Interview

by Shannon Kostyal

Balyron grimaced between wheezing, strained breaths. His eyes burned, and every time he tried to gain some relief by wiping away the dripping sweat, it invariably wound up in his eyes. The precisely opposite effect he was hoping for. If only he could cast spells, or traveled with a spell caster. He’d long admired the cool thing they did with environmental magic. He’d seen whole groups march about in the coldest winter, or the most sweltering heat, and never bat an eye.

Glaring up at the cursedly clear sky above with its twin orbs of burning, vile sunlight, he wondered— not for the first time —what precisely had he been thinking when he’d agreed to this asinine idea. Had he been drunk at the time? Actually, now that he thought about it, it was quite probable. The local tavern was usually where the worst ideas spawned from.

He blamed the roaming bands of adventurers with their shiny armor and mystic books and stupid animal transforming Druids. Never trust a badger. That had been among the worst ideas he’d had. That is, until today.

The adventurers were definitely to blame for both occasions, though. For years he watched them come and go. Some victorious, and others not so much. He envied them their glory, their camaraderie, and most importantly, their loot. Eh, if he were honest, it was mostly the loot. Which was probably why he was never too heart broken over this village’s collection of failed adventuring parties.

Ol’ Snugglekins, the local rust monster, was pretty famous for derailing the less wary adventurers. Balyron had actually followed one group last month, curious to see how they’d fare. To date, he still wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not. He probably should have rooted for the adventurers. But, there was something satisfying about seeing a hulking tank of a man reduced to his small clothes in a matter of minutes. If it was metal, it was a snack. That meant metal staffs, amulets, circlets, bracers… so many magical items, gone in one hungry snack binge. And the coins.

He’d followed the group from a distance, deeply entertained as they made their way back to the tavern keeper, Moki.

Moki was a squirrelly-faced old man of indeterminate age. Rumors occasionally surfaced that he was 1/4 kobold, and that was why he was so short. And grumpy.

Sometimes in Moki’s more drunken moments, he would boast about his grandfather, claiming he was the famous dual-wielding sword sage kobold of legend. And, maybe that really was Moki’s granddad. Not that it mattered. Balyron didn’t much care who was whose spawn. His own father was supposedly the king, if his mother were to be believed. Didn’t change the fact that he cleaned out stables for a living.

He’d formed a sort of friendship with the tavern keep, and the bets they made on whether a party would succeed one of Moki’s quests or not was usually how Balyron made his money. Dredging out stables certainly didn’t help fund his drinking binges.

But — back to his current pickle. Glaring evil suns. Buckets of sweat. A drunken contract that he deeply regretted. Up ahead he could smell the prison.

That’s right. Smell. He could also see it, but he’d been smelling it before he’d come up over the ridge for a visual. It reeked of sour, unwashed bodies, ammonia, and shit. This was the exact last place he would normally choose to loiter. Especially considering how precarious his own position was.

The law sometimes didn’t take too well to what they called “adventurer entrapment”. Probably because local law enforcement relied so much on outsiders to do their jobs for them. When Snugglekins took out the last party —their equipment, to be specific— they’d retreated back to their own village to resupply. That had meant the local guard had to go deal with the bandits in the woods instead.

Since then, whenever the guards came to the tavern, the looks they gave Moki and him made it pretty clear that it was just a matter of time before they figured out a way to make his life even more miserable. As the booze supplier, Moki was near untouchable.

Balyron squinted his eyes against the glare of light, and studied the prison. Breaking in midday seemed not the best option. He glanced around, and looked for anything that would provide both a view of the prison, as well as shade. Unfortunately, he realized quickly that he could have one, or the other, but not both.

Stupid, drunken, contracted agreements.

He hunkered down, laying himself out flat on the scraggly ground cover, shifting to the left and then to the right, trying to wriggle himself into a position where sharp rocks weren’t digging into his shins.

Time to wait out the daylight.

~~~

As the twin suns sunk below the horizon, Balryon had to fight the urge to crack a “knight fell” joke. It wouldn’t have made much sense anyway. No knights to be found outside of adventuring parties these days. That, and since he was the only audience, and he wasn’t quite ready to admit insanity, talking to himself seemed to be on the list of don’ts.

He squinted toward the prison, despite the lack of blinding light. Unlike Moki’s uncanny ability to see at night, Balyron had run-of-the-mill human vision. He liked to think squinting helped smooth out the fuzziness that came with dim light. Then again, he also liked to think he was endlessly witty, two tankards in, with five rounds of lost dicing. Reality and his perception occasionally parted ways.

Grimacing, he started to shake his limbs loose from their hours-long stillness. Nothing like pins-and-needles numbness to start off a prison break. The guards had swiftly retired to the inner recesses of the building. No one liked to be in plain view when darkness swallowed the valley.

In addition to Snugglekins, they had a very minor wyvern infestation, and the buggers were known to haul off with the occasional hapless guard caught out walking the wall. That was something else last month’s adventurers were supposed to take care of.

With one last twisting stretch, Balyron slipped toward the prison, sliding silently between darkened shadows, gliding so skillfully, he knew he left no physical trace of his passage. He might not be some hulking mountain of man meat, or a snazzy wizard, or even a shady ass, low down badger-shifter, but that hadn’t kept him from honing the skills he could.

No one could sneak like he could. At least not in this village. No one could quite pick locks like he could either, which was frustrating, because the whole village knew that last piece. It meant he had to stay extra careful about creative acquisition activities. He was always the first suspect on any list. And worse, his drunken boast about those skills was what landed him in this mess.

Suppressing a grumble —it would make noise—he slid along the wall of the prison, deft fingers gliding in tiny, sweeping motions across the surface. He had a knack for feeling when something was off. Walls just sort of talked to him. Except not with a voice. That would be weird. And creepy. He’d probably have to take to living outside if he thought his room routinely saw him naked.

Pushing that thought aside, Balyron paused about 5 feet from an archway. He felt that strange tingling spark. He crouched lower, one hand still caressing the stone wall, feeling the normal pitting of age, and then abruptly, the surface turned smooth, almost slippery. He smirked and leaned back on his haunches, wriggling his fingers in greeting.

An oozing coalescence of snot formed, the blob growing in size as it distended out. The weight of the forming blob eventually brought it plopping down in front of him in an awkward jiggle.

“Hey, Mutton… how’s it hanging?” He whispered, barely audible.

The blob jiggled in response, and a grin seemed to surface on the slime before absorbing back in.

Balyron fished about in his vest pocket and pulled out some dried jerky, plopping it down in front of the slime.

The blob did a little happy dance jiggle as it shimmied over the offering, devouring it.

Balyron slid past it, waving goodbye as he disappeared through the archway.

The guards thought they were clever, hiring low-level monsters. Balyron felt a sense of smug superiority —he’d been far more clever. He’d befriended them.

Eyes sharp, he confirmed the pathway to the stables was free of interference. He wove between the darkest shadows, silent as a corpse, and ducked into the stable.

As expected, he spotted a young ranger bound by rope, glaring angrily at him. Kid had some amazing hearing, but of course he would. Last night’s adventurers had warned Balyron that the kid was half-elf. And deeply untrusting of strangers. Smart kid,

He edged cautiously toward the ranger, just close enough to whisper and not have his voice picked up by a stray gust of wind. As he approached, he pulled out an amulet from his vest and let it drop heavily from the chain to dangle in front of the kid’s eyes.

“Asanos - your group sent me to get you out. If I untie you, promise you won’t make a ruckus?”

The ranger’s eyes focused on the amulet before slowly turning a cooly assessing gaze on Balyron. It seemed like an excessively long time before the kid gave the barest nod of assent.

Shoulders relaxing, Balyron swiftly ducked behind the kid and had the knots undone in the time it would take most men to just get started on a woman’s corset.

Skills, he had them. And this whole damned thing was his test.

The young ranger stood gracefully, giving no sign of any discomfort, despite having been tied up for over a day. Damned elven types. Always so collected.

“Alright. If you can move like that, we should have no problem returning you to your friends”. Balyron’s whisper was barely above a normal breath, but he knew the kid would hear. The second head nod confirmed it.

Silent as he came in, Balyron and Asanos slipped through the entryway. The ranger froze for a moment as he caught sight of the slime, but Balyron nudged him forward, simultaneously dropping another piece of jerky in front of Mutton.

With the slime properly bribed, Balyron and the ranger slipped off into the darkness, heading back to the tavern where the young ranger’s adventuring party awaited. And possibly his too.

This had been the damned weirdest interview he’d gone on. But turned out, adventuring parties sometimes needed rogues.