The Cursed Codex Read online

  “If I lived for that long, I would, too.” Elliot belched.

  “You’ll be lucky to live ’til fifty,” said Ashur.

  “Yeah, but it’ll be fifty happy, bacon-cheeseburger-filled years instead of ninety miserable adult-diaper and oatmeal years.” Elliot patted his belly again.

  “Heck with it. Saldiri wizard,” said Carlos.

  “Their biggest stat bonuses go to Speed and Dexterity.” Tira blinked at him, but after a second, shrugged. “Okay, well the dex would help you hit stuff with targeted spells, and I guess dodge. The Veimari have the best stats for wizards. Their strongest bonuses go to Intelligence and Willpower.”

  “Wow.” Carlos stared at her.

  “So, can I play?” asked Tira.

  Carlos shrugged while nodding. Elliot muttered, “Sure,” and Keith smiled.

  Ashur scribbled something on his character sheet. “Not like you’ll be here a second time anyway.”

  She gave him a look as if he’d kicked her cat. “What?”

  “You’re gonna get bored with it.” Ashur rolled his eyes. “Like you do with everything else.”

  “Nuh uh,” said Tira.

  “You will.”

  Tira set her hands on her hips. “Nuh uh.”

  “Guys, guys, guys,” blurted Elliot. “Enough with the little kid crap.”

  “But she is a little kid.” Ashur gestured at her.

  “And I’m adorable.” Tira smiled, twisting her hair around her finger.

  Keith snickered.

  “So wait, dude.” Elliot looked at Carlos. “You’re not gonna make a barbarian or a warrior?”

  “Why, because I’m big and strong in real life? I’m basically a warrior for real… other than not knowing how to swordfight. The whole point of this is to try out different stuff.” Carlos grabbed a handful of dice. “Right?”

  “Exactly why El’s making a healer. He wants to see what ‘useful’ feels like.” Ashur grinned.

  Elliot picked at his eye with his middle finger.

  “Besides.” Ashur flexed his string bean arms. “I’m the mighty warrior already.”

  Once the laughter subsided, everyone grabbed dice and started rolling. The pouch had a massive amount of six-siders, enough for all four of them to roll up stats at the same time.

  Keith gestured at each person in turn. “Okay, so, El’s doing a chanter, Carlos a wizard, Tira’s the thief—”

  “Rogue,” said Tira.

  “Right, rogue. And Ash is the warrior. Sounds like a perfect party.” Keith blinked. “You guys sure you never did this before?”

  Four innocent faces stared at him.

  “Okay then.” Keith made a chart for the player characters. “What are you gonna name them?”

  “Grabassius the yellow,” said Ashur. “Do you own any shirts that aren’t yellow?”

  “Bite me, Ash,” said Elliot past a laugh. “Umm. How ’bout Docar for the name?”

  “Dude, ‘doc’ ar? Really?” Ashur chuckled.

  “Whatever. It sounds okay. Just say it like ‘dough-car’ instead of like doctor.” Keith jotted down ‘Docar – Genndi Chanter’ on the first line of his chart. Once everyone finished calculating their stats, he’d put down their saves and perception skill bonuses so he could make checks in the background without them knowing something bad was about to happen.

  “Tira Shadow,” said Tira.

  “That’s your real name, doofus.” Ashur poked her in the side. “Make something up.”

  “I like my name. And I did make something up. My name isn’t ‘Shadow.’”

  He poked her again. “It’s still your name.”

  “Come on, Ash. She’s nine.” Carlos rolled a handful of dice. “She could’ve said something lame like Princess Bunnystar or something.”

  “I like my name.” Tira folded her arms.

  “It’s cool.” Keith added ‘Tira Shadow – half-elf rogue’ to line two.

  “Fuegor the Magnificent,” said Carlos.

  Keith chuckled. “At level one?”

  “Fuegor the Moderately Remarkable,” asked Elliot.

  “Okay, fine.” Carlos waved a hand around as if casting spells. “Just Fuegor for now.”

  “Cool.” Keith added ‘Fuegor – Saldiri wizard’ to the chart.

  “Nasir the Bold,” said Ashur. “He’s a Norn.”

  According to the books, the Norn were a strong and hardy people who lived in the arctic highlands, though ‘Nasir’ didn’t sound like the name of a giant, hairy Viking. No one bothered to comment.

  Keith got up and walked around the table, helping everyone (except Tira who’d already finished) calculate their saves and stat bonuses, select skills and such. A few hours, and his mother ordering pizza later, everyone had more or less finished with character creation.

  “Now what?” asked Carlos.

  “Now…” Keith settled back in his chair and held his hands up like an evil wizard. “We begin.”

  6

  The NPC

  The Hog and Mare tavern sat at the center of the village of Sondemere. A roaring fire in the hearth warmed the room and covered the walls in dancing shadows. In the midst of barmaids carrying food, drunk farmers singing, and the quiet murmur of conversation, four adventurers sat together at a long table.

  Nasir the Bold, a powerfully built man with a thick black beard and bulging muscles downed his third ale before slamming the stein onto the table. His scale mail armor clattered with the motion, as did the pair of swords he wore crossed upon his back.

  Across from him, the slim but graceful Fuegor, a dark-skinned Saldiri elf with long black hair and jade eyes, perused a spellbook while nibbling at a bit of meat impaled on the end of his fork. He wore robes of brilliant orange and gold, bedecked with pouches and scroll cases. As light as air, the loose elven garment flowed whenever he moved.

  At the end of the table sat Tira Shadow, a short woman in leather armor bedecked with throwing knives, also with dark skin and black hair.

  “I’m white,” said a little girl’s voice from nowhere. “My eyes are gold, like the metal.”

  Tira Shadow’s skin faded from dark brown to a light tan and her eyes took on a lustrous metallic sheen. She looked at her hands, evidently disturbed by the rapid change of color. “What just happened?”

  Seated at Nasir’s left, the great form of the chanter, Docar, defied the chair to hold him.

  Children’s disembodied voices laughed somewhere in the distance.

  “Dude, not funny,” said the voice of a nonexistent boy.

  Nasir, Fuegor, and Tira looked up.

  “I’m not making fun of you,” said an invisible Spirit Boy from the other side. “Genndi are like part earth-elemental. They weigh a lot more than humans. You’re not fat; you’re dense. Oh, did you go grey or brown skin?”

  Again, the kids laughed.

  “Not that kind of dense, guys” said the phantom boy. “And uhh, grey.”

  Docar looked down at himself as his skin went from a light shade of human to stone grey. When standing, he reached a touch over seven feet tall, with noticeable, but not bulging muscles. Completely bald, as most of his kind were, his head shone in the firelight from torches around the walls. “I’m not fat. Am I?”

  “No, of course not,” said Fuegor.

  Docar’s chair creaked, making him sigh. “Everyone’s a critic.”

  A farmer wandering by, glancing at Tira. He whistled.

  Tira started to return a coy grin, but her expression went stunned when a disembodied little girl voice let out a cry of “Eww!”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Spirit Boy.

  “I’m a kid!” shouted the phantom girl.

  “No,” said Spirit Boy, “your character’s eighteen.”

  “I don’t wanna be eighteen,” wailed the invisible girl. “That’s like so old. Can I be fifteen?”

  Docar glanced around, one eyebrow raised, and offered an ‘I have no idea either’ shrug at the others.

  “Ev
eryone’s like seventeen or eighteen,” said Spirit Boy.

  “My guy’s nineteen,” said a boy ghost.

  Nasir’s facial hair thickened. He seemed perplexed by the change, and scratched at it.

  “So?” yelled the invisible little girl. “The starting age can be fourteen, which is still way old. It says it in the Player’s Compendium.”

  Spirit Boy sighed. “Fine.”

  “What is this voice?” muttered Nasir the Bold. “Are we haunted?”

  Fuegor shrugged. “Pay it no mind.”

  Tira shrank, aging backward from eighteen-ish to about fifteen, her chest deflating like a balloon with a slow leak. “Aah!” She grabbed herself. “What’s going on?”

  Nasir, Fuegor, and Docar exchanged glances before shrugging.

  “How did we all wind up together at this table? Who are you people?” asked Tira while adjusting her spontaneously-resized armor. “And who magicked me younger?”

  “It was not I,” said Fuegor. “I believe we are all here for the same reason.”

  Docar’s eyes widened. “The Devouring.”

  Every commoner in the Hog and Mare froze in stunned silence.

  “Dude, too much,” whispered another invisible boy. “And we don’t know that yet.”

  “It’s right there on the notebook,” replied a different disembodied voice.

  Again, the heroes exchanged confused stares.

  The commoners went back to what they were doing as if nothing had happened.

  Docar’s eyes widened. “For adventure!”

  “This place is quite cursed,” muttered Tira Shadow, still looking around for the unseen children.

  Nasir the Bold waved his empty ale mug at the bartender. “’Tis not the first time I’ve wound up in a tavern drinking and eating with fellow adventurers.”

  A pair of heavyset men, richly dressed in blue and purple velvet, entered and walked over to a table in the back. Tira Shadow turned her head, smiling at them as they passed, though neither paid her any mind.

  Fuegor looked around for a moment or two. “No one appears to be talking about much of interest, yet surely something must be going on if we’re gathered here.”

  Docar’s distant stare came to an abrupt end when he whirled to the left and pointed at a notice board with a few papers tacked to it. “There. The proclamation board.”

  The group made their way over to a part of the wall where bits of scroll hung from nails or daggers.

  Nasir grasped the bottom of the largest. “The king is offering five—”

  “You’re illiterate,” said Spirit Boy.

  A different boy grumbled, “I can read.”

  “Did you take the literacy perk?” asked Spirit Boy.

  The faint sound of rustling paper emanated from overhead while Nasir went cross-eyed.

  “What goes on?” whispered Docar.

  “I’ve not the slightest,” muttered Fuegor.

  “Fine, fine,” snapped the other ghostly boy.

  Nasir the Bold blinked at the parchment, befuddled. “This one’s the biggest, so it must be important. What’s it say?”

  Fuegor stepped up in front of him. “I believe I can read this. It appears King Welland is offering a sum of five thousand gold to anyone who can put an end to the Devouring. The dark wizard Yzil sends forth a wave of evil that is consuming the land and killing all it touches.”

  “So we’re going to run into this death cloud?” asked Nasir.

  “Aren’t you Nasir the Bold?” Docar grinned. “And yes, I believe we shall. Those people need help.”

  “Very well,” said Fuegor. “I shall assist you.”

  A strange tumbling noise went by overhead, as though someone had dropped a small rock on the ceiling.

  “Thief!” shouted a man in the back of the room.

  Tira Shadow, standing by the wealthy men’s table, flashed a cheesy grin, her hand on one of the men’s pouches.

  “Guards!” roared the man. “Thief!”

  A disembodied little girl voice burst into tears. “That’s not fair! I rolled a two.”

  “It’s the risk,” said Spirit Boy.

  Two men in chain mail armor tromped in, holding broadswords. Both shouted, “Halt!”

  Fuegor raised both eyebrows. “The guards in this town are unusually swift. It’s as if they appeared from thin air.”

  “I don’t wanna go to jail!” cried the disembodied little girl. “Please forget I did that. Please!?”

  “Oh, fine.” Spirit Boy sighed. “It’ll just slow things down anyway.”

  Tira Shadow vanished from where she stood by the merchants and popped back into existence between Docar and Nasir. Both merchants appeared to have forgotten about her failed attempt to pickpocket them, and the guardsmen faded away.

  The rogue wiped sweat from her forehead and flashed an apologetic, overacted smile. “Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

  Nasir the Bold cleared his throat. “So what must we do?”

  Fuegor examined the parchment. “It says only to stop the coming darkness.”

  Tira Shadow walked over to the bar. “Good day, fine sir. What know ye of the Devouring?”

  “Last I ’ear,” said the bartender, “it’s gettin’ pretty close ta Narwick.”

  Docar wandered around, gazing at people one after the next.

  “What are you doing?” asked Fuegor, sounding bored.

  “Looking for floating exclamation points,” said Docar.

  Ghostly children’s laughter emanated from near the ceiling.

  “What is that?” whispered Nasir. “That is most unnerving. Is this tavern haunted?”

  Fuegor shrugged.

  “Oh.” Docar straightened. “My mistake.” He approached table after table, striking up conversations with the locals.

  One or two mentioned they’d heard rumors that dark creatures had been spotted roaming around to the north, and a few other ‘adventurers’ who had gone off to investigate have never returned. When Docar returned to the group and shared this information, Tira Shadow folded her arms.

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Nor I,” said Nasir the Bold.

  Fuegor checked over his numerous pouches of magical reagents. “It’s settled then.”

  “Quite.” Docar nodded. “Let us go.”

  The group walked along a northerly road leading away from the Town of Sondemere. Nasir rambled on about having six brothers, he the second youngest, and the strongest. Fuegor spoke little of his home among the Saldiri people, only mentioning that of his hundred-and-sixty-four years of life, he had seen things the others couldn’t imagine.

  “Wow, you’re old,” said Tira Shadow. “Why are you visiting taverns looking for adventure if you’ve seen so much?”

  Docar raised a finger. “To his people, that age is the same as a human of sixteen. He’s not as old as you think.”

  Fuegor sighed.

  A few hours after leaving the town, they reached a bend in the dirt road where the ruins of a building stood. The group came to a stop, surveying the destroyed structure. That pebble-rolling-across-the-ceiling noise happened again. This, of course, confused everyone as they currently found themselves outside gazing up at clear, blue sky and a pronounced lack of a ceiling. While they stared at fluffy, white clouds in total bewilderment, Tira blinked and pointed at the bushes ahead and shouted, “Orcs!”

  Grumbling, three fat-bodied creatures with green skin, pig-like snouts, and crude leather armor stood out of the shrubs where they had been hiding. The middle one had reddish hair, and all three of them smelled horrible.

  Nasir drew his twin broadswords, let off a war cry, and rushed at the orcs. He attacked twice, once with each blade, but came nowhere near them. Fuegor raised his hands and hurled a small stream of flames into the chest of Orc3, who howled in pain.

  Orc1 charged Nasir and walloped him in the shoulder with giant axe, leaving a small gouge in his armor.

  “Oof,” shouted the warrior as he staggered back. />
  Tira started to creep into the tall grass, but stepped on a twig, which broke with a loud snap.

  Orc2, the one with red hair, rushed over and grabbed her. The enormous orc lifted the slender half-elf with ease and threw her headfirst into a barrel by the ruined building, while chortling. “Thief in the trash.”

  Time froze as a sense of awkwardness settled over everything.

  “Why are we standing still?” whispered Docar.

  Fuegor shrugged.

  “I know. I know,” whispered Spirit Boy. “Here, you get to beat them up.”

  The weird mood faded. Tira Shadow’s growl emanated from the barrel.

  Nasir attacked the red-haired orc, but missed twice again.

  Orc1 shrugged and ran past Nasir to swing at Docar, but the axe blade thudded against the Genndi’s chest without cutting him. The chanter grunted from the impact, then punched the orc, causing an explosion of blood from its nostrils.

  “Burn, foul wretch!” shouted Fuegor as he threw another fire bolt into the chest of Orc3, causing the beast-man to erupt in flames. It fell, howling in agony, to the ground.

  Orc2 smashed his axe into Nasir’s side.

  “Oof, he’s getting his butt kicked,” said a disembodied boy’s voice.

  Nasir the Bold swooned to one knee, gasping for breath.

  Tira appeared out of nowhere standing behind Orc2. The creature’s eyes crossed and it fell over sideways.

  “Hah!” shouted Tira, her knife coated in green blood, before kicking it in the head. “Take that!”

  Orc1 swung again at Docar, but the big man ducked. Nasir powered back to his feet and charged the orc. His right hand sword missed yet again, but the left one came straight down over the creature’s head, cutting the orc in half and setting off an explosion of blood that sprayed everyone.

  “Can I get a dodge save?” asked a ghostly little girl voice.

  The rolling-pebble noise happened again.

  Tira Shadow went from blood soaked to perfectly clean, and slid a few feet to the side behind a barrel.