DnD Wife Stories

“So are they all dead?” were the first words out of Tobias’ mouth when he came to.

“Oh yea,” nodded Drexla with a cool look on her face, “one’s cooked, if you’re hungry. I don’t know how to eat it.”

Tobias shook his head, “No thank you, I have had a lot of rabbit on this trip, I think I am okay.”

Having heard the words “cooked” and “eat”, the nearby Bogbean perked up and looked in the direction of the charred morsel but a bit of drool beginning to run down her chin.

“So, how is everyone?” asked Tobias, trying to lighten the mood after such a near miss.

Bricky, cheery as always, responded, “All ist gut, ja!”

But Luna wasn’t so lucky. She was nursing a shoulder wound. The bolt was still sticking out of her and she was pale with blood loss and the shock of battle.

“A little hurt” she responded with an unsteady wobble in her voice.

Everyone chimes in with offers to help alleviate her pain. She replied with a pained laugh,

“That would be greatly appreciated, thank you!”

Bricky helped remove the bolt from Luna’s shoulder. For someone so large, he was very delicate and managed to minimize the pain as much as he could. Still, it was painful as she bit down on a strap of leather. Tobias applied a little of his miraculous healing magic that still perplexed even Luna with her own unique power.

“Thank you, thank you everyone!” Luna managed to groan out after treatment.

Tobias had tried to hide it this time, but everyone was familiar with his casting style now and saw what he did with ease. They had no reason to reveal his power or call him out for his assistance so they left him alone, grateful for the renewed vigor and healed wounds. With the immediate traveling group taken care of Tobias left to check on Sodia and the rest of the caravan.

Everyone else begins to take stock of their surroundings and even make sure to look for Miguel. They found him in a coiled ball of blue scales on top of the cart where he was last seen. Bricky called out to him,

“Miguel!”

“What!?”

“What are you doing? Why did you not fight?”

“I was sleeping!”

Bricky noticed a piece of one of the Scalekin, the tail, was nearby and realized it was almost a perfect fit for Miguel. The replacement of defunct body parts worked for him. Why would it not work on the small Scalekin? He decided to ask,

“Miguel would you like me to replace your tail?”

“I want my tail!”

“But there are a few good red ones down here.”

Miguel paused for a long time and when he did move it was to spit over the side of the cart in disgust. Captain V chimed in,

” I don’t think he wants your kind of help buddy.”

Luna turned to the nearest corpse and began eyeing it for spell ingredients. With a bit of help from Drexla and Bogbean, Luna bent down to begin harvesting from one of the bodies. Suddenly, the arm twitched. Then it shuddered and moved closer to her, trying to grasp at her. She heard a pained groan emanating from it as it grabbed at her. In a panic she stabbed at it but missed as she was knocked off balance by its reaching hands.

It lunged towards her, attempting to grab her again but Luna stumbled back and it missed her. She tried to stab it one more time. This time, her dagger struck true but lodged itself in the skull. She tried to pull it out of the head but could not figure it out in her panic. The body continued to reach for her, pawing at her as she yanked at her dagger in desperation. The hands managed to claw at her and scratch her in their flailing.

Luna needed to get away from this thing, but now she was angry. Her hair started to glow purple strands interspersed throughout her head. It lengthened and grew, coiling around her opponent in a last attempt to get away from it. Her hair began to slam into the body, wailing at it with everything it could muster. Just as quickly as it had animated, the body went limp and dropped back to the ground. Not wanting to take chances, she continued pummeling it with her hair until it was a nasty paste on the ground.

Once she was sure it would not rise to hurt her again, she moved on to the other corpses, using her recently animated hair to assist in keeping the bodies still as she harvested her ingredients from them. Luna managed to harvest some wonderful ingredients and reagents for her chemical experiments. Bogbean was not as dexterous of hand and destroyed her chosen body as she ripped into it with abandon. Nothing salvageable was left.

The group went through the remaining bodies to find something of value but they were too mangles to salvage anything else. Tobias came back from checking on the rest of the caravan to find Luna and Bogbean covered in viscera.

“What happened!?”

Bricky pointed to Bogbean, “It vas mostly ze little one.”

The Caravan:

Tobias walked towards the large caravan and the dim fires that dotted where they were. The caravan was set up in a large half circle as was the usual custom for setting up camp. A set of twin lights began making their way towards him from the center of the camp. As they both got closer to each other he began making out what they looked like. What he thought was two people with a torch each, was actually three. Sodia led the two large Tuskari behind her, her bodyguards he surmised.

She wore a large overcoat and her ears were wrapped up behind her head with a large, fine silk cloth. Her normal regalia was missing. Her person was bereft of the jewels she normally adorned herself in were gone and so was the face powder she normally wore. Her face was tired but she spoke with confidence and authority,

“We heard some commotion. I hope everything is alright?”

She really looked at him now that the light was stronger and saw the ravages of the earlier battle. She gasped,

“What happened to you!?”

“A group of Scalekin attacked the cart. We fought them off but I wanted to come check on the caravan and make sure you weren’t also under attack.”

“No, the guards keep a constant patrol for that sort of thing. But are your traveling companions alright?”

“Everyone is alright now, a bit stirred up by the commotion but calming down.

“That’s is good to hear! As you know, we will be leaving at dawn tomorrow so I hope you can get cleaned up and get more rest before we need to leave. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on others before getting back to rest now that I know you are alright.”

With a little bow, she turned and made her way back to the warm fires of the caravan.

“I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“See you then.”

“Perhaps Scalekin kill be on the menu!” he quipped before heading back to his own camp for the night.

Not knowing the horror that awaited his eyes when he got back. When he did get back the idea of cooking anything Scalekin was completely erased from his mind. Tobias expelled a long frustrated sigh and began cleaning up the camp, removing the bodies and trying to salvage what was left of the night. Once the camp was clean and they were as clean as they could get, they tried to get back to sleep. Tomorrow would be another grueling day of travel and they needed all the rest they could get.