Barfolomew—torch in one hand, his great birch staff in the other—pushed his way through a narrow corridor filled with dusty cobwebs, then emerged into a large room, walls covered with bas-relief frescoes portraying white-clad virgins being torn apart by winged, insectile demons.
Wild Woodrow’s keen senses caught the stench seconds before the others. The unmistakable miasma of decomposing flesh wafted out of the corridor in advance of five undead soldiers that shambled into the antechamber. The group looked on in horror at the putrescent scraps of meat still clinging to their yellowed bones, the glistening viscera falling from their abdomens and trailing behind them, their wickedly curved scimitars flashing in the torchlight.
“By the Great Lion,” exclaimed Khalsa, backing up as the skeletal warriors continued to advance.
They seemed to be converging on Noble Barfolomew, and as he backed away from the rotting horrors, Mayhem grinned wickedly. “You’ve got this, Barf.”
Barfolomew looked over at Mayhem, panicked and quizzical. “What do you mean?”
Mayhem widened his grin and stepped back. “I mean I think you can handle this solo.”
Wild Woodrow gave a chuckle and with a flash of otherworldly magic turned into a parrot, his brightly colored plumage phantasmagoric against the gloomy darkness of the Ziggurat. Then Wild Woodrow perched on Mayhem’s shoulder and parroted: “Solo, solo, caw-CAWWWWW!”
Khalsa gave Barfolomew a wry smile and finally unsheathed one of his deadly throwing axes. But rather than hurling it at one of the foul things, he looked down at his free hand and began to clean his nails with the well-honed edge of his weapon.
“Guys, I’m out of spells,” shouted Barfolomew as the undead warriors drew closer.
Mayhem snickered. “Huh. Too bad you already cast that Detect Evil spell early on. You definitely could have used that right now.” Khalsa and Wild Woodrow joined in Mayhem’s cruel laughter.
Barfolomew was now backed against the wall, a semicircle of scimitar-wielding corpses cutting him off from his erstwhile comrades.
#
Opie was pissed now. He looked around the table, sputtering. “What do you guys mean ‘you just watch’?”
Jack and Sonny looked down at the table as if embarrassed. Harris just looked back at Opie with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Reed looked down at his watch. Ten minutes left. He had to end this. “The skeletons are arranged around Barfolomew in a half circle. They all strike at him with their scimitars.”
Reed rolled his five dice. A sure thing, he thought. All he needed was one of them to land on a 10 or higher.
None of them did. 5. 7. 3. 2. 8.
Opie gave a triumphant whoop and picked up the orange fireball twenty. “Now these creeps are in trouble. I’m out of spells, but I can still bash in one of their stupid zombie heads with my battle staff.”
Opie rolled the die. 20. Critical hit. He’d one-shotted one of the skeletons.
Opie whooped in triumph again. “Yeah motherfuckers, think you can kill me? Do ya’, do ya’? Well you can’t, ‘cuz I’m Noble Barfolomew!”
The other boys looked down at the table in disgust.
Reed tried to shake the sense of unease that had built all afternoon as the dice went against him. He prompted the others. “Anyone else, are you going to join in the battle?
Only Harris spoke. He was still wearing his same shit-eating grin, but now it looked forced. “Nah man, we don’t want to rob Noble Barfolomew of his glory. He can go again.” Jack and Sonny, looking down at their character sheets, mumbled indiscernibly in agreement.
Reed rolled the dice and the four remaining skeletons swung their scimitars at Noble Barfolomew. 7. 4. 2. 1. Again, all of them missed. He stared down at the dice, wondering how the inexorable forces of chance were letting him down.
Opie laughed triumphantly, then picked up the dull yellow die and side-armed it across the table.
20. Another skeleton killed instantaneously. Three left.
Reed, beginning to feel desperate, hastily threw the dice.
5. 8. 3. Again, Barfolomew was unscathed.
And Opie’s hot hand continued. Another 20, his third in a row—this time with the purple die, Reed’s favorite. Reed felt a stab of betrayal as he stared down at the die.
Opie was riled up now. He stood up from his chair, pumped both fists, and gave an exuberant shout. “Yeah!” Then, louder. “Fuck yeah!”
Reed leapt up from his chair and shushed him. “Dude, calm down. My mom will hear.”
But it was too late. The boys heard the door at the top of the basement steps open, and then Reed’s mother shouted, “Boys, let’s keep the foul language to a minimum. And you have about five minutes before your parents get here.” She stage-muttered, “Thank God,” then slammed the basement door shut.
Five minutes, Reed thought. He and Opie sat down, then he resumed the game. “The two remaining skeletons attack Noble Barfolomew,” he said, shaking two of his dice in his hand—the fireball orange and the marbled purple, his favorite. They couldn’t fail him this time, he thought.
But his confidence failed him just before he sent the dice tumbling to the tabletop. So he rolled them behind the screen. Where the players couldn’t see.
The dice rattled across the table and hit the screen, then rolled back toward Reed. They came to a stop.
Reed stared down at them in disbelief.
A two and a five. Both misses.
He looked up at the other boys, who were all staring at him expectantly.
Finally, Reed cleared his throat.
He looked into Opie’s eyes.
And then he spoke.
“Sorry Opie. I rolled two twenties. Critical hits. Barfolomew is dead.”
#
Mortally pierced by the fiends’ scimitars, Barfolomew slumped against the wall and slowly slid to the floor, his heart’s blood pumping down the front of his once-pristine white wizard robes. As his vision dimmed, the room filled with mystical energy and he was dimly aware of a large wolf approaching. It was Wild Woodrow, recognizable from the ribbons and totems tied throughout his fur. Barfolomew, thinking that Woodrow was coming to comfort him through his last moments of life, reached out to pet the changeling’s soft pelt. But Woodrow stopped just short of Barfolomew’s reach, lifted his hind leg, and began urinating on Barfolomew’s mortal wounds.
As Barfolomew’s soul left his body, he heard Mayhem and Khalsa cackling hysterically as the two undead warriors continued to hack at his body, his white robes now a soggy mass of blood and spattered tissue.
#
Harris and Sonny howled in laughter at the final indignity Jack had inflicted on Noble Barfolomew. Reed just looked down at his notes, avoiding Opie’s gaze. The other boys’ laughter faded. Then Opie spoke.
“So that’s it, I’m dead?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He looked back down at the dice behind his screen, still showing a two and a five. He hastily swept the two dice into his pouch.
“Can I roll up a new character?”
“Nope. Sorry Opie. That’s not the way this game works.”
The other boys got up from the table and began to gather up their things. All of them tried to avoid looking at Opie, who continued to sit at the table staring blankly ahead.
After a few moments, Opie opened his mouth.
For a moment no sound came out.
And then he began bawling. Deep, rending sobs from deep inside his diaphragm. Tears streamed down his face.
Harris looked over at Opie, a look of concern on his face now. “Jesus dude. It’s just a game.”
Jack joined in. “Yeah man, it was no big deal. Just a little hazing for the new guy.”
Sonny frowned. “Yeah bro, don’t even worry about it. I’m sure Reed can resurrect your guy, or you can roll a new one.” He looked over at Reed. “Right Reed?”
Harris glared over at Reed. “Yeah Reed, what the fuck dude? If he wants to play a new character, let him.”
Reed stared back at Harris, incredulous, as Opie kept on emitting his low guttural wails. They were loud enough that soon they heard the upstairs door open and his mother’s quick footsteps descend down into the basement.
“What in God’s name is going on down here?” She rushed to Opie’s side and put her arm around him. “Opie, sweetie. Are you OK?”
But Opie seemed to have descended into a grief beyond language, and he continued his low keening, tears and snot streaming down his face. Reed’s mother, undeterred by the mess, clutched Opie’s face to her shoulder and shushed in his ear as if she were comforting a toddler.
Reed’s mother gave the rest of the boys a baleful glare. “You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” Then she pointed at Reed. “You and I will be talking about this, young man.”
As she led a still-sobbing Opie up the basement stairs, Harris, his face a mask of wide-eyed innocence, called out after her. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Meyer. We’ll talk to Reed here and set him straight.”
Reed’s mother stopped and shot Harris one last contemptuous glare before leading Opie up the stairs and slamming the door behind her.
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