Employment, part one.

That evening Bork the Barbarian decided he didn't want to be a barbarian anymore.

'Twink? Listen, Twink... I've been wondering about something. Why did we kill that hippogriffin?' he asked and poked at the campfire with a stick. He didn't know why people did that but it felt like something one should do and nobody ever complained.

'For power that comes with death, foolish mortal,' came Twink's voice, filled with a particular malice only magic-users possessed. Twink The Incomprehensibly Nasty, Keeper of the Small Key of Death, Mistress of the +2 Wand of Encursement (whatever that was; nobody had ever dared ask), was the party sorceress. She was a fearsome user of magic, a delver into dark secrets, and in all respects an evil sort of person. She was also a pixie, about a foot high, and people tended to accidentally step on her because she was inherently invisible. She had a high, squeaky voice and mostly used it to 1) tell people where she was at any particular time and 2) go on and on about newt eyes and the Black Art. So she wasn't considered much of a conversationalist.

Bork sat silent for a minute, pondering this. The only sounds were the cracking sound from the fire and the chirping of... cicadas? You could never be sure in these woods. It might've been some exotic breed of monster. Probably were-cicadas, waiting to suck out their brains.

'No, I mean... what's the point of all this? Experience? I don't see how being an experienced barbarian beats being an inexperienced barbarian, really. When you come right down to it, it's like a... a horrible circle. We wander around the countryside killing things, so we could use the gold to buy better weapons and armour to kill even bigger things, just so we could buy even more powerful stuff to kill even bigger critters. I mean... what's the point?' Bork said, musing.

'Now, now, kiddo,' said Bert, the party Rogue, turning around in his sleeping bag. 'We're adventurers. Adventuring means freedom, a chance to see the world, become rich and famous, that sort of thing. If we weren't doing this, what would we be doing? Waiting tables? Snap out of it and let us sleep.'

'No, but you see... we only see the world to kill critters, right? Only become rich to buy things to kill critters with, and for some reason nobody has ever heard of us no matter where we go. It's all the other adventuring parties out there robbing the credit, I guess. But my point is, it doesn't seem as if this profession is really leading me anywhere, now does it?'

Rogue sighed. 'Bork, you're a damn barbarian. Barbarians don't need to do anything but kill things. So stick to being a barbarian and stop going on about career development and your purpose in life and all that intellectual stuff. I mean... gods, some barbarian you are. Your father would be ashamed if he heard you speaking that way. Now go to sleep. We need to pillage a cave and a Gnollish town tomorrow.'

Bork wondered at this for a long while. Yeah. He was, after all, a barbarian. He was a mighty warrior of the northern wastelands, where the winters were cold, long, and exceedingly uncomfortable. Nothing grew in that land. Well, except barbarians. It was logical, Bork thought. Anybody who was going to survive in such a land was going to have to be pretty tough. But... Bork had never felt a true, spiritual affinity with his people. His father, Karloff the Barbarian, and his mother, Electra the Barbarianess, were good people but... Rogue was right. If they were to hear him talk like this, question the very core of what being a barbarian was all about, they'd kick the living snot out of him and tell him to shape up. There were standards to being a barbarian, after all. Very old and important standards. Like the one about wielding your father's blade. And having to be a muscle-bound ape. Bork had never really gotten that one. On the other hand... he had always been something like an exception. He was a bit too intelligent. He was always asking - why this, why that? Too many syllables in his name, the elders had said reproachingly and wagged their swords about. Having too many syllables in ones name was the sort of nonsense which made a perfectly good barbarian boy daydream about learning to read and write and form coherent sentences. So they had said. (Bork had never told them there was only one syllable in his name.)

Yes. There were standards to being a proper, savage barbarian. And for the first time in his life Bork thought about deviating from them.

'I'm going to switch profession,' he announced to the sleeping party and poked the fire with a stick.