Memoirs of a Moron

"Oh, yeah! Got 'im good!"

Cheker leaned back in his chair, blue eyes glittering speculatively. "It just might work, Jal," he said slowly.

"What d'ya mean, 'It just might work?' Of course it'll work, Chek!" Jallin said, laughing. "The boy's an absolute moron!"

"But really, Jal," Chek said skeptically, taking a large gulp of his drink. "You're sending Lawrence to do something that no grown man would ever attempt! He's still only a boy; just barely seventeen!" Jal rolled his eyes. Chek was not the sharpest sword on the rack, but they had been friends since they could walk. When Jal was in on something, Chek was too.

The two men were seated in a dingy tavern, in a tiny village of little note between the Sword Coast and Cormyr. It was in the month of Nightal, so villagers were restless and the weather was frigid. Jal leaned forward, motioning for Chek to do so as well, so no one could overhear them.

"Look, Chek," Jal whispered. "I don't think you really understand what I'm telling you here. What we're going to do is this: We tell Lawrence that there's a treant in the Sunshine Woods, alright? You with me?" Chek nodded.

"Good. We tell him how we all think he's a great fighter, and how if he defeats this treant he'll be a hero forever. Got it?"

A confused look came over Chek's face.

"What don't you get, Chek?"

"Well, I was sort of wondering where this treant is."

Jal rolled his eyes again and sighed. "There is no treant, Chek. That's just what we're telling Lawrence."

Chek paused, then grinned and nodded. "Alright. I've got it now."

"Good. We're all set, then. The plan goes into effect tomorrow at dawn."

Jallin and Cheker finished their drinks and left the tavern.

"I don't chop wood, okay? I'm not an axe."

"Do you hear me, evil treant?! Hear my voice and let your roots tremble in terror! I have come to rid Toril of your evil presence!" Lawrence shouted to the quiet forest. The birds went silent. The lanky seventeen-year-old had been approached by two other young men from his village, Cheker and Jallin. They were several years older than he, and told him of the treant that had been plaguing the Sunshine Woods of late. Lawrence had volunteered to kill it, and joyfully set off into the forest. He couldn't imagine why the villagers had been laughing as he left. This was a serious matter!

That was two days ago. Lawrence was lucky he had brought food along in his rucksack. He carried an enchanted, double-handed sword that he had found in the rubbish bin of the smithy. He wasn't quite sure why they had thrown it away; it worked well enough.

He emerged into a snowy clearing. There it stood, a small, rather harmless-looking oak sapling. Oh, but he knew better. It was the treant, the one he was sworn to destroy!

Lawrence leapt upon it and began wrestling with its leafless branches. Finally, it dawned on him that he was carrying a sword, and he immediately drew it from its scabbard and began hacking at the trunk.

After a lengthy struggle, Lawrence managed to uproot the straggly tree. He had finally killed the vicious treant the townspeople had warned him about. He was a hero! Lawrence sheathed his sword and slung the tree over his shoulder, heading back to the village.

"Let's see what's inside this one! Yeah!"

The next morning, Lawrence awoke in the middle of the forest, and began the rest of his journey home. It was midday when he tripped over a root and fell into the middle of a circular design drawn in the snow. He'd half drawn his sword, but it fell from his hand a few feet away. Lawrence felt a floating sensation, then searing, hot pain as though he was being turned inside out.

"Blast it all! You've ruined my spell, boy!" A very angry voice screamed overhead. Lawrence tried to look up and found he couldn't. However, if he put his mind to it, he could see all around him. The tree he had been carrying was several yards away, lying sadly on its side in the snow. A tall, white-haired man in mage robes towered over him, a look of wonder and surprise on his weathered face.

"Well, now . . ." the mage said in an awed, hushed voice. "That's not something you see everyday . . . quite an interesting effect . . ." Lawrence saw a hand reaching for him and then felt himself being picked up. He was . . . lighter, somehow. And then he saw his sword sheath, and then blackness. Lawrence wondered what had happened. Was he blind?

He could hear muffled noises around him. The wizard was muttering to himself about incompetence, cursing in several tongues and talking about how long it would take to gather spell components. He mentioned someone or something named 'Melicamp' more than once. Hoofbeats kept a steady rhythm to his statements. Lawrence wondered who the mage was, and where they were going.

"How about now? No? Come on, I'm gettin' itchy; let's go!"

Lawrence had almost fallen asleep to the steady beat of hooves when he came to a jarring halt. He felt himself being carried, but he still couldn't see anything. It was quite comfortable, wherever he was, but it was really unnerving to be blind. He heard the wizard talking to someone; he was introducing himself as 'Thalantyr.' The other voice was one he recognized; it was the smithy of his village! Finally, he could tell someone he knew all about his epic battle with the dangerous treant! His name would go down in legend!

Suddenly, a bright light hit him, and he tried to adjust to it. Finally, he could see.

"A fine blade, that," the smithy said, obviously impressed. He reached for Lawrence, and ran his fingers up and down his body.

"HEY!" Lawrence snapped. "Don't touch me there!" The smith jumped about a foot in the air in shock.

"It talks?!"

"What do you mean, 'it talks?'" Lawrence demanded. "It's me, Lawrence. I'm the same Lawrence I've always been!"

The smith's eyes went wide as bucklers. "Lawrence?" he said incredulously. He laughed in sheer disbelief. "Lawrence Lilarcor?"

"That's right," Lawrence said. "The name's Lilarcor the Bold, now! Listen, you'll never believe what I did! I killed it! I - killed - a treant! I'm a hero! Just wait until I tell . . ." Thalantyr stuck the still-babbling sword back into its sheath.

"I will take him - it - oh, I don't know what this sword is - back to Beregost," Thalantyr said carefully. "You will be rid of it, I can assure you." He cast a Silencing spell on the scabbard, and both wizard and smith sighed with relief as Lilarcor's excited muttering ceased.

“You just wait until I get through with you, sword,” Thalantyr hissed at Lilarcor. “We’re going to have a talk, and a very long one at that . . .”