5d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  Tim 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.

  “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.

  “How can you tell?” asked Tim.

  Dave nudged at a pile of dirt with his boot, revealing thick brown fur underneath. “If I had to guess, I'd guess bear.”

  Quite 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.

  “Do you think there are bears in here?” asked Julian, sounding concerned.

  Tim 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.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “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.”

  He 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.

  Dragging it back slowly, he found the resistance he needed after only pulling the rope about three feet.

  “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.”

  Cooper 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.

  “Hang in there, big guy. We're going to get you some –”

  “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?

  Tim 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?”

  Cooper and Dave shook their heads.

  While 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.

  This creature was bigger than Cooper, and quite obviously pissed off. Tim hoped that Julian wasn't about to cast a Magic Missile at it.

  “Vocali Comprehendo!” Julian whispered as the arcane writing disappeared from the paper.

  “What...” Cooper grunted between shallow breaths. “the fuck... was that?”

  “Comprehend Languages,” said Julian.

  “That's really the incantation?” asked Dave.

  “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?”

  Tim 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?”

  Julian frowned. “The spell only allows me to understand what it's saying. It won't understand anything I say.”

  Tim should have guessed that much. “Fine. What is it saying?”

  Julian 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...”

  The frog-person was very animated as it complained about its cave décor, repeatedly pointing at the ceiling and floor with the four-inch-long black claws at the fingertips of his webbed hands.

  “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?”

  Julian 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.

  “He's not deaf, dumbass,” said Tim. “Speaking louder isn't going to help. And besides, we're not cleaning shit.”

  Julian glared back at him. “I'm trying to use my Diplomacy skill.”

  “Fuck your Diplomacy skill, and fuck Froggy McFuckface. We've got somewhere to be, in case you've forgotten.”

  “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.”

  “You think you're going to do that by shouting at him in a language he doesn't under–”

  GWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRRP!

  As big as this bastard was, nothing his size had any business croaking a noise that loud. Tim stood wide-eyed and petrified with fear.

  THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBPT

  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.

  Tears glistened in the creature's bulging eyes as it stared in stunned silence at Cooper.

  “We're so fucked,” said Dave.

  Cooper squeaked out one more after-fart. “That was just what I needed. I'm feeling one hundred percent again.”

  In 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.

  “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.

  “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.

  Tim shook off the residual effects of the frog monster's stunning croak, cocked his crossbow, and looked for an opening.

  “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.

  Tim 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.

  Dave 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.

  “We've got him on the ropes,” said Tim. “Julian, get rid of those horses.”

  Julian snapped his fingers twice, and his magically summoned horses winked out of existence, leaving their host nothing to h
ide behind.

  The 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.

  “Everybody be cool,” said Julian. “We can talk this out.”

  Cooper stomped toward the frog monster, still in his Rage, and not looking very interested in conversation.

  Froggy 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.

  “Cooper!” cried Julian. “Get out of the way! He's casting a –”

  Tim 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.

  Cooper 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.

  But 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.

  “Glafblar worgflum sclubly frit?”

  “Why have you summoned me here?” Julian resumed the translation. “I was in the middle of something.”

  “These creatures invaded my home. I require your assistance in killing them.”

  “Fuck you! I'm not even dressed.”

  “You can wear my robe.”

  “I'm not wearing that. It's got shit all over it!”

  “So does my rug. The half-orc shat on it!”

  The naked frog monster looked at the shit puddle on the rug, laughed, then resumed croaking in their horrible language.

  While 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.

  As 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.

  Naturally, 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.

  They 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.

  “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?”

  Cooper shook his head.

  “Do you need Dave to heal your shoulder?”

  “It's not my shoulder that needs healing,” said Cooper. “I've been... violated.”

  Tim pulled out his flask in the fear that Cooper was going to elaborate.

  “I don't understand,” said Dave. “Did it feel like more of a kiss than a bite or something?”

  “I'm not talking about the bite, dumbshit. He shoved his finger up my asshole.”

  That 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.

  Unsurprisingly, 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.

  “Who is that?” asked Julian.

  Tim 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.

  “Maybe we should just hang out here,” said Dave.

  Tim 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.”

  “Do they not have names?” asked Julian.

  “How the fuck should I know? We weren't properly introduced.”

  “I wasn't talking about individual names. I meant a name for their race. Are they called frog fuckers in the books?”

  “No,” said Dave. “I think I know what they are, but I can't remember the name. It's something like salad.”

  Julian frowned. “There's seriously a monster in this game called salad?”

  “I didn't say they were called salad,” said Dave. “I said something like salad. I'm trying to remember. Saald, saladi, slaa–”

  “Saladin!” said Cooper, a little too excitedly.

  Tim smiled. “Nice try, Coop. You're thinking of the wrong game. Saladin is one of the world leaders you can play in Civ.”

  “Is someone there?” said the groaning voice. It didn't sound like a malevolent undead voice. Strangely, it sounded sort of familiar.

  With 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.

  Instead 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.

  The old man raised his head and looked at Tim. “Help... me.”

  Suddenly, the face and the voice connected in Tim's mind. “Koestner the Healer?”

  “I... remember you,” said Koestner. “How did you... find me?”

  Tim looked at his feet. “That was, um... a coincidence.”

  “Blessed be the gods! They've sent you here to... rescue me.”

  “Yes!” said Tim, relieved to be able to avoid a conversation about statistical improbability. “That was probably it.”

  “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.”

  “His name is Caesar?” asked Julian.

  “Czessaar,” Koestner corrected him.

  “Caesar Salad?”

  Tim nudged Julian, then looked down at Koestner. “What did he do to you?”

  “He inserted his finger... into my –”

  “Stop right there,” said Cooper. “It's his kink. Motherfucker did the same thing to me.”

  “Then you are in... grave danger,” said Koestner. “For you may have become... infected as I have.”

  Cooper reached up under his loincloth and gave his ass a good scratch. “Goddammit. Am I going to get fucking frog AIDS?”

  “Let us hurry to a cleric. I fear my time... is almost up.”

  Julian snorted out a laugh, then looked very guilty about it. “I'm sorry. He said lettuce.”

  “I'm a cleric,” said Dave while Tim untied the ropes binding Koestner's hands behind his back.

  Koestner 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.”

  “That's a third level spell,” said Dave. “I've got a Cure Light Wounds, if that helps.”

  Koestner frowned. “I
'm afraid my disease has... progressed beyond your ability to treat it. We must make haste to Cardinia.”

  “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.”

  “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.”

  Julian nodded. “That matches up pretty well with our experience so far.”

  “The summoned one will... return from whence it came in an... hour's time.”

  “How long ago did Czessaar summon...” Julian paused for a moment. “Potato?”

  Tim frowned. “It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes.”

  “I have... no time to waste,” said Koestner. “You must confront them both, and we must... leave for Cardinia at once.”

  “Fuck that,” said Tim. “Another forty-five minutes isn't going to kill you.”

  Koestner groaned. “I fear it may.”

  “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.”

  “Good thinking,” said Dave. “Or maybe they settled their differences and went down the other tunnel for some make-up sex.”

  The conversation came to a conspicuous halt as everyone stared at Dave.

  “What?”

  “What the fuck, Dave?” said Cooper.

  “Who wants that image in their minds?” asked Julian. “Why couldn't they be going on a picnic together or something?”

  “My suggestion was every bit as valid as yours.”

  “I'm afraid it was not,” said Koestner. “For their kind do not... copulate as we do.”

  Cooper scratched his ass some more. “Do they all have that weird ass-fingering fetish?”

  “You're one to talk,” said Tim. “You can't keep your fingers away from your ass for five minutes.”

  “I'm sorry. I've got an itch. It's too deep to scratch properly.”

  Koestner doubled over in pain. “We must go now!”