New Saddle, Same as the Old, Just Better Leather pt. 2

Click Here to Read from the Beginning

"Before we begin," I said as my Lovely Bride picked out her dice, "I just want to make it clear that all of you fuckers know each other. We're not going through that bullshit where you pretend like you don't know each other and then try to awkwardly work together."

"Aw," Brittle Betty said as she laid out her rules cheat sheet, "I kind of like that part."

"Why," Biggboy's deep, gravelly voice asked from the end of the table.

"Oh," Brittle Betty said as her eyes got big, "I didn't realize I said that out loud."

"Well, you did," Poot said as he laughed. "So why do you like that part?"

"Um, well, I'm new," Brittle Betty said as she looked at her sheet and began to rearrange her dice, "and I don't really know you guys too well."

My Lovely Bride gently patted her on the arm and said, "That's okay dear. We're all new sometimes, just not in Charlie's games."

"Okay," Brittle Betty said with a smile.

"Right," I said, "let's get to it then." Characters were made, names written down in my book, and we began.

"A month ago you were all hired as couriers for the TAB Trading Conglomerate. As condition of your hire each of you were provided with a horse for your journey and room & board until you were called up. Those you see next to you were bunked in the same room alongside you as a 'team building strategy.' Hard to say if it worked as your days were filled with the boring monotony of being constantly on the alert for your first mission and it seemed as though you were going to die of boredom before anything interesting might happen. 

"Then came Tuesday night. 

"You were roused from your beds, rushed out to the patio in a pouring rain where you and your bunk mates were brought your horses. In front of you stood an elegant woman that towered over you as a small man strained to keep her dry under a massive umbrella. Her voice was a deep baritone that sounded as though it started in her ankles before it ever came out her severe mouth. She looked your group over with a look that might have been called disgust if she could have just cared enough about you to form an opinion. 'Give it to the tall one,' she says with a dismissive hand wave before turning and going back into the office.

"Biggboy, a bedraggled goblin walks over to you with a sealed, leather scroll case in his hand. 'My Lady says you're to have this and to go east to Red Castle,' and with that he walks away."

Biggboy held his hand up and mimed handing the case to my Lovely Bride, "I'm not fucking carrying that thing."

"Oh, thanks," my Lovely Bride said as she tucked it into her belt, "knowing my luck Charlie's just given us a portable black hole that will break open and kill us all starting with my lady bits."

"Your lady bits," Brittle Betty chortled.

"It makes boys uncomfortable in their pants when you say vagina," she said.

"You know," the Master Planner said, "I've been trying to get one of those for the better part of the last two years."

"Oh," I said as I set my dice in a row, "how's that working out for you?"

"Fucking terrible. You can't get those things to grow for shit."

"So, anyway," Icarus said, "we were D&Ding."

"Right," I said, "so what are you guys doing?"

My Lovely Bride looked about the table and said, "So how are we doing this?"

"What do you mean," Biggboy asked. "I mean it's D&D. We're going to kill things and take there stuff."

"Naturally," she said, "but this reminds me a lot of Arabella and that has me worried."

"Arabealla," Brittle Betty asked, "what is Arabella?"

"Who," my Lovely Bride replied, "she was a cross-dressing half-giant that nearly killed the whole party back in '06. Icarus, She'rah who you haven't met but is fucking awesome, and Step worked for her for a while. Then we crossed her."

"As you do," the Master Planner added.

"And she came after us."

"Yeah," Icarus said as he set his abacus just to the right of his character sheet, "it wasn't a fun time."

"Good game, though," my Lovely Bride added, "but it ended with the first TPK I've ever been a part of."

"So are you saying we shouldn't do this," Brittle Betty asked. "I was kind of looking forward to going to the Red Castle."

"Oh no," Biggboy said, "no they're not saying that. They're saying we shouldn't fuck with this bitch."

"Right," said the Master Planner, "so we do this one mission and then bug out on her?"

My Lovely Bride turned her gaze on me, "Can we do that?"

"You absolutely could. You would have to return the horses and any additional equipment you have borrowed from the TAB Trading Conglomerate," I told her as I started making notes of their suppositions. I've always found it best to take the game in directions where their imaginations are leading them and do something along those lines. The game seems to have a deeper impact that way.

"Okay," the Master Planner said, "then I'm ready to go."

The rest of the group took a few minutes to purchase some last second supplies and off they went into the world. The rain came down hard and the paths they traveled were muddy morasses that found their horses hooves sinking into the muck. Still they persisted on through the night until early morning when they saw a light off in the distance, flickering dimly in the darkness of the pre-dawn hour. 

"Is that where we're supposed to be going," Biggboy asked. "seems like we're awful close to the TAB house to be there so early."

"I don't know," the Master Planner said as he studied the map I'd handed him before the left, "we should be at the Red Castle about now if every thing went as normal but with all the rain and shit we could still be a few hours off."

"Do you want to wait until dawn and check it out then," Icarus asked. "It might be the best option."

"I don't really want to wait," Brittle Betty said in almost a whisper.

"What did she say," Biggboy asked.

"She said she doesn't want to wait," my Lovely Bride announced. She then smiled at Brittle Betty and gently said, "You're playing with a bunch of deaf bastards, dear. You're going to have to speak up."

"Okay," Brittle Betty said with a smile, "I can do that."

"A better question," the Master Planner said as he stroked his beard, "is are you a sneaky, little, rogue-like person who might make his way up the hill and tell what's going on up there."

Brittle Betty flashed a smile that lit up her whole face. "As a matter of fact," she said, "I think I might just be."

"Good," the Master Planner said as he checked his character sheet, "I'm pretty shit as anything dexterity based. Anyone capable of rolling up there with her or is she just better off on her own."

"I'd, um," Brittle Betty stammered, "I'd like to do it on my own. If that's okay?"

"Of course it is," my Lovely Bride said, "just scream if you need us."

"Okay," Brittle Betty said as he picked up her d20. "I'm heading up there."

As the party watched Brian of the Seven Fingers slipped off his horse and disappeared into the darkened woods. Brian of the Seven Fingers made his way up the slippery hillside, deftly finding secure footing along the way, and with barely any sound beyond the heavy drops of rain splashing off his clothing. For nearly ten minutes he carefully made his way up the hillside until he approached the edge of a clearing where the flickering torchlight had lead him. 

The clearing before him stretched out into a muddy semi-circle about a dozen paces across at it's longest. In the center, against the back of the hill, stood a large red door half open with lit torches to either side of the entrance. The ground showed heavy traffic of large footed humanoids and deep, drag lines leading deeper into the hillside. Brian of the Seven Fingers noted all of this down before returning to his waiting companions.

"Ogres," Biggboy said with a smile. "It's bound to be fucking ogres."

"Ogres," Brittle Betty stammered, "are they dangerous?"

"They can be if we get surrounded," the Master Planner said.

"So what do we do," Brittle Betty asked as she looked about the table.

"I guess we should keep going," Icarus said, "I didn't really prepare to fight ogres this early."

"Ogres," Biggboy rumbled as he began checking his character sheet.

"We could," the Master Planner said, "but if that's their home then there's no telling how much loot they've got inside."

"Ogres," Biggboy said with a smile as he caught my Lovely Bride's eye.

"Shit," she whispered.

"Ogres," Biggboy said with a nod.

"What's going on," Brittle Betty asked.

"Ogres are what's going on," Biggboy boomed. "And we're going up that hill, kicking their asses, and taking their stuff!"

"Okay," Brittle Betty squeaked.

"Ogres," my Lovely Bride said as she began gently slamming her head on the desk. "Fuck you Charlie Akins. It had to be ogres."

"Ogres," Biggboy practically shouted!

"Ogres," echoed the Master Planner and Icarus.

"Ogres," I said with a smile. 

"God damned ogres," my Lovely Bride said.

New Saddle, Same as the Old, Just Better Leather

Part 1

Part 2

Black Mountain Burns, Part 2

Tuesday

I drove up to the Weekday Hotel where Tut was working nights and parked under the only light that worked in the parking lot ten minutes shy of eight o'clock only to find that the rest of the crew had already taken a lurking position in a darkened corner next to the pool. As I walked over to them I counted shadows and the flashes of light from cigarettes. Am I the last one to show, I asked, or are there more coming?

Step took my hand and shook it as he said, "Fucking World's Greatest Liar checked out on us, man."

That's no loss, I said as I looked towards the golden lights coming from the lobby door. We really playing in the Weekday Hotel? I thought Tut liked his job.

"He did," Icarus said, "but word just came down from the Home Office: they're closing at the end of the month."

Shit, that's a bad break. Is he going to be okay?

"Yeah," Biggboy's gravelly voice answered, "we already got him a job with my Uncle over in the Orchard."

"What's he going to be doing," Poot asked.

"I reckon my Uncle's going to be having him run the relay desk, sending the drivers out," Biggboy said.

Could be worse, I said as I watched Neverwas walking into the lobby. Now what's that fucker doing here?

"Ringer?" Step said as he lit another menthol.

"I invited him," Icarus said as we all turned to stare at him. "What? The World's Greatest Liar ducked out when he heard who was joining the table and we needed someone to cover his slot."

Has he stopped being a fucking martyr or are we going to have to watch his characters throughout this whole thing?

"No," the Master Planner said, "he's still God's only martyr and we'll have to watch him try to kill his character all night."

Fuck. Anyone want to end that early or should we let it play out?

"Let it play out," Poot said, "we'll just have to make it work for us."

Your call, I said as I raised my hands in the air. Anything else we need to worry about in this thing tonight. Any unwritten rules we need to be aware of? 

"Yeah, Ganymede's Prison is his baby so watch for him to be super protective of it," Poot said.

"That's if he actually let's us play in the damned thing," Icarus added. "He's been telling us about it for six months."

Cool. So we got a plan for tonight or are we just winging it?

"Yeah," Icarus said, "Step is raising us from the dead and She'rah is going to be recruiting you guys to help us stop Count Gambino from destroying Erfurt."

Gambino?

She'rah shrugged, "He likes Childish Gambino."

Fair enough.

"So what does the party need," the Master Planner asked as he ground his cigarette into the ashtray.

"Fighters and clerics," She'rah said. "We got our asses handed to us because we were heavy on magic but only had Poot for muscle."

"Fuck fighters," Biggboy said as he started walking towards the door, "they're just a bunch of whiny bitches hiding behind armor. Barbarians or get the fuck out."

Time to go in kids, I said following Biggboy's lead.

"Wait," She'rah said as she raced up beside me, "what are you and the Master Planner going to be playing?"

Master Planner?

"Ranger," he said with a wink. "I'm thinking it's time to renew an old rivalry."

Fighter it is then.

"So none of you are going to play a cleric," she said exasperated with us. "You just asked what we needed."

We've already got a cleric, I said as I opened the door for her.

"Oh," She'rah said as she gave me a look, "and just who the fuck is playing a cleric?"

"I am," Neverwas said behind her.

Called it.

Tut stood up from behind his counter as we entered and I was taken back again by the sheer size of the man. He stood nearly a head taller than me and yet he stooped his shoulders so far forward that we practically looked each other in the eye. "What did you call," he asked.

That Neverwas would be the cleric, I said as I took my seat. So how are we doing things tonight?

"Your call," Tut said as he took his seat. "I was going to run my Ganymede Prison adventure but since I've never played with you guys I thought it might be unfair to just jump into it."

"Unfair," Biggboy grumbled as he searched for a rogue d20 that had escaped under the table, "unfair for who? You? Or us?"

"Both," Tut said, "I haven't played with you guys before and I want to keep things right."

The Master Planner hit my leg, "That settles things as far as I'm concerned."

Oh? How we playing this?

"I'm Jim-Jim Wallace," he said as he pulled out his vape pipe, "My friends call me Jim-Jim. Anyway, I'm here with my family looking for a bit mischief in the form of treasure hunting."

Step smiled as he said, "Funny, I just remember that my rogue Alice's last name was Wallace. Seems I've just gotten back from a bad dungeon raid and am looking for some serious, family, backup."

"Well you've found it, little sister," Biggboy said with a little fake laugh he liked to use. "Cause your brothers Jim-Jim and Tiny Jim have just come into town looking for their favorite sister."

"I fucking hate when you guys pull this 'Jim' shit," Neverwas said as he snapped his Player's Handbook closed. 

"What's wrong with the 'Jim' stuff," Tut asked.

"It's there way of signalling that they're going to be fucking murder-hobos," Neverwas said in disgust.

"Oh," Tut said as he looked at Biggboy, Master Planner, and Step. "So what's your character's name, Neverwas."

"I'm glad you asked," He said with a huge grin, "I'm playing Timothy the Pious, devout cleric of Pelor and opponent of evil in all it's shapes and forms."

Tut's mouth hung open for a moment as everyone started first at Neverwas and then at him. If they hadn't looked away from Neverwas they would have seen him wink at Tut as he sat back in his seat. I saw it. I never look away.

"So what's your character's name," Tut said as he looked at me.

Jim Wallace. And I'm here to check on my kin folk. I certainly hope they're all alright or there will be Hell to pay for those responsible.

"I feel like this is going to go well," Tut said as he looked at Poot.

Where Do We Go from Here?

"I'm leaving," he said as she walked in the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"When will you be back?"

He gave her the briefest look over his shoulder and said, "I can't believe you would ask me that with his dick still on your breath."

"John!"

"Don't yell my name in outrage, Suzan!" He practically spit her name when he said it. He'd rounded on her now and fire burned in his eyes. "You've been playing me for a fool for so god damned long that you think I am one."

"Oh," she said as she crossed her arms, "this again."

"This again? You killed my monk and played in Mike's campaign without me!"

"Jesus," she said as he smiled and leaned against the wall, "my Mother said I shouldn't marry you."

"She also told you that you should put a quarter between your knees and eat bananas from the side because that's how good girls do it."

Suzan smiled, "Yeah, Mom was dumb sometimes."

He walked over and pulled her tight to him, kissing her hard and taking her breath away in the process. "I'll be back in a couple of hours dear heart." His voice was soft and Suzan was tingly from the kiss that curled her toes and made her head swim.

"Not too long, okay?"

"I'll try not to be gone so long this time, but you know how hunting can be."

She bit her lip as she looked into his eyes. The hunts had been more frequent lately, more dangerous too. Last month John had gone into the south forest with Max Elmore, Jane's husband, only to come back alone and bleeding terribly from the hip. They still hadn't found Max's body. "Do you have to go?"

John smiled at her, his beard making the whites of his teeth stand out even more than usual, "You know that I do."

"But your leg isn't healed all the way yet."

"Suzan," he said as he looked towards the door, "you can't start this."

"But your leg," she whispered, "you still have a limp."

"I'll be fine, dear."

"Isn't there anyone else that can go this time?"

He smiled, kissed her cheek, and whispered, "Not this time, no." 

He was out the door before she could stop him. She ran to the door and watched him grab his rifle and head towards the forest. She wanted to scream they still haven't found Max's body. She wanted to cry out and race from their home to his side. She wanted to tackle him and drag him kicking and screaming back inside their home. She wanted to rip her clothes off and bare herself before him, pulling him into her bed and keeping him there but she stopped herself. He was already at the top of the hill before she could tear her gaze away from him. I can't watch him go or he'll never make it back. She ran into their room and fell on the bed, her eyes wet from tears that were already streaming, and cried out, "THEY STILL HAVEN'T FOUND THE BODY!"

They never found John's either. 

This Is the Best Bar

Once, early in the morning,

Beelzebub arose, 

With care his sweet person adorning,

He put on his Sunday clothes

- Percy Bysshe Shelley from The Devil's Walk

The guitarist strums his instrument with all the rhythm of a pornographic film bereft of the fucking and he smiles a toothless grin at me while I sip my bear and listen to the singer croak out a bastardized version of Margaritaville. She's a vivacious 350 and if I took all the fabric from her outfit I might be able to make a napkin. She loses the tune every time she takes a step to the left but she laughs and everything is okay again. 

I'm supposed to be telling you about the e-mail I got this morning. "We're sorry but your manuscript isn't what we're looking for," but that's the way that every story begins lately. A bar, a mostly naked woman, and beer. Self loathing is for people who have the time to waste on dreaming about what they were going to do with all that money they never had and I've been living on fictive mountains of gold for so long that I can't remember what it's like to have the real stuff. 

The next song's starting and she's laughing her way through the introduction. She fucked some man and he wrote this song just for her. It's all true, she swears. He climbed between her massive thighs and as he slid his glasses up in his hair he sang it for her. She laid her head back and listened to him singing inside of her and it reverberated up through her loins, up to her tits, and came tumbling out her mouth as she rolled her eyes back and dreamily thought of what it might be like to fuck a man who knew what his cock was for instead of these broke poets who only ever do anything with their tongues. She laughs, Ha, Ha! It's so funny she can barely contain herself as she slaps her belly. That damned poet loved her! Ha, ha! He loved her so much he climbed up inside her and now he lives deep between her legs and jealously stabs her lovers with his pen. 

The crowd listens to her while I write this and the laugh with her. It's a script they've been following for years. I'm too busy writing this down and trying to figure out if I've got enough in my pocket to pay for this beer or if I'm going to have to slip out the restroom window to notice that she's bent over and the little shred of cloth that held back her glory from the world has disappeared. She feigns embarrassment. Oh me, oh my. Can you believe what you're seeing?

I lay my money on the bar and walk out into the parking lot while some drunken redneck climbs up on stage with his pants down and starts chasing her around with his prick out screaming, I love you. Just let me put it in. In the parking lot the bikers are smoking cigars and trying hard to look intimidating so I give them a nod and walk over to the car. I can hear her laughing from inside. No, she feigns a moan, don't fuck me. 

Cheering and the bikers crowd the door. "Jesus," one of them shouts, "he's actually fucking her!"

I throw the keys I've been fumbling with down on the gravel and walk back over to the door. Sure enough he's got her bent over and slamming himself into her while she sing I Believe in a Thing Called Love and rolls her eyes. He's pumping away like mad while she leans down on her elbows and looks bored with all his efforts. "I can't believe she's letting him fuck her on stage," a biker with a skull tattoo says with a nudge. 

"Right," I say with a nod as the redneck grabs her hair and pulls back. She's singing better now than she ever did before. Every note is pitch perfect while the fat bastard pumping away turns red and begins to sweat. She looks back at him and blows a kiss. He grabs his chest, falls over, and the whole bar is up. 

"This is the best bar I've ever been too," the biker says to me. 

"I know, right?"

I Am Going to Dance for You

Watch me twirling in front of you like that girl you can't forget and hear me whisper your name while she dances in front of you. God damn the words that creep into your ears and tell you that our dance isn't right. This is the Pachanga and only Hell is left to pay when we're done.

Pass me my wine and remind me again why we couldn't leave on time? Never mind that noise. Instead tell me your silly jokes and put hickies on my neck while we talk about him and his impotent hands that hung limply at his side when you left him. Oh and remember the part about where he cried and fell onto his knees in the rain. 

Feet striking the floor and arms flailing about like we're dancing for our lives. And we are dancing for our lives. Dancing in front of the critics who arm their acerbic words with poisoned compliments and backhanded retorts. Yet still we dance. 

What if I sing too? Would you like that?

She left because you drank too much and he cried to much so you had to leave him behind. We're alone but we're alone together so who the fuck cares? Not me. I'm dancing too quickly to be seen. My legs are a blur and my voice is like wine overflowing from the cup the waiter stopped paying attention to in the third row. I am a warbling bird crying out for your love but you're too busy fucking in the balcony to notice me. 

Silence comes over us but we don't stop dancing. The band has left. They died long ago but still we spin about each other hoarsely making our own songs out of bastardized Madonna lyrics and St. Augustine's prayers. I don't want to die but spinning about you with the dress flying high over my head I can't remember ever feeling less alive then I do now. 

Never Enough Time, Until There's Too Much

Drinking.

I'm drinking while I write this tonight, though it won't post until the morning, because today was a day for such things. I am wild in my own thoughts wrapped up in the terrible possibilities that come along with my own ill chosen words. "He's such a fucking cunt," was not where I expected the conversation to go and yet there it was. It hung in the air between us like a wet fart in a crowded elevator. Her jaw hung loose as she stared at me and my blood ran cold knowing that with that single line - with that word I so rarely use - that I had just begun a fight that would run all night. Oh and how it has raged. My, God, there have been tears streaming from beautiful blue eyes as she told me where I could expect to find my dick in the morning. 

Riposte.

Our words formed a gulf deeper than the Mariana Trench which we filled with insults, recriminations, and threats of sexual embargoes. Our voices rose up and exploded like thunder as each tried to shout the other down. There are no winners here; we are all lost with pride dividing us. 

Coule

Words are meaningless when she cries. Everything else falls apart as we cuddle next to each other on the couch. Whispered, "I'm sorry," escapes from our lips as we watch the news. Mike Huckabee has announced he's running for President of the United States. We listen to his speech and as the crowd goes wild she cups my chin in her hand and turns me to face her. "I'm sorry," she says, "you're right. He is a fucking cunt."

Go Back Inside the Coyote Said, And I Didn't Listen

I was sitting on the stoop in the rain last night with my cocktail getting refilled by God when a coyote came wandering up to me. It was soaked to the bones so I waved it over and offered it a drink to warm it up.

"I don't mind if I do," the Coyote said as I poured him a bit of vodka into a bowl. We sat there beside each other drinking in the rain while the night birds watched us from their limbs with wide-eyed wonder. "I don't mean to pry," he said with a polite cough, "but don't you think you ought to go back inside?"

"Inside," I mutely said, "inside to what? The house is quiet and my drinking disturbs her slumbers."

"Pity," said the Coyote, "I would have thought that after all the years you've been together that she would have built up a tolerance."

I smacked him on the nose, "Enough of that talk."

"That was an unkind turn," he said as he ran a paw along his snout. "And to think I had considered telling you where the hid that gold they took off the Spainards.”

“Your lies were more convincing back in the days of my youth when you came to me with tales of dragons and dying knights watching their ladies fair waste away on the stake.”He sat there on his rear looking out into the night for a moment before he gave a little shrug and said, “Things are hard all over these days.

“The Children of Adam are too busy to remember to dream any longer and when they do it is only about money and laying down with strangers who scream their names in orgasmic glee for years to come.”

I refilled his glass as we watched the rain come down harder. Old Owl sat in the magnolia tree near us listening to the silence. For a time he was content with that but that did not last. “What I want to know Son of Adam is why your kind have taken to poisoning the mice in my field.”

“Which field,” I asked him.

“The one behind you here. Where the deer run from Coyote’s children and the wild dogs play their silly games.”

“Oh,” I said with a shrug and another sip of my vodka water, “that was me.”

He flapped his wings in anger and hooted loudly, “Why in the seven hells would you think to do that!”

“Mother fuckers should have stayed out of my house.”

“Mother fuckers,” repeated the Coyote. 

I refilled his glass.“What I don’t understand,” I said as I took another sip, “is why the only literature that really speaks to my soul these days is wrapped up in the doom of my generation. Existential Man makes me want to slit my throat; Tropic of Cancer has me wishing that I could hide a forty-five in my mouth long enough to pull the trigger; and there is no salvation in the fantasies that creep into my dreams.

“I am bereft of hope. Cast out on a shore from which there are no shipping lanes going near me, no flights over head, and no currents going back out into the ocean. I am alone here in my head bound up in a grief that threatens to overwhelm me entirely.”

“So you drink,” said the Coyote flatly.

“So I drink with the Coyote by my side refusing to listen to your counsels and lies.”

“But you killed the mice with poison,” the owl in his outrage hooted!

“Your god-damned right I did,” I said as I rose up, “I killed them with a poison that burns them up from the inside because I wanted them to suffer. I wanted them to writhe in agony like I did when I had throw out eight hundred dollars of food that they shit and pissed over when they snuck into my house and had their orgies in my pantry! I wanted them to thirst like my son did when they broke his formula containers and painted my walls with their crude graffiti!

“I poisoned them the same way that I’m poisoning the ants that have made a fortress in my walls! Listen to them owl,” I said as I pointed at the light, “listen to them in there whispering to each other about the next great suck and fuck fest they’re going to be throwing tomorrow when they play their electronic music and bang their drums over my son’s bedroom giving him nightmares about gigantic dinosaurs without boundaries that keep trying to get him to just try a little E!”

“Does that actually happen,” Coyote asked as he raised up from his bowl.

“Fuck no,” I said as I sat back down and refilled my glass, “but it should.”

“Poison is bad for all of us Charlie,” Owl admonished me.

“The fuck you say.” I responded flatly. “Imagine that, Coyote, the Owl is trying to lecture me on the use of poisons. It’s not like he taught us how to use Mustard Gas for the first World War when he wanted us to slip off the face of the earth again.”

“Really now,” Owl said, “are you never going to let that go.”

“I certainly wouldn’t,” Coyote said as he crept under the tree. “The Sons of Adam are not known for their short memories you know.”

“For that you get a steak!”

“No need,” Coyote said as he leapt into the tree and caught Owl in his jaws. “I’ve got more than enough to eat here.”

“I -,” I began, but then I heard it. A little voice crying out into the night, screaming, “Daddy, Daddy I need you!”

“Got to go kids.”

Coyote let Owl go to tell me goodbye and raced into the night looking for mischief to be had while Owl hooted once and said, “You should forget about that War and stop using the poisons.”

“Fuck you Owl. I forget nothing.”

Nobody Makes It Out Alive Free PDF

So one of the things that I've gotten a lot of request for over the last couple of month is a PDF copy of the short story Nobody Makes It Out Alive which followed an actual game that occurred. Today I'm happy to announce that I have finally gotten it completed with some revisions. Nothing major was done that might change the story. Clarifications to the text were made, a few misspellings were corrected, and the grammar was cleaned up to make sure that the story flowed better overall.

This story is still under my copyright and cannot be included in anyone else's publications without first receiving permission from me. That said you are free to share it with as many people as you like so long as it is linked back here and there are no alterations to the document or the text.

Hope you all enjoy it!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FILE

Or

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL ONLINE VERSION

Dreams in the Stillness of the Evening.

In the evenings, after my son has gone to sleep, I like to sit outside in the cool air and sip wine while thinking about the life that I could have lived and the women I could have loved. There's the girl who always spoke with the voice of a child, barely a whisper at times, who would call me from across the world just to hear me say, "Hello." We would talk for hours, or rather she would talk for hours. I would listen to jazz and try to imagine what it felt like to create something that would touch another person's heart a million miles away. While Coltrane blew his horn her voice would mingle with the words creating a dream that never became reality. 

Then there was the girl who liked to slide her tremendous bottom across my crotch and giggle as I reached for her with trembling hands. She would pull her shirt up letting me see her tiny breasts in the sheer bra while she bit her lower lip and made me whisper words of adulation into the valley between her tits. Her auburn hair would tickle the back of my neck as she lowered her lips to my ear and told me the secrets of the cosmos but I never listened to her. I was lost in her eyes, swimming in the depths of her soul even as she kissed me goodbye for the last time. 

There was the raven haired nightmare that tore at my soul while teaching me all the sins of the flesh. Night after night she would climb into my bed and speak to God while I tried to remember if the Devil did the same. Blood was shed on those sheets and she laughed at my panic. In the morning she would pat me on the cheek and say, "Tomorrow is for love, but tonight? Tonight is for us." She scratched her name across my spine and tattooed it in the pit of my soul always telling me, "You will never be without me." She was right. 

So I threw myself off a bridge and prayed that Flannery O'Connor was right.

Two tones of sexual repression and angst found me on the banks of Obed. She pulled me into her car and laid my weary head between her breasts while I shivered. "Don't worry," she cooed, "I've something special planned for you." Then she pushed me against the door and buried her head in my lap and sang bebop while I wondered if this were Heaven. When she came up for air she breathlessly whispered, "It is, it is," but when she lowered her head again all I could see were fires surrounding us and my flesh felt hot as I screamed for salvation.

It always goes that way. My mind working backwards and tripping over the impossibilities of paths not taken until my wine is gone I hear Chet Baker call out, "I'm old fashioned," while my Darling Bride calls my name. "Charlie," she says in a voice that dances to its own rhythm, "I need you." So I get up out of the rocking chair, smiling at the cool breeze the comes across the field, and go back in for the night, content with life I've chosen.

Dungeons and Drunkards: Part 2, The Dance of the Tarantella

This post represents the second part in the Dungeons and Drunkards series I'm doing with +Jens D., author of the blog The Disoriented Ranger, +Stelios V. Perdios, author of the blog The Word of Stelios, and +Sean Bircher, author of the blog Wine and Savages. Over the course of the next few days we'll be presenting you with weird monsters, looks at the rules for getting a buzz in D&D, and so much more! So sit back, grab an ice, cold beer and enjoy the show!

Her body writhed with orgasmic glee as she spun about the dance floor looking back at us. We’d picked her up just outside the forest that circled Fort Montgomery. She’d come out of the woods with grapevines wrapped about her head like a crown and a dress that made her look as though taking it off would have been putting on more clothes.  From the moment that she joined the patrol it was as if discipline and order had become distant memories. She laughed and we laughed with her. She called us her escort and we lifted her on our shoulders and carried her into the Fort laughing and singing like we’d just won the war.

Captain Davis rushed out his office and stormed over to us. His face was flush with anger and every stomp across the yard sounded like a drum beat to my ears. He boomed, “What’s the meaning of this?”

And she laughed. It was like music and as she slide off the shoulders of Caruthers and Ledbetter this coy smile played across her face. “Oh don’t be like that Captain,” she said as she ran her fingers across his chest and laid her head against him. The Captain stuttered and sputtered as she pressed herself close to him. Then she leaned up and pulled his ear to her mouth and whispered words that brought a blush to his cheeks and left his mouth hanging wide open as he wordlessly nodded his head.

“Oh you will,” she positively squealed. “There’s a party tonight,” she said as she spun toward us, “You all simply must be there.”

It wasn’t a request.

No sooner had she said there would be a party than did the whole garrison begin prepping for it. No man or woman was spared from preparing for the party. Hogs were slaughtered, chickens plucked, presents wrapped, and wine and liquor were brought from every corner of the Fort. Finally dusk came and the party was to begin. She came walking down from Captain Davis’ office, which he had vacated for her, in a black dress with ivory flowers in salacious patterns that made you long to trade places with the fabric.

We were all standing as she came down watching for her return. Watching her walk towards the head table made the world seemingly stop turning. My breath was caught in my throat and I knew that if she didn’t look at me that I would die there and then. But she did look at me, and she even took my hand as she passed and whispered in my ear that I must save a dance for her. If I replied then providence was with me for I fear that I merely mumbled a reply that might as well have been cabbages for all the sense it made. Yet she smiled and squeezed my hand before she took the stage and smiled at all of us. “Time to feast my darlings,” she said in that beautiful voice of hers.

As one we all tore into the food in front of us with abandon. Our hunger consumed us and we ate anything we could get our hands on. Meat, flesh, gristle, and bone were devoured with a ravenous hunger that shocked and frightened me. Yet I was no more able to stop myself than I was to slow down any of the others near me.

Then she clapped her hands. So gently and soft that I marveled at how any of us heard her; yet not a single person failed to stop their gorging when she did. “My darlings,” she said with a lovely smile, “it’s time we dance.”

Captain Davis stood and coughed before he said, “Madame, I’m afraid that we haven’t any instruments save a drum and trumpet. Poor choices for dancing music I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” she said with a pout, “but I do so want to listen to music as we dance.”

Men and women tore from the tables and ransacked the town looking for any instruments they could find that might accompany the drum and trumpet. Instruments were improvised and a chorus was made on the spot. She was so happy at our ingenuity that she jumped up and down while clapping her hands and giggling. We had saved her dance she said!

The band began to play a tuneless song that jarred the mind and made grown men grind their teeth. Yet she was happy and so we danced. We danced for hours and hours, till night turned to day and again to night. Still we danced because she was having so much fun. We didn’t want to disappoint her.

We were still dancing when the first person died. Old Lady Ward. Poor thing, her heart just couldn’t take the excitement of it all. We keep dancing but do you know what the Lady did? She was so concerned that we might become thirsty that she had a couple of the boys pick her body and let the blood out. – Not on the floor like some heathen, godless thing but into the barrels of wine. The dead would keep us going she said with a laugh, and we laughed with her as we raised our glasses time and time again to toast her health and the dance.

I cannot tell you how long we danced, or how many had their life’s blood added to the wine, only that I danced long enough to be held by her. She was even more beautiful than before. She towered over me now, nearly a foot taller, where before I would have sworn that she were but five feet. She wrapped herself about me and the thorns that broke her skin and sank into my own bought a bittersweet gasp from my lips as I saw her lick my own blood from her fingertips.

“My Lady,” I managed to stammer when she cocked her head to the side and looked at me, “have I done something to displease you?”

She carefully laid her head on my shoulder. Can you imagine a giantess doing so innocent and gentle a gesture? Yet here she had her head on my shoulder and she whispered into my ear, “I’m only sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Dearest?”

“I’m sorry that all of you are having to pay for that fool Captain’s sins.”

“Sins, Madam?”

She stood up to her full height, towering over the keep, and the music stopped. “Yes, sins,” she said, her voice booming like thunder. “He came into my temple and overturned my alter, spilled my sacrificial wine, and burned my Priestess on the stake. He defaced my images and ordered the temple burned to the ground. Why?”

I stammered as I strained to look upon her face, “I - I do not know my Lady.”

She squatted down so I could see her face again and in her eyes I saw the spiraling depths of the universe unfolding. “Because his god is modest and meek.” She said it with menace in her voice and a tinge of disgust. “Modesty,” she mocked, “in all things from dress to sex. Can you imagine Chee?”

I shook my head, “No my Lady.”

“Of course you can’t my dear, sweet, Chee,” she said as she ran her massive finger along the side of my face. “You still honor the Old Gods and our rituals. Even here during the cleansing you poured some wine out for me before drinking the rest for yourself.”

“I,” but words failed me. Here standing before me was Abita, the Lady of Amber, Goddess of the Drink, Debauchery, Dance, and Festivals. She was real and more beautiful than anything I had ever imagined. I should have recognized her and in my anger I turned my gaze away.

“Now don’t go doing that, little man. No harm has come from you, yet, and for that you will live even as all the rest die to the Dance of the Tarantella.”

So it was that I lived and became her Priest while the rest of Fort Montgomery danced itself to death. She sent me out into the world with a single message: Honor the Old Gods and their ways, for they are done with our shit.

Dungeons and Drunkards

Part 1: A pub crawl through assorted editions of D&D (and some homebrew) by +Jens D. 

Part 2: The Dance of the Tarantella by Charles Akins

Part 3: Boozing it Up in 5e by +Sean Bircher
  Part 4: When the DM Gets Drunk by +Stelios V. Perdios
Part 5: Drunken Beasts by +Sean Bircher 
Part 6: B-E-N-D-E-R! by +Sean Bircher
Part 7: Wine Angel by +Sean Bircher
Part 8: The Drunk Girl and the Game Master by +Stelios V. Perdios
The Complete Dungeons & Drunkards PDF