Chapter 3 - Twisted Metal Cups

Clint swirled the frothy amber liquid around the tankard and stared into the orangey whirlpool it formed. “Too sweet.” He mused as he took another swig, pursing his lips as the saccharine flavour permeated his tongue. “You got anythin’ else?”

“Something else?” Brann queried as he poured his own cup. “What could be better than honey mead?”

Clint longed for the familiar kiss of whiskey on his lips. “You got anything that burns? I like some fire in the back of my throat.”

“Fire? Now why would you want that? You gonna do a dragon impression?” Brann jeered.

Brann jeered. Clint rolled his eyes, though a faint suggestion of a smile could be traced in the lines of his face. The other man chuckled, making a half-hearted effort to look for something more suitable to Clint’s palette, knowing full well that all he had were barrels upon barrels of more honey mead.

“I get cold.” The cowboy replied plainly.

“I’m no fan of the cold myself but I can’t imagine burning yourself does much good.” Brann shrugged, arms crossed.

“Hm.” Clint took another sip, even if it wasn’t to his tastes, any booze was better than no booze, especially after a day like his.

Brann leaned forward and sipped at a drink of his own. This was a rare treat for him. Usually he was the only sober person in the bar. Lately, it even felt like he was the only person in the bar. Sure, he had his regulars, but the usual upbeat atmosphere he thrived in had been choked out by the Hellhound’s presence scaring away the local adventurers. “You’re gonna ask me something eventually, aren’t you? I get the stoicism but if I were you I’d be a little more freaked out.”

“What with the cups?” Clint prodded at the bent metal thing. It was shoddy work, a poorly constructed approximation of a tankard, beaten and bent in all the wrong ways, barely rounded out into a circle, a spindly metal handle loosely clinging to the side by a poor weld.

His eyes bulged in disbelief. “That’s what you ask me?” Brann rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “You fight a literal demon and you wanna know about cups? You’re crazier than I thought.” Brann sighed and shook his head.

“These’re special cups, I made ‘em myself.” He looked down at his own drink and swirled it, frowning at the crooked spiral the liquid made; a sign of his unskilled craftsmanship.

“Why? Ain’t you got any good ones?” Clint tapped at his tankard, assessing the structural integrity.

“I’ve got tons of good ones!” Brann protested, “It’s just fun to make stuff, you know?” He leaned in, softening to an almost confessional tone. “As a kid, I wanted to be a blacksmith. Used to tinker with metal all the time, taking any scraps I could get my hands on and trying to melt them down. I kept getting in trouble for setting fires, although they were never hot enough to get much done. Best things I ever managed were these.” He stroked the handle of the tankard longingly, before suddenly becoming aware of himself once again. He plastered a smile back on. “Cut me some slack, anyway! You know how hard it is to make something like this with no equipment?”

Clint could guess. He admired the tankard again, appreciating how genuine the flawed craftsmanship was. “Why don’t you just… Get the equipment?”

Brann blinked a few times, staring at Clint like he was an idiot. “I’m not a blacksmith, Clint, I’m a bartender.”

“So?” Clint shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “A man can be two things.”

Brann shrugged back and smiled “Two things? Maybe that works for you. You’re a weirdo and you’re clueless.” Brann joked, Clint’s lips curved a little under his hat. “Here, I’ll get you a real cup.” He reached for the tankard, only for Clint to pull it away. He raised it to his mouth, downing the entire drink in a silent protest.

“Where the hell am I anyway?”

The Kingdom of Gallia stood valiantly at the centre of the continent Grus, adorning it with its majesty as a crown jewel. It was a land with natural beauty only matched by its vastness; Gallia spanned the majority of the continent, composed of several formerly independent states that were once divided by race and culture that had been smelted together by the fires of war.

It was a few short decades ago, but already it was the stuff of legend. The greatest war the world had ever known. A brutal campaign by the Rhine Empire to the North, a violent, conquering kingdom seeped in the darkest magics, to claim all of Grus for itself. The only way to face it was for once conflicting nations to unite and stand against the tyrannical Rhine.

They found this unity under the banner of Gallia, led by the Great Hero Terra and his ragtag party, who tore down racial and cultural boundaries as they beat back the northern invaders and established order on the continent of Grus.

Such war of course wrought destruction, and the world had to be remade. As such, the hero king and his party rebuilt it in their image. A strong, multicultural coalition that valued abilities and merit over kinds and creeds. The hero Terra took to the throne, his elven wife Venus beside him. There, they drew treaties and tore down borders, until no more division stood, and Gallia was as one.

Now, decades later, Gallia was still only a young, ambitious place. Verdant fields prospering and sprouting a bountiful crop of powerful mages and warriors. This boom in the population, a newfound cultural and magical revolution born from the crossing of formerly divided peoples gave rise to a new way of life, the way of the adventurer. Free from the shadow of war, aimless youths were free to find their path in the world, and through the careful guidance of a formal adventurer’s guild, these paths were paved over, forming a universal system that anyone of suitable ambition and talent could pursue. Even with no war, the wildlands to the west still birthed monsters worth slaying, and within their borders, all manner of goblins, slimes and beasts would run wild if left unchecked.

In recent times however, as goblin-slaying grew more mundane and the adventurer population boomed to what seemed like maximum capacity, something began to change in the north. Rumours of demonic forces creeping, of Rhine’s military slowly re-amassing, of a cruel demon king who had come to rule. True or not, it was a fantasy far too exciting to go un-lived, and so it became the new pinnacle of heroism, to venture north to Rhine and slay the dreaded demon king.

For many wannabe heroes, Floraison was the first step toward that grand ambition. A calm place, burdened only by the occasional slimes and roaming goblins from the West and fat with bears and boars that could be hunted on the townsfolk’s behalf. The only real conflict the village experienced was from the rowdy adventurers themselves, all of whom would inevitably move on to deadlier pastures once they had levelled up their skills sufficiently.

For all its rolling flower fields, temperate climate and bountiful harvests, Floraison wasn’t a place many cared to stay. It was a good place to be born, and a good place to die, but no place to live.

For the beastwoman Renee however, Floraison had become a long-term home. She hadn’t intended it to, she had dreams like all adventurers of joining a party, achieving great exploits, then slaying the mythic demon king and becoming a revered hero of the land.

Unfortunately, she often wound up a burden in many of her early parties. She was a promisingly talented healer, but try as she might, Renee wasn’t suited to the fast-paced, spell-slinging nature of her profession.

She decided that if her prowess didn’t lie in direct combat, she would instead just accentuate her healing capabilities to the extreme. She would become such a potent healer that a party would have no choice but to build around her.

And so, Renee made her way to Floraison, refining her magic by acting as a reliable, consistent source of healing for any reckless party short on their own dedicated cleric. Before she knew it, she had settled nicely into the town, becoming as much of an institution as Brann’s bar. But still, she longed to someday leave and still pursue that girlhood dream of hers.

Then the Hellhound arrived. The early days of its presence were a trial by fire for Renee, grievous wounds the likes of which she had never seen prior arriving one after the other. Missing limbs, bloodied and battered bodies, souls on the verge of fading. It was this that drove her to finally become the skilled healer she had wanted to be, but confirmed to her that she could never, ever be one of those adventurers. Life was too precious to her, she could not understand throwing it away with such abandon.

Nevertheless, she retained the inquisitive nature of a dedicated adventurer, and Clint was certainly something to inquire about. Like most of the village, she had gathered in a large bundle outside of Brann’s bar. People jostled and shoved, each trying to get an eyeful of their saviour through the keyhole.

“I still think the Goddess sent him.” A grumbling man insisted, debating with another. Amongst the crowd, gossip and rumours flew, spread by glory-chasers and judgy aunts, inventing all sorts of wild stories about the man inside.

“Goddess, huh?” Renee pondered. “He seemed a little scruffy to be anything divine.” She recalled her first encounter with Clint. Mangled, borderline dead, crumpled gracelessly against the wall of a cave. “Yeah, no way…”

“I don’t think so. He’s probably just some foreigner who got lost.” Another member of the crowd dismissed.

“Hm, no.” Renee entertained the theory. “He’s definitely not from around here, but…” She recalled yet more. There was another body in that cave, and for as brutalised as Clint was, the Hellhound and somehow met a worse fate. There was a hole gored through its centre, a clear instant kill. “If he’s capable of that then…” She wondered.

She shook her head, shrugging it off. It was no use wondering, she’d just have to find out directly. In her stupor she had managed to get to the front of the crowd already. She knocked a few times in a rhythm that would be familiar to Brann.

Renee and Brann were close. Out of everyone in the town that had warmly accepted her, she considered him the kindest. He had given her a room in his tavern when she arrived and had been a most gracious host, even as her stay grew into a more permanent residence. It had been a year since they had been living together now, and so little signals like this had become commonplace.

If there was anyone to entrust the scruffy, dangerous stranger to, it was Brann. He was naturally disarming, something she liked about him. He was able to disarm all manner of bar brawls, even amongst adventurers far stronger than him with just a few words. He had a knack for reaching even the most unreachable people.

And now he was reaching for Renee, grabbing her arm through a crack in the door and pulling her into the bar.

“Huh?-”

Renee shifted uneasily, wriggling left and right around her staff as a centrepoint. “Why is he staring at me?”

“Apparently he’s never seen a beastman before.” Brann stood beside her, arms crossed and somehow equally intrigued by Clint as the cowboy himself was by Renee.

“Really?” Renee looked concernedly at Brann, then curiously at Clint. Her people were widely distributed across Gallia and beyond, especially in the Midwest where Floraison lay. “Where’d you come from?”

“That’s just the thing.” Brann sighed. “He’s not from anywhere. He just showed up outta nowhere, apparently.”

Renee and Brann had an intimate rhythm in their conversation that Clint recognised immediately. Frankly, it made him uncomfortable. Years of solitude does that to a man, familiarity between people becomes unfamiliar.

“That’s impossible! Do you have amnesia? Maybe I got something wrong with the healing-” Renee reached for his hat, only to find her wrist firmly gripped by Clint. For someone suspected to be so strong, he was surprisingly gentle. He only restrained her, his hand didn’t clamp down.

With her finally stopping in place, Clint got the opportunity to take a firm look into her eyes. They were human. The spark of consciousness, the capacity for great good and greater evil, it was all there. Clint let go of her. “What the hell are you, anyway?” he muttered.

“I’m a beastman, like Brann said.” Renee replied. “Human, like you.” she clarified in a way that was most unhelpful to Clint.

“Lady, I know a human when I see one.” Clint dismissed, another swig of mead blocking his vision momentarily. When Renee returned to his sight, she wore a ghastly expression, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Hey, hey, hold it!” Brann leaned over to Clint from behind the bar, a warm but firm hand on his shoulder. “You’re not a racist, are you?”

Clint apologised, his voice uncharacteristically weak and thin. “No. Sorry.”

“No, no, it's okay.” Renee insisted, patting down the tension in the room with a hand gesture. “I guess you wouldn’t know. Your people, mankind, and my people, beastmen are both considered humans.” She began the lecture eagerly. Renee was somewhat of an amateur historian, and the recent history of the term “human”, and especially how it related to her own people turned out to be one of her favourite topics.“You see, when Gallia was founded and interspecies relationships were being formalised by law, they had to devise a system to define what a person was.”

Clint’s ever-attentive eyes somehow began to glaze over. In contrast, Brann nodded along. “To do this, they started scoring species based on their intellect, morality, capacity for language, and how developed their cultures were on a scale of one to ten. Creatures with a score of eight or higher, like us, are humans! Those with lower than eight are monsters! Simple, right?”

Clint leaned back in his chair. “That thing I shot earlier was a monster?”

“That’s right. Monsters are a whole other part of the ecosystem!” Renee began, gathering up the words in her head for a thorough explanation.

“Monsters are monsters. People are people. I get it.” Clint surmised. All the words she had prepared crumbled. She could have wept with disappointment.

“Shot?” Brann raised an eyebrow, leaning over Clint to get another good look at him. “I don’t see a bow anywhere.”

For the first time it dawned on Clint that he was not the only alien to this world. His trusty revolver was too. From the sound of it, it was something that far exceeded the technology level they had available, perhaps the power of their contemporary weapons too. That was just a theory though, he wanted to know for sure where he and his revolver stood in the eyes of these people.

Clint placed the gun on the table, allowing Brann his first good look at it. His eyes lit up like little fireworks. “Don’t touch this part.” He ordered calmly, pointing at the trigger.

Brann took a hold of it delicately, as if it may shatter. For all he knew it might. He observed the intricate metalwork, the impossible shapes that even the masters of his era hadn’t dreamed to forge. He poked and prodded softly, like a child scared of harming a small animal but desperate to figure it out.

“I don’t get it. What is it?” Renee leaned over, unable to parse any of the information Brann was inputting at a million miles an hour.

“It's a weapon, isn’t it?” Brann surmised, tapping at the hammer.

Clint’s eyes widened, exposing their deep yellow to Brann for the first time. The bartender smirked, knowing he’d hit the nail on the head. “How’d you figure?” Clint asked, poker face reforming.

“It's nothing about the design. I don’t understand any of it…” The hammer clicked into a half-cocked position, the satisfaction of moving parts alluring Brann in further. “If anything it’s like a weird shaped puzzle box. A kid’s toy. All these parts that shift and move… Nothing practical about ‘em.” He popped out the cylinder, spinning it slowly and counting the chambers. “It's just the way you hold it. How it's always at your side. How antsy you’re getting now that it's outta your hands.” Brann smiled, returning the cylinder and spinning the barrel for his amusement.

Renee was a thousand steps behind at this point, but poked her snout in anyway. “A weapon? That thing? It’s so small! There’s no blade, no handle, how does that even work? Could it be like a blowpipe? But then where does the air go in…”

Brann prodded her in the head, sending her reeling back. “Don’t worry about it. It's magic.”

“Magic? I know magic and there’s no way that’s magic.” She yapped, but Brann simply shrugged it off.

He finally handed the gun back to Clint. “I think I figured out what it shoots. Got no idea how though.” Clint placed the gun back into his holster, finally feeling secure again. “Thing is if it works the way I think it does…” Brann hummed, he glanced at Clint who gave him a knowing look. They were on the same page, and it was probably better that only the two of them were on that page.

He had figured out that Clint only had five more shots. That sure, his weapon was strong enough to eviscerate incredible beasts like the Hellhound, it could deal untold damage the likes of which made this world tremble, but he could only deliver such a blow five more times.

“It what?” Renee pleaded, tail wagging with excitement and intrigue. The two men broke their exchange, just looking blankly at Renee. “Come on, what’s it do?” Brann just smiled at her, Clint kept his head down and drank. “Ugh, is this one of those ‘sacred oath between men’ things?” she groaned.

“A man’s oath. Exactly.” Brann nodded. “Say, Renee. Do you mind fetching me something?”

“What’d I say about using the word ‘fetch’?” She grumbled.

Brann flung up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. I just need you to go get me some bread from the kitchen. I’m sure our guest here is getting pretty hungry.” He gave her another pleading smile, one he knew she couldn’t resist. With a sigh, she relented and left the room.

“Five shots, huh. That certainly makes things more interesting.” Brann chuckled.

“How’d you get all that?” Clint asked pointedly, as annoyed as he was impressed.

“I told you I wanted to be a blacksmith, right? I inspect weapons every day, every adventurer who comes through here, I take a look.” He grinned.

“With an eye like that I can’t see why you ain’t made it your business.” Clint said with a sip.

“Too expensive. I couldn’t dream of it.” he admitted. “I mean, I tried. Just can’t do it without the proper equipment.” He gestured to his poorly constructed tankard. “Besides, there’s already a blacksmith in town, there’s no place for another.”

“Y’could leave.” Clint suggested.

“Leave? Nah. Floraison’s my home. It’s where I belong.” Brann insisted. “Just unlucky it had to be the bar and not the forge, but that’s life.'' He took a long, longing drink from his tankard. Its funny shape pressed awkwardly against his lip. Clint couldn’t help but pity the man.

Outside, the crowd continued to churn and hustle. That fateful gunshot had created such an unquenchable curiosity that even after an hour they had still not dispersed. It seemed that nothing but Clint himself would satiate the ravenous crowd.

But surely, one person at a time, the sea began to part. Murmurs spread quickly from the back of the crowd to the front, rumours of someone’s arrival. They were fast confirmed as not one, but two very notable someones. As they came into view from across town, the crowd went quiet, clamouring chatter turning to awestruck whispers. Some bowed, others just stared, but all moved aside.

The two figures waltzed to the door, not concerned with the people around them, just the same curiosity about the mysterious gunman driving them. Despite the door being locked, a quick spell from the leftmost figure at the behest of the rightmost blew the doors open, leaving both the crowd, and the people within starstruck.

All except for Clint, who, with his back turned, paid no mind to the dramatic entrance. He remained focused on his mead, sipping at it as the paired footsteps slowly approached.

“Did you want the sweet bread or the brown stuff because I didn’-' “ Renee came up from the basement, launching the two loaves in shock at the arrival. She recognised them immediately, in a nervous voice she tried to dismiss them. “This is kind of a private event, maybe you could-”

They didn’t listen, a raised hand silencing the beastwoman instantly. Brann didn’t speak either, just returning to his tankard as well. Clint didn’t look at them, instead at Brann. By his reaction, they weren’t necessarily a threat, his eyes remained lidded and firmly focused, no sign of fear or confusion, just a cheeky enjoyment of what he knew, and Clint was soon to find out..

When Brann’s eyes burst wide with shock, that’s when Clint turned around. The two greatly admired people were kneeling humbled before him.

Though he didn’t know it yet. These were children of the Hero King, the twin Prince and Princess of Gallia.

Current Party: Clint Morgans