I popped out from under the table. "Is it over yet?" I asked.
"Yes, no thanks to you!" Replied the stranger. He and Carrie the healer were tending to the semi-concious drunk who'd stood up to the toenailers.
"Word of advice my friend, grow eyes in the back of your head, the toenailers will be back in greater numbers. Also they never, never fight fair."
"We will be ready for them," replied the stranger. Odd way to talk. Maybe he was using the royal 'we'. Could he be a prince? Or was he just nuts?
Something had scared the toenailers off true enough. I'm not sure it was the paladin however. From under the table I'd seen a shape moving off behind them. No shadow, simply OF shadow. There was a soft rushing noise too. Like the breath of wind before a hurricane. It had scared the life out of poor old handy. More composed I realised that Bob had gone off to the cellar for more beer. I nipped behind the bar and relieved the barrel of mead of a little more of its contents. Seth grinned at me. I winked back.
The most disturbing thing I'd seen in the whole event was a hooded man who had killed one of the toenailers by simply pointing at him! How the hell did that work? I've wished to do that for years! Still, most of the town would be dead by now if I could do that.....
There was one other thing when I saw him leave amidst a flurry of pig-dung. Could've sworn I saw a skeletal foot sticking out of his cloak. Death never looked like that before! Belive me, I've seen him more than once!
The drunk, who's name I could not recall regained conciousness. Thanked Carrie for healing him and staggered off to bed. Carrie looked beautiful today. Well, she always did. However she never gave me a second glance.
"Come over for a drink Carrie! The night is young!" I blurted out. Did I say that?
"Huh, not a chance!" she muttered, giving me a glare with her half-elven bluer than blue eyes, "freak!" She muttered walking briskly out of the bar.
Pah! Women.... I hunched upon the bar and decided to return to killing brain cells.
The soul of the dead toenailer had risen from the corpse. This one was a 'shocked' spirit. I'd seen them before. They would stare for hours at their own corpse, refusing to belive the inevitable. More often than not they'd follow it around till the funeral or in this fellow's case, till the body was dumped in the river. Once they realised what had happened Death would come to take them away. The real death, white horse, big scythe and all. Not like the odd fellow I'd seen today.
"You're still alive then!" Bob chirped as he returned from the cellar.
"Yes indeed, how long were you down there anyway?"
"Er..."
"Never mind!" I said with a laugh. Then becoming more stern, "They'll be back you know. I don't know what will happen now."
"I know," Bob replied. "I'll be lucky to have a bar left at this rate!"
I looked around suveying the damage. "Not bad, Jilly the serving wench will have it back up to ship-shape condition in no time! OW!"
Jilly clipped me round the ear.
"Less of the 'wench' you! Get that thing off the bar!"
"Down boy!" I said to Handy. Handy scuttled off, searching for someone else to annoy.
Last edited by Womble; 06/04/04 03:16 PM.
