I should probably write a whole post about Moon Town someday, but who knows if I'll get around to it. The short version is that it was probably the most complete Heroes of Might and Magic III map I ever made, and one very dear to my heart. The level was laid out with houses made of rock and told the story of two rivals, Daniel and Leonard. This was apparently a bit of supplemental fiction I wrote in the Moon Town universe from Leonard's point of view. It's pretty funny to see me try to fit in game mechanic references, and to fall into the same trap of talking way too much about food. No idea where the story was going, but I remember enjoying writing it all that time ago, and it may as well see the light of day now.
Leonard’s Rescue Adventure
A Moon
Town Epic by Austin Ballard
Chapter 1
|
T |
he knight looked outside at his
sundial—Four minutes to go. Sir Leonard, a citizen of a large city called Moon
Town, which was located in the vast jungles of Harbingg, was training his
griffin, Herbert, to fly around Moon Town in less than half an hour.
He had been flying for about twenty-five minutes and Leonard
was expecting him soon. He waited five more minutes and sighed. He had spent
six years breeding different types of griffins (and miraculously, a parrot)
into a fast, powerful, and durable species that was superior to all others, and
could speak the human tongue. So far, Herbert was the only one that the two
griffins Dierdre and Fritz, his parents, had given birth to. Leonard was hoping
to have enough of the superior griffins to last twenty battles without having
to recharge his troops. Leonard sighed again, looked at his sundial, and waited
some more.
After ten minutes had passed a loud flapping was heard, and
Leonard looked up to see Herbert zooming towards him. He landed softly on the
dirt in the front yard, panting and puffing. “You’re late,” said Leonard. “How
do you ever expect to be in my party if you can’t fly fast? You think your
master wants an inferior griffin?!”
“Gee, Master,” said Herbert, still panting. “Why don’t you
try flying around the whole of Moon Town in one half an hour! Besides, I could
have done it if I hadn’t run into several rocs on the way. Even a thunderbird
attacked me! ...Please give me a chance, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘Herby,’” said his griffin, and it flew to
the Griffin Sanctuary a few miles away.
Leonard walked outside and sat on a log near the fort gate.
“Tough, it is, to train creatures?” said a voice behind him.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked at it. Wrinkled somewhat, and covered
with a thin white fuzz. He recognized the hand as it belonged to the magemaster,
Ged.
“Yes, it is, Ged, but worth it.” said Leonard.
“Indeed. I once had... a serpent fly, I believe, and I
couldn’t even get it to move. Got a few nasty bites from the little beast. But
I kept trying, and finally...”
“You got it trained?”
“No, the ruddy thing killed my cat, Bitsy. I finally blasted
the thing with a magic arrow.”
“Oh,” Leonard looked thoughtful.
“But the important thing is to keep trying, whether it’ll
kill your cat or not.”
“First of all, I don’t have a cat. Second of all, if that’s so important, how come you didn’t keep trying?”
“Hm? Oh, right... I, uh, didn’t really know how to control
my temper back then. And also, why not get a cat? They’re perfect house pets
and the easiest to train. Why, my poor little Bitsy was so nice... well,
actually, she gave me a scratch on my arm at the age of six. See?” Ged showed
Leonard a scar on his arm that was at least a foot long. “And anyway, I didn’t
know what I’d do without my poor Bitsy. The poor little cat never could be...”
“You’re such a fine wizard, why didn’t you just use the ‘resurrect’
spell on her?” Leonard cut in.
There was a long pause. Ged’s skin was turning a pale pink
and he was looking very uncomfortable. “Well...I, er...I didn’t think...that
is, she had...um, I guess I...uh, I guess I didn’t think of that.” Ged was
wringing his hands as he talked, and after he finished he slapped his forehead
constantly mumbling “Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid...”. Leonard
waved him goodbye as the mage walked grumbling back to his hut.
Herbert came back and Leonard gave him some advice. “Herby,
this time I want you to...”
“Don’t call me ‘Herby,’”
“Right, Herbert. Anyway, this time I want you to fly
into the clouds when you see any enemies that might slow you down. It is very
important that you can go very fast for good battle. Now, get ready!”
“See you later, Master!”
“...Set...”
“I’ll be back soon!”
“GO!” Herbert shot off into the sky, leaving a whirlwind of
dust in the middle of the road. Coughing, Leonard waved the griffin goodbye as
his flapping wings soon disappeared into the clouds.
Chapter 2
|
L |
eonard chewed his celery with disgust. It was now 4:22, fifty minutes after Herbert was supposed to arrive back. He threw the remains of celery leaves into the middle of a road, where a horse was trotting by. It stopped a moment, sniffed at the vegetable, ate it, and continued. Leonard’s disgusted face grew more grim as he noticed who the rider was. It was Lord Daniel, the elven ranger that lived on the other side of the street. They glared at each other sternly and seriously, until Daniel muttered, “YAH” to his horse and cantered off down the road. Daniel and Leonard were rivals, and had been so for over ten years. They had both moved to Main Street on the same day, and had had hate at first sight. They didn’t know why they hated each other. They simply loathed one another as rivals, not bothering to spend time with each other to get to know them. If they had done so in time, they might have become best friends, but they simply tried to stay away as far as possible from one another. Each thought the other was always up to something, plotting a nasty trick, trap, or joke on them. The hatred between the two was so strong that they had even got in a fight once. Each outdid the other, and many black eyes and bruises were involved.
After Daniel had passed, Leonard had waited another ten
minutes until he began to become uneasy. Had Herby gotten hurt? Was he lying
bleeding on the grass with no one to help him out? Or had he merely gotten into
another battle with another roc? Leonard was not sure, but he intended to find
out.
“Lisa? Lisa!” Leonard called to his wife.
“What is it, Leonard dear?
“What happened to the stable-master?”
“I think he went outside the Fort. Try his hut. Meanwhile, I
have to get to the Pet Shoppe,” Leonard’s wife worked at a Pet Shoppe several
miles away, but the pets also served as defenders.
Leonard walked outside the fort. He locked the door again and walked towards the stables. Sure enough, there stood the stable-master giving all the horses fodder. He looked up and grinned. The stable-master was a bright, cheery man who had a warm smile that made you smile back. Though he often enjoyed humor, when things got serious his gray eyes were very stern. Leonard walked up to the stable-master and said, “Hello. Do you have any horses I could use?”
“Of course, milord. Here’s a nice, strong one named Bessie.” He led a pearly-white tragy† with a grey mane. Leonard reached into his pockets for a few traces of sugar for her. She gladly accepted the gift and licked his hand until the sugar was gone.
“She’ll do, thank you very much.”
“Anytime, milord. You may come back here for a fresh mount
next week if she’s too slow. Goodbye, milord. May you forever be safe on your journeys.”
“Wait,” said Leonard suspiciously. “How can you give me a
perfectly healthy horse for free?”
“Oh, it’s all yours, milord. The only cost is fodder for
her, and every new mount after this one is only one hundred gold.”
“Why is everything so cheap, stable-master?”
“Oh, I’m just in a good mood today.”
“You’re always in a good mood,” Leonard mumbled. “I wish
I could have such a hearty attitude as you have.”
“Ah, it’s easy. Just see the good things in life always, and
soon you’re givin’ everyone a smile.” Chuckling, Leonard galloped away as the
stable-master waved goodbye until he disappeared into the dust.
Chapter 3
|
A |
t first Leonard thought that maybe
Herbert had merely gotten into a fight and had a slight wound that was slowing
him down. “Poor Herby,” he said to himself. He chuckled when he thought of the
griffin saying, “Don’t call me ‘Herby.’” Leonard sighed. He was starting to
miss the little chap. But now how should he do this? Which way should he look?
He thought for a moment. “Now let me see... most creatures
dwell just along the inner and outer rim of the outskirts of Moon Town.... maybe
he got stranded there.” He made a left along the road and the large village of
Moondemi appeared. He rode along the edge of it until he was at the back of the
village. He then continued northwest until mountains could be seen in the
distance.
Bessie was getting quite tired and hungry, and Leonard was fighting
to keep his eyes open. It was dusk ten minutes ago and soon the moon was
visible. Leonard slipped off the horse and took the pack off of the saddle. “Hey,
Bessie, want some carrots?” The tragy whinnied softly as Leonard held out the
vegetable. Finishing the carrot, it closed its eyes to rest.
Leonard started a fire with his tinder-box and lay down to
toast his dinner on a skewer. The flames licked the meat tenderly, not burning
it. Leonard was always a good roaster. He had almost never burned a marshmallow
or hot-dog, and his veggie dinners were always exquisite (when, of course, he
roasted it over an open fire. His stove-dinners left a lot to be desired).
When the meat was perfectly cooked, he set it onto his tray.
He took the vegetables off the cooking stone and set them onto the tray as
well. He also took a pot and put in a sliced peach, some cream, and some other
things and set it onto the coals.
Usually, Leonard was a slow eater, nibbling at his meat and
licking the gravy off his fingers slowly as to savor the taste. But by now
Leonard was starving. The trip had made him tired and hungry and he wolfed down
the dinner quickly to fill his stomach. As the fire faded away, he took off the
pot. He let it cool a few minutes and scooped a spoonful onto his tray. Mmmm-mm!
Peach cobbler!
After finishing the cobbler Leonard poured water on the fire
until the steam stopped. Then he snuggled down into his sleeping roll and fell
asleep.
Leonard awoke to a sound. It was still dark, and he was
still half-asleep, but he thought he heard something.
“Heellllpp meee!”
The voice was quiet and whispery. It sounded as if they were
trying to keep themselves down so as not to be heard. He heard it again.
“Heeellllp meee! I need your helllp, Leonard!!”
That was strange. How did the voice know his name? After a
few more cries, Leonard became suspicious and a little afraid. Who was calling
him?
“I need your helllp!!”
“W-who’s there?”
“Leonaard, I need you to helllp me!”
“B-but w-who are y-you? H-how c-c-can I help?”
“Pleeeease helllp meee.” With those last words the voice faded, leaving a bewildered Leonard staring out in the darkness.
Chapter 4
|
I |
t must have taken at least an hour for him to get back to sleep. The words of the voice kept haunting him, but at last his eyes closed and he dozed off.
The next morning Leonard got up to start a fire to cook
breakfast. He couldn’t find his tinder-box. Perhaps
I left it by the pack, He thought. He walked over to the pack which was a
few tens of feet away. He looked for the tinder-box and found it on top of a
rock.
As he came back to camp he noticed strange markings on the
ground. They weren’t human footprints or horse hoof prints... They were short,
slashing motions along the ground. It looked like an extremely large bird had
been looking for worms by slashing the dirt with its talons. Leonard didn’t
take anything of it, really. Perhaps a small roc or such came during the night.
After all, he was quite near the outskirts of Moon Town. He went back to the
fire to make breakfast.
A few hours later, after savoring a great breakfast of fire
scones and a toasted apple, Leonard mounted his mare and tied the pack to the
saddle. He rode off towards the mountains of the outskirts.
After only an hour, Leonard reached the crevice in the
outskirts that was the only way through the mountains. After getting halfway
through the crevice he realized that Bessie was still outside. How could she
get through? Tragies were big horses, and she could not fit through the crack. He
thought a moment and decided that, no matter what, he had to reach the
outskirts and, perhaps, find his griffin. If Bessie couldn’t fit, so be it.
Leonard reached for a roll of parchment from the pack and
wrote with his pen a note to the stable-master. It read:
“Dear Stable-master,
I have reached the crevice in the mountains
of the outskirts, but the tragy you gave me cannot fit through the crag. I am
sending her back with this message. Tell my wife that I am fine, and not to
worry. I will be back in three days’ time. If I am not back by then, please
send someone to find me.
Ghurvice rhengaite,
Sir W. Leonard of Leonard Fort.”
He took the pack, tied the note to
the horse and let it be off.
Leonard entered the outskirts with disbelief. He had never
been in such a swamp before, and it was surprising how abruptly the terrain changed.
His foot got stuck in the muck well more times than once, and he was anxious to
get into the forest where grass was on the ground.
Chapter 5
|
A |
fter twenty minutes or so, Leonard’s
foot finally touched grass. He walked now with more speed and vigor than when
he was in the marsh. A few minutes into the grass Leonard was horrified to see
several boars grazing around the bend. Leonard was horrified. Where there are
boars, there are bound to be orcs that ride them. They could be anywhere. If
one saw him, why...
“HEY! Who’re you?” Leonard jumped to a voice behind him. He
turned to see the ugly face of an orc.
“M-me??” He stuttered.
“Yeahhh....YOU! Do you know what we do to men on OUR territory, see?” Leonard was to
startled to speak. “We MASH them! First we CATCH them, then we beat ’em up,
see? An’ then we...”
“Smash in their skulls with our... er... whackers!” Another
orc answered. He held up a deadly-looking spiky weapon.
“Morningstar,” said Leonard.
“Huh? What was that?” said the orc.
“I said it’s a morningstar,
not a ‘whacker’.” Leonard had already decided that he was going to try to stall
the orcs until he could think of some way to escape.
“A m-mm a
marnk...”
“It’s a morningstar! A MORNINGSTAR!” the orc was flabbergasted.
No one had dared yell at him before, and he wasn’t used to it.
“I, uh, didn’t know it was a morny-star. I just called it
after the name it makes when it WHACKS SOMEBODY!!”
Leonard ducked just in time to the blow of the morningstar.
The weapon, being spiky, smashed into a tree and held fast.
“It’s... stuck...” The orc struggled with the weapon and the
other orc helped him. “It... won’t... move...”
The second orc that already owned a morningstar decided that
he’d just kill the man himself. He walked over next to his friend and
unsheathed his weapon. Suddenly he realized their prisoner had escaped!
“Fool! You let him run away, see? Now there’s no dinner for
us, see? And now we can’t...”
WHANG! The orc fell to the ground from the force of
the blow. The first orc had suddenly yanked the mace out of the tree trunk and
had pulled so hard it had flung back to hit his friend on the head!
“Oww... oww... you blithering idiot, you could’ve KILLED me!
My poor, achin’ head! Ooohh... now where did that man go? Quick! There ’e goes!
Get ’im! He’s getting away!”
The orc started to chase after Leonard. He stopped short, ran back, hopped on a boar, and rode away into the distance.
Chapter 6
|
B |
oars run fairly fast, but Leonard
was nowhere in sight when the orc came to the place where they had seen him. The
orc was, of course, very confused, for he had definitely had seen a silhouette
of something around here. “Strange... I could o’ sworn... I mean, there had ter
be...” the orc scratched his head as he looked every direction for the man.
***
Meanwhile, Leonard ran and ran, not
looking back, when he felt his lungs would burst. Panting hard he looked around
for the orcs
“Strange... I could
have sworn they were right on my tail...I heard their footsteps right behind
me... what the hey is going on here?”
Leonard’s question was answered with a deafening roar of
something right behind him. Leonard screamed as huge claws flew down on a rock,
shattering it. Leonard’s head was spinning with fear, confusion, and surprise. He
spun around and saw the deep black eyes of a behemoth.
***
The orc looked in every nook and
cranny of the meadow and could not find the prisoner that had dared correct him
in orcish speech. He looked once more and decided it was pointless to find
something that wasn’t there.
He trotted back to his friend on the boar. When he got back
he was confused. His friend wasn’t there. He saw a bloody “morny star” by where
he had lain...
“No! NO, my dear friend!” the orc sobbed as he searched for
his body. Assuming someone had killed him, he looked everywhere they had been;
behind the tree, in the pasture, around the road... no luck. He gripped the morningstar
solemnly, tears in his eyes.
Suddenly he heard a scream. Not an orcish, pearcing shriek,
but rather a human-like yell for help. Thoughts raced through the orc’s mind. Where’s
the man? Where’s my friend? Who yelled? Is it the man who is hurting my friend,
and that was him who yelled, because my friend was putting up a fight against
him?
The orc intended to find out each of the answers, and he took off running in the direction of the sound, toward the pasture.
***
“What do you want with me?” Leonard
shivered, the behemoth tying him up in a vine. “We
have not eatun since long time ago. You be our dinner. We EAT TONIGHT!” The
behemoth’s voice sounded like grindstones rubbing together, and its laugh
sounded like an avalanche.
Suddenly a puff of smoke issued from the ground. The noxious
gas exploded like a firecracker. Like dust, the smoke settled to the ground and
a silhouette of another, slightly smaller behemoth slowly came into view. The
behemoth had an orc clutched in its claw.
“We eat dees one, Grog,” said the behemoth. Compared to the
first, it sounded a tad feminine, if that is at all possible, as if the
grinding stones were rounder and smoother.
“Good work, Jourk. Are der any odders?”
“No, Grog. No odders. Not dat o’m concerned. Dees ees da one
dat chased me into da grove. It has Tele-power, too.”
“Mortal ’as Tele-power?” The behemoths talked more about “Tele-power”
which, it seemed to Leonard, must be some sort of teleportation power that only
certain creatures had.
“You are here too?” said the orc. “Where’s my friend? Do you
know?”
“I think he ran the opposite way that I did. At least, that’s
what I think. I saw him turn and run the other way, but then I heard pounding
footsteps behind me as I ran.”
“’Twas probably the behemoth. I hope my friend is okay. What’s
your name, man?”
“Leonard. What’s yours?”
“I am called Rokrin, but most call me Rok. My friend,
Laxxingador—I call him Lax—is my apprentice. As you may have noticed, he is
smaller than me. I’m training him in the arts of Orcery.”
“What does ‘Orcery’ mean?”
“Orcery is the ability to... well, ‘cast’ Bloodlust on
yourself at any one time. If you master Orcery, you can even gain the
Regeneration ability. You know what ‘Bloodlust’ is, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Leonard with interest. “I don’t know much
about magic yet, but the magemaster, Ged, taught me a few spells like, let’s
see... ‘Magic Arrow,’ um...oh yeah, ‘Haste,’ ‘Slow,’ and ‘Bless.’ Do you like
magic?”
“Yes. Orcery is an interesting and useful skill, but I’ve
liked magic ever since childhood. Sometimes I wish I would’ve been born an
ogre-mage instead of an unskilled orc.”
“‘Unskilled’? You’re not unskilled!”
“Targorn says so,” said Rok, growing a bit grim.
“Targorn? The Ogre-lord of Anduran?”
“The same.”
Leonard knew about Targorn. The terrible ogre had plagued many places for centuries and this is where I stopped writing the story.
† Tragy: A quick, sturdy breed of war-horse, usually raised by members of a castle.
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