Death by Cliché

by Defendi, Bob

  “Strange,” he said.

  “Let’s blow this place,” Omar said.

  They divvied up the treasure, which didn’t take nearly as long as it should have, and didn’t seem heavy once it was in their backpacks. Damico lifted his light load of heavy platinum and gold and trudged back the way they’d come.

  Evidently Carl wasn’t clever enough to have the dungeon open back up due to some trigger, it just opened up when they had generally finished the adventure. So they climbed out onto a green veldt of grass running down from the dungeon to what appeared to be a village. The village had square fields and a cluster of houses like something out of Tudor England, with heavy beam frames and stucco walls.

  Children played in the street, and a dog chased the sheep in an undeveloped field. Men trudged, but they didn’t toil. They just appeared… unmotivated. Not tired.

  “Let’s find a tavern,” Gorthander said.

  “You think a village this size has a real tavern?” Damico asked. Gorthander shot him a look, and he shrugged. “Never mind.”

  Damico was outside at last.

  He was out of the dungeon, but he was still in the world. In a world he didn’t want. In a time he didn’t understand. In a place that made no sense, where ambition and ability met, and where one man could make a difference.

  Have Movie-Trailer Man read that, and it might sound pretty cool.

  But this was much worse. Here he was, trapped in this place while his body ebbed away in the real world. He sat here under Carl’s yoke while that bastard chatted away, or however he acted while running a game… as if nothing had happened. Chatted while Damico died in his trunk.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t even possible. He was mad or in Hell or locked away in some deranged coma, maybe forever.

  But if this was a coma, maybe this was his mind’s way of presenting the truth to him. Maybe he was delusional with a purpose. Maybe, just maybe, if he found a way out, that was the way out of the coma as well. Maybe.

  It was the only hope he had.

  They marched down into the village and along the main street. The peasants were all dirty but artfully so, the soot smudged here and there in ways that highlighted their appearance rather than muddying it. They all had a vacant, hollow expression in their eyes, like a cheerleader in physics class.

  Gorthander walked straight to the tavern, a large building with glass windows that would cost more than this entire village made in a year. Damico examined the storefronts as he passed but couldn’t find a glassmaker’s shop.

  They stepped inside, around cozy tables and across squeaky floorboards. They selected a table in the corner because that’s what one did when entering a bar during an adventure. Damico gestured for Lotianna to sit in the actual corner because that was proper manners (Encyclopedia Brown had taught him that, and nothing good could come from doubting Encyclopedia Brown). He sat with his back to the room. He could only assume he had a lot of ranks in Hear Noise.

  The barmaid bounced over and smiled down at their table. She did resemble a cheerleader, although Damico couldn’t put his finger on exactly how. Was it the single pig tail? The anachronistic chewing gum? He somehow knew this poor woman was based on some real-world person at Carl’s high school and that she’d sleep with any person at this table, especially Lotianna, at the slightest pass. Damico felt bad about his earlier cheerleader thoughts. It was one thing to be insulting to a stereotype, it was another to be confronted by an actual person.

  She wore a tan dress and a white apron, and her breast size was somewhere between outlandish and outright impossible. She must have worn an antigravity bra.

  Her eyes were hollow like the windows of a condemned house. This wasn’t just the absence of a mind. There was no soul.

  She was a Non-Player Character, a bit player in the world, run by the game master. He’d never seen such a clear indication.

  “May I take your order?” she said in a voice that was seductive. That voice, coming from under those eyes was creepy. Creepy like a little boy that never smiles, uses perfect grammar, and calls his parents “Paul” and “Mary” when those aren’t their names.

  “I’ll have an ale,” Damico said.

  Gorthander and Omar ordered the same. Lotianna ordered a wine which they inexplicably kept in stock. Omar didn’t hit on her. Evidently role-playing a seduction with Carl was the creepiest thing of all.

  She started to walk away, but just then, her eyes lit up. They came alive like the eyes at the end of the movie version of The Pit and the Pendulum. With horror.

  Yet that horror didn’t touch the rest of her face. She flirted for several more moments, and no one else seemed to notice. Then she turned away, her eyes pleading, and went for drinks.

  And why hadn’t anyone else noticed? This was Carl’s character, after all. This wouldn’t have happened if Carl didn’t want it to happen. Maybe he’d been the only one to make their Spot skill check.

  Still, this seemed awfully subtle for Carl.

  As they sat there, a new person approached their table—Damico did have ranks in Hear Noise, obviously. A man approached, dressed in brown leggings and a green Robin Hood tunic. He wore no hat but carried a sword and a strung bow, because in the world of role-playing, bows never lost their spring from being strung too long.

  “May I sit with you?”

  His face was open, friendly, and mildly attractive. He had salt and pepper hair. He was clean shaven in a way that usually required an entire industrial base, but Damico didn’t worry about shaving creams and manufactured razors; he was more interested in this new person who acted like a Player Character.

  “By all means,” Damico said, wondering how Carl had tricked someone else to his table.

  “My name is Jurkand,” the man said.

  “Your dad lose a bet?” Damico asked.

  “He lost a great many bets,” Jurkand said, “and I had the misfortune of looking like him when I was born.”

  “Ah,” Damico said. “You want to join us on our next adventure?”

  “Nothing like that,” Jurkand said. “I just wanted to meet the man who made the barmaid’s eyes light up like that.”

  “Is this some kind of a sick joke?” Damico asked. The other people at the table looked confused.

  “Not at all,” Jurkand said. Despite the invitation, he hadn’t sat down. “I think I’ll be on my way.”

  He gave Damico a special wink, the kind of wink shared with a close friend, a brother, just a little to the left of one you’d give a man you were picking up at a bar. Then he walked away.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Damico said.

  “We haven’t had our drinks yet,” Omar whined.

  “Yeah,” Gorthander said. “Why leave so soon? You know Carl’s giving us a job in this bar.”

  “Because that,” Damico said, “was creepy.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “If you can read this, you’re too close.”

  —Bob Defendi

  he tavern smelled like a urine-soaked gym sock after it had passed through the digestive tract of a water buffalo. Damico hadn’t noticed it at first; it sort of snuck up on you like a squad of Navy SEALS, or worse, normal seals, the kind carrying clubs and out to prove Humans aren’t the only creatures on the planet that like to wear a coat once in a while.

  Lotianna, on the other hand, smelled like lilacs.

  The tavern rented bedrooms, conveniently enough. Omar had refused to leave and went to sleep first. Then Gorthander gave Damico and Lotianna a knowing glance and followed. For about five minutes Damico and Lotianna sat in silence, sipping their drinks.

  And he felt comfortable. Normally silences like this between a man and a woman became awkward, but Damico felt nothing like that. He enjoyed sitting with her. He enjoyed the smell of her, the way she regularly tucked an errant hair behind one ear. The presence of her filled the table with a sweet, easy feeling, and he found himself wishing
he was wounded again so he’d have to put his arm around her.

  The patrons had mostly cleared out. Only a couple of drunks remained. The owner stood behind the bar, staring vacantly into space, and Barmaid Barbie flounced about, bending over again and again to pick up imaginary pieces of litter.

  Damico rolled his eyes and took another drink.

  “Not your type?” Lotianna asked.

  He glanced at her, catching her sly expression, then over at Barmaid Barbie. At first, he could only see the horror in that poor woman’s eyes, then he shook it off and tried to make the movement into a shudder.

  “That would be too much like masturbation.” And rape, but he didn’t say that.

  Lotianna smiled and sipped her wine. He’d passed some kind of a test. He made it a strict rule never to allow women to play games (except for the fun kind). In fact, he always made certain he failed tests and made sure the woman knew it was on purpose, but Lotianna had caught him off guard with that one.

  And this wasn’t time to be on his game, no pun intended.

  “What’s your back story?” she asked after a time.

  Damico almost rerouted his drink through his nose. After swallowing, he chuckled.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Ah,” she said sagely. “You’re the one.” Her eyes held deeper meaning.

  “Excuse me?” Damico asked, not sure if he’d heard correctly.

  She appraised him, and he felt a delicious tension draw out in the silence. “Mysterious parentage. You’re the man with no past.”

  Damico was about to tell her he had a past, but it had been snuffed out by the actions of a madman, but he didn’t. He was the man with mysterious parentage. Carl had obviously designed the NPC he now inhabited, either as a mockery or as a homage to Damico’s real self. But whatever backstory Carl had invented for Damico’s in-game character, Damico didn’t know it, and so he could only play coy. That made him the heart of the cliché, and he wondered if that had been Carl’s plan all along or if things spiraled out of control for all of them.

  “You?” he asked.

  “Oh, the usual sordid details,” she said. “Good home, mage school at ten…”

  “Hogwarts?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “And then you decided to become an adventurer?”

  “Oh, you don’t find adventure,” she said. “Adventure finds you.” She had a wry smile. She was playing to the old, hackneyed lines on purpose.

  “But how could adventure possibly find you?” he asked. “You don’t seem the type to hang out in a tavern.”

  “I might surprise you.”

  “I doubt it.” He said casually. “I have you figured out.”

  “Oh, do you?”

  “I can read you like a game manual.”

  “And what do I say?”

  “Handle with care.”

  She laughed and groaned, then got back into character. “Then why aren’t you?”

  “I don’t like being told what to do.” He found the bad movie dialogue delicious. Up until that last line, she might have been giving Carl a hard time, playing him for a laugh. But that last line… Damico couldn’t be charming enough for it to show with Carl as a conduit, could he?

  She stared into his eyes, and he was just considering whether to transition into a more teasing mode when she rose to her feet. He met her gaze casually, a smile creeping across his lips.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said.

  “I have that effect on women.”

  She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, and he turned into it, meeting soft lips. It was amazing how soft. She lingered. When she pulled back, her eyes smiled down on him.

  “Good night,” she said.

  “I know it is.”

  She squinted at him, as if trying to figure him out, then she walked away. He watched her leave, but didn’t follow.

  When she was gone, he collapsed onto the table. He took a deep breath and groaned.

  He stood and headed toward his own room, but he stopped to look at Barmaid Barbie. She stared at him, her smile vacuous, her head tilted to one side, her eyes searching in horror.

  He walked back to her, his heart full from the kiss but aching in sympathy for this woman. She watched him approach and flipped her hair at him, her eyes still deeply disturbed.

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “But you can fight it.”

  The Barmaid looked at him, her eyes hardening now, her smile still vacuous. With what seemed like a supreme force of will, she nodded, the motion jerking and awkward. Damico understood so little of this, but felt somehow she’d won a personal victory. He hoped he’d had something to do with that.

  He walked away, stopping when he saw Lotianna had come back down the stairs.

  She stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed, watching. He thought she’d gotten the wrong impression, but then she smiled and nodded before walking up the stairs. Dammit, he’d passed another test.

  He grinned and headed to his own room. It’s none of your business whether or not he slept alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Where’s my thesaurus?”

  —Bob Defendi

  amico’s mind filled with dreams.

  This is typically the point in the novel where one of two things happen. Either I put in a dream I pass off as real life, tricking you into thinking something horrible is happening in a cheesy bait and switch, or else I toss in a dream full of deeper meanings and symbolism, laying out the deeper (I need a better word), darker meanings of this entire narrative.

  This narrative has no deeper (dammit), darker meaning.

  During Damico’s dream, he wandered through a palace made of corn chips, the tapestries and paintings woven from old report cards. The furniture was all naked women posed into living chairs, and in the background, his drunken grandmother sang a torch song.

  Keep your opinions to yourself, Doctor Freud.

  Sleep had felt good. It felt right. It felt exactly how sleep was supposed to feel, all sleepy and restful and such, which wasn’t surprising, he supposed. Damico had to inhabit a character of some kind, didn’t he? Characters in games and stories needed sleep just like anyone else. The Human characters, at any rate. So Damico had slept a solid night’s sleep, although in the real world, Carl had probably said something like. “You sleep that night. The next morning…”

  That next morning Damico woke alone, got dressed, and headed downstairs. Everyone else already gathered around the corner table, Gorthander working on a beer, Omar and Lotianna drinking juice. From the smell, the juice was about seven proof down the road to hard cider.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  Lotianna gave him a knowing look that probably had more to do with the night before than current events.

  Omar scowled. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means my nose has given up on the tavern completely.”

  Gorthander barked a laugh and fished a piece of bacon out of his beer, chewing on it absently. Lotianna smiled a smile more knowing (good grief) than humorous. Omar just scowled.

  Oh hell, I wrote the entire last couple chapters and forgot Arithian.

  Arithian came down the stairs just then, and I planned that, honest. He sat at the table, strumming his new, magical mandolin. He sat, and his eyes darted about as if he were hiding something. There he… uh… you know… sat.

  After a time, they rose from the table and moved to the front door. Barmaid Barbie waved at them as they walked across the room, and the tavern owner nodded in their direction. They almost made it outside.

  But an old man in a long, drab-colored robe appeared in the door. The robe was old and tattered. The man’s head was bald and shiny as if he polished it at the bowling alley. His beard hung long and tucked in his belt. It’s said the nose never stops growing. If that’s true, this man was a thousand years old.

  “
Here we go,” Damico said.

  He put a hand on Lotianna’s shoulder, and she smiled knowingly (oh dear God).

  “What do you want, old man?” Omar asked.

  “Doom!” the old man shouted.

  You know, that didn’t do it. Read it with more oomph.

  “DOOM!”

  Still, not enough. Picture a crazy old hag pointing and bellowing in a bad fantasy film. Then crank up the volume until your ears bleed.

  “DOOM!”

  Come on. Really frighten the dog.

  “DOOOOOM!”

  The neighbor’s dog.

  “DOOOOOOOOM!”

  That’s the stuff.

  The tavern owner jumped. Barmaid Barbie gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Prithee, good sir?” Arithian asked.

  “DOOOOOOOOM!” the old man shouted again.

  “Is this going to go on a while?” Damico asked.

  “DOOOOOOOOM!” the old man bellowed, shaking the rafters.

  “I’m going to sit down,” Damico said.

  Lotianna sat next to him, scooting her chair in close. Omar and Gorthander joined them.

  “Really, grandfather—” Arithian said.

  “DOOOOOOOOM!”

  “Oh well,” Arithian said, then took a seat.

  “DOOOOOOOOM for this bar!” the old man shouted, his voice creaking like the hips of a hundred grandmothers. “DOOOOOOOOM for these people! DOOOOOOOOM for you all! DOOOOOOOOM for the entire world! DOOOOOOOOM!”

  “I think I’ve seen this scene in a movie somewhere,” Damico said.

  “Princess Bride?” Lotianna asked.

  “No, that was ‘Boo!’”

  “The Tick?”

  “‘Spoon!’”

  “Maybe—”

  “DOOOOOOOOM!”

  “We better pay attention to him,” Damico said.

  “He is trying!” the old man said. “Yes, he is. He is trying, and he will find it. He will find it unless you stop him. He will find it unless you find it first!”

  “And where is this magical Artifact?” Damico asked, skipping several pages of the script.