merchants’ quarter. A modest cobblestone circular plaza and, in the center, a worn-down statue of a bear on its hind legs silhouetted black against the purpling sky.
It’s almost nightfall when Leira sees the tavern’s light ahead, the Duke and Dancer. A shield hangs on the wall outside, the griffin sigil of Darren’s old kingdom. She ducks under the low door frame and steps inside. Self-conscious, she keeps a hand on the hilt of one long blade just to make sure it’s still there. There are two lanterns hanging from a thick wooden beam overhead, a beam that must have been cut from a hundred-year-old tree, a tree that probably never heard a word of Common spoken in its lifetime. A fire is going at the far end of the room, and everything smells like wood smoke and beer and sweaty people. It’s warm after a day of walking in the rain, and her cloak steams a little. The stew is salty and the dark ale is bitter and incredibly good.
The tavern is full of two dozen men, and Leira is comfortable being lost in the din. She’s small and used to not being noticed; it’s a talent. Most of the men are farmers and craftsmen, there every night of their lives, but the inn hosts a few travelers, too.
She thinks back over the day’s walk. Video game characters are only half there except when you’re involved. But the whole saga is built around their roles in the world, half you, half them, a grand-scale millennial puppet theater.
You know from writing the TDR that as a playable character Leira has a high movement rate and great bonuses on ranged attacks. But you know so much more about her, even more than the computer does, because inside the outlines there is what you put into them, so much more memory and awareness and feeling, a whole country of it. And as the evening wears on, she thinks, or perhaps you think, about a summer night in a storybook castle long ago, before the wars began.
You had skin under your fingernails. The prince crouched, cursing, and spat on the floor. You scanned the gallery. It was empty. The mirrored walls showed only candlelight, paneling, your strange, ashen face.
The ball was still at its height. It was the day you’d been looking forward to since you turned thirteen, the thing you’d lorded over your younger sisters. You were going to have a ball. You were wearing the pale green dress you’d forgone a horse for, and saw for the first time how poorly it suited you. You heard your father’s too-loud laugh over the music and the crowd. You tried to imagine how you would explain this to him. It seemed so implausible. You had always been the proper lady to your sister’s tomboy. You were the one they expected to marry off early. Nothing was going to prevent that—or was it?
Flustered, you cast around and settled on a silver candlestick. You held on to your skirt with one hand to keep from tripping over it as you swung the other hand in a broad, hearty sidearm motion that brought the candlestick’s thick, square base into contact with the prince’s kneecap. It must be midnight by now, you thought, and there were an enormous number of decisions to be made in a short time.
Enter Lorac. He has low hit points and armor but above-average foot speed. He has high intelligence, a wisdom bonus, three extra languages. Metal armor is forbidden; metal weapons are used at a major penalty. The spell caster allows four specialties. All magic items operate with a bonus. There is a 20 percent chance that he will be able to evade the effects of cursed items.
In Realms III Lorac has a range of powers that get him through his obstacles. A gesture that lets him drift slowly through the air instead of falling; a word that shatters nearby objects. For all his age, he looks unruffled by the obstacles. When the rain comes he adjusts his hat, but that’s all. In town he gets to choose new robes. When he enters the tavern he gives Leira a sidelong look but doesn’t speak to her. In the firelight he looks a little like one of the three kings of the Nativity scene.
He wasn’t a king but he might have been a king’s vizier, a cunning man and master of many subtle arts. One of the ones who secretly lusts for power, and