The DM's Party

Illusory Scene
Create an imaginary scene containing multiple creatures and objects.

Wendy awoke in darkness, the sound of running water echoing. And something was pushing on her.

“Hey. Hey, wake up.”

She grunted, curled up, and pulled her arm over her eyes; a wholly unnecessary gesture in the pitch darkness she now found herself.

She’d been walking home from Andy’s, still irritated with him, when an intense fatigue struck her, so overwhelming it had dropped her straight to the sidewalk. Now she was…well she didn’t really know. She only knew she was groggy, she couldn’t see and…

“Get up!” The voice insisted.

This time the push was more of a jab, and her head had cleared enough to recognize it as a boot poking directly into her ribs. Wendy rolled away from it.

“Okay, okay! Fuck!” She said, lifting herself to all fours.

Not totally black, she realized. Not light enough to see much, but enough that she could make out three other vaguely humanoid shapes in the gloom; one large, laying on its side, one that could have been a child pushing on its shoulder, and one standing over her.

She stood to face it, and realized she only came up to its shoulders. Her shoulders, Wendy corrected. There was little doubt that it was a woman standing in front of her, albeit a preternaturally tall one.

Her head was clearing, and she was starting to realize that something felt familiar about all this; some unpleasant revelation dancing just outside her grasp. She could tell something was wrong though, even apart from the strange place she found herself. Her own body felt strange. She was too tall, her hair too long, and her clothes didn’t feel right.

“Wendy, right?” The woman in front of her asked.

She nodded, then realized that in this darkness, that probably wasn’t a terribly helpful answer.

“Yeah. That’s right,” She said. “Who are you?”

The woman snorted a laugh.

“Kinda depends on your perspective,” She said. “But fuck it, you’re smart. I’ll let you figure it out.”

Faster than Wendy would have thought possible, the strange woman produced some large stick, raising it above her head. Wendy flinched back, sure she was about to hit her, but instead, a fire light blazed to life at its tip. It finally illuminated their surroundings. They were standing in a cavern of some sort. To their right, a small waterfall fed a babbling brook. The remains of a camp stood off to their left, four moldering hide beds circling what had been a campfire.

None of that mattered. It was the cavern's occupants that made Wendy gasp in shock. She took a step backward, unable to fully process what she was looking at. The strange woman gave Wendy a grin utterly devoid of humor.

Formerly strange, she thought. Because Wendy did know her, just like she knew the heavily armored orc, and the slight, green haired gnome standing beside him. Somehow, impossibly, she was staring at her own adventure party.

“Pretty fucked up, huh?” La’ziel said.

Wendy didn’t answer. That first revelation was swifty followed by a second. Brugo, Ribby, Laz…if they were all here…

She looked down at herself, eyes widening further. She was tall, something Wendy never was but had always wanted to be, and beautiful, with a long red braid that fell to her hips.. She wore a dark robe decorated with what she knew were intricate, spell enhancing runes, a heavy necklace, several rings and one heavy, ornate golden bracelet. Each had a function, and she knew what all of them were.

“Oh my holy god…” She whispered, “Am I Rona?”

Somehow, she had become her own player character. And if she was Rona, that must mean…

“Tommy?” She asked, looking up at the elf woman.

She nodded.

“Yup. And we got Martin and Dean over there,” Tommy said, pointing to them. “All our gear and shit from the campaign, too.”

“We even have Lucille,” Martin said, pointing to a distant point in the cave.

Wendy could make out the hulking outline of his power armor, resting in its default squatting position.

“I’m sorry, rewind,” Wendy said, stamping a foot, “What the fuck is going on?”

Tommy shrugged.

“You got me, man,” She said. “We’re just as confused as you.”

“This has to be a dream…” Wendy whispered. “I passed out on the sidewalk, and now I’m dreaming.”

“Unlikely,” Martin said, adjusting his glasses. “I did the pinch test. I can read, too, which is actually impossible in an REM dream state.”

Wendy shook her head, unable to process much of that beyond “pinch test”. She performed one of her own, pinching her arm through the thick, warm robe.

“Ow!” She cried.

Tommy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah. Weird. Not a dream, just really weird,” She said impatiently. “Can we get over the ooohs and aaahs and skip to the part where we figure out what’s going on here?”

“Don’t be a dick, man.” Dean chimed in. “This is kind of a lot for all of us.”

“I know, it’s just…”

They were interrupted as sunlight spilled into the cavern. It came from a massive hole that had opened itself up on the cave’s ceiling opened - actually opened - in a perfect circle, flooding it with sunlight. That gave way a moment later to a brilliant pillar of white that filled the space. A figure descended down it, a beautiful, red haired woman with broad wings who was unmistakably an angel. She came to a delicate landing on her bare feet, apparently untroubled by rough, uneven ground of the cave.

The new arrival looked up at them with wide blue eyes, then said.

“Holy shit! It’s my party!”

My party? Wendy thought that was an odd thing to say. Then it hit her.

“Andy?” She asked, “Is that you?”

“Woah, dude,” Dean blinked. “You are fucking hot!”

He was gaping at her. Well, ogling, really, if one was being honest. And something about that moment, with all her best friends gawking at one another in this alien wherever they were, all behaving perfectly like themselves, that made Wendy start giggling. The giggling gave way to a full bodied laugh, and she had to clutch herself to avoid tipping over.

Tommy looked at her, curious.

“What is so funny?” She asked, though it was clear she was barely holding back the giggles herself.

“I don’t know,” Wendy weezed. “Just Dean…the way he looked at you just now…”

She broke up again. The angel, who was apparently their DM, and a friend she really did love in spite of her exasperation with him, put her hands on her hips and shot her an irritated glance that absolutely only Andy could have given her.

“Okay, so you’re obviously Wendy,” She said, looking around at the group. “Did you guys all become your own characters?”

“It certainly seems that way,” Martin said. “But I think the more pertinent question is who you are?”

Andy sighed, and held out her hand. A golden staff with a sharp point formed in her hand. She scratched the ground with idly, and where she did, a shimmering trail of light was left in its wake.

“Gather round, and I’ll tell you all about it,” She said.

And so she did, explaining the whole story about the Goddess she’d met, the situation in the world she’d created, and what they all collectively had to do about it in order to get home. It was a lot to take in, but Andy slowly walked them through it. Strange as this all was - unbelievable as it all was - Wendy found herself enormously relieved. She had clarity. A purpose. Little by little, her sense of panic was subsiding.

“I have a question,” Martin interrupted. “You say we’re being brought here to take the place of dead heroes from your character sheets. But we’re all right here as our own party members.”

“Yeah! We didn’t die!” Dean objected. “We were like, kicking the Dark Queen’s ass and stuff.”

But Andy was shaking her head.

“I never wrote you guys into my World Anvil,” She said. “Well, I mean, I did when you created the characters. But not your adventure. I just…remember all that.”

She tapped her forehead by way of demonstration.

“But we had to get in there somehow, or we wouldn’t be here,” Wendy pressed.

“Yeah, I mean I added your sheets when you guys did character creation, and I updated them as you leveled up. I just didn’t keep track of your adventures or anything.”

Tommy shook her head.

“That doesn’t really answer the question, though,” She said. “We can’t be here if we hadn’t died. So…what the hell, man?”

Suddenly, Andy brightened. It made her face look quite pretty.

“Oh! Oh! I can check!” She said, producing an enormous, browned scroll.

It unfurled itself in the air in front of her, and her face dropped as she read it.

“Oh…Oh shit…”

The four stared at her intently as she read. Wendy’s irritation began to rise.

“Well…c’mon! Spit it out!”

“You guys were apparently killed on your first adventure together,” Andy said, “You came down here to confront some goblins, and then got killed in your sleep when you made camp.”

Martin was up now, examining their surroundings.

“Yes…I remember this cave. It was our first quest.”

“Wait…so that’s it?” Tommy objected. “We just came out and got punked by a bunch of goblins?”

Martin turned to her, smiling slightly.

“Think about it, Tommy. Isn’t that the fate of most adventurers?” He explained. “According to this goddess, or whatever, Andy’s character sheets became people. Like toys in motion.”

“But we’re fucking awesome!” Tommy said. “We’re the player party!”

Martin adjusted his glasses.

“Not here we weren’t. No protagonists with a DM to protect us. Just…people.”

Wendy shivered.

“But wait…I’m really strong!” Dean objected. “Like, way stronger than I was at level one. I can tell I know how to do things that I didn’t back then. How is that?”

And Wend knew it was true for her as well. She thought about her spell repertoire in the game, and now understood that she really did know how to cast them. She could summon a meteor storm, disintegrate things with a ray and set up walls of magical, multi-colored light; emphatically not low level abilities.

“I’ve got all my spells,” She said aloud. “Dean’s right.”

Any shrugged.

“Well, I’m glad you’re all high level or whatever,” She said. “But I don’t know how it happened. I’m still figuring a lot of this out, too.”

She stood and stretched.

“I also need to go. I’m glad you guys are okay, but I’ve got 623 more people to chase down.”

“Six hundred-twenty three!” Tommy spat. “There’s that many people here?”

Andy nodded solemnly.

“And they’re in deep shit if I don’t track them down and tell them what’s going on,” She said. “Not that I’m doing it alone, exactly. There’s a few of us angels on it.”

“So, wait. You’re not coming with us?” Wendy asked, surprised by the pleading in her own voice.

She shook her head.

“I’m sorry…I really want to, but I can’t.”

“So where do we go?” Dean asked.

“I should think that part’s obvious,” Martin said. “Bad guys to the east. Let’s go kill them.”

Now Dean grinned.

“I like the sounds of that!”

Wendy was only irritated.

“Guys, it’s a little more complicated than that!” We can’t just go running off all gung ho at an army.

“No, but we can do some intelligence gathering easily enough,” Martin said. “We just need to get out of this cave.”

“Well…how do we do that?” Dean asked, looking a bit dejected again.

“We might try this crazy new thing called ‘walking’,” Tommy suggested.

Martin smiled.

“We don’t even have to do that,” He said, pointing to the hole in the ceiling. “Let me fire up Lucille, and I’ll just give us a ride out that-a-way.”

Not long thereafter, they were soaring up through the gap, Tommy whooping and hooting and Wendy clinging to the armor for dear life. They flew out of the cave, into the sky to face their new lives.