Ramblings of an Old Hero

By Lazar "Dr. Stupendo" Janus

(lordlazypants on FanFiction)

(lordhirosuke on DeviantArt)

My name is Wilhelm. But most call me Will (ironic, because that was my weakest area of combat). Once I was a great hero. Skorm's craggy ass, I killed Jack of Blades! Twice! But that was years ago. Oh so many years ago. Now I'm just an old man. Sure, I'm a large, muscular, rich old man. But I don't do anything special any more. I look after my grandkids (Will III! Get your hands out of that trophy Balverine head's mouth this instant! The last thing we need is for there to be two hairy people in this house!), wish my sweet wife was still with me (ah, sweet Jenny, how she loved to spend my money on resurrection phial's for me) , and reminisce about my past . Mostly my child hood, and my time at the guild (I think I miss Whisper the most, our rivalry was one of the only happy things in my life). All my adventuring I don't bother thinking about. It feels like it was just yesterday. Sure, it wasn't; it was way too long ago. I'm around 130 years old now (though with some nice donations to Avo, I've got the body of a 58 year old man), I finished my adventures by 61.

But I guess you want to hear about my youth, not me in my old age. WELL DEAL WITH IT SCRAWNY! Nah, I'm just yanking your chain kid. I won't talk about to many of my adventures, but I will talk about my youth. Let's start with my time as a Guild Apprentice, why don't we?

"Farm boy, get your scrawny butt over here!" shouted Whisper, the closest thing I had to an actual friend here. The way I usually followed her around led most of the other apprentices and servants to think I fancied her, but the truth of the matter was, she was more of a replacement to the sister I had lost. Sure, she treated me with very little respect as a person, but she respected me as a rival. It was enough for me.

"Whisper, why won't you just call me Wilhelm like everyone else? I'm not even from a farm!" I whined. I always was a whiny child back then. Drove the guild master, Maze, and definitely Whisper bonkers half the time. That was probably why I did it. Unless I had a real reason to be whiney. What? Get back to the story? Don't sass me you scrawny piece of-sorry. I'll get on with it.

"Because, Fahm boi, Wilhelm is no name for a hero, or even an apprentice hero for that matter." she replied, putting too much stress on her nickname for me. Avo's saggy left nut she drove me nutters some times. Right, right, back to the story

"But my father named me that! It was my grandfather's name! He was one of the greatest bards of all time! I even have his rhyming skills!" I was about to recite my famous bit of poetry, about how I imagine Thunder got his name (the poem involved flatulence), but alas, she cut me off

"I've heard that poem about my brother before Farm Boy. Cut it out. We're going to the woods. I think I saw bandits there again." she said, pulling up her hood, and motioning for me to do the same. "Roll in the dirt a bit. It'll help make it easier for you to blend in with the shadows. Better than we could with these pristine white robes." she finished muttering, as she wadded into the shrubbery beside the path leading to the gate way to the woods.

"You woke me up in the middle of the night to go do some guard's job?" I replied, slightly peeved, as I followed her into the shrubbery and began rolling around "The Guild Master is going to have my head for this. This was my last clean set of robes." I muttered, getting my clothes good and dirty before getting back up, and pulling out my bow. I had won that cross bow a few years earlier, but I never liked crossbows. They took way too long to reload, and the bow was such a better weapon in my opinion.

"Oh, shut up Farm Boy and follow me you big worrywart. Those Bandits won't know what hit them." She grinned from beneath her hood, and slinked off to the woods. She always was good at being stealthy. It was her strong point. I was always more of a 'charge in and take them down quickly' kinda guy, even when I was a scrawny little teenager. Of course, I only looked scrawny. I was short back then, and they didn't have robes quite in my size, so my robes always looked over sized and made me look scrawny, but I was just as muscular as any other apprentice my maybe two or three years older than me. I was just short. Didn't have my growth spurt until I was 19. Ow! Stuart! Tell your wife to stop hitting me! Waddya mean if it means she's not hitting you, you don't care! I taught you better than that! Bah! Back to the story.

Any way, we were in the woods, Whisper slinking about, and me, well, I was trying my best to be stealthy. Took me years to get good at being stealthy. I think it was around the time I was thirty. Bah, back to the story.

We were in the woods now, right near where the beetles nest used to be, when we see about twenty bandits, plus a captain. Now, I'm sitting there thinking, 'Skorm's Brow! How in Avo's name are we going to get out of this one!' when Whisper turns to me, looks me in the eye with her big, brown, chocolaty eyes that had almost the entire male population of our age group at the guild going right on randy, and gives me this look that says 'I swear to Avo and Skorm and Jack of Blades, and Archon, if you so much as mess this up I will come back to life, bring you back to life and kill you!' and I understood that. Hell, I nearly soiled my briefs from that look.

Anyway, Whisper starts to turn around slowly and silently as she could and make her way out of there and get the Guild Master, or Maze, or whoever she could get while I sat there, my legs were num. I couldn't move if I wanted to. Yeah, this is the kid who will one day kill's Jack of Blades, not once but twice. The kid can't even move at the sight of a few bandits. Well, bandits were a traumatic thing for him. He'd, oh hell I'm going back to saying 'I' now, I'd seen bandits kill my father and raze my village. At this point I was still afraid of them. I hadn't thought I was, but it turns out I was. 'Oh shit….what'm I gonna do…what'm I gonna do!' I sat there thinking to myself. I was about to try and follow Whisper back when one saw me. Thankfully, Whisper had gotten away by then, but shit, I was found out!

"Oi! T'ere's an ikkle'un!" one of the bandits shouted, pointing at me. Now, most people would have tried to flee. Most Apprentice Hero's would have tried to fight. I froze. I had gone rock solid and froze; my bow in one hand, an arrow in the other. Not even notched, I just had been holding it by the shaft, waiting to notch it and send it off at one of the bandits. The arrow snapped when I froze up though, and the ends fell to the ground. Now, the way that bandit ran at me caused me to have a flash back to when maze saved me after I saw my father killed. That's when I snapped. My instinct took over and like chain lightning I had unloaded three shafts into that bandits chest, and a fourth in his forehead. Then I went snapped further, threw my bow to the ground, drew my dinky little iron long sword, and charged head long into the group of nineteen bandits and began hacking, blocking and rolling. I'd finished with the grunts and turned to the bandit captain and went to charge at him. I engaged him in battle, and was easily over come. He disarmed me, snapped my blade under his boot, and kicked me in my chest, knocking me back. He placed the serrated blade of sword to my throat and recited some attempt at wit, when all of a sudden; The Guild Master appeared above me and thrust his fancy long sword through the large bandit captain's throat, ending him.

"Will, what were you thinking!" he said, as he sheathed his blade and knelt beside me. "You could have died. I know I taught you better!" The old man admonished his stern blue eyes boring into mine. I relayed the story to him, from start to finish about how I was just following Whisper and how I had frozen up after she left to go get you, and how I had been spotted and then lost it. During my recant of the tale his look softened a bit, and he pulled me up onto my feet, and nudged me in the direction of the guild hall and my bed. "We'll have you looked over tomorrow by one of the healers. You and Whisper will both be working with the servants for the following week as punishment for sneaking out past lights out. Now get on you young terror. Get!" he commanded. Later on in my life he told me he had actually been proud of me that evening. Not because of how I had dispatched those bandits of their lives but because I had showed that I was truly human and had frozen up and only spun into a murderous rage after a certain mental switch had been thrown.

When I woke up the next morning my bow was sitting by the foot of my bed, alongside a new long sword with a not attached.

It read:

Will,

Your sword was not worth re-forging. Here's a new iron long sword. Don't think it is free though. The cost is coming out of your guild allowance.

Have fun helping the servants this week,

The Guild Master.

Anyway, That's all the story you'll be getting out of me today young'un. I'm an old man, Who's got a lot on his mind. Now leave me be. Come back another time. Maybe one time when the grand kids aren't here. I won't be as rushed along. Now you go on back to the Pub, and tell the barman Ol' Will sent you. He'll give ya a nice discount on a bed, and maybe a discount on drinks. Maybe I'll show you some of my old memorabilia. My armor, some of my weapons, some of the legendary weapons I found over my adventures. Maybe some paintings I did close to when I retired from being the Guild Champion. But that's for tomorrow. I have to walk my grandkids home to their parent's houses. C'mon. I'll walk you as far as the pub.

~fin~

(for now)