I ran blindly at first, then remembering what had happened to my adventurers when they blundered into a black pudding, slowed down.
I recognized where I was on the map, room 13e, the lair of Phil the Twitchy, an Ogre who lived behind a murder wall, a secret door off of room 14b. The secret door was open, which is how I’d made it into the room, and Phil looked like he’d met a sad end. His skeleton was spread out on the floor, with the pointy end of a broken sword sticking out of his ribcage.
Poor Phil. I remember my dad talking about a friend at work named Phil, and wondered if this was him. There was some kind of story about him stealing an entire keg of beer from a work party and showing up the next day wearing nothing but a banner from a place called Gamehole wrapped around his loins. I didn’t know what to make of the story when I heard it, and still don’t, honestly, but at that moment the thought of a naked ogre terrorizing a convention made me smile despite it all.
I picked up the hilt of the broken sword, and when I did it vibrated slightly and a magic mouth appeared on what was left of the blade, a Cheshire grin on the rusted steel.
“I am Tim! Slayer of Ogres!”
“Shut up,” I said, and the mouth disappeared. Magic mouths I’d seen before, and in any case I was officially tapped out on being surprised or scared for the day. It was time to go home.
***
I made my way back to the locker, still clutching the remains of Tim the broken sword. When I did, I found dad’s locker, and proceeded to let loose Tim on the padlock. Each time I hit it, the magic mouth appeared, declaring itself the Slayer of Ogres, until the lock, actually defeated or just tired of Tim, fell apart.
I dropped the sword, pulled out the remains of the lock, and swung open the door. Inside was empty except for a journal under a thick layer of dust. I picked it up, blew off the dust, and opened the thick book.
The first page simply said “Dungeon of Descent” in my father’s handwriting. The next page, and the others, appeared to be blank, but as I stared at them, I thought I could see words, images, maps, shifting deep below the surface, as if beneath a sheet of thick ice.
I’d seen this kind of magic before. Our legal team uses it on disclaimers, non-disclosures, and contractor agreements. Usually there’s a password to see the contents, but I had no idea what it would be.
Not for the first time that day, I cursed my dead father.
