Fighter's Blues

by Chris Cecil

(To the tune of “Smugglers' Blues”, by Glenn Frey)

There's trouble in this dungeon now,
they’ve already killed our gnome.
We’re lost on level four now,
and we might not make it home.

My crossbow is all loaded,
and I’m ready for the kill.
I’m just waitin’ for the monsters;
some orc blood is gonna spill.

Our cleric, he's a-prayin’ now,
got his prayer beads in his hand.
Better get his Cure Wounds ready,
‘Cuz we’re really in a jam.

Here come two dozen goblins
And we’re makin’ our last stand.

I spend my life in fights like this,
And the monsters gotta lose,
It's the nature of the business,
It's the fighter’s blues. (Fighter's Blues)

The ogres and the giants,
The kobolds and the trolls,
The plate mail and the broad sword,
And the lucky combat rolls.
No matter if it's pummeling,, hacking, or slash,
You've got to carry weapons
So you can make off with their cash.

There's lots of other characters
who aren’t as good in fights.
Ev'ry mage will yell for me
when spells won’t solve our plight.

It's the lure of easy XP,
It's got a very strong appeal.

Perhaps you'd understand it better
if you hacked and killed and slew,
But we’ve got the best hit tables,
It's the fighter's blues (Fighter's blues)

You see that we’re outnumbered,
I’m in the middle of the fray.
I ask the thief to help me,
But the bastard sneaks away.
My hit points, they’re a-dropping, the outcome is grim,
Group leaves the fightin’ up to me,
the trusty paladin.

We’re moppin’ up the dungeon; falling bodies we wade through,
You ask any dwarf axeman,
He'll say “There's nothin' else I’d do,”
‘Cuz our XP comes from slaying,
That’s just what we do (what we do).

It's a painful occupation,
But one you can't refuse.
It's the politics of swordsmanship,
It's the fighter's blues (Fighter's blues).