Games-Con

[Lude]

  Games-Con, a small convention of local gamers coming together in the centralized card and hobby shops of Sahara Square.  Trading cards, Mawgic, poke-beasts, Irons and Medals, Skubhammer, games of all kinds are traded, played, and celebrated.  Awards and promos are given out on a day to day basis throughout the Con.  Fortunately for him, his collection had grown much since he started a few years ago.  Figurines painted and he even had a few fun mawgic decks built and a few hundred dollars to spend on various merchandise, Lude perused his favored shops and signed up for the skubhammer tournament.  An exclusive miniature set was the reward and he felt his armies could stand the competition.  Animals of all shapes and sizes playing competitively and casually for bragging rights as well as the simple fact of having fun.

  As the day grew long the tournament started.  Well on his way, his rag-tag team of tankers and soldiers had banded their armies together to take them to the top.  Cheers roared relative to the surroundings as the thirty plus individuals roared as the dice were rolled clattering to a halt scoring the final hits to take down a super heavy on the opposing team.  Lude scratched his throat nervously as he moved his mechanical anti-tank soldiers from cover to cover and his infantry into position, taking shots at exposed units on the massively detailed  game board.  Saving throws were made and a few more pieces were removed.  In response, Lude had to take a few of his more important pieces off the board as they had hits scored against them.

  Drinks were shared and food was scrounged from street vendors, a booming day of business overall.  All were welcome, passing eyes were drawn to the cheers of various games.  Some games would be held far into the night, others would be suspended with pieces on board until the following morning.  Until then, the game he was focused on was developing into something unique, a level he'd not expected.  Rules were judged and exceptions made.  Lude found himself honestly laughing and smiling for the first time in a while.  He found things increasingly hard when trying to make himself happy.  But for now he enjoyed himself.

[Alfie Boenman]

Alfie and his small family of three had been staying in Sahara Square for the past three nights. He and little Bonnie had been there to attend a little'Con they'd been waiting for all year, while their mother had gotten the opportunity to travel to there for something about work.

He and Bonnie had been huge fans of Poke-Beasts, having collected over one hundred cards. While that may not seem like a lot to some of the best, it meant a lot to the two.

Yawning, Alfie sat up in his bed, looking down at the sleeping form of Bonnie beside him. They were still in their hotel room, their mom having already left for work. His yellow eyes glanced over towards his charging iPawd on the nightstand beside his bed - so long as he had that and was connected to Wifi, he'd be okay to go. Alfie clicked the little circle and checked the time.

10:50 AM? Already? The tournaments have already started! He thought, alarmed at the thought. Swiftly, the mute Blynx placed a paw on Bonnie, shaking her gently to have her wake up.

"Hmm...? What is it?" she groggily asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"It's already 10:50! We need to hurry up and get ready, or else we'll miss all the good stuff!" Alfie signed. Bonnie's eyes widened as she nodded, hopping out of bed quicker than he could sign for her to go get in the tub.

The two prepared themselves for the day. Alfie brought his Ukulele, packing it in his backpack along with his Poke-Beast cards, his iPawd, and about $50 dollars that he'd worked hard to earn off of his mom. Boy, had it taken a lot of cleaning. The neck of his beloved Uke sticking out of his bag and Bonnie's paw in his, the two set off for the Con. Eyes were bright and hearts were beating quickly as they soon approached it. 

Suddenly, regret seeped inside of the young Blynx's heart as he saw how full it was. Animals were swarming everywhere, and Alfie found himself tightening his grip on Bonnie's paw.

No. I just need to breathe. We're here to have fun. Nothing'll go wrong! He told himself, glancing down at Bonnie as she tugged his sleeve.

"Can we go now? I wanna watch animals play the game! And then we can play too, right?" She asked, blinking up at him, her bright blue eyes shining brightly as they did so. Alfie nodded - he could never so no to a face like that. 

They made their way inside of the Con. The pair made their way to the nearest Dipper Dots stand, ordered, then made their way to watch what Bonnie had been begging to go see they'd walked in and gotten a glance at the inside of the room - The Skubhammer Tournament.

"Do you even know what Skubhammer is?" He asked her, letting go of her paw to sign to her. She watched with burning curiosity as he signed. Then, after he'd finished, Bonnie closed her eyes and shrugged. 

"No, I dunno. But it looks AWESOME!" She mewed, balling her paws into fists and throwing them in the air, jumping up with excitement. Alfie did his best to snicker and put a paw on her head, ruffling her fur. Bonnie smiled up at him and grabbed his paw, eagerly taking him around to go and find someone to watch. Suddenly, her ears perked up as they caught some sort of laughter. Taking a sharp turn, Bonnie led Alfie over to where a huge crowd was standing around. 

They were at he very back of he crowd, and Bonnie was jumping up and down, struggling to see what was happening.

"I! Can't! See!" She cried out in between jumps, trying to push animals inside. 


"How about this?" Alfie signed, grabbing Bonnie and holding her up. "Nope! I can't see anything yet." Alfie set her down, and she sighed, the growled. A determined look crossed her face while a worried look spread across him. Bonnie shoved her way through the tall, cheering animals. Alfie gasped and ducked animals as he chased after her. 

Suddenly, Bonnie found the front of the crowd, Alfie only a few pawsteps behind her. "Woah! It's like, ships and stuff, Alfie!" she called, still not knowing anything regarding the game. Sighing and smiling, Alfie shook his head and turned to watch the game. It looked pretty intense, with a wolf sitting at one end of the board. Howvever, instead of having a stressed look like the other components did, he was instead laughing.

Lude

[Lude]

  In his mind's eye, Lude imagined the battle playing out in his head, more than the plastic and pewter models on the table.  His robed mechanical soldiers marching in uniform lockstep, firing in ranks as their radiation weapons decimated troops, and the anti-tank weapons shredded armor.  Lude loved his hobby as much as he could love anything in his life.  Everyone was too stressed though and it was causing them to misroll and get upset.  Fortunate for himself, he had invested in air-craft grade aluminum dice making his rolls a ton easier, and alot more fair than standard dice.  The fifth turn began and he controlled 3 of 5 objectives and his table ally was flanking armor in a distraction.
 
  He noticed the young kids pushing their way up to the table, trying desperately to see the game.  Though it seemed more curiosity at the crowd of tabletop gamers gathered than a shared interest in the game.  Few kids ever got into the hobby, and the price tag was a sound deterrent. Though the looks on their faces when they had first observed the table made the thoughts vanish.  He decided it would make their day to pull them aside and show them how the game was played.  Not in detail or even taking time to explain rules, but just showing how the game looks when played from memory.     

  waving the two of them over, he relinquished his seat and waited for the two to join them.  Lude's starting zone, or his half of the board was a mess of dice close to his reach and he took a tape measure measuring out the movement for his individual units.  The robed long rifle carrying units moved into a building and took up positions, while the shorter more armored units with robes in the wind behind them continued to sit on coin-like objective markers.  He moved his crawling tanks up the middle to keep putting the hurt onto units pushing the mid.

  "Hey kiddos.  Feel like learning a new game?"  Lude pat the seat next to him and waited for the two young'uns to find a spot next to him.  He tapped a tape measure on the table as he waited for them to sit and watch.  He lengthened the measure to a large thirty inches and ran a quick cone from his ranger team in the corner objective, drawing line of sight to whatever target they could see within the range.
 
  "Seven Rifle shots and three anti-materiel shots against your walker."  he called as he pointed the measure at a tall spindly and ob longed walker carrying a sword and cannon of sorts.  He rolled the seven rifles and three anti tank shots separately and counted hits, removing dice that didn't hit, and rolling the hits again to see if they would damage.  One anti-materiel rifle and three rifles hit, the re-rolls made it so the anti-materiel rifle had damaged and penetrated, but the three rifles did not.  An antelope across the table placed a dice with two pips facing up on the base of his walker.

  "Up next are the vanguards..."  He shortened the tape measure by six inches and measured out from each squad of vanguards, picking the weakest infantry in range before calling out his next shots.