d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  Sure enough, half a mile up the road, the music drowned out the creepy-crawlies of the landscape, which had become thicker with trees. The accordions and harmonicas playing to a fast, washboard rhythm were unmistakable to Julian’s stupidly long ears.

  After a series of confused glances, raised eyebrows, and shrugs, the group marched on in the direction of the music. Ten minutes later, they spotted a light shining through the looming cypress trees.

  Distracted by the music, Julian nearly ran into an old wooden signpost poking out of the water next to the path. He read the sign aloud. “Bon Temps Tavern.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to pop in for a drink,” said Cooper.

  “Maybe we could even stay the night,” said Dave. “I don’t know how much I like traveling further into an unfamiliar swamp in the dark.”

  “It sounds like a friendly enough place,” said Julian.

  “One drink,” said Tim. “And we’ll talk about where to go from there.”

  A bridge of rough wooden planks led from the trail to the tavern. The building itself was raised about fifteen feet out of the water on a series of posts. If Julian had to guess the style of architecture, he would have said unsupervised eight-year-olds building a tree fort. It looked like a mosquito fart could send the whole thing toppling into the marsh. The most impressive feature was the awning over the entrance. The top half of an alligator skull about the size of a compact car. It boasted teeth as long as Tim’s forearms. It might not have been the most inviting entrance in a different setting, but here it worked. It said that you should come in and have a drink, because you never know what you could run into if you hang around outside too long.

  The planks creaked as they walked single file up the wooden stairs toward the huge skeletal alligator maw. The music coming from inside was in full swing, accompanied by a lively din of conversation and raucous laughter.

  Julian reached the door first, but was hesitant to open it.

  Cooper pushed past him. “This place sounds great!” He opened the door, and they all spilled inside.

  All conversation in the tavern stopped almost immediately as the accordion whined to a halt. The lizardmen on harmonica and washboard played on a bit, lost in the rhythm of the song they were playing, until they got a nudge from the accordionist.

  More than half the congregation was made up of lizardfolk. The rest were a mix of human, half-orc, half-elf, and a few humanoids that Julian couldn’t identify. Whatever their race, they were all clearly working-class people. Their clothes were filthy, their fingernails were grimy, and their teeth were discolored. Every bloodshot eye in the house was on them.

  “Evenin’, strangers,” said the lizardman on accordion. His tone was suspicious, completely at odds with the frivolity of the music he had just stopped playing. “Now what it is bring you fine folks out here in the middle of the night?”

  The truth wouldn’t do, so Julian thought up the best lie he could on a second’s notice. “We’re um… We’re ecologists,” he said. “We’ve come to check the salinity of the marsh.”

  “What he say?” asked the harmonica player.

  “I think he done said he come to check the senility of Big Marsha,” said the lizardman on the washboard.

  Nearly all of the lizardfolk in the place stood up at once, along with a fair number of humans and half-orcs.

  A particularly large half-orc, dressed in mud-stained overalls frayed below the knees, wiped his forearm across his beer-foamed mouth and stepped forward. “You folks got some big ol’ hickory nuts come in here insult Miss Marsha like that.”

  “Wait, no,” Julian said. “We didn’t mean…” Words failed him. “What just happened?” he said under his breath.

  “Critical Fumble,” said Tim. “It doesn’t matter how high your Charisma score is. Every now and again, you’re bound to roll a 1.”

  A long, extended note shrieked out of the accordion, gaining the musician the tavern’s attention. “Now settle down, folks.” He grinned a sharp-toothed lizard grin. “If these folks wanna come round here an’ pick a fight with Big Marsha, well hell… That be mo’ entertainment than we can provide.”

  The crowd laughed, murmured words of agreement to one another, and went back about their business. Now that was a successful Diplomacy check.

  “Who the fuck is Big Marsha?” said Cooper.

  The accordionist, still grinning, nodded his reptilian head toward the bar. Of the two lizardfolk tending the bar, it wasn’t hard to guess which one had earned the moniker ‘Big Marsha’. The bartender on the left was as normal-looking as any anthropomorphic lizard Julian had seen all day. He crossed his arms over his chest and took the universal tough-guy pose as he stared at the group of newcomers. The one on the right looked like it – she, Julian supposed – lived on a diet composed exclusively of deep-fried Snickers bars. As she stared back at them, she disproved Julian’s diet theory by lashing her tongue out of her wide, Jabba-like mouth, and snatching a passing mosquito out of the air.

  “Go on, Randy, Germaine,” Big Marsha said to two humans sitting at the bar. “You go grab youselves a table. Miss Marsha gotta have a word wit’ her new guests.”

  The two men obediently picked up their drinks and moved to an empty table.

  The obese lizardwoman slapped four shot-glasses and one normal-sized glass on the bar. “Well come on now!” she said. “You got somethin’ to say to Miss Marsha. Here I am. Come on over n’ sit down a spell. First shot’s on the house.”

  Julian, Tim, Dave, and Cooper walked slowly across the room, trying to avoid the distrustful stares of mammalian and reptilian eyes. With each step Julian took toward the bar, the entrance – and, more importantly, exit – to the tavern felt a mile further away.

  When they finally made it to the bar, Big Marsha uncorked a bottled and filled all of their glasses. She placed a shot in front of Julian, Tim, and Cooper, and the larger glass she placed in front of Dave. Then she frowned and looked over at the band. “Go on now, you good-fo’-nothin’ hacks. I don’t pay you to stand there and ogle me. Get to playin’!”

  The lizardman on the washboard bobbed his head up and down as he scraped a bone across his instrument in a fast rhythm. The harmonica player joined in, followed finally by the accordionist. The party was in full swing again.

  Big Marsha picked up the remaining shot glass. “Welcome to Bon Temps.” Her whole body jiggled as she tilted her head back and swallowed the drink.

  Julian couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Definitely some bottom-shelf liquor. But it went down nicely enough and warmed his insides.

  “Now let’s see if I can rustle up somethin’ fo’ you friend here,” Big Marsha said to Julian.

  “Huh?”

  “Boudreaux,” she said to the other bartender. “Run out back and check the possum traps.”

  The bartender snapped to attention, the tough-guy look completely abandoned. “Yes, ma’am!” He scuttled through the swinging doors behind the bar like he was on a mission from God.

  Big Marsha stomped her foot down behind the bar, and all four of them jumped. She bent down, and reappeared with a flattened cockroach in her hand. “Here you go, big fella,” she said, bringing the dead bug way too close to Julian’s face. He wanted to scream or run, but was frozen in fear and panicked confusion. What the fuck was she doing?

  Just when he was about to lose his shit, Ravenus plucked the bug out of her hand. Of course! Ravenus was on his shoulder! He’d completely forgotten that. She wasn’t trying to rub cockroach guts on his face after all.

  “Ravenus,” said Julian. “Why don’t you go sit on the bar?” The sound of crunching cockroach next to his ear was making him queasy.

  Ravenus hopped down onto the bar and greedily swallowed the big bug.

  “Oh, you’s a hungry one, ain’t you,” said Big Marsha. “Well don’t worry none, honey. Boudreux’s out fetchin’ you a special treat.”

  Big Marsha poured another round of drinks. Julian noticed that she fai
led to wash her cockroach-touched hand, but kept the observation to himself.

  “Now tell Miss Marsha true,” she said. “What bring you folks all the way to Groulet at this time of night?”

  “What’s Groulet?” asked Dave.

  “Why that’s the name of our fine little community.”

  “I thought you said it was called Bon Temps.”

  “Bon Temps is the name of the tavern,” Big Marsha snapped. “Groulet is the name of the town. Squeeze the wax outta those fat little dwarf ears of yours and pay attention!”

  Dave sat wide-eyed and silent.

  Big Marsha chuckled to herself. Her leathery skin rippled down in waves as she laughed. “Miss Marsha just messin’ with you.” She stopped laughing. “But really now. What you folks be doin’ here?”

  “We’re just passing through,” said Julian.

  “Don’t nobody pass through Groulet,” said Big Marsha. Ain’t nothin’ beyond here but the Swamp of Shadows. You folks got no business up in there. Miss Marsha tell you that much fo’ free.”

  Boudreaux re-entered through the swinging doors holding a dead possum up by the tail. “This one been dead a while by the look of him.”

  Big Marsha grabbed the soggy dead creature with both hands and plopped it down on the bar in front of Ravenus. “Here you go, Sugar.”

  Julian felt a strange swirl of emotions unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His own disgust and revulsion seemed to be battling for dominance with Ravenus’s excited gratitude, which he could feel due to the empathic link they shared. “Thank you,” he managed to croak out to Big Marsha without throwing up.

  Ravenus hopped up on the dead animal, ripped open a big hole in the skin, and buried his beak in the creature’s guts.

  “Now that’s a good boy,” Big Marsha said with a broad smile. “You poor thing must be ‘bout starved to death.” She reached under the bar and pulled up a small burlap sack and a wooden bowl. “How ‘bout you boys? You hungry?” She bare-handedly scooped out some shelled peanuts and dumped them in the bowl, placing it before them.

  “No, thank you,” said Julian, Tim, and Dave in one voice. Julian was apparently not the only one who had taken note of Big Marsha’s sanitary practices.

  “Sure,” said Cooper, popping a few peanuts into his mouth. “Thanks!”

  “Pardon me for asking,” said Julian. “But do your patrons not find it at all off-putting to have a dead rodent on the bar?”

  “Ha!” said Big Marsha. “These ain’t city folk like you. This is Groulet folk. Fur trapper, gator hunters, fisherfolk. Everyone you see here handle the insides of animals every blessed day. The Swamp of Shadows ain’t no place for the squeamish.”

  “Are you going to try to stop us?”

  Big Marsha bellowed out a laugh that shook the rickety foundations of the whole building. Boudreaux joined in with her.

  “He wanna know if I gonna try to stop ‘em. You hear that, Boudreaux?”

  “Oh, I heard him all right, Miss Marsha,” said Boudreaux.

  “Boy, iffin I wanted to stop you, all four of you would be chopped up an’ on gator hooks by now. I ain’t yo mamma. You go on an’ die in the swamp iffin that’s what you wanna do. All’s I was tryin’ to do was offer some friendly advice.”

  “If at all possible,” said Tim. “We’d like to leave in the morning. Do you have lodging available for the night?” He placed two gold coins on the bar.

  “Well I’ll be,” said Big Marsha, picking up one of the coins and holding it close to her eye. “The king’s own currency. We don’t usually see much of that ‘round these parts. Folks ‘round here mostly pay in furs an’ fish.” She put the coin back on the bar. “Boudreaux, go on an’ clean out your room. These folks gonna stay in there tonight.”

  “But Miss Marsha!”

  Big Marsha picked up a broom leaning against the wall behind her and thwacked Boudreaux repeatedly on the head with it. “Don’t you sass me, boy!”

  Boudreaux held up his arms defensively and cowered under the attack. “Yes, Miss Marsha. I’m sorry, Miss Marsha!” He hurried back through the swinging door again.

  Big Marsha scooped up the two gold coins and slipped them under the bar. “Boudreaux’s getting’ yo’ accommodations ready now.” She poured another round.

  About half an hour later, the first of the patrons began to head out into the darkness. The rest of the night Julian could only remember in flashes, and only vaguely.

  The band left at some point.

  Ravenus vomited possum guts all over the bar, perhaps intentionally, so that he could continue eating.

  Tim fell asleep.

  Big Marsha had Dave and Cooper in stitches with some story that Julian couldn’t stay conscious long enough to follow. It might have had something to do with frogs.

  The next time he blacked out, his face hit the bar hard, and he didn’t wake up again...

  …until the next morning. The sunshine was bright in his face, and the air smelled like rotten eggs and old fish. But he was dry, and that was a vast improvement over… He had to take a moment to remember where he was. Bon Temps. Boudreaux’s room. Okay, that much was settled.

  Next item on the agenda. Why was he naked? He and Big Marsha didn’t… No, there wasn’t enough booze in the world. Was there? He shuddered and sat up. His friends were still sleeping. And not one of them was wearing a stitch of clothing. Dave’s armor was piled up in the corner of the room, but nobody else’s clothes were anywhere to be seen. Cooper yawned and rolled over onto his back, allowing his huge, scaly, disease-ridden monster dick to flop into view.

  Julian couldn’t stomach the sight of it. Not this morning. Not with the hangover he was suffering. He scanned the room in a panic, looking for a good place to throw up. The window! He ran to the open window, poked his head out, and spilled the contents of his stomach – fuck – right onto his own shirt. All of their clothes had been washed, and were hanging out to dry in the sun on a line below the building.

  Laughter roared out from below. Julian spotted Boudreaux and a human, who may or may not have been at the bar the previous night, pointing up at him and laughing their asses off. They were standing on a bit of reedy land, gutting an alligator as long as a bus.

  “Now look what you gone an’ done!”

  Julian peeked his head further out of the window to see Big Marsha standing under the building, reeling in the laundry. “Sorry,” he croaked.

  “S’alright,” said Big Marsha. “Won’t make no difference anyway once you gone ten minutes through the swamp. Sho’ I can’t change yo’ mind? Y’all is nice folks. I hate to see you die is all.”

  Julian didn’t have the strength to continue this conversation. He brought himself back inside, shielded his eyes from the sight of Cooper’s junk, and sat back against the wall.

  Five minutes later, there was a light tap on the door just before it began to swing open. Julian hurriedly covered his own junk just as Big Marsha walked in with a pile full of folded laundry in one hand, and a wet, vomit-covered shirt dangling from the other hand.

  “Ain’t no need to be shy,” she said. “Y’all ain’t got nothin’ Miss Marsha ain’t seen before.”

  “Thank you,” said Julian.

  “Time to rouse yo’ friends, boy. Breakfast be ready in ten minutes, and then it’s time for y’all to go.”

  Julian shook what chunks of vomit he could from his shirt out of the window. It was still wet and sticky going on. His serape was clean and dry, though. So even if he felt disgusting, he at least looked presentable.

  He threw everyone’s clothes over their junk before nudging them all awake with his foot. “Come on, guys. Rise and shine. We’ve got a swamp to go die in. Let’s go.”

  Dave, Cooper, and Tim moaned and groaned, but eventually gave up the notion that Julian would stop kicking them if they just ignored him long enough.

  “What time is it?’ asked Tim.

  “What’s that smell?” asked Dave.

  “Why are w
e naked?” asked Cooper.

  Cooper’s question hastened Dave and Tim in shaking off the grogginess.

  “Wow,” said Tim, smiling for the first time since Julian could remember. “It really feels good to be in some clean, dry clothes.”

  “Yeah,” said Julian. “Couldn’t agree more.”

  Breakfast consisted of fried eggs, fried oysters, and fried frog. Big Marsha shook her head as Tim, Dave, and Julian picked off the hind legs of the frogs and left the rest behind. She and Cooper happily gobbled up what was left. Ravenus feasted on the possum that was still rotting on the bar, waiting for him. As big a bird as he was, it was more dead rodent than he could hope to eat in a week. Still, when they parted ways, Big Marsha packed it up in a bag for him.