The Black Cat's cellar wasn't really any different from a typical basement. There were more casks, some crates, and straw on the flagstone but I was still unnerved. Probably because I was going there with a vampire. It didn't help that strigoi noblemen were always at least rated for 10th to 12th level characters in the previous games, if not full bosses. It was pitch black except for the light streaming in from the bar above.

“Someone should light a candle,” I said, absently.

Maelor snapped his fingers, and the room suddenly had a dozen lantern burning across it. It was a sign he was a sorcerer as well as a vampire, which I probably should have suspected.

“Oh, neat,” I replied.

A rat skittered across the floor before Maelor grabbed it with one hand and bit its head off before spitting the head to the side and pouring the resulting blood into his mouth. A row of shark-like teeth was visible, very different from your typical Bela Lugosi fangs. Maelor promptly threw the rat to one side. “I'm sorry, would you like something to drink?”

The trapdoor behind me slammed shut of its own accord.

I stared. “So, we're not going to even pretend, are we?”

“Why?” Maelor asked in his seductive voice. “Garland knew what I was and you are Garland. Aren’t you?”

I narrowed my eyes. “So, yeah, what have you got?”

“Why don't you consult that little pretty piece of jewelry?” Maelor asked, walking up to a nearby support beam and crossing his arms.

I did so, wondering how much Maelor knew, exactly.

MAELOR'S SPECIAL INVENTORY

* LEATHER ARMOR +1 500 GP

* LEATHER BOOT +1 250 GP

* CLOAK +1 250 GP

* LEATHER VAMBRACES +1 300 GP

* ALCHEMICAL POTION [Health] 150 GP

I stared at the numbers and shook my head. “Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to afford any of this. Blame the castle upkeep.”

“You can try selling me the items you took off the late Skull King,” Maelor said, absently. “I suspect they're worth a pretty penny.”

I wondered how pretty penny translated as: pretty ceramic piece? Coinage was rare in the books with it being mostly for foreign trade and higher value goods. It was why the prices in the game were ridiculous, even with devalued coinage. Garland was apparently always getting ripped off by the locals who knew he was carrying a bunch of treasure looted from monsters. It really made me wonder why he bothered with helping the townsfolk in the first place. Oh, right, because it was the 'good' and 'noble' thing to do.

Pardon my inner Jon Snowan coming out there.

“Yeah, I guess I should examine what that's worth,” I said, once more consulting my bracelet. I was starting to feel like a Fallout protagonist with their PipBoy. Either that or my sister when she first got her phone as a teenager.

I went to the equipment menu and looked up the stats on Ghost King's armaments:

* GHOST SWORD +5 [Witchfire Status Effect, Necromatic Damage], Value 7,500 GP

* GHOST ARMOR +5 [Heavy, Immunity to Fear, Necromantic Effects], Value 10,000 GP

* GHOST HELMET +5 [Bonus to Intimidation Checks, Immune to Critical Hits, Ice Damage Halved], Value 10,000 GP

“Wow, these are way overpowered for the starting area,” I muttered. “Do the bonuses even go over +5 in these games?”

“Nope!” Jon said, staring. “This is endgame content stuff. Skull King was bringing a gun to a knife fight.”

At least it explained why I was able to kill two guys with a sword despite never having wielded one in my life. Funny how that bothered me no more than blasting the skeletons and zombies apart did.

“How much will you give me for them?” I asked.

“A hundred gold each,” Maelor said, absently.

I stared at him. That wasn't even enough for a one to one with the already overpriced starting equipment here. “Really? You couldn't throw in some shiny beads? I’ve been cheated less by my internet provider.”

Maelor shrugged., ignoring the anachronism of my comment. “You can't wear most of it as a sorcerer anyway. Magic is fundamentally the stuff of unreality and steel arms is made from iron, the antithesis of the Otherworld that provides all the magic to the world. That is why you must keep your armaments to a minimum.”

“Nice justification for a game balance rule Gary Gygax came up with,” Jon said, snorting. “Explain Darth Vader then! He was all iron!”

I shook my head. “I think I'll wait for a better vendor or to use these to arm someone else. Maybe I'll have a Warrior companion later.”

“Every bit of armament you have is a potential salvation for your life,” Maelor said, subtly threatening. “Can you really put a price on that?”

“Yes,” I asked, annoyed. “You literally just did.”

Maelor nodded, acknowledging the point. “There's another option for you to potentially turn your limited funds into something worthwhile, Garland.”

“And that is?” I asked, hating being referred to by that name.

Maelor conjured a deck of cards in his hand, waxy slips of hard paper. “A friendly game of Pwiffle.”

“Yes!” Jon said, flapping his wings enthusiastically.

“And what if I hate Pwiffle?” I asked, staring at him. I really didn't want to get back into playing that game.

“Then you'd have undergone an extremely large change, Garland,” Maelor said, lowering his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose. “You love this game.”

“Yeah, there's a lot of that going around lately,” I said.

“Perhaps you've forgotten how easy it is to win. Pwiffle is a very easy game to master,” Maelor said. “I can explain the rules to you if you want. A refresher if you've suffered one too many blows to the head.”

I stared at him, fury in my eyes. I really didn't want to be dragged into this black hole of a game again. “I know how to play goddamn Pwiffle. It's a variant of poker with 52 cards based on a typical deck but with the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water standing in for Clubs, Diamonds, Spades, and Hearts. The Jokers are replaced with Collectible Cards that you can only spend in that session. You can insert one of five collectible cards you've picked each hand in a typical game that lasts five hands. Which is only relevant for tournament play. These cards have ridiculous abilities like making you change the value of a 2 to an Ace or the opponent must throw away one card. The collectible cards existing to justify meaningless side-questing in the video games and buying endless amounts of disposable packs of cards that maybe have a 1% chance of containing a genuinely rare Pwiffle card.”

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Maelor blinked, which I hadn’t seen him do until then. “Yes, I suppose that is, in fact, how you play Pwiffle.”

“Damn, Aaron, did a deck of Pwiffle kill your dog?” Jon asked, looking at me. “Did you go on a John Wick campaign of vengeance afterward?”

I sighed, dealing with painful memories being dredged up by the prospect of another round of the world's most addictive card game. Well, after Magic: The Gathering. “No, it's much-much worse.”

“How?” Jon asked.

“Yes, how?” Maelor asked.

I did a double take as did Jon. “Wait, you can understand him?”

“Yeah, I never would have done so much trash talking if I’d known you were hearing other than squawking,” Jon said. “That might be dangerous.”

“I'm a vampire, he’s a raven, so yes, I can understand him,” Maelor said, rolling his eyes. “I can also understand rats and wolves.”

I nodded. It made about as much sense as anything else in this world. “So, when you hear things like video games...”

Maelor sighed, which was the first act of breathing I'd seen him perform. “Yes, I'm aware you're not actually Ser Garland, that you're from another world, and you're part of the ridiculous war between Veles and Perun's Chosen.”

“Weis is Perun's Chosen?” I asked, only now picking up on that. Earlier, Skull King had called him Perun's Voice, so it made sense, I guess. It seemed the Wise Man had been holding out on us.

“Yes,” Maelor said. “Quite a bit of loyalty to a dead god. Veles defeated his brother decades ago and scattered his essence. The Wise Man has been undermining Veles rather than engaging in open warfare ever since. I don't have one of those magic bracelets you all sport to hold back the magic, but I don't need one. Creatures of Veles or the Underworld don't get affected by the spell Weis cast to make us all think Garland is still alive.”

That was a lot to process. “So, you're a creature of Veles? Did you take part—”

“No,” Maelor said, quite sharply. “I had nothing to do with the attack on Crossroad. This is my home after all, and the Dark Undermasters were my best customers. You'll find that quite a lot of us 'creatures of darkness' consider our god's cosmic temper tantrum to be embarrassing. I'm not even sure why he wants to destroy the world. Maybe because Perun created it as a gift for Mokosh and she chose the Sky Lord over him.”

Jon stared. “The Dark Lord wants to destroy the world because of a girl he liked?”

“Yes, pathetic, isn't it?” Maelor asked.

“It is so relatable,” Jon said. “Like Raistlin Majere, the greatest fantasy character of all time.”

“Clearly you misspelled Arya Stark,” I said, pondering Maelor's words. I had to admit, that put an interesting spin on things. “So, not every creature of darkness, err, no offense, is going to be an enemy? Some just want to live their lives doing, uh, creature of darkness-y things?”

I wasn't a great believer in absolute good versus evil, White alignment run or not, so it was reassuring that I wouldn't necessarily have to take a genocidal war to the bad guy's faction. Maybe we could even make some friends.

Maelor scrunched up his nose as if smelling something bad. “I wouldn't necessarily go putting too much faith in the neutrality, let alone goodness, of my compatriots’ hearts. Some of the strigoi nobles, death lords, and zmei are powerful enough to resist our god's commands but most of the rank and file are near mindless horrors. Driven mad by their time in the Underworld or monsters created specifically to destroy humanity. Others are working for Veles and his lieutenants because of payment or a belief they will be spared.”

I'd have pointed out how stupid a person had to be to let themselves be bribed in helping destroy the world, but you only had to turn on the news to see someone who would. “Got it. Not all of Sauron's forces are evil but most of them are.”

“I don't know who that is,” Maelor said. “You still haven't explained why you hate Pwiffle.”

Lestat here was taking this awfully personally. They were like drug dealers from the old 80s PSAs. I'd been surprised to find in real life that you had to go to them if you wanted weed. They weren't handing out free samples. “Why do you care?”

Maelor looked embarrassed and adjusted his smoked glasses with one finger. Yes, that one. “I'm a vampire.”

“Yes, and?” I asked. Which is a weird way to talk to a walking dead man but here we were.

“We're obsessed with counting,” Maelor explained. “Sunflower seeds, blades of grass, coins, and more. It's one of our direst weaknesses. I wouldn't share it with you if not for the fact I, mostly, have it under control. However, it means that I love card games. The more numbers the better.”

I cocked my head to one side. “That's a real vampire weakness? What the Count from Sesame Street suffers from?”

Maelor looked annoyed. Obviously, he had no idea who that was either.

“Man, let me tell you about the rules this world functions on,” Jon said. “So many stats, you wouldn't believe it. Attributes, hit points, armor class, modifiers—”

“Please don't,” I said, suspecting we'd be here all day (or all night as the case may be), if I let Jon explain how tabletop games worked.

Maelor stared at me and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise up. “Just indulge me, Garland.”

“It's Aaron,” I corrected.

“But for everyone else, it is Garland and since the real one isn't coming back any time soon, you should get used to it,” Maelor said. “The people have very little hope and a lot of it is tied in folk heroes like him. They'll need that hope more than ever now that the Dark Undermasters are effectively destroyed.”

That was a gut punch as a longstanding fan of the books as well as someone doing the basic math that a world that was being overrun with demons no longer having any demon hunters was probably in serious trouble. “Yeah, it's like Luke's Jedi Order being destroyed. All the effort to rebuild it by Garland has gone poof.”

“The sequels don't count,” Jon explained. “We only count the original movies and, I never thought I'd say this, the prequels. Only because the Clone Wars cartoons were awesome. George Lucas' stuff counts and maybe the Thrawn Trilogy.”

“Uh—”

“So why do you hate Pwiffle?” Jon asked, switching subjects rapidly. “Enquiring ravens want to know.”

I sighed, realizing I wasn't going to get out of this. “Fine, I don't like to talk about it but if I'm cornered, I'm cornered. I had a Pwiffle problem.”

“A Pwiffle problem?” Jon asked.

This was so embarrassing. I raised my voice and glared at both individuals interrogating me. “I was an addict, okay? About three years ago, I started getting into the card game. Like really-really into it. I found out I had an employee discount at Epic DungoneeringTM's online store. Soon, I was card hunting and sneaking time to do online games. My relationship with Nightchilde suffered and I was doing online bids that I couldn’t really afford. I wasted three months of my life trying to get a Witch Queen of Angho'horak nude and not because I was a pervert but because she gave a redraw upon defeat perk until they errated it out.”

“Uh huh,” Jon said, acting like he hadn't spent our entire relationship talking about how important the game was to him in this universe.

“What happened?” Maelor asked, sounding surprisingly interested.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I must have blown like $10,000 on my card game habit and that wasn't money I could afford as a suffering office drone. Finally, Arwen and my cousin, Alek, intervened when I started hitting my parents up for rare card money. Money that should have gone to my rent. They got me some online therapy and to go cold turkey. I ended up donating my entire collection to my nephew.”

“Wow,” Jon said. “I did not see that part of your past coming.”

I frowned. “Little Georgie traded them all for Pokemon cards. Oh, and a month's supply of green tea Kit-Kats.”

“Fascinating and tragic,” Maelor said, putting one palm against the side of his face. “Now we have to play a game of Pwiffle.”

“Like hell we do,” I said.

SIDEQUEST(S) ADDED:

PLAY GAME OF PWIFFLE (0/1)

REWARDS: 200 EXP, Pwiffle Card (Garland)

I growled, literally growled, at my bracelet. “It's a side quest. It's optional.”

“You need the experience, dude,” Jon said, showing no sympathy whatsoever to my tragic backstory. “We're almost to level 3.”

“I also revealed vital details about Veles to you,” Maelor said, pointing at me in a thoroughly modern gesture. “In the words of the Wise Man, you owe me.”

I wasn't sure that was something Weis had ever said but the old urge was still waiting there, hungry for colorful pictures and numbers. “Fine, one game. You'll have to provide the deck.”

“Of course.”

This was a terrible idea.

To continue the story, check out Lords of Dragon Keep on Amazon