Look. You better go read the first one first, or this one's not going to make any sense!
"HAAIII!!!" Gog-Bo said with a shout! He was twelve.
It was little more than a year since the events of the previous installment, yet Gog-Bo had grown two hand's breadths in height and had packed on about twenty pounds. He was still kind of a skinny dude, but it was all muscle. He kept his skills with the blade - and the blade itself, his twice-blessed, triple-cursed longsword The Wicked Shimmy - well-concealed, as he awaited the hand fate had dealt him to play out.
The sun beat down. All around him was wheat. The summer harvest. His grim grey eyes scanned the wheat-choked horizon. Would today be the day? Would marauding soldiers from some far-flung, dominion-hungry foreign power come cruising into view, burning the fields wantonly as they go? Would today be the day for Gog-Bo the Dragon-Murderer to repudiate his Uncle Kwuk's small-minded plans for his cramped, tidy future bereft of glory as a simple laborer on the family farm? Would today give cause at last for Gog-Bo the Dragon-Murderer to sprint to disused Barn #2, retrieve his well-sheathed blade from its place of deep concealment, and finally - to draw forth The Wicked Shimmy from its deceptively dull scabbard, to put the hard lessons drilled into his mind and muscles by his Aunt Mo to the test, writing an essay in ringing steel, cleaved air and trailing blood-red ink with the pen of his rune-worked blade?
Gog-Bo ruminated on the prospect, not without a certain grim satisfaction. Suddenly his eyes lit upon the top of the head of a figure, coming up over the rise. He straightened up - poised to tear-ass towards disused Barn #2 if the newcomer proved to be a stranger (possibly hostile! In these parts, strangers were not trusted). Gog-Bo disliked working this side of the property. Too far from disused Barn #2. He could see a good ways, but if a group of hard-charging horsemen came over the rise and made straight for him, he would be hard-pressed to make the barn and claim The Wicked Shimmy in time. He could handle himself with or without the blade, but against a cadre of armed, charging horsemen...Gog-Bo didn't like to think about it. He had mentioned his concerns to Aunt Mo once, but she dismissed them - jovially accusing him of wanting to shirk his chores. He! Gog-Bo! The Dragon-Murderer, shirk his duty? Never.
Anyway, it turned out that the figure coming up over the rise was Parsella, the teaching wench from the local Rune School, down by Hewn Stone Sacred Circle Crossroads. Parsella was better-educated than anyone in the nearby land. No one knew more stories of great Hyootmal, fierce god of storms and battle, or of Feyweidl the goddess of housework and sexual fidelity. Parsella laughed always, and spoke with a warm, cool voice. Gog-Bo had a fierce crush on her. He often reflected upon the idea of her, while he was alone. Gog-Bo blushed at the recollection. To Gog-Bo's chagrin, somehow, no matter what words he tried to use in talking to her, he always managed to come out looking like a fool.
What the hell did she want? What errand had brought her all the way out to Uncle Kwuk's farm?
Gog-Bo's eyes narrowed. He straightened his posture unconsciously.
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