The Ninja continues this epic not-epic story. Hehe, this is fun. Sort of.

–Start–

I woke up in a room that smelled like mushrooms.

There were several things wrong with that. First, I didn’t just “wake up.” More like. . .groan awake as every vein in my body exploded with pain, and each nerve ending felt as if there was a tiny, enraged midget chewing on it. That was just the first thing. The second was that I could only remember one time in which I’d been in a place that smelt overbearingly of mushrooms.

Sleepywood. A dark land, I was told as a youth to stay out of there; it had all the appeal of a rotten banana, and was awfully like one in how the ground, air and overall ambience felt. Only time I could remember stopping by there was that one time when there was a bounty put out by a strange man known as the Remembe-

Wait. What was I doing here? I opened my eyes slowly to see a rather largish, out of shape man leaning over me. Not a good thing. Snapping out of my stupor, I brought my arms up in a defensive manner, and caught the guy on the chin. He fell back, and I sat up in the rudimentary bed they’d put me in. “Where am I?! Who are you?! How did I get here?”

The guy glared at me, apparently not expecting his guest to clock him in the face. “You, sir, are in the Sleepywood Hotel. I am Mr. Sweatbottom, and you got here by the grace of some kind soul who dragged you in here. His name, I know not, but he did pay for your stay, and hence I am required to take care of you.” The manner in which he said this was irritated, but strangely calm, as if he had people dragged in here on a daily basis. “If you do not mind, I have other guests to take care of, and you are going to be fine. Be sure to drink that glass on the nightstand.”

With that, he left, and I was alone with the glass on the table. I picked it up, lacking anything else to do, and took a swig of it. Drat, grape. It tasted acrid and more like bile than grape, though, as if the sour attitude of Sweaty-bum had manifested itself in a grape flavoured manner. How appropriate. As the nasty liquid went through my beaten and bruised system, it had that effect which it always did. I felt my bruises leaving, my cuts healing, and all the myriad wounds that had come from the explosion disappeared. I never figured out how it worked, but it did and that was all that mattered. I stood up, and saw my mangled gear lying on the table. Somehow I had come to be clad in a blue robe, and it felt nice after wearing that chainmail for so long. But the time had come for me to leave, so I picked it up, put it all in a burlap sack that had been next to the table, and went to the desk. Checking out, I left the building and went into the city of Sleepywood.

I hurried through the dark and silent streets, until I found the armorer. “Can you repair this?” The armorer turned over the sack, and dumped its contents onto the table. Picking up the torn Crusadermail, he clicked his tongue and looked at me, wondering what could’ve happened to this particular piece of mithril. “Sure, I can, but it’ll be about five thousand mesos.” I looked into my wallet. That was nothing, not even the amounts I randomly tossed to poor people who begged along the streets of Henesy’s. “Sure.” I handed him the cash, and he set to work.

I took a chair, and unsheathed the Doombringer which had been so beaten. Its blade had not chipped, though, and it was still firm, if not a little dirty from the business of being plunged into the stomach of the knight. A small while passed, and the smith came back with my armor. It glistened, and I was shocked at the time it had taken him to fix up the armor. I grinned and thanked him as I pulled it over my frame and onto me. As I turned to leave, he shouted. “Hey, wait up. You look strong, and for two hundred and fifty mesos, I can give you a great tip.”

Well, he had done a great job with my armor. I handed the cash over, and he smiled. “There’s a tournement going on over in the Sleepywood Arena. You should check it out; I hear they have great prizes for the winners.” Seeing as I had nothing to do, I figured I’d go for it. Thanking the smith, I left and followed the street signs to the Arena. An imposing building, it had probably been there for ages, and I decided to enter. No looking back.

Boy, do I regret doing that.

–End–

Cliifhangarrrrrr 3! Continue reading!