Preparations: A D&D Tale
The dust on the window blinds sticks to my fingers as I reach through, shutting out the distant sound of the freeway. My fingertips grind away the dust, which falls like a distasteful seasoning onto the carpet. I should clean those. The thought drains out of my ear as I switch off the fan next, the caged blades slowing to a halt. Heat scrabbles into the room through the window, the overeager sun enveloping me like a large dog in the lap of a small child. Though I am powerless to command this cozy oppressor down, I have ways of combating the heat. A mason jar of icy water sits beside a cardboard box on my desk, atop which my webcam perches. Beads of condensation race each other down the glass, soaking into the edge of my mousepad. Opposite them is a foot-tall cylinder with an oblong head, roughly penile in shape, and a baleful red eye. A black sea of keys with an OLED horizon divides these two coasts of my desktop, the Eastern Ice Jar and the Penile Eye of Sauron. I reach for my headphones and turn them over in my hands, inspecting them. Exposed wires poke out from peeling cables, miraculously carrying sound as clearly as the day I bought them. Money well spent: I’d happily pay five hundred dollars for another set tomorrow if it meant I’d still be using them in my forties. Teeny voices overlap one another from the ear cups, which are due to be replaced. Too bad. This model has been neglected by their parent company, and there are no replacements to be found anywhere. Cleaning them works well enough, though their elastic brings to mind a raunchy joke from a Sacha Baron Cohen film. “... And her vageen hang like sleeve of wizard.” Classy. I snort and roll my eyes at myself, only mildly annoyed with the giggling teenage girl inside my brain. I don’t reprimand her: we’ve had it rough, and I’m grateful for her sense of humor.
I slide my fossil of a headset over my ears, and forget about the heat of the room around me. “Hey everyone, ready to play some D&D?” My voice passes smoothly through the Penile Eye of Sauron to the ears of my awaiting friends. It is a practiced voice, one which has avoided coughing, shouting, sugar and dairy for days to be ready for tonight. A chorus of chatter greets me, and I smile broadly as I make last-minute checks for our session. Once I would have set up a screen between myself and my players, behind which I could erect a command center as efficient as a five-star general’s. Maps? Check. Books? Check. Markers? Check. Notecards? Check. Dice? I’d shake the box, grinning at the sound of my collection rattling around their wooden confines. Check. I always imagine I am a fighter pilot during these pre-game checks, flipping switches and eyeballing gauges before hurtling my team and I down the runway for takeoff.
I wish the coronavirus hadn’t confined my hobby to the computer, stuck behind a different sort of screen, but I wouldn’t have met the handful of people waiting on me to start the game if it hadn’t. I’ve never met them in person: we connected as many internet-savvy people do, finding each other through shared communities and building our friendships from there. I know others may find us odd, but I don’t consider these relationships any lesser than I do those with people away from the computer. What difference is there, save a physical connection? We have the same conversations as people do face-to-face: our lives, our families, our struggles, our triumphs. The safety of anonymity is akin to the relationship between a Catholic and their priest in a confession booth, a spiritual love to rival a tangible one. The truth of who these people are is irrelevant.
“Are we ready to hit record?” The free software we use to record our voices opens on my desktop, as it does for others who didn’t have it open already. I make a quick selection and watch as a green meter dances in one of the windows, bouncing with every small noise I make. I watch it as I continue to speak, modulating my voice to ensure the dancing green lines don’t slide into the red. Too loud, and audio quality will be lost. Too quiet and our editor, one of my players, can make my audio louder. I’m learning the nuances of editing myself, so I may one day take over.
“How was everyone’s week?” I ask as a delaying tactic, giving others time to adjust their audio as I shuffle through different windows on my desktop. A map of a wintry town opens in front of me, a light snowfall overlapping the image. Lights blaze around some of the buildings, making them stand out on the map. These effects are my handiwork, small additions made to increase immersion in the tale and draw the eye to key locations.
On the eastern edge of the map stand five pixelated people, each controlled by one of my friends. A sixth figure, a small dragon, sits beside one of them. In my mind’s eye I see these figures as I have described them to our listeners. An old dwarf with a bushy red beard and thick armor rubs his scarred cheek. Beside him stands a lanky, pale-skinned man with pointed ears. The younger man’s rope-callused hand idly scratches the bronze neck of the young dragon beside him, her eyes half-lidded in pleasure like a cat’s. A horned trickster with red skin and a car salesman’s smile stands apart from this pair, his eyes scanning from one house to another as if searching for something. In the snow at his feet stands a small woman with an anvil-shaped pendant about her neck and a lantern on her hip, the enchanted flame inside oscillating from one color to another. She has a sketchbook out, and appears to be taking notes on the town they’ve arrived at on this dark night. Standing protectively over her is a man made of wood and rust-pocked steel, his blue and green eyes illuminating the snowflakes which fall in front of his face. If a wooden mask could betray a man’s thoughts his would be contemplative, almost melancholic as he watches the people moving through the darkened streets. Overhead a ribbon of quivering light illuminates the sky, closer than the pale moon and the expanse of stars beyond...
“Josie?”
My name calls me back to reality, to the starting point of our adventure. I smile sheepishly at my monitor, certain my friends can’t see it, but knowing they will hear it in my voice. “Right, sorry. Let’s go.” Anticipation wells in my breast. The cares of this world slide off me, replaced by the dreams and machinations of the fictional world and characters I control. For the next several hours I am the world. I am the empty white expanse of the tundra and the raucousness of the dive bar. I am the steaming breath of a predator and the hollow eyes of the dead, the lovable street urchin and the frigid goddess demanding worship. This story is unwritten, and every session we craft a little more.
The editor counts us down, and I hit Record.
“Hello everyone, and welcome back to Short Quest, Long Rest...”
