Dice Mage: A GameLit Adventure Read online

  Dice Mage

  A GameLit Adventure

  Andrew Beymer

  Contents

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  1. Daily Grind

  2. Class

  3. Plans

  4. Toga Girl

  5. Missing Dice

  6. Directions

  7. The Wizard’s Dungeon

  8. Dice Shopping

  9. Rescue

  10. Where Wolf?

  11. Magic Dice

  12. Toga Goddess

  13. Escape

  14. Explosive Aftermath

  15. Expeditious Retreat

  16. Game Night

  17. Safety?

  18. New Player

  19. Guess Who’s Coming to Game Night

  20. There Wolf

  21. Split

  22. Apartment Brawl

  23. Run Away

  24. Goddess Interruptus

  25. Stand Up

  26. Almost Heaven

  27. Cast Down

  28. Artifact

  29. Dice Mage

  30. Party Up

  Thanks for reading!

  Dice Mage

  A GameLit Adventure

  By Andrew Beymer

  Copyright 2018 Andrew Beymer

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First digital edition published by Andrew Beymer October 2018

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  Mike peered into the alley. Sure enough there was Gwen backing down the alley. He knew that was her. Not so much because he recognized her as because he figured with the way bad things had been happening to him today of course it would be Gwen who was the damsel in distress.

  A bag of garbage was on the alley floor sliced open neatly and a dumpster with one of the top doors open showed what she’d been doing in the dark alley.

  Also? There was totally a giant werewolf in weird armor walking on two legs advancing on her with a black sword held out at its side.

  Huh. Now there was something you didn’t see every day. His first thought was that he was seeing an actual werewolf, but then his rational mind took over.

  His rational mind which was quickly losing out to the more lizard part of his brain, the more ancient part of his brain, that was screaming this was all real, this was all happening, and they were fucked. Rational brain wasn’t having any of that shit, because it knew this sort of thing didn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. That this had to be a hallucination. Or someone in a costume filming one of those stupid prank videos.

  He didn’t live in a world where werewolves were real. He did live in a world where cosplayers with more enthusiasm than sense were a real thing, though. The only thing that was really surprising about this was that it wasn’t someone in a Deadpool costume pulling an asshole move that would inevitably be followed by protests of “it was just a prank bro!” when it inevitably went wrong.

  Though this little prank had obviously already gone too far.

  The werewolf raised its black sword over its head and let out a very realistic snarl. Mike would have to have a look at the dude’s sound system, but not before letting this asshole know the joyfulness was over. He opened his mouth. His rational brain told him it was the right thing to do while the more ancient primate-adjacent parts of his brain that still remembered running from predators on a deeply instinctual level had curled up in a ball and were rocking back and forth whimpering in terror.

  “Hey asshole!” he shouted just loud enough to get the thing’s attention.

  His hand still hovered over the phone. He was still ready to call the cops at a moment’s notice. His mind still couldn’t quite admit that there was actually a threat. He’d lived in the modern world in a relatively safe and stable area for most of his life, and so he was in a place, mentally speaking, where he just couldn’t reconcile his relatively safe life up to this point with the possibility that danger might actually be sniffing around in the form of a fucking werewolf with a sword.

  Even if all the weird shit he’d seen throughout the day should’ve told him that this sort of thing was entirely possible.

  One of the curious things about the human condition is an instinctive understanding of the role statistics plays in governing the universe that is masked by a gleeful and willing ignorance of that subject that allows people to make it through the day without constantly succumbing to the existential dread that the universe is indifferent to their existence at best and actively trying to kill them at worst.

  A person who is terrified of flying will still get on that plane because they know on some level that, statistically speaking, it's still the safest way to travel. The hiker traveling through the Pacific Northwest is aware of but not terribly worried about the numerous apex predators in the woods around them that would like nothing more than to make them into a snack because really, how many people were attacked and killed every year?

  The same held true for beachgoers who continued to enjoy the sunshine and the sand despite the best combined efforts of Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg. Entire cities sprang up in the shadow of large and ominous volcanoes because, while a city planner’s terrified forebrain might gibber at the thought of lava and explosions and the possibility of the air pocket their burning body left behind being dug up thousands of years later by excited archaeologists, their rational mind knew that geological events worked on their own damned time and they're more likely to win the lottery than to be the unlucky son-of-a-bitch who lived to see a dormant volcano roar to life and send a pyroclastic flow their way.

  This curious innate understanding of odds and taking chances was precisely why the first thing to cross someone's mind when there's something on the wing or claws digging into their deliciously defenseless hairless monkey flesh or the pyroclastic flow comes rushing down to simultaneously suffocate and incinerate is the simple fleeting thought: "How could this be happening to me?"

  Of course it's happening to the poor hapless victim because the bell curve is very forgiving when it comes to the middle, but cruel and merciless when it comes time to satisfy the demands of its highly improbable but gruesome edges.

  So it should come as no surprise that when the creature turned and let out a snarl that was accompanied with a low growl that seemed to thrum through Mike like the overpowered bass at a concert and connect to a very primal part of his monkey brain that hadn’t had to deal with danger from predators in at least five to ten thousand years, depending on what anthropologist you talked to, the first thought to run through his mind after the more visceral corners of his brain screamed that was way to realistic to be a costume was simple:

  "How could this be happening to me?"

  It could happen because his mind had, so far, ignored all the signs pointing to something seriously fucked up going down on campus today and tonight, and suddenly he realized that everything he’d seen today was true. The goblin. The thing in the sky. The chick talking about a piece on a board. It was all true, and it was all pointing to one thing:

  He was going to get fucking killed if he didn’t start playing by the new set of rules the world had set for him.

  The creature growled as it fell down on all fours. Its nose moved up and sniffed the air, and Mike found himself suddenly thinking of the ending to An American Werewolf in London which had always terrified him.

  Finding himself in that situation now as the slowly unsettling feeling that this was all a lot more real than his brain gave the situation credit for initially was unpleasant, for sure. Especially when he knew he didn’t have a bunch of London Bobbies armed to the teeth behind him ready to take this thing out.


  “Mike?” Gwen said from the other side.

  The thing turned and snarled at her. It didn’t seem particularly happy that she was trying to call in the cavalry. Not that he thought he was really the cavalry to begin with. Not when he was in a situation where he was likely to be long dead by the time any sort of armed authorities arrived.

  And even then the authorities who were likely to arrive were a bunch of campus cops who didn’t have good odds on surviving. A bunch of paunchy Barney Fifes who were more accustomed to babysitting drunks on the weekends than dealing with potentially dangerous mythological creatures come to life didn’t seem like the best rapid response team.

  “Fuck,” Mike said, realizing he was in well over his head here. That he’d probably been in well over his head all fucking day long, and now he was in deep shit because he’d ignored all the signs.

  Intrigued? Want more? Keep reading!

  1

  Daily Grind

  “Come on Mike! You’ve got this!”

  Mike really wasn’t sure whether or not he believed Lisa’s cheerleading, but the fact that she was right there looking down at him provided a hell of an incentive for him to get this right.

  When a cheerleader decided to join you for your workout you did your best to get through the damn workout. Even if he was stupid enough to do that stupid alpha male thing where he put on a little more weight than he could normally handle because he wanted to impress the cute cheerleader.

  Even if the cute cheerleader was technically his best friend’s sister, which meant she was totally off limits. Not that her being totally off limits ever stopped Christine from bitching about Lisa.

  He went down. Felt the weight pressing down on his shoulders. He looked at himself in the mirror and realized that maybe trying to squat this much weight had been a mistake. Like a big mistake. He didn’t know how he was going to come back up from this.

  He looked at Lisa standing there clapping and bouncing up and down in much the same way that she’d be bouncing if they were at a basketball game and she was doing her best to get the crowd pumped.

  The only thing that was keeping certain parts of Mike’s anatomy from getting nice and pumped up from watching her bouncing like that was the sure knowledge that he was about to lose it and probably die from too much weight bouncing into him when he dropped it.

  That and Sean. Sean wasn’t a large man. He wasn’t a violent man. No, he was cold and calculating and logical, and Mike didn’t want to be on the wrong side of that.

  Slowly he pushed up. He was surprised that it was actually working. It was like his body was hitting him with an adrenaline pump because it knew Lisa was there, and if there was one thing he didn’t want it was to look like an idiot in front of a pretty girl.

  Lots of pretty girls. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a stunning blonde with curly hair and green eyes staring at him, and he almost lost it. That girl was looking at him so intensely that he felt like he needed a smoke after the eyefucking she’d given him.

  Not that he smoked, but whatever.

  “You can do this!” Lisa said, pulling his attention away from the blonde goddess. “Come on! Just a little more and you’ll be done!”

  Mike let out a yell. The campus gym wasn’t one of those places that catered to fat people who wanted to feel better about their life choices so they outlawed grunting while lifting. He managed to get halfway up. Then three fourths of the way up. Finally he was back on his feet and he let out a roar as he put the weight back on the rack.

  “Holy shit,” he said, sweat streaming down his face.

  He’d only gotten into the whole lifting thing after he got to college, but he fucking loved it. He loved the hurt. He loved the burning feeling in his chest that told him he’d been working out. It was more addicting than a night in front of the computer playing Warcraft, and that was pretty damn addicting.

  “Great work Mike!” Lisa said. “Is that a personal best?”

  “Something like that,” Mike said, puffing his chest up just a little.

  Lisa walked up to him and gave him a hug, and he tried his best not to think about how good she felt pressed against him. He also tried not to think about the suddenly awkward situation that was going to be coming up between them if she kept that up for much longer.

  Or what Sean would do if word got back to him.

  It was pure torture, but he forced himself to push her away. She arched an eyebrow and her eyes darted down, almost as though she knew what he was doing, and he felt a flush of embarrassment to go along with the blood pumping through his body from that lift.

  That had to be his imagination that her eyes traveled down his body like that. Lisa wasn’t into him. Not like that, at least. Even if he had spent the past couple of years in the gym getting in decent shape. Better than when she’d been Sean’s hot younger sister hanging around and looking at Mike like he was the scenery in their house because he’d been more a fan of the local China buffet than the local gym when they were all in high school.

  “So I think it’s your go now?” he asked.

  “Of course!” she said.

  Mike was treated to one hell of an embarrassing moment as he watched her lift the bar as though the weight he’d been working with was nothing. She hit him with a smile as she put it on her shoulders and started going down.

  “It’s a little less than I’m used to, but whatever. I don’t feel like changing out the plates,” she said with a grunt.

  “Yeah, I’m guessing it’s all that time at the archery range giving you the extra strength,” he said.

  “Yeah, because pulling a string with my arms totally helps with leg day,” she said with a wink.

  Mike blushed. They came from a small town where hunting was a thing. Lisa’s dad had been excited that one of his kids was into something that wasn’t geeky. Until he’d discovered the only reason she wanted to learn to shoot a bow had been because of her infatuation with a certain elf played by Orlando Bloom.

  Though he’d been less embarrassed about what got his daughter into archery when the medals started rolling in.

  Lisa went to her squats with the same practiced precision she used with a bow. Mike might feel a touch embarrassed that the petite cheerleader was able to so effortlessly squat what he couldn’t, but at the same time he didn’t mind the view. He found himself enjoying her form as she moved down.

  At least he told himself he was keeping an eye on her form. Honestly he had to lean against the squat rack to hide something else that was lifting up as he watched her dangerous curves moving just right as she went down with perfect form.

  Which had him thinking about other ways he wouldn’t mind seeing her going down with perfect form. He shook his head. That wasn’t the kind of things he should be thinking about a workout partner, let alone his best friend’s little sister. The gym was a place for people to come and work out. Not a meat market where they picked up a date.

  Well, some assholes treated it like a meat market, but they were usually politely and firmly asked to leave.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” Lisa said.

  Mike blinked a couple of times and looked at the mirror. Realized with some embarrassment that she’d been looking at him looking at her this entire time. He blushed and looked away, but the damage was already done.

  Looking away also brought him into the line of sight of that pretty blonde again. Which had him doing a double take, because she was definitely staring at him with some interest. Enough interest that he might’ve said something if it weren’t for recent wounds with Christine that were far from healed.

  He turned back to Lisa who was hitting him with an unreadable smile. She probably thought he’d been staring at her ass the whole time. Which he’d totally been doing. Saying anything about watching her form would’ve sounded as lame as it felt running through his head.

  So he deflected instead. That was good and safe. At least until later tonight at game night when he’d have to sweat through wonderin
g if Lisa mentioned anything to her brother.

  “That it for today?” Mike asked.

  “You know it,” she said. “How about you?”

  “Yeah, I have a class at ten so I’m going to be pushing it to make it out in time.”

  Lisa frowned. “Class? Yuck. I guess it’s nice that you can come in here though. The company is always nice.”

  She hit him with a wink. Again there was a part of him that thought she was clearly hitting on him with a move like that, but then the inner fat kid that was still left over from middle school and high school stepped in and whispered to him that he was crazy if he thought a girl like her would ever be interested in him.

  She certainly hadn’t been in high school. Besides. Best friend’s little sister. Off limits. Danger of dismemberment of a piece of anatomy he was fond of. Best not to get involved. All that ran through his head and he sighed.

  “Uh, right,” he said. “So same time next Monday? See you tonight?”

  “You know it,” she said.

  She started to say something else, but Mike was distracted by something he saw in the mirror.

  The gym was in the basement of the school athletic complex. There were several gyms around campus, but this was the one with the best weight room so it was the one where anyone who was interested in lifting went.