The more he talked to this woman the less she made sense, and it didn't help that she’d just touched his chest and sent him on a one-way ticket to tripsville. And what was all that she was going on about surviving the night? Did she think his character was going to bite it or something?
“Have you been talking to Doug or something? What’s he planning?”
She frowned.
“Would you take this seriously?” she growled, though even when she growled it was kinda hot. “I won't have another one of my pieces losing. Not this time! You’re different, but different can be good. Different will work this time! The warrior thinker!”
Now Mike was sure he was on a bad trip. He wasn't sure what this girl had given him that could make him feel like this just by pressing a finger against his chest. Was it something that absorbed through the skin?
"Listen," Mike said. "Today seems to be a day for hot chicks to hit on me for some reason, but I've got other options tonight for socializing that don’t involve winding up in a bathtub filled with ice with scars where my kidneys used to be."
She shook her head. "You have no idea what's coming this night. That's as it should be. I can’t tell you too much. Not yet. Not until you prove yourself a true champion, but remember that you can be what you want to be. The warrior and the thinker. I’ve chosen well this time."
She said that last bit almost as though she was trying to convince herself, and Mike felt insulted. If she chose him then of course she chose well! Maybe it was whatever she gave him talking, but he was fucking awesome damn it!
Her frown turned to a thin smile. That smile lit her up. It made her go from merely beautiful to one of the most gorgeous women he'd ever seen.
That plunging neckline that showed off a generous portion of her breasts without revealing everything helped. Also the way her toga seemed to form to every other part of her body showing off the dangerous curves that were waiting underneath for anyone who managed to get her home tonight.
It was a temptation for Mike, but at the same time he was serious when he said he didn't want to wind up in some bathtub by the end of the evening with a slice down his side where his kidneys had been. Because if he knew anything about the way the world worked, it was that when a pretty girl came up and started talking to him like this, started giving him a taste of whatever freaky drug she happened to be peddling, it was usually because she was working for some bad dude named Vladimir who was most likely hanging around in an SUV somewhere nearby with very tinted windows watching everything and waiting to pounce.
Which seemed like a good reason to get the fuck out of here. He didn’t care how hot this chick was. Clearly the only reason she’d been staring at him earlier in the gym was that she’d been sizing him up and trying to figure out how to best separate him from any organs they might be trying to harvest.
Though there was a part of him that whispered that couldn’t be farther from the truth. That this girl was talking craziness that sort of made sense in the context of all the other crazy he’d seen. That made him want to get away from her even more than any worries about Vladimir sharpening his scalpel somewhere close by.
"Okay then," Mike said. "It's been fun getting freaked out by you and everything, but I'm going to go home now."
She pursed her lips together. Shook her head. He got the feeling he’d disappointed her, but she’d hardly be the first woman he’d disappointed. She was probably the hottest woman he’d ever disappointed, and he was disappointed he hadn’t gotten to disappoint her in the way he’d disappointed other women, but whatever.
That stuff she gave him clearly hadn’t worn off yet. He wondered if he was going to be like this all fucking night long, and whether or not Vladimir was coming up behind him with the chloroform since whatever this chick was throwing around obviously wasn’t working.
"I hope I haven’t made a mistake," she muttered.
And then she was gone. Not like she turned and walked. No, one moment she was there and the next moment she wasn’t. Like someone had spliced together film for a special effect in an old ‘60s or ‘70s TV show.
"Um, hello?" he asked. "Hot sorority chick? Are you out there? If this is part of that prank video I still don’t give you permission to use my image!”
If the hot sorority check was out there she wasn't responding. Mike frowned. Looked down at where she’d touched his chest. He still felt warm all over, but he wasn't sure whether her disappearing had been another hallucination or not.
Mike worried all the way back to his apartment. It wasn't normal to see goblins, riders in the sky, or hot chicks coming up and pressing him on the chest and causing impossible warmth to run through him then disappear like a bad special effect out of an old episode of Bewitched or the original Star Trek.
Whatever. He had a game night to prepare for. He’d worry about his mental health after a healthy evening of rolling dice to destroy imaginary creatures with his friends.
5
Missing Dice
Mike let loose with a few choice curse words as he opened the drawer and checked the spot where he usually kept his dice.
It would appear that whatever dark and malevolent force in the universe decided to hide things at critical moments had decided to visit Mike when he was already running late to game night.
Bad enough that he’d almost forgotten about game night. Bad enough that he was skipping an opportunity to spend time with one of the hottest women he knew.
Though of course Lisa wasn’t bad in the looks department. Something he’d never consider since she was his best friend’s sister, but still. After things broke off with Christine he’d been looking at his world, and the ladies in it, with new eyes.
Even if those eyes knew he should only look at her in the gym, and never dream of actually doing anything if he didn’t want to wind up on the wrong end of Sean and his plotting.
“Motherfucker,” he growled.
He shoved aside a nest of charging cords for phones he didn’t own anymore. He carefully tossed aside an old Playstation Vita he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of since it was his only legal outlet for his occasional PS1 Final Fantasy jones these days, not to mention the only modern platform those games still looked halfway decent on since PS1 games looked like shit in HD on the PS3 and he wasn’t in the mood to raid local rummage sales for an old Trinitron CRT.
He reached the bottom of his junk drawer. Still no sign of the dice he so desperately needed if Coivar the not-so-mighty mage was going to make his appearance tonight and kick some serious goblin ass with his fireballs.
Well, to be fair it was more like he would be mildly singing and inconveniencing the goblins with his fireballs. For some reason they didn’t seem to land with the regularity that the melee characters hit with their stupid pointy weapons.
He had a feeling that had more to do with Doug fudging the dice because he didn’t approve of magic characters than it did with any inherent flaw with his class choice. Which didn’t improve his mood as he scoured his desk and then a couple of other likely places for his trusty Crown Royal bag full of his even more trusty cheap plastic dice he’d been playing with since high school.
They were bright red and translucent. Sure they were just plastic, but they had distinction because he’d been using them all through high school and college.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted to an uncaring apartment.
There was a time when he would’ve asked Christine if she had any idea where his dice bag had gone. That time had ended a week ago when she finally up and left after an epic shouting match.
He was still finding hair in the drains and bobby pins all over the house. It was like inviting a woman into his living space opened a door to the dimension where those things lived or something.
Mike glanced at his watch again. He had an hour before he had to be at Ron’s. Just enough time for him to change out of his clothes, hop in for a quick shower, and make the drive over to a late night and very early morning of gaming to distract him from tho
ughts of school and the empty apartment.
Although honestly thoughts of Christine stewing in the apartment while he was out at game night had always left him more stressed than anything. That’d been the source of the shouting match last weekend.
Finally he growled in frustration and walked into the small living room. Not as small as the one bedroom option, he’d gone for the two bedroom upgrade when it became clear Christine would be moving in with him and need her own space, but the place was still pretty cramped.
He looked over the place, really looked it over, for the first time since that shouting match a week back. He’d been in a daze since, concentrating on class and his evening job at the library so he wouldn’t have to think about life.
Now he was starting to wish he could go back to not thinking about life.
The place was a pit. A veritable bachelor pad. It didn’t help that there were still the remains of several things that’d been thrown around the apartment when Christine made her exit. He could make out the pieces of a Godzilla statue that’d proudly lived on top of the entertainment center until he’d discovered that the only kaiju who could defeat the king of monsters was Christine.
He sighed. That thing hadn’t been super expensive, but it hadn’t been cheap either. She’d never understood his appreciation of the finer things in life.
He continued his scan of the living room and the small dining room. There was a small folding table in there because he’d never been able to afford real furniture. Which had been another sticking point for Christine when they moved in together to help with living expenses.
As though it was his fault he didn’t want to get anything fancy when they always ate dinner in front of the TV catching up on their Netflix addiction. Not to mention he figured they’d be moving soon enough when they both graduated, so what was the point in getting anything halfway nice or big enough that it’d be difficult to move?
Only now when he looked at that folding table his eyes fell on something that sent a small tingle running down the length of his spine. He had no way of knowing, of course, but the sight of his Crown Royal bag sitting out on that folding table, a place he never thought about let alone looked at, was enough to trigger an evolutionary response that had, once upon a time, been exclusively dedicated to making sure that large predators lying low in nearby tall grass didn’t suddenly burst out and take a bite out of his ass.
Of course an angry ex-girlfriend taking vengeance on his first and favorite pair of gaming dice wasn’t quite the same as suddenly finding Mr. Whiskers’ angry ancestors treating one of his ancestors like a delicious can of tuna, but his danger system had evolved to watch out for giant predators and hadn’t changed enough to differentiate between giant predators and angry ex-girlfriends, so that’s what was pinging right now.
He walked over, afraid of what he’d find. He wondered if this was what people felt like when they approached an accident scene on the highway knowing they weren’t going to find anything pleasant waiting for them. He reached out and felt the contours of his purple dice bag.
It crackled. A dice bag wasn’t supposed to do that. It was supposed to make a clacking noise. The hypnotically soothing sound of a bunch of plastic dice rolling together in the bag.
This was not that. Damn it.
“What the hell is going on here?” he groused.
He reached into the bag and felt something crumpling in his fingers. Again, crumpling was not what should be going on in his dice bag. A bag he’d gotten from his dad once upon a time. Back when dad having a bunch of whiskey bags sitting around the house seemed like a cool convenience and not a sign of barely concealed alcoholism.
He pulled out a strip of paper. His eyes ran across the letters a couple of times without truly comprehending what he was reading. Mostly because his mind didn’t want to comprehend what he was reading.
Dear Michael,
Surprise! Y’know I’d almost prefer it if you were out drinking with your friends late into the night every weekend. I’d almost prefer it if you were out there cheating on me with some chick late into the night every weekend.
But no. You always had to go to your stupid game night instead of focusing on the one good thing you had in your life. I can’t make you stop doing that juvenile bullshit, but I can take something away from you.
I know you probably haven’t used the garbage disposal in the past week since you prefer to do all your cooking with your phone and a takeout menu. Go look in the sink. You’ll see a surprise waiting for you.
All my love.
Christine
His eyes moved over the page a couple more times before Christine’s malicious words sank in. When he finally realized where she was going with her threat the tingling that’d been running along the back of his mind turned to full on terror.
He rushed over to the sink. He didn’t even feel the irrational momentary hesitation that usually hit him when he thought about putting his hand down a sink drain that had bits of sharp metal meant to rend, tear, and mangle anything that dared to try and clog that drain.
No, he skipped right past the part of the ritual where he reassured himself that the thing wasn’t going to spontaneously come on without someone flipping the switch that was, in a bit of monumentally stupid design, well within reach of anyone who had their hand down the drain.
Never mind that it wouldn’t have made much sense to have a garbage disposal switch that wasn’t within reach of the sink. The irrational part of Mike’s mind always thought it was stupid that someone could have a hand down the thing and turn it on at the same time.
He finally heard something clicking when his hand plunged into the drain. So he’d found his dice, which was good, but they were down the drain where they definitely weren’t supposed to be, which was bad.
He tried to think of the last time he used the kitchen sink. Christine was right. There wasn’t a pile of dishes in here because there was a giant pile of takeout in the garbage. He hated dishes, but he didn’t mind taking out the trash.
He pulled out his dice. Or rather he pulled out bits of his treasured first set of dice that had been mangled and torn by the garbage disposal. He briefly considered throwing his head to the sky and letting out a wail that would give his dice a proper Klingon sendoff, then decided against it.
He didn’t want to give his nosy neighbor Mrs. Farnsworth any excuses for calling the police with a noise complaint, after all. She’d done that a couple of times when he and Christine were being a touch too vigorous in their enjoyment of one another’s company.
Back when they’d still liked one another enough to enjoy one another’s company vigorously like that.
Right about now he wished he had the pleasure of Christine’s company so he could get a noise complaint for letting her know exactly what he thought of her.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. She was long gone. Her revenge was delayed and delicious. This little drama bomb had been sitting in his sink for the better part of a week waiting for the perfect moment to go off.
He didn’t know which he hated more. That she’d done this, or that she knew him so well that she’d perfectly timed this so it would ruin game night.
As though seeing weird supernatural things that shouldn’t be all around campus today wasn’t bad enough. As though Gwen getting chased off by Ron and Doug and their vigorously enthusiastic dorkiness wasn’t enough. As though being approached by weird sorority chicks in togas saying cryptic things about the world changing wasn’t bad enough.
It’d been a day. That was for sure.
Mike sighed. “Looks like it’s time to get a new set of dice.”
That meant not changing out of his day clothes or bothering with that quick shower. Whatever. Lisa was the only girl who’d be there, after all, and she barely counted as a girl since she was Sean’s baby sister.
A baby sister who was in her twenties and very pleasing to the eye, but whatever. The point was she was off limits so it’s not like it’d matter if he showed
up looking a little worse for the wear.
Mike walked over to the card table and sifted through the giant pile of mail lying there. He’d been bringing it up, but he hadn’t been very enthusiastic about giving it more than a glance for the past week. He hadn’t been in the mood for bills even if he did have the money to pay them.
There had been a mailer that caught his attention though. He tossed junk mail and bills alike to the floor until he found the thing and held it up to the light.
The paper was made to look like old fashioned parchment, and it’d even been rolled up with some string. He wondered how the heck they’d managed to convince the post office to deliver that.
When he pulled it open it announced a new game store that’d opened down on campus. Which was the perfect spot for a game store. Lots of people with mommy and daddy’s disposable income to throw around and a lot more free time to do things like play pen and paper roleplaying games.
“The Wizard’s Dungeon,” Mike muttered to himself with a grin.
The parchment featured a wizard looking over a crystal ball that featured all the latest in pen and paper gaming supplies. Mike figured it was a little over the top, but then again over the top was exactly what was needed to market to that crowd.
“Looks like it’s time to get a new set of dice,” he growled, thinking some unpleasant thoughts about Christine as he grabbed his keys, he needed to drive tonight if he was going to have a prayer of getting to game night on time, and headed out the door.
6
Directions
Mike figured it was a good thing he’d crumpled up the flyer and put it in his pocket, because he needed to check that address again. The place should’ve been easy to find. It was smack dab in the center of the campus village which would be party central in a few hours, but no dice.
Dice Mage: A GameLit Adventure Page 4