Chapter Text
*sounds of a dinner parlour*
Ah, good evening, Traveller. And welcome...to the Penumbra.
Tonight’s entertainment is: Juno Steel and the Dungeon of Dreams.
*sounds fade out*
Rita’s game suddenly picked up in pace as she collected and laid out a large sheet of paper that she had been keeping next to her makeshift chair. The paper unfurled to reveal a hastily-drawn area that vaguely resembled a town square, with small statue-like shapes and brown lines indicating the walls of shops. Rita produced a selection of small red chips with our names on them and put them outside of one such building, presumably the tavern we had just been carousing in.
“Okay, I need everyone to roll an Initiative roll!” Rita said loudly as she gestured for Juno to roll and began to put together something behind her…screen. I remembered that she had called it a screen when she had been talking to me the previous day after our usual show. I had not placed any computer monitors behind it when I had set it up earlier today, so I cannot imagine why “screen” was the word used.
“And where is our Initiative modifier, Rita darling?” I watched Buddy scan up and down her character sheet.
“It’s located right above the Hit Point total.” I answered as Juno passed me the dice roller. I rolled, got a 16, then passed it over to Buddy.
“Thank you, Jet.” She rolled, getting a 15 on her die roll, and passed it over to the Thief.
Rita spread her hands wide and announced, “You come out into the main plaza outside the Umbra Hotel, and it’s absolute chaos! There’s a few little creatures that are beating up a dwarven guard over here,” whereby she laid a small grey token and three green tokens to our characters’ left, “then there’s another couple of them trying to steal from this wagon,” she finished as she laid out two more tokens on our right, over by a mess of scribbles that I took to be the wagon. “They’ve got big green ears, large pointed teeth, and are dressed in a variety of weird red and brown rags.”
By this point, both the Thief and Vespa had rolled their initiative rolls as well and they passed the dice roller back to Rita. She quickly made a couple of rolls behind her screen and then said, “Alright so as you enter the plaza, what is everyone’s initiative result?” We all quickly told her, and she continued, “In that case, Mista Jet, you go first.”
I quickly glanced at my character sheet to see what I could do. I know that I had my shield and spear, so I decided a straightforward attack was the most likely course of action. “I would like to move towards the trio of creatures attacking the guard with my spear prepared.”
“Alrighty, Mista Jet.” Rita picked up my token and moved it towards the group of creatures, carefully counting each square until I was only a couple of squares away. “Unfortunately you’re a little too far to get into melee with them, Mista Jet, but you can always throw your spear from there if you want to attack.” She shrugged. “Or you can run the remaining distance but that’s be the rest of ya turn.”
I shrugged. “Why not? I’ll attack with my spear.” Rita passed the dice roller over. “This is also a twenty-sided die?”
“Yeah, plus your attack bonus for your spear, which is plus six, I think?”
“It’s plus five, actually, but thank you, Rita.” I rolled the die and got a result of eleven, plus five was…“Sixteen.”
“That’ll hit him! Now roll the damage for the spear attack.” I did so and only got a one on the eight-sided die, plus three was four. “You launch your spear at the goblin, and it grazes it in the shoulder-”
“A goblin, you say?” I heard the Thief coo from across the table, causing me to glance in his direction. “Would we recognize them as goblins, or was that a simple slip of the tongue?”
Rita looked down at her notes for a moment, then said, “You can roll a Nature check if you wanna know what they are, Mista Ransom, which anyone can do if they want.”
The Thief immediately took the dice roller from me and rolled a twenty on the die. “If I remember correctly, a natural twenty is an automatic success, isn’t it?” he answered smugly.
“Well, yeah, but I’d rather let anyone else roll if they want before I tell ya.”
“I’d like to know too.” Vespa replied, snatching the roller from the Thief. “Uh, fourteen, I think.”
“Okay,” Rita replied with a smirk, “anyone else?”
“You know what, I’ll bite.” Juno said, carefully picking up the device from Vespa.
“Why would you need to know?” Vespa said accusatorially. “Your boyfriend already got a natural twenty.”
“Well, Mura knows, but Amric might not, so…” He rolled it and got a fifteen in total.
“Okay, yeah, they’re goblins.” Rita admitted with a chuckle. “You’d have to roll really bad to not know that.” She then turned back in my direction and asked if there was anything else I would like to do with my turn. Since I did not, my turn ended.
The Thief went next, pretending you pull something from his belt. I saw Vespa tense next to him a little. “Mura,” he said, “would like to throw a dagger at the nearest...goblin, was it?...aiming to disable them as quickly as possible.”
“Alright, Mista Ransom! The closest ones would be over here, by the wagon.” The Thief nodded, Jet, if you’ll pass him the roller...”
I slowly gave him the dice roller, and he rolled his attack. It was much higher than my attack, but I hadn’t rolled particularly well so I assumed he had been luckier than me. Then he shook his head in mild annoyance.
“Rita, dear, I forgot to apply my poison to the daggers first. Could I perhaps rewind a step and do that first?”
Rita sighed. “Sure, it’s your first time tryin’ to remember all this stuff, I won’t fault ya for forgetting something.” She nodded and Peter then rolled two four-sided dice, getting a three and a one. “Eight damage in total, only one being the poison damage. If I’m not mistaken, I need have allies closer to the enemies to add the sneak attack damage?”
“Actually you do, because you’re going before them. It’s like they were focused on raiding the wagon and didn’t notice you.”
“Oh well in that case I need to add some more damage.” The Thief rolled yet another two six-sided dice, adding an additional four. “That makes twelve total damage to the goblin.”
“Yeah, that’d kill him, actually. You watch as it catches the goblin in the side of the throat and there’s a lot of blood everywhere as he falls over dead. Great shot!” She removed the one goblin figure from the board, leaving us with four left to dispatch. “If you wanna move somewhere, Mista Ransom, you can do that too.”
“I think I’ll move just a couple of squares closer to the wagon. I don’t want to make myself a big target, but I also want to get closer and see what they’re stealing, if I can.”
“Okay, Mura. You can get a little closer, like that far?” She then moved the Thief’s token two squares closer to the goblins, and the Thief nodded. She then leaned forward a little and said, “All of you notice as Mura moves towards the goblins that a small dark green tail pokes out from underneath his cloak.”
“Would it happen to be a dragonborn tail,” Buddy asked, “not unlike the ones that me and Betru have? Or something else?”
“Well, you’re not too sure.” Rita gave Peter a quizzical look, as though asking for permission of some kind. The Thief nodded, and she continued, “It looks kind of scaly, like yours, but Mura’s a bit short for a dragonborn.”
“There can’t be that many scaly folk out there.” Vespa announced. “Could we roll something or some shit to find out?”
“Ummm.” Rita was biting her lip, which told me that she was likely having a difficult time deciding something.
“Well, can we or can’t we?” Juno demanded. “It’s not a hard question.”
“I think I’ll leave it up to Peter, actually.” Rita said with finality. Her brow arced in discomfort.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Vespa rolled her eyes aggressively. “I thought you were in charge of this game, Rita.”
“I mean, technically we’re all in charge of the game, but I just know the most about it…”
“Vespa, stand down.” Buddy stood up yet again. “Juno, I’m sure that Rita has a lot of factors to weigh. Perhaps the specifics of Pete’s character are meant to be a secret, and she was wondering if Peter was comfortable sharing that information so soon.”
“Sorry, Rita.” Juno mumbled next to me. I don’t think it was loud enough for Rita to hear it.
“Last I recall,” she continued, “Rita said this is a cooperative game, and we are hardly being cooperative right now. I am not going to be the first one to treat this like a legitimate training exercise, but we can at least work together to get the most from this.” At that, she sat back down and I saw her put her head in her hands like she had done to me all those years ago when I would still “act up” from time to time. I understood that this was not a debate, but the silence that followed Buddy’s statements dragged on a little too long to be comfortable.
“Okay, so do you want to roll a Nature check for me, Miss Vespa?” Rita said with a scowl.
Vespa shrugged. “I guess the moment’s passed or whatever. Maybe he’s just short or something.”
“Alright then, your turn Miss Buddy.” Rita leaned back on her box as if it were a stool, and I watched as she fumbled for half a second as she had apparently forgotten that the makeshift chair had no back, and therefore no way for her to lean against it. I heard Juno chuckle a bit as she grabbed onto the table for support.
“Thank you, Rita. Neira is going to indicate that the goblins beating up the guard are more of a threat to the townsfolk than the singular goblin attacking the cart, and…” Buddy checked her sheet for a moment, flipping it over and reading for a moment. “Could I use a Sacred Flame on that goblin there?”
“Sure, it’ll try to dodge out of the way, though.” Rita picked up the dice roller and got a result of 11. “Is 13 enough to beat the Spell Save DC on your spell sheet?”
“I have a fourteen for that statistic, so I’ll say no.”
“Alright, then you get to roll the damage for that then. Neira raises her, um, you have a holy symbol right?” Buddy nodded, and Rita continued, “Right, you raise your holy symbol and there’s a brilliant flash of light like the sun rising except it’s on the ground, and a beam of sunlight hits this goblin and does…?”
“2 damage. Not my best, I suppose.” Buddy smirked in response as Rita marked something down in one of her notebooks.
“The goblin tried to dodge out of the way, and the beam barely grazes its shoulder, giving it a bit of a burn. Anything else you’d like to do, Buddy?”
“Nope, I think I’ll stay put, otherwise.”
“Okay. Miss Vespa, it’s your turn.”
“Right, um, I’m going to…” Vespa waved her hands in the air a little bit that I had seen her do when she was having difficulty deciding on a course of action. “…that! Yeah! I am going to rage!” Vespa made an angry face and growled a little. “I think that’s a bonus action, so I can still do other stuff, right?”
“Yeah, you can move to get closer to the enemies and then attack them!” The Thief said next to her.
“Right, uh, thanks, Ransom. I will, um, do that.” She then moved her figure to where the three goblins were, and explained that she took her gigantic decorated sword from her scabbard and sliced at one of the goblins. She rolled a really high attack roll and then rolled a very high damage roll as well. She was smiling, and she smirked at the Thief. “I bet that absolutely eviscerates the goblin!”
“It does! You watch as Betru takes out their sword and slices the goblin right across the gut, causing it to collapse to the ground. Great job!” Rita made another note on her notebook and removed another goblin token from play, leaving three left. “Juno’s turn is next.”
Juno looked distressed for a moment as he looked at his papers. “Um, there was a spell…it did, like, poison damage? I can’t find remember which one-“ Then he snapped his fingers. “Poison Spray, that one. I’d like to do that. You said it kind of hits two people, right?”
“Right, yeah. So Amric rubs his hands togetha and a purplish orb of something nasty forms between his hands and it flies out towards the goblins. Roll an attack.” Juno did so, getting a miss on one and a hit on the other. “Poisonous liquid splatters on the two goblins, but one of them dodges enough of it to not get hurt by it a lot. The other though, takes-”
“One damage.” Juno said dejectedly.
“Yeah, it wasn’t exactly your best but every little bit helps!” When Juno indicated that Amric was not going to do anything else on his turn, Rita continued by having the guard take his turn. “He gets up to try and flee, crying out a little from a wound in his leg. He tries to hobble away, but then a goblin jumps on him and stabs at him!” She picked up the tokens and moved them a couple of squares away. It looks like he’s having a bad time, then the goblin stabs him again and he crumples to ground, bleeding from the neck and back.”
“That’s not so good!” I said.
Rita nods. “If you can get a healing spell or a potion to him, he’ll probably be okay, but it’s lookin’ dire. The other goblin,” and at this she indicated the token next to Vespa’s character, “takes a strike at you.” She rolled and got a high number, but only did four points of damage.
Vespa found that amusing, oddly. “I’ve got fifteen hit points; I can live with four less.”
Rita then said the other goblin had hopped into the cart, still looking for something and using the cart for cover. “That ends the round,” Rita announced, “so we’ll head back up to the top of the round with Jet. What’s Stalwart up to this round?”
I took another good look at the battlefield. Vespa’s character was currently fighting a goblin, a second was standing over the dying guard, and a third was preparing to attack the Thief’s character. Things were beginning to become more tricky.
I eventually replied, “I think I will have Stalwart retrieve his spear from the ground...where would it have landed?”
Rita thought to herself for a moment. “It’d be, erm, around here.” She then pointed to a square a short distance behind the goblin. “Because you threw the spear?”
“I attacked the goblin by throwing my spear at it, yes. Could I go over, retrieve my spear, and then move back in to attack the goblin nearby me?” I figured that this would work within the confines of the game.
“Yep!” I moved my figurine over towards the goblin, and Rita described my spear’s successful stab at it, which was just enough to wound it badly in the shoulder.
Then it was the Thief’s turn again. “I think I’m going to take advantage of Betru’s work over there, if you’ll pardon the pun, and I’ll throw another dagger at the goblin next to her.”
“Them.”
“Oh, sorry, next to them.” The Thief then rolled a remarkable attack that killed the goblin outright. Rita described in detail how Mura’s knife plunged into the goblin’s neck, causing it to fall lifeless to the ground.
“Great shot, Mista Ransom!” Rita said in response to Peter finishing his turn. “It’ll be your turn next, Miss Buddy.”
“Thank you, Rita. I believe I’ll have Neira move to deal with the rogue goblin over by Mura. I take out my mace and give it a solid hit.” Buddy rolled very well as well, leading to the goblin getting badly damaged.
Vespa’s turn was next, and she simply declared that the goblin was going to be “dead meat.” Her attack hit it square in the face, driving it limply into the ground. That left Juno to deal with the last goblin on his turn by launching a collection of green magical missiles that blew it to pieces.
“Well done, everyone!” Rita said as she took the remaining tokens off of the map and began to roll it up again. “That’s your first combat down! How did it go?”
Juno immediately pouted. “I barely got to do anything! I basically cleaned up the remaining goblins while the rest of you were busy being big heroes!”
Buddy cleared her throat. “But you did it admirably, Juno. It was mainly the luck of the roll that you didn’t get much of a chance to join us as, what, ‘big heroes’?”
Vespa and Peter gave each other a strange look, and one thing that stood out was that there was no animosity in their expressions as they regaled each other with tales of their exploits and how Peter did so well on his attacks. I was mostly sneaking glances at Rita, and she was positively beaming.
“Right, well,” Rita tried to get everyone’s attention, and needed a couple of moments before everyone calmed down so she could continue, “as you deal with the last of the goblins, Amric, you can see that they were robbing a wagon filled with books. The goblins didn’t find what they were looking for there, it seems; you interrupted them before they could steal what they were searching for.”
“Books?” Juno narrowed his eye. “Any particular kind of books?”
“You can roll an investigation check.” Rita looked away from Juno while he was rolling. “What is everyone else doin’?”
“I will quickly run over to the guard.” Buddy answered without a second’s hesitation. “Is he in danger of dying?”
“Yeah, looks like the goblin gave him a couple of bad stabs to the neck, so he might bleed out if no one helps him.”
“Then I’ll cast a Cure Wounds.” Buddy mimicked putting her hands on someone, and whispered, “May the light of the stars soothe your wounds.”
“That’ll work! Make sure you mark off the use of the spell.” Rita flipped a page in her notebook. “He sputters a little in your arms as the wounds close, then hoarsely chokes out, Thank you, stranger.“ Rita gave herself a weird accent for the guard’s voice, something that reminded me of movies about old Earth’s Brit-Een or whatever it was called.
I interrupted, “Are there other goblins anywhere in sight?”
“Good question!” Rita glanced at her notebook again. “The guard points, There’s the rest of them! Don’t let them get away!”
I replied, “Quick everyone! We must stop them from getting away!“ Juno nodded next to me, and both Vespa and Peter looked interested in further fantasy carnage as we told Rita that we would pursue the goblins…
*sounds of a dinner parlour fade back in*
Oh, going so soon? Well, there will be plenty more from this story, I assure you.
The Penumbra Podcast is created and produced by Kevin Vibert and Sophie Takagi Kaner, and funded by your generous support on Patreon. We would like to thank all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Noah “Lizard Lord” Simes, Jet is Metal Sir Angelo, and Sad Wizard Vibes for their generous contributions per episode.
I’m sorry you’ve been called away, dear traveller. We hope to see you again soon.