In a windowless tavern, Goor the Undubbed sat by himself on a stool with uneven legs, his sack of gold tied tightly to his wrist as he drank. Sweet honey lingered on his tongue, followed by a residual taste of rust, all a result of metal comprising the majority of his innards. No matter what he ingested, that taste would always accompany if not outright dominate the other tastes that came before it. This too he had learned to ignore. He finished his bird carcass and left it sitting on the table.
It had been hours since he fed his tripede. The creature could wait for just a while longer but he knew better than to risk having it roam for its own food. He would not be welcome in this tavern again if that were to happen. And yet he remained seated, knowing that taverns, inns and dispensaries, here in the bloating world, were as common as maggots and parasites in an expired body.
The tall barmaid, her head a few inches away from scraping the stone ceiling, was seen hauling away a pair of barrels, filled to the brim with grog, with her veiny pimpled arms to an alcove leading downstairs. Fellow patrons form a wriggling blockade around him, lifting each other’s good spirits in a manner that meld their minds and coordinations together until they collectively resemble a single thriving organism, rowdily weaving through the tables and pillars of the establishment like a sentient centipede. Goor wrinkled his non-existent brows at their joy.
Another patron entered the tavern and Goor could feel the mood shift ever so slightly. Facing the wall of merry occupants, he eyed a black shape that slipped from crevice to crevice, never staying still, always mobilizing anytime his gaze tried to rest on its hunched frame until it was in front of him. The shape in question was a disheveled man in a cloak, a horrendously-looking thing that would do nature a disservice if it was to be labeled a man and so a shape it was to be called.
“You are Goor?” The shape asked.
“No,” Goor replied.
“You look enough like him. I suppose you will do.”
A dagger thrusted into Goor’s chest. In quick succession, Goor grabbed the assassin’s arm before it could leave the weapon’s handle, roughly pulling it closer. With his opponent off-balance, Goor pulled back his fist and shot forward, dousing the assassin’s skull with his own sloshing brain matter. His would-be killer stumbled back but he did not fall. Instead, he shambled away, the other patrons patting him on the back like he was one of their own. The door slammed shut. The ordeal hadn’t left a single ripple on the patrons’ mood in the slightest, assuming they even registered what had transpired.
Goor observed the dagger’s blade planted in his chest. As it only impaled a non-flesh part of his body, it was of no immediate concern to him. He could have it removed at a later time. The sigil that was on the blade, however, did catch his attention. It was a symbol for the thieves’ guild that had employed him a while back. They needed the door to some fortress open and so summoned him in the middle of the night to come and open it for them. He was drowsy on the details but he remembered how he should have charged them more if only he realized the scale of their operations. He never asked for their name.
Finding it difficult to pursue the thought further, Goor decided to leave the blade in his chest until he returned home to properly examine it. He left a couple more coins on the table as he went outside. The cobblestone streets were pelted with rain and as he had predicted, his tripede was nowhere to be found. No doubt it had already begun to hunt for itself. But just as Goor was about to give chase, a strange pain tugged at his abdomen, a sensation completely divorced from the dagger in his body.
He hurried to the nearest privy, intending to empty the contents of his stomach but just as he reached it, the chamber was already occupied. In a matter of seconds, he collapsed, grasping at his tightening stomach, groaning. It was all but clear to him that the bird carcass was at fault. In his lack of attentiveness, he had failed to notice the smell that had wafted from the thing before he proceeded to eat it. With his privilege of hindsight, he knew the carcass had expired and he knew he should have asked the barmaid to return it once he made that observation. Seething in his own foolish mistake, Goor cursed the universe as he died in front of the privy, preventing the person inside from exiting.
Goor found himself in the dark again, falling. The pain in his stomach remained. He felt no wind on his back, only the same tide of dread that took hold of him before, one which he had failed to wrench back into his mind as the great expanse came pouring out, ensnaring him. Burning water slammed into him and he awoke on the hard, uneven steps.
He stumbled to his feet and took in his environment. He was back on the steps of the very same tower, amid the same ruins, huddled in the same chasm he had supposedly departed from a day ago. From his flat deathbed of cobblestones to the cradle of uneven stone steps, the drastic transition of it all was enough to make him sick. No dream or fantasy in his lifetime was able to do that before. As if his stupor had persisted from the now-absent tavern, Goor carried himself up the steps to meet with the conjurer who stationed himself in front of his door exactly like the last time Goor was here. His rune pulsated once more.
“A tad late, are we?” He spoke, his voice still marinated with ash and smoke, his bag of gold in hand.
“Some forces…” Goor said, realizing that his voice was quieter than it needed to be, “It appeared some forces had decided to bring me back here.”
“Yes, yes,” The conjurer said, “Now unlock the door please, good sir.”
“You locked yourself out again?”
“Again? I do not believe I have ever asked for you before.”
Goor paused and looked at him.
“I came across a monster on my way here,” Goor said, “A wretched thing with a spiked tail. Did you know about this?”
“I cannot say that I do. I never set foot on the stairs to be frank. I move from roof to roof. I apologize if anything inconvenienced you.” From his tone, it was exceedingly clear that the conjurer knew well and truly nothing, only waiting impatiently for his door to be unlocked. Speaking with clients had never been Goor’s strong suit, especially if said client would visibly abstain from any discussions at all from the way they stand a few feet apart from him in silent, passionless expressions. Usually a terse greeting would precede him opening a lock as he was assigned to, followed by payment and departure. On an occasion such as this, Goor found his own senses dwindling with every word that left his lips.
“Are you listening? There was a monster down there! For whatever reason, it is gone now. I opened this door and departed a day ago. Then I was slain by an assassin and somehow miraculously transported here as if nothing had happened.”
Before Goor could continue, the conjurer unzipped his left thigh, revealing a small secret compartment in his flesh. Another bag full of gold coins sat inside. He lifted out his bag, zipping up his thigh and dangled it for Goor to see.
“If I handed you this, would you work faster?”
Goor was silent.
“I had no idea how long it usually takes for you to do your job,” the conjurer continued. “I assume it would be an arduous one so if you were to accept this – I expect it to be done within the hour.”
On any occasion, it would take but a split second for his rune to react to the lock’s enchantment and click it open. Goor stopped talking and stoically accepted the offer. He placed his rune hand on the handle and stood in place for ten to fifteen minutes while the conjurer watched. His other hand casted gestures against the handle. A few more minutes passed before he allowed the door to open. Goor reunited with his tripede, two bags of gold in hand.
The sun had stuffed its head into the dunes. Goor headed directly for home, not stopping for any taverns. He was to make food of any moving thing he had caught on his way to the shore and yet his stomach was filled with a wretched sense of unease, fattened with vague fears that he could not put into words. And so he caught nothing. Conversely, his doubled amount of coins jingled on his two strong wrists, signaling the worth of a closing day. Trotting down the unmarked slopes, Goor reached the secluded shore where his living space resided.
Goor led the tripede to its hole stationed on the beach, wide enough to fit three human bodies, deep enough for the creature’s bright skin to blend cleanly with the dark. After ensuring that the thing made no attempt to leave its hole, he hiked along the beach by himself.
A tall hill sat at the farthest end of the sand strip. Up there on the hilltop, Goor’s keep, impenetrable yet quaint in its architecture, teetered on the edge of the cliff, its sleeping hindquarters jutted over the blackened waters, besieged by teasing waves that merely humor the idea of knocking it down, never committing themselves fully to the cause. With weary hands, Goor climbed the rock face of aged limestone until his rune hand nudged open the hatch leading into his living space. He took additional care in guiding his weighty steps across the fragile wooden floor lest it collapsed on him again. He waded past his shelves of unkempt knick-knacks, past the translucent cauldron and past the bowl that contained his unused bones, until he reached another hidden hatch at the opposite end of his home. The hatch itself was obscured by a pile of dead pests that acted as his guard; its stench meant to ward off any scheming invaders. He squatted down to unlock it with his rune to reveal his hovel of riches, a moderately-sized mound of gold and silver. Two bags of gold were plopped onto the hoard before he closed the hatch, resealing it automatically.
Goor moved to the window overseeing the sky and the ocean. By this late hour, they were one and the same, if not for the occasional glint of the rolling waves to distinguish them even those had proven to wane by the hour until the outside world was nothing but a flat black canvas. In any case, what was once a comforting view of the night was no longer as affable as he would have wanted. He pretended to see a few glistening stars in the distance as he leaned out the window to check the correspondence box nailed to the outer wall of his keep. Of those who were not as high-minded enough in the arcane arts to locate him by his rune (his privacy was never guaranteed), they were to manually send him job requests via flying messengers of their choice. How long this process took depended massively on the flying creature in question and where it came from. Goor plunged his hand into the box. Most often, they were filled with requests yet just as often, animal wastes.
This instance, however, Goor felt not a single paper or document, but a cluster of sharp needles, somewhat piercing his hand but not deep enough to cause any lasting damage. Removing his hand from the box proved to be impossible as the needles were barring his hand from exiting. Goor thus found himself in an awkward position, his torso hanging above the steep cliff, his right hand sticking to the box on the outer wall and his left hand pushing against the rotting windowsill.
Another sharp object landed on his back, piercing the place where his heart should be if not for the fact that he had it moved elsewhere in his body. Goor craned his head around to find the perpetrator. Cloaked in an unseemly robe, it was none other than the assassin from the tavern, having somehow followed or waited for him here wordlessly. For Goor, this was not an uncommon occurrence and he recognized that sooner rather than later, he would need to find the means to have his rune not be as easily traceable by those of higher powers. In the instance of being presently stabbed in the back multiple times, Goor’s attention had not yet coagulated to fully focus on the man with the dagger.
After a fifth or so stab, in a hazy state of mind akin to being awoken in the midst of dreaming, Goor, with his free hand, swatted and pawed at his attacker, beckoning him to leap back with his weapon. In a stroke of inventive improvisation, Goor yanked one floorboard beneath him and wielded it like a makeshift sword. However, as he realized he hated using weapons, he changed his mind and threw the board instead, aimed squarely at the assassin’s head. The assassin evaded the projectile and closed the distance between him and his target quickly, advancing to the latter’s right hand side. Here, Goor’s right limb was powerless and his left limb couldn’t hope to bend its elbow backwards to grab him. Sensing no other options, Goor hopped and slammed his metal feet onto the rickety wooden floor with such aggression that he sank beneath his house and directly launched himself down the cliff, accelerating towards the dark ocean, his attacker falling a few feet after him, in a state of visible stress. Goor dug his free hand into the rock face, thankfully within his reach. A long downward trail of unearthed limestone rested at his burned bloodied left hand. He glanced at his right hand. It was still lodged in the box, having been torn from its hinges as soon as Goor smashed through the floor.
The hill rippled as Goor slammed his boxed fist against it in a repeating droning rhythm. The swaths of water below shivered and scattered at the shockwaves of his strikes. Eventually, the box melted away but the needles remained sunken into his flesh. They were beginning to hurt. He glanced down to find the assassin afloat on the water, his stringy limbs pointing in wildly improbable directions as his body was carried away into the forbidding void. Tiny wooden splinters landed on Goor’s shoulders, followed by a number of miscellaneous items: his lantern, his woolen socks and his old femur among other things. He shifted his sight upward to find his own keep, on the verge of collapse. Undoubtedly, his prior punches against the hill had finally rattled his home’s foundation to its very limits and hence, the supporting beams had given way to a giant careening death heap advancing stridently towards Goor’s puny frame. He could have leapt to the side of the hill quickly. Or for a riskier way , he could leap into the ocean and hoped to negate the impact. But his hands remained on the rocks, unmoving in the house’s path. His livelihood and all of his belongings were to be claimed by the sea and all the patience he had accumulated was to be again wagered against whatever thousands of ordeals he may have to endure in the future. In a stroke of pure resignation, Goor did nothing as his house made first contact with his head.
Goor floated in the dark. He could still feel the needles searing into his arm. Something burned against his spine and then he was back on those same uneven steps in the ruins. He frowned.