Ravena sinks her teeth into the thigh of her adversary and tears the flesh from his body. She swallows the chunk in one gulp and dives in for more. “It’s been weeks since I dined so well,” she says, licking her swollen lips, her canines like stalactites in the cave of her gaping maw.
Chook lifts his blade high and swings it down onto the neck of the beast that growls, drooling acid onto Chook’s calfskin boots. The creature’s head tumbles down the stone steps, bouncing at the end to join the growing pile. “So far ’tis been just a drop. My blade thirsts for more.”
Above them both, on the landing that opens up within the ruined manor, Oosric wraps his fist in the filthy hair of the slave-girl, spreads his shrouds wide and forces the girl’s face onto his revealed…
“That’s bullshit, Ronnie. You can’t have a slave blow your character in the middle of a battle.”
“Why the hell not? The sight of blood arouses him.”
“Him or you?”
“Shut up, Bessie. Your female werewolf sure sounds like she’s enjoying her lunch. Maybe it’s you who has suppressed feelings of, I don’t know, cannibalism?”
“Gross, Ronnie. Take it back!”
Dungeon Master, Jerick, steepled his fingers, his mischievous grin grown wider with the row. He glanced to see how Chuck was reacting to the tiff. The other boy, whose character Chook, rarely deviated from a vanilla script, stared vacant-eyed across the basement, captured by some shadow behind the water-heater.
Jerick snapped his fingers at Chuck’s nose. “What’s with you tonight? ‘Your blade thirsts for more’, that’s all your blade ever does. Can’t you come up with something new?”
Bessie and Ronnie stopped arguing to listen to Chuck’s reply.
“Like what?” Chuck said, blinking.
“Hell, I don’t know. Punch the next one with your pommel. Or dodge ’em and kick ’em in the ass.” Jerick grabbed the twenty-sided die, shook it in his hand. “And Ron, can you quit trying to fuck every female NPC you find during the campaign?”
“Why? Oosric is a sexually repressed cleric. That’s who he is.”
“That’s who you are, you mean,” Bessie said. She and Jerick had been friends ever since she’d crippled a German Shepard that had cornered Jerick near their school bus stop. She’d been wearing her favorite riding boots, walked up behind the dog and kicked it in the ribs. It cried a pathetic howl and ran from sight.
“We’re all like that,” Ronnie told them. “Well, boys are. Girls, I read, don’t sexually mature until their twenties.”
Chuck came out of his daze. “Penthouse says that some have to wait until they’re forty.”
“Shit. Forty?” Ronnie said, shaking his head. “Sorry, Bess. We’ll all be old by the time…”
Jerick let the die drop and spin. “Will the three of you shut up and play?”
The die rolled to 6. “Six,” Jerick continued. “The battle resumes with six more denizens swarming in from the surrounding forest. They scramble up the stairs where… [tetrahedron roll to 3] Oosric has to combat the first one. And Oosric?”
“I know, I know, just kill ’em, don’t fuck ’em.”
“Well,” Bessie said, smiling, “unless your dick shoots silver bullets.”
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
Wow. 55+ and bitter. I was the proverbial grasshopper. In the music biz. For $. It sucked that an industry tanked for video games, but there it is. As GF said, life goes on. No more lunches with the famous or now dead. Wah. Next, you know?
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I once played one game of Dungeons and Dragons with a High School friend who was really into it.
But not one as exciting as the one you present here.
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Forgive my response.
I am not responding to the writing itself but to how I felt to read and be reminded that such games do indeed exist. It is not that I didn’t already know in some sense that these kind of violent games exit, but to be reminded so graphically was hard to stomach. My reaction might have something to do with my recent watching of a documentary series on the history of the World Wars of the last century.
I am not sure how to respond except to note that the real world is fucked up enough. To play – play mind you – such a game – to even call such activities play or a game – is disturbing to me.
We might as well play games celebrating the activities that occurred in World War 1 , World War 2, Vietnam or in Afghanistan where millions upon millions of people were violently slaughter and no less then hundreds of thousands of woman viciously raped in the process. Do we need to celebrate with games acts of such violence. Count me out.
I am not criticizing the writing or even the choice of subject. I just felt sick inside to be reminded that such crap is out there. I say this even though I have some family with history in the gaming industry.
“Can’t we all be friends” – is that MR. ROGERS talking.
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No worries, Mike. They’re only words.
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I know what you mean about the “stuff” that’s out there in the world. This isn’t in reference to the story, it just made me think of my own opinions. I used to play really violent video games. I had this one game, Fallout 3, I think, and in the beginning of the game you have to make your character. I would love making my character look as much like me as possible and get quite a kick out of it in a slow-motion scene of her smiling as she gunned people down with blood and gore all over the place. It was just humorous, it had nothing to do with real life. But after all of these school shootings, especially Sandy Hook, I cannot stomach violent games at all any more. It makes me sick thinking that shooters own and play games like that, and are actually enjoying the violence to the point where they actually carry it out in real life. I can’t find any humor in the games any more at all. It just never crossed my mind until these shootings started happening more often. The story made me think of just those sort of loser nerds who talk like that; but there really are sick people out there, even right now as we speak.
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Pretty funny. Which bring to mind several things I can’t mention…but funny. ““I know, I know, just kill ’em, don’t fuck ’em.” Watching murder movies, I have always commented the exact opposite.
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I tried to image a bunch of 13 year-olds, probably in the 1980’s, and the smack they’d talk.
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13? Closer to 60…
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Well, gotta make ’em angst ridden, else we wouldn’t identify. And every 55+ I know is full of bitterness and anger.
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I’m transcending that cliche shit. Can’t look back otherwise you get stuck in it. Appreciating the now and appreciating where you are when the music stopped is the only way. Giving yourself something to look forward to also helps. Whether it’s pussy or publishing. One of which, of course, is quick and easy. LOL!
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https://randomwalkthroughintelligentuniverse.wordpress.com/2020/09/27/from-scientist-to-techno-shaman/
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If you’re only 55+ and full of bitterness and anger, you’ve given up too early. The people running this country are nearly 80. They may be insane, but they haven’t given up. They should, but they don’t.
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We’ll see come NOV 4th… 5th… or 15th…
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…not anger or remorse if the worst happens… only resignation to the inevitable. It’s shaping up to be very ugly.
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