The Mageslinger

The Mageslinger.

A tiny dust devil swirled into existence as the wind whipped through the grassland. Very little else moved on the barren landscape, except for a man in a black duster and wide brimmed hat which was also black. In fact most of his outfit was black, except for a blue scarf which twirled behind his back.
Other than that, he wore nothing else, as if nothing out there concerned him.
And perhaps nothing did as the wind nearly took his hat off his head, but his hand nearly blurred as it grabbed it and kept it on his head.
However this didn’t break his stride as he came to the top of the hill over looking a run down village.
A few chimneys spewed smoke up into the air, which the wind was blowing away from him.
His mouth twitched into a smirk as he came to a stop and stood looking down at the town.
Re-adjusting his hat he started to stride towards the town again.

The stench could almost be seen in the air of the saloon, it was strong with whiskey and body odor. A dwarf sat behind a piano, which nearly screamed, every time he hit one of the keys.
The saloon wasn’t that full, which made the stench even more disturbing.
This was the atmosphere which the man in the wide brimmed hat and black duster walked into.
He paused and scanned the crowd before moving to the bar. He leaned against it and slipped a golden eyrir out of his pocket. He waved it towards the bar tender.
“Sir?” The bar tender asked as he moved towards him.
“Bottle of whiskey.”
“That’s too much, it’s only thirty silver.”
“Keep it.” He remarked flipping the coin towards him.
The bar tender jerked as he barely caught the coin, nodded, then shifted to the right and grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the back shelve and placed it before the man in black.
He smirked as he picked the bottle up and waved the glass away. Pausing again to scan the room he moved towards a darker corner away from the majority of people and sat down at a table, after reversing the chair.
With a flick of his finger he popped the cork of the bottle and indulged on a good amount of whiskey.
The warmth of the alcohol spread through his body and he closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling as long as he could.
As he sat enjoying the warmth spreading through his body, he felt a spark of electricity shimmer along his spine and his eyes sprang open.
He lifted his head and the light reflected off his smoke kissed glasses as he scanned the saloon again, and saw a group of men eyeing him from one of the tables.
Five. Examining them he could pin point the leader, he was bigger and brutish, possibly a half orc. Though that would be insulting to other half orcs.
At least the ones he’d met on his travels.
Overall he would ignore the group, and get to the matter of hand, which was to consume the whiskey he’d just purchased, but they’d set off his wards, and he’d be a fool to ignore his wards.
` He glanced back at his whiskey bottle, though he kept the group in his peripheral vision.
He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig of it again as he debated what to do.
His left hand slipped down beneath the table, and he started to gather energy into his fist.
He snickered as he saw the group stand, the large one first, then the others.
He had pegged the leader of the group alright.
He waited for them to get closer, pretending to take no notice, until they stood on the other side of the table.
“Gentlemen.”
“I haven’t seen you in town.”
“Nope, just passing through.”
“Interesting that, see the boys and I were discussing the fact that you slid past our toll takers outside the city.”
As the man kept talking he brought his left hand up and released the magic he had stored up, Bolts of energy slashed through the air, blasting into the man’s head, spraying blood and brain onto the two guys behind him.
The entire saloon grew deathly quiet, enough that the sound of dripping blood echoed through out it.
“Oh sorry, I don’t like to wait, it’s more exciting to skip to the actual fight instead of talking.”
The four remaining members of the group stared at him stunned, one of them even took a step backwards.
The man in black leaned back and raised his left hand again, a glowing sphere of energy formed in front of his index finger. The energy pulsated and hummed throughout the saloon.
“Nothing? Alright then, here’s the deal gentlemen, I’m in a good mood. So I’ll let ya’ll live just this once.”
They stood still, almost hesitantly, till he fired the bolt of energy at their feet making them jump and scatter out the door.
The man in black smirked as he slipped out another gold eyrir and tossed it towards the bar, which the bar tender caught in his hand.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“Thanks.”
The man sounded so dry and sarcastic that the man in black tilted the bottle of whiskey towards him before downing a little more.
As soon as he put the bottle down his smirk became wider, turning more into a grin as a woman reversed the chair beside him and sat down.
“Why did you do that Obadiah.”
“It was going to happen anyway, like I said I hate the talk before the fight.”
“You know that their going to come back, and with more.”
“You worry to much Silver.”
“When they come for you, I’m not helping you.”
“How is that different.”
She turned to face him directly and gave him a nasty look before reaching out and taking his whiskey bottle away from him downing the rest of the contents.
“That wasn’t cheep you know.”
“Not my fault if you over pay.”
He reached out and took the empty bottle and examined it before putting it down on the table.
“Not that I’m un-happy to see you or be back in Ore Town, but I wouldn’t be here if your letter hadn’t mentioned a job.”
“Well if you’d stop killing the local goons you might have a better experience here.”
“Always new faces when I visit, but that’s not an answer.”
She leaned onto the back of her chair, and he noted her tri-barrel pistol resting against her shapely hips, and felt himself become distracted. Even lifting his glasses to get a better view of her legs. She was wearing some very nice form fitting leggings. He always enjoyed the fact that she never wore dresses, he wouldn’t be able to admire her legs if she did.
“Hey, do you want to hear about the job or stare at my legs?”
“I can do both.”
“Right, we’ve been down this road, besides the job I have lined up is very lucrative.”
He paused in his examination and looked back up to lock eyes with her. They were still pale blue, and full of deceit, enough that he wasn’t sure if he could believe her last statement.
Though, his violet eyes more than likely were filled with as much deceit as her own, and he let his glasses fall again as a smile spread across his face.
“Lucrative you say?”
“The person paying the bill is quite wealthy.”
He too leaned against the back off his chair placing his chin on his folded arms.
“So what does this job entail.”
“Transporting the mayor’s daughter to the Cathedral of the Moon in
Independence City.”
He leaned back and his smile disappeared.
“Really an escort mission. Escorting a cleric, I don’t need that kind of irritation.”
“Not even for a hundred platinum eyrirs.”
“No one would pay that much to transport their child.”
“He would if the gangs have taken over most of this town, and have threatened to kill him and his family.”
“So more than likely we would deal with a large amount of canon fodder.”
“Well one less now.”
“Wonderful. How are they controlling most of the town, their useless.”
“A lot of cannon fodder can be effective.”
“So you an I against an army of cannon fodder that has taken over half of this town, I think this job is sounding more and more foolhardy.”
“It’s not just you and me, he’s also hired a group of mercenaries.”
“Which group?”
“The Brotherhood of the Hawk.”
“Yeah, I’m going to pass, I’m not working with the group who want my head on a silver plate.”
“They won’t start anything when money is on the line.”
“Right because feuds get put on hold when money is involved.”
“They are when a lot of money is.”
“This has all the ingredients of becoming complete chaos.”
“Are you in?”
“…Yes.”

His magical shield shook as bullets rained against it, the little daughter of the mayor griping his leg, and that was a fun surprise when he found out how young she was, as they huddled behind a pile of dirt.
He hated jobs that went south, he hated kids, and he hated only getting paid half up front. And he hated the Brotherhood of the Hawk.
But there was one thing he was enjoying during this whole mess.
He scanned around them, and saw one of the Brotherhood not taking cover, and raised his finger launching a bolt of energy at him. The Brotherhood’s head snapped back in a spray of blood before he crumpled to the ground.
“Silver, when we get out of this remind me to discuss with you what constitutes an easy job.”
He turned to look at her as she cocked her shotgun. She glared at him, before she raised the it, took aim and fired at another pile of dirt.
The pellets hit the dirt, exploding into a giant fireball, launching three members of the Brotherhood into the air screaming as fire engulfed them.
“How was I supposed to know the Brotherhood would try and kill the girl.”
“Mercenaries.”
He raised his hand launching multiple bolts of energy in a semi-circle in front of him.
He was rewarded with cries of anguish, which forced him to smile, but he nearly tripped as the little girl gripped him tighter.
“Seriously, get this little leach off of me.”
He looked at Silver again, and suppressed a desire to smack the smug smile off her face.
“I wouldn’t want to deprive her of her security blanket.”
“Every-time, this is why I don’t like any jobs you con me into.”
He looked back towards the group and sighed as the current leader of the Brotherhood stood up. He debated launching a ball of energy at him, but it would be a waste, he was pretty sure he too had a magical shield up.
“Obadiah Jonah Shadow and Silver D. Amor. How bout we stop this, you give us the kid and we let you live. You’ve already been paid half, it’s a win win for you.”
He looked over at Silver, who was trying to not laugh. He felt the same way. They were trying to seriously talk them into letting them kill a child.
He lifted his hand and started to gather as much energy as he could, it started to pulsate and glow with intense thermal energy. He launched it skyward, then unclenched the little girl from his leg and handed her to Silver before walking to the top of the dirt pile.
“So if I understand you, you’ll let us walk away if we let you kill the kid?”
He started to gather energy in both hands as he started talking.
“It’s a job, we were paid to kill her, it’s nothing personal, and besides we’ll do it quick unlike anyone else who would be paid to do it.”
“You’ve also been paid to keep her safe on her journey.”
“Yes, but we were paid to kill her first. It’s just an added bonus that her father paid us.”
He couldn’t help it, his anger sky rocketed, and he launched two bolts of energy at the leader.
They hit the magical shield sending rainbow sparks into the air when they hit.
He knew that would happen though and as his earlier thermal energy ball fell in front of him he grabbed it, circling with momentum, and launched it.
It too smashed against the shield, but the heat from the impact was not physical, and the leader screamed as his flesh melted from his body.
He beamed as not just the leader started to scream, other members of the Brotherhood behind him leapt into the air, their own flesh in various degrees of burning off.
“I also hate sub-par wizards.” He remarked, part of him happy that the Brotherhood magic users didn’t understand the physics of magic.
They should have created a shield that protected against more than just physical attacks. But they didn’t.
The stench of burning flesh assaulted his senses, and he moved back down the pile of dirt.
“Time to go.”
Silver nodded, a slight frown on her face.
“What?”
“Overkill?”
“Hey they wanted to kill that thing.” He countered pointing at the kid.
“Point, another thought, their not all dead.”
“Yeah, but they’ll either think twice about attacking us, or wait till we’ve made camp. Either way, I don’t want to keep smelling burned flesh.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Theirs.”
She smirked at him as she readjusted the little girl before jogging away from their dirt pile. He followed behind her, hopefully they could find their stupid horses, and all of their supplies.

Vari and Hali sat under the pine trees deep in the woods, their hands intertwined. They had decided to go for a walk today, the weather had been perfect for it.
They had of course lost time, and where under cover of the trees, so the screams of terror and fear that were so loud to penetrate the forest unsettled their quiet rather forcefully.
Both leapt to their feet and ran through the trees towards their village, and came upon a terrible sight.
Their village was on fire, the smoke blocking out the setting sun.
Both looked distraughtly at the other before they ran forwards, oblivious to their surroundings.
So when two humans stood, they had no time to react, and Vari went flying into the air from one of them swinging a club across her face.
Hali felt her world shatter and ran to her as the other human smacked his companion in the shoulder.
“Damn-it Nathan we’re supposed to take the alive.”
“Not my fault Kiefers are fragile.”
“It doesn’t help if you smack them in the face with clubs.”
As the two men argued Hali cradled Vari’s head in her lap, her heart pounded as Vari’s eyes fluttered.
Blood seeped from the wound on her forehead, and one of her eyes had a bruise forming, but she was breathing and still alive.
The men walked over to her, and she looked up at them terrified as they blocked out the remaining light that was filtering through the smoke.
They were huge.
“Well look at that she’s still alive.”
“Well isn’t that a good thing for you.”
“Oh you think Gamaliel would care if some of these half-people were killed?”
“He would since we want money and supplies from them.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright, then you deal with her.”
The other man sighed and bent down examining Vari. Hali wanted to stop him, but she was terrified. The man saw her fear.
“Relax, I’m just going to fix her up.”
He reached out and examined the wound on her forehead before he pulled out a healing kit.
He took out supplies and dabbed the blood from her forehead before wrapping her head as gently as he could.
Hali sat there, anger and shame burned through her, she wanted to lash out, but she had no idea how to help Vari, she was helpless.
“Here, get her to chew this herb, it should help with her concussion and swelling.”
He held out a bag of dried leaves which she took.
“We can’t move her yet, so we’ll stay here until we can move her.” He remarked standing up.
“Really, don’t you think your being to cautious.”
“I would rather her not die. Besides it’s not like we’re supposed to leave this spot.”
“Sometime you can be annoying Ulrik.”
“Suck it up.”
Hali ignored them as best as she could as she helped Vari chew the herbs the one named Ulrik had given her.
She felt like shaking, but her torrent of emotions kept her steady. She caressed Vari’s cheek, her fingers sliding upwards to brush her auburn colored hair from her face and behind her long leaf shape ear.
“Please be okay.” She whispered placing her forehead gently to Vari’s.