I don't own the Thieves' Forest, or The Princess Bride, but I do own Shod, his father, and all the outlaws mentioned. So there.
Memoirs of the Thieves' Forest
My name is Shod. Partly because my father was a blacksmith who did shoddy work and got himself lynched for it, partly because of the slipshod way I do everything, from fighting to eating to keeping myself alive. "Shod" isn't my real name of course. My real name is—well, doesn't really matter what it is, since nobody calls me by it. What? You accuse me of not remembering it? Guilty as charged, I'm afraid. I won't go into my whole sob story, but it's true that I don't remember my real name, the one my mother gave me.
Anyway, you probably want to hear about the Thieves' Forest, now that it's been emptied and everyone in it sent to prison.
The Thieves' Forest was exactly that—a forest. A forest of trees and rocks and bushes, dotted with clusters of hovels that housed the members of the outlaw bands that gave the Forest its name. I was born in one of them, not too long ago, and my mother died in the same one, a few days afterward. Then when I was seven or eight my father got himself lynched for trying to sell shoddy steel for full price, and I was on my own.
Funny that, I ended up telling you my sob story anyway. Ah well, what's done is done.
Back to the story. As a blacksmith, my father was supposedly a neutral party in the constant warfare that took place between the different outlaw bands. As a blacksmith's son, I would have had similar immunity if I had been old enough to know the trade. Unfortunately I wasn't, which is how I got the scar across my nose. What happened was that after I got kicked out of the tradesmen's village (they'd no use for orphans, blacksmiths' sons or otherwise), I wandered into a band of outlaws who called themselves the Eels, and they decided to play the "throw things at the orphan until he bleeds, then laugh at him" game. I didn't take too kindly to it, ended up fighting back. Took the buggers so much by surprise that they ended up letting me join the band. They were the first ones to call me "Shod", and the name stuck.
Well, it wasn't too long after that that the Eels' camp was discovered by a different band called the ROUSs, after what some claim to be mythical creatures that live in the Fire Swamp over in the Guildur frontier. I don't believe in them, but there are those who swear by whatever you like that they're real and dangerous. Nutcases, I call them, but that's a different story.
The Eels were completely decimated by the attack. In fact, me and two others were the only ones who survived it. Naturally, Jamie and Much blamed me for the deaths of their comrades, and told me that if they ever saw me again, they'd skewer me. Not wanting to get skewered, I took off pretty fast. I was around twelve by then, and decided that I'd had enough of being in a band and became a beggarthief. It wasn't too hard. Basically, what a beggarthief does is sit/stand/lie by the roadside and wait for someone to come along, give them a big long sob story to make them feel sorry for you, then slip a knife between their ribs and rob the body. I got to be pretty good at it, with my little knife that the Eels had given me.
Eventually I got tired of being a beggarthief and turned real thief—y'know, sneaking up on travelers and robbing them blind while you flirt with the women and humiliate the men. It's much more fun, mostly because you don't have to kill the people. I'd had enough of killing when I was a beggarthief. The problem with being a real thief rather than a beggarthief is that a real thief has to look threatening, and to look threatening you have to be at least fifteen or so.
I managed to get in a good year or so as a thief before what us thieves call "The Fiasco". Y'know, when Humperdink ordered the Thieves' Forest emptied for no other reason than to keep his stupid guards busy while he plotted to kill his bride. The lucky ones among us managed to get spots on the Brute Squad, but as you can see, I wasn't one of the lucky ones. That's how I ended up here, in this stupid dungeon that I keep meaning to try and break out of. Now that the Forest's empty of thieves, I can make a killing.
If I ever get out of here, that is.
Thanks for listening anyway. It's good to know that not everyone in this hellhole is nuts.