Chapter1
Captain Morgana Silversword
Captain Morgana Silversword was dying. She could feel the life leaching out of her with every laboured breath as she lay spent on the stone floor. And as the fight continued to rage around and above her, she regretted that her death wouldn’t be more … heroic.
Dying in battle was never glamorous; Morgana had seen enough of her fellow soldiers fall to know that. But to die from friendly fire because she couldn’t manage to get out of the way? That was particularly embarrassing.
Bone-tired, she looked around at the combat still unfolding in the small cave. The necromancer’s apprentice had retreated into the corner, looking spent. Calamity, who had been responsible for the blaze of fire that had taken Morgana down, had backed herself into a corner. The halfling bard Yorick peeked between her legs as they both fired off spells at three undead enemies advancing on them. Then there was the hulking half-orc Gorlag, whose great axe swung at their enemies from behind.
Morgana smiled as her eyes fluttered closed. They were no longer outnumbered. She may not make it through this, but at least her friends would.
Just as she was sure she couldn’t possibly hold on any longer, she felt a hot breath on her face and two hands on her. A searing pain ripped through her at the contact with her wounds, but it melted away quickly as healing magic coursed over her. She caught a whiff of stale ale and incense, and something tickled her face; she opened her eyes to find it was a wiry dwarf beard.
“I thought I smelled your rotten dwarf breath,” she joked, and Thrormir looked down at her in relief. He offered her a hand, and she took it, staggering to her feet.
Morgana didn’t have much strength, but she had enough to finish what she’d started. She made a beeline for the apprentice, slicing a massive gash in his leg with her great sword. The man dropped to one knee, clutching at his now-bleeding thigh.
“I surrender!” he shouted, his hands held feebly in the air. The sinister superiority he’d shown when he’d raised his undead army against them was now completely gone. “It’s in the fae realm! The catacombs of Thelanoris!”
Gorlag lowered their axe in triumph. They’d all come here for the location of the Supremacy Sphere, created long ago by the apprentice’s master. Now they could let the city guard deal with this nobody whilst they continued their search in Thelanoris, right?
But Morgana didn’t trust it. It had been too easy. And as her companions gathered around the man, interrogating him further, she saw his hands twitch slightly. She readied herself, positioning her weapon again so that the moment a spell formed on his lips, she could strike.
“You’ll never get what you’re after,” he spat. “Many have tried, and many have failed. You won’t find a soul alive who’s lived to tell the tale of their attempt.”
Calamity scoffed and crossed her arms next to Morgana. “We’ll take our chances.”
“And so will I,” the man said, his hands already starting to glow with magic, a spell on the tip of his tongue.
Morgana didn’t hesitate even a moment, bringing her sword down directly on his head, splitting it into two.
Chapter2
Morgan
“Yessssss, Morgan!” Chloe whooped.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said, miming a bow from my seat at the end of the table as the rest of the group golf clapped. I needed to leave soon, but these post-game moments, reliving the glory of whatever we’d just achieved (or, just as likely, the hilarity of whatever hijinks we’d got up to), were some of my favourites.
“I genuinely thought that was going to be a TPK,” Fatima said, sighing in relief. I’d never experienced a “total party kill,” but apparently it wasn’t out of the question.
“Only terrible DMs kill their whole party,” Phil said, and Fatima stuck out her tongue at him. He responded by shoving a brownie at her; she spluttered at first, then accepted it.
“From death saves to killing blow is a pretty badass combat moment.” Grey tipped an imaginary hat to me. “Well done.”
“Indeed,” Jack said, and I gave him a half-smile in return. Only half, though; too much eye contact with Jack was almost always guaranteed to knock me off course.
“Sounds like we should do stars and wishes?” Fatima interrupted, bringing the table to order. She was our gamemaster – or Dungeon Master, but that always felt a bit kinky when not abbreviated – so the table in front of her was littered with papers, dice, and open books. The rest of us had our character sheets – some paper, some on phones – and our own dice. For me and most of the others, that meant just a couple of sets. For our resident dice goblins Grey and Chloe, that meant literally dozens of sets of dice: some sparkly, some made of metal, some oversized. Of course, they seemed to always reach for the same ones, but pointing that out had only resulted in death stares. I also had my tablet with me like every week so I could doodle as we played. I put it on the table in front of me, switching it off so no one would see my poor renditions of their characters.
“Ooh yes, me first,” Phil said, raising his hand like a student in class. Fatima nodded at him. “Star is for Morgan’s kill, of course. Wish is that we get a cute pet faerie in the fae realm, please.”
Everyone nodded their assent. Cute non-player characters, or NPCs, were always high on everyone’s wishlist. Animals and small creatures preferred, of course.
“Friendly reminder that faeries are people in D&D, not pets. But I’ll see what I can do,” Fatima said, writing down Phil’s wish in one of her many notebooks. “Grey?”
“I’ll start with my wish,” they said. “I know cleaving is a fighter attack manoeuvre, but my great axe would be perfect for it, especially if we’re likely to be in more battles like this with lots of smaller enemies. Could I pretty please take it as a feat during our next level up?”
“I’ll look into it,” Fatima said, and Grey’s face lit up. It had taken me months to reconcile their tough exterior – buzz cut, dozens of piercings, denim biker vest with a million patches – with how much of a puppy dog they actually were. They liked to dye their buzz cut different colours every time they trimmed it; at the moment, it was a neon blue. Their best friend Fatima was the far opposite: restrained femininity. Her long brown hair was tied into a low ponytail with a mink-coloured velvet ribbon, and her round, gold-rimmed glasses perched daintily on her nose as she took notes with a maroon gel pen, her posture offensively good.
