Act 1 Scene 2: In the beginning there was an Inn to Begin in

The village of Ashton Upon Mercy is a quiet village. There are a couple of bookies for gullible locals to bet on the virtual finger puppet races. There is a shop selling fried snacks, mainly food stuff closely resembling potatoes, which has been known to have the locals visiting the apothecaries for weeks seeking leaches to cure their gut rot. There was a great excitement in the village once when a particularly crafty fox managed to rummage in some bins, even though they had a stone on the lid, a tale that has moved into folklore passed down from generation to generation.

In the far corner of the village is a tavern, this alehouse sells dangerously off beer, delightful snacks such as pickled chicken feet or salt and vinegar bats gonads and is populated by the most dangerous cutthroats, cut purses, cost-cutters, bandits, banditos, corsairs, brigands, ruffians, smoothians, brawlers, bawlers, influencers and Methodists in the area.

Over the track there is another pub which is even worse. This is the pub Val drinks in.

The old man with the droopy beard, droopy eyes and droopy other things sat at the out of tune piano playing ‘our mud hut’ by the band Plague Madness to the amusement of no one in the tavern, but that didn’t stop his enthusiasm for playing it. Repeatedly.

“Squiz up!” said the extremely tall, muscular lady as she sent the off-duty butcher nearly flying from the bench with her gentle nudge as she sat. “Check out me jugs!” Val declared happily as she opened up her knapsack full of dangerously sharp, badly made pottery “made ‘em meself!” she told the table with a sense of misplaced pride.

The merchant with the neatly parted three individual hairs on his head stared intently at the goods but this was mostly the double vision caused by his excessive consumption of the drink cheeky vim toe. His companion, in a worse state was only upright due to being wedged next to the wall at the end of the bench.

Val unleashed the bartering skills she had been working on in the toilet mirror to herself “’ow about you buy them at a gold piece each or all ten for twelve gold coins? Cheap at half the price, eh?” Val beamed, which given her imposing size sent a shiver of fear down the plump, well-groomed bald merchant. “I’ll drink to that!” and so saying she grabbed the merchant’s tankard and made the contents disappear before letting out a satisfied belch “not finishing that?” she asked the comatose companion of the merchant before polishing off his drink too. It was already proving to be a productive day for Val.

Val suddenly jerked her head to one side “hang on me fine fellows, I’ll be back”, she rose to her feet and strode purposefully to the chamber at the rear of the inn where the particularly dangerous cutthroats drank round a fire. The merchant Val had been speaking to finally exhaled.

Val stood in the doorway taking up the whole frame “alright then” she gauged the room populated with all the dangerous types “who said it? I heard ya? One of ya called me pottery a load of lazy cack!” the occupants looked at Val open mouthed, saying nothing but giving sideways looks to a particularly brutish sell sword.

He gulped and spoke “Actually what I said was…Waaaarrrgghhh!” Val picked the thug up under one arm and marched out of the chamber, passing the bar she stopped.

“Barkeep, four pints o’ Odin’s gut punch cider if ya please?” she looked down at the scoundrel under her arm “What can I get ya?”

“I’m OK thanks” the unfortunate wretch managed to squeak out. Val necked one of the pints of cider and carried the man into the vault opposite the bar before pinning him to the dart board with a dagger “You stay there and consider what constitutes fine art!” she told him before returning to the bar to finish her refreshments.

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The tavern door burst open, and a willowy figure swaggered in, a look of disdain at what he saw plastered on his face. The locals all looked at this foppish newcomer in his finery with innate mistrust, anyone who dressed slightly outside the tavern norm was viewed this way admittedly, the grief one of the locals got that time he decided to wear furry lined boots was the stuff of legend to this day.

The figure made his way to the bar “barkeep, I seek the renowned Val Kerr…” he glanced down at the bar spying the enormous figure with two-pint tankards in each hand “…never mind”.

The Herald sidled up to Val “Ms Kerr, I need to speak to you as a matter of urgency…”

“Not interested love” Val cut the Herald off before he could finish, giving him a pleasant smile.

“Wh-what?!” the Herald choked slightly sending flecks of spit into the drink of the local on the other side of him at the bar, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care and carried on drinking. “You don’t know what I was going to ask you!” he reasoned.

Val considered this for perhaps a spit second “ya were either going to ask me out on a date, or ask me to complete a quest, either way, not interested.” Val drained one of her tankards as the Herald sighed “it’s the quest innit?!”

The Herald quickly thought of his options “can I buy you a drink and you at least hear me out?”

“Six flagons of Uncle Buckfast’s Psionic Liver Blast an’ some porky scratchings and ya have five minutes of me precious time”.

Val went and shoved some enormous barbarians off a table and took a seat, the Herald followed over struggling with the weight of the drinks on the tray. “Five minutes” Val stated drawing the stop hourglass from her cloak and placing it on the table, not filling the Herald with any confidence that he was going to get a fair hearing.

“Val you’re needed, more than you’ve ever been needed” Val’s expression remained neutral at the Heralds words “there is a necromancer in the Northwest, he and some strange new accomplice has the power and will to raise the King of The Undead, if that happens then the land is plunged into darkness; humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, three quarterlings, scallies, village idiots - all finished. The survival of the realm is currently as precarious as a cat off its whiskers on catnip attempting to traverse a narrow fence.”

Val considered the words she was hearing “necromancer this time, is it eh?” she asked plainly. She drained one of the flagons the Herald had brought over “ya have four minutes.”

The Herald took out a fancy silk handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Now look, he has the means and the intention to lay waste to this land, and if you hadn’t noticed you live in it!” the Herald stated thinking, perhaps hopefully, that some actual logic may help.

Val picked up her second tankard and held it to her lips pausing as a thought played across her features “wait a minute...” Val placed the tankard back on the table and stood up, the Herald following her movement transfixed “…I don’t think he was criticising me pottery on reflection, he might have said glazed crack” and with that she disappeared leaving the Herald stunned. He watched as she entered into another room and unpinned a powerfully built yokel from the dart board, heavily ruffling his hair and pulling a dart out of his forehead by way of apology. She returned to her seat “now where were we?”

The Herald shook his thoughts free from his head “The King of The Undead destroying all life as we know it. Ring any bells?”

“Ah yes, that. Two minutes.” Val supped her drink “been there, done that, last one from memory was the Great Wyvern that was going to take over the land, turned out that was some kids who’d stuck some wings on a worm and drawn a picture of it that made it look really big, it was just fake parchment. Before that I think it was Arnold the great golden dragon of the underworld who was gonna set fire to the lands, I soon put pay to that, and without getting me pants burned. Time before that it was some sorceress who had made a really big plank of wood with a nail in it, she was fine just needed a bit of a chat and a couple of cats to calm her down” Val finished her third drink “one minute.”

The Herald went to interrupt “Point is…” Val continued “…there is always something that is going to ‘end the world’” Val made air quotes “and it’s always defeated, else you an’ me wouldn’t be having this conversation now would we? Humanity and all the other races always pull their fingers out an’ co-operate in the end. Shame it takes such massive threats for them to put their perceived differences to one side” Val drained her fourth drink “So I’m out an’ nothing ya can say or do will change me mind”.

“So, I’ll have to go to Brutal Bartok the Balrog Ball Busting Barbarian and see if he’ll accept the twenty thousand gold pieces on offer?” The Herald asked taking his chances with this play.

“Now wait a minute” Val hastily interrupted “I didn’t say a hundred per cent I wouldn’t do it. A warrior can buy an awful lot of pottery clay for forty thousand gold pieces ya know.”

“It was twenty thousand gold pieces”.

“So, with that forty thousand agreed you’ve just hired the V Team!” Val grinned at the Herald who sighed and signaled at the innkeeper for more drinks.

Val swilled the drink around her receptacle and swilled her thoughts around her head “Gonna need to persuade me team back, won’t be easy, we didn’t exactly part on great terms, but I’ll win ‘em around with me charm and me gold, or failing that, I can just put a new team together, there is some real talent in this bar” Val extended her arms at the bar the Herald clocking a mercenary who was making his way around the bar chewing beermats to see if he could get any more residual spilled alcohol out of them, truly this was a village with its full complement of idiots available, he thought. “We can have an audition, they’re all the rage an’ so terribly entertaining!”

The Herald went to speak but gave up on that idea, seeing the futility of it. It was days like this he asked himself why he’d given up his last job for this one.

“Yeah, get a team together, get the blade of Ow-Chee, find the necromancer and the duchess of the dead, or whatever he is called, persuade them of the errors of their ways with extreme force, have a celebratory drink, get paid become heroes. So that’s the plan agreed!”. The Herald hadn’t understood a word of what Val had just said, but his head was starting to pound from this encounter already. Val stood and walked to the bar giving the Herald a hearty slap on his back as she went.

The Herald composed himself and picked up his dislodged tooth from the table.