Kevin J Anderson - Gamearth #2 Gameplay (The Gamearth Trilogy)

GamePlay

Gamearth 02

by Kevin J. Anderson

Copyright (c)1989by Kevin J. Anderson

Fictionwise

www.Fictionwise.com

Science Fiction

To Ginger LaJeunesse

(Charles Dickenssaid it best ... )

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people haveoffered encouragement and comments during the writing of this book. I wouldlike to thank especially the members of my writers workshop for critiquingabove and beyond the call of duty: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Michael C. Berch, ClareBell, M. Coleman Easton, Lori Ann White, Gary Shockley, and Avis Minger. I alsoexpress my appreciation to Chuck Beason, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and DougBeason ... for a whole bunch of things.

"Alwaysremember this: every character on Gamearth was created by the Outsiders. Weexist solely for the amusement of those who Play our world. Our ambitions, ourconcerns mean nothing everything is determined by the roll ofthe dice."

The Book ofRules

PROLOGUE*

Melanie blew warmbreath against the map of Gamearth, trying to make the paint dry faster. Shedidn't want the other players to see what she had changed. David would probablycall it cheating but their game would keep playing itself, nomatter what they did.

Melanie wanted towin.

A shoebox ofacrylic paints lay on the card table in the study. Some of the colors had driedup, with lids cemented by hardened paint. But the bottle of deep forest greenhad some sluggish drops left at the bottom.

The map's hexagonsof terrain were bright and vivid colors, like some lost Arabian mosaic. Theyrepresented mountains, forests, seas, deserts.

Melanie pulled astrand of long brown hair behind her left ear and blew again on the wet paint.She looked at where the mysterious "Rulewoman" supposedly lived onthe map, in one of the forest-terrain hexes deep in the south. The complexity,the patterns of the map were dizzying.

Gamearth they had created it as a fantasy world setting for a role-playing game, she andTyrone, Scott, and David. The four of them played there, embarking on imaginaryadventures into imaginary lands every Sunday night for the past two years.

Melanie had paintedthe map herself, acrylics on a smooth sheet of wood, using rulers andprotractors to lay down the precise grid of hex-lines between sections ofterrain. No store-bought map kit would do for their world it had to be something personal, something she created herself.

Gamearth needed tobe different from all the other worlds available in simple boxed adventures.

Melanie and theothers put a great deal of themselves into Gamearth.

Perhaps too much.

But times changed,and the Game went on and on. One entire race of characters, the Sorcerers,departed from the world in a magical Transition that turned all of them intosix powerful Spirits: three white Earthspirits and three black Deathspirits.

David wanted to endthe Game there. He said it wasn't fun anymore. But Melanie and the othersoutvoted David, and so they kept playing. David could not leave them. The Gamehad too much of a hold on all of them. Instead, he made an attempt to destroythe world, but he had been thwarted.

Now, though, Davidhad finally made up his mind if the others would not let himquit, then he would create a new monster, Scartaris, to devastate the entiremap and suck every spark of life dry.

That would end theGame once and for all.

But Melanie plannedon stopping him. They both had to play by the rules but rulescould be advantageous, especially if you bent them a little....

Melanie carried thealtered map out of her father's study. She could hardly tell where she hadrepainted the one hexagon. They would not notice, since she had not changed theterrain type, in which case she could argue -as Scott would thatshe hadn't changed anything relevant anyway. But she had placed somethingthere, under the paint, into the world of Gamearth.

She didn't know ifit would work, if her world could ever have any true connection with thecharacters inside Gamearth. But this had to be the way, if anything. Ithad to be.

Somehow duringtheir last gaming session she managed to communicate to her characters aboutthe growing threat of Scartaris in David's designated section of the map. Herthree characters, Delrael the fighter, his scholarly cousin Vailret, and thehalf-Sorcerer Bryl, had tried to protect their land from Scartaris by creatinga giant barrier river that severed the eastern half of the map from the rest.

But now she knew,as did her characters, that the Barrier River would not stop David's creature.It would only trap half the inhabitants of Gamearth on the wrong side with the growing threat of Scartaris.

She stared at theblue line of hexagons that indicated the river slicing down the map. It stillgave her shivers to think about it. Gamearth showed its own power the previousweek, during their last gaming session.

This had becomemuch more than a game to all of them.

In their imaginaryadventure, the new river came surging through a channel from the Northern Seato pour across the plains and as the four players watched,Melanie's painted map reflected the change all by itself.

Hexagons of forest,grassland, and swamp terrain turned blue, right in front of their eyes.Scott, the "rational" one, had been amazed and terrified, unable tohint at an explanation.

But Melanie knewthe explanation. It was so simple. After being steeped in the gaming fantasy asdictated by the rules, Gamearth had developed its own magic.

And Gamearth wasnot going to accept its destruction without a fight.

If she could doanything to help, even if it meant stretching the rules a bit behind the otherplayers' backs, then Melanie felt obligated to do so.

After all, not manypeople ever had the opportunity to save a world, not even an imaginary one.

Satisfied that thenew paint had dried, Melanie carried the map board out to the kitchen andstarted to prepare herself for the Game. The future of her world would be inthe roll of the dice.

ENROD'S CROSSING

"Something isterribly wrong here. My own city of Taire has succumbed.

People I have knownfor years act strangely. At times even I do not know what I have done or whereI have been.

"And theuntainted lands to the west have cut themselves off from us with a great river.We are trapped and alone. We have been sacrificed. They didn't even give us achance."

Enrod, Annalsof Taire, final entry

The Sentinel Enrodstood on the eastern shore of the Barrier River. The black hex-line thatseparated the water from overhanging willows and reeds extended razor sharp asfar as he could see, north and south.

Off in thedistance, across the impassable expanse of water, he could see the greenrolling line of forest terrain, lush and healthy. Farther north Enrod could seethe broad expanse of a hexagon of grassland. All green, all growing, safe andprotected from the evil to the east.

Enrod gritted histeeth. His hand squeezed the eight-sided ruby, the Fire Stone, he had carriedall the way from Taire. The corners of the gem dug into the skin of his palm.Enrod paid no attention to the pain. He was the last remaining full-bloodedSorcerer male on Gamearth, now that Sardun was gone. Enrod had used hisreserves of magic to keep himself healthy and relatively young-looking. But nowthe haunted weight of too many years shone out from his eyes.

He looked at thegreen forest terrain across the River. His eyes widened and turned bright. Theterrain would not stay green for long. Alien tendrils crept up within him,sliding along his spine, inside his skull, like some invading leech. Visions offire and sorcerous destruction marched across his imagination.

Enrod's dark hairhad been tangled in the long journey across the map, but he paid no attentionto it. Whenever he thought of something else, any other distraction, he feltsharp pain in his head. It would all be better once he brought destruction tothe other side of the River, once he showed