Chapter 1
The village of Bramleaf had a monster problem. A giant woolly beetle beast, to be exact. It had been burrowing through their farmlands, occasionally bursting out of the ground to eat whatever it could find. It had devoured two cows, four pigs, a horse, a beloved family pet, thirty-two chickens, and Paddio Puddledeep, the local drunkard.
The village council had hoped the beetle beast would eventually move along and leave their settlement alone, but with the loss of one of their own, they finally decided to hire an adventurer to kill the monster.
That adventurer would be me.
Look, hope is a beautiful thing. It doesn't apply to monsters, though. They can't be reasoned with. You can't wish them away. Hoping they'll just leave you alone is only delaying the inevitable.
The inevitable being them eating you.
Tracking the monster down wasn't exactly hard. A massive mound of hardened mud and dung loomed in an open field, with any number of long, twisting furrows leading out of it. Some of them showed that the creature was tunneling ever closer to the village.
The beetle beast seemed rather annoyed when I breached its lair and brandished my sword. Most monsters are. It tried to grab me with its deadly mandibles, stomp me with its armored legs, and smash and smother me with its shaggy carapace. Fortunately, the monster was sluggish from having fed so freely and gone uncontested for so long that its efforts were easily dodged or parried.
There’s little point in hacking away at a beetle beast. Its fur is too thick, and the underlying carapace is too hard. You just need a little bit of patience and the right opportunity to strike at its head, its only real weak point.
Failing in its attempts to smash me into the wall, the beetle beast tried to grab me with its mandibles again, which gave me the opportunity to lop the left one off with my sword. This allowed me to step in closer to the monster's head. Its soulless black bug eye focused on me briefly (I think, who can tell with bugs?) as I plunged my sword through it and into the brain. Working my sword back and forth, the giant woolly beetle beast shuddered violently for a moment, then stilled.
It was dead.
After a certain number of years on the job, many adventurers find these one-off monster kills beneath them. They'd rather be stopping demon lord invasions, barbarian lord conquests, or dark lord subjugations. Truth be told, I’d prefer to be fighting the would-be “lords” of the world, too, but doing these one-offs keeps me grounded. Humble. There are plenty of stories of famous world-saving adventurers who died stupid deaths to lame monsters because they’d become way too confident in both themselves and their abilities. I'd like to not die a stupid death.
It wasn't part of the contract, but I decided to recover what I could of Paddio Puddledeep. He'd be partially digested, sure, but he had a wife, and I thought she deserved the chance to bury her husband. Besides, I needed the village to understand the cost of waiting too long to deal with the monsters in their midst..
Now that the beetle beast was no longer trying to kill me, I hacked through the thick, coarse fur and cracked open the chitinous shell. Then, sheathing my sword, I climbed into the monster’s carcass and started digging through its guts.
As you can imagine, not exactly a pleasant task. It was, let’s say… aromatic.
Anyway, a glint caught my eye. Scattered among the beetle's digestive sludge were the indigestible leftovers of its recent meals: horseshoes, a leather collar, several hooves, and, most noticeably, a silver tankard. I sloshed over to it and found what remained of poor Paddio, still clutching his most cherished possession with a literal death grip.
I tied a length of rope around the corpse, hauled it out of the beetle's body, and laid it gently on the ground. Aside from his debilitating alcoholism and marital status, I knew very little about Paddio Puddledeep. I got the impression from the people of Bramleaf that Paddio was well-liked, jovial, and charismatic when drunk, which was always. Kneeling down, I made the Sign of the Hammer and the Anvil and said a silent prayer for Paddio’s soul. Then, patting what I thought was his shoulder, I stood up.
The monster was dead, its victim recovered, but the job wasn’t finished. Not yet.
First, I had to prepare Paddio's body for transportation. I peeled off my bug-gut-covered gloves and walked over to my backpack, which I'd left at the breach I'd made in the beetle's lair.
(For any up-and-coming adventurers who may one day read these memoirs: never go into battle wearing your backpack. You'll regret it one hundred percent of the time.)
I opened my pack, pulled out a neatly folded tarp, and shook it open as I walked back to Paddio. I spread it out beside the body, untied the rope around him, rolled him onto the tarp, and wrapped him securely before tying the bundle shut with the same length of rope.
Next, I had to clean myself up.
While being drenched in monster guts might look impressive to some, it quickly becomes uncomfortable. The thick, acidic stomach juices had begun to dry, stiffening my clothes and doing who knows what to the rest of my gear.
I retrieved several small bottles from the various pouches on my belt. The first contained Powder of Base. I uncorked it and dumped it over myself, which briefly enveloped me in a sparkling white mist. The powder's magic neutralized the acid from the beetle's digestive juices.
Once the mist dissipated, I opened the second bottle. A tiny wisp of cloud drifted out and hovered above my head before expanding and darkening. A moment later, rain poured from the miniature cloud as the Potion of Camp Shower did its job, washing away most of the beetle's internal fluids.
It worked well enough, but I'd still have to scrub my gear later. The thicker clumps of bug guts, complete with shaggy bits of fur, still clung to me in some places.
I was more or less clean. Unfortunately, I was also soaking wet. There are very few things worse than trudging around in wet gear.
So I opened the last bottle, which contained Sirocco Powder. It was intended as a deterrent or distraction in certain circumstances, but, like many pieces of adventuring equipment, we, the collective “we” of my fellow adventurers, had found another use for it.
A hot wind burst forth and swirled around me. The warm air buffeted my clothes and equipment until everything was completely dry. When the wind dissipated, I took stock of myself. In the heat of the moment, the immediate aftermath, and then the cleanup, it’s easy to miss something. A small barb sticking out of your leg, a weird bit of goo stuck to your boot, your shadow not moving in sync with your body. Anything is possible and probable, and unending vigilance is what keeps you alive in this job.
I was clear, though. Nothing sticking out of me or onto me. It was time to go. I put the empty bottles in my backpack, belted it closed, and put it on, tightening the straps.
“What say I take you home now, Paddio?” I asked my dead charge. He didn’t respond.
I grabbed the ropes tied around Paddio’s body and hefted him up and onto my shoulder with a grunt. I didn’t relish walking him back to Bramleaf. It wasn’t far, but a dead body, no matter the size, was, no pun intended, a lot of dead weight. I reminded myself that returning his body was for the greater good of Paddio, his wife, and the people of Bramleaf, and steadied myself to bear the burden.
I took one last look around the beetle beast’s lair. I’d instruct the people of Bramleaf on how to demolish the mound of dirt and dung so no other monster moved in, and which parts of the beetle beast they could sell off to the Monster Market for a tidy profit.
Nodding to myself, I adjusted Paddio’s body and made my way to the breach in the wall. All in all, this was a perfect job. There was a monster, I killed it, and now I was going to collect my reward. Just another day in the life of your standard, everyday adventurer.
I stepped out of the giant woolly beetle beast’s lair… and was immediately attacked by an armored goose.