There I was, just sitting down having a nice ale with my friend Jake Picks Smith, your local security expert, and my fiancee, the lovely gypsy fighter Blaze. We were just enjoying some nice ale and laughing at some stupid jokes we were telling each other when I noticed something was moving outside. At first I didn't pay any attention to it, so we just continued to have a pleasant conversation. The next thing I knew, about ten evil, disgruntled looking hounds came creeping into the tavern. I told everyone to remain as still as they could. The hounds circled us and began to tear the place apart. Unfortunately, everyone else was at the local sleeping house, so we were far away from everything. We remained still until one of them began to chew on my leg just a little. I bit my lip and let it continue for a minute. That is when this very interesting looking lady walked into the bar. She walked about ten feet away from us. The dogs seemed to take a liking to her, I knew at that point she was in charge. My fiancee handed me a beer and said, "Well, we're gonna die, we might as well die drunk!" I took the ale and swigged it down. Then the woman spoke in a deep twisted opera voice, "I am the Mistress of the Hunt! I have come to hunt you!" I stared into her eyes and said, "I'm a hobbling, we're not very good sport!" She inched closer, "You don't really have much of a choice in the matter, either I hunt you right here, or you can run and try and get away, but I'll be sporting about this. I'll give you a ten second head start." I stood up and motioned the others to the door. The Mistress was nice enough to hold it open for us. Once Jake took one step out the door I screamed, "RUN!!" . We all darted down the path toward the bridge, as I suspected the Mistress did not even wait the ten seconds she promised. So the hounds dashed after us. As we ran down the path, I knew we weren't going to live through this, so I did something very stupid (site master's note: Heroics are just acts of stupidity that turn out for the best ). I jumped in the air and pulled a one eighty and landed facing the hounds. The first one dashed at me, I whipped out my alchemy and tagged it with a vertigo. The dog landed at my side. The next two came upon me, I began to dash to the left and tagged them both with a nausea and another vertigo. I began to run to the left and all the hounds came at me. I pegged another one with a feeblemind. That is when I got a big surprise, the next two hounds began to spit at me! I dodged them both and took them out with two more vertigo's. That's when things go rough, the last four came upon me. They circled me all spitting acid at me, as a hobbling, my reflexes were quite good, so I dodged as many as I could. Then they just up and charged me. I managed to take two more out with two more nausea's. That's when my poncho covered my gas globes, I struggled to reach then when the last two hounds were upon me. They bit me to shreds. The last things I could see as I went down were first, the Mistress screaming at her hounds saying, "What happened to you? Get up!", that will show her; and then, as I hit the ground I noticed that Jake and Blaze were nowhere to be seen. I had held the hounds long enough for them to get away! My head hit the ground with a small smile on my face. As I waited in limbo for a moment or two, I did a little victory dance. I woke up in the earth circle and run back to town to greet my still surviving friend and loved one. I smiled to myself and escorted them back to the tavern to drink some more ale...
Koncholey: Hobbling Alchemist Extrordinare NERO Alliance Seattle |