Challenge #01607-D146: Hermit Permit Pending

"To be honest, I hadn’t planned on the whole Dark Lord thing. It just sort of happened." -- RecklessPrudence

It's not easy being a hermit. Especially not when random adventurers get lost and mistake your cave for a dragons' lair or the entrance to the goblin caverns or something of the ilk. I had to learn a few spells just to protect what little I have from their greedy hands. It takes days to make a decent bowl. And the rogues kept stealing my cauldrons! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a hermit to get a halfway decent cauldron? It's harder than you think.

So, yes. I admit to slaying a few under-prepared adventurers just to get the coin for what folks like them stole in the first place. And a sign for the entrance to my cave so that, I hoped, the adventurers would no longer barge into my home and disturb my meditations.

What I got instead was a bunch of adventurers thinking I was some kind of super mystic who could either heal them or grant some form of divine booster to their extant skills, and thereby defeat whatever it was they were fighting this week. And when I could only offer them soup? They trounced me and stole everything. Again. So I started brewing up some poisons to lace the soup with, and antidotes for myself and anyone who actually turned out to be bona-fide good. It saved a great deal of time, to be honest.

No, the rumours aren't true. I didn't eat anyone's flesh. I just traded it to the neighbourhood orcs for some decent defenses. What? Orcs make good traps. They're not so great at concealed doorways, unfortunately. And since I'd littered the land with traps, the adventurers think there must be something good at my place, and... Well. I was getting quite the store of coin and shiny things that past adventurers had on their person.

I just wanted them to go away and bother someone else. Honestly. Trading stuff to the orcs and the goblins could only do so much, and I wound up with actual gemstones. Some of them magical. And the one about the dragon only became true later on. And it was a baby.

Say what you like about adventurers, I like small helpless things and saving a dragon only became beneficial later. When it could reliably breathe fire on anyone coming towards my cave.

I didn't exactly enlist and orc army. I just... hired increasing bands of Orc mercenaries. For a percentage of the spoils and all the adventurers they could eat. It's a simple enough deal and my growing dragon needed some coin to nest on. It's a vermin removal thing. Anyway, as you can guess, it only lead to more adventurers going after everyone. Even though my Orc mercenaries never bothered a farmstead when they were in my employ.

So I learned some darker spells. And got involved with some demons. And did a few 'friendly takeovers' of some farmsteads because my armies needed more to eat than just luckless adventurers.

They say there's a prophecy of a Destined One who's going to overthrow me or stop my reign of terror. I certainly hope that, when they come, they'll listen to me and convince the adventurers to just leave me alone and let me be a hermit. In fact, when they're confirmed to be the Destined One, I'm going to send them a wagon-load of gold and an invitation to come around for some non-poisoned tea.

I could do with a good chat that doesn't begin with, "Cease your machinations, vile fiend!"

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Leaf]

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