D&D 3

Hey guys, I'd like to thank you for your patience. I've been super busy here with house stuff and working with the authors who submitted stories for the next anthology, but I really needed a break. It had been ages since I wrote anything, so I thought I'd dust that old story that I'd been writing for retro and add another scene...

D&D Game 1
D&D 2

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“Marching order!” Gert boomed.

“Marching wha?” wheezed Inzari around the bottle she’d be drinking from.

Gert leaned closer and with a finger in the air, he illustrated as he spoke, “The black stones form a sort of path, a ramp that spirals up from the muddy field toward the top of the tower. But the path is pretty narrow. It’ll be safest if you walk single file. So, who’s going first, second, third, and fourth?”

“Pfft,” huffed the ringel. “I’m on Kynorymz’s shoulder. I’m whatever order he is.”

“Fair enough,” said Gert. “Auset is riding on the anup’s shoulder. Who’s going first?”

“This place reeks of evil. I will go first,” said Tesko in an imitation of a brave lio voice.

“Wait, wait, wait!” shouted Chendra as she pretended to pull her finger from her nose. “Father Heng is the only one with healing magic. When he gets killed, who’s gonna save me?”

“Melmin is right,” agreed Stix. “We don’t get paid if the coosa breaks.”

“You go last, lio,” announced Inzari. “Watch our backs.”

Gert smiled. “If Melmin goes first, he could probably detect if there’s any traps ahead, but if there’s enemies at the top of this tower, Kynorymz would probably fare better.”

“I’ll go,” announced Stix. “Melmin, you stay in the middle. We’ll go slow. If you spot a trap I’m walking into, stop me.”

Chendra nodded in agreement.

“Ever so slowly, you ascend the black stones,” said Gert in a spooky tone. “They’ve been baking in the starshine, and the air around you dances in the heat. It’s a hot, miserable climb. Everyone roll a twenty.”

The ringel shared a look, but Tesko passed each of them a die. “Roll that. Call out the number that shows on top.”

Stix grinned wide as he inspected the die, trying to count all the faces.

“Seven.”

“Twelve.”

“Three.”

“Eighteen.”

Everyone turned toward Inzari, and she looked worried. “What?” she mouthed.

“The mysa’s big ears twitched, turning this way and that,” said Gert. In a squeakier voice, he added. “Did you guys hear that?”

The priest, barbarian, and rogue shook their heads.

“It sounded like a scraping or maybe a grunting,” said Gert.

“A corpse beetle!” shouted Stix. “Kynorymz raises his axe, ready to chop it in half.”

“I raise my finger,” said Inzari with a shrug, “ready to light it on fire.”

“I duck down so it won’t kill me,” said Chendra.

“I turn around and make sure it isn’t sneaking up on us,” said Tesko.

“Nothing happens. You don’t see anything,” said the dungeon master. “Maybe it’s coming from inside the tower?”

“How close are we to the top?” asked Inzari.

“Not far now,” said Gert. “Maybe another half way around?”

“I keep going,” said Kynorymz, “with my axe ready.”

“Another half way around the tower, and the path leads through a gap,” said Gert. “And there you find…”

“Corpse beetles!” said Stix and Inzari.

“Monsters!” said Tesko.

“Treasure!” said Chendra.

“A peasant,” said Gert.

“What?”

“At the top, the path opens up a bit, and you see that the path spirals back down the inside of the tower, down into darkness,” he said. “Near the top of the path, you see a peasant grunting and scraping as he works to get a narrow wheelbarrow up to the top landing. What sort of peasant is he?”

Chendra looked disappointed but offered, “A geordian.”

Gert nodded and wrote that on a new sheet of paper.

“He’s tall and skinny,” said Tesko.

“And he walks with a limp,” said Stix. “He broke his pelvis in a fall.”

Gert nodded as he wrote.

“I set him on fire,” said Inzari, pointing her finger.

“What? No!” shouted Tesko. “Father Heng jumps in the way. You can’t set the peasants on fire!”

Inzari cocked her head. “Why not?”

“Because we’re here to save the peasants…” said the captain. “Not incinerate them.”

“My mom isn’t going to pay us for monster heads if we burn up peasants,” said Melmin.

Auset said nothing, but continued to point her finger.

“Wait, you were just kidding about setting me on fire… Right?” asked the peasant.

“I don’t think you get how this game is played,” said Tesko.

“Oh, no,” said Inzari. “I get it.”

“We accepted a quest to help out,” said the captain. “Now, it’s entirely possible for you to take evil quests—or to take quests that you think are good but then turn out to be evil…”

“Sometimes, unravelling the morality of a situation is half the fun,” offered Chendra.

“Like that game last month in the mines.”

“Yeah,” Chendra agreed.

Inzari, still pointing her finger, said, “Move out of the way, Father. I’m not very accurate with my shooting yet. I wouldn’t want to burn you.”

The party fell silent, and Stix glared into the side of the quartermaster’s head. “Why are you being like this? We were all having fun, and now you’re trying to ruin it.”

Inzari’s jaw hung open. “I’m not trying to ruin anything!”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“That peasant is a monster, and I’m gonna roast him.”

The other three party members shared a look. Gert held his ears neutral, waiting.

Tesko started to say something but Chendra raised a finger, cutting her off. “How do you figure?”

Inzari’s ears slowly pulled back into a grin. “What’s a peasant doing up here in an evil tower with a wheelbarrow?”

Silence. Three faces turned toward Gert. Father Heng asked, “What’s in the wheelbarrow?”

He rolled a die behind the screen and consulted a chart. With ears pulled back, he said, “You can’t tell. It’s covered in a scrap of cloth.”

“I ask him,” said Melmin.

“Uh, nothing, nothing. None of your business,” says the geordian, quickly turning the wheelbarrow about so he stands between it and the four of you.

Melmin pulls a dagger from a scabbard.

Kynorymz takes the axe from where he’d been resting it on his shoulder.

The geordian looks very frightened, and the blood drains from his ears. “Okay, okay, since you insist. It’s treasure. My treasure. I found it down there underground. There’s plenty more, but this is mine.”

Stix and Chendra grinned, but Tesko continued to glare.

After a moment, Gert suggested, “You could roll insight to determine if he’s lying.”

Tesko raised a palm. “I already know he’s lying.”

Everyone stared in silence.

“I point the holy symbol on my staff at the geordian’s neck,” she said, “and I peek under the cloth.”

Gert rolled another die. “He doesn’t try to stop you.” Then, he held out a book for her to look at and tapped a table. “Number seven.”

Tesko closed her eyes, and Gert lowered the book. Eventually, she asked, “Why did you do this to your cubs?”

Trembling, the geordian whispered, “The dark lord of the burrow requires sacrifice.”

Father Heng nodded and started down the black path, first in the new marching order. He paused after only a few strides, turning back to a very satisfied looking Auset sitting on the anup’s shoulder. For a moment, she said nothing.

Father Heng turned back to the path. To the mage, he said, “Burn it,” as he led the way down the path.

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_f95lzGzb53xDvrxUYEJyXv0rti38kCDJIwi4rmYkFs/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?