Homebrew (Metagamer Chronicles Book 1)

by Xavier P. Hunter

  After that, there were encounters with a beetlebear protecting her egg sac, burrowing iron mole, and a small flock of vampire geese that ended up becoming their night’s dinner.

  “Honestly,” Zeeto said, picking the meat from a roasted goose leg with his teeth. “When you said they were vampire geese, I never expected to be eating one. But these things are tasty!”

  “They’re carnivorous hemophages,” Gary said. “They’ll drink blood from their prey, but they’re living creatures. You’re just lucky I was able to snag some honey for a good glaze before we left Durrotek. Just wait, once we get some money flowing back home, I’ll get ingredients to make buffalo sauce.”

  Braeleigh choked. When she cleared the morsel from her throat with a fit of coughing, she said, “Your people make sauce from buffaloes? Ewwwww.”

  “No,” Gary explained. “We’re just ass at naming foods. Our buffalo sauce is butter, salt, garlic, and spices. We also have fish sauce with no fish in it, duck sauce that doesn’t contain duck, and don’t get me started on Rocky Mountain oysters.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Zeeto said. “Never been fond of seafood.”

  “Not a problem,” Gary replied flatly. “They’re fried bull testicles.”

  Zeeto spat out the bite he’d just taken. Then he used his fingers to wipe the remnant off his tongue. “All right. Who’s with me? All in favor of not letting Gary and his nut-snarfing barbarian tribal rituals near our food again?” He raised his hand.

  Sira tentatively raised hers, along with a guilty look of apology in Gary’s direction. Beldrak folded his arms pointedly. Whether that meant he enjoyed a good bull testicle now and then or simply didn’t jump to conclusions as nimbly as the halfling, Gary had the paladin’s support.

  Braeleigh continued chewing her dinner. “I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, obviously raw, just about anything is gross. But if they’re cooked well by someone who knows how, I’ll try just about anything.”

  This was Katie, coming through unvarnished. She’d once claimed that she didn’t judge a boyfriend by how well he cooked but rather whether he was willing to try. She’d shared horror stories of guys making everything from Cajun shrimp to goat cheese pizza to try to impress her. Katie had survived more cases of food poisoning than anyone Gary had ever known, but that never stopped her from giving the next guy a try—not that there had been a “next guy” since Derek.

  “I haven’t given you guys anything to eat without you knowing what it is,” Gary said defensively, realizing that his cooking was one of the firmest hooks he’d sunk into them to keep his spot on the party roster. “And I won’t. If I make you a surprise meal, you’re welcome to ask and ruin the surprise if you’re worried. Plus, I’m really careful.”

  It was true. While he’d never wow them taking the standard roll, Gary had been using the no-variance journeyman rule that allowed him to add +10 to his skill check instead of rolling. On average, he’d be slightly worse off than the 10.5 a d20 worked out to over enough rolls, but neither would he ever bomb a batch of cookies and kill everyone.

  When Zeeto finally put his hand down, knowing the vote was lost, the meal resumed.

  To break the tense silence that followed, Gary pinged them on a subject that had been nagging at him as they’d been hunted by monsters. “So… anyone feel the Paths of Power sneaking up on them?”

  Level/Path: Bard 1,2,3B, 4A XP: 6,400/8,000 Race: Unknown

  STR: 7 DEX: 9 CON: 8 INT: 21 WIS: 17 CHA: 18

  To Hit: +2 Weapon: Hair Splitter (1d8+1)

  Armor Rating: 11 Armor: Leather (+2)

  Path Powers: Inspire (+2), Lullaby, Fascinate, Historian

  Skills: Persuade (+8), Music (+8), Study/Search (+8)

  Tricks: Fast Talk

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  It was weird when XP worked itself out to a round 100. But working the math backward, it had seemed natural. Still, Gary couldn’t help but be suspicious that someone was still pulling the strings from a world beyond, and he had his suspicions who that might be.

  It would have been just like Zane to hijack his setting and try to do it better.

  “Gettin’ there,” Zeeto said, picking his teeth with a dagger tip. “My dad always had this theory though. Never wanted to go adventuring because once you start down the Path of Power, danger chases you. Can’t ever get ahead. Can’t ever take it easy. By his logic, if we were to advance on the Path, this Nethel bozo would be farther down the Path himself by the time we got to him.”

  “Thine father speaks heresy,” Beldrak said firmly. “To each man his own fate, and to fate and the gods alone he is beholden. Doth Kurgath gain as well with each of our victories? What of his other enemies—for surely one such as he hath others? When would it end? Fie, I say. Those words reek of the sty.”

  Zeeto put an arm over Gary’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Just between you and me, if you want to cross over to the Path of Shadow, I can show you the ropes. You can keep the stringed, shrieking instrument of yours around as a cover, and you’ll be able to hold your own in a fight.”

  Gary nodded and whispered back. “Thanks. I’ve been considering hopping Paths. Haven’t gotten up the courage to do it.”

  Zeeto patted him on the arm. “Just do it. You’ll feel better not being the weak link.”

  If only Zeeto knew that the shift tempting Gary wasn’t the shadows but the way of the wizard.

  43

  Temblin was a tiny, dusty frontier town only notable because its timber industry supplied the fine carpenters and artisans of Sillimar. Though the capital was a scant three days’ journey south, Temblin sat on the wrong side of the divide between what most humans considered civilized versus untamed. The road from Sillimar went off a figurative cliff in that regard, though the terrain itself was easy traveling.

  Gary and his friends stopped there only long enough to purchase fresh provisions with their meager cash reserves and set out on the south road without even taking a night in a real bed.

  44

  All the way to Sillimar, Gary had expected an attack. He’d written in an ambush if the party had come this way, and as the days of the footsore journey wore on, the dread only built. Having the expectation hanging overhead was worse than the ambush would have been. After all, it was only a three-headed jackal that had escaped into the wilds years ago from a wizard’s laboratory. If Braeleigh rolled well, she might even have reassured it that they were no threat.

  Instead, the worst thing possible happened: nothing.

  Gary passed through the gates of Sillimar with Zeeto doing the talking for the group.

  “Yeah, my friend here’s just a small-town sort of guy,” the halfling explained as Gary lost his shit silently within the confines of his own mind. “It’s the crowds. He’ll be fine. We’ll keep an eye on him until this bumpkin adjusts.”

  “Gary, snap out of it,” Sira chided him quietly, taking him arm in arm as they departed the gate. “What’s come over you?”

  How could a creator of worlds explain the terror of realizing that the planet-sized vehicle he piloted had just veered off course? The answer was: nothing. Same as the ambush. Nothing to see here. Move along. Come up with a story.

  “I’m fine. This is just so… big.”

  d20: 10 + (Persuade +8) + (Zeeto’s Idea +2) = 21

  “Palo Alto a little more pastoral?” Sira asked, relaxing the arm interwoven with his.

  Gary coughed. “Um. A little. Yeah.”

  Yeah, just a measly three million or so people in the Bay Area. Nothing like mighty Sillimar’s hundred and fifty thousand.

  d20: 1 + (Persuade +8) = 9

  “Are you making fun of me?” Sira demanded.

  Shit. One chance to fix this.

  Fast Talk: on a failed Persuade check, roll a secondary check to make up a plausible excuse that the target can believe.

  “No… I’m just… look, I’m trying to not come off like some small-town foreigner who’s never seen a city this size before. Mind
not continuing to draw attention to it?”

  “Sor-ry,” Sira said. “Maybe stop pretending you don’t have character flaws and we’ll stop pointing them out.”

  Gary stopped in the middle of the street. Sira slipped off his arm and kept going. Kim had always played her cards face down. Was Sira exposing what Kim really thought of him back in the real world?

  Worse, if this was really all Gary’s imagination, why was he revealing this to himself now?

  For the first time since arriving in the campaign world of Pellar, Gary regretted deceiving his friends. By hiding his inside knowledge, he’d alienated them somehow. He hadn’t brought himself down to their level; he’d come in below it and stuck there. Now, mucking down the Path of Music, he was weaker than them and continuing to fall behind.

  Gary had the same combat bonuses from his Path as Zeeto did from his own, but where Zeeto was optimized from character creation, Gary was stuck with a physique cultivated over a lifetime of cheese curls, cutting gym class, and drinking beer. A proper bard wouldn’t have dumped his secondary stat rolls into Intelligence and Wisdom. A little Dexterity or even Constitution might have gone a long way.

  “We should split up,” Zeeto said, taking command of this decidedly urban adventure. “No offense, but you four are going to cramp my style. Beldrak, you ask around in legit circles. Old friends, church officials, anyone who might know this Nethel clown from before he started pissing off kidnappers.”

  “And if our fair thief hath not been bred from Sillimar’s stock?” Beldrak asked.

  “Then you’re in for a long, boring day catching up on old times with the boring people you left behind to come hang with us,” Zeeto replied. “This isn’t magic. It’s not science. This is hard work. Footsore, thirsty, purse-wrenching work. Don’t be shy making donations if you think it’ll jog some memories.”

  “Donations require a coin I do not carry,” Beldrak said. “Our fortunes put us closer to beggars than philanthropists.”

  Zeeto ignored the paladin’s complaints and turned to Sira. “You, go minister to the poor and needy. Those poor bastards are chock-full of information if you can convince ‘em to cough it up. Greed doesn’t work as well as you might think. Give him a few gold coins and his best friend might knife him for it. Cure his groin pox, and maybe he’ll decide to repay with the only currency he’s got.”

  “Despite your crude cynicism, I’ll do it,” Sira said. “But I won’t withhold curative magics for anyone lacking information.”

  “Suit yourself,” Zeeto said with a shrug. “Leigh, you’ve got it easy.”

  “Oh, great!” Braeleigh said cheerily. “I was worried you’d want me to whore myself out for secrets.”

  Zeeto scoffed. “Hell, no! Don’t give it up. Hang around the bars and let ‘em try, though. Don’t pay for a single drink. Make it clear you’ve got to meet with Nethel before you can do anything else. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Braeleigh replied glumly.

  “All right,” Zeeto said. “Get a move on.”

  “What about me?” Gary asked.

  “Since when do I need to tell you how to get information?” the halfling asked with a frown. “Pull it out of your magic ass for all I care. But if you need your hand held in the big old scary city, then go check around for inns. If Nethel’s a local, it’ll be a dry well, but if he’s bunking down, he’s got to sleep somewhere. If he’s loaded with coin, it won’t be in the streets.”

  “And where will you be looking around?” Sira asked. “The whore houses? The gambling dens?”

  “Everywhere else,” Zeeto said with an air of authority. “Look. Maybe this is all new to you but figuring out where a guy’s at is sort of a basic skill in my line of—well, I learned it growing up. OK? I can cover a lot of ground, and I won’t get my time wasted by clumsy attempts at soliciting bribes or false trails.” He clapped his hands sharply. “Now, scoot!”

  They dispersed into the city.

  Gary had seen Sillimar before but only in his imagination. He’d sketched a map of it on blue-lined graph paper, marked key locations with a numbered legend and everything. None of it did justice to the vision he’d had of the place itself. Glass-working was the city’s hallmark. Glazed windows were a rarity in most cities. The wealthy could afford a view without letting in flies or icy winds. But in Sillimar, every building had glass. Tubes of colored glass lit shop windows at light like primitive neon. But most stunning were the spires of the city’s finest structures—gleaming, crystalline glass that withstood the years and elements thanks to enchantments placed in bygone ages.

  If he said so himself, Gary had outdone himself.

  “Screw you, Marty,” Gary muttered under his breath as he meandered the streets. They all thought he was dead weight, a liability whose occasional flares of insight kept him just useful enough not to jettison.

  Gary was going to catch Nethel, and he wasn’t going to need to ask around, rough up lowlifes, or pay informants.

  Gary was going to cheat.

  45

  Pretending to conduct a city-wide search of the hospitality industry was surprisingly relaxing. Sillimar was renowned for its accommodations, and Gary had his pick of places that Nethel wasn’t and Zeeto was unlikely to check. On the off chance that the halfling was going to keep tabs on him, Gary dutifully spent the day in common rooms around the city.

  With his lute.

  While there was little enough money among the party members, it was largely due to demanding tastes in food and a general lack of free time to earn cash on the side. Their adventures had yet to turn lucrative aside from the funds used to purchase 14 Zephyr Street. Cooking wasn’t going to make much coin in a hurry, but there was a fine tradition of wandering troubadours earning a living playing inns and taverns.

  At the Black Barrel, Gary tested the waters with a little Bob Dylan. A five-song set and a Perform check result of 18 had earned him enough in tips to rent himself a nice room for the night.

  Moving along to Juggling Mug, Gary settled in amongst a clientele of foreign merchants and local sycophants for some Beatles and had to flee when he rolled a 1. Turned out that one of those merchants was a retired army captain in his kingdom’s military, and his nickname had been Pepper. Singing Sgt. Pepper had come off as demeaning, and Gary only escaped an honor duel by pretending not to speak the language.

  Lucky for him, a Persuade check of 22 was enough to confuse his audience—who’d heard him introduce the songs in perfectly clear human—for long enough to duck down several alleys and cut through a cheese shop.

  But that was the worst of his luck. Touring through the Brick Alehouse, the Thirsty Statue, and Orzin’s House of Suds over the course of the evening, Gary got to shake the rust off his Rolling Stones, Who, and Van Halen. None of it sounded right on the lute, and he was paying for it in tips with a -2 “Acoustic Power Chords” penalty. But it made him a little money and, more importantly, helped him feel a little less homesick.

  Pellar was a fun place to visit, but without his friends around for the day, it was just reminder after reminder that this wasn’t Earth.

  No tacos.

  No flush toilets.

  No internet.

  No electricity to power an amp.

  It might have been different as a mighty hero like Beldrak, standing at the fore and cleaving heads with the fury of righteousness behind his blows. He could have dealt with channeling divine power and feeling the touch of a god in his daily life—except maybe Makoy. Even having a cool pet wolf that grew as he leveled might have been nice.

  But Gary was a bard. It didn’t work out any better in Pellar than it had in Palo Alto. He could scratch together a few more coins here playing taprooms than he could at nightclubs back home, but at the end of the day, he had to cook to earn his keep.

  With 27 gold in his pocket, Gary headed for the rendezvous with the rest of the party.

  They met at an outdoor tea shop with sight lines down two major roads. Gary would have opted for som
ething shadowy and discreet, but Zeeto was the one calling the shots here.

  “So, who came up with workable leads?” the halfling asked as soon as their waiter had taken everyone’s order.

  “Not I,” Beldrak said with a shake of his head. He cast his eyes downward in shame.

  “I spent most of the afternoon at the city detention center,” Braeleigh said offhandedly.

  Sira reached across and took her by the hand. “What happened? Are you all right? Are you in trouble?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Braeleigh insisted, extracting her hand from the priestess’s. “One of the barflies I was stringing along got a little handsy. When he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, I agreed to head up to his room, where I—” she made a throat-slitting gesture at crotch level.

  Beldrak, Zeeto, and Gary crossed their legs in unison.

  “And the guards arrested you for it?” Sira asked.

  Braeleigh blinked. “Me? As if. I screamed my throat raw. The bleeding lecher limped away in a panic. I pressed charges. There is a lot of bureaucracy in this city.”

  Sira sighed. “As for me, I served Sevius well today. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

  “That’s all right,” Zeeto said. “Nethel’s a slippery bugger. I barely scraped together that he’s been spotted around town as recently as three nights ago. That’s OK. We know he’s here. We’ll close around him like a noose.”

  Gary cleared his throat.

  Zeeto rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can report too.”

  “Nethel hangs out at an unlicensed casino run by a local smuggling ring called the Crosstown Shippers. They run it in the basement of a distillery called Cask of Thousands. Players’ entrance is around back. Password is ‘omen’ worked into an innocuous sentence. High rollers ought to give the doorman a tip, but we’re short on cash for that. Speaking of, I did manage to scrape together enough to rent us a couple rooms for the night. Korver’s Nook, rooms 3D and 3F.” He slid one of the keys over to Sira. “This one’s got the better view of the palace spire.”