Roll Them Bones

Yesterday, I received this ad in my email:

 

Then this story just kind of wrote itself. 

 *****

Megan, the halfling bard, was doodling on the sides of her character sheet.

Elven cleric Heidi was attempting to break her record for tallest tower made out of dice.

Aiden and Tyler, the rogue and the warlock, respectively, were making no pretense of preparing for today’s campaign and were blatantly sending each other memes.

Matt, the dungeon master, was ostensibly reading over his notes, but Megan could tell that her boyfriend’s eyes had glided over the same passage three times without actually absorbing it. He was annoyed.

They were waiting for their half-orc Fighter.

“Let’s just start without him,” Matt grumbled under his breath.

“We would die immediately,” Megan pointed out without looking up from her doodle.

A few moments later, they heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.

“Finally,” Matt growled.

They could hear the front door bang hurriedly open. “It’s really not my fault this time,” Devin the fighter called from the entryway, by way of a greeting.

“Just get in here and get set up,” Matt replied. 

“Okay, but–well…” Devin rounded the corner carrying an armload of Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia.

Megan glanced up at him as he took his usual place on the couch. She did a double take. “What the–”

The rest of the adventuring party looked up at her obvious surprise.

Trailing into the room behind Devin was an elderly gentleman in a neat tweed suit and bow tie. Vintage, horn-rimmed glasses adorned his face, and his hair was impeccably combed into a classy side sweep. The look on his face said he definitely did not want to be here.

Also, he was translucent.

Megan found her voice first. “Devin,”she asked, “who’s your see-through friend?”

The translucent gentleman spoke. “Aloysius Cromm, MD-PhD,” he said with a curt nod. No one in the group had ever heard someone introduce themselves with actual letters after their name before. It sounded odd.

Devin refused to meet anyone’s eye. He gestured in the apparition’s general direction. “This is Professor Cromm.”

*****

“How can you seriously buy dice made of human bones?” Heidi asked with a shudder. “Like, how can you even touch those things?”

“The question is,” Devin answered, “how could I NOT buy dice made of human bones? It’s perfect for a Halloween campaign! And Thargos the Bloodletter is chaotic evil, he’s totally in favor of a twenty-sided die made from a human femur.” (It was not unusual for Devin to speak of his half-orc fighter character as if he was real.)

The ghost of Professor Cromm made an exasperated noise. 

“Well, why did you have to bring him–” Matt’s eyes darted nervously toward the specter as he spoke– “with you?”

Devin shrugged sheepishly. “He goes where the die goes, apparently.”

“Heh. Die.” Aiden chuckled.

“Well, couldn’t you have left it at home, or…I dunno, thrown it out or something?” Megan asked. “Why’d you have to bring it here? Or returned it! They’ve gotta owe you a refund if your gaming dice get delivered with a side of ghosts, right?”

“Oh, please,” Professor Cromm interjected. “The last thing I want for my eternal afterlife is to be helplessly bound within the confines of a landfill or–heavens forbid–this young man’s dwelling quarters.” He gave Devin a look that said he’d seen the state of Devin’s apartment and had some thoughts on the subject.

“You…want to be here?” Matt asked carefully.

The late professor’s eyes darkened, and a static-y feeling filled the air in the room. “I want to be back in the classroom. The classroom is my home. I taught in one for decades, and when I donated my body to science, I spent decades more hanging in one. Molding young minds. Teaching them the secrets of the human body. I was horrified when my remains were sold to some upstart entrepreneurs like some sort of novelty item.” He gave a resigned sigh. “However, if it is my ultimate fate to be eternally bound to my mortal remains, I would rather consign myself to the role of voyeur, no matter how distasteful, than face a dull reality of boredom and decay. Additionally, given my own ambiguity aversion and the inherent element of Knightian uncertainty, I have no qualms about remaining in the possession of this young gentleman.”

Everyone stared at him.

“…That is to say, the devil I know is better than the devil I don’t, so I would rather he hold on to me than return me to the supplier and risk suffering an even worse fate at the hands of some other unwashed hooligan.” He looked at them all disapprovingly. “Good heavens, stop gawking at me like an Anatomy 101 class.”

“…Okay, well then, we’re gonna play some Dungeons and Dragons now,” Devin segued back to the task at hand. “Feel free to…voyeur all you want.”

“Excellent.” Professor Cromm adjusted his glasses. “I am anxious to see this game that my remains are fated for.”

*****

“Through the trees you spy a decrepit and foreboding castle, surrounded by a crumbling wall.Through the half-open, rusted iron gate, you see an overgrown courtyard, pocked with tall, misshapen clumps of grass, nearly as high as the walls themselves. Half-dead vines cling desperately to the walls, and a cluster of crows eyes you from one of the parapets. Directly in front of you are the large double doors that lead inside the castle.”

Professor Cromm made an irritated noise.

Matt rolled his eyes. 

“Did you need something, Mr. … Cromm?” Megan asked politely, pausing to recall the ghost’s surname.

Professor Cromm looked even more irritated. “It’s Doctor Cromm. Professor Cromm. Not Mister Cromm. I put a lot of effort into my academic career, I would appreciate if you would acknowledge it.”

It was Matt’s turn to make an irritated noise.

“Sorry, Doctor Cromm. Something wrong?” Megan asked as patiently as she could.

“What he just said is incorrect,” Professor Cromm stated matter-of-factly. “Most common ornamental strains of the family Poaceae–that is to say, grasses–grow no more than 18 to 24 inches before bending and breaking. They could never grow as tall as a wall.”

Matt was clenching his jaw so hard that the individual muscles were outlined.

“Okay. Fine. Everybody make a nature check.”

Professor Cromm watched with curiosity as each player produced and rolled a twenty-sided die. Devin, he noticed with a slight start, was using the one made from the professor’s own femur bone. They reported the results of their roll to the dungeon master one by one.

“Nineteen.”

“Eight.”

“Fifteen.”

“Twelve.”

“One.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Aiden, Tyler, and Heidi–you guys all realize that the grass could never grow that high naturally. It was definitely magic that did that.” He gave the apparition a look as if to say, ‘Happy?’

Professor Cromm did not seem satisfied. “Why didn’t Devin realize it as well?”

“Because Devin rolled a one,” Matt explained, with as much patience as he could muster. 

The specter rolled his eyes. “That’s absurd. I’m the one who had the relevant botanical knowledge! He was using my femur bone to roll!”

“Then your femur bone should have rolled higher,” Matt replied. “You may have the relevant knowledge, but Thargos the Bloodletter apparently did not.”

Professor Cromm pursed his lips and said nothing further. 

“How about we go inside the castle?” Megan interjected.

“Yeah,” Tyler agreed. “Let’s find something to fight.” On the table in the center of the room was a large sheet of grid paper, on which Matt had drawn a map of the castle grounds. Tyler picked up the small painted figurine that represented his warlock and placed it in front of the double doors on the map. 

“Wait for the rest of us,” Heidi said, hastily picking up her cleric’s figurine and placing it next to Tyler’s. “What if something jumps out at you? You only have 21 hit points.”

“Yeah,” Devin agreed. “You should really let Thargos go first.” He picked up his half orc’s figurine and shoved it in front of Tyler’s. “Thargos opens the door.”

Matt read from his dungeon master’s guide again. “As you step into the castle foyer, the main hallway stretches before you. To your left is a closed door, and to your right, a staircase leading upwards. After a moment of silence, you hear a loud banging noise, and realize it is coming from an inconspicuous door in the side of the stairs, as if something is on the other side trying to get out. The banging continues, growing louder and louder until the booming noises reverberate throughout the room.”

Devin got a mischievous grin. “Thargos approaches the door and opens it.”

“As soon as you open the door, the booming noise stops. Inside you find…” Matt paused for dramatic effect. “NOTHING. Beyond the door is a small cupboard, and there is no one inside it. You have no idea who–or what–was making the banging noise. However…on the floor in the center of the cupboard, you find a single human skull. A strange symbol is carved into its forehead.”

“Do I recognize the symbol?” Devin asked. 

“Make an arcana check.”

With a nervous glance at the ghost in the corner, Devin rolled his femur bone die again. “Fourteen.”

“Okay,” Matt said, his eyes scanning the page of his dungeon master’s guide for the relevant section. “You recognize the symbol as representing one of the phases of the moon. This symbol shows the moon–” Matt squinted at the words on the page, which were slightly unfamiliar to him. “–Waxing gib–jib–”

“Gibbous,” interjected the deceased professor.

Matt shot the apparition a withering look. “Gibbous.”

*****

“When you cut open the corpse of the giant toad, Garlena Danderfluff spills out. She’s been badly burned by acid, but she’s miraculously alive. Megan, you took–” Matt paused to roll a pair of four-sided dice– “six acid damage in the giant toad’s stomach.”

“No, I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous,” the ghost of Professor Cromm sputtered, fuming, as he shook his head adamantly. “Even if an amphibian could grow to that size–which, unless the oxygen saturation of the atmosphere is extremely high, is highly improbable–immersion in digestive acid would kill any ingested creature immediately. This is a bridge too far.”

Matt had nearly been pushed to the limits of his patience. His face was starting to twitch every time the ghost spoke up. “Megan. Arcana check.”

Glancing between her boyfriend and the scholarly specter, Megan apprehensively rolled a twenty-sided die. “Seven.”

“Great. You pass the arcana check.”

“I do?” Megan repeated doubtfully. “With a seven?”

“Yep,” Matt said, staring down the ghost. “You can tell that the toad was magic.”

“All right, I’ve had just about enough of that, young man,” Professor Cromm continued. “Every time I point out a scientific inaccuracy in your source materials, you claim it’s magic and ignore me.”

“I’ve had just about enough of you,” Matt snapped. “All right. From now on, everybody pretends the professor is not here. You can’t hear him. You can’t see him. Ignore everything he says. Got it?”

“No arguments here,” Aiden muttered under his breath.

*****

“…and in the center of the room is the corpse of what appears to be another adventurer, clutching another of the marked skulls.”

“I want to check the corpse for loot,” Aiden said immediately.

“Roll an investigation check,” Matt ordered. 

“Sixteen.”

“You find a pouch filled with 28 silver.”

Things had been going much more smoothly since the players started ignoring Professor Cromm. He was pouting in the corner, silently, with his arms folded, as he had been for some time.

“No one else is suspicious of a corpse just lying in the middle of the room?” Devin asked. “Can we tell who it is? How long it’s been there? What killed it?”

“Hmm.” Matt thought for a second. “Make a medicine check.”

Devin picked up his femur bone die and rolled it. “Three.” 

“You can’t tell–” Matt began. A rattling noise interrupted him.

Everyone looked at the die in front of Devin, which was vibrating slightly. Suddenly, it flipped into the air, hovered a moment, and clattered back onto the table. 

Devin peered at the face of the die. “…I mean, twenty.”

Matt scowled. 

“As if I would allow my remains to fail a medicine check, of all things,” the group heard Professor Cromm mutter from the corner.

“Did you do that?” Heidi asked the spirit in the corner, staring open-mouthed.

“Heidi!” Matt barked. “He’s not here, remember?”

“I believe I did,” Professor Cromm replied, looking pleased with himself. “It’s fascinating, really. According to the results of my experimentation, the only object in the room I appear able to manipulate psychically is my icosahedral memento mori, over there.”

Everyone stared at him.

“I can move the twenty-sided die made of my femur bone with my mind,” the professor translated lamely.

Devin grinned. “Cool.”

“Stop it,” Matt growled. “Ignore him, remember? Devin, with a three you can’t determine anything about how the corpse died.”

“But I rolled a twenty!” Devin protested.

“No,” Matt said, “you didn’t.”

“But you told us to pretend he’s not here,” Heidi protested. “So Devin’s die just landed on twenty of its own accord.”

“You did say that,” Megan reminded him. 

Matt stared at is girlfriend for a long moment, but everyone in the room knew he would lose a battle of wills against her. He scowled. “Fine.”

*****

“My greataxe does nine damage,” Devin announced with satisfaction.

“You split the imp’s skull, and it falls to the ground, dead. Blood splatters across the wooden boards of the library floor,” Matt described, obviously enjoying the graphic imagery.

“Nice,” Devin hissed.

Before anyone else could say anything, Matt rolled a couple six-sided dice. “Aiden–take nine damage.”

“What?” Aiden said sharply. “We killed it already!”

“Yeah, and suddenly you’re not feeling so good.”

While Aiden scowled, Heidi interjected. “Can my cleric tell what’s wrong with him?”

Matt shrugged. “Let’s find out. Make a medicine check.”

Heidi paused for a moment. “Hey, Devin?”

“Yeah?”

Heidi glanced meaningfully at the late Professor Cromm. “Can I borrow Professor Cromm’s femur?”

“Oh, come on,” Matt protested.

Devin and Professor Cromm were both grinning smugly as Devin handed the die over to Heidi. Heidi tossed it in the air. It hovered for a moment as Professor Cromm manipulated it, carefully turning the faces so that the 20 faced up, and then let it gently drop onto the table.

“Twenty,” Heidi announced.

Megan nudged her boyfriend. “Twenty, Matt.”

Matt hissed a few swear words, but begrudgingly complied. “Erlana, priestess of the sun goddess, looks at the spot on Thovin Slyhand’s arm where the imp hit him with its tail. She notices that the barbed stinger from the end of the imp’s tail is stuck in Thovin’s arm. Discolored, purple splotches are starting to appear on the skin near the stinger and slowly moving up toward Thovin’s shoulder. As you watch, the stinger pulses slightly and burrows deeper into Thovin’s skin, delivering another dose of venom into his veins. Aiden, make a constitution saving throw.”

Aiden looked pleadingly at the ghost in the corner. “Professor Cromm, help a guy out? If I don’t roll high, I’m gonna get some nasty side effect from the poison. Please?”

“Well, since you asked so politely–”

Matt slammed his dungeon master guide shut. “That’s it. I’m done. This is ridiculous. This is my campaign, and that know-it-all ghost is ruining it! I suppose next he’s going to tell me that’s not how biology works or something!”

“On the contrary, in the case of many animals with defensive stingers, the stinger will not only–”

“SHUT UP!” Matt shrieked. “I’m done. If the ghost doesn’t like how I run a game, the ghost can run the game! Good luck turning the pages of the guide!”

“Oh,” said Professor Cromm, slightly taken aback. “Well, I could certainly give it a try, if you would be so kind as the manipulate the necessary pages for me, Miss?” He said, addressing Megan.

Megan glanced at her boyfriend, and then at the ghost. “Sure,” she said.

*****

Matt was sitting on his bed, scowling, with the door shut and the television turned up to full volume, but somehow it still didn’t drown out the sound of his campaign moving right along without him in the living room, hijacked by a ghost. “Let’s see, when you remove the wand, the undead archwizard steps out of the portal toward you, and–hmm. He can see in the dark at a range of sixty feet? Well, that’s just absurd. Assuming a corpse could be reanimated after death, there would certainly be some atrophying of the ocular organs…we’ll just ignore that obvious error. Didn’t anyone edit this text before it was sent for publication? Now then, the undead archwizard steps toward you…”