The Simple Things in Life
The year is 1972. And that’s about as retro as this story gets. Why ‘72? What’s wrong with ‘75, ‘79 or even ‘69? Well, they all damn fine but they just ain’t good ol’ ’72.
20 kilometres in the middle of nowhere, a solitary figure stumbled across a terrace. The first rays of the summer sun provided some illumination as the figure continued its search. “Damn that Praif!”. The son-of-a-gun had gone and lost the bloody humidor along with her entire monthly allowance, and then to compound it he’d gotten himself lost too. Nae, short for Nayan, shorter for Nayanthara had just woken up but was still drained from the four hour twenty minute D&D session her party had finished the evening before. This campaign was nowhere as long as their usual campaigns but it sure as hell was the strangest. In fact, she was starting to think she’d dreamed up some of the stranger stuff. Their D&D campaigns usually consisted of Od’Hanaay, the xenophobic Dark Mage who occasionally dabbled with temporal magic and Nae’s character, a High Elf with control issues. Their arch nemesis was Praif, the HobGoblin chieftain who sometimes identified as an attack eagle.
The campaign had started off pretty simple, the gatekeeper of the subcontinent had wanted their help in his fight against an anti-national fringe group who called themselves the Tinderlions or Tenderloins or something of the sort. They agreed to help him after he promised to put 15 gold pieces in each of their pouches. They set out on their journey with only the gatekeeper’s strange words for guidance, “Friends! Walk straight till you come to the first T-bone, sorry, tea shop. Go left there and keep going left, you’ll find those anti-nationalists as long as you keep going left.” They kept walking and walking and walked some more but there was no tea joint in sight. An exasperated Od’hanaay pulled out his tachyon orb and cast a divination spell. Suddenly, the skies opened up and the orb shot up into the sky. “Uhhh Od’, is that supposed to happen?” asked Nae. Hanaay just stood there, mouth agape, all the blood had drained from his face. An ominous voice boomed across the land, “Treachery from within, the goblin lusts after the elf’s gold”. It was at that moment when Nae knew, the faeces had most definitely hit the fan. She couldn’t remember much after that except a tea party with a blonde haired orange-skinned T-Rex who was convinced the tea in the boiling kettle was not getting hotter at all.
“Ugh! I sure as hell could use a cup of coffee right now” thought Nae as she paced the terrace searching for her purse. It hit her then, she knew who was behind all this and why.
Praif. For Nae’s money.
