Chapter 30

Game Rules

Boggo

Barnacle-eyes was often at sea lately, dredging. The crew had grown exponentially. Half of them were scouring the parks and wooded areas of Lavenfauvish for fallen branches and little sticks. When she was moored, most often at night, I had been able to climb aboard and attempt to summon Thrush. But so far, no answer.

Apart from suffering a knot full of worry in my stomach, the only bad part was that some of the red besties began to doubt that I had warm-warm beer to sell them. “I do!” I told them, but after repeating that day after day, I could see an edge of doubt in their hopeful expressions.

I talked to Ella at length about my worries. She suggested we go look for him. The reality, however, was that it was better to stay put and wait. He was my best friend; he’d eventually show up.

When he did show up, he would be in for a surprise. The wreckage that had been tethered to the ketch was buoyed and being towed. Barnacle-eyes had exhausted herself by repairing the hull as much as she could. It was slow going and she was almost constantly napping and out of mana. There was nothing I could do to help besides digging out giant bulbs of onion and humongous cloves of garlic. I did prune the woody vines of wild growth plants which the goblins heaped into a pile of material that went into rebuilding the recovered sloop.

Otherwise, I spent my time—the loveliest time—with Ella and Bailey.

“You can do it,” Ella said.

I rolled the d20 in both hands. I spun it. I juggled it. With my tongue between my teeth for concentration, I rolled the die onto the board. The d20 bounced 3 times and knocked over two flaming skeleton figurines. I winced and wrung my hands. The die continued bouncing across the board. It took up my figurine, then sent Ella’s figurine sprawling out. I felt so bad that my ears fell flat. The die stopped at the figurine of our human wizard companion and knocked it over.

“I’m so sorry,” I squeaked. “So, so sorry.”

Bailey sighed. “...It happens.”

“You did it!” Ella said. “You rolled a twenty!”

“I did? I did!”

Bailey leaned over and said, “your sword plunges deep through the ribs of the skeleton king where a red core beats. With a deft twist, you kill that core. Red and orange light burst from the skeleton’s chest. It crumples to the ground in a heap of bones. It’s crown clatters. An old man steps out of the crowd of spectators. ‘You’ve done it,’ he says. ‘You’ve killed the skeleton king and freed our village from his tyrannical grasp!’ The crowd erupts in cheers and tears. The mayor approaches you. ‘Warrior princess Ella and warrior Thrush, you have our eternal gratitude.’”

The game was over. Ella nearly tackled me with a hug, which forced a cough and a wheeze out of me. It had been a long game, lasting almost a week of daily play. Bailey had become so inspired as the game master, he closed shop early for the final days of the game.

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“I’ve prepared another adventure,” he said.

“Another one?” I said.

“This one will involve new character sheets.”

Ella looked at me. “What do you say, Boggo?”

“I’m still waiting for Thrush. Barnacle-eyes is too. I have the time.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” Bailey said.

He shooed us off the board. We collected our figurines, dice, and tokens before scurrying off so that Bailey could lay a new board out. We would begin our new adventure in the grasslands with new character sheets.

“Choose your race,” Bailey said.

“I’d like to be a dragon,” Ella said.

“I’d like to be a worm!” I said.

“Can’t pick a worm,” Bailey said. “It’s not in the rule book.”

“Caterpillar.”

“Not in there either.”

“Can I be something with wings?” I said.

“None of the approved races have wings, I’m afraid.”

“Can I at least be a bestie? Please?”

Bailey flipped pages of a large tome until he found what he was skimming for. He turned the tome to me. “These are some of the choices available to you. How about a gnome?”

So the adventure began. As dragon and gnome, Ella and I went in search of a rare collectible. But the road was long, and while we slept beneath a miniature tree made of felt and clay, a thief had come and absconded with the item. We tracked the thief to a river. In the distance, cutting through the sparkle of a late sun on rapids, the thief was rowing a boat downstream.

We could pursue no further, not for lack of action, but because Bailey needed to go home for the night.

“The adventure continues tomorrow,” he said.

Ella and I retreated to the crow’s nest of barnacle-eyes’ ketch. Ella wanted to sleep over where I slept, and I liked being with her. We lay on our bellies—her on a yellow poof; me on a blue poof—and looked out over the edge of the threshold. Between the vines of giant flowers and rows of giant plants, the goblins reveled. Our tails whooshed back and forth.

“I think this adventure is going to be better than the first,” Ella said.

“I think so too. I wish I could be a worm though.”

Ella cackled. “A worm! Boggo, you can be anybody and you want to be a worm?”

“I can’t be anybody. I can only be the races that are in the rulebook.”

“I want to play them all.”

“The rulebook needs more races. I can’t even be myself. Besties aren’t on the list. If I was a game master, I would include every race. It would let anyone be whoever they wanted to be.”

“Even a caterpillar? A great big horned one that drools?”

“Yes!”

A game had begun. For the next few minutes, Ella and I went back and forth making up characters that should be allowed to be considered in Bailey’s role playing game. The best one we could come up with was a pumpkin with 20 wings, and it bounced on one leg and saw with one eye. Also, a silver-ridged furry rhino courier who could not turn down a messenger quest.

When the stars came out, we imagined those creatures in full detail. We pointed at the stars and discussed bestie lore until Ella looked square at me for a long moment.

“What?” I said.

“Why don’t you become a game master like Bailey?”

“Oh, I don’t have a Fable Stone for that,” I said.

“You don’t need a Fable Stone. You can just declare it. I love our ideas. Why don’t you make your own role playing game? I can help you make up the rules. The first rule is that anyone can play and they can be whoever or whatever they want. Maybe I can be a game master with you and it can be our game. We can do it together. Would you like that?”

“Do you think we could? Do you think it would be good?”

Ella pointed at my collection of figurines: the wiregull carved out of a dagger’s handle, a big fish molded out of earwax, Belut’s likeness carved out of the thick of a sapling, an elder bestie carved out of hardwood. “We’ve already got some figurines. All we need are some rules.”

My tail whipped back and forth. Ella rolled back and laughed long and loud.