The Scrapyard Dungeon Chapter Seven: Rolling Dice (Patreon)

Huck cursed as the pain hit, and the dogs looked up, wondering what was going on. He pulled the fork out of his aching arm and wrapped it in the gauze bandage after dousing it with alcohol. The disinfectant stung like hell as well. He couldn't feel it anymore, all the protection was gone, and the wounds were real now. He understood what she was taunting him about. He looked at the other dice but shook his head and went for a glass of water and some aspirin for the pain. Every bit of him was hurting now, and he was aware of the bruises and pulled muscles from the fight.

His arm and shoulder weren't made for swinging a heavy iron bar again and again. Maybe he should get some weights and work out like a couple of the guys at school were always talking about. He was strong for his age and getting stronger, but the jocks at school were a hell of a lot stronger. The guys on the football team were pushing weights every day. They were fast, too; he could see it when he went to gym class. He was knocked out of dodgeball faster than his friends, being a bigger target and slower on his feet. Which was a good reason for skipping gym class.

Bruno got up, growled, walked to the front door, and whined, wanting out. Huck yelled at the others, "Come on guys, time to dump a load before bedtime. If you poop in here, there won't be any more sleepovers." He opened the front door and let the dogs out to wander around the small front yard. They came running back into the house a moment later. Huck was going to follow, but a police cruiser was driving by slowly, a flashlight panning over him as it stopped. Huck went to talk to them and get this over with.

"Hi, son. We got a report about a gun being fired in this area. You hear anything?"

Huck stuck his hands in his pockets, he never knew how to talk to the police, but they were usually friendly. "Yeah, that was us. Well, Uncle Charlie. The lights went out, and we had someone try to break in. They had to know the house was occupied; we had a generator running. Maybe that was what they were after? One guy shut it down and unhooked it while another broke in the back door. Charlie still has his M14 with a light next to the scope. He spotlighted them, and they ran. For good measure, he shot over their heads and used up a whole damned magazine before he quit shooting."

The older cop smiled and then laughed. "Sounds like Charlie. He probably enjoyed the whole thing. Shit, let's see, I'm just going to write down that you scared off a trespasser. I'm guessing they'd heard about Charlie being mostly bedridden. Maybe they didn't know you were around. And I'm sure they didn't know he had guns upstairs. Do you want an investigation?"

"No, sir. I doubt they will come back. No one expects an M14 pointed at them, plus the dogs started barking."

"Ok, Huck, we'll leave it at that. Tell Charlie that Mack Tennyson said hi. Sounds like he's doing better if he's scaring off burglars." He turned to the younger man. "Remind me to tell you some Charlie stories when we break for food."

The car drove off, and Huck retreated to his house. He'd half expected a visit. One or two shots and no one cared. But twenty rifle shots and someone comes around, even in Rust Town. The dogs were curled up in the living room, a large pile of fur and heavy breathing. He went to check on Charlie and found him asleep peacefully. On his bed stand was a grey, lifeless D6. Huck put it in his pocket and went to look at the other dice.

He had seven dice altogether. Five were the clear plastic-looking ones with a little bit of sparkle. Another was bright green with lots of sparkles, and the last was a dark green, shining like the clear ones. He wished Timmy was here. He and some of his friends played games that used dice like this. He might know something. Of course, Tim would also freak the hell out if he saw a boggle.
Huck was pretty freaked out himself after the fights. During the fights, he just had to deal with it. He'd been in enough fights before to know that doing nothing was the worst thing you could do.
Telling Tim, or the cops, about little men that disappeared when they got shot wasn't going to do him any good, that's for sure. Tim would think he was crazy, and the cops would try to talk with Charlie, and who knew how that would go?

But Huck knew they were real. And he knew the dice did something when you rolled them. Or ate them. He looked over at Bruno. The lumps on his back were gone, and his coat looked better. Charlie had just grabbed his. He'd have to ask him about that. But the more he could leave his Uncle out of this, the better. He was better but still sick and fragile. The boggles might have been causing some of the troubles and blaming Charlie, but he'd done his own share. He'd have to figure out how to deal with the boggles and what the dice did on his own.

The colors must mean something. The blue dice helped Charlie. And the one that flashed blue had made him feel something, like he was a little smarter. And he was sure of it, like it was a fact that came out of a book. Dark red healed or gave some protection. So what did the green ones do? Did he roll the green ones? Or some of the clear ones first? He did have more of them. Picking up several, he looked at them, but they were all the same. He rolled a clear die on the table, watching it land on the 1. It flashed the red color he'd seen before, and he felt the protection fill up again like an extra skin around him was getting thicker. And maybe a little stronger. Yes, that was something he was sure of. He'd gotten more of whatever the red color gave, and some protection had returned.

He tossed another. Again, a 1, and the red glow. His protection grew again, and it felt like it was over halfway full. He didn't know how he knew that, it just was there, a strong hunch.

The third dice was different. It landed on the 3, and the flash of color was dark blue, different from the bright color of clarity. He felt something inside him get a little bigger but still small compared to the red. The next roll was a 2 with a deep green flash of light, and he could feel another spot inside himself with something there, something he had never connected to or used. He was feeling an odd sort of tiredness, like trying to read for too long. He'd never been able to read much. Sorting heavy chunks of scrap for an afternoon was easier than reading for a half-hour and trying to make the letters behave. But this was important.

He'd rolled all four numbers now. Dark red, dark green, dark blue, and then bright blue? And Charlie had rolled a bright blue D4 and then the D6. Huck's head was starting to hurt. Every time he rolled a die, there was some pushback. It was getting a little worse each time, giving him a headache and making his arm ache. Almost done, though. He flicked the last clear die across the table, and it landed on the 4 with a very bright purple glow. His headache got worse, a deep stabbing migraine, but he knew he could handle it; he just had to …focus...flex his willpower? And then he knew something else; the purple color didn't make you smart; it made you tough. Tough in your head. And let him use more of his head to think with. He just had to work things out.

A clear die could be different things if it rolled a 4. Was that it? He thought so.

So now, what were the green d4s? Only one way to find out. The dark green dice skidded across the table and stopped on the 3. He felt the green area inside of him get bigger. Quite a bit bigger, actually. He could almost grasp the concept of what it did. Last was the bright green d4. It had a strong glow to it, like it held more power? He shook it several times and rolled it across the table, it rolled over several times, finally teetering on edge before showing the 4. The bright green glow got stronger and then the dice faded to grey.

Immediately, Huck felt different. And it hurt! Like every muscle was being ripped apart and stitched back together in a different pattern. He'd had cramps in his muscles before, but this was like a cramp in his whole body! He was sweating bullets and shaking but couldn't move. His muscles twitched and bulged for minutes before finally settling back into place. He took a deep, shuddering breath, only for something else to happen. The green area inside of him exploded with spikes that connected to all of his muscles and bones, making connections. It felt like a thousand red hot pins driving into his limbs. Then it subsided, the power draining back down—the green wrapped around the blue, with threads everywhere inside him.

He knew more, the knowledge emerging from somewhere. Just ideas, but they felt right. The red glow was all around him, ready to soak up any damage done to him. Protecting him. The green would give him the power to do things; he just had to learn them. And the blue? It sat still in a sphere somewhere, ignoring him and slowly spinning. And he knew what the bright green was: Athletics, muscle power, the ability to do things. Coordination, not raw power. Huck had always been lacking in that. But not so much anymore.

The pain was gone, but he was exhausted. And he was starving. He stood in the kitchen and ate the last four hotdogs cold from the package, then fried up half a dozen eggs and made toast. After eating for an hour, he felt better. Three dogs were asleep; Bruno was awake and watching the back door. Carefully, Huck went to scratch his ears, and he allowed it for a minute before growling. Comfortable that the dogs would warn him, he went upstairs and grabbed a long, hot shower before going into Charlie's room and sleeping on the floor.

At 5 am, the dogs barreled into the room, barking and demanding to go out. Charlie rolled over and went back to sleep. "Alright, alright. I'm coming. This sucks. I can't even make you guys a dog door for fear the stupid boggles will crawl through it." As soon as he opened the door, Bruno led them out and down the side of the house, heading to the scrapyard and whatever dogs did all day. Standing on the porch in the pre-dawn gloom Huck felt good. Better than he had in a long time. He stretched and popped his back.

Today he needed to make some repairs and get some things ready. And then he was heading to the basement and clearing out whatever was down there.