ENTERING THE GAME
Chapter One
"The Beginning"
"I'll be back in a couple of hours, Mom," Andy said as he picked up his books. They included a notebook for writing things down in, a book of character sheets, and his copy of the Players Handbook. He also grabbed a small jar that was full of dice of several types.
"Where are you going?" his mother asked him.
"Meeting the guys to play a game," he said, opening the front door. While his parents had let him get the Dungeons and Dragons materials, he knew a lot of people were saying the game was evil and didn't want to bring it up to his folks too much in case they decided to listen to what other adults had told them.
"I wanna go too!" his sister Penny suddenly yelled. "Mom! Can I?"
"No way!" Andy said. That was all he needed, his little sister telling their parents that they were hacking up monsters. He'd never get to play D&D again.
"Why not?" Penny demanded, folding her arms and making a face like she was about to have a hissy fit. She was ten. Andy was fourteen.
"The guys won't want to play with girls," Andy said. This wasn't true. In fact there was a girl named Linda who would be there. She had said she wanted to be a druid, a nature priestess.
"You're not planning to get into any trouble, are you, Andy?" his mother demanded, looking at his face carefully.
Andy felt uncomfortable. His mother said she could always tell when he was telling a fib. "No, we're not going to get into trouble," he said. "We're just going to play…a board game."
Penny suddenly grinned, leaned over, and whispered in his ear, "You're going to play that game with the monsters in it, aren't you? Let me come with or I'll tell Mom you're playing a violent game!"
Andy glared at his sister. She always managed to weasel her way into following him around and annoying him. "Okay, fine," he said out loud. "You can come if you promise to be quiet and not make trouble."
"I never make trouble!" Penny insisted, putting her hands on her hips. "You're always trying to ditch me!"
"That's enough, both of you!" their mother said. "Andy, be nice to your sister. Penny, you do what your brother tells you. And don't wander off. Make sure you hold your brother's hand when you cross the street."
"Let's go, rug rat," Andy said, stepping outside. He started walking fast.
Penny hurried after him. "Slow down!" she said. "I got shorter legs than you do!"
"You just can't let me do anything without barging into it, can you?" he told her. "Why don't you hang out with your own friends and leave me alone?"
Penny stuck her tongue out at him. "You'd better be nice to me, or I'll tell Mom you're picking on me!" she said.
"Go ahead, see if I care," he told her.
They walked down to the red light. Penny grabbed his hand as they crossed. "I'm just doing this because Mom told me to," she said. "That doesn't mean I need you to hold my hand!" As soon as they were across the street she let go.
"Fine," Andy said. "Whatever."
They walked for two blocks, then turned left and walked another block.
"I'm tired!" Penny complained. "My feet hurt!"
"I told you not to come!" Andy said. "Next time maybe you'll listen to me."
Finally they reached the clubhouse where they usually played the game. It was in David's backyard. David was the Dungeon Master and said he might also play a paladin sometimes since nobody else was a fighter character.
Three boys were inside the clubhouse. David, tall, skinny, and with glasses, was holding up a book that showed a guy with a sword and a wizard fighting a giant red demon that was holding a sword in one hand and an almost naked woman in the other. The demon just had something like a really skimpy pair of shorts on.
Penny giggled. "Your game's naughty!" she said.
"It is not!" David said.
"See?" Andy demanded. "You're already making trouble and you just got here! Sorry, guys. Mom made me bring the brat with me."
"I'm not a brat!" Penny said, picking up a book with monsters on it and looking through it. She saw a picture of a naked woman with batwings and horns and fangs, then another with bird wings a couple pages later. "How come the women in this game don't wear any clothes?"
David grabbed the book away from her. "Don't look in the Monster Manual!" he said. "That's strictly for dungeon masters!"
"Sit down and be quiet or I'll lock you outside!" Andy said.
"You wouldn't dare!" Penny said, putting her hands on her hips and looking up at her brother defiantly.
"I am the dungeon master and I order silence!" David said, raising his fist. His glasses slid down along his nose, completely ruining his attempt to look cool and tough. He sighed and pushed them back up. David was extremely nearsighted.
"Isn't Linda coming?" Andy asked, looking around.
"She said she had to run an errand for her mother but she'd get here as soon as she could," another boy, tall and blond said. "Why, do you want to ask her out?"
Andy colored. "What? No! I just want to have time to kill a few monsters before we have to go home."
"While we're waiting for her, your sister can roll up a character," David said.
Andy stared at him in shock. "Huh? You don't want Penny playing!"
"You can't stop me!" Penny said, sticking her tongue out at her brother. Then she looked back at David, confused. "Roll up what? You want me to roll along the floor?"
"You see?" Andy said, pointing at his sister. "She doesn't know anything about the game! And she always cheats at board games!"
"I do not!" Penny cried. "I just get bored with all the rules!"
"We can use another player," David said. "And I keep track of the rules. I'm the dungeon master. That makes me the boss of the game. What I say goes."
"So what do I do?" Penny demanded.
David pushed three dice in front of her. While her brother had all kinds of weird shaped dice, these looked like ordinary ones, except each was a different color and had some kind of sparkles on them.
"Pretty!" she said, picking them up. "Now what?"
"First you have to decide what sort of character you'll be playing," David said. "I'm a paladin, your brother is a fighter, Tom is an illusionist, Greg is a monk, and Linda is a druid. You can be a magic-user, a cleric, a ranger, a thief, or an assassin."
"I wanna be an assassin!" Penny immediately said.
"No way!" Andy said. "Mom would kill me if she found out you were backstabbing and poisoning people!"
"Then I wanna be an elf!" Penny insisted.
"Elves can be fighters, magic-users, thieves, or assassins," David said. "They can also be multi-classed, that is, fighter/magic-users, fighter/thieves, or even fighter/magic-user/thieves."
"Cool!" Penny said. "I'll be a fighter/magic-user/thief!"
Andy rolled his eyes.
"First you need to roll high enough scores to have those classes," David said. "Roll them six times."
Penny rolled the three dice six times. The results were 9, 9, 12, 13, 5, 10, and 11.
"Okay, you can drop the lowest number, five, and roll once more," David said.
Penny stuck out her tongue and concentrated on her last roll. Three sixes came up. "Eighteen!" she squealed. "I got the highest score!"
"Okay, that's good," David said. "Now you need to decide what you're best at, fighter, magic-user, or thief."
Penny thought about this a minute. "I guess thief would be easiest," she said. "You don't have to fight too much and you don't have to spend a long time studying like magic people do. Hey, why is the magic guy a 'magic-user?' Why not wizard or magician or something people actually say?"
"I think they avoided saying wizard so that people wouldn't think the game was about sorcery," David said. "So then you'd place your 18 in Dexterity, and since you're an elf you get a plus one to dexterity, so yours is now 19, the highest available in the game."
"Yay!" Penny cried, throwing her arms up in the air. "So does that make me like a really graceful ballerina?"
"More like an Olympic gymnast," David suggested.
Penny looked down at her t-shirt and blue jeans. "I should've worn my leotards from ballet class," she said.
"Don't be dumb!" Andy said.
"Actually, wearing costumes similar to what your character would wear can make the game more realistic," David said.
Penny bent down and started untying her shoelace.
"What are you doing?" her brother demanded.
"If I'm an elf I should be barefoot," she said.
"Or wear boots or sandals," David said. "We should all be wearing boots, really," he added, indicating the black boots he was wearing.
"I'll bring them next time," Penny said, pulling off her socks. She stuffed them in her tennis shoes and pushed them under her chair.
"Okay, now if you're going to be a fighter and a magic-user as well," David went on, "then you should add your next highest scores to strength and intelligence."
Penny put 12 in strength and 13 in intelligence. "I wanna be smarter than I am strong," she said.
"Then you shouldn't pick fighter," her brother said. She responded by sticking her tongue out at him.
"Next we'll place your next highest score in constitution, 11," David continued. "But since you're an elf and you got a bonus for dexterity you get a penalty for constitution so it's only a 10. That means you only have a 70 percent chance of surviving spells like being turned to stone or magical aging, and 75 percent chance of being brought back to life if you get killed. That shouldn't really matter because none of us can use or afford resurrection, raise dead, or reincarnation spells, and won't for a long time. Your other scores will go into wisdom and charisma, both 9. That means you're smart but not to wise and you have poor social skills."
"What was your first clue?" Andy said.
Penny stuck her tongue out at him.
"Now that we know your charisma, roll once more for comeliness," David said.
Penny rolled, wondering what "comeliness" was. The result was a 14.
"Okay, that means you're a bit above average looking," David said.
"You mean I'm cute?" Penny asked. "I knew that!"
The door opened and a girl with blonde hair walked in. She wore a dress with flowers on it and open toed sandals. "Hey, guys!" she called. "I'm here!"
"Hi!" Penny called. "I'm a fighter/magic-user/thief elf!"
"Well, hello, fighter/magic-user/thief elf," Linda said, curtsying. "I'm Moonflower the druid."
"Hello Moonflower the druid," Penny said, trying to curtsy and ending up falling on her butt.
Linda helped her up. "It takes a little practice," she said.
"So much for your 19 dexterity," Andy muttered.
Penny stuck her tongue out at her brother again.
"Nineteen dexterity?" Linda repeated. "Wow, that's higher than anybody else's scores. Do you know much about the game?"
"Just what I've read over my brother's shoulder," Penny said. "So do we start playing now?"
"Just as soon as you roll up hit points and money and buy some equipment," David said. "You need a weapon at the very least."
Penny ended up with six hit points. After rolling for money, she got 100 gold pieces. She bought a short bow, a quiver with a dozen arrows, a dagger, a suit of armor made of tree bark and vines that David counted as "padded armor," a skin for water or wine, thieves' picks and tools, a red cloak, food for one week for herself , a pony (something Penny had always wanted in real life,) a saddle, blanket, and grain for her pony for four days, a blanket for herself, a small saddle bag, and a backpack to put everything in, including her first spell book, which she got free. She insisted on going barefoot. 15gp, 1gp, 4gp, 15sp, 30gp, 5sp, 5gp, 15gp, 10gp, 6sp, 2gp, 4sp, 3gp, 86 ½ gp
"You have 13 gold pieces and one electrum piece left," David said.
Penny made a face. "Thirteen's unlucky," she said. "What can I get for one gold piece? How bout a goat?"
"We don't need a goat following us around, eating everything!" Andy said. "Buy some boots."
Penny had found out that Linda was playing her druid barefoot and wanted to do the same with her elf. She looked over the list of items to purchase again. "What's a tinder box?"
"Something you use to start fires with," David said.
"I'll get that," Penny said.
"You know you're not allowed to play with matches," her brother told her.
"Fine, then I'll get…a rope and…what's a belt pouch?"
"A bag you keep money in," David said.
"Okay, I'll have a rope and a small belt pouch and…a pint of wine!"
"No wine!" Andy insisted.
"Fine," Penny said, glaring at her brother. "A rope, a small belt pouch, and…a wax candle. And don't say I can't have a candle cause I don't have to light it, you know! I can give it to somebody else to light!"
"And that gives you twelve gold pieces and an electrum piece to carry in your belt pouch," David said.
"They make a jingling sound as I walk," Penny said.
"Can we finally start this?" Andy demanded. "We have to go in a couple of hours."
"Where do we go first, David?" Greg asked. He was a serious guy with black hair that didn't talk very much.
"You all arrive about the same time in the village of Berterok," David said, looking at his notes. "It's hot and dusty and you all enter an inn, The Red Dragon, and sit down, one by one, at one of two tables near the back of the inn since the other tables are all full. We can skip over your meeting and getting to know each other and get to the adventure."
"Good," Andy said. "That would waste too much time."
"You see an advertisement on the wall saying adventurers are needed to explore an old shack outside of town that strange things have been happening around at night," David said. "That night the five of you, and your paladin leader, me, of course, set out from town and head towards the old shack. A dim light can be seen shining from the window. It's cold and the wind blows through the trees, shaking the branches, which look like long bony arms and fingers in the dark." He looked over at Penny. "I hope this isn't too scary for you," he added.
"No, it sounds cool," Penny said, although she had scooted closer to her brother when David had said the last part about the tree branches looking like long bony arms and fingers. "I can take it!"
Linda giggled and ruffled her hair a little. "You tell him, sister," she said. "We girls can handle anything boys can handle."
"Yup," Penny agreed. "Cause we're tough!"
"As you approach the old shack," David went on, "the light suddenly goes out! At the same time, the clouds cover the full moon overhead, plunging the party into pitch blackness, and…"
Suddenly the lights went out in the clubhouse.
"Hey! What happened?" came Tom's voice.
"Who turned out the lights?" Greg asked.
Penny squealed and hugged Linda.
"This isn't funny, you guys," Linda said angrily. "You're scaring Penny!"
"I-I'm not s-scared!" Penny insisted, even though her heart was beating very fast.
"Open the door and let some light in," David said.
"Where is the door?" Andy asked, tripping on something. What the? He felt something attached to his belt. He ran his hand across it. He could feel hard leather, and, at the top, what felt like metal in an upside down T shape. What was it? If he didn't know better he'd think it was a sword! And why were his clothes suddenly so heavy? He tapped his arm and was surprised to hear a clang.
"Hey!" Penny yelled. "I can feel dirt under my toes! What happened to the floor?"
"I can feel it too!" Linda called. "What happened to my shoes?"
"What is this?" David yelled. "It feels like a lance!"
"Why am I wearing baggy pants?!" Greg asked.
"Ow! I just dropped a book on my foot!" Tom yelled. "It's not a D&D book. It feels like a big, thick leather book."
Suddenly dim lighting appeared overhead. They all looked up to see the full moon emerging from thick clouds.
"We're outside!" Linda cried. "How did that happen?"
"Look at you guys!" Tom yelled. "You're all dressed weird!"
"So are you," Andy said. Sure enough, he was wearing armor and a sword! And the others were all dressed like their characters!
"What happened?" Greg asked. "Why do I have this staff?"
"Somehow we've become our characters!" Linda yelled.
"Listen to me, all of you!" David ordered. He was wearing a suit of armor and carrying a lance and a shield, a sword hanging from his belt. "This is no time to panic!"
"I think this is the perfect time to panic!" Tom said. He was wearing a robe and carrying a large leather book. "Ah, man, I knew this was gonna happen, I'd've been a magic-user instead of just an illusionist!"
"I wanna go home!" Penny sobbed, hugging Linda. She'd tried hugging Andy, but her brother's armor didn't feel too good and his sword had poked her.
"Where is home?" Linda asked, looking around. "Where are we?" She pointed towards an old shack. "Oh no, it can't be…"
"I think we should get away from here," David said. "Guys, I put some monsters in that old shack, and more wandering monsters all around here. If we're really here…"
"Then the monsters are real too!" Greg finished.
Penny screamed as something came out of the shadows towards them, walking jerkily, like a puppet on strings. As it stepped clumsily into the pale moonlight, they could see bones, and these were not the branches of leafless trees.
"It's a skeleton!" Penny screamed.
To be continued!