Chapter 6

  The laugh, and those three words echoed in Matt’s ears. Suddenly the table, the room, everything was gone. He felt weightless. Not like he was falling, or flying, but he just was. He closed his eyes to try to quell the sensation. Then with a soft landing, he felt cold stone on his back. “What the hell just happened?”

  He could hear the sound of a church bell ringing, a dog barking. He could smell burning oil and smoke in the air. He opened his eyes to look around. He was on his back lying in an alley. He lifted his head to try to get a better feel of where he was, and saw to his horror what looked like The Incredible Hulk, but grey and covered in tattoos laying 20 feet away also looking around in confusion. This guy had to be 8 feet tall, and bald.

  He closed his eyes again “I’m losing my fucking mind. All the years of abuse didn’t take me out, and now I’ve had a goddamned aneurysm in the middle of a building I can’t get out of, and no one knows where I am. Fantastic.” He opened his eyes again, and seeing the behemoth had not moved, chanced a glance to his other side.

  There he saw possibly an even stranger sight. 10 feet away lay someone else. This one had a deep amethyst skin tone that almost shimmered. Sculpted onyx horns rose from the creature’s temples, and was that a pointed tail coming from under her?

  Now Matt knew he was losing it. “Ok, I’m dying. Aneurysm, stroke, who knows. And my brain’s final act? A fucking DnD hallucination.” Because that’s for sure a Tiefling, and that over there has for sure got to be a Goliath. Dustin’s punch knocked something loose and a blood clot or something went straight to my fucking brain.”

  The Tiefling opened its eyes and let out a silent scream as if the air was caught in its lungs unable to escape. Finally, “Who are you?” the Tiefling asked in a soft female voice.

  “Umm, my name’s Matt. I’m not sure what’s going on. Am I dying, or already dead?”

  “Matt? It’s me Kelly, what’s…what happened to y–” She looked up seeing the Goliath behind Matt for the first time. Horror spread across her face anew as it stood using its left arm to brace itself against the wooden wall next to him and she thought she heard a small crack. Wood splintering?

  Matt turned to see the Goliath on his feet walking towards them. In a deep strong voice, “Excuse me, uh, could one of you two tell me where I am? I just woke up here, and, well, I’m sort of confused, and have a real urge for an ale.”

  If this Tiefling was Kelly, Matt realized that this had to be Dustin. Worried, Matt thought “Jesus I hope he got his anger out in that first punch. And if Kelly is a Tiefling and Dustin is now a Goliath, that must mean…” He looked down at his hands, his fingers longer than they should be. The dirt under his nails was caked with something like soot. Copper skin stretched over lean muscle. He ran his fingers over his head, but his short hair was gone, replaced by long chestnut braids that hung past his shoulders and…long ears? “It’s not just them that have changed, I apparently have too.

  “Dustin…it’s us Matt and Kelly. I don’t know what happened, but somehow it looks like we ARE the characters we just created.

  Dustin scratched his head in confusion. He spoke slowly as if he was having an even harder time understanding than the other two. “So…if we are our characters…I guess that makes me Matho. What were your two’s names again?”

  “Mine was Kaelira,” Kelly said with uncertainty. I don’t think I like this guys. This isn’t right. If you two weren’t experiencing it too, I’d think I was losing my mind.”

  Matt stood up, “Mine was Astr–” and in the corner of his vision, he saw…a blinking icon? “What the hell? Do you guys see a little blinking icon in the top right hand corner of your vision?”

  Kelly nodded, and Dustin chuckled. “You mean these three little lines that look like a hamburger? What do I do with it?” Dustin was jabbing his gigantic fingers in mid air as if trying to press an invisible button.

  Seeing that you apparently couldn’t touch the button, Matt focused on the button willing it to open, and it did. While he could still see the other two, a sleek black and silver interface opened before him with a sleek and stylish Elvish font. He could see options for a character sheet, weapons, equipment, languages, party hub, and a little picture of a die. “As weird as this all is, this is actually kind of cool guys. Reaching out to touch it won’t work Dustin. You have to focus on the icon and think about trying to open it. Go ahead and try it Kelly.”

  “Already ahead of you. Mine sounds like it is largely the same as yours. Though mine has like a dark purple background, and is…not written in English, but I can understand it? Also, I have a tab for spells.”

  Matt looked at Dustin who looked to still be struggling. “You got it man?”

  “No,” Dustin said aggravatedly. “I keep trying to focus on it, but every time I do, I think hamburger. That makes me think how hungry I am, and I lose focus.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Alright man, we’ll see if we can find some food soon, but for now, remember it’s just three lines. Focus on opening it really hard.”

  Dustin took a deep breath, squinted and reached out to try to touch the button again. “Hey, it worked!”

  Kelly laughed. “Great job. Still don’t think you need to touch it though.”

  Matt mentally clicked through his menus starting with character sheet and a full blown character sheet popped up in his vision in front of him.

  Name: Astren Xelthar Race: Wood Elf Class: Rogue

  Level: 1 Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

  Background: Entertainer (Acrobat) Location: Duskwatch

  HP: 10/10 Armor Class: 15 Speed: 35ft

  Strength: 10 Dexterity: 19 (+4) Constitution: 14 (+2)

  Intelligence: 15 (+2) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 11

  Skills: Acrobatics (Expert), Stealth (Expert), Sleight of Hand, Perception, Deception

  “Wow, that is wild. The character sheet is just like what we use to play. Just, it’s limited to stats.” Matt studied the page for a moment. He had rolled Astren’s stats himself. He was familiar with all of the information, but it felt so strange to look at it like this. He mentally clicked the weapons tab, and the interface changed. It showed he had a rapier, two daggers and a shortbow. It also showed the damage each was capable of doing.

  Matt reached down and felt the twin daggers sheathed on each hip. Even having never seen them before, they felt like old friends, like he had had them there forever. He looked down to see the long, thin sword dangling at his side, and reached up over his shoulder to feel the curved bow and quiver there on his back. “How did I not notice I was laying on these when we got here?”

  He looked over at Kelly….or Kaelira? who was also armed with a pair of daggers, a crossbow and bolts, and a menacing looking weapon at her side with a long blackened-steel haft with faint markings that Matt thought almost seemed to shimmer. It led to a twisted head with a cluster of jagged spikes almost shaped like a blooming nightshade.

  He turned his attention to Dustin, or was it Matho? He didn’t know the rules here. He imagined they would have to fully take on the identity of their characters. The giant was beyond shredded. He carried what would probably be the equivalent of a greataxe to Astren, but only a handaxe to Matho on each side. A gigantic blade that was the Goliath’s actual greataxe was strapped to his back. There were no fancy sigils engraved here. Just a simple blade designed for brute force. There were also four javelins crossed over his back like ninja swords.

  “If we can learn to work together, this could be a dangerous party,” he thought. Turning his attention back to his menu, Astren clicked on equipment, and the menu changed again. He saw that he had leather armor, which he noticed he was already wearing. He apparently had 100 pieces of gold. “Where did that come from, and how do I get it? I’ll figure that out in a minute.” He continued scrolling through seeing he had a burglars pack which had a drop down arrow. He clicked the arrow and saw an entire list of items contained in the pack, including 1000 ball bearings, a bell, a handful of tools and…candy? The thieves tools also had a dropdown arrow beside it which revealed a handful of items including a small file, scissors and every rogue’s favorite tool…lockpicks.

  “Wow, glad there’s the drop down list. I’ll never remember everything in those” Astren looked around to ensure that everything still looked safe and there was no one coming. Suddenly a 20 sided die popped up in hs interface with the words Perception Check over it. “Hey guys, um, so I looked around to make sure we were still safe, and I’m being prompted to make a perception check. You remember that little die you saw? Well it just popped up and I have to roll. The other two looked at him nervously as they too turned to look around.

  He clicked on the die. It shook around in his interface for a moment, and stopped on 7. A +4 appeared next to it, and then an 11 underneath. Nothing else happened, but he felt a sudden clarity that the coast was still clear and there didn’t seem to be any danger around. “I think we’re ok. I rolled an 11, and I’m pretty sure we’re still good.”

  Sure enough after waiting a couple minutes they did remain undisturbed. Guess we know what the little die icon is for. He went back to view the next tab of his interface, which was languages.

  Matho looked confused again jabbing at the air. “How did you get the die to move? Mine just sits there.”

  “It just kind of happened when I thought about looking around to check. I’m sure you’ll see what I mean when whatever this is makes you roll something.” He returned to his languages menu, and saw that he could speak Common, Elvish, and Thieves’ Cant. He knew from his reading that this wasn’t a real language, but more a code spoken amongst rogues. His final tab to look at was the party hub. When he opened it up he saw:both Kaelira’s and Matho’race, class, HP, and their status which currently showed stable for both.

  When Astren had finished looking through all of his menu tabs, he looked around for a way to close them. He saw the three little horizontal lines and mentally clicked that. The menu closed. He looked to the other two again. “Have you guys made it through all of your tabs yet?” Kaelira nodded. Matho grunted, and after a couple more minutes, he finished, and looked to the other two.

  “What should we do now?” Kaelira asked

  Before either of them had time to answer, they heard a voice coming from the entrance to the alley. “Oi! that you thunderfist? You still owe me for those two kegs from last week!” All three of them froze. Whoever this was, knew Matho, and was apparently not happy with him.