“Okay.” Svetlana taps her pen. “Nothing happens.”
“Boring!” You can probably guess who says that.
“Another perception check,” Reggie says, grabbing his dice. He throws, and this time: “Twenty-three!”
“Your power to perceive this rune and all it means is …” She pauses, lowers her chin, thinking of the word. “Palpable.”
“It is?” says Reggie.
Svetlana nods. “So palpable, in fact, that the demon trapped within the rune—”
“I knew it,” says Abraham. “Moron.”
“Shh.”
“—bursts out,” Svetlana finishes. “Fragments of the stone floor and of the rune itself—icy blue shards of elemental power—fly through the chamber like shrapnel.”
“Whoa,” I say. I can’t help it.
“Much of it strikes your body and face,” Svetlana says, her eyes still boring into Reggie’s very soul.
“Crap.”
“Fortitude check,” Svetlana says, and Reggie rolls. I don’t know much about this game, but I’m thinking a pair of threes is probably not a lot.
“The damage is severe,” she says.
“Am I bloody?” Reggie asks.
“You were bloody before you walked over to the damn thing,” Abraham points out. “Dammit.” He throws down his pencil and crosses his arms.
“Language, Mr. Polsen,” calls Ms. Grimmish.
“You’re out cold, Ambient,” Svetlana says. “You fall to the hard stone ground and black out.”
“Ha,” says Abraham. “Happy now, idiot?”
Reggie doesn’t respond. Roan does: “Shut up, Abraham.”
“Okay,” he says, his voice thick and rich like sarcastic hot fudge.
“As you lie on the ground in a pool of your own blood”—wow—“the demon himself crawls out of the gaping hole the rune has left in the chamber floor.”
“Oh, awesome,” says Abraham.
“He stands at the edge of the elemental abyss, amidst a shimmery blue light—a clear sign of the great power within, no doubt leaking into your world from the demon’s home dimension—and lets out a mighty roar.”
“What’s he look like?” Roan says, squinting.
Svetlana is glad to be asked, and she produces a drawing. He’s pretty amazing: She did this one all in blue ink on the lined spiral notebook paper. He’s huge—I guess; there’s not really any scale—and muscular, and overall humanish. His face, though, is twisted and gnarly, inside out and grotesque, and on his head are two bent horns, one pointing up in a general spiral shape, the other curved and cracked and lower, aimed at his shoulder. Sprouted from his back are two enormous wings, like the wings of a bat, and they’re torn and nearly skeletal. Strictly for looks, I guess—very imposing, the whole package.
Any feelings I’ve developed for this girl are entirely ridiculous. She is the most amazing person on earth, and I will withdraw any attempts to get closer to her.
“Nice,” says Abraham, and he gives this groovy little nod, like Greg might upon listening to a song I play for him. It occurs to me that Abraham reminds me of Greg quite a bit—in-game Greg, to be specific.
“This is the demon,” Svetlana says. “He is called Kor’Baela. The people of this village have worshipped him and prayed to him for centuries—they are a secret and secretive cult, and when they learn the rune has been shattered, they will undoubtedly come for you.”
“This just gets better and better,” says Abraham. “Jeez, Lana. Way to set us up for the worst wipe in the history of gaming.”
She cocks her head at him. “Come on,” she says. “Don’t blame me for this.”
Abraham sighs. “Initiative,” he says, and he casts his dice. Roan does too, and so does Svetlana. Reggie doesn’t even reach for the bones, since his player character is lying in a pool of his own blood, dead to the world.
Abraham wins the roll. He leans forward and claps his hands together, shuffles his papers to check on his daily and encounter abilities. “This is the same encounter?” he confirms, and it is, per Svetlana’s nod. “I still have my daily.”
“Okay,” Svetlana says.
There’s a roll. Abraham’s PC, Thug, charges at the demon, knocking it down and reducing its armor and attack power by half.
Roan cheers; her PC, Meridel, flashes through the chamber, appearing behind the demon, and then thrusts both her daggers into and under its rib cage. It shrieks in pain, doubles over, and spits up blood.
But it doesn’t fall. Instead it lifts its head, and its eyes shine with blue light. It grabs Ambient, Reggie’s PC, by the throat, lifts him over its head, and, after a chant in a language neither conscious character can understand, fires the poor wizard against the chamber wall.
“Fortitude check,” Svetlana says, and she swallows. “I’m sorry, Reggie,” she adds in a softer voice—a voice that’s not in the chamber with them, underground and about to die, but up here, in room 3212.
Reggie grabs his fedora and puts it on, low on his head so it blocks us from seeing his eyes. He cups his hands around two of his polyhedral dice, raises them before his face, and gives them a dozen or so short and violent shakes. Then he releases the dice into the center of the table.
“Crap,” he says. He lets his head fall forward onto his character sheet, and his fedora topples from his head and falls upside down on the table.
“Two?” Abraham says. “You rolled a goddamn two?”
“Is that bad?” I say quietly, smirking.
Svetlana narrows her eyes at me and says, “Shh.”
“He’s dead,” Roan says.
“He’s goddamn dead,” Abraham confirms. He runs both his hands through his greasy hair. “Okay, how do we fix this?”
“We don’t,” Reggie says. His voice is muffled by the table his face is still on. “I’m the healer, and I can’t cast revive on myself.”
Svetlana shuffles her papers and lets out a long, “Well …”
Roan covers her face with both hands. “A potion,” she says. Then she jumps in her chair onto her knees. “I loot the body.”
Abraham snaps and points at her excitedly. “Yes! He has a potion. He got it from the fat ogre we killed in the woods on Sunday night.”
Svetlana chews the inside of her cheek, then nods once. “Okay, roll for, um, agility.”
“To loot a goddamn dead body?” Abraham snaps. “How much agility does that take?”
“The potion bottles are fragile glass and very tiny,” Svetlana says. “Roll your twenty, and get”—she glances at Roan’s character sheet—“a three or better. It’s a formality.”
“Fine, fine,” Roan says. She grabs her die and tosses it: 19. “There.”
“Congratulations,” Svetlana says. She looks at Reggie’s inventory list. “You loot five health potions, ten attack power potions, one vial of smoke bomb, one broken dagger, all his armor, his Staff of Rejuvenation, and three New Life potions.”
“New Life potions!” Abraham says, leaning forward and thrusting his first finger at the dungeon master. “She feeds one to Reggie—I mean, to Ambient.”
Roan nods with enthusiasm, but Svetlana shakes her head. “Sorry, he’s dead. The potion dribbles down his chin and is absorbed into the floor of the cave. You now have two New Life potions left.”
“What?!” Abraham says.
Ms. Grimmish calls from the front of the room, “Please, Abraham. Keep it down.”
“Sorry,” he calls back. Then he repeats—quietly this time, “What?”
Reggie rolls his head to face Abraham without picking it up from the table. “It’s an auto-revive potion,” he says.
“Like a soulstone,” I say.
Abraham looks at me, eyes wide. “You game?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
Svetlana squints at me. “You’re going to explain this, you know.”
“Not now,” I say. “There’s a man lying dead in a cave and you want to know my gaming history? Come on. Priorities.” I smil
e at her, and she smiles back and then turns to face Roan and Abraham.
“Reggie … Ambient had to drink it before he died, not after,” she explains, though I think we all get it by this time.
“Which I did,” Reggie says. “Six turns ago.”
“But the potion only last five turns,” Svetlana adds.
Abraham leans slowly in his chair and glares at the face-on-table Reggie. “So it is indeed Ambient’s fault after all.”
Reggie picks his head up and glares at Svetlana. “You could have warned me.”
“Don’t blame her,” Roan says. She shifts in her seat and pulls one foot up under her butt. “Ambient messed up. We messed up.”
“So now what?” Abraham says. He sits back in his chair and sulks.
“Now,” Roan says, “you and I wait here, in the dark, and hope our lovely and brilliant and—”
“Easy with the flattery,” Svetlana puts in.
“—um, dungeon master won’t send any roaming kobolds after us,” Roan finishes. “Reggie can roll a new character and join us.”
Svetlana shrugs and smiles. She pats Reggie’s head.
“But what about Ambient?” Reggie says. “I liked Ambient. And a new character will be, like, three levels behind.”
“We don’t have a goddamn choice, Reggie,” Abraham says. His shoulders sag farther. “Just take a blank sheet and start rolling. We don’t have all day.”
“Um,” I say. “What about me?”
“What about you?” Abraham says through a sneer.
Apparently he still doesn’t like me.
“Remember? Newest member of the Central High Gaming Club?” I say. “Why don’t I roll a character? I can catch up and rez your healer.”
Svetlana winks at me and then turns to the others. “What do you think? Want to add a player to your party?”
“Another leader?” Abraham says. “What are we going to do with another goddamn leader?”
“There must be a class I can roll that can resurrect and do decent ranged DPS, right?” I say. I have to admit I’m getting kind of excited at the prospect. This tabletop gaming thing is more fun and exciting than I would have predicted. I glance at Svetlana, hoping I’m going about this the right way.
“DPS?” Reggie says, finally lifting his head. He eyes Svetlana. “He’s a video gamer, Lana.”
“Oh god,” Roan says. She slumps onto the table. “Just kill me now.”
“We can probably arrange that,” Svetlana says. She shuffles her papers, as if to produce a band of roaming kobolds. “Let’s see what’s wandering the cave… .”
“Okay, okay,” Abraham says, slapping the table. “Let it be known I find this course of action to go completely against the spirit of the campaign, the spirit of the game, and the spirit of role-playing in general. But if your new boyfriend wants to roll a cleric or paladin, fine.”
I look at my shoes, then risk a glance at Svetlana—her face is pink, and her eyes are on her maps—and then back at my shoes. I can see Abraham’s shoes under the table too. They’re nearly identical to mine, and they’re bouncing madly.
“Um,” I say, “so, how do I start?”
“I’ll walk you through it,” Svetlana says, but the joy of the game—which had seemed to beam from her eyes and teeth moments ago—is gone. Her voice is quiet, as pale as the skin on her temples. She hands me a blank character sheet over her screen. “Use Reggie’s dice for now. Next time, have your own.”
I take the dice Reggie offers and mutter a timid “Thanks.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
…………………………………………………………
CHAPTER 38
SVETLANA ALLEGHENY
My phone vibrates and sings “Alarm Call” the moment I reach my bedroom. “Did you see it yet?” It’s Reggie. He sounds tired, depressed, and of generally foul mood.
“See what?” I still haven’t fully caught my breath from the bike ride home and the climb up two flights of steps.
“Check your Facebook messages,” Reggie says. “Abey must have gone straight from 3212 to the media center and typed like a madman.”
I slip into my desk chair, drop my tote bag next to it, and wake up my laptop. After a few clicks, I’m staring at this message from Abraham to the rest of us Gaming Club members. His picture is there, beside the message. He’s leaning in close to the camera, with his bangs long and over his eyes and his mouth open just the tiniest bit.
“Read it,” says Reggie. “Read it out loud. I wanna hear it again.” He’s been crying, I realize, and he’s outside, walking probably, shivering his way through Frogtown, the neighborhood where he lives.
Reggie, Roan, and Lana—
Please consider this email my official resignation from the Central High School Gaming Club. Due to recent events of a personal and financial nature, I have decided I no longer can—nor wish to—commit the time and energy required by this club or the interpersonal relationships and dramatic goings-on therein. That’s to say nothing of the unethical gaming that went on this afternoon.
“What?”
“I know,” says Reggie. He lights a cigarette and takes a drag. His exhale is decidedly loud. “Keep reading.”
Furthermore, as I will be eighteen in just a few weeks, I have decided, in close collaborative discussion with my parents, that it’s time for me to find a job. Of course, I will be attending the U in the fall, and I am looking forward to beginning my life as a new adult on the right foot, financially and socially.
“I think his lawyer wrote this for him,” Reggie says.
I nod, though he can’t see me, and continue.
Effective immediately, my priority after school, beginning the instant the final bell ends its dulcet tone, will be finding employment. Once I have found a job, of course my priority will become the job itself.
“Ugh.”
“Mmhm,” says Reggie. “You’ll love what’s next.”
Please know I will always count you three among my closest and dearest friends. (I cannot say the same about Cole, whom I never liked, nor about that sophomore dirtbag Lana brought into the club this afternoon.) However, I think it would be best if we didn’t continue hanging out.
“What?!”
“Which part?”
I scan the passage again. “All of it!”
Reggie laughs. “He’s jelly.”
“Of Lesh?”
“Of course,” says Reggie in his eye-roll voice. “Honestly, Lana, if you and Lesh haven’t made out, hooked up, and broke up by New Year’s, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Shut up,” I say. “You love that hat.”
“I really do.”
“But whatever, Abey is way over me,” I say.
“If you say so,” says Reggie. “Look, whatever. I gotta get home before the ’rentals. Love you.”
“Bye, Reggie,” I say. I tap the end button and drop my phone on the bed. It looks like Gaming Club’s pardon was merely a reprieve.
Mom and Dad are in the kitchen, working on supper. Henny sits at the island with a sloppy pile of worksheets in front of her, Mom’s iPad next to them, and a textbook opened to its middle, facedown.
“Lana,” says Dad as I step into the fray. “How was school?” He doesn’t look up from the carrot he’s dicing, nor Mom from the butternut squash she’s struggling with on the big wooden slab of a cutting board next to him.
“Miserable,” I say, because it was. It started miserably, in a chilly wind, with me standing before the boys in black like a moron. Its middle was miserable, because though I planned to spend lunch on my own in the library with my spiral notebook and four-color pen, I would rather have spent it with Lesh in the cafeteria, and I could have done without the visit from Lesh’s sociopath girlfriend. And its end was miserable, because even though yeah, Lesh showed up, Gaming Club was a nearly unbearable mess of death and failed romance and awkwardness betw
ixt the two, followed by Abraham’s depressing missive.
“Abraham quit Gaming Club,” I say. It’s the only part I care to share, and Mom gasps. “Via email,” I add. It occurs to me that I’ll have to break this news to Lesh at lunch tomorrow. His membership in the Central High School Gaming Club will the shortest club membership on record, at exactly three hours and fifteen minutes.
“That’s cold,” says Dad.
“It’s worse than cold,” I say, hopping up on the stool next to Henny. The worksheets are math, so she’s struggling. It’s a familial handicap, I suppose. “It’s the end of the GC.”
“Oh?” says Mom. I can’t tell yet whether she can or cannot care less.
I tap the iPad, slide my finger around, and bring up a puzzle game I like. You have to stop a spider from eating a bunch of flies. While I cut spiderwebs, thereby eliminating the arachnid’s route to the trapped flies, I explain to Mom the five-member minimum to secure a faculty adviser, a space in the school, and extracurricular and transcript credit for membership.
“Ouch,” says Dad. He finally looks up. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about anyway, and now it’s even more relevant.”
“Oh, not now,” says Mom quietly, like I’m not going to hear.
“Why not?” says Dad. He folds his flexible cutting board and dumps the diced carrots into the hot pot on the stove beside him. When they hit the oil, they pop and sizzle, and he grabs a celery stalk and starts in on that.
“Just say it.” I shift in my stool and lean on the counter, pushing the iPad to the side. I can’t finish this board anyway, and right now I can’t bear to watch the spider devour the poor little fly.
“Your mother and I think you should get a job,” says Dad.
Henny looks at me sideways an instant.
“Ah,” I say, and I hop down from the stool. “I don’t suppose you’ve been talking to the Polsens.”
“Who?”
“Abraham’s parents,” Mom explains, because Dad, typically, cannot keep my friends’ names straight. I don’t find that insulting at all, why do you ask? “No, sweetie,” Mom goes on. “We’ve only been talking to each other.”
Guy in Real Life Page 18
