4d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  “Julian!” said Tim. “Summon a horse!”

  “You want to just ditch them?” Julian sounded shocked.

  “No. Just summon the biggest goddamn horse you can! Hurry up!”

  Julian pointed at the ground. “Horse!” A majestic black steed, clearly bred for the battlefield, appeared next to him. “Now what?”

  “Feed it to the cube.”

  “What?”

  A pseudopod wrapped around Tim’s leg and started dragging him in. “Do it!” he cried, dodging another blob of slime aimed at his face.

  “Horse, go that way!” Julian commanded. The horse followed its master’s orders, charging directly into the cube, where it was completely engulfed in a matter of seconds. It had apparently also made its Saving Throw, as it joined Cooper in thrashing around inside the cube.

  Tim cut himself free, but he could feel a burning sensation on his leg where his skin had made contact with the slime. Dave and Cooper didn’t have much time.

  “Great,” said Julian. “It ate my horse. Now what?”

  “It’s using most of its power to digest,” said Tim. “Hit it with everything you’ve got.” He hacked at it with his dagger, meeting little resistance.

  “Flbbm... rgggbly... ubgggbbly!” said Cooper from within the cube. Tim didn’t have to understand him to know he was saying, “I’m really angry!” He had invoked his Barbarian Rage.

  The gelatinous cube trembled as Cooper’s muscles grew inside it. Large cloudy bubbles formed in the jelly near his ass. He swung his axe around is if through water, and an entire upper corner of the cube slid off, melting into a puddle on the ground.

  Cooper vomited slime as his head broke free from the surface. After a deep breath, he shouted, “FREEEEDOOOOOM!”

  He tore at what remained of the cube with his claws and axe, not looking in the least bit concerned that he was still being digested from the waist down.

  “Get Dave!” shouted Tim.

  There was something like understanding in Cooper’s wild red eyes. His erratic gaze darted back and forth until it locked onto Dave, still floating helplessly in the clear goo. “GET DAVE!” He raised his axe over his head with both hands.

  “No!” said Tim. “Rescue Dave!”

  “OH!” Cooper scooped up three pseudopods that had latched onto his chest and ripped them out of the cube. He plunged his other arm into the slime until he reached Dave. “Unnnnnnnnggggggggg!” Dave came out like a newborn calf, only more bloody, slimy, and generally disgusting.

  Having done what was asked of him, Cooper got back to the rage-fueled task of beating the shit out of his enemy. He didn’t even bother with his axe. He just dove into what was left of the cube headfirst and used his bare hands to tear it apart from the inside.

  SHLOP SHLOP SHLOP

  Julian beat the shrinking cube with his staff until it finally lost its quasi-solid form and melted into a spreading pool of lifeless ooze.

  His horse was bald and bleeding in places, but dammit it was still standing. Tim smiled at Julian. Good for – Oh shit, Dave!

  Dave lay on his back, covered in slime. His skin was patchy and blistering with second-degree acid burns. The leopard fur on his forearm had completely dissolved, revealing a grey band of arm-skin beneath. He didn’t appear to be breathing.

  Tim wiped as much slime off Dave’s breastplate as he could before putting his ear to it.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Cooper, having come out of his rage. He, too, was covered from head to toe in slime. “I feel like Dave’s mom at the end of a shift.”

  Julian bonked Cooper on the head with his quarterstaff. “Dude. Not a good time.”

  “Oh, shit. Sorry. Is he all right?”

  Tim pressed his ear harder against the breastplate, straining to hear a heartbeat. “If you two would shut the fuck up for a second, I’ll let you –” There it was. It was faint, but it was definitely there. “He’s alive! He’s going to pull –”

  BLEEGGGGGGHHHHHH

  Tim caught a gushing faceful of Dave’s slime vomit.

  “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” cried Dave. “IT HURTS! IT HURTS! OH MY GOD IT HURTS!”

  Tim spit out slime and chunks of whatever Dave had last eaten. “Heal yourself, stupid.”

  Dave slapped both palms on top of his head. “I heal me!” He sighed ecstatically as his burns faded. When it was done he sat up and frowned at the fresh leopard fur which had grown back on his forearm. “Damn. I was hoping I’d finally gotten rid of that.”

  Cooper pointed a finger at Dave. “I could use some of that too.”

  Dave touched Cooper’s finger. “I heal thee.”

  Cooper let out a fart of relief as Dave’s healing magic coursed through him.

  Julian cleared his throat and glanced at his partially digested magical horse.

  “Forget about it,” said Dave. “We’ve been through this.”

  “He saved your life. Look at him. He’s suffering.”

  THWONG

  There was that sound again. What the hell was that?

  “Cooper saved my life,” said Dave. “And if your stupid horse is suffering so much, just put it out of its –”

  “Look out!” cried Tim, having spotted the flying glob of refuse hurtling out of the sky toward them.

  “SHIT!” cried Dave, Julian, and Cooper as they dove out of the way.

  When Tim heard the splat, he reasoned it was safe to look. All that was left of Julian’s Mount spell was a horse-sized interruption in the new pile of filth splattered on the ground.

  Tim looked up at the sky, tracing the trajectory of the shitpile. “They’re catapulting the garbage over the walls. Probably so they don’t have to deal with the wights.”

  “This is bullshit,” said Julian. “We signed up to fight Whitey.”

  “Wights.”

  “Nobody told us anything about having to dodge flying piles of shit or avoid being eaten by gelatinous lubes.”

  “Cubes.”

  “Whatever. This sucks.”

  “It’s actually kind of smart when you think about it,” said Tim. “The gelatinous cubes eat the garbage. It’s a perfect waste disposal system.”

  Julian kicked a blob of soiled jelly. “They could have at least warned us. Shown us a training video or something.”

  “That’s actually pretty clever too,” said Dave. “What kind of person do you think signs up for this kind of high-risk shit-pay job?”

  “Violent sociopaths with nothing to lose?” asked Tim.

  “Exactly. People who contribute absolutely nothing to society. In other words, –”

  “Us,” said Cooper.

  Dave shrugged. “I was talking about PCs in general, but yeah.”

  “PCs?” asked Julian. “You mean, as opposed to Macs?”

  “Jesus, Julian,” said Tim. “How long have you been in this game. Player Characters, like all of us, as opposed to NPCs, like the bakers and farmers and shit who have families here and a vested interest in maintaining an orderly society.”

  “I thought they didn’t realize they were in a game.”

  “They don’t. We’re not PCs to them. We’re just narcissistic assholes who society would be better off without.”

  Julian frowned. “I thought we were supposed to be heroes.”

  Tim gave Julian a sad smile. “When’s the last time any of us did anything heroic?”

  “So they want us to die?”

  “They don’t care whether we die or not,” said Dave. “It’s win-win for them. If we kill more than four wights before we turn into wights ourselves, there’s a net decrease in the total number of wights, and the city doesn’t have to pay us anything.”

  “And there’s four more fuckwits off the streets,” added Tim. “Shit. I hate it when Dave’s right about something.”

  Julian tugged on his long elf ears. “What about Morgan and Balroth? Are they PCs too?”

  “I don’t think so. They’re probably just run-of-the-mill assholes.”

  “So what do
we do now?”

  “We do our job, and hope they pay us instead of shoot us when we’re done.” Tim looked westward at the sun beginning to sink in the sky. “We’d better take out as many as we can before it gets dark.” He looked down at their only kill so far. Its head was still connected. “Dammit, Cooper. Would you please chop this thing’s head off so we can get moving.”

  “Screw you, dude,” said Cooper. “I got distracted.”

  Tim turned away and listened for the chop. When it came, it was immediately followed by a loud squawk.

  “Ravenus!” said Julian.

  When Tim looked at the dead wight again, its head was separated from the body, but the rotted clothes over the torso were convulsing like the creature had just snorted a line of powdered rocket fuel.

  Ravenus backed out from under the clothes and glared up at Cooper, insofar as a bird is able to glare. “What the devil do you think you’re doing? You scared the willies out of me!”

  Cooper didn’t understand the Elven language, but he must have been able to glean enough from the context. “I didn’t see you, asshole. What the fuck were you hiding under there for?”

  Julian put his hands on his hips. “Have you been eating this whole time?”

  Ravenus lowered his head. “I’m sorry, sir. The underarm skin was thin and crispy, not unlike those ‘nachos’ you so enjoy.”

  “Great. Now I’ll never be able to eat nachos again.”

  THWONG

  “Shit!” cried Tim. He looked up and quickly spotted a third ball of shit-garbage sailing in their direction. “Run!”

  Dave, Cooper, Julian, and Ravenus scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on. Tim, already having an eye on the trajectory, merely jogged backwards a safe distance until the catapult’s payload landed squarely on the dead wight. The severed head still lay next to the body, only visible now as a conspicuous lump of shit.

  “Fuck,” said Tim.

  Cooper walked back and frowned down at the head. “This is more shit than head now. I’m not sure it’s worth five silver pieces to carry it around all day.”

  Julian smiled at him. “You’re thinking about it wrong. What’s it worth to you to be able to hand that guy who sent us in here a big ball of shit and demand that he pay us for it?”

  Cooper nodded. “That makes it worth it.” He opened the burlap sack and kicked the head inside.

  Tim walked over close to Julian. “Now that’s how you use the Diplomacy skill.”

  Over the next couple of hours, they managed to add five more wight heads to their collection. Tim tried to think up ways to slaughter them more safely and efficiently, but nothing he thought of seemed like it would work better than ganging up on them one at a time and straight-up beating the shit out of them until they stopped moving.

  When the sun got low on the horizon, Tim looked in the sack and frowned. “Thirty silver pieces isn’t much for a day’s work.”

  “It’s not so bad,” said Julian. “That’s the going rate for betraying saviors.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be Jewish?”

  “I read.”

  Tim looked back at the cage where they’d entered. Still no sign of Morgan and Balroth. “If we want to keep fighting, we’ll need to light up a torch. I can’t see in the dark like the rest of you.”

  “There’s some light over there,” said Dave.

  Tim looked in the direction Dave had indicated. In the daylight, it had looked like nothing but more featureless barren ground. But now that it had grown dark enough, Tim could make out the faint glow of firelight coming from what looked like a wide pit. “What the hell is that?”

  Dave shrugged. “Maybe it’s where they burn the trash.”

  “They don’t burn the trash,” said Julian. “They let the slime cubes eat it.”

  “Then maybe it’s where they used to burn the trash before someone thought up the gelatinous cube idea.” He stroked his freshly gelled beard. “But then, why would it still be burning?”

  “Probably a magic, eternally-burning fire,” said Julian. “I don’t imagine that’s too difficult a spell.”

  Tim scanned his surroundings, searching for any flicker of torch or lantern light, but finding none. “Those two assholes are probably over there. They’re both human, and can’t see in the dark any better than I can.”

  Cooper narrowed his eyes at Tim. “You look like you’ve got a terrible idea brewing.”

  Tim nodded and grinned. “Oh, I do.”

  “Are you thinking of pushing those guys into the fire pit?” asked Julian.

  “What? No. Why would you even... Okay, now I’m thinking of that. But that’s just harmless fantasy. My original plan is much more practical and much less murdery.”

  Dave sighed. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

  “I’m going to lift their sack.”

  Cooper scratched his armpit thoughtfully. “You want to check out their taint?”

  Tim winced. “What? Ew. No. I meant I’m going to pinch their wight heads.”

  Cooper grimaced. “That’s even worse. What are you, a fucking dermatologist?”

  “Goddammit, Cooper! I’m going to steal the bag in which they keep the severed heads of the wights they’ve killed. Is that fucking clear enough for you?”

  “Would it have killed you to say that the first time?”

  “They’re not going to just hand over their sack,” said Dave. “If we try to take it, they’re definitely going to put up a fight.”

  “I didn’t say we’re going to steal it,” said Tim. “I said I’m going to steal it. By the time they realize it’s missing, I’ll be long gone.”

  “And what are we supposed to do?”

  “Just stay conspicuous. Light up four torches so that, from a distance, it looks like we’re all together. I’ll sneak off alone and snatch the bag while they’re fighting a wight.”

  “That sounds risky,” said Julian. “What if you get swallowed by a Jell-O monster? We won’t even be able to hear you call for help.”

  “I’ll take Ravenus with me.”

  Julian bit his lower lip. It was clear that his concern for the bird was far greater than his concern for Tim. “Okay.” He pulled back one side of his serape, and Ravenus flew up to perch atop his quarterstaff. “You’re going to go with Tim on a little mission, okay?”

  “Very good, sir,” said Ravenus. “I’m happy to serve however I may.”

  “You stay in the air. If he gets into trouble, you come back and tell us. Do not try to help him on your own. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  Tim folded his arms. “Your concern is touching. Can we go now?”

  Julian looked up at Ravenus, then down at Tim. “Be careful.”

  Ravenus flew down and tried to land on Tim’s shoulder, but there wasn’t enough room. The goddamn bird seemed almost as big as him up close. He finally gave up and landed on the ground.

  Tim spoke in a British accent so the bird could understand him. “I’m going to sneak from trash pile to trash pile.” He pointed to a nearby pile. “I’ll move in a clockwise pattern around the circumference of the fire pit. You take to the sky. If you see those two guys we met earlier, come and find me.”

  “Right-O!” said Ravenus. He flapped his way up into the darkening sky.

  Tim focused on Stealth as he dashed toward his first objective. It felt good to be doing something rogue-ish. There was a long list of things he and his friends were terrible at, and ‘covert operations’ was at the top of it. Any situation requiring even a modicum of subtlety would be ruined with a trumpeting fart, or a screaming horse, or Dave’s fat ass falling down some stairs.

  But this was what Tim’s character was built for. High Dexterity. Maxed out ranks in Stealth. He was but a whisper in the breeze. A flickering shadow in –

  “Fuck!” he managed to say before his face hit the dirt. Looking back to see what he’d tripped on, he found a giant bone sticking out of the dirt. Who knows what kind of pr
ehistoric monstrosity it had once belonged to. “I’m glad you’re dead, asshole.”

  Fortunately, he had planted his face right next to the garbage pile he’d been heading toward. Mostly scrap metal and smaller animal bones, it looked as though a gelatinous cube had sucked it dry of all organic matter some time ago.

  Tim peered into the fading light to find his next objective. The fire from the pit was faintly reflected in metal scraps from two trash piles at the edge of his view. Either one would do. Just to be on the safe side, he squinted, trying to detect any sign of a gelatinous cube in his path, be it a particularly flat path of dirt, a trail of slime, a shimmer in the –

  “Looking for me, sir?”

  “Jesus!” Tim looked up and found Ravenus perched on a bent iron bar. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be scouting for those two assholes.”

  “I’ve found them, sir,” said Ravenus. “They’re hiding just beyond that rubbish heap over there.” He nodded in the direction Tim had been just about to run to.

  “Shit. Which one?”

  “The one on the right, sir.”

  Maybe that was a lucky break. If Tim was able to reach the pile on the left without being detected, the close proximity would give him an advantage when it came time to make his move. “Good work, Ravenus.”

  Tim scanned his intended path one more time for dinosaur bones, or rocks, or holes, or anything else that might trip him up. It looked clear.

  After a deep breath, he bolted out from behind his cover, barely touching the ground as he ran on his toes. He slowed down as he reached his target, not completely trusting that Ravenus knew his right from his left.

  “But what are they doing?” Morgan’s voice came from the far side of the right-side garbage pile.

  Tim ducked behind the left-side pile and concentrated on their conversation while he scanned for danger.

  “It looks like they’re just standing there,” said Balroth. “Why is the half-orc holding two torches. Can half-orcs not see perfectly well in the dark?”

  Morgan laughed like a snarling cat. “He’s probably too stupid to realize that. I wonder where the little one’s run off to.”

  Right here, motherfucker.

  “His companions likely grew weary of his big mouth and murdered him.”