The Legacy of Gunthro Budkin - goldenlion
It had been a very bad day for Beethro.
Like most bad days, it had all started when he got out of bed. (Admittedly, this is how most good days start too.) Before he'd even got out of the house for school, he'd had to eat pickled Welmish fish for breakfast (the only food left in the house), he'd had to search for his left shoe for 10 minutes (it was under that pile of slightly moldy underwear that he had moved yesterday to create a path through his room), and before he left, he found out that he had a more-severe-than-usual case of bedhead as he glanced in the mirror running by. Unfortunately, it was much too late to do anything about it.
The expression on Mrs. Gruvbat's face when Beethro walked into class 14 minutes late was, unfortunately, very familiar to Beethro. He tried to fend off the coming storm with a preemptive strike.
"Miz Gruvbat, a freak tornado hit my house this morning and all my books..."
"Spontaneously combusted?" Mrs. Gruvbat glared at Beethro over the top of her glasses. Beethro looked crestfallen.
"You used that excuse two weeks ago. You are late. And furthermore, your hair looks like a nest constructed by a large, clumsy and thoroughly intoxicated bird. That makes three unacceptable breaches of my classroom rules in a mere fraction of a second. I believe that calls for detention..." Mrs. Gruvbat's face lit up. "...now, it's time for a pop quiz on Benedat's revolutionary cartographic methods! Get out your pencils, class!"
After school and detention, Beethro returned home to see if his Dad had gotten any food during the day... no such luck. Beethro groaned, and decided to go outside to find something to eat.
"Hey, Dad!" Beethro yelled. "I'm going out for a while! I'll be back!" After a second, his father's voice replied from the back of the house.
"What? Out again? You sluggabout, you should stay in here and work... I've got lots of things for you to do... lazy kids... back in my day..." His voice trailed off. Beethro decided that that was as close to acceptance as he was going to get. After all, his father had never exactly been known for his cheerful, perky attitude. Maybe it was that job of his.... King Dugan's tax collection agents had never been known for their devotion to customer service with a smile.
Later on, as he searched for food in the local forest near his village, Beethro started thinking about his life. (Being alone in forests, as well as being adolescent, tends to encourage this sort of activity.) It had been yet another day of ill fortune combined with abject boredom. In fact, incredibly boring was an excellent way to describe his life. He was no good in school, girls didn't talk to him, and he had nothing exciting to do. The fact that he had zits on his face larger than most people's noses didn't help much, either. Depressed, Beethro began searching the surroundings for some of Ephelna's naturally-growing fermented berries.
That's when he ran into the goblin. Beethro had seen them before, of course, but never this close. And certainly never this big.
If muscles were money, this goblin would have about 261 greckles, assuming, of course, a simple 2/1 muscle-to-greckle ratio. They'd just be really, really big greckles... Actually, greckle-like-but-significantly-bigger round objects, since greckle size had been strictly regulated by The Financial Foundation of the Eighth ever since the infamous counterfeiting scandal of '23. Back then, the 2nd Mint of The Eighth in Dugandy had been famous for producing 79 different types of greckle: bills, coins, and small roach figurines in various sizes. However, after a person known to history only as "Mr. Ultra-Absorbent" managed to pass multiple "new, commemorative edition 250-greckle detachable bill cylinders" at the local armory (later found to be rolls of toilet paper with "250" and "LEGAL TENDER" scrawled on the surface), the Foundation intervened.
In any case, Beethro was impressed.
The beefy goblin stared at Beethro. His face assumed an expression somewhere between deep thoughtfulness and constipation as he contemplated the acne-scarred teenager before him. Then, slowly, the goblin began taking something out of a bag attached to his belt. Beethro mentally prepared himself for some sort of salutation or a preliminary gesture of friendship. The goblin opened his mouth and bellowed:
"HUMAN, YOU BUY PRETTY?"
Beethro became somewhat less impressed.
After wiping specks of muscular-goblin saliva off of his face, Beethro examined the wooden object in the goblin's hand. His best guess was that the goblin had taken a sharp stone to a block of wood and jabbed at it in a completely random fashion, producing a vaguely fish-shaped object. Obviously, the figurine-crafting art of the goblins had skipped this guy's generation. He decided to stall for time. "That's... uh, that's a beautiful fish!" Beethro said, lamely.
Unfortunately for Beethro, goblins deeply loathe fish, and comparing one of a goblin's figurines to a fish of any kind is an insult approximately equivalent to throwing chunks of roachmeat at someone's girlfriend while speculating upon the existence of scraggly, strange-looking hairs on her chin. This insult was not lost on the goblin, and it had a rather conclusive effect. In fact, the last thing Beethro remembered before blacking out was the very conclusive effect of the goblin's fist smashing into his head.
---
Beethro woke up to a smell reminiscent of rancid eyeball pudding. Slowly, his vision came into focus. After he'd fully come to, he looked around, and quickly became apprehensive. Someone or something had taken him to a messy, dank, and extremely dusty room. It was rather large and had faded green checkerboard tile, as well as a similarly-colored small rock formation next to a doorway. Suddenly, the formation began talking to him.
"HEHEHEHE! It's alive, it is, and here was I thinkin' that Skwush skwushed 'is brains! I saw the whole thing, I did!"
Beethro stared at the formation, which, upon further examination, appeared to have a badly misshapen face and body, and also seemed to be exuding the aforementioned rancid pudding smell. "Damn goblins," he muttered. The goblin continued to chatter with glee.
"We had to takes you down to our lair, course. We found you a new prison room! Had to tell King that evil human hurt Skwush's feelings! We gonna have fun playin' games wi' you soon, human! And I'm gonna keeps you here until they come getcha! HEHEHEHE!"
Beethro just stared. The goblin, quickly becoming bored with this unresponsive human, decided to find something else to do. He sprawled himself out on the steps, belched, pulled out a magazine, and began to examine the contents of it very thoroughly.
"I've got to get back home... Dad's going to smite me if I don't get back there soon..." thought Beethro. He stood up and began to explore his newfound surroundings. He was in a fairly large room that was walled in on all sides, excepting the doorway to the north that was presently blocked by the unpleasant little goblin. It had obviously been a while since this room had been used, judging from the prodigous amount of dust covering everything. Various piles of rocks were strewn about at random, one of which had a trio of ancient skeletons scattered on the floor next to it. The walls were garden-variety sandstone, although Beethro thought he could make out some cracks in them nearby the three skeletons. As he walked over to the corner to investigate, he discovered that the cracks were actually letters. Reading had never exactly been Beethro's strong suit, weak suit, or even cheap leisure suit, but having nothing else to do, he started to peruse the scratchings.
"I write words for those who would pursue the honorable profession of dungeon exterminator," read Beethro. Dungeon exterminator? This sounded fairly interesting... Beethro had heard of the profession before, but knew very little about it. As he read on, he found quite a bit of interesting information pertaining to that occupation. Then, he came to a particularly relevant section.
"I fear no single goblin..."
Beethro looked back at his captor, who now appeared to be drooling on his magazine. He could read the magazine cover from here; on it was written "FGM's 100 Sexiest Goblin Babes!" in large, red type, with an accompanying picture that he *really* didn't want to examine further.
Beethro nodded wisely. Obviously, single goblins were way too distracted to be worthy opponents. He turned back to finish the sentence:
"...Two goblins are another matter." Interesting, but useless in Beethro's situation, as was the rest of the information written. "Pity I don't have a sword, or I could actually make use of this advice," he thought. He then turned to go explore the rest of his cell and promptly whacked his foot into the hilt of a sword. "Damn sword hilts... wait... sword hilts?" Beethro thought. He examined the obstacle, and found that, indeed, a sword was resting on the floor next to the hand of one of the nearby skeletons. However, the sword was trapped under the close-by pile of large rocks. Beethro grabbed the hilt and pulled with all his might. Unfortunately, the sword turned out to be rather easy to remove, and Beethro went head over heels backward with the sword in his hands. Fortunately, he didn't go very far. Unfortunately, that was because there was an extremely sturdy wall in the way.
The goblin finally ripped his attention from the magazine after hearing the unearthly sound resulting from a combination of "CLANG!" "THWACK!" and an impressive collection of Clarbagian curses that Beethro had recently learned. Upon seeing the sword, the goblin's eyes widened.
"That'z.... THAT'Z A REALLY BIG SWORD! THAT'Z A BUDKIN SWORD! AIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAARRGGHH!!! SAVE ME!!! SAVE ME!!!" With that, the goblin ran screaming out of the room.
"That's my name... how'd he know my name?" thought Beethro. "No matter... I've gotta get out of here before that guy gets everybody after me!" He quickly grabbed the sword and ran out of the room. He ran through the succeeding rooms anxiously, stopping only to stare briefly at a pinkish, round object in one. After the object started twitching, Beethro rapidly decided that this place wasn't just a goblin's lair, and that he wasn't going to stop and find out what else lived around here. He hightailed it onto the next room.
Finally, Beethro saw a light off in the distance, and sprinted down a long hallway towards it. After he had gone quite a long way, the hallway suddenly opened into a large, brightly-lit hall; Beethro ran into the middle of it, stopped, and read some very large, red letters which were painted directly over a very small staircase on the other side of the room.
"Emergency Exit To Surface! Use Only If Keep Is Under Attack! Alarm Will Sound!"
Beethro's heart leapt for joy.
"MEAN HUMAN!!! SKWUSH KILL MEAN HUMAN!!!"
Beethro's heart landed awkwardly and pulled a muscle. He knew that voice.
Turning around, he discovered that Skwush wasn't alone. "...two goblins are another matter," thought Beethro. "Did that guy write anything about five hundred?"
The entire assembled court of the Goblin King began cackling malevolently as Skwush began stomping towards Beethro. Beethro thought quickly, coolly decided on a course of action, and began running towards the exit with arms windmilling, screaming like a banshee with a toothache.
He almost made it.
"Damn loose tiles," muttered Beethro as he flew through the air.
WHAMMMMMMMM!
Beethro had arrived on the first step of the emergency staircase. Dazedly, Beethro looked up to see Skwush coming closer... Skwush was next to the staircase... Skwush was lifting a large club over his head... "This is the end," Beethro thought, and closed his eyes.
ffffffwish..... SKWUSH.
Beethro opened his eyes.
A certain really big sword was sticking out of Skwush's head. The tile that tripped Beethro had also caused him to lose grip of his sword, which, combined with the whiplash effect of Beethro's flailing arms, had launched the sword high into the lofty heights of the hall. Fortunately for Beethro, what goes up must come down.
The sword began to glow with a white light. Without warning, Skwush exploded, showering Beethro and the entire court of the Goblin King with large globs of blood as the sword fell into Beethro's hand. As the sword touched Beethro, a jolt of energy went through his body, instantly giving him the strength to rise and flee up the stairs to freedom. This he promptly did, leaving behind only the glare of a thousand beady eyes and faint goblin cries of "CURSE YOU, BUDKINNNNNNNNNNNN.........."
---
Three days later, Beethro opened his eyes. As conciousness slowly returned to him, Beethro looked at the ceiling. Had he dreamed everything? His eyes fell on the sword beside his bed. "No dream..." he thought. Feeling like he'd had a great, long sleep, he sat up and promptly regretted it. One of the unfortunate side effects of using a really big sword extensively for the first time is, for lack of a better term, Soreness From Hell.
A minute later, Beethro's father walked in, summoned by Beethro's strangled yodel of pain. Beethro immediately started talking.
"Dad! It all came back when I saw the sword again... the goblins, the blood, asking the guy at Tummo's Tavern for directions home, everything!" And Beethro began telling his father of all that had passed in the mysterious dungeon. When he had finally finished, his father sat back with an exasperated look on his face.
"That gobbin' Gunthro! After his years of dragging our family name through the mud, I try and put us on a better track by taking up a respectful, govermental position, he practically comes back from the gobbin' grave to pass on the damned family occupation!"
"But Dad, who..."
"Shaddap, it's my turn. I let you talk uninterrupted... kids these days..." He shook his head and continued. "Anyway, Gunthro Budkin was one of your ancestors, and as it turned out, he was somewhat competent with a sword." Beethro's father looked sour. "Made quite a reputation among the dungeon denizens, seeing as how he killed most of 'em. Course, never helped his reputation with royalty or important folk like that, but dunging never does, does it? And dunging killed him in that Kreepola's Keep or whatever it was. That's how they knew yer name, by the way... they remember that sword... they remember it well." The sour look was still on his face. "And now, you'll be a dunger... it's in your gobbin' blood, unfortunately. I never had any luck... even when I tried to keep you from finding out... coulda had a legendary soldier or a Clockwinder or some such..." He continued to mumble about his ill fortune as he got up and walked out of the room.
Beethro thought about what he'd just heard. So the really big sword had been Gunthro's... he'd have to get back to that Keep someday and find out what it was his ancestor had been looking for. Of course, that would mean improving his smiting technique... He smiled. One day, perhaps.
Suddenly, an old man with a long, gray beard stepped into Beethro's room.
"Beethro! My name's Inkergot... Romble Inkergot. Your dad just mentioned to me that you've got a talent for killing foul creatures. Well, I've got a bit of a roach problem in my walk-in pantry, and I'm getting a little old to deal with it..."
"You want me to smite those roaches?!? Absolutely!!!" Beethro said excitedly. He jumped out of bed to shake Inkergot's hand, and, once again, deeply regretted moving.
After Beethro's second strangled yodel of pain on the afternoon, he agreed to take care of Inkergot's problem in three days time for 25 greckles. Beethro went on to have many firsts: his first job, of course, which actually turned out to be pretty boring (just a few six-inch roaches). Then, there was his first memorable clearing school experience, an unfortunate incident with mimic potion reagents that caused him to echo his lab partner for the next four days. Nevertheless, throughout Beethro's long, successful career, he was always quite sure that his first adventure topped them all.
THE END