by Robert Bevan
“Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s my Charisma score. I just can’t help doing things that other people find extremely gross or offensive.”
Katherine closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. “Well,” she forced a shallow laugh. “You were always kind of gross and offensive.”
“Is there something you wanted?”
“I want to talk to Mordred.”
Cooper looked over at Dave and Julian.
Dave shrugged. “Why not?”
Cooper pulled the head out of his bag and placed it on the ground facing up at Katherine.
“Fire away,” said Cooper.
“What?” asked Katherine. “I just talk to it?”
Cooper shrugged and nodded.
“I found it helped to have it at eye level,” said Julian. He picked up the head and walked over to the tree he’d been standing near when he had summoned Ravenous. He wedged it into the forked branches. “There you go. Now just pretend it’s alive and connected to a body.”
Julian stepped back, and Katherine eyed him dubiously. She looked at Cooper and Dave, who were staring back at her expectantly. She turned back and faced the head.
“Hello?”
The head gave no response.
“Hello in there!” she shouted. “Anybody home?”
Still no response.
She turned around. “Are you guys fucking with me?”
They all shook their heads.
“Because if you are, I’ll sic my wolf on you.”
They all crossed their legs, but maintained that they were not, in fact, fucking with her.
Katherine approached the head, moving slowly and cautiously toward it. “Mordred! I want to talk to you.” She moved in even closer. “I know you’re in there, and I’m not going away until you talk to me.” She moved closer still, searching for any sign of awareness in its cold, dead eyes.
Cooper lowered his head, anticipating what was going next.
Katherine whispered. “Mordr-”
“Greetings, Shazanna!” said the head in the tree, eyes wide and grinning broadly.
Katherine screamed and jumped back. She took a moment to regain her composure, started to say something, and then stopped. “Who the fuck is Shazanna?”
“Why you are, of course!” said the head. “What do you think of your character? Were the antlers too much?”
“What is going on here?” she asked. “Why am I...” She waved her arms around, grasping for the right word. “...Shazanna?”
“It was a pregenerated character. I always keep a few on hand in case there are any surprises.”
Katherine got right in its face and shouted as slowly and clearly as she could, like an idiot trying to communicate with a deaf person. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
“I’m sorry,” said Mordred. “Did you need something explained?”
“Yes!” shouted Katherine. The head looked patiently at her. “Why did you send us here? What do you want from us?”
“Me? All I wanted was to play a game.” The face wasn’t smiling anymore. “Your brother and his friends are here because they’d rather act like clowns than play the game properly. You are here because you are a big bitch. Your boyfriend is-”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever,” said the head. “It’s regrettable that he got mixed up in this. He might have actually wanted to play the game rather than just get drunk and clown around.”
“Wait a second,” said Katherine. She actually started to laugh. “This is just about you being pissed off because some guys made fun of you?”
“What else would it be about?”
“I don’t know,” said Katherine. “I thought maybe you needed us to retrieve the Magical Ring of Social Adequacy from the Haunted Island of Skullfuck and bring it back to you or something.”
The head in the tree seethed as she spoke, right up until the very end, when it smiled. “Back?” it said. “Whoever said anything about coming back? Nobody’s coming back.”
“What do you mean?” asked Julian. “What about when the game is over?”
The head’s eyes looked at Julian. “You don’t get it yet, do you? This game doesn’t have an ending. It’s not like checkers. You’re in a different world, and you’re going to be in it until you die. So make the best of it.”
“What happens when you go to sleep or go home or whatever?” Julian went on. “Surely you aren’t going to hang out at the Chicken Hut running the game until we all die, are you?”
“Whether I’m here or not, the world you’re in will keep going. “I just control things when I’m around. You’ll really want to be careful when I’m gone though.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because when I’m running the show, I like to keep things level appropriate. It makes the game more fun if neither side is guaranteed victory. You’re all still very low level. There are creatures in these woods that you are being protected from right now. But when I leave, my protection goes with me.”
The light of consciousness went out of the eyes.
Katherine confronted Dave, Julian, and Cooper. “What the fuck did you guys say to him?”
Cooper scratched his head. Dave bit the corners of his moustache.
Julian spoke up. “I think Cooper told him to suck his big black menhir.”
Katherine looked at Cooper. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
Julian started to explain, but Katherine cut him off. “Never mind. I don’t care. I think this is all bullshit. He’s not going to let us die here over some childish insult. He’s just trying to scare us, teach us a lesson. After he’s had his fun, we’ll be back in the Chicken Hut, and he’ll be halfway across town.”
“I don’t know,” said Dave. “I mean, if you’re a guy who manages to acquire a set of real magical dice that can transport your perceived enemies to another world without any repercussions... I mean, that kind of power must go to your head.”
“I don’t buy it,” said Katherine. “No one is that big of an asshole. He’s just a fat loser who got his feelings hurt and wants an apology.”
“I already apologized to him,” said Cooper.
“Yeah,” snapped Julian. “Right before you told him to suck your menhir.”
“What the fuck is a menhir?” asked Katherine.
“It’s a-”
“Shut up.”
“Ahem,” said Mordred. The group turned around to find the head alive again and looking down at them. “You’d do well to take me seriously.”
“If you want to be taken seriously,” said Cooper, “you’d do well to stop wearing a cape.”
The others laughed.
Cooper doubled over in pain. A stream of shit ran down the inner parts of his legs, and he fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Katherine shouted at the head in the tree. “Were you rejected by the girl in high school who slept with the chess team and the janitors?”
“No, Katherine,” Cooper struggled to say between agonizing cramps. He breathed in and out a couple of times, and Katherine looked down at him with unmistakable compassion on her face. “Don’t... blame... yourself...”
Julian and Dave started to laugh. Cooper might have been laughing as well, or he might have been having a seizure. It was hard to tell. Katherine walked over and kicked Cooper as hard as she could in the gut. He threw up. Katherine jumped out of the way of Cooper’s vomit, and Cooper moaned as he lay sprawled out on the ground.
“You know,” said the head in the tree. “You aren’t the first group I’ve sent over there. If you don’t yet realize the gravity of the situation you’re in, you can ask them just how much of an asshole I can be. If you survive long enough, you’re bound to run into some of them eventually.”
Cooper continued to lie on the ground. Dave, Julian, and Katherine looked back at the head in silence. The head in the tree grinned wickedly. “That’s right. Now you unders
tand.” He let it sink in some more, and then switched to a businesslike tone of voice. “No, you aren’t the first I’ve sent over, but I think you might be my favorites. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to grant you a full night’s peaceful and uninterrupted sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll have all of your spells and abilities refreshed and ready to go.”
A tear rolled down the side of Katherine’s face.
“Oh stop it, sweetie,” the head mocked her. “You’re going to make me cry. Not enough? Okay, I’ll go one further, but this is really stretching the bounds of my generosity. All of you who haven’t made it to second level yet, I’ll just go ahead and give you the points you need. How’s that? Feel better? Good. Sleep tight.” Once again, the head lay dull and vacant in the tree.
Cooper stood up. “Hey, don’t worry, Kat. We’ll talk to the others about this in the morning. We’ll figure something out.”
Katherine looked up at the sympathetic face of the half-orc and broke into a convulsion of sobs. Maintaining the presence of mind to seek out a spot relatively free of filth, she buried her face in his chest.
Cooper did his best to avoid the uncomfortable antlers trying to poke him in the face and patted her head with a giant clawed hand. “Come on, guys,” he said. “We should get some sleep while we can.”
“We’re supposed to be on watch,” said Dave.
“Mordred said he was going to give us a pass for the night,” said Julian.
“Do you trust him?”
“Good point,” said Cooper. “He might just up and decide to kill us all in our sleep or something.”
“If he wanted to outright murder us,” argued Julian, “why wouldn’t he just send a giant dragon down to eat us all right now?”
“That’s a fair point,” said Dave. “But I’m not going to give him the opportunity to catch us all asleep. You guys go sleep if you want to. I’m going to stay up.”
Over the course of the next hour, after everyone else had fallen asleep, the previous night’s restlessness began to take its toll on Dave. His eyelids grew heavy, and Julian’s reasoning started to make a whole lot more sense.
He leaned his back against a tree and slid down. His ass had barely touched the ground when he sleep washed over him. It was deep and dark and dreamless.
Chapter 18
The sun had been up for a few hours when the rest of the camp started to stir. Rays of sunlight beamed through the forest canopy as grunts, yawns, joint-crackings, and groans disturbed the tranquility of the morning. They had made it through the night unmolested. Whether that was due to blind luck or Mordred keeping true to his word, Julian didn’t know. He knew that it wasn’t due to Dave’s diligence. For all of his talk, he hadn’t even lasted four hours, which was how long it took before Julian came out of his nightly trance.
“What’s cooking?” asked Cooper as he walked toward the still blazing fire, licking his lips and cracking his enormous knuckles.
“I did my best to salvage the rest of that leopard,” said Julian, scraping a chunk of cooked meat onto a large piece of bark that had a couple more pieces already on it. “It smells pretty awful, but it’s all I could come up with.”
“Smells great to me,” said Cooper. “I’m starving.” He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and went to grab another.
“Uh uh,” said Julian. “I was barely able to scrape enough meat off for everyone to have one piece. You’ve just finished your breakfast.”
“How am I supposed to –“
“Blegh,” said Chaz. “What’s that smell?”
“Breakfast,” said Julian. “Leopard meat.”
“I’d rather starve.”
Cooper looked at Julian hopefully. “Can I have his?”
“No,” said Julian. “I was able to salvage a couple of large pieces of leopard skin. Why don’t you go see if you can make something with those?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Towels or something.”
“Does anyone have any wine left?” asked Katherine, staggering toward the fire. “My head is killing me. Oh, hey Chaz. Good morning. How are you feel- Fuck! What is that smell?”
“Leopard meat,” Chaz responded. “That’s our breakfast, apparently.”
“I’m not eating that shit,” said Katherine. “Butterbean!”
The wolf ran up to Katherine eagerly.
“Come on, boy. We’re going to go catch us some real breakfast.” She and Butterbean walked into the woods.
Tim yawned and rubbed his eyes as he woke. The he sniffed the air. “Jesus Christ, what’s that-”
“Fuck you,” said Julian. “It’s breakfast. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.”
Tim caught a brief glance of his sister before she disappeared into the trees. “Where’s she going?”
“Leopard meat isn’t good enough for her,” said Julian. “She thinks she’s going to find something better.”
“She’s going alone?”
“She’s got that wolf with her.”
Tim shrugged. “Hey, Chaz. Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Shitty.”
“Shittier than yesterday?”
“No,” said Chaz. “Better than yesterday. Fuck. Better by miles. But still kind of shitty.”
“Hang in there,” said Tim. “Dave said you took some Constitution damage.”
Chaz looked up in alarm. “Shit!” he said. “I’m a bard. My hit points are low enough as it is.”
Tim laughed. “Relax. He said it’ll come back to normal after you get a couple days’ rest. Did you see your spear wound?”
“Huh?” Chaz looked down at his chest. “Fuckin-A! Who healed me?”
“Dave.”
“Where is that dude? I’ve got to thank him.” He started to get up, but Tim put his hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down.
“You need rest,” said Tim. “I’ll get Dave.” He stood up and turned to Julian. “Where’s Dave?”
Julian shook his head and glanced at a nearby tree. Dave lay face down, fully dressed in his armor, on the other side of it.
Tim walked over and nudged him with his foot. “Hey Dave!”
Dave started to pick himself up. His face and beard were covered in dirt.
“Did you sleep like that?”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t look very comfortable.”
Dave wiped some dirt from his eyes. “What’s that smell?”
“Leopard.”
Dave yawned. “It smells like Cooper’s asshole.”
Tim laughed. “Yeah, I know. Don’t mention that to Julian.”
“I’m right here, dickheads,” said Julian.
Dave shook his head. “Dude, we’ve got to talk.”
“What about?”
“No,” said Dave. “Not just me and you. Everybody.”
“Well Katherine went out to look for something else to eat.”
“Thank fuck.”
“What’s this about?”
“We talked to Mordred last night.”
Tim pursed his lips and nodded. “All right. Let’s get everyone together.”
“Greely!” shouted Tim to the old man he had brought to camp with him. “Would you mind pissing a little farther away from the camp? It’s bad enough we’ve got Cooper shitting all over the place.”
Julian glanced at Cooper. He didn’t appear to have taken any offense, or even show any acknowledgement of what Tim had just said at all.
“Sorry!” the old man shouted back. “I’ll be more—“ He stopped and sniffed the air. His eyes darted around, and soon locked right on Julian’s. “That’s my leopard!” He tied the cord on his threadbare pants and stomped toward Julian with what might have been murder in his eyes.
“What?” asked Julian, taking a step back.
“None of you wanted it yesterday, and you said I could have it!”
“We’ve all got to eat,” Julian said, trying to stay calm. “It’s the only food we
’ve got.”
Ravenus flapped around over Greely’s head. Julian sensed the bird was ready to attack if this confrontation turned physical. “What’s going on?” he squawked.
“Holy shit!” shouted Dave.
Julian and Greely stopped arguing. Everyone turned to look at Dave. Even Shorty sat up, rubbing his temples.
“What’s up?” Tim asked.
“I can understand the bird!” Dave shouted. A shiny-toothed grin shone through his dirt-matted beard.
“Who gives a shit?” said Shorty, and lay back down.
“Yeah,” said Cooper. “I mean, that’s cool and all, but I’ve got to agree with the little guy on this one.”
Dave’s excitement was not lessened in the slightest. He responded first to Cooper. “Don’t you remember, you giant stupid fuck?”
“I’m sorry,” said Cooper, twisting his pinky finger in his ear. “I didn’t quite catch that. It sounded something like ‘Please punch all of my fucking teeth out.’ Was that right?”
“Last night!” Dave continued. “When we talked to Mordred.”
“Yeah?” said Cooper, giving his knuckles another good crack. “What about it?”
“Don’t you see?” said Dave. “That’s why I can understand the bird. I got some extra skill points that I put toward learning elven. We leveled up!”
Cooper’s face brightened. “Oh yeah, that’s right!”
“Everybody check your character sheets!” shouted Dave, looking for his bag.
It wasn’t long before everyone had pulled their sheets out of their scroll tubes, and were reacting to what they saw. Everyone, that is, except for Shorty and Greely. Greely took the opportunity to steal all of the leopard meat while the party was distracted.
Dave frowned. “Four lousy hit points?”
“Four isn’t too bad for a cleric,” said Cooper.”
“I have a Constitution of 17,” Dave complained. “That’s a plus three bonus. That means I rolled a 1.”
“Oh yeah,” said Cooper. “That blows.” Then he yelped with excitement, looking at his own character sheet. “Sweet! I got eleven more hit points. That puts me up to 26!”