This short story contains tales of daring do, bad and good luck tales. WOOHOO! It takes place in the world of Ducktales (2017), a short while after the end of season 3.

[center][b][u]Dungeons and Ducks[/u][/b][/center]

"[i]Life is like a hurricane.[/i] Those were the last words you heard the Magus speak before the eldritch beast consumed her, and with the last of her power she teleported you away, lest you face the same fate without any hope of victory. Now, you find yourselves waking up in a strange land. In the midst of a dense forest of ancient, towering trees and plants the likes of which you've never seen before. At least... you don't think you have. Because, while you can remember the Magus, the mission with which she charged you, and your own names, much of your memory beyond that is a blur. Slowly you rise to your feet, and once you've established that by some miracle you don't appear to have any broken bones, you look around. You see others pulling themselves up, and regarding you with similar confusion, even though you all wear the Magus' crest upon your gear, marking you as the closest of allies. So... it seems as though introductions are in order. Who'd like to begin?" 

Violet looked around the table within one of the McDuck manor's dining rooms, her gaze calm and confident as she regarded the five ducks seated either side of her place at the table's head. For a moment everyone was quiet as they drank in the details of her opening monologue, until just as Dewey began to open his beak, Webby's voice burst out around the room.

"Oh my [i]gosh[/i] Violet that was SO cool! Starting in media res like that and just dropping us straight into an unknown situation together, no awkward first meeting at a tavern where every one of us somehow manages to find a different dark corner to brood in until you force us together?! Ahhhhhh this is going to be awesome, I [b]knew[/b] you'd be an amazing Storyteller!!"

Beneath her feathers, Violet's cheeks flushed ever so slightly. She cleared her throat, trying not to beam too overtly at the praise even as she saw Lena nodding in quiet but sincere agreement with the younger duck sitting between them. Rather than breaking the flow of their newly started game by feigning false modesty though, she simply bowed her head slightly in gratitude.

"I'm glad you think so, Webbigail. Truth be told I have wanted to play Dungeons and Drakes for quite some time now, so I would be lying if I said that I had not been planning ahead, even if I did not know you all wished to play too. Now that we are all at the table together though, I am just as eager to hear about your characters as I am to share the story I picked for our first campaign. So..."

Violet gently guided the group back to the subject of introductions, and this time as Dewey didn't just sit up, but leapt to his feet upon his chair with one hand pressed against his chest and the other outstretched in true oratorial style, everyone else settled in with knowing smirks. 

"Greetings friends! I am the renowned Dewdarial Eidersong, bardic adventurer, ready to forge my own great legend so that I may share its glories with the whole world, and have all feel safe in my presence! If you too seek immortality through story and song, it would be my honour to travel with you!"

Either side of their brother, Huey and Louie shook their heads, but Violet could see the same twinkle of excitement in their eyes as she could in Lena and Webby, with Dewey's bold and in character introduction having spurred each of them on to do the same. 

"Such a flashy presence, master Eidersong. I think we'll make a fine team. You draw all eyes of our enemies towards you, and while they're unable to look away I, the one known only as the Webspinner, will emerge from the shadows to ensnare them with my rogue-ish guile!"

Webby remained seated as she introduced her character, her voice soft and yet with an intense edge to it, and her eyes purposefully darting around the table as though she, like her character, was constantly examining her surroundings. After she fell quiet though, when none of the remaining three immediately spoke up, Webby turned to her left and gently elbowed Lena in the side. The slightly older duck opened her beak to say something, then closed it again as she began to blush. 

"Maybe... uh... maybe I should redesign my character. I'm not sure if I... if I got the vibe right when I designed her." 

She murmured softly, her blush only deepening when she looked around the table and saw everyone regarding her not with annoyance or frustration, but curious smiles and warm encouragement. 

"As I said in our pre-game session zero, Lena. If anyone wishes to change their character after a couple of sessions, we have all agreed that it will be fine, and we can retcon any differences. The important thing is for everyone to have fun."

Violet spoke up to reassure her adopted sister, and though Lena's face remained red as she looked around again and saw everyone nodding in agreement, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and, in as gruff, deep a voice as she could muster...

"I am Larya, a barbarian of the Feathered Peak Mountains. I... I don't know why my character, I... I mean why I'm here, I just..." 

Lena's voice trailed off as she sank back into her seat, groaned softly and pulled her hood up over her face. 

"I feel dumb. I should have played a magic character, shouldn't I?"

Before anyone else could answer though, Huey cleared his throat, and spoke in a still warm, but somewhat more fancy, aristocratic voice.

"Miss Larya? Please, do not be concerned. I gather that we are likely all missing some portions of our memories, and that may extend to why we are even here together in the first place. What is truly important though, and what I personally have no doubt about, is the fact that we [i]are[/i] here together, and that we are meant to be. I dare say our party would suffer greatly without a sturdy and powerful individual such as yourself to stand on the front lines, and I would be proud to support and fight alongside you, just as I am sure the others of our group will be."

Huey fell quiet for a moment, then, in his normal voice, added...

"Seriously Lena? If you want a break from the whole magic thing? That's fine. No-one here's gonna be upset with that. We're just happy you wanna play with us. Right guys?"  

Everyone nodded. Lena's face flushed hotter, but she pulled her hood down, and after opening her beak for a moment to say thanks, instead cleared her throat and spoke in her character's voice once more. 

"Thank you, friend. I... I will do my best to stand strong for all of you. But, please. You never even told me, o-or any of us, your name." 

Huey's eyes widened slightly, and his own face flushed beneath his white feathers.

"Oh, right!"

He slipped back into his accent, and after leaning down for a moment to grab something from the floor beside his chair, raised up a crystal orb in the palm of one hand. 

"I am the wizard, Hyden von Vheil. My only goal in life was to learn from the great Magus herself, and now, though I do not know what has become of her or how we came to be in her service in the first place, I will do anything to see our memories restored. I will lend my knowledge and my magical power to you all, so that we may find a way to grow stronger, and to help the Magus in whatever trials she must face!"

Huey fell quiet for a moment, then glanced back across the table to Lena with a reassuring nod.

"Play your character exactly how you want to play her. In this game? I've got [i]you[/i] covered where magic is concerned." 

Lena beamed and nodded gratefully, and though a part of her wanted to give role-playing a bit more of a try than she had thus far, to start playing more of the character she'd planned out and to interact more with Huey's wizard given how friendly he had been to her, her gaze shifted instead. She looked from the red dressed triplet, past Dewey, to the one remaining player who had yet to speak. When her eyes fell upon Louie's seat however, she did a double take, and snorted with laughter. At the same moment everyone else followed her gaze, and only then did they all seem to notice that at some point while Lena and Huey's characters were the focus, Louie had performed a costume change. Or, at least, he had raided one of his Great Uncle's jewellery boxes upstairs, several golden chains draped around his neck, and each and every one of his fingers bedazzled with a shining, gem-studded ring. 

"You all have plans, whether simple or grand. But you know what an adventurer needs to make their plans happen in this world, no matter where you are or what the emergency?" 

Louie murmured as he leaned back in his seat, propped his webbed feet up on the table, and cracked open a can of Pep! before taking a single sip and sighing with satisfaction. 

"Money, my friends. Cold, hard treasure. And that is why you all need me here with you on this quest. I, Lear the Goldeneye, cleric of the goddess of Commerce and Merchants, who for just a mere thirty percent cut of the party's total treasure earnings will..."

Webby raised a hand, and even as Violet glanced at her, the duck had her dice in hand.

"Can I roll to pickpocket Lear?" 

Louie's eyes bulged.

"Wait, wha-?"

He lurched, and began to teeter, to flail as his seat began to topple backwards. Even as Dewey stuck out a leg to stabilise the chair before it could fall back though, the first rattle of plastic dice on the wooden table echoed around the room, and as Louie cried out in dismay while Webby narrated exactly how she began to fish coins out of Lear's pack while he was still trying to barter with them for an oversized cut of the party's treasure, it wasn't long before the whole room was filled with the sounds of laughter and of rolling dice.

The last couple of months since the reveal of Bradford Buzzard's grand plan and his eventual defeat had been truly quiet and relatively uneventful. At first, even Scrooge had relished the calm, but no matter how pleasant it was to be able to relax in the wake of the trials which the extended McDuck clan and their closest friends had been put through, boredom had eventually started to set in. The kids in particular had been yearning for a mystery, a puzzle, even the faintest trace of a legend that they could even [i]imagine[/i] planning to learn about and explore. Now though, whether fictional or not, they had a new goal to set their sights on. A new quest on which to embark together, and they were all virtually vibrating with anticipation and understanding that this grand new adventure had only just begun!

[center]*********[/center]

[b][u]Two hours later[/u][/b]

Violet peered down at the campaign book in front of her once last time, then back up at the expectantly staring, wide eyes of her five players. She frowned, glanced down one last time, and then murmured in what seemed to be genuine confusion.

"You appear to have... won."

Everyone blinked, and Huey tilted his head, his character's wizardly orb resting on the table in front of him surrounded by a small sea of dice. 

"Won, like... we already got through all the material you had planned for this session?" 

Violet's brow furrowed more, and she shook her head.

"No, Hubert. I have consulted the book and its various conditions for victory, and even though the method you have all planned out together is not detailed, nor even seemingly considered within the book... it is tactically sound, and is absolutely possible via both the rules of the game and the lore of the world. It seems like you have found a method to circumvent approximately ninety eight percent of the module's content and... achieve victory whilst still at level one, even though this book says a party of adventurers is supposed to complete the campaign at level fourteen."

Once again the whole table just stared at Violet, not judging or showing any anger or frustration towards the hummingbird for delivering the information, just seemingly unable to believe that the grand, world ending threat contained within the campaign as written was so... 

"That was easy, right?" 

Louie said what everyone was thinking, looking down his side of the table at his brothers, across at Webby and Lena, then back to Violet at the table's head, seeing each and every one of them nodding in return.

"Yeah, Louie. Like... really, [i]really[/i] super duper easy."

Webby added, everyone's gaze turning back to Violet as she arched her fingers together over the book and stared down at it in continued contemplation.

"Yes. I admit that the puzzles and encounters were rather rudimentary. I had paid much more attention to the narrative and the overall system mechanics when planning. And, given that this is all of our first time playing Dungeons and Drakes, I didn't wish to stray away from the mechanics of the campaign as written any more than I already did by taking some liberties with how the story brought you all together. Perhaps they were not expecting individuals with so much practical experience at dealing with traps and puzzles and potentially monstrous entities to be playing the game."

Lena looked around the table, chuckled and nodded to her sister.

"Yeah, I mean... I guess we're hardly the average group of gamer nerds. Huey and Violet aside, I mean."

Huey clutched his chest dramatically while Violet just raised an amused eyebrow at her sister, but even as the other two triplets and Webby all clamped hands over their beaks to keep from cackling, Violet cleared her throat and shook her head.

"Accurate as the statement might be in part, we should correct you on one matter. Neither myself nor Hubert are in any way average."

Huey nodded in eager agreement.

"Right! What level does the Nerd class get resistance to psychic damage again? Because, we must be at least that powerful." 

Before the two of them could begin developing an entire new home-brew class right there at the table though, Lena spoke up once again to continue the point she had been about to make when her playful teasing had distracted them. 

"You said you were sticking to the book because this was our first time playing, Vi. Does that mean if you hadn't been, you think you could have made things more difficult for us?" 

Violet smiled, tapping the tips of her still arched, feathered fingers together in sequence dramatically. 

"Well, I wouldn't like to boast. But... I believe I could extrapolate some scenarios which you might all find somewhat more challenging to overcome."

Lena looked to the others. They all looked back at Violet, wide eyed and pleading. In turn, her smile grew wider still. Her fingers laced together, flexing her palms outward, and after peering down at the book again, then closing her eyes for just a matter of seconds...

"You have won. The Magus is safe once more, and the ancient foe who sought to imprison her beyond the bounds of your reality has been destroyed before he could take a single step into your realm. And yet... just as it seems like your victory is assured, you realise you've made a grave miscalculation. You see, when you wrenched open a crack in realities to pull the Magus free from her prison and thus invalidating the ordained Prophecy, the potent holy magic of which was itself sustaining the eldritch being's connection to this realm, there was one thing you never specified. One factor you never researched, nor made any effort to circumvent. Your plan worked perfectly, except... there is still a tear between your realm and the one where the Magus was imprisoned. And though the great foe who existed in that realm has already been eliminated, the other dimension itself still exists. And what, my friends, happens when two sources of matter meet, and a gradient is formed between a high and low concentration of particles, unseparated by any sort of permeable membrane?" 

Everyone else at the table stared blankly, except for Huey, who put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Diffusion."

Violet's eyes twinkled. 

"Precisely. You have faced spellcasters. You have faced powerful monsters. You've faced dungeons and their deadly traps. But now, you face your greatest threat of all. Fundamental elements of physics and chemistry. Particles from the other reality begin to seep through into your realm via the hole you tore between the two, and as they meet for the first time, two utterly distinct universes colliding, the result is simple. A release of energy. Of magic. Raw, unpredictable, [i]wild[/i] magic. Everyone, please roll once on the extended D100 wild magic surge table, and as you feel reality beginning to burst all around you into spontaneous manifestations of magical energy, you look out through the window of the tower in which you are standing... you realise that it's not just happening to the room where the tear was opened. Its already spread, and the wild magic is bursting into being across the entire [i]city[/i]!"

[center]*********[/center]

[b][u]Five hours later[/u][/b]

"Dewdarial, your clone begins to sing the most beautiful, heart-wrenching aria you have ever heard, and..."

Dewey all but slammed his hands down, palms flat on the table. 

"Countercharm! He's trying to charm me and the others, so I begin singing too!"

 Violet nodded, eyes darting across the table. 

"Larya and Webspinner, the fire giants are almost in range and continue their charge, blazing axes raised. What do you do?"

Lena and Webby glanced at one another, nodded firmly, and Webby leapt up from her seat, flipping over its back to land in a perfect combat stance with two sucker-tipped hand crossbows at the ready, pointed directly at a bust of Scrooge standing on a plinth against the nearest wall. Lena however was the one to respond, and to roll her dice.

"Larya lets loose an almighty roar as she brings her maul crashing down on the floor of the chamber, shattering the tiles and opening up a fissure to the flooded catacombs beneath."

Violet nodded.

"The giants roar in shock and fury as the sturdy stone gives way beneath their feet, but they're so tall that even as they fall, they only sink waist deep into the murky water! You've slowed them down slightly, but only slightly."

Webby cackled and fired off shots from both her hand-crossbows, two suckered bolts quivering upon the lenses of Scrooge's stone spectacles in his bust. 

"My held action from before triggers, and I fire off the two magic infused Thunderbolts we got from the cloud giant Queen directly into the water."

Nodding eagerly once again, Violet's eyes darted between Huey and Louie, and she didn't have to speak a single word before they too sprang into action on their latest turns.

"I keep reading from the ancient Libram of the Sorcerous Arts, manifesting as much wild magic as possible into the city. If we just keep going a little longer, I [b]know[/b] we'll reach an equal concentration here compared to the other reality, and then we'll be able to seal the rift again without issue!"

Huey cried out as he held his orb aloft while his other hand gripped his copy of the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook, only for his eyes to bulge as Violet rolled some dice upon the table before her.

"Another wild magic surge manifests in front of you. It's another monster, and... o-oh. Oh my. I've never rolled this one before."

Louie looked over at his brother with a rueful smile.

"It's never good when she says that, huh?" 

Huey shook his head. Louie grinned.

"Well then, you focus on your Nerd Stuff, and watch as I defend you with the power of [i]bling[/i]! I cast Animate Objects, and the objects I choose are these platinum coins! Fly my pretties, FLY!!" 

Violet leaned forward in her seat, eyes shining with glee as she regarded not just Louie and Huey, but the entire group as they waited to see the results of the latest wild magic surge.

"Your coins leap into the air and begin to swarm around you like an obedient hive of insects, but will they have what it takes to defeat a foe that cares nothing for coins, nor for anything of your living world? Behold, as the wild magic manifests a terrifying creature brought back from death by necromancy, a Zombie Tarrasq-"

"He's found it!! Scrooge found it!"

Violet's grand reveal was cut off as everyone heard the triplets' mom yelling at the top of her lungs from somewhere down the hallway, the rhythmic patter and clank of her feet against the wooden floor growing rapidly closer until sure enough, Della burst through the door with an unabashedly giddy grin spread across her beak.

"He found it! The ancient parchment of Mesozottro! The one that leads to the sapphire compass of Pangeas, which points to the forgotten map of Reptos, which had directions to the Lost Caldera of Saurania!"

Everyone stared blankly at the panting, wide eyed and beaming duck, who stared back at them like they were all crazy for not reacting just as wildly as herself before clarifying.

"The Lost Caldera of Saurania. An ancient, subterranean volcanic cavern jungle where legends say that [i]dinosaurs[/i] still exist!"

For a single instant, the silence continued, and then for another moment there was a flurry of noise and activity as virtually every single person in the room began to bolt towards the doorway, all eager not just to hear every word about this lost dinosaur jungle, but to see how quickly they could all [i]get[/i] there themselves. After just a second or so of letting Della's raw enthusiasm sweep over and consume them though, everyone froze again, and all eyes of the other kids turned towards Violet who was still seated at the head of the table. 

She smiled warmly, and looked down across the table for just a moment, before looking back up at all her friends' eager faces.

"Might I suggest that we end today's session on the current cliffhanger, and resume again next time we all have an afternoon free?"

Violet spoke calmly as she slipped down off her own seat, only for her eyes to twinkle at the very last moment, and the hummingbird to break into a frantic sprint as she lurched past Della, out into the hallway and began to race off ahead of the others towards Scrooge's study. The remaining kids cried out with a mix of dismay and laughter and gave chase after her, with Della beaming as she brought up the rear behind them all, glancing over her shoulder just briefly at the paper, dice and snack strewn table.

She was certain the kids had been having a blast, especially with Violet as their Storyteller, and Della was so glad that they'd found more ways to entertain themselves over the last couple of months. Glad that they hadn't gone too stir crazy while Scrooge had been busy in the background tying up a lot of loose ends and replacing the various security measures, both physical and magical, that might have been compromised by Bradford and the rest of F.O.W.L.

Now however, with all those matters mostly dealt with, Scrooge seemed more eager than ever to seek out new mysteries, new wondrous and inexplicable things which even Isabella Finch hadn't been able to document. Most importantly though, he was eager to explore those mysteries his way. The way that Bradford had been so determined to put an end to, and which in the end had proven his undoing.

With family. With friends. With heart and soul, and with the tantalising promise of new discoveries, new mysteries just beyond the horizon, and grand new adventures that had only just begun.



By Jeeves