Hello everyone. This is going to be a new, longer multichapter that I'm going to spend some time on. I've always thought that of course the It kids play D and D, so because I'm a Dungeon Master, I decided that I would take a stab at it. Heres a quick run down of their characters (keep in mind this is based off of the original 1976 DM manual, so it might be a little different than the newest 5e version. The most remarkable of these differences being that there are no backgrounds in the 1976 version.)

Bill: The DM
Richie: Chaotic neutral, dwarf, thief
Stanley: Lawful neutral, half-elf, paladin
Eddie: Lawful good, gnome, illusionist
Beverly: Chaotic good, half-orc, fighter
Ben: Neutral good, elf, bard
Mike: Lawful good, human, monk

Chapter 1

"And d…d…diverging ahead of you, you sssssssse two paths," Bill said, his voice deepening to a confident, almost calming tone, his stutter nearly unnoticeable. "The walls in the first appear to be g…g…gold. You rap your k…k…knuckles on the wall, they're ssssssolid." He took a deep breath to let his words sink in before suddenly jerking his head to the right, seeing the second pathway clearly in his mind and encouraging the others to do the same. "The sssssecond is much more ominous. The g…g…grimy stone walls are splattered with b…b…blood."

"Blood?" Eddie whimpered under his breath.

"Blood!" Bill announced, "some splatters old, r…r…rusted, almost part of the wall, some still ssssssticky." Bill turned to the losers. They were spell-bound, slack-jawed, no longer at a dusty folding table in Bill's basement, but rather in an ominous dungeon thirty miles inland of southern coast of Medieval Italy.

Bill had a way of making realities out of words.

Stanley finally spoke, "well I don't know about you, but I'm not going anywhere near blood and guts land."

"I'm with Stan the Man," Richie said, "Dirk the Dwarf isn't in the mood for an involuntary colonoscopy."

Beverly narrowed her eyes, as if the solution were the most obvious thing in the world. She gestured to the half-filled out map on the table. "It's clearly a trap."

Stan started, "I don't know, I think sticky bloodstains on the wall is pretty straightforward…"

"Have you ever played one straightforward Bill Denbrough Campaign?" Beverly asked, Richie opened his mouth to answer, but Beverly held out a hand, stopping him in his tracks, "don't say anything, the correct answer is no. He's trying to trick us into going down the gold path so we can fight another fucking dragon." Beverly shot a glance at Bill, "aren't you?" Bill simply wiggled his eyebrows in response.

"Beverly's usually right," Ben said, fiddling with his purple figurine.

"Is Beverly usually right?" Richie responded, "we can't forget that one time she got us into a magical cocaine smuggling ring and we had to kill and skin Eddie Spaghetti here because gnome skin was the only substance tough enough to pack cocaine endowed with the fire of 1,000 suns."

"It wasn't cocaine it was like LSD made from pixie wings, centaur nose hairs, and enchanted arugula for the shadow realm," Beverly retorted.

"It was called d…d…dragon snot," Bill piped up.

"Plus she totally saved our asses with that," Ben added. "Remember that it was called dragon snot for a reason, the noble elves had specifically engineered it so they could get dragons addicted to the stuff because dragons sit on piles and piles of gold the elves wanted. So when we gave the dragon his fix, he gave us enough money to pay back the devil for that one time we accidentally…"

"We all remember the highway to hell campaign like it was yesterday, Haystack." Richie leaned back in his chair, moving to slyly put his arm around Eddie, who was resting his chin on the palm of his hand, face scrunched in concentration, "no need for a recap." Eddie shot a glance upwards at Richie, considering pushing him away for a second before deciding that this display of affection was acceptable.

"Leave Ben alone!" Beverly said, punching Richie's free arm. "At least he didn't spend an entire campaign night trying to do the dirty with a mute mattress-store owning gnome with a lampshade over his head."

"Woah woah woah slow your roll," Richie retorted, "that's taking it a little out of context…"

Beverly cut Richie off, "doesn't mean it's not true…"

"…or any less weird." Eddie muttered under his breath, finishing her sentence.

"Is it annual trash the Trashmouth day or something because I cannot catch a break with you people!" Richie sighed overdramatically, "Eddie Spaghetti over there thinks it's weird that I tried to marry a gnome when he is quite literally a gnome, Molly Ringwald wants us to go down the fucking hallway of death, and..."

Mike cut him off, "let's think through this logically." He had clearly been pondering the issue for some time instead of listening to the conversation. "There are some pretty clear monsters that are associated with the two different themes the pathways represent. Gold usually indicates some sort of hoarding or guarding monster: a dragon, a naga, etc. etc. Blood would indicate some sort of undead enemy: a ghost, a ghoul, a skeleton." The others losers stared at him blankly, unsure of the importance of what Mike was saying. "This means that while the golden path is more predictable because Nagas and Wyrmlings are generally similar in terms of difficulty and gameplay. And by generally similar I mean that because we're all playing with new characters, they would both most likely kill give or take half of us. The Naga might kill one more and the Wyrmling might kill one less. It wouldn't be a dragon, no dungeon master would ever make new characters fight a full-fledged dragon on the first floor." He sighed, "but the bloodstained pathway is a total wildcard. It could be an easy fight, a 13hp skeleton or something, or it could be nearly invincible, a ghost most likely because Bill has expressed his immense dislike for ghouls many times. Possibly even more than one because of the sheer volume of the blood stains. This would mean that because we have no magical weapons or high level spells, we would have no means to fight it and would be forced to run. But considering the high speed of ghosts, Eddie and Stan would probably be the only ones to make it out alive."

They were all silent for a long moment before Richie spoke, "Jesus Homeschool… I wouldn't have gone much deeper than gold good blood bad, but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Okay I still don't know what we should do…" Eddie piped in nervously, eyes flitting frantically over the unfinished map.

"I'm with Eddie," Stanley said, looking up from reorganizing his personal dice, "while informative, Mike's analysis of the situation did little more than complicate the issue." He cleared his throat, "even so, I'm still personally inclined towards the golden pathway." Beverly shot him a look and he sprang to defend himself, "what? It's the only logical path. It gives the campaign the best chance of survival. We can't connect sacrifices we have to make to further ourselves in the game with our opinions of each other in real life." Eddie nodded hastily in agreement.

Beverly cut in, "Eddie you just don't want to go down the bloody path." Eddie clutched his hand over his heart in offense, but before he could retort, Beverly kept speaking, "and Stanley, with all due respects, your opinion is bullshit. We can't just leave half the party to die. It's all for one and one for all."

Eddie threw up his hands in an exasperated gestured, "where was that mentality when you skinned me so that you could supply drugs for a stoned dragon?"

"Can't always save 'em all, my dear," Beverly replied suavely.

"The point of what you just said was literally that we should always try to save them all," Stan mumbled mostly to himself. Everyone ignored him. Stan sighed, unperturbed, he had long accepted that he was the voice of reason no one listened to.

"I agree with Bev," Ben said finally, breaking the silence.

"You always agree with Bev," Stanley mumbled.

"Leave Haystack alone, Molly Ringwald is very convincing," Richie piped up. "I, for one, am entirely sold on her brilliant plan and am eagerly awaiting being inducted into the ghostbusters," Eddie shot him a look and he shrugged, "what? You all are my only friends, I don't want to abandon any of you, etc. etc. insert Stand by Me shit."

"Well if the party ends up being ssssssplit on the vote, then we're going to have to r…r…r…roll." Bill finally said, careful not the give them any hints as to the easier path. "It all hinges on M…M…Mike."

The entire party swiveled to face Mike, eagerly anticipating his answer. He took a deep, slow breath, as he often did before he spoke. "I'm afraid that I have to agree with Beverly. Although Stan's logic is technically more sound, Beverly was, as Richie pointed out, very persuasive." He smiled at Bev, who winked in return.

"B…b…b…bloody room it is." Bill said, flashing a quick glance at his notes before looking back at his friends. Stanley had his face in his hands, audibly muttering a rotation of bird names; Eddie had grabbed onto Richie's arm and was clutching it to his chest for dear life; Mike and Ben both looked as if they might faint; and Beverly sat with her arms crossed, unfazed and completely confident in her decision. Bill took a deep breath, "you turn to face the p...p…pathway, but before you can take a sssssingle step, the room starts to r…r…rumble. It's ssssssubtle at first, subtle enough that n…n…none of you notice it. But then, it becomes ssssso intense that you c…c…can't even stand." The table they were sitting on shifted a little and a picture on the wall skewed slightly, only Stanley noticed.

"Guys…" Stanley said tentatively.

"Shhhhh!" Eddie hissed.

"Guys, seriously," Stanley said, starting to get a little annoyed.

Richie piped up, "well you're sure annoying wordy today Stan the…"

"GUYS!" Stanley screamed. Everyone turned to look at him, shocked by his sudden outburst. "I'm not fucking around. Something is happening." Their expressions of shock morphed into confusion, "you see that picture over there, it just shifted."

"Stanley, what the…" Eddie tried to speak, but Stanley cut him off.

"No, no, no, no, no, Eddie. I'm not freaking out over nothing. I know that pictures don't move that much unless there's some sort of force that travels through the wall." Stanley said, "the floor has to be shaking."

The Losers looked at him for a second before all of them, except for Mike, burst out laughing. "Stan the man has some sort of sixth sense that we knew nothing about!" Richie said between peals of laughter, "you think you can read my palm, analyze my horoscope, I can tell you one thing and that's that because of my zodiac I really like to f…"

Mike cut him off, "I think Stanley might be right."

"What?" Beverly turned to him.

"I said that I think Stanley might be…" He was cut off as the room gave a much larger shake. Bill's books went crashing to the floor with an immense bang and both him and Beverly scrambled to pick them up. Stanley was frozen in place, too engulfed in terror to react, much less gloat that he had been right. Mike looked around, curious and slightly concerned. Ben grabbed onto his chair, his knuckles and his face white. Eddie screamed, falling out of his chair and grasping for his inhaler which was back on the table. Richie grabbed it, kneeling down next to Eddie and placing it in his hand. Eddie shakily placed the inhaler in his mouth, pulling the trigger.

"You alright…?" Richie was cut off by another rumble, "fuck," was all he managed to mumble as the room started to shake more and more violently. Bill and Beverly went crashing to the floor, Bill landing on top of Beverly. Ben fell into the table, taking the whole thing out with him. Richie draped himself over Eddie in a feeble attempt to protect him, his glasses clattering to the floor. Mike did his best to gather together the books and hold them in his arms to make sure they didn't get damaged, as Bill had just bought them brand new with his own money. Stanley curled up into a little ball on the floor, whispering bird names with increasing speed.

Once the room stopped shaking, all of the Losers laid on the floor for a moment, almost afraid to move. Bill was the first to stand, extending a hand to Beverly and asking, "are you g…g…guys alright?" Beverly gave him a firm thumbs up, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. Eddie and Stanley nodded at once, both quickly and fearfully. Mike nodded gravely and Ben let out a small grunt of agreement.

They looked over at Richie, who was groping around on the floor, clearly looking for something. "I'd be much better if I could find my gl… "Richie stopped, getting to his feet as if suddenly realizing something, "holy shit. I can see without my glasses." The rest of them were stunned into silence, "WHAT THE HELL! I'VE BEEN PRACTICALLY BLIND MY WHOLE LIFE AND THEN THE MAGICAL EARTHQUAKE OF MAGICALNESS SUDDENLY CURES IT." Bill turned away, examining the room, his expression morphing into a mask of shock. He tried to get the other's attention, but he couldn't out-shout Richie, who was borderline hysterical, "NO WAY! THIS IS BULLSHIT. B-U-L-L…"

Bill cut him off, "RICHIE!" All of them turned to face him, "l...l…l…look." They all turned, slowly realizing that in front of them there was no longer a rickety wooden staircase, but rather a long, dark hallway, the walls splattered with blood.

"Oh shit," Richie hissed.