Homebrew (Metagamer Chronicles Book 1)

by Xavier P. Hunter

  Gary was about to make a car analogy before catching himself. He tried to think up an in-character response. “This party is like an orchestra. You don’t give a violin bow to a percussionist. You don’t give a cellist a reed for an oboe.”

  “And you don’t give the conductor’s baton to the first jackanapes to step up to the rostrum,” Zeeto snapped back. No longer showing any sign of fear after making half a crossing of the bridge the prior time, the halfling stormed across, soft-soled shoes and the tiny feet inside doing their best to stomp.

  On the far side of the bridge, there was a shallow landing and a heavy stone door. Beside the door were three levers, two up, one down. As the others started across, an angry Zeeto marched up to the bank of levers with ominous purpose.

  “Stay away from those until we’re across,” Sira warned.

  Braeleigh jogged ahead, dodging between Gary and Beldrak, then around Sira to reach the halfling before he could do anything rash.

  Perhaps, in retrospect, making a race of it wasn’t the best of plans. Panicked and possibly not thinking clearly at that moment, Zeeto scurried to the levers in a fit of contrarianism that was so Marty.

  Marty was the guy who would eat the food at the back of the fridge because someone told him to throw it out, who had broken up with a girl for making plans two months ahead, who dressed like a hobo Monday through Thursday and showed up to casual Fridays wearing a tie.

  In the most Marty moment Zeeto had yet to display, the halfling put his head start to good use and outran the swifter elf to the bank of levers. With a desperate lunge, he fell onto one of the levers in the up position—the leftmost, if the halfling even cared which—and pulled it down with his weight.

  All the yelling and warnings from the party members racing to cross the bridge before who-knows-what happened to it were drowned out in the most horrendous noise anyone trapped below ground could conceive.

  d20: 18 + (DEX -1) = 17

  An earthquake knocked everyone off their feet. Even Gary’s respectably good roll was insufficient for a difficulty that warranted a target roll of 25, if he recalled accurately. Collapsed in a pile, they cowered and covered their heads and the unrelenting storm of stone and debris rained down.

  But not atop them.

  Across the bridge, there was no sign of the mine cart rail yard. Where it had been a moment earlier was a mountain of stone, and the dust kicked up as the massive deadfall trap was sprung.

  Coughing, Zeeto pointed an accusing finger at Braeleigh. “This is her fault.”

  Who took the blame was unimportant. Right then, at that very moment, they were trapped with no way back to Previn’s Mine.

  16

  “And this,” Gary said, pointing to the faded placard above the lever that Zeeto had pulled. “Is dwarven for ‘Emergency Defense Only.’ Congratulations. You just sealed us in.”

  Everyone was on their feet by now, dusting off and checking for injuries. The air was still thick with the unsettled cloud kicked up by the cave-in.

  “If she wasn’t coming to get me, I wouldn’t have felt so rushed,” Zeeto said.

  Braeleigh held her head in both hands. “I don’t even. You’re, like, delusional. I was trying to stop exactly what just happened. Well, maybe I didn’t know exactly, because if I had I’d have shot you with arrows until you stopped trying.”

  “Thine errant folly hath beached us upon a foreign shore of this dwarf-dug ocean,” Beldrak said testily. “Would that raising this lever tug puppet strings to raise the rocks as well.”

  Sira let out an exasperated sigh. “Gary, what do the other two say?”

  “The one that was down already was the bridge control,” Gary informed them. “The far right was for the door.” He made his point clear by yanking down the rightmost lever without a hint of hesitation. Everyone else cringed, but the only hint of moving stone was the mortar-and-pestle grinding of the dwarven machinery as the door swung ponderously open.

  Down the short length of hall that followed, the passage opened out into a city-sized dome lit by scattered torches. Pillars left in place while the rest of the dome was hand-carved by dwarven artisans kept the structure from collapsing, each the size of a castle tower.

  “Wow,” Sira said, the first of the others to recover the power of speech at the sight of mighty dwarven artifice from a bygone age.

  “If we’re still getting a stake in these mines, I want this to be our claim,” Zeeto said.

  “It’s like trees underground,” Braeleigh said, picking up Caspian and holding him up to see the shadowy recesses of the underground ceiling. “Trees made of stone. How did they do it?”

  Gary cleared his throat. “I’ve studied a bit of history since arriving in this part of the world. Call it a habit from barding college. The dwarves settled here after exploratory shafts found the area rich enough in metals and gems to warrant permanent habitation. They chiseled out Gelzhearth from the bones of the earth, leaving those pillars to hold it up. Each pillar is not only a tower with rooms and stairwells, but each houses a central chimney. Forges in each send heated air up to the surface, which suck in fresh air to replace it.”

  Zeeto gave an impressed little grunt. “I gotta read more books. Actually, no. Strike that. I gotta hang around more guys who read books.”

  “So, theoretically, these Gelzhearth dwarves traded with the outside world, right?” Sira asked. “That means somewhere around here, there’s an exit topside.”

  “Mayhap the placing of the cart and horse ought be reversed,” Beldrak suggested, pointing with the tip of his sword. “Yonder torchlight hast not lingered since the war of orcs and elves. Dost thou know whose house we presently invade?”

  Zeeto spat a harsh whisper. “Then ‘mayhap’ keep your voice down. Whoever’s down here probably won’t be happy about Braeleigh dropping that earthquake trap.”

  They all turned to glare at him.

  “Fine. We dropped,” Zeeto said. The halfling crouched and had his dagger in hand as he set forth into the gloomy shadows between torches. Then he gave the glowing weapon a scowl and turned to Sira. “Any chance you can shut the lights off?”

  “Sheath it.” Sira tucked her mace beneath her cloak as an example. The rest of them followed suit until the party found themselves in darkness, like guests at a nighttime barbecue who ventured too far from the tiki torches.

  “All right,” Zeeto said. “Follow me. You want me pulling my weight? You’ve got two choices. Keep back and stay quiet or stay put and wait for me to return with an exit plan.”

  “Together,” Braeleigh said firmly. “Keep the party together.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Zeeto confirmed with a nod. “So, shut up, don’t bump into one another, and run like hell if I give the word.”

  “Perchance we might bargain with whomever dwelleth herein?” Beldrak suggested.

  Zeeto held a finger to his lips, then pointed it at Beldrak. “You are a challenge. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Now, come on, all of you.”

  Gary found that despite his clumsiness, stealth suited him better than combat. And even with the admonition not to make a sound, it didn’t stop him mouthing the words to a song he adapted on the fly.

  “Follow the shadow. Just follow, don’t say so. Follow the halfling. He’ll show you where to go…”

  Without lending voice to the song, it had no power of bardic music, but composing it kept his mind from worrying that they’d be discovered. This game of hide-and-seek-and-stab was more stress than he’d bargained for.

  Zeeto navigated them between circles of torchlight like a prison break evading search lights.

  d20: 16 + (Stealth -1) + (Halfling Guide +2) = 17

  That felt like a good roll. Solid. Unlikely to get a low-level adventurer in trouble. There were times when a 12 or even a 10 worked out just fine. But as a general rule, 15 and above felt pretty safe.

  There were noises in the darkness. Footsteps. Muttered voices. Occasionally there was a clatter of a wooden bucket or a sc
rape of metal on stone. Back-lit figures passed by distant torches as Zeeto kept them all well clear.

  A rustle of metal from far closer made Zeeto freeze in his footsteps. The rest of them affected an emergency halt in the best silence they could manage. The sound had come from Beldrak’s chain armor. There was no getting around the possibility that the chain link garment would clatter as he moved. That was when Gary remembered that his Stealth rolls wouldn’t matter if someone else made noise.

  With a shriek, the denizens of Gelzhearth raised the alarm. Zeeto’s efforts ensured they were caught not at the tunnel out of the city but dead smack in the center.

  d20: 15 + (DEX -1) = 14

  To Gary’s great surprise, he was the first to act. This was his first experience coming out ahead on Initiative, and he had no idea what to do with that privilege.

  “These half-sized lizardmen are called lizardlings,” Gary announced. “They’re tribal and territorial, mildly vulnerable to cold, cowardly when they don’t have a numbers advantage, which they presently do.”

  Name: Lizardling Hit Points: 6 Damage: by weapon

  With that lecture, Gary spent his turn’s action. He didn’t have time to get into the fact that lizardlings could advance down the Paths of Power to become far more formidable than the base model.

  The lizardlings swarmed in. Too many for Gary to count, and without his maps and notes for handy reference, he couldn’t guess how many patrols would have been within a single action of arriving at the battle.

  Beldrak grew his sword, and the glow helped divert the lizardlings’ attention toward him. They jabbed with spears and whacked with clubs, but the inept little creatures fared poorly against the paladin’s armor.

  “Move and fight,” Zeeto said, heading onward into the shadows before ducking behind an oblivious lizardling, drawing his glowing dagger, and sticking it in the creature’s back before it could recover from its surprise.

  Braeleigh followed, Caspian practically glued to her heels. She loosed her arrow over Zeeto’s head, and it took a lizardling in the chest, dropping it dead to the city floor.

  Sira remained behind. “Gary, you head over to Leigh and Zeeto. We’ll cover you.” She swung her mace in a swift arc that left a glowing trail in its wake. Cool as it looked, her attack missed its mark.

  Gary was speechless. With a wordless nod of thanks, he drew his rapier and jogged over to Braeleigh and Zeeto. With no other action at the ready and no song springing to mind, he lay in wait and held his attack.

  His wait wasn’t long.

  The lizardlings poured in, emptying nearby pillars of their inhabitants. By their shouts and distant cries, the whole community was rallying against them.

  Gary took his stab as one of the creatures approached with caution, spear leading. These first responders didn’t have to win the battle, just delay Gary and his friends. That was a circumstance liable to invoke the dreaded TPK—Total Party Kill.

  d20: 20 = Critical Hit

  2d6: 6 + (Strength -2)x2 = 2

  Gary stabbed the lizardling right in the center of its chest. It should have been a lizardling-kabob. But the tip of the rapier barely broke the creature’s skin.

  For a critical hit, it was insultingly ineffective.

  “Good work, Gary,” Braeleigh cheered him.

  The offended lizardling unimpaled itself and stabbed back, nicking Gary in the gut. Fire erupted from the wound—or felt that way, at least, to one unaccustomed to getting stabbed.

  Damage Taken: 3 (sharp)

  No need to panic, Gary told himself.

  Zeeto used the creature’s focus on Gary to slip behind and slit its throat.

  Braeleigh pranced ahead. Caspian shot forward and took a lizardling by the leg, wrenching and shaking to bring the reptilian creature to the ground. With the lizardling’s attention fully fixed on defending its face, Braeleigh drew her short sword and stabbed it to death.

  Beldrak and Sira closed the distance spreading out the party. They’d become a roving rear guard keeping the party from being overrun.

  “We can’t keep this up,” Zeeto said. “There are more coming than here already.”

  “Valor fadeth at the black,” Beldrak boomed in reply.

  “They live here,” Gary said. “We’re just defending ourselves. Anything more and we’re the bad guys. This is a communications barrier, not a war.”

  That was enough to break the paladin free of his martial fixation. The five of them beat a hasty withdrawal, barely making an effort to hold the lizardlings at bay as they searched for another exit to the cavern city.

  “This way!” Zeeto shouted, pointing to a tunnel in the city’s south wall.

  “No good,” Gary shouted back, panting as he ran. He pointed to the signage over the arched exit, written in dwarven. “It says eighty-five miles to Devin’s Forge.” They’d never have made it before resorting to cannibalism—or a dungeon master’s forgetfulness—to stave off starvation.

  Lizardlings were numerous in the old city of Gelzhearth, but they weren’t fleet-footed creatures. Once out ahead of the main pack, Gary and the others were able to keep ahead of them. Those that peeked from pillar doorways or the tents the lizardlings had constructed themselves thought better of confronting the adventurers on their own. A few with bows in high-up windows rained shots down among them but to little avail.

  “How about this one?” Zeeto asked, pointing on the run.

  This tunnel bore its own signage, similar in design to the previous exit. “Eastern mines and Lake Kemha. No indication that it might lead out.”

  Making a slow circuit of the city, like the late stages of a community marathon, they came across another archway. The halfling inquired again.

  “Crypts and Vault,” Gary reported. “Not sounding like a—”

  “We’re going!” Zeeto proclaimed. “We can make a stand. Hold them off. We can’t search the city with them chasing us, but I bet we can fight them if we put a wall to our backs.”

  No one objected. Gary didn’t see a reason to. It was surprisingly sound logic, even if he suspected it was based on hopes of looting said vault.

  As they raced under the archway, the lizardlings pulled up short. None were willing to follow them out of the city proper.

  17

  Sira healed their wounds as the party walked down the sloping path to the Gelzhearth crypts and vault. All of them were short on breath—except Caspian, whose panting seemed to show his enjoyment of the life-and-death sport.

  “I don’t like this,” Braeleigh said.

  “Too much stone overhead, elf-girl?” Zeeto asked.

  Sira paused between healing spells. “I get it. Someone else’s burial grounds. Consecrated to unfamiliar gods. I can feel the reverence imbued into the very stone we tread, but it’s not the same as the feeling of Sevius’s grace.”

  “No,” Braeleigh objected impatiently. “I mean why are the little gecko-men afraid to come in here after us. What do they know that we don’t?”

  “How reptiles breed?” Zeeto suggested.

  “Can we just be thankful that, for the moment, no one’s trying to kill us?” Gary asked.

  “Small blessings filleth the cracks in men’s souls,” Beldrak said.

  They came upon a door of solid marble, twenty feet high. They might never have budged it with all five of them working in concert. Luckily, however, the door was already ajar. The gap was wide enough that even broad-chested Beldrak could slip through sideways with a scrape of chain.

  Inside, there was a somber blue luminescence with no apparent source that chased away all shadow. Each side of the perfectly square chamber measured at least a hundred feet. The walls bore carvings that were lifelike in their detail, life-size in their scale, and ubiquitous across every vertical surface. High overhead, a vaulted dome of gold looked down upon them.

  Within the chamber were four smaller structures each the size of a woodsman’s cottage, capped with an ornately sculpted dome of its own. At the center of the
square arrangement of cottages was a fountain that spouted water like an umbrella of opposing purpose.

  Zeeto made straight for the fountain. “Man, I could use a good drink.”

  Sira chased after him, slapping the halfling’s hand hard enough to make him drop the silver ladle he’d taken from the fountain’s edge. “You idiot! That could be poison.”

  “Might explain why the geckos stay away,” Braeleigh reasoned, coming up and giving the fountain a sniff from a healthy pace away. “Doesn’t smell bad, though.”

  “Pray thee, Gary, what sayeth this graven plaque upon the matter?” Beldrak asked, holding a hand out to indicate an inset silver panel carved with a dwarven caption.

  “Font of the Ancestors,” Gary read. He wondered whether he could actually read dwarven at all or if his mind merely filled in the information he’d written for the campaign. Thus far, it was impossible to separate one from the other to know.

  Braeleigh scrunched her nose. “Totally still could have poisoned it.”

  Sira wandered over to the carved walls. “These seem to be telling a story.”

  Gary joined her. He scanned along image after conjoined image, struggling to divide one scene from the next as it all flowed together. The mural was an artistic masterpiece both in concept and execution. It was Dante’s “Inferno” depicted with the reverence of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling and the skill of Rodin’s The Thinker. Dwarven history flowed from the chisel of the artisan who’d birthed it.

  “Right here,” Gary said, pointing with his rapier to an image well out of reach overhead. “They show a dwarf drinking from the fountain. Looks like some kind of coming-of-age ritual.”

  “Good enough for me,” Zeeto said, scooping a double-handful of water to his lips.

  Instantly, the halfling swooned. Braeleigh caught him before he struck his head against the marble base of the fountain.