ENTERING THE GAME
Chapter Three
"The Village"
Penny hit the ground before anybody could reach her. She seemed to kind of bounce a little, then just laid there like a broken doll.
"Penny!" her brother yelled, dropping to his hands and knees beside her.
To his relief she started to sit up. She didn't seem hurt. Not until she tried to push herself to her feet with her arms. She screamed and grabbed her left arm.
"It hurts!" Penny sobbed. There were tears in her hazel eyes.
"Oh my gosh!" Linda cried, touching Penny's arm gently, causing the younger girl to scream again. "I think her arm's broken!"
Penny struggled to stand again, this time not moving her arm.
"Don't try to get up," Linda said. "You might have more injuries!"
But Penny was on her feet while Linda was saying that, leaning on her brother with her good arm. "I'm okay!" she said. "Just let me sleep it off!"
"You can't sleep off a broken arm!" Linda insisted, putting her arm around the younger girl. "You need to see a doctor right away!"
"No!" Penny sobbed. "The doctor always gives me a shot in the butt! I hate that!"
"How are we going to get her to town?" Greg asked.
"To bad we don't have a car," Tom said.
"None of us could drive," Linda pointed out. "And there wouldn't be any cars here anyway, remember? We'd need a horse."
"Hey," Penny said, sniffling, "what happened to my pony?"
"That's right," David said, looking around. "She bought a pony and Andy and I bought horses. Where are they?"
"Maybe you tied them up to trees somewhere before we headed towards the haunted cabin," Tom suggested. He looked around then turned to Penny. "Did you see them when you were up the tree?"
Penny shook her head, her dark reddish-brown pigtails bouncing about in front of her face. Funny she'd still have her hair like it was before she got turned into an elf. She'd never seen an elf or fairy with pigtails. She tried to brush her hair out of her eyes with her bad arm and screamed again. "I hate this! It hurts so much!"
"Mom's gonna kill me," Andy said, pushing his own black hair out of his eyes. Penny had always been jealous because her brother's hair was kind of curly while hers was straight. When their parents saw he'd let his little sister fall out of a tree and break her arm he'd be grounded until he was in college!
Linda remembered she'd bought a spare outfit and used her extra shirt to make a sling for Penny. "Andy, hold her arm still so she doesn't move it," she said.
"Stop struggling," Andy complained as Penny moved her arm and cried out. "You never could sit still a second! Mom's said she didn't get a daughter, she got a monkey!"
"I'm not a monkey, I'm an elf!" Penny sobbed. "And stop picking on me when I'm all hurty! I'll tell Mommy on you!"
"There," Linda said, tying the shirt around the back of Penny's neck. "Now don't move that and we'll try to get somebody in town to heal it or put a cast on it or something."
"I don't want a cast on my arm!" Penny said. "I want it fixed so I can have an adventure!"
"We're not having an adventure!" Greg pointed out. "We're trying to stay alive until we can get out of here!"
"So what do we do now?" David asked . "Anybody else want to climb up and look for the horses?"
"No way!" Linda insisted. "Penny has 19 dexterity and she fell! Nobody else has high agility!"
"I didn't fall!" Penny pointed out. "The branch I was standing on broke! If it didn't happen so fast maybe I could've grabbed another branch and catched myself but it didn't go crack first and then break it just broke! Ow! Do something, Andy! It hurts!"
Andy liked to look cool but actually he had trouble coming up with ideas and usually let somebody else run things. He looked around at his friends, but they seemed as confused as he felt. He sighed and did the only thing he could think of. He picked Penny up, making sure he didn't hurt her bad arm, and started walking towards town. He was surprised at how light she seemed.
Penny shut her eyes. Except for sobbing once in awhile because of the pain, she didn't complain like she usually did.
The group stayed close together. No one dared wander off alone and possibly into trouble. After several minutes, Linda heard a snorting sound. A couple of minutes later, everyone had heard it. Andy and Greg were sent to track down the sounds. They were relieved to find the horses and Penny's pony tied to trees and called the others to join them. Unfortunately there was still a problem.
"We only have two horses and a pony for the six of us," Linda pointed out. "And Penny can't ride by herself with that arm."
"We'll have to double up," David said. "I knew you guys should have bought horses."
"With what?" Greg demanded. "We didn't have enough money! Horses are too expensive in this game! I knew I should have insisted on cheating a little there!"
"Help me up!" Penny said, trying to climb onto the golden pony's back with her good arm.
"Oh, honey, I don't think you can ride with that arm," Linda said. "And your pony couldn't take two people's weight."
"I can ride with my good arm if somebody helps me up!" Penny insisted. "She's mine! I don't want anybody else riding her before I do!"
"If you start to fall off you won't be able to catch yourself and you'll hurt your arm worse falling!" Linda told her. "You need to ride with me or Andy so we can hold onto you and keep you in the saddle."
Penny pouted. "This stinks!" she said.
It was finally decided that Linda would ride Penny's pony, Penny would ride with her brother and Tom on Andy's white horse, and Greg would ride with David on his black horse.
"You take good care of my baby," Penny said, kissing the pony's nose then letting Linda and Andy help her onto Andy's horse. "I'm naming her Goldie."
They moved slowly through the forest, keeping the animals at a walk. Luckily everyone in the group except Tom and Greg had ridden a horse before at least once, so nobody would fall off. Overhead came a strange cry. Everyone jumped, but Linda assured them it was just a bird. At least she hoped it was a bird. She wished she'd really had druid training, she probably would have known for sure if she did.
"This is getting boring," Greg said after awhile. "Can't this nag go any faster?"
"We can't ride off and leave the others," David said without looking over his shoulder. "I think Andy is having trouble."
"No I'm not!" Andy insisted, even though he was trying to hold the reins of his horse and keep Penny, who was starting to doze, from falling off.
"Here, let me take that," Tom said, grabbing the reins, even though he had never been on a horse before.
After what seemed like hours they finally saw the village up ahead. Everyone was relieved, until David said, "Who's going to do the talking when we get to the gates? They're not too friendly."
"They're not going to shoot arrows at us, are they?" Greg demanded.
"Only if they think we're dangerous," David said. "I think."
"Why would they think we're dangerous?" Linda demanded. "Six people on two horses and a little pony hardly look like prosperous bandits."
"Yeah," Tom joked. "If we're bandits we should quit and get into a different line of work, 'cause so far we've been lousy at it!"
They finally reached the gates and stopped. "Um…hello, the gates?" David said in a small voice.
"Louder, David," Linda told him.
"What ho, the guards!" Greg called loudly. "Let us in! We're tired and dirty and hungry!"
"Oh, that'll make them want us in their village," Tom said. "Make them think we're smelly vagabonds and they'll drive us away to keep us from lowering their property values."
"Do they even have property values in AD&D?" Greg asked.
"Sure," Tom said. "If you're trying to sell your house, people will pay more if you don't have neighbors tossing manure into your backyard."
"Ewwww!" Linda cried, making a face. "Why would anybody toss manure into somebody's yard? They'd have to be crazy!"
"What's all that racket?" came from the gates. They saw a helmeted head with a nose guard look over the gate at them. "Didn't I just let you lot out this morning? Gave up your quest so quickly?" It was difficult to tell because of the helmet, but it seemed like the guard was kind of smirking. Immediately the entire group decided they didn't like him.
"We're back to deal with our wounded," Linda said quickly, before somebody, probably Greg, got them shot at for being rude.
"Do you always let your women answer for you?" the guard demanded.
Linda bit back a sharp reply. What a creep!
"May we reenter your village?" David finally asked.
"Very well, if you must," the guard said, disappearing from his post. He sounded like he was going to let them in just so they'd stop annoying him.
Linda glared at the others. "Thanks for sticking up for me, guys," she said sarcastically.
"We don't want trouble," David pointed out.
"Stop talking you guys, I can't sleep!" Penny muttered with her eyes shut.
A minute later they heard a loud creaking sound. The gates began to slowly open. They rode in, looking around as they did.
The village wasn't what they'd expected from movies. It didn't have neatly kept gardens or anything like that. What it did have was chickens and goats and sheep wandering around, and at one point a second story window opened and a short fat woman dumped out something from a large porcelain container right onto the street, something that from the smell and yellow color made them glad none of it splashed on them.
"The people here are animals!" Linda complained, wrinkling her nose.
"I guess if you lived here your neighbor might actually toss manure into your backyard," Tom said.
"Let's get out of here as fast as we can," David said. The others agreed.
"Where do we take her?" Andy asked, looking around.
"The temple," Linda suggested, pointing towards a large building with a steeple on top. "Doctors here probably don't know how to do much of anything. We need healing magic."
"Yeah, doctors probably used leeches," Andy said, making a face.
Penny whimpered. "Nuuu! Don't let them put leeches on me! I like my blood where it is! Inside of me!"
"We're not going to let anybody bleed you," Andy assured her. He looked at David. "Where do we find a healer?"
David struggled to remember his notes. "Uh…the temple where the priest is," he said. "But I don't think he can cure a broken arm. I think you need a heal spell for that."
"You didn't make your priest high enough level to cast heal spells?" Linda demanded, looking for the temple.
"The priest in The Village of Hommlet wasn't high enough level," David explained. "I based a lot of this town on that module. There's a druid and a wizard a bit higher level, but they don't use healing spells. Uh…maybe cure disease or cure serious wounds will work?"
"I don't think broken bones count as a disease," Linda said. She looked around. "Where'd Greg go?"
"He went in there," Tom said, pointing at a building with a sign over the door reading "THE RED DRAGON."
"Isn't that a tavern?" Linda demanded. "He'd better not be drinking! I'll tell his mother!"
"Maybe the bartender can tell us where to find the priest," David suggested.
"Yeah, bartenders always know everything about a town, don't they?" Tom asked as the group headed towards the building.
The Red Dragon looked like it had seen better days. The doors were hanging a bit loosely, and one creaked as they pushed them open and stepped inside. The floor was dusty, and the smell of cheap wine and whiskey mingled unpleasantly with what smelled like a public restroom.
"Pee-yew!" Penny said, holding her nose but still not opening her eyes. "Who cut the cheese?"
"Don't make jokes about cutting things," Andy hissed, looking at the unsavory looking characters in the place. All of them had big, ugly knives, and most of them also had swords.
"There he is," Tom said, pointing at the bar. Greg was talking to the bartender, a big guy that looked about forty something wearing a grey tunic. Sure enough, there was a glass in front of him, with something in it that looked like tea or soda, but doubtlessly wasn't.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Linda demanded as she hurried towards the bar.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Greg said, looking over his shoulder at her. "I'm talking to somebody." He turned back towards the bartender. "Women," he said. He shrugged.
"Well, they're good for keeping one warm on cold nights," the bartender said, cleaning a glass. Greg had laughed.
Linda's face felt warm. What had they been talking about?! She glared at Greg, who ignored her. She grabbed his arm. "Come on, idiot!" she cried. "You're not getting drunk on my watch!"
Greg glared at her, picked up the glass, and glugged it down before Linda could stop him. A strange look came over his face. He put the glass down and made a weird wheezing sound as he sank almost to his knees. "Smooth!" he gasped. He forced himself to his feet and rubbed his hand against his forehead. "But…er…I really shouldn't drink while on…on duty." He looked at the bartender. "Thank you very-very much! I must be going now!" He started walking across the inn. Everyone except Penny, who still had her eyes closed, could see he wasn't walking in a straight line.
"What were you thinking?!" Linda demanded. "I'm telling your mother you're drinking!"
"Nobody put you in charge," Greg complained. He looked over at David. "He's the Dungeon Master! Hey, Dungeon Master! You sure charge a lot for your drinks!"
"I didn't put drinks in my notes," David said quickly when Linda turned to glare at him. "The bar must go by the Players' Handbook. If you don't say otherwise everything is automatically what the rules books say, I guess."
"Why is there booze in a game kids play?" Linda asked angrily.
"Why are there naked ladies in a game kids play?" Penny asked, still keeping her eyes closed. "And why are you yelling and keeping me awake?"
"Can we find somebody to do something about my sister already?" Andy said. "I'd like to do something besides just carry her around all the time."
"Oh, right," Greg said, pointing down the street. "That's really what I went in the bar for," he said, glaring at Linda. "The temple is that big building with the high tower."
"You didn't have to buy a drink, stupid!" Linda told him as he walked past her towards the temple. "You could have just asked!"
"Shows what you know," he said over his shoulder. "They don't give information out for free. You're lucky the bartender didn't make you buy a drink too just for going in there."
"We would have found the temple without asking!" Linda complained, hurrying past him as if she thought whoever was walking ahead of the other would win the argument.
"They're not going to help us if you two are yelling in their temple," David pointed out as they approached the temple.
They stopped in front of the cast iron gates and looked through them at the temple. It was old but seemed well taken care of. It seemed two stories tall, not counting the tower, which seemed about forty feet tall or so. David tried pushing on one of the gates. It opened without a sound.
"Guess it's been oiled," Tom said. "That's good, right? Means the place isn't deserted or the priests aren't hiding in a back room from some kind of monster or anything."
"You watch too many horror movies," Linda said.
"No, I've read too many D&D adventures," Tom told her. "Deserted places are always more dangerous."
"If I ever get out of here, I'm never playing that game again!" Linda swore as they stepped inside the gates. Small stones of different shades of brown covered the ground inside of the gates. The guys' footsteps echoed as they walked across them. The area inside of the gates was about the size of a supermarket parking lot, with the temple about the size of a market. As they came closer they could see strange symbols on the windows. They looked like sunbursts.
"Uh…what kind of gods do they worship here?" Tom asked as they went up the steps to the front door.
"I hadn't planned any," David said.
"Is there a D&D sun god?" Andy asked. "That looks like a sun on the windows."
"I think so, every religion with more than one god had a sun god," David replied, walking up to the large oaken front door and taking the large metal doorknocker in his metal gloved hand. "I haven't read much about Greyhawk gods though. If anybody inside says anything about gods, just act like you know what they're talking about." He knocked. Bam! Bam! Bam!
Linda started to ask something when a small sliding panel opened near the top of the door. Two eyes under thick bushy eyebrows looked at them. "Yes?" a voice asked. "Who comes to the temple of Pelor the sun god?"
"Uh…wayfarers seeking aid," David said. "One of our…number is badly injured. Broken arm we think."
"Indeed?" the voice said, as the panel slid shut. They looked at each other, wondering if they were being dismissed, or if the speaker was getting help to chase them away, when the door slid noiselessly open. A man with a shaved head, wearing a yellow robe, bowed and motioned for them to enter. "Walk this way, please," he said, turning and walking through the small, bare room, and into a long corridor.
The group followed him, Greg imitating the priest's slightly hunched over walk until Linda elbowed him in the ribs. He glared at her but didn't say anything. Every little sound echoed in the corridor.
They passed several doorways, most open and leading to small rooms with nothing but a small and uncomfortable looking bed, apparently where the occupants slept. Finally they reached a door at the end of the hallway. The priest knocked. "Yes?" came an old but strong-sounding voice.
"Wayfarers, seeking healing," the priest said.
"Show them in," came the older voice. The priest opened the door and bowed to an old man inside. He was standing next to a table with a very big book laying open on the table. He was dressed like the younger priest, except his robe had gold trimming.
Not sure of what to do, Andy carried his sister over to the old man and bowed. "My…friend…was hurt in a fall and broke her arm," he explained. He'd almost said sister, but she was an elf now, and trying to explain how a human and an elf could be brother and sister would get them all asked questions they really couldn't have answered if they tried.
"You seem injured yourself, my son," the old priest said, looking at the scab on Andy's shoulder.
"It's nothing, my…friend is the one that needs help," Andy said, surprised to hear himself saying that. Normally Penny was a pain in the neck, and Andy would ditch her as often as he could. But seeing her hurt and crying, especially after she'd just saved him from getting shish-ka-bobbed by that skeleton, he had a sudden urge to see her happy and bouncing around in his face again.
The old priest touched her arm. She cried out in pain. "Yes, the bone is quite broken," he said simply. "I will be pleased to heal her injury…" The group smiled, including Penny, although her eyes were full of tears. At least this problem would soon be over.
"…for the proper remuneration, of course," the old man added.
"Uh…" Andy said, looking at the others for a translation.
"What?" Linda asked, looking at David.
"I think he means…money," David said.
"Well you cannot expect us to use our power granted by the great master of the sun Pelor for nothing, can you?" the younger priest asked.
"Are any of you followers of the sun god?" the older priest asked.
"We…know of him…" David said. Actually he'd only read the name once somewhere and didn't know anything about the being.
"A pity," the old priest said. "A slight discount is offered to the faithful."
"How much would it cost?" Andy asked, wondering if he sounded rude for just asking like that.
"Shall we say…three hundred and fifty gold orbs?" the old priest suggested.
The group looked at each other. Between the six of them they had less than one hundred gold pieces left after making their purchases. A lot less.
Penny groaned, only not from the pain in her arm. "I only got twelve gold coins," she said.
"Perhaps something can be arranged," the old priest said. He smiled, but it didn't look like a friendly smile…
To be continued!
The old priest wants something! But what? Find out next time!
…
The young priest is a 1st level cleric. The old priest is 7th level. I'm not sure what would fix broken bones so I'm going with Cure Serious Wounds. If that's not strong enough magic then Penny's got a problem, because the priest isn't high enough level to cast Cure Critical Wounds or Heal.