The door opened. Oggy smelled a dwarf and a human. Dwarfs and humans are better than halflings because they have more meat. Oggy looked. The dwarf wore armor the dungeon master hated. If Oggy killed the dwarf, the dungeon master would reward him. Make him grow another head. Make him smart. Make him magic. Oggy had to kill fast or stinking gnolls steal his kill. Oggy hated gnolls.

Oggy groaned as he got to his feet. Oggy was wonderfully fat. He picked up his club which was leaning against the grill so he wouldn’t forget that he had a club. His club was also very fat. Every time he found a sharp thing he put it in the club so it both crushed and made holes. Oggy liked his club. He killed many people with his club. He also used it to scratch his back because he couldn’t reach with his hand anymore. Oggy was beautifully fat.

The dwarf threw her hammer. It hit Oggy on the head. There was a red bump where it hit. Oggy became angry. He roared to make scary and ran to crush the dwarf with his fat club. If the dwarf didn’t die from the club, he’d punish her for being a bad dwarf. Oggy ground his teeth and squeezed his club as he imagined how he’d punish the dwarf.

The dwarf ran away from him. She ran slowly because she had short legs and wore big armor with the symbol the dungeon master hated. The human had long legs and light armor but he still ran as slowly as the dwarf.

The human was big, but he didn’t have any weapons. Maybe he was a magic human? Oggy hated magic humans. He was afraid they’d turn him into a gerbil. Oggy didn’t want to be a gerbil: he wanted to be an ogre.

Oggy swung his club at the dwarf, but she dodged it. His club hit the wall and the tunnel shook because Oggy was very strong. The human slapped him with a door and Oggy tasted blood. He would punish the human very hard also. Oggy roared to make scary. His enemies backed a little more. The dwarf threw her hammer again, but Oggy swatted it away with his club. The hammer circled him like a scared bird and flew back to the dwarf. Oggy was happy. He will soon have this hammer and use it to kill people from far away. Oggy didn’t like walking. It made him less fat.

Oggy tried to grab the unarmed human, but the human jumped like a big gerbil and landed out of reach. Oggy grumbled and lunged for the human. The floor grabbed Oggy’s feet and he fell flat on his face. He started to get up but the dwarf hit him on the hand and he fell on his face again. Oggy was starting to get scared. If the floor also fought him, it would be a very hard fight. The floor was very big.

Oggy noticed that both his feet were stuck to a green door on the floor. He wanted to tear it off, but he was afraid of exposing his back to the little creatures. He saw the dwarf sneaking up on him and jabbed her with his club. It met with her shield. The shield screamed as the metal in the club scraped against the metal in the shield. There were sparks. The sound hurt Oggy’s ears and teeth.

Oggy tried to use his other hand to get up, but a part of the floor suddenly folded in half and pinched his hand very hard. It was another evil door. Oggy screamed because his fingers hurt a lot. Oggy tried to rip it off with his other hand. Something hit him between his legs. He whimpered in pain and fell to his knees. A door whooshed through the air and slammed into the side of his face. A hammer crashed into his ribs. Oggy coughed blood.

He flapped his trapped hand wildly and felt his palm connect with something. He heard a grunt and saw the human sliding down a wall. He didn’t see the dwarf.

Oggy was bleeding from many places and he couldn’t walk. Oggy didn’t like to bleed. It made him less fat. Oggy turned to hobble back to his room.

The dwarf hit him on the back of the knee. Oggy lost balance and fell on his face again. Now Oggy just wanted to crawl back to his room and eat his halfling and wait until he was fully fat again and then open the dwarf’s belly and take all the red things out.

His fat club was on the floor. The dwarf pulled one of the sharp things from his club and showed him her teeth. He tried to crush her with the door that was stuck to his hand. The dwarf didn’t try to dodge. Instead, she held up the sharp thing. It made a hole in the door and then it made a hole in Oggy’s hand. Oggy howled in pain. It was a very sharp thing.

He raised his hand. The dwarf remained hanging from the sharp thing. He decided to flatten her against the wall but the dwarf was too hard. This only made the sharp thing stick from the back of his hand even more. The dwarf pressed her feet against the wall and pushed. Oggy saw the sharp thing coming toward him.

***

Hilda pulled the blade from the dead monster’s eye and wiped it on its shirt, leaving behind a streak of blood and brain matter. A +2 magic sword worth a 1000 gp? Not bad. Not bad at all! Good thing the brute was too dumb to use the sword as a sword, or he’d have sliced right through her armor. Hilda wondered if the fight earned her enough XP to gain a level. She wouldn’t know until her nightly devotion, which she hoped would come very soon. Sometimes, when she gained levels, her Goddess spoke to her. Well, once. In the shower. Still, it was an amazing experience. The best she ever had, despite Gloin's best efforts. Last time they spoke, the Goddess teased Hilda's destiny. Maybe next time she will finally reveal it?

“Med’ka,” the dwarf turned to her companion, who was leaning against a wall, looking dazed. “Are you alive?”

“Sure,” the barbarian said, shaking his head. “Just waiting for the stars to stop swirling.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Go check on the halfling, she looks more in need of healing than I am.”

“It’s okay,” Hilda said while making a few test swings with her newfound treasure. “No one is getting any healing until moonrise. I’ve used up all my spell slots for the day.” Still, she went to check on the prisoner.

Hilda wrinkled her nose as she entered the fetid room. She quickly scanned the walls, but the halfling was gone. The manacles that until recently held the little creature swayed slightly and scraped against the wall. With a sinking feeling, the dwarf reached for her belt. Sure enough, her medallion was gone.

***

Medvak took his time removing the massive door from its hinges. The workmanship was shoddy, but the quality of the materials was satisfactory. He could sell it for scraps or rework it into a plethora of useful items. He felt like he was on the verge of gaining a level. Perhaps even this very night. Who knows what wonderful door-related abilities the new level would unlock?

Screaming in dwarfish intermixed with the sound of breaking furniture echoed in the corridor. Based on the vocal scale of her fury, the dwarf would be battling the empty room for a while. Medvak didn’t want to get involved in her rage. Despite his class, Medvak considered himself a man of peace. Despite her class, Hilda was almost always sour and on the brink of lashing out at someone. Tragic how we all choose our classes when we’re too young to know better and then we're stuck with them for life because what are we gonna do? Multi-class? Only assholes do this.

Medvak liked a good conversation and a good tease. He liked good food, good drinks, good company and good places. He liked goodness in general. Arguments gave him a headache and he already had enough of that from the slap the ogre managed to land on him before Hilda skewered the monster through the eye.

Both his mother and his lover (now his ex-lover) called Medvak a pushover, but he disputed their criticism. He simply considered very few things worth getting angry over. Like most of the decisions he’d made in life, this was a simple risk-reward calculation.

As he removed yet another screw, Medvak’s thoughts journeyed to the ghoul he met earlier that day (or was it night? He totally lost track of time in this damn dungeon). It was just like him to find himself in the company of a hot, horny, and naked girl and pass out after a couple of drinks before he even had a chance to take a good look.

Then again, it would have been very hard to get rid of Hilda so looking was probably the best he could have hoped for. His favorite childhood fairytale featured a dwarf smith named Bryuzga, which translated into Common roughy as “dampener of happiness”. The prickly and perpetually grumpy Hilda fit the stereotype perfectly.

On the other hand, the prim little humanoid seemed to know what she was talking about. Hot or not -- the ghoul was a monster. Like his warchief Brigavode used to say, “never put your dick in anything that eats dicks.” Words to live by.

But may the great bear spirit preserve him, Medvak did need to put his dick in something before the thing deserted him in search of greener pastures! It’s been too long. Um, the waiting period, that is. Medvak was a barbarian, after all. He had a prodigious appetite for all aspects of life and he’s gone hungry for way too long.

It was a testament to his condition that the dwarf was starting to look attractive to him. She was basically an angry potato with a lot of hair on top. And even she had a lover! Great bear mother bless and save us: it won’t be long before he starts finding bears attractive…

Still, he had to admit the dwarf was a curious creature. He enjoyed talking to her, even when she was rude and impatient, which was almost always. She quite obviously exploited him for her personal objectives, but for now, she made up for her parasitical nature by providing an interesting new experience, and what was adventuring if not a constant hunt for interesting new experiences?

Hilda was the first dwarf Medvak had ever seen in real life. He was lucky. Despite markets brimming with dwarven craft, most humans would go through their entire lives without ever seeing a live dwarf. Dwarfs were to people what pandas were to bears. Hilda was a tough nut to crack and that, Medvak firmly believed, was exactly what made her worth cracking. He sensed that the short paladin with the big nose was both the door and the key to a whole new world of thoughts and ideas.

“What are you grinning at?” Hilda scolded Medvak as she walked by, her dark eyes flickering over him suspiciously. “Hurry up with that door and let’s go already.”

Current Loot

Purse (750 gp)

Silver cup (750 gp)

+2 sword (2000 gp)

Progress: 35%