BREEP-BREEP-BREEP-BREE-Whack!

I might have just broken my alarm clock. And my hand.

I groan as I open my eyes. Red digital numbers scowl at me disapprovingly, telling me it's half past seven in the morning. I could've sworn I didn't have anything planned for today - why didn't I turn off the alarm?

My brain hurts. I can barely make whole thoughts. Up too late last night. Sunlight mercilessly beams through the window. It's too early for sun. I could still get some sleep. I reach to close the blinds, misjudge my placement on the bed, and fall. Fortunately, a large pile of dirty clothes is there to cushion me. Still hurts, though. Even if it was mostly pride.

I crawl back up to the bed. Somewhat awake now, I figure I might as well check my phone. It was still on airplane mode - something I always do for D&D night. I switch it to normal function. After a moment the phone buzzes.

My friend Gabe sent me a text around 9 last night. "Sorry. Cant make dnd. Work sux." We had figured as much. I toss the phone onto the pile of clothes. I go face first into pillow. Last thing I hear before a grateful return to sleep is Jenn's voice saying, "In grace of mending, be whole."

Heh. "B-hole".

Wait, who's Jenn?

I opened my eyes. Jenn was staring at me. Upon meeting my gaze she smiled, causing riotous celebration among my base instincts. "You were out for a bit," she said.

"I, uh….” My face hurt. "Did I attack Topher?"

"Heh. Barely," said Topher, grinning. He offered me a hand, and I used it.

Too fast. My head went light. Topher caught me, and I took a second to get my bearings. "How's the…."

"He's fine," said Kevin, still holding the baby. "So that was some kind of confusion powder, huh?"

I smiled. "No, I just really hate Topher."

Topher laughed. "I know! I was like, 'Oh, Jack's on one of his 'I hate Topher' tirades. Guess I should take him out before he accidentally stabs himself.' You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks." I said, rubbing my cheek. I turned to Jenn, "Did you use magic to heal me?"

She brightened. "Yes, and the swelling's almost completely gone! You feel alright now, right? No problems? Any lingering headache? How's your vision?"

I stepped back before she could grab my head and start examining it. "I'm fine, I'm fine. See?" I turned my head and coughed. "I'm great. Thanks. What happened to the pixies?"

Topher pointed to some gore on the side of a tree, and then to something that was hopefully good fertilizer for the bush it was all over. "There's two. Any others used you as a distraction to run."

"So it's over?"

"Let's hope. Can we go before junior makes another mess?" asked Kevin.

We headed through the forest. Topher and Jenn lead the way, Topher wondering aloud about knowledge skills and making gunpowder weapons. I hung back with Kevin and the remarkably complacent baby.

I looked down at the trail. It was dark brown with various twigs that snapped and crackled underfoot. "So, back when I said 'you got this', did you feel anything? I was trying to use inspiration."

"Not that I noticed? Sorry if I was harsh when I told you to leave."

I shook my head. "That was fine. I did just sort of hang around when I should've been getting out of there." A thought hit me. "You know, if I hadn't waited and told you that, I probably could've gotten out before the portcullis closed. Damn." I kicked a stick. "Now I really feel like an idiot."

Kevin looked at me, confused. "Why?"

I looked back at him. "Because I could've gotten out of there and saved the baby."

"We did save the baby."

"Yeah, but… sooner."

"We weren't timed. I mean, I'm sure Marisa would like this whole thing over with as quickly as possible, but other than that, who cares? We all walked away. Actually…” He started pondering something. “If you'd have gotten out of there, those cultists would've probably come back and attacked us before we could get rid of the leader. He was annoying enough, on his own."

I threw my hands up, exasperated. "But I still messed up, you know?" Why was I fixating on this? "Waiting around and talking to you like a needy idiot. What if—“

"No 'what-ifs'," scolded Kevin. "You didn't mess up while you were protecting this guy," he bounced the baby, who gave a squeal of delight. "That's what counts."

I found myself watching my feet as they plopped along the trail, breaking sticks. "Still messed up."

"But not when it mattered."

I snorted. I always hate it when people try to cheer me up. It makes me feel like I'm letting them down, having them waste their time on something that shouldn't be happening.

"Besides, this is… probably the first time we've had people try to kill us - let alone in a world whose rules we don't know. I don't think any of us are expecting perfection." He looked at me, but I kept to sullen silence. "You know," Kevin's voice went quiet, "it was a huge relief to see you staring down those cultists. We rounded the corner and there you were - standing tall, dagger out, glowering at them, and they were backing the fuck off. I couldn't believe it."

He was quiet for a few moments, staring at the ground. Then he added, "When you ran and the leader said to close the gate, I almost went to help you."

I looked over to him. He seemed pensive, almost regretful. "Why didn't you?"

"It was Jenn. She said that you were capable, could handle yourself." He looked back at me. "And she was right. So shut up about two seconds wasted as you tried to figure out a class ability. If it bugs you, learn from it. Otherwise, deal with the fact that luck is going to play a huge part in all that we do. And at least be happy that Jenn seems to have faith in you."

That thought was rather nice.

"You guys talking about me?" Jenn turned her head back to look at us.

"It's nothing, never mind," Kevin waved her off.

I grinned. "We were just talking about how pretty you are, and how you have a nice enough face to really pull off a short hairstyle." I could feel Kevin's eyes roll.

Jenn didn't seem impressed. "You know, flattery won't get you anywhere," she said.

Damn, I forgot she had a stupid-high wisdom. And the insight skill. "I'm pretty sure truth is a defense to flattery," I said, innocently.

"True or not," there was a flash of focus in her eye, "what makes it flattery isn't the words themselves, but the intent behind the words."

She got me there. Time to bail. "What intent? I'm just your friendly neighborhood bard, telling it like it is. I didn't know paranoia was a cleric class feature."

She shook her head and kept onward. Kevin leaned in and whispered, "Smooth…."

"Yeah, it's like I can feel myself rolling a natural 1."

"I could totally see a picture of that look on a 'Crit Fail' meme."

"Oh, like this?" I took some fleece from my pocket and, with little effort from my still aching magic limb, cast Minor Illusion into the form of a poster. At the top it read "This", then the middle had a reproduction of her glaring at me, and the bottom had "is when you know you've rolled a 1."

We broke out in laughter. Jenn and Topher stopped to look at us, and I only barely dismissed the illusion in time. They arched their eyebrows. I shrugged, "Something the baby said. You had to be there."

They shared glances, looked back at us, and simultaneously decided ignorance was bliss.

As we continued, I remembered what I'd wanted to ask. "So," I began, "how does your magic work? I mean, what do you do when you cast it?"

Kevin went into meticulous thought. "It's like, I can see this circle." He held out a hand like he was holding it. "Inside are all these runes, designs and patterns. It's… complex, but there's an intelligence to its design. I can see it perfectly, in every detail. I keep that in my mind, and then," he reached into his pocket, producing his copper wire. He whispered into it, bit it, and a second later I heard the whisper - "I imagine speaking through it."

Huh. I knew it would be different from how I cast, but I at least assumed there'd be something about feeling the magic. "That's it? That sounds so…" I couldn't think of a better word, "…sterile. You don't feel any magic going through you? It's just, like, in your head?"

Kevin shrugged. "It might be different if it was for something more powerful than a cantrip, but yeah - that's the gist. What about you? If my way's sterile, does that make yours… dirty or something?"

I thought about it. It kind of did. I proceeded to tell him in detail about my magical limb that pulls out emotion and uses it to charge my spells. He listened intently.

"Emotion, huh?" he said, once I'd finished. "I suppose that makes sense for a bard. I wonder how similar your way is to a sorcerer or a warlock, as they use charisma as their spellcasting ability. I only have a cantrip, but technically use intelligence..."

I'd stopped listening. He said the words, but I had to double check that I hadn't made the same connection since I cast my first cantrip. Charisma is the force that fuels my spells, and my spells are emotions. Did that mean my emotions were particularly powerful? Was that why my charisma was so high? With rare exceptions (like powder-induced murder rage), I never felt like my emotions really had any serious sway over me. Or did they? I did have a problem with bouts of neurotic depression. Did this mean such dementias were a blessing in disguise? Well, maybe 'blessing' wasn't the right word, especially since I was only reaping the benefits after being transported into a game.

"…what Jenn's wisdom-based casting is like." Kevin poked me, breaking my thoughts. "But a magical arm, huh? That's gotta be weird."

"I guess…." Maybe 'force of personality' and strength of emotion are connected, and that's what makes for a high charisma? That made sense, but I didn’t view myself as having a strong force of personality. Did others think that? Which would matter more, if others thought I had a high charisma, or I did? Or was there some absolute truth that judges what my charisma is, regardless of myself and others? Why didn't I pay more attention to the Epistemology chapters in my philosophy class?

Kevin snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Stay with us."

I cleared my head. "Oh, sure. Thanks. How's junior doing?"

He was doing fine. It seemed Kevin's ears were the most fascinating of things to look at.

We made it off the trail and onto the main road. I decided to take a page from Topher's book and not think about things if there wasn't enough information to make intelligent decisions relating to them. The trees were beautiful. Hundreds of trunks stood from the edges of the road and faded into a brown haze. Noise from a thousand different woodland denizens ebbed and flowed from the brush. Such a huge forest. Must be a huge world, as well. Must be a lot of people in the world. Must be a few that can answer a few questions about how magic works. Might be one or two who could explain the connection of charisma to emotion to magic. "Hey, Kevin, we didn't get a chance to explore the town before. I'm going to look and see if there's someone versed in magic. What do you want to do?"

"Get this thing examined," he held up the silver dagger he took from the head cultist. "I don't think it's magical, but it could still have some messed up evil influence due to its owner. I'm going to try to figure out if it's worth keeping or better to sell."

"Can I take a look at it?" I held out my hand, and he gave it to me. "Well, you gave it up without screaming about it being your precious, so that's a good start," I said.

He smirked. "Maybe I rolled a twenty on my wisdom save."

I looked the dagger over. It was curved to a point, and had intricate ivy decoration throughout the blade, with a depiction of an owl, mid flight, strangling twin snakes in its talons on the handle. Towards the hilt, I noticed, were the letters "O.O.C."

"What do you think these mean?" I asked.

Kevin examined the letters. "Hadn't noticed them," he said. "Initialism for something. 'Out of Character'?"

"'Overly Oafish Cultist'?" I offered.

"'Often Oddly Castrated'?" replied Kevin.

"Often?" I laughed. "No wonder he was such a douche."

We were so caught up in laughter that we almost didn't notice Jenn and Topher had stopped. They stared intently down the road, and we followed their gaze.

It was Marisa, still looking a bit haggard and stumbling from tree to tree due to exhaustion. She must have set out shortly after we left. Poor thing was probably at the end of her rope, and a frayed rope, at that. Finally, this could all be over and we could start looking for answers. I turned to look at the baby, but Jenn's face caught my eye first. She was looking suspiciously at Marisa, studying her. Was she concerned this was some sort of illusion? I took a second look back to the hobbling figure. Everything looked right, although it was at a bit of distance. I nudged Jenn. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, probably," she said. "I'll let you know."

"Oy, Marisa!" Topher called out, startling her. She looked up at us, eyes feral with shock, fear and desperation. Kevin, baby in hand, took a couple steps forward, and her face melted into a thousand more emotions. She tore up the road, each step landing heavily. We moved forward to meet her.

She was speechless when we reached each other, her mouth open but unable to form words. Kevin transferred the baby to her, and the look in her eyes touched my soul. I gave a quick look to Jenn, who was now visibly less tense, though still a little wary. Marisa fell to her knees, sobbing with unrestrained joy, cradling the child.

I tapped Jenn on the shoulder, and we took a couple steps back. "Were you afraid she was some sort of illusion the pixies might have made?" I asked, quietly.

Jenn shot her eyebrows up. "No, that hadn't crossed my mind." I looked at her quizzically. She glanced over to the still crying mother, then back to me. "There's a chance - a small chance - that she's not his mother." My face started to hurt in an effort to make it look more quizzical. "If there are pixies and a cult that are after the baby, and we assume they're not in cahoots, then there's probably something special about the baby himself. If that's the case, then couldn't there be a third party who's also interested? Someone who might run into town and find capable people to get him and deal with at least one of their rivals? With nothing but a sob story?"

As she explained, my breathing got heavier. It seemed frighteningly possible. At least until I saw Marisa rocking back and forth, tears flowing. "If she's not the mother," I said, "then that's one Hell of an act."

"That's why I'm saying it's a small chance," Jenn nodded. "But keep an eye out, regardless."