Our motley crew of adventurers were on the move, and a little drunk. After some time getting accustomed to each other over drinks, Halwark announced that he’d gotten a tip about a dungeon outside of town that was reportedly a great place for tier-ones to grind for enough mystical energy to climb in power. Deacon wore a comfortable poncho, with the uncommon quality of its texture not being offensive to his senses. As a bonus, its muted indigo color matched his pointed wizard hat. He’d been keeping his arms close for much of the walk, giving the illusion of lacking arms. This unusual appearance was noted by his companions, but over time faded into the background. A sudden change in this illusion was apparently too much for Marla to handle in her inebriation, as when one of Deacon’s unseen hands emerged to bring a roasted potato to his mouth, she jumped in shock, exclaiming, “what the fucking shit!”

After a moment to register Marla’s reaction, and its cause, laughter broke out amongst the group. Marla’s face turned red, and she snapped, “why the hell do you have a potato under there?”

Deacon looked down at himself, unsure what could be unclear about him eating a potato. “My subspace bag is under here,” he stated flatly. Subspace bags were nothing unusual among adventurers, even beginners almost invariably would sport a lesser one such as his, with 4 cubic feet within its pocket dimension and a charm to keep its contents in a low-level stasis, which Deacon found invaluable for keeping cooked potatoes fresh and warm for days.

Sonnet chuckled, and incredulously asked, “you keep potatoes in your subspace bag?”

“Why not? You don’t keep food in there?”

“Sure,” Sonnet shrugged, “but I keep foods dense in nutrients and mana, it’s an emergency reserve. You’d have to keep that thing full of potatoes to make a difference on the road.

“It’s not… full of potatoes.” This prompted another wave of laughs. After some time to consider his words, Deacon spoke up again. “Potatoes are special.” Despite everyone reacting in their body language, through gestures Deacon couldn’t quite read, nobody took the plunge of asking a follow-up question. “My village is in disputed territory. We’re what they call barbarians. Really it just means we’re holdouts of the feudal system, we’re not interested in bowing to any lords. All we want is to mind is our own business. Lords’ enforcers have their ways of putting pressure on barbaric camps and villages when they claim enclosure over them. Grains and vegetables are grown in open fields and stored in silos. That makes them vulnerable to be pillaged or burned by enforcers. Potatoes, though,” he emphasized his explanation by taking a satisfying bite of roasted potato. “Potatoes are both grown and stored underground. You can’t burn dirt, and if enforcers want to steal them, they have to dedicate a day of laboriously digging up acres of land, and still risk leaving some behind and failing to starve us out. They’re the root of resistance.” Deacon smiled to himself as a thought struck him. “Who are your guys’ patrons, and what blessing did you receive?”

Hallwark answered first, smiling at the memory. “Polra, god of radiance. I crawled on my knees for a day and a night up a path of sharp geodes to his shrine, and as the sun rose, his avatar appeared before me and granted his blessing, which I solidified to a blessing of the sun. I was so honored I crawled the whole way back down as well.”

“Oh, I tried that one,” Deacon remarked. “He didn’t show up. Couldn’t walk for months after that.”

Hallwark opened his mouth as though to speak, unable to find a response. Sonnet bailed him out with her own answer. “The closest a human tongue can come to pronouncing mine is Uhl’ Ghitchitchetch,” she added a deep wheezing inhale to the word, followed by, “itch.”

“An Edritch horror?”

“A horror indeed,” Sonnet confirmed. “It’d scare your pants right off. I took a canoe out to sea in the dead of night, to a point over trench, dozens of miles deep, which houses a cosmic vent. It came to me, and I was struck blind and mad by the sight of it. On whatever whim possessed the thing, it spared me, and granted me a blessing of shadows, restoring my sight.”

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Deacon asked, “and your sanity?”

“Hard to say. Best part is all it required in return is that I sacrifice pretty elf boys from time to time. Want another drink?”

“Oh ha-ha. I told you I’m not an elf.”

Marla broke the tension. “I got mine from a stone guardian. My people are nomadic, which would make us pretty easy prey for raiders and monsters, if not for the stone guardians that protect travelers from ambush. My whole band saved up and chipped in to give one of the most powerful of them an offering. I got the blessing of butchers. That’s how I got this puppy,” she ended by pulling a massive weapon from her subspace bag, as tall as herself end to end. Half of its length was taken up by the handle, and the other half by the massive rectangular blade. One end of the blade was made up of serrated saw teeth, and the other was razor sharp.

“Badass,” Deacon complimented. “That’s a very good… puppy.”

“I got mine from Dave,” Bones chipped in.

“Dave?”

“Yep. Dave. The best grand lich ever. He gave me life, and topped it off by giving me the blessing of unnatural creation. One day I’ll prove myself to him by using his blessing to become the best damned alchemist this side of the River Styx. How ‘bout you, meat-bag?”

“I don’t know the name of my patron, but they’re a spirit.”

“No shit?” Bones asked, taken aback. The rest of the group also stopped in place at the nearly mythical declaration.

“Yes. Or no? I got my blessing from a spirit. I ventured deep into a cave and found them at the bottom. I got the blessing of… dirt.”

Sonnet cracked up into hysterics, and the rest shared a light chuckle. “It was my only option for spell-casting.”

“May we see a demonstration of the spells in your roster so far?” Halwark asked.

“Uh, sure,” Deacon answered, stepping up to up to a slight hill over a grassy clearing. “I probably shouldn’t do this while I’m drinking, but screw it. I have three spells, but in practical terms, it’s more like two.” He held a hand aloft, away from his party, and mentally fired off one of his mana pathways, blasting a thirty-foot-long shower of orange sparks from his hand.

“Oh hell yeah,” Marla cheered.

“Excellent,” Hallwark agreed.

“Not too shabby, kid,” Bones chimed in. “We’ve got a flamethrower.”

“Well technically,” Deacon began correcting. “It’s more like a spray of molten dirt. I’m pretty sure it gets a better heat transfer compared to flame.”

“Nerd,” Marla joked.

“Yeah, that’s very un-Dave of you to get pedantic on me,” Bones added.

Deacon chuckled, shaking the imaginary feeling of the first spell off of his hand, to cleanse his pallet for the next. “This next one is less exciting, but it’s got potential for some real utility.” He aimed his arm at a tree, then blasted an apple-sized ball, which shot at a high speed, then deformed into a pancake-light object and stuck onto the bark. “It’s some kind of sticky clay. It hits hard, sticks, and hardens in around a half hour. Could be a good non-lethal attack, or even lethal if I cover the target’s airways.”

Deacons new friends expressed approval, but we’re clearly less impressed than they were with the fire. Bones prodded, “so what’s the last one?”

“Oh the last one doesn’t matter, it just sprays dirt. Basically a throwaway.”

“Oof. Very un-Dave,” Bones remarked.

“Oh gods, please don’t make that a thing,” Marla whined.

“Come one Marla, don’t be so un-Dave,” Deacon teased. Marla responded with a punch to Deacon’s leg, and in return Deacon blasted her with dirt. “Huh, I guess that is useful.”

Marla wiped dirt from her face, now pissed off, then chased after Deacon as her fled. The group ran and joked around in that vein until they reached their destination: a cemetery.

“Is this the right place?” Marla asked in confusion.

“If the merchant who tipped me off is to be believed, the dungeon entrance is the grave of one Don G. Crabb. He even sold me shovels.”

After a moment, Sonnet covered her face with her hand and winced. “That’s so dumb. This better be real or I swear I’ll murder you in your sleep.”

“I take offense to that. What is the issue?”

“The pun. The stupid fucking pun. Dungeness crab?! It’s idiotic.”

Bones, Marla, and Deacon laughed like hyenas at that, while Halwark remained professional and Sonnet fumed.

It wasn’t long before they found the headstone, and the hard part started. Halwark pulled shovels from his subspace bag and announced, “let’s get digging.”