Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Cascadia is home to a uniue brant of bed and breakfast, adventurous in more ways than one: the Dungeons and Dragons Bed and Breakfast, or D&D B&B. Staci Gvensdottir runs the establishment with her partner, Peter Smith, and like so many other desperately innovative business ideas it dates to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.

“Peter lost his job and I lost mine, within a few days of each other,” laughs Gvensdottir. “Just after we inked the lease on this place. So we had to do something fast, because banks were feeling awfully foreclosey back then!”

The solution lay in the massive collection of role playing books accumulated by the couple. Gvensdottir purchased new books as they came out, while Smith preferred to hoard classic tomes. “I’m a third edition and before nutcase,” says Smith. “As far as I’m concerned, if there ain’t THAC0, it ain’t Dungeons and Dragons.”

Gvensdottir and Smith wrote a few quick D&D campaigns that could be played with a variety of settings, characters, and systems. They then began advertising their home as a destination getaway for couples looking to do a little role playing. “Not neccessarily the sort of roleplaying everyone thinks of, admittedly,” says Gvensdottir. “We had a few very disappointed people in gimp masks show up.”

At first, Gvensdottir and Smith’s “D&D B&B” was advertised through word-of-mouth. “Our friends at the comic book shop and on listservs and message boards, mostly,” says Smith. “The first few were really just pity stays, but once word got out, we’ve been pretty constantly booked.”

A weekend at the D&D B&B begins with rolling character sheets in a living room from a classic 1880s lumber baron house, restored to its full glory. Guests either roll new characters or adapt prechosen ones and then set out on an adventure that will last from two days to over a week. Meals are provided, as are caffeinated beverages and salty/sugary snacks, and every few hours there is a fresh-air excursion to a local Cascadia landmark.

“The standard dungeon grind is by far the most popular,” says Gvensdottir. “People just love the thrill of delving deep into a castle dungeon to defeat an ancient evil.”

At the end of the stay, visitors have the option or purchasing their character sheets or leaving a copy on file for future adventures. Nearly all do, as the experience of 12-hour marathon dice-rolling sessions is not soon forgotten.

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MUÑOZ: And how long has she been acting like this?

CINDY: A week, maybe two. She has been growling, refusing to accept anything we give her, making a mess on the floor…

MUÑOZ: I need you to think carefully, Cindy. How did this all start?

CINDY: Well, we had just come home from the barbecue. It was amateur night, and-

MUÑOZ: Say no more. Let me lean down and whisper to her.

(MUÑOZ leans over, whispering to his subject in a sweet, low voice.)

MUÑOZ: She says that it is a simple problem. She says that in your husband’s haste to deal with a…problem…he pulled too hard and something broke.

CINDY: Can you fix it?

MUÑOZ: It is a simple matter.

(MUÑOZ opens the toilet tank and reconnects the plunger to the valve.)

MUÑOZ: It is done.

NARRATOR: Join us after the break for more exciting unclogginds with “The Tank Whisperer!”

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“I’ll have the beef in blueberry sauce, please.”

“Ah yes, the Smurf ‘n’ Turf. One of our most popular menu items.”

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Like the name suggests, squibblins favor dank environments as they subsist almost entirely on a diet of mushrooms. Squibblins shy away from direct sunlight, direct heat, and direct confrontations, preferring instead to wheedle with vaguely subservient coos.

A typical squibblin colony will consist of 50-100 workers, 8-10 drones, 3 queens, and a SquibberLord. Despite these ranks, they are all virtually the same size and attain their positions entirely through ingratiating themselves with other squibblins or with more powerful clients. Records exist of a squibblin colony ruled for a squibblin generation (approximately 2 years) thanks to a rather scary picture of a dog.

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When the date appeared in chalk around town, it was an oddity.

When it became spray paint, it was a nuisance.

When lovingly crafted hand-fired tiles with the date were found plastered on everything from streets to building walls, it was a sensation.

Eventually, police apprehended the person responsible as he was gluing a tile to Circlebooks. The perp was John William Smith, age 44, who lived alone with his ailing mother and had a history of making bizarre phone calls to local radio shows and universities.

Smith claimed that the graffiti was “a notice” of an imminent and important event. Through research at the local university library, communing with crystals, and interpreting radio waves emanating from Jupiter, he had realized that at 12:00:00 Greenwich Mean Time on 4-3-2017, the world would cleave into two alternate timelines.

One of these timelines would lead, inevitably, to paradise. The other would lead, inevitably, to the destruction of the universe and damnation. Smith said that both process would be subtle, a matter of aeons, but inevitable. Those who were trapped in the latter were heirs to a doomed world.

After the date had passed, a small but fervent group began a discussion over which of the two branching paths they remained in: the one destined for paradise or the one destined for destruction. Smith himself, when consulted in the mental institution where he’d been remanded, refused to elaborate,

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The fact is, a lot of hipsters have been dying since they arose. Some from the usual mundane causes like car accidents or diseases, others from lifestyle choices like improperly sanitized organic food or allergic reactions to vinyl. Whatever the reason, you in the afterlife will still have to put up with their disembodied specters.

“Harpsters,” as they are called, are deceased hipsters that, for the same reasons that affect all us specters, have been unable to fully sever their connection to the mortal coil and proceed to the hereafter. Or to fade away into oblivion, as some nihilist spirits would have you believe. Harpsters tend to haunt craft breweries, independent restaurants with tables for less than ten people, tiny cramped concert venues, Whole Foods, and Broadway musical revivals.

Due to their disdain for haunting places laden with “chemicals,” the easiest way to avoid harpsters is to haunt an oil rig, service station, big-box store, fast-food restaurant, or the Republican National Convention.. Naturally, we understand that Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation. If simply haunting somewhere else is not possible due to your geographical and temporal perimeters, here are some other ideas for avoiding harpsters:

-Prey on their insecurities. Specters appear wearing what they wore in life, so look for name-brand or made-in-China tags to point out.

-Discuss privilege. Your time as a specter means that you can accuse harpsters of failing to check their privilege. Whether it is true or not, it will make them extremely defensive.

-Note how mainstream your haunt is. Harpsters are forever chasing trends and will recoil from evidence that they are a poseur or a johnny-come-lately.

-Hire an exorcist or ghostbuster. Well-behaved spirits have been known to contract with such bio-exorcists, though you will need to know a physical asset or secret to be used for payment. Harpsters are extremely ostentatious and therefore very prone to exorcism or ghostbustery.

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Inspector Bryar had been in his chambers about an hour when the assassin slipped in.

The long trip up to the Veiled Cloister had left Bryar sore, with every little pebble beneath the rickety cart rattled right into his bones. The room was stultifying, too, even in the cool mountain atmosphere. Father Yser had offered assurances that this was the best bed in the cloister; if that were true, Bryar pitied the poor inhabitants even more than before.

But it was his room’s very stuffiness that saved Bryar: when the assassin slid open the door, a breath of resplendent alpine air snuck in with him. And when the dagger plunged into the Inspector’s bed, what would have been a fatal blow to the heart became only a serious dagger-slash to the arm. And if the assassin had expected an Inspector of the Holy Sepulcher to be an easy target…he was mistaken.

The shattering of an oil lamp against his shoulder was proof enough of that. The vicious kick that followed was merely reinforcement.

“I was a soldier, friend, before I was a cleric answerable only to the King of Layyia and the Creator in that order,” said Bryar. He reached under his stiff pillow and produced a dagger of his own, a plain but sturdy army model. “Leave now, or explain your actions to the Creator in person.”

A cascade of hot oil from the lamp made the assailant shriek, though the mask he wore–that they all wore in the Cloister–was as calm and beatific as ever. Though technically a man of the Sepulcher as well, the monk cursed vividly as he fell to the ground with hot oil scalding him through his clothes. Bryar dashed open the window, letting in moonlight to allow himself a better defense.

With a cry that was as much anguish as it was determination, the monk reversed his grip on his dagger and charged forward for a stab. Bryar responded with an upper thrust, the very move the army taught for such situations. When the monk recoiled, his hand was empty, and bloody, with the plain linens he wore in tatters. Though the holes, Bryar could see the flesh those raiments were to conceal: burned, as if in a fire, and discolored. It was the mark of someone who had suffered the ague, and despite the purpose of his inspection and the purpose of the Cloister itself, it was the first time Bryar had beheld it.

There was no time to hesitate. By the moonlight, as the assassin yowled, Inspector Bryar took up a wooden stool and dashed him across the face with it, hoping to knock him to the ground and thus take him alive. The man howled, tottered, but remained standing. His mask, however, was torn off his face, and at this it was Bryar’s turn to recoil. The monk of the Cloister had on his face the same totality of apparently burned flesh that all ague sufferers had been besmirched with, with a lump of scar tissue with holes in it where his nose ought to have been and no mouth.

But it was his eyes that made Bryar shudder with horror. They were black, sclera and iris alike, and surrounded by pustules of something equally inky and dark. The effect was like looking into the eyes of a wolf spider. One had burst, and dark liquid, sweet-smelling by some perversity, dribbled down the assassin’s cheek.

Sensing an opportunity, the monk dashed off into the night, leaving Bryar to helplessly call for aid from Father Yser as blood from his arm began to drip onto the Cloister floors. This place had been meant as a sanctuary for sufferers from the ague, a place of healing and isolation. Why would they want to kill the man who represented the religious largesse that kept every last person in the Cloister alive and well-fed?

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Now, the second thing you’re going to have to realize is that I’ll be translating some terms for you. Like there’s going to be feet and inches and yards even though, in the branching alternate world I came from, they’re not called that. It’s just to help you understand.

If I were to use the real words, it would sound ridiculous and yank you right out of my story. We had a measurement that was roughly a yard but we called it an abre, and it was divided into 36 yots. It was named after the old King Abre of Jutia, who standardized all the weights and measures in the old kingdom, but it just means “knuckle.” I’m sure you can figure that one out too.

This gets complicated really quickly. We didn’t call King Abre “king,” we called him “Layx.” It doesn’t quite mean king, but it doesn’t translate well into English, and the concept is kind of weird in this alternate branching world. I guess the closest would be “elected-baron-over-other-barons-whose-son-gets-his-chair.”

Is it any wonder I’m trying to translate this a little for you? It’s tough enough to keep alternate worlds straight as it is.

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“Have you ever seen someone with the ague?” Dex cried over the rattling of the cart.

Bryar shook his head. “I’ve read about it. Spoken with some of the older priests in the Sepulcher who rememeber the outbreak. Surely you have seen them, though?”

“I’ve not been here but a season,” said Dex. “Came here from Pexate. It’s in a sorry state, you know, but the townsfolk were ready to give me cart duties straight off.”

“I thought I heard a bit of Pexate in your accent,” laughed Bryar. “But why does no one else want to rattle the cart up here? The Cloister needs supplies and they get a stipend from the Sepulcher.”

“Perhaps people worry they’ll catch the ague?” Dex said. “No one’s caught it in ten years, I say, and I’ve no one to depend on me. If I’m caught with it, it just means a life of ease in the Cloister.”

“But even after a season, not a peek at any of them?”

“They don’t flaunt themselves,” said Dex. “Nor should they, I expect.”

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I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan’s bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns.

Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God’s will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find—graves that are inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!…
There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved—I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate—I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word

DRACULA.

This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula’s tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever.

Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives…

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud “I am here!”

Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Un-Dead.

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