Dear Mother,
The raid didn't go well, I'm mean we won, but still…
The guild provided us with weapons and gear. There were a good dozen other adventurers there besides us. A group made up of the top 4 adventurers in the region, along with a squat guide in full plate mail were sent to the island itself, while everyone else was meant to stay on the mainland and kill anything that came out when the raid party kicked the proverbial hornets' nest. More experienced adventurers made up the right flank, rookies took the left, and we were in the middle. Ballistae and other siege engines were positioned on the hills behind us, including the machine half the town had been building. It was a cannon, a massive barrel mounted onto a firing mechanism the size of a building. Each shell it loaded was as tall as me, and it was all powered by a massive magic stone.
We grouped up in the closest thing to a battle formation we could come up with. Rost, Tibia, and Becket were up front. They would be the wall against anything that got too close. In the back was Centurion, Sam, and me. We would use our range to take out as many enemies as we could. And in the center of all of us was Saphira. So long as we stayed within range of her aura, our weapons would be charged with her elemental essence. I was looking forward to see how these metal bugs would handle a bit of draconic acid. I also brought the project Centurion and I had been working on. Arrows tipped with fire magic stones, inscribed to go off once they hit their mark. I was confident. We'd gotten by on dumb luck at this point, but now we had a plan, better gear, and a small army on our side. And for a time, it seemed we were invincible.
My confidence was only enforced as waves of flying metal insects began falling to us. As the first wave approached, Sam called forth a storm cloud, and lightning raked through them. Their metal forms made it so anything close carried the electricity to the next bug in line. Centurion took out a few more with a small cannon he'd mounted to his arm. I then decided to try an explosive arrow against the last group. I went into a slight panic attack when the explosion was quite a bit larger than I thought it would be. I believe it was Rost who whipped around and asked, "YOU HAD A FUCKING FIREBALL RATTLING AROUND IN YOUR BACKPACK?!" I, in fact, and several fireballs rattling around in my backpack. Best take those out.
Eventually, a small number of the ants had washed up on shore after being knocked out of the sky. Rost and Becket managed to take out any that got close. The rookie squad had a few grounded ants to deal with as well but we thought they could handle it. We were wrong. These guys were rookies like us but we were more like overpowered morons who took up adventuring as a hobby. That other squad was a green as you could get. They could barely swing a stick, much less a sword. By the time we managed to get to them and help, half of them were already dead. It wasn't an encouraging sight, especially with what happened next.
The raid party finally knocked something big loose. The queen had emerged. This is what I sensed during our original mission. A vaguely humanoid form, a large head with mandibles, antennae, and compound eyes. It had hulking, moth-like wings and multiple sets of arms, all but two of which were tipped with giant lances of rusted steel. She landed in the middle of the battlefield, and it was at this moment that I became far too clever for my own good. This was an intelligent creature. I could tell that already. So I figured, what solution would result in the least casualties, and also perhaps get us a massive payout from the guild. I tried…talking to it. Yes, really.
It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Only a few of the soldier ants were left. Our artillery was still pounding away at the island. The raid party was still there cleaning house. The spire itself was just a toppled mess on the ground at this point. We'd limited the queen's options to such a degree that I thought if I presented a new option, this intelligent creature would choose self-preservation and the chance of a new colony elsewhere over death. After all, the guild WAS still looking for a replacement for the spider queen we killed. So, after a cast of Speak With Animals, as well as Thaumaturgy to amplify my voice, I spoke.
"Great Queen. Your army is defeated. Your home is sieged. You are surrounded by the greatest war machines and beast slayers in the realm. If you continue on your path, the only result is death. Surrender now, and there may yet be a chance for you to live on and start anew."
The others looked at me with a general expression of, "What the fuck are you doing?!" I knew it was crazy, but I genuinely thought it might work. The queen seemed to ponder for a moment, before picking up the head of a dead ant. She held it forward and spoke through it. Just three words.
"Don't patronize me."
And in one swift motion, she brought her lances down onto the veteran team behind her, slaughtering them all. I'd angered her, and now the blood of those adventurers was on my hands. The others sprang into action while I just stood there for a moment, realizing what I'd just done. Saphira managed to snap me out of it. "Right. Kill giant monster now. Have an existential crisis later." As Rost, Becket, and Sam kept the queen busy, the rest of us flanked it and began unloading fire into it. I managed to let off another explosive shot which managed to stun the beast for a moment. After a long, grueling, fight, Centurion was out of ammo, I was down to one last explosive arrow, Rost was torn up pretty bad, and Tibia was burnt around the edges. But the queen wasn't fairing any better. It was greatly injured and weighing its options. It then decided we weren't worth finishing and started to make its way back to the island. I loosed one last shot at it. I hit but it still wasn't dead. Luckily, the raid party was flying back at that point and finished it off. Whatever they did disintegrated it, leaving a single one of the queen's steel lances, which fell and embedded itself on the island's shore.
Once the raid party landed on what I thought to be some weird dragon, hybrid creature, we began salvaging the battlefield. Turns out the giant monster they were riding was actually the top adventurer in the country taking on some sort of monster form. As we counted the dead, Becket became enraged. Apparently, he noticed something the rest of us didn't and marched up to the raid party demanding answers. From what little of his language I'd pieced together, he was saying how the battlefield was all wrong, and was accusing the raid party, who planned the whole fight, of arranging us this way on purpose. The monster, who I learned later was named Minos, didn't deny Becket's claims. They'd purposely put the weaker adventures on the far flank to draw attention away from us and make stragglers easier to pick off. The rookies were bait. My faith in the guild drops more and more by the day. After that, Becket just kind of marched into the water with expression reminiscent of, "No talk me. Am angy." Sam and Tibia eventually coaxed him out of the water and we continued salvaging.
Rost pulled me aside at this point. He never spoke much, but when he did, he was always blunt and honest, brutally so. He chastised me, called me a fool for trying something so brain dead, and that the deaths of those adventurers was my fault. His words hurt, but they were true. Criminal or no, he was far more experienced as an adventurer than me, and here I'd been, using him as a meat shield while thinking my bow and my words could solve all our problems. The fireball arrows, the failed negotiation, the dead comrades, the biggest danger here was me. The raid party didn't see it that way though.
When they saw what was to them, a criminal talking down to a superior, they confronted us. They told Rost that he should learn his place, and that if he didn't like his current assignment, he could just accept banshiment; he'd already paid his debt to society with the island expedition. He simply looked at the raid party, he looked at the rest of our group, and then he looked at me. And he just left, "Gladly, better than being led to slaughter by him." I tried following him as he left but he just picked me up by my collar before throwing me back to the ground. He only said one more thing to me before leaving. "Get your shit together kobold. You've got idiots counting on you."
I was reprimanded for not being able to control my subordinates. Had to pay a small fine too, but other than that we managed to return the gear we borrowed without incident. The raid party's short guide visited us. They removed their helm to reveal it was Chavelle from the Artificer's Shop. We we're all pretty surprised by that. She looked harmless without the platemail. After all was said and done, we made it back to town and buried the dead. I spent a long time there afterwards. I didn't know these adventurers, but they still deserved respect. The guild has informed us we'll be getting a new recruit in the coming week. They still haven't told me anything about them. It doesn't matter. Rost was right. I need to get my shit together before I get someone else killed. But I don't know how. I'm not Balder. I'm not a leader. I'm just a stupid kobold. I wish you were here. I wish you were all here. I'm gonna take some time to think this through. I need to figure out if I really have what it takes to do this.
Love, Your Son, Fessiiv
. . .
The kobold stared down at the page. He knew there was more to say, but not how to say it. So he read over the words a few more times while the ink dried. He still doesn't know why he writes these. He doesn't know where to send them, or if the intended recipient is even still alive. He hasn't seen or heard from his mother, or the rest of his family in nearly eight years. And yet, he still feels every bit the frightened, little, screw-up we was back then. Had he really learned nothing in all that time? Learning had been his favorite thing to do once.
Back with The Argonauts, every day was filled with learning new things: new techniques, new strategies, new stories, new languages. He absorbed it all. Yet now, it seemed like he couldn't even learn from his mistakes. This couldn't stand. He needed to begin learning again. If not for himself, then for his team, and his daughter. He looked over to her. She was curled up at the foot of his bed, fast asleep. It had been a long day. When was the last time HE had gotten a full night sleep? He closed his journal, got up, and headed for the door. No sleep tonight either, it would seem.
As he silently shut the door behind him, he took a moment, "Here goes something," before heading downstairs into the bar of the tavern. The others were already there waiting for him at a booth in the corner. The autognome was there with them. He didn't remember asking her to come too, but she was practically part of the team already.
"Who bought the round?"
The half-elf raised a hand and was tossed a silver. The kobold sat down and netted his clawed fingers in front of him. There was a silence. No one knew what to say, and if they did, not how to say it. Something in the kobold's mind compelled him to speak, but he held back. Memories of the battle flashed in his mind. Hadn't his big mouth caused enough trouble already? He quickly realized this line of thinking would get him nowhere. So he did the one thing that would give him the courage to break the accursed silence. In one swift motion, he took a massive swig from the mug in front of him. The group's eyes widened but no one said a word. With a strained exhale, he slammed the mug back down on the table. And after a moment to catch his breath, he spoke.
"I…I admit it! I'm a shit adventurer and a worse leader. I failed you. I failed all of you. I failed all the warriors we had to bury today, and they weren't even in my squad."
The Minotaur looked like she was about to say something, but was spoken over.
"You want to know something? For the first week we knew each other, I never bothered to remember any of your names. I thought I'd be doing this one favor for the guild and I'd be out of the shit mountain city and off to find my real team. How fucked up is that?! Even now I still treated you all like shitty sidekicks, and look what happened!"
The half-elf attempted to speak up.
"Fessiiv, there's no way you could've known that-"
The Minotaur spoke over him.
"What's done is done. We can't worry about that now. We have a new recruit coming don't we? What are we going to do about that?"
The warforged and armor spirit looked at each other with concern. The kobold slumped back in his chair, pinching and massaging the bridge of his snout between his eyes.
"I don't know. The guild won't tell me anything, as usual. But I'll tell you what we're going to do moving forward.
He sat back up, attempting to put up a veil of confidence.
"This whole time you've been telling me what I've been doing wrong, but I wasn't listening. I've been treating you like you're useless when you're not. Here I've been trying to do everything myself and not letting any of you get your say. I was no better than the damn guild. No more. From now on I'll be counting on each of you."
The group sat shocked, confused, but continued to listen.
"Bucke-, sorry, Sir Becket, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you DO have some masterful ideas. The problem is you just go ahead with them without thinking it through or running it by anyone. I think my little chat with the ant queen shows how well that kind of thinking goes. So-"
The kobold tossed over two brand new journals along with some charcoal.
"From now on you use that to convey your thoughts, at least until the rest of us learn Celestial. Centurion, the other one is for you until Chavelle here helps me make you a new voice box. You two have good ideas, and don't think I haven't noticed the side project you've been working on. I want to hear from you. But I can't do that if I can't understand."
The kobold shifted his gaze to the half-elf.
"Tibia, I think it's obvious by now that negotiation isn't my strong-suit, so from now on, you're our envoy. Use that head of yours to convey our thoughts across. And use those annoying as hell bagpipes to at least let people know we're coming. It's not like we're very subtle anyways."
Finally, he looked up to lock eyes with the minotaur.
"Sam, your jokes annoy the living hell out of me, but your also probably the most level headed out of all of us. Starting tomorrow, you're my second. Help me keep this team on track and you can make all the jokes at my stature you want. As for your question, no, I don't know who or what will be joining us in the coming days and frankly, I don't care either. I'm already dealing with a minotaur, a baby stormdrake, two robots, an incorporeal crusader, and an annoying half-elf with bagpipes. Nothing surprises me."
He stood up. His tone more filled with genuine determination than with anger.
"I know I suck as a leader, but damn it all I am trying! All I ask is you try too. Look at us! We're screw-ups, idiots, freaks, and yet we still kick more ass than the rest of this town combined without even trying. Imagine what we could do if we ACTUALLY gave a shit once in a while. We're a team damn it! And tomorrow, we start acting like it."
And with a wide toothy grin, he raised his mug.
"But that's for tomorrow. Tonight, we drink our fill, and then another keg's worth on top of that for the comrades we lost! TO THE FALLEN!"
And so the sleepless night went on. Mugs were emptied and refilled, as stories were swapped back and forth. None of them slept until the next morning. The blob of gibbering, hopelessly shitfaced adventurers had been tossed out of the tavern and into the stables like the animals they were behaving as, and fell fast asleep the moment their heads met the ground. Thus, their first adventure had ended, with many more just on the horizon. This band of cretins, rejects, and idiots would go by many names: The Queenbreakers, The Bucket Brigade, one telling claims they took on the mantle of The Argonauts, but one title always sums them up nicely, a Menagerie.
End of Arc I
To be continued…