Author Games: Dungeon Brawl

Captain Odette Rainmaker

Here is how the bards will tell it: She died a martyr.

Here is how the Captain will tell it: I died a king.

Here is how it happened:

Captain Odette Rainmaker, Hero of Nuhan and Principal Admiral of the King's Royal Navy, had grown bitter with age. Her descent into apathy had been a gradual but inevitable journey. What she had once viewed as prizes had begun to feel more like penance, and when she passed the Capitol's citizens in the streets, the nobility's respect was tinged with admiration, and the common folk's respect was tinged with fear. Odette no longer felt wholly comfortable with either of those reactions.

Her words had grown fancier over time and she knew what inevitable meant and she even used it in sentences sometimes and when the few people who still called her Captain instead of Admiral addressed her with that title, their voices carried a deference that felt heavy against her ears. Alcohol had become a respite instead of a means to an end and her favorite boots no longer fit and her favorite sword had been emblazoned with the symbol of a king she treated like a god.

In short, she did not feel very much like the Captain Odette Rainmaker that she'd promised herself she would be.

It had started out well enough, her tenure with the King.

She'd popped out of the dungeon's final glowing door, shaken and bruised and scarred and determined to survive. There'd been an entire war council sent to retrieve her and--most importantly--to retrieve the scrolls. She'd given five of them away when some small selfish instinct had stayed her hand and she'd sealed her bag tightly shut against the final glowing parchment.

"There are six," a man had said. Odette recognized him from the very first tourney but she couldn't put a face to a name, not yet. "The door would not let you through if you did not have all six."

"Yeah," Odette agreed. "I'm a fucking miracle."

"There are many things in that dungeon, Challenger," the man had said. "A miracle is not one of them."

After briefly reflecting on the possibility of losing what she'd set out to gain in the first place, Odette had handed over the final scroll.

"Alright," she'd said, feeling properly admonished although no one in the room had said a word against her. "I feel like our working relationship has gotten off to a rocky start. Let me introduce myself. My name is Captain Odette Rainmaker and I'm your new hero."

There had been feasts every night in those early days—silver platters piled high with cured meats that she'd hungrily devoured and roasted vegetables that she'd thrown away and boneless fish which had reminded her too much of home. There had been treasures, too—chests full of gold and rubies and emeralds, and more platinum coins than even the greediest of pirates could imagine. The King had given her her own room in the castle, complete with a four-poster bed softer than any down pillow and a closet larger than most sailboats which held more feathered hats and leather boots and ruffled shirts than she'd seen in all her life. Extravagance quickly became the norm.

She'd had enough money to buy herself her own ship—a whole fleet of ships, even! Gods, there had been enough gold in her vault to buy the King's Navy with his own damn money. She hadn't, of course, but she'd been tempted.

And she'd served in the Navy herself, for a year. It was more of a decorative position than a combative one, she'd quickly gathered. There hadn't been any real fighting involved, just training and regaling new recruits with stories of the terrors and triumphs of the dungeons. (And when she occasionally, inevitably, got off track with stories of tavern brawls and inappropriate graffiti on public buildings, the other commanders present would quickly steer her back to more appropriate subjects, such as how rewarding and rich a life of mindless service could be.) They all treated her with due deference and called her 'Admiral' which did not have nearly the same satisfying ring to it as 'Captain' did.