“You know anything about a griffin, bruh?”

When we last left our hero, in hopes to gain some sweet new armor to battle bad guys with, Calypso used the Commodore 64000, an upgraded version of the Commodore 64 gifted to him by Game Girl, to return to the game world of Narfinex.  Upon his arrival, he was greeted by the Professor who told him that if he wanted some new gear, he would have to go on a quest to retrieve the materials required to craft them.  Those materials included iron ore, some wood, dragon scales, and feathers from a griffin.  Having to deal with a dragon again made him swallow his gum, but he’s taken down one of those before…  A couple of times…  And even though he’s not the same leveled up shadow rogue like he was in his last playthrough, he’s still confident enough in knowing that it’s not an impossible task.  A griffin, though?  That’s a dangerous, mystical beast that he didn’t have the pleasure of encountering last time.  He watched enough fantasy flicks and played enough DnD to know what to expect though.  A possibly mini car-sized, flying creature with the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle.  Basically, a much smaller, more agile dragon, he thought, and running into one of those should be a real treat.

The enthusiasm he carried into Narfinex was depleting pretty fast and he started regretting even coming.  His Tango suit was suitable enough, it just needed a few upgrades….  But no, he thought.  If he was going to take down evil once and for all, he needed something super badass.  Something better than the Kevlar he would order from the internet and sow together with leather, rubber, and black denim.  He knew from his other experiences in fantasy settings that a piece of armor crafted from dragon scales is some pretty good stuff.

Tango was a bit miffed that they didn’t have the items on-hand.  What kind of place were they running there?  It was like the merchant stores out on the street….  The place barely had anything aside from a few low, beginner level items.  Then, he remembered that one of his teammates from War Games, Hanari Carnes, nearly crashed the entire Narfinex economy during his stay.  So, it all made sense to him now…  with little stock, the demand was high, but due to the several attacks that were happening through the land by General Big Bad, no one went to work.  So, the supply stayed low, while the demand continued to sky rocket.  Factoring in all of that, Tango didn't mind doing them the favor.  The danger was still there, though and even though permadeath wasn’t a thing there (that’s where you die and don’t come back for all you non-gaming squares out there), he still didn’t want to experience it again.  He’s drowned, fallen to his death, been eaten alive, incinerated by dragon fire, disemboweled, skinned, beaten to death, crushed, and a short list of other things and some twice, three, or even ten times.  Even though he would wake up in that stupid cave over and over again and barely remember his gruesome death, he always remembered how bad they hurt and screw that.  It wasn’t easy getting to Mt. Final Boss before War Games and the thought of having to endure all of that again made Tango nauseous, but he knew he could do it.

First thing was first, the Professor told Tango he was to head west and meet up with an old traveler that could help him on his way.  He followed the checkpoints laid out on his map and eventually noticed a plume of cigar smoke that rose up from a hollow in the Lost Woods.  When he arrived, he found the same hooded old man that he met on his last journey.

I know of a griffin.

The Stranger replied with a sneer.  Tango explained his journey, how the Professor needed those certain materials in order to craft him his new gear.  After listening intently to Tango’s story, the Stranger laughs.

Sending you through all this trouble, is he?  Mining the ore is taxing enough already, but having to slay two beasts on top of it?  That’s asking kind of a lot, don’t you agree?

“Well, I don’t mind working for anything, bruh.  If it means I can get some rad new threads to take back with me, I think it’s worth a shot.  I’ve been down this road before, right?  The first time we met, I didn’t know diddly about this place and was like a lost puppy in a big city.  YOU helped me along the way, though, even though you acted like a freagin’ weirdo most of the time.  I took your advice and used your guidance.  I became better at my craft, grinded out some levels, and became a beast, dude!  My team, we took care of business, saved Narfinex from the big bad, and used the same momentum to go home and win War Games.”

Tango takes a seat on a small tree stump beside the Stranger.

“All this is kind of like the same situation I’m in at home…  Having to put in the work, ya know?  It shows in the XWF and while it may seem like some dudes don’t earn certain things, I feel I have.”

The Stranger takes another long draw from his cigar and blows out a huge cloud over their heads.  It’s much like when they were in the cave and the Stranger explained the destruction that was coming if they failed in their mission. 

It does appear that you are facing yet another major threat in the XWF, doesn't it?

"I mean…  I wouldn't give him THAT much credit, bruh.  I thought he was a lot better than he turned out to be.  A major threat?  Eh, I think if I had just trained a bit harder last time I would've taken him to the cleaners.  Once he realized he didn't stand a chance and lose his title, he would've probably just walked out.  I wouldn't have won the title with him getting disqualified, but those are the rules, I guess."

The cloud of cigar smoke sat above them and swirled around as images slowly and sloppily form within it.

“Oh boy!  Another story?”

The Stranger crosses his leg over the other and pulls back on his hood.

Indeed!  Your story!

The image forms into the shape of a big head.  The big head is that of Peter Vaughn’s.

“Yeah, that’s him, alright.  Heh…  I’m a little disappointed.  I thought the dude was cool and honestly thought that we could make some rad music together.  The problem is, the guy can’t play anything.  He’s got no rhythm so he can’t play drums, he can’t do bass, and has never picked up a guitar.  I could be wrong, too, and Peter could be an amazing drummer, be-bopping around with his mop buckets all his life.  Oh man, I also don’t know if he’s been a janitor all his life either.  Maybe, he was an accountant before he just went into the family business.  Is it like the old, drunk detective thing?  Mum was a cop, dad was a cop?  Mahm was a cleanin’ lady.  Dad was a janitor…   I heard he inherited his great grand-pappies blue coveralls that he wore while mopping up pee and poop in the hospital camps during WW2.  A real war hero unlike his great grandson.  Who is also terrible at mutli-person or tag matches.  Terrible partner.  Of course, I don’t know if any of that’s true, except for the last part.  All the rest of it sounds pretty stupid, huh?  If I’m so inferior to the guy then why does he have to make stuff up to make himself look a little better?  A little tougher?  A little stronger?  It’s like he’s on the defense, dude, and it’s kind of funny to watch, but sad at the same time because I’m still mourning over the fact of what a douche this guy is.”

Tango sighs and rests his chin on his fists, choking on the cigar smoke a little.

“One thing I know as 100% fact is…  I never went to the powers that be to get a rematch for the SC Title.  A, I wouldn’t do that, bruh.  Let the chips fall where they may, right?  B, I’ve had about enough of sharing space with Peter Vaughn as he’s expressed about me.  I earned the first match against him, which was a done deal.  Beat.  Then my team whoops him at War Games…  Like…  A near clean sweep as we planned to do.  The way Peter is handling this whole thing is out of this world…  First of all, as crappy as a partner that he is, he’s blaming the entire rest of his team for leaving him alone with the 4 of us.  Which, yeah, it’s a bad situation to be in and all, but W.T.F.?!  What’d you expect, right?  I TOLD them I drafted the best team at War Games and after getting his butt rocked by us, Peter finally agreed with me that I had a genius draft and strategy through the whole thing.”

Tango laughs by himself at himself.  With himself.

“L-O-L… Not his EXACT words or anything, but holy cow does this guy run in circles.  He THOUGHT he had confidence in his team but apparently, he didn’t.  I mean, so he never did, or what?!”

Tango stops and holds out his hand to the Stranger as if to hush him before he could say anything…  Which he wasn’t going to.

“Before you say anything, I’m NOT trying to pick this guy apart.  But, man, he’s like a basket of fruit!  Let me do this again.  Ahem.”

Our hero clears his throat and sits up straight.

“He THOUGHT he had confidence in his team, but instead, he spent a few good minutes complaining about them and blaming them for pretty much their entire downfall.  Which, yeah, if you’re going to blame anyone for your team losing, I guess it would be your team.  But he shouldn’t have acted like he had anything else to say about it.  It’s not like it was back and forth or anything, we whooped their butts man!  It was pretty pitiful listening to the guy make excuses and try to twist things around on ME to make ME look any less than a winner.  Yeah, I didn’t WIN War Games.  And yeah, I saved NK for last.  And yeah, I realize if I waited LAST to come in than I would’ve been fresher and MAYBE made it to the end to beat the NEW Uni Champ myself…  But instead, I chose to begin the match like the great leader that I was.  Vaughn can try to twist and contort it any way he wants to but the truth can only be bent, it can’t broken.  It was my great draft, my expert strategizing, all of our skill, and our comradery that lead us to victory that night.  One-by-one, starting with Thaddeus Duke, we picked off each member of that team until we all ganged up on Vaughn….  L-O-L…  This guy.  How else was that supposed to work?  What’d he think we were playing?  Dragon Ball Z and we were the Z fighters and he was some big bad like Cell or Frieza?!  Did he think we would do some stupid noble thing and line up one at a time to challenge him?  C’mon, bruh.  What crap is that?!  Did he think we were still playing Final Fantasy and the War Games match was going to turn into a turn-based, timed battle?  Then he backed off and said, well…  the Avengers did it and I would've done it, too!!  This guy has more excuses for why he’s so terrible at this than Mastermind has losses in his career…  Heck, that even covers his most recent return where he had a big 2 match winning streak.”

The image in the cloud morphs and changes to different scenes of Peter Vaughn abandoning the match he was in.  First, it shows the tag team match that started all of this.  Then it moved onto the next week when Vaughn tagged with other members of the global enterprise CCPE.  Then it showed Vaughn standing on the ramp at War Games and NK shouting at him…..

COWARD!

“NK has a thing with words, doesn’t he?  Is that all it took?  Someone calling Vaughn out and exposing him for the uh…  COWARD that he is?  Ya know, before that I never really considered it cowardice, honestly.  I really just thought the guy was a selfish jerk that only looked out for himself.  Which, he also admitted to be true…  But somehow, the words of NK and the weeks and weeks of our little spat changed him.  He is NOT a coward and he’s no longer walking away from losing situations!  He’s going to face the battle head-on and, win or lose, sticking it out to the very end!  No more backing away!  No more screwing people over!  He’s turned a new leaf!  He’s a…  better person?”

“I wonder if he went back and listened to that for himself at all…  If he did, did he hear how pathetic he sounded throughout the whole thing?  I mean, he did try his absolute best to protect whatever decent reputation he has left around here by blaming everyone and everything around but him.  I should’ve known, bruh, back when he blamed me for losing the match to NK and Flynn.  I don’t have to go on about that at this point, though, ya know?  We’ve already driven that home a couple of times.  I’ll tell ya this though, whether or not Peter says he’s doing things a little differently now, it’s not going to be for any of the right reasons.  I’m pretty sure he’s still the guy that’s going to keep missing the bus and blaming the bus schedule.  He’ll blame the referees when his favorite curling team fails to SWEEP their way to a championship.  Are there refs in curling??  There’d have to be, right?  *SHRUG*  The whole failed invasion thing when he first came in?  Peter tried coming in like a wrecking ball, but womp womp, he failed to even crack the wall.  He even blamed THAT on the failing organization, when in reality…  It was his weak hand that couldn’t get the job done.  Ya can’t tell me he wasn’t the ring leader of that circus, bruh.  And even after that miserable attempt to take over or whatever, he was still in a spot to do something great.  Which, if you wanna talk about things forgettable, that Universal Title reign was nothing to write home about.  A few good rounds of Tetris where a couple perfect blocks came his way is all that was.  As soon as he got to Level 3 and the difficulty went up, game over!  Back to the beginning you go, but hey, it didn’t take long for him to rise back up, did it?  Take the knocks, accept that you’ve been knocked down a peg and keep going!  I suppose that’s one good quality he has, when he gives up on one goal, he’ll pick up on another lesser, easier goal.  It’s good to have goals!  It’s good to have the thought of someday soaring with the eagles in the Hall of Legends.  It’s good to think that someday you’ll be recognized as a great champion in the XWF…  It’s great to think that you’ll actually be remembered…  but I hate to break it to the guy…  Sure, he’s a champ, but he’s barely caused any waves what-so-ever.  I’ve been here for close to 8 years, am I a former Uni Champ?  Negative!  But!  The XWF does everything BUT throw a dang parade every time I return to the ring.  Sure, a lot of people don’t come to the party, but those that do remember me and all the minor but great things I’ve done in the past.  I’ve made impressions.  I’ve turned some heads, INCLUDING Vaughn’s now…  Would he have bailed on me like he did knowing what he knows now?  Probably not.  L-O-L.  Should I have reached out the second we were booked and tried to kindle a fire between us?  Should I have mentioned that it may not show all the time but I DO have great potential?  There!  Another thing Peter can deflect!  It’s all my fault that he bailed on me because I didn’t tell him I could carry my own weight.  I---”

Suddenly, a couple of loud crashes can be heard nearby, further in the woods.  Followed by a loud screech.

“What the crap was that?!”

Tango looks to the stump where the Stranger sat before and he’s gone as well as the cloud of smoke above his head.  Bailed.  Where he sat was a scroll rolled up with a red ribbon around it next to a short dagger.

“REALLY, DUDE?!  YOU’RE AS BAD AS PETER FRIGGIN VAUGHN!”

Tango looks towards the ruckus and see’s trees shaking and some falling over one by one as something big makes its way towards him.  With little time to spare, he snatches up the scroll and dagger then races towards the other side of the hollow.  Tango quickly slides behind a giant rock and repositions himself to look back just as a majestic griffin stumbles out into the hollow.

“Eureka!”

Tango excitedly whispers to himself.  His journey just became A LOT easier…  Well, sorta.  He still has to slay the dragon, but a griffin just walking out in the open for him?  But, there’s still one problem.  Tango is completely unequipped for this fight.  Carrying the confidence of the warrior that had a 67/201 Kill/Death ratio against other beasts….  Tango believed in the impossible…  All he had was a longbow that he grabbed in the market and a mostly full quiver of wooden arrows….

“Okay..  How bad do you want this.”

He takes a couple of quick breaths and then a long, deep one before stepping out into the open!  Awkwardly pulling back an arrow on his bow to take aim and it feels like he’s never once held one before even though he has fired one hundreds or even thousands of times.  The griffin grunts and limps to under a tree where it lies down and it takes a long, depressing breath.  Tango notices a gash taken out of the beast’s side; a long strip of flesh shows beneath its leathery skin.

“It’s hurt….”

A rush of compassion rushes over Tango, inadvertently thinking out loud, and he suddenly feels sympathy for the beast.  Could he attack and kill and already maimed creature?  Maybe he could just sneak up beside it and pluck a couple of feathers out.  OR!  Being in a fantasy world such as this could make this a sophisticated creature!  Maybe it can speak and communicate with Tango and he could possibly ask or barter for a bunch of its feathers.  He takes a couple of steps forward when it notices him and lets out a squeaky squawk to intimidate this approaching stranger…  But he recognizes a call for help when he hears one.

“Hey pal!  It’s okay!  I’m not gonna hurt ya!”

He calmly shouts it across the hollow towards the beast.  The body was that of a lion and was bulky and muscular.  Its head, an eagle with smooth, white and silver feathers that shined in the light.  Tango takes a slow approach, but the creature looks tired and is going nowhere.  It either accepts its fate, or finds no threat from the incoming adventurer….  Your guess is as good as mine.

“Are you hurt?  You look hurt…  I wanna help, okay??  I know first aid!”

The griffin screeches out again, but has too little energy to do much more.  Tango makes it to the side where the gash is and examines it…

“Awe man…  Something got you good, huh?”

It grunts lightly back at him and looks at Tango with sad, gentle eyes.  The two make eye contact and Tango accidentally lets an empathetic tear slip out.  Looking to the wound in the side of the creature one last time, Tango heads into the woods to look for some giant leaves or something to create a bandage for it.

*SNIFF*  “I’ll be right back, buddy!  Sit tight!  I’ll get you fixed up real good!”

He leaves the hollow and searches for a while around the area before he found a group of trees with large, banana leaf-sized leaves hanging from the branches.  They were light and very large, so they would work perfect for a make-shift bandage for the griffin.  So, he gathered up as many as he could carry and headed back.  When he reached the hollow, the griffin was still resting and huddled up under a tree.  Tango approached slowly and carefully patched up the beast without it attempting to rip his head off.

“There we go!  We kinda got a lack of medical supplies out here, but heck man, nature finds a way, right?”

The griffin perks up and stares at tango with its beady, yet gentle eyes.  It bows its head in what Tango found a form of gratitude, so he bows his head back.

“Heh…  I may need to ask a favor for ya back later, pal, but we’ll wait until you heal up before I ask.”

Tango looks back to the wound he mended and it saddens him.  He knew what he came out here to do, but seeing such an elegant creature in distress like this just broke his heart.  Is this all just a game?  He grew pretty close to Game Girl in their last adventure and she’s from here…  She seemed pretty real to him.  Perhaps, he thought, maybe these quests aren’t as linear as they first appeared.  He reaches out with his head, veerrrrrry cautiously, towards the griffin’s head.  Closer and closer until he’s caressing the beast’s scalp with his hand; petting it.

“There we go…  Does that feel good?  You’re not so scary up close.”

Tango takes his hand away and the griffin squawks at him and jumps, making Tango almost jump out of his suit.

“Geez Louise!  Chill!”

And he immediately goes back to petting it.

“Ya know, I think what Peter’s problem is that he doesn’t have any loyalty.”

He leans in towards the creature and laughs.

“I know you don’t know who Peter is…  But he’s a guy that is kinda lined up for a wake-up call.  Long story short…”

Tango continues petting the griffin, explaining his story to the beast.  It lied, comforted by the company of a gentle stranger, and listened to Tango’s tale to the end.

“…  And THAT’S why you should be careful mixing ANYTHING with bleach…  I mean, I would think he’s too young for serious signs of dementia, but he’s been so back and forth with this stuff that I don’t really know WHAT he would do.  He calls me out for one thing then follows up with how he would do the same thing, too.  He calls me out for the way I drafted, the way I set the line-up, the way I was eliminated, the way I somehow managed to be back in this same spot fighting him.  I don’t get it!  We won War Games.  I made it to the final four, yet, I don’t deserve to be here…  Well, whatever, I don’t decide who gets what and when they get it.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m rambling and you probably don’t have a care in the world right now besides some rest…  But it’s good to have someone else to talk to other than that creepy old dude that I keep running into.  So, anyway, I guess the powers above decided to give Peter a slight advantage going into this one since he beat me last time.  He gets the ol’ TV Title treatment and is allowed to name uhhhhhh… match stipulation, I guess?  Which is cool.  Let’s make this interesting so when I win, Peter has at least a thousand more excuses to come up with to cover up his loss.  After all, I’m a nobody from Anarchy that he’s never heard of.  Yeah, cuz he wasn’t here when I was dancing around the Madness and Warfare rosters back when he was still applying to the Community College for Custodial Arts to learn his true craft.  I’ve been around and regardless of what I’ve gotten done in my time here, the past is the past.  It’s all about what I get done NOW.  Peter should be careful talking all of this smack about me being absolutely nothing because it’s all gonna circle back around to him when he's knocked down another peg and he tries to climb back up.  People are gonna shove a boot right on his head and send him right back down in the mop bucket.  If I’m a joke?  What’s that make Bourbon?  And Waters?  And Ghost Tank?  What does that make the Television Title.  I don’t care if I only held it after one defense, it still belonged to me.  And you know what’s great about all this?  I accept the fact that I’ve not been a true contender in this place, maybe never.  But I’ve never made a single excuse as to why I’ve never reached that level.  I’ve never thrown the blame elsewhere and, to be honest, I’ve never even really placed the blame on myself.  What is there to blame?  I just need to try harder.  Train better.  And become a competitor.  If it has to officially start with Peter Vaughn and the Supercontinental Title?  I can handle that.”

“Back to his stipulation….  He’s planning on ending my career with this one.  PLANNING to.  Or at least put me out for a while or keep me out of the title picture or whatever he’s doing.  Whatever, bruh.  So, it’s a LAST MAN RISING match.  Okay, THAT’S a dumb name.  Not clever at all and doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.  What if Peter gets up from his nap as I’m grabbing the title while up on the scissor lift?  He’d be the last man to rise, wouldn’t he?  Ugh.  I dunno.  I have a thing for….  dumb ideas, I guess.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool idea for a match and all, but the name just….  Eeesh…  So, yeah, we fight in the ring and head towards the lift where the title’s hanging somewhere above….  OKAY.  I have questions.  How high is this title gonna hang and how high does this lift go?  I mean, the standard ladder match has the title hanging above the ring 20 feet, which is pretty high.  Are we talking 30 feet?  40?  50 feet?  Some of those lifts are pretty high and I don’t know how high the school gym windows he cleans really go…  but that’s something to talk about, right?  And why are we fighting to the place where this is all going down?  The lift has wheels, doesn’t it?  We should park the thing by the ring, drive up the ramp to the top of the entrance stage, and have to raise that thing ALL the way up to get it.  We might as well make use of what we got right?  I’m just trying to make this more interesting and better, bruh.  I know the things only go like a half mph, but still!  I think it’d be cool to drive one.”

Tango notices the sun pulling away and steps away from the griffin.  It squawks at him again.

“Just hang on a minute.”

Tango cleans off a spot on the ground and builds a campfire with some rocks and a bit of wood that he’s gathered already since the start of his new journey.  He lights the fire with an arrowhead and a rock, something he learned from cub scouts, not from being a badass rogue last time.

“If I lose, I’m fine with never fighting Peter again.  Since the start, what I thought was the start of something cool, he rejected me.  Made sense, didn’t it?  I figured a guy like him knew how to read warning labels and would’ve noticed that there’s more to me than a few short stints on Anarchy.  There’s tapes, bruh.  A lot of tapes.  He’s acting like I don’t belong in the XWF and its my doing that I keep moonwalking back into his life over and over again.  Well, now its with a purpose, I guess.  I’ll be honest, like I always am, I was never really interested in the SC Title and I’ve said this.  I mean, it mattered, but before it was a means to get something else.  Before Peter revealed what a peter he is, I had high hopes in something that could have been invincible.  Unstoppable.  Courageous and bold!  But, Peter is none of those things as he totally openly admitted to all of us, which he didn’t have to because it was pretty obvious after he’s acted like a b-i-t-c-h for, like, months.  It doesn’t really matter at this point whatever he woulda or coulda did before.  It definitely doesn’t matter what he's gonna do now.  When I beat him in his Last Man Rising match, stupid name, he’s gonna have a lot to answer for.  And, just because I’ve always been that kind of guy and even though I wouldn’t mind a signed agreement to not be involved with Peter again for a while, I would still welcome him back to close that janitor’s closet once and for all.  As stupid of a name this match has, it’s funny because I could be considered on some sort of rise, couldn’t I?  There’s only one way to go when you’re at the bottom, right?  Well, Peter’s only had one way to go, too.  Just like the rest of us, Peter’s going to have a chance to start at the bottom.  I’ve been to Savage, but I’m like Duke…  I’m a Warfare guy.  Actually, I play roller derby on Saturdays, so yeah, there’s that.  So, I’ll be sticking to Warfare for a while, WITH the Supercontinental Championship around my waist and Peter can go back to cleaning up the ring between matches.  I know, these janitor shots are too much.”

Tango looks over to the beast and sees that it’s sleeping now.  The sun still hasn’t made it past the horizon, but close, so it leaves an orange glow over the landscape.  He admires how beautiful this place is and wonders how rent is compared to his place in LA.  Finding himself a cozy rock to lean against next to the campfire, he leans back against it and stares into the flame.  He figures he may as well stay here tonight, and tomorrow negotiate with his new friend about these feathers he needs.  Remembering the scroll that the Stranger left him earlier, he pulls it out, cuts the ribbon with the dagger, and examines it.  It’s a map!  It has the whole world on there!  The city, the palace just beside it, Mt. Final Boss, the Lost Woods, the Ugly Marshes, and a dark tower on the far top right side of it.

“Huh, I never heard about that place.”

He notices that there are different waypoints on several different places along the path that he took here, including one back in the city.  On the bottom of the map there’s a legend that explains the obvious symbols used, but beside the waypoint symbol it says: WAYPOINT/FAST TRAVEL.

“Fast travel?!  No way…”

He examines the map a bit longer before rolling it up and putting it away.  As he drifts into slumber, he hears a loud whooshing sound then the griffin screeching out in agony!

“Gotcha!  You slithery bastard!  Thought you could outrun ME?!

Tango nearly has a heart attack and nearly rolls into the fire as this chaos unfolds.  A tall, burly man with hair as red as fire leaps out from the trees wielding an axe.  He’s already thrown one from where he was standing that flipped its way into the neck of the griffin.

With the axe sticking into its neck, it staggers to its feet and belts out a deafening shriek making Tango plug his ear holes and sends the man flying back from where he stood, slamming him against a tree!

“What’s going on?!  Who the heck are you?!”

The man gets up almost immediately and laughs as he brushes himself off.

“HA!  HA!  HA!  Got a little fight left in ya, DO YA?!  Well….”

The man puts the axe away and pulls out a long, fiery, barbed chain whip and cracks it in the air.  The griffin shrieks again and takes a defensive stance.

“….  LET’S CUT THAT OUT OF YA!”

Tango watches the two rush each other.  The griffin seemed a lot better than it was before as it bit and clawed at the man, each time missing.  The man, however, successfully connected with strikes several times leaving more of the same types of wounds across the griffin’s body.

“Stop!  STOP!”

The Blue Tango screamed!

“STOP FIGHTING!”

Tango takes hold of his bow and aims an arrow at the man, aiming for the shoulder or head.  He pulls back and releases it too early!  It flutters away and hits the man in the knee!

“AHHHHHHH!  WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YA?!”

The griffin swats at the man as he is distracted by the arrow to the knee and takes him down.  It takes a couple of hops and retreats, spreading its glorious wings and flying away.  The man looks up to Tango from the ground with eyes as red as his hair.

“You stupid bastard!  What were you thinking?!  I had it!”

Tango drops his bow to the ground and takes a step back.

“I--  I--  I’m”

The man gets up and pulls the arrow cleanly out of his knee.  He walks over to Tango who is still kind of frozen in place and holds out the arrow.

“I think ya dropped sumethin’”

The man cocks an eyebrow and snaps his fingers in a still stunned Tango’s face.

“Hello?  Anyone in there?  It’s gone ya wussy.  No need to fear.”

Tango, trembling, slowly looks over to the man.

“It…  It was my friend.”

The man was in the process of taking a drink from some flask he pulled off of his sash and spits it up.

“Friend?!  That was a man-eatin’ monster you dumb, stupid, little man.  Are you not from around here?”

The man’s accent was thick and kind of hard to understand..  Like, Irish, or something, Tango thought.

“Well, no.”

“THAT explains it.  Damn tourists.  That thing is NO friend, lad.  What’d you do?  Patch him up so he could eat ya sooner?”

“He was a gentle beast!”

“ACK…!  You must not know him very well.  For weeks he’s been killing off herds of cattle in all the farms around the land.  And a few people have come up missin’, in fact.  The thing’s a damn menace to the world, just as the rest of this demonic beasts are around here.  He was probably just waitin’ to heal up enough and for you to let your guard down to strike.”

“I—”

“AND ya wouldn’t have even seen it comin’.  Before ya knew it the thing woulda been chewin’ on your liver.” 

Tango stands in awe of this NEW stranger that has come into the picture…

“So, what brings you out here, griffin-bait?”

“Well, I’m on uhhhh, sort of quest.”

"A quest, ya say?!  I know all about quests!"

Tango pulls out his quest log and shows it to the man, explaining his situation to him regarding the armor and items.

“Ah, I see, well…  Dragons are nothing to come by!  You could be out for a walk in the middle of the day and one could swoop down to take yer head off.  BUT, it appears you and I have some similar interests then!”

The man slams his index finger down on what’s written about the griffin.  Tango looks over to where the battle just happened and sees a bunch of feathers scattered about on the ground.  He points to them, but the man slaps his hand down.

“Ohhhh, no.  You cost me that one, lad.  You’re coming with me and we’re killing that bastard.”

“No way, bruh!  I have what I need RIGHT there!  I need to get back to the lab and THEN get back to---”

Tango is interrupted again.

“You can take your little feathers, but ya ARE coming with me.  If anything, you’d make some good bait again, right?”

“Please stop calling me griffin-bait.”

“HA!  HA!”

The man laughs loudly and his voice echoes throughout the hollow causing some birds or bats to flee out of nearby trees around them.  He slaps Tango on the back with a firm hand.

“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em, laddy!  You led me right to the beast with your fire and left it with its guard down enough for me to sneak attack!  It was perfect!”

Tango thinks about it…  If this crazy guy was telling the truth and wasn’t just out poaching it, he DID save his life.  He didn’t know enough about griffins to really have a solid opinion on their normal behavior, besides this one.  But if it was killing off people’s livestock…  Would this be the right thing to do?

“Who are you, anyway?”

The man stands tall and holds his fists to his hips.

“I am Simon Belmont of the Belmont Family.  Vampire hunter.”

“Vampire hunter?!  There are vampires, too?”

“You ARE new…  There’s everything out here, lad.  If you can imagine it in a nightmare, it exists.”

Tango takes a hard gulp and almost reconsiders…  But considering he’s with what seemed to be a renowned hunter of vampires, he might not have that much to worry about.

“Alright, I’ll do it.”


QUEST ACCEPTED – SIMON’S QUEST!


“It’s bleeding pretty good, we should be able to track it down by mornin’.”

“Morning?  Dude, it’s gonna be pitch black out.”

“HA!  Night time is no time to rest out here, lad…  That’s when the real devil bastards come out.  We’ll have to stay on our guard, I’ve got torches, but the beasties will definitely be out to play.”

Just as Simon says that, the sun takes its last look of Narfinex and passes behind the horizon.  A loud wolf howl can be heard and the environment around them changes.  The trees and other plant life wither and the ground around them begins to dig itself up.

“Ah!  The party’s startin’ already!”

Simon cracks his whip while Tango watches in horror as hands lead to arms shooting out from the ground.

“Are ya familiar with the undead, laddy?  They go right down if you take their heads!”

As one crawls out from the ground, Simon steps on it, crushing it.  Tango throws up in his mouth a little and flees away to the rock he hid from the griffin at first.

“Baaaah….  Get back in here ya little lamb!  They won’t bite!”

Just then one crawls over and bites Simon in the ankle.

“GAAAAAAH!!!  YA BASTARD!”

He lifts his leg up and stomps another head!

“Alright, I guess they do!  But get yer arse over here and---  What the hell are ya doing?!”

Tango pulls the scroll of the map out of his inventory and examines it closely again.  He shakes it and blows on it.  Getting frustrated and realizing that some other undead fiends are approaching, he licks his finger and places it over the waypoint for the palace.  Still nothing.

“Yer missin’ all the fun!”

What Simon is doing does look fun…  Swinging his axe with one hand and whipping his flame engulfed whip around with the other just massacring these undead popping out of the ground.  Tango desperately thinks of something else and grabs the dagger.  As he brings it close to the map, it begins to glow brightly as well as the waypoints marked out.  As he brings the tip of the knife forward, he’s bumped by an undead and it slips ahead onto something else.  Just as the undead is about to take a bite from Tango’s shoulder…  He vanishes into thin air!