“White, please.” Kit’s form shimmered into existence, and the sorceress cautiously approached the necromancer. “I don’t understand what that thing is, but it sounds like you’re about to do something terrible.”
“Ah, Jess.” White shook his head and a condescending smile grew. “I really do think you’re a good player. Our conflicts stem from being too similar, I think. You’ll do much better with me as the game master. We’d no longer have to be adversaries. We could probably even modify your existing character to fit. I think a True Mage archetype, with life and air. You could play an artificer. I’d even start you with a divinity score right away. You could be a god.”
Kit had cocked her head, and Bert realized that she understood at least some of what White had said. Bert had gotten precisely none of it, but he did note something neither seemed to be aware of.
The sky rock had begun to vibrate. And so had the mountain around them. Bert didn’t understand what the sky rock was, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that White was about to use it incorrectly, and that when he did he’d blow up the entire world. All of it.
Even Boberton.
Rage bubbled up in Bert. Pure anger. He would not let White destroy the entire world, and right now Kit had him distracted. He would never have a better chance to act.
Bert summoned his magic, but he whispered the spell so that White wouldn’t hear. “Magic sword!”
The hilt of a saber appeared in his hand, and the blade was comprised completely of light. It hummed as he swung it, and he suspected the light to be very sharp indeed. This would do nicely.
Bert peered up at White, who stood right next to the cliff overlooking the pit of lava below. One hand was held triumphantly above him, clutching the sky rock, which had somehow shrunk to fit in the palm of his hand.
“Bert fly!” He whispered the words under his breath, then leapt into the air like a bird, and swooped toward White’s outstretched hand. He brought his laser sword down, and sliced through White’s finger and thumb.
Because Bert’s monsters had already lowered the necromancer’s defenses, it worked! Bert lopped off two fingers, and the sky rock, now conveniently Bert-sized, tumbled free of White’s grasp.
The rock fell end over end toward the hungry lava, and White screeched, “My precious!” Then dove off the cliff after it. Dragon wings sprang from the necromancer’s back, another new ability that should have been foreshadowed earlier, and he sailed down to retrieve the sky rock.
No! Bert would get there first. He pressed his arms and legs flat against his body, and willed the fly spell to carry him after the rock. Touching it might kill him, but Bert was going to make sure that the sky rock ended up in the lava, where White couldn’t get it. The lava looked very hot, and would probably melt the rock in any case.
As they zoomed toward the orange lake Bert noted that the rock’s vibration had increased. The energy built and built, and very soon now he believed it would explode. Would the lava stop that? Should Bert try to get the rock far away from here?
Whatever he decided it began with touching the rock, so Bert stuck out his tongue to increase his speed, and snatched up the rock just before White’s greedy fingers could clutch it.
Bert had seen what happened when the elves touched the rock, and fully expected to go poof. That didn’t happen. The instant Bert’s fingers brushed the rock, time stopped.
Everything around him froze. Bert hovered in midair, just above the lava, with White’s snarling face a bit above him as the necromancer lunged for the sky rock.
A sort of awareness grew in Bert as he fixed his attention on the rock. No, not the rock, the die.
A strange bubbliness welled up as green magic flowed from the die and up his arm. That magic brought more knowledge, and Bert understood many things.
It wasn’t a sky rock after all, but rather a focus for generating an entire magical realm. His realm.
The d20 had created everything. Paradise. The town of $Placeholder. Even Bert and Boberton had been created by the die. Bert could sense the immensity of magic within it, the untapped power waited to be shaped as he willed.
Each and every elf who’d flung themselves at the die was now inside it, ready to be plopped back into the world, however and wherever Bert would like. They weren’t dead, merely in stasis.
So long as Bert held the die he was the game master, and could bring the elves back. Not just the elves, either. There was Sheila, and Brownie Monster, and the hungry hungry rhino. There was G. Mayor and everyone else White had murdered.
Unfortunately, Bert had a more immediate problem and lacked the time to investigate this new knowledge. Well, two problems, technically. First, the die was vibrating even more fiercely and he knew he was running out of time.
He needed to find the cause of the vibration, and stop it, quickly. But he also needed to restart time, which meant dealing with the snarling dark elf above him.
It was time to deal with the Dark Lord White once and for all.
35
Hullo
Bert willed time to restart, and it did.
He hovered calmly above the lava as White launched his assault. The would-be dark lord raised a finger, and commanded Bert to die. Bert decided that he didn’t want to, so he didn’t. The d20 allowed him to overrule anything he didn’t like.
White followed up the death spell with a crackling lightning bolt,
