Gamer Fantastic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “I’ll butt the pommel free when Aram’s mace hits. No one will notice more noise, right?”

  “Rhamathi use their heads in battle—it’s true what they say about you ram-men.” Caena winked at him, and he stuck his tongue out at her in response.

  “Suddenly, a gong clangs below and two men rush out into the temple area. Dalnoth scowls at the interruption, but pauses to hear their news. The guards discovered your escape. Dalnoth yells, ‘Twelve blystars for each of their still-beating hearts! Death to the holy night’s defilers!’ ”

  “Now would be a good time, Sam, er, Aram.”

  “What happens when this hits, Kamlar? Carl, I’m going to throw this after he answers me. Oh, and I’m using half my Kismet to make sure this works.”

  “Fine, that’ll ensure a successful impact, but I need to know the spell, Mr. Solt—sorry. Kamlar.”

  “That’s all right, Carl. I called the spell wind whirl—glacial at the center and blasting out in all directions, freezing things instantly. The explosion should take out some mages and make that spire brittle. If Aram’s weapon does the job, it should at least disrupt the ritual, if not break the spire altogether. I’d like to expend all my Kismet as well to urge the spire to break and fall toward Dalnoth.”

  “Brilliant,” Caena whispered. “As soon as that spell explodes, I howl for Ridgeshadow.”

  Dice clattered loudly amid the tense participants. “All right—Aram, as you stand up to throw, a bloodied acolyte shouts and points up at you. Osax, you can hear two or three guards heading toward you. The only good news is this—Caena and Kamlar can see the wolf and hawk silhouettes of their bond animals in the moonlight on the opposite slope. They’re close enough to be part of this battle a turn after you call them. Let’s see your rolls, people.”

  “That was fascinating,” the older man said, nodding. “It certainly made Kharndam come alive for me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Soltare. We can’t tell you how much it means to have you in our game.” The young man literally quivered with excitement and nervousness.

  “Thank you, Carl. I enjoyed myself immensely,” Soltare said, shaking Carl’s damp hand. “Now if you’ll excuse Sam and me, we’re supposed to find someone in this monstrous hall before it closes. We’ll see you here tomorrow?” Carl’s effusive nods answered Soltare’s question as he turned toward his escort.

  The bald older man walked stoop-shouldered and used a cane for support. Despite the summer, he wore a light sweater atop his blue shirt and gray slacks. In contrast, his younger companion had long brown hair in a ponytail, a short-sleeved polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals. The black and green tattoos of Celtic knots and animal heads that played down his arms and legs drew stares from many passers-by.

  “That was intriguing, Sam,” the old man said. “I’d never played a role-playing game before. Thank you for insisting we take the time. And to think Monty and I created those characters more than fifty years ago . . .”

  “It was fun, sir,” Sam said.

  “Strange that the details came back so easily. Maybe it was the excitement those youngsters brought to the characters . . . hearing the names and descriptions, even when the details were off . . .”

  “Which ones?”

  “An Impral Star Mage would never be a priest of the blood god Nyrandrull, let alone be given the political office of Impron. The Impraltaar nobility would never stand for the aberration of social order. Ashyx stone was not in the Sharhim Peaks of Lluranal but only farther south in Xhonoril’s Sablemounts. Still, experiencing a story like that was marvelous. That young woman played Caena perfectly, right down to the growls and recklessness.”

  Sam shook his head.“How you remember all that after writing it in the forties, I’ll never know. And now those kids—not to mention the crowd around our table—can brag about playing Kharndam with the world’s creator. That’s worth ten times the price of admission.”

  “Monty, Edward, and I created those stories at John Farnsworth’s urging. If anyone deserves credit for that world, it’s him,” he said. “And none of that ‘sir’ business—my name is AJ. I’ll accept Mr. Soltare only from children I don’t know.”

  Sam laughed, and said, “All right, AJ. You’re the guest of honor here because of those stories and others. What you wrote put this together!” Sam spread his arms wide, gesturing all around them.

  AJ mused, “I’m hardly responsible for poor spelling,” pointing toward the GreaLKon banner over the hall’s main entrance.

  Sam explained, “It’s pronounced like Holy Grail, and ‘kon’ for convention. It’s shorthand for ‘Great Lakes Convention.’ It used to be six smaller local shows, all on the Great Lakes. Guardians Games merged them in eighty-two and now rotates the show among all six cities, hence the name. This is only the third show they’ve held in Milwaukee, but it’s the eighteenth GreaLKon in all.”

  The room could encompass three football fields side by side. Anywhere AJ looked, bright colors demanded attention. A slender orange cloth dragon loomed, its fabric wings wrapping around the boundaries of one booth. To its left, a voluptuous genie’s gauzy garments became the filmy red backdrop for another vendor’s display. English-style castle turrets popped up here and there as papier-mâché or wooden backdrops. In every booth, people were displaying and selling games or equipment. AJ raised an eyebrow at the nearby booths selling all manner of swords, maces, and other pseudo-medieval weaponry, either made from foam rubber or wood and metal.

  In select areas, long blue “Game Zone” banners hung from the ceiling. Beneath them, people huddled around the tables. AJ saw many playing role-playing games like the one he had just finished, the game masters looming over screens and mesmerizing players. Other tables held arrays of miniature armies, and AJ chuckled at seeing the battle of Gettysburg laid out next to a table on which jackal-headed giants attacked Egyptian pyramid builders.

  Wide avenues carved out walking space among the chaos, and those rows were filled to capacity with people in fedoras and trench coats, women wearing fairy wings, and many others dressed as aliens or monsters. People wore armor spanning the gamut from both historical and practical to provocative and brazen. AJ saw more than a few dressed as characters he created, from Ace Barrigan, occult detective, with his spell-casting revolvers, to the Illuminated Man, the young man’s body covered with the painted illuminated tattoos beneath his ubiquitous shredded shirt.

  Sam said, “Just look around, AJ—we can probably find at least three companies ripping off the Hawkmage of the Twelvelands tales or the Third Impramense Cycle. How many of those pulp-style games have characters imitating Solomon Lazarus, the Redressor, or Brass Bradley?”

  AJ smiled. “I didn’t know you were a fan, Sam.”

  “More so now, since Oscar and Patrick told me what you all did for me. I owe you my life.” Both men’s faces darkened, and the older man patted Sam’s shoulder.

  “Enough of that, Sam. You’ll pay me back in your own way, eventually. Just promise not to dress up as David Joshua like that boy there, all right?” AJ pointed out the young man with the ragged shirt and painted-on tattoos.

  “Deal,” Sam said. “Besides, my gods and my tattoos already clash with those illuminations.”

  “Astonishing that there’s this much business in make-believe,” AJ said. “Back then, I was just happy to work. Still, I’d have asked John Farnsworth for more money before signing away rights to what I wrote if I knew it’d have this kind of impact.”

  “Impact like this?” Sam asked, turning the old man around to face a German panzer punching through the artificial wall to their right. AJ nodded at the innocuous Fallen Ramparts sign perched on the end of the tank’s forward gun. All around the panzer, young people simulated World War II battles on tabletops with small plastic tanks and infantrymen.

  “Seems odd the Wehrmacht storming this old castle,” AJ muttered.

  “Guardians Games covers all the old Bulwark properties, AJ, from the Kraut-Krushers to all of your stuf
f too,” Sam explained.

  The Guardians Games booth dominated the hall as its largest display booth. A two-story high castle wall, complete with turrets in each corner holding game demonstration areas, enclosed the area. Two of the turrets promoted the fantasy game Bulwarks & Basilisks on banners stretched between them, and sculpted goblins clambered over the battlements along the outside walls. Atop another turret stood the trench-coated Redressor, complete with his scarlet Nemesistone glowing on his lapel, back-to-back with the Gaslight, the black-garbed British occult investigator whose glowing blue ring warned of evil’s presence. Between them leaned the Chanteuse, a black-haired woman in a gold evening gown brandishing a small pistol. Beneath their feet was a bold logo promoting the Thrillseekers game.

  “Thrillseekers, eh? Nice twist on the old name,” AJ said.

  “Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Good marketing, really, for all those pulps from the twenties through the fifties. My favorite was always Occult Thrills, followed by Books Bizarre, Detective Thrills, Scarab Stories, and Tales Terrific.”

  “All twelve Thrills books kept my rent paid for nearly three decades. My favorite assignment was writing Lance Lariat in Western Thrills. Too bad Campbell Per-kins’ Pirate Thrills never caught on; the Cobalt Corsair was great fun, too.”

  “I’ll bet,” Sam agreed, and then nodded as something caught his eye. “AJ, Ms. Rahn, one of Guardians’ VPs, wanted to talk to us. She’s over at the sales counter.” Sam turned around, keeping himself just behind AJ’s left shoulder at all times.

  AJ and Sam approached the wide arch of the Guardians Games castle’s main entrance, its walls well marked with statues. Looming half off the battlements over the arch was a fanged, black-furred humanoid with batwings fused to his arms—a battresi from Kharndam. Flanking the entrance were two eight-foot-tall gray ogres of Kharndam in full Impral regalia. Passing between them and beneath the man-bat, Sam and AJ approached the castle’s center, which held a fifth tower for a sales area as well as tables for author signings. People were setting up four large black booths connected by heavy cables and surrounded by large crates of equipment.

  A brown-haired woman emerged from behind the counter, smiling widely. “Enjoying yourselves, gentlemen?” She wore the same shirt as all the employees within the castle’s boundaries—a bright red polo with a double G emblazoned on a tower silhouette over the heart.

  “Yes, thank you. Quite an operation here, Miss Rahn,” AJ said, nodding. “Sam’s filling me in on this show’s history. I never realized my old stories had such fans.”

  “You’re too modest, Mr. Soltare,” she chided. “The show brought in twenty thousand last year, but it looks like we’ll exceed that this year. And please, both of you, call me Tessa.”

  “As long as you call us AJ and Sam,” he said. “It’s chaotic, but everyone seems to be having fun. Well, other than those workmen.” AJ nodded toward the back walls of the castle, where four men struggled large carts and even larger wooden crates around the milling crowds.

  Tessa sighed as she looked at her watch. “The union insisted they had to finish their setup by 6 p.m. I just hope the fire marshal doesn’t see this while people are still in the booth.”

  “What’s in the crates, Tessa?” Sam asked.

  “Saturday and Sunday are our special preview days. Those are the deluxe interactive pods for the online RPG we’re starting—the Online Thrills game.”

  “Clever name,” AJ said, and his eyes darted toward a smirking Sam. “Is it like that Kharndam game I played earlier?”

  “Even better,” Tessa said, “It’s a fully immersive computer role-playing experience. You’ll be able to see your characters and the fantastic world around you. Our initial release will be Occult Fairgeth, though we’re hoping to have Kharndam Online go live by this time next year.”

  “Fairgeth? Why that place? Not a very pleasant setting.”

  She smiled. “It matches modern tastes—dark, corrupt, cynical, and full of conspiracies and monsters to kill—while still having that allure of the thirties and forties.”

  Tessa leaned closer and whispered, “And to be totally honest, our contractors scrambled to meet the head office’s deadlines. We scavenged the Nazi bundists, the late 1930’s era architecture, and much of the background programming from other games that never finished production. We added all the named landmarks from the Occult Thrills stories to complete the illusion. Fairgeth lets us recoup investments, have the game ready for this show, and get it on shelves well before Halloween.”

  AJ winked at her and said, “Those old penny-pinchers John Farnsworth and Rupert Kharm would be proud of you, young lady.”

  Sam interrupted. “So this game lets people wander the cursed city of Fairgeth playing . . .” His voice trailed off in his question.

  “A character of their own making—and if they meet certain criteria or finish certain missions, they get to play alongside computer simulations of Brass Bradley, Solomon Lazarus, Ace Barrigan, the Redressor, Lexicon Jones, Miasma, the Chanteuse, or . . .”

  AJ added, “Any character who ever had a story in Books Bizarre or Occult Thrills? Nifty—even if Fairgeth was the setting for only two of them.”

  “Our people will be done installing the pods in a bit—they go live tomorrow at noon for attendees who’ve paid for VIP badges,” Tessa said. “We’ll be here after the show closes making sure the interfaces work. That’s what I wanted to ask you—are you two interested in being the first to play this evening? We could use some people who haven’t played before to help test this out.”

  “I’m not sure it’s my cup of tea,” AJ said. “But you can explain it to me more over dinner. My treat.”

  “Not a chance, Mister Soltare. Dinner’s on the company, as you’re the guest of honor. Besides, I want to bend your ear about the old days of Bulwark Publications.”

  Pleasantly full from dinner, Sam stared at the door set into the large black metal structure as he climbed the booth’s three stairs. He stepped inside and raised an eyebrow. Lights outlined the ceiling and floor in big ovals, allowing him to see the outlines of nine large monitors stacked three high in front and on each side of him. The floor pads beneath his feet were a grid of nine squares set three-by-three, the center square black with white letters saying STAND HERE while the others each had the numbers one through eight on them. The flat smell of new plastic and fresh carpeting mixed with the slight hum of electricity all around him.

  Between the door of the pod and the edges of the floor grid, a small pillar held a headset with a microphone and a small handheld joystick. Sam picked it up, noticing the pad’s sides around the stick held eight buttons similarly numbered and colored like those on the floor grid. He heard a tinny noise and picked up the headset to one ear.

  “Sam? Can you hear me on this contraption?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, putting the headset on and adjusting the microphone. “I hear you, AJ. Who’s going to teach us what to do with these things?”

  Tessa’s voice crackled through the headset. “I will, with Len’s help. Len, introduce yourself to our guests.”

  A voice high and tight with nervousness chimed in, “I’m sorry—just a minute, Miss Rahn. Everybody, we have to close the pods to initialize them.”

  Sam stepped onto the grid, holding the control pad. Behind him, the pod door clicked closed and the screens flickered on. The monitors showed the edge of a municipal park, rain pelting down lightly. Sam watched an errant newspaper skitter across the street, flap in an imaginary wind, and blow from the screens on his right across the others and then blow away off the screens to his left. He said, “Nice graphics. All you need are wind machines in here for sensurround.”

  “Thanks,” Len said, and a figure shimmered into view on the screens in front of Sam. “My name’s Len Chandler, the lead writer for this game. This is the admin persona I’ll be playing—Mason Stark, a detective for Bowman Investigations here in Fairgeth. The demo that will play in each pod will show you both how to bui
ld your game personas and how to control them. Once we’ve gone through that, we’ll put our team together in the park to try out more of the game.”

  Within twenty minutes, Sam had his persona doing cartwheels across the park on the screens. His character was dressed as a beat cop, his hat on the ground nearby.

  AJ said, “Amusing, Sam, but really, comport yourself with some dignity.”

  “No, that’s okay, Mr. Soltare,” Len said. “It’s great to see how responsive the controls are to unexpected commands. Sam, how are you doing that?”

  “I’m using both the controller and the floor pads to say I’m crouching forward then jumping and moving with the joystick. It reads that as a forward cartwheel.”

  Tessa laughed. “And you guys said that there wasn’t anything that beginners could show you with these games!”

  “Well it’s not in the standard controls we’ve got on-screen, but I’ll remember that for the manual. Thanks, Sam.”

  On the lower left screen out of nine, Sam could see a row of icons with numbers or colors around them. These were standard controls for which buttons counted as attacks, special moves, or defenses. Sam keyed in the command and his cop drew his service revolver. A targeting bull’s-eye appeared on the screen as Sam’s persona squared his stance and pointed the gun with both hands.

  “Hey,” Sam asked, “Can I fire this one-handed, in case I have to hang onto something or fire a gun in each hand?”

  “Double-tap the 1 or 3 button after you’ve drawn it and that’ll put any weapon in your left or right hand. The 2 button fires it.”

  “Thanks, Tessa.” Sam wolf-whistled as Tessa’s persona blinked into view on the screens—a young woman smartly dressed in a plaid jacket and skirt, her hair platinum blond and bobbed. She held a notepad in her hands and a small purse dangled at her elbow. “Say, good lookin, what’s cookin?”

  “Hello boys,” Tessa said in her best Mae West purr. “Meet Darlene Dane, reporter for the Fairgeth Fanfare.”

  “And now for our final surprise,” Len said, “Bobby and Rick outside have been coaching Mr. Soltare on a closed channel so we could honor him. Sir? If you’re ready?”