After the game, Reed appealed to his mother. “Please mom, don’t make us play with Opie again. He’s such a dork.”
His mother sniffed. “First of all, look who’s talking.” She smirked for a moment at her own joke, then continued. “Second of all, if you’re going to play that nonsense, you’ll at least include Opie. His mother says he’s having trouble fitting in at Eisenhour,” the cross-town middle school.
Reed walked away, chastened but undeterred, and the next day he pleaded his case to his father. He figured that his father, who had often voiced his disappointment in Reed’s own awkwardness, would take his side.
His father was sympathetic to Reed’s plight. “Yeah, that kid’s a little creep all right. Always has been.” But he was unrelenting. “But letting him play will make your mother happy.” He clapped Reed on the shoulder. “And it’s not like he’s that different from you and your other friends. Why don’t you make the best of it?”
As Reed began to slink off, his father called after him. “And by the way, if your grades keep on the way they’ve been going, you won’t have to worry about Opie. Because I’ll take those nonsense books away from you, do you understand me?”
That night, wary of his father’s threat, Reed glumly began trying to catch up on his math homework. He was weeks behind but hoped Mr. Lucido would let him pass if he could turn in some of his missing assignments.
He had just opened his textbook when his phone buzzed with a text. It was Harris.
Barfolomew has to go.
Reed tapped back:
I hear you, I’ll talk to Opie about toning it down.
A few seconds passed, then Harris responded:
No just kill Barfolomew.
Reed:
???
Harris:
Just kill him! You’re the DM!
Reed:
I dunno know man his dads out of the picture and he’s having a hard time
Harris:
So what? this is all a bunch of made up shit anyways
Reed didn’t respond and turned back to his homework. But a few minutes later he got a group text—looping in Sonny and Jack—from Harris:
Reed just told me he’s killing off Barfolomew
<Laughing Until Crying Emoji>
Sonny:
Yeah – do it!
Jack:
Flush the BARFolomew
<toilet emoji> <toilet emoji> <toilet emoji>
Harris:
<Knife emoji> <Knife emoji><Knife emoji><Knife emoji> Barfolomew
Reed felt two quick buzzes from his phone as Sonny and Jack “Liked” Harris’s text. Then, as if to further reinforce Harris’s message, each sent a “thumbs up” emoji.
Reed looked at the messages, then put his phone aside and turned back to his homework. But then he felt the phone buzz again.
He grabbed his phone, irritated now. It was Harris again, in the group chat with Sonny and Jack.
Reed, for real though, hes a dork. But also its not fair he talks so much that we didn’t really get to play.
Another pause. Reed could imagine the three of them on another thread. Who knew what they were saying about Opie. Or, Reed thought, feeling a prick of nervous dread, what they were saying about him.
Harris again:
He’s hogging game time and it’s not fair. If you want to play with him, that’s fine. But we won’t be part of it.
There was a brief pause. Then two notifications:
Jack: liked Harris’s text
Sonny: liked Harris’s text
Reed sat there and stared at his phone. Finally, he texted back:
K.
Then he pushed away his math textbook and rummaged through his desk drawer for a pad of post-it notes. He wrote the words, “Character Deaths” on one, then flipped through his rulebooks so he could mark the right page.
#
The brave adventurers warily approached the entrance to the Ziggurat of Utmost Evil, passing rows of ten-foot marble columns topped by statues of winged demons, terrifying leers on their faces. A massive wooden door, oddly preserved in comparison to the lichen-covered edifice of the Ziggurat, loomed before them.
The four heroes paused just outside the archway into the Ziggurat.
Mayhem pointed at Barfolomew. “Barf Brain here walks point.”
Noble Barfolomew looked confused. “Me? Why me? Why not Khalsa, he’s the muscle here.”
Khalsa snorted. “So, you’re saying send in the barbarian first into a place of magical evil?”
Noble Barfolomew extended his arms, beseeching now. “But you never have a Wizard go first. They can’t wear armor! They can get killed by a single blow!”
Wild Woodrow chanted an ancient, arcane mantra and emerged from a blast of magical energy in the form of a chicken. Then he clucked, “Buk, buk buk, buGOK! Noble Barfolomew is a chicken! BuGOK!” Khalsa and Harris snickered maliciously and Noble Barfolomew’s face reddened.
Finally, Noble Barfolomew swallowed and said, “Fine. I’ll go first. Slowly.”
#
It was late in the session now. Reed had trusted that his Ziggurat was deadly enough to kill any wizard foolish enough to walk in without a sturdier body to walk lead and shield him. He’d planned to let the dice—the blind indifference of probability—determine Barfolomew’s fate, sparing him the unpleasant task of actually killing off the wizard.
But the dice were hot for Opie that afternoon. Barfolomew had blundered through a series of death traps—a poisoned needle full of deadly venom concealed in a door handle, a twenty-foot pit trap with poisoned spikes and giant scorpions at the bottom, the boulder trap on which Reed had worked so hard during math class. But Barfolomew emerged from each trap unscathed as Opie rolled high each time—19, 18, 16—and avoided the fatal consequences of his missteps. And Reed’s dice were ice cold. 1s, 2s, 3s, an occasional 6 or 7, but low rolls every time, always less than the ten he needed to hit Barfolomew and end his life.
As Opie whooped and fist-pumped his way through the afternoon, Jack, Harris, and Sonny kept giving Reed incredulous eye rolls and frustrated micro-gestures. Things came to a head at around 4:30—half an hour before everyone’s parents were coming to pick them up. Opie went upstairs for a bathroom break, still grinning and laughing to himself after his most recent good fortune, when he had rolled a twenty and used his magic to eviscerate an attacking minotaur.
After the upstairs door to the basement shut, the other boys all glared at Reed. Finally, Harris said, “What the fuck, Reed. We talked about this.”
Reed shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you guys. He’s got the hot hand and my dice are ice cold.”
“Who gives a fuck?” said Harris, slapping his palm on the table with a sharp crack.
Jack chimed in. “You agreed he’s out. So kill his guy and send him packing. He’s so annoying.”
Sonny nodded in assent. “He’s a total fucking dork.”
Reed raised his hands up, palms facing the others as if to surrender. “Okay guys. But he’s a wizard. That means he’s squishy—no armor or anything. So as long as you just keep him walking point, he’s bound to get killed one way or another.”
The boys all nodded. Then they heard the door to the basement open and Opie’s footsteps coming back downstairs from the bathroom. As everyone else tried to act casual, Harris mouthed to Reed, “kill him,” while drawing his index finger horizontally across his throat,
As Opie sat down to continue their adventure, Reed looked down at his notes and saw that the group was about to enter a room he had named The Den of Demonic Defilement.
It was about to be finished, he thought.
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