‘North, northeast. Let’s go,” said Amy the doctor.
“Do we go now, or do we wait for morning? It’s dark and supernatural danger always seems to be worse at night.” Lis our priest asked.
“I’d rather walk through dark woods, then stay at an inn where all the recent guests have gotten violently ill.” Our academic Amelie said.
Willow, our Occultist said, “I’m for going on, my powers are strongest at night.”
“Well does anyone have a light at least? Lis asked.
Lucy flipped through the game manual before saying. “The Occultist is carrying a tinderbox and the Doctor has a bottle of liquor, and some bandages.”
The Academic said, “All we need to do is to make a torch. Find a three feet long branch, douse it with liquor and light it with the tinderbox.”
Amy and I looked for a suitable branch.
“Laura roll four dice, if you get a six on any of them, then you have succeeded.”
I rolled three fours and a two.
“Amy roll two dice. If you get a six you succeed.”
“Hey, no fair giving the boss special treatment. How come she got to roll four and I only get to roll two?”
“Amy, Laura got to roll four, because her special skill is detection. Your special skill is healing. If you use your special skill you’ll get to roll four dice also.”
“Oh, sorry Lucy. So the job you pick really matters in this game. I only wanted to be a doctor so I could play Watson to Sherlock over there.”
Amy rolled her two dice and got a six and a one.
“Amy succeeds and finds a damp branch that will make a perfect torch. Amelie takes the parts and assembles them into a torch and Willow ignites it with her tinderbox You now have light and now you can see a narrow path leading North Northeast. What do you want to do?”
“We want to follow the path. Right?” Amy asked. Yes we all murmured.
“Amy, are you holding the torch and if so, do you want to go first or does someone else?” Lucy the gamemaster asked.
Everyone agreed to have Amy go first. In real life that would be the height of stupidity to let the person who can heal you walk into danger, if she gets hurt who is going to heal her? But this is a game and if she wants to go first I’m not going to spoil her fun.
We are walking through the dark forest at night, tripping over exposed roots as Lucy describes it. She rolled her dice a couple of times, but nothing attacked us and before long we were out of the woods, and standing in a farmer’s field. The farm house was dark and off in the distance.
“Should we wake the farmer and ask if they know anything, we might get a clue to what we are dealing with here,” I asked.
Everyone agreed that would be a good idea. We walked up to the house as a group but as it had been my suggestion to wake the sleeping farmer. The others thought that I should be the one who actually wakes him. I go up and rap on the door and it slowly swings open.
Lucy rolled her dice, Laura please roll three dice.
I rolled two threes and one six, finally.
“Laura your vigilance skill pays off, you see some enormous paw prints, if you wanted to you could track this creature”
We talk among ourselves and decide we will track the creature but not until we search the house. Amelie instructed everyone if they found any books to bring them to her.
Lucy says, “alright everyone roll two d6s except Laura can roll three.”
We all roll Lis and Willow both roll a six and they both present Amelie with a book. Willow’s book is the family bible, and doesn’t contain anything interesting aside from the names of the family members and their dates of birth along with dates of death. The second book is in latin, not the kind of thing that you’d expect to find in a farmers home. In fact it was hidden under a floorboard. Perhaps the family didn’t know that it was there was Amelie’s guess as to why it might be found hidden like that.
Lucy asks, “Do you give Amelie time to examine the book in detail?”
We talk it over, should we take the time, Lucy said we have twelve more hours before exhaustion will either force us to sleep or the lack of sleep will affect all of our rolls because the physical and mental exhaustion cause people to make simple mental mistakes and over taxed muscles can’t be controlled with precision.
“It would be silly to not take the time to examine this book, it could well be the clue we need to crack this phenomenon. While I translate this one of you can guard the door, the others can sleep in shifts, that will push that twelve hour clock back some.”
After Amelie’s advice we decide that the experienced RPG player is right. What if the book is the one clue that we need and we don’t bother to read it, then we will fail on this mission. I took the first shift guarding the door, Amy replaced me at the door and I got some sleep. Lucy rolled her dice a few times, but we were not attacked nor did we receive any visitors.
Lucy had Amelie roll four d6s. She rolled a two, two fives and a six.
“Amelie has finished reading the book, she’s learned about four different Vaesen she had no knowledge of.” Lucy said.
“The only question now is, gamemaster, is it knowledge about the Vaesen that we are now going to be tracking?”
“You won’t know that for sure until you see the Vaesen itself, but you might have an inkling, roll four d6s.”
Amelie rolled two twos, a four and a five. So we failed with no inkling of things to come. Next we began to follow the tracks we were headed back into the forest just as the sun started to rise and the torch sputtered out. I had no trouble following the trail of pawprints, in the cold dim light of dawn.
We came out of the woods into a field, a mansion was visible across a meadow. I no longer had a clear set of prints to follow in the grass. Although I did notice that some blades of grass appeared to be crushed, heading in the direction of the mansion.
Lucy rolled some dice and said. “You are beginning to get hungry. If you haven’t eaten within the next eight to ten hours you may suffer some physical and mental degradation, causing the loss of dice on skill checks.”
We decided to head to the mansion, to hopefully get information and some food to eat. It takes little time to cross the meadow but at the mansion we are greeted by a Kennelman with a pack of vicious looking dogs, wearing spiked collars who are patrolling the grounds.
“Please tell your master that we are hunting a Vaesen that has ruined an inn. We are trying to put a stop to any more destruction. We’d welcome some food, but even more than that any information that your lord may give us about strange occurrences around here.”
“Ye stay here, and I’ll see if the lord will allow you to approach.”
Lucy rolled some dice. “The Kennelman is back quickly, ‘The Lord bids you come quickly to break fast with him.’ Will you follow the Kennelman to the mansion?”
We talk among ourselves. It’s quickly decided that the offer of food, which we have none of along with the chance to gain intelligence makes it worth whatever chance that the Lord may not be as kind and helpful as we hope.
A footman holds open the front door for us. While a butler standing inside the hall bids us to follow him to his Lord’s dining room.
Lucy says, “You follow the butler to a grand dining room where the Lord and his wife are sitting having their breakfast. The Lord barely looks up from the plate of food that he is shoveling into his mouth, he doesn’t speak, rather points at the empty seats with his butter knife and continues to eat.”
We quickly take our seats and servants begin bringing in plates heaped with sausages, eggs, and beans. Pouring coffee for each of us before disappearing again to where they came from. As we tuck in to eat the lord finally pauses from his feeding frenzy to ask, ‘what do ye hunt?’
Lis got us the invite so we deferred to her and allowed her to answer for all of us.
“My lord, we only know that we hunt a Vaesen. We believe it to be an animal, by the giant pawprints, that led us here. We started at the inn whose barn was burned by supernatural fire, before that most of the animals died off, day by day. We tracked it through the woods to an abandoned farm. Across their dead fields, back into the forest on the other side of the farm. Through those woods to your own meadows where we met with your Kennelman but we fear that we may have lost trail when we emerged from the woods into your meadow. Although our detective believes it came at least in the direction of your house. Have you seen anything strange in the past few weeks my lord.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Lucy rolled some dice and says, “the lord pauses his steamshovel of a fork for a moment, shakes his head negatively but then says. After you’ve eaten I will have my huntsman take you and our dogs back to where you’ve lost the trail. If the creature is a live, the dogs should have no trouble picking up the scent, and can lead you to what you seek. He pointed his knife at one of the footmen. ‘You man, go tell the huntsman to do as I say. Then he pointed the knife at another of the footmen. ‘You go tell the cook to pack food for these hunters.’ Then he turned back to us, pointed the butter knife at us and said. ‘You’ll return and tell me how you have dealt with this creature.” Then he dropped the knife and fork onto the plate with a clatter. Stood up and strode from the room without another word. Leaving his wife and all of you sitting in the dining room. The wife doesn’t look at all surprised by her husband's abrupt departure. But after a few more bites. She puts down her knife and fork, stands and says ‘Excuse me.’ She exits from a door on the opposite side of the dining room from where her husband had exited. Will you accept the help of the huntsman and the food from the cook?”
We talk it over and decide that if we have already eaten his food, and not been poisoned. We should accept the food and also the offer of help from this strange lord. We finish our breakfast and the butler is waiting to guide us to the Huntsman.
Lucy says “Ye be the Vaesen hunters? Says the huntsman and doesn’t bother waiting for a reply yells for the kennelman who comes into the barnyard with the vicious looking pack of dogs. You all walk back to where you emerged from the woods. Once there a few of the dogs start whining in fear. But after a sharp word from the huntsman the whining stops, the baying begins as the kennelman is propelled across the meadow. Will you follow?”
Yes we quickly decide, the dogs are on the scent and our best chance to locate this Vaesen.
Lucy continues, “You follow at a smart pace and quickly are across the Lords meadows and back into a wood on the other side. The dogs are having no trouble following the scent. Laura please roll four d6s.
I roll a three, two fives and a six.
“Even at the fast pace set by the baying hounds, Laura begins to notice the giant paw prints again. There is no doubt you are on the track of the creature that was at the abandoned farmhouse. After fifteen or twenty minutes you exit the woods and emerge into a farmer’s field. You cross this field, and are soon back into a darker, more tangled woods, the path slithers like a snake. You exit the woods into a brambled covered hill. On top of the hill stands a dark, abandoned looking church. The dogs refuse to go another step, no matter how hard they are beaten by the kennelman or the huntsman. What will you do?”
We decide that we must be close, if the dogs are more afraid of what’s in the church than they are about getting beaten. Well we came this far, we wouldn’t be very good Vaesen hunters if we didn’t go up the hill and face the thing in the church.
Lucy says to Amelie, roll four d6s. She rolls a two, a three, a four, and a five.
Lucy says, “You walk up the hill to the church. As soon as you cross the churchyard border an enormous black dog appears. You don’t know if it just materialized or it just moved so fast you couldn’t clock where it emerged from. But Amelie knows what it is. She read about them in the latin book back at the abandoned farmhouse. It’s a Church Grim, it guards christian churches, it is a guardian spirit. Amelie roll four d6s”
She rolls a one, two, three and a five.
Lucy says, “You have failed your roll, but you may roll again, but if you do, you will suffer a condition to be determined after your reroll.”
She rolled two three’s and two sixes.
Lucy says, “Before collapsing in a faint, Amelie manages to croak out, ‘Old cook, fed, died, feed.’ What do you want to do?”
We talk among ourselves and there is no consensus on what we should do until Willow reminds us of what the innkeeper had said. About the cook as old as the hills, she did something with soup bones, maybe she fed the Vaesen. The trouble didn’t start until after she died. Maybe the Vaesen was punishing the inn for no longer feeding it.
Lis says, “as a priest it is my duty to feed the guardian of the church”
Lucy says “Lis looks through her bag of food the lord’s cook had handed her. She finds a ham shank. Lis approaches the snarling creature. She holds out the ham bone and the Vaesen takes it gently out of her hand.”
Amy says “I examine Amelie.”
Lucy tells Amy to roll four d6s.
Amy rolls a two, two fours and a six.
Lucy says “The doctor examines the unconscious academic. Her findings are simple exhaustion. The doctor had no sleep in the past forty hours, and pushed her abilities too hard. She’ll recover but she needs rest.”
Amy suggests, “we build a litter and carry her back to the Lords estate, where she rests while we go back and get the coach at the inn so that we can transport her home.”
We readily agreed and after some dice rolling we managed to construct a rude litter. We got Amelie onto the litter then each of us grabbed a corner and lifted. We marched back to the mansion. The butler got permission from her ladyship for Amelie to be given a bed. We decided that Amy and I would stay with Amelie. Amy to keep an eye on her patient and I was to run interference with the Lord should he appear. Meanwhile Lis and Willow would return to the inn, retrieve the rest of our fee and inform the innkeeper what he would need to do in the future regarding the Vaesen. We believe if the Church Grim were regularly supplicated with food, as his old cook had done regularly then life could go back to normal.
The Lord of the manor did pop his head in but was surprisingly subdued around the patient. I took him out into the hallway. Explained what the problem had been and the solution that we had devised to remedy the situation. He was so well pleased with our efforts that he invited us back the following weekend.
“I have a Vaesen problem of my own, seeing how well you dealt with this one. I propose you come back and work for me until it is resolved. That is all the information I can give you for now, until you formally accept the job. In any case, come back next week and we will discuss it further.”
Then without another word he spun on his heel and strode off much like he had during breakfast. I wondered to myself, where does he go off to in such a hurry, and once he gets there, just what is it that he does? Perhaps I could learn that if our group agrees to return.
An hour later Lis and Willow were back with the carriage and the rest of our fee. Our doctor thought it would do Amelie no harm if we transported her back to her own house, for a long sleep in her bed.
Lucy said, “That's all we have time for tonight, I feel almost as tired as our bone weary academic. Thank you all for playing, I hope you all had as much fun as I did.”
We clapped for our gamemaster and everyone told her just how much fun we’d had and that we all wanted to play again. It was late, after one am. But Willow was driving Lis home then going back to Lucy’s to sleep. I reminded her that Bianca had cooked up some plan for our collectives.
“I’ll be here Laura, I rarely get more than six hours sleep.”
“Me too, because I stay awake too late reading.”
I went upstairs and fired up my laptop, opened my note taking app and wrote all my thoughts about group storytelling. While this was Lucy’s first time as a gamemaster and many of us were first time role players, I thought the game had gone very smoothly. Our group had made collective decisions without any bickering. Was our group particularly well suited to playing together or is this the experience that most have when playing TTRPGs.
I grabbed my book and went to bed. I had reminded Willow, so I’ll have to make an effort to be in the store either early or at the very least, on time. I had the best of intentions but still barely made it into the store before a sleepy eyed Lucy and a perky Willow came in through the front door. Lucy flipped the sign to open and joined Willow and I in the reading nook.
Bianca carried her laptop and Amy carried a tray with tea and cookies. Amy really understood me. No need to put sugar in your tea if you dunked your cookies it sweetened the tea automatically.
Bianca started right away, “I won’t waste your time, I just want you to know that this plan isn’t complete and I haven’t talked to any of the other writers in the collective. But while Willow is here it’s a rare opportunity to address the leaders of both collectives.”
“With the new deal you designed Bianca, I thought I had pretty much stepped back from that role. I would much prefer that as long as it is on firm financial ground you all decide things on your own.”
“We are Laura, but you are our Trump.”
“Oh, what a nasty thing to say. To think that I ever liked you. I’m going back to bed. I am neither orange, nor fat, nor pompous and if you don’t give me a peace prize, I’ll bomb your country back to the stone age. Lucy, please spray paint everything in the store with gold paint. Then call ICE and have her deported please.”
“I’m sorry, Laura, I misspoke, I meant you are our Roosevelt.”
“Teddy or Franklin? Bianca.”
“Franklin of course.”
“Alright you are forgiven.”
“Now before I offend anyone else, I’ll tell you what I’d like to create. A new independent publishing company. To start, only indie authors from either of the collectives would be considered for publishing but as the company grows I’d hope to include other independent collectives into the mix. Eventually if the company continued to grow we could add indie authors who lived outside the collectives, if the publisher liked their work.”
“What would the focus of the company be, fiction, nonfiction?” I asked.
“Both, I thought, one publisher, two imprints, one for fiction and another for nonfiction. Also to control costs at least in the beginning the focus would be ebooks, DRM free and print on demand.”
“So it’s just really a general purpose publishing house that will publish virtually anything just written by indie authors.” I said.
Laura continued “The person who I envision as our publisher will have a singular voice, that will put their stamp on both of the imprints while nurturing new authors. Readers will read our imprints because they will be confident in what they are getting up front even from an unknown author they might have passed by if it weren’t being released by one of our imprints.”
“I’ll be happy to create a new section in our ebook room for your company, and a section in the store for paperback and hardcovers when you start releasing them.” I said.
“I will too, but my store is too small to host a room like Lucy’s and Laura’s ebook room. But my lack of space doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. Lucy’s ebook store is brilliant and dead wasted space if not used the way that she is utilizing it. With my limited space what I will do with ebook sales is create a single binder at first then as it grows multiple binders one for fiction another for nonfiction. That way as the customer leafs through they will have the physical experience of browsing. Lucy’s already given me permission to steal her idea of putting a good cover and a marketing blurb on the back, to use in place of the physical book.” Willow said.
“Yeah, that’s good Willow and as your catalog of ebooks grows you can have binders for each genre, it’ll be just like a regular store, the science fiction in one aisle, the mystery in another. When a customer comes into the store even if they aren’t sure exactly what they want the usually have a genre or a subject in mind at least as a jumping off point.” I said.
Bianca began again, “So we’d need to hire editors and ebook typsetters that can turn out professional looking ebooks without spending a ton of money and cover artists or photoshop gurus who can take Public domain art or Creative Commons artwork and produce nice looking covers. I think we’d have to hire them as co-owners of the publishing house. Lastly we’d need marketing people to make sure the books were visible to the public. There is no point of creating a wonderful publishing house if no one is going to actually read the books that it publishes. Along with all of that we would be helping new writers, just like both of our collectives already do, but instead of just supporting them while they are busy creating, we’ll be supporting them once they have created their work of art, getting it in the hands of the public.”
“Bianca, I think it sounds wonderful, you’ll have the full support of Genre’s right Lucy.”
“Right, Laura.”
“Good I was hoping you’d say that, Laura. Because we want you to be the publisher.”
