4d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  “Maybe we should hang out in the woods for a while,” suggested Dave. “In case they put out an APB for four glittery idiots and a bird.”

  Tim was in dire need of a drink, but couldn’t argue Dave’s reasoning.

  While they waited in the forest for the last remnants of the Glitterdust spell to wear off, Tim spotted an adorable, wide-eyed nocturnal monkey climbing up the trunk of a nearby tree. One of those kinds that looked perpetually surprised. Beautiful creature. He aimed his crossbow and pulled the trigger.

  With naught but a tiny chirp, the monkey fell out of the tree and hit the ground, dead as a post.

  Tim picked up the monkey carcass by the bolt sticking out of its neck and held it up toward the branch Ravenus was perched in. He cleared his throat for a British accent. “Cheers, bloke. Jolly good work today.”

  The End.

  Probing the Annis

  (Original Publication Date: August 16, 2016)

  “How big is this forest?” asked Julian. “How have we not randomly stumbled upon a road in three days?”

  Tim sighed. “We would have been home a long time ago if it wasn’t for Dave’s shortcut.”

  “You were the one who wanted to take a shortcut,” said Dave. “I told you I didn’t have any ranks in the Survival skill.”

  “It’s a Wisdom based skill. You’re supposed to have this incredible fucking Wisdom score.”

  “And I said it would be wiser to stay on the goddamn road!”

  “Everyone calm down,” said Cooper, not usually the voice of reason among the four of them. “So Dave fucked up. It’s not the end of the world.”

  Dave shook his meaty dwarven fist at Cooper. “I didn’t fuck up! I said we should –”

  “Everybody shut up!” said Julian. He was suddenly overcome with panic. As there was nothing particularly panic-worthy in his immediate surroundings, he assumed the feeling must be coming from his familiar. He gestured for everyone to crouch down and stay quiet. He whispered, “I think something, or someone, just scared the shit out of Ravenus.”

  “How hard is that?” asked Dave. “He’s just a bird.”

  Cooper snorted. “About as hard as I got looking at your mom’s Pornhub videos.”

  “Fuck you, Cooper.”

  “Dude, I was agreeing with you. I didn’t get hard at all. Hell, I was afraid I’d never get hard again after that shit with the donkey.”

  Tim threw a pine cone at Cooper’s face. “Knock it off. You’re being even more of an asshole than usual.”

  “I’m fucking hungry, man,” said Cooper. “Ragging on Dave’s mom is the only sustenance I’ve got.”

  “Ow!” said Dave, his head jerking forward as Ravenus bounced off the top of it and landed on the ground in the middle of the group. He looked at Cooper. “Have you ever tried raven?”

  “Apologies,” said Ravenus, flipping himself over and getting up on his large black feet. He shook the dirt off his back feathers, then looked up at Julian. “I saw something in the forest, sir.”

  Julian’s heart was beating hard. “What was it?”

  “Two large women.”

  Tim and Dave frowned in confusion at each other.

  “Will you please calm down?” said Julian. “You’re going to make my heart explode. I don’t think two large women warrants this kind of response.”

  “That’s what the bird is so freaked out over?” said Cooper, the only one of them who couldn’t understand Ravenus’s speech. “He’d shit himself if he ever set foot in a Walmart.”

  A grim thought occurred to Julian. “What if we’ve stumbled upon some kind of special Mordred fantasy zone?”

  “Are you fucking serious?” asked Tim. “This whole goddamn world is a Mordred fantasy zone. How are you only now coming to terms with this?”

  “That’s not the kind of fantasy I was talking about.” Julian paused to collect his thoughts. “He created all these game characters, right? And he could possess the body of anyone he created? Maybe he also made himself a variety of pleasure stops out in remote places where he didn’t think anyone would ever travel. He inhabits the body of some burly woodsman and pays his women a visit from time to time between gaming sessions.”

  Tim, Dave, and Cooper gazed thoughtfully into the distance, no doubt imagining that was exactly what they would do if given similar power.

  Tim was the first to snap out of his imaginary harem trance. “You think Mordred’s a chubby chaser?”

  Julian shrugged. “He’s a big guy. Maybe he likes a –” He shook his head clear of jiggly naked women. “Who cares what his tastes in women are?”

  Tim, Dave, and Cooper shared an exchange of glances, then slowly raised their hands. Even Ravenus raised a wing.

  Julian looked down at Ravenus. “Why?”

  “Ravens are curious by nature, sir.”

  “They might have food,” said Dave. “How else do they stay so fat out here in the woods?”

  “And booze,” added Tim enthusiastically.

  Cooper stuck a finger two knuckles deep into his ear, perhaps trying to scratch his brain. “He might have them programmed to be perpetually horny.”

  Julian frowned at Cooper. “You really want to sink to Mordred’s level?”

  Cooper looked down at his crotch. “Dude, give me some credit. I can probably sink an inch or two deeper.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Tim. “Just stab me in the fucking ears. I don’t need the image of your scabby dick sinking into anyone in my head.”

  “You know, guys,” said Julian. “That fantasy zone theory was just that. A theory. I’m probably way off base with it.” He looked down at Ravenus. “What were the two ladies doing when you saw them? Were they kissing each other? Or licking? Or spanking? Or putting their fingers in each others’ –”

  “Fucking enough already!” said Tim. “Let the bird talk.”

  Ravenus looked back and forth between Tim and Julian a couple of times, then answered. “None of that, sir, as far as I could tell. One of them was tied to a tree, and the other was lighting a fire under a large iron tub.”

  Tim grinned at Julian. “Sounds like your theory just got confirmed.”

  “What?” said Julian. “How does that sound even remotely like a sexual fantasy?”

  “Aw shit.” Cooper rubbed his hands together. “What did the bird say? Midgets? Ping pong balls? Jell-O?”

  “He saw something that sounded a lot more like cannibalism than porn, at least to a sane person.”

  Dave cleared his throat. “Then maybe we should check it out just the same. We can’t very well leave an innocent large woman to die, can we?”

  That was just like Dave, masking his true motivations to make himself look like a hero.

  “Fine,” said Julian. “Let’s go sneak a peek at the big girls, and then get back to finding our way back to Cardinia.”

  Ravenus dutifully led them to the clearing in the woods, but Julian could still feel the unease in his familiar’s mind. “It’s just beyond those trees, sir.”

  “Stop,” said Tim as Cooper started forward. “Let’s be smart about this.” He looked up at the branches of a nearby tree. “We’ll scout the scene before rushing in there. Cooper, give me a boost up to that first branch, would you?”

  Cooper grabbed Tim by the torso and tossed him onto the branch, where he landed as sure-footedly as a bird.

  Julian pulled a coil of rope out of his bag. “Tie this to the branch. I’m coming up.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see what Ravenus is so freaked out about.”

  Tim rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

  Julian had a feeling he would comply. It was an excuse to have a drink while Julian climbed up the rope. Sure enough, as soon as Tim’s knot was secure, his flask was out before Julian started climbing.

  The branches above the first branch were closer to each other than the first branch was to the ground, allowing both Tim and Julian to ascend with ease.

  Tim was smaller than Julian,
had a higher Dexterity score, and a bonus to his Jump skill, which allowed him to climb the tree much faster than Julian. But he stopped suddenly. The look on his face matched the dread Julian felt through his Empathic Link with Ravenus.

  “Holy shit!” Tim spoke softly enough such that Julian wouldn’t have heard him without his elf ears. There was something more nefarious afoot than two big girls making out in a tub of Rocky Road.

  The first thing Julian saw as he reached Tim was a very tall woman, at least eight feet, standing with her back against a thick pine tree, her hands tied to the trunk above her head. She was obviously a giantess of some sort. Not particularly heavyset, by giant standards. Ravenus must have been referring to her height. Her face appeared pained and distressed as she struggled to free her bound wrists.

  Two women, rather than one, were manning the cauldron Ravenus had mentioned. They were hunch-backed, but looked to be just as tall as their captive if they were able to stand upright. With their misshapen backs to him, they didn’t look all that frightening. Maybe they weren’t in the running for Homecoming Queen, but –

  Julian gasped.

  When they turned, he could see their faces and hands. They had deep blue wrinkly skin, long pointed noses, and fingernails like blackened dagger blades.

  “Ravenus!” Julian whispered.

  “Right here, sir.” He was perched on the branch just above Julian’s head.

  “You said there were only two.”

  “One of them must have been inside at the time.”

  Julian looked at the clearing again. There was some kind of artificial earthen mound, covered in hanging vines. He supposed that it might serve as the old crones’ home.

  “Why didn’t you think to mention that one of the women you saw had wrinkly blue skin?”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, the subject of skin color has more than once set the four of you off in heated and confusing discussion.”

  Julian nodded. “It can be a bit of a hot-button topic where we come from. Still, you might have mentioned how horrific-looking she is.”

  “I didn’t want to be rude, sir. And I don’t feel I have an adequate appreciation for your elven standards of beauty.”

  “I say we get the fuck out of here,” said Tim.

  Julian glared at him. “We can’t just leave that poor giant woman there to be murdered and eaten.”

  Tim looked down at Dave and Cooper. “We’ll put it to a vote.”

  Julian felt the struggle between doing what was right and his own cowardice fighting for dominance inside him. He knew in his heart that agreeing to a vote would just be justifying cowardice. Dave would side with Tim. The best he could hope for was a stalemate, unless they let Ravenus break the tie. Doubtful.

  “Agreed.”

  They climbed down the tree and described what they’d seen to Dave and Cooper.

  “It sounds like a trap,” said Dave.

  “What?” Julian had to hand it to Dave. He always came up with creative excuses to tuck tail and run.

  “You said all three of them are approximately the same height. That doesn’t seem a little odd to you?”

  “Not really,” said Julian. “Most of us were within a couple of inches of each other before we turned into...” he waved his hands between the four of them. “... all this shit.”

  “And what are the odds that we arrived here just in time to rescue this woman from being eaten? How long does it take to ready a cauldron?”

  “Depending on what they’re cooking, it could take quite a while.”

  “So let’s say it takes hours,” said Dave. “That amounts to nothing on a long enough timeline. Of all the times we could have stumbled onto this clearing, how small a window is it to arrive here between the time she was captured and the time she was killed? That doesn’t seem just a little bit convenient to you?”

  Tim shrugged and took a swig from his flask. “That could just be game mechanics.”

  Dave glared at Tim, obviously not appreciating the crack in their solidarity. “What are you talking about?”

  “We might need to activate a trigger to initiate certain events. Remember the RPGs on the NES?”

  “NES?” asked Julian, proud of himself for at least remembering what RPG meant.

  Tim sighed. “Nintendo Entertainment System. Jesus, didn’t you have a childhood? What the fuck did you do all summer?”

  “I went to the pool, rode my bike, played outside with my friends.”

  Cooper put his hand on Julian’s shoulder. “You poor, poor bastard.”

  Julian looked at Tim. “You were saying something about a trigger?”

  “Let’s say you walk into a village, and there’s a woman there with a sick baby. You move your character over to face the mother and press the A button. She tells you her whole spiel about her kid, and you keep hitting the A button because who gives a fuck, you just want to know what she needs. You with me so far?”

  Dave and Cooper nodded.

  “I guess,” Julian lied.

  “Depending on the choices you’ve made in the game, or how shitty you are at playing it, there could be discrepancies of months of game-time for when you even reach that village. Every time you sleep at an inn to replenish your Hit Points, that’s another whole day gone by.”

  This didn’t match Julian’s experience with RPGs. “You could replenish all your Hit Points by spending one night in an inn?”

  “It was a simpler time. May I continue?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now let’s say I’m playing the game at my house, and Dave’s playing the game at his house. It could take Dave six months to find the same mother and child that I find within a couple of weeks, because he sucks.”

  “Fuck you,” said Dave. “I preferred platform games.”

  Tim had likely purposefully antagonized Dave just so that he could pause for a drink. When he was done, he continued. “In real life, that fucking kid would have been a worm-ridden corpse by the time Dave showed up. But in the game, he’s just as sick when Dave shows up as he is when I show up. It’s a side quest which isn’t triggered until you actually talk to the mother. She sends you out to go collect some bullshit herbs. You bring them back, the kid gets better, and the mother is so grateful that she gives you the Heartstone Gem that you need to continue along in the game.”

  Julian tugged on his long ears. “So... How does that apply to our current situation?”

  “Who knows? Maybe not at all. I don’t know all the technical details of how this game works. But if it works anything like the example I just explained, those two old women might stir that pot forever unless we step in to rescue their captive.” Tim took a swig from his flask.

  Julian frowned at Tim’s flask. “How do you still have anything left in there after three whole days?”

  Tim shrugged. “I’m small.”

  Dave rubbed his hands together. “If Tim’s theory is correct, no one gets eaten or murdered if we just mind our own business and go on our way.”

  “It’s just a theory,” said Julian. “And not a very convincing one. You were all convinced about my fantasy zone theory a few minutes ago.”

  “I’m still not unconvinced,” said Cooper. “How gross did those old blue bitches look?”

  It was time to break out the Diplomacy. Julian folded his arms. “Are you guys really going to tell me you’re so afraid of a couple of old ladies that you’d let an innocent person die rather than face them?”

  Tim, Dave, and Cooper glanced knowingly at each other, and Julian felt even more like an outsider.

  “You saw those fingernails,” said Tim. “How frail do you think those two old ladies are to be able to get so old living in this monster-infested forest? Even if we were to try some sort of ill-advised rescue mission, it wouldn’t involve marching in there and facing them head on. We’d have to slip in unnoticed somehow.”

  “You’re sneaky,” said Julian.

  “Yeah, and I’m three fucking feet tall. That w
oman’s wrists are tied ten feet up on that tree. How the hell am I supposed to get up there unnoticed? Climb up her tits?”

  “I’m sure she’d be understanding.”

  “Why don’t you send Ravenus?”

  Julian shook his head. “It’s too dangerous to send him in there alone.”

  Tim stoppered his flask. “You were ready to send me in there alone.”

  “Ravenus is a bird,” said Dave. “He wouldn’t look out of place landing on a branch.”

  “As long as he keeps his fucking mouth shut,” said Cooper.

  Julian had managed to talk himself into a corner with his own Diplomacy skill. The others were right. Objectively speaking, sending Ravenus in there alone posed the least amount of risk to everyone. It was either that, or let the giant woman die.

  “We’ll have to distract the old ladies.”

  Dave frowned. He’d clearly been hoping Julian would choose to ditch the giant. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “We could set a forest fire,” suggested Cooper.

  Julian licked his lips. “I’ve got something a little more subtle in mind.”

  Tim shook his head. “You’re going to summon a goddamn horse, aren’t you?”

  “No,” said Julian. “I mean, I’m not just going to summon a horse.” He pointed at the ground. “Horse.”

  A brown horse appeared next to him, saddled and ready to ride.

  Julian removed his right boot. “I’m going to create a story.” He fixed the boot into the right stirrup so that the top of it dragged along beside the horse.

  “Horse and Boot,” said Cooper. “A timeless classic.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m kinda with Cooper here,” said Tim. “I don’t really get what this story is supposed to be.”

  “That’s exactly the point. I let the horse wander into the clearing, drawing the old ladies’ attention to it. While they’re pondering what events may have led up to this, Ravenus should have plenty of time to claw through the ropes binding the giant woman.”

  “I’d say that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” said Dave. “But you’ve had dumber, and they’ve worked.”