“Whoever left the Eagle Eye of Aragon in this dump should
have his head chopped off,” said the brutish orc warrior Knox, who grinned at
his war axe in anticipation of carrying out that threat. The odors of shit,
piss, and rotten metal in this junkyard assaulted the nostrils of everyone in
his adventuring party and made keeping their lunches down a fight to the death.
The sight of human and rat bones congregating among the junk heaps did no
favors for their nauseated stomachs.
“Yeah, I’m not happy about being here either, Knox,” said
the scrappy, dust-covered gnome thief Christopher. “But my sources tell me the
Eagle Eye is somewhere among these piles. Somebody wanted to get rid of it in a
hurry to avoid being caught by authorities. They didn’t do a good enough job of
it.”
“Let’s just get the cursed thing before Lord McCain shows
up,” said the heavily armored cleric Bradshaw, who held his spiked mace with
confidence and passion. “Then again, I wouldn’t mind throwing down with that
creep.”
Each adventurer took separate routes in digging through
these trash piles so as to expand their search. They dug with quickness and
strength so as not to spend too much time getting dizzy from the shitty odors.
Once one pile of trash was sorted through, another was and the cycle of dirty
clothing and shivers of disgust continued all over again. Christopher gagged
and coughed as he dug to the bottom of his pile and found a used sheepskin
condom. He threw it off to the side and nearly hit Knox in the face with it, to
which the savage orc barked at him to be more careful.
“Looking for this?!” said a deep, ominous voice at the
junkyard’s mesh fence entrance. The adventurers got in their fighting stances
and pointed their respective weapons at the dark robed figure covered in glowing
red auras known as Lord McCain. The Eagle Eye of Aragon glowed a brilliant
shade of yellow that rivaled the morning sun itself. The adventurers shielded
their eyes with their arms so as not to be blinded by this beautiful gem.
The snake-faced wizard grinned at the party while bearing
his fangs and slithering his tongue. As if swallowing a pill, Lord McCain
gulped the Eagle Eye down and sent a storm of electricity through his own body.
The party watched in wide-eyed awe as McCain’s robes disintegrated and his
green scaly body was growing with bulging muscles until he had morphed into a
full-fledged dragon. The partiers swallowed saliva and nearly shit themselves
at the sight of this transformed mega-demon, who screamed so violently at his
foes that a gust of wind blew past them and sent Christopher rolling backwards.
Knox quickly pushed the fear to the back of his mind and
smiled like a slasher, long tongue, drool, and all. “Is that how we’re going to
do this?! Fine by me, McCain! I’ll drink your blood like a cold frosty beer!”
With his gigantic axe raised to the sky, Knox charged at the dragon with
bloodlust in his eyes, slobber flowing from his chin, and train-like power in
his legs.
Fantasizing about slashing the shit out of Lord McCain would
have given Knox a bulge in his fur shorts the size of an elephant’s trunk, had
it not been for the sudden ringing noise interrupting his bloody thoughts. He
looked back and saw Bradshaw texting on his cell phone and not paying attention
to the battle at hand. “Hey! Moron!
Put the phone away! There’s a pissed off dragon in front of us!” shouted the
orc brute.
That momentary distraction allowed the vicious beast to grab
Knox by his ankles with one massive, razor-sharp claw and drag him across the
dirt ground, causing him to leave his axe behind. “Bradshaw! Put the phone away
and help me!” The cleric continued to text on his cell phone like he was
writing the next great novel. “Bradshaw! No!” shouted Knox as he was hauled up
into the air and had his entire upper body chewed off by the blood hungry
dragon, like his massively muscle-bound body was just a corn dog to the
transformed beast.
Bradshaw was left all alone to text on his phone and to
potentially be eaten by this drooling monster. One earth-shaking step at a time,
the dragon stomped his way over to the cleric, who never took his eyes off of
his phone and whose thumbs were moving at the speed of light. With one powerful
whack, the dragon knocked the phone out of the holy warrior’s hands.
“Hey! What was that for?!” whined Beth Bradshaw, a chubby
young lady with a ponytail and a Star Wars T-shirt barely covering her
tremendous features.
While Cody Knox and Brenda Christopher sat at opposite sides
of the dinner table with their faces in their hands, Colin McCain, the Dungeon
Master, pointed his sausage finger at Beth and said in a hushed, angry voice,
“You know full well that I don’t allow texting during D&D sessions! It’s
fucking rude! If your internet life is more important to you than playing with
your friends, then go the fuck outside and do that shit!”
Tears stained Beth’s jowls and fogged up her glasses. “I’m
sorry, Colin. I just…” Before she could finish her sentence, her surprisingly
durable smart phone vibrated on the kitchen floor. Instead of honoring her DM’s
wishes, she picked up the phone and texted rapidly some more. The tears were
really pouring from her eyes at this point.
Colin pulled his ponytail tie out of his hair and with one
sweep of his bulky arm brushed the character sheets, rule books, and potato
chips off the table to snap Beth out of her trance. Cody yelled, “Hey!” as some
of the potato chips ended up in his blue jeans-wearing lap and on his Sepultura
T-shirt.
Beth looked up at Colin with pleading, damp eyes and softly
said, “I’m sorry! I really am! I have to take care of this or else…”
“Or else what? Your online buddies will have to go without
goofy emoticons and poorly-spelled words for ten more seconds?!” shouted Colin
while his palms were firmly pressed against the table.
“Come on, Colin, leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s in
tears?” said the skinny brunette Brenda, who held her arms in front of Colin
like a failed attempt to shield Beth from the DM’s wrath.
“Tears? Tears?!” yelled Colin. “What does this crazy bitch
have to be sad about?! The latest edition of Pokemon Go hasn’t come out yet?!
The coffee machine is jammed?! Banana Republic ran out of khakis that don’t cut
off the circulation to her brain?! You know what?! I’m putting an end to this
crap once and for all! Give me that stupid phone!”
A tug-o’-war ensued between Beth and Colin over the former’s
phone with Cody and Brenda trying to separate them. The two obese nerds nearly
pulled each other across the table as they shouted incoherently over the
reasonable-minded Cody and Brenda. One powerful jerk yanked Beth onto the
table, which broke in two upon bearing her weight. She cried relentlessly into
her arms while Colin scowled down on her with an animalistic fury. Brenda
scowled back at him and said, “Now look what you’ve done!”
It was the baldheaded Cody who ended up with the phone in
his hands. His expression changed from urgent rage to a saggy frown when he
actually read the text message war in front of him.
“Cody!” shouted Colin. “Give me the goddamn phone!”
Mr. Knox held out a hand in front of the GM’s face and
somberly said to the gaming group, “Beth’s grandmother just died in the
hospital.” Beth continued to flood the broken table with tears and assault the
ears of her friends with painful sobs. Cody and Brenda leaned down to pick her
up to her knees before engaging in a loving, emotional group hug.
Brenda looked up at the stone-faced Colin and asked, “Are
you going to hug her or what? She needs us right now, Colin. For the first time
in your life, quit being a selfish ass and be there for your friend!”
Colin solemnly looked down at Brenda, Cody, and Beth and
shook his head before walking around them and strolling into the living room.
Feeling abandoned, the remaining three friends continued to hug and rub each other’s
shoulders while Beth unloaded more tears and snot onto the shattered wooden
table. “How can he do this to us?” she asked. “We’ve been his friend since high
school. We’ve been through everything together. We rescued him from bullies.
And all he cares about is his stupid game!”
The group hug was tighter and the hand-holding was firmer.
Cody even planted a gentle kiss on Beth’s forehead. It had nothing to do with
romance and everything to do with Beth losing two people in one night: first
her grandmother, and then her friend of so many years.
And then the group huggers heard the sound of car keys
jingling behind them. The keys belonged to Colin, who told his friends, “If you
want a ride to the hospital, the car’s parked out back. We’ll even stop for some
McDonald’s along the way. I’m buying.”
All three brokenhearted friends slowly stood up while Beth
weakly smiled at Colin and said, “Thank you for understanding. Let’s go.”
