I’m left handed, but I force myself to use my right hand when possible. It’s a matter of necessity, really. As I grew I found that the world vastly favours the right-handed; therefore, I did my best while growing up to get used to using my non-dominant hand for nearly everything, while finding other uses for my dominant hand.

One shouldn’t take this as a sign of weakness, or a lack of self-esteem. I like to be true to myself as much as everyone, but I also like not getting stabbed. And when practically every hit of the enemy’s weapon comes from my left, it pays off to be able to dexterously use my shield with my left hand.

That is not to say that there aren’t times when going down in one fell swoop wouldn’t be a preferable option, and as I took the full force of an ancient iron forged warhammer with my shield for the second time, it would be a lie to say there wasn’t a part of me that wished to just let go of the shield and let everything end.

My left arm, thankfully, didn’t seem to share that same opinion, and refused to let go, even as the impact of Thurloth, the Lich King’s warhammer sent me to the ground. Both of my legs had heard what my left arm had to say and quickly steadied the rest of my body. My knees seemed to be rebellious, however, and hindered my efforts to stand up again. I made a mental note to have a serious talk with whichever parts of my body made it out of the underground temple.

“You’ve seen so many fall at my hands,” spoke Thurloth from within the deepest recesses of his hollow armour, “and yet you still find it in yourself to muster up the courage to face me. Were we under different circumstances, I would almost be impressed.”

I would have preferred to cut him out mid-sentence with a witty retort, but politeness demanded that I should let him speak. After all, what is of a Paladin if they do not adhere to a strict moral code and the highest of conduct? That several other parts of my body had joined the shaking faction instigated by my insurgent knees was of little relevance at the moment.

Nevertheless, my years of dealing with Rogues, Thieves, and other lowly scum had made me well-versed in the art of deception and misdirection. Besides, having served as a knight to the highest court of King Chardan, the rightful ruler of the lands graced by the sun, had instructed me in the subtlest schools of diplomacy. All of these allowed me to convince Thurloth, the Lich King that I was genuinely quaking in fear in front of him.

Or at least, that’s how I would tell the story should I get back to the surface alive.

[i]When[/i] you get back, Séje. [i]When[/i] you get back.

Regardless of the semantics, my charade worked well enough to keep the undead monarch distracted for long enough to gather my bearings and ready an attack. I knew time was of essence, and every second wasted could mean Thurloth got closer to noticing my feint. You could only pretend to be a scared and helpless damsel out of her depth for so long when you’re also one of the land’s most famous knights. Thankfully, the Lich King didn’t seem to be all that good with faces, if his lack of one was any indication.

Knowing that the time for action had arrived, I quickly stopped my carefully planned and dignified sniveling and with just as much precision and dexterity, I lunged forward, hoping that whatever momentum I could gather in that short distance would make up for the lack of strength behind it.

I wished I had spent more time with the monks. Maybe then I could have learned a bit more about physics than the big nothing I knew.

With as much effort as one would normally put in waving away a particularly annoying mosquito, Thurloth raised his lumbering left vambrace to block the strike of my sword, and I found that the recoil of my sword hitting the dense, magically enhanced metal didn’t hurt as much as the knowledge that his left-arm defense was so much better than mine.

This time, the seditious murmuring of my knees had managed to sway the rest of my body, and I flopped unceremoniously onto the ground. There is no respect for authority anymore.

Had the helmet of the Lich King held more than an unforgiving void, I’m certain he would have regarded me with a mix of disdain and amusement. Seeing how he lacked eyes, however, I had no way of knowing what emotion he held as he walked towards me.

It appeared the insurrection of my limbs had spread to my emotions as well, for I could feel an inkling of fear course down my body. I may need to see a healer after this whole ordeal is over. Or a diplomat.

But for a lack of consensus amidst the parts of my body, friendship amongst our group was the best substitute one could ask for.

Friendship, or as the wizard currently casting a protective shield between Thurloth and myself would put it, “strategic acquaintanceship”. I presume “strategic” rationalisations come with an extended lexicon.

“Take no further step, abomination! Thou shan’t lay a finger upon Lady Khai,” the wizard said with his odd mix of archaic and modern dialect.

The wizard--Timaeus by name--was an odd sort of fellow, as most wizards won’t be. Odd, yes, but also a remarkable companion and an incredibly versatile one, at that.

He was the last surviving member of an all but extinct school of arcane arts. State at which they had arrived thanks in no small part to the contributions of Thurloth himself, so it was in Timaeus’s interest to return the Lich King to his eternal slumber and bring assuagement to the memories of his acquaintances.

The fame and prestige that would come from becoming the sole survivor and avenger of his brethren would be entirely fortuitous, he had assured me.

Back at the present, I found myself surrounded by a dome of shimmering light that while managed to be a temporary protection from the Lich King, also prevented me from strategically relocating away from him. Had I been in a different state of mind, I would have made a poetic simile between my situation and King Ardan’s safety measures against goblin infestations, but I was just too glad about not dying to focus on such matters.

Thurlorth remained unimpressed, pausing for the briefest of moments to spare Timaeus a sidelong glance and an unamused huff. Thankfully, this small window of time was all that our archer needed.

A quick volley of arrows hit the armour of the undead tyrant in its joints and open spots, as few as there were. Not a second had passed since they hit their target before the runes inscribed in them glowed with a bright purple light, and blew up in small blasts of arcane energy.

“Take that, you fascist autocrat!” Lyen yelled from the shadows--since remaining undetected was a less vital priority than yelling inappropriate and possibly redundant remarks--as he saw the false king stumble backwards, and I could just imagine him thrusting his fist into the air in early celebration.

Lyen was, due to a lack of a better term, wholly unremarkable in nearly all conceivable aspects save for his marksmanship.

This, of course, was in no way a jab at him. Far from the truth. He’s a friend as loyal as one could ask and one of the best archers to grace this land. However, his unexceptionality was a joint verdict at which both Timaeus and myself had arrived after well over a year of having journeyed alongside him, so spending more words on him would be a disservice to all those involved.

“Hey!” Lyen yelled at me. For a second I feared that the proximity of death had made me break my oath of silence, and he had heard my unkind yet entirely accurate remarks about him. However, my fears--or at least those pertaining to a social faux pas and breaking my oath of servitude to my God--were soon assuaged when the archer spoke again. “He’s coming back for you, Sèje!”

My eyes widened in surprise as I saw the black shape of Thurloth reeling back and bringing down his warhammer upon the shimmering barrier.

When thinking of millennia-old armour made out of a secret magical alloy, the composition of which was lost to time due to the tribe of dwarves who made it being
 slaughtered as to preserve the secret, and enchanted with dark magic found only in ancient tomes written in lost languages, one could be forgiven for not thinking of the word “speed”. I was one of them, and yet I stood corrected. Or [i]laid[/i], I guess.

Thurloth brought down his mighty warhammer over and over again, making the barrier bulge and bend under its force.

An odd, distant voice made an off-hand comment about getting mercilessly pounded by the King, but I made an effort to ignore it.

Amidst the barrage of hits, it came to my attention that every impact of the hammer felt less powerful than the ones who I had received earlier. Granted, the difference was akin to being attacked by a bear or being attacked by a pack of wolves, but the King seemed to be dishing out softer blows in exchange for speed.

Before I could do anything with this new information, however, the magic barrier was forced beyond the point where it could bend and it shattered into countless fragments that dissolved into the air. Keeping the shield up must have been a strain on Timaeus, and having it dispelled so forcefully must have caused him some severe backlash, if his pained cry was anything to go by.

Not that I was faring much better. The shock of seeing my only defense be ripped away must have left me momentarily dazed, seeing how Thurloth was bringing down his hammer once again by the time I became aware of what happened, leaving me with just enough time to lift my shield and cover my chest.

With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps I should’ve just rolled to the side.

A loud crack resonated in the hall, but I couldn’t say for certain if it had been the floor beneath me, my armour, or some of my bones. I could still feel most of my body, so that meant at least my spine was fine.

Fate seemed to throw us a bone, for Thurloth, the Lich King started laughing a laughter so uproarious it made the room itself shake. Thankfully, his imprisonment in a hallowed obsidian jar within an antimagic circle buried deep within the highest mountains of the realm had happened well before the Age of Enlightenment, so he didn’t know about the dangers of monologuing.

I took several deep breaths to calm myself as the Lich King went on and on about his own greatness and the glory his ruling would bring to the land. As Thurloth was in the middle of explaining how his path to greatness had started when he killed his own father with a cursed sword of the ancient gods--or killed an ancient god with his father’s cursed sword, I can’t quite recall--I locked gazes with Timaeus.

He seemed just as worried as me, and while Lyen remained hidden in the shadows, I could bet he felt the same way, too. With a small nod, the wizard cast a quick healing spell. Subtle enough not to be noticed by the King, but strong enough so that I could stand up once again.

So lost was Thurloth in his recounting of his grandeur that he didn’t notice how I painfully stood up. Though I must admit I got a sardonic kick out of noticing my right knee was indeed broke, that’ll show them to rebel.

With nothing more than a few seconds before the surprise element was thoroughly snuffed, I went for my final shot at snuffing him first. If I managed to pierce his armour, then Timaeus may be able to hold it open for long enough so Lyen could use his remaining enchanted arrows to blast the King apart, leaving the wizard to seal him once again.

After a quick silent prayer to my God, I ran forward, putting just a little bit of pressure on my right leg and thrusted my sword forwards, carrying with it the strength of our fallen comrades, the faith of those who relied upon us to defeat the mad tyrant, the hope for the future generations. All these imbued my sacred sword with enough power to smite a soul as wicked and rotten as Thurloth’s…

...Only for him to turn around at the last second, causing me to barely graze his armour and fall face first onto the floor.

[hr]

“What the actual hell!?” I yelled as I stared at the ‘five’ and ‘eight’ on the dice, and yet my indignant cries were drowned by the uproarious laughter around the table. At least Lionel and Charlie were making an effort to hide their snickering. Timothy and Sarah, on the other hand seemed to revel in their mirth.

“Hot damn, Jessica,” Sarah said once her laughter had died down to roughly the same level of my ability to restrain a suckerpunch, “the dice have not been on your side tonight.”

“You’re one to talk, Sarah. Excuse me if my memory is faulty, but weren’t you the first of the party to die by the Lich King’s hand?” I said while making an effort to keep my sarcasm at playful levels. For her part, our late Rogue simply shrugged.

“At least I went down fighting, not falling down while attempting to fight.”

The bitterness coursing through me made it so easy to come back with a scathing retort but before I could lay down a verbal beating upon the infidel, Charlie interjected in what I assume was an attempt at defusing my anger.

“Speaking of talking, Jessica. I assume your little outburst wasn’t meant to be in character, right?” he then tapped into his years of roleplaying experience to put on the mask of the affable King Chardan, “Say it is so, I couldn’t possibly imagine a Paladin as devout as the gracious Lady Sèje Khai breaking her oath of silence.”

If this really was his way of calming me down, then it was only working for the most part. I had to admit I was being ridiculous for losing my temper at something so inconsequential. Not as ridiculous as my absurdly low rolls I’ve been getting all night, of course, but ridiculous all the same.

With a weary sigh, I hung my head in shame and nodded. 

“Kudos on the roleplaying, though,” Lionel offered.

I decided to ignore him. I knew it wasn’t his intention to sound condescending, but in my current mindset, it was hard to take it otherwise.

“We might as well take this moment to figure out what to do,” Tim said, kicking back and throwing his arms behind his head, “I know I’m probably down for the count, how long is the backlash from the shield going to leave me dazed?”

Charlie rustled the pages of his reference book as he hummed a tuneless melody, “Couple more turns, you really were putting a lot into that shield.”

“I still think our original plan is our best option,” Lionel said with a tentative edge in his voice. His inexperience showed in his lack of confidence. There was a reason he played his character close to his chest, and it wasn’t because he was the lone and mysterious kind. Then again, he’s the youngest of us, so maybe he thinks that’s cool.

“Good old ‘crack, tear, and blast’? Yeah, I think we should go for that,” Tim replied. As he glanced at his character sheet, probably in search of a spell of some sort that could be useful.

“I’d like to tear his crack with a blast,” Sarah muttered under her breath as she tried to hold back another set of giggles.

“Stop that, Sarah. You’re not funny and you never were,” Tim said, though I could notice the barest of twitches in the corner of his mouth.

“Alright people, I’m making an executive decision here,” Charlie said as he closed his book in a quick motion, “As things are right now, you guys are going to lose. Badly. So just for the sake of giving you a fighting chance, I’m going to let Jessica roll her attack again.”

There was a sting to his words, but I knew he was right. The accursed dice had not been kind on us, and if we were still alive it was only because the damage dice were as cursed as ours were.

“I still have an immediate action I can use,” Tim chimed in, and he sounded genuinely hopeful.

“Well, you can either aid Jess, or try to attack Thurloth. Just remember you can only use basic spells,” Charlie said in that dull monotone voice of his he only used when he entered his Dungeon Master zone.

“I can work with that,” Tim said as he happily rearranged his notes.

“Alright, then. Everyone ready?”

There was a moment where everyone simply stared at each other in silence before a slow harmony of mumbled assertions was heard. Our chances of coming out victorious from this fight were slim at best, and I knew deep down we all wished we had listen to the old prophecy in time instead of trying to liberate the town of sentient horses from their centaur overlord, but Lionel had insisted. Regardless, lamenting the past would get us nowhere. What’s done is done, and we got to have a party in a barn afterwards.

With a determined nod, I reached for the dice with my left hand and gave Charlie my most resolute look.

[hr]

I took several deep breaths to calm myself as the Lich King went on and on about his own greatness and the glory his ruling would bring to the land. As Thurloth was in the middle of his tirade, I locked gazes with Timaeus.

He seemed to have shaken off the worst of the magic aftershock, and the brief shimmering light that passed through his fingers let me know he was giving me a boost for my last chance against the Lich King.

I thought back to the aforementioned list of people whose future, hopes and well-being relied on the defeat of Thurloth tonight. Hesitating, then, no longer, I recited a quick litany to my God and hoped to the heavens above that we could bring an end to an aeon of undead rule before it started.

My lips moved in silence as they mimicked the holy words that coursed through my mind, guiding me and my sword to strike true in the Lich King’s heart. And with one final lunge that favored my unbroken knee, I swung my weapon with all of my might and promptly gave several spins as I failed to connect with Thurloth’s armour once again.

[hr]

The boisterous laughter that filled the room made the earlier bout of glee seem like a funeral. One could almost be forgiven for forgetting my failure had doomed an entire realm to live under the oppressive fist of an undead maniac.

I think it should go without saying that I didn’t take part in my the enjoyment of my tablemates. I was too preoccupied with giving my dice a death glare, almost as if in doing so I could merge both into a single die that would show an ‘eleven’ on it. Alas, I had to conform with having rolled the objectively worst possible roll I could have rolled without somehow setting fire to the plastic bits.

“I think it’s official, Jess,” Sarah said between gasps, “the dice are cursed.”

It was only after the laughter died down that I noticed Charlie wasn’t laughing either. What’s more, his vacant stare made me think that was how I probably looked, only that he was staring at his reference book instead of Satan’s tonsil stones.

“What, did she spin too fast and broke her spine? How bad did she fail?” Tim asked once he finally got enough air back in his lungs.

Charlie didn’t say anything at first. He just kept staring down, sparing only brief glances at the dice and myself before turning back to his book.

“Come on, Charlie. Speak up,” Lionel prodded him.

There are moments in life where everything just falls into place. Where you finally make it through the thickest part of the thorn bushes in the garden of life and you get to bask in the glory brought by an all-balancing karmic force.

“Critical Failure,” Charlie recited in an utter shocked monotone befitting a man who had just witnessed a miracle take place, “Player suffers immediate death as well as all adjacent targets.”