[Mkguild] (no subject)

[Narwhal KillerNarwhal]

Here is my next story, with patched plot/continuity holes.




A Place to Call Home



*May, 708 C.R.*

Cheep opened his eyes. He saw a wall of stone with an upside-down dresser
mounted on it halfway between the floor and ceiling. Under the top of the
dresser he could see the head of his monkey statue. He looked down, and saw
his hands and feet suspended in the air, but his tail was stretched
straight downward in a tight line and then curled around a wooden beam
stretching across the room. He felt his tail loosening its grip, and before
he could react he flew upwards toward the stones above and fell on his head
with a *thump*.

“Ow!”

“Are you trying to hang from your tail again?” Kag’s voice was heard from
the next room.

“Maybe,” Cheep replied, rubbing the new lump on his scalp.

“You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t stop.”

“No way. I just started trying last week and I’m already up to twenty
minutes! I’m completely fine.”

“Says the guy who just took a blow to the head. Again.”

Cheep grumbled as he got up off the floor of his room and walked out to the
table where Kagmer reclined, reading.

“Maybe you should stick with practicing fighting with your new body.
Besides, we have scout training in a couple hours. You should go early and
discover how the Curse has affected your abilities,” Kag recommended.

“I already tried it and my skills haven’t changed from the longer arms. I
want to learn to do *new *stuff.”

“You may still be able to move your weapons the same way, but your body has
drastically changed, and you are more agile than before. You need to learn
how to use your new strengths to your advantage and compensate for any new
weaknesses.”

“Weaknesses?”

“I don’t mean for bananas. You’re lighter than before, and longer arms may
be great for reach, but you can’t put as much force on them. You don’t have
as much muscle, so you will need to adjust your style to allow for more
hits and less power. And more dodging; you seem to have a proclivity for
taunting.”

“What, you mean like this?” Cheep asked, and immediately began cavorting
about in a ridiculous manner, blowing raspberries and clapping his hands as
he jumped all over Kag’s head and the table and everywhere, shrieking
happily in monkeyish laughter and occasionally pulling on Kagmer’s ears.
The rhino man tried to grab him to keep him off his head and horns, but the
effort was futile, as Cheep always managed to leap just out of Kag’s reach
whenever he grasped at the monkey.

“You’re a natural at that, and I’m not sure I mean that as a compliment,”
Kag said, giving up.

Cheep leapt off the rhino’s head, did a backflip, and landed perfectly on
the floor, bowing.

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

“You’re hilarious. Now go practice on someone else. I’m trying to read.”

“Maybe you should come too. It’s not as if you didn’t change.”

Kag sighed. “I guess you’re right, although the only significant
differences for me are increased strength, size, and skin thickness. Oh,
and now I have horns on my face.”

“Great. Let’s go.”



###



As they made their way to the practice rooms, Cheep and Kag passed many
animal morphs, children who were probably much older than they looked, and
women (and men, too) who dressed androgynously because they weren’t
comfortable accepting their new gender. This was no longer a surprise or a
shock; they had been at Metamor Keep for a little over two weeks at this
point. However, they still found it interesting to see all the different
iterations of the Curse.

“Oh, great.” Cheep muttered under his breath.

“What?” Kag asked, confused.

“Try not to look at the vixen walking toward us. We… um, may have met
before.”

“She’s not bad-looking. Why, are you nervous? Thinking of asking her out?”
Kag grinned.

“NO!” Cheep shouted, and then blushed heavily at the ears as he realized he
had just drawn attention to himself. “I mean, we sort of met under less
than favorable circumstances.

The vixen turned at the shout and examined the speaker.

“You look familiar. Have we met before?” she asked, looking at Cheep
ponderously.

“Umm- No. I’m sure we haven’t. I mean, um, I think we haven’t. I mean, you
don’t look familiar at all to me! Nope. Haven’t met. Sorry,” Cheep
stammered.

“You’re a terrible liar, you know. You’re that nice boy who stopped my
vegetable cart when those asses pushed it down the hill.”

“I, uh, umm… Maybe?” Cheep squirmed.

“Don’t be so modest. That was really a heroic thing to do. By the way, I’m
Sasha.” Smiling fetchingly, she held out her paw.

“I’m Cheep. Uhhhh… actually I was just wasn’t paying attention. It was an
accident that your cart hit me.” Cheep dropped his gaze.

“So? You didn’t get mad or yell at me or anything, and that’s a pretty big
improvement over most of the guys I know.”

“You must only know jerks.”

“Maybe I just live in the wrong part of town; I inherited the shop from my
dad, so I never thought to move.”

“Oh. So you own a vegetable stand or something?” Cheep was becoming curious.

“Well, fruits and vegetables. And sometimes spices, when I can find traders
to sell them to me. There seems to be a shortage of them,” Sasha said
thoughtfully.

“So, you might not by any chance have *bananas*, would you?” Cheep queried.

“Yes, actually, I do. Why do you ask?”

Cheep was actually excited now. “Those things are fantastic! …Any chance
you could give me a discount?”

She smirked. “Do all monkeys like bananas?”

Cheep smiled, blushing a bit. “Can’t say I know of any other monkeys, but I
sure do.”

“You know what? You can just have them. I only have a few left, and they
will go bad soon if nobody eats them. It’s the least I can do,” the vixen
offered apologetically.

“That would be more than fair for such a small thing,” Cheep grinned.

“Okay, where would you like them sent?”

“Sent?” Cheep looked surprised.

“Remember that cart you saved? Delivery cart. I was on my way to deliver
those rutabagas to some rabbits when it got jacked and pushed down the
hill. I didn’t think I had *that* many enemies…”

“Oh. Well, I have a room in the Keep, but I don’t know how to explain how
to get there…” Cheep started to explain sheepishly.

“Don’t worry about that, I know how it works. You must be new here.”

“Why does everybody keep saying that?” Cheep grumbled, getting a bit
flustered.

“Don’t worry, they’ll stop soon enough, once you get used to things. I’ll
get a box with the bananas to your room later this afternoon, then.”

“That would be great,” Cheep said, smiling again.

“See you around, cutie,” she giggled.



###



Cheep’s ears burned as he blushed heavily.

Kag elbowed Cheep as they walked on toward the practice room again.

“She’s pretty sweet on you,” he commented teasingly.

“Shut up,” Cheep muttered.

They arrived at the practice area and found a few other fighters practicing
their art.

Kag had just recently gotten clothes that were big enough to accommodate
his humongous frame, and he had gotten a set of light but tough sparring
garb, white in color, which he now wore.

“I feel stronger; I think I’ll see how much power I’ve gained,” Kag said as
he walked over to the side of the training room dedicated to strength
training and picked up a large shaped stone two feet wide and one foot
across, a weight he had lifted before only with difficulty. He lifted it
above his head with surprising ease, flicking his ears, and set it back
down. He looked at his huge hands, in wonder at how much stronger he now
was. There was only one stone in the area bigger than the one he had just
lifted, and it was twice as large. It should have been much too heavy for
him (at least for his old body), but he lifted this with almost no
difficulty as well. Cheep looked on in awe as the stone that had to be more
than a dozen times his own weight was lifted again and again. Kag set it
down after a few repetitions.

“I need to find a heavier weight. That one is a lot smaller than I feel
like I could lift.”

“That’s insane. You just put *that* thing up a dozen times without any more
effort than hefting a pack. It probably weighs more than you do, and you’re
absolutely huge!”

“Yeah, I know. I need to find bigger rocks, or at least something heavier.
It’s amazing, being this strong. I can’t think of anything that even comes
close.”

“Yeah, great. We’ll go out and look for a quarry or something as soon as
this quarantine ends. Hopefully it’s soon. All those cases that survived
the Plague were cured, and no more cases have been seen. You’d think they
would just open the gates or something by now; maybe they just think they
have to be *really* sure or something.”

Cheep moved over to the wooden dummies intended for practicing weapon
technique and pulled his nunchukas out. He held them taut, horizontal and
at arm’s length. He was surprised for a moment at the realization that they
were quite a bit further away from his face than usual. He then went
through his normal practice warmup slower than normal, swinging the rods
around in tight arcs, switching hands, catching one handle under his arm.
He proceeded to strike at the dummy occasionally, adjusting his technique
as he grew used to his longer arms, gradually moving faster and faster
until his hands and weapon were almost a constant blur. He thought he would
miss and hit himself in the face or something, but he didn’t; impressed at
his own newfound speed and agility, he finished his exercises and slowed to
a stop. Kag stood nearby, nodding in approval.

“I may have lost some speed with the change, but the strength I have now
more than makes up for it. You seem to have gotten just the opposite;
you’re a little weaker, but a lot faster. It’s like we increased our
specialties at the expense of weaker attributes, almost like one of those
role-playing games.”

Cheep laughed. “Yeah. Hey, I think one of those specialty shops we saw in
Euper sells those,” he said hopefully.

“Yes, I saw them too, but they cost a good bit of gold, and we don’t have
that high a pay grade,” Kag said.

“Oh. It was just a thought.”

The two finished their respective warmups and moved on to the place where
they and the other scouts were scheduled to begin training now.



###



Cheep was bored. He was in his room, hanging upside down from his tail
again, trying to think of something better to satisfy his urge to climb.
Immediately the forest had come to his mind, but being outside the
quarantine made that out of the question.

Or did it?

The gears of Cheep’s mind began turning as he considered the possibility of
breaking quarantine. Secretly, of course; he would certainly be stopped if
he tried leaving openly. The guards patrolled mostly at the gates, as the
walls kept most people from passing. All but the most skilled *climbers*-
Cheep let go of the rafter with his tail, this time landing on his hands
and flipping end over end to the door. He would probably need to find some
rope, and a hook, and he needed to be sure to be back the next day in time
for the scouts’ scheduled training session. He would likely employ some of
the stealth skills he had learned in practice if this plan came to fruition.

Cheep reflected briefly as he hurried through the Keep. All this effort
just for some trees to climb. He shook his head and swiftly moved through
the Keep to get outside. He would need to scout out the walls for places
conducive to being scaled stealthily and procure a rope and hook.

He made his way through Keeptowne as the sun began to set, stopping at a
stable and paying the stable hand a few bronze coins for a spare coil of
rope he saw in a stack. Rope in hand, Cheep tried to think of how to
explain to a blacksmith why exactly it was that he needed a grappling hook.
He shook his head, rejecting the idea, and found a pawn shop on the rougher
edge of town, which was apparently open later than most businesses. He
entered the shady-looking establishment, glancing around for his target,
trying to appear nonchalant as he perused the shelves and racks. The owner,
a mangy rodent of indistinct variety, watched him with beady eyes that made
him uncomfortable. Cheep saw all manner of items in barrels, on shelves,
and strewn across the walls in various means. The shop had everything from
swords and pikes to rolling pins and jewelry. Finally Cheep found an old
but well-made grappling hook made of iron and wrapped in black cloth.

“How much for this?” Cheep asked.

“Six bronze,” replied a gravelly voice from behind the counter and cage.

“I’ll give you five.” Cheep said, trying to sound confident.

“You can give me five if you want, but you ain’t taking that out of here,”
the shop owner snapped. “You want it, you pay my price,”

“Oh.”

Cheep looked and felt extremely uncomfortable in spite of his efforts as he
passed the coins across the counter.

“Great. Have a nice day,” the unsavory pawnbroker sneered sarcastically.

Cheep hurried out as fast as he could.

He then continued on to the edge of the city, starting to use alleys to
avoid sight as people were largely inside their houses now that it was
dark, until he came to the high curtain wall that surrounded the city. He
looked up, searching for a suitable catching point for his hook, and
selected a merlon close to one of the turrets on the wall. Cheep tied his
rope in the loop in his new hook, remembering how to tie the sturdy knot
from his experience with the acrobat troupe. He fought back tears at the
memory and returned his mind to the task at hand. After scanning the top of
the wall for nearby guards, he gauged the distance to the top of the wall,
holding the coils of rope loosely in one hand while swinging the hook from
a short length of it in the other. He had gauged correctly; the hook sailed
just a foot over the top of the parapet and fell into the crenel next to
the tower, falling back and catching fast against the stones. Cheep checked
the rope by tugging it firmly a couple times, and then surprised himself
with the ease with which he speedily scaled the rope, clearing the top of
the wall in seconds. He had timed his journey a bit close to the patrols,
though: he saw a torch coming his direction from the next tower over. The
watchman would surely see him if he stayed where he was any longer, so he
hastily hooked the rope on the other side of the wall and dived over the
battlement, softly impacting the wall as the rope went taut.
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