The Tale of Dragons and Dungeons

Chapter 9: The Napping Kingdom

(In the middle of writing this one I got lazy. #dealwithit)

"Yeah so... We're lost." Blader admitted to his party that he had no idea where he was going. Oznerol slowly clapped. "Nice job." "Hey navigating is harder than it looks!" Blader yelled, showing him the map. Both got into an argument about which direction to head at the fork in the path they arrived at. Eventually, they both just started shouting gibberish at each other until they both gave out. They looked around, trying to decide the best course of action. They all realized something. A man was riding towards them in the distance. "Hail, travelers!" Blader smirked. "Well this should be interesting." The man stopped in front of them. He had oily black hair that fell to his shoulders, a beard that looked as though he hadn't shaved it in years, deep gray eyes, and he was wearing clothes that looked more like wool pajamas. "Are you lost?" The man inquired of them. "Uh... Yeah. I literally said that 10 minutes ago." The man looked over them, then nodded. "Would you care to stay in my tavern tonight?" Blader looked at his friend for a moment, then nodded at the man.

"So this is the Napping Kingdom, Erendall, and this is your tavern, the White Pillow?" The man nodded. "Not the most creative name, but this is a wonderful family environment." Blader sighed and sipped at his water. Stella had to deal with weak liquor, Naunia had to eat this new thing called cereal. CEREAL! Oznerol was content with his 255 million shot glasses of apple juice, Gene was trying to get his plate of cookies back from lightning heart, Lani was having the time of her life with the other kids there, Dedrater was walking into a wall, and Lucy had somehow managed to get their parents to gamble on "Go Fish" and was cheating in someway. "Listen, I know who you really are, Isaac Slayb-" "Say my real name again and your nap will be eternal." The man was taken aback by the sudden interjection made by Blader, but continued. "Listen, I need you to investigate the recent deaths that have been happening. The people who come into my inn almost never come out. They say they're tired and go to their rooms, get in bed, go to sleep, and they never wake up. That's bad for business, and this is a small town, so deaths are huge around here." Blader looked at the man. "Probably makes the rooms smell." The man looked at Blader in disbelief. "You mean you don't care about the people dying?" Blader sighed. "Do you care about every single mosquito you've swatted?" The man looked at Blader hard in the eyes. "No..." "Exactly." "Look, just stay the night and kill anyone that comes in without telling you a specific word or phrase." "Sounds easy enough." It was decided. Blader went over and told the group about the story and the plan. "So the phrase is, In the dead of the night, when your enemies lose sight, that is the most opprotune time to strike." He smiled. It was perfect. "But the rooms will smell like dead people!" Lani complained. "I managed to get us the one room that hasn't had a dead body in it." They all sighed and nodded, accepting Blader's plan.

It was a cold stormy night that night, and no one could see much of anything. Even Blader, who had an immensely powerful night vision ability, was having trouble reading a book that night. Dedrater had gone off to the bathroom and they were waiting for someone to come in to try to kill them. Nothing new to Blader and Oznerol, but the others were a little afraid, coming up with insane theories like that Death himself was coming for them. When it was time for them to go to sleep, everyone pretended to sleep. However, most of them actually fell asleep. The only ones left were Blader and Oznerol. "Hey, Dedrater has been in the bathroom for a while, hasn't he?" Oznerol asked, looking to Blader, seeing him even in the almost complete darkness. He nodded. Just then, they heard a knock on the locked door. "Who's there?!" Blader called out, rolling out of bed fully equipped. "It's just me!" They heard Dedrater call out. "What's the passphrase?" "In the dead of the night, when your enemies lose sight, that is the most opprotune time to strike." Blader and Oznerol both put their feet firmly into the door and it came crashing down upon the person behind the door, Blader drawing his sword and Oznerol lighting a fireball in his hand. The person at the door, was not Dedrater, it was a hooded figure armed with a poison syringe. "How did you know it wasn't Dedrater?" Blader grinned. "Simple, there's no way Dedrater would remember that passphrase, it's DEDRATER." He put his sword into the real attacker's face as Oznerol lit him on fire to immoliate him. "Well that was easy to solve actually, it was obviously the barkeep." The entire tavern was set alight as the man burned. "Oh crap. WAKE EVERYONE UP AND RUN!"