Prologue: Making Impressions

The door to the Dark Lord's throne room slammed open as if hit by a battering ram and a squished goblin flew through it to land limply at the Dark Lord's feet. The Dark Lord looked up from the goblin to see the Chosen One stride confidently into the throne room, the elven priestess trailing behind him, standing far enough away to not be in the line of fire. The Chosen One pointed his sword at the Dark Lord, the runes acid-etched into the blade glowing a faint sky blue, and screamed in an unpleasantly high-pitched voice:

“Your reign of terror ends today, villain, for I have come to slay you!"

I groaned.

The Dark Lord, similarly unimpressed, waved a hand and told his orc guards: “Get this nobody out of my sight."

The two orcs advanced. They were bigger than the Chosen One by at least a foot, which put them at roughly six feet. Their pig snouts twitched as they sniffed the air and their tusks gleamed, clearly having been freshly sharpened. They pulled out rusty cleavers as they advanced. Anyone not familiar with orcs assumed they used rusty weapons because they didn't know how to take care of their equipment, but the clean carbon steel armor belied the truth: Orcs knew as well as anyone how dangerous wounds carved with rusty weapons were and so they deliberately let their weapons rust, trusting their inhuman strength to make up for the degradation of the gear.

The Chosen One held his sword out in front of him and placed his left hand against the flat of the blade, over one of the runes, and intoned: “Great Zeus, I invoke the miracle of lightning you have gifted me!"

A rune flashed, then dimmed, and two lightning bolts crashed through the roof of the throne room to hit the orcs, turning them instantly to piles of ash. What a waste of a divine miracle.

The Dark Lord finally stood up from his throne, standing well over seven feet tall, and grabbed a big two-handed mace with a huge ruby set into the middle of the very ornate head. Clearly this weapon was his pride and joy. He was clad head to toe in black metal armor that seemed to have a purple shine in the light that filtered into the throne room. The armor was decorated to make him look skeletal, with protrusions in the shape of ribs over his ribcage and a helmet shaped to look like a skull wearing a jagged crown, a skeletal grin stretched wide over it with teeth that looked too pointy to be human.

The Chosen One, by stark contrast, was barely over five feet, rail thin, with a girl's haircut and a face that might have been considered pretty if not for the perpetual sneer on it. His armor was polished almost to a mirror shine, steel with gold trim except there was so much of the trim it overshadowed the actual armor panels. The cape on his back and the tunic underneath were a brilliant white with red embroidery. And to top it all off, on his head was a gilded laurel wreath.

The Chosen One and the Dark Lord advanced towards each other and when he was in range the Dark Lord went for a flashy, two-handed overhead slam. The Chosen One had all the time in the world to step forward and stab the Dark Lord through the heart but instead he held his sword up to block the attack, holding the handle in the right and the flat of the blade with his left.

I considered giving the little guy credit for blocking a hit like that, but I was pretty sure there was a momentum-canceling effect woven into the sword. Nevertheless, the Dark Lord kept pushing and the Chosen One's arms gave, an inch at a time.

“Hey mercenary," the Chosen One yelled, “time to earn your keep!"

Technically my contract had specified that I had to escort the little twerp into the throne room, something I had done quite professionally if I may say so myself, but you don't argue with your employer where others can see it. So I finally walked into the throne room, pulled a loaded crossbow from my bag of holding and fired it at the Dark Lord's right eye. My aim had been perfect but the eye holes in his helmet were tiny so he only had to turn his head the tiniest bit for the crossbow bolt to strike metal instead of his eye and the bolt splintered on impact. The moment's distraction did, however, give me enough time to dash behind a pillar and pull out some more gear from my bag of holding. First came a lesser cloak of invisibility, second came a heavy mace. The lesser cloak was simultaneously very weak and very powerful. It provided perfect invisibility for the wearer and everything the wearer made skin contact with, such as weapons or even other people, but it only lasted for ten seconds and then had to recharge for a full twenty-four hours. If you knew when and where to use it, it was great. Otherwise, not so much. The mace, meanwhile, was nowhere near as impressive as the one the Dark Lord was currently bearing down on the Chosen One with, but it was good enough to get the job done.

I heard the Chosen One make a rude noise and grumble: “Some mercenary." Then he rubbed his left hand over another rune on his sword and intoned: “Great Ares, I invoke the miracle of the battering ram you have gifted me!"

And nothing happened. Obviously. The gods were, to a one, cheating bastards but 'once every day' still meant once every day and he'd already used it to break down the door to the throne room.

The Dark Lord began to cackle.

But I hadn't been idle. After having gotten out of sight I'd put on the cloak, pulled up the hood to activate the invisibility and ran full-speed at the Dark Lord. With all the momentum behind it I slammed my mace right into his face, caving in his helmet and sending him flying towards his throne, which he hit head first.

“Aha!" screamed the Chosen One. “That is the power of a divine miracle!"

Right then the invisibility enchantment ran out and I became visible right next to the Chosen One and said: “Dumbass, you already used that miracle."

He made another rude noise and we advanced on the Dark Lord, who'd lost all his bravado and was now speaking in the voice of someone whose nose was horribly mangled:

“You cannot kill me, mortal, only the Chosen One can slay me." Great, one of those.

I waved my hand at the Dark Lord and told my employer: “Hey Mister Chosen One, your turn, let's wrap this up."

He nodded at me and walked over to the Dark Lord. He raised his sword, point downward, and pointed it at the Dark Lord's heart, then thrust down with a two-handed grip. The sword pinged off the armor and I couldn't suppress a snort. To be fair, I hadn't been trying very hard.

“His armor must be enchanted," the Chosen One told me. I didn't mention how unlikely that was given that I'd caved his helmet in with a very mundane mace. Instead I shrugged and smashed my mace down on the Dark Lord's armor, trying to break through his armor around his heart.

Between strikes I could hear the Dark Lord rasp: “You. Cannot. Kill. Me. Mortal!"

On the final smash I replied with: “But I'm sure it still hurts like a bitch."

When I was done there was a big, obvious hole in the Dark Lord's armor, right around his heart. True to his word, though, I had been unable to even pierce his skin. I stepped back to let the Chosen One stab him and end this farce. He raised his sword again and stabbed down. This time the blade didn't ping off. This time it bounced off the thick purple hide, but at least he'd scored a small wound.

“What kind of pansy are you?" I demanded.

“Shut up! This is harder than it looks."

I rolled my eyes and stepped forward. “Hands off the pommel."

“What?"

“Hands. Off. The. Pommel. You only need to hold the sword, you don't need to be the one who exerts the force."

He finally just wrapped his hands around the handle, leaving the pommel free. I was going to do this the same way I'd go about staking a vampire, using a hammer to drive a stake through the creature's heart, only I was going to use a sword instead of a stake. I raised the mace and then brought it crashing down on the sword's pommel, burying the sword in the Dark Lord's chest all the way to the hilt in a single strike, the enchanted sword going clean through his heart, his armored back and the stone floor beneath. The Chosen One, meanwhile, stumbled back and landed on his ass.

“What the fuck was that?!" he demanded. “You could have broken my gods damned fingers!"

“Wouldn't have needed to if you weren't such a fucking wimp."

He ground his teeth. “I am not paying you to insult me."

“You aren't paying me enough not to."

The elven priestess had finally come close and offered the Chosen One a hand to help him up. He slapped her hand away, got up and dusted himself off.

He gave me one last disgusted look, then turned away and told the priestess: “Priestess, we're leaving."

The elf hesitated. “But Chosen One, what about his payment?"

I heard the sneer in his voice as he told her: “He deserves nothing. Now come along."

He walked off but the elf stayed and then began shaking. She balled her fists at her sides and her pointy ears twitched. Finally, she turned around to me and pulled the beautiful ring she wore off her ring finger. She knelt down in front of me and offered the ring in her cupped hands.

“This ring was gifted to me for our engagement. It is worth more than what he owes you, but you deserve it."

I didn't know all the implications of her reaction but I knew refusing her would be rude, so I took the ring.

The Chosen One had turned around and was staring at us slack-jawed. “B-but if you give that ring away we can't get married!" he told her.

She stood up, turned around and looked at him with venom in her eyes. “I never wanted to marry you. My father wanted our bloodline to mingle with the Chosen One's powerful blood so I agreed to our union, but it turns out the Chosen One can't even pierce the Dark Lord's hide with a legendary blade. I tolerated your arrogance because I thought you were strong enough to back it up but you are just an entitled child who was handed everything in life and who still needed someone to hold his hand the whole way. And then, to top it off, you had the gall to scoff at and refuse to pay the man who had actually done his part, who went above and beyond to fight your battles for you!" Her voice had begun at a venomous snarl and continued to rise until she was screaming at him.

“But you are mine, Alisha!" he told her, outraged.

She slapped him.

Alright, saying that she slapped him fails to convey the intensity of what happened. Her hand glowed with gray-green magic, the flat of her hand connected with his cheek, there was a thunderclap and he flew across the room, spun twice, landed on the ground and stayed there.

**

Alisha and I walked out of the throne room, but only after I had broken the huge ruby out of the Dark Lord's mace. Not like he needed it anymore.

“What are your plans?" she asked me, out of the blue. Her voice had a slight lilt to it and sounded quite pleasant now that she wasn't so furious.

“I will travel back to my home. Once there, I will sleep till morning. In the morning I'll go back to the guild and see if any more Chosen Ones need help. How about you? Will you be alright? Blowing off an engagement to a Hero is kind of a big deal."

She shrugged. “I'm sure my father would understand if I explained it to him but I don't want to deal with that right now. So, Mister Mercenary, how about I join you?"

I stutter-stepped, but didn't stop. “I... what?"

“Seems to me like you could use the help and I could use a way to pay for food and housing."

“You traveled with a Chosen One, don't you have more than enough to tide you over?"

She looked embarrassed and her ears drooped. “He didn't let me handle the money." So, in other words, the elf was flat broke. She must have followed my thought process so she clarified: “That's why I want to work with you. I don't want to be a freeloader, I want to be your partner."

I took her in properly for the first time. She had the thin, lithe build that most elven women shared. She was a bit short for an elven woman, standing at roughly five foot nine. Her age was harder to gauge, given how elves aged, but she gave off a youthful air and I was pretty sure she couldn't have been older than me. She had a beautiful heart-shaped face, thin lips the color of cherry blossoms, sparkling green eyes and a cute button nose. Her hair was long and slightly wavy, the color a very soft brown that looked reddish in the right light. In it she wore a diadem of polished metal with a small symbol of a stylized flame in the middle. Her clothing looked quite typically elven, meaning it didn't consist of much cloth at all. The sheer green skirt was slashed at both sides, exposing her shapely thighs when she moved but also leaving her movement very unhindered. The white top was tied together with a knot just below her breasts, exposing both a decent amount of cleavage as well as a view of her flat stomach and her cute bellybutton. The sleeves fanned out wide but only reached a few inches past her elbows, leaving most of her forearms bare. Well, bare except for the bangles she wore on both arms that I was pretty sure were enchanted items. When I'd first seen her I'd been thrown by the lack of staff, but I knew on her back she wore a scabbard with a rapier in it which I assumed she used as her focus.

In short, she looked cute, but competent.

“Suit yourself," I told her. “We can work together, but I'm telling you you'll be running for the hills sooner rather than later."

She smiled. “We'll see about that."

When we exited the Dark Lord's palace it was late afternoon. The moment we stepped outside a pillar of light shone down from the heavens and out of it stepped a woman of heart-stopping beauty, clad in a toga and with a spear and round shield strapped to her back. Alisha fell to her knees so fast I was sure she'd have some lovely bruises afterwards. I, meanwhile, remained standing and crossed my arms.

“Athena," I said, coolly.

“Felix Tailor. Still making a nuisance of yourself I see."

“I don't know about that. We were minding our own business. You're the one standing in our way."

She ignored my comment and asked: “Where is the Chosen One?"

“Unconscious in the throne room, with a glowing red hand print on his cheek, next to the Dark Lord's corpse."

“And you are certain he is only unconscious?" she asked, a hint of accusation in her voice.

“Was when I last saw him. You know I'd never kill a Chosen One unprovoked. But he tried to stiff me so he's not out here." No harm in skirting around the truth. “And since I didn't harm him you have no reason nor authority to stand in my way."

She narrowed her eyes. Nobody talked to gods like this. Well, except me. She turned from me to Alisha, clearly dismissing me even though she'd been the one who'd interrupted us.

“Priestess, I suggest you stop traveling with this man. He will bring more harm to your reputation than you can possibly imagine."

Alisha's ears twitched. She was cowed, but did not submit to Athena either, telling me she worshiped another god, probably from another pantheon. “I appreciate the advice, Goddess Athena, but for now I will be traveling with him. Today he showed himself to be more heroic than the hero I swore to follow so I want to see where this leads."

Athena's lip curled up in distaste. “Suit yourself." She turned back to me. “One of these days, Felix Tailor, you will kneel at my feet and beg for my help." I looked down at her feet, then back up at her face. It would have been a very pretty face if not for the ugly sneer on it.

“I already did beg for your help once. And you and all your friends did nothing. So I have no idea why you think I'd ever ask for your help again. Unlike you, oh goddess of wisdom, I can learn from my mistakes."

Her face turned red in anger and her lips quivered. “Oh, how I wish to kill you, Felix Tailor."

“Go ahead," I said, holding her gaze.

After twenty heartbeats she turned around, stepped back into her beam of light, and both were gone. If I had been a dog I would have felt twelve feet tall just then because I'd just won a staring contest against a goddess. I turned to Alisha, who had gone pale as a sheet and was holding her hands over her mouth.

“What?" I asked.

She waved her arms around frantically, yelling: “You can't talk to gods like that!"

I shrugged and started walking again. “Just did, didn't I?"

She made an exasperated sound and then followed. A few steps later she asked: “So where are we going?"

“I told you, back to my home, in the capital," I said.

“That's a four day trek," she said.

“Yes," I said.

“Why not just let me use the Homeward miracle?" she asked.

I smacked my forehead. Homeward was a miracle known to almost every cleric no matter their patron. It instantly transported the target and/or their entire party to whatever place the target currently thought of as their home. I just wasn't used to having a cleric along after I finished a job so it hadn't even occurred to me to ask.

“Yes, that would be wonderful," I told her.

She nodded, then folded her hands together in prayer. Instantly a circle of warm orange light, with a pattern reminiscent of the knot designs the Tuatha Dé Danann used, sprang up around her with a much fainter second circle surrounding the first.

“Oh Goddess, please send us to the place he calls his home."

Then there was a flash of light and a second later we found ourselves on the flagstones in front of the Plucked Cockatrice tavern and inn.