Page 3 of The Player Next Door
Chapter Three
“Yaen, what’s your decision?” Devi prompted.
Clare’s palms were sweaty but she squared her shoulders and kept her voice even. She had been playing as Yaen for years. She knew exactly what Yaen would do. “I kiss him,” she announced.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” Clare ignored the sharp intakes of breath from her left and right.
“Roll for success, then,” Devi instructed her, and Clare held her own breath as the dice skittered across Toni’s dining-room table. She’d rolled a twelve and the entire party gasped. “You grab Ildash by the robes, kissing him despite everything he’s done. Your lips meet and for a moment, it seems you’ve failed. He goes still and you wonder if he’ll go through with it anyway, casting the spell that will rip the continent in two. Rain pours down around you, soaking you both—”
“Oh my god, a rain kiss?” Toni interrupted.
“You’re goddamn right it is,” Devi replied without missing a beat. “Slowly, Ildash lowers his hands, cupping your face as he returns the kiss. With tears pouring down your face, you watch as he pulls back and gasps, violet eyes flying open. The rain stops and a ray of sun breaks through the clouds.”
“Wait, he wascursed?” Clare gasped.
“Shut up and let me tell you. The golden light dissipates and Ildash is left standing before you, blinking like he’s never quite seen you before. He looks down at his hands, bewildered, and then back at you. ‘Where am I?’ he asks. ‘And what was I about to do?’ ”
“Oh my god, he was cursed,” Clare said again, a huge smile on her face. “Did my kiss break the curse?”
“Is this justBeauty and the Beast? It feels likeBeauty and the Beast,” Annie pointed out.
“I’m getting there, and no, the Beast was dying so that’s different,” Devi said with a long-suffering air. “Do you guys even want me to keep going, or are you just going to keep interrupting me?”
“Sorry, continue,” Clare said.
Devi cleared her throat. “You explain everything to Ildash—the war he started, the spells he cast, the bargain he made with the Orcling King—and with each new revelation he looks more and more horrified. ‘How can I make things right?’ he asks, and you wonder where to even begin. It seems, however, that for now, Sulzuris is saved.” Devi sat back, apparently finished.
Clare preened in her chair and reached for one of her brownies. She baked for every game day and these were a particular favorite, fudgy and delicious, and she wasn’t about to deny herself some victory chocolate. But then she caught the way Devi was smirking. “Wait,seems? Oh shit, what did we miss?”
Devi leaned forward and so did Clare, Toni, and Annie, breath bated. “With Ildash freed, it seems Sulzuris is saved . . . but over on the eastern shores of Noet, an eerie calm has fallen over the land. The waves seem smaller and softer than usual, as if magic is smoothing the way for something. Even the ravens have gone quiet, their raucous calls silenced. It should feel peaceful, but there’s something sinister about the stillness. Just past a rocky outcropping that surrounds the deep, calm waters of Firesand Bay, the prow of a ship appears. And then another, and then another. The ships crowd the bay until there’s hardly any water left, it seems, just wooden vessels of war, all of them flying the same flag.”
Toni gasped and Devi sent her a stern look, the rest of the table silent as a tomb. Devi returned to her Game Master voice. “The Dragon Army has arrived.”
She may as well have dropped a bomb. “We defeated them months ago!” Annie exploded, while Clare and Toni shrieked in surprise. “They’re back?”
Devi grinned and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You defeated some of them. But no one ever said they had entirely given up, and Ildash has a lot to answer for still. But that will have to wait until next time.”
“Fuck,” Annie muttered. “I wish you weren’t so good at this.”
Toni frowned. “Degar didn’t even get to do anything. I maintain my potion would have worked.”
“Probably,” Devi conceded, closing up her iPad with her notes. “It would have killed Ildash, but then you would have had to fight the king’s minions, and with all the damage you took storming the castle I’m not sure it would have worked. You’d be betting a lot on the dice, which is risky. Plus, Ildash-on-a-redemption-quest will be a powerful ally if you let him join you.”
“Fair enough,” Toni said. “Chase is going to be pissed he missed this, though. And I can’t believe Yaen is getting the villain romance of Clare’s dreams. How long have you been angling for this?”
“Since forever,” Clare and Devi said in unison. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Clare added.
Clare had been playing Quest for Sulzuris since her freshman year of high school, so that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Her first group had been a bunch of quiet, nerdy boys, but they had universally looked down on Clare’s love of romantic storylines.It cheapens the game, they always said, and she had given up on making those choices for years, even after she’d left that game in a somewhat explosive fashion. But their mockery and her subsequent humiliation had stuck with her, and it wasn’t until she met Devi her first month of college that she’d found another girl who played, and who similarly thought romance adventures were actually more fun than regular ones. It was hard—okay, nearly impossible—to play Sulzuris with just two people, but they managed, coming up with solo quests for each other and trading off as Game Master until Devi met Annie at a Young Democrats meeting on campus and hit it off. Toni and her twin brother Chase joined them their first year out of undergrad, when they were all still living in shitty student housing in Dinkytown and working terrible jobs that were only tangentially related to their degrees.
Now they were on their fourth campaign together, although Chase traveled a lot for work and thus was more of an auxiliary member now. But love for Quest for Sulzuris had been a defining feature of Clare’s life for a decade now, which was why being hired by Quest Gaming two years ago had been such a momentous occasion for her. There had been some ups and downs working there, but she was creating a world that other people would get to lose themselves in, and that was enough.
“Look on the bright side,” Clare said to Toni, who was a touch bloodthirsty when it came to these decisions. “I’m sure Degar will get to kill a lot of dragons on the next campaign.”
“You will, I promise,” Devi said, and lifted her brownie toward Clare in a silent salute. “What’s new with you?” she asked Clare.
Clare busied herself picking up some minuscule crumbs and shrugged. “Not much,” she admitted. Her life had been quiet lately, and while that wasn’t unpleasant it was also, well, a little boring. She went to work, which she loved but where she still didn’t have many friends, she baked, she walked Kiki occasionally, and she came to game day. They were gearing up for a new edition at work, which would be exciting, but that pitch meeting wasn’t for weeks, and there was no guarantee her idea would be chosen.