Introducing Fletcher

• Posted by Mercurias January 26, 2017 - Filed in TSC: Skyrim - 1,464 views

  ((Hello there! Just slapped this together in one writing session for fun and wanted to play with the blog function to see how it'd work. Pray for me. I'll hopefully be adding a lot more detail about this character later, and with luck you might enjoy him.))

   

  One of these days, Fletcher thought to himself through the sound of chitin pinging off of dwarven metal, I'm going go get myself a shield. A massive, full-body, head-to-toe body protector, and I'm going to do it just because I can't stand the headache I get from these damned...Bug arrows!

  
  He pulled the crank back on the crossbow in his hands, then raised it one-handed, sighted an approaching Falmer carrying some sort of bug stick, and fired. The snap of the bow's string- really more of a cable, he mentally corrected- helped him come back to his senses and appreciate that, though the primitive shaman was punched through the air with a satisfying crunch, there were suddenly a LOT of others to take the crone's place.

   

  "I'm going to have to re-use arrows without cleaning them first," he grumbled to himself, accompanied to the hiss of steam as the pistons in his gauntlets assisted him in re-cocking the weapon. "I hate dirty arrows."

   

  With an angry sigh accompanying the angry escape of steam from his dwemer armor, the pack containing today's spoils clanged to the ground, the noise echoing through the massive chamber. The crossbow was carefully nestled against the niche molded into his armor for it, and he reached into the larger quiver into his back, holding four wooden longbows, carved with faintly glowing runes. An arrow was plucked from the smaller quiver just next to it and nocked to the bow with speed born from mechanical assistance and long practice. The orc's grumbling was soon drowned out by a sizzling noise as the bow's runes began to slide into the wood of the arrow, then burst into flame as the shaft was freed on its way, its arc carrying it over the front runner of the crowd and into the next one carrying a staff.

   

  Another arrow loosed, another staff-holder fell. And another, and another, until the group was nearly in front of him, mouths open wide in grotesque parodies of empty eye sockets.

   

  Fletcher growled to himself as the bow-stave went back into its quiver next to the others, the crossbow came back out for one more snapshot, and then slammed a gleaming metal fist into a hidden button on his own chest.

  
  The armor hissed again, and then it screamed.

   

  Steam blasted from the 'mouth' of Fletcher's helm as the pressure from each of his armor's pistons was forced all at once through a single aperture, and all of the driving force and heat crashed into the front lines of the Falmer like a flaming battering ram, causing many of them to bowl over those behind them.
  Fletcher took his hand off the button, moving much more sluggishly now that the heavy mail was only propelled by his muscles, and carefully nocked one quarrel to his crossbow, having to grit his teeth and squeeze every bit of his normal strength in order to do so. Taking it in two hands, he sighted the first of the pasty elves to sit up, then put his shot right into the thing's forehead.

   

  "Next!" bellowed the orc, clumsily putting the crossbow away once again in favor of one of the wooden models. The feathers of one final arrow touched the cheek of his molded metal helm, and he waited, silently giving a small prayer to any god that would listen for his bluff to work. It was going to be a good five minutes before his armor had enough steam to be anything but an impediment.

   

  Three more heads popped up. One rocked back with a sparking arrow in its throat, dead. "Either this is punishment for not praying enough," he snarled as he tried to force one final arrow from his quiver, "Or this is one of those reasons I don't bother praying enough."

   

  He didn't make it in time. One of those in the back -probably the smartest ones, he thought to himself- began to step over bodies, waving his chitinous axe triumphantly as he raced to be the one to deal the killing blow. Fletcher, with no other options, roared a wordless battle cry and forced his left fist into the mer's cheek, transferring the bow's enchantment directly from the wood to the now-jerking elf's face.

   

  "NEXT!"

   

  Four and a half minutes later, when Fletcher's armor finally began to hiss again, the cavern was empty of anything living, but a goodly number of bodies. Wordlessly, the blood-streaked metal suit bent down, picked up the large pack again, and began to slowly march away.

   

  Sometimes the best way to take advantage of luck is to not push it.