by Drew Hayes
“I’d like the module for Lumal, please. My party has a lot of questions they want answered, and that is probably the best adventure to accommodate that kind of goal.”
“Popular choice,” the woman noted. Reaching down, she hauled up one of the portable safes which was small enough to carry, but hefty enough to cause her a slight strain. By the time Russell noticed and felt inclined to help, the deed was already done, the safe resting on the table before him. On a sticky note, the woman jotted down a few quick numbers, then slapped the note on top of the safe. “Apparently, we’ve had issues with people trying to get their hands on these without going through the proper channels, so you’ll have to deal with the extra security. Inside here is the module you’ve chosen, and whatever other documents the company decided to include. Follow the rules, play the game well, and above all else, have fun. I’m required to say that last part. Any questions?”
“Literally countless ones,” Russell admitted, lifting the safe into his arms. It was heavy, but since the contraption was small enough to house only a module, he could manage it with a single hand. The sticky note he tucked into his wallet after staring at the numbers a moment, refusing to risk losing them. “But I’m guessing you can’t, or won’t, answer most of them. I’ve got one you might, though. Last time, you said I had to seek them out to continue, only for the company to invite me here and put the next module directly in my hands. So, I guess my question is, change of heart?”
“Funny, I asked that too when they brought me in for this gig. The answer didn’t make sense to me, but everyone else I tell it to seems to get the message. All they said by way of explanation was ‘this isn’t the world where they have to do the seeking’ which sounds completely insane out of context, by the way.”
“It doesn’t get much saner, even with the context.” Despite his words, Russell did feel a touch more at ease. While it wasn’t exactly cut-and-dry, the message seemed to confirm what he’d expected: their continuation was based on what the characters did in the game world. They’d explored Alcatham, played the module to the end, and discovered a small piece of the truth that lay at its core. Presumably—hopefully—that meant they would succeed or fail based on the game itself, not Russell’s ability to hunt down a company that almost seemed to not exist.
With a slow, exaggerated motion, the woman dragged her pen across the sheet with the names, scratching off Russell’s entry. “I expected as much. Broken Bridge would like me to close this by saying drive safe, play well, and never doubt the truth before your eyes. Like most of this, that sounds like half-gibberish to me, so I guess it means go have fun with your new game.”
Hefting the portable safe up into his grip, Russell clutched it tight. “Thanks. Have a nice day yourself. Maybe I’ll see you next time there’s a module release.”
For a second, she looked at him, actually looked at him, no longer staring sullenly off to the side. Her eyes were surprisingly intense, nearly causing Russell to take a half-step backward. That piercing gaze went from him, to the safe, and back to him before a lazy smile stretched across her face.
“I’d say that’s up to you and your group, don’t you think?”
2.
The crack of the branch landing came seconds before Gabrielle hit the ground, several feet away and spinning her axe in a flourish. She’d leapt into the air, sliced cleanly through the thick limb of wood, and hit the ground all in a single motion. There was no doubt about it; she was more graceful than she’d been before. Coupled with her increase in strength, as the perfectly-severed branch demonstrated, there could be no question that whatever kind of undead she’d become, the change came with physical augmentation.
Gabrielle’s condition had been their main concern as the party made the trek from Alcatham into the wildlands of Urthos, heading toward one of the secret entrances to Lumal. The only thing they focused on more was general safety, which was the reason Eric and Timuscor (along with Mr. Peppers) were both currently doing sweeps of their camp’s perimeter. Training and testing were well and good when opportunity permitted, but they also had to survive the night.
Thistle watched Gabrielle land with the same critical expression he’d worn through the entire demonstration, a neutral gaze he’d perfected in his henchman days that showed he was paying attention without conveying either emotion or judgment. Originally, it had been a tool to keep him safe, lest an evil mastermind think Thistle was ignoring them or pondering above his station. Today, on the other hand, he was merely using it to conceal the utter confusion he was faced with.
As Gabrielle and Grumph moved into light, careful sparring, Thistle analyzed every movement the formerly-blonde barbarian made. Gabrielle’s golden locks were now pitch-black—one of the many side effects from her transition to being undead. It was a strange symptom that served as a constant reminder of the conundrum she’d become. Thistle had been racking his brain every day, accounting for each piece of evidence her condition presented, and he was thus forced upon the same, inescapable conclusion: he had no idea what kind of undead she had turned into.
Her symptoms were too unique. None of them aligned entirely with any existing undead creature he knew of. She didn’t need to eat flesh or blood and had experienced no cravings for either. In fact, she didn’t seem to be hungry at all, though she’d joined them for meals to no ill-effect. Continual direct sunlight mildly burned her now-pale skin, but that typically healed within an hour of sunset. She was stronger, faster, more dexterous, tougher: physically augmented in every way. Still, she wasn’t showing the pure raw strength of a high-level undead, like a lich or a vampire. Gabrielle’s changes were mere improvements. Her biggest apparent weakness was also the element that made classifying her so difficult, and was the same thing that had likely caused her condition. So far as they’d been able to tell, Gabrielle was now quite literally dependent on the cursed axe clutched between her hands.
“Slow. Careful. Controlled.” Grumph was taking Gabrielle through the motions of an attack stance, substituting his own demon-blade staff for her axe. He didn’t have the training to guide her through any advanced axe-fighting techniques, but that wasn’t really the point of this session. Their goal was to make Gabrielle comfortable with her new body and strength. Despite whatever it was she’d become, she was still a barbarian, first and foremost, which meant that when she lost herself in the rage of battle, she was going to be dangerous. The first time they’d had a wild animal attack—a bear no bigger than Grumph—it had become clear that Gabrielle needed to master her power. Flecks of that poor bear had coated every speck of grass around them, and Thistle was still washing the occasional stain from his boots. That was without her even tapping into her barbarian anger.
The axe had always fueled her rage. Now, however, it seemed to be fueling Gabrielle herself. Through trial and error, they’d discovered she could be parted from it, albeit unhappily, but the longer they were apart, the slower she moved. No one had been willing to risk letting her go completely still; they were all scared she’d never reawaken if they took things that far. Gabrielle was in a tenuous situation. She’d been given this status thanks to using a potent, cursed item in the middle of a literal storm of malfunctioning magic – as best as they could tell. And so until they knew exactly what had happened to her, they had to be exceedingly careful not let her go from undead to normal dead. Otherwise, there was no guarantee they’d ever be able to get her back.
“Ten more minutes, and then Gabby will need to go hunting.” Thistle would have liked to let them train longer, but this too was part of their new situation. In Alcatham, Gabrielle had seemed perfectly normal as they rode back onto the road. Unfortunately, after only a few days of uneventful travel, she had grown visibly weaker.
They had tried feeding her, using raw animals to see if that would either restore her or otherwise stoke her undead hunger. It had been the bear that actually offered the solution, though. After obliterating it, Gabrielle was suddenly lively and spry once more. When tes
ted afterward to confirm, the results held the same. Whatever power the axe had once drawn from harming its wielder, Gabrielle in her current condition was no longer able to provide. Killing and wounding other creatures, however, did fill whatever magical pool was inside the weapon. Since that power also seemed to be what kept Gabrielle mobile, the party entrusted her the task of hunting every night. The axe got its kill, and the party received fresh meat, meaning nothing went to waste. It was far from an ideal solution, but until Thistle knew more about the situation, he was at peace with holding steady. Better to make no moves than the wrong ones, when time would permit such consideration.
Sadly, that allotment of time was beginning to run dry. In their weeks crossing through Urthos, they’d been free to train, test, and hunt as needed. They had only a couple more days before reaching the entrance to Lumal, however. Once inside, Gabrielle’s situation could be much more difficult to manage. Lumal was hardly the sort of place where one found wandering beasts readily available for the kill. The best idea they’d come up with was to allow Gabrielle to spend their entire final day doing nothing but hunt, hopefully building up enough of a reserve in the axe that she’d be able to last without killing in Lumal.
This added yet another wrinkle to their plan, one more spot where things could go awry. Taking into consideration the fact that Thistle was using outdated information on the entrance, the unlikeliness of him and Grumph being welcomed, and now their murderous-by-necessity barbarian, maintaining an optimistic outlook on their chances of being admitted was becoming difficult. The one ray of hope that Thistle could still cling to was his faith. Whatever lay before them, it certainly seemed as though Grumble, god of the minions, had been leading the way thus far. So long as he was watching over them, Thistle could believe it would all work out somehow, even if “somehow” potentially involved running for their lives or crawling through sewers.
Footsteps announced the return of Eric and Timuscor, with Mr. Peppers trotting along behind. Without the clanking of the knight and his boar, Thistle might have missed their return. Eric, already quiet in his movements, had attained a whole new level of stealth after his intensive month of training with Elora, the rogue in Alcatham they’d paid to teach him. He might have been truly silent, if not for the pack secured firmly to his back. Eric refused to let that out of his reach, and it wasn’t an unreasonable precaution. Inside that bag was a piece of the Bridge, a magical artifact that none of them fully understood. What they did know, however, was that anyone holding it for too long would be driven mad. Only Eric seemed to be capable of handling a single piece without losing himself, though that control vanished if he tried to wield more than one. Better that the piece they had remain in his care than the others’—or worse, an enemy’s.
“Clear, as far as we’re concerned, although I spotted a pack of some kind of furless wolf-looking monster some ways off. They didn’t look that big. Might make good fodder for Gabby’s axe.” Eric had adapted his scouting role in accordance with Gabrielle’s new condition, using the time to search for potential targets the axe could feed upon. One of the party, usually Eric himself, followed her when she hunted. It wasn’t always necessary, but after nearly losing Gabrielle inside the dragon’s cave, no one was up for taking needless chances. The party never allowed a single person to undertake any given task; there was always someone to watch the other person’s back.
“Were they just wolf-like, or did they have distinguishing characteristics, aside from the lack of fur?” Thistle asked. As the member who’d spent the most time around adventurers before becoming one himself, he was the default font of knowledge in regard to monsters, dungeons, and the strange workings of the adventurers’ society.
Eric nodded. “Kind of a blue-green skin, and what looked like small spines along their back.”
That was a surprising amount of detail, especially for something described as being “some ways off” from Eric and Timuscor. Thistle was mostly sure that there was no training that could improve one’s eyesight, yet he found himself wondering about that prospect near daily, it seemed, with the new and improved Eric.
“Hmmm. They might be a good target. They’re called hemlunxes, and while they aren’t especially strong from a physical standpoint, they positively drip with venom. A bite, a claw, a poke from one of those spines on their back, any one of them will flood your system with a painful, partially paralyzing toxin. As you can imagine, that aspect makes fighting them especially difficult.”
“Unless you’re undead, and your body no longer responds to poison.” Gabrielle sauntered over, axe resting lightly on her shoulder. Several steps behind was a sweating Grumph, leaning on his staff for support. Enhanced constitution just one more boon of being undead. “Sounds like I could take those beasts out easily.”
“If your body acts like a traditional undead in that regard,” Thistle reminded her. “While you fit many of the usual categories, I’ve never seen an undead that was bound to a weapon, or had to feed by using it. We can’t assume that you have any given immunity or ability until we’ve tested and confirmed it for ourselves.”
There was a soft rattling as Eric began digging through a pouch at his side, the slight tinkle of glass fading when his hand emerged with a small vial. Inside was an emerald green liquid that clung to the glass like a heavy wine as it was swirled. “Thistle is right. We can’t send you out to fight a bunch of poison monsters until we’re sure that you’re immune. This is a mild paralyzing poison, best I’ve been able to make with the tools Elora gave me and the materials we’ve found so far. If you drink it and there’s no effect, we’ll know you’re at least poison resistant. You’ll only be down for an hour, at most, if it works, so there’s still enough time to squeeze in some hunting after.”
No hesitation, not that any of the party was foolish enough to expect it, as Gabrielle snagged the vial and downed its contents with a single gulp. Carefully, she returned Eric’s glass to him—the vials were irreplaceable outside of civilization—as they all waited to see what would happen. After several full minutes had passed, everyone silent and on edge, Eric finally let out a relieved sigh and put the container back into his side-pouch.
“If you’re standing after this long, then it means the poison didn’t work. We’ll still back you up, of course, but it looks like poison is one more thing you don’t have to worry about.”
Gabrielle let out a whoop of joy, followed by a wide grin. “Damn, being undead kicks ass. Had I known it came with all these perks, I’d have made the change years ago.”
And there it was. Thistle almost winced at her words, barely keeping a stoic expression in place. That was the largest problem he’d discovered since the party set out from Alcatham. No one else, save perhaps for the naturally stoic Grumph, seemed to understand the danger Gabrielle was in. She’d been handed a slew of physical increases and immunities, so it was easy to understand why she might be blinded by the positive, but Thistle knew there was another side. Being undead came with limitations, weaknesses, and made one a target for those sects that felt the undead were an abomination against the gods. Sooner or later, one of those aspects would hit home for Gabrielle, and when it did, she was going to crash in a big way. Everything she was pushing aside, everything she wasn’t facing yet, would slam into her all at once, and when that happened, there was no telling how she might react.
Sadly, Thistle was unable to think of a way to push that realization on her, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure it was his place. Gabrielle had to come to terms with what had happened to her in her own time, her own way. As a friend, he would be there for her when it happened, and as a paladin, he would damn sure help protect her until that time came.
“Eric, you hunt with Gabrielle. If she doesn’t completely decimate the bodies, it should be possible to extract some of the hemlunx-poison from their glands. The substance is famously potent, so I can see plenty of occasions where it may become useful. Timuscor, you go as well. With your armor, you can avoid being dir
ectly injured or poisoned, and it’s good to practice defensive strategies sometimes.”
Clanks filled the air as Timuscor rose from the seat he’d taken on a log. He paused, though only to kneel down and speak to Mr. Peppers eye-to-eye. “Since our enemy is poisonous, I can’t risk bringing you into battle with your current armor. Stay here, and keep the others safe.”
Mr. Peppers let out a snort, the miniature armor protecting his body rattling slightly. It was impossible to say why the boar listened to Timuscor, which he often didn’t, or why they’d catch the odd flash of intelligence in the creature’s eyes. Originally a summon that refused to vanish, Thistle had later learned that some force cloaked Mr. Peppers from the eyes of the gods, including Grumble. Whatever the boar was, whoever he served, the one thing Thistle felt sure of was that he was loyal to Timuscor. It was a trust that might come back to bite them all down the line, but with so many problems and enemies already on their heels, Thistle wasn’t in a position to start casting aside allies. Besides, they’d all grown rather fond of Mr. Peppers, strange origins and all.
The boar trotted over to Thistle and stood proudly, as if daring any beast or monster on the plains of Urthos to challenge the crooked-boned gnome. Satisfied that his boar was safe, Timuscor and the others headed away from camp, toward where Eric had spotted the pack of hemlunxes.
As they left, Grumph made his way over to the log where Thistle was sitting and dropped down next to him. A soft crunching echoed from the log as it tried to support the muscular heft of a full-grown half-orc.
