Ronald the Barbarian started awake.

The last thing he could remember was creeping down the dim catacomb tunnels looking for the evil warlock Barnabus who had been causing trouble in the local town. Ronald and his companions had travelled to the town of Shivervale looking for adventure and hopefully accompanying treasure.  They had been exploring the catacombs because people had been going missing, as well as strange lights and sounds being witnessed around the catacombs recently.

Ronald as well as Arianna (Fighter), Shadow (Thief), Blaze (Fire Mage) and her twin brother AlsoBlaze (Fire Mage) had started exploring but after an uneventful few hours they had started to get bored and their whispers had turned into laughter and friendly ribbing. Ronald had stopped when he spotted a light further down the tunnel and had started to turn to remand the others to be quieter when ...nothing.

Now returned to consciousness, Ronald was shaking his head trying to clear his confused senses because he knew they were in trouble. He was tied with numerous ropes to something large and wooden around his wrists, which were above his head, around his waist and around his ankles. Looking around Ronald could see that he was in a large cavern. There were five large bonfires burning brightly around the space and in front of each fire there was a large wooden totem pole. Each totem was carved with grotesque animalistic monstrous faces. There were faces of crazy-eyed squirrels, chipmunks with fangs for teeth and porcupines with quills protruding in every direction. But the majority of carved faces were rats. Sneaky, cruel and vicious-looking rats.

Tied to each of the totems were Ronald and his friends. Ronald could see that Shadow was awake and trying to get free with little success so far. Blaze was starting to awaken while AlsoBlaze was started to come around. Arianna was staring around with fear in her eyes waiting for someone, most likely him to get them out of this.  Each of the totems were placed at the points of a pentagram drawn in the dirt and at the centre of this pentagram stood a bone white altar that seemed to burn in the reflected light of the bonfire's flames.  Standing before the altar was a hooded figure waving it’s emaciated arms above the altar and making throat destroying sounds. The figure spoke using grunts, squeaks, yips and howls that all mixed together into a combination that grated on a person’s nerves and would most likely become a featured soundtrack in the listener's future nightmares.

As the hooded figure continued doing whatever it was doing, Ronald looked around once more and noticed that there were many tunnels leading off the cavern in all directions and echoing sounds like the one the figure was making were starting to be heard from them all.

“What should we do” Arianna yelled while tied to the totem on Ronald’s left.

Glancing towards Arianna, Ronald yelled across the cave “Shadow, can you get free?”

Shadow shook her head negatively and continued to struggle.

Ronald called to his right “Blaze & AlsoBlaze can you two cast anything to help us get out of here.”

“No, we need our hands free. We haven’t learnt vocal casting; we’re not level 5 yet.” They both replied in unison.

“Come on guys, keep in character,” Arianna yelled across the cavern towards them both.

“Oh shut up Arianna, you're just waiting for Ronald to rescue you,” came the twins’ stereo reply.

Arianna glanced at Ronald and then turned away as her cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

The companions bickering ended abruptly as the hooded figure interrupted yelling harshly “None of you shall escape, you are offerings to satiate the hunger of the magnificent, the god Skeeva.”

“Skeeva. Skeeva. Skeeva”

The figure began to chant, slowly building in volume. Its voice sounded raspy and wet but the chant was clear and strong.

As the god's name continued to be chanted by the figure, other voices started to join the chant from the surrounding tunnels and openings.

“Skeeva. Skeeva. Skeeva”

The sound was beginning to feel heavy and oppressive as what seemed like hundreds of voices joined the chanting, their god’s name ringing religiously.

The chanting grew in volume as a horde of creatures entered the cavern from the dark tunnels and Ronald and his companions could see for the first time what type of beings were making the horrific noise.

They looked like giant rats standing on their hind legs. They were small reaching about 4 feet in height but there were a lot of them. There were all different with various coloured fur, markings, scars and equipment. They wore dirty scraps of clothing that had been scavenged from someone’s trash or a discovered dead body. Some gripped nasty homemade daggers and shivs but most flexed their jagged claws which seemed to reflect the blood-red flames. As they slunk into the cavern Ronald noticed that for the many differences they all shared two distinct similarities – sickly yellow eyes meant for the dark and darker deeds and a crazy wild look in those eyes that promised pain, blood and suffering.

“Ratmen” shouted Blaze and AlsoBlaze in echo as the cavern filled with the vicious little beasts.

The pentagram, totems, companions, altar and hooded figure were surrounded by the menacing monsters. The hooded figure raised its arms and chanting abruptly ceased.

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The hooded figure came towards Ronald and stepping within arms reach and slowly drew back its hood. Ronald winced as soon as we saw the creature’s disgusting face.  It was like a human and a rat’s features had been forcibly melted and melded together. The snout was half-formed with some fangs and some human teeth protruding crookedly while saliva dripped from lips that hung unnaturally loose. It had patches of fur but also smooth skin which created a mottled patchwork. It’s elongated and pointed ears had started to move from the side of the head towards the top but had stopped halfway. The only feature that looked complete were the yellow eyes that seemed to burn with intelligence, madness and ruin. It was a half-formed thing that could not be considered a man or a rat. It was truly a monster.

“I heard you have been looking for me,” the thing wetly whispered, “I am Barnabas.”

Ronald stared at the creature and said one word.

*********

“Really?”

Cameron stared across the room at David, who was standing beside the table, hunched over imitating the evil warlock.

 “We’ve been all over town, the forest and the catacombs looking for Barnabas and nowhere did you mention or hint anything about Ratmen, David.”

David straightened up and resumed his seat at the head of the school table. “That’s not my fault, Cameron. Mel didn’t roll high enough when searching the home of Barnabus, so she didn’t find the hidden room. Neither Bianca or Bradley picked the skill Sense Magic when creating their characters so couldn’t detect any magic in the catacombs and none of you said a word when I told you about all the mouse statues and motifs around Shivervale village.”

“I thought that was just fluff” chimed in Bradley.

“Even the innkeeper told you specifically that every year they undertake The Sweeping, where they kill and chase all the rats out of town. I try to help but it’s still up to you guys,” explained David.

Cameron grew silent and looked around at his year eight school friends.

David, the DM or Dungeon Master, who always ran the games because he was the most imaginative.

Mel, aka Shadow, who was always the quietest, but knew all the rules and background information and random stuff about any of the role-playing games they played.

The twins, Bianca and Bradley, who played Blaze and AlsoBlaze and did everything the same, even creating identical characters when playing.

Finally Kelly, who played Arianna, the rookie who wanted to try role-playing for the first time and was still getting the hang of it.

Cameron glanced down at his character sheet of Ronald the Barbarian and realised that David was right. He had been trying to help them along in the story but they had all missed it.

“Sorry mate.” Cameron said, “I ruined your scene and pulled us out of the game.”

“No problem,” David replied smiling. Looking around he added, “So what do you guys want to do?”

“I want to cast Fireball and light all the Ratmen on fire,” Bradley yelled, grabbing his dice ready to roll.

“You need your hands free to cast spells, AlsoBlaze. I told you that.” The GM stated.

“He told us that,” Bianca repeated punching her brother in the arm.

“In the rules..” everyone went silent as Mel started to speak “… it says that I can use a quick action to draw weapons. So can I use my quick action to use my spring-loaded wrist sheathe to launch my dagger from my wrist through the ropes tying me to the totem pole?”

Everyone started to smile; it looks like they were going to get out of this.

David checked something behind his GM screen and asked, “Okay what is your Dexterity bonus?”

“+4 DEX” Mel replied

“Okay, to successfully launch your spring-loaded sheath at the ropes binding you, while tied to the totem pole, without attracting too much attention from the Ratmen around you, you will need to make a skill roll of 16, which means with your +4 DEX you will need to roll 12 or higher,” David informed the group.

“Okay,” Mel said and rolled her purple 20 sided die.

It bounced a few times and came up 7.

“Wait,” Mel said as the group began to groan. “I want to use my daily skill, Thieves Luck, which gives me a reroll if I fail a check.”

“Okay, let’s roll again” David grinned as the whole group started to get nervous and excited.

The dice bounced as Bradley and Bianca yelled in unison “Come on, 12!!!

The dice stopped rolling showing 10.

“Arrghhhh” the group collectively moaned, and David grinned saying “Your dagger launches from your wrist sheathe but misses the ropes and embeds in the wooden totem just out of reach above your hand. Good try Shadow. Who else wants to try something?”

Kelly looked down at her sheet and looked around at the others “I don’t think I can do anything. Can you look at my sheet, Bianca?”

Bianca took her Character sheet and with Bradley pulling the sheet towards him, they both started to look over Arianna the Fighters skills and abilities.

Cameron continued to look at Ronald the Barbarian’s character sheet trying to think of a way to get out of the mess they were in.

“Mel mentioned daily skills,” Cameron thought to himself “I don’t remember what Ronald’s daily skill is.”

Turning the sheet over and looking in the skills list for an answer, Cameron sprang to his feet knocking the chair he was sitting on over onto the floor.

Everyone looked at Cameron and David smiled and thought to himself “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to see it, Cameron.”

“I am going to use my daily skill Barbarian strength and break the ropes around my wrists and grab the evil warlock Barnabus around the neck,” Cameron said excitedly

“Oh yeah, time to kick some Barnabus arse.” Bradley stood, joining Cameron in excitement.

Bianca stood as well as said, “What does he need, DM?”

“What’s your strength bonus?”

“+3 STR normally with an additional +3 STR for my daily skill.”

“Okay same difficulty as Mel’s roll, you need a 16 so with your total of +6 STR you need to roll at least a 10.”

Kelly smiled “You have a 50/50 chance.”

Everyone was on their feet looking at Cameron. “This is it, guys.” Cameron looked at Bradley, Bianca, Mel, Kelly and finally at the smiling DM, David.

The dice fell from Cameron’s palm. It bounced across the table. Everyone leaned forward fixated on the rolling die.

Everyone held their breath as the dice settled to a stop.

20

Critical Success.

When you roll a 20 on a 20-sided dice you get a critical success which means you accomplish your action but the results a much better than you expected. Cameron had rolled a critical success.

Shouting, yelling and some hugging ensued. Everyone was ecstatic except David who looked grumpily at the dice showing 20.

“DM, tell us the awesome thing that I just did.” Cameron proudly stated

The group turned towards David with smiles and laughter.

David opened his mouth to start expounding on Ronald the Barbarian’s prodigious strength and awesomeness.

Ring Ring. Ring Ring. Ring Ring.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” David said starting to pack up as the end of lunch bell rang.

Everyone grabbed their stuff and tidied up after their lunchtime role-playing session and prepared to head to class.

“See ya tomorrow” everyone called “Thanks, that was fun David.”

Cameron grinned and waved to Kelly who shyly waved back and said “That was cool. See you later, Cameron.”

Cameron started walking towards his next class and thought how much he enjoyed spending time with his friends and how excited he was to find out what happens tomorrow.