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Inside. December, 1983.
In the beginning, there was nothing.
Wait, this has been done before. Skipping ahead:
[AS IMAGE // I'm working on this]
Inside. January, 2002.
Pandaemonium stares intently as darkness says, not just a bad guy. the bad guy.
“I see,” Pandaemonium says gravely.
[img - darkness and Pandaemonium]
[/IMAGE]
Nope, that’s too far. Backing up a bit:
Inside. June, 2001.
A technomancer and a ninja stand alone on a grassy plain, not a soul to be seen for miles around. Vertigo, coiled tightly around them, gently releases as they register their surroundings: flat, grassy ground; sparse trees here and there; the Sun high in a clear blue sky; hills in the distance. Birdsong floats along the gentle summer breeze.
Dale asks derisively, “You started us in the middle of a grassy field?”
Deirdre stares for a moment. “I mean, sure? Where would you have started, a tavern?”
“Yes!” Dale grabs his hair in fistfuls. “Then we could get information! Lodging! DRINKS!”
“They won’t let us drink, dude. We’re seventeen.”
“Wait, what?!” Dale nearly doubles over in hair-pulling incredulity. “You mean to tell me... that you created an entire world... where literally anything you can imagine is possible... and you set the drinking age at twenty-one?!”
“I - yes.” Deirdre purses her lips, furrows her brow, and contemplates her life choices. “That is exactly what I did,” she says, deflated. Then she mumbles, “I got the important things right, though.”
“Like what?”
“First of all, we’ve got great stats for first-level characters. Second, the monetary unit is dollars, not ‘gold pieces’ or whatever. Also, everyone speaks English - they probably don’t call it English, though, since there’s no England...” Deirdre trails off and looks around. Something gnaws at the edge of her awareness, but she can’t put her finger on it.
Dale takes a deep breath and says, “OK. This is fine. Y’know what, I’ma just pop back home, grab a beer from the fridge, and sit here enjoying it while you figure out our first move.” He turns around, only to see more landscape. “Uh, how do we leave?”
Deirdre turns around with him and follows his gaze, saying, “I... had not thought of that. Wait, your mom lets you drink?”
“Focus, Dee! How do we get back home? You know, to our families? Can’t you make, I don’t know, a Conjure Exit Portal spell or something? Or however we got in here, can’t you just undo that?”
Deirdre looks at her character sheet before replying.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she says after a beat. Dale lets out an exaggerated groan and gestures for her to make with the explaining. “OK, it’s like this: I do have the ability to make new spells, but it costs a ton of mana to do it. And I’m completely out - it seems I burned it all to cast Summon World.”
“What? How much fuckin’ mana did you give yourself?”
“My max is 986,000 mana points.”
“And all you get for that is a lousy planet? Christ, you have got to work on your skill balance. What did it cost to summon me?”
Deirdre says, “Nothing. Summon Best Friend is free - and this planet ain’t lousy! It’s perfectly fine for our purposes!”
“I bet it is,” Dale sighs. “But aren’t you all-powerful? Can’t you just re-write this reality?”
“Look, I think I understand the problem here: best I can tell, I must have summoned the world after our stats were set, but I also made the editing abilities expensive so I wouldn’t use them frivolously. So I was omnipotent, then merely very potent, and now I’m… umm, out of mana.”
"You mean, 'impotent'?"
“I meant exactly what I said.”
“I just think that making a way out should have been the first order of business,” Dale says critically.
Deirdre says, “No, my first order of business was, ‘Don’t go mad with power’.”
Dale considers the irony in the idea that his best friend’s uncharacteristic show of self-control may have spelled their doom, then says with a chuckle, “So we’re fucked.”
“Basically,” Deirdre admits with a nod.
“OK. This is fine. But for posterity, I want it known that this is all your fault, and not even my quick thinking could get us out of it.”
“Duly noted,” Deirdre concedes. “Can we move on now?”
“Yes. But on that note - move on to where?”
They roll for an Observation check, and both spot a plume of smoke in the far distance. Deirdre says, “I guess that way,” and they head off. “And, uh, not to be a bummer or anything, but-”
“What now,” Dale asks.
“Well, we don’t have any food or water, and we don’t know what we’ll run into along the way, so we should probably try to conserve our energy. Which means not talking unless strictly necessary.”
Dale looks at her and opens his mouth as if to speak - then abruptly raises a finger and thinks for a moment. Finally, he says, “I was gonna say, ‘That sounds like a you problem,’ but who am I kidding, it’s definitely an us problem.”
Over the next couple of hours, they enter a dense forest and cross over a clear running stream, ankle-deep and three feet wide. “Should we take a drink,” Dale asks.
Deirdre replies, “Different question, same answer: do you like dysentery?” After many long miles, they stumble upon a narrow cobblestone road. No longer able to see the plume of smoke through the tree cover, Deirdre makes periodic checks of her Wilderness skill to orient herself and be reasonably sure they’re headed in the right direction. Nearly three miles on, they come to a crossroads where an old man in traveling clothes is seated on a large rock near a signpost. A leather pack is on the ground next to him, and he hails the young adventurers as they approach.
“Hail, young men! Spare a moment to help an old man?”
Deirdre does not bother to correct him, and asks, “What do you need, sir?” Dale rolls his eyes.
“Well,” the old man says, “I was making my way into town with this delivery, but I’m not as hardy as I used to be. I stopped here to rest, and must have dozed off! At this hour, it would be well into the night by the time I arrive, and I don’t want to be on the road after dark. But if I head back now, I might be able to get home before sunset.”
Deirdre says, “We can get you safely to town or your home, sir.”
“Oh, thank you,” the old man says, sighing with relief. “I wouldn’t mind being on the road after dark with a pair of strapping young lads like yourselves to help me along.” Again, Deirdre does not bother to correct him. “And I can stay with my daughter, Yvonne - she’s getting the package, she lives down the road in Noob Town,” and he points along one path from the crossroads. “My name’s Vincent, by the way.”
“Got it,” Dale says. “Escort quest, keep the old guy alive, get to town. Now what’s in it for us?”
Vincent asks, “I’m sorry?” He looks confused and a bit affronted.
“You know - money, XP, what do we get out of this deal?”
“Dale,” Deirdre hisses sharply, “Don’t metagame with the NPCs!”
“Empty... seas?” Vincent seems a little more confused and a little less offended. “I don’t know what you’re-”
“Look, dude,” Dale says, cutting off the old man, “I’m just trying to get a feel for how things work. It’s not like I made the world or anything.”
“I don’t understand,” Vincent says, suddenly skeptical of this whole thing. “You two looked trustworthy, with your jaunty garb and fresh faces, but now I’m not so sure.”
“No, we’ll do it,” Deirdre says, rolling a check on her Speech skill to redirect the conversation. “We’re just from out of town, it’s a slang thing, sorry for the confusion.”
“It’s a basic question,” Dale says, failing a Gentility roll. “I just wanted to know-”
“HEY! LISTEN!” Vincent is suddenly angry and loud as he yells at the teens. “I don’t have all day to sit here and yammer on, so just take this noob shit to Noob Town, you fuckin’ noobs!”
“Oh, fuck this guy,” Dale says, rolling a natural 20 for turn order, drawing one of his blasters, and shooting the old man before Deirdre and Vincent have even registered what’s happening.
“DALE! WHAT THE FUCK?!” Deirdre’s scream pierces the silence following the report of Dale’s plasma blaster. Scorched rock and bubbling gibbets give off plumes of acrid smoke.
Dale calmly asks, “What?”
“You just murdered an old man for no reason at all, the fuck do you mean, what?!”
“I mean, what do you care? It’s just an NPC.”
“Dale, please take this seriously for one second, because you are really acting like a psycho right now.”
“Pfft, no,” Dale scoffs. “I’m not gonna show any remorse for ‘murdering’ someone who wasn’t even a real person anyway.”
“That’s what psychos say about the people they kill!”
“Fine, but look at you, Little Miss Girl Scout! I mean, I know we just showed up in the world, but did our first quest really have to be ‘Help the Senior Citizen Cross the Street’?”
“Fine,” Deirdre says, rolling her eyes in exasperation. She rolls a Leadership check to make a deal with Dale that he will think is worth honoring. “Tell you what: I promise that there will be no more zero-stakes quests, if you promise to stop killing NPCs on a whim. Is that a deal?”
Dale pauses for a tic, and finally says, “Deal.” They shake on it, and turn to contemplate the pile of smoldering guts in front of them.
“Well,” Deirdre says after a beat, “I guess we’ll never know if he had anything important on his person.”
“His bag’s fine,” Dale says. “Let’s see what he had.” While Dale crouches down to rifle through the pack, Deirdre takes ten on Observation to see if anyone’s coming - spending extra time allows her to ensure she doesn’t critically fail, which on an Observation roll would result in her being wrong but very sure of herself about it. As she looks around, Dale mumbles, “Canteen, sandwich, package - that’s all.” The package is wrapped in brown paper, bound with twine. A letter is tucked into a small pocket on the bag, its wax seal already broken. “Hey, this letter might be important... wanna read it while we eat?”
Deirdre sighs in resignation and says, “Sure. Nobody’s coming right now, and your blasters will probably be more than enough to deal with anyone who might happen along. Sounds like we’re a couple hours away from anywhere, by what Vincent said.”
They sit down on the ground and split the sandwich, as well as the canteen’s remaining water, and read the letter. It says:
Dad,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. Yes, I could use another care package this year, and thank you kindly for offering. However, I don’t think you need to bring it yourself - a decent courier’s fee would be no big deal, you could take it out of what you’re sending me. I’m getting better tips, now that people know my face. You were right! I’m much better at singing than painting, and I improve on the lute every day.
I hope your trading post is doing well, it sounded like things were picking up again when we last spoke at the equinox festival. I can’t wait to hear all about it at the solstice!
Love always,
Yvonne
PS - It’s OK that you still miss Mom. I do, too. We can take some flowers to go talk to her together, if you want.
“OK, I admit it,” Dale says, folding up the letter.
“What,” Deirdre asks, pinching the bridge of her nose between a thumb and index finger.
“I shouldn’t have cast Transmute Into Smithereens on the guy. Sounds like he’ll be missed.”
“Yeah,” Deirdre agrees. She takes a deep breath and looks with narrowed eyes at the leaf-crowded sky.
“You all right,” Dale asks.
“Fine,” she says. “I just… I had this weird second where I thought I remembered walking that old guy down the road.”
“But we never got to that part,” Dale says.
“But we never got to that part,” Dale says.
“I know,” Deirdre replies flatly, “That’s why I said I thought I remembered it, not that I clearly and accurately remembered it. Now let’s figure this out.” She takes ten on Savvy to think about the situation; Dale whiles away the time by thinking about all the websites he would be browsing if he had his phone. After some silence, Deirdre speaks up again: “OK, so here’s what we know: this guy was an established businessman, supporting his struggling artist daughter, living far enough away to need a courier for letters but close enough to make the trip on his own in a day. We also can’t cover this up, we just don’t have the time before nightfall. Lastly, we ought to go to Noob Town to resupply, instead of trying to rob this guy’s place: he lived decently far from here, and we’ve only got a one in three chance of picking the right direction of his home.”
She points to the sign, which reads (counterclockwise from where Vincent indicated): Noob Town, Noob Valley, Fort Roguelike (the direction from whence they came), and Leetsburg. Dale nods his assent, the seriousness of the situation gradually sinking in.
Deirdre says, “So here’s the decision we have to make: do we open the package, try to hide what we’ve done, and hope we don’t get found out? Or do we still deliver it, pretending we found the body like this, and act like we’re just trying to do the right thing?”
“I don’t know,” Dale says, staring off into the woods. “I mean, there’s probably lots of money in there, and I don’t know what else. But like a year’s worth of money, or at least close - we have, what, a hundred bucks each?” Deirdre nods. “And yeah, this is definitely going to be discovered and investigated, so… good faith gesture to deflect suspicion, or rob the guy and skip town ASAP? I dunno, man, I dunno. I gotta think.”
“Shit, we also can’t let anyone see you use those blasters,” Deirdre says. “I’m getting a kinda Medieval Fantasy vibe here, those might really stand out and make it super obvious who did it.”
“Damn, that’s a good point,” Dale agrees. After due chin-stroking consideration he says, “We should deliver the package. It’d be pretty bad to rob an orphan on the same day we orphaned her.”
“You orphaned her.”
“Whatever. Let’s just go to Noob Town. We’ll get our story straight on the way.”
“Fine,” Deirdre says. “But you’re carrying the package.”
“What? Why?”
Deirdre answers him with a long, piercing look.
The Sun is just about to set when they break from the woods and see Noob Town in the distance. The town itself is surrounded by a high stone wall, reinforced with thick wooden beams evidently cut from the numerous old stumps buffering the town from the surrounding forest. A pair of guards are at the gate, armed with poleaxes and shields, wearing gambesons and some light but functional metal armor pieces; more guards can be seen on the wall, armed with longbows, the red sunlight glinting off their armor.
As they near the gate, the guards step forward and hail the travelers. Deirdre gives a token wave and mutters under her breath, “Remember, let me do all the talking.”
“What brings you to Noob Town, travelers?”
“Trade, and bad news,” Deirdre says.
The guards exchange a worried look. “What news, young man” one asks. Deirdre does not bother to correct him.
“We found evidence of a disaster at the crossroads. Burnt remains, and this package.”
“Remains? Of whom?”
“Not sure, it was too messy to say. There were just... chunks. Burnt chunks.” She shudders and rolls Performance; they buy it.
One guard turns to the other and says, “What do you think? Noobs?”
The other guard sighs and says, “Fuckin’ noobs and their fuckin’ fireballs.”
Deirdre sighs and says, “I know, right?”
She nudges Dale, and he adds, “Goddamn noobs, someone oughtta do something,” with a shake of his head. He rolls Speech and barely makes it, so the guards read his anxiety as due to the grisly nature of the scene rather than dishonesty.
“Right, then,” a guard says after a moment’s respectful silence. “We’ll double the patrol for a bit, see to it that those noobs behave themselves. You head on in - said you’ve got a package?”
“Yes,” Deirdre says, and Dale lifts it up helpfully. “There’s a letter, but it’s been opened, we don’t know when or by whom. No markings on the package, so we checked the letter, and it’s from someone named Yvonne to her father.”
“Oh, that must be old Vincent, then,” the other guard says. “Comin’ to bring Yvonne her noob shit.” One guard nods gravely at the other guard’s words.
One guard says, “Head on in, Yvonne will be setting up for the evening. In through the gate, and she’s at the Last Inn, on the left. She’ll be sad to hear of her father’s passing, but happy her noob shit’s been recovered.”
The other guard says, “Surely. And try not to let this unpleasantness color your visit to Noob Town. I see from your jaunty garb that you’re out-of-towners, you must’ve come through Leetsburg, so please don’t... y’know, dwell too much on this when telling tales of your travels in the future.”
“I assure you,” Deirdre says, “No one outside these walls will hear of this unpleasantness.”
“Unless we catch the noobs who did it,” Dale says. Deirdre tries not to wince.
One guard harrumphs, and says, “Good luck with that, lad. We can’t tell one noob from another.”
“Wild fuckin’ animals, they are,” the other guard mutters.
“Well,” one guard says, “Best not to delay bad news.” They open the gates.
As Deirdre and Dale enter the town, he looks around appraisingly and says, “Huh, good job! This looks like a real town! The buildings are all different, characters aren’t standing rooted to the spot, they’re walking around and pulling carts and shit - and oh my God, what is that smell? Is that shit? Why does it smell like shit, Dee?”
Deirdre pulls her mask up over her nose and says, “Well, it is a real town, and in the Medieval period-”
Dale interjects, “Yeah, ‘cuz nothing drives home a Medieval Fantasy setting quite like the smell of hundreds of animals’ shit and piss! Look, I admire your commitment to realism, but you have got to work on your priorities!”
Deirdre says, “Look, barnyard animals don’t smell like roses, and almost every house needs a horse or a cow or a pigpen, and now everyone’s staring at the asshole in the orange jumpsuit making a big deal out of something they don’t even notice any more.”
Dale glances at all the onlookers and mutters, “Oh, sure, now they all stand in one spot,” then raises his voice to shout, “Sorry, it’s my first day!”
“In town,” Deirdre stage whispers through her mask.
“In town!” he blurts, but he rolls a 20 on Speech and so everyone nods and moves along. “Well, that was lucky,” he says after a moment. “And this is why we let you do all the talking, isn’t it?” Even with her mask on, Deirdre is visibly satisfied as they walk to the Last Inn, just to the left of the gate: like the town around it, it is built after the Tudor style, with obvious skill and little ornamentation.
Warm, savory scents greet them as they make their way inside, and the bustle of the streets is replaced by the clatter of plates and the hum of friendly conversation. By the roaring hearth, Deirdre spots a woman tuning a lute and wearing a dress of green and brown homespun. Dale looks above the aged but gleaming bar to see a pricing board, which seems very reasonable to him - and a good thing, because now he can count on his hundred dollars buying what he thinks it should be able to buy. He nudges Deirdre and directs her gaze to the board.
“What about it,” she asks.
“The prices. They’re normal.”
“Yeah, duh.”
“Thought you’d like to know, is all,” he says with a shrug.
“Why would I come up with a pricing scheme that made no sense?”
“I don’t know, why would you start us in a grassy field?”
“No, you’re right,” Deirdre says. “I clearly didn’t take into account that you’re unable to go a few hours without murd-”
“Sssshhhh!”
“What,” she asks innocently. “I was going to say, uh, ‘mur...dering a sandwich?’ What were you worried about?” Dale looks daggers at her, and she heaves a sigh before saying in resignation, “I clearly should have started us in a tavern. Or this inn. On that, we finally agree.” Deirdre then points to the woman with the lute, and they head over.
“Excuse me - Yvonne?” The woman with the lute looks up.
“Yes? Have a request for tonight? I don’t take ‘em before my warm-ups, hard for me to remember ‘em all otherwise.” She looks up from her lute, and her eyes sparkle at the sight of the adventurers. “Although, I suppose I could make an exception for a couple of cuties like yourselves.” Dale lowers his face, and Deirdre takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” Yvonne says, suddenly concerned. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all, ma’am. But I’m afraid we have bad news.”
Yvonne’s eyes lower to the familiar package in Dale’s hands. The color drains from her face and she runs from the inn, sobbing.
Deirdre and Dale turn to follow her, but a well-dressed elderly man stands in their way. This wouldn’t be an obstacle for some people with plasma blasters, but Dale is still holding the package in both hands. Moreover, the elderly man is flanked by two burly men with scarred faces in sharp suits. The teens size up the obvious bodyguards, and decide to let themselves be delayed.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” the old man says. Deirdre does not bother to correct him. His white hair, cropped close, contrasts smartly with his deep brown skin and piercing grey eyes. “I hope you’ll pardon the interruption, but you seem to be causing quite a stir in our little inn.”
Deirdre and Dale silently contemplate their options.
“However, I believe in politeness and the benefit of the doubt, especially for out-of-towners such as yourselves. So allow me to introduce myself: I am Jim, the town elder. These are my personal assistants, Wungaard and Ottergaard. Now, may I ask your names?”
“Well,” Dale stammers.
Deirdre says, “Pause!” and starts fast-talking. “OK, we have thirty seconds so talk fast but do you really wanna be called ‘Deirdre and Dale’ the whole time we’re here?”
Dale says, “You can pause?!”
“Yes but only for a few seconds I mean our initials are literally D&D and it’s just begging to be lampshaded.”
“You can pause!”
“OK look I’m gonna give ‘em a different name you do what you like.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you could pause?!”
“Time’s up think fast love you bunches!”
Pause wears off.
“Of course, Elder Jim,” Deirdre says. She stands up straight and says proudly, “I am Pannych, lesser goddess of fear and anxiety!” (For the record, that’s pronounced panic, as in “a sudden, unreasonable, overpowering fear - from the Greek word panikos, of or for the god Pan, who was believed to cause sudden or groundless fear.”)
As she takes a step back, Dale tries to flex on Jim’s “assistants,” but is stymied by the large package in his hands. He clears his throat and says, “And I am Phyr, lord of destruction and chaos, whose wrath makes the very heavens tremble in reverence to my otherworldly might!” (That’s pronounced fire, as in “a destructive burning, as of a building,” or, alternatively, “any raging evil.” Definitions ©1993 Funk & Wagnalls New International Dictionary of the English Language, Comprehensive Edition.)
Jim and his “assistants” are visibly confused - they look to him for guidance, but he must’ve botched a Savvy roll or something because he is baffled. After some seconds, he clears his throat and says, “Are you the Pannych and the Phyr, destined heroes foretold to lead us from this time of darkness and discord?”
“Who else,” Deirdre asks, beaming.
“I don’t know,” Jim says, one eyebrow raised in suspicion. “Why don’t you tell me...”
Deirdre tries to look confused, Dale tries to look like he’s not about to roll for turn order, but it turns out Jim wasn’t finished with his sentence and was just speaking slowly for dramatic effect.
“...what business you have with Yvonne?” Deirdre and Dale don’t notice, but Jim had passed a Speech check of his own to add onto the end of his sentence.
“Oh,” Dale says affably, hoisting the package.
“Oh,” Deirdre says sadly, remembering the answer to that question.
“Well,” they say together, after remembering the reason for the answer.
Dale says, “You see, Elder Jim, her father... the crossroads… there were chunks!” Jim makes a face, clearly reconsidering his earlier comment about destined heroes.
Deirdre places a hand on Dale’s shoulder and says, “What my friend is trying to say is that it appears Yvonne’s father met with misfortune on his way into town.”
“Vincent? What happened?”
“We’re not quite sure,” Deirdre says, “It was long over by the time we got there, but we think it might have been noobs.” Jim’s assistants tense up at the mention of the word, in a mixture of frustration and disgust.
“Noobs,” Jim says softly, lowering his eyes and voice. “Of course it was noobs. I tried warning him. I told him at every festival for the last ten years, ‘Vince,’ I said, ‘You’re in great shape for a man your age, but you are not impervious to injury.’ But did he listen? No, he was always headstrong and reckless, like a bull. People always said, ‘In vino, veritas; and in Vince, a bull’.” Jim closes his eyes in a wistful moment’s reverie.
But fuckin’ Deirdre has to make a Social roll because she can’t resist a pun, apparently. And she rolls a four. Great! She starts to giggle, and snorts a bit.
“Pause!” She spends her entire thirty seconds laughing like an asshole, but has to make another Social roll if she wants to stop laughing when Pause wears off. She barely makes it. Oh, but now Dale’s laughing. I suppose he just got the joke, eh?
“No, I got it,” he gasps between laughs, “And it wasn’t that funny,” wheeze, “But now I’m laughing at the fact she’s laughing in front of this guy and his friend just died!” Fine. But they wind down, and then Pause wears off.
“I’m sorry,” Jim says, “But are you feeling all right, Lady Pannych?”
“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m fine. And I’m sorry. I thought of something tremendously inappropriate, and I had a lapse in judgment, but I’m OK now, and I apologize. Please continue: he’s your good friend.”
“Yes, well, that’s about the size of it. And I suppose that package is for Yvonne, then?” Dale nods. “Of course, of course. So sorry it fell to you to bear the bad news. And you have my apologies, Lady Pannych, Lord Phyr, for my earlier suspicions.” He bows deeply. “But please, come see me tomorrow, after you have concluded your business with Yvonne. I have an important matter to discuss with you.”
“Of course, Elder Jim.”
They say their goodbyes, and then Deirdre and Dale head outside.
Yvonne is on the front porch, crying, but she seems to be more or less winding down.
“Yvonne,” Deirdre says.
“Yes? Oh, it’s you. Thank you for finding me. And that must be my father’s - sob! - care package, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Dale says, handing it to the bereaved woman.
“Thank you.” She sniffles, tries to compose herself, and continues: “I guess I’ll have to tell Zach, and Xander, and Wendy.”
“Boy,” Dale says quietly, “You guys sure like your end of the alphabet, don’t you?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Yvonne says with a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, Daddy used to say all the time, ‘First end of the zyxwvut, first called in class, first in line, first in life.’ Seems to be working well for Zach, not so much for me, but then I guess I’m not first. But it’s a family tradition: Great-Grandpa Wyatt named his seven kids from the start of the zyxwvut, and so did Grandpa Zeno with his six, and so did my daddy with the four of us.”
Dale looks at Deirdre, but she motions for him to be quiet. They console Yvonne, they chat in the Inn, she buys them dinner, she offers to put them up in a room on her tab, they say yes because it’s like thirty bucks a night, they make an excuse about long days of travel and head to their quarters for the evening.
“OK, Dee, that was weird, right?” Dale has closed the door as soon as they’re through it, and is physically pressed back against it, as if to shut out the world.
“Yes, usually people buy dinner for the bereaved, not vice-versa. She must’ve thought we were poor, or been exceedingly grateful. Then again, she did just get like a year’s worth of money, so whatever.”
“No, not that! The alphabet here! It’s backwards!”
“Oh. Yeah, I got that. So what?”
“So what? Why would you make the alphabet backwards? Or… the six-a-butt, I guess? I’ve been dying to ask without sounding like I’m five or impaired!”
“OK, ageism and ableism, not cool. And second, ziks-uh-vutt. It’s just the last seven letters - or the first, rather. But again, so what? It’s probably just a thing I do: mix things up for fun. Don’t wanna take things for granted, do we? Get cocky about our surroundings? Be too genre-savvy?”
“But I like being genre-savvy! I like seeing things coming, and this freaks me out!”
“Well, that’s why God invented Pause,” Deirdre says, laying down on the alarmingly comfortable bed. “Holy shit, these are comfy. Siddown!”
“Yes, that’s another thing! You can pause?! Also, if I shouldn’t take anything for granted, then what if that’s a bed mimic?!” Dale stands, as deliberately and obviously as he can, away from the bed that is definitely not a mimic, because that’s not clever, it’s just mean.
“Bed mimics aren’t real, man! Relax! And besides, there will be clues whenever something’s super-important. I may be a crazy fuck, but I’m a fair crazy fuck, and I hate Insane Troll Logic, so I’d never foist it on anyone. So don’t get paranoid, but be on your toes. Like, casually aware of things. Can you try that?”
“Casual awareness, got it. OK. I’m gonna do some breathing exercises, and then maybe build some trust with the bed before I touch it.”
“Suit yourself, pal. G’night.”
The following morning, Dale wakes up and sees a ragged gash and an enormous bloodstain right on top of the misshapen lump that probably used to be Deirdre’s body.
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