“You guys are really good at LARPing.”

“No. Shut up.” Perry waved the oversized young man to silence.

He didn’t seem surprised by what Perry or Heather could do. As if he already knew about it. but that could be explained by either good acting or him being a crazy fool, the option Perry was hoping was the truth. If he wasn’t a crazy fool…

Natalie hadn’t done much, yet, so she was a good subject to tell if Brendon was a merely a fool or a sign of something much more serious.

“How well do you know us?” Perry asked, pointing at himself, Heather, Nat, and Anne.

“Well, I don’t know Breaker very well, since we only met for a bit before you turned him into a girl and he left, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time around you two.” He pointed at Heather and Perry. “You guys went to high school with me. Natalie went to a different school I think, because you guys only started hanging out with her after High Tide made school go out.”

“And is there anything special about Natalie, like that devilry that happened with Heather?”

“Well, yeah, I said she’s a Tinker earlier. She rides around a nine-foot tall mechsuit.”

By questioning the oversized lump of teenager, Perry was able to determine that a ‘Tinker’ was a kind of ‘superhuman’ who could build things that weren’t strictly possible, and that a ‘mechsuit’ was something like a hollow ogre made of steel that could be puppeted by the driver.

“Well, that cinches it, he’s just crazy.” Heather said. “Natalie has never demonstrated anything like-“

HISSS.

All heads turned to where Natalie was fitting the horse with a collar made of steel and wood, adjusting the fit, while compressed air hissed between the collar and the wooden leg armor on Aegis.

“What…is that?” Perry asked.

“I had an idea,” Natalie said. “Obviously we don’t have anything that can power a steel ogre, but I thought simple horse armor would be fine, but then a gust of wind hit me, and then I thought, ‘what if I could use a bit of the horse’s extraneous movement energy to compress air and release it to enhance the action stroke?’ We could get two…maybe three horsepower out of this one horse!”

“Okay, Brendon, let’s say we believe you,” Heather said, changing her tune instantly. “What does this mean?”

Brendon shrugged.

“You said you knew us from high-school. What is that?” Perry asked.

“It’s where all the teenagers in the local area go to wait until our parents get home from work. We were kind of in a rich-kid’s high school, hence no Natalie.”

Perry had a private tutor, and Heather was the same. They had never experienced this thing called ‘high school’.

“Are we under some kind of curse or something?” Heather asked.

“Brendon, have we been acting weird, from your point of view?” Perry asked.

“Well, I mean, it’s been a pretty hectic couple of months, and you guys keep forgetting what you’ve been doing, so yeah, I’d say it’s been pretty strange. I didn’t wanna say anything because…

Brendon’s eyes teared up.

“Because there’s nothing I can do to help you guys if something bad is happening, so I decided everything was fine! It had to be, because I’m just a freakin’ normie, and the dumbest piece of shit to boot. I can’t help you guys!”

“Listen to me.” Perry said, grabbing the meatcake’s shoulder. “You are Grabnar the barbarian. You may be dumb, but you can definitely help us.”

“How?” Brendon whined, wiping tears out of his eyes.

“Tell me what happened when everything started being weird. Can you do that?” Perry asked.

“O-okay.”

***Brendon, 6 weeks ago***

Alright, Perry’s gonna be back in just a couple days. Then we can do activities and stuff! That would be fun.

Brendon liked the simplicity of being a janitor, just plugging in his earphones and zoning out, going completely mindless, and at the end, he got a clean place, a crisp hundred, and a sense of accomplishment.

I could be a janitor for real! Well, mom and dad probably wouldn’t like that.

Even being a janitor wasn’t quite enough though. He missed his friends.

I miss my friends.

It was always fun to see what Perry was working on, or seeing him fighting something or someone on the evening news. Then he could point and hoot as much as he wanted. Because Brendon knew stuff other people didn’t.

Brendon was walking home. It was about two in the afternoon, and Sophie didn’t need him for anything. She was busy ‘devising the next stage in her matchmaking plan’, Whatever that meant.

***

“Who’s Sophie?” LARP-Perry asked.

“She’s this lady that owns the motel you work in part-time, where you have your laboratory.” Brendon said. “She’s really pretty….and…like, constantly on the edge of getting you into trouble, but too nice to let you get in trouble, you know what I mean?”

“Not really,” LARP-Perry said, shaking his head. “Continue your story.”

***

“Boy, I sure like money,” Brendon said, tugging the hundred-dollar bill to hear that crisp ‘snap’.

‘You actually said that?’

“Maybe I just thought it really loud?” Brendon said as he walked.

I Could get like, twenty jars of spicy pickles with this. Then again, the DV of sodium in the spicy pickles is over 40% per serving. I can only afford to put one or two on my sandwiches.

If I cut the bread extra-thin myself and make it an open-face sandwich, I can reduce the carbs down to the tolerable amount to maintain definition. Can’t have more than one, though. Gotta make the next meal just tofu and greens, and I can reward myself with another open-face sandwich tomorrow.

At that rate, this means I can afford to make about six sandwiches and ten tofu salads and a slice of lemon to prevent scurvy.

‘WOW. You put a lot of thought into your diet.’

“You think this happens all by itself?” Brendon asked, motioning to himself.

I guess not. Continue.

“Where was I?” Brendon murmured, glancing up and down the street.

‘You were walking down the street. Just got paid.’

“Right.”

Brendon proceeded to help an old lady cross the street, carry her groceries to her apartment, helped get a dog out of a sewer grate for a kid, and bought a jar of spicy pickles and some meat-substitute for his sammies.

There was this guy in a ski-mask who became friends with Brendon when they met at the front register. He was cool, but since Brendon never saw the dudes face, he would probably never be able to find him to hang out again.

‘He obviously thought you were there to stop him from robbing the store.’

“That makes no sense, why would he tell me his name and shake my hand?”

‘Fake name.’

“You can do that!?” Brendon demanded. The cashier in his memory gave him a weird glance, but other than that, nothing came of it. He gave Brendon a free pack of gum for ‘helping him out’. Something that hadn’t made sense up until this moment.

Brendon wrapped up the shopping trip, saved a runaway baby carriage, talked to a guy who was standing on the edge of a building for a while, and shared some spicy pickles with him.

Once Brendon got back to his house, he was halfway through making his open-face Sammie when a powerful earthquake shook the ground, knocking his jar of spicy pickles off the counter and shattering them on the floor.

What the heck? Brendon shoved the pickle jar into the back of his mind, swallowing the welling tears as he scrambled to the front door.

Safest place in an earthquake is outside.

Outside was not the safest place to be.

The sun was black, and somebody was climbing out of it.

Greetings, mortals!

Brendon winced and slapped his hands over his ears, but it didn’t seem to help.

My name is –

Every nerve in Brendon’s body jangled like someone had stretched out his nerves and plucked them like a steel guitar.

But if you can’t pronounce it, you may call me Gerome, god of chaos, madness, and specifically the sudden horrifying realization that you have stepped on a wasp nest in October!

The individual who climbed out of the sun was now projected across the sky, every pore in his face magnified to the size of a minivan, grinning down at them.

Brendon retreated back inside and turned on the T.V.

Amber Hardy can tell me what to think about this, Brendon thought, staring expectantly as the TV blinked to life.

The TV displayed the same face, grinning back at him. Brendon tried to change the channel. Same face.

“I have followed the alluring scent of madness and discovered this wonderful frayed spot in the fabric of reality. I-”

Brendon changed the channel.

“Felt like I”

Brendon changed the channel

“Deserve a break from the formless chaos of my realm, and s-“

Brendon changed the channel.

“Will you quit that!?” The person on the TV said, scowling at him.

Brendon moved to the left, then the right, all the while with the ‘Gerome’ person watching him.

A primal shriek welled up in Brendon’s throat and he sprinted for the panic room.

To get there he had to run through the living room which had massive floor to ceiling windows facing the rest of the city.

Outside a nuclear blast of light turned the entire room bright white, blinding Brendon, resulting in him jamming his shin into the coffee table.

“Ow!” Brendon hopped toward the opposite hallway, blinking the tears out of dazzled eyes.

He hopped the rest of the way to the panic room and sealed himself in it.

Despite the six inches of solid steel and his hands over his ears, Brendon could hear every word as hear ‘Gerome’ continuing to speak.

“Everyone deserves a little vacation, don’t you think? Even Grumpykins here deserves a little vacation. I’ll tell you what. I’ll do all of you a favor and take you with me on my vacation, starting with Grumpykins. Oh don’t be like that, you flashed me first.

Since we’re on vacation, and you all are humans, and I’m taking the shape of one…I figure we should start with games. Humans like games, right?

The first game is hide and seek.

***Perry***

“And then a bunch of monsters came out and started hunting people and eating them, and I almost died when I left the panic room, and Gerome sucked at it! He got caught and eaten like eighteen times, laughing the whole time, and he broke my jar of spicy piiickles!”

Brendon began bawling, dabbing his eyes with Heather’s handkerchief.

“There, there?” Perry said, patting the massive young man on the back as he sobbed into the handkerchief.

“And then after a week or so, just after you guys arrived, he moved from games to game shows, and nobody ever remembered because he said nobody was giving the games their ‘full attention’, they were all too busy ‘conspiring’ against him to actually play the games.”

“When he said Grumpykins, he was talking about…?”

“Solaris, of course.” Brendon said, pointing up at the brilliant figure lighting up the world, arms crossed and scowling as he floated through the sky.

“Gram’pykins isn’t a god?” Perry asked.

“Nah, he’s like…your superhero boss?”

“What’s a super-hero?” Heather asked. “I know what each of those words mean separately, but together…” She shrugged and gave a raspberry.

“It’s like a job where people with special powers wear really tight clothes and beat up on other people with special powers for whatever reasons” Brendon said, and Perry was a bit suspicious that his description was oversimplified.

“Sounds fun, I’m in,” Heather said.

“So, if what you’re saying is true...and I find myself very skeptical…This guy can puppet us effortlessly. What can we do that would actually make a difference?” Perry asked. “As soon as we come to his attention, he can just…”

Perry snapped his fingers.

“I don’t know, man!” Brendon said. “You guys seemed to think the sword would do it. maybe that would help?”

“What sword?” Perry asked.

Brendon dug into his pocket and pulled out a note and handed it to Perry.

D&D campaign : Norodor’s Return

Awaken latent spirit smith, use triad to make ‘artifact’ as mcguffin.

Set in the kingdom of NAME LATER

Lich returning to steal powerful artifact meant to defeat him. Race to the sword? How to track progress? Set in ruins of old city. lvl 1-5 finding where the sword is. Goblins, orcs, kobolds, gnolls and lesser undead. Lvl 6-10, attack lich’s castle to recover sword before it’s corrupted, medium and higher undead, mercenaries/mindflayers.

Lvl 11-16, save city from portal opened to Norodor’s patron god. Demons, abyssal scourges, eldritch horrors.

Eldritch horrors was scratched out, with a note beside it ‘culturally insensitive’.

How to keep the team invested? Human experiences? Relocate goals as necessary to keep them on track. What’s their motivation?

“Heather?” Perry asked.

“Eh?”

“What’s the name of our kingdom?” Perry asked.

“It’s just ‘The kingdom.’” Heather said, the blood draining from her face.

“Crap.” Perry muttered, his reality crumbling around him. “Where did you get this?”

“Oh, me and Gerome were workshopping the next event, and I took some notes.”

“THEN WHY DID YOU THINK WE WERE ROLE-PLAYING!?” Heather demanded, twisting Brendon’s ear.

“I really, really, wanted that to be true, okay!?” Brendon said, wincing.

“Why were you workshopping the next event with the guy?” Perry asked.

“Idunno,” Brendon shrugged. “D&D is cool, the world was a featureless white void, and everyone else was a vegetable at the time?”

“So you think…if we got this artifact…we’d be able to resist his control?” Natalie asked, standing beside Perry and reading the note.

“That’ what you guys said when you made it.” Brendon said, shrugging.

“We made the sword that was used to drive Norodor out of the old capital a thousand years ago?” Natalie asked, her brows raised.

“Yeah, like, yesterday.” Brendon said.

“Why didn’t this Gerome guy just make the sword himself?” Perry asked.

“He said something about ‘Authenticity.’” Brendon said. “Said it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful if he made it himself. Instead, he made Nat a spirit smith, and had you guys put your powers into it. You guys figured out someone was controlling you and decided to make the sword really good at resisting control.”

Brendon hesitated a moment.

“When Gerome arrived and took the sword away, it almost killed him.”

Brendon pantomimed a sword thrashing around in his grip like a living thing.

Perry glanced down at the paper in his hand.

“So…we have an itinerary of their ‘adventure,’ and we know where the sword is…”

Perry rubbed his chin.

“Why don’t we just sidestep the ruined capital and get to it before they do?”

“Through the lich, mercenaries, mind-flayers, and undead?” Heather asked.

“Yep.” Perry said.

“With no guarantee of survival or that it will succeed?” Natalie asked.

“Yeah.”

“Sounds fun.” Heather said.

“I think we gotta do it.” Natalie said, nodding. “I’m not happy about it, but..”

“If all that is true, and the Miss is going…” Anne took a deep breath and let it all out in a sigh. “I guess I’ll go too.”

“And I, Grabnar the barbarian will aid you!” Brendon said, pumping his fist.

“You stay!” the four of them shouted the meathead down.

New Quest: Evict Gerome from Franklin City!

Reward: (1500XP)

“Anybody else see that?” Perry asked.

“See what?”

“Nothin…”