Tamsin readied a spell, her hand sparking with electrical energy. The creature waved her off dismissively.
“You have the sweet smell of another world on you, the whole group of you,” the creature said. He made no move to leave or even stand, confidently ignoring Tobias’ threatening body language. “I came to investigate. We like creatures from other worlds here. They taste better. They give us strength.”
“Why does everything in this entire world eat people,” Tamsin said.
“Still worried about never going home?” Tobias said. He pointed his sword at the creature. “What do you want, Nosferatu?”
The creature laughed. It sounded like a crypt opening in the darkness.
“Oh, I’m no vampire, minstrel,” the creature said. “And I wouldn’t want to be. No, my tribe’s a little different.”
Before the creature could say another word, Morgan’s booming voice rang out in the darkness.
“Begone!” Morgan said, his voice seemingly coming from all directions at once. The campsite was suddenly doused in a glow as bright as daylight. The creature hissed and fled, its face taking on a feral, predatory look before it ran. Morgan strode into the center of the camp, his hammer held above his head, glowing like the sun, shredding every shadow.
Cordelia and Jack emerged seconds later, weapons in hand, shielding their eyes from Morgan’s light.
“The hell is going on out here?” Jack said.
“Undead,” Morgan said, lowering his hammer. The glow began to fade.
“So I guess we can verify that clerics have powers against the undead in this game, then,” Cordelia said.
“It’s funny,” Morgan said. He looked at Tamsin and Tobias with concern, but Tamsin shook her head. “I was dead asleep and I heard a voice—her voice, Theana’s—urging me to wake up, that we were in danger.”
“Divine intervention,” Jack said.
Morgan shrugged.
“Or a coincidence,” Morgan said. “But that spell was almost instinctual—I don’t know if it’s the game guiding my hand or this goddess, but I didn’t even have to think about what to cast when I saw that thing.”
“Vampire,” Tobias said.
“Something,” Morgan said. He glanced around. “Where’s Eriko?”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” Cordelia said. She ripped open Eriko’s tent. “Gone.”
“He took her?” Tamsin said.
“No,” Cordelia said. “She want to look at that goddamned building, didn’t she.”
“Split the party,” Jack said. “She always splits the party.”
He looked at Morgan, who nodded.
“You scout ahead. We’ll catch up,” Morgan said.
Jack took off at a sprint, whistling and calling Silence to his side. The wolf bounded along, clearly excited at the prospect of a hunt.
“We know where we’re going?” Tobias said.
“Back,” Cordelia said. “Eriko has always been the proverbial curious cat.”
Chapter 5: What we never were
Jack raced through the pre-dawn darkness, bow in hand, hood thrown back so that the night air rippled against his scalp. He marveled, not for the first time, at how sure-footed he was here. Back in the real world he wasn’t out of shape or clumsy, but he still couldn’t get over how much nimbler he was now, never misplacing a step, his endurance better than ever, his movements almost graceful, in a rough and tumble sort of way.
Here we are all what we never were, he thought. Tamsin got her magic. Tobias got his stardom. Cordelia was strong enough that no one ever bothered her. And Morgan could touch someone and save their life with divine magic.
And, as Jack ran so expertly he could keep pace with the wolf at his side, Eriko had the skills to perpetually get into trouble.
Silence pulled ahead of him, huffing quietly as he ran. The wolf turned to look back at Jack, as if to tell him something, and together they stopped. Jack scratched behind the wolf’s ears and pulled an arrow from his quiver.
He looked up at the night sky and then at the trees around them, and those strange, innate ranger abilities he didn’t have in the real world told him they were very close to the abandoned town. He stepped off the worn path and into the woods for cover, his gut telling him not to brazenly approach, just to be safe.
If all the others were what they never were back home but wanted to be, what am I? Jack thought. Unafraid, he guessed. The wilderness didn’t scare him here. He saw the beauty in feral things. A purely urban child growing up, the biggest critter he’d seen in person before college was a raccoon that had grown obese living off human garbage. Here, he could wander for days, not just unafraid but at peace, comforted, surrounded by wild beauty.
He looked once more to Silence, checking to see if the wolf’s hackles were up, but he calmly scanned the woods at Jack’s side, seemingly unfazed. Above them, the sky slowly shifted from black to deep purple as the sun struggled to begin the day.
Even right now, Jack though. There’s peace in this, searching for my irresponsible friend, alone except for magical oversized dog, when I should be terrified, sick to my stomach, being eaten alive by mosquitos. But this is my place now. This is what I am.
Well, maybe not entirely at peace, Jack thought. My best friend is doing her best to get herself killed, as usual. That’s not peaceful.
His meandering thoughts were interrupted by Silence, who let out an almost imperceptible growl. Jack turned his gaze to the place in the darkness the wolf’s bright eyes stared.
What’s out there, buddy, Jack thought, and Silence stopped growling. The two shared an awkward look, and, once again, Jack wondered if Silence could hear his inner monologue. Well, answer me back if you can hear me, Jack thought, but the wolf went back to staring into the darkness and growling. Nocking an arrow, Jack scanned the shadows, seeing nothing.
This is why you don’t split the party, Eriko, Jack thought. If I put an arrow through your lung I’m going to feel terrible about it, but it’s your fault I’m out here in the woods. You’re my best friend, but this is getting old.
And then Jack saw the glimmer of two red eyes in the dark.
Biting back an involuntary gasp, he let his arrow loose, breaking the silence with the whistling snap of his bowstring. The eyes blinked once and darted off, inhumanly fast, gone long before his arrow struck. Fully expecting an attack, he instinctually slung his bow over his shoulder and drew his two short swords, ready for an incoming monstrosity.
But nothing came.
“Well, shit,” Jack said out loud. The wolf looked up at him judgmentally. “I’m not going after him. Do you want to go after him?”
Not really expecting an answer, Jack shrugged at Silence, who began ignoring him to look in another direction, back toward the town.
Great, Jack thought. It’s Jurassic Park and that was the clever girl. Going to get eaten by a sneak attack from behind…
He heard what Silence had noticed before, the soft fall of footsteps through the brush, moving fast, running. But not the sound of something charging at him—those were the footsteps of something fleeing, afraid…
Before Jack could call out, a small, familiar shape slammed into him, knocking the breath from his lungs.
“Jack!” Eriko said. She was covered in dirt and debris, her undercut fauxhawk completely askew. She bounced back to her feet faster than he did, helping him up with one hand and handing him one of his fallen swords with the other. “Jack, we gotta go.”
“What did you do?” Jack said, scooping up his other sword and fixing his hood.
“Um, funny story about that,” Eriko said. “You won’t believe what’s in that building we didn’t open.”
Chapter 6: Funny story about that
Eriko woke up on the ground in the alley beside the boarded-up building, covered in debris and garbage.
She lay very still for a moment, feeling her fingers and toes, making sure everything still moved. The back of her head felt wet—I hope that’s not blood, she t
hought, grossed out by the idea of an open wound in this filthy alley—and her whole frame felt heavy and bruised, but everything seemed to work as intended otherwise.
Before she could pick herself up, though, she saw something dart across the mouth of the alleyway. Man-sized, but skinny, almost emaciated, with exaggerated ears and a hunched gate. She barely got a look at it, but she could tell it wore rags. And it was fast. Very fast.
Maybe I won’t move yet, she thought. She waited for the creature to return, but when it didn’t, she rolled over gingerly, forcing herself to one knee.
The eyes, she remembered. The face looking out at her. It wasn’t a monster, she realized, despite being startled by it. No, it was the face of a child, a very scared child, dark-haired, and clearly amazed to see a human being standing outside the window looking in.
There’s a kid in there, Eriko thought. Not just a kid, as she closed her eyes to try to call to mind what she saw inside the window. There were others behind the first child, too, bodies she couldn’t quite make out, maybe other children, maybe adults. Huddled together in the darkness. Trapped inside a building locked from the outside.
What is going on here?
She took stock of the alley, looking for cover. A handful of crates lined one wall. The alley itself terminated in a dead end, or close enough to it, with a solid wooden fence tall enough she’d need rope or proficiency in parkour to scale. Guess I’m going out the other side, she thought.
She caught the sound of nails on stone and ducked behind the crates as the creature she’d spotted earlier darted past the alley’s entrance going the other direction. Awesome, she thought. I’m in a stealth level.
Then the creature returned and looked down the alley.
Eriko pressed her back against the wall behind her, willing herself to be invisible. Come on, she thought. I’m a rogue. I’m stealthy. Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me…
The creature walked tentatively into the alley, sniffing the air like a hound.
Oh, great, he tracks by smell, she thought. This is the best day ever. I’m so happy I decided to do this.
Carefully, she slid both daggers from her belt, readying herself to strike. This could go one of two ways, she thought. He’s going to come around those boxes, look right at me, call for help, and attempt to eat my face, or…
The creature walked right past her, deeper into the alleyway.
I am the best rogue, Eriko thought. With almost supernatural speed, she drove one dagger straight through the monster’s neck, the point of the blade piercing the opposite side, bisecting his throat from the spinal cord forward. The other she drove between two vertebrae near his shoulders, amazed at the way this fictional world granted her the grotesque knowledge of anatomy to know exactly how to do that. The creature let out one quick, sputtering hiss, arms and legs twitching like a spider’s, and she yanked the dagger in his throat sideways, very nearly removing his head in the process.
And to think, back home I’m a pacifist, she thought. Using the leverage from her other dagger, she lowered the body to the ground, watching as the glow of its red eyes dimmed and then went out.
Okay, the creepy thing can be killed by non-magical weapons. Good to know, she thought. Moving back behind the crates in case another of these monsters wandered by the mouth of the alley, she poked at the corpse a bit. Deathly white skin tinged with blue and gray, a mouth full of needle-like teeth, nearly hairless, fingers with nails like claws. It definitely looked like something they’d killed before, she thought, but she wasn’t willing to jump to any assumptions.
Predatory monsters in a town where children were locked up in a building, Eriko thought. Yup, this is one of those fairy tales that hasn’t been edited for kids. I’ve got to get back to my friends.
She edged her way to the alley entrance and peered into the street. It looked empty, but as a stealthy person herself, she didn’t have a lot of faith in that. Still, it was this or nothing, she thought. Eriko took a deep breath and darted out of the alley, staying close to the edge of the building, looking for cover. She ducked behind a set of empty kegs near a building that looked like it might have been a general store at some point, and judged the distance to the edge of town. Maybe I just run for it, she thought. I mean, I’m quick. I’m sneaky. If I can get into the woods I’ll have more cover to hide.
This is a good plan.
No, this is a terrible plan, Eriko, she thought. This is the reason why you don’t split the party. You’re an idiot.
With another deep breath, she readied herself, and sprung into a flat-out sprint for the tree line. The entire way she expected to hear the scraping of long nails on the stone street behind her, but none came. With an undignified roll, she dove into the woods, ducking behind a tree.
She waited a few seconds, then a few more. Nothing pursued her.
Then she saw another creature, nearly identical to the one she’d killed, creep out into the street and make its way toward the center building where she’d murdered the other.
A few more seconds went by.
And then she heard a chilling cry, half-grief, half-warning, and what she definitely thought was a call to action, a high-pitched wail that no human could make.
Well screw this, Eriko thought, and started to run.
She avoided the road, which was both a smart decision and stupid one as she stumbled and tripped several times in the dark, ran full-speed headlong into a narrow tree she couldn’t make out in the shadows so had she knocked the wind out of herself, and caught her cloak on a branch so bad she almost choked herself hard enough to vomit.
I will never split the party again, she thought, I promise I will never split the party again as long as we are in this world. This was a bad life choice, Eriko. Don’t make bad life choices—
And that was when she slammed into someone so hard her vision went white in the darkness. The darkened figure let out a very familiar, very angry grunt, and she knew exactly who it was.
“Jack!” she said, clambering to her feet and offering him a hand up. “Jack, we gotta go.”
But before she could explain, the sky went very bright for just a moment, and instantly faded back to pre-dawn darkness.
“That looks like one of…” Eriko said
“Morgan’s spells,” Jack said.
“Well, shit,” Eriko said.
Chapter 7: Thoughts on the divine
Morgan couldn’t get the sound out of his head. A woman’s voice, pulling him from sleep, warning him his friends were in danger.
Wake up.
That voice. He knew who it was, though he struggled to truly believe it was her and not just a dream. But she’d already spoken to him once, the goddess Theana. As clear as glass, like a conversation over coffee, he’d heard her voice before. He knew she was real here, some divine creature who granted him his abilities in exchange for… in exchange for what? Morgan thought. These games often had vengeful, fanciful gods, more like the Greek or Norse pantheons than a modern monotheistic belief system, and clearly this was a fictional world where those divine beings took a direct hand in the affairs of mortals.
But why would something that powerful take the time to… nudge him awake to save him? Surely, she had followers everywhere. He’d been her cleric for all of a hot minute.
“You look like you’re thinking big thoughts,” Cordelia said. It still threw him off, even weeks after being trapped here, to see his friend’s face with her half-orc features, the small tusks, the green-tinged skin. She walked beside him as they made their way back toward the abandoned town, sticking to the road to have a better field of vision in case the monster from their camp tried to attack them. Cordelia wasn’t taking any chances, the beautifully crafted axe she’d taken from Ingo when he died casually swinging from her hand.
“Thinking thoughts, yeah. Not sure how big I’d call them,” Morgan said.
He hesitated to bring up the conundrum of being a priest in a fantasy world with Cordelia. Well, with any
of them, really. Morgan was relatively religious himself—absolutely not as religious as his grandma or his father wanted him to be, but then again, who was—but he had enough faith of his own that being an emissary for a made-up goddess made him slightly uncomfortable. He’d never had trouble with it when they played an RPG, but that was just play, after all. It was fun. The gods involved in tabletop role-playing games didn’t talk back to you when you prayed. But it was hard to figure out who to talk to about his concerns. Cordelia came from a religious family, but she seemed to be fairly casual about it herself. Jack grew up Irish Catholic but hadn’t considered himself religious in years, and Eriko was a devout atheist. Any or all of them could offer him their thoughts, but somehow, Morgan thought this was something he had to figure out on his own—it was, he thought with a laugh, his cross to bear.
He shot a side-eye at Tobias and almost laughed. Now there’s the person to talk to, he thought. Tobias belonged to the Church of Tobias. He’d have no preconceived notions or judgments, and despite being a goofball and a prankster, was a shockingly astute observer. I’ll have to pull him aside when things quiet down, he thought, cursing Eriko’s curiosity streak silently.
“What do you think that thing was?” Tamsin said. The twins were bringing up the rear as the group walked two-by-two, staying close.
“Nosferatu,” Tobias said.
“It wasn’t a vampire,” Morgan said.
“How do you know?” Tobias said.
“I just didn’t get a vampire vibe off it,” Morgan said.
“I think it’s a ghoul,” Cordelia said.
Morgan nodded, thinking about all the things he’d read about ghouls in different games, in H.P. Lovecraft stories, in folklore. They’d fought something they thought was a ghoul back in Moderate Expectations, but it had been a mindless thing, not speaking, eating the dead from their caskets in a local graveyard.
“It seemed pretty chatty for a ghoul,” Morgan said.
“Something like it, then,” Cordelia said. “Clearly it was undead the way it reacted to your spell.”
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