Thanks for the input.
“What about that thing?” Wendy asked, pointing at Trixie. Josh noticed the motion and twisted his head as he looked around.
“What? Where?”
“Roland’s got an invisible friend. I can kind of feel where it is. Like a cold spot.”
“It’s a she,” Roland said. “Her name is Trixie.”
Fine, got it.
“Sorry, her name is Tryxannasomething or other. Do not call her Trixie or she’ll get mad. Call her, ah, how about Guide? Can they call you Guide, or Miss Guide? Come to think of it, Miss Guide is probably not the best name.”
Trixie was showing a side of herself Roland hadn’t noticed during their initial interactions. Granted, they had taken place almost a month back from his personal point of view. Maybe he had missed clues. Bad enough that she had rolled the dice when his life had been on the line. He needed to keep in mind that she wasn’t human and didn’t have the same concerns and interests as humans.
And she can hear everything you say, he thought. But not everything I think, maybe. And she didn’t come along to the Chapel. Dungeons are off-limits to her. Will have to look into that.
Trixie didn’t react to those thoughts, so maybe she could only ‘hear’ them when he wanted her to. Or she could and she just had a great poker face. Time would tell.
“Can you make her not invisible? I’d like to see her,” Bob said.
Can I?
Party? Like a dungeon party?
Okay, let’s do that!
“Rolls?”
“No can do right now, sorry,” Roland told them, realizing he had spaced out for several seconds. “It will have to wait until we are in a Dungeon.”
“A Dungeon. Like in D&D? Loot and scoot?”
“Pretty much. More like World of Warcraft, actually, but yeah. Monsters and traps and suchlike.”
Josh’s eyes went back and forth between Roland and Bob as they exchanged what probably sounded like gibberish to him.
Wendy leaned closer to her brother. “It’s kind of like Magic cards,” she told him. “You remember us playing those, don’t you?”
“Okay. D&D, yeah. There was that weird kid, Jackson or Jerrod.”
“Jason.”
“Yeah. He made us play that stuff that one time. Grid paper with tunnel diagrams and shit. I was bored out of my mind. He was a weirdo.”
Yeah, well, if we’re laying odds on who is alive by year’s end, my money is on that weird Jason kid, Roland thought. At least, if you hadn’t run into me.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Okay, Rolls,” Cousin Bob interrupted, using his Dungeon Master voice. That Jason kid would have recognized the tone and probably worried about how tough the encounters were going to be. “Let’s go along with what you’re saying. What is your plan?”
“I ain’t going along with anything,” Josh said.
“Then be quiet and stay out of the way,” Bob told him. “This isn’t a joke.”
Josh didn’t look convinced.
“Let me tell you what I’m thinking, and then I can do some more show and tell, just in case you two aren’t convinced,” Roland said, looking at the siblings. Wendy nodded; Josh looked belligerent.
Yeah, he’s going to need some wall-to-wall counseling. I’ll just try not to put him in the hospital. Then again, I’ve gotten a bunch of healing potions that aren’t any good for me. I could break some fingers and then feed him one of them. A potion, not a finger.
He really wouldn’t do that, but it painted a pleasant image to help him get through this dog and pony show.
“I have a Quest to clear a Dungeon,” he told them. “It’s in West Haven, close to where I live. I was thinking of bringing Bob and a few others with me and clearing it. As soon as you kill something in the Dungeon, I think, the System will bring you in – induction, it’s what they call it – and you can pick a Class, get stat bonuses, even magic.”
“This is the biggest load of bullshit,” Josh growled. “You almost had me, bro, but this is nuts.”
“Okay, tough guy,” Roland said. “Maybe this will convince you.” He stood up. “Hit me as hard as you can.”
“Hey, Rolls,” Bob started to say, but Roland waved him down.
“Hit you, eh?” Josh said, getting up.
Bob leaned forward and helpfully pulled the coffee table toward him, clearing up some room for them to square off. “No blood on my carpet,” he warned them.
“Josh, stop it!” Wendy yelled at him.
“Hey, he just asked for it, Winnie.”
“Yeah,” Roland said. “Hit...”
Before he could get to ‘me,’ Josh kicked him in the groin. Tried to, at least.
Wendy’s annoying brother moved pretty fast, Roland had to admit. His Dexterity was probably 12 or 13, and he’d had some hand-to-hand training, Shotokan Karate or something like that, from the way he launched the snap kick meant to rearrange his family jewels.
To Roland, he was moving in slow motion. Slapping Josh’s foot away and then grabbing him by the back of his shirt as the guy was spun around by the impact was child’s play. His grip on the shirt was the only reason Josh didn’t take a header into the couch Wendy was sitting on.
“I didn’t say kick me,” he told Josh, releasing him.
Josh put some weight on the foot Roland had slapped and fell on one knee, groaning “Fuck. I think it’s broken.”
“Seriously?”
“Josh! Are you okay?” Wendy said, getting up and glaring at Roland.
“I barely slapped his foot.”
He had pulled his slap, but this was the first time he had used his forty-nine Strength on a normal human. The realization that he was probably as strong as a silverback gorilla sent a cold shock down his spine. He could kill somebody by lightly slapping them. Jesus.
“Did you?” Bob asked Roland. “I saw Josh kick you and then he spun around and you had him by the back of his shirt. Never seen someone move so fast.”
“He’s hurt,” Wendy declared, helping Josh onto the couch.
Roland checked Josh’s Health. Sure enough, it was down to seventeen hit points from the original twenty-three and had a Crippled Foot debuff to boot.
“Here,” Roland told him as he produced a Common Health Potion. “Drink this.”
* Health Potion (F-Grade, Common): Restores 20 Health points (6) when ingested. Will reduce the duration of Bleed effects by 10 (3) seconds. Can repair bone fractures and organ damage from injuries or disease but will not restore missing limbs (the numbers in parentheses are the effects on you, due to the Death Affinity penalty).
Bob looked at the red liquid in the bottle like a little kid seeing a mall Santa for the first time. “Is that...”
“Yeah,” Roland said. “Healing potion. You should drink about a third of the bottle.”
Luckily he had a bunch more red bottles, and they were next to useless for him.
“I ain’t drinking that shit,” Josh growled. He had crossed his legs to bring the injured foot off the floor and was staring at it, seemingly nerving himself to pull his work boot off.
“I could splash it over the foot instead. That might work, too.”
“You think?” Wendy said angrily.
Am I right? Roland asked Trixie.
“Okay, my guide said it’ll work, but at half strength, so I’d have to soak his foot with it.”
His attempt to demonstrate how tough he was had gone completely off the rails. Roland glanced at Bob, silently pleading for help.
“Listen up!” Bob shouted in his DM voice. “Rolls, you said he only needs like a third of it?”
“Yeah, just about. He took six points of damage out of twenty-three. The potion heals up to twenty hit points.”
“Hit points,” Bob muttered. “Jesus. Okay, I always have all kinds of aches and pains. All the extra weight, and sitting on my ass all day. My back is always acting out. So how about this? I’ll drink half of it, and if it helps me, Josh, you drink the other half. Deal?”
“And if it don’t do nothin’?” Josh asked.
“Then he will pay for your hospital bill. He’s good for it.”
“Fine.”
Roland handed over the bottle to Bob while using Analyze on him.
Although Bob’s Health was full, he had several minor debuffs: Minor Back Sprain (-10% to Speed), Tennis Elbow, Incipient Arthritis (knees and lower back), and Stomach Ulcers. He wasn’t sure if the potion would fix everything, but Trixie didn’t tell him not to do it, so he watched Bob curiously as he unstoppered the bottle, sniffed its contents, and took a tentative sip. “Tastes a bit like cough syrup.”
“It’s good for you,” Roland said as Analyze updated Bob’s condition. That sip had cured Bob’s Tennis Elbow. If the apocalypse weren’t going to hit the world soon, he could have made more money selling those potions than moving his gold coins.
Bob drank about half of the stuff and handed it back to Roland before standing up.
“It’s sending chills down my back. Oh, my, God!”
“What’s wrong?” Wendy asked.
“My back pain is gone.”
Josh didn’t look convinced, but when Wendy handed him the half-empty bottle, he took a sip, then drank it all down.
“My foot!” Josh looked at the empty bottle in wonder. “Pain’s gone.”
“Maybe I should have just punched you, then given you a healing potion,” Roland said.
Nobody else seemed to think that was a good idea.