Improv: ECL 4 Trebuchet Water Orc Bard 3, Barbarian 1: Entry 6

He swore.

He had a lot of things to swear about, but primarily he swore he wasn't a coward.  Damn him.  Get up and fight.  What did that whoreson say?  Somehow, it made him sick to his stomach.  That's all.  He'd fought through worse than this.  He'd sung through worse than this.  Come on!

He couldn't do it.  He stood there helplessly and tried to calm his stomach, which he keenly knew was empty anyway, while the corpses blindly rushed past him.

That damn spell was still hiding him from them.  That's it, he thought.  He'll just go and smack one of them and get into the fight.  Then he'd feel the battle-fury coming back and shake off this sickness, and at least go down swinging.

He couldn't do that either.  He could barely move.  His eyes turned to the cleric, retching too as he fled the horde.  All this was his doing, this whole rotten fucking mess.  But he wouldn't die to the zombies.  The orc would kill him himself before he'd let that happen.  So he ran after him.

But it was no good.  He watched as the armored man struck his war-brothers again and again, and he did nothing.  Their green skins were struck through with red lines and their tusks gnashed, and no matter how much he wanted to share their fates, he couldn't lift a single limb to move to their defense.

He turned back the way they had come, expecting the horde to be at them now and it all to be over, only to see them falling upon the flailing body of Kona, who he could hear snorting and hollering, and he knew it would only be a few more moments before his death-scream would sound, and again he wished it had been him.

Turning again, he saw one of his war-brothers on the ground, staggering backwards toward him, as the man prepared to land the final blow.  At last, he felt the malaise lift, and he ran forth roaring and grabbed the bastard by the throat.  He screamed a hoarse, victorious laugh at the surprise in his eyes, and tightened his fingers to crush the life out of him.  But the awful man pulled the hand from his throat, and threw him to the ground, and stabbed at him.

A great weight descended upon Trebuchet, and his vision went dark.  As consciousness fled, he took solace in the fury of his final act.

...then, he found himself awake again, and he pushed himself to his feet, and there was everybody, all alive, if battered, waving him into the church.  He took a last glance at the now-lifeless body of the bastard.

Huh.

Improv: ECL 4 Trebuchet Water Orc Bard 3, Barbarian 1: Entry 5

Why'd they even come here?  Did anyone remember?

He was seriously considering asking someone if they remembered, but as another wave of mindless corpses advanced toward the cleric, only to fall atop the bodies of the last ones, he realized it wasn't the time.

So he stayed crouched at the front wall of the church, no matter how much he wanted to wade into the fray.

He wanted to give his arm another go.  The sword strapped to it, he meant.  He'd convinced them to help him strap a sword to his stump, but he'd gotten to swing it, what?  Once?  Twice?  And then, years ago now, he'd been forced to stop and sit and wait while the bloody cleric patiently shouted a bunch of zombies to death.

It felt so cowardly to sit behind this wall and sulk in the middle of a fight.  He wasn't a coward, he reminded himself.  After all, there wasn't really any fight to be had.  If he'd tried, it would've been a repeat of the scene at the general store.  No glory to be had in fighting things that lay down before you kill them.

And that business with the rats, well.  That hadn't been cowardice either.  He just didn't like rats.

Also there was the spell.  They'd put a spell on him and the dead couldn't see him.  So he wasn't to hit any of them or they'd be able to see him again.  Right, right.  He drummed on his forehead with his fingers to help him remember this.

It didn't help much.  It was distracting.  Felt strange.  He looked down at where the fingers he would've preferred to use should've been.  There was only the tip of a sword.

After a moment, he shrugged.  Good enough.

Improv: ECL 4 Trebuchet Water Orc Bard 3, Barbarian 1: Entry 4

He missed it more than he expected.  The arm.

It was his favorite one, after all.  Now that he thought about it, it was usually the one holding the chopper.

Not to say he hadn't realized this crucial fact before.  He was willing to admit to himself that he had.  But said cruciality had dimmed in the heat of the moment.  After all, he remembered some small part of him saying to himself, he had the other one, with just as many grippers.  A lot of orcs weren't so lucky as to have all their grippers.

And anyway, sure he was thankful to have his health.  He could've kept the arm but then he'd be dead.  Then again, wasn't dying supposed to be a good thing?  Well, dying in battle.  You're supposed to try to do that.  And he would've been a zombie.  That's no good.

And now he was properly maimed so they'd have a way to tell him apart from the other ancestors when they wove him into the tapestries.  That's the important thing.

Finally, he came back to the present, where he was staring into the withered face of yet another sad zombie. He felt a gleeful feeling rising in his chest as he raised his weapon to put the creature down...oh right no arm.  Grrrrrrgggh.

He could still feel it.  There wasn't a moment he wasn't sure it was still there, gripping something, gripping so hard it hurt.  At least he'd always have that.  Yes.  The pain reassured him.  It was proof he hadn't joined their ranks.

What was it gripping?  An axe?

No.  He pointed his stump at the dead man, imagined his arm entering its chest, gripping its heart, and crushing it.  The savage glee began to return.

The thing didn't die, of course.  You have to hit them in the head.  He raised the other arm and did so.

Improv: ECL 2 Trebuchet Water Orc Bard 1, Barbarian 1: Entry 3

He was keeping watch.  It was an important job.

The others were in the general store, looting.  That was also an important job.  Those who work must eat.  And they'd all been putting in time lately.

It was quiet.  And kind of boring.

He kept having to remind himself that he wasn't watching for the guard.  If he happened to see them, they wouldn't be jogging over with their clubs, shouting "What do you think you're doing?"  They'd be sort of stumbling slowly and moaning.

So it took him by surprise when he did see a guard coming at a pretty brisk pace, and hardly moaning at all.

The man was leading his little group of humans toward the store.  And the dead, he was leading them here too.  It quickly became apparent that he was leading quite a few of them.

Trebuchet sneered at the man, which did not make his face look appreciably different, and the man didn't seem to care.  And though he (still) didn't look it, he was actually pleased.  Yeah, part of him thought the guy was a right prick for leading the zombies here, never mind his instinctual reaction to the uniform, but at the same time, his arrival heralded an end to the boredom.  So he helped herd the mewling pinkskins into the building.

They quickly got to barricading the exits, but he just waited at the door with his spear and started working himself into the battle-fury.  He could see the dead men slowly approaching in the dark.  The seconds dragged on into an eternity, a feral grin spreading wider on his face with each step they took.

He could hear the preacher shouting on the roof, but he was barely cognizant of it.  The first of the enemy line came in reach of his spear and he gleefully drove the implement into its side.

It...ignored him.  It stumbled off to the side and just...lay down dead.  He stared around, bewildered, and saw the rest of them doing the same.

Well, there was another line advancing, so he picked up his weapon and tried again.  Same result.

As the blood pounding in his ears began to fade, he realized the priest was still shouting.  That was probably important.

Godbotherers.  Take the fun out of everything.

So he ran upstairs to stab something.  He'd decide what exactly he was going to stab on the way.

When he got there, though, everyone was whispering nervously.  Someone stopped him and told him to be quiet.

He glared back at them.  Then he slowly turned and very quietly thrust his spear down from the window through the length of a zombie.  He drew it back up slowly, with a wet sucking noise, but still very quietly, he felt.  Then he turned back and stared pointedly.  But quietly.

After that he was left with his thoughts, which were wordless and vague.  Things happened around him, but he didn't pay much attention, until he suddenly noticed one of the elves casting glances his way.  That one was, if anything, even more elvish than the others, and Trebuchet's opinion of that hardly needed to be stated.

After going around whispering to the others for a while, while Trebuchet's annoyance slowly mounted, the elf finally came and explained himself.  Apparently, the orc was infected, explained the elf, pointing to his arm.  Like the ones outside.  The zombies.

He let that sink in for a moment.  Then he looked at his arm.  He had to admit it had looked better.

He thought about the zombies.  They were pitiful creatures.  They had died, but by denying that and standing back up they had lost their honor, their fight, their will.

The solution could hardly be more obvious.  Cut off the arm, he said.

They deliberated about this in hushed tones for a while.  He waited patiently for them to realize the inevitability of it.

In a perverse way, he looked forward to it.  Many orcs did not consider one to have come of age until maimed somehow.  This was more than necessary.  It was essential.

Soon, he was handing over his cleaver and presenting his arm.  Shortly thereafter, he descended into unconsciousness.

Improv: ECL 2 Trebuchet Water Orc Bard 1, Barbarian 1: Entry 2

Maybe that was a mistake.

Nah.  That doesn't sound like him.  He doesn't make mistakes.  Anyway, he wasn't goin' nowhere with those three.  It'd been time to leave long since.  Not one to get tied down.

Still, he preferred those three to present company, and the flophouse to the jail cell he was now sharing with them.  A couple of elves and some airy kook.  He wasn't sure which he hated most.

Ah, well.  If they won't trouble him he'll return the favor.  They were all in the same boat, after all.  Might be the first time in the joint for some of them.  He could respect that.  He'd been there.

And as cells go, he couldn't complain.  Dark and clean, and just one green watchman watchin'-...wait, where's he goin'?

He didn't think about anything for a few minutes; just sat and pushed the murmuring of his cellmates out of his head.  Then he rose from the bench and opened the door.

Well, that woulda been nice if it worked but actually the door was still closed.  Bars were stronger than they looked.  Eh.  No big deal.  No big deal.  He sat back down and glared at the wall, mentally daring the others to say somethin', anything.  Yeah.  They were feelin' that.  Just as he was nearly done debating with himself whether to look and make sure they were really feelin' it the guard came back.  What?  He's lettin' us out?  Well, never was one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Soon he was out of prison uniform and back in his regalia.  That felt good.  He felt stronger.  Could totally open that door now if he still needed to.  But he didn't.  Need to.

So...time to leave, he guessed.

What happened next was a blur.  The guard was dead.  Fine by him.  Some other folks were less dead, and that was a problem.  So he solved it.  Now where'd they put his wagon?  Who cares if the house is burning down?  WHAT?  LIZARD!  BIG LIZARD!

When he woke up he was on his wagon with his former (and current, he was starting to think) cellmates.  The big lizard was pulling it.  And it talked.  Called him its momma.  He didn't like that much.  Said the dead were walking, everywhere.  That, he liked a little better.  Gave him an idea for a song.

They were walking, that was true.  But if they made the mistake of walking toward him they didn't keep walking much longer.  The stench of the dying, burning city invigorated him.  He fought, and ran, and laughed a lot that night.  He felt alive.