Shane Fitzgerald
|
|
Bard, Chessmaster |
| Shane@CrimsonSpade.com |
Introducing Shane Fitzgerald
by Diego Martin Antonio Vega de Palma
On a night not unlike most others I was washing the glasses after a busy evenings work. The room had quieted down quite a bit in the last few hours and only a few weary patrons sat around placidly playing various games.
Suddenly the door bursts open with a bang as it hits the wall. Three men walk in… Well, when I say walk I really mean two men came in staggering as they drag their unconscious compatriot behind them. One of them was a large man with no hair on his head. A knotted tattoo ran like a mohawk over his scalp. The other was a small pockmarked man with a huge boil on the side of his nose. They were pirates from the looks of them and the two of them spoke with Irish accents.
I looked on with disdain as they pushed a patron, deep in thought in a chess game, out of his seat and replaced him with their sleeping friend. I was about to step in when the man said it was all right and he needed to go home anyway, and walked out the door. For the better part of an hour the two men talked loudly and quite rudely. At many points Boil leered at Annabella, our waitress. On a couple of occasions he said a rude remark or two, but they were drinking enough for 5 people so we let it pass. But when Mohawk endeavored to pinch young Annabella’s bottom he was in for a nasty surprise.
When his hand was halfway there he found his fingers caught in a viselike grip. Annabella’s brother, Raphael had been watching from the shadows. He looked Mohawk in the eye and said, “I think it is about time you two got out of here, don’t you?” Raphael then twisted Mohawk's forefinger with a sickening crack. Mohawk screamed the high piercing scream of a 7-year-old girl as he quickly staggered out of the inn. “Good answer.” Raphael said with a smirk. Then he looked at Boil and slowly cracked his knuckles. Boil was out the door before the third crack
“What should I do with him?” Raphael asked gesturing to the unconscious individual at the table. “Let him sleep it off there, I doubt he could make it to his ship in the state he is in” said Elisheva, the Innkeeper.
The next morning, shortly after we began breaking our fast, the sleeping man at the table lifted his head. He slowly looked around the room through bleary squinting eyes, surprisingly unfazed to be in a strange pub. He looked down at the unfinished chess game before him and seemed to be thinking for a minute. He then reached down and picked up the queen before him and moves it across the board. Promptly after, he passed out again. I looked over to see what sort of moved a half-asleep, hungover, Irishman could have made. To my surprise he had checkmated his opponent. A move I probably wouldn’t have seen, even had I set it up myself.
When he awoke fully we learned his name to be Shane Fitzgerald, a Bard from Ireland. We found him to be much more pleasant than his fellows and he choose to stay with us for some time, paying his way with his winnings at chess and occasional performance.