Intermission: The Haunted Orchard of Willowmere

The Rec Room had the brittle hush of a morning after the storm. The sunlight on the tile was a little too sharp; the air, heavy with the echo of confessions still radiating outward from the Banquet Hall. Chloe sat curled at one end of the U-shaped sofa, hair unbraided and wild, lost in her own orbit. Marissa had claimed the armchair, legal pad perched on one knee, her pen tracing the outline of a square instead of actual notes. Norah sprawled in an impossible tangle on the floor, headphones jammed in but not actually connected to anything, just a prop to stave off conversation. Claire and Liesa sat side by side on the window seat, legs pressed together and a single battered notebook balanced between them; Claire's cat ears twitched whenever Liesa's foot bounced too hard. Erin stood near the snack bar, leaning with one hip against the counter, eyes fixed on the half-empty bowl of oranges as if daring them to go bad.

Andy hovered just inside the doorway, feeling like a stagehand in a drama that hadn’t yet decided what it wanted to be. The only motion came from Emi, who flitted between the rooms like a nervous moth, sometimes delivering a fresh cup of coffee to a woman before she even realized she’d wanted one.

He counted the heads twice, realized someone was missing, and then, as if summoned, Sam barreled in from the hallway, arms loaded with enough game books to build a small barricade.

“Ladies!” she announced, voice hoarse but determinedly cheerful. “We need a reset. We need catharsis. We need… a Pathfinder session.”

There was a beat. Then Marissa said, “Can it be a very short session?”

“Can it end in group therapy?” Chloe added, not quite smiling.

Sam grinned, setting the books down with a thump. “Only if we TPK in the first hour. But seriously, I know this morning was a lot. We don’t have to talk about it, but we can do something about it. Something fun. Something—” she surveyed the group, reading the room like a book she’d already dog-eared—“loud, messy, and cathartic.”

From the kitchen, Dawn’s voice chimed in: “Do I get to play a cleric?”

“You’re playing Carrotina Fluffytail again,” Sam called back. “Bunny ears and all.”

Dawn’s face, when she appeared, was already breaking into a smile. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did.” Sam’s tone was warm, full of the subtle pride of a Dungeon Master who’s memorized every player quirk.

Andy slid onto the couch beside Chloe, who shuffled over just enough to make room but not so much as to break contact. “We can skip me if there’s too many,” he said.

Sam snorted. “Not a chance. You’re the glue, dude. Besides, you’re our only engineer. I’m running the scenario from the book, but the party can’t solve puzzles for shit without you.”

Chloe’s lips twitched. “That’s… not wrong.”

The women gathered. In less than five minutes, the Rec Room had transformed from a mausoleum to a war room. Emi set out bowls of trail mix and candy corn, a hand towel for every player, and cups of dice in every color. Liesa, whose experience with RPGs was limited to Sam’s last session, seemed genuinely excited. Claire already had a mechanical pencil sharpened and was annotating a pre-drawn map.

Norah rejoined, rolling her eyes but settling in on the rug. “If we’re doing this, I want Gretch the Collector. Dwarf, warpriest, best hammer.”

Sam tossed her a sheet. “Already printed.”

Marissa eyed her character sheet, “Cutter McCutterdaughter, kobold alchemist, full goblin science,” and groaned. “I do not miss my minus-three to social rolls.”

“Can I still play Melody?” Chloe asked, glancing at Sam.

She nodded. “Only if you run the voice this time.”

Chloe’s accent was somewhere between Scottish and NPR, but she did it anyway: “Ye’ll never take me alive, coppers.”

Emily stood a little apart, watching the ritual of character sheet distribution and dice sorting like a tourist at a cult ceremony. She clutched a mug of tea with both hands, fingers pale around the rim. When Sam held out a sheet to her, Emily blinked, unsure. “I, um… never played before.”

"That's the point," Sam said, lowering her voice to something confidential. "Your character is Justina McCormick, half-elf wizard. I pre-rolled everything for you."

Andy patted the empty cushion beside him. "Come sit here," he said, his voice gentle. "I'll walk you through it."

Emily hesitated, clutching her character sheet with both hands like it might escape. When she finally settled next to him, hair settling around her so it barely covered her nudity, as always, Andy leaned in just enough that their shoulders almost touched. He pointed to the columns of numbers. "These are your stats. And these—" his finger traced a path down the page, "—are your spells."

"You just have to say what you want to do," Sam added, "and Andy can help with the dice part." She smiled. "It's easy. There's no wrong way."

Emily's eyes widened at the boxes and lines, but she relaxed slightly as Andy's hand hovered near hers, ready to guide without imposing. "Okay," she said. "But if I burn the party to ****, it's not on purpose."

"That," Norah said, "is exactly what a wizard would say."

With all the women seated, Sam turned to Andy. "House rules?"

He shrugged, still angled toward Emily. "No PvP unless consensual. No rules lawyering. Try not to traumatize the new player in the first hour."

Erin, who had finally settled into the only armchair left, shot him a look, clutching her sheet to her impressive breasts. “I’m not the one who always starts with the arson.”

“Don’t look at me,” Andy said, “I was minding my own business before the mob sexually assaulted my character.” Emily stared at them with eyes as big as saucers, and Andy flushed slightly, sheepishly. “Uh, nevermind. Marissa’s character did things.”

The table was a mess of dice, sheets, and snacks; the energy, at last, felt like something almost normal.

Sam cleared her throat, launching into her best DM voice: “It’s the Season of Ashes in the distant village of Willowmere. For weeks, a strange singing has haunted the apple orchards at night, and three villagers have gone missing. The mayor—one-eyed, grumpy, fond of cheese—has summoned you, the only adventurers foolish or **** enough to accept payment in store credit.”

She paused for effect. “You arrive at sunset, the orchard dripping with fog. There are whispers: some say the trees themselves are possessed; others, that a witch lurks in the heart of the grove. What do you do?”

Dawn’s hand shot up. “Carrotina Fluffytail casts Bless on the orchard. I want to help the trees feel better.”

Norah, in her thickest war-priest growl: “I cut down the nearest tree. I do not trust plants.”

Liesa, reading her character aloud: “Shadow Whisperwind, elven druid, examines the tracks for signs of animal movement.”

Claire wrote on her notebook, then slid it to Andy: I want to climb the tallest tree for a better view.

He translated for the table: “Clara Catsworth, investigator, climbs a tree.”

Andy felt Emily’s eyes on him, and when he glanced over, she looked at him as if asking for permission. He smiled. “You don’t have to wait your turn. Just jump in.”

Emily nodded, uncertain. “Um. Justina… casts Detect Magic on the fog?”

Sam grinned. “Excellent. Roll a d20.”

Emily eyed the pile, then picked a clear blue die when Andy pointed at it. She shook it, released, and looked up. “Seventeen?”

“Hot damn,” said Norah.

Sam made a show of scanning her notes. “You see that the fog isn’t natural—there’s a shimmer in the air, like heat off a highway, but blue, and it seems to be coming from deeper in the orchard. Also, the trees are… humming, but not loud enough to hear without magic.”

Emi’s arms shot up, three pairs in chorus. “Sparkles the Destroyer, fleshwarp monk, wants to go toward the singing. Because that’s what monks do.”

Dawn patted her on the back. “We’ll go together. I have carrots for snacks if you need them.”

The session moved in fits and starts: awkward at first, then flowing as the women remembered the game’s logic—or in Norah’s case, gleefully ignored it. Erin, whose own character (Rowan Shieldbark) specialized in “group tactics,” spent the first half hour trying to keep everyone from splitting up.

“No, we advance in formation,” she insisted. “We keep the wizard in the back.”

Chloe, arms around her knees, chimed in: “But the wizard has the highest perception. Shouldn’t she be up front?”

"She's squishy," Erin grunted, looking to Andy for backup.

"Rowan's right," Andy cut in, leaning forward with sudden intensity. "Wizards need protection. Remember that time in the Caverns of Despair when—" He caught himself, swallowing the rest of his sentence as Claire slid her notebook across the table. Her stick-figure map showed arrows labeled "wizard here" and "everyone else in the mud."

Sam smiled as Andy's eyes darted between Erin's frustrated expression and the splintering party formation. His fingers drummed against his thigh, a nervous tell from someone who'd spent countless nights keeping fictional adventurers alive only to watch them ignore every sensible plan.

Liesa’s druid found a squirrel and immediately tried to tame it. “For a familiar,” she said, winking.

Chloe leaned forward, her voice thick with an exaggerated Scottish brogue: "Aye, me magical senses are tinglin'! Those apples look right haunted if ye ask me—eighty-two percent haunted, I'd wager me last copper! We ought tae take a wee bite, just tae be certain."

Norah, in a rare moment of tactical insight, said, "I make a torch, just in case the fog is flammable. Wizards like that, right?"

“Only if you don’t mind fireballs,” Marissa muttered, eyeing Emily.

Dawn started. “Carrotina Fluffytail approaches the nearest tree. I put my hand on the bark and whisper, ‘It’s okay, you’re safe now.’ I want to cast Calm Emotions, but on the tree.”

Sam blinked. “You can’t cast it on—never mind. Roll Religion.”

Dawn rolled, and the die landed a twenty. “Natural!”

The table erupted. Dawn’s ears perked and twitched, and she beamed at the group. “I want to name the tree,” she said, then glanced at Chloe for approval. “Can I?”

Chloe, in character: “Ye must. Every tree deserves a name.”

Dawn, whispering, “I name him… Buddy.”

Sam tried to move things along, but Norah—playing Gretch the Collector—was already hunched over her sheet, planning ****. “I sense evil. I want to intimidate the fog.”

“Intimidate… the fog?” Marissa echoed, barely containing a smirk.

Norah nodded, deadly serious. “I stand on a stump, flex, and bellow, ‘Show yourself, you coward!’”

She rolled, and groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s another two!”

Sam glanced at her notes. “You shout at the fog. The fog ignores you. But a rock nearby looks vaguely frightened.”

Norah glared at her dice, then at the table. “I throw the die at the wall.”

Claire, who’d been quietly annotating the hand-drawn map, raised a single eyebrow. She wrote, in neat script: Not all rocks need intimidation. Some just need support.

Liesa, in her quiet, Belgian way, said, “Shadow Whisperwind slips away from the party, just a few steps, to see if any villagers have dropped valuables. You know, for safekeeping.”

“Is that what druids do?” Sam said, not hiding the exasperation.

“In this case, yes.” Liesa winked.

Andy was watching the whole thing unfold, amused but also deeply invested in keeping things from going off the rails. He noticed how Emily, still new to the table, kept glancing at her sheet, as if hoping it would instruct her on the right way to play. He leaned over, voice gentle. “If you’re not sure what to do, just say what you’d do in real life. The rest we’ll fudge.”

Emily nodded, clutching her dice. “I… I want to talk to the ghost. If that’s okay?”

“Perfect,” Andy said, and when it was her turn, he nudged her to speak up.

Emily cleared her throat. “Justina uses the medallion to Speak with Dead. I want to ask the ghost what happened.”

Sam, putting on her best spectral voice, said, “You see a swirling shape, like a woman made out of fog and moonlight. She weeps and points toward the heart of the orchard.”

Emily, gaining courage, asked: “Why are you sad?”

Sam, as the ghost: “My children are lost. The orchard has eaten them. Please help me find them.”

Chloe, never one to waste a moment, began composing a ballad on the spot. “The apples were too sad tae fall / The trees too cold tae stand tall / The mother, she mourned in the silver night / Her children gone from mortal sight…”

Sam groaned. “Chloe, you can’t turn every quest into a folk song.”

Chloe grinned, caught in the act. “But what if I do?”

Erin, who had been trying desperately to keep the party moving as Rowan Shieldbark, now took charge. “Okay. Marching order: Gretch and me up front, then cleric and alchemist, wizard and healer in the middle, followed by inventor and investigator, sorceress and thief, I mean druid, at the rear. We advance toward the heart of the orchard, weapons drawn, spells ready.”

Andy, **** to help Erin keep everyone on track, exclaimed, “Dr. Gearchain readies his crossbow.”

The party advanced. Immediately, Emi’s Sparkles the Destroyer broke formation.

“I want to climb every tree. All of them. And I shout, ‘tree time!’ each time I do.”

Sam, resigned, said, “Roll Athletics.”

Emi threw six dice at once, one for each hand. “Can I use all six?”

The table howled. Marissa clapped her hands over her face, but the tears in her eyes said she was loving every minute.

Sam tried to keep things focused, but every time she introduced a new twist—a cursed apple, a spectral child, a tree that bled blue sap—the table responded with escalating mayhem. At one point, Norah’s Gretch attempted to “discipline” a haunted tree with a roundhouse punch, missed, and ended up falling face-first into a patch of stinging nettles.

“Again?” Norah shrieked, staring at the dice. “How is this possible? I was rolling fine last week.”

Chloe leaned over and patted her arm, a gesture so tender it almost belonged in another genre. “It’s the ghosts. They don’t want to be hit.”

Claire, quietly, added: Maybe they just want to be understood.

Every so often, Sam would bring the group back to the main quest. “You hear a faint lullaby, drifting from a hollow in the largest tree. The ghost says, ‘My daughter sleeps within. She will not wake for me, but perhaps for a friend.’ What do you do?”

The table froze, each player looking to the next. Then, unexpectedly, it was Emily who spoke first.

“I want to cast Mage Hand and tickle her awake,” she said, then blushed furiously. “Is that dumb?”

Andy smiled, the kind of smile that says I’m proud and you should be too. “Roll it.”

Emily did, and when the die came up seventeen, the table broke into applause.

Sam, reading from her notes, said, “The spectral child giggles, floats out of the tree, and hugs your hand. She says, ‘Thank you for waking me. Please, take this to my mother.’ She hands you a glowing apple.”

Chloe, bard voice in full effect: “The hand that wakes a sleeping soul / May find its own heart made whole…”

Liesa, still pilfering, “I pickpocket the apple from Justina while she’s distracted.”

Sam said, “Sleight of Hand vs. Perception, both of you roll.”

They did, and Liesa won.

Emily gasped. “You stole it!”

Liesa’s grin was wide, unrepentant. “Only for safekeeping.”

Erin, exasperated, “Can we please just take the apple to the ghost?”

Sam nodded, trying to get the party back on track. “You find the mother ghost weeping near the edge of the orchard. When you return the apple, she smiles and the fog begins to lift. She thanks you and says, ‘Now my family is whole again.’”

Norah, still scowling at her dice, muttered, “She owes us store credit.”

Marissa, who had been quietly concocting something the whole time, said, “Cutter McCutterdaughter has crafted a ghost antidote from blue sap and nettles. I throw it at the nearest haunted tree.”

Sam rolled a die, then laughed. “It explodes, obliterating half the grove. But in the ruins, you find a cache of gold and several extremely startled squirrels.”

Emi, delighted, “I want to take the squirrels home. Six of them. We’ll be a family.”

Dawn’s bunny cleric made a heartfelt speech about the importance of community and how “even trees deserve closure.” Her ears wiggled throughout, and nobody interrupted.

By the time the group had completed the quest, the “haunted orchard” was little more than a tangle of downed limbs and traumatized wildlife. The store credit was redeemed for “enchanted carrots” and a set of goggles for Norah’s warpriest, who promptly rolled a critical fail on her next perception check and spent the rest of the session “seeing double.”

Through it all, Emily slowly relaxed, laughed, even teased Liesa about the apple theft. She tracked her spells with careful marks and started to offer suggestions for the next move. When Andy leaned over and said, “You’re a natural,” she smiled—not just polite, but grateful.

It was during the final wrap-up, as the group bandaged wounds and planned their triumphant return to town, that Chloe stood and announced, “I want to perform a ballad for the villagers.”

Sam, not missing a beat, gestured for her to roll. Chloe did, and when the die landed on nineteen, the table howled.

She stood, arms open, and recited, “When haunted hearts are set to rest / And woodland ghosts are set to quest / Remember those who braved the gloom / And brought the apples back to bloom.”

The group cheered. Even Norah.

Sam closed her notes, a little teary. “The villagers welcome you as heroes. The haunted orchard is safe again. Also, there’s a parade.”

Dawn’s bunny ears drooped in contentment. “Best. Session. Ever.”

They started to pack up, trading stories about favorite moments and near-misses, but nobody left. It was too comfortable, too good to let go.

Emily lingered, collecting stray dice, then found Andy’s eyes. “I get why you all love this,” she said.

He smiled. “It’s easier to fight monsters when you have a party.”

She blushed, but didn’t look away.

Andy approached Sam while Emily waited for him by the door. "Are you still sure about what we discussed during your date night?" He asked earnestly. "About Coauthor? If you are, I'll make those changes. But only if you are sure."

Sam nodded with a grin. "Dude, I trust you. You and Erin tried to keep the party together. You two are clearly the only adults in this madhouse." She slapped his shoulder. "Can't wait to be able to stand out from the pack. Make it so I remember, okay?" Andy nodded mutely, and she grinned again, gathering her things.

In the quiet after the session, with the sun slanting golden through the Rec Room windows and the last dice still spinning to a stop, Andy looked around at the circle of women—his party, his people. They were all a little less haunted, a little more themselves.

It wasn’t perfect. But in a world that kept throwing monsters their way, they were getting pretty good at facing them together.

Afterwards, Emily walked the length of the hotel’s upper corridor, the velvet pouch warm in her hand. She tried to catalog every detail: the taste of victory (sweet, like the apple cider Chloe had shared), the echo of laughter in her ears, the way the women had fought and failed and forgiven each other, over and over, until it felt like routine.

Most of all, she remembered how Andy had looked that morning, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, voice catching as he told them about the bridge, about Laura's hand slipping from his. The way his eyes had met each of theirs in turn, a trust so raw it hurt to witness.

And then at the table—his patience. The way he'd leaned in when she hesitated over her character sheet, not grabbing the pencil from her hand but waiting, present. "Try," he'd whispered, only for her. "You can't break it." The same gentle certainty he'd shown them all: letting Liesa steal without judgment, Chloe sing without interruption, Emi and Marissa tumble into their strange, perfect joy, supporting Erin in her doomed attempts to keep the party in line.

It was that, more than anything, that undid her. The quiet way he was always present, not demanding but steady, a point of reference for everyone else’s chaos.

She paused outside her room, then looked back at the velvet bag. There was a note tucked into the strings, probably from Sam or Chloe, but she didn’t read it.

She set the bag on her desk, next to her sketchbook, and for the first time in months, she picked up a pencil and began to draw.

It was not a self-portrait, not exactly. But it was a picture of a circle, with a dozen hands reaching in toward the center—most tiny and delicate, one broad and strong.

And in the middle of the circle, she drew a die. It was a twenty-sided one, perched on the number twenty, as if that’s how the world should be, if only for a moment.

She smiled, then shaded the lines.

In the Suite, waiting for his guest, Andy sat on the edge of his bed, holding the velvet pouch. He let the dice tumble out onto his palm, then roll across the comforter, and he caught himself wishing—just for a second—that he could tell Laura about today. That he could show her what kind of party he’d built, what kind of world they’d made together out of the pieces left behind.