Equals Death – A Love Story 

I’m not sure when it started, or even how, but the truth is it did. I, Star Pinkus Crawler, was born in the vivacious town of Port Atlantis and was left to wander around. I was all alone in this world, not really even understanding where I was. Everywhere I turned people were yelling, merchants were screaming out deals, and accusations of scammers flew left and right. I was lost and confused, so I did the only thing that seemed right at the time, I ran out into the world. 

Now here I sit comfortably in my apartment, wondering how my life came to this. I have managed to bring myself from a scared lost newcomer to the counselor of Equals Death, a society ranked amongst the top fifty most talented groups in all of the known world. But how did this happen? How did I get to the place I am now? Well you see, that’s a love story… 

“Pinkus, hurry up,” screamed Reaper, General of the Black Label Society, “we need to start training with axes. Those snables aren’t going to die themselves you know.” 

“I know. I know,” I replied grabbing my axe and rushing to catch up with Reaper who was well ahead of me in the field. 

“Skilling with axes is the most important thing. It will give you life long skills and turn you into a great hunter. It is very important that you stop slacking and you start axing,” he informed me. 

“But axing is so boring,” I whined, as I caught up to him. 

“Hey, I will have none of that talk out of you little Miss. Skilling is important. You’ll see. One day you will thank me for this.” 

Reaper was a great leader for a society. He knew what must be done, even if it wasn’t the most fun thing to do. Work is work and to build a great society, along with great people, you need the skills. So today, like everyday, Reaper and I went to the fields axe in hand. Someone needed to thin out the snable herd, and that someone was us. 

“So Pinkus, will you be going to the Belk Bar tonight in Zychion?” Reaper asked me as he brushed off his hands after slaying a snable. 

“I’m not sure. After all this axing today I think I might have to go have a couple of drinks just so I can relax.” 

We axed and chatted for a few hours until I realized I was getting tired. The axing was rough and the sun was hot. In fact it might have been the hottest day of the summer. If not it sure felt like it. 

“I’m just going to sit down here for a second and take a rest, is that okay with you?” I asked him. 

“Well if you must. I will go see what lies over that hill. I have a feeling there’s a nice big snable waiting for me.” 

“Good luck,” I yelled to him as he started to run off. 

“I’ll be right back,” he yelled, and then disappeared over the hill and out of sight. 

I collapsed to the ground, laying on my back and tossing my axe to the side. Thank the Holy Trox I thought. Finally I had some time to rest. I laid there for a minute with my arm over my eyes blocking then sun. Then I looked up at the clouds and started to daydream. I thought of all the things to come. The world was full of people that I don’t even know exist. Sure I go to the bars, and hang out in towns, but I don’t know everyone. What will I be like in a few years? Who will I be with? What will I be doing? Here I was, sitting in a field having no idea who I am, what I want, or what I will become. I finally had to settle on the conclusion that only time will tell. 

Suddenly, the sun that covered me turned to shade. I opened my eyes just in time to see a feffoid punching them shut again. Stunned, I couldn’t manage to find my axe. A second punch came. I tried to scramble to my feet, but it was no use. The feffoid had me pinned to the ground and was tossing punches at me left and right. 

“Help!” I yelled with fear in my voice, just before receiving another punch to the jaw. I was being pummeled to death and there was not a single thing I could do about it. I was scared that this was the end. The life that I just started was going to end here, with one beast, because I did not pay attention to my surroundings, because I hadn’t followed Reaper over the hill. I prayed for someone to help me but knew my chances were slim. 

The feffoid pulled back his fist and prepared to give me his final blow, when suddenly he stopped. My vision, blurred, saw the silhouette of a man standing there in white armor. He was shooting the feffoid. I took deep slow breaths as I watched him easily massacre the beast. Then everything went dark. 

A few hours later I woke up in my bed. My head was swollen to the size of a bombardo, and I had a headache greater than the price of full shadow armor. 

“Ow…” I moaned as I adjusted my position slightly. 

“Hey, you gave us quite a scare,” said a familiar voice. 

I tried to look at Reaper but my eyes were so sore and swelled. 

“Close your eyes. You need your rest after this crap day you’ve had.” He sat next to me on the bed. “I’m so sorry I left you alone there. I didn’t realize we were so close to that feffoid herd. They were abnormally close to the snables. I should have known they wander around and they could have gotten side tracked and..” 

“Reaper,” I interrupted, “it’s not your fault what happened. It’s over with, and I am okay, right?” 

“Right, and I am not going to leave until you are fully recovered.” 

We were both silent for a moment. I could tell Reaper was very upset for letting the event that happened today happen. 

“Does this mean I have to go axing tomorrow?” 

He smiled, “No. Now you should get some sleep.” He stood up and walked to the doorway of my room. 

“Hey,” I stopped him with my words and he turned around. 

“Yes?” 

“The man who saved me, who was he?” 

“I think his name was Rodent. Now rest.” Reaper turned off the lights and left the room. 

Rodent, I thought to myself, I shall seek out this hero when I recover and give him my personal thanks.

Part 2

Many days passed before I was strong enough to rise from my bed. Even if I could move, there was no way Reaper would let me. I can’t say I absolutely hated being in this current state. I was well pampered, and anything to keep me away from training with axes was great in my book, even it if did include being beaten to a bloody pulp and confined to a bed. 

A knock came on my door. I looked up expecting to see Reaper walk through the door, like he’s done more than a hundred times in the past few weeks, but to my surprise, a new but familiar face appeared. 

“Hey Pinkbits!” Macros, Reaper’s right hand man and fellow society mate, greeted me as he peeked his head through the door. “How you feeling?” 

Í smiled, “I’m ready to get the hell out of this room. That’s for sure.” 

“Yeah, well you’ve been in here long enough I’d say. People are starting to think you actually were mutilated to death by that feffoid.” Macros walked over to my bed. He was covered in full vampire armor, which had been a slight upgrade since the last time I saw him. 

“You like the new look?” Macros asked while modeling off his new set of armor. 

“Yes, it suits you quite well.” 

“The trader who sold it to me put up a fight. He wanted to get every last ped from my pocket, but I knew he was desperate to sell. Ha! Traders…make me want to vomit.” 

“Tell me about it. I wouldn’t touch Port Atlantis with a ten foot pole. Either that or it’s my time of the month and I’m just out looking for a good fight. In that case, I almost feel sorry for the traders…almost.” 

A brief silence came, leaving enough time for Macros to glance out the window of my small room. Then Macros got a smile on his face. 

“I’ll tell you what. I know you hate being stuck in this room, so I’m going to do you a big favor and break you out of here for a little while. How does that sound?” 

“But what about Reaper?” I questioned. “He’s going to get mad.” 

“Reaper is out for awhile. We’ll be gone and back before he even realizes we’ve left in the first place.” 

“I don’t know.” 

Macros pulled the blanket off me from where I laid in the bed. “I know you want to get out of here. It’s driving you crazy sitting here. Besides, I heard more about that guy you wanted to find.” 

“You heard more about Rodent?” I immediately sat up, excitement growing with every passing second that Macros mentioned of him. 

“Yes, I saw him preparing for a hunt at Fort Fury a little while ago. If we go now, I’m sure we could catch him when he comes back.” 

I jumped out of bed and quickly searched for my lime green coat. “Coat, coat, where the hell is my coat?” I started searching the closet and looking on the chairs. 

“Pinkus, settle down. Don’t pop a stitch. Your coat is right there hanging on the door knob.” Macros pointed to the door where my lime green coat was conveniently hanging right in plain sight. 

I rushed over and grabbed it, then opened the door. “Are you coming or what?” I asked him in a rushed frustrated kind of voice. 

“Yes, I’m coming.” 

Over to Fort Fury we flew via teleport. My only fear was that I wouldn’t get there in time, and Rodent would have already come and gone without me getting the chance to speak to him. It was a big deal what he did for me, and sitting sore and bedridden for a few weeks left me nothing to do but dwell on this thought. 

When we arrived to Fort Fury, I was running around so fast you would have thought I was an Olympic track star athlete. In all my hustling I was managing to lose Macros to the crowd. 

“Pinkus!” Macros yelled. “Pinkus wait up!” 

I was so rushed I didn’t even hear Macros yelling. I was too busy searching every square inch of that outpost. I searched and searched until I realized that he wasn’t there. A wave of disappointment came over me as I walked to the teleport, where I saw Macros waiting for me. 

“He’s not here Macros,” I said as I approached him. 

“I know,” he said. 

“How do you know?” I questioned. 

“Because while you were running around like a lunatic in that outpost over there, he’d already come and gone.” 

“What!!! Why didn’t you stop him! Why didn’t you say something to me?” I hissed. 

Macros just looked at me. 

“Pinkus, I think we need to have a little talk about this,” Macros said calmly to me. He took my hand and walked me over to the grass just slightly away from the teleport and outpost. “Have a seat.” 

We both sat down and I looked at him, awaiting whatever it was he was going to say to me. 

“Now I know you had a traumatic experience, and you are so fixated on talking to this Rodent guy, but I think you are getting all worked up over nothing. I mean, you are making it out to be this big thing that he did, when he probably doesn’t even have a clue who you are, nor care.” Macros put his hand on my shoulder, “You need to forget about it.” 

I slapped his hand away and stood up, “Forget about it? This is not just something you forget about!” 

“Pinkus,” Macros stood up, “I don’t want you to get hurt. I mean we don’t even know what type of guy he is, and if I knew you were going to get this excited about it I would have never mentioned anything to you in the first place.” 

“You don’t understand!” I yelled at him, angrier than ever. 

“Maybe I don’t understand exactly how you think or feel. What I do understand is that this is some guy we have no clue about. The only thing we know about him is that he was out hunting and he managed to kill a feffoid that just so happened to be ripping you to shreds. If he wanted to talk to you, he would have stuck around. He would have come over to Reaper’s house to see how you were. He could have done anything, sent a card, dropped a message, but what did he do? Nothing. That pretty much says it all for me.” 

I had nothing to say back to that, except for the tears that started to run down my cheek. Macros came closer to me and put his arm around me. 

“You went through a lot of crap, and made out Rodent to be some sort of hero. What he did was great, but you need to move on and stop dwelling. Reaper and I care about you, and it’s not healthy to put all your eggs in one basket. You have to think about you, and recovering. That should be your main focus, not some guy.” 

“But he’s not just some guy. He saved me, and I don’t believe that he would just not care.” 

I wiped a tear from my eye. I completely understood where Macros was coming from. He was scared and concerned about me. I knew he and Reaper cared, but they didn’t understand that I needed to talk to him. A bad person does not just up and save someone for no reason. It is true that he didn’t seek me out after the incident, and for that I can’t explain why. But I still needed to find out. I needed to know if Rodent was the hero that I made him out to be, or if Macros was right, that he was just some guy who managed to kill the feffoid that was too busy killing me. I knew if I was going to figure this out, I would have to do it on my own.

Part 3

Macros and I went back to Reaper’s house where we visited for awhile and discussed random things like the heritage of the Argonauts and how Aurli’s were made. During our discussions, we decided to start up a game of cards using a deck of blueprints we found shoved into one of his storage boxes. We sat around until Reaper finally made his way back home. This gave me some time to think, and I decided it was best not to bring up anything of Rodent or my intentions to either Reaper or Macros until things became clearer. 

“Hey guys,” Reaper greeted as he entered the room, “Whoa, are you guys having a party at my own house and forgot to invite me?” 

“Yes,” Macros replied setting down his hand of blueprints on the table, 
“You took long enough coming back home. Did you get lost?” 

“I didn’t get lost. But I did manage to stop at Port Atlantis and get something for Pinkus on my way back.” Reaper pulled out from behind his back a little white sized stuffed bunny. “I thought you might like this.” He walked towards me and handed me the bunny. 

“It’s so cute,” I said, setting down my blueprint cards and taking the bunny. “Thank you. You didn’t have to buy me anything.” 

“I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.” Reaper pulled up a chair at the table which Macros and I were sitting at. He noticed a messy pile of playing blueprint cards lying in front of us. Then he looked at Macros, “What’s your game?” 

“Go Rippersnapper,” Macros responded. 

“Ou, I got to get in the next game,” Reaper said. “I love this game.” 

I stood up. “I’ll be right back,” I told them, “I’m just going to go put this in my room.” I picked up the bunny and started to walk to my room. “And no cheating!” I yelled back to the dining room at Macros. 

Walking into my room gave me more thoughts of what was to come. I couldn’t manage to get my mind off of Rodent, and what the night would bring. This night was going to be special. It would be the first night out on my own since the accident, the first night where no one knew where I would be, and most importantly the first night sneaking away. I could barely contain my excitement and noticed that I was starting to take it out on the bunny by hugging him to death. 

“Silly rabbit,” I said to the stuffed bunny while looking at it. “You need a name don’t you? I can’t think of anything now, but I’m sure I will come up with something later.” I set the bunny down on top of my pillow on my bed. Then I walked over to the window and gazed outside at the stars. 

It was a full moon out tonight. Reaper always told me a full moon makes the Argonauts go wild due to some sort of rituals they are rumored to perform. I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but then again wasn’t going to be finding out that information for a long time. At least I hoped I wouldn’t. 

“Pinkus, Hurry up!” Macros screamed from the other room. “I want to beat you and then go home to sleep.” 

I took one last glimpse out the window, and then walked back over to the table where Macros was eagerly waiting for my return. 

“You think you can beat me this time?” I said while I sat down and picked up my hand. 

“Yes, I do. I have to beat you once tonight in this game. Now, have any settler shins?” 

“Go Rippersnapper,” I smiled. 

Macros picked up a blueprint card from the messy pile in front of us. 

“Have any manell shoes?” I asked. 

Macros tossed the manell shoes blueprint card across the table and I set down a pair. This left only one card left in my hand. 

“Last one. Have any Jester d-1’s?” I inquired. 

“Okay, now you have to be cheating,” Macros gave me the card from his hand. “How is it you know all the cards in my hand every time?” 

“I’m just good at Go Rippersnapper,” I smiled. 

Macros stood up and grabbed his coat. “Well, that’s enough for me. Time to get back home to Thistle. She’s probably wondering where I am so long.” 

“Say hi to Thistle for me,” Reaper said. 

“Will do. Night Pinkus. Night Reaper.” 

“You think Thistle will be mad that Macros was out all night?” I asked Reaper after Macros left. 

“Nah, Macros’ wife doesn’t really get mad like that. Well, she hasn’t the whole time I’ve known her,” he replied. “Did you have a nice day with Macros?” 

“Yes, and now I’m tired so I’m going to go to sleep,” I said while faking a yawn. 

“That’s a good idea. You should get your rest.” 

I got up and walked over towards my room. “Good night Reaper.” 

“Good night Pinkus. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Thank the Holy Atrox. I thought this time would never come. I closed and locked the door to my bedroom, then grabbed my lime green coat and looked at the window. “Here goes nothing,” I thought to myself and climbed out of the window. 

I started to run to the teleport and on the way I began to think. If I were a mighty hunter, where would I be? It wasn’t too late, so chances were he would be hanging around some town, or frequenting some bar. But which bar? Which town? What teleport? What I did know was that out of the times I’ve seen him, he always was around Fort Fury, or near Camp Phoenix. Maybe that was his favorite hunting spot? 

I decided to try Fury. I took the teleport over there and upon my arrival I eagerly looked around to see if anyone was at the teleport. Only one girl named Buffy was standing around. I stood there for a moment and looked at the outpost. He could be in there I thought to myself. 

I suddenly became very nervous. He could be in there. He could be standing right at that auctioneer, or buying ammo at the trade terminal, or storing hides from a previous hunt. I wanted to go look, but I felt frozen. What would happen if he was in there? What would I say? What would I do? Would he recognize me? Worse yet, would he care? 

I needed to calm down. I came here to find Rodent, and that is what I was going to do. I took a deep breath, then started to walk towards the outpost. 

“Hi Pinkus,” said Buffy. 

I stopped in my tracks and turned around. I wanted to play it cool. Buffy was a more experienced hunter. She was someone to look up to. “Hi Buffy.” 

“What brings you to Fury?” she asked and walked up to me. 

“I’m just waiting for someone,” I said nonchalantly. 

“Oh really? Me too. He’s just inside grabbing some more ammo. Then we’re out for a trox hunt.” 

“Trox, those mobs are cake,” I said trying to hide my nervousness. Little did she know I was just about mutilated by a feffoid a few weeks ago, let alone take on a monstrous person eating Atrox! 

She laughed, “Yes, they are one of the better mobs to hunt; especially when they are giving good loot like they are tonight.” 

“Well, I’m going to go inside the outpost now. Good luck on your hunt,” I told her, cutting our chat short, then turned around to face the outpost again. 

“Good luck to you too,” she said. 

I took two steps forward, and then out of the outpost and running towards me he came. It was Rodent, dressed in his white angel armor with brigadier coat and carrying an adjusted v1, a perfect trox killing weapon. He started to wave and my heart skipped a beat. He did recognize me after all! I started to wave back as he ran towards me. I had a smile on my face bigger than a rich vein of cald. I knew he would be here. He got closer and closer and as he came up to me I was about to say hi, but then something happened. He wasn’t slowing down. In fact, he didn’t stop running. He ran right past me and over to Buffy, who, when I turned around, appeared to be waving back at him. 

I stood there for a moment feeling as dumb as a person could ever feel. He wasn’t waving to me at all. He didn’t even realize I was standing there. All he was focusing on was Buffy. I watched as for a moment as he greeted Buffy, then together they started to run off to the Atrox filled fields.