There they were. Four unconscious bodies resting on the dungeon floor. The room was pitch black around them with an eerie glowing fire, flickering in the far distance.
After a long rest the party of odd characters starts to wake.
First to become conscious is the tall man. He has flowing black robes over a tattered tunic and filthy, mud caked pants. His shoes are old and worn but could have once been very expensive. The mans outfit looks odd with nothing fitting correctly or matching. His tunic is a size too large and his pants a size too short. His shoes flop around as he paces around looking at the others and taking in his surroundings. The robe he is wearing is made of a fine fabric and has a mismatch green hood with large silly eyes stitched to the front. The robe swayed and jarred around as he paces, it’s packets full of odds and ends. Even though the room was darker than black the man saw everything around himself clearly.
“This is impossible!” The man exclaimed looking at his dark tanned skin on the back of his hands. He reaches up and tugs at the pointy tip of his ears.
“This isn’t... I’m not...” the man pulls off his robe and stares at his silly green hood with a serious expression. “I am...”.
During the confused mumbling of the half Drow, the woman he was standing next to stirred awake.
“What’s going on! Why is everything in black and white!” She sits up and looks around her taking in the other two men unconscious on the floor and the tall dark man holding a robe out in front of him mumbling as he looked into the eyes sewn to the hood of the robe.
“Who are you! What have you done to me!” The words come out in a strange tongue. The language seeming both foreign and familiar.
“What? You don’t recognize the slime plush hoodie?”
“That’s supposed to be a slime? Wait! Nihlo?” The woman forced herself to speak in English to match the words spoken to her.”
“That’s super weird. I could hear you speaking another language but I understood you. I think that was undercommon. I’m guessing you’re Aleiha?”
“I wasn’t up until a few moments ago. Should we go by our character names or real names?”
“I think it would be safer to use character names given the situation.” Nihlo put his robe back on and felt through his pockets.
“If I’m here and you’re here that must mean that the dark skinned guy with white hair is Orla and the other one who looks like a cat is Rell.” While Nihlo was talking he pulled out a book with messy handwriting all over the cover and the title that once read “Holy Bible” was crossed out and under it was now written “Nihlo’s Wizard Book” in messy smeared brown ink. “Ha, my spell book is just like I explained in my backstory.”
“I don’t remember you carrying around a bible. Since when are you religious?”
“No... Remember how my character grew up, abandoned in a swamp. Everything he owns is hand-me-downs he took off dead people that were disposed of there. I had said the mafia threw all their victims there. Wait! Where is Bob! I had a zombie. Damn it, now we’re down a party member.”
“I’m fine with not having a rotten corpse hanging around. That would definitely be too much for me to handle right now. Wait! I was supposed to have a wolf companion. It looks like we’re down two members.”
Orla turns over and scrunches up his face in a look of discomfort. “Grmmm... why is it so cold and wet.” Orla gets to his feet and looks around. “Huh? How did I end up in here? Wait! Is this a dungeon! Oh man! I’m all cool looking. Is this my whip? Wait! Are you Nihlo and Aleiha? This is so cool! We’re in D&D!” Orla had a look of utter amazement on his face.
“After all that Rell still hasn’t woke up.” Nhilo walked over and tapped the sleeping cat man with his foot. “Hey, Rellent. Time to wake up.”
With a startled motion Rellent jumped up straight from a lying position to crouching on his feet. “What! Where? Who? Why am I all furry?”
“Rell, it’s Nhilo. We appear to be in a D&D game as the characters from our other campaign. Also, I noticed I only have level zero and one spells in my spell book. So we might have been reset to level one.”
“Shit. Where do you think we are?” Rell had a look of calm and calculation as he looked off to the fire lit in the far distance. “Also, my character needs glasses.”
“You have no one else to blame about your eyesight but yourself. You wanted Darkvision so bad you took a curse to give it to you at the loss of your visual range. You could have just picked a race that allready had it.” Aleiha had a look of annoyance on her face. It fit her new drow elf features well. Aleiha didn’t always get along with Rell but now that the party was in such a dire state there was no avoiding getting on each other’s nerves.
“But cats are fluffy... you have to admit I look cute as a catfolk. Also, it matches my eidolon. A snow leopard catfolk for a albino tiger eidolon.”
“Didn’t your character have glasses?” Nhilo looked over toward the flickering glow that must have been 100 feet away.
“Yeah. My character wouldn’t go anywhere without their glasses. I don’t have my backpack or coin purse either. Has anyone checked out that light in the distance?”
“I say the person who had the highest stealth should go look.” Nhilo looked to the bow wielding drow.
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“I’m the sneakiest! My character is high in dexterity and I put a bunch of ranks in stealth.” Orla shouted out in response. He crouched down and slowly walked over to the campfire before anyone had a chance to stop him.
Aleiha looked to Nhilo and gave him an exasperated expression. “He’s going to get himself killed. Everyone here heard him and he’s just walking right over.” Nhilo smiled wanly in response.
“We should go after him to make sure he doesn’t die.” Rell told the group and made no movement to follow.
Aleiha gave a loud sigh and lead the way with Nhilo close behind and Rell dawdling far back.
The dexterous and somewhat cautious drow gave a wide birth to the fire and quietly walked close to the wall. She stopped every couple feet and made sure the Wizard was following at a distance and keeping quiet. Rell still held back about thirty feet where his companions were just on the edge of his visual range.
Orla and his squat movement walked up to the fire and squatted behind one of the persons sitting around the fire. The grey and green skinned humanoid creatures sitting across from the spectacle watch with a cocked brow as the daring intruder riffled quietly through the backpack sitting next to him.
“Ahem” one of the creatures cleared its throat all while starring at Orla and his inadvertent distraction.
Orla froze with his hand in the backpack and remained completely still. His dark grey skin seemed to blend into the shadows but the group of monsters still watched the mischievous figure.
*These things look like orcs* Nhilo thought to himself.
*These things look like they're half dead* Aleiha thought to herself.
*These things look blurry* Rell thought to himself.
“You’re not going to make it far in here if that’s the best stealth you got.” The Orc spoke in a rasp. He had a dark gash across his face, caked in dry blood. There wore matching bite marks on all their bodies. The Orc that was nearest to Orla sighed and turned his back on him.
Orla had a confused look on his face. “Aren’t you going to fight me?” Orla drew his dagger and got into a ready stance.
“We couldn’t fight you if we wanted. All of us are just readying ourselves for the long sleep. We should have died on the battlefield with our brethren but we cowered and ran only to find ourselves in another battle. We have only made it this far out of sheer cowardice and fear. Now we wait for our final rest.” The Orc across the fire from Orla coughed from the wear of words on his throat. “Take whatever we have, but I ask this of you in return, kill us and let our souls part without fear in our hearts.” The Orc bowed his head and exposed his neck from under his messy braided hair.
Aleiha stepped out from the wall’s shadow and into the campfire light. “If you wish for death do it yourselves. I will not dishonor my weapons with an unworthy kill.” Her face betrayed the words she spoke. There was pain in her eyes and a wetness building behind them.
“What if we have our healer heal you.” Nihlo spoke out while stepping from the shadows. The orcs looked around and spotted Rell off in the distance walking slowly forward.
“To heal us would only prolong our suffering.” The Orc growled these words filling them with anger. “We are deserters. If the monsters of this hell don’t kill us first, our war band will do it. Just let us die in peace if you won’t honor us with your blades.”
Rell stepped into the fire light. “I say we put them out of their misery.”
“We could get experience for the kills.” Chimed in Orla.
“Who’s to say that is how this works. If this were our other campaign the DM wouldn’t give us experience for killing helpless foes.” Aleiha spoke out as the voice of reason.
“Just because they haven’t attacked us yet doesn’t mean they won’t try when we’ve got our backs turned.” Rell argued.
“They would meet a swift end if they did. However they look like they can barely move and I don’t see any weapons. The only gear they seem to have is the stuff we arrived with, if I’m not mistaken.” Aleiha went over and picked up a leather sack filled with a white powder. “This looks like the biscuit mix my character always carried.”
“Aye, we thought you were dead or dyeing. You just kind of appeared on the other side of the room. We meant no harm. Take what you will but you do know that carrying a heavy load while you march in here could kill you if you are caught unaware.” The orcs looked completely unwilling to fight or argue. They bore the look of spiritual defeat. “You are lucky you weren’t attacked while you were unconscious. I thought I saw a creature sniffing around your bodies but it ran off when there was a sound coming from the hall.”
“What did this creature look like?” Aleiha perked up at this.
“It could have been a wolf but that wouldn’t make much sense here. Most of the creatures around these parts of the dungeon are evil twisted monstrosities.”
“I think we will take our things back and be on our way. Could you point us to the exit?” Rell cut in.
The orcs laughed menacingly. “Exit! You have no idea where you are, do you?”
“Nope. I guess we’ll just have to find our way out on our own.” Rell replied.
“You should do that.” The Orc smiled for the first time since the group saw them. It was a cold smile that brought a cold breeze down everyone’s spine.