The road to noviel, p.1
The Road to Noviel, page 1
The Road
to
Noviel
TRICKSTER’S SONG BOOK 1
Tom O’Bedlam
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Tom O’Bedlam
Cover design by Podium Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-0394-1888-2
Published in 2023 by Podium Publishing, ULC
www.podiumaudio.com
Contents
Unexpected Depths
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Interlude
Secrets of Wyndham Wood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Interlude
The Keep over the Borderlands
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Preview: The Living Dungeon
About the Author
Unexpected Depths
Chapter 1
There was a deep chill running through the stone beneath him. Robin groaned. That bootleg mead he’d whipped up carried a kick. Maybe he should have taken it easier on the psilocybin? Never get simultaneously drunk and high off your own bathtub brew while practicing ritual magic naked—naked? Yup, still naked—on the quad.
Robin opened his eyes. Everything was still black.
Well, that was less than ideal.
He felt the stone in front of him. Shouldn’t there be grass? He slowly edged his fingers out; there should still be an athame nearby, and the last thing he needed was to cut himself.
All his fingers found was stone, stone, and more stone. Wait, there was something carved here—
Congratulations! You have found a shrine to the Lost God Rhyth!
The words appeared in the blackness before him, floating in a bright blue box. It didn’t do a lick of good for lighting the darkness around him, but he could at least see something.
Do you accept the Blessing of the God? Y/N?
Well, this was a trip, and not the one he’d expected to be on. Of course he’d end up on a vision quest where he wasn’t able to see a goddess-damned thing. Par for the frelling course.
Sure, Robin thought. He could use a blessing right about now. He waved his hand somewhat ineffectually through the apparition. Something worked, and the pitch-black darkness began to fade into gradients of shadow.
He was in a small cave. Well, small in diameter. The space above his head rose quite far, and a small forest of stalactites hung overhead, draped in shadows. Most of his surroundings looked entirely natural, the stone unworked. The exception was in front of him: the small shrine his questing fingers had found.
Seeing it was harder than feeling it; the graven image danced in and out of focus. If he looked too closely, the features all faded into just another expanse of stone, but if he sort of unfocused his eyes, a figure slowly came into view. Humanoid, with just the hint of a face. The lips were turned up in an unmistakable smirk, and the suggestion of hands cupped in front of the figure were filled with a bit of water.
Not how he’d imagined Plato’s cave would look, really. But he also hadn’t imagined his ritual attempt to translocate himself to a different reality would come with hallucinatory gaming prompts, so … yeah. Party. Should he drink the water? Odin would drink the water. Fionn would … well, not drink the water, but if there was a tiny minnow in there, that might work as well.
The rest of the cave came into focus as Robin’s eyes fully acclimated to their new sight. There was not a minnow swimming in the water. Before Robin could take a drink, however, another message appeared.
Blessing Bestowed!
Your Heritage has been changed to Shadeling.
All Finesse Properties have increased by 1.
Proficiencies Unlocked: Stealth, Deception, and Insight.
You have learned the [Lesser Phantasm] cantrip!
Peculiarities Unlocked (1 slot available): Tongue of the Fallen Tower; Mask of Myriad Faces; Chronicle of Infinite Visions.
This … was not at all what Robin had expected. Enlightenment, even the kind temporarily bestowed by indulging in psychoactive substances of questionable provenance, wouldn’t look like this. Would it?
No. This was some kind of weird trip, though he was only feeling mildly buzzed at best. Hardly even that, in fact, since the latest message had popped up. Had his body actually changed? That would probably clear out some of the more exotic substances floating about in his blood.
Cantrips? Proficiencies? Sure, he’d played as much D&D as the average PhD student—no, probably a bit more—but this system didn’t track with that one. There were other odd elements. That being said, it had been described as a blessing, and in the interest of engaging with the wisdom that comes unexpectedly … yes, he felt like he knew something he hadn’t known before.
Robin’s fingers flexed through a quick series of positions, the ones his instincts told him were necessary to invoke [Lesser Phantasm]. A small ball of blue flame appeared, flickering, above his upturned palm. It rippled and snapped, surreal in its silence. Robin repeated the gestures. The flame winked out, and this time, the crackle and pop of a small campfire flared up. So he could conjure sight and sound, but only one at a time?
He was unable to ponder the issue further, however, as the sound sparked a disturbance among the stalactites above. Shadows flitted and chittered above him before a horde of small, winged forms descended. Robin only had time for a brief glimpse before the things were upon him.
Like the unholy offspring of a squid and a flying squirrel, they had dropped down around him, spinning as tiny tentacles lashed out and drew small lines of blood across his naked and entirely vulnerable body. Robin yelled, flailing his arms wildly in the air around him. The things spun around, neatly evading his blows while lashing out with more of their own.
There was nowhere to run. He was trapped in this cave with no visible exit. Naked. No weapons. All he had was a cantrip, the same thing that had called these creatures down upon him in the first place.
Robin seized at the idea. If the cantrip had gotten him into this mess, maybe it could get him out. These things clearly reacted to sound, so maybe a sound could drive them off? He went through the gestures again, focusing on the first annoying sound he could think of: that of his morning alarm.
A blaring, repeating shriek, like a cyborg climaxing after electronically edging for a full power cycle, echoed throughout the cave. The little beasties staggered a bit midair but didn’t retreat. Still, Robin was encouraged. These things weren’t bats, but they lived in caves and responded to sound, so maybe if he amped up the frequency? Was there a volume limit? He felt like there was, but also that he wasn’t anywhere near it yet.
With his skin stinging from the myriad cuts and blood running into his eyes, Robin tried again. [Lesser Phantasm]. This time, he summoned the voice of an opera diva, hitting a perfect C above high C. Not enough. He added a second voice, and then a third. He wasn’t this good with music; the magic was compensating to a degree.
The little monstrosities flitting around him grew visibly more agitated, and several missed their attacks on his person. Didn’t like high-pitched noises, eh? Well, then maybe …
Robin cast his cantrip once more, and this time, he imagined turning up the frequency to the top of his audible range and beyond. The sound vanished from his hearing, but clearly not from that of his assailants.
They went berserk, exploding away from him and flapping in ungainly and staggering trajectories until they disappeared once more among the stalactites.
Congratulations! You have defeated a Swarm of Juvenile Shadowmantles! Experience awarded!
Robin collapsed back against the cave wall, wincing as the cold bit into the bloody scratches all over his body. This did not feel like a hallucination. This did not feel like a vision quest. This felt real. This hurt.
At least he could do something about that.
With a mental prayer for forgiveness sent winging toward wherever Rhyth might be, Robin dipped his bloody, bleeding fingers into the water of the shrine. It wasn’t much, but it would clean some of the blood off his face and ease the tight, parched feeling of his throat.
Do you wish to make a small sacrifice to the memory of Rhyth? Y/N?
Robin froze, fingertips in the water. Sacrifice? Sacrifice wasn’t generally something he engaged in. He was more of a freewheeling, free love kinda guy. Not so much with the letting of blood and offering smoke to powers unknown.
Still, Rhyth’s blessing was what had allowed him to fend off those little beasties. And there was more where that had come from; things he hadn’t yet explored. Maybe not pissing off the mysterious power whose shrine he was a guest in wasn’t the worst idea?
Robin suddenly and with stark clarity understood a bit better what it must have been like being at the dawn of human civilization calling out to an unknown and mysterious sky. And he didn’t care for it.
No, not at all.
“Yes,” he said after a long moment. “I do willingly and respectfully offer sacrifice to Rhyth.”
New Quest: [Gone, But Not Yet Forgotten]
The God Rhyth has been lost from the memory of most of Mayaser. Recover knowledge of his worship and uncover the mystery of his disappearance before all memory of him has faded.
Reward: Unspecified.
Oh joy. A quest.
Well, at least the sacrifice was free time instead of blood?
Robin blinked and looked at his arm. His scratches were gone. Huh. Looked like the quest came with a fringe benefit. Not that he was going to complain.
Of course, before he could embark on a quest, he’d first have to figure a way out of here.
Between the attack and the touch of a lost god, Robin had shifted his perspective. Whatever was going on, this was his reality now, so he might as well embrace it. If he woke up in a hospital in a few weeks having fallen into a coma after imbibing experimental psychoactive mead, well, so be it. He’d deal with it as it happened—or not.
There had to be a way out farther up the cavern wall. Those things clearly ate, and the lack of bones and droppings suggested this was not where they usually did that, ergo, there was an exit up there somewhere.
However, there was also a shrine right here, and he doubted anyone would build such a thing without an easier way to access it than rappelling thirty feet every Sunday. Rhythsday? Whatever.
Well, he wasn’t climbing out of here; not with anything he had on him. Clearly. But he wasn’t totally without resources. He had the Blessing of Rhyth, and at least one—what was it? Peculiarity?—to choose. Though how he did that was anyone’s guess. Maybe something to do with the screens he’d been seeing. There had to be a command they responded to.
“Peculiarity selection?”
The screen blazed across his vision. He’d guessed correctly, then.
After some experimentation, Robin discovered the information responded to his thoughts, and he could often garner some additional insight by focusing on the names of things, not unlike a more traditional tooltip interface.
Tongue of the Fallen Tower
Grants the bearer the ability to speak, read, and write all languages.
Mask of Myriad Faces
Grants the bearer limited shapeshifting ability.
Bearer is limited to shapes of the same general form (bipedal life-forms cannot shift to quadrupeds, hexapeds, etc.), but can freely shift particulars of appearance (hair, skin, etc.) and biology (sex, internal organs, etc.). Physical abilities of the target form may be used, but exceptional or supernatural abilities may not.
This ability has no effect on clothing or equipment carried.
Chronicle of Infinite Visions
Grants the bearer the ability to use [Visual Phantasm] at will without the need for any invocation costs or components.
Robin considered his options. [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] was amazing, and it would clearly be useful in the future, but it offered little in the way of an immediate solution to his predicament. The same was true of [Chronicle of Infinite Visions].
His final choice, on the other hand, had some definite possibilities. A lot would depend on whether or not he could assume a humanoid form with wings and master learning to fly with [Mask of Myriad Faces], but it was the only way out of this cave he could see using any of these abilities. Or peculiarities, as they were called.
Before Robin could make a final decision, however, his circumstances changed. Or at least, something new entered his cave. He cocked his head to one side and closed his eyes, straining to chase down the new sounds.
There were voices drifting into the cave.
Chapter 2
Robin padded softly around the space, trying to get closer to the voices. At least here, being naked was a bit of an advantage, though he would have totally traded that advantage for some shoes. Fortunately, the floor was relatively smooth, though the chill soaking up through his feet left a lot to be desired.
He could only make out snatches of conversation, but nothing he heard sounded like any language he knew. If he was truly in another world—or on another plane—that would make sense. It sucked, but it’d make sense. [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] suddenly seemed a lot more appealing.
The voices were too quiet to be drifting down from above, so there had to be something he was missing. The voices got louder the farther he got from the shrine. Robin couldn’t see any door or air vent they might be coming through, but, as he’d only recently established, his new world was one of illusion.
He put his hands out and began to carefully feel along the wall. It all felt like stone; the same cold, clammy stone he’d felt throughout the whole cave. Of course, if an illusion could fool the eyes and ears, it might also fool any attempts to touch it.
Maybe if he used a little more pressure?
Robin deliberately pressed firmly into the stone, turning his mind to seek any flaw, any hint that there might be an illusory entrance nearby. Solid stone … solid stone … soli—whumpf! Not solid stone!
Robin’s arm shot through the seemingly solid wall, unbalancing him; he pitched forward and fell. That was a failed dex save if he’d ever seen one. Did he have stats here? Was dexterity one of them?
The thought brought up an increasingly familiar blue screen. Not now! He didn’t have time now! Robin mentally flailed at the screen, dismissing it. The voices—the voices were slightly louder to the left? They were high-pitched and very animated. He could hear more clearly now, but he still had no idea what was being said.
Well, he’d found the way out. Now he needed information; information was always key. In every game he’d played, the more information, the better options, the greater chance of success.
Knowledge was power.
With that thought, he opened the screen in front of him and selected [Tongue of the Fallen Tower]. Languages poured into his mind like honey wine. Oh frell, did that feel good. He felt full and warm and positively pulsing with pleasure.
Thank you, Rhyth! No need to buy a guy a drink first. Just lead with that next time!
Robin carefully lifted himself up. The voices were drifting away. If he wanted to follow them, he’d have to move quickly, which was not going to be easy. The stone here in this tunnel was rougher than on the cave of the shrine, which meant it was harder on his feet. He’d have to watch his step.
He pressed forward anyway, a bit heedless of the sharp bursts of pain that spiked up through the soles of his feet as he followed the voices. His ex, Dan, had been big into barefoot running, and Robin briefly regretted not letting himself be dragooned into making it a habit. That would have helped here. Never mind that now! Focus! He needed to get close enough to hear clearly. Fortunately, he swiftly gained on them.
“—why searching tunnels? Nothing new in tunnels! We live in tunnels! Why think we not know tunnels?”
Robin could understand the words now! He ran his tongue over his teeth. He got the feeling that his tongue wasn’t quite properly suited to this speech, but also that it wouldn’t matter if he tried to speak it himself. He crept forward cautiously so as not to overtake the speakers.
