Life & Dice

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

“Yes, there were,” interrupted Fraser.

Liam put the book down behind his wooden screen of art and rules references that separated him from the others at the table. “No. There were not,” he corrected, forcefully pushing his large glasses back into place.

“Yes! There were,” insisted the smaller boy, his nasal voice raised.

“You don’t know that.”

“I have it here in my notes. That farmer, or some NPC, back in Gin Wood, told us that the Valley is where all dragons were created.”

Ash put down his Mountain Dew. “That was your last character, Liam. You don’t know any of the stuff from the last campaign anymore.”

“Surely my new character would know. It's general world knowledge. Bavaran has an intelligence of twenty,” pushed Fraser.

Liam lowered his head into his hands, raking his fingers through his chin-length dark hair.

“Guys, could we at least let Liam finish his introduction without arguing?” came a soft voice.

Five faces turned to look at Lora. She was new to the table, an outsider who had inexplicably managed to score a seat at their private Friday night Dungeons & Dragons sessions. She was blond, pretty and distinctly alien. No one responded to her, their eyes slowly returning to the dungeon master. Liam took a deep breath, gathering himself, and began again.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but, as the summer drought withered crops and the grass yellowed, the first of the Pentad came. The shadow covered the sun, swept ripples across the water and dived. Red scales mottled with charcoal soot, plummeting into the basin of the mountains. No one actually saw the dragon plunge deep beneath the black waters of Lake Dŵr Du, but they would soon learn.

The green dragon came next. She travelled from far to the north, banking across the western plains. Unlike her red-scaled brother, she approached cautiously, circling through the broken clouds more than a dozen times, studying the landscape. Many of the Valley people saw her scanning, waiting high above, like a vulture.

The black, blue and white dragons followed, each bringing fresh terror. Within the week, most cattle had been burnt and eaten. Three settlements were now erased from the map. Only blackened timber and corroded stones remained as skeletons of civilisation, echoes of the lives before the poison, acid, lightning, ice and fire.

With Sovereign Elanil facing invasion from the east and revolts from the south, Noble Ildoor was forced to take matters into his own hands. If he did not act soon, the entire Valley would be lost to the Pentad’s ferocious hunger, or, worse, there wicked need for supremacy.

So, on the eve of a disastrous harvest, four… five adventurers are gathered in the great hall of Tŷ Hir, before Noble Ildoor. Ornately-carved patterns covered the wooden walls, each inlaid with oxidised-copper, leaving azure-blue markings amongst the dark-wooden grain. The air smelt of wood smoke and honey mead.

“The Valley is in dire need of your help,” rasped the voice of Ildoor, his back impossibly arched against his polished-silver chair. Ildoor had arrived to these lands relatively recently, dismissed from the Sovereign’s war council for, what could only be assumed as, his impossible age. “The Pentad have been called here, drawn to our lands by a dark magic. There is a secret which has long been kept guarded within these mountains, a secret that has now cost hundreds of lives.

"Deep below the surface of Dŵr Du is a drowned village, stone remains of an ancient time. There, at the centre of the lake, is a tower that has been submerged in the depths of the great lake for centuries. Despite this, the tower stands tall, perfect as the day it was built. My scholars inform me that it was constructed by a sorcerer with a reputation for experimental arcane practices. In one of the upper floors, there is a pearl, an orb of sorts, that is somehow linked to the Pentad, calling to the dragons. As this wretched drought has ruined our crops, it has also sapped the water levels of Dŵr Du, somehow exposing the arcane power of the orb.

“We need a skilled group to infiltrate the tower and retrieve that orb. Spark the fighter; Calliana the berserker; Rowena cleric of the Light; Elric the rogue; and Barvaran Genaz sorcerer - will you help us?”

Liam looked up from his notes, making eye contact with each of his players in turn. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“We accept!” beamed Lora, large eyes agleam with keenness.

There was a second of silence before she was met with a series of objections from her fellow players, heads shaking with amusement or irritation.

Ash leant across the table, rolling a handful of dice nonchalantly. “You can’t just accept.”

“Why not?”

“We haven't got any idea what the task really entails,” chastised Fraser.

“Or, how dangerous it is. The fighter always has to know how dangerous it is,” added Alex, backed by a series of excited nods.

“Or, how much of a reward we’ll get. The rogue always has to know how much money he gets,” echoed Ash, with a wink.

“But, the people need our help. I'm playing a cleric of the Light. I have to agree,” insisted Lora.

There was a pause before everyone began laughing. Even Tamsin looked up from the white glow of her phone screen to chuckle. The enthusiasm visibly drained from Lora.

“Let’s try this again, and this time I’ll be the spokesperson of the group,” snubbed Fraser.

“I am Bavaran Kilderhein, arcanist of the Genaz Academy. I know I speak on behalf of the entire group when I say, we would be glad to serve the kingdom, but such a task sounds fraught with danger and we would be reckless to accept without further information. And, of course, talk of appropriate payment.”

Noble Ildoor narrowed his ice-blue eyes. “Of course, you all come highly recommended by head arcanist Eros. They assure me that you can be trusted to be professional.”

“Absolutely,” promised the tall sorcerer, his expensive clothes, oiled hair and easy smile adding to the façade. News of their recent exploits in the Royal Forest had obviously not reached the Academy yet.

A smile graced the noble’s face, all thin lips and crooked teeth. “Excellent,” he crooned, clasping his bony fingers together. “Sadly, our resources are limited, stretched beyond measure given the circumstances. But we’ve acquired a number of magical resources which we could allow access too, alongside the research from our scholars. As payment, I will personally offer twenty-thousand gold pieces.”

“We accept,” said Bavaran too hastily, bowing low before Noble Ildoor. That was a far greater sum of money than they had ever received on their minor adventurers thus far.

"Half now, and half on completion of the job," specified Elric, his deep hood thrown back for once.

"Good. Good," chortled Ildoor, and he cast his eyes over the group again. His beady eyes raked over the group once more, and Rowena felt hairs prickle on her arms and neck. "Rodrick here will escort you to our library. Go, do you research, prepare yourselves and return to me before you're ready to embark to the lake. I'll see that your advance payment is waiting."

The adventurers were led out of Tŷ Hir and to the south of the city. The houses they passed were all round buildings, set deep into the earth, with roofs of sod or thatch. The streets were muddy, the people thin. A palisade wall surrounded the settlement, and chain-clad soldiers moved between square towers, watching the horizon and manning eight ballistae spread along the palisade. At the centre of town, a wooden platform had been raised on stilts, and a large bronze bell hung unmoving in the afternoon breeze.

The party were guided to a stone structure, unlike any other buildings within the Valley. The ancient grey walls stood almost as tall as the palisade. The large blocks were smoothed by centuries of rain and wind, and the mortar was thick with moss and yellow lichen. Inside, a fire crackled in the small hearth, the heat imperceptible against the chill of the thick walls and stone floor. The walls were lined with wooden racks stuffed tight with rolled parchment, and dried herbs filled the vaulted ceiling, each hanging in small bundles and sprigs from the wooden rafters.

A young, copper-haired woman emerged from what appeared to be a study at the back of the chamber. She wore the layered white robes of an acolyte, but looked more youthful than any acolyte the adventurers had encountered before.

"Good morning." Her green eyes were instantly drawn to the large holy symbol embroidered on Rowena's tabard. "May the Light be with you," she greeted, making the symbol of the bursting star across her own chest.

"Ildoor sed you 'ave sum magic t'ings for us," drawled Spark, one hand scratching his buttocks, the other picking his nose.

"Yes, and some research," winced Bavaran.

The acolyte nodded, guiding the group to a cluttered table at the far side of the room, the leather surface filled with books, parchment and covered in ink stains and lumps of wax.

"These books are everything I think should be of use," she leant over the table hefting four large tomes into the light from the greasy window. "There are two books on the physiology of dragons, one on the ruin beneath Dŵr Du and this - " She pulled open the final leather tome carefully, the sheaves of paper loose in the cracked leather cover. "This is everything we have on the sorcerer Gilheram and his arcane practices. There isn't much in here, but hopefully it will provide some help."

"Luks a lotta borin' stuff ta me," murmured Spark with a soft whistle.

When Elric spoke, the acolyte startled. The dark-eyed rogue was behind her, leant in the doorway between the main chamber and the study lazily. No one had seen him slip away from the group, nor had they seen him pocket several silver paper weights from the table.

"And, the magical items?" he asked softly, nodding his head towards something in the back room.

The red-headed women faltered, then narrowed her eyes. "Yes, of course."

Spark, Calliana, Rowena and Elric all followed the scholar into a small room at the side, whilst she unwrapped a number of items from oiled cloth and opened two sealed wooden chests. Bavaran could see her carefully revealing weapons and potion bottles, but he stayed where he was, opening the tome on Gilheram in the dim light. The writings were small, the parchment scratched with each inky scribble. It looked more of a diary than research, and he flipped through a number of pages scanning the entries on arcane-component deliveries, alchemical balances and something on the quality of spell-scroll parchment.

Carefully, Bavaran slipped his hand inside the pages, turning a chunk of the book over to reveal random entry. As he did so, his fingers brushed against a rough frill of paper within the central glued edge. The sorcerer's distinctive brow furrowed as he turned the pages. He traced a long finger between the two open sheets, feeling the unusual gap in the bindings where a section of parchment was missing. The tome was ancient; pages could have easily fallen loose, many were simply slipped inside. Still, several slithers of torn manuscript remained adhered to the binding.

Bavaran slipped the loose parchment from inside the covers, scanning the edges of each page for a pattern that matched the tears. He found none. The sorcerer could just make out the words 'the', 'orb' and 'wield' in what remained of the page margins. He scanned the table, looking for...

A burst of vibration cut Fraser and Liam off. Lora's phone shook violently on the table top, knocking over several of the grey-paper walls assembled on their miniature map.

"I'm so sorry," she apologised, looking at the caller ID with concern. "I've got to take this," she whispered, slipping out into the corridor and closing the door.

"Well, that ruined my immersion," complained Fraser.

The others ignored the comment, reassembling the walls that formed the tiny representation of the Valley's library before them.

"So... How did you meet Lora?" asked Ash, popping a Malteser in his mouth, a playful grin on his lips.

"University," said Liam, busying himself with shifting rulebooks and ruffling notes behind his dungeon master's screen. It was a stupid answer. They were all at the same university.

"Funny."

"And, you just invited her?" pushed Alex.

"She was in my fundamental acoustics lecture, said she was interested."

"You two were chatting about the game, then?" Alex was now grinning too.

"A little. Hey, are we ordering pizza?"

"On it!" called Tamsin, not even looking up from her phone screen.

Alex put his arm around her petite shoulders possessively, accepting Liam's change of subject. "Tamsin has just built a new bard-sorcerer demon multiclass, with the haunted backstory that would kick ass. She might switch to it if Calliana dies or doesn't work out in this campaign," he grinned, before launching into an in-depth breakdown of every statistics on every part of the character's statistics.

"Sounds cool, man," said Ash, after an age of Alex's rambling.

Everyone knew that Tamsin had never built a character in her life. How could she? Alex had a stack of characters as tall as her for them to play. No matter what the story, Liam always failed to engage Tamsin. Tamsin rolled the dice, but Alex made all the decisions. She was fiercely intelligent, well on track for a first-class honours. She was witty too. But, since dating Alex, she'd become quite withdrawn.

"Can we carry on playing?" asked Fraser.

"Pizza will be here soon," said Tamsin.

"And Lora isn't back," said Alex.

"She can catch up," insisted Fraser, impatiently.

"Go check on her, Liam," smirked Alex.

"No," said Liam.

"She's your friend," added Ash.

"I don't want to disturb her."

"She's been gone for twenty minutes," raged Fraser, slamming a hand onto the white-plastic table. The paper terrain toppled over again.

Liam raised his hands defensively. "Alright man, calm down! I'll go check on her."

With a huff, Liam slid along the wall to slip past the others on the right-hand side of the table and exited into the Student Union's white-washed corridors. He jumped a little seeing Lora right outside the door. She was sat on the grey-lino floor, hugging her knees. Her eyes were red rimmed, her pale skin ruddy. Liam allowed the door to their booth to click shut behind him. He felt unsure and awkward - not uncommon for him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, dropping to his knees before her.

She smelt good, of flowers or soap - he wasn't entirely sure what - it was inappropriate anyway. She was clearly upset, and he mentally kicked himself for the thought.

Lora was quiet for a while, and Liam struggled to decide what he should. Maybe he should go and give her space. Should he ask again? But eventually, her deep-blue eyes met his, they were distant, staring back at him without really seeing.

"My mother just died," she whispered.