Saturday 23 September 2017

Dice (1)

‘What’s this Dad?’
Michaels father looked up from his Newspaper ‘what’s what? Show me’
He passed the soft leather pouch he had found to his father.  Watching as his father took it, holding it in his open hand as though he was trying to recall his thoughts or memories. There was something, a glint in his father's eye, it was as if the small pouch had some weight associated with it that exceeded the few grams in his hand.
‘Wow! Look at this, no one has been into this since I tied it years ago’
‘What do you mean? How do you know? Show me.’
‘See here, I tied it with a thief knot.’
His father tugged at the loose knot, it came apart easily.
‘That’s not much of a knot dad’
‘Yeah I know, it’s called a thieves knot, because sailors used it so they could tell if someone had been in their ditty bag’
‘How? What? What’s a ditty bag, how’d they know? Wow! What are they?’ Michaels' voice trailed off as more than half a dozen crystal colored shapes fell from the pouch into his father's outstretched hand.
‘Polyhedral Die’
‘Poly what?’
‘Dice. Look here’s a four-sided, an eight, two ten sides, a twelve, twenty and 30 sided’
‘Wow! This is massive’ Michael lifted the biggest, bright red dice from his father’s hand.
‘That one is called a triacontahedron; It’s 30 sided’ 
‘What are these used for?’ taking another die from his father's hand, holding it up to the light.
‘Well Michael, hold a tic’ Disappearing into his office Michael could hear his father rifling through the bookshelf. He’d seen him do it dozens of times, grabbing three of four books at a time, pulling them forward tilting them so he could see what was behind it. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. ‘Here we go.’
Michaels father returned to the lounge room and passed him a red box with ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ emblazoned across the top with a picture of a man fighting a Dragon on its lid.
‘This will tell you about the dice’
‘Thanks, dad’ Michael was absorbed, studying the box.
Fantasy role-playing game
Set 1: Basic rules
‘Hey, you’ll need these.’ Michael turned just as his father tossed the pouch of dice into his chest. ‘Make sure you look after it all’.
‘Ok’ again he turned and started to slowly navigate his way through the lounge room, oblivious to everything around him. Subconsciously stepping around the coffee table, kneeling on the couch, spinning and falling back into the couch.
Seated comfortably he held the lid of the box and shook it, the bottom falling away landing in his lap. Putting the lid aside he lifted a sheet of yellowed paper out of the box, covered in writing, diagrams and a pencil drawing of a bearded dwarf. ‘Bobmadik’.
Putting the page aside, he returned to the box lifting out a red book with the same picture on it as the box, just this time it said Players Manual. Michael opened the first page. ‘As you whirl around, your sword ready, the huge, red, fire-breathing dragon swoops toward you with a ROAR!’
‘Michael! Come-on.’ He looked up from the book, it was early evening, someone had turned on the lounge light at some point, he hadn’t noticed. He’d read the whole of the ‘Players Manual’ now he was ready to give the game ago. 
‘Dinner! Michael get your head out of that book and come and help me’

‘Yes Mum, coming.’

No comments:

Post a Comment