"It doesn't matter," Ron said. "It's a tradition that's been passed down. Sacred and all that."
"This is really interesting," Gwen said. "So is this like a private alcohol tasting thing or something like that? Or is it a fraternity deal?"
She eyed Ron and Doug as though she had trouble believing there was any fraternity that would take them. Mike only knew of one fraternity that might take them, but as far as he knew Lambda Lambda Lambda wasn't an actual fraternity in the real world.
More's the pity. The Tri-Lambs seemed like they had a good time. Well, minus all the creepy shit they did. That movie hadn't aged well now that he really thought about it.
"It's really not all that big a deal," Mike said. "In fact I think Ron and Doug were about to head out, weren’t you guys?"
He should've known better than to have expected either Ron or Doug to take a hint. Doug stood there staring at Gwen's tits, completely oblivious to the social faux pas he was committing. Meanwhile Ron had picked up on what was going on, that Mike wanted them to get the hell out of there sooner rather than later, but if anything his grin got wider. It was a smile that said he realized exactly what Mike was trying to keep the pretty girl from English class from learning, and so of course he was about to reveal it.
Not out of any sense of malice, either. Ron was simply a huge believer in someone not hiding who they were, and that included revealing truths that were core to a person’s personality that might be a touch embarrassing in the right company. Like, say, Mike’s habit of staying up late playing roleplaying games fueled by pizza and caffeinated soda that fit several cheat meals into one hedonistic evening.
"Nothing like that," Ron said. "Sure we have a few drinks, but it's mostly an excuse to get together and roll the old dice, you know?"
"…I'm afraid I don't know. Are you talking like a gambling thing? Isn’t that illegal?”
Ron threw his head back and laughed again. It was a roar that seemed to fill the entire area, even though they were outside so the area he filled included the entire universe. His booming voice was just that big.
"Definitely not gambling," Ron said. "We're talking Games and Goblins!” A gentleman's game! The greatest game ever conceived! Forget all the beeps and boops and tiny children screeching about the chastity of your mother in video games. This is a game that relies on theater of the mind!”
He finished by putting a finger to his temple to drive that last point home. Mike rolled his eyes. He’d heard Ron’s proselytizing of Games and Goblins before, and it got more annoying the more times he saw it.
Gwen's eyebrows lowered. She looked between Ron and Doug, and then to Mike. She took in Ron with his scraggly ginger appearance, his hulking figure encased in what he liked to call his protective layer of fat, and his utilikilt. Then she turned to Doug who was a textbook example of a nerd. Like his picture would be right next to the definition in the dictionary. Then finally she turned to Mike and was clearly trying to reconcile the guy who worked out and took care of himself with the two dorks who stood before her.
“So you’re saying you play these games too?” she asked, talking slow.
Mike sighed. He’d been afraid it was going to come to this, and he felt a powerful urge to hit Ron over the head with one of the many prop replica weapons the huge man had on display around his apartment.
Not that he would ever do something like that. For one Ron spent most of the small amount of extra cash he got working as a TA for the history department on those replica swords, and for another Mike well knew that Ron was well versed in their use thanks to his other favorite pastime which involved freaking out the normals in various open areas of campus fighting with plastic swords and armor.
Gwen covered her mouth. She was clearly trying not to giggle. Mike fought the urge to roll his eyes or tell her that it wasn’t like that. There was no point because it was exactly like that, and if she was the kind of girl who had a problem with someone playing a dorky game then that was that.
Though his inner fat kid was crowing triumphantly about how he’d been right all along. Christine’s ghost was also in there getting in some shots about how he’d never find anyone better than her, but he was used to that too.
“Go on,” Mike said with a sigh. “I’ve heard it all before, but get it out if you need to.”
“Get what out?” Gwen asked, regaining some of her composure.
“Whatever you were about to say,” Mike said. “I know. It’s dorky. It’s sad. I’m going to be a virgin forever.”
He blushed at that last one. He was hardly a virgin for all that the inner fat kid had tried to sabotage that over the years. Only now she was going to think he was, and he couldn’t go back and try to amend that statement without sounding like the kind of creep Doug usually was.
Her eyebrow arched as her eyes ran over him in a way that almost had him blushing. “A virgin forever? I seriously doubt that, but whatever you guys do in the privacy of your own home is your business.”
She walked past, but not before she moved a hand out and ran it along one of the biceps Doug had been feeling up earlier. It felt a lot better when she was doing it than when Doug was doing it.
“You have fun tonight,” she said. “I’ll think about you while I’m working the pole down at my mysterious job.”
And with that she was gone, along with any sort of moment that might’ve been brewing between them before Ron and Doug came along and ruined everything.
Still, she might be going, but as with Lisa or that strange hottie who’d been checking him out earlier in the gym it was one of those situations where Mike didn’t mind watching her leave even if he did hate to see her go.
“You don’t have a chance man,” Doug said.
Mike turned on Doug, finally letting out some of the annoyance he probably should’ve let loose earlier when Doug was creeping on her.
“Stop projecting,” he said. “And stop creeping on girls I know.”
“What are you talking about?” Doug asked, trying to sound defensive.
It came out all wrong. He only sounded that way because he thought that’s how he was supposed to sound when someone was mad at him, and not because he actually understood that what he’d done was wrong or anything.
“I’m talking about you being a creep. Like the time you memorized some girl’s screen name when I was chatting with her on Battle.net and started sending her creepy PMs? Remember that?”
“Hey man,” Doug said. “If she didn’t want…”
Ron wrapped a beefy arm around Doug that muffled whatever he was about to say.
“We’ve talked about this before. You just did a no no. Now take your social ostracization like a man,” Ron said.
Whatever Doug said in reply was muffled as Ron dragged him down the sidewalk, but not before shooting Mike an apologetic shrug.
Mike sighed, then turned to head for home. He had some prep to do before game night tonight. A game night that wasn’t going to involve hot girls from his English class.
Only as he turned to leave he stopped. There was a hint of movement up in the sky. He would’ve brushed it off as a plane or something, but it seemed too big. Like if there was a plane up there then it was way too low and coming in hot.
When he looked up he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was like something straight out of one of their campaigns. A horse trailing flames from its hooves carried a rider in dark robes across the sky.
Mike blinked, and that moment of hiding behind his eyeballs was enough to send the strange rider back to wherever it came from.
Weird. Totally fucking weird. Mike wasn’t sure what was going on today that he was losing it like this, but he figured it was high time he headed home.
And maybe had a good stiff drink before he headed out for game night.
4
Toga Girl
Mike was in his own world as he walked along the jagged sidewalks that hadn't been maintained as well as they probably should have. Almost as though the city didn’t
care about the neighborhoods around campus.
Things had been crazy today. Lisa acting kinda-maybe flirty in the gym. That pretty blonde who’d been checking him out. Gwen acting like she wanted to invite him over before his dorky friends interrupted.
Those impossible things he'd seen.
He was pretty sure he was going crazy, because only a crazy person would see a goblin skulking through the bushes outside the gym. Only a crazy person would see a robed rider moving through the blue sky.
Well, a crazy person or someone who was taking some really good shit while listening to Johnny Cash. Either way he knew he hadn’t taken any good stuff.
He shook his head. He was so busy concentrating on his footing that he didn't notice the girl in the front of him until he was on top of her.
When he did finally almost bump into her he looked up and his brain short-circuited. His mouth worked and his brain tried to say its right words, an apology of some sort, but his mind was having some trouble getting things to go down the lines of communication to his mouth.
His first thought was he was looking at a sorority girl who’d gotten lost on her way to a toga party. It was Friday night, after all, and he was given to understand that toga parties were the sort of soirée that some of the local Greek organizations on campus unironically engaged in even while the rest of the world made fun of them mercilessly for it.
Only this girl looked different. She seemed young, but there was something about her eyes that seemed old.
Ancient.
Mike shivered, and his brain finally started working again. He totally recognized her. The girl from the gym earlier, but in an outfit that was both less and more revealing than the impossibly tight gym clothes she’d been in earlier.
"Um, excuse me?” Mike said, not sure if he was excusing himself or asking who the hell she was.
She smiled. A thin smile. Really just the corner of her mouth quirking up.
"You are excused," she said.
She made no move to get out of his way. Which highlighted one of the awkward things about walking on the sidewalks in the areas immediately surrounding campus.
All the sidewalks were narrow affairs that’d been designed back in the immediate aftermath of World War II when the city had been a manufacturing hub and not a meth-riddled monument to the rise of the rustbelt. All the housing had been thrown up quickly to cater to a bunch of men who were coming home to fuck their best girl, get a job in the factory, and do the best they could to forget the horrors of war by numbing themselves with television and consumerism and all the other neat things American society had perfected in the ‘50s.
“Um, So this isn't going to work very well if we're standing here in each other's way," Mike finally said.
Not that he minded standing here. No, any moment he got to look at this girl was a moment well spent as far as he was concerned. Like it was getting to the point where he had to adjust how he was standing so he didn’t accidentally show off just how excited he was to see her.
The girl was a looker, that was for sure. Her hair seemed to almost glow in the fading sunlight. Her face was painfully beautiful. Like it went beyond model or movie star good looks, though that could just be that he was seeing those looks live and in person rather than on a screen.
And those curves. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to pour herself into that toga or make it conform to her body like that. The thing featured a plunging neckline up above and a slash that showed off plenty of her legs and the curve of her hips below.
Again her mouth quirked up. As though she was amused by his consternation.
"I should think not, Mike Arnold," she said.
Mike was so busy looking at the girl’s cleavage while trying not to look like he was staring at her cleavage, she had a plunging neckline that was quite an accomplishment given has limited understanding of the engineering involved in turning a bedsheet into a toga based on what he’d learned during homecoming events in high school, that he didn't realize at first that she’d just called him by his name.
When he did his eyes moved from her chest to her face just in time to catch eyes that glowed a deep purple for a moment. Only a moment, but it was enough to make him wonder considering all the other weird shit he’d already seen today. At least she smiled with the eye roll, so maybe she was more amused than annoyed.
Clearly he hadn't been as surreptitious or sneaky about sneaking glances at her chest as he'd thought.
"How do you know my name?" he asked. He looked around for obvious spots to hide a cameraman. "Is this a prank or something? Is some asshole going to come out recording on his phone and saying this is just a prank, bro, or something stupid like that? Because I'm not cool with that and I do not give you permission to use my face or image or…"
She held up a hand and he stopped. There was something about this woman that left him with the impression that when she ordered someone to be quiet it was a good idea to follow that order.
"The games are about to begin Mike Arnold," she said, sounding serious for a moment. "And I am not going to lose. Not this time!"
Her voice changed to a hiss as she said that. That wasn't what interested him though. No, of far more interest was how she leaned forward causing a little bit of swinging and jiggling. He got the feeling those things were a lot bigger under that toga than they appeared, and he found himself thinking about various scenarios that might result in him finding out.
"Eyes up here Mike,” she said.
His eyes moved up. This time she looked more frustrated than amused.
"Sorry, but are you talking about game night?” he asked.
Maybe this girl overheard the conversation with Ron, Doug, and Gwen. Then again only a dead person wouldn’t be able to hear that conversation considering how loud Ron was.
"Something like that," she said, again with one of those thin smiles that promised things. "But then again it's nothing like what you could ever imagine. This is going to be so much more than you rolling your dice with your friends."
"I'm sorry, but who are you and how do you know so much about me?" he asked.
He figured as far as stalkers went he could’ve done worse. Better to have a hot crazy stalker than otherwise. Then again if a hot crazy stalker decided to pull a Kathy Bates then he figured he was just as dead whether or not the girl looked like this hottie in front of him or like Kathy Bates.
“When you play your primitive games on your primitive screens or using your paper and plastic you know all about your characters, right?” she asked.
Mike didn’t like where this was going. Or all that talk about primitive gaming devices. He’d watched enough science fiction to know that when someone impossibly attractive came along talking about primitive earth technology it wasn’t good.
“Um, I guess?” he asked.
“Same thing,” she said. "I've been watching everyone at this fine institution of learning. Looking for someone in possession of worthy traits that would work well in the game once the simulation changes.”
The simulation? What the fuck? That uneasy feeling that’d been lurking in the back of Mike’s brain ever since he saw that fucking goblin was turning to full blown panic now.
"Um…"
“I believe it’s time for player selection,” she said. “That’s what you call it, right? This is going to be so much more interesting now that you have a more developed concept of gaming!”
She reached out and poked him on the chest. Which caused an electric current to run through him. That was good for a touch of panic. He figured an electric current was the last thing he needed running through his chest.
"What the…”
Warmth spread through him. It was the most amazing feeling in the world. It was like the one time he'd tried smoking pot, only so much better because it seemed to energize him while making him feel like a million bucks instead of disappointing him with the lack of anything happening for a few minutes and then being hit with a sort of hazy feeling that made hi
m not want to do much of anything.
This was different. This was like he was getting hit with that high, but right along with it was a feeling he could conquer the world rather than a feeling that he wanted to have a good lie down on the couch and imagine how wonderful life would be if he could work up the energy to reach over to the table for some chips.
"What the…"
"I choose you, Mike Arnold," she said. Then she actually grinned. "I believe that's how you say it in this time, correct?"
Mike had trouble coming up with a response. He felt too good. Like he had a good buzz going. Mike was no stranger to the drink. He figured if ever there was a time when he could get away with both exercising and drinking to excess it was college. Sure there were guys with PhDs in Internet Broscience who’d be horrified that he combined lifting and drinking so regularly, but he figured what was the point of exercising if he didn't enjoy himself from time to time?
He was really enjoying himself now. Enjoying the feeling that woman's touch gave him. He was enjoying looking at her. Dangerous curves didn't even begin to describe her. She had a killer body, the kind of body he always enjoyed watching walk through campus in a pair of impossibly tight shorts or yoga pants, usually with Greek letters emblazoned across the ass as though to draw attention, and he was enjoying watching her in her toga pants.
Ha. Toga pants. That pun seeming at all funny told him everything he needed to know about his precarious mental state. He was high on something, that was for damn sure.
"You’re some sort of crazy hot sorority girl," he said. "I'm not usually into the whole Greek thing, but I could make an exception for you.”
She smiled and shook her head.
"The side effects will be over shortly," she said. "In the meantime, you will need to think on your choice. A hero needs an artifact, and I’m sure you’ll choose wisely. You’ll need to if you’re to survive the night and win the game.”
“What?" he asked, his face screwing up in confusion. “Hero? Artifact? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Dice Mage: A GameLit Adventure Page 3