Aaron Frale has a new queer LitRPG fantasy out (gay, gender fluid): My Three-Year-Old is a Barbarian and Other Parenting Problems. And there's a giveaway.
Necromantic rituals, murderous ogres, battle-scarred rangers: not a typical Saturday detention for unsuspecting teaching assistant, Petra, and her delinquent teen charges.
The Beaverton High School Breakfast Club show up for what they thought would be cleaning the locker room with a toothbrush when the morning goes horribly wrong, and they fall victim to a deadly, dark spell.
Some jerkwad moon mage shoves the consciousness of Petra’s three-year-old into the body of a musclebound barbarian, and she is transformed into a halfling. The kids get stuck as a cleric, fire mage, and other stalwarts of your typical fantasy gaming party.
Now they must quest through a land of pissed-off warriors, angry giants, a pompous vampire, and a necromancer out to kill Petra and her child.
Despite being in a world where everything threatens to shuffle off her mortal coil, the hardest part is convincing a hulked-out man that the battle axe is not a toy, the undead are not cuddly, and he should use the potty.
Aaron is giving away a $20 Amazon Gift Card with this tour:
Exclusive Excerpt...
Toddler Axe Throwing Competitions and Other Hazards of Babysitting
A Tavern, Who Knows
"I wasn't saying we stay here forever, just have a look around," Tim said, and shied away.
"Since we don't even know how we got here or how to get back," Petra said, "I think you'll get your wish. But we will just look around. We are not going to save any princesses, fight any highway bandits, defeat any evil wizards, and we will run the hell away from any ogres. Got it?! Reality check—each of us is carrying deadly weapons, and I don't think you know how to use a crossbow."
"How hard could it be?" Tim pulled the weapon from his back and promptly shot himself in the foot. He cried out in pain and clutched the wound. Petra swept ale and food off the table and cleared a spot while Jack and Aiden lifted the dwarf up.
Tim gripped his leg and howled.
"Oh, my god," Sissy yelled. "He's bleeding! I can't stand the sight of blood."
The woman in Lancelot's body hid behind the halfling. Petra yanked herself away and ran to stop Aiden, who pulled out the bolt. Tim winced and attempted to stanch the wound, which was now bleeding profusely.
"Don't do that," Petra slapped the bloody projectile away. "You never pull it out! Now it might never stop bleeding."
"You mean I'm going to die?" the dwarf bellowed. "I'm too young to die! I haven't even kissed a girl yet."
"There are better things in life than kissing a girl," Petra said. "Trust me. I've tried it."
"Whoa—" Jack said. "You kissed a girl?"
Sissy smacked him.
"What?"
"I know what you were thinking!" Sissy said.
"How do you know what I was thinking?"
Their exchange was interrupted by a resonant male voice. "Milords! Miladies!" A portly innkeeper with a thick red beard and a cockney accent came from the kitchen. "Can I help you with anything?"
They stepped in front of their wounded companion, and Petra responded, "Nothing, we were just talking about the days of yore."
"Yeah, dude, those yore days were pretty sweet," Aiden added.
Tim hissed in pain, and Petra put her hand over his mouth.
"Methought I heard the sound of a man shrieking as if wounded in battle," the innkeeper said.
"Nope. Nothing like that here. Just singing and drinking mead," Petra said.
"I'm wounded!" Tim yelled.
"Do you want to go to a medieval hospital?!" Petra whisper-yelled into his ear. "They have leeches! Leeches!"
The innkeeper glanced around the group attempting to hide their wounded companion and inspected the scene. He looked at the wound, then at the blood on his table, frowned, and then asked, "Begging your pardon, but why doesn't Lady Ameria perform a healing spell?"
Petra looked at her own halfling body and then at the woman inhabited by Jack. The lady wore a golden headdress that could only be described as fitting someone with a 24-hour hard-on for the sun. Her staff had the same symbol. It looked kind of like the Days Inn logo if the hotel chain were a cult. The blue robe also had enough golden stitching to put a 70's rock star to shame. In contrast, Petra's halfling body was wearing light chain armor, a green cloak, and had enough weapons and lockpicks stashed away to rob a bank. If anyone would be expected to cast a healing spell, it would be Jack.
"Lady America," Petra said, while grabbing Jack's hand.
"It's 'Ameria'," the innkeeper said. "There's no c."
"Whatever," Petra said. "What I'm saying is that she's had too much to drink and couldn't cast any healing spell right now. Isn't that right, Lady America?"
Jack stared blankly at the rest of them, and Petra nodded toward him. After a moment of his vacant expression, she jabbed him in the stomach. "Oh, yeah," Jack said. "I forgot I was a chick."
He then put on an act that sounded like a Monty Python cast member doing a woman's voice. "Oh, yes, tsk, tsk, this lady hath drunk too much. Maybe I can get some tea and crumpets."
"What the hell are you doing?" Petra said. "Use your normal voice! Do I sound like Petra now? No, I'm a freaking hobbit!"
"Oh, yeah," Jack said. "I do sound like a chick."
"Maybe I should fetch you all some energy bean brew," the innkeeper said. "Where is that serving wench? She better not be sleeping on the job again, or I'll have her out on the street!"
The innkeeper tromped out of the room. Before they could figure out what to do next, Jack said to Tim, "Bro, I think I can do this healing spell because I haven't had anything to drink!"
Petra rolled her eyes and said, "It was a lie to get him out of the room."
"No, seriously, I really think I can cast this spell. It's, like, in the back of my head. You know, like learning the choreography for Guys and Dolls when you were a kid because you were obsessed with it, and then figuring maybe you could bust it out during an audition even though you haven’t done it in ages...I mean, that is...if one were to audition. Football practice conflicts with rehearsal hours, so I wouldn't know. But it's kind of like that," Jack said.
Petra responded, "Maybe it's better if you show us, but if you start disrobing, I will cut you."
Jack tore off Tim’s footgear, grabbed a water pitcher from the table, and poured it over the wound.
Tim hissed and said, "Do you know how filthy the water was back in the Middle Ages?! They dumped their sewage in the street."
"Trust me, bro," Jack said, and the body he was inhabiting must have had a set of pipes because when he began to sing, it was angelic. "Waters cleanse, the sun shares its bounty, the pain washes away, away."
While he sang, the wound on Tim's foot healed. The skin wove itself together, and the blood drained away with the water. The process was so complete that there wasn't even a scar. It was like nothing had happened at all. Even Tim was shocked by the spellcasting and reached out to touch his own foot where the wound had been.
They all looked at each other, and Sissy said, "Babe, where did you learn to do that?"
"I don't know. It's like riding a bicycle. You can't explain how to do it. You just do it," Jack said.
Before they could tease the thought out further, the innkeeper burst back into the room.
However, instead of bringing a tray of energy bean brew, he was surrounded by a group of guards. They all had the same crest that was on the head of her son's axe. It was an ancient tree with a dragon and lion intertwined on its trunk. Petra realized that she had not been paying close attention to her son, and he had climbed to the top of a hutch that held all the dishes. The large, muscly man that her son inhabited croaked, "I need help! I need help!"
"You see," the innkeeper told the captain of the guard. "They've cast a feeblemind enchantment on our lord."
"Help! Help!" the burly man cried.
"Mommy is coming," Petra said, then realized that the cabinet was at least three times her height.
"Stop right there," the captain of the guard said in the Queen's English. He ordered one of his men to push Petra aside and help their liege.
The man went to the crying barbarian tucked away on the top of the cabinet and said, "Milord Lovantus. Allow me to assist!"
The guard reached for Jonathan, but her kid yelled, "No! No! Momma do it! Momma do it!"
The flailing of a three-year-old's tantrum in the body of a man who probably wrestled bulls into submission when gathering meat for the roast was a little more than the guard was prepared to handle. Jonathan whipped his hands in defiance and smacked the unwitting soldier upside the head. The force of the blow sent him toward the fireplace, and his face smashed into an ornamental rock that jutted at just the right angle. The guard rubbed his broken nose.
Jonathan cried, and Petra jumped to the cabinet and scrambled her way to the top. The captain of the guard got red-faced and yelled, "Sorcery! Sorcery! Kill the witch before she can poison our lord any further!"
The men pulled out their swords and inched their way towards Jack. He looked back and forth at the approaching threat and said, "What did I do?!"
"Return our Lord to his right state of mind, and I promise swift deaths for you and all of your friends," the captain of the guard snarled.
Good times and hope for a better future. Maybe some fun time travel adventures or interdimensional travelers. A toddler stuck in a barbarian and his mom in a halfling. "Comedy and" is my jam. When not writing, I can be found teaching, podcasting Aaron’s Horror Show, and screaming while playing guitar for the band Spiral. Life has brought my wife, myself, and my son to Montana, where we reside at the moment.
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