The Cursed Codex

by Matthew S. Cox

  The Cursed Codex

  Matthew S. Cox

  The Cursed Codex

  © 2017 – Matthew S. Cox

  All rights reserved

  The following is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any real persons, places, or magical creatures is purely coincidence.

  No portion of this text may be reproduced without permission from the author.

  Cover and interior art by Ricky Gunawan

  ISBN (ebook): 9781949174229

  ISBN (print): 9781949174236

  Contents

  1. Yard Sale

  2. Next Saturday

  3. The Dragon’s Cavern

  4. The Devouring

  5. Characters

  6. The NPC

  7. Powerful Dark Magic

  8. Obsession

  9. Tactical Advantage

  10. The Girl in the Shadows

  11. Meta Gaming

  12. The Edge of Nothing

  13. Cupcakes

  14. Age Progression

  15. The Locked Gate

  16. Imaginary Friends

  17. To Grandmother’s House

  18. Enchanted

  19. Margin Notes

  20. A Key to the Past

  21. Got it Bad

  22. Learning the Rules

  23. Girls Don’t Play

  24. Children

  25. Already Lost

  26. The River Alon

  27. The Dog and Crow

  28. Detention

  29. Little Ghost

  30. Hauling Chain

  31. The Ruins of Gygax

  32. Portal Magic

  33. Farewell

  34. Experience

  35. Complicated

  36. The Princess

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Matthew S. Cox

  1

  Yard Sale

  Invisible. That about summed up Keith Croft’s existence at Travis E. Hartford Middle School.

  Sometimes, people did see him, but only when he wanted them to; those moments usually left him with bruises or a black eye—like the one presently throbbing on the left side of his face. Despite his war wound, he’d survived another average day in an average town.

  Keith pedaled away from school, blissfully unaware of how un-average his life would soon become. The shouts of other kids faded into the distance behind him, leaving him alone with the scratch of bike tires on pavement and the clatter of a loose bolt neither he nor his father had been able to locate. A few blocks into his ride, he turned left and coasted down a hill lined with the oranges and browns of September trees, dreading having to explain the shiner to his parents.

  Unlike everyone at school, they paid attention to him.

  Teachers didn’t notice him because he generally followed the rules. Students didn’t notice him because he didn’t fit into any of the usual groups. He sorta played sports, but not often enough or well enough to be thought of as an athlete. He made decent grades, but they could be better. Mostly, school bored him. Keith had focus issues. His parents always told him he could be at the top of his class, but between not wanting to be thought of as a nerd and having a wandering mind, he cruised by on minimum effort. He never studied or took notes, but got Bs with the occasional C. Science class last year had been different. For once, the work had been interesting enough to hold his attention, and he got an A. He hoped this year’s science teacher would be cool, too.

  Keith was smart. Problem being, he didn’t like showing it.

  His clothes—a denim jacket, white shirt, sneakers, and jeans—appeared average enough to avoid the kind of mockery that befell some students for unfortunate fashion choices. Also, he usually kept his head down, avoiding conflict whenever possible—except for Tira. His best friend’s little sister got picked on a lot, and whenever that happened, Keith stopped being invisible.

  Stepping between her and the three morons didn’t always end in a fight, but today it had. He didn’t win. Three on one rarely ever ended well for the one. At least he took their attention off her.

  What kind of losers pick on a nine-year-old?

  Of course, he knew why those particular three losers picked on her as well as his friend Ashur: they came from Syria—or at least their parents had. As far as he knew, Ash and Tira had been born here. Neither had even a tiny trace of an accent or behaved differently from other kids. Only their appearance set them apart. Keith shook his head and stood on the pedals, picking up speed as he neared the bottom of the hill where the street leveled off.

  For eight years, he’d been happy in the background. In nine-ish months plus summer vacation, he’d officially be in high school. It kinda sucked to think about going from a king-of-the-hill eighth grader to a freshman. Social-status-conscious kids would have a rude awakening, but Keith Croft counted on remaining invisible.

  Wanting to delay explaining the bruise on his face, he followed a longer path that circled around the neighborhood and brought him past the park on the east side of town. The Comets—the local Little League team—had already taken over the baseball diamond, all in their green jerseys and white pants. He rolled straight on by, barely looking at them.

  Baseball bored him to death.

  His father had wanted him to play, made him join the team a few years ago. Like with his schoolwork, Keith had put in enough effort not to fail out, but didn’t really try to succeed. Thankfully, last year, his dad realized picking belly button lint with tweezers interested him more than sports, so he hadn’t made Keith sign up again this year. As far as he knew, the team didn’t miss him.

  Invisible. Another random thirteen-year-old with light brown hair and brown eyes. One of millions. Well, maybe he stood out a little, since his hair reached his shoulders.

  He reversed the pedals at the base of the hill, bleeding off speed while leaning into a left turn that skidded the tires. The rear end of a parked blue pickup truck came at him fast; Keith braced himself, expecting to kiss it. An instant before disaster, his tires gripped the road. He blurred past the Ford with inches to spare and skidded to a stop.

  Keith glanced back at the truck. “Holy crap!”

  Once he caught his breath from the scare, he continued riding in the middle of the road.

  Meadow Grove was the kind of little suburban neighborhood where a whole stickball game could happen on just about any street and probably not have to pause for a car. Everyone thought it a quiet, friendly town where kids still ran around trick-or-treating on Halloween and no one batted an eye at a boy making his way home from school alone.

  Of course, his friend Elliot worried constantly about ‘creeps,’ but the worst thing to happen in Meadow Grove as far back as Keith could remember had been a bunch of seniors from the high school pelting one of the local police cruisers with rotten pumpkins on mischief night.

  He looked forward to being a little older and having a car so he could go to the mall a couple miles down the road closer to the city. On days like this—that promised to be boring—he could buy a new game or something without having to beg one of his parents for a ride, though that would also require getting an actual job. Mowing lawns around here didn’t generate much cash.

  At the end of the block, he swerved hard into a right turn, slipped past a parked Mustang, and steered for the crosswalk ramp to avoid the curb. He caught a little air cutting the corner and landed back on the road. The turn put him on Moore Street, a few blocks and two turns away from where his usual path home met Nellis Ave, the street he lived on.

  Moore had a lot of old, huge houses with massive sycamore trees in their front yards. Giant branches still not fully surrendered to autumn surrounded him with a rustling of greens, yellows, and browns overhead. Riding his bik
e down Moore made him imagine being the pilot of a fighter ship launching from a space station. The tunnel of trees became an access shaft leading out to space in his mind, his bicycle a Falcon 94.

  At least for a moment. A passing woman gave him an odd stare for making laser noises, and embarrassment transported him back to boring old reality.

  Most of the homes here stood three stories tall and had an old-world style that gave off the mood of a horror movie. Many elderly people lived here, since it had to be one of the first streets ever built in Meadow Grove. He tried to avoid being around here at night since it got way creepy, though his friends always dragged him here on dares.

  Up ahead on the left, a large collection of tables and people caught his eye. He rarely took this route home, and the sight of the apparent yard sale pulled at his curiosity as well as offered another distraction from dealing with his mother asking about the bruise. He leaned left, steering toward the curb, which he jumped, hopping the bike up onto the sidewalk.

  The yard sale sat in front of a house painted a dull shade of blue-grey. Decorative white elements around the third floor roof gave him the willies, like that home in the movie where blood came out of the walls. So many leaves littered the yard they’d blown into dunes, and a mangy, overgrown swath of grass wrapped around the right side, threatening to devour anyone who dared set foot in it. Runaway ivy shrouded the trees in both front and back yards. Gnarled wooden creepers beneath the green laced around the trunks like crone fingers. Clearly, whoever lived here didn’t take care of it.

  An old woman sat in a lawn chair behind three folding tables close to the front porch. She resembled a merchant from one of Elliot’s video games. Her long, grey hair draped over a blue shawl and a dark navy dress with little while dots. Probably purchased from Grandmas ’R Us. She gave off friendliness, not what he’d expected from someone living in the creepiest house in the world.

  Four women around the same age as his mother picked among baubles, kitchen gadgets, some dolls, and a bunch of clothing laid out on the tables to the right.

  Keith gravitated to the leftmost table, where a bunch of cardboard boxes held books as well as physical puzzles like a Rubik’s cube. He straddled the bike, walking it closer while browsing. Next to the boxes, four plastic models of military aircraft grabbed his attention, even though they seemed old. He recognized one as an F14 Tomcat since his dad loved that movie with Tom Cruise. A set of model paints appeared to be for sale as well, but one look at the bottles told him they’d dried out, probably before he’d been born.

  Poor old lady. She has no idea they’re shot.

  A metal tin of Prismacolor pencils intrigued him enough to open it; most had been used, but none more than a quarter of the way. Hmm. Maybe. Keith did like to draw. He set the case down. The old woman smiled at him while haggling the price of a bunch of sweaters and T-shirts with a heavyset red-haired woman.

  Keith pawed at the box of books. Some of the novels he recognized from school’s summer reading lists. Fahrenheit 451, Catcher in the Rye, and so on. A large, shiny book stuck out of another box nearest the model planes, its cover patterned with blue scales. He grabbed and tugged it free, wide-eyed at the detailed artwork that made it look like some ancient wizard’s spellbook. It had to be over an inch thick and heavy enough to knock someone out with.

  Crypts and Creepers: Second Edition adorned a scroll below a giant monster eye. Below it, smaller text read: Gamemaster’s Codex.

  “Huh… This looks like a game, but it’s a book.”

  Keith flicked down the kickstand and used his bike for a chair while thumbing through the pages at maps, cities, dungeon creation ideas, spell tables, traps, and so on. When he hit the rules section, his mind went into overdrive. The idea of a monster-smashing game that didn’t involve any kind of computer or console hit him like whoa. He’d always loved reading sci-fi and fantasy books, and this game looked an awful lot like that… only whoever got to be gamemaster wound up basically writing the book any way they wanted. Another page had pictures of dice in weird shapes, not simply boring cubes like in the Yahtzee game Dad whipped out every New Year’s.

  He snapped the book closed and tucked it under his arm before peering into the box. A velveteen pouch, bright pink, emitted a plastic rattle when he picked it up by strings. Other than the color, it resembled a medieval coin purse. He pulled it open and peered in at a mass of multicolored plastic dice.

  “Hello, young man,” said the old woman, much closer than he’d expected.

  Keith jumped. “Uhh, hi.”

  She took in a breath and let it out, seeming sad. “I hope you’re doing all right. That’s a bit of a nasty shiner you’ve got.”

  “Huh?”

  The woman tapped her cheek about where Kurt Heller had punched him.

  “Oh. Yeah, it’s okay.” He rubbed the bruise. “Got into a fight at school.”

  “You don’t look like the sort of young man to start a fight,” said the old woman, her expression shifting to concern.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Naw, these guys keep picking on my friend’s sister. She’s only in third grade, but they’re my age.”

  “That’s quite gallant of you to stand up for her.”

  “Thanks.” Keith looked down at the Crypts and Creepers book. “How much do you want for this? And maybe those dice?”

  “Well…” The elder rested her hands on the box, and got a long-distance stare. “Sarah loved that game.”

  He scratched his head. “She got bored with it?”

  “No. She…” The old woman hesitated, pressing a hand to her throat, fighting grief. “She’s not here.”

  After a moment, Keith eased the book back into the box despite wanting it bad. “I’m sorry. You don’t look like you really want to sell it.”

  “No… no… I’m being a foolish old woman.” She looked down. “Sarah’s gone.”

  “Who was she?” asked Keith.

  “My granddaughter. This stuff here”—she gestured at the boxes and the model planes—“has been in her room for years. I… haven’t had the heart to be rid of it, but, you know, it’s foolish to hold on to grief that long.”

  Keith looked down. “Sorry. She got hurt?”

  “Sarah went missing a long time ago… in 1987, quite a bit before you were even born. She’d be forty-four this year, old enough to be your mother.”

  “Missing,” said Keith, staring at the box. He pictured the stuff sitting in a bedroom, untouched for years. The model planes felt kinda weird for a girl’s room, but whatever. Maybe she was a nerd. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it cool that a girl had been into military planes. “I’m sorry. That’s really horrible.”

  “Thank you. She and her friends were quite fond of those books.” She glanced at the box holding the C&C manual, the dice, and a bunch of spiral-bound notebooks.

  The woman’s air of sadness deepened, so Keith leaned closer and lowered his voice so the ‘moms’ didn’t overhear. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing a young boy like you needs to worry about.” She patted the box. “I think Sarah would want you to have them. She’s outgrown this stuff.”

  “You think she’s still alive? They never found her?” asked Keith.

  “Well, no.” The woman fumbled a tissue out of her sweater pocket and dabbed at her eye.

  Keith cringed. “Sorry. You looked so sad. I was just hoping she might be okay somewhere.”

  She forced another smile, not quite looking at him, while making a mmm sound.

  “It’s not your fault, Mrs… uhh. Sorry. I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

  “Mrs. Norris. You’re Vicky’s son, aren’t you? Croft?”

  “Yeah.” Keith nodded. “I live down that way, left at the end of the block, then a right on Nellis Ave. Not too far away. Hey do you want me to cut your grass or do these leaves?”

  “That’s quite kind of you. Not many young men your age have time for that anymore. Sarah used to shovel snow ou
t of driveways in the wintertime for a few dollars.”

  Keith pulled one of his handmade business cards out of his jacket pocket. “Here. My number’s on it if you want me to come by and help you with the yard.”

  Mrs. Norris took the card, holding it close to read.

  “I have a cart I hook up to the bike. Got a mower and stuff, so it’s okay if you don’t have one.”

  “That’s good. I haven’t been to my shed in years. Bryan used to do that, but he isn’t around anymore.” Mrs. Norris scowled.

  “Is Bryan your son? Kinda lame he doesn’t help you.”

  Mrs. Norris stared at Keith with an annoyed glower. He leaned away wide-eyed, but she relaxed, sighing. “Oh, it’s not your fault. Kids are curious. Bryan is my son. He was Sarah’s father. Right after she disappeared, he swore she ran away, but I know her. Sarah wouldn’t have run away.”

  “I’m really sorry she’s missing,” said Keith.

  “She disappeared before you messed your first diaper.” Mrs. Norris chuckled. “No sense you getting all sad and mopey like me.” She patted the box. “I think she would’ve wanted you to have this stuff. It gave her many hours of fun. Those friends of hers were always in her room. I can still hear ’em yellin’ about ‘naturals twenty’ or some such thing.” Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes. “I still don’t know what the devil that means, but I remember it. Those kids used to all chant ‘critical’ at the top of their lungs.”