Julian Johnson
“You leave the dark tunnels behind as you step into what seems like a different world. These aren’t dark caverns or harsh, bare stone, but a subterranean world of warm colors and pleasing smells. The deep gnomes you see going about their business look at you with suspicion, but you instinctively understand that you face no threat here.” Narrated Chris.
“Wait Chris, we should wait for Tim to get here before we continue. He texted me and said he would be here soon.” Zeke said with apathy.
“Zeke, he is late every week! He needs to learn how to get here on time.” Chris replied with a stern tone.
“Please, just one more minute. I don’t want him to miss out on anything important.” Zeke urged. They hear the door slam open and an 18-year-old boy walks in with overalls and a baseball cap on. He’s holding a mysterious looking scroll. You can see the excitement in his eyes as he walks to the table and says “Guys guess what? I bought this spell scroll online; apparently it has real magic!.”
“Tim, stop messing around and sit down so we can continue our game.” James said annoyed.
“No, it does real magic, I swear!” Tim yelled. As he opened the scroll and started to read it. The scroll started to glow and so did Tim’s eyes as the words on the scroll began floating off of the paper into the air. All of the lights in the room started to flash dim light and everyone in the room started to glow, as did their character sheets. When Tim finished reading the scroll, everything stopped glowing, the lights turned off, and then everyone passed out falling to the table and floor. When everyone started to wake up, heads throbbing in a daze, they realized that they were not at Chris’s house anymore.
“Where are we, who are we, what is this?” Luke screamed in confusion as he looked down at himself. He was no longer wearing a t-shirt and sweats. Now, he had on dark blue-plated armor that shone with darkness. The plate filled with huge muscles. As he heard himself speak he heard a voice that could end wars with just one word.
“What happened, why do I feel so different, and why does my voice sound so…?” James said with worry as he realized he is no longer a he. He looks at his body and sees a muscular but lean female body in shining silver plate armor. His voice was like an angel singing.
“Be quiet, I have a headache.” Zeke said quietly as he noticed that he was now small and wearing leather armor. As he tried to get up he noticed that he was extremely nimble and fast. Moving with precision and accuracy that he never had before. The three of them started to calm down before realizing that they did not see Tim or Chris. They started searching for them but calmed down when they realized what had happened.
“I think Tim was right.” Zeke said with shock in his voice.
“What do you mean?” replies Luke.
“I mean, I think the spell was real and we got put into the D&D world.” Zeke said.
“And I think we are the characters that we play. Me as a female half-elf Warlock, I look like your average young white brunette except for one thing my eyes are silver. Zeke a male halfling rogue, skinny with brown hair, brown eyes, and white but also 3 feet tall. Luke is a male human paladin, muscular tall but also old he is about 56 years old. Finally Tim a male human cleric, he has black hair, brown eyes and white.” James chimes in.
“But, what does that make Chris then? He was not a player; he was the dungeon master.” Luke says anxious and worried.
“I don’t know Luke.” James said with a sad tone. “But let’s just find Tim and figure out Chris later.” James said hopefully. As James finished what he was saying Zeke noticed something.
“Hey guys look. I see something over near that lake.” Zeke said with joy as he ran to the lake with everyone else falling behind him. “It’s a human in half-plate that looks magical. I think it’s Tim, come quick we have to wake him up.” Zeke yelled. When James got over there he tried to wake Tim up but nothing seemed to be working.
“Luke, I think Tim is unconscious and in the game when someone is unconscious you can heal them and they will wake up. Try using some healing magic on him.” James stated calmly.
“I want to try, but I don’t know how to use magic yet. If I cast the wrong spell I could just kill him instantly.” Luke said with worry.
“But if you do nothing Tim will probably die anyway, you at least have to try.” James insisted.
“Fine, fine…I will try.” Luke took off Tim’s chest piece and rubbed his hands together before putting them on Tim’s chest. Luke started to focus on his hands. After a few seconds his hands started to glow and you could see life coming back to Tim. Then the glowing stopped and Tim started to get up.
“You… you did it!” James and Zeke both yelled together with joy in their voices.
“I, I did it” Luke yelled with a bit of a chuckle. “I can do magic, I have magic.”
“Where are we, who are you, what is this?” Tim yelled in confusion.
“Calm down. It’s us, Luke, James, and Zeke.” Luke said, trying to comfort Tim.
“What happened, how did we get here?” Tim replied, still dazed.
“The spell you bought was real, and it put us into the D&D world as our characters.” Zeke explained.
“What do we do now?” James asked
“We look for a village and we start to learn how to use our powers.” Luke replied.
“Okay, let’s get going.” Zeke said as he started to walk off, and the rest of the party followed after him. After weeks of traveling the party started to get used to their powers. James learned how to summon his pact weapon and use pact magic. Luke learned how to activate his sword and use most of his spells. Zeke got used to his speed, agility, and precision. Tim learned how to commune with his god and use his magic. But Chris was still nowhere to be found. After weeks of travel through the forest with no encounters, they finally spotted a large creature flying in the distance.
“Guys, I think I see something in the distance, it looks to be a…, wait it is a green dragon.” Zeke said quietly with a bit of fear in his voice.
“What is the age of the dragon?” Luke asked calmly.
“I think it is a young one.” Zeke answered.
“This will be easy, and a good test of our abilities.” James said with confidence.
“But James, we have only used our abilities out of combat, and we do not know all of them yet. Anything could happen in the heat of battle.” Luke protested.
“Don’t worry, this fight will be easy.” James said as he ran to go and fight the young green dragon. The rest of the party, annoyed, reluctantly followed him into the fight. The green dragon noticed the party as they were on their way to go and fight and started to fly over to them.
“The dragon is coming, prepare to fight!” Luke yelled. “James cast earth bind on it, Tim cast beacon of hope and chose all of us, and Zeke, start shooting at it with your shortbow.”
“What will you do, Luke?” asked James.
“I will wait for it to land and then smite it with the wrath of god.” replied Luke. When the dragon came near, James cast earth bind and large yellow strips came out of the ground and wrapped around the dragon as they started to pull it down. The dragon tried to break out of the strips but was just not strong enough. Now that the dragon was being lowered, Zeke could attack it. He fired his shortbow and hit the dragon breaking off one of its scales. Zeke kept firing at the dragon. While Zeke was firing at the dragon, Tim cast a beacon of hope in case anyone needed to be healed. The dragon, a prideful creature, would not give up so easily, and it breathed out a blast of poison breath on everyone. Zeke managed to completely dodge the attack and take no damage, as did Luke. Tim was only able to get out of the way of some of the poison, and James, too focused on the earth bind, did not have time to dodge. He took all of the damage. Luckily James was able to keep focus and did not lose concentration on the spell. Tim healed James and the dragon finally hit the ground. Now that the dragon was on the ground Luke ran at the dragon and slashed it with his sword made of pure light. As Luke hit he called for the power of his god and smite the dragon as a massive bust of radiant damage hit it. The enraged dragon attempted to bite Luke, and although Luke was able to dodge the bite attack, he moved right into one of the dragon’s claws and got hit across the chest. Surprised, he then got hit by the dragon’s second claw attack and took another hit to the chest. Luke started to bleed, but the dragon was pretty bloody as well and looked scorched all over. Zeke, still firing, hit the dragon right in its left eye. The dragon began to scream in pain as Luke went in for another attack. Once again calling the power of his god, Luke sliced through the dragon’s head with a massive burst of radiant damage. Everyone cheered as the dragon’s head fell to the ground.
“Luke, I told you we would be fine,” James said with joy.
“I guess you were right,” Luke said with a slight laugh.
“Yeah, all we needed was Luke with the wrath of his god.” Zeke laughed right as Luke collapsed to the ground and fell unconscious.
“Guys, I think that using too much power at once has gotten to him,” James said.
“Agreed. He is not used to using divine smite, so doing two max level ones in a row hit him hard,” replied Zeke.
“You guys want to stop for the day and set up camp?” Tim asked.
“Sure, why not and we might as well harvest some dragon scales too,” James replied. After they harvested the dragon scales and set up camp Luke started to wake up. “He’s waking up,” James yelled.
“What happened, I feel sick, and like I got hit by a bus, and I jumped in a fire all at the same time?” Luke said weakly.
“You passed out after we beat the dragon; we think it had something to do with you using so much power so quickly,” Zeke explained.
“That makes sense, I should not have used two of my highest level smites in a row, when that was my first time using them.” Luke acknowledged. “From now on I will be more careful until I have gotten more used to my abilities.”
“I think all of us can take away from that fight that we are strong, but we still are not used to all of our power and that we should be careful,” Zeke said.
“Okay let’s get some rest, Zeke you take first watch, Tim you take second watch, I will take third watch, and Luke you can have the last watch.” James said. The night went by quietly and the party continued on with their journey to a city. On the way they all decided that they should practice their powers on each other. After a while of choosing teams and then making their attack plans, they decided the teams were James and Tim against Luke and Zeke.
“You guys ready to lose?” James asked with confidence.
“We will see,” replied Luke. The fight started with Luke running at Tim and going in for an attack with his sun blade. He hit with a good blow against Tim. Luke then went in for a second attack and hit again. Now bloody, Tim cast beacon of hope and targeted James and himself. Next Zeke went behind Tim to flank him and went in for an attack with his shortsword, but he missed his first attack. Zeke then went in for an offhand attack with his second shortsword and missed again. Now it was James’ turn he hexed Zeke then flanked him and went in for an attack. He hit with a strong slash across Zeke’s chest. James then went for his second attack and hit again. Zeke looked very bloody. One more attack and Zeke would go down. Seeing that Zeke was hurt, Luke decided he needed to finish off Tim. He went in for an attack and missed, so he then went for a second attack and managed to hit. You could feel Luke channel the power of his god as he did a max level divine smite. After wasting Tim with radiant damage, he was now on his last leg. Tim saw how hurt he was and cast a max level cure wound on himself, healing himself back to max health. Zeke then tried to attack Tim again, this time hitting Tim hard. Zeke went for a second attack and hit Tim again, slashing him across the chest.
“I did not know we would be using smites in this fight,” James said.
“You have to be ready for anything,” Luke replied.
“It’s on then,” James said as he put another hex on Zeke and then went in for an attack. James hit and knocked Zeke out of the fight before James went around Luke to flank him. Luke delivered the finishing blow on Tim and hit using a smite to knock Tim out of the fight. Luke then turned to James and said,
“It’s just me and you now…let’s see who can win.”
“You know it will be me.,” James said as he moved his hex to Luke and went in for an attack. James, with all of his pride on the line, hit Luke with a critical blow. The hit made James’s eyes glow black as eldritch energy glowed off of his body and surged to the sword. The hit devastated Luke and knocked him down to his last leg. Before James went for his second attack, he said “I will always beat you, Luke”. James knocked out Luke and won the game for Tim and himself. “I told you I will never lose,” he said. James started to set up camp for the night, and after about three hours everyone else woke up. James told Tim about their win, gloating “So, once you were knocked out, I finished off Zeke and then did an eldritch smite on Luke. It knocked him out in one hit.”
“Wow, I did not know that you learned eldritch smit” Tim said, shocked.
“I forget that I had it until I got really angry at Luke and focused all of my eldritch power into that one attack,” James replied.
“You only won because you smit me,” Luke scoffed.
“Don’t be mad because I beat you in a fight, we are all still friends,” James said.
“We will fight again and see who wins next time. Maybe we can do just a 1v1,” Luke suggested with a smirk.
“Guys let’s stop fighting and go to bed. We still have to get to a city,” Zeke said
When the party woke up they continued their journey to find a city. They travelled for about two more weeks before finally finding one.
“Guys we did it! We found a city. There’s one just over this hill,” Zeke yelled with joy.
“It’s about time. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since we got here, and I can’t wait to talk to people other than you guys,” James said.
I hope there is a blacksmith so I can get my armor polished,” Luke mused.
“Then we can hit up the inn and tell all of these commoners about the adventures we have been on,” said Tim.
“Well, technically we did not do any of the things our characters did. So can we really take credit for it?” Zeke asked.
“We will be fine, it’s not like they can prove us wrong. We look like strong heroes anyway, so they will probably believe anything we say,” James responded. The party continued their trip, and once they reached the city they realized that it was a city of humans and elves. Everyone looked at them with suspicion, but the boys instinctively understood that they faced no threat there. Luke split from the rest of the group to go find a blacksmith while the rest of the party headed to the inn. When Luke arrived at the blacksmith he saw that it was run by an old elven man who had skin with a copperish hue: his hair was brown and eyes of green.
“Hello sir, do you polish armor here?” Luke asked.
“Yes, we do. What kind of armor do you want polished?” The elven man replied.
“My plate.” As Luke said this, he started to put his armor on the table.
“Woah there. I only work with light ore. And besides, you have cold steel plate; I do not have the material to work with cold steel here,” the elven man replied.
“Well, thanks for your time.” Luke said as he walked away and headed to the inn to meet with the rest of the party. While Luke was at the blacksmith the rest of the party had been having some fun of their own. When they walked into the bar they saw a human girl behind the bar, as well as a couple of abandoned drinks sitting at the bar. Some people were dancing to the music even though it was not very good. “You guys want to sit at the bar then?” James asked.
“Sure, we can get some food and drink and tell them about our story,” Tim said as they all went down and sat at the bar.
“Wow, some genuine adventurers have come into my inn. That’s amazing. What can I get you?” the Bartender asked.
“I would like water and some stew, any stew,” James responded.
“I would like some of the strongest drinks you’ve got,” said Tim.
“I want the strongest drink you have, plus some steak,” said Zeke. “Why didn’t you buy some alcohol, James?” Zeke asked.
“My character has never had any alcohol before, so if I start now it will hit me hard and I do not want to be drunk when I still don’t have full control over all of my powers,” James explained. Before Zeke could respond, a tall handsome white young man with light brown crew cut hair sat down next to James and said,
“What is a pretty lady like you doing in a place like this?” James realized that he was a girl with above average looks and twice as much charisma as the average person; suddenly, it made sense why guys would hit on him.
“I am just returning from defeating a dragon,” James said as he realized that was probably not the best thing to say if he wanted this man to leave.
“So you’re strong too? How about I buy us a couple of drinks?” the man said, intrigued.
“No, sorry. I don’t drink and I was just about to go. Bartender, can I buy a room for the night?” James asked.
“No problem,” the bartender replied, sensing his discomfort. James quickly paid for his room and got out of there.
“I guess we should wait for Luke and then join James.” Zeke said.
“Yeah, we can tell this city about our lives later.” Tim said. Once Luke arrived, they all went up to their rooms and slept. James woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go to the bathroom. When he opened the door to the bathroom, he saw Chris just standing there.
“Chris, is that you? We thought you did not make it here. Wait a minute, why do you look like you did in the real world?” James asked in a panic.
“Da-n-ger you,” Chris forced out.
“What do you mean ‘Danger you’? What happened?” James asked, backing away.
“Run Lea-ve,” Chris said.
“Run, what do you mean?” As Chris began to approach him, James awoke from his sleep. “It was all a dream, maybe I should go tell the others…”
As James pondered this, Zeke ran into the room.
“Get your stuff. We have to leave.”
“Why?” James asked.
“There is a giant army invading this village. Hurry, we have to leave!” Zeke yelled. They all grabbed their stuff and went to leave, but when they opened the door there were four fire giants waiting for them. They said something that the players could not understand and grabbed the group of adventurers…