Lund stretched out his legs. “Secondhand luck, my grandma would have called it. Not mine,” Lund pointed at himself with his mug of mead. “Hers,” he pointed at Mery.

“Meaning I didn’t deserve the luck that came to me.” Mery took a drink. “Which is unfair and untrue.”

“About a year had passed,” said Lund.

“More than that. It was the fall after my second summer away, and I’d written to my parents to tell them that I’d be delayed coming home to the troupe.”

Lund nodded dreamily. “Fall. A soldier’s delight. Warm days, cool nights, and a winding down of battle season. I was a hired sword by then, and we’d been camped at Falenfen Valley for a week, with another 3 days planned….”

It wasn’t the best encampment, but the valley was seldom traveled and the settlements few and far. Lund’s fellow fighters, many of them grumbled as the days flowed into nights and day again. But Lund was happy for the break from fighting. He’d begun to nurture the first thoughts of leaving the fighting life and doing something else - anything else. But what? He’d asked himself over and over. It’s one thing to know what you don’t want; it’s quite another to know what you do want.

“I’d taken myself a ways from the camp. Somewhere quiet where I could weigh my thoughts without interruption.” Lund rubbed his chin. “Once you let yourself consider another way, how do you go back? I’m no soldier - I’d already realized that, but I wasn’t much of a mercenary either. The only fights I wanted were my own and as few of those as I could manage.”

Mery leaned forward and said, “I’m about to interrupt this little idyl Lund’s got going.”

“The bugbears are,” said Lund.

“Bug-bear?” said Isa. “You’re making that up!”

All three of them looked at Isa with varying degrees of surprise. “Babe, don’t you remember that time Felix got one-shotted in that ambush? That was a bugbear.”

“Who’s Felix?” asked Lund.

“A friend back home,” said Isa. “He plays a cleric.”

Mery gave her a confused smile. “He plays at being a cleric? How’s that work? What god would--”

“It’s a game we play,” said Alice quickly. “In our world. But it doesn’t matter, really.” To Lund she said, “About the bugbear….?”

Lund looked at Isa, who waved her hand. “Bugbear. Got it.” Inside she kicked herself for saying anything. How could she explain to Mery and Lund that their everyday life was a game, a pleasant pastime, in Isa’s world? How would she feel to hear that Varanese have a game where “college student” is a class, and players can get a magic item called a “cell phone” as an equipable item?

“I’m a lover of games.” Mery folded her arms over her chest. “So how is it that I haven’t heard of this one before?”

Isa and Alice looked at each other. Alice shrugged as if to say, “They’re your friends.” Isa opened her mouth and then shut it. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Our world is really different than here.” She glanced around the common room as if to remind herself of that truth. “We don’t have taverns, or traveling troupes. We don’t have monsters or--”

“Eh,” Alice wiggled her hand side to side as if to equivocate Isa’s words. “We do have monsters; they just don’t have scales or wings.”

“But we do have stories and games,” said Isa. “And we play a storytelling game that is a little bit like Varana. Not on purpose - as far as I know. It’s just a coincidence.” Isa shrugged.

“Huh,” said Mery.

“Yeah,” Isa nodded. “Not very interesting. It’s not even a very popular game, all things considered.” She took a sip of mead, feeling that she’d done a fine job of not answering Mery’s question.

“So you’re sitting in the woods,” Alice said to prompt Lund to continue.

He nodded. “And I hear a noise. Just a small one.” He held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart. “But it brought me out of my reverie. Could be an animal, could be a friend. Could also be an enemy, so I slipped off my rock and stepped to the side. Just a few steps showed me that 2 bugbears were setting up a little welcoming party in the distance. They love a good ambush, bugbears, and they were almost in position to jump their quarry.”

“Me,” said Mery.

“I didn’t know that at the time,” said Lund. “I was mostly just glad they were facing away from me.” He paused to scoop up a handful of nuts and pick one from his palm. “I couldn’t just leave though. Bugbears are vile creatures. You know.” He looked at Alice, who nodded.

“What had you done to antagonize them?” Isa asked Mery.

“What had I done?” Mery’s voice held surprise and indignation. “What had I done? Nothing! That’s what.”

“Well, that isn’t exactly--” Lund began to say, but Mery continued. “Lund said they’re vile, and he’s got the right of it. Ambushing innocent trav--”

“You were running away,” said Lund.

“Rightly so!” Mery said.

“With stolen goods,” Lund finished.

“Well now….” Mery spread her hands. “There are 2 sides to every story.”

Isa grinned and took a drink. She settled back in her chair and put her hand on Alice’s leg. “Why am I not surprised?”

“They were stolen goods. They were indeed, Alice. Your man Lund, he tells it true, but I didn’t steal them.” Mery shifted in her chair. “I was liberating them.”

“Chaotic good,” Alice said softly.

“I didn’t know she was the awful bard from before,” Lund said.

“If you had, you’d have let them jump me, then?”

“No!” Lund gestured to Isa and Alice. “I’m just explaining.”

The bugbears had set up in a classic ambush formation. One on each side of a downward path, one slightly behind the other for easy flanking. Lund felt rather than saw them tense for the kill, and without thinking it through, he crashed through the brush at the bottom of the hill.

Both bugbears whirled to see what created the noise. Their clubs and spears, already in hand for the ambush, twitched with barely contained energy.

“And then he starts yelling,” said Mery. “Yelling like a fool.”

“I wanted to warn their victim. It was foolish though,” Lund nodded his head. “Coulda been anybody coming down that path. Including another bugbear. I took a big risk. But I wouldn’t change a thing if I had it to do over.”

He’d startled the bugbears alright, startled them right into action. One charged at Lund with his morningstar swinging over his head. At the last moment he swung the weapon low, catching Lund at the hip. Lund returned the blow, hitting the bugbear on the shoulder as his attack took him past Lund. The other bugbear jabbed a javelin at Mery who did not jump away in time. As the spear tip ripped across her thigh, Mery tried to grab her short sword and dodge at the same time and only succeeded in keeping her feet under her.

The bugbear circled her slowly, and Mery matched his movements, lashing out with her sword. The two traded several cuts which only succeeded in bloodying the ground at their feet. For his part Lund, concentrated on the enemy in front of him. This bugbear was heavier than most he’d seen, and that should have made it easier to hit him, but somehow the creature’s bulk worked to his advantage. He seemed to bob like leaf in a pond.

Lund took a few blows, trusting that his jacket would mitigate the damage. He needed to maneuver closer to his foe to prevent him from getting a full arc on his swing. But the bugbear seemed to sense Lund’s tactic as he jabbed his morningstar at Lund’s belly and shuffled backward. The bugbear glanced down to check behind him, and Lund leapt forward and drove his sword into the creature’s belly. As the bugbear fell, Lund gave a shout.

“Good on ya,” Mery called to him. Both Mery and the bugbear she was fighting had paused at Lund’s cry, and both saw the dead bugbear at the half-orc’s feet. The remaining bugbear growled and turned his focus back to Mery, but his attack went wide. Mery’s blade sliced up his forearm as the javelin breezed past her. “And,” she called to Lund again, “I could use a hand here!”

“What have I gotten into?” Lund muttered to himself, but he moved toward the other battle to lend a hand.

The bugbear growled out some words and lunged again at Mery, this time catching her square in the middle with his javelin. Mery grunted and fell, her sword dropping to the ground at her feet. As she fell, Lund attacked from behind, knocking the bugbear off his feet and plunging his sword through the bugbear’s stomach.

“I thought she was dead,” Lund told the group. “That last thrust, the way she dropped her sword….”

“I thought so, too,” said Mery. “I remember thinking, ‘This is where my song ends.’ Foolish, sentimental thought, I know, but it’s the truth. And maybe that’s what saved me. The blood was flowing out of me; I could feel it. And I said to myself, ‘No. It doesn’t end here.’”

“As I was kneeling down beside her to see if I could help--”

“He was going to loot my body,” Mery interrupted.

“I was not going to loot her body.” He glared at Mery. “I was going to help, but then she sat up, one hand on her belly.”

“I was grievous hurt.” Mery made eye contact first with Alice and then Isa. “Grievous. But somehow I was still alive.”

“You healed yourself,” Lund made a shooing motion. “She healed herself, bip, bam, bang.” He dusted his hands to punctuate his words.

“I’ll not eat this cold supper, Lund Subash. Besides, he doesn’t really care to argue. He just likes an audience.”

“Said the bard,” Isa muttered.

“It’s like a story,” said Alice. “Or a novel, a fantasy novel. And so you threw your lots together and had all sorts of adventures.”

Mery and Lund looked at each other, and Mery shrugged. “A small story perhaps, one that began with secondhand luck.” She settled deeper in her chair. “Who knows how it will end?