Not Heroes

The grizzled veteran looked up from the finger he had been diligently sawing at with his knife.

“Huh?”

“I says,” his small friend repeats, not taking his eyes from the bugbear’s finger—and more importantly the ring on it—”it must be magical, else why’s it so damn hard to remove?”

“Not you.  Him.” The veterans gestures to me with the knife, and the smaller man finally notices.

“Oh! You’re the scribe, ain’t ya?”

I nod.

“Thought Goan was minding you.”

“He was. He died yesterday.” I think back to the unfortunate, nervous Goan. He had eyes that had darted around like spooked birds. They weren't vigilant enough, apparently, to avoid the dripping slime that burned a hole straight through him. It had taken him longer to die than I would have thought, but die he did despite the cleric’s efforts.

“Ah,” the veteran says with a tone that refuses to commit to either sympathy or disinterest. The smaller man just nods, and seems a bit embarassed.

“I’m looking for the captain.”

The veteran points with a thumb, slick and glistening with what must be bugbear ichor. “Down that passage. He’s at the door with the mage.”

I head down the rough-hewn passage, stepping around more bugbear carcasses, leaving the adventurers to their work.

The two did eventually succeed in getting the ring. The small man (his name was Orven) was right: it was magical. It allowed the wearer to breath underwater--which saved Orven from a judicial drowning in Nharm, but helped him not at all when months later someone drowned him in a cask of cheap wine and cut the ring from his hand.