Heroine

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Artemolia

level 106

Fabricati diem, pvnc ☥

Age 7 years 3 months
Personality neutral
Guild no guild
Monsters Killed about 450 thousand
Death Count 127
Wins / Losses 0 / 0
Temple Completed at 09/17/2017
Ark Completed at 05/04/2019 (280.5%)
Twos of Every Kind 975m, 979f (97.5%)
Savings 15M, 462k (51.5%)
Pet Octobear Dino 13th level

Equipment

Weapon infernal racket +115
Shield low level hero +115
Head seven veils +115
Body velcro-fastened armor +115
Arms gloves of ambidexterity +115
Legs strapless sandals +115
Talisman crime ring +115

Skills

  • slap of the whale level 105
  • somersault squatting level 101
  • strong brow level 101
  • exhaust of the dragon level 88
  • instant hairloss level 84
  • save-load level 80
  • sunstroke level 79
  • sword-swallowing level 70
  • mega-bite level 56
  • rickrolling level 53

Pantheons

Might4456
Templehood24569

Achievements

  • Honored Animalist
  • Honored Favorite
  • Builder, 1st rank
  • Saint, 1st rank
  • Shipwright, 1st rank
  • Careerist, 2nd rank
  • Freelancer, 2nd rank
  • Hunter, 2nd rank
  • Martyr, 2nd rank
  • Moneybag, 2nd rank
  • Renegade, 2nd rank
  • Savior, 2nd rank

Hero's Chronicles

THE EPIC CHRONICLES OF ARTEMOLIA the Strong and Brave, First of Her Name, Mother of Elves, Dwarves and Men, Defender of the Realm, Keeper of the 7 Sacred Sacraments, Holder of The Divine Knowledge, and Brewer DRINKER OF BEER.

I spend my days wearily traipsing the highways and byways; the paths, paved and dirt; the old roads and the new tracks. Milestone by milestone, each day a little further from where I began.

I don’t know what I’m seeking, I have no real special desire. There is no ‘final goal’, no great last hurrah at the end of my rainbow. I am always in search of beer, maybe some food, or the ever elusive gold bricks, but no more than that. Every now and then I undertake a quest but only as long as it takes me forward, in the direction I’m already heading.

I once dreamed of glory, but no more do I delude myself. No matter how often the bards, innkeepers, and editors of The Godville Times say they will immortalise me as a 1 metre tall tinfoil statue and shower me with as much gold as my coin pouch can carry. I used to believe their promises but no more; too many times have I been promised great things only to have those promises turn to dust before my eyes. I have found God and God is all I need. And gold bricks.

God directs me. All I do I do in Gods name. And though I am supposed to unconditionally trust God, I can’t help wondering what will come next, thieves, dungeons, another unspeakable horror waiting to slash my body to pieces with its razor sharp wit or suggest a more flattering hat for my not-quite average-sized head.

I have died in battle honourably and with great pride more times than I can count. That’s far more times more than I ever wanted. Each time I die God resurrects me, but I am left with the horrifying images and physical scars of each death. I do not know if I can cope with more death. I’m not entirely sure I can cope with more life.

I sometimes feel betrayed by my God, if It is all-powerful why does It not help me? Send me food, send me better armour, send me more luscious gold bricks. This is a hard life but it is of my choosing. Perhaps my God simply wants to see how far and deep my one-sided love and blind dedication goes; if I am willing to sacrifice everything I have ever had just so I can say they were ‘my’ God. Just so It can say It had that power over at least one mere mortal.

My sword is blunt, the soles of my shoes have worn away completely, and my clothing is still covered in the dried blood of the Bananaconda I killed on my first night out. That was the night I accepted a bet from the Bard at the Bumchester Tavern. That was the night that changed everything. I remember it was a cool April night:

I had been drinking at the Tavern since the previous April and found myself suddenly stone cold broke – absolutely out of gold. I thought the fact that I had been so loyal to this one establishment, never drinking anywhere else, would have held me in good enough stead to be granted at least one drink gratis. That was not to be, my loyalty counted for exactly diddly squat.

Having no more gold I could no longer enjoy my number one hobby: Ale Potation. I was terrified and sobering faster than I could beg for beer or gold. I had already sold the measly few not-so-precious metals I had on me – my fillings, my belt buckle, the eyelets on my shoes, the iron in my blood. There was to be no rifling my person for tradable valuables this time.

I returned to the tavern to cry until someone bought me a drink. The tavern bard told me he needed to find a word that rhymed with his buxom beloved’s eye-colour, purple, so he could finish the song he was writing for her. The bard offered me a bet that I could not find a rhyme. If I could complete his bet he would shower me in “massive quantities of gold and immortalise your heroic deed in song”. If I could not complete the bet I could never again visit any Tavern, Inn, Gambling House, or Opium Den, and I could never ever return to Godville. I eagerly accepted the bet, knowing this would be a piece of cake. Let’s just clarify here, I am not a smart hero. However…..

…It did not take me long to find a word that rhymes with purple, yet it has been so long since I completed my task that I have forgotten the word, I may have to complete the quest again. Importantly, this was around the time that I found my first gold brick.

I had just battled and defeated the great and powerful Bananaconda by threatening it with milk and a blender. The Bananaconda over-ripened and fainted on the spot, I peeled it with my sword before it could slither away. As I was pulling off the Bananaconda’s banana-y skin, to later fashion into a Smelly Shield of Pungent Toxicity, I noticed, in the very corner of my peripheral vision, a shining shrubbery.

I felt the shrubbery calling to me, willing me, daring me, tempting and teasing me. Shining bright but soft and warm, golden-yellowy and metallic. I didn’t even try to resist this ethereal tempter, I immediately left the putrid Bananaconda to peel itself and made for the shrubbery.

It was not the shrubbery all a-glow but something hiding beneath it. I had to dig a little but after a few moments I held in my banana covered hands a gold brick. I did not know it at the time but it was to be the first of many.

As I was inspecting the brick (weighing it, Googling the current gold>beer exchange rate, and checking for the nearest tavern on my map), a blue pen dropped on my head and I heard a voice say ‘Can you hear me? Hello? HELLO? Is this thing on?

I looked at the blue pen. I shook the blue pen. I licked the pen, and sniffed at the pen. The blue pen did nothing. I looked at the shrubbery. The shrubbery looked at me and swayed a little in the light breeze.

Hello?’ I asked the shrubbery, whilst trying to peer between it’s shrubby branches. ‘Was that you?

‘No,’ said the shrubbery. ‘It was me. Up here’.

Errrm…. I think you mean down here’ I corrected.

No. Definitely up,’ said the shrubbery. ‘You are down. I am up’.

‘Well, I haven’t exactly been over-the-moon with joy of late but I’m not definitely not down’, I was slightly taken aback at the shrubbery psychoanalysing me before even asking my name or, preferably, buying me a drink. ’I’d say I’m up. I’m up right now, I just found a brick made of gold, how could I not be up’.

Not your mood,’ said the shrubbery. ‘Your direction, latitude and longitude, cardinal points, vertical altitude, your physical height, not your emotional state.’

’You’re quite smart for a shrubbery, aren’t you’, I proffered with as much sarcasm as I could muster. ‘I suppose you think you’re better than me too, but may I remind you, I’m the one with opposable thumbs, the one with the ability to dig up the gold brick, all you could in your twigged finery, was sit on it. And I have your blue pen’.

’I’ll have you know, mere mortal, that I was throwing the blue pen away, I have thousands of them, and more importantly, I am not a shrubbery but a God’. The shrubbery boomed and bellowed as though it were outraged that I could possibly think something that looked like a shrubbery might actually be a shrubbery.

I am a G.O.D. As in, an immortal divine entity who lives in the sky and makes balloon animals from clouds and can strike you down with lightning bolts if you wish to continue being rude…’ The shrubbery was clearly irritated. What do I know. I’m just a broke, out of work, wannabe hero, and a drunkard ale potator .

While the shrub talked, on and on and on, for what seemed to be equal to at least three good days worth of drinking time, I realised what was going on. Spending a lifetime stuck to the dirt, having dust and debris blow into you and stick in your branches until someone or something pulls them out, never being able to get out of the rain or the harsh blasting rays of the noonday sun, it all meant that this poor little shrubbery had become so emotionally detached and delusional that it thought it had become a god. Aww. I decided I would indulge the little fellow by pretending I believed in its Godliness.

I spent the afternoon shooting the breeze with the shrubbery. It told me all about being a god, how there’s never anything to do but scare people with threats of hell, about the overabundance of blue pens falling from the skies at inopportune moments, how you get a really cool god name but no one ever knows what it is because you aren’t supposed to interact with people, and how sometimes, very rarely, gods have people build temples for them out of gold.

Temples
Made of gold
Golden temples
Giant triangles and rectangles and squares made of gold.
Solid hecking gold.
G.O.L.D.

I asked a lot of questions about the gold beer money temples.

The shrubbery told me that hidden all across these barren lands are gold and gold bricks; enough gold to make me richer than all the richest people who have ever or will ever live. Hidden under the ground, behind rocks, in dungeons, beneath the ocean, and in the pockets of monsters – gold, gold, gold. All I have to do is quest for it.

If I could find enough gold to build a temple I would have enough money to buy beer for the rest of eternity. The shrubbery promised me it could help find more gold bricks and together we could take over the world make my life far more bearable. We wrote up a contract covering our mutual obligations, I dug up as much of the shrubbery as I could carry, and off we went in search of bricks.

That’s how I got to here. The numbers have worn off the milestones hereabouts so I have no way of knowing exactly where I am. Some days I see what appears to be a large body of water just on the horizon but I can never reach it. And every day brings the same relentless heat.

I’ve passed through countless towns and villages. Even a few big cities, which, after being on the open road for so long, in the fresh clean air, feel daunting and suffocating. People amassed and squashed together like a great writhing worm, held in only by the great cloistering walls and guards posted at every corner. I don’t know how people can live in places like that.

I’m always sure to drop by the local taverns, get checked out by the attending physician, and stop by somewhere to get Pinky some food and a bath. Folks talk about all kind of tall tales and improbable stories in the town taverns. For a few extra gold coins the physician will divulge which tales are true and add some clues to help me on my way.

One of the stories I’ve heard repeated in almost every tavern is about giant ships that float on the water of the worlds seas. The ships are said to be filled with two of every kind of animal in existence. A ship like that would have to contain 500 million animals at least. People say the ships are built by hand; made of wooden logs, collected one by one. When the ships are finished and sea-worthy, the builder travels to the nine corners of the world, across land and across sea, to find two of every animal to fill the ship. They call it an Ark. I’m always on the lookout for more information about these Arks, maybe when I’m finished with my shrubby companion God I’ll build one.

I battle endlessly with monster after horrific monster. I have fought all sorts of malformed beasts from the ever-obsessed Adoring Fan to the asthma inducing Dust Bunny, the enormous and stinking Gas Giant to the greedy Plundertaker, and, of course, the seemingly endless hordes of Vertigoats. I have taken on so many quests in the hope of finding gold but not all quests end in gold though they do all end in a stronger bond between my God and I.

I am so tired these days that I honestly don’t think that much on anything but the gold bricks. I started this journey ever so long ago, so long indeed that I have failed to accurately keep a count of the time that has passed, regardless of my attempts at time-keeping in my diary and this chronicle.

I drink less and less beer these days. I eat less. I talk to other people less. I don’t sleep as much as I used to. I spend less money in the towns I pass. Sometimes I feel like I am losing myself, but then I remember ‘I do this for the bricks’.

Often when I am faced with horrors, I find myself unable to fight because I simply cannot concentrate on anything but the beauteous gold bricks. Their radiating warmth calling to me from under shrubberies and deep below the hard-packed dirt paths trampled by thousands of Heroes just like me, even since before time began.

I leave a trail of dead enemies behind me, so I can always find my way back home. I have my pet Rocky Raccoon, Pinky, who licks the blood from my wounds each night as I try to sleep. And I have my God, Artemoid, who tells me to get up and keep looking for bricks. I need nothing else… just the bricks.

No matter where or when, my thoughts always return to the bricks.

17,000 SLAYED MONSTERS LATER

Pinky has been making a new friend over the past week. My daft Raccoon buddy was becoming extremely fearsome to other animals and beasties. Monsters would flee just on seeing him. He was the terror of many a town and milestone. Around 9 days ago we met a very small Ballpoint Penguin who seemed to be not at all intimidated by Pinkys fearsome teeth gnashing and tail puffing.

We’ve come across the odd Ballpoint Penguin or two in the past. Pinky engages them by screeching his shrill ‘REEEEEEeeeeeee’ pre-attack shriek, then he holds his breath and strains until his eyes turn red and bulge almost totally out of their sockets. Ballpoint Penguins, not wanting to get eye blood on their fluffy, downy, pure white belly run away, squirting out little pools of ink in terror.

On the day in question Pinky and I were sitting by a stream fishing for a leather GP boot to match the one we caught just near the 547th Milestone. I was using an old sport sock as bait but sport socks only attract Nikes and adidas, I needed a thick, preferably olive green, woollen sock – GPs love those. Pinky was filling his mouth with stones and tugging on his lips, practicing stretching his cheeks so he could fit more loot in his mouth, he does this a lot. At first it was disturbing, now it’s just another one of his many endearing quirks.

The Pinkster has a very fluffy, woolly-looking tail. It was worth a shot, if I was a GP boot I think I’d be attracted to socks made of Rocky Raccoon fur. I’d just dip Pinkys posterior into the water for a few minutes and wait for the boot to bite. Added bonus, the rocks in his fur would help to stop his tail from floating back to the top. Fur isn’t very good at sinking.

I looked at Pinky, wondering how peeved he’d be about this whole getting-dipped-in-water thing. He’s more into trees and dirt than water and… wetness. At this point he had so many stones in his mouth that each time he pushed one in, another fell out. They were beginning to come out his nostrils and I could see his eyes bulging where the stones were pressing into the back of them. He wasn’t even close to finished for the day, he still had a small pile of stones on the ground and quite a big pawful that he was currently trying to squish back into his gaping maw while holding his nostrils closed with his spare paw.

He suddenly stopped moving. Not even the hairs on his tail were blowing in the gentle breeze. He was as still as that old marble statue of a Shrubbery that the Knights who Say Ni! had erected in San Satanos.

“Yo, Pinky, you right, mate?”
No response.
“Pinkster, you choking on a rock again? Flick your tail or something so I know you’re alive.”
No response.

I put down my fishing rod stick and began to get up so I could check on him properly. In a flurry of motion, Pinky spat out all the rocks and swivelled his body round to face me. He stopped moving again and just glared at me with those big round, angry red eyes. I could see them quivering as they bulged. Then he scampered off into the bushes, his woolly-looking tail trailing behind him. He hates when I watch him doing his stretching exercises.

I decided I’d just wait for him to come back. If I try to apologise he’ll get angrier. He’ll calm down in a while and come back on his own. I laid down to have a nap.

I awoke to the sound of Pinkys pre-attack shriek, right in my ear. The little shirt-face was taking his revenge on me by doing that, of all things. I reached out to grab him, and choke the foul rotten life out of his helpless rockfilled body. I opened my eyes fully, and quickly surveyed the area, just to re-situate myself. It had grown dark. I must have slept for hours. Pinky had made a fire and there were three dust bunny carcasses roasting on a spit – Pinkys favourite. Two for him, one for me.

I looked down at Pinky, hanging by his arm from my fist. He had somehow turned into a Ballpoint Penguin. In shock and surprise I threw it toward the fire, I was just angled that way, it wasn’t malicious. The Penguin flew through the air, ejecting a streak of blackish ink behind it, and landed with a thud next to the rocks surrounding the fire.

I felt Pinky scratching at the back of my leg. His way of saying ’I’m scared. Up.’ I picked him up. He touched my face with his paws, one paw on each of my cheeks, and pressed his forehead to mine. His eyes piercing directly into mine with such urgency and desperation. I tried to see what the Ballpoint was doing but Pinky held my face steadfast against his. I could see the side of the Ballpoint Penguins foot, still lying where it had landed. I figure it was knocked out. Pinky shook my head, his little claws digging into the top of my ear and scratching my cheek.

‘Pinky! Heck. What’s the matter? Stop now.’ He was still looking into my eyes but he’d started shaking his head, vigorously, as if to say ‘no’.

Something beyond my comprehension had happened while I napped slept like a log dozed. I inspected Pinkys body, looking for blood, cuts, bruising, anything to indicate he was hurt. He kept slapping my hands away from his body, and trying to grab at my face, still shaking his head, ‘no, no, no’.

‘Dude, chill. It’s over! It was just a Ballpoint. You’ve killed plenty of ‘em before.’

Still in my arms, still level with my face, he turned his body, and jumped down to the ground. A little poof of dirt and dust puffed away where he landed. He waddled over to the Ballpoint Penguin, I realised he appeared to be no longer afraid. His tail swooshing behind him leaving a nice swept line in the ochre dirt.

He slowed as he reached the Penguin, circling it and sniffing the air around it. Using his tail, he swept some dust onto the Penguins face. The Penguin did not move. Pinky bent over the Penguin, slipping his paws under its body, and lifting it up.

‘Ahh, Pinks, what’re you doing? Maybe that’s not such a good idea? Maybe put it back down?’ At this point I was kind of confused. I was getting the impression that Pinky thought the Ballpoint Penguin was dead, hence his confidence in touching the creature that he had just been terrified of.

Pinky turned to me, his big round eyes, no longer red but a desperately sad grey blue, making contact with mine. Still holding the Penguin, he raised his arms up toward me, seemingly offering the Penguin to me. He nudged his head toward me as if to say ‘take’.

‘Mate, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but this thing was trying to kill you, right?’ Pinkys eyes lit up, his tail waggled, he was filled with excitement. ‘I don’t get it, little fella. You looked so sad just now and suddenly you’re… happy? Are you saying you want me to help it?’ Again, his tail whirled in the air, his fluffy face jetting up and down, nodding as vigorously as his neck could bear.

‘Ok, Pinky, this is serious now, you need to look at me properly,’ he stood straight as an arrow, still holding the Ballpoint Penguin, his spine creaking with the effort. He looked at me directly, his face awash in consternation and total concentration.

‘Pinky, do you want me to finish this Penguin or help it?’

Without breaking eye contact, he nodded, just one single, absolute, unmistakable nod.

‘Was that nod for putting it on the fire?…’ before I could finish the question he violently shook his head, his eyes began to bulge and I could just make out the beginnings of light pink streaking across the white of his eyes. He shuffled closer to me, very gently placed the Penguin at my feet and then ran off toward the same bushes that he’d run off to earlier in the day.

Moments later he was back. With a stick. He stood up on his hind legs and touched the stick to the Penguin, then held the stick in the air. He looked at me, touched the stick with his other paw, then looked at and pointed to the penguin, again touching the Penguin with the stick. He grasped the stick with both paws and looking at me, he snapped the stick. Then he continued the weird stick ritual with the now broken stick.
He bent over the Penguin, holding the two pieces of stick against the penguin, he looked at me and pointed to the sticks and the Penguin repeatedly.

Standing up on his hind legs again, he put the two sticks in my hands and covering my hands with his paws he held the two broken ends of the stick back together. Holding one paw over my hands which were still holding the sticks together, he used his other paw to point to me, the sticks, and finally the Penguin.

‘Ok,’ was all I said. I was stunned at how articulate my Pinky had become, how thoughtful and how human-like. I was beyond lucky to have such a companion.

I picked up the Ballpoint Penguin and turned it over in my hand gently inspecting its tiny body. I found no injuries apart from a small bump on its head. The bottom of its right foot was imprinted:

‘Nipper’

and on the left foot:

‘Made in Unspecifiedistan. Fibre Tip. Fine. Black. 49 02778 913949’.

Wrapping the Penguin in the now dry sport sock, I placed it by the fire and went to pick some coon berries (Pinkys other favourite) for it to eat if it wakes up. Pinky stayed at the Ballpoint Penguins side for the next entire week, voraciously guarding the tiny creature.

The Penguin stayed in a sort of coma for two whole days. After a week it had recuperated fully. It was up, walking around, foraging for nib berries and squid with Pinkys help. I had never seen Pinky like this before. He was angry and violent, a vicious killer, but this Penguin had him acting like a doting parent.

Pinky had been taking paper-based artefacts (books, scrolls, etc) from my bag and giving them to Nipper to draw on. There was no doubt that Nipper was extremely good at drawing however it meant that we were underselling a lot of artefacts that had been rendered worthless because Nipper had drawn all over them. Roadside traders drive a hard bargain and have no sympathy for a hero trying to do the moral and just thing.

Between Nipper drawing on all the paper artefacts, Pinky eating all the gold, silver, wood, and copper artefacts, and The God Artemoid demanding I sacrifice just about everything else in her name, we weren’t making enough money to get by. Three mouths (plus one God) to feed. I was spending so much time trying to feed us that I had no time left to devote to quests and gold bricks. I hadn’t had a beer in the whole week that Nipper was knocked out. I had no idea where or how far the next town was.

To be continued……

My Sibling Prophet