A Short Story - Snatching Defeat

I’ve been working on a little short story for a little contest I came across online. The prompt was that it just be inspired by an experience I’ve had as a Table Top RPG player. This was based off a recent session I had with my weekly D&D group (played over Roll20 and Discord). It’s just barely under the 1,500 word limit, but I’m pretty happy with it.

“Everyone ready?” Charcandrick asked as the party of nine gathered before the closed final doors to the lich’s tomb. The handsome half-elf had his glowing star-blade out and a cocky grin on his face. 

In her shapeshifted form as a giant spider, Starling chittered and bobbed her head in the affirmative. The druid was anxious to fulfill her clan’s obligation to keep the tomb sealed and the lich imprisoned. The stone walls had started bleeding almost an hour ago, meaning the ritual was nearly complete. 

“Just open the doors already,” Bradley grumbled. The gray-bearded wizard leaned heavily on his staff and rubbed at his perpetually sore back. “I ain’t gettin any younger.”

“Whatever we find on the other side, these servants of evil must be stopped,” pronounced Yurt, the party’s kind-hearted tortoisekin cleric. “Na Tutair’s great shell will protect us and give us strength.”

In response, Grizzick, their lizardkin friend, threw back his head in a crocodilian battle-roar. The other four lizardkin, Arg, Blarg, Clarg, and Dan - who had all unexpectedly joined the party minutes ago after Grizzick had defeated their chief in single combat - answered Grizzick with hissing roars of their own. 

“Whatever’s on the other side, we’ll face it together.” Pierre fitted an arrow to his bowstring and his animal companion, Dodger the ram, bleated his agreement. 

“Let’s do this.” Charcandrick lifted one booted foot and kicked in the doors. 

The stench of fresh blood and viscera rolled out the doors like a tidal wave. Beyond the doors was a short shadow-filled hallway opening into a large chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. A massive stone sarcophagus sat at the center of the chamber. Surrounding the sarcophagus and lighting the chamber in a putrid green light was an intricate magic circle that projected layers of magical force from floor to ceiling. 

On the far side of the circle stood a black-robed and hooded wizard, the lich’s fanatical disciple, his hands raised and head bowed as he chanted. Charcandrick’s star-blade glowed brighter, pushing back the shadows, then he and Grizzick charged together. 

The necromancer paused his chant just long enough to shriek, “Fools! You’re too late! Soon my master will be free!”

Moving in unison, nearly a dozen zombies shambled into view from the right and left to block the corridor. Each animated corpse wore the same leather armor and tattered cloak as the cultists they’d been fighting for days. For undead, they also all looked very fresh. Each had identical slashes across its throat. They were sacrificed to fuel the ritual. 

Charcandrick and Grizzick crashed into the front rank of zombies and began hacking and slashing. Starling, still a giant spider, skittered across the ceiling, bypassing the zombies altogether. That’s when the remaining living cultists showed themselves. Four hooded cultists melted out of the shadows and fired a hail of well-aimed darts from small hand-crossbows. The spider hissed in pain and swung her spinner around to hurl a strand of rope-like webbing at one of the cultists, sticking him to the floor. 

Meanwhile, Bradley and Pierre aimed at the chanting necromancer. Bradley barked a spell word and hurled a howling column of frost while Pierre loosed a storm of arrows. Both attacks bounced off the walls of the magical circle surrounding the lich’s tomb and between them and the necromancer. 

Dodger lowered his head charged forward; curved horns battered zombies to the ground. Arg, Blarg, Clarg, and Dan rushed in behind the ram, bashing with clubs and spiked shields. Then Yurt stepped up and called out a divine prayer. A swirling maelstrom of radiant energy rushed out from the cleric and shattered the zombie ranks. 

The necromancer shouted a spell, and a pulse of green energy burst from the glowing circle. The cold wave of energy knocked the heroes back and seemed to bolster the undead. They bought a few more seconds of resistance. While the zombies managed to get a few hits in, and in some cases, stubbornly refused to fall, within seconds, the bulk of them fell under the party’s combined assault. That just left the still-living cultists. 

Charcandrick and Grizzick were the first to cross blades with the cultists. Steel rang on steel, and it was clear that the cultists were no match for either hero. These fanatics knew their leader only needed seconds to complete the ritual, and they were willing to buy that time with their wretched lives. 

While most of the party cut their way through cultists, Starling launched herself off the wall over the battle. She had multifaceted eyes only for the necromancer that had invaded her sacred lands. The necromancer cried out and fled before the giant spider leaping at him. Then his voice raised to cast a spell. 

A green lightning bolt crackled from the necromancer’s hands. Starling managed to dodge the worst of the spell, only getting singed. However, Grizzick, Arg, and Dan weren’t so fortunate. They fell to the ground, sections of their scaled bodies charred. 

That disruption to the party’s battle line was enough to let the cultists hold on for another handful of seconds. Starling leaped at the necromancer, her mandibles clacking down on his black-robed arm but finding the robes as tough as steel in her jaws. 

The necromancer was already casting another spell. A volley of arrows from Pierre narrowly missed as the evil wizard completed his incantation. Another green pulse of cold energy radiated out from the magic circle. The ground shook and knocked nearly everyone to the ground. Dodger, Blarg, and Clarg never got back up. However, the blast had killed the last of the cultists as well. 

The necromancer seemed unphased by their loss. “You will all bow before the might of my Lord when he is free!”

The mad wizard began casting again, and the circle surrounding the sarcophagus began to hum and glow brighter. A flurry of attacks flew at the necromancer from every hero still standing. His spell unfinished, the necromancer crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut under the combined assault. 

Silence broken only by the ragged heavy breathing of the battle strained adventurers filled the chamber. Yurt, ever mindful of his oaths to use the gifts of Nu Tutair to heal, began casting spells of healing to try and save Grizzick. Pierre rushed over to Dodger, his stalwart companion, where the ram had fallen. Starling shifted back to her natural blue-skinned djinnkin body and hurried to see if she could help Dodger. Leaning heavily on his staff, Bradley turned his weary gaze towards the circle that still surrounded the sarcophagus. 

Better put an end to this nasty ritual, the self-taught wizard thought. Summoning the last of his power, Bradley cast an unraveling incantation on the circle. 

The moment froze. As if some divine presence had stopped time just so it could ask Bradley, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

To which Bradley curtly answered, “Yup.”

Bradley felt the circle resist his dispelling. Magic circles are typically simple workings, and this one should have unraveled easily. However, Bradley found he had to force his will into the unraveling spell. For just an instant, Bradley silently struggled to overwhelm the arcane construct with his own willpower. Bradley wasn’t the most gifted of wizards, but he battered down the circle’s resistance out of sheer stubbornness. 

The circle blinked out of existence, and darkness flooded the tomb. 

“What the hell did you -?” A deafening rumble drowned out Charcandrick as the entire chamber quaked violently. Choking dust filled the air as everyone stumbled and shouted. Bradley sprawled on his chest, where he groaned, “I’m too old for this shit.”

The shaking stopped, and silence returned to the subterranean chamber. The dull scrape of stone against stone shattered the silence as the sarcophagus lid slid aside then crashed to the floor. Bright green light blazed up from the sarcophagus’s interior. A withered figure sat up, the movement accompanied by the dry crackling of bones. 

“Finally!” rasped the long-imprisoned lich, Uchagaz the Undying. “I am returned!”

***

The Discord channel was quiet for a long moment. 

“Bradley, what did you do?” Cameron, Yurt’s player, was alarmed. 

“Uhhh, guys, I think I fucked up,” Older Chris answered, still using Bradley’s gruff character voice. 

“We’re all dead,” declared Younger Chris, Charcandrick’s player. 

“Can’t believe you killed Dodger,” Cassandra, Starling’s player, griped. Pierre’s player, Ken, was absent.

Jake and Phil, who had just joined the group and had been controlling the lizardkin, were noticeably silent.

“I think I just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.” Older Chris facepalmed. 

“Well, I think that’s a good place to end things this week,” Michael, the DM for their 5e D&D campaign, declared with a wide grin to cover his panic. That hadn’t been his plan for the session or the campaign! The group’s level 6 characters could not handle a CR 21 lich! 

“Good game, everyone!” Michael declared before signing off.