Wyvern. You have gathered in this place for your own purposes. Perhaps you answered the notice on the board from the Baron. Perhaps you've heard rumors of fame and fortune and are looking for a lead. Perhaps you know each other, or met on the way, or are complete strangers. Please describe yourselves.”
“Okay, so everyone heard that, right?” Nora asked.
“Oh, yeah, I heard that,” Sakura said.
“Are-are we in the game?” Mike asked. “Because that sounded like the GM just started the game.”
“Don't be stupid; how can we be in the game?” Blaine asked.
“Do you have a better explanation?” Nora snapped.
“Um, no.”
“Please, you go first,” the GM said to man in the Aragorn costume.
“Ok. My character is an elf ranger with no multi-class named Galadhon. His specialty is the longbow, but he's also got two-handed dagger fighting. He was born in the High Elven city of Laeron...
As the player spoke, Jen's costume changed into a fantasy-style ranger costume. A longbow, a quiver of arrows, a pack, and two sheathed white-handled knives appeared on her back. “I think I'm Rich's character,” she said, as the background voice droned on about the elf's back-story.
Blaine looked at Sakura and Nora. “Come on, chainmail bikini.”
“Oh, grow up,” Sakura snapped.
In a few minutes, that voice stopped and a new one spoke.
“That's Jerome!” Sakura said. Her clothes changed into plate armor and a giant sword appeared on her back. “He always plays dwarf fighters.”
Mike ended up wearing black leather armor, a black hood and cloak, and carrying a small pack. “Oh, man, rogues always get killed early in the game and I'm a Halfling too? I'm so so very dead.”
Nora's costume changed to studded leather armor and she ended up with a nine-foot long staff.
“Oh, man, you're a female barbarian and you're not even wearing a fur bikini,” Blaine griped.
“Shut up.”
Then Blaine's costume started to change. “Dude, is Gary playing a girl?” The Deadpool costume was switched out for a white, cropped halter top, a long, white skirt split at the sides, thigh-high white boots, a silver moon necklace, and a white hooded cloak. “Oh, damn, seriously? Am I seriously an elf cleric wearing this skanky outfit? Don't I get some armor or something?”
“Um, I think the cloak is your armor. You know, spell caster penalties,” Mike said.
The three women were sniggering loudly.
“Hey, this isn't funny! We're still stuck in some game. What happens if we get hurt here? What happens if we die?”
They stopped laughing. “That's a good point. I don't suppose we can refuse to play?” Nora asked. “I mean, what control do the players have?”
Back in the nurse's quarters, the smelling salts failed to wake anyone up. The nurse still seemed oddly unworried, so Maryann and Isabella quietly performed a spell to detect magic. Sure enough, the five unconscious people seemed to be under some kind of enchantment, as did the nurse, although she seemed to be under a different enchantment.
“What do all these people have in common?” Maryann asked.
“What do any of them have in common? The only thing I know is that Nora and Sakura both know someone in that game.”
“That GM was pretty creepy.”
“Well, it's a lead. I'll go try to find that guy,” Isabella said. “You stay here and let me know if anything here changes with anyone.”
“So,” the GM continued, “you are all in the Crimson Wyvern Inn. What direction do you want to take your adventure?”
The frozen tavern scene started to move. The room quickly filled up with a smoky haze and low voices.
“Can we talk to anyone? Can they hear us?” Jen asked, as they heard in the background the voices of the players going through awkward in-game introductions.
“I'll find out,” Nora said, and walked up to one of the patrons. “Hey! Can you hear me?”
The cloaked man paid no attention to her.
The others repeated the experiment to no avail. Nora even went so far as to try to jam her staff down on a patron's foot. It connected, but there was no effect on the patron.
“The Rat King rejects your offer and throws a drink in your face,” the GM said. “When you blink the beer out of your eyes, he's gone.”
They saw a rodent-looking man in the corner suddenly throw his drink and then slink quickly out of sight.
“So he reacted like I was trying to bargain with him,” Mike said. “But I didn't hear Ryan fail his skill check. So we can hear the role-playing part of the game, but nothing about the dice rolls?”
“Great. So we have no way of knowing if our player just fumbled and could get us killed,” Blaine said.
The GM continued. “So you decide to work together to earn the reward from the Baron. He is waiting in his opulent office. 'I need stout-hearted warriors,' he says. 'I ask you to visit the ruins of Castle Darkmoor. Legend says the undead dwell there, lead by a vengeful lich king. The castle has been quiet for centuries, but there are more and more reports of the undead attacking the Trade Road. Perhaps these are exaggerated. Perhaps they are not. Bring back anything with the seal of Castle Darkmoor with your report and I will give you the reward. I care not for any treasure you may find there. But be warned. I have offered a reward to three groups of stout-hearted warriors before you. None have returned.' Do you agree?”
As the GM spoke, the tavern faded and turned into the Baron's office. Then the office changed to a forest, then to a blighted land strewn with dead trees and tumbled boulders. It was within sight of a large, ruined stone castle.
“Cheery,” Sakura said.
“Hey, I think I heard something,” Jen said, nocking her bow.
“What good is that?” Blaine asked. “We couldn't do anything before.”
Sakura and Nora readied their weapons.
“Maybe the game plays differently for combat,” Mike said, disappearing behind a rock.
Several walking corpses came into view from behind the large rocks.
“Oh, my God, zombies. Those are really zombies,” Jen squeaked.
“Nora and I will stay at the front,” Sakura said. “Jen, you and Blaine stay behind us and make sure we're not getting surrounded. Jen, try to stick with arrows as long as you can. Mike, sneak attack. Blaine, try to turn undead and then be ready to hit us with healing spells.”
“This isn't even going to work,” Blaine stuttered.
“Do you want to find out if they can attack us?” Nora snapped.
“Fine, fine, start killing them. I mean, killing them again,” he replied.
Sakura swung her ridiculously huge sword at the zombies, chopping bits of decaying flesh from their bones. Nora bashed in their skulls with her staff. Jen fired arrows into the close combat. Mike popped out from behind rocks and the dead trees to stab the zombies with his dagger.
Blaine held out the necklace and said, “So, turn or something,” which caused the necklace to glow with white light that spread out in a circle before vanishing. Half a dozen zombies turned to ash. “Cool.”
Within minutes the combat was over and the zombies had been defeated. Nora and Mike had taken damaging blows from a few of the zombies, but Blaine cast a low-level healing spell on them.
“I still don't know if anything I did with this sword had any effect on the combat,” Sakura said.
“But it was kind of fun,” Mike said. “Except for being hit. That actually hurt. And it was gross. Totally gross.”
“I'm still not happy about being trapped in some game, especially since that thing actually hurt me. Or at least, it felt like it hurt me. Where's my body right now?” Nora asked.
The nurse had asked Maryann to leave, but she insisted on staying, so the nurse gave up and went to her desk and started to read magazines. Maryann had to stop herself from chewing out the nurse for being so inattent
ive because she suspected the nurse was enchanted to be unconcerned and inattentive. But while the nurse wasn't paying attention, Maryann tweaked the curtains so she could see all five unconscious people from one spot. She noticed Nora flinch and take a deep breath like she'd just been hit in the stomach and Mike wince as his right arm twitched. She texted this information to Isabella.
The enormous size of the con made Isabella's investigation difficult. She eventually found a lead at one of the smaller, local booths. Then she hit pay dirt. The locals were a wealth of information on the Knights of the Black Hand, although oddly not one of them knew the real name of the GM. She was directed to a former member who was dressed like Wolverine.
“So your friend got invited to the trial run?” he said, after Isabella explained her interest. His costume made it hard to determine his age, although he was probably closer to middle-aged than not. “That's something. People have to apply, you know. Sometimes like five times”
“If it's that difficult to join, why are you a former member?”
“Emeritus member, actually,” he retorted. “You don't really drop out. You just stop playing. It's hard to find that kind of time, and well, life gets in the way. Work, school, maybe even dating, then career, then marriage, then kids...” He shrugged. “But I still miss the game. The GM is a legend. He was great at setting up adventures that never seemed like railroading and in the four years I played I don't think our group ever caught him off-guard. He always had a back-up plan.”
Isabella