A/N: So, you guys seem to really like the Cards Against Humanity idea! The reviewers have spoken, and your wish is my command! Just…not right now. I've got other ideas, both serious and light-hearted, planned first. And coming up with CAH combinations and implementing them into something that can even remotely be called a consistently storyline…yeah, this one'll probably have to wait until after exams.
From this point forward, I may put in several "time skips" in between chapters so that it doesn't seem like this entire story is taking place in only one or two months. For example, I might say before the chapter starts that it's taking place in October – keep in mind this fic started in mid-summer. Which, now that I think about it…there's a minor plot hole since Alex and Meghan had school…in the summer. Eh, let's just call it a really hard summer school with exams and move on from there, it's only a minor detail anyway XD
Speaking of time skips, it is now early October. Yeah, I'm unoriginal with my author's notes. Deal with it.
Chapter 33 – Epic Fantasy Adventures, Mid-Level Version
"So, here we are again," Mike said as he and the ghosts started unpacking their D&D campaign on the dining room table. "I think we've reached the point where I can start giving you some harder enemies, AND start being tougher on you in terms of strategic thinking. Up until this point I've deliberately avoided trying to TPK you, but now I'm not gonna be so nice anymore."
"TPK?" Susie asked as she started handing out the character sheets and player figurines to the other ghosts.
"Total-Party Kill," Mike clarified. "Entire team dies. Game over. Some game masters are complete assholes who go out of their way to make the players' lives as miserable as possible and try to kill them every other second." He rolled his eyes. "Personally, I don't see how anybody would want to even play with a guy like that, but whatever. I mean, I'm perfectly fine with trying to kill off one or two of you at a time or defeating you all in a fair fight, but randomly summoning a rockslide in the middle of nowhere to kill all of you? That's a dick move, no matter how you look at it."
"Oh, we all know you have no problems with killing our characters," Jeremy commented dryly. "My old fighter can confirm that from beyond the grave." A few weeks ago, Jeremy had found himself in a bad spot surrounded by seven enemies. He might have been able to last long enough for the others to come rescue him, if it weren't for the fact that he had a failed a Will save against a Hold Person spell that had rendered him completely helpless and vulnerable to an instant kill from taking massive damage. Add in one enemy Barbarian with a gigantic battle-axe standing right next to him, and…
Mike smirked. "Hey, it's not my fault you can't roll dice worth a shit," he countered. "A 2 on a will save is weak no matter what stage of the game you're in. Besides, your new Paladin character is probably better for today's campaign anyway." He propped up his gamebook. "And with that being said, let today's game begin."
/
Over the months, their once small adventuring party had grown in reputation and respect as they carried out and succeeded in more and more tasks and assignments given to them from different people in the city. Their true rise in popularity was earned after they had single-handedly taken down a stronghold of bandits terrorizing the countryside, after which they had caught the attention of the captain of the royal guard himself. The captain, in exchange for greater rewards and favors, had started giving them harder assignments that on occasion even called for dealing with dangerous supernatural threats. Their latest assignment, to investigate deep into a pile of ruins that had recently surged with dark power, could very well be one such mission.
"Man, this place is creepy," Fritz muttered as they progressed deeper into the dark corridor. "What do we know about this place again?"
"The captain told us that there was a surge of dark energy coming from here," Cassidy answered. "Apparently, people have started disappearing and there's been at least a few claims of unholy screams and even demons wandering around the place."
"We've been through the first couple of floors and haven't seen anything out of the ordinary," Susie commented. "I mean, we had to kill a couple of people hiding out here and there, but those could've just been ordinary bandits who decided that this place was a good hideout."
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "A couple of bandits hiding out in a place rumored to be haunted?" he countered. "I don't think so. I noticed that a couple of them were wearing robes with a symbol dedicated to an evil deity on them. Those were cultists, I'm sure of it."
The party climbed down a small staircase…right into a chamber filled with bones and discarded weapons. As several of them gasped in revulsion and shock, the bones began to swirl together and form a small army of skeletons, all glaring at them as they drew their weapons and prepare to attack.
"How's that for out of the ordinary, Sus?" Gabe deadpanned. "I think we found the missing people."
"We can worry about this later," Mary interrupted them as she drew her mace. "Let's do the thinking AFTER we take care of these skeletons."
Fritz grinned. "Good enough for me!" he declared as he drew his battle axe. "I've been itching for a scrap all day! Come at me, you undead freaks!"
He charged into the room before anyone could react, unleashing his inner rage as he cleaved and hacked at several of the skeletons. Liz and Mary both groaned.
"Did he just?" Liz muttered.
"Yep, he did," Mary confirmed in an equally dry tone. She sighed. "Jeremy, keep him company so he doesn't get surrounded, will you? I'll stay here to keep the skeletons from getting at our more fragile friends and start channeling energy to kill these undead faster."
Jeremy nodded and charged into the room. As a skeleton swung its sword at ho, he raised his sword and easily deflected the undead warrior's blade, before countering and slicing its head off. Mary, Susie, and Cassidy, in the meantime, all began casting spells to weaken the undead from a safe distance as Liz and Gabe fought off any undead that got too close to them. By now, they were all seasoned warriors or reasonably powerful mages, and the undead, while many, were not particularly powerful. It didn't take very long for the party to wipe out the hordes of skeletons, and the battle ended when Fritz triumphantly hacked the last one down to pieces with his axe.
/
"That didn't seem too hard," Susie commented. "It was just a bunch of skeletons."
"Well, no kidding," Mike replied. "This was just to see if you would fall into the noob trap of using your most powerful spells on this pile of weak-ass bones. Congratulations, none of you were stupid enough to fall for that."
Mary glared at Fritz. "You really need to stop running in like an idiot," she scolded. "What if there had been something a lot worse than skeletons in there?"
Fritz raised his hands up in protest. "Hey, my character is all about charging in and dealing tons of damage," he countered. "Besides, Rage gives me tons of fake health I can use so does it even really matter? I mean, what am I going to do if I stay back from a fight? Twiddle my thumbs and do jack shit?"
Liz sighed. "Just be more careful, Fritz, all right? We don't want Jeremy 2.0 to happen."
/
"So which way do we go now?" Gabe asked. "We've got three directions to choose from, not counting the one we came from." He marked the stone next to their original entrance with a number to keep track of their location.
"Middle sound good to everyone?" Mary asked. When nobody disagreed, the party quickly reorganized into its marching order (tanks in the front and back, squishies in the middle) and proceeded to march into the chosen corridor. They soon found themselves in a different chamber with several open sarcophagi propped up to both sides facing each other in rows. It all seemed very organized…too organized.
"Hold up," Gabe stopped them from advancing any further. He picked up a throwing knife and tossed it into the rows of sarcophagi. Immediately, flames exploded from the seemingly innocuous coffins as the knife sailed through them to create billowing walls of fire, stopping only once the knife had fully passed. The knife fell to the floor with a dull clunk, and the flames died down, leaving the room as lifeless as before.
/
Mike groaned. "This is why nobody ever bothers with traps in the mid-late game of a D&D campaign," he grumbled. "Yeah, they might be all cool and stuff to work with in early-game dungeons, but eventually you have someone like the rogue or assassin that can check for traps with their perception bonus of 'yes I can see your trap from a mile away so stop wasting our fucking time already.'
Gabe stifled a laugh. "It's that good, huh?"
"Only reason why I even bothered with this to begin with was because this trap can still cause you problems even if you find it in time."
"I took Protection from Energy Communal and Resist Energy Communal," Cassidy helpfully supplied with a cheeky grin. "And I'm pretty sure Mary probably took at least one of those too. And that's not even going into the fact that some of us have Fire Resistance already. I think we'll be fine!"
"I figured as much," Mike replied in a deadpan tone. "It's simply amazing how much you can cheese out of a campaign if you have the right spells, isn't it?"
/
Cassidy and Mary cast their protective spells upon everyone in the party who didn't already have endurance to fire, and they all proceeded to march down the hall of fire-spouting sarcophagi. The spells weren't enough to completely block out all the damage, but they did enough so that everyone only suffered minor burns at worst. Once everyone was through, they ventured into the connecting corridor and deeper into the ruins. As they did so, the entire atmosphere plummeted in temperature, almost as though a great chill had descended upon the ruins.
"That can't be natural," Cassidy murmured as she shivered.
"There's definitely something evil up ahead," Mary confirmed after a few minutes of concentration. "I'll heal everyone up with my weaker healing spells. And we should be careful from now on," she glared at Fritz. "That means no jumping in like a maniac, Fritz!"
"All right, all right, I get it," the Barbarian grumbled as they advanced, more slowly and cautiously this time. The corridor eventually led to an antechamber of sorts, the hallway they had come through one of many entrances that led to other parts of the ruins they had not stepped foot in. The walls on either side of them were draped with black banners marked with an unholy symbol. In front of them were a set of double doors that likely led to a great hall or throne room of some kind. Whatever lay beyond those doors, it was almost certainly foul in nature.
/
"I will now give you a choice," Mike offered. "You can either choose to confront what lies in there right now, but you won't get any of your spells that you have already used back, and you'll be stuck with the ones you have today for the beginning of the campaign. Or, you can rest here for the night, allowing you to restore yourselves to full health and get all your spells back. But…" he gave them a surprisingly sinister grin. "I can't guarantee that something may or may not happen over the night while you're resting…"
The ghosts looked at each other. "How many spells did we end up using?" Susie asked.
"Not that many, at least for me," Cassidy answered, with Mary giving a similar response.
"So spell usage isn't the issue…but do we want to change our spells so that we're more prepared to deal with whatever's inside that room?" Gabe mused. "Whatever's in there is almost certainly going to be supernatural evil of some kind. Either undead or demonic, cause there's no way something like that is natural."
"Yeah, let's pick new spells," Susie decided. "I'm pretty sure we can handle whatever comes our way if something happens."
The party agreed, and Mike rolled a dice behind his game board. "Well, you guys lucked out," he commented, eliciting grins from the ghosts. "There was a 50% chance of an ambush happening overnight and I rolled on the half where nothing happens. Oh well. You're all good as new. Gimme your chosen spells for the day and let's get this show on the road."
/
For the next minute or so, Cassidy, Mary, and even Susie began casting whatever protection spells they deemed necessary to maximize their chances of survival against whatever they lay ahead. Once they had done so, they assumed their battle formation and Jeremy swung the doors open. They hit the walls with a mighty clang, and all of them gasped at what they saw inside.
They were indeed inside a throne room, as many of them had suspected. But it was the darkest and foulest throne room that any of them had ever seen. Unholy symbols were engraved on various segments of the walls, and several parts of the walls and floor were splattered with blood and bones. At the base of the walls were rows of neatly lined jars, and at the far end of the room was a black throne that was as cruel as it was elegant. Sitting on the throne was an undead sorcerer, one that was far more powerful than anything the adventurers had faced up until now. He was wreathed in black and purple robes with a crown made of bone on his head, and he looked at the new arrivals with unbridled cruelty and malice.
Jeremy gasped. "A lich!" he shouted. "Out of all the undead that roam this Earth, you're one of the foulest in existence!"
The lich laughed. "The little paladin knows my nature? How cute. But that will not save you. I am Ghuth'guaka, the Scourge of Vitality. I have committed countless atrocities and thrown my soul into the darkest pits of depravity to achieve the ascension that I have so desperately craved. I am beyond the reach of death, and in the name of my unholy patron I shall drown this world in darkness and despair. So many deaths have already served to fuel the unholy fires of my power, and soon there will be nothing to stop me from unleashing my wrath upon the world!"
Mary gritted her teeth in rage. "We'll grind your bones back into dust long before you get the chance, lich!" she snarled. As a servant of Pharasma, she despised undead on principle and would see them cast back into the Earth where they belonged.
"And how will you stop me?" Ghuth'guaka sneered. "Other adventures besides you have stumbled upon my domain, and their bones have made for excellent servants. In life and in death, I slaughter innocents and champions alike, feasting on their deaths on a whim. I sacrificed everyone who was close to me, family and friend, so that I could become what I am now."
/
"This guy pisses me off already," Fritz growled.
"But do you want to know what's the worst thing he's ever done is?" Mike asked. "Something so terrible, so horrible, that you'll want to wipe out the entirety of his existence on principle?"
"What?" Liz asked, both curious and afraid to know at the same time.
"He watched the entirety of the Lords of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter movies," Mike answered. "And HATED them!"
Every single one of the ghosts' jaws dropped, even the Marionette's mouth opening larger than normal. Then Gabe's ghostly eyes emptied into black voids, ichor dripping out of them. "Let's kill this son of a bitch," he snarled.
/
"Find his phylactery!" Mary shouted. "It's the only way we can kill this guy permanently. It has to be in one of those jars!"
"You're kidding me, right?" Jeremy asked in a deadpan tone. "This lich was actually stupid enough to have his phylactery in the same room as him?"
A howl of rage seemed to confirm Jeremy's suspicions. "I will tear you fools to shreds and feast on your essences!" Ghuth'guaka roared. He raised his hands and began chanting in a foul tongue. Immediately, a massive fireball began to appear and with a stretch of his hand the fireball plummeted towards the party.
"Scatter!" Gabe shouted as they all tried to dodge the fireball. He was able to avoid the worst of the flames easily enough, and so did Mary and Cassidy. But the rest of them were too slow, and all of them were caught in the full force of the flames. It was only thanks to a communal Protection from Energy courtesy of Susie and a communal Resist Energy from Mary that they didn't all take a significant chunk of damage from the spell, and even then those who had failed to evade had still taken around 30 damage from it.
All around them, the piles of bones were beginning to form up, creating more skeletal warriors like they had fought before. But while many of them were the same weak creatures they had fought before, a few of the ones closer to the lich had the makings of actual warriors. It was clear that the lich intended to swarm them down with his hordes of undead while he spammed them with spells from the safety of the back lines. Not unlike their own strategy come to think of it.
"We have to get rid of those undead and get to that lich before he wears us all down with his spells," Jeremy shouted. "If we can force him into close combat he won't last long!"
"Fools!" Ghuth'guaka shouted. "You will never get the chance!"
/
"It's a good thing I put some Death Wards on a couple of you before we went in," Susie sighed with relief. "Thanks to that, everyone passed their fear saves and now we can fight the Lich without being Shaken."
"Should we try to spam spells on the lich or clear out the hordes of undead so that our warriors can get a clear shot at the lich?" Cassidy asked.
"Let's alternate every turn," Susie suggested. "That we can do both and have fun doing both!"
Her sister grinned. "Sounds good to me!"
"Any help you could give us against these skeletons would be really appreciated," Liz requested. "There's only so much me, Jeremy, and Fritz can do against this many skeletons."
Jeremy snorted. "You're forgetting, Liz. I'm a Paladin. Eating undead for breakfast is one of the things I do best."
"I'll keep looking for the phylactery, and I'll destroy it as soon as I find it," Gabe told them. "I can keep myself hidden with Stealth."
"Sounds like we've got a plan, then!" Mary declared. "Just make sure that you stay relatively close to either me, Jeremy, or Susie for healing in case things go south."
/
The entire room erupted into chaos as living and dead clashed. Jeremy, Fritz, and Liz all charged forward into to battle the hordes of undead, while Cassidy and Susie cast spells on either the horde of zombies or the lich himself from a relatively safe distance with Mary keeping them safe just in case things went south. Ghuth'guaka retaliated by firing his own spells at them, dividing his fury between the front-line fighters and the party's mages in equal measure. All the while, Gabe searched through the jars for the lich's phylactery, hoping to find it soon while secretly wondering if it really was even there at all. Every so often, Ghuth'guaka sent a spell at his direction or sent some skeletal warriors after him, but his enhanced reflexes allowed him to dodge those with little difficulty and the skeletons weren't all that hard for him to handle.
Gradually, however, the army of skeletons began to dwindle. Jeremy had realized that channeling his holy power was a more efficient way to damage multiple skeletons at once instead of trying to attack them one at a time, something that Liz and Fritz were much better at than he was. With his and Mary's channels, as well as the mages' area of effect spells, soon there were only the lich's elite guards left. Liz and Fritz engaged those guards and seemed to be winning over them too…until Ghuth'guaka sent a Cone of Cold straight at Jeremy. The paladin was too slow to dodge and ended up suffering quite a bit of damage from the spell, especially since he didn't have any resistance to Cold placed on him before. Realizing the danger, Mary quickly slapped a higher level heal spell on him, negating the damage that had been done by the lich but sacrificing the chance to do anything further for that turn.
And then, Gabe found the phylactery. It was hidden in a far corner of the room, in a seemingly unremarkable jar that looked no different from the others at first glance. But inside the jar was a shining amethyst of the deepest purple. Gabe was briefly entranced by its beauty…until he remembered that it held the soul of a monster within.
"NO!" Ghuth'guaka roared when he realized that his very soul was literally at risk. He instantly shot another Cone of Cold at the Assassin, but Gabe managed to dodge the worst of the spell with his reflexes and only suffered minor damage from it. He ran quickly back to rejoin his party, barely dodging the attacks of the skeletons that remained, who now seemed entirely focused on stopping him.
"Destroy it!" Gabe shouted to Fritz, who had just managed to take down one of the guards. He took the phylactery out of the assassin's hands and raised his axe to smash it to pieces. The skeleton guard tried to stop him and even managed to get a hit in, but it was too little too late. Fritz's axe came flying down and smashed the gem, crushing it to tiny pieces.
Ghuth'guaka screamed in rage and possibly even fear as his one safeguard to immortality in undeath was destroyed beyond repair. Forgetting his reason, he maniacally ordered all his remaining skeletons to swarm the Barbarian who had dared to destroy his precious artifact. Jeremy and Liz instantly leapt forward to their friend's defense, helping him fight off the undead that were now out for his blood. The Barbarian's rage allowed him to ignore many wounds, but even he wouldn't be able to withstand so many attacks for long without help.
After several rounds of combat, only the lich remained. Cassidy and Susie shot a Fireball and Flame Strike at him, but he seemed to only take minimal damage from them at most. Then, Jeremy and Mary strode forward to deal with the lich personally. His very existence was an abomination to them to an even greater level than to the others, and they would be the ones to wipe his existence out once and for all. Seeing the danger, Ghuth'guaka began throwing 3 scorching rays at the two of them, but they ignored the searing burns as they approached his throne. He then tried to cast a ray of negative energy at Jeremy that managed to weaken his power, but Mary promptly cast Restoration on her friend to negate the effects.
"And now we'll wipe your pathetic existence off the face of the earth!" Jeremy shouted. His sword began to channel with holy power, and he brought it down upon the lich. The undead sorcerer screamed in agony as divine energy smote at his very essence, but he wouldn't go down with just one attack. In retaliation, Ghuth'guaka reached out and grabbed at Jeremy, who instantly felt a wave of unholy power try to freeze him in place. With all his will, he resisted the binding power of the lich's touch and struck at him again with his sword, channeling his holy might once more. By now, Fritz and Liz had caught up with them, deciding to help their friends get rid of the lich once and for all. Even an undead sorcerer could not survive against this many attacks at once, and it wasn't long before the Scourge of Vitality was reduced to a pile of barely functioning bones.
But it seemed that even in defeat, Ghuth'guaka had one last trick to play.
"You think you've won…" he rasped. "Did you really think that I wouldn't have one last trick in the event that I was defeated? If I cannot achieve my goal of conquest and destruction, I will call upon the power of the Abyss itself to make sure you never leave here alive! You cannot stand against the unholy powers that now come for you!"
The lich let out a torrent of mocking laughter as he breathed his last. As he did so, the entire room began to shake and rumble as a portal to the Abyss began to open in the center of the room. Cassidy and Susie, realizing that they were separated from the rest of the party, quickly scrambled to the other side of the room to rejoin their friends. Unholy demons began to emerge from the portal. Most of them weren't that large or didn't seem overly powerful, but there was one that towered over the others. A gigantic, hideous beast with the head of a boar and a grotesque gorilla-like body with wings sprouting from its back. The portal closed from underneath him, and the humongous demon let out a mighty roar as it noticed its challengers.
"A Nalfeshnee…" Jeremy breathed as he held his sword out in front of him. "One of the most dangerous and surprisingly intelligent demons from the Chaotic Evil plane."
"What do we do now?" Susie asked nervously. "That thing is huge, and it seems really powerful!"
/
Mary smirked. "I know what I'm going to do," she said with no fear in her voice. "I had my 6th level spell prepared just in case we came across an evil outsider. I cast Banishment upon the Nalfeshnee."
"You do realize that the Nalfeshnee has a +21 will save, right?" Mike asked incredulously. "You do realize that his will save is literally higher than what your Banishment DC is capable of, so the only way this spell is going to work is if I roll a 1 out of 20? And you do realize that he has a SR of 25 on top of that, so you have to break through that if you even want me to roll that save in the first place?"
"Mike, Mike, Mike…I don't give a shit," Mary flippantly replied, earning grins and even a few giggles from the other ghosts. Mary had always been the mature, wise, and even-tempered one. Any situation where she was outright cursing was either going to be incredibly humorous or incredibly terrifying. She pointed a long, spindly finger at the table. "I want to see you roll that one."
Mike snorted. "All right then, roll against Spell Resistance." Mary did as instructed.
"I rolled a 17. I pass," she pointed at the dice.
"All righty, then. Rolling for the Nalfeshnee, with a will save of Fuck You…" Mike rolled the dice…"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" he howled.
Every single ghost child erupted into uncontrollable laughter, some of them even falling off the chairs or even banging the table with their ethereal fists. The dice that Mike rolled sat placidly on the table, proudly showing a 1 on its top segment. "WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK!" Mike continued to rant as the laughter of his children only intensified. He whipped out a calculator and began putting in numbers. "A FUCKING 1.75 PERCENT CHANCE OF THAT BANISHMENT SUCCEEDING! HOW? JUST…HOW?"
"What was that you said earlier?" Jeremy taunted as he gave Mary a high-five. "It's not our fault you can't roll worth shit? Well, looks to me a 1 is even worse than a 2, dad!" His words elicited more cheers and laughter from his family.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me…" Mike growled in frustration. "I have this badass, epic surprise fight against the demons of Hell planned out, and this entire encounter gets completely fucking FUBAR'd by one bad dice roll. This is the Fuckening of 1995 all over again…" He glared at Mary. "Thanks a lot, Mary."
"No problem!" the Marionette cheerfully replied.
"So what happens to the Nalfeshnee?" Liz asked once she had finally calmed down.
"It gets banished back to the Abyss or wherever the fuck it came from," Mike grumbled as he picked up the figurine of the demon and tossed it back into the box. "He can meet up with Nightmare down in Hell and they can have a party torturing William Afton for all the fucks I don't give. Speaking of Nightmare, I can't help but wonder what he's doing right now."
Meanwhile in Hell…
"HEY, NIGHTMARE!" a spindly figure floated into his brother and master's throne room. "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST DID!"
Nightmare looked up from the scrying portal that he was looking through and leered at the arrival. "WHAT DO YOU WANT, NIGHTMARIONNE?" the black bear monstrosity growled. "CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I'M BUSY RUINING THE LIVES OF MORTALS IN WAYS THAT WON'T INCUR DIVINE RETALIATION?"
"OH, YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS, NIGHTMARE," Nightmarionne replied. "YOU KNOW THAT MIKE SCHMIDT GUY? THE ONE YOU RAN INTO A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO?" When Nightmare nodded in acknowledgment, Nightmarionne continued. "HE WAS DOING A D&D CAMPAIGN WITH THOSE GHOST KIDS AFTON KILLED, AND HE HAD THIS BADASS FINAL BOSS ENCOUNTER SET UP WITH A NALFESHNEE."
"AND?" Nightmare pressed.
"I MADE HIM ROLL A ONE ON THE NALFESHNEE'S SAVE AGAINST A BANISHMENT SPELL," Nightmarionne cackled. "HE SPENT DAYS COMING UP WITH THAT ENCOUNTER AND I JUST COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE ENTIRETY OF HIS PLANS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Nightmare grinned. "NOT BAD, BROTHER," he chuckled. "NOT BAD AT ALL. BUT I CAN DO BETTER." He beckoned Nightmarionne to come over and turned the scrying portal so that his fellow demon could look into it. "THIS MORTAL HAS BEEN SHINY HUNTING FOR A SHINY RAYQUAZA FOR DAYS NOW. OVER TWO THOUSAND SOFT RESETS, AND HE IS FINALLY ABOUT TO FIND THAT WHICH HE SEEKS." Nightmare's grin widened. "IT WOULD BE A SHAME IF HIS GAME WERE TO MALFUNCTION WHEN HE FINALLY FOUND IT…"
The shiny Rayquaza finally appeared in the scrying portal, and the two demons could hear the Pokémon player's excited shouts as he finally found it. Nightmare tapped the portal with his claw and sent some magic through it. The game instantly began to freeze, and the two nightmares roared with laughter as the player's glee turned into confusion, then shock, and then a howl of outrage as he realized what had happened. They watched as the player picked up his Game Boy Advance and hurled it into the wall before stomping off angrily to someplace unknown.
"I KNOW WE'RE DEMONS AND ALL THAT, NIGHTMARE," Nightmarionne commented as he finally calmed down and his brother changed the portal to a different location. "BUT DAMN…THAT IS TRUE CRUELTY RIGHT THERE. I ALMOST FEEL SORRY FOR THE POOR BASTARD."
"OF COURSE IT IS," Nightmare dryly replied. "I HOLD MY DEPRAVITY TO THE HIGHEST OF STANDARDS. OR SHOULD I SAY LOWEST? WHATEVER, YOU GET THE POINT."
"BROTHER!" a new voice interrupted them. The two nightmares turned to see Nightmare/Infernal Fredbear at the entrance to his throne room. "I HAVE SOME CONCERNS ABOUT THE TORTURE OF WILLIAM AFTON."
Nightmare turned to his face his other second-in-command and glared at him. He always reacted with the brutality and cruelty expected of a demon lord to anyone outside of his family who dared to question or challenge him, and while Nightmare allowed the other nightmares to voice their opinions as long as they showed him the respect he was due, he made it abundantly clear that he would not respond well to inane or foolish comments. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" he growled. "HAS AFTON STOPPED RESPONDING TO HIS LATEST TORTURE?"
"NO," Nightmare Fredbear admitted, "BUT THAT'S THE THING. YOU'VE BEEN USING THAT SAME TORTURE FOR DAYS NOW, MUCH LONGER THAN THE FIRST TWO THAT WE'VE TAKEN OUT OF SCHMIDT'S LIST OF TORMENTS. WHY HAVE YOU BEEN FORCING AFTON TO LISTEN TO HORRIBLE MUSIC NONSTOP AT MAX VOLUME FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK NOW?"
Nightmare got off his throne and gestured Nightmare Fredbear to follow him. "FREDBEAR, FREDBEAR, FREDBEAR," he began in a tone laden with poisoned sweetness. "I DO HOPE THAT YOU DON'T THINK THAT I'M STARTING TO TAKE PITY ON AFTON," he spat the name out as if it were a disease. "I ASSURE YOU, NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. IT'S JUST THAT THERE IS SO MUCH MORE VERSATILITY TO BE HAD WITH HORRIBLE MUSIC THAN THERE IS WITH SOME OF THE MORE…PHYSICAL TORTURES. BESIDES…HAVE YOU EVEN CHECKED THE SONG THAT I'M FORCING HIM TO LISTEN TO?"
The two demons made their way into the dungeons, where William Afton was being wrapped in burning hot chains with a pair of spiked headphones shoved into his ears and sealed there with lava. The man was screaming in agony, begging for anything, anything to stop the agony. Fredbear opened the dungeon door and looked at the attached computer monitor for the song that Afton was being forced to listen to. The words "Rebecca Black – Friday" flashed on the screen.
Nightmare Fredbear immediately flinched and backed out of the dungeon, slamming the door shut behind him. "MY APOLOGIES, BROTHER," he apologized. "I DID NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION. I SEE NOW THAT YOU HAVE PLENTY OF CRUELTY AND BRUTALITY TO GO AROUND, JUST LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO."
Nightmare chuckled menacingly. "I THOUGHT YOU'D SAY THAT. AND YES. YES I DO."
Back at Mike's House…
"Ideally it would involve Purple Guy torture, but as long as it doesn't involve us, then I don't care," Mike decided as he dismissed Nightmare from his mind. He suddenly remembered that his Nalfeshnee had been banished and groaned. "Well, without the Nalfeshnee, the rest of the demons aren't going to do shit to you unless you REALLY fuck up your tactics, which given your performance against the lich I highly doubt you will. So let's just say that you kill them with extreme prejudice, get out of the ruins, and report to the captain what happened, because it's getting close to dinner time and I'm getting hungry. Sound good?"
"Yeah, that works for us, dad!" the ghosts all replied, and they began cleaning up the game.
"I'll decide whether to level you guys up or not later, since I don't want you leveling up every single week now that we're past level 10," Mike added as he got started putting away things on his own. He sighed and shook his head. "I still can't believe that happened. 1.75% chance, my God. If all my rolls are going to be this bad I need to throw away this D20 and get a new one…"
"Well, you have to admit, dad, it's never a dull day with us around," Fritz grinned expectantly at his dad. "Right?"
Mike returned the smile. "Can't argue with that, Fritz," he replied as he made his way to the kitchen and the ghosts floated over to the living room to start playing their video games for the night. "And here's to many more days together in the future."
/
A/N: Yes, I broke the boundaries of sanity. I actually used the nightmares as a source of humor. Because they need to have fun once in a while just like everyone else, even if that fun comes from the suffering of others. And yes, Infernal and Nightmare animatronics are the same thing, just with two different names.
I hope this chapter was at least a little bit funny outside of the Nightmare shenanigans and the D&D/Pathfinder stuff made at least a little sense. The campaign that I had Mike and the kids play was one based on a campaign that I played with some friends in my undergrad years. There was a time when we fought a lich underground, and there was also a time when the GM summoned a Nalfeshnee (only it was during a war where a rift to the Abyss opened up in some frost giant land) and it got promptly banished because the GM rolled a 1 on the will save. That Banishment was cast by me :D
I decided to write this chapter early since I didn't have anything better to do and I didn't feel like studying after this morning's med school exam. There's a decent chance that I might not be able to upload a chapter next week because it's med school finals week, though then again I wrote almost the entirety of this chapter in about 5 hours today so eh, who knows.
Hope you guys enjoyed! We are so close to 100 favs and follows, and it would make me incredibly happy if we reached that benchmark.
