Chapter 4: Sparrow's Gotta Gun! And A Sword Too!
"Fuck!" I screamed as my hands reached out to grasp something that just wasn't there anymore while Dogmeat whined.
After launching a beam of radiant magic into the sky, the Old Kingdom Music Box, the keys to the Spire, spazzed out and vanished into motes of fading light.
"Start packing everything back up." I breathed out as I composed myself with spots of lingering color dissipating behind my eyelids.
"Sparrow, I'm sorry." Rose pleaded, likely believing me to be angry with her.
"Don't be." I opened my eyes and assured her, "Who wouldn't try out a music box they found?"
"You apparently." she accused lightly, but suspicious none the less.
"Talk while we pack." I told her and began rolling up our sleeping arrangements, "I've been dropping a lot of new and shocking shite on you today, and I'm proud that you've kept that stiff upper lip, but a giant beam of magic just shot into the sky and everyone and everything for hundreds of miles could see it. It's time to utilize that most handy of Heroic Traits: indefatigability, and employ that most noble Heroic Strategy: Run Away."
"How'd you know not to play that music box?" Rose inquired while she helped me return our belongings to their travel configurations.
"I have an approximate knowledge of many things." I responded truthfully.
"What does that even mean?" she scoffed thinking I obfuscated.
"It means I'm clairvoyant, something that runs in the family. Mostly good for finding things based on mostly vague clues and not getting lost, but sometimes it means a whole lot more." I explained, "I've seen more than most, possible futures, possible pasts. Its enough to guide and inspire a guy, but I'm smart enough to know that even if I may know more than others, that doesn't mean I know best. The same can't be said of an old evil bitch that is trying to kill you."
"Wot?" Rose squawked, "Why would anyone be trying to kill me?"
"To motivate me." I smirked and pulled my belongings onto my back, "It's called Kill the Cutie, a classic trope of storytelling, and this Old Bitch is trying to build a story around me, a narrative of my life that she controls and ultimately brings her what she wants. Fuck that Old Bitch."
"Yeah, well, what if this… person… is actually trying to kill you to motivate me?" Rose snarked back with all the pluckiness of a preteen heroine as she pulled her pack up and readied to travel with me.
"That's the spirit, Rose!" I encouraged her, "Don't just assume, question. Don't put your mind in a box. Now let's go before something big and hungry and too much for me to fight off shows up."
While we needed to flee into the wilderness, our capacity to do so would never be lower. With the sun almost gone down, in unknown territory, mountainous terrain, wet and cold. A perfect storm of ways to get taken out environmentally, let alone the possibility of encountering opposition on bad footing. We had to take to the road and hope that speed and distance could see us through.
It's not naïve if it's just optimism.
I put what little Will experience I'd gained since the purchase of my only spell and a chunk of the General I gained today into Magic Power. I get the feeling I may need to use Heal Life more than twice tonight. Soon enough my optimism met with harsh reality as the road ahead of us bore a half dozen me with guns and swords on them, an assortment of various tough looking tattoos and grisly fetishes as adornments.
I had Rose stay back with my stuff and her valiant guard dog as I went onward to battle.
"Funny, funny. A little tyke's running away from that beam of light." One man with a bushy beard chuckled darkly while thumbing the edge of a knife.
"Wot's funny about it, Roger?" another sounded in a higher pitch, Albion providing us a bit of comic relief at the expense of another anchor weighing down the average IQ of the population.
"What did I say about talking, Lenny?" the bearded man grumbled.
"If I don't have anything smart to say, don't say anything at all." Lenny responded with confidence.
"Aye, and that means you ain't never supposed to say anything at all." Roger growled at the other man while the others snickered like a pack of mean girls.
"Ah, yeah! I remember now." Lenny nodded.
"Gentlemen!" I spoke loudly to gain their attention, "I've come to inform anyone traveling this road that there is a dangerous psychopath heading north from Bowerstone. You all need to flee right now or you'll lose your lives."
"A dangerous psychopath, is that so?" the bearded Roger mused, "Sounds like the kind of guy we'd like to meet for pints."
"Well, don't complain that I didn't warn you." I smiled and flicked one of my throwing knives into the neck of one of them with his finger near the trigger of a musket.
"Wot the hell?!" the man next to him yelled as his fellow reached up to his neck and collapsed.
"I didn't say how big he is!" I yelled as I chucked both my other knives to similar effect before falling back and taking sling to hand with a load already nestled within.
In a moment of genius I whip cracked a heavy lead shot right into the bulge in Rogers leather pants. The most dangerous looking of the men collapsed right there. Doesn't matter if the big guy is made of tougher stuff than his fellows, not with his bag smashed and mashed. As for the two men still standing, they rushed me and one went down with a lead weight smashed against his windpipe and the other I met with hatchet in hand after ducking under his decapitation intending swing. The man's knee collapsed immediately with a hefty wedge of sharp steel introduced to it, and after side stepping a desperate stab I hacked his head a few times before moving on to his choking mate.
Roger wiped puke off his beard with the sleeve of his brown coat and snarled as he lunged at me with his heavy two hander sword. When I tried the same disabling move as before, the big man proved himself truly made of sterner stuff than his fellows, his knee feeling more like I hacked into a piece of hardwood than flesh and bone. His knee held, barely, and he tried a kick with the injured leg, but my quickness far outclassed his, and I dodged with ease ready to punish again.
"For fuck's sakes Roge? Did you seriously get all the new recruits killed just like that?" A voice sounded from further up the road revealing the approach of another band of roaming killers.
"How's I to know-" Roger's remark cut off in a bang.
I stood nearby, having kicked one of the fallen muskets into my hands. The wind carried the cloud of acrid smoke away as Roger fell to the hard icy road with his head leaking brains and blood.
"Gentlemen!" I spoke loudly to assert dominance, "I've come to inform anyone traveling this road that there is a dangerous psychopath heading north from Bowerstone. You all need to flee right now or you'll lose your lives."
"Holy shit!" barked the man who spoke before, "The kid's got balls like a brass monkey!"
I boldly picked up Rogers sword, bigger than a longsword and maybe five pounds in total weight. It felt awkward in my hands but not unwieldy. Roger and his friends gave me more than enough experience points to do what I needed next. I spun to get a big swing going and then Assassin's Rushed to magically move behind the biggest of the oncoming bandits. The cruel bandit's blade swung with a Flourish with all its weight and my Strength behind it, now with a pair of legs in its path that it cleaved right through. The laughing man stopped laughing.
And switched to screaming.
The trick to fighting with greatswords is to keep them moving once you've got them started, and with Assassin's Rush for repositioning I quickly left a lot of legless outlaws painting the white road red. Feeling like a god I put another level into Physique and suddenly filled out my loose winter clothes much more, ascending to a new state of being, Thick Sparrow. Lovingly, I looked down at the sword in my hands, as mundane a piece of iron I'd ever seen, scratched and chipped.
"I love you." I confessed to the weapon that brought me more experience in a minute than a month of hunting vermin.
The sound of retching interrupted my honeymoon. I turned to see Rose on her hands and knees, vomiting and crying.
"I… I can't do this!" she wailed, "I can't do this anymore!"
I leaned the flat of the iron (Fable Iron, not Earth Iron) greatsword on my shoulder and made my way over her, making sure not to slip on the blood or trip on the delimbed bodies lying around. After that careful bit of navigation I reached out to rub my sister's back but she jerked away from me.
"Stay back!" she shrieked and I widened my eyes in surprise.
I put on my most reassuring smile and put out my hand like I was dealing with a frightened dog, "It's fine, Rose, I'm not going to force you to do anything. I didn't even leave anyone crippled for you to finish off this time."
"No you fucking idjit!" she screamed, "I can't chase behind you while you run around killing folk! I can't! This is so wrong!"
"No, you're not thinking about it right." I explained to her, "These are bandits. You can't think of them like they're people. They're monsters just like the hobbes, but maybe worse because bandits should at least know how to do good, they just choose to be evil. Killing them is a good deed, like giving a present to all the people they'd harmed before, and saving all the people they'd hurt in the future."
"Yer fucking nine!" she shouted with exacerbation practically glowing off her, "Nine year olds aren't supposed to be running around murdering folk!"
"Huh." I exclaimed in shock, "I thought I was eight."
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Rose screamed in my face.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The jokes practically write themselves with this story. The story does too. Got that jail flow you know, smoother than a soda stream.
You can support me and my family at
ko-fi.com/jmanm
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone