Sixteen.
What the fuck does a sixteen mean, I wondered as Little Boy started looking though his notes. If this was a legitimate wandering encounter, it would be only the second one we'd had since we started playing tonight; which meant that I had yet to figure out if high or low results triggered the encounters. He was running his finger down a chart and shaking his head. I could hear him clucking to himself as he went down the list, "Not good," he mumbled, "not good at all."
As he picked up the d12 and rolled I leaned over to Poot and whispered, Is this legit or is he going along with the plan?
"I'll be damned if I know," Poot whispered back.
"Baby Momma," Little Boy called out as he looked at his map, "You see movement to the south, just beyond the tree line."
"I'm going to slowly pull out my knife and walk over there to see if I can tell what's moving. What do I see, smell, hear?"
"There's definitely movement out there in the darkness. They appear to be about the height of a man, so six feet, and there's a heavy aroma of lavender in the air. All you hear is the sound of trees moving in the wind."
"Okay. I'm going to creep a bit closer, near Neverwas, so that I can wake him if it looks like we're going to have trouble. And -"
"Roll me a d20."
She hung her head low and I could hear her mumble, "Well, fuckballs."
"I got a 19, is that good enough?"
Little boy was looking at his notes and had already started rolling dice. First a d4 and then two d10s struck the table; but for the first time since we had started playing he covered the results. "Neverwas, high or low?"
I cut my eyes at Poot as Neverwas threw up his hands, "Fucking A. You should have just woken me up when you fir-"
"High or low mother fucker? This ain't no time to be bitching at someone else; call it. High. or. low?" Neverwas still had his mouth hanging open and his hand was mid thrust towards Baby Momma, but the look of shock he had was all for Little Boy. His hand dropped and he shook his head, "Low, damn it. Low."
Little Boy still had that hand cupped over the dice, and as he raised it up I swear you could have heard a pin drop in that room. 78.
What the fuck did that mean?
"Neverwas, you're going to take 16 points of damage directly to your carotid artery as Baby Momma stumbles and plunges her dagger into your neck. Make me a Fortitude Save."
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
As he chucked his d20 onto the table I could hear Poot next to me whispering, "One, you dirty mother fucker, give him a one."
The die bounded about the table like a drunken Brahma bull, crashing against Biggboy's drink and landing in front of me. I couldn't help but smile as Neverwas reached across the table to snatch the die back. "A one!" Poot shouted
"No it wasn't," Neverwas started to protest. But it was too late as Biggboy and Kid Icarus both looked him in the eye and said, "Yeah it fucking was."
---------------------------------------
Baby Momma didn't let the scene crystallize in Neverwas' mind as her next move was to call out, "We're under attack! And they got Neverwas!" Naturally we all jumped up and searched the area for Neverwas' murderer.
You know, we never did find them.
Found a lot of trees on the edge of the encampment and some tall bushes, but no bandits. However, rather than tempt them back to kill the rest of us in our sleep I suggested that we gather our shit, piss on Neverwas, and head on into Harn. By the time we made it to town we'd be just in time for the shops to open and could get a fresh, hot meal and a warm bed to sleep in for the next couple of days. Baby Momma seconded the idea and after a quick vote we made our way to the entrance.
After two hours of hard walking Little Boy started to describe the town we'd been so near.
"Harn," we were told, "was a major city of some 250,000 people. Their guards were wary of strangers and their merchants had a pretty solid reputation for being shrewd businessmen. The walls, of which there were two, were well made and looked as though they could resist a major assault most any day of the week."
As we approached the entrance I took a careful note of the guards. They were really well equipped for a couple of door jockeys, and I suddenly had the feeling that perhaps Baby Momma wasn't the only one to set someone up tonight.
More later.
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