Split the Party

by Drew Hayes

  “Bring it o—”

  Gabrielle’s taunt was cut short as the bandit leader charged, blade gleaming in the moonlight. He was fast and strong, but Gabrielle had fought faster and stronger—although not the two rolled together. The axe seemed to move almost automatically, deflecting the more dangerous blows and letting her armor absorb the weaker ones. As they fought, she kept her mind on the task at hand, always waiting for the right opportunity. Weary as she was getting, her next true attack would be the one that decided the match. If she couldn’t finish things, he would eventually overwhelm her.

  It was when the bandit leader was shifting backward, angling for a new wave of assault, that Gabrielle saw what she was looking for. His shield had dipped—just for a moment—as exhaustion finally began to extract its payment from him. Fast as he was, she knew she could get the axe through his guard. There was no time for contemplation or thought. All she could do was act.

  Gabrielle swung her axe, and as she did, she poured every remaining drop of rage she could into the blow. Her muscles, filled with weary fire only moments before, roared with life as they sent the blade of her weapon on a direct course with his neck. She could feel it, even before contact was made. This was a mighty blow. This would cleave that grinning face from that nimble body in a single motion. Victory was hers.

  That thought was shattered, along with the head of her axe, as the bandit leader slammed his shield into her weapon. Even with him pushing back, the force of the blow still sent him reeling, and he had to scurry backward lest he fall completely prone in front of his enemy. He looked at her with newfound respect, even as Gabrielle gazed at the shattered remains of what had once been her trusty weapon.

  “A good strike,” he said, marveling at the dent his shield now boasted. “But an amateur mistake. Pretending to be tired, drawing your opponent out: it’s one of the first things any real warrior learns. You’ve clearly seen some fighting, but I’d wager none of it was against other humans.”

  Gabrielle lifted the broken axe, now little more than a staff with a hunk of metal on the end, and stared at him angrily. Without her weapons, she would surely die. That much was obvious. Still, she refused to die groveling or in mid-retreat. Gabrielle would die fighting, even if it was futile. That too was the goblin way.

  “You’ve got potential,” the bandit leader said, circling her slowly. “And I’ve got a few openings in my crew. If you’re willing to swear allegiance, and prove it, then I might be willing to spare your life.”

  “How sweet. Too bad there’s no way I’m sparing yours.” Words, nothing but empty words, and they both knew it. Yet Gabrielle still felt better as they left her mouth. She hadn’t been strong enough, but she could still die an honorable death. And perhaps, if she was very lucky, she could spill a little of his blood on her way into the next life.

  “Foolish girl, don’t you even know to take an offer of kindness when it’s offered to you?”

  “Don’t you know not to lose track of how many people you’re fighting?” The words came from behind the bandit leader, but before he could twist around to see who had spoken, a green, flickering light engulfed his whole body. He screamed in pain, throwing himself to the ground and trying to quell the magical fire that was already charring his flesh. His flailing neither spread the flames nor extinguished them. The screams of the bandit leader drew the attention of his last remaining cohort, giving Grumph the chance he needed to slip the blade between his enemy’s ribs.

  The horrible yelling grew louder and louder, and then fell silent. Moments later, even the crackle of flames died away. Only then did Gabrielle turn to face her savior, the silhouette that stood several feet away, shadowed by the trees.

  Fritz stepped into view, a sizable bruise on her cheek, a cut on her arm, and the silver rod she’d pointed at Gabrielle clutched firmly in her hand. Before their eyes, the silver began to darken, losing its luster until the rod was pitch black. Fritz let out an annoyed sigh, and then tossed it unceremoniously into her satchel.

  “Well, I’m out of shots, so I really hope everyone is dead.”

  Chapter 15

  “That was brutal.” Tim set down the damage dice he’d had ready in his hand. The first of his attacks had killed the final wyvern, and finally ended their protracted battle at the cliff’s base.

  “Seriously. Chalara is down to three points of mana.” Cheri eyed her little brother suspiciously from across the table. “Russell, you wouldn’t have tacked on some extra monsters in that battle just because we’ve been doing so well, would you?”

  Russell raised his right hand into the sky. “It’s all exactly as the module outlined, GM’s honor. You all just happened to choose a path that took you down one of the tougher encounters.”

  “Well, let’s try and avoid another one of those. Chalara is looking beat to hell right now. How’s Wimberly? That fall off the cliff did a lot of damage.”

  “She’s alive,” Bert assured his fellow players. “But it was touch and go for a while there. Definitely going to need to drink some healing potions.”

  “Save them, if you can,” Tim warned. “We’ve got a long way to go before we get to this wizard’s castle. I can heal you up at least part of the way.”

  “Gelthorn would also appreciate divine mending, as she currently has two arrows stuck in her shoulder,” Alexis mumbled, just as she did every time she left the safety of speaking as Gelthorn.

  “Heal Gelthorn first. Wimberly sees less action in combat; this one was just bad luck.” Bert flipped to his inventory page, making sure he had enough items of healing to get the gnome gadgeteer back to a functioning state. “I’ve been meaning to ask this, but having Wimberly get so beat up reminded me. What happens when your character dies? Is there an item we bust out to fix it, like super-healing?”

  Russell shook his head, but it was Cheri who answered the question. “Dead is just that: dead. Sometimes, in really high-level games, there might be ways to bring them back, but even in the Spells, Swords, & Stealth world, death is a lasting consequence. It’s what adds a bit of real danger to our games. No one wants to lose a character they’re attached to.”

  “Wait, so if Wimberly dies, I can’t play anymore?” Bert looked torn between shock and tears, with no one sure which side he’d fall on.

  “You could still play,” Russell assured him. “Just not as Wimberly. We’d have you roll up a new character and the party would meet you somewhere down the line. Truthfully, I’m amazed this hasn’t come up already. The four of you have been playing very well to avoid losing any party members so far.”

  “But it looks like things are getting tougher,” Tim pointed out. The number of dead wyvern tokens scattered across the dry-erase map was proof of how dangerous their evening’s game had been. If a few rolls had gone slightly askew, they might very well be burying at least one of their party’s members.

  “That is the nature of a campaign. You go up levels, get better gear, and generally become stronger. Meanwhile, the monsters become more dangerous, and the treasure more worth claiming. I’ve looked through the module’s campaign, and while it’s not impossible for everyone to live to the end, it’s going to take a fair bit of luck on your parts,” Russell admitted.

  “Damn, one bad fight and your character is gone.” Bert shook his head in amazement. “This game has some high-ass stakes.”

  “Just like life,” Cheri said. “Except we can’t just roll up new characters.”

  “True,” Tim agreed. “But we also don’t have to fight monsters all the time.”

  Cheri snorted and took a sip of her drink—this time, one made sans booze. “Can you imagine if we did? No rerolling lives and dealing with monsters on the daily? That shit would be the worst of both worlds.”

  * * *

  This time, he was not overlooking an ancient battle filled with kingdoms and people he’d never seen before. Nor was he in the church where Grumble had first appeared, a dream corollary to the place Thistle had spent so many wasted y
ears as little more than a floor polisher. Instead, dry leaves crunched beneath his feet and cold wind slithered across the stone markers around him. He’d never been to this place before, or, if he had, he couldn’t remember it, but Thistle knew where he was the moment he looked around.

  This was a graveyard, a sprawling one that lay beneath the glowing light of a full moon. Nothing stirred around him, nor did creeping shadows appear at the edges of his vision. The place was still, quiet.

  Dead.

  “If you’re trying to tell me I’m going to die, you can just say it,” Thistle called, his voice bouncing off the gravestones as it went tumbling down the rows. “Though I do respect the theatrics, they are unnecessary. I knew what I was signing up for. If that time has come, so be it.”

  At first, only silence and his own echo greeted him. Then, the sound of more crunching leaves came, and Thistle turned to find a familiar kobold stepping from behind one of the more massive tombstones.

  “Other gods send paladins coded messages all the time.”

  “And that’s lovely for them, but I am a minion at heart. The best orders are clear ones, because there is less chance of erring in their execution and earning a pointless death.”

  “I’m also pretty sure other paladins show their gods more respect, when they deign to speak with them.”

  Thistle sighed, but bowed his head anyway. “Oh mighty Grumble, god of the minions and the lowly, would you please be so merciful as to tell me what in the name of the high heavens is going on?”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard.” Grumble stepped forward and hooked a scaly claw under Thistle’s chin, lifting it up from its bowed position. “Sadly, I can’t give a direct answer on this one. You’ve stepped into something that other gods have stakes in, which means the divine protocol is in effect.”

  “Dragonshit. You’re talking about politics, aren’t you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Grumble admitted. He released Thistle’s face and began walking down the aisles of tombstones, motioning for his paladin to follow. “How much we can intervene with our followers usually depends on how much other gods want us to succeed or fail. In a case like this, where gods are working toward conflicting goals, we use what’s known as ‘divine protocol’ to keep things fair. No one is allowed to just tell things directly to their followers, but we can send visions that you try to interpret. Crappy as they might be, they’re still better than nothing.”

  “Interesting. Certainly explains why Mithingow was often so cryptic, even with her high priests.” Thistle paused for a moment, turning the information over in his head. “How is it you can tell me about this, then?”

  “Strangely enough, no one ever actually bothered putting conversations about divine protocol under the restrictions of divine protocol,” Grumble said. “The other gods keep it secret because they think it makes them seem more mysterious to talk to their followers only through coded visions.”

  “And you?”

  “I think it makes us seem like asses. But even gods have rules they have to follow.” Grumble ran a hand over the spines that covered the top of his head. “The most I can pull off is this, showing up to at least explain why I can’t explain.”

  “The effort is appreciated. I was beginning to wonder if I’d done something to incur your wrath,” Thistle admitted.

  “Well, you’re a little too free with the ‘strategic repositioning’ at times, but when things get serious, you’ve shown yourself to be a surprisingly heroic follower. So: now you know that I’m not angry with you; I just can’t do more than show you seemingly random visions. What’s say you try and make the most of this one?”

  Thistle looked around, expecting to see the landscape shift or a new set of events burst forth from the stars. Instead, he was greeted with the same graveyard and one divine kobold staring at him with a toothy grin.

  “Is . . . is this the vision?”

  “No, I brought us here because the chilly air and creepy tombstones really gives the place a homey feel. Of course this is the vision.”

  “Forgive me, I don’t think I’m seeing whatever the message is meant to be here,” Thistle said.

  “That’s all right. This one might take a while. Let’s stroll around a bit. I can’t offer you any help, but I can listen while you try to puzzle through things.” Grumble turned down a new row of tombstones, and Thistle followed.

  The gnome’s mind whirred as he struggled to understand what Grumble was trying to tell him. No, that was wrong. Thistle shook the notion loose before it had time to take root in his mind. Understanding would come later; at the moment, he just needed to grasp what he was seeing. First actually get the message, then try to translate it. Details were what mattered at the moment. The graveyard itself was unfamiliar and bore no distinct features, so it couldn’t be the place that was important. That left the tombstones themselves, or rather, what was written on them.

  Each stone was bone-white, jutting up from the ground and bearing inscriptions in elegant handwriting. As Thistle began perusing them, he quickly noticed that nearly all of them listed the dead as goblin, ogre, or kobold. These three species may as well have been called the minion races, so far as Thistle was concerned. While every creature could be tempted, cajoled, or outfight forced into the work of servitude, those three races were by far the ones used most frequently. Given that this was a vision sent to him by the god of the minions, though, it made a fair amount of sense to see so many in the graveyard.

  Thistle continued reading the inscriptions, looking for a pattern in the names or dates. Nothing leapt out at him, until he came across an inscription that stopped him suddenly in his tracks. He leaned closer, feeling a tickle in his mind as the word called forth memories long forgotten.

  “I knew this one. Crasku, a kobold I worked with under a half-mad sorcerer.”

  “Did you now?” Grumble’s voice betrayed nothing; he merely listened with a curious gleam in his wide, reptilian eyes.

  “Crasku had ideas for fixing up some of the traps that had been set in the lair. He spent weeks going over his design updates, drawing up proposals, and even making a few small-scale models.”

  “That’s quite industrious. How did that go over?”

  Thistle remembered too well the way things had played out; it had been early in his minion career and taught him a lesson that he never let himself forget. “The sorcerer listened for less than five minutes, then threw Crasku into one of the flaming spear pits and said, ‘Looks like the current ones are working fine to me.’ After that, he laughed, pointed at a random kobold, and told them to fish the corpse out before the scent of charred kobold stunk up the lair.” He didn’t know when, but Thistle realized he’d clenched his hands so tightly that his nails were on the verge of cutting into his palms.

  “My, what a bastard.” Grumble stepped over and looked at the headstone, wiping away a small smudge with his hand. “Crasku was a good minion, but he broke one of the cardinal rules we live by.”

  “Be unseen,” Thistle muttered. “Those who stick out are cut down.”

  “You have no idea how far back that expression goes.” For the barest of moments, Grumble’s good humor slipped away and Thistle could see the pain and anger still lingering inside him. Then it was gone, the cheerful kobold with the power of a god back in his rightful place. Strangely, Thistle was more comforted by the momentary slip than he was bothered by it. Being a minion was pain, fear, and danger all wrapped up into one cowering existence. It felt good to know his god still remembered that. He shared in the pain of his people, and it made him a better god for it.

  “Well, lovely as it’s been to catch up with you, I think we’ve had enough of this place.” Grumble straightened up, still a few inches shorter than Thistle, and nodded toward the horizon. “Sun will be up soon, and you’ve got a lot of reading to do, from what I hear.”

  “Wait, did I get what I needed to from the vision?”

  “You got what you got,” Grumble replied. “Now it’s
up to you what you make of it. I’m sure you’ll figure something out, though. I’ve got high hopes for you, my paladin.” Grumble reached up and touched Thistle’s head with a single scaly finger.

  The graveyard fell away, swallowed by an empty void, and suddenly Thistle realized he was sitting straight up on the basement floor, staring into the darkness of their sealed off base. With a groan, he lay back down, but something in him told him morning would come too soon.

  He needed to solve this puzzle and get free of Briarwillow; otherwise, he was never going to have a peaceful night’s sleep.

  Chapter 16

  Unlike Briarwillow, Appleram, or any of the other smaller towns they’d traveled through since leaving Maplebark, Cadence Hollow was not a city built on farming. Certainly, they’d ridden past one or two fields of crops once they finally broke free from the forest, but it was nowhere near the sprawling lands that most villages boasted. Cadence Hollow had begun its life as a hub of commerce, a place where people gathered between their respective towns to sell goods and buy items not available at home. From there, it had grown slowly but steadily into a city built not on corn or labor, but on money.

  Gabrielle marveled at the well-cared-for streets as they trotted into town, noting all the shops and booths lining the sides were already opening their doors. Not since the capital of Solium had she seen such opulence or grandeur. This was a city of means, where she imagined almost anything was available to those with the right amount of gold. It was no wonder the robbers had been attacking people on their way here. People coming to Cadence Hollow would certainly have coin to spend, or worthwhile wares to peddle.

  She spared a look at Fritz, who was back to being cheerful in spite of the bandages adorning her body. The elf had somehow managed to best her bandit in the confusion of their chase, a fact which Gabrielle found curious, if not outright suspicious. No words were spoken of it, however, as Fritz had returned and proceeded to save Gabrielle’s life. If that didn’t earn their traveling companion the benefit of the doubt, nothing would.