Dance: Ten; Charisma: Three, page 17
Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill Dancing - Tier I (0).
Attribute: Creativity
You are a better dancer than the average person.
Provides a bonus to effects involving dancing.
You have cast Dance Fever - Tier I (0).
Congratulations! You have unlocked the spell Dance Fever - Tier I (0).
Attribute: Creativity
Domain: Distraction
Articulation: Perform your dance solo from the song “Off the Rails” from the musical Chugging Along.
MP: 6
Duration: Creativity times 2 minutes
Compels all who witness the dance to perform it themselves to the best of their ability. This urge to dance is contagious, spreading to all who see any target perform it.
A successful Fortitude roll vs. the spell’s MAS resists the effect. Those who succeed require another Fortitude roll to resist every minute that an affected target is visible.
Being attacked dispels the effect. If the effect is dispelled from a target, they cannot be affected by it again unless it is recast.
Shoulders danced. He copied all sixteen bars of my Chugging Away solo exactly as clumsily and imperfectly as I had performed it.
Five of the seven other kidnappers did the same. Only Klerk, who was a few feet away with a dagger, and a tall woman with a bow further back, were unaffected.
They recovered from the shock of their comrades’ sudden dance break faster than I did. Klerk charged. I ran.
If I understood the spell description correctly, I needed to stay alive and keep my two attackers in the cave, where they could see their dancing pals, for one minute, assuming “minute” really meant a minute this time. Then the magic would get another shot at giving them a case of involuntary happy feet.
I had three magic points left, thirteen health points, and was undoubtedly much worse at fighting than they were.
That kid I was here to rescue was totally gonna die.
Twenty-one
The woman’s arrow missed me by a mile. Pure chance, not because of anything I did. She reached for another from the bundle tied loosely onto her belt.
I risked a couple of Assess Persons while I ran. It didn’t take much time, and it’s not like it mattered if they detected me doing it.
Name: Klerk
Pursuit: Brigand
Species: Human
Level: 1
Name: Erd
Class: Trickster
Species: Human
Level: 2
Okay, so Klerk with the dagger was just a steadfast, but Erd with the bow was a full-on adventurer, like me.
I didn’t see any way in which that information helped me in the slightest.
The only advantage I had was the way the gang of thieves had fanned out as they’d advanced on me. Now I had six clumsy dancers to use as cover as I darted and dodged around the room.
I ran behind the short elf, trying to put more distance between me and Klerk, but he was too fast. He swiped at me with his dagger and caught the small of my back.
Klerk hit you with a dagger for 4 points of damage!
Shit! No choice now, I’d have to fight or he’d just keep stabbing me from behind, and not in a fun way. I stumbled to a stop, narrowly avoiding crashing into another dancer. As I spun to face Klerk, I reached up over my shoulder into my bag to retrieve my own knife.
An arrow whizzed by between me and Klerk. It came closer to hitting him than me.
“Curse this thing!” Erd shouted.
I didn’t have time to see what her problem was. Klerk hadn’t wasted the seconds I’d spent fishing out my dagger. His own weapon came slashing towards my face. I flinched.
He missed.
That left me an opening. I swung my blade at his arm.
I missed.
It was not exactly an epic battle for the ages the three of us had going on.
Klerk prepared to swing again, but just to his right the short elf did the little leap that ended my Chugging Along routine. Klerk’s eyes darted towards her.
She restarted the dance solo, and Klerk joined in.
Good news, only one evil person left to deal with. Bad news, that meant the spell had been going for a minute. That’s when the spell description said it could catch somebody it missed the first time, and it seemed like it probably had actually been a minute since I’d cast it, maybe, so I’d go with the assumption that this time “minute” really meant minute. So it would last twice as long as my Creativity, which a quick peek at my character sheet reminded me was six. Eleven minutes until the dancing stopped, and I’d be worse off than when I’d started.
Erd had dropped her bow for some reason. She was trying to snatch a different one from one of her dancing comrades, but it had slid down his arm and she was having trouble getting at it past his flailing hands. The bow she’d dropped was big, almost as long as her, but the one she was trying to swipe was much shorter. She must have been a better shot with the shorter bow.
Hoping the dance fever would infect her before she could wrangle the new weapon free, I ran past Klerk to the opening in the wall. I heard Erd cursing the whole way, so she must not have been having much luck retrieving the bouncing bow.
The passage was even narrower than it had looked, but there was light coming from it so I turned sideways and slid my way into a small chamber, just a few feet across. A kid, about fifteen or sixteen, stood waiting just inside, his hands tied at the wrists with thick rope. He was dark skinned with hair braided close against his scalp, wearing a dirty apron over a dark blue tunic.
Name: Kellen
Pursuit: Explorer
Species: Human
Level: 1
“Explorer?” I said. “I thought you were a waiter?”
The bright smile that had greeted my sudden arrival faltered. “I work at the tavern. It’s not my life’s calling. Is that important right now?”
“Oh, yeah, probably not. Hi, I’m Ewen, your dad sent me to rescue you.”
He held up his bound wrists. “Perhaps you could start by freeing my hands?”
“Uh…” I peered at the rope. “I’m not great with knots…”
“You’re… holding a knife…”
“Oh!” I beamed at him. “Right! Duh! You’re good at this!”
Kellen tensed as I hacked at the ropes. “Are you sure you’re an adventurer? Behind you!”
I wish I could say I took the warning and dodged out of the way thanks to my cat-like reflexes, but instead I said, “What?” and was promptly stabbed in the back.
Erd hit you with a dagger for 2 points of damage!
Stupid lute hanging across my back wasn’t even useful as armor. I spun and slashed Erd right across the face. Her nose bent and blood splattered everywhere. It was pretty gnarly.
You hit Erd with a dagger for 5 points of damage!
There we go! More than twice what she did to me. Unfortunately, I was down to seven health points. She didn’t seem all that bothered by the wreck I’d made of her face, so I guessed she probably had plenty of health points left.
I expected her to take another swing at me, but instead she backed up against the opening to the small chamber. She stood facing us, blood dripping down her face, knife at the ready, smiling.
“Only second level, Ewen?” she asked me. “I can’t imagine your spells last all that long, then. What say we wait here until my friends finish your dance?”
Well, shit. She assessed me pretty good, I had to give her that. My spell had about nine minutes left, and she could easily hold us off until then if she kept her position by the only exit.
I shot a look at Kellen, and he looked back at me with a worried expression. I’d cut through enough of the rope that he’d been able to free his hands, at least.
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds good.” I took a few steps back, putting as much distance between us as I could in the small chamber. “I’m just gonna get a vial of deadly poison out of my bag. You stay right there so when I throw it at you, I’ve got a nice easy target.” I reached into my backpack and dropped my knife inside it, then pretended to fish around for something else, even though what I wanted jumped into my hand right away.
Erd snarled and did exactly what I’d hoped, running straight at me.
I pulled the wolf pelt from my backpack and threw it at her head. The furry bundle unrolled as it flew, but any hopes I had that it might wrap around her were thwarted by the mundane physics of the situation. It struck her in the face and dropped to the floor with no effect. I didn’t even get a damage notification.
Erd, however, flinched to a degree way out of proportion, as if expecting to need to dodge, say, a vial of deadly poison instead of a cozy blanket. It left me only the tiniest opening, but I took it, charging forward and hitting her with my shoulder as hard as I could. I didn’t take off any health points, but I knocked her a little more off-balance. I kept running and hit the exit, where Kellen, bright kid that he was, was already sliding through. Without a lute and a backpack taking up any of the narrow space, he’d get out faster than I’d gotten in.
Unfortunately, Erd regained her balance quickly, and even though I was right at the exit I didn’t dare take it. Erd would stab me in the side as soon as I tried. Of course, she could stab me pretty easily even if I didn’t try. I didn’t even have my knife in my hand to defend myself.
Erd ran across the chamber towards me, knife-first, stomping flat the head of the discarded wolf pelt.
I had a ridiculous idea that couldn’t possibly work. I tried it anyway.
I dropped to a crouch, grabbed the butt end of the pelt, and pulled as hard I could.
Erd’s feet were yanked out from under her. She fell flat on her back, hitting her head hard on the stone floor. The knife dropped from her hand.
I threw aside the pelt, grabbed the knife, and knelt on her stomach. I raised the kidnapper’s stolen weapon, ready to plunge it into her chest.
Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. Blood pooled out from the underside of her head, mixing with the dirt on the floor.
“She must have a stunned debuff from hitting her head!” It was Kellen, at the exit behind me. “Kill her before it wears off!”
The knife shook in my hands. “What? No!”
“You have to! Kill her so we can escape!”
“No!” I dropped the knife and stood up. “I’m not killing someone! God! What is wrong with you?”
Kellen’s eyes widened as he came back in from the gap. “But… you’re an adventurer. She’s an enemy.” He looked away from me, down at the blood on the floor. “She was going to kill you. She still will, when she wakes up.”
“I don’t care. I’m not sticking a knife in an unconscious woman.” I followed his gaze to the blood. “Will she… will she bleed to death?”
He shrugged. “Depends on if she has a bleeding debuff, too.” He scrunched up his face, giving me a confused look. “Why don’t you know that?”
“Just pretend I’m stupid, okay? If she has a bleeding debuff, do we need to do something so she doesn’t die? Bandage her head?”
He shook his head in disbelief at my ignorance. “If you really want her to live, we should just leave. She’ll start to heal as soon as there isn’t an enemy in her lair.” He peeked out through the exit. “And if you want us to live as well, leaving is also our best alternative.”
“My spell!” I slapped my head. “We’ve only got a couple minutes. Go, go, go!”
I nudged him towards the small exit, then followed him through, my stupid useless lute scraping against the rock.
I was about halfway through when Kellen got out on the other side. “She said something about a spell to make them dance, didn’t she?” he asked. “It looks like it’s—”
Shit. “Close your eyes!” I shouted.
No answer. I hurried through the rest of the gap, emerging to find Kellen flawlessly executing my Chugging Along dance solo.
I took another quick look at the spell description. Nothing in there about it only affecting enemies. I didn’t know if I could mentally cancel the spell, but I worried if I did it would release the kidnappers as well. So I did the only other thing the description said would break the spell. I punched Kellen in the gut.
You punched Kellen for 1 point of damage!
“Ooof!” Kellen bent over, holding his stomach. “Why did you… Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, you seeing was the problem. Now move, twinkletoes!”
I led the way across the large cavern. The thieves’ dances had led them into scattered positions around the room, but I found a relatively clear path through the center. ‘Relatively’ in that to get to the tunnel, we had to come pretty close to Klerk, the guy who had given me so much trouble after initially resisting the spell.
“I don’t know what counts as an attack,” I said as we approached the exit, “so try not to touch him. Don’t even indulge in a cutting remark.”
Kellen eyed the sweaty brigand nervously. “How long until your spell runs out?”
“Twelve minutes since it started, so we should have enough time to get down the tunnel a ways before they come after us.”
“Twelve…?” Kellen’s eyes widened. “But surely you engaged in almost that many rounds of combat!”
“That many what of combat?”
The kid just stared at me, his jaw hanging open.
Okay, something else that everybody except me knew, I guessed. I opened my character sheet and looked at the spell description again. It definitely said Creativity times two minutes, and my Creativity was six, and my rudimentary math skills made me ninety percent certain that six times two was twelve. So why was Kellen freaking out?
I did the mental double-click thing on the word “minutes,” and got some more information.
Effects with a duration are typically measured in minutes. In combat, effects last a number of rounds equal to their duration in minutes, regardless of how much time each round actually takes.
So that was why the moss had suffocated me so fast, because we were fighting and “minutes” meant “rounds.” But the poison had lasted five minutes because the fight was over and “minutes” meant “minutes.” Okay. Cool. What the fuck was a round?
Combat is divided into rounds. In each round, each combatant gets one turn, in which they may take one action. Certain effects may allow a combatant to take multiple actions per turn, or multiple turns per round; similarly, some actions may require more than one turn to complete.
Wait, in all the fights I’d had, we’d been taking turns? That didn’t feel right.
Wait again. So my little fight with Erd had eaten up minutes of my spell, even though it had only taken a few seconds? That sucked!
“That sucks!” I said aloud, after dismissing my character sheet. “I don’t know how many rounds are in a fight! How am I supposed to know how much time is left?”
Klerk punched you for 2 points of damage!
The thieves, none of whom were dancing any longer, turned to face us, some readying daggers, others notching bows.
Klerk grinned and cracked his knuckles. “I’d say your time is up.”
Twenty-two
“Run!”
Kellen didn’t need to hear it twice. He bolted up the tunnel, and I was right behind him.
Klerk punched you for 2 points of damage!
Shittity shit shit! I had three health points left. One more solid hit and I was dead.
I was lucky he punched me instead of stabbing me. Erd must have taken the dagger she attacked me with from him.
“I can’t see!” Kellen called. The fading glow from the campfire behind us did nothing to brighten the way ahead. “I was blindfolded when they brought me here, it’s not on my map!”
“It’s a straight shot!” I heard an arrow zing past me and scrape against the tunnel wall. “Just keep going!”
Despite my reassurances, it wasn’t easy running full-out in pitch blackness. I almost stumbled a couple of times, causing my heart to race – a fall in my condition could have been fatal. I brushed against the wall once or twice, scraping my arm a bit but not taking away any of my precious remaining health points.
I couldn’t tell if the kidnappers could see in the dark any better than I could, but it didn’t sound like they were gaining any ground. And Kellen was leaving me in his dust, so I felt a little better knowing that he, at least, would probably make it back to the village.
A few more arrows went by, but I guess the archers weren’t skilled enough to shoot with any accuracy in the dark while running because nothing came close.
After a few minutes I felt the ground beneath my feet slope up, and almost simultaneously the darkness ahead lessened. Moonlight. I was at the entrance! I caught sight of Kellen’s silhouette escaping into the air.
No fatigued debuff yet. And I might have been wrong, but it sounded like most of the thieves chasing us had fallen far behind, with only a few still close on our tail. I started to think that once we were back in the woods, we could lose them for good. I could almost taste those five hundred experience points!
The entrance was just ahead of me, but I couldn’t see Kellen in the small clearing outside the mouth of the cave. He must have already made it to the woods.
Wait, no. There was Kellen. On his hands and knees in the dirt.
He looked up and saw me coming. “Watch out!”
This time I heeded the warning. I skidded to a stop just shy of the cave entrance.
Tak, the Trickster who had been on watch when I first found the kidnappers’ camp, lunged at the empty air where I would have been, a dagger in his hand.
He hadn’t been among the thieves in the cave. The other two lookouts had been, but not him. I hadn’t even noticed. Stupid!
Tak recovered from his failed attack and turned to face me.
I kicked him in the jaw.
You kicked Tak for 3 points of damage!
Nice! My kicking skill and my dancing skill worked well together. That was a Rockette-worthy attack.
Still, three points probably wasn’t all that much for a level two adventurer who, to my knowledge, hadn’t taken any other damage yet. One stab from his little knife would be enough to end me, so while he got his balance back I ran around him to Kellen, who was getting to his feet. As Kellen rose, I noticed the blood staining the back of his tunic, turning the blue cloth a deep purple.
