by JM Guillen
From the Book
The hotel clerk had been skinny before, but had become positively emaciated. He stood there, shirtless and pale, and I saw his ribs poking out against milk white flesh. His skin glistened with sweat and oils.
I stared.
It looked back, eyes mirrored with gleaming silver. They reflected the room’s light and shone with malevolent, inhuman desires.
Wordlessly, it lunged across the desk.
Liz rolls for initiative.
I turned and sprinted down the hallway, back the way I’d come.
The deformed cretin gamboled behind me, scrabbling closer.
I pelted down the hallway, even as it listed to one side, as if the structure might collapse at any second. The solid metal doors of the motel had vanished, replaced by wooden, half rotten things that barely clung to their hinges. They would be simple to kick in, but—
No time. Behind me, the emaciated figure hurtled forward, its wet breath rattling in its lungs. If I stopped to kick in a door, it’d be on me in a heartbeat. Aside from that, I had no way of knowing what awfulness might lay behind those doors.
The emergency exit. The doorway had been at the end of the hallway—
I lowered my head and hammered my way down the hall, throwing everything I had into running for my life.
Table of Contents
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A Myriad of Worlds
Chapter One - Random Encounter
Chapter Two - Introducing the Party
Chapter Three - Power Gamer
Chapter Four - Monster Summoning I
Chapter Five - Tavern Scene
Chapter Six - Leveling Up
Chapter Seven - Roll For Search
Chapter Eight - Rules Lawyer
Chapter Nine - Ambush
Chapter Ten - Unearthed Arcana
Chapter Eleven - Legend Lore
Chapter Twelve - Battlemap
Chapter Thirteen - Enchantment/Charm
Chapter Fourteen - Ability Modifier
Chapter Fifteen - The Arms and Equipment Guide
Chapter Sixteen - Surprise Round
Chapter Seventeen - Mass Combat
Chapter Eighteen - Monstrous Compendium
Chapter Nineteen - Endgame
Chapter Twenty - Stealth Check-An Epilogue
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About The Author
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A Myriad of Worlds…
This book regards the adventures and trials of Elizabeth Shepherd, a woman led into the morass of the Irrational Worlds. It is a story of a shadowed world, a world where people of power are hunted by mysterious men in black for unknown reasons, and who must face the consequences of dealings with eldritch, fey creatures.
Liz’s stories are themselves a strand in The Paean of Sundered Dreams, a multi-genre, universe-spanning array of tales with Lovecraftian themes.
Some of the strands of this work are technothrillers, some dark fantasy, and some Lovecraftian steampunk, but they share the same horrific universe. They weft and weave together, each leaving breadcrumbs of clues for the next story.
Each tale echoes a beating heart of darkness, cackling quietly in the shadows of existence.
If you are the kind of reader who cannot rest until every secret is found, for whom genre is unimportant, and who will travel a wide and vast multiverse to learn things man was not meant to know…
Welcome, wayward wanderer.
This was written for you.
Windslinger
JM Guillen
Irrational Worlds
Random Encounter
August 15, 1997
Syracuse, New York
Even as I ran for my life, the Wind whispered my name, deep within the dark corners of my heart.
Hidden beneath a canopy of silent stars, I pulled my motorcycle out of my mother’s garage. I had a few changes of clothing in the saddlebags, along with a beat up road atlas, three core rulebooks I couldn’t part with, some oddly shaped dice, and two thousand, four hundred dollars.
And eighteen cents.
“Okay…” I swallowed. My heart felt like a thunderstorm in my chest. Trembling just a bit, I pulled an envelope out of my pocket. I peered at the front and double checked my father’s name and address.
I placed it in the mailbox and snapped closed the metallic lid, as if it being shut meant I couldn’t just pull the letter out and go back upstairs.
“Because I can’t.” I sighed as I reasoned with myself. “If I don’t get as far away from Mom as possible, she’ll end up dead.”
The letter seemed idiotic, but I’d already tried calling my geek of a Dad when things went so badly. He had always told me how to handle any problem: “Just give me a call…”
He hadn’t picked up.
That irritated me. I had at least wanted him to know something about what had happened here, and how bad things had gotten with Mom.
That left me on my own.
The first part of my correspondence handled, I pushed the bike toward the woods across the street from my house. Mom hadn’t woken in weeks, but if she was ever going to stir, it would be while I fired up the Valkyrie, preparing to leave home.
“Liz took her final steps away from the home she had lived in for six years,” I muttered under my breath, my dramatic words raspy. “Little did she know what lay ahead.”
Personal narration is cool; I don’t care what anyone says.
Crickets chirped in the sable night, and moonlight trickled silver through the trees. Summer wind danced in my hair, warm and sweet.
I could not help but smile at its caress. The moment it touched my skin, some deep, slumbering part of my mind awoke.
Grinning like a maniac, I pushed the bike to one side. I set the kickstand, somber and contemplative.
Breathe. I could hear Simon’s grumbling voice as if he were right there, directing me. You won’t feel nothin’ if your silly head is all tangled, Hasenpfeffer.
I closed my eyes.
Almost immediately, I felt uncanny power surge inside my blood. It ran cold and sharp, yet it tasted like sweet honey mead. It capered and twirled and gamboled through me.
Mine. Primal glee burned in my heart, just as it did every time I touched the Wind.
Within me, resting within my chest, lay a tempest, an echo of a maelstrom that sang and screamed and whispered. That wind had coursed around the world since the dawn of time; its melody haunted my dreams. It had danced through the world before there were men to name it.
That wind whispered. It carried secrets; it murmured my name in the night.
A breeze coursed around me, scattered leaves and cavorted. Just hearing it, feeling it storm and dance through my hair, brought joy bubbling through me and I could not help but laugh, arms wide to the sky.
I grasped that echoing wind with my will and clutched it to myself. A burst of leaves and cool air swirled around me and then stilled.
The smile on my face felt manic, wild.
I quieted my mind and stood still for a long moment while I focused. Getting word to my father had been almost impossible. My mentor, however…
Simon had arranged a more certain method— bound it into his very body somehow.
As the wind’s tumult built within me, I touched the hoop earring I wore in my right ear.
Azure brilliance burst from the tiny inscriptions upon it. Those sigils pulsed with that wind, sang and capered.
Burned.
“Simon,” I half whispered, half thought, and the wind caught the word, carrying it away. “
I am leaving home. I was an idiot and did exactly what you told me not to. Lorne will be chasing me soon, and he’ll be out for blood.”
A gust of nighttime warmth accompanied my final whisper, carrying my words to one Simon Girard. It wefted through my hair, the warmth like a gentle caress. I toyed with the earring and sighed appreciatively, buoyed as I often got on the trilling wind.
As always, it hummed, singing with unseen power.
Then, I frowned.
“Simon’s going to kill me.” I blinked, refocusing, and took a deep breath.
With all my correspondence handled, no tasks remained.
I pushed the bike over a half block before firing it up. From here, I knew that neither Mom nor her caretaker would ever hear the motor start. Before the house slipped from sight, I took one final look.
A light flicked on in my mother’s window.
“I wanted her to be well, you asshole,” I growled, thinking of the bargain I’d made for my mother. “A vegetative coma wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. If you think I’m living up to my end of this bullshit, you’ve got another think coming.”
I didn’t get a response, nor did I expect one. Somewhere in the wide world, Mister Lorne knew very well that he’d played me dirty. Sure, my mother lived…
She’d just never walk again, never laugh or sing. Oh, long term care insurance had made certain she’d always be comfortable, the mortgage got paid, and she had an aide.
But she’d lie there in that fucking bed until the day she died. The doctors were certain.
A silhouette of Martha, my mother’s caretaker, moved against the window. Martha had basically lived with us for a while now and, at this point, the doctors said that mom would need her for the rest of her life.
This was not how things had been meant to go.
It might take a hundred days and a thousand miles, but I’d send a message to fucking Mister Lorne. He’d be sorry—as soon as I got far enough away from my family. He had set a time frame where he expected me to show up at his creepy little lair. I wasn’t late yet, but I would be very soon.
I had no doubt that he’d send muscle, and even less doubt that he’d happily hurt Mom.
I fired up the Valkyrie and rode away.
“Come and find me, asshole,” I murmured, a wicked grin at the edge of my mouth.
The wind whipped around me, bearing me on my way.
2
September 5, 1997
North Canaan, Connecticut
During the first two weeks of those hundred days, I rode wildly across the northeastern United States, my nerves jangling with anxiety. Lonely byways and small towns blurred by; each day ended with a seedy motel that worked on a cash basis. Every dawn began with a new road, riding as far and as fast as I could.
I thought about Mom a lot.
This was a simple matter of time. Mister Lorne would consider that he had done well by me, no matter how twisted his reasoning. Yet when I didn’t show at his shop, he’d realize I’d taken off. He took that kind of thing quite seriously and would certainly send some… thing to check up on me.
That’s what I counted on. The moment that happened, I would no longer simply be on the run.
It would be time to send a message.
Until then, however, I ran. When Lorne sent his goon, I wanted to be as far from people I cared about as possible.
Fortunately, I had spec’d my character for this very thing.
“Liz happened to be a master at running,” I rasped and fought to keep a goofy grin from my face. My father had done his best at making me into a gaming geek, but athleticism mattered to me too. I had been in gymnastics in middle school, track for most of high school, and had discovered the odd joy of parkour a few years ago.
Of course, that was far from my complete resume. Simon’s training had been sporadic, but couldn’t be overlooked. Without him, I never would have learned of the eternity of wind that cascaded through me, nor how to shape it with my mind.
Because of my reclusive mentor, I had a unique array of skills.
I glanced around the small, dirty motel room yet again, but it seemed like I had all my things on the bike.
“Time to go.” I pulled the door closed and dropped the key in a pocket. I stepped into the dank hallway. In more than one place the thick green carpet squished damply beneath my motorcycle boots, a singularly disgusting sensation.
The front lobby had two plaid chairs, a television from 1977, and a desk where the pimply clerk sat. The greasy-skinned man never failed to ogle me. I wondered for the twenty-seventh time how he had come by this shit job.
As always, he watched some schlock on the television, the sound turned up way too loud.
“I’m serious, Blake,” a curvy blonde cooed on the screen. “You need to listen to Captain Stark or you’ll get us all killed.”
“You don’t know everything I do, Minerva,” Blake Runner growled. “Those things won’t wait for morning. Sometimes, a man’s gotta go with his balls.”
“Wow.” I raised one eyebrow as I stepped over to the desk-monkey. “That’s some high art right there.”
“Blake Runner is the coolest.” He grinned at me, his eyes attempting to peer down the front of my shirt. “Whoever writes this stuff is a genius.”
I nearly choked then, my breath arrested in my throat. Somewhere between this idiot’s leer and cinematic praise, the tiniest quiver had grown at the edge of my vision, a dark haze of movement.
Bad news. Definitely bad news.
“Already?” I took an involuntary step back, my eyes wide. Can’t a girl get a saving throw? I truly would have preferred to have my throwing knives or at least my leather jacket, but I had stowed everything on the Valkyrie.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had expected the creature would come—even hoped for it.
But so soon?
The quiver at the edge of my vision echoed into other things around me, the walls, the desk. Then the quiver grew to a wobble, a shimmy. After a few moments, the entire motel lobby trembled violently.
Think, Liz! I placed one hand against the wall, even though I stood steadily. The episode didn’t actually affect my balance. The entire building quaked, rolling like the ocean, yet I stood within, still and stable. I took a step back as the lights flickered rapidly, every bulb scintillating like a strobe light.
“Shit,” I muttered, fighting down panic. I looked wildly around as my pulse raced. Nothing had fallen over from the wild convulsions of the seedy hotel; the clerk at the desk didn’t even notice.
I needed to get outside. Trapped in here without my knives, I could only rely on my physical skills…
And the tricks Simon had taught me with the wind, of course.
Dangerous. I knew better than to rely on my clever little knack for something serious. They could draw the wrong kind of attention, and it wasn’t as if Simon was here to back me up…
I probably had less than a minute.
“Another night or you checking out?” The clerk’s voice warbled from the bizarre agitation.
No time, Liz. I didn’t even bother to answer him; I needed to move. If I could make it—
Reality ripped open with a resounding CRACK. A storm of twilight and seeping madness screamed into the small room. A second CRACK immediately followed, and the darkness fell away.
In that fraction of a moment, however…
Everything had changed.
The hotel had already been dirty—the kind of ‘no tell motel’ that hadn’t asked for my name as long as I paid in cash and up front. Yet the moment the second CRACK had sounded, the very building had transformed.
The floor felt greasy underfoot and over half of the white tiles were cracked or broken. A single bare lightbulb hung in the center of the room. The scent of rot and mildew sat heavy in the air, and the front window had been broken. The lobby reminded me more of a sanitarium from 1850 than a hotel on the outskirts of North Canaan.
Behind me, the former clerk’s breathing turned r
aspy. The desk separated us, but his inhalations sounded wet and grotesquely liquid.
“Good morning.” I slowly turned, knowing what I would see.
The hotel clerk had been skinny before, but had become positively emaciated. He stood there, shirtless and pale, and I saw his ribs poking out against milk white flesh. His skin glistened with sweat and oils.
I stared.
It looked back, eyes mirrored with gleaming silver. They reflected the room’s light and shone with malevolent, inhuman desires.
Wordlessly, it lunged across the desk.
Liz rolls for initiative.
I turned and sprinted down the hallway, back the way I’d come.
The deformed cretin gamboled behind me, scrabbling closer.
I pelted down the hallway, even as it listed to one side, as if the structure might collapse at any second. The solid metal doors of the motel had vanished, replaced by wooden, half rotten things that barely clung to their hinges. They would be simple to kick in, but—
No time. Behind me, the emaciated figure hurtled forward, its wet breath rattling in its lungs. If I stopped to kick in a door, it’d be on me in a heartbeat. Aside from that, I had no way of knowing what awfulness might lay behind those doors.
The emergency exit. The doorway had been at the end of the hallway—
I lowered my head and hammered my way down the hall, throwing everything I had into running for my life. Focusing upon where I placed my feet, I tried very hard not to catch sight of anything peeking out from the former hotel’s rooms.
It was likely that only inhuman strangeness dwelt here now.
As if in answer to that thought, a forlorn scratching noise came from behind one of the doors.
Talons? I shuddered at the thought. A yowling purr gurgled from within, an unholy sound of hunger and inhuman desire.
I ignored the sound and redoubled my efforts.
My surroundings scarcely resembled the crappy little motel I had lived in for the past three days. The grimy tile all across the floor was a yellowed maze of cracks. The walls’ color bled into mildew and brackish water stains. Only two ceiling lights functioned, although one of them flickered randomly.