Something munched, crunched and slurped, flesh pliable as clay between those oh so terrible teeth.

Someone screamed, a jet of blood spraying the wall and its foul iconography.

I cowered beneath the altar, spying between my fingers at the thing's human-like silhouette, casted in red candlelight at the opposite wall. In that horrid shadow theater, I watch the creature tore open a man´s ribcage to gorge on his still beating heart.

When the screams finally died down, all went silent, except for a constant patting and splatting; The thing crawled awkwardly over blood and viscera. Whatever it was, it couldn’t quite puppeteer it’s stolen flesh.

In vain I wrestled down my racing pulse. So loud my heart pounded, I feared the beast would follow its drumming to the source… I shouldn’t have worried; It almost stopped on its own accord when a set of pale clawed fingers closed on the table’s edge. A tuft of black hair followed, and then two swirling orbs of darkness peered at me from upside down.

Now, I know what you are thinking:

“Blake, you handsome devil, what did you do this time?!“

And you might not believe me, but the saddest thing about this whole ordeal, -apart from yours truly being chowed down by an eldritch abomination, is that this didn’t devolved from one of my “roguish escapades”. No sir! This whole thing happened the one time I decided to be responsible and go to school.

“Oh! But how can that be?!” You may ask yourself, -- you stary eyed, treasure of a human being. Well then, today is your lucky day! Gather around the fire and let good uncle Blake tell you an amazing story about love, responsibility, and magic.

It all started out one joyous spring morning; the birds sang, the smell of fresh baked bread wafted from the streets of the town below, and an enraged fellow yelled manically while axing down the door to my room.

*chomp *

“Now good sir, there is no need for violence!” I cried, doing my best to hold the barricaded door with an empty wardrobe “We can talk this out like civilized people!”

*chomp *

“I’LL”

*chomp*

“TORE YOU”

*chomp*

“LIMB FOR LIMB!”

*chomp*

“Daddy, please calm down, we love him!” pleaded the verry naked girl holding the door beside me.

“You are way too young to know what love is…! Wait, WE?!”

“Oh, cut it out dad!” huffed the other verry naked girl while pushing a heavy looking chest towards the barricade, “We are no kids anymore. We can have fun from time to time,” she grinned at my own birthday suit, “and Blake here is much fun…”

“I’LL KILL HIM!”

“Ladies, as much as I appreciate the effort,” *chomp* “I think you should leave me the talking…! “*chomp* “Hold up, has any one seen my pants?!”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed a third nude girl, pausing the escape rope of tided rags on its making, “I think I tide them between the bedsheet and the curtains!”

“AHHHHHH!” *chomp**chomp**chomp**chomp**chomp*

Through sheer fury ‘Daddy’, a.k.a. the local blacksmith, managed to chop off a plate sized hole on the thick door wood. A hairy, muscular arm quickly went in, its enormous mittens grabbing for my head.

I docked, escaping his grasp by the literal tips of my hairs and rolled to the window ledge.

“Girls, it has been a true pleasure, but It is time for this bird to fly!” I said, pushing the window open.

“Aww… It’s so sad to say farewell…” pouted the third sister, handing over the improvised rope.

Of course, I gave her the only correct answer:

“Then I’ll say; see you soon.” I bowed gracefully to plant a gallant kiss on the back of her hand.

“Aww!” the three girls sighed in unison delight; their pure hearts melting away by my peerless charm.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“AHRG!” Screamed the not so delighted blacksmith, bashing open the door and barricade on his daughter’s momentary distraction.

“Time to go!”

I dived through the window.

Now, my dashing escape would have been flawless but for a couple minor issues; One, the rag-rope on my hands stopped thirty-five feet short of the pavement. Two, the momentum from my sudden fall translated into a wild pendulum motion. Oh, and let us not forget three; I was still quite naked.

For a hot second there I contemplated my life choices as I swung side to side, bare butt cheeks catching the wind and the disbelieving stares of the townsfolk at the marketplace below.

I think I heard some small child crying: “Mama! Mama! Look!”

Just then the angry axe man shrugged off the girls valiantly trying to restrain him, and cleaved the dangling rope in one swipe. Fortunately, he cut me off at the apex of my swing; I was flung sideways, right at a street vendor's thatch roof. I went straight through, bringing down a prodigious pile of clacking stewpots and breaking open a wooden chicken coop in the process.

The old lady I startle with this unforgettable entrance was non so pleased. She made that verry clear by screaming loudly for the guards and beating me over the head with a cane.

“Sorry! Auch! Sorry!”

I fled the ruined shop, stopping only for picking up one of the scattering chickens and position its struggling form as to hide my modesty.

Only then I risked a glance towards the building I came from. The girls stood at a window next to their fuming father, handkerchiefs in the air, waving me off warm farewells.

I blew a kiss their way and immediately docked down a flying axe.

I didn’t dawdle after that, else the angry mountain of a men came down for me, another deadly implement in hand. God knows the guy had plenty of those. Unfortunately, disappearing into the crowd was proving more difficult than expected. The people at the street gave a wide breath to the naked man holding a terrified chicken to his crouch, no matter how handsome he was.

I must have caused quite the commotion too, for the town guard skipped the regular grunts and send ford its most powerful asset:

The ground opened below my feet and a colossal stone hand grabbed me hold. An older man in slick blue robes parted from the crowd, eyes glowing golden, cape flapping on the windless air.

“Blake Grahamson!” the magus thundered.

“Hy dad.” I greeted sheepishly.

*

“You will be the dead of me, boy!”

My father paced back and ford outside the bars of my cell. I sat on a stool, dressed on a blanket, stroking gently the chicken on my lap and silently listening in to his every expletive. Dad could go on for hours like this.

“I am tired Blake! Tired! I promised your mother I’ll took care of your brothers and you, but god help me if you haven’t made it difficult!”

I winced. Using mom like that was hitting low…

“I trained you in the ways of the magus, but you sabotaged yourself each step of the way!”

“But dad! Is not self-sabotage! I am just no good for it!”

“Silence! I won’t hear that ravish!” he thundered, “You have plenty talent; you just lack the discipline!”

I held my tong then. This was and old argument of ours. No good would come from this topic.

“But then I thought: Fine! If the kid is so hellbent in not becoming a magus, then I’ll have to make him into something else! Oh boy, was I naive!” he glared at me, “Ever since, you went out of your way to antagonize every single craftsman you have apprenticed with! You either bed them kin when they aren’t looking, slack at the job, or plainly steal from them! And it’s not like you take money or valuables! No sir! That would be too damn discrete for the boy! The kid needs to go out of his way to rob the most obvious, most useless, random piece of crap available!”

“Hey! Don’t say it like that! You are making it sound as if I have a weird fetish for stealing!”

Graham threw an inquisitive eyebrow at the chicken napping on my lap.

“Well… I guess I did steal this one chicken from an old lady at the market place, but I really needed to stick my crouch on it… Wait! No! Not like that! I meant that, at the time, I needed the chicken for hiding my eggs in its plumage, so to speak… Ugh… Nope, that’s also terrible… You know what dad; Why don’t we go back to you doing the talking part of this conversation?”

“Right…” he deadpanned, “Listen Blake, Nethan Smith was the last person in town willing to take you as an apprentice. That is to say, you won’t find other jobs here at Bridgestone.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Verry bad indeed. Particularly now that I am kicking your sorry ass out of my house.”

“Wait what…?!”

“What you heard! If you thought I would simply let a freeloader laze in my manor all day, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“B-but dad! You wouldn’t let your own blood to live a life on the streets!”

“I would, and I think you would be all the better for it! Is a damn time you grow some spine! So here me and hear me well, boy, because this is the last olive branch I throw your ungrateful way!”

I gulped. He was serious.

“I’ll gave you three options: One, you join Count Aprabat’s army and live the rest of your days as an honorable soldier of the realm.”

I froze. Lord Aprabat was dad’s boss. His county extended from the plains surrounding Bridgestone, all the way to the Deadfrost mountains… Charming lil place those mountains. The locals, ten-foot-tall blood thirsty barbarians, had a pension for pillaging towns and murdering all the “honorable soldiers of the realm” stationed to defend them.

“You don’t seem convinced,” father sneered.

“Ahem… with all due respect father, I don’t think I am precisely soldier material. Besides, these arms of mine were meant for loving not warring…” I dropped that line of reasoning under dear father’s withering glare,” What I meant to say, is that being a soldier sounds like an awfully difficult job. Perhaps there is another easier option down the line? One preferably without barbarians involved?”

“Figured as much” dad snorted, “You’ll be happy to hear then that option two is the easier of the bunch; you walk away from this jail with only that blanket to your name, and we never see each other again.”

“Oh… a-and what about that third option you mentioned?”

“The third option, you say?” father stopped pacing right Infront of me and fixed me with one of those glowing stares magus were so found of.

He reached an open hand to his neck, where a broch held his cape. The golden frog resting there came alive and jumped to the offered palm. Father’s eyes flared golden and my jail’s bars bended sideways to let him in.

Graham, magus of Bridgestone, stood before me, his contracted spirit on one hand, bathing the room with golden power.

“The third path I offer goes as follows; You swallow your damn whining, make a contract with a spirit and become a magus!”