RuneScape Forum Archive | Birth of a Hero

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Bob Brecker was a simple cabbage farmer, growing cabbages along the road from Draynor to Lumbridge. Every week he would take his cabbages to the market in Varrock in his rickety old farm cart, pulled by a donkey named Spud. (Why Spud when he was a cabbage farmer? Who knows.) Lumbridge also had a market, but with all the farmers selling produce there, he could get a much better price in the city.

Every so often, his tired old cart would pop an axel or break a wheel, and he'd have to get it fixed by a cart expert in the city. Now as it happens the cart expert had a very pretty sister, and Bob would find himself striking up conversations with her while waiting for his cart to be fixed.

After a while Bob started breaking parts of his own cart just so he'd have an excuse to talk to her. She was exciting, intelligent, cosmopolitan - They could talk for hours about the most engaging of topics, like which end of a shovel is the right one, or whether King Roald (the Second) only wore that red robe because he was secretly fat.

Friendship turned to romance, and eventually Bob and his love (whose name was Bobette, a sign they were meant to be) decided to elope. But then it turned out that her brother was actually perfectly fine with it, so there wasn't actually any reason to do that.

They had a lovely wedding in the Varrock church, with Bob's mother, Toothless Meg, coming all the way from Draynor to attend. She was called Toothless Meg because of an incident involving a particularly ornery cow, a sardine, and a pack of gypsies with a dancing bear. We don't talk about the details.

Afterwards Bobette went to live on the cabbage farm with Bob, where they lived a peaceful life growing and eating cabbages.

Until the day the goblin raiders came. Bob managed to kill 36 of them with a pitchfork, but they kept coming, as though for every goblin he killed, another would pop into existence.

Their little farmstead was surrounded, and the Lumbridge guard was too far off to help.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:03:41

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It seemed they were done for.

Until an adventurer came by. He was a red-haired battlemage bedecked in the robes of a Saradominist, en route to Entrana. Though he looked young and green, he skillfully took down the goblins with a combination of magical lightning and fearsome hand-to-hand skills. Bob and Bobette tearfully thanked the man for saving their bacon. "What's bacon?" the man asked.

They admitted they weren't sure, but then they invited him in for tea, and learned about his travels, journeying from his home in Varrock to troll-infested mountains and Darkest Karamja and into the vast desert no man had ever crossed. When he eventually left, he decided to leave them with some of his adventuring gear, because he wouldn't need it for a while - he was planning to spend the next few years making good on an old invitation to the Holy Isle, and he would be grateful if they'd look after the items for him, as he was out of bank space.

After the man left, Bob and Bobette tried selling the adventuring equipment at the Lumbridge market, but it turned out to be practically worthless. So they put it in a chest in the attic and forgot about it. Luckily, the hero never returned to claim the items anyway.

In the course of time, Bob and Bobette had a pair of lovely children: Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Brecker, and little Kit.

The boys grew up hearing the story of the brave adventurer who had saved their parents' lives from the dastardly goblin menace. Unfortunately their parents couldn't always agree on the details. It was a very traumatic experience, so they were a little muddled, and the details kept changing over the years. By the end, the adventurer who'd saved them was a giant seven-foot tall Knight of Falador - a ridiculous concept.

One day, when they were young, the family inadvertently struck gold.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:04:16 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2022 22:54:31 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It turned out that faithful old Spud the donkey was actually the last known specimen of a rare Crandorian breed of donkey, thought to be extinct when Crandor was destroyed. The fabulously wealthy Emir of Al Kharid learned of this and decided he simply had to have this donkey for his royal stables, and perhaps breed it with his racing camels. The Emir had had a sheltered upbringing, and no one had explained to him that this was not actually possible. His vizier paid the family handsomely with a pouch of gemstones. Bob and Bobette were good and loving parents, so they decided they'd use the money to have their children receive a formal education. And so Kit and his older brother Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus attended school in Lumbridge, learning reading, writing, and rithmetic. While there, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus saw and heard of much of the troubles marauding goblins caused for the people of Lumbridge, and remembered how he and his brother might never have been born had it not been for the heroic goblin slayer who saved their parents' lives.

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus resolved to catch the notice of the Lumbridge guard - who were primarily a militia composed of local farmers - so that he could be a hero and help protect the people. He trained and studied hard towards this end. Unfortunately, the day before he was to apply to join, it turned out that he fainted at the sight of blood. So he came up with a different plan of action. Along with his best friend Johanhus Ulsbrecht, the son of a blacksmith who had been killed by a goblin, he gathered the disenfranchised and fearful of the duchy - Those men and women who had either suffered at the hands of goblins, or feared that their families might be next. The duke and the guards, and the fattened royalty of the capital, would offer them no salvation.

And so they resolved to take matters into their own hands.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:04:49 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2022 22:55:07 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

In the shadows of an old mine shaft they gathered night after night, discussing and debating and fleshing out their ideas. They prayed and appealed to the gods, but none heard their call. Or so it seemed.

One clear night, when the moon was full, and the constellations visible in the heavens, an owl somehow flew into the mine shaft and into one of their meetings. The owl, the patron animal of Saradomin. The group took it as a sign - they operated now with divine approval.

And so the "Humans Against Monsters" organization was born. They were, for a period of about three months, called "Farmers Against Goblins", until someone realized the acronym for that could be construed as homophobic, something to which the group was naturally strongly opposed. What do you take them for, monsters?

Kit, meanwhile, continued his education, oblivious to his brother's activities. His parents had located an aged troubador named Johann Sebabi Gott Bach to teach him how to play the harpsichord, in hopes that he might earn a good living in service to the nobility (or, failing that, playing popular tunes in a pub for tips). Instead, Gott Bach decided that it would be more useful to teach the boy how to play a newly invented instrument that was quickly catching on among the wealthy and fashionable: The "piano". Unfortunately, it turned out that Gott Bach himself did not actually know how to play the new instrument, so he spent his time simply having Kit play the same basic tune over and over - "Chopsticks". When Kit's family realized they were wasting their money, they called off the lessons and decided that maybe Kit could be a ratcatcher instead, or a street sweeper, or possibly an errand boy for the castle cook.

But Kit, like his brother, never forgot the story his parents had told him 700 times.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:05:23 - Last edited on 14-Jun-2022 16:15:37 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The life of an adventurer sounded pretty thrilling: Obliterating goblins with the power of one's mind while shrugging off projectiles like a Superb Man, and also juggling ten unicorns at the same time. That's how it happened, right?

This was further solidifed when Kit read a trilogy of books penned by The Saradominist Church, detailing recent events in Asgarnia and Varrock concerning a band of young adventurers. He idolized the heroes of these novels - the fierce Kara-Meir, the gruff yet warmhearted dwarf Doric, the bookish wizard Castimir... Except for the dimwitted and morally inflexible knight, Sir Theodore. That guy was super lame.

Occasionally Kit and his brother would accompany his parents to Varrock to sell their cabbages. What they didn't sell, they cooked. Kit grew up scrawny but well-nourished on a diet of cabbage delicacies, which his mother had spent years learning to cook since moving out to the farm. Cabbage soup, cabbage rolls, cabbage-bread, cabbage tea, roast cabbage, mashed cabbage, baked cabbage, cabbage pie, cabbage ice cream, cabbage steak, cabbage pizza... He ate so much cabbage growing up that he was thoroughly sick of it. Even after he left home, the trauma lingered, as he started having dreams of a giant talking cabbage king. Sometimes the dreams would even bleed into the waking world. If mental health had been invented yet, he might want to get that checked out.

But whenever they traveled to Varrock, they would be sure to stop in and visit his uncle, Jeremy Clerksin the cart expert. It was after all thanks to him that Bob and Bobette had met, and they were forever indebted to him. Jeremy was doing well for himself. He'd expanded his cart business, taking on an apprentice named Rick Shaw, and buying a striped top hat to show that he was fancy now. Rick and Kit got along especially well, bonding over their shared love of porcelain clown dolls and potpourri. Jeremy had gotten married too, to a nice lady named Penelope.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:05:57 - Last edited on 14-Jun-2022 16:16:44 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

But one year, smallpox swept across the city. Kit and his family didn't go to market for months, and it wasn't safe to send letters in case the messenger brought the infection. When they finally got in touch with Uncle Jeremy, they learned that Aunt Penelope had succumbed to the pox and died. Jeremy was heartbroken. Rick's attempts to cheer him up with a life-sized clown version of Penelope apparently did not go over well, and Rick was fired from the lofty position of apprentice cart expert, instead becoming the royal governor of Edgeville and commanding an enormous salary. But never again would he work with carts, his true calling.

Perhaps even more heartbreaking, Jeremy had to burn his striped top hat due to possible smallpox contamination. He wept over that hat, and ensured the ashes were interred with his wife. The priest had questions, but how could a man who shaves a chunk of his own hair into a ridiculous shape and displays it openly understand the love between a man and his headwear?

Successive visits to Uncle Jeremy's were more somber than before. He was quiet, morose - a far cry from the boisterous man Kit had known. He was a broken and grieving man. Month after month they visited him when they went to market, yet there was no improvement. The life was gone from his once-sparkling blue eyes. Penelope and the striped top hat had been the loves of his life. Kit's parents suggest he speak with a priest for counseling, but to no avail. Kit's father tried taking him down to the Flying Donkey pub to get absolutely sloshed and take a random girl home, which was the best cure for depression he could think of with his medieval understanding, but this didn't work either. Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus tried taking advantage of his uncle's state to recruit him to his anti-monster movement, but his uncle only said to him, "Let the goblins kill me. I don't care."

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:06:30 - Last edited on 14-Jun-2022 16:17:58 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This was so plainly depressing that Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus briefly considered abandoning his path and going to become a monk living on a mountaintop, weeping at the unfairness of the world and the human condition, and alternately praying and cursing at the gods for their silence in the face of suffering.

Then he remembered that goblins were kind of gross and ugly, and so he changed his mind.

Bobette decided eventually that the best thing to do was to stay with her brother for a while and tend to him, for he clearly needed the company and love of family. And so she stayed behind in Varrock, while Kit, his brother, and his father returned to the farm. Unfortunately, due to ye olde patriarchy, none of them had ever learned to cook, so they subsisted entirely on raw cabbage pulled up from the soil, and occasionally a wild mushroom or two. The latter helped Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus attain new heights of understanding in regards to his noble mission, for he experienced vivid visions of the gods telling him that goblins laughed at him behind his back and thought he was a nerd.

One rainy night, Kit was hunting through the attic in hopes of finding a rat to eat - as anything would be better than cabbage, and plus he'd heard rats were a popular dwarven delicacy (he was told this by a very knowledgeable drunk in a Varrock alleyway, so he was convinced of its credibility). Instead, he found something better.

Secreted away in the dusty chest long forgotten by his parents were the red-bearded mage's adventuring supplies. A meticulously detailed map of the world, penned by the hero's own hand. A beautiful old compass. A conveniently baggy, face-concealing set of clothes. And finally, a backpack with the most marvelously efficient yet oddly precise design that young Kit had ever seen. Looking at these treasures, his heart pounding at his luck, it dawned on him what he could do with these things.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:07:15 - Last edited on 14-Jun-2022 20:36:12 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

After trying and failing to eat the backpack, and chipping a tooth on the compass, he had another idea. What if this was his chance to strike out in search of adventure? He saw it now in his mind's eye - slaying dragons, wooing damsels, delivering basic ingredients to an incompetent chef - Could he do this? No, the time wasn't right. He closed the chest quietly, feeling a pang of regret. His lot in life was to be a cabbage farmer, or possibly one of those guys who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits. You know the ones, standing waist-deep in... Well, carrying on.

Soon he forgot all about the chest and its wondrous items. One day not long after, Bobette returned from Varrock cheerfully, with a spring in her step. She had persuaded her brother to take a vacation, in the form of joining a group of poor Saradominist missionaries who intended to make a pilgrimage to Kandarin and from there attempt to convert the heathen Fremennik to the ways of the god of order. And if their preaching ended up with an axe buried in their skulls, well, that's martyrdom for you. Still, Kandarin was supposed to be a really nice and sunny kingdom, and this trip was basically all expenses paid. Maybe it would do Jeremy some good to get away from this place, so heavy with memories of Penelope and also with people wearing top hats, and see the world. Kit felt jealous of his uncle, which was a new emotion, since his uncle was a boring and lame grownup, not a cool kid like Kit.

Periodically the family now received letters from Uncle Jeremy, talking about his travels and all the exotic carts he was encountering in Asgarnia and Kandarin. The missionaries were kind of a bore, since they gave any money they found to the poor and spent their time praying and eating tasteless gruel, but they were nice enough.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:07:44 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2022 23:00:05 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thanks to them, Jeremy saw all kinds of things - the fabled white city of Falador, the chilly peaks of White Wolf Mountain, even a village of devoutly Saradominist seers who claimed to be able to predict the future, a holy gift they said was bestowed upon them by the great and glorious Saradomin, the only god whom they worshipped.

And then there was an abrupt stop to all correspondence. Bobette worried that perhaps her brother had been hacked to death by the Fremennik after all. Bob reassured his wife that there could be any number of explanations for him not having written that didn't involve being killed by Fremennik. Why, she couldn't even be sure he had reached the Fremennik Province, could she? He could have been waylaid and killed by highwaymen on the way, or fallen ill with the plague and died, or succumbed to his grief over Penelope and his beautiful top hat and committed suicide. For some reason this only seemed to upset her more.

After a month of nail-biting uncertainty, a letter arrived at last. Jeremy was home! And the trip had been more wonderful than he could have imagined. He'd met someone, and brought her home to Varrock with him. She was unlike anyone he'd ever met before. What's more, they were engaged to be married! The family was invited to the wedding, even Toothless Meg (who if you will recall was Kit's grandmother over in Draynor). Bobette was delighted. Even Bob managed a smile at his brother-in-law's good fortune, thinking fondly on how he'd first met his own beloved wife.

Soon, the big day arrived. The family gathered in the church - the very same church where Bob and Bobette had gotten married all those years ago. The two smiled at each other, reliving the memory of their own wedding, intertwining their hands and fingers as they did so. "Gross," said Kit.

Jeremy and his blushing bride slithered up the aisle, her features obscured by a beautiful white wedding veil.

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:08:20 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2022 23:06:06 by William Witt

Aug

2023

William Witt

Posts: 12,465 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It was the first time they'd seen Jeremy smile since losing Penelope and his striped top hat.

The priest, Father Lawrence, was a kind man who knew to be delicate about a young lady's feelings. He was never one to call attention to someone's body type, especially on their wedding day of all things. So he smiled serenely at the couple, not commenting on the fact that the veiled bride appeared to be a horrible, pulsating blob.

"A bond made before the God of Order can never be broken. I now join you in the eyes of Saradomin," he read from the blue and gold prayer book. "You may kiss the bride."

Sitting in the pews, the lady with her back to them, the family was unable to see as Jeremy lifted her veil. What they did see was the priest go white as a sheet, his eyes widening. Uncle Jeremy smiled and kissed his new wife. Father Lawrence, with a clear view of the scene, excused himself hurriedly. The first and only time he'd had alcohol was at the insistence of a young noblewoman at a party several years earlier. He had consumed enough of the strong Varrock ale to redden his cheeks and nose, then quietly poured the rest out a window at the earliest opportunity. He hadn't wished to offend his socially prominent hostess. Since that day he had never again touched a drop of alcohol. His poison of choice was milkshakes - The sweet dessert beverage was no doubt responsible for the pounds he'd put on over the years, but it was one of the few pleasures he had in an otherwise modest life of service. But today, he needed a drink. He needed to forget.

And forget he did. Eventually. And if you ever visit the little church in Varrock, you'll see that he's still doing wonderfully forgetting to this very day. On the plus side, he's lost weight since he stopped drinking milkshakes.

"Oh dear, I think she's getting a bit peckish," said Jeremy. "Uh, I think all of you had better meet back at my place. I'm going to have to see about satisfying my darling's appetite."

The Asgarnian ale must flow.

13-Jun-2022 13:08:44 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2022 23:06:40 by William Witt

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