Every Friday night, Jacelle and her friends play the adventure-fantasy role-playing game, The Realm of Imperium. This week’s game is a jubilee because the group has been playing for one year. Jacelle and her friends love going incognito as their game aliases. Kamal plays a scoundrel wizard only looking for his pay day. Daniel plays an uncouth troll with a chip on his shoulder. Teddy dives into the role of a gargoyle capable of flight and strength. Rosa becomes an archer with great aim and an abundance of sangfroid. And Sydney becomes a fuddy-duddy robot who only plays classical music and controls sound through her antenna.
Jacelle plays the role of the game-master. At school, Jacelle gets anxious and sometimes feels like a wordy flibbertigibbet. But when she leads the game, she becomes a gifted raconteur capable of a verisimilitude that brings the game to life.
“This week,” she says, “the realm must contend with evil forces while returning stolen relics and artifacts to their rightful tombs across sea.” Kamal starts the game by trading a magic potion to become a sea captain’s beneficiary, gaining access to the captain’s ship. The players climb onboard to start their voyage as disaster strikes. “Oh no!” Janelle shouts. “A sea dragon hit the ship and sent everything skyrocketing!” As the ship capsizes, the players defenestrate themselves through the portholes. Kamal, Daniel, Teddy, and Sydney cling to flotsam and jetsam in the water while Rosa dives to the ocean floor to salvage the relics and artifacts that toppled overboard. The castaways then swim to a nearby island to continue their mission.
When they reach land, Teddy—who is usually a procrastinator—is the first to discover the tomb. The players turn a wheel that turns an axle to open the tomb’s door. Once inside, Daniel excavates strata and removes fossils and coprolites from the dirt until he uncovers a golden box. Finally, the players place the relics and artifacts in the box to win the game. “Great job!” Jacelle tells her friends, “But an expansion pack called The Realm of New Imperium comes out next week. The game we’ve been playing now goes by the retronym, The Realm of Old Imperium. See you again next Friday!”
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