Deep down in the cavernous bowels of Bánánach Hole, the cacophonous clangour of a skirmish already in progress rang throughout the multitude of prehistoric burrows. From out of the shadows, a glint of silver arced horizontally through a legion of reanimated skeletal warriors, hewing through their ancient bones and decrepit armour like they were constructed from wet clay, while their own dull, rusted weaponry failed to even make so much as a scratch in the consecrated, pearl plate mail of their aggressor. Withstanding the brunt of this sub-par counterattack stood Sir Enno Brandrok, proud paladin from the esteemed Order of Kartoffel, brandishing a lustrous broadsword in his right hand and a polished shield in the other, wearing a hood on his head fashioned from the head of a fearsome brown bear he had personally slain and a black eyepatch over his eye.
Though his descriptor up to this point may conjure images of an imposing, grizzled veteran hardened and jaded by years of service in combat, Enno was - in reality - a halfling boy who just barely broke past three and a half feet in total stature! His height combined with the vibrant candyfloss-pink colour of his swooped hair, his soft, cute features and his optimistic disposition made him moreso resemble a toy soldier rather than a stalwart knight. Even the eyepatch was mainly a purely cosmetic choice (much to the reproval of his partner). Appearances aside, Enno's courage was second-to-none, and his swordsmanship went unparalleled compared with many of his peers, perhaps only being outperformed in this battle by his current adventuring companion.
Darting past where the core of the conflict was concentrated was Runa, a young woman of the Bronzeknuckle Clan: a dwarven dynasty famed for its long line of hand-to-hand martial artists whose fists were rumoured to be as solid as ingots of metal. She wove in and out of the miscellaneous undead with surprising agility for one of her bulky physique, delivering swift and precise punches and kicks to the exposed joints of each fleshless opponent she passed, shattering their bones to powder with but single strikes, gradually making her way towards the rearmost extremity of the chamber.
Runa measured slightly taller than that of the halfling at about four feet, and was built like a stout wall of muscle and sinew from decades of honing her body and skills since early childhood, a fact apparent even under her unpretentious wayfaring clothes, which were in stark contrast to Enno's ornamental armaments. Her grimacing face was rugged and blemished with several fading contusions gained from recent scuffles and a slight boxer's nose gained from a not-so-recent sparring match, though still possessed a set of handsome features framed by a sturdy jawline. Her hazel eyes were sharp and smouldered constantly with a fire of determination, a trait further reflected in the routine shaving of her head for reasons both spiritual and practical (giving enemies less opportunities to yank any part of her during a fight for one thing), never allowing her chestnut hair to grow any longer than a quarter inch if she could help it.
Steadily, Runa approached ever closer towards her intended target: a cornered kobold, outfitted in tattered black robe far too baggy for his small body, who had taken up the taboo art of necromancy and began terrorising a local village with his amateur resurrections. The reptilian wizard watched on in frozen panic with his back to the wall as nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of compact muscle was systematically snapping his minions like twigs before bounding directly towards the stunned villain with the spontaneity of a detonated cannonball faster than the mage could recite a spell to protect himself with. The dwarf stopped just shy of stepping on his toes, grabbed the frightened yapper by the collar of his cloak and collided her bulbous forehead with his snout, smashing the cartilage and instantly knocking the kobold unconscious, severing the mental link sustaining the skeletons' artificial spirits and causing them to crumble to the dust where they would resume their eternal rest. Such a limitation was usually the mark of an inadequate magician.
"Bronzeknuckle Family Technique: Pacifyin' Kiss o' th' Iron Cliff-face!" Runa stated the name of her attack aloud with unironic sobriety, even if the one on the receiving end of the technique was currently unable to hear it. Her proclamation was responded however by the fervent, clattering claps of the paladin's gauntleted hands as he stood amongst a pile of time-worn bones and equipment a few metres behind.
"Yeah! Alright, Runa! Woo! Cliff-face Kiss! You go!" Enno awkwardly - but eagerly - cheered alone in the ghostly silence which had abruptly supplanted the din of conflict. The martial artist felt more embarrassed than she would have been with a larger audience to astound her feats with, though simultaneously also felt relieved that no-one else could witness her companion congratulate her in such a puerile manner for subduing such an unworthy foe. Without a word, Runa picked up the limp, comatose soma of the miniature lizardman and slung him over her shoulder to haul back to the nearby hamlet for its residents to enact judgement for his crimes by means they saw fit.
Runa and Enno had been familiar with each other for some weeks before setting out on this simple quest, the former on a self-imposed journey of personal betterment while the latter was undergoing a pilgrimage as a rite of passage in becoming a grandmaster in his order. Both had a strong sense of morality - though Enno's quixotic outlook would often clash with Runa's brutal pragmatism - and both had been drifting between various parties in the months they had been adventuring, helping the common folk wherever aid was sorely needed, before they eventually met and formed a fellowship following a successful stint of bodyguarding a child empress against would-be assassins.
Funds had been running low for the diminutive duo in recent days however due to a series of poorly planned splurges and one instance of campsite theft that had reduced them to surviving on their last few coppers by the time they passed through the farming community of Mihtleas, where they agreed with the village's mayor to undertake the task of looking into a series of local grave robbings with the hopes of receiving a slight recompense for their troubles. The detective work involved in discovering the culprit's hideout within a hillside cave on the outskirts of town took little more than twenty-four hours, and the effective immediate apprehension of said culprit took less than three. It was a job far below either of their levels of expertise, though with such a shortage of alternate options coming their way, they had little choice but to accept if they wanted to continue eating regularly for the foreseeable future.
The trek back to Mihtleas was uneventful, save for their captive rousing awake twice during the journey, which subsequently forced Runa to stun him once more with a couple well-placed elbow blows to the back of his cranium. Their return to the hamlet was met with great fanfare - at least as great of a fanfare that a village housing less than one hundred people could provide - the mayor standing forefront and centre of the small procession as the unmoving body of the necromancer was unceremoniously dumped at his feet by the dwarf.
"This is what's been the source of our troubles? One mischievous little ankle biter?" The elderly leader said in half-disbelief in regards to the captured kobold lain pathetically before him. "Why, we could have taken care of this one ourselves if we knew where to start looking!"
"Aye, well, ye didnae..." Runa passive-aggressively replied in her thick native accent, her scowl unchanging as she tried to keep the conversation as civil as possible in spite of her increasingly shortening temper over the whole tedious episode, all the while feeling her stomach rumbled behind her defined abdominal muscles from skipping breakfast that morning just to save her and Enno a couple extra pennies.
"Well...I suppose you did do what we asked of you. And quite efficiently too. It would look bad on my part not to uphold my end of the bargain." The mayor waved for a pair of young men behind himself to approach forth, carrying between them a wooden, cuboid trunk of adequate dimensions. "We don't have much to offer, but our most affluent citizens pulled together what they could spare and amassed what we believe to be a substantial reward for your efforts." The trunk was set down on the ground just in front of the dwarf and the halfling before the same young men picked the kobold up by his arms and presumably carried him away to the village militia's barracks, where he would be held in custody until a sentence could be decided. Runa gave a solemn bow along with a salute of her right fist pressed into her left palm, humbling herself as she made her gratitude known in traditional monk fashion. Without her knowledge, Enno mimicked the same gesture behind her without mocking intent in the same way a younger brother would innocently follow an elder sister's example.
"Seein' justice be done is reward in o' itsel', Laird Mayor...but we shall accept yer gracious gift, if such a thing means tha' much t' ye." Runa replied, attempting her best to play her desperation for funds as coolly as she could when, in actuality, she was anxious to return to their rented room at the local inn to tally up their payment. The elderly politician seemed convinced by her slight act judging from his wide smile, though the appraising of their rewards would have to be delayed when the elderly politician made his next proposal.
"You know, we were planning of throwing a celebratory feast at the town hall later today, with you two as our esteemed guests of honour of course, if you'd be so willing to attended."
"Gosh, we'd be delighted to!" Enno abruptly accepted the offer without even giving Runa the time to fully register the mayor's spoken words, let alone discuss the matter with the eager paladin, yet paradoxically refused to voice her objections as such an action would go against the code of etiquette her family prided themselves on.
Before either of them knew it, they were sat on a bench by a long table within a vast chamber and had just finished helping themselves to what had actually turned out to be a fairly hearty meal, especially for starved little folk such as themselves, though now both of them were subjected to the torture that was post-dinner purgatory, mandated to listen to half-remembered tales of the intoxicated mayor's youth while a mediocre band of minstrels plucked and thumped out-of-key and off-beat folk songs on untuned lutes and worn tambourines over the next microcosmic eternity. Not even the intervention of liquor could make the afternoon go by any faster, as neither Runa nor Enno partook in the regular consumption of alcohol either due to health or oaths. Enno even nodded off at one point from sheer boredom, prompting the dwarf to harshly nudge him awake so she would not be alone in her suffering in this prosaic recitation which he had agreed to on both their behalves without prior consent while neither of them possessed the degree of rude gall necessary to prematurely walk out on the dull discourse.
