by
M. K. Gibson
Copyright © 2017 by Michael K. Gibson
Published by
Amber Cove Publishing
PO Box 9605
Chesapeake, VA 23321
Cover design by Raffaele Marinetti
Visit his online gallery at http://www.raffaelemarinetti.it/
Cover lettering by M.K. Gibson
Book design by Jim Bernheimer
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. 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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Visit the author’s website at www.mkgibson.com
First Publication: February 2017
Dedication and Acknowledgments
How about that? My publisher actually gave me another shot to write a book for him!
HA! Sucker!
This particular piece of fiction is, despite the mocking nature, my love letter to the fantasy genre and table-top gaming. Tolkien, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Joel Rosenberg, D&D, Whitewolf and so many more from my childhood cemented my eternal geek. But for this work, I wanted to do an action-comedy about the devices which make the stories work, and that is the villains.
. . .While also Taking the Piss out of my beloved genre.
Thank you to my lovely wife who, despite a complete lack of caring towards geek culture, endures my ideas, supports me, and edits my drivel.
Thank you to Jim Bernheimer and Amber Cove Publishing for once again, giving my codified fever dreams a home.
Thank you to my mother, Bonnie H., who always encouraged my writing.
Massive shout out to Erik J., whose back and forth email conversations with me were the original genesis for this stupid, stupid book.
Thank you to my friends who support and mock me. Love ya bastards.
And lastly, thank you to the fans I’ve made who’ve given me support to keep on writing. It isn’t time to quit my day job, but my evenings are filled with making new worlds for people who wish to visit them. Love you!
M. K. Gibson
Table of Contents
The Third Rule of Villainy
Heroes are arrogant, predictable, and really, really dumb.
Prologue
Prologue pt. 2 - Electric Boogaloo
The Fourth Rule of Villainy
Villains are frequently as dumb, or dumber, than the heroes.
Chapter One
Where I Introduce Myself
Chapter Two
Where I Discuss Fantastical Beasts and How to Feed Them
Chapter Three
Where I Discuss Politics, Ex-Wives, and Have a Visit from my Sister
Chapter Four
Where I Entertain Bad People, Worse Ideas, and Give My Nephew a Job
The Fourteenth Rule of Villainy
Trust leads to relationships. Relationships lead to betrayal. Betrayal is your own damn fault.
Ergo, trust is dumb.
Chapter Five
Where I Contemplate the Evil Nature of Horses, the State of the Poor, and Waste Teachable Moments on the Young
Chapter Six
Where I Discuss Shoes and Orchestrate a Bar Brawl
Chapter Seven
Where I Ponder My Time with He-Man and Encounter a Secret Servant
Chapter Eight
Where I Eat the Contents of the Monster Manual and Get Betrayed
Chapter Nine
Where I Recover from a Concussion and Plot the Demise of Seven Assholes
Chapter Ten...sort of
Where I Gloat
Chapter Ten (The Real One)
Where I Exploit Fantasy Loopholes and Piss off a Sea Deity
The Ninth Rule of Villainy
A villain will use ANYTHING to win . . . even if it sucks.
Chapter Eleven
Where I Begin My Quest to Find Heroes and Expose Fantasy Realm Sexism
Chapter Twelve
Where I Enlist My Team by Putting Innocents at Risk and Kick a Little Ass
Chapter Thirteen
Where I Weave a Web of Lies into Half-Truths and Ensnare a Few Heroes
Chapter Fourteen
Where I Meet Two Gods and Wish for a Better Cell Phone Provider
Chapter Fifteen
Where I Find Myself Poisoned, Robbed, and Planning on Going After a Pack of Bastards
The Sixth Rule of Villainy
A villain will always pay attention.
You never know what you can learn and turn to your advantage later.
Chapter Sixteen
Where I Fantasize About Equestricide and Forced to Listen to Back Stories While Sleepy
Chapter Seventeen
Where I Prove Discretion in the Better Part of Valor and Enjoy a Final Show
Chapter Seventeen-and-a-Half
Where I Don’t Feel I Need to Explain Myself to You
Chapter Eighteen
Where I Point Out the Obvious and Plan an Escape
The Eight Rule of Villainy
A villain will plan for any contingency.
Should that plan fail, a true villain will not only improvise, but they will also claim any success as a well-constructed backup plan.
Chapter Nineteen
Where I Discover Horrible Smells and Use the C-Word (If you find this offensive, imagine it said by a British comedian)
Chapter Twenty
Where I Make False Promises, Strike a Blow Against Sexism, and Get Kicked in the Balls
Chapter Twenty-One
Where I Ladle Out Copious Amounts of Bullshit and My Companions Ask for a Second Helping
Chapter Twenty-Two
Where I Go from One Prison to Another and Detail Why Elves are Assholes
The Nineteenth Rule of Villainy
A villain knows the legal system of every location he is in and is prepared to use that system toward his advantage . . .
preferably in a way that inspires shock and awe.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Where I Stand Trial and Drop Knowledge Bombs
Chapter Twenty-Four
Where I Reacquaint Myself with an Old Ally and Perform Certain Necessary Acts
Chapter Twenty-Five
Where I Negotiate Villainous Plots During a Funeral
Chapter Twenty-Six
Where I Try to Move This Along, but Certain People Refuse to Let Me
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Where I Shine a Light on Fantasy Tropes and Go Swimming
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Where I Devise a Plan, Watch a Fight, and Listen to Barry White
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Where I Nakedly Deal with a Deity and Have a Talk with My Sexual Partner
Chapter Thirty
Where I Lead Us on to the Next Leg of the Adventure, Have a Cold Awkwardness with Lydia, and Find a Job for My Dead Employee
The Tenth Rule of Villainy
Villains make mistakes. A successful one learns from them.
Chapter Thirty-One
Where Intelligence and Toilets are Key
Chapter Thirty-Two
Where We Climb Through Human Shit and Wren Tries to Burn Us Alive
Chapter Thirty-Three
Where I Skulk, Learn About Giant Sex, and Contemplate Romance
Chapter Thirty-Four
Where I Get Healed, Get Robbed, Entertain an Offer, and Get Rescued
Chapter Thirty-Five
Where I Spy From Above, Give Sage Villain Advice, and Am Betrayed
Chapter Thirty-Six
Where I Am Forced To Listen to Two Traitors and Plan a Counterattack While N
ot Moving
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Where I Witness the Fury of a Half-Dwarf and Ponder Vaginal Relativity
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Where I Sacrifice a Life to Save a Life
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Where I Check on the Recently Deceased and Deal with Steve
The Fifteenth Rule of Villainy
A villain will always assess everything and everyone for a net gain.
Chapter Forty
Where We Question Carina, I Dodge a Bullet, and We Move on to Chaud
Chapter Forty-One
Where I Have Polite Villain-to-Villain Discourse and Enjoy a Glass of Wine
Chapter Forty-Two
Where I Have a Heart-to-Heart with Hawker and Consider My Grandmother’s Cryptic Adage
Chapter Forty-Three
Where I Put My Plan into Action and Receive a Threat
The Twenty-First Rule of Villainy
The enemies you make speak louder about you than your allies.
Chapter Forty-Four
Where Families Reunite and I Learn that Snitches Get Stitches
Chapter Forty-Five
Where I Explain Some Rules, Deal with Paige, and Suffer from a Gunshot Wound
Chapter Forty-Six
Where I Ponder Paige’s Fate, Compare Myself to Tolkien, and Consider Public Nudity
Chapter Forty-Seven
Where I Question Whether or Not I Possess Guilt
Chapter Forty-Eight
Where I Witness Grimskull’s Tantrum and I Learn a Bit More About My Conspirators
Chapter Forty-Nine
Where I Confront a God and I’m Forced to Do the Unspeakable
Chapter Fifty
Where I Receive Help, Say Goodbye to Bad Business Partners, and Pray
The Seventh Rule of Villainy
A villain will never claim victory. Victory only comes when all enemies have either perished or submit to you and they claim you victor.
Otherwise, you are bound to be beaten just when you think you have won.
Chapter Fifty-One
Where I Sell Lydia and Take Cover While the Avatars Battle
Chapter Fifty-Two
Where Hawker Gets His Revenge and Grimskull Gets a Visit
Chapter Fifty-Three
Where I Reconnect with an Old Ally and Discover a New Enemy
Chapter Fifty-Four
Where I Am Dumbstruck
Chapter Fifty-Five
Where I Witness Evil and Receive a Lecture
The Second Rule of Villainy
A villain will know every rule through and through. And when in doubt, a villain will always refer to rule #1.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Where I Am Forced to Listen to Randy and I Test a Theory
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Where I Have a Near-Death Experience
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Where I Take a Painful Walk and Accept My Fate
Chapter Sixty
Where I Reveal the First Rule of Villainy
Epilogue
About the Author
The Third Rule of Villainy
Heroes are arrogant, predictable, and really, really dumb.
Prologue
(Look, I know prologues can be boring. But they are there for a reason. So just read it. And if it helps, imagine it being read in a fancy accent.)
The warrior rode home.
What was left of the Elder River village still smoldered. Almost a year to the day, smoke rose from the magically immolated land the warrior called home.
Home.
The warrior had been gone so long, the word “home” had nearly lost meaning. Through the trials he endured and the dangers he faced, the warrior had stayed focused.
When his village and his family were slaughtered and burned by the half-fire giant General Anders, the war leader for the hordes of the Baron Grimskull, he was lost. He was destroyed inside. But the warrior had been taken in by his mentor, Zachariah Greywalker. It was in the home of the elves of the Whispering Woods where the warrior was taught to fight, taught to use his mind, and taught to live again. It was there where the warrior fell in love with the elf maiden Lady Alianna.
The warrior promised his mentor and his beloved he would find the Baron Grimskull’s weakness and bring peace to the land. And to the horizon, he set off.
Death the warrior courted, and death he delivered upon the enemies who barred his way. The Nameless Sea could not claim him. The Waste of Sand and Tears could not contain him. The bleak rock of the Grey Spire Mountains could not deter him.
And finally, deep beneath the Peak of Inverness, the Bray Beast of D’hoom Dungeon fell to him. It was there in D’hoom Dungeon the warrior found the source of Grimskull’s power: Amulet of the Ember Soul. Armed with the amulet, the warrior could strip the baron of his power. With this, he could bring an end to Grimskull’s tyranny. With this he could usher in a new age of peace.
The remnants of the Elder River village were in view. The sun set on the horizon. Blue and purple wove a tapestry of twilight across the valley sky. The warrior wanted nothing more than to return to the woods and to his lady love. But first, he had a promise to keep. A promise to himself.
The warrior rode through the remnants of the village gates, charred from the attack. He slipped off his horse and closed his eyes and breathed in deeply the scent of his home. He felt right, true, and just.
“Mother, Father, my friends . . . your deaths will be avenged. I wish I had been stronger then. I wish I could have saved you. But with this amulet, I will destroy Grimskull. And I will rebuild here. Your sacrifice will be the foundation of a stronger tomorrow. On this, I swear!”
The warrior had left this place a fearful boy. Now, the boy was a man, and the man would defeat any enemy that stood before him.
“By the gods above and below, I dare any to stand between me and my sacred vow,” the warrior growled.
From the shadows behind the warrior stepped a rather large man dressed in all black tactical gear with night-vision goggles. The man in black cracked the warrior over the head with a rubberized metal baton, dropping him into the dirt.
Nudging the warrior on the ground with the steel toe of his combat boot, the man in black judged the warrior unconscious. The man in black took the pouch holding the Amulet of the Ember Soul from the warrior’s belt. Opening the bag to inspect that the Amulet of the Ember Soul was intact, the man in black nodded with satisfaction.
The man in black leaped up on the warrior’s horse and steered the horse away, leaving the village. With a backwards glance at the fallen warrior, the man in black muttered in dismissive, eye-rolling disgust:
“Heroes are so fucking stupid.”
Prologue pt. 2 - Electric Boogaloo
In a pocket dimension, between the real world and the fantasy realms, and slightly to the right of the world where your left socks go missing, existed the executive office of The Blackwell Corporation, Evil Consulting Agency. The ultra-modern building sat atop a lone barren mountain, seemingly floating in a void.
The waiting area inside the lobby of Blackwell Inc. contrasted the building’s exterior. The retro 1970s décor was lit by harsh flickering fluorescent lighting. The rectangular off-white ceiling tiles were intermittently stained the color of weak tea. The area resembled the airport lounge of days gone by, complete with rows of piss-yellow, hard plastic chairs attached to scratched chrome frames with nary an armrest to be found.
Muzak versions of fantasy realms madrigals droned painfully from the tinny, crackling speakers. The waiting room walls were floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked off into the nothingness of the pocket dimension. The view gave the lobby a perpetual nighttime look and radiated cold.
But mostly, the lobby stank. It stank of many things: stale cigarette butts in full ashtrays, burnt coffee in the antique percolator, and the
stale popcorn of a 1980s K-Mart.
The waiting room also stank from the presence of the eternal rotting corpse of the Dread Zombie Lich Lord Morakesh and his nine mummy high priests.
Just ask Sophia.
Sophia Rose DeVrille, Blackwell Corporation’s one and only receptionist, sat in her chair behind a fuck-all awesomely ornate cherry and mahogany desk. She typed away at her keyboard while sitting in her ridiculously expensive chair. Sophia felt that her lower lumbar was not only being supported, it was practically being made love to.
Sophia wasn’t really typing any kind of letter or email. She was just choosing to ignore the increasingly impatient Lord Morakesh, despite the stink. The Dread Lord’s nine high priests sat in the lobby reading out-of-date magazines like Better Homes & Gardens, various parenting magazines, and Highlights. Lord Morakesh stood in front of Sophia’s desk with his arms crossed, tapping his undead foot impatiently. Little necrotic bits of the Dread Lord were falling into piles despite his bandages and ceremonial armor.
It was quite disgusting.
Lord Morakesh continued standing in angry silence while the clock on the wall ticked.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
“Excuse me, but I have an appointment!” Lord Morakesh belted out in exasperation.
“No. You don’t,” Sophia mumbled without looking up, continuing her fake typing.
“Well, no. But do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? And?”
“And I do not care, sir.”
“I am the Dread Lord Morakesh!”
“And that,” Sophia gestured absently, “is the Infamous Alpha Werewolf, Grey Fang, of the Dessemark Bloodpack."
Grey Fang inclined his head slightly in a sign of acknowledgment, shifted his Boy's Life magazine, crossed his legs, and began to lick-clean his crotch. Thoroughly.
“Over there,” Sophia continued, “is The Torment. Non-Corporeal Manifestation of Abstract Evil. Master of the Never Realm’s Sphere of Pain and Suffering.”
The Torment floated above his chair in a seething cloud of smoke, fire, and pain. There was the faintest outline of a man within the billowing despair. While not having an apparent face or mouth, The Torment seemed to greatly enjoy the Blackwell complimentary cookies and juice box. Drunk, of course, with a crazy straw.