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  Putting his shoulder into it, he barely rocked a barrel of what smelled like fish.

  d20: 10 + (Strength -2) = 8

  “C’mon! If we barricade the door, we won’t have to run or fight. It opens out.”

  That was the impetus that got everyone moving. With the five of them working as a team under the impending threat of the approaching footsteps from above, they took the crate of pipeweed into the sewer, set it aside, then dragged out enough random flotsam that it would take the Talis Guild an hour to bash their way through.

  As they retreated down the sewers, Beldrak clapped Gary on the back. “Well played, my fulsome yet limp-armed friend. Thou hast saved the lives of miserly men, but men nonetheless.”

  “Just hope this Arguile bloke pays up,” Zeeto grumbled. “Otherwise, he’s getting a steel enema.”

  “Enemy,” Braeleigh corrected with an upraised finger. “That’s the human word you’re looking for.”

  Zeeto didn’t turn to look back. “Listen, lady. Where I come from, we call that same language halfling, and I prob’ly know a fair cut more of it than you.”

  “I was raised among humans!” Braeleigh protested.

  “Polite ones, I reckon,” Zeeto said. “Trust me. Arguile’s getting more than an enemy if we get short coined.”

  Gary kept his mouth shut and saved his grin for the shadows.

  6

  The Durrotek Import Consortium operated out of a warehouse on the riverfront. It had its own small dock around back, but Gary and the rest of the party came in through the front door.

  Inside was a bric-a-brac of objects and substances from across the kingdom of Kovia and beyond. It gave the impression that someone had taken a pawn shop, an antiques dealer, and a dollar store, shaken vigorously, and installed a counter to sell the surviving merchandise. Beldrak entered first, bearing the pipeweed. The rest followed.

  Zeeto pulled Gary aside just as they were about to be last to enter. “Hey, I know you’ve got a mouth on you,” he whispered. “But this is my bag. Got it? Leave the palm-greasing to me.”

  Gary spread his hands. “By all means.”

  He’d been waiting for Marty to get his hands on Arguile since creating the character. Far be it from him to take Zeeto’s spotlight.

  “Arggie, my man!” Zeeto said as he entered the storefront. “So glad to see you out of the pokey and back to making fully legitimate business deals with fine, upstanding citizens.”

  Arguile was an alias with no last name. Gary had jotted one down along with an Investigation roll required to dredge it up from underworld contacts, but he’d personally forgotten what it had been. That name hadn’t been important. The character, on the other hand, was a linchpin to the early branches of the campaign’s course.

  “Looks like I bet on the right gladiators,” Arguile said with a wheezy laugh. The importer had rough-combed hair and a nose that bent where it had been broken long ago. He was left-handed by process of elimination since there wasn’t even a stump to fill out a sleeve on the right side of his shirt, which was custom tailored without one. “Bring the merchandise over here and let’s get a look-see.”

  Beldrak set the crate on the counter and pried open the lid with a miniature crowbar Arguile provided. The aroma that wafted from the fully opened crate made Gary’s eyes water and his stomach growl.

  Reaching in, Arguile pulled out a paper-wrapped and twine-tied bundle, running it under his nose with a long, connoisseur’s sniff. “Ah. That’s the stuff, all right. You lot did good. Gimme a moment, and I’ll grab your payment.”

  As the one-armed importer headed through a door that led out back, Zeeto and Sira’s hands both strayed to their weapons. Gary could only imagine the Intuition checks they both failed if they expected Arguile was about to betray them.

  When Arguile returned with a jangling pouch, everyone relaxed. Tugging the knot loose with one hand, he spilled the contents across the counter. “Two hundred fifty gold, as promised.”

  Gary felt a strange, giddy surge inside. He hadn’t been keeping track of his experience totals but wasn’t surprised at what he discovered upon checking.

  Player Name: Gary Burns Character Name: Gary Burns

  Level/Path: Bard 1 XP: 1,150/1,000 Race: Unknown

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

  To Hit: +0 Weapon: Rapier (1d6-2)

  Armor Rating: 11 Armor: Leather (+2)

  Path Powers: Inspire +2

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

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  “Yes,” he cheered softly, clenching a fist.

  Zeeto shot him a warning look and raised a finger to his lips.

  “Thank thee, kind sir,” Beldrak said with a bow. “Would that all justice came without incurring cost. Be that as it may, thy payment shall find its way to serve the cause of Makoy.”

  “Hey, if Makoy is looking for funds, come back tomorrow,” Arguile said. “I might have another job if you’re interested.”

  “Would it involve the sewers?” Sira asked dryly.

  Arguile scratched his chin. “I couldn’t imagine that it would.”

  “Look us up, then,” Zeeto said. He produced a small box from one pocket and slid it across the counter. “A token of my appreciation.”

  As the party exited, Gary pulled Zeeto aside. “What was that you gave him?”

  Zeeto pulled out an identical box and popped it open. Inside was a deck of playing cards. Gary recognized the design on the back and felt his gut clench. “Nicked a bunch of them from one of the crates at the club. Want one? I’ve got a bunch.”

  7

  That evening, back at the rooms the party shared at The Sleepy Inn, they gathered in the women’s quarters to discuss leveling up.

  It was… odd for Gary.

  He’d rarely given any thought to the jarring, stair-step progression system from an in-universe standpoint. In his mind, that was just a detail that the characters themselves would have ignored.

  Except that wasn’t possible. Short of implementing rules for training (which Gary opposed on annoyance grounds), there would be a situation where suddenly players could cast a new spell or were mysteriously now able to pick locks when they couldn’t the morning before.

  “So,” Zeeto said when the door was shut, and it was just the five of them alone. “Everyone advancing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yuppers!”

  “Indeed, I hath advanced as well.”

  They all looked to Gary.

  “What?” he asked. “Of course, I did. I’m on a Path. I’m on the Path of Music, remember? Real adventurer here.”

  Zeeto shot him a wink and a thumbs up. “Hey. Maybe once you get down that music path a ways, you can slide over my way and stop sounding a sack of crows trying to get out.”

  One by one, they all closed their eyes. “What are you all looking at?”

  “Try it,” Braeleigh advised. “Imagine your place on the Paths of Power and you should be able to see where you can go from there.”

  “There won’t be many choices, I imagine,” Sira added. “Not unless the Path of Music’s a lot different from the Path of Piety.”

  “In all seriousness,” Zeeto said. “Just stick with music. There’ll be other stuff to consider after, and we don’t want to be up all night with you rubbing your rocks trying to decide what to do.”

  With a nod to four people with their eyes closed, Gary shut his and joined them in contemplation. In an instant, he could see the Paths of Power. But unlike Braeleigh’s implication, he didn’t see the Path before him. Gary saw the whole thing. Nine concentric rings. Eight Paths that hopped from inner circle to outer, wending their way to ever more options the larger the ring a character occupied.

  Of course. It all made sense. He’d allowed the players to see the first two rings—the one they started on and the one adjacent. His plan had been to reveal additional rings to them as they advanced. It was a hedge against a group of notorious metag
amers. He didn’t want them planning five, ten, or fifteen levels in advance, levels it might take months or years of real-world time to see.

  But Gary had made the world.

  He knew the Paths of Power. He knew how they worked. Unfortunately, that also meant that he knew that the Path of Music was underpowered, meant for challenging a player to think outside the dice rolls to succeed.

  In other words, bard was a class for schmucks.

  Lacking better options, Gary mentally committed to Bard 2. A second level of that was better than sliding over to Rogue 1 or Wizard 1. Fun as the Path of Shadow might have looked, that would have been stepping on Zeeto’s little toes, especially for loot sharing. As for wizard, Gary had basically set up a kingdom-wide Salem witch hunt for them. Getting used to living in an imaginary world was weird enough without running for his life constantly.

  The skills he let advance all on their own, putting points where he already allotted them.

  Player Name: Gary Burns Character Name: Gary Burns

  Level/Path: Bard 2 XP: 1,150/2,000 Race: Unknown

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

  To Hit: +1 Weapon: Rapier (1d6-2)

  Armor Rating: 11 Armor: Leather (+2)

  Path Powers: Inspire (+2), Lullaby

  Skills: Persuade (+5), Music (+5), Study/Search (+5)

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  Since this was an even total level, he also got an ability point. As much as he was a Charisma-based class, nothing in the world was going to be easy. He was going to need a lot of scheming just to keep up with the rest of the party’s power level.

  He went with Intelligence.

  Player Name: Gary Burns Character Name: Gary Burns

  Level/Path: Bard 2 XP: 1,150/2,000 Race: Unknown

  STR: 7 DEX: 9 CON: 8 INT: 18 WIS: 12 CHA: 17

  To Hit: +1 Weapon: Rapier (1d6-2)

  Armor Rating: 11 Armor: Leather (+2)

  Path Powers: Inspire (+2), Lullaby

  Skills: Persuade (+5), Music (+5), Study/Search (+5)

  Profession: Cook (+1)

  “Done,” he announced, opening his eyes to find the rest of the party staring at him.

  “Was it… harder for you?” Sira asked. “You can ask for help when you need it.”

  “How long was I—?”

  “I didn’t start an hourglass,” Zeeto said, flipping over cards from his stolen Talis-marked deck in a game of solitaire. “A while.”

  “Sorry, I just got caught up in… I’m sorry,” Gary said. He’d been about to say that he was looking all up and down the Path of Music, wondering at what point he’d either become a sultry-voiced king among men or be forced to duck over to a more powerful Path. But none of them could see beyond the length of their noses. If he admitted to seeing the whole thing, he’d either weird them all out or be subject to an endless litany of questions regarding their future options.

  That was just the metagaming he’d been aiming to avoid.

  “Worry not, friend,” Beldrak said. “On the morrow, we five shall seek our fortunes where Goodman Arguile may suggest. Or, perchance he offers us foul fare, we turn about and see what Makoy might lay before us.”

  “In the meantime,” Braeleigh said cheerfully. “I talked to the cook, and he’s agreed to let you use the kitchen tonight. We’re so looking forward to sampling your cuisine.”

  “Yeah,” Zeeto said. “Maybe make us something from your native Palo Alto.”

  Native cuisine? Were they serious? “Uh. Sure. Have… any of you ever tried a taco?”

  8

  The Yellow River ran through Durrotek, and a road ran south to more heavily settled lands of Kovia. To all other sides was boreal forest, with the Dwarfcrown mountains peering over the treetops from the north.

  Arguile’s quest had them trekking northeast, overland along barely blazed mule trails toward the foothills of those very mountains. After a belly full of tacos made with the smorgasbord of ingredients available in The Sleepy Inn’s kitchen, a good night’s sleep, and a breakfast of porridge, the one-armed importer had tasked them with the delivery of his goods to their original recipient.

  Braeleigh led the way with Caspian bounding around her with endless enthusiasm as if they were in the woods on a lark instead of traveling through untamed wilds. The elf showed no inkling of the single mom who drove a used hatchback and considered navigating around potholes to be off-roading. She set a swift pace, and her surety of direction came thanks to the Overland Navigation Trick available to the Path of the Wilderness.

  “You still alive back there, Taco Man?” Zeeto called back.

  With their breath puffing in the subarctic air, it was impossible for Gary to disguise his shortness of breath.

  “Constitution… not my thing,” Gary said, holding up a hand to forestall any coddling that might be forthcoming. “I’m good.”

  Braeleigh slung her pack to the ground against the trunk of a towering pine. “Lunchtime!” she announced much to Gary’s relief.

  If he’d anticipated a cutting jibe from Zeeto about the reason for the meal break right at that moment, Gary was destined for disappointment. For all the differences between Marty and his alter ego, there was no getting between either of them and a meal.

  With no kitchen and no perishable ingredients, no one even asked Gary to cook. The tacos had satisfied their nagging worries about whether or not he could live up to his boast. The flour tortillas had been rough around the edges since the absence of baking powder in Pellar was a complication he’d never stopped to consider until stuck in a kitchen without it. And without a meat grinder or the usual herbs and spices, the flavor and texture were a little non-standard. But with tomatoes, onions, and garlic available, the salsa had come out pretty decent.

  This lunch, however, was just trail mix, bread, and jerky, washed down with stagnant water that tasted of leather.

  As Braeleigh broke up firewood with a hatchet, Sira commented, “Thought elves had rules about fires in forests.”

  Braeleigh shrugged. “Maybe. If there are, I don’t know them. I was super young when my parents died. I got raised by a nice human family after the war.”

  “So, like… I could chop down this tree, and you wouldn’t straight-up murder me?” Zeeto asked.

  “Lumbering provides wood for everything from ships to hair brushes,” Braeleigh replied. “I’d be more worried about you getting hurt than the tree.”

  “Weird.”

  Braeleigh ceased chopping and tossed her kindling into a pile at the center of their resting troupe. “No. What’s weird is being raised by a people who age at ten times the rate you do. My adoptive parents grew old. My siblings took over caring for me. I went from playing hide-and-seek with them to doing chores and living under their roofs. And it happened a second time with their kids. The first boy I ever kissed living in our village moved to seek his fortune, and when he came back, I still had the same crush on him… only to be horrified to discover it was his grandson—who looked just like him.”

  Gary listened to the backstory Katie had written as he tried with his flint and steel to spark a fire in the kindling. It was tinged with such a unique perspective on the “raised by wolves” style of upbringing, never stopping to consider the short lifespan of a wolf.

  Zeeto grunted. “Raised by humans. Got it. Free to maim and mutilate trees without reprisal. Hey, anyone else got a good orphan story? Lotta orphans take up adventuring. C’mon. Anyone?”

  Beldrak shook his head. “I must disappoint thee, I fear. My sire and matron fare well—last I knowest, at the least—and my grandmares and grandsires also.”

  Sira pinched the bridge of her nose. “My mother haunts me, and she’s not even dead.”

  Zeeto and Gary stared one another down like gunfighters on a dusty road. Neither was going to volunteer their story first without an argument.

  “Go ahead, big mouth,” Gary challenged. “Tell us your story.”

  “My father’s fine,” Zeeto said. “Wa
nted me to go in to the family business. Mom’s got her issues with the bottle. Glad to be away from them.”

  That stung. Gary heard Marty’s family history echo there. Marty’s dad was a personal injury lawyer who considered coding to be sucker’s work. His mom had been in and out of rehab for pills.

  “Your turn, lute strangler,” Zeeto prompted. “Who’s your mommy and daddy?”

  “I get on great with my mom and dad,” Gary said with an embarrassed shrug, as if a happy home life was fine for a paladin but not a bard. “If I hadn’t gotten magically whisked off to this distant land, I’d be having dinner at their place once a week.”

  “Break’s over!” Braeleigh announced just as the fire she’d taken over kindling had started to warm Gary’s face. It suffocated beneath kicked dirt from the elf’s boot.

  They traveled onward into the afternoon under the glare of a sun that seemed content to produce light without warmth.

  For a while, Gary just tried to enjoy the trip and camaraderie. He’d nearly forgotten that this was a world ruled by dice and paper, it had been so long since he’d needed a skill check. Then suddenly, he was jerked back into awareness that this wilderness wasn’t dangerous because of simple climate.

  d20: 8 + (Perception +1) = 9

  Gary didn’t notice anything, and with a roll like that, he wasn’t surprised.

  d20: 11 + (DEX -1) = 10 (surprised)

  Well, except that his failure to detect the ambush meant that he was surprised.

  Caspian barked, and Gary looked to see what the wolf pup had spotted. Up ahead, to the north, spindly, multi-legged creatures formed of ice skittered down the trunks of a frost-rimed pine. As their needle-tipped legs tapped the forest floor, hoarfrost spread at their every touch like ripples on a pond. Each had a body the size of a soccer ball and legs as long as a human’s.

  Braeleigh and Zeeto were quick on their feet as, like Gary, Beldrak and Sira were caught flatfooted and were trying to get their bearings. Weapons still sheathed, they’d be missing their first turn as well.