Story Spinner’s POV
Ms. Cheerilee’s Classroom
4:12 PM

“Girls? Roll initiative.”

Seven pairs of hands reached for the dice ahead of them, quickly rolling them across the table’s surface in a combined clatter. Some dice skittered across the map while others danced around in front of them. As they started counting up their rolls, I turned my gaze to the game’s magic taking hold of the supplies in front of me.

The first was the map itself. I had already peeled away the paper hiding the crypt and placed the miniatures around. Drawn in marker were three massive sarcophagi against the walls near the center of the rectangular chamber. The magic took over while I erased and redrew the green boxes acting as the massive copper doors.

The stone mosaic on the floor gained the resolution of an old PlayStation game, with small bones and dried blood splatters adding emphasis on the chamber's gruesome history. The magic gave the sarcophagi and doors depth, clearly defining movement paths and potential cover.

The magic couldn’t form an entire room, only rising an inch or two off the map’s surface before evaporating. If the magic were stronger, it might craft a roof and hide the interior, but that wouldn’t make sense. The illusions helped them understand my scribbles, and hiding everything would defeat the purpose.

What it did reveal, however, were the loculi built into the walls and the doors on the opposite side of the chamber. We could distinguish the magic’s low-res stone walls and wooden doors easily.

Tough fight number one, I thought, observing as most of the girls stared back at me or discussed last-minute strategies. I was glad to hear them conserving abilities for later; it meant they were learning what to expect, despite this being only their second dungeon.

While they spoke, I quickly rolled initiative for the skeletons and spider skulls. Tendrils appeared for each, vying for the girls' attention. But unlike the Redbrands’ tendrils, these looked visibly different.

Typically, tendrils appeared as magic-colored snakes coiling and feinting toward the girls. Some were color-coded, such as the doppelganger’s or Stalwart's. These undead tendrils, however, were rigid and segmented, refusing to contract or stretch. A sickly green necrotic aura surrounded them, signaling necromancy.

Four of the seven tendrils had more detail. They were still segmented but had long, thin limbs branching off like a disturbed pine tree. Each limb, made up of two sections, flicked and clawed towards the girls sporadically. A few of them gagged or shrank back, clearly understanding the spider-like nature of these limbs.

“Alright then.” I reached for my pencil and readied my notes. Even if the magic take notes for me, I preferred doing it myself. And so, it let me. “Anyone above twenty?”

After a brief pause, Twilight raised her hand. “Twenty exactly.”

“‘Kay. Fifteen and up?” Sunset and Applejack spoke up next, and I added their names to the list.

“Fifteen to ten?”

“Eleven,” Rarity told me.

“Ten,” Rainbow nodded.

After recording it, I looked straight at the last two members of the group. “And for you two?”

“Six!” “Six,” Pinkie and Fluttershy said in unison, with only their tones making the word split apart.

I glanced at my roll for the skeletons. Six. With a hum, I was about to break the tie, but the game quickly did it for me. The notecard that handled the party’s statistics shifted its text, revealing everyone’s Dexterity Score.

Glemerr: 17 DEX

Thorn Wielder [Wolf]: 15 DEX

Skeleton: 14 DEX

Makes that easier, I thought, writing the three names in order. “Okay! Top of the round, Vareén! The moment Glemerr throws those doors open, you spot a corpse rising from the stone sarcophagus. It has a rusted shortsword in one hand and is draped in rotting leather scraps as it looks across at all of you.”

3rd Person’s POV
Underground Crypt

The skeleton emerged from its stony box, entirely devoid of muscle or flesh. Where joints should direct their bodies to move, a sinister green energy appeared, filling in the blanks with an unsettling glow.

This power flickered in and out, only existing when needed. Parts of the skeleton not in motion remained unnervingly rigid, like a mannequin held in place by screws.

As the entire body enveloped itself in green energy to clamber out of the box, a chorus of rattling bones echoed from the northern half of the chamber, hidden behind the copper doors. The sound grew louder with each passing moment.

Vareén, poised to attack from a distance, sucked in a sharp breath and shouted. “Pluvv!”

Instantly, veins beneath her skin surged to the surface, especially around her eyes and ears. The spell enhanced a human’s senses to a supernatural level, but with Vareén’s physiology, it went a step further. Her gaze locked onto the skeleton, analyzing its every weakness—chipped bones, worn cartilage, and patches of mold and rot. A clear vulnerability lay in its spine.

She released her arrow, watching as it buried itself into the skeleton’s ribcage. Vertebrae exploded away, nearly severing the undead in two. But as it smashed against the sarcophagus, necrotic magic solidified into makeshift vertebrae, keeping it together. The magic was already strained to its limit.

“Platick!” Rava readied her shield. “What’s the plan?”

Platick, eyeing the approaching skeleton, drew his shortsword and knife. “They’re mindless. No tactics. Rush ‘em.”

“Right! Ah’m wit’ ya!” Glemerr steadied herself, and Thorn let out a loud bark.

As the three charged forward, Stostine hesitated. “Wait! Isn’t the hall a choke point?!”

Rava pulled back to protect the mage, while Ricven bumped into Stostine from behind, expecting her to run. Straightening his collar, he glared up at her. “Look behind us, girl! We’re trapped in front of a giant hole! This ain’t a choke point, it’s a dead end! If they come ta us, we’ll be walled!”

“Cornered,” Vareén corrected, readying another arrow. If they were staying here, so would she.

Platick’s team quickly cleared the crypt’s space. On either side, small stone shelves held countless bones, most starting to animate. Hundreds of skulls, in various states of decay, glowed with necromancy. Fortunately, few seemed stable enough to act.

The skeleton in the hallway raised its sword, but Platick was faster. With a swift thrust, he drove his shortsword into the undead’s cranium. The necromantic energy tried to recover, but it overloaded and fizzled out. The bones scattered across the mosaic floor as Platick readied a dagger in his off-hand.

“Two more skeletons!” he called out. “And skulls on the ceiling! That isn’t a choke point! Get out of—”

Thorn barked frantically at the south wall. Without hesitation, Platick spun and threw his dagger. It struck stone, not bone. A skull stretched its legs like slingshot straps and lunged at a blinding speed.

Platick barely managed to block with his shortsword. The skull collided with less force than expected, like a toy ball. But instead of bouncing off, the spider’s limbs wrapped around his sword. Thorn watched as the skull skittered around the blade, mandibles dripping glowing ichor as it moved to pounce again.

Platick spun his sword, flinging the creature into the stonework at his feet. It corrected itself midair, poised to leap again. Thorn pounced first.

With a fierce growl, Thorn clamped her fangs around the skull, shaking it violently. The spider’s limbs flailed uselessly. Thorn spiked it into the floor and continued her onslaught, determined to crush the undead menace.

He said ceiling. Vareén glanced upwards where the hallway opened up into the crypt proper. Beside her, Stostine hesitated while Rava and Ricven were trying to convince her otherwise. Which unfortunately allowed the spider crawling above them to nearly go unnoticed.

“Eyes up!” Vareén ordered, leveling another arrow.

“Hu—Waghhhh!” Stostine’s shriek was followed by several weak bursts of magical fire aimed at the spider, but not the one Vareén was watching.

Instead, curling up and over the left door, was a second spider skull. The empty sockets glowed with a faint necrotic aura, almost invisible amidst Stostine’s unfocused flames.

“Yo, ugly,” Ricven spoke with a magical reverb, attempting to strike the undead’s essence. The spiders didn’t care. Instead, one of them readied itself and dove.

“And, for reasons you’re not aware of,” Story told Sunset as he picked up two dice. “It has advantage.”

Rarity, seated next to Sunset, glanced at her character sheet and tensed up. “You only have an eleven?”

“I have a Shield spell,” Sunset defended, her tone wavering. Her eyes were fixed on the tendril rearing up to strike at her. “As long as it doesn’t roll too high, I should be able to deflect it.”

Story rolled, and the group watched his face coil up in regret. “Yeah, um. It rolled too high. Eighteen?”

Sunset felt her stomach drop. “Yeah. Yeah, that hi—” She was cut off.

The tendril lashed out and stayed, clinging to her face. The thistle legs faded partway into her skin, muffling her speech into gibberish even she couldn’t understand.

The illusion obscured Sunset’s vision, making it impossible to see anything except her character sheet and dice.

“Hnn! Wuh ish fsssh?!” Sunset shook her head, clawing at the intangible force while her friends looked on in horror.

Story, noticing the worried glances from his brother and the Crusaders, spoke quickly. “Like you all learned last session,” he lied. “The spider skulls latch onto faces when they attack somebody.”

The excuse placated the onlookers, but the players were still concerned.

“Officially, Stostine?” Story addressed Sunset, who tried to look in his direction. “The spider lunges from atop the door, colliding with your face. You feel its fuzzy appendages puncture your flesh as its skull blocks your vision of everything around you. But that’s not all.”

Story picked up a few dice and made a note. “Instantly, you feel its legs wriggling inside your face, wrapping around the nerves in your cheeks and jaw, forcing your mouth open as if to invite it in.”

“WHUUH?!” Sunset froze.

On the screen from Story’s side, he watched the true horror Stostine was experiencing. Once he felt well enough to speak, Story kept his tone grim. “You stand there, mouth widened, as it forces its upper jaw and mandibles down your throat. It will now use Kiss of Undeath.

Story glanced down at the screen, watching the horror Stostine was now in. Once his stomach settled, he went on. “As if not already terrifying, it forces its upper jaw and mandibles into and down your throat. It is going to use Kiss of Undeath.”

“Kiss?” Rarity squirmed, growing pale. “That is not a kiss! That is abhorrent!”

“Please stop. Please stop talking about the spider!” Sweetie Belle covered her ears, while Button and Applebloom seemed too invested in the body horror.

“Do ya think the fuzzy stuff on the end’s supposed ta help find the nerves?” AJ asked my brother.

“Mmm, I dunno.” Button shook his head. “I think it’s to make it harder to rip the spider out of your face.”

Scootaloo blinked. “What, like, it’s all tangled up in the skin?”

Applebloom snapped her fingers. “Oh! Like a fishhook!”

Button nodded. “Yeah, fishhook spider!”

“No! No fishhook spider, that sounds terrible!” Sweetie shrieked, clutching her face, while, Big Mac tried to settle his shivers.

“Girls, Button, enough a’ that,” Applejack scolded them. Then she refocused on me. “Story, Ah know Ah’ll hate askin’ this. But what is Kiss of Undeath?”

“To save on narration.” Story crouched to try meeting Sunset’s eyes. “Sunset? Make a CON Save as the spider injects poison down your throat.”

The girls reacted with disgust. Sunset looked at her dice in terror, realizing how terrible this was. Mostly for the girl who was getting ‘kissed’ by a skull and its spider teeth.

The illusion couldn’t recreate poison, so Sunset counted her blessings as she found one die and rolled. The illusion let her see the total—natural twenty.

Sunset, with a muffled tone, tried to say it aloud. The table couldn’t understand her, they all saw the bright glow of her roll.

Story still didn’t seem relieved. He instead bit his lip and dreaded his next words. “Okay...You shake off the poison. Now, roll for her influence.”

“Hmm?!” Sunset sat up, trying to wave the illusion aside to glare at her DM. “Whuh uu ou mmea’ imfuuensh?!”

“Stostine just got hit by a skull, had her face injected with spikes, her jaw forced open, a skull jammed in, and then had poison shoved down her throat.” Story’s tone was neutral, though still disgusted. “That is more than enough to have her snap, and you know it.”

Sunset tried muffling another argument, but when even she couldn’t understand what came out of her mouth, she resigned to her fate and rolled a D6.

After staring in disappointment, she held up three fingers.

“Green,” Story told her with a sigh.

Of course it is, Sunset thought to herself. Couldn’t be pink or blue, could it?

She knew she had to go along with it. With the game preventing them from spilling secrets, she hoped the girls could play around it.

Their ‘choke point’ quickly filled with the sounds of Stostine’s muffled screams. She flailed and whipped her head in every direction, her words garbled and her hands sputtering between regular flames and green ones.

Those in the hallway tried calling out for her to be careful or calm down as they prepared for the next spider. But with the chaos, not even the spider could find another target to effectively catch. Everyone was too busy dodging errant flames or pulling Stostine away from the pit behind them.

Finally, Rava chose to put her friend first. She lowered her guard from the second spider, trying to line up her hammer with the spider’s skull and not Stostine’s.

“Stostine! Stostine! Hold still, lass, Ah cannae help ya if yer jumpin’ like a beetle!” Stostine, still hearing her, tried to keep her flailing contained, allowing Rava to aim. “Oh, okay! It’s in yer ski—Ah mean, hold on! Ah got it!”

She reared back her hammer like a pool cue, giving the spider its best opportunity. Similar to the first, it launched itself off the ceiling, legs aimed to pierce Rava’s face.

“Pluvv-rhet!”

An arrow intercepted the spider mid-flight. The force cracked open its carapace and redirected the creature just shy of Rava’s head. It skidded across the floor, a chunk of the skull missing to reveal a sickly green necromantic bubble within.

Simultaneously, Rava thrust her hammer into the first spider skull. The jab snapped several legs and peeled the spider sideways like an opened can. Its legs slithered beneath Stostine’s cheeks and jaw, but her face was free.

Stostine spat out a large globule of discolored ooze that clung to the spider’s remaining teeth. As droplets hung from her lips, her eyes and hands were fully compromised by green fire. She grabbed the skull that tried to force itself back onto her face.

“Now you’ll get it!” she shouted, letting the flames burrow into the skull, making its legs flail even more. As the bones began to cremate, they detached and leaped away.

“Oh! You think you're done?!” Stostine yelled. Her flames reignited, growing to the very size of the spider. “You don’t get to be DONE! I decide when you’re done! Get back here!”

Rather than throwing her hands forward, the fire snaked out, traveling towards the skull. The undead dodged, but the flames blocked Rava from entering the chamber.

Vareén lined up her shot to finish it off, but Stostine raised a hand towards her, the fire poised to burn her. “Pick anything else. This one’s mine.”

“Uh, Miss Stostine?” Ricven spoke up. “Ya can stop now. It’s dead-er!”

“I’ll stop when I want to!”

“Want to faster!” Platick shouted, standing behind Thorn. “There’s another one heading for you!”

“Then be useful and deal with it!” Stostine demanded over her flames.

“Do you not see us?!” Platick blocked the skeleton’s sword with his own, with Thorn trying to tear into the first spider while the second waited for its chance to pounce.

Glemerr grew infuriated. Everything in the chamber was ignoring her. Even when she tried covering Platick, the undead ran around her, refusing to strike at her.

“Oi!” Glemerr screamed, stomping at the spider and missing as it skittered aside. The skeleton, right beside her, swung at Platick without considering her a threat. “Fight me ya freaks!”

“Platick, where’s the other one?!” Vareén called, trying to see past the bright green flames enveloping the hall. One skull was a soot stain on the wall, but Stostine didn’t stop. Meanwhile, the other spider crawled beneath the flames, deciding its next target.

Platick pushed the skeleton off, which then instinctively ducked under Glemerr’s elbow. With the moment to reply, he looked to Vareén and then to her right, where the doors hid the rest of the chamber from view.

“It’s rounding the do—"

When the spider was removed from Stostine’s face, Sunset let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. The sound of her voice, free from the illusion, was a relief.

Unfortunately, there were more spiders.

“Platick,” Story called out, “the other spider skull’s coming at you. Advantage.”

“Holy Glem-aroni, all of them keep going for Platick!” Pinkie pointed out. “Why aren’t they going for me?!”

“You—” Story trailed off, shrugging awkwardly. “It’s a mystery.”

Applejack clicked her tongue and sat back, eyeing the tendril leering over her. She adjusted her hat. “Alright. Lemme have it.”

Story nodded, rolling the dice. Then he rolled again. “Seventeen?”

Applejack nodded, pulling her hat down over her face. “Just try keepin’ the detai—wmmh! Mkmm!”

“While trying to warn the others about more undead—” As Story spoke, the tendril tunneled through Applejack’s hat and wrapped around her face. Her friends couldn’t see her expression, but her wild head movements said it all. “The other skull leaps up onto Glemerr, dodging another stomp attempt, and springboards off her knee into Platick’s face.”

“Please don’t describe it again,” Sweetie Belle begged.

Story nodded. “Take four damage. And as it attaches to your face, prying your mouth open, it’s going to use Kiss of Undeath. Make a CON Save.”

Applejack patted the table, finding her die and dropping it with force. It bounced and flickered with light, and as AJ peeked from under her hat, she saw the result. Without a word, she buried her face again and raised a thumb.

Vareén cursed under her breath as Platick was tackled by the skull, stumbling back and nearly tripping over Thorn, who finished crushing her spider skull within her jaw.

Then, another undead, a full skeleton, rounded the corner. Its sword already raised.

“Stosti—gahh!” Rava stepped forward to shield Stostine, but the flames held her back.

Stostine sneered at everything around her as her flames whipped towards whatever moved. The remaining skull dodged all of it, and Rava narrowly avoided one cooking her arm. They were all acting on her own volition.

When the skeleton brought its sword down on Stostine, she couldn’t command her flames fast enough. Instead, she crossed her arms, turned away, and felt the rusty blade carve along her spine.

“Stostine!” “Platick!” Both names echoed as Stostine fell, and another skeleton drove its sword into Platick’s gut, the spider jamming itself down his throat.

Sunset watched helplessly as her character sheet and the table around it dimmed a lifeless gray. It was the second time she had seen it, and the realization of how bad the situation was for Stostine concerned her.

Story looked back at her. “Now, Sunset? This is your first time doing this, I think. I’m gonna need a Death Save from you.”

Sunset glanced at her dice. The lucky one was with Pinkie, but she didn’t want to rely on it. Not for something called a ‘Death Save.’ Instead, Sunset just picked whichever one hadn’t scorned her yet and rolled.

And then proceeded to be scorned by it. “Five.”

Then, she felt it. A numbing sensation crawled down her spine, mirroring Stostine’s injury. One that, internally, filled Sunset with more dread.

That’s not illusion magic.

Story, accustomed to this reaction, nodded solemnly. “That’s a fail. Mark it down.”

She didn’t have to. The darker gray of her character sheet did it for her.

Vareén spun around. “Rava! Ricven! Get her up—” She felt the veins in her head shift, her attention snapping to the skull she’d struck before.

Before it reached her, Vareén swung her bow like a club, smacking it into the wall. It tried to rise, rebounding towards Ricven, but missing too many legs to dodge Rava’s hammer, shattering it.

“Much obliged,” Ricven called, exhaling a bouncing hum. Vareén felt it, a calming resonance, almost losing focus on her Hunter’s Mark.

Before too long, the hum wove into a bubble of aura that, upon bursting along Stostine’s back, jolted her awake.

“Gaaahh!” She writhed before seeing the skeleton looming, green sockets glowing.

“Welcome back,” Vareén shouted. “You gonna be normal now?!”

“That...was close..." Stostine slowly rolled onto her knees. “That...thing thinks it can lay a finger...on a Child of Auntie?!”

That would be a no, Vareén surmised.

“It’s mine!” Stostine growled in a bestial fervor. “All mine! No one touches it but ME!“

“Stostine, get a grip, girl!” Rava shouted, but her words fell on deaf ears.

“Ah said fight me!” Glemerr swung wildly at the skeleton, her fist crashing into its shoulder plate. With how the skeleton tried to avoid her, the punch failed to do any damage. However, just the impact seemed to freeze in place for a moment.

“Ya see me now?” Glemerr’s threw her next punch with so much power that the entire skull snapped off the spine and exploded against the back wall. Yet the body remained unaffected.

Instead, the necrotic power began to coalesce where the head once was, solidifying into a brand-new skull that floated like a ghostly apparition. It no longer had glowing lights in its eye sockets. Even if it did, the glow would have been overwhelmed by all the light around it.

“Yeah, dat’s right.” Glemerr assessed the bones as they froze, seemingly caught off-guard by the brawler. “First it’s da rest a' you. Then it’s dat doppler.”

Every animated bone in the chamber, even the weaker experiments, froze at that moment. Then, as if responding to an unseen command, they all focused on Glemerr. Even the skull twisting around Platick’s face loosened its grip, rotating to stare at her, its eyes flaring with a malicious necrotic aura.

Vareén readied a new arrow, Stostine stood up to face her attacker, and Platick changed tactics. Dropping his shortsword, he drew two daggers, sinking them into the spider skull. With the newfound leverage, he pried the skull off his face, leaving cuts on his cheeks, and chucked it against the ground before pinning it under his boot.

Breathlessly, Platick scanned the scene. “What is...what’d you do?”

“Ah didn’t do nothin’,” Glem answered, ducking as the skeleton swung at her. The first strike missed, but the following attacks were relentless. When the fourth blow cut across her ribs, she cried out in pain.

Behind them, the skeleton that had cut down Stostine tried to rush at Glemerr. It took only two steps before Stostine’s green flames coiled around it, pulling it back.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” Stostine demanded, tightening her fists along the flames as if reining in a wild horse.

Platick growled, pressing down harder on the skull beneath him. “Thorn! Back ‘em up!”

With a bark, Thorn rushed forward. But as she was about to pounce, Stostine’s flames lashed out again, freeing the skeleton. One flame smacked Thorn across the face, sending her tumbling. She barely got to her paws before the skeleton’s blade punctured her side.

“NO!” Vareén’s fury settled on Stostine. “What’re you doing?!”

Fluttershy shrunk back in her seat, eyes wide as she processed Story's words.

“Wh-What?” instinctively marking off her HP. “She...Sunset, what just happened?”

“No one takes this from me,” Sunset growled back at Twilight, her voice filled with an intensity that made Twilight recoil. Sunset's face, however, remained a mask of focused determination, thanks to the illusion.

To the others, it seemed like Sunset was method acting, fully immersed in her character. A far cry from how she was before. Going from ‘we need to take this seriously’ to a full-on method actor concerned them more than anything else.

But in reality, Sunset was conflicted. Shouting at her friends, especially given the last few days, was the furthest thing she wanted to do. She looked distraught playing this way. And only Story and those watching their game could tell.

“You hear me?! NOBODY!”

Fluttershy flinched at Sunset’s outburst. What is going on? Why would Stostine be angry at us? Why is Sunset angry?

She finished marking off her hit points and, without an idea of what else to do, tried to follow through on attacking the skeleton anyway. “Nine?”

Story shook his head. “Doesn’t connect. You try to bite the skeleton, but Stostine and her flames seem to block you. Not to protect the skeleton, you think, but to keep near only herself.”

“Child, what is wrong with you?!” Rarity demanded in Ricven’s tone, equally as confused as the rest. Sunset turned to respond but hesitated. She had to stay in character.

Fluttershy, still puzzled, turned to Story. “Do we know anything about this? Was it from the skull?”

Story pondered for a moment. Then, seeing the scenes with Thorn Wielder play out on his screen, he started considering a new idea. “It’s...interesting. Thorn Wielder, you might have a unique perspective on this. Make a Nature check.”

Perspective? Fluttershy blinked. The only thing that Thorn Wielder knew about was Cortás and Druid things. Was this a Druid thing?

She considered it for a second and then decided that this was just like last time with the bugbear. If she didn’t know what Thorn could do, maybe she could figure it out like back then. “Um. Pinkie Pie? Could I borrow the lucky die?”

Pinkie, this whole time, had been trying to fully commit herself to Glemerr’s fury the whole time. But she was still jumping back and forth between her usual happy self and a tense serious tone. Not aware that the die was helping her with the latter.

Nevertheless, her joy won out in that moment and she tossed it across the table. “Sure! Do that rollin’ thang!”

Fluttershy took the die, which transformed from pink rubber to a brown seed pod in her hand. Then, turning it around in her hand a little, she gave it a roll.

It landed, and amongst the spikes across the seed pod’s surface, Fluttershy quickly spotted the ‘19’ sitting at top and the ‘+3’ appearing on the table beside it. A welcome sight.

Not at all like the haunting figure of an old crone that was suddenly looming over Sunset’s being like a decaying ghost. Its frame dwarfed everybody in the room, its body at least twice the size of Big Mac’s.

The flesh of this creature was a dull, rotting purple-ish brown and its eyes, while still present, failed to fill its eye sockets. It was like the stalks of slugs floated in the center of them and remained staring down at Sunset from above.

The wiry silver hair spilling out from the back of its head was tied up in the yellowing bones of some small humanoid’s hip bone. Possibly a child’s. In fact, much of its body was adorned in similar macabre jewelry, with most of it composed of bones or dehydrated organs that were secured to her.

Her arms were so long, her hands lay flat on their backs to either side of her and the clothes it wore were made up of what could be nothing other than barely cured leather from dozens of small sources. Some of their skins still had tufts of hair that would have likely come from the tops of their heads.

Slowly, a single one of the being’s eyestalks curled from within its socket, staring down at little Fluttershy. And Fluttershy stared back, too horrified for her brain to process the ability to do anything else.

But Fluttershy felt it. Her breathing grew faster, each breath more shallow than the last. A cold sweat formed on her skin, her hands trembling uncontrollably. Her vision tunneled, darkening at the edges as the room seemed to close in around her.

Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat louder and more frantic, drowning out all other sounds. Her mind spiraled, a black hole of fear pulling her in.

Just as Fluttershy felt she was about to be swallowed by the panic, new thoughts pushed through, anchoring her to the present. The thoughts of Thorn Wielder pounded from the back of her head to act.

Plague.
Hag is plague.
Plague on Fey.
Plague on Nature.
Hunt plague.
Kill plague.
Kill!
KILL!
KILL

Those words kept echoing across Fluttershy’s mind. And like before with the bugbear, Fluttershy’s emotions became something unlike her own. Gone was her panic. Gone was any fear.

And Sunset, who was scared of what Stostine was going through, now had to watch as her quiet friend was snarling at her without warning.

“Stostine, we need you focused,” Vareén knocked an arrow towards the skeleton ahead of them, only for Stostine to stare back at her.

“Don’t you dare!” Stostine's eyes flared an even brighter green. “You’re gonna lower that bow. Otherwise WE won’t let you out alive!”

Vareén stared at her, a look of fury staining her eyes. The meaning behind those words didn’t miss her. But, with no other option, she obeyed and lowered her bow.

“Traitor!”

What?!

Vareén whipped back around towards the room itself, mortified that it was directed at her. Instead, all she could see was Platick finally stomping the last spider skull to bits and Glemerr squaring up against the other skeleton. The voice didn’t come from either of them. Instead, it was a new man’s voice.

Both of them turned to look further in the room, but before they could react, a crossbow bolt the size of a forearm embedded itself into the side of Platick’s chest. The force of it threw him up off of his feet, sailing away from Glemerr and falling on top of a couple of shards of bone.

Applejack didn’t have much of a chance for rest.

Once the tendril on her face was off, she pulled away her hat and shook the creeped-out feeling she had hearing her own muffled words. The idea of having a boney snake wrapped around her face and mouth had her more than a little freaked out.

But then, hearing Story describe the crossbow bolt and watching her character sheet go eerily colorless made her get concerned all over again.

Vareén’s heart sank for a moment when she realized what organ just got hit. “Ricven! Do you have another bubble?!”

“Yeah, ‘bout that! The lake’s runnin’ dry!”

“Well then help deal with the shooter!”

Vareén started running ahead, watching the skeleton ready itself to cut at her, only for Thorn to jump despite her numerous injuries. Thorn grabbed it by the femur and started tugging it back.

Once Vareén made it out into the room, she saw him. A larger man, dressed in sturdier armor than anything the Redbrands had seen before. What’s more, his crossbow looked much more menacing. And he nearly had it reloaded already.

“Pluvv-rhet!”

The veins in Vareén's head exposed themselves once more, and when they helped her lock in on a weak point, she wasted no time.

The man shouted in pain, nearly dropping his crossbow as my arrow drove itself right above his knee.

“Stostine?! You wanna kill the skeleton? Then do it!”

With a scream, she spread out her arms, green flames on either side of her coating the walls and copper doors. It took everything Thorn had to duck out of the way before Stostine drove her hands together in a clap, bringing the flames slamming on either side of the skeleton and incinerating the necromantic aura around it before the bones themselves started to chip and disintegrate at the edges.

When the bright green light subsided, the majority of the skeleton tumbled to the floor, bones rolling all over and giving Ricven the space he needed to run after Vareén. And upon doing so, he grinned.

“Finally, a living problem ta deal with!” He taunted. “Too bad he’s as brain-dead as the skeletons!”

The man raised his crossbow to Vareén in the hopes of returning fire. But at Ricven’s words, he faltered. Clutching his head with one hand, he abandoned the idea and started trying to make sense of the pain through his empty skull.

“What’s left?!” Rava shouted back from the hallway.

“Platick?” Story looked to AJ, who was getting a bout of deja vu from the graying paper. “Death Save.”

Applejack gulped and picked up a die, lightly throwing it in front of her to watch as it rolled on a nice number. “18.”

The color didn’t get darker or lighter. It was simply held off for now.

Glemerr grabbed the headless skeleton by the sword arm and then the waist. It swayed and shook to get its sword somewhere near her, but it was useless. What happened instead was Glemerr taking the corpse and launching it up into the ceiling. Upon impact, the necrotic magic dispersed for a moment, releasing a shower of bones that fell across most of the party.

When it was done, Glemerr turned and glared through her mask at the Redcramp massaging his head. “One.”

“Good.” Stostine stormed forward. “He’s mi—” But before she could emerge through the doors, she was stopped.

In front of her, covered in blood, stab wounds, and scorched fur, was Thorn Wielder. Despite the problem trying to level his crossbow at us, she had her back turned to it. Instead, she lowered her body and bared her fangs at Stostine.

“What the?” Stostine sneered at her. “Get out of my way.”

Thorn refused, barking and growling like a mad dog. She scratched her thorned leg across the stone tile, threatening the girl to take another step.

Fluttershy didn’t actually bark and growl at Sunset. It was simply described. However, the edge of Fluttershy’s upper lip was twitching to reveal a few of her teeth as she summoned a glare forward.

As for Sunset, however, her expression grew into a panic. The ‘influence’ that Story had her roll for was something that they had thought about before either of them learned that Stostine was actually alive.

It was just supposed to be little personality cues. Ways to make Stostine act in stress. Green, in this instance, being one of the worst circumstances.

“Fluttershy, please don’t do this,” Sunset tried to warn her.

Somewhere behind Fluttershy’s glare, she was worried. She knew that she was glaring and being angry towards her friend, but the thing that loomed behind her was still there. And the longer Fluttershy stared at it, the more she discovered another level of terror.

And whenever she started getting scared all over again, she picked up and rolled the magic die again. It was a crutch for her. Something to keep her from giving into her panic as the monster that was now smiling at her with its entire focus.

And when the die fell on the table, not rolling but simply landing like a stone, Thorn Wielder’s rage was there to give Fluttershy a method of safety she was quickly becoming dependent on.

But to Sunset, when she saw Fluttershy adamant in having Thorn Wielder stand in her way, she slowly drew up her hands towards her friend. “Stostine readies more fire.”

“I’m not about to let you get in my way, you dumb mutt.”

Thorn only snarled and barked in return.

Rava moved in, standing between the two of them. “What are you two doin’?! If ya hadnae noticed, Platick’s dyin’ in the corner!”

As though to further prove her point, the Redbrand stood tall, shaking his head once again as he looked between the only three people in the room: Vareén, Ricven, and Glemerr.

Originally, it looked like he was going to shoot Vareén, but Ricven’s words slammed his brain in so many directions, he struggled to keep up with what was going on. So instead, he went for his original target. The half-orc.

Glemerr saw him aiming for her and took off running for the man, hoping to use the momentum to slam him up against the back wall behind him. But she never made it that far.

Instead, the man hefted up the crossbow, gave his head one last shake, and fired. Even with Ricven’s magic ruining his conscntration, the man still hit his mark. Glemerr found the bolt several inches into her thigh and her dash came to an end.

She let out a cry and tumbled, falling to the floor with a massive bang. It took all her focus not to fall on top of the bolt and sink it deeper into her leg. But all the same, she didn’t look like she was in good condition anymore.

“So, good news,” Story told them. “It wasn’t a nat twenty. Bad news? Ten damage.”

Twilight and a few of the others glanced over towards Pinkie. She took a few bad hits in this fight. And aside from Rainbow Dash, ten damage was more than half of any of their character’s lives.

“How bad is it, darling?” Rarity asked her.

Pinkie nervously giggled. “Uh. Relentless Endurance bad?”

“S-Stay back!” The thug shouted at them, Ricven’s magic finally subsiding. “You’re not winnin’ this! You can either stay back! Or. Or you die. Your call!”

Given his record with the two people on the ground in the room, the two perfectly healthy opponents admitted it was a decent threat. Unfortunately it was undermined by the man himself hobbling behind cover with his bad leg.

“Interestin’ options,” Ricven mused boredly. “What do ya say, Miss Vareén?”

Vareén ignored him and looked back towards the copper doors. “We could use a hand back here! Any of you feel like doing anything?!”

“Workin’ on it! She’s up tae high doh” Rava returned, now looking purely towards Stostine. “Stost, what’re ya doin’? Yer actin’ like a rite dobber, an’ fer what? Come ta yer senses, lassie!”

“You’re gonna tell me that?!” Stostine stared back with a tightened stare. “She’s the one baring her teeth! If she just stayed out of my way, every undead and idiot would already be dead!”

Rava shook her head. “Ah couldnae care less about that! All that matters is seein’ all of us make it out the other side! Platick needs help an’ neither of us can help him alone! Not with you scarin’ us from the back row!”

Thorn let out another bout of barking, but that only made Rava turn around. “Thorn, please! Whatever beef ya got with her, it don’t need all the snarlin’!”

Stostine glowered at the two of them, watching as Rava’s attention was on Thorn. And from behind Rava, Thorn never dropped her guard. It was only after Rava turned her back on Stostine did Thorn finally look back at the Dwarf.

Doesn’t care about them dead? Stostine thought to herself. It’s their fault we’re all here in the first place! If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be bleeding. I wouldn’t have nearly died!

Thorn kept snarling, trying to side-step Rava, but the Dwarf wouldn’t let her. And when Thorn instead tried to juke her out of the way, Rava slammed her shield into the stone, inches away from Thorn’s paws.

“Enough!” Rava shouted at her. “Thorn Wielder! Stostine’s on our side! Whatever daffy she’s goin’ through, Ah know she don’t mean it! She’s our friend!”

Then, Rava whipped around to me. “You! Are our friend! An’ right now, one a’ yer friends is dyin’! Come on Stostine, Ah know ya care. Please, just snap out of it!”

Friend? Stostine nearly scoffed at the thought, but Rava started pointing behind her and at Platick. He was trying to force himself to breath, but it was obvious the crossbow bolt had ruined any chance of doing it correctly.

He doesn’t think I’m his friend, Stostine argued at herself. But still, it gave her pause. Rava was her friend. Glemerr was her friend. And Vareén was now too. And when she zeroed in on each of them, the green in her eyes faded.

Each of them are still keeping me safe, she thought. And once that thought entered her mind, the rest of her cynical thoughts faltered.

They’re helping me. I need to help them. I need to help— Stostine stared down at Platick, who was trying to crawl back towards the hallway towards them.

“Applejack? Another Death Save.”

Applejack took a breath of her own and rolled. But the number it stopped on made her catch her breath midway through. “F-Four.”

She glanced down at the side of her torso. Around where her right lung was, she watched a pool of gray grow and encompass the half of her body. Her character sheet going gray was old hat. This was new and it worried her.

And Sunset, hearing the result, looked back towards Story. “Story. Rava’s forgiving her. Forgiveness. That’s the one, right?!”

Story urgently checked with the magic around him. And when he saw no complaints, he seemed to melt in relief. With Sunset following immediately after.

At the same time, while Fluttershy rolled the lucky die for the umpenth time to force away her fright, she watched as the apparition turned, gave a displeased look at Rainbow, and then faded away.

Upon that, all semblance of Fluttershy’s shock and fear left with it. She nearly collapsed onto the table in front of her, but the group mistakenly confused her exhaustion for relief of the moment while Story described Stostine snapping out of her insanity.

Platick suddenly lurched, coughing up blood violently as he let himself fall to his back.

“Platick!”

Stostine tried to run out after him, but came inches away from catching a stray crossbow bolt to the temple when one missed Vareén, sailed past her, and shattered against the copper door.

Instead, Stostine flinched back and she, Rava, and Thorn turned to watch Vareén return fire, scaring the man back behind cover while she and Ricven moved clockwise to look into the chamber.

“It’s the prison,” Vareén announced. And in that moment, everyone save for Platick and Thorn perked up.

They’re right there, Ricven thought to himself, a sudden feeling of desperation dawning on him from seemingly nowhere. “The girls are inside! They gotta be! Everybody focus up!”

“Right.” Stostine looked back at Platick. He was trying to stay awake, but the blood he was hacking up was becoming an unsettling amount. We can’t let anyone else get shot.

I looked at Rava and spoke in Dwarven. “Give Ricven and Vareén cover! Keep the pressure on him!”

“Right!” “Got it!” Both Rava and Vareén replied in kind, with the former rushing up in front of the latter to help give her cover.

As the Dwarf went, Thorn stepped out from behind the door and abruptly stood herself up on her hindlegs before morphing back into that of a Cortássian elf. Her fur and blood melted away leaving Thorn Wielder devoid of any form of injury.

Thorn took a moment to look over her shoulder, locking eyes with Stostine with an unreadable expression before holding out her vines arm towards the jailroom door.

Finally, Glemerr slowly rose to her feet. She was breathing heavily and took a moment to snap the half of the majority of the bolt that was hanging out of her leg. The bolt tip she would have to remove later.

“Glemerr,” Stostine shouted, pulling her attention away from Thorn Wielder. “I need you to bring Platick to me! Quickly, please!”

Glemerr huffed, giving her a single firm nod before turning on her heel and rushing back for Platick. With her heavy footfalls, it was almost a guarantee that the Redbrand would hear what was happening. Not that it changed much.

Once Glemerr had Platick in her arms and started back to Stostine, the Redbrand leapt from cover once more. All he expected to see was Vareén and Ricven standing out in the open with the orc running away. Instead, what he saw was a thorned vine flying for his neck.

The man ducked low, narrowly missing the vine as Ricven didn’t bother making an insult. Instead, he put his fingers together and let out this sharp whistle that rang in the man’s head. But to no avail.

Seeing Rava protecting the other two, the man stood and fired out at Thorn as her vine retracted. It did little to take her down, but the bolt itself stil glanced across her vine arm, making her writhe in place with a scream.

Rava took this as her chance to try and close in on him, and all the man could do about it was chuck his crossbow at her in defiance. She brought up her shield, bashed the crossbow away and looked back at him with a look of disappointment.

The man didn’t care. Instead, he ran for other door on his side of the chamber. He slid in front of it, trying as hard as he could to throw it open and escape before any of them could reach him in time.

Vareén simply shook her head as she and Ricven walked towards the jailroom. Without even looking, she pulled the bowstring back, aimed her bow to the left and—

Twilight quickly picked up and tossed her die, too distracted with finding the damage die she needed to roll for damage. Too bad too, because it meant she couldn’t cheer at the same time as everyone else when her die came to a stop.

Because on the top of Twilight’s happily glowing die was a natural twenty.

“Does. Wait.” Twilight glanced around at her dice. “Does the Hunter’s Mark damage get doubled too?”

“It does,” Story told her with a thankful smile. “Vareén gets four dice to roll.”

“That beats Glemerr!” Pinkie cheered. “She’s only had three! This is gonna be a super strong shot!”

“It’s gotta be enough, yeah?” Applejack asked, rubbing at her face. “He can’t be lookin’ good after the last shot he took from Vareén.”

Twilight made quick work gathering up all the dice she needed. Two D8s and two D6s. Thanks to Shining sparing his dice, she had more than enough on her own.

She tossed them out in a cluster, watching them roll in different directions across the table. And as they came to a halt, Twilight making quick work of the math, she felt pretty confident in the total.

“Twenty damage.”

Applejack let out a whistle. “Yeah, that’s gotta do it.”

Story gave out a chuckle. “Uh-huh. Even if you didn’t whittle him down before, that would’ve done it.”

Without even looking, she pulled the bowstring back, aimed her bow to the left and let it thunk into the back of his head. The man was dead before he even touched the doorknob.

“His breathin’s gettin’ real low.” From behind the three, Glemerr’s voice shook. It gave Vareén and Rava pause, but Ricven kept going for the jailroom. “He...A-Ah don’ have a way ta bandage dis! If Ah rip out dat arrow, he’s—” “It’s fine!”

From back in the hallway, Stostine rolled up her sleeves. Glemerr had shifted Platick’s armor enough to reach the shirt that was under it and rip it away to reveal his chest. The bolt plugged up the wound, so there wasn’t much blood leaking out of him. However, the amount of blood he was choking on was a different story.

Stostine firmly planted her hands against his body, pushing on the wound in a way where more blood started to spill out from around the bolt. But the moment the crimson reached Stostine’s hands, her palms and the cracks across her body glowed with a soft divine light that matched her eyes.

“When I say so, remove the bolt,” Stostine told the half-orc. Glemerr tried to argue, but Stostine simply shook her head. “Trust me. I’ve been stabbed enough, I know how it works. He’ll be fine.”

“...ha...this..." Platick’s voice was weak, but still we heard his indignation.

“You’ll hate dying more,” Stostine assured him, her eyes continuously glowing down at him. “Glemerr, ready?”

“Y-Yeah...?” She took hold of the bolt. She seemed visibly unsure about this.

The rest of the group watched in concern as the woman who threatened several of them with magic was now pumping that same magic into Platick’s system.

“Lady Rava,” Ricven called out from the other room. “He’ll be fine. You need ta help me out in here. These folks ain’t lookin’ much better.”

Rava nodded after a second. “Ah’m comin’. Vareén, be a dear and help ‘em, would ya?”

“I—me?” Vareén watched the Dwarf go. “What do I do?”

Without much direction, Vareén simply walked over and watched with Thorn as Stostine gave Glemerr the signal to remove the bolt. Glem cringed, but decided to trust Stostine nonetheless.

She quickly yanked the bolt as cleanly as she could in one go. Platick seized in pain, but still Stostine pressed her palms against his body. And as the light faded from across Stostine’s body, cracks began to form across Platick’s before his breathing slowly became more even.

“Hey. Hey.” Lightly, Stostine tapped the side of Platick’s face. “Wake up, Platick. You’re going to be fine.”

Platick turned to his side, retching and hacking up blood both fresh and dry. “Y’know.” He hacked a few more times, with less blood coming out that time. “Urgghhh...You can only be stabbed so many times in the same lung before it gets old.”

“Really? What’s the magic number of lung stabs?” Vareén asked, crossing her arms.

Platick gave her a tired look and just shook his head. “Shut up.”

He tried picking himself up off the floor, but Glemerr ignored his complaints and helped him anyway. When he was on his feet, he looked around the space near us and noticed the large amount of burn marks across the walls and floor.

“So..." He gave me a look, and then saw the more intense look that Thorn was giving me and decided there was going to be an explanation without his input. “I saw the room the crossbowman came out of. It had a jail cell in it.”

“We know.” Vareén nodded. Then, she looked over towards the door. “Ricven? Rava? Are they stable?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that. We’re gonna need a hand,” Ricven called out. “We got four folks in here. All four of ‘em roughed up, and one looks like he regrets his life choices.”

“An’ we can’t find the keys!” Rava added. “There’s a hook on the wall, but it’s empty. We’ll need help pickin’ the locks.”

Platick took a slow breath, flinching at the strain of stretching and compressing his newly repaired lung. “Eeyup. Sounds like my turn. Glemerr? Little help?”

“‘Course. Come on.” Glemerr lifted up one of Platick’s arms, lowering herself under it to help him out. As they walked, Stostine tried to follow along, but the blade of Thorn’s scythe and Vareén’s tense glare gave her plenty of reason to stay put.

“No,” Thorn told her in Elvish. “You will stay here. We will talk.”

Author's Note

Where does the time go? Sorry for the day late post everybody!

I don't really have too much of an excuse for this one. I had it ready, but I got distracted on yesterday with a few birthday things. Both mine, and my grandparents. (Their birthdays are side by side on days, so the family tries to make it a big thing). I ended up making a blog post thing last weekend explaining it, but since I have no experience with those and never did it with this story, I wasn't sure if anyone would spot it.

From now on, if there's no new chapter on a weekend when there's supposed to be, I'm gonna try and post something on one of those. I want to get better on trying to give updates when schedules don't work out.

Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I tried to go a little off-script in terms of turn order to make the fight more dynamic, so I'm wondering how well it worked out. Let me know what ya think!

Also, next chapter next Saturday! (he said, making a little spoiler blurb right after)

Hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think!
Cheers,
-Zeke