Our Manager Handles That

From Stormravengaming

Doctor Weird's Traveling Sideshow rumbles along the foothill road. Riding picket is a man in a dusty jester's outfit, sitting atop a shabby imitation unicorn and leading two others. Another man drives the company's wagon, the paint on the tent-like cloth cover faded into near-obscurity as a testament to the weary miles. He's probably infirm; he carries a cane.

There is a noise in the bushes. Before anyone can react – or at least, before they do react – the road is filled with a verminous band of goblins.

"Hold, players!" The lead goblin spits this word at the company, which rumbles to a halt. "We will have your goods." Cackling gleefully, he adds, "And your horseflesh, too!"

At first the men don't react. They don't seem to feel much urgency – perhaps the exhaustion of miles has made them uncaring whether they live or die. With a laconic slowness, the man in the driver's seat takes up his cane, as if preparing to lower his weary body to the ground.

The man on the horse, with something like a sigh and the heavy-lidded eyes of the truly tired – or not terribly interested – says, "You're going to have to take that up with our manager."

"Oh?" says the goblin leader, fingering his ugly mace, his face split with a sadistic, tooth-filled grin. "And who is your manager?"

The man on the "unicorn" unhurriedly reaches over and tugs a line attached to the wagon. Immediately, like retractable blinds, the cover snaps down into the wagon, revealing not costumes and props but a full-sized ballista, skeins twisted and at the ready, an iron spear as thick as a man's wrist aimed directly at the center of the goblin leader's chest. It's handled by a man in the clothes of a successful merchant.

"Me."