Read by David Mildon
Welcome, heroes, to the stygian plans of Morkalanazzxx! I am, as always, your Dungeon Master and guide through these ashen wastes. And what a terrible place to be on Halloween, of all nights. Evil is at its zenith on this day, and only the pure of heart will survive.
What we call Halloween is known in this world as ‘Gloomfeist’ in the common-tongue, and ‘tis said that on this night every year the souls of evil-doers return to the scenes of their transgressions, and are justly punished.
No, Ollyganth the mage, you may not ‘nip to the loo’. There is no time for such fripperies. Adventure awaits!
But seriously, Ollie, now isn’t a great time for a toilet break. You’ll find out why very soon. There’s a good reason. Trust me.
I’ve always been trustworthy, haven’t I? Scrupulously so. What a pity none of you can say the same for yourselves.
What I’m saying is: you were always destined to bite my finger off. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Lately I’ve been thinking about you all. Mostly at night, clenching and unclenching my fists.
Do you remember how it all began? Your first quest in our first campaign that Halloween so long ago, us five gathered round this same table, not out grubbing for sweets like other kids, but venturing into the very dungeons of our souls. Some of us went deeper than others.
You were searching for the Hammer of Anguish, the only weapon that could break the seal on the gates of Castle Woebetide, when Silvester tried to claim his dwarven fighter, Silvestroth Goldhammer, had recovered all his hit points from one night of sleep. I’d been clear from the beginning that we were using the AD&D second-edition rulebook, and not the bastardised later editions. There was no point telling me I should have been lenient as it was our first go at AD&D, the rules are very clear on the point concerned and we’d been obeying them for the entire campaign. This meant that when the umber hulk hit Silvestroth for ten HP it killed him, and that when Naresh’s cleric revived him, again according to second-edition rules, he lost a point of constitution, taking his total to 17 and meaning he no longer automatically passed rolls for system shock.
That’s how the game goes. The rules are there for a reason. What, you think you can suddenly switch which Dungeon Master’s Guide you’re using halfway through an encounter?
I saw, too, how when you were fighting the land-shark on the chalk-flats in the same campaign, Naresh actually rolled a seventeen on the D20 that landed under the table, and not eighteen as he claimed. I let that one go because it was hard to prove, but we were all aware that Naresh’s level seven cleric had a THAC0 of sixteen and therefore needed to roll eighteen to hit the monster: seventeen would not have done and would likely have resulted in his death. Instead, the land-shark died. I let it go. And by the way, the creature’s name is pronounced bul-ETT, not boo-lay, or bewl-ay. The campaign was set in the realm of Alamabethar, not France.
That you all had no moral compass was apparent during our last campaign, in the icy wastes of Khala-ma-nananthar, a scenario I spent many weeks preparing only for you all to bail half-way through. You cannot claim, Ollie, that your level twenty elf could be revived by a raise dead spell because he had a human grandfather on his mother’s side and was therefore one-quarter human. You’d never mentioned it before and, besides, that section of the rules was not at all ambiguous. Elves cannot be brought back by a raise dead spell: only a ‘true resurrection’ spell would have done.
Similarly, it’s not enough to say you thought I knew you slept with Irene just before I got together with her, or that ‘everyone’ was doing it with ‘everyone’ that year. I certainly wasn’t. And does it gall me to know I was not, in fact, her first time? Do green dragons shoot poison gas?
In any case, it’s been ten years now since I found out and I’m fine with it. I’m so glad you all agreed to come back to the old Brewer basement for an anniversary campaign. I’ll make it short, don’t worry, the wastes of Morkalanazzxx are unforgiving, bathed in endless night and riven by the conflict of perpetually warring kingdoms, with all the treachery and lies of George RR Martin at his finest. You’ll fit right in.
Naresh, you may be interested to know the people of Morkalanazzxx speak a different language, known as Morkalanazzxxthi. There are very few common-tongue speakers here. But I’ve no doubt a knowledge of Morkalanazzxxthi will magically appear on your character sheet the same way a fluency in German appeared on your CV and landed you that semi-executive position straight after graduation. The irony is, of course, that I speak Deutsch like a Bavarian beerhall regular, but of course they would never have given me that job because of my strange commitment to honesty. I had to settle with four years of data-entry before landing my first break as a copy-editor. I hope you realise that your entire position is based on a lie, and that at any point over the past fourteen years I could have called your employer up and told them so. I let it go, just like I let that dice roll against the land-shark go. I haven’t reported you, any more than I’ve held a grudge about Ollie fucking my wife.
And Silvester, does it gall me to see you making so much money out of an idea you stole from me? Of course! But am I suing you? No. The truth is we both know you stole the idea for your Dragon Mistress mobile game from the short story I showed you about my character Merynia, the Princess of Dragons. Sure, you changed her hair colour, her skintone, and gave her pointy elf ears. But are you really telling me you came up with that idea independently? Oh please.
It’s not about the money, it’s about the violation of trust. It’s no surprise, of course, considering how you read through my Dungeon Master notes in the Forests of Silvá-bá-lé-ló-shun campaign. I figured it out pretty quickly though, didn’t I? You certainly weren’t smart enough to pretend you didn’t know the Félénestia were in fact dark elves in white face-paint. So we ditched a campaign I had spent two months working on, and I wasted an afternoon applying black then white bodypaint to every square inch of skin. That’s OK. I’m not bitter; I used the material for my novel.
And Tom. I haven’t mentioned you yet, have I? Tom the Paladin, that was the most un-fucking-imaginative name anyone has ever come up with for a D&D character. You’re in a fantasy world, Tom; you’re playing a holy warrior with all kinds of cool powers who hails from a magical land. And you call him Tom? Jesus-fucking-Christ. You would deserve what you’re getting for that alone. But in case you think I’m being unfair, I heard you on the baby monitor when you went upstairs to change your son’s nappy last year. So I’m the ‘dodgy uncle’ am I? I’m not a hagraven, Tom. I don’t eat children.
Morkalanazzxx is a volcanic land. The plains are choked in sulphurous vapours. I decided to go for a little realism this time, something to enhance the atmosphere. I can see the fire in the bathroom is really working a treat. Don’t you just feel you’re there?
There’s no point trying the basement door, I had it reinforced last week. The windows, too, are now triple-paned PVC, and too small for you all to slip out of now anyway. We are not twelve any more, we are adults, adults with big bones and beer bellies and too many secrets and too much of a history. Yes, Ollie, I know you slept with Irene again last year. How could I not? She came home stinking of you – like she’d been in an encounter with a dire skunk and been sprayed by its anal scent gland.
Anyway, sit, the game is still ongoing. You approach the Citadel of Mograkatanazi. Its black gate swings open as you draw near, inviting you in. You know the Cup of Truth is somewhere in this ancient labyrinth. What do you do?
There’s no point shouting. You can turn back or go through the portal. Yes, there is a key to the basement door, but I swallowed it. Bet you’re wishing you had vorpal blades now, huh? I know you’d slice me open for it, empty my guts out, string me up on the rafters and leave me for the vultures. You were always such good friends. I bet you wish you had a ‘magnetic hands’ spell, too? What a pity such a spell doesn’t exist in AD&D 2nd edition, and you’d need to be a level twenty mage to craft your own spells. Besides, the key is brass. The spell wouldn’t work on non-ferrous metals.
Cough, cough. By all means lie on the floor to breathe. You learned something at school, at least. Of course, you can try and make a call, but you know the reception in my parents’ basement is legendarily awful. Besides, help won’t arrive in time. That’s the beauty of this location. We’re miles out of town.
But anyway, the gate is open. Do you step through? The campaign is short, I promise. Somebody – Ollyganth the mage, Silvestroth the fighter, Naroobinar the cleric, Tom-the-fucking-Paladin. Great and legendary heroes, tell me what you want to do and maybe you can escape the choking atmosphere of these deadly plains. The world is yours, adventurers! Bestow upon me your command. I beseech thee!
What’s that, Tom? You step through the gate? All of you? At the same time? Well… OK.
You step into the dark, and the floor opens up beneath you, sending you plummeting towards a pit of seething lava! Desperately, you spin around and flail your arms against the wall, scrabbling for a handhold. You must each roll two D20s. Should you roll a twenty on each die, you have somehow managed to find purchase on the sheer obsidian walls of this pit. What are you waiting for? Roll! No? Then I’ll roll for you. Here were go!
Silvestroth... an eight and a fourteen. No good, you keep on falling, praying another of your party finds a hold and reaches an arm to you in time. Ollyganth… you roll a twenty! And a two. Good, but not enough. Your fingers graze a small cleft, and not for the first time. Tom, Tom-the-fucking-Paladin… a one and a six. You knock your head on the side of the pit, losing consciousness. Naroobinar, the party’s last hope...a twenty! And a…
A nineteen. So close! Yes, it did look like a twenty, but then it kept rolling and settled on a nineteen.
No, I didn’t nudge it. What are you accusing me of? Cheating? And where would I have learned such terrible behaviour?
So you are Gollum, and I am Frodo, and here we are in the infernal fires of Mount Doom, and I am bravely sacrificing myself to save the world from evil. Your evil.
And before you ask, down here in the Brewer basement, there are no fucking eagles.
Yes, it is beginning to go black. That is as I intended. No, I won’t take pity on you. I am the Dungeon Master. And I always play by the rules.
(c) Rhys Timson, 2018
Rhys Timson lives in London and has previously had fiction published by 3:AM, Litro, Popshot, A Million Ways and several other places. His website is www.rhystimson.com
David Mildon is an actor, playwright and founding member of Liars' League. His stories “Worms’ Feast” and “Red” were read here and appear in Arachne Press anthologies London Lies & Weird Lies. Plays The Flood and Leaves have been produced on the London stage along with many shorter pieces. Acting work includes the National's production of Consent at the Harold Pinter.
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