Gray is from the novel Shadows of Old Town by T. Olsen. References to, or interactions with, other characters are merely interdimensional, and constitute no assumption of canon or ownership of intellectual property.
Shadows of Old Town can be purchased here: https://books2read.com/u/m27XdR
T. Olsen can be found here: https://linktr.ee/tamiolsen
McNubbin’s Pub was no Devil’s Throat, but it was the closest thing I’d been able to find to it in this place. It was comfortably dim compared to the harsh glare of the strange lights that filled every nook and cranny of the underground city I’d learned was called the Saturn Hotel. It had low wooden beams, heavy furniture, and a nice long bar with dozens of bottles displayed behind it. The biggest downside was it smelled too clean.
I’d been there for most of the early morning, playing dice with a man dressed in translucent fabrics and gauzy cloth wings, wearing pointed ears about half the size of a real elf’s, and a woman who seemed to have pieces of metal armor melted into her skin, one eye glowing blue though the metal patch over it. He called himself a fairy, and she said she was a cyborg.
I’d pickpocketed the dice from a woman dressed in a black woolen cape with fake blood dripping down her chin. She’d been in the last room I tried, which was loud and packed with people dressed in all sorts of strange costumes playing a very animated dice game and telling stories. Oddities aside, what had driven me out of there was the tingle of magic I’d felt in the woman’s pocket. Powerful magic. And I wanted nothing to do with it.
So I’d found my way to McNubbin’s.
It was a strange set of seven dice, only one of which was the normal six-sided dice I was familiar with. Each of the rest had a different number of sides on them. The entire set was made from some kind of hard, glossy material that was a swirl of purple and dark green with a faint sparkle to it. I’d had to modify the game I knew a little bit—make up some rules—but my new associates were absolutely “vibing” with it, as the woman kept saying.
The door burst open and the three self-proclaimed adventurers from the day before tromped inside. They caught sight of me at the corner table and crossed the room with purpose, the man who’d called himself Clancy ahead of the others.
“There you are! We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
I picked up the nearly round twenty-sided dice and rolled it in my fingers. “The crowds in this…” I glanced at the metal-plated woman across from me.
Her blue glowing eye swiveled in the socket with a faint whir and click. “Convention. It’s a sci-fi convention. How can you not know what you’re here for?”
My brow creased but I smoothed out my tone into something patient and casual. “The crowds in this convention are strange. On the way in here I saw two little girls dressed identically with blood all over them asking me to play. Nobody batted an eye.”
Claudette, the woman with the polearm, grimaced as she nodded. “The horror cosplayers. It’s a theme this year.”
I raised an eyebrow and stared back at her. “It’s a bit much, is what it is.”
Clancy sighed. “Come with us, then. We’re going back in the dungeon to fight goblins and we could use a rogue to disarm traps and pick locks.”
My face heated up and I glanced at the people at the table with me. How could they mention such things so casually? And these two hadn’t even batted an eye. To be fair, I’d been trying to find the courage to go back down there and check if the fog was gone, and going in this group would make me feel a little more protected. “Fine. Lead the way.”
Clancy grinned widely and nudged me hard with his elbow.
The twenty-sided dice fell out of my hand onto the table. It came to stop with the “1” facing up, prompting alarmed groans from the fairy and the cyborg sitting with me. What was that all about?
“Well, rogue, let’s move!”
The three started for the door and I spared one last glance at my uneasy gambling companions before snatching up the twenty-sided and gathering the remainder of my dice into the little pouch I’d found them in, then striding out after the three.
The streets of the underground city of Saturn Hotel were bustling. I trailed Clancy and his party toward the entrance to what he called the dungeon, which I’d learned was actually the sewers underneath the underground city. Normally I’d be at home in a festival crowd, but I avoided touching anyone. Or letting anyone touch me.
Some were merely dressed strangely, but others didn’t even look human. One… person… had an octopus for a head. Others were entirely green, or bright red with horns, or blue with painted white lines on their faces. A boxy suit of armor was walking around all stiff-legged. Numerous people dressed in wide-brimmed hats and long leather coats glared at everyone around them, muttering about something called ka. It was confusing and it was putting me off my game.
Eventually Clancy led the way into the under-underground. I followed them through the maze of slime-glazed brick tunnels, happy just to be away from so many eyes. I ignored most of their conversation, but stepped forward to “unlock” a door or a chest when we came across it. The first door had surprised me, because it wasn’t actually locked, but the rest of the party didn’t like that I pointed it out.
“It’s for immersion,” Claudette had said.
“Use your imagination,” Clanton had grumbled.
Fine. I pretended to unlock their stupid little staged dungeon door.
I was lost in thought, trailing behind and waiting for them to call me forward for yet another feat of dexterity, when the three started shouting and rushed ahead. I looked up to see them engaging with a group of gray-skinned people.
No. Not people. I slipped a knife from the sheath at the small of my back.
Their skin was clammy and most of their hair was gone, but what was left hung in limp strings from a wrinkled scalp. Their long fingers had claws on the ends. They were clothed, but the clothes were little more than rags drooped across gaunt frames. The only thing about them that looked filled out was the lower half of their faces, which had strong, oversized jaws and too many teeth.
Clancy, Claudette, and Clanton were screaming battle cries and swinging their weapons with delighted abandon.
A noise behind me provided enough warning that I was able to duck out of the clawed embrace of another creature, and my gaze fell on half a dozen that had come to pinch us in from behind. I slashed with my knife, backing toward the adventurers.
“What in the name of the Six are these things?”
Claudette skewered one with her polearm. “Ghouls, I think.”
I frowned and slashed open the belly of one, grimacing at the congealed blood washing over my hand from the wound. “Ghouls? What’s wrong with you people. I thought this was all fake?”
Clanton grunted and stepped past me to bash one of them down with his axe. “Staged and fake aren’t the same thing, boy.”
I glared down at him. “I’m not a—”
One of the ghouls jumped at me and I met it with my knife, slicing upwards and feeling a shiver of panic as it didn’t squeal in pain like a normal person would have. Instead it rolled its head in anger, teeth snapping, until Claudette put her spear through its neck. Then it fell away and I took a shuddering breath.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Shouldn’t you be trying to backstab them? Do something sneaky? Are you new to the class?”
I flung my hands out, one of them holding my knife and covered in dark blood. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Clancy shouted behind me. “Duck!”
I dropped immediately into a squat, then glanced over my shoulder to see the ghoul that had reached for me get its head caved in. Another jumped in and I swung a leg out to sweep its feet, then darted away.
Clanton pressed into me, shoving me back with an elbow in my ribs. “Just stay out of the way.”
Gladly. I backed down the hallway and watched. As much as these three were playing around earlier with glitter for spells and glass baubles, they weren’t joking about fighting. None of this was fake. The dark blood on my hand was sticky and pungent, and the death rattles from the ghouls hissed through the tunnel.
A scraping noise came from behind me and I turned to see more incoming monsters shambling down the tunnel.
Clancy stepped up beside me. “Next wave.”
I glanced at him in confusion at the reference, then they were upon us.
###
The group was chattering in excitement as they picked through the corpses, muttering about loot. I leaned against a slime-covered wall and tried to slow my heart rate. I was covered in gore, and a few of the claws had scratched me on the arms and shoulders. The wounds burned, and Claudette’s mention of poison was feeding my panic.
A flash of heat went through me and I tried to keep my hands from shaking. “Do you think—” I winced and rolled my shoulder where the sting was particularly bad. “What was the medical room thing you mentioned? Where is that?”
Claudette dropped the severed ghoul arm she held and walked over, peering closely at my face. “Yeah, we should probably get you to a nursebot. Clancy!”
He peered up from the corpse he was rolling. “Yeah?”
“Let’s get our rogue some medical attention.”
He frowned and nodded, tapping Clanton as he rose and adjusted his backpack. “Right. And you may want to invest in some armor next time if you’re going to be fighting.”
I shook my head and allowed Claudette to lead me down the corridor, muttering under my breath. “What in the love of the Six is wrong with you people?”
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