Diamond Hollow was, indeed, a miserable place.
It was strangely cold in spite of the balmy summer weather, situated in a hilly valley and because of that, wisps of mist wreathed between trees and settled in low-lying areas. A large river flowed straight through the middle of town, filled with logs and sawdust that dirtied the waters, small barges full of mined coal and games following along after them. The people here were all anthros and every last one of them looked like they had lived a hard life.
Charlie had expected the caravan to be rushed. Or, at the very least, for local vendors to have already set up stalls in anticipation. To a small town, caravans were rare opportunities for entertainment and to buy supplies like sugar and spices.
Instead, the locals would give a quick look as Charlie walked by, before averting their gaze and going back to work. Or… busying themselves with whatever NPCs did in a dreary logging town. Smoking weed? Hitting up a prostitute? Either way, Charlie observed the younger anthros shooting the caravan longing glances.
The wolf assassin didn’t know what to make of it aside from the whole thing not boding well.
As the caravan pulled into the dreary hamlet, a gruff collection of wolves and bears came out to the great them. But it wasn’t the town guard that Charlie was interested, but the rotund and rather opulently dressed wolf that was leading them.
As the town noble and his guards paraded towards the caravan, Charlie watched as the town’s peasants ducked out of the way – some even going so far as to slam their windows shut. For as nervous as these people had seemed around Charlie, they were outright terrified of whoever was walking towards them.
“Veles,” Charlie whispered.
“Yes?” Veles replied
“Arcane Lock everything. Minor Illusion the carriage to look shabby.” Charlie said, “Geoffrey, we are dressing down. Go with Emergency Outfit I.”
“Yes, Charlie,” Geoffrey’s one good eye narrowed.
“Why are you so worried?" Gregory asked, “Those guards are just up-jumped peasants. And that wolf is too fat to be a real threat.”
“It’s a ‘player breaker’ event.” Charlie replied. “No matter what happens, do not reveal your identity.”
“Fine.” Gregory rolled his eyes, “but I do need my name to be on everyone’s lips when I save the town.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Charlie replied. “Palseks?”
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. Me see you later.” Palseks replied as she scurried off into backalley.
Charlie tapped his claws on the side of the wagon nervously as the rotund wolf and his retinue of grim-looking anthros talked to one of the caravan’s informal leaders.
Just because he had an idea of what was going to happen didn’t mean he was going to like it. These kinds of events were normally humiliating for players. And given the hypersexualized rules that this world ran on, whatever it had planned was going to be even worse for the party.
“Done,” Veles said, as he resumed his position next to the wolf.
“Good. Go see your boyfriend and tell the other members of his band they’re not guards but traveling minstrels. Play a tune.”
“What? Won’t you need me?”
“We need someone guarding the carriage. More importantly, the caravan needs guards.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t exactly-”
“Go, Veles!” Charlie snarled quietly.
The wolf’s retinue of guards suddenly start moving, going from wagon to wagon as if inspecting them for something. Charlie bit his lip as he watched Veles run off up ahead to find Amicus. The wizard wasn’t stupid, so hopefully he’d catch on to what was happening.
“Why are you dividing the party?” Geoffrey asked quietly.
“To save us later,” Charlie replied.
“There’s only thirty of them?” The massively muscled polar bear replied, flexing his arms. “We can take them.”
“No,” Charlie snorted, “that’s the trap everyone always falls into.”
“What do you mean?” Geoffrey asked as the guards continued their advance down the line.
“Look at the town, man,” Charlie pointed a finger. “Those people aren’t going to help us. In fact, if me and Palseks are right, half the town’s ‘civilians’ are likely bandits and on the take from that corrupt noble Gregory was talking about.”
“Palseks and I.” Geoffrey murmured.
“What?” Charlie blinked.
“Grammatically, the correct way to say that is ‘Palseks and I’.”
“You know, you’re a lot less fun as Geoffrey,” Charlie rolled his eyes.
“Sorry.” Geoffrey shrugged, though Charlie detected a smirk on his muzzle.
The guards were coming closer now, but there were hundreds of wagons and they were conducting a thorough inspection of each one – buying the group precious time to finish up their preparations for whatever was about to come.
Prince Gregory stepped out of the carriage, locking it behind him. The mink had on a rough-looking guard uniform and had dirtied his fluffy white coat, applying a dye to it to turn some parts of it brown.
“Is there a good reason I had to hide my royal mien?” Gregory growled.
“Yes,” Geoffrey said, “the guards are, apparently, in league with the corrupt noble, my liege.”
There was shouting from the jeweler as the guards started smashing open some of his lock boxes and examining the contents. Charlie’s keen eyes noticed a few rings slip into the guard’s pockets while the Jeweler, an anthropomorphic raven, was protesting.
They shoved him to the ground after smashing open his chests and continued on, leaving the raven to scramble in the mud, desperately trying to gather all his belongings.
“They didn’t steal everything?” Geoffrey asked.
“No. But they did ruin all the locks on his chests.” Charlie pointed out.
“What if he buys more?”
“From where?” Charlie scoffed, “the locksmith here in the town? Who do you think is going to have a copy of the keys.”
“Oh,” Geoffrey said.
The guards moved on to more wagons, growing more violent as they went along.
“Why are you looking at my cash?” one merchant cried.
“Oh, and yer ledger too,” One of the guards sneered, “You best have your ledger balanced.”
“Why are they checking the ledgers?” Gregory whispered.
“Oh, that’s the cover. So that they can open the cash boxes and check how much money they have on hand.” Charlie replied. “Bandits don’t take EVERYTHING. That would be stupid with such a large caravan. They want to get in and get out quick, that’s why they’re mostly taking cash and jewels.”
“That must be why they’re targeting the merchants,” Geoffrey nodded.
“Where’s Madame Illusia’s wagon?” Gregory asked suddenly.
Charlie blinked, eyes roaming over the caravan.
Strange. It had definitely been with the caravan when they entered town. It was hard to hide such a garishly decorated wagon. He started counting wagons. No, all the wagons were here. Which meant she’d cast an illusion.
“Hiding.” Charlie replied.
“Makes you wish we had a wizard who used magic other than stupid soul magic,” Gregory scoffed.
“We don’t have a wizard. Or a slave,” Charlie reminded the Prince, “Get your story straight, please.”
“Tch!” Gregory kicked the dirt, “You made this sound like it would be fun! I hate going ‘undercover’!”
“We have no choice,” Charlie replied.
“Why can’t we simply… have Veles rearrange a few words-”
“Because that’s gone so well in the past.” Charlie rolled his eyes. “Maybe you’d like him to try again so Geoffrey can get turned into a snake while you end up as a nice juice rat?”
“Yes!” Gregory’s eyes lit up, “It goes horribly for whomever he does it to. That’s my point.” Gregory’s eyes lit up.
“He can only do it three times and it shifts reality.” Charlie replied. “You have no idea if it works in our favor.”
“Hmpf. Well, I suppose you are right,” Gregory said, then paused as the guards made it to the jaguar selling face-pastries.
“Oh, what’s this then?” One of the wolves leered, picking up a pastry, “I could go for a nice snack.”
It was a pig face.
“I wouldn’t do that-”
“Shut it, you!” A wolf slammed his baton in the jaguar’s stomach, making him keel over and grip his middle.
“Hey, is that okay?” Gregory asked Charlie nervously.
Charlie sighed, watching the guards circle the pastry chef and laugh.
“We have to let this all go,” Charlie said.
As the guards stole some pastries and began eating them, they started transforming. That’s when Charlie noticed that ALL of the pastries the jaguar was selling were that of fat pig faces. He smiled. That sly sunovabitch knew exactly what was going to happen too.
The first guard to eat them began to gain a porcine appearance, packing on the pounds. His nostrils upturned and his fur shed, revealing a pink hide underneath. The transforming pig oinked in confusion, clearly trying to draw attention from the other guards. Unfortunately for them, they were all too preoccupied with smacking the curled-up jaguar with their batons.
Then the other guards started changing, bodies bloating out of their uniforms.
As they became snorting hogs, their blows fell less and less. Upturned snouts wriggled, and they dropped their weapons as the now-obese former canines waddled towards the pastry cart, snuffling hungrily. The jaguar slowly came to his feet as the pigs starting devouring his potion laced wares with gusto.
“What the fuck?” A large, hugely muscled wolf stomped over to the fat pigs gorging themselves on pastries, “What the fuck did you do to my men?!”
“I did nothing,” The jaguar smiled, “they-”
A boot lashed out and slammed into the jaguar’s chest, sending him sprawling.
“Attacking my guards is death,” The wolf growled, drawing his sword. “I am Spenser, Captain of the Diamond Hollow guards. And I intend to carry out the sentence immediately!”
Behind him, the five other wolves in the lead wolf’s retinue drew their swords as well, dropping their batons.
“Well shit, I guess we have to step in now,” Charlie sighed, drawing his own sword and stepping forward.
Geoffrey and Gregory nodded and stepped forward as well.
"Now fool!” the wolf yelled as he raised his sword in the air, “prostrate yourself as my feet and I’ll make sure to give you a clean-“
“That’s not going to happen,” Charlie said, shooting forward as the wolf’s sword began to fall, blocking it before it could lop off the merchant’s head.
A loud clang rang out as the wolf snarled, “And who the fuck are you?” Do you know who the fuck I am?”
“An uppity town guard and his shitheel friends,” Charlie grinned.
Neither Charlie nor his compatriots were wearing or using their magic items. He had no intention of giving away that they were adventurers or anything but naive and heroic caravan guards. It put them at a disadvantage, but there was a price for anonymity.
“Hands off the merchant, asshole,” Gregory said, pointing his blade at the wolf.
Geoffrey said nothing, the massive polar bear just looming menacingly above Prince Gregory.
“Three on…” Captain Spenser glanced behind him, “Six? Are you idiots?”
“Captain,” One of the wolves whispered, “That polar bear is a worth at least three of us.”
“Hmmph,” Spenser eyed them with mean yellow eyes, “we can take them.”
Seemingly reinvigorated by his own assessment, the Captain charged forward as he took a swing at Charlie.
Charlie blocked and found himself driven back by the force of the wolf’s blow. The two wolves, one an assassin and the other a guard, found themselves suddenly locked together by their own weapons. Spenser leaned into his sword, trying to push Charlie to side.
That might have been a smart move against a guard – Charlie was smaller than Spenser and, had he built for strength as Spenser had, Charlie would have been overpowered and knocked to the ground. But Charlie was an assassin – he built for dexterity, and he knew how to turn an enemy’s strength against them.
Turning with the other wolf’s momentum, Charlie twirled and struck out with the other sword he’d concealed at his side, striking Spenser across his muzzle and opening a bloody gash.
“Argh! Attack!” Spenser howled as he leaped backwards, his hand rushing up to cover the fresh wound on his face.
The other guards moved in, only for Geoffrey and Gregory moved in tandem.
The first guard to strike at the mink was met with Threading the Needle, a technique the Prince had been taught, knocking the blade aside and piercing the guard’s heart in an instant. A second guard came at Gregory with an angry cry. The Prince caught the man’s upraised arm and slashed his midriff, disemboweling the guard, then whirled and lopped his head clean off.
Geoffrey, meanwhile, had taken the other three guards on at once. He started into the ‘Dance of the Northern Lights’, his claws ripping through the guards like a hot knife through butter.
The last guard’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he watched his friends torn to shreds by the rampaging bear. Not knowing what else to do, the guard leveled his sword in front of him in an attempt to shield himself. But all that accomplished was for Geoffrey to launch into an uppercut, knocking the sword into the sky as his claws tore into the soon to be deceased guard’s sternum.
It had been less than 10 seconds since ‘Captain’ Spenser had given the order to attack, and all five of his retinue were already dead.
“You!” Captain Spenser choked as he saw his men lying dead before him, “You’ll hang for this!”
“Not if you die first, though, right?” Charlie asked him quietly, “I overestimated this place. You’re just useless fodder.”
Spenser began stumbling backwards, giving Charlie just the opening he needed to leap forward anddrive his knife into the wolf’s eye.
Spenser screamed as his other hand joined the first on his face, dropping his sword as it did so.
Charlie grit his teeth, preparing to shove the blade through the lesser wolf’s brain-
“Wait!” A deep voice called.
Charlie paused and turned.
The rotund, albeit ‘noble’ wolf in finery was hustling over to them with his own retinue of twenty guards. They all had crossbows drawn and pointed at the party. Realizing the futility of getting shot to death, Charlie lowered his paw.
“Please, I must apologize for my nephew. He gets a bit rambunctious.” The fat wolf huffed, “I am Rodrigo, Mayor of Diamond Hollow. Stand down, boys!”
“B-but, Uncle Rodrigo-!” Spenser protested, blood trickling from his eye, “They attacked me! We have to kill them!”
“Shut your fool mouth, boy, and get to a healer,” Mayor Rodrigo hissed, then turned a smile back to the party, “Not many people could have done that to Rodrigo, you’re clearly not average caravan guards.”
Rodrigo paused as he eyed the group up, “We happen to have a bit of problem that only powerful and capable fighters like you can solve.”
“Oh?” Charlie raised a brow.
“Yes,” Rodrigo looked around, scratching the back of his head and laughing nervously, “Let’s, uh, take a tour and get out of here, shall we? I’d love to show you my town.”
Charlie looked over to his companions before nodding.
“Lead the way.”