Chapter Eight

Never A Dull Moment

Looking down into the town of Westfall from a nearby hilltop, the five bold adventurers surveyed the town of Westfall by moonlight. A makeshift wooden fence surrounded the eastern side, curling round the northern and southern edges. Scattered throughout the town were dark grey tents. There were no lights in any of the buildings save one, an impressive stone structure on the eastern side. The other wooden buildings appeared dark and abandoned. Just then, movement was spotted on the main path through the town, and sure enough two battle-ready Orcs were on patrol.

“Three weeks,” grimaced Father Herman, “before anyone comes to help us. How can we hope to take on so many of them?”

There were shrugs all round as people desperately thought of a suitable plan to which would help them. Everyone had good ideas, but they were quite simply countered by an obvious flaw. Whether it was to wait for daylight to get a better idea of the lay of the town, or try to use the night cover for a sneaky advantage, there didn’t appear to be any particularly flawless avenue of action. Until…

“There is one other option,” spoke up Ivan, who had mostly been quiet up until then.

Everyone turned to face him. Ivan, enjoying the moment of attention drew out the pause as long as he could. “Quite simply, we need to investigate the town without being caught, and that’s easily done with the aid of my superior magical skills.”

Jack did a double take. El-Shad drummed his fingers across his longbow.

With a flourish, Ivan pulled out a tatty looking parchment from a scroll tube. “Behold! The answer to our conundrum! A magical scroll of polymorph self, to make one of us appear as an Orc! One of us can volunteer to be transformed, then they can investigate the town and….”

“Hang on,” interrupted Father Herman, “you said polymorph self?”

“That’s correct,” replied Ivan, matter of factly.The corners of Father Herman’s mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly, and then the realisation of who the target of the scroll must be dawned on Ivan.

“Ah. Damn. That’ll be me, then.”

With a sigh that quite clearly communicated that he may regret this, Ivan released the power of the scroll. His skin darkened, his ears enlarged, and some of his bottom teeth grew into pointy fangs. His bottom jaw extended to the tune of grinding bones…

“Urgh!” whispered El-Shad.

“I feel so dirty,” gasped Ivan-the-Orc. He wobbled a bit on his new legs, but soon got the hang of his larger frame. After poking his fingers in his ears and running his hands across his face he set out into Westfall.

The first house that caught Ivan-the-Orc’s attention appeared to be a smithy. Another Orc was busy working away hammering out arrowheads. Perhaps a dozen or so had been finished and were hanging up in quivers. A large pile of silver ore was near this Orc who was presumably using this metal to forge weapons. Ivan didn’t know much about blacksmithing, but the Orc seemed to be quite adept at the task.

Moving on through the town, Ivan-the-Orc passed the lake and headed up the main road. Some way off to his right he noticed a chapel like building, so walked over to investigate. Taking note of the holy symbol to describe to Father Herman later, Ivan-the-Orc stepped inside the chapel to find a larger Orc looting the building. Making the conversation as short as possible, he retreated back outside.

Following the road to the left, he squinted through the half-light before realising he didn’t need to squint at all. It seemed that Ivan-the-Orc’s night time vision was better than Ivan’s. Ivan-the-Orc had to chuckle at himself. The respected noble was now in the form of a disgusting Orc, spying in a town many leagues from home. Ivan-the-Orc had to quickly push away the self-indulgent thoughts when he came across the entrance to the mine. He observed four Orcs standing guard looking outwards, and two more standing guard looking inwards. The disassembled bolt thrower was also lying outside the mine entrance.

Making mental notes of what he’d seen, there was one more building of interest he wanted to investigate. Ivan-the-Orc followed the road as it turned southwards towards the stone building. Fortunately, the large heraldic symbol on the gates was familiar to Ivan-the-Orc. It was The Firecrest Trading Company. The FTC was a kingdom wide trading house that had points of representation almost everywhere. Your veritable General Store chain…

Ivan-the-Orc had seen enough for a decent report to the others, so headed back.

El-Shad suddenly realised that they wouldn’t know if it was Ivan in Orc form or whether it was a real Orc, but the manner in which this brown skinned creature was approaching suggested the safer scenario.

“Well?” asked Erica, unsure of what to do.

Ivan-the-Orc seemed to pause a moment, then look down and left, then tilt his head. He didn’t reply at first, “Probably forgotten how to cancel the spell,” thought Father Herman, but was soon presented with a normal looking Ivan again.

“I don’t want to do that again anytime soon!” proclaimed Ivan, rubbing his jaw. “It felt like I had wood for brains!”

Ivan quickly brought the rest of the group up to speed with his observations. “Ah,” Father Herman spoke up in response to the description of the chapel’s holy symbol, “Megallius the Merchant!” before launching into one of his lengthy explanations.

“The Merchant teaches His followers the value of aspiration and hard work. It is a common misapprehension that they prize wealth. In actuality, His followers value success in all fields of endeavour. The Merchant is sometimes portrayed as a tiny bird carrying a vast branch with which to make a nest. It is however true that many of the followers of the Merchant are merchants, traders or craftsmen. The devotees of the Merchant know that hardship is the price that must be paid to justify the trappings of success without guilt. Those who have faced hardship, and been defeated by it, do not deserve to reap the benefits of the success that has eluded them. The priests of the Merchant believe that if everyone strives to accomplish everything they are capable of then all hardship and evil will be banished from the world; while if everyone ceases to work and strive, then the world will fall into idleness and ruin.”

Only a stifled yawn from Jack made Father Herman falter, “I guess the rest can wait until another time.”

“We’re still no closer to a plan though,” wondered El-Shad, getting impatient. It was time for action, and there was nothing but setbacks and choices to be made.

“Cut off the head,” said Jack to no one in particular, “and the body shall soon follow. I believe our best course of action is in taking out the chieftain.” He continued to expand on his plan. Jack would sneak around the camp, looking for the boss, and on finding him he would wait for an opportune moment before striking, then retreating. Hopefully in the ensuing chaos would there be further opportunity to take down more of them.

“I suspect the chieftain has taken residence in the Firecrest Trading House,” advised Ivan, “So I would suggest that…” Ivan suddenly stopped talking as he realised Jack had already vanished into the darkness on his mission.

“He’s good!” stated El-Shad with a smile.

“So what’s next?” asked Erica, flexing her bow and notching an arrow. The heroes formulated a plan to cover the best avenues of arrow fire, should the need arise. Erica moved to the west side of town to cover the FTC building, El-Shad covered the smithies, whilst Ivan and Herman moved back to provide support where required.

They had a good strategy. They were ready for a battle.

They were prepared for bad things to happen.

And, surely enough, it did.