3d6 (Caverns and Creatures)

by Robert Bevan

  Tim felt a zeal for life that he hadn’t felt since childhood. Every indignity he’d ever suffered, every endeavor he’d ever abandoned, every asshole he’d ever served a bucket of fried chicken to. None of that mattered now, because he was looking at a goddamn dinosaur.

  “What are you fools doing?” cried Gilda. “Run!”

  Tim snapped out of his fascination. The pteranodon had arced completely around and was flying back toward them. More specifically, toward Dave, who was still trying to scrape egg out of his breastplate. It opened its mouth like a giant pair of scissors and repeated its terrible, prehistoric scream.

  “Drop the armor and run!” Tim shouted.

  Dave dropped his armor, but he didn’t run. Instead, he picked up his mace. That was probably for the best. Dave couldn’t outrun a three-legged cow. There was no way he’d outrun a giant flying reptile.

  “Shit!” Cooper unstrapped his battleaxe and ran toward Dave.

  Tim started running around toward the water. He’d miss the first pass, but hopefully he’d be able to line up a pretty good crossbow shot when it swooped down at Dave a second time.

  “Magic Missile!” said Julian. A white bolt of energy hit the creature just before it reached Dave, sending it crashing into the sand.

  Cooper slowed down to a jog. “What the fuck?”

  “Oh yeah!” said Julian. “Magic Missile for the win!”

  “That’s some bullshit,” said Cooper. “No wonder those fuckers are extinct.”

  The pteranodon sprang back to life, crawling surprisingly quickly toward Dave on its feet and wings like some ungodly combination of pelican and tent. For all Tim knew, Julian’s Magic Missile hadn’t hurt it at all. It was just a clumsy flyer.

  Sand flew in every direction as the pteranodon closed in on Dave, snapping its massive beak. Dave helplessly stumbled backwards, shielding his eyes.

  Cooper started running again, and Tim approached as stealthily as he could from behind. The crossbow was his preferred weapon to deal with monsters that could bite him in half if he got too close, but with all the sand flying around, he might just as easily hit Cooper or Dave. Tim set his crossbow down, unsheathed his dagger, and hoped that what he was about to do wasn’t an extremely stupid mistake.

  Dave screamed and dropped his mace as the pteranodon bit down on his right forearm.

  Cooper ran at it with his battleaxe raised over his head. “Back to the tarpits with you, fossil fool!” He caught a facefull of sand and fell to his knees. “Fuck!”

  Confident that his bare feet on the sand couldn’t make more noise than Dave’s screams or Cooper’s swearing, Tim sprinted at the pteranodon and leapt onto its back.

  “Sneak attack, motherfucker!” He grabbed the bony crest at the top of the creature’s head and stabbed it in the side of the face with his dagger.

  The pteranodon shrieked, letting go of Dave, and spread its great wings.

  “Shit!” said Tim, wishing it had occurred to him that the beast might try to flee, and the possible ramifications that might have for him. He shoved the crest back and forth like the gearshift of a stubborn car, slamming the creature’s beak down repeatedly on Dave’s head.

  “Hey, man!” said Dave. “Knock it off!”

  The wings flapped down, and Tim felt himself ascend a couple of feet off the ground. He held on more tightly to the crest and wrapped his dagger arm around the pteranodon’s neck in a stranglehold. “Help me!”

  Another flap and another jolt upward. Tim was shit scared. He squeezed his arm around the pteranodon’s neck even harder, and jerked its head from side to side with the crest. He wasn’t sure what the desired outcome of the latter move was, but he was working with the tools he had at hand.

  The third flap failed to take them any higher. That was good, but why –

  “I’ve got his feet!” said Cooper. “Jump off!”

  Fuck that. It was time to end this. Reassured by the fact that the creature was anchored to the ground, and Cooper’s reminder that he could have jumped off at any time prior to now, Tim released his hold on the pteranodon’s neck and plunged his dagger into its eye.

  Its scream was deafening. It flapped harder, and Tim felt himself starting to ascend again.

  “Come on, man!” Cooper shouted. “Just let go! I can’t hold on much longer!”

  Tim barely heard him. His head was pulsing with adrenaline and dinosaur bloodlust. He stabbed and stabbed, cracking cartilage and gouging soupy chunks of flesh, blood, and eye goo.

  The pteranodon broke free of Cooper’s grasp, and Tim was no longer tethered to the ground.

  Stab. Stab. Stab. Where is that walnut fucking brain? Tim shoved his dagger as far as he could into the pteranodon’s significantly widened ocular cavity and twisted its head around by the crest. His rage was beginning to give way to fear and exhaustion. “Just fucking die already!”

  The pteranodon made a hard downward spiral, causing Tim to slip. When he leaned right, it straightened out. It was done. He’d killed the fucker. He was steering the dead beast as it glided to the ground.

  “YEAH!” Tim cried, punching into the air with one hand and yanking the dead pteranodon’s crest toward him with the other.

  He was pretty far up. His friends on the beach didn’t look quite so small as ants. Large cockroaches, maybe, and heading quickly toward squirrels as he rushed down toward them.

  “Um… Hello there.”

  Tim jerked his head to the right. He hadn’t been expecting company. “Ravenus?” He forced out a British accent. “What are you doing here?”

  “Julian sent me here to see if I could be of any assistance. Frankly, I’m not sure what I’d be able to do.”

  “Got any tips for hitting the ground without dying?”

  “Grow wings?”

  “Thanks for the advice.” Judging by the rate at which he was descending, Tim reckoned he was going to hit the ground hard. Not fatally hard, but it wasn’t going to feel good. Unless… “I’ll jump off.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir. That sounds like a remarkably bad idea.”

  “Not now,” said Tim, picturing the dismount in his mind. “Just before I land.”

  “Are you sure you’re not still drunk, sir?”

  It was a stupid idea, sure. But how many times in life does one get such an opportunity? With a combination of his Jump bonus, his high Dexterity score, and the fact that his style of landing wouldn’t have any game consequences outside of potentially being awesome. If you can’t do a backflip off the body of a dead pteranodon as you plummet to the ground, then what the hell are you even playing C&C for?

  Tim felt an unnatural surge of confidence in his decision, as if the game itself was nodding its approval.

  Keeping one hand firmly wrapped around the crest, Tim carefully got to his feet. His flight path should have him crashing just beyond where his friends were gaping up at him.

  “Tim!” cried Dave. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Hang on, buddy!” said Cooper. “I’ll catch you!”

  Tim swatted the air with his free hand. “Get the fuck out of the way!”

  Cooper stepped aside.

  The ground was rushing at him, closer and closer.

  “WOOOOOOOOOO!” Fuck.

  Tim let go of the crest and pushed hard with his legs. The world somersaulted around him, then stopped suddenly as his feet planted into the hot sand. Perfect execution.

  A second later, the dead pteranodon made a decidedly less graceful landing. Its lower beak, which had been hanging open, snapped back as it hit the sand, sending the rest of the creature tumbling crest over feet. Tim was relieved that he’d decided to bail. Even if he’d fucked up his own landing, it would have hurt a lot less than staying mounted would have.

  He turned around to face his friends. “What wiped out the dinosaurs? Tim wiped out the dinosaurs!”

  “I aborted a few,” said Cooper. “Does that count?”

  “Well done,” said Julian.
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  “Actually,” said Dave. “Pterosaurs aren’t technically considered dinosaurs.”

  “Screw you, Dave. I’m a fucking meteor!”

  “Very impressive.” Gilda’s voice from behind him sent a shiver up Tim’s spine.

  Dave and Cooper looked at their feet.

  “I’m going to check on Ravenus!” said Julian, walking hurriedly past Tim toward the pteranodon carcass.

  Tim would have preferred to face a pack of hungry tyrannosauruses than the tubby, bearded dwarf he’d so thoroughly explored last night. He turned around.

  “Thank you.” The words came out like he’d been drinking sand.

  “I underestimated you,” said Gilda. Her widely far apart eyes were sad. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run.”

  “No!” said Tim. He already had enough guilt and shame on his plate. If she started crying, he’d just have to run into the ocean and hope sharks ate him before he drowned. “Running was the right thing to do. What I did was stupid.”

  “You’re smart and brave.” Her words hit Tim like a punch in the gut. These were not descriptors he was accustomed to hearing about himself back in the real world.

  Tim looked down at the sand between his toes. “I’m not really all that smart. It’s just in the game.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Start putting that high Intelligence score of yours to work,” said Dave. “Try to think of a way out of here. If there are pteranodons around, this place is bound to be some kind of Lost World themed island, and that means –”

  “I’ve got it!” said Tim. “We’ll build a raft.”

  “Building a raft is hardly a novel idea for getting off an island,” said Dave. “Why do you look so excited about it?”

  “Because our raft is going to be awesome. We can use the pteranodon wings for sails. Its head will make a good rudder, and we can eat the rest of it as we go. All we need to do is –”

  “We don’t even know where we are,” said Gilda. “Why don’t we just use the portal?”

  Tim halted the part of his brain that was busily constructing a dino-powered escape boat. “What portal?”

  Gilda folded her arms across her chest. “You really don’t remember anything about last night?”

  Tim averted his eyes. “Bits and pieces.”

  “You don’t remember telling Boswell the Grand that you were going to ‘pop a bolt in yo ass’ if he didn’t bring your friends back?”

  “I went gangsta?”

  Cooper nodded approvingly. “Pop a bolt. I like it.”

  Gilda shook her head. “He said we were all acting disgraceful.”

  Cooper snorted. “He kind of had a point with you two.”

  Gilda glared at Cooper. She looked like she was deciding whether to cry or kick him in the junk.

  “Shut the fuck up, Cooper,” said Tim. “Go on, Gilda. What about the portal?”

  “He said a nice long walk would sober us up. He said there’s a portal leading back to Cardinia on the other side of this island.”

  Tim rubbed his hands together. “Okay, cool. So let’s get to the other side of the island and find this portal. Should we stick to the beach, or try to cut through the jungle?”

  “I like the beach,” said Gilda. “Now that we know pteranodons are relatively harmless. We can always retreat into the ocean if anything bigger comes after us.”

  “Relatively harmless?” said Dave. “That thing nearly ripped my arm off!”

  “It doesn’t look so bad to me.”

  “That’s because I used two healing spells!”

  Tim put his hands on his hips. “That pteranodon probably wouldn’t have bothered us if you idiots hadn’t gone and destroyed all of her eggs. I’m with Gilda.”

  Gilda’s scornful look at Cooper evaporated as she jerked her fat head toward Tim.

  Shit. “I mean, I like her beach idea. The circumference of the island is longer than the diameter, but we’ll cover it faster on the sand than we will in the jungle.”

  “What if the island isn’t circular?” asked Dave. “What if it’s sausage shaped? We might be on the other side in an hour by cutting across it, rather than spend days walking around it.”

  “It’s safer on the beach,” said Tim. “We can spot danger from farther away, and I’d rather face another pteranodon on the beach than a stegosaurus in the jungle.”

  “Stegosaurus was an herbivore.”

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t fuck your shit up,” said Tim. “I don’t think he evolved that spiky tail to use as a salad fork. Anyway, what if the island is sausage shaped, and we’re at one end of the sausage? Then we’ll have eliminated virtually none of the distance, but increased our travel time by three or four hundred percent. Without knowing the layout of the island, our best bet is –”

  “What if we knew the layout of the island?” Dave was wearing his sudden revelation face.

  “What?” said Tim. “Did Boswell give you a map?”

  “We don’t need a map,” said Dave. He looked past Tim. “We’ve got a Ravenus.”

  Tim slapped himself on the forehead. “Why don’t these things ever occur to me?” He turned around to face the dead pteranodon. Julian was watching Ravenus gorge himself on the eye that Tim hadn’t gouged out. “Julian! Get over here! Bring your bird.”

  “I’m going to go scrub the rest of the egg out of my armor,” said Dave.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” said Gilda. She walked after Dave.

  Tim watched the two dwarves walk off together. It would be a real weight off his back if Gilda fell for one of her own kind. Was that a horribly racist thought to have? Probably, but it would still be a huge relief.

  “What’s up?” asked Julian.

  “We need to figure out the layout of the island,” said Tim. “Ravenus, do you think you could scout the island for us?”

  Ravenus let out a small belch. His face was sticky with eyeball goo. “You’re speaking gibberish again, sir.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Tim repeated his request in a British accent. “We need to know the shape and size. And let us know if you spot any dinosaurs, or anything else you think we might want to know about.”

  “Like eggs?”

  “No!” said Tim. “Leave the eggs alone! I mean like terrain features that might facilitate or hinder our trek across the island. Rivers, mountains, magical portals, that sort of thing.”

  “One of those things sounded decidedly different, sir.”

  Julian wiped some of the goo off Ravenus’s face with the edge of his serape. “Just do your best, buddy.”

  “Right-O, sir!”

  It took Ravenus a few sluggish flaps to lift himself into the air. Pteranodons have big eyes. Tim, Julian, and Cooper watched him until he disappeared over the trees.

  “Hey,” said Tim. “Thanks for not giving me too much shit about last night.”

  “Don’t sweat it, dude,” said Cooper. “I’ve done worse in my day.”

  Tim glared at Cooper. “I wasn’t talking to you, fuckhead! You need to keep your goddamn pie-hole shut. That hairy she-beast has feelings!”

  “That was touching,” said Julian, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. “Your humanity is an inspiration to us all.”

  “What the fuck are you guys even talking about?” asked Cooper. “I was just joking. I’m not any worse to her than I am to any of you.”

  “I’m talking about empathy,” said Julian.

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”

  “Don’t you roll your eyes at me. You need to hear this. I’m talking about considering how your words affect other people. Yeah, it’s fine for you to bust our balls. We all know each other and have an established rapport, and so nobody takes what you say to heart. But you don’t know that dwarf girl. She looked really hurt by some of your jokes. You have to consider what kind of life she’s led that would culminate in her all but screwing a midget in the middle of a crowded tavern
.”

  “Halfling,” said Tim.

  “And giving Tim shit about it is even worse. Think of the context. She’s not the prettiest girl in the world. She’s probably been getting dumped on for that her whole life. You’re not laughing at Tim for the act itself, but instead for the girl he’s doing it with. That only multiplies the shame and humiliation she feels. And don’t give me that low Intelligence and Charisma score excuse. I know you’re capable of empathy. I’ve seen it in you. I want you to think about that, okay?”

  Cooper exhaled through pursed lips. “Yeah, okay.”

  The sullen silence which followed only lasted a minute before Ravenus returned.

  “Ready to report, sir!” he said just before crashing into the sand. “Oh dear. Seems I’m a bit heavier than I’m used to.”

  “That was fast,” said Julian.

  “It’s not a terribly large island, sir. You might walk across it in a day.”

  “What shape is it?” asked Tim, remembering to use the Elven tongue.

  “It’s roughly circular.”

  Tim nodded. “That’s it then. Beach it is.”

  “Not so sure about that,” said Ravenus. “Eastward there’s a thick lava flow. Probably not something you’d want to cross on foot.”

  “And to the west?”

  “There’s an inlet.”

  Julian squinted. “So?”

  “So it’s a lot more coastline to cover,” said Tim. “We’ll be walking west, and then doubling back east again.” He looked at Ravenus. “It looks like Pac Man, right?”

  “I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with the gentleman in question, sir.”

  Tim drew a left-facing Pac Man in the sand. “Is this about right?”

  Ravenus bobbed his head. “The inlet isn’t quite so triangular, and doesn’t quite reach the center of the island, but you’ve got the gist of it.”

  “I say we head west along the coast for a couple of miles, then cut north by northwest through the jungle until we reach the coast here.” He drew a line along his proposed path through Pac Man’s lower jaw. “We’ll take a break on the beach for lunch, and then head north by northeast to the northern most point of the island.” He looked at Ravenus again. “You didn’t spot any magic portals, did you?”