by Defendi, Bob
He made OJ Simpson look like Peewee Herman.
The rear reinforcements rushed in. Damico caught an incoming blade with his own, parrying and dancing and diving to one side, cutting up and under, and then there was another foe, another dodge, cut, parry, riposte. He didn’t have time to think, to act, it was just spin and up and wrench and cut and drop and roll and back up dear God parry no parry parry thrust hack. A second guard fell and a third and a fourth. They were tough, but they weren’t alive. They weren’t desperate to survive, not like Damico. Sun Tzu said to put your men on dying ground, and they’d win. The bad guys weren’t free willed enough to realize they were on dying ground, but Damico was. Pain hurt. He wasn’t having any more of it.
He threw himself under one swing, thrusting his sword into an enemy’s crotch and twisting. That was enough to get a reaction, and he had to hack halfway through the man’s neck before he would stop screaming. They always asked for the butcher’s bill in historical novels. When Damico saw the fountains of blood and gore, he understood why.
This was beyond carnage. This was beyond slaughter. This was the kind of fight that coined the term “blood bath.” No. A blood shower. Give him a rubber ducky and paste no-skid stickers to the floor.
Hack, thrust, spin, parry, twist, block, dodge. He didn’t even see the swords anymore, just sensed the motions, felt the pain of exhaustion, then the pain of a wound and the sudden ecstasy as it vanished. Gorthander must have been there, Johnny-on-the-Spot with the healing.
And then… nothing.
Damico cut a few times in midair, panicked, and hacked at some of the bodies that lay on the ground then spun at a noise. Lotianna watched, her face a mask of concern, pristine and clean and beautiful as he dripped more buckets of blood.
“Are you all right?”
The animal in him responded, “Rrrrrrr.” He shook his head and tried to get control of himself again. “Grrrr.” Better. “Girrrrrrrl.” Let’s try to transition easily here. “Girl no kill.” Golf clap.
“Uh,” she said. “Right.”
Though there was blood everywhere, the rest of the party was spotless. Completely clean. Damico growled again for good measure.
“I’ll lead,” Omar said, running out into the ballroom.
Damico had to stumble over piles of bodies to catch up. It looked like the field of Gettysburg had been fed through a mafia wood chipper. There was so much chum hanging from the chandeliers Damico was afraid of sharks.
Omar headed down a side hall and a few more twisting passages. They all burst out into a huge boiler room where a metal tank sat flickering over a coal fire nestled in a hive of pipes. Omar hacked one pipe, then another, knocked a gauge off a valve, and fled through still another hall. The boiler rumbling behind Damico.
“You have ranks in Lore (Boiler)?”
“Just lucky!” Omar shouted.
He was lucky again, because he led them up a spiral staircase and onto a balcony. Below them, a leafy green tree of indeterminate species sat perfectly positioned between them and the outer wall.
This was getting ridiculous.
Omar jumped to the tree and worked his way through the branches to the other side. Gorthander followed. Damico realized what was going on.
Omar had read the adventure.
Damico smiled. That crafty bastard. This didn’t feel like a store-bought adventure, and Damico probably would have recognized something about it if it were. That meant Carl must be keeping notes. Omar had seen those notes somehow, maybe when Carl went to the bathroom or to get a drink. He’d planned their escape route, complete with blowing up the fortress.
The boiler rumbled just then in case you hadn’t figured that part out.
It was Damico’s turn, so he leaped into the tree and scrambled to the other side. He jumped to the wall and was about to go over, but Omar had run down the inner stairs to a little guard shack. Omar smashed the door open and ran back, his arms heavy with all their confiscated gear.
They redistributed their stuff and listened as the boiler made look-at-me noises. With one last prayer to Ralph the Porcelain God, they all vaulted from the walls of the fortress.
A hay cart waited below. Omar might just have made changes to the adventure when he read it.
They made it five-hundred yards before the fortress exploded, sending a cloud of tick-tock soldiers into the air, to fall like Slim Pickens across the plains. The boom washed over them.
“Hmm,” Damico said.
“Good, my Lord. That was truly a magnificent deed!”
“I suppose it is traditional to blow up the fortress on your way out,” Damico said. “That must have killed the bastard.”
“Don’ mention it,” Omar said.
“There’s only one problem,” Damico said.
“What?” Omar asked.
“Weren’t we supposed to get the Artifact?” Damico asked.
Omar frowned. “Just to keep him from using it.”
“Are you sure about that?” Damico asked.
“No.” Omar frowned more deeply.
“Good my friends. Comrades in arms. We were supposed to seek the Artifact here to find it before Hraldolf did.” Arithian smiled. “It’s in my notes.”
“But Hraldolf was here,” Damico said.
“It’s a stupid adventure,” Gorthander said.
“So, if we were supposed to get it,” Damico said, “what were we supposed to do with it afterward?”
“And was that important?” Gorthander asked.
“And did we just blow it up?” Damico said.
Omar stepped aside as a four-hundred pound meteor of dead hired muscle crashed to the ground.
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
Chapter Thirty
“All right, fine. The spear was the first point-and-click technology.”
—Bob Defendi
reathe.
It’s difficult, an effort of will, sucking through teeth and mask, filled with dust and sand. It chokes the lungs, clogs the throat. He retches at the slimy mess it forms. Tries again.
Breathe.
This one is better, stronger. He can begin asking questions, like: “Who am I?” “Where am I?” and “Why am I licking dirt?”
Breathe.
Hraldolf. His name was Hraldolf.
He twitched violently, shuddered, and shook. He lay on a floor of fitted stone. His arm hurt. His head pounded. A thousand angry imps had taken up residence throughout his body and were clearly trying to build large, ranch-style additions.
Hraldolf coughed and rolled over. He seemed to lie in the remains of his guards. Sticky. Even an evil overlord felt a twinge of guilt at that. They hadn’t done anything to deserve popping. One of them had even written poetry.
He peeled himself off the ground and stood. His heart pounded as if a punk-rock band performed in his head and screamed the lyrics to Liberty Burger. Hold the government.
Clouds of choking dust filled the air. He stumbled and accidentally kicked the body of one of the prisoners. Funny, he didn’t remember killing any of them. Then he went out the door, stumbling through halls, the flickering bands of orange torchlight painting angled rays in the clouds, dancing and seeking like a thousand sales at a thousand used car lots.
He reached the stairs and tried to climb, only to find them clogged with stone and the debris of shattered rafters. He stumbled back down, claimed a torch, and headed deeper into the dungeons.
He wouldn’t have been a decent evil overlord without a few escape tunnels, but he also needed the Artifact. He headed toward the dungeon of dungeons, and when he arrived, opened the secret door. He gathered the Artifact and other treasures, and filled his pouch with them. Then he stumbled toward the nearest exit.
By the time he made it to the surface, he’d regained much of his strength. He reached up and felt his mask. The left half had shattered, so he peeked carefully around the corner before leaving.
The
tunnel exited into a beautiful forest glade with tall majestic oaks twisted like a slave’s back with little white flowers gathered in clumps around the bases. For a moment, nothing happened. Then six squirrels exploded, dousing the glade in blood, acorns, teeth, and fluffy tails.
Damn. He’d have to do something about the mask situation… and in the past, wasn’t it only their eyes that exploded? His power, his curse, had evolved somehow. Had he become more beautiful? If so, why?
The glade was dry, but squirrel blood made for decent mud, so he found the wettest patch and slathered it on the exposed portions of his face.
He started through the trees, finding hope in the fact that no more wildlife airbursts went off above him. Finally, he reached the edge of the woods and examined the remains of his fortress.
The walls still stood, but the central building had exploded, transforming the structure into a giant crater. Smoke and steam rose from the ruins, changing the sun into a thin gray light.
“Why do they always blow up my damn fortresses?”
The village escaped unscathed. His men stumbled around, walking wounded, cradling broken limbs and torn flesh. He could hear the moaning from here.
A little round form in furs came hobbling toward him, his bald head shining in the dim light. Over bare patches of earth and muddy grass he moved, more like a rodent than a man.
“Your Majesty!” he cried.
“Not Beaver,” Hraldolf said with a nod.
“Your Majesty, I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“Not as glad as I am,” Hraldolf said.
Not Beaver laughed uproariously. Hraldolf smiled. His ass could use a good kissing once in a while. It kept the skin young.
“What’s our status, Not Beaver?” Hraldolf asked.
“Fetz is dead, Your Majesty.”
“Who the hell is Fetz?”
“I believe you called him ‘Legs,’ Your Majesty.”
“Oh, right, that’s too bad. I kinda liked Legs.”
“Your men are injured, your councilors scattered.”
“I can get more councilors,” he said.
It wasn’t a skilled position. How hard was it to agree with him, after all? Not Beaver was the only one he could trust with a chamber pot and a secret.
“You’re injured, Not Beaver.”
“A trifle, Your Majesty.”
“You should have a healer look at that,” he said.
“I don’t see how that would help, Your Majesty.”
“Perhaps said healer might treat it just a little while they were at it.”
“I’m afraid I could only afford them to do the looking.”
“Go see a healer,” Hraldolf said. “I’ll pay.”
Not Beaver gaped, astonished. You could tell by the way his mouth opened and flies flew inside. “This generosity is too much, Your Majesty.”
“It’s not generosity,” Hraldolf said. “It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around. Have all the men go to the healer. Everyone. When they ask who’s paying, tell them that I’m starting a new policy.”
“What policy is that?”
“It’s called a medical plan.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Its, not it’s. It’s, not its.”
—Bob Defendi
amico scowled as they crossed the next hill. The grass here lay beaten down, covered in mud. A single elm stood on the top of the hill. One shell-shocked squirrel stared down at them, guarding an acorn as if it were the crown jewel of squirreldom.
“Is it just me, or are the descriptions in this place getting more detailed?” he asked.
“Its just you,” Gorthander said.
They stood over a valley of flowing green grass and red-berried bushes. Along the bottom, a stream snaked, dark and brilliant white in the contrast of the reflecting sunlight, waving and shimmering as it flowed. Damico shook his head.
“I tell you, these descriptions are getting better.”
“Stop flattering yourself.”
They thought he was Carl fishing for compliments again. Oh, well. Maybe Carl had gone on a nature hike or something.
“My dear comrades. We still don’t know what we’re going to do. What shall be the next leg of this grand adventure?” Arithian said.
“Find something,” Omar said. “Kill it. Repeat as necessary.”
“Until what?” Gorthander asked.
“I don’t understand the question,” Omar said.
Damico flopped down on the crest of the hill, the grass soft, the earth loamy. He pulled up his knees and rested his wrists on them. The winds blew, and the smell of green flowed on the air.
“I think we should start asking around,” Damico said.
“For what?” Gorthander asked.
He flopped down next to Damico with a rattling sound. Arithian walked down the hill a bit in front of him. Lotianna folded up gracefully opposite the dwarf.
“I don’t know,” Damico said.
The gusts whistled gently along the top of the hill, blowing across the sweat and blood that caked Damico. So this was what “blowing the stink off you” meant.
A roar sounded in the distance, and a half dozen orcs appeared in the middle of the open hillside, already in a charge. They didn’t step out of hiding places, they just appeared.
“Carl needs to study the spirit of the Encounter Distance rules,” Damico said.
“I didn’t catch that,” Gorthander said.
“Never mind,” Damico said, scrambling to his feet as the orcs charged.
Omar blasted past, his ax out as he roared down the hill. Arithian backpedaled, and Gorthander rushed in with a shrug. Damico charged.
Omar crashed into the first two and Gorthander the next two, each parrying blows and shouting. Damico sprinted toward the last one, his sword still in it’s scabbard. The orc’s great green head tilted to one side, perplexed as it sucked on it’s tusks. It drew back it’s sword for a hack at his midriff.
Damico leaped, placing a hand on each of it’s shoulders, flipping into the air, and tucking into a ball. The orc’s sword swung through where he’d been a moment before, the rotation of his shoulders adding a twist to Damico’s flip.
He landed with an easy movement, facing the orc’s back, and drew his sword. He hacked the thing down before it could react. It gurgled in a spray of blood.
Gorthander’s first orc dropped next to the body of Omar’s. A pulse of three white lights shot over Omar’s shoulder, dropping an orc at the same time a dagger appeared in the throat of the last one.
Damico relaxed and cleaned his sword. Arithian collected his dagger. Lotianna lowered her hands, the light from her spell still fading.
“The wandering monsters aren’t very difficult,” Gorthander said.
Damico shrugged and decided not to try to explain the demographics that went into random encounter charts. Carl probably wouldn’t pass the information along anyway.
“What were we talking about?” Gorthander asked as Omar tossed the orcs for treasure.
They thumped when they landed. Obviously, Brian hadn’t gotten his intention across to Carl.
“That was a nice little flip you did there,” Gorthander said.
“I’ve been putting ranks in Tumble,” Damico said, assuming it was true.
Then a thought hit him. It had nothing to do with the matters at hand.
“Brian,” Gorthander said to Omar. “Do you have Ranks in Tumble?”
“I don’t know,” Omar said.
Gorthander sounded puzzled. “Check your character sheet.”
Damico ignored the two as the thought took hold and blossomed into an idea.
“I spilled a Mountain Dew on it,” Omar said.
“So, you’re in a state of flux,” Gorthander said.
Damico smiled.
“I’ll respend my points before next week,” Omar said.
No, Damico was sure about it. He studied his new idea fr
om every angle. It made sense.
“I know what we ask,” Damico said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Huh?” Omar said.
“When we ask around,” Damico said. “We ask where Hraldolf went, and if he has the Artifact, where he might have carried it.”
Omar and Gorthander exchanged glances. Arithian tilted his head to one side. Lotianna smiled as if she understood.
“Hraldolf’s dead,” Gorthander said.
“No.”
“And how do you know that?” Gorthander asked.
“Because I don’t feel any tougher.”
Gorthander and Omar exchanged glances again.
“I don’t understand,” Omar said.
“If we’d killed Hraldolf and destroyed the Artifact, for good or bad, the adventure would be over, right?” Damico asked.
“How do you know it isn’t?” Omar asked.
“Because when the adventure ends, we get experience points to spend,” Damico said with a smile. “I haven’t gone up a skill level.”
Omar nodded, his eyes lighting up. “I haven’t leveled either.”
Gorthander smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“This page intentionally left blank.”
—Bob Defendi
he inn had a large central room with a huge fire pit in the center, producing smoke that flowed up through the round hole in the roof. Torches lined the walls. Heavy wooden tables sat throughout, shimmering with spilled beer and dust. On the benches, patrons laughed, shouted, generally stunk up the joint. Barmaids with low-cut Swiss-Miss dresses worked the crowd, smiling in their pigtails and dodging the grabs and the gooses.
Gorthander snored quietly on his bench, no doubt frightening entire ecosystems of beard lice. Arithian had already vanished with a barmaid on each arm. Omar had gone to bed. Damico sat staring into his beer. Lotianna next to him. Actually next to him. She wasn’t even hunching over.