by Hondo Jinx
He was about to say something about how he hoped that Nadia would find his rent money, too, but Holly narrowed her eyes and pointed across the room to where midday crowds were coming and going through the doors.
“Hey,” she said, “is that an acolyte?”
Dan spun around, instantly ready. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he growled, seeing the skinny guy in a midnight blue robe standing near the door, staring at them.
Dan dropped his hand to Wulfgar's hilt and took a step forward, but the skinny guy grinned at them, squeezed into the crowd and left the building.
Dan craned his neck, trying to see which way the asshole had gone but only caught a quick glimpse of the dark robe before it disappeared.
18
Takedown
Dan roared, going for a tackle.
Then his leg jerked away beneath him, and he was pulled completely off balance. Before he could even regain his footing, two hundred and seventy pounds of muscle slammed into him and drove him to the mat.
Hard.
Again!
A second later, his Unarmed Combat classmate, Rob, who just happened to wrestle heavyweight for Penn State, was up and moving again, a friendly smile back on his face.
Dan jumped to his feet.
The takedown had knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t care. He had to get the best of Rob at least once before class was over.
Rob moved gracefully for such a big guy, circling Dan in a lateral shuffle like a boxer, first to the right, then back to the left, then right again.
He wasn’t even breathing hard!
“Take your time,” Rob said. “You’re telegraphing every attack. Know what I mean? Keep a poker face. Feint a little.”
Rob demonstrated, pawing the open air and taking a quick step toward Dan before scooting back out of range and juking away again to the side.
Dan nodded, breathing hard, and started feinting, doing his best to keep his face set. No more snarling, no more bulging eyes, no more battle cries.
“That’s better,” Rob said, “but don’t get lazy. Don’t leave your arm out there.”
As the huge wrestler said this, he snatched Dan’s forearm, tugged it forward, and pulled him off balance.
Dan yanked his arm free and snapped back instinctively, standing straight.
Half a second later, he was down on the mat again, staring up at the big lights on the White Building’s ceiling high overhead. When he’d stood up, Rob had shot in with a double-leg takedown.
Even though it was frustrating as hell, getting his ass kicked again and again, Dan had to admit that Rob was cool.
Their instructor, a former mercenary who also doubled as the Penn State boxing coach, had paired Rob and Dan after seeing how badly Dan demolished classmates of his own size. Honestly, after yesterday’s cakewalk classes, it was good to know that he would be learning a ton here.
After class, Rob slapped him on the back. “Good work, man.”
“Thanks,” Dan said. He was exhausted, drenched in sweat, and really thirsty. “You’re amazing. I appreciate the tips.”
Rob grinned. “You start taking me down, the tips stop. What do you weigh?”
Dan shrugged. “A buck ninety, maybe two hundred.” He’d weighed one-ninety in the old world. Since then, he’d put on some muscle, more each day, it seemed, but he’d lost fat, too, so he really wasn’t sure what he weighed.
Rob whistled. “You’re strong for one-ninety, man. Like, freakishly strong. You know one-ninety’s a weight class, right? You should come to practice with me sometime. Teach you a takedown or two, a few escapes, a couple of pinning combinations, you’d wreck people. But you’d have to work on that temper!”
Dan laughed. “Thanks, man. Maybe next season. My nights are kind of busy right now.”
Busy, indeed.
Last night, he’d worked until midnight, disappointed to learn that yes, he was still a dishwasher even in this fantasy world.
Then he’d come home, showered off the coleslaw stink of the restaurant, and crossed the hall to see Holly.
At some point, he’d lost count of how many times that they’d made love. They’d done it on her grassy living room floor, in her bed, in her shower, up against the wall….
They couldn’t get enough of each other.
Holly’s kinky side was definitely showing. Despite all of her lighthearted smack talk, she loved it when he dominated her. Nothing too rough or crazy, but she was turned on by his size and strength.
Dan was turned on by everything about her.
But now he was running on four hours of sleep and dying of thirst. He said goodbye to Rob and headed for the dining hall. He planned on taking a long lunch and drinking approximately ten gallons of water before heading to his last two Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes, Battlefield Strategy and Tactics and Treasure Identification.
He went through the lunch line, where the red-faced hobgoblin from yesterday served him potato wedges, a pile of green beans boiled to the color of pale spring grass, and a mound of lumpy, tan “chicken surprise” every bit as dubious as yesterday’s stew.
“Chicken surprise,” Dan said. “What’s the surprise?”
The hobgoblin grinned a yellow smile. “Surprise is, that ain’t chicken.” She barked laughter and asked the next student what they wanted.
After filling up four tall glasses of water, he found an empty table in the corner and started his meal by pounding two full glasses.
He wished Holly was here, but their lunch schedules didn’t coincide today.
After yesterday’s run-in with the acolyte, he hated the idea of her being alone on campus, but his concern only made her laugh. “You’re sweet,” she had said, and kissed his cheek, “but I can take care of myself.”
He knew that she could, and that glowing staff of hers was no joke, but that was the bitch of falling for someone. You couldn’t help worrying about them.
He was halfway through the chicken surprise, which, like the stew, turned out to be pretty good, when a tray slapped down on the table across from him.
“Hello, handsome,” Nadia said, her green eyes gleaming.
He almost didn’t recognize her. She looked completely different than she had at the Diner, and way more like she had that day back in the real world. No cloak, no shadows, no mystery.
Nadia’s chestnut hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Over a bright Dance-a-Thon shirt, she wore a cheery plaid shirt knotted at the midriff. She looked like a crisp, shiny goody two-shoes who belonged not to the Thieves’ Guild but to some service sorority that split its time between curing cancer and teaching blind puppies how to read.
“Good news,” Nadia said. “I might’ve found a wizard.”
“Good,” he said. “Holly’s really worried that she won’t be able to compete.”
“I’m meeting the guy at his dorm tomorrow morning. You and Holly should come.” She glanced quickly to the side and gestured to a pack of approaching girls. Freshmen, by the look of their young faces, makeup, and nicely polished leather armor.
“All right,” Dan said, “We’ll—”
“Now,” Nadia interrupted, “not another word about any of this, or I’ll cut you.” Then she turned with a big smile and welcomed the girls, who filled in seats around them.
Nadia introduced the girls one by one, but Dan was so floored by her innocent and bubbly routine that he didn’t even catch their names.
“Daniel is an old friend,” Nadia said.
The freshmen grinned as if they thought that was just super.
Dan looked back and forth between Nadia and the others in stunned silence.
“And I am their scary RA,” Nadia said.
The girls laughed. “Yeah, right,” one of them said. “Nadia’s the greatest. We’d be lost without her!”
Dan leaned back, flabbergasted. “Wait… you’re an RA?”
“Why yes, Daniel, I am,” Nadia said, smiling more brightly than ever but shooting him daggers with her eyes. Meanwhile, he
r boot kicked him in the shin. “It’s hard to fit in between classes and gymnastics, but I really wanted to give back, you know?”
Dan burst into laughter and stood up with his tray. “Well, if you really want to give back—”
“So good seeing you, Daniel!” Nadia said, cutting him off, and the girls launched into a gaggle of goodbyes.
Dan laughed all the way out the door.
19
Fire and Brimstone
On the steps of the Willard Building, the Willard Preacher had been replaced by an emaciated half elf in rough-spun robes, who was preaching no less fervently to a crowd of lingering students. As they had back in the old world, some of the students listened respectfully, some laughed, and some heckled viciously.
The preacher railed on, unperturbed. “Oblivion stands upon the doorstep, ladies and gentlemen!”
“That’s what you said last Friday,” a heckler called.
A smattering of halfhearted laughter rippled through the onlookers, most of whom didn’t look all that concerned.
But something in the preacher’s intensity stopped Dan.
“No,” the preacher said, leveling a bony finger in the direction of his antagonist. “In the past, I told you that troubled times were approaching.
“But now,” he said, panning his fiery gaze across the slouching crowd until his eyes found Dan, “dark days are upon us! As you worship gold pieces and study blasphemous texts and befoul your bodies, wallowing in sin, the forces of evil are rising up to blot out the very sun!”
An involuntary shudder rattled through Dan and he hurried away toward class.
Don’t freak out, he told himself. Priests always railed about impending doom. Just because the preacher had spoken in terms of evil blotting out the sun, that didn’t mean that he’d been talking about the Acolytes of Eternal Darkness.
Of course, in a T&T adventure, little coincidences like that were always more than coincidences.
At that moment, a cloud passed over the sun, dimming and cooling the day.
Dan marched on doggedly to class. Not that his next class made him feel any better.
The schedule said Treasure Identification, which sounded pretty cool, but class was being held in 213 Sparks, the very same classroom where he’d had GeoSci 02 with Dr. Lynch, who’d seemed hellbent on destroying his old life.
Relax, he told himself, climbing the broad stone stairs. New world, new classes, new teachers.
High above, where he’d thought that he’d seen spiderwebs that first night in this new world, he saw only the same old names chiseled into the stones between the building’s famous Ionic columns: Dante, Aristotle, Goethe.
He went inside, climbed the stairs to the second floor, and entered 213 Sparks for the first time since his old life had come apart in so many shreds as Dr. Lynch tore his essay to pieces in front of him.
He breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he realized that the classroom was completely different. No grid of student chairs, no podium, and–praise Crom!–no Dr. Lynch in sight.
Long tables filled the dimly lit room. Atop these tables sat a strange cornucopia of armor, weaponry, jewelry, and every manner of treasure and trinket, from curious statuettes to ornate mirrors to what looked like a gem-encrusted toilet brush.
But then anxiety washed over him.
There was no one in here. Sure, he was a few minutes early, but he didn’t see even a single student.
Had he made a mistake?
Maybe he’d misread the schedule. Maybe this was where the class met for labs or something. Maybe there was a regular class, with lectures and stuff, in some other classroom.
He groaned.
This was exactly the kind of thing that old Dan used to do. So much so, in fact, that old-world Dan had constantly worried about missing something: directions, assignments, program requirements, everything. He’d been that way all through middle and high school, and college had been even worse.
Relax, he told himself. If there’s another classroom and it’s just down the hall, you’ll still make it to class on time.
He unzipped his backpack and checked his schedule.
He had the right time, the right building, and the right room. But he also noticed an asterisk beside the class number. The bottom of the page was cut off by his sloppy folding job.
He unfolded it. There was the asterisk, and beside it, an explanation: IND STD.
Industry Standard?
Then he understood. No, not Industry Standard.
Independent Study.
He was the only student in the class.
And for now, at least, the only person. His teacher was nowhere in sight.
Class officially started in two minutes.
This was going to be weird. He’d never been in an independent study before. If the teacher was cool, class could be awesome. But if the teacher was horrible…
No, he thought. Don’t even think that way. Besides, maybe I’ll get lucky and the teacher won’t show.
He drifted alongside a table, his eyes passing dully over various dusty knickknacks, passing time until class started.
Then, reaching the end of the table, he slammed to a stop.
Staring up at him was a shriveled human head with long, silver hair.
No, not human, he realized, overcoming his shock and taking in the fine features and pointed ears.
An elven head, female and long dead, her eyes sewn shut and her mouth drawn down in a frown of eternal agony.
A wave of sorrow and revulsion passed over him.
Who had she been?
How had she died?
And what in the world was her head doing here, propped up on a table between a brass letter opener and a crown made of yellowed bones?
“I’m sorry,” he told the head. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
That’s when the head opened its mouth and spoke.
20
Speaking with the Dead
“Thank you, Dan,” the head said, not with the creepy, dried-up whisper he would have expected from a thing long dead but in a clear, lively, almost musical voice.
But he still jerked back, because even a musical voice is shocking when it comes out of a decapitated head. “You can talk?”
“Yes. And I have much to tell you, Dan.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know more than your name,” the head said. “I know you, your soul, your essence.”
“All right,” Dan said. “How do you know all of that stuff, then?”
“Mine are a magical people,” the head said. “We grey elves never really die.”
You sure look dead, Dan thought, but figured he’d keep that to himself.
“So long as our people live on, we remain,” the head said. “At birth, grey elves inherit the memories of our ancestors. A select few of us also inherit the memories of our descendants.”
“Wait,” Dan said. He had to call bullshit on that last bit. “How can you inherit memories of things that haven’t happened yet?”
“We dream the past and the future,” the head explained. “That is how I know you, how I’ve known you, in fact, for over a century. Now my people are in danger, and only you can save them.”
“Me? I’m only a second-level barbarian.”
“It has to be you,” the head said.
And then Dan understood what was happening.
In Towers & Trolls, even the best TMs tended to be pretty ham-fisted when introducing a quest they had prepared.
The trouble was, he didn’t want to go off on some side quest. He was having fun with life right now, thank you very much. He would much rather keep having sex with his hot girlfriend than go off to who-knows-where to fight who-knows-what, with no guarantee of even surviving.
“Why does it have to be me?” he asked, prodding a little.
“I saw you in my dreams,” the head said. “Only you can save my people.”
Of course, he thought. Her lines were so predictable that th
ey had to be scripted. He must’ve missed that appendix in The TM’s Guide.
“Let me guess,” he said. “These dreams, they told you that it has to be me, but otherwise, things were still pretty open-ended, right? Like, it has to be me, but if I agree to help, there are no guarantees. I might succeed or might fail, right?”
“That is correct,” the decapitated head admitted.
Dan rolled his eyes. “Sorry. I have a lot going on. I’m going to have to say no. Good luck to your people, though.” And he turned away from the head.
“Please,” the head called after him. “Listen to me. For my people. For Holly.”
Dan spun back around. “What? What does Holly have to do with this?”
“In Rothrock Forest, you will find a grove of black walnut trees.”
“Is Holly in danger?”
“Caves honeycomb the earth beneath this grove,” the head told him. “This subterranean maze is filled with dark energy. The forces of evil congregate here to hold dark rituals and offer unspeakable sacrifices to unnamable gods.”
Yup, he thought. It’s a quest. A frigging dungeon, with a back story straight out of some T&T module.
He really didn’t have the time for this nonsense, but he had to know if Holly was okay.
“Deep underground,” the head continued, “I followed the sounds of combat and came face-to-face with evil incarnate, the necromancer Griselda. The Legion of Light was there, losing a battle against the powerful sorceress.”
Dan barely managed not to groan. The Legion of Light? That was a name straight out of Willis’s imagination.
“Griselda would have destroyed them all, but I attacked just in time. Back and forth, we battled, momentum shifting one way and then the next. At last, I transcended my strength, fought with the strength of my people, and killed the diabolical necromancer.”
“Hey, good for you,” Dan said. “So about Holly…”
“Unfortunately,” the head said, sounding sad, “at the same moment that I finished Griselda…”
The head moaned.