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Halloween

“What is this?” Simon said, poking his shoes at the pile of dull, rusty razor blades clogged with hair and dust, that came out of the split wall. When he was told a wall opened next to a bathroom, he didn’t expect this. He hoped no hair got tangled in his soles. “Is the house telling me something?”

“No, this happens sometimes,” Taya said, bringing over a broom and sweeper. “The house was remodeled back in the 50s, got all the weird trends.” She took him to the bathroom and showed Simon a slit sealed over in the medicine cabinet. “This was a razor blade slot. People used to slide blades here. My parents’ place has one too.”

“And people expected them to disappear by magic?” Simon swept a chunk onto a duster, hand as far up the broom handle as he could manage. “Get chomped on by the walls?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Taya slapped on her rubber gloves and scooped the leftovers up by the handful.

They finished clearing the area by noon. Outside, light shone through yellow and orange leaves, exposing black branch skeletons. When he drove through town, orange paper pumpkins lined the streets along with actual pumpkins, fake spiderwebs coated the trees, and fliers for a Halloween parade waved from windows. “The walls are more orangey lately,” Simon said, “feeling the Halloween spirit? I’ve been planning my costume ever since I came here. Is it true everyone here, not only the kids, dresses up for this wonderful holiday?”

“Yeah,” Taya swept the razor pile around, “In places like these, Halloween has rules. If we don’t follow them, a little pumpkin spirit will make life very hard for us in the future. Not sure how, but she will. Most say she’s superstition, but even the killjoys light their pumpkins here.”

“You’re not joking,” Simon said.

“Pumpkin Matti’s harmless compared to other small towns,” Taya shrugged, “fun fact: the couple in charge of the PTA, James and Frances Laine, tried to ban costumes at school. Said they were a distraction.”

“Unlike their attempts to slash school lunches and teacher supplies, they were unsuccessful, thankfully,” Lias finished, wheeling over the sharps container.

“You knew this?” Simon said. He resisted the urge to kick over the razor blade pile.

“Of course, Lias works with me in the archives,” Taya swept the blades and hair to the bucket. “A rare loss for them, but I’ll take it. They’re trying to ban To Kill a Mockingbird now.”

“Yes, good luck on the hearing. You’ll do great.” Lias swept their hair twists over their shoulder. The gold rings in their hair gleamed. Simon wondered if anyone told Lias about Sutton’s costume rule.

“Thanks. The date’s coming up fast. I keep telling myself I’m finished and then I come up with a new argument, or evidence, or sentence thing. It’s eating my sleep.”

“Good thing my awesome Castles and Changelings one-shot tonight will change that,” Simon said, taking the filled sharps bucket from Lias, “ready to cast spells and wreak havoc?” He had the perfect room scouted, decorated, stashed with snacks and a sound system he had tested for the past week. It had been so long since he was a game master; he bought a new notes binder from the stationary store an hour away for this very one-shot, and any potential campaigns in the world of table-top roleplaying.

“I got my character sheet and everything,” Taya smiled.

“Awesome,” Simon wheeled the bucket away, heels loud on the glossy red wood floors.

“Medieval queen?” Simon asked. Io nodded, circlet in her hair, candy bowl at her hip, pacing at the door. The sun set outside, shading the sky in pinks and oranges.

“Yep. Glam rock Beetlejuice?”

“You’ve got it,” Simon tossed his moss-dappled hair over his shoulder. The greasepaint made his eyes all sticky. Over the afternoon, he saw Alex as Mario, Cyrene and Winter as the invisible people (in that they weren’t here), and Naddo as a zombie Blockbuster employee. The rest of the candy was in the kitchen or stashed away in the bedrooms. “I wasn’t aware kids trick or treated here.”

“It’s not the kids I’m waiting for,” Io paused her pacing, “but teens used to sneak in here, all the way from out of state, thought the place was haunted,” she chuckled. “I, and a bunch of friends used to wear masks and hide in the house to scare them back. That showed them.”

Snow coated the walkways outside. The sky was already dark. “People are really going trick-or-treating out here.”

“Hm? Just wear a winter coat and you’ll be fine.”

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” Taya ran over to the doorway, wrenching the door open. She dressed in some facsimile of mid-19th century clothing and had a fake beard. She also wore a big winter coat. “Sorry Simon, but I can’t make it to CaC tonight. The Laines moved the hearing to this night, where everyone’s busy with the parade. Dad’s picking me up.”

“Fuck,” Simon said. He’d have to rescale the one-shot, the monsters. He never ran only two people before, was the party balanced with only Hima and Enola? Hima had an unintendedly very good build, but Enola may struggle alone. Taya was also the only player with previous CaC experience, and had agreed to help the others get used to the game.

“But Lias agreed to fill in for me! They know how to play and everything, combed through the rulebook as I built my character,” Taya walked circles into the floor, eyes never off her phone. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “I know you don’t get along, but they really want to play.”

Simon bit down his complaints. “The game must go on,” he conceded, “alright. But don’t expect me to not groan when they pull out their solid gold mini and diamond-encrusted dice.”

Taya’s smile broke through her stress, and for a moment, Simon didn’t feel so annoyed at Lias. He felt better about helming a oneshot for CnC newbies, the only ones having and willing to spare 8+ hours for an elaborate game of make-believe.

A blue car pulled up at the parking lot. Taya sprinted out the house and ran in. While the car drove away, Simon’s thoughts fell back to his oneshot. How was he going to run it now?

Lias didn’t have a diamond-encrusted dice set. Instead, they had a gold-plated set because they can pull whatever they liked out of their stupid bag instead of waiting two and a half weeks (if the company can find the address) for shipping like the rest of the crew. Of course, they also had their own copy of the CaC gamebook with them, glossy and new. They wore a long coat, with a wide-brimmed hat.

“What are you, a villain from some low-budget western?” Simon said. He hiked up his bag. In it were his binder, several dice sets, and everything else he needed for a great, spooky session.

“Van Helsing,” Lias rolled their eyes, “interesting tradition, this Halloween. You’re obviously some pop culture reference. What about you guys?” They asked Hima and Enola, trailing behind Simon to the room he found.

“Carrie, Naddo’s idea,” Hima had a pink dress and cheap plastic tiara, “thought about coating myself in blood, was convinced against it.”

“Cat.” Enola wore her regular clothes. Atop her head were the emergency cat ears reserved for those who forgot the specific circumstances of a Sutton Halloween.

Simon led the group up to his specially scouted room. He hoped the directions hadn’t changed. Thunder boomed outside just as the bunch climbed up a set of uneven stairs to a specific subsection of the attic.

“Tada!” Simon opened the dark door after a few tries. A lovely mahogany table with old stickers dotted around the legs crowded the small room. Giant windows faced the outside and inside another room filled with boxes. Simon’s speakers, which took two months to get here, were rigged around the room. Simon made a beeline for the plush velvet chair he painstakingly carried from the basement to the head of the table.

“Sit wherever, I need to take a bit to set up,” Simon plugged his computer into the speakers and pulled up his playlist. Sound played out his computer, even though the speakers worked the last time he tested them. “Pardon.”

Simon unplugged and plugged the speakers in again. This time, sound came, but impossibly low. He turned up the volume on the computer. That didn’t do much.

“Have you tried turning up the volume on the speakers?” Lias asked.

“Mm.” Simon turned up the knob on one of the speakers. Mid-rotation, sound screeched out of all the speakers, forcing everyone to cover their ears. “Thanks Lias!” Simon yelled over everything. He rushed back and turned the volume down on his computer. Finally, the music was at an acceptable level.

“Simon, turn it down, it’s too loud,” Enola said.

“Sure,” Simon turned the volume down. “Everyone got their dice? Everyone ready? Don’t worry about combat, you’ll learn it as you go.” They better be ready. Simon had spent long afternoons helping everyone build their characters, except Lias, who took over Taya’s.

Nods. Simon took a deep breath and spoke from the diaphragm. Excitement, giddiness, bubbled up in him. He was a freshman again, eager to share try this new game with his new friends.

“Lightning! Thunder! The train clunks and clunks and drops you off at a rickety ghost town, which, according to the rusty sign, is called Havensville. Small place, nothing but desert around it. What you’re focused on is the giant mansion towering over all the other buildings, smack dab in the center of a graveyard. This is what you’ve come here for, the secret documents buried somewhere in the mansion of the long-dead Rego Driaz. You’re not alone in this; who knows how many other seekers are in this town. As you step out the train, describe your characters.”

“Magnusia Lund is a scholar, scruffy, with a bag full of books. He has a series of lights hanging around him, which I’m allowed to do because the ‘light’ spell costs zero spell points and with my specialty class – “

“I know. You don’t need to explain the game to me. Hold on. Simon rolled his bright green 20-sided die and got a 17.

"Okay, some passengers are giving you shifty eyes. Who else?”

“Uh, Hexica Helbus has a nurse costume on. She’s tall.”

“Dale. A shrub-creature.”

“You guys are the crack team assembled by the Loptco Corporation. As you guys step on the sandy ground, what do you do?”

CRAK-A-BOW!

The lights went out. “This sucks,” Simon said. He flipped the light switch on and off a few times, to no luck. He texted Io, to no response.

“I believe there are candles in the other room,” Lias said. Enola got up and began walking before Simon could say anything. Hima followed.

“Old-fashioned it is,” Simon said, walking in front of Lias. Whatever the Limbo House’s deal was better had included fireproofing, because he didn’t see any sprinkler system anywhere.

The mere act of a door opening in the adjacent room kicked up a pile of dust. “Dust mites, old spiders, these are the only living things here since forever,” Enola announced.

“Until us,” Simon said. He opened his phone’s flashlight mode. It wasn’t just boxes here; there were twisted figurines, piles of brown books, all sorts of storage things not claimed by any owner, nor sold in a rummage sale. Another cramped room of leftovers.

Simon started with the boxes on the wall next to the games room. The wall didn’t completely stop at the ground; he could shine light through the other room thanks to the haphazard separation job. Anyway, there were no candles in the boxes, just cloaks and robes. Outside, the rain pattered. Simon hoped Taya didn’t get caught in the weather.

“What’s this?” Simon heard Lias say. The one who had pulled the candle prediction out of that stupid bag of theirs had picked up a book and was flipping through its pages.

“Are you allowed to do this?” Hima asked them.

“Lias, put that down, we’re searching for candles,” Simon grumbled.

“But this is so interesting. I can’t comprehend this language. Look, the ink’s glowing! –“

BLAM-A-BOW!

The room glowed. Everything floated, even the people. Simon had the sudden feeling of being in a whirlpool. His surroundings vanished, subsumed by a storm of notebook paper, notebook paper with his lovely handwriting on it. Those were his DM notes! He couldn’t have the players knowing his plans!

The spinning went faster and faster. The Limbo House floated far away from Simon. He reached but grabbed nothing.

Simon was set on the ground like he was a high-quality action figure put on a display shelf, no tuck and rolling needed. He still in his glam rock Beetlejuice outfit, the one he wore when this mess started.

The same couldn’t be said for the others. Lias was dressed in a neat 19th century black city-slicker suit with a space-blue scarf and coat dotted with stars, carrying a giant book. Hima had on the long dress and white apron of a nurse, a little cap perched on her head, apron stained with old blood. Enola actually had her normal clothes on, but instead of cat ears, she had a shrub costume overtop everything.

Simon’s smile grew as he looked around. The wooden boards were the perfect rusted look, every building twisted and crooked, the sky a Californian desert sunset. He was in the spooky western ghost town of his dreams, the place he thought about the final weeks of his senior year, when everyone was going away.

“Where are we?” Hima said, “how do we get back?”

“Havensville!” Simon smiled, “we’ll get back somehow. Io won’t leave us here unless she wants our dear employers to go Götterdämmerung on her house.”

“This seems par for the course of this place,” Lias said, getting all focused at the nonexistent dust on their coat, “your media, your stories, it’s a trend for something odd to happen around Halloween. I would trust in the staff, they appear to know what they’re doing. Perhaps it’s a trend for whatever’s odd to be fixed around here too.”

“Something odd to happen? You caused this,” Enola directed at Lias, “what if we can’t get out after Halloween?”

“We’ll figure something else,” Simon assured, gazing at everything in wonder, the thumping in his chest because of joy. That store, he knew that unlabeled store! “But first, look at all this!”

In his nice, polished dress shoes, Simon barged into the store. An exact recreation of that corner store replica from that one museum in San Francisco, but with expensive jewels and spell components. There was Dingle! That reoccurring Christmas elf character that popped up everywhere. He was as down on his luck as Simon had always envisioned.

Dingle was talking to people, people Simon designated as space fillers. They had features, movement, life! What were they thinking, when something plot relevant wasn’t happening?

He brushed Dingle’s shoulder, covered in candy-cane crusted fur. It was solid, soft, and grossly sticky. Exactly how Simon envisioned his sad elf, christmassy even in June.

One of the store people, a plot-relevant sheriff who knew the previous owner of the mansion, eyed Simon with a wonderful look of suspicion that would’ve been so fun to act as a game master, “What do you want?” the sheriff said, in Simon’s Gruff Man #2 voice!

“Yes Simon, what are you doing?” Simon heard Lias’s voice somewhere behind him.

Faced with his creations given life and growth, Simon said the only thing that made sense, “I am your god.”

Lias, on the assumption that they had Magnusia’s powers, had every ability to break Simon out of this ramshackle jail. Hima and Enola technically did too, but no, they had to go on some chicken-catching side quest for bail money.

Simon leaned against the dirty bars. Him being the game master didn’t include any reality-bending powers. Otherwise, he’d be in a mansion house with a jacuzzi, instead of a cell with a stool and old harmonica, and a guard who left for dinner. The harmonica’s beautiful gold surface was chipped, revealing the plain wood underneath. Played wonderfully though.

“Shut up!” a neighboring prisoner shouted in Simon’s Jerk Voice #3 combined with his old security guard manager. That was Grom, another seeker in the Fighter class. He was supposed to get out. Simon had a whole story planned for him. Simon made note to steal the guard’s key.

Simon fingers twitched for his sword, and it manifested into his hand. His sword, which he had stored in his closet, the blue stickered sheath having clashed with his costume. It was here, the solid hilt with its charms at the end. This was just like the summoner class’s ‘manifest weapon’ ability, specifically the Bladed One subclass.

Simon had built himself in CaC before, along with the rest of his college friends for a one-shot taking place in real life, before the game master dropped out of the game and Simon had to take over. He flavored his class as his entire family having sold their souls for greater power. He gave himself his lake sword in-game, and everyone said it was such a creative concept for a weapon. If Simon was a Bladed One, then he had the Sorcerous Blast spell, which costed zero spell points and, while not the most damaging of level zero spells, could work on objects. He concentrated. His fingertips tingled. A spectral knife shot out of his hands and chipped a bar on his cell.

Joy bloomed in Simon’s chest. He was magic! He had something long-range: projectiles! The blasts sounded so wonderful, like shroops. Simon shot through the rest of the bars and stepped out. He snuck past the guard going to town on a pork roast (they had those in the wild west right?), stole the cell keys from the unattended guard lockers, and ran out into town. From afar, the crooked buildings were exactly how he imagined. Upon closer look, the buildings had all these carvings and markers of age and habitation that Simon didn’t recall imagining but were wonderful nonetheless. Whatever was in that book had brought his vision come to life and then some. There was a theatre! With plays scheduled for tomorrow!

Havensville had these German-Expressionist fences that lined the town border, where genre-appropriate birds like crows and vultures perched. Simon found his party there, under a giant concentrated cloud, protecting chickens from hawks. “I’m free!” Simon said, “you’re free too!”

“But we’re almost done,” Hima said, wasting spell points healing the chicken in her lap, “we can make an extra five gold pieces at the end of the hour.”

“It’s another 15 minutes, we can wait,” said Lias, studying their book. The pages glowed the same golden as the cloud. Simon had to commend Lias on the use of the Blinding Fog spell. It was low cost but added a sweeping penalty to the hawks’ attack score. But given the now-clucking chicken Hima held, Lias must’ve been delayed in casting the spell. That, or a hawk got a natural 20.

“I’ve been thinking of ways to get back,” Lias continued, “our, well, our characters’ mission was to gather these important magical documents from the mansion.”

“Yes, if you succeed, you were going to get new high-level spells,” Simon said. He had a whole random generator prepared and everything, “before you ask, there are teleportation and dimension travel spells.”

“So we’re doing this,” Enola said, holding a befuddled chicken, “we’re doing the mission.”

“Yep,” Simon’s heart broke at having to spoil the plot. “If no other seeker gets here first. As the god of this world, you were supposed to ask around the village for information, but I’ll tell you. The documents are in living room with the golden idol, along with treasure. The answer to the first puzzle is ‘swordfish’, the second ‘fire’, the third a sliding block puzzle that should be simple enough. There’s a death trap to the dining room door, but it’s avoided if you use a key under the living room couch. Also, Rego’s alive and there’s zombies but they don’t have a ton of life points so you should be fine. Speaking of zombies, Hima, wait, how long was I in jail?”

“An hour or so,” Lias said, “as far as I can tell. The sky doesn’t change.”

Simon interpreted that as a compliment. “In a bit, a train carrying supplies, imports, other stuff but most importantly a bunch of other seekers will arrive. We need to stop that train.”

“But what about the town, don’t they need supplies?” Hima wondered.

“Hima, this place isn’t real.” Enola said, “we don’t care about the people.”

“Right, sorry,” Hima hung her head.

The train station was the nicest, newest place in town. Perched next to it were a bunch of abandoned houses and other wooden, splintery rubble. Enola used her swarm spies ability to peek into the station. “About 6 guards, an operator, a switch that says whether the town’s accepting stops or not. We’ll need to toggle it,” she said.

Simon had meant to roll for how many guards there were in his initial plan. Ten was a lot. “The guards have the advanced guard statblock; I didn’t put anything fancy personality or ability wise in there. In CaC fighting, you get a turn. That turn consists of an action, a side action, and movement, in any order unless specified by spell or feature description. According to the rules of action economy, whichever side does the most stuff during their turns has the best chance of winning. It’s best to concentrate fire; an enemy is as powerful at one point of health as they are at full health. I’m the frontliner, Hima’s the healer, Lias and Enola, you guys are support, battlefield control. I trust you know your spells?”

In a more balanced party, where everyone didn’t play some form of squishy mage, Simon wouldn’t have to be the only frontliner, damage-dealer, and closest thing there was to a tank. But he was and had to deal with it.

“Hold on, guards as in the classic, noble guards found in the sourcebook?” Lias asked. Simon nodded, there wasn’t enough time for him to be creative about the guards. Lias summoned their lights and a magnifying glass from their pouch, “we don’t need to fight. I have an idea.”

Simon hated to give Lias credit, but the plan was smart. Together, the party combed through the nearby wooden rubble, because Lias and Hima insisted on the buildings being empty (it was just a game! All made up! No matter how much Simon wanted to check out the theater). “All clear!” He yelled.

Lias took his low-level light spell and shone it through his magnifying glass. The wooden junk caught on fire, lighting everything all orange.

Hima and Enola, both stone-faced types, couldn’t help Simon here. He had to carry the act by himself. Face and hair scrubbed from glam rock Beetlejuice, Simon ran to the station, and channeled his inner scream queen. “Fire! Help!” he cried to the copy-pasted guards inside. He added a swoon and cough for realism, hugging the doorframe as if it were a long-absent parent. He got a splinter in his hand, doing a total of one life point’s worth of damage.

The guards jumped from their seats and ran outside, probably to be all chivalrous and help. The lone operator ran out as well. Simon jogged over to the switch and flipped it to ‘not accepting visitors’ mode.

A train came just when he joined his party outside. The fire wasn’t under control per say, but it wasn’t growing either. Everyone watched the black, roaring locomotive full of stuff and people chug right past the gated town. Enola rummaged through her bag, “oh, I had matches here the entire time,” she said, taking out the tiny box.

Simon had something along the lines of ‘let this be a lesson to always check your inventory’ to say, but the words froze in his mouth. From the shrinking black beast of the train, two figures jumped out and ran toward town. Those two figures grew closer, close enough to confirm Simon’s assumptions. Simon cursed his past self. Those figures wore the faces of his cousins.

Simon’s cousins were a holdover from when he first conceived of this one-shot. They were potential failsafes for murderous players, an in-joke for only him. He should had torn that portion of his notes out. Unfortunately, it was totally in-character for Helia and Leon to not abandon their mission.

Dear gods, Leon, alive. Simon wanted to apologize for their fight, but this wasn’t his true his cousin, only a memory from many years back. Helia, that terminator. Tall, terrifying, an eyebrow bent into anger by scarring. At that growly mug, cold knives grew in Simon’s chest. His hated cousins, paler than him, better at Chinese than him, better at school, better at fighting, better at everything except what Simon loved, which were inherently unimportant.

Head foggy, Simon watched his arm lift, and a Sorcerous Blast shoot out his hand. The shimmering knife flew toward Helia. As expected, she blocked it and launched herself at him, sword out. Simon had made her a magic knight in CaC.

In CaC combat, in-universe, rounds last 5 second. Turn order was decided by each combatant rolling on a 20-sided die and adding their agility score. Higher scorers went first. From Simon’s frozen body and slowed sense of time, Helia was the higher scorer, as expected.

Helia’s sword shimmered purple. She must’ve used a bonus action to cast a spell on it. Her entire body had an additional green shimmer, matching that of Leon. Leon’s class was a Battle Bard, who could grant bonuses to damage even when it wasn’t his turn. Simon used his warped sense of time to do calculations. Dead in combat can come if a character’s damaged for a total of their remaining health (his was 73) plus their full health (his was 74). Helia was level 20; her blows and magic were stupidly powerful. Simon and his party were level ten, so they had life points to spare. As long as Helia didn’t get a Nat 20 and roll max damage, Simon should be alive enough to only need a healing instead of a revival spell.

Helia’s blade cut into Simon like a wolf to meat, hitting all the vital organs. As expected, Helia got a Nat 20. That meant double the damage. As if he had a second sight, Simon could see the damage dice rolling above Helia. Max damage, max damage, max damage, a point from max damage. Double that, and it was 144 points of damage. Not enough to kill Simon.

What was that extra green eight-sided die rolling above Helia. Simon had forgot Leon’s bonus. There was a 25% chance he could still live, that the die rolled a 1 or a 2. Leon didn’t have Helia’s bonkers luck. There was hope.

The green die settled on 4 points. Simon collapsed to the floor. His vision went dark, until he blinked and could still see things. Still feel and think despite his impending death. Right, he always gave his players a final action when they died.

Using the last of his strength, Simon turned toward his frozen party. “Hima!” he yelled, “Revive kills zombie!”

Upon those words, the world went black.

“What do you mean you don’t have sapphires?” Enola demanded from the jewelry store owner, who also sold milk and magic mirrors. Hima needed at least 100 gold pieces worth of sapphires to revive Simon.

“Sorry; we were supposed to have a shipment today,” the owner said in a husky voice, “but the train went right past us.” She glared at Enola, whose shrub cloak was shedding over the floor.

Enola walked around the dark store. After Simon’s death, his attackers had ignored the rest of the party and walked into town. With Hima and Lias camped out with Simon’s body, she had 105 gold pieces to spare.

She came across a bunch of embroidered travel bags labeled ‘ADVANCED BAGS OF CARRYING: Can fit up to 15m x 15m and 1000 lbs of items. 50 gp.’

That was a useful thing to have. Enola strolled along the line of multicolored embroidered bags. Most were of the desert landscape, but there were exceptions. Enola chose one with a jungle covering and dragonfly clasp. She took it to the counter. “Will that be all?” the shopkeeper asked.

Enola pointed to the jars of cold milk behind the shopkeeper, “can I also have ice?”

Enola jogged to Simon’s body, “no sapphires,” she called, “but there should be treasure in the house. We can put him here.” She opened the bag of carrying, “there’s ice in it an everything, he’ll be well preserved.”

Sublimation gas wafted out the opening into the hot evening air. “How long can a body wait before it can’t be revived?” Hima asked.

“I don’t think the sourcebook said anything about that,” Lias said, “but it’s our best shot.” They moved to carry Simon by the legs. Simon’s visage hadn’t changed since the moment after his death; Hima had cast a spell right after his attackers left to freeze his body in time. “He’s heavy,” Lias grunted.

With much effort and a great contribution from Enola by holding the bag open, Lias and Hima half-shoved and half-slid Simon into the bag. Enola slung the bag over her shoulder; it was rather light despite Simon’s purported weitght. That, or Hima and Lias were physically very weak. Both cases were realistic.

“Hima, Enola, are you feeling well?” Lias asked. She and Hima nodded. “Good, let’s go.”

Bag over shoulder, shrubbery long abandoned, nurse cap on head, book in hand, the party headed to the mansion.

The mansion sat gigantic on the ground, a crooked wooden mash of squares and towers. Forget it being a house, it was a mishmash of multiple houses. Enola closed her eyes and summoned her swarm of bugs, gnats, and flies. She ordered them to scout the entire building for the living room.

Her bugs flooded into the house through the rafters, cracks in the door and windows, beneath the floorboards. Quite a few got burned, drowned, frozen, or fell into trap doors. But bugs were the most stupid numerous out of all the animal kingdom, and a colony of brave ants found the living room. “It’s at the back of the house, overlooking the backyard,” Enola said, “we can go through the back door.” Many of her bugs were still burning from the front door trap.

They walked into the graveyard, kicking up clouds of orange dirt. The gravestones were stuck around haphazardly; more were crooked than straight. Chipped rocks, faceless angels, mossy crosses. “Hey,” Lias said, staring at a cross-shaped grave, “do you think Christianity exists in this universe?”

“Maybe?” Hima offered. “From the films you’ve shone me, crosses and angels are common in graveyards.”

“I think Simon just stripped an image from his mind without considering the deeper meanings,” Lias sniffed, “he better have an explanation when we get back.”

Halfway through traversing the side of the large house, dark clouds crowded overhead. It began to rain, dark circles appearing on the parched ground. Enola wished she still had her shrub cloak.

At last, they reached the back of the house. No balcony, no lawn chairs, just graves up to the house walls. Enola ordered her ants to report again and found the back door to the living room. It was made of the same chipped and streaked wood as the rest of the house. Enola twisted the rough metal knob. It fell off, showing a single rusty screw.

“Enola, that could’ve been trapped,” Lias said, “you should’ve told us.”

Enola rolled her eyes. But the door wasn’t trapped. Better to not waste time or spell points on a broken knob. She stepped back over a grave. How would they get in now. A big damaging spell that blows up half the house? That would be conspicuous, may even attract Simon’s attackers.

The sky darkened. The rain fell harder. The ground grew soft under Enola’s feet. A hand clawed out of the grave and grabbed Enola’s ankle.

An undignified shriek flew out Enola’s mouth. A battle had begun.

Lias went first. They cast a fire spell that shriveled the fingers.

More ground rumbling. Zombies, rotting, shriveled things in period wear, pulling themselves out of graves despite their bone limbs. Over ten of them, all surrounding the party.

Enola’s turn next. She backed up against the house wall. Drawing on her spell points, she made the ground go thorny.

Some zombies got caught in the thorns, but one made it close enough to swipe at Hima. Miss. Swipe again. Hit. It tore a long scratch against Hima’s arm. In the distance, more zombies crawled out of the ground.

Hima took one look at her scratch, and at Enola and Lias. She waved a hand in the air in a flash of light. Enola immediately felt stronger, like she could take more damage. “Heal yourself!” Lias cried instead.

The zombies surged forward. Enough made it through the thorny ground to begin attacking. They scratched at Enola’s skin. Most missed, but the ones that hit, hurt. She tried her best, but lost focus on her thorn barrier. The ground resumed its muddy flatness when it wasn’t getting exploded from zombies.

“I can hold a spell for later,” Lias shouted over the groaning, “to explode the door. Can any of you kill the zombies?”

Most of Enola’s spells were crowd control and support. Her bugs could do anything, but it might take some time for them to eat the zombies’ flesh. She did have a big damage spell, but that cost a lot of spell points. Besides, Rego was still alive, and the only one who knew about his abilities was lying dead in Enola’s bag. What, what were Simon’s last words again? She nodded at Lias.

More zombies. More lost life points.

Enola waved her arms and a tiny hail of ice ripped through the zombie harassing Hima. “Revive kills zombie!” Enola shouted at her.

“Right!” Hima yelled back. A zombie tried to bite Enola and failed. In dodging the bite, Enola left herself open to be tackled by the zombie. Its undead breath smelled horrible. Its teeth rotted out of its skull. The zombie chomped at her face.

Another flash of light, so bright it burned the zombie’s face, its body, to nothingness. Enola’s wounds closed, her bruises faded, her body was lighter. Enola crawled up and saw the crowd of zombies burn to dust. In the center was Hima, casting her light, healing the alive, burning the undead, until the only zombies standing were the ones in the distance.

“Awesome job!” Enola shouted. Hima beamed.

Lias’s held spell triggered. A great explosion blew off the back door. Inside was a living room laden in rich, heavy fabrics. The party ran into the mansion, out of the rain.

The living room smelled of what Enola imagined old white grandparents to smell like. Old papers, dusty rugs, zombie and door residue. The golden idol was shiny gold, shaped like a cat. “Simon never told us where in the living room the documents were,” Enola remembered. She examined the idol, but it had nothing special. A shame its eyes weren’t sapphire.

“He didn’t,” Lias frowned. They poked around at the bookshelves. Hima peeled back the carpet. Enola grew a tree right outside the hole. She couldn’t have zombies breaking in. Along the walls were faded black and white pictures, all of this Rego man. It was mostly of Rego, alone, no friends or family. Just this miserable-looking wrinkly bald man in cowboy-wizard robes. The closest thing to a companion was a crystal locket Rego held with great gentleness, within a carved iron picture frame.

Lias took the frame off the wall. Behind it was a sliding block puzzle. “Alright, looks like I need to solve it in five moves or less. Any of you good with puzzles?”

Unless it was about bugs, no. Enola shook her head. Hima shook her head as well.

“Okay, I can do this alone. You guys rest or something,” Lias dismissed.

Enola collapsed on a roughly embroidered couch. Hima followed. Sitting down, she could finally look at Hima’s face without craning her neck. She had a quiet face, mouth sealed shut, eyes staring straight into the distance. Enola wished her eyes could look as intense – that way, less annoying people would speak to her. “It’s really cool, what you did back there,” she told Hima, “using life energy to hurt the undead.”

“Thank you, but it’s nothing, I didn’t even remember what Simon told us,” Hima said, gripping her nurse skirts. The corner of her mouth twitched upward but was forced down. “You though, you were great and smart, with your thorny ground spell.

Annoyance grew in Enola. Exploding a bunch of zombies was objectively cool. That twitch upward was evidence Hima knew that. Yet she dismissed the compliment, as if what Enola saw was wrong. That was as if someone showed Enola a dragonfly landing on their hands, and then said the dragonfly couldn’t fly. The thorny ground spell wasn’t even that useful.

“What if I had cast that healing spell? And Lias had to remind me. Would you still call me great and smart?”

Hima blinked in confusion, “why yes, of course.”

“Then why can’t you accept me calling you cool?”

Hima paused. Enola could hear Hima’s mind buzz and consider what Enola said. Hima turned her long neck toward Enola impossibly slow. Her eyes bore into Enola’s. Enola ducked her face down. Hima’s eyes truly were intense, but for the instant they were face-to-face, those eyes were very warm. Outside, it began to thunder.

“I never thought about it that way. Thank you. Yes, the spell was cool,” Hima smiled.

“Do you think Simon thought of that himself or was that already in the game,” Enola wondered.

“Maybe. But I don’t know. We can’t all memorize the sourcebook,” Hima said.

CLUNK. The floor began to rearrange itself. The idol fell off the countertop and clunked on the ground. The couch moved with the floor. Glowing lines circled across the floorboards, spouting runes. “I solved the puzzle!” Lias rushed over, “what’s happening?”

“Do you think we know?” Enola said.

The floors finally stopped moving. They party was in the center of a giant glowing circle, with a bunch of tiny circles and runes inside. The etchings glowed brighter and brighter, until Enola had to close her eyes.

A great coldness overcame her, and then a great shift. For the briefest moment, Enola was a piece of sand in a great, shaking bottle filled with sand. As soon as it started, the sensations stopped. Raindrops hit her face. Thunder cracked. Enola opened her eyes.

The party wasn’t in the living room anymore.

A giant graveyard, the mansion and town a speck in the distance. The rain became a downpour. Enola really missed her shrubbery.

In front of the party stood Rego. His skin was a wrinkled prune, his robes torn, crystal locket glowing. In his jeweled hands was a great book. He opened his mouth like a marionette, “I see you’ve solved my – “

Rego got hit by Lias’s fireball, Hima’s sole offensive spell, and Enola’s giant bug storm, the spell worth most of her spell points. The combined magical force blew Enola’s hair back. Lighting cracked the sky and exploded a tall gravestone.

The steam cleared to show a pissed off Rego, not a scratch on him except for torn clothes. “Looks like introductions aren’t needed. Die!” The wizard raised his arms and zombies exploded out the ground. They climbed over each other, fusing, melding into three giant mega-zombies. He also shot a fire spear at Lias, who managed to dodge.

Hima conjured her light. Her entire body glowed, as did one of the giant zombies, who exploded into guts and bones. “Leave the zombies to me!” she said.

One of the zombie struck Enola and knocked her to the ground. Wet sand got into her mouth. She spat it out and glared at the zombie, whose face made of faces looked every which way.

Enola clasped her hands and used her second-highest level spell. A giant wasp manifested over Rego, and it struck its stinger through his veiny neck.

Rego rolled his eyes as if nothing happened and teleported several feet away from the wasp. The hole in his neck closed with barely a puncture.

The remaining zombie swiped at Lias but tripped over a rock in a spectacular fashion. Lias was unscathed.

Lias didn’t attack as Enola expected. Rather, they conjured up a tiny spectral book with Rego’s face that dived into their head. “He can regenerate! Get the necklace!” Lias shouted.

“Very smart, but too late!” Rego gloated. He clapped his hands together and great gusts of wind blew around him. The wind pulled the party and many gravestones off the ground and slammed them around. A chunk of rubble smashed into Enola’s shoulder, costing her several life points. She hit the ground with a smack.

Hima staggered to her feet and exploded another zombie.

Enola commanded her wasp to distract the other zombie. She threw a swarm of biting flies to cloud Rego’s eyes. She remembered from Simon’s first CaC tutorial that most spells required line of sight to cast.

The sky growled, and a bolt of lightning hit Rego where he stood. Rego emerged with many burn marks that refused to regenerate.

Rego growled, “I can deal with you later.” He waved his hand, and his injuries glowed and disappeared.

The last zombie tangled with Enola’s brave wasp.

Lias cast a spell that gave them a floating translucent hand. That hand began to pull the locket over Rego’s head, fraying the rope.

Rego bared his rotten teeth. He snapped his fingers and Enola’s fly blinders vanished.

Enola commanded her wasp to leave the zombie and bite off Rego’s head. Her wasp missed, but the effort was there. She cast her blindness spell again, but Rego shrugged it off.

Hima exploded the last zombie. Enola wondered about her remaining spell points.

Thunder clashed, lighting boomed, a bolt hit Lias. Lias fell to the ground. Their magic hand disappeared. The locket clattered to the ground in front of Rego.

Lias tried to get up but failed. “Undead!” they grunted before falling unconscious.

Rain and wind swirling around him, Rego picked his locket up. “At last, more specimens to add to my collection!” He lifted broken bits of tombstone with a gust of wind, and sent them flying at Hima and Enola. Enola dodged. Hima wasn’t so lucky; a dismembered angel torso pinned her to the sandy mud. Neither was Enola’s wasp, which vanished in a screech.

Hima wasn’t to be deterred. Using what was likely the last of her spell points, she aimed a shining arrow of light at Rego. “Revive kills zombie!” was her battle cry.

Revive did kill zombie, or at least damage it. Rego screamed from all the healing energy. His limbs collapsed onto themselves, his torso fell to the floor, as did the locket.

Enola ran over to Rego. She grabbed the locket and slammed it into a knocked-over tombstone. The locket cracked. A silvery vapor crept out of it.

“No!” Rego cried. His crumbled body vanished in a puff of smoke and robes, overtaken by the rain. His book hit the ground with a thump. The battle was over.

Enola scrambled to collect Rego’s jewelry, locket, and book. Sapphire rings in hand, she rushed to Hima and helped shove the torso off her.

Hima healed herself and Lias. Lias lied on the ground, letting rain fall into their mouth.

“We did it,” Lias breathed, “how are you guys feeling?”

“I think I’m the best off out of all of us,” Enola sat on a chair-looking gravestone. She tossed the sapphires over to Hima. “These look worth 100 gold pieces worth to you?”

“They’re antique, the gems are big, they’ve been through a lot, I’d say yes,” Lias said.

“I can’t, I don’t have enough spell points,” Hima said, slumped over, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, you saved us,” Enola placed a hand over Hima’s back, “I bought enough ice.”

Hima smiled, “it was a team effort.” She patted Enola’s hand with her long fingers.

Enola sneezed. The rain wasn’t clearing up anytime soon, nor was the lightning. At least no one was getting hit by lighting now that the battle was over.

Lias gingerly peaked into the spellbook, covered by their coat. “It’s not waterproof,” they cursed, “everything’s streaky, I can’t read anything.”

Hima shot up, “how are we going to get home?” she asked, panic creeping in her voice.

“Even worse, why are they here?” Enola pointed at the distance. Two figures were coming closer, two familiar figures.

“Oh no,” Lias hobbled up. “We have to run.” They made it a few steps and then stumbled to the ground.

The shorter attacker got close enough to fire an arrow at Hima, who went down. Thunder boomed impossibly loud.

Lias got knocked out by the taller attacker’s thrown sword sheath.

It was Enola’s turn. What could she do with so few spell points? She thumbed the crack on the locket, all jagged and raw.

A branch of lightning flew straight at her. First a searing brightness, then a red-hot pain coming from the locket, then darkness.

A polished wood smell. Sounds of rain, but no rain hitting skin. No pain. Enola pried open her eyes.

She was back in the room linking to the games room. As were Lias, Hima, and an intact Simon, all collapsed on the ground. Toppled books and boxes were around them. Outside, the storm raged on. Her cat ear headband was on her head.

Simon woke up with a gasp, “I saw an afterlife! But I can’t remember it,” he said, disappointment in his voice.

“Where were we?” Hima got up, “what happened?”

“Did you dream about Simon’s CaC land too?” Lias asked, to everyone else’s nods.

Enola stretched her back. She had no bleeding cuts or scars, but her whole body was sore. “Was it a dream?”

“I don’t think so.” Simon pulled a golden harmonica out his jacket pocket. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t actually golden, just gilded in a thin layer of chipped gold foil. On that foil was HAVENSVILLE. Simon played a few notes on the instrument.

Slowly, the gang got up, Lias and Hima tidying the room as best as they could. They followed Simon to the games room, where they learned that the power was still out, and it was 5:00 am in the morning.

Simon slumped in his chair. “Now that you guys know the story, do you still want to play?”

“No thanks, I have work tomorrow. Or today,” said Lias, “but I wouldn’t be opposed to playing another game with you in the future. There are so many spells I’d like to try.”

“Yes, despite the death, it was fun,” Hima said. “Especially the exploding zombies bit.”

Simon grinned, “so you figured that out. What about you?” he asked Enola.

Enola shrugged. “It was fine. I’m in it as long as you guys are.” Wandering the house and doing nothing was getting old.

“You guys open to doing a campaign?” Simon said. He drummed his fingers along the table. His face split into a wide smile at the “yeah,” sure,” and “why not?”

“Awesome.” Simon gathered his things. The group made a slow trek down the stairs to the main hall.

Io rushed over, costume torn and muddy. “There you are! How long was the power out? Where were you?” she asked. “I tried to contact you. Spoiled candy at the Halloween parade turned everyone into weird dancing zombies. The rest of us were doing damage control. We’ve just fixed it, thank goodness, have you eaten any weird candy?”

Enola shook her head. “We didn’t eat any candy. And we couldn’t help because we were transported into Simon’s imagination.”

The bags under Io’s eyes were very big. “Okay,” Io said. She succeeded on her third try to pick up the nearby candy bucket. “We’ll deal with this later. But first, did anyone come here for candy? Because I’m not seeing any change in the bucket.”

DING DING DOWRF HONGFS BOMGS

The Limbo House’s horrible doorbell, taped over with ‘out of order’ written on it, clashed through the house. Io went all still and silent.

Io opened the door. A dirty little child wearing sackcloth with a smiling jack o’ lantern as a head greeted them. Green leaves grew out the rips in her clothing. There was something odd about her, like she was a real picture pasted into a cartoon. The child held a stained pillowcase. A chill ran down Enola’s spine. The ticks and other bugs on the child did not feel like normal bugs at all.

“Hi,” Io’s words wrenched out of her mouth, “as you can see, we all have costumes,” she smiled a pasted smile, “as well as candy.” She held out the candy bowl. Enola was glad that she agreed to wear the house’s emergency cat ears.

The girl reached a stubby arm into the bowl and withdrew a lollipop. She held it over her pillowcase and let go. The candy fell in without a ruffle. The girl turned away and left. Everyone was silent until the girl left the parking lot, disappearing into the woods.

“She’s real,” Simon said, voicing Enola’s thoughts. He fiddled with his costume’s red blood earrings, but didn’t take them off.

“Yeah,” Io sighed, shoulders slumped. “Happy Halloween.”