Many at The Bruised Bollocks stared open-mouthed at Dog’s outburst. It was as if being lectured on dragons by a three-headed ogre was a new experience.
But one customer behaved differently. She was a powerful-looking warrior, perhaps from one of the barbarian tribes who inhabited the plains to the south. She looked Og-Grim-Dog firmly in the eye, not remotely intimidated.
‘Come with me,’ she suggested. ‘I have a proposal for you.’
Not waiting for a response, she turned around and made her way to the back of the room. Grim followed her, squeezing through the throng of trespassers who cast bemused looks his way. The warrior offered him a wooden bench at a table. Grim sat down, and the warrior joined him. Two others sat at the table with them.
‘I am Assata,’ she said, offering her hand.
Dog grasped it in a handshake, her hand disappearing inside his. ‘I am Dog. My brothers are Og and Grim.’
‘This is Raya,’ said Assata, introducing an elven woman at the table.
‘Hi!’ said the elf, raising one hand and giving a nervous, but friendly, smile.
‘And Sandon.’
Sandon had the slim build and rune-inscribed cloak that marked him out as a wizard. His looks were a curious mix of young and old, suggesting he was either prematurely aged or concealing his real looks. The wizard frowned at Og-Grim-Dog and placed a hand to his forehead.
‘I sense you have come here with questions,’ he said, a little too dramatically for Grim’s taste. He’d sensed right, but Og-Grim-Dog were not about to reveal their mission to a stranger they had no reason to trust.
‘We are putting together a team of adventurers,’ Assata said.
Adventurers, Grim thought to himself. That was what the trespassers called themselves. Funny how one word can change the feel of a sentence; change one’s view of the world, and one’s place in it.
‘If it works out, we could hit all the dungeons in the area. We’ve nearly filled all positions. But we could do with the extra muscle that you offer.’
Grim nodded. Judging by the present company, they were a bit lacking in the fighter department. Sandon brought the magic. Raya, he presumed, would offer ranged combat. And while Assata looked like she could handle herself in the melee, any group entering a dungeon needed more than one warrior to deal with the brutal savagery of close combat.
‘We’re interested,’ Grim said. This sounded like the perfect way to find out why the trespassers were repeatedly targeting Darkspike Dungeon. Infiltrate the enemy and learn their secrets, he told himself, quite excited at the idea.
‘Good. I’ll introduce you to the other two members of the party as soon as I can,’ said Assata, relaxing enough to give a tight smile.
With that, the real drinking began. The night followed the usual pattern. Og ended up falling asleep, snoring into Grim’s left ear. Dog dominated the conversation at the table with his tales of all the famous people he had met; mostly made up. Grim’s drink was left untouched.
He wasn’t the only sober one, though. Sandon, to be fair, joined in, but he wasn’t a big drinker. Assata had some concoction that she explained was alcohol-free. Grim had never heard of such a thing. When he asked her what was in it, she reeled off a load of mumbo jumbo, full of strange words like plant proteins, natural oils, glycogen replenishment and ergogenic ingredients. Raya had the same thing. But when she ‘accidentally’ picked up and necked Grim’s drink, for the fifth time, he began to doubt her commitment to it.
Finally, when Dog started calling everyone ‘darling’, and ‘treasure’, Grim decided enough was enough. He got to his feet and took them off to bed.
THE BUREAU OF DUNGEONEERING
In the morning, they gathered in the courtyard of The Bruised Bollocks. There were six of them. Assata introduced Og-Grim-Dog to the final two members of their party of adventurers.
The first was a dwarf by the name of Gurin. He was an exceptionally grumpy looking individual, of an exceptionally grumpy race. He looked old in years—past his best, even. But dwarves were exceptionally good at locating and disabling traps; had a nose for finding their way when underground; and, judging by the mean looking axe strapped to his back, this one could fight, too.
‘You’ve recruited an ogre?’ Gurin asked, an incredulous tone to his voice, as he stared up balefully at Og-Grim-Dog. ‘Ogres now go adventuring, do they? Another nail in the coffin of all that used to be sacred about this once great profession. I am just thankful that the great adventurers of the past— Larik the Bludgeoner, Randall the Heavy-Handed, to name but two—aren’t alive now to see where it’s all ended.’
‘Nice to meet you, too,’ said Og, rather sarcastically.
Dog just grunted, hungover from the night before, his breath smelling like he had eaten a cadaver for breakfast.
The second adventurer was quite different. Brother Kane was a baby-faced cleric with a beatific smile. He went out of his way to be friendly, insisting on giving each ogre brother a blessing. It involved ridiculous hand gestures, murmuring in a made-up language and being flicked in the face with water.
It wasn’t easy for Grim to decide which of the two he disliked the most, so he resolved to hold off his final verdict until later.
‘Well,’ said Sandon, once the vial of holy water had been stoppered and tucked away. ‘We really should make for the Bureau of Dungeoneering. There’s a hell of a lot of red tape to get through these days,’ he said apologetically.
Gurin the dwarf groaned, the sound of a tortured soul.
‘Red tape?’ Grim asked, as the wizard led them out of the courtyard and into one of the main streets of Mer Khazer. The centre of town was already busy, shops and stalls open for business, people buying and bartering, shouting and selling. All the incessant noise and activity of a human settlement—the frenetic pace, the restless need to be constantly doing something, that had seen humankind spread all over Gal’azu, establishing themselves as the dominant race.
‘Paperwork,’ Sandon explained. ‘You can’t go dungeoneering unless you’re in a party that’s been officially licensed. There are rules you must sign up to, health and safety checks to do. It is a bit of a pain, I must admit.’
Gurin spat. ‘The hot shame of it—the betrayal of every ideal our fraternity ever held dear. Once we would raid here, sack there, on a whim. That was real freedom. The freedom to go wherever you liked, kill whatever creature that came to mind that particular day. Now, we have to ask permission from a bunch of pencil pushers who’ve never held a weapon themselves; never crawled on their hands and knees through the muck of a dungeon corridor, knowing that at any second you could trigger a spear trap and it’s all over.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sandon. ‘Though it was actually the adventurer community themselves who established the Bureau. The trouble was, all that freedom, combined with the growth in popularity of the movement, meant that dungeons were being explored so frequently that they didn’t have time to restore themselves. The dungeon dwellers were close to extinction, their treasures looted; magic amulets and weapons all taken. We needed some way to keep them sustainable, or by now there would have been nothing left.’
Gurin harrumphed, but Grim found himself nodding along in agreement with the wizard. He remembered those days. ‘But why are the dungeons being attacked so frequently again? Like they were before?’