Annie XXXIV: Norallus the Deeply Scarred But Still Strangely Compelling

(Chronological index: High School (1st time for Raymond, 2nd time for Annie))

"Guys? I want to try something new today," Raymond announced as he sat at the basement table. The other guys looked up as he did. He put Annie and his notebook down.

"What do you wanna do?" Jack asked.

"I want to have Annie run my familiar." Everyone at the table turned to see the Dungeon Master's response. Except Annie. The sylph stood with one hand on Raymond's dice bag, staring up at her master in surprise.

"What do you mean, run? It's an NPC?"

"Yeah. But instead of describing what Strathcastle does, I just give her orders and then she takes it from there."

"She's not a player," Carter said.

"She's a girl," Daniel added.

"Daniel!" Annie said cheerfully. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said about me!"

"He just means," Christopher said, "that she'll mess up the game. Girls don't go for the throat like guys do." Raymond laughed and shook his head. Annie turned to wink at him.

"THis is probably the last battle of the campaign tonight," Carter said. "If she doesn't get into the swing of the party, she may mess it up."

"She has more imagination than you do," Jack said. "And if she's playing a familiar, there's not that much she can do to the game balance." He thought for a second. "And, if she's involved, rather than just rolling Raymond's dice, maybe she won't be such a backseat wizard in the fight scenes. I'll allow it. For one night, at least."

"Alright!" Annie shouted. She glanced over at Daniel. "Don't worry, sweetheart, i'll still be walking along the table naked."

"Okay," Jack said. "You're all in the side channel of the grotto. Down below you are the Ritualists, preparing for their sacrifice."

"Strathcastle," Raymond said, "fly over to the front gate. See how many guards are in the outer chamber."

"Really?" she said. She jumped excitedly and turned to face the Dungeon Master. "Okay. Okay. The minidragon keeps to the shadows and-"

"I," Raymond said. "I keep to the shadows. You are Strathcastle."

"Right, right. Thanks, Master. _I_ fly along the roof, keeping to the shadows so they don't hear me."

"Roll for it," Jack said.

After two years of bitching about having to throw Raymond's dice for him, she almost danced over to his bag. She looked up at him, knowing he was leery about letting other people use his dice for their characters. He waved permission. "Feel free, Annie."

Annie collected three six-siders and carried the stack onto her throwing stand. They clattered down the ramp, then rolled and slid to a stop. Jack glanced at them and nodded. "Okay, you make it to the gate. No one in either chamber seems to notice you."

-------------

Raymond and Annie got home just in time to set the table for dinner. Dad saw the distinctive bag from the Green Dragon and snagged it from his son's hand. "What did you get from the comic book store this time?" he asked.

"It's not JUST a comic book store!" Annie protested. Everyone blinked. Annie was usually more dismissive of the place than their dad was, Raymond defended it. The teen shrugged and lowered Annie to the table. He went to grab plates for the settings while Annie ran towards Dad and the bag.

Dad pulled a long plastic case out and stared at it. "What is this? A magic wand?"

"It's an electric dice roller," Annie explained, beckoning. He put it down where she could reach it. "See, this row of buttons picks the kind of die. Four sided, six sided, eight sided-"

"Up to a hundred," Dad said with a nod. "I can read, Annie."

"Yes, sir, of course, sir. I just... Well. Anyway, this row of buttons selects how many. So if I want to roll six dee six, I push this, and this, then down here I push 'roll' and... Up there it says i got a 22."

"And what does that mean?" Dad asked.

"I dunno," Annie shrugged. "Depends on what i was rolling for."

Dad picked it up and scrutinized it. Annie backed away as Raymond put plates and silverware on the placemats. "So," Dad asked, "which one do I use when i'm attacking a dragon?"

"No, no, no," Annie protested. "It doesn't depend on the target. It's who's attacking. Okay. Say I'm an 8th level magic user. I cast a fireball...."

Dad stared down at the sylph as she explained all about the imaginary game. He understood most of the words but none of the sentences made any sense. Still, her excitement was fascinating. He'd never seen Annie this animated on a subject since the week the Sylph Act was passed, and Raymond brought her out of his pocket.

On the other side of the pass-through, Mom was also gauging Annie's new attraction to the game. "How did you get her to drink the Kool-Ade?" she asked softly.

"I let her play," Raymond said. He scooped the shrimp creole into the serving bowl. "Instead of watching me, she's my familiar. Does what i tell her, but has independent action, makes her own rolls, tells me and the DM what she's doing. It's the first time i've sent Strathcastle to retrieve something and had to scratch her behind her ears before she'd give it to me."

"Familiar?" Mom asked. She grabbed a serving spoon for the rice. "I thought this was an escapist game."

"Well, yeah," he protested. "In the game, she's a minidragon."

They carried the dishes to the table. Annie was pantomiming how she used to throw die. "So, instead of having to carry eight six-siders to the stand, i just push those buttons."

"Huh," Dad said. He glanced over at his son. "How much was this?"

"Five weeks allowance," Raymond admitted. He carefully spooned half a shrimp and sauce into Annie's bowl. "I've, uh, been saving up for it."

"I guess so!" Mom said happily. Saving? When did that start?

Dad shrugged. "Seems like just something else to carry in that duffel bag you haul your dice around in."

"And how many golf clubs do you own?" Mom asked.

"I, what? Um...about ten, i think."

"That's how many are in your bag. How many do you own?" Mom persisted.

"Twenty four," he admitted.

"And isn't there one with an adjustable face? And a clip-on weight to make it swing like one of your woods? Couldn't you just use that and get rid of all your clubs?"

"I could," he muttered. "But i don't like how it-"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" Mom interrupted. "Doesn't matter. You keep searching for the perfect set of clubs, Raymond for the perfect dice. Shut up about the duffel bag."

"But he doesn't need the dice anymore!" Annie said happily. "I can do all the rolls with this."

"Actually," Raymond said, "I kinda prefer my dice. I like how the Twins roll for saves, for one thing."

Annie looked shocked. "You mean i still gotta-"

"No," he said. "I'll roll my own dice. The wand is for you. To roll yours. Jack said you could play your own character in the next campaign. And it would be unfair to make you roll for me and for you at the same time, so this is-"

Annie squealed and ran to her master, jumping from the table to grab onto his shirt. He clutched her in place protectively while she thanked him.

-------------

Jack only let people join his games at the start of a campaign. That worked out well for Raymond and Annie, as it minimized teens who joined just to see a naked sylph run back and forth. Or asked to see her do tricks. Or asked to hold her.

Tonight everyone was creating characters for the new foray into Greyhawk. Three new guys had joined the group since Annie played the minidragon.

“Ladies first,” Jack said. Then shook his head. “Never thought I’d say that about a game….”

“Okay,” Annie said, dragging her character sheet towards his stand. “I rolled up a half-orc. His name is Norallus. He’s a cleric assassin.”

“Half-orc clerics can’t get higher than fourth level,” Christopher pointed out.

“Yeah,” she nodded as Jack picked up her sheet. “He worships Loviatar.”

“Goddess of pain,” Jonas said softly.

“Lawful evil,” Carter added. “That means her cleric has to be, too.”

“Isn’t she topless in the handbook?” Hank asked.

“She’s got a top,” Cameron said. “But she’s falling out of it.”

“ANYWAY,” Annie said loudly, “he keeps his assassin class secret from others.”

“Half-orcs lose two points of charisma,” Daniel pointed out.

“Got that,” Annie said. “And I gave him a deep scar across his face.”

“Okay,” Jack said, handing the sheet back. “I don’t see anything objectionable. Anyone else roll up a cleric?” No one responded. “Okay, Annie, you’re the group medic. Anyone got a magic user?”

“Annie inspired me to play something out of my usual,” Raymond said. “I’ve rolled up a female gnome thief illusionist.”

“You’re playing a girl?” Carter asked. “That’s creepy.” Raymond shrugged.

Jack approved little Bianca as the closest the group had to a mage. Then he looked around the table. “Let me guess. You all want to play barbarian fighter-thieves?” The others twisted a bit in their chairs but didn’t deny it. “Look, I loved the movie as much as anyone, but we can’t have six Conan clones.”

“I was going to be the archer!” Hank protested.

Jack leaped up and snatched Hank’s character sheet. “You named him the incredibly original Nanoc?” Hank hung his head. Two other players slid their character sheets under the table and reached for erasers.

Right before he ordered them to roll new sheets, Annie signaled for a time out. “Let ‘em!” she said. “My character could only benefit! I’d hate to have to kill a paladin that figured out I was Evil.” Jack stared at her for a second.

Thus started the Campaign of Gnome White and the Seven Burly Guys In Light Armor.

-------------

“And your character doesn’t know she’s an assassin?” Mom asked.

“Not at all. Annie’s been real careful. Bianca just thinks she’s really good at teaching the cleric how to sneak around..” He scooped some pork onto his plate and held the knife over the slice.

“The big, ugly cleric,” Dad added.

“Oh, I got a spell that doubled my charisma,” Annie said as she circled Raymond’s plate. She finally pointed to the part she wanted and he shaved her portion off.

“So you’re pretty, now?” Mom asked.

“No, no, I’m still half-orc, and I still have a scar across my face.”

“So the spell didn’t work?” Dad asked.

“It did,” she said. “Charisma’s not as simple as surface beauty. I mean, think of Hitler. He had crowds in his grip! And he was butt ugly.”

“So what do the other players think of Annie so far?” Dad asked.

Raymond swallowed and stared. This was more attention than his parents had paid to his gaming over the last two years. Then he saw Annie looking up at him questioningly. “They think she’s great,” he said. “She tortured a guy right under their eyes and the characters still don’t know she’s evil.”

“How’d she do that?”

“Oh, she has this holy symbol that causes or cures light wounds. And a ring that magically detects lies. She had to get information out of the goblin sentry. Norallus asked a question, and if her ring vibrated, she’d put her bandana over his face and say, ‘Let us pray for this creature.’ Then cause light wounds. He’d scream and change his story. The characters bought the prayers, but the players were laughing their asses off.”

After dinner, Mom took Annie into the kitchen to hear about how rats, a Cause Disease spell and a surreptitious entry to a city under siege earned Norallus a reward from the King, while they did the dishes.

Dad took out his wallet and slid a few bills over to Raymond. The teen put down the plates he was gathering and took the money. “What’s this?”

“Your allowance,” Dad said.

“This is, like, six weeks of my allowance, Dad.”

“Well, your Mom and I wanted to subsidize the dice roller. Annie seems to be benefiting from Norallus the Deeply Scarred.”

“Um…thanks.” He started clearing the table again. “Hey, if I had a car, I could take her to lots of-”

“Don’t push it,” Dad said.

-------------

“MEN!” The high pitched scream rang through the house right after the front door opened.

“Home the conquering heroes,” Dad said.

“I don’t know if they conquered,” Mom replied.

Raymond entered the living room with a big smile on his face. Annie sulked in his cupped hand. Mom put down her magazine and offered her hand. Raymond handed Annie over and dropped his knapsack. He went into the kitchen as his pet glared at her master’s back.

“What’s wrong, Annie?” Dad asked.

“Men,” she muttered darkly.

“Don’t flatter them,” Mom said. She pet her hair gently. “There are no men at that table.”

“Got that right,” the sylph muttered.

“What did they do?” Dad asked. He glanced at the kitchen door. “What did Raymond do?”

“Oh, he’s fine. He’s just…a teenager.” She didn’t look up as the humans shared a look. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I speak with all my worldly experience.” She blew strands of hair out of her face.

Ray came back into the room with a cookie. He broke off a few pieces and offered his hand. She took the one with the biggest chip and started to nibble.

“Okay, Annie invents this wicked weapon,” he said as he dropped into a chair. “There’s this spell. Fire Trap. Cast it on any container, it blows up when it’s opened. Her cleric takes all the treasure from one dungeon crawl and gets a wizard to put together a bundle of sticks of Fire Traps.”

“Sticks aren’t containers,” Dad pointed out.

“Yeah, he subcontracted an artisan to get a dozen dry, brittle sticks and drill twenty tiny holes in each one. Then the wizard puts a sunflower seed in the hole and glues vellum over it. That makes it a container, and the Fire Trap spell can be cast.”

He glanced around to be sure his audience was following the explanation so far. Mom nodded, Dad made a move-it-along gesture.

“Okay, so there’s a dozen sticks rolled into a bundle, each with twenty Fire Traps. We get into this dungeon and Norallus puts one in front of the cave where the troll lives. We start making noise, the troll comes out and steps on the bundle. The sticks crack, the paper tears, and each one of those seeds goes off with 1d4 plus 14 points of fire damage. Troll goes Fa-fa-fa-FA=FOOM!”

“SOunds like a win,” Mom said. Annie snorted.

“Oh, it was great. Everyone was impressed. Then CC4-”

“Sissy for what?” Dad asked.

“Um, Christopher’s character? Conan Clone number 4? Well, Christopher reminds us that a bundle of sticks is called a faggot, then he shouts, ‘Annie invented the Flaming Faggot!’ We all about busted a gut laughing!”

“The point of the Seed Slayer,” Annie shouted, “was that little things can add up to big results!!” There was a slight catch in her voice. “The POINT was to get those bastards to actually think about what I do for them, for the party! But no…if it‘s not fart humor, or faggot humor or short jokes… They never take me, my mind, my imagination seriously!”

“They don’t?” Dad asked, looking at is son.

Raymond shrugged. “They take her seriously enough. She’s the party leader. When she says something like, ‘take this torch over to the lake and wave it around,’ they don’t hesitate. When she says something’s fishy, no one touches anything.”

“They take Norallus seriously,” Annie complained. She was definitely starting to cry. “But after the fight or the escape or the invention, they just… They just…” Mom closed her hands over the sylph, giving her a little bit of privacy.

“Oh.” Raymond said.

“Oh, what?” Mom asked.

“Ah. Well, Cameron is always glad she comes up with ideas. But he always asks what book or movie she got them from.”

“What, they think she can’t think up anything on her own?”

“Jack does. He gave Annie a butt-ton of experience points for the… The Seed Slayer. But the other guys… I guess they always see her as a pet, or something. No matter how much she does.””

“Did you laugh at the Flaming… At the flaming joke?”

“Mom? It was funny!” Mom’s eyes drew his attention to her hands and what was in them. “Oh. Well, not THAT funny. Really. In fact-”

“Shut up,” Dad said. “Well, Annie, I think you have a great imagination.” There was no reply. “Wait, you’ve got four guys playing clones of Conan?”

“Six,” Raymond said.

“Christ Almighty! Annie!” he called sharply. Mom opened her hands, Annie looked up. “Six clones of a summer movie hero in one room, in one game, and you have self-esteem issues for IMAGINATION?” A small laugh popped out of her mouth. The crying stopped. Dad shook his head.

“What we could do,” Mom said, “is dye your hair blonde for a game. You start acting like an inept bubble headed bleach babe for an adventure, they’ll appreciate your usual, ept self.” Annie giggled, wiping at her eyes. “Yes,” Mom continued. “That’s what we’ll do. Raymond? When’s your next game?”

-------------

Raymond delayed revealing Annie until everyone was seated. He opened up the case for her dice wand and she stepped out of it. The gamers stared as she smiled at them, snapping her gum.

Mom had gone a little crazy on Annie's do. She not only bleached the sylph's hair, she tried four or twelve different styles. Annie put up with being Mom's action figure more then when Ray played around with her. Mom asked her opinion from time to time.

They ended up with an afro. Dad said she looked cute. Raymond said she looked like a stick of cauliflower. Mom said some terse things about his ability to compliment women.

Now she cocked a hip, reaching back to her cheerleader days, when she tried to make the other team’s players run into each other. She amused herself by counting drool trails.

“Annie,” Christopher said… “You look…”

“Different,” Daniel finished.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said. “Okay, the Burly Seven were at the top of a well. Bianca is down at the bottom, looking for the missing locket.” He passed a piece of paper to Raymond. The gnome’s player read the note, folded the paper back down.

Then he sat back. He looked around the room. “Eep!” he said. Then he refused to say anything more, either in or out of character.

They turned to Annie, who was twirling a string of hair. She blew a bubble. “Well, evidently, Bianca can’t climb up the rope. We should throw rocks, you know, down the hole. As the bottom comes up, the grome will ride it up to us.” She turned to the DM. “Are there any big rocks around here? I’m bending over to get a biiiiiiig rock.” She demonstrated, pointing her behind at the players on Raymond’s left.

She winked at Raymond as she stood, pantomiming dropping the rock on top of his character. Then she bent over, aiming at the other three. “And another… And another…” The Burly Six rushed to help her save the Gnome by filling the well with rocks.

-----

An hour later she was down to one remaining member of her party. “Well,” she said, pulling at her lower lip with one finger. “That didn’t work, did it?”

“No,” Carter said.

“Okay, the orcs finish tearing CC2 limb from limb,” Jack said. “They stomp over his dragon disguise as they start back up the mountain road. You’re still at the edge of the cliff. What do you do?”

“Annie?” Carter asked.

“Oh!” She jumped up and down, putting a little English on her chest to exaggerate the bouncing of her breasts. “I have a scroll for an illusionary bridge! I’ll cast it, we run across it!”

“Will that work?” he asked.

“Yeah! Just, just,.” She ran over to grab his hand, looking him deep in the eyes. His eyes were locked on her boobs where they brushed his knuckles. “Just DON’T disbelieve it until we’re safely across, okay?”

--------

As they boxed up their dice and handed Jack their character sheets, they finally asked why.

She spit out the sliver of gum she’d been working and explained. In detail. Every slight, every short joke and everything she took as a personal attack was brought up and hashed out. They sat and listened.

Raymond, hearing it all for the second or third time, pointed out two jokes she’d forgotten.

“Is it…possible,” Cameron asked, “that we could not count tonight? Maybe we all just had a bad dream?”

“Maybe our characters all just had a bad dream,” Daniel said, “and WE all promise to treat our party leader better, in and out of character?”

“Could do,” Jack said. “If Annie feels that your apologies are good enough and sincere enough.”

“But we haven’t apologized,” Hank protested. Jack just looked at him. “Oooooooh!” he finally realized. “Annie? I’m, like, so, so, so sorry about the hand puppet…”

Christopher was the first to drop to his knees. Cameron the first to offer candy. Annie drank up the attention and the obvious regret as her due. She smiled and forgave them their sins.

“So we can just skip tonight? All a shared, in-game nightmare?” Hank asked. All looked to the sylph.

“I dunno,” she said. “I suppose I could have you all roll for it…”

“Nope,” Raymond said. “There’s no way they could make save against Annie.”

-------------

The next game night, Annie showed up with something else to prove. There was a new costume for the occasion.

Mom had helped Annie trim her hair down to a Buzz Cut. It was still white, but with sharp edges, vertical sides and a flat top. As the sylph examined herself in the mirror, she sighed.

“What?” Mom asked. “Too much?”

“No, I just thought… Well, maybe some war paint? Two or three strokes on my cheeks or something? You know?”

“I don’t,” Mom admitted with an evil smile. “But I know someone who does. Victor? Could you come in here and make Annie look scary?”

“What?” he asked as he entered the bedroom. “You mean, tell her she can’t have any chocolate?”

“War paint,” Mom said. “Scary. Not psychotic.” Dad turned out to have a deft hand with colored felt pens and a magnifying glass. With several breaks to breathe without fumes, Annie soon looked like a demonic vision.

“Dad, it’s…it’s… Where did you learn to do this?”

“College roommate. He was Iroquois. On Halloween, he’d turn the whole frat into a tribe that made the cops flinch. After the first year, I asked him to teach me.”

“You should have seen him the night we met. My blind date showed up looking like an absolute ogre.”

Annie was still twisting in front of the mirror to see the whole effect. “And you still went out with him?”

“Oh, that wasn’t Victor,” Mom said. “I looked into the guy’s face and asked, ‘Who DID this to you?’”

“First thing she ever said to me,” Dad said happily, “was ‘Make me a Tiger!’ I did, and the rest was history.”

Annie ignored the smooching sounds overhead as she admired the effect.

If anything, the gamers were even more stunned by the paint than they had been by her nude posturing. She circled once to let everyone see, then stood still as they leaned over her to see the details.

A band of color across the middle of her face was blood-red, with crimson tears dropping down her chin to her chest. Her eyelids were white, making each blink a shocking contrast on the red. A line of barbed wire circled her neck as a noose, then trailed off to wrap around her right arm four times, blood welling everywhere the barbs sank into her flesh.

The other arm had life-sized fire ants above and below the elbow, with angry welts around them. Stitches on her belly held an apparent hari-kari wound shut. Claw marks raked her legs, down to her gangrene-colored feet and blackened toes.

“What are you?” Carter finally asked.

“I’m pissed,” she replied. “You guys wanna follow Norallus into the Storm Giant’s Den?” They nodded silently. She raised her fist and screamed. Conan clones two through six screamed back at her. CC1 fell backwards out of his chair.

-------------

Annie was still excited about the battle when they got home. Mom and Dad were at a company dinner. Raymond put his sylph on the counter as he got leftovers out.

Since she couldn’t tell the folks all about her fantastic strategy, she told Raymond about it. He smiled and listened, not once pointing out that he knew the story. Even when she described Bianca’s actions, he just nodded.

The story wound down to the part where everyone at the table voted her the most valuable player, the most important character and the sexiest half-orc they’d ever met.

“Yes,” he said, sliding the casserole out of the oven, “I am so very proud to own you.”

“Of course you are,” she said, hardly listening. She spun around in circles for a moment. “I really like playing, Raymond. And I love playing with you.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Oh, well, everyone listens to me. You take orders from me. My size doesn’t enter into it. Not in the game, and now, not outside the game. That‘s so cool!” He held up a hand, palm out. “What?”

“Technically, I don’t. Bianca takes orders from the party leader. That’s Norallus.” He got a soda from the fridge and the bowl and cup from her shelf.

“That’s me, though.”

“Not exactly. You are in charge of Norallus’ actions, same as me and Bianca. But you? You’re still my pet. I could yank on your leash, make you make Norallus give Bianca all his treasure.” She stared up at him in shock. “I wouldn’t, of course,” he said after a moment. “But I could.”

“Why… Why don’t you?” she asked. He dipped some soda out for her and handed her the cup.

“Well, the same reason you don’t spank a puppy for making wee on the paper. You don’t send confusing signals.” He took a long sip. He didn’t notice the cup shaking in her hands or the cola spilling on the counter. “You’re doing great at the game. As you said, we’re all having a good time. I don’t want to risk damaging that.”

“You… You… You think you TRAINED me to play D&D?!?!” she shrieked.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. He scooped some of the casserole out for her, making sure to get some meat with the pasta. “You watched me play for two years. Everything you know about the game, you learned from me.”

“Or,” she snarled, “from reading the game books down on the floor because watching four teenage boys plan a bachelor party for a demigod got boring by the second prostitute hiring scene!”

“Well, yeah, but how often did that happen?” She raised her hand, forefinger extended to start counting banal adventures skirting the edges of the mysteries of sex. “Never mind. It doesn’t really matter. But right now, we make a good team. That’s a good thing in the game. Just don’t forget that we’re not a team out here. There’s a definite, and permanent, master and pet relationship.”

She stared, mouth open and eyes tearing.

--------

Bianca took over as party leader. Raymond ran Norallus as an NPC to keep the party coherent. They limped through the next adventure, then drifted to a stop.

When asked about Annie, he reminded them of the Orc Stampede of 326. “After she managed to make that happen,” he explained, “she felt she had nothing more to prove. To herself or to other gamers.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” they’d say. “Why don’t you bring her around any more, though?”

The teenager could never admit that she refused to come and he accepted her decision. Her threats seemed sincere and frighteningly credible. Instead, he lied. “She, uh, tried to steal money from my Dad to get dice. She’s grounded from role playing for the next 40 years.”

“Ah,” they’d nod. Parents were never really supportive of gamers, or tolerant of their dice demands. It made sense to them. Aside from the fact that she didn’t actually use dice…

-------------

Susan showed up a little bit after Ray left. After she and Thomas kissed, she looked around the room. An eyebrow went up when she realized that Annie was here but Ray wasn’t.

“He’s out with Sissy,” Annie said. She grabbed a corner of the Cosmo page and started to turn it. Susan stepped over to do that for her. She smiled up at the giant and walked to the top of the print. “Thomas is sylph-sitting.”

“If you don’t mind,” Thomas asked, “I was thinking of running down to Micky D’s? Could you watch Annie?”

“Get me a Fish Fillet?” she asked. He nodded and left. Susan sat beside Ray’s desk, looking down at the sylph. “Who’s Sissy?” she asked. “And why aren’t you there?”

“Sissy is someone Ray met at Freshman orientation and finally worked up the nerve to ask out.” Susan glanced at the calendar on the wall. “Yeah, well, it took a lot of nerve. Anyway, she reacts to sylphs kinda the way Ray’s mother reacts to lizards in the house. Or like a cartoon elephant around a mouse.”

“Oh. Then what the hell is Ray doing dating her?” Susan looked shocked. Annie waved off any concerns.

“Boobs,” Annie replied, gesturing to indicate gravity-defying globes. “He’s hoping that eventually, exposure to me will make her more comfortable and we’ll all get along.”

“Do you think that’s likely?” The human held out her hand. Annie climbed up onto it and Susan held her up to her face.

“I think that the princess thinks she’s such hot shit, Ray will gladly dump me in order to keep her.” Too late, she realized that she’d probably broken the Rules. Candor was encouraged with Ray, but not with others. But it was just so easy to talk with Susan. The coed had treated Annie like a person from the day they’d met.

She crossed her fingers and hoped the conversation wouldn’t find its way back to her revered Master.

In the meantime, Susan was shaking her head emphatically. “Never happen. Even if she sleeps with him.”

“Oh, I know that,” Annie said. “Actually, I think it improves his chances to get laid. Sissy’s got things to prove.”

“And you want that?” Susan asked. Not in shock. No judgment. She just wanted to know Annie’s feelings in the matter. Annie could almost wish Susan was dating Ray. But she and Thomas were made for each other.

“Hey, did I hear that there were some D&D books around here?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, Ray’s got a whole set.” She pointed and Susan stood. There was a boot-sized shoebox on the top shelf. They found manuals and character sheets inside. “What do you need?”

“Veronica’s thinking of starting a girls-only D&D campaign. We’re rolling up characters tomorrow. I was just wondering… Well, I want some idea of what I’m doing, you know?”

“Sure,” Annie said. “We could roll up some characters tonight.”

“We could? You wouldn’t mind?” Again, she took Annie at face value. No question about whether they should wait for her owner, no surprise that she claimed to have the knowledge all on her own. Annie was starting to see the woman as the sister she’d never had.

“Not at all. We could come up with some random numbers, maybe slips of paper and fill in a character sheet. Show you how it works, tell you what to think about.”

“Paper?” Susan pulled a large leather sack out of the box. “Are these his dice?”

“DON’T!” Annie shrieked. Susan froze. “Don’t ever use another player’s dice without permission! They’ll freak!”

“Really?” Susan looked suspicious, clearly wondering if this was some sort of gamer joke.

Just then the room door swung open. “Forgot my jacket,” Ray was saying as he walked in. “And it looks like…” He stopped, staring at Susan sitting at his desk, holding his sylph and his dice bag, with his gaming equipment piled on the desk.

“Don’t move,” Annie said in an urgent stage whisper. “Very slowly, say ‘it’s not what you think.’ Then put the dice bag down and say, ‘I wasn’t going to roll your dice, Ray.’ If we’re lucky, he won’t charge.”

“Are you serious?” Susan asked the sylph. “He’s more jealous of his dice than of you?”

“Don’t take it wrong, Susan. He wuvs me, but a gamer’s connection to his dice is mystical.”

Ray snorted and started moving again. “Okay,” he said as he grabbed the jacket off the hangar. “If it’s not what it looks like, what is it?”

“Someone named Veronica wants to run an Amazonian D&D campaign and Susan wants to play but she doesn't want to look like a virgin so I was going to teach her how to roll up a character but without actually rolling since we weren’t going to use your dice, Master, that would be wrong, I was just going to discuss strategy rather than make real characters and we’d erase the character sheets when we’re done. Okay?”

Susan’s eyes were still wide, trying to understand what was going on. Annie and Ray ignored her, an odd current of emotion running between them.

He finally turned around, reached into the closet and came out with another shoebox. Annie’s head tilted as she saw it. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen that box before. When had he put it up there?

Ray set the box down by Annie’s cage. He pulled a familiar case out, along with a package of batteries for the automated roller. “You, uh, can use this. If you want.” Then he pulled out a plastic document sleeve holding a character sheet. He placed that on top of the Cosmo.

“Is that… Did you pack Norallus?” Annie asked.

“I thought you might, some day, maybe, want to play him again.”

“I told you to burn that character sheet!”

“Yeah. I did. But I copied down all the stats, first.” He made a half-smile, then pointed at the door. “I gotta go. Have, uh, have fun.” He paused with a hand on the doorknob. “And, uh, if Susan wants to take you to the girls-only game? She, I mean, if you want to, Susan? You can.” And he fled.

“What the hell was that?” Susan asked.

Annie jumped from her hand and ran to the sleeve. Her character was exactly as she’d last seen him, down to the experience points from delivering the storm giant’s death blow. Even her margin notes were carefully reproduced in Raymond’s handwriting. “That was an apology,” she said softly.

-------------

Susan brought Annie back from the game about one in the morning. Thomas had been dozing but he popped up at the sound of her knock.

Ray accepted the sylph, the wand and the handbooks as the couple stepped out into the lounge. He closed the door and smiled at his pet.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Great,” she said. She stepped out of his hand and skipped along the blotter as he slotted the books onto the shelf. His eyebrows rose as the sight.

“What happened?”

“Stuff,” she said. He put the wand in the drawer, then cupped his hands around her. She grabbed a thumb as he lifted her to his face.

“Tell me all about it.” He leaned back in the chair and smiled down at her.

She looked suspicious. “You’ve been quoted as saying that stories of other people’s dungeon crawls are more boring than the transcript of an accountant‘s non-sexual dreams.”

“I know,” he said. “So, tell me all about it.”

“Why?”

“Okay, don’t.” He slid the cage door open and started to slide her inside.

“Wait! Okay! Well. They wouldn’t let me play Norallus.”

Ray nodded. “Because he’s too high a level.”

“Because he’s male.” She made a face as she said it. “The whole point of the dungeon party is to show that women are powerful, not to imply that women have to support or even accept the male-domination paradigm of not only the world of the City Of The Invincible Evil Patriarch and His Chauvinistic Knights but the general societal-”

“Breathe, Annie,” Ray interrupted. She smiled and took a big lungful.

“But the general societal cliché of gamers as an exclusively masculine clique.” She shrugged. “Personally, I’d have said ‘male’ rather than call most gamers masculine, but that may be bordering on another stereotype.”

“So what’d you end up with?”

“A half-elf magic user thief named Nyota. Oh! And I got a sorceress from the guild to make a Seed Slayer! They all thought it was the coolest thing anyone’d ever heard of, so the guild made me one for free! And the name STUCK!”

“That’s great!” he said. He moved to the bed, laying down quickly and waiting for the springs to stop screeching. Then he lay on his side as Annie walked back and forth on his blanket, describing and acting out the start of Nyota’s adventures in the City of the IEP.

“Well, Susan’s fighter and my magic user both came to the city to answer a call for adventurers to explore the New Land of Opportunity. We were put on a galley headed out to…”

As the thief made her escape through the bars of the city gates, just ahead of the Watch, her narrator paused and looked up at her audience. “Did I ever thank you for saving Norallus, Ray?”

“No. But you can’t use that character,” he protested.

“That’s not what I’m thanking you for,” she said. She climbed up his shirt to kiss his chin. “I can’t use Norallus. But you didn’t let me lose Norallus.”

“It’s, uh, it was…” He sighed. “You put a lot of thought and work into that character. I mean, breathed real life into him. I didn’t think you should lose that because you were mad at me.”

“Thanks,” she said. Then she hopped back down to the blanket. “Keep it up, big fella, I might just forgive you, too. One year, maybe three.”

“I can’t roll for it?” he asked.

“You know better than anyone, Ray! Can’t make save against Annie!” He laughed and swept her up to deliver his own kiss onto her belly. She squealed and kicked, but offered no real resistance.



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