Pete the Pirate Ch. 01

At the street, the Prius waited for traffic to clear, signaled left, and pulled out to join the flow of vehicles passing through the city.

"You can drive if you want," Xill said. "Just tell Ruby you want to steer for a while."

"Ruby?" I asked.

"That's what he named HER," Kuss said, smirking.

"Jealous my love?" Xill asked, grinning.

"Always," she replied, giving him a quick peck.

I thought about her intense desire to visit Disneyworld and advised her that she would need to knock off the PDA while we were there - since - apparently normal people saw them as kids. Xill laughed raucously but Kuss just pinched his chest and scowled at him, assuring me that she'd be able to control herself in order to visit the "Happiest Place on Earth".

Once we left the city, Ruby effortlessly took us onto the interstate. I told her to take an exit at a truckstop that I knew had amazing crème horns - and then realized that I didn't have any money. Xill handed me a credit card and I headed inside to procure some sweets - and some milk to wash it down.

My two small saviors were as delighted with the treats as I had hoped they'd be. Kuss instructed Ruby to add a waypoint for the place to the navigation system.

I soon grew tired of watching cornfields pass by and leaned the seat back to take a nap.

~~~

I jolted awake as Ruby pulled to a stop, the drive-selector moved to 'Park', and the doors unlocked.

"We're here?" I asked, groggily.

"This is as close as we can get with Ruby," Xill replied.

Kuss went left, into the trees, and Xill pointed me off to the right. I found a nice pee-tree and did my business. We met back at the car.

"What did you name your scout?" Xill asked me, as he pointed down the game trail.

I took it out and released it to fly ahead of us - assuming that his question was also a suggestion.

"I don't know. It kind of looks like the golden snitch from the movies," I said.

"Snitch might be an appropriate name," he said, smirking.

"What should I be looking for?" I asked.

"Occasionally, there are bandits but this way is not traveled often - so those are rare. There's a troll's den about halfway along. We'll need to keep an eye out there. You can outrun them now but Kuss and I can't."

"Can I carry you?"

"Not the way things are right now. You'd need to distract the trolls or fight them. The problem with you being a distraction is that - if there's anything else lurking ahead - Kuss and I will be undefended until you return."

"That's not entirely true," Kuss told him.

"My toys aren't that useful against brutes and thieves," he countered.

She looked like she wanted to disagree but finally nodded.

"Is troll hide as tough as I've read?" I asked.

"I don't know what you've read - but it's tough. Your hand-blade will eventually get through it but I would try smacking them in the forehead with your hammer - or throwing a pin through their eye - into their tiny brain."

"A pin?"

"The firearm in your right arm," he said. "It's a railgun that shoots little needles."

"No shit?!"

"There's a block of steel in the ammo magazine. It shaves a needle off, loads it into the chamber, and launches it - at about the speed of a bullet from one of your guns."

"Wow."

"The problem is, you need to target the heart or the brain to do much damage. Enough shots in the lungs will work as well - but the holes are tiny."

~~~

We had walked for probably an hour when we came to a nexus where two or three trails crossed. Xill picked the one to the right of the one we'd been following and then asked me to take the lead.

We'd followed that path for about 15 minutes when I heard a squeak behind me and turned to find a grubby-looking human holding a dagger with an arm around Kuss' shoulders. He was moving the blade towards her bare neck.

"What have we here?" he cackled.

I threw my hands out - palms towards him - fingers spread wide and yelled, "No!"

A sparkling turquoise ball of energy - about the size of my fist - flew at incredible speed from somewhere in front of my chest. It struck the man in the face. His hands dropped to his sides. The blade fell to the ground.

I barely kept my balance - still standing on my left leg - as the other one disappeared from under me.

Xill grabbed Kuss' arm, pulled her past his body towards me, and began beating the stunned man with the absconded leg.

"Xill!" Kuss called to him.

He ignored her and continued to beat every square inch of the man's body he could reach - holding the ankle of my new leg - and swinging the thing like a baseball bat to pulverize the dazed attacker.

She managed to pull him off just as the man came back to himself. I think Xill only relented because the man fell to the ground, trying to cover himself, and curled into a fetal position.

Kuss took the leg and handed it back to me. Then she took her husband past me and left me to tend to - or deal with - the mugger.

I leaned down and grabbed his knife as he lay writhing on the ground, moaning. I waited - planning to take everything he had when he quieted - but he was in too much pain to stop thrashing around.

It took me a minute or two but I finally figured out how to fire another stun at him. He froze again. I emptied his pockets, used my blade to cut the cord on his coin purse, and frisked him - collecting some throwing blades and another smaller dagger. He didn't have a pack so he must have a base - or friends - somewhere nearby. I took all of the loot I had collected and walked back over to my employers.

"Put that stuff in your pack," Xill told me. "It's yours."

The artificer was holding his wife tightly. She was holding him as well.

"When we get to my mother-in-law's," he told me. "I'll scrape together enough odds and ends to make a second snitch for you. I don't want to be caught by surprise again."

"You okay?" I asked Kuss.

"Just shaken up," she told me. "Check him for injuries before he wakes back up. Heal anything life-threatening."

Ignoring the frown on her husband's face, I returned to the man to follow her orders. His eyes were locked straight ahead. I placed my hands on him. I asked my magic what was wrong with him. He was mostly a mass of bruises. There was a busted rib that was in danger of poking a lung. I told my magic to fix the rib. I "watched" it heal. I also reduced the trauma to his skull and brain. Nothing else met Kuss' description of "life threatening" - so I left the rest. I stood up just as he started coming back around.

I switched my right hand out for the hammer - mostly just to see what it looked like. The head was about as big as my fist - maybe a little smaller. I found that I could extend the "handle" - between my arm and the head - about two feet out. If I swung the arm and just let the mass of the hammer deal the damage to my foe, it would cause a lot of pain - and probably crush bones or a skull.

My other thought was that I could be standing face-to-face with somebody, switch my fist to the hammer, and telescope the head straight out and really fuck up somebody's nose.

The man was looking at me.

"I healed your broken rib," I told him, flicking my eyes to that hammer and back to his face. "If we run into you again, I'll help my employer beat you to death."

He nodded.

I turned and rejoined the gnomes. I grabbed my pack. I told Snitch to fly around us in a circle a hundred feet wide - actively scanning for anything that might be a concern.

Our new acquaintance stayed on the ground until we were far enough away that Snitch could no longer "see" him.

"What kind of magic was I using?" I asked Xill as we walked.

"A decent stun," he told me. "What did you heal?"

"Broken rib. Skull fracture. Brain swelling."

"Any power drain?"

"Not that I can tell," I replied, "although I'm not sure I know what I'm looking for."

"Moderate healing then," he said. "Focus on telling your magic to 'rest' - so it will regenerate. It's called 'meditation'."

I did that for a little while as we walked. Fifteen minutes later, I told Xill that it felt like I was recharged. He just quirked an eyebrow at me.

"There are a few magical disciplines that have a stun," he said after a bit longer. "Based on how you casted it, I'm thinking Kuss should have her brother sit with you for a bit."

"Bard, you think?" she asked him.

He shrugged.

~~~

After another hour we headed down into a small valley that had a wide creek at the bottom. There was a stone bridge that crossed the waterway. We had traveled halfway down the incline when Snitch told me there were two trolls watching the bridge. I relayed the information to Xill. He stopped walking, pulled his pack off his shoulder, and sat down to start putting pieces of something together.

A few minutes later, he handed me a set of pan-pipes - made from eight of the small tubes that had been stuck in my body when I'd woken up two days earlier.

"Give it a try," he told me. "I'm not positive A# is the correct length."

When I'd been a kid, I'd gotten a toy harmonica for Christmas one year. It mysteriously disappeared two hours later. I was never sure which of my family members had thrown it into the fireplace but I found recognizable metal bits in the ashes when I had cleaned the thing out the following spring.

I ran my lips back and forth across the tubes, blowing into them. Xill took it back and cut a little more off of the second longest one. He nodded when I tried it again.

"What do I do with it?" I asked.

"Play the brutes a tune about fat, juicy deer that abound in the woods to the left," he said.

"I'm not sure I know that song," I told him.

He laughed and said, "Just imagine the song as you play. Magic spells don't work well on trolls - so stunning them is out. See if you can do anything with that. Otherwise, we'll have to figure out something else."

Ten minutes later, I was serenading two huge trolls as the three of us walked along the creek, heading towards the large stand of trees that I had suggested was teeming with tasty venison steaks just waiting for a roaring fire.

I continued playing the tune as they moved into the trees and then I returned to the road to find my fellow travelers arriving at the bridge.

Kuss had her hands mashed against her ears. She was frowning. I stopped my meat-themed melody.

"You don't like my song about yummy bucks and does?" I asked her.

"We need to get you some lessons," she said smirking.

"That was kind of fun," I told Xill.

"Maybe for you," he said, making a show of cleaning the wax from his ears.

He spoiled the teasing by laughing merrily and patting me on the back.

"Well done, Pete the Pirate. A jaunty tune was, apparently, just the thing to send our huge friends on their way. For future reference, however, I would suggest keeping a much larger distance between yourself and the trolls."

Kuss laughed, nodding.

"They're just my big, cuddly band groupies," I told him.

He laughed and shook his head. "Most groupies don't carry small trees around to bash people in the head."

"You've been going to all the wrong concerts, then," I told him.

He laughed even harder.

~~~

We came out of the valley and walked for another hour before we came to a small stand of trees. One path headed around the trees and one headed through the small forest.

"Know any tunes about giant birds that are on the lookout for juicy bugs?" Xill asked me.

"I'm not sure," I replied. "Should I?"

"It'll knock a half-hour off of our walk," he told me.

I pulled out my pipes while Xill dug some cotton wadding from his pack and handed a pinch to his wife. The two of them stuffed the stuff into their ears.

I led the way into the trees. Snitch told me the place was lousy with arachnids. I struck up a scary tune about hungry raptors that loved feasting on giant bugs. Their favorite treat was multi-faceted eyes.

I was working on my fifth verse of the Ballad of the Bug-Eating Birdies when Snitch told me we were almost through. I finished up the song once we were several steps beyond the last of the trees and we were once more passing through sunlit grassy meadows.

I stowed my instrument in my pack and continued following the path. Xill and Kuss stepped up beside me and congratulated me on successfully keeping the spiders at bay.

We walked for about another half-hour before we hit another nexus of game-trails. Kuss took the lead at that point - with Xill hurrying to keep up, cussing under his breath.

I kept Snitch on the lookout but we hadn't walked that much farther before we seemed to be approaching a loose collection of gnome homes - small cottages and burrows.

~~~

A gnome woman who looked a lot like Kuss - except with fiery red hair that spilled down to her shoulders - threw open the front door of one of the homes and ran to wrap my healer in a tight hug.

I sat down in the grass, pulled out my pipes, and played a little tune about a beautiful healer who saved me from dying and baked the most wonderful bread.

I jumped a little when a small hand pushed my instrument away from my mouth. The tiny flame-haired woman gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

"I'll have my son give you a few lessons and then you can play that for me again," she told me. "I just baked some bread. Won't you come in and share it with me?"

I swapped to my shorter legs and followed the gnome woman into the house. She looked at my stunted limbs and laughed. I still had to watch my head a little as I went through the door. I could hear Xill grumbling, behind me, as he and the woman's daughter followed us inside.

Kuss had obviously gotten her bread-baking skills from her mom. I wouldn't admit it to the woman I'd just met but her daughter had picked up a couple tricks - somewhere - that made hers just a little better. I didn't let that preempt me from lauding her skills - especially when my appreciation earned me a second and third helping. The dark bread was still warm inside and the butter (goat, I later learned) was fabulous.

After our snack, Kuss and her mother started catching up on the news. Xill tugged on my sleeve and we slipped back out to the front lawn.

"Well played," he told me, smirking.

I shrugged and smiled.

"Switch your legs back. Let's go see if the ornery cuss who serves as the village tinker has anything I can buy to make you one or two more of those snitches."

~~~

We walked past a few homes before we came to a little collection of buildings that appeared to be shops in the front - and residences in the rear.

The third one had an emblem of a weird silver hammer on the door. Xill had me wait outside. He went inside the shop. I found a quiet spot to the side of the path and sat in the grass.

A couple minutes later, he came out and requisitioned Snitch from me. He took it with him and went back inside. As he and the merchant talked, I listened in through my tiny scout. When the tinker was busy retrieving the things Xill wanted, he held the eye so that I could see his face. He held his finger up in front of his lips - telling me to stay quiet.

I hadn't even thought about using Snitch to talk. I mentally told the little scout not to relay any sound from my end. Xill played the lens back and forth across the shop so that I could see the shelves and everything on them. It looked like some kind of indoor flea market. No wonder Xill had given the man a list and then stood waiting for him to fill the order. I'm not sure how a person would find anything inside of there!

A half-hour later, Xill emerged with a satchel filled with goodies that made him grin from ear to ear. We made our way back to his mother-in-law's house where he found a shady spot for us to sit. He pulled a harmonica out of the bag and handed it to me.

"I think the pan-pipes were still probably the instrument of choice for the trolls and the spiders," he told me, "but this may work better for the more intelligent races."

Since he was putting on his tool belt, I assumed it wasn't time for a tune - so I stowed the gift in my pack.

We worked until Kuss called us to dinner. First, we organized all of the pieces as he told me what they were. After that, I handed pieces to him as he called for them. By the time we headed in to eat, we had two more little metal hummingbirds completed.

Xill grumped when Kuss' mom sent us out the back to wash our hands before she'd let us sit down to eat. He quieted when his spouse scowled at him.

~~~

As we ate, Kuss' mom kept plying me with more food than even a grown human can eat. I wasn't the only one that noticed the extra attention. Kuss was frowning at her mom's behavior as well.

Xill's wife had made contact with the brother she had talked about. He and his wife would be stopping by to visit over the next couple days. The artificer groaned and mumbled something about 'eternal torment' - which I assumed just meant that our visit was lasting longer than he had planned.

After we had eaten, Xill grabbed his pack. I grabbed mine and we headed for the exit.

"What are you doing?" Liss, Kuss' mother, asked.

"I'm taking the boy outside. We'll camp in tents."

"It's too cold," she argued.

Xill's eyebrows shot up. Based on his response, I was sure that he understood her words to mean that she wanted ME to sleep in the house - she wasn't worried about him.

"There's no place for the giant to sleep," Xill told her. "The guest beds are singles."

"He can have my bed - it's a double."

"Where will you sleep?" Kuss asked her mother.

"I'll ... I'll take the guest bed."

Based on the size of Kuss' eyes, I assumed this was the first time her mother had ever suggested giving her bed up for somebody else to sleep on.

For a moment, it looked like Xill or Kuss might try arguing another bit of logic with the matron of the house but they finally looked at each other and shrugged.

Liss clapped her hands together and said, "I'll get the bed made up. You two can tinker for a bit longer and we can visit until it is bedtime."

As she left the room, Xill's grumbling reached audible levels.

"Sorry, my love," Kuss told him, stepping over to give him a peck on the cheek. "At least she's being nicer than usual."

That statement had him grumbling about dragons and their vices again.

Kuss left to help her mom. Xill and I moved to the front room. The only table in sight was the coffee table. Xill started digging out his tools and supplies. I sat on my ass next to the table but I was still too large to really use it as a work surface. When I asked Xill what he needed me to do, he just muttered and waved me off.

I asked about moving his stuff to the dining room table but he immediately started grumbling about bitter, vengeful dragons. I dropped the idea and he began to set his focus on the gears, bits, and bobbins that covered the short table.

Several minutes later, the women returned. I noticed Xill shoving cotton into his ears as their voices got louder. I kept my mouth shut.

Liss asked Xill to start a fire in the fireplace. He sent me to get firewood. When I returned, he was opening the flue and arranging his small pile of kindling in the center. He had me use my hand-blade to slice one of the logs into thin strips - almost like shake shingles. After that, he told me to focus my magic on creating a small flame and carefully bringing it to his starter-materials.

My first attempt was the size of my fist. He had me extinguish that one and try again - holding up his thumb for size. It took me two more tries but I finally got it. Then he had me slowly lower the flame until it nuzzled against the tinder. A few seconds later, the tinder was burning on its own. Xill had me extinguish my flame again.

He looked over and nodded at me, smiling. I knew I had a goofy-ass grin on my face. I'd created a fireball! And controlled it! Fucking magic!