Naomi was glad for her way of thinking. Sure, it made her odd and impersonable at times, but for disasters such as this one it came in handy. She could reason that in truth Reggie and Phineas were terrible people and deserved what they got. Willing to resort to murder so quickly was not a sign of good mental health.

But I hope you two are respawned and enjoy living in the game you loved so much. Because receding into mere data just sounds like a nightmare!

However, that was all the thought she could spare for Reggie and Phineas. There was once again strange things afoot. She wasn’t even going to waste time wondering why her? Why them? Why now? Why video games? They had clues, there was a mystery to solve, and she needed to head off Trick before he did something stupid.

After forcing him down and demanding that they talk about the predicament, she said, “First of all, what do you remember about us getting trapped in the game?”

Trick opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but he recovered his wits and replied, “There was a really strange feeling. And a weird wave of grey, I think.”

“Okay, that will probably be important to answer later on,” she said. “But we will not solve that problem right now. We don’t have enough information. And it was tied to how we got stuck in the game and why we were released, so we won’t get very far poking around there. That means we need to focus on these!”

She waved her paper in front of Trick’s face and shook her newly acquired sword dangerously close to his ear. Just so he got the message.

“I get it! I get it! But what even are these things? The Cloak of Transition? That does sound cool, but it also sounds like nonsense. Balderdash!”

“Balderdash,” Naomi asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Trick shrugged. “I got caught up in the moment… But seriously! I cannot understand this sheet. It’s definitely not your average, everyday paper. It’s more like old school parchment, and there are a lot of blank lines. Is this a fill in the blank challenge?”

Naomi was chagrined that she had not glanced at her sheet first, giving Trick the win there. Good to keep him in the dark about that. He didn’t need another thing to inflate his overlarge ego, even if he had been improving since the disaster at Memmelsruhe.

Why even keep such a game running in her mind? A fun distraction. A way of keeping track of when and what to make fun of Trick for. And because, though she was loath to admit it, this reformed prankster was proof that street smarts could contend with book smarts. And she was not about to let otakus, shut-ins, and nerds everywhere down by allowing their book smarts be outdone by someone like Trick!

Okay, quick! Figure this thing out before he catches wind of what it could be.

She smiled a split second later, the exact moment she realized what it was she held.

“It’s a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet,” she said, almost laughing. “All those blank places are there for your stats, equipment, skills, your name, and whatnot.”

“D&D!?” Trick blanched. “This is the kind of stuff i try to avidly avoid!”

“That explains why you suck at Smash,” Naomi deadpanned.

“I sucked at Samsh- I emphasize sucked, because I just helped you take down those psychos! And, I prefer a good PlayStation game or Halo, thank you very much!”

Trick’s expression grew a little more somber, and he apologized, “Sorry, Naomi. They were your friends.”

“It’s okay,” Naomi replied. “Seriously, Trick. They were nutters, to put it nicely. The fact that the gravitated to such a barbaric and simple answer when we could have explored other options is unsettling to say the least. But nothing ever truly dies in a video game. If Digimon has taught me anything.”

“You and your nerd references,” Trick said, shaking his head.

She cast her eye over the tall, skinny teen. She missed his unkempt hair. It was the only style that worked with dirty blonde hair, and those shifty eyes. What he didn’t know was that everyone was a nerd. The only question to pose was what was it that made a person reveal that nerdy side? For some it was cars, for others sports. For just as many people who loved anime, statistics, computers, or trading cards, there were three just as equally geeky for soccer alone. Though she might have to remove anime from that statistic, considering that the Japanese form of entertainment was becoming more and more acceptable by the day.

After taking in her friend, she made sure that her eye roll was grandiose.

“Getting back to the matter at hand, Trick. Whether or not you like it, we are stuck in another case. And our way through it is to embrace the unadulterated nerdiness that is Dungeons and Dragons!”

She stood up dramatically. “It is time to make a character!”

It was Trick’s turn to cock an eyebrow. “We’re going to make characters?”

“Yes. It’s only logical.”

“Do you think it will change us,” he asked, looking down at the sheet. “Much like what just happened to us?”

Naomi rubbed her lips and mumbled, “I think we should operate under the assumption that we will. That is the nature of D&D. You create a character that you would want to become.”

“Escapism,” Trick muttered. “Alright, how do we go about making these characters then?”

Naomi was about to answer that question, when the sound of cheesy, made for T.V. thunder rolled through the apartment. A small storm cloud formed just under the ceiling and it rained two sets of dice. One set was blood red inscribed with black, and the other was bone white with royal blue numbers and carvings.

“Dibs on the white,” Naomi screeched as she dove for the dice.

Trick groaned. “We’re actually going to use dice? And what’s up with this storm!?”

As he complained, the cloud dissolved, making the room muggier than it had been before. The place would be smelling even more unpleasant soon. Those boys never did a proper job of cleaning up after themselves.

“It’s all part of the game, Trick. We just have to deal with it,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now then, let’s get started on this. Putting together a character takes a lot of time, and I don't want to waste any in case there is a timer somewhere. Life might be turning to resemble a game, but that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily act like one all the time.”

“I gotcha! Timed events and community happenings will not wait for us. Maybe not even planned encounters,” Trick replied.

Naomi nodded. He was already catching on. Maybe games were part of what Trick in particular nerdy. She would have to keep a close eye on him to collect data and see if her hypothesis was correct.

She talked him through how to build a character. Trick took on quickly on how things worked. He tried to drop the 20 sided die to his benefit, but Naomi insisted that everything was done correctly and honestly.

“Naomi! This could mean our lives,” he protested.

She countered with, “And what if we are punished with an unbeatable foe for breaking the rules?”

Trick didn’t have a good comeback, and just muttered under his breath about ambiguous and undefined rules. Otherwise, he remained cooperative and relatively silent as they continued. He annoyed her with sticking to a human for his character. In fact, everything about his man, Trickster the Quickhand, was essentially Trick. Just with a fancy name and some supernatural abilities.

Naomi had to admit that even despite his attempts to cheat earlier, he still had some very lucky rolls. For a level one character, he was pretty stacked! Thankfully, her character was nothing to turn her nose up at either. She had gone the route of a half orc-half elf mix. (You normally didn’t come across that mix, so she decided to represent.) And she had taken the name of Ru-lah. Trick was a thief, so she went with something a little more dignified and made herself a paladin.

What was odd was that the sheets reacted on their own to what they wrote on them. Whatever they penciled in with their own handwriting bled into ink and morphed into wavy calligraphy. Furthermore, numbers automatically filled themselves in different slots. Naomi did her best to remember all of the algorithms and rules for determining the more particular stats, and everything checked out as far a she could tell.

Furthermore, the sheets quickly showed of their own accord the items they possessed. Respectively, the Cloak of Transition for Trick and the Sword of Heritage for her. It was very interesting to read their perks. The cloak was an unimpressive +1 to armor and defense, but it had two incredible attributes. It could allow the wear to transport themselves up to fifty feet away from where they stood just by selecting a place in sight mentally and ducking under the folds. And Trick could also hold it up to ‘mist’ himself for up to five seconds by hiding behind the length of the cloak. He would be impervious for those five seconds and would have to wait a minute for the perk to recharge.

Naomi’s Sword of Heritage made her excited. It had a +3 to attack, which was fair, but the longer it was used, the more of its history it would reveal, allowing her to use different and exotic moves. The sword could also gain new abilities and compound them. What that translated to was that her blade could become extremely overpowered the longer this strange game went on.

“We need to check out how else the items on this sheet might work,” she suggested. “Let’s pick up something that might be of value and see if they appear on the sheet.”

“Already on it. My dice are on the parchment,” Trick informed her. “The Dice of Fate. They allow me to challenge the actions of others, usable up to three times a day. Okay, that is something.”

He sounded impress with that. Naomi checked her own sheet, and saw the same dice listed among her resources. She then got up and wandered over to the kitchen, and took up a large cooking knife. A regular dagger appeared on the list.

That clarifies that, she thought.

Soon, they had added to the list their phones (though they couldn’t contact anyone with them, despite their signals being clear), cooking knives for daggers, backpacks, writing material, an extension cord for rope, and flashlights for torches. Leftover pizza and Chinese cuisine became rations.

“Well, everything that we could add, oddly enough,” Trick remarked. “If you’re right, and we have places to be yesterday, we should get ourselves going. But it doesn’t look at though we’ll be transforming into our characters anytime soon.”

Naomi was very disappointed about that, but she made sure that it didn’t show.

Speaking in a clipped tone, “Then let’s proceed. We’ll only find our answers out there.”

“That sounds ominous” Trick remarked, his signature grin returning to his lips. “Alright, let’s do this!”

They opened the door and found an ancient stairwell leading down. They shared a look and proceeded cautiously. Thankfully, there were no traps, and sputtering candles lit the way down to a peeling iron door with a modern push bar. Trick grimaced and shoved the door open. Bright light and humid wind engulfed them.