When Johnny comes marching home again
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we’ll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
The old church bell will peal with joy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The village lads and lassies say
With roses they will strew the way,
And we’ll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
-“When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
The song the excerpt above comes from was written by an Irish American composer by the name of Patrick Gilmore. My father always enjoyed that part of it, so I got to hear it all the time. I find myself wondering if when he or other members of my family think about me when they hear it. Or maybe they’ve given up on me returning.
In truth, I’ll never be returning. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t given up on going home. It’s just that the experiences I’ve had since leaving home have been so life-altering that there’s no way that I’m the same person who left. In a very real way, the Kyle who left will never return home, only the Kyle who I am now.
And if you can say that my parents will be surprised at how much I’ve changed, perhaps that goes double for Geo’s parents. Though, I guess if they knew the old Lenn, they’ll still know the man who is returning as their son, but not in a way they expected.
His transformation only lasted for a little over an hour, but once I got past my initial shock, I was able to spend some time conversing with “Old Lenn”. After the time I’ve spent with Lenn, he was a bit of a surprise. He was eloquent and well-reasoned. He rolled with the situation pretty quickly. He seemed impressed with Geo’s ingenuity.
Shalelu, to her credit, seemed to take it well enough. Better than I would have in the same position. When Geo returned to normal, the two of them did some talking. I don’t know how that went, but based on their attitudes afterward, it seems to have gone fairly neutral.
The next day we began our trip to check on Turtleback Ferry and Fort Rannick. Spirits seemed a little low, or maybe people were still trying to deal with their confusion over yesterday’s events, so I tried leading everyone in a sing along of “The Ants Go Marching One by One”. Aside from Lenn’s enthusiastic joining in, a couple of the others joined in half-heartedly, but it wasn’t working, so I just began singing random crap.
I don’t think Applejack much cared for my rendition of “Gagnam Style”.
In addition to the singing, we found other ways to entertain ourselves. Aurora and I talked about Christianity for a much of the journey, while other pockets of conversation filled the rest of the party. Most of them weren’t all that consequential, but that doesn’t mean all of them were irrelevant.
The first night, while sitting at the fire, Shalelu filled us in on her reason for wanting to go with us. Apparently, her estranged step-father, Jakardros Sovark, was a member of the Black Arrows, the military unit stationed at Fort Rannick. She was worried about him. Makes sense to me.
The only other thing of note that happened on the trip was that we encountered a random ghoul. Somehow, none of us were surprised. He charged us and made it three steps before exploding from four arrows and a burst of magical light.
Once we reached the town, we immediately begin trying to find out what we could learn about the fort and other things going on around the town. To say that the townspeople weren’t cooperative would be an understatement. They didn’t seem to want us there. I kinda felt I was in Lovecraft Country. If you had told me that the citizens were hiding that half of their parents had mated with lake-dwelling horrors, I probably wouldn’t have even batted an eye.
As we were talking to one of the townspeople, Geo noticed another walking by with a tattoo on his left calf. It had been hidden by his pants, but had been temporarily visible for a moment. Geo pulled me aside and told me about it quietly. We decided to pull out our medallions and wear them openly, in hopes that it would cause the townspeople to speak with us more openly. I also began to notice that many of the people in town were self-consciously hiding their arms and other parts of their bodies.
I had an epiphany. We had that letter from Xanesha’s sister about her “more elegant way of marking targets for the slaughter”. Based on how many people were acting suspicious, I might guess that maybe a quarter of the town sported such marks. This wasn’t good. We had to find out what the plan was or things would get really ugly really quickly. We had to find a way, and we had to find it fast.
As we made our way through town, we spotted an armored wagon outside the inn. It had a symbol on the side that looked familiar. It was the symbol of a mercenary company from Magnimar, though I couldn’t recall their name. Geo went ahead and asked them what it meant.
I am not making this up. The mercenary company’s name is “Potent Rainbow Lions”. I calmly excused myself and stepped aside to laugh out of sight. When I returned, I learned that these were the mercenaries sent by the Lord Mayor. They had a reputation as being some of the meanest fighters in all of Magnimar. I’d imagine that they sorta have to have a fierce reputation with a name like that. “The Brotherhood of Blood” could be a group of half-asses, but the “Potent Rainbow Lions” needs to be a group of badasses to avoid getting collectively laughed out of town.
The men and women outside tending to the wagon looked like rookies. They told us that the captain and his squad leaders were inside the inn.
We immediately headed inside. Yeah, if you believe that we let the name thing drop, you don’t know us very well. We spent several minutes discussing what we would name ourselves if we decided to name our group.
Aurora suggested “Eminent Stone Boars”. Conventional, but a bit bland. Geo suggested “Beautiful Jade Snakes”. Honestly, it would be fine, but that’s more of a group of ninja-courtesans than whatever it is we are. Lenn’s suggestion was “Fearless Coal Savages”. I’ll admit, that one was fairly fitting for us. I don’t think anyone else liked it. Shalelu suggested we go with “The Gripping Bright Mad Dogs”. I think she was just having fun with it.
Paulie twitched. It was almost imperceptible, but I caught it. Then he spoke with a voice I had heard before, the voice of an immoral Billy Mays. “Persuasive Shadow Monsters!” he said. Then he reconsidered. “Wait, there’s more. Persuasive Shadow Monsters for Glory!” He seemed pleased with himself. With the shift, a plan began to form in my mind. It was deliciously horrifying.
Aurora got my attention. “How about you? Any suggestions, Kyle?”
I put my plan on hold and considered it. “Midnight Tea Party,” I said. They didn’t need to know I was referencing an anime rife with pink and completely lacking in any male characters. They also don’t need to know that I’ve decided that this is what I’m calling us from now on. I mean, I’m the only one writing down our deeds. Perhaps, hundreds of years from now, archaeologists will talk about the deeds of the Midnight Tea Party.
Either way, I don’t think the others want to go with it, though no one really responded as we were interrupted by a familiar voice. “What the hell are you doing here?” a man behind me asked.
“Orik?” Geo asked, startled.
I sighed internally, put on my best smile and turned around. “Is she with you?”
He looked confused. “Who? Oh! You mean Lyrie! No. Turns out that she’s bat-shit insane. We split and went our own ways after about two days.”
“Bat-shit insane, you say?” I asked, raising one eyebrow and looking at Aurora, Geo and Lenn. Only Lenn would meet my gaze and he didn’t seem to get the implication of what I was saying.
“Yeah, after we split I joined the Lions. My squad captain got killed and I got promoted. Turns out I’m competent. Since we knew there were giants in the area, we volunteered for this mission. Doesn’t hurt that we wanted to show up our rivals, Weapons and Talkers.”
What. “Is that another squad in your company?” Aurora asked. Orik nodded.
“I’m afraid to ask,” I began, “but what is your squad called?”
“Flails of Murderers.” I swear, I’m this close to a nervous tic. I looked around. Not a single one of these mercenaries was carrying a flail. Orik filled the silence by introducing his lieutenants, a pair of dwarves. “This is Belgren Blackhammer, though most of us just call him Heavy. The other is Magrim Emberaxe. Don’t let him start talking about religion.”
Both of the dwarves looked drunk because dwarves.
Orik filled us in on what he had learned about the area in his time in town. He had heard a rumor that something had happened at Fort Rannick, but he hadn’t been able to determine what, exactly. Another rumor held that the damn might be haunted. He made sure to tell us he didn’t care. He had also heard that someone had seen giant footprints in the Valley of Broken Trees, west of Fort Rannick. He and his men wanted to look into it. Since we were here now, he decided to head there before heading to the fort.
Geo gave him back the potions we had confiscated and never used. I gave them my less useful weapon enchantment wand, figuring that if nothing else, they could use it to power up their ballista. Before they left, we asked Orik if he or his men had noticed any of the tattoos. They hadn’t, unfortunately.
After they left, we headed inside and asked the innkeeper if he had heard any rumors. He told us that the Black Arrows leader was up to something in the swamp. Several people had seen him heading out there alone. It might have been important, but it really told us nothing.
We sat down and grabbed a drink while the inn’s stable boy tended to our horses. With the distractions gone, my horrible idea began to return. “Paulie,” I said. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
“Act now, and I’ll throw in a free meat pie!”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” We walked a bit away from the rest of the party. “Tell me,” I said conspiratorially. “A while back, in the market in Magnimar, I recall you pulling information from the mind of a merchant while you were acting like this. Can you do it again?”
“Of course!”
“Excellent. We’ll get to the bottom of this tattoo mystery yet. Does it have any side effects?”
“None for me!”
Okay, I should have been more specific. “How about for the target?”
“It hurts like hell!”
“Alright. Let’s discuss the plan with the others.”
The others seemed dubious at first, but I won them over. Geo volunteered to go with Paulie while the rest of us tried a more traditional means of gathering other information. I warned him that he probably didn’t want to be seen while Paulie was doing the interrogation for plausible deniability if things went south.
Once they left, I turned to the others. “As for us, you guys opposed to an overly elaborate and silly plan?” Aurora and Shalelu exchanged a worried glance. Lenn burped. “Good, let’s do it. Here’s how this will play out. I’m going to be the annoying bureaucrat tasked with investigating threats to Magnimar’s interests. You all will be my staff. Aurora, you’re my chief of security slash personal assistant. Your job is to look beleaguered at having to deal with me. You’re going to get the majority of information from people by me making them pity you.”
“I think I can manage to look annoyed.” She seemed a little too sure of her ability to be annoyed by me for my tastes.
“Okay, then Shalelu, you’ll be my guide and tracker. Try to look tracker-y.”
“Tracker-y?” Her look of confusion was hilarious.
“You know, all woodsy and elf like.”
“Should I be offended?”
“Not yet. Maybe in a bit.” I turned to the remaining party member. “Lenn. Your job is to look menacing. If you see me stroke my ear, I want you to say something random, like ‘Getting bored! Let’s kill something!’ to throw people off balance. Can you do that?”
“Okay.”
“So, just how do you plan to pull this off?” Aurora asked.
I winked and touched my hat. Within a few seconds, my form had changed. A thin mustache and chin hair, Asian skin and features and blue clothing. All that was missing was the voice, and I had practiced that one quite a bit for laughs back in middle school. “Greetings, my name is Chi-Fu, and I am a member of the Lord Mayor’s consul. And by the way, I got that job on my own.” Yes, that Chi-Fu.
Aurora’s look was pained. “Why do I get the feeling that someone somewhere is suddenly offended and has no idea why?”
“Because someone probably is. Now come, let us be off. And remember, a woman should know to hold her tongue in a man’s presence.” Yeah, I knew she was going to hurt me later, but for now, the look on her face was hilarious. Besides, that’s future Kyle’s problem.
It worked well enough. I pissed off people and made them feel sorry for Aurora, who played her part well. Lenn and Shalelu did well enough, though Shalelu didn’t seem to know what to make of our whole thing we had going on.
We learned a few rumors, though I’m not sure which of them we should investigate. A young woman told us about her uncle’s new tattoo that he doesn’t want to talk about. A shopkeeper by the name of Wenda Leenee told us that it had been weeks since the Black Arrows visited. Another person told us that there had been strange lights in the Shimmerglens west of the lake around dawn.
We heard rumors that there was a monster in a nearby lake, Storvald Deep. The people called her Black Magga and said that there were underwater tunnels that connected to other waterways that she could use to attack fishermen. They even suggested she had sunk the Paradise, a much larger boat.
When the others returned, they told us how things had gone. They had found someone with a tattoo pretty quickly. Apparently Geo had used his Sihedron medallion to shield the target from some of Paulie’s damage. He had convinced the man to use it through a nice bluff. Then Paulie ripped the knowledge from his mind and he began screaming, which forced Geo to knock him out. This was followed by Geo calling for help for the poor unconscious drunk.
I wish I could have seen it.
Anyway, the tattoo was some kind of frequent visitor pass on the gambling boat Paradise, which we had already learned was sunk recently. The owner, Lucrecia, was missing and presumed dead. A gambling hall would have been the best way to gather a bunch of greedy souls. It all made sense.
All we needed to know now was whether Lucrecia was Xanesha’s sister or simply an unwitting pawn of the same. Either way, that meant we were on the right trail.
For our last stop, we headed towards the church. On our way, we stopped a pair of old men and asked if they knew anything of import in the region. One of them began talking about the rains. “Came early this year. Gonna have floods, like forty years ago. Those were caused by a witch, you know.”
“No, no, you have it wrong. The floods were caused by the ogres. They got theirselfs a dragon and were flying him around the clouds to make the rain come.”
They began bickering and I motioned for Lenn to distract them. “I’m bored! Let’s kill something!” he bellowed.
While their attention was turned, I touched my magic hat and appeared as an old man. “No, you old coots! Everyone knows that dragons don’t control the clouds. That’s done by pegasi out of Cloudsdale. The Wonderbolts lead legions of their pegasi brethren in a campaign to shape the weather all over Equestria.”
I was aware that suddenly everyone was staring at me, mouths agape. I touched my ear again. “I’m bored! Let’s kill something!” Lenn roared.
Everyone but Aurora turned to face him, startled by the roar of his voice. I winked at her and mouthed “Friendship is magic,” before changing my form back to my normal one.
After leaving the old me, we headed to the church. The priest was out, but one of the parishioners told us that there was a problem with people going missing. He thought that the Grauls were involved.
“Who are the Grauls?” Geo asked.
“Twisted family. Suspect they got ogre blood in them. Folks are never right when that happens. Probably eating those they kidnap, if they aren’t using them for other things.” As he talked, I got more and more of a bad feeling.
Crap. Not only was this reminiscent of “The Hills Have Eyes”, but it sounded like exactly the sort of thing we needed to intervene in. I sighed. “Tell me, where is the Graul home?”
“Not sure exactly where, but it’s somewhere between here and Fort Rannick.”
Son of a bitch. “Yeah. Of course it is.” I turned to the others. “So, we look into this one if we run across it on the way to the fort?” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Somehow I thought so. Let’s go get the horses. We apparently have shit to do.” Yeah, I’m not looking forward to this. Would you be?
Sometimes I feel I’ve got to, *Bah bah* run away I’ve got to *Bah bah* get away… I’ve lost my light.
I toss and turn I can’t sleep at night.
I guess I could be worrying too much. After all, how awesome would “The Hills Have Eyes” been if halfway through the movie a bunch of hobos with shotguns and chainsaws showed up just started murdering the shit out of the mutants? Good movie or best movie? I dunno.
What I do know is that if we find these people, the Grauls, if it does turn out they’re behind the disappearances and if it’s half as bad as I suspect, we’re going to hobo the shit out of them.
Yeah, I just used “hobo” as a verb. Either deal with it or be the next to get hoboed, because I’m here to hobo the shit out of bad people and chew bubble gum.
And I’m all out of gum.
Koi koi.