Death Of An Author: A Middang3ard Novella

by Ramy Vance

There were none.

  She turned back to smile at Dawn. “What did I tell you? Super-easy,” she bragged. Lindsay faced her destination and effortlessly floated across the rope until she was on the other side. Dakota gave her a high five before they both started to poke around in the dim light, looking for something to aid Robyn.

  Dawn faced Robyn and did her best to give him an encouraging smile. “We really aren’t going to leave you behind. You know that, right?”

  Robyn returned the smile, although his was forced. “Of course, I know that. I just feel…I don’t know, kinda lame, having to be helped like this. It feels like everyone is holding their own, and I’m just…you know, the big guy who can’t handle himself.”

  “Don’t be stupid. None of us picked our classes. It’s not like we were worrying about min-maxing experience points or anything. We’re all rolling with what we got. Hopefully, you’ll get a chance to show us what you’re made of. I know warriors can be kinda…you know, bland to play as, especially if you would rather talk things out. If you ever make it back to Middang3ard and you get a chance to choose, you might want to go with bard. I think you’d do pretty well. And with that, I’m off!”

  Dawn backflipped onto the rope and spun before sprinting across to the other side. She knew her class had enough dexterity to handle the rope easily, and coupled with her natural grace, it was a walk in the park. The novelty of her newfound powers hadn’t worn off yet. She was starting to feel the part of a thieving rogue. I could definitely be a scoundrel, she thought. But first, gotta help the homie.

  Lindsay, Dawn, and Dakota searched for any item that could be used to help Robyn cross the chasm. There wasn’t much to choose from, just a collection of junk that had been tossed in the corner as if this room had been built by someone and the builders had left their tools after construction.

  The three writers pooled everything they had found and looked over the possibilities. “Looks like a nice big pile of useless shit,” Dawn murmured. “Guys, I don’t want to leave Robyn behind. It would really hurt his feelings. Not to mention, something might kill him. We gotta figure this out.”

  Dakota massaged his temples as if he were trying to rub out an idea. “Maybe we’re missing something,” he suggested. “You know, something really obvious that was at the beginning of the temple. Like a clue or foreshadowing we didn’t think was important, but right now, is exactly what we need.”

  Lindsay sat down cross-legged, her wand floating behind her as she closed her eyes and focused. Dakota also looked like he was in a state of deep concentration. Dawn thought it over for a second and decided there hadn’t been anything. This wasn’t a literary production, after all. Who foreshadows a dungeon crawl? Instead of wasting time thinking, she shouted to Robyn, “Hey, do you have any junk on your side?”

  Across the chasm, Robyn checked around. He gathered up what he could find and made a pile next to the rope. “This is all I got!” he replied. “A bunch of debris. Fragments of wood, some bits and bobs.”

  Dawn looked around on their side and found similar debris. “Same here!” she called.

  “Oh, I have a pretty big wood plank! Like diving-board size,” Robyn said as he pulled out a piece of wood that was lying to the side.

  Dawn looked over the junk pile for a few seconds while scrolling through her HUD. She snapped her fingers as an idea came to her. “Watch out, guys. Let a pro take care of this.”

  Lindsay and Dakota both took a step back, but Dakota watched what Dawn was up to very closely. “Since when do you know how to build things?” he asked.

  “Since I remembered that thieves always have a shit-ton of points dumped into traps. And you know what you need to be good at building traps? Able to build anything. So, I figure if I can build it—”

  “Robyn will come.”

  “Exactly. So, check out my beast!”

  Dawn stood up and unveiled her creation. It was a Frankenstein of a device. Bits of wood had been nailed to other bits of wood, rope was loosely coiled around what looked like a shoulder stock, and a dagger was connected to what looked like a barrel. The entire device had the look of a harpoon gun, if that harpoon gun had been built by a devious and off-kilter Geppetto. “This should get the job done,” Dawn exclaimed before carelessly dropping the harpoon gun on the ground and turning back to shout at Robyn, “Hey, can you attach that piece of wood to the wall or something?”

  Robyn looked around to see if there was a place he could attach the wooden plank. “Yeah, I think I found something.” He took the plank to the far end of the room and placed it against the wooden door the Wordsmiths had initially entered through. Then he unsheathed one of his swords and drove it into the door, connecting the plank to it. “Done!”

  “All right! Step the hell away from that door!”

  After Robyn had moved, Dawn took aim with her new harpoon gun. She fired, and a length of rope shot over the chasm. The rope was attached to Dawn’s dagger, and when the dagger pierced the plank Robyn had set up, Dawn attached a pulley to the bottom of her harpoon gun and then fired again. The dart hit its intended spot. “Just grab the rope, and we’ll pull you over!” she shouted.

  Robyn grabbed the rope and tried not to look down at the chasm beneath him. Even without looking, he could feel the heat crawling up his neck. He figured it was best to just get this over with. He took the rope in his hand, lowered himself over the chasm, and hung there limply as Dawn slowly reeled him in. In no time at all, Robyn was with the rest of the Wordsmiths, and they all stood before the next rune-covered door.

  “All right.” Dawn sighed. “One more fucking door.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Wordsmiths sauntered into the room as if they owned the dungeon, prepared for the worst. Each of them had faced their own individual trials, and as a team, had come out on top. What could possibly be within this room that they could not handle?

  The room was well-furnished, with a long dining room table covered in plates of meat and tankards of ale. Romantic lighting set a casual, comfortable mood, and the short shadows cast by the candlelight were almost welcoming. Paintings of regal kings and queens covered the wall, and there were smaller paintings of goblins dressed in noble clothes. An air of pomp hung over the room like a silk blanket, enough to let you know it was there, but never overstating its elegance.

  Dawn eyed the objects in the room suspiciously. She was waiting for something to pop out and try to stab her, or set her on fire. All she had learned from the dungeon so far was that most empty rooms held something that wanted to kill you. Or maybe all of the rooms wanted to kill you. These were questions she was dedicated to investigating once her time in Middang3ard was through. Meanwhile, she would trust no rooms.

  Dawn’s wariness seemed to be echoed by the rest of the party. All of the Wordsmiths had drawn their weapons and were circling the table as if they believed it would come to life and attack them. It was not that wild a thought. Robyn and Dakota had only just recently been attacked by a fountain. Granted, the fountain was constructed of skeletons, but nonetheless, it was still a fountain.

  Dakota drew back his bow and fired an arrow into one of the chairs, which toppled over and lay on the floor, slain. The chairs did not seem to offer any immediate danger.

  Still, the table was disconcerting.

  Not to mention the food and drink.

  Lindsay pulled out one of the chairs and cautiously sat down, gripping her wand tightly as she scanned the room for immediate threats. Dawn assumed Lindsay’s mind was in the same place as hers. The chairs could have been boobytrapped. It was brave of Lindsay to take the chance of sitting down, yet nothing came. No attack. No giant screeching bats. The chairs didn’t grow arms and strap Lindsay down, nor did the table rear up on its legs and produce a mouth full of fangs. The furniture remained inanimate and incapable of posing a threat.

  Dawn took a seat beside Lindsay, and the rest of the Wordsmiths sat down at the table. Each of them kept their eye on the food in a mixture of fear
and hunger. A considerable amount of time had elapsed since the Wordsmiths had last eaten. Dawn would have been surprised if anyone could have heard the rallying war cry of an orc over the grumbling of their stomachs.

  “How do we tell if it’s a trap?” she asked. “It seems awfully suspicious that a dungeon that has spent the majority of its time trying to kill us would set out such an inviting spread for us to enjoy.”

  Dakota poked a rump of mutton with his dagger. “Maybe the dungeon is a gentleman. A scholar, of sorts,” he offered. “You know that whole ‘I’ll knock your lights out, and when you wake up, I’ll buy you a beer’ trope.”

  Lindsay raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Is that really a thing dudes do? I mean, I’ve seen it in so many movies.”

  “Wouldn’t know. I consider it my great fortune to have never gotten into a barfight. So far, it’s only orcs and goblins I know anything about, and it does not seem like any of them are going to try to buy me a drink.”

  Robyn folded his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “It’s obviously a trap. The food is either cursed or poisoned. It makes absolutely no sense for there to be a rest area, complete with snacks, in the middle of a dungeon we’ve been sent to for who knows what reason.”

  Lindsay looked up from the food. Even though she was facing the Wordsmiths, her eyes didn’t move from the food. As she spoke, it seemed that little mirror versions of ham, mutton, and creamed spinach were dancing in her eyes. “Like at a soccer game,” she murmured.

  The rest of the Wordsmiths stared at Lindsay, unable (as was quickly becoming the case) to comprehend what intellectual leap she had made to be talking about soccer. When Lindsay noticed that the Wordsmiths were staring at her in confusion rather than admiration of her wit, she cleared her throat and clarified, “You know, when kids play soccer games, it’s up to the other team to provide refreshments during halftime. Your opponents feed and water you. It’s supposed to show good sportsmanship.”

  Dawn speared one of the bread rolls and tossed it into the air. “First of all, it’s football. Secondly, I find it increasingly difficult to believe that we would have the lucky experience of fighting through a dungeon that wishes to be an accommodating opponent,” Dawn chided. “Although to be fair, that last room did feel like it was pulling its punches. What if the dungeon is just making this up as it goes along, and it was running out of ideas in the last room? Maybe the whole time we’re sitting here, we’re giving the dungeon time to think up its next move. We could be screwing ourselves as we speak! Where the hell is the door? We need to get the hell out of here before the dungeon gets wise to our schemes. Oh, shit! I’m in the dungeon…”

  “Yeah, and?”

  Dawn slowly looked up from the dinner roll she held, her eyes deep and heavy with the knowledge of her most recent epiphany. “We’re in the dungeon. That means it can hear this conversation,” she whispered. “It’s in our fucking heads, man!”

  Lindsay waved her wand, and a splash of cold water hit Dawn in the face. “You, my friend,” Lindsay lectured, “need to calm down. You don’t know how the dungeon was made, and assuming someone is making it up as they go along is assuming this dungeon master is one hell of a writer. Even the best writers usually have an outline. No one is that good at improv.”

  Dawn was taken aback by the water splashing in her face and almost said something. Then she remembered she had slapped Lindsay less than a day ago. She didn’t have the moral high ground on this matter. “Okay, maybe it is a little farfetched,” Dawn admitted. “But you have to admit, we don’t have any idea of what is going on.”

  Dakota slammed his fists on the table, causing everyone to jump in shock. “Okay, we need to figure out something right now,” he exclaimed as he stood up and put one foot on the table, giving the impression of a general of some sort. “There’s food right here! I’m starving! How do we figure out if we can eat or not? Forget the quest. We need to have priorities, and one of those needs to be food!”

  The Wordsmiths looked at each other. No one disagreed. Their stomachs were nearly as loud as their voices. It didn’t seem like anyone had any idea about how to get around the potential poison problem. That is, until Lindsay raised her hand awkwardly as if she were in school. When she caught the eyes of the rest of the Wordsmiths, she cleared her throat and giggled nervously. “Uh, don’t thieves usually have a pretty good idea of poisons?” she asked. “Or is that assassins?”

  Dawn opened her mouth to reply when Dakota threw a bread roll at her, causing her to duck and giving Dakota the chance he needed to speak. “I mean, technically, thief is the beginning stage of assassin,” he said, each word dripping condescension. “But I guess it’s as good a bet as anything else. Dawn, as usual, has the special ability. It’s almost like this whole adventure is about her. Guess she’s the protagonist, or at least the overpowered hero a writer bets all his money on.”

  Dawn scoffed with irritation. “You do realize this isn’t a book, right?” Dawn asked. “So you’re just being a snide ass.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “What exactly are you saying?”

  Dakota folded his arms and pouted childishly before sighing and regaining his composure. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m just really grouchy. I haven’t eaten in hours, and apparently, superhuman hunger comes along with the superpowers.”

  A ripple of cramps went through Dawn’s stomach as it gurgled loudly. “Okay, I hear you on that,” she said. “No hard feelings. I’ll check my HUD to see if I have anything that might help.”

  Dawn scanned through her HUD until she found the tab for Skills and Abilities. She searched until she found something titled Poison Testing Kit and selected it, and a small box appeared in front of her. When she unwrapped the box, she found it only had a beaker filled with a clear liquid. “Hm…” she murmured. “Not sure how this works. Let’s see.” Dawn turned back to her HUD and found a list of potions and poisons. She selected one of the poisons, and it materialized in her hand.

  Then she took her dagger and trickled a little poison onto her blade. The blade changed color, turning bright yellow, as if in warning.

  “All right. Guess anything that’s yellow is poison. Let’s see what we got.”

  Dawn pulled up three more beakers and handed each of the Wordsmiths one. Then they all commenced pouring a little bit of the solution onto the food and into the drinks, checking to see if anything that looked edible was remotely poisonous. After a couple of minutes, everything had been tested. Nothing was poisonous.

  Dakota grabbed a leg of mutton and held it in the air as if it were a toast. “All right!” he shouted. “Now, we eat!”

  The Wordsmiths tore into the food. They went at it with ravenous hunger, a hunger none of them had been aware they were capable of. At the beginning of this impromptu meal, there had been more mutton, steak, and ham than any of them had ever dreamed of eating. The meats were quickly devoured. All that remained were bones and fat that had been chewed clean of the delicious meat. Once the feeding frenzy was over, the Wordsmiths sat in contented silence, their bellies protruding farther than any of them wished to acknowledge.

  Lindsay was the first to speak, sitting with her hand over her gut and wishing she was a smoker so that she could pull out a pipe to craft stories in the air with puffs of smoke like Tolkien’s wizards. Instead, she settled with a hefty burp, hoping to signal to whoever had crafted the meal that it was deeply appreciated and enjoyed. “Now, that was some good eating.” She eventually sighed, settling into a food coma, hardly able to keep her eyes open to converse with her fellow Wordsmiths.

  All of the Wordsmiths had stopped eating other than Dakota. He was still grabbing whatever was in front of him. Obviously, his hunger greatly exceeded that of his compatriots. The rest of the Wordsmiths could only watch as Dakota continue to gorge himself on the various foods that were still on the table. None were safe from him. He ate all that was available. Finally, after twenty minutes of an entirely unique spectator spo
rt, the ranger leaned back in his chair and belched triumphantly. “I wish there was something to fucking drink around here.” He burped.

  Dawn laughed and pointed to the tankards of ale that sat on the table. “There’s more than enough to drink if you want to get a little pissed,” she joked as she grabbed one of the tankards. She raised it in a toast. None of the other Wordsmiths raised their tankard, other than Robyn. He was red with meat-sweat and smiling widely.

  Robyn slammed his tankard on the table, causing the froth and foam to jump out as if it were trying to congratulate him. “Cheers to that!” he shouted and downed his drink. Instantaneously, his face went bright red, causing Dawn to put her tankard back on the table. The transformation had happened too fast for her to assume it was anything other than a trap. She watched Robyn with a close eye, as did the rest of the Wordsmiths, unbeknownst to Robyn. He finished his ale and grabbed another tankard, then drank that one down just as quickly.

  The transformation was simple and quick.

  There was none of the usual smoke and mirrors that went along with magic. It was very straightforward. Robyn was sitting before them, a full-grown man of around middle thirties and early forties.

  And then he changed.

  In the space of a blink, Robyn was no longer a man nearing seven feet tall. Instead, his face had taken on the shape of a newborn baby’s, as did the rest of his body. His limbs retracted and grew short and stubby, yet still massive and hulking. His whole body pulled into itself and slowly let itself out, in the fashion that a tailor lets out the seam of a suit that he has been working on for one who is too large for the seams. Robyn pulsed in his skin, his eyes growing large and docile; innocent, one would say, while his stomach bulged over his belt. His skin turned soft and powdery and the hair on his face fell off, much like the hair on his head.

  Once the transformation was complete, the Wordsmiths stared in awe and horror at the nearly-seven-foot-tall baby that was Robyn. He looked cute…for a giant. Cuter than a giant, in fact, since he still had normal proportions. Granted, they were the normal proportions of a six-foot-nine child. It was, to be fair, a bit much for the rest of the Wordsmiths to deal with.