AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is inspired by "A Seemingly Simple Game," by Sarah1281- who I should really stop cribbing off of- and the fact I am a ginormous tabletop RPG geek. Bear in mind, it's a PARODY, and also contains a LOT of dumb jokes and references, to Harry Potter stuff as well as other media. See if you can spot them all!
You won't… I mean, you won't get anything if you do, it's just… you know what? Never mind. Carry on...
Chapter 1: Ill-met in the Common Room
"Oh, Merlin!" Ron Weasley exclaimed.
"What?" Harry Potter straightened at the sudden shout. "What is it?!" He looked around the Gryffindor common room for trouble.
"I. Am. So. Bored!" Ron announced.
Harry blinked at him. "What?"
"Like… detention with Professor Binns, bored," Ron said.
Hermione, who'd remained buried in a book during the last few moments, looked up and said, "Ronald! Don't be ridiculous! Nothing can be that boring!"
Ron sighed. "Exactly. That's how bored I am." He slumped back on the couch.
"He's got a point," Harry told Hermione, "it's weird how boring Hogwarts can be when no one is trying to kill me. Not that I'm complaining," he explained hurriedly.
"That's what I mean," Ron said. "Usually when it starts to get boring, we can count on something trying to kill Harry, or cause some other kind of Harrycentric trouble, to break the monotony. But it's been nothing for like, a straight week. Even Malfoy isn't around to be annoying."
"'Harrycentric?'" Hermione asked.
"Yeah," Ron told her, "it means 'centered on Harry.'"
"I know what it means, Ron," Hermione snapped, "I'm just surprised you do."
Ron glared at her. "I'm hurt, Hermione. I'm lazy, not dumb."
Hermione opened her mouth, blinked, then shook her head as if to clear it. "Well, what do you want me to do about it, Ron? You could do your holiday homework, you know!"
"I did," Ron grumbled, "I even rechecked it."
"He did," Harry assured Hermione, "I mean, I'm not sure that his essay on the mating habits of Veela is going to be acceptable in Care of Magical Creatures class, but…"
"What?" Hermione demanded. She took a deep breath. "He really is bored," she told Harry.
"Yeah," Ron said. "And there's only so much time I can spend…" He glanced at Hermione and stopped talking.
"'Spend' what, Ron?" Hermione demanded.
"Nothing," Ron muttered, as he looked at an interesting stain on the common room wall, "it's a guy thing, you wouldn't understand."
Hermione gave him a suspicious look. "Hmm…"
"He's talking about span…" Ginny Weasley said as she entered the common room.
"Ginny!" Ron yelled and cut her off.
"'Spain?'" Hermione's brow wrinkled. "Is that some sort of slang I don't know about?"
"Yes," Ron announced as he glared daggers at Ginny.
She grinned back, unconcerned. "Why are you talking about Spain… and… it… anyway?" she asked, ignoring Ron's glare.
"Ron's bored," Harry told the youngest Weasley.
"Everyone's bored," Ginny said, "why should you be special? No one's tried to kill Harry for ages."
"Ginny!" Hermione said.
Harry just shrugged. "It really is the only thing that adds excitement to school," Harry said. "When Draco isn't around," he sighed.
"To argue with, you mean?" Ron asked. "And to one-up?"
Harry paused and gave a careful nod. "Yes," he agreed, "when Draco is not around to argue with and one-up, certainly nothing else, haha, whatever could you be implying, Ron?"
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all started at Harry. "Wut?" they all asked.
Harry blinked, "Nothing," he said. "What were you saying about everyone being bored, Ginny?"
She shrugged. "Ron's bored, I'm bored…"
"I'm bored," Harry said. He looked at Hermione.
"Of course I'm not bored," Hermione said, "I have lots of books to read and oh, my God, I have done all my homework and read every book I can get my hands on, already, and I'm so bored I'm ready to kill someone!" Her chest heaved as she stared, wild-eyed, at the others.
Ginny took a careful step back from her while Ron and Harry edged along the couch to put some distance between them.
"Hey," Neville Longbottom called out as he entered the common room, "is anyone else really bor…"
"Yes!" came the response from everyone in unison.
Neville stopped. "Well, I'm, I… might have an answer?"
"Which is?" Hermione asked.
"Wait here!" He turned and dashed back toward the boys' dorms. They waited, staring at each other blankly, until he returned.
The stout boy returned with an armful of books and other paraphernalia, including a thick, 3-ring binder, some sort of plastic case, and leather bag. He staggered across the room and dumped it all on the table. The bag rattled as it tumbled. It hit the floor and dozens of small, colorful shapes scattered.
"Don't let the dice roll under the couch!" Neville said.
"Dice?" Harry and Ron gathered them up and returned them to the table. Ron held one up and squinted at it. "This doesn't look like any kind of dice I've ever seen. Mind you, I've only ever seen the ones Fred and George use for their floating dice game…"
"Do they still have that thing going?" Ginny asked, surprised.
"Yeah, they've upped the buy-in to 5 galleons," Ron said. "They've been taking Slytherin purebloods for every knut with those rigged dice.
"Rigged?" Harry asked, shocked, "Aw, man, I lost 13 galleons to them the other day!"
Ginny shrugged. "Don't worry, Harry, I'll beat it out of them for you."
"Aw, thanks, Gin'," Harry said with a grin, "you're great."
"Anyway," Hermione asked, "what is all this stuff, Neville?"
Neville grinned and patted the stack of books. "This, my friends, is everything you need to play the greatest game ever made: 'Catacombs & Chimeras.'" He held up a thin book to show them a lurid picture of a group of people-one with a sword, one with a bow, and another, in robes, casting what looked like an Avada Kedavra, though with no wand-fighting a frightening creature in some sort of tunnel.
After they all blinked at it for a moment, Neville said, "It's a tabletop role-playing game."
"What's that then?" Ron asked.
"It's kind of like… a story, but you play one of the characters, and get to decide what they do."
"Well," Ron said, "if you have to read books, Hermione will love it."
"Just because some of us like to learn, Ron…" Hermione started.
"You don't have to read the books," Neville assured him. "I have some pregenerated characters and I'll help you modify them, and teach you as we go."
"I don't know what any of those words mean when you put them together like that," Harry assured him.
Ron mused on that. "I don't have to remember a bunch of stuff?" he asked.
"Everything you need to know will be on your character sheet," Neville said, "or I'll tell you."
"Why not?" Harry asked.
"I guess so," Ron agreed.
"Sure," Ginny said, "nothing else is happening." She looked at Hermione.
"Can I read the books if I want to?" Hermione asked.
"Sure," Neville said, "I'll let you borrow them later."
"Yeah, all right, I'm in," Hermione answered.
Chapter 2: Character (Arrested) Development
"All right," Neville said, "everyone has their filled-out character sheets, a pencil, and some dice…"
"This isn't right," Ron objected, "it says my name is 'Sigwil the Sneaky.' It also says I'm a house elf!" He stared at the paper. "And it's calling me a thief! What the heck, man?!"
"That's your character's name, Ron," Neville said, "not yours. And you're just an elf, not a house elf."
"What other kind of elves are there?" Ron asked, puzzled.
"In this world, there are wood elves, high elves, and poison elves," Neville told him. "Your character is a wood elf. And 'thief' is your character class. It's what your character is good at."
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," Harry said, "I'm not letting you near…" he paused to examine his sheet, "Bariah Boldblade's gold, you thief."
"That really hurts, mate," Ron told him, "you can trust me! Besides, how do I know that…" he gestured at Harry.
"Bariah Boldblade," Harry supplied.
"...Bariah Boldblade isn't a thief?" Ron asked.
"He's not," Harry said, and tapped his sheet, "it says here he's an 'armsmaster.'" He looked at the information. "A human armsmaster." He looked at Hermione, who was nose-deep in the Players Manual. "What's your character, Hermione?"
She paused in her reading to look at her sheet. "I'm playing Kyla Twilock, a gnome sorceress."
"What's a sorceress?" Ron asked.
"It means you can cast spells," Neville said.
"We can all cast spells, Neville," Ron said, "we're Hogwarts students."
"Not in this game you can't," Neville said, "you have to be a magic-using class to cast spells."
"What?" Ron asked, mouth agape. "I'm not just a house elf…"
"Wood elf," Neville said.
"... Wood elf, but some weird muggle hou… wood… elf, who can't do magic?" He looked at Hermione. "And you're a garden gnome?"
"It's not that kind of gnome, Ron," Neville sighed.
"And what's wrong with being a muggle?" Hermione demanded.
Harry whispered, "Don't move, Ron! She hunts by sensing motion!"
Ron froze. "There's… uh, nothing wrong with being a muggle, Hermione," Ron said, "I was just taken by surprise."
"Hmm," Hermione said. She glanced at Harry. "And I do not 'hunt by sensing motion,' Harry Potter!" She "harrumphed" and went back to the book with a muttered, "I hunt by smelling your fear."
"It's Ron," Ginny said, "that isn't fear you smell, it's three days without a shower."
"Oi!" Ron groused.
"Well, I'm playing Scarlet Manslayer," Ginny said, "I changed the name," she added to Neville. Then, "She's a half-elf priestess." She looked satisfied.
"So, who do you play?" Harry asked Neville.
"I play everyone else," Neville said.
"That's not fair," Ron said, "why do you get to be a bunch more people?"
"I'm the Catacomb Master, Ron," Neville said, "I tell you what's happening and you tell me what you want to do, then roll dice to see if you succeed. Then I tell you what happens after that. I also run all the non-playing characters."
"What's that, then?" Ginny asked.
"Any character that you guys don't run," he said, "yours are called 'playing characters.' So, anyone have any questions?"
"Lots," Ron said.
"Tons," Harry agreed.
"No," Hermione said, "I'll look in the book." She was already half-through the admittedly thin Players Manual.
"I'm good," Ginny said with a shrug.
"Very well!" Ron and Harry drew back as Neville leaned forward and began…
Chapter 3: "You All Meet in a Tavern…"
"You've all come to The Tavern of Seven Curses on the Isle of Greysmoke," Neville intoned.
"Why are you talking like that?" Ron asked.
"What?" Neville asked, in his normal voice.
"All mysterious," Ron told him.
Neville sighed. "I'm trying to set a mood, Ron."
"Oh," Ron said.
"Shall I carry on, then?" Neville asked him.
"Sure, sure, go on."
"You've all come to The Tavern of Seven Curses on the Isle of Greysmoke," Neville intoned. Then he paused to make certain there would be no more interruption and continued. "All of you answered the same advertisement: someone looking for a group of adventurers to go into a catacomb and recover a great treasure.
Once each of you arrive, the tavern keeper shows you…"
"What's a tavern, anyway?" Harry asked.
Neville sighed again. "Like a pub."
"Oh, OK." Harry waved him on.
"The tavern keeper shows you to a back room, where you all await the entrance of your potential employer and regard each other somewhat suspiciously."
"I want to steal Harry's money," Ron said.
"Oi!" Harry glared at him. "I knew it, you dirty thief!"
"Shouldn't have questioned my honesty," Ron told him in a lofty tone.
"I called you a thief because you're a thief, and in retaliation, you rob me?" Harry asked, aghast.
"It's sound logic," Ron assured him. He looked at Neville. "How do I steal Harry's money?"
Neville sighed, which had started to sound like a compulsive habit. "You roll for it, Ron."
"How do I stop him?" Harry asked.
The seemingly perpetual sigh, then Neville said, "You roll for it, Harry." He rubbed his face, which already held a look that said he had regrets. "Ron, you roll a D20—it's this one," he said, "and Harry, you also roll a D20." He pointed. "Ron wants to roll under his Cunning, and Harry, you want to roll under your Awareness."
Both boys rolled.
"My Cunning is a 17," Ron said, "and I rolled a…" He squinted at the die. "…an 11."
"My Awareness is a 12," Harry said, "well, that sucks!" He rolled the die and said, "I got an 11, too."
Neville said, "So you both succeeded, but Ron succeeded by 6, and Harry only succeeded by 1. So Sigwil wins the contest and steals Bariah's coin pouch." He glanced at Harry. "Bariah won't notice until he tries to pay for something, or something like that, so you can't reroll until then."
Harry crossed his arms and glared at Ron. "You'll get yours, Weasley," he threatened.
"And in the meantime," Ron said with a grin, "Sigwill is going to buy himself a butterbeer. Or rather, Bariah is going to buy him a butterbeer."
"They don't have butterbeer in the world of Skymere, Ron," Neville murmured dully, "just regular beer, ale, and wine."
"Am I old enough to drink regular beer?" Ron asked, looking at his sheet.
"Can I try to steal Sigwil's money?" Ginny asked suddenly.
"Hey!" Ron exclaimed, "I'm your brother!"
"Not in 'Skymere,' you aren't," Ginny pointed out to him.
"Your character isn't a thief," Neville told her, "so you don't have the Pickpocket proficiency." When she started to open her mouth, he quickly asked, "Hermione, what's Kyla doing?"
"Studying her spells," Hermione muttered.
"Oh, man," Ron said, "I'm glad I didn't choose a sorcerer. Who wants to study magic in real life and in a game? That's torture, that is."
Harry nodded in agreement, then remembered he was annoyed at Ron. "You'll get yours," he promised Ron, again, darkly.
Ron asked, innocently, "So, how much money did Bariah use to have?"
Harry glared at him, looked at his own sheet, and grumbled, "15 gold, 12 silver, and 3 copper."
Ron dutifully wrote it on his sheet with a grin. "Now, about that beer…"
"A man enters the room through the door," Neville rushed on, "he wears a dark, hooded cloak and his face is shadowed in the dim-lit room. He looks around at all of you and gives a slow nod, then says, 'I am Gordian. You lot should do, I think.' He produces a rolled-up parchment from within his cloak and spreads it out on the table to show a map. 'Now,' he asks, 'who wants to be rich?"
Harry, Ron, and Ginny all raised their hands. After a moment, Hermione clapped the Players Guide closed and said, "Can I cast 'Detect Alignment' on Gordian?" She pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and made careful notes.
"Sure," Neville told her, go ahead and roll. You need…"
"A D20," Hermione said, "against my Power." She rolled the die and said, "Success, a 2 against an 18."
"Why's her Power so much higher than mine?" Ron muttered to Harry, who shrugged.
"Because I'm a sorcerer," Hermione told him. She looked back to Neville. "What do I detect?"
Neville grinned. "You sense an aura of Chaos around the cloaked man, tinged with the faint signs that he once served Law."
"Hm…" Hermione stared at her sheet.
"How does she do that?" Harry asked, looking at his own sheet.
"It's one of my spells," she told him, and before he or Ron could say anything, she added, "They're different from the ones we use."
"I have prayers," Ginny offered. She looked down the list: "Heal Wounds, Cure Disease, Create Meal, and Turn Undead."
"Like inferi?" Ron asked, and shivered.
"Sort of," Neville told him. "Skeletons, zombies, liches, vampires… though those last two are way out of her range, right now." He looked around the table and gave Harry and Ron a narrow-eyed look. "If everyone is done, shall we continue?"
Harry and Ron both drew back a bit at the oddly dangerous look in Neville's eyes, and both nodded mutely.
"Is there anything else Kyla wants to do?" Neville asked Hermione. "Or Scarlet?" he asked Ginny.
"Naw, I'm good," Ginny told him.
"I just want to keep an eye on Gordian," Hermione told him.
"OK," Neville agreed, "so he points at a spot on the map, and says, 'This is the Isle of Greysmoke,' and traces a line with his finger along the map, and continues, 'this is the Catacomb of Kull, an ancient wizard who is rumored to have left great wealth in his catacomb when he died…'"
Chapter 4: In the Catacomb of Kull
Sigwil the Sneaky knelt at the door, ear pressed to it.
"Well?" asked Scarlet Manslayer, "do you hear anything?"
"Shush, Gin'," Sigwil said, "I can't hear anything over your talking."
"Scarlet," Scarlet reminded him.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever…" Sigwil reached into the slot next to the door carefully, then cocked his head. In the distance, a sound like rolling dice reached his ears.
"You… failed," a disembodied voice announced.
Sigwil winced as a "schnickt" noise came from within the slot, and he pulled back a bloody stump where his left hand used to be. "Aw, man, Gin', I mean, Scarlet, can I get some healing, here?"
Scarlet rolled her eyes. "You're not really a very good thief, are you, Sigwil?" She pulled out her prayer book.
"Good enough to steal my money," Bariah grumbled from a few feet away.
"You don't know about that, mate," Sigwil reminded him.
"These runes," Kyla observed, "I think there's something suspicious about them…"
The distant sound of dice rolling reached Scarlet's ears, and she told Sigwil, "There, I've healed you of 6 points of damage."
"That's it?" he complained.
"It means you won't bleed out," she told him pointedly, "and I think Kyla still has one of those healing potions we found." She looked over at the gnome.
Without looking away from the runes, Kyla pulled a bottle out of her pouch and handed it to Scarlet. "These runes," she murmured again.
"Thanks, Kyla. Here," Scarlet said, and thrust the bottle into Sigwil's remaining hand, "drink this."
Dice rattled. "Well, I'm healed up," Sigwil said with a belch, and tossed the empty bottle into a corner, where it shattered. "Still no hand, but… aw, man, I can't even use two knives, now!"
"That's true," cackled the disembodied voice. Sigwil glared up at the ceiling.
"Maybe we can rig up something?" Bariah suggested. "Like, I don't know, a harness or something, with a knife stuck on?"
"That would be so cool," Sigwil said.
Kyla's eyes widened as the rattle of dice reached her ears and the runes began to glow. "It's another trap," she yelled, "go, go, go, out the door, sod it, Bariah, move!"
Sigwil slammed the door open and they charged into the next room as a flare of magic went off.
Chapter 5: In the Catacomb of Kull 2: Electric Bug-a-bear
"Yes! Critical backstab!" Sigwil shouted. "Triple damage! 18 points, in your face, bugbear!"
"You mean in its back," Kyla told him, "you backstabbed it, you didn't facestab it."
"You know what I mean," Sigwil told the gnome. Then he jerked and twitched as electricity rippled through his body and he made odd noises. "Ow," he groaned, "that bloody hurt! What the heck, it's not even facing me!"
"It's an auto power," the disembodied voice said, "it doesn't have to roll. It hits automatically on a successful melee attack against the bugbear.
"That sucks," Sigwil muttered. "I'm almost dead. Again."
"Let me handle this," Scarlet told him, and pushed him out of the way. "Hiyah!" She brought her mace down on the bugbear's head and it crumpled to the ground. She dropped the mace and jumped back.
There was silence for a moment, and the disembodied voice announced, "I'll allow it."
"Sweet!" She retrieved her mace from the now-non-electric bugbear and asked, "Hey, Bariah, did you finish off that giant spider, yet?"
"Yup," Bariah agreed. He wiped his sword on a cloth. "Got some treasure off it, too."
"What?" Kyla asked, aggrieved, "you looted it after you killed it instead of helping with the bugbear?"
"I wanted to get to any money before Sigwil pockets it," Bariah told her. He frowned. "Where does a spider keep its money, anyway?"
"Up its spinneret?" Scarlet suggested.
"Ew," Kyla muttered.
"I didn't see you helping out," Sigwil pointedly told Kyla.
She harrumphed. "I'm a gnome sorcerer, Sigwil, I have fewer hit points than you do. Anyway, I blasted it with a mystic projectile at the start of the fight."
"Oh, yeah," Sigwil conceded. "Now, about that money," he told Bariah.
"Hey, you don't know I found that!" Bariah told him.
"You just said you did," Sigwil said.
"I said that as a player," Bariah told him, "not as a character."
"OK," Kyla declared, "that's it!" She shrugged out of her pack and opened it, then rooted around until she pulled out a burlap sack. She shook it open. "Put anything we've found in the catacomb in here." She glared at Sigwil and Scarlet. "Anything."
With a sigh, Sigwil started to dump things into the bag. "How do I know you won't run off with it all?" he asked.
"Because I'm Lawful," she told him. "It's on my sheet."
"Huh." Scarlet's gaze went blank for a second, then she came back and said, "Me, too."
"I'm Neutral," Bariah said with a shrug.
Sigwil flicked his gaze to the side, then said, "I'm Chaotic, I guess. What does that mean?"
"It means you side with the forces of Chaos," the disembodied voice told him. "You are dedicated to sowing discord and anarchy."
"So basically," Scarlet said, "we can't trust you."
"I like that!" Sigwil grumbled. "I've lost a hand for you lot…"
Chapter 6: In the Catacomb of Kull 3: ?
"I stab the boggle with my sword!" Bariah yelled as he did so. "A 1!"
"That's a critical, right?" Sigwil.
"Yes," the disembodied voice said, "that means double damage."
"My sword does 2d6," Bariah said, "so do I roll four of them, then?"
"That's right," the voice said, delighted.
"I got… 15?" Bariah asked, as dice rattled in the background.
The boggle collapsed dead. Bariah glanced around the ancient chamber to see that all the boggles were dead, his companions standing over or near the other corpses.
"I'm going to loot the bodies," Sigwil announced.
"I'll help," Scarlet told him. The two proceeded to check the corpses.
"I'm searching the room for anything magical," Kyla told them.
"I'll, uh… do any of them have better weapons or armor than me?" Bariah asked. He groaned as he poked through some corpses. "Aw, man, this stuff's all trash!"
"Woo!" Sigwil shouted, as dice clattered in the background "25 gold, 17 silver, and 6 copper!
"Sweet!" Scarlet high-fived the thief.
"In the bag," Kyla told them.
"Aw," Sigwil groaned.
Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Fine, here." She dumped money into the sack.
"Thank you," Kyla said with a nod, and noted the loot down on a sheet of paper.
Kyla said, "I sense a faint glow of magic from that sarcophagus. Hey, Bariah," she said, "help me get this lid off."
The armsmaster walked over and casually shoved the lid off the sarcophagus with a grin. "Oh, yeah, high Might just rules!" A cloud of dust and ancient, atomized particles of flesh arose from the sarcophagus with the lid off.
"Ew," Scarlet said and waved her hand to keep the dust away.
"I'm staying over here," Sigwil told them, "that thing could be trapped. I'm already missing a hand, as it is." He glared at Scarlet, who shrugged.
"She isn't high enough level to have Regrow Limb, Sigwil," Kyla told him, over her shoulder. "Besides, you should have rolled better to find that scythe trap." She didn't see Sigwil stick out his tongue behind her. "There's a magic sword in here," she told them. "And a dead person. Not a magic dead person, just a regular dead person.
"Ooh" Bariah rushed up and grabbed the sword. "Nice!" He gave it an experimental swing.
Kyla rolled her eyes and said, "You might want to wait until I see if it's cursed, Bariah."
Bariah's mouth opened, then closed. "That," he said, "is an excellent point. He went to put it back in the sarcophagus.
"Too late," the voice said. "You pick up the sword. Roll Awareness."
"Aaand that's a 20," Bariah announced. "What does that mean, again?"
"Critical failure," Kyla told him.
"How did you learn all that so fast, anyway?" Sigwil demanded of her.
"I read fast," she told him, "and the Players Guide isn't very thick."
"So, what's that mean, then?" Bariah asked. He drew back suddenly at something not visible to the adventurers. "Er, Nev', you, uh…"
The voice held an evil and delighted tone. "Oh, Harry… oh, Harry, Harry, Harry…"
"Yes?" Bariah asked, tentative.
"You have picked up a cursed sword," the voice told him. "And it is fighting for control of your mind."
"Well, crap," Bariah muttered.
Chapter 7: In the Catacomb of Kull 4: Wait, What Comes Next?
Kyla glanced over at her companions. While Bariah went toe-to-toe with the cultists, Sigwil circled them, striking with the knife he'd found a few rooms earlier, brilliant light flashing on each attack. Scarlet had her holy symbol in one hand and her prayer book in the other, casting a spell to turn the skeletons the cultists summoned to fight them.
Kyla slipped past the struggle to the altar, which she hid behind, an easy task with her diminutive gnome stature and natural ability with stealth.
"Man, why isn't she the thief?" Sigwil asked as he stabbed another cultist.
"Pay attention to your opponent," Bariah reminded him. "Kyla will take care of the idol."
Kyla cast a spell and muttered for several seconds as she waved her hands over the idol. "Cursed," she muttered. She started another spell as her companions continued to fight the cultists. Scarlet had driven off the skeletons and joined Bariah and Sigwil in combating the evil devil worshippers.
"Does that mean they're evil, and worship devils?" Sigwil asked, suddenly, "or that they worship evil devils?"
Bariah took off a cultist's head with a swipe of the cursed sword he found himself stuck with. "Does it matter?"
"I'm just curious," Sigwil said, as he dodged an attack from a cultist's dagger.
Scarlet suggested, "Maybe it's both? They're evil and they worship evil devils?"
"Wouldn't they be evil evil-devil worshippers?" Sigwil asked.
"This is what you get obsesses with? Kyla asked. Then she shouted, "Ha!" She jumped up and started to shuffle backwards, pointing finger guns at the idol. "In your face, devil idol!" The others stopped and stared at her, along with the cultists. Mouths hung open. She danced around another moment, then stopped and looked back at them all. "What? I did good!"
"That's true," the disembodied voice announced. "The cult leader screams and tears his hood off, yelling…"
"No! You have broken the ritual! Now we cannot summon our dread lord, The Kivouack!" the bald man shouted, anger in his voice.
"Hey," Scarlet said, "I recognize his voice! That's the guy who hired us!"
"Gordian," Kyla confirmed.
"Kill them!" Their erstwhile employer yelled, and the cultists surged forward.
"Why did he hire us if he didn't want us to get in his business?" Sigwil asked.
"He wanted to use you as sacrifices," the voice told him, "and 'hiring' you to explore the catacomb was the easiest way to get you there."
"Oh, we are so going to kick his arse," Bariah said. He glanced at his sword. "Come on, Blooddrinker, let's kill some cultists!"
The sword made a faint growling noise.
Chapter 8: Profit
"Man, we made out pretty good," Sigwil announced as he stared at the pile of coinage in front of him. He considered for a moment, then shoved some of the money over to Bariah. "Here, mate. Have this. I, er, I found your, uh, money pouch. You… dropped it. I haven't had a chance to give it back to you. Yet." He cleared his throat and trailed off.
Bariah raised an eyebrow at him, then said, "Thanks, friend."
"That was pretty fun," Kyla said.
"And we all leveled up," Scarlet said, "whatever that means."
"It means your characters get more powerful," the voice said. "I'll show you how later. You know, if you wanted to play again." The voice sounded shy.
"That would be pretty cool," Sigwil admitted.
"Yeah," Bariah noted, "it's a lot more fun to have people trying to kill you when it's imaginary." He looked at the sword in its sheath and said, "Plus, I should probably find a way to get rid of this cursed sword." His mouth formed a moue and he added, "Even if it is pretty cool."
"We can get more spells and prayers," Kyla said. She looked at Scarlet. "And you can turn more powerful undead."
"Cool," Sigwil said, "maybe you can bring my hand back."
"So where are we going to go next?" Bariah asked.
Chapter 9: Waffles!
"Thanks, mate," Ron said, "that really was pretty fun." He paused and stared into the distance. "Though I really, really want waffles now, for some reason."
"I could eat," Harry admitted. "Why am I so hungry?" He rubbed his belly through his shirt as it gurgled
"Oh, my God," Ginny exclaimed. "It's dinnertime!"
"What?" Hermione looked at the clock as well. "We played for four hours?!" she exclaimed. "We played through lunch!"
"See?" Neville asked. "Not bored anymore, are you?"
"Huh," she considered, "I guess not."
"So, uh… do you guys really want to play again, sometime?" Neville asked.
"Yeah, sure," Harry agreed.
"Yeah, mate," Ron said.
"I'd play," Ginny admitted.
"I want to learn better spells," Hermione said, "I'm in."
"Oh, God," Ron muttered. "Of course, you want to learn, even in a game."
"Shut it, Ronald," she glared. "I will hunt you down by the scent of your fear."
With a squeak, Ron fled the common room on his way to the Great Hall. They heard him pause and exclaim, "Wait, why weren't there any chimeras? It's in the name!" Then his footsteps echoed back to them once more.
"Here, Nev'," Harry said, "I'll help you pack the stuff up." He glanced at the girls. "You two want to go down to dinner? We'll meet you down there."
"Sure," Ginny said, "I'm starving."
"Of course," Hermione said. "Why we don't have vending machines around here..." she groused, as they exited.
"So," Harry asked Neville, as they stacked books, "what is The Kivouack, anyway?"
"Ah!" Neville said, with a raised finger, "The Kivouack is an ancient and chaotic entity, evil through and through, who…"
Chapter 10: Elswyr... I Mean, "Elsewhere"
In the perfect blackness of the void, nine yellow eyes—three with pupils slit like a cat's, three like a goat's square pupils, and three like the beady eyes of a snake—opened, and the baleful gazes darted this way and that.
"Hmm…" grumbled a voice like a thousand screaming souls, "defeated again. Blasted children…" The eyes closed, one by one. "Still. Sooner or later, they'll fail to stop my return with their little games, and I shall slip out of this prison and take on my glory. And the suffering shall be delicious." If there was anyone to listen, they might have heard a tone as if the voice's owner smirked evilly to itself. "Blooddrinker is in place, anyway," it muttered, "that's an advantage. Soon. Soon, The Kivouack will return."
Then all went silent again.