Chapter 40: Isekai Life & Old Man Theodore

What had been on my mind since Malgarath first ripped his way, kaiju-style, out of a mountain and decided to show up to wreck my shit was the tale of Old Man Henderson.

It is a tale that made it’s way around 4chan back in the day, about some asshole who decided to take his aggression out on an (allegedly) shitty GM by power-gaming and manipulating the GM to letting Old Man Henderson, a character that was dreamed up to specifically wreck the shit of the Call of Cthulhu game he was in, with a 350-page backstory so mind-numbingly long that nobody could read the whole thing to call said player out on his bullshit.

Either the story is fake or the GM had to be in on this at some point because, really, in a modern game setting it’s not all that hard to kill someone. “The sniper you didn’t detect from over a kilometer away puts a bullet in your skull and you die.” I guess the GM could have also been stupid, but who knows?

Hey, I really only play D&D and Pathfinder, games that are designed for people to powergame in, to a certain extent. While I don’t particularly like roleplay-heavy horror games like CoC, I wouldn’t show up at a CoC game and wreck the whole thing out of spite. Cthulhu players are masochists who are there largely to see their characters die or go mad in brutal yet interesting ways. If they get to dynamite some shoggoths, that’s icing on the cake. I wouldn’t want to take away their fun.

Besides, there are much more satisfying system to wreck in that way, anyway. Like Shadowrun.

Fucking cyberpunk nerds.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Old Man Henderson wound up “winning” Call of Cthulhu by wiring an entire stadium up with dynamite, summoning Hastur, and then killing a god by blowing the stadium with Hastur inside when we was still vulnerable, post-summoning. I was wondering if Malgarath was the same way- could he have been summoned in such a weak state that it was possible to kill him?

I wanted to find out.

The black alchemical blade passed through the flames and became searing hot in an instant- so hot I let it go, afraid that it would be like a “Heat Metal” spell and burn me. Oh well, not my sword anyway.

TREACHERY! The psychic voice boomed, YOUR SOUL IS MINE, THEODORE OF ESCHE!

“Spread out!” I yelled to my allies, “We don’t have much time before he breathes fire again!”

I stayed in close to the god, though, spread my fingers and conjuring fire at the thing. I don’t know how well that did for damage, but it seemed to piss him off more. Red dragons are normally immune to all forms of fire, but if I was correct, this guy wasn’t- which is why he moved to the other side of the arena.

Still, our situation was only slightly improved from before. He had to have a minimum AC of 0, meaning depending on the person we’d be rolling 18s and 19s to even scratch the thing. To whit, Katriana fired one of her magical arrows, only to have it be deflected by nothing at all.

Absolute worse case scenario, it was impossible to hit for us.

Voss charged forward with his spear, coming up beside me with a roar and stabbed deep into the heat/fire dragon god thing. He immediately yelped and dropped his spear- I could see the wooden handle smouldering all over, and the tip of glowing a dull red. Still, he must have managed to hurt it because Malgarath cried out in fury and scarmbled at Voss with it’s claws, Voss’ skin blistering with the heat. Eventually, it reached down, grabbed Voss with it’s “mouth”, and launched him sideways with a chilling scream.

I could see Ashryn chanting and gesturing at me, probably giving me her Protection from Evil spell. Dog knows I would need it if this thing was capable of defeating Voss in one round.

I dashed to circle around to it’s back, tossing darts (probably uselessly) as I went. Now the bulk of the thing was between me and Katriana, and hopefully it would be sufficiently pissed that it would come for me instead. I must have gotten my wish, because it breathed fire to a spot just behind me, and tried to “walk” the flames over me. I could feel the flesh of my back blister and bubble, and my robe caught fire. I went spinning to the ground desperate to put it out, but landing on my back in the sand was purest agony.

Well, it was a good run. At least I’m not dying, bound by a stupid Hold Person spell with that bitch Mariska standing over me and gloating.

Fuck, are there valkryies in this world? I could swear I heard war horns...

Ah, there she is, I thought as I saw a shadow rise up on the stands behind Malgarath, come to take me back to Corgiel...

Instead, she leapt from the the stands and with two hands slammed a dwarven war pick into Malgarath’s back, then screamed and bounced back, dropping the weapon so she could shake her hands.

I saw a dart of light burst against Malgarath’s head, and it turns back to where Katriana was, roaring in defiance, only to have an arrow strike true and rip straight through it’s body, disappearing into ash on the other side.

Enna came back into view, patting on the fires on my robe and gently lifting me off the sand.

“Hey there, valkryie,” I said in a pained voice that didn’t seem like my own.

“Ooh, you’re in a bad way, Theo,” she said with concern in her voice, “‘Ow bout we get you someplace same an’ let Captain ‘Awkins and ‘is boys finish up the mean old dragon god, yeah?”

“I thought you were dead,” I sighed as she picked me up over her shoulder, fireman-style.

Enna snorted a laugh. “Against those buncha pricks? I went through ‘em like a hot knife through butter. One managed to sneak up on Calliope, though. She ain’t in much better state than you, but insisted on coming because she ‘ad a spell still up her sleeve.”

Was that the magic missile I saw? I snorted a laugh. She disobeyed me and didn’t keep Shield memorized. Oh, well.

“Come on, then, Katriana wouldn’t let me ‘ear the end of it if we ‘ad to raise you.”

“Sure, sure.”

She carried me to the shelter of the opposite tunnel, the one the hammer knight had ridden out of. Gently, she laid me against the wall, which made me hiss with pain. “Sorry, princey, but I don’t think it’s wise to lay an injured man on his front where he might end up drownin’ in sand if it was shoved in his face.”

“Sounds good,” I said weakly, “Fuckin’ dragons.”

Enna barked a laugh. “Listen, I’m gonna go back out there, make sure that your girlfriends are okay, alright?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Take care of yourself, too, okay? You’re one of my precious knights, Enna. There are only three of you, after all.”

She laughed again. “You’ve got strange priorities, m’lord.”

And, she was gone.

It was actually pretty boring, sitting out the rest of the fight. Contrary to what people would tell you, you can’t pass out from pain. Sitting there gave me a thorough education in that fact.

All the same, I was fading in and out, exhausted. Dragon fire sucks the life out of you in a way that a sword blow doesn’t. Occasionally I would startle back into awareness from Malgarath roaring or the heat of him unleashing his fiery breath, which of course introduced a fresh stab of pain in my back, but for the most part I just drifted in a grey fog.

Eventually I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and a soothing, cool tingling sensation all over my body.

“He’s okay, he just passed out,” I heard a sweet voice say, “He’ll be alright, it’s been a hard day for all of us.”

I forced my eyes open to see Ashryn kneeling in front of me, and Katriana and Calliope standing above. Katriana looked like she had been crying.