by Robert Bevan
“What the fuck, dude?” Cooper asked Flargarf.
Dave backed away from the table, his forearms raised to shield his face. “Did you forget the oath you made to Zabir?”
“The terms of the deal were clear,” said Flargarf. “If you lose, then we get to eat you.”
“But I didn’t lose,” said Julian. “I won.”
Raggart frowned and lowered his dagger. The panic on his face was replaced with confusion. “You did?”
“Liar!” said Flargarf. “Look at the cards. Neither hand has any cards that match. And the chief’s king beats your nine.”
“But it doesn’t beat my Ace.”
“I’m about to beat your ass.”
“Not ass. Ace!”
“Stand down, Flargarf,” said Raggart. “Tell me, elf. What is this ‘Ace’ you speak of?”
Julian slid the Ace of Diamonds away from the rest of his hand. “This is an Ace.”
“Is that not a one?” said Raggart. Clearly, he still wanted to avoid violence, but had to make a show of strength in front of Flargarf.
“In some games, an Ace counts as a one, but in most games, including this one, it’s the highest card in the deck.”
“I see.”
“Have you gone mad, Chief?” cried Flargarf. “This elf has won every match simply by conjuring up a new rule on the spot. Now he claims a one, the lowliest peasant in the kingdom, is mightier than a King. If you believe that, then I say the dumbest bugbear in the tribe is wiser than a Chief.”
“It’s an Ace,” said Julian. “Not a one. And the numbered cards aren’t really meant to be representative of –”
“Shut your lying hole, elf!” said Flargarf.
Raggart laid his dagger back down on the table, and presented his bare chest to Flargarf. “If you would seek the Chiefdom, you are welcome to come and take it.”
If they started killing each other, Julian and his friends might be able to escape. It was a second-best resolution, to be sure, but not one that Julian expected he’d lose any sleep over.
Flargarf lowered his head. “I spoke in a fit of passion, Chief. Forgive me. It angers me to see you made a fool of in your own home.”
“The elf’s explanation is credible,” said Raggart. “The one card is marked with the letter A rather than a number. Obviously that holds certain significance.” He turned to Julian. “You and your friends are free to leave.”
“Great,” said Julian. He paused a moment while the bugbears stared at him. “So, I guess we’ll just collect our things and be on our way.”
Raggart grinned, first at Flargarf, then at Julian. “That was not part of our agreement.”
“Come on, man!” said Dave. “You can’t just send us out of here unarmed in the middle of the night. That’s the same as killing us.”
“I am confident that Zabir will recognize the difference.”
“Can I at least have my cards?” asked Julian.
“You cannot. We have enjoyed this game of yours, and wish to play more.”
“Do you know how long it took me to make those?”
“Dude, fuck your cards,” said Cooper. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“And go where?” asked Dave. “We don’t even know where we are, much less how to get back to Cardinia.”
Raggart grinned. “The way is not difficult. Travel south until you reach a well-worn path in the woods. Follow it eastward until –”
“But that leads to –” Flargarf interrupted, but was promptly shut up with a glare from Raggart.
“That leads to the coast,” Raggart continued. “From there, it’s an easy southward stroll to Cardinia.”
Flargarf genuflected before Raggart. “I am humbled by your wisdom.” His eyes flickered briefly toward Julian before he added, “... and mercy.”
“Now go,” said Raggart. “And may Zabir guide you swiftly to your destination.”
Julian backed cautiously away from the table, lest the bugbears have any last minute tricks up their sleeves, but they merely watched as he, Dave, and Cooper regrouped on the exit side of the table. “Thank you. You’re being a very good sport about all this.”
Cooper picked Tim up off the floor and took the lead toward the cave entrance. After a few tense minutes, they found themselves in the safety of the dark, monster-infested forest.
“Well done, sir,” said Ravenus. “You really saved our biscuits back there.”
“Thank you, Ravenus. It’s nice to hear that someone appreciates my effort.”
“Shall I scout the area?”
“Not this time, buddy. It’s probably safer to stay close together, at least until we find the path.” Julian looked around. The forest was dense with foliage, limiting visibility in every direction. “Hey. Do either of you guys have any idea which way south is?”
Cooper and Dave shook their heads.
“Does anyone have any ranks in the Survival skill?” asked Dave.
Julian and Cooper shook their heads.
“That’s a pretty big party oversight on our part.” Dave frowned at the ground and stroked his bushy beard. He looked up. “We could attempt an untrained Survival check.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” said Julian.
“Some skills require you to be trained in order to be able to use them at all,” Dave explained. “Languages, for example. If Cooper spent one skill point to learn the Elven language, he could understand everything Ravenus says.”
“Fuck that,” said Cooper.
“But as long as he continues being a stubborn asshole, he has no chance of understanding anything your familiar says. Other skills aren’t quite so cut and dry. You don’t have to be Bear Grylls to eat a bug. You’ll probably still die if left on your own in the wilderness, but you’ve got a chance.”
“We’re not trying to survive for a long time in the wilderness,” said Julian. “We’re just trying to figure out which way south is.”
“Exactly,” said Dave. “Which is related to Survival, but probably comes with a lot smaller Difficulty Class modifier.”
Julian frowned. “You’re losing me again.”
“It might be easy enough that we’ve got a shot at it.”
“Okay,” said Julian. “So how do we do it?”
Dave scratched his head. “I don’t actually know. I guess we just focus on finding south.” He put his index fingers on his temples. “Which way is south?”
Julian and Cooper followed Dave’s example. “Which way is south?”
Julian looked for clues, but came up with nothing.
“That way,” said Dave and Cooper simultaneously, pointing in roughly similar directions.
“How could you possibly...” Julian looked in the direction both of them were sort of pointing in, but nothing looked any different than anything else. “What are you basing this on?”
“What do you mean?” asked Dave.
“I mean, did you look at the way the leaves were facing? Or did you sense magnetic fields or something?”
“No. I just really feel like south is that way.”
“Based on nothing? There’s a word for that. It’s called guessing.”
“It’s not based on nothing,” said Dave. “It’s based on our Survival checks. I got a strong sense in my mind that south is that way.”
“I got it, too,” said Cooper. “It was pretty awesome.”
“Why didn’t I get it?” asked Julian.
Cooper shrugged. “Shitty roll.”
He stomped through the forest at a snail’s pace, ripping apart vines and tearing off small branches with one hand, and holding Tim in place over his shoulder with the other. Julian and Dave followed in the wake of his slow destruction.
After an hour and several dozen yards of travel, they came upon the path Raggart had mentioned. It fit the description anyway, insofar as it ran perpendicular to the direction they had been traveling in.
“Thank fuck,” said Cooper. “I need to take a rest.” He set Tim gently o
n the ground.
Tim’s eyes were open. “You can rest on horseback. We should probably hoof it from here.”
Cooper wiped about a gallon of sweat off his face while scratching his ass against the trunk of a tree. “How long have you been awake?”
“I never went to sleep. I was faking it, hoping the bugbears would forget I was there.”
“Dude! Do you know how much fucking easier that would have been with two arms available?”
Tim turned up his palms innocently. “I can’t see in the dark.”
“Hang on,” said Dave. “You were hoping the bugbears would forget you were there? What was your plan, exactly? Were you just going to fuck off while the rest of us got chopped up and chucked in the stewpot?”
“I was going to assess the situation and act accordingly.” Tim turned to Julian. “Let’s giddy up, huh? Conjure up some of those magic horses so we can get the fuck out of here. We’ll be safer when we reach the coast.”
“I only have a limited number of spells,” said Julian. “The bugbears took my bag with all my backup scrolls in it.” He clenched his fists in frustration. “And my cards.”
Cooper stopped rubbing his ass against the tree trunk and looked at Julian. “Who gives a shit about your stupid cards? The rest of us were trying to get out of there with our lives, and you were trying to negotiate for a deck of goddamn playing cards.”
“Seriously,” said Tim, facing a tree and unlacing his pants. “What’s the deal, Kenny Rogers? Know when to run away. Know when to – however the fuck it goes.”
“I spent weeks making them,” said Julian.
Over the sound of urine splattering against bark, Tim sighed like he was about to lay down a hard truth. “Maybe outsource that shit next time. They were usable, but hardly works of art. The Queen of Diamonds’ eyes were facing two different directions, and the Jack of Clubs’ mustache looked like he had a squid trying to escape out of his nose.”
“Hmph,” said Dave. “As if you could have done any better, Picasso. Remember that pig anatomy poster you drew for your ninth grade biology project?”
Tim gave Dave a sideways glare. “I did that on the fucking bus on the way to school, dumbass.” He turned back to focus on his stream of urine. “I’m not saying your cards were terrible. I’m just saying that, given a span of weeks, I could have drawn a better deck of cards with a crayon glued to my dick.”
“It wasn’t just the drawing,” said Julian. “I put an Arcane Mark on the back of each card so that I could cheat.”
Tim turned his entire body sideways to look back at Julian. His piss stream found Dave’s boots. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Julian had expected some kind of surprised reaction, but thought it would be more along the lines of ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Well done!’. “What’s the problem? Those cards just saved our asses.”
“You’re lucky they were just a couple of bugbear grunts,” said Tim. “How hard do you think that bullshit zero-level spell would have been to detect for someone with just a smidge of magic savvy? You try to cheat a wizard, and he will Lightning Bolt your stupid ass, and feed the smoldering pile of guts that used to be you to his familiar. Now how about some horses?”
“If I use up two of my Mount spells, that’s two less Magic Missiles I’ll have if we run into monsters. I think we should just walk.”
“Good point,” said Tim. He raised his index finger. “Counterpoint. Dave is slow as fuck.”
“I don’t think that’s a counterpoint,” said Dave. “I think that’s just you being a dick.”
Tim ignored him. “The faster we move through the woods, the fewer Random Encounters we are likely to have, thereby nullifying the potential disadvantage of not hanging on to your two shitty Magic Missiles.”
“But –”
“Furthermore, with the rest of us weaponless, the likelihood of us surviving an attack by anything more than a one-legged kobold, even with the awesome power of your two extra Magic Missiles, are slim to none.”
Julian looked at Dave and Cooper. “Do you guys agree?”
Dave nodded. Cooper nodded and farted. Julian would have preferred to deliberate a bit more, as he suspected both of their votes were more motivated by laziness than by self-preservation, but the rancid cloud squealing its way out of Cooper’s ass made a compelling argument to get out of the area as quickly as possible.
“Horse,” said Julian, and immediately repeated the incantation. Two horses popped into existence on the path, one black and the other brown.
Cooper helped Dave onto the brown horse’s saddle, and Julian climbed on behind him. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to ride, but it was favorable to blowing a third spell.
On the black horse, Tim stood behind Cooper, holding on to his shoulders.
The twisty path limited the usefulness of Cooper and Dave’s Darkvision, and roots and branches threatened to trip the horses or knock them off their mounts; they were unable to travel faster than a slow trot.
After an hour of riding, Julian’s arms were getting sore from holding on to Dave. He didn’t know how much longer he could last. “This forest is starting to creep me out. And I still don’t smell any sea air. Halflings have a keen sense of smell, don’t they? Can you smell anything, Tim? ”
“You’re thinking of gnomes,” said Tim. “Anyway, I could be snorting saltwater right now, and still wouldn’t be able to smell anything but Cooper’s perpetual stream of farts.”
Cooper glared back. “The more you bitch about it, the better I feel about it. I’m brewing up a nice one for your right now.”
“You guys chill out,” said Dave. “It looks like we’ll be out of the woods after we get past those two big oak trees.”
Julian looked over Dave’s right shoulder. His Low-Light Vision was no match for Dave’s Darkvision, but he could just barely make out the two oaks Dave spoke of. Their interlaced branches formed an arc over the path. As hard as he strained his eyes, he could see nothing of the terrain beyond.
Blinking a few times to relax his eyes, Julian let his gaze fall lazily to the ground, where he caught a flicker of movement in his periphery. Whatever had moved was long and serpentine.
“Snake!” Julian shrieked. He was a little embarrassed for reacting like that for something as mundane as a snake while they were in a world where they’d faced off against much more dangerous creatures than that. And then he was more embarrassed when a closer inspection revealed that what he’d saw was, in fact, only a vine. “Sorry. False alarm.”
He could have sworn he saw it move. It was just a combination of hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and general paranoia playing tricks with his mind. It was an odd-looking species of vine. At its thickest, it was about as big around as Julian’s upper arm. Smaller vines grew out from the main shaft with leaves which, with a little imagination, looked like gnarled human hands.
“What kind of vines do you suppose these –” As he turned to the others, he noticed Tim was missing from the back of Cooper’s horse. “What happened to Tim?” When he looked back, he found Tim ten feet back, suspended from one of the lower-hanging oak branches by one of those strange vines wrapped around his neck. “Tim!”
Before anyone had a chance to react, both horses started screaming. Julian looked down at Cooper’s horse. Vines were slithering up its legs, immobilizing it. He could safely assume the horse that he and Dave were riding was getting the same treatment. That assumption was confirmed when he felt a snakelike tendril brush against his leg.
“Master,” cried Ravenus as he launched himself from Julian’s shoulder. “Be careful!”
“Branches!” Julian shouted as he grabbed the oak branch they were passing under. He jerked his feet up and pulled himself onto the branch. There were a few vines in the trees, such as the one which currently had Tim, but it was nothing like the ground, which was now a slithering, writhing mass of vegetation.
Cooper had no trouble pulling himself out of harm’s way, but Dave’s arms were too shor
t to reach a branch.
“Help!” cried Dave, losing elevation as his horse succumbed to the tangle of vines.
Julian and Cooper each grabbed one of Dave’s outstretched arms and started to pull. Dave was a solid mass of dwarf, to be sure, and wore metal armor which weighed him down even more, but he felt somehow heavier than he should. When Julian looked down, he discovered the reason they were having such a hard time pulling him up. A vine had coiled itself around Dave’s right leg.
“Shit!” said Julian.
“You hold Dave,” said Cooper. “I’ve got to go save Tim.”
“What are you talking about?” cried Julian. “I’m like eighty-five pounds soaking wet!”
“Don’t let me go!” said Dave. He was sweating through the leopard fur on his wrist, and Julian’s tenuous grip was growing even more tenuous.
“I’m okay!” shouted Tim. “Help Dave.”
Julian looked back. Tim was still suspended from the tree, but now on his terms. He was holding on to the dead, severed vine with one hand, and holding a shortsword in his other.
“Where the hell did you get that?” asked Julian.
“I swiped it from the bugbears while the rest of you were jerking each other off. Here, catch.” Tim tossed the sword to Julian, who let go of Dave to catch it.
It was a clumsy catch, but Julian managed to grip the handle without losing any fingers. Holding it in his own hand, he realized that it was a large dagger. It had only looked like a shortsword in proportion to Tim.
The horses stopped screaming, which meant that the vines had finally strangled them to death. Since magically summoned horses disappear when they die, this also meant that Dave had lost support from below, and a bunch of confused vines groping around for something to grab on to.
“Cut the fucking vines already!” cried Cooper. “I’m losing Dave!”
Julian wrapped his legs around the branch and hung upside down. He wasn’t even close to being able to cut the vine wrapped around Dave’s right leg, much less the ones which were now threatening to wrap around his left.
“I can’t reach him!” said Julian. “You’ll have to pull harder!”