Teaching an Old Badger New Tricks

[epetrow]

Writing this for PA's call for writing to celebrate NaNoWriMo


Wyk Whitehorn walked into his private room in the Font of Knowledge. He immediately walked across the intricately tiled floor to his great oaken wardrobe. He had to get out of the bloodstained, sewer smelling gear that seemed an insult to the opulent setting. Placing his soiled gear in a sack for the laundry, he slipped into his fine silken robes that he removed from the wardrobe. He walked over to the large brass bath in his room and filled it with water from the tap. It was a rare and unexpected luxury to have running water even given the lavish surroundings of the Font.

He picked up a sack filled to bursting with gold, the happy result of his most recent foray against the goblin tribes and placed it next to the others in the heavy iron reinforced chest at the foot of his enormous bed. After heating the water with a minor cantrip, he disrobed and used his step stool to get his diminutive 3 ½ foot frame over the lip of the tub. Satisfied as to the water’s temperature he gently lowered himself onto the cedar chair that he had added to the tub to ensure that his shoulders were immersed leaving only his head above the water even with his long white beard floating in the smoking water. Feeling the tension slowly leave his body, he leaning his head back drifting into sleep and began to dream of a time more than a century in the past.

He was a relatively young gnome barely 100 years old and just beginning his next calling, the life of a scholar. Wyk had a particular aptitude for the study of the Weave and the illusionary aspect of the Art. His instructor was the Master Illusionist, Damelvest Onoombil whom all his students called the Old Badger due to his age and tenacity in teaching the Art. On this day, the Old Badger was instructing his apprentice in the way of the Gnome Illusionist. “It is dangerous for the Children of the Golden Hills out among the tall folk. One of the best ways to survive is through misdirection and trickery. However, maybe the most important way for us of smaller stature to succeed is unity. When we stick together as a people and support one another, there is little we can’t overcome.”

The next morning, on his trip to the Warrens to obtain a book on Clockwork Construct crafting, he wondered why he dreamed of the Old Badger. Wyk ascribed great importance to dreams and those featuring his old mentor usually meant he was not achieving his goals. By why had the Badger appeared in his dreams now? His forays into the sewers had been fruitful in every way, gold, increasing his skill with the Art and reducing the goblin population. What was he not doing that would bring his mentor’s words back to him?

He purchased his book from the craftsman in the cramped little forge in a remote corner of the Warrens when he encountered an older female gnome, or a Golwin in the gnomish tongue, huddled on the ground in a filthy corner of the passageway. She was crying over a much younger gnome that was cradled in her arms bleeding from a significant head wound.

Wyk walked over addressing the female “Gwest, Mother. Can I be of some assistance?” he said using the common gnome greeting but speaking the common tongue of men as was the custom in the Warrens.
“Don’t ye ‘Gwest’ me lord fancy pants!” she squealed through her sobs. “Look what’s come o’ my wee Connor.” She smoothed his head and continued “Waylaid ’ere in the Warrens, ‘is own home, for the pitiful coppers that the thief Olmhanzan throws him for cutting ‘is gems. It ain’t much but it’s all ‘im and me have t’ live”

Wyk pulled a wand from his rich silk robes pointing it at crumbled youth and chanted a brief activating phrase. The young gnome’s wound knitted instantly and his eyes opened with a flutter. “Ohhh . .Ami? how did you get here, why are you holding me?” the youngster said through a haze.

Wyk smiled down and stated with a satisfied grin “There, all better.” He placed his wand back in the folds of his robes and started away.

“All better m’ Fod!! Ya rich bastards are so full ‘o yerselves. ‘Is wages fer a week be gone. Oh don’t worry, ‘e won’t die from ‘is wounds just starvation!” the mother howled at Wyk. “Even if ye give ‘im coin another hin cutthroat will just take it away as there be no watch down ‘ere to stop them.” She lowered her head in defeat “Go’on then Master Silk Robes with yer book what cost 10 gold dragons which would feed me and mine fer a bloody moon. What do ye care?!?”

Wyk looked at the tome in his hands that he had just purchased for more than 100 dragons and felt profound shame. He walked back to the woman and her son. “Here is some food for you and your Arn. Go to the Thirsty Sailor in the Dock’s Ward where I will pay for room and board for you two for a month. No thief in the night will be able to steal that.”
Wyk now understood what he wasn’t doing. This was not a thriving gnome community looking out for each other. This was a racial slum where it was easier to prey on each other than to help each other survive in the world of the tall folk. This could not stand.

“It is time to make changes here Golwin.” Wyk said to the mother with steely determination in his eyes. “Your stay at the Sailor is temporary until I can find something more permanent for you and yours.”

She inclined her head to Wyk slowly, and said “Thank ye fer yer kindness. What name should I give to the innkeeper at the Sailor?”

Wyk grinned with a twinkle in his eye “Tell him the Old Badger sent you.”

[ayergo]

The gnomish agenda will come to fruition!

[epetrow]

See --- we already have our own theme music.