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  People were staring, he realized. Looking down, Gary saw that he wasn’t dressed like any of them. He was still wearing his favorite sweatshirt, emblazoned with his garage band’s vanity swag—a pair of crossed swords impaling a quarter note—plus jeans and work boots.

  If this was a vivid dream, he wished he could have at least cosplayed for it.

  He spotted them in the back corner of the tavern. Darryl caught his eye first, both for being among the outnumbered black-skinned patrons in this far northern city and for being half a head taller than his companions. Gary opened his mouth to call out but stopped short.

  This wasn’t the Darryl he knew. Darryl might have been over six feet with room to spare, but he was built like a stick figure. The version of him sitting there with a foaming mug of ale in hand filled out the suit of armor he wore, and the corded muscle at his neck supported a shaved head with a jawline that you could bend horseshoes around.

  Gary studied the rest of the table from a discreet spot next to the wall.

  Kim wore fine chainmail covered in a tabard emblazoned with the holy symbol of Sevius with a pendant bearing the same image around her neck. She looked just the same as she had at the gaming table except for her hair. Rather than unadorned and straight, her glossy black locks hung in a long braid draped across her shoulder and plaited with ribbons in the colors of her goddess. It was a good look on her and something that the real-world Kim wouldn’t have dared try.

  At Kim’s side was Katie. Taller and slimmer than the Katie who’d been holding Caspian, her features had sharpened, and her eyes had brightened to a vivid green. The mop of wavy blonde hair had straightened and lengthened, pulled back in a ponytail to expose a pair of gracefully pointed ears. Her leather armor hugged a figure that Katie couldn’t have pulled off even before her pregnancy. At her feet, a wolf puppy gnawed on a ham bone.

  But it was Marty that had Gary covering his mouth to keep from bursting out in laughter. Marty was a halfling. That giant, tubby blowhard was half his real-world height, clean shaven, and boasting a mop of untamed brown hair.

  There was no sign of Zane.

  “Bet he’s the reason I’m here,” Gary muttered softly.

  Wonderment and awe had forestalled questions over what exactly was going on here. Now that he’d had a moment to think, the most likely cause was some sort of hallucinogen. That strange gas in the glass ball was probably some exotic drug, which meant that Gary—and presumably everyone else—was stoned out of his mind right then. If that were true, the alternate versions of his friends were his own imagination as they’d have been in their own trippy nightmares, not Gary’s.

  Not that this was anything like a bad trip, now that he considered it.

  And if his imagination was Freudian at all, Kim and Katie both being smoking hot probably meant something. Then again, putting himself in a pair of hetero-female boots, Darryl was doing a little smoldering of his own, rocking the bald badass look.

  Steeling himself and trying to get into character with the campaign world, Gary strode over to the table his buddies shared. “Greetings, friends. Is this seat taken?”

  Darryl looked up at him, though “up” was a short distance for the towering paladin. “Thou look as if thou knowest us. Perchance have we met elsewhere?” He turned to his fellows. “Havest any of thee met this fellow?”

  Kim shook her head, those dark brown eyes never leaving Gary. “I wouldn’t have forgotten an odd one such as him.”

  Licking her lips, Katie sized him up shamelessly. “Not bad for a human, but I can’t say I know him.”

  Marty elbowed him in the hip and whispered from the side of his mouth. “Hand over 20 gold and I’ll vouch for you.”

  Darryl clapped him on the shoulder. “Worry not, friend. We companions are but newly met this very night. Five is a number that fortune favors. If thou would seek adventure, what Path dost thou follow?”

  Gary froze. What Path? He hadn’t taken a Path. He was dungeon master. He didn’t even have a character sheet.

  Unbidden, an image flooded Gary’s mind.

  Player Name: Gary Burns Character Name: Gary Burns

  Level/Path: ? XP: 0/1,000 Race: Unknown

  STR: 7 DEX: 9 CON: 8 INT: 17 WIS: 12 CHA: 17

  To Hit: +0 Weapon: None

  Armor Rating: 9 Armor: None

  Path Powers: ?

  Skills: ?

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  Well, that was no help at all, and frankly, it was a little insulting. Those stats were well under the reroll criteria he’d laid out to make sure no one spent an entire campaign bitching about their low ability scores. And seriously, not even an 18? Anywhere?

  “Um…” Gary uttered, stalling for time to think. Musical notes, gentle and lilting, rose above the droning conversations and clanking of pewterware throughout the room. “Bard. Bard, of course.”

  “You’re not carrying an instrument,” Kim pointed out dryly.

  Marty rose up in Gary’s defense. “Hold up. You can’t just say that like it’s a fact. I knew a chap back in Senten who kept a piccolo sheathed up his sleeve like a knife. And there was good old Gastur the Brown. You’d hear him playing harmonica from the city dungeon in Opar every evening. The guards always searched him but never found it because he kept it crammed up his—”

  Darryl put out a hand. “End thy tale, ere it sully the ladies’ ears.”

  Marty shrugged. “Just sayin’. This guy might have an instrument.”

  “Hold that thought,” Gary said, raising a finger. He headed for the ankle-high stage that set the tavern’s bard apart from the customers. As an unfinished character, he still had an entire allotment of 300 gold jangling in his pocket. He slipped up to the bard between songs—a fresh-faced young lad with long, shimmering hair beneath a poofy, feathered cap—and slipped him 20 gold. By Marty’s suggestion, that was the going rate for a quick bribe. “Lend me the lute for a song or two.”

  The bard acquiesced with such haste that Gary realized Marty had been gouging him. Nevertheless, Gary now held a real, live lute in his hands. It was thick-necked and lightweight compared to a guitar. But it had strings and frets, even if there were a metric ass-load of strings, so how hard could it be?

  Gary climbed onto the stool the bard had used and raised the fretboard to his ear to quietly test the strings.

  What to play? His instincts were all heavy metal. Katie often joked that Cold Metal’s plan for making the big time was to keep playing covers of “Crazy Train” until someone signed them to a record deal. But lutes weren’t made for rocking out. He needed something on the slow side.

  Taking a deep breath, he played “Smoke on the Water.” Without a band, he chose the bass riff. But as soon as he got to the lyrics, scattered boos sounded from the audience.

  “Sorry,” Gary said quickly, putting up a hand to ward away any beverages that might get thrown his way.

  Switching gears, Gary played them an acoustic version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

  That went over a bit better. The diners in the common room resumed their meals in peace. There was no cheering when Gary ended the song, but scattered clapping from his friends’ table told him that Darryl and Katie had appreciated the music, at least.

  A crash from the bar drew every eye in the room.

  d20: 7

  The ghostly image of a twenty-sided die flashed across Gary’s mind as a bar fight broke out. Holy shit! Gary had just rolled for Initiative!

  In all the weirdness and talking to his friends and trying to come up with a Path to take, he’d forgotten the plot of the adventure. Wanting no part of the melee that was coming, Gary took his borrowed lute, dragged the stool to the back corner of the stage, and hunkered down to wait.

  Gary’s friends, of course, couldn’t help but join in. They kept their weapons away and dealt nonlethal damage with fists, elbows, and the occasional headbutt.

  While the fight was in full swing, consuming nearly every patron in the bar, the door burst open.
City guardsmen poured in, wielding clubs with brutal efficiency. Without counting, Gary knew that there were twenty-four guards in the Durrotek City Militia’s response to the barroom scuffle. It was a number he’d been sure was enough to subdue the party.

  One by one, the four of his friends who’d been in The Uncommon Room went down. The last to fall was Kim, who he’d caught using healing magic during the fight.

  When one of the guards approached Gary, club slapping his palm, Gary put up his hands in surrender. “I’m just the bard. I didn’t participate in this fight. I’d be more than happy to come down and bear witness. I saw nearly everything.” Then he noticed the body on the floor atop a spreading pool of blood. “That is to say… almost everything.”

  d20: 18 + (Persuade +4) = 22

  The guard rubbed his chin. “All right. Stay put. Captain Stonebeard will want to hear what you saw.”

  Gary breathed a sigh of relief. As much as he relished seeing how his campaign played out—even in a hallucinogenic vision—he wasn’t keen on the whole dungeon and shackles experience.

  As he waited while the rest of the common room was cleared of patrons, Gary checked his character sheet, pleased to see that he was, indeed, now a bard.

  Player Name: Gary Burns Character Name: Gary Burns

  Level/Path: Bard 1 XP: 20/1,000 Race: Unknown

  STR: 7 DEX: 9 CON: 8 INT: 17 WIS: 12 CHA: 17

  To Hit: +0 Weapon: None

  Armor Rating: 9 Armor: None

  Path Powers: Inspire +2

  Skills: Persuade (+4), Music (+4), Study/Search(+4)

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  But still not a race?

  “I’m human,” he muttered to himself sternly.

  The character sheet didn’t change.

  3

  After waiting what seemed like hours in the antechamber of the Durrotek Hall of Justice, Gary was summoned to speak with the guard captain.

  If Gary had written for a television crime drama set in the twelfth century, this is how he would have envisioned the interrogation room. The room was just large enough for the table where Gary sat in a chair that was bolted to the floor. He avoided using the armrests since the guard captain had been so kind as to not place him in the manacles built into them.

  Rellig Stonebeard was, as his name artlessly suggested, of dwarven heritage. He scowled across the table in a manner that looked more habitual than personal as he asked Gary question after question as if he had perfect recollection.

  In fact, Gary had to refrain from offering up information he couldn’t possibly have known through legitimate means. He knew that the halfling bartender—Ronno, he’d finally remembered—had given up drinking after running his family into debt. He knew that there were no fewer than five Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in that common room who’d pop up later in the campaign and had enough information about them to imply he’d been spying on them for most of their lives.

  Rellig dutifully recorded, in stilted handwriting, every word of Gary’s replies to his questions. But time and again, he caught the dwarf looking at him funny. At last, the guard captain set down his quill and crossed his arms. “This ain’t on the record, but where the muddy forges are you from? Can’t concentrate on account of my curiosity.”

  Gary waved the question away. “Nowhere you’ve heard of.”

  The dice roll flashed instantly across his mind’s eye.

  d20: 3 + (Persuade +4) + (Poor Bluff -2) = 5

  “Try me.”

  Of course, no one ever bought that line, and the shitty dice roll didn’t help.

  “Palo Alto,” Gary said, crossing his arms as a challenge. Without a lie or attempt to otherwise influence the dwarven constable, there was no accompanying die roll.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Told you.”

  “They all dress like that in Pal-o Al-toe?” Rellig asked, gesturing to Gary’s hoodie. “And what’s that symbol about? You some kind of cultist, or have you got your own gods thereabouts?”

  Gary tugged at the front of his sweatshirt. “This? Nah. Just represents a local bardic troupe back home. Small time. Most of Palo Alto hasn’t even heard of them.”

  Rellig grunted and took up his quill. “Now, to the heart of the vein. Did you see the victim, Thelius Macay, speaking with anyone prior to the fisticuffs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you hear anyone speaking about Mr. Macay?”

  “Nope.”

  “Was there anyone—?”

  “Lemme save you some breath,” Gary cut in. “I only talked with five people while I was there. One was the bard who was on stage before me—didn’t catch his name. The others were an elf named Braeleigh, a paladin who went by Beldrak, Sister Sira of Sevius, and the halfling, Zeeto, and I can tell you it wasn’t any of them.”

  “Can you now…?” Rellig said slowly, combing his fingers through his beard. “How can you be sure of that?”

  “I was trying to prove my worth to those adventurers I mentioned,” Gary said. “I had one eye on them the whole time I was performing. None of them went anywhere near the unfortunate Mr. Thelius Macay.”

  d20: 12 + (Persuade +4) + (More or Less True +2) = 18

  Rellig grunted. “Fair enough. What about the bard?” He searched through notes from prior to Gary’s arrival. “One Sorin Snell.”

  Gary forced a chuckle. “The victim had the body of a blacksmith’s assistant or a dockworker. Sorin Snell would have to have stabbed him a dozen times to kill him. I shook the lad’s hand, and he’d need a two-handed grip to pull garden weeds.”

  He didn’t bother looking at the roll. Rellig didn’t exactly distrust Gary, but the dwarf didn’t seem to be buying a wimpy handshake as an alibi for murder. For the time being, that suited Gary just fine.

  Scooping up his lute, he headed down to the dungeons with Rellig to free the prisoners he’d exonerated. After all, a little tavern dustup alone wasn’t reason enough to jail someone.

  As they descended into torch-lit gloom beneath the Hall of Justice, Gary found himself thankful of his quick tongue. The stairwells stank of acrid smoke, but down below, the reek was fear and piss. Row upon row of iron-barred doors broke up the solid stone block wall. Rellig led the way, leaving Gary to wonder if this was a clever double-cross that might result in him being thrown in a cell instead of everyone else getting released.

  Rellig turned a key in the lock of the second-to-last door on the right. “You lot are free to go. This one backed up your story.”

  “Thank thee, good sir,” Darryl said formally.

  Marty strutted out of the cell and gave Gary a slap on the rump. “Good man, stepping up for a bunch of strangers.”

  Kim bowed her head in Gary’s direction on her way past.

  Katie carried Caspian in her arms, stopping to wave the wolf puppy’s paw at Gary and attempt some playful amateur ventriloquism to make it appear as though the wolf was talking. “Tank you berry much.”

  Darryl took up the rear like an usher waiting for the crowd to clear at a theater. Once outside the door, he clasped Gary by the wrist with a grip like an ironworker. “The world hath need of honest men. Praise Makoy that I findeth one in this forsaken, hellish waste.”

  “Hey!” Rellig objected. “Some of us live here.”

  “All good,” Gary assured the constable. “No ill will. We’ll just be on our way.” He put a hand to the small of Darryl’s back and guided him swiftly from the city dungeon.

  Once they reached the fresh, crisp northland air outside, Gary and Marty took simultaneous satisfied breaths before each casting a mirrored dirty look at the other.

  “Thanks for greasing the rusty wheels of justice, chum,” Marty said with a sly glance. “But we’ve got business to attend. Ta-ta.” He raised one hand in a salute that morphed into a wave goodbye.

  The others muttered their farewells and turned to follow.

  Gary stared after them, aghast. “Wait! Can’t I come with you?”

  The four of the
m stopped. In unison, they turned to regard him with puzzlement, as if a piece of furniture had asked to join them on their adventures when previously they had been unaware it could talk.

  Darryl cleared his throat. “I hadn’t imagined you to be the sort who sought adventure.”

  “What happened to five being an auspicious number?” Gary countered. He could only hope that Zane wasn’t around somewhere spoiling to get in on the party. It would be one thing to add him in later; it would be a different matter if these chuckle heads thought they had a full party before letting a bard tag along.

  Katie held up Caspian as if he could possibly be considered a full member of the party.

  Forcing down the impulse to roll his eyes, Gary instead turned her argument around. “He’s just a puppy. You can’t expect him to shoulder a full load until he’s grown. Certainly, I could fill in until then.”

  “You couldn’t fill in for that tin-eared bard at The Uncommon Room,” Marty replied. “And don’t call me Sir Tinley.”

  Gary’s mind raced. These bumbling table jockeys were trying to ruin this dream or hallucination or brain-damaged coma fantasy of his. They wanted to cost him the chance at front-row seats to the action of a campaign he’d spent months designing.

  “I can cook.”

  That proclamation was met with a moment of contemplative silence. Gary waited while he suspected each of them envisioned long nights with nothing but hardtack and jerky for sustenance. None of their character sheets had said a damn thing about cooking.

  Marty clapped his hands once to informally take control of this meeting. “Well, I think that settles it. This random bloke with the lute he can hardly play is our new bard.”