Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks: Bound for Ruin - Hardcover

Johnson, Jaleigh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593599543 ISBN 13: 9780593599549

Verlag: Random House Worlds, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Meet the newest Dungeons & Dragons party in the first epic adventure of The Fallbacks.

To become renowned adventurers, this party needs to survive their first job.
 
Tessalynde is an ambitious young rogue who dreams of leading Faerûn’s foremost adventuring party. While the crew she’s gathered isn’t the stuff of legend yet, she’s confident her guidance can get them there.
 
The team: Anson, a fighter too stubborn to stay down, even when the odds are stacked against him. Cazrin, a self-taught wizard determined to test her theoretical mettle against the real world. Baldric, a cleric who refuses to tie himself to a single deity when he can trade favors with them all. Lark, a bard with as many secrets as songs. And, of course, Uggie, a monstrous pet otyugh who loves giving hugs and eating trash.
 
Their first job: recovering a mysterious spellbook from a lost temple for a hefty payout. Tess hopes this assignment can turn her group of fledgling freelancers into a true team. But when their client is killed, their coin and his murderer both vanish, leaving the party to take the fall.
 
Stuck with a sentient, bloodthirsty grimoire and pursued by mercenaries and the undead, this is hardly the mission Tess envisioned. Her crew must save the day, get the gold, and clear the party’s name—which they haven’t even agreed upon yet! With the threats against them mounting, a single mistake will see this party over before it even begins.
 
Can this band of mismatched misfits stay together in the face of danger? Or are they bound for ruin?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jaleigh Johnson lives and writes in the wilds of the Midwest. Her debut middle grade novel, The Mark of the Dragonfly, was a New York Times bestseller. Her other books include The Secrets of Solace, The Quest to the Uncharted Lands, and The Door to the Lost. She has also written fiction for Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms and Marvel. Johnson is an avid gamer and lifelong geek.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

 “It’s probably harmless,” Lark said.

The party surveyed the stretch of multicolored stone floor that lay between them and the pair of treasure chests situated on the opposite end of the ruined worship hall. There was no furniture remaining in the room. Shreds of rotting carpet still clung stubbornly to the floor in places, and the air smelled of mildew and smoke from the torches burning on the walls.

“That’s what we thought about the last chamber,” Tess said. She moved past Lark as he leaned against the doorframe, adjusting his busking hat and quill. His apple-­red skin was covered in a thin layer of dirt and a film of salt water from the cave they’d been exploring in their search for the entrance to the lost temple of Oghma, the god of knowledge.

Standing to Tess’s right, Cazrin pushed her long dark hair out of her face and held up her staff. The purple stone at its tip hovered above two silver points and glowed with soft light to illuminate the corridor and the worship hall beyond. At the back of the party, Baldric and Anson watched for threats approaching from behind.

Tess crouched on the floor in the doorway, examining the flagstones carefully. She’d tied her shoulder-­length blond hair back behind her pointed ears so it wouldn’t get in her way, and she carefully ran her fingers over the seams between the stones, searching for concealed wires or pressure plates.

“Two silver says the chest on the left is a mimic,” Baldric said. “You a betting man, Anson?”

Tess glanced back and saw the burly dwarf flash two silver coins at Anson, waggling his eyebrows as he ran his other hand through his thick black beard.

Anson studied the two chests like a man contemplating the mysteries of life. The young fighter was human like Cazrin, with short, straight dark hair and warm beige skin, but closer in build to Tess, with wide, muscled shoulders and hips. He rummaged in one of his pouches and came up with two silver coins of his own. “I’ll take that bet,” he said.

“They can’t all be mimics, can they?” Cazrin asked as they shook on the wager. “I know the last three were, but statistically speaking, surely . . .”

“All that really matters right now is that someone is keeping watch while I concentrate on disabling the deadly spike trap I’ve just found right here,” Tess said, shifting position on the floor so they could all see the outline of the pressure plate.

“There is a trap?” Lark’s tail lashed back and forth in Tess’s peripheral vision, distracting her from her work. “I’ll be damned! I had a good feeling about this floor.”

“Don’t worry, Tess,” Anson said easily. “Uggie’s on guard duty. She’s keeping a great watch back here. Aren’t you, girl?”

He gestured to the squat figure at the back of the group. Their otyugh companion was about the size and bulk of a full-­grown mastiff. Based on her size and behavior, Tess guessed she was a juvenile. She had three stumpy legs and yellow jaundice spots dotting her leathery green skin. Two short, spiky tentacles flanked a single eyestalk with three eyes that flicked back and forth between Anson and Baldric, watching their every move in case they happened to drop some food on the ground. A gaping mouth opened above her barrel-­like chest, exposing rows of jagged teeth that could really use a good brushing, but honestly, even Tess wasn’t brave enough to take on that job.

She hoped the time spent on these treasure chests would serve as a much-­needed morale boost. It was only their first mission together as a party, but they’d been exploring the cold, dank ruins for two days now and were no closer to finding the spellbook they’d been hired to retrieve from its bowels.

It had taken some doing to find the place. The entrance to the hidden temple was located deep in a sea cave on the Sword Coast, several miles south of the city of Waterdeep. Time and tide had flooded many of the upper chambers, and Tess didn’t think she’d ever get the seaweed smell out of her hair, but it finally looked like they were getting somewhere.

“Aren’t you wizards supposed to know about these things?” Baldric said, addressing Cazrin. “Can’t you just . . . I don’t know . . . sense a mimic the way you sense magic?”

“Of course,” Cazrin said dryly. She put two fingers to her temple and furrowed her brow. “Just let me stretch my awareness into the magical Weave so I can detect the presence of all mimics in the immediate vicinity.” She hesitated. “Come to think of it, that would be a handy spell.” Quickly, she reached into the small satchel riding at her hip and pulled out a spellbook with a pair of blue stones embedded in the cover that looked like eyes. “New entry, please, Keeper.”

“Absolutely, Cazrin,” the spellbook chirped, immediately falling open in her hand, pages fluttering until it landed on a blank section. Then it floated into the air, awaiting further commands.

“Save the note-­taking for later,” Tess said, just as Cazrin was about to take out her quill and ink. “If either of these chests really are mimics, we need the party wizard to be focused too.”

“Right, excellent point!”

Tess went back to her work. She quickly located a pattern to the pressure plates. As long as they walked on just the green slate stones, they should be safe to cross the floor to the treasure chests. She relayed this information to the rest of the group, and before she’d even finished speaking, Lark plunged into the room, hopping from one green stone to the next, his lute thumping against his back on his way to the closest treasure chest.

“Wait for the rest of us!” Tess called after him.

“Find out which one’s the mimic, new guy,” Baldric said. He winked when Tess shot him a look. “He’ll be fine.”

Tess sighed again and began making her way carefully across the floor, motioning for the others to stay behind her. Anson scooped Uggie up with a grunt and carried the otyugh awkwardly in his arms.

If Lark would just stick to the plan, let her check the rooms thoroughly before barreling in, it would make everyone’s life a lot easier.

“We’re in!” cried the bard triumphantly.

Tess’s head snapped up. “How is that possible?” she demanded as Lark tossed the first treasure chest’s opened lock aside and reached for the lid. “Did you even try to check that thing for traps?”

“I did everything you taught me in that chest-­cracking seminar you made me sit through,” Lark said, his tail swishing back and forth smugly. Tess couldn’t fathom how he managed to make a tail look smug, but somehow, he nailed it. “Also, the lock wasn’t fastened.” He shrugged.

“Lark!” Tess cried, quickening her pace as the tiefling lifted the chest lid. “If it’s not locked, it might as well have a sign on it that reads, ‘It’s a trap, suckers!’ Just wait a minute!”

Too late. The lid creaked open and clanged loudly against the floor as Lark opened it wide and peered inside. His angular features drooped into a frown. “Empty,” he said. “Well, not quite. There’s a weird little figurine that looks like a tankard, but nothing else.” He reached into the chest and pulled out a small object, stuffing it...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Worlds
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593599543
• ISBN 13: 9780593599549
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland