The four of us gathered around the old wood table at the center of the burgundy carpeted concrete dungeon. There were shelves of canned goods around us, Norah’s parents being avid preservers. They were prepared for anything, it seemed. There were two bunk beds at the other end of the room, farthest from the stairs, which were divided by a cloth privacy curtain we would pull back before we tucked in. They weren’t the most comfortable mattresses, but they were the most convenient for sleepovers.
Elise clicked the tiny space heater to life, then joined us at the game table. I slid my fingernail between the box and the lid, cutting the thin clear wrapping and ripping it off. My fingers traced the art on the front of the box. It was stunning.
The characters’ backstories were all amazing, too. At the forefront was the character I wanted to play: Raven Gressahla.
She was a half-demon Skro, with horns that snaked down to her cheeks, decorated in gems, metal cuffs, and the teeth of her defeated enemies. She could see into the minds of others and wielded the truth of all things. She was the spiritual leader of a village destroyed by the war of two neighboring cities. Her people, the Skro, were destined to lead nomadic lives, unwelcome in either kingdom.
Behind Raven was Groff, the giant Tree Ogre. He was cursed to live a dual life, one of light and the other of darkness, paying for the crimes of all those who came before him. Tree Ogres were long-lived creatures who developed deep anger for the spreading races, Humans, Foxians, Skro and Sky Elves, for what the Tree Ogres perceived as mistreatment of the land. Groff was the sole survivor of his tribe when they assaulted a heavily defended Human city at the base of their mountains.
Flanking Raven and Groff were two other females: Xebaria Dark-Dancer and Penelope Denetore.
Xebaria sported daggers to the teeth, tight black leathers, and a mask that obscured everything but piercing blue eyes and tall, pointed ears. She was a Sky Elf, dubbed as such for the floating islands on which her people made their home. The legend of Terra says the Sky Elves were one of the oldest creatures on the planet, but when they saw change coming, they retreated by magic means, ripping their cities out of the earth and keeping them out of the reach of those who’d bring them harm. The Sky Elf lore went deep on the internet, and I hadn’t had time for all that...
Then there was Penelope Denetore, the character I knew Norah would nab. Penelope was decked out in gold and bronze bandoliers, a short skirt exposing orange-tinged legs and a fluffy tail sprouting from her behind. She was a Foxian, and kinda cute, but I thought it was just a cheap ploy to reel in the Manga readers.
But that wasn’t why I thought Norah was going to pick her. I knew Norah had also done her research on Terra’s Heroes, and I could tell that throwing grenades, whacking enemies with lightning rods, and shooting pistols was going to be right up her alley. The Foxians had a cool bit of lore to them. Though they’d been subjugated for a long time under the heels of the more “civilized” species, they’d eventually won their freedom, about four hundred years before the game was set.
The cast went on and on, about six other playable characters with their own story arc and potential resolutions, but those were the highlights. I pulled the lid back with a fthp fthp fthp as the air slipped past the tight seal. At the top was the manual; crisp and pristine. I grabbed it as the other girls went in after the figurines.
Terra’s Heroes: The Master’s Guide.
This was one of the first games that provided a basic guide in the box, and then over six hundred pages of lore and story information online. It allowed us to play together, without a game master, since we’d be using one part chance and two parts internet.
We didn’t need a computer to get started tonight though, so I pulled open the first page to the table of contents with the copyright information on the left side.
Introduction
How To Play
Modified Rules
Characters
Abilities
Spells
Spell Modifications
Resolving Play
Armor & Weapons
Loot
Main Story Quests
Side Quests
Towns
Ascending
Cool... Under the character sheets in the box was the Encounters, Enemies, and Creatures handbook, but I could look at that later.
“I want to be Xebaria Dark-Dancer!” Piper declared as she slammed her game piece down on the table. It was the black-clad Sky Elf. I wasn’t sure a high DPS, low health class was for her, but she was almost eleven now; it was time for her to make her own choices.
“I will be Penelope Denetore,” Norah said as she grabbed the Foxian figurine, and I smirked.
Something, fear maybe, made my hand reach out and snatch up Raven Gressahla and put her out on the table. Elise looked up at me, her mouth slightly open. I couldn’t guess if it was the character she wanted... but I wanted her. She grimaced and grabbed Groff.
“I’ll be the ugly ogre, I guess,” she said, her voice downtrodden.
I put the booklet aside. “There are more girls, you know.”
Elise nodded. “Yeah, I know. But you idiots are always getting in trouble, and you’ll need a character like Groff in your party. He has healing magic and can harden his tree-person skin to be strong as stone, like a tank.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Elise seemed to hate my tabletop fascination, but she’d actually done some research on the game. She knew, the same as I did, that two DPS and a Mentalist hybrid would be doomed without some muscle.
“Thanks, Elise.” I gave her a fist bump.
Norah followed, then Piper, adding, “Way to take one for the team.”
The energy in the room was palpable as Elise smiled, happy to be the martyr this time. We’d all taken turns being “the boy” since so many games didn’t provide enough female characters for an all-girl group to play. There was always Dungeons and Dragons or Vampire the Masquerade, which allowed us to play whatever character we could design, but then one of us had to be the game master. We wanted to take on the challenges together.
I sat and pulled the game booklet closer. “Alright, nerds, lay out the board.”
We got to work setting up the first campaign. There were dungeons and cities and groves, but our main home base would be The Tower of Zewan. There we would train, upgrade our skills, and get quests. We could do all of those things out in the world too, but it was mostly for specialized training, or quests outside of the main campaign.
The board was placed. Markers set. Characters poised for entry.
“Tonight,” I started in my gameteller’s voice.
“This morning,” Elise interjected.
“This morning,” I started again without missing a beat, “we embark on a journey to defeat the Cursed Arborium. Who dares?”
“I dare!” Elise declared loudly in a low-pitched, gravelly voice.
Norah smiled, raising her hand. “I dare!”
“And me!” Piper finished, and we put our fists together over the table.
“Let the game begin!” I threw the two ten-sided dice onto the table to determine where we would begin our journey.
The dice came to a stop on four and eight. Twelve it was, though the dice trembled defiantly as if that was not what they wanted to choose. I grabbed the encounter booklet and looked up twelve in the starting combat spreadsheet: Shapeshifters in the deep. I scanned the highlights, being well versed in guiding our ragtag gang through many RPGs, then set the book aside.
“Outside of Terrasil, on the road to the next great city of Feldaust to begin a trade barter, our great Company is of high spirits. But danger lurks in the shadows of the tall trees, and creatures with poisonous fangs that stab deeper than any sword wait for us in the darkness.”
The dice on the table shook harder, then the picture on the wood paneled wall, and the antenna on the old TV. There was a rumbling coming from overhead. Was it a plane? We looked up to the cellar door as light, first deep red, then orange,
then yellow, pushed through the cracks in the wood.
The table bounced from leg to leg, and I slapped my hands down to stop the game board from being upset. My chair trembled and shook my body, causing the nerves in my stomach to tighten. The TV wiggled off the stand, its glass face shattering on the carpet-covered concrete floor. Glass jars from the canning shelves shattered, splattering preserved tomatoes across the wall, and the rumble grew to a roar. The light outside the cellar pierced through the cracks and filled our little space with white.
“What’s happening?” Piper yelled as she reached out for Elise and Norah. Their hands found mine on the table, and my wide-eyed gaze jumped from terrified face to terrified face. It was hard to see them, and my eyes burned from the blinding light.
“Get under the table!” I screamed over the noise and slid down my chair. I remembered the training from school and followed through the motions with fear as my friends crowded around me at the center of the thick wood table. I wrapped my arms around them, putting our heads together.
“It’s going to be okay.” I whispered softly, knowing it wasn’t true, as the white and the sound swallowed us up.
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Copyright
A Snake’s Life is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Kenneth Arant and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.
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About the Author
Hello, everyone. My name is Kenneth Arant and I like to pretend I'm a writer in my spare time. A bit about myself: I'm a retired martial artist with fourteen years' experience, six of which I used to teach others how to not knock themselves out with a pair of nunchucks.
Currently, I'm a full-time night owl with a minor caffeine addiction and a penchant for letting my imagination run wild. My dream is to write awesome books that people will enjoy for years to come.
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We love books and we are crazy-passionate about publishing the best adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Action-Adventure around.
Though our stories can be thought provoking at times, our primary goal is to entertain readers with wild stories and interesting characters you can’t walk away from. We want to whisk readers into a different world where the impossible is possible, where monsters lurk around every corner, but so do heroes, always ready to swoop in and fight back the dark.
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