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lec743-my-art · 4 months

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Merry Christmas Secret Santa @primary-visions

The day was coming to an end. The sky was painted with bright oranges, light pinks, and stark purples and indigo, just enough light for the three travelers to see by as they made it to their destination. The town was small but thrived on the travelers that must pass through to reach farther lands. There was a comfy inn called Drunk Rats. There was an obvious sign of forgers and black smith smokestacks further in town, but the three travelers were too tired to truly explore the town further than what they could see. Well, the only human of the group was tired. The two automatons traveling with the human could continue for forever if they so choose, but it was time for the two to check if anything needs oiling or if dust needs to be taken out of gears. Staying at an inn was a great place to check for such things.

“Oh! This place is so cute looking. Do you think I should have my house here?” Soliel asked as he examined the old but sturdy building they were entering. His metal hands touched at the wood gently as he walked with the others.

The inn wasn’t overwhelmingly loud, but it was noisy with low talking as a dwarf bard near the fireplace strummed on her lute. Candle holders caked with the remains of past candles sat against the support beams of the building as the newly lit candles’ lights danced, giving the whole place a soft golden glow.

“You say that about every village or town we walk into,” Hati stated, ribbing his follow automat with playfulness and annoyance.

“There are so many good places to live at!” Soliel said, getting defensive. “I want to live at the perfect place.”

The human companion, the artificer of the group, sighed at their bickering. They left Hati and Soliel to bicker like siblings that have been together for far too long as they approached the owner of the inn at the front desk.

“Hi. Do you have room for the three of us? We’ll just take one room.”

The human woman looked like she was nearing her golden age. Maybe in her fifties if the gray in her blond hair told them anything. The front desk woman had on a very low-cut dress that was brown and blue in color. It looked nice on her. She looked at the artificer and then at their bickering companions behind them. “Are those things yours?”

The human companion sighed in disappointment at that. “They’re my friends.”

There was a pause as the older woman looked at the artificer with one cocked eyebrow. They didn’t elaborate to the woman, so she shrugged then said, “It’ll be two gold pieces per night stay. Do you have any horses or livestock with you?”

“No, it’s just the three of us,” they said as they dug out ten gold pieces. Then they placed them on the counter and the woman took the money and placed a key in its place.

“Your room will be upstairs, on the right, at the end of the hallway.”

“Thank you.”

They went back to their automaton buddies. They overheard them fighting over hypotheticals about how they would handle fighting a bugbear. Hati was proudly saying he’d demolish the bugbear with the perfect strike while Soliel gave him the most leveling look an automaton could give when his face is only a mask of an artistic sun.

“Okay. Let’s go boys. I hear a bath calling my name.”

“Coming,” they both cheered as they followed the artificer up the stairs.

The next day, as the sun rose, Soliel was the first to rise and he went to explore the little town. It was full of people. Mostly humans, as he’s accustomed to seeing, but he has also noticed there’s another thriving population of lizardfolk as well, along with a small, odd population of dwarves, elves and half-orcs. It really did seem like a nice town, with old but well-kept buildings, a flower shop, a sizable food market, two smith shops, a ceramic shop and a stone and wood cutter shop. Soliel circled back to the food market to buy a little snack for his sunshine friend but as he browsed what the food stalls had to offer, he noticed that there really wasn’t much to see. The portions were much too small for what size they should have been, or they were so old that they were starting to rot a bit, which isn’t a good sign.

Soliel looked to the current food stall owner, who’s stall that he was browsing, and it was a young lizardfolk man sitting behind the cart. He was maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. His scales looked dull, and his face looked gaunt, like he hasn’t had a good meal in a while. He was wearing a simple tunic shirt and it hung off him loosely.

“Excuse me my good man.”

The lizardfolk man blinked a bit, like he was taken out of his thoughts and then he turned his snout towards the automaton. He blinked some more before his eyebrow ridges raised higher on his face as he regarded Soliel. “Yes?”

“I was just wondering, is your town coming across hard times recently.” The bardic automaton motioned towards the lizardfolk’s wares for emphases.

The lizardfolk man sighed as he leaned back into his chair. “No. It is not recently. It’s been four years.”

“Oh my! What’s wrong?”

“Look. I don’t have time for your curiosity, stranger. Either buy something or leave.” He didn’t say it with any power. He sounded like a man who’s extremely tired.

# # #

“What do you mean he won’t tell me more! I rolled high on my charisma! I persuaded the heck out of him!” Sun whined to you, the Dungeon Master.

“Look Sun, that’s just all he’s willing to answer. He doesn’t see you as a threat but you’re just an automaton to him. He doesn’t know your backstory, so he doesn’t think you’d understand anything more than what he said.”

Sun slouched in the kitchen chair as he crossed his arms with a huff.

Moon chuckled playfully as he rolled a twenty-sided die between his fingers. “You should have threatened him if you wanted more information.”

Sun sighed, his voice box glitching to give it a gravelly affect. “That’s not the point of my character.”

From across the kitchen table, Moon shrugged with little remorse at him.

“So are you going to leave the lizard man alone, Sun,” you asked.

“I’ll buy those carrots and leave,” he said in defeat as he leaned his flat face up to the ceiling in another show of pouting.

You nod and then turn back to Moon. “Okay. What is Hati up to then as this is going on, Moon?”

Moon gave a thoughtful hum as he considered his choices.

# # #

Hati snuck through the gray alleyways of the town in the early morning. Having left his little artificer to sleep alone as soon as Sun left. He was scouting out the town for the richest people he can steal from. Some small part of Hati could practically hear Soliel say how he shouldn’t steal from people or how wrong it is. His long-time friend and assumed brother isn’t wrong, but Hati doesn’t care. He likes the thrill of stealing from the rich and using it for himself to buy whatever he wants. He sometimes even gives what he steals to the poor kids they encounter on their travels and that usually shuts up Soliel.

Eventually he came across a government building that was just starting to wake up. At least that’s what it seemed to Hati from his observations. The automaton snuck into the building through a locked back door. The few people he crossed as he snuck through the government building were some general staff that were talking about how hard it’s been to feed their kids and when they are going to be able to farm properly again. Hati shrugged at that as he continued his way to where he deduced the mayor’s coffers to be.

He narrowly avoided being caught by the mayor’s secretary as he was trying to unlock the door that led to the mayor’s office and therefor to their coffers. The secretary was running out of the office after getting news of some kind. Hati didn’t care for what for, he just wanted money and to get out of there. He inspected the mayor’s office to find it looking drab. Usually, a head of office has a luxurious setting with unnecessary gold-plated items. Hati mentally shrugs at the lack of finery. Relegating it to the town being too small for the mayor to get away with. He found the safe and unlocked it with ease. All that was in the safe was a pouch of thirty silver pieces.

# # #

“Ah! What!” Moon complained over Sun’s laughter.

“That’s all you find Moon,” you repeat.

“Noooo! My character isn’t interested in stealing if it’s not gold. How does a government office not have gold!” Moon ranted.

“Well, obviously this town isn’t doing so well,” Sun stated with smug satisfaction.

Moon could only grouch some more against Sun and you.

“Will you now check to see if there are any papers or documents for why this town is falling on such hard times?” Sun pleaded.

Moon mechanically sighed, then said, “Fine… What do I roll for again DM?”

“Investigation.”

Moon took his twenty-sided die and tossed it on the table. It made little clacking noises before settling. “What does a 12 get me?”

You cleared your throat. “You’ve been in plenty of offices before. You easily spot that there is a locked filing cabinet in the back right corner of the room, behind the mayor’s desk.”

“Alright. Let me just roll for Slight of Hand and unlock this sucker.” Moon rolled his twenty-sided die again. “Yes! An eighteen! So all together that’s a twenty-seven.”

“Tell me again why you chose to be a ranger and not a rouge,” you asked.

“It’s too on the nose,” Moon said with a shrug.

“Sometimes, being on the nose isn’t so bad,” Sun stated.

Moon gave his sunny counterpart the best dead pan look that a robot can when their face is frozen in a permanent smile.

# # #

Hati muttered to himself as he looked through the papers. Documents of the dead. Documents of newborns. Documents of housing. Reports on farms. Hati decided to look through those a bit more closely. From his quick scanning of the texts, Hati found that the town is having a bit of a bear problem. He would have looked more into it now that his curiosity has been piqued, but then he heard someone running down the halls towards the office he was in, and he had to bail out of the nearest window. He initially tried to jump through the window while it was closed, but he wasn’t strong enough to break it and instead had to open it and then jump out the window. He jumped with the grace of an egg falling out of a nest and hurting himself as he landed on the ground. He quickly ran back to The Drunk Rats Inn.

The Artificer was drinking water-down beer for breakfast as it seemed that was all the Inn Keeper and Cook were able to provide as food, when Hati and Soliel came back from their exploring. Hati was walking like his ass was broken and Soliel was holding the sadist bundle of carrots the Artificer has ever seen.

“What have you two been up to?”

“Something is wrong here,” they both said. Then in sync both automatons turned to each other and pointed at each other at the same time, saying, “You too?”

“Slow down. Why don’t you two sit down with me and then tell me what’s going on,” The Artificer stated.

“Uh… Soliel, do you mind giving me a hand?”

The sunshine robot rolled his head as he let out a mechanical sigh. He sat the carrots on the table in front of their human friend then he pulled out his ukulele and sang a little song to heal the broken machinery of Hati’s ass.

“Thank you,” the moon themed robot said cheerfully.

Soliel only grumbled a bit in response as he sat down with him and the Artificer. Hati went first telling the group about what he found, and he rolled his head as they told him how much they disapproved of him trying to steal from people… again. Then Soliel talked about his little romp through town and how lovely it is here but also how everyone doesn’t seem to be all that well fed.

“You think that has anything to do with those bear problem reports you found, Hati,” the Artificer asked.

“I don’t know how a bear or even a group of bears could make things go so wrong around here. I would think the local rangers would have taken them down by now.”

“Maybe they don’t have rangers in this area,” Soliel suggested.

The Artificer stood up and took the carrots with them and said, “Welp, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s go talk to some elderly.” The Artificer took the carrots with them, taking a bite out of them as the three of them walked, unfazed by the bad taste of the old carrots.

The three of them found the town square. There were young children gathered together talking or napping under the shade of the buildings and trees. A few young adults were cleaning the town square, making sure it’s clear of dirt and leaves. The elderly was in their own corner sitting around tables and playing boardgames of some kind. The three adventurers approached the elderly. Only one acknowledged their approached as he looked at them suspiciously.

“What do you strangers want?” The old man had a long gray beard, and the sun shined on his bald head, as if he somehow took the hair on his head and decided to place it on his face to shake up the last years of his life. He was rail thin, but he still had a fire in his eyes, like he’d use his skeleton-like hands to cut you open with just his fingernails.

“Well, my friends and I have noticed that your town seems to be having a hard time,” the Artificer started, “and we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong so we can help if we can. So what’s going on?”

“No! That’s none of your concern!” The old man stated as the other elderly nodded in agreement. Except for one lady who was hidden by the crowd saying, “Uh, we could use the help actually.” The old man turned towards the old woman’s voice and yelled, “Ah, shut up, Linda, they weren’t asking you!”

Hati took a step forward and lend towards the old man, then said, “Well now we are.”

Soliel was already walking towards Linda, “Pardon us.”

The old lady was bald, and you could obviously see that she didn’t have any teeth, but she still had a smile on her face that made the initial hostility surrounding them, seem dimmer.

“So what is going on, Madam,” Soliel asked politely.

“There’s this monstrous bear out in the woods that has three heads—”

“Bah! Your eyes are bad! It was a normal bear!” The old man stated.

“We weren’t asking you, now shut up,” Hati told off the old man. He was officially cowed by the moon themed automatons’ words.

“Please continue,” Soliel gently coxed Linda to continue.

“There’s this three-headed bear in the woods. It’s been giving us trouble ever since it’s been here. We’ve sent out so many rangers after it, who have never come back, that it’s felt useless to even ask for help anymore.”

“Well, we’re willing to help. We can take care of it for you,” Soliel said.

The old man spoke up with a shake to his voice, “Pah! What makes you three so special? I bet you’ll be asking for money for this service you are wanting to do.”

The Artificer quickly spoke up, “Of course. It’s only just enough money to support us to the next town we travel to. We need to eat and survive as well.”

The old man grumbled to himself as the other old folk nodded to that sound logic. The three of them get as much information as they can out of the towns folk and they bargained that if they succeed in killing the supposed three headed bear, they would be paid thirty gold pieces. Once everything was settled, the three adventures gathered their things and made their way into the nearby forest.

As the three of them walked through the forest, Soliel decided to softly strum on his ukulele to pass the time. Their human friend was lost in their own thoughts thinking about what new magical buffs they can add to their automaton friends. Hati took the lead as the ranger of the group and was trying to find bear tracks. After an hour of walking, Hati had suddenly stopped, and the other two-party members ran into him as a result.

“Dang it, Hati, what was that for. I was on a rhythm,” Soliel complained.

Hati put a finger to his face mask and made a shushing noise. Then in a whisper he asked, “Do you hear that?”

The three of them stood silently in the softly lit forest. All that was heard was the slight rustling of the breeze through the trees.

“I don’t hear anything,” the Artificer whispered. Soliel nodded in agreement with them.

“That’s right. There’s nothing. Not the sound of birds. Not the sound of wolves. Or dear or ferrets or any other animal that belongs to this forest. It’s too quiet. It’s like not even the insects are here.”

The Artificer felt goosebumps prickle their skin and Soliel huddled closer to them as they gripped their ukulele a little tighter.

“Did this bear just eat everything that’s in this forest?” The Artificer asked as they seriously took in their surroundings.

Hati took out two arrows from his quiver for him to grip in each hand. “I would bet good money on that being the case. Let’s keep moving. I know we’re getting closer to it.”

After that, the three of them got lost in the woods for an undetermined amount of time, because Hati was too proud to say he got lost after saying something that he thought made him sound cool. Eventually, the three of them got back on track. At a clearing in the woods, the party then found a big, dark cave with dried blood splattering its entrance and bones scattered everywhere.

“I think it would be nice if one of us knew necromancy,” the Artificer whispered.

“Yah, we could raise a whole skeleton army here,” Soliel whimpered.

“Welp, no time like the present to get this done,” Hati said. Then he ran screaming into the cave making his friends jump at the sudden noise.

Exasperated, Soliel yelled, “Hati why!”

The lunar automaton moved too fast for them to react and all they could do was watch him disappear as his voice echoed inside the cave. The two of them stood quietly as it got quiet in the cave.

“Oh good. It seems the bear isn’t in it’s cave right now,” the Artificer sighed.

Soliel felt a hot, wet breath on the back of his scrawny neck. The solar automaton whipped around so fast it made the human jump and the two of them came face to face with a bear. Its head is so large it was as long as Soliel was tall. Its eyes were blood shot, and drool dripped down its fuzzy maw. Then something moved around the neck of the giant bear, almost hidden and blended into its long, dark brown shaggy fur. It was two more heads, smaller than the head in the middle, but still just as dangerous looking. For the longest moment, the two of them stared down the massive creature as it sniffed at them. All six eyes then shifted to the Artificer.

“Oh, no…” They said as they started to back up from the encroaching bear.

In a panic Soliel cast Confusion on the three headed bear, music filled the air making the world seem wobbly and weak. His human friend shook their head against the music, resisting the magic the solar automaton cast. The three headed bear wasn’t so lucky as it recoiled and stood on its hind legs, looking as tall as a two-story tall building.

“Sorry!” Soliel yelled.

“It’s good! I’m good!”

An arrow shot forward and then hundreds more followed suit. The bear cried in pain, but only attached a near by tree. The two heroes turned to see Hati standing at the entrance of the cave, his bow smoking from using the spell Conjure Volley.

“So, the cave is empty.”

“Oh, you don’t say,” Soliel snapped back.

“Now’s not the time to argue,” their human friend yelled as they took special manacles out of their bags and placed them on their arms. Then like angel wings, four giant olden mechanical arms appeared on their back, having casted Bionic Arms on themselves. “I’m going to try and pin its heads.” They climbed up the bear, using the arrows lodged into its hide as leverage to climb up faster. The human managed to get on top of the middle head of the bear, but just as they were about to grapple the jaws shut, clarity came back to the bears eyes, and it immediately tried to shake the Artificer off. “Aaaaa! Heeeeelp!!!”

Soliel strummed on his ukulele and sang a song called Hold Monster. Immediately the three headed bear was still, but its body trembled as it tried to fight off the magical hold it was under. The human sighs in relief.

Hati shot two arrows from his bow at the bear, both striking true. The second arrow caused thick spiney vines to spout out of the ground and wrap around the three headed bear’s hind legs. Even though it couldn’t open its mouth as it was still being held down by Soliel’s magic, they heard it cry viciously from the pain.

The Artificer placed a pair of hands on each head, then used Taser. A charge of deadly electricity raced through the bear, causing its fur to smoke. Then the bear managed to break free of Soliel’s magic and one of the smaller bear heads managed to grab the Artificer by their boot. The bear shook them around before releasing them. The human flew through the sky and hit their back against a thick tree trunk and flopped to the forest floor.

Soliel reactively ran towards their human friend but as he tried to get to them, the bear managed to catch him with its paws and sent the automaton flying backwards, making him disappear into the bushes of the forest. The bear then got to work on biting the spiney vines off of its body.

Hati let loose another spell of Conjure Volley. Hitting the bear mostly in its back as it was in pain but still focused on getting itself free from the vines. The lunar automaton pulled out two arrows from his quiver and then charged at the bear with the arrows held high above his head.

The Artificer struggled to get back on to their feet, even when using their extra limbs as crutches. They looked up in time to see Hati flinging himself at the three headed bear. “Hati! It’s not even restrained anymore!” Their friend ignored them as the ranger robot continued to stab the now free bear with his arrows. The bear set its eyes on the human and growled hungerly at them as they started to lumber towards the only flesh and blood being within a hundred-foot radius. The Artificer pulled out a disk from their bag and as the bear got closer and opened its jaw towards them, the human threw the disk into their mouth. The bear retracted a bit, finding the odd disk tasting funny, then the human magically set it off and the disk blew up like a bomb in the bear’s mouth. The middle head gurgled in pain as the other two heads howled in pain with the middle head.

Soliel managed to finally drag himself out of the bush and came back into the clearing seeing that Hati was hanging on to the bear’s chest hair, and that his human friend was essentially cornered by a bloody mouthed bear. The bardic robot shook the leaves out of his ukulele and then started to strum Vicious Mockery, telling the bear how stupid it is and how weak and pathetic it is and how it doesn’t belong in the forest. It shook the three headed bear to its core. Hati barely managed to get out of the way as the bear fell to its stomach.

Hati aimed an arrow into the sky and as the arrow fell towards the downed bear, he cast Conjure Barrage and hundreds of arrows rained on the bears back. The bear let out a weak roar.

The Artificer kept their distance from the bear as they pointed with three hands at the creature. Then they let loose another Taser spell at the bear’s head. With one last weak gargle, the bear died before the three of them. The three of them sighed in relief.

“That was rough,” the human stated as they wiped sweat off their brow.

“That was an invasive species if I’ve ever seen one,” Hati remarked as he put away his bow and arrows.

“Yah, and maybe next time, don’t just run headfirst into a problem,” Soliel scolded his fellow automaton.

“It’s dead, isn’t it?”

“Guys, let’s cut its head off so we have proof we did the job. Soliel, do you have any juice left to heal me. I’m not feeling too good.”

The solar robot got it’s ukulele in position, “Of course.

# # #

“And then the three of you managed to drag the heads to the town and the towns folk rejoiced and had a big celebration in your honor for actually defeating the monster that has been terrorizing them for years. You were given your thirty gold pieces like you were promised and extra travel supplies as an extra thank you for what you three did. The end.” You said, finishing the campaign.

“Yay! Happy ending,” Sun said as he clapped.

“Thank you for this. We really enjoyed playing this with you,” Moon stated.

“Of course. I’m happy you two were interested in trying it with me.”

Sun nodded with a giddy mechanical hum and Moon held your hand. Then the three of you cleaned up your dnd mess and continued your day doing chores and personal hobbies.

#my art #digital art #fnaf #fanfiction #secret santa present #DCASS2023 #for primary-visions

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