Dan the Adventurer, page 22
part #2 of Gold Girls and Glory Series
The beast roared a challenged and hurled a stone the size of a bowling ball.
Dan jetted to one side, evading the projectile easily, and dove like a hawk.
The beast reacted quickly, lashing with its whip-like tentacles. But in this accelerated state, Dan not only moved more quickly, he saw more quickly, processed more quickly, and adjusted more quickly.
He jagged to one side, slipping the tentacle like a slick boxer ducking a sloppy haymaker. Then he swung his sword, slicing the whip-like arm from the beast’s body.
“That had to hurt!” Dan laughed.
He fought fiercely, fueled by a primal ferocity that boiled unexpectedly out of him, the revulsion of one creature against a thing that had no business in his reality, let alone his territory.
Again and again, he swooped in, struck, and rocketed away to safety.
Occasionally, the beast surprised him with a strange counterattack, but each time Dan ducked or parried the blow.
Over and over, he struck a blow and zipped away. Fifty times, a hundred. He stayed cautious, careful to never swing too hard or linger too long, committed to needling this living terror slowly to death. Better to poke and leap away than commit to a heavy swing and get caught by a counterattack.
With every attack, the beast screamed its otherworldly hatred up at him. Slowly, a change started to come over the monster. Its counterattacks slowed. It scrunched down into itself, as if growing cagey. Soon its roars and screams downgraded into grunts and mewling.
Dan raced overtop it, slicing a long tear in the ebony flesh, and the beast let out a new sound, not a cry of challenge but a yelp of pain.
“Scream, you son of a bitch!” Dan roared, and zoomed back in to deal another blow.
With a startled squawk, the monster flattened to the ground like an oil spill and poured over the cliff’s edge into the misty canyon.
Dan scored one final blow on the retreating mass, but then the last of it flooded over the edge, and the monster disappeared into the rift. He could hear it moving down there in the swirling green mist, sliding over the cliff wall, descending.
Oh Hades.
Why couldn’t the thing just fight it out atop the cliff? Now he had to follow it down into the fog, where he wouldn’t have as much space and would only be able to see five feet in front of his face.
And what of the monster? Did the fog impair its senses? Probably not. These green mists had come with it through the gate into this plane of existence.
So be it. I have to finish this thing before it can crawl off and hide.
Dan gave a barbaric yawp and plummeted into the canyon’s swirling green maw.
Crom, he thought, descending through the fog.
Could the thing see him? Hear him? Smell him? Was it armed with otherworldly senses that he couldn’t even comprehend?
He moved slowly through the mist, sword at the ready. He couldn’t see or hear the monster, but he could smell it. Not just its strange, alien stink but also the gagging odor of its foul blood.
Good, Dan thought. Anything to help him find this thing before it disappeared into the catacombs.
So he drifted toward the cliff wall, the horrid smell growing stronger with every inch.
There!
Through the mist, he could see a large, dark shape flattened against the cliff wall, emanating stench.
He raced forward, holding the sword before him like a lance, and punched straight into the black mass. The sword rebounded with a surprising jolt, a loud clang, and a spray of sparks. Dan jerked away, adjusting his grip, then dipped back in for a second look.
He was hovering above the ledge where they had first seen the humongous beast, he now realized. He hadn’t attacked the beast. He had attacked a huge, stinking bloodstain oozing down the cliff wall.
His eyes swung to where the mist was breaking apart and drifting into the wall. This was the very spot where they had entered the catacombs. Had the beast already fled inside?
He darted ahead to check the rocks that had collapsed across the opening of the tunnel. Had the thing moved them aside and—
A wall of force exploded into Dan, knocking the thoughts from his head, the air from his lungs, and the sword from his hand.
The impact pitched him through the air, and he crashed hard into the unforgiving stone cliff wall with an explosion of pain. Temporarily stunned, he dropped—and not a second too soon, because a massive black fist smashed into the cliff wall above him, trying to finish the job.
Dan hit the stone ledge with another burst of pain but responded with the speed of Zeke’s acceleration spell, rocketing off the path and into the chasm just before another slab of darkness pounded down where he’d been only a second before.
The monster roared with frustration.
Join the fucking club, pal, Dan thought, enraged that he’d dropped his sword.
He drew Nadia’s glowing dagger, and his own words echoed bitterly in his mind. If it comes down to daggers, I reckon I’m fucked.
Fucked or not, he had to finish this.
He zoomed back in, slashing the arm that lashed out at him.
The blade ripped through the dark flesh, but the arm slammed into Dan, batting him away like an annoying fly.
Dan dipped back in, scored a hit, and zipped away.
Again and again he stuck and moved, jabbing with the short blade and narrowly escaping thunderous counterattacks. With each attack, the beast grew slower and its roars grew feebler, until its screeches turned to whining complaints and it swiped only halfheartedly.
Then it was fleeing again, spilling away from the ledge and oozing down the cliff wall, racing deeper into the chasm.
Dan wouldn’t give it a chance to escape. He followed closely, jabbing and stabbing as the monster fled.
Down and down they raced, descending to an incredible depth, but Dan didn’t let his brain consider the implications. He was like a wild animal locked in a death struggle, determined to kill or die trying. He stayed close to the fleeing beast, stabbing again and again, moving with enhanced speed, like a woodpecker drilling a tree, poking hundreds of holes into the thing.
Suddenly, noxious fumes filled the air. The black shape sighed and stiffened, going as hard as the rock to which it had been clinging. The darkness, no longer living, peeled away from the cliff wall and tumbled into the void, as stiff as a coffin lid.
“Yes!” Dan shouted with barbaric elation.
And trumpet blasts filled the chasm.
36
You Put the Bastard in Bastard Sword
“Nice work, asshole!” a familiar voice bellowed.
Dan roared with laughter. “Wulfgar!”
Dan hovered in the dim chasm. Time had once again paused around him. The mist had stopped swirling, and the only sound he heard was that of the disembodied voice of his friend, mentor, former sword, and one-time T&T character, Wulfgar Skull-Smasher.
“The one and only,” Wulfgar said. “What the Hades took you so long? I’m not cut out for nonexistence. Instead of lollygagging with those horny elves, you should’ve been out killing shit and racking up experience points.”
“Really, dude?” Dan said. “I just killed some extra-planar monster with about a billion hit points, and you’re going to bitch about me helping the elves?”
Wulfgar’s voice snorted with contempt. “A true barbarian would’ve killed that thing hand-to-hand, not flying around with a magic bow like some kind of faerie.”
Dan laughed. “That thing would’ve killed me in about two seconds hand-to-hand.”
“Oh,” Wulfgar said, “so you actually did learn something from the humiliating ass-whipping that Holly’s brother gave you!” The disembodied voice bellowed laughter. “That was some funny shit! When he—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dan said, cutting him off. “Did I just level up or what?”
“Welcome to fourth level, pansy!”
A giant scroll unfurled in the air, shining brightly through the stalled mist.
Name: Dan the Barbarian
Strength: 18(92)
Intelligence : 9
Wisdom: 8
Dexterity: 17
Constitution : 17
Charisma: 17
“My charisma went up?” Dan asked. “I didn’t know that I could raise my ability scores.”
“Here we go again,” Wulfgar said. “Give the guy a potful of gold, he starts whining that he doesn’t deserve it. Look man, you’ve got two hot wives and a few hundred people following your commands. You’re starting to strut around with more confidence. People eat that shit up. So effectively, yeah, your charisma went up.”
“Awesome!” Dan said and kept reading.
Strength bonuses: + 2 attacking / +5 damage
Dexterity: +6 armor rating, unless bulky armor is worn; +3 initiative, reaction, and missile attacks
Constitution: +6 hit points per level
Class: Barbarian
Level: 4
Hit points: 72
Alignment: Chaotic good
Experience: 30005
Dan grinned.
4th level! The extra hit points were especially sweet.
And he’d overshot the 24,000-point threshold by quite a stretch. Of course, he’d still need an additional 18,000 experience points to make 5th level, but he was farther along than he would have guessed.
New experience point breakdown:
Zombie acolytes: 450
¼ share of Griselda: 4000
½ share of smaller Living Darkness: 420
Slaver: 24
Acolyte magic user kicked off cliff: 425
Living Darkness, larger: 9600
Leadership (Building up the defenses and citizens of Fire Ridge, recruiting the gnomes): 3000
“Cool,” Dan said. “I actually got points for leadership stuff?”
“Lucky for me,” Wulfgar said. “It was taking you forever to level up.”
Reading ahead, Dan saw that his sheet had a new category.
Harem members: Holly (wife), Nadia (wife)
Barbarian saving throw bonuses: +4 vs. poison; +3 vs. paralysis, death magic, petrification, and polymorph; +2 versus magical rods, staffs, or wands; +2 versus breath weapons.
Primary barbarian abilities:
Scale cliffs and climb trees
Hide in wooded settings
Surprise opponents
Prevent blind attacks
Jumping
Detect illusion
Detect magic
Leadership
Leadership II
“Leadership II is new,” Dan pointed out.
“Should I add another skill, announcing the obvious?”
“Did I mention how much I’ve missed you?”
“No,” Wulfgar said.
“That’s because you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Guy gets Leadership II, suddenly he’s too cool for his friends. Look, you got this for actually leading people. Keep it up, and maybe someday you’ll be able to summon your very own barbarian horde.”
Dan let that idea sink in for a second. Being able to summon a few hundred badass barbarians would be sweet. For starters, he’d wipe out Roderick’s Rangers.
Yeah, he thought, but then you’d piss off the Duke of Harrisburg, who has a real army.
Secondary barbarian abilities:
Wilderness craft and survival
Primitive first aid
Hunting and tracking
Tertiary barbarian abilities:
Long-distance running
Small boat building and use
Imitate animal sounds
Snare and trap building
Sexual stamina
Sexual stamina II
Seeing his new ability, sexual stamina II, Dan grinned and pointed.
Before he could say anything, however, Wulfgar cut him off. “Spare me the gloating. If you weren’t such a wuss, you’d already be at sexual stamina III. Speaking of which, why haven’t you banged the hobgoblin or any of those hot-ass red elves?”
Dan laughed. “You really are living vicariously through me, huh?”
“Don’t remind me. Twenty billion adventurers in the multiverse, and I have to be stuck with Timmy Timid. What are you, a barbarian or a nun?”
“Hey,” Dan said, “I just singlehandedly hunted and killed a humongous monster from another plane of existence.”
“Yeah, you already mentioned that,” Wulfgar grumbled. “Just remember that you get more experience points for adding women to your harem. All work and no play makes Dan a dull boy… and gives Wulfgar a case of 10th-level blue balls!”
Native territory: The Endless Mountains
Weapons of proficiency:
Hand axe
Spear
Knife
Two-handed sword
Battle Axe
Short bow
Bastard sword
He’d added another weapon of proficiency along the way. Before he could make a joke about swords and bastards, however, Wulfgar got serious.
“Now hurry your ass back up to the surface,” Wulfgar said. “As soon as that crazy wizard realizes that you killed the beast, he’ll close the gate. This canyon will slam shut. If you’re still here, the cliff walls will squish you like a worm. Toodles, fucknut!”
37
Everything Falls Apart
Dan flew back up through the mist as quickly as he could, very much aware of Wulfgar’s warning. What an inglorious death that would be, bravely killing a mega-monster, leveling up, and then getting unceremoniously squashed when a clueless sorcerer closed an inter-planar gate and slammed the cliff walls back together.
He flew up for a long time. This chasm was deep!
Then, spotting the stone ledge, he swooped in, snatched up his sword, and rocketed the rest of the way out of the chasm and up the hill, where he paused to sheathe his sword and pull out the enchanted torch.
Following the river, he plunged into the cave and flew down into the earth. The strange runes on the stone walls of the tunnel whipped illegibly past, and he emerged into the large, cone-shaped cavern that held the Pool of Dreams.
The three women cheered wildly at the sight of him, and Dan lowered down to them, beaming.
Holly and Nadia crashed into him, wrapping their arms around him and peppering him with kisses.
Ula stood nearby, her yellow eyes gleaming with joy and her little tusks jutting up out of a big grin.
“Easy with the hugs,” Dan said, wincing. “I think that fucker broke my ribs.”
Holly cast her healing spell, and Dan’s pain vanished.
He told them everything, except the part about Wulfgar. There really was no good way to explain to people, no matter how much you loved each other, that you had created this reality by making a wish in another dimension.
Dan returned the girls’ gear, apologizing to Holly for the empty quiver.
She laughed. “I won’t complain.”
“Let’s go tell Zeke,” Nadia said.
But as they turned toward the waterfall, they heard a tremendous bang, and the earth shook, knocking them from their feet.
“That was the rift slamming shut,” Dan said, as debris rained down from overhead. “Zeke closed the gate.”
Beyond the waterfall, the crackling red light sizzled, flashed brightly, and winked out.
“That’s it,” Holly said. “The shield is gone. And Zeke probably already teleported.”
The wizard had explained that he was currently too weak to return to their plane of existence. As soon as the living darkness beyond the shield retracted, he would slam the inter-planar gate and teleport to the high plane where Zuggy was apparently drifting around on a pool floaty, sipping tropical drinks.
“Good for Zeke,” Nadia said, looking up with a concerned expression, “but not so good for us.”
Around them, the catacombs continued to rumble with aftershocks from the cliffs slamming back together. Dust lifted from the walls. Chunks of stone fell from above, clacking along the shore and splashing into the Pool of Dreams.
“Let’s get out of here!” Holly shouted.
“Climb aboard,” Dan said, and squatted down with his arms held out.
Holly climbed onto him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, hugging her chest against his, and slipped her arms around his ribcage.
Nadia and Ula each straddled one of his thighs and threw their arms around his neck. He held them both around the waist.
Old-world Dan never could have supported their weight—over four hundred pounds—but they felt light now, even when he lifted off the ground and flew into the air.
They entered the tunnel, Nadia clutching the enchanted torch. Because of the narrow space between the river and the ceiling, Dan had to fly upside down, dragging his back across the surface of the river.
All around them, the rock walls of the tunnel shook and rumbled. Here and there, cracks appeared, spiderwebbing through the strange runes, the mountain coming apart.
Every fiber of Dan’s being wanted to rocket up and out of the tunnel as fast as he could, but he had to go slowly. There was no room for error. If he accidentally bumped the girls into the ceiling and one of them fell, she would be whipped away by the river.
So Dan forced himself to fly slowly and evenly, ignoring as best he could the shaking walls and the icy water pulling at his back as if the river was trying to pull him under and drown him.
Then they shot free of the tunnel, whooping for joy. The mist was gone, and the blue sky had returned overhead, though the light of day was fading as afternoon shifted toward evening.
Dan landed, and the girls climbed down.
“I have a great idea,” Nadia said, glancing back at the tunnel. “Let’s never do anything like that ever again. As in never. Ever. Times infinity.”
Behind them, the roaring and grumbling of the earth intensified. The ground shook beneath their feet. Plumes of dust rose from the tunnel.
