"Where are my dragons?", shrieked the fetching blonde in polished milf-il cocktail dress armor, for the third time in the last minute.
"Where are ...."
"Do shut up", I interrupted the ... Secret Princess? I didn't know for sure. I was in the Adventurers' Tavern quaffing a root beer when the Dungeon Master waved me over to join a departing Party in immediate need of a 57th Level Devilishly Handsome Yet Morally Compromised Cad / Warrior. I was standing in for a 56th Level who couldn't hold his lemonade. The DM gestured with his ashen wand* and ...
... The next moment we were somewhere else, but something was definitely wrong. The air reeked of sulfer and people dressed like a high school band that had been performing in the mud were yammering in a foreign language I recognized as French. Windblown snow swirled and blanketed the ground. Then I knew where and when we were but most of me didn't want to accept it. I snatched a sheaf of faux-parchment from the RenFaire Reject next to me, a Dork in a forest green coverall with US Army Ranger tabs on his sleeves.
"You're a ... Ranger?
"Fifth Level", the Dork said proudly, showing me a light saber handle, "it's green!".
I thumbed through the paperwork, skipping over the Player Sheets because I didn't really want to know more about "Billiam the Barbarian" or "Klangon the Blave" (sp?). When I got to "Adventure Description" I knew immediately how it had gone sideways. Someone, almost certainly the blonde, had written, "HEIR TO THE THRONE OF WISTERIA SEEKS HER LOST DRAGO ... ."
"Do you know," I asked the still screeching blonde, "the difference between a 'Dragon' and a 'Dragoon'?"
"Where are my dragons?", she mindlessly shrieked again, about to fall out of her cocktail dress armor, blonde hair flying free in the icy breeze.
All around you, I was tempted to say. Because I was fluent in high school French, I knew we were in the camp of the 13e Régiment de Dragoons, or what was left of them, on the Russian steppe, on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. In winter. It was late in the retreat, since there were only a few scrawny horses left uneaten. No one looked like he'd had a full ration in months.
They all watched the blonde, many stood up. Gauging by their awkward gait, they also looked like they hadn't seen, much less been with, a woman in just as long.
A good 20, maybe 50 huge, garlic reeking, bearded, desperately horny men already unbuttoning their trousers (one actually carrying a sawhorse) closed in on the blonde when, as if on cue, she squealed,
"Where are my dragons?"
_____________
* I know what you're thinking, you perverts, and you're wrong.
"Where are ...."
"Do shut up", I interrupted the ... Secret Princess? I didn't know for sure. I was in the Adventurers' Tavern quaffing a root beer when the Dungeon Master waved me over to join a departing Party in immediate need of a 57th Level Devilishly Handsome Yet Morally Compromised Cad / Warrior. I was standing in for a 56th Level who couldn't hold his lemonade. The DM gestured with his ashen wand* and ...
... The next moment we were somewhere else, but something was definitely wrong. The air reeked of sulfer and people dressed like a high school band that had been performing in the mud were yammering in a foreign language I recognized as French. Windblown snow swirled and blanketed the ground. Then I knew where and when we were but most of me didn't want to accept it. I snatched a sheaf of faux-parchment from the RenFaire Reject next to me, a Dork in a forest green coverall with US Army Ranger tabs on his sleeves.
"You're a ... Ranger?
"Fifth Level", the Dork said proudly, showing me a light saber handle, "it's green!".
I thumbed through the paperwork, skipping over the Player Sheets because I didn't really want to know more about "Billiam the Barbarian" or "Klangon the Blave" (sp?). When I got to "Adventure Description" I knew immediately how it had gone sideways. Someone, almost certainly the blonde, had written, "HEIR TO THE THRONE OF WISTERIA SEEKS HER LOST DRAGO ... ."
"Do you know," I asked the still screeching blonde, "the difference between a 'Dragon' and a 'Dragoon'?"
"Where are my dragons?", she mindlessly shrieked again, about to fall out of her cocktail dress armor, blonde hair flying free in the icy breeze.
All around you, I was tempted to say. Because I was fluent in high school French, I knew we were in the camp of the 13e Régiment de Dragoons, or what was left of them, on the Russian steppe, on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. In winter. It was late in the retreat, since there were only a few scrawny horses left uneaten. No one looked like he'd had a full ration in months.
They all watched the blonde, many stood up. Gauging by their awkward gait, they also looked like they hadn't seen, much less been with, a woman in just as long.
A good 20, maybe 50 huge, garlic reeking, bearded, desperately horny men already unbuttoning their trousers (one actually carrying a sawhorse) closed in on the blonde when, as if on cue, she squealed,
"Where are my dragons?"
_____________
* I know what you're thinking, you perverts, and you're wrong.
