Lucky Dice

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Lucky Dice

By Plot Roach

I like to role-play. And by that I don’t mean whips and chains, but polyhedral dice. I’m one of those freaks that you made fun of in school, sitting in dark rooms, pretending to be a half elf wizard with a lawful good alignment. The only thing worse then my acne was my ability to socialize with others, unless the dice were in my hand. Then I could conquer the bad guy, save the world and tell my tale at the local tavern. Granted that tavern was usually the local gaming shop and the patrons were just as lost to reality as I was.

We would get some poser from time to time, people who wandered in to listen to our stories and make fun of us when they left. We could usually root them out by asking what level their game master was or asking them if they preferred Dungeons and Dragon 8.0 over 9.0.

We may be freaks, but we are loyal to one another. You pick on one of us, you face all of our wrath. Though mostly that’s just a bunch of people in t-shirts with sarcastic remarks written on them, standing around eating junk food, living fantasy lives in between shifts of manual labor and counting the days until the next supplemental book in our games graces the book shelves.

I was waiting at my favorite game shop, Player Killers, listening to the same tales I heard every day that I came here. To listen to our tales, you would swear that we fought in wars, real ones. And then someone says something like ‘hits points’ or ‘constitution‘, and you get that what we’re talking about isn’t real at all. But in our heads it is. So isn’t that what counts? What keeps us happy is what keeps us from spitting in your food when you make fun of us at work. While you were scoring a touchdown and pulling a tendon that will never work right for the rest of your life, we were pillaging dungeons, and adding a few extra experience points to our characters) as well as a few pounds to our waistlines (with all the inactivity and the aforementioned junk food).

So I was listening to Sam (aka ‘Cryptkeeper’, the litch necromancer) talk about the early days of D&D when someone walked in and I knew that he didn’t belong here. He was built like a bull and twitchy as all hell. The laughter of our group as Cryptkeeper finished his last tale made him jump like a cat in a room of pit bulls. So I asked myself what could put this guy on edge? I walked up closer to the front counter, wanting a better look. I was creeping along silently. Hell, I’ve played rogue characters long enough I should know how to move like one -right?

He never heard me coming, but I could hear what he was saying to Michael, the owner of the shop. He was threatening to shoot him if he didn’t give the man everything in the register.

Michael kept his eyes down, not wanting to alert any of us and get us killed, was my thought.

What could I do? I asked myself. I was built like a twig compared to this oak of a man robbing the place. The only weapons at my disposal were hardback books and a rack of paint your own pewter figures.

Michael handed over the bag of cash and the man backed away from the counter. He hadn’t seen me yet and I crouched low to the ground, not wanting to get shot for spooking him. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my bag of polyhedral dice. I scattered them across the ground and prayed. Sure enough, the man wasn’t looking where he stepped and his right foot came down on a twenty sided Chessex Blue Vortex. He went down harder than a horde of drunken trolls and Michael was on him in an instant.

He had pulled ‘Excalibur’, a beat up wooden baseball bat from behind the front counter and started beating the would be thief like a gold filled piñata.

Eventually we called the police. But not until everyone had a turn. We may be freaks and nerds. But when you mess with one of us, you face all of us. When the police came, the thief was more than willing to go to jail, rather than face us for one more minute. I colleted my dice from the floor, glad the police didn’t need to confiscate them.

I kissed the twenty sided before slipping it back into my bag. In the past it had helped me to defeat a litch king, a fire dragon and a basilisk. Now I had one more tale to tell, thanks to my lucky dice.