The Legacy of Bahamut: Prologue

 Dungeons & Dragons: The Legacy of Bahamut

Prologue

It was a chilly fall day just after school. Sam, Ella, Dan, Andy, and Shaun were all heading over to their friend Josh’s who skipped the day at school to get some early holiday shopping in. The friends were not expecting to go over to Josh’s for several weeks though, they all thought he would be busy working on a new campaign for all of them to play.

However, Josh had a major surprise for them or so his text message’s said. They all got the message near the end of the school day so obviously Josh was highly anticipating on them coming over. Everyone decided that it couldn’t hurt to see what Josh was so excited about that he had to have them all come over immediately so they decided to go for a couple hours. Fortunately for all of them they all lived within a 3 mile radius of the school so they all got used to walking and Josh’s house was only a minor detour from any of their homes. Once they arrived at Josh’s house Sam rung to doorbell several times like he always did when the full group of friends was with him. In a mere moment after Sam had rung the doorbell everyone could hear the loud rush of footsteps approaching the door quickly.

“Wow it sounds like someone is back on one gallon of soda a day” Sam said sarcastically.

All of the friends chuckled lightly at Sam’s remark. Then the door swung wide open nearly smacking Sam in the face. Josh stood on the other side of the door with an enormous smile on his face. Before any of them could say “hi” Josh grabbed Sam and Shaun and pulled them inside.

“There is something incredibly awesome I have to show you guys. Come on follow me.”

Like all of his friends Josh was 14 and a freshman in high school. Josh had dark wavy hair that he kept at medium length some how he was able to pull of a real decent look like this having the minimal effort to do so as well. He was average height but was a very skinny guy. Normally Josh was calm and unenthusiastic.

Josh rushed everyone down to his basement. They normally came over to Josh’s when he had a new campaign of Dungeons and Dragons for them to play, and they always played down in his basement. Josh’s parents had plenty of room because they didn’t buy a whole bunch of pointless stuff they were going to hold onto or would throw something away when they knew they couldn’t use it. Josh’s family also packed away whatever holiday decorations or outfits they had inside their attic. The basement wasn’t abnormally large it was just free. Indeed the only furniture inside the basement was a table for Josh and his friends to sit at, chairs set around the table, and a bookshelf that Josh put all of his previous campaigns packed into binders on.

Sitting on the table was a hard cover blue book, it was the only thing that seemed to have been different about the basement the last time they were all there. The book had a silver dragon like symbol on the front cover and it was titled: “The legacy of Bahamut”

Josh walked over to the book and picked it up. “I found this at one of the older book stores downtown.” Josh said. “There doesn’t seem to be an author or even a publisher marked inside the book anywhere. I also asked the shop keeper if he could find any other copies but wherever he searched he found nothing.”

“Alright so you called us down here to show us a ghost book?” Ella asked.

“That’s only half of it!” Josh retorted.

“As I was reading through it I discovered that there is a playable campaign here inside the book.” Josh said. “You have to read between the lines to get more details about it but otherwise from what I have read it’s really unique. I haven’t gotten very far into the book either so it’s all a surprise to me for what’s going to happen next. It’s based on 5 players and with me as the DM it fits us perfectly.”

Though none of them seemed to notice, all of the friends felt a strange sensation from hearing about the mysteries inside the book. Who wrote it, where did it come from, and how it ended up with Josh were questions that never crossed anyone’s mind. At that time they only cared about starting this strange adventure and possibly finding out the answers to this mysterious book.

“Alright then” Sam said. “When do we start?”

“I was thinking this weekend.” Josh said just as Sam finished asking already knowing his friend’s response. “My parents are going to the store Friday so I was thinking Saturday afternoon. You can make your characters; we can spend some time getting into the story and everything else and then still have time for homework.”

Everyone nodded in agreement to Josh’s plan. It worked rather well for all of them too seeing how they were a little bit behind on their classes. They only needed a full day at most to get caught up anyways. This left them with some time to relax when everyone was done.



As the weekend finally came the friends all gathered at Josh’s house just before noon. They all arrived within twenty minutes of the first person to show up. Surprisingly it was Ella who showed up first and Dan who showed up last. Once everyone was in the basement and settled into their seats Josh asked, “Alright so how many of you have made your characters yet?”

Everyone pulled out two sheets of paper with all their characters information recorded on it from their bags. Josh sat there silently for a long moment. He expected them to at least have started their characters sheets but everyone was already finished.

“Alright then” Josh eventually said. “I guess we should introduce are characters, umm who wants to go first?”

It was Sam who spoke up first and said, “I’m playing as an Eladrin. My class is going to be a ranger. You may call me Ian Death whisper”

When Sam finished Shaun was the next to speak, “I have decided to go as a human artificer this time around. My in game name will be Tekaru the wise.”

“Awesome you can revive the enemies for me to kill again.” Andy remarked.

“You seem confident as always Andy.” Sam said in response to Andy’s remark. “Do you plan on using us as decoy’s in every fight through this campaign as well?”

Sam’s words came out like an intense fire, causing a high tension around the room amongst the friends. They’re last campaign was filled with dozens of encounters but everyone reached their limit of working together in the fights and soon enough were doing there own thing in these fights without much team work at all. It did not take very long for them to become frustrated with each other during a more difficult encounter where teamwork was required to prevail. However they managed to make it through every encounter mainly because they had three major power house characters.

It was true however what Sam said, Andy would use all of them as decoys while picking off the weaker monsters first. Never once did Andy make a move to help his comrades through that entire campaign. The biggest problem about Andy’s strategy however was that it was working so well, he was the one taking out the most monsters at a time because he could use area attacks to take care of the minions first. And when those were all gone he could use his more powerful directs spells to either finish or severely weaken the already half dead stronger monsters that remained. After that campaign was over though they all promised to put it all behind them and not to bring it up again and they kept this promise well and said nothing of it until today.

“Hey I was just playing by my characters alignment and my class strategy.” Andy said. “If you guys want to take front position in a fight, taking the monster head on who am I not to take advantage of the chaos?”

Andy did have a point, though Sam would not let it go so easily. Before things got worse Ella Jumped into the argument, “Alright it’s done!”  She said. “That is all in the past and we all agreed long ago to drop it. Besides this is a brand new and unknown campaign.”

Ella turned to Josh for some support. Noticing Ella’s queue for help Josh continued steering the argument to the new campaign. “Yeah Ella is right guys this campaign is still undiscovered by any of us so who knows what it contains.” Josh said. “I have only gotten a twelve page sneak peak into it and that isn’t much.”

The tension slowly died down as Dan was the next to speak, “I have decided to give the paladin another shot. Last time I played a paladin I did a decent job so I figured why not have another go at it.”

“Umm I presume your playing as a human too right Dan?” Josh asked.

“Oh yeah I forgot to say my characters race. But yes I doubt I will be playing anything other than a human for a while. My in game name is Allen strong sword.”

“Well you guys can play it safe in familiar territories.” Ella said. “I on the other hand will boldly go where no gamer chick has gone before. I’m going as a seventh time elf playing as a first time druid. My glorious in game name will be Sena the brave.”

Ella’s superficial act while she was announcing her character managed to bring smiles back to the group. Ella was rather good at cheering people up and that’s why they all enjoyed having her around. There was also the bonus of having a girl for a friend who was as big of a nerd as they were.

“I have decided to go into unfamiliar territory as well” Andy said. “This time I will play as a Tiefling warlock and my alignment will be chaotic neutral. With even the flip of a coin my alliance can be turned who knows the outcome of venturing with this ticking time bomb?” Andy had a menacing tone while announcing his character and kept this menacing grin on his face. It was all a bluff of course. Andy may have been a jerk at times but he would never betray his friends for any reason.

After about half an hour all of the character introductions were done and there were several empty cans of mountain dew around the table as well as two large bags of chips opened and half emptied. Everyone was ready to begin as Josh opened the book and started reading.

Nobody seemed to notice but as soon as Josh started reading, the air in the room had shifted. Josh continued reading out loud and was still in the books introduction when everyone began to feel an unusual sensation looming around them. Soon Josh’s words began to sound distant and wavering. Josh was about eight pages into the book now when the friends began seriously noticing the strange phenomenon happening around them.

Josh?” Sam asked.
No response Josh kept reading the book. He seemed almost possessed by it. Now everyone was getting scarred. They all looked at each other to make sure this wasn’t just in their own heads. It was not.

“JOSH!” All of them screamed at the same time. Still there was no answer. Then the book started to glow with luminescent blue light. The light from it got brighter and brighter until everyone was blinded by it. Josh’s words were cut out as the book seemed to have reached its peak of luminosity, and then everything went black…