With party member Liam, Donna has defeated ten dark elves for 6500 XP (3250 XP each) and recovered 121 silver pennies' worth of treasure (61 XP each). Donna has also earned 121 bonus rogue XP for recovering 121 silver pennies' worth of treasure. Donna has also earned 105 bonus bard XP for defeating 21 hit dice of enemies.
ERROR: Illegal experience total for (LEVEL 1 BARD). Resetting overflow. Filing bug report… bug report filed. Reloading status.
Hit points:
3/6
Armor class:
2
XP:
2499/1250
Effect:
Poisoned (unconscious)
Donna has leveled up! Rolling 1d6 additional hitpoints… 4 hit points gained.
STR
12
Class
Bard
Saves
Normal
DEX
17
Level
2
Death
13
CON
7
THAC0
20
Wand
14
INT
14
XP
2499
Polymorph
12
WIS
11
Next level
2500
Breath Weapon
16
CHA
16
Max hp
10
Spell
15
15 discretionary thieving skill points granted!
Donna stirred in her drugged sleep.
In absence of response, default assignment selected.
Thieving abilities
Bard abilities
Other abilities
Pick Pockets
24%
Influence
Sleep / charm resistance
Detect Noise
39%
Inspire
Infravision
Climb Walls
64%
Countersong
Detect secret doors
Read Languages
8%
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Knowledge
Updated status:
Hit points:
7/10
Armor class:
2
Spells memorized:
None
XP:
2499/2500
Effect:
Poisoned (unconscious)
----------------------------------------
Aiden tossed the bloody rag that had once been a dark elf's tunic onto the cave floor, squinting at his sword. By infrared, it was difficult to tell if the blade was truly clean or not, but it was probably good enough, he thought to himself. Then his keen elven ears picked up the sound of three sets of footsteps getting louder.
When the first goblin stepped into sight, Aiden made his decision. It was an easy decision: He was a goddamn second-level fighter with a fucking greatsword, and he wasn't going to run from three goblins. Especially not when he could catch them on their way out of a tunnel, fronting one at a time.
With a loud clang, his sword smashed against the lead goblin's helmet. The helmet bent and crumpled, slipping forward over the goblin's eyes. The goblin stepped back on top of a shorter goblin, waving its flanged mace wildly but blindly. Further back, Aiden could see some kind of emaciated scaled and feathered humanoid; the humanoid shouted gibberish, waving its arms wildly and flinging a handful of powder in the air.
Then everything turned into bright red, yellow, and blue light; then there was only the deep darkness of unconsciousness; then there was pain, and even the darkness faded.
----------------------------------------
Liam stared at the hissing puddle in the limestone, trying to ignore the disgusting wet crunching sound of a flanged mace repeatedly smashing into limp bone and flesh. If I had a torch, he thought to himself, I would be able to see if it was fluorescent blue. Probably?
"That's enough," Liam said weakly, still carefully not turning his head toward the disgusting noise. The noise stopped. In the sudden silence, Liam could hear distant footsteps echoing.
Liam looked back into the cavern. The shorter goblin was still lying motionless where he'd fallen, knocked out by Liam's spell along with the elf. It was hard to be sure if it was the same elf that had murdered Ava; things didn't quite look the same in infrared, he'd only gotten a brief glimpse of the elf in motion, and maybe all surface elves looked alike, anyway.
The only things that Liam could be sure of were that the elf had been hostile to both the goblins and to a dark elf; the stripped corpse of a dark elf lay face-down only a dozen feet away. The distant footsteps were a little louder now, Liam realized. "We've got to go," he told the taller goblin. "Someone else is coming, someone with a heavy footstep. Help me carry… um… whatever his name is."
"Shorty," the tall goblin said. "Him called Shorty. We no bring elf?"
"No," Liam said. "Shorty should wake up soon, but we have got to get out of here. So, grab Shorty and let's go."
The short goblin groaned, getting to his feet. "My name is Shirley," the short goblin said with a tone of irritation. "Not Shorty."
The heavy bootsteps grew louder and louder. "Hurry!" Liam whispered, grabbing the short goblin – Shirley – by the hand and pulling. The tall goblin grabbed the fallen elf's belt pouch and followed. A few minutes later, they heard a distant voice echoing through the cavern system. The exact words were indistinct, distorted by the echoes; but from the rhythm, Liam felt the speaker was unhappy and exercising her vocabulary of profanity to its fullest extent.
----------------------------------------
Status:
Hit points
7/10
Armor class:
2
Spells memorized:
None
XP:
2499/1250
Donna had a headache and a truly awful taste in her mouth. She could smell bacon and smoke. Prying open her eyelids revealed she was in a firelit cave, featuring several small shacks and a rickety bridge over an underground stream. Ugly little red-skinned humanoids – goblins – were all over the place.
"Not a dream," she mumbled to herself as she sorted through her memories. The formless void; her fall from the sky; the goblins, the hobgoblin, and fighting with dark elves. The sudden pain of getting hit by a miniature crossbow bolt, and everything fading to black.
She walked to the stream, exchanging polite greetings with several of the goblins along the way. The underground stream did a good job at clearing the foul taste out of her mouth; drinking several handfuls of the water quenched a thirst she didn't know she had. As the headache began to fade, she realized two things. First, she was hungry; second, she had promised the goblins a silver penny for each hunt.
The next goblin she greeted got paid a silver penny and told of her hunger; very soon, she had a queue of eager goblins standing in front of her, several bearing plates with cooked meat. She counted out one coin for each goblin into her hand, then exchanged the pile for one of the plates, telling the goblin with the plate to hand out the rest of the coins, and then perched on the rickety bridge with the plate balanced in one hand and her pocketknife in the other, delicately cutting a small piece of the meat.
She was chewing experimentally when a trio of figures emerged from a dark corner of the cavern – the tall goblin with the flanged mace, his short friend, and a figure that looked strangely familiar other than the fact that had scaly skin and feathers. It could only be a deepling, and Liam had said he was going to play a deepling… Donna stared at the feathered eyebrows of her grandson for a moment in shock.
"Liam? Is that you? You look different, I barely recognized you." Donna realized at that point that she was already standing and hugging her grandson.
"Aww, Grandma," Liam said, his skin flushing green in embarrassment.
The taller goblin stopped in his tracks, eyes widening. "Donna grandmother feathered demon?"
The shorter goblin whistled. "A lover of demons! Brave and mighty priestess," the shorter goblin said. He straightened up and bowed deeply. "Donna, we are honored to serve you."
The tall goblin hastily sketched out a similar bow, then looked over at the plate of meat in Donna's hand. He turned, looking over at the fire. "Donna, feathered demon grandson make first kill. I tell cook, bring food, okay?"
Donna turned back to her grandson, patting him on the back. "First kill, huh? Must have been rough. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Liam said. "The dark elves were trying to kill you. I'm over it. Are you okay?"
"I will be once I get some breakfast in me," Donna said, picking her pocketknife back up off the plate. With remarkable deftness, she cut another polite bite-sized piece. "Getting shot took a lot out of me." She popped the meat in her mouth, chewing.
The tall goblin returned, a wooden plate in each hand. "Bring special cut from first kill," the tall goblin told Liam, handing him one of the plates.
Liam looked at the plate, then looked over at the fire. "Meat from my first kill," he said, a dawning look of horror on his face. He held the plate at arm's length.
Donna swallowed. "Don't be rude," Donna whispered. "Have a no-thank-you-please portion, at least." Then her face froze. "Oh," she said, looking at Liam's plate, then back down at her own plate. Then she looked back up at Liam, searching for an excuse not to eat another bite. "Um. Why don't you tell me what you were doing running off in a tunnel?"
"We were checking to see if we could see where the dark elves went," Liam said, awkwardly holding the plate. "But then we found a, um, non-dark elf and got in a fight. Then we ran like hell, because someone else was coming."
"Language, dearie," Donna said reflexively. "Oh. Yes, Why didn't you say so straightaway?" She bent over, setting her wooden plate down on the bridge, then cupped her hands in front of her mouth. "Everyone! Be on alert, we may need to battle again! Our scouts have encountered more enemies in the tunnels, and they may be coming shortly!"
Liam frowned. "I wonder if I could memorize another spell," he said.
"Worth trying," Donna said. "What do you have?"
"Color Spray, Armor, and a bunch of useless stuff," Liam said. "I started off with a Friends spell memorized. Total garbage."
Donna fixed her grandson with a glare. "The most useful thing you could do right now is get that Friends spell ready. And if you can't, it's time to teach it to me."
"Wait, are you a wizard too, Grandma?" Liam asked.
"No, bard," Donna said.
"Bards are spontaneous casters, they don't learn wizard spells," Liam said.
Donna quirked an eyebrow. "Try me," she said.
----------------------------------------
Angela grunted, dropping the body with a thud. Jacob and Dylan stared in horror.
"Don't look at me like that, he was like that when I found him," Angela said. "Burned a damn healing spell seeing if I could fix it, too, but I can't bring back the dead. Not at this level." She paused. "Actually, unless I add eight levels in the next eight days to speedrush Raise Dead, or magically sprout three more points of Wisdom score to qualify to cast a proper Resurrection spell, neither of which seems very goddamn likely, I'm not going to be able bring him back at all."
"What happened?" Dylan asked.
"Looks like he ran into dark elves. He got lucky enough to take one down, then got his head bashed in by one of the others. Don't split the fucking party. Not unless you have damn good reason to send in a scout ahead." Angela shook her head. "The only good news is that we're pretty close to the surface. There's a whole mess of tunnels leading out from the cavern where he was killed. It's pretty close to the surface, there's a stream flowing through, and at least one of the tunnels leading up smells like the stream, so it probably gets to the surface pretty quick. The dark elves will have come from somewhere deeper."
Dylan sighed heavily, shaking his head. "Fuck," he said, looking at Aiden's dead body. Then he looked over at Jacob "Jacob, I… never mind." Dylan shook his head again.
"It's okay," Jacob said, patting the halfling on the shoulder. "Not your fault."
Angela eyed the cart. "I think we'll have to take the wheels off and drag it like a sledge to make it through. Have to put the goats single-file." She looked at the donkey, stroking her flowing gray facial locks. "If you balk, I am fucking leaving you behind." She turned back to the boys. They looked glum, and belatedly she realized she'd been a little insensitive.
"Sorry, we can take a minute and pour one out for Aiden," Angela said, grabbing a mug and opening the tap on one of the donkey-mounted barrels. "He was a fucking idiot, but he didn't deserve to die. You can say some things about him, have a good cry, have a drink or two, and then we need to get a move on. Okay?"