The D&D Chronicles: The Adventure Begins
Chapter 3: Beasts in the Basement
The Canals under Brady Oaks Bridge
The sun was slowly setting on another day at Brady Oaks.
For everyone, after a hard day's work, they are able to head off home to relax, spend time with friends and family and other sorts that they may wish to do.
For others, they would head out to get ready for the night shift of jobs that they have to do, before having good sleep the following day.
But down in the canals, where Patrick and his friends found the amulet, unaware of the humans above, when the sun came down, monsters would come out.
For one of them was Ghoular, who had to retreat from his fight with Balasar when it reached daylight, now he returned to remains of the fallen Paladin, hoping to find the amulet, to see if he can get it for his master, but by the time he arrived, he saw some figures standing there, looking at the rubble.
One was wearing a hooded cloak, the hood covering up the face.
The other was an odd looking creature, like a mixture of human and something else, especially it's skin was the same Caucasion as a human's, but with several shades of red, and had a bald spot on it's head with a small tuft of greyish hair, the humanoid creature also had horns and a prehensile tail, while in a robe of sorts.
The final figure was a small monster, about between 2' and 2'6" tall, what looked like a reptilian humanoid with brownish black squamous skin, with wings and a tail, and orange eyes, while he had on a long scarf that wrapped lovingly around his neck and airpilot hat and goggles.
Realizing who one of them was, Ghoular could only grumble, knowing he was going to get in trouble.
By the time he reached the figures, the one wrapped in a hooded cloak spoke.
"It's been taken." he spoke, almost like the sound of a young grown adult, "You have failed. And you let the amulet get away."
"I'm sorry, master, it wasn't my fault," Ghoular explained, "Balasar swiped the Medusa Dagger off me and used it on himself, and fell in broad daylight."
"And now, the amulet has been taken by someone else…" the mysterious being stated.
"Hmmhmm! That means that someone is the new Paladin!" the gargoyle chuckled, "Do you think it's a guy or a gal?"
"Quiet, Mokdu." the hooded figure said, sounding a little annoyed.
"Sorry, boss." Mokdu said as he shrinks in fear.
"It now means that little Kobold here and I will have to search around the town," the creature spoke, eyeing Mokdu, the Kobold, "see who has found the amulet."
"I know it will be easy for you, Tiefling," Ghoular grumbled to the creature, revealed as a Tiefling, "but I should be the one snuff the lineage of Paladins once and for all."
"Patience, Ghoular," the hooded figure said, "you'll have your chance soon enough. It is a small town, after all, so our Paladin of the Great Merlin can't be hard to find."
Ghoular snorted, but nodded in agreement, "Whoever holds the Amulet of Merlin's design, I shall destroy him, just as I have done with every, single one of them."
Meanwhile…
Patrick and most of his friends were heading back to their homes after a good day of school.
Despite the fact that Patrick had now a possible death sentence for Friday by Biff.
Following the events that happened, the group headed off to their homes, while most of them went their different ways for today, such as Hilda was heading off to Frida's with David for the night to help out on a research project, Taylor was heading to a friend's house for a study session (the twins were dragged along to do some homework, to avoid getting trouble the next day), Callum and Ezran were heading out for dinner and Chuckie was heading for an evening dentist appointment (his braces would soon come out in due time soon), leaving Patrick, Luz and Chris to walk home, their bicycles by their sides.
"Oh man," Luz said with a chuckle, as she, Patrick and Chris were on their way back to their respective homes, "that was so cool! Did you see how I did it with that chant? Everyone was so joining in!"
Patrick and Chris looked to Luz with a smile as she repeated the chant, "Let him out! Let him out!"
"Yeah, it was awesome." Chris smiled, before looking to Patrick, "I mean, sure, you might not live past Friday, but at least one of our parents is a doctor."
"Yep," Luz nodded, "my mum will totally take care of any pummlings that Biff might do to you. Be it black eye, bruised ribs or whatever."
"Thanks, Luz," Patrick said, "I really appreciate it."
Just then, the three friends saw a car just leaving Patrick's house, which was a Hunter Green Metallic 1991 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, driven by none other than Patrick's mum, Johanna.
"Hey, kids." Johanna said, seeing his son and few of his friends with him and drove up to them.
"Hey, mum." Patrick smiled back.
"Hi there, Mrs. Kirby." Luz greeted.
"On your way to work?" Chris asked.
"Sure am, Chris, thanks for asking." Johanna replied.
Patrick looked to his mum as he asked, "Taking another night shift again?"
"'Fraid so," Johanna replied, "it's going to be extra work with Burnie having a wedding out of town this weekend and Tanya has been called sick."
"Did you remember your-?"
"Dinner? I've got it." Johanna replied, answering Patrick's question, pulling up a bag, no doubt containing a small meal, as Patrick and his sisters would usually help make for her during her late shifts.
"And try not to over-nuke the meal, okay?" Patrick asked, "Don't want to loose the flavouring."
"I won't." Johanna said, but then looked at the kids as she asked, "By the way, has Harry come by the school this morning?"
Patrick and his friends looked a little stunned and concerned at that, until Patrick responded, "Well, not sure, exactly…"
"It's a shame," Johanna said, "Harry's mother contacted to see if Harry spent the night with you, as he didn't return home last night."
When hearing this and as his mother continued, inside his heart, Patrick began to grow more and more worried and concerned, first he learned that Harry didn't arrive at school today, and now he realized that he didn't return home last night.
If Harry didn't go home, and he wasn't at school, then where was he...
"It is a little… strange…" Patrick replied.
"Anyway, I better get going," Johanna said, "There's some breaded chicken for you to have in the fridge, and Kira will be expecting you."
Patrick snapped back to the present, as he kept up a smile on his face and said, "Okay, mum. Take care."
"You too, Patrick. Love you." Johanna said, before driving off.
"Wow, you mother your mother a lot." Luz jokes, before heading back to her house, "Well, see you boys."
"Okay, see you guys tomorrow." Patrick responded as he headed for his house, and Chris went back to his home (Patrick, Chris and Luz lived together in a small, round turning drive).
Reaching his house, Patrick parked his bike by his house, since it was lovely day out, then headed to the front.
He walked over a small branch that was on the path to the front steps of his house, then went up said steps to the-
SNAP!
Something went snap behind Patrick, as he soon turned and, to his odd surprise, the branch that he avoided stepping on… was stepped on, yet he didn't step on the branch.
A little confused… and a little nervous, Patrick looked around, before shaking off the feeling and went inside.
Later…
Upon getting inside the house, Patrick greeted his little sister, Kira Kirby, placed Mr. Sturges phone number on the fridge to help his mum remind her to call, and got to enjoy his dinner.
Later, having finished his breaded chicken and chips, Patrick had been keeping his littlest sister company.
Kira was the youngest of the siblings, and I mean the very youngest as she was about 2-4 years old.
She had emerald green eyes and messy blonde hair with bangs cut short at her left eye and gets longer at her right eye. Since she was very young, she would usually be seen wearing pajamas either bunnies, flowers or fairies.
When she was born, she was given the name after one of the protagonists of Micky and Johanna's favourite film, The Dark Crystal, which was also one of the first films they saw together when they were dating, as a way Johanna and her kids to remember their father by.
At the moment, it was late outside, and inside his home, Patrick was currently with Kira in the living room, or the lounge as they also called it, it had lovely carpeting floors, the living was a bit big that it was devided into two parts of the house, the front and the back, the back had a fireplace for the members of the family to get comfy when it got cold. In the front room were two wooden bookshelves, one white and one brown, full of DVD's,VHS's, books, and other decorative relics. Along with the bookshelf, some other pieces of furniture in the room, such as two brown sofas as well as a short rectangle-shaped coffee table. The back part of the living room also had another brown sofa and a chair by the fireplace. In front of the sofas and in a corner of the front living room was a small rectangular wooden stand that hold a vintage 80s-looking TV.
Patrick was snuggled up with his littlest sister on one of the sofas and were watching one of his classic TV shows, The Banana Splits, one of the TV shows that his mum and dad use to enjoy watching when they were young, and that his sister, Kira, had taken a liking to as well, as she giggled and sang "Tra-la-la." a little bit to the Banana Splits theme song.
As one of the episodes of the show was finishing, Patrick looked down to see the sleeping image of his sister, curled up beside him.
Letting out a comforting, warm smile, Patrick soon took her up to her bed, gave her her toy bunny, whom was named Pimper, tucked her in, made sure her night light was on, and went back downstairs, changing The Banana Splits show to one of his favorite anime, but kept the audio down to avoid waking up Kira.
As he watched TV, he took a look at his bag that he placed on the sofa after coming back home, noticing a glow coming from inside and then took out the amulet that was still in there.
As he admired it a little more, Patrick's phone rang, allowing him to answer.
"Hello?" Patrick answered.
"Hey, Patrick," Chris' voice spoke, "Did the amulet talk again? Or did it do anything else interesting?"
"Nope. Nothing yet." Patrick replied.
Another voice came out from Chris' side of the call, "Chris, dinner's ready!"
"Coming, mum!" Chris called out to his mum, before speaking back to Patrick, "I gotta go. Let me know if it does anything soon."
"Will do, Chris." Patrick said, before hanging up his phone, then looked back to watching TV.
Just then, while he was watching TV, the amulet began to glow again, catching his attention.
Patrick looked down to the amulet, as it glowed in many colours as it did before when he found it.
Feeling a little awkward, Patrick decided to break the ice a bit.
"Uh… Hi there… I'm Patrick." Patrick introduced himself, "Though I'm sure you already know that because you said my name… which is… weird…"
The amulet still glowed, but still no voice.
Patrick admired it as he waited for something to happen.
"Hello…" he said, fidgeting with the amulet with his fingers, "Anyone in there?"
Patrick then brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose, as he muttered in his breath, "And I'm talking to an inanimate object…"
He looked again at the object, as he slowly began to get a little impatient, "C'mon! If you don't talk again, you're going straight to eBay!"
Suddenly, there was an unexpected crash coming from downstairs, catching Patrick off guard and by surprise, as he put down the amulet on the table and hurried to see what happened.
Unaware as he left, the amulet slowly began to move with a click…
Patrick believed the sound came from downstairs, somewhere in the basement, as he muttered, "Racoons…"
Picking up a broom, Patrick opened the door to the basement and went downstairs.
The basement of the Kirby House was a pretty big basement, as most would be that size, or sometimes small or inbetween, the basement was so big and spaciest, that it was also perfect to be used as a spare room, or sometimes as a place to relax and chill out, given it was carpeted and had several seats and a small sofa. There was also a door that lead to a bathroom in the basement.
Besides the miscellaneous household stuffs, the basement also contained a small majority of the kids' toys, along with another TV, few game consoles, boxes of comics and some D&D campaigning equipment.
Patrick and his friends have also used the basement for their many D&D campaign sessions over the years, where they could be able to talk strategies, discuss about the worlds they took part in and much more, as well as having sleepovers sometimes.
Patrick switched on one of the lights on the basement ceiling, and walked carefully around to see what made all the noise.
As he switched on the lamp on table by the sofa, the ceiling light suddenly snapped off, startling Patrick a little, but let out a sigh of relief, but then noticed something nearby on the other of the sofa, as it looked like something spilled something over, as he took a closer look, he noticed that it was some LEGO bricks spilled on the floor, he picked up some of the pieces with curious eyes and a raised eyebrow with confusion.
But as he observed the mess, unaware of him from behind, a mysterious creature slowly emerged from the shadows of the dark, and walked up carefully towards the boy.
The creature had four arms, blue hair, and a set of short horns on the back of his head. He had three brown eyes on both sides of his long orange nose, and patterns on his chin, arms, and chest. It oddly wore brown shorts with suspenders and satchels.
The beast stepped forward, arms slowly raised, ready to seemingly pounce… before bellowing out loud.
"MASTER PATRICK!"
Patrick was caught off guard and turned around upon hearing the cry, and saw the six-eyed creature, before letting a terrified scream before tumbling onto the sofa.
"Master Patrick." the creature spoke again as it popped up, causing Patrick to panic as he tumbled off the sofa, before crawling backwards to get away from it, as it said proudly, "We have found at long last."
"Wha-who-?!" Patrick could muster at the creature as he panicked.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the creature said, "my name is Blinky."
Patrick was still screaming in alarm from what was going, totally unaware that as he crawled back, he bumped into something… or someone… no definitely something else, as he looked up to see another creature.
This one had rock-like gray skin, green eyes, and a dark green beard and hair on his shoulders, back and chest. He had four short horns and a large black nose, and patterns on his arms, knees, waist and chest.
"Hi." the big one greeted.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Patrick screamed out, as he got up to face the new creature.
"It's AAARRRGGHH!" the creature, claiming to be AAARRRGGHH! (seriously that's it's name) pointed out, "Three R's."
"Nice to finally meet you, human!" a new voice got Patrick's attention, as soon and spotted an unexpected site.
There, standing alongside the two monsters were two skeletons. One was a short, paunchy skeleton with a wide toothy grin, glove-like hands and large eye sockets. He wore an unzipped blue hoodie, a white shirt, black shorts with white lining, and a pair of salmon-colored slippers. The other was a tall, perhaps anatomically inaccurate skeleton, with a skull more vertical and geometric than the short skeleton. Being skeletal, many of his expressions incorporate a toothy grin. He also wore an outfit that he created for a costume party. It consisted of a white chest plate with gold trim, coquelicot gloves with a golden trim, blue briefs with a golden belt, and knee-high coquelicot boots. He also wore a short, orange-red cape.
"'Sup." the short skeleton said, raising his hand.
"AAAAAAAAHHHH!" Patrick screamed again.
"Seems excited to see us." the short skeleton said with a grin.
"You think so, Sans?" the tall skeleton said to the short one, Sans, said, before looking to Patrick and said, "Well then… AAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
This made things more too much for Patrick, as everywhere he went, the two creatures and two skeletons were in his way, making things difficult to escape, and all he could do was panic at the sight of them, before he tumbled down and laid on his back, as the four unexpected visitors looked down on him.
"Energetic fellow, isn't he?" said the tall skeleton.
"Yeah." AAARRRGGHH! responded, "He says 'AAAAAAAAHHHH' a lot."
"It's more of a yelp, I believe," Blinky suggested, "a greeting, perhaps."
The four looked down at Patrick, until Blinky let out a jolly yelp of his own, though it didn't help as Patrick started to run, only to get grabbed by the legs by the big brute.
As Patrick looked in fear, the short skeleton, Sans, spoke up, "Nice to meet you, human, my name's Sans. Sans the Skeleton."
Sans then gestured to the tall skeleton as he said, "And this is my brother, Papyrus."
"Hello, there… Patrick, was it?" Papyrus said, as he looked to Blinky on the human's name.
"Indeed," Blinky replied to the tall skeleton's question, before looking to the terrified Patrick, "Master Patrick, you have been chosen."
"Wow, look at him," Papyrus said, looking to Patrick, who was covering his eyes and seemingly shaking in fear, "he's trembling with excitement."
AAARRRGGHH! took a small sniff on Patrick, "He looks scared."
"Ahem," Blinky coughed, getting AAARRRGGHH!'s attention, "AAARRRGGHH!, my trollish friend. Would you mind? This is a moment of some solemnity."
The brute blinked for a moment, "So-lem-bi-ly?"
"It means it's serious and dignified."
This seemed to have not got through AAARRRGGHH!'s head either, as he was pondering on the word Blinky said, "Dig-oo-ni-fied?"
"P-please, put me down! Please?" Patrick trembled.
"What he said, AAARRRGGHH!, if you would?" Blinky said, as he pointed down with his two fingers, like a dog owner would tell his/her dog to drop something, and like a dog, AAARRRGGHH! did what he was told, as he carefully put down Patrick, standing him back up.
"Thank you," Blinky said to his giant friend, before looking to Patrick, "now on to business."
Patrick looked to Blinky with wide eyes, then remembered what he called the big brute, and said with a stutter, "Y-you're a t-t-troll?"
One of the known trolls he remembers were the small little fellas with bushy hairs, his father used to collect them when he was Patrick's age, though Taylor was a little creeped out from the little toys' smiles.
"Yup." the big troll behind him responded.
"Indeed, AAARRRGGHH! and I are trolls." Blinky stated.
As Blinky approached Patrick, the human could do nothing but step back, before his back stood up against AAARRRGGHH!'s chest, as he looked to the six-eyed troll and skeletons as he cried, "Look, who or whatever you guys are, whatever you want, please don't hurt me! Or any of my sisters! My whole family to be exact!"
"Ha! Hurt you?" Blinky chuckled, "Why would we hurt our new protector?"
"What?" Patrick, still a little shocked and scared, asked.
"Master Patrick, the Amulet of Xadador has challenged you to the most sacred of offices!" Blinky explained proudly.
"What are Arf-file-seas?" AAARRRGGHH! asked what Blinky now said.
"'Offices'," Blinky corrected his giant friend, "means responsibility."
"Six Eyes is right, there," Sans nodded, before looking to Patrick, "what he means is that you're picked to help protect a secretly magical and mystical world that is quite closer to yours than you or the rest of your kind think."
"Wait, what?" Patrick yelped a little.
"Exactly," Blinky then said, "and not just the protection of this world, but an entire multiverse of vast realms like this one, filled to the brim of extraordinary creatures and beings. Elves. Dwarfs. Fairies. Gnomes. Trolls."
"Wh-?" Patrick asked, feeling a little sweaty.
"Indeed, and even Dragons!" Blinky stated.
"D-dragons?" Patrick yelped.
"Exactly, and it is your charge to protect us all," Blinky said,
"What…?" Patrick gulped.
Blinky then spread his arms happily, hoping to see the boy rejoice, "for you, Master Patrick, are the Paladin of Xadador!"
"Wha-?!" Patrick gulped in a high yelp.
"Paladin." AAARRRGGHH! echoed back, before walking up to where Blinky stood.
"Hazar to you, Patrick!" Papyrus proudly cheered.
"Eh. Good for you." Sans bluntly, but gladly said, giving out a thumbs up.
"The offer is yours to accept." Blinky proudly said, arms spread wide, "So what say you?"
Patrick was completely, stunned, shocked, scared, frozen and all of the above as he remained silent from all that was thrown at him.
Until finally… he fell over backwards, collapsing on the floor as he laid unconscious on the floor, his brain having been overloaded with so much info.
"...Is that a yes?" AAARRRGGHH! asked a little optimistically, as he and the others looked with little worried looks on their faces.
Patrick's Destiny is off to a good start… sort of…
Next time, the answer to the call.
Until then, True Believers!
Excelsior!