“This is, of course, a Celtic adventure,” Jay Omega told the party. “Your leader is Tratyn Runewind himself.”
Scattered applause came from the audience.
“Your mission, should you decide to accept it—” Jay saw Marion frown and shake her head. Get serious, he told himself, this has to be believable. He tried again:
“The adventure is to … er …” He glanced at the notes on the first page of his plot outline. “Oh, yes! You have to fight a group of Norsemen who have taken over Scotland’s sacred island of lona. That’s where the Scottish kings are buried, and there’s a monastery there.”
“It ought to be dynamite for magic,” Bill Fox remarked.
“Okay … You’re standing on a rocky beach on the west coast of the Scottish mainland …”
Marion leaned over and whispered to the lieutenant. “You probably understand this already, but he has given them their assignment, and he has just told them where they are. Now they decide how to proceed.”
The commandeering of a boat to take the adventurers to lona was relatively uneventful. In his role as omnipotent game-controller, Jay Omega gave them a little rough weather to contend with on the crossing, but nothing to really worry about.
“Now,” said Marion. “Try to picture all of them on a little Scottish fishing boat, crossing the choppy sea.”
Jay Omega was also trying to picture the scene. “Let’s see …” he stammered, unnerved by the eight pairs of eyes waiting for his instructions. “It’s a very gray day … sort of spitting rain, windy. The boat is lurching in the waves. …”
Marion leaned over and touched Jay’s shoulder. “Now!” she hissed.
“Tratyn Runewind is seasick,” Jay Omega added, trying to sound casual. “He’s puking over the side.”
Bernard Buchanan looked puzzled. “Tratyn Runewind is seasick, but—” He shrugged. Talking back to a DM could be hazardous to your health.
Jay Omega glanced at his notes for “Arrival at lona.” Marion had augmented the original adventure with a few touches of her own, for which her doctorate in folklore had proved very helpful. She sat on the Macintosh table behind the Dungeon Master’s chair, trying to convey no emotion at all in her expression. Oracles, she felt, should be objective. Lieutenant Ayhan, looking less confused, was equally impassive. While the descriptions were being given, he had waved a dollar bill at a boy in the audience and had pantomimed drinking. The kid nodded his comprehension and took off with the money.
“As the boat comes in to the shallows of the island—I don’t know how far out—” Jay turned to Marion. “Would they have to worry about rocks near the beach?”
Marion scribbled a note and handed it to him. It said: “Don’t be so hesitant! In this game, the truth is whatever you say it is! Be positive!”
Jay Omega folded the note and slid it into his pocket. Mustering up his most commanding expression, the one he used for discussing grades with undergrads, he said, “As the boat nears shore, you see a beautiful black horse wading in the surf.”
“The Sleeping Warriors!” muttered Diefenbaker, remembering yesterday’s adventure. Today he was a middle-aged cleric whose specialty was magic. “Thomas the Rhymer collects black horses to give to King Arthur and his army. That horse should be magic. Catch it!”
The elf with the highest dexterity rating said to Jay Omega: “I leap over the side of the boat and I try to grab the horse’s mane.” He rolled the dice to determine whether probability was on his side. “Did I make it?”
Jay Omega almost said, “How should I know whether you made it or not?” but then he realized that it was up to him to decide things like that, and because he had the notes about the adventure, he knew something about the horse that the players did not. “Yes,” he nodded. “You have the horse’s mane, but you can’t let go. It starts to swim out to sea. It is now level with the boat.”
“Okay.” Ayhan whispered to Marion. “That kid jumped off the boat to try to catch a horse. Now how did Dr. Omega know that he can’t let go, and that the horse will swim out to sea?”
Marion looked exasperated. “Because! I told you! The Dungeon Master is like God. He can make anything happen if he wants to. In this case, he has the script, which tells him that the horse is really a demon.” She grinned. “I came up with that.”
Sensing the danger to their comrade, the adventurers whispered among themselves on how to effect a rescue. No one offered to dive in after him.
“I consult my magic book,” said Diefenbaker quickly, holding up an imaginary volume. “Do I find Thomas the Rhymer?”
No,” said Jay Omega. “Because … because …”
“You’re six hundred years too early,” said Marion. “Thomas the Rhymer is twelfth century.”
“So I look under Water Horses,” said Diefenbaker, pretending to flip pages.
“They’re using imaginary books?” said Ayhan.
“Sort of. Diefenbaker is a cleric, which means he is also a scholar, so there’s a chance that he’ll be able to find some information that will help with the problem. He pretends to consult the book, and if Jay feels like letting him have the answer, he will pretend to let him find it in the book.”
“This sounds like the way city hall operates,” grinned Ayhan. His Coke arrived just then, and he took it with a smile of thanks, and waved away the change.
Jay Omega decided to give Diefenbaker a break. “Your magic book says ‘See Kelpie.’”
“Kelpie!” Mona, the female warrior, who read nothing but folklore, clutched at Diefenbaker’s arm. “They’re demons. They play around in the water’s edge until somebody gets on their backs, and then they drown them!”
Marion nodded approvingly, pleased at finding another folklore enthusiast present.
“I am running to the side of the boat with my flask of holy water!” cried Diefenbaker. “I throw the holy water on the kelpie.” He rolled the dice.
Jay Omega picked a chart at random and pretended to study it. Real Dungeon Masters actually used charts to determine probability, but Marion had said that he might as well fake it, because otherwise things would get too complicated. “Okay,” he said confidently, as if the chart had settled things, “the kelpie had started to dive into deep water, but you caught him on the rump with your holy water, and he disappears. Now who’s going to rescue the waterlogged elf?”
“Can’t I swim?” asked the elf.
“You’re unconscious.”
“What about Tratyn Runewind?” asked Clifford Morgan. “He swims, and he’s stronger than all of us put together.”
“Which one is he?” asked Ayhan.
“Runewind? None of them. He’s what is called a non-player character. It’s up to Jay to tell them what he does and says. They just imagine his presence.”
“How can you have an imaginary player?” Ayhan demanded.
Marion shrugged. “They’re in an imaginary boat, aren’t they?”
Jay Omega tossed dice of his own. “Ah, yes. Tratyn Runewind. He tries to get to the side, but the boat lurches in the waves, and he falls and hits his head against the anchor.” He braced himself for a storm of argument from the players, but there was only a stunned silence. Good, thought Jay Omega, maybe this will actually work.
Little gasps came from the adventurers as they realized that their leader had been injured so early in the game. “Roll for damage,” somebody said gravely.
“I get it!” whispered Ayhan, sipping his drink. “They’re checking probability to see how bad he was hurt.”
“Lieutenant, you’re catching on,” smiled Marion.
“Sixteen,” said Bill Fox.
Jay Omega glanced at Marion. “He’ll be out for four hours game-time, and he’s down ten hit points,” he told them. Too many damage points could have fatal results—but this one, while serious, was not life-threatening.
“Am I drowning?” wailed the elf, who was still flailing in the sea near the boat.
The party looked worried. Maybe this wasn
’t going to be such a Monty Haul dungeon after all.
Donnie McRory tossed his clothes into his suitcase, wondering if he ought to call the British Embassy just to let them know he’d been questioned in a murder case. Probably not, he decided. The police hadn’t even asked him to postpone his next booking, just to leave a list of the places he’d be staying for the rest of the tour. Still, it had been an annoying interview.
“I suppose I’ll have to call Scotland Yard to verify this information,” Lieutenant Ayhan had warned the suspect.
“Bloody hell!” moaned Donnie McRory. “Don’t you Yanks know anything? New Scotland Yard-New Scotland Yard, mind you—only deals with crimes in London.”
“Sorry,” grinned Ayhan. “My investigations are more likely to involve the Salvation Army flophouse than Interpol, so I’m not up on these things.”
“Yes, well, when you figure out who to call, by all means check me out. I assure you that I am no more than a name on the Scottish Archaeological Society’s mailing list. And I’ve done my share of charity benefits in my time, but shooting a bloke in the States just to get a donation for a lot of moldy castles is not my idea of philanthropy.”
“Just the same,” said Ayhan, not entirely convinced, “we must stay in touch.”
Donnie McRory sighed and shook his head. It was just as well that he was leaving this loony bin, before things got even more cocked up. He wondered if his agent would consider a murder charge good publicity. Probably not. The punkers would thrive on it, but as a folksinger he attracted the more sedate crowd himself. Aging ’Sixties types who didn’t want to let go of Back to the Earth. Anyway, the whole thing was too bloody stupid. Why would anyone shoot a fantasy writer? Probably one of the Martians had gone off his head. He shouldn’t be easy to spot in that crowd, then. “I wish you luck in your investigation, Mr. Ayhan,” he had told the policeman at the end of the interview. “I think you should be looking for a crazy person, and it’ll be like trying to find a tree in a forest.”
Ayhan had only smiled. “I’ve got my computers working on it.”
Watching the D&D game from the sidelines, Brenda Lindenfeld smiled to herself, basking in a feeling of exhilaration that she usually got only from two scoops of Swiss chocolate almond ice cream. It was an unlikely reaction to occur from staring at Richard Faber—certainly no one had previously gotten much pleasure from contemplating him, but Brenda felt that he was the answer to prayer. He was still as unattractive as ever, a dismal bed partner, and gratingly boring, but she had learned that he was majoring in computer engineering. Brenda saw the words spelled out in a string of little credit cards across her mind. Finding a computer-anything major was like winning the state lottery—and the odds were better. These microchip nerds were paid indecent amounts of money. Brenda wasn’t sure just what it was they did for all this money, but then she didn’t care, either. If you could manage to marry one, you were home free. No more parents to nag you about school; no more hassles to support yourself on a minimum wage job; no more worries about how to pay your long-distance phone bill. Brenda didn’t think she ought to take a chance on letting this one get away. She’d better get pregnant.
During a lull in the action, Richard Faber looked over to the sidelines at his beloved, watching from among the spectators. He gave her a little wave, thinking how lucky he was to have found such a soul-mate; and Brenda, thinking of a big-screen TV and the complete collection of Star Trek videos, smiled back.
Since Jay Omega was handling things so well on his own, Marion was taking an Oracle break, leaving Lieutenant Ayhan in charge of miracles. She had slipped out to the Coke machine in the hall where Joel Schumann was feeding a succession of nickels into the money slot. “Getting rid of my small change,” he explained. “I think there’s a hole in these jeans. How’s the professor doing?”
“Surprisingly well for a novice,” said Marion. “He’s very adaptable.”
“Yeah, he’s a nice guy,” Joel conceded. “Even students like him. Are you two engaged or something?”
“Or something,” Marion agreed. “We’ll let you know in two years.”
Joel looked puzzled. “Two years?”
“Right. That’s when we both come up for tenure. If we both get it, then everything’s fine, and if we both get turned down, that’s okay, too. But if only one of us gets it…”
She might as well have been speaking Bantu to a puzzled Joel. “Yeah, well, I gotta get back to this program I’m running on the IBM in there,” said Joel. “I hope it works out for you two.”
Marion smiled. “That’s why I keep writing journal articles.”
In the high-tech room the mood among the adventurers was tense. Everyone was down at least two hit points, meaning that their chances of survival had diminished greatly, and the only thing anyone had gained thus far on the expedition was an ivory chessman they found on the beach at lona. An hour and a half had passed, hitting them with a succession of insect swarms, rock falls, rainstorms, and other unheroic inconveniences. Diefenbaker found something else quite unusual. According to his legend card, his healing spells did not work on the elf’s sprained ankle, and the woman warrior was more upset by maggots in the food supply than she had been by the rock fall.
“Things are looking pretty bad for the group,” whispered Ayhan to Marion. “Imaginary maggots and all.”
“Yes, Jay is giving them a run of bad luck,” Marion agreed. “Sort of like Job in the Bible, isn’t it?”
At a quarter to twelve some of the spectators began to wander away. Brenda Lindenfeld was signaling frantically to Richard Faber.
“Can we break for lunch?” Faber asked the Dungeon Master.
“No,” said Jay Omega. “We play straight through. Until you win or die.”
A few more people got up and left.
“Is it okay if I go to lunch now?” asked Lieutenant Ayhan, tapping the Dungeon Master on the shoulder.
“No,” said Jay Omega without turning around. “You stay, too. I’ll explain later.”
Lieutenant Ayhan groaned. “Now what?”
Marion grinned at him. “How about an imaginary sandwich?”
Jay Omega ignored the looks of discomfort on the faces of the adventurers. Those who skipped breakfast for economy reasons were experiencing very real misery. The Dungeon Master consulted his game plan, and announced: “You are walking through a meadow on the way to the lona monastery, and up on the hill, you see a stream of water.”
“Do we see anyone there?” asked Bill Fox. “Weapons ready, everyone.”
“No,” said Jay Omega. “You don’t see anything except a couple of rowan trees, rocks, and the creek.”
“I say we keep walking,” said Faber to the other adventurers.
Jay Omega paused for effect. “Tratyn Runewind claims to have seen something.”
The adventurers looked alert, waiting for the Dungeon Master to produce a clue as to the next situation.
“We ask him what he sees,” said Diefenbaker.
Jay Omega relayed the information from the non-player character Runewind, whose actions and utterances could only be conveyed through the Dungeon Master. “He says it looks like a woman washing clothes in the stream. She is dressed in green, and she is weeping. The clothes leave trails of red in the water.”
“Oh, blast!” whispered the woman warrior, recognizing the description from her folklore text. “The Bean-Nighe! Has she seen us yet?”
“Wait a minute!” said Clifford Morgan. “What’s a Ben-Nee-Yah?”
“They’re supposed to be the ghosts of women who have died in childbirth,” the folklore fiend explained. “They are always seen washing the blood-stained clothes of those about to die …”
“Why did Tratyn Runewind see her, when we didn’t?” Morgan demanded.
Mona shrugged. “Maybe he’s …” Her voice trailed away when she saw the look on Morgan’s face.
Jay Omega pretended not to hear. “You see a stone tower on a hill in front of you. It seems to be i
n ruins.”
Bonnenberger peeked through the door of the high-tech room, and saw the D&D game in progress. He had decided that watching a few minutes of D&D might be preferable to seeing The Wrath of Khan for the seventh time. Besides, someone might have a sandwich that was going to waste.
“Pardon,” he said to a scowling Brenda Lindenfeld, who was trying to edge her way past him, “Lunch break soon?”
“Apparently not,” she snapped. “Apparently he’s going to keep them in there until they drop!” Brenda’s cash reserves of two dollars and twelve cents would not cover the lunch in a Chinese restaurant promised her by the unavoidably detained Richard Faber. Brenda wished he would die so that he could buy her lunch.
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