Worm d20: The Twelfth Day of Christmas


Colin could be heard from behind his screen, noisily shuffling papers around in an attempt to appear busy.

The rest of the group remained silent—a few fidgeting in their seats, but the others were mostly frozen in place as they absorbed the events of the last few minutes.

One brunette in particular had slumped against the table, lightly banging her head against the surface.

Somebody coughed and Taylor jerked back to life, lifting her head to stare around the room. "Well…" she said with a false cheer as she returned to an upright position. "That could have gone better."

"Lucy's dead," Rachel whispered in a choking, broken sort of tone.

"But the rest of us are still alive. It could have been worse."

"Panacea ran from us," Brian pointed out. "From you."

"To be honest, I'm pretty sure even Sarah would have had a hard time trying to be diplomatic with her."

"Hey!" the blonde protested.

"Also, Mannequin got away," Paul summarised. "Nearly completely unscathed, I might add. How do you do worse with backup than you do solo?"

"I've lost one of my dogs again…"

"Uh… Rache?" Aisha reached over to pat the older redhead on the shoulder. "Just a game, Girl. Calm down."

"She's got a point, though," Brian piped up. "She's the only one of us to have sustained permanent losses. I wonder why that is?"

"Clearly, Colin is not a fan of dogs," the highschooler pronounced sagely.

Heads turned towards the DM, who blanched at the collective glares directed his way. He lifted his hands in mock surrender. "I admit nothing," he protested.

...

"Hellhound, take four poison damage. Bentley is downed."

"…meep."

"Skitter, your Perception check was good enough for you to realise something was wrong and stop in time. Specifically, all of your bugs within several feet of Mannequin's position are dropping like flies."

Paul groaned and dropped his head into one hand. "That pun is bad and you should feel bad."

"Wait… wait," Taylor said. "We got here in only five minutes and Mannequin managed to take out Genesis' body—whatever she turned into—with the bare amount of lead he had on us, just like that?"

"Well, yes… but—"

"You just described her form to us. She's… was… a freaking Stego-scorpion! And Mannequin took her down in what.. two minutes? Three tops?"

"Yes. Genesis is just an NPC, she's supposed to get Worf'd." Colin shook his head and turned his attention back to his notes. "Moving along. Skitter you notice that several of the mundane defenders are also down. You can't tell if they are dead or not. Bentley and Hellhound are down and any bugs you sent towards them are quickly dying off."

"And the bastard?"

"Bastard is still with you."

"No, I meant the—wait, Bitch brought the puppy along with her? Why the f—"

"Ask her. Mannequin is just standing there and laughing at you."

Taylor's eyes narrowed. "He can't talk," she pointed out.

"Well, you can see that he's shaking his head and shoulders and he has a flapping aperture in his head where a mouth would go. There's just no sound coming out of it."

"And things that are close to him are getting hurt when he laughs."

"That's a possible correlation-causation."

"That fucker's got mime powers?!"

"No, but—"

"I want mime powers!"

"Taylor…"

"Screw being the Bug Girl, what was I thinking?! I could make an invisible hammer or something and just stomp this guy flat. Or rev up a chainsaw, or—"

"Or," Sarah interrupted. "You could hand out little invisible bouquets to everyone you meet and make them all nice and happy; becoming the hero who everyone loves to be around. Or just loves."

"—or I could hand out—wait, no. Stop that." Taylor turned her glare towards the smirking blonde.

"I am the greatest cowgirl ever!" Taylor crowed. "I ride wolves!"

"Why am I the distraction?" Brian complained.

"Because I am the great playmaker and I need space to think," the brunette replied.

"Fun."

"Grue, Mannequin opens fire on you. What's your Reflex?"

"Double fun."

"Next time, let's see if we can do this without blowing everybody up," Brian suggested.

"He has literal laughing gas. He had guns. He didn't use said gas with said guns." Taylor shrugged. "Seemed fairly straightforward to me."

"He shot you."

"That's what armour is for. And it was all part of my master plan to send in the pyro-bugs unnoticed."

"Oh God!" Rachel squeaked. She clutched her hands to her temples. "T-they really did have torches and pitchforks!"

Taylor and Brian gave the trembling redhead a brief glance, then turned their focus back on each other. "Anyhow, it worked. Skitter: 2, Mr. Mime: zilch."

"Congratulations, Mannequin is down… but he appears to be relatively intact. Just stunned," Colin summarised.

Taylor blinked, then swore. "Forget mimes. Fucking Tinkers."

"I send Bastard to pin him down," Rachel announced. She gave a sidelong glance towards the brunette. "And have him rip off his limbs."

"Roll a Strength check for Bastard."

"As soon as we're done here, I'm rerolling. I'm gonna be the best Tinker ever and make this bullshit serve me. Kid Win? Not enough boom. Armsmaster? Child's play. Manne-fucking-quin? I'll make an army of him."

Colin and the others tuned-out the ranting woman with a nonchalance borne of long, suffering experience. "You manage to get an arm. He goes for the legs but the attachment material there is still in one piece so Bastard's just got a good grip on him."

"T-that's okay. I sic Sirius on him as well."

"I'll be the most broken Tinker the world has ever seen. The Queen of all Tinkers!"

"He survived a shot to the head, right?" Brian asked. He turned towards Sarah and got a nod in confirmation. "Right, so then I look for a nearby piece of rubble—as heavy and as sharp as I can find—and I swing for Mannequin's chestplates."

"The Tinker Queen! Wait, no… that doesn't sound quite right…"

"Grue, before you can finish off Mannequin, however, a blast of fire knocks you, Sirius, and Bastard away. A woman steps through the fires your explosions started and moves to stand protectively over Mannequin. You recognise her as Burnscar, a fellow member of the Slaughterhouse Nine."

Brian paled. "That's against the rules," he protested.

"'Screw the rules, I'm evil'."

"…That's just lazy storytelling."

"I know! The Techno Q—" thunder rumbled in the distance, interrupting Taylor's sudden exclamation of inspiration. The sound appeared to shake her out of whatever mania she'd dropped herself into. "Oh, what's going on now?"

ooo


(a/n)—still alive. hello

as you can see by the title, i've been sitting on this for... quite a while. oops?

misc disclaimer. all references to person, events, fics, TITLES *crackathoom* are purely imaginary and in your head and mean absolutely nothing. zilch. nada.

ಠ_ಠ srs