Mikkel stoked the fire, and tossed another log on. He replaced the fire iron on its rack, and dusted his hands together. The warm light brushed across the bricks of the fireplace, the sturdy centerpiece of the crumbling room. Around it the walls were half rotted away. The parts of the ceiling that hadn’t collapsed sagged halfway to the floor. The furniture was rotten and chewed up, and Mikkel had cleared rats out of the couch before pulling it close to the fireplace. In front of the couch sat a table on three legs and a stack of crates. Two other chairs sat around: solid wooden ones salvaged from the ruins of the kitchen. And above the fireplace, keeping an eye on them all, the skull and antlers of a huge moose.
Mikkel took a seat next to Sigrun on the couch. Lalli was curled on the other side, next to Emil in a kitchen chair but sharing Lalli’s armrest. They were examining a sheet in front of them, whispering in a mix of Swedish and Finnish. Reynir sat opposite on the table, behind a faded cardboard tri-fold with a painting of a dragon on it.
In the middle of the table laid a printed map and several small plastic figurines. Reynir’s tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth as he flipped through a big book, studying its pages intensely, the flicker of the firelight in his eyes.
Reynir had leapt for joy when he’d found the game. Well preserved beneath a stack of other boxes in the ruins of a general store: a strategy game of wizards and magic and adventure—or so it claimed to be; there seemed to be endless dice rolls and math before the fun could begin. Sigrun had been growing visibly more bored for the past hour as Reynir had studied.
“I swear if we don’t stop doing math soon and start killing dragons like Freckles promised, I’m throwing this dumb game in the fire,” Sigrun whispered. Mikkel stifled a smirk.
All was quiet but for the patter of rain outside the fogged windows, the whispers of the Swede and Finn, and the soft snapping of the fire. Sigrun put down her pencil, and picked up a twenty-sided die from a scattered assortment of other dice. Mikkel picked the pencil up—one of two good ones he’d found in the abandoned house, shared between them all—and marked a few notes on the sheet in front of him.
Character Name __________
Class __________
Background __________
Race __________
Alignment __________
He filled them out one by one, thinking carefully about each of the options, and frequently consulting a dusty old handbook.
Reynir lowered his book, and cleared his throat. “So, I’ve played this a few times with my siblings, although the version we played was a little different I think. But I think I’ve got the rules figured out pretty well. Has everybody rolled their characters?”
Sigrun gave the die another roll, and borrowed the pencil to mark on her sheet. “I keep getting twenties. That’s good, right?”
Reynir squinted. “Erm, I may have to take a look at your stats. What class are you playing?”
“I’m a fighter,” she said, and mimed swinging an axe.
Reynir made a note. “Okay, and your race?”
“Uhh… Norwegian?”
Reynir shook his head. “No I mean for the game. You could be a human, dwarf, elf—”
“Oh! Human.”
Another note. “And your character name?”
“Sigrun.”
Reynir’s pencil hovered in the air. “You’re just playing as yourself?”
“Pssh. Why would I be anyone else?”
Mikkel laughed quietly to himself. It was an amazingly Sigrun answer. So self-assured, no hesitation. It was the core of her being, the drive in everything she did. She knew who she was, what she was about. She never had to pretend to be anyone else, for her sake, or for others. He admired that about her.
“Fair enough.” Reynir said, and leafed through his book again. “Okay, so Sigrun will cover the front-line role. You’ll charge in first and draw the enemies onto you while the rest of your party deals damage. We’ll also need some sort of ranged damage, so maybe a wizard or a druid.”
Emil scraped his sheet off the table. “I’ll be a high-elf sorcerer. Named Fredrik.”
“Okay.”
Emil shrugged. “Naturally gifted and powerful, seems like it’d suit me.”
“You’ll have access to lots of fire-magic as you level up as well.”
Emil brushed his hair back with one hand and looked away. “I mean, yeah, I do other things too, you know.”
Lalli patted Emil’s shoulder gently.
Reynir flipped through his book again, sputtering a little. “Right. Okay, uh, so you’ll need a support class for healing and buffs, and I’d also recommend someone adept in stealth as well, so maybe a rogue or ranger.”
Emil translated in what sounded like broken Finnish. Lalli voiced confusion. Emil voiced explanation, assurance. Lalli, understanding. Then, with slushy Swedish, he said “Ranger.”
“He’ll be a wood elf,” Emil added.
“Character name?” Reynir said.
Again, Emil and Lalli talked quietly for a moment, then Emil turned to Reynir. “Lalli.”
Reynir’s face fell slightly, but he marked it down. “Okay. So that leaves…”
“Guess that leaves you with the support class big guy.” Sigrun nudged Mikkel with her elbow. It was playful, warm, everything he’d missed in his time after he left the military.
Mikkel nodded. “I will play as a Cleric of the dwarf race. His name is Magnus.” His grandfather’s name, broad and sturdy.
Reynir nodded. “Alright. I’ll give everyone a minute to finish filling out your character sheets.”
Sigrun leaned in conspiratorially close to Mikkel, a little twinkle in her eye, or it may have been the firelight. “We’re all kind of filling the same roles as usual huh? Me, the tough leader, Emil the master of destruction, Lalli the stealthy scout, I guess Reynir is playing a different role than usual, but you being the support, holding the team up eh?” No, there was certainly a twinkle there.
Mikkel raised an eyebrow. Ever tempered. For a moment, just a moment, he considered letting his guard down. “You all would manage without me.”
“C’mon. You do enjoy it, don’t you?”
And there she was, poking at his guard.
“Stitching up your bloody wounds?” It was meant as a joke, but perhaps it was too cool.
Sigrun didn’t seem to mind. “Taking care of us.”
“You flatter me.” He knew it wasn’t true.
“I’m not a flatterer, Mikkel Madsen. It’s tough out here. It’s hard enough staying alive, much less sane.”
That caught him by surprise. Sigrun wasn’t the type to be vulnerable, even in such a small way. He’d often felt they were the same in that way. But if she could let her guard down for him, then perhaps…
He gave her a significant look, which she seemed to notice, just for a moment, but her eyes quickly shifted away. It wasn’t a romantic moment, but there was a small longing in it.
Mikkel’s family had always been utilitarian when it came to marriage. Romance was of little importance, what mattered in the Madsen family was friendship, someone who would come by your side and stay by your side. Someone surefooted, steady. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of Sigrun this way. He wasn’t getting any younger, and it seemed harder with each passing year to make meaningful connections with other people. Not that he’d ever been a social butterfly, but even so—the years seemed to grow less and less kind, but perhaps not terribly so with someone by his side. Someone steady.
“I don’t often rely on others for that, you know,” she said. “I appreciate your support.” Her guard slipped a little farther down, but he wasn’t quite ready to lower his own. Not yet.
Still, he gave a little smile, just enough for her to see, and no-one else. “I am honored to provide it, Captain.”
“We make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
He did think. Of course he did.
“Hey, you two,” Reynir said.
“Hmm?” Mikkel said instinctually, breaking from Sigrun's gaze as if nothing had happened. He betrayed nothing, only a perfected calm, cool demeanor, as usual.
Reynir held out plastic figurines for them. “Ready to start?”
Mikkel let Sigrun take one first, then took his own: a short, sturdy dwarf. “Ready when you are, Captain,” he said to Sigrun. She watched him for a moment, trying to read a foreign language she hadn’t quite got the hang of, then turned and placed her figurine on the map.
No, not yet.
Reynir grinned, and leaned over his book, hidden slightly behind the tri-fold. He spoke in a low, haunted tone. “Alright, your party is wandering through a forest at dusk, when you come across an ancient stone bridge over a rushing brook…”
—
As a bonus, a few interactions that happened once the game got rolling:
Sigrun: “I jump off the roof and land on the bandit.”
Reynir: “Well, it’s a twenty foot drop, you’ll break your legs.”
Sigrun: “No I wouldn’t. I’ve jumped off things twice as tall and been fine.”
Reynir: “I… don’t think so?”
Sigrun: “I’ll prove it. The roof of this house is about twenty feet, if I can jump off it without breaking my legs then you have to let me do it in the game.”
Mikkel: “There is no way I’m allowing this Sigrun.”
Reynir: “The dragon is sleeping on a pile of gold, you approach cautiously, careful not to--”
Sigrun: “I punch it.”
Reynir: “You… punch the dragon?”
Sigrun: “Right in the snout.”
Reynir: “... so the dragon wakes up and has a delicious breakfast of roasted Sigrun.”
Mikkel: “I cast prayer of healing, and heal Sigrun for… 23 points of damage. Of course if this were real life you'd be very dead, Sigrun, as prayers can't heal people and magic isn't real, so I advise you to take a different course of action in any actual combat scenarios."
Emil: “I cast Wall of Fire.”
Reynir: “That’s a 5th level spell.”
Emil: “Yeah I’m level 5.”
Reynir: “No, 5th level means…”
Lalli: “Oh Onni did this once.”
Reynir: “What”
Lalli: “Big fiery bird. Swoop down from the sky.”
Reynir: “...”
Lalli: “You can do it but you’ll sleep for a week after.”
Reynir: “The troll climbs up from beneath the bridge, and blocks your path.”
Lalli: “How big?”
Reynir: “About 12 feet tall.”
Sigrun: “Who in our party is immune?”
Reynir: “Oh it’s not that kind of troll, it’s more like the ones from the fairytales.”
Lalli: “I see. And he will eat me?”
Reynir: “He looks like he might.”
Lalli: “Okay. I tell him to eat Emil instead. More meat.”
Emil: “Hey!”
Reynir: “...”
Emil: “I tell him to eat Mikkel instead.”
Mikkel: “...”
Reynir: “...roll a persuasion check.”
