Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks: Dealing with Dragons

Chapter 1

“How many oozes, skeletons, mephits, and zombies can one gods-forsaken dungeon possibly churn out?” Tess shouted as she aimed her hand crossbow at an undead bugbear’s ribs. The bolt put it down, so she jumped over the creature’s body to find the next foe. “Is anyone keeping track? It has to be at least twenty so far, right? Solid twenty?” At this rate, she was never getting the smell of mephit blood out of her clothes. She’d have to burn them.

“Don’t forget the little critters made out of sticks,” Baldric added. The burly dwarf snugged his helm into place and followed Uggie into a cluster of zombies, his mace wreathed in flames that lit up his brown skin and gray-streaked black beard. “Uggie’s eaten at least five of those.”

The otyugh confirmed this by flapping her tentacles, shuddering, and coughing up a hairball of sticks and tree sap that had once been one of the critters in question.

“They’re twig blights,” Cazrin called helpfully from across the chamber. She held her staff aloft, the stone at its tip flashing with deep purple light as she prepared to cast a spell. “One of the stranger creatures to infest the Sunless Citadel. I’ve read that they can root in soil to gather nutrients, then pull themselves out of the ground to hunt live prey for—”

“That’s twenty-fiiiiive,” Lark sang out, cutting the wizard off as he accompanied himself on his lute. He aimed the magic flowing through the instrument at the skeleton skittering toward him with a sickle clutched in its hands. “Twenty-five skeletons scorched and chopped, twenty-five mephits ready for the pot. Hey there, ho there, what’s one more? Hey there, ho there. What’s. One. More.” His rings flashed, and his voice boomed deep and sinister on the last line, his lips pulled into a malicious grin.

The skeleton quivered, broke off its charge, and scurried out of the chamber.

“Ha! That’s right, it’s one less now, isn’t it!” Lark shouted after it. The tiefling glanced around, always looking for his audience. “You see what I did there, right?”

“Don’t want . . . to alarm . . . anyone,” Anson interjected as a zombie shoved him against a lip of stone surrounding a large vertical shaft in the center of the chamber. Using his shield, he blocked a blow from the creature’s club and drove forward, impaling the crude wooden weapon with the jagged end of his broken sword. With a deft twist, he wrenched the club out of the thing’s grip, following up with a shield bash to its ribs that spun it away from him and knocked it to the ground. He grunted as a trio of zombies immediately took the creature’s place and shoved him to his knees, using their combined weight to drive him back. Now the crumbling stones were all that separated him from an unknowable drop down the wide shaft. “But I think . . . this wall is . . . coming loose.”

“What?” Tess pivoted, aborting the dagger throw she’d been aiming at the dust mephit hovering near the ceiling on the opposite side of the chamber. “Lark!” she called out. “Peel those zombies off Anson before they dump him down that shaft!”

Soft violet light shone from the gap in the floor behind Anson. It and the smoky torches on the walls offered just enough wavering light for Tess to see Lark dodge around an ooze’s corpse and move nimbly across the room to back up Anson.

The domed chamber had been wide enough to allow the party to spread out, but that also meant there was plenty of room for the swarms of monsters that had flooded the chamber soon after their arrival. Tess hadn’t noticed until now that, as the battle dragged on, her party members had gotten cut off from one another.

Not good.

Tess could no longer see Baldric or Uggie among the monsters they were fighting, but she could hear Uggie’s yips and growls and the cleric’s chants. A golden axe suddenly materialized in midair above the fray, chopping straight down at the nearest undead bugbear.

Cazrin was a bit closer, standing just a few paces to Tess’s left. That changed when she finished the spell she’d been casting and vanished. In her wake there came a thunderous boom, and the zombie who’d been crowding her into a corner lurched back, dropping heavily to the floor. The wizard reappeared across the room, out of reach of the monsters for now.

Suddenly, a cloud of thick, choking brown dust descended around Tess. Cazrin, Anson, and the rest of the fight disappeared from view as high-pitched, cackling laughter filled the air.

It was the mephit—a small creature that reminded Tess of an imp with its beady, malevolent eyes and exaggeratedly angular features. Tess coughed and cursed herself for getting distracted so the creature could get in another attack. Now she was blinded to what was going on in the rest of the chamber.

Crouching, Tess covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve and began inching forward, her dagger ready to throw once she found her way out of the cloud.

There was movement to her left—a huff of breath and the hiss of a blade parting the air. It was just enough warning for Tess to dive and roll, dodging a sword slash that would have clipped her in the neck.

She didn’t get far. Her shoulder slammed into a pair of muscled legs, stopping her progress. There came a muffled growl and the stench of rot that was definitely not from one of her party members. Ignoring the throbbing pain in her shoulder, Tess brought her dagger around and buried it in the meat of an undead goblin’s calf. A shriek of pain followed, but Tess was already up, getting to her knees to knock the creature out of her way and deeper into the choking dust cloud.

Tess kept moving, darting forward until she finally burst out of the blinding dust. Her eyes were watering, and her lungs felt like they were full of sand, but she had a clear view to aim her dagger at the single zombie left pinning Anson. The other two that had been harrying him were on the ground, stiff-limbed with magical paralysis.

Lark had taken care of business, Tess thought with satisfaction. One good hit to the remaining zombie would take it down.

Tess raised her dagger, but Anson caught her eye just as the blade spun from her hand. “Don’t!” he shouted. “We’re going—”

With a loud scrape and groan, the stone lip behind Anson gave way just as Tess’s dagger dug in between the zombie’s shoulder blades. The creature slumped, and it and Anson plunged backward into the shaft and disappeared.

“Anson!” Tess activated the teleportation power on the other dagger in her hand, letting the magic carry her to its twin. The dust-filled chamber faded in a flash of brilliant white light.

When Tess blinked back into existence, her hand encircled the dagger hilt protruding from the zombie’s back, and she was falling through the air. The sudden plunge stole her breath and threatened to empty the contents of her stomach, but she held on to both the dagger and the zombie.

She locked eyes with Anson just below her, who was also holding on to the zombie.

“What are you doing?” Anson shouted, wearing a comically incredulous look as the wind whipped his straight dark hair around his face. The fighter reached for her, grabbing her collar to try to pull her in, as if intending to shield her fall with his body. Tess had the vague impression of thick, slithery vines like pale snakes running up and down the walls of the shaft around them. She reached for the vines, trying to snag one to slow their fall, anything—

They hit the ground first.

Tess landed half on the zombie and half on a carpet of vines and fungi. White-hot pain shot up and down her flank. The breath had been blasted out of her lungs. Anson lay next to her, groaning in pain but still gripping her collar. Blood flowed down one side of his face.

“Baldric!” Tess screeched, and the shout pulsed straight down her throat and into her lungs. Ah. She’d probably broken some ribs in the fall. Good to know.

“We’re coming, Tess!”

That was Cazrin’s voice. The rest of the party would be close behind, as soon as they dispatched the remaining monsters. Tess’s vision blurred, and she had the strong urge to close her eyes for just a minute to rest.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stay awake. A good thing too, because suddenly, a speck of brown swam into view from halfway up the well shaft. It was flying straight toward her, closing fast.

The dust mephit. The damn thing still wasn’t dead. Its papery wings fluttered madly when it caught sight of Tess and Anson lying helpless at the bottom of the shaft. Cackling, it sucked in a breath, ready to expel another cloud of blinding dust at them.

Tess reached beneath her armpit and felt around until she found the hilt of her dagger, which was still sticking out of the dead zombie’s back. She yanked the blade free and threw it at the mephit, skewering it through its tiny head and left wing. Its gravelly cackle cut off in a choking sound. The creature exploded in a puff of brown dust that dispersed harmlessly in midair before drifting down the shaft. Tess’s dagger fell back to the ground, sticking into a mushroom cap between her and Anson.

Tess reached over and grabbed the dagger, flicking the mushroom off. She rolled away from the zombie and, wincing in pain, pushed herself to a sitting position.