Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Olga the Barbarian wiped “Womp Rat’s” spit off her face.

“It’s the traditional Githyanki greeting,” said “Womp Rat.”

Olga lobbed a juicy glob right back in his face. “Let me return the greeting.”

The halfling commanded the cell with the same intimidating presence that had made “Womp Rat” run off crying into the corner. “My name is Adenan,” she said, “and I am the mayor of Valia.”

“And you have just passed another test,” the githyanki leader continued. “Your glazed baby gibberling, stunned side of dretch, and imp a la mode had all been poisoned. The fact that you are sill alive means that you passed. You’ll have to forgive us our subterfuge, but since we turned away from the Lich Queen no fewer than a dozen imposters have attempted to join our ranks.”

At the feast’s conclusion, the githyanki–and the disguised party–all stood up. Except for one githyanki jailer, who remained seated until he slumped over dead.

“Put yourself in my shoes,” said Denny. “If you saw your entire team get captured, and then a githyanki said to trust them just a little while after you stabbed their jailer to death over dinner, what you do?”

Skeletonio cast a knocking spell this time, and the cells all sprang open. Their occupants, from Olga the Barbarian to the Yellow Planeswalker to the strange dirt-obsessed digger man, sprang forward in anger.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“Don’t worry,” said Celeria. “Your clothes look great, no one will ever know the previous owners were murdered out from under them. And with my transmutation spell, you’ll pass for githyanki for sure.”

Bryn stared at her.

“Uh, and you’ll be fine. I’m totally casting this only with your permission. Totally.”

Miles, however, couldn’t look away. The terrible glow of whatever dread being was passing through the astral appeared to her to be a cluster of shining lights.

“Oooh, shinies!” she said. A moment later, she found herself totally blinded by said shinies. “Ow!”

“And I see you have brought a dragon priestess of your own,” said the githyanki majordomo. She smiled. “Excellent work, ladies.”

“Womp Rat” suddenly realized that she had taken him to be a lady the entire time. He stayed silent, blushing through his disguise.

The second note on the dead attacker was addressed to the party: “If you’re reading this, congratulations! You have passed the first test.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“So,” Mixy said. “I know that you’re not relaly confident in Celeria’s magic skills, and that’s totally understandable given her past history with you, but I really think you ought to give her a chance, since her disguise spell is getting better all the time and if she can disguise you as Githyanki you should be able to walk right into their fortress without having to fight your way in, and-”

Bryn put her hand over the elf girl’s mouth. “Shh,” she said.

Celeria, for her part, was practicing the necessary incantation when the blow landed, at the exact time that “Womp Rat” was approaching with a tureen of fresh, if foul, soup. When he tripped, the shock of that noise combined with the shock of the bump on the head turned the practice incantation into a real one.

“Womp Rat” was suddenly, and surprisingly convincingly, disguised as a githyanki. “Not again,” he moaned.

Bryn burst into the jail cell and, without missing a beat, she stuck her head in between the bars–it fit easily through the human-sized gap. “Give me your clothes,” she growled in her most intimidating voice. The Githyanki prisoner, flustered, meekly surrendered his prison clothes.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“Unfortunately, my lovely Valia Springs are currently…occupied,” said Namidine. “Drow in one pool, githyanki in another, and modrons in a third…and none of them are paying!”

Bearing down on the githyanki that had called her kind ‘accursed winged filth,’ the young strix stove his head in with a well-aimed smack from her warpwood rod, blasting foul ichor into the spring’s clear healing waters.

The springs’ healing magic washed away the crude drow disguise that Celeria had cast; “Womp Rat” no longer looked like the lead from an elfsploitation scroll. Playing it up, he moaned and cried most pitiably, trying to convince the other drow that a terrible curse affected the pool, one that could turn them into scruffy and smelly humans. Alarmed, they quickly vacated the sparkling waters.

“Womp Rat” picked up Brynhildr and tossed her over the traps. She successfully made it as far as the Valia Guildhall’s table, but landed there with a belly flop that rolled the wounded guard, Tinuviel, off the table and onto the Baleful Polymorph trap. She hit the floor as an–admittedly fully healed–French bulldog.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Library Fine Finesse
Steals 2d12 gold from anyone in line of sight that posesses a book or booklike object on their person. A DC 30 reflex save halves the theft.

Teleport Via Bookshelf (Interlibrary Loan Edition)
Caster may use a bookshelf to appear in any regionally affiliated library at will. At least 2d12 books must be present, catalogued, and shelved in both locations.

Papercut Anything
Inflicts 1 point per caster level of piercing bleeding damage on any finger or fingerlike object. Healing of any such wound takes 2d6 weeks. DC 30 Fortitude save halves damage. Usable once per week.

Advanced Word of Book Recall
Caster may summon a tome or tomelike object from anywhere–and anyone–in the world. Usable once per day. Items protected from scrying are not exempt. A held item may be prevented from summoning by a DC 30 Will save.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Click to enlarge.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!/em>

The modron, following its directives to the letter, chased after Thrombonius’s dancing lights spell. It trundled out of Short Shrift Dry Goods, across the flat plan of the private floating island, and tipped over the edge into the oblivion of the abyss.

“Sure, we’ll take you to our friends,” squeaked Squib the imp.

“Yeah, right through here,” peeped Gippy the dretch.

“Womp Rat” was shuffled through the door to see a deviless wearing an immaculate suit grinning across from a demon in heavy, almost comical armor.

“Well, hellooooo,” the deviless said. “We’re here because the same soul was sold twice, but perhaps you’d like in on the transaction?”

The elf was a teenager, fully grown but definitely considered a mere child at best by her long-lived brethren, with thick homemade spectacles and wearing an outfit that was an exact replica of Silius the Mage Queen from a popular scroll.

“Well,” Mixie said. “My friend, by best friend sort of–we kinda have grown up together–her name is Celeria. She kinda sold my could to both the demons and the devils. I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean it.”

“ULRIC WOMP RAT THON!” screamed Brynhildr as she stomped down the inn’s corridor, attracting a train of shocked imps and dretches in her wake. “YOU JUMPED OFF INTO THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE ABYSS AND LEFT US BEHIND? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

Thrombonius’s ectoplasmic snot once again found its mark, gathering up every imp and dretch in the hallway before pasting them to the wall in a coagluated mass.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!



The raccoon had skittered up the glassy-smooth walls of the Crypts of the Dead Gods like a passing reflection. Now, unleashed, the plunged down like an avenging masked angel, makeshift club extended. The skeleton was decapitated in a single blow, the magic holding it together violently dissipating and blowing it into hundreds of bony shards.

“Womprat” delivered his kick swift and true. The patrolling skeleton never saw what was coming; it toppled headlong into the pool, and then began the long, slow descent to the mystery waters at the heart of the astral island. Its +5 broadsword of alacrity and decapitation was the weight that bore it downward, never to be seen or wielded again by the hands of mortals.

“Ja, zat vas…mein lunch,” said Cryptkeeper Sands, sadly, as his plate of talc shards was greedily taken. “But okay.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The Astral echoes with many things, and one of the most resonant is unpleasant feelings and memories. People often leave behind a core of these negative emotions when they pass on, and over time they tend to migrate to the Astral and form clumps. At one point, a great ruler sought to assemble all these crystals, often called “wailings,” into a weapon that could be used to strike at any dimension and at any point. The Wailing Warrens are all that remains of their effort, with legends speaking of the ruler themselves, entombed in their useless construct.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

My reputation was on the line, and I had 39 minutes to write a poem in order to salvage it.

My poetry teacher had recommended The Grindery to me as a way to overcome my glacier-scale writer’s block. Everyone in the online cohort that the website had matched me up with kicked in $5 and made a vow: one poem a day until there was only one standing who would then collect the sum.

I had been in for a month, as others had dropped out, and only a few of us remained.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!