The passage led them along a winding, twisty cave with blue, yellow, and lavender lichen growing on the walls in random patches. After what felt like an hour, daylight appeared up ahead and the water became shallower. Over the course of about sixty yards, the depth lessened from more than eight feet to thigh-deep. Swimming became trudging.
Tira held Ashur’s hand, afraid of the current sweeping her away.
At the cave mouth, Keith stopped, bracing one hand on the wall. Water kept flowing past him from behind, at knee height, and spilling down a long, rocky slope to the River Alon. Pale blue moss coated the stone on either side.
“Where are we?” asked Keith.
Sarah stepped up beside him, the two of them filling the opening with little room to spare. She leaned out, peering left and right. “We’re about a mile south of Bansford, which is good and bad. Good because we’re far enough away that no one will see us. Bad because we need to go north.”
“Why don’t we cross the river and go up on the other side,” asked Carlos.
Sarah ducked back into the cave and faced to the rear. “The river is over three hundred yards wide here, and I’m sure none of you put any skill points in swimming or athletics.”
“Actually, I did.” Carlos raised his hand. “Put a point in swimming ’cause I only had one left and no idea what else to do with it.”
Keith raised his arms to the side for a second before letting them flop. “I have no idea what my skills are.”
“No one ever puts points in swimming,” said Tira, “because only an annoying GM would ever make people roll to swim. Little kids can swim. Why is there a skill for it?”
“It’s not for swimming in general.” Sarah smiled. “It’s for doing extreme things like not drowning in rapids or—”
“Crossing a huge river,” said Keith. “She’s right. I’m beat from this cave already.”
Sarah stepped out into the sun, balancing her way off to the left. “That cave was longer than the river by quite a bit, but we weren’t swimming. We rode the current. Trying to cross the Alon, we’d have to both swim and fight the current so it didn’t drag us north to the city.”
“Right, so that’s a bad idea.” Keith followed her out.
She led a procession of waterlogged kids down to the bank of the River Alon, and stood there dripping. “We either head south along the river looking for a way across, or we go east a mile or so before going north and avoiding the city.”
Carlos threw magic at everyone, drying them off. “What side of the river do we need to be on to get where we’re going?”
Tira handed out armor once Ashur and Keith had dried off.
“The other one,” muttered Sarah. “I just hate going south because it’s walking away from where we need to go.”
“Yeah.” Ashur nodded. “My dad hates it when he misses an exit on the highway and has to keep driving the wrong direction until the next one.”
Keith looked around. Standing here doing nothing wasted time. “If we go south, we are heading toward Yzil, and we don’t know for sure if we’ll find a boat or something. If we go inland and north, we’re at least heading in the right direction, and we might find a boat eventually.”
“I got an idea,” said Tira. “No one saw me. I could sneak into Bansford and try to steal our boat back?”
Ashur pulled her close. “No. Too dangerous.”
“Butt. I just saved all you guys from jail.” She stuck out her tongue.
“He’s got a point.” Sarah took a few steps away from the river. “Those men didn’t know us by sight. Yzil’s power let them feel us as being different.”
“Player characters,” mumbled Elliot.
“More than that.” Keith held Sarah’s hand. “Real people. If they catch Tira, none of us will be able to sneak in to get her out. We’d have to fight, and… we’re not gonna take on the whole town guard.”
Carlos whistled. “Yeah, not happening.”
Tira gulped. “Okay.”
Following Sarah’s lead, the group headed east. Five minutes later, they reached a wide dirt road, but she kept going past it. After fifteen minutes, she turned left ninety degrees and marched off to the north. Bansford came into view off to the left soon after, but far enough away that no one in town would be able to recognize anything more than a small group. Still, she veered away a little more and headed down into a channel between hills until the city disappeared behind the land.
An hour later, she headed west again and the group marched along the banks of the river, well away from town. Brown reeds and cattails brushed Keith’s legs, and every so often, Tira whined when a patch of mud tried to steal one of her shoes.
“I’m hungry.” Elliot scratched his stomach. “Anyone else?”
“You can be hungry all you want. We’re still out of rations.” Carlos made a show of searching his pack.
“I have food,” said Tira. “The guards at the jail had a whole table full of stuff.” She patted the Bottomless Bag while dancing around and singsonging, “Guess where all the guards’ food went.”
“Cool.” Ashur patted her on the head. “Nice thinking.”
They wandered away from the river to avoid mud and sat in the grass for a break. Tira opened the Bottomless Bag and pulled out a bowl of soup, still steaming. She handed it to Ashur before sticking her arm up to the shoulder in the bag (which should’ve put her fist into the ground) and grunted. She stuck her other arm in, making a continuous growl of exertion, and drew forth an enormous roasted chicken leg she could barely lift.
“El, take it,” said Tira, shaking from the effort it took her to hold it up.
Elliot hurried over and grabbed it, raising it like a mace. “Wow. What is this? Smells okay.”
“Cockatrice,” said Sarah.
“Is it safe?” Elliot raised one eyebrow.
She nodded.
“That things big enough to beat someone with.” Carlos whistled. “You’ve got that whole Caesar thing going now.”
Elliot patted his belly. “I find no insult in your mirth at my circumference. For it to be insulting, I must give a damn.”
Everyone laughed.
Tira handed Keith a plate of turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes, but he figured the meat to be more cockatrice since they had yet to see a single turkey anywhere, and turkey usually didn’t come sliced as thick as steak. Sarah got another of the same, and she handed Carlos a plate with a huge hunk of ham before pulling a third turkey-and-gravy plate out for herself. After that, she distributed forks, and set out a large ewer of water.
“I didn’t steal any cups. Was in a hurry.” She shut the bag.
Sarah leaned close to Keith and whispered, “It’s sad that they pick on him for being heavy.”
“Oh,” replied Keith also in a whisper, “it doesn’t bother him at all, and we’re not saying it to be mean. It’s just a thing. Even the kids at school who are trying to be douchebags don’t bother him. This kid Eddie called him Jabba once, so Elliot came to school the next day in a Jabba T-shirt. Even did the voice all day.” He leaned his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Ash is real sensitive about skinny jokes, which is why we don’t go there.”
“Oh.” She scraped her fork at the plate, eating too fast to taste.
“Dude, this is cool.” Carlos gestured at his plate. “Food’s still hot. That’s awesome.”
“And she had all these plates in the bag and the food is still on them instead of turning into a giant mess. That’s magic.” Elliot grinned and took a giant bite of his drumstick.
After eating, they resumed marching to the north along the river. Eventually, the highly-awkward process of taking a bathroom break in a grassy field with nowhere to hide occurred. Fortunately, skirts and thigh-length tunics offered enough cover to make the cleaning magic not too embarrassing.
“Ahh, I am the grand archmage of TP,” muttered Carlos.
Sarah giggled. “You never really consider that playing these games, right? I mean, magic is always blow
ing stuff up or enchanting weapons or teleporting or all this big stuff. You’d think in a society like this where magic is commonplace, they’d have all these little uses for it that we take for granted. Like, umm, cleaning up after going to the bathroom, or doing laundry, warming food, fixing things…”
“I do have a mend spell.” Carlos smiled.
“Most of that stuff sounds like cantrips,” said Tira. “It’s already in the rules, but people don’t think of it. Why make a billion spells in the list for things like tying your shoes or wiping your butt when they could write one spell that does everything?”
“Yeah,” said Keith. “That makes sense. The character sheet alone would be huge if they had to list spells like ‘cook food,’ ‘sew cloth,’ ‘light candle,’ and ‘buttwipe.’”
Everyone chuckled.
They walked the day into afternoon, and early evening. Soon after the sky began to darken, a wavering lantern up ahead stood out against the encroaching gloom of twilight. A squarish, two-story wooden shack perched at the riverbank on this side next to a wide deck wrapped around it on three sides. At the far end of the deck, a narrower section extended out over the water, becoming a pier, next to which floated a huge, square barge. A heavy chain spanned the river, narrower at this point, perhaps a mere hundred and fifty yards across. Steel links the size of potatoes dipped under the surface about a third the way across, but emerged on the other side by a similar dock and hut.
“A ferry,” said Keith.
“Ooh!” Tira spun around wide-eyed. “Where? Is she pretty?”
“Ferry as in boat, not faerie,” said Sarah.
“Oh.” Tira pouted. “I hope we see a faerie before we go home.”
Sarah put her bow across her back and a hand on her shortsword. “They’re rare in this part of the kingdom, but I suppose it’s possible.”
“Expecting a fight?” asked Ashur.
“We don’t know what to expect here. Yzil took over that guard captain, he might have possessed the ferryman, too.” Sarah stalked toward the hut.
Keith hurried up behind her, also gripping his blade.
She reached the corner of a shack not much larger than his bedroom. A thick layer of whitish gunk on the windows made looking inside difficult, worsened by the lack of any light. They crept to the next corner and observed a dock twice as wide as the building. The pungent smell of soaked wood hung in the air, weakening whenever the breeze picked up. A barn-door-sized opening in the shack on the wall facing the deck offered a view inside at a cold fireplace and four basic cots. The beds all stood against the left wall, while the other side held empty floor with a few scraps and traces of hay.
“Guess it’s self-service,” said Elliot.
“There’s beds. Are we gonna sleep here?” asked Tira.
“No,” said Sarah and Keith at the same time.
She smiled at him before glancing at Tira and adding, “Too easy to find us here. Plus those beds are probably filled with all sorts of bugs.”
Tira squirmed, sticking out her tongue.
Carlos and Elliot crossed the deck to the end, where the barge bumped against the wooden pylons. The boat consisted of a square raft, twenty feet per side, with no walls or railings. Two posts held rusty pulleys through which the river-spanning chain threaded.
“Wow, that looks dangerous,” said Ashur.
“Less dangerous than swimming.” Sarah grabbed Keith’s shoulder for balance and stepped from the deck to the barge. “Come on.”
“Sorry in advance if I flip this thing.” Elliot grinned.
“Dude, it’s made to carry horses. It won’t notice you.” Carlos patted him on the back.
True enough, the barge didn’t react to Elliot stepping on board.
“Whoa.” He waved his arms. “This is weird.”
“Arr. Git yer sea legs, matey,” said Ashur.
Carlos chuckled and jumped on.
“So, how does this thing work?” asked Tira.
Keith studied it while everyone made puzzled faces. Sarah eyed the giant chain, looked at him, and he nodded.
“We pull ourselves across.” Keith walked over to the chain, which hung at chest level, and grabbed it. “Basically, hold on and pull, use your legs to push the boat forward.”
Tira kicked at the floor. “This isn’t a boat. It’s a giant coaster.”
“Raft,” said Elliot. “It’s not gonna sink and the chain keeps it from going down the river.”
The kids lined up, each grabbing onto the chain. Tira could almost hang from it.
“Sit down or something and try not to fall off,” said Ashur. “You’re too short.”
Keith braced his boots on the raft and hauled at the chain. “Let’s go before someone shows up and kicks us off.”
Everyone—except Tira who sat cross-legged in the middle of the raft—set their feet and pulled.
“Ugh. We should have gloves for this,” said Ashur. “It’s gonna be slimy and rusty when we near the middle.”
Elliot grunted. Every time he pulled, the raft lurched, surprising everyone with his strength. “I can cure disease when we get to the other side, just in case.”
“Wow, dude,” said Keith. “You’re like, strong as hell.”
“It’s probably because the book still considers him a Genndi,” said Tira.
“Eh.” Elliot shrugged. “I’m always working out.”
“BS, man. You don’t go to the gym,” said Carlos.
Grinning, Elliot patted his belly. “Every time I move, I’m working out.”
Subdued laughter filled the raft for a few seconds, giving way to the repetitious grunts and groans of child labor. About a third of the way across, Sarah gasped and stared at her hand.
“You okay?” asked Keith, knowing she’d probably cut herself as he’d already done a few times.
“Blister popped,” she muttered. “I’m starting to think swimming wouldn’t have been as bad.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Drowning doesn’t hurt as much as sore hands.”
She poked him in the side before grabbing the chain again and wincing.
About halfway across, everyone except for Elliot emitted a steady chorus of gasps and groans whenever they pulled. Noticing this, he raised a hand. “Break. You guys are bleeding all over my chain.”
No one objected to taking a moment. Keith cringed at his palms, both having been chewed to a bloody mess by little barnacles clinging to the steel with nasty, sharp points.
Elliot cast a minor healing charm, a chanter’s version of cantrip, on everyone. A warm tingle spread across Keith’s hands, which remained on the red side, but the pain and cuts vanished. The raft swayed to the left as it rode over a ripple in the current. When the right side pitched down, it scooped water up over the top. Tira screamed and jumped to her feet to avoid being soaked.
The wash knocked her legs out from under her. She landed flat on her back, sliding across the raft in the wave. Ashur, at the back of the line, sprinted toward her, but slipped and went flying headfirst over the side into the brown river. Tira snagged Elliot’s ankle, catching herself and holding on as the water rolled over, covering her. Keith rushed to the side and dove flat on his chest, thrusting his arm out for Ashur. Sarah scrambled after him and wound up sitting, holding on to his legs, her boot heels braced against the deck.
Tira sputtered once the water passed.
Elliot reached down, grabbed her by her leather armor vest, and plucked her up. He set her on her feet, but didn’t let go. “Hop on my back and hold on.”
“Ash!” yelled Keith, waving his arm back and forth. “Crap. His armor pulled him under.”
When he tried to jump in, Sarah held him back. “No! You’re wearing armor, too!”
“I can’t let him drown!” roared Keith, grabbing at his scale mail, trying to rip it off.
Tira burst into tears, clinging to Elliot like a backpack while calling for her brother over and over.
“I see him,” said Carlos. “A spot of life light u
nderwater. Guess I’m still an elf. Hang on!”
Carlos dove into the river.
Keith kept fighting with the clamps on his armor, but couldn’t remember how to work them in his panic. The idea of Ashur sinking filled his mind. Sarah’s strength surprised him; despite the slippery wood below, he couldn’t get away from her.
“Here.” Sarah pulled rope from her pack and handed it to him. “Even with Carlos helping, they’re not going to be able to swim up easy.”
“Okay… Okay.” Keith nodded. He took the rope and held his breath.
Seconds later, Carlos’s hand broke the surface. Keith hurled the coil, which unfurled and splashed down nearby. The hand went under. As soon as the rope tensioned, Keith pulled. Sarah grabbed on, as did Elliot.
“Come on, Ash, come on,” sniveled Tira.
Ashur’s head breached the surface, with Carlos’s fist at the back of his neck, holding him up. He sputtered, coughed, and gagged, but breathed. Hand over hand, Keith pulled the rope in, with Sarah helping and Elliot tugging most of the load. Soon, Ashur grabbed the edge of the barge and Carlos popped up beside him. Keith abandoned the rope and grabbed his friend’s hands, throwing his weight back to pull the boy up. Ashur landed on top of him, dripping and still choking.
Tira kept crying, but smiled.
Another wash of river water came over the deck, sweeping from right to left. It pushed Keith a few inches, but not fast or far enough to scare him. Sarah helped Carlos climb up.
Elliot gurgled. “Mind the neck. Don’t squeeze so much.”
“Sorry,” muttered Tira.
“Ash…” Keith swatted him on the back. “Metal armor and swimming. Not a good idea.”
Ashur wheezed. “Yeah. Didn’t even think. Saw Tir going over…”
“Yeah. I understand.” Keith stood and helped Ashur up.
“Wow. He still rolls like crap,” said Elliot. “I try to grab her before she goes overboard. Okay, roll an agility check. Damn, a natural one. Nasir the Bold slips and goes flying into the water.”
Keith fired a ‘not cool’ glare at Elliot, but gave in and laughed once Ashur cracked up.
Carlos intoned magic. A blast of water squeegeed out of Ashur’s clothes and fell to the deck. He repeated the spell on himself, and then Tira, who’d become drenched without even going into the river. She decided to stay perched on Elliot’s back, well away from the occasional tide that washed over the raft.
The Cursed Codex Page 24