Once Upon an Adventure Read online

  Once Upon An Adventure

  A Fairytale Adventure Book 4

  J. E. Mueller

  Editing by O.R. Faulkner

  Cover by Taurus Colosseum

  Formatting by J.E.Mueller

  Copyright © 2020 by J. E. Mueller

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To all those who wanted a little more magic,

  And another happily ever after, again.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene

  Bonus Character FAQ

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by J. E. Mueller

  Prologue

  A fierce wind swept around the clearing like a winter gale. Branches held tight onto the trees, while leaves slowly gave into the gust and blew in a circle. After a few moments, everything came to a standstill revealing two figures alone in a clearing just as the sun began to set.

  “I’ve heard your intriguing call. Tell me, what exactly is it that you seek?” a cold female voice asked as she crossed her arms.

  Donny assessed the cloaked woman. Her face was barely visible except for a rather unsettling, sinister smile. The dark red of her lips almost looked bloodstained, and they already stood out too vibrantly against her fair skin. He ignored those facts as best he could. Mustering all the courage he had, he let his anger take hold of his demands. “I want revenge on that idiot who locked me up, and for my Belle to see I am the best, most desirable, and most handsome in the land.”

  The woman gave a low chuckle. “To be the fairest one of all, you must complete a task for me, then I’ll see that your competition is removed for a while. I will give you a charm to lend you aid, but if you fail from there, nothing more can be done.”

  “I’ll do your task,” Donny agreed without another thought. “Say the word and it will be done.” He nodded his head vigorously, eager to begin and get what he wanted.

  “I had a feeling you’d agree.” She held out a slip of paper, seemingly coming from nowhere, and handed it over to him.

  Donny couldn’t tell with the darkening sky if it was magic or sleight of hand. Not that it mattered. Carefully, he unfolded the paper and scoffed as he read the words. “Impossible!”

  “Oh, nothing is impossible, young simpleton.” An amused smile crossed her face. “There are those determined to achieve their goals and those who are afraid of a little challenge.”

  “I’m not afraid!” Donny shot back, the insult quickly solidifying his resolve. “I just don’t know where to find unicorns or werewolf fur. Swan feathers take nothing.”

  “The quest is to find, the challenge is to succeed. Do you accept?” Her sinister smile never faltered.

  “I do." Donny replied through clenched teeth. While unable to turn down the challenge and its rewards, he knew he was over his head.

  “Perfect. Call for me when you’ve completed the tasks.” A gale once more tore through the clearing, causing Donny to shield his eyes.

  Once the wind died down, the woman was gone.

  Chapter 1

  ——Arnessa——

  “As the group slowly descends the darkening stairs you hear creaking from somewhere below you…” Nadia flashed a sinister smile from behind her dungeon master screen.

  “I put my hand out to stop the group and roll to check for traps,” Rey declared, tossing his dice into the center of the long table we sat at. We watched it land on fifteen. “With my modifier that’s eighteen.”

  It had been a year since we started gaming together. We tried to meet at least once a month in person for some sort of adventure. Occasionally we’d meet online, when time and duties weren’t always in our favor. Still, it was exciting to do something so wonderfully simple as game.

  We glanced from Rey’s smug smile over at Nadia who checked her sheet before smiling. “You notice that a step two down from you looks off. It seems to be raised more than the others.”

  Rey nodded and went back to talking in character. “There’s a faulty step ahead. I’m not sure what it’ll do.”

  “Trigger it!” I declared while grabbing a handful of chips. We had all sorts of junk food spread out for tonight's meetup, thanks mostly to everyone being tired of fancy meals and obligations. “If it spits something out, we’ll know what the traps are on the rest of the steps, if there are any.” I quickly ate the chips while Rey shook his head at me.

  Vincent gave me a sidelong look. “I don’t think that’s wise Arnessa -er um.” He glanced at my character sheet for the name. “Lydia. It could trap us here instead.”

  Ash shook her head. “No, I say we do it. It wouldn’t trap us in the stairwell. We’d either have to find a new way down or find our way out by continuing through. Let’s do it!”

  “I am not stepping on it.” Rey shook his head.

  Cat snickered. “I remove a goblet from my pack and carefully toss it on the step.”

  “Roll for it.” Nadia’s lips twitching up into an almost menacing look.

  Cat cursed under her breath as she cast her dice. Two.

  “It bounces off the edge and doesn’t trigger anything. You hear it clank and clatter down several more steps into the darkness. As it stops you hear something slam into a solid object. From where you are, you cannot tell if it's the door or the wall.” Nadia glanced up at her expectantly.

  “Let me try.” I nodded over toward Cat.

  “Use your own loot.” Cat stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Dirty rogue.” I laughed back at her. My wizard hadn’t exactly been getting along with her for most, if any, of the trip. “I use my staff to reach out and press down on the step.”

  Nadia gave us a gleeful smile. “You hear the sound of metal hitting stone behind you.”

  “The entrance is blocked isn’t it?” Rey sighed knowingly.

  “I’ll go back up the steps and check.” Vincent glanced at Nadia for confirmation.

  “At the top you see a barred gate is now down.” Nadia’s glee turned into an evil smirk.

  “Is there a way out, or a switch nearby?” Vincent asked hopefully, shifting all of our attention back to our too cheerful DM.

  “Roll for perception." Nadia replied in a sing-song voice.

  Vincent groaned and rolled his dice. “Natural twenty! Yes!” He fist-pumped the air.

  All eyes were on Nadia again. Would we be forced down to investigate the creepy loud sound? Would we be allowed to retreat if needed? The anticipation was invigorating, and exactly why I dragged Vincent to this monthly meet-up.

  “You don’t see a switch on this side, but through the bars, well out of reach looks like something that could be one. As you peer through, you see what looks like dried blood on the iron bars.”

  Vincent nodded. “I head back down and tell them what I found.”

  “At least it wasn’t poison arrows.” Cat shrugged, not bothered by the predicament. We had run into that a few sessions ago and nearly lost half the party.

  “And the stairs didn’t turn into a sudden slide,” Ash let out a gleeful cheer. “Down we go!”

  “I follow behind her, giving a step in between us." Rey stated.

  “Same." the rest of
us echoed with a laugh.

  “Cowards.” Ash chuckled, not even trying to amend her actions.

  “As you descend the stairs, the darkness increases." Nadia said in a mysterious tone.

  “I grab a torch from further up." I declared, not wanting to be caught too off guard, even with Ash as bait.

  Nadia gave a nod. “With the added glow of light, you make it to the bottom. You see a steel door with bloodied handprints on it.

  I liked to imagine our group staring at each other unsure how to proceed. In reality, Rey was eating his fifth slice of pizza staring off into space while he thought of what to do next.

  “Who has the best lock check?” Vincent asked in between bites of pizza. I hadn’t even seen him take another slice.

  “I should.” Cat sighed. “But my rolls have been terrible.”

  “Well, we can always try opening it first,” Ash shrugged. “But we should probably wait. Whatever was making that noise is likely on the other side of the door, and we’d want it to lose interest in the area, if at all possible.”

  “True. That would be smart, assuming it’s not a small hall or passageway. Then we could sneak up on it." Rey agreed as he stacked his different dice into a tower.

  “Let’s try the door and be ready for a fight,” Vincent stated thoughtfully. “If it’s unlocked, we’re ready to go. If it is locked, we can get that figured out and then wait since we’d likely be making noise during that process.”

  Nadia smirked at us, a bit too cheerfully as we debated the better route to take here. “Decisions, decisions. What ever shall it be?” she taunted us.

  Ash raised an eyebrow at her. “Stop that!” I laughed at how easily Nadia could rile her up.

  “Ugh, I give. Let’s vote,” Rey called over the light noise our discussion was making. “Hands up, who says we try to open it first.”

  Everyone but Cat and Ash raised their hands.

  “Let’s do it!” Vincent called dramatically. “I hold my weapon at the ready as I carefully try to open the door with my non-dominant hand.”

  Nadia looked pleased. “You open the door and a body falls into the room. It’s a bloodied mess. From the claw marks along its neck, you can see that he is dead. Past the body, a fresh trail of blood goes off into the darkness.”

  “What does the area look like?” I asked, hoping for some sort of clue to the situation we were in.

  “There is a single torch on the other side of the door. A double wide stone corridor is all you can make out from the lack of sufficient light.” Nadia seemed too pleased with herself in this dark adventure.

  Cat groaned, rubbing her hands down her face. “This is where the party finally dies isn’t it?”

  “Come on, have some hope. We did survive the last campaign.” Rey laughed, not sounding anymore convinced than Cat was about the quest at hand.

  “But not the two before that." Ash pointed out unhelpfully.

  “But the first one we did survive as well." I commented before turning to Nadia. “How far into the hall can we see?”

  “Not very. The torch gives you limited distance, but you can tell there is a light ahead.” Nadia repeated for us. I had hoped for an additional hint or commentary but she wasn’t budging.

  “If we carefully move forward, we might be able to stealth through,” Cat mused as she hummed to herself. “Someone should take the extra torch as well.”

  “Not with my armor. It’s near impossible to move quietly and carefully,” Rey sighed before glancing slowly around as he considered the scene. “This corpse either ran and hit the door before dying or was thrown over here after the goblet fell.”

  “What if it hit the door and died after locking the creature up?” I mused back, enjoying the theory.

  “He would have slumped over.” Ash shook her head. “This feels more staged.”

  “Should we just make enough noise to call the beast over and use the stairs and door to our current advantage?” Vincent asked.

  “Let’s do that!” Cat cheered, excited by the plan. “I retrieve the goblet that fell down here and throw it with all my might.”

  “Ugh.” Rey and Ash groaned. At least this wasn’t the worst impromptu decision anyone had made to date.

  “I hastily take several steps back so I’m up a few stairs." I declared, wanting to be away from the door where I’d be able to use my spells better.

  Nadia laughed before clearing her throat. “The goblet clangs off through the stone hall into the darkness, echoing with every bound before it settles. You hear something far off that sounds like it may be a scream cut short before silence blankets the hall once more.”

  “That was somehow worse than I was expecting." I grumble. Whatever was in there wasn’t approaching us, yet. It did however have several things to kill. Or used to.

  “I slowly lead the way into the darkness.” Vincent sighed, making it sound more like a death march than a winnable quest.

  “I follow right behind." Rey declared, eagerness in his voice.

  “Same,” Cat agreed, equally determined. “Ash, grab the torch.”

  Ash glanced my way. “Well? Shall we?”

  “Three steps behind, but better late than never." I agreed, curious to see where this story would take us.

  Nadia grinned widely. “Good. Now roll for stealth.”

  Several dice hit the table just as the power went out.

  Cold air draped around me like a blanket. It made no sense how it came out of nowhere just as the power went out. Magical lights didn't just randomly die like that. Carefully, I felt out for an illusion and was surprised that while I felt magic, there was no illusion there. Instead, just raw power met me. A shiver unrelated to the cold went down my spine and I was almost glad no one could see it.

  "Um, Ash, can you dispel raw magic?" I asked softly, careful not to speak louder than necessary. I wasn’t sure exactly how her magic worked, just that she had a terrible hold on it most days.

  At first there was no reply. "It's too strong to fully dispel but..." The oppressive darkness dissipated as the magic in our immediate area cleared.

  It didn't leave in our favor though. We appeared to be transported, chair included, to some sort of cave. Not much could be seen as the only light was a small lantern a short distance away. As I took in the lackluster surroundings I quickly saw 'us' was just myself, Ash, and Cat. Worry gripped my chest. Where could the others be? Where were we?

  Cat bit her lip as she took in everything. "The cold feels a lot like my step sisters’ magic." She whispered softly.

  We all stood up, as if that would give us better bearings on the situation at hand. No one looked happy. Confusion, concern, and dread passed through everyone's expressions before Ash nodded and finally spoke.

  "That wasn't the magic that brought us here though. It's too... melodic."

  "What?" That didn't make sense to me.

  "I've noticed more and more raw magic has its own song, so to speak. Usually a basic spell is just a verse, a small part of the song. If I can just find the right note, I can unravel it. That should get rid of the ridiculous darkness, but the other magic, I can’t tell where it’s centered. It’s far more complex."

  Her magic was more unusual than anything I had encountered and I had learned early on not to question the strangeness of it. There just weren’t many answers. "Think that'll work here?" It was the safest thing to ask.

  Ash nodded, seemingly spacing out as her mind focused elsewhere. "I've found the pattern."

  Cat breathed a sigh of relief. Her magic occasionally misfired but I knew overall she would be ready to handle whatever situation we ended up in. I just wondered what happened to the others?

  The magic suddenly dispelled and we could see that we were in fact in a cave with only a small lantern left nearby.

  Cat glanced around nervously as she summoned the lantern to her with her minor telekinetic talent. “I still sense her.”

  I looked around carefully, trying to remember what talents
we all had. What talents did I even have? Illusions weren’t exactly useful at this exact moment.

  Ash let out a deep breath. “Arnessa, can you conjure up some better light?”

  I nodded at her, glad one of us could think straight. I summoned up a handful of little fire lights and cast them around us, spreading our range of view. Sadly there wasn’t much to see: cave walls and tunnels leading off further into the darkness. At least it wasn’t damp. Just cold and musty.

  Ash looked around approvingly. “Good start. Okay… What other useful things can we do?”

  Cat let her stoneflesh magic cover her arms in scales. “I don’t think we have much in the way of usefulness, but let’s try to find our way out of here.”

  “Oh, I should check our location.” Ash laughed, pulling her phone out of her pocket before frowning.

  “No signal?” I guessed.

  “Yeah, but I should always have a signal. My brother Marcus used his magic on my phone." Ash explained.

  Cat frowned. “Didn’t you say that happened when you met Nadia? His type of technology enchantments are beyond compare.”

  Ash nodded, more to herself than to us as she thought through things. “Exactly, but that was Daeum magic. This feels different.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Different how? Like it could be a different Daeum or something completely different altogether?”

  Ash looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe it could be a different Daeum. Everything I’ve read makes it sound like there are a ton of them, but we haven’t exactly done anything worth a Daeum’s attention.”

  “Didn’t you say when you were explaining it to us forever ago that they come to the calls they find most interesting?” I asked for confirmation. I knew the universe was a big place, so how could we, really Ash, encounter two Daeum’s in just her lifetime?