For What of a Better Term

Dakk chomped on the cigar butt, while adjusting the bolt on the Golem. 

"Hold still, Bekki," he muttered to the big bucket of bolts. "Just a few more turns and you'll be ready for action." 

His hands strained against the wrench, he heard the rust of the screw grind with the metal. This baby had been motionless in the water for several decades. 

"Dakk, you still working on the piece of crap?" August asked as he walked into the workshop. "With all the gold that you got you could buy yourself five or six armour suits; why are you sticking with that crap!" 

"You don't know the whole story, Auggie," Dakk said. "This girl is just getting warmed up." 

"Looks like she's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay past her prime," August said with a chuckle. "Just scrap that rusty eyesore before you get ill." 

Before August knew it a huge wrench zinged past his head and clanged against the wall. 

"What?" August stammered. 

"You watch what you say about a lady now," Dakk told him in a stern voice. "She may be old and rusted but still it doesn't make her useless!"

Barbarian

As the innkeeper finished his tale an eerie silence fell upon the ramshackle inn. The lone stranger at the corner table smiled beneath the shadow of his hooded cloak and took a long pull from his tankard of ale. 

The tale was good, though well embellished. The battle of that evening so long ago had not been so heroic or romantic as the innkeeper's telling made it out to be, but such was always the case with battle tales told by those who had played no role in the fray. He couldn't blame the man for taking liberties with the facts; the old fellow had an inn to run after all, and a good tale was good for business. 

The serving girl came his way but the stranger waved her off; he'd had his fill of ale and of his own past for one night. 

Rising, he collected his sword from where it leaned against the wall next to the table. Its unnaturally perfect metal disguised with dirty leather strips and a worn scabbard so as not to attract unwanted attention. He was here to remember his past, not to relive it. 

As the barbarian reached the door he turned back for a last look on the place where his adventures had begun. What a foolish boy he had been to think that life was so simple. Back then he would have been satisfied to make a place such as this his home, but no longer. Not after all he had seen. His home was among the stars, and to the stars he must go. He felt them calling him. 

The door swung shut and the lone figure was gone, swallowed whole by the darkness of the night outside. 

In the blackness far above a single star streaked across the sky.

The Honor of One

Chem stayed in the darkness of shadow, watching the three hooded assassins jump from building to building. He had received a tip from one of his informants that there was a 5,000 gold contract on the new owner of The Hag's Head Tavern. 

"It's to be done at midnight. The witching hour," his informant had said in a raspy voice. "They are to make her bleed slowly and cut her open with a thousand little cuts." 

"Do you know why?" Chem inquired. He had just paid the informant a small gem.  

"Tis because the owner is a witch," the informant said in a low voice. "She had put a hex on a merchant's son. The son died a horrible, disfiguring death and the merchant wants his revenge." 

Chem now waited for the three to strike. He watched as they moved about, fast and silent like shadows over a field. His nose picked up the scent of two men approaching from behind. He was set up!