1. Sammy

1

Sammy

"Tia, you know I hate playing the thief," I mumbled into my mic as a crash of thunder crackled over the line. The storm had been raging for hours, and I'd been wearing my cat-eared pink headset for the majority of it. As a streamer I had to for my job. But now, as night fell and the rain slammed against the windows, my party readied to start a new private campaign. I tore off the cutesy torturous headset, replacing it with the boring but ultra-comfy gray ones.

"If you joined on time, then you'd have your pick," my borderline frenemy, Raine, said as she rolled her eyes on my screen. Her bouncy blonde hair, natural freckles, and crisp blue eyes made her popular with a specific demographic of the fandom. But, to her credit, she didn't rely on that popularity; she was a serious gamer and damn good at it. So, naturally, she was my number one rival.

"Don't listen to her." Abby, our resident game master was in charge of each session. She laid out the story, its details, and everything we'd encounter on the adventure. Although, half the time, she also played referee between us. She sighed over her mic. "They need you to play the thief because you're the only one with high enough dexterity."

My best friend Mako whispered on our one-on-one channel, "And actual gaming ability."

I snickered back, but Mako was bias. She'd been with me since the early days of my streaming channel. While she loved gaming, her parents pushed her toward a career in premed. Having an aversion to blood and all things her parents' desired, she compromised with a degree in physical therapy and a stellar group practice. Having appeased the parental units, and at the ripe age of twenty-seven, she finally had time to game with us.

"Sammy, I'm sorry, but we're going to need a thief for this campaign." Tia's gorgeous braids touched her shoulders as she tilted her head at me through the screen and shot me those puppy dog eyes. "Please." The youngest among us, but a natural born leader, she could convince most of our party to do just about anything. Sadly, I was not excluded from her charms.

"Fiiine," I whined longer than strictly necessary. "But you owe me."

"Now that's settled." Abby turned our screens to the virtual tabletop. It flickered as lightning crashed outside. When it cleared, a thick forest encompassed the monitor with a village at its center, a mountainous region to the north, and a large lake to the southeast. In the top middle section ornate gold lettering tracked over the map, spelling one word, Havenlore.

"Hey!" Raine cried, shifting the attention to her screen. "I thought we were playing Fractured Realms . You promised we'd give that a go for the party and?—"

Mako interrupted, flipping the camera to her full-sized face, "You just want to play that because it's supposed to be a why choose romance."

Raine's eyes grew feral as she flipped it back. "Do not start with me, Makoto. You know I'm reviewing it for my channel, and I wanted to see what you all thought of it too."

"Whoa. I'm not judging." Mako threw up her hands in a don't shoot gesture as the view went back to her. "I mean who doesn't love a good why choose."

I interjected before Raine could lash out, turning us back to our seven-player view, each of our faces popping up on our screens. "I had a preview of it, and I loved it Raine. I can give you a review if you want."

Her gaze cut to me. "For free?"

I resisted the urge to snort. "Yeah, just credit me in your video."

"Hmph." She crossed her arms. "Like I wouldn't."

"Yeah, well, I thought we were trying the Alien Warriors game," Robin grumbled, her burgundy glasses tipping to the end of her nose. As our signature healer, she was not a person you wanted to piss off, unless you wanted to spend the majority of the campaign dead or injured. "I wouldn't mind being an Earth Bride, you know."

"Yeah, I thought we were going the space route this time," Valeria piped in to defend her cousin. "At least give us some sexy monsters, if we're staying earth-bound."

"Now, that's a sentiment I could get behind," I added laughing. Our resident mage wasn't the only monster lover among us after all.

Abby took full control of our screens. "Ladies, as Game Master, I've taken all of your many, many suggestions into account. Havenlore is different than our prior games, and I've decided we all need a bit of relaxing and re-connecting as a team. Wouldn't you agree?" Her last question was posed as a statement and very much not up for debate. There would be no arguing—or else we were getting her librarian-wrath. And although I couldn't read minds, I knew that none of us wanted "Abby the Librarian" on our asses.

Grumbles of assent went around our speakers, clashing with the static from the storm.

"I'm sorry," Abby said loudly, turning up her mic to be heard over the weather—and us. "I said, wouldn't you agree?"

A chorus of "Yes, Game Master" rose up.

"That's better." Our screens once more were switched to a shot of the digital map with each of our faces lined along the top. "Now, let's begin."

"The alicorn is within your reach. You need to collect the magical dust from its horn to achieve your mission." The seriousness in Abby's voice hinted at how close we were to completing this quest.

I vibrated with tension, my headset squeezing my temples.

"However, an orc stands at the edge of the majestic creature's pen, filling up a trough. Do you continue or wait?"

"Depends on the monster's aesthetics," Valerie called first. "Is he hot?"

I snickered, hoping for a sexy orc to spice up what had been a long and relatively dull session so far.

Tia cleared her throat. A red frame glowed around video as she said, "Attractiveness aside, we should wait. Coming this far, there's no reason to make a hasty decision."

"Oh come on," Raine hissed. "We've been at it for hours, and this storm has made everything worse! My monitor cut off twice, and we've barely done anything." Her warrior character didn't exactly have a knack for patience, but even I had to agree.

As much as it pained me to side with my frenemy, I added, "As thief, it's my call, and I don't want to wait either. Let's roll."

Tia's suffering sigh relayed her feelings on the matter, but she didn't protest.

"All right, Sammy, the fates await." Abby flipped my screen to a virtual multi-sided die.

With trembling fingers, I reached for my mouse. I'd done this countless times, yet something about the Havenlore board, or maybe the unrelenting storm, set my heart racing.

I clicked.

The die spun.

"Your hand reaches toward the alicorn's crystal horn. It's amethyst eyes alight with curiosity."

I swallowed, my gaze fixated on the spinning die.

"As your fingertips brush the very tip, a harsh shriek raises the hair at your nape."

The die stopped.

But before I could read the number, our screens winked to black. "What the—" "I can't see—" "Fu—" My friends cries reverberated over the line, all talking at once, as the loudest crash of thunder and brightest stroke of lightning shook my room in streaks of blinding white. A fleeting thought echoed through my mind as pain shot through my body. What was the roll?

Then, a floating sensation claimed me as my eyes drifted close and unconsciousness beckoned. Yet, in that brief instant between sleep and awake, I'd have sworn my prized gamer's token that I spotted a creature with green skin staring at me through the darkness.

And somehow I sensed in at that fleeting moment, nothing would be the same again.