"Alright, Zerzer, as you open the door, you find a room similar to the gathering hall of a Nordic long-house. In the center of the room is a long table scattered with crude dishware and, what looks like, half-eaten chunks of meat." Evan cleared his throat, turned a page in his notebook from behind his colorful folding privacy screen, and continued in his theatrical Dungeon Master voice. "A walkway surrounds the top of the room like a crown, and at the opposite end of the room is a throne with a thorny wreath resting on the seat."
Kitty touched her top lip with the pads of her fingers. "Oh dang."
Kurt adjusted his tricorn hat that insisted on wearing during D&D sessions. "There is no way it's that easy. We haven't seen anyone since the base of the mountain."
"We could try to stealth our way up to it and run?"
"Maybe, but I feel like it's probably a trap, right?"
"…yeah. Plus Galloway's stealth isn't very good."
Kurt leaned forward on the giant spool they used for a table in the 'Whispering Woods' AKA their attic hideaway, and touched the little figure representing his character. "I could try just running to the crown and snatching it."
"You'd be really exposed, though." Kitty looked at Evan. "Can I look around but stay in the doorway?"
"Make a perception check."
Kitty plucked one of the dice she had in front of her in a pile and gave it a little roll in her hand before dropping it on the table. "Uh… shoot - 12 with my proficiency."
Evan shrugged. "Hard to tell anything else from where you're standing. You just see what Zerzer sees."
Kurt looked at Anna. "Does Galloway have any ideas?"
Anna, who'd been staring at the colorful map Evan had laid out on the table, blinked the crust out of her eyes and got around to pointing them in Kurt's direction. "Sorry, what was that?"
"What do you think we should do with this room? It could be trapped."
Anna adjusted the pillows she had been sitting on so she could shift her weight and sit on her knees. The room's long yellow and red rope lights, as well as the comfortable warmth from the heater Kitty had brought up, was nearly enough to make her doze off. "Um," She tried focusing her bleary eyes on the map whose sole illumination was a desk lamp Evan had taken from his room. The grid map was detailed with smooth little rocks that Evan had brought from the beach below the cliff and miniature trees he had sculpted using tiny branches and clay.
"Sorry, where are we?"
Kurt dropped his finger on a small gray figurine frozen in mid-flex holding a warhammer. "Your guy is here, behind Zerzer and Babish."
"The room is in front of us right?" Anna blinked her eyes again. "Alright, I want to look in the room."
Evan glanced up from under the hood the silk black cloak he insisted on wearing during the game. "Are you walking inside, or do you want to look from where you are?"
"Where I am is good, I think." She looked down at all the strange shapes sitting in front of her. "I roll a die to do that right?"
"Right, D20."
"Which one is that?"
"It's the one that most looks like a ball."
Anna picked up one of the dice and immediately dropped it, "11."
"Is that with your modifier?"
"My modifier?"
Kurt scooted up next to her and gandered at the sheet of paper sitting in front of her. "You have a +2, so that's 13. That's pretty good for a barbarian!" He looked at the dice in front of her. "Oh, was this the dice you rolled?"
"Yeah."
"That one is the D12."
"Shit, sorry."
"That's okay!" Kurt picked up the correct die and handed it to her. "There you go, try that one."
She gave it a little roll and dropped it in the same place she dropped the other, "3"
"With your mod, that's a 5." Evan nodded. "Yeah, you're kind of a big guy. Being behind the two of them, Galloway can't really get a good look inside."
"Then I step inside."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. I mean we got to get the crown thing, right?"
Anna's fellow adventures stare at Evan as he proceeds to roll one die after another. "Galloway," Evan scratches some notes into a paper behind his privacy screen. "You take 23 points of damage as five berserkers jump out of their hiding spots on the balcony and shoot you with arrows."
Anna looked at her sheet filled with her character information. "I had 21 health points left."
"Galloway goes down and is unconscious." Evan reaches over and turns Anna's strong-man piece till it's lying down in the middle of the great room on the map.
Anna rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Fuck."
Kurt pursed his lips. "You alright, Anna?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. I haven't been sleeping well." She plucked up her energy drink from the floor beside her and took a long pull.
"'Not sleeping well.' Is one way to put it." Kitty snorted. "You thrash in your sleep."
"I do?"
"And shout."
"Why haven't you even woken me up?"
"I thought you weren't supposed to. Like how you aren't supposed to wake up people who sleepwalk. It's bad for them, or something." Kitty scratched her nose. "Also, it's just easier to get earplugs."
"I do this every night?"
"It was occasionally before, but it's been pretty bad lately."
"What? That's terrible!" Kurt turned to face Anna better. "Have you been having nightmares?"
"They've been… weird." Anna looked up at Evan who was sipping one of Logan's 'Flavor-Town' drinks. "Sorry, Ev. Not trying to hijack game time."
He pulled back his hood and shrugged his shoulders. "It's cool. You're clearly not feeling it, so we can just pick it up later. We'll start before Galloway got KOed."
Anna sat on her rear and crossed her legs. "Well, I haven't been having 'nightmares.' Just this one dream over and over." She took another pull from her drink. "It's so vivid. It feels more like I'm reliving some sort of memory."
Kitty sat next to her. "Well? What's the dream?"
"I'm this woman and I'm carrying something and I'm running from a bunch of people chasing me on this bridge. I never get a good look at what the people look like or anything, but I know I need to get away from them. The bridge is old. It's made out of cobblestone or something. It's nothing that I've seen around here.
"So I run and I run and when I think I'm nearing the other side, all these bright lights turn on and blind me. Then out of nowhere, all these hands are on me, and they're trying to wrestle the thing out of my arms. I fight them but lose my grip and the thing falls into the river below. Then I scream so loud my ears ring, 'my son - my son.'"
"Dang…" Kitty guides one of her fingernails along a grove on the inside of the table. "That's… scary."
Kurt rests an elbow on the table. "You've been having that every night?"
Anna feels her shoulders go ridged, the attention putting her off somewhat. "Just about. I guess."
"Well, dreams have different meanings. All those guys are chasing you, that's a classic dream thing, right?"
Kitty pulls her phone out of her hoodie pocket and pecks at the screen with her thumbs. "'Chase dreams are related to heightened anxiety in waking life.'" She looks up at Anna. "Have you been feeling a heightened anxiety in your waking life?"
Anna snorted. "Duh, don't you guys?"
The boys looked at one another and Evan flexed. "Nothing gives me anxiety."
"Please," Kurt thumbed his nose in Evan's direction. "On our last date, a bird feather fell near you and you went out of your way to avoid it."
"It was a pigeon feather, first of all, and pigeons are disease-carrying biological disasters. Who knows how many fleas and ticks were on that feather!"
"Fleas and ticks, huh? Never one or the other?"
"Why would it be one or the other?" Evan looked at Kitty. "Isn't that whole 'dream theory' crap BS anyway? It's not like any of it can be proved! Not to mention how subjective it all is."
Kitty continued to scroll through her phone. "Oh Ev, I think you might like this related article. It's about how people who are afraid of birds look and smell like a butt."
"I am not afraid of freaking birds! They just have gross stuff on them!"
Kurt rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Anna, who already looked like she was zoning out the way she was staring at the table. "Maybe you should talk to Xavier about this?"
"Xavier?" Anna blinked her waxy eyes till an ounce of moisture returned to them, then creaked her neck in Kurt's direction. "What's he going to do?"
"He can read minds, right? Maybe he can help you sift through this dream and figure it out. Maybe then it will leave you alone."
"I'm not sure I love the idea of giving that guy a fast pass for all the rides in my brain."
"I don't think he'd abuse it. He seems like he really wants to help us. I'm sure if you talk to him about it, it would all be on the up-and-up."
Anna ran her hand through her hair. "Ugh, I'll think about it. It still -"
"Look and smell like a butt." Anna found Evan and Kitty facing each other with the back of open laptops rubbing up against one another.
"Will you stop saying that, Kitty!"
"Suck my butt, Ev. Admit you have weird dreams about being naked in class!"
"I don't!"
"Tell me about the dreams of your teeth falling out while kissing your sister!"
"Kitty! Stop! I am your Dungeon Master and I will throw your character in a pit of lava!"
"Are you going to do it while trying to find a toilet in a house seemingly without them?"
"Damn it, Kitty!"