The Game Masters of Garden Place Read online

  Declan pushed his hair back with his hand. Like everything about Declan, his hair was just cool enough without trying too hard. Ralph knew that all the other families referred to him as the “hipster” babysitter because he was a deejay in his spare time.

  “Have you ever heard of Reign of Dragons?” he had asked Ralph’s parents.

  Ralph’s father looked like he was trying hard not to smile. “Sure, that’s been around since I was a teenager. I never played it, though. The only ones who did were—”

  Ralph’s mom cleared her throat loudly. “We’re familiar with it.”

  Declan nodded earnestly. “I know. In the old days”—Ralph’s parents winced at this—“the kids who played it were considered nerds and losers. But now those nerds are running movie studios or starring in billion-dollar comic book adaptations.” He leaned forward. “My dad loved it and got me and my older brothers hooked. When I came to Brooklyn, I found out there are all sorts of people my age who are into it.”

  “Are you saying you still play it?” Ralph’s dad asked incredulously.

  “Sure,” Declan said. “Who wouldn’t want to be a barbarian raider for a few hours a week, battling orcs or dragons instead of your cell phone company?”

  Declan turned to Ralph. “What do you think, Ralphie boy?”

  Declan always had nicknames for Ralph. This one came from some old TV show called The Honeymooners, which Declan swore was the funniest thing ever but Ralph just thought was dumb when he watched a few episodes on YouTube.

  Ralph didn’t have to think. He’d just finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the third time. This sounded really awesome.

  So it was settled. Declan would lead a game of Reign of Dragons for the kids. His role, it turned out, was to be the game master, or GM, as it was called. He would narrate a story, which he came up with especially for Ralph’s party. Ralph was fascinated by this. He’d never heard of a game where there were no set rules or goals. This was open-ended.

  Declan turned to Ralph and said, “If you want, we can pick another RPG. Reign of Dragons isn’t the only one. There are tons of them.”

  “RPG?” said Ralph.

  “Yeah, you know, role-playing games….Hey…wait a minute….” Declan’s eyes narrowed. This was a bad sign, Ralph knew. He could sense another nickname coming.

  “What’s your middle name, again?”

  “You know what it is,” Ralph said. His mom, like moms from time immemorial, always used his full name when she was mad at him. (“Ralph Peter Ginzberg! Did you leave the top off the ketchup bottle again?”)

  “Peter, right?” said Declan. “So your initials are RPG? That is so epic. It’s the same as—”

  “I know,” muttered Ralph. He had a feeling this one was going to be around for a while.

  Ralph assumed that when Declan showed up for the party, he’d bring a board and some game pieces. Instead, as he unpacked his knapsack, Ralph—or RPG, as Declan almost always called him now—was intrigued to see a stack of books, pads of paper, pencils, and sheets of paper with all sorts of charts on them. There was a board of some kind, but it was more like a grid. And lots of funny-shaped dice.

  Noel’s eyes lit up at the sight of the books piled next to Declan. He devoured anything having to do with fantasy, and as soon as he’d heard about the party, he’d bought the player’s guide to Reign of Dragons. Ralph could tell from the expression on his face that Noel already considered himself an expert in the game.

  Declan began to explain the rules: “So here’s how this works. Before we even start to play, you all—”

  “—have to create our characters! I’ve already done mine!” Noel broke in enthusiastically.

  “That’s not fair!” Jojo said, jumping up from her seat. “He’s got an advantage!” She looked like she was about to punch Noel. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Declan didn’t even flinch. He nodded appreciatively. “Noel, it’s really great that you’ve done some work beforehand, but let’s all start from scratch together. You cool with that?”

  Declan turned to Jojo. “It’s totally cool, Jojo. This is a whole different type of game. You’re not competing with each other, you’re working together as a team.”

  “Wait. There’s no winner? What kind of game is that?” Jojo groused.

  “Trust me, you’ll see,” said Declan.

  “Can you have a character that sings?” asked Persephone, of course.

  Declan nodded. “It depends on the story and the characters you’re playing,” he said.

  “That’s FANTASTIC!” yelled Persephone, jumping up and down.

  It turned out the sheets in front of them were for helping to create the characters they would play. There were all sorts of choices, and everything was up to them.

  First they got to choose their race, meaning they could be an elf, a human, a dwarf, or a halfling, which was a little like a hobbit.

  Okay, a lot like a hobbit.

  Pretty much exactly like a hobbit.

  But the man who created the game, Warwick Wycroft, didn’t have the rights to use the word hobbit, Declan explained. So halfling it was.

  And then they chose their character’s class, which meant its job—whether it was a fighter, a wizard, a rogue, or something else. Declan explained that a good group had one of each class, to balance out the strengths and weaknesses of the other characters. They all could be fighters, but then they might get into a situation where they needed a rogue’s cunning or a wizard’s spell, and then they’d be in a bind.

  To no one’s surprise, Cammi immediately chose to be a mysterious elf wizard, and Jojo promptly took the role of a powerful kick-butt barbarian fighter. Persephone was thrilled to learn there was a character class called a bard, who basically cast spells by singing.

  But Ralph thought it was a little funny that Noel chose to play as a cunning, sly halfling rogue. This didn’t seem like Noel at all. Rogues were masters of bluffing, cheating whenever possible, and lying when it served them. Noel, on the other hand, seemed compelled to tell anyone and everyone exactly what he thought.

  For example, he might say, “Wow! I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s one ugly sweater!” But he’d say it so good-naturedly that it was hard to be too mad at him. He was just saying what he felt.

  The only one left was Ralph.

  “So what’s it gonna be, RPG?” Declan asked as he wrote down the other choices.

  Ralph had been thinking the whole time. Who was he? He wasn’t really a fighter like Jojo, and he wasn’t good at keeping secrets the way Cammi was. He certainly wasn’t going to be another bard. And he couldn’t see himself as a rogue.

  He looked down at the player’s guide he had borrowed from Declan’s pile. “So what does a cleric do, anyway?”

  “Well, the cleric is kind of misunderstood,” Declan began. “He’s sometimes seen as a supporting role, healing the other members of the team or protecting them or granting them more powers, because he can’t cast as many battle spells as a wizard. But in some groups, he or she can be seen as the leader. He protects his group and makes decisions that can be the difference for his comrades in encounters with evil forces between life and death.”

  “Okay…,” Ralph answered, “I guess I’ll play the cleric.”

  “Good man, RPG,” said Declan. “You know, I’m a cleric in the game I play with my friends. A dwarf cleric.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what I’ll be too,” said Ralph. And they high-fived.

  As Ralph rushed to fill out his sheet with statistics for his dwarf cleric, Declan turned to the others, a mysterious smile creeping over his face. He picked up a twenty-sided die.

  The dice controlled everything: whether they would be surprised or would surprise their enemy, the order in which they could attack, the amount of damage they would take or m
ete out—all was decided by rolling one of the dice. There were six: one four-sided, one six-sided, two eight-sided, one twelve-sided, and one twenty-sided. Declan referred to them with the letter d and how many sides it had, as in “Roll a d4 to determine your skill at deceit.”

  “All right, my fellow adventurers,” he began, opening his notes. “Let the adventure begin!”

  During that first adventure, the group had found themselves in the tavern of the Gray Rabbit, where they encountered a mysterious cloaked man who had told them of a quest.

  “We are in a battle for the very soul of our world,” Declan had said, in the creaky voice of an old man. “I need adventurers for a quest that will bring them glory and untold riches if they succeed.”

  He turned to Persephone. “What do you want to do?”

  Persephone looked at the others. “Can we trust this guy?”

  “He seems suspicious. You should challenge him to a fight!” Jojo said eagerly.

  Noel looked up from his copy of The Reign of Dragons Monster’s Guide. When it wasn’t his turn, he was poring through it. “Maybe he’s a demon from another world. It says here there are creatures called Demiurges who can shape-shift and—”

  “I think we should leave and look for a room somewhere else,” Cammi said. “It sounds risky, and we’re not powerful yet.”

  Ralph was silent. Persephone nudged him. “What do you think, RPG?” They had all started calling him that, and he kind of liked it.

  “I think you should roll for a perception check,” he said. “Maybe you can see if he’s honest.”

  Persephone nodded and rolled the d20. “Eighteen!” she squealed. “Yay!”

  Declan grinned. “That’s a great roll. Look at his hand and see that he wears a ring that bears the crest of the Morgorath. He must be of the Royal Family.”

  Declan turned to Cammi. “What do you do now?”

  Cammi said, “We kneel at his feet and say, ‘We await your orders.’ ”

  Declan nodded. He consulted his notes. “The man pulls back his cloak, revealing that he is indeed Prince Andromodus, ruler of Morgorath. He tells you that in order to foil the plans of the evil Duke Cormorant, the prince must regain the Serpent Scepter.”

  Ralph looked at the others. “Does Cormorant know about the scepter?”

  “Yes. He searches for it as well. The last of the ancient wizards who created it divided the scepter into seven pieces, after foreseeing the rise of Cormorant. Each piece was sent off on one of seven ships, each going to one of the seven islands that neighbor Demos.”

  Five anxious faces leaned forward.

  “But the pieces must be found in the correct order,” Declan continued. “If you just collect the pieces at random, you will break the spell. But the clever wizard left a puzzle to be solved. Find the answer to that puzzle and it will lead you to the first island.”

  “So?” demanded Noel. “What’s the first puzzle?”

  Just then the doorbell rang. There was a flurry of noise upstairs, with footsteps and loud voices.

  “Welp, looks like we have to end there. Your parents are here, and—”

  There was a chorus of “No fair!” “This stinks!” “Come ON!” The three hours had flown by.

  Persephone’s mother appeared at the door. “Sweetie, it’s time to go.”

  Declan was collecting his dice, rolling up the board, and putting the pencils and pads away. “It’s all right, Persephone. We have to stop now anyway.”

  “We can’t stop there!” protested Ralph. “It was just getting good! We don’t even know the first puzzle!”

  Jojo crossed her arms. “I’m not leaving until you tell us.”

  Declan looked at the kids and shot his fingers through his hair. “Well, we could continue the game next week. Let me talk to your parents….”

  And just like that, the weekly RoD group was formed.

  “Please step forward,” the herald declared.

  “Well, my new friends,” said Bram, “it looks like we have moved up in the world!” Gerontius nodded. He was the quietest back at the tavern, but the wizard held himself like a leader, and somehow they all seemed to regard him as such.

  Mirak gazed around the vast throne room of Andromodus. Heavy velvet tapestries hung from the ceiling, obscuring the windows. All the light came from the huge chandeliers, each festooned with what looked like hundreds of candles. The furniture was made of warm, dark wood, matching enormous columns, each of which featured one of the seven ancient mages, the wise ones who had made the Seven Serpent Scepter, carved in relief.

  As they walked forward and approached the throne, Jandia instinctively grasped the hilt of her broadsword. She trusted few, and was not about to let down her guard because of some fancy talk and finery. But if there was an adventure to pursue, she was willing to listen.

  The young man who bounded out of his seat and ran to greet them was quite different from when they had met him at the Gray Rabbit. Gone were the rags and tatters, which had been replaced with robes of fine silk of dark ruby red. Jandia also wore red—a bright blood-red cape symbolizing all the Kreel who had perished at her blade.

  “Welcome, my champions!” exclaimed the prince as he warmly shook their hands. “Let us make haste, as the scoundrel Cormorant is still gathering his forces.”

  He led them to a broad oak table covered with scrolls and parchment. He unrolled one and spread it out before them.

  “The only clue we have,” declared the prince, “is somewhere on this map.”

  On the scroll was a map of the whole of Demos, including the islands on which each piece of the Seven Serpent Scepter was to be found, if the tale was true.

  Gerontius pointed to an island near the port city of Breukelyn.

  “The first will be found there,” he said with a nod.

  The others leaned in. Torgrim stroked his beard. “It looks like all the others.”

  “How can you see that so quickly?” asked the astonished Andromodus.

  “Elves see things that others do not,” Mirak said, smiling. “Do you have a tool to see closer?”

  The prince clapped his hands, and a large magnifying glass was brought to him, encased in brass. He held it over the island the wizard had indicated.

  Now it was clear. He shook his head in amazement. In the smallest possible hand, so tiny that it was almost hidden by the letters identifying the island as Fahrenthold, someone had drawn a green snake.

  The prince’s eyes lit up. “Amazing! But I expected nothing less from you!”

  He turned to the group. “I shall have a boat in the harbor prepared. You sail at dawn!”

  The quest had begun.

  By the flickering torchlight, all could see the two reptilian kobolds lying dead at Jandia’s feet.

  They had arrived on Fahrenthold Island only a few hours earlier to explore the now-deserted coastal city.

  Torgrim peered up at the jutting cliffs that surrounded the port like massive hands held up to ward off whatever evil still haunted the place since its abandonment after the Great Wars. “A fitting place for an ambush.”

  Gerontius motioned toward a brace of columns that were crumbling into ruin, like the rest of the structures that dotted the main street. “Our search leads there.”

  Bram led the way. He held out his hand and pointed downward. There, beneath what appeared to be high grass, were metal plates, rusted but possibly still deadly.

  Torgrim nodded and reached to pick up one of the heavy pieces of masonry that littered the street. Bram scampered back to the others, and the dwarf grunted as he heaved the stone onto one of the metal plates. Immediately, the plate gave way with a groan, and sharpened steel rods shot up from the ground surrounding it.

  The group gathered around the plate, and Bram carefully pulled it up, revealing a set of stairs twisting dow
n into darkness. A dusty torch was attached to the side wall a few steps down.

  Mirak nocked an arrow into her bow, and Jandia took her broadsword from its sheath.

  Gerontius stepped forward and whispered into his glowing orb, which sent out a shower of beams and lit the torch. Bram carefully took the light from its holder and began his descent, followed by the others. As he reached the bottom stair, he immediately recoiled. The others could see the tear in his sleeve and blood staining the fabric. Torgrim rushed forward, grabbed Bram’s arm, and began muttering a healing spell. The bleeding stopped. “What was that?”

  Bram turned to answer, when suddenly his eyes widened, and he pulled the dwarf down, just as an arrow whistled by his ear.

  There was a thunk as the missile found its mark and a high-pitched groan as a kobold fell dead at his feet.

  “The demon was my target,” Mirak said calmly. “There was no need for such theatrics.”

  They stepped over the body of the small, vicious creature in his crude armor.

  Jandia moved to the front. Two other helmeted kobolds were playing some sort of dice game at a rough-hewn table. They were arguing, which was why they hadn’t heard their comrade fall. They turned at the sound of her approach, but with one stroke she slew them both.

  She peered into the torchlight. This was an old dungeon, with chains attached to the walls with stout rings. Some of the chains still held the skeletal remains of ancient prisoners who had had the misfortune to come before them.

  It was Gerontius who spotted it. A small smile played across his lips as he walked over to a section of wall that looked at first glance like any other. “See how this one differs from his brothers?” he remarked, pulling at a chain attached not to circular ring, but rather to a square bracket. The bracket pulled away from the wall, revealing a hidden compartment. He lifted his hand to reach inside, when Bram called out.

  “For such a wise and powerful wizard, you would not be so foolish as to put your hand where it might be chopped off,” he said.