A Fiction Friday Exclusive: Avast! The Dungeoneers!

"Why must you always be a pirate?" Ytnmal the Barbarian rumbled. Surly as usual.

"Arrrrh! It's me charactarrrr!" I replied. "Now I kick the dead body of the kobold guardian aside, and I open the rusted gate!"

The dim path continues past the gate, into the shadows of the Haunted Wood.

"Arrrh! Haunted means ghosts! Shiver me hearty timbers, ye scurvy bastards! Forward the Dungeoneers!"

"Maybe we should talk about this a minute. Strategize." Gwen was a powerful sorceress. Always trying to talk sense into the rest of us, in her alarmingly deep voice.

"I concur." Ytnmal took her side as usual.

"Arrrrh, 'I concur!'" I grumbled. "Fine talk for a barbarian!"

The gate clangs shut without being touched. The reverberations of the clang echo down the path, into the deeps of the woods.

"Arrrrh! The forest echoes! Bedamned spooky acoustics for a woods!"

"You should have held the gate," accused Father Pelwort. A holy man. Normally I don't truck with such as he, but his were the skilled hands of a healer - and he was damn handy in an emergency.

"Sorrrrhy, Fatharrh. Arrrh," I said, low and contrite.

"Someone - or some thing - heard that." Observed Nygynygnyg, the half-orc Elfish bowman.

"Get ready for an encounter!" said Ytnmal. "I pull my ringing bastard sword from its scabbard and brandish it two-handed!"

"Arrrh, and a fine sword for you it is!" I replied. "I sheath my cutlass. I'll wait and see whether what comes is friendly, arrrh."

The gate remains shut. Beyond the gate, the path is as still and silent as a tomb, strewn with motionless mist. Nothing approaches.

"Arrrh..." I began. The others all looked to me for elaboration.

"Just 'Arrrh.'" I concluded.

"I call a vote," said Ytnmal.

"Arrrh, democracy!" I enthused. "Hallmark of barbarism!"

"Quit it with the snide, Geoffrey! Always criticizing my character! Your pirate accent is a joke!"

"Arrrh, be not calling me 'Geoffrey', 'Ytnmal.'" My accent was ringingly accurate, my tone unconcerned by his baseless criticism.

"I'm sorry. It would help if you picked a less-stupid name!" rejoined the surly and uncouth barbarian.

"Arrrh, that shivers it! I draw forth me cutlass, ringing from me scabbard! Roll for surprise!"

"No fighting, guys!" interposed Father Pelwort. "We need teamwork if we're going to survive this adventure."

"Quit it you two, or I'll turn you both into shambling mounds!" Gwen the Powerful Sorceress raised her hand in a cramped, arcane gesture.

"Why would you turn them into something that could kill us?" queried Nygynygynyg.

"Arrrh, I'll stand down. I lower my cutlass."

"Wise move, pirate," Ytnmal glowered.

"Arrrh, your rippling thews persuaded me," I confessed. Ytnmal seemed unreasonably pleased by this admission.

A booming crack echoes up the path, from deep within the haunted woods. Then another, closer and with audible splintering. Something is coming up the path. Something too big to get through without violence to the trees on either side.

"Arrrh, defensive positions! I conceal myself behind the large, overhanging rock."

"I spring nimbly to the top of the rock and fit an arrow to my bowstring. Do my keen half-orcish Elfish eyes see the creature?"

Not yet. Obscured by foliage. From your vantage point atop the rock, you can see treetops thrashing in the forest's low canopy - the disturbance moving forward as the rumbling, cracking booms advance!

"I back up to the mouth of the glen and rummage my satchel, drawing forth the material components for the 'Hold Monster' spell!"

"I take a wide stance, brandishing my holy cudgel while muttering a quick benediction on us all."

The benediction is successful. +1 to everyone's saves.

"Arrrh, +1! +2 would be better."

Father Pelwort shot me a reproachful look.

"Sorrrrhy, Fatharrrh."

The booming and splintering draws nearer - less than a hundred yards off. There is a metallic shriek. Nygynygnyg, you can see branches and small limbs flung upwards from the canopy by the furious progress of the unknown entity!

"That thing sounds big. I sheath my bastard sword and ready my long, sturdy pike." Ytnmal was a versatile barbarian, always switching up his weapons.

You can all see it now, dimly glimpsed between the trees - not on the path at all, but a bit to the side - it's way too big for the path!

"What's it look like?" Nygynygnyg asked. To no one in particular.

It's too much to take in. Manlike in form - smooth, metal limbs, bolted and hinged. A single eye glowing like a furnace! Pipes jutting from its torso, whistling steam as it sunders and flings trees aside with jointed, clawed hands...

"A robot?" spat Ytnmal.

"Arrrh, it's a locomotive-man."

"I'm so sick of this steam-punk fixation, Garry! It's totally not appropriate to the setting!" Ytnmal protested.

He gets to be a PIRATE...!

"Arrrh, steady there Garry, piracy has been with us in all places and times!"

"Guys, it's an iron golem, okay?" Gwen the Sorceress interjected, exasperatedly. "This thing's going to kill us while we argue over whether it should exist."

"Oh," said Ytnmal. "Iron golem, sure. Okay."

"Ready yer weapons, me hearties!" I cried from my defensive position, behind the large, overhanging rock. "Charge the big, clumsy bugger!"

The rusted gate crashed aside with one swipe of the thing's spiked fist. With a grim battle shout, the five stout adventurers sprang into action like a well-oiled machine.

"Forward the Dungeoneers!" I cried.