Anyone who has done any reading on literary techniques, be it from TV Tropes or a more formal education, is probably familiar with the term “Chekhov’s Gun”. It describes a principle articulated by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, where he says in several known letters something to the effect of “If you have a gun hanging on the set during the first act, it must be fired sometime during the second or third act. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” It’s a part of the law of conservation of detail. There’s only so much detail you can put into a work before it becomes counter-productive, so you have to make every detail count.
If the gentleman thief steals a silver letter opener, expect it to still be in his pocket when he gets ambushed by the werewolf. It helps prevent an issue with suspension of disbelief, since we recall him picking it up. Certainly makes more sense than him just happening to have a silver bullet in his pistol when the time comes.
It’s an important technique for any author. I must admit, however, when you’re writing about events from your life more or less as they occur, it’s generally very difficult to set up a Chekhov’s Gun. You don’t know what item you pick up might prove useful later on and you don’t want to spend all your time writing about every little thing in hopes that it’ll prove pivotal later. So you just write about things that have an interesting story regarding how you acquire them and hope that you get lucky.
If you don’t, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that literary critics who read your work are waiting in anticipation for Chekhov’s Gun to be fired with no payoff coming. It’s the literary equivalent of blue balls. And blue balls, my friends, are always funny. Unless it’s happening to you.
I had set my magical alarm before bed and it awoke me about an hour later. I woke Aurora and we heard the sound of something up on the roof. We tried to investigate, but it was gone and we went back to our respective beds. I made a mental note to reign in the radius of the alarm to just include the room itself.
In the morning, I told the others about it and they agreed to be on alert. I might have to consider setting traps up on the roof, since whomever was up there had to be up to no good. Unless, of course, it was just some ninjas-in-training. Ameiko is Tian-Min, after all. Maybe they work for her.
Don’t look at me like that. Ninjas are totally a thing here. Some of them even dress in all black, or more commonly, dark blue, and run around on rooftops at night. I saw some back when I was in Absalom.
I was sneaking back home after a rendezvous with the rebellious young woman looking to push back against overly strict parents by sleeping with a notorious local bad boy who had caught my attention that week. Yes, notorious. My escapades with the diplomat’s daughter had given me something of a reputation around the city. No one could prove anything, of course, but that didn’t stop by dance card from being pretty full.
Anyway, I had used a nearby rooftop to get up to the young woman’s window and was using the same roof to make my way to an alley near a busy street when I spotted three figures running across another nearby roof. Let me explain something to any would-be ninjas out there. Conventional military wisdom suggests keeping yourself between the sun and your enemy, preferably while having the high ground. This is advantageous since it means your enemy will have to stare in the direction of the sun to see you.
When you’re not fighting but instead trying to be stealthy, putting yourself between the moon and an observer just results in being easily spotted. When your goal is to move through a city without being seen, it’s not such a great idea to stick to the rooftops, especially on the night of a full moon. Better to move through darkened streets or even the sewers, if they’re spacious enough. But these idiots figured the roofs were the way to go.
Apparently they had been told to eliminate witnesses, because when one of them saw me, they immediately began rushing in my direction while drawing weapons. I positioned myself on secure footing and prepared to cast a spell. Once all of them were in range, boom, a spray of color struck them in the face. They passed out and slid from the steep roof to the street below. I’m pretty sure none of them escaped at least minor fractures.
It seems that their instructor had neglected to tell them not to cluster up when charging a wizard.
Once we finished breakfast, we prepared to go visit the sanatorium. Deciding that the trip might take longer than we would like otherwise, Geo and I purchased some horses. We figured faster travel could be pretty useful overall, and it would be easier to carry off any loot we found in further explorations once we had this murder situation under control.
Of course, we barely made it to the edge of town when one of the town guards approached us. Apparently Sheriff Hemlock needed our help with another problem. Because of course he did. Any more of these side quests and I’m going to resign myself to chase the next butterfly I see, to hell with the primary goal. Then again, in a world where one of the deities is a giant butterfly at least some of the time, that would probably just end up being yet another quest hook.
On the other hand, it could also be Desna looking for a booty call. Never slept with a goddess before. Should keep an open mind on the idea of chasing butterflies.
We arrived at the sheriff’s office to find him conversing with an unkempt man who reeked of alcohol. I knew it was too much to hope that they needed us to come act as impartial judges at a wet t-shirt contest.
The man, who introduced himself as – I’m not making this up – Farmer Grump, told us that there was trouble on the southern farmlands. It seems that the scarecrows were attacking people. The hell is this? Westfall? The Defias going to show up next? “I know what you’re thinking, but the deadmines was only a set back!”
I guess it could be worse. Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers? Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those eyes?
I suspected that it was probably more goblin shenanigans. It wouldn’t surprise me for Lyrie to have called on some old allies to continue harassing us. My main clue was that dogs had been eaten. I know that I wasn’t going on much, but considering that we had just recently taken on some goblins, it made sense.
It could also have been constructs. That’s how I would do it, if I were Lyrie. Wait, no, that’s wrong. I’d have used landmines. Good luck finding those without a metal detector.
Since it sounded like this was more urgent, we agreed to go look into it. After all, the dude in the sanatorium would still be there, crazy as ever, tomorrow. These farmers probably didn’t have that kind of time.
We headed out towards the farm that seemed to be at the epicenter of the attacks, the Hambley place, arriving late in the morning. Man, let me tell you something. You’re never so aware of just how many damn scarecrows there are on a farm as you are when you think they’re going to come to life and attack you.
I dismounted and threw a rock at the nearest scarecrow. Nothing happened, so we approached cautiously. Sure enough, sometimes a scarecrow is just a scarecrow. We were slightly less cautious as we approached the next one.
Of course, that one looked up at us and let out a bone-chilling, inhuman shriek and began trying to break the rope that held it tied to the post. We could hear others shrieking all across the farm as they were all alerted to our presence.
And here I was without a single fire spell prepared. The wicked witch was surely cackling at my predicament. Or at least, she would be if she hadn’t been killed by her own mop bucket. What a world, indeed.
We were surrounded by maybe a dozen of the things, each trying to break their bonds. One near us did so immediately, but the one that had initially shrieked struggled. Aurora and Starbrite made quick work of that one while the others attended to the nearest free foe.
With that many enemies, I unleashed the monkeys. No, not what you’re thinking. Get your head out of the gutter. I mean I conjured a swarm of monkeys under my control. I did, however, shout “MONKEYS!” in my best Gir impression.
The roving pack of murder monkeys swarmed the nearest scarecrow at my command. One of the little beasts clambered onto the foe’s back and tore the burlap sack from its head. I inwardly groaned at what I saw. We weren’t fighting goblins, nor were we fighting constructs.
We were fighting ghouls.
The rest of the fight was quick and brutal. The ghouls were little match for us, though one of them managed to infect Geo with ghoul fever. He found the whole thing fascinating. We knew that we had at least a few days to get him cured, so we weren’t worried about it. And if worst came to worst, we knew that we could use the wand I had commissioned in Magnimar to extend that duration by weeks if necessary, thanks to Geo’s knowledge of the disease.
We tended to our wounds. Paulie used the wand he’d been carrying and I took the wand he had traded our statue for and began tossing out heals as well. When I got to Aurora, I noticed that she seemed to be resisting the spell. I still managed to force the magic through to close her wounds, but that was still worrisome.
She had never resisted a spell I had cast on her before. It seemed to be growing worse. Maybe it’s some kind of anti-magic malady? I really needed to take the time to experiment.
Once we were done healing, I walked over to Geo, who was inspecting a ghoul. “Why were they tied up like that?” he asked. “If they hadn’t been tied, they would have been able to come at us in greater number, instead of a few at a time.”
That was a damn good question. I was about to tell him that I had no idea when Aurora spoke up. “Perhaps they weren’t ghouls when they were tied there?” I was impressed. Beauty, brains and an awesome butt. I love that girl.
We carefully checked the rest of the scarecrows. We suspected that there might be a few infected people still alive up there, so we couldn’t ignore them. Still, we were cautious, in case a ghoul or two remained.
The first couple scarecrows were just that, but the third was indeed an infected person. She looked extremely ill. It’s possible she could have turned any moment. It’s definite she wouldn’t last twenty four hours. Luckily, all we had to do to prevent that was fire Chekhov’s gun.
I pulled out the wand I’d had crafted while we were in Magnimar and tossed it to Paulie. Sure, it had been made to heal me if I had to use my blood to fuel some spells, but it worked well enough for this. “Geo, what does the disease target?”
The alchemist thought for a moment, obviously recalling some medical texts. “Fine motor control and overall well-being.”
“On it, dude,” Paulie said. “Righteous.”
The woman looked to be feeling a lot better after a couple wand bursts, so we cut her down from the pole. She introduced herself as Lettie Guffman. As we continued checking scarecrows, she told us how she and several others had been taken a few days ago. She also told us that the ghouls had been holed up in the barn. I was tempted to suggest that we just bar the doors and light it on fire, but I couldn’t be sure that they didn’t have more living victims inside, so we were probably looking at another breaching action. We were getting fairly good at those. If only I had a supply of flash bangs.
We located a second person tied up. “Horran!” Lettie cried out. Having learned a bit about the town, I recognized his name. This was Lettie’s husband. He looked to be in about the same shape as she had been, so Paulie quickly tended to his illness with the wand and we cut him down.
He confirmed what his wife had told us as we checked the last scarecrow, which turned out to be another dud. We discussed it for a moment and offered them the use of Shadowmist and my own white mare, who I was mentally calling Rarity but held the actual name of Snow Belle.
“Go to the temple and tell Father Zantus that you’ve been infected with ghoul fever and need healing. If he insists upon charging a donation to the church, tell him to contact me about it later,” I said. “The two of you don’t have time to dally, so get going. Go straight to the temple, then visit Sheriff Hemlock and let him know what’s going on.”
Aurora told Shadowmist to protect them and Snow Belle – which I still think is a stupid name, by the way – and the horse seemed to acknowledge her command. One of these days, I need to figure out how she’s so good with animals.
We headed towards the barn. It was built around a statue marked with yet another sihedron rune. Because of course it was. Bob dammit.
We were careful about looking into the barn. Geo quietly opened the door and didn’t see anything, though the darkness made it difficult to be sure. He came over and reported it to us.
Let me explain to you the difference between a zombie and a ghoul. Zombies are slow, shambling creatures. Ghouls are faster. Zombies can strike you, bludgeoning you with their limbs. Ghouls have claws and horrible toothy mouths. Zombies are as dumb as a sack of rocks. They cannot think at all. Ghouls, however, have working brains.
For a properly prepared wizard, you may hide your form in the dark, but not your thoughts. I prepared a spell and searched inside, listening for the thoughts of our foes. Nothing. The damn place was empty. Sometimes being clever means you find hidden enemies and sometimes it just means you waste a spell.
We turned our attention to the farmhouse. The door opened into a room that looked like living quarters. Nothing appeared inside, so we headed in. Geo noticed a faint scent of death coming from down the hallway, so he investigated. As he peered inside an open door, we heard the sound of a ghoul’s shriek.
For some reason, we fought the ghouls in the room where they were. I have no idea why we didn’t pull them back to us, but they might not have been stupid enough to follow us to a better tactical position. They weren’t goblins, after all.
Lenn took a hit and was paralyzed by the toxin in one ghoul’s claw. Aurora stood over him to block any enemies from attacking him and Geo rolled past them to help bring down our foes more quickly by attacking from both sides. Paulie hung back, ready to rush in to heal someone, though he could do nothing about the paralysis. With the doorway crowded as I knew it must be, I couldn’t get in the room either.
I knew that monkeys, however, would likely not have the same problem. I channeled power into my ring and within a few seconds a swarm of monkeys appeared in the hallway. They rushed into the room, with my mental command to attack the undead within.
Within less than a minute, the fight was over. Paulie tended to the wounded and we continued investigating.
One of the undead, a ghast –a greater version of a ghoul in case you’ve forgotten–was carrying a key. We recognized the symbol on it. House Foxglove. Unfortunately, based on the clothing, it wasn’t that annoying ass Aldern. In fact, it was dressed more like a servant.
In the room was another corpse. This one was carved up like the ones before, sihedron rune and all. It was also several days old, meaning it predated the deaths of Banny Harker and Katrine Vinder. On the body was another key. This one was simple enough. We figured it probably unlocked something in the house, since we suspected this was Farmer Hambley.
Of course, there was another note. This one clearly had my name written on it.
<The rest of the page seems to be filled with vile epitaphs. The journal continues on the next page.>
I skimmed through the note and we investigated the room across the hall. It was a spacious storage room slash closet. Deep within, we found a chest. The key from Hambley’s body opened it easily. It was filled with pouches of silver coins. Far more than a normal farmer should have had.
Geo expressed trepidation at the thought of taking the man’s life savings. I told him that the farmer had no more use for it, and we had a substantial debt to pay to Ameiko.
If my years spent watching crime shows have taught me anything, it’s that there’s always a connection between the victims of a serial killer. Sometimes it’s hair color. Other times, it’s profession or location. For the life of me, however, I can’t figure out what the connection is in this case. We had to go to the sanatorium today. Especially now that we suspected that the witness had probably contracted ghoul fever.
With a lot to think about, I sat in front of Aurora on Starbrite as we began making our way to Habe’s Sanatorium. I pulled out the letter once again.
“I fear you. I hate you. You must fear and hate me as well. You may unmask me, so I must unmask you first.” The note was signed “-Your Lordship”.
Fear? Maybe, maybe not. Hate? Perhaps too strong a word. I was certainly disgusted by the actions of this “Your Lordship”. I was also curious as to what exactly he was doing this for. Was it simply the work of a serial killer, someone who gets off on murdering his victims? Or did he have a greater plan? Were these the rantings of the ghast who had perpetrated the other crimes, and presumably these as well, or were the letters penned by the power behind him?
If this were a novel, these seemed like they would be a red herring, or at least part of a greater plan, less important in the grand scheme. But that didn’t change the fact that people were dying, and it wouldn’t stop until we ended the one behind these killings.
So prepare to be unmasked, you son of a bitch. And go ahead and try to unmask me. You aren’t going to like what you find underneath.
I am Kyle O’Halloran, son of Michael and Katherine. I was raised to never give up, never surrender. You may be a bit ahead of me now, but I am on your trail. Enjoy your little killing spree while you can, because sooner or later, I’m going to find you and I’m going to kill you. This time, you’re going to stay dead.
You can take that to the bank.
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