{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "They Fight Three Giants", "text": "And the Johns, who made high school just a little less shitty,\n\nAnd Jeff Hollingsworth, for being so generous.\n\n\"So you're here all alone?\" said Hollingsworth, the sorcerer who had been plying them with drinks all night. Though he was only a couple of feet away from Dave, his voice sounded distant and echoing. \"No friends? No family?\"\n\nDave stifled a yawn. \"I've got friends, man. Take a look around.\" His vision blurred as he turned his head to look at Tim. He could only focus enough to tell that Tim was passed out face down on the table.\n\nTurning his head to the right, slowly and deliberately so that his vision could keep up, he found Julian likewise asleep, his head hanging back with a string of drool hanging out the corner of his mouth.\n\nThis guy was feeding them some strong shit. It hadn't tasted that strong. Kinda fruity, but it really sneaked up on them.\n\nA slight shift further to the right, and Dave was surprised to see Cooper sitting right next to him. He was even awake... kind of.\n\n\"Hey, man!\" said Dave. He wasn't sure if he was swaying or if Cooper was. \"Whassup?\"\n\nCooper's bloodshot eyes opened a little wider, like he'd been in a state of semi-consciousness which Dave had just fully awakened him from.\n\n\"Whassup? Did you just say whassup to me? Who the fuck do you think you \u2013\"\n\nIt started with a belch rising from the depths of his stomach. Dave experienced it in slow motion, hearing every reverberating micro-syllable in rhythm with the to-and-fro flapping of Cooper's half-orc cheeks as the stench of partially digested food and booze washed over his face.\n\nDave's reflexes were far behind his heightened awareness, however. When the vomit started to flow, Dave saw it come out of Cooper's mouth in what seemed like a series of six frames of animation, but was unable to turn his head in time to avoid a direct blast to the face.\n\n\"NOOOO\u2013\" He was also not able to stop himself from screaming. The taste was similar to what they'd been drinking all night, but more acidic and studded with chunks of ham.\n\nDave felt the contents of his own stomach rising like an elevator with an out of control counterweight. He hosed down Cooper's man tits with his own boozy ham-studded vomit.\n\n\"Are you two gentlemen quite all right?\" asked Hollingsworth.\n\n\"Never been better,\" said Cooper. \"Second wind! Let's get a waiter.\" As much as Dave hated to admit it, Cooper was right. All of Dave's sensory perception was back to normal. His vision was no longer blurred. He could hear the hustle and bustle of the lunch crowd in the tavern at normal speed and volume. Ejecting so much of that shit they were drinking must have cleared his head. He also felt like he could go another round.\n\nHollingsworth frowned at the chunky orange vomit pooled on the table, the floor, the seats, and dripping off of Dave and Cooper. \"Perhaps it would be wiser to continue this conversation at a different venue.\"\n\n\"How about one for the road, then?\" asked Cooper.\n\nHollingsworth's eyes darted nervously out of the booth as he fidgeted in his plain brown woolen robes for something. With a sigh of relief, he produced a small piece of what appeared to be green chalk.\n\n\"I was thinking we might leave before one of the tavern workers sees this mess.\"\n\n\"You mean like dine n' dash?\" asked Dave. The only way in and out of this place was on the other side of the bar. He and Cooper weren't exactly the stealthiest ones in the party either.\n\n\"Heave it n' leave it,\" said Cooper. \"Fuck yeah, let's roll!\"\n\nDave didn't like where this was going. \"I just don't think it's worth the risk. Tim and Julian aren't even conscious. How are we supposed to drag them out of here without being seen?\"\n\n\"Leave that to me,\" said Hollingsworth, grinning confidently while holding up his tiny piece of chalk. \"Would you mind scooting forward a bit?\"\n\nDave held back any further objections and scooted forward in his seat until his breastplate touched the table.\n\nHollingsworth crawled behind him until he was at the back of the booth between Dave and Cooper. He craned his neck to look over the booth, then turned his attention to the tapestry hanging on the back wall behind Cooper's seat.\n\nSimilar tapestries hung at the back of every booth in the tavern. They depicted scenes of heroes fighting fantasy creatures. The artwork wasn't particularly impressive, but it made for better tavern atmosphere than the bare walls at the Whore's Head Inn.\n\nThe tapestry at the back of their booth, which Hollingsworth suddenly seemed so interested in, showed a knight on horseback facing off against a bald, grey-skinned giant. The giant was twice as tall as the mounted knight, and wielded a stone above his head, ready to hurl.\n\nDave wiped some half-digested ham chunks out of his beard and concentrated on calming his insides, lest he also be ready to hurl.\n\nWhen Hollingsworth determined the coast was clear, he pulled the tapestry away from the wall, revealing a chalk-drawn diagram on the wall. A large pentagon with trapezoids on each side of it. Inside four of the trapezoids were symbols that Dave didn't recognize. Magical runes or something?\n\nHollingsworth drew one such mysterious symbol in the remaining trapezoid, and the whole diagram flashed with green light for a moment.\n\n\"Grab your friends. We must hurry!\"\n\n\"I'd feel your sense of urgency more if you hadn't just stopped to finish the world's shittiest graffiti on the wall,\" said Cooper. He lifted his right ass cheek and squeaked out a fart. \"On second thought, now time's a factor.\"\n\n\"You do not understand, my half-orc friend. For what I have drawn on the wall is a portal to E'cha.\" Hollingsworth put his hand through the wall to demonstrate. His arm went in up to the elbow with no resistance, as if the wood was merely an illusion.\n\n\"Whoa!\" said Dave. \"That's incredible.\" He glanced around to make sure none of the tavern staff was around before standing up on his seat. He touched the wall with both hands, or at least attempted to. His hands went through it as if it wasn't even there. He leaned forward, trying to keep his eyes open as he put his face through, but he couldn't resist closing them. That much accounted for his loss of sight, but his sudden loss of hearing was inexplicable.\n\n\"What the fuck?\" he said, relieved that he could hear himself say it. He wasn't deaf. He was merely in a much quieter place than the tavern. At least his head was. He opened his eyes.\n\nDave had assumed that they were going to some other tavern, but the portal's destination was like a lunar landscape, grey and rocky. He squinted in reaction to the glaring sun, which reminded him that they'd started drinking in the late morning. There wasn't a pub in sight. He noticed that his head and hands were poking out of the side of a massive boulder, and framed by an identical chalk diagram drawn onto the stone.\n\nThe bottom of the diagram was about ten feet above the rocky ground below. A series of footholds had been chiseled into the boulder from the ground to the bottom of the chalk outline. It would be awkward, but Dave thought he could climb down if he wanted to.\n\nBut did he want to? What was the point of skipping out on a bar tab only to be stuck in some barren wasteland? No. It would make much more sense to just pay the bill and hope they could get out of there before anyone saw the mess they'd \u2013 \"OW!\"\n\nA sharp blow to the ass broke Dave's concentration. Cooper's elbow. Already leaning forward, Dave grasped at illusory stone, then tried to step back, slipped in his own vomit, and fell forward.\n\n\"SHIIIIIIIT!\" He did half a somersault before hitting the ground hard on his back. It hurt a lot, and knocked the wind out of him, but he'd pull through.\n\nWith all the strength he could muster, Dave rolled over and pushed himself up. \"Stupid asshole. He didn't know what was on the other side of that portal. I might have been \u2013\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "SMASH", "text": "A force from above flattened Dave face down on the ground.\n\n\"Ow!\" said Tim, awakened from his drunken slumber. \"What the fuck, Dave?\"\n\n\"I didn't \u2013\"\n\n\"Why is your face full of puke?\" Tim looked around. \"Where the hell are we?\"\n\nDave sat up. \"I don't know. We were drinking with that guy we met in the market.\" He got on one knee and started to push himself up to his feet. \"He wanted to skip out on paying the bar tab, so he \u2013\"\n\n\"You take your filthy hands off him this instant!\" cried Ravenus from above. Flapping his black wings hard, he charged back into the stone."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "SMACK", "text": "Whether it was because he didn't recognize the significance of the chalk drawing or because he was still blind drunk, Ravenus smashed beak-first into the solid part of the stone and fell to the ground. \"Son of a bitch that hurt!\"\n\n\"\u2013AVENUS!\" cried Julian as he flew out of the stone clutching his face.\n\n\"Fuck,\" said Dave just before Julian crashed into him.\n\nJulian rolled away from Dave before Cooper followed. Dave didn't even bother with a Reflex save. He just shielded his face and waited to be punished for existing.\n\n\"E'CHA, motherfuckers!\" To Dave's amazement, Cooper landed on his feet, one foot on each side of his head.\n\nDave breathed a sigh of relief as he uncovered his face. He got a quick view of Cooper's junk before a brown blob hit him in the face, obscuring his vision once again.\n\n\"Sorry about that,\" said Cooper. \"I didn't see you down there. Interdimensional travel gives me the shits.\"\n\nDave sat up and wiped the shit out of his eyes. \"Fuck you.\"\n\nHollingsworth came out of the stone feet first, carefully feeling for the footholds. What an asshole.\n\n\"Welcome, gentlemen, to E'cha!\" he said when he reached the stony ground.\n\nCooper walked to the stone and reached up for the portal. \"That's a pretty good trick. What is that? Magic chalk?\"\n\nHollingsworth covered his hands with the long sleeves of his robe and pulled Cooper away by the arm. \"Indeed it is. And it's very expensive. If the line is broken, the portal will close. I need that to get back.\"\n\n\"You need it?\" asked Julian. \"What about the rest of us?\"\n\n\"We need it,\" Hollingsworth said with a grin. \"Did I say I? Of course I meant we.\"\n\nTim trudged over to a large pile of boulders. \"I could use a wee. What is this place? Why are we here?\"\n\n\"I think it's supposed to be a pub,\" said Cooper. He looked around at the bare expanse of dirt and rocks surrounding them all. \"Kind of minimalist in the d\u00e9cor.\"\n\n\"It'll have some color once you start shitting all over the \u2013\" Tim's voice caught in his throat as the pile of rocks he was pissing on shifted and began to rise, taking on a familiar form.\n\nIt wasn't a pile of rocks at all, but rather an extremely well-camouflaged naked man, now standing at least four times Tim's height.\n\n\"I'm so sorry, sir,\" said Tim, staring up at a dong as big as one of his own legs. \"I didn't know you were \u2013\"\n\nThe giant yawned with a sound like the Death Star getting ready to fire and scratched his boulder-like balls. Though his skin appeared flexible, the sound of his fingers against his sack was exactly like stone scraping against stone.\n\nWhen his itchy balls were tended to, he stared down at Dave and his companions with a stern, but not exactly angry, expression on his face, which reminded Dave of an Easter Island statue.\n\n\"Hollingsworth,\" he said in a booming gravelly voice. \"You kept me waiting. I might have gone home had I not fallen asleep.\"\n\n\"I sincerely apologize, Furgal. I needed to make sure they lived up to your demanding specifications.\"\n\nDave was still pretty drunk and having some trouble putting together what was going on. He suspected Hollingsworth was talking about the four of them, but he couldn't think of what kind of demanding specifications they could possibly live up to.\n\nFurgal nodded. \"They are without friends and family? They will not be missed?\"\n\n\"After you spend a few more minutes with them, you'll have no doubt about how little they'll be missed.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" cried Dave. \"Will someone explain what the hell is going on here?\" He glared at Hollingsworth as the hazy pieces came together in his mind. \"Are you selling us into slavery?\"\n\nHollingsworth shrugged. \"Slavery, prostitution, food, who knows? My place isn't to ask questions.\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure how I can make it any plainer.\" Hollingsworth though for a moment, then spoke unnecessarily loud and slowly. \"I. AM. UNCONCERNED. WITH. YOUR. FATE.\"\n\n\"I understood that much,\" Dave muttered. \"You don't have to be a dick about it. I meant that I don't understand how you could just turn on us like that. We were having a good time. I thought we were friends. How can you live with yourself?\"\n\nHollingsworth smiled gently at Dave. \"Believe me. If you knew how much gold I was promised for this, you would have encouraged me to go through with it.\"\n\nFurgal produced a large moss-covered sack from behind what Dave hoped was an actual pile of boulders rather than another huge naked man. The sack bulged at the bottom, clearly full of something heavy.\n\nHollingsworth's eyes teared up. \"By the gods, I've never seen so much gold!\"\n\n\"And you never will.\"\n\nThe childlike joy vanished suddenly from Hollingsworth's face. \"I beg your par\u2013\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "CRUNCH", "text": "Dave noticed a distinct lack of jingling as Furgal repeatedly smashed Hollingsworth into sorcerer paste. The sack had been full of rocks all along, suggesting that Furgal had meant to double cross him from the beginning.\n\n\"What the fuck, man?\" cried Tim.\n\nFurgal stopped beating the pulpy remains of Hollingsworth and glared down at Tim. \"I care not for such language.\"\n\n\"Language?\" said Tim. \"Language? You just murdered a man in cold blood, and you're going to give me shit about my language?\"\n\n\"A man who would sell his own people into slavery is no man. He had no honor.\"\n\nJulian cleared his throat, still looking appropriately horrified, but now also cautiously optimistic. \"Does that mean you're going to let us go home now?\"\n\n\"Are you in such a hurry that you would leave poor Hollingsworth to be devoured by wild dogs?\" asked Furgal. \"Is it not the custom, even among you tiny savages, to bury your dead?\"\n\nDave, Julian, Cooper, and Tim glanced at each other and nodded their unspoken understanding. Whatever this guy wants, as long as he lets us go afterward.\n\n\"Did you happen to bring a shovel?\" Dave asked Furgal.\n\nCooper frowned at Hollingsworth's remains. \"Or a spatula?\"\n\n\"No need for that,\" said Furgal. He grinned at Dave. \"I will show you a custom of my people, passed down to me by my father. When my sons become men, I shall pass it on to them.\"\n\n\"That's nice.\"\n\n\"Did you notice how I smashed Hollingsworth's body into the ground?\"\n\nDave wished that Julian would take back the Diplomacy reins. \"I did notice that.\"\n\n\"Most of it, anyway,\" said Cooper. He peeled a piece of gore \u2013 either an ear or a toe from what Dave could make out \u2013 off his chest and flung it into the larger pile of Hollingsworth.\n\n\"While I was destroying my foe, the rocks in my sack were getting pulverized to dust.\"\n\nCooper cringed as his gaze was drawn to Furgal's junk. \"Dude, there are better ways of dealing with guilt.\"\n\nFurgal lifted his sack and let the powdered rocks flow out onto Hollingsworth's remains. When the sack was empty, he looked at Dave.\n\nDave didn't know why Furgal had taken such a liking to him, but he wished he hadn't. \"That is very impressive.\"\n\n\"Would you care to say some words?\"\n\nThere weren't many things Dave would have preferred to do less than to make an impromptu eulogy for an asshole they'd just met a couple of hours before he tried to sell them into slavery, but Julian was nodding at him encouragingly.\n\nWhatever this guy wants, as long as he lets us go afterward.\n\n\"Dearly beloved,\" Dave started.\n\nCooper snorted. He, Tim, and Julian had their heads bowed, which Dave thought was an attempt at fake reverence. But now he suspected they were just trying to keep from making eye contact with him.\n\n\"We are gathered here today to celebrate the memory of Hollingsworth. He lived his life like a candle in the wind. Hollingsworth, who loved bowling.\" Dave could feel his palms sweating as he went further and further off the rails. He needed to bring this back on track and end it as quickly as possible. \"Yea, though you walk through the Hidden Valley of Death, may you hear no evil, nor see it.\" He folded his hands and bowed. \"Namaste.\"\n\n\"Namaste?\" Julian, Tim, and Cooper muttered.\n\n\"Namaste,\" Furgal repeated solemnly.\n\nCooper pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. \"That was beautiful, Dave.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Furgal. \"Very touching.\"\n\nJulian clapped his hands together. \"Well, we don't want to waste any more of your time. I suppose we should be heading home.\"\n\n\"Very well. Step into my sack, and I shall take you there.\" Furgal opened the mouth of his sack and spread it on the ground.\n\nJulian looked anxiously at the brown leather sack, stained with dark blotches of what Dave hoped was spilled raspberry jam from an old picnicking accident. \"That's very kind of you, but we'll just go back the way we came.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that will not be possible,\" said Furgal. \"You are my property now. You are coming with me.\"\n\n\"Fuck that!\" said Tim. \"You told us we could go home!\"\n\nFurgal grabbed Tim with one hand and his sack with the other. \"And you shall. I will bring you to your new home, where you will help my sons become men.\"\n\n\"Wha\u2013\" Tim managed to squeak out before he was shoved into the bag.\n\nCooper started to run, but Furgal probably anticipating that, let the mouth of the sack drop open next to Cooper and shoved him inside.\n\n\"I don't want to fuck your kids!\" cried Cooper before Furgal lifted the sack, effectively shutting him up.\n\n\"What about honor?\" asked Julian when Furgal moved toward him. There was more desperation in his voice than Diplomacy. \"Didn't you kill Hollingsworth because he was engaging in human trafficking?\"\n\nFurgal squinted at Julian, then at Dave, then at his sack. \"Human trafficking?\"\n\n\"Figure of speech. I meant slave trading.\"\n\n\"I killed Hollingsworth for selling out his own people. There is no honor in that.\"\n\n\"What about us?\" asked Julian. He spread his arms and smiled up at Furgal. \"Are we not all one people?\"\n\n\"You are not giantkin. You are inferior tiny races. Not my people.\" Furgal grabbed Julian and shoved him into the sack.\n\nOnly Dave was left. Furgal's giant dick swung like a pendulum as he lumbered toward Dave.\n\n\"Please, sir,\" pleaded Dave. \"We can't help your sons become men. Wouldn't you prefer some women for that?\"\n\nFurgal stopped and squatted. Even in a squat his face was a good four feet higher than Dave's. \"Would you sell out your own people's women? That is even lower than Hollingsworth.\"\n\nNow that he put it that way, it did sound like kind of a fucked up thing to say.\n\n\"No, I...\" Dave had nothing.\n\n\"Get in the sack.\"\n\nDave nodded and stepped into the open sack, which was immediately jerked up around him, engulfing him in darkness, a tangle of slimy flailing elbows and knees, and the worst smell he'd ever experienced. No, it was a smell he was intimately familiar with, but never quite this concentrated before.\n\n\"Oh god, what the hell?\"\n\n\"Sorry, man,\" said Cooper. \"Fear of getting raped by stone giants gives me the shits.\"\n\nThe sack shook and swung, like Furgal was switching shoulders. Dave, already upside down, felt himself sinking deeper in. Then he felt something like a large monkey scramble up his leg. It had to be Tim.\n\nFinally, he felt warm, sticky liquid on his cheek. He reached upward to find something to grab hold of, but he only sank deeper in.\n\n\"Dammit, Tim!\" Dave cried, the top of his head submerged in half-orc shit. \"I'm in up to my eyes. If it gets to my nose, I'm literally going to drown in shit!\"\n\n\"Stop moving.\" Tim's voice came from up near Dave's feet, confirming Dave's theory. \"You're the densest person here. The more you move, the more you're going to sink.\"\n\n\"Fuck you! You climbed me like a goddamn tree! That's why I'm sinking.\" Dave tried to kick Tim, but felt the warm, oozing shit pass over his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He stopped kicking and froze as still as he could. \"Okay. I'm cool. I'm cool.\"\n\n\"I don't want to sound homophobic,\" said Cooper. \"But I'm kinda scared right now.\"\n\n\"There's nothing intrinsically homophobic about not wanting to be raped,\" said Julian.\n\nCooper sighed, as if he was actually reassured by Julian's words. \"I mean, did you see the size of that dude's schlong?\"\n\n\"Screw you guys!\" said Tim. \"Dave and Cooper could fit double-decker buses up their asses. Julian's almost certainly going to sustain severe internal damage. I'm just going to be a fucking cock koozie.\"\n\nDave had a sudden last ditch hope. \"Maybe stone giants reach sexual maturity earlier than humans. Maybe they're really young. If they're, like, eight years old or something, they might have smaller dongs.\"\n\nThe inside of the sack went completely silent until Tim finally spoke up.\n\n\"What the fuck is wrong with you, Dave?\"\n\n\"I didn't mean... I'm just saying... I was looking for a scenario where we might all survive this.\"\n\n\"What do you think, Julian? Is there anything intrinsically wrong with hoping our rapists are eight-year-olds?\"\n\nNow that Tim put it that way, it did sound like a pretty fucked up thing to say.\n\n\"Given the circumstances,\" Julian responded, \"I'd say it's an ethical grey area.\"\n\nOnce again, Dave felt the need to reset the train he'd accidentally derailed. \"We should make a break for it now.\"\n\n\"With what?\" asked Tim. \"We don't have any weapons. We can't outrun this asshole. We certainly can't fight him. Remember Hollingsworth?\"\n\n\"He got Hollingsworth with a surprise attack. If Hollingsworth hadn't been blinded by greed and went into that meeting prepared for the worst, that might have been more of a battle. How might we fare if we get the jump on Furgal?\"\n\n\"Need I remind you that we're all slowly suffocating in a sack of shit slung over Furgal's shoulder? This is hardly an ideal attack formation.\"\n\n\"That's just the point!\" said Dave. \"That makes it an even bigger surprise.\"\n\n\"If you have a plan beyond this, I think we're all willing to listen.\"\n\nDave turned his head to where he thought Julian was. Not that it mattered, as they were all in the dark, and his eyes were covered in shit. \"Julian, can you summon a horse inside this sack?\"\n\n\"Stop!\" said Tim. Then he continued in a calmer voice. \"If I may point out a potential flaw in the early stages of your plan, this sack is already pretty fucking crowded.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Dave. \"The sudden manifestation of a horse might be enough to tear this sack apart at the seams.\"\n\n\"And then what? Those of us who survive getting hooved in the fucking face by an understandably confused horse will have the shit pounded out of us by a stone giant.\"\n\n\"Not if we create enough chaos.\" Julian choked out the words like he'd been trying to breathe as little as possible. \"The first horse busts the sack open.\"\n\n\"First horse?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Then I keep summoning more horses, both to create confusion and so that we can haul ass out of there. Cooper throws Tim up at Furgal's face, where Tim will shove handfuls of shit into his eyes.\"\n\n\"What's the point of Tim having shit in his eyes?\" asked Cooper.\n\nJulian sighed. \"I meant Furgal's eyes.\"\n\n\"And what about me?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"You jump up and grab onto his dick.\"\n\n\"Why do I have to grab onto his dick?\"\n\n\"Somebody has to. Everyone else already has assignments.\"\n\n\"I'm just not convinced that dick grabbing is a necessary part of this plan. Couldn't I just hug his ankle or something?\"\n\n\"That's not going to keep him from kicking our asses. Nobody can fight with a dwarf swinging from their dick.\"\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"You're starting to sound a little homophobic.\"\n\n\"No I'm not! Julian, is there anything intrinsically homophobic about not wanting to swing from a giant dick?\"\n\n\"I don't know man. You were ready to hug his ankle. Getting squeamish about touching his dick to save all our lives kind of sounds like textbook homophobia to me.\"\n\n\"Fuck you! Who made you our Minister of Morality anyway? If I was homophobic, wouldn't I rather swing from a giant dick then take one up the ass?\"\n\n\"You make an interesting point.\"\n\nNow that Julian put it that way, it did sound like a pretty fucked up thing to say.\n\n\"Dude!\" said Cooper. \"Are you selling us all out for some stone giant cock?\"\n\n\"He's probably still holding out hope that they're eight-year-olds,\" said Tim.\n\nJulian had used his Diplomacy skill on the whole party, and they'd swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.\n\n\"You know what?\" said Dave. \"Fuck all you guys! You want to do this stupid plan. Have at it. I'll swing from giant dick if that's what it takes. Let's go.\"\n\n\"Sorry, Dave,\" said Julian. \"The plan only works if everyone does their part.\"\n\n\"Just summon your stupid horse.\"\n\nJulian's feet pushed against Dave's breastplate as he positioned himself to cast the spell.\n\n\"Horse!\"\n\nDave's head was shoved deeper into the shit as his entire body was pressed against the thick unyielding hide of the sack. Though his ears were clogged with shit, he had no trouble hearing the frightened horse scream as its hooves pounded his backplate.\n\nThe sack descended quickly, sandwiching Dave between the hard ground and the weight of his three companions and a horse. He hoped it would be enough to crush him to death before he drowned in Cooper's shit. But it was not to be.\n\nThe horse's weight suddenly disappeared, and Dave was able to lift his face out of the shit puddle at the bottom of the sack, the top of which was now open.\n\nFurgal glared down at the four of them, his hands on his hips. The tip of his penis seemed to be glaring at Dave specifically, but that could have been Dave's imagination.\n\nThe horse was outside of Dave's extremely limited field of vision, but he could hear it galloping away.\n\n\"That was an unkind trick,\" said Furgal. \"You might have thrown out my back.\" He bent over. When he stood back up, he was holding a bowling ball sized stone in his hand and squinting off into the distance.\n\n\"Oh no,\" cried Juilan. \"Please \u2013\"\n\nFurgal hurled the stone, and the sound of galloping stopped shortly afterward. He looked back down at the sack.\n\n\"We have arrived.\"\n\nThat was just as well. The sack had held together, ruining Julian's plan, which required a bit more freedom of movement than they currently had.\n\nTim hopped out first. Julian crawled out after him. Dave and Cooper rolled around in the sack of sweaty shit-paste for a moment, trying to untangle their limbs.\n\nThe outside air smelled heavily of shit, but was absolutely refreshing compared to the air inside the sack.\n\nA massive stone house, similar in style to those in The Flintstones, towered over Dave. There was no door, but Dave supposed that stone giants don't have to worry too much about people wandering in and stealing their shit.\n\nThe few pieces of furniture Dave saw as they followed their host through the house were made of tree trunks or boulders, leveled off and polished at heights suited to their purposes. An arrangement of three stumps around a five foot tall cube of stone was easily identifiable as a primitive but functional dining set.\n\nFurgal led Dave, Julian, Cooper, and Tim through the doorway at the back of the house. They followed his bare stony ass, no one willing to make the first move in the assault they'd hastily planned.\n\nThey came to the edge of a pit, roughly the dimensions of an Olympic sized swimming pool, only deeper. The floor of the pit was more of the same rocky dirt that seemed to be native to this area, but the stonework lining the sides was some of the smoothest masonry Dave had ever seen. The dwarf in him appreciated the craftsmanship, though he suspected the attention to detail was meant to make climbing out nigh-impossible.\n\nDave suddenly realized something else. There was still no sign of the two sons. They still had a four-on-one advantage against Furgal. Another advantage was that Furgal was standing right on the edge of the pit. One good shove, and they might buy enough time for Julian to summon some more horses. The odds were still slim, but Dave thought they were better than making it out of that pit alive once they got into it.\n\nTim, Julian, and Cooper seemed to be thinking the same thing. They all traded glances and nods, but all seemed hesitant to make the first move. A better opportunity than the one they had right now wasn't likely to present itself, so Dave took the initiative.\n\n\"NOW!\" Dave ran at Furgal, his arms raised as high as he could raise them to give the stone giant a push in the ass.\n\n\"Horse!\" cried Julian.\n\n\"Fuck,\" said Tim, running in front of Furgal over toward Cooper. Furgal gave him a gentle kick into the pit while Dave pushed ineffectively on his ass.\n\n\"Fuck!\" Tim repeated from the bottom of the pit.\n\nCooper narrowed his eyes at Dave, shook his head, and grabbed for Furgal's arm.\n\nFurgal waved his arm out of the way, then shoved Cooper into the pit.\n\n\"Goddammit, Dave!\" said Cooper from the bottom of the pit.\n\nDave lowered his arms as Furgal turned to face him and Julian.\n\n\"I'll just let myself down.\" Julian jumped into the pit, and Cooper grunted as he caught him.\n\nFurgal glared down at Dave. \"I do not approve of your trickery. You fight without honor.\"\n\nFrom his brief time knowing Furgal, Dave knew that the penalty for dishonor could be as severe as getting beaten to death with a bag of rocks. He followed Julian's strategy of jumping into the pit.\n\nHis legs buckled, landing him hard on his ass. It hurt a lot, but his friends' glares following him down as they made no move to catch him also stung.\n\n\"I hope you find your accommodations suitable,\" Furgal said, now towering twenty feet above them.\n\nCooper looked around the pit. \"This is our accommodations?\"\n\n\"You shall have everything you need to be comfortable. As you can see, there is plenty of room to run around. I shall return soon with your food and water bowls.\"\n\n\"Food and water bowls?\" said Tim. \"We're not fucking dogs, you know!\"\n\nFurgal furrowed his brow and squinted down at Tim. \"I would never ask you to do that.\"\n\nBefore Tim could replay the exchange in his head, Furgal continued. \"Behave yourselves. I must tend to supper before my sons come home.\" He looked at the sky and sniffed the air. \"I fear coming rain is in the wind.\"\n\n\"What the fuck, Dave?\" said Tim once Furgal retreated back to the house.\n\n\"What did I do?\"\n\n\"You didn't follow the plan. You didn't even give us time to get into position. Cooper was supposed to throw me up to his face so I could rub shit in his eyes, remember?\"\n\n\"That plan was bullshit and you all know it.\"\n\n\"But your ass-grab plan was foolproof.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Cooper. \"You were supposed to swing from his dick, not fondle his cheeks.\"\n\nDave pushed himself up and rubbed the ache out of his own ass. \"I saw an opportunity and I took it. I thought it would be better to push him into the pit and make a run for it. If we'd all pushed at the same time \u2013\"\n\n\"How could we all push at the same time when you didn't tell anyone that we were all supposed to push at the same time? You think we can read minds? Cooper can't even read fucking words!\"\n\n\"Hey,\" said Cooper. \"Don't take this shit out on me. This is Dave's fault!\"\n\nTim nodded and held up his hands. \"I'm sorry. You're right.\"\n\nDave wiped a clump of shit off his forehead and flung it on the ground between Cooper and Tim. \"How the hell is this \u2013\"\n\n\"We need to get the fuck out of here,\" said Tim, scratching his head in thought and completely ignoring Dave. \"Who knows when Furgal's sons are going to come home?\"\n\n\"We might have more pressing concerns,\" said Julian. \"Or at least more immediate, depending on when they arrive.\"\n\n\"What could possibly be weighing on your mind more heavily than us getting raped to death by giants?\" Tim looked right, then left, then up, then back at Julian. \"If this is about your goddamn bird gone missing again, Furgal's sons are going to have to pull my foot out of your ass before they have their way with you.\"\n\n\"Ravenus is fine. I told him to fly off while Furgal was beating Hollingsworth to death.\"\n\n\"So what's this other great concern of yours?\"\n\nJulian looked away like he knew his answer wasn't going to be well received. \"Rain.\"\n\n\"Are you fucking with me right now?\" asked Tim. \"Look at us! We are literally covered in shit. If there was ever a time we needed the gods to piss down some rain on us \u2013\"\n\n\"Oh shit, Julian's right.\" Dave suddenly knew where Julian was going with this.\n\nTim shook his head. \"Unbelievable. You're more covered in shit than any of us. You're more shit than Dave right now, and you're actually worried about a little rain?\"\n\n\"Rain doesn't just wash off shit. It washes off chalk.\"\n\nTim balled his fists like he was going beyond flabbergasted. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized their meaning before he uttered a word. \"Okay, fair point. But I'm still more concerned about getting raped to death by giants.\"\n\n\"All we need to do is get out of a hole,\" said Dave. \"How hard could this be?\"\n\nTim looked annoyed. \"If you've got any ideas, spit them out.\"\n\n\"We could get on each other's shoulders.\"\n\n\"That could get me out. Maybe Julian. Cooper, could you throw us that high?\"\n\nCooper looked up at the edge of the pit. \"I could get you up there with no problem. If I used my Barbarian Rage, I might be able to get Julian as well. No way I can hurl Dave's fat ass that high. So that's about the same as the shoulder idea.\"\n\n\"You've got a bunch of ranks in the Climb skill,\" said Tim. \"Couldn't you climb out with a good enough roll?\"\n\n\"I'm not fucking Spiderman. The wall is perfectly smooth. There's nothing to grab a hold of.\"\n\nDave began to feel uncomfortable that everyone was discussing a plan in which the best-case scenario left him here, alone, to be raped by giants. \"There's still the matter of \u2013\"\n\n\"I've got it!\" said Julian. He looked very excited. \"Cooper throws me and Tim out of the pit. I'll summon a horse. We tie one end of a rope to the horse, and throw the other end down to you guys.\"\n\nTim narrowed his eyes at Julian. \"Your plan involves a rope?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then why not make up a plan involving a helicopter? It would be a lot more awesome, and no less impossible, considering we don't have either of those things.\"\n\n\"We could tie all our clothes together,\" suggested Dave.\n\nTim shook his head. \"That wouldn't be nearly long enough, and standing around naked will send the wrong message to our rapists.\"\n\n\"Guys,\" said Julian. \"I was thinking we might just try to find some rope. This is somebody's house, after all. How far-fetched does it seem that they'd have some rope lying around.\"\n\nDave sucked in air through his teeth. \"That's pretty risky. If Furgal comes back and one of us is missing, we're not going to be unsupervised again. I think we should keep brainstorming.\"\n\n\"Ravenus!\" said Julian in another revelatory exclamation.\n\nDave and Tim rolled their eyes.\n\n\"Right here, sir,\" said Ravenus, peeking over the edge of the pit. \"What can I do for you?\"\n\nJulian looked up. \"There you are. Are you okay?\"\n\n\"A little bloated, perhaps. But my hangover seems to have gone.\" Ravenus looked at Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim. \"You lot have looked better, if you don't mind me saying so. Smelled better, too.\"\n\n\"We were carried here in a bag of shit.\"\n\n\"That is unfortunate, sir.\"\n\n\"Listen, buddy. We need a really big favor.\"\n\n\"Anything, sir. It is my pleasure to serve you.\"\n\n\"We need you to find us a rope.\"\n\n\"A rope, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes. Or a chain, or a cord, or anything rope-like. Even a vine might do in a pinch.\"\n\nRavenus scratched at the ground with one talon. \"I'll do my best, but \u2013\" He stopped scratching and his jet black bird eyes seemed to light up. \"I know just the thing! I'll be right back!\" He stretched out his big black wings and flew off before anyone could react.\n\n\"Excellent,\" said Julian. \"Now we just hope he comes back before \u2013\"\n\nA familiarly thunderous crash of rocks came from behind them. Dave turned around just in time to see Furgal's giant dick hurtling down toward him like a Tomahawk missile. He shielded his face with both arms until he felt the ground shake under the giant's feet. Thankfully, he didn't feel a big cock-slap to the head as well.\n\nBehind Furgal sat his extremely durable leather sack, bulging again with what sounded like rocks when he'd tossed it in before he jumped in himself. Was that to be taken as a warning?\n\n\"Have you made yourselves comfortable?\"\n\n\"Quite, thank you,\" said Julian before Tim or Cooper could answer honestly.\n\n\"Excellent.\" Furgal sat on his sack of stones. \"I saw my sons approaching from the east horizon. They should be here momentarily.\"\n\nDave held in a whimper and hoped Julian could work some Diplomacy or horse-based miracle.\n\n\"Have they been out working?\" asked Julian. \"Or perhaps in school?\"\n\nNow who's hoping they're eight-year-olds?\n\nFurgal scratched the back of his neck and sighed. \"My sons and I do not see eye to eye on many things. They lead a queer lifestyle of which I do not approve.\"\n\n\"And you shouldn't!\" Dave blurted out.\n\n\"Dave!\" Julian whispered harshly. \"Don't \u2013\"\n\n\"No!\" Dave cut him off. Do you not realize that I'm only trying to save our asses? In the most literal sense of the phrase? \"You are right to disapprove. That goes against the will of the gods.\"\n\nFurgal's face scrunched up in confusion like rippled lava rock. \"Against the will of the gods? I don't see how \u2013\"\n\n\"With all due respect, sir. I am a cleric.\"\n\n\"Do you have children, dwarven cleric?\"\n\nDave shook his head and muttered, \"No.\" He heard the distinct sound of a facepalm coming from Julian's direction and realized he'd just missed out on an opportunity to foster empathy between them. \"I mean \u2013\"\n\n\"John and John are identical twins, you see.\"\n\n\"Both named John?\" Tim asked.\n\n\"That is correct.\"\n\n\"Then how do you tell them apart?\"\n\n\"I do not have to, for they are both named John.\" Furgal tapped his temple as if showing off his own cleverness.\n\nTim shrugged. \"That's as far as I give a shit.\"\n\n\"They were named for their mother,\" Furgal continued. \"She died while giving birth to them. Stone giant twins are a rarity, as they are quite large individually. Passing just one through the... orifice... can be a traumatic experience.\"\n\n\"You don't fucking say,\" Tim muttered under his breath.\n\n\"Would you shut up!\" whispered Julian. \"You're going to get us all killed.\"\n\n\"That's kinda what I'm going for at this point.\"\n\n\"Raising two sons alone is no easy task. Perhaps I indulge them too much, but I find it best to let them seek their own path while giving what guidance I can.\"\n\n\"This goes beyond indulgence,\" said Dave. \"You are setting those boys up for an eternity of damnation, suffering in the deepest pits of Hell!\"\n\nFurgal squinted at him. \"What god, exactly, did you say you are a cleric of?\"\n\n\"I, um...\"\n\n\"Father?\" called a booming voice from inside the house. It did not sound like the voice of an eight-year-old. \"Where are you?\"\n\n\"I'm out back,\" Furgal called back to his son. \"Come, both of you. I have a gift for you.\"\n\nAfter some heavy and swift footsteps that sounded like garbage trucks falling out of the sky, two massive shadows blocked out the sun, followed by a seismic crash which knocked Dave back down on his ass. When the dust settled, two identical stone-skinned men stood next to their father.\n\nThe one on the left, presumably John, wore a yellow toga, whereas the one on the right, presumably also John, wore a pink toga. Each of them had a leather satchel slung over their shoulders. Their faces were identical to each other, but different enough from their father's such that Dave thought he could see some of their mother in them. They gawked down at Dave and his companions with wide-eyed wonder.\n\n\"What are they?\" said John.\n\n\"Can we keep them?\" said John.\n\nFurgal smiled kindly and placed his hands on his sons' shoulders. \"They're yours as long as they last. Now take off those ridiculous clothes.\"\n\nThe two Johns hung their heads. \"Yes, father.\"\n\nAs they set their satchels on the ground and pulled off their colorful togas, Dave crab-crawled back to his friends. He noticed that Furgal looked anxious at the sight of his sons' listless obedience.\n\nFurgal's gaze suddenly met Dave's, and Dave was unable to conceal his terror, both at having been directly stared at and by the size of the Johns' now exposed Johnsons. If anything, they were even bigger than their father's.\n\nFurgal disengaged with Dave and addressed his sons. \"Listen, lads. Our new guests appear to be nervous. Perhaps, before your training begins, you might ease their minds with a song?\"\n\nThe Johns' eyes lit up.\n\n\"Do you mean it, father?\"\n\n\"Oh, thank you!\"\n\n\"Yes!\" cried Julian. \"We'd love to hear a song.\" He nudged Dave. \"Wouldn't we?\"\n\nDave nodded vigorously. \"Absolutely. We love songs.\"\n\nJohn on the left reached down for his satchel, but stopped. He stood straight again and frowned. \"We have played much today, and I feel I should clean my pipes before performing.\"\n\n\"No!\" cried Tim. \"Just sing us a goddamn song!\" Anything to stall for a few minutes and hope that the three of them had simultaneous heart attacks.\n\n\"You are right, brother,\" said John on the right. \"And I must rub my horn with oil.\"\n\nCooper groaned. \"At least that's a step in the right direction.\"\n\n\"Sorry, lads,\" said Furgal. \"We've no time for that. I must finish preparing supper, and you must begin your training.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on, man!\" said Dave. \"Have a heart. At least let him rub his horn with oil.\"\n\nFurgal crossed his arms and glared down at Dave. \"Was it not you, dwarf, who suggested I was being overindulgent?\"\n\n\"But surely it doesn't take but a minute to let the boys oil their horns.\" If they oiled them well enough, there was always the chance they might clean their pipes prematurely.\n\n\"Only John needs to oil his horn,\" said John on the left. \"I must clean my pipes.\"\n\nDave grimaced. \"Yeah. You mentioned that already. I'm just saying, as a matter of courtesy \u2013\"\n\nJulian put his hand on Dave's shoulder to shut him up. \"May we see your horn?\"\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"Are you fucking blind?\"\n\n\"Father?\" said John on the right.\n\nFurgal sighed. \"Very well. Make it quick.\"\n\nJohn reached into his satchel and pulled out a hollowed animal horn with holes bored into the side. He held it up for Dave and his friends to see. \"I made it myself. This is real dragonhorn.\"\n\n\"And here are my pipes,\" said John on the left. \"They're made of real... bamboo.\"\n\nFurgal shook his head. \"Stone giants who wish to be bards. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Playtime is over. Put down your toys and pick up a stone.\"\n\nThe Johns quickly put their instruments on the ground and grabbed stones from their father's sack.\n\n\"So...\" Julian spoke up. \"What, exactly, is our role in your sons' training?\"\n\n\"You are to be moving targets, of course.\"\n\nDave exhaled a long sigh of relief. \"That's so much better than \u2013\"\n\nJulian slapped him in the side of the head.\n\n\"FUCK!\" said Tim, leaping out of the way of a stone as it whirred past Dave's head.\n\n\"Doof!\" said Cooper when the stone hit him in the gut, sending him five feet backward and landing him on his back.\n\n\"Moving targets!\" Furgal scolded John on the right. \"If we wanted to practice with stationary targets, there are enough of those lying around all over E'cha. I went to a lot of trouble to acquire these people. It's all for nothing if you kill them before you get any practice.\"\n\n\"Sorry, father.\"\n\nJulian knelt next to Cooper. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Awesome,\" said Cooper. He raised his hand with a thumbs up and called out, \"Nice shot, John!\"\n\nFurgal nodded. \"Good. Now help your friend up, and all of you start running.\"\n\nDave and Julian pushed the stone off Cooper's bruised belly and helped him to his feet. Tim was already at the wall farthest from the stone giants.\n\nSMASH!\n\nA stone exploded against the wall where Tim's head had just been a half-second before.\n\n\"Jesus Christ!\" cried Tim, running along the bottom of the wall as fast as he could.\n\n\"The littlest one is quick,\" observed John on the right.\n\nDave, Julian, and Cooper ran for the far wall. Cooper and Julian were a lot faster than Dave, making him the easiest target by far. Fortunately, it appeared as though the Johns were trying to impress their father with more difficult targets. Stone shrapnel exploded against the wall at points clearly intended for Julian, Cooper, and Tim, but none of them scored a direct hit.\n\nTHUNK!\n\nJust when Dave was about to reach the wall, a force like God's own pool cue hit his backplate, slamming him face first into the meticulously polished wall.\n\nBetween that and the hard ass-landing from jumping into the pit before, Dave thought he deserved a Cure Light Wounds spell.\n\nHe touched his temple. \"I heal thee.\" After a brief moment of agony, when his spine restructured itself, Dave was feeling back to not horribly shitty.\n\n\"Very good, boys,\" said Furgal. \"I must finish supper now. Keep practicing until the sack is empty. I'll call you when supper's ready.\"\n\nAfter Furgal retreated into the house, the rocks kept flying. Julian and Tim managed not to get hit very much, due to their smaller body styles and higher Dexterity scores. Cooper got hit enough times for Dave to use up one of his Cure Light Wounds spells on him. And Dave, of course, got knocked around like a tin can being kicked by a group of kids in a schoolyard.\n\nWhen the last of his spells was gone, Dave kept a wary eye on the sack, hoping it ran out of rocks before he ran out of Hit Points.\n\nFortunately, for Dave anyway, the Johns focused their last few efforts at Tim, who had proven the hardest to hit, being the tiniest and nimblest. Surprisingly enough, Tim seemed to be enjoying it. He taunted the stone giants, grabbing his crotch and giving them the finger just before tumbling out of the way of a flying stone. There was every chance one of the Johns could roll a Natural 20 and splatter the wall in halfling paste, but it was still so much better than being torn in half by stone giant cock.\n\nFinally, the sack was empty, and they were all still alive. Sweaty, out of breath, covered in stone dust, and unsure whether or not they'd survive another round, but still alive.\n\n\"We should try to get these guys on our side,\" Dave whispered when he got close enough for the others to hear. \"Convince them to let us go.\"\n\nTim threw a chipped piece of rock at Dave's head. \"I'm sure that'll go over just as well as that Pat Robertson bullshit you tried to sell on their father.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Cooper. \"That was kinda fucked up.\"\n\n\"I was trying to... Never mind.\" Dave didn't have time to explain. \"We've got to try something, right?\"\n\nThe others nodded. Tim looked at Dave. \"But Julian does all the talking. He's got the highest Charisma score, and you've already demonstrated that you suck.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\nThey walked over to John and John, who were folding their togas and packing them into their satchels.\n\n\"You boys did well out there,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said John. Dave wasn't sure which one. \"You made some impressive dodges.\"\n\nJulian shrugged. \"I did my best. But did you ever stop and think that the reason we're still alive right now is that your hearts just aren't in rock throwing?\"\n\nThe John's looked at each other, then back down at Julian. \"Your words are true. Our real passion is music.\"\n\n\"That's what I've come to understand. I hope to get to hear you play.\"\n\nDave was getting impatient. Julian had just missed an opportunity to steer the conversation to their asshole of a father. It was wise to let Julian continue to do the talking, but a little nudge in the right direction couldn't hurt anything.\n\n\"But your father discourages your musical ambitions, does he?\"\n\nTim and Julian flashed glares at him.\n\nJohn frowned. \"He does not believe there to be a prosperous future in music for two stone giants. He says the world is a cruel and dangerous place, and we would do better to spend our time learning how to defend ourselves and our people.\"\n\nDave felt a pinprick of cold on his forearm. He looked down and saw a drop of water had landed there.\n\nShit.\n\nLooking up, he saw that dark clouds were rolling in from the west. It was already starting.\n\n\"Your dad sounds like he really cares about you two,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Bullshit!\" Dave blurted out. The clock was ticking and they needed to get out of here pronto. \"You can't let that old bastard stomp all over your dreams! A bard from our homeland said that you only get one shot. One opportunity. One... I forget. Something about spaghetti.\"\n\nOther John pointed sternly at Dave. \"You shall not speak dishonorably about our father.\"\n\n\"Yeah, Dave,\" said Tim. \"Why don't you try not speaking at all.\"\n\nDave felt the chill of another raindrop on the back of his neck. \"He speaks dishonorably of you! He told me that he thinks you're a couple of queers!\"\n\n\"DAVE!\" shrieked Tim. \"Shut. The. Fuck. Up.\"\n\n\"You need to stand up to him,\" Dave continued. \"Every minute you waste throwing rocks at us is one minute you could have been practicing your art, one more minute between you and your dream.\"\n\nJohn rubbed his chin, causing a rough grinding sound. \"There is logic in your words.\"\n\nDave smirked at Julian. You're not the only one who can use Diplomacy, it seems. Then he looked back at one of the Johns. \"You need to let him know you mean business. Let him know you really mean it with an act of defiance.\"\n\nThe two Johns looked at one another, then back at Dave. \"What sort of act of defiance would you suggest?\"\n\nThey were putty in Dave's hands.\n\n\"You set us free, of course. Then you go in there and tell him your rock-throwing days are over.\"\n\nBoth of the Johns took a moment to scratch their heads in thought.\n\nJulian, Tim, and Cooper looked genuinely surprised. Julian especially so. Dave gestured to the Johns, welcoming Julian to take the lead if he had any diplomatic ideas to nudge them over to their side of the fence.\n\nJulian opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he started to say was drowned out by Furgal's voice from inside the house.\n\n\"John! John! Supper's ready!\"\n\nThe twins grabbed their satchels and tossed them out of the pit, hurriedly climbing up after them.\n\n\"Wait!\" cried Dave. \"Aren't you going to let us out of here?\"\n\nOne of the Johns looked down at him. \"We cannot betray our father. But we shall discuss what you said over supper.\"\n\n\"No! Don't do that!\" Dave looked frantically around the pit for something to hold their attention a little longer, and found the pipes and horn lying on the ground. \"You forgot your instruments!\"\n\nToo little too late. They were already back inside the house.\n\n\"What the fuck was that, Dave?\" asked Tim. \"Would it kill you to keep your big hairy face shut for five goddamn minutes?\"\n\nDave backed away from his friends, who all looked like they wanted to kick his ass. \"I felt raindrops. I started to panic.\"\n\n\"I was finessing the conversation with my Diplomacy skill,\" said Julian. \"It's a subtle art. You can't just bring up turning on their father like that. You have to ease them into it and let them think it's their idea.\"\n\n\"That's bullshit. You saw their faces. They were thinking about it. I had them on the ropes!\"\n\nCooper stopped advancing. \"Speaking of ropes, where the fuck is your bird, Julian?\"\n\nJulian looked skyward. \"There he is!\"\n\nDave followed his gaze, and was immediately struck in the face with a pile of something snakelike and slimy. He danced and screamed and tried to fling it away, but the creature clung to his arms, face, and chest. \"Get it off! Get it off! Get it \u2013\"\n\n\"Dave!\" said Tim. \"Chill the fuck out for a second.\"\n\nDave did his best to chill the fuck out while Cooper pulled the sticky creature off of Dave, letting it fall into a purple pile of slime-rope at his feet.\n\nHe was still shaking as he pointed down at the veiny bloody mess. \"What in the fuck is that?\"\n\nJulian turned around to face Ravenus, who had perched atop the narrow end of John's horn. \"Ravenus, where did you get that?\"\n\n\"From the gentleman we traveled here with, sir. Sorry it took me so long. I had to brush the dirt off his body with naught but my wings. Then, of course, there was some digging and cutting to be done. My talons weren't made for this kind of precision work, but I did my best.\"\n\nTim stepped back from the pile of gore. \"Oh man, that's so gross.\"\n\nJulian ran his fingers through his hair. \"We can't use this, Ravenus. It's too slippery to climb.\"\n\n\"It will dry out in time, sir.\" Ravenus looked up at the darkening sky. \"Then again, it does look like rain.\"\n\n\"Shit!\" said Dave. \"Shit. Shit. Shit.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Cooper, who was unable to understand the Elven tongue.\n\nDave pointed at the gore pile. \"That's Hollingsworth's intestines.\"\n\nCooper raised his eyebrows. \"Goddamn. That bird is one savage motherfucker when he wants to be.\"\n\n\"THEY SAID WHAT?\" boomed Furgal from inside the house.\n\n\"Oh shit,\" said Dave.\n\nJulian gestured for Ravenus to fly away. Ravenus took off.\n\n\"Cover it up!\" said Tim. \"We're in deep enough shit as it is without having to explain a pile of intestines on the ground.\"\n\nDave brushed dirt over Hollingsworth's bowels. Being all slimy and sticky, the dirt clung pretty well, and he soon had what looked like an innocuous pile of grey dirt.\n\n\"You!\" Furgal pointed at Dave from the edge of the pit nearest the house.\n\nDave stumbled backwards. Why was this guy always singling him out?\n\nFurgal jumped down into the pit, his feet landing hard on either side of John's upturned horn. \"What deceit have you been filling my sons' heads with?\"\n\n\"I didn't,\" whimpered Dave. \"I haven't... It wasn't me!\"\n\nFurgal stomped angrily toward Dave. \"How dare you accuse me of \u2013 Wha!\" He slipped on Hollingsworth's intestines, causing him to fall backward. His head came down even harder on John's horn, the narrow end of which burst out of his right eye socket.\n\n\"Holy fucking shit,\" said Cooper.\n\nTim shook his head. \"We are so fucked.\"\n\n\"Father?\" called one of the Johns.\n\n\"Hurry up,\" Tim said to Julian. \"Distract them. We can't let them see this.\"\n\n\"What am I supposed to do?\"\n\n\"Something diplomatic. Just hurry before they \u2013\"\n\n\"NO!\" cried John.\n\n\"FATHER!\" cried other John.\n\n\"Fuck,\" muttered Tim.\n\nThe two Johns jumped down into the pit, both glaring at Dave. \"What have you done?\"\n\n\"I didn't. It was an accident. I...\" Only then did he realize that he was once again covered in Hollinigsworth's bowels, flung at him when Furgal slipped. This did not lend credibility to his argument.\n\n\"You murdered our father!\"\n\nDave flung the intestines down and gambled their lives on an untrained Bluff check. \"I did no such thing! That goes against my oath as a Master Healer.\"\n\nCooper snorted. \"What the fuck is he \u2013\"\n\nJulian elbowed Cooper.\n\n\"In fact,\" Dave continued, \"I'm the only one standing between your father's life and death. But I'm going to need your help.\"\n\nThe two Johns halted their threatening advance, tears welling up in their eyes. \"What can we do?\"\n\n\"First, prop him up against that wall.\"\n\n\"Um...\" said Cooper. \"Isn't that exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do in these situations?\"\n\n\"Shut up, Cooper!\" said Dave, Julian, and Tim.\n\nThe two Johns lifted their father by the upper arms and dragged him back to the wall, where they sat him upright against it.\n\n\"Now I'll need some damp towels.\"\n\n\"We have no towels,\" said John.\n\n\"Use your togas,\" Dave snapped at them. \"I'll also need some boiling water, a needle and some thread.\"\n\nJohn cradled his head in his hands. \"I fear we don't have the necessary \u2013\"\n\nOther John grabbed his brother by the arm. \"Mother's old sewing kit. Father said he could never bear to throw it away.\"\n\nFirst John wiped his tears away. \"Their love goes beyond the grave. She is here in spirit, to save our father's life!\"\n\n\"Time is a factor here,\" said Dave. \"You must hurry!\"\n\nJohn and John climbed out of the pit and ran into the house.\n\nCooper wiped a tear away from his own eye. \"Did anybody else get chills from that?\"\n\n\"Hurry up!\" said Dave. \"We have to get out of here before they get back.\"\n\nTim needed no such invitation. He was on top of Furgal's head before Dave had finished his sentence. With a little boost from Julian, he was able to climb out of the pit. Julian grabbed the edge and climbed out after him.\n\nDave climbed as far up as he could, but wasn't going to be able to reach the edge of the wall without Cooper's help.\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"What about Furgal?\"\n\n\"He's got a horn through his fucking brain. He'd dead as shit. Help me out of here.\"\n\nCooper shook his head. \"You're a cold son of a bitch, Dave.\" He climbed up onto Furgal's shoulders. \"I'm really angry.\"\n\nCooper's Barbarian Rage took immediate effect, bulging out his muscles and reddening his eyes. It was off-putting, and when he reached for Dave, Dave wasn't sure that Cooper wasn't going to kick his ass.\n\nWith a grunt, Cooper hefted Dave out of the pit, then climbed out after him. With a prolonged fart, his body came out of Rage and deflated back down to its normal size.\n\n\"Horse!\" said Julian, then repeated the incantation, producing two riding horses, one white and the other brown. \"These are my last two spells for the day. We'll have to double up.\"\n\nCooper lifted Dave onto the back of Julian's horse, squatted down to let Tim ride piggyback, then hopped onto the other horse.\n\n\"Should we soak our togas in warm water or cold \u2013\" John stepped out the back door and locked eyes with Dave.\n\n\"Horses, go!\" cried Julian.\n\n\"Warm,\" Dave shouted as the horses bolted forward, in the off chance the Johns were dumber than Cooper. They weren't.\n\n\"John!\" said John. \"Come quick! They're getting away.\" He gave chase with his brother following shortly after. They weren't as fast as the horses, but they were making a commendable effort.\n\nDave's ass was taking a pounding bouncing up and down on Julian's horse, but when he considered the ass-pounding he'd been expecting to take, he couldn't complain.\n\n\"Does anyone know which way the portal is?\" he shouted over the wind and hooves.\n\n\"No!\" said Julian. \"Wait... Ravenus knows. Ravenus!\"\n\n\"Right here, sir!\" Ravenus took up a wingman position to the right of Julian's galloping horse.\n\n\"Which way is the portal that we traveled through?\"\n\n\"Almost exactly in the opposite direction, sir.\"\n\n\"Shit.\" Julian called out to Cooper. \"We're going the wrong direction!\"\n\nCooper shouted back something that Dave couldn't quite make out except that it had to do with his mom.\n\n\"We'll have to circle around!\" Julian shouted louder.\n\nCooper laughed and made a jerking off gesture. Tim slapped him in the back of the head and shouted directly in his ear, at which point Cooper nodded and gave Julian the thumbs up.\n\nJulian guided his horse to the left, narrowly avoiding a thrown rock. Once they completed the turn, Dave had a much better view of the two Johns. His limited ability to dodge flying rocks while on horseback didn't make that much of an advantage.\n\nThe twins changed course and began to close the gap between themselves and the horses. They'd probably get within medium throwing range. While horses were faster than any of them, they traveled in a predictable trajectory, and the combination of two people and a horse made for a much larger target than one individual person.\n\nThe only bright side that Dave could see was that the Johns were currently unarmed, and would have to scavenge for suitable rocks to throw. There were plenty of rocks lying around on the ground, but the rocks their father had been training them with were all pretty uniform in size and shape. Too big a rock, and they wouldn't be able to throw it. Too small, and their aim might be off.\n\n\"There it is, sir!\" cried Ravenus, pulling ahead of Julian's horse to take the lead.\n\nThe black clouds had moved directly overhead now, and the harder rain had arrived with them. Dave hoped that the horses, being magical in nature, would be less prone to slipping. But his experience with Julian's summoned horses told him that probably wasn't the case.\n\nOne of the Johns found a suitable rock, and Dave braced himself for impact. He might have enough Hit Points in him to survive being hit by another rock, but he didn't like his odds of surviving that combined with being thrown off a speeding horse.\n\nDave squeezed Julian around the waist. \"Hurry up, man! He's got another rock!\"\n\n\"I'm going as fast as I can.\"\n\nWhen Dave looked again, he saw that the John with the rock was focused on Cooper's horse. He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed his grip on Julian.\n\n\"What's happening?\" asked Julian. \"Is everything okay now?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Dave. \"I, um... just farted.\"\n\nTwisting his thick dwarven neck around as far as it would twist, Dave was barely able to make out Cooper's horse just as the flying rock smashed into the side of its head.\n\n\"Shit!\" shouted Cooper as the horse winked out of existence beneath him. He must have been prepared for it, or made a hell of a Reflex Save, as he hit the ground running with Tim still clinging onto his back.\n\nThe rain was coming down hard now, and Dave feared they might be too late. \"Tell Ravenus to fly through the portal.\"\n\nJulian looked back at Dave with a disapproving glare.\n\n\"Come on, man! If he slams face first into solid rock, that will be the least of his problems once those giants catch up to us!\"\n\nJulian nodded, then faced forward again. \"Ravenus! Fly through the portal!\"\n\n\"Right-O, sir!\" Ravenus obeyed with unflinching faith in Julian.\n\nDave flinched though, as his faith was not so solid as the bird zoomed kamikaze-style right at the center of the chalk drawn diagram. Even from where he was, he could see the magical green chalk beginning to streak down the stone.\n\n\"Slow down, Ravenus!\" cried Julian. \"You don't have to go so \u2013\" But he was too late. Ravenus disappeared into the rock.\n\nJulian and Dave made it to the portal stone with plenty of time to spare. Cooper, horseless and carrying Tim, would have a closer race against the stone giants. That was, of course, unless they stopped to pick up stones.\n\nThe Johns found a nice pile of stones about thirty yards away from the portal. The portal was ten feet off the ground, which made anyone climbing up to it essentially a stationary target for a couple of rounds.\n\n\"You go first,\" said Dave, telling himself he was acting selflessly as he crouched behind Julian's parked horse.\n\nJulian was dancing from side to side, presumably to keep himself recognized as a moving target. \"No, you'd better go first. You're slow and heavy. You'll be in everyone's way when Cooper and Tim get here.\"\n\nWhat an asshole. Dave was about to object when his horse cover disappeared, replaced by a stone that fell straight to the ground in front of him.\n\n\"Fine!\" Dave ducked, leaped, and pirouetted as well as any dwarf could be expected to on his way to the large stone under the portal. Finding handholds and footholds suitable to his height, he began to climb. He'd almost reached the top when he heard Julian shout.\n\n\"Dave! Watch out!\"\n\nDave looked back just in time to see a rock flying at his head. He ducked, and felt the disrupted air as the rock swooshed over him. Curiously, it made no crashing sound. Dave didn't have too long to ponder that, as the other John's rock hit him square in the backplate.\n\n\"Ugh!\" he said as he was squashed between flying stone and stationary rock. When his mind was able to process more than Ugh, he realized he was no longer holding onto the wall.\n\n\"Ugh,\" he repeated when he landed on the ground.\n\n\"Goddammit, Dave!\" said Cooper, nearly tripping over him. \"Get the fuck out of the way!\" He grabbed Tim off his back with both hands and hurled him, screaming obscenities, through the portal.\n\n\"Ow!\" said Cooper as a stone hit him in the ass. He bent over and linked his fingers together to make a step for Julian, then hoisted him up until he was able to start crawling through the portal.\n\nWhile Cooper's arms were raised, one of the Johns took advantage of his undefended belly. A flying stone to the gut sent ripples radiating outward.\n\n\"Fuuuuuuck,\" groaned Cooper as he shat, once again, on Dave's face.\n\nDave spat some shit out of his mouth. \"Son of a... Fuck it. Just help me up, will you?\"\n\nCooper grabbed Dave's arm, pulled him up to his feet, then lifted him up by the waist until Dave was able to grab the bottom edge of the portal and help lift himself through it. Two sets of hands, hopefully Julian and Tim's, grabbed his wrists and pulled him the rest of the way through.\n\nThe tavern was full of smoke and shouting.\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"The rock that flew through busted a bunch of liquor bottles behind the bar,\" said Tim. \"It must have caught on a torch or candle or something. Looks like they got it mostly under control now. Where's Cooper?\"\n\n\"He should be right behind \u2013\" Dave fell face down on the table as Cooper's head came through the portal and into his ass.\n\n\"Everyone's here now,\" said Julian. \"Good. Let's move casually toward the front door while everyone is still distracted by the fire.\"\n\nAs it turned out, walking casually through a burning building kind of makes a group stand out.\n\n\"HEY!\" said the half-orc behind the bar who looked like he'd put a lifetime's worth of skill points into the Asskicking skill. \"You're the ones who threw up all over the place earlier, then left without paying your tab.\"\n\n\"Fuck,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Funny thing, sir,\" said Julian. \"Our friend who was with us was supposed to pay the tab.\"\n\nTim looked down and shook his head. \"That was the most piss-poor attempt at Diplomacy I've ever heard.\"\n\nThe bartender produced a meat cleaver from under the bar. It was worth noting that this establishment didn't offer a lot of snacks on the menu for such a tool to be so readily at hand. He hopped over the bar and sneered at them. \"And where is this friend now? He's got quite a bit to pay for.\"\n\nOne of the Johns erupted onto the scene like he'd taken a running dive through the portal.\n\n\"There he is,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Mercy of the gods!\" cried the bartender as John pulled himself out of the booth. He took a reactionary swing with his meat cleaver, catching John in his great stony forehead. It left a nasty gash, pouring crimson blood down the giant's dusty, tear-streaked face, but appeared to have little effect outside of further pissing him off.\n\n\"At least now people will be able to tell them apart,\" said Cooper.\n\nDave grabbed Cooper and Julian's wrists and tugged them toward the front entrance. \"Let's get the fuck out of here.\"\n\nJulian hesitated. \"Where's Tim?\"\n\n\"Over here!\" called Tim. He was on top of the bar, at the end closest to the exit, holding a half-drunk bottle of beer, probably from someone who had gone to help put out the fire. \"Let's go!\"\n\nThe atmosphere outside the tavern was chaotic. People were shouting, \"Fire!\" A few others were shouting, \"Giants!\" Kingsguard soldiers rushed past Dave and his friends to deal with the threat.\n\n\"Who's up for a drink?\" asked Tim, just before sucking back the last of someone else's beer.\n\nEveryone nodded.\n\n\"Whore's Head?\" suggested Dave. Having no money on them, and being covered in shit, it seemed like the best option.\n\n\"Fuck that,\" said Tim. \"I snagged some coin from the till. Wash the shit off your face in a puddle, and let's class it up a bit.\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "From the Bowels of Hell Hounds", "text": "Thank you for your amazing generosity.\n\nTim had been the one to sell the party on taking this job by describing it as \"taking a stroll through the woods and hoping they didn't get mauled by monsters\", and argued that \"Since that describes pretty much every day we've been in this shitty fantasy world, and remains preferable to the even shittier existence we led back in the real world, we might as well make a little booze money from it.\"\n\nJulian found it ironic, then, that Tim sat in the back of the wagon, swigging stonepiss from his flask, while Julian, Cooper, and Dave struggled to push the wagon through the mud while the gods of this world saw fit to piss down a torrential rainstorm on them.\n\nIn his role as the \"face\" of the party, owing to his high Charisma score, Julian had convinced their current employer, Mr. Butkus, that they were a competent group of mercenaries capable of escorting him and his wares safely to his destination, so he supposed his thoughts of criticism toward Tim weren't coming from much of a moral high ground.\n\nRavenus landed on the wagon roof and shook the rain from his feathers. \"Moving along, are we sir?\"\n\n\"Fantastic,\" said Cooper. \"One more fucking freeloader.\"\n\nJulian shot Cooper a warning glance. \"Just take it easy, huh? He weighs next to nothing, and at least he's serving a purpose.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Tim. \"I'm keeping lookout. When you don't get torn apart by owlbears or raped by manticores or some shit, you'll have me to thank for giving you the heads up.\"\n\n\"I was talking about Ravenus,\" said Julian. \"You're just a lazy asshole.\"\n\n\"I'm a goddamn halfling! I could barely reach the back of the wagon. How am I supposed to help?\"\n\nCooper grunted as the three of them heaved the back wheels of the wagon over a tree root. \"Shutting up would be a step in the right direction.\"\n\nThe wagon started moving again, albeit slowly, now that the horses up front were able to do their jobs. Each hoofstep was a squelch and plop. The wagon wheels cut deep ruts into the mushy ground which soon closed back in on themselves.\n\nNow that his hands were free, Julian grabbed the ends of his serape and flapped as much water as he could out of it. For no reason he could think of, he began to feel slightly aroused. He looked up at Ravenus, with whom he shared an Empathic Link.\n\n\"Are you...\" Julian cleared his throat. \"... feeling okay?\"\n\n\"Please pardon my lack of control, sir,\" said Ravenus. \"You reminded me of a mating ritual I once witnessed between two tropical birds.\"\n\nDave and Tim snickered as blood that had been headed toward Julian's dick changed course and rushed up toward his cheeks.\n\n\"What's so funny?\" asked Cooper, who was unable to understand the Elven tongue, the only language Ravenus was capable of speaking.\n\nDave squeezed a gallon of rain and sweat out of his beard. \"I think Julian is giving himself a hardon via Ravenus.\"\n\nCooper made a face like he was trying to figure out the square root of negative pi. \"This is the sort of shit that happens when you take away people's internet porn.\"\n\nJulian wrapped his still waterlogged serape double layered over his crotch and glared up at Ravenus. \"Have you seen anything?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. That's why I'm here,\" said Ravenus enthusiastically. \"I've spotted the tower!\"\n\nTim sighed. \"Oh thank fuck.\"\n\n\"What are you so relieved about?\" asked Dave. \"You've done nothing but drink this entire trip.\"\n\n\"And so it stands to reason that I'm nearly out.\" Tim picked up a clear glass bottle with a long spiraling neck from among the merchant's wares. \"Is it wine? Is it lamp oil? Is it... I don't know, fucking unicorn piss? For a second there, I thought I just might have to find out.\"\n\nJulian slogged ahead to the front of the wagon. \"Mr. Butkus! I have good news!\"\n\nCollected rain flowed off the sturdy brim of Butkus's black conical hat when he turned to look down at Julian.\n\n\"Tell me it be a break in the weather. This rain chills me to the bones.\" He produced a silver hip flask from an inner pocket of his thick leather coat and took a swig of the contents.\n\nJulian's first thoughts went back to Tim. Sure, Butkus was their employer, and was serving a purpose insofar as someone had to steer the horses, but it seemed like kind of a dick move to complain about the weather when they were all at least as soaked as he was, and having to slog through the mud lifting the wagon over tree roots as well.\n\n\"Better than that,\" said Julian, walking along at the wagon's pace. \"My familiar has spotted Count Fabulazzo's tower.\"\n\n\"Aye, that is good news, lad. All this travel has me longing for a rest.\"\n\nJulian searched his mind for a response other than 'Go fuck yourself''. Taking in Butkus's floppy conical hat and the strange assortment of random liquids, powders, herbs, and things he wasn't able to identify at a casual glance or sniff, Julian had a thought.\n\n\"Are you a wizard?\" It couldn't hurt to talk shop with a fellow student of the arcane arts.\n\n\"Ha!\" said Butkus. \"Me, a wizard? Mercy of the gods no, boy. I am but a humble courier. I collect what goods I'm told to collect, and deliver them where I'm told to \u2013.\"\n\nA crack of thunder seemed to split the dark sky, and the accompanying lightning briefly made clear a black tower silhouetted against the clouds. It was like a giant rook, towering over the treetops.\n\nIt didn't seem all that far away, but the horses trudged through the semi-liquid terrain for at least another hour before they finally pulled up to the iron gates.\n\nThe gate, as well as the fence which stretched out from either side of it, forming a fifty yard perimeter around the tower, were anything but inviting. Barbed spikes topped each vertical bar.\n\nJulian looked for a rope, or a button, or anything that might serve as a doorbell. The gate appeared to be latched, but not locked.\n\n\"Open the gate already!\" barked Butkus. \"Have you not noticed it be pissing down rain?\"\n\n\"Actually, I have noticed that,\" Julian snapped back. He had quite a few ranks in the Diplomacy skill, but he was to exhausted at present to bother using it on Butkus. \"My clothes are heavier than I am right now. But I wondered if it was rude to just let ourselves in.\"\n\n\"No ruder than forcing our host to come out in this weather.\"\n\nJulian begrudgingly supposed that was fair. The gate made a small clanging sound when he touched the latch, but that was soon drowned out by the vicious barking of what sounded like a pack of rabid dire Dobermans.\n\nHe let go of the latch like it was made out of AIDS-infected spiders and jumped back from the gate.\n\nThe horses didn't seem to like the fast-approaching barking any more than Julian did, whinnying and splashing mud with their restless hooves.\n\n\"Holy shit!\" said Cooper from the back end of the wagon. It was too delayed to have been a reaction to the barking, but what else could \u2013\n\nThen Julian saw them. Three sets of glowing red eyes bouncing up and down and moving toward him from the other side of the gate as the barking grew louder. Mesmerized, he took another step back, hoping the gate was strong enough to keep whatever those eyes belonged to safely contained.\n\nIt wasn't until they were almost right up on the gate that Julian could make out their forms, and was kind of relieved to find out they actually had forms at all.\n\nThree dogs, covered in reddish-brown fur, jumped up against the gate bars like their asses were on fire. Their abdomens were thin, like Greyhounds, but their chests and hind legs bulged with muscles like Rottweilers who hit the gym six days a week.\n\nFortunately, the gate was doing its job, keeping those red-eyed monster dogs on their side of it. Still, Julian thought he might flex his Charisma score and try to calm the beasts down with an untrained Handle Animal check.\n\nHe put up his hands non-threateningly. \"Hey guys, take it easy. We don't mean any \u2013 FUCK!\"\n\nJulian dove for cover behind the horses as two of the three dogs stopped barking and vomited plumes of fire at him.\n\nThe remaining dog's barking was drowned out by equine screams as orange light illuminated the mud around him. The heat of the flames was just short of unbearable. The back of Julian's drenched serape felt like it was near boiling.\n\n\"Stop that!\" shouted a voice from behind the dogs. \"Yippy! Pippy! Skippy! SIT!\"\n\nThe dogs reluctantly stopped barking and breathing fire. Just in time, too. The horses, having provided all the cover they were going to provide, collapsed on top of each other in a pile of scorched hair and exposed, charred bones.\n\n\"Jesus Christ, Julian!\" said Cooper, appearing from the other side of the wagon. \"What the fuck did you do to those horses?\"\n\n\"I didn't do anything!\"\n\nButkus glared down at Julian. \"That will be coming out of your pay, elf.\"\n\n\"With all due respect, sir. I was trying to save my life.\"\n\n\"And you did so at the expense of my horses. It only be fair that you \u2013\"\n\n\"Please, please, gentlemen!\" said the middle-aged man on the other side of the gate. He looked like a younger Jack Palance, if Jack Palance were ever inclined to wear a shiny green shirt and golden MC Hammer pants. The three red-eyed dogs sat calmly at his feet, staring at Julian through a circular curtain of rainwater flowing off the edge of an invisible circular disc above the man's head. \"I shall compensate you for the horses. Now please, come in.\"\n\n\"Are you Mr. Fabulazzo?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Count Fabulazzo,\" corrected the count. \"Please come in out of the rain and warm yourselves by my hearth.\"\n\n\"Your dogs,\" said Julian. \"Are they...\"\n\n\"Hell hounds,\" said Count Fabulazzo. \"It's an unfortunate name for such gentle creatures.\"\n\nJulian looked down at the smoldering horse remains, catching Ravenus beak deep in an eye socket.\n\n\"I'm in the process of training them,\" the count explained. \"They tend to get excited at the sight of new faces. I assure you they will do you no harm.\"\n\nJulian would have preferred it if the count would lock the dogs in a kennel or something, but he was in no position to make such demands of their host. His word would have to be good enough.\n\nWhen Julian touched the latch again, one of the dogs snarled as it snorted small flames from its nostrils.\n\n\"Hush, Pippy!\" snapped the count. The hell hound whined and lay down.\n\nAs satisfied as he felt he was likely to be, Julian unlatched the gate. The iron hinges screamed as he pushed it open. To his great relief, the hell hounds remained at their master's feet.\n\nButkus strolled through the gate. \"You lads can unload the wagon. I'd move it closer to the tower for you, but thanks to the cowardly elf, I've no horses with which to pull it.\"\n\n\"It's not cowardly to avoid being roasted alive,\" said Julian.\n\n\"A fine lot of good your excuses will do us when it comes time to travel back to Cardinia in the morning.\"\n\n\"I've got it covered.\"\n\n\"Is that right? You plan to pull the wagon yourself? You look about as strong as you are brave.\"\n\nThat was about as much as Julian could tolerate. \"You want a horse? I'll give you a goddamn horse.\" He pointed at the ground in front of Butkus. \"Horse!\"\n\nA beautiful white stallion popped into existence right in front of Butkus.\n\nAs if a switch had been flipped, all three hell hounds sprang to their feet and bounded at the magically summoned horse.\n\n\"No!\" cried Julian, but the hell hounds weren't taking orders from him.\n\nThe horse screamed and reared up on its hind legs, inadvertently making it easier for the first hound to bite it right in the junk. The second one jumped up and grabbed the horse by the throat.\n\nThat was more than the horse could take. It disappeared just as the third hound lunged for its hind leg, passed through the suddenly horseless space and hurtled straight at Butkus.\n\n\"Whaaa!\" cried Butkus as the confused demon dog flew into him. He fell to the ground covering his face with his forearms. \"Please! No! Make it stop!\" The dog had clearly been in the mood for some fresh horse meat, and had no interest in Butkus except to lift up its leg and pee on him.\n\nSmoke rose from the piss where it landed on Butkus's thick leather coat.\n\n\"Yippy!\" snapped Count Fabulazzo. \"Stop that. Get back here right now.\"\n\nAll three dogs returned to their master, who squatted down to stroke their fur and tell them what good boys they were.\n\nButkus struggled to stand up on his shaking legs. He pointed accusingly at Julian. \"Y-y-you did that on p-p-purpose!\"\n\n\"I most certainly did not,\" said Julian. \"But I commend you on how bravely you handled yourself.\"\n\nButkus gasped at the still-smoldering pee stain on his jacket, which hadn't quite burnt all the way through the thick leather. He patted it out with his rain-soaked hat until it stopped smoking, then glared at Julian.\n\n\"That's coming out of your pay.\"\n\n\"Like fuck it is.\" Julian had used all of the Diplomacy skill that he was going to use on this guy. \"We escorted you here, pushed your wagon, and delivered your goods safely to their destination.\"\n\n\"Not all of them,\" said Cooper, standing at the back of the wagon. The expression on his face said, \"We might have a bit of a problem.\"\n\n\"What is it now?\" said Julian as he, Dave, and Butkus joined Cooper.\n\nTim lay on the wagon floor, his eyes unfocused, grinning back at them with his hand down his pants.\n\nFlask in one hand and dick in the other, he said, \"Hey, man.\"\n\n\"I think he drank some of the yellow liquid in that bottle,\" said Cooper.\n\nButkus gasped again. \"Not the unicorn piss!\"\n\n\"Wow,\" said Dave. \"Tim called that one.\"\n\n\"Do you know how rare and difficult to collect that is?\"\n\n\"How do you even approach a unicorn about that?\" asked Cooper.\n\nButkus scowled at Tim. \"This is coming out of your pay!\"\n\nTim grinned at him. \"I love you, man.\"\n\n\"Friends!\" said Count Fabulazzo. \"Let us not bicker over a few drops of unicorn urine. I shall feed my hounds with your dead horses and we'll call it even. You are all weary from travel and irritable from the inclement weather. Please come inside, dry off, and fill your bellies. Then we shall see how much there is to quarrel over.\"\n\nJulian and Butkus begrudgingly nodded at one another, then Julian turned to Cooper to deal with some practical matters.\n\n\"Do you think you could throw these horses over the fence and pull the wagon up closer to the tower?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Cooper sighed. \"I'm really angry.\" His muscles inflated like his body was sucking back in a week's worth of farts. Once his Barbarian Rage had taken full effect, he grabbed one of the horses by its front hooves and started to spin around.\n\nThe hell hounds' fire had burnt a gaping hole in the horse's skin, allowing horse innards to fly out as Cooper gathered the momentum he needed to hurl it over the fence.\n\n\"Goddammit, Cooper,\" said Dave, his face, beard, and chest slick with horse guts.\n\nThe other horse had taken most of the fire to the face and, thankfully, its brain didn't fly out as Cooper threw it over the fence.\n\nThe hell hounds were elated when Count Fabulazzo gave them the green light to tear into the horse carcasses. Expecting them to rip the meat from the bone as most animals would, Julian was surprised to see the dogs devour random parts of the horses indiscriminately. Their powerful jaws crunched through bones like they were no more than almonds inside a piece of chocolate.\n\nSatisfied that the dogs were distracted, Count Fabulazzo motioned for Cooper to pull the wagon through the gate, then hurried to close and latch it again once everyone had come through.\n\nBy the time Cooper had backed the wagon to the large side door of the tower, there was nothing left of the horses but eight hooves. One of the hounds looked at Julian and burped out a small flame.\n\nCooper came out of his Barbarian Rage with a long, mostly steady fart. It was interrupted a few times by \"more than fart,\" which splattered and plopped between his feet, adding blobs of yellow to the otherwise brown muddy earth.\n\n\"By the gods!\" cried Butkus. \"Have you no decency?\"\n\n\"He has a low Charisma score,\" Julian explained. \"And he tends to get a little gassy when he comes out of a Barbarian Rage.\" For all his efforts to appear unaffected, Julian could feel his own eyes watering. This was a particularly ripe one.\n\nFabulazzo coughed for a moment, then slapped Cooper on the back. \"I, for one, am impressed! But just so you're aware, we do have a room for this in the tower. My servants have left for the night, and I would appreciate not having to clean up too much in the morning.\"\n\nCooper nodded. \"I understand.\"\n\n\"What's that wonderful smell?\" asked Tim. His one hand was still down the front of his pants, and Dave was guiding him by the other arm.\n\n\"Jesus, Cooper,\" said Dave. \"Are you trying to win a contest?\"\n\n\"Fuck you, Dave. I'm...\" Cooper's eyes focused beyond the others. \"... humbled.\"\n\nJulian turned around to find one of the hounds in the process of taking a shit. Cooper was right. It was certainly something to behold.\n\nThe turd flowed out of the creature's ass like magma seeping through a crack in the earth's surface. It was slow, steady, and on fire. It formed a neat pile, like a flaming Hershey's Kiss the size of one of Cooper's fists. The rain sizzled on the pile after the dog moved, putting out the flames and changing the color of the pile from glowing red to black almost instantaneously. Julian wondered if it had a crispy outer shell.\n\nCount Fabulazzo cleared his throat, and everyone seemed to awaken simultaneously to the fact that they were all staring at dog shit.\n\n\"Perhaps you'd like to come inside? I have roasted elk and Barrier Island rum.\"\n\nJulian smiled gratefully. \"That sounds wonderful. We'd love to come in.\"\n\n\"You forget your place, elf,\" said Butkus. \"You are hired hands. How about you finish the job you're being paid to do?\"\n\nCooper grabbed his crotch. \"How about you eat a dick?\"\n\n\"These boxes aren't going anywhere,\" said Count Fabulazzo. \"Come inside and rest for a bit. The wagon can be unloaded any time.\"\n\nButkus was right that they had been hired to do a job. If there was any drinking to be done tonight, Julian certainly didn't want to rely on his friends to get any work done once the Barrier Island rum started flowing.\n\n\"Between the four of us,\" said Julian, \"it shouldn't take us long to move these boxes.\"\n\nCount Fabulazzo looked disdainfully at Butkus, then smiled at Julian. \"Just put them there on the shelves wherever there's space. When you're finished, change out of those wet clothes and put on one of these cloaks.\" He indicated several stacks of folded purple laundry on the shelves. \"You should all be able to find one that fits.\"\n\n\"It's very courteous to have those ready for your guests,\" said Julian.\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I don't receive that many visitors.\" Count Fabulazzo gestured to the cloaks again. \"Aside from the Trog'bahar cultists, of course.\"\n\nDave looked confused. \"The cultists hike all the way up this mountain to bring you clothes?\"\n\n\"Not exactly. They come here to convert me to their religion. They're the whole reason I purchased the hell hounds in the first place.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Dave.\n\n\"The hounds get fed, and I get free cloaks. Everybody wins.\" He clapped his hands together. \"That reminds me, I must see the hounds to their kennel. Butkus, would you care to join me?\"\n\nButkus jumped at the sound of his own name, then seemed to have to piece together everything the count had said after it. \"No, thank you. So kind of you to offer, but I think I'll stay here and help the lads unload the wagon.\"\n\nTo Julian's surprise, Butkus actually did help unload the boxes. It helped him avoid eye contact with everyone after his latest display of cowardice. Julian was grateful for the help, seeing as they were effectively a man short, what with Tim lying in the corner with his hand down his pants again.\n\n\"Samantha,\" Tim groaned in a state of semi-consciousness. \"Angela!\"\n\nCooper stopped mid-stride on his way from the wagon to the shelves. \"Is he whacking it to Who's the Boss??\"\n\n\"Moooooooooona!\" Tim moaned.\n\nJulian, Cooper, and Dave cringed at the grisly confirmation of Cooper's theory. Butkus shook his head and continued working.\n\nThe wagon was nearly empty by the time Count Fabulazzo returned from herding his hounds to their kennels.\n\nWhen the last box was placed on the shelf, everyone sorted through the folded rose petal scented cloaks to find ones large or small enough to fit their various body styles.\n\nJulian found a long and slender cloak. Close inspection revealed irregular seams and faint brown stains, suggesting it had been ripped to shreds, bled through profusely, then mended and washed. On the bright side, it was warm, dry, and comfortable.\n\nAfter everyone else had changed, they went to work on Tim. When Cooper started wrestling Tim's hand out of his pants, Julian knew that it was up to either him or Dave to pull Tim's pants off.\n\nHe walked briskly back to the shelves announcing, \"I'll find a cloak to fit him.\"\n\nIt wasn't until he returned that Dave, pulling off Tim's pants while looking away from his junk, shot Julian a scornful glare, having finally discovered his motives.\n\nCooper removed Tim's vest and shirt, leaving Tim's hands free to go straight back to his crotch.\n\n\"Sophia,\" Tim groaned as Julian pulled the cloak down over his head.\n\nJulian thought back on what old TV show Tim might have switched over to. \"Is he having a go at The Golden Girls now?\"\n\n\"There was a Sophia he had a thing for in high school,\" said Dave.\n\n\"I never understood what he saw in her,\" said Cooper. \"I think I might have preferred the Golden Girl.\"\n\nJulian pulled the cloak down over Tim's shoulders. \"Maybe let's not bother putting his arms through the sleeves, lest he be a danger to himself and others.\n\nTrog'bahar's cultists must have been primarily human. Julian's cloak fit well enough, but was a bit loose. Cooper and Dave's cloaks stretched tight around their considerably broader chests, making them look like discount street hookers. Tim, with the bottom of his cloak going far lower than his feet, and his hands doing whatever they were doing to his junk, looked like a purple worm with an erratic heartbeat.\n\nCount Fabulazzo led them into the interior of the tower. Rather than go back out into the rain, they entered through what Julian thought of as the garage, where they'd unloaded the wagon. In the kitchen, a large elk carcass butterflied on a solid oak table, among a set of bloodied butcher's tools. Most of the internal organs were missing, as were the ribs and most of the muscles on its left side.\n\n\"This fine fellow is what we'll be eating tonight,\" said Count Fabulazzo. \"I brought him down myself a week ago.\"\n\nJulian found it strange that the carcass wasn't crawling with maggots. If it was producing any foul odor, it didn't compete with Cooper.\n\n\"What do you do to preserve the meat?\" asked Dave, apparently having the same concerns as Julian.\n\nCount Fabulazzo shrugged. \"I've never pressed my cook on the issue, but I expect he uses the same methods that anyone does.\"\n\n\"Salt? Refrigeration?\"\n\nThe count frowned quizzically at Dave. \"Necromancy.\"\n\nJulian and Dave glanced at Butkus, who nodded with halfhearted interest. He'd looked appropriately horrified at the announcement of where their cloaks had come from, so Julian felt a little better about the explanation of how the meat was preserved.\n\nCount Fabulazzo, carrying the basket with all of their wet clothes, continued through the door leading out of the kitchen. \"I apologize for such a modest dinner. I sent all the servants home to get ahead of the storm, and I wasn't sure whether you'd make it here or not.\"\n\nThe room they were in now was nearly completely circular, taking up all of the tower's ground floor which wasn't taken up by the kitchen and garage. An impressively large hearth housed a roaring fire directly opposite the kitchen door.\n\nCount Fabulazzo pulled down a large U-shaped wrought iron bar until it came to rest perpendicular to the wall. Julian guessed its purpose was to support a curtain which would contain the fire's heat to an area big enough to provide warmth for two or three people if one didn't want to burn enough fuel to heat the entire tower. But the count had a different use in mind for it now. He began hanging up their wet foul-smelling clothes, and Julian rushed to help him, taking in the rest of the room as he did so.\n\nTo the left of the hearth, shelves lined the curved wall. There were a number of books, scrolls, bottles, and various other odds and ends scattered about, but there was plenty of shelf space left. Julian hypothesized that the count might be a mid-level spellcaster working his way up.\n\nAt the base of the shelves was a large desk which appeared to have been carved out of a single block of black granite. A luxurious egg-shaped chair, carved out of the same black granite, was upholstered on the hollowed inside with puffy black leather. It looked like a remarkably heavy piece of furniture, which accentuated the impressiveness of the fact that it was floating two inches off the floor.\n\nCooper seemed less impressed with the chair than Julian, taking little more interest in it than as a place to dump Tim. The chair turned easily and silently as he pivoted it to face the desk, presumably so no one had to watch Tim continue to fondle himself and drool.\n\nIn the center of the room stood a table that didn't seem to match with the rest of the furniture, like it was put there specifically for its current purpose, to hold the modest dinner the count had laid out for his guests who may or may not be showing up. Sliced elk meat, which Julian was thankful to see was cooked, three logs of cheese, each a slightly different shade of yellow, and loaves of brown-crusted bread, each about as big as Julian's head.\n\n\"Please help yourselves,\" said Count Fabulazzo when he and Julian had finished hanging up the wet clothes.\n\nCooper didn't need to be told twice. Ignoring the two-pronged silver forks and dishes which had been laid out, he ripped a loaf of bread apart, grabbed a handful of elk, and cut slices of cheese off two of the cheese logs.\n\nCount Fabulazzo watched in fascination as Cooper placed the top half of the bread atop the pile of meat and cheese, completing his sandwich.\n\n\"How delightfully barbaric!\" squealed the count, clapping his hands giddily. He picked up a loaf of bread and made growling noises as he ripped it in half. Julian, Dave, and Butkus followed suit, but only Butkus seemed to take anywhere near the same level of childlike delight in it that Count Fabulazzo did.\n\nButkus and the count tore into their sandwiches like rabid wolves, really hamming up the barbaric savagery inherent, to them at least, in eating layered food.\n\nWhen the first round of sandwiches were done, Count Fabulazzo went into the kitchen and returned with a tray full of glasses and a large glass decanter filled with caramel-brown liquid.\n\nThe Barrier Island rum was rich with spices, almost like a liquid pumpkin pie that got you drunk. It was smooth going down, and did more to warm Julian's insides than the roaring fire in the hearth.\n\nWhile they drank, Count Fabulazzo hounded Cooper with questions about his homeland. Instead of making something up, Cooper responded with stories about people he knew in Mississippi. It was a surprisingly plausible description of a barbarian upbringing.\n\nWhen the bottle had no more rum to give, Butkus declared it was time to retire for the night. The rain had stopped, and traveling downhill would almost certainly be easier than going up, but it would be best to waste as little daylight as possible.\n\nCount Fabulazzo led them up four flights of stairs running along the interior curved wall of the tower to the guest bedrooms, of which there were two. Upon entering one of the rooms, Julian's eyes were immediately drawn to the curtains and bedsheets, which were obviously made from repurposed robes of former devotees of Trog'bahar.\n\nButkus decreed that one bedroom was for him alone, and the other was for \"the help.\" It was a needlessly dickish gesture, as each room had a bed large enough to accommodate three grown men comfortably.\n\nBut nobody complained about not getting to share a bed with Butkus. Cooper was more comfortable sleeping on the floor anyway. Julian, being an elf, required no sleep. Dave and Tim were short enough to sleep sideways on the bed and there was enough space between them that they might as well have been in different time zones.\n\nCooper and Dave fell asleep pretty quickly, and Tim had passed out during dinner. Julian hadn't seen Ravenus since they unloaded the wagon, but a few otherwise inexplicable tingly sensations in his genital area told him that Ravenus had met a number of nice female birds in the area. Good for him. Wherever he was right now, their Empathic Link reassured Julian that he was safe and content.\n\nJulian sat on the floor, alone with his thoughts, until his mind drifted off to the sound of Cooper's rhythmic snoring. Four hours later, he came out of the trance, which passed for sleep among elves, to the sensation of pins and needles in his ass.\n\nCooper had gassed up the room pretty bad by that point, so Julian decided to go for a walk and see what there was to see during the wee hours of the morning. Count Fabulazzo had granted them permission to explore the tower as much as they liked, as long as they didn't try to force open any doors which were locked.\n\nJulian had no interest in snooping around some guy's house, but he was curious as to what the view was like from the top of the tower. So he climbed five more flights of stairs until the stairwell ended in a room about the size of a small closet with a wooden door at the far end.\n\nThe door opened with a gentle push, and Julian was taken aback by the magnificence of the star-filled sky. On top of a tower on top of a mountain, the view was so much more dazzling from here than it was from ground level.\n\nBeholding the vast wonder of the infinite beyond made Julian feel tiny and insignificant. It made him feel at peace to know that whatever mistakes he made in life, the universe would keep on existing. It made his testicles ache.\n\nJulian was considering the universe's effect on his testicles when a voice startled him from behind.\n\n\"Hello, sir.\" The joviality in Ravenus's voice seemed a little forced.\n\nJulian turned around and looked down at his familiar. \"There you are. I've been wondering where you'd gone.\" He looked back up at the sky. \"Have you taken in this view? It's positively stunning.\"\n\n\"It was lovely, sir.\"\n\n\"Is there something on your mind, Ravenus? You seem... I don't know. Preoccupied?\"\n\n\"I was actually enjoying the company of a lady, if you take my meaning, sir.\" Ravenus looked back and Julian followed his gaze. A brown hawk was hiding shyly in the shadow of the crenelated wall. She raised a wing when Julian spotted her.\n\n\"'Sup?\" was all Julian could think to say in response.\n\n\"She became \u2026 startled when the door opened, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry.\" Julian thought for a moment, then Ravenus's meaning clicked in his mind. \"Ooooh... That explains my balls.\"\n\nRavenus cocked his head sideways, then shook off the curiosity. \"Of course it does, sir. If we might discuss that at a later \u2013\"\n\n\"I'm going, I'm going.\" Julian waved to Ravenus and his lady friend before entering the stairwell and closing the door behind him.\n\nTwo hundred and forty-seven steps later, Julian was at the bottom of the tower. He let himself out through the side door where the wagon was parked. The night sky was still dazzling, but not as vast and infinite with so much of it blotted out by the tower and surrounding trees.\n\nHe considered going for a walk further up the road to see if he could find a nice clearing from which he could take in more of the sky while he prepared his spells for the coming day, but he stopped at the gate. If he tried to leave, the sound of the gate might set off the dogs and wake everyone up. Besides, the woods were bound to be crawling with monsters which might shy away from a party of five, but would be quick to attack a lone elf.\n\nLooking through the gate, Julian was pleasantly surprised that the road seemed to have mostly dried up. The rainwater had apparently hauled ass down the mountain after the storm cleared. If the weather stayed like it currently was, they should have an easy ride home in the morning.\n\nJulian sighed. Morning was still hours away. With nothing to read, not a lot of area to explore, and not even Ravenus around to keep him company, he decided to use his time as productively as he could. He'd transcribe some of his unused spells for the day onto scrolls, either to be used later or to be sold for a few silver pieces to spellcasters even crappier than he was.\n\nThe the wagon had some recently cleared shelf space he could use as a desk. He made his way back to the tower's \"garage\" and found his bag, along with his friends' bags, in the back of the wagon. He pulled out his scroll tube and flattened a blank sheet of paper on one of the shelves. The shelf, unfortunately, was too high for him to sit, but too low for him to stand while scribing. Even with his elven Low Light Vision, the near complete darkness strained his eyes as he penned the magical symbols floating around in his mind onto the page.\n\nIt was uncomfortable and tedious work, and for the lackluster benefit of having one more shitty Magic Missile spell at his disposal, but at least it killed the time. He was about three quarters of the way through it when he heard the tower door open.\n\nButkus looked as surprised to see Julian as Julian felt at seeing him.\n\n\"Elf,\" said Butkus. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\nJulian shrugged. \"Killing time. Elves don't sleep.\"\n\n\"Listen, I apologize if our exchange became a tad heated yesterday. It was just the road weariness talking, you know?\" Butkus offered what Julian assumed was supposed to be a friendly smile. A glint of gold shone from one of his teeth not visible behind his default scowl.\n\n\"Think nothing of it,\" said Julian. \"I understand. We both said things that weren't very nice. Water under the bridge.\"\n\nButkus nodded. \"A fine saying. Does that come from your people?\"\n\n\"You could say that.\"\n\n\"The weather seems to have cleared, but I think it best not to tempt the fates. We should set off back to Cardinia as soon as possible.\"\n\nJulian rolled up his half-completed scroll and shoved it back into the tube. \"You'll find no argument here.\"\n\n\"Then would you mind conjuring up a couple of those horses for me? I'll get them hitched up and you can go up and wake your friends.\"\n\n\"Sounds good,\" said Julian. He hopped out of the back of the wagon and walked to the front. \"Horse!\"\n\nA sturdy brown horse appeared between Julian and Butkus.\n\n\"Horse!\" he repeated, and a white horse appeared.\n\nJulian stood in front of the two horses and placed a palm on each of their cheeks. \"Butkus is going to hitch you to the wagon. You two behave yourselves and do as he asks, okay?\"\n\nWhen he caught Butkus staring at him, he felt the compulsion to explain. \"They're magical horses. They're sometimes uncooperative with people other than the one who summons them if they aren't explicitly instructed not to \u2013\"\n\nA shrill scream tore through the otherwise silent night air. It came from somewhere in the middle of the tower.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Julian. \"I'd better go see what happened.\"\n\nButkus nodded vigorously. \"You do that, elf.\" He hurriedly started hitching the horses to his wagon.\n\nJulian swung open the tower door, sprinted through the kitchen, and raced up the stairs. When he got to the third floor, he found Tim and Count Fabulazzo standing outside a door that Julian remembered having been closed before.\n\nTim was confused and angry, hopping around like a caterpillar who'd been interrupted mid-metamorphasis. Count Fabulazzo, who had obviously been the one doing all the screaming, was staring into the room stricken with horror.\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"That's a good fucking question,\" said Tim. \"Why are we all dressed in fucking Snuggies, and why are my hands glued to my balls?\"\n\nJulian joined the count at the door and discovered Cooper sitting atop a large red porcelain jar. He was surrounded by burning candles and several paintings of the same elderly woman. In every picture she was portrayed wearing dresses that would make Puritans look like whores. The creases on her face were well-defined from a lifetime of scowling. Her eyes, however, were not entirely unlike the count's.\n\n\"Would you guys mind giving me a little privacy,\" asked Cooper. \"I'm almost done in here.\"\n\n\"GET OUT OF THIS ROOM AT ONCE!\" demanded Count Fabulazzo.\n\nCooper let out one last wet ass-spray before standing up. Count Fabulazzo gasped as he hurried into the room and looked into the jar Cooper had just risen from.\n\n\"Mother!\" he said, choking back tears.\n\nCooper peered into the jar alongside him. \"Is that some kind of Horshack test interpretation?\"\n\n\"You!\" Count Fabulazzo's eyes burned with the reflection of the two fireballs which had just appeared in his hands. \"I take you into my home. I clothe and feed you. I share with you my finest Barrier Island rum and give you shelter for the night. And this is how you repay my generosity? You defecate in my mother's urn?\"\n\nJulian gasped.\n\n\"Do you have anymore of that rum left?\" asked Tim.\n\nCooper backed away from the count. \"Sorry, dude. I thought it was a toilet.\"\n\nThe count's voice shook as he spoke. \"Why would I surround a toilet with portraits of my late mother?\"\n\n\"How the fuck was I supposed to know it was your mother?\" asked Cooper. \"I thought those were just there for something to whack off to while you're on the shitter.\"\n\n\"Cooper!\" cried Julian. \"What the hell are you talking about? Who whacks off on the shitter?\"\n\n\"I just did.\"\n\nJulian pulled on his ears. \"To a painting of an old woman?\"\n\n\"Whoa,\" said Cooper. \"Take it down a notch. That's this dude's mother you're talking about.\"\n\nThe flames in Count Fabulazzo's hands grew more intense as he glared at Cooper. \"It's common courtesy to not go snooping around in locked rooms when you're a guest in someone's home. But just to make the matter crystal clear, I gave you explicit instructions not to do that. Your disobedience shall cost you your life.\"\n\n\"What the fuck are you talking about?\" asked Cooper. \"The door wasn't even locked.\"\n\n\"Of course it was! It is always locked. No one but me is allowed into this room EVER!\"\n\nTim shuffled over and squinted into the door's keyhole. \"This lock has been picked.\"\n\n\"There, you see!\"\n\n\"Cooper can't pick a lock,\" said Julian. \"He doesn't have the Dexterity or the skill ranks.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Cooper. \"I can barely wipe my own ass.\" Evidence of Cooper's claim dripped on the floor between his feet.\n\nJulian could tell that the count was anything but a hothead. Most people, having the means, would have blasted Cooper to hell long before now in similar circumstances. On the other hand, Julian considered that he was wearing evidence that the count was well capable of murder. He might listen to reason if Julian was able to articulate his thoughts quickly enough.\n\n\"When Cooper wants to get through a locked door, he uses...\" Julian was about to go on about Cooper's high Strength score, but then he remembered Count Fabulazzo's fixation with Cooper's barbarian upbringing. \"He uses the methods passed down by his barbarian ancestors. Zuglar the Mighty would never have reigned over the Tribes of... um...\"\n\n\"Picayune,\" suggested Cooper.\n\n\"Picayune,\" Julian repeated, \"if his warriors ever witnessed him trying to pick a lock. Likewise, if Cooper wanted to get through a locked door, it would be torn off the hinges and smashed to splinters.\"\n\nJulian took a deep breath, satisfied with his massive tale of bullshit.\n\nCount Fabulazzo nodded slowly as the fireballs in his hands dimmed, but didn't go out completely. \"If not Cooper, then which one of you picked the lock?\" He narrowed his eyes at Tim.\n\n\"Don't look at me,\" said Tim. \"My hands are still stuck to my nuts.\"\n\n\"And if not for the sole purpose of soiling my dear mother's ashes,\" the count continued as he peered into the room, \"then for what pur\u2013\" His eyes grew wide with horror. \"Mother!\"\n\nJulian and Tim exchanged glances. Tim shrugged.\n\nCount Fabulazzo stood in front of the urn and looked up at a glass display case. \"She's gone!\"\n\nTim looked at Julian and nodded toward the count. Julian took it to mean that he should go in there and say something encouraging.\n\nJulian did his best. \"Her spirit will always live on in your heart and in your memory.\"\n\n\"No!\" cried the count. \"Her spirit lives on inside the amulet. I imprisoned her there before I strangled the life out of her body.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Julian and Tim simultaneously.\n\nCooper nodded. \"That was thoughtful.\"\n\n\"Hey guys,\" said Dave as he descended the stairs from the fourth floor. \"Where is \u2013\"\n\n\"What have you done with my mother?\" cried the count. The flames in his hands flickered and grew.\n\nDave stopped mid-step. \"Nothing! I was just upstairs taking a dump.\" After a moment of thought, he added, \"alone.\"\n\n\"Settle an argument, would you?\" Cooper asked Dave. \"And be honest. Did you whack it on the shitter?\"\n\nDave grimaced at Cooper for a second before continuing his thought from earlier. \"Where is Butkus going? Weren't we supposed to get a ride back with him?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" Julian's heart sank as he began to piece together the obvious answer to the question.\n\n\"Butkus!\" said the count. \"Of course! I knew he couldn't be trusted.\" He extinguished the flames in his hands and ran past Dave up the stairs.\n\n\"Where the fuck is he going?\" asked Cooper.\n\nTim's eyes lit up. \"Maybe he's going to Fireball Butkus from the top of the tower!\"\n\n\"That would be badass,\" said Cooper.\n\nTim hopped up and down, the current extent of his mobility options. \"Pick me up and follow him!\"\n\nCooper scooped up Tim and started running up the stairs.\n\nCount Fabulazzo appeared again, running in the opposite direction and carrying a large bundle of purple cloth. He flicked his wrist, sending Cooper and Tim flying off the staircase and landing on Dave. Without so much as a pause or an 'excuse me', he continued down the stairs with a focus and determination Julian had never witnessed anyone have toward doing laundry. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, or something like Lady Macbeth washing her hands.\n\n\"Hey guys,\" said Julian. \"I think we should get out of here while the count is distracted. I think he's cracking up, and I don't think we'll want to be around when he finally goes whole hog on losing his shit.\" He smiled. \"Also, I'm looking forward to seeing Butkus's face when we catch up to him.\"\n\nDave frowned. \"He's long gone. I'm sorry guys, but I was on the can for a good fifteen minutes after I saw Butkus go. I think it's got something to do with that necromantically preserved elk meat. It was really running through me.\"\n\nCooper rubbed his belly. \"I know, right?\"\n\nJulian had stopped for a squat or two while walking around outside as well, but he felt no need to share this information. Instead, he started walking down the stairs. \"As much as I'd love to stand here and listen to you two talk about your bowel movements, we should probably go get dressed, track down that weasel, and get paid.\"\n\nCooper picked up Tim and followed.\n\n\"Screw our clothes,\" said Dave, taking the rear. \"If you think there's a chance we can catch up to Butkus, shouldn't we waste as little time as possible?\"\n\n\"We've got all the time in the world. Those horses pulling Butkus's wagon were summoned by me.\"\n\n\"I know your magical horses have a tendency to die horrible untimely deaths,\" said Tim. \"But it's kind of creepy that you're banking on it now.\"\n\nJulian stepped behind his serape, warm and dry hanging on the bar around the hearth, and pulled off his purple robe. \"I'm not banking on the horses dying. I'm banking on their spell duration timing out.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah. They live that long so infrequently that I forgot it was a thing.\"\n\nCooper held Tim's robe by the hood and shook it until Tim fell out of the bottom. Mercifully, his hands were still stuck to his junk.\n\nJulian turned around and started pulling on his dry clothes. \"He won't have more than two hours before those horses disappear, leaving him stranded in his wagon. Considering that he tried to rip us off, I won't feel bad extorting three times our agreed-upon payment out of him.\"\n\nOnce they were all finished getting dressed, Julian led the way through the front door of the tower, which was open a crack. He looked left and right, but saw no sign of Count Fabulazzo.\n\n\"Do you think it's rude to just leave without saying goodbye?\" Julian wondered aloud.\n\n\"No ruder than shitting in his mother's urn,\" said Tim. \"This guy's unstable. Every interaction we have with him is just one more chance for us to accidentally piss him off. Let's just leave him to his laundry and get the fuck out of here.\"\n\nTim ran stealthily toward the gate, looked around, then waved the rest of them over.\n\nJulian wasn't sure why they were sneaking around. He supposed it was natural for Tim, being a rogue, but he found himself running as quietly as he could, keeping his weight on the balls of his feet.\n\nDave lagged behind, as usual, his movement barely qualifying as running. And Cooper ran about as stealthily as a charging rhino.\n\n\"No, Cooper! Wait!\" cried Tim as Cooper came barreling toward the gate. Miraculously, Cooper seemed to hear him and slowed down.\n\nTim sighed with relief. \"We need to wait for Dave before we open the \u2013\"\n\nThe iron gate's hinges screamed as Cooper leaned against it to catch his breath.\n\n\"Fuck,\" said Tim.\n\nTim's concerns were justified almost immediately as the three hell hounds barked like a stadium full of crazed wolves. In the early morning darkness, Julian could see the glow of their fiery breath coming from just around the other side of the tower.\n\n\"Hurry up, Dave!\" cried Julian.\n\nDave pumped his stubby dwarf legs, moving with all the swiftness of an elderly power walker at the mall, while Tim and Cooper stood poised to slam the gate shut as soon as he made it through.\n\nThe dogs were fast as they came around the tower, but Dave was more than halfway there. It was going to be close.\n\nJulian gripped two bars and pressed his face between them. \"He's going to make it.\"\n\n\"I don't think he is, sir,\" said Ravenus, who had just flapped down to perch atop the fence.\n\n\"I've got to agree with Ravenus on this one,\" said Tim. \"Dave's fucked.\"\n\nAs the painful-to-watch race continued, it became clear that Ravenus and Tim's objective assessments were going to prevail over Julian's wishful thinking.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Tim. \"Where the hell are our weapons?\"\n\nJulian had seen them less than an hour ago. \"In the wagon.\"\n\nCooper gripped the gate's bars with both hands. \"I'm really angry!\" With the added Strength bonus from his Barbarian Rage, he ripped the gate off its hinges, held it over his head, and flipped it around so that the pointy tips at the top of the bars were aimed down at the approaching hounds.\n\nJulian supposed he'd better do something as well. He was thinking about whether a Magic Missile or a Mount spell would be more conducive to keeping him and his friends alive when something strange happened.\n\nThe hell hounds caught up to Dave, but then ran past him. Tim and Cooper watched confusedly as the manically barking hounds ran through the opening in the fence and carried on down the road.\n\nHaving run forty yards, Dave was breathing like he'd just been held underwater for two minutes.\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Count Fabulazzo from the other side of the tower where the dogs had just come from. \"Come back here! Yippy! Pippy! Skip\u2013\" He stopped when he saw them, his eyes burning with angry frustration. \"What have you done to my gate?\"\n\nCooper's Barbarian Rage flowed out through his anus in a long wet fart as his muscles deflated back down to their normal size. He set the gate down. \"That was a misunderstanding.\"\n\nThe count stomped toward them with his fists full of fire once again. \"Have you any idea what you've done?\"\n\nBehind him, an invisible floating disc carried a pile of chains and a bundle of purple cloth.\n\n\"I'm very sorry,\" said Julian. \"We didn't want to bother you while you were doing laundry, so we thought we'd let ourselves \u2013\"\n\n\"Laundry? Why would I be doing laundry when my mother's spirit has just been stolen?\"\n\nJulian was in an awkward spot. His choices boiled down to admitting that his reasoning involved Count Fabulazzo being batshit insane or making himself seem catastrophically stupid. He decided to go with the latter.\n\n\"I saw the cloth, and just assumed...\"\n\n\"These are Butkus's bed sheets. I took them so that the hounds could get a good sniff and track down that dirty thieving scoundrel!\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Julian. \"Well done then. It looks like they're hot on his trail.\"\n\n\"And precious little good that does me!\" Count Fabulazzo grabbed a fistful of chain from the invisible disc. \"I hadn't attached their leashes yet.\"\n\n\"Holy shit!\" said Tim. \"Were you going to ride the disc while the dogs pulled you?\"\n\nCount Fabulazzo scowled down at Tim. \"That was the plan.\"\n\n\"That would have been epic.\"\n\n\"Now my mother is gone. My sweet pups are gone. I fear I may never get that smell out of my tower. May the gods damn the day I invited you cretins into my home.\"\n\nJulian tried to think of a use for his Diplomacy skill that would allow them to leave as quickly as possible.\n\n\"We don't want to cause you any more trouble,\" said Dave. \"So I guess we'll be going now.\" He hadn't allotted any skill points to Diplomacy, and it showed.\n\nThe flames surrounding Count Fabulazzo's fists intensified. \"The only place you're going is to the kennels. Once I acquire some new hell hounds, I'll use you to train them.\"\n\nCooper frowned. \"None of us have any ranks in Animal Handling.\"\n\nDave frowned harder. \"I don't think that's what he has in mind.\"\n\n\"I have an alternative suggestion,\" said Julian.\n\nCount Fabulazzo raised his eyebrows, indicating that he was willing to hear it.\n\n\"What if we made this right? What if we agreed to get your amulet back for you?\" Cooper, Dave, and Tim nodded enthusiastically at the suggestion.\n\n\"And what assurances do I have that you won't simply flee once I let you go?\"\n\nJulian thought for a moment. \"Is there some magical way you could compel us? I seem to remember reading about a higher level spell that \u2013\"\n\n\"A Geas!\" cried Count Fabulazzo.\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\" said Cooper.\n\n\"Is that how it's really pronounced?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Shit,\" muttered Tim, no doubt hoping Julian was going to convince the count to trust them, and then immediately betray his trust.\n\nCount Fabulazzo reached into one of the pockets lining the inside of his robe and said, \"Geas.\" He pulled out a rolled up piece of paper much bigger than what the pocket should have allowed for. \"It's been so long since I've placed a Geas on someone.\"\n\n\"That's some very peculiar phrasing.\" Cooper belched out some anxiety. \"One of those cultists might have been up for it if you'd given them a chance.\"\n\nThe count opened the scroll and read an incantation that was above Julian's arcane understanding. After he was done, he rolled the paper back up and addressed Julian and his friends. \"You are hereby compelled to return the amulet containing my mother's spirit to me.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Julian. \"I guess we'll get started on \u2013\"\n\n\"In addition,\" said the count. \"You will return my three hell hounds.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Tim expressed Julian's thoughts aloud.\n\n\"Upon completing this quest, you will be free.\"\n\nCooper scratched his ass nervously. \"So, is that in addition to you placing your gay ass upon us? Or do we get to choose?\"\n\nCount Fabulazzo considered Cooper's question, but apparently considered it too stupid to address. \"Should you voluntarily abandon the quest given to you, your bodies and minds will deteriorate every day until there's nothing left of you but quivering imbecilic mounds of flesh.\"\n\nThe count's words were harsh, but Julian appreciated that his description of what they would become was lower than his current assessment of what they were.\n\nParting ways with someone who was on the fence about straight up murdering them all was never easy. There were no right words. Simply turning around and walking away, while awkward, was usually the best course of action.\n\nJulian led his friends through the gate and onto the road, grateful to not be incinerated. When they had walked for about twenty minutes, Julian sent Ravenus ahead to scout for Butkus's wagon and the hell hounds, but instructed him not to interfere.\n\n\"Should we ride?\" asked Dave. Julian suspected his reason for asking had more to do with laziness than enthusiasm for the quest.\n\n\"Not unless you know how we're going to capture three hell hounds once we get there. We can rush things along once we have a plan.\"\n\n\"I've been thinking about that. He didn't say we had to bring the dogs back alive. How does this sound? Tim sets a snare. Julian summons a horse to use as bait. When one of them gets pulled up into the air, we'll beat it to death before it can breathe fire on the rope. Rinse and repeat.\"\n\nJulian glared at Dave. \"Every part of that plan sounds horrible. Those are somebody's pets.\"\n\n\"Those are fire breathing monsters,\" said Dave. \"They've been raised from pups for the sole purpose of murdering innocent people who annoy that psychopath.\"\n\n\"And that psychopath who murders people who annoy him, that's the guy you want to get into a game of semantics with?\" Julian lowered his voice and continued with his best Dave impression. \"Sorry we shat in your mom's urn, sir. Here, we also killed your dogs.\"\n\n\"None of this matters,\" said Tim. \"I can't set up a snare without a rope, and all of our shit is in the wagon.\"\n\nThey spent close to an hour arguing over how best to subdue the hell hounds without actually killing them, but the fire breathing part nixed most of their proposed plans.\n\n\"I've spotted the wagon, sir,\" said Ravenus as he landed on the branch of a nearby tree. \"It took a bit of effort as it seems to have rolled off the road, and was difficult to spot from the air.\"\n\nJulian nodded impatiently. \"Where is it?\"\n\n\"Just around that bend, sir.\"\n\nTim took the lead, but the benefit of his Stealth was dampened by his insistence that Cooper stay at least forty feet behind him in case any hell hounds jumped out of the woods.\n\nThe wagon was just as Ravenus had reported. The horses were gone, and so was Butkus.\n\n\"Our shit's still here,\" said Tim from the back of the wagon. He rummaged through their belongings and grabbed a handful of crossbow bolts. \"Except my crossbow is missing.\"\n\n\"Here it is under the wagon,\" said Julian. He picked up the crossbow and handed it to Tim, who looked very relieved to have it.\n\nDave looked nervously around at their surroundings. \"Are there any amulets in there?\"\n\nTim gave the wagon a brief scan as he loaded a bolt into his crossbow. \"None that I can see.\"\n\nJulian scanned the ground for hoof prints and thought aloud. \"So Butkus hears the hounds approaching, unhitches the horses, and rides off into the woods.\"\n\n\"Why would he unhitch both of the horses?\" asked Dave.\n\nJulian glared at him. As long as it made no difference to their situation, Julian wanted to think of a scenario in which the horses might have lived the full duration of the spell. \"To create a diversion. Hopefully get one or two of the hell hounds off his ass. Why don't you see if you can find some kind of clue as to which way Butkus went?\"\n\n\"There's also the possibility that both horses got mauled to death by hell hounds,\" said Cooper, squatting behind some undergrowth on the other side of the road.\n\n\"Of course that's a possibility,\" said Julian. \"But not necessarily a conclusion we have to jump to without any evidence.\"\n\n\"Does a bunch of blood splattered all over the place count as evidence?\"\n\nJulian rushed to the road. \"Yes!\" He stopped just short of peering into the bushes where Cooper was taking a dump.\n\n\"Dude, could you give me a second?\"\n\n\"Why are you shitting in the evidence?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Because of that fucking elk meat.\"\n\n\"Guys!\" cried Tim from inside the wagon. \"I think I found some more evidence.\"\n\nGlowing red eyes peered out from the trees on the other side of the road, accompanied by a low menacing growl. As the single hell hound limped into view, snarling at Tim, Julian spotted a bolt sticking out from the base of its neck.\n\n\"Tim,\" Julian whispered as calmly as he could. \"Put the crossbow down.\"\n\n\"No fucking way,\" Tim whispered back considerably less calmly. \"Count Fabulazzo can go fuck himself.\" He raised his voice, addressing the dog. \"You stay back!\"\n\nThe hell hound's growls turned into barks as tiny flames spurted out from its nostrils.\n\nRecognizing the futility of trying to get either one of them to back down, Julian saw no other option than to blow one of his spells.\n\n\"Rock-a-bye, and good night...\" That was all it took for such a ferocious beast to curl up on the ground in a peaceful slumber. Poor little pooch must have been exhausted.\n\nTim sighed. \"Nice job.\" He took a coil of rope out of his pack, hopped down from the back of the wagon, and started binding the hound's feet together.\n\n\"Dave,\" said Julian. \"You should get over here and heal it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked Dave. \"It's alive enough. Why would I want to waste a Heal spell on a hell hound when there are two more out there who could still burn and eat us? Count Fabulazzo can't hold us accountable for Butkus shooting his dog.\"\n\nJulian folded his arms and raised his eyebrows at Dave. \"Are you sure about that?\"\n\nDave frowned. \"Maybe you're right.\" He looked at Tim. \"You sure those knots are going to hold him?\"\n\nTim nodded.\n\nDave placed one hand on the hound's shoulder and gripped the bolt with the other. \"One, two...\" He yanked the bolt out.\n\nThe hell hound yelped and bit Dave hard on his leopard fur covered forearm. It's neck was more flexible than any of them had anticipated.\n\n\"FUCK!\" cried Dave. \"It burns!\"\n\nTim scrambled backward and reached for his crossbow in the wagon. Cooper, having finished his dump, took Tim's place near the furious hell hound and punched it in the head, eliciting a sharper cry from Dave, who still had the dog's teeth in his arm, but knocking the beast out cold.\n\nThe pattern of tooth marks on Dave's arm surrounded a blackened and blistered patch of skin and scorched leopard fur.\n\n\"Son of a bitch,\" said Dave through clenched teeth. He touched a fingertip to his arm just below the wound. \"I heal me.\" He let out a long relieved groan as the burn faded, the punctures closed up, and the fur grew back.\n\n\"Feel better?\" asked Julian.\n\nDave frowned. \"Yeah, but I was hoping that might have gotten rid of the fur.\"\n\n\"Good. Now the dog.\"\n\n\"Are you fucking kidding me?\" cried Dave. \"Did you not just see what that thing did to me?\"\n\n\"That doesn't change our situation. We don't want to piss off Count Fabulazzo any more than we already have.\"\n\nDave's face shook with anger and frustration. \"Fine.\" He crawled as far back away from the hound as he could and still be within stretching distance from its head. Barely touching the tip of one of the dog's ears, he said his incantation. \"I heal thee.\"\n\nThe hound groaned happily. It opened its eyes and licked Dave's hand.\n\nDave jerked his hand back. \"Shit! That still burns.\"\n\nAs the hole in the dog's shoulder closed over with fresh skin, a long and gentle fart flowed out from its ass. Gentle, that is, except for the fact that it was on fire. Julian smiled at Dave. \"Speaking of shit that still burns.\"\n\n\"Whoa,\" said Cooper. \"I could seriously watch that all day.\"\n\nAs if to reward them for healing its wound, the dog followed through with a nice long magma turd. Julian and his friends stared in awe.\n\nBecause the hound's legs were tied and it couldn't stand up, the turd lacked the conical swirl of the first one they'd witnessed, but Julian noticed another, arguably less superficial difference as well. This dog turd had something in it. A glint of gold, it looked like, but too small to be a coin.\n\n\"As much as I hate to admit it,\" said Tim. \"I could watch this all day as well. But if we don't want to start withering away, we should try to find Butkus before his trail gets too cold.\"\n\nJulian swallowed. \"I think I just found him.\" Just as he recognized the shape of a tooth, it began to melt into an amorphous golden blob, seeping between the cracks of the dog turd's blackening outer shell. He had little hope left that his horses had reached the end of their spell durations.\n\n\"I've got some bad news and some worse news,\" said Julian.\n\n\"What's the worse news?\" asked Tim.\n\n\"That way doesn't work. If I tell you the worse news first, it kind of spills the beans on the bad news.\"\n\n\"I'm way too sober for this shit. Just say what you've got to say.\"\n\n\"Butkus is dead.\"\n\nTim frowned thoughtfully. \"I'm feeling pretty indifferent to that news. Hit us with the worse.\"\n\n\"I think one of the hell hounds may have eaten the amulet.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" said Tim. \"That's fantastic news!\"\n\n\"How do you figure?\"\n\n\"The amulet has been destroyed. The hounds fucked Fabulazzo's Geas!\"\n\nCooper paused in the scratching of his balls. \"When did that happen? Why didn't you wake me up?\"\n\n\"We still have to get the hounds back to him.\" said Dave.\n\n\"You think he's up for Round 2 this soon?\" Cooper rubbed his ass cheeks with both hands. \"I don't know if I'd be able to even sit down for at least a week.\"\n\nThe time it would have taken to explain to Cooper what Geas meant, and more importantly what it didn't mean, was time better spent getting rid of the Geas.\n\nJulian asked the question he already knew the obviously horrible answer to. \"How should we go about rounding up the other two \u2013 Wait a second...\" He sniffed the air. \"Do you guys smell something?\"\n\nTim and Dave sniffed. \"Nothing unusual.\"\n\nCooper leaned over and put his hands on his knees. \"You're about to. I'm never going to look at another goddamn elk again.\"\n\n\"That's not what I'm talking about,\" said Julian. \"I think I smell smoke.\" He ran a few steps into the woods, where the rainwater flowing down the mountain had swept fallen leaves into wavy patterns on the ground, leaving them piled high against some of the larger tree trunks. Out of one such pile of leaves, Julian spotted a small ribbon of white smoke rising.\n\n\"Dude, wait up!\" called Cooper as he stomped through the woods behind Julian.\n\nThe leaf pile was damp, but glowing orange flickers within it suggested that a big blaze wasn't far off.\n\n\"Those dogs are going to set this whole forest on fire if we don't catch them soon,\" said Julian as he scattered the leaves with his quarterstaff. Cooper stomped out the scattered clusters of burning leaves.\n\nAt the bottom of the pile, Julian found exactly what he'd been expecting to find, but not all that he was hoping for. The smoldering dog turd was studded with steel buttons from Butkus's jacket, but there was no sign of the amulet. Julian didn't share Tim's confidence that the amulet had been destroyed. Magic powerful enough to contain a person's soul would not easily succumb to even the strongest of digestive tracts.\n\nA low growl took Julian's attention away from the dog turd. He turned around.\n\nFortunately, the hell hound wasn't growling at him. It was tearing scorching claw marks into the trunk of a tree and barking up at something.\n\n\"Help me!\" cried a man's voice from higher up in the tree. A chubby, purple-robed man was hanging from a branch by his arms and legs, neither of which seemed to have enough muscle to hold his fat body up there for long. \"I beg you, please help me! Save me from this wretched creature of the Abyss! In the name of Trog'bahar, I implore you to \u2013 WHA\u2013!\" His situation sorted itself out when he fell out of the tree and flattened the hell hound between the ground and his own girth.\n\n\"Jesus Christ,\" said Cooper. \"Are you okay, dude?\"\n\n\"I am!\" cried the fat cultist as he stood up and looked down at the unconscious dog embedded in the ground. \"Trog'bahar has heard my prayer and spared my life!\"\n\nJulian frowned. \"That's one possible explanation for what just happened.\"\n\nCooper scooped up the dog and held its chest to his ear. \"I think it's still alive.\"\n\nThe fat man clapped his hands joyfully. \"Trog'bahar is a merciful god!\"\n\n\"Who are you?\" asked Julian. \"What are you doing out here in the woods by yourself?\"\n\n\"My name is Sinas. My people roam the wilderness spreading the Good News of Trog'bahar!\"\n\nCooper scrunched up his nostrils. \"Your name is Sinus? Like the snot cavity in your face?\"\n\n\"Come on, Cooper,\" said Julian. \"Let's get back to the others before this dog wakes up.\"\n\n\"Others?\" said Sinas. \"Are you all familiar with the teachings of Trog'bahar?\"\n\nJulian started walking. \"We're not interested, thank you.\"\n\n\"How does eternal salvation not interest you, wicked sinners?\" Sinas was following them.\n\n\"Now you're just being an asshole,\" said Cooper, looking grimly ahead as he walked more briskly than usual. He looked like he was considering shaking the dog awake and setting him loose on this guy.\n\n\"I meant no insult to you, friend in unworthiness. I myself aspire to one day be worthy to be a parasite inside of a hookworm in Trog'bahar's stool. And yet you have witnessed with your own eyes the divine mercy he has shown unto me! What say you to that?\"\n\nCooper belched long and loud. \"I don't know. It's good to have goals?\"\n\n\"Take heart, new friends, for you too may bask in Trog'bahar's glorious light.\"\n\n\"You know who might want to bask in Troglabar's stool?\" said Cooper. \"Our friend Dave. He's a cleric.\"\n\nJulian smiled to himself. What a dick move to pull on poor unsuspecting Dave.\n\n\"Is that so?\" asked Sinas enthusiastically. \"Which god does he serve?\"\n\n\"I don't think he serves any,\" said Julian. He felt a little bad about participating in this, but the real damage had already been done.\n\n\"Excellent! Where is this Dave of whom you speak?\"\n\n\"Right up there.\" Cooper shifted the hell hound's weight on his shoulder and raised his arm to wave. \"Hey Dave!\"\n\nDave waved back hesitantly, no doubt put off by Cooper's uncharacteristic friendliness toward him.\n\nSinas ran ahead and grabbed a very surprised Dave by the shoulders. \"Praise be this day, unworthy maggot!\"\n\n\"W-W-What?\"\n\n\"You got another hound,\" said Tim. \"Nice work. Who the fuck is this guy?\"\n\nCooper laid the unconscious dog in front of Tim, who got to work binding its legs together.\n\nJulian dug through his bag in the back of the wagon looking for his nearly empty waterskin. \"Some guy we met in the woods. He's one of those Trog'bahar cultists that Fabulazzo likes to murder and steal clothes from.\" He gulped back what remained of his water, hoping that the count would allow him to refill it before they left. This hope, of course, was conditional on the count not deciding to murder them all.\n\n\"And that's when I was saved!\" said Sinas, wrapping up a tale which, if Dave's face was a reliable metric, had been as boring as a non-flaming pile of dog shit.\n\nDave sighed. \"Fascinating.\" He caught Julian's slight smile. \"Hey, maybe it's about time we lure in that last hell hound.\"\n\nJulian supposed he deserved a bit of retaliatory dickishness from Dave, but an innocent magical horse didn't deserve it. But with only one hell hound left to subdue, and five people to cover it, he wouldn't necessarily be setting this horse up for instantaneous slaughter.\n\n\"Okay,\" said Julian. He pointed at the ground. \"I'm going to summon a horse here. We don't know which way the hell hound is going to be coming from, so I need everyone to \u2013\"\n\n\"Excuse me, sir,\" Ravenus called from a branch above Julian's head.\n\nJulian looked up. \"Yes, Ravenus?\"\n\n\"If it provides any tactical help, I believe the hound will approach from that direction.\" He nodded toward the rising sun.\n\n\"What makes you think that?\"\n\n\"Because it's over there right now.\"\n\nTim shook his head. \"Useless fucking bird.\"\n\nJulian glared down at him. \"Watch it!\"\n\n\"I'm using American English. He can't understand me.\"\n\n\"Something appears to be amiss with it, sir,\" said Ravenus.\n\n\"Like what?\" said Julian. \"Is it injured? Does it have arrows sticking out of it?\"\n\n\"I don't believe so, sir. It appears to be dragging its ass.\"\n\n\"Metaphorically? Like it's procrastinating or something?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Quite literally.\"\n\nJulian looked at Dave and Sinas. \"You two stay here and mind the hounds. We'll go check out this last one.\"\n\n\"What if they wake up?\" asked Dave.\n\nSinas slapped Dave on the back. \"Fear not, unbeliever. Stay and pray with me. Trog'bahar's mercy shall keep these soulless hell-beasts in their unholy slumber!\"\n\nDave's eyes begged not to be left alone with Sinas.\n\n\"If they wake up, hit them with your mace. But remember to specify that you want to administer subdual damage.\" Julian started walking east, feeling satisfied.\n\n\"There it is,\" said Tim. Ravenus wasn't wrong. The hell hound scooted itself forward with its front legs, dragging its ass along the leaves.\n\nJulian motioned for them to fan out, then move in on the dog from different directions. Tim and Cooper approached from its flanks, while Julian moved cautiously, but directly, toward it head on.\n\nIt didn't take long for the hound to spot Julian. But instead of a growl, snarl, or bark. It let out a tiny flaming whimper.\n\n\"What's wrong, little guy?\" asked Julian, feeling bad about the fact that he was about to clobber it over the head with his quarterstaff.\n\n\"The amulet is stuck in its ass,\" said Tim, approaching from the left. \"I can see the chain dragging behind it.\"\n\n\"Should we...\" Julian cringed at what he was about to suggest. \"Should we just give it a good yank?\"\n\nTim flinched like a vampire accidentally pulling up a window shade in the morning. \"Fuck no! Not before that dog and I are both properly shitfaced.\"\n\n\"I've got a better idea,\" said Cooper.\n\n\"Statistically speaking, the chances of that are...\" Tim smiled. \"You know what? My curiosity is piqued. I really want to hear this great idea of yours.\"\n\nCooper reached down the front of his loincloth.\n\nTim turned around. \"But I don't want to see it.\"\n\nThankfully, when Cooper removed his hand, he wasn't holding his dick. Instead, he had four or five slices of elk meat.\n\n\"Did you steal that?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"It's not stealing. He offered it to us. I thought we might get hungry on the ride back home.\"\n\nTim grimaced. \"We? Who the fuck wants to eat elk meat that's been rubbing against your junk all morning?\"\n\nCooper gave Tim the finger. \"There's a pouch sewn into the front of my loincloth.\"\n\nThat was only marginally less gross, considering the state of Cooper's loincloth, but Julian didn't see any need to bring that up right now.\n\nCooper approached the hell hound warily. When it made no move to bite or breathe fire on him, he set the meat down in front of it.\n\nTim gagged as the dog greedily gobbled up Cooper's ballsweat-marinated offering.\n\nWhen Cooper gently scooped up the dog in his arms, it groaned in obvious discomfort, but still made no move to attack him.\n\n\"If this elk meat treats him like it treated me, that amulet won't be stuck for long.\"\n\nTim nodded appreciatively. \"As disgusting as that is, it wasn't actually a bad idea.\"\n\nWhen they got back to the road, Dave was sitting on the back of the wagon, engaged in his conversation with Sinas.\n\n\"My testicles hung like purple grapefruits, and I knew then that I had sinned in the eyes of Trog'bahar.\"\n\n\"Or maybe you should have washed your hands after you handled that raw meat. How do your giant infected balls prove the existence of \u2013\" Dave made eye contact with Julian. \"Oh thank fuck!\" He hopped down off the wagon and waddled toward them, pausing when he got close to Cooper. \"Cooper, that one's still awake!\"\n\n\"He's fine,\" said Cooper. \"Just having some gastrointestinal issues.\"\n\nJulian looked down at Tim. \"We should still tie him up.\"\n\nTim stepped back and raised his hands. \"I'm not tying shit until that thing's asleep.\"\n\n\"Fine. Cooper, turn this way so I can put a Sleep spell on him.\"\n\nCooper turned toward Julian, smacking Dave in the face with the dog's tail. \"Hey, I feel a rumble in his belly. Maybe it's working.\"\n\n\"Maybe what's working?\" asked Dave.\n\nDave's answer came in the form of a shit-covered amulet launched out of the hound's ass and into his forehead. That was enough to stun him, but the literally explosive diarrhea splatter that followed brought him back.\n\n\"Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUCK!\" cried Dave. \"It burns!\"\n\n\"Rejoice!\" said Sinas. \"For you have been blessed by Trog'bahar!\"\n\nBlinded by magma shit, Dave turned toward Sinas's voice and rammed his face straight into Sinas's gut, grabbing his robe by the sides to keep the pressure on.\n\nSinas hugged Dave in return. \"Yes! We are brothers in the grace of Trog'bahar.\"\n\nWhen the shit fire on Dave's face had been extinguished, he stepped back and touched himself on the temple. \"I heal me.\"\n\nDave's burns healed immediately, but the shit remained.\n\nSinas clapped his hands over his mouth. \"A miracle! Truly you are a favored son of Trog'bahar!\"\n\n\"What can I say?\" said Dave. \"You're a hell of an evangelist. Thank you for showing me his holy light.\"\n\nTim nudged Julian on the leg and whispered, \"Is Dave full of shit right now?\"\n\nJulian shrugged, wondering the exact same thing.\n\nDave took Sinas's shaking hand. \"Trog'bahar's healing powers are needed elsewhere. But alas, I must first deliver this wagon, these hounds, and this holy amulet to the tower at the top of this mountain.\"\n\nSinas's eyes widened. \"The tower of Count Fabulazzo!\"\n\n\"That's the one.\"\n\nJulian suddenly realized what was going on. \"Dave, no!\"\n\n\"I was traveling there when your friends discovered me,\" said Sinas.\n\nDave nodded. \"I thought you might have been. It seems our meeting was preordained.\"\n\n\"It has long been a goal of the Servants of Trog'bahar to convert him. Allow me to shoulder your burden brother. Go spread Trog'bahar's healing light, and I shall convert the heathen wizard!\"\n\nJulian glared at Dave, then looked at Sinas. \"Listen to me. If you go to that tower, the count is going to murder you and feed you to these dogs.\"\n\nSinas touched Julian's face gently and gazed sympathetically into his eyes. \"Poor ignorant child. You have seen Trog'bahar protect me, and yet you are still blind to his truth.\"\n\n\"You're making it really difficult for me to continue to try to talk you out of this.\"\n\n\"Your will is no match for the will of Trog'bahar.\"\n\n\"He's a grown-ass man,\" said Tim. \"He can make his own decisions.\"\n\nJulian glared down at Tim. \"You too? You really want to send this guy to his death so that we don't have to make another trip up the mountain?\"\n\nTim grabbed Julian's serape, led him a few steps away, then pulled him down to his level. \"Someone has to turn up at Fabulazzo's place and hand over his mother's soul caked in dog shit. Unless we tie that fat fucker up and keep him locked in the cellar at the Whore's Head Inn for the rest of his miserable life, he's going to go to that tower with or without your permission.\"\n\n\"Speak your poisonous words aloud, cowardly cretins,\" Sinas called out. \"Your weak-minded lies matter not to Trog'bahar.\"\n\nJulian nodded. \"You know what? Fuck it. Here, I'll even throw in some horses.\"\n\nWhen the hell hounds were bound and the horses were hitched, Sinas rode off happily toward his certain death.\n\n\"Now that that's all over,\" said Tim. \"Would anyone mind telling me what the fuck happened last night?\"\n\nJulian looked at Dave and Cooper. They nodded.\n\n\"You got high on unicorn piss and spent the whole night masturbating.\"\n\n\"Unicorn piss?\" Tim looked appropriately shocked. \"Are you serious?\"\n\nJulian, Dave, and Cooper nodded.\n\nTim pumped a fist. \"I fucking called that shit!\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "Tossing the Salaad", "text": "Thank you for your amazing generosity.\n\n\"You shouldn't have gone off by yourself like that,\" said Dave. \"You're lucky to be alive.\"\n\nTim gulped back a swig of stonepiss from his flask, but it still wasn't enough to make Dave shut up. \"I'm alive because I was alone. You guys would have blown my cover.\"\n\nTim's high Dexterity score, along with all the ranks he'd invested in the Move Silently skill, didn't count for shit when he had three noisy assholes and a talking bird tagging along.\n\n\"We could have trailed behind you,\" said Julian. \"Far enough back not to be heard, but close enough to move in if you got into trouble. Ravenus could have followed you and relayed your position back to us.\"\n\n\"I can be very discreet,\" said Ravenus. His shrill British accent was about as discreet as an ice pick in the ear.\n\nTim looked doubtfully up at Julian's familiar, perched on the top of Julian's quarterstaff. \"That's all I need. Ringo the Bird blabbering in my ear while I'm trying to remain unseen. And if I did get into any trouble, I could all but guarantee that he'd be off bumping cloacas with a dire finch or some shit.\"\n\nCooper let loose a fart which sent normal-sized finches scattering from the nearby trees. \"Jesus, that feels better.\"\n\n\"That's exactly the sort of shit I'm talking about,\" said Tim. Cooper's ass cloud assaulted his eyes and nose the way Ravenus's voice had done his ears. \"If you guys had been with me, I never would have been able to follow Koestner the Healer and find his secret crop.\"\n\nDave looked back over his shoulder. \"Maybe that would've been for the best. Ripping off a cleric doesn't sound very wise to me.\"\n\n\"He's not a cleric. He's a healer. I don't think he has any divine magic, just a bunch of ranks in the Heal skill. And he knows his way around herbs and shit.\"\n\n\"So it's about as dangerous as ripping off a pot farmer back home.\" Dave sighed with sarcastic relief. \"I feel a lot better now.\"\n\nTim brushed some branches out of his face and continued his uphill journey through the forest. \"This isn't some old assault rifle toting hippy. He's just some boring asshole I met in a bar who couldn't stop droning on about his job. I could have been an asshole about it and told him to fuck off, but instead I chose to be a decent human being and feign interest in what he had to say.\"\n\nDave huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with the rest of them. Tim suspected Dave's short dwarf legs were a large part of his motives for bitching.\n\n\"Are you seriously trying to tell me that using your Gather Information skill to trick a guy into helping you rip him off makes you a decent human being?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Tim. \"What I'm seriously trying to tell you is shut the fuck up.\"\n\nJulian and Cooper shared a chuckle, and Tim felt better that at least they were starting to lighten up a little bit.\n\n\"And besides,\" Tim continued. \"we're not ripping anyone off. This isn't his property. He's not farming belladonna. He just found a spot where it happens to be thriving in the wild, and I followed him to it.\"\n\n\"I guess it doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way,\" said Julian. \"We were just worried about you.\"\n\n\"It was a goddamn week ago! Let's move on with our lives, huh?\"\n\n\"What, exactly, is farming?\" asked Cooper, emphasizing the word with air quotes. \"And who's this Bella Donna chick?\"\n\n\"Farming is farming,\" said Tim. \"And belladonna is a plant.\"\n\nCooper frowned thoughtfully. \"A plant that you put your dick in?\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, Cooper! I meant farming in the most literal, non-euphemistic terms possible. And you most certainly do not want your dick anywhere near this shit. It's extremely toxic.\"\n\n\"So what do we want with it?\" asked Julian.\n\nTim smiled. Finally someone was asking an intelligent question. \"It also goes by the name Wolfsbane.\"\n\nJulian wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. \"Whew. Finally all of our wolf-related problems will be behind us.\" This elicited a chuckle from Dave and Cooper.\n\n\"You guys are a bunch of dumb assholes,\" said Tim. \"Wolfsbane is a last line of defense against contracting lycanthropy.\"\n\n\"That's the disease that turns you into a werewolf?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Or a werebear or weretiger or wererat. There's a bunch of were-creatures in this game. People will pay a fortune to not risk waking up and discovering they've murdered and eaten their entire family.\"\n\n\"What a decent human being,\" said Dave. \"So we're going to extort money out of sick people? That's your plan?\"\n\n\"Of course not. We have neither an established healing practice, nor the proper networking arrangements in place. We're going to sell it to established healers in Cardinia for a fair market price. They can extort money out of sick people.\" Tim took another sip from his flask and nearly choked on the stonepiss when he spotted a cluster of the purple berries in the nearby underbrush.\n\n\"Here it is!\" He spread his arms out to keep everyone from coming in contact with the plant, then produced four empty sacks and four sets of lambskin gloves from his backpack. He slipped on the smallest set of gloves, then carefully tore sprigs of the belladonna plant off the main stalk and put them in his sack.\n\n\"Awesome,\" said Dave. \"Can we go home now?\"\n\n\"Fuck no!\" Tim passed out the other sacks and gloves. \"This is just an outlier. That means we're getting close. Wait until you see how much of this shit is growing on top of the cliff.\"\n\nJulian cleared his throat. \"Cliff? You didn't mention anything about a cliff.\"\n\n\"Because it wasn't worth mentioning. We don't have to go near the edge.\"\n\n\"We just don't have a really good track record with potential dangers which most people could easily avoid with a modicum of common sense.\"\n\n\"If you don't want to come along, then don't.\" Tim continued up the gradually inclining forest floor. And of course, the rest of them followed.\n\nBelladonna plants grew more and more frequently among the trees, but Tim didn't stop to pick any more. He'd only stopped at that first plant for a demonstration. There was no point in wasting time trying to grab every sprig in the forest when there was plenty more than their bags could hold waiting for them in the clearing just before the land dropped off.\n\nAn hour later, they walked out of the forest and into the clearing. The healthy green leaves and purple berries of the belladonna plants showed off their colors in the beautiful afternoon sunlight, giving off a bitter scent similar to unripened tomatoes. Thoughts of the money they were going to make warmed Tim's tiny halfling soul.\n\n\"What did I tell you?\" said Tim. \"Would you look at all of this shit?\"\n\nJulian nodded. \"It's really very pretty.\"\n\n\"Hell yeah it is. Now come on and help me tear it all down.\"\n\nBeyond the sea of belladonna plants, eagles soared, swooped, and dove into the canyon.\n\n\"Sir,\" said Ravenus, perched atop Julian's quarterstaff, staring longingly at the eagles.\n\nJulian smiled. \"Let me guess. You want to fly like an eagle?\"\n\n\"Among them, anyway. Just for a bit.\"\n\n\"Go ahead. Let your spirit carry you.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir?\"\n\n\"Just don't fly too far away,\" said Julian. As Ravenus was getting ready to launch himself into the air, he added, \"And don't let too much time slip slip slip into the future.\"\n\n\"Are you feeling okay, sir?\"\n\nJulian sighed, seeming unfairly disappointed that his bird friend from a fantasy world didn't get his terrible Steve Miller references. \"Just go.\"\n\nWhile Ravenus flew off in search of sweet eagle cloaca action, Tim and the others worked for hours, filling their sacks with belladonna sprigs and putting a fairly large dent in the supply. Julian raised questions about damaging the local ecosystem by over-harvesting, and Dave raised similar questions about what kind of effects dumping so much product on the market at once might have on prices.\n\nTim gave a shit about neither of these issues. He wasn't planning to do this for a living. If they didn't tank the price of belladonna, he might consider coming back and picking the rest, or he might not. This was harder work than he'd imagined. He'd be satisfied letting this be a one-time cash grab.\n\n\"Can we go back now?\" asked Cooper. \"I don't feel so hot.\" He rubbed his belly, then groaned as the back of his loincloth danced in the wind of a long and steady fart.\n\nTim noticed a spot of purple near Cooper's lips. He threw a cluster of berries, as that was what he happened to have in his hand, at Cooper's head. \"Have you been eating the berries?\"\n\n\"I was hungry.\"\n\n\"Did I not explicitly tell you that those are poisonous?\"\n\n\"I only had a few,\" said Cooper. \"You said people take this to keep from turning into werewolves.\"\n\nTim balled up his fists in frustration. \"Are you worried about turning into a fucking werewolf?\"\n\n\"No, but if it doesn't kill them, right? I've got a pretty high Constitution score.\"\n\n\"But you've got shit for Intelligence,\" said Tim. \"Those berries need to be prepared and diluted by alchemists. Jesus Christ, you're lucky to be alive. Julian, would you mind summoning some horses. We've got to get Cooper to a cleric before he dies of stupidity.\"\n\n\"What about Dave?\" said Julian.\n\n\"Dave sucks.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" said Dave.\n\n\"No offense. But if I remember correctly, Neutralize Poison is a Level 4 clerical spell. Is it not?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but \u2013\"\n\n\"Can you cast Level 4 spells?\" asked Tim, growing impatient.\n\n\"No,\" admitted Dave. \"But Delay Poison is only a Level 2 spell.\"\n\nTim rolled his eyes and made a jerking-off motion. \"Tell me, Dave. Did you happen to prepare a Delay Poison spell this morning?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well there you go.\"\n\n\"I would have prepared one if I'd known we were going to be picking poisonous berries today,\" said Dave. \"Don't blame me for this. You should have said something.\"\n\n\"I'm not blaming you. I'm merely pointing out the fact that you suck. And for the record, I did say something. I said the berries are poisonous. I was ignored. And then I said that Cooper might die if we don't summon some goddamn horses. And yet here we are, precious minutes later, still completely horseless.\" Tim looked expectantly at Julian.\n\n\"Okay, okay.\" Julian pointed at the ground in front of Tim. \"Horse!\" A sturdy black horse appeared, suitable for Tim and Cooper to ride together.\n\n\"Would you mind if I rode alone?\" asked Dave. \"Riding on the back of your horse makes my ass hurt.\"\n\nJulian shrugged. \"I haven't had to use any spells today. That shouldn't be a problem. Does anyone object to me using up another Mount spell?\"\n\nCooper groaned as he lifted his foot to the stirrup. \"This sucks so much.\"\n\n\"Who gives a shit?\" Tim snapped at Julian. \"The clock is ticking. Summon however the fuck many horses you're going to summon, and let's move!\"\n\n\"We'll move faster if we ride separately.\" Julian pointed at the ground in front of Dave. \"Horse!\" A shorter, but stockier, brown horse appeared in front of Dave. Tim had to admit, he was impressed at Julian's improving ability to tailor the spell to suit their specific physical needs.\n\n\"Wait!\" cried Dave, just as Julian was about to cast his third Mount spell. \"Don't!\"\n\n\"Jesus, Dave,\" said Tim. \"Have I not mentioned that time is a factor here? Make up your goddamn mind already!\"\n\nJulian waved dismissively. \"It's really no problem. I've got some scrolls in reserve back at the Whore's Head.\"\n\n\"But I think the ground is \u2013\"\n\n\"Horse!\" said Julian. The white stallion in front of Julian was only visible for a second before Tim, his friends, and their mounts crashed through the ground. It was at least a fifteen foot drop, but fortunately, Tim and Cooper's horse absorbed most of the impact before it winked out of existence, having been crushed to death by Cooper's big half-orc ass.\n\nDave and Julian's horses, being riderless, had survived the fall. They were screaming and shaking their heads, generally being noisy assholes.\n\n\"Can you shut them up?\" Tim asked Julian, who had stood up and was brushing the dirt off his serape.\n\n\"They're startled.\" Julian looked up at the hole they'd fallen through, then at the smooth dirt walls of the large cavern they were standing in. \"What is this place?\"\n\nTim looked around. The cavern was amorphous in shape, with an opening out to the cliff face, and two tunnels leading deeper into the earth. The upper part of the opening jutted out further than the bottom, which would make this place invisible to anyone looking down from the top of the cliff.\n\n\"I think someone lives here,\" said Dave. Being a dwarf, he had knowledge of caves and tunnels and such things, but he usually took a close look at the walls before making such claims.\n\n\"How can you tell?\" asked Tim.\n\nDave nudged at a pile of dirt with his boot, revealing thick brown fur underneath. \"If I had to guess, I'd guess bear.\"\n\nQuite a lot of dirt and rocks had fallen in with them. Looking beyond the mess, Tim could see bear fur stretched out over the entire floor of the room.\n\n\"Do you think there are bears in here?\" asked Julian, sounding concerned.\n\nTim rolled his eyes. It was difficult being the smartest person in a group by such a large margin. \"It's obviously a rug made out of bear hides.\"\n\n\"Oh, right.\"\n\n\"Which means,\" Tim continued, \"that Dave is probably correct in guessing that someone lives here. And that, subsequently, means that we should get our asses out of here before that someone comes home.\"\n\nHe rummaged through his backpack until he found his grappling hook and coil of rope. He swung it around a couple of times before launching it out of the hole in the ceiling. It was a good throw, getting a decent amount of distance outside the hole, which would give the grappling hook a better chance of catching some roots and digging itself solidly into the dirt.\n\nDragging it back slowly, he found the resistance he needed after only pulling the rope about three feet.\n\n\"I'll climb out first since I'm the lightest. Once I'm out, I'll try to find something more solid to attach the rope to. Cooper, put me up on top of this horse to give me a head start.\"\n\nCooper nodded, his brow dripping with sweat. He looked like he might throw up or die at any moment. Without a burp or a fart or even a comment about Dave's mom, he lifted Tim onto the horse's back.\n\n\"Hang in there, big guy. We're going to get you some \u2013\"\n\n\"Slargarp furbalf gur blarfarg!\" shouted a creature entering the chamber from the tunnel on the left. It was a frog-like humanoid creature which Tim remembered having seen in the Monster Manual, but couldn't remember the name of. It wore a blue, expensive-looking silk robe, which Tim found clashed with its red amphibian skin. But then, with those flabby jowls, and a voice that sounded like a frog engaged in a heated argument while continuously vomiting, who could it have hoped to impress with fashion?\n\nTim crouched down on the back of the horse as slowly and non-threateningly as he could and whispered, \"Does anyone speak, um... whatever the hell language that is?\"\n\nCooper and Dave shook their heads.\n\nWhile the frog-person continued blathering on, Julian placed his bag down on the ground at his feet and searched through it, slowly and deliberately, until he pulled out a small scroll.\n\nThis creature was bigger than Cooper, and quite obviously pissed off. Tim hoped that Julian wasn't about to cast a Magic Missile at it.\n\n\"Vocali Comprehendo!\" Julian whispered as the arcane writing disappeared from the paper.\n\n\"What...\" Cooper grunted between shallow breaths. \"the fuck... was that?\"\n\n\"Comprehend Languages,\" said Julian.\n\n\"That's really the incantation?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"The incantation can be whatever I write onto the scroll. I've started trying to mix things up a bit. Give it a little fantasy flare, you know?\"\n\nTim shook his head. \"You should be embarrassed just to have even thought about doing that. Now will you please tell this thing to chill the fuck out?\"\n\nJulian frowned. \"The spell only allows me to understand what it's saying. It won't understand anything I say.\"\n\nTim should have guessed that much. \"Fine. What is it saying?\"\n\nJulian listened to the creature's ranting for a moment, then began translating. \"... invade my home... destroy my ceiling... the dirt all over the rug... dire bear skin... very expensive...\"\n\nThe frog-person was very animated as it complained about its cave d\u00e9cor, repeatedly pointing at the ceiling and floor with the four-inch-long black claws at the fingertips of his webbed hands.\n\n\"I only want to be left alone!\" Julian continued his translation, picking up more complete sentences now. \"Why are there horses in my living room? Who will clean up this mess?\"\n\nJulian took a step forward, placed a hand on his chest, and gestured back at Tim, Dave, and Cooper with the other hand. \"We will clean up this mess!\" He spoke loudly and extra clearly, like an American tourist in a foreign country.\n\n\"He's not deaf, dumbass,\" said Tim. \"Speaking louder isn't going to help. And besides, we're not cleaning shit.\"\n\nJulian glared back at him. \"I'm trying to use my Diplomacy skill.\"\n\n\"Fuck your Diplomacy skill, and fuck Froggy McFuckface. We've got somewhere to be, in case you've forgotten.\"\n\n\"And what do you think he's going to do if we just try to ditch him after we wrecked his house? With a high enough Diplomacy check, I might be able to convince him to let us go.\"\n\n\"You think you're going to do that by shouting at him in a language he doesn't under\u2013\"\n\nGWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRRP!\n\nAs big as this bastard was, nothing his size had any business croaking a noise that loud. Tim stood wide-eyed and petrified with fear."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBPT", "text": "Tim didn't need to be able to turn around to recognize Cooper's ass answering the croak. The intensity of the smell, the look on frog-guy's face, and the accompanying wet splatter told Tim that Cooper had let out more than just a legendary fart, and that he'd done so on this guy's beloved dire bear skin rug.\n\nTears glistened in the creature's bulging eyes as it stared in stunned silence at Cooper.\n\n\"We're so fucked,\" said Dave.\n\nCooper squeaked out one more after-fart. \"That was just what I needed. I'm feeling one hundred percent again.\"\n\nIn a shocking display of acrobatics for something which appeared to have a Jabba-like physique, the frog monster leaped over their heads. It landed behind Cooper, careful to plant its webbed feet on either side of the belladonna berry studded shit puddle. Eyes bulging now even more than they had been, the creature drew back its wide lips, revealing purple gums and pointed yellow teeth, which it sank into Cooper's shoulder.\n\n\"Yeeeeeeeooooooowww!\" Cooper screamed in agony, which was understandable considering the circumstances. Then he went cross-eyed and followed it up with a cry of, \"YOOOOOOOOOOO!\", which Tim found to be somewhat less conventional.\n\n\"Magic Missile!\" cried Julian, and a golden arrow of magical energy flew out of his palm, striking their host in the side of his fat rubbery neck.\n\nTim shook off the residual effects of the frog monster's stunning croak, cocked his crossbow, and looked for an opening.\n\n\"I'm really angry!\" shouted Cooper. Normally, it was just a phrase he used to trigger his Barbarian Rage, but his tone suggested this time it was also a genuine statement of his current feelings. His muscles inflated until he was as big as his assailant. He reached back and grabbed the frog monster's head with both hands, pulled him over his shoulder, and body slammed him right into his shit puddle.\n\nTim now had the opening he'd been looking for. He pulled the trigger on his crossbow, planting a bolt in the frog monster's belly and adding injury to insult.\n\nDave came down hard with his mace, but the frog monster rolled out of the way. He returned the attack with a half-orc shit covered fist to the side of Dave's face, then hopped over the horses to the mouth of the cave.\n\n\"We've got him on the ropes,\" said Tim. \"Julian, get rid of those horses.\"\n\nJulian snapped his fingers twice, and his magically summoned horses winked out of existence, leaving their host nothing to hide behind.\n\nThe frog monster was bloodied and bruised. His entire right arm was slathered in Cooper shit, all the way down to his fingertips. He'd seen better days for sure, but he didn't appear to be at death's door just yet.\n\n\"Everybody be cool,\" said Julian. \"We can talk this out.\"\n\nCooper stomped toward the frog monster, still in his Rage, and not looking very interested in conversation.\n\nFroggy didn't appear to be up for a chat either. At least, not with them. He was hurriedly mumbling something to himself, like he was trying to get his thoughts sorted out before Cooper got there and beat the shit out of him.\n\n\"Cooper!\" cried Julian. \"Get out of the way! He's casting a \u2013\"\n\nTim raised his arm to shield his face from whatever was coming. He was anticipating the whole cavern to be lit up in flames or lightning bolts or horses. He would have had to use up a lot of guesses before he predicted a second frog monster, naked and furiously rubbing its genital area with both hands, to appear on the dire bear rug.\n\nCooper halted his advance, and his body shrank to its normal size as he backed away. Even the frog monster looked surprised at what he'd summoned.\n\nBut perhaps no one was more surprised than the newest guest to the party. It kept its hands where they were, but flattened them, as if now more concerned with modesty than pleasure. It looked at Cooper, then at Dave, then at Julian and Tim. Finally he looked back up at the cave's inhabitant.\n\n\"Glafblar worgflum sclubly frit?\"\n\n\"Why have you summoned me here?\" Julian resumed the translation. \"I was in the middle of something.\"\n\n\"These creatures invaded my home. I require your assistance in killing them.\"\n\n\"Fuck you! I'm not even dressed.\"\n\n\"You can wear my robe.\"\n\n\"I'm not wearing that. It's got shit all over it!\"\n\n\"So does my rug. The half-orc shat on it!\"\n\nThe naked frog monster looked at the shit puddle on the rug, laughed, then resumed croaking in their horrible language.\n\nWhile the two frog monsters were engaged in their heated argument, Tim's saw a potential, albeit slim, chance to escape. He gestured for the others to come to him.\n\nAs Julian, Dave, and Cooper approached, Tim kept his eyes on the red creatures, who were so involved in their bickering that they didn't even glance his way. When everyone was close enough, Tim pointed a thumb back at the tunnels. The others nodded, and they all started backing toward the one on the right.\n\nNaturally, Tim hoped they would find a back door to this home, through which they could escape. He realized that the odds of that being the case weren't great, but the tunnel might lead to something that could help them. Maybe they'd find a place to hide, and sneak out later while the creatures were asleep. Maybe they'd find some badass weapons, or something with which Tim could construct a trap of some sort. Maybe they'd just find a dead end, but anything was better than waiting around for those two amphibious assholes to murder them.\n\nThey had inched about twenty feet into the tunnel by the time they felt confident enough to turn around and walk normally. Shortly after that, the frog monster argument faded away.\n\n\"Light,\" Julian whispered when it became too dark to see. Light illuminated the tunnel, coming from a copper coin in his hand. After cupping his other hand over it so that the light wouldn't be too bright, he opened it back up enough to let some light shine on Cooper's shoulder. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nCooper shook his head.\n\n\"Do you need Dave to heal your shoulder?\"\n\n\"It's not my shoulder that needs healing,\" said Cooper. \"I've been... violated.\"\n\nTim pulled out his flask in the fear that Cooper was going to elaborate.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" said Dave. \"Did it feel like more of a kiss than a bite or something?\"\n\n\"I'm not talking about the bite, dumbshit. He shoved his finger up my asshole.\"\n\nThat was exactly where Tim feared this conversation was headed. He knew that puddle wasn't big enough to coat the creature's entire arm like that.\n\nUnsurprisingly, no one jumped at the opportunity to follow up on Cooper's revelation. The awkward silence which followed was broken by someone else. Ahead of them, not too far up the tunnel, someone groaned.\n\n\"Who is that?\" asked Julian.\n\nTim swallowed hard. \"I only hope it's a who.\" Relieved as he was to have a distraction from the conversation about Cooper's ass fingering, he didn't want to have to face any undead.\n\n\"Maybe we should just hang out here,\" said Dave.\n\nTim shook his head. \"That won't do us any good. If there's something to fight down here, I'd rather face it alone than be sandwiched between it and those frog fuckers.\"\n\n\"Do they not have names?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"How the fuck should I know? We weren't properly introduced.\"\n\n\"I wasn't talking about individual names. I meant a name for their race. Are they called frog fuckers in the books?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Dave. \"I think I know what they are, but I can't remember the name. It's something like salad.\"\n\nJulian frowned. \"There's seriously a monster in this game called salad?\"\n\n\"I didn't say they were called salad,\" said Dave. \"I said something like salad. I'm trying to remember. Saald, saladi, slaa\u2013\"\n\n\"Saladin!\" said Cooper, a little too excitedly.\n\nTim smiled. \"Nice try, Coop. You're thinking of the wrong game. Saladin is one of the world leaders you can play in Civ.\"\n\n\"Is someone there?\" said the groaning voice. It didn't sound like a malevolent undead voice. Strangely, it sounded sort of familiar.\n\nWith Cooper taking the lead, his greataxe held ready but not necessarily threateningly, they proceeded cautiously down the tunnel until it opened up into a small round chamber. The air was stagnant this far back. It smelled like a nursing home in a swamp.\n\nInstead of being full of gold, or hookers, or magical weapons with bonuses against frog monsters, it was bereft of anything except an old bearded man, tied up and half dead on the floor.\n\nThe old man raised his head and looked at Tim. \"Help... me.\"\n\nSuddenly, the face and the voice connected in Tim's mind. \"Koestner the Healer?\"\n\n\"I... remember you,\" said Koestner. \"How did you... find me?\"\n\nTim looked at his feet. \"That was, um... a coincidence.\"\n\n\"Blessed be the gods! They've sent you here to... rescue me.\"\n\n\"Yes!\" said Tim, relieved to be able to avoid a conversation about statistical improbability. \"That was probably it.\"\n\n\"Czessaar, the inhabitant of this cave, captured me while I was... harvesting belladonna. I feared he would eat me. But he had more sinister plans in mind.\"\n\n\"His name is Caesar?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Czessaar,\" Koestner corrected him.\n\n\"Caesar Salad?\"\n\nTim nudged Julian, then looked down at Koestner. \"What did he do to you?\"\n\n\"He inserted his finger... into my \u2013\"\n\n\"Stop right there,\" said Cooper. \"It's his kink. Motherfucker did the same thing to me.\"\n\n\"Then you are in... grave danger,\" said Koestner. \"For you may have become... infected as I have.\"\n\nCooper reached up under his loincloth and gave his ass a good scratch. \"Goddammit. Am I going to get fucking frog AIDS?\"\n\n\"Let us hurry to a cleric. I fear my time... is almost up.\"\n\nJulian snorted out a laugh, then looked very guilty about it. \"I'm sorry. He said lettuce.\"\n\n\"I'm a cleric,\" said Dave while Tim untied the ropes binding Koestner's hands behind his back.\n\nKoestner sat up and rubbed the circulation back into his wrists. \"The gods are good indeed! Please, dwarf. May the power of the gods flow through you and remove my disease.\"\n\n\"That's a third level spell,\" said Dave. \"I've got a Cure Light Wounds, if that helps.\"\n\nKoestner frowned. \"I'm afraid my disease has... progressed beyond your ability to treat it. We must make haste to Cardinia.\"\n\n\"There's a problem with that,\" said Julian as he helped the old healer to his feet. \"Czessaar summoned himself a friend. There's two of those things out there now.\"\n\n\"Their kind has... no friends,\" said Koestner. \"They can summon each other when... desperate enough, but they're as likely to bicker... amongst themselves as they are to... cooperate and fight against a... common enemy.\"\n\nJulian nodded. \"That matches up pretty well with our experience so far.\"\n\n\"The summoned one will... return from whence it came in an... hour's time.\"\n\n\"How long ago did Czessaar summon...\" Julian paused for a moment. \"Potato?\"\n\nTim frowned. \"It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\"I have... no time to waste,\" said Koestner. \"You must confront them both, and we must... leave for Cardinia at once.\"\n\n\"Fuck that,\" said Tim. \"Another forty-five minutes isn't going to kill you.\"\n\nKoestner groaned. \"I fear it may.\"\n\n\"Let's sneak back up there and check it out,\" said Julian. \"Who knows? Maybe the argument escalated and they've killed each other by now.\"\n\n\"Good thinking,\" said Dave. \"Or maybe they settled their differences and went down the other tunnel for some make-up sex.\"\n\nThe conversation came to a conspicuous halt as everyone stared at Dave.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What the fuck, Dave?\" said Cooper.\n\n\"Who wants that image in their minds?\" asked Julian. \"Why couldn't they be going on a picnic together or something?\"\n\n\"My suggestion was every bit as valid as yours.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it was not,\" said Koestner. \"For their kind do not... copulate as we do.\"\n\nCooper scratched his ass some more. \"Do they all have that weird ass-fingering fetish?\"\n\n\"You're one to talk,\" said Tim. \"You can't keep your fingers away from your ass for five minutes.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. I've got an itch. It's too deep to scratch properly.\"\n\nKoestner doubled over in pain. \"We must go now!\"\n\n\"Keep your voice down,\" said Tim. \"I'll go scout ahead.\"\n\nThe pleading look on Koestner's face suggested that he didn't want to wait, but he nodded.\n\nTim took Julian's glowing coin and ran as fast and quietly as he could, cupping his hands around the coin to let out only as much light as he needed to see where he was going. He slowed down as he heard the two salad monsters shouting at each other. He didn't know what they were saying, but they seemed even angrier than they had been before.\n\nSudden interruptions punctuated their speech, which Tim hoped meant that their quarrel had escalated beyond mere words.\n\nWhen the light from the cave entrance and the hole in the ceiling was sufficient, Tim pocketed the coin. They were making so much noise that he didn't bother trying to be too stealthy, but he stayed close to the wall to stay out of sight as much as he could.\n\nThe fight had indeed come to blows. The two creatures clawed wildly at each other, tearing deep gashes into each other's flesh. Caesar's shit robe was torn to shreds, barely hanging onto his body. Potato's naked red flesh looked almost as bad. Their blood, thin and brown like Balsamic dressing, was splattered all over the cavern's floor and walls.\n\nCaesar lunged at Potato, his mouth wide open as he went for the throat. Potato ducked and grabbed Caesar by the ankle, tripping him. With a furious croak, Potato grabbed Caesar by the right thigh and the back of his neck, and lifted him over his head. He struggled the few steps to the cave entrance and tossed Caesar out.\n\nCaesar's final croak started loud, but faded quickly until it stopped very abruptly.\n\nPotato hunched over, bloody and exhausted. It was a hard-earned victory.\n\nTim thought that one well-placed Sneak Attack might be all it took to put down this crouton-shitting motherfucker for good, and wondered if he'd get full Experience Points for the kill. Slowly and carefully, he loaded a bolt into his crossbow and pulled it back.\n\nWhen it clicked into place, he might as well have set off fireworks in a shipping container. Either the acoustics of this particular spot were astoundingly well-suited to transmitting sound waves or, more likely, he'd rolled a natural 1 on a Stealth check. Either way, the crossbow's click went bouncing all over the walls of the goddamn cavern.\n\nPotato whirled around, still catching his breath and still bleeding. But his wounds seemed a little shallower than they had been just a minute ago.\n\nTim had some doubt now as to whether a single bolt might finish him off. Certainly not now that he'd been spotted and wouldn't get his Sneak Attack bonus to damage. He cautiously took a step back, prepared to shoot, run, and scream.\n\nBut Potato's froggy eyes didn't look angry. He flicked out hit tongue a few times, then sat down on a large flat rock next to the wall.\n\n\"Flub grub,\" he said, gesturing at Tim's rope, still hanging from the hole in the ceiling.\n\nTim lowered his crossbow and bowed his head slightly. \"Flub grub.\"\n\nPotato croaked out a small laugh, which bothered Tim more than it should have.\n\nTim backed into the tunnel until he lost sight of Potato, then pulled the glowing coin out of his pocket and began running back to his friends. After he'd been running for some time, the light suddenly went out.\n\nStonepiss, inertia, and the distraction of sudden blindness made a lousy cocktail. Tim misjudged the upcoming curve and smacked his face against the wall.\n\n\"Son of a bitch!\" He pulled out his flask, swallowed back some stonepiss, then poured a little onto the scrapes on his nose, eyebrow, and cheek. It stung.\n\n\"Tim?\" Julian's voice echoed down the tunnel. It didn't sound too far away. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Tim snapped back. \"No thanks to your shitty coin.\"\n\nTim's visibility returned as soft white light rounded the bend in the tunnel. Julian and Dave led the way. Cooper followed with the gait of someone walking while clenching their ass cheeks. Koestner rode piggyback. Tim couldn't tell if the poor old bastard was alive or dead.\n\nJulian held up a second glowing coin and winced at the sight of Tim's face. \"Sorry about that. Light is a Zero Level spell, so the duration isn't so long. So what's up with the two salad monsters?\"\n\n\"One salad monster,\" Tim corrected him. \"Potato chucked Caesar off the cliff. Then he spotted me and indicated that we're free to leave.\"\n\n\"That's strange,\" said Dave. \"He seemed pretty prone to violence.\"\n\nTim stood up and had another sip from his flask. \"It makes sense when you think about it from the point of an extremely spiteful person. This isn't his home. He resented being summoned. Letting us go is just one more Fuck you to the guy who spoiled his wank time.\"\n\nDave nodded. \"Still, we should hurry before he changes his mind.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\n\"What was that clicking noise I heard a few minutes ago?\" asked Cooper.\n\nTim glared down at his crossbow. \"Shitty roll.\"\n\nWhen they reached the main chamber, Potato hadn't moved from where he'd been sitting when Tim left him. He looked up at them, but remained where he was.\n\n\"Just be cool,\" Tim whispered. \"Don't make any sudden moves, but be ready to fight if you have to.\"\n\nThe corners of Potato's wide lips stretched back, like he was amused at how cautiously they were inching toward the rope. He waved a webbed hand at them. \"Flub grub.\"\n\nTim folded his hands and bowed. \"Flub grub.\" This elicited another croaking chuckle from Potato, and this time also from Julian.\n\n\"What's so goddamn funny about that?\" asked Tim. \"Am I saying it wrong?\"\n\n\"First of all, your accent is ridiculous,\" said Julian. \"You need more of a belch in it.\"\n\nTim sucked in some air and tried belching out the words again. \"Flub grub.\"\n\nPotato laughed again.\n\n\"Fuck you, frog!\"\n\n\"That was better,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Then why's he still laughing?\"\n\n\"Because you just told him that he and his friends are free to leave.\"\n\n\"Well how the fuck was I supposed to know what it meant? I thought he was saying hello or peace or some shit.\"\n\nCooper set Koestner down on the rug. The poor old bastard was asleep and barely breathing.\n\n\"He's going to die if we don't get him to a cleric really soon,\" said Dave.\n\nTim nodded. \"Same plan as before. I'll go up first and make sure the rope is secure enough for Julian. Once Julian gets up there, he can summon a horse for us to anchor the rope to so that we can get everyone else \u2013\"\n\n\"YAAAAAAAA!\" Koestner moaned, his eyes suddenly wide open. Then his head tilted to the side. His eyes remained open, but there was no longer any life left in them.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Tim. \"We lost Koestner.\"\n\n\"His heart's still beating,\" said Cooper.\n\nTim looked at the old healer's chest. There was definitely some movement going on under the shirt, but Tim would be damned if that was a beating heart.\n\n\"We should probably stand back.\"\n\nA red stain blossomed on Koestner's shirt, then quickly grew.\n\nCooper took an extra step back. \"What in all the fucks is going \u2013\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "SPLAT", "text": "Koestner's chest exploded, splattering blood in every direction as something like a blood-and-mucous-covered Darwin fish flopped out onto the carpet next to Koestner's now unquestionably dead body, belching and hissing and flapping bodily fluids everywhere.\n\n\"JESUS!\" cried Dave. He moved in to kick the ungodly abomination away just as Tim caught a wide smile and a glint of joy in Potato's eyes.\n\n\"Dave! No! It's a \u2013\"\n\nDave kicked the gruesome polywog toward the mouth of the cave.\n\n\"\u2013 baby.\" Tim retained a sliver of hope that, with a high enough Diplomacy roll from Julian, they might still be able to talk their way out of this when the disgusting newborn salad monster stopped just short of falling off the edge.\n\nFlip. Flap. Flop. Over the edge it went, and with it the last of Tim's hope.\n\nPotato let out a croak that shook more dirt and rocks loose from the broken ceiling, then ran to the mouth of the cavern.\n\n\"What the fuck were you thinking?\" Tim asked Dave.\n\nDave shrugged. \"Mostly, 'Holy shit, that's gross! Get it away from me!' How was I supposed to know it was a baby salad monster?\"\n\n\"The red skin didn't give it away?\"\n\nDave pointed at Potato, still grieving by the mouth of the cavern. \"He has red skin. The little alien thing was only red because it was covered in liquid Koestner!\"\n\n\"Maybe we should fall back and try to hide,\" said Julian. \"Potato is still on a timer, right?\"\n\n\"Or we could push it over the edge,\" suggested Dave.\n\nJulian gripped his quarterstaff like he was ready to club Dave in the face with it. \"What the hell is wrong with you? He's grieving for the loss of a child. A child that you murdered! And your first thought is to shove him off a cliff?\"\n\n\"I'm just being practical. That thing murdered one of its own kind just for interrupting a wank session. What do you think it will do to us?\"\n\n\"It was more complicated than that. There were nuances to the conversation that I couldn't translate properly, but the gist was that \u2013\"\n\n\"Guys,\" said Cooper, loudly enough to shut the rest of them up. \"He's gone.\"\n\nTim, Julian, and Dave looked at the mouth of the cavern. Sure enough, it was bereft of salad monsters.\n\n\"Has it been an hour already?\" asked Julian. \"It doesn't feel like an hour. Did he just disappear?\"\n\nCooper shook his head sadly. \"He jumped.\"\n\n\"Whoa,\" said Julian. \"That's messed up.\"\n\nDave clapped his hands. \"On the bright side, the problem sorted itself out.\"\n\nJulian's fist shook, like it was going to explode if he didn't use it to punch Dave in the face. He settled for a slap. It was underwhelming.\n\n\"What was that for?\" said Dave, rubbing his cheek.\n\n\"How can you be such a despicable unfeeling asshole? Someone just took their own life right in front of you!\"\n\nTim wondered if they'd get Experience Points for driving someone to suicide, but he kept his thoughts to himself.\n\n\"I'm sorry I'm not salting the mashed Potato with my tears,\" said Dave. \"I've got more important concerns right now.\"\n\n\"What could you possibly be concerned about?\" asked Julian. \"I thought the problem just sorted itself out.\"\n\nDave frowned, suddenly looking very serious. \"This is just a theory I'm working with, so I don't want anybody to freak out. But I think Cooper may be pregnant.\"\n\nAfter a moment of stunned silence, Julian started laughing. After a moment of no one else joining in, he stopped.\n\n\"Are you guys serious? Is this a Bible Belt thing? Do they not teach Sex Ed in Mississippi public schools?\"\n\n\"It's not a Bible Belt thing,\" said Tim. \"It's a Caverns & Creatures thing. We all just witnessed a man giving birth a few minutes ago, or don't you recall?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Dave. \"And now that I think about it, I do seem to remember reading in the Monster Manual about a creature that has egg pellets in its claws.\"\n\nCooper grimaced. \"Was it the salad monster?\"\n\n\"I don't remember for sure, but that's looking like a good bet. It would also account for why it... violated you and Koestner the way it did.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty sure I'd remember if the Monster Manual had said anything about ass-fingering.\"\n\n\"With a little bit of frontier surgery and a successful Heal check, the egg pellet can be removed if detected early enough. Digging a pellet from out of a person's rectum would be more...\"\n\n\"Challenging?\" said Tim.\n\n\"Unpleasant?\" said Julian.\n\n\"Intimate?\" said Cooper.\n\n\"I was going to say 'invasive'. Even with the right tools, a person making a Heal check with that kind of Difficulty Class is just as likely to kill a patient as they are to successfully remove the pellet. Without the right tools...\" Dave shuddered.\n\n\"I have lock picks in my bag,\" said Tim. \"You can use those if you need them.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"You're the only one of us who put any ranks into the Heal skill. You're Cooper's best chance.\"\n\n\"I don't have that many ranks,\" said Dave. \"Did I not adequately explain how bad it could go for Cooper if I fail?\"\n\nTim pointed at Koestner's gory remains. \"We just saw how bad it will go for him if you don't try.\"\n\nCooper cleared his throat. \"If I may weigh in, I've had all the fingers I want up my ass today.\"\n\n\"But Cooper,\" said Julian. \"You're going to die!\"\n\nCooper looked down at him. \"We're all going to die. When my time comes, I don't want my last sensation to be that of Dave fingering my asshole.\"\n\nDave's eyes lit up. \"There may be another way!\"\n\n\"I'll take it!\" said Cooper excitedly. Then he eyed Dave warily. \"Hang on. Does this other way involve your dick?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Okay, cool. What's the plan?\"\n\nDave lifted up his sack of belladonna sprigs. \"Eat as many of these berries as you can stuff down your pie hole.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ,\" said Tim. \"You are the worst healer in the history of this game. He's not turning into a fucking werewolf. He has a salad monster egg up his ass.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of that.\"\n\n\"I'm glad we're on the same page. Are you also aware that not killing Cooper is one of our objectives here?\"\n\n\"He'll be fine. It's just like you said before about alchemists having to refine the berries for their medicinal properties. The same goes for concentrating them into a lethal dose of poison. As they grow in the wild, they won't kill him. They'll just give him a severe case of the shits.\"\n\nThat all sounded reasonable to Tim, but one thing bothered him. \"If you knew all that about belladonna, why didn't you say anything about it when Cooper ate them before?\"\n\nDave shrugged. \"I wanted to go home.\"\n\n\"Asshole.\" Tim looked at Cooper. \"Okay, start stuffing your face I guess.\"\n\n\"And clench your cheeks,\" added Dave. \"Resist letting go as long as you can. Remember, you're trying to build up as much pressure as possible to dislodge the egg.\" He paused and stroked his beard. \"When you go, you're probably going to shit like a fire hose. Would you mind standing by the mouth of the cavern and pointing your ass that way?\"\n\nJulian shook his head. \"You've really got it in for poor Potato. Killing a baby in front of him and celebrating his suicide wasn't enough. Now you want to shower their remains in explosive diarrhea?\"\n\n\"I was thinking about us. What if we have trouble climbing out of the hole and have to spend the night in here? Cooper smells bad enough as it is.\"\n\nJulian sighed. \"Fine.\"\n\nThe choice between potentially poisoning himself and having Dave dig around in his rectum wasn't much of a choice for Cooper at all. He'd been munching on belladonna berries the entire time Dave and Julian were arguing, putting a whole sprig in his mouth and filtering off the berries with his teeth when he pulled it back out.\n\nWhen they decided where he should shit, he didn't miss a beat. He grabbed his belladonna sack, waddled ass-clenchingly to the mouth of the cavern, got down on his knees, and continued eating the whole time. His ass pointed outward like the Guns of Navarone.\n\n\"This is going to be epic,\" Cooper said through a purple-toothed grin. He winced in pain, then gobbled up another sprig's worth of berries.\n\n\"Hold on as long as you can,\" said Dave.\n\nJulian turned around, so as to avoid the coming literal shit show. \"I'm amazed he's held on this long.\"\n\nThere's nothing here for his Charisma score to fuck up,\" said Tim. \"If we were talking to a princess right now, or applying for a bank loan or something, he'd have shit himself eight times already. If I had to guess, I'd say this is more of a Constitution check to see how long he can maintain control of his sphincter.\"\n\nCooper set the sack aside and cradled his head on the floor. \"Oh sweet Jesus.\" He paused to wince and catch his breath. \"I've got something epic brewing. I kind of wish we could video this.\"\n\nTim didn't want to say it out loud, but he'd been thinking the same thing.\n\nA webbed red hand with black claws gripped the edge of the floor behind Cooper.\n\n\"Cooper!\" cried Tim. \"Behind you!\"\n\n\"A... few... more... seconds.\"\n\nThe salad monster's other hand appeared to the right of Cooper. This one held the horrible baby salad. It was injured, but still alive. The hand released the child, then sought a more solid grip on the floor.\n\n\"It wasn't a suicide after all!\" said Julian. \"It was a rescue mission. There must have been a ledge down there or something.\"\n\nTim grabbed Dave's arm and pulled him toward the saladling. \"Heal that horrible thing as a show of goodwill.\"\n\nCooper looked up from his arms. \"What the fuck are you guys talking \u2013\" He caught sight of the slimy pulsating blob of gore and claws next to him.\n\n\"Glorbp,\" said the baby salad monster. It was either its first word, or just a burp.\n\n\"JESUS!\" cried Cooper as his arm sprang back like a mouse trap, sending the baby sailing back out into the open air.\n\nPotato's head emerged above Cooper's ass just in time to witness its adopted child re-murdered.\n\n\"SKWAAAARRRLLLB!\" His froggy eyes bulging furiously, he opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on Cooper's exposed ass cheeks.\n\n\"Fuck!\" cried Cooper, already racked with pain. Ironically, after the initial sting, Cooper's face lightened with relief. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.\n\nPotato's slitted pupils turned round as his cheeks began to expand.\n\nJulian covered his mouth. \"Is what I think is happening actually happening?\"\n\n\"Cooper's getting his ass eaten out by a giant frog, and he's really enjoying it?\" said Dave.\n\n\"That's equally horrifying, but not what I had in mind.\"\n\nPotato's face inflated like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, looking like it was about to burst. Tim, unable to look away, shielded his face from what he feared might be an explosion of frog brains and half-orc shit. But instead of exploding, Potato vanished. He just popped right out of existence like a murdered magical horse.\n\nCooper, his ass having released and having been released, collapsed forward to lie flat on the ground. \"What just happened?\"\n\n\"Potato's hour was up,\" said Tim. \"How's your ass?\"\n\n\"Kinda stings.\" Cooper flexed his cheeks a few times, then looked up at Tim. \"But the itch is gone! I think it worked!\"\n\nJulian walked past Cooper and looked down over the edge. \"There is a ledge! Egg landed on it again. I think he's still alive.\"\n\n\"Who the fuck is Egg?\" asked Tim.\n\n\"Egg Salad. The baby. I thought it a fitting name, since he just hatched... in a manner of speaking.\"\n\nDave frowned. \"He's a tough little bastard. Should we drop some rocks down on him and finish him off?\"\n\nJulian's jaw dropped. \"How can your soul be that empty?\"\n\n\"What? I was trying to be humane!\"\n\n\"You're a goddamn cleric! You have magical healing powers, yet you think the most humane thing to do is drop rocks on an injured baby?\"\n\n\"And what if I healed it?\" asked Dave. \"What then? Are we going to leave it here to starve to death? Or raise it as one of our own, so it can grow up and finger-fuck some poor unsuspecting asshole, impregnating him with its own chest-exploding offspring?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But Egg's an innocent creature right now. He's never hurt anyone.\"\n\n\"It's part of his nature. That's how those things reproduce. Maybe it's not inherently evil, but taking it back to town is dangerous and irresponsible.\"\n\nJulian folded his arms. \"I didn't say we definitely should take it back to town. I just think we might spare a moment or two to think about other options before we rush straight to crushing it with rocks.\"\n\nTim saw something in the corner of his eye that startled him. Fearing another salad monster attack, he raised his crossbow, but stopped just short of pulling the trigger and shooting Ravenus.\n\n\"There you are, sir,\" said Ravenus, landing next to Koestner's exploded corpse. He plucked out an eyeball and gulped it down. \"What did I miss?\"\n\nJulian turned away. \"We got a little sidetracked. How'd it go with the eagles?\"\n\n\"Not so well. Did you know they mate for life?\"\n\n\"I did not.\"\n\n\"That's no way to get the most of out of life if you ask me. I tried to talk some sense into them, but they just weren't having it.\"\n\nTim admired Ravenus's moxy, trying to talk a guy he just met into letting him have a quickie with his wife.\n\nRavenus gobbled up Koestner's other eye. \"That feels so much better. There was some dying creature on a ledge just below here, but its eyes were so small, they only made me hungrier.\"\n\n\"What?\" Julian dropped to his knees and looked over the edge. \"Egg!\"\n\n\"Uh-oh,\" said Dave. \"Looks like Ravenus is a baby killer. Are you going to turn him in, Julian?\"\n\n\"It wasn't... He couldn't...\" Julian stammered. \"He didn't mean to. He's a bird. It's part of his n\u2013\" He stopped himself mid-syllable.\n\n\"Part of his what?\" Dave poked a finger in his ear, pretending to clean it. \"I didn't quite catch that.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, Dave.\"\n\nCooper laughed. \"Well said.\"\n\n\"Cheer up,\" said Tim. \"Cycle of life and all that. If it makes you feel any better, I suspect that, wherever Potato is now, he's probably got a bun in the oven.\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "The Fuccubus", "text": "Thank you for your amazing generosity.\n\nCooper put three empty mugs and a silver coin down on the bar. \"I need three more scoops from the barrel, and another bottle of your cheapest stonepiss.\"\n\nThe full-orc bartender nodded, slipped the coin into the front pocket of his brown-stained apron, and dunked all three unwashed mugs deep into the large wooden barrel behind the bar. When he set them back down on the bar, filled with the brown concoction of booze unfit for clientele with a bit more money to spend, Cooper noticed that his right hand, which he scooped with, was considerably darker brown than his left. This wasn't the type of tavern one drank at for its high standards of sanitation.\n\n\"You sound like a man who's fallen under... hard times,\" said a half-elven woman standing at the bar next to him. She'd been facing the other way when Cooper had approached the bar. Wearing a black leather cape and a wide-brimmed hat, she hadn't looked like much from behind. But now that she was facing him, Cooper was stunned by her striking red eyes and long green hair that fell past her shoulders to frame her perfectly sculpted bosom. Her cape was actually more of a jacket, with one side wrapped over the other, barely containing a nice V of cleavage. She made him think of the beauty and danger of a forest fire, or a field full of poppies, or a Christmas tree with tits.\n\nIn a raging storm of thoughts, \"... hard...\" was all Cooper managed to articulate.\n\nShe offered a lambskin-gloved hand and smiled. Her lips looked like they were painted with blood that never dried. \"My name is Kristanya.\"\n\nEven back in the real world, before he became a half-orc with a Charisma score of 4, Cooper wasn't generally someone women went out of their way to talk to at bars. It was generally him who had to initiate contact. Everything about this situation screamed, \"Hooker that I can't afford\", which seemed odd considering that her opening line, innuendo or not, indicated her awareness that he was broke.\n\nForcing himself to focus, he accepted her handshake. \"I'm...\" Fuck! What is it? Come on, come on... Oh yeah. \"Cooper.\" Her grip was surprisingly firm and powerful. His spank bank was filled for a month.\n\n\"Unhand her at once, you disgusting abomination!\" A shirtless man with sandy blond hair and red leather pants wedged his way between Cooper and Kristanya. The only attempt he'd made to cover his chest was a strap running diagonally across it for the greatsword he wore on his back. He looked like a barbarian who had put more points into Charisma than he'd put into Strength. Cooper felt Kristanya's fingers slide apart from his as she took a step back.\n\n\"Who the fuck are you?\" asked Cooper, suddenly less tongue-tied.\n\n\"I am Payne!\" It sounded like an over-rehearsed introduction that he didn't get an opportunity to use as often as he'd like.\n\n\"As in, a pain in my ass?\"\n\n\"As in, Edwin Payne, mercenary for hire.\"\n\nCooper half expected him to pull out a business card, but Edwin Payne merely stood his ground, staring into Cooper's eyes, daring him to make the first move.\n\n\"I'll let you know if I ever need some mercenarying done.\"\n\n\"Stupid creature. Do you even know what that means? Do you understand what I do for a living?\"\n\n\"You blow dudes for money?\"\n\n\"I kill men for money.\"\n\n\"That probably means you're using your teeth too much, or you have a severe case of...\" Cooper released a large belch which had just bubbled up from his stomach. \"...oral herpes.\"\n\nPayne's nose scrunched up and his eyes began to water but, to his credit, he neither stepped back nor turned his head.\n\n\"Is your tongue your only weapon, or would you care to cross swords?\"\n\nCooper scratched his armpit. \"Does that cost extra, or is that just, like, foreplay before you start sucking?\"\n\n\"Your thoughts are as filthy as your breath, mongrel.\"\n\nKristanya cleared her throat.\n\nPayne's face turned pale, and there was sudden panic in his eyes. He turned around. \"Forgive me, sweet Kristanya! I meant no offense.\"\n\nKristanya said nothing. Her glaring red eyes invited further explanation.\n\n\"Your racial impurity is like the irritant which forms a pearl inside an oyster,\" said Payne.\n\nThat almost certainly sounded better in his head before he said it aloud.\n\n\"What the fuck are you doing?\" asked Tim, accompanied by Julian and Dave. \"You took so long we had to give up our goddamn table. How hard is it to order a couple of fucking \u2013\" His gaze met Kristanya's, and his mouth stopped working. \"How... hard...\" he repeated, but seemed to have lost his train of thought.\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Julian.\n\nCooper grinned. \"This guy's trying to pull his foot out of his mouth, but it keeps going in deeper the more he talks. It's glorious.\"\n\n\"Going... in... deeper...\" mumbled Dave, gawking up at Kristanya.\n\nJulian slapped Dave on the top of his helmet. \"What the hell is wrong with you guys?\"\n\nKristanya gently shoved Payne to the side as she slipped into Julian's personal space. \"What's your name, elf?\"\n\nJolted by an unexpected surge of jealousy, Cooper grabbed two of the mugs and the bottle of stonepiss from the bar and passed them out, introducing his friends accordingly. \"This is Julian, Tim, and Dave. They were just about to go look for another table.\"\n\nKristanya smiled at Ravenus, who was perched on Julian's shoulder. \"And what's your name?\" She ran a finger from Ravenus's head down the feathers on his back. Julian tugged at his serape, which had the opposite effect of what Cooper suspected he was going for, which was to not call attention to his junk.\n\nThe bird squawked back a response that Cooper couldn't understand.\n\n\"How can he understand you?\" asked Julian. \"You didn't speak with a British accent.\"\n\nKristanya narrowed her eyes with amusement at Julian. \"I didn't what?\"\n\n\"I meant, he only speaks Elven. He doesn't speak Common.\"\n\n\"I speak a language all men understand,\" said Kristanya. \"I am blessed with the gift of tongues.\"\n\nCooper, Tim, Dave, and even Edwin Payne made similarly conspicuous efforts to hide their junk.\n\n\"So,\" said Cooper, holding his mug in front of his crotch like that was the most natural thing in the world. \"Why don't you go find us another table. I'll be right behind you.\"\n\n\"Excellent.\" Payne unsheathed the broadsword strapped to his back and brought it point down on the floorboards. Cooper assumed he meant to look threatening, but knew that he was just using the hilt to cover his crotch.\n\n\"Why don't we all go back to my room?\" suggested Kristanya. \"I have a big bed and an even bigger appetite.\"\n\nAwkward glances were shared, which eventually gave way to nods.\n\n\"Or,\" said Julian, and octave or so higher than he normally spoke. \"We could keep drinking. I'm buying!\"\n\nHe had a good point. If Cooper was going to be in a six-way involving five dudes, it wouldn't hurt to have a solid buzz going.\n\nCooper raised his mug and caught the bartender's attention. \"Three more of these.\" He turned around. \"Anything for you guys?\"\n\n\"The same,\" said Payne, his voice quivering.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Tim.\n\n\"Another bottle of stonepiss for me,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Anything for you?\" Cooper asked Kristanya.\n\n\"I'm afraid this tavern doesn't serve what I'm thirsty for.\"\n\nWilling his dick not to get any harder than it already was, Cooper turned to Julian.\n\nJulian shook his head. \"Nothing for me, thanks.\"\n\nCooper continued to look at Julian.\n\n\"Oh, right.\" Julian took a gold coin out of his coin pouch and slapped it down on the bar. \"That should cover it.\"\n\nWhen everyone had their drinks in hand, Cooper turned to Kristanya. \"Lead the way.\"\n\nKristanya walked toward the stairs leading up to the rooms. Payne, Tim, Dave, and Cooper followed like a line of ducklings.\n\n\"Wait,\" said Julian, reluctantly trailing behind them. \"Where are we going?\"\n\nCooper didn't stop walking. \"Where the fuck do you think? Up to her room.\"\n\n\"When I offered to buy everyone drinks, I thought we'd be staying down here.\"\n\n\"What? In front of all these people?\" Cooper shuddered. \"It's going to be weird enough with just you guys.\"\n\nAs they ascended the stairs, Julian's voice grew more and more panicky, like he was trying to disarm a bomb.\n\n\"Tim! Dave!\" Julian pleaded, trying to keep his voice down. \"You guys can't be serious about this.\"\n\n\"Just be cool,\" Tim reassured him. \"We don't have to talk about this later.\"\n\n\"You're starting to sound a little homophobic,\" said Dave. \"Either that or gay.\"\n\n\"Can you hear the words coming out of your mouths? Come on, guys. Snap out of it!\"\n\nThe procession stopped in front of a door marked with a symbol that Cooper couldn't read. Illiteracy was a Barbarian class trait. Kristanya pulled a dull grey iron key out from inside the palm of her left glove and looked at Julian. Her red eyes glowed faintly.\n\n\"Your name is Julian, is it not?\"\n\nJulian stood straight, like he'd just been singled out by a sadistic drill sergeant. \"Yes ma'am!\"\n\n\"Is there some kind of problem, Julian?\"\n\n\"No ma'am,\" Julian answered immediately. \"No problem at all. I'm really excited about this.\"\n\nRavenus started to squawk something, but Julian's hand flew up like a sprung trap and held his beak shut.\n\nJulian smiled sheepishly. \"I'm just a little nervous is all.\"\n\nKristanya smiled. \"I like that.\" She inserted the key into the keyhole and opened the door.\n\nThere wasn't a whole lot to the room. No windows. No pictures on the stained walls. Not even a table or chair. It was the sort of place one would rent by the quarter hour for a bit of privacy and the one piece of furniture in it. The bed was big and sturdy-looking enough for a hooker and her John, but perhaps not sturdy enough for a six-person orgy.\n\nKristanya didn't even glance toward the bed as she strode across the room to a brown cotton curtain hanging from the doorway to another room. \"Close the door.\"\n\nBeing the last one in, Julian was closest to the door. He stood there like a deer that didn't understand English.\n\nKristanya glared at him with her glowing red eyes.\n\n\"Oh, this door,\" said Julian, quickly shutting it.\n\nKristanya pulled back the curtain, revealing a black door which didn't match the modest d\u00e9cor of the rest of the room at all. The door's only adornment, where one might expect to see a knocker, stood out for being polished silver against the dull black paint on the door, and for being in the shape of a woman's spread legs. The hoo-ha in the center was an actual hole.\n\nAfter sliding the room key back into her left glove, Kristanya produced a shinier silver key from her right glove. It had no teeth or notches. Aside from a ring on the back end, it was perfectly cylindrical with a rounded tip.\n\nTim gulped back the contents of one of his mugs and set it on top of a small table. \"Subtle.\"\n\nWhile Cooper concentrated on not jizzing in his loincloth, Kristanya inserted the key. After a couple of loud clicks sounded from the other side of the door, she pushed it open.\n\nA wave of considerably warmer air flowed out from the doorway. It smelled of ashes and sulfur. Beyond the door was a large rock-walled subterranean chamber which Cooper was fairly certain wasn't part of this tavern.\n\nKristanya smiled at Payne. \"After you.\"\n\nPayne didn't need to be asked twice. He marched into the cavern like it was an oasis in the desert. Dave and Tim followed eagerly after him. Cooper started to follow, but Julian grabbed his wrist.\n\nCooper had no idea that Julian was this timid. \"Dude, it's no different than being in a locker room.\"\n\nJulian grimaced. \"Actually, it is kinda different.\"\n\n\"It seems weird now, but I promise you you're going to thank me for this one day.\"\n\n\"Thank you for what?\"\n\nCooper grabbed Julian's arm and shoved him into the doorway.\n\nKristanya was the last to enter. She closed the door behind her, and the click of the locking mechanism echoed all over the chamber.\n\nDim light flickered against the red rocky walls from sconces made of skulls, which appeared to vomit stalactites of melted candle wax. At the far end of the chamber stood a massive bed, the four corner posts of which looked to be made of the ribs of some colossal beast. Maybe a dragon. Maybe a dire whale. Maybe Dave's mom. Cooper kept that last speculation to himself for now, not wanting to ruin the mood.\n\n\"Very nice place you've got here,\" said Julian, eyeing one of the sconces. \"Tell me, are these real human skulls?\"\n\n\"Some of them,\" said Kristanya, walking to a table near the bed made of two minotaur skulls, back to back, and a sheet of black glass resting atop the horns. \"Some dwarf, some half-orc.\" She turned to him and grinned. \"Some elf.\"\n\nJulian looked at a smaller sconce, then glared at Tim. \"And some halfling.\"\n\n\"Actually, that one's a human child.\" Kristanya cracked her knuckles. \"Now who would like to go first?\"\n\nThe tension in the room vanished as Cooper, Tim, Dave, and Payne let out a collective sigh of relief, then clinked their mugs together.\n\n\"What?\" cried Julian.\n\nPayne smiled at Cooper. \"I suppose we won't be crossing swords today after all.\" Then he turned to Kristanya. \"It seems fitting that the first to make your acquaintance should be the first to... fulfill your desires.\"\n\nNo one argued, still relieved that it wasn't going to be a five-dick orgy.\n\n\"Very well.\" Kristanya smiled at Payne. \"Step forward, Edwin Payne, and reveal yourself to me.\"\n\nPayne removed his sheathe and tossed it aside, then hurriedly kicked off his boots and unlaced his pants. The tight leather had left little to the imagination with regard to his ass. Cooper couldn't see what he was packing up front, but noted that Kristanya's expression didn't change upon laying her eyes on his junk.\n\n\"Would you like me to reveal myself to you?\" asked Kristanya.\n\n\"More than anything!\" said Payne, perhaps a little too eagerly. Then again, she seemed like a pretty sure thing, so Cooper supposed there wasn't a whole lot of point to playing it cool.\n\nThough they hadn't been asked, Cooper, Tim, and Dave nodded their agreement. Even Julian stopped bitching for a moment.\n\nKristanya pulled off her gloves, one at a time, setting them on the table next to the bed. Her fingernails were at least an inch and a half long, obsidian black, and pointed. Cooper imagined them tearing down his back, shredding his kidneys while he blew his load.\n\nNext she removed her hat, revealing a set of what looked like black ram's horns which the hat had been specifically designed to conceal. Something to hold on to.\n\nShe spread her arms and smiled at Payne. \"What do you think?\"\n\nPayne was trembling with anticipation. \"Take off your coat.\" His voice was shaky, like he was testing the waters to see if following orders was something she was into.\n\n\"I'm not wearing a coat,\" she said. \"I'm not wearing anything at all.\" Her red eyes glowed brighter as her teeth seemed to grow sharper. The black leather which covered her body spread apart at the middle, becoming immediately recognizable as a giant pair of bat wings. They opened slowly, revealing her body from the top down. First, those perfect breasts, like a pair of honeydews with nipples. Then her navel, like a tiny cup waiting to be filled with splooge. Finally, the biggest blackest cock Cooper had ever seen. It was covered in scales, barbed at the end, and squirmed around like a blind snake.\n\n\"The fuck?\" Cooper snapped out of what seemed like a lucid dream. Everything was just as it was, but his interpretation was different. Even though what he'd mistaken as a big black snake dick actually turned out to be a tail, and even though she still had a great set of tits, he was suddenly not quite as convinced that he wanted his dick near her. The skulls all over the walls now seemed off putting, as did his memory of fantasizing about her shredding his kidneys only a moment ago.\n\n\"Cooper,\" whispered Julian, who had just inched his way next to him.\n\nCooper rubbed his temples as the sanity filtered back into his brain.\n\n\"Are you... all there?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"Good. Just keep acting normal until we figure out our next move.\"\n\nCooper nodded. \"I think that woman had me under some kind of spell.\"\n\n\"I don't think she's a woman.\"\n\nCooper laughed. \"I made the same mistake. Look again. That was her tail.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Huh? Nothing. Go on with what you were saying.\"\n\n\"I think she's a succubus,\" said Julian. \"I've read about them before. If they're anything in the game like they are in the books I've read, we're in some deep shit. We need to get Tim and Dave and find a way out of \u2013\"\n\n\"Shut up for a second.\" Cooper appreciated the gravity of their situation, but he also appreciated that there would only be a limited number of opportunities in his life to be able to watch a demon chick go down on a dude.\n\nKristanya didn't seem the submissive type, but she was down on her knees in front of Payne, taking his cock into her mouth. Payne lasted about twenty seconds before Cooper recognized the shudder and sigh of premature release.\n\nCooper shook his head. \"Dude didn't even grab her by the horns.\"\n\nBut Kristanya didn't stop. Either Cooper had been mistaken in his interpretation, or Kristanya thought Payne might have one more in the chamber. She went at him harder now, wings flapping and tail whipping around as she dug her claws into his ass cheeks and pushed him further into her mouth.\n\nPayne's moans changed in a way that made it difficult for Cooper to enjoy the spectacle, but at least he finally put his hands on her horns.\n\n\"Atta boy, Payne.\"\n\n\"I don't think you're fully understanding what's happening right now,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Huh?\" Cooper tried to take in the scene more objectively, and saw that Payne was trying to push Kristanya's head away. \"Oh shit. Should we \u2013\"\n\nPayne filled the chamber with a horrible scream, the echoes of which continued to reverberate as the scream itself faded. His hair turned white, and his skin grew dry and brittle until it started to flake off.\n\nCooper frowned. \"Probably too late to step in at this point.\"\n\n\"We need to think of something fast,\" said Julian.\n\nWhen Payne's withered husk of a body collapsed into a pile of dry skin and bones, Kristanya got to her feet and wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand.\n\n\"Who's next?\"\n\nTim and Dave's hands shot up immediately. Then Julian raised his hand.\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Trying to buy us more time. Raise your hand.\"\n\nTrusting that Julian was aware that Cooper didn't want his life forced sucked out through the cock, he followed Julian's lead.\n\n\"However should I choose?\" said Kristanya, pacing nakedly among them. The tip of her tail ran through Tim's hair. \"Should I start with the smallest and work my way up?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Tim yipped like a puppy.\n\nKristanya turned her attention to Dave and ran the tip of her tail through his beard. \"Or the hairiest?\"\n\n\"Please!\" Dave fluffed out his beard to make it look even bigger and bushier. \"I'll bury you in my beard.\"\n\nKristanya walked to Cooper, sneaking her tail up under his loincloth. While he was terrified of having any part of her near his junk, he'd have been lying if he said he didn't find it at least a little arousing. She smiled at him with decidedly terrifying pointed teeth. \"Or the dirtiest?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" said Cooper, trying to sound convincing. \"I'll, um... take a shit on your tits.\"\n\nKristanya's tail pulled out from under Cooper's loincloth. Her smile faltered and her glowing eyes dimmed. Tim and Dave glared at Cooper like he was cramping their style.\n\n\"I know!\" said Julian. \"We could fight for the honor!\"\n\nThat put the terrifying smile back on Kristanya's face and the shine back in her demon eyes.\n\n\"Excellent idea!\" She beat her bat wings hard, lifting herself off the floor, and flew to a throne made of femurs, and decorated on the back with a fan of ribs.\n\nCooper was thankful that Julian had bailed him out, and relieved that he seemed to be initiating some sort of plan. When he judged Kristanya to be far enough away, he whispered, \"Okay, cool. So what are we doing?\"\n\nJulian shrugged. \"I was just stalling for more time.\"\n\n\"Fuck.\"\n\n\"Rule one,\" said Tim. He and Dave had joined Julian and Cooper's huddle. \"Everyone's going to get their turn, so no kicking in the nuts. Agreed?\"\n\nDave nodded. \"Good idea. Mine are about to explode.\"\n\n\"Maybe we should do this tournament style,\" Julian suggested. \"Tim faces off against Dave, and I'll fight Cooper. Then the winners fight each other.\"\n\nTim looked Cooper up and down, then looked back at Julian. \"That sounds fair.\"\n\n\"Let the fight begin!\" announced Kristanya.\n\nTim, utilizing his high Dexterity score and his apparent training in Taekwondo, immediately launched his foot into Dave's nuts. Dave fell forward, howling in pain and grasping his genitals, but incapacitating Tim with sheer weight.\n\nJulian lunged at Cooper, but it felt more like a hug than a wrestling move. Pulling Cooper's head toward his own, he whispered, \"We need to get the key. Wrestle me toward the nightstand next to the bed.\"\n\nCooper gave Julian a slight nod to show he understood what the goal was, then picked him up and gently body-slammed him onto the floor a few feet in the direction of the nightstand.\n\nJulian cried out in obviously fake pain, then sprang to his feet. He grabbed Cooper's wrist, twisted it behind his back, and jumped up for a from-behind stranglehold.\n\n\"You need to sell it better,\" Julian whispered into Cooper's ear. \"Make her think you really hate me. Throw me at the table, then come in and attack me.\"\n\n\"Roar!\" Cooper said as he gently tossed Julian toward the nightstand. Then he ran at him and stomped on the floor as he pretended to punch Julian in the chest. \"Can you smell what the orc is cooking?\" If it was good enough to fool white trash America, it should be good enough to fool a demon bitch from hell.\n\nJulian glanced in Kristanya's direction, then looked up into Cooper's eyes and shook his head.\n\n\"She's not buying it,\" Julian whispered. \"Put a little more feeling into it.\" He got to his feet, grabbed Cooper by the arm, and pulled him in the direction of the nightstand.\n\nCooper took the hint and followed through on being an unlikely victim of Judo. \"MY HEAVENS!\" he shouted as he jumped toward the nightstand and pretended to lay temporarily incapacitated on the floor. He chanced a glance at Kristanya. She was standing up in front of her throne and eyeing him suspiciously.\n\nWhen Julian got up in his face again, he whispered, \"I don't think she's buying this.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Julian. \"Your Bluff check is based on your Charisma score. I'm sorry.\"\n\nIf Cooper understood him correctly, that would be more his fault than Julian's. \"For what?\"\n\n\"Fuck you! She's mine!\" cried Julian, just before driving his knee into Cooper's goods.\n\n\"Cooper cradled his nuts with both hands. \"What the fuck, dude? I thought \u2013\"\n\nJulian slapped him hard in the face. \"You don't think, you maggot-brained imbecile!\" SLAP \"Your head is more vacuous than an empty Bag of Holding!\" SLAP \"If brain cells were platinum pieces, you wouldn't be able to afford a handjob from a leprous hobo!\"\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"First of all, stop slapping me. Secondly, why would I want \u2013\"\n\nAs Julian's hand drew back to slap Cooper again, Cooper felt a searing pain in his left thigh.\n\n\"FUCK!\" Cooper cried. Instinctively reacting to the only threat he could see, he backhanded Julian in the side of his head, sending him flying back toward the magic door. The pain failed to subside.\n\nLooking down, Cooper found Tim coughing and gagging, and found a crescent of tooth-marks on his thigh which looked disturbingly childlike.\n\nTim went for an uppercut to Cooper's nuts, but Cooper caught his wrist and threw him across the room. Tim hit the wall and landed sprawled out on Kristanya's bed.\n\nCooper took a little time to catch his breath and come to terms that all of his friends had gone batshit crazy on him, when he heard a slow clap.\n\n\"You have done well, Cooper,\" said Kristanya. \"Congratulations.\"\n\nCooper turned to her. Her red eyes glowed brighter than any of the skull candles, her needle-toothed grin more sinister than ever. Still, nice tits.\n\nDave was still awake, cradling his nuts on the floor. Julian lay still near the door. Cooper wondered if he'd hit him just a little too hard. Tim was stirring, but not looking too hot.\n\nKristanya rose from her femur throne. \"It would appear we have a winner.\" Her right eye stopped glowing temporarily as she winked at him. \"If I'm honest, I was hoping it would be you.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Cooper was in a position to take flattery wherever he could get it. \"Why's that?\"\n\n\"To get you out of the way, of course.\" Kristanya stood up, opened her wings, then flapped toward him. \"I want to save the elf for last.\"\n\nThat sounded fair to Cooper. If he had to choose between fucking Julian and fucking a clone of himself, it wouldn't be a choice at all. But after a moment of further reflection, coming to terms with what it meant to be the last man standing in this particular scenario, the backhanded compliment felt somehow even emptier.\n\nKristanya's wings flapped gently, then folded as she landed in front of him. \"Reveal yourself to me.\"\n\nCooper backed away from her. \"Maybe we should take things slowly.\"\n\n\"My body yearns to have yours inside it.\" Kristanya pushed her breasts together, drawing the full scope of Cooper's gaze toward them. He'd lived a good life, and there were worse ways to go.\n\n\"No!\" cried Cooper, slapping himself in the face to free his mind from Kristanya's tit sorcery. \"I've lived a shitty life. I don't want this.\"\n\n\"The bulge under your loincloth says differently.\"\n\nShe made a solid point. Cooper's mind was unable to communicate the dangers of this situation to his dick, which pointed at her bosom like it was presenting its own side of the argument.\n\nCooper tried to take another step back, but something snaked around his ankle. As soon as he looked down and identified it as Kristanya's tail, it pulled back hard, landing Cooper on his back.\n\nIt was a hard fall, and the back of Cooper's head hurt. When his suddenly doubled vision sorted itself out, he was staring down at his flabby chest and belly, then at his dick trying hard to break through his loincloth. It looked like a wigwam in a wasteland.\n\nA second later, his entire field of vision was filled with Kristanya's horrifying face. Her eyes were practically fireballs now. Her forked tongue flicked between her needle-like teeth. She'd pounced on top of him, pinning his shoulders to the floor.\n\n\"You will give me your seed!\" The playful flirtiness was gone from her voice. She'd gone full-on rapist.\n\nCooper struggled to move his arms, finding Kristanya surprisingly strong for her build. But as she slid her body down his bringing her head down toward his junk, she sacrificed her arms' leverage on him. He bent his elbows, bringing his hands up under her arms, and grabbed her horns.\n\n\"No means no, lady,\" said Cooper. \"And if I'm being honest, you're giving off kind of a desperate vibe.\"\n\nKristanya's claws dug deep into Cooper's forearms as she tried to wrest his hands from her horns. He felt her tail release its grip on his ankle. Taking whatever advantage he could get, he pushed ineffectively with his feet as well, but then felt the tail wrap tightly around his neck and start to constrict. If it weren't for the certainty of death at the end, this all might have been even more arousing.\n\nWith all the breath his lungs were able to squeeze out through his collapsing windpipe, Cooper spoke what he hoped weren't his last words. \"I'm... really... angry.\"\n\nThe pain seared through his arms as his muscles expanded into her still-digging claws. His head felt like it might burst as his neck tried to force itself out against her tail's grip.\n\nCooper released Kristanya's horns and pulled his arms free of her grip. Kristanya hovered above him as far up as her tail tether on his neck would allow, taking in his body, transformed as it was by his Barbarian Rage.\n\n\"Yes!\" she cried in ecstasy. She smeared Cooper's arm blood across her breasts. \"So much anger! So much passion! So much \u2013 YAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOW!\"\n\nCooper had grabbed her tail with both hands and torn out a large chunk of it with his teeth. Her tail immediately loosened, and she flew out of his reach.\n\nAble to breathe again, Cooper spat out flesh, blood, and scales, then sucked in as much air as he could. He looked for something to throw. At first glance, all he could come up with was Tim. Even with his mind clouded by Rage, he knew that wasn't an ideal option. Then he considered the bed itself. If he could tear off one of those big-ass ribs, he might have the reach to swat that demon bitch out of the air.\n\nHe ran to the bed and grabbed a post.\n\n\"Cooper,\" Tim whispered, apparently only faking unconsciousness.\n\nCooper punched him in the face, knocking him out for real. It was for his own good. As long as he was still trying to get blown to death, he was a liability.\n\nHis limited attention back on the massive bone bedpost, Cooper grunted as he wrenched it free from the rest of the frame.\n\nIt was by no means an elegant weapon, but it had the reach he needed.\n\nStill cradling her wounded tail, Kristanya dodged Cooper's wild bone swings at her.\n\nA wave of exhaustion, clearness of mind, and flatulence washed over Cooper, and the bone suddenly felt much heavier in his hands. He collapsed as he farted out the last of his Barbarian Rage.\n\n\"Ungrateful beast!\" cried Kristanya. \"You aren't worthy to enter my body!\"\n\nNow they were getting somewhere. Cooper nodded while he caught his breath. \"It's not you. It's me.\"\n\n\"There are far worse ways to die than at the mercy of a Succubus.\"\n\nCooper wheezed out a laugh. \"Like getting hit by a Fuck You Bus?\"\n\n\"We'll see how you laugh when I feed you to a horde of quasits! When they begin to devour you, you'll \u2013 YOU!\"\n\nThat was an odd turn of phrase. Was she stuttering? Cooper looked up to find Kristanya and Julian racing toward the minotaur skull table. Julian just beat her to it, but Kristanya landed right behind him and wrapped her tail around his neck.\n\n\"Give me the gloves,\" Kristanya demanded pleasantly, putting out her hand.\n\nJulian's face was turning red. Not left with a lot of options, he put the gloves in her hand.\n\nKristanya smiled. \"Very good, Julian. I knew you were my favorite.\" She released his neck and he dropped to his knees, gasping for air.\n\nCooper finally managed to push the big bone off his chest and sit up.\n\n\"Seems I was careless,\" said Kristanya, picking up her hat and placing her gloves inside it. \"One must always take care to keep one's valuables in a safe place.\"\n\nBetween the tone of her voice, the events of the past hour, and a lack of obvious alternatives which Cooper could readily identify, he half expected her to roll up the whole bundle and shove it up her cooch. He was mildly intrigued by the idea of being able to watch.\n\nInstead, she snapped her fingers and disappeared. Hat, gloves, demon whore. All of them just gone.\n\nJulian rushed over to Cooper, looking at the claw wounds on his arms. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nCooper shrugged. \"I'll live. I guess, at least until she feeds me to Quasimodo or whatever the fuck she said.\"\n\nThe sound of metal scraping against rock came from over where Tim had knocked out Dave.\n\n\"Dave?\" Julian called over to him. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nDave stood up. He was wearing his breast and back plates, but was bare-ass naked below the waist. His dwarf dong was fully erect, poking out like a second nose from a bush that was as thick and unkempt as his beard.\n\n\"Where's Kristanya?\"\n\n\"Dammit.\" Julian shook his head and pointed at the floor in front of Dave. \"Horse!\"\n\nThe white stallion which appeared seemed somehow surprised to find itself in hell with a half-naked horny dwarf behind it. It kicked Dave right in the nipples of his breastplate, knocking him against the wall and unconscious once again.\n\n\"If he moves, do that again.\"\n\nThe horse gave a small whinny of understanding.\n\n\"That reminds me,\" said Cooper. \"What the fuck ever happened to Ravenus?\"\n\n\"I left him behind to go for help.\" Julian helped Cooper to his feet, then ran to the door. \"I had a bad feeling about this from the beginning.\" He pushed on the door, then shook his head. \"No good. It won't budge.\"\n\nStill fatigued from his Barbarian Rage, Cooper took a few deep breaths and mentally focused on what he was best at. \"Get out of the way.\"\n\nJulian looked back at him, shrugged, and stepped to the side. \"I guess it couldn't hurt to try.\"\n\nWith a solid running start, Cooper charged at the door, slamming into it with his right shoulder. Sharp pain shot down his arm all the way to his hand.\n\nThe noise of the collision was immense, much more so than it should have been. But still, the door refused to budge.\n\nCooper summed up his disappointment and pain in one word. \"Fuck.\"\n\n\"That was really loud,\" said Julian.\n\nCooper sat on the floor and rubbed his shoulder. \"I'm really sorry to have disturbed your goofy-ass giant elf ears.\"\n\n\"No, I was just thinking that we might be able to get someone's attention on the other side.\" Julian started banging on the door. He had a good point. It was making a lot more noise than his delicate elf fist should have been capable of.\n\nCooper reasoned that his larger half-orc fist would make even more noise. He took over pounding on the door while Julian hunched over and peeked through the keyhole.\n\n\"Ravenus! Help!\"\n\nCooper stopped knocking. \"Can you see him?\"\n\nJulian shook his head. \"I can't see anything. I was just hoping he might be able to hear me.\"\n\n\"Should we keep knocking?\"\n\n\"Either that or try to think of another way out of here.\"\n\n\"Fuck that,\" said Cooper. \"My brain still hurts from Kristanya's mind fuck. How about you think and I'll keep knocking?\"\n\nJulian sighed and nodded.\n\nCooper resumed banging on the door. \"Ravenus! Ravenus! RAVEN\u2013\"\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Julian. \"You're saying it wrong. He only speaks Elven. He won't understand what you're saying unless you speak with a British accent.\"\n\n\"Sorry, I don't speak Elven. I'm not wasting a skill point to learn how to talk to a fucking bird.\"\n\n\"Surely it can't be that hard to learn one word in a foreign language. Repeat after me, syllable by syllable. Ray.\"\n\n\"Ray,\" Cooper repeated.\n\n\"Ven.\"\n\n\"Ven\"\n\n\"Us.\"\n\n\"Us.\"\n\nJulian smiled. \"Not bad. Now put it all together.\"\n\nCooper did his best to say the bird's name with the exact pronunciation Julian had just demonstrated for him. \"Ravenus.\"\n\nJulian made a face like Cooper had just rubbed his balls on it.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"If anything, you sound more American, like you're the living embodiment of a stubborn refusal to adopt universal healthcare and the metric system.\"\n\n\"Your mother,\" was the only retort which sprang to Cooper's mind.\n\nJulian sighed. \"We're just not getting out of here without that key.\"\n\n\"That is correct,\" said Kristanya.\n\nCooper's heart skipped a beat as he turned around. Kristanya was back on her throne, her tail bandaged with clean white cloth where Cooper had bitten it. She smiled at Cooper and Julian like they were a couple of altar boys in her rectory.\n\n\"The key is safely out of your reach. You can beat on that door all you like. No one on the other side will hear you.\"\n\n\"It's loud as fuck on this side,\" said Cooper.\n\n\"I designed it that way.\" Kristanya rose from her throne and began walking slowly toward them. \"You see, my charms occasionally fail to work on certain types of individuals.\"\n\n\"Queers?\" Cooper guessed, earning him a harsh glare from Julian. \"What?\"\n\n\"They prefer to be called LGBT.\"\n\n\"Dude. I'm fucking illiterate. You're going to give me shit about my spelling?\"\n\n\"I know not of these Eljee-beety of whom you speak,\" said Kristanya. \"I was referring to elves. For whatever reason, they are more challenging to lure.\"\n\n\"Darwinism,\" said Julian.\n\nKristanya stopped walking. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Elves have crazy long life spans, right? It would make sense, then, that to maintain a stable population, we would be hardwired to think about procreation less frequently, lest our numbers explode.\"\n\nKristanya thought about what Julian said, and she seemed to give just as much of a shit about it as Cooper did. \"Whatever the reason, listening to their agony as their hope of escape slips away serves as an appetizer before they finally change their minds and submit to me.\"\n\n\"So you're going to keep casting Charm spells on me until one finally works? Cooper was right. That does sound desperate.\"\n\n\"What kind of demon do you take me for?\" Kristanya frowned innocently. \"Magic grows tiresome, and the suffering lasts only but a moment. That's why elves are my favorite, Julian. I'll get to prolong your suffering. Once all your friends are gone, you'll go mad with hunger and loneliness until you beg me to end it. Then I'll continue to wait until I don't think you'll survive another day. Alternatively, you may just die. Sometimes I misjudge how much life a man has left in him.\"\n\nCooper shook his head. \"It takes a special kind of twisted bitch to get bored with the humdrum routine of conventional rape and murder.\"\n\n\"You surprised me, Cooper. Half-orcs, with their weak minds, are rarely able to resist my charms.\"\n\n\"Um... thank you?\"\n\n\"I thought about giving you the same treatment as Julian, but my quasits need to be fed.\"\n\n\"I understand.\"\n\nKristanya looked over to where Dave was lying unconscious with his dick in his hand, like he passed out drunk while watching porn. \"Speaking of pets, I see you've Polymorphed your bird into a horse.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Julian lied. \"It's, um... a game we like to play.\"\n\nKristanya pouted at Julian. \"And here I thought you did it just for me.\"\n\n\"What benefit would you get by me turning Ravenus into \u2013\" Julian's face went even paler than usual. \"No.\"\n\nKristanya grinned at Julian, her red eyes flaring brightly again. They had an understanding that Cooper couldn't figure out. Then she turned her attention toward the horse and extended her hand, beckoning it to her.\n\n\"Come here, pretty bird.\"\n\nThe horse took a step toward her.\n\n\"Stay where you are,\" demanded Julian.\n\nKristanya wiggled her fingers at the horse. It ignored the shit out of Julian's order and stayed its course. Its impossibly huge horse dong grew and extended from its body, and Cooper suddenly had an idea of what was about to go down. A succubus, on a goddamn horse. Fucking epic.\n\n\"This isn't happening,\" said Julian.\n\nCooper rested a hand on Julian's shoulder. \"Oh, it's happening alright.\"\n\nA whirlwind of questions raced through Cooper's mind. How was it going to work? Would she just take the end in her mouth and stroke the shaft? Would she take it down like a sword swallower? How big of a load does a horse shoot? Quarts? Could she swallow that much in one gulp? If she could blow a horse, could she blow an elephant? What about a whale? Those fuckers' dicks were ten feet long. How might he go about building an aquarium?\n\n\"Lie down,\" Kristanya instructed the horse. The horse obeyed, getting down on its belly, rolling over onto its back, then spreading its legs. Its meat harpoon waved back and forth like an uncertain compass needle.\n\n\"Nope,\" said Julian. \"This isn't happening.\" He snapped his fingers and the horse disappeared. Kristanya's open mouth welcomed empty air.\n\n\"Dude!\" cried Cooper. \"What the fuck?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. I didn't want to watch that.\"\n\n\"Then turn the other way! I don't want to watch The Bachelor, but I don't come over to your house and turn off your fucking TV, do I?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? I don't even watch The Bachelor!\" He looked at Kristanya. \"Seriously, I've never sat through a full episode. In fact, I don't watch any reality \u2013\"\n\n\"Silence!\" Kristanya was furious, as well she should be. You just don't take the horse cock out of a woman's mouth and expect her to be cool about it. \"It's time you learned some respect.\"\n\n\"Respect is earned,\" said Julian. \"And it has to be mutual.\"\n\nCooper wasn't sure where Julian was going with this half-assed dad lecture. He was confident that a woman who blows horses in front of dudes for attention wasn't too bothered with 'respect' as Julian was defining it.\n\nKristanya narrowed her glowing eyes at Julian. \"We'll see how defiant you are after you meet some of my pets.\" With that, she blinked her eyes and disappeared.\n\n\"What did she call her pets?\" asked Cooper. \"Quibbits or something? How big do you think one of those are? Honestly, at this point, anything smaller than a horse is going to be a disappointment.\"\n\nJulian headed toward the bed. \"Hopefully, we won't have to find out. I've got one more idea. Come on.\"\n\n\"Does this involve us pretending to be gay? I'm not sure I can play it convincingly, and I don't know that it would put her off. In fact, if she were to catch us making out in her bed, I think she might actually be \u2013\"\n\n\"Please,\" said Julian. \"Just, stop.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, dude. I'm not any more thrilled about it than you are.\"\n\n\"I'm not suggesting we start making out on the bed. I was thinking we might find something here to pick the lock with.\"\n\n\"That's a good idea.\" Cooper thought for a moment while Julian inspected the bed where Cooper had ripped off the bedpost. \"If picking the lock doesn't work, though, should we try the gay thing as a Hail Mary pass?\"\n\n\"I don't want to make that decision until I absolutely have to.\"\n\n\"What if we got Tim and Dave to make out instead. We could tell them Kristanya would be really into it.\"\n\nJulian paused and rubbed his chin. \"I think I could commit to that. As an absolute last resort, of course.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Cooper reassured him, pretending that he wouldn't have done it just for fun.\n\n\"Will you get over here and help me?\" Julian was trying to further damage the bed where Cooper had gotten it started. \"There are a few chunks of wood too big to fit in the keyhole, and some splinters not substantial enough to work with.\n\nCooper got a firm grip on the footboard, and they managed to rip the entire front off the bed.\n\nTim rolled down the mattress and opened his eyes. \"Cooper! Wait! Don't \u2013\"\n\nOne more solid punch to the face put Tim back in dreamland, where he wouldn't be a danger to himself or others.\n\nCooper picked up Tim's unconscious body. \"Get the pillow.\"\n\nJulian grabbed the pillow off the bed, gave it a good fluff, then looked closely at a tear in the seam. \"Is this stuffed with people's hair?\" He sighed. \"What am I saying? Of course it is.\"\n\nHe set the pillow on the floor, and Cooper laid Tim gently down on it.\n\nSomething in the wreckage of the bed caught Julian's attention. He picked up a small wooden peg and held it up to Cooper. \"What do you think of this?\"\n\nCooper shrugged. \"It looks like Tim's dick?\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Julian. \"It's just about the same size as that key.\"\n\n\"Sweet!\"\n\nJulian and Cooper rushed back to the door. Julian inserted the makeshift dick key into the door's vag hole.\n\n\"It's a tight fit, but I can just about squeeze it in.\"\n\nCooper snorted. \"Said no one ever to Dave's mom.\"\n\nJulian shoved the peg in as far as it would go, but there was no click. He sighed. \"I guess we're back to square one.\"\n\n\"Maybe not,\" said Cooper. \"You can't just shove it in there and expect it to open on your first try. Wiggle it around. Pull it in and out. Finesse it a little.\"\n\n\"I'm trying to pick a lock, not bring a door to orgasm.\"\n\nCooper nudged Julian aside. \"Let me give it a try.\" He removed the peg, spit in his hand, then rubbed the peg in his spit. With his thumb and index finger, he stroked the peg up and down, making sure to get it lubed up nice and evenly.\n\nHe inserted the peg gently at first, then eased it out and shoved it back in a little more forcefully. \"Do you like that?\"\n\n\"Maybe you should buy the door dinner first,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Maybe you should go fuck yourself. I'm doing my best.\" Cooper jiggled and twisted the key every way he could, then started ramming it harder in. \"Come on, door. Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? Who's your \u2013 FUCK!\"\n\n\"JESUS!\" cried Julian as searing pain tore into Cooper's shoulder and ass cheek.\n\n\"What the fuck is that?\" Cooper felt like he had a rabid monkey on his back, which was somehow biting his shoulder while simultaneously stabbing his ass.\n\n\"I don't know! It's like Kristanya's Mini-Me.\"\n\n\"Well get it the fuck off my back!\" Cooper punched at the creature, but was unable to get enough reach to hurt it or drive it away.\n\nJulian pulled out whatever had pierced Cooper's ass. Cooper felt the tiny monkey hands and feet scramble to maintain their grip on him, and the wind of frantically flapping wings.\n\nFinally, the creature released its hold on his shoulder and screamed like a lizard-cat that just got its tail stepped on.\n\nTurning around, Cooper found Julian biting hard on the tail of something that did indeed look like a miniature version of Kristanya, except that it was blue, bald, male, and only about a foot and a half tall, not counting the tail, which was about as long.\n\nThe tiny demon grabbed Julian's long elf ears and attempted to bite him in the face, but Cooper grabbed it by the throat and pulled it off.\n\n\"Let go of me!\" the tiny winged shithead croaked.\n\nCooper slammed its horned head into the wall. With a satisfying crunch, the creature's flapping wings and flailing arms, legs, and tail all went limp. He flung its lifeless body to the ground.\n\nA slow clap came from across the chamber. Kristanya sat on her bone throne, her red eyes glowing smugly.\n\n\"Well done, gentlemen. You might have handled him better if he hadn't caught you by surprise. I suggest staying alert for the next round.\"\n\n\"Next round?\" said Julian.\n\nKristanya smiled. \"Of course. A single quasit is no match for two strapping young men such as yourselves. I always do a trial run so that I can make an informed decision on how many to throw at you for the real fight. Taking into account various factors, such as your size, ability to fight as a team, and what I know about my quasits, I believe ten will provide optimal entertainment value for me.\"\n\nCooper considered it. He and Julian might be able to take out ten of those things, but they'd come out of it in a world of hurt. His ass cheek pulsed with pain where the little fucker had stabbed him with its tail.\n\n\"Then again,\" Kristanya continued. \"Cooper appears to have gotten stung. Depending on how severely the quasit venom affects his celerity, my calculations may be way off.\" She shrugged. \"I suppose we'll soon find out.\" With a blink of the eyes, she was gone again.\n\nCooper bent over and lifted the back of his loincloth. \"I hate to ask you to do this, but I need you to suck out the poison.\"\n\n\"It's venom,\" said Julian. \"And absolutely not.\"\n\n\"Quit fucking around, man. This is serious!\"\n\nJulian turned away. \"If it was a matter of life or death, then I might consider sucking on your ass, but \u2013\"\n\n\"Fuck life and death! She said my celery stick is going to fall off.\"\n\n\"What? No she didn't.\" Julian paused to think, then looked at Cooper. \"She said your celerity would be affected.\"\n\n\"What the fuck is celerity?\"\n\n\"It's like how fast you move. Maybe the venom affects your Dexterity score or something.\"\n\nCooper let his loincloth down and stood straight. \"Oh. That's preferable to having your lips on my ass.\"\n\n\"Agreed. Now lets \u2013\"\n\n\"OW!\" Cooper cried as something hard hit him on the side of the head. A wooden chunk of broken bed frame clattered on the floor next to him.\n\n\"Asshole!\" said Tim, standing next to the bed, arm cocked back with another piece ready to throw.\n\n\"Dude, that hurt.\"\n\n\"Well how do you think it feels to keep getting punched in the goddamn face every time I wake up?\"\n\n\"That was for your own good.\"\n\n\"He was trying to save your life,\" Julian said to Tim. \"We needed to keep you from getting yourself killed while we tried to pick the lock and get out of here.\"\n\nTim snorted blood out of his nose. \"You were trying to pick a lock? He rubbed his chin in an exaggerated thoughtful manner. \"If only we had a fucking rogue in the party.\"\n\n\"Kristanya has you under some kind of Charm spell. We didn't think you'd agree to help us escape.\"\n\nTim came closer. \"Asking nicely will get you a lot farther than face punching.\" He gently tossed Cooper the chunk of wood he'd been threatening to throw at him.\n\nCooper raised his hand to catch it, but caught only a fistful of air as the wood hit him in the head. \"Ow.\"\n\n\"Nice catch, shitface.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" said Cooper, looking at his hands. \"My senility, my salami, my \u2013\"\n\nTim looked at Julian. \"What the fuck is he talking about?\"\n\n\"His celerity. He got stung in the ass by a mini-demon. The venom is affecting his Dexterity score.\"\n\n\"Well then we'd best grab Dave and get the fuck out of here, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nJulian smiled. \"So you'll help us pick the lock?\"\n\n\"Fuck that. Why pick a lock when you can just use the key.\" Tim reached into his pocket and pulled out Kristanya's silver dick key.\n\nJulian's mouth and eyes went wide. \"How did you... When...?\n\n\"When Cooper and Kristanya were wrestling around on the floor. I caught a glimpse of Cooper's taint and my dick shriveled up like a raisin. I snapped out of my trance and swiped the key.\"\n\n\"Well shit,\" said Cooper. \"Why didn't you say something?\"\n\n\"Because every time I tried, you knocked me the fuck out.\"\n\n\"Oh, right. Sorry.\"\n\n\"Forget it.\" Tim held up the key for Julian. \"You'll have to do the honors. I can't reach the hole.\"\n\nJulian frowned at the keyhole. \"There's a little problem with that. The peg we tried to pick the lock with is stuck in the hole.\" He pinched at it ineffectively. \"It's jammed in there good, and it looks like Cooper snapped part of it off when he was attacked.\"\n\nTim picked up a piece of peg from the floor. \"Is this the other part?\"\n\nJulian nodded.\n\n\"Do I want to know why it's wet?\"\n\nJulian shook his head.\n\n\"I can't believe you two idiots would try to pick a lock with this. Summon one of your goddamn horses so I can take a look.\"\n\n\"Horse,\" said Julian. A small grey pony appeared, just the right size for Tim to sit on to get eye level with the keyhole. Julian calmed the surprised animal by stroking its mane. \"Just stay here. Everything's okay.\"\n\nCooper lifted Tim up onto the horse, and Tim eyed the keyhole. After a few unsuccessful tries to grasp it, he sighed. \"I can't do it. There's just not enough peg sticking out for me to grip.\"\n\nJulian looked around the room. \"What if we snapped a couple of rib bones off Kristanya's throne? Do you think you could use them like forceps?\"\n\nTim shrugged. \"I doubt it, but it's something to pass the time with while we wait to get our souls sucked out of our dicks. Cooper, go snap off two of the sharpest and strongest pieces of bone you can find.\n\nCooper ran in a zigzag fashion toward the throne. That venom was really fucking with his celebrity. He arrived dizzily at the throne and snapped off two pieces of what he guessed were once a dwarf's rib cage. They took a little muscle to break, which meant they should serve their purpose well enough. Having completed his mission, he felt a big shit coming on. The quasit venom was doing a number on his insides as well.\n\nSupposing they didn't have much to lose at this point, he decided to give Kristanya something to remember them by. He squatted over the seat of the throne and hosed it down with liquid shit. When he was done, he felt twenty pounds lighter. Jogging back to his friends was like floating on air.\n\nTim and Julian were glaring at him.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Was that truly necessary?\" asked Tim. \"The crazy bitch seems both fond of torture and creative. We don't really need to go out of our way to piss her off even more.\"\n\n\"I had to shit somewhere, and I don't see a men's room.\" He held up the bones for Tim. \"When we get out of here, you'll be glad I did it.\"\n\n\"If we get out of here. This bone thing is a long shot.\" Tim turned his attention to the keyhole and tried to grip the wooden peg with the two pieces of bone.\n\nAfter a moment of struggling, Tim shook his head. \"It's no use. I'm not getting anywhere.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to try?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"Fuck no!\" Tim threw the bones at Cooper. \"You're the one who fucked it up in the first place. Without a drill or some strong ass super glue, we're completely fucked.\"\n\nCooper looked down at the ground, trying to figure out how glue might solve the problem, then looked back up at Tim. \"Would earwax do?\"\n\nTim rolled his eyes. \"Not unless your earwax is strong enough to fix \u2013\" His scowling eyes went wide. \"Dave!\"\n\n\"You think my earwax can snap Dave out of his trance?\"\n\n\"No, you fucking moron. Dave could use a \u2013\" Tim's lips shut like a drawstring Hefty bag. \"Never mind. The less you know, the better. Just hurry up and get him over here.\"\n\nCooper stomped sullenly toward Dave while Tim and Julian whispered secrets to each other. He found him still unconscious and half-naked on the floor, and paused to consider how it would be best to move him. If he dragged him by the arms, Dave's ass would scrape raw against the rough rocky floor, but if he dragged him by the legs, he'd have the same issue with Dave's head. Cooper didn't know how many healing spells Dave had prepared, but he'd probably need one or two for himself after getting kicked by a horse, and Cooper wanted a couple for his own shoulder and ass. Taking the safest option, he slapped Dave lightly on the cheeks.\n\n\"Dude, wake up.\"\n\nDave stirred. \"What? No. I don't want to touch it.\"\n\nCooper cleared his throat and gave Dave a little bit harder of a slap. \"Come on, man. Keep your fucking altar boy memories suppressed and get your shit together.\"\n\nDave opened his eyes. \"Cooper?\" He looked around frantically. \"Where's Kristanya? Is it over? I didn't get my turn!\"\n\n\"She's coming back,\" said Cooper. He didn't want to lie, because his Charisma score was too shitty for him to do it successfully, so he spoke in half truths. \"She's bringing some friends.\"\n\n\"Alright!\" Dave rubbed his hands together, and his dick started up again from half mast.\n\n\"Let's go join the others. We're all talking about Kristanya's tits.\" That wasn't necessarily a lie, as Cooper was prepared to steer the conversation in that direction if he had to. He needed Dave near enough to the door to shove him through when Julian and Tim opened it, or a shorter distance to drag if he had to knock him out again.\n\n\"Awesome.\" Dave's fat dwarf ass jiggled as he waddled toward the door.\n\n\"Hi, Dave!\" said Tim with a welcoming friendliness in his tone that Cooper was all but certain Tim had never used with anyone before, nor had Dave ever had used toward him.\n\nDave stopped, eyeing Julian, Tim, and the horse Tim was standing on suspiciously. \"What's going on here? What are you guys up to?\" He put his hands on his bare hips. \"Are you trying to pick the lock?\"\n\nTim and Julian laughed.\n\n\"No way!\" said Julian. \"We were just waiting for Kristanya to return, so that we could all, um... do her.\"\n\n\"And her friends.\"\n\nJulian's overly friendly expression faltered. \"Friends?\"\n\n\"Cooper said she left to get some friends.\"\n\nTim narrowed his eyes at Cooper. \"Did he?\"\n\n\"That's right!\" said Julian. \"Friends! She went back to the bar to get some friends. She should be coming back any moment now.\"\n\nDave removed his helmet and started on the buckles and straps of his back and breast plates. \"Why the hell are you guys still dressed?\"\n\n\"We've got a bit of a problem,\" said Tim. \"We thought you might be able to help. You see, Kristanya can't get back in here.\"\n\nDave stopped fiddling with his armor and looked up at Tim. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Cooper, the big doofus, shoved a wooden peg into the keyhole so that it would look like a woman with a big dick. He accidentally snapped half of it off, and the other half is stuck in there.\"\n\n\"How can I help?\"\n\n\"I've noticed that you've been preparing a couple of Mending spells on days when we're planning to go out drinking.\"\n\nDave nodded. \"I figure Cooper's going to break something. If I can undo the damage with a Zero Level spell, it beats paying for it with our booze money.\"\n\n\"That's good thinking,\" said Julian, laying pretty heavily into his Diplomacy skill. \"Do you have any of those Mending spells prepared right now?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nTim stuck the half of the peg in his hand into the keyhole. \"Would you mind?\"\n\nDave reached up and touched the peg. \"I mend thee!\"\n\nTim let go of the peg. It stayed in place. Now that Tim mentioned it, it did look like a woman with a huge dick.\n\n\"Everyone's awake, I see.\" Kristanya had returned. She stood in front of her throne accompanied by ten more of those little demon fuckers, flapping in a cloud around her. \"I wonder if ten quasits will be enough.\" She shrugged. \"If not, there's plenty more where these came from.\"\n\n\"Kristanya!\" cried Dave, looking at her like a fat kid looks through the window of a Dunkin Donuts. \"I feared I was too late!\"\n\n\"Shit,\" said Tim. \"Cooper, grab Dave.\"\n\nCooper put Dave in a choke hold.\n\nDave flapped his stubby arms and croaked, \"You tricked me, you bunch of fags!\"\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"Not cool, man. The preferred term is... Shit, I forgot. Leebyjeebies or something. But the point is that we can disagree without resorting to \u2013\"\n\n\"FUCK YOU!\"\n\nCooper nodded, tightening his hold around Dave's throat. \"See, that's okay because it doesn't \u2013\"\n\n\"Why is this thing so goddamn slippery?\" said Tim.\n\nCooper turned to Tim, who appeared to be trying to jerk off the keyhole. His form was terrible.\n\n\"Are you trying to pick the lock?\" asked Kristanya. \"That's adorable. Surely the sorcerer among you can tell you it's a magical lock, requiring a magical key.\"\n\nTim and Cooper glared at Julian.\n\nJulian looked at the floor. \"I supposed I could have used a Detect Magic spell.\"\n\n\"Quasits!\" Kristanya spoke to her minions. \"Sting them until they're unable to move, but do not kill them.\"\n\nThe horde of MiniMes swarmed forward, baring their teeth and dripping dark green beads of venom from the stingers at the ends of their tails.\n\n\"How's that peg coming?\" asked Julian without taking his eyes off the quasits.\n\nTim was now jerking off the keyhole's dick with his shirt. \"I'm working on it. Just keep those things off me.\"\n\n\"Don't let Dave go anywhere,\" said Cooper. He stepped forward on unsteady legs and tried to look like a threat that everyone should converge on at once.\n\n\"Magic Missile!\" cried Julian. A bolt of energy smacked the leading quasit in the face, flipping it over backward in the air. It reoriented itself before hitting the ground, and continued its charge at Cooper.\n\nDave waddled forward quickly ignoring the quasits. His dick was like a succubus-seeking missile. \"Kristanya!\" Four quasits grabbed him, sinking their stingers into his bare meaty dwarf ass. Not the nimblest of folks to begin with, Dave tripped over his own feet and fell hard on his face. At least he appeared to have squashed one underneath him.\n\nCooper reasoned that if he could grab two quasits by the tail, he could both neutralize the threat they posed and use them as weapons with which to fight the remaining ones.\n\nHe failed to take into account his fucked up Dexterity score, however, and how it might affect his attempts at such a specific maneuver. The problem became clearer as he swatted and grasped at thin air.\n\nTwo quasits laughed at Cooper's feeble attempts as the other four flew past him. Swinging his arms around like a drunk asshole apparently didn't make him look as menacing as he'd hoped. The two laughing quasits latched onto his shoulders and planted their stingers in his belly.\n\n\"Son of a \u2013\" He'd braced himself for the pain, but it still hurt like a motherfucker. On the bright side, their tails were much easier to grab now that they were stationary.\n\nCooper pulled the stingers out of his gut and swung the wailing creatures around like living nunchuks. He swatted one of Dave's attackers right out of the air. Its scorched face suggested it was the one Julian had hit with a Magic Missile. It flopped onto the floor and didn't get back up.\n\n\"Excellent!\" said Kristanya, clapping giddily as she backed up to her throne. \"More, Cooper, more!\"\n\n\"Cooper!\" cried Julian. \"Help!\"\n\nCooper turned around to find Julian wielding the dead trial-run quasit, swinging its lifeless body wildly as he attempted to fend off the living ones. Tim, apparently confused about what he was meant to be trying to achieve, now had his face pressed against the door and appeared to be blowing the keyhole while three quasits stung him in the leg, arm and back.\n\nJulian grabbed the tail of the quasit stinging Tim's leg while Cooper swatted away the one on his arm.\n\nTim flew backward off the horse and landed hard on his back, squishing the quasit underneath him. He spit out the peg and shouted, \"FUCK!\" He rolled over, pushed himself up, and punched the quasit in the face again and again until it crunched. \"They hole's open, let's get the \u2013\"\n\n\"NO!\" screamed Kristanya, so loudly that the fighting stopped on both sides. She rose from her throne, flinging half-orc shit from her fingers. It coated her thighs, ass, and tail as well. \"Who would... Why...\"\n\nDave groaned as he rolled over onto his back, cradling his junk in his hands. \"I... heal... me.\"\n\nKristanya's red eyes flared up bright enough to light up the entire chamber. \"I've changed my mind. Kill them all!\"\n\nThe five remaining quasits grinned, delighted that they were now allowed to stop fucking around, and all flew at Cooper. He tried to dodge their attacks, but he had the reflexes of a newborn calf. Teeth and claws tore at his flesh all over his body. He felt like he was on fire.\n\nRecalling PSAs from childhood, he did the only thing he could think of. He might not be able to fight effectively with a Dexterity score close to bottoming out, but he could fall down like a motherfucker.\n\nHe bowed his head and fell backward, crushing the three quasits on his back. Two remained on his chest, feverishly gnawing and clawing his man tits. He grabbed them by the necks, ripped them off like Band-Aids, and smashed their skulls together until their wings stopped flapping.\n\nKristanya advanced slowly, looking not at all concerned about her dead pets, but rather delighted at the sight of Cooper and his friends squirming around helplessly on the floor like bloody maggots.\n\n\"You worthless, ungrateful swine. I invite you into my home, offer you my body and a means to end your miserable existence, and what do you do?\"\n\nTim squirmed closer to Julian and Cooper and whispered, \"Julian, keep her distracted. I'm going for the door.\"\n\n\"What about Dave?\" said Julian.\n\n\"We can barely move. The only hope we've got is that Ravenus rounded up a posse and they're waiting to charge in from the other side.\"\n\nJulian nodded.\n\n\"And how do you return my generosity?\" Kristanya continued. \"You destroy my bed. You desecrate my throne. You filthy, disgusting creatures have the audacity to reject this body? Do you even know what I am?\"\n\n\"You're a disgrace!\" said Julian. \"How can you even call yourself a temptress? Do you realize how pathetic it is to have to use magic to get someone like Cooper to let you put his dick in your mouth?\"\n\n\"Ouch,\" said Cooper. \"Harsh, but fair.\"\n\nTim swayed to his feet like he had octopus legs and steadied himself against the horse.\n\nKristanya stepped over her bedpost and walked past Dave, still cradling his nuts on the floor. \"You know nothing of my kind, elf. I am a demon, a denizen of the Abyss, a \u2013\"\n\n\"A coward. Once we started to resist your weak-ass Charm spells, you wouldn't come near us until you'd weakened us with a horde of your minions.\"\n\n\"That's what minions are for, sweet Julian. Why bother getting my own hands dirty? It's much more fun to watch. And how can you call me pathetic when your little friend still persists on trying to pick a lock that he knows can't be picked?\"\n\nTim kept trying to insert the key into the hole, but he kept missing. On the fourth try, it fell out of his hand and clinked onto the floor.\n\n\"What?\" cried Kristanya. \"How could you...\" She reached her hand out toward the key. \"You thieving little slime!\"\n\nThe key began to fly toward her open hand, but Julian snatched it out of the air.\n\n\"No more games! Give me that key!\" Kristanya stomped toward Julian. \"How dare you steal from me, you miserable little \u2013\"\n\n\"FUCK YOU, BAT WHORE!\" shouted Dave as a horn sprouted out of Kristanya's abdomen, dripping with black blood. Dave stood behind her, holding the bedpost, limp-dicked and panting heavily.\n\nKristanya screamed so loudly that all the candles flickered out. The only light left in the room came from her eyes, which were beginning to dim.\n\nCooper crawled toward her. He couldn't do much, but he might be able to bite her ankle or something.\n\nJulian reached up and handed Tim the key, then turned to Kristanya. \"Magic Miss\u2013\"\n\nKristanya blinked, and the room went completely dark. Julian's spell fizzled out, and the bedpost Dave was holding clattered to the floor.\n\n\"Way to go, Dave!\" said Julian. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know what I was thinking,\" said Dave. \"It was like I was in a trance.\"\n\n\"What made you snap out of it?\"\n\nCooper snorted. \"He healed himself.\"\n\nJulian frowned. \"A Cure Light Wounds spell can remove a Charm?\"\n\n\"Of course not, dumbass. But you know how good those spells feel. Combine that with the fact that his balls were full to the point of bursting, it's pretty obvious he jizzed himself.\"\n\n\"I don't see how that would \u2013\"\n\n\"Think of it this way. It's three in morning, and the bar's about to close. This girl's been eyeing you all night, but you were certain you could do better. Now that you've had a few more drinks and your options are running out, she starts looking a lot better. So you're making out in the back of the cab on the way back to your apartment and you jizz your pants. No big deal, right? You've got the rest of the cab ride to build it back up, and you'll probably last a little longer. But then your look at her again with a clearer head, and you wonder what the fuck you were thinking. Jesus Christ, she knows where you live now. Are you going to have to move? Do you have to \u2013\"\n\n\"Cooper!\" said Tim.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Shut the fuck up.\" Tim hopped down from the horse and pushed the door open. Dim light spilled into the chamber. \"JESUS!\" He hit the deck."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "THWACK THWACK", "text": "The horse caught two crossbow bolts. One in the neck, and the other in the eye. It was dead before it had a chance to scream. It vanished, and the two bolts clattered onto the threshold between dimensions.\n\n\"Sorry!\" said a balding gnome sitting on the side of the bed with a crossbow and a hard-on threatening to tear a hole in his little pants. \"That was my fault.\"\n\n\"I was only following his lead,\" said the similarly equipped elf sitting next to him.\n\nJulian stumbled across the threshold and looked at Ravenus, who was perched on the headboard. \"Who the hell are these people?\"\n\nRavenus squawked something. Tim shook his head.\n\nThe elf on the bed glared at Ravenus. \"He neglected to mention that it involved a group of men and a horse.\"\n\n\"Why would you tell them that?\" asked Julian.\n\nRavenus flapped his wings and squawked defensively.\n\nTim harrumphed. \"That figures. What a bunch of assholes. Tell them your friends are in danger and nobody gives a shit. But tell them there's a free sex show, and you might snag a couple of gullible fuckwits.\"\n\n\"Hey!\" said the gnome.\n\nCooper picked up one of the crossbow bolts, darkened and slick with horse blood. \"If you were expecting a parade of hookers to walk out the door, why the fuck was your first instinct to shoot us?\"\n\n\"I did apologize for that,\" said the elf. \"We are not, after all,\" He looked down at Tim. \"How did you put it, a couple of gullible fuckwits? In this day and age, you can't go around trusting everything a talking bird in a tavern tells you. When we couldn't get the door open, we wondered if he might be luring us into some kind of trap.\"\n\n\"We did that poor creature a favor,\" said the gnome. \"Look at you! All sweaty and wobbly-kneed, covered in bites and scratches. It's disgusting!\"\n\nJulian gasped. \"We weren't \u2013\"\n\n\"Save it, elf.\" The gnome raised his hands, palms out to Julian. \"Whatever you want to do with each other is your own business, but don't involve innocent animals in your twisted erotic rituals.\"\n\n\"Screw you, fuckface,\" said Tim. \"You followed a bird to a stranger's inn room to watch a free sex show, and you're going to judge us? I see what's happening here. It's called deflection. You're ashamed of yourselves for being creepy-ass perverts, and cheap ones at that. So you project your own insecurities onto us, making up stories about us fucking a horse, a horse that you murdered, without a scrap of evidence.\"\n\n\"Hold the door, guys!\" called Dave from inside Kristanya's chamber. \"I had to get my pants.\" He waddled through the doorway with hoofprints on his breastplate and a drop of nut sauce still hanging from his limp dwarf schlong.\n\nThe gnome smiled expectantly at Tim. \"You were saying?\"\n\nJulian started to say something, but Cooper put a hand on his shoulder. \"Let them have this one. Let's go get a drink.\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "Fistin' the Furious", "text": "Thank you for your amazing generosity.\n\n\"So why us?\" asked Tim, still bitter over his swollen hand. He downed a shot of stonepiss, then set the empty shot glass upside down beside two others, forming the beginning of a pyramid. Other patrons, sipping fancier drinks from ornately decorated tankards, occasionally frowned disapprovingly at their table. The Golden Goblet wasn't the sort of place Tim and his friends usually frequented, but they served a decent stonepiss. As long as someone else was paying, that's all that really mattered.\n\nThe young woman buying them drinks smiled sympathetically at him. She might be pretty if she didn't insist on dressing like a Puritan and wearing her hair tied up in a grandma bun.\n\n\"I have a task which requires your various talents, and which I will pay you handsomely for.\"\n\n\"Bullshit, lady. This isn't my first day in the game. We've been sent on enough quests from strangers in taverns to know that what you need is a group of expendable drunks to run off and do something that's too stupid or too dangerous for you to do yourself.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I should do the talking?\" said Julian. The tips of his long elf ears were already pink from the half a glass of beer he'd drunk.\n\nTim necked back another shot, then set the glass down atop the row of empties to start the next tier of his pyramid. \"We don't need your Diplomacy skill right now. She came to us.\" He turned back to the woman. \"You've got until I pass out and piss my pants to make your pitch, so start pitching.\"\n\n\"You need not fear any risk that I would not be willing to face alongside you, halfling. For it is my intention to accompany you on this quest. And not one of you is expendable. Like I said, it is your individual talents which led me to request your assistance. I have been watching you from a distance since early in the evening when you tried to pick my pocket.\"\n\nTim held up his bandaged hand, unable to give her the finger because they were all too puffy and full of venom. \"That's my unique talent you need? The one you personally witnessed me fucking up?\"\n\n\"That wasn't your fault.\" She placed her hand on the table, and a small black snake slithered out of her sleeve. \"How were you to know that little Simon here was in my pocket? I didn't feel your hand at all. Until you screamed, I hadn't the slightest idea you were there.\"\n\nTim grimaced at the snake. \"Just keep Simon the fuck away from me.\"\n\nUla clicked her tongue, and Simon slithered back up her sleeve.\n\n\"Are you a sorcerer?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Sorceress,\" the woman corrected him. \"My name is Ula Wilmott. I am touched with the gift of sorcery, but I have yet to develop my powers as you have yours.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" said Dave. \"Julian, a powerful sorcerer? She really is blowing smoke up our asses.\"\n\n\"Let's cut to the chase,\" said Tim. \"You need Cooper's Strength, Julian's Charisma and sorcery, Dave's healing magic \u2013\"\n\n\"And Wisdom,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Whatever. And my superior Intelligence and Dexterity.\" Tim downed another shot. \"This sounds like it has the potential to be a dangerous mission. What kind of crazy scheme do you need us to help you pull off?\"\n\n\"Crazy?\" Ula's left eye twitched. Her teacup rattled as she placed it on the saucer. She rested her trembling hand on her fork. \"Would a crazy person do this?\" Quick as a viper, she grabbed the fork and pinned Tim's already wounded hand to the table.\n\n\"YEOWWW!\" cried Tim.\n\nCooper and Julian gawked uselessly while Dave yanked the fork out, then touched Tim's bleeding hand. \"I heal thee!\"\n\nTim shuddered with relief, cradling his re-abused hand and looking into Ula's calm eyes as she sipped her tea. \"Yes, as a matter of fact. That's precisely the sort of thing a crazy person would do.\" He was ready to jump out of the way of a second attack, but she quietly set her teacup down again, making no move for any cutlery.\n\n\"Then if one suspects another of being crazy, it would make sense for one to not insult that person to their face.\"\n\nTim was still a little too freaked out to try and make sense of that logic without another shot of stonepiss to settle his nerves.\n\n\"Back to the question,\" said Julian. \"What exactly do you need us to do?\"\n\nUla looked up from her tea and smiled sweetly at him. \"I need you to take the lives of my brothers.\"\n\nDave choked on his beer.\n\nTim spat out his stonepiss. \"Are you fucking ins\u2013\" He stopped himself just short of getting stabbed again, but Ula was looking at him expectantly, daring him to finish his sentence. \"\u2013urance salesmen?\"\n\nUla raised her eyebrows. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Never mind. I was thinking of something else.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, ma'am,\" said Julian. \"But I don't think we're the guys you're looking for.\"\n\n\"On the contrary. You're perfect.\"\n\n\"We're not murderers for hire.\"\n\n\"Oh, my.\" Ula looked aghast at the suggestion. \"I would never ask you to murder anyone.\"\n\n\"But you said \u2013\"\n\n\"In fact, I'll be doing all of the work. I'm not asking you to do very much at all, apart from just being there.\"\n\n\"I don't get it,\" said Dave. \"If you're going to 'do all the work',\" he accentuated the phrase with air quotes, \"then what do you need us for? To move the bodies or something?\"\n\nUla thought for a moment, then smiled at Dave. \"In a manner of speaking.\"\n\nMoney. Not a lot of work. Watching this crazy bitch attack her brothers with a fork might even count for entertainment.\n\n\"How much money are we talking about here?\" asked Tim.\n\nJulian glared at Tim.\n\n\"Two hundred gold pieces.\"\n\nDave let out a long low whistle.\n\nJulian glared at Dave.\n\n\"Each.\"\n\nCooper let out a long low fart.\n\nEveryone glared at Cooper.\n\n\"If you could excuse us for a moment,\" Tim said to Ula. \"My friends and I would like a moment to speak privately.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Ula, quickly rising from the table. \"Take all the time you need.\" She walked briskly toward the exit like she'd just started the timer on a bomb inside the place.\n\nUnder normal circumstances, it would have been more polite for the rest of them to leave her at the table, but Tim could tell that she was eager to get out of Cooper's fart cloud.\n\n\"What's there to talk about?\" Julian demanded as soon as Ula was out of sight. \"We're not doing this.\"\n\n\"Let's not be hasty,\" said Tim. \"We should at least discuss it.\"\n\n\"This is accessory to murder!\"\n\n\"Save it for Law & Order, Dick Wolf. This is Caverns & Creatures. People murder each other all the time. They don't have CSI shit. The odds of us getting caught are infinitesimal.\"\n\n\"That's not the only reason to not assist murderers.\"\n\n\"We're not assisting shit. We're just moving bodies. If we don't do it, that money's just going to go to the next lowlife pieces of shit she approaches.\"\n\n\"But our consciences, at least my conscience, will be clean.\"\n\nThat was just the in Tim needed. \"Will it? Knowing that you let this woman get away with murder when you could have stopped it, or at least brought her to justice?\"\n\nJulian frowned, clearly suspicious. \"What are you getting at?\"\n\n\"We go with her and check out the situation. Maybe her brothers deserve to die. Maybe they beat her, or abuse her in some other way.\"\n\n\"It's not our place to \u2013\"\n\n\"Hear me out. Maybe it's a money thing, and she's just a greedy bitch. We don't know, which is why we should go with her and see what's going on. She thinks we're a bunch of lowlifes.\"\n\n\"I can't fault her for that.\"\n\n\"Exactly. We don't come off as very heroic or virtuous, so she thinks we'll do anything for a buck. She won't be expecting us to interfere.\"\n\nJulian narrowed his eyes at Tim. \"So you're in this strictly as a matter of altruism.\"\n\n\"Not necessarily. There's also the possibility that we are either unwilling or unable to interfere, in which case we collect our money and do what we were hired to do.\"\n\n\"That's precisely what I don't \u2013\"\n\nTim raised a finger. \"But after that's done, we send an anonymous letter to the authorities with her address and the exact location of where the bodies are dumped. She goes to prison, or gets hanged, or burnt at the stake, or whatever the fuck they do here, her dead brothers are avenged, and we get paid. You think any of the other assholes in this tavern would go to that kind of trouble?\"\n\nJulian was clearly trying to think of a counter-argument, but coming up short. He needed a little bit more of a nudge.\n\n\"Think about us, and the rest of the folks at the Whore's Head Inn,\" said Tim. \"Eight hundred gold pieces could go a long way toward the kind of magical research that could get us out of this shitty world and back in our real bodies.\"\n\nAn hour later, they were in a hired carriage passing through North Gate. Ula paid the driver a gold piece in advance, which was likely well more than the standard fare. The purse she'd taken the coin from was weighty in her hand, like there was plenty more where that had come from.\n\nThe ride was awkward and mostly silent. Ula tried to make light conversation a few times, but everyone answered her questions briefly and succinctly.\n\nOnly Ravenus seemed to be enjoying the trip, flying in wide circles high above the carriage, occasionally diving down to murder a rabbit or field mouse, no doubt just gobbling up their eyes and leaving the rest of the body to rot.\n\nFinally, the carriage stopped. Once everyone had gotten out, the driver tipped his hat to Ula, turned his carriage around, and headed back for the city. Tim wondered if Ula had a cart handy for them to put the bodies in. Julian could summon some horses if they needed to, but did she know that?\n\nAs was fashionable among these older houses on the bank of the Bluerun River on the northern side of Cardinia, the property the carriage stopped in front of was surrounded by a wrought-iron gate crawling with rose bushes. The bars of this fence, however, pointed in different directions and odd angles, as if the rose bushes were all that was holding them up, rather than vice-versa.\n\nEven the roses looked off somehow. Most of the houses they'd passed sported healthy and robust bushes, bursting with shiny green vines and flowers of vibrant reds, oranges, purples, and pinks, filling the air with their sweet perfume. The leaves here were a much darker shade of green, and the vines were studded with long sharp thorns. The flowers' sepals were disproportionately large compared to the petals, which were an ugly shade of nicotine yellow. They smelled faintly of spoiled milk.\n\nUla stopped at the gate and turned to face them. A sagging rose touched her shoulder gently, and she swatted it away like it was an annoying horsefly.\n\n\"I beg you'll pardon the state of the house. I'm not the tidiest of homemakers.\"\n\nThey were going to watch a multiple homicide. Tim didn't give a fuck about the state of her house, but he smiled politely. \"I can assure you, we've all seen much worse.\"\n\nAs if to strengthen Tim's claim, Cooper chose that precise moment to fart out a blob of greenish-brown shit on the ground. \"Excuse me.\"\n\n\"Are you ill, Mr. Cooper?\" asked Ula. She swatted a little more violently at the rose which the breeze had caused to graze her shoulder again.\n\nCooper shook his head and panted, holding his eyes shut until a healthier and drier fart escaped. \"No, it's cool. Just my Charisma acting up.\"\n\nUla gave him a pleasant smile and a slight bow. \"Very well. And thank you for being so under\u2013 FOR THE LOVE OF \u2013\" She grabbed the sagging vice supporting the rose which had dared touch her a third time, and pulled it with both hands, not even seeming to notice the thorns tearing into her skin. \"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? YOU MADE ME DO THIS!\" She wrapped the vine around both hands, then pulled upward like she was trying to pull a loved one out of quicksand. \"DIE! DIE! DIE!\"\n\nThe ground finally let go of a large clump of dirt and root, which Ula used as a flail to beat the ground with. When she was satisfied that the offending plant was dead enough, she let the vine drop to the ground. It was soaked in her blood, which was dripping profusely from her hands.\n\nRegaining her composure, she blew at a lock of hair that had fallen out of place and was touching her forehead. It fell back down on her forehead, and Tim feared she was going to start ripping her hair out.\n\nInstead, she brushed it back with her hand. The smear of blood kept it in place, which was at least as horrifying.\n\nDave cleared his throat. \"Would you like a healing spell?\"\n\nUla looked down at her hands. \"I suppose the house is enough of a mess. That would be lovely, thank you.\" She extended her hands toward him, and he touched the least bloody part of her wrist.\n\n\"I heal thee.\"\n\nUla's chest heaved as she closed her eyes and inhaled ecstatically. When the blood stopped dripping from her hands, she opened her eyes and looked down at Dave. \"You have quite the magical touch.\" She ran a finger along the leopard fur on Dave's forearm. \"I wonder what it would feel like... inside.\"\n\nTim couldn't think of a reason Dave's Cure Light Wounds spell might feel better indoors, but he hoped there was some explanation to what she said other than the only one he could come up with. What kind of person, on the day they've picked to murder their family in cold blood, gets distracted by fantasizing about getting fisted by a dwarf? Also, what kind of vag was she packing if it could accommodate Dave's whole forearm? Tim's little halfling dick wouldn't stand a chance of touching the sides, not that she'd shown any interest.\n\n\"Shall we go inside now?\" asked Ula.\n\nEveryone glanced at each other before giving reluctant nods, then followed her toward the front door.\n\n\"Do you still feel like this was a good idea?\" Julian whispered to Tim as they trailed behind Dave and Cooper.\n\n\"Hang on.\" Tim pulled out his flask and gulped back some stonepiss. \"Yeah. Let's go.\"\n\nThe front lawn had a distinct redneck vibe to it, with its tall grass, overgrown hedges, and random junk strewn about. All it was missing was a rusty old pickup truck.\n\nJust before reaching the porch, Ula stopped to dip her blood-covered hands in a stone birdbath which looked like it might fall over any minute. The algae-green water turned brown as she rubbed the blood from her hands.\n\n\"Please,\" said Dave. \"Allow me.\" He dipped a finger in the water, touching her hand gently. \"I purify thee.\" The water instantly turned crystal clear, with not a trace of algae or blood.\n\nTim couldn't believe what he was seeing. Dave had obviously picked up on the same fisting innuendo as he had and was actually trying to keep that door open. Was he hoping to squeeze that in before or after the murders? Was he hoping that it would lead to a long term relationship? Was he that starved for a woman's affection? Whatever his motivations, if there was anything more stomach-turning than that rose bush incident, it was watching Dave trying to act suave.\n\nUla smiled at him. \"Oh, my!\"\n\nAgain, Tim was bewildered. She was genuinely eating this shit up. What could she possibly see in Dave? Or maybe she was just into dwarves. Maybe they're known to give good fist. He'd have to ask some locals next time he was in a tavern.\n\n\"This way, gentlemen.\" Ula walked up the rickety front porch steps of what looked to have once been a beautiful mansion, but had fallen into decades of disrepair. As soon as she set foot on the top step, the large wooden doors opened slowly, seemingly of their own accord.\n\n\"Jesus!\" said Cooper, expressing what Tim was barely able to keep from saying out loud himself. Just on the other side of the door stood a grotesquely deformed elderly man to greet them.\n\nHis good eye was brown, and as large as the patch covering his other eye. It was also slightly higher on his head. His ears were large and pointed, but not like an elf's. Instead of being long and slender, like Julian's, they were wide like a pig's, poking out sideways. Calling him human might have been generous, but he was certainly no elf.\n\nTim glanced up at Ravenus, perched on Julian's shoulder. Sure enough, he was staring open-beaked at that freakishly big eye.\n\nThe old man smiled at his guests, showing off his three yellow teeth poking out of swollen gums. Not wanting to be rude, Tim's gaze fell to the man's hands, each of which had an extra thumb, because of course they did.\n\n\"Be not alarmed, little halfling,\" said Ula.\"This is my brother, Matthias.\"\n\nThey looked to be at least eight generations apart. Tim was genuinely curious about how their mom had popped out a second kid at the age of three hundred and eight, but he was already in deep enough shit from the obviously horrified expression on his face.\n\n\"I wasn't alarmed,\" said Tim. \"Quite the contrary, in fact. I was admiring...\" Tim searched for something to credibly finish that sentence with. \"...his ring!\" He might have oversold his excitement, but at least the ring looked interesting enough to sell the story. The ring itself, like its owner, looked old and tarnished. But it was adorned with three shiny pearls the size of Peanut M&M's. One orange, one white, and one blue.\n\n\"Do you like it?\" wheezed Matthias. \"It's one of my own inventions.\"\n\n\"You invented the ring?\" asked Tim. He guessed it was plausible. Motherfucker certainly looked old enough. Hell, for all Tim knew, this guy could have invented the circle.\n\n\"Matthias is very clever,\" said Ula. \"This self-opening door is another one of his inventions.\" She certainly had a lot of praise for someone she was about to murder.\n\nMatthias pointed at a small blob of shit between Cooper's feet.\n\n\"Um...\" said Cooper. \"That was already there.\"\n\n\"There's a panel under the top step!\" Matthias shouted. It wasn't an angry shout. It was more like he thought everyone else was as deaf as he was.\n\nCooper frowned. \"Do you want me to get that for you? Or...\"\n\n\"It triggers the door!\"\n\n\"Oooooh,\" said Tim, Dave, and Julian. They clapped politely, pretending to be impressed at his Walmart technology.\n\nUla stepped inside and gestured for Tim and his friends to follow. \"Come in and meet my other brothers.\"\n\nTim dared not look at Julian as he got the creeping feeling that they might be making a huge mistake. \"How many brothers do you have?\"\n\n\"Four, including Matthias. They'll be thrilled to finally meet you.\"\n\nWhat the hell did that mean? Tim could practically feel Julian's accusatory stare stabbing him in the back of the head. \"Were they expecting \u2013 Holy fucking shit.\"\n\nWhat was once a living room was now a storage pit for broken furniture, dust, and spider webs. Standing in the middle were three of the most horribly disfigured human beings Tim had ever seen.\n\n\"This is Dunder,\" said Ula, gesturing at the monstrosity on the left. \"Say hello, Dunder.\"\n\n\"Yaaaaaaa,\" said Dunder, dressed only in a filthy blood-smeared leather butcher's apron. His jaw appeared to be immobile, leaving his mouth permanently open, consequently leaving him unable to form consonants. Having failed to say the word, he settled for waving the two baby arms sprouting out of his right shoulder.\n\nUla nodded, then turned her attention to the next freak. \"This is Figg.\"\n\nFigg was a squat blob of a man. He was naked, but his skin was completely covered with long grizzled white hair, like fur made out of old man pubes.\n\n\"He\u2013lloooo,\" said a gravelly voice that Tim could only assume was Figg's. The long pube fur hung down over his mouth, making it impossible to tell for sure that he was the one talking.\n\n\"And this,\" Ula walked over and placed a gentle hand on the bare shoulder of the monstrosity on the right, \"is Momo.\"\n\n\"MOMO!\" said Momo, looking up at Tim with wild milky eyes. Thick black chains attached his wrists to his ankles, severely limiting his movement and no doubt causing the enormous hunch in his back. He held a large iron ball attached to a chain that ran through a ring on his wrist and ankle chains, then up to an iron collar around his neck. His legs were about the size of Dave's, but his torso and arms were bigger than Cooper's when he was in Barbarian Rage mode.\n\nUla rested a hand on his massive bald head. \"Say hello to our guests, Momo.\"\n\n\"MOMO!\"\n\n\"Bad Momo.\" She slapped him on the head, then squeezed his cheeks together with each syllable as she said, \"Hello.\"\n\n\"MOMO!\"\n\nShe slapped him again. \"No! Hello.\"\n\n\"MOMO!\"\n\nUla clenched her hands and pounded Momo on the head with both fists. \"HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! BAD, STUPID MOMO! HELLO!\"\n\nMomo banged on the floor with his iron ball, denting the old but surprisingly sturdy wood. \"MOMO! MOMO! MOMO!\"\n\nAs her other brothers stood by indifferently, and Tim and his friends stood by dumbstruck and terrified, Ula screamed as she jumped onto Momo's back, then sank her teeth into the back of his head as her fists rained down on top of it.\n\n\"What the fuck is going on?\" asked Cooper, scratching his balls. \"Are we back in Mississippi?\"\n\nTim wondered if this was how she planned to murder all of her brothers.\n\nEventually, Ula's punches grew weaker. The energy it took to try to bite through her brother's skull was only maintainable for so long. She slid off his hunched back and composed herself. Her hair was wild, her face soaked with sweat, her mouth dripping with Momo's blood, and her left tit had fallen out the top of her dress.\n\n\"You'll have to forgive Momo.\" She cupped her right hand over the side of her mouth and tapped her left temple. \"He's not right in the head.\"\n\n\"Mooomooo,\" Momo groaned sadly, swaying on his squat legs.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" said Julian suddenly. \"I've just remembered that today is my niece's birthday party.\"\n\n\"Birthday party?\" said Ula.\n\n\"You have a niece?\" said Cooper. Dave nudged him.\n\nJulian frowned, looking at his wrist. \"We're already late. I'm afraid we'll have to take a rain check.\"\n\nCooper scratched his balls more aggressively. \"May I use the restroom first?\" Tim now had doubts as to if whatever was going on under Cooper's loincloth was indeed ball-scratching.\n\n\"No!\" said Tim. \"We're late for Jennifer's birthday party. We need to leave right now.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" Cooper sulked as he removed his hand from under his loincloth.\n\nTim turned back toward the front doors, which were still wide open. Matthias's frail disfigured silhouette was a blemish in the sunlight.\n\n\"I'm afraid we cannot allow you to leave,\" said Matthias, stepping on random parts of the floor with his left foot. He finally stopped when the doors slammed shut behind him. He narrowed his eye at them and added, \"ever.\" It would have been more dramatic if he'd had a better sense of exactly where the door trigger on the floor was.\n\n\"Stand down, old man!\" Julian wasn't normally one to make threats, being a scrawny elf. But Tim had to admit he could hear the Charisma bonus to his Intimidation check in his voice.\n\nMatthias's giant eye blinked. \"You don't want to threaten me, lad.\"\n\n\"Why the fuck not?\"\n\nDamn, Julian. Breaking out the f-bombs.\n\n\"Because this!\"\n\nTim shook his head. Because this? Dude really needed to work on his one-liners.\n\nMatthias lifted his eye patch, setting free his other, normal-sized eye. It shot out of his head toward Tim and his friends, trailed by yards and yards of optic nerve.\n\n\"JESUS!\" cried Tim, too grossed out to jump out of the way as it wrapped around their legs, arms, and necks.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" said Dave. \"Get it off me! Get it off me!\"\n\nMatthias lowered his eye patch and laughed at them.\n\n\"Yaayaaaayaya,\" Dunder joined in the laughter, clapping his baby hands together excitedly.\n\nFigg's whole body jiggled, causing ripples in his pube fur.\n\n\"MOMO!\" said Momo excitedly, pounding the floor with his iron ball.\n\nCooper struggled against their bindings, jostling Tim around like a rag doll tied to his back. \"This is so fucking gross.\"\n\n\"Calm yourselves, new friends,\" said Matthias once the laughter subsided. \"It's only rope. I spruced it up with a bit of illusory magic. I'm an inventor, you see.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Julian. \"You mentioned that.\"\n\nThe illusion faded, and the rope looked like ordinary, non-nervy rope. It was still binding them all together, but Tim felt like he might be able to free a hand with a little effort.\n\n\"Tut tut,\" said Ula, looking down at Tim. She pinched a pin on the back of Momo's collar. \"Please don't make me loosen Momo's chains. He makes such a mess.\"\n\n\"MOMO!\" said Momo.\n\nTim stopped struggling.\n\nUla smiled at him, then looked up at Matthias. \"Let's hurry this along, shall we?\"\n\nMatthias plucked the blue pearl from his ring and rolled it like a tiny bowling ball toward Tim and his friends.\n\nMatthias's giant eye squinted into the cavity in his ring where the blue pearl had been mounted. \"Oh yes, that's right.\" He looked up and grinned at Tim. \"Sleep.\"\n\nBlue smoke flowed out of the orb. It smelled sweet and intoxicating.\n\n\"Cooper!\" Tim shouted, ready to risk Momo's wrath in order to avoid being asleep and vulnerable to these crazy assholes. \"Use your Barbarian Rage!\"\n\n\"I'm... really...\" Cooper yawned. \"...ang...\" The snore and fart that followed were not encouraging.\n\nThe smoke stung Tim's eyes, forcing them shut. But it was oddly soothing to his lungs as he breathed it in.\n\nThis isn't so bad. What was I so worried about? Where does worrying ever get you anyway? Bartender, can I have another shot of..."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 12", "text": "Tim woke up, sober and with a massive headache. It wasn't the first time, and he knew the cure. It was in a flask in his vest pocket. Unfortunately, he found he was unable to move his arms.\n\n\"The fuck?\" he said as he struggled to move.\n\nThough he didn't like the idea of opening his eyes to a new day without a bit of liquid motivation, he felt it prudent to assess his unusual situation before acting upon it.\n\nOpening his eyes, he discovered that he was held down by thick leather straps. Julian, Dave, and Cooper were likewise strapped to wooden tables, and still sound asleep. Ravenus lay asleep in a rusty iron birdcage hanging from a hook above Cooper's table.\n\nJudging by the musty air, the upward leading stairs outside the arched entryway to the room, and the faint evening light seeping in through the small barred windows near the ceiling, Tim guessed they were in some kind of dungeon.\n\nAgainst the wall opposite the one their tables were lined up against stood a small cage, about the size of two phone booths, with thick iron bars and what Tim appraised from a distance to be a pretty high-end lock. Even with quality tools, he would likely have a hard time picking it.\n\nFortunately, the cage was empty and all Tim had to deal with was a leather restraint. With a bit of effort, and help from his high Dexterity score and the ranks he'd put into Escape Artist skill, he managed to coax the end of the strap backward through the buckle with the tips of his fingers. His right arm finally free, he dug his hip flask out from the inside pocket of his vest. He needed a clear head in order to get some real thinking done.\n\nA few gulps of stonepiss did the job nicely, and Tim's situation didn't seem quite as grim as it had a moment before. He began to formulate a plan which wasn't much more complicated than getting everyone else awake and untied, then getting the fuck out of this place. It seemed like an obvious and simplistic plan for Tim's high Intelligence score, but anything more complicated would likely be screwed up by his dumbshit friends. He was swallowing back another gulp of stonepiss when he heard footsteps approaching outside the wooden door opposite the stairs. He tucked his hand back through the loosened leather strap, turned his head away from the door, and pretended to still be asleep.\n\n\"The first hour draws near,\" said Ula's voice after the door opened. \"Which of them do you prefer?\"\n\n\"I've given it some thought,\" said Matthias, far louder than necessary. \"My power is in my mind. The halfling would suit me fine. I could make use of his nimble fingers.\"\n\nTim opened his eyes. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? He supposed that, on the surface, it was better than if he'd expressed interest in his tiny halfling asshole, but at least then there wouldn't be the added layer of ambiguity.\n\n\"Perhaps you'd consider the elf?\" said Ula.\n\nTim was about to breathe a sigh of relief when Julian's eyes popped open. He had apparently also been faking sleep. Tim shook his head gently. If Ula and Matthias thought everyone else was asleep, there was a chance they might let slip a secret that could later be used against them. Julian closed his eyes again and pretended to sleep.\n\n\"The elf, you say?\" Matthias's tone sounded like he suspected some ulterior motive. \"Interesting.\"\n\n\"It's just that Momo is so rough and unpredictable. I thought we'd give the halfling to him.\"\n\n\"The fuck you will!\" Tim opened his eyes wide. Being raped to death by Momo was where he drew the line.\n\nUla smiled at him, wearing nothing but a thin green semi-translucent robe, hanging open at the front and leaving very little to the imagination. She may have been batshit insane, but titties were titties.\n\n\"You're finally awake. I imagine you're very confused right now.\"\n\nTim stared unashamedly at her nipples, visible through the robe. \"I was.\"\n\nMatthias hobbled over to Julian's table and began to drag it to the other side of the room. He was old, and the wheels screamed their thirst for oil, so it was kind of slow going. Tim noticed that the orange pearl was now missing from Matthias's ring, leaving only the white one.\n\n\"What are you doing with me?\" asked Julian, no longer feigning sleep. \"Tim! Help!\"\n\nTim thought back to what Matthias had said about making use of his nimble fingers. If all he wanted was a handjob, it might be worth letting Julian just go through with it to avoid risking all their lives. He would wait to free his other hand.\n\nTim glared at Ula, his gaze struggling to stay on her face. \"This isn't what we signed up for.\"\n\n\"Of course it is,\" said Ula.\n\n\"Like fuck it is.\" He looked at Matthias. \"She hired us to kill you and your brothers. Or at least to watch her do it. Now that I think back on it, it should have raised some red flags.\"\n\nUla smiled. \"I hired you to take my brothers' lives, which is precisely what you're about to do. You see, I wish to bear a child.\"\n\n\"I don't understand what you're talking about,\" said Tim. \"But it just got a whole lot creepier just the same.\"\n\n\"The Wilmotts have not bred outside our own family for nine generations. Do you know what that makes us?\"\n\n\"Republicans?\"\n\nCooper laughed through his nose, then tried unconvincingly to pass it off as a snore.\n\n\"Pure!\" said Ula. \"Purer than the gods themselves. And so they punished us with disfigurement and ailments of the mind. Still, our house maintained its purity of name and blood, continuing to share our love before their spiteful eyes. And do you know what they did then?\"\n\nTim shrugged. \"Threw up?\"\n\n\"They made me barren!\"\n\n\"I'm so sorry to hear that,\" said Julian. \"But what does that have to do with us?\" It was probably for the best that he took over. Tim couldn't fake giving a shit about this woman's problems.\n\n\"Matthias here has discovered a way in which we can maintain our family's purity and beat the gods at their own petty game.\"\n\n\"I don't mean to nitpick, but you haven't actually answered my question.\"\n\nMatthias left Julian's table next to the cage and limped excitedly back toward the wooden door. He looked positively giddy.\n\nUla smiled at her much much older brother, then down at Julian. \"Your question will be answered very shortly.\"\n\nMatthias rushed back out of the room carrying what looked like an old-fashioned perfume bottle with a tube and bulb atomizer. Before reaching Julian, he made an unexpected turn into the cage and closed the door behind him.\n\nUla strutted to the cage, pulled a steel key out from the pocket of her robe, and inserted it into the cell door's keyhole. The unmistakable sound of a clicking lock did little to reassure Tim that one of their problems had inexplicably just up and decided to solve itself.\n\nShe slipped the key back into her pocket, then accepted the perfume bottle as Matthias handed it to her through the bars.\n\nMatthias turned his attention to Julian, still strapped to his table and looking terrified. He bent over so that their faces were right next to each other. Julian winced. It was anybody's guess as to when that old fucker had last brushed his three teeth.\n\nUla stretched her arms out to hold the perfume bottle between their faces, then gave the bulb at the end of the tube a small squeeze. A small cloud of purple mist sprayed out of the bottle, which Matthias breathed in deeply, then promptly collapsed to the floor.\n\n\"Ha ha!\" cried Julian. \"I did it!\"\n\nWhile Tim wondered what the hell Julian was so excited about, Ula set the bottle between Julian's legs, unfastened his left arm restraint, and strode back to the wooden door which she and her brother had recently entered through. Placing her hand on the door handle, she turned back to Julian.\n\n\"Don't keep me waiting long.\"\n\nJulian frantically went to work on his restraints, and Ula seemed surprisingly unbothered that her brother mysteriously collapsed and that one of her prisoners was setting himself free. Logic dictated that Tim should get busy with the rest of his own restraints now that nothing made fuck-all sense, but a gut feeling told him that was the wrong move.\n\nWhile Julian unfastened his ankle restraints, Matthias slowly climbed the cage bars, lifting himself off the ground. Tim was actually glad the old guy wasn't dead. He was clearly suffering from some kind of dementia.\n\n\"I feel amazing!\" said Julian, leaping off the table. He stretched his arms and legs like he was about to run a marathon.\n\n\"I'm happy to hear that, sir,\" said Ravenus from his cage. \"But I'm getting more of a sense of weakness and confusion.\"\n\n\"What's happening?\" said Matthias. He put his hand over his ear. \"What happened to my ears?\" His voice was louder now. He looked down at his right arm. \"Why is my arm sticky?\" His already massive eye grew even wider when he saw the ring on his finger. \"What the fuck?\"\n\nJulian stopped stretching. His face was suddenly pale and his eyes were wide. \"My ring!\"\n\nMatthias held the ring close to his eye and squinted.\n\n\"NO! DON'T!\" cried Julian.\n\n\"Fireball?\"\n\nTim's world erupted in an explosion of light, warmth, and the sound of something like chunks meat slapping against a wall. He felt his table slam into Dave's, which slammed into Cooper's, which slammed into the wall. Ears ringing and temporarily blinded, he decided his gut feeling could go fuck itself and began unfastening his left wrist restraint. When his vision returned, he found everything and everyone in the room coated in a film of blood and bits of gore.\n\nJulian sat on the floor against the wall, crying and cradling a human leg in his arms. Blackened bone poked out from a partially cooked ass cheek.\n\nMatthias slumped in the corner of his tiny cage, either dead or merely unconscious.\n\nTim's blurred gaze continuing counterclockwise around the room, he found Ula, or at least what was left of her. She appeared to be standing in a deep pool of blood, except Tim knew it was just a puddle. Everything below the tits was gone.\n\n\"What the fuck just happened?\" asked Cooper.\n\nHis left hand freed, Tim sat up. \"I think Ula just exploded.\"\n\nDave lifted his head and looked over at Ula's grisly remains. \"That was unexpected.\"\n\n\"Fuck it,\" said Tim, freeing his ankles. \"That's two down as far as I'm concerned. Let's get the fuck out of here.\" He felt a little awkward walking around Dave's table to release Cooper next, but if the rest of the family came down the stairs to investigate the explosion, Cooper would be more immediately valuable. No one came down, so Tim unbuckled Dave's straps as well.\n\nCooper looked down at Julian, still sobbing on the floor and cradling the leg. \"Dude, get a hold of yourself. Put down that fucking leg and let's go.\"\n\nJulian nodded, forced himself to stop crying, then set aside the leg. \"Yes. We must abscond at once.\"\n\nTim paused. That was an un-Julian-like choice of vocabulary. But what the hell. It was kind of a fucked up situation. \"Yeah, let's get to absconding.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with him?\" asked Ravenus from his mangled, but still locked cage on the floor under Cooper's table. \"What language is that?\"\n\n\"Tiiiiim,\" a weary voice called out from the cage.\n\nTim turned around to find Matthias reaching out for him. He jumped back.\n\n\"Keep your two-thumbed hands away from me, inbred freak!\"\n\n\"It's m-m-mee,\" groaned Matthias. \"J-J-J-Julian.\"\n\n\"What?\" Crazy as it seemed, it might explain a lot of the crazier shit that had happened in the past few minutes.\n\n\"He lies!\" cried Julian. \"His evil heart is filled with deceit! We must hurry, before \u2013\"\n\n\"Hooooorse,\" croaked Matthias. A grey riding horse appeared in the cage, flattening Matthias against the bars.\n\nHoly shit. It was really true. Somehow, they had \u2013\n\n\"Fuck you!\" Cooper punched fake Julian in the face, dropping him to the floor. Fucking up a Mount spell like that had left zero doubt as to Julian's true identity, even in the smallest of minds.\n\n\"How dare you!\" cried Ravenus, trying fruitlessly to bend his cage bars apart with his talons.\n\nTim turned to the ancient freakshow being crushed by a horse in a cage. \"What happened? How did you...\"\n\n\"The bottle,\" Julian croaked, pointing one of his superfluous thumbs down at the bottle on the floor. \"We... breathed in the vapor and... I don't know... swapped souls or whatever.\" He groaned as the horse shifted its weight. \"Give me... the bottle... and bring my body... close to the cage.\"\n\n\"Have you not done enough,\" said fake Julian, rubbing his eye where Cooper had punched him. \"Toying with magic you don't understand. You killed my sister!\"\n\nFreakshow Julian got on his hands and knees so he could breathe a little easier and the horse wasn't quite as uncomfortable.\n\n\"I did no such thing!\" said Julian. \"I don't even know what happened to her.\" He scanned the room with his giant eye. \"I mean, besides the obvious.\"\n\n\"You read the incantation to activate the pearl,\" said Tim. \"It must have come loose inside her when they were...\" he tried to find a delicate way to express his theory, \"...in the other room.\"\n\nDave and Cooper shuddered.\n\n\"Is that why my arm is sticky up to my elbow?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Jesus!\" said Tim. \"Details!\"\n\nJulian looked at fake Julian. \"Why wouldn't you take your ring off first?\"\n\nFake Julian was hugging Ula's leg again. \"That's how she liked it. She said it enhanced her pleasure.\"\n\n\"Enough!\" said Tim. \"I don't want to hear any more. Cooper, punch out Asshole Julian again and lay him down next to Freakshow Julian.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Freakshow Julian. \"That's my body. I'm going to feel that when we switch back.\"\n\n\"Who gives a shit?\"\n\n\"Can I at least try a more Diplomatic approach first?\"\n\nTim grimaced. \"I think your Charisma score might not be operating at full capacity right now.\"\n\nJulian ignored him, focusing his big eye on his real body. \"I'm taking my body back. You understand that there's nothing you can do to stop that, right?\"\n\nFake Julian scowled and nodded.\n\n\"Then you'd want to make things as painless as possible for yourself, wouldn't you?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Fake Julian dropped to his knees in front of Freak Julian and put his hands behind his back.\n\nJulian looked at Tim. \"I think we can trust him to behave.\"\n\nTim rolled his eyes. \"Whatever. If he tries anything, at least we'll get to beat the shit out of him.\" Keeping a wary eye on Fake Julian, he handed the perfume bottle to Freak Julian. \"You know this magic shit better than I do.\"\n\nJulian accepted the bottle. \"Okay, now stand ba\u2013 Shit!\" His extra thumb fumbled the bottle.\n\nTim instinctively reached out and caught it by the bulb atomizer. A small puff of purple vapor came out, and Tim's consciousness suddenly blinked.\n\nAs if someone had turned the volume all the way down, he found he could barely hear anything. His mouth tasted like spoiled meat and ass. His vision was sharp but lacked depth perception. But the strangest thing of all was that he was looking at himself.\n\n\"Oh, thank God!\" said Julian. \"I'm me again! I'm...\" He rubbed the side of his face. \"Jesus, Cooper. Did you have to hit me so \u2013 UGH!\"\n\nTim saw himself, his body, punch Julian in the nuts, then run past Cooper and up the stairs.\n\n\"Get him!\" Tim shouted in a hoarse voice that he could barely hear himself. He tried to stand, but his head hit something soft and furry. A second later, his entire left side was soaked with what felt like the initial water from a hose which had been left out in the sun all day, but which smelled like horse piss. A quick glance to the left confirmed his nose's theory.\n\n\"Goddammit, motherfucking son of a bitch!\"\n\nJulian and Dave looked down at him. \"Tim?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" said Tim. \"Matthias is in my body! He's getting away!\"\n\n\"Ow!\" Cooper dropped Ravenus's birdcage, sending it rolling across the floor, then sucked on a finger. \"I was trying to let you out, asshole.\"\n\nOnce the birdcage stopped rolling and Ravenus oriented himself, he stepped on the bars, moving the cage back toward Cooper like he was in a hamster wheel. \"That was for punching my master! There's more where that came from!\"\n\n\"Ravenus!\" said Julian. \"Stop!\"\n\nRavenus stopped his cage in front of Tim's and looked up at Julian. \"Master, you're okay! It's so good to hear your voice again!\"\n\n\"Leave Ravenus here,\" said Tim, shouting so that he could hear his own voice. \"I need his help. Go get my body!\"\n\nJulian nodded, then took off up the stairs. Dave followed after him.\n\n\"Since when are we taking orders from this prick?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"Come on!\" said Dave, stopping under the arch to look at Cooper. \"The prick is inside Tim's body.\"\n\nCooper's jaw dropped open. \"They're cornholing him?\" He pushed Dave out of the way and ran up the stairs. \"I'm coming for you, buddy!\"\n\nDave got back on his feet and waddled after Cooper.\n\n\"Ravenus,\" Tim rasped in his best old man British accent.\n\n\"Don't speak to me!\" said the bird. \"I must go and help my master.\" He started hamster wheeling it to the stairs, but Tim caught the cage.\n\nRavenus pecked and clawed at his fingers. Tim winced but didn't let go of the cage.\n\n\"I'm Tim!\"\n\nRavenus stopped pecking and scratching long enough to look Tim up and down. \"No you're not.\" He resumed his attack.\n\nTim grabbed one of Ravenus's talons and talked to him in order to better ignore the pain of his forearm being torn to shreds. Wincing in pain with nearly every other word, he tried to explain. \"The... old... freak... switched bodies... with Julian. Then he... switched... bodies with... me.\"\n\nTim had never seen a birdcage with a lock that required a key before, but he supposed that pets in the Caverns & Creatures world tended to be a little cleverer than pets back home. Still, it wasn't nearly as good a lock as the one on Tim's cage door, and Ravenus's talon made a suitable lock pick. When the door opened, Tim pulled his hands back through the bars.\n\nRavenus limped out of the cage and fell on his back, breathing heavily. He turned his head to Tim. \"Were you telling the truth?\"\n\nTim nodded.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Ravenus. \"Sorry about your arm then.\"\n\nTim looked at his arm and smiled. It was torn to ribbons from elbow to wrist and bleeding like a stuck pig that was also menstruating. Ravenus had fucked it up good. \"It'll be worth it when we switch back. How's your leg?\"\n\nRavenus walked in a circle, limping a little less with each step. \"I think I'll pull through.\"\n\n\"Good. Listen, Ravenus. Ula had a key. I need you to help me find it.\"\n\n\"Which one was Ula?\"\n\n\"The one that exploded.\"\n\nRavenus nodded. \"Very good.\"\n\nTim scanned the room, stopping at the empty doorway where the wooden door had been. \"Check in there first.\"\n\nRavenus flew into the room, and Tim crawled around on the cage floor, contemplating murdering his equine cellmate. He saw a conspicuously shaped lump in the gore, plastered to the wall by a chunk of uterus or spleen or gall bladder or some shit. He wasn't a doctor. Reaching through the bars, he was just able to touch it with the tip of his finger.\n\nThe gore peeled off the wall, landing on the floor with a splat and a clink.\n\nThe key!\n\nSince it was barely within his reach, Tim was extra careful not to push the key further away. He pulled gently on the chunk of Ula meat it was still stuck to until it was close enough to grab. He peeled it free from its fleshy casing, shook some of the gore off, then crawled to the cell door. The lock turned easily, and the door swung open.\n\nJulian's magical horse dropped a couple of turds for its captors to remember it by, then strutted gratefully out of the cage.\n\nTim was disappointed in how unsatisfying it was to finally be able to stand up. He was still in an old man's body with arthritis in all of his joints and a severe case of scoliosis.\n\nHe shuffled carefully across the floor past the top third of Ula's dead body, wary of the large blood puddle surrounding it. The last thing he needed right now was to fall and break a hip. The door lay on the floor, slathered in liquid Ula. The room beyond, while not exactly cleaner, was at least less bloody. Ravenus was on the floor, pecking at the exposed meat at the top of Ula's other leg.\n\n\"Ravenus!\" said Tim.\n\nRavenus squawked and froze.\n\n\"You were supposed to be looking for the key!\"\n\n\"I've determined it's not inside this leg.\"\n\n\"That's because it's in my hand, shithead. Come on, we've got to \u2013\" Tim's monocular gaze was drawn to the bed where Ula had obviously intended her brothers to boink her with Tim and his friends' dicks. Never one to turn down sex when it was available, Tim had developed a fairly high tolerance for where he was willing to do the deed. But even the filthiest basement futon his bare skin had touched in the name of getting laid seemed as pristine as a hospital operating table compared to the crime scene that was this bedroom.\n\nIt smelled heavily of ass, body odor, and Tim's current right arm. The bed's rusted iron frame made his dick want to retract inside him. The mattress, insofar as a giant amorphous roughspun sack of feathers can be called a mattress, looked like it hadn't been washed in... well, ever. It was covered in stains ranging in color from yellow to near black. The freshest was a large wet spot right in the middle, presumably where Matthias had just 'warmed up' Ula. Tim desperately wanted to wash his hands.\n\nHis giant eye already having taken in more than he wanted it to, Tim turned away from the bed. He saw a table in the corner of the room with a wooden box on top of it. Hoping it was full of disinfectant, or at least hard liquor, he opened the lid.\n\nInside the box, nestled in one of two identical indentations atop a padded silk cushion, was another perfume bottle just like the one Matthias had swapped their souls with, likewise filled with purple liquid. Another one of those might come in handy. He carefully removed it from the box and slipped it into Matthias's pocket.\n\n\"Let's go find the others.\"\n\nTim shuffled across the floor from the bedchamber to the archway, where Julian's horse was blocking the way and looking curiously up the stairs.\n\n\"You, stay here,\" he said to the horse, then turned his head as far as it would go back to Ravenus, who was perched on his hunch. \"You, be quiet.\"\n\n\"Righto!\"\n\n\"Shh!\"\n\nTim's Move Silently skill was impaired by his current body's compromised Dexterity score, but he felt he was making a solid effort at minimizing the noise as he climbed up the stairs. Of course, that could also have to do with his shitty hearing.\n\nThe stairs ended in an open hatch, the door of which had planks running off the edge which, when closed, would fit into the missing floorboards. It would be difficult to spot for someone not specifically looking for it.\n\nTim's old knees ached as he climbed out of the stairwell and into a room full of portraits hanging on the walls. It was like a study in the effects of inbreeding. He thought that, given enough time, he could sort the pictures in chronological order based on how fucked up their faces were.\n\nThis room was cleaner than the living room, which Tim recognized through the open door. Cautiously peeking out, he found the living room empty. The door directly across from the one he was standing in was also open."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "CRASH", "text": "The sound of breaking porcelain. Maybe a vase or a large dish.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Cooper.\n\n\"Watch where you're going!\" said Dave.\n\n\"Shhhhh!\" said Julian.\n\nTim shook his head. He was nearly deaf and could hear those three idiots two rooms away. They stepped out into the living room and stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Tim.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Julian. \"You startled me for a second.\" He pointed his thumb back at the room they'd just come from. \"Looks like a dining room, or at least it was at one time. No sign of anyone in there.\"\n\n\"What happened to your arm?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Ravenus and I had a little misunderstanding.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to heal that?\"\n\n\"Fuck no.\"\n\nJulian's gaze shifted up to where Ravenus was still perched on Tim's hump. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Never been better, sir!\"\n\n\"Keep your voice down!\" Tim snapped, feeling more than ever like an old man.\n\n\"I don't get why we're sneaking around,\" said Dave. \"What's the point?\"\n\nTim wheezed out a shallow laugh. \"No point at all the way you guys are doing it. You might as well be playing trumpets and drums.\"\n\n\"They know we're here, and that we've freed ourselves from the table straps. They'd expect us to go up the stairs. What the hell else would we do?\"\n\n\"So where are they?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"They're probably hiding somewhere. Regrouping. It's pretty clear that Ula was the leader. Matthias has a functioning brain in his head, but he lacks the experience to effectively lead his dimwitted brothers. He's trying to think up a plan to take us out, and we need to find him before he's able to.\"\n\n\"He's trying to take us alive, isn't he? He wants our bodies to swap his brothers into, right?\"\n\nTim eased his weary old ass down on a rickety wooden stool. \"Not necessarily. Ula was the mother of invention here. Now that her plans are off the table, as is any possibility of continuing their pure family lineage, Matthias might decide to follow a new path. His brothers, whatever bodies they're in, might only drag him down.\" He paused to reflect on how depressing the whole situation was. He remembered how Matthias had cradled Ula's leg, and another thought occurred to him. \"And he's no doubt still pissed at us for blowing up his sister.\"\n\nDave nodded. \"Matthias was pretty keen on calling himself an inventor. He probably has a lab or a workshop or something. We should rule out all the upstairs rooms first, then poke around for hidden doors down here.\"\n\nTim dreaded the thought of more stairs, but Dave's reasoning was sound.\n\nAs he hobbled up the stairs even more slowly than Dave, Tim thought of another idea. \"Dave, do you have any stonepiss?\"\n\n\"Jesus, Tim. Can you give it a rest for once?\"\n\n\"I was just thinking it might be a good idea to get this body nice and shitfaced before we switch it back. If we're able to escape, and they decided to come after us, it would make sense to get the only one of them who could find their own ass with a compass and a map falling down drunk, would it not?\"\n\n\"That's some impressive rationalizing.\" Dave pulled a short glass bottle out of his bag. \"Try this. I swiped it from the dining room.\"\n\nTim uncorked the bottle and swigged back some of the contents. It burned going down, like cheap whiskey. Tim felt the effects almost immediately. He was buzzed before he reached the top of the stairs. Ol' Matthias didn't have a very high tolerance for alcohol. That was for damn sure.\n\nJulian had reached the top of the stairs well before him and was already listening at a door. He whispered something.\n\n\"Speak up!\" said Tim. \"I can't hear you!\"\n\nJulian glared at him, as did Cooper and Dave.\n\n\"Shit. Was that too loud?\"\n\n\"So much for the element of surprise,\" said Julian, taking a step back from the door. \"Cooper?\"\n\nCooper pulled his finger out of his nose. \"What?\"\n\nTim gulped back another shot of terrible booze. \"Grab my body and pin it to the floor.\"\n\n\"What the fuck is he drinking?\" asked Cooper. \"He went from stone cold sober to blurting out suppressed rape fantasies in less than a minute.\"\n\n\"Not this body, fuckhead! My real body. You hold him down, I'll switch us back to normal, and we'll hightail it out of here.\"\n\nCooper sighed in relief. \"You had me going there for a second. I was thinking about how we used to wrestle at the pool, and \u2013\"\n\n\"Will you just kick down the goddamn door?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Cooper planted his heel right into the door, which swung wide open, appearing to not have been locked in the first place. \"FUCK YOU MOTHERFU\u2013 um...\"\n\nThe room was mostly empty, decorated solely with manacles hanging on the walls. Its single occupant sat on the floor with a filthy cloth gag in her mouth, her wrists manacled and raised over her head. She looked like a female version of Matthias, just as wizened and malformed, with extra thumbs and one disproportionately large eye. But instead of an eye patch, she had another normal-sized eye. She looked at Tim with horror on her freakish wrinkly face. At her side sat the maggot-ridden corpse of a ten-foot-long boa constrictor.\n\nTim cringed at the patches of scraggly grey hair flowing down from her mostly bald head. \"Who the fuck is this?\"\n\n\"It's Ula,\" said Julian.\n\nTim took a moment to consider Julian's theory, then looked down at the dead snake. \"Then that must be Simon.\"\n\nCooper squeaked out a small fart. \"Sorry. I'm confused. Thinking too hard makes me gassy.\"\n\n\"It's not that complicated,\" said Julian. \"The Ula we met had already swapped souls with a younger woman. That's why she looked so much different than her brothers. This woman here, who should look like the woman who brought us here, is in Ula's real body.\" He ran over and pulled the gag out of her mouth.\n\nThe old woman coughed as tears streaked down her cheeks. \"Who are you people?\" She looked at Tim. \"You are not Matthias, are you?\"\n\nTim shook his head. \"I'm Tim. Who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"My name is Enna. I am a traveling warrior. I found this old woman on the side of the road and offered to escort her home. The next thing I knew, I \u2013\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. We get it. I hope you've learned a valuable lesson about helping old people.\"\n\n\"Is that how they lured you here as well?\"\n\n\"No. Ula said she'd pay us for \u2013\" Tim stopped himself, thinking about how the truth sounded when spoken aloud. He thought up a quick alternative. \"\u2013 sex.\"\n\nEnna gasped.\n\nJulian gave Tim a 'what the fuck' look, but didn't bother changing the story. \"We didn't actually go through with it.\"\n\nTim tried his cell door key and found that it worked on the manacles as well.\n\nEnna wrung the paper-thin skin of her ancient wrists. \"For twenty-three years I've kept my vow. My body has never known the touch of a man.\"\n\nTim glanced at his right arm but kept his mouth shut.\n\n\"You must help me return to my true body before those wicked people can defile it.\"\n\nTim, Julian, Cooper, and Dave, all managed to find something fascinating to look at on the floor.\n\n\"That may pose a bit of a challenge,\" said Tim. \"What if we found you a new body? Some smokin' hot girl who, for whatever reason, doesn't deserve to live?\"\n\n\"Why? What's wrong with my body?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Tim lied. \"I was just spitballing ideas.\" He offered his elderly disfigured hand to hers to help her to her feet. \"Let's find the inbrednecks before we make any rash decisions.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The people who live in this dump. Do you know where they might be hiding?\"\n\nEnna shrugged.\n\nMaking sure to keep everyone in the group together, lest one of them get soul-swapped and infiltrate them, they searched the remaining three rooms upstairs. They found nothing but rats and spiders.\n\n\"There are still a few more rooms to search downstairs,\" said Dave.\n\nCooper and Julian led the way down the stairs. Tim and Enna followed, supporting each other's old and weary bodies. Dave took the rear, still organizing the search aloud.\n\n\"I think we should try the kitchen next. They might be hiding in a big pantry or something, where they'd have enough food and water to wait until they \u2013\"\n\n\"Stay where you are,\" said a voice similar to, but not exactly like Tim's, coming out of Tim's mouth. Tim's body stood pantsless at the other side of the living room, holding a dagger to Tim's tiny dick. Matthias's carny brothers stood on either side of him.\n\nTim contemplated taking off his own pants but had neither a desire to see Matthias's junk, nor a dagger to threaten it with. He took a small step forward.\n\n\"What are you doing, Matthias? You and I both know you're not going to cut my dick off. Why would you? It's your dick now, right?\" If he could just get close enough, he could use the spray to switch them back.\n\n\"It's hardly significant enough to make a credible threat.\"\n\nThat was unnecessary. \"Oh as if you're packing some monster schlong.\" Tim reached down Matthias's pants. Admittedly, Matthias bested Tim in both length and girth and\u2026 number of testicles? His scrotum felt like a crumpled paper bag full of marbles. \"Jesus Christ, dude. How many fucking balls do you have?\"\n\n\"More of the gods' cruel irony. In my prime I could produce gallons of seed, and yet it all fell on barren ground. Not that it matters anymore. What use have I for this worthless appendage now that you've ended our family line?\"\n\n\"It can still be fun to play with. It's helpful when you need to take a piss. And cutting it off would be incredibly painful, I'd imagine.\" Tim took another step forward, hoping that it would indeed be too painful to follow through with if this was, as he suspected, a last ditch effort bluff.\n\n\"You feel the agony I've felt since birth, living in that grotesque body. You think I can't handle a little pain? I never planned to keep this useless body anyway. Now I can walk among the normal folk without arousing suspicion. I'll find a man with the kind of body I truly desire.\"\n\nTim stopped walking. Matthias was making a convincing case for being willing to cut his own dick off.\n\n\"You're into dudes?\" said Cooper. \"Is that why you couldn't knock up your sister?\"\n\n\"How dare you bring up my sister! Ula is dead because of you fools!\"\n\n\"Dead?\" said Enna. She hobbled across the living room, evidently less concerned with the fate of Tim's dick than Tim was. \"What happened? Where is my body?\"\n\nMatthias backed up and brandished the dagger at her. \"Stay back! I'm warning you!\"\n\nThis was the best chance Tim had to make his move. He hobbled after Enna, swigging back as much of the terrible booze as he could choke down and digging in his pocket for Matthias's potion.\n\n\"MOMO!\" said Momo, slamming his iron ball down on Matthias's foot. That was going to hurt. Tim hoped that Dave had a healing spell ready to go.\n\nMatthias shrieked in pain and dropped the dagger. \"She isn't our sister, Momo! Our sister is dead!\"\n\nEnna picked up the dagger just as Tim pulled out the potion."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "YEHEHEHEHEHEHE", "text": "Distracted by Julian's horse announcing its presence, and the fact that he still wasn't used to having extra thumbs, Tim dropped the potion.\n\nMatthias-Tim's eyes, already wide with the pain and surprise of having his foot crushed, went even wider as they followed the glass bottle to the floor, where it shattered, letting out a thick purple cloud of vapor.\n\nSuddenly, Tim's hearing amped up to eleven, and his vision was binocular again.\n\nPeople were screaming, falling over each other, making horse noises. It was complete bedlam.\n\nHunched over and standing on all fours, Tim briefly worried that he'd switched bodies with the horse, but when he tried to stand straight, he discovered that his hands were chained to his ankles.\n\nShit! I'm Momo!\n\n\"What the fuck?\" said Ravenus in a distinctly non-British accent. He waddled past Tim, flapping his wings in such a way that would never lift him off the ground.\n\nJust beyond Ravenus, Julian stood as if in a trance, mesmerized by his own forearms. He felt them up and down, then ran his fingertips down the sides of his face. Tears welled up in his eyes. If Tim had to guess, he was actually Figg, who had never experienced having smooth skin. His hairless bliss was cut short when Ula lunged at him and wrapped her old double-thumbed hands around his throat.\n\nTim scanned the room for his own body and found it sitting on the floor and cradling its foot.\n\n\"Yaaa! Yayaaha! Ha? Hoo? Helloooo. Hellooooo! Hellllooooooo!\" With an excitement that can only be gained by suddenly being able to pronounce consonants, Dunder seemed to forget about the pain in Tim's foot. \"Hellooooooooo!\"\n\nShould he attack Dunder? He felt like he should attack somebody, and would have preferred to attack someone who was both his enemy and also residing in the body of one of his other enemies.\n\nHe wouldn't be able to attack anyone until he got this goddamn chain off.\n\nLifting the ball to his neck, he was able to reach the pin on his collar which loosened the chains.\n\nFuck yeah! Tim now had the brains, the brawn, and a big ass iron ball on a chain. He looked for a target.\n\nDunder, the guy with the immovable jaw, was indiscriminately punching people with his left fist, clapping his two right baby hands together, and shouting \"Yoyo!\" through his permanently-set open mouth. That had to be Momo.\n\nTim felt kind of bad for Momo, but he fit all of the target requirements Tim was looking for. Tim swung the ball over his head, then released it in Dunder-Momo's direction. Dunder-Momo ducked just in time, and the ball slammed into the horse's screaming face. The horse vanished. Tim hoped that it hadn't been part of this mess.\n\n\"Damn it!\" said Cooper, a pretty good indication that he was actually Julian.\n\nMatthias stumbled around, flapping his arms up and down like someone had just removed his straitjacket. He looked even drunker than Tim's booze-guzzling body sabotage should have accounted for.\n\n\"My wings!\" he cried in a gravelly British accent. \"What's happening to me? What's blaaaaaauuuuurrrrrgggggh...\" He threw up a puddle of brown booze and chunks of who knows what all over the floor and collapsed face-first into it.\n\nShit. Sorry, Ravenus.\n\nCooper, still having trouble walking on bird legs, fell forward and pushed himself toward Tim-Dunder, using his wings like a sea turtle on the beach.\n\n\"Dude,\" he said to Tim-Dunder. \"What the fuck is going on here?\"\n\n\"Hellllloooooooo!\" said Tim-Dunder. He let go of his foot and grabbed Ravenus's body with both hands. Ecstatic to have a working jaw, he bit down hard on one of Ravenus's wings.\n\n\"FUCK!\" said Ravenus-Cooper. He fought back ineffectively with his talons and remaining wing, but Tim-Dunder only bit down harder.\n\n\"I'm really angry!\" Cooper squawked. His black feathers bristled as he grew to the size of a turkey jacked up on illegal steroids. When he finally achieved functional use of his talons, they looked like fists full of black daggers as they ripped into Tim's arm and face.\n\n\"Son of a bitch,\" said Tim. He was definitely going to feel that when he switched back to his own body.\n\nTim-Dunder screamed, releasing Cooper's wing, and kicked him away. Cooper made a solid effort to flap his monstrous wings but landed with a thud in front of Dave, who appeared to be having some kind of seizure.\n\n\"Dave!\" said Ravenus-Cooper. \"Tim just bit the shit out of me. Slap me some Hit Points, would you?\"\n\n\"YEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!\" Dave whinnied.\n\n\"Seriously?\" said Figg, who Tim now guessed was actually Dave, through the grizzled white pubes obscuring his mouth. \"The fucking horse?\"\n\nTim pulled in the ball connected to his chain to ready himself for another attack. But in all the chaos, it was difficult to keep track of who was who. He knew that a Wilmott was in his body, but he didn't like the idea of smashing his own face in with an iron ball.\n\nCooper-Julian grabbed Figg's flabby body by its pube-furred man-tits. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Ow! I'm Dave!\"\n\n\"Julian!\" said Tim. \"Who gives a shit? Let's you and me just start knocking motherfuckers out. We'll sort it out later.\"\n\n\"YOYO!\" screamed Dunder-Momo, just before taking a swing at Tim. He might have actually hit if he hadn't announced it first. Tim dodged the attack, dropped the ball, and grabbed Dunder-Momo by the leg and throat. Dunder wasn't exactly a waif of a man, but Momo's body was strong as fuck. Tim easily lifted Dunder-Momo over his head and looked for someone to throw him at.\n\n\"Helllooooooo!\" said Tim-Dunder, just before biting Tim in his giant Momo dick.\n\n\"YEEEEOOOOOOWWWW!\" cried Tim, losing his grip on Dunder-Momo, who dropped down hard on Tim's body, taking a chunk of dick skin with him as he went down.\n\nTim groaned, bleeding from the dick, while Cooper-Julian punched out whoever was inhabiting Ula's body, who was still strangling his own.\n\n\"I'm sorry!\" said Cooper-Julian.\n\n\"Cooper!\" cried Ravenus, rising out of his vomit puddle on Matthias's wobbly legs. \"I can understand you!\"\n\nJulian's body breathed in deeply, his throat free of Ula's choking grasp.\n\nWith a regretful look in Cooper's eyes, Julian punched himself in the face. \"I'm really sorry.\"\n\nRavenus, clearly not fully appreciating that he wasn't currently a bird, flapped Matthias's arms and ran at Cooper-Julian as fast as his arthritic knees would carry him. \"You son of a bitch! I warned you!\" He leaped into the air, flapping his arms even harder and thrusting both feet forward, then came down hard on his old hunched back. It looked so agonizing that Tim forgot about his own dick pain for a fraction of a second.\n\nWith most of the punching having subsided, Figg-Dave stepped up behind Cooper-Julian. \"Does anyone need a healing sp\u2013\"\n\nCooper-Julian whirled around and punched Figg-Dave in the face. \"Shit! I'm sorry. You shouldn't have sneaked up on me like that.\"\n\n\"Asshole!\" Dave honked out through Figg's broken nose, now locatable from the reddening pubes beneath it.\n\n\"I could use some healing,\" said Tim.\n\nFigg-Dave looked down at Momo's bleeding dick. \"Ouch. I guess you could.\" He raised a furry arm out for Tim to touch.\n\n\"Not this me.\" Tim rolled Dunders body off of his own, then went through his pockets until he found Matthias's potion bottle. Fortunately, it was still intact. \"Maybe we should make sure this works before we start healing anyone.\"\n\n\"Good idea,\" said Figg-Dave.\n\nTim handed the bottle to Cooper-Julian. \"Don't drop this, or we're all fucked.\" He worked the chain through the rings on his wrist and ankle restraints, then up through the ring on his collar. \"Can somebody pin this?\"\n\nFigg-Dave picked up the pin and put it in Momo's collar. Tim cringed at the feel of Figg's finger pubes on his neck.\n\n\"Okay,\" said Tim, lying down on the floor with his head next to his real head. \"Hold your breath, give us a small squirt, and get the fuck back.\"\n\nCooper's head nodded, and Tim had to remind himself that he wasn't entrusting this to a complete moron.\n\nCooper-Julian sucked in a deep breath and held it, then squirted a puff of the potion between their faces."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "Chapter 15", "text": "Tim awoke, groggy but feeling strangely refreshed and free of dick pain. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, opened them, and saw Cooper looking down at him.\n\nHad it all been a dream?\n\n\"Helllllloooooooo! Helllllooooooowwwww!\"\n\nTim looked to his left. Momo was freaking the fuck out, thrashing in his chains and bleeding from the \u2013 SHIT!\n\nHe spat out the chunk of dick skin which had been festering in his mouth.\n\n\"Can I go next?\" asked Figg-Dave. \"I'd really like to get that horse out of my body.\"\n\nTim took the potion bottle from Cooper-Julian while Figg-Dave the pube monster waddled over to Dave-Horse.\n\nOnce Figg-Dave was in position, Tim gave them a good spray in the face and backed away.\n\nDave sighed and got to his feet. \"I never thought I'd be so grateful to be a dwarf again.\" He put his hand to his neck. \"My throat's a little sore from all the neigh\u2013\"\n\nFigg-Horse whinnied and kicked Dave in the nuts.\n\n\"Dave's back to normal,\" said Tim. \"Who's next?\"\n\nJulian raised Cooper's hand. \"I'd like to get out of Cooper's body. It's kind of gross in here.\" He looked down at Ravenus-Cooper. \"No offense.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, dude,\" said Ravenus-Cooper. \"At least you're a fucking mammal.\"\n\nTim shook his head. \"That would put Pube-Freak in Cooper's body, which he could use to beat the shit out of the rest of us. Let's get Coop sorted out first.\"\n\n\"You make a good point,\" said Julian. He picked up Ravenus-Cooper and placed him on his shoulder.\n\nRavenus-Cooper steadied himself with a wing on Cooper-Julian's head and shut his eyes tightly. A gushing sound came from behind him. He squawked. \"How's that for gross?\"\n\nJulian shrugged. \"It's your back.\"\n\n\"Shit, that's right.\"\n\n\"Can we please get on with this?\" said Tim. \"Squat down so I can squirt you in the face.\"\n\nCooper-Julian squatted, and Tim squirted.\n\n\"Wow,\" said Ravenus-Julian. \"This is an interesting sensation.\" He jumped off Cooper's shoulder and flapped his wings in such a way that didn't even slow his short descent to the floor. \"Not as easy as it looks.\"\n\nCooper, still squatting, farted and reached under his loincloth. \"Damn, it's good to have balls again.\"\n\nJulian hopped away from Cooper's fart zone as fast as his bird legs could take him.\n\n\"You two stay together,\" said Tim. \"Cooper, hold Julian so that Figg doesn't freak out when he suddenly wakes up as a bird.\"\n\nJulian had only gotten in three hops before he planted his beak into the floor. Cooper reached him in two steps, but that was enough for Tim to spot the white streak of bird shit running down his back.\n\nWhile Cooper grabbed Ravenus-Julian, Tim walked over to Julian's body. Something seemed out of place, but he couldn't put his finger exactly on what it was. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting his friends in their right bodies and getting the fuck out of this house.\n\n\"Hurry up and get over here.\"\n\nCooper held Julian firmly with both hands and put his beak right in Julian's face.\n\nTim looked at the bottle. \"There's not much juice left in this thing. Not a lot of room for fucking up, so hold your breath.\" He held his own breath and gave it a squirt.\n\nRavenus-Figg, as expected, immediately started freaking out. \"What? Who? Momo?\" He turned his head left. \"Ula?\"\n\nUla? Ula!\n\nMatthias-Ravenus had been unconscious right next to Julian, but Ula's body wasn't there anymore.\n\n\"Summon Ape!\" said a woman's voice.\n\nWhen Tim looked in her direction, he found Ula standing over Matthias's body, holding Matthias's pearl-less ring. Next to her stood a confused-looking gorilla.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Tim.\n\nUla-Matthias pointed at Tim. \"You have three seconds to hand over that potion before this ape comes and takes it from you.\"\n\nIt seemed odd that he would bother with an ultimatum. Why not just skip that part and send the gorilla after him?\n\n\"Three!\"\n\nTim looked at the bottle in his hands, then up at the gorilla's hands. That was it. That massive motherfucker couldn't be trusted retrieving something so fragile.\n\n\"Two!\"\n\n\"Cooper!\" said Tim. \"Throw Ravenus at Matthias!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just do it!\"\n\n\"NO!\" cried Julian, evidently having figured out what Tim had in mind. It was risky, sure. There was only a twenty-five percent chance that Ravenus would go back to his proper body, but there was also a twenty-five percent chance that he'd turn into a gorilla, which would be awesome. Then again, there was a fifty percent chance that he'd turn into a deformed geriatric asshole. But it was a chance Tim was willing to take.\n\n\"One!\"\n\n\"Now!\" said Tim.\n\nCooper cocked his arm back like he had a man open in the end zone, then launched Ravenus's body at Matthias's. It was a nice spiral throw, and Figg screamed an inarticulate caw until his beak hit Matthias's hump.\n\nTim hurled the potion after Ravenus, then slapped his hands over his mouth. Julian and Dave did likewise. Cooper shoved two fingers up his nostrils and clamped his lips shut with his other hand. Ula-Matthias made a desperate attempt at catching it, but he was too old, too slow, and likely too preoccupied with the thought of slipping away for some private time to check out his new wrinkly tits.\n\nThe glass bottle shattered, forming a cloud of mist too small to fill a space much larger than what Matthias-Ravenus, Ula-Matthias, Ravenus-Figg, and the gorilla were occupying.\n\nThe gorilla had a panicked expression on its face. It looked at Tim, then Julian.\n\nJulian gasped. \"Ravenus?\"\n\nThe gorilla roared, its eyes wide with terror.\n\n\"No!\" said Julian. \"Ravenus!\"\n\n\"Down here, sir,\" said the bird, stumbling as he walked back toward them. \"Why am I so dizzy?\"\n\nJulian sighed. \"Oh, thank goodness! You're \u2013\"\n\nThe gorilla scooped up Ravenus in his massive black hand and growled some incomprehensible nonsense at Julian.\n\n\"Put him down,\" said Julian. \"What's done is done. We're not going to solve anything by \u2013\"\n\nThe gorilla vanished. Ravenus hit the floor before he could get in a single flap.\n\n\"Wow,\" said Dave. \"Magical gorillas don't hang around as long as magical horses do.\"\n\nJulian picked up Ravenus and cradled him under his serape. \"It's a different spell.\"\n\n\"Why me Ula?\" said Figg, wasting no time squeezing his new wrinkly tits. \"Why?\"\n\nMatthias groaned as he awakened. It was a hybrid groan between old man and primate, both pitiful and unsettling.\n\nJulian put a hand on Dave's shoulder. \"Why don't you go heal his arm?\"\n\n\"Fuck his arm,\" said Tim. \"Which room did you find that liquor in? Are there any more bottles in there?\"\n\n\"The gorilla didn't ask for this. He was an innocent victim. It's bad enough we put him in a human body. The least we could do is patch it up a bit.\"\n\nDave waddled cautiously to Matthias-Gorilla, took a knee, and touched him on the head. \"I heal thee.\"\n\nThe deep talon wounds on Matthias-Gorilla's forearm sealed themselves up like zipper bags. Matthias-Gorilla let out another, more soothing groan, and opened his freakishly giant eye.\n\nDave smiled. \"Feeling better, big guy?\"\n\nWith a primal scream Matthias shouldn't have had the lung capacity for, he punched Dave in the side of the head, got up on his old legs, and started tearing his clothes off.\n\n\"Are we done now?\" asked Tim. \"I need a drink.\"\n\n\"Do you ever think you might have a problem?\" Dave sat up and rubbed his face where he'd just been punched. \"I mean, we just destroyed a family.\"\n\nTim expressed his concern for the Wilmott family with an exaggerated wanking gesture.\n\n\"You killed an innocent girl.\"\n\n\"Ula? Innocent? Need I remind you that she was planning to use us to rape herself? Besides, it was Julian who detonated her uterus.\"\n\n\"I was talking about Enna.\"\n\nTim took a moment to remember who Enna was.\n\n\"What ever happened to her?\" asked Cooper.\n\nTim looked at Ula, crying and playing with her tits. Definitely Figg.\n\n\"She was obviously in the horse,\" said Dave.\n\nTim glanced around the room. After accounting for everyone else, he concluded that Dave's theory was sound. \"Shit. My bad.\"\n\n\"That's all you've got to say? I killed a girl. Nothing a little booze can't fix.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, Dave. I've got the taste of Momo's dick in my mouth.\"\n\nDave glanced at Momo, cradling his dick wound and moaning his own name while Matthias-Gorilla, now completely naked, screamed and flung shit at him. Dave pointed to the room opposite the family portrait room.\n\n\"There are some more bottles in the cabinet.\""}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "Pixie Dicks", "text": "\"Fuck this place,\" said Tim. He was crankier than usual because the day's adventure had taken twice as long as they'd expected, yielded exactly zero treasure, and he hadn't packed an adequate supply of stonepiss. \"Fuck this meadow. Fuck these flowers. Fuck this whole fucking fantasy world.\"\n\n\"Can we take a five-minute break?\" Dave asked when they came upon a smooth-topped tree stump. It was almost like he was just begging for some verbal abuse.\n\n\"Fuck you, Dave.\" Tim did not disappoint.\n\nTrying to keep up with an alcoholic halfling on the way to a bar was testing everyone's endurance, but Dave's short dwarven legs were particularly ill-suited to long brisk walks.\n\n\"You guys go ahead, then,\" said Dave. \"I'll catch up.\"\n\nJulian slowed his pace. \"Come on, Tim. Five minutes isn't going to make that big a difference.\" It was something he felt he should say, but he didn't really care if Tim hung around or not. The natural beauty of a sunlit meadow and the intoxicatingly sweet scent of the wildflowers were somehow even more beautiful and intoxicating the further away Tim walked.\n\nTim gave Julian the finger without even slowing his stride. He was still bitter about Julian refusing to conjure up some horses. But there was plenty of daylight left, and Julian had a limited number of spells. Who knew what they might run into in the forest? He wasn't going to waste all his spells on horses just so Tim could get his drink on that much quicker.\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper.\n\nTim turned around. \"What?\" he snapped at Cooper. Then his gaze passed both Cooper and Julian, and he started laughing.\n\nJulian looked back at Dave and found him on his ass, legs in the air, inside the stump, which now appeared to be a hologram or something.\n\nCooper joined Tim in laughing as Dave lay flat on his back among the daisies and cosmos.\n\n\"Who would do something like that?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Oh calm your tits,\" said Tim. \"It's just an illusory tree stump. It's harmless.\"\n\n\"That's kind of what I was getting at. It's not only harmless, it's pointless. Who would waste magic to put a fake tree stump in the middle of nowhere? What would be the point?\"\n\nTim shrugged. \"It was funny to watch Dave fall on his ass. Maybe whoever put it there did so just to be a dick.\"\n\n\"That sounds reasonable,\" said Cooper.\n\nJulian bit his upper lip in thought. \"That sounds reasonable to you two, but think about it from a normal person's perspective.\"\n\nCooper frowned. \"That makes my head hurt.\"\n\n\"What did you have in mind?\" Tim asked Julian.\n\n\"I don't know. Nothing really. It just seems suspicious.\"\n\nDave sat up. \"What if it wasn't put here to fool people into sitting down on it at all, but rather to inconspicuously mark a place they wanted to come back to at a later date. Maybe there's something buried under this stump.\"\n\nCooper raised his eyebrows. \"Like a body?\"\n\n\"No, dumbass,\" said Tim. \"You don't mark the place where you dump a body. That completely defeats the purpose of dumping a body.\"\n\n\"It might have been worth the risk. If you hate someone enough to kill him, you might hate him enough to want to come back and take a piss on his remains every now and again.\"\n\n\"Guys,\" said Julian. \"Not every burial is a body dump. This is a nice meadow. It's peaceful and filled with pretty flowers. Maybe this was someone's favorite place, and they requested to be buried here.\"\n\nRavenus poked his head out from under Julian's serape. \"Are we going to dig up a body? I hope it's fresh.\" After a brief pause, he added, \"But not too fresh.\"\n\nTim grimaced, then shook his head. \"No, that doesn't make sense. If it was a legitimate grave, why wouldn't they mark it with a gravestone, or like a post with some religious bullshit carved on it?\"\n\n\"There could be any number of reasons. This is the Caverns & Creatures world. What if some necromancer comes strolling by and sees a marked grave in the middle of nowhere? 'Sweet! Free dead body!' Next thing you know, Grandma's corpse is a foot soldier in an army of the dead.\"\n\n\"What the fuck kind of necromancer goes strolling through meadows?\"\n\n\"You're all aware, of course,\" said Dave, \"that people bury things besides other people.\"\n\nCooper shoved a finger deep in his ear. \"You think it's a dog?\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, no!\" said Dave. \"I'm talking about treasure.\"\n\nEveryone froze for a moment to consider Dave's suggestion.\n\n\"You're right,\" said Tim. \"Get your fat ass out of the way and let's start digging.\"\n\nDave rolled out of the stump, removed his helmet, and used it to dig into the ground. Tim dropped to his knees and started pulling out fistfuls of long grass and flowers by the roots, taking large clumps of topsoil with them. Cooper tore straight into the ground with his massive half-orc hands, rendering Dave and Tim's work largely negligible.\n\nJulian wasn't as convinced of Dave's theory as everyone else seemed to be. \"Maybe we should think about this a little more? We've had, like, three or four different dead body theories, and only one not-a-dead-body theory.\"\n\n\"Wah wah wah!\" Tim pulled the front of his shirt away from his nipples to make it look like he had tits. In a mocking voice, he said, \"My name's Julian. I'm too good to touch a dead body.\"\n\n\"I don't sound anything like that.\"\n\n\"Sprout yourself a little pair of elf nuts, get down here, and start digging. Otherwise, don't expect to get a share in the treasure.\"\n\n\"Fine.\" Julian knelt down and listlessly scooped loose dirt out of the growing hole.\n\nHours passed. The sun sank beneath the treetops on the western horizon. The woods between them and Cardinia looked darker now, more ominous. Julian wished they were on the other side of them. He looked down in the hole to see if the expedition had turned up anything. It had grown so large that the entire illusory tree stump was floating in the air, and still, they'd found neither treasure nor rotting corpse.\n\nCooper was doing most of the work by this point, his head disappearing into the tree stump every time he stood up to toss out another double-handful of dirt. He was the most effective at digging, and anyone else in the hole with him would have just been in his way. Julian was thankful for that when Cooper let rip a fart of epic proportions. Also fortunate was the fact that Cooper's farts tended to be denser than air, and the hole they'd dug seemed to be containing most of it.\n\n\"That one was ripe,\" said Cooper, climbing out of the hole. \"I'm feeling kind of dizzy. I'm going to take a break.\"\n\n\"This is bullshit,\" said Tim. Three more wasted hours of sobriety had not lightened his mood. \"We could have been home by now! Where's all the treasure, Dave?\"\n\nDave got to his feet, his fists trembling. He was filthy, sweaty, and looked to be using every ounce of restraint he had in him to not grab Tim and throw him into Cooper's fart hole.\n\n\"I said there might be treasure. You're the one who was so goddamn sure about it.\"\n\n\"Are we ready to call it a day now?\" asked Julian. He was sitting in the grass next to a pile of dead and eyeless rodents which Ravenus had collected during the excavation. \"As long as we've already got a hole dug, I was thinking maybe we could bury these?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir?\" said Ravenus. \"I've spent a long time collecting those.\"\n\n\"All you do is eat the eyes. It's wasteful.\"\n\n\"The rest of it needs to be properly aged. I was thinking perhaps we might bring them back to the tavern and let them sit out on the roof for a few days.\"\n\n\"No way,\" said Julian. \"I'm not putting a bunch of dead possums and rats in my bag. And besides, we're disappointing enough coming back empty-handed without throwing a bunch of dead animals on the roof.\"\n\n\"Fuck you and your bird,\" said Tim. \"You two can jerk off over dead rats as long as you feel like. I'm going back to the Whore's Head.\" He turned southeast and stomped off.\n\nDave took one last look down into the hole, then Cooper started pissing in it.\n\nWhen he turned to follow Tim, Dave's foot caught on something. He lost his balance, flapped his arms wildly to regain it, but failed. He fell backwards into the hole, landing with a small splash and a hard thud.\n\n\"What the fuck, Dave?\" asked Cooper, still pissing in the hole. A second later, he seemed to realize that he was pissing on Dave and changed the direction of his stream to outside the hole.\n\nJulian got up and ran to the edge of the hole. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nDave choked and gagged. The air down there must have been almost liquid thick with the smell of Cooper's fart and piss.\n\nHe tried to stand, but his feet were tied together with a length of twine. He started to say something, but it came out as more coughing and gagging.\n\nCooper reached down and grabbed Dave's outstretched leopard-furred forearm. Dave did his best to assist, feeling around for handholds and footholds, but it was difficult with his feet still tied together.\n\nFinally, Cooper dragged him out of the hole. He sprawled out flat on the grass and sucked in the fresh flower-scented air. When he got his breathing under control, he sat up and looked in the direction Tim had gone.\n\nTim had come back about half the distance he'd traveled when Dave fell in the hole. He was looking back at Dave and shaking his head.\n\n\"What's your problem, man?\" Dave said to Tim.\n\n\"What the fuck are you talking about?\"\n\nDave wiggled one of his boots out of the loop of twine, then pulled the twine loop off the other boot and held it up for everyone to see. It appeared to be hand-woven from stems of the same kinds of wildflowers which grew in this very meadow.\n\n\"I'm talking about this. I understand that you're in a bad mood, and you need a drink, and you're just generally an asshole, but did you think this was going to get you back to the Whore's Head any quicker?\"\n\nTim shrugged. \"I see some string. What am I looking at?\"\n\n\"You tied my feet together!\"\n\n\"I wasn't anywhere near your fucking feet.\"\n\n\"Who else could have done it? You're the rogue, the sneakiest one here.\"\n\n\"I'm not fucking Ninja Batman, am I? I can't sneak up on you in a goddamn meadow while you already know I'm here. Besides, you've already cleared me of a motive. Sure, if I had a full flask of stonepiss, I'd happily sit back and watch you swim around in Cooper's piss puddle all day. But we're currently miles away from the nearest source of booze, and your inability to walk is wasting even more of my time which could be better spent drinking.\"\n\nTim was making a lot of sense.\n\n\"Then who could have...\" Dave lowered the twine, and his helmet flew off his head. He looked up to find it floating two feet above him.\n\n\"What the fuck is going on?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Dave, still mesmerized by his levitating helmet.\n\nThe helmet jerked to Dave's left, then plummeted through the floating tree stump and splashed into the piss puddle at the bottom of the hole.\n\n\"Hey!\" Dave shouted at whatever had just tossed his helmet. \"Who are you?\"\n\nHigh pitched giggles filled the air above him.\n\n\"Were you the ones who put the fake stump there?\" Julian called out.\n\n\"The stump!\" shrieked a voice like an eight-year-old girl who'd just sucked down a balloon full of helium. \"When the dwarf tried to sit, we thought that was the end of it, but you took it soooo much farther.\"\n\n\"So that's all it was after all? Just a prank?\"\n\n\"We were right the first time,\" said Cooper. \"They put it there just to be dicks.\"\n\nThe disembodied voices giggled again. They all sounded very similar, but Julian's sensitive elf ears could make out the subtle differences of at least three distinct voices, maybe four. But he couldn't pinpoint their exact locations. They seemed to be constantly moving.\n\n\"Dicks!\" cried the same voice that had spoken before. \"That was the best part. You actually urinated on the dwarf! I've never even thought to do that. Here's a gift from my dick to you.\"\n\nA thin arc of pale yellow urine sprouted out of thin air about ten feet above Cooper's head and hit him in the face.\n\n\"The fuck?\" Cooper weaved left and right, but the stream followed him. He sniffed, then poked his purple tongue out between his lips. \"This tastes like honeysuckle.\" He scratched his head as if distracted by something more pressing than an invisible flying person pissing on his face, then looked up. \"Hang on, you're a dude?\"\n\nA tiny floating head appeared about a foot above the urine stream, sporting a bright green mustache curled up at the ends and a long thin beard. \"Bingbong Fizzbang, at your service.\" A pair of rapidly flapping purple gossamer wings appeared between the head and the piss stream.\n\n\"Fuck you, Tinkerballs!\" Cooper jumped and swatted at the semi-invisible creature but didn't even come close to hitting him.\n\nJulian searched the air for other floating heads but stopped when he spotted Tim, eyes fixed on Bingbong Fizzbang, slowly cocking his crossbow behind his back.\n\nWhile Tim was slowly bringing the crossbow around to his front, Julian shook his head vigorously. He'd heard at least three, they thought nothing of using magic on a prank, and this would only escalate the conflict. But Tim missed the signal; he had his eyes locked on his target."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "THWACK", "text": "\"FUUUUCK!\" cried Tim. The bolt from his crossbow stuck out from his right foot, still trembling from the impact.\n\nThe air filled with high-pitched giggles again. When Julian looked above Cooper, Bingbong Fizzbang was gone. Even his piss stream had vanished. Cooper wiped the piss off his face.\n\nDave crawled over to Tim. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"No, I'm not fucking okay. I've got a goddamn bolt in my foot! One of those invisible shitheads pulled my trigger.\"\n\nWhen Dave reached Tim, he whispered, \"You were trying to murder one of them over a prank. What did you expect?\"\n\n\"Can we skip the lecture and get on with the healing?\"\n\nDave frowned at Tim. \"I'm going to need to pull the bolt out first. It's going to hurt.\"\n\nTim took out another bolt, bit down on the shaft, then nodded at Dave.\n\nDave nodded back, then held Tim's leg with one hand and wrapped the other around the bolt in his foot. \"On three. One.\" He yanked the bolt out, and blood gurgled up from the hole in Tim's foot.\n\n\"YYYNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!\" cried Tim. The front and back of the bolt fell from the sides of his mouth, and he spit out the middle. \"Asshole!\"\n\n\"I heal thee,\" said Dave. Tim's foot wound closed up.\n\nTim took a few deep breaths, then hopped to his feet, swinging his fists in the air. \"Come on! Show yourselves, you little shitheads!\"\n\nDave sighed. \"You're welcome.\"\n\nTim eventually stopped swinging and seemed to calm himself. But Julian could see bad thoughts brewing in his head.\n\nJust as he'd done before, he hid his crossbow behind his back, reloaded it slowly and nonchalantly, then cocked it back. Something was off, though. Tim was smart enough to know that the same trick wouldn't work twice, especially if it hadn't worked the first time, and to also know that their invisible foes would now be keeping a closer eye on him.\n\nTim stared at a fixed point in seemingly empty air and ever so slowly moved his crossbow around to his front. His hair fluttered, and he launched a fist into the direction of the breeze.\n\n\"Ugh!\" cried a high-pitched voice. It may have been the one who'd pissed on Cooper, but it was too difficult to tell from such a limited sample.\n\n\"Ha!\" said Tim. \"Fuck you! Take your assholery and go fuck yoursel\u2013\"\n\nAnother tiny head appeared a good twenty feet above Tim's head. This one was a woman's. Her short pink hair framed a set of crystal blue eyes. The skin around her left eye was purple and beginning to swell. Her wings, which appeared half a second after, were orange.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Tim. \"I didn't know you were \u2013\"\n\nThe rest of her body became visible. Her clothes were made of pink rose petals, stretched taut in the middle over her conspicuously large belly. No other part of her suggested she was overweight. She held a foot-long bow, and little arrow fletchings were visible over her left shoulder.\n\n\"Fuck,\" said Tim.\n\nThe fairy woman glared down at Tim. She looked pissed. Whatever the gestation period was for a fairy, she looked at least eight weeks overdue.\n\nTim dropped to his knees and folded his hands. \"I'm really sorry. I had no idea you were... But in a way, this is actually your fault.\"\n\n\"Tim!\" snapped Julian. Tim shouldn't need a bunch of ranks in the Diplomacy skill to know better than trying to turn the blame around on a pregnant woman he'd just punched in the face.\n\n\"If you hadn't fucked with us, I wouldn't have hit you.\" Tim's argument sounded like it came straight out of the Domestic Abuser's Handbook.\n\n\"You were trying to shoot my manfriend,\" said the fairy woman. \"All because we played a little prank on your friend.\n\n\"Do you mean Mr. Fizzbang?\" asked Julian. It was a miracle of Diplomacy that he managed to say Mr. Fizzbang without sounding condescending. \"Is he the father?\" Getting her to talk about herself might take her mind off wanting to one-up Tim's move.\n\n\"Could be,\" said another fairy who completely materialized out of thin air. His wings were pink and his hair was blue. He wore a gown of long white orchid petals and a Fu-Manchu style mustache which was braided with his beard. \"Or it could be me.\"\n\n\"Or me!\" said a fourth fairy. He was smaller than the other three and had curly orange hair. His wings were dark blue and he wore what looked like a hula skirt made out of cosmos petals.\n\nThe other two male fairies laughed.\n\n\"Not likely, Poppin,\" said Bingbong. \"You have pixie dust all over the inside of your skirt!\"\n\nPoppin's face turned red. \"There was plenty more where that came from. You two fell asleep after seconds. I can keep Cricket satisfied for minutes.\"\n\nThe other two male fairies scowled as Poppin flew behind Cricket, lifted the rose petal covering her rear, and mounted her in midair.\n\nCricket's wings flapped into a blur while glittery fluid dripped down from under her skirt. She smiled at Julian. \"Our ways are different than yours.\" She paused to moan as Poppin's wings nearly disappeared in their rapid flapping. \"We keep no records of lineage. Pixies are all one community.\"\n\nPoppin leaned in close and whispered into Cricket's ear. She nodded, then both of them vanished. The heavy breathing and buzz of flapping wings, however, remained just as audible.\n\n\"Well,\" said Julian, not knowing what to say in this situation. \"I suppose we should be leaving now. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Congratulations on the baby.\"\n\n\"Bye bye, Cricket,\" Tim called out to the empty air. The buzz of rapidly beating wings had subsided, so there was no way to tell where any of the pixies were. He turned around and began walking east. \"Have fun being a giant whore.\"\n\nJulian clenched his fists in frustration but continued walking so everyone could maybe pretend Tim hadn't just said that.\n\n\"What did you call me?\" said Cricket. She rematerialized ahead of Tim. Her face was livid, but a lot more sparkly than it had been just a minute ago.\n\nJulian's heart sank. They'd been so close. It was like Tim couldn't go more than a minute without being a complete asshole, like it sustained him.\n\n\"He didn't mean that,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Of course I didn't,\" said Tim. \"I was only joking. Surely, Sprinkles McJizzjar can take a joke, right? I mean, she suffered through twenty whole seconds of not having a pixie stick up her twinkle twat in order to shoot me in the foot because I couldn't take a joke, didn't she?\"\n\nThe blue haired pixie made himself visible, hovering slightly lower than Cricket and to her left. \"You may want to rethink your words.\"\n\n\"Or else what? You think I'm afraid of a few obnoxious mosquitoes? I'll take on all three of you one-handed while I stick it to the Cricket.\" He looked at Cricket. \"What do you say, Crick? You want to see what two inches feels like? Flutter on down here and bend over. I'll show you what \u2013\"\n\nIn less than a second, Cricket raised her bow, nocked an arrow, and fired it.\n\nTim's hand jerked up to what looked like a cocktail toothpick sticking out of his neck. His eyes rolled up, and he collapsed to the ground and pissed his pants.\n\nCooper took a step toward Tim, but Cricket instantly had another arrow nocked and aimed at him.\n\nThe blue haired pixie shook his head. \"I tried to warn him.\"\n\n\"Is he... dead?\" asked Julian.\n\nCricket laughed and relaxed her bowstring. \"Of course not, silly elf! He's only sleeping. He'll wake up in an hour or two.\n\nDave shrugged. \"That's probably for the best. Maybe we can make it home without him shooting his mouth off.\"\n\n\"You have insulted us,\" said Cricket. \"You may not return home until justice has been served.\"\n\n\"Tim insulted you,\" said Julian. \"And you shot him.\"\n\n\"Twice,\" Dave added.\n\nJulian nodded. \"Has justice not already been served?\"\n\nCricket winced, re-quivered her arrow, and held her bow out to her blue-haired friend. \"Hold this for me, Zingo.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Zingo accepted the bow, then flew two feet back, giving Cricket some room.\n\nShe put both hands on the bottom of her bulge. Julian could clearly see movement from the inside. The pixie baby must have been kicking up a storm.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" asked Julian.\n\nZingo smiled sympathetically. \"It's just the grubs. Not at all uncommon.\"\n\nCricket leaned forward and hurled out a stream of sparkly bubblegum pink vomit. \"Okay, I'm better now.\" She wiped the last tendril from her lips, then tilted upright again. \"Now what to do with you?\"\n\n\"Make them fetch the Fairyfire Gem!\" suggested Poppin. Julian turned around to look in the direction the voice had come from, but Poppin remained invisible.\n\nCricket tapped her temple. \"Hmmm... I wonder if they have what it takes.\"\n\n\"We almost certainly don't,\" said Julian.\n\nCricket nodded resolutely. \"I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Enter the Cave of Secrets and find the Fairyfire Gem. Return it to us, and you shall receive your reward.\"\n\nCooper pulled his finger out of his nose. \"Reward?\"\n\n\"Awesome!\" said Dave. \"Let's go find that gem. Cooper, grab Tim.\"\n\n\"How delightful that you're so eager to get started!\" said Cricket. \"When you have the gem, return here to the stump. Good luck!\"\n\nJulian was about to bring up the fact that they didn't have any idea where the Cave of Secrets was, but Dave grabbed his sleeve and pulled him along. \"No time to waste, Julian.\" His tone was suspiciously demanding. Julian thought he might have more to say outside the range of pixie ears.\n\nWhen the end of the meadow gave way to forest, Dave looked back. The pixies had either turned invisible or left.\n\n\"Can I speak now?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"How are we supposed to find the Fairyfire Gem? We didn't even ask where the Cave of Secrets was.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" said Cooper. \"Nice going, Dave.\"\n\n\"We're not,\" said Dave. \"We're going back to the Whore's Head Inn.\"\n\nJulian thought for a moment. \"So we just lied to the pixies?\"\n\n\"Tim was being a huge asshole, but he was right about one thing. What can they really do about it? If they had any real leverage, they wouldn't have offered us a reward.\"\n\nJulian bit his lower lip. \"I suppose that makes sense.\"\n\n\"Conjure up some horses and let's get the hell out of here.\"\n\n\"Horse!\" said Julian, then repeated the incantation twice more. Three horses blinked into existence, saddled up and ready to ride.\n\nCooper mounted the biggest horse. He held Tim's unconscious body against his chest with one hand and the reins in the other. Julian and Dave rode separately.\n\nIt wasn't a particularly dense forest, and they made pretty good time, especially considering how dark it was now. Dwarves and Half-Orcs could see in perfect darkness, so Dave and Cooper had no trouble guiding their horses. Julian, as an elf, merely had Low Light Vision, but the moon was three-quarters full and he didn't have much trouble keeping up.\n\n\"Whoa!\" said Dave, stopping his horse about an hour into the ride for no obvious reason. Julian and Cooper brought their horses to a halt as well.\n\n\"What the fuck, Dave?\" said Cooper. \"Don't tell us you need another rest. You're literally sitting on your ass.\"\n\nDave climbed down from his horse. \"I think this looks like a good place to set up camp for the night.\"\n\n\"Fuck setting up camp. I don't want to sleep out here. We could be back in Cardinia in two hours.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" said Dave, walking over to Cooper's horse. He started unfastening the flap on one of the saddlebags on Cooper's horse. \"I'll start setting up the tent. Why don't you two tie up the horses and get to work on building a fire?\"\n\nIt was one thing for Dave to ignore Cooper, but he was doing it in such a conspicuous way that Julian wondered if something else was afoot. For one thing, they didn't have a tent. They hadn't expected to be out this long. And why would he suggest tying up the horses? They were magically-summoned horses who would obey whatever Julian commanded, and their spell duration had less than an hour to go anyway.\n\nJulian's curiosity was further piqued when he saw what was inside the saddlebag that Dave had opened. It wasn't camping equipment. It was Tim's crossbow. Julian hopped down from his horse.\n\n\"Here, let me help you with that.\"\n\n\"Goddammit,\" said Cooper. He grabbed Tim by the back of his vest, lowered him as far as he could, and let him fall the rest of the way. \"I'm gonna go take a shit.\" He climbed down from the horse and stepped over Tim.\n\n\"Cooper,\" said Dave. \"Before you do that, I could use some help with this knot.\"\n\n\"Are you fucking kidding me? Do I look like a sailor to you? Go fuck a sheepshank.\"\n\n\"This is a really tight one,\" said Julian. \"We could really use your help over here.\"\n\nCooper stopped and turned back to face them. \"I'm gonna be honest, guys. This feels a little rapey.\"\n\nJulian rolled his eyes. \"Will you get over here and help us?\"\n\nCooper trudged over and looked down at the saddlebag, which Julian and Dave were tugging back and forth to mimic the act of trying to untie a knot. \"What the fuck are you guys doing?\"\n\n\"Don't look now, but there are goblins in the two tall trees just ahead of us. I think it's an ambush.\"\n\n\"Huh?\" Cooper looked up.\n\nA cry rang out, presumably in Goblinese. An arrow whirred past Julian's ear. Another stuck in the throat of the horse they were next to. The horse screamed and whipped its head around.\n\n\"Goddammit, Cooper!\" said Dave, taking cover behind the horse. \"What's the one thing I told you not to \u2013 OOMF!\" He caught two hooves in the breastplate just before two more arrows pierced the horse in the side.\n\nThe horse vanished, and the arrows, Tim's crossbow, and his quiver of bolts fell to the ground.\n\nGuilty as it made him feel, Julian took cover behind the horse he'd ridden and squinted up into the trees. He caught a goblinoid silhouette and hoped it was enough of a target for his magic to lock onto.\n\n\"Magic Missile!\" he cried, thrusting his palm out. A golden bolt of magical energy flew out of his hand, zoomed toward his target, and exploded in a shower of sparks. A goblin screamed as he fell out of the tree, then abruptly stopped screaming when he hit the ground.\n\nArrows were flying in from at least three different directions. Having used up three of his daily allotment of first level spells on horses, he didn't have enough Magic Missiles to make much of a difference against so many enemies.\n\nCooper's horse let out half a scream before vanishing.\n\n\"OW!\" cried Dave, crawling back to get Tim's crossbow with an arrow sticking out of his ass.\n\n\"I'm really angry!\" said Cooper. Goblins shrieked and barked at each other as Cooper's body inflated to half again its normal size.\n\nThe rain of arrows shifted almost exclusively to Cooper as he ran for the nearest goblin-occupied tree. He got hit at least four or five times that Julian could see, but he hardly seemed to notice as he jumped to grab two of the lower branches and pull himself up.\n\nArrows still fired at him from other trees, but the rain falling straight down stopped as the goblin ambushers scrambled to higher branches.\n\nDave leveled Tim's crossbow up at a different tree and pulled the trigger. One more goblin dropped down with a bolt in its throat. If that hadn't killed him, landing on his head from that high up certainly finished the job.\n\nJulian rooted through his bag, searching frantically for a scroll he could use. He tossed a Ventriloquism scroll aside, seeing no immediately obvious use for it. Then a Mount scroll. No need to slaughter any more horses just yet. He tossed a Glitterdust scroll into the beginning of a 'Maybe' pile, then chided himself for not organizing his scrolls better.\n\nFinally, he found a Web scroll. He hated to use up a Level 2 scroll on a bunch of goblins. They were so expensive and time-consuming to produce.\n\nTwo arrow fletchings suddenly appeared on his horse's back, and Julian felt a searing pain in his right upper arm.\n\n\"Son of a \u2013\" The rest of his scrolls fell to the ground as a third arrow struck his horse. It vanished like a popped soap bubble. Julian looked up to find the tree where it had come from. \"Fuck it.\" He read the incantation on the scroll. \"Web!\"\n\nGlobs of sticky white fluid sprayed out of his fingertips, like each of his fingers was Spiderman's dick, until the arrows stopped flying and goblins squirmed in what looked like a god's money shot on Mother Nature.\n\nGoblin screams rained down from Cooper's tree, as did the occasional goblin, as Cooper climbed further up after the last few stragglers.\n\n\"YAAAAAAA!\" cried Tim. He'd been hit in the leg. Hell of a thing to wake up to. He bolted upright and looked at his leg. \"Holy shit!\"\n\nDave turned to the direction the arrow had come from, aimed Tim's crossbow, and plugged another goblin. \"Calm down,\" he said to Tim.\n\n\"Don't tell me to calm down! Who the fuck are \u2013\"\n\nDave punched Tim in the face. That must have been satisfying. He looked like he'd wanted to do that all day.\n\nJulian grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows from one of the fallen goblins. It was small, like wielding a toy, but proved effective in helping Dave weed out the few remaining attackers who hadn't yet died or bailed.\n\nWith a loud crack, an equally loud \"FUCK!\", and five or six goblin screams, the top third of Cooper's tree snapped off and came crashing to the ground.\n\nThe stillness of the night following the crash was once again broken by a prolonged fart as Cooper's Barbarian Rage subsided. \"I'm okay.\"\n\n\"What are those things?\" said Tim, rubbing the bridge of his nose where Dave had punched him and looking horrified at the dead goblin nearest him on the ground.\n\nDave looked down at the goblin and grimaced. \"I'm not sure. Warts? Boils? Maybe scars from a rough puberty?\"\n\n\"Guys,\" said Julian. \"Help me take out the ones in the web.\" Dave set Tim's crossbow down in front of Tim and grabbed a goblin bow. He and Julian shot every squirming lump of web until there was no more movement in the tree.\n\nDave looked back at Tim, who still hadn't touched the crossbow. \"Thanks for the help.\"\n\nTim stared at Dave, his eyes wide with terror. \"W-w-what the hell is going on here?\"\n\n\"Dude, relax. You just woke up and you're freaking out a little.\"\n\n\"Stop telling me to relax! I've got a goddamn arrow in my leg!\"\n\nDave rolled his eyes. \"Geez Louise, like that's the first time that's ever happened.\" He plucked the arrow out of Tim's leg.\n\n\"OW!\" cried Tim. \"Mother fu\u2013\"\n\nDave clapped his hand over Tim's mouth. \"Keep your voice down. I heal thee.\"\n\nTim's eyes rolled up, and his head swayed loose from Dave's grip.\n\n\"Whoa. That feels amazing. What did you...\" His eyes became alert again as he felt his leg where the arrow had struck him. \"It's healed! How did you \u2013 Jesus Christ!\" Tim pointed at Cooper emerging from the fallen tree. \"There's another one! Shoot it! Shoot it!\"\n\n\"Hey, fuck you,\" said Cooper.\n\nJulian squatted down in front of an increasingly terrified Tim. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Where am I?\" said Tim. \"How did I get here? Who are you people? Shit! Who am I?\" He looked down at his feet. \"Why are my feet so hairy?\" He looked at his hand, then felt his face. \"What the fuck am I?\"\n\nDave closed his eyes and sighed through his nose. \"Those sons of bitches.\"\n\n\"Who?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"The pixies. That arrow they hit Tim with did more than put him to sleep. It erased his memory.\"\n\nJulian thought about it. It seemed plausible, but not so obvious as to be the only possibility. \"How do you know? Maybe he lost his memory when you punched him in the face.\"\n\n\"No.\" Dave turned to Tim. \"Sorry about that, by the way.\"\n\nTim stared back at him, petrified and speechless.\n\n\"They told us to find the Fairyfire Gem, but then they just let us go. They knew we'd have to come back.\"\n\n\"If that was the case, then why wouldn't they tell us about the memory loss from the beginning?\" Julian knew the answer as soon as he finished the question.\n\n\"Because they're dicks,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Shit,\" said Cooper. Tim crawled away from Cooper and cowered behind Dave.\n\nJulian smiled at Tim. \"There's nothing to be afraid of. That's just Cooper.\"\n\n\"He's been your best friend since first grade,\" said Dave.\n\nTim backed away from all of them. \"None of this makes any sense. You people aren't human. It's like I'm in a world I don't belong in.\"\n\n\"You're not wrong,\" said Julian. \"You're from Mississippi.\"\n\nA glint of recognition shone in Tim's eyes. \"Mississippi,\" he said slowly to himself. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. \"You said something about... the Pixies?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Julian was more excited than was probably appropriate that Tim's memory might be brought back via his favorite band.\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"The Pixies are an alternative rock band from Massachusetts.\"\n\n\"Massachusetts.\"\n\nJulian tried to jog his memory a little more with some of their better-known songs. \"Debaser, Here Comes Your Man, Where Is My Mind?\"\n\n\"Dude,\" said Cooper. \"I don't think \u2013\"\n\n\"Shut up!\" said Julian. \"It's coming back to him.\"\n\nTim opened his eyes. \"And this alternative rock band from Massachusetts\u2026 they erased my memory?\"\n\nJulian sighed. \"No. That was done by actual pixies, as in the mythological fairy creatures.\"\n\n\"You see, that's the part I don't get. You even describe them as 'mythological creatures', and yet you claim we've had real physical interaction with them. That doesn't make any sense.\"\n\n\"I know this is a lot to take in right now, but you have to trust us. We were all playing a fantasy game, and the Game Master made us roll these magical dice. Like, for real magical. Next thing we knew, we were inside the fantasy game, in the bodies of our fantasy characters. We've been trying to figure out a way to get back to the real world ever since.\"\n\n\"So hang on.\" Tim ran his fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp. \"Let me see if I've got this straight.\" He looked up at Julian. \"What you're saying is... I'm a fucking nerd?\"\n\nDave frowned. \"Is that really the most difficult part of this for you to believe?\"\n\n\"Of course it is,\" said Tim. \"The rest of it is all here in my face. I'm obviously not in my own body. The arrow that hit me hurt like a son of a bitch, so that rules out dreaming. This guy's got those long ass ears, and that guy's a fucking monster. And you! You healed my arrow wound with some kind of magical sorcery shit. If this is a hoax, then fucking bravo. You got me.\"\n\n\"Actually,\" said Julian. \"Dave healed you with clerical magic. I'm the sorcerer.\" He cast a small Prestidigitation spell as a demonstration and created the illusion of a glowing solar system above his head, with planets revolving around the central sun and moons orbiting planets. It was pretty impressive.\n\n\"Holy shit!\" said Tim in wide-eyed fascination. \"That's incredible!\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nTim pursed his lips. \"Except you've got Jupiter and Saturn in the wrong order, and Uranus has too many moons and horizontal rings.\"\n\nCooper snorted. \"Somebody needs to learn how to wipe.\"\n\n\"You guys have magic. The big guy's obviously some kind of warrior type. What about me? Do I have any special powers?\"\n\nJulian and Dave exchanged a glance, then looked back at Tim.\n\n\"You're sneaky,\" said Julian.\n\n\"Sneaky?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Really quiet, and you can hide really well.\"\n\n\"My fantasy power is being good at Hide-and-Seek?\"\n\n\"It's more useful than you might \u2013\"\n\n\"Hey!\" shouted Tim, his attention suddenly focused elsewhere. He jogged and waved his arms. \"Go away! Shoo!\"\n\nRavenus had his beak in a goblin's ocular cavity. He jerked his head up and slurped back the optic nerve as Tim got close. \"I'm sorry. Were you going to eat that?\"\n\nTim froze in his tracks. \"Holy shit! I can talk to animals!\" He got down on one knee. \"Hello, bird. What's your name?\"\n\nRavenus ruffled his feathers. Julian could sense his annoyance. \"You know I can't understand you when you talk like that.\"\n\nTim looked back at Julian. \"What's it talking about?\"\n\n\"This is Ravenus, my familiar. He can only speak the Elven tongue.\"\n\n\"It sounded like English to me.\"\n\n\"In game terms, it's English with a British accent.\"\n\n\"So he doesn't understand American English?\"\n\n\"Correct.\"\n\nTim thought for a moment. \"Seriously?\"\n\nJulian nodded.\n\n\"That sounds... I don't know, what's the word? Dumb?\"\n\n\"It is what it is,\" said Dave. \"We need to decide what we're going to do about tonight. If we head back to the pixie meadow now, we might make it back there around midnight, but sleeping in a meadow might be more comfortable and less dangerous than sleeping in this goblin-infested forest. On the other hand, if we set up camp right here, Julian could prepare his spells and summon up some more horses, so we wouldn't have to walk.\"\n\n\"I vote we walk back there now,\" said Julian. \"Who knows what we'll have to face in the Cave of Secrets? If we sleep in the meadow, I can prepare my spells there in the morning and we won't have to waste any of them on Mount spells.\"\n\nNobody wanted to walk anymore, but everyone agreed it was the wiser decision. The trek back to the meadow took about four times as long as the journey from it had taken. Not only were they forced to walk from lack of horses, but they were forced to walk at the speed of Dave, which sucked.\n\nFortunately, the journey was uneventful, and they made it back to the meadow exhausted, but alive.\n\n\"At least I can get my helmet back,\" said Dave when they reached the hole. \"I hope Cooper's fart has dissipated by now.\" He lowered himself into the hole, holding some clumps of grass at the edge, then let himself slide down the remaining two feet. \"Not too bad.\" He picked up his helmet. \"Cooper, could you give me a hand?\"\n\n\"How about a refill instead?\" Cooper squatted next to the hole and let rip a fart that quieted the nearby frogs and crickets.\n\nTim's jaw dropped. \"Why would you do that?\"\n\n\"I have a low Charisma score. It gives me gas.\"\n\n\"That wasn't just gas, asshole!\" said Dave, wiping specks of shit off his face. He angrily shoved his helmet back on.\n\nTim put his hands on his hips and glared at Cooper. \"Your Charisma score didn't force you to shart on your friend. That was a purely mean-spirited act, and you should apologize right now.\"\n\nDave stopped coughing on fart and stared quizzically up out of the hole.\n\nCooper stuck out his lower lip, turned around, and lowered his hand down to Dave. \"Sorry, Dave.\"\n\nWhile Cooper was helping Dave out of the hole, Julian looked up at the stars. \"Should be a clear night. Anyone want to take watch while I prepare my spells?\"\n\nCooper yawned. \"I'm pretty beat from tearing that tree down.\"\n\n\"I'll do it,\" said Dave.\n\n\"Uh-uh,\" said Tim. \"You get your rest. You've had a long day.\" He smiled. \"Besides, I had a nap earlier.\"\n\nDave's lips quivered like he was trying to remember how to make words. \"Thank you,\" he finally said.\n\nWhen Cooper and Dave started snoring, Tim looked at Julian.\n\n\"Are you sure you wouldn't like to get a little sleep before you work on your spells or whatever?\"\n\n\"Elves don't sleep,\" said Julian. \"But I need to meditate for four hours in order to ready my mind.\"\n\n\"Neat,\" said Tim. \"Well don't let me keep you.\"\n\nJulian sat cross-legged on the ground, hands on his knees. As his mind began to clear, he heard Tim whistling. He couldn't make out a tune. It was like Tim was whistling just for the sheer joy of whistlinng.\n\nFour hours later, he came out of his trance with his mind feeling nice and refreshed. He looked around. The first hint of light in the eastern sky revealed the silhouettes of the trees. Dave and Cooper were still sleeping. Ravenus was still nestled under his serape. Tim was sitting on the ground, his back to Julian, fiddling with something that Julian couldn't see.\n\n\"Everything go okay?\" asked Julian.\n\n\"Huh?\" Tim shoved whatever he was fooling with into his backpack, then turned around to face Julian. \"Oh yeah, no problems at all. Has it been four hours already?\"\n\nJulian nodded. \"So what did you do?\"\n\nTim shrugged. \"Nothing much. Stared up at the stars mostly, thinking about what kind of constellations the people around here might recognize. That sort of thing.\"\n\n\"Oh, okay. You should probably get some sleep now. We don't know what we're going to have to face in the morning.\"\n\nTim lay on the grass with his head on his backpack. \"Goodnight.\"\n\nWhen Tim started snoring, Julian was really tempted to see what was inside Tim's backpack. He resisted the urge, as it was a clear breach of trust. But he kept coming back to Tim's suspicious behavior. Alone, in the dark, his recently cleared mind began to fill with imaginary scenarios. What if that arrow did more than put him to sleep and erase his memory? What if it was some kind of mind control?\n\nJulian forced himself to focus on preparing his mind to wield the coming day's allotment of spells. Tim couldn't do any harm while he was asleep. The others would wake up before him. He could tell them what he saw and discuss how to handle it while Tim was still sleeping.\n\nIt was a long wait, but finally, Cooper yawned and scratched his balls. He and Dave stood, stretched, and trudged over to the hole. Dave took a piss and Cooper squatted down for a dump.\n\nJulian turned away, but couldn't shield his sensitive elf ears to the sound."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "PLOOOOP", "text": "It sounded a lot more substantial than the previous night's shart.\n\n\"Jesus,\" said Dave. \"I'm glad I wasn't down there for that one.\"\n\nWhen Cooper and Dave had finished their business, Julian beckoned them over.\n\n\"What's going on?\" asked Dave.\n\n\"Something weird is going on with Tim,\" Julian whispered.\n\n\"Aside from the memory loss thing?\"\n\n\"When I came out of my trance last night, he was sitting with his back to me. I couldn't see what he was doing, but he was definitely doing something. When I spoke to him, he shoved something into his bag really quickly, like he didn't want me to see it.\"\n\n\"He was whacking it to a titty mag,\" said Cooper. \"Give him some fucking privacy.\"\n\n\"There aren't any titty mags in this world.\"\n\nCooper scratched his armpit. \"That's true. Now I'm suspicious.\"\n\nJulian looked at Dave. \"You're the wise one. What do you think?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Could be something. Could be nothing.\"\n\n\"Whoa,\" said Cooper. \"That is some Confucius level shit right there.\"\n\nDave gave Cooper the finger. \"I've got to go pray for my spells. Keep an eye on Tim until I get back.\"\n\nThe wait was excruciating. Cooper whiled the hour away watching Ravenus tear into his kills from yesterday. Julian watched Tim, sleeping like a child without a worry in the world.\n\nWhen Dave returned from his prayer, he, Julian, and Cooper decided that it would be best to wait until Tim woke up and confront him honestly about the situation. It wasn't that they didn't trust him. It was more a matter of that they didn't know the degree to which his mind had been messed with.\n\nThey were all staring at him when he finally woke up.\n\n\"Good morning,\" said Tim, squinting up at them. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"Tim,\" said Julian. \"I hate to have to ask you this, but I saw you shove something into your bag last night, and we need to know what it is.\" He braced himself for a big Fuck you and stood ready to jump out of the way if Tim decided to try and pee on him as a response instead.\n\n\"It was meant to be a surprise.\" Tim opened his backpack. \"I wanted to wait until everyone was awake.\" He pulled out a wreath of brightly-colored wildflowers woven together by the stems. \"It's a friendship necklace.\" He offered it to Julian.\n\nJulian felt like a complete dick as he slipped Tim's gift over his head. \"Thank you.\"\n\nTim handed friendship necklaces to Dave and Cooper as well.\n\n\"This is beautiful,\" said Dave, donning his gift.\n\nTim put on the necklace he'd made for himself. \"I really appreciate you guys coming all the way back here just for me. I'm sorry to have caused you so much trouble.\"\n\nDave wiped a tear from his eye and hugged Tim. \"It's no trouble at all. Thank you.\"\n\nTim hugged him back. \"Thank you for saving my life yesterday.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" said Cooper, holding his necklace out like he'd just pulled it out of a clogged toilet. \"We need to get that Fairyfucker Gem right now.\"\n\nJulian glared at Cooper.\n\nCooper groaned but put on his friendship necklace. \"Thank you so much,\" he said like he was reading it from a teleprompter. \"I'll cherish this gift forever.\"\n\nTim rubbed his hands together like he was eager to start a brand new day. \"Now what?\"\n\n\"That's a good question,\" said Julian. \"How do we find the Cave of Secrets?\"\n\nTo his left, he heard a tiny bell ringing.\n\n\"What was that?\" asked Tim, his eyes wide and his voice a little shaky.\n\n\"It must be the pixies.\" Julian called out in the direction he heard the bell. \"Yes?\"\n\nThe bell rang again.\n\n\"Maybe we're supposed to follow the sound?\" suggested Dave.\n\nJulian called out, \"Are we supposed to follow the bell?\"\n\nThe bell rang a little louder.\n\n\"Come on.\" Julian started walking toward the bell, and the others followed. \"You talked to us yesterday. We could save some time if you'd just talk to us again instead of this bell-ringing nonsense.\"\n\nDave, usually the slowest one in the group, was walking beside Julian. Cooper and Tim were lagging behind, Cooper three knuckles deep into his left nostril, and Tim stalking through the tall grass like a kitten, but with a crossbow.\n\n\"They're just messing with us some more,\" said Dave. \"There's no reason for them not to talk to us. The bell thing is just a bit of theatrics. Makes it more mysterious and scary for us.\"\n\nThe ringing bell eventually led them into the forest.\n\n\"How long of a walk is this?\" asked Julian. \"Should we have brought torches? How big is the Fairyfire Gem?\" He hoped that, by asking enough questions, he might be able to annoy the pixies to reveal themselves and offer something in the way of a straight explanation.\n\nEventually, the bell stopped ringing altogether, and Julian feared he might have pissed off Cricket again.\n\n\"Look!\" said Tim, running ahead. He crouched next to a long slender leaf resting in the forks of a sapling. There were words on the leaf, written in what looked like glitter glue.\n\n\"Cave... of... Secrets,\" Tim read the sign aloud. \"What is this?\" He ran his pinky finger along the leaf.\n\n\"Tim!\" said Dave. \"No!\" But not soon enough.\n\nTim had already touched his fingertip to his tongue. \"Something's coming back to me. I think it's a memory.\"\n\n\"Have you ever blown a pixie?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"It's so close,\" said Tim. \"On the tip of my tongue.\"\n\nJulian heard faint giggling high above his head. He looked up. \"I can hear you, you know!\"\n\nTim shut his eyes and frowned in thought. \"It's almost there.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's best to just let this one stay buried,\" said Cooper. \"I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure that's pixie splooge.\"\n\nTim snapped his fingers. \"Cinnabon!\"\n\nCooper nodded. \"That's in line with what their piss tastes like.\"\n\n\"Do you remember anything else?\" asked Julian. It would be nice and ironic if their semen triggered an avalanche of memory, and they could just go back to the city now instead of looking for the Fairyfire Gem.\n\nTim shook his head. \"Just Cinnabon.\"\n\nDave sighed. \"The pointy end of the leaf is pointing that way, but I don't see any cave.\"\n\nJulian noticed two trees unlike any other in the forest. They were thick and gnarled like oaks, but their bark was grey and the leaves were all a deep autumnal red. Every other tree in the forest had healthy green summer leaves. They were also in the same general direction as where the sign was pointing.\n\nThe little bell rang again, this time farther away, and from the other side of those strange trees.\n\n\"Guys!\" said Dave. \"This way!\" He waddle-ran between the two red-leafed trees, then fell through solid ground. \"Fuuuuuck!\"\n\nThough he'd disappeared into the ground, Dave's voice was clearly audible as it continued to grunt and swear, and his armor banged repeatedly on stone. He sounded like he was falling down a flight of stairs.\n\nJulian followed the route Dave had taken between the trees, but he stepped more carefully when he got close to where Dave disappeared. \"Dave?\"\n\n\"I'm down here,\" Dave called back. \"The opening is about a foot and a half in front of you.\"\n\nJulian inched forward, looking for some kind of clue, or a seam between the real and illusory ground. Just ahead of him, he saw an ant disappear and guessed that the fake ground began there.\n\n\"A little more,\" said Dave. \"Almost there.\"\n\nFeeling more confident, Julian took a larger step. Just as he'd suspected it would, his foot went through the ground and touched solid stone six inches lower. Knowing the illusion was there, he could now see through it, all the way down to Dave at the bottom of the stairs.\n\nJulian stayed where he was and motioned for Cooper and Tim to follow. He guided them through the illusory patch of ground and safely into the underground tunnel.\n\n\"This is the Cave of Secrets?\" said Cooper. \"It smells like the Cave of Ass.\"\n\nIt required a pretty offensive odor for Cooper to rightfully complain, but he was not exaggerating. This cave was clearly no secret to every animal in the forest who'd ever needed to take a dump. Looking around, Julian couldn't see any shit smeared over the rough granite walls, or turds lying in their path on the smoother granite floor, but the stench was overpowering.\n\nBarring any magically-hidden doors or secret passages, there was only one way to go, so they followed the cave straight forward.\n\n\"I'm scared,\" Tim whispered to Julian.\n\nJulian was scared too, but he put on a brave face for Tim. \"Here, hold up your crossbow.\" When Tim did so, Julian touched the bolt loaded in it. \"Light.\" The bolt glowed, bathing the cave walls in a soft white light.\n\n\"Whoa!\" said Tim. \"That's wicked awesome! Is this a magical weapon now?\"\n\n\"Only insofar as it glows. It won't do any more damage than a regular bolt, but it could be useful if we need to get a look at something really far away.\"\n\nCooper and Dave were about fifty feet ahead of them now since they could both see just fine in complete darkness. When Julian and Tim caught up, they found Dave and Cooper staring at a polished section of wall. It was so smooth that Julian could almost make out his reflection, except for two places. Near the ceiling, a three-foot-wide pair of rough granite lips protruded out, as if the rest of the wall had been chiseled and polished six inches back solely for this effect. And two feet off the ground, a simple mitten-shaped symbol had been carved into the otherwise smooth wall.\n\nThe floor of the tunnel beyond them was covered in square tiles, each a foot across, and engraved with a single capital letter. Ten tiles across and ten deep, the letters seemed to have been placed arbitrarily.\n\n\"What does it say?\" asked Cooper. Illiteracy was a Barbarian class trait.\n\n\"It doesn't say anything,\" said Julian, studying the layout of the letters. He searched for words horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. He didn't see anything except for the occasional inconsequential two letter word like IF, AS, or BE. He looked down at Tim. \"Do you see anything?\"\n\nTim shook his head and shrugged. Memory or no memory, he still had the highest Intelligence score in the group. If he couldn't spot anything, they were in trouble.\n\n\"What about this stuff on the wall?\" asked Dave. He looked up at the granite lips. \"Hello?\"\n\n\"Get back,\" said Cooper, reaching under his loincloth. \"I'm gonna take a whiz in the mouth.\"\n\n\"No you're not,\" said Julian. \"Put that away!\"\n\nDave placed his hand inside the mitten-shaped symbol.\n\nThe lips started moving and spoke in a deep booming voice.\n\n\"IF YOU DESIRE TO CONTINUE, IT SHALL REQUIRE THE KNOWLEDGE WITHIN YOU.\"\n\nJulian cringed. That was some terrible rhyming.\n\n\"HE WHO HAND-SHAPED SYMBOL PRESSED, MUST ALONE COMPLETE THE TEST.\"\n\nSomehow, it managed to get even worse.\n\n\"PLACE YOUR FEET UPON THE SQUARES, AND SPELL THE NAME OF THE GOD OF BEARS.\"\n\n\"The god of bears?\" said Dave. \"What the hell does that mean?\"\n\n\"Are bears religious in this world?\" asked Tim.\n\nJulian shook his head. \"They're just normal animals, except for dire bears, which are just bigger.\n\n\"Werebears might be religious,\" said Dave. \"At least some of them.\"\n\n\"But do they have a particular god that they worship?\"\n\nDave shrugged.\n\n\"Let's work backwards,\" said Julian. \"We'll take the gods we know, and see if we can find any possible connection to bears. Dave, you're the cleric. Name off some gods.\"\n\n\"Um...\" Dave's failure to know the name of a single god was less than encouraging.\n\n\"Guys!\" said Tim, his gaze darting among the letters on the floor. \"I think I've got it!\"\n\n\"Bullshit,\" said Dave. \"You don't even know your own name. How would you know the name for some possibly non-existent fantasy world bear god?\"\n\n\"Hear me out.\"\n\n\"I'm listening, but you'd better have something good. I'm the one whose ass is on the line for this.\"\n\nTim pointed at a tile in the row nearest them. \"U.\" Then he pointed to a tile on the next row, two columns to the right. \"R.\" The third-row tile was five columns to the left, which would be a tricky jump for Dave. \"S.\" The fourth tile was directly behind the third. \"A.\"\n\nDave stroked his beard. \"Ursa?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Tim. \"Then you skip a row and hop over to that M on the sixth row.\" He quickly pointed out the rest of the path. \"A, J, O, R.\"\n\n\"Ursa Major,\" said Dave, nodding slowly.\n\n\"Who the fuck is Ursa Major?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"It's Latin for \"Big Bear,\" said Tim. \"It's a constellation, also commonly known as the Big Dipper.\"\n\nCooper snorted. \"I thought that was Dave's mom's favorite \u2013\" A severe look from Tim shut him up.\n\nTim held up a flower on his necklace. \"What are these?\"\n\n\"Flowers?\"\n\nTim narrowed his eyes. \"Cooper?\"\n\n\"Friendship necklaces.\"\n\n\"And how do friends treat friends?\"\n\nCooper pursed his lips, searching for the answer Tim wanted. \"With respect?\"\n\nTim nodded. \"Very good. Do you have anything you'd like to say to Dave?\"\n\nCooper sighed. \"Sorry, Dave.\"\n\n\"Very good.\" Tim turned to Dave. \"Now, what do you think about Ursa Major?\"\n\n\"I have to agree with you. It's a giant celestial bear, right? What else could it be?\" Dave smiled at Tim. \"Good work, buddy.\"\n\nTim gave him a grin and a thumbs up.\n\nDave took a few deep breaths, rubbed his hands together, and stepped on the tile engraved with the letter U. His foot went straight through it.\n\n\"Fuck!\" cried Dave as he fell forward. His whole body once again disappeared through an illusory floor. This time, however, he landed with a splat. Whatever he'd landed on, at least it sounded soft and not too deep.\n\n\"WRONG!\" bellowed the mouth on the wall. As the echo died down, a loud buzzing sound filled the foul cave air.\n\n\"Ow!\" said Cooper. \"What the \u2013\"\n\n\"BEES!\" cried Tim.\n\nThey were everywhere. Half an inch long, yellow, and angry as hell. While Julian, Tim, and Cooper slapped each other, Dave rose out of the floor. His entire front side, from his face to where his breastplate met the fake tiled floor, was slathered in shit.\n\n\"What the hell are you guys \u2013 OW!\" He slapped the back of his neck. \"Shit! Bees!\" He dropped back into the floor.\n\nIt was difficult to say what caused more damage, the bees or the slapping. But by the time they were done, they were all covered in welts and bruises. More than a hundred dead bees lay at their feet.\n\nDave's shit-caked face poked up out of the floor again. \"Are they gone?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Julian. \"I think we got most of them.\"\n\nDave climbed out the other side of the pit. \"It was a trick question. We were right the first time. There is no god of bears. The whole floor is an illusion. Whatever letter you step on, you just fall into a big shit pit.\"\n\n\"And attacked by bees.\" Tim shined his crossbow light around. \"Where did they come from?\" There didn't appear to be any cracks or holes in the wall.\n\nCooper tossed Tim to the other side of the pit, where he landed gracefully on his feet. Then he hopped down into the pit and carried Julian across.\n\nStill unsure what perils they might have to face further into the Cave of Secrets, Dave used his healing magic sparingly, giving the others a Zero-Level healing spell. It was enough to take the edge off all the bee stings.\n\nThey walked deeper into the cave for about fifteen minutes before reaching another polished section of wall, complete with the lips up top and the mitten symbol down low. Just beyond it stood three clay jugs, each about half as tall and twice as wide as Tim, and each with a different shape painted on the side. The first, a blue triangle. The second, a red square. The third, a yellow circle.\n\nBeyond the jugs was a closed wooden door with five shapes painted on it. A purple oval, an orange five-pointed star, a green hexagon, a blue diamond, and a blue triangle.\n\n\"This looks like another puzzle,\" said Tim. He looked up at Julian. \"You seem really smart. You should probably be the one to activate the mouth.\"\n\nJulian smiled. \"That's very nice of you, but you're the smartest one here, according to our Intelligence scores.\"\n\n\"But I screwed up the last one.\"\n\n\"It was still a lot better than anything any of us came up with.\"\n\nTim sighed and put his hand in the mitten shape. \"I'll do my best.\"\n\n\"ON THE FLOOR THREE JARS YOU SEE. CHOOSE THE ONE WHICH HAS THE KEY.\"\n\nThat wasn't too bad.\n\n\"COMPLETE THE PATTERN ON THE DOOR. IF YOU FAIL, YOU'LL LIVE NO MORE.\"\n\nJulian shook his head. He'd given credit too soon.\n\n\"BEYOND THE DOOR LIES WHAT YOU SEEK. OPEN IT, YOU MUST, TO TAKE A PEEK.\"\n\n\"Enough already,\" said Julian. \"That last line was not only terrible, but it added absolutely nothing.\"\n\nDave stared hard at the shapes painted on the door. \"I'm not seeing much of a pattern at all. The shapes are all different, and all but the last two are different colors.\"\n\n\"That's it!\" cried Tim. \"The pattern is a movement from chaos to order. Like primitive life forming in the oceans. These first three symbols represent eons of nothing happening. But once those first protein strings or amino acids or whatever got going, as represented by these last two symbols in a shift toward order, the progress was exponential. The jar with the key is obviously the one with the blue triangle.\"\n\nCooper picked up the jar with the blue triangle and jiggled it. \"I didn't understand any of that shit you just said, but I don't hear any keys in here.\"\n\nTim grinned. \"They probably attached it to the stopper or something. They wouldn't let you solve the puzzle by shaking the jugs.\"\n\n\"Knock yourself out.\" Cooper handed the jug down to Tim, who then pulled out the wooden stopper.\n\n\"AAAAAHHHHHH!\" cried Tim as a million angry bees exploded out through the mouth of the jug, which fell out of his hands and shattered on the floor.\n\n\"More bees?\" said Dave, waving his arms around ineffectively as several bees got themselves stuck in the shit in his beard.\n\n\"They're everywhere!\" Tim's bare feet crushed broken shards of pottery from the jug he'd just dropped. \"Find the key! Open another jug!\"\n\n\"Which one?\" asked Cooper.\n\n\"Either one! When we get through the door we can close the bees behind us.\"\n\nCooper grabbed the jug with the yellow circle, then pulled out the stopper.\n\n\"Son of a bitch!\" he cried as a torrent of bees flew out.\n\nJulian pulled his serape around tightly to keep Ravenus protected. \"Cooper! Put the stopper back in the \u2013\"\n\n\"Fuck you, bees!\" shouted Cooper as he hurled the jug at the wall, doubling the density of bees in the air.\n\nHe grabbed the jug with the red square, the last one, and pulled out the stopper. He really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when a bunch of bees flew out.\n\n\"What the fuck is with all the goddamn bees?\" He flung the jug at the door. But this time, instead of shattering, it simply vanished.\n\nHalf a second later, Julian heard the expected shatter beyond the door.\n\n\"It's an illusion!\" he said, charging through the swarm, then through the false door.\n\nTim followed, then Cooper, then finally Dave. The only bees which followed were the ones stuck in Dave's beard, but that was at least two dozen.\n\nThis part of the cave was also swarming with bees, thanks to the shattered jug that Cooper had accidentally thrown through the door, but it wasn't nearly as dense as the other side.\n\nTim's magically illuminated crossbow wasn't necessary here. They had reached the end of the Cave of Secrets. At the far end of the cave, beyond four marble steps, the Fairyfire Gem glowed bright pink and orange from the top of a white marble dais.\n\nOf course, between them and the gem, there was another polished section of wall with a set of lips and a mitten print.\n\nOnce they'd swatted or been stung by most of the bees that were flying around, Dave cast a proper Cure Light Wounds spell on everyone. The pain subsided, but the welts still itched.\n\nDave scratched his arm and neck. \"Nothing I can do about the itching. The spell just brings up our Hit Points. It doesn't do anything about the bee venom in our bodies.\"\n\nJulian looked at his own arms. They looked like he had shingles, and they itched something terrible. \"Let's just get this over with. Who wants to do the honors?\"\n\nAfter a few seconds of nobody volunteering, he sighed. \"Fine, I'll do it.\" He walked over to the wall and put his hand in the mitten shape.\n\n\"CONGRATULATIONS ARE NOW DUE. YOU'VE PASSED THE TESTS, SO GOOD FOR YOU.\"\n\nJulian closed his eyes and shook his head.\n\n\"WE HOPE THAT YOU'VE ENJOYED THE JOURNEY. PERHAPS, SOMEDAY, YOU WILL RETURNY.\"\n\nHonestly, the bees were less painful than listening to this.\n\n\"YOUR HEART IS PURE, YOUR MIND IS WISE. GO FORTH NOW AND CLAIM YOUR PRIZE.\"\n\n\"What a bunch of horseshit,\" said Julian. \"I hope those pixies appreciate this thing.\" He walked up the steps before the dais.\n\nThe Fairyfire gem was about as big around as a baseball. Its radiance was nearly blinding up close. Julian reached out and felt for any sign of heat, but there was no appreciable change in temperature when his hand got close to it. He tapped it quickly with one finger, then held his finger on it. It felt like glass, neither hot nor cold nor shooting lightning bolts.\n\nSatisfied that it wasn't dangerous to touch, Julian grabbed it. When he pulled it toward him, he was surprised to feel resistance."}
{"book_title": "5d6", "author": "Robert Bevan", "genres": ["comedy", "fantasy"], "tags": ["humor", "short stories", "Caverns and Creatures C"], "chapter_title": "CLICK", "text": "[ TWANG ]\n\n[ SMASH ]\n\n[ BUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ]\n\nInstead of being one solid block of milky white glass, the dais was actually composed of thin sheets, hollow on the inside. Hollow, that was, except for the million gazillion goddamn bees that flew out of its shattered remains.\n\nStartled, he dropped the Fairyfire gem, lost his balance, and fell forward off the stairs. He hugged Ravenus close to his chest and braced himself to hit the stone floor littered with shards of broken glass. He was pleasantly surprised to land on something soft and crunchy instead. It was pleasant, at least, until he remembered that he was at the epicenter of a hellswarm of bees.\n\nHe flailed his arms and legs wildly, hoping that he'd fend off enough so that his friends could kill the rest before he got stung to death. But the more he flailed, the more he soaked himself in some kind of sticky sweet fluid.\n\nWhatever he'd landed on wasn't just soft and crunchy. It was also really sticky.\n\n\"Julian!\" cried Tim, Dave, and Cooper. What the hell did they want? Could they not see that he was busy right now?\n\n\"What?\" he shouted back at them.\n\n\"You're in the hives!\" said Tim.\n\nJudging by the clear full sentence Tim had just uttered, Julian guessed that the rest of them were relatively safe from the bee attack. Julian, on the other hand, was the one destroying their home, and the one receiving the full wrath of the swarm.\n\nHis body was burning with the pricks of thousands of stingers. He wasn't going to survive this for long.\n\n\"Horse!\" he cried, then spat out three or four bees.\n\nIt must be disconcerting enough to be suddenly called into existence out of the ether under the best of circumstances. In the middle of a swarm of pissed-off bees was not the best of circumstances, and the horse reacted appropriately, bucking, screaming, stomping, and doing considerably more damage to the hive than Julian was. So much so, in fact, that Julian was able to open his eyes and rifle through his bag.\n\nHe teased out a scroll. Mage Hand. He tried to toss it away, but it was stuck to his hands with honey. No time to try to salvage it. He wiped it from his hand on a chunk of hive and went for another scroll. Ventriloquism. Shit! Two ruined Magic Missiles later, he found what he was looking for.\n\n\"Web!\" he shouted.\n\nSticky white fluid sprayed out of his fingers in every direction, engulfing the last twenty feet of the Cave of Secrets in strands of what looked like magical jizz.\n\nThe buzzing stopped as every bee in the swarm was caught in the dripping fibers of Julian's splooge web.\n\nHis horse didn't appear to share the same relief that Julian felt. It bucked and kicked even harder, not being able to rationalize that immobility was preferable to being stung to death by bees.\n\n\"Julian?\" called Cooper. \"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I cast a Web spell.\" Julian's face was so swollen that he sounded like he was talking with a mouthful of marshmallows.\n\n\"Oh, sweet. I thought you might have exploded, and this is what the inside of an elf looks like.\"\n\n\"Can one of you guys light this on fire?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir?\" said Ravenus, peeking out from Julian's serape.\n\n\"Just stay under my serape. You'll be fine.\"\n\n\"I'm not so worried about me, sir. I mean, I am, but I'm more concerned about you. You're aware that fire is very dangerous, are you not?\"\n\nFrom their inaction, Julian sensed his friends were similarly concerned, so he answered Ravenus loudly enough for everyone to be able to hear. \"It'll just be a flash of flame, consuming the web quickly, and hopefully killing all of the bees. I've got enough Hit Points to survive it.\"\n\n\"It's going to hurt,\" said Dave.\n\n\"I've got a protective honey coating. Hurry up before the spell duration runs out.\"\n\nJulian heard the clink and scrape of flint and steel and started to second-guess the wisdom of asking to be set on fire. Then came the crackle of ignited web, then the woosh of spreading flame. Exploding bees sounded like microwave popcorn. Finally, he felt the warmth of the flame rushing his way. It washed over him in a wave of intense heat. It hurt quite a bit, like being boiled in glue, but it also kind of scratched that bee sting itch.\n\nTim rushed over, his steps marked by crunching charred bees. \"Julian! Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Dave,\" Julian croaked out through his parched throat.\n\n\"I've got you, buddy.\" Dave placed a finger on Julian's forehead.\n\n\"Ow,\" said Julian.\n\n\"I heal thee!\"\n\nJulian must have looked like shit because Dave used up one of his good spells. Even the itching from the bee stings was gone. The fire must have burnt the venom out of his skin.\n\nDave and Cooper helped Julian to his feet.\n\n\"Do you have the Fairyfire gem?\" asked Dave.\n\nJulian looked down at all the broken glass. \"I dropped it. I don't think it was a gem at all. It was hooked to something that shattered the dais when I pulled it.\"\n\n\"This whole cave felt like kind of a sham,\" said Dave. \"The riddles were stupid, and they didn't have any right answers. Whatever choice we made, it all just led to us getting attacked by bees.\"\n\nCooper scratched the welts on his ass. \"As far as dungeon traps go, those kind of sucked. I mean, it wasn't fun getting stung by a bunch of bees, but any asshole with a beekeeper's outfit could have gone in and swiped the Fairyfire gem any time they wanted.\"\n\n\"How are living bees even sustainable for a dungeon trap?\" asked Tim. \"I mean, how long can bees survive in a jar?\"\n\nStifled giggling came from above.\n\n\"Hey!\" said Tim, pointing his crossbow up at the cave ceiling. \"Who's up there?\"\n\nJulian put his hand on Tim's crossbow and forced it down. \"Those are the pixies.\" He glared up at the ceiling. \"Have you been with us this whole time?\"\n\nThe stifled giggling turned into open laughter.\n\n\"How could they be... so stupid?\"\n\n\"The little one's face... when he opened the jar!\"\n\n\"Or the fat one, when he fell into the shit pit!\"\n\nJulian folded his arms. \"This was all a big prank? We could have been seriously hurt.\"\n\n\"We may have overdone it with the bees there at the end.\" The disembodied pixie voice giggled. \"But the looks on your faces!\"\n\n\"You should apologize to Zingo,\" said Cricket.\n\n\"Fuck Zingo,\" said Cooper. \"Why should we apologize to any of you?\"\n\n\"Zingo worked very hard on those riddles. You hurt his \u2013\" Cricket gasped. \"Oh, dear gods, what's that?\"\n\nDave looked up. \"What's wrong with \u2013\"\n\nA gush of clear sparkly slime washed over his face.\n\n\"My water broke!\" cried Cricket. \"It's happening!\"\n\n\"But you're not due for another two weeks,\" said one of the male pixies.\n\nCricket was breathing heavily. \"Do you want to argue with them?\"\n\n\"Hurry!\" said another one of the males. \"We must get her to the birthing pool at once!\"\n\nJulian felt a small gust of wind as if the pixies all flew by at once.\n\n\"Hey!\" he called after them. \"What about Tim's memory?\" He ran after them, back through the illusory door. It was pitch dark, and the air was abuzz with the sound of bees. But at least they sounded a little more chill than they had been before.\n\nHe felt around on the floor for a shard of broken jar, but he found one of the wooden stoppers. Even better. \"Light.\"\n\nThe stopper glowed, illuminating the cave, and Julian resumed his chase.\n\n\"Fuckin' bees!\" said Cooper a moment later as he followed after Julian with Tim hot on his heels. Dave's armor clanked distantly behind them.\n\nJulian opened his serape as he ran. \"Ravenus, I need you to look for a nearby pool of water. When you find it, circle overhead.\"\n\nRavenus nodded. \"Very good, sir. Can do!\"\n\nJulian made a running leap over the shit pit, ran up the stairs and out of the Cave of Secrets, then set Ravenus free. \"Hurry!\"\n\nAs Ravenus flapped off in search of the birthing pool, Cooper and Tim raced up the stairs.\n\n\"Fuck!\" cried Dave from down inside the Cave of Secrets.\n\nA few moments later, Dave trudged up the stairs, his entire front caked in a fresh layer of shit.\n\nCooper snorted. \"Been going down on your mom again, Dave?\"\n\nTim glared up at him, holding up a flower on his necklace.\n\n\"Sorry, Dave,\" Cooper said with a sigh. \"That was an unkind thing to say.\"\n\nTim nodded, then turned his attention to Dave. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nDave scraped some shit off his face. \"I got Cricket's amniotic fluid in my eyes. My vision is all blurry and glittery. I was following you guys mostly by sound, and I didn't see the shit pit.\"\n\nTim smiled at Dave. \"Don't you worry. As soon as we get my memory back, we'll head back to town and get you all cleaned up.\"\n\n\"Thanks, man. I appreciate that.\"\n\nA loud caw sounded from about quarter of a mile southeast.\n\n\"It's Ravenus!\" said Julian. \"I think he found them.\" He ran off in the direction of his familiar's call.\n\nThe land sloped down a little steeply, so Julian went from tree to tree, breaking his momentum so that he didn't lose control.\n\nHe spotted the pool before he thought to look up for Ravenus. Cricket and her three manfriends were visible. Cricket lay at the edge of a pool of crystal-clear water, her wings flat against the ground and her feet resting in forked twigs.\n\n\"I know you're busy right now,\" said Julian once he reached the pool. \"But you had your fun with us, and my friend needs his memory back.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" Zingo snapped back at him. \"We'll get to that in a moment!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Julian explained. \"I don't mean to be rude about this, but we don't have a lot of reason to trust you. You've done nothing but lie to us and play juvenile \u2013\"\n\n\"SHII\u2013III\u2013I\u2013II\u2013IIIT!\" Dave's extended cry was interrupted by bumps and roots as he barreled down the side of the hill like Donkey Kong had just thrown him.\n\nJulian did his best Mario impression by jumping out of the way as Dave rolled past and splashed into the pool, which immediately started turning brown.\n\nThe pixies all gasped.\n\n\"You clumsy, dimwitted oaf!\" cried Cricket. \"Do you know what you've done?\"\n\nDave crawled out of the pool. Chunks of shit slid off his armor and into the water. \"I'm okay. Thanks for asking.\"\n\n\"You stupid, filthy brute!\"\n\n\"Now wait just a minute!\" said Tim, stopping himself just short of falling into the pool of murky shitwater. \"That's my friend you're talking to.\"\n\n\"Your friend just ruined my birthing pool!\"\n\n\"This isn't his fault. He only chased you down here because he was trying to get my memory, which you stole from me. That's what friends do.\" He held a flower on his necklace and looked at Dave. \"Right, buddy?\"\n\nDave found one of the flowers on his necklace with the least amount of shit on it. \"That's right.\"\n\nCricket's lower lip quivered, and glittery tears streamed down her cheeks. \"If my babies aren't cleaned immediately in the purest spring water, their wings won't develop properly, and they'll never be able to fly.\"\n\nDave placed his right hand in the pool. \"I purify thee.\"\n\nThe water turned clear instantaneously. Even Dave's hand was shiny clean where it had been submerged in the water. The distinct line separating cleanliness from filth on his wrist was remarkable.\n\n\"Whoa!\" said Tim, his eyes and mouth wide open in amazement at Dave's crappy Zero-Level spell.\n\nDave gave him a wide grin and a shiny clean thumbs up.\n\nCricket groaned loudly and pounded the earth with her tiny pixie fists. \"They're coming!\"\n\nJulian didn't know the proper etiquette for witnessing a stranger give birth. He didn't want to gawk, but neither did he want to appear disinterested. He sat down on the ground and settled for casually looking in that general direction. Cooper sat next to him, openly gawking.\n\nDave let Cricket squeeze a finger on his clean hand while her manfriends talked her through the process.\n\nTim put a hand on Julian and Cooper's shoulders. \"It's beautiful, isn't it?\"\n\nCooper grimaced. \"It looks pretty fucking gross from where I'm sitting.\"\n\nAfter a few moments of tense silence, save for Cricket's groans and heavy breathing, a cry rang out in the still forest air. It sounded like a cross between a human child and a cicada.\n\nTim ran around the pool to get a look at the baby. Julian walked after him.\n\nZingo cradled the screaming child in his arms.\n\n\"Let me see!\" said Tim. \"Let me see!\"\n\nRocking it gently back and forth, Zingo turned around. Julian's heart nearly stopped when he saw the thing. It was a green slime-covered caterpillar, about the size of a banana. It had a hundred or more little grabby legs, round black eyes like a shark, and a mouth like a collection of animated garden tools.\n\n\"It's...\" He stopped himself, knowing that even with his Charisma bonus and ranks in the Bluff skill, calling this thing adorable was going to be a hard sell. \"Is it a boy or a girl?\"\n\n\"Too early to tell,\" said Zingo. \"That's not determinable until after metamorphosis.\"\n\n\"Can I hold it?\" asked Tim excitedly.\n\n\"Of course you can.\" Zingo handed the massive grub over to Tim. \"In fact, why don't you do the honors and cleanse it in the pool?\"\n\n\"That is an honor.\" Tim took a knee next to the pool, dunked the pixie baby under the water, then pulled it back out. It was now free of slime, but no less horrifying to look at.\n\n\"Next one!\" cried Cricket. She squeezed Dave's finger as Poppin stood ready to assist with delivery.\n\nBy the time she finally let herself rest, Cricket had squeezed out four healthy, screaming larvae.\n\nRavenus peeked out from under Julian's serape. \"What's all this noise?\" He sniffed the air. \"Ooh, what's that smell?\"\n\nJulian frowned. \"Afterbirth?\"\n\n\"Delicious! Oh look, grubs!\" Ravenus started to climb out, but Julian sensed his sudden hunger at the sight of Cricket's newborn children. He grabbed Ravenus around the beak and shoved him back down under his serape.\n\n\"Sorry, Ravenus. Not this time.\"\n\nCricket was sitting up against a tree trunk, gazing down lovingly at the little monstrosity she'd just given birth to, cradled in her arms. She looked up at Bingbong Fizzbang and nodded.\n\nBingbong flew over to their small pile of belongings, picked up a silver hip flask which was comically large for him, yet a little small compared to what Tim normally carried. He brought it over to Tim.\n\n\"This is for you.\"\n\nTim smiled. \"Thank you, sir. But I think it's a little early in the day for that.\"\n\nDave choked back a sob as a single tear rolled down his cheek.\n\nTim looked at Dave. \"Hey, man. What's wrong?\"\n\nDave sniffled and held up a flower from his friendship necklace. \"I'm gonna miss you.\"\n\n\"This is a potion that will restore your memory,\" Bingbong explained. \"We appreciate you and your friends' assistance in the birth of our children.\"\n\nTim shifted the baby he was holding to one arm and accepted the potion. \"Well they're just beautiful. Congratulations. I'm deeply honored to have been a part of it.\" He raised the flask. \"To the miracle of life!\" He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and gulped down the contents greedily.\n\nWhen it was done, Tim breathed out a long sigh and opened his eyes.\n\n\"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT IS THIS THING?\" He pushed the baby away from him. It splashed down into the birthing pool.\n\nBingbong gasped, then dove down to retrieve it.\n\n\"Tim!\" said Dave. \"That's their baby!\"\n\n\"Well how the fuck was I supposed to know that? What the hell am I supposed to think when I wake up to some locust-faced maggot monster staring back at me?\" He looked around. \"Hang on a sec. How long have I been out? Why are we still hanging around with these fucking bug people?\" He looked at Dave. \"Why are you covered in shit?\" He looked at Julian, Cooper, then down at himself. \"What's with the flowers? Are we at a fucking luau?\" He yanked off his friendship necklace and tossed it into the birthing pool.\n\nFrom the look on Dave's face, one might think Tim had just yanked out his heart.\n\n\"We should be on our way now,\" said Julian before the pixies decided to wipe all their memories, or just outright murder them.\n\nWhen they reached the clearing, Julian noticed Dave staring despondently at the wildflowers.\n\n\"You okay?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, sure,\" said Dave. He had neither the Charisma nor the ranks in Bluff to sell the lie. \"Totally fine. I was just thinking about how gross that birth was, right?\"\n\nJulian nodded. \"It was unusual, that's for sure.\"\n\n\"What's the matter, Dave?\" said Cooper. \"It's not like you've never seen giant maggots crawling out of your mom's cooch before.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" said Tim. \"Nice one, Coop.\"\n\nDave's sad eyes looked even sadder.\n\nCooper picked up Tim and put him up on his shoulders. \"It's good to have you back, man. I missed you.\"\n\nTim shook his head as they passed the levitating stump over Dave's treasure hole. \"God, I need a fucking drink.\""}