The Knight Without a Horse

“Fuck, can someone remind me why the fuck I choose to travel to god-knows-where in this god-forsaken-kingdom?”

The knight spoke out loud but his words were to no one but himself. He was alone on the dirt road, alone with nothing but the sound of his heavy footsteps. When he left home they offered to lend him a horse, but Bal adamantly refused. “This is my adventure”, he said, “I shall not take any outside help in this endeavor. I shall brave the world with my own two hands!”

God, I was such a fucking moron.

He went on for exactly four hours before regretting that, and although he could go back and take a horse, to do that would be dishonorable. He gave his word that he would brave the world on his own, and dammit he was a man of principles! Very, very ill-advised principles, but principles nonetheless! And, since he left with little more than his armor, sword, and ten gold pieces, he had nowhere near the amount needed to buy a horse. Which meant walking around. For a long, long time. In full-fucking-armor.

The good news is that being a giant knight, a sword as long as his dick, and armor as thick as his skull, no one in their right mind would think about challenging him to a one-on-one fight. The bad news, however, was that this exact same thing made it hot as balls ninety-percent of the time, and he simply had no way of dragging his armor along unless he was wearing it. By now, three weeks after leaving his home and having no luck with horses, nor any excitement (aside from a few easy-to-kill bandits that tried to rob him that one time), he was seriously considering selling his armor just to buy a goddamn horse in the next village. The only thing that made him not do that yet was the fact that this was his old father’s armor, but still… I can’t deny it is a tempting thought.

Bal was in the middle of thinking about that when he finally saw something that made his heart skip a beat. Usually, that would be one of three things: 1) a naked lady; 2) two naked ladies; 3) four naked ladies. But today, and only today… it was a goddamn village.

Seeing that was enough to set him off on a jog. He didn’t mind if he looked ridiculous. He didn’t mind if he was going to be tired as fuck when he stopped running. Hell, he didn’t even care if that village had a horse for sale. He just wanted a place where he could sit down, take off that damn armor, jack one-off, and go to sleep. Give him that and Bal would be a happy man.

As soon as he reached the place, however, he saw he was going to have none of that.

The village was fucked – no way around it. The was dried blood on the ground, houses that were set on fire, broken fences, everything one would expect from a place that saw a fight. There were no bodies around, however, and that he found strange. I mean… hell, I’m the first one to say that I’m not the sharpest one, but considering the blood, shouldn’t there be some bodies on the ground? I hardly think that someone who attacked a village would take their time to clean up the place.

ROLLING PERCEPTION!

DC – 15

ROLL: 13 + 1 = 14 (failure)

That train of thought made sense for him, yet he could see no evidence of what he was thinking. It seems logical to think that someone may have survived the attack and is hiding among the ruins… but then again, people could have set this up. An ambush for someone walking where they shouldn’t. A moment later he heard a sound: the slamming of a door. His hand went immediately to his greatsword and then his body went quiet: no movement, no sound. Only waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

“Must have been the wind”, Bal said to no one, allowing his body to relax and taking a look around. Regardless of what the hell happened, it was clear there was something wrong with the village. The question was: what would a hero do?

WHAT DOES BAL DO?

[ ] Investigate the village grounds for signs of what exactly had happened. There must be something here that explains things… right?

[ ] Check out the houses and see if there’s anything useful. I mean, the village is fucked already. Not like it will do any good to let things rot over here.

[ ] See if someone left a goddamn horse around. I will take a fucking donkey at this point, I don’t care. As long as I do not have to walk for two hours, I’m happy.

[ ] Leave the village as soon as possible. This seems way too creepy and ambush-y for me. Better try again next village… wherever the fuck that may be.

[ ] Make your own suggestions. Write down in the comments!