Lingeria

by Daniel Kozuh

  The wizard clapped his hands together frantically like a hummingbird’s wings. Norman noticed that Wrence had sloopy, uneven tattoos of the same shape on the top of each hand:

  “So, not only are you the jerk who ruined my book release, you also got rich off copying-and-pasting my decades of hard work?”

  “Well, I’d like to think of my work as parallel to yours and maybe … complimentary?” Wrence trailed off.

  “And the word ‘Abacærium’ doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” Norman vented. “’Abac’ is Greek for ‘slab’ and ‘ærium’ is Latin for ‘flying’ … so, basically, you named your book Flying Rock? I am going to ask you, again – how did you get into my world!?”

  There was silence.

  Finally, Lawrence quietly asked, “Do you like role-playing games?”

  TEN

  “When the capstone is placed,” the bent old woman cogitated, “you will be able to see into other places, times, and worlds. Remember that you cannot, however, interact with them. It is not a doorway, for it works as a mirror and, like any mirror, it is capable of tricks of the eye. It can show you what you wish to see or magnify that which you do not.”

  - Tales of Lingeria: The Shattered Capstone, Chapter 4

  Lawrence was nineteen when he first met Norman Halliday. It was 2005 and The Forest Vigil, the fifth Lingeria book, had just been released. Lawrence learned via a Lingeria online listserv, that Norman would be signing copies at a bookstore in Minneapolis, which was only three hours away from Lawrence’s grandmother’s house in Tomahawk. Fans waited for an hour in the Midwestern winter, outside a bookstore called “The Broken Spine”, to meet their favorite author. Lawrence wanted to tell Norman how much his work had meant to him – how it helped him to tolerate high school, to feel less alone, to discover his own creativity. How it, essentially, saved his life. However, when he approached the table where the author sat, he choked. He received an illegible scribble and was pushed along by harried handlers.

  Since the age of two, Lawrence had been raised by his maternal grandmother, in a weather-beaten single-story, three-bedroom cottage. His father had been shot by an overzealous clerk, during his failed attempt to hold up a gas station. His mother soon after disappeared with a blackjack dealer from a local casino. The only proof of her continued existence came in the form of an annual birthday card to Lawrence, during a random month that made it either severely belated or astoundingly early.

  Resolutely introverted, even in early childhood, Lawrence had trouble making friends. He had always been a chubby child and the butt of a tremendous onslaught of fat jokes. Then, puberty hit, his acne bloomed into huge, inflamed patches across his face. This pushed him to grow his hair long, to hide the zits. His weight gain and depression grew in tandem, and the bullying intensified. Lawrence spent most of his teens doing his three favorite things: practicing close up magic, playing pen-and-paper role-playing games, and listening to heavy metal.

  He converted a detached shed in his backyard into a nerd-den for him and his few fellow outcast friends. The workshop was once used by his grandfather, who died in an explosion at the Tomahawk Pulp & Paper Company before Lawrence was born. The settlement from the accident left his grandmother living in lower-middle-class comfort for the rest of her life.

  Lawrence received a generic magic kit in the mail from his mother for either Christmas or his birthday of his ninth year. He quickly mastered the cup-and-ball routine and “Vanishing Statue of Liberty”. Soon, he was making his grandmother drive him to Bob’s Magic Castle in Rhinelander, to buy more complex, expensive illusions. He did show talent for sleight-of-hand and card tricks, but his awkward mannerisms and lack of stage persona resigned him to children’s birthday parties, retirement homes, and the occasional town festival. However, some members of a monthly meeting of a magic consortium introduced Lawrence to the world of role-playing games.

  An aptitude for math (because role playing is as much a game of numbers as it is storytelling), promoted Lawrence to Dungeon Master for the local Dungeons & Dragons aficionados and, when he wasn’t playing the games, he was seeking out esoteric RPG guidebooks, like C.L.E.A.V.E.R., Stranger of Dóól, The Phantom Flyer, and Captain Bo & The Black Hole Hallucination. The games became an obsession, to the point that, even though he was smart, he barely graduated high school. Lawrence found a small, likeminded group of friends, who would spend their weekends playing D&D and listening to obscure Norwegian death metal bands like Skeleton Crevasse, Martyr for Freyja, Troll Orgy, and Vacker Fjäril.

  Subsequently, Nicolet Area Technical College – where Lawrence had bounced from major to major, including IT Support Specialist, Culinary Arts, Welding, Pharmacy Technician, and, lastly, Carpentry Apprentice – kindly asked him not to return for his third sophomore semester. Lawrence was fine with that, as he found little to interest him in any of the classes he took and would quit after finding he didn’t have a natural aptitude for the job.

  With nothing but time on his hand, Lawrence’s devotion to role-playing dug even deeper into his psyche. Reading out of the guidebooks of others grew tiresome. Lawrence decided that he was capable of creating adventures of his own. He took to expanding on the framework, characters, and mythos of known popular fantasy worlds: Middle-Earth, Arrakis, and Lingeria, to name a few.

  His reputation as a Game Master grew and Lawrence accepted invitations to run games at meetings and conventions as far away as Wausau. Players found his mastering to be firm but fair; with unique, eccentric non-player character work.

  While enjoying the praise from people pretending to be a Lothlorien elf or Tom Baker’s Doctor Who, Lawrence spent his free nights dreaming up a game of his own, with his own characters, his own stories, and his own set of rules. A game he called Knightsguard.

  Knightsguard was an RPG inspired by The Knights Templar lore. Players would take on the roles of The Coptic Knights – a devoted, deeply spiritual sect that explored ancient temples to retrieve religious, often powerful, artifacts and then ensured the safety of those relics from beings looking to use them for evil. He unveiled his creation at UberCon, 2006, in the Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center, in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

  Players choose to be a Knight, Chaplain, Squire, Sergeant, or Seneschal. They each had their own traits, abilities, and backstory. Additionally, there was also the role of The Grand Master, who would always be played by the game master. Before play began, the game master would secretly decide if The Grand Master was honorable or deceitful and the players would have to determine if their guide was leading them to their treasure or their doom. Starting in Istanbul, the knights would speak with antiquity dealers, smugglers, and religious figures, to chase rumors about the location of relics – such as The Holy Grail, The Veil of Veronica, A Tooth of Muhammad, and even Jesus’ Foreskin. Players would traverse the eastern hemisphere, in search of these objects, while encountering heretics, assassins, warlocks, and demons.

  Lawrence had beta-tested the game with a few friends, but he didn’t have enough time to do a thorough run-through. In a banquet hall, with an audience of over one hundred excited RPG fans, Lawrence’s real and fantasy world crumbled around him. He had failed to identify critical plot holes and character proficiencies. Hs game system was fundamentally flawed. Lawrence was left flailing and tearing through pages and pages of notes, begging for people to wait. Bathed in flop-sweat, his stage fright took hold and he was unable to right the ship.

  Finally, an UberCon staff member instituted the slaughter rule, with a “Let’s give him a big hand. At least he tried,” and called an end to the demonstration. Most of the audience, and two of the players, had left by that point anyway.

  Crushed and humiliated, Lawrence never bothered to fix the minor issues with Knightsguard. He packed the Master Guide and character sheets away. He deleted the text from his computer.

  Lawrence retreated back to his life of telling other people’s stories, creating elaborate tableaus in the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battles
tar universes. Still, his favorite was always Lingeria. Every time a new book was published, Lawrence would install the new characters and locations into the gaming canon. He would pore over the minutiae of Norman’s prose, pulling out any item or weapon and magnifying their significance. With this came a prodigious understanding of the world of Lingeria.

  It was a comic book writer, by the name of Johnny Klein, who suggested Lawrence turn his hand-written journal of Lingeria details into what became the Abacærium. Tommy hooked Lawrence up with a New York publishing house that dealt primarily with comedian memoirs and parody novels. Lawrence was then sent back to Tomahawk with a fat check and little else. The publisher made it clear they were not interested in hearing his original story ideas.

  Lawrence was now free to create Lingeria role-playing stories full-time, while caring for his grandmother, who was now suffering from dementia. He also felt that, as he was technically the authorized historian of the world, he could now take liberties with the lore of Lingeria, particularly adding magical elements that were not found in the books.

  Pinnarchs, in particular, became much more powerful and drifted from just creating potions to casting spells and enchantments. They were now allowed to control the elements and even play with time itself, becoming the most popular character choices among the players. PDF copies of his Lingeria themed campaigns sold well online at $20 each.

  As he was now incorporating magical elements into the Lingeria lore, Lawrence had to turn elsewhere for inspiration. Norman’s Lingeria lacked substantial magical enchantments. So, instead, Lawrence turned to books he found in the library at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire.

  Lawrence would drive over two hours to dig through the history stacks, plagiarizing words and phrases from religious texts and books about witchcraft, occultism, and tarot. One book, an aged, mistreated, and forgotten manuscript that Lawrence, curiously, found being used to level the study cubicle he was using, was particularly useful. Its flaking gold lettering identified it as The Verisimillion.

  The book was filled with pages upon pages of wonderfully flamboyant prose and verse (in a language that sounded quite like Latin) that Lawrence could transpose into the new magic of Lingeria.

  The Verisimillion somehow slipped its way into Lawrence’s backpack and traveled with him home to Tomahawk.

  ****

  The night that he “borrowed” the book, after helping his grandmother to bed, Lawrence sat in the shed with a notepad, The Verisimillion, and his beaten-up copy of The Tales of Lingeria Vols. I – IV (a-nine-hundred-page special edition collection, sold by Barnes & Noble). Excitedly, he commenced work on a new quest, to be played later on in the week.

  Dungeon Master Lawrence flipped page after page, pulling out the most enchanted-sounding language. He scribbled it on a yellow legal pad. He turned the pages so excitedly, he often tore the fragile biblical scritta paper.

  How The Verisimillion came to be wedged under a desk in the library of the thirty-seventh best regional university in the Midwest without a call number on the spine or even stamp with the library’s name on it, was a sinister, supernatural conspiracy … Or just shoddy librarianship.

  ****

  After hours of reading, Lawrence’s eyes were getting tired. He had already filled an entire notepad with indiscriminate words and passages. He even found a particularly interesting symbol in the book that he thought would make a unique tattoo (if he ever gathered up the courage to actually get one).

  Lawrence found himself drawing the symbol at the bottom of his notes, as a reminder.

  The language in the book tickled Lawrence’s brain – there was something about it that drew him in and kept him reading long past midnight. It was actually fun to try and pronounce; reminding him of one of his favorite heavy metal bands Kvelertak, who primarily sang in their native Norwegian – But that never stopped Lawrence from singing along.

  Around two a.m., Lawrence stopped taking notes and was absentmindedly turning pages in The Verisimillion. As the Game Master, he would have to be able to speak these verses and play the characters who said them, so, occasionally, he tried to phonetically repeat what he was reading. Typically, a single word or line, but one particular stanza called out to him:

  Adtevři quodeře od ianuam scovium

  Dimvolnit mé snynis

  Zlomulo fracaldo, tenvo ené

  Certzte diiší bohy mandu.

  He played with the words, rolling them around in his mouth, pushing and pulling the syllables in every direction. He reiterated the phrase a half-dozen times, before finally closing the book and retiring for the night – so tired that he didn’t even notice that the symbol he had drawn on the note pad was now glowing an intense neon blue.

  In bed, his brain refused to sleep, he twisted around on his thin twin mattress. He saw words behind his eyelids.

  ****

  The next morning, Lawrence returned to the shed to find the table empty. All his hard work had disappeared; his notebook, Lingeria, and The Verisimillion … gone. The table was, however, coated in a metallic blue sheen.

  “Gramma!” Lawrence shouted back to the house, “Did you move my stuff?” It wasn’t uncommon for her to do this – she often used the table for laundry. “What is this goop?” he thought. “Detergent?”

  Lawrence went to swipe whatever liquid seemed to have blanketed the table with his fingers. Rather than coating his fingertips in a solvent, Lawrence’s fingers disappeared into the card table.

  He yanked his fingers back and inspected them – both tips where still there, dry and unharmed. Curious, he pressed his hand to the table. It disappeared up to his wrist.

  Lawrence moved his hand around the table. The blue was not disturbed, did not ripple, and did not change color. He felt as if his hand were gloved, yet there was no change in temperature or pressure. He pulled his hand out again, with no resistance from the blue.

  A few hand-painted miniature gaming figurines were left to dry on a wired shelving unit next to the washer and dryer. Lawrence grabbed a handful of the inch-tall Cyber-Mech Assault vehicles and tossed them at the table. The blue ate them, without noise or any disruption to the surface.

  Lawrence wasn’t one to seek adventure, outside of a felt-covered gaming table. While he played heroic games, Lawrence was far from brave. The possibility that a portal to who-knows-where had opened its iris in his shed, did not actually make his travel bug itch. A lifetime of disappointment had left Lawrence an ardent pessimist; there was no happiness in there, no embarrassment of riches or harem of women. If anything, it was a quick death, if he was lucky, and he was never lucky. He had no wish to traverse the blue. Besides, he had a flight to catch.

  Lawrence switched off the light and left the shed. The blue continued to glow.

  ****

  Lawrence left for New York later that day, to finish an updated version of the Abacærium (to coincide with the imminent release of The Emerald Pendulum). To his amazement, his publisher surprised him with an invite to Norman’s release party.

  “Now, finally, we can meet and mingle as friends and contemporaries, not as fan and hero,” he thought, excitedly.

  Their second meeting, however, did not go as Lawrence intended either. Forgetting to even introduce himself, Lawrence stupidly launched into asking Norman about another fantasy author. When he realized he was applauding the works of someone else, his anxieties flared up. It was even more difficult than usual for him to speak as verse from The Verisimillion kept creeping onto his tongue, as if desperate to be spoken. He absent-mindedly took out his desk of cards – a nervous habit that had become a bit of a security blanket – as beads of sweat rolled down his back. He shuffled cards and words, trying desperately to steer the conversation back to Lingeria. That was when Norman asked about the cards. Lawrence felt hopeful, finally. He thought the author’s interest in his deck might actually turn the mood around. He got into a rhythm, during “The Matchmaker,” and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Yet, when
he turned back around, during the applause, Norman was gone.

  ****

  After the party, Lawrence found himself, without remembering how he got there, back in the shed in Tomahawk, sitting in the dark on a folding chair. He stared at the blue. It was illuminated, but it did not extend its brilliance to the rest of the room. It gave no light. Nor did it cast any shadows. Rather, it seemed to pull light into it, darkening the room even more.

  Lawrence found comfort it the blue’s confidence. It wanted nothing. It did not call to him or pull him towards it. Lawrence wanted to feel that – to experience its calm nothingness, without the chaos that was his life and mind. While he always felt like a nothing – now he wanted to truly be nothing.

  Lawrence approached the table. He dipped his hand into the blue and swam it around, as though testing pool water. Then, he slowly tipped forward and let gravity use his weight against him. Approaching forty-five degrees, he felt it take him. His Converse lifted off the cement floor and he fell.

  Like a movie’s smash cut, the very next thing Lawrence experienced was a thirty-foot fall into the icy waters of Lake Tarnow.

  ****

  Lawrence swam frantically to the shore and emerged from the lake, confused and waterlogged. He sprawled on the rocky beach, gasping for air. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he had landed in the northern area of Lingeria, in The Forest of Kath, home to Unikü The Elf (or Elves depending on your politics).

  The scenery around him didn’t look much different from northern Wisconsin. A pristine lake, tall pines and cedars surrounded the lake, and birds called out from the foliage. However, there were no boats, or docks, or even an informal campsite setup, anywhere to be seen.

  “Hello!?” Lawrence shouted, but the only answer was his own echo, from across the lake.