Lost In Arkhasia: Section I

Okay, here we go; I'm posting the first little scene of this book I'm working on for JulNoWriMo. Enjoy! I will be posting these excerpts and information until August, when I will take my webcomic off of hiatus and focus on it as my primary creative project.

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Lost in Arkhasia

Part One: Games We Play

Chapter One: Friday Night Games

It wasn’t a particularly spacious apartment; the hallways were narrow despite the owner’s painting them white in an attempt at conveying the illusion of space. This attempt was counteracted by the line of large posters lined up along the right side of the hallway, each one put up by the apartment’s current occupant. The posters displayed an assortment of images taken from popular films, and each one was lined up in chronological order according to release date. Moving down the hall, a casual observer would have noticed such titles as The Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner, and episodes four, five and six of Star Wars. All of these posters, and a number of others lined along the wall, were framed and covered with glass, presumably to protect them from any undue wear and tear. The posters covered the wall from the front door all the way to a door at the other end of the hall, which, on this particular evening, was slightly ajar. A soft yellow light shone from the gap, and voices could be heard from within the room on the other side.
The room wasn’t large; it could hold only a long wooden oblong table and an assortment of chairs. A door opposite the hallway was open and led to what was apparently a very small and messy kitchen, as dishes were piled up along what little counter space was available.
The main room was currently full of people, a half-a-dozen total, all of them somehow comfortably seated around the table, which, much like the kitchen counters, was covered with an assortment of seemingly random items. Among the candy bar wrappers, empty bottles of mountain dew and scattered pencils, there also sat piles of printed pages, each labeled with names and covered with numbers. A number of large books were also piled up among the random food items, all of them hard-backed and with different titles, though they all bore the same logo at the top of the front cover: the words Dungeons and Dragons, with a sword cutting between the two.
At the head of the table, one of the room’s occupants was typing something on their laptop, a beat-up looking Dell whose screen appeared to have been mended a few times over with silver duct tape. He was slightly overweight, with short brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were bright blue and staring intently at the words he had just typed. He wore a pensive expression on his pale face, and when he finally spoke to the rest of the group, his voice held a tone of authority in it: “Okay,” he said, raising his eyes from the computer screen to look at the over five people seated around the table. “The dragon looks to be on it’s last legs; that frost spell did considerable damage to its hide. Alric, it’s your initiative.”
He nodded to a tall, thin boy seated opposite him at the foot of the table, whose dark brown hair was disheveled from what one would assume was a severe lack of a hairbrush. His eyes were an intense grey, and they studied a piece of paper for a moment before he spoke in a clear baritone: “All right Max,” he picked up a small twenty-sided die and began shaking it in his hand. “I’m going to take a five foot step and swing at it with my spiked chain.”
The first boy, presumably Max, leaned over the top of his computer towards the item that took up the most space on the table, a large grid that held a half-a-dozen miniature figures, one of which was a large red dragon. He moved the small figure of a blonde man with a sword backwards and then looked up again, addressing his companion opposite him. “Roll your attack then.” He said.
His companion shook the die between his fingers for a brief moment, and then dropped it in front of him for everyone to see. It rolled around for a few seconds, then landed solidly displaying the number fourteen. “Does a 26 hit?” he asked Max after glancing down at the papers in front of him.
Max looked almost disappointed to hear the result. “Yes Eric, that hits. And your damage?”
Eric grabbed two four-sided dice and rolled them across the table so they landed next to his other die. They both landed on the number four, and Eric smiled. “Max damage,” he said triumphantly. “Seventeen points.”
Max looked back at his computer screen and typed down some notes, making calculations in his head. “Okay,” he said. “That’s just enough to kill it. You swing with your spiked chain and embed it into the dragon’s brain, killing it instantly. It falls to the ground at your feet.”
The rest of the table erupted with cheers and sighs of relief; the other four players threw their hands up into the air with delight, while others leaned over to slap Eric on the back.
“Nice shot Eric!” said the boy sitting directly to Eric’s right, who was also tall but with blonde hair which fell almost to his shoulders.
“Yeah, that was awesome!” the girl to his left said, her light brown hair falling across her face as she did so, causing her to pull it back with her fingers with mild exasperation crossing her face. The other two players also expressed congratulations; the boy seated to Max’s left leaned over to give Eric a high-five, and the other girl, whose hair was pulled back a long braid hanging over her shoulder, exposing the fact that she was wearing a pair of elf ears, let out a soft “huzzah!”
Max coughed to get his players’ attention, then looked down again at his computer to check on what was going to happen next. “All right,” he said, as the other five people around the table settled down. “The dragon is dead. Are you guys going to look around the lair for the statue the prince sent you after?”
Eric nodded. “Sounds good to me. Faith,” he said, looking over at the girl sitting to his immediate left. “You go check for traps to make sure we don’t get killed by something while we look.”
Faith picked up her own twenty-sided die, which was bright blue and sparkly. “Right,” she said, looking down at her own pile of papers. “I’ll search for traps.”
“You going to take twenty?” Max asked her as she checked the sheet of paper for the right numbers she needed.
“Yeah,” Faith said, nodding and once again brushing her hair out of her face. “We have enough time now that the dragon’s dead.”
“You find no traps,” Max said, double-checking his screen to make sure he was correct.
“Awesome,” Eric said, his tone enthusiastic; clearly he had been looking forward to this part all evening. “Grab the statue and the rest of the loot and then let’s get out of here. We can make it back to Kharastor if we hurry.”
The boy to his right spoke up, his voice slightly higher-pitched than Erics: “Dude, we can’t leave right away; this was a young red dragon, so it’s already managed to amass a decent-sized hoard.”
“Really?” the other boy asked, looking uncertain behind his round glasses. “I wouldn’t think Dragons would have much of a hoard when they’re young.”
Both boys looked over at Eric, who they clearly had deemed the authority on the subject. “Dave,” he said, addressing the uncertain boy close to the head of the table. “Dragons start amassing their hoard pretty much as soon as they’re capable of going forth into the world and looting and burning things and taking all their stuff. Right Keith?” he asked, looking to the blonde boy at his right for confirmation.
“Pretty much,” Keith agreed, nodding. “But I still think we should gather up the rest of the treasure. The Statue of Alk’hanzatt is worth something to the prince, sure, but he didn’t say we couldn’t take the rest of the hoard for ourselves.”
“Well,” Faith chimed in, sounding concerned. “Shouldn’t we check with the Prince first to see if he didn’t want it?”
“He only asked for the statue,” the other girl, the one with elf ears, pointed out. “He didn’t say anything about the rest of it, and I bet there’s some good spellbooks in that hoard.”
“Don’t get too excited Jess,” Max pointed out as he continued typing at his computer. “It wasn’t that old a dragon.”
The girl, Jess, seemed almost to ignore his words, as if it hadn’t registered that she had been addressed.
“Dude,” Keith whispered from the other side of the table. “We’re still in-game. You know she never answers to Jess when we’re in-game.”
Max sighed, and across the table Eric rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t get too excited, Ariana,” he addressed Jess by the name of her Elven wizard, causing her to perk up instantly. “It wasn’t that old a dragon.”
Jess shrugged. “Dragons do collect magical tomes,” she said. “I know they do.”
“Well, sure,” Max said, shrugging also. “When they’re hundreds of years old. This one’s barely out of being a wyrmling.”
“Aw, nuts,” Jess said, looking disappointed. “Too bad.”
“Spellbooks or not, the hoard’s ours for the grabbing, Eric said, obviously keen on the prospect of so much treasure. “So who brought bags of holding?”
“There’s no way you can fit an entire hoard into a bag of holding,” Keith said, shaking his head at his friend.
“That’s why we’ll use more than one!” Eric responded with enthusiasm.
Keith looked over at Max, clearly wanting the Dungeon Master’s word on this one. “Can we do that?” he asked.
Max nodded. “Sure,” he said. “If there’s enough room in all your bags combined, and even then you’ll probably need to carry extra in your packs. But otherwise, sure.”
Eric and Keith both smiled. “Sweet,” Eric said. “Let’s get started.”
Max sighed and began picking up books. “Guess I’d better start looking up the listings for a CR 10 hoard then.” He said as the others began figuring out just how much room they had between their extradimensional bags.
After twenty minutes of bickering and assigning amounts of treasure to each member of the party, the group finally made their way back to the city of Kharastor, where they were granted an audience with Prince Theo. Max normally would have taken more time to describe the journey back to the city, but it had been a long night and he was ready to wrap the session up. He addressed the group with a slightly different tone in his voice, hoping to emphasize to them that he was now addressing them not as Max the DM, but as the Prince.
“I am pleased to see you’ve found the idol in the dragon’s hoard,” he said, keeping his voice steady and smooth. “Your swift following of my instructions is appreciated. I will add an extra twenty percent to your usual payment to express my sincerest thanks to you all.”
Eric and Keith smiled at each other and then, as one man, raised their hands to their heads.
“Sweet,” Eric said. “That’ll give us enough money to buy new magic items in town!”
“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “And I can donate enough money to the Temple to help them fix that leaky roof.”
“I still think you guys look ridiculous when you put your hands on your heads like that,” Dave said from his spot next to Keith.
“Hey,” Keith shrugged, hand still firmly planted on top of his head. “This way Max won’t screw us over if we say something in-game our character’s wouldn’t mean to say.”
“Like if you guys were to start talking about assassinating the prince right in front of him?” Dave asked.
“Yep,” Keith nodded. “If we were gonna do that, we’d keep our hands on our heads.”
“So you guys aren’t assassinating the Prince?” Max asked, looking up from his computer.
“Not at all,” Keith said, raising the hand from the top of his head and waving at Max with it. “As you were DM.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Right,” he said. “The Prince is waiting for your response.”
“Ah,” Eric coughed and composed himself. “We appreciate your generous offer, good Prince, and are glad we can provide these services for you. We hope we can continue this arrangement and provide these…” he paused for a moment, smiling. “Covert services for you in the future.”
“Kiss-ass,” Keith muttered, smirking.
“Shut your hole Keith,” Eric said, quickly touching his hand to his head and sticking his tongue out at his friend.
“The Prince bows his head graciously at you,” Max said. “And tells you that he will notify the five of you when your services are needed further.”
“So that’s it for the evening?” Jess asked, looking slightly disappointed.
“That’s all folks,” Max nodded, closing a few documents on his laptop. “Unless of course you guys want to tell him about the hoard.”
The group pondered this for a moment, then Faith spoke up:
“I think we should tell him,” she said. “He’s the prince, and you never know, he might be nice enough to let us keep all the treasure.”
“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Jess said, looking slightly happier now that they were continuing for a brief while. “Prince Arkhstead may be known for his generosity, but he is also known for his lust for power and desire for valued artifacts. We might miss out on unique and powerful items we would otherwise prefer to keep. Like spellbooks.” she added, glaring at Eric as he rolled his eyes again.
“But we want him to keep hiring us!” Faith insisted. “If we do this, then he’ll hire us again and we can get another raise!”
“Or,” Dave said. “We could just keep the hoard, and that would be our raise.”
“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “We really don’t need to get in any better with the Prince than we’ve already gotten.”
“Yeah,” Dave said. “This way we’ll just miss out on good loot. Like spellbooks.” He nodded to Jess, who nodded back with approval.
There was a pause as the other four members of the group turned to look at Eric, who seemed to be pondering the best course of action. Finally he spoke:
“I say we give it up.” He said, causing everyone at the table, even Max, to do a double take.
“Huh?”
“Faith’s right,” Eric said. “We could get in better with the prince, and besides, it’s mostly just some gems and gold pieces. Nothing special.”
Max raised an eyebrow, but said nothing to Eric, looking instead at Faith, who was still in a mild state of shock. “All right. Faith, you want to tell the prince about the hoard you guys brought back with you?”
Faith still looked a little confused, but she smiled all the same: “Yes!” She turned to face Max directly. “Your highness, while slaying the dragon, we were fortunate enough to acquire not only the idol you wanted but also the dragons hoard.”
“Really?” Max said, still speaking in the tone of Prince Theo. “Well, that is quite a find. Thank you for informing me of your fortune. I’m sure many of the items the dragon held within its lair will be of much value to Kharastor. You may stop by the treasury on the way out to deposit the hoard and collect your rewards. I shall summon you within the month for any other tasks I will want you to carry out.”
Keith sighed as Max finished speaking, placing his hand on his head before speaking. “Great,” he said. “There goes our loot.”
“Oh quit your bitching,” Faith said, also placing her hand on her head. “We get a huge amount of gold just from killing the damn dragon. What’s a little loot from a hoard compared to that?”
“A dragon’s hoard is better than gold!” Keith insisted, keeping his hand on his head. “It’s jewels and tomes and… I don’t know, long lost arks of the covenant and stuff like that!”
“Dude, don’t worry about it,” Eric said to Keith. “Let’s just deposit the treasure and get our cash.”
“I can’t believe your actually agreeing with me on this one Eric,” Faith said, still looking surprised.
“Faith,” Eric said, turning to face her. “Sometimes you have good ideas. And I respect your need to enact those good ideas.”
“Even if her good ideas involve getting into the Prince’s pants?” Keith muttered, loudly enough for only Dave to hear.
“Shhh!” Dave said, looking around nervously in the hope that Faith hadn’t heard them.
“Awesome!” Faith said, clearly pleased that something had gone her way. “I’ll be right back guys; bathroom!” She pushed back her chair and headed for the door that led into the kitchen.
Eric watched her leave, then addressed the DM. “Right. Max, are we done at the treasury?”
“Sure,” Max said. “Why?”
“I want to go find the local alchemist and the highest level wizard in the area,” Eric said.
“Any particular reason?” Max asked, eyebrow raised.
Eric smiled, looking smug. “To show them the red dragon corpse I stuffed into my bag of holding.”
The rest of the group, Max included, all looked at him in total shock. “Guh?”
“I had the extra room after I hacked it up, and I figured it’d fetch a pretty price.” Eric was grinning from ear-to-ear now, looking more smug by the minute.
Keith was looking at Eric, his eyes filling with glee. “How much of a pretty price?” he asked, hope in his voice.
“Far more than the price of a dragon’s hoard my friend,” Eric said, still grinning. “Much, much more.”
Keith stared at him for a minute, saying nothing. “Dude…” he finally said. “I could kiss you.”
Max shook his head, a tad bewildered, but composed himself. “Right,” he said. “So you get the dragon parts sold off and they can be made into whatever you want, so long as the overall value of the dragon is divided evenly among you.”
“Awesome,” Eric rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. “We’ll want dragonhide armor for sure, and maybe some dragonbone weapons.”
“I’d like to keep some parts for spell components and study,” Jess chimed in, looking happier now that they had more for loot than simple gold. “Dragons are inherently magical creatures.”
“Awesome!” Dave said. “I’d like some dragonhide armor. Wearing a dragon sounds badass.”
“So,” Keith addressed Max with some hesitancy. “Does Faith get a cut?”
Max, looking through a sourcebook, did not glance up as he spoke. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said. “She gave her cut to the Prince.”
Keith’s facial expression was joyous. “I could kiss you too.”
Max looked up long enough to glare at him. “Don’t even think about it.”

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Section II will post on Friday morning!

NOTE: D&D is the property of Wizards of the Coast; everything else is copyright © Lora Hibbard 2009.