at the rest of the band. “Well?”
“How long will this take?” Isabella asked.
“Probably the rest of the afternoon, unless they do very badly,” the GM said. “In which case it'll all be over very soon.”
“Is he trying to be super-creepy?” Maryann asked the others in a whisper, although she hardly needed to bother given the noise level.
“Well, if he's not trying, he's succeeding anyway,” Nora answered.
“Do you even have dice?” Gary asked, condescendingly.
Leah pulled a small, blue felt pouch out of a pocket. “Of course! I didn't come to a con without dice!”
“Maybe you bought them here,” he said snidely.
“These are my dice,” she snapped, pulling one out. “Look, the paint's fading on the d20.”
“So you'll join the game?” the GM asked.
“Sure. Ladies, will you be alright without me?”
“I'm sure we'll find something to do,” Nora said dryly.
“Then follow me, Leah, Gary,” he said, and headed off.
They followed.
“You don't know how lucky she is,” the girl in the Iron Fist costume said. She appeared to be high school age, but with the mask, it was difficult to tell for sure. “Jerome had to apply three years in a row to get a trial run. And she gets invited as part of a pick-up game? She better not blow this.”
“I'm sorry, who are you?” Maryann asked politely.
“My name is Sakura. No, really a Japanese girl named Sakura,” she answered tiredly, “which is why I didn't dress up as an anime character. Jerome's my boyfriend. He's playing in the game this afternoon.”
“Oh, okay. We're the rest of the band.”
Sakura looked over their costumes. “Birds of Prey. Good choice. How did she find a Huntress costume with real pants instead of hot pants?”
“She made it,” Maryann answered. “We sew a lot of our stage costumes.”
“Oh. That's pretty cool.”
“Hey, Sakura, come on! I heard a rumor the X-men writing team was going to show up,” one of the Wolverines said.
“Be right there. Listen, if you head that way,” she said, pointing, “you'll find some booths with ordinary board games and some artists who are selling dragon figurines and stuff like that. I don't know if you care about that, but it'll get you away from the main crowd.”
“Thanks!” Maryann said brightly.
Sakura re-joined the other group and was quickly lost in the crowd.
“Well, I'm all for getting out of this crush of people,” Nora said. They headed off in the direction Sakura indicated.
Leah and Gary followed the GM out of the main convention floor and into a hallway, and then finally into a small conference room. The table had a grid map set out and several pewter tokens of different character races and classes. There was a pile of props for the board and a GM's screen at the far end of the table. Like most GM screens, the stiff cardboard was folded into three sections and had a fight scene on it; in this case Leah saw a five-headed dragon fighting a group of adventurers and a sorcerer with one bat-like wing. Three people were already waiting for the GM. There was a young man dressed like 1970s Power Man, a middle-aged man dressed like Aragorn, and a college-aged man dressed like a Jedi master.
“I am impressed you decided to go old-school,” Leah said to the young man in the Power Man costume.
“I'm impressed you found a Huntress costume with pants.”
“I had to make it.”
“Ah. But anyway, Luke Cage's latest costume is just like, jeans and a t-shirt. What's the fun in that?” he replied.
“Let's get started,” the GM said, and took a seat at the head of the table. “You'll be rolling up level 10 characters,” he said, handing out character sheets and pencils. “You have a limited list of character classes and I would prefer only one character per class. This game can be competitive, or cooperative. It's your choice to decide how you want to proceed. The rewards go to those left standing at the end of the adventure.”
“Are there better rewards if there are fewer people?” Gary asked.
“Perhaps,” the GM replied.
The rest of the band had found the area indicated by Sakura. It was less crowded and they were glad they didn't have to scream at each other to be heard. Suddenly, Nora passed out and fell into Maryann. Maryann fell into Isabella, and the three slowly and clumsily fell to the floor.
“Nora! Nora!” Maryann said.
“There's a nurse's station. Take hallway C and it should be a marked door,” the vendor said worriedly.
“Ok, sure, we'll go take her there,” Isabella said.
A Cylon and the seventh Doctor offered to help carry the unconscious Nora to the nurse's station.
“Oh, goodness, another one?” the nurse said. She was a middle-aged, bustling type woman who spoke quickly. “I'll bet she's overheating with that Catwoman costume. Come set her down. Thank you so much,” she said to the two men. They blushed and then left. The nurse's station was actually a conference room that had a number of cots set up with curtains around them for privacy.
The nurse turned to the band. “I'll get some smelling salts. Does she have a change of clothes?”
“Um, maybe in the van,” Maryann said.
“You might want to get those for her. You don't know how many Catwomen, Black Cats, and Black Widows I see that squeeze themselves into these hot fake-leather costumes and don't drink enough.” She disappeared behind a different curtain.
“This is not normal,” Maryann said.
“I know. I'm surprised the nurse isn't more worried,” Isabella said. “I wonder if Nora's the only one.”
“That's easy,” she replied, and quickly peered behind the nearest curtain.
“That's rude!”
“Hey, it's that girl,” Maryann said.
“What girl?”
“The one that talked to us; Sakura, I think,” she replied.
Isabella looked behind the curtain. Sure enough, it was the young woman they had met earlier. They looked behind the other curtains. There were three more unconscious people besides Nora and Sakura. The nurse re-entered the area so they quickly moved to the side and tried not to look suspicious.
“What's going on here?” Maryann asked.
“I don't know, but we'll find out.”
Nora found herself in an odd space. There didn't seem to be any features, only grey mist. Then she could see four other people. One she recognized as the girl in the Iron Fist costume she'd met earlier. There was also a skinny, college-aged man wearing a Deadpool costume, a middle-aged woman wearing a Professor McGonagall costume, and a clearly teenage boy dressed like a Jedi Padawan.
“What in the hell is going on here?” Nora asked.
“What, like we know?” answered Deadpool. “By the way, nice costume,” he said, managing to leer through the mask.
“Oh, please. Something weird is happening and you're staring at my costume? Honestly.”
“You give cons a bad name,” Sakura said.
“Are you dressed like a dude?”
“What's wrong with that?” she snapped.
“Whatever.”
“Who do you think you are?” Nora demanded.
“Wade Wilson, which you obviously don't know.”
“You can call me Jen,” said McGonagall. “I really don't understand what's happening here. The last thing I remember was looking at some dice for my son.”
“I was waiting in line to see the X-men writing team,” Sakura said.
“I-I'm, um, Mike,” said the kid. “Ryan left me at the Halo booth.”
“Who's Ryan?” Nora asked.
“My big brother. He's a Jedi Master.”
“And he left you alone at this con?” Jen asked, looking upset.
“I can take care of myself. Anyway, he got invited to play by the GM of the Knights of the Black Hand. He's been waiting two years for a t
rial game.”
“Black Hands?” Deadpool said. He pulled off his mask. “Damn, that thing is hot. My brother got invited to that game.”
“Gary?” Nora asked.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. Your name?”
“Oh. Blaine.”
“Jen, do you know someone in that game too?”
“Actually, yes, my husband is playing. Do we all know someone playing in that game?”
“It seems so,” Nora replied.
They started the process of character creation. When they were finished, the GM reviewed their sheets, made some notes for himself, and handed them back. “We are ready to begin. First, since this is a trial game for four of you, I ask the others refrain from commenting when they feel another player is making a mistake, for instance, failing to account for all their bonuses. I want to know how well a player can role-play but also how well they keep track of the mechanics. Second, when you move your token on the board, you must act as though your character has also just moved. That is, if you move the character into threat range, your character is now in threat range. I also ask that you not second-guess the other player's decisions unless there is time to do so. Once you move that token, you must act.”
Suddenly the grey mists vanished and they found themselves in a Medieval-era tavern. It looked large to hold about fifty people. It was lit by torches along the wall and a chandelier with candles. There were about a dozen people in the room wearing fantasy-style costumes. None of them were moving. It was like they had entered a scene of a movie that was on pause.
“And it gets weirder,” Nora said.
“Your adventure starts at the Crimson Wyvern Inn in Baron's Port, because all adventures start under the sign of the Crimson