Kudos to lifelonglearner for amazing cover art that is also an example of Murphy’s Law.
The full text of Murphy’s Quest (with many corrections) is now available in PDF.
FTH: -23335
The first battle is a rout.
Surrounded by a dedicated defensive squad, I pummel the enemy with gigantic balls of death. Negative FTH Heal deals an entirely new category of damage, completely bypassing Damage Reduction. I call it my Bubble of Doom.
After the battle, we track the trails of my orbs for thousands of feet. Crimson Inquisitor swords, chimes and robes scatter across the ground in long rows. Entire platoon vaporized in place, their equipment laid out in neat, legible squares.
[Any resemblance to actual persons, intentional or otherwise, is entirely coincidental.]
“Where’s Mencius?”
“In the old fort.”
Nyra leads me through the bedraggled Undead camp. Skeletons and embalmed dead make way respectfully, but they shoot me glares that send shivers up my spine.
As the creaky drawbridge to the fort lowers ponderously, she briefs me on the Dead King.
“Mencius is a wise and competent king, but he has peculiar ideas about government.”
“Such as?”
“He insists that a king is a public servant, and must be – what does he call it – democratically selected by his people on a regular basis.”
“That’s common where I come from.”
She shoots me a queer look.
—
“That’s him,” Nyra whispers as we enter the courtyard.
The skeleton she points to stands half a head shorter than his attendants, wearing sleek metal armor under a black cape. His left eye is covered by an eye-patch.
“Mencius, I’ve brought the boy.”
“Nyra, welcome home. And you must be Murphy!”
Just to be on the safe side, I bow. “Your Majesty -”
Two firm skeletal hands lift me out of the bow.
“Save the formalities. Here we are all equals, living or dead. Call me Mencius.”
“Nyra told me all about you, sir.”
“Uhoh. You must forgive an old man his crazy ideas.”
The attendants laugh a little too genuinely. A shadow flits across the few remaining sinews of Mencius’s face.
“We have a saying in my homeland: government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Mencius beams widely.
Before he can reply a raven swoops in from the heavens and lands on his outstretched hand. It has only one bulbous eye.
The courtyard falls silent.
“What have you learned, darling?”
Mencius strokes the bird with his bony fingers, and it dissolves into smoke, leaving behind the much-too-large eyeball. He pulls back his eyepatch and pops it into the waiting socket. With a flick of his a finger, the eye spins it into place.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no time for banter. The enemy will be upon us by nightfall. Will you shed blood with us, Murphy?”
In the eyes of the king of the Undead, I see what I can only describe as a triumphant call to life.
“With all my heart, sir!”
—
Nyra leads me from tent to tent, outfitting me with custom-made equipment. Had we been less pressed for time, I might have befriended the blacksmith brothers LeBrawn and LeBrain despite their heavy accents. I might have acquired a fetch quest or ten from the alchemist Solomon and learned from him the secrets to absinthe and wormwood.
One trip, however, could not be rushed.
The jeweller Penelope’s tent stands out, twice the size of any other tent in the camp, decorated with gaudy silks and gems. Penelope turns out to be the old hag from my dream. That explains why her skin looked like it was melting off.
Penelope unlocks a trunk and picks out a handful of brilliant diamond rings for me.
“You can wear more than two rings at once?” I blurt out in surprise. I expected this universe to prevent such an exploitable mechanic.
“Try.”
Penelope waggles her right hand at me. Each finger fits three identical sapphire rings, for a total of fifteen.
I squeeze a ring onto my forefinger. The next one – refuses to go on my hand. It goes onto my other hand fine, but then the third ring won’t go on either.
“You’re in for a treat, darling.”
Penelope draws my eye to the pentagram on the floor. She whispers the procedure in my ear.
“- It only works with exactly identical rings.”
To say I rolled on the ground laughing would be an understatement.
—
Wear a Massive Diamond Ring on each hand.
Step into the Summoning Circle.
Chant the incantation and the Demon’s name.
All my equipment is removed by the spell.
A Minor Fell Imp appears in the center of the pentagram.
“Whaddaya -”
Chant the Cancel Summoning incantation.
The Minor Fell Imp disappears.
My equipment reappears.
The two Massive Diamond Rings appear together on my right forefinger.
Equip another Massive Diamond Ring on the left.
Repeat.
The Minor Fell Imp pops in and out of the tent.
“Whaddaya -”
“Stop -”
“Who the -”
“The fuck -”
I kinda feel sorry for the little guy.
—
Before the final preparations, Nyra pulls me aside.
“Are you sure you can do it?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Not too long ago, you seemed awfully shaken up about murder.”
I struggle for words to explain how a sixteen-year-old might understand warfare.
“I was shaken up about killing good men. In war, there are no good men. Only monsters.”
—
The bells toll the alarm. The army of Undead gathers in the courtyard, spilling out into the camp in a wide circle.
On the ramparts, the Dead King Mencius stands alone.
Cinematic time.
“Children! Brothers! Sisters! The Valley of the Dead is the eternal resting place of the Undead. The Inquisition dares to disturb our slumber with their blazing crosses and holy swords!
“With their cowardly techniques and overwhelming numbers, they beat us back temporarily. But our enemy is blind! Blind men cowering under the skirts of a blind Goddess.”
“Blind men!” The crowd roars back.
“Yesterday, the Seeing feared the Blind. Yesterday, the Dead feared the Living. But that is not the way of the world. From this day forward, the Blind will fear the Seeing. From this day forward, the Living will fear the Dead!”
The crowd bellows.
“The Living will fear the Dead! The Living will fear the Dead! The Living will fear the Dead!”
Mencius’s left eye flutters to life, shooting out of his socket in the form of a raven.
“I, the One-Eyed Raven, have flown across the kingdoms of Demons and Men looking for the key to this war. Today, I found that key!”
Nyra prods me, and I run up the steps to Mencius’ side.
“This boy will be the Ultimate Weapon in our war against the Blind Inquisition. Bring the prisoner!”
Skeletal guards drag out a man clothed in the red robes of the Inquisition.
“Our sister Skala, out of the kindness of her unbeating heart, nursed this cretin to health. For that mistake, he murdered Skala in cold blood.
“Today you face the judgment of the Ultimate Weapon!”
With a flourish, Mencius turns to stand next to the bound Inquisitor. He nods to me.
I hold up my Chime.
Heal!
The army of the dead cries out in alarm as a giant purple orb blossoms from my weapon to envelop their king. In the blink of an eye, it clips through almost half the fort, extending ten stories into the sky. The orb travels into the distance.
Mencius appears out of the purple completely unscathed. Of the Inquisitor, only crimson robes remain.
The Dead King turns to face the crowd and lifts my hand to the sky.
“The Ultimate Weapon!”
“The Ultimate Weapon!” The sea of faces chants. “The Ultimate Weapon! The Ultimate Weapon!”
As far as the eye can see, the ground is lit up by white-gold runes, tongues of blue flame and roving God Rays. The mountains ahead look like someone applied a “Heaven” filter to a demonic hellscape.
“Consecrated Ground. I’ve never seen a patch this large.”
“I’m guessing it’s not Undead-friendly?”
“You could say that. Wait here.”
Nyra walks up to the boundary of the Consecrated Ground, whispering spells under her breath.
“Show me my friends.”
“Ask nicely.”
I swallow what little remains of my pride. “Show me my friends please?”
Nyra draws out the enchanted mirror.
Tess and Vant sleep around what remains of a campfire. Perched precariously in a nearby tree, Plun keeps watch.
“You have loyal friends, Murphy. They visited establishments of – poor repute – to find help to rescue you.”
“Is that where they found you?”
“No, I made sure the three of them had no luck finding aid. I also sent them – fun dreams – about being rescued from terrible fates by yours truly. So you see they practically begged me to join when I passed them on the street and accidentally showed off a touch of street magic.”
“Fat help you were.”
The girl bristles. “There were complications. If anything, it’s your fault we got caught.”
“My fault? I was stuck in a cell!”
“Your friend Pluneth insisted we take a detour into the main chapel to check out your – handiwork. Against my better judgment, I agreed. We were found out immediately – the Goddess statue is blessed by a high level detection spell even I can’t see.”
“Shit! That’s how they caught me that night!”
We share a silent moment of commiseration, two souls defeated by the same block of marble.
“The monk and the snake – you sent them, too?”
“The monk, yes … I Charmed him to scout the grounds out and find you. We were already surrounded by those pesky priests when the idiot finally found you. I thought I might as well try getting you out of there while the attention was on us. As for the snake, I have no idea…”
“My friends, will they be OK?”
“They’re alive, aren’t they? Want me to send them a message?”
“You can do that? Sure!”
“Write them a note on this. Keep it short.”
I jot a few words down.
“Not much of a poet, are you?”
I shrug.
“Well, here goes.”
She whispers something, and the parchment disappears. In the mirror, the letters appear in crimson on the sleeping Tess’s forehead.
Dear Plun,
It’s Murph. Thanks for trying to rescue me.
Don’t look for me. I’ll be fine.
Take care,
Murph
“What? You told me to send them a message, right?”
I can’t help admiring her style.
—
“Still hung up over those pesky priests?”
“They didn’t deserve to die.”
“If it’s any comfort, I woulda killed them anyway.”
“It really isn’t.”
“Worse things have happened to better people.” Nyra pulls back the bandages around her chest to reveal several missing ribs under dry, peeling skin. “See?”
I try not to gag. “Stop!”
“It still itches, you know.” She inserts a finger into the cavity where her heart should have been and starts scratching. “Ahh, that feels better.”
“Cover that up! I feel much better now!”
—
“If you can read minds, send dreams, and mind control people, what do you need me for?”
“Hah! Those parlor tricks only work on low INT enemies and are easily blocked by all sorts of spells and trinkets. Check out my stats.”
She reveals them briefly.
Holy!
“Even with my INT I can barely read your mind. As for the mind control spell, it’s called Charm. Wanna hear its secret?”
I nod eagerly.
Nyra leans in with a conspiratorial whisper.
“Charm was invented by the first Dead King, Charmer. Charmer figured out that among the living, a rare few have no soul. They look like the living, they move like the living, they talk like the living, but they feel nothing.”
“Woah…”
“Charmer called them philosophical zombies, or p-zombies. The living dead, as opposed to the Undead. The Charm spell allows a Mage specializing in Dark Magic to take over the mind of a p-zombie. I scoured your town and only found one – that silent LVL 1 monk.”
“So your skills are smoke and mirrors and you need me to do the real work.”
She ignores my jab, “the Valley of the Dead is under attack -”
“Let me stop you right there. You’ll never convince me to fight a war for the Undead.”
—
To make a long story short, the mind-reading mummy girl convinced me to fight a war for the Undead.
To be honest, Dark Warlock Emperor Murphy was chomping at the bit to accept her quest.
Did I mention she can enter dreams in a … rather pleasing … form?
The flesh is weak.
—
The next three days on the road are almost as monotonous as prison.
Punctuated only by my regular bathroom breaks, Nyra explains the state of affairs.
The current Dead King Mencius is on the losing side of a long defensive war against the Inquisition – a militant faction of the Church. Their Holy magic completely neutralizes Undead powers. They only survived this long by guerrilla warfare and constant retreat.
Nyra travelled to Beltine undercover to investigate an old rumor that FTH can drop negative and reverse Holy spell effects, damaging the living and healing the Undead. Her plan was to find and enlist some low-level clerics, until she learned of my “incident.”
From her bags, she shows me a number of powerful FTH spellbooks, all of them useless for me. Most are buffs that would turn to debuffs given my stats. The rest are aura or AoE heals that affect the caster and would insta-kill me.
I’ll be relying on the basic Heal spell to save the Valley of the Dead. FTH is a percentage modifier on its size and power, so 10 FTH corresponds to a 10% larger orb that heals 10% more damage, while anything below -100FTH starts dealing damage instead of healing. The orb’s speed scales off INT in the same way, and it lasts a fixed 1 minute in duration which can only be increased with consumables.
Nyra decks me out in level-appropriate Mage gear to increase my INT.
My stats are now:
NAME: Murphy
RACE: Human
CLASS: Cleric
LVL: 31
HP: 595/595
STR: 35
INT: 217
FTH: -13643
AGI: 35
EQUIPPED: Salamander Cloak of Knowledge, Salamander Vambraces of Knowledge…
“Mencius will explain the rest.”
—
“We’re about a day away.”
“The only road to the Valley goes through a narrow pass in the Ghoul’s Teeth. The Inquisition set up patrols all along it, but in that crampt space they should be sitting ducks for your Heal.”
As the word “should” leaves her lips, my stomach drops.
The carriage jolts to a stop.
“What the – ”
“Level Up!”
“Level Up!”
“Level Up!”
Could I have predicted this?
Did I expect the Heal orb to grow massive and deal damage on extreme negative FTH?
There’s a powerful spell employed by the leaders of my old world called the Dichotomy. It goes something like this:
Famous examples include:
“Either the One Percent are greedy bastards with way too much money Or funneling money to the poor has no net effect on poverty.”
“Either America spends too much money on healthcare Or due to lack of proper healthcare, thousands of babies die every year of easily preventable causes.”
“Either systemic racism throws an unfair number of minorities in prison Or minorities commit more crime than the average citizen.”
The Principle of Dichotomy is:
Although bad things happen, two bad things cannot happen at once.
By this Principle, the Dichotomy spell forces reality to pick a side, reducing the number of tragedies in the world by one.
Earlier tonight, I laid out five mutually exclusive ways I might break out of jail.
Unfortunately, the Principle of Dichotomy doesn’t hold in this world.
—
(A) Plun rallies a rag-tag but loveable rescue squad to break me out of jail.
I tiptoe down hall after hall, looking for the way out of the inner cloister.
There’s a commotion in the front courtyard.
Are they onto me?
The clash of steel. Spells being cast. Someone’s fighting.
My curiosity takes over and I sneak towards the noise.
Four hooded figures stand in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by twenty-odd priests and initiates in various states of undress. The fight is going about as well for the four as one can expect against a team of healbots.
“We need to retreat! Rogue, cast smoke bomb!”
It’s Plun’s voice!
“I can’t, I’m silenced!”
I identify two of the other intruders as Tess and Vant, but the last – a hooded shadow the size of a five-year-old – I don’t recognize.
The voice of a young girl emanates from the cloak, casting powerful Dark magic.
Soon, the clergy knock out Plun, Tess, and Vant, leaving only the child shadow, who makes a valiant effort. From her miniature staff she casts a continuous torrent of Shadow Bolts.
Footsteps ring in the corridor behind me.
—-
(B) Demons invade Beltine and I’m freed in the ensuing chaos.
“Finally, your majesssty, after yearsss of ssstudy, I have completed the teleportasssion devissse.”
Evil laughter emanates from behind the obsidian throne.
“If I may, perhapsss we might tessst it out firssst on a sssmaller target.”
After a pause, the man behind the throne speaks, “Leave no survivors.”
“Exsssellent point, your majesssty, we mussst maintain the sssecresssy of the teleportasssion devissse and keep the element of sssurprissse. I know exsssactly the beassst to sssend.”
Three servants walk into the throne room, dragging chains as thick as my arms. Wrapped in those chains is an enormous snake, twice the length and size of the largest natural anaconda. Its night black skin is patterned with red-gold stripes.
A clawed hand extends from behind the throne: you are dismissed.
—
(C) I’m hauled in front of an impartial jury of holy folk and convince them to set me free with an impassioned speech.
The five of us – Plun, Tess, Vant, the hooded child, and I – kneel in chains.
“Sorry for dragging you into this, Plun.”
“What are friends for, Murph?” He manages a pained smile. “We heard about what you did, pervert.”
Father Penitence walks down the aisle towards us.
To Plun, Tess, and Vant: “You break into the consecrated heart of the Goddess and attack her faithful.”
To the hooded child: “You dare to wield the foulest of magic in this holy place.”
To me: “And you, you defile -”
For once, words seem to escape Father Penitence.
“Have you anything to say for yourselves?”
That’s my cue! I rise to my feet:
“Respected Elders, let me mmphgg”
Father Penitence smacks me back to my knees and gags me with a length of cloth, in blatant violation of due process.
“For such crimes, there is only one punishment. I sentence you to purification by holy fire!”
I hang my head. The others’ faces are ashen.
Only one road leads to the Valley of the Dead, Murphy.
Is this what the silent monk meant?
—
(D) Hide a shard of my chamber pot and use it to escape.
I’m shaken out of my contemplation of mortality by screams.
“Look out!”
“Snake!”
A mesmerizing shadow darts into the chapel. It takes down an Initiate in one bite, crushing the boy’s spine.
“Impossible!”
“Where’d it come from?!”
Clergymen rush in to surround the beast, casting spells and auras I don’t recognize.
The five of us, bound and gagged, struggle pointlessly. The hooded girl is the only one who can speak. The Fathers must have been unable to take off her cloak to gag her.
Her voice is shrill and baby-like, “Please, let me out! I can help you! I can kill it!”
One of the Initiates glances away from the fight momentarily. This proves to be a fatal mistake; the demon snake pounces on him.
“Please untie me!”
The battling clergy ignore her cries. One or two more Initiates are picked off, but on the whole the team of healbots forms a solid defense against their venomous enemy. Because the snake is a living creature, however, holy spells deal no damage. It’s a stalemate.
Something cold touches my hand. I twist around to see the silent monk right behind me.
“Mmmphhg!”
He slips a sharp something into my hand and walks away. I already know what it is. I furiously saw at my bindings with the chamber pot shard. After an eternity, the rope finally come off.
Plun and the others shuffle towards me, eager to be freed.
“Wait here. There’s something I have to try.”
I pick up a still-lighted chime from a fallen Initiate.
I check my stats:
FTH: -7311
“Brace yourselves.”
Heal!
—
(S) (for Shawshank) Dig for twenty years.
In the magic mirror, a massive ball of purple envelops the battle, vaporizing several of the clergymen and the snake demon on contact.
The throne room falls into dead silence.
One man drops to his knees.
“Your majesssty, pleassse! It wasss a missstake! Give me another chanssse!”
The clawed hand makes an ominous sign, which a courtier interprets:
“For your failure, you are hereby sentenced to twenty years of hard labor in his Majesty’s mines.”
“No! Mersssy!”
“I need to pee.”
…
“I need to pee.”
…
“I really need to pee!”
Father Penitence prays louder to drown out my requests, “Goddess above, lead this forsaken soul back to the fold.”
How did I end up in this position?
Let’s review the facts.
First.
From Class Choice to ROT13, from Harry Potter villains to this chastity cult, from XP sharing to judgy old men, this world is out to get me.
Second.
I have despaired of living the Good Life and decided to take revenge.
Third.
There is a little-known law of biology which states that the male gaze, rapacious as it normally is, doubles in rapaciousness for each day ungratified. By my count, this makes me 32 times as susceptible to the female form as the average 16 year old male.
Fourth.
The only remotely feminine thing in this church is a life-sized Goddess statue in the chapel.
It is for these reasons that I find myself, just before the stroke of midnight on the 17th of February of the 2014th year of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, standing half-naked on the preacher’s podium in said chapel, facing said statue, relieving said ungratified urge.
“I need healing!”
“Murph, over here! I’m wounded!”
“Heal me!”
“I need healing!”
I aim my Initiate Chimes at Plun and cast Heal. The spell sends a circular golden orb crawling through the air. It misses my party by a wide margin and vanishes into the dungeon wall.
“I need healing!”
Radimentary