It was a beautiful night. Miles of tall grass stretched to the horizon, and the purple stars shown brightly.

Helen watched Chad as he examined the ground, hunched over, the points of his ears sticking through long hair. She’d known Chad for a while, and guessed he was having the time of his life. He never played anything but a ranger.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” asked Brian, standing over Chad with a lit torch. “You lost the trail two hours ago and were too embarrassed to say something. Just been leading us around all this time, pretending. I’m onto you.”

Chad ignored him. “He went this way,” he said, pointing left down the fork in the road. A sign indicated that it led to a place called ‘Woodsedge’. “Everyone good to go?”

Helen shrugged. “Is he close? The sun’s already set. This has been a long day, you know.”

Chad looked back to the tracks. “I’m pretty sure these are fresh. If we hurry, it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Why are we even bothering with this?” Brian was shaking his head. “Aren’t there police or something?”

“We didn’t see any,” said Chad. “Do you really want him to go free?”

Brian put his free hand up in frustration. “Who cares? Dude’s gone. Let’s call it a night.”

“Well, I’m for finding him if he’s close, so that’s two for, one against,” tallied Helen. She turned to their fourth member. “Alicia? What do you want to do?” Her tone was meant to be soothing, but it came out patronizing.

Alicia bit her lip. When she’d found herself alone in the black room, she’d thought she was in an all-too familiar dream. When she couldn’t wake up, she started crying. That was the others’ first impression of her - bawling at the idea of eternity in a nightmare. Ordinarily Alicia would avoid people who’d seen (or in this case, heard) her at her worst, as sympathy sickened her. She had to stay with them, however, because the idea of being alone was terrifying.

“I—I’m fine,” said Alicia, who tended to stutter when she tried to be assertive.

“Outvoted, Brian,” said Helen.

He shook his fist at Alicia. “Traitor,” he smiled. She blushed and turned away, something that Helen surreptitiously noted. “Fine, fine. Let’s chase the guy in the middle of the night through open fields on Chad’s word that the trail’s fresh. Yay.”

“C’mon, man,” said Chad. “This is what D&D’s all about - chasing down bad guys, kicking ass, being heroes, all that good stuff.”

“You know, you’ve been trying to get me to play since the first week of school,” Brian eyed Chad suspiciously. “Did you set this whole thing up so you could get me to like it? If you did, you’re failing. Miserably.”

“Aww, gee, you caught me. I booked us a weekend in one of those renaissance villages and paid a hobo to dress up as a tavern owner and get stabbed in the neck by someone. Foiled again.”

Helen couldn’t help but smile. Chad was as big of a nerd as she was - the kind that, if asked for a preference between Star Wars or Star Trek, would proudly choose Dune. They’d been playing D&D together for a while. Brian, Chad’s dormmate, had no patience for the “nerdly things”, as he called them. He played football, and his off time was spent watching reality TV. Each tried desperately to coax the other into becoming more like them, and both staunchly refused. As far as Helen was concerned, those two could star together in an “Odd Couple” sitcom. And she would totally write a BL fanfic about it.

They marched off, boys bickering in the lead and the girls behind in silence. Alicia didn’t talk much. She hid behind her bangs and did her best to go unnoticed. Talking her through the character creation process had been a trying experience. If they’d known she was so good at avoidance and being quiet, they’d have recommended she become a rogue. She seemed to do all right as a wizard, in spite of her stutter. Helen leaned toward her and playfully whispered, “So! What do you think of Brian?”

Even through the orange glow of the torch, Alicia looked red. “Wha—? Helen! What do you mean?” she whispered back.

Helen grinned. “Oh, come on. I’ve seen you staring at his bare chest all day.” Brian had, after searching through the darkness for a way out, chosen barbarian as his class. His well defined chest and stomach had been on display ever since. “Are you going to make a move?”

Alicia tensed up. It was the boy’s job to make the move, at least that was how she imagined it since childhood. Being whisked away, deep voice whispering calm, confident niceties in her ear… but she rarely shared such fantasies with anyone. “Don’t be weird,” she said, hoping the words would fend her off.

“Oh, sweetie, I have a lot of work to do if you think just talking about boys is weird,” Helen whispered, giving Alicia a gentle walking hug.

Alicia hated the condescension, but didn’t have the urge to push her away; she’d been needing a good hug since the dark room.

“What’re you ladies talking about?” asked Brian, who’d been losing a verbal battle with Chad about the cost of hiring homeless and needed a way out.

“Your pecs,” grinned Helen, who tightened her grip. “Alicia thinks they’re fantastic.” If Helen hadn’t been holding on, Alicia would’ve collapsed in embarrassment.

Brian took it in stride. “Thanks, Alicia. I can make them dance for you, if you want.”

“N-no! That’s okay.”

“Suit yourself.”

There was a few seconds of silence before Chad observed, “You know, they talk about pecs like it’s nothing, but if we talked about their breasts, they’d smack the shit out of us.”

Brian nodded in academic agreement. “You’re right; it’s a double standard, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” said Helen. “We don’t walk around with them exposed, unlike you.”

“Well, maybe you should,” said Chad, authoritatively. “For equality’s sake.”

“Yeah, Helen,” said Brian. “Be a feminist and show us your boobs.”

Alicia was feeling very uncomfortable at this moment. In spite of that, she still managed to reconfirm that Helen was very well endowed - far more so than she. The comparison made her shrink a bit. While she was grateful to be left out of this particular back-and-forth, she couldn’t help but feel like they weren’t interested in seeing anything of hers. It stung.

“Stop or I’ll call hostile work environment!” threatened Helen with false indignation.

The boys backed off with a laugh. “Geez, impossible to know all the rules, huh?” chuckled Brian.

“You see, that’s why I like D&D - all the rules are in the books!” preached Chad.

Brian had a peculiar talent for rolling his eyes with his whole body. “You never let up, do you?”

“I’m just saying I have the inside scoop on how everything works in this world - best class combinations, best spells to choose, monster stats and weaknesses, and everything else we need to know. This whole experience is going to be awesome!”

“Uh-huh,” grunted Brian incredulously. “You know we’re not sitting around a table rolling those weird dice, right? When that guy - Hal, was it?”

“Hawl,” corrected Chad.

“Yeah, when he got stabbed in the throat by that other guy, this didn’t seem like a game then. I mean, it’s cool Helen is an elf drood or something—“

“Druid.”

“—and was able to heal him, but that got really real, really quick. You actually think we’ll do any better if one of us gets stabbed in the throat?”

“Yes, actually,” said Chad. “There are these things called ‘hit points’, which—“

“Does this look like a game to you?” Brian withstood the urge to push Chad into the nearby ditch. “Besides which, I know all the rules in football, and I still lose sometimes.”

“That’s totally different.”

“Even if it is, you’re saying that this is a game and, because of that, we can’t lose. Doesn’t it—“

“Boys! Hold on a second,” commanded Helen. “Look a bit off to the right - is that city on fire?”

They looked to where she pointed. The dark silhouette of a forest was partly lit by an orange glow, illuminating several buildings. “It must be Woodsedge. I don’t think the whole city’s on fire, but they may need help,” said Chad. “Should we see?”

“Let’s,” said Helen. “If everything’s fine, we can just find a place to call it a night.”

“Uh, first thing,” said Brian, hesitantly, “is that the guy we’re looking for?”

On the road, towards the edge of the torchlight, laid a man. The group approached cautiously.

“I think that’s him,” said Chad. “And I think he’s dead. Let’s check it out.”

A few steps later they confirmed both. Alicia covered her mouth and looked away.

“He’s been stabbed a few times,” said Brian. “Well, at least he got what was coming to him.”

“Yeah, but…” Chad examined the wounds. Curiosity trumped his uneasiness. “I wonder who did this.”

“Can’t you check the tracks?” asked Helen.

Chad shook his head to clear it. “Oh, yeah. Give me a minute,” he said, examining out the ground. “A little more light, Brian,” he requested. Brian complied.

Shrill, screeching noise pierced the night. Helen, Brian and Chad, hands on weapons, turned to see Alicia shakily pointing at something across the ditch, her face horrified. They looked….

Standing in the tall grass, just past the ditch, on the edge of the torchlight, was a figure. It was short - shorter than the grass, with a tiny frame and as skinny as a sapling, made more apparent by the tight, clinging leather it wore. Its arms seemed too long for its body, stretching down to the knees. A mat of greasy black hair sprouted from its head. Its ears were large, began and ended in points, and stuck straight out. Black, whiteless eyes glistened in the light of fire, and the line of its mouth almost followed the entire jawline of its wide, flat face.

“A goblin…” said Chad, more fascinated than frightened.

“Yes, elf,” it said, with a halting form of speech. Raising an elongated finger at the corpse, it asked, “Is him your friend, elf?”

“No,” Chad replied. “Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

Chad stood a bit straighter and tried to sound the part of an elven ranger. “You did us a service, then. What’s your name?” he asked, knowing that talking goblins usually ended up as mascots for adventuring parties.

“Mirn kaan,” enunciated the goblin, grinning almost literally from ear to ear.

That struck Chad as a bit odd. He took ‘outlander’ as his background, and chose Goblin as his bonus language from that. ‘Mirn kaan’ wasn’t a name; it meant “casters first”.

His blood ran cold.

Casters first.

“Alicia, Helen - Get down!” He turned to them and bellowed: “It’s an ambush!”

Helen only felt force giving her a couple pushes from behind. Then pain exploded in her back. She stumbled forward and managed to catch herself. She turned to see her attacker, but stopped when she saw Alicia, who had two arrows suddenly sticking out of her stomach and chest. Their eyes met, Alicia’s face contorted in pain and confusion, unable - or perhaps, unwilling - to comprehend what was happening. Another arrow came from seemingly nowhere, and struck Alicia straight in the neck. Crimson geysered from the wound. Alicia’s mouth fell open as she recoiled, but managed to keep staring at Helen, helpless. For what seemed like eons, they were locked in terrible, unblinking connection, until Helen saw the light dim in her eyes - such a subtle change, she thought, as Alicia fell to the ground, face frozen, as though she were still staring at her.

A column of white light shot up from from Alicia, blinding Helen.

“They have archers in the grass!” screamed Chad, also blinded. “And look out for a wizard!”

Helen felt a third arrow pierce her chest. She fell, but had the presence of mind to land on her side, lest the shafts be dug further into flesh. She cursed herself - she used all her spells for the day to heal Hawl. Her vision came back, and she saw Chad, on one knee, firing arrows into the darkness off the road.

“Brian! Throw the torch into the grass! Burn them out!” Chad ordered before taking five arrows from both sides.

Brian heaved the flaming stick across the ditch, then drew his shield and axe and turned to face the enemy on the opposite side. Helen watched as a goblin emerged from the savannah, gently kicked the torch down the slope, and disappeared back into the grass. She tried to say something, but warmth spread through her throat, choking her. She coughed out blood. A small splash and there was only starlight.

Helen, as an elf, could see in the dark. Brian, who chose human, was effectively blind. He beat axe to shield, screaming obscenities at his enemies. A few arrows sunk into the wooden barrier, but a couple more struck him from behind. He didn’t notice.

A second column of white light sprang forth from an unmoving Chad.

Helen heard Brian roar. When her eyesight returned, she saw him covered in goblins - at least half a dozen of them had leapt on him, grabbing his arms, legs and torso, short swords in their hands, all repeatedly stabbing him. Brian’s screams kept filling the night, but what unnerved Helen was how quiet and collected the goblins were. They hadn’t said a thing, and only a hint of a focused smile on each of their faces betrayed any emotion they had. Brian flailed around wildly, trying to throw them off. When that didn’t work, he decided to stop, drop and roll. He took the goblins with him into the ditch.

Brian’s screams became more intense until they were silenced. Seconds later, a third column of white light erupted from the ditch.

Helen didn’t wait for her vision to come back. She shakily brought a hand to the arrow in her chest, tried breaking off the shaft at the entry point, but found she wasn’t strong enough to snap the wood. Steeling herself, she instead rolled quickly onto her stomach, letting her weight break the arrow. It hurt. A whimper of pain, muted from the scream she wanted to give, escaped her lips. She clenched her jaw shut and started dragging herself. The nub of the arrow caught the ground as she moved, but she fought tooth and nail against the agony. She had to get out. She could come back; figure out a way to resurrect her friends. One step at a time. She made it off the road and into the grass. Splashes came from the ditch on the other side - the goblins must be climbing out, she thought. Now was the time to get as much distance as possible. She could afford a better crawling position in the tall grass. She rose to her hands and knees, grateful to have the arrow nub off the ground.

She knew the goblins had to be out of the ditch by now. Would they forget she was there? Was she leaving a trail of blood they could follow? She kept going - neither hope nor worry would help her. One foot, having gone cold and then numb, slid from under her, making her land flat on the arrow. A torrent of pain flooded her body. Fortunately, she couldn’t scream because more blood welled up in her throat, choking her.

She tried swallowing the blood, but still couldn’t breathe. Her heart was pounding. She needed air. In the back of her mind, a dull third to the pain and asphyxiation, she could hear rustling in the tall grass. The goblins had to be searching for her. She tried laying very still. Every thunderous beat of her heart sent a new wave of pain throughout. Her lungs felt like they might collapse - one probably already did.

She couldn’t take it. With what little air she had left in her good lung, she coughed out the blood, spattering it around the grass to glisten in the starlight.

One of them had to have heard that. She rose back up to her hands and knees and started desperately crawling. Her hands had gone numb, though, and she fell again. She tried ignoring the pain by focusing on her hands - she’d need them working. After a few seconds of telling them the to clench, they complied. She started crawling again, but didn’t get far when the pain in her back suddenly intensified.

She heard a throaty chuckle. One of the goblins found her and was wiggling the arrows in her back around like joysticks in the wounds. It took all her will to keep from screaming.

Summoning what strength she had, she turned onto her side and threw a jab at the goblin. Her fist stopped two inches short of its face. She could see the little bastard grinning at her with sadistic, superior malevolence. She glared at it.

“Breath of the primordial swamp,” she whispered. She flicked open her hand in front of its face, sending a cloud of poisonous gas straight into its nose and mouth. The goblin reeled, clutching its throat, making horrible gurgling noises as it doubled over. Helen got back up and started crawling away again.

Suddenly, a dozen tiny hands were on her, restraining her. They flipped her onto her back, breaking off the other shafts. She began to scream, but her throat filled with warm blood again, gagging her.

When she found the courage to open her eyes, the goblins were standing over her, each framed by the purple starlight. Their flat faces, wide grins and shining black eyes became more pointedly fixed on her as they made sure she was aware of what was happening in no ambiguous detail. They raised their blades.

A fourth and final column of white burst into the night, then disappeared, leaving the plains cold, silent and dark.