Critical Failures II (Caverns and Creatures Book 2) (7 page)

Chapter 7

Julian bade good night to his friends. The tavern had an excess of bedrolls and blankets for whoever wanted them, which Dave and Tim were happy to take advantage of. Cooper opted to wrap himself up in the torn, dirty, and blood-stained canvas which had formerly covered a wagon in the not-so-distant past. He lay down on the rough wooden floor. The three of them were fast asleep within less than a minute of hitting the floor.

A slightly familiar clattering sound turned Julian’s attention to the elf corner of the room. He glanced at Katherine’s character sheet. Still no change. He walked across the room to where the elves were congregated.

“Barry can fireball the zombies,” said an elf that Julian hadn’t yet been introduced to. He wore his hair in a ponytail, and a red bandana around his forehead. “I want to attack the mohrg.”

“If you go after the mohrg,” said Tony the Elf, “the three zombies standing next to you get an attack of opportunity.”

“Are you guys doing what I think you’re doing?” asked Julian. Peeking over the shoulders of the elves huddled at the table, he saw what he was expecting to see. The five elves who weren’t Tony had thick, pulpy character sheets scribbled out in front of them with quill pens. A crude graph had been carved into the tabletop. In the middle of the table sat a collection of rough, carved wooden dice. There were also some wooden pegs and copper coins placed neatly within squares of the graph, which Julian took to represent characters and monsters respectively. Tony the Elf sat behind a screen made of two thin boards joined at an angle. Behind the screen was a giant sheet of the same rough paper, this one covered in illegible notes, scribbles, and numbers.

Tony the Elf looked up at Julian. “It kills the time.”

“They don’t get an attack of opportunity if I only take a five foot step,” argued the elf in the red bandana. He moved a peg away from three lined up copper coins and toward a silver coin. “I can go to this square, still reach the mohrg, and be safely out of range of the zombies.”

Tony the Elf sighed and rolled his eyes. “We’ve been through this, Scorn. You can only use the five foot step rule if you don’t take any other actions that round. If you try to attack the mohrg, the zombies are going to eat your face off.”

“I think he’s right,” said the elf next to Scorn.

“Shut up, Barry,” said Scorn. “Why would a five foot step count as a full move action?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Julian.

“Interrupt all you like,” said Tony the Elf. “Like I said, we’re just killing time. And you seem like someone I want to stab a lot less than I do your idiot friends.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I was just wondering why you guys are playing this. I mean, just take a look around. We’re here. Look at your ears. You’re an elf, for crying out loud. We could be out having real adventures, fighting monsters, collecting treasures.”

“We could have been doing that stuff back in the real world, too,” said Tony the Elf. “We could have gone around stabbing people and taking their money. Or run off into the woods and look for a bear to kill. But wherever you are, here or there, that’s a good way to get yourself imprisoned or killed. You and your friends should know that better than any of us, I would think.”

Julian frowned. “I guess you have a point there. But are you saying that this has all become boring and mundane to you?”

“Not at all,” said Tony the Elf. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing two drunk wizards duke it out in the streets. But right now, sitting around here while everyone else is sleeping. Yeah, this is boring as shit.”

“Have you… never mind.”

“Spit it out, man.”

“I think I may have a way to solve your current argument about the rules.”

Scorn laughed. “Aren’t you the one who hadn’t ever played the game before?”

“Shut up, Scorn,” said Tony the Elf. “I’d like to hear what the kid has to say.”

“I’ve noticed that the environment in this world adheres strictly to game rules, often times in defiance of logic or even physics.”

The group of elves all turned to one another, murmuring laughter and memories.

“Yes,” said Tony the Elf. “I think we can all agree on that. What’s your point?”

“We could just act out the scenario in question,” said Julian. “Three of you could stand in a line here.” He waved his hand across a section of floor. “Scorn could stand right here, and you could stand right over there. Scorn could try to step toward you and punch you, and the three of you playing the zombies could try to punch him. If the zombies get their punches off before Scorn reaches you, then your ruling for the attacks of opportunity is sound.”

Tony the Elf looked at the players. The players looked at each other.

Scorn harrumphed. “That’s the most retar—“

“Brilliant,” said Tony the Elf. “Ready to give it a try, Scorn?”

“I’ll just attack one of the fucking zombies.”

“Roll it.”

Scorn rolled the die. “Two. What a big fucking surprise.”

“That’s a miss,” said Tony the Elf.

“No shit,” said Scorn. He glared at the elf at the opposite end of the table. “I might roll better if the nineteen side wasn’t three times as big as any of the others.”

“Blow me, Scorn,” said the elf on the receiving end of Scorn’s glare. “Do you know how hard it was to carve all of these dice? I’ve only got two ranks of woodworking. If I ever go up another level, I’ll put some more skill points in it. But for now, this is what we’ve got.”

Julian looked over the shoulder of the elf called Barry. According to the character sheet, Barry was playing an eighth level dwarven fighter. “So what level are you guys at in… is ‘the real world’ the appropriate phrase here?”

“I’m a level four ranger,” said Tony the Elf. “Scorn is a third level wizard. Barry is a second level rogue. Dudley is a… what were you again, Dudley?”

“I’ve got two levels of rogue and one level of fighter.”

“That’s right. And Fritz,” Tony the Elf addressed the elf who had crafted the wooden dice. “What are you?”

Fitz sighed. “I’m a second level bard.”

The rest of the table pretended unconvincingly to be trying to hold in their laughter.

“Fuck you guys,” said Fritz. “At least I can earn an income.”

“Why are you all still at such low levels?” asked Julian.

“There are a couple of reasons for that,” said Tony the Elf. “The primary reason is that fighting monsters is dangerous. The other reason… once you start killing things, it gets in your head. I’ve seen good men turn bad.”

“You mean people from Earth?”

“Yeah. The folks you see in here aren’t everyone who Mordred sent over. Some folks really like it here. They go native. There’s a few people scattered around town doing their own thing. They don’t like the idea of hanging out drinking in a tavern all day and night. They get apprentice jobs making horseshoes or blankets or whatever. The blacksmith’s assistant right up the road. He’s one of us.”

“What’s so bad about being a blacksmith’s assistant?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t finished though. There’s a group that call themselves The Four Horsemen.” The players looked at one another in silent repugnance. “Your friends met a few of them tonight.”

“What do they do?”

“Whatever the hell they want,” said Scorn. He lifted the bandana from his forehead to reveal a long scar across his right temple. “I got this for refusing to surrender the last chicken wing on the table.”

“It was a hard decision to make,” said Tony the Elf. “But we kicked him out. His friends followed.”

“Why was that a hard decision?” asked Julian. “It seems perfectly reasonable to me.”

“They’re just kids. Like, middle school age. I mean, think of the shittiest kid you ever met. Would you feel comfortable just abandoning him in the middle of a foreign city?”

“No, but –”

“Well as it turned out,” Tony the Elf continued. “We should have been more afraid for the city than for those little bastards. This is all just one big party for them. They think they’re invincible, and so far no one has been able to prove otherwise.”

“Have you tried talking to them?”

“Ha!” said Scorn. “Have you ever tried to reason with a middle-schooler? Do I have to remind you that I was stabbed in the face over a piece of chicken?”

“They’re only getting worse,” said Tony the Elf. “They all but worship Mordred, and he treats them like fucking pets. They’ve been shooting through levels, getting more powerful every day. God help us when they figure out he’s gone.”

“What are they doing?” asked Julian. “I mean, are they killing people?”

“Who knows?” said Tony the Elf. “They started out just taking what they wanted wherever they went. Snatching a purse here and there. Starting bar brawls just so they could slip out during the chaos without paying the tab. That sort of thing. But it looks like they’re escalating. The two we met tonight were more than ready to just up and rape your friend’s dwarf girl. My guess is that they’re getting bored without Mordred around.”

“So what do we do?” asked Julian.

Tony the Elf shrugged. “Roll up a character.”

Chapter 8

Chaz woke up to the sensation of being inside a rock tumbler. A dull pain in his head. The sounds of wheels turning and gravel crunching. Hooves? He opened his eyes. Wherever he was, he was moving very quickly. A sheer rocky wall was zipping past a dark window frame. He was in some sort of wagon.

“Rise and shine, Chaz,” said Katherine. She smiled down at him from where she sat. He must be on the floor.

He turned around to look at the window on the other side of the wagon. The view was as wide and open as the opposite side’s view was solid and unyielding. It was as if they were flying. A fat yellow moon sat bloated in the night sky, shining down on the city below. They must be several hundred feet up, traveling at crazy speeds up a path on a cliff face. He wrapped his arms around Katherine’s legs. She ran her fingers calmly through his hair.

“It’s perfectly safe,” said an unfamiliar voice. Chaz didn’t know how he could have missed the guy with his purple suit and dazzling eyes. “You have nothing to fear. Enjoy the view.”

“Who are you?” said Chaz. “Katherine, who is this guy? Where are we going? Where are the guys?”

“Don’t worry,” said Katherine. “He’s nice.”

“But who the fuck is he?”

“Language,” said the purple-suited man. “I’ll have none of that in my coach or in my house, thank you.”

“Katherine?”

“He’s… um…”

“My name,” said the man, “is Millard von Pleck, the fourteenth of my name, and lord of Castle Pleck.”

“Jesus, Katherine!” said Chaz. “You got in this guy’s wagon without even learning his name? Didn’t you see any PSAs when you were a kid?”

“He’s nice,” said Katherine. “Look at his eyes.” She tilted her head and stared at the man like a grade-schooler with a teacher crush.

“Are you fucking high?” said Chaz, and almost immediately felt a smack on the top of his head. He looked up at the man called Millard von Pleck. “Ow, man! What the fuck?”

Millard smacked him on the head again with a jockey whip. “Language.”

“Knock it off, man!”

Millard rested the whip on his lap. “You mind your tongue in my presence. And you should always mind your tongue in the presence of a lady.”

“Katherine,” Chaz pleaded. “Why are we with this guy? He could be a murderer or a rapist.”

Millard crossed one knee over the other and looked bitterly out of the window. “You can set aside your fear of being raped.”

“I distinctly remember mentioning two fears.”

Millard turned his gaze from the window and smiled down at Chaz. “You just mind your manners, son, and you’ll be quite safe. I assure you.”

Chaz hugged Katherine’s legs more tightly. “It’s cold.”

Millard poked his head out of the window and quickly back in again. “We’re nearly there.”

A few minutes later, the swift pounding of hooves slowed to a canter, then a trot, then finally a walk before stopping altogether. Millard opened the coach door and stepped out. He assisted Katherine out next. Chaz was left to get out unassisted.

Charcoal grey stone walls towered above him, maybe thirty or forty feet high. They were rough and crumbly, as if they hadn’t been maintained in a few centuries.

“I hope you’ll pardon the rough exterior,” said Millard. “I find it helps keep away solicitors.”

Looking at the walls brought on a dizzy spell. Chaz looked away, only for his gaze to meet that of the horse who had pulled him up all this way. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What the fuck is that?”

Smack.

“Ow!” Chaz turned around, rubbing the top of his head. He could have sworn Millard had been more than twenty feet away from him just a second ago. But there he was, standing right in front of him with the jockey whip in his hand. “I wish you’d quit doing that.”

“You’ll learn sooner or later.”

“What did you do to that horse, man?” said Chaz. “Is it even alive?”

“Does it look alive?”

It was a difficult question. It displayed a lot of the qualities one associates with life. It stood upright and moved around and made horse noises. But it also had some characteristics that Chaz had always earmarked for signs of being dead. Its skin was rotting off, sticking so tightly to the bones that you could count them. A cockroach crawled out of its right nostril, up its face, and into its ear, and the horse seemed completely unfazed by it. Chaz staggered, but Millard caught him by the arm and held him up.

“Stable,” said Millard.

Chaz found his footing and stood up straight. “It’s okay. I’m cool, man.”

The horse trotted away.

“Where’s it going?”

Millard gave him a contemptuous laugh. “The stable.” He let go of Chaz’s arm and offered his own arm to Katherine. “Let’s get you inside. You must be freezing to death out here.”

She wrapped his arm around her waist and moved in close to him. She looked up into his eyes. “I don’t mind the cold.”

Millard stared down at her. “Of course you don’t, dear.”

“I can’t believe the sh—” Millard’s glare hit Chaz as sharply as the jockey whip had. “stuff I’m hearing.”

Millard gave Chaz a satisfied nod and walked up to a set of huge, wooden double doors that appeared to be more sturdy than the stone walls they allowed entrance to. A pair of guards stepped out from the shadows of pillars to open the doors. They looked to be at least as big around as Cooper, but with a human build rather than that of a half-orc. It was impossible to tell for sure, as they were covered from head to toe in armor. Their helmets had no visors, but their faces were covered in what Chaz might have called a ski mask if he thought that folks around here were familiar with the concepts of skiing or bank robbing.

The guards didn’t speak. There was only the slightest clink of metal on metal as each guard placed a mailed hand on an iron ring bolted to either door.

“Open,” said Millard. A soft humming sound came from within the castle as a red light shone through the crack between the doors like the scanner in a supermarket checkout. It ran from the top of the doorway down to the floor, after which the guards pulled the heavy doors open. They didn’t squeak or whine on the hinges. It was total silence.

“Come along, bard,” said Millard. “I’d like you to amuse us.” He led Katherine through the open double doors.

Chaz took one last look down at the city below. Who knew what terrors he would run into on this mountain alone, on foot, in the dark? He would probably die of exposure before he had the chance to be eaten by leprechauns, or whatever the hell was waiting for him out there. He gauged his chances of survival after entering the castle as only marginally more likely, but at least he might be fed before he was killed. He hurried after Millard and Katherine.