days," Fara said.

"Really?" Katok said. "That long?"

"I expect he'll get distracted talking to the townsfolk. He's very good at using his natural curiosity to deflect," she said.

"Ah," Kotok laughed. "In that case, make it a week. He'll know everything about the townsfolk and they'll know nothing about him."

They laughed together, took another look at their son, and then turned to go back inside.

***

The blade moved faster and faster, alternating between one finger, then the next, then the next, but Valreth didn't flinch.

"Damn, I thought for sure he'd have at least cut himself by now," one of the onlookers muttered as the blade reached the other side of his pinky.

He passed the dagger to the brown wolfkin on the other side of the table. The game was simple enough: stab the blade between one outstretched finger, then the other, until you chickened out or got cut. Valreth was cheating, technically, but no one needed to know that.

"You sure you didn't get cut?" the other guy asked, squinting at his hand, but Val held up his hand, wiggling his fingers. The brown wolfkin grumbled, taking the blade, determined not to back out. The dagger was flying now, a blur between his fingers, the point of the blade pounding the wooden table.

"Ah, shit!" he hissed. He pulled back, blood trickling from his ring finger.

"Would you stop marking up my table?" the barkeep, a gruff old gray wolf, shouted at them.

"Don't worry, we're done now," Valreth said, taking the several coin purses pushed at him.

"There's not even a nick on you!" one of the other wolves laughed, patting Val on the back.

Games were fun, but he had been hoping to do more than just cheat people out of their money. It left a bad feeling in his gut. He had to do something worthwhile, even if it was just helping an elder wolf walk home.

"Come on, Zer, let's get you to a healer," one of the others said as the group stood.

"I almost lost my finger to this damned game once," one laughed.

"You did, actually," said another, "I had to go back and get it so the cleric could reattach it."

"Hey, I was under the impression he could've just regrown the thing, I don't know how that healing magic works!"

Val walked up to the bar and dropped one of the coin pouches on the counter.

"For the table," he said.

"It's alright," the old wolf grumbled, pushing the leather pouch back. "I know someone who can use Mending on it. I was mostly just annoyed by the noise."

"In that case, I'll take..." Val considered a moment. "An Alluri vodka."

"Alluri... Aarakocra-brand vodka, coming up," the bartender muttered, looking around beneath the counter, producing a bottle of white liquid with a gold trim around the edges.

"I'm looking for mercenary work," he told the old wolf. "Got anything?"

"Ah..." the bartender said. "Not much. There's a group of bandits been causing trouble, supposedly holed up in an old fort nearby, but that's—"

"Where's that?" Val asked.

The barkeep looked at him and chuckled.

"What, you gonna take a whole fort full of bandits yourself?" he scoffed.

"Maybe," Val said. The bartender snorted.

"You kids, always looking for a thrill. Probably got all these ideas in your head listening to war stories from your father."

"My mother, actually," Val said.

"You don't have a scar to your name," he said.

Val leaned forward, meeting the bartender eye to eye.

"Exactly."

As poorly as his previous attempt had gone, this seemed to convince the old wolf.

"South east of here, about two miles," he said. "It's already getting dark. You should make it there right as they're getting to sleep."

"So it'll be easy as long as I don't wake them," he said with a grin.

"Just don't hurt yourself, kid," the bartender said.

Val smirked.

***

Valreth pulled his Cloak of Many Fashions around his shoulders. It currently took on the appearance of a simple black cloak; both it and the armor beneath a gift from his father, as well as the two daggers at his belt and the pair of swords at his back. The craft of the armor was a bit shoddy, but it was the best Val's father could do in a week—impressive, when the week before the man had known nothing about blacksmithing. Val tried to remember what his father had taught him about infiltration, and if worse came to worst, he'd remember what his mother taught him about combat.

There was a pit of fear in him as he looked up at the stone tower above him, but not a fear of death, a fear of being discovered. If things went wrong and any one of the bandits escaped... Well, there was a chance no one would believe the survivors.

Things did go wrong, and went wrong almost immediately. There was a guard patrolling just outside the fort, clad in thick, dark leather. She was a wolfkin, with dark brown fur, green eyes, a lithe build. She must have caught his scent because she wheeled around before he was halfway to her. She drew her blade and he returned the daggers to their sheathes, reaching for his own swords, but he paused, seeing she was on the edge of a deep ravine. If he could land a good hit...

But he didn't. He got up close enough, but his fist swung wide, missing her face by about half a foot. Maybe it was the nerves. She swung with her simple, crude shortsword, which hit its mark, drawing a wide slash across his chest.

"Shit," he muttered. "This armor was new, damn it."

The wolfkin looked between his face and the gash in his armor, not a drop of blood on it or her blade. The moment of confusion was enough. He kicked her, his foot hitting square in the center of her chest. He felt one of her ribs snap under his heel as she flew back, and before he knew it she was halfway down the ravine. She slammed against the jagged cliff face on the opposite side and fell. If that hadn't killed her, hitting the bottom would. But that had almost certainly killed her.

She was his first. He didn't want to kill anyone, but he couldn't risk anyone knowing what he was. He looked down at the gash in his leather armor. He could have it repaired later. Val carried on.

There was another guard inside the entrance, a brown-furred male, slightly taller than he was, with hazel eyes. Maybe the first guard's brother. He spotted Val before he could get the drop on him—he was starting to think he wasn't half as sneaky as he thought he was—and this guy was fast. The guard drew his sword and brought it down on Val's shoulder in a wide arc. The blade hit and stopped.

Val took advantage of another moment of confusion and this time plunged his left dagger into the guard's throat. The wolf gave a strangled cough and clutched the gushing wound. He swung wildly, desperately, but missed Val by an inch. Val responded with a stab, aimed at his head, but it sank right through his left ear. The guard gave a cry of pain and Val hissed with sympathy. He'd have preferred it be quick. He could see the wolfkin's eyelids flutter, close to passing out from pain and loss of blood.

"Sorry," he sighed. The bandit swung with one last strike of desperation, or tried to, but he was so weak now that the sword went clattering from his hands as he lifted it. He made one last grunt, blood pouring from his mouth, and fell forward.

The girl outside might've been his first kill, but that one he might see in his nightmares. He had dreams of being a hero. Not this.

He carried on, swallowing hard, stepping into the corridors of the old fort. The next few went better than the others. He managed to knock out more than half a dozen of them, never letting them see his face, but then one saw him and had just enough time to call out before he could knock them unconscious. Honestly, this part was kind of fun. It didn't really matter whether they saw his face, as long as they didn't get a hit in before he took them down.

He'd killed the first two. The third up to the tenth got his fist to their jaw, none the wiser as to his true nature. But there were at least as many left—he knew this because the eleventh one had rung an alarm bell, and now there were ten surrounding him in the middle of an old library. There was an upper level, a balcony that overlooked the lower floor, and five archers took their places along it, arrows notched to drawstrings. There was no way out without them finding out his secret.

The first few broke their weapons against his back and chest, the handles of axes and maces splintering against him as if they'd hit a solid wall with their strikes. He hit back, taking down one, then the other, then the other. One swung at him with a sword, but he caught it with a hand and pushed the blade back into its owner's chest. Another he kicked into a bookcase. Some began to turn and run, but he chased them down. One, an archer, actually tripped over one of his friends and hit the stone floor, dying instantly. The last one hadn't even drawn his blade, so Val drew it for him, and ran him through with it.

He sank to his knees in the middle of it all, his fur matted with blood, none of it his. He hadn't expected it to get so intense so fast. After what felt like a year on that floor, sitting in quiet, he stood and began gathering the bodies together. He knew he had to move quick or the other ones who were only unconscious would wake soon. Once they were piled up, he took a torch from the wall and set them aflame. Couldn't risk someone coming through and using the Speak With Dead spell to find out what had happened.

***

He woke the next morning in the room he'd bought at the inn, forgetting for a moment where he was. He groaned, tired and sore. He'd been up late, sleeping fitfully, kept seeing the faces of the dead bandits. The invulnerability was nice, but even he wasn't immune to the effects of sleep deprivation.

He could already feel his muscles growing. Taking down those bandits had been a workout. Even training to fight with his mother hadn't been that intense. The town guards had been incredulous at the idea that he could have taken out the whole fort himself, but coming into the barraks covered in blood without a scratch of his own had gotten their attention. Soon enough, the ones he'd left unconscious were being dragged back to the town's jail.

There was a commotion outside. His ears perked and twitched at the sound of clanking armor, an indistinct voice barking orders. He went to the window and saw the town guard, no more than ten or twelve armored wolfkin, lined up on the edge of town, gathered in defensive positions, shields raised. He looked out beyond them and saw a crowd approach, a small army. His eyes widened. He couldn't make out their shape, but he caught the smell of sweat, leather, and rusty metal a mile away, and not from the assembled guards. It was a familiar scent, unique to the bandits he'd fought earlier. But how? He'd done away with them all. Or so he thought.

He wasted no time with stairs, just jumped from the second story window. He stumbled awkwardly, but fortunately everyone was focused on the soldiers. Valreth strode forward, realizing only then that he'd forgotten his daggers and swords. Ah, well. If he needed a weapon, he'd take one.

The bandits drew closer. The townsfolk, a mix of wolfkin and aarakocra from the neighboring kingdom, stood nervously in their doorways, at their windows, watching. Finally, the bandit troop grew close enough to make out their garb, all black leather and old weapons, but there were more than twice the number of bandits as there were soldiers, and if that weren't enough, they had some kind of war machine with them. He couldn't recall the name, but Valreth did recognize it as a type of rapid-fire ballista.

The guards were visibly nervous, despite their armor, all save for the stolid wolfkin warrior who stood out before them, clearly their leader—no, a wolfkin-aarakocra hybrid, Val saw as she stepped toward the bandits, a pair of sky blue wings standing out from her gray fur. The scars on them and on her long muzzle revealed her to be a warrior, probably a veteran of the recent Wolfkin/Tabaxi War. There was a fire in her deep brown eyes, a determination unmatched by her troops.

Then the bandits' leader stepped forward, a massive, muscled wolf man with black fur, gnarled yellow teeth, and fiery orange eyes.

"You're lucky I'm in a charitable mood," the big wolf snarled. "We seek only the one among you who snuck into our camp and killed our men."

Fear ran through him. Did they know?

"The one among us?" the captain of the guard asked, crossing her arms, her wings flitting slightly. "What makes you so sure it was only one?"

"I fought in the war, same as you, Captain," he spat. "Only, when it ended, I stayed on top rather than letting them lower me to be a simple babysitter for a small town. I know what the aftermath of an army looks like and what remains in a single proud warrior's wake."

"I stayed true to my oath," the captain said. "I still protect our people, while you use them, extort them for—"

"I did not come here to philosophize!" the bandit leader growled. "Give up the one who killed my men or we will plunder your little town for all it's worth!"

"Then the full might of the Alpha's armies will come down upon you!" the hybrid captain growled back, wings spreading wide as she reached for her greatsword. The other guards did the same. This was happening.

"Hear reason!" another guard shouted out, halting the impending fight. The captain and bandit leader both turned at the sound, but judging by the captain's face, this was someone whose judgment she trusted. "The one who killed your men was a mercenary, a new face to our town. He was probably just passing through; we don't even know if he's still here."

"Unfortunate for you," the bandit leader snarled, drawing his own greatsword.

Fuck it.

"I'm right here!" Valreth shouted.

The guards parted as he stepped through, facing the big black wolf. The Captain's hand caught his shoulder as he moved to step past her.

"You don't have to do this," she said.

"I'll protect this town, same as you," he said. "If I can sacrifice my life to save but one more, let alone a hundred, I will."

He glanced briefly toward the bandit leader.

"Wait for my signal," he whispered. The Captain's expression changed to one of realization. She nodded.

He stepped up toward the bandit leader, the big wolf towering at least a foot over him.

"You? You're the one who killed my men?" he laughed. Valreth said nothing, and the black wolf drew his sword.

"A shame, to lose such a fine warrior," he said, raising the blade. "But blood spilt demands blood repaid."

He gave a yell and swung downward. Valreth simply lifted an arm, holding it horizontal across his snout. He felt the blade hit and then snap like a twig.

That same look of shock came over the face of the big wolf, looking down at the little gray-fur, untouched. A murmur passed through both the guards behind him and the bandits.

"Must've been an old blade," one guard said.

"It didn't cut! He's not even bleeding!" another gasped.

Before the truth could sink in, Val swung his fist, bringing his invincible knuckles into the massive wolf's chin in an uppercut. The black wolf fell backward, but remained conscious, hand on his jaw with a groan.

"Kill him!" he snarled.

The bandits moved forward and Val heard the Captain's foot come down in the grass as she took a step toward him, ready to hold the line, but Val held up a hand, telling her to wait.

Several bandits rushed forward, blades, axes, and maces ready. One brought his shortsword down, but Val blocked again and though the blade didn't break, this time it was wrenched free of the warrior's hand by the force of the impact. The second swung with both axes, but only succeeded in shredding Val's shirt and splintering the handles of the weapons. They took a step back, confused, before the one with the spiked mace gave a yell and swung with all his might. The weapon struck the right side of Val's head and one of the spikes grazed his eye. He didn't blink. The warrior lowered the mace, jaw dropping with the others as they saw the metal spikes had broken off of the weapon's blunt end, falling to the ground.

They started to back away, but the leader, who'd gotten back on his feet, shouted, "Hold your ground! Whatever protection spell he's got on him will fade eventually!"

At this, Val held open his arms in a broad gesture.

“What do you think happened to the other half of your men?" he said.

This attempt to intimidate the bandits didn't work as intended and only succeeded in spurring their leader into a rage. The big wolf ran at him with a battlecry and brought the point of his broken blade up into Val's gut. He may as well have poked him with his pinky. The leader growled with frustration.

"Archers!" he yelled.

A dozen bows trained on Valreth with remarkable coordination.

"Fire!"

A volley of arrows flew through the air, but for those that didn't miss their mark and bury themselves in the dirt, their tips bounced harmlessly off of his hide, clattering to his feet. He could see and feel the fear set in among the bandits and their leader as it dawned on them that this would not wear off. A swell of pride rose in his chest, a righteous power. He grinned.

And only then did Val bend down to the ground, taking the dropped blade of one bandit, and lifting it to the sky, letting out a battlecry. It was one echoed by the guards behind him, and the bandits turned to run. The two arming the ballista turned to the machine as their last resort, but there was a yell and something—no, some_one_—landed in front of the thing. At first he thought it was the Captain, but she had no wings, and a split second later he recognized the figure as the hulking brown-furred she-wolf raised the war machine above her head.

"Hello, boys," she said, grinning wickedly before hurling the ballista ten feet away.

"Mom?!" Valreth blurted.

"What?" she said, grinning back at him. "Like I'd let you have all the fun!"

An arrow flew at them and sank into her shoulder. She growled, yanked it free, and turned on the archers with an icy stare. But she wasn't the only one of his parents to join the fight, Val saw, as he turned and noticed a barely visible gray blur moving among the rout of escaping bandits. Soon enough, every archer found themselves without a bow, and there was a pile of weapons off to the right.

"That's my wife and son you just shot at," the gray wolfkin growled, violet eyes burning.

"Hello to you too, father," Val said.

"You owe me ten gold, dearest," Katok said to his wife.

The bandits were in full retreat, or at least what was left of them. They would not soon return.

***

(Another) Note from the Author: I had fun writing this one. The dice rolling definitely throws a wrinkle in there sometimes. Valreth here might not have had to kill anyone at all had he not failed that first stealth check, but afterward, it was pretty cool seeing the sheer number of enemies I could pit him against. Again, probably something a normal DM would never let me get away with lol. He also failed the perception check that would've meant he'd notice that half of the bandits were not in the fort when he attacked, leading to the confrontation with the small army. Ultimately, Val revealing his power to the world was a storytelling decision—he's too heroic not to step forward and defend the town, even if it put his secret out there.

More to come shortly. I can't exactly plot everything out the way I can with a normal story, since some of what happens depends on whether the characters roll well and succeed at their goals, but I've got a good idea of where the series is going.