Sean E. Britten

All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Changeling

The orphanage used to be alive with the sound of children at play. Now, they’ve all moved on and Zach is the only one left. Where did they all go? Well, that’s where it gets complicated…

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A cold breeze cut through the empty playground. Empty except for the one young boy twisting idly on the swingset. Chains clicked as they wound together above his head. He watched the toes of his sneakers trace through the dirt as he spun back in the other direction.

Twelve-year-old Zach was unremarkable, small for his age, pale with dark hair. He’d lived at the Bridget Cleary Home for Orphans for the past six years and before then it was a series of foster homes and other orphanages stretching back as far as he could remember. It hadn’t been such a bad place to live, in spite of what people on the outside might think. He’d had friends his own age. The sound of other children and children’s laughter filled the playground and the halls. Not anymore, when he was the only one left.

Zach heard wheels hissing across the empty parking lot and looked up. A couple in their mid-thirties climbed out of the car and walked to the gate, drifts of autumn leaves crunching underfoot. The man was tall and burly, a beard covering the lower half of his face. The woman was short but also on the heavy side, with darker features. She hugged a stack of yellow folders to the front of her body like a shield.

As they crossed the playground, the man’s eyes met Zach’s. He gave the boy a small smile. Zach’s expression didn’t change. The moment was interrupted by Ms Alice, the orphanage’s director, who threw open the doors at the end of the path. Short statured with bright red hair, Ms Alice always looked primly put together. Motherly but professional.

“Mr and Mrs Colridge, thank you so much for coming to see me,” Ms Alice said.

“No, thank you!” Mrs Colridge, Letitia, said, perhaps a tad too loudly.

Gary Colridge looked back across the playground but Zach’s stare had already returned to his feet. He twisted slowly on the swingset. Ms Alice led them inside, out of the cool, damp air.

“Please, follow me.”

Ms Alice’s low heels clicked on the corridor’s linoleum. Doorways stood open to either side. Gary looked around at the walls of photographs, former residents of the orphanage stretching back decades, as well as children’s drawings, letters, postcards, and posters reminding children to listen, to be mindful, and to wash their hands after play and before eating. Cluttered and chaotic as it all was, something was missing compared to the last time they’d been there.

“It’s a bit quiet, isn’t it?” Gary said. “Are all the kids on a field trip or something?”

“No, well, that’s what I wanted to discuss with you,” Ms Alice said.

Ms Alice’s office was small and filled with filing cabinets. More photos and drawings covered the walls along with a framed diploma in Early Education and Childcare. Again, Gary and Letitia got the sense that something was missing. The last time they’d been there, the director’s desk had been layered in bits of paper and yellow folders much like the stack that Letitia carried now. Now it looked clean and bare apart from a laptop and a coffee cup full of pens. The director gestured for the two of them to sit while she slipped behind the desk.

“I wanted to say again, congratulations on being confirmed as potential foster parents,” Ms Alice said. “And we’re thrilled to help you find a match with one of our children. However, there have been some complications.”

“Complications?” Letitia set her stack of folders down on the nearest corner of the desk. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the two of you, just to make that clear. It’s just, you were interested in fostering Joshua, weren’t you?”

“That’s correct,” Gary said. “We’d heard older kids had trouble finding foster homes.”

“Well, there is news on Joshua. Good news of course! The boy’s biological father has been located and he has taken Joshua to live with him.”

“Really?” Letitia’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. “His birth father?”

“That’s right. Obviously I’m limited in what I can say, but, well, it’s all going to be a matter of public record very shortly. You know our city’s protector, the superhero Wonderman?”

“Of course!” Gary said. “My brother-in-law, well-,”

“My brother, Wonderman once saved him from a runaway train,” Letitia said.

“It turns out Joshua is Wonderman’s son. Wonderman, in his civilian identity, had a relationship with a woman who became pregnant. Fearing his enemies, he sent her into hiding and unfortunately she passed away during childbirth. Wonderman would have claimed the boy but apparently his enemy, Dr Destroyo, erased Wonderman’s memory of the woman and their entire relationship.”

“Really? That’s terrible!” Letitia said.

“These sorts of things happen, apparently. It wasn’t until Joshua began manifesting powers comparable to Wonderman, you know, superstrength, levitation, there was an incident with laser eyes, that the truth came out.”

“Oh, well, we’re very happy for Joshua, of course! He seemed like a very sweet boy.” Letitia, flustered, began shuffling through the folders in front of her.

“Yes, and there were other children we’d be open to fostering, of course,” Gary said.

“Absolutely! Henrietta, I thought we had a real connection with Henrietta.”

Letitia flipped open another folder on Ms Alice’s desk. The photograph clipped to the first page showed a mousy girl with a nest of curly hair and a scar on her forehead in the shape of a snowflake.

“Ah.” Ms Alice looked awkward. “I’m afraid Henrietta is no longer with us.”

“She was adopted?” Gary asked.

“No, she’s been transferred to another facility. Of sorts.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Mr and Mrs Colridge, were you aware that wizards are real?”

“Wizards?” Letitia echoed.

“That’s right, wizards, witches, magic. Henrietta began receiving letters from a sort of magical school. They started showing up as paper aeroplanes, bits of living origami, delivered by woodland creatures and such. It was quite an influx. Some of these magical folk turned up and informed us that Henrietta’s birth parents were killed in a sort of magical civil war they managed to keep secret from the rest of the world, and she was lost in the aftermath. These magic folk took her with them so she could train to become a wizard or however it works, the paperwork was all in order, so she is no longer with us.”

“I see.” Letitia shuffled folders again. “That’s unusual.”

“We did have other children-,” Ms Alice started to say.

“Masood? We spoke to Masood!”

Letitia dropped another open folder on the desk. A photograph of a boy with tawny features and ink black hair was clipped to the top of the front page. An unusual birthmark, shaped like an Egyptian ankh, marked his cheek under his left eye. Gary remembered him saying that some of the other kids teased him about it and said it looked like a penis.

“Ah, yes, the police are currently involved in Masood’s case, I’m afraid. We can’t be certain of his whereabouts.”

“The police? What happened?”

“We were told that Masood’s birth father, it seems, was an Egyptian pharaoh.”

“A pharaoh? Do they still have those?” Gary asked.

“No, an ancient pharaoh, from something like 2000 BC. Apparently he was deposed in a sort of coup and his only son, Masood, was hurled forward in time and space by ancient Egyptian magic in order to protect him. A tall fellow with the head of a falcon turned up in a magic boat to take him back so he could overthrow his father’s killer and reclaim the throne, all that sort of thing. We couldn’t allow him to remove Masood on the basis of some ancient prophecy written in a language we couldn’t even understand, but I’m afraid Masood ran away with him and they disappeared through a time portal. Police are involved, as I say.”

“I see, but you say there are other children, like, Lawrence?”

“Actually, Lawrence’s birth parents recently reclaimed custody of him as well! Turns out when their plane went down over the Amazon they didn’t die, thankfully, and they’ve been living in the jungle ever since. Lawrence was only an infant at the time and I’m given to understand there was some ugliness with an uncle who gave him up for adoption so he could claim the boy’s inheritance. Vastly, vastly wealthy family but it sounds like a lot of drama.”

“We did say we’d be open to fostering more than one child, if they were siblings,” Gary said. “There was a brother and sister, weren’t there? Maxwell and Prue Power?”

“Similar story to Henrietta actually. Their parents were secret agents for some government agency I’d never heard of who disappeared while on a mission. Some folk from the agency showed up to recruit the two of them for their new child super ultra secret agents division. I wasn’t quite sure about it myself but the paperwork was in order and the siblings were very happy to go.”

Gary could see Letitia spiralling. He wanted to reach over and remind her that even if they didn’t secure a foster child today that didn’t mean their dreams of doing so were over, but he wasn’t sure how to do so gently in front of Ms Alice. The process had been stressful for them both. Letitia slapped another folder onto the desk.

“What about Katarina? I liked Katarina, but I got the sense she didn’t feel a connection with us.”

“Also royalty, actually. Father was a crown prince in some East-European country I must admit I’d never heard of. Can’t pronounce it for the life of me. Apparently he had an affair with a chambermaid who fled the country when she got pregnant, and she gave Katarina up for adoption. There’s been some sort of succession crisis over there and someone tracked down our little Kitty Kat as heir to the throne.”

“And this girl? Etsuko?” Letitia fanned open another folder with a photo of a Japanese girl with a mischievous smile.

“Daughter of a kitsune, apparently. Her mother had been trapped inside some kind of magic crystal for the last eight years. Explained a lot of things, I can tell you that much.”

“So, you have no children then? All of these folders, they’ve all got birth parents, or they’ve been moved on or displaced in time, or something?”

“All except one child, Zach, I think you might have seen him in the playground on the way in?”

“The boy on the swingset,” Gary said.

“That’s right, it’s been hard on him seeing all the other children leave. He was friends with everyone. Joshua, Zach was like his little sidekick. Masood, he had a tough time fitting in but he was close to Zach as well. And he and Etsuko were always pulling pranks together! But one by one, they’ve all gone and he’s been left behind.”

“Why didn’t we meet Zach when we were here last time?” Gary asked.

“He was unwell at the time. He has some allergies that flare up occasionally, we’re not quite sure what causes them. But I can assure you that Zach is typically a healthy, happy, smart and friendly boy.”

“We’ll take him!” Gary said.

Gary laughed and waved off the joke. Neither of the women joined him.

“Of course, we know it’s a process.” Letitia scowled at Gary. “But we would certainly be open to meeting with Zach.”

“I’d be happy to arrange that right now if you would like?”

Out in front of the orphanage, Zach was still listlessly twisting on the swing. Around and around, carving a circle in the dirt. The front doors clattered open. He heard footsteps crunching through the damp leaves toward him. When he looked up, the bearded man he’d seen earlier was offering his hand.

“Hi, Zach, my name’s Gary Colridge and this is my wife, Letitia,” Gary said.

Hi.” Zach took the man’s much larger hand and shook it like he’d been taught.

“Did you feel like something inside and having a little chat with us?”

“Sure.”

xXx

“Alright, dad, thank you! We’ll see you this weekend.”

Thirty-two years old, Zach Colridge paced the living room with his phone pressed to his ear. Morning news scrolled across the muted television screen. In his other hand, he jostled a cup of coffee.

“Give mom my love, okay? Bye, I’ll talk to you then, bye!”

Top story of the morning, according to the TV, was Wonderboy’s rescue of four astronauts whose shuttle had drifted off course and began plummeting toward Earth. Hanging up the phone, Zach snorted as he sipped his coffee. He’d reconnected with Joshua a little while ago and asked him why he was still going by the name ‘Wonderboy’ when he was now in his early thirties. Apparently it had stuck for years now and there were people who handled his branding who didn’t want it to change.

“That was your dad? What did he say?” Rita appeared from the hallway holding one of the twins, Juno, against her hip.

“That’s right, he said we’re all good for this weekend. We’ll go over there for lunch and then they’ll watch the girls that night. You and me? Date night.”

Zach leaned in and gave his wife a peck on the corner of the mouth. Unfortunately, Juno took the initiative at that moment to lunge for her father’s coffee. He pulled it out of reach but splashed a little on the front of his shirt.

“Oh, shoot,” Zach said.

“Let me put her down, I’ll fix it,” Rita said.

“No, no, it’s okay, I’ll get it.”

Zach circled into the kitchen, setting down his coffee and wetting a paper towel. He dabbed at the coffee stain as he returned to the living room. The muted news presenters moved on to other stories. Queen Katarina of Lykstyranakovia had personally reached out to secure a trade agreement with the Kingdom of Egypt. When Zach was just a kid, he was pretty sure Egypt was a relatively poor nation known mostly for its pyramids and mummies but everyone else he’d ever spoken to about it, including Rita, only ever remembered Egypt as one of the richest and most technologically advanced nations on the planet. Trade agreements were therefore highly sought after and big news when they happened. In other news, the wizarding world was seeking help from human authorities in the search for some kind of magical war criminal thought to be dead for most of the past twenty years and a congressional inquest into a mysterious government agency accused of using children as super ultra secret agents continued behind closed doors in Washington DC.

“I can get you a fresh shirt, if you’d like?” Rita offered.

“All good! Thanks, love, but I’ve got to get going. All hands on deck this morning!”

Zach slipped into the twins’ bedroom before he left. He gave his sleeping daughter, Lyra, a kiss on the head and then grabbed his briefcase on the way out. Dutifully he gave both Rita and Juno a kiss as well.

“Bye, daddy!” Juno chimed on his way out the door.

Zach hurried down the stairs and across the courtyard, juggling his keys. He’d stopped outside the garage belonging to their apartment when he suddenly found himself fixed, like a bug under a microscope, beneath a shaft of brilliantly green light. Zach’s feet began to drift off the ground. The briefcase tumbled out of his hand. Suddenly, with a burst of acceleration that broke the sound barrier, he hurtled into the sky.

The force of the acceleration was so extreme that Zach felt himself black out for a few long moments. When he came back around, he found himself floating in a grey chamber lit with neon lights and surrounded by a cadre of strange beings. Some kind of man-sized lobster, several lizardmen and giant ants, a creature that looked suspiciously like a gorilla wearing an astronaut helmet, two distinctly different robots, and an unmistakable ‘Grey’ alien with big eyes and a bulbous head atop a small and skinny body.

“Star-Prince Zavallchian, finally, our long search across the galaxy is over! We’ve found you!” the Grey alien said.

“What? What is this?” Zach said.

“You are Star-Prince Zavallchian, the only boy-child of Galactic Emperor Xannix T’llavesian,” the gorilla in the astronaut helmet said. “It has taken thirty of your Earth-years but we have crossed millions of lightyears to track you down to this backwater planet.”

“Ah, that explains this then.”

Zach held up an arm. The skin peeled back and the shape of his arm transformed into a new and alien limb, with blue skin and three thick, evenly spaced fingers.

“Yes, precisely!” the Grey said. “When you were a larva, your womb-mother sent you away out of fears you would be eaten by one of your evil cousins. But now, your father is dead and your cousins have seized the space-throne! We need your help to reclaim the space-throne and save the galaxy from their space-tyranny!”

“I’m sorry, you know, but I don’t think I’d be really interested,” Zach said, his arm morphing back to its usual human state.

“What do you mean?” the man-sized lobster squealed in a voice like escaping steam.

“I mean, I’m late for work, it’s a big day for the team, and I don’t think I have time for this.”

“Does not compute, does not compute!” one of the robots blared.

“Shut up, Jarred,” the other robot said.

“But, Star-Prince, we need you!” the Grey said.

Zach sighed. “What about my wife and children? Would they be able to come?”

“Oh, the human and two smaller half-humans? No, I’m afraid the technology we use to cross the vast distances between stars is not compatible with human physiology.”

“Learned that the hard way,” one of the lizardmen muttered.

“And this tyranny my cousins are participating in, what are they doing exactly?”

“Well, admittedly most of the disagreements we have were about tax credits,” the Grey trailed off, scratching the back of its head.

“We represent a consortium of wealthy backers who are opposed to your cousins’ position on inheritance and estate taxes,” the gorilla in the helmet said.

“I can’t leave behind my life here, and everything I’ve ever known, just for some space-throne and tax credits.”

“But we will train you to use your extraordinary alien powers!” the man-lobster said.

“You’ll have an army, thousands of ships, robots, laser swords!” the Grey said. “Whole planets of riches!”

“A harem of sexy alien babes, each weirder and more erotic than the last!” one of the ants added.

“You know, twenty years ago I’d have given anything to have you guys show up and whisk me away to strange adventures beyond the stars. When I was a kid, even a teenager, I used to dream that it would turn out I was the main character all along and life would hand me everything I thought I deserved. But I’ve got a life now, and you know what? I built it for myself. I’ve got a wife and two wonderful, funny, special girls. I’ve got an apartment, I worked for it, I saved for it, I did that! I’ve got a good job in cybersecurity, I’ve got friends, I’ve got hobbies. I’ve got a mom and a dad and, okay, they didn’t give birth to me or lay me in an egg sac or whatever, but they’re my real parents. I’ve got a life and it may not be anything crazy or special but it’s mine, so can you put me back where you found me and let me get on with it, please?”

The council of alien creatures mumbled amongst themselves. The man-sized lobster vented some kind of gas. Jarred, the robot, beeped in distress.

“Fine,” the Grey alien agreed, looking sullen.

A shaft of green light lit the same spot in the courtyard of Zach’s building. Gingerly, it lowered Zach again and then disappeared, dropping him the last few feet. He collected his briefcase and keys and looked to the sky. A distant twinkle shrank into the blue and disappeared.

From the same door Zach had used, one of his neighbours strolled into the courtyard. In passing, he gave Zach a friendly nod.

“How’s it going?”

Zach brushed at the damp coffee stain on his shirt. “Wouldn’t change a thing.”

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Sean: There’s a reason I don’t write a lot of straight comedy and that is because I’m well aware the things I think are funny are so very, very stupid, but I enjoy them so much that I also become far too indulgent with the very, very stupid things. I’d probably compare this one most closely to Hollywood Necromancy, which is another story that gives a fleeting glimpse of a setting that contains everything fantasy and science fiction plus the kitchen sink, and was just pure fun to write.

Pre-October of 2022, I realised despite releasing a story every week of that year, all based on the Dungeons & Dragons’ Monster Manual, I hadn’t written a single story with a dragon in it so I decided to rectify that with a month full of dragon stories and I did the same thing in 2023 – DRACTOBERFEST. Apologies if you were anticipating the same thing again this year, I’ve had a couple of ideas floating around but nothing has quite grabbed hold. I’ve been working more on a novel and anticipating a new project for 2024 so sorry again but there’s more good things to come and if you haven’t read them do check out the stories from Dractoberfests past because there’s some pretty good stuff in there if I do say so myself.

Want to know more about that exciting, thrilling, loin quivering new project? Better keep your eyes on the website, or better yet, do that but also check me out on  Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. Thanks for reading!