Roll Initiative

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Light rain started after I fell to the ground, covered in blood. Each drop hitting my face was bliss. The nightmare was almost over, I could finally rest without worrying about any of the pain and anguish I caused with THAT wish. That stupid fucking wish that brought on calamity unlike anything previously experienced in our world. The weight of it all came crashing down on my mind as the rain started to fall heavier and heavier until it felt as though it were crushing me. It was a weight that I deserved, everything that happened was an event I brought upon myself. 

“We can’t keep playing pretend, Aiden. We need to accept that this is our life now.” 

The phrase repeated over and over while I lay bleeding, the blood washing away with the rain just like the sins committed through this calamity. After everything that has happened in the past three months, that was the one thing that was on my mind as I was knocking on death’s door. It is finally over. Everything will be over in just a short time. As my mind cleared, the silhouette stepped over me and shielded my face from the rain. Between the downpour and my fading vision I could only make out one feature, scales over the eyes like a bandit’s mask, shimmering a pearlescent hue as rain ran down them. The last sight I would see before closing my eyes was my blade, Vowkeeper, being raised directly over my chest.

I closed my eyes, ready for the end.

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.   .   .   .   .

The creak of a chair broke the silence of the dim room. Faces looked up to see Aiden at the head of the table, his normally messy head of hair instead draping down in front of his eyes. One hand grasped the table as he shifted his weight forward to stand. Standing over the table with a deadpan silence, a deep voice slowly spoke. “Not a one of you can possibly stand up to me. You have spent all this time finding a way to stop me and the reality is, not a single one of you are strong enough, smart enough, or willing to give what it takes to stop me. This world shall feel my fury, after taking everything I had left, I will take everything from this world. And I will start by taking everything each of you hold dear.” 

Aiden began to speak again before being interrupted by a fist slamming down on the opposing end of the table. “You think each of us is too weak to stop you, but you will fall here! This is our mission, we have made promises, broken bonds, lost loved ones. Your reign is over Valtoor, this is your last day.” Rising from her chair, she adds, “Brothers, we must make our stand. We cannot falter and we cannot fall. It is now or never, good and evil clash and only our willpower to stop this monster can lead us to our victory.”

Each chair shot back rapidly with four more members standing to attention. “So, you stand again. Solana, do you really believe the five of you are enough? You have tried this before and I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, we always have been and always will be on different levels.”

“You are wrong. Everything you say is wrong. Your views of this world, it is all wrong. You see the world as the conduit to your problems. What you are doing isn’t right, that is why you have to be stopped!”

“Right and wrong are merely scenes of a world that is viewed from different perspectives. If you experience the world the way I have for the last one hundred years you would understand.”

“Right or wrong, this is ending here one way or another.”

Aiden cracked a half grin and looked up from the note he was concentrating on behind his dungeon master screen. Four years he had been planning this final battle. Four years of an adventure with his best friends and of course the one who was opposing him at the opposite side of the table. The first one to speak against Valtoor, his daughter Eily. 

Aiden cracked his knuckles, then his neck before speaking the words that every player gets excited and terrified to hear.

“Roll Initiative.”