The Price of Fame
To Chris, it was like watching an old movie in slow motion. The dice fell from his hands, striking the board and rolling, rolling, rolling to their destination on Sid's side. He held his breath as the numbers eventually came up.
5 and 5.
The figurines on the board had changed to match their players; only Chris' remained as it was, originally. Slowly, it slid to the first intersection where both Sid and the Incubus had stopped, and paused, the two choices before him, blinking.
"Uh, let's see... Well..."
He counted past the intersection and saw that his total of 10 would take him one space past Sid's leonine pawn to an as-of-yet unmarked blue space or one past the incredibly sexy Incubus pawn (God, how he loved staring at even the miniature representation of the demon ... it was just too alluring!) to ... a red space marked "RANDOM".
Chris glanced at the shrunken form of Tyler dubiously and then at Sid. He tried hard not to stare at the Incubus but the occasional glance wouldn't hurt. He adjusted his pants to give himself more room and jerked his attention back to his playing piece.
"I don't think I want anything random," he said, moving his pawn towards Sid's piece. "And even though there are three times as many "CHANGE" spaces this way, I think I'd rather just get this over with and try to get to the other side, quickly."
His small, iconic representation landed on the blue square and -like with the green and red, every blue square immediately lit up with white, scrolling text. It flickered by swiftly, the previously chosen options of "MYSTIC" and "RANDOM" greyed-out.
Chris could feel his heart beating faster and faster as he watched his fate decided by the inanimate object. Soon, the movement slowed to a crawl and each blue space on the board now said "SOCIAL".
"Social?" asked Chris. "What does that mean...?"
He didn't have to wait very long to find out. In the center of the board, the misty letters formed again; another new rhyme taking form:
TEMPORARY CHANGE
-2 turns-
"A lifelong dream now comes nigh,
But with it, also, a twist.
You're wealth and fame are rising high,
Though your status, now, is missed."
"Status?"
Tyler looked up at Chris and shrugged. "I dunno; a social change isn't exactly something..." He trailed off.
Chris could feel the others staring at him, even the luscious Incubus. He smiled at that and winked at his sometime playmate, wondering just how much larger the demon had gotten -in certain places- along with his height increase. His mind preoccupied by the handsome demon across the table from him, he didn't even notice the change come over him.
Slowly, Chris' clothes became much finer. The tight-fitting "Pet Shop Boys" concert T-shirt vanished to be replaced by an expensive, imported silk shirt. A custom-made black suit, stitched with silver thread, seemed to ooze over him like a liquid before solidifying and snugly embracing his body.
At this, Chris finally jumped and noticed the metamorphosis. He could feel information -like streams of data from the graphical representation of "The Matrix"- flow through his mind. Numbers ... figures... All of them, he realized were his accounts; his investments.
Chris' eyes grew wide as he began to realize just how much he was worth. His fine clothes -easily costing $25,000 from an importer of fine silks- were the least of his value. Indeed, as he thought about it, he realized that he was now worth at least two billion dollars!
"Oh, god..." he gasped, shaking his head. "I...I don't believe it..."
The others were still staring at him.
"You, uh, you changed something other than your clothes?" guessed Sid, looking at his friend, dubiously.
There was a tone of acid in his voice that Chris attributed to his previous argument with him over the Incubus, so he ignored it and just nodded. "I'm ... I'm rich!" he said, plainly. "Gods, I'm richer than Donald Trump!"
"Oh, swell," muttered Tyler, rolling his eyes and still trying not to look directly at the Incubus.
"Yeah; why do you get something so good?" asked the demon, jealously. "I mean, you've always gotten the breaks, haven't you? You get into college on a scholarship, you only date the hottest guys, you can eat what you want and never gain an ounce!"
The tone from his lover went straight to Chris' heart and wounded him like an arrow. "Dave, come on... It...it was just the luck of the draw."
"Luck of the dice, don't you think?" snarled Sid, angrily. His leonine countenance scowled darkly. "God, I don't know why I even bothered to ask you over."
Chris looked surprised. "Sid, we've been doing this for months..."
"Yeah and I never realized before how much I despised your fucking luck."
Sid's words hit home at once to everyone around the table. Chris' eyes grew wide. He looked at himself, at his fine clothes, and then at the scowling faces of his former friends. "Oh no..." he whispered, stunned.
Sobbing, Chris jumped up from the table and ran from the dorm room in tears. All around, other people in the dorms shouted out his name in reverence and awe as he ran to the bathroom for some solitude from the horror of what had transpired. Still sobbing, he ran inside and leaned up against a sink, finally staring at his red eyes in the mirror.
The game had given him wealth and fame but taken his friends away from him...
Meanwhile, back in the room, Tyler looked at Sid and smiled. "Well, good riddance, I say," he chuckled. "Now, let's get on with it and finish this damned game."
The board, now, was mostly filled-in. Only the yellow, pink and black spaces remained without text and only two of the text choices from the mystically scrolling script were left to be assigned: "MENTAL" and "PHYSICAL".
Sid nodded and reached for the dice but stopped, his hand poised over the board. "Oh, shit," he said, staring at a new bit of script in the center. The others looked and groaned in realization."Doubles ... roll again"
"Great," muttered the Incubus. "Now one of us has to go get that weasel..."
What do you do now?
Legend: Nudity, Self pleasure male, M/M Sex, M/F Sex, F/F Sex, Self pleasure female, Sex beyond any of the above, Violence