Slain Regent: Transcript, a dungeons and dragons fanfic

The cypress, willow, and reed tangle of the Brinestump Marsh opens to a crude village-fort, its wooden palisade half-painted in mud. The northern gate lies in shambles in the muck. Its unbound timbers stick up here and there like the fingers of a drowned giant.

An algae-filled pool breaks through the palisade. Across its slimy green waters, a ramshackle huts connected by wooden walkways stand on thick wooden stilts.

Mei

A short, stocky Tian-Min crouches in the reeds. Dark, olive brown fingers load a bolt into their crossbow. They look back over their shoulder with a stiff nod.

Kai

An athletic Tian-Min with thick black hair drawn back into a long ponytail nods back. Kai, second of the nonbinary siblings, creeps forward to Mei's side. They flick their fists open, growing blue-green claws from the end of each finger.

Iko

An unsheathed cutlass whispers amongst the reeds. Iko, tallest and chubbiest of the four, crouches behind their elders. Black, monolid eyes survey the village.

Despite the late morning hour, there's no sign of activity in the goblin village. Like the north gate, some of the buildings have collapsed. Others, burned, although that's to be expected with the Licktoad's recent, mysterious acquisition of military-grade fireworks.

Itsu

Unlike his elder siblings, the short, slender Itsu keeps his weapon sheathed.

"Maybe I should go first. And do the talking."

Mei

"No heads, no pay."

Kai

Yeah, Sheriff Hemlock's bounty is harsh, but not without reason. The goblins had already killed three travellers by firework and led many more caravan horses fleeing to their deaths in the swamp, swamp-wrecking the wares.

Iko

"Historically, this tribe has never preyed on humans. Things might've changed with the fireworks, but whatever's just gone down here might make the goblins easier to reason with."

If it isn't still in the village waiting for more victims. Iko banishes the thought with a shiver. The cat-ear buns of her hair rattle the reeds.

"I'm with Itsu on this one."

Mei

"Fine, but keep your weapons handy."

Mei pushes to their feet-no point in stealth now. They let Itsu take point, but they wouldn't mind seeing things go to shit.

The "great" city of Magnimar had hiked taxes on their own little village of Sandpoint. Again. Mama Koya puts on a brave face, but Mei's seen the bills. They're one collection away from losing the house.

Itsu

Itsu calls out to the Licktoads as he picks his way through the shambles of their front gate, "Hello? We come in peace! Is anybody home?"

Itsu catches a swatch of green from the window of a hut. The lone goblin ducks out of view.

Mei

"Who wants to bet they're not alone?"

Kai

"Not when you say it like that."

Now the goblin's sure to have company. Military grade fireworks, too, if they're extra unlucky.

Itsu

"I'm taking that bet. Put me down for ten," Itsu clambers over the wooden walkway and knocks on the door. "Hey-we're not here to hurt you. I'm Itsu and these are my siblings. Sandpoint's sent us to negotiate a...re-directioning of your fireworks."

The rickety wooden door creaks open. Six pairs of beady black eyes stare up at you from behind crude wooden furniture and rotted crates subbing in for furniture.

Iko

Huh, Iko blinks. She's glad she didn't take the bet, of course, but she'd also not made a counter bet about multiple but non-hostile goblins. Mei is just obstinately lucky.

Itsu

Itsu crouches down with a warm smile. He waves at the tops of the round green heads, "Hey, no need to be scared. We noticed your front door's a bit...everywhere. What happened here?"

The goblins duck down to chitter in Goblin. Seconds later, the goblins kick forward a three-foot, rotund, froggy-faced goblin. The little dude lands on his butt with a dogslicer in one hand, a firework in the other, his face wavering between bug-eyed fear and a good, crumpling cry.

"Sk-sk-skeletons!" he finally breaks down.

Mei

Mei knows a rabbit hole they see one. But with heads out of the picture, they can't meet the original bounty anyway. It's time to improvise their own bounty.

"Skeletons attacked your village, got it. We'll deal with your skeletons if you stop aiming your fireworks at townsfolk, but we're gonna need some payment."

The remaining goblins duck down and chitter. A second goblin, their leader if the collection of sticks, feathers, and rusted metal on their head is any indication, waddles forward. They give their compatriot a perfunctory, wail-ending smack to the jowls.

"You kill skeletons, we give you skeleton treasure."

Kai

Skeleton treasure sounds better than nothing, certainly more interesting than your typical heads-for-coin exchange. But if the goblins had the skeletons' treasure, maybe that's why they'd gotten attacked in the first place.

"Seems a bit of a skint deal."

Iko

"What about the part where you stop the caravan attacks?"

"Fine, fine, FINE. Fireworks for hunting only."

Kai

Right, that's better.

Itsu

"Great! So, where did the skeletons go?"

The head goblin snaps their pudgy, clawed fingers at the goblins in the back, "Bring skeleton treasure map."

One bumbling, interior ransack later, the goblins in the back bring forth a painted fan on the flats of their little hands. Made of gold and ivory, the front depicts a gecko amid cherry blossoms. The back, however, has been completely crayoned over with a crude map of Brinestump Marsh and an x-marked spot.

Mei

Mei frowns. That can't be crayoned to scale. No, Brinestump isn't as sprawling as the Mushfens to the south, but if they get stuck here after dark, Mama Koya'll have words.

"Thanks," Mei takes the map and passes it to Kai. "What do you make of this?"

Kai

"I haven't been that far south-it's right on the marsh's edge. I've seen the cliffs though. I think we're looking at wet caves."

Mei

Fuck that's far. They could make it down before sunset but they'd be camping out tonight. Mei turns on their heel, "Kai, take point."

Iko

"We'll be back tomorrow," Iko explains, having calculated the distance factored by Mei's safety concerns. She smiles at the goblins. "Get that cursed treasure ready."

Could it be cursed? Possibly, but chances were slim given the caliber of the spellcasters in this backest of backwater Varisia. Goblins, however, would probably be more eager to part with cursed treasure.

Itsu

Itsu follows backward after his siblings to wave goodbye to the Licktoads, "Don't you worry bout a thing!"

-/-

A fifty-foot-high cliff rises along the marsh's southern border, its face a thick tangle of jutting rocks and bright green vines and nettles. Below, what first appears to be a strange tangle of branches is in fact the moss-covered ribs of a wrecked ship. The ruined ship lies on its side, split down the middle and mostly sunken into the mud and murky water.

Mei

Mei raises a hand for a stop at the head of the nettle-strewn path. With the sun low and the shadows high, they don't have daylight to spare. They search for dangers as well as the clearest way through to the ship.

The nettles are in stinging range everywhere except through the narrow stretch Mei discovers. Despite the shadows, from their vantage point they also spot a verdigris-encrusted nameplate on the wreck. It reads "Kaijitsu's Blossom" not in Taldane, the Common of the Inner Sea, but in Tian.

Mei

"Follow me."

Iko

Iko follows right up on Mei's heels. Tian-Tian characters here in Brinestump. Iko's never seen them outside of Mama Koya's handful of books, all of which she'd already read five times over at the minimum. Maybe there are more! But if they come upon waterlogged, half-rotted books, she just might scream.

As you reach the edge of the stinking, ship-stuffed murk, three skeletons rise from the shallows, mud dripping from between their bones. They draw short, slender blades-rusty and even more lethally functional for it.

Kai

Skeletons, just like the goblins said. Nothing to get angry about there. Kai flicks out their claws and goes to skull-tearing work.

Kai's claws bore into the bones as easily as they slice through flesh. The skeleton flies apart, splattering into the swamp in pieces.

Mei

Mei aims their crossbow right between the eyes of the next skull.

Unlike Kai's claws, Mei's bolt bounces right off the ivory curve.

The skeleton rights its tilted skull and charges Mei with a rusty swipe. Its blade bounces off their scale mail, tit-for-tat.

The second skeleton stabs at Itsu. Its sword glances off his chain mail with a crunch of metal rings.

Itsu

"Ow."

That's gonna bruise, but it doesn't stop Itsu from swinging his scimitar. At the height of its arc, the blade flashes red with a spark of magic.

Itsu's magicked blade shatters through the skeleton's skull. The headless stack of bones drops thick into the mud.

Iko

There's nothing there behind those eyeless sockets. Iko stares down the mindless undead and slashes her cutlass. Like Itsu's, her blade flashes, but Iko's magic is white as death.

The last skeleton flies apart on either side of Iko's cutlass. With its splatter and sink, the swamp returns to its muggy, insect-buzzing stillness.

Kai

Kai lowers their unbloodied claws, "Clear."

They wade in to check out the piece of the ship. This is definitely not the place for it. The swamp doesn't open into Sog's Bay for miles yet.

Kai manages to dislodge the rib. There are no further protrusions of ship. From their part of the swamp, however, they spot a jagged opening at the base of the cliff.

Kai

"Fam, I think I found the skeleton hole."

Mei

"Good work. Eyes open."

Mei keeps her crossbow at the ready and follows Kai through the gap.

You squeeze through slick, narrowing rock into a dark, earthen tube of a cavern. Its ceilings, less than seven feet over head, drip fluid onto your heads. Every wall bleeds rivulets down to three-foot pools of brackish water.

Itsu

They're not gonna be able to spot the skeletons like this. Itsu rifles through his bag for a torch.

Iko

Iko slaps Itsu's back-bent arm away from his own backpack, "Think, fool! We're in a confined space in a gas-leaking swamp."

Itsu

"Oh, fuck! Right, sorry," Itsu leaves his death-torch in his pack.

Iko

"I was about to give us a light anyway."

Iko snaps her fingers. Wisps of white light wink into being at her four corners. They swirl soundlessly into glowing orbs not unlike the will-o-wisps endemic to swamps.

Iko's light reveals four skeletons lying across the cavern floorstones. They're unarmed and unmoving, but sport broken foreign armor.

Iko recognizes the style of armor from Mama Koya's books. It hails from the continent of Tian-Xia, country of Minkai.

Iko

Iko's breath draws short and sharp, "They're Tian-Min."

Just like them.

Kai

"Oh," Kai's shoulders slump. "Too bad we can't bury them."

He stamps his foot through a skull before it does anything undead at them.

The skull crunches to gritty smithereens under Kai's boot. Bone clatters on rock, pieces large enough to echo through the stone tube. The three skeletons on the rocks rise to their feet. Three more swish up from the brackish water, one both armored and armed. From the way its short, slender blade glows a pale jade, this is clearly the head undead.

The four underling skeletons charge one at each of you. The lack of weapons only sharpens their fingerbones to raking claws.

The first slips over the slick stone. It falls with a clatter at Itsu's feet, finger-claws jabbing through its own eyesocket. The luckless bones don't get up.

The second rakes three deep gashes through Kai's chest.

The third finds a chink in Mei's scale mail. It jabs its finger-claws between their ribs, drawing dark blood.

Iko's scale mail holds up only slightly better. Her skeleton's claws still find purchase across her throat.

Itsu

"I'm chopping off the head," calls Itsu, his scimitar charging with vermilion magic.

He jumps over the self-impaled skeleton and slashes at the armored boss.

The reddened blade shreds a shower of sparks through the boss' chainmail but doesn't touch a single, undead bone.

Kai

Kai roars in pain. It's angry time. They rip at the skeleton before them in mind-blanking rage.

Kai rips the skull right off the skeleton's spine.

The head undead points a bony finger in Itsu's face. Its jaw drops, issuing a wordless scream of a challenge. It swings its sword with one hand and claws at Itsu with the other.

Itsu, pressing his luck, dodges the blade, exposing himself to the claw. It rips down the side of his back.

Mei

"You're at point-blank, Boney," Mei growls, firing their crossbow.

Mei's bolt punches through Boney's skull. The skeleton splashes into the brackish water.

Iko

"You're blocking my path," says Iko, low and icy.

She swings her cutlass in a flash of white.

Unfortunately, Iko's blade bounces off the ancient bones. The skeleton who continues to block her path claws back. There's more bounce as the claws clatter off her deftly raised buckler.

Itsu

That was way too close. Itsu shifts back over the slick rock. He raises two fingers before the line of his nose, "Shields up."

His aura flares with reddish magic visible only to Itsu

Kai

While Itsu buffs, Kai takes over the head-chopping business. They swipe twice at the boss.

Kai takes a good, big, bone-and-rust chunk out of the boss, but it doesn't go down. Instead, it whales on Kai with rust and bone.

Kai catches the blade on their claws and throws it off. The head's claw, however, stabs three boney fingers into their side.

Kai goes down with a grunt, unconscious before they clack against the stone floor.

Mei

"Fuck!" Mei swears in Tian.

They turn their crossbow onto Iko's path-blocking skeleton.

Mei's bolt sends the skull flying down the cavern. It lands with a wet plop.

Iko

"Thanks."

Iko shifts over Kai's wounded body and slashes at the boss.

Iko's white-flashing cutlass doesn't just hit. It coup-de-graces straight through the jawbone under the boss' helmet, slicing its skull in two halves.

The head undead clatters on the rock beside Kai's weak-breathing form. The cavern falls into thick, muggy stillness broken only by the plinking drops.

Up from the pool from whence the boss came, a dark corner breaks the surface. A large jade and cherry wood chest bobs in the brackish water.