Roguelock Read online

  With the starting template copied down, my next step was to choose a race. There were six options: elf, human, lizardfolk, masska, niflung, and zeel. The first three were pretty obvious, but I had to read about the others. The masska were a sort of cat people who lived in fleets of colorful ships, kind of like furry gypsies. The niflung were stocky, bearded guys who lived in big cities and liked to build and craft things. The zeel were sort of magical hermits; they had blue skin, lived in towers, and liked to read and study.

  I had decided to make my character like myself, so I chose human for my race. I had never felt like a cat, lizard, or anything else weird. Each race received a unique starting bonus, so I looked up what humans got:

  Your starting budget for improving your character is 2,800 XP.

  This meant nothing to me, so I continued on in the rules. It turned out that you got a starting budget of what they called experience points, which you used to improve your character’s abilities. As you went on adventures, you’d earn more of these XP, and spend them as you went. Over time your character would grow more and more powerful.

  Instead of the normal starting budget of two thousand, humans got twenty-eight hundred starting XP, apparently to represent their ability to master new skills and adapt to any environment. Fine by me.

  Slowly I worked my way through the calculations for the various aspects of my character. I definitely wanted him to be able to take a hit, so I spent 350 XP to bump him up to 9 hit points, more than double the starting value. I figured it would be a bummer to miss all my attacks, so I improved his attack bonus to +1. That cost me a whopping 500 XP, but I figured it would be worth it.

  Next I looked at saving throws. They all started at +3, but after flipping around in the rules for a bit, I discovered that succeeding on a saving throw meant rolling a 20-sided die, adding your bonus, and getting at least a 20. With my pitiful starting values, I would have to roll at least a 17 to dodge a fireball spell or stand up to poison. Not great odds. I bumped Physical, Mental, and Evasion up to +4 for 600 XP total.

  My starting XP was running out quick, so I skipped over to proficiencies. I definitely didn’t want to be stuck wielding a wimpy dagger, which was about the best you could get with only light weapons, so I spent 500 XP for the medium melee weapon proficiency. That would let me fight with a short sword. Definitely a step up. I considered improving my armor and ranged weapon proficiencies as well, but I was running out of XP. I could always do that later, after I’d earned some XP from adventuring.

  I paused. I was thinking like a gamer— as though I actually planned to play! I laughed and shook my head. I had to admit, I could see the attraction of Dad’s old hobby.

  Next I took a look at the skills. Arcana seemed to cover magical knowledge— not something I had any of in real life. Athletics was for running, jumping, and swimming. I’d never been very athletic, but I could see the appeal. Who said my character had to be exactly like me? I spent 150 XP for a +2 in Athletics. Moving down the list, I skipped Dexterity (used for picking pockets and other sleight of hand, plus balancing and tumbling) and landed on Knowledge. It was a catch-all for any sort of non-magical, academic learning. This was another place where I had little real-life talent, but I indulged myself with another +2.

  I skipped over Mechanics— I’d failed auto shop in real life, no need to relive that shame— and came to Perception, which represented my character’s ability to spot secrets and hidden things. Sure, why not? I gave it another +2.

  At this point I had used up 2,400 XP out of my budget of 2,800. I thought about going back and bumping up my saving throws some more, but an entry in the rules caught my eye. Apparently, growing characters could follow certain paths, which were like job training. They had cool names, like Ambusher, Dreadnought, Lightbringer, Warcaster, and Spellblade.

  "Huh," I said to the empty garage. Buying the first rank of a path, like the apprentice step in the job, would cost me 500 XP, and I only had 400. But they seemed really cool. I erased the +2 in Perception and wrote in a +1— that freed up an extra hundred XP. But which path to choose?

  I’ll admit I spent more time than I’d intended reading over the descriptions. They ranged from the mundane (Haggler, which made your character a sort of hard-driving merchant) to the wild (Soulstealer, which let you regain hit points when you killed people with your spells). I avoided the magic-heavy paths, though, since my character didn’t know any. Eventually I found one that really appealed to me: Duelist.

  Duelist

  Duelists fight with a weapon in each hand, greatly increasing the threat they represent and eventually dealing twice the damage.

  Rank 1: You may wield a light or medium weapon in your main hand and a light weapon in your off hand. If you do so, you gain a +1 to all attack rolls, and when you hit with a weapon attack, you may choose which of your weapons deals the damage.

  I already had the medium melee weapon proficiency, and this would give me another +1 to my attack bonus at a cheaper cost than buying it outright— as long as I had two weapons in hand. But I had to admit, the idea of fighting double-handed sounded pretty awesome. The higher ranks would let me use bigger weapons and eventually make multiple attacks.

  With that, my character was complete. I sat for a minute feeling dejected as I remembered that I had nobody to play with. None of my bandmates or old high-school friends were into games. My adventure as a Wayfarer was over before it had begun.

  Then I realized there was one more page to the character creation rules.

  Invocation and Daemon Binding

  Last, and most essentially, you must bind yourself to the Rules. Choose a totem item. It can be any real-world item you have at hand, though it is best to choose an object that will be easy to carry and hard to break. When spoken aloud, the invocation below will bind a minor daemon to your totem. This daemon acts as a conduit between your spirit and the worlds you explore as a Wayfarer. It will advise and guide you in your journeys. Without this final act, your Wayfarer experience will be woefully incomplete.

  I shut the little red booklet. What the hell was this? I’d laughed at the Satanic Panic moms who screeched about Dungeons & Dragons being a gateway to the black arts, but Wayfarer seemed to be asking me to perform some spell in the real world. There were even a few lines in an alien language printed below the invocation rules. No wonder people thought these games were weird.

  Still… if this was what dad was into, if this was a game he’d wanted to play with me, maybe it was worth seeing it through. It wasn’t like I’d get a chance to play the game, anyway. Once I finished this session, that was it for Wayfarer.

  I opened the book. The strange words printed in bold below the rules stared back at me, practically begging to be read aloud. I took a breath, preparing to read, then stopped. Skipping back to the rules, I realized I hadn’t chosen a totem object.

  I looked around for a moment, then noticed a pair of shades sitting on my drum kit. I plucked them off the snare drum and started to laugh. They were Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Cool kid shades, and not cheap, but my mom had bought them for me as a graduation present.

  It wasn’t going to get any better than that, so I brought the shades back to my workbench. I set them in front of the booklet, settled myself comfortably on the drum stool, and read the invocation out loud.

  AMGEDPHA

  ALLAR ALLAR CNILA OLORA

  ILS TOF EOL EOL

  ILS TOF ABOAPRI

  AMGEDPHA

  The words echoed in the garage, rattling the snare drum, making the guitar amp buzz. The room seemed to close in as I spoke, and I felt a presence behind me, touching my shoulder. I began to panic. Then the thought floated up that it might be my father, and I felt my heart slow.

  Then it was over.

  My vision cleared; the buzzing in my head faded away. I looked around. The garage hadn’t changed. The guitars and drums were right where they’d always been. The Wayfarers, the shades, sat beneath the open booklet, unchanged.

 
I let out my breath in a long sigh. So that was that, then. I’d had my fun, and it was time to put the game away. Time to go see if mom needed help packing. I could always go back to the Game Cave tomorrow and sell Karl the book.

  I picked up my shades. I thought mom might like to see me wearing them; she’d certainly spent enough on them. I flipped them open and put them on.

  In the darkness of the garage, silver lines burned before my eyes. They made a sort of tree that looped back on itself in infinite combinations, with branches that shot out into infinity. Some of the branches were broad and bright, almost welcoming; others were slender and faded, as though they would snap under the slightest weight.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, staring in awe at the great silver tree blazing before me. I felt like the Starman from the back cover of Rush's 2112, standing in terrified awe before a great symbol. I had never seen anything so beautiful, but I also felt in my gut that I had never seen anything so dangerous. I might have stood still forever, starving to death in the garage, but a voice spoke to me. It sounded in my head, not my ears, and it knew my name.

  Alex! Hey! Alex! You there, boss?

  I shook my head in alarm, but the silver tree was still there, and the voice came again.

  Okay, rude. Guess I’ll start the introductions, then. My name is Flik. I’m your daemon.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Daemon

  I WAS LOST, and Flik was being an asshole about it.

  Seventeen Pain Positions of Yigg, boss, just make up your mind! he said in my thoughts. I’d learned some interesting curses from him in the last half hour, but this one was new.

  "Why can’t you just say 'damn' like a normal person?" I asked. I said it out loud— trying to talk back to Flik in my own mind freaked me out.

  For one, I’m not a normal person, Flik said. I’m an incorporeal daemon bound to… whatever this thing is on your face. For two, where I come from, being damned isn’t bad. It would be like cursing someone by saying 'Get home safe.' Can you imagine? 'Oh, Nancifur, get home safe, you slithering twist!' Flik dissolved into self-inflicted laughter.

  "Fine," I said. "But I’m going to teach you some proper American curses. I don’t want to be hearing about Yigg all the time."

  If you guessed that Flik and I were on each other’s last nerve, you’d be right. It started out smoothly enough for having a spirit living in your sunglasses. Flik seemed excited to be part of Team Wayfarer, and he quickly taught me how to step from the real world onto the Silver Ways. What had looked like a tree from my garage turned out to be a massive tangle of paths, like the world’s messiest highway intersection. Flik had guided me step by step up the onramp and onto the freeway.

  That’s when things had gone sideways, literally. Flik had neglected to warn me that I could step off the Silver Ways and fall free in the black void around them. So of course I had done exactly that, and dropped until I hit another gleaming chrome path far below. With no way to get back up, I’d begun wandering aimlessly, testing Flik’s patience as he tried to provoke me into taking an offramp at random.

  "Okay," I said. "Let’s just stop for a minute. I’m not going anywhere until you explain what exactly is going on. You’re my daemon, so you must be here to help me, right?"

  Righto, said Flik.

  "So help me."

  Happy to, said Flik.

  "Okay…" I fought down a surge of annoyance. "Okay. Let’s start with the basics. What the hell does this all have to do with the game?"

  Game? Flik sounded puzzled.

  "Yeah, you know, little red book with words in it."

  Oh, you mean the Rules. Boy, you humans really don’t know anything, huh?

  "So explain it." I let the annoyance out on that one.

  Okay, boss, don't burn your brimstone. Here’s the deal. The Rules are a set of cosmic laws that govern how Wayfarers operate in the multiverse. Think of it this way: most people are born, live, and die governed by a certain set of laws. Call it physics, metaphysics, holy writ, whatever, each universe has its own laws that folks have to follow. Normal folks. By binding yourself to the Rules, you kind of— what’s a metaphor that would make sense to a human?— you kind of sidestep the usual laws of the multiverse. Wayfarers play by their own rules. The Rules.

  "So when I created my character for the game… I was actually what, building myself? Changing reality around me?"

  Something like that, yeah, said Flik. Look at your arms.

  "My arms?"

  Just look, he insisted. So I looked. I’d never thought much about my arms— they were thin and soft and they worked like you’d expect arms to work. But that wasn’t what I saw now. They were still my arms— the pattern of veins, the mole just above my right elbow, all that was the same— but they looked as though I’d spent the last year hitting the gym. Ropy muscle moved beneath the skin. I flexed experimentally and felt my bicep become a rock-hard lump.

  "Holy shit," I said.

  Holy shit, Flik repeated with a laugh. That’s fantastic. Divine dung. Blessed be the feces! I’m going to steal that. But yes, your arms. A +2 in Athletics, boss. And a point in the attack bonus, not to mention that medium melee proficiency. Can’t very well swing a sword around all day with limp noodle arms, can you?

  "Do I know how to swordfight now?" I asked. It felt like butterflies were hosting a disco in my stomach. I wasn’t sure whether to puke or scream for joy.

  I wouldn’t go around challenging all the knights of the land, but sure, you’ve got the basics down. Flik paused. Hm… Duelist, eh? Better get a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Not bad, not bad at all.

  "Not bad," I agreed sincerely.

  Next lesson, said Flik. Using your totem. Pretty simple, really. The totem is your interface between your body and the Rules. Powered by yours truly, by the way, and you’re welcome. I’ll go right ahead and turn it on now. You’ll start to see bits of the Rules attached to the world around you. You can see your hit points, damage you take, saving throw and skill rolls, that kind of thing. Your totem doesn’t know anything you don’t know, so it can’t show you some stranger’s hit points, but it’ll show you how much damage you deal him and you can usually guess after he's dead.

  "Saving throw rolls?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

  Ah, said Flik. Big part of the rules. Saving throws and skills require a throw of the cosmic dice. Imagine rolling a twenty-sided die and adding your bonus. If the total is 20 or more, you succeed.

  "That makes no sense, though," I insisted. "If I’m trying to swim across a river, I’m just gonna swim. Not roll an Athletics skill check. I mean… right?"

  Not anymore, boss, said Flik. You follow the Rules now, remember? Certain things are governed by the Rules in ways you’re not used to. Still, the Rules only get invoked if an outcome is in doubt. You don’t need to roll Athletics to go for a nice dip on a summer’s day. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.

  "If you say so," I said. "Okay, Flik. This could work. So if I’m following the Rules from here on out, what about experience points? You know, getting stronger?"

  Glad you asked, boss, said Flik. He seemed to really enjoy being smarter than me. You get XP by spending money.

  "What? How does that make any sense?"

  If a disembodied spirit voice can shrug, Flik did it. I felt it somehow. Them’s the Rules, boss. You earn XP by spending money. Gold pieces, credits, bullets, bucks… whatever’s the coin of the land in the universe you’re in, you’ll get one experience point per unit spent.

  "Why on God’s green earth would that be the Rule?" I asked, exasperated.

  Who’s God? asked Flik. Never mind, don’t care. Nobody really knows why that’s the Rule. It’s certainly a good prod to get you Wayfarers to go out adventuring. Maybe it’s to stimulate the local economy? Dunno.

  Something turned over in my memory. Like a clip reel, I saw scenes of Dad coming home from his weeks away, spending money like it would disappear if he didn’t. Fancy
dinners, designer clothes for mom, expensive toys for me…

  Was Dad gaining XP?

  Was he a Wayfarer, too?

  "Halt, Wayfarer!" I spun around to see a man hanging in the void above me. He was tall and skinny, with slick black hair and a salt-and-pepper goatee. He wore a red crushed-velvet shirt tucked into tight leather breeches and cowboy boots. Around his neck was an ornate necklace like something out of a Doctor Strange comic. A black pistol hung in a holster at his hip.

  "Who the hell are you?" I asked.

  "I am called Mordred," the man said. He had a deep, resonant voice with a Sean Connery accent. "And I am your doom."

  Oh man, said Flik. You’re gonna die before you even leave the Silver Ways. This has to be a record.

  "Shut up," I said.

  Mordred floated slowly towards me through the empty air. As he came, he drew invisible shapes in the air with his crooked fingers. He was murmuring something under his breath. The whole effect was rather hypnotic, and I stared as he drew closer.

  Run, idiot! shouted Flik, making me jump. He was right. Whoever this asshole was, he was clearly way more powerful than me.

  I started running just as something detonated behind me. The explosion blew me off my feet and sent me skidding across the Silver Way. The noise rang in my ears, and as I blinked to try to clear my head, words and numbers began to appear in my vision. They burned into view like neon signs on a rainy night.

  Evasion Saving Throw: 18 + 4 = 22