The air inside the fortified bunker smelled of ozone, burnt mushroom, and pure, unadulterated desperation.
Outside, the planet Veld roared with the unending, organic screech of a billion-strong tyranid swarm. Inside, however, three Helldivers—RNGesus, Archer, and Pyro—were engaged in the only fight that truly mattered: a game of Dungeons, Democracy & Dragons.
The battle mat, taped over a flickering data-slate, showed a crude map of a subterranean temple. RNGesus, the Dungeon Master, leaned forward, adjusting a miniature made from a spent shell casing.
"Korg the Barbarian, played by Archer," RNGesus said, his voice tense, "you stand on the rickety, single-rope bridge. Below, the chasm is filled with what I'm calling… 'Freedom-Hating Slime.'
Suddenly, the rope snaps a quarter of the way through. Roll a Dexterity Saving Throw to avoid plummeting into the ooze of communism."
He uttered the word as with as much revulsion as he could muster.
Archer, took a swig of amasec and grunted. "Freedom-Hating Slime? Sounds like a bug with a different paint job. I roll." He picked up a standard-issue D20, smeared with alien guts, and slapped it down.
A '1' stared back at him.
A Critical Fumble.
"The bridge doesn't just break, Archer," RNGesus sighed, rubbing his temples, "it evaporates. Korg is falling, shouting something profoundly stupid, I assume."
"He yells, 'Cowabunga!' and tries to land on the Slime's weakest point!" Archer declared, even as the walls of the bunker shuddered violently.
THWUMP-CRACK!
A hulking tyranid, its carapace thick as a tank, burst through the reinforced wall twenty feet away. It screeched, its massive head aimed squarely at the three Helldivers, whose current priority was demonstrably not avoiding immediate death.
"Hold position, civilian!" Pyro, the third Helldiver, muttered, adjusting his gas mask. He was playing Elara the Elven Wizard, and was currently calculating the exact damage threshold of the aforementioned Freedom-Hating Slime.
The tyranid lowered its horn, preparing to reduce them to red paste and bone. This was it. The moment they would have to pause the game and engage in actual, messy warfare.
Then, pure, unadulterated LUCK intervened.
It was RnGesus' broken item. His D50 dice effect.
From the black sky above, a stray orbital supply pod suffered a catastrophic GPS failure. It plummeted with the force of a small asteroid, not merely hitting the tyranid, but somehow wedging itself inside the massive creature's chitinous shell, effectively turning the ten-ton monster into a brightly coloured shishkebab.
RNGesus peered over the table, blinked at the smoking hole in the wall, and then looked back down at the dice.
"Right. Korg the Barbarian is still falling," RNGesus continued, unperturbed by the sudden, spontaneous deconstruction of a threat. "However, the force of the random, perfectly timed, and extremely non-standard kinetic ordnance impact below has caused a geyser of Freedom-Hating Slime to erupt. Korg lands safely on the top of the column of slime. Roll an Investigation check to see what flavor of stupidity you want to try next."
Archer grinned, completely oblivious to the improbability of his survival.
The game continued. Korg the Barbarian was now scaling a tower, having narrowly avoided a trap where a chandelier made of orc teeth fell.
Outside, the air turned sickly green as a massive Deathspitter waddled into the breach left by his fellow tyranid. It gurgled, preparing to spray highly corrosive alien stomach acid directly onto the table, thus dissolving Elara the Wizard's character sheet.
"Elara, you need to quickly decipher the runes on the magical door before the orcish chandelier ruins your good mood. Roll an Intelligence check, DC 18."
Pyro, playing Elara, carefully selected a six-sided die, which he considered optimal for all intellectual pursuits. He rolled an 18—a success, but barely.
SPLAT!
The Bile Spewer unleashed its toxic stream. It was traveling at terminal velocity, aimed perfectly at the table.
Just as the vile stream crossed the threshold of the bunker, a Ripper—a tiny, fast-moving tyranid—darted across the floor, having somehow survived the previous explosion. It tripped over a single, loose sheet.
As it stumbled, it managed to knock a large, empty Thermos flask, left by a previous, less fortunate squad, directly into the path of the bile stream.
The force and volume of the corrosive acid, rather than melting the metal flask, somehow perfectly pressurized the remaining contents. The flask became an impromptu rocket. It launched backward at incredible speed, corkscrewing directly into the Deathspitters' enormous head, cracking its skull like an egg. It flopped over, dead, spraying the last of its bile vertically onto the ceiling where it quickly solidified into a harmless, green, glass-like coating.
"The door slides open," RNGesus said, his voice flat. He was starting to develop a nervous tic in his left eye. "You find the Staff of Righteous Bombardment."
"Ooh, does it allow me to call in a 500KG Bomb Stratagem?" Archer asked, eyes lighting up.
"It's a staff, Korg. It calls in… a slightly larger fireball. The point is, you now face the final challenge: the Dracolich of Iron."
RNGesus placed a ridiculously oversized miniature, a Tyranid Hierophant head mounted on a stick, onto the mat.
"It is gargantuan. Its gaze turns good citizens into space communists, and it's surrounded by a legion of skeleton warriors, all armed with poorly maintained equipment."
Archer's eyes narrowed. "I charge the skull-thing! I use my greatest attack: the Hammers of Freedom!"
"Roll to hit! Disadvantage, since you're shouting so much you've alerted its twenty skeleton minions!"
Archer didn't care.
He rolled both dice. The results: a 20 and a 1 A Critical Hit and a Critical Fumble, perfectly canceling out.
Before RNGesus could rule on the bizarre nature of this attack, perhaps Korg would accidentally stab himself while simultaneously slaying the Dracolich, the environment outside escalated to impossible levels.
A swarm of two dozen Gaunts poured through the wall gap, followed by a stealthy Lictor that shimmered into visibility behind them.
Archer, realizing his Barbarian was in a stalemate, became agitated. "What happens, RNGesus? I want to know my damage!"
"You're about to take 8d6 necrotic damage from its breath weapon, Archer, if we survive this turn! And no, I will not let you pause the game!"
The Lictor leaped, the Gaunts scrambled, and the DnD party held it's breath.
A lone supply dropship, had somehow landed 100 meters away in a ditch. It then rolled down the embankment, hit a rock, and bounced. It bounced again, gaining improbable speed, before zipping through the bunker opening and landing directly at the feet of the Lictor.
The Lictor, confused by the strange object, sniffed it.
Suddenly, two things happened. First, the dropsjip's internal timer went off, activating the usual high-pitched electronic whine. Second, the shish-kebab wreckage from earlier, now fully consumed by the surrounding environment, suffered a tertiary, delayed explosion that was somehow even bigger than the first.
The massive wave of air pressure, channeled perfectly through the breach, acted like a giant's hand, picking up the entire group of Gaunts and launching them like a spread of alien buckshot.
The Gaunts struck the Lictor, which in turn triggered the supply dropship.
The resulting sound was not a bomb, but a high-pressure burst of steam, as the ship's thrusters, meant for fine-tuning descent, activated in reverse. The Lictor was launched vertically, carrying the Gaunts with it, directly into space and straight into the sun.
RNGesus looked at the single die—the critical hit die—then at the hole, then back at the dice. He sighed, defeated.
"Korg, because you charged with such reckless abandon, you stumbled. But in doing so, your weapon perfectly found the single unarmored gap in the Dracolich's throat plating. You deal maximum damage. The Dracolich of Iron is defeated."
Archer roared with triumph. "I knew it! I'm the best!"
Pyro calmly scribbled on his sheet.
"So, loot?" Archer asked, leaning over the table, finally pausing the fighting for the more important task of dividing treasure.
RNGesus just looked at the now-quiet hole in the wall, then back at his players, who were already arguing over whether Korg deserved the fictional Staff of Righteous Bombardment.
"Loot," he confirmed, running a hand over his face. "Just… Here you go, as promised I'll let you borrow this portal gun..."
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A bit different omake this time - Ainz