by Kate Messick
We’re leaving the site less than 30 minutes later. Joe and I got to be useful and shone flashlights on stuff while Sandy jotted down notes. It probably painted a funny picture, us in our costumes. The kids didn’t get far into their vandalism before Amorino chased them off. They threw things at him during their escape, and one of those things happened to be a large rock that knocked him over. His arm broke as he fell.
I like having met some of the players in Sandy’s life. She talks fondly of Devon, and it’s good to see his face. My information on Amorino is spotty. I didn’t like him before and I like him even less now. I would bet money that they had been an item in the past.
“Wait,” I hear a light female voice say. We’re almost at Joe’s car. All three of us turn.
“Sandy, was it?” the beautiful Italian woman asks. Amorino’s wife, right?
“Aurora, It’s good to see you again. Although I wish it was under better circumstances,” Sandy acknowledges. I can hear her checking her voice.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Aurora states. “No, actually, I’m not. We need to talk – can we get coffee some time?”
“Or we can just talk right here?” Sandy points out.
Aurora hesitates for a moment and I see something dark and unfriendly flash on her face. “I see you in all those pictures in Amorino’s photo albums. I know you were more than friends for a long time. But he’s my husband now.”
“We dated briefly, like a hundred years ago,” Sandy responds quickly.
“I know. He says I have nothing to worry about … he also just didn’t tell me you were working for him,” Aurora confides the heat leaving her words.
I keep my face impassive as I watch the exchange. The saying “jealousy is a green-eyed monster” runs through my head. I suddenly realize that I’m not sure whose jealousy I’m referring to. The obvious display in front of me or what has been growing inside me? I don’t think of myself as a jealous person and the thought is jarring.
Aurora goes from accusatory to crying in two seconds flat, drawing my attention back to the drama. Aurora looks nervously at me and Joe. “I’m embarrassed to ask,” she murmurs.
I get the hint, even if Sandy doesn’t. We don’t need to be here for this exchange.
“Joe, let’s warm up the car,” I say. Sandy shoots me a dirty look, but I shake my head.
“I guess I’ll be along in a minute,” she states unhappily. She walks toward Aurora as Joe and I get into his car.
“I don’t like Amorino,” Joe growls as he presses the start button as the vehicle quietly comes to life under us. Joe and I had chatted on the phone last night. Not for long, but long enough to clear the air. We both want Sandy to be happy. We both love a lot of the same things in life. There is no reason we can’t be friends. Jealousy is a green-eyed monster – a monster I had been letting fester inside me for too long. Things with Sandy were obviously more complicated than I’d thought.
“I don’t like him, either,” I agree. I’m not sure what else to say.
Joe changes the topic, asking me about some of my materials for my one-shot and Sandy lets herself into the back seat a few minutes later.
“Drive,” she commands.
“Yes ma’am,” Joe responds.
“Everything ok?” I ask as I turn in my seat.
Her little brown nose pokes out of her white face. The street lamps send waves of yellow light over us as Joe pulls out onto the Diagonal.
“I cast chitter obscenities,” Sandy answers, using the spell I made for her squirrel.
Like in my game, it doesn’t do anything, but it makes us all chuckle.
Chapter Forty-Three
Reality/Campaign, Joe’s House
Fear is the root of all problems. Human, demon, magical and ordinary. We fear each other, we fear ourselves, we fear the unknown, and we fear being stuck in the mundane. It’s how we deal with fear that changes the course of our histories.
Joe Smartin
I’m running late in setting up my game. I was in Aurora - the city, not Amorino’s wife (the thought makes me chuckle) - till the wee hours last night drinking with a few of my coworkers. I probably could have skipped the gym, but I didn’t. I love my workouts. I’m madly drawing on a battle mat when I hear my doorbell ring and someone enters. I look up to see Sandy and pause; she does too. I have been trying to get her alone for weeks.
“Um, am I the first one here?”
I stop my drawing. No time. “You are, but I’m running late; give me a hand?” The relief in her body language is a little painful to see as I direct her to place objects in different rooms in my house.
I take my drawing into the kitchen as my players gather. Finally, I finish the main map and wander into my quiet dining room. I find five people playing on their phones. I guess Dillon and Sandy are both playing with his phone. I try not to dwell on their friendship. Has she kissed Dillon too? Naw, she isn’t avoiding him.
“The small-talk in here is deafening,” I comment attempting to stall, two more maps still to draw.
“Did you have a good week?” Lynda asks. Stall tactics successful. Zack immediately dives into a story I don’t catch much of. I set my biggest Dungeon Master’s screen between me and my players and take out my notebook.
“That’s foreboding,” Steven whistles.
Zack doesn’t even pause in his story. The chatter lets me get my last little map drawn on yet another battle mat; you can never have enough battle mats, and I take it into my living room now that I know everyone is in the dining room and can’t peek ahead.
“My parents had no idea.” Zack finishes whatever he was saying.
Lynda and Steven’s faces are a little pale and Sandy is openly struggling not to laugh.
“What did I miss?” I ask.
“No, game time!” Sandy shouts. “I even dreamed the campaign last night. I want to know what happens!”
“Ok, room three,” I concede. “Goliath is patched up as much as possible, though he has several weeping wounds that will not stop bleeding. All of you have eaten and rested as much as you can. Who is carrying the witch?”
“I will,” Lynda says and takes something out of her purse and puts it on the battle mat. It’s a little miniature of a girl. She puts a second one of a wolf in front of her.
“Very nice,” I say, impressed.
“You have a gargoyle in there for me?” Zack asks, hopefully peering into Lynda’s purse, she giggles.
As my players go through the door this time, they see the hint of something in the light of the portal. Only Sandy takes the blinding damage to get a good look at it.
“Sandy, I will chat with you in a minute. Everyone else, when you open your eyes, you find you’re looking at yourself in the mirror. Not just one mirror, but multiple mirrors. Mirrors all around you. Please, physically move yourselves to the following locations in my house. Dillon, the spare bedroom. Steven, the living room. Zack, the utility room. Lynda, stay here. Sandy, my bedroom.”
“Bow-chia-wow-ow,” Zack says.
The table laughs and Sandy turns bright red. Not the reaction I was expecting, but definitely one I like.
“I will give each one of you information once you’re there,” I continue. “And bring your phones. I will be sending group texts, and when you need info outside of the game, text me. Please don’t message each other. If you don’t have it in the game, and no one has a functioning phone still, it doesn’t exist for your character. To your locations.” I help people find the parts of my house and seat them down in front of a battle mat, a walkie-talkie, and a selection of papers and drawings.
I have a brief talk with each person, giving Sandy extra information for keeping her eyes open, and then settle myself back behind my DM screen. I set a timer on my phone and wait.
Chapter Forty-Four
Campaign, Poogses’ Country Estate, Room Three
The Native Americans used to think that the reflection of a person in your eyes was a reflection of your own soul. I
magine looking at thousands of reflections of yourself. Thousands of versions of you, your soul from every angle. Every choice you have, can and will be open for the world to see.
Strider (Dillon’s character)
I find myself staring directly into my own reflection. Not just one, but hundreds. I spin. I’m surrounded by mirrors. In another world, I would be savoring this experience, maybe looking for someone or multiple someones to enjoy it with; mirrors are exceptionally fun, but Strider is terrified.
“Nozomi,” I call out. My voice echoes and bounces off the surfaces around me. All mirrors. I look up and see myself looking up. I peer down and I see myself peering down.
“We need to be careful,” I advise out loud. But only the sound of my own voice bounces back. I take out my crossbow and fire it at the mirror in front of me. I watch my reflection shatter into a thousand pieces only to find another mirror behind it. Another copy of me, crossbow in hand, aims and fires. I fire until I’m out of arrows. Little cuts dot my exposed skin. The mirrors are endless.
“Goliath,” I yell. “Nozomi? Ruby? Trixy?” I try them all and the only sound I get back is my own voice. I sit down hard and look at my own crossed legs to avoid the mirrors. I’m a bard. I’m a man of tricks, stories, and song. Of cheer, tales, and adventure. But I need others to hear my words. I need to experience their lives so I can turn them into ballads.
My greatest fear is having no one to learn from. No one to sing to. I quell the growing fear inside of me and look up at my reflection again. There has to be a way out of here. Orange eyes look back at me and I tremble in fear.
Trixy (Steven’s character)
After enjoying my own reflection for a few minutes, I do a quick inspection of my small space. It doesn’t lead too much except a small speaker in the bottom left-hand corner of my little mirror room. My fingers itch to break the mirrors, but bad luck awaits those that shatter their own image.
I fumble a bit trying to figure out how to work the clunky human tech, but eventually I get it working. I start trying buttons and dial combinations randomly.
“Always look on the bright side of life.” I hit a channel playing music. The words are followed by catchy whistling. “If life seems jolly rotten. There’s something you’ve forgotten. And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.”
I listen to the song all the way through. There’s silence for a few seconds and then it starts over. I change channels, continuing my search. Eventually, I find another channel – this one with Nozomi’s voice.
“I can hear you,” Nozomi answers after I speak up. “Did you figure out your combination?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell her.
“Do you have a padlock in your room?”
“No. And you’re the only voice I can hear.”
“The others must be slow to figure out their radios,” Nozomi states. “Describe your room for me and I will describe mine. Maybe we can help each other.”
As we’re exchanging information, another voice comes over the radio.
“It’s so good to hear your voices.” Ruby’s own is loud and clear. “I have been listening for a few minutes, but I couldn’t get through until the line was quiet.”
“Most radios work like that,” Nozomi explains. “I should have thought to take more breaks in between sentences.”
“Would Nozomi know that, though, or Sandy?” I release the side button on my walkie-talkie after asking and study the map Joe drew on my battle mat. I don’t recognize anything on it.
“No out-of-game talking on the radios.” Joe’s voice comes on. “And based on Nozomi’s back story, she would know. We have all been playing really well to our stories. I will call someone out if needed.”
“Yes, God,” Zack’s voice responds over the radio.
“Did anyone else find the station playing Monty Python music?” Goliath asks.
“You wouldn’t know that was Monty Python,” Sandy’s voice comes over the radio.
“I thought there was no out-of-game chatting on the radios,” I shoot back at her.
“Children,” Joe barks.
We quickly figure out that Strider isn’t responding to the radio and that this isn’t Nozomi’s fear, so it must be Strider’s. We each have clues to each other’s rooms. This is a mini escape room.
“Joe has set up a fucking escape room for us,” I announce happily over the walkie-talkie.
“Who’s Joe?” Joe comes in over the walkie-talkie.
Once we got the ball rolling, we’re able to reason and help each other out of mirror rooms and into a maze. Each of us are in a different part of it, and each of us has part of a map to someone else’s section. We need to know each other’s parts to get to the end. If our team communication is not improved by this, I will eat my leather underpants.
With lots of trial and error, and several hints from God, we manage to piece together our map and regroup at a single point. We’re just hoping at this point that Strider is in the center as we have gotten no clues saying otherwise
Nozomi takes point as our scout and we go through the maze slowly. Easy enemies attack us at every corner, slowing down our progress even further. We manage to deftly avoid most of the traps, rescuing Nozomi from one she missed, but it has taken so long. Everything seems to be trying to slow us down.
We finally make it to the center; two minotaurs are guarding large simple double doors, the only entry. I hang back with Nozomi and Ruby while Goliath charges in, spinning them around. We give him a few seconds and I ready a spell and launch. Almost simultaneously Nozomi, and Ruby in dire wolf form crash into the minotaur on the left.
“Wow, that was a lot of high numbers,” Joe comments as he writes behind his screen. “That one will not be getting back up, by the way.”
With the first minotaur, down, we focus the second with a similar combination and we’re left with two bleeding bodies. Nozomi is already searching the bodies and finds a ring of keys attached to one of their waists; the keys almost look like music notes. But there is no key hole anywhere on the double doors.
“It’s not keys,” Nozomi says, shaking them.
“Always look on the bright side of life,” I recite the lyrics tunelessly, half reminding the party of the song and half hopeful it opens the door. Nothing happens.
We all investigate the door. Both Strider and Ruby search for magic and come up with the helpful information that It’s a magical door. Sarcasm.
“When I didn’t close my eyes during the light,” Nozomi says, “I saw what looked like a music staff, with notes on it. The notes lit up in a certain order twice before it became too painful.”
“That’s weird,” I comment. “What type of notes?”
“Do I look like a bard?” Nozomi frowns.
“Just describe them,” I request.
“I don’t know … there were two, one higher and one lower and then some distance between them and then they were all the same pattern but high and low again.”
“Could it have sounded like this?” I whistle the notes from the refrain of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. As I finish, the door hums but doesn’t open. My original idea had been right!
“All together now,” I say brightly.
It takes a few tries to get everyone whistling correctly, but the door vibrates more with each added layer and finally pops open.
“Who’s there?” I hear a scratchy voice ask.
“Nozomi,” she calls out. “Strider, are you in here?”
“Nozomi.” The voice is suddenly coming towards us. “Is it really you?”
From across the room, Strider comes running. He’s so thin. His facial hair has grown and his eyes are looking out of black pits. He runs to Nozomi and wraps his arms around her. “I thought you’d died,” he almost cries.
“What happened to you? It has only been a few hours. Half a day at most.” She doesn’t pull away from him. “We’re all here,” she says soothingly.
“It
has been a year,” Strider says. Tears leak out of his eyes.
Looking at him, it could have been that long.
Chapter Forty-Five
Campaign/Reality, Joe’s House
The perception of time is one of the mysteries of the universe. One can be so entertained that time flies or so bored that it seems to go backwards. And the weirdest part, two people can be doing the same thing and have vastly different perceptions.
Joe Smartin
Dillon dramatically makes his entrance to the kitchen, just as I instructed him. Sandy stands to give him a hug, welcoming him back. The witch spelled Strider into thinking he’d been trapped for a year and fed off his fear of being alone. Ok, a little lame, but Dillon is way too experienced a player and I really wanted to try out this escape room concept.
“A door slowly appears before you,” I announce dramatically. “Not the exit you’re used to, but the door marked number one. The only remaining door. You hear the crackle of falling glass and look behind you to see the world dissolving. Smashed mirror bits that have been painstakingly arranged by Strider into artful patterns fall into an abyss and tinkle like wind chimes. It’s the most innocent future doom you have ever heard. As you look back at the door, the orange-eyed witch is standing in front of it. Her head and arms hang useless, but her feet drag on the ground as her body tries to walk into the unopened door – over and over, much like the zombies you recently faced.”
“We need to get out of here,” Lynda yells. She has been super into the game tonight. It’s nice to see.
“Do we have any options other than the last door?” Dillon asks. “We can’t wake up the witch!”
“Time is ticking down,” I interrupt. “In just a few seconds, if that door isn’t opened, you will be caught up in whatever is destroying the room.”