The Challenger

Crall

Guzur climbed up another bugbear's back and stabbed it in the neck with his tiny sword. As the body fell, he leaped onto another's head and dispatched it as well. It helped to be small sometimes.

The wall had fallen, and the bugbears had advanced into the village. His people were being massacred, despite their training. Guzur was only one halfling. He couldn't kill all of the bugbears. His decision made, he carved a bloody path to the chief of the bugbears, who instantly tried to kill him.

"Wait! I came to discuss surrender," Guzur said.

The chief stopped. "We have practically already won. What is the point of surrendering?"

"We may be a small people, but we know things. We have mines that only we fit into. Wouldn't keeping us alive bring you more treasure than the mere amount we have currently?"

The chief considered it, then responded. "Very well, pest. ALL BUGBEARS TO ME" He bellowed suddenly.

All the bugbears disengaged and worked their way over to their leader. "We will enslave these people, and use them to bring us more treasure!" The chief cried. A cheer came up from the bugbears, as if this thought were genius and had never occurred to them.

The chief turned to Guzur. "You start immediately."

A few weeks later in, deep in the mines, Guzur reconsidered his decision for the hundredth time. What a stupid idea. This life of work work work was worse than death itself, surely. But he had to be strong for his people. They won once, they could win again. But the halflings had less than half of their original population remaining. And when they had won their freedom from the first bugbears, there had only been four guards and a lot more halflings. Now the odds were against them. Would they still try for victory? The few halflings who would still talk to him had spirits so thoroughly crushed that rebellion seemed like a faint dream rather than a fiery hope.

After it was time to go home, Guzur hauled his sack of raw gold and other precious stones back to the top of the mine, delivered it to the bugbear guard, then headed towards the leen-to that was his house for now. Upon crawling inside, bars shot up out of the ground at the entrance, trapping him. He almost screamed, but controlled himself.

A gnomish face popped into view, looking as if he were hanging upside down from the roof. "Hello there!" Said the mischievous creature. "I'm Crall. Your local prankster! I just came to say sorry. I didn't realize that the bugbears would kill you guys, too! I was just trying to get them to kill the gnomes..."

"Wait, this is your fault?!" Guzur exploded. He reached to grab the gnome and slam him against the bars, but the slippery brat easily dodged the clumsy attack.

The gnome sighed. "Again, it was an accident. Which is why I'm offering help! I'd feel bad otherwise."

Guzur stared at the gnome. "Locking me in my own house in the middle of the night is helping me?" He asked skeptically.

"Ohhh, yeah, no, I was just trying to make sure you'd listen," The gnome explained. "Sorry again! But I've been making some neat inventions that might be able to help you guys out..."

The next day, Guzur passed out some strange contraptions to his comrades in the mines, away from prying eyes, along with some instructions on how to use them.

After their work was finished, the escape plan started. When Guzur handed the guard his bag, the guard opened it to check the contents as usual. Only, instead of finding treasure, he found a strange metal crawly-thing that leaped out of the bag and latched onto his face, gagging his muffled protests and cutting off his oxygen.

Guzur lead the halflings through the dark streets, towards the village hall, where the mayor used to live. The bugbears had taken over it, trashing the place and making themselves comfortable. Guzur gave some commands, and he and a few other halflings rolled tiny metal balls trough gaps, doorways, and windows, into the building.

Crall had explained that the balls would activate upon being touched by a bugbear specifically, turning into more of those strange metal devices. By only bugbears, Guzur didn't know, and quite frankly didn't want to ask, either. The halflings scurried away, the shouts of pain and surprise coming from the building was music to their ears. The rest of the gnomes had been planting variations of the face-latcher things around the village, in case any other bugbears came back from scouting or whatnot.

They met Crall on a hill a ways away from the village.

"Great work! How did my Crall-ers work? Get it? Because they crawl, and my name is Crall, and I invented them?" Crall laughed heartily at his own joke, as if it were the funniest thing in existence.

"What now?" Guzur asked. "Our home is destroyed and possibly still dangerous. Where do we go?"

The gnome trickster got a glint in his eye. "I happen to know a guy..."