2.26. Labyrinths & Liches, Part Two

It’s almost like highway hypnosis: Lark blinks, and becomes aware that she’s somewhere new. But instead of, say, finding herself inexplicably at home seemingly seconds after hanging up her apron at work, she finds herself in a dim tent, perched before a glowing orb.

“What does it say to you?”

Lark’s eyes widen. Across from her sits a woman, young and thin with a drawn face. Her clothes are brightly colored, but that doesn’t hide the rips and tears at the cuffs of her sleeves.

“Umm…” Lark clears her throat.

“Please, Demonina—is it an ill omen? I must know!”

She shakes her head, an attempt to free herself from what must be a particularly strange dream.

The woman inhales. “It is good, then? Perhaps about Milo?” Her eyes flutter, and she holds her hands up to her chest.

Lark clears her throat and stares down at the orb in front of her. A crystal ball, she realizes. “Um, yes. It is. I see Milo—it’s hard to tell, but he seems to be…he’s kneeling. And he’s holding out—it’s—” Lark hums theatrically.

“Is it a ring?”

“Yes, a ring. And you’re nodding, tears in your eyes.”

“He’s going to propose,” the woman bubbles over.

Lark nods. “Yes. It seems there are wedding bells in your future, my dear.”  She’s taken too easily to con artistry.

“Oh, thank you,” the woman stands up, “thank you! You’ve made my dreams come true.”
  
“Sure,” Lark’s smile strains, “that’s how fortunes work.”

“Here,” the woman presses a coin into Lark’s palm, “for your troubles.”

“Thank you,” Lark replies. The woman beams and skips out of the tent.

With that, her bravado slips away. There’s a flutter in her chest: first it tickles, but soon the palpitations hurt. This can’t be. She looks down at her hands, her claw-like, sharp hands—this can’t be, no. It echoes in her mind: the invisible explosion, the fall into the abyss, and now, this. With a careless roll of the die, she’s a new person. Thing. Beast.

It takes Lark a moment to catch her breath, collect her wits, and steel herself.

She stands.

She walks—shakily—to the curtain draped door.

And she steps outside.

The sun is blinding, and the chatter of the crowd louder than one might expect. It smells, reeks even, of horses and humans and heat. But even through sensory overload, it’s apparent: Lark is in fantasy land, and not the one she would prefer.

“Fuck,” the swear escapes Lark’s lips before she decides to just commit to it: “fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Shit!” This is what her life has been reduced to: she’s fallen into a game designed by a particularly mopey teen.

The Crow & Crown—that’s where Dominic had said her story would begin. But the tavern had also been a suggested meeting place. Thus, she decides she must find her way out of this godforsaken fairground, to the tavern, and hopefully to someone who has answers.

Lark wanders east. The crowd thins, and she finds herself alone.

Almost alone. Two men trail her—tall, broad, with a swagger that serves as aposematism. They’re looking for someone else, she tells herself. But it’s not the truth. Every time she looks over her shoulder, the two men stare brazenly back. Both are pallid, their faces twisted and gaunt. But the smaller one—the blond with the manicured ponytail—feels especially off.

And, of course, he’s the one who makes contact. As her eyes meet his, he smiles. With a jog, he matches pace with her.

“Afternoon, my dear,” he slips an arm around her. She tightens her body and curls in on herself, crossing her arms.

“I’m leaving,” she tries to steel her voice, but it wavers, “so back off.”

“Oh, why leave? You,” he pauses for effect, “are exactly the woman I have been looking for, Demonina.” His milky eyes flicker up and down.

“Stop that,” she stretches her arms and pushes him off, “I don’t know you, so buzz off.”

“There’s coin in it for you,” he smirks, “if you play along.”

She balls her hands into fists. “Excuse me?”

“Teague,” the dreadlocked man’s voice is warning, “no games. We agreed.”

“Oh, no games,” he responds, “I am certain our dusky maid is all business.”

“Dusky? How dare you, you son—”

Teague grabs her wrist and pulls her towards an alley. “No hard feelings, love. I jest, but I do believe you can help me, and then we will let you be on your merry way. You see, we have been looking for a certain someone—a Percy Ardreth, with whom I believe you are familiar.”

“Let go,” she protests.

“Not until you help us find him,” his reply is sing-song.

“Like hell,” she retorts, “go fuck yourself, chud.”

“Listen here,” he hisses as he pulls her closer, “we just need to find this one man, and you are going to help. If you do, maybe we will leave you in one piece.”

“I said let go,” Lark growls and kicks upward. Her foot lands with full force, and Teague grunts and loosens his grip. She shakes free and kicks him one more time for good measure

“Stupid bint,” he groans as he crumples to the ground, “I’ll kill you!”

But Lark’s pounding feet have already taken her too far to hear his threat.

“Farres! Grab her! Now!”

“No need to grab. We follow, quiet-like” Farres watches Lark’s retreat, “she will lead us to our quarry.”

***

Lark’s steps slow, and her heart follows suit. The dull hum of the fairgrounds has faded, replaced by the rush of a gently flowing river.

It would be pretty here, if she had come by choice. Instead, the surroundings feel off, uncanny even, reminiscent of a familiar but elusive smell: trying to place this familiarity is maddening, especially considering she’s lost. But after moments of concentration, the memories come into focus.

She had watched a horror movie with her dad once, some stupid schlock about a group of twenty-somethings who were stranded in a forest with only a camera and rumors of a witch. The protagonists found themselves lost within twenty-four hours. “There’s a creek right behind them,” young Lark had pointed out, “why don’t they follow it downstream? There’s probably a farm or town or something if the follow it long enough.”

Her father frowned as the trio decided to delve deeper into the woods instead. “Some people are just too stupid to live,” he remarked.

So Lark follows the river.

The appearance of the village is sudden and chaotic. Its structure is equally haphazard, the sort of helter-skelter execution tourists find so charming.

Lark is charmed.
That is, until a shout cuts through the air. “I’m just looking for my mom, okay? Could you lend me your phone? Or point me to a gas station or something?” Lark recognizes the voice as Bjorn’s. 
“Why?” a gruff voice responds, “your mummy can’t help you, Beetlesbane.”

Lark has always rolled her eyes at the “momma bear” stereotype that’s often lobbed by women outfitted in patterned leggings and stacked bobs. But in this moment, it holds true: her cub is in trouble, and she is in momma bear mode. Her feet beat against the flagstone pavement as she races to the commotion. She rounds the corner into an encounter. Her son—now blond but still gangly and mop-headed—stands opposite a large, ursine man.

“Hey,” she puffs out her chest, “leave him alone.”

“Sod off,” he snorts, “this is between me and the boy, whore.” The man slings a sword over his shoulder, the size of which belies overcompensation.

Bjorn finds enough courage to object: “don’t talk to my mom like that!”

“You going to let a woman fight for you, eh?”

“And are you looking to make your face even uglier?” he clumsily retorts.

“Stop,” Lark puts her arm out, pushing her son back, “I’ll take care of it.”

 The man widens his stance and grips his sword with both hands. “I won’t be easy on you.”

Anger wells up in Lark. Normally, anger vibrates in her bones, a sensation she has never been able to explain or tolerate. In this moment, however, it bubbles out of her hands and forms into something real, something she can only explain as magical. “Don’t worry about me,” she sneers.

Bjorn gasps. “Mom?”

“Stay back,” she warns as she takes a step forward.

It’s still for a moment as each party weighs their options. Finally, the man lunges with a grunt.
He’s too far away, though, and he underestimates his force. He falters, and in return Lark pitches the orb of magic at him. It doesn’t seem like it should be so heavy, but it bowls him backward anyway.

“Whoa! Go mom,” Bjorn cheers.

She doesn’t break, though, her eyes still warily on her opponent. For a moment, she considers grabbing Bjorn’s hand and dragging him away from this, towards the horizon in the hopes of running all the way back home to the real world.

She takes too long to make her decision. The man leaps up, spry and seemingly untouched. He crouches down and cocks his head, mouth agape.

“What is he—” Bjorn is interrupted by a scream, one that could be best described as “unearthly.” It shakes the ground, and knocks Lark and Bjorn prone.

Prone—Lark vaguely remembers Dominic explaining the rules for this: “A crit on a prone enemy allows for a coup de grâce, which drops the target to zero hit points.” It was his justification for some special character feat or another, a portion of character creation that had left her especially drowsy.

But the definition of prone matters less than that of coup de grâce.

Through force of will, she pulls herself to her knees and channels that earlier rage. It boils up and burns white-hot through her hands. She smells seared flesh, but the result is necessary. Cosmic light bursts forth. The man reels back again and drops his sword.

She can’t stop it—it pours out of her, every slight, ever balled up feeling, every grudge. And the man who threatened her and her son bears the brunt of it. So Lark stands, and she lets it flow.

The man’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. Soon enough, it burns into ashes, along with the rest of his body.

She lowers her hands, and her stomach turns.

“My apologies, love,” a familiar voice speaks. Lark whips around to meet its speaker.
Teague steps forward. “Baldwin was always a dull sort. More of a hammer than anything else. I never should have sent him for such a delicate job.”

“Not you,” Lark sighs, “not right now.”

“We just need to speak with Percy Ardreth. Lead us to him, and we can forget this whole mess. You and your son can live out your lives in peace.”

Lark bites her lower lip, weighing the possibilities. She had fried a guy in mere moments, and the elation in her gut says she could take these knuckleheads out, too. Her mind fights back, though, pointing to both her fatigue and the unbalanced odds.

Reason wins out. “C’mon,” she grabs Bjorn’s hand, “run!”

“Where are we going?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Shall I follow?” Farres asks.

Teague’s smile fades. “No. Storm the houses,” he orders, “for every one of ours that is destroyed, I want three more made. Then we will find them.”

Farres nods and unsheathes his sword.

***

The Prideful Paladin is the village’s sole tavern, which makes it easy enough to locate. Lark explains what little she knows to Bjorn on the walk there, which makes for a silent trip. “Dom will probably be there, and hopefully Raven” serves as her weak excuse, and “I think we’re stuck in a board game or something” as her explanation.

But her hunch is right: platinum haired and scarred—but otherwise the same—Dominic sits perched on a barstool, facing the inn’s door.

“Dom,” Lark cries and rushes forward. His eyes widen, and he stands to meet her embrace.

“Ouch,” he mumbles.
“What?”
“You poked me with your horns.”

 Lark recoils and touches the points of her horns. “Horns? Maker, what do I look like?”

“You look like, um,” he glances up and down, “well, I know you wouldn’t choose what you’re wearing, but you make it work.”

 “Great, we’re stuck in some nerdlinger game and apparently I’m repulsive at that,” she pouts.

Dominic tilts her chin up with his thumb. “You’re not repulsive. Just…different.”
 
She averts her eyes. “Let’s just figure out our next step, okay?”

The pair settles in at a table next to the fire. Their conversation is hushed, a stark comparison to the whoops and hollers of the teens, who have diverted themselves with a dartboard.

“Did you run into any of them?” Lark asks.

“Who?”

“Those men—the ones with the veiny faces.”

“’Veiny faces’? No, though that’s quite troubling. Raven and I both woke up at the Peteran church, and came straight here in hopes you and Bjorn would show. I take it your arrival was less pleasant?”

She shudders. “I’ll say. I guess I stumbled into one of those thirty-some encounters you planned.” She describes her morning, leaving out the sense of satisfaction that accompanied Baldwin’s murder.

“They sound like undead,” Dominic frowns, “and that wasn’t the campaign I planned. That’s…bothersome.”

“More bothersome than landing in some monster manual a la a particularly dorky holodeck episode?”

“No, but it’s worth noting. And you said they were looking for me?”

“They’re looking for Percy Ardreth,” Lark shrugs, “whoever that is.”

“Me,” he scowls, “That’s my character. Maker, you don’t remember my character’s name? Did you even write it down?”

She slaps at the air. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve been this tavern all day, right? Have you learned anything?”

“Not much. The bartender isn’t very forthcoming.”

“What about that,” Lark points over his shoulder at a portrait hanging above the fireplace, “he looks awfully familiar, right?”

Dominic cranes his neck, and his eyebrows heighten. The resemblance is striking: the dour figure is, stroke by stroke, an obvious facsimile of Sebastian Trémaux, whom they had buried a day earlier in Bridgeport. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Hey, how did your dad feel about your role-playing?”

“Not warmly,” Dominic admits, “in fact, I’d say it was his least favorite habit of mine.”

“Seems suspicious.”

“Very,” he agrees.
 
“And a super powerful mage could set something like this up, right?”

“Quite possibly.”

A dark thought strikes Lark. “Wait you don’t think Fenrir is caught up in this, right? Or the girls?
”
“I don’t see why they would be. They weren’t playing with us.”

“Then they’re in that house alone,” she bites her lip.

“Fenrir’s a smart boy. If our disappearance is obvious to him, he’ll call for help.”

“He doesn’t know anyone in Bridgeport,” she snaps, “what good will it do?”

“We’ll get home soon,” Dominic puts his hand over hers, “I promise.”

“So what’s next?”

“If you cast as many spells as you said, you’ll need to rest. Magic only regenerates after sleep in this universe. Let’s start by renting a couple of rooms. Meanwhile, I’ll try to figure out how to get us home.”

“What about them?” Lark gestures towards the teens.

Dominic looks over to Bjorn and Raven. “I don’t think they realize how dangerous this could potentially be,” he says, “and perhaps it should remain that way.”

The rented room turns out to be more spacious than Lark imagined—it hosts a claw-foot tub and chamber pot along with the requisite bed and dresser. However, she’s more interested in the dusty mirror.

“I’m kinda cute,” she declares, “in a creepy way.”

“You’re basically you with some Spooky Day makeup,” Dominic says, “so of course you’re cute.”
“I just expected something worse based on your earlier disgust,” she glares back at him.

“I was surprised,” he shrugs. She sneers at him and plops onto the bed.

“Do you have any theories?”

“Hypotheses,” he corrects her, “and, yes, I do. The most obvious is that I’ve suffered a mental breakdown and this is all an elaborate imagining based on my desire to return to a point when my father was still alive, as well as nostalgia for the more carefree moments of my teenage years.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Lark says, “I’m pretty sure I’m the POV character.”

“The other option—which is sadly more probable in my case—is that my father cast a Gorgias Curse on my Labyrinths & Liches handbooks in order to teach me some lesson about masculinity or something.”

“Mm-hmm,” she agrees, “that seems totally obvious.”

“If that’s the case, I might be able to break it via meditation,” he draws his legs up into lotus position, “so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course,” Lark reclines on the bed, “I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”

The silence lasts no more than five minutes.

“So,” she interrupts, “did it work?”

Dominic lets out a sigh. “Obviously not.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sure,” he puts his face in his hands and his breaths shorten, “but we might be stuck here awhile.”

“So? We’ll make it work.”

“I have no idea why this is happening, Lark, and who knows what the repercussions are if we are wounded or die in this universe. I’ve put you all in danger, potentially mortally so.”

“Hey,” she puts a hand on his shoulder, “you’re not allowed to freak out.”

“I’m not allowed?” He looks at her, his brows furrowed in irritation.

“Nope. Freaking out is forbidden. I need you level-headed, ‘cause I have no idea what’s happening and there’s no way I’m going to figure this out on my own.”
 “You’re not that helpless. You managed to beat an enemy. That’s more than anyone else has done.”
 “It was fry or flight. I chose fry.”

Dominic stifles a laugh, but it comes out as a snort.  “It’s ‘fight or flight.’”

“Whatever,” she shrugs, “so what do we do then?”

“Try to progress through the story, I suppose. If we beat the campaign, maybe we’ll return home. And let’s hope that Fenrir has enough sense to call Sadie. She’s the only one on the other side who could possibly help.”

***

 

Fenrir has more than enough sense to call Sadie. And Sadie—obliged by her role as his newly-minted stepmother—is quick to respond via a rather exhausting teleportation spell. The exhaustion is doubled by her travel companion: Nikolas, her new husband and Fenrir’s father.

“You did right by calling us,” Sadie smiles, “this is a real doozy, isn’t it?”

“I just wanna know where my mom is,” Fenrir grumbles, “so I can go to bed.”

Nikolas glances around. “Where are your sisters?”

“Asleep. I put them down when I realized no on else would do it. Stupid lucky babies,” he frowns.

“Awesome job, kiddo!” Sadie pinches his cheek, “I’m gonna have to remember you when I need a babysitter, huh?”

“Sure, that’d be great,” he rolls his eyes.

“When did you first notice everyone was missing?” Nikolas cuts in.

“About nine.”

“And they were all in this room?”

“Yes—they were playing some board game. Dom wouldn’t let me play,” Fenrir pouts.

Sadie picks up a manual from the table. “Labyrinths & Liches—what is this?”

“A fantasy role-playing game,” Nikolas answers a little too quickly.

“Weird,” she frowns.

“It’s not that weird,” he protests.

“No, something’s off about this book,” she flips it open and scans it.

“Off?”

“There’s magic in this book, but it’s not innate,” she explains, “like, it wasn’t printed with magic, someone impressed magic in it. Make sense?”

“Not at all,” Nikolas shakes his head, “but as long as you know what’s going on, that’s fine.”
“There’s a few things it could be, but I need more info. Say, Fen, do you know Dominic’s history with this game?”

“He said he played it a lot as a kid,” Fenrir shrugs, “but that’s it. I didn’t learn anything else ‘cause he wouldn’t let me play.”

Sadie turns to Nikolas. “Dominic was raised by his dad, right?”

“Yes.”

“How would you describe him?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “Rude? Grizzled? Rough? He didn’t seem to like Dominic much, so we had that in common.”

“So it was an antagonistic relationship?”

“I guess.”

“Well then, I think we have a Gorgias Curse on our hands,” she snaps the book shut triumphantly, “it’s an immersion hex. Basically, you cast it on an object or structure that you want you victim to get stuck in when they use it. Pretty difficult spell, actually, though my parents threatened me with it whenever I got too sucked into a video game. I think it was a pretty empty threat though since they were basically hedge witches. So whoever cast this is a pretty hardcore mage, because usually you do it on like a DVD or novel or something. To cast it on something so open-ended—that’s impressive. And the aura matches with a curse. It’s pretty negative and—”

“Can you reverse it,” Nikolas interrupts.

“Oh, right. I imagine you’re pretty worried about Bjorn, right? It’s no biggie. If Dominic realizes that he’s stuck in a facsimile, he should be able to break it on his own. But just in case, I should be able to pull him out, easy-peasy. At that point, the bystanders—that’s Lark and Raven and Bjorn—should also transport back. So don’t worry your pretty blond head about it, ‘kay? Now help me out—we’re going to have to draw a salt circle around the board—Fenrir, be a dear and fetch the salt. And Nikolas, I’ll need you to contribute some energy to the ritual, got it? So work on your aura, because I need some positivity.”

Nikolas scowls.

***

Raven and Bjorn had been asked to stay in their rooms, but no concrete measures were taken to ensure their compliance. Thus—when it’s late enough that their parents are likely asleep—the teens make their way back down to the bar.

“How’s it going?” Raven leans over the countertop, an eyebrow cocked, “What’s the scuttlebutt?” She winks at the bartender.

“Eh?” the bartender grunts.

“We were hoping you could help us out,” Bjorn’s approach is softer yet still more direct, “we have some questions.”

“Menu’s over there, if you can read. If not, we got ale, ale, and more ale.”

“Um, that’d be nice, I suppose,” Bjorn replies and slides onto a barstool. He nods at Raven, who scowls but does the same.

The bartender places a pair of mugs in front of the teens. “You want something else, too?”

Bjorn nods. “That’s right, Mister, um—“

“Tom. No mister.”

“We were wondering how well you know the villagers, Tom.”

“Fairly good, at least when it comes to the sots.”

“Perfect. Well, I ran into a man earlier, and I was hoping if I describe him, you might be able to tell me who he was. Is.”

“You can hope all you want,” Tom says.

“He was sort of tall, with messy brown hair and scars over his right eye. He had like a green outfit thing on.” Bjorn stumbles on his description, and Raven laughs.

Tom shrugs. “Sounds like half the village to me.”


“Baldwin,” the woman standing behind them announces, “sounds like Baldwin, not ‘half the village.’”

Bjorn turns to her. “What do you know about him?”

“Only that he’d visit me just about every time he fell into some money, and he wasn’t the worst of the bunch.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Been a long time. Last I heard, he was dead. Got caught up in the war a few months back. Suppose if you saw him, that’s just some story.”

Bjorn’s smile tightens. “But, could he be dead, though? Like, is that within the realm of possibility?” Before the game started, he had idly flipped through the Labyrinths & Liches Monster Manual, which hosted all sorts of beasties and baddies. Undead had been in the dramatis personae, but he cannot for the life of him remember any specifics other than “deadly.”

“You talking about wights and liches, son?” Tom laughs, “Those are just stories your mummy told you to keep you well behaved.”

“Hilde saw a lich,” the woman says.

“Brigid, you know better,” Tom admonishes her, “Hilde is a daft cow.”

“She saw a pair of them, actually,” Brigid continues, “at the Crow & Crown this morning. She said they look just like real men—they just smell a little better.”

“What’s the difference between a wight and a lich?” Raven asks, “are they both just undead? Zombies or whatever?”

Brigid shrugs. “Who knows? All I know is there were liches at the fair this morning, and Tom knows nothing. They’re bound to increase now that Sir Sebastian isn’t here to ward them off.”

“There’s no such thing as undead,” Tom insists, “and Sir Sebastian’s death doesn’t mean a thing other than that he’s wormfood.”

The front door bursts open, as if it were objecting to Tom’s skepticism. The bickering ceases, and the occupants turn to the commotion.

A pair of ashen figures slouch through the front door: a man and a woman, both pallid and dressed in crumpled, blood and mud stained clothing. Their eyes roll back in their head and the jaws are slack, twitching slightly as the groan. The female trips over her own feet as she stumbles forward. Despite that, the two still cut an imposing figure.

Tom’s jaw drops. “Can’t be. It can’t be! Audrey? Geoff? What happened?”
Audrey and Geoff groan and slouch forward.

“Wights!” Brigid lets out an ear piercing shriek, then crumples to the floor. Audrey shifts her focus and snaps at the air, hissing.

While it’s unlike anything she’s ever seen before, cultural osmosis directs Raven: these are to be feared, and everyone in the tavern is in immediate danger. “The back door—out the back door!” she commands. Tom scrambles toward it, but a third wight shambles into sight, blocking his path.

“No way out,” Tom falls back behind the bar.

 “Then we fight,” Raven holds up her hands. Her teenage glee is too apparent, but is met in equal measure by Bjorn.

He roars and draws his sword. “We fight!”

Wights aren’t known for their cunning or prowess which is why, as the Labyrinths & Liches Monster Manual indicates, they are immune to psionic attacks, but also prone to divine magic and magical weapons.

Thus, Bjorn—with his enchanted sword, a perk he took at character creation—fares well.

Raven—as a pious cleric—fares even better.

Bjorn sheathes his sword and leans over the remains of the wight. He tilts her face upward, looking for anything that might belie her identity or her cause.

“You best get out of here, son,” Tom crawls out from behind the bar, “lest more of these monsters swarm this place.”

“I think we need to figure out why they’re coming,” Bjorn says absently. But Tom has already leapt over the corpse and pounded out the back door.

“Bjorn,” Raven calls, “I need your help!”

Bjorn rushes over to find only one wight remaining, but Raven in a panic.

“My magic is fading,” she pants, “because this universe is stupid and I can only cast for, like, two seconds.”

“No worries, m’lady,” he grins and draws his sword.

But before he can strike, there’s a thunderclap and a flash. Geoff is gone, leaving behind no ashes and no corpse.

“Umm,” Raven scratches her head, “where did it go?”

“Hey, your spell worked,” Bjorn beams, “awesome job, Raven!”

“I guess,” she is unconvinced.

Back in Bridgeport, there’s a second flash. Smoke—combined with a pungent smell—fills the air, causing Sadie to gag.

“Did it work?” Nikolas asks through a fit of coughs.

Sadie squints, focusing on a figure in the smoke. Slowly, it dissipates, and she finds a corpse staring back at her.

“That’s not Dom,” Fenrir points, “I thought you were bringing back Dom?”

“I thought so, too,” she gasps.

Geoff shrieks, and the room shakes.

***

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