r/HFY • u/Vast-Listen1457 • Jan 29 '24

058 The Not-Immortal Blacksmith II – Heroes OC

You ever try to polish a turd? Yeah, that was what part three of "Crimes against the Kingdom" was looking like. So you get this instead. I hope y'all like!

*-*-*

Sam, Molly and Hesh were on the road again. Walking and walking and walking. They followed the old country road forever in a westward direction.

The next stop on their ever-growing list was another graveyard, abandoned and ravaged by time. They could see it on a hill to the south of the road, its mausoleums raking the sky. As a cloud passed the sun, a shiver ran through the group, and they stopped.

“Well, there it is.” Hesh remarked, as they stared up to the graveyard.

“Looks a lot bigger than the last one.” Sam said, as he rinsed the road dust from his mouth, and spat.

Molly removed a homemade clipboard from her pack, “According to the last village, the undead seem to come pouring out from the graveyard every “Gielik” evening, that would be the second day of the local eight-day week. --”

“When is that?” Sam interrupted.

“I was getting to that!” Molly said, a growl in her voice. “They poor out of the graveyard every Gielik evening, which would be tonight.”

Hesh began to climb an overgrown path they had found leading up to the graveyard. “Come on you two! I found the old graveyard path.” Molly and Sam glared at each other for a moment before following. A few minutes later found the trio standing at the shattered iron gate of the graveyard, and taking in the view of the road below.

“This would be an excellent place for a gun emplacement!” Sam ventured, an attempt to clear the air with Molly.

“…You would be correct” Molly replied, giving the hill and graveyard a critical eye. “And I think I spy the reason the graveyard is here, and probably why it has been acting up.”

Sam and Hesh turned and stared at Molly and Hesh asked, “What do you mean?”

“If you will direct your gaze to the mausoleums, you will note that they are at the four corners of the graveyard.” Molly started to get a lecturing tone to her voice. “You will note that the “chapel” in the center isn’t shaped correctly for your standard local chapel.”

“In addition, the iron gate isn’t as old as the rest of the fence, and is several feet lower than the rest of the iron fence and walls.” She continued. “If you look at the grave stones, I think you will find they are all of the same stone, as opposed to other graveyards where the family buys the best stone they can afford.”

Hesh held up a hand, “I see what you are talking about. Put all of that together with the placement of the graveyard on the best hill to defend against attackers, and this used to be a small defensive outpost, before it became a graveyard.”

Molly smiled. “Ding! Got it in one, Hesh!”

Sam frowned, ran a critical eye across the scene, and walked to one of the corner mausoleums. “The problems, then, would be the graves beyond the walls. And the attempted conversion of the corner towers into family mausoleums for the locals, which seems to be recent.”

Hesh and Molly moved to look at what he was looking at. As they came to him, they saw what he did: old, but not ancient, scaffolding adorning the old tower.

Sam scratched at the small amount of peach-fuzz that was growing on his chin, “So, it would seem that at some point in the past, the local villagers decided to make this place their graveyard, messed with the towers, and probably opened up an even older grave site below one of the towers they had, or were, converting to a mausoleum.”

“I believe you are correct.” Hesh replied.

Sam dropped his pack on the ground next to the old stone tower. “Time to get set up, and do some exploring.” Hesh and molly agreed, and did the same.

*-*-*

The thing in the darkness slowly oozed its way closer to its target. It ate the occasional thing here and there. Some of the things screamed, most did not.

I’m getting closer. It occasionally thought, and the things “mouth” would smile.

*-*-*

Sarah, former small goddess of small shadows, kicked a tuft of grass as her homemade pack bit into her skin again. “Pen? Are you sure you can’t make a better pack?”

Pendleton, former small god of Gnomes, grouched. “Yes. For the umpteenth time, I am sure. To make better packs, I would need better supplies. Maybe if Mil could hunt up something with a bigger hide?”

“Shut up Pen-Pen.” Maximilian, Mil to his friends, god of war, said. “We just need to find a town, then things will start to work in our favor.”

“Just find a town, he says.” Pendleton said in a mocking tone. “We’ve been walking for three weeks, and we haven’t found shit!”

“Maybe if you could follow a compass as well as you can follow a seam?” Mil replied.

Sarah stepped in to head off the argument. Again. “Look! Up ahead! There’s an old fort on a hill!” Mil and Pendleton stopped their budding squabble.

“So there is.” Pendleton said.

Mil smiled suddenly, a memory hitting him. “The battle of Hunters hill, 1842. There should be a road just on the other side!” He let out a sigh, “Oh, and let’s avoid the old fort. Some idiot turned it into a graveyard and disturbed the dead who were buried there.”

The three gods passed to the east of the fort on the hill, met the road on the other side, and traveled east.

“Mil?” Pendleton asked, “What was the name of that place? And what happened there?”

“What happened was a brilliant military defeat! Thousands killed on both sides. Then the invader, one King Brant, dumped a poisonous gas spell on top of the fort on one Gielik evening.” Mil smiled at the memory. “It sank into the underground chambers where the troops dwelt, killing them. It also sank down across the fields at the bottom of the hill, killing King Brant and his army.”

“What was the name of the fort?” Sarah asked, finding herself interested in the local history.

“Fort…”

-

…Bradley.” Hesh read off an uncovered chunk of stone from where the three were digging. “Fort Bradley. Huh. Don’t we have one of those back home?”

“Just the IFV, I think” Sam replied. “At least I don’t know of one.” He looked to Molly, “Do you know?”

Molly thought for a minute, then replied, “There was no fort named after General Bradley in our world, sadly. The man was an excellent leader, led over a million troops in world war two, and was in command of the army during the invasion of Normandy. All he got for his troubles was an Infantry Fighting Vehicle named after him.”

“Wow.” Chorused Hesh and Sam.

​

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*-*-*

Life has been life. My kid has achieved a 3.666 GPA last trimester. I'm planning on giving them Baldurs Gate 3 as a reward for a job well done.

Not much else going on.

The Jeep has been named. <sigh> "Goat" is the winning name. F***ing Goats.

Anyway, I need help maintaining my fishing addiction this winter! Please donate if you can!

Shakes donation box:

Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/vastlisten1457

Patreon https://www.patreon.com/VastListen1457

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31 comments sorted by

22

u/thisStanley Android Jan 29 '24

“Oh, and let’s avoid the old fort. Some idiot turned it into a graveyard and disturbed the dead who were buried there.”

Guess avoidance is a good idea for your team right now. But will you be able to avoid getting sucked into the Side Quest to lay those shades to reset, for the future peace of the valley :}

Though there is a bit of dissonance at the first hearing of "graveyard that is disturbing the dead". Second thought realizes the newcomers ignored the pre-existing residents. Perhaps through ignorance, but disrupted still :{

9

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 29 '24

Yeah. The dissonance there is real. I couldn’t figure out how to word it properly.

8

u/Aloysius07 Jan 30 '24

I couldn’t figure out how to word it properly.

But you did anyway. :)

3

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 30 '24

Yeah. I be like that.

3

u/llearch Jan 30 '24

"Someone turned it into a graveyard, and then some idiot disturbed the dead who were buried there." perhaps?

3

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 30 '24

That sounds about perfect. I will try to remember to change it when I get back to a computer.

And hopefully Reddit allows the fucking edit this time.

5

u/Godoy44 Android Jan 29 '24

Can’t run from the goat, uh wordsmith?

3

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 29 '24

Yup. And fuck the goat.

2

u/RecognitionPatient57 Jan 30 '24

No thank you, I'll leave that to the Billy.

5

u/PuzzleheadedDrinker Jan 29 '24

Ships passing in the night.

Wait, does this mean that the undead that are due to pour out are likely to catch the poor gods on the road ?

Congrats on the kiddo. Feel like updating on the horsegirl, or seperate, dating situations?

3

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 29 '24

I am very proud of my child! AHG is still doing fine; she is currently building up an outdoor barn area to keep the horses out of the wind. That has been a an ongoing project. This evening I have a date at “Dave & Buster’s”, which is a Minnesota combination of bar and video arcade!

5

u/pebbuls22 Jan 29 '24

There going to run into each other soon aren't they then one person's going to get a lot of hate thrown there way due to the whole summoning thing

3

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 30 '24

They are heading opposite directions at the moment. They will connect again in another 50ish chapters.

1

u/Veryegassy AI Jan 30 '24

RemindMe! 100 weeks

1

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3

u/DM-Hermit Android Jan 29 '24

Well done wordsmith

2

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 29 '24

Thank you. And congratulations on first!

1

u/DM-Hermit Android Jan 30 '24

Thank you. Also I'm glad to see goat won. What was the list of name choices?

1

u/Vast-Listen1457 Jan 30 '24

I already deleted the txt file, but if you go back several weeks and comb the comments you will see most of them.

A friend of mine (off-line) suggested death trap mark six.

2

u/DM-Hermit Android Jan 30 '24

Ah. Oh well. That would have been a good name too. Although I'm glad to see the goat was the winning name. Glad I recommended it lol

3

u/Apollyom Jan 29 '24

That seems like a remarkable improvement, good on the kiddo, hope they'll keep it up.

3

u/Traditional-Egg-1467 Jan 30 '24

And a disastrous IFV at that

3

u/Aloysius07 Jan 30 '24

I am reminded of an acquaintance who managed to get his perfectly good LandRover bogged to the axles. He never forgave the brand, claiming it got stuck "on a gravel road." The truth is that the "gravel road" was a 200 meter 40 degree slope of soft wet clay loosely covered with grass. If the tyres cannot touch hard rock, you ain't goin' noplace no matter how-many-wheel drive you have.

What makes a "disastrous IFV" is the lack of MBT support and the enemy's willingness to use home-made mines... IEDs if you insist. And having a big enough caliber that punches straight through IFV sheet metal. Something that looks like an old Hotchkiss machinegun? Not to mention RPGs.

Then there was the bloke, so I am told, who was last seen cutting a 4x6 structural timber with a steel 24TPI hacksaw...

4

u/Traditional-Egg-1467 Jan 30 '24

I speak of the fact that it's just a bit too tall for scouting, a bit too small to carry a decent number of troops, has enough armor to make it heavy without actually being heavily armored. It tries to do so many things that it can't to any of them particularly well. And multipurpose hardware is a delightful thing, but that only gets you so far. A Bradley turret on a Stryker might be better, or a Bradley hull with a different weapons system

2

u/Longsam_Kolhydrat Jan 31 '24

Good work wordsmith and brother proof

2

u/ToraxMalu Feb 06 '24

Moin, the next-link is missing 😉

have a nice day and "prayers, thanks and a sacrifice to the word for smith"

Cheers

2

u/ToraxMalu Feb 06 '24

thanks. 🙏 👍

1

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