Mini-Story written during server-downtime...

[Simulacrum_FRG]

The easy job
© Andrè M. Pietroschek, my rights reserved
Inspired by partaking at www.ddo.com


Bad timing would be a neat description for the proverbial twist of fate which ever brought me into the surrounding areas of Stormreach. Like many of the more tough or more lucky ones I survived the assault of a dragon unto the airship or ship which we had boarded for travel. Travel, not Piracy!

Stranded on Korthos Island I faced the typical problems of adulthood: Getting paid, water, food, and shelter plus pleasure. Nothing I couldn't handle, as the fat, and merely human, bald, aging man I am had learned a profession which did help to provide all which is needed, except perhaps the higher arcane mysteries or the serenity of a divine favour.

My chosen name for this chapter of my life was Andiamo Stedingson. I am, despite my looks and a serious disease harrowing me, one of the best assassins fighting for a cause beyond making money. A slowly dying man with not too much to lose, and a growing fear of having need to make allies in the Nine Hells which surely await me for my lifetime of villainy and murder.

But i am a humble fellow, and I learned to perform the simpleton people seemingly just want to see in me. Indeed my greatest trick is simply being underestimated or not taken serious at all. I could neither sneak away from a crime scene without even the most sensually-impaired moron finding out about it, nor could I climb & jump away like famous cat-burglars or acrobats. Fine to me, I like the patient and simple approach. Especially for only very few wise people ever understood that it remains one of the most efficient.

Rogue's Grin, a treacherous telltale smile we all tend to get, when we are mistaken to be just another worthless Taffer (Sorry, had to be mentioned), or when opportunity presented itself to us. It is a feeling like magic must feel to wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks.

“Don't blame me, I was born a mere commoner, just another fellow without a precious Dragonmark!”

And sadly a fellow who never made it upwards successfully enough to purchase or build the own airship. In younger years I really loved that idea of roaming the skies!!!

While usually hunted by paladins and similar moralist-meddlers I arrived at Korthos Island, when it had a need for persons like me. Weird cults worshiped Sahuagin Fishpeople!

Brothers turned against Brothers, Mothers and Fathers against their own children, as the island was torn apart with those staying faithful and those who thought they could gain from siding with the enemy.

I am not a bard, and neither one who enjoys making many words about stuff. I just wanted this tale clarified. Especially because the Stormreach Chronicle tends to be a notch too enthusiast and too indiscreet for my own profession's standards. So there was no hired killer, but instead a courageous adventurer! Facades and mortal expectations, the constant need of weaklings to hear verification of their own prejudices and misconceptions.

What really happened is that the foggy nights in the Saltire district of Stormreach brought me on the trail of my favourite type of target. I am one of the foolhardy daredevils who attempt to assassinate Mindflayers. Given that I arrived in this world by one of their slave-ships being forced to land due a dragon attack this is nothing spectacular. Simple psychology for simple people like me.

And that works out so much easier, when the tentacled, brain-eating, telepathic opponent underestimates his foe. Others learned to tumble and sneak, I focused on looking weak, near-defeat, and easily-preyed upon. The ego auto-bypasses the defences of even superior minds, not to speak of the chosen few humans who ever developed the maturity and will to resist it.

So i went through that department complex in the Harbour district and did what I had decided to do. I admit that it awoke memories of the first time my skull was tackled by those tentacles, and I still have nightmares from the fear of living-through the process of finding myself paralyzed while my brain is devoured straight from out of my own skull.

But a dagger stabbing into the brain through an eye, or a decisive slash of the throat can even break the focus of a telepathic brain-devourer. Besides the loot it gives me a thrill to know that I worked myself up from being an easy victim to these aberrations. And now it is time to wrap myself into the cloak of a ghost-walker once more, ensuring that no law witnesses anything calling forth a thorough investigation... Farewell.

END of Mini-Story 1