Quint gets Hazed

[Quint Caravel]

89th of Autumn in the year 513 after the Vallterrian of Suva City.

One day near the end of the autumn season, Mr. Quinton J. Caravel was walking around Sunberth being up to his usual tricks when he came across a gang of people he had never seen before. That was not very difficult, as Quint did not actually know anybody in Sunberth, and the few people he had met weren't apt to become his friends or acquaintances any time soon. In point of fact Sunberth was a rather lonely and bereft city because while anarchy was good in principle, the lack of a mayor meant that very little was being accomplished, and of that, even less was being done at anything resembling a profit. It made him rather sorry that he had arrived in the season so late as he rather had a soft spot for places like Sunberth and thought that he might have done a decent job at turning this place into another Syliras at least in terms of population and activity. But perhaps he was wrong, just another foolish naive outsider who thought he would waltz into a place and carve a niche for himself. Perhaps he was wrong.

For the moment, however, he put his own dreams and ambitions aside and went to listen to what the gang of people were saying. Because they were saying something, and they were saying it in unison.

They were saying "Recruits wanted! Join us!" And they were saying it over and over again.

Quint strolled over to the man he took to be the leader. He did that by a practical application of his observational ability to notice things. He noticed that this fellow was standing on a box of some sort and that he had epaulets on his shoulders. And furthermore, these epaulets had stripes and stars on them. Quint had seen similar markings on the Stewart Knights of the city of Syliras when he would stroll around Stormhold Castle. Which wasn't very often, and it was usually under escort. To be fair, it was actually the one time. But he had noticed that the Sers and Seras all had fancy markings.

Quint decided to test his theory using a complicated yet time-honored legal strategem involving severe risk to his own well-being and more than a dash of verbal intercourse. He pointed at the popinjay man. "Hey, pal, are you the leader?"

The man raised a hand and everyone hushed. It was like he was a puppeteer pulling strings and everyone in the area was a soulless wooden puppet forced to dance at his command. In a wizard's tower this might mean that this was the mage who controlled the most djed. Quint didn't know about magic, or even what djed was, but Quint knew what it meant in Sunberth if someone acted like this. They had money.

And that attracted Quint's attention as he was rather poor.

"Good sirrah there! I am indeed thy noble liege. I am Kwanie Coombs, the self-appointed King of Sunberth."

Quint crossed his arms across his chest. "Oh yeah? Well, who appointed you?"

Several thugs slapped him at once, and then one of them explained what self-appointed meant. Quint made a mental note to remember that.

However, it did not really make sense to him. He shook his head. "Well, you can't exactly go around calling yourself King of Sunberth. What's to stop me from calling myself Governor of ... um... whatever province this is?"

Several more thugs slapped him again, then one unfurled a parchment with a map on it and showed it to Quint. The half-Svefra looked at it. "K-A-L-E-A."

The thug looked at the map, turned it upside-down, then pointed again. Quint tried again, glad that Xiva had already explained cartography to him. "S-Y-L-I-.. wait wait wait. Are you saying this province has basically the same name as the biggest city in it? And that city is not called Syliras City, right?"

A female thug shrugged her shoulders. "Why should it? This isn't called Syliras province, right mate? It's Sylira, without the snake rune at the end."

Quint put his hands on his hips. "Well then fine! I hereby call myself the Governor of Sylira!"

The entire group of thugs began pounding on him at once. 'King' Kwannie laughed. "Ah, there you are, mate. You were just asking what is to stop you from nominating yourself for being king of the hill, oi?" He nodded at the pile of thugs and minions now piled on top of Quint. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Call yourself whatever the time-damned fabled-5th-mark-of-Ionu you want to call yourself." He shook his head. "But if you can't back it up, it's just an idle boast. And people will think you're mad. Or foolish. Or both."

Being a captive audience, Quint had no choice but to listen.

"Well, Mr. Caravel, you're probably wondering what you can do to become someone who can back up what they say."

"Hey, I never told you my name!"

Kwannie knelt down and held up Quint's wallet where the half-Svefra could see it. "One of my thugs grabbed this while you were being pounded by the others. I can read as good as anyone in Sunberth, except maybe some clerk and librarian types. I would keep this, but except for your name stitched in the side it is as empty as your idle boasts."

"Give that back!"

Kwannie face-palmed himself. "Do you ever listen? I just said I wasn't going to keep it. Now pay more attention, assuming you don't want to get beaten up again."

Quint admitted that he did not, as it tended to ruin his whole day.

Kwannie nodded. "Good. I'm guessing here, but you clearly don't have looks, intelligence, connections, money, friends or ... well, anything. Stop me if I'm wrong? No? Okay. Therefore the only thing you can attempt to gain that might buy you a few followers is reputation. And to gain a reputation in Sunberth where murder is cheap and life is even cheaper, you need to do something impressive. And so I'm going to give you a task. You have exactly one day to accomplish 16 things that I will now randomly tell you to do."

"Yeah? Like what? And how many?"

Kwannie held up his hands to a musculuar thug that was pulling out a blackjack sap. "No don't hit him again, that had to be a deliberate stall."

The 'King' of Sunberth pulled out a parchment and had his jester write down a list of 16 items. This was handed to Quint, who was allowed to stand up and read it, though two thugs stood on each side of him, clamping his upper arms tightly.

And this was Kwannie's list. In one day Quint had to:

Plot against someone; then kill them; then kill someone else; learn something, then learn something he hated; hurt himself, then curse in pain; argue with a rock; join a cult; make love to a beautiful woman, become immersed in mud; save a life; comfort someone he couldn't save; cry about it; sacrifice a precious object, and write about it all.

Quint snorted. "I've done six of those before breakfast..."

[Quint Caravel]

Quint went away. He came back some bells and chimes later.

Once Quint had accomplished the other 15 tasks, he wrote them down and handed the scroll of his adventures back to 'King' Kwannie. "Here you go."

Kwannie glanced at it. "This is very impressive. Though of course how do I know you actually did any of these things? You could be lying."

Quint waved a hand dismissively. "Prrrt. That list was so easy I could do it again."

Kwannie sniffed disdainfully. "Prove it. And I shall accompany you."

Quint nodded. "All right. One one condition." He whispered something in Kwannie's ear.

Kwannie agreed. "Very well. Highly unorthodox, but we'll discuss that later. You have one day. Begin."

Quint nodded again, and walked over to the recruiting for 'King' Kwannie's cult. "Hey there, I'd like to join this cult. After all, I already did the initiation, and now I'm doing it a second time for free."

One of the girls looked over at Kwannie, who gave an imperious nod.

Kwannie smiled benevolently at Quint. "Congratulations, you are now a member of the New Crimson Church of Sunberth. Thank you for 1) exploring this new religion that believes the entire world is a conspiracy. We are a glorious society of-"

Quint put his hand over Kwannie's mouth. "No one cares about that." He jerked his hand back. "Oh wait, I have touched our glorious ruler! I must be punished! I shall slap myself silly. Ow. Ow. Ow. Petch! Petch! There, now I've 2) hurt myself. And I've 3) cursed in pain!"

"That does not count!" came a tiny high-pitched voice that sounded just like Quint's voice.
Quint kept his hands over his mouth so people wouldn't see his lips moving.

Kwannie looked down at confusion. "What sorcery is this?"

Quint picked up a rock. "This is Pike the Pycon. He hates everything I stand for."

"I do not! You hate everything I stand for!" came the high-pitched voice.

Kwannie stared at the rock for a moment. "It is a most disagreeable creature."

Quint nodded. He covered the rock with both hands so that it couldn't hear them. "That is okay. We shall 4) plot its demise."

"How are we going to do that?"

Quint thought about it. "I shall tell you all a story. This is my first attempt at a story, so let's see how it goes. Once upon a time when Marcus Kelvicson created the Pycons, he was worried that they would eventually rise up and destroy all humans. So he approached Lore Dyres, Alvina of the Dummies to give him a Dummy Gnosis. Now in those days Lore Dyres was dating Laviku and they decided to have a big feast and that feast had salt, pepper, cinnamon and vanilla to represent the four elements, and these four seasonings are why we have four seasons to this day."

Kwannie thought about it. "Okay, that's an honest and realistic attempt to go from having no skill at storytelling to the barest modicum of an ability in it. I shall consider that you have attempted to 5) learn something." He pointed at Quint. "But now 6) learn something you hate."

"Well, I'm scared of heights."

Kwannie nodded at two of his men, and they got a rope and tied it to the roof of the nearest building. "Start climbing, my new serf."

Quint scowled, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of his new friends. "This is going to stink."

At arrow-point he was pointed at the rope, and Quint spent several minutes getting absolutely nowhere with it. He was able to jump off the ground and go one notch, but then he kept dangling there. He kept sliding down. "This is really hurting my hands. And how do I go up more than one notch?"

Kwannie nodded. "Very well, you deserve an object lesson. Mr. Knee-caps, if you would be so kind?"

Mr. Knee-caps went over and punched Quint in the gut. "Try harder, petcher."

Protesting violently, Quint did his best impersonation of a mountain climber. Clutching very, very tightly with the rope with one hand, he swung around for a bit until he was able to leap up one more notch with the second hand. Then he promptly slipped down.

Mr. Knee-caps went over and punched Quint in the jaw, then smacked him in the gut. "Last try, petcher."

Quint tried climbing the rope again, this time by crossing his legs around it. He made some headway and actually climbed three notches, but then he slipped, slid down, causing a rope burn to the crotch of his trousers and he collapsed in a ball on the ground. "Ow! Oh crap! This is embarrassing! Shyke! Petch! Vulgarity! Vagik! Varniak! Petch!"

"This is your own fault, you know!" came the high-pitched voice from Quint's pocket where he had stowed the fake Pycon.

"How is this my fault?"

"In the end, isn't everything that happens to us, good or bad, really our fault?"

"I don't care. Why am I 7) having a philosophical discussion with an inanimate object?"

"Ah, but am I inanimate? Or is the season-long lack of sleep driving you loopy? Are you going through some sort of 8) emotional breakdown? Did not the wise philosper Rupert Varniak once say that 'All men are human, but all women are divine'?"

One of the recruiting girls smiled at Quint while she chewed some sort of rubber gum from Kenash. "Wow, gosh mister. Do you really --hehehe-- think I'm like divine, totally petching, you know?"

Quint smiled at her. "Totally. You're gorgeous. I'd make love to a woman with deep blue-"

"They're green-"

"-or deep green eyes any time, any day, here and now."

"Okay, but I like it dirty. Do you like it dirty?"

"Dirty? Of course. I can talk dirty any way you like." Pretty and horny? Quint knew he was 9) in love with her. If he ended up liking her, he'd even bother to learn her name.

"Come with me sailor. You won't have to do any talking." She led him to 10)a pile of mud. They got naked and immersed themselves in wild abandon. They made mad, passionate love. As Gale McCenry might be reading this, we'll cut to Kwannie's face.

Mr Knee-caps frowned. "He has 11)killed my appetite." (which is a something.)

Kwannie watched the two of them. "I knew that was coming. She tricked me with that dirty comment once, too. He spent a few minutes staring up at the sky. "Okay, I guess that horrible display of barely carnal ravishment counts." He watched as the girl kicked up with one leg, knocking Quint's pouch into the mud.

A high pitched voice squealed out "Oh no.. help help, I'm drowning!" This time it wasn't the little rock. In his desperation to grab the pouch, Quint accidentally knocked his true love's head under the surface of the mud.

"No!" Quint called out with despair. He grabbed at his pouch, but the little rock fell out of it. "No! Oh no! I couldn't save him! I have 12) caused his demise!" He burst into tears. Then he realized the woman was flailing her arms and legs in the water. He glance down at the rock. "I'm sorry little Pycon rock, but it's you or her. I need both hand to save her, so you must die." Quint dived down and pulled the woman up, 13 saving her.

Everyone applauded.

After the girl was saved, Quint grabbed for the rock, but it was too late. "I'm sorry big guy.. but I'm dying... goodbye cruel world."

"I shall 14) comfort you with a promise. The next actual Pycon will be treated with dignity, just as King Rupert Suva would have wanted."

"T-thanks pal. But please... write down my story, so others will know. Always change! Always go for your ultimate form!"

Quint buried the rock in a ritual that everyone in Kwannie's group took very seriously. Quint gave the eulogy. "Though I 15)sacrificed my friend to save-"

"Myrtle."

"-Myrtle's life, he will always be with me. Praise Markus Rupertson! In the name of Nysel, King of the Kelwyns, and Lyre Dyre, Lord of the Sylrian Empire, we bury this tiny bit of Semele's devoted follower.

Quint 16) wrote everything down. Then he handed everything to Kwannie again.

The 'King' stared at him. "But you never left my side. You just made that all up."

"Or did I? Or did I?"

-The End-