Critical Failures II (Caverns and Creatures Book 2)

Critical Failures II

By Robert Bevan

Copyright 2013 Robert Bevan

Special Thanks to:

My wife, No Young Sook, who let me escape to my office so many mornings while she got the kids ready for school.

Joan Reginaldo, the best beta reader in the world. No, you can’t have her! She’s mine!

Steve Wetherell, who thought up the title and (more importantly) the tagline for this book. If you’re ever in the mood for some great comic fantasy with a little more charm and a little less swearing and poop, his Doomsayer Series is a great read. Go check out his
Amazon page
.

Chapter 1

Dave approached the bar of the Piss Bucket Tavern with his empty tankard. As thick and sturdily built as his dwarf legs were, they trembled slightly as he walked. The bartender was a monster, covered in reddish-brown hair all over its seven foot tall body. Great pointy horns spiraled out from either side of its head, and it wore a gold nose ring in its snout. It set the thick glass mug it had been wiping clean noisily down on the bar with a huge clawed hand and looked down at Dave.

“What’ll it be?” its voice hit Dave’s nerves like a truck. 

“Another beer, sir,” Dave said meekly. “If you please.”

A nearby table of dwarves erupted into laughter, and Dave couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow the butt of the joke. The same thing had happened the past five times he’d gone up for a refill.

The bartender glanced over at their table, and then flashed a wicked grin full of pointed white teeth down at Dave.

“Right away, little feller.”

Dave held the beer with two hands on the way back to his table to mitigate the spillage caused by his trembling. The beer was warm, and tasted only marginally better than the name of the establishment suggested, but it wasn’t doing anything to dull his nerves. He couldn’t seem to get anything close to a buzz going.

None of his companions seemed to be having any such trouble. Even Tim seemed to have temporarily forgotten that somewhere, in another world – the real world – a guy was dying in his freezer. Of course, Tim had already drunk three tankards of beer that were nearly big enough for him to swim in. The stools in this tavern weren’t made to accommodate halflings, so Tim’s head was barely visible above the table.

Julian lay face down on the table after only two cups. His stupid sombrero took up half of the table space. So much for elves not being able to sleep. Ravenus perched on the table, bobbing his beak into what remained of Julian’s beer.

Cooper had a jolly air about him. He’d drunk nearly twice as much beer as Dave had, but he was also nearly twice as big as Dave. And he seemed to be maintaining the same happy buzz he’d acquired around the end of his first beer.

Katherine was standing at the end of the bar, drinking something the color of Windex out of a clear glass, no doubt paid for by the young man who was chatting her up. Chaz sat on a stool next to her, nursing a second beer and trying desperately to stay awake. He still hadn’t completely recovered from the Constitution damage he’d taken from the troll spear.

“I don’t mind saying,” said Dave to anyone who was listening. He jerked his head back toward the bartender. “That guy scares the shit out of me.”

“He seemed pretty cool to me,” said Cooper through a thick cloud of grayish-white smoke that hung in the air. Cooper probably wouldn’t have minded if Satan himself was running the bar, now that he had finally found a place where he could buy cigarettes. “Fuck, at least he was willing to let me in, unlike the cockbags at the first three bars we tried.”

“I wouldn’t let you into my bar either if I was them,” Tim spoke slowly and deliberately, his speech blurring. He hiccupped, burped, and paused a moment before continuing. “I mean, look around.” He waved his tankard around. “This is a rough place. That giant hairy motherfucker at the bar – hiccup – hasn’t got anything to fear from you. But those first three guys, they were… um… what’s the word –
hiccup
– human. And you’re a half-orc barbarian. No sir. If I don’t think I could take a guy down in a fight, I’m not letting him into my bar.” He took another swig of beer.

Cooper snorted. “That would make your bar a nursery school.”

Tim sprayed beer all over Cooper’s face, choked on what little he’d managed to keep in his mouth, and fell off of his stool. His glass shattered on the floor.

Dave looked around. The only one in the tavern who seemed to have noticed the sound of breaking glass was the bartender, who grunted and nodded a waitress in their direction. Dave pulled Tim up to his feet and set him back on his stool.

“Shit,” said Tim, looking at the broken glass handle still clutched in his tiny hand. “I need another beer.”

Dave leaned toward him. “You need to take it easy.”

“Listen Dave,” said Tim, waving the handle vaguely in his direction. “I’ve had a rough fucking –
hiccup
– day. I’m going to drink all the drink I want to –
hiccup
– drink.”

“Fine,” said Dave. “I just don’t want to get on the wrong side of that…” he jerked his head back toward the bar. “… whatever that thing is back there.”

“Minotaur,” said Cooper.

“How do you know?” asked Dave.

“I had you guys fight some of them a while back when I was running the game. The picture in the Monster Manual looked just like that dude at the bar.”

Tim started to get up, but Dave put a hand on his shoulder. Tim jerked away and fell off his stool again.

Dave picked him up. “Look,” he said. “I’ll get you another beer when I go back and get one for myself. Deal?”

Tim leaned over and vomited on the floor. The waitress, who had just turned up with a mop and bucket, sighed and shook her head.

“Deal,” said Tim.

“How are you guys getting so trashed on this stuff?” Dave asked, turning his attention to Cooper.

“It’s fucking beer,” said Cooper. “Getting trashed is what it’s made for. A better question is, how are you not getting trashed? You’ve gone back and forth to the bar like half a dozen times already.”

“I don’t know,” said Dave. He necked the last three quarters of his beer, shrugged, and headed back to the bar.

One of the female dwarves from the group which seemed to be having a hell of a lot more fun than he was approached the bar at the same time. She wasn’t the sort of girl Dave would have been attracted to back in the real world. She was shaped, much like himself, like a very short gorilla, and she had a tiny wisp of a beard twisted into a braid at the end of her chin. But for some reason, he found himself very attracted to her now, and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the seven pints of beer he’d drunk. 

He gaped at her for a moment before he caught himself. She seemed to be purposefully avoiding looking at him, and maybe even trying not to laugh.

“Here you go, Jorn,” said the barkeep, slamming a mug of bubbling green liquid down on the bar. The sound startled Dave. “And another –
snort
– beer for you, sir?”

Whatever self-control the she-dwarf had maintained up till now suddenly abandoned her. She slammed her hand down on the bar and convulsed in laughter. Her companions at the bar started up again as well.

Dave was annoyed and confused, but he did his best to ignore them. The bubbling drink on the bar was more interesting to him at present. “What’s that?” he asked.

The dwarf girl raised a hand in a gesture that Dave interpreted to mean that she would answer his question when she got her laughter under control. Eventually her convulsions gave way to chuckles, and then to giggles, and then to heavy, controlled breathing.

“Stonepiss,” she finally said.

“Come again?”

She broke into laughter again, but quickly brought it back under control.

“What’s so goddamn funny?”

“Aw come on,” she tugged on Dave’s beard. “We’s just havin’ a little fun. If you’s don’t like drunks, you’s shouldn’t be hangin’ ‘round in a tavern.”

“I like drunks as much as the next guy,” said Dave pleadingly. “I’ve been trying as hard as I can all evening to be one.”

The dwarf girl’s face briefly looked sober in its confusion. She looked up at the minotaur. Dave followed her eyes to find that the bartender was staring back at him with the same confused expression that she had.

“What?” asked Dave, doing his best to keep his voice below a shout.

“If you’s wants to be drunk,” said the dwarf, “then why’s you been drinkin’ beer all night?”

Dave scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. Then he nodded toward his own table. “It seems to be getting the job done for my friends well enough.”

She stared at him dumbly. “Are you’s jokin’ with me?”

“What are you talking about?”

She spoke slowly, as if she were attempting to explain particle physics to a three year old. “None of you’s friends is dwarves.”

Dave stared blankly, hoping she would elaborate.

“A dwarf can’t get drunk on something so week as beer.”

Dave slammed a fist down on the table. “Of course!” he shouted. “I’ve got a +2 bonus to Saving Throws versus poison!”

“You’s got what?”

“Never mind,” said Dave ecstatically. “Barkeep, a cup of your finest stonepiss, if you please!”

A chorus of cheers roared out from the table of dwarves.

Dave felt blood rush into his face. He hadn’t realized they had all been hanging on every word of his conversation.

“My name’s Jorn,” said the she-dwarf, offering her hand.

“Dave,” he said, taking her hand. She gave him a firm shake.

“Try you’s drink.”

Dave held the bubbling cup in front of his face. It smelled like vinegar and feet. He closed his eyes, tipped back his head, and poured it in. It went down his esophagus like it was made up of thousands of tiny electric eels. He shuddered, puckered his lips, tapped the bar gently a few times with his fist, and finally exhaled.

“Fuck me, that’s good,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I can’t remember the last time I –”

“Hey!” roared the bartender, the geniality gone from his voice entirely. Yes, this is what he imagined a minotaur sounding like. He hefted himself over the bar, and Dave didn’t even have to look to know which table he was headed to.

He looked anyway, just in time to see Cooper holding a mug of beer in one hand, and holding Julian’s head up by the hair with his other hand. Julian was pointing a finger at Cooper’s beer, and Dave could have sworn that there had been some kind of blue energy beam coming out of it. But another shout from the bartender got Cooper’s attention. The beam had disappeared, and Julian’s face fell down in a smack on the table. He showed no sign of having felt it. Dave rushed to his table to see what he could do to mitigate the damage.

The bartender grabbed Cooper by a fleshy pointed ear and swiveled his head toward the bar.

“Ow,” said Cooper.

“Cooper!” shouted Dave. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do nothin’,” said Cooper.

“Can’t you read the sign?” bellowed the bartender.

“No,” said Cooper, wincing and unsuccessfully trying to yank his ear free from the minotaur’s grip. “I can’t read the fucking sign.”

Dave turned around to see what sign Cooper was supposed to be looking at. He found it nailed to a post behind the bar. “It says ‘No politics. No fighting. No magic.’” The word ‘magic’ was underlined three times in what Dave guessed was not rusty brown paint.

“It says ‘No Magic’, Cooper. What was that blue light?”

“It’s been a long day,” said Cooper. “And this beer is warm as shit. So I asked Julian to cast a Ray of Frost on it.”

“Why?” asked the bartender. He let go of Cooper’s ear. “What difference does that make?”

“Try it,” said Cooper, holding up his glass.

The minotaur took the ice-encrusted mug in one hand, and produced a napkin with the other. He wiped the rim free of Cooper’s spit, and took a sip. He paused, and then took another.

“That is rather refreshing,” he conceded. Only then did he seem to notice the quiet faces in the immediate vicinity staring up at him. He slammed the mug down on the table and took hold of Cooper’s ear again.

“Hey!” Cooper shouted as the bartender lifted him to a standing position by the ear.

“No magic in the bar!” the bartender roared, kicking Cooper in the ass. He picked up Julian’s limp body in one hand, and a very surprised looking Tim in the other. “Take your dead amigo and your daughter with you!”

“Hey, wait!” cried Tim. “I’m not –” Whatever the rest of his protest was supposed to be, it came out as beery vomit running down the minotaur’s furry arm.

The minotaur tossed Tim at Dave, and used Julian to wipe the vomit off his arm before tossing him to Cooper.

“We’re really very sorry.” Dave’s voice shook as he spoke.

“Get out!” bellowed the minotaur, taking a threatening step forward.

Dave and Cooper hurried toward the front entrance. Ravenus flew past them and slammed into the door frame. He landed hard on the floor and stumbled the rest of the way out the door. Once they were all outside and door was closed behind them, they stopped to catch their breath.

Dave set Tim down on his feet, but Tim didn’t appear to be ready for that just yet. So Dave led him to a nice wall that he could lean against. “Nice going, Coop. Now what are we supposed to do?”

“Quit your fucking moaning for once,” said Cooper. “Look at the bright side. At least he didn’t charge us for the beer, right?”

“Charge us for the...” Dave shouted. “Are you kidding me? All our stuff is still in there, including our money!”