“Arch,” I said, “I found a D and D book over at Ms. Smiley’s. Did you ever play with her?”
He shook his head and got up to put his dish in the sink. I thought that pulling teeth had to be easier than this. Without looking at me Arch picked up his bag and started toward his room. Even though I knew, I asked him where he was going.
He turned to me. “I have to go make up your character,” he said, “for the adventure.”
“What am I going to be?” I asked.
He said, “A thief.”
When Todd arrived we ate and cleared the table for combat. We had no board, only a glittering array of multisided dice and Arch’s pile of books and papers. He also had some props—a small knife, which represented an authentic crosier for casting spells, scrolled pieces of paper, some marble eggs he had bought on a field trip to the western slope, and a glass of skim milk symbolizing a potion to control the colors of certain dragons.
Arch was in a bad mood. He had spoken sharply to Todd at dinner and yelled at me when I asked if I could help set things up. Giving me sharp sideways glances, he carefully arranged several small metal statues of knights in gallant and aggressive poses.
As dungeon master, Arch was our guide, he crisply informed us. He had created the adventure with its many possibilities. When it was Todd’s or my turn he told us what we were doing, where we were going, and what our options were. When we chose an option, we would throw dice to see what happened. It sounded complicated so I poured myself a brandy.
Our characters began in a somewhat downtrodden condition. Taxes, rents, and prices were all high, Arch the dungeon master announced. He brandished a yellowed facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, meant to represent the documentation for these new financial burdens.
“What are
“Just play the game, Ms. Bear,” he replied.
To relieve our difficulties, Arch went on, we were going to have to go into a dangerous forest where the possibility of adventure was high. We were told that after wending our way through the dense array of trees, we had come to a cave. Inside the cave there was the possibility of finding treasure, but only if we could successfully fight the monsters.
I was thinking Freud would have a field day with this when Arch said that I had just encountered six giant water rats, and what did I want to do about it?
“What are my options?” I wanted to know as I poured another brandy.
“Fight or flee,” he said solemnly.
I thought. I wanted to ask a number of questions, beginning with “Just how big are these rats?” but then he yelled at me.
“Hurry up, Mom, you’re slowing down the game!”
I told him I would fight. This produced a flurry of dice-throwing to match my abilities against the rats’ power.
“What happens if I die?” I asked with some timidity while my hit points were being compared to the rats’ on a chart from some book. “Do I lose? I mean, am I out of the game?”
Arch said, “There’s no such thing as winning and losing in this game, Mom. You might just have a setback. If you die here, the cleric can raise you from the dead.”
I looked at Todd, who nodded. Some cleric!
“Do I have a weapon?” I asked.
Arch checked my character’s inventory sheet. “Yes,” he said, “but you can use other methods. Giant water rats eat any flesh, but the flesh of the electric eel is poisonous to it. So you can crack open a raw alligator egg, which the rats like, and then mix chopped up electric eel into the egg, and the rats will eat it and die.” With this lurid explanation, Arch passed me two marble eggs.
I said, “Gross.”
“You made that up,” Todd protested. “I never read that in any book! Besides, the thief is going to use his knife if you’re doing hit points.”
“I am the DM,” Arch announced. “I can make stuff up.”
“Cannot!” protested Todd.
“Shut up!” Arch yelled. He stood and brandished his play knife at Todd.
“What—” I said.
“Shut up, Mom!” Arch’s face shook with anger. His knuckles had turned white as he clutched the sword.
“Stop acting that way this minute,” I ordered. “Todd is your guest.”
“Yeah,” said Todd. He pulled his face into a sulk.
“Nobody around here cares about anything I say,” said Arch. He glowered at me, and for a horrible moment his eyes bulged with the same look of hatred I had seen so often in his father.
“I care,” I said. “Just sit down, okay?”
“I’m the DM,” said Arch.
“Nobody’s saying you’re not,” I said.
Fear knotted my stomach. Uneasy silence filled the room for a few moments, until finally Arch put the sword back on the table and sat down.
After some discussion I said I would prefer to use the knife to hunting up electric eels and alligator eggs. To demonstrate this I traded the marble ovoids for the knife-crosier. I was glad to get it away from Arch, in any event. Thanks to the dice I prevailed against the rats. Sheesh! I needed another brandy.
As it turned out the rats were guarding a secret entry to a cave where a princess was being held prisoner. Worse, the princess was immobilized by a spell. On the plus side we learned that the father of the princess was very rich. If the cleric and I could manage to find and free her, we would receive a huge reward in gold pieces from the local king.
Things took a turn for the worse for Todd. He encountered an amulet-sporting lich, a strong anticlerical monster.
“Surely clerics, can’t carry weapons,” I said.
“Only blunt weapons that can’t draw blood,” said Todd. “And they can cast spells.”
“Yeah,” said Arch, “no weapons for you.”
Todd ignored him and tried to get the initiative on the lich with a dice throw. He lost, and was attacked first. After sustaining some damage to his clerical persona, Todd asked Arch what the deal was on this heavy-duty monster.
Arch screwed his face into an evil expression that made my flesh crawl. He said, “This lich is seeking vengeance for a wizard whom the king killed in battle.” He paused. “It is very powerful. You must approach it from the side, so that it cannot sense your presence. Then you can cast your most harmful spell.”
Todd cast a spell of immobilization, the medieval equivalent of a stun gun. We were off again.
“You can’t go into that part of the cave,” Arch warned when Todd indicated his next move.
“How come?” Todd demanded.
“It’ll explode,” Arch warned. “It has a special warning device put in by the lich.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Arch,” I protested again, “they didn’t have explosives in the Middle Ages.”
He again wrinkled his face into a malevolent expression. “If you don’t want to play, Mom,” he said, “you don’t have to.”
My stomach was still churning, and my mind was feeling the soporific effects of the brandy. I wasn’t learning anything, and what I was seeing from Arch was not making me feel any better about his mental health. And while he was calling the plays, it would be impossible to ask questions about Laura Smiley or anything else.
“Mom’s going to bed,” I said, as if my duties could be lightened by speaking of myself in the third person. I bequeathed to Todd all the gold I had accumulated—on paper, of course—and said I would find out in the morning whether he had succeeded in freeing the princess.
“You boys sure are serious about this,” I commented with a yawn.
“Yeah,” said Todd, “my mother’s making me a thief costume for Halloween. I can’t wait.”
I turned to Arch. “What about you, son? Want to dress up as the archbishop of Cottonwood Creek?”
“No,” said Arch. “I’m going to go as a lich.” He said this without looking at me.
