The Forsaken Kingdom

A lute strummed softly in the darkness accompanied by the voice of a woman singing a song in some unknown language.

Yuna’s vision cleared up in time to see her hands reforming from dust — though — they weren’t her hands. Both of her hands were covered by a pair of gloves, one green, and one red. She felt a cold chill on her arms and belly only to find that she was no longer in her pajamas. She was wearing a sleeveless,medieval-styled tunic that came down and opened up just above her belly button. The tunic’s collar had spoke-like flaps that came off it like points on a leaf, the spokes alternated between red and green around her neck. Her legs were now covered in black tights with a leather belt that wrapped around her waist with big coattails which covered her backside and ended just above her knee-high boots. Each boot had pointy toes and also was green and red but was opposite the pattern of her gloves. Yuna heard a jingle and realized she was wearing a jester’s hat with four prongs handing over her shoulders, two in front, two in back. The prongs ended in bells that would jingle every time she moved.

“W-w-w-hat the hell is this?”

Yuna looked down at the floor and saw she was standing on a square space with the emblem of a bull. The space was part of a walkway made of more spaces with pictures on them that went way down, cut a hard right, and kept going creating a massive square. Scattered all along the walkway were statues of various people in robes, armor, and weird hats. The middle of the square was filled with fog, and within that fog was the looming silhouette of a fortress far off in the distance. Is this… a giant game board?

Yuna attempted to move down the walkway but bumped into an invisible wall just as she was about to set off her spaces. “What the…”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Nodem said waving his finger. He still looked like Yuna’s grandfather but now he was wearing a purple cloak with the hood pulled over his head, his indigo eyes glowed from within the darkness. “In order to move spaces, you first need to roll. In fact, I have your dice right here. See, they even match your character’s color scheme.” He pulled a pair of black six-sided dice from his sleeve. The dots on one die were red while the dots on the other die were green.

Yuna gritted her teeth. “W-what did you do to me? What is this place?”

“THIS,” Nodem grinned, “is my end of the bargain — MY GAME. Welcome to Race to the Citadel!” Nodem held his hands up and twirled on one foot.

“This can’t be real…”

“Oh, but it is.” Nodem held up his finger. “The game is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is make it to the Citadel in the center of the board and you get your wish. Of course…” He tilted his head toward one of the statues on one of the squares down the walkway. “This is a RACE to the citadel. You will meet other adventures on your journey. Whether you are friend or foe is entirely up to you and the other players.”

“O-ther p-play-ers?” Yuna tensed up. “Do you have other people in this game?”

“YES INDEED I DO!” Nodem laughed. “What's a game without some good ol 'cut-throat competition OR valiant cooperation.” He pinched his chin as he thought to himself. “That reminds me. You are the last player to spawn in so I need to place my Guardian on the board.” He snapped his fingers.

Down the walkway behind Yuna, on one of the tiles marked with bullhead, another statue appeared. This statue was noticeably bigger than the others and looked like a man combined with a bull, holding a war hammer.

“I’ll explain the most important rules to you here and now but the finer ones I’ll let you figure out on your own...”

Nodem prattled on, but Yuna wasn’t listening. She just stared at the strange renaissance fair clothing. This HAS to be a dream… none of this can be real…

“HEY! EARTH TO CLOWN GIRL!” Yuna looked at Nodem who was tapping his foot. “I am trying to explain some basic rules here so you actually have a shot at winning this thing. You do want to help Aurthur?” He sneered. “Don’t you?”

Yuna frowned. Her thoughts ran wild, but ultimately she slowly nodded her head.

“Good. First things first.” Nodem took Yuna’s hand and placed the dice in them. “You need these to be able to move around the board and IF your role doubles you may move again up to half of what you roll was. Obviously, you move the number of spaces equal to your role HOWEVER you may go either direction on the board. You with me so far?”

Yuna nodded.

“Now, the most important part of Race to the Citadel is this.” Nodem held out his palm and a small deck of cards formed from tiny polygons. “This is your deck. Each character class in the game has one catered to that character’s playstyle.” Nodem drew two cards from the deck. A green card with a little wand emblem in the corner and a 2+ on it as well as a red card with a sword emblem and a +2. “These are mana cards. One is a magic card the other is a mele card. Your character class, the Jester, has the ability to use both, although there are four mana card types in the game, you may only use these two types.

“He drew a third card which had four colors on it all taking up a fourth of the card. The sections of the card had a green wand, red sword, blue shield, and a yellow bow and arrow. This card had a +3 in the middle. “This is a wild card. For dual-type characters like you can become either of your mana types when played, for single-type characters it may only be played as that player’s single type.”

Nodem pulled two more cards from the deck with pictures of a Jester on them. On each card, the Jester was in a different pose, but Yuna didn’t get a good look at them. “These are character ability cards. Every character has cards like this special to them and they all do different things depending on what cards are played with them buuuut I let you figure these out on your own.” Nodem placed the cards back into the deck and shuffled them before offering them to Yuna.

Yuna’s hand hovered over the deck. She looked at Nodem whose smile was gone from his face.

“Take — the damn — cards.”

Yuna touched the deck and it shattered into polygons. “I-I didn’t —”

“The cards are now in your inventory. You may access them again at anytime. Which brings me to my next and final word of advice.” Nodem pointed at different spaces on the board. “The spaces with the crossed swords are encounter spaces, on those spaces you draw from the encounter deck and fight whatever monster you happened to pull. The spaces with the little houses on them are towns, I’ll let you figure those out on your own.” He pointed at the space Yuna was standing on. “Lastly, the spaces with the bullhead icon are guardian spaces. The guardian has a chance to spawn on any of these. It would be wise of you to avoid these until you are ready.”

Yuna just stood in shock. Everything just sounded like complete and utter insanity.

Nodem sighed. “I’ll tell you what. The first move is free. I’ll rig the numbers so you will roll and enemy encounter and then you can test out how the game plays.” Nodem took a few steps back. “With that — the stage is yours” He snapped his fingers and he shattered into polygons.

Yuna was now left alone — in the dark void of space — standing on a giant game board — with nothing but the sound of a lute strumming somewhere from within the void as a woman continued to sing softly in a unknown language.

She lifted up her hand and stared at the dice, before clenching her fist around them and hurling them off in the dark void of space.

There was a pleasant chime sound and the stars off in the distance morphed into a constellation in the shape of two dice. One dice face had a two and the other had a four.

Suddenly, the paths lit up six spaces in either direction.

Yuna stepped on one of the adjacent squares; the squares in the other direction of the board, including the one she was just standing on, went dark. She continued to walk down the game board path past a stone statue of a knight before finally ending up on the last space in the line. The space had the crossed swords over a picture of a cornfield. There was another chime; a deck of cards appeared in front of her. The deck had a crossword on the back of the card on top.

Yuna reached for the card on the top deck. Her skin grew goosebumps as she gingerly drew the card. The picture on the card was of a man or thing in dark clothing standing in a cornfield. It looked like — Yuna tensed — it looked like someone made a scarecrow out of a body bag. The text on the card was all blank aside from the name inscribed on top: Crop Guardian.

“What a stupid way to describe a scarecrow…”

The card vaporized from Yuna’s hands before she began sinking into the space she was standing on.

“Hey! Nodem! What is th —”

Yuna was swallowed by the game board.

****

Yuna opened her eyes to see she was back in her room —

Except, it wasn’t her room. The furniture was all in the correct place but everything was decapitated. The wall to her left was completely destroyed. Not only that but the style of furniture looked medieval. It looked like some larper’s fantasy. She made her way over to the gaping hole in the wall and looked out.

It was twilight. The sun was just below the horizon and the sky was dyed in deep oranges and purples. All around the derlect house was a vast cornfield that stretched on for miles. In the distance were large silhouettes of ancient-looking windmills spinning slowly amongst the painted-looking sky. Yuna stepped out on a pile of debris next to the collapsed house. She slid down the pile and stumbled just as she made it to ground level. She once again looked out into the field. There were numerous silhouettes of scarecrows scattered amongst the yellowed cornstalks.

She just now noticed in the corner of her vision there was the word Jester in fancy English letters with the number ten next to it. Bellow that were numbers counting down: 30, 29, 28….

She wondered what the numbers meant. She looked back into the field —

One of the scarecrows was gone. Yuna’s toes curled in her pointy Jester boots and she took a few steps back —

There was a soft wheezing sound coming from behind her followed by the rattling of a chain. Slowly Yuna turned around; her blood became ice cold.

Ambling toward her was a man covered in tattered black cloth from head to toe. There was a zipper that ran from the top of his head down the middle of his body with bits of hay poking out as well as — a single beady, bloodshot eye peaking out where the zipper crosses his face. The thing took its gloved hand and pulled out a sickle hanging from a chain out of his tattered coat. It slowly continued to amble towards Yuna, wheezing every step it took.

“STAY BACK!” Yuna raised her hands.

Then.

A long pointy sword materialized in her right hand — a rapier.

The countdown in the corner of Yuna’s vision continued on. The numbers seem to get faster the closer the thing got: 12,11,10….

The thing was now so close to Yuna she could smell its foul odor of rotten flesh. Yuna ran back towards the house, opened the door, slammed it behind her, and threw down the latch. She began to back away from the door, the thing outside kept wheezing and jingling that horrible chain as it stumbled up towards the house.

5, 4, 3, 2 —

The sickle came crashing through the window and flew right towards Yuna. She tried to move but the thing wrapped around her like a serpent before she was yanked through the air and out the window towards the stalker. She was then hoisted up in the air, the thing had its hand around her neck.

Yuna gasped for air. She could small the putrefied stench of what she could only now describe as a walking corpse.

The thing wheezed before it slammed her hard against the ground.

Yuna felt a crack as she rolled against the grown. She tried to stand but a sharp pain in her back caused her to fall to her knees. In the corner of her vision, the number ten next to the word Jester changed to five. Oh my god… it’s a health bar.

The monster rattled its chain and let a ghastly roar prompting the words “Crop Guardian” to appear over its head.

I am actually fighting a monster in a tabletop RPG game…

The counter in the corner of Yuna’s vision reset and began counting down from sixty.

It attacks every sixty seconds… The Crop Guardian took a step towards Yuna, dragging its sickle and chain. The countdown started to get faster. And the closer it is to me the faster the countdown…

Yuna trembled, the bells on her jester costume jangled as she stood up despite the intense pain. She raised the sword in her right hand causing five cards to appear on the left side of her vision.

The cards!

Yuna looked at her hand, the Crop Guardian continued to walk toward her. She had two +2 magic cards, two +1 melee cards, and a Flashbomb card for a total of five cards.

The crop guardian raised it’s weapon as it prepared to attack; Yuna tapped her hand against the Flashbomb card causing a bomb with a lit wick to appear in her left hand. The Crop Guardian swung its weapon. In response Yuna, body moved on its own, tossing the bomb at the guardians head.

BANG!

There was a flash of white light. Yuna stumbled back, when she looked up —

The Crop Guardian stepped out of the smoky haze with no visible damage.

“WHAT! NO WAY!”

The countdown clock reset and the walking bodybag once again started to amble towards Yuna.

Yuna brought up her cards again. Four left… Yuna began selecting cards at random, both magic cards and — the melee cards went dark. She couldn’t select them.

“How do these work?”

The cards vanished just as the crop guardian charged once again with its sickle raised in the air. Yuna was terrified but her body moved on it’s own. She rolled out of the way of the crop guardians' attack and swung her rapiar which fired off a beam of bright light which impaled the crop guardian from behind leaving a big hole in its center. Bloody hay fell out of the hole and onto the ground. The Crop Guardian wheezed and slowly turned towards Yuna.

“WHY WON’T YOU DIE?”

Once again the Crop Guardian ambled towards Yuna in slow ominous steps.

Now Yuna was running towards the house again. There has to be something around her that can help me, anything. She hopped over a fence and reached for the door, but when she tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. Damnit, I locked it from the inside. She looked over her shoulder to see the Crop Guardian stumble over the fence, it stared at her with its bloodshot eye, as it tried to get back to its feet.

With her back to the door, Yuna waved her left hand causing her last two cards to materialize, she selected both of them.

The Crop Guardian was now looming over Yuna. Her right hand thrusted with the rapier but the monster swung its arm at her, sending her through the door, and rolling across the floor.

Yuna was laying on her stomach, her ribs ached, as she gasped for breath. She looked up and saw her health meter drop to 1. The Crop Guardian ducked its head down as it stepped inside the house. Yuna got to her feet and waved her left hand —

I’m out of cards, I’m dead…

However, a deck of cards did appear floating next to Yuna, causing her to blink in disbelief.

I can draw!

Yuna drew from the deck with every ounce of energy she had left. “Yes! I drew a +3 Wildcard. I —”

THUNK!

Yuna felt a sharp pain in her chest. She dropped her rapier with a clang. She brought her hand to where she felt the pain and bumped into something with a metallic clink. When Yuna looked down she was horrified by what she saw.

The Crop Guardians sickle was embedded deep in her chest. She gasped in horror but could not suck in any air. She tried to scream but couldn’t. Blood oozed from the wound. She looked up at the Crop Guardian which yanked hard on the chain pulling the sickle free from Yuna’s chest along with something red and squishy. Yuna fell to her side. The last thing she saw before her vision went black was her hp drop to zero.

****

“My, oh my,” Nodem said.

Yuna was hunched over holding her chest. She opened her eyes and looked up to see she was once again on the giant game board in space. Nodem stood playfully spinning a game card with his fingers. He still looked like a shriveled old man in purple robes, but he no longer wore Yuna’s grandfather’s face. His indigo eyes widen with glee.

“You were so full of energy and now look at you,” he said, “Where is that sass from earlier?”

Yuna felt tears well up in her eyes, her chest was in so much pain she couldn’t even speak.

“Listen and listen well. THAT was a free turn. You see these?” Nodem waved his hand prompting three green flames to appear in the space above Yuna. “These are your lives. Every Time you die, one of these flames goes out. You die three times here and your soul becomes property of Nodem, understand?”

“Iwmwpppf…” Yuna remained hunched over.

Nodem knelt down next to her. “A word from the wise to the foolish — perhaps you should actually read the cards before playing them. They say around these parts it could mean life or death. Hahahaha.” He stood back up and presented the card in his hand. It was the Crop Guardian card Yuna drew from the encounter deck. “This monster card could have been yours if you won, but now it's mine, and I think I’ll place it right here.” Nodem placed the card on the ground and it vanished into the board. “Should you or any other player land on this space then the Crop Guardian will be waiting right here.”

The old man yawned. “Anyway, that's the end of your turn. I'll tell you what. Because I know how busy life can be I’ll make it so you can take your turns in your sleep. That way you can go about your day to day routine in reality in the day and come play with me at night in your dreams. How does that sound?”

“Fffffwwwwuuuu…”

“Sounds like a “Thank you Nodem” to me. Until next time, Yuna Serazawa. HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

****

“Ahhhhhh!”

Yuna sprung up, everything was dark. She leaned over and flicked on her nightstand light. She breathed a sigh of relief to see she was in her own bed —

Yuna felt a sudden pain in her chest and looked down to see her mint green pajamas were soaking wet.

She unbuttoned the top few buttons of her pajamas and gasped in horror to see a ragged, bloody hole in her chest. She stifled a scream just as the bloody hole closed itself up, absorbing all the blood from her pajamas. Suddenly the pain was also gone.

Yuna stumbled out of bed. She nearly fell over, but she caught her bedroom door frame, and stabilized herself. She made her way down the hall to the bathroom and flicked the lights on. She looked in the mirror at her ghostly white face. Yuna began to tremble and her white face changed to green.

Yuna dashed over to the toilet, opening the seat just before her stomach heaved.