Homer: Britain Vet Killed Thwarting Bank Robbery in Vesper

[chuxton]

Late at night, when all of the great heroes of the land were sleeping or on personal errands, I thought it might be a good time to visit Downtown Vesper and see some Vampire night life. I used to do it all of the time before I retired. I would gate into the Mint and attack from deep behind enemy lines, creating an outward-spiraling swath of destruction through the corrupt evil hoard,
Of course, the spineless weasel side of me whispered that I might not exactly remember how to do that and that a few forays on the enemy flanks of the Vampire domain might be the best way to get reacquainted. The spineless weasel side of me was absolutely correct, as it so often is.
When I entered Vesper 3 Vampire folk were in the immediate vicinity of the mint/bank. An Ancient Vampire was in a back office of the mint itself- probably working on his will because he heard I was coming. But he seemed preoccupied with his paper work and secure in his cubicle. Two others, a “common” Vampire and a Vampire Lieutenant were banging on the door, even though it was clearly past banking hours. I could have just jumped back into my gate before it closed, but I felt the need to show my spineless weasel side a thing or two.
The Vampire got in first and I managed to defeat him, but inexpertly and inelegantly. I was still banged up pretty well from my battle with the plain old vampire. I got all tangled trying to heal, counterattack, hide and flee all at the same time. I finally settled on dying where I stood.
Once dead, I was worried about losing all of my gear and having to try to get it back from the center of Vampire City. I sent a magic message to Smudge and fainted dead away. My last sight was of the V Looey pushing into the main room of the mint, where some overworked clerk was doing some paperwork.
Smudge dropped what he was doing-probably lurking about in Britain-and leaped straight into the bank, vanished into the shadows the moment he arrived. Now, I had expected him to find my corpse and that of the bank clerk and a madly yoinking VL. My hopes were that he could save some of my belongings with that grab-and-disappear act that he does so well. To our amazement, the Looey was dead next to me and the bank clerk was at his desk having a tuna sandwich. Never interrupt a clerk during lunch break. Had I known that little guy was so tough, I would have found a way to get him involved in the dispute while I was still alive,
But we still had a problem. I was dead and there were three million bloodsuckers between us and the healer. I could get to the healer, but I would have to run the gamut to get back to the bank in my dressing gown. Smudge could possibly sneak down to the healer with my stuff and leave it for me, but we risked losing two sets of gear for the price of one. Smudge gathered up my stuff and told me it would be waiting for me at Fellowship Hall- then he left me to find my own way home. I decided the best course would be to make for Minoc as a ghost, get healed there and hop up to the Minoc Bank where I had spare gear tucked away for just such an occurance. My only worry was running into a wandering healing who would bring me back to life too soon. I met no such, so my trip to Minoc went exactly as planned.
A day’s work restored my skill loss and #2151 is in the books.