“You all see towering before you a colossal golem, who-”
“I roll to seduce the golem!” The bard, Jack, announced.
“…Jack, I swear to god, I’m going to ram this entire Monster Manual down your throat if you keep that up.” The DM, Daniel, said.
“I roll to seduce the Monster Manual!”
A laugh rippled around the group.
“Alright then, smart-ass. Roll to seduce the golem.”
A clatter of plastic on a wooden tabletop.
“Ooh, bad luck, shit-for-brains. The golem rejects your advances, because he’s not that kind of rock-monster, and takes a swing at you with his mighty fist of granite!”
“…can I roll to seduce his fist?”
“Jack, c’mon…” Fiona, the rogue, groaned.
“Fiona’s right, Jack. You can try, but even if it works you’ll probably end up taking some degree of damage.”
“Yeah, alright, joke’s over. I roll to dodge.”
Another clatter, and a cheer.
“Nice. You successfully dodge the golem’s swiping hand, which staggers him for a moment. As he reels round, you spot something on his back… a symbol carved into his stone.”
“I’ll bet that’s the symbol that’s animating it!” The group’s sorcerer (and leader), Alan, chimed in. “Okay, I cast a-”
“BUWWITO WAN PWAY!!!”
The entire game halted at the sound of the tiny, shrill voice.
“…Dan, what the hell was that?” Alan asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. My little sister’s busy this weekend, she asked me to take care of her micro fluffy pony for her until Monday.”
“Oh, a micro?! They’re adorable!” Fiona cried.
“Uh… yeah, sure…” Dan replied. “Except my sister kinda spoiled hers a bit, she-”
“HEY DUMMEHS!” The tiny voice cried again. The entire group leaned away from the table covered in papers, maps, dice and miniature figurines, and looked down at the floor. There sat a rat-sized fluffy pony with beige fur and a dark red-brown mane.
“Leave us alone, Burrito.” Dan replied. “We’re busy right now.”
“BUH… BUH BUWWITO WAN PWAY! BUWWITO BOWED!!!”
“Burrito, I played with you earlier, and you have all your toys in the other room. Go play with them by yourself.”
“NU! NU WANNA! WAN PWAY WIF DUMMEH HOOMAN!!!”
Dan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah, I take that back.” Fiona murmured.
“This is what I’ve been putting up with all day.” Dan said. “And it’s only Saturday.”
“Big oof.” Jack replied, grimacing.
"HEY DUMMEHS! BUWWITO WAN PWAY!!!"
“Burrito, shut up!” Dan shouted back at it, startling the tiny creature. “I played with you for a full two hours earlier, and I’m busy with my friends now! You’ve got your food, you’ve got water, you’ve got all your toys… just leave us alone already!”
“BUH… BUH BUWWITO WA-”
“Burrito, fuck off!” Dan finally yelled, completely snapping.
Burrito gave him a glare, but waddled away, sulking and stomping his tiny hooves against the floor as he went.
“…sorry.” Dan said to the group, running a hand through his hair. “Didn’t mean to get so ang-”
“Ooh, daddy, I love it when you’re rough with me!” Jack cooed. “Yell at me next time! Call me a bad little fluffy pony!”
Another laugh rippled through the group as the tension was shattered.
“Okay, anyway… Alan, you were going to cast a spell at the golem…?”
Some time later…
“So, we still on for tomorrow?” Jack asked as he packed away his character sheet.
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see what comes next!” Fiona said, flashing a smile at Dan.
“With any luck we’ll be free from any interruptions.” He replied, glaring at the corner where Burrito was still sulking by himself.
Dan saw them to his apartment door, saying goodbye to them all. Alan first, as he had to get home fast, followed by Jack, and lastly Fiona… who always took her time in saying goodbye. Dan was no expert, but the way she smiled at him, leaned in close to say ‘Goodbye, Dungeon Master’ and the way her breath felt against his ear… he was starting to potentially consider that maybe she might just possibly have a thing for him.
The door closed and Dan turned back, ready for the painstaking process of putting everything away, when he heard something coming from behind his DM screen.
A sound like… tearing paper.
He walked around, curious, and froze.
Sitting there, behind his screen, was Burrito… next to a mound of shredded paper, all of which had once been his campaign notes, his maps, his lists… everything he needed to run the campaign.
He watched as Burrito bit into a sheet with his mouth, put a hoof on it, then wrenched his head to the side, tearing off a chunk of the paper and hurling it to the side, before biting down on the paper again.
Burrito paused, realising he’d been seen, but didn’t seem scared. If anything, he seemed sickly pleased.
“DUMMEH HOOMAN NU PWAY WIF BUWWITO, BUWWITO MAKE HOOMAN SOWWY!”
And with that, after screwing up his face and grunting, he released his bowels on top of the heap of torn paper. A hefty amount of sludge-like shit poured out of his ass, soaking the papers and completely ruining them.
The campaign was gone.
Dan didn’t think about how Burrito had somehow climbed up onto the table, nor how he had somehow managed to locate the single most important part of his entire campaign and systematically destroy almost every page of it in only a few minutes.
All he could think about was the months of work he’d put into preparing the campaign, only for this one worthless little shitrat to ruin it all in an instant. And why?
“DUMMEH HOOMAN!” Burrito scream-squeaked. “BUWWITO WAN’ PWAY! AN’ WAN’ SKETTIES AN’ WAN’ HUGGIES AN’ WAN’ A MAWE FOW ENFIES A-”
Dan’s arm fired out like a piston as he snatched up the spoiled micro fluffy, lifting the almost weightless lump of fluff into the air.
“EEP! BAD UPSIES! PWEASE NU HUWT! BUWWITO A GUD FWUFFE-”
“God, you are so fucking annoying! Just shut the fuck up already.” Dan replied, every tiny squeak from the micro tearing into his ears like a knife.
He looked down at the mess left on the table. Numerous sheets of paper now lying in tatters, most of them soaked with drool, and a huge (well, compared to a micro fluffy) turd sitting atop it all, like a little crown of foulness.
Something had to be done.
And, just like that, Dan had an idea.
He carried Burrito’s tiny chirping form through to his bedroom, which doubled as his workshop for various art projects and experiments. He made a lot of his own models and equipment for his tabletop games, which meant his desk was strewn with various paints, miniatures, model kits in varying states of finished-ness, bottles of glue, rolls of tape, off-cuts of wood and plastic sheets, and, most recently… some silicone moulds for resin.
The moulds were only basic shapes, a cube, a sphere, a four-sided pyramid… nothing fancy or special, but they’d do the trick.
Specifically, the cube would do.
He snatched up the silicone mould and dropped Burrito into it. The mould was only a few inches in each direction, meaning Burrito’s entire body was contained inside the mould, but his head poked freely out of the top.
“Eep! Nu wike sowwy box!” He cried, resorting to his base programming on instinct. “Pwease wet Buwwito out! Buwwito a gud fwuffeh!”
Dan ignored him.
He wasn’t done yet.
He grabbed a piece of cardboard and drew a quick square shape on the top, the same dimensions as the cube. With his utility knife, he cut it out and then cut a circular hole in the centre, just large enough for Burrito’s head to fit through. With that done, he then cut a smaller hole next to it, which itself was just large enough for a funnel to fit through.
With the holes cut, Dan placed the ‘lid’ on the box, squeezing Burrito’s head painfully through it, the roughly cut cardboard scratching at his skin and fluff as his head was pushed through.
“Owies! Huhuhu… Buwwito sowwy fow makin’ messy on dummeh’s stoopid papews…”
Dan continued to ignore him, and left the room for a moment, heading to the kitchen. He returned a short while later with a bowl full of lime green powder and water, which he was steadily mixing with a spoon. He grabbed a funnel used for his resin work and put it into the other hole, directly in front of Burrito’s face.
Then he tipped the bowl into the funnel, pouring the green liquid steadily down and into the cube, watching it fill on all sides, coating Burrito’s limbs and body as the level of liquid rose slowly.
“Eep! Nu wike! Nu wike wawas! Pwease mistah dummeh hooman, pwease nu mowe! Buwwito a gud fwu-”
“Shut the fuck up.” Dan replied at last, putting the bowl and spoon down as he saw the cube was filled to the lid. “I spent months working on that campaign. It was going to be my magnum opus. It had lore, it had recurring characters, it had a goddam myth-arc! And you ruined it, because you’re a spoiled little brat who just couldn’t stand not being the center of attention for more than five seconds!”
“Buh… buh Buwwito awways get wha Buwwito wan’!”
“Yeah? Well not this time, shithead. Now you’re gonna help me with tomorrow’s session to make up for it.”
And with that he carefully picked up Burrito’s silicone cube and, being careful not to squeeze it, carried it through to the kitchen, where he placed it in the fridge before closing the door on it.
“I’ll come get you tomorrow morning, try not to die until then, shithead.”
The next day…
While Burrito’s actions had done irreparable damage to Dan’s campaign, he’d managed to memorise most of the fine details after working on it for so long, and so spent most of the night reconstructing it purely from memory. By the time he went to sleep, he had about 90% of the destroyed content back together.
And the remaining 10%… that’s where Burrito came in.
And so the next day, at their usual time, the group got together for their next session.
Fiona brought, as per usual, her home-made cookies, Jack brought a back of BBQ chips and several large bags of sour Gummy Worms… and Alan brought the kind of chips that only he ate, which had started as him just being an asshole, then became a joke, and now was just part of their ritual.
“Guys, I’ve got some bad news.” Dan said, taking his seat behind his barricade of papers and his DM screen. “You remember Burrito, the little screaming shithead I have to look after? Well, when we were all leaving, he got into my campaign notes and… well, he kinda wrecked it all.”
“No way!”
“That sucks!”
“Would your sister be mad if I killed the fucker?”
“I appreciate the offer, Jack, but I’ve got some good news too. The majority of the campaign is still intact, I’ve just had to make one fairly major alteration, and I think you’ll all enjoy it.”
He smiled down at something behind his screen, a dinner plate with an upturned bowl on top of it, covering it’s contents.
“So, you had just gotten done with the golem’s labyrinth and were working your way back to the surface…”
The campaign continued for a short while, until the party made their way back out of the maze-like tunnels.
“But, as you approach the beaming light of the outdoors,” Dan spoke, adding some gravitas to his voice. “Your next foe appears, blocking your path.”
He picked up the plate and removed the bowl. He grabbed what was on it and carefully placed it on the map, opening his hands to reveal it to the group.
"A Gelatinous Cube!"
Fiona, Jack and Alan looked at it… and burst out laughing.
The ‘Cube’ was made out of green Jell-O, and contained Burrito who was helplessly trapped inside it, the only thing not inside the cube being his head, which thrashed from side to side as he desperately tried to free himself, but to no avail. He couldn’t move his legs or even his tail, he was completely immobilised within the sticky, slimy block he had been placed in last night.
“Huh… hewp! Hewp Buwwito!” He squeaked, wriggling and jiggling in his tiny gelatinous prison.
“No fuckin’ way!” Jack wheezed between guffaws of laughter. “That’s fuckin’ brilliant man!”
“Oh god, that’s… that’s awful…” Fiona said, wiping a tear from her eye, but laughing just as hard as Jack.
“Nu laughies!” Burrito squeaked indignantly. “Hewp Buwwito! Am stuckies! Nu wike!”
“Yeah, I’ll bet…” Alan said, leaning forwards and giving him a light flick to the forehead.
“OWIES! HUHUHU!”
“Hey, watch it Alan.” Dan replied, with a smirk. “You didn’t roll for that move. Now… roll for ‘owies’.”
The party looked at Dan… and realised what he meant, each grabbing their dice by the fistful.
“So, Jack, you have initiative fir-”
“I roll to attack the cube with my knife!”
“Okay, roll fo-” Clatter. “…okay, great roll. Go ahead champ.”
Jack reached across the table and gave a hard flick to Burrito’s face, landing it right between his eyes.
“EEP! OWIES! BUWWITO HAB HUWTIES!”
“Shut up, Cube.” Jack replied, sitting back down.
“AM NU KYOOB, DUMMEH! AM BUWWITO!”
“My turn.” Alan said, rolling his dice. “I roll to attack by beating the monster with my staff.”
He leaned forwards and gripped one of Burrito’s ears, giving it a hard yank.
“OWIE! NU HUWT HEAWSY PWACE! NEE’ DAT FOW HEAWSIES!!!”
“God, he really is annoying. Okay, me next.” Fiona said, rolling her dice. “I roll to stab the creature with my rapier.”
She reached over and jabbed Burrito in the eye.
“OWIE! NU TOUCH SEESY PWACE!!!”
“Hey can I go again?” Fiona asked.
“Fuck off, it’s my turn!” Jack said, already rolling his dice.
Dan sat back and smiled, watching them take turns to poke, jab, yank and flick Burrito’s face, while he could do nothing but jiggle inside his jelly cube, unable to move or escape, unable to even look away, as the trio continued to pour damage into him. Dan barely managed to keep up, they were constantly rolling for their next turns and relentlessly assaulting Burrito, as he cried and wheezed and begged for them to stop.
Finally, it was over.
“And with that,” Dan announced, picking up Burrito’s jelly cube and putting him back behind the screen. “The Gelatinous Cube is defeated, it melts away into a pool of harmless water-like liquid, and your path is clear.”
The party didn’t reply.
“…guys, the path is clear. Are you gonna move or what?” Dan asked.
“…can we fight the Gelatinous Cube some more?” Alan asked.
“Yeah, that was way too fun!” Fiona said with a laugh.
“Bring back the Cube!” Jack chanted.
Dan looked at them, chuckled to himself, and picked up Burrito’s cube again.
“Okay then. Against all odds, another Gelatinous Cube appears, blocking your path once more! In order to get past, you must-”
“I roll for owies!”
“No, me first!”
“No way, I have higher initiative!”
“Fuck you Alan, you’re not taking this from me!”
“Get in line, assholes, it’s Jack time!”
“Fuck you both with a battering-ram, I’m going first!”
The session broke up a few hours later. Amazingly, they had spent almost the entire thing fighting Gelatinous Cube after Gelatinous Cube. Any time they defeated one, they just wanted to fight another. By the end of their session, no less than fifty Cubes had been defeated, one after another.
“I’m afraid Burrito has to go back to my sister tomorrow.” Dan told them as they packed up again. “So, like it or not, no more Gelatinous Cube fights next week.”
“Bullshit.” Jack muttered.
“Yeah, that was a blast.” Fiona said. “Besides, he deserves it for wrecking your campaign.”
The group filed out the door in their usual way, starting with Alan dashing off, then Jack sloping down the corridor, looking to cause more trouble… and finally with Fiona leaning against the doorframe, talking about anything and everything under the sun just to spend a few more minutes with Dan, until she finally turned to leave.
“Hey, uh, Fiona…” He said, stopping her just as she stepped out the door.
“Yeah?”
“Would you, uh… maybe want to get a coffee sometime?” He asked. Fiona gave him a look.
“I don’t drink coffee.” She said. Dan felt his heart sink, until she spoke again. “But coffee places usually do snacks too. So you can get a coffee, I’ll get some cake. Sound like a deal?”
Dan lit up again.
“Sure. I like the sound of that.”
“Great, I’ll check my schedule, let you know when I’m free.”
The door closed as she left, and Dan couldn’t resist breaking out into a huge smile. He’d always thought Fiona was cute, but he’d never noticed until very recently how much attention she seemed to pay to him during their games, how she looked at him when he did his big scary ‘evil overlord’ voice during sessions, how she always spent time after their sessions leaning in close to him and whispering stuff…
Okay so in hindsight is was screamingly obvious, but whatever.
As Dan walked back through to the dining room, ready to clear the table, he spotted Burrito.
He was still sitting on the map where Dan had left him, his face covered in swollen lumps, bruises and tiny cuts from where his skin had been pulled at. His face was soaked with his own tears and the only sounds he made anymore where wheezing 'hu’s as he sobbed in constant pain and misery.
Dan dug his fingers into the green Jell-O, easily breaking it apart, and scooped up the exhausted, miserable, green-tinted fluffy pony, carrying him through to the carrier his sister had brought for him. Inside it was his food and water bowls, some of his toys (the rest were strewn all over the floor) and his bedding.
Dan dumped the tiny fluffy on the bedding and shut the carrier door, leaving him for the night.
A few hours later, after he’d finished clearing up, he got a text. He grabbed his phone quickly, thinking it was Fiona… but saw it was his sister instead.
‘Hey, I’ll be around tomorrow to pick up lil Burrito, hope he wasn’t too much trouble!’ it read.
Dan smirked.
‘He’s fine overall, but he got himself hurt a little in his carrier. Got some bruises and a few lumps, but nothing serious.’ He replied. Once Burrito was a little more awake, Dan would give him a bath to wash the green out of his fluff, there wouldn’t be a trace of the ‘Gelatinous Cube’ left by then.
‘Oh, that’s good. It happens all the time at home anyway. By the way, would you mind taking care of him again next week? My boyfriend…’
Dan didn’t read the rest of the message. He simply replied to say ‘Sure, no problem!’
Then he added ‘more Jell-O’ to his mental shopping list.
