Morgan barked out a quick laugh, and was relieved to see Cordelia smiling as well.
“Now let’s go find our friends,” Morgan said. But as he looked back at Tobias, he saw two glowing red eyes in the dark behind him. “Tobias! Duck!”
Tobias spun around. Everything seemed to transition to slow motion. The bard recoiled as the creature, an arm covered in whitish fur, ending in a dark gray, clawed hand, lashed out. Then a blur of green launched into view, knocking Tobias aside. Blood flew through the air, staining the rain. The monster cried out in pain. Tobias’ body landed on the forest floor with a thump. Cordelia ran forward, yelling out a war cry.
Jack’s body rolled until it landed at Morgan’s feet. Time returned to normal.
“Jack!” Morgan yelled, dropping down to his prone friend. Jack’s hand grabbed hold of Morgan’s calf.
“I think I got him,” Jack said. He dropped his short sword, edge stained red with blood, and pulled back his hood.
Tobias swore. Cordelia gasped.
“Holy shit,” she said.
“How bad is it?” Jack said, gesturing to his face. Three ragged slashes ran upward from chin to cheekbone, somehow missing mouth, nose, and eye. Bright blood poured down his face, pooling in his collar.
“Let me try to heal you,” Morgan said, grabbing his friend by the shoulders.
“No, save it,” Jack said. “Time for that later. We gotta follow him. He’s still got that kid.”
“You’re an idiot,” Cordelia said. She helped Tobias to his feet.
“What were you doing?” Tobias said.
“He was stalking you,” Jack said. “I was trying to get a shot at him with my bow when he moved in. He’s so fast. He would’ve gutted you.”
“So instead you saved my guts with your face.”
“I was actually hoping to block him with my sword, but I missed,” Jack said.
From the darkness, a wolf howled.
“That your dog?” Cordelia said.
“Yeah. I… I don’t know how I know this, but he’s telling me he’s found something.”
“Better than hearing him cry out like he’s being eaten,” Tobias said.
“Let’s go,” Jack said, leading them away.
As they moved, Cordelia yanked something from a tree branch. A scrap of blue cloth.
“Tamsin,” she said.
“He got her?” Tobias said.
“I don’t think so,” Morgan said. “Looks like there’s just some trampled branches.”
The wolf, Silence, trotted like a shadow out of the brush, eyes shining in the dark. He made eye contact with Morgan—well that’s unsettling, he thought—and then turned and walked away.
The group followed. Maybe thirty feet away, the wolf stood over a hole in the ground, deliberately dug out and well camouflaged.
“A nest,” Cordelia said. “I’ll go first.”
Morgan started to protest, but Cordelia held up a hand.
“Orc. Axe. Natural ability to see in the dark,” she said. “Fight me, big guy, I’m the best option.”
“Okay,” Morgan said. He watched as Cordelia, with grace incongruous to her orcish frame, slipped into the tunnel and quickly made her way down.
“I’m next,” Tobias said. Without waiting for permission, the bard disappeared into the den as well.
Jack turned to his wolf.
“We’ll be back,” he said. “Keep an eye out for us. Howl if anything approaches.”
The wolf, of course, didn’t respond, but casually walked away, taking up sentry duty in a copse nearby.
Jack and Morgan looked at each other.
“This is all my fault, Morgan,” Jack said. “I did this.”
“Did you know the game was going to teleport us to some alternate reality?” Morgan said.
“No,” Jack said.
“Did you want it to teleport us to some alternate reality?”
“No.”
“Then the only thing you did wrong was buy a board game from Lonnie, who probably overcharged you for it because he thought it was vintage, like he always does,” Morgan said. “If you start a pity party I will smack the living hell out of you and I will not heal your face when this is over.”
“No pity party,” Jack said.
“Good,” Morgan said. “Now you go in the hole first. You know I hate this stuff and I don’t want you to be able to see my claustrophobia face when we’re climbing down.”
Chapter 14: Now it’s a proper dungeon crawl
Cordelia’s boots hit the ground with more noise than she was hoping for as she dropped from the gap in the cavern ceiling. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, an ability she was suddenly glad the orcish body she was trapped in possessed. The air was rank, thick with rot and ammonia. It was enough to make her eyes water.
This, though, felt familiar. She and her friends had been playing games like this their whole lives, and this world they’d ended up in seemed to very much want to play by the rules of those games. No more running through the sandbox setting of a forest, she thought. Now it’s a proper dungeon crawl.
Tobias struggled to escape the tunnel in the ceiling, feet dangling with a complete lack of dignity above her. She reached up and pulled on his leg, freeing him from a root that had caught his tunic, and with one arm all but caught him like a football, setting him down on the floor.
“That could’ve been smoother,” he said.
Jack came next, dropping down with far more practiced ease. Morgan brought up the rear, making an uncomfortable amount of noise.
“Sorry,” he said. “Stupid armor.”
“Always the cleric ruining stealth,” Jack said.
“So, what is this thing?” Tobias said. “Like a troll or something?”
“Stealing little kids from their beds at night,” Cordelia said. “It’s a bogeyman. Or whatever they call things like that in this world.”
“We’re chasing the boogey man,” Tobias said.
“Bogeyman,” Cordelia corrected. “There’s lots of names for them in myths. Every culture has them, so they end up in games like this a lot. It’s something everyone’s afraid of.”
“What are we going to do?” Tobias said.
“We’re going to kill it,” Cordelia said.
“I mean what are we going to do to get to that part.”
“Well, normally I’d send our rogue ahead to check for traps, but since as usual our rogue has split the party, as she always does…” Morgan said.
“I’ll go,” Jack said, heading off before anyone could stop him.
Cordelia gave Morgan an unpleasant look.
“There something in Jack’s character sheet about having a death wish?”
“He thinks this is all his fault,” Morgan said.
“Well, he did buy the game,” she said.
“Can we… not… do that right now?” Morgan said. “Let’s find everyone first and we can play the blame game after.”
“Every party needs a pooper,” Cordelia said before heading off after Jack.
She didn’t get far before running into Jack’s outstretched hand, telling her to wait. Wordlessly, she questioned him with a glance. He pointed to the ground. Cordelia shrugged, irritated. Jack pointed again. She knelt to check out what had him spooked and saw multiple sets of footprints on the ground. Some were monstrous, scratched up by exposed claws; but alongside those were two sets of footprints, both booted, slender enough to hint they might be female.
Eriko and Tamsin were here, she thought.
Tobias sidled up beside her and immediately recognized the prints, which, Cordelia had to admit, surprised her. She hadn’t thought he’d be that perceptive.
“My sister is here,” he said.
“Shh,” Cordelia said, giving him a dirty look.
“Why are we going into the dark to find him?” Tobias said.
“Keep talking so loud and he’s going to find us,” Morgan said.
“There’s four of us. One of him. Let’s draw him out. Ba
ck at the entrance,” Tobias said. “Why are we walking into his trap?”
“Guys,” Jack said. “That almost makes sense.”
“Of course it makes sense,” Tobias said. “You want someone to think outside the box? Bring the guy who has never played the game before.”
“Okay. Okay, we’ll try it,” Morgan said. “The corridors are too tight anyway. We risk getting bottlenecked.”
“What are we doing to do, ask him to come out and play?” Cordelia said.
“Guys,” Tobias said, holding out his arms dramatically. “You brought a bard. Use him the way the gods intended. To make a stupid amount of noise.”
Chapter 15: The kitchen
The cave, it turned out, was more pockmarked and complex than Eriko had first noticed. The kitchen—that’s what this is, she knew, her stomach a roiling pit of disgust—had dips and corners, something that might have been a pantry, and another tunnel leading down into a sort of makeshift storeroom. The storeroom itself seemed barren and unused. She hustled Tamsin into that tunnel, out of sight from the cooking fire and butcher’s table.
“I’m going to set that bastard on fire,” Tamsin said. Eriko locked eyes with her.
“The kid,” she said. “He might still have the little girl. Wait until you know you won’t hit her.”
“I must know some other spells,” Tamsin said.
“Then start concentrating and trying to remember,” Eriko said.
She reached for Tamsin’s belt and pulled open a distinctly square-shaped pouch, revealing the top of a book.
“Spell book,” Eriko said.
“I have one of those?”
Eriko pulled it from the pouch and handed it to Tamsin.
“Try reading it,” she said. “Just… read, like, quietly.”
Tamsin nodded, carefully turning the pages, squinting in the dark.
“I can’t see shit,” she said.
“You’re an elf. You should have like, dark vision or something.”
“I read the character sheet. Low light seems to indicate there has to be some light…”
“Read quieter,” Eriko said.
“I…” Tamsin said, then cut herself short.
The sound of ragged breathing and heavy footsteps echoed faintly from within the cavern ahead.
I’m a rogue, Eriko thought. I’m stabby. I’m sneaky. I should be able to sneak up and stab him before he does anything to that kid, or to us, or…
Her heart raced. It was one thing to play rogue on the streets of the town, without risk. But this was life or death. If her confidence faltered—is it confidence? Are our real bodies back home, rolling dice, unaware that rolling a one meant maybe dying? Or are we just here, truly here, body and soul, relying on skills and abilities we have no idea how to use?
Doesn’t matter, she told herself. You’re Rouge the Rogue, the party-splitter, always the thief, always the assassin. You’ve been playing this character your whole life in one game or another. You’re a badass, Eriko. Get your shit together and do this.
Then the monster staggered into the kitchen and dropped the unconscious child on the table like a slab of pork and Eriko’s limbs went numb.
The girl groaned, which Eriko knew had to be a good sign—he hadn’t killed her already, though she was too quiet to be fully conscious. She should be screaming in fear and panic. The monster stepped away, casually examining a wall of carving instruments, lifting one, then another, serrated or straight-edged, all filthy and rusted. He grunted to himself and strode over to the fire, striking metal against stone until the sloppy pile of firewood began to crackle.
He picked up a blackened pot from the floor and hung it over the fire, then retrieved a jug of water and filled the pot.
He’s making little kid stew, Eriko thought. Her grip on her daggers went white-knuckle. Do it, Eriko, do it while his back is turned, get him… but that back was massive, rippling with animalistic muscle, the back of his head predatory and monstrous. He sounded like a caged tiger at the zoo.
The child whimpered in the dark. Eriko felt Tamsin’s hand on her shoulder. The women exchanged a look. Now or never.
And then: someone started singing a Queen song in the distance. They lyrics to “Bicycle Race” were singularly incongruous to everything in this cavern; light, funny, unexpected, almost comforting.
Tamsin’s eyes went wide. She mouthed her brother’s name.
“Tobias?”
The monster stood up violently, throwing a wooden spoon it had been stirring the pot with aside. It grabbed two rusted carving knifes from the wall and stomped furiously out of the kitchen toward the singing.
“Come on,” Eriko said.
She leapt from their hiding place to the table, finding the little girl still wrapped in a rough wool sack. Eriko yanked the bag open. The little girl—wide-eyed, hair in disarray, a brutal bruise growing across her face—yelped in surprise, but then opened her mouth when she saw Eriko’s face.
“Come on, Madsin. We’re here to get you out of this place,” Eriko said.
“Are you going to save me from the monster?” the child said.
“We sure hope so,” Tamsin said.
Eriko pulled Madsin from the sack and Tamsin scooped her up, the little girl wrapping her arms and legs around her torso tightly. Eriko drew two daggers from her belt, and she was shocked at how natural it felt.
“Who’s singing?” Madsin asked.
“My idiot brother,” Tamsin said. “I think we’re going to have to save him too.”
Chapter 16: Every party member has a job to do
So I’m the bait, Tobias thought, wailing about how he wants to ride his bicycle in his best Freddie Mercury impression. He had considered diving into some David Bowie instead, but for some reason the lyrics left his mind. Never had any problems calling up the words to a Queen epic, though, so he let loose, immediately regretting not choosing “We are the Champions” instead.
Cordelia, positioned just to the left of the gap in the wall the creature would emerge from, gave him a comically quizzical look.
“Seriously?” she mouthed.
Still, it was effective. He very soon saw the monster’s shadow appear in the hallway ahead. He nodded at Morgan, who had taken up position opposite Cordelia, both of them with their two-handed weapons at the ready. Somewhere in the darkness to Tobias’ left he knew Jack waited with his bow already drawn.
And I’m the bait, Tobias thought. This is awesome. I always wanted to be the bait. Every party member has a job to do, I guess. I guess if I were in charge I’d make the bard the bait too.
The creature, the bogeyman as Cordelia had called him, appeared at the end of the corridor. He’s big, Tobias thought. Bigger than he looked out in the forest, as if he’d compressed himself to hide his bulk. But here in his home he was built like a wall of fur and muscle, pushing seven feet tall, shoulders wider than any human he’d ever seen, with massive black claws gleaming at the tips of his fingers and toes.
The bogeyman smiled. His teeth were like blackened razors.
Tobias stopped singing.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he said. “With a face like that, you should be on the Bachelor.”
The bogeyman broke into a run, his footfalls heavy enough that Tobias could feel them through the soles of his boots.
“Not a reality TV fan, I guess,” Tobias said. “No problem.”
The monster reached out for Tobias with an impossibly long, apelike arm.
Tobias didn’t even hear Jack’s bow release. The arrow silently sunk into the palm of the bogeyman’s hand, bursting out the other side, deflecting the blow aimed at Tobias’ throat. In the same instance, Cordelia swung her axe, an upward arc that landed dead-center in the monster’s guts, driving him backward with a wet, grinding noise. The horrible violence didn’t stop there though, as Morgan—the big man dwarfed by the creature’s size—took a home run swing at the back of the bogeyman’s head, landing with a grotesque smack of steel on bone.
; It should’ve killed him, Tobias thought. He should’ve been decapitated and bisected in a split second. But the creature lashed out, backhanding Morgan and sending the cleric slamming into the stone wall behind him, his armor clanging on impact. The monster reached down and yanked Cordelia’s axe from his guts with his own hands, blood pouring forth, pulling the weapon so hard that Cordelia was torn from her feet, refusing to let go.
Jack leaped in front of Tobias again. I need to do something, Tobias thought, I have a sword, I’m not useless, watching as Jack carved two wicked cuts across the bogeyman’s chest then ducked out of the way of a clawed swing. Tobias felt something slam into his gut and realized Jack himself had kicked him, pushing him out of range of the bogeyman’s reach.
“Over here, you baby-killing bastard,” Morgan said as his hammer lit up with a gold-white glow. He swung again in a brutal arc and the bogeyman tried to catch the hammer in one huge paw. And catch it he did, Tobias witnessed, his jaw hanging open in amazement. He caught the goddamned hammer, Tobias thought, his breath catching in his throat. But then the air filled with the smell of burning flesh and the monster released his grip, roaring in pain as the hammer itself seared its palm.
“Man, I love playing a war priest!” Morgan said, readying for another attack.
The bogeyman swung wildly, knocking an unprepared Jack off his feet with the back of his arm, howling as he found himself confronted by both Morgan and Cordelia.
Then he turned his eyes on Tobias.
“Oh shit,” Tobias said, and the bogeyman ran at him, ignoring both of the more capable fighters for the bard, still sitting on the ground like a fool.
But before he reached him, the bogeyman arched his back in pain, screaming a high-pitched wail. He spun and shook as if trying to reach the worst itch he’d ever needed to scratch. As he turned, long arms reaching over his shoulders, Tobias saw the red-cloaked figure of Eriko hanging there, a dagger driven deep into the thick muscles of his trapezius on either side of his neck. She had her feet planted on his lower back, using the daggers for leverage to stay put. It didn’t last though—one massive hand caught hold of her cloak and sent Eriko flying across the room like a doll.
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