A Wizard Fights Only as Needed...(Colt)

Considering the trouble Colt could have found himself in, somehow the current chaos of Sandpoint's Swallowtail Festival had never occurred to him as a remote possibility. The screaming had started uptown shortly after a thunderous boom, up near the center of the festival and the Cathedral, but had quickly picked up across the entire town. If he were honest with himself later, Colt's first instinct was to find a nice safe place to wait out whatever it was that was happening - he'd just heard that the local theater was putting on an impromptu performance of their last play, and considering it had been almost two weeks since he'd caught a decent show back in the city, he had been eager to see what sort of rural charms Sandpoint could provide the stage. He was not nearly in the mood, or drunk enough, to go looking for trouble.

But then the goblins went and chased a pretty woman straight into his arms.

"Aaaaah!" she screamed, sprinting down the street with her skirts held up and to the side, baring her legs practically to mid-thigh so as to run quickly. She was wild-eyed, blonde locks streaming behind her, and bosom flouncing in a way that Colt couldn't help but appreciate.

"Master wizard!" she called as her eyes locked on Colt. "Help, please! They're right behind me."

Shit. It was the mother of the girl he'd played 'wizard and apprentice' with for the crowd earlier that day. Why did I-

Colt didn't have time to finish the thought. A pair of horrible looking menaces came around the corner - they were of a size with a seven year old child, but with leathery, somewhat wrinkled skin as if they'd been baking in the sun for days on end. Their heads were too big for their bodies, and an odd oblong shape that pruned off into long, pointed ears that looked like a cross between the noble ear of an elf, and the wing of a bat.

The fact that they were rushing towards Colt and the woman who had now hurled herself into his arms reduced his time to consider the little devils. Beady black eyes. Sharp teeth, bared and slathering. Knives, long and jagged, rusted and pitted and looking more like metal talons than crafted steel.

Colt shook his hand free from the woman, raising his goblet. "Paulo Mendacium."

The roar, majestic and powerful, filled the street with sound while echoing down the cobbles and off the nearby buildings. The shutters of windows rattled slightly with the power of it, and the goblins both stuttered to a halt, one tripping over it's own feet in the process and rolling several times before coming to the stop. The roar echoed again, and the two little bastards grabbed for each other, looking around in a panic for the bestial source.

"This way," Colt urged the blonde mother, pulling her towards a nearby alley.

Once they were safely ensconced in the darkness, Colt leading her down to the next street over, the woman asked, "What was that?"

"The king of the jungle - at least, that's what they call the old lion at the Magnimar Zoo," Colt said.

"You summoned a lion!?" The woman whispered harshly. It was difficult to tell if she was impressed, or scolding, and Colt wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"No, it was just a mimicked sound. A little lie, to distract those two monsters," Colt said.

"Why didn't you just kill them? You're a wizard, you could have just zapped them with lighting, or put them on fire, couldn't you?" she asked.

Colt hesitated, then made a decision. "It wouldn't have been safe to do so in town," he whispered quickly. They had begun stalking down the new road, both eyeing the upcoming sidestreet where there was a commotion going on. "Destructive magics like that could have caused more damage to your town than the good they might do. No need to collapse a building, when a little frightening sound was enough to save you."

Before the woman could ask any more probing questions, Colt turned back to her and changed the subject while grabbing her hands in his. "Now, sweet woman, is your daughter safe? Do you need to get back to her, or could someone on this street provide shelter?"

"She's as safe as she could be, as long as her father is still at home," the woman said.

Damn, Colt sighed inside. Risking his hide for a married woman. He'd still been holding out hope that this was one mother he'd like to fuck, but after his escapade last night with someone else's wife he'd been hoping for someone less attached. The knives involved with such dalliances were starting to get old quickly.

"Rupert, Brinna," the woman called. She had stepped up to a nearby house and was knocking on the door. "It's me, Vanya. Let me in!"

The door cracked open and someone peeked out.

"Rupert, you ass," a woman's voice rose from within. "Open the damned door and let Vanya in!"

The man inside, a bit of a portly fellow with a horribly sparse mustache, opened the door further while giving a sheepish smile. "Sorry, Vanya. Just making sure it was really you."

He stepped aside for Vanya to enter, and Colt made to follow, but Vanya turned in the doorway and blocked it as she gave him a pleading, eager look. "Master wizard, you might have saved my life. Thank you. I'm sure there are others who are in even more dire circumstances now."

If she'd been acting, Colt would have called it a masterful performance. The kind of scene that would move a packed theater house to roar in approval as the hero strode off back into danger.

Fuck, thought Colt.

"Needs must," he said, nodding to the mother. "Stay safe. Perhaps we shall meet again."

"I hope we do," she smiled. She was still a damned pretty woman, even if she was married. But also barring his way to safety.

Just go with the scene, Colt told himself. It's what his improv mentor had always said. Yes, and! He winked and strode off down the street, hearing the door close and get bolted shut behind him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Colt whispered to himself.

The truth of the matter was, Colt was definitely a wizard. He just wasn't exactly a master wizard. He was sort of more like... barely a wizard. Was it his fault that his true passions lay with the stage? Or that his mentors had openly criticized his natural talents with magic in favour of their own specialties? Vanya the Pretty Mother had wanted him to shoot lighting, for fuck's sake! Did she know how fucking hard that was to do?

At the corner of the next side street, Colt's indecisiveness and worry faded when he peeked around and stumbled on one of the strangest sights he had ever laid eyes on.

The first goblin - the lowest one - looked like it was about to buckle under the pressure of the one standing on it's shoulders. Or, more likely, it was the weight of the combined six goblins all stacked on each other's shoulders that was doing the lowest one in. The entire tower of goblins was a teetering, jabbering set of wobbling limbs, gnashing teeth and shrill snarls. The topmost goblin was flailing with one of their oversized, jagged knives, trying to reach the second-story window of a house where a small dog was currently yapping angrily down at the goblins.

Every time the dog barked, the entire tower shuddered and hissed in anger, and the top goblin flailed and shouted directions in it’s guttural yet squeaky language to the others. The whiplashing effect as each movement from a lower goblin magnified through the others meant they were unlikely to ever actually get anywhere near the window and the dog.

Colt just shook his head and blinked, trying to figure out whether he should laugh at the ridiculousness, or do something about it.

He ended up laughing when the Top Goblin tried to jump for the window, but instead slammed it's wide and ugly face into the wall about a foot too low, then slowly slipped back down towards the cobbles while the rest of the goblin tower rocked backwards and collapsed in on itself in a pile of flailing little clawed limbs.

"Bwahahahaha!" Colt hollered, pawing at his eyes as he laughed so hard he teared up. "Tahahaha!"

Unfortunately, as Colt straightened back up, blinking through his tears, his mouth ran dry and the laughter died on his lips as he looked at five angry goblins all standing, knives in hands, glaring in his direction. The sixth was unmoving on the cobbles next to them.

"Has anyone ever told you fellows-" Colt interrupted himself by abruptly turning and running for his life.

Now, to be fair, Colt certainly didn't plan the next series of events, but they definitely seemed to line up in a way that made him wonder if Desna herself had been looking down on the town of Sandpoint and seen his predicament. Soft-soled leather boots pounding the cobbles, Colt realized that despite his longer legs and the fear speeding him along, a sprinter he was not. Or at least not compared to the goblins that were howling some sort of terrible, keening battle-song as they chased him.

The first moment of relief came when Colt spotted the knot of Town Guards turning onto the street towards him from the main thoroughfare. Then a moment of panic when he realized they were already embattled - a foursome of goblins seemed to spill directly out of an abandoned cart, each one clutching a piece of a still-feathered chicken in it's mouth. Colt felt a cold swish of air against his calves - a blade, passing within inches. A blade that could have cut his tendons and left him to the mercies of the goblins, likely to end up just like that poor chicken.

Putting on a burst of speed fueled almost entirely by the sheer terror gripping his heart, Colt bounded through the night time street, leapt clear over two of the chicken-eating goblins, and spun back around. "Iris imbre!"

It was a spell he had never used in practice - to be honest, other than a few close encounters with jilted lovers or jealous partners like the one with that knife-wielding rube of a husband, Colt had never even really been in a proper fight before. Still, the words and gestures came to mind, memorized and re-memorized just as every one of the spells he knew - along with several short monologues, just in case he had the chance at a great audition.

His hands pushed out, pointing the mouth of his goblet focus directly towards the two goblins he had jumped over, and the five more that were charging up to the little battle. To Colt's left was a town guard, who on closer inspection may not have been older than sixteen with the horribly thin, scraggly beard to match, and on his left Colt found a mountain of stern, dark skinned muscle in the form of the Sheriff of Sandpoint himself.

Magic poured out of the goblet in a spray of light, a rainbow of colours pulsing three times, rotating and lighting up the entire street in front of him as if from a hooded lantern holding back the light of an alchemical campfire. The goblins - blessedly all of them - staggered as one as they blinked and winced and the light washed over them. Their eyes glazed, some going cross-eyed and taking on expressions of sheer comical confusion.

The fight paused, as the goblins reacted to Colt's magical lightshow and the guards drew back from the unexpected magic.

"Fucking kill them, it won't last forever!" Colt shouted. The last pulse of the spell was already burning out into the night.

The Sheriff and his deputies set to as soon as the magic dissipated, putting the stunned goblins down with brutal efficiency.

Colt staggered, planting his back against a nearby shop wall as he heaved for breath. Someone handed him a waterskin and he drank deeply, only partially disappointed to find actual water instead of wine or something else more celebratory. Considering he returned the waterskin to the stern looking Sheriff, Colt didn't voice his thoughts.

"That was quick thinking, and potent magic," the taller man said. "Belor Hemlock, I'm the Sheriff. I haven't seen you around Sandpoint before." He was curt, but thankfully didn't sound accusatory. Colt could only imagine there were some big questions behind the man's creased brow as to exactly how a goblin raid had sprung up out of nowhere.

"Colt Caudex at your service, Sheriff," Colt panted, still trying to catch his wind back. "Just- hah- only just arrived a couple of days ago."

"Well son," the Sheriff said. "You're doing good work out here. Take this." He pressed something into Colt's hands.

Colt looked down at the cold, metal object and found himself holding a polished tin star in a bronze circle.

"For the night, you're a deputy of the Sandpoint Garrison, Colt Caudex," the Sheriff said. "Let's put your magic to good use, and maybe we'll make some stories for men to tell over their ales, eh?"

Fuuuuck, fuck fuck fuuuuuck, Colt screamed internally. He just wanted to find a place to grab a drink and sleep until this nightmare of an evening was over. And now he was getting drafted. Only years of practice kept his displeasure from reaching his face.

"Ah, uh, well... lead on then, good Sheriff," Colt swallowed, gulping out his words as a fresh sheen of nervous sweat started to form on the back of his neck.

What was the worst that could happen? He was with the Sheriff and three of the town guards.

And he had his parlor trick magics, and perhaps one more spell of significance in him?

Shit.

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