Dice Mage: A GameLit Adventure

by Andrew Beymer

  “He caused the explosion,” Gwen said.

  “He what?” Ron bellowed.

  "Werewolves!" Mike finished, annoyed that everyone was riding roughshod over his big revelation.

  Not that he had long to be annoyed. It was at that moment that the front door splintered open revealing a hulking armor-clad werewolf with heaving shoulders staring in at them with beady eyes and a snarl that turned up in a reasonable facsimile of a human smile. Reasonable and yet not reasonable at all considering how pants-shittingly terrifying it looked.

  Fuck.

  20

  There Wolf

  "What the fuck is that thing?" Lisa shrieked.

  It was a good question that was sort of asked and answered in the same breath. After all, it was pretty fucking obvious that the slathering hulking hairy werewolf monstrosity standing in the door was, in fact, a slathering hulking werewolf monstrosity.

  Mike could also give Lisa a little slack for being confused about what the thing was. There were things that just shouldn’t be in this world, and he’d been in a place where his mind was having trouble catching up with the reality of what he was seeing not too long ago, after all.

  Hell, his mind was still having some trouble catching up with that thing.

  "It looks like a costume," Doug said, waving a dismissive hand. His mind was clearly dealing with the impossibility standing before them in its own special way.

  "They found us!" Gwen shrieked.

  "That looks way too realistic to be a costume," Ron said.

  "That's like movie quality," Sean said.

  Mike was hit with a sinking dread that went all the way down to his stomach. Of course it would be just like his idiot friends to go on about how realistic the big hulking werewolf monster looked instead of running from the thing like any rational person would.

  And they wouldn't ever stop to think about how that big hulking werewolf monster was the real deal until the moment it’d bisected them with its dark sword that it was now holding up and pointing into the room like it was about to put that motherfucker to some good use.

  Sort of like Babe Ruth calling his home run. Only Mike had the feeling the things this creature was about to do with that sword would be a hell of a lot more unpleasant than being whacked with a baseball bat.

  Even more ominous, though, were the shadows moving behind the thing in the darkness beyond the door. Shadows that were speaking in guttural barks that didn't sound like any language Mike had ever heard before, and yet when he heard them talking he almost thought what they were saying made sense.

  If they really were geeks in costume he almost might think they were speaking Klingon or Dothraki or something, but of course the thought of a bunch of crazy werewolves leaping off the pages of a game book was ridiculous enough without mixing sci-fi properties in with that ridiculousness.

  "We need to get the fuck out of here now," Gwen said.

  Gwen seemed a little unhinged as she lovingly cradled the shotgun. Like it was the only thing that was going to save her ass. For all that he had magic dice in his pocket Mike found himself wishing he had something more modern to fight back with too.

  "What the hell is that smell?" Lisa asked.

  “Seriously,” Sean said. “It smells like some frat asshole got drunk on fermented shit and puked it up everywhere.”

  "Would you all please calm the fuck down?" Doug said, slamming his hand down hard enough on the folding table that the thing sounded like it was about to snap in two pieces. Which was a surprising amount of strength coming from a guy like Doug who managed to be spindly while at the same time having a touch of a gut.

  Doug turned to the werewolf and the thing actually paused under the force of his gaze. Which was actually sort of impressive.

  Mike might get annoyed with Doug more often than not and think the guy was a petty dictator who used his default position as game master to exert a small amount of power over a rudderless and otherwise meaningless life, but he could appreciate a dude who was so fearsome at his gaming table that he could make a fucking werewolf with a huge black sword stop in its tracks.

  “I don't know what the hell kind of convention you assholes are promoting here, but I do know I’m going to find out how you were able to use location data to start accosting game nights to sell your tickets and I’m going to sue you for invasion of privacy!”

  “That’s where you’re going with this?” Mike said. “You think this is to sell convention tickets?”

  “What else could it be?” Doug asked.

  “I really hope it’s a joke Mike’s playing on us,” Lisa said.

  “It isn’t,” Gwen said. “There’s a fucking werewolf standing in the door. Why is no one listening to me about the whole get the hell out of here plan?”

  “Fine!” Doug shouted, throwing his arms up in fury and frustration. He turned back to the werewolf that’d taken another unsure step towards them, and once again the hulking monstrosity stopped when Doug leveled an accusing finger at the thing. “I don't know what Mike had to do to get you guys to come down here to play this joke on us, but I'm not putting up with any more interruptions to my game night!"

  "Your game night?" Ron said with a snort.

  "Yes. My game night!" Doug said. "I'm not putting up with any more interruptions. Not from any of you, and not from the lame furry cosplay brigade over there. What, are these some of your buddies you screw while you're in your plush costumes or something? Where’s the hole you use to pull their dick out so you can suck it?”

  Mike bristled. Not so much at the implication that he liked sucking dick, he was live and let live on that score even if it was an activity that’d never appealed to him unless it was a lady doing it to him, but he did take insult at the implication that he would ever do anything sexual in a fursuit.

  There were some things you just didn’t accuse people of doing.

  He glanced to Gwen to make sure she wasn't taking Doug seriously. She had a faint smile on her face that broke through the panic, clearly she knew what furries were and what they got up to in their plush costumes, and she didn't seem to be in a believing mood when it came to Mike’s participation in the sort of things furries did to each other in their plush costumes.

  That was a relief.

  Though for some reason Lisa rolled her eyes. He wasn't sure why she was rolling her eyes when she caught him sharing a glance with Gwen, but whatever. He had more pressing concerns. Like the hulking werewolf that was about to bring down a world of hurt on all of them.

  "Get out of here!" Doug said, waving his arms at the werewolf in a shooing motion.

  "Hold on a minute Doug," Ron said. "You don't get to say who gets invited and uninvited to my apartment."

  "Our apartment," Sean said.

  "Exactly," Ron said. "This is our place, and we have final say in who comes in here. Not you.”

  "No you do not!" Doug said, pointing an accusatory finger at Ron. "I'm sick and tired of you guys screwing up all the hard work I put into these games. You have no appreciation for all the work I do to make sure game night can happen, and I'm sick and fucking tired of it!"

  The werewolf, for its part, was looking back and forth between the arguing humans with a quizzical stare and a cocked eyebrow. It was a very human expression on an otherwise terrifying monstrosity. Or maybe it was a very Vulcan expression, though Mike got the impression the only logic this thing subscribed to was the logic of killing as much shit as possible with that nasty sword.

  Clearly an argument wasn't the kind of reaction it was used to getting from the creatures it had been dispatched to hunt and kill. Mike almost would’ve thought the whole situation was funny if he wasn't pretty sure he was in seriously mortal danger and on the verge of getting murder-death-killed.

  This definitely wasn’t the way he’d expected to go. He'd always figured it would be a blood clot or something that dislodged and did him in after an all-night gaming session. Or maybe keeling over from the stress of looking at some of
his student loans once they went out of forbearance after he graduated.

  Considering he was an English major who could already barely afford to live in the lifestyle to which he’d grown accustomed, a Spartan one bedroom apartment in the cheapest off campus housing he could find with Ramen most nights that’d just gotten more expensive now that he wasn’t sharing rent with Christine, keeling over from a heart attack when he saw his first payment might be a mercy.

  Being killed by a giant hulking werewolf in leather armor had been pretty far down that list. He’d never attended the kind of furry parties at conventions that would put him in danger of suffering that kind of death, after all. Sure there’d been one awkward time when a giant guy in a hot pink fox suit, the voice had been decidedly male even if the suit had been decidedly feminine, had asked him if he liked to party at a local con, but other than that it was subculture he’d largely steered clear of.

  He still figured it might be better than the loans, though.

  "Get the fuck out of here!" Doug said, waving his hands as though a shooing motion would do the same as silver for getting rid of a werewolf infestation.

  When the creature didn't make any move to get out, though it did turn its attention to Doug, he only got more incensed. He advanced on the thing waving his arms frantically.

  “Um, Doug?” Mike asked as the dice bag in his pocket started to pulse with more intensity. “That’s a really bad idea…”

  Only Doug wasn’t listening. He never listened when he got like this. Usually it was infuriating and annoying, but this time it was going to be his undoing.

  "Are you deaf or something? Can you not hear me in that stupid fucking headpiece?” Doug shouted. "I told you to get the fuck out of here! If you think I'm going to let you interrupt my game night then…"

  Doug’s game night was interrupted for the final time when he stepped within the werewolf’s reach. Actually, it would be more fair to say his game night was interrupted for the last time in his life. After all, it would be difficult for anyone to interrupt his future game nights if he was no longer among the living to host said game night.

  The werewolf sniffed the air in front of Doug, seemed to finally realize he wasn’t a real threat, never had been for all that he’d been ballsy enough to approach the creature, and then raised its sword.

  The world moved in slow motion as Mike held his hand out and called out to Doug to get the fuck out of the way. Not that it did any good. Gwen knew this was real and she cried out in horror.

  Everyone else in the room still seemed to be in a place where they didn’t quite believe this was real. This despite a little bit of uncertainty mixing with dawning horror that said they were starting to get an inkling of just how deep of a shit puddle they’d landed in when that thing busted down the door.

  So they watched with more curiosity than horror as the sword came down. Like this was all part of a show, or they thought there was still at least a seventy/thirty percent chance in favor of this all being a show, because giant leather-clad werewolves with black swords busting down doors and killing asshole game masters of convenience just wasn’t the kind of thing that happened in the real world.

  Only tonight it was. Tonight there was a lot of shit going down that wasn’t supposed to happen in the real world, and Doug was about to learn it the hard way.

  The black sword connected with Doug and sliced him clean through at his midsection.

  21

  Split

  Doug split apart.

  It wasn't like the movies. He didn’t look down in disbelief as he slowly, dramatically, slid into two pieces. No, the sheer force of being bisected in such a violent manner was enough to send the bottom half of his body tumbling to the ground as the top half flew across the room and slammed into a wall.

  Which, incidentally, left a bloodstained trail down the wall where he slid down.

  Doug was finally getting a first-hand practical answer to the question of whether or not someone could continue interacting with the world after having a mission critical part of their body chopped off.

  From the look of surprise that crossed Doug's face and remained as his eyes looked down in horror at the irreversible damage that’d been done to his body he didn’t like that it turned out he’d been totally wrong about someone being killed instantly by that kind of violence.

  Mike knew he shouldn't take pleasure in someone else's obviously painful demise, but given how Doug had acted for most of their lives, and considering the way he'd argued with them about this very subject earlier during the gaming session, one of many unnecessarily pointless arguments he’d started and lost in his life, Mike couldn't help but feel a small sense of satisfaction watching Doug getting ended by a very painful practical demonstration of why he was wrong about something.

  Sure it was a very small sense of satisfaction. Mike was still human, after all. He was mostly horrified at seeing someone who was, if not a friend then at least an acquaintance and longtime annoyance, getting destroyed in such a casually violent manner.

  Still, he was only human, and watching someone getting hoisted by their own petard, even if he was getting hoisted by being chopped in half by a cursed sword that shouldn’t be wielded by a creature that had no business existing in this universe as part of a game between higher beings Mike would’ve put good money on not existing before his experiences today, was slightly satisfying.

  Less than satisfying were the screams and shrieks that filled the room as soon as it became apparent that their friend had been bisected. Mike never realized until that moment just how easy it was to cut someone in half. Though Mike couldn’t really think of a good reason for testing how easy that was when he really examined that thought.

  The screaming was an understandable reaction, but not entirely pleasant on the eardrums.

  "What the fuck?” Lisa shrieked. "Is this a joke? This has to be a joke, right? That’s like, creepy con special effects or something right?”

  "You don't fucking do that to my friends in my apartment motherfucker!" Ron bellowed.

  Apparently Ron believed the horrors playing out before him. The bellow was horrifying. It was the angry roar of a gentle nerd who liked playing make believe and waving around plastic swords and now he’d been pushed past the breaking point and, oops, there was actually some muscle under all that fat.

  Ron stood and he was almost at equal height to the werewolf which had paused again, only this time its sudden caution seemed a lot more justified than when it was held back by sheer force of Doug’s will.

  Ron leapt across the room with an agility and speed Mike wouldn’t have believed were it not for the fact that he’d seen the man working out with his plastic swords and armor from time to time, much to the bemusement of all the normals walking past.

  Ron ripped a massive claymore off of its display which took some of the drywall with it, the thing must’ve been mounted pretty good on some drywall anchors, but at the point when there was a hulking werewolf standing in your door bisecting friends niceties like worrying about the security deposit sort of went out the door that hulking werewolf stood in.

  Ron turned and faced the armored werewolf. The thing cocked its head to the side, then its mouth pulled back in a decidedly unpleasant expression that looked like it was either about to soil its armor or it was pleased to finally see someone facing it down in this modern world with a weapon it understood.

  The creature’s almost-smile was filled with rows of sharp nasty looking teeth. It raised its own sword.

  "What the fuck are you doing Ron?" Sean asked, his usual cool completely destroyed by the sight of Doug rapidly losing all the liquid contents of his body on the wall and carpet. It was going to take a whole hell of a lot of peroxide to get that stain out.

  “Seriously, what the hell are you doing?" Mike shouted. "You can't take on those things with a prop sword!"

  "I never do anything half assed,” Ron shouted back at him.

  The werewolf’s sword came down and R
on brought his own sword up. Mike expected this to end just as badly for Ron as it had for Doug. He’d seen what those black swords could do.

  Sure Ron was into the sort of casual geeky swordplay that involved interrupting the peace and quiet of parks around campus and freaking out the normies by pretending they were in medieval times trying to bash each others’ heads in, but there was a huge difference between upsetting the normies down on campus who were trying to surreptitiously fuck or sneak a drink or a joint in the bushes and fighting a giant werewolf who'd just bisected one of their friends.

  Ron's sword met the black blade, and Mike was certain he was about to see another one of his friends bisected shortly after his prop sword was shattered.

  Then, much to his surprise, even though this felt like a night where he should’ve long since run out of the ability to be shocked or surprised, the black metal clanged against the replica blade which held. The swords sparked, the kind of spark he'd seen when the dark blade was dragged against the wall back in that alley, but Ron’s blade held.

  Ron turned back to grin at them. It was a maniacal grin. The sort of grin that said he'd never felt truly alive until that moment, even though he was on the verge of getting killed.

  Then again Ron was exactly the kind of crazy bastard who probably secretly pleasured himself at night to the thought of a zombie apocalypse or some other form of civilizational collapse just so he’d have the opportunity to use his claymore in real combat.

  "Damn," Lisa whispered.

  "What the hell?" Mike said.

  "I told you guys! I don't do anything half assed. Now let's see you ancient werewolf motherfuckers going up against something that's forged with the best modern smithing technology the 21st-century can offer!"

  He thrust his Claymore up with a quick motion and the werewolf’s dark sword clattered to the ground, though nobody made a move towards the thing.

  Mike couldn't decide whether that was because he didn't want to grab a sword that was covered with an acquaintance’s blood, because he felt like he’d be more of a hindrance to the situation than a help if he picked up a blade without the requisite knowledge for using said blade, or if it was simply that he got a fucking weird feeling from that thing. Like it was the sort of generic cursed metal a lot of minions ran around with in fantasy novels. The sort of thing that could cut a small scratch and still kill days later thanks to an evil infection or some other clichéd bullshit like that.