RinthCon Day 3 - Gareth, A Friendly Wager

Gareth, the character described in this story is an uncredited side-character from the apocalyptic sci-fi / fantasy novel, The Last Days of Earth, book three of the trilogy Oræl Rides to War, by Andrew Hindle, aka. Edpool, aka. Hatboy.

Get Oræl Rides to War here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P7Y55MB

Andrew Hindle’s (aka. Edpool’s) website, for fiction and reviews and assorted social commentary:

www.hatboy.blog

It was Gareth’s third day on Rinth and the third day of RinthCon, and he was starting to get his bearings. The whole place was chaotic beyond belief, but he was beginning to like it. There didn’t seem to be any way off the asteroid, at least that he’d discovered so far, but that didn’t matter. The solar system was something of a dump, to hear the locals tell it … and what possible need did he have for the rest of Rinth’s solar system, when the asteroid itself had a huge network of alternate Rinths, somewhere down in its basements?

No, it seemed like the more sensible approach was to get to know the Labyrinth, and get to know RinthCon and its denizens, rather than wasting too much deep thought on the specific version of reality he’d ended up in. The answer, indeed, that was LUE-42 was far more important than the question of its origins.

The only problem with the endless potential of the so-called Many Worlds Project was that none of the RinthCon people really seemed to want to explore it. And – even more pressing – something seemed to be happening in between RinthCon and the Labyrinth. Something almost certain to be a hindrance to any plan Gareth tried to make, and which the RinthCon people were even more steadfastly determined to ignore than they were the Many Worlds Project itself. There was something very strange going on, and that was already taking into account the fact that the whole convention was happening above some sort of inter-universal nexus.

He’d chatted a bit with Kay Ren and her friend Maps, in the process of getting himself an official RinthCon membership. They’d also been quite helpful in setting him up with a pleasant Saturn Hotel suite. The fib he’d told Edberg Gygax on his arrival was now the truth, which was always convenient. They had, however, been singularly unhelpful on deeper questions of the asteroid’s past, and its physical properties. Maps, of the monochromatic clothes and the amusing pendant, had told him there was nothing down in the hotel sub-basements aside from a lot of “giant nerds” playing roleplay games.

Ren had gone one step further and suggested that if he had questions about architecture, he should go and discuss them with MacDonald Guffen, the convention’s main problem-solver. Gareth recognised a fruitless goose chase when he was sent on one, though, and so let the issue drop. In the interests of discovering more for himself, he descended into the gloomy sub-levels where the “D&D” – as his translator had finally simplified it – was being played.

“Hello,” he greeted one of the little groups of snack-encrusted, dangerously-overcaffeinated players. “Mind if I join your adventure?”

“Sure,” the dungeon master said from behind their secrecy-screen before Gareth even had a chance to offer them a bribe. A chair was duly brushed off, and Gareth settled in it gingerly. “What’s your character?”

“I’m a giant n-” Gareth stopped himself at a warning squirm from his innards. “A … giant,” he concluded. “Wi-fi-fo-fum, and all that.”

The players narrowed their eyes, then collectively shrugged.

“Checks out,” one said.

“Guess he’ll be literally dungeon-crawling, with a hill giant size modifier,” said another.

“Did he say wi-fi-fo-fum?” a third player murmured.

“My character’s name is Gar’eth Belchclub,” Gareth said in a rush of inspiration, and scribbled notes and statistics down smoothly on a character sheet one of the players passed him. “I’m a hill giant who was raised by – what are those little critters that live in mines?”

“Dwarves?”

“Kobolds?”

“Breaker boys?”

“Kobolds,” Gareth snapped his fingers, “that’s the one. I was raised by kobolds and I am debilitatingly afraid of open spaces. What’s that?” he pointed his pen at a broad dish of lumpy black resin in the middle of the table. “Chewing tar?”

“It was fruit,” one player, who was sporting a large helmet with horns attached, replied with a snort. “Someone apparently threw some kind of crit and made a lot of weird fruit, but it rotted away. Didn’t stop Squamish and Wise from trying to recreate the incident for catering purposes.”

“As if any of us would eat fruit,” another player sniffed.

Gareth glanced at the bright purple bag of confectionary open in front of the horn-helmed fellow. “Grape is a fruit,” he pointed out.

Horn-helm chuckled. “Sure it is, Belchclub,” he said. “Sure it is. Anyway, now whenever anyone rolls a natural twenty, half the players shout ‘how do you like them apples?’ or some other crap,” he went on disdainfully. “Complete superstitious nonsense,” he moved to pick up his dice, and tsked as he dropped one. “Aw man, landed on an eighteen,” he grumbled. “I’m gonna waste all my good rolls at this rate.”

Aside from strange little incidents like this, and the occasional tentacle sighting, there wasn’t much going on in the lower levels of the greater RinthCon area. He’d have to get deeper if he was going to learn more, but that didn’t seem like something his ordinary membership would allow him to do. And besides – for all he knew, this was all entirely normal for Rinth. He had only arrived three days ago.

So he gave up for the time being on figuring out what exactly was happening, and went back upstairs to resume wandering and taking in the general vibe.

Gareth paused at the entrance to a lecture hall where a large crowd was apparently gathering to listen to some kind of discussion panel with a celebrity guest, or the holographic recreation of one, or a clone, or a version from some other reality, or something. The translator was a little vague on the specifics. The panel’s title, on the other hand, was quite clear: If You’re Not Injecting Yourself Into Your Story, Are You Even An Author?

Perhaps it was some sort of motivational talk about taking control of one’s own narrative. Intrigued, Gareth started into the lecture hall … and then moved adroitly back to make way for a pair of burly security guards dragging between them a skinny man dressed in an outlandish blocky costume intended to make him look like a large automobile of some kind. A van, perhaps. It had the word “Dodge” stamped on its air intake vent.

“You do this every time we go to a convention,” the van’s friend, a portly kilt-clad fellow following along behind the security men, said angrily. “It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s a celebration of the indomitability of life!” the van shouted, his feet only occasionally brushing the ground from beneath his costume as the guards hauled him along by the arms, which were poking out of the van’s windows. “The triumph of man versus machine! The struggle of a lone hero against the eldritch and batrachian horrors of retirement!”

“It’s a celebration of you not having a single particle of good taste in your entire being, is what it is.”

Gareth watched the altercation with mild interest, then turned back to the doorway. A very small woman in charmingly antiquated clothing was standing there, looking up at him. She’d evidently been following in the wake of the security disturbance.

“The convention,” she said grimly. “Every time, it is a wild and chaotic beast that must be brought to heel for the good of the Horde.”

“Well,” Gareth said, “quite.”

The lady blinked, seemingly flustered by the fact that he’d heard her even though she was talking quite clearly and making solid eye contact.

“Sorry,” she said. “Fin Okayliu, Operations Coordinator.”

“Ah, excellent,” Gareth said. “Please allow me to congratulate you on a most enjoyable and orderly RinthCon.”

Okayliu became even more flustered at this, brushing at her starchy lace and mumbling in satisfaction under her breath. “Most kind … appreciative guests … right kind of clientele … Horde…”

“I was actually hoping to run into someone in Ops,” Gareth went on, ushering her away to one side so traffic to the discussion panel might continue unobstructed. “You see, I’d be honoured to contribute to the RinthCon program. I understand there are … talent shows, artistic displays, musical performances – I heard something about … was it the Soul Smashers, putting on a concert at some point?”

“Yes…” Okayliu said uncertainly. “What would you be doing?”

“Well, a little bit of all of the above,” Gareth said modestly. “I have a group of performing … pets … that I think will be quite the crowd-pleaser. In fact,” he went on in an idle tone, “I’d be willing to bet on it.”

Okayliu squinted. “What do you mean, bet?”

“Oh nothing, nothing,” Gareth assured her, “just a friendly wager. Say, if I put on a show for the RinthCon guests, and it is well-received, you … perhaps … give me access to the lower levels and the Many Worlds Project bridges.”

“I don’t have that sort of access and it wouldn’t be safe to let civilians down there anyway,” she said sharply, then paused to reconsider. “Although,” she went on, “I don’t suppose there’s really any harm, and Paul is looking for acts, and part of the program crew paperwork includes a legal waiver about backstage accidents and mishaps that we could never get the paying members to sign … okay,” she changed her tone and stuck out her hand. “You agree to put on a show, and I will see to it that the Many Worlds Project spaces happen to be left open for you.”

“For the Horde,” Gareth beamed, and took Okayliu’s forearm. She looked surprised, then returned the handshake.

“If you insist,” she said. “For the Horde.”