Lone Cross, Sernas, Unified Provinces of Ustiat
Hac had once heard tell from a blind halfling that to see a lone rider with no shadow come into town was a bad omen. He wondered if that was some kind of metaphysical nonsense, or if it applied to a day that simply had no sunlight. Clouds meant no sunburn, but damned if they were a mite too dark for Hac's liking. Rain was the last thing he wanted to deal with.
The town of Lone Cross had the look of a bunch of dice some bored deity had shaken up and tossed out onto the plains. It was the only significant break in the vast grasslands for miles in every direction, save for the occasional ranch or farmstead. The only thing about it that didn't seem randomly placed was the main drag that cut through the heart of the little town. A strong wind from the west blew against Hac's shoulders, threatening to push over the sunbleached and desolate structures of Lone Cross. They held on all the same, just like the folks that lived there, Hac reckoned.
The first people Hacian encountered were humans on the outskirts of the town. There weren't many, most folks would be working this close to noon. One man was hanging freshly laundered clothes up on a line. Another man was hammering wooden shingles onto the roof of a shack with the help of a human woman. A group of children was running and playing, flicking sticks at each other like they were war wands or sabers. Hac averted his eyes from the the young ones. He did, however, guide his roan courser over to the fellow hanging laundry.
"'Scuse me, mister. Got a question for you." Hac got the man's attention with a rough, harsh voice. It wasn't an affectation. A pale swatch of a scar across Hac's throat was all that remained of the sword cut that almost ended his life.
The laundry minded fellow looked up at the new arrival, his eyes going wide for a second in alarm. Hac was an imposing figure, tall and heavily armed. The weather beaten ten gallon hat on his head rested on a neck-length tangle of hair the same sheened grey as a polished blade. The most obvious proof that Hac wasn't entirely human was the fact that his eyes were green like cut emeralds.
"I'm lookin' for a place called the 'Wight's Whistle.' That here in town?" Hac asked him.
After a couple of blinks, the man replied, "oh, right. Uh, just go on into town up Main Street and you'll see it on your left. Can't miss it."
"Obliged." Hac said, already turning his head and his horse back towards town.
There was little doubt the few pedestrians on either side of the dirt street were eyeing him up and down, wondering if this stranger there among them might be some outlaw, loose and running.
Hac rode into town, his eyes scanning across sunbleached signs and peeling paint, committing each establishment to memory. Macomb & Daughters Wholesale and Grocer. Careful Coif Barber's Shop. Tighan's Firearm Sales and Services. It wasn't until he reached near about the street's midpoint that he found what he was looking for. The Wight's Whistle was a broad two-story building painted a pale rosy color that had likely once been crimson. It stood on the corner of Main Street and another, smaller street that only ran a short distance before being lost in the jumble of Lone Cross's random arrangement. There was a half-elf woman in a traveler dress up on the balcony that ran around the second story, smoking a cigarette. Hac brought his horse up to a hitching post alongside a black stallion. He hopped down and hitched the horse.
"You're alright, boy", Hac told the horse with a couple of thumps to the flank.
The horse, whose name was Sidrael, leaned over the hitching post and began drinking from a water trough. Hac left him to it. His spurs rang and the hem of his duster played about his ankles as Hac walked across the boardwalk. He passed under a painted sign depicting a skeletal figure playing a tin whistle to push through the front doors of the saloon.
The inside of the Wight's Whistle was filled with soft music from an enchanted piano going through a relaxing tune. There was a noticeable difference among the scattered tables and chairs; some older than the gods, others apparently freshly crafted replacements for something busted in a brawl. Everything was lit by everbright globes set into tarnished brass sconces on the walls. Tobacco residue stained the ceiling, and though the place was mostly empty the pall of years worth of smoke lingered in the air.
Only two people were present inside the Wight's Whistle. One was the bartender, who was a portly firbolg in a stained shirt and apron.
"Howdy, mister. C'mon up and take a seat." The firbolg said.
Hac didn't reply to the barkeep. He was focused on the back of the other person. They were of average height and slender of build, wearing the fine vest, shirt, and slack of a gentleman. There was also a pistol holstered on the man's belt.
"Rendleton Lockeward." Hac growled.
The man seated at the bar cocked his head but didn't turn around. "Ah. Hacian Keey'sul. It would appear that I lack the good fortune to shake the angel on my shoulder after all."
"We both know you only listen to the devil on the other shoulder anyways, no matter iffin' I'm there or not." Hac replied as he slowly approached.
Rendleton turned around and leaned against the bar, a pipe held in his teeth. His slate-green skin and short tusks revealed him to be a half-orc. A pencil-thin mustache adorned his upper lip. He made a show of drawing a watch from the end of a gold chain from his hip pocket and checking the time. "I do declare, Mr. Keey'sel, that you always choose the most inconvenient time to come barging into my affairs. I am on a strict schedule and cannot possible indulge your company for very long." He stood up from his stool and made to meet Hac halfway.
"N-Now, gentlemen, if you two got a score to settle, take it outside…", The firbolg requested slowly.
Hac and Rendleton both ignored the barkeep now, coming face to face in the middle of the room. They stared each other down. Though Rendleton was a full head shorter than Hac, the half-orc was unfazed.
Hac made the first move.
He held out his hand.
"And how the Hells are you, Ren?" The aasimar asked with a grin.
Rendleton returned the expression and shook Hac's hand. "Ah, would you believe me if I claimed my life has been silk sheets and Gallian courtesans since our last meeting?"
"I'd call you a liar." Hac said with a snort.
The two of them sat down at the bar, much to the firbolg's relief. Both received bottles of beer.
"My urge to take exception to that is outdone only by the cruel slings and arrows of reality." Ren lamented as he picked up his beer. "So fall have my fortunes fallen that this swill is appealing to my once refined palate."
The firbolg scowled.
"Don't mind him, sir. His manners got buried under all the fancy words." Hac advised the barkeep.
Ren made a sulking face as he took a drink.
Hac sighed, taking a drink as well before getting out a cigarette. The barkeep produced a lit match before Hac could dig his own out. Hac thanked him and took a deep inhale. "Alright, Ren. Lay it on me. What in Torm's name did you need my help with?"
"I do not recall making any such mention of needing aid. Can I not request and enjoy the presence of my oldest and best friend?" Ren asked with melodramatic outrage.
"No. You can't." Hac grunted with a puff of smoke.
"You, Mr. Keey'sul, are the most abysmal company I've ever had the misfortune to be acquainted with." Ren lamented.
"Awful mean thing to say to your oldest and best friend." Hac pointed out.
Ren slumped. He puffed on his pipe. "It speaks to the low quality of the masses. I would long for the days of refined companionship were the gentry not a pit of vipers."
"You can get to why I'm here any minute now." Hac prompted the half-orc.
Ren looked like he might bluster some more. Instead he said, "...while you are in the neighborhood…"
"Knew it." Hac sighed once more.
"...I would be most obliged", Ren kept plowing forward, "if you were to accompany me to a meeting with a…ah…shall we say, investor of overly enthusiastic expectations."
Hac felt his temper rumble and the aasimar closed his eyes. Draining his beer, he motioned for another and set a couple coins on the bar. "I swear before almighty Torm, Rendleton Lockeward, if you're about to tell me you brought me all this way just to keep you from paying off another debt…"
"I have the full intention of paying this off, thank you very much." Ren spoke over the angered paladin. "However, the holder of my debt has, unfortunately, procured for himself a record of less than charitable attitudes towards those who incur his ire."
A long, tired breath came whistling out of Hac's nose. "Why do you keep doing this to yourself, Ren? You got the magic and your aim ain't half bad, you could make good money doing honest work."
"Good money is not enough, my old friend. No, I carry on these slender shoulders the weight of the Lockeward family. I must amass a fortune and change the world." Ren insisted, sweeping a hand around as if to call the saloon the entire world.
"...by going into debt to someone who'll bury you in a shallow grave every two years or so?" Hac asked innocently enough.
"We are deviating from the primary issue at hand." Ren changed course. "Will you, Hacian, please accompany me to this meeting and ensure I remain on this mortal coil? I would be indebted to you yet again."
Hac thought about it for several seconds but in his mind he knew it was foolish to even try to consider turning it down. Ren wasn't just talking out of his ass. The half-orc, misguided though he might have been, was indeed Hac's oldest and best friend. Facing down some loan shark's hired guns was the very least the aasimar could do.
"Where the Hells're we meeting these sonsabitches, then?" Hac asked, making sure to sound appropriately tired. "And you better not say the…
"...cemetery." Ren finished with a sheepish grin.
"Gods fucking dammit." Hac moaned. He quickly drained his second beer. "Right. Well. I'll need to buy ammo, then."
"I shall join you. It would not harm me to stock up. Thank you, my dear barkeeper, for your service." Ren bid the firbolg as the half-orc stood.
"Thank me by paying your tab." The barkeep growled.
"Oh, of course. How…silly of me." Ren said, placing some coinage on the bar.
"Try not to get yourself shot at before the meeting even happens." Hac advised as the two of them left the saloon and went back out into the dusty streets of Lone Cross.
"I am skilled enough in etiquette to prevent that much, thank you." Rendleton quipped.
"You say that but for some reason I'm doubting it", Hac replied. "The Hells did you even do to get yourself in trouble this time 'round? Or, I guess, what did you borrow the money for?"
"A fellow approached me with a proposition; a luxury locomotive company that provides the affluent with their own personal trains. It was, to my eyes, a sound business deal that could have proven a most lucrative venture if the man building the first train did not accidentally blow himself up by missing a rivet in the steam engine." Ren explained.
Hac scoffed. "The trains got enough trouble running on time. Last thing they need is a bunch of robber barons using their blood money to clog 'em up more." He looked to his right to the window of the town's general store, his eyes passing over a wire rack of magazines and pulp novels when his eyes stopped on something in particular. "Oh, you gotta be shitting me. Again?!"
"Have printed words given you a headache once more, Hacian? I know reading is a difficult task." Ren asked, the image of innocence.
"Take a deep swim and a deep breath", Hac retorted, pointing at the object of his ire. "How's she still making these?"
The pulp novel that Hac was pointing to was a brightly colored depiction of a finely dressed, handsome half-orc and a brutish aasimar standing on a rock in a dark cave. They were fending off an angry mob of mask wearing thugs. It was entitled "The Yarns of Locke and Keey: Skirmish with the Stoneheads" by Wilsa Gebore.
"How do you think I get the money to pay off my debts, Hacian?" Ren asked, so off-handedly Hac almost missed it.
The aasimar blinked, then glared at his partner. "You mean to tell me that the reason these copper dreadfuls keep getting written is because you hand out the stories? If I ever meet this Wilsa in person I'm gonna make it crystal fuckin' clear that she ain't to listen to another damn word out of your mouth."
"You can go back to the Wight's Whistle and enforce these assertions upon her at your leisure. Half-elf, red haired, freckles. Comely sort, in my opinion." Ren mused.
Hac thought of the woman standing on the balcony and having a smoke. So he finally had a face to put to the name.
"Dammit. We'll worry about that later. C'mon." Hac said, tromping down the boardwalk towards the gunshop.
"I do find myself a bit surprised that you haven't complained about not receiving any royalties yourself", Ren said, following close behind.
"My oath says I gotta tell the truth and there ain't no doubt in my mind those dreadfuls are full of lies, sure as Torm is just." Hac grumped.
"It is called 'creative license', and every artist worth their salt uses it." Ren argued.
"I'm gonna take creative license rearranging your face with my fist 'til it's beaten to such a pulp they'll be printing the next story on it." The aasimar threatened as they reached the Tighan's Firearms. He pushed open the door.
"Oh, I shall have to remember that line." Ren said as he followed the paladin inside.
They did their shopping and mounted their horses, bound for the cemetery.
The threatened rain had not yet materialized from the clouds as Hac and Ren made their way to the hill that was Lone Cross's burial ground. A squeaking sign on an wooden archway above the entrance read "Serenity Hill." The town was still well within sight less than a mile away.
"An auspicious name." Ren commented as he dismounted and hitched his horse near the entrance.
"Yeah. Sure." Hac muttered as he followed suit. No one fixing to do a legit deal agreed to meet in a fucking cemetery. If their aim was trouble, then Hac damn well aimed to misbehave.
Half-orc preceded aasimar beneath the breeze blown sign. Hac had to resist the urge to walk with his hands on his irons. He carried a revolver on each hip; his prized Drexel .47 "Dragonnes", big man stoppers that kicked like a pissed off draught horse. Slung across his back was a lever shotgun with a cut down barrel and stock. Finally, for when things got old fashioned, Hac's service saber with sheathed on his left hip.
Beside Hac, Ren was almost comically underarmed, carrying only his trusty Farmark .36 service revolver. Having seen Ren in action across a dozen battlefields during the Sunder War, Hac knew full well it was all the half-orc needed.
"So, Ren. What's the plan when things go south?" Hac asked his partner.
"The same as it usually is, I suspect." Ren reasoned.
"Kill everyone that isn't you. Got it." Hac confirmed. "You know, you never did say who exactly's holding your debt."
"A fellow by the name of Alden Vasterly. A private investor with a side business in loans." The half-orc answered.
"Hm. Never heard of 'im." Hac said.
Ren just shrugged.
The two of them were nearing the top of Serenity Hill. The gravestones they passed by had interesting inscriptions on them.
"Here lies Kagger Jeck. His life was cut short when a rope stretched his neck."
"Here lies Astrinna Ganfere, loved by the gods. Embraced them in life, now embraced by the sod."
"Here lies Zyth Fol'id'kree. Ate everything between Heavens and Hells, but the last thing he ate was a shotgun shell."
"Not sure if this is blasphemous or funny." Hac wondered aloud.
"When you aren't constrained by holy oaths, you exist in the delightful middle ground where things can be both." Ren said.
The duo reached the top of the hill. Up here, the hill had been given away to bury some of the soldiers who fell in a nearby battle during the Sunder War. Hac and Ren hadn't been at that one. The aasimar was less focused on history and more on the present. There was only one group of people present in the cemetery and Hac had a pretty good feeling they weren't mourners. There were five of them in total. Four were dressed a lot like Hac was, though each wore a red military cap. Hac had killed far too many people wearing such caps to not recognize a bunch of veterans from the former Confederated Territories.
"Conners." Hac murmured under his breath.
"Indeed. I don't suppose you could conceal that sword of yours…", Ren suggested.
"Even if I wanted to, which I don't, therefore won't, reckon they'll see your iron. Just play it straight." Hac said. That wasn't great. That meant they'd probably have at least some kind of decent aim compared to most people Hac got mixed up with.
The fifth person was dressed even more finely than Ren. He was a tall man with a salt and pepper beard and mustache. A tall tophat rested on his head and he gripped an ebony cane with a roaring dragon cast in gold as the handle. Hac had no doubt at least one pistol was tucked beneath the long, black coat the man wore.
At least the freshly dug grave Hac had been expecting wasn't present. Still, the aasimar was on guard, scanning around the cemetery for concealed shooters waiting in ambush.
"Ah, Mr. Lockeward. You are here, and on time to boot. I enjoy it when my clients understand the nature of our arrangements." The man who had to be Alden said with an altogether too smarmy smile.
"Mr. Vasterly." Ren doffed his hat respectfully. "I am a business man, as you know, and understand the valuable nature of time, both mine and that of others. As such, I would be more than happy to hand over your money and trouble you no more."
"Who is that with you?" Alden asked, looking to Hac.
Ren gestured to Hac. "Why, this is Mr. Keey'sul, a close friend and associate. Completely harmless, rest assured."
"Yeah. Harmless." The aasimar mumbled.
The half-orc held a hand out for all to see, slowly reaching into a vest pocket and producing an envelope. "A notarized and certified bank note for the full sum due to be tendered into your accounts, sir, with my compliments."
Alden almost looked disappointed. He turned to one of the conners, an elven woman, and tilted his head forward. She passed between a few headstones and approached. Ren handed her the envelope and she proceeded back to her employer. Alden took the envelope in two hands covered in leather gloves, tore it open, and produced the bank note within. His eyes scanned it thoroughly.
"Everything appears to be in order here." Alden said, putting the note back into the envelope and tucking it into an inner chest pocket.
"Splendid! Well, in that case, I shall be more than happy to get out of your hair. A pleasure doing business, Mr. Vasterly." Ren said with a winning smile, replacing his bowler on his head and making to turn around and leave. Hac started to relax a little.
"There's…well, there's a problem, you see." Alden stopped them.
"Fuck." Hac breathed, barely audible.
Still smiling, Ren turned around. "Pray tell, Mr. Vasterly, so I might clear things up."
"Well, the problem is that this money is not the only thing you owe me, Mr. Lockeward." Alden explained. "Did you not read the fine print of our contract?"
Something between a cringe, a frown, and a grimace crossed Ren's face. Hac remained stoic, but was tempted to draw and start shooting. Whether or not to shoot Ren first was the foremost question in his mind.
"Well, I would be delighted to clear up this misunderstanding with all haste, Mr. Vasterly." Ren assured his creditor.
Alden smiled. As he did, his eyes flashed. His flesh turned crimson. Horns sprouted from his brow, a spaded tail appeared from his back, and batlike wings unfurled from his shoulder blades.
"Why, your soul, of course", said the cambion with a grin of pure malice. The conners appeared to have been ready for this, but looked uneasy all the same.
Ren, wide-eyed with surprise and terror, looked over at Hac.
The paladin was staring at his friend with a scowl.
"You literally went 'n' made yourself a deal with a devil." Hac complained.
"It may shock you to hear but this is as much news to me as it is to you, sir." Ren insisted to the aasimar.
"You didn't read the contract at all did you?" Hac accused.
"I…well…I suppose I could have done a bit more than skim over it…", Ren admitted.
"Gentlemen!" Alden interrupted.
Aasimar and half-orc looked his way, the latter saying, "begging your most sincere pardon, sir, but it would behoove you not to call this brutish friend of mine a 'gentleman' if only to avoid giving the rest of us a bad name."
The cambion ignored Ren. "You will hand your soul over to me willingly, Mr. Lockeward, or I will be taking both yours and Mr. Keey'sul's for the trouble. I am not an unreasonable man. You brought this upon yourself." Alden held out a hand. "Now. What do you say?"
Alden and the four conners looked to Ren and Hac. Hac's hands hovered above his pistols, his gaze shifting between his opponents. Somewhere in the distance, a vulture cawed.
"I say…", Ren began.
Tension filled the air. Hac held his breath.
"...hobgoblin in garters." The half-orc finished.
Alden's face twisted in confusion. The conners looked at each other, not understanding.
Hac understood the old code phrase full well, because while their enemy's were distracted, the aasimar drew and fired both smokewagons at the conners down range. He managed to tag a human fellow in the chest, firing twice more to graze another human conner. Ren spoke an arcane word and hurled a fireball at Alden and his thugs, sending them diving for cover. Hac ran back, mantling over a decent sized headstone and ducking down behind it. Shortly after he did this, bullets were whizzing overhead, plinking into the stone of the tombstones around him.
Hac glanced over, saw a person beside him, then tried to peek around the headstone as he said, "Ren, need you to try to find a way to flank 'round 'em. I'll keep their…", he looked back at the person.
Curly red hair. Freckles. Tapering ears. A travel dress.
"Torm's whetstone, what the fuck are you doin' here?!" Hac cried as he realized the person hiding behind the tombstone next to him was none other than the dreaded Wilsa Gebore. The half-elf author was, at present, looking like she might just burst with excitement.
"Ain't this just the greatest?! Mr. Keey, would you mind givin' me a quote? Somethin' inspirin' for the readers?" Wilsa asked, a pencil and notebook held in her hands.
"Just stay here and keep your head down!" Hac shouted at her. He popped out a squeezed off a couple of shots as the elven conner tried her luck at advancing. She slid back behind her tombstone. Lightning crackled and Hac heard a voice that was thankfully not Ren shout in pain.
"'...the paladin shouted, his protective instincts guiding him to put his life on the line for the hapless author…'" Wilsa was saying as she scribbled in her notebook.
Contemplating just stepping into the line of fire and ending it all right there, Hac saw the elf woman pause to reload. He rose from his tombstone cover, both guns blazing to keep the elf's head down. The fourth conner was engaged with Ren and Alden was currently out of sight. The elven conner was just about done reloading when Hac appeared behind her cover, putting the barrel of his left pistol against the back of her head.
"You look like someone just walked over your grave, ma'am." Hac noted.
He pulled the trigger, finishing the elf off. Hac was about to switch to his shotgun when he saw the last conner burst from cover, aiming at him. A bullet smashed through the ribs on his left side, another into his thigh. The conner gasped and went down choking on a collapsed lung.
"I do declare, Hacian, that it is a joy to see your aim has not diminished." Ren was saying, brushing back a few stray hairs that had fallen from beneath his bowler.
Hac began reloading his pistols. "Celebrate when that devil is dead and your contract is void. Where'd he go?"
"I do not know. I aimed my initial fireball at him but had foolishly forgotten such creatures are immune to the kiss of a flame." Ren sighed, reloading as well.
"Did you invite that damned yarn spinner here?" Hac asked out of the blue.
"Yarn spinner? I am sure I do not know what you mean." Ren said.
Hac scowled. "You know who I mean. Wilsa. She came to the damn cemetery!"
Ren made a show of hemming and hawing before saying. "Well that was most certainly irresponsible of her. I shall be certain to have strong words with the gentlewoman when I see her next."
"'Our heroes were locked in fierce debate, without realizing that trouble was brewing right above their heads.'" Wilsa said behind them as she wrote.
Hac turned to rebuke her but then realized what she had said and looked up. Hovering some hundred feet up in the air, his wings flapping, was Alden, working his hands though the motions of a spell.
"Aaah, wyvernshit." Hac groaned, aiming upwards.
Something grabbed Hac's ankle. Instinctively he kicked, hearing something snap. A glance down revealed a rotting hand still clutching the aasimar's leg. Hac shook his leg and the hand flopped to the ground.
More hands burst up from the ground surrounding them. Figures began emerging from the dirt and the stench of decay filled the air as they pulled themselves free from their graves. The dead conners were coming up for revenge.
Ren blinked. "Hm. Unexpected, in the least."
"Walkin' dead!" Hac roared, putting his Dragonnes away and switching to his lever shotgun. He aimed and fired at the nearest zombie, blowing its head off. Hac worked the lever, sending a smoking shell to the ground as he turned and laid another undead conner back to rest with a load buckshot.
"What a plot twist!" Wilsa enthused as she hid behind Hac and Ren, wide-eyed with glee.
Ren raised a hand and summoned forth a cloud of spectral daggers that sliced up four of the emerging zombies. "Retreat would be wise, I think!"
"Fell-Handed Torm ain't keen on leaving the undead to walk!" Hac argued. He fired until his shotgun went dry, then drew his sword. The zombies were all the way out of the ground now and closing around them. Muttering a prayer, Hac's sword became infused with divine radiance. He laid into the incoming zombies. Where the blessed blade fell, undead flesh crisped and withered to dust.
A gout of fire erupted from Ren's left hand, engulfing a half-dozen more zombies as they tried to surround the duo. Or trio, rather, for Wilsa was standing defensively behind them, still writing even as she was mere feet from death. She was either unreasonably brave or certifiably insane. Strange how those tended to ride in the same saddle.
More zombies were rising from further out. Alden's chanting was growing louder and louder. A terrible wind of the grage whipped about the cemetery. The stench of rotting flesh cloyed at Hac's nostrils. They had to do something quick or they'd all be torn apart.
"We gotta stop his spell!" Hac cried as his sword cleaved into a zombie's skull. "Need you to gimme some breathing room!"
"I'll not have much magic left", Ren warned.
Hac nodded once. "Noted. Now do it!"
Ren's fingers danced. Arcane words flowed from his lips. A counterpoint to the wind that blew around them picked up and drove away the terrible stench. While Ren cast, Hac was forced to dance around him, his holy sword slashing and stabbing to drop one bone walker after another. At one point a zombie grabbed Wilsa and started dragging her, only for the offending hand to be chopped off.
"Sune's ruby rose, this is far better than a mere first hand accounting!" The author stated, writing even as the undead hand clung to her skirts.
Finally, Ren's spell was unleashed. A buffeting gust of wind whipped out from the gentleman sorcerer and knocked the incoming zombies over. Hac sheathed his sword, drawing his pistols. Radiant light filtered out from the grips to fill engraved filigree of Tormite scripture along both Dragonne's. Most notable was the verse, "upon this weapon, may my enemy find peace."
Hac fired once. Alden yelped and jerked in the air. He suddenly plummeted from where he hovered. Hac watched his downward trail and started running toward the area of impact. Zombie hands grasped at the aasimar from the ground, but he kicked them away, shooting a couple for good measure.
Alden's trajectory had carried him crashing through a few tombstones. The devil's wings were a tattered mess of broken cartilage and torn skin. One of his horns had broken off. He looked up, twitching in pain as the paladin came upon him
"Wait…stop…I can give you anything…wealth, power…", Alden wheezed.
But Hac was already aiming at the debilitated devil. "No deal." The paladin said, his pistol flashing with holy light as he shot Alden between the eyes.
The zombies on Serenity Hill collapsed into motionless corpses once again.
"Barkeep, sir, another draught of whatever this delightful elixir was! A round for the house!" Ren was calling out.
"It's just beer." The firbolg grunted.
The Wight's Whistle was crowded. Packed, even. Ren had a crowd of people listening eagerly to his story of how he and his faithful sidekick had saved the town of Lone Cross from takeover by an undead horde. A fog of tobacco smoke now hung over the place. There was, mysteriously, no mention of the fact that the zombies had only been risen by an evil creature that would not have been present if not for Ren and his debt.
Hac was at the bar, sighing his way through another evening. It was typical of Ren to celebrate financial security by becoming financially insecure again. Hac wanted to slap him. But, Hac was the one who kept bailing him out, wasn't he? A few people had approached him for his side of the story but they quickly learned that the gruff exterior extolled in Ren's tales was joined by a gruff interior that Hac had no inkling to stifle.
It ended up being a rather pleasant evening once everyone had figured out to leave Hac well enough alone. He enjoyed his beer, a couple of cigarettes, and the atmosphere of the saloon with none of the bothersome conversation. That was, of course, until one final interloper decided to make themselves known.
"Sune's silken locks, here I thought I was the storyteller 'round here." Wilsa said as she sat down at the bar. "Caen, darlin', would you gimme a shot of whisky?"
"More 'n' happy to, Miss Gebore." The barkeep said with a smile, pouring a shot for the half-elf author.
Hac said nothing.
Wilsa drank the shot in one go, exhaling sharply and going, "whew, that'll sharpen your lead, sure as sure. Another one, please, Caen. Mr. Keey'sul, would you care to indulge? My treat."
Hac finally looked over at Wilsa. She had a lit cigarette between fingers stained by pencil lead and pen ink. Her carmine curls were all over the place, but she didn't seem to care much.
"Well, I ain't ever been one to turn down free whisky." The paladin said.
Caen refilled Wilsa's shot and placed another before Hac.
"Obliged." Hac said to the barkeep, then looked at Wilsa. "Thanks."
Wilsa lifted her shot glass to him and threw it back. Hac followed suit. It was about like lamp oil, as he had been expecting. Perfection.
"Now, Mr. Keey'sul, I ain't one to be botherin' folks overmuch…", Wilsa was saying.
"Coulda fooled me." Hac said, too quiet to be heard over the din of the saloon.
"...but I did just wanna mosey on over and say I was ever so grateful for the whole keepin' me from bein' hauled off and made into zombie grub." The half-elf finished.
"Oh. Yeah. Weren't a problem for me, Miss Gebore." Hac assured her.
"I was hopin' to get some of your words. All I ever got is Mr. Lockeward's, which, don't get me wrong, they make for some good material, but I was thinkin' my readers might approve of a perspective change." Wilsa suggested hopefully, already reaching for her notebook and pencil.
Hac snorted. "Nope. Sorry, Miss. You ain't gonna want to put my version of things to the reader iffin' you were hoping to still have a job."
"D'aw, c'mon now, Mr. Keey'sul, it ain't right for you to be sellin' yourself short like that." Wilsa admonished. "Just a quick little interview's all I'm askin'."
"I ain't selling nothing short, Miss Gebore. Still, the answer stands." Hac reiterated, hoping that would close the issue.
"Does it stand if I said I was plannin' on havin' this interview up in my room, just you 'n' me?" Wilsa asked with a temptress's smile.
"It does." Hac answered without a second thought. He took another drink of beer.
Wilsa put on a pout, but it quickly left. "Ah well. Ain't no skin off my back. We'll have plenty of chances to talk since we're travellin' together now. I sure am mighty grateful, this is gonna help me a lot…"
Hac's eyes bulged for a second. "Sorry, ma'am, I think I misheard you. Could've swore you just said we were going to be traveling together now."
Wilsa tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Well, yeah. That's what Mr. Lockeward said. He told me you were fine with it…"
Hac's barstool almost fell over as he pushed himself away from the bar. "Rendleton!" The paladin bellowed over the noise of the saloon.
Ren, who was now standing on a table and animatedly waving his hands about, looked to the sound of his name. The fear of the gods filled his eyes as he saw the big, angry aasmiar bulling through the crowd towards him.
"A-Ahaha, uh, th-this story shall have to resume another time, folks." Ren paused only to kiss the hand of a young lady standing beside the table before leaping down and bolting for the door.
"Rendleton Lockeward, there ain't a power in the Heavens or Hells that's gonna keep you safe!" Hacian called after the half-orc, chasing him out of the saloon.
