Critical Failures (Caverns and Creatures Book 1)

by Robert Bevan

  His ears were assaulted by a roar like a lion getting raped by an elephant. Whatever made that sound was right in front of him, but he couldn’t force his eyes open. The roaring continued. The air around Tim vibrated with sound, and he could feel the warmth of breath on his face. He scooted back in his seat.

  Slowly, the muscles in his eyelids started to relax, and he was able to crack his eyes open. He wished he hadn’t. Sitting directly across from him was some kind of man-beast. A monster. Not some dude in a costume – a real fucking flesh-and-blood monster, and it looked pissed.

  Its right arm, which might have been as thick around as Tim, reached across its massive chest and behind its left shoulder.

  Tim tried to get to his feet and run, but his feet couldn’t find the floor.

  The monster yanked something out of the back of its shoulder with a wince. An arrow. The front half of the shaft was coated in black blood, which dripped from the barbed tip.

  “Wharrapuck?” said the monster. It dropped the arrow and looked at its clawed hands.

  Two new screams pried Tim’s attention away from the giant monster in front of him. He wasn’t alone in here with the creature. There was some small comfort in that, but who the hell were these people? A short, stout guy with a thick red beard and metal armor sat next to the beast. His feet barely touched the floor. Tim thought of humpty Dumpty. The other guy was dressed in a long white nightshirt and looked suspiciously like... “Julian?”

  “Huh?” said the monster, looking up.

  The squat, bearded guy jumped to his feet and ran across the floor of the... where the hell were they? This wasn’t the Chicken Hut. He ran through a canvas flap of a doorway and fell forward and out of sight. Judging by the sound of the “Ugh” shortly afterward, it hadn’t been a far fall.

  “Hold your fire!” came a voice from outside.

  This can’t be real. We couldn’t actually be…

  The giant monster turned to look at the guy in the white pajamas. “Jhurian?” it said. It went into a fit of coughing – loud, wet, hacking coughs – and spat a gob of bloody phlegm on the floor.

  Pajama guy yelped, jumped to his feet, and ran out the door. He must have landed on the bearded guy, as Tim heard another grunt from below. Pajama guy’s torso was still visible as he stumbled forward a couple of steps.

  “Hands where we can see them, magic user!” said the voice from outside. The guy in the pajamas raised his hands. His head pivoted left, then right, and he turned around to face the wagon. He didn’t look any less frightened than he had in here with the monster.

  “You have five seconds to send out the orc, or the wizard dies!”

  The monster turned to Tim. The fury was gone from its face. If Tim had to guess, he’d say he was looking at confused desperation. “Thrighm?” it said.

  “Cooper?” said Tim. Why was his voice so high? He put a hand to his throat and tried to clear it, but there was nothing to clear.

  “Four!”

  “Whashgoingon?” said the monster.

  “I think we’re –”

  “Three!”

  “We’re in the game, Cooper!”

  “Two!”

  “Shit!” said Tim. “Those guys are about to shoot Julian!”

  “One!”

  “Wha?”

  “On my command, shoot the elf,” said the voice outside. “The rest of you keep your eyes on the wagon.”

  Tim shifted in his seat to get a better view. A soldier on horseback held a crossbow on Julian. A fly buzzed around the soldier’s face. His horse stomped its hooves nervously.

  “This is your last warning,” shouted the voice from outside. “You either surrender the orc, or else I will have no choice but to...”

  The fly landed on the nose of the soldier who was covering Julian. He went to swat it away, and his finger slipped on the trigger of the crossbow. He fired a bolt right into Julian’s chest.

  “Ow!” Julian looked down at the bolt sticking out of his chest. “What was that–”

  Cooper let out a thunderous roar as he got to his feet, tearing the canvas roof apart from the frame. In an instant, he was out of the wagon. His first step landed on Dave. It only took four more, and half as many seconds, before he had run straight past Julian, who stood frozen in fear.

  Cooper pulled Julian’s assailant off of his horse by the shoulders and swung him around like a drunk uncle swinging a toddler. He made two full rotations before connecting the soldier’s boots with the torso of the one who had been shouting the orders. The commander flew backwards, landing on his back a good five feet behind his horse. Cooper made one more rotation and released the soldier he had been swinging. The man spun through the air like a limbed Frisbee. Cooper looked for something else to smash.

  A crossbow bolt whizzed by Cooper. A second one struck him in a bicep. He ran at the two soldiers who had fired at him. Their horses stomped the ground frantically, and the riders could barely keep them under control. Cooper grabbed each of them by the throats, smashed their helmeted heads together and threw them to the ground.

  The fifth rider bade his horse to move, and the horse seemed happy enough to acquiesce.

  Cooper roared after him, but that only seemed to increase his speed, as if pushed into a faster gallop by the force of Cooper's voice.

  Dave started to push himself up out of the dirt but collapsed again as Tim hopped out of the wagon.

  “Are you guys all right?” said Tim. He tried to clear his throat again. “Cooper? Is that really you?”

  Cooper grunted, and a wad of brown snot flew out of one nostril, landing on the ground next to Tim. He winced as he pulled the bolt out of his arm. Dark blood trickled out of the wound, but he didn’t appear to be seriously harmed.

  “Jesus, Cooper. Are you okay?”

  Cooper bent his elbow a couple of times and opened and closed the fingers on his left hand. He grunted an affirmation.

  “Where are we?” asked Julian. He hardly seemed to notice the bolt sticking out of his chest.

  Dave finally lifted himself out of the mud. “What’s going on?”

  “I think we all know the answer to those two questions,” said Tim.

  “Do we?” asked Dave. “Do we really? Maybe you should enlighten the rest of us. Because I, for one, don't know why we're all dressed up in gay renaissance fair costumes, why I'm suddenly only four feet tall and sporting a Grizzly Adams beard, and why you look and sound like a prepubescent girl.”

  “I didn't say I knew the 'why',” said Tim. “Or the 'how', for that matter. I'm not even sure if 'when' applies. But the 'where' and the 'what' are pretty obvious. We're in the game.”

  “This game fucking rules!” said Julian. “You guys have seriously been doing this shit since middle school?”

  “Not this,” said Dave. “This isn't the game.” He ran his hand through his gigantic bushy beard. “Well, I suppose it is, but –”

  “No,” said Tim. “It isn't. We're supposed to be inside the Chicken Hut rolling dice and drinking beer. That's the game. This is... I don't know what this is, but it's not supposed to happen.”

  “Borghid,” said Cooper. Everyone turned to look at him. He was moving his lips and tongue around. “Bo... Mo.. Mor.. Morghid... Morgdid...”

  “Mordred,” said Tim. “I think he's right. That must be it. What's the last thing you remember before... well, before this?”

  “Cooper pissed off Mordred,” said Dave. “And we all laughed at him.”

  “After that,” said Tim.

  “He pulled out those black dice.”

  “Those dice,” agreed Tim. “Those black fucking dice.”

  “Magic dice?” asked Julian.

  “What else could it be?” asked Tim. “Fucking look at us!”

  “Mordred!” Dave stood up on his stubby legs and shouted at the sky. “What the fuck, man? This isn't fucking funny!”

  One of the soldiers’ horses which had stuck around started to whinny, and it clearly sounded like a
laugh. Cooper punched it in the side of the head, and it collapsed to the ground.

  “Cooper!” shouted Tim. “Dude! What the fuck?”

  “Morghdid,” replied Cooper. “Horsh.”

  “Mordred isn't the fucking horse,” said Tim. “He's the CM. He's everything you see. We're inside his imagination or something.”

  “Then where are all the girls who think his cape is sexy?” asked Dave.

  Tim and Julian chuckled in spite of their confusion and fear. Cooper snorted a laugh that shot a couple more snot wads out of his nose.

  The wagon backed up a foot, pushing Dave face-first into the dirt again.

  Cooper doubled over and laughed so hard, he coughed up a huge glob of brownish yellow phlegm.

  “Dude,” said Tim. “That's seriously fucking gross. What is going on with your...” He stopped talking. A thought occurred to him. “He can hear us.”

  “Who?” asked Julian.

  “Mordred,” said Tim. “He's still there in my fucking Chicken Hut, drinking my fucking Coke, and laughing his balls off at us.” He looked up into the same patch of empty blue sky that Dave had shouted at. “Aren't you, mother fucker?” he shouted.

  One of the two soldiers whose heads Cooper had smashed together started to stir.

  “Um... Tim?” Julian said. “These guys are starting to wake up. What should we do?”

  “How should I know?” asked Tim.

  “Well what would you have done if this happened in the game?”

  “Kirrum,” Cooper grunted.

  “We're not going to kill anyone,” said Tim. “Just kick them in the head or something, and move their weapons away.”

  Julian shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Do we have any rope?” asked Dave, standing again, and brushing the dirt from his knees.

  “If we do,” said Tim, “my char – “ he sighed. “I mean I have the Rope Use skill. I can tie them up.”

  “Did you buy any rope?”

  “I don't think so.”

  Julian had two crossbows tucked under his left arm, and a third one in his right hand. He kicked the stirring soldier in the head, just hard enough to let him know that he should stop stirring. “Why don't you look in the cart?”

  Tim grabbed the edge of the wagon and hoisted himself into it with a surprising amount of grace. He went deeper into the wagon, and then emerged again, dragging two bags behind him. “Dave, Julian, I think these are yours.”

  “How do you know?” asked Dave.

  “Because I recognized my own, and Cooper's is pretty hard to mistake for anyone else's.”

  Cooper’s bag looked to have been hastily stitched together from the hides of at least six different animals. Tim guessed he could probably fit at least three of himself inside it. He put his back up against it and bulldozed it to the edge of the wagon.

  “Yar,” said Cooper. “Thatun's mine.” He grabbed the bag as if it were no heavier than a child's backpack and looked inside. He yelped, and a stream of yellow liquid shit squirted down from beneath his loincloth.

  “Oh for fuck's sake, Cooper!” shouted Dave.

  “What's wrong?” asked Julian.

  Cooper tossed his giant bag to the ground, and a human head rolled out of it.

  They all stared, mouths hanging open, at the head. The head stared back, its own mouth ajar.

  “Whose head is that?” asked Tim. “And why was it in your… shit.”

  “It was the guard we – “ Dave started, and then corrected himself. “The guard Cooper killed at the town gate.”

  Tim grabbed his own bag, hopped down from the wagon, careful to avoid the steaming yellow puddle of Cooper shit, and joined the others surrounding the severed head. They stared.

  The lifeless eyes of the head grew bright. It wasn't a physical change, and Tim wasn’t even sure it happened just yet. He peered down at it with the uneasy feeling that it might not be as dead as it was letting on. When it blinked and smiled at them, everybody screamed. Tim grabbed Dave around the waist. Dave grabbed Julian around the leg. Julian made a move to grab Cooper, but changed his mind just before making contact.

  “You boys fucked with the wrong Cavern Master,” said the severed head. It started to laugh. Tim, Dave, and Julian screamed, and Cooper kicked the head toward the forest. It kept laughing until it hit a tree. “Ugh,” it said as it bounced off the tree and rolled to a stop on the ground, where it resumed laughing.

  “That's fucked up,” said Julian.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Dave.

  “Let's see what else we've got in our bags,” said Tim. “Provided they're not stuffed with body parts, we might find something we can use. Dump out your bags, preferably somewhere that Cooper hasn't shit all over the place.”

  “Fark you,” said Cooper.

  “Seriously, dude,” said Dave. “I know you’re scared and confused. I mean, we all are. But most of us are able to keep our bowels under control.”

  “Rethsheehowr...shith. Fark you, Dabe,” said Cooper. “Ish my Charithma Score.”

  Tim shook his head. “How low did you roll for Charisma?”

  “Sixth.”

  “Six?” said Tim. “That’s not too bad. I mean yeah, it’s low, but it’s not pants-shittingly low. A Charisma score of six is how I imagine that guy from Friends. You know, the annoying one. What’s his name?”

  “Any of them?” asked Dave.

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “Ima harf-orc,” Cooper explained. “I rost two pointsh of Charishma and Inter... Interr... Intelligence.”

  “Well that explains it, then.” said Tim. “You’ve got a modified Charisma of four. You are almost completely unlikable.”

  They walked over to where the soldiers were still lying on the ground and opened their bags.

  Resting neatly on top of everything else packed in their bags, they each found a metal tube with a screw-on top.

  “What is this?” asked Dave, picking up his tube.

  “Pipe bomb?” asked Cooper, with only a slight trace of impediment in his speech.

  “Not likely,” said Tim. “They look like scroll tubes. Did anyone buy scrolls?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  Tim shrugged and opened his. “You're not going to believe this,” he said.

  “What is it?” asked Dave.

  Tim smiled. “My fucking character sheet.”

  Everyone opened their tubes. Sure enough, they each stood looking at the paper version of themselves.

  Julian was the first to stop ogling his character sheet and look deeper into his bag. “Oh, look!” he said. “I bought some rope. Silk!”

  The other three looked up at him, and instead of noticing the rope he held up, their attention was focused on the wet and sticky red circle on his white robes, expanding from the place where a crossbow bolt still stuck out of his chest.

  “Dude,” said Tim. “Are you going to pull that out?”

  “What?” said Julian, looking down. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” He laughed.

  “How could you forget about that?” asked Cooper. “I'm a Barbarian, and my wounds hurt like a sonofabitch.”

  “I wasn't hit that hard,” said Julian, “and I've got like four hundred hit points.”

  “You've got what?” asked Dave and Tim together.

  “Let me see that!” said Cooper, snatching away Julian's character sheet.

  “You don't remember?” asked Julian. “Mordred gave them to me for good role-playing.

  “You dumb fuck,” said Cooper, looking at the sheet. “Those are experience points.”

  Cooper handed the sheet to Tim and put a hand on Julian’s shoulder. He wrapped his other hand around the bolt. “This might hurt a little.” He plucked the bolt out of Julian’s chest.

  Julian winced, but didn’t cry out. After a couple of breaths, he said “That wasn’t so bad.”

  “Hey guys,” said Tim. “We might have a little problem.” Julian’s hit points were disappearing from
the paper, swiped away in big chunks.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Julian.

  “I think Mordred is fixing your character sheet.”

  “Shit,” said Cooper. “You might um… want to lie down or something. This is most definitely going to hurt.”

  “Seriously guys,” said Julian with a note of panic in his voice. “I feel fine. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I felt quite so –“ His eyes widened, and he looked down at his wound. A torrent of blood sprayed out of his chest like a fire hose, covering Cooper’s loincloth. “Ohmygodithurts!” he screamed, collapsed to the ground, and passed out.

  Tim looked down at Julian’s character sheet. In the instant he glanced at it, the number in the box labeled “Current Hit Points” changed from -1 to -2.

  Chapter 4

  “What did you do to him?” shouted Dave.

  “I didn't do anything!” Cooper shouted back. “It's fucking Mordred.” He looked down at Julian, who was sprawled out flat on his back. Blood poured out of the hole in his chest in increasingly smaller spurts.

  “He's bleeding out,” said Tim. “He's not going to make it much longer.”

  Cooper knelt beside him. He tried to put pressure on the wound with his palm.

  “You're only going to make it worse, Cooper,” said Tim. “Your hands are filthy.”

  Cooper did not let go. “If you've got any better ideas,” he roared, “now is the time!”

  Julian's head fell to the side facing Cooper. For a second, it looked as though he might say something, but all that came out of Julian's mouth was a stream of blood down his cheek.

  Dave buried his hands in the shaggy hair on top of his head. Tears began to well up in his eyes. “Did anyone take the Heal skill?” His voice cracked hopelessly.

  “No,” said Tim, forcing himself to remain calm and think. “We didn't need to, because we had a –“ He whipped his head sharply around at Dave. “What the fuck are you doing? Get in there and heal him. You're a fucking cleric!”

  Dave stood still, hands still buried in his hair. “Well, I'm not really a cleric. I can’t—“

  “Go fucking heal him!”