Brennan and Riz - Pandemic Blues part 3

Greetings everyone!
Back with more from everyone's favourite trio of a man, woman and talking rat. The lockdown continues and things are starting to get weirder...

Brennan and Riz: Pandemic Blues part 3

Day 5

Things were ticking along fine, Riz and Valarie had entered a sort of stalemate situation where they just didn’t speak to each other, which suited me fine really. I could do without the agro they created. This morning though, Valarie stopped me from entering the office room, instead making me wait in the hallway, as she spied through the halfway open door. I could see in her eyes that she had mischief on the mind.

“Bren, by any chance, have you seen what the inside of Riz’s drawer looks like?” She asked.
“The inside? No, but I’m not sure I’d want to, I mean it’s a rat nest, it’s probably just a giant mess that even hardened cleaners would balk at.” I’d never peeked into his drawer for that reason, frightened at what new life might be growing in there. He was constantly taking food in, and once something went in, it only rarely came back out again. On saying that, there was an exception. Books. Books, once he’d finished with them, would be exchanged. Though depending on who the books belonged to, their condition differed.

“So you’re never curious on how big that drawer is? Yesterday, I saw him haul ten volumes of Grevel’s Testament, the Heraz Codexies, and that badly translated copy of the Necronomicon you have.” Valarie said, rolling her eyes.

“That copy is still valuable! So what if every other word is misspelled....” I said in my defence. “Still, yeah, I get that his drawer wouldn’t have enough space for those books, and just those books...But he doesn’t have it open long enough to have a look!”
“Can’t you just open it when he’s not here? Or asleep? He’s not a light sleeper you know. I could go in there and play the tuba full blast, and he wouldn’t even shudder. So I doubt he’d notice if you just went in and opened his drawer.”

“If you’re so sure about that, why are we stood out here?” I pointed out, and Valarie looked at me, then sighed.
“Because it’s early and I haven’t had coffee in twenty hours.” She said, raising another question.

“Why twenty hours? I got enough of that stuff in, you’re the only one who drinks that kind. Riz goes for that stronger stuff that Alice likes.” This may seem like we were going off on a tangent, and that’s because we were.

“I haven’t touched it since I saw Riz doing...You know what, that doesn’t matter, just know that I’ve swapped his coffee supply for the stuff I would have been drinking. I may have picked up a lot from Alice, but I certainly haven’t picked up her taste for that particular blend. I did try it once and I think I didn’t sleep for two weeks. After that long you think you can see through phases of reality.”

“So not fit for human consumption?”
“Did she ever give you anything that was?”
“Touché” Valarie then remembered what we were talking about in the first place.
“...Anyway, point is, why haven’t you gone and looked in Riz’s drawer?”
“Because he uses a magic lock on it, to keep people out.”
“Even on your desk?”
“Yup, he was quite explicit on having his own personal space where he could go.”
“Never took him for one to have his own safe space.” Valarie eyed back into the office, and my desk. Her mind was now probably unravelling the mysteries of Riz’s drawer, slowly tying me up into it all, which would only end up badly for me. “Well, can’t say I’ve ever came across a lock that I couldn’t break into.” She said smiling at the challenge.

“Problem is waiting till he’s not around. That tends to be when he goes off drinking with the old gods. I think even they are in lockdown, or at least the places they’d end up are closed because of it.”

“That is a problem...Must be something we can do, a way to get him to leave that drawer unoccupied.” The way she was going on, it almost seemed like there was an ulterior motive going on behind the scenes, driving her to want to uncover Riz’s secret space. Then I saw a twisted smile cross her face, no doubt an idea had entered her mind. She then went into my room, and looked at the calendar. “Perfect...” She muttered to herself. Then she turned back to me, her smile, her normal joyous one again. “I’ll take care of everything. Tomorrow, we’ll expose the secrets of that drawer, and whatever the rat is hiding in there.”

“Oh boy.” I absent mindedly muttered.
“What?”
“Just that every time you talk like that, it normally ends up bad time for me. Like that time with the Gnomes, or that time where you got us to take on that Demon. Not to mention all those other jobs where you’ve basically used us as bait.” I can still hear the calls of the Gnomes on those still days near a forest, where there’s a low wind, low enough to carry the voices of the little people.

“Did I or did I not pay you well for those jobs? Plus on some of those jobs, it was Riz who was the bait, you just stupidly put yourself between him and the danger. Can’t be blamed for that.” She shrugged.
“Well, yeah you paid very well, but my point is that, well, the smile of yours leads to trouble. Specially for me.”

“Come on Bren, I wouldn’t put you in any trouble I didn’t know if you could get yourself out of.” She said seductively, and I felt my temperature starting to rise, as she leaned forward. Let’s face it, we all know what happened here. Didn’t do anything to ease the bad feeling I was having about the impending drawer job...

Brennan and Riz - Pandemic Blues part 2

Greetings one and all!

I'm back today with the next installment of Brennan and Riz: Pandemic Blues.

Hope you enjoy!

Brennan and Riz: Pandemic Blues

Day 3

Well things didn’t last long. Yesterday consisted of me trying to keep the peace as thing escalated between Riz and Valarie. Starting off with small snipes at each other. Then I tried to separate them, which worked for maybe an hour, then I had a bright idea that sadly backfired. Dungeons and Dragons. I suggested that to pass the time, we start a game. My thinking had been that maybe taking them away from themselves would be the perfect way to get them along.

“Dungeons and Dragons? Yer kiddin me?” Riz asked pointedly. “Dis is really her idea isn’t it?” He said pointing at Valarie that was already deep in the player’s guide. She was still paying keen attention to what he was saying though, as evidenced by what she said next.
“Riz, if this was my idea, you’d already have a class chosen, the worse stats imaginable, and a way to force you into the game world to live like hat. I sadly don’t have that power so, you know, be thankful!” That should have been my first warning that something was going to go badly wrong with this idea. I was being too optimistic...
“Fine I’ll try it, jus don’t expect me ta cosy up ta her if she’s supposed to be my partner in dis!”
“That’s the beauty of this Riz, you can role play as a complete bastard if you really want to. I’d just rather you didn’t...” I said, unable to get out of the corner I knew I was backing into.

“Jus yer wait nd see...Ey! Giv me dat book!” Riz bounced onto the floor, then chased after Valarie to get the handbook off her.
An hour later, I’d gotten them both to do their character sheets. I was eager to get playing so I just wanted the essentials filling out. Riz insisted that his character was a rat who had been transformed by a wizard, for being too much of a hunk and sex god. He then went into great detail about his characters exploits, sounding like a kid who knew what sex was just because he’d seen a dodgy video down his mates house, on a black and white TV. It gets hard to humour him when he gets like this. So when they were both finally ready, I started them off on what I’d hoped would be their sprawling adventure. I went for a classic approach, easing them into things.

“You’re in a cave, it’s dark and dank. What do you do?”
“Well, I take my guns nd start firing wildly inta der darkness!”
“You can't do that!” Valarie said, tapping his crudely drawn character sheet. It would have taken handwriting experts years to have been able to decipher it, when I looked at it, I’d thought that Riz had deliberately wrote it that way so he could claim it said something different when ever he was challenged. I was half right.

“Of course I can do dat! I’m der Rivera Rat! Toughest desperado in dese lands! I can shoot bullets out of air.”
“You’re a rogue you twit! You made a big fuss over not having he right skills to steal so Brennan let you re-roll in the right class!” Valarie countered.
“I don’t care! I’m keepin ma guns, can’t be a desperado wit out dem!”
“Your not supposed to be a desperado anyway. We’re doing a swords and sorcery campaign.”
“Dat’s stuff’s borin. I’m tryin ta mak it interesting! If yer lived thru dat age you’d be doin der same as me!” There went Riz, off on a tangent that mattered to no one but himself. I face planted the desk behind the games master screen. All I wanted was a nice game with no arguments, but I wasn’t even going to get that.

“Riz your missing the point! Your supposed be someone you’re not, get a feel for what it’s like in someone else’s shoes! You know, so maybe you won’t be a massive arsehole.” Valarie said, idly playing with the dice.
“I know wat it’s like in other peoples shoes, I jus don’t care! I wanna play dis game my way, or I’m not playin.”
“If that’s your attitude then you can go get eaten by the first encounter for all I care.”
“Y wud I? Ave yer seen my gear, it’s der best! Nuthin is gunna get past me. I’ll show yer. Come on Bren! Get did party started!” At that, I jolted back up right.

“Oh we’re still playing? Great. So yeah, you’re in a cave and you hear the sound of feet coming up behind you.”
“Rite, I’m gunna turn around, nd take dem all on! You’ll see Val, I’ll blast dem all ta pieces.”
“Be my guest, I’m going to hang just behind, ready to clean up the mess.” Valarie gave me a sly look, I swear what happened next was a mix of luck, and frustration with Riz. How she knew any of that was going to go down, I’ve learned is one of life’s many mysteries.

“Okay, Riz, roll for your first attack then, I’m guessing you’re just going to fire as soon as you see the first creature.”
“Yer bet, I’m gunna hit watevar it is dead in der hed.” Riz picked up the dice, sniffed it, and rolled. He got a 1. Valarie’s laugh haunted me for the next few nights. “Wat’s dat mean?” Riz asked me, in his confusion.
“It means you screwed up. Roll again, for damage and we’ll see what the backfire does to you.” I said as calmly as I could.

“Alritey...” He rolled again, and rolled a twenty. Valarie was in utter hysterics. I had no choice but to work with this. I want to say that I had no bias in what happened next, but that would be an utter lie.
“Well Riz, your gun backfires and the bullet hits you point blank in the head, right between your eyes. You go down with a thud, as the two goblins trample you.”
“Wat?”
“Your dead Riz, and you have goblins dancing on your body.” Valarie tapped on the table to illustrate her point.
“Actually, the goblins weren’t hostile, they were running from something else.” I started to explain.
“I’m out, enjoy yer rubbish. Any game which I don’t win is pointless. I’m goin fer a nap.” With that Riz stormed off to his drawer, hopped inside and then slammed it shut.

“Well that was fun.” Valarie said.
“I know” As I looked over the now useless notes I’d made for the campaign that would never be played again.
“Cheer up Bren, maybe there’s some other kind of role play we could do...” Valarie said, with a wink that was a clear invitation.
“What did you have in mind...” I said.
“Why don’t you roll and find out.” I fumbled the dice as I hastily grabbed them, and then eagerly rolled. I got a 1. Crap.

To be continued...

Brennan and Riz - Pandemic Blues part 1

Okay, so I've not been updating this blog as often as I should and perhaps I should explain where I've been. There's a lot that's happened (Harvey Duckman Presents volume 3, 4 and the Xmas special have all been released! So there is more stories to dive into there.) A Boy and a Rat is finished and now lies with the Publisher. I completed Nanowrimo within 18 days! (that was hard work but Valarie has a first draft of her solo Novella!) and I still haven't written any more of Orphan's War.

I promise that I'll round back to pick up on those things but for now, let me make if up to you all with... Some exclusive Brennan and Riz fiction, a little something I like to call Pandemic Blues...

The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz
Pandemic Blues

Day 1

Waking up to the first day of Lockdown was just like every other day, except, you know, not being able to leave the office. I was lucky in the sense that we had just had a decent enough paying gig, so money wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t a boon, like we couldn’t get crazy and bombard Amazon with purchases but it would be okay. 

Getting up I noticed I was the only one awake, Riz had drunk himself asleep last night, on learning that the Lockdown was happening, and it was trapping him with me...and Valarie. Yeah, I probably should have mentioned in the first place, Valarie was stopping over, and with the Lockdown, it didn’t make any sense for her to go home, so with me she stayed. This led Riz to drink. We fled to bed early, as with Riz drinking came something even more heinous. Riz doing karaoke. If you ever loved the songs of the rat pack, never let him sing them to you. It’d be enough to make you tear your own ears off.

I was left alone for the first few hours of the day, Valarie was sleeping in, and Riz was sleeping off his excess. I started to work out what I was going to do to keep myself occupied for the time I’d be spending here. I had shelves that hadn’t been organised since I moved in, my book shelf really needed going over, and reading of course. A groan disrupted my train of thought, as Riz hauled himself from his drawer, like a zombie breaking through the earth.

“Sumone, ne one! I know sumone out dere owes me sumthin! Get rid of dis headache!” He called out.

“Hungover much?” I said teasingly. Seeing Riz like this, I guessed I should have been nice to him, but considering how much of a bastard he his when I’m ever in that state, being nice to him was the last thing on my mind. “Want me to play some nice soothing heavy metal? I heard Cradle of Filth is a good way to get rid of a headache.”

“You dare...Y did I drink like dis again?” Riz asked, his memory being shot to pieces by all the shots he did.

“Maybe it was because of little old me?” Valarie said, swaggering into the office room. Her finger on her lips as she feigned a sense of innocence.

“Sumone, ne one! Get me more booze ta put up wit dis!” Riz screamed out, holding his head in his paws.

“Oh come on Riz, maybe with all this time, we can finally bury the hatchet. I mean we are going to be stuck together for...” She started counting on her fingers, each one adding insult to injury. “Three weeks at least. Probably more.”

“Yer can of course go nd F-”

“Riz! I’m shocked and appalled that you’d use such language!” Valarie then turned to me, that mischievous glint in her eye. “Want me to wash his mouth out with some soap?” In order to survive this Lockdown, I was going to have negotiate some kind of ceasefire with these two, there was no way I could put up with this for three weeks. Or more.

“Look, you two are going to have to learn to get along! We’re all stuck here with each other till this virus calms down. So I don’t want either of you antagonizing the other okay!” I gave each of them a stern look, but I don’t know how much that stuck.

“Fine Bren, watevar yer say. If she screws wit me tho, I’m not swearin off startin war wit ‘er!” Riz said, pointing his finger at her. “Nd if we get dat far, I’m not afraid ta go nuclear!”

“I’m fine with that Bren, I can be reasonable and calm.” Riz’s outburst gave Valarie the perfect way to get back at him, and without looking like she was winding him up. Riz was going to respond, but I shot him a look, and he backed off.

“I’m headin bak ta bed...” Riz crawled back into his drawer, leaving Valarie the victory, though sadly, this was just the first salvo, in their little war.

A few hours later...

Riz did resurface, still grumbling about what was going on, but he wasn’t throwing himself in the lions mouth by hurling insults at Val. Naturally, discussion turned to the threat facing the world, one that for the first time in a while, wasn’t supernatural. That didn’t stop the conspiracy theories though.

“I don’t know which theory is more stupid.” I groaned, staring at my phone. “The one that it was a bio weapon but a pretty crap one. Or the one where it’s because of those 5G towers.” Riz rolled his eyes, and Valarie just laughed it off.

“Bren, you know people will look at things like that for comfort. In a world where people have control over very little, getting to blame something for the big things like this is a way for them to feel in control.” Valarie reasoned. “It’s no different then when people suffer awful coincidence and become convinced that someone is to blame for all their misfortune.”

“I know yer took dat job from us! Stop pretending yer didn’t!” Riz burst out.

“Riz, just drop it. The guy was an ass anyway.” I replied.

“But der money Bren! Jus think of der money it waz!” Seeing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with that, Riz refocused on what we had been talking about. “Plus conspiracy theories help dem ta avoid der real truth, dat Mother Nature cud create sumthin dat cud wipe dem all out if she really wanted. Dis is jus ‘er messin around. Tho, bein a rat, I’m immune to it ne way, so...sucks ta be u guys.”

“The way you speak about Mother Nature, you make her sound like a real intelligence, instead of just a personification of the planet.” Valarie said, she was busy building a house of cards on the floor in front of the desk.

“Yer know, dere is sum Unseeley Fae who do believe dat. I’ve seen dem before prayin fer her ta tak action against ‘umankind. I’ve also seen sum who took dere faith a bit too far, if yer know wat I mean.” I said the worse thing here.

“No, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, wen a Fae is so stupid nd thins der planet loves ‘im, nd he loves der planet. He’ll get nekkid nd start ta..”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough. Stop it.”

“Gud call, jus thikin of der mental image is enuff ta giv me der creeps.”

“You are a creep Riz, so that means it must have been bad.” Valarie grinned.

“Don’t make me bite yer” Riz bared his teeth at her.

Seems like no matter what I did, these two were always going to find a way to get at each other...

To Be Continued.