Paul!

Lang

Goatword Entry Four: A Dragon You are Fue Holly! A blast of pressurized air pounds the earth below, leaving a tremendous dent and shooting off soil and rocks like shattered glass. The push of the wind spell acts as a cushion, and you land on the soft dirt. You lay there, furious and exhausted, and wonder to yourself, should you kill this man in his sleep? Three hours later you are still in the woods, and you are wondering why you did not kill this man. He seems like he wants to die. For breakfast he ate a black fruit that had spikes on it. It was growing from a red vine who's sap looked and smelled like coagulated blood. After he was done consuming that venomous plum, he wiped his face with a bristly, rainbow colored leaf he found. You are pretty sure he wants to die. On top of all that, he came across a perfectly good pumpkin pie sitting on a picnic blanket and instead of eating it, he destroyed it, swearing all the while with the names of dark gods you know he knows nothing about. Right now he is over in the clearing by the pond, punching horseflies and bees out of the air. He calls it 'Grinding'. Hey! You call out to him Can we get moving? Your face is going to melt in two days! Soon! He responds I want to max out my ability points! You aren't sure what he's talking about, but unfortunately he is very adamant about it, and he is your only ride. Since there is nothing you can do about any of that, you lay on your back and dream dark dreams with your eyes open. On the skin of your outer eyelids you see your master stretched out before you; a serpent, shinning with a polished ebony blackness, and the edges of his scales shimmer red like blood, and his breath and scent are thick smoke.

You are Trevert Vardan (And you are about to learn a new skill!!!!)

You are feeling great today, and how could you not? You spent all of yesterday climbing up a terrible tower, met a damsel who totally digs you and woke up lying on a soft bed of dirt. How did you get down? Does it matter? Not really. You are down, and causality isn't really your concern. Your concern is learning a new skill. Since there don't seem to be many monsters around, you've had to stoop just a bit. You've been beating up wasps and mice and stuff, and they only give you like, one XP each. One XP isn't really anything, but the AP gauge fills faster, and doesn't discriminate. You almost filled the gauge after you beat that Golem, you just needed twenty more points. You think you can find at least twenty bees out here. In other good news, your face doesn't sting anymore! Sorena says that that is because the Face-Melt goes into a sleeping state for two days before kicking into high gear. Anyway, as long as this thing isn't all up in your face, you aren't too worried about it. You have plenty of time for important things like bee punching. Speaking of Sorena, that lass is pretty impatient. She is in some kind of wicked hurry to get back to Valtgard. You can't really blame her. She lost the ability to walk, and that's something that no amount of AP can regain. Also, considering the way you found her, she probably hasn't eaten for days or years or something. It's a lucky thing you found her, though. She seems pretty defenseless. Her only weapon is this silly wooden flail thing that seems just as likely to hit her in the face as to defend her against squinges, or nabras, or dragons for that matter. Anyway, as far as party members are concerned, she seems pretty much useless. You'll probably find some kindly old sage to leave her with, and give her a tearful goodbye, then go about your business. If the sage is important enough, maybe you'll see her later as a fully trained but extremely under-leved magic user of some sort. Maybe something obscure like a geomancer, you've always wondered what a

geomancer was. While you've been thinking about women and geomancers, you've managed to beat down six more bees! Score! Only fourteen more bees to go! Sorena calls out Can we please go to Valtgard now? That lass sure is impatient. You respond in your usual, passive un-aggressive way and don't answer. How can someone be passive and aggressive? You never understood that concept. You ignore her complaints and punch five more bees. Nine bees to go, and you haven't even been stung yet! Suddenly, there is an earthquake. You look up into the sky and see a puff of smoke. Weird. Sorena yells something that gets lost in the sound of blazing flames. Maybe you are next to a volcano. Does it matter? These bees aren't going to punch themselves. Five more bees go down. You see a flame up above your head. You are distracted just long enough to get stung by a bee, not just a bee, all the bees! You scream just a little bit and start running. The bees have got the upper hand now! This is exactly what you were worried about! You get back to Sorena, who is sitting in the grass and looking frightened (Sitting and looking frightened seem to be the things she is best at). Trev, we have to get moving! Are you crying? You are not crying. You were just surprised by the bees. Whatever! We really gotta go?! Why? You ask. Because of that! You follow her pointing finger and gaze at the expanse behind you. Where there should be a big, empty sky, instead you see green scales. On closer observation, you observe a pair of leathery, batlike wings. A long, serpentine neck wags back and forth, directing a solemn, red eyed face toward its prey, the toasted desire of its jowls. You do not wish to be toasted, or desired. You have come face to face with a Green Dragon. Green is the most basic kind of dragon, but even those are not to be trifled with. You know that. Point taken! You throw Sorena up onto your shoulders and start dashing. Maybe other warriors would leave her behind as a distraction, since dragons are known to collect damsels, but this damsel just got out of

distress, so you think it would be better to take her with you! You make sure she is comfortable back there and you start running! Out of the corner of your eye you see the dragon snatch up a bear with its two front fangs and begin to rend to the flesh. The bear has distracted the dragon. The bear is your new hero. Normally, you would be able to take his heroic sacrifice and use it to get the heck out of here, but there are a number of things slowing you down. For one thing, you have Sorena on your shoulders. She isn't heavy or anything, but you do have to make sure she doesn't fall off. For another thing, it is really hard to run in sabatons. You don't ever want to say anything bad about sabatons, but they are hard to run in. The armor bonus they give you doesn't really match up to the agility they subtract. The armor bonus only really applies to your feet. If something hits you in the feet, you get the bonus. You are as close as you have ever been to cursing the sabatons. The squeals of your furry friend die down, and the breeze created by flapping dragon wings blows against your back. Sorena shiver. With a burst of mysterious power, you dash forth, running faster than you thought you ever could. You feel the singe of spit-fire behind you. You smell smoke in your nostrils. Sorena is digging her nails into your shoulder. You run for a whole five minutes, which is longer than you have ever run before. In the distance you see the red bricks of Valtgard. If you can get there you will probably be safe. Either you will be safe or the dragon will burn down Valtgard. You are willing to risk the lives of the Valtgard people if it means you might save yourself and Sorena. Is that heroic? Probably not. You think the bees stung all the heroism out of you. You dash at top speed through the plains and fields. The dust behind you acts as a smoke screen! You think you might make it, then something else goes wrong. A black and yellow cloud gathers in the sky, and it begins to rain. The rain buzzes. This is not rain. That is not a cloud. You are being attacked by bees! They want their revenge! Not the bees! They want to kill me! You shout out. Sorena responds Why wouldn't they?! Thousands of tiny, buzzing daggers rain down on you, like a barrage of arrows. Smoke rises up behind you, eclipsing the blue of the sky in black and gray. There is not time! 1. Run straight through the cloud of killer bees. Get stung a million times and live a life of agony 2. Get roasted by the Green Dragon. End it all now

3. Ask Sorena for help 4. Figure out what 'DEXTERITY' does. Not a good time, I know, but you've been wondering for so long. 5. Pass out randomly

What choice can there be?! You choose to live! You shout out I choose to live! at the top of your lungs. Sorena responds by saying Goodie. You brace yourself for all nine levels of bee hell. You grit your teeth, tighten your muscles and close your eyes! Then, you pass out randomly. You are Fue Holly (Riding a dead horse) Yup. That idiot just passed out. You should have seen this coming. The venom of a Southwood Wasp has this kind of reaction when mixed with the pollen of the rainbow colored Diablo Leaf. Basically, this idiot managed to poison himself again, and now you are sitting on top of an unconscious piece of lifeless meat with a living furnace behind you and a forest's worth of angry wasps in front of you. Tevert Vardan; you have somehow managed to turn 'Creating deadly situations' into a refined art. He is certainly the master artist. There is a kind of suicidal genius to it. But whether or not his stubborn subconscious wants to kill him, you cannot let that happen. There are still a few hundred miles to squeeze out of this dying horse. He can't die, he is too useful to you. For the second time since meeting him, you are forced to draw from your deep reserves of polluted MYST and save his pallid, gallivanting rear. Time to cast a 'Save your butt' spell again. 1. Blast the enemies away with a powerful wind attack 2. Turn yourself into a girl dragon in hopes of wooing the pursuer 3. Use a spell that raises your DEXTERITY 4. Use a teleportation spell, like 'Blink'

While the second option does interest you, you aren't completely sure about the gender of the dragon. For all you know, the dragon could also be a girl, and that would just be awkward. Female dragons can be pretty territorial. You once had a roommate who would passive-aggressively tan leather inside your room whenever you used her hairbrush (Tanning leather smells dreadful). Girl dragons are just as territorial, only they burn things and rip throats out. Additionally, you don't think you have enough MP to do something big like that. The best option would be to cast 'Blink'. Since you are near a city, it will take you to that city's 'Blink Gate'. There is a small chance that in the many years you have been asleep, civilization has done away with Blink Gates. If that is the case, you aren't really sure what will happen. You have to try though. You hold on tightly to your many times poisoned servants, gather up your MYST and cast the spell. BLINK!

To be continued

GLOSSARY

I thought that, since every fantasy world is a little bit different, I should start defining some of the terms that are used in 'Goatword'. That way, I can save myself the trouble of explaining them in the narrative, and after all, isn't that what storytelling is all about? Cutting corners? Of course it is.

MYST: Magical substance that floats around in the air. The solid 'Positive MYST' that floats around naturally resonates with the pull of the 'Negative MYST' that exists, in varying quantities, inside the human body. Basically, this is the stat that determines your magic capabilities. ISHTAR'S CLAWS: A high level wind spell that uses wind to move and manipulate objects. It

isn't as strong as an offensive wind spell when it comes to direct attacks. It is better used for practical purposes, like picking up a Roving Gorgon Beast and putting it in your roommate's bed. MIMIC: A monster that pretends to be a treasure chest. Apparently they have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for adventurers to come by every few hundred years. SABATONS: If you don't know what these are yet, you can just leave. DEXTERITY: We don't know what it does either. You should probably keep raising it just to be safe. PASSIVE-AGRESSIVE: When your roommate tans leather in the bathroom, or when your nestmate 'Accidentally' incinerates all of your hatchlings with white-hot flames.