After a complicated day including the discovery of a murder, his best friend somehow moving into a game world, and a date that went in far more directions than he had anticipated, Malcolm Eisenstein awoke with about half the amount of sleep he needed and stumbled in to work.
Most of the morning proved to be surprisingly uneventful. Having to cover for David was difficult as there was only a one day bereavement policy for close friends and he could not convince their boss that “Uncle Mike” was more than just a friend.
He lost himself in work and things were going smoothly until he got a call at lunch. “Hi, Malcolm? This is Detective Ross. I was wondering if you had an hour or two free ter. I have some questions about the case, and maybe a few other questions, I would like to discuss. Nothing formal at this point, just some points I want to crify.”
“Well, I get out at four thirty,” he answered. “Could get down to the station by five, quarter after?”
There was a pause and then “Are you familiar with Hook Line and Sinker?”
“The seafood restaurant? Have gotten take-out from them a few times,” he admitted.
“Yeah. Like I said, this is nothing formal, or probably nothing formal, depending on your answers to some of the questions. Why don’t we meet there at five thirty?”
“Okay, it’s a date. Well, not a DATE date but …”
“Oh well maybe it is, depending on the other questions,” she replied mysteriously. “Regardless, see you there,” and hung up before he could reply.
He sat staring at his phone for a full minute after she hung up, then texted Carol. “Have I somehow become catnip to dies?”
“I don’t think so but one of my stylists said she was sorry she left before you stopped by st night. Stranger things have happened.”
“At least this week.”
“Oh, I got an address on Hendrix, the other writer for the original Dungeoneers game, and supposedly the guy who did most of the mechanics. He lives about two, three hours away. Maybe a weekend road trip?”
“I need to get back to work and you probably do too, so talk about it tomorrow?”
“Definitely. Maybe I should call out there and see if they are open to visitors?”
Another hour passed and Malcolm was thinking he might be able to head out early when he was informed that he had a guest at the front desk.
Fearing the worst he headed out and found Leonard Guerin, white suit and all, waiting there. “Mister Eisenstein! A pleasure to see you again. I just dropped off the first check and asked to see David but was told he is not in today?”
“Yeah, he had to take some personal time. Not quite sure of the reasons.” Malcolm answered uneasily.
The pale, green-eyed man replied: "Well that is a shame. I had hoped to invite him personally. Say, you do not by any chance py Dungeoneers, do you?”
“I taught David to py back when we were in high school,” David answered proudly.
“Excellent! Two of my regurs had to cancel for our game Sunday and I was hoping to invite him and a friend to take their pce for a session,” came the response.
“We are probably both tied up on Sunday, but I may be wrong,” Malcolm answered.
Leonard handed him a card. “This is my email. Let me know if one or both of you can make it and I’ll send the time and address, Okay?”
“Sounds great and thanks for the invite, whether we can take you up on it or not. Really. I know Dave will appreciate it, if he gets back in time.”
Guerin nodded. “Good. And that charming young woman who was here, has her group decided to invest or not?’
Thinking fast, Malcolm replied: “She’s on her way back to talk it over with them, or was st I heard.”
“Excellent. Your system really is quite remarkable. I see potential in it you might not even have realized. Well anyway, I must be off. No rest for the wicked!”
As soon as the man in white left, Malcolm sent a text to Carol.
“Guerin was here. Creepy SOB but invited David and me to his game Sunday. Weird.”
“Sry. W Customer.” came the terse reply.
Malcolm went back to his desk to work on some coding and examine a stack of schematics. About twenty minutes passed before he heard a text ding and saw Carol's reply: “His game? Wow. You sure he is a bad guy?”
“If not, he is just really creepy. Dunno.”
“Say, how was your date st night?”
Malcolm stared at his phone for almost a full minute before a suitable and honest response came to him: “Last night was the weirdest experience of my life. And given the night before, when I found out my roommate and one of my best friends was dating a woman from another universe, that should say a lot.”
Carol’s response was a “hug” emoji. Then, after a short pause: “something else to talk about when we meet up tomorrow? Maybe for lunch?”
He ughed, then typed: “Probably. Food court?”
“Sure. One O'Clock?”
“See you then.”
He lost himself in his work for a few hours, then, partly on a whim and partly to test a new algorithm, he opened a search window and asked: “who created the Dungeoneers game?”
The response was not exactly what he expected: “Though widely believed to be a team product, the original edition of the Dungeoneers game was the work of two men: Luke Garrison and D. Erik Hendrix. They formed Tactical Horizons Unlimited to publish their product. Six years ter their partnership dissolved. Garrison remained at the company to help design the second edition while Hendrix retired from game design to write adventure and travel novels. The final project they worked on together was the “Time of Change” trilogy often considered the Holy Grail of game collectors, consisting of three adventure modules - The Apprentice’s Betrayal, The Lost Arch Mage and The Destiny of Two.”
“Interesting,” he mused aloud, “saw 'The Lost Arch Mage’ one of the times we were at Deanna’s but never heard of the other two.”
One of the other developers, Allen Woo, was passing by and said: “Talking to yourself again, Mal?”
“You know it, Al; only way I can have intelligent conversation in this pce.”
Allen ughed, patted him on the shoulder and continued on to his own workstation.
At twenty minutes after five, Malcolm got off a city bus a block from Hook, Line and Sinker, and saw Detective Ross sitting on a bench across the street from the restaurant. He waved, and she got up and made her way over to him
Watching her, Malcolm came to a decision he was pretty sure he would regret ter, but when she reached him, he said: “Any chance we could get this to go and head over to my pce? I have some things I want to tell you but really can't in public like this.”
She examined his face for a few seconds. “Well, I have known you since Junior High. And I carry a gun. So that should probably be safe,” she smiled. “Sure. You have a car nearby?”
“David and I share his, and he took the key with him so I’m relying on public transportation,” he replied.
“Then we do not have to juggle two cars, good; mine is in the lot over there,” she added, pointing to a lot a half a block away.
They made some small talk while ordering, then sat patiently while the order was prepared and packaged. An awkward silence fell between them, which each attempted to break but their efforts kept floundering. Finally, their order was complete. Malcolm paid for it and grabbed two of the three bags while Audrey took the st one and led him to her slightly beat up old Honda Civic. “Bet you are used to fancier cars?” She asked as she unlocked the doors manually.
“Nah, Dave has had the same old beater since college. It does have remote door locks and a remote starter, but I had to install that starter myself.” He then gave her his address and climbed into the passenger seat.
After a few seconds of silence, he said: “You were right. I know more than I told you but… well, some of it is, well, tricky “
“Tricky?” she asked
“Yeah. Uh, how open are you to the existence of supernatural beings?” He asked after a slight pause.
Audrey gnced at him, returned her eyes to the road and asked: “You mean like God?”
Malcolm let out a light chuckle. “More like, oh, wizards and witches and werewolves and, well, vampires?”
She was silent for almost a minute, and then said: “This the entrance to your lot?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
She nodded, eased into the garage below their building and found an open “Guest” spot before replying: “Okay. Since I kind of want to see where this conversation is heading, I am going to lie and say that I am very open to the existence of supernatural creatures.”
Malcolm ughed. “If our situations were reversed, I am pretty sure I would say the exact same thing.”
Getting out of the car, he again grabbed two of the three bags and led the way to the apartment he shared with his roommate, David West. Once inside, he got some ptes and silverware out while she opened the containers and spread them out on the counter beside the table.
“Want anything to drink? Soda, wine, beer, scotch?”
“I could use a beer,” she replied, and he pulled two bottles out of the refrigerator.
They filled ptes with various seafood products, most fried but some boiled, and an array of sides and sat down opposite each other at the small kitchen table.
After clearing a few mouthfuls, Malcolm decided to begin with: “Well, I will start by saying I witnessed the decapitation.”
“And what does … wait, are you trying to say that Kim Mendoza was some sort of supernatural creature?”
Malcolm ughed. “You know, back in high school, I was never sure which impressed me more, your beauty or your intelligence. Both seem to have increased in the years since and I still do not know.”
She blushed slightly and said “Thank you. I did not think teenage boys noticed intelligence,” she added pyfully.
“Normally, if we do, we see it as a bad thing but with you, well, it was really the first thing I noticed, honestly.”
“Oh come on,” she ughed.
“No, really. We had dozens of really pretty girls in our css, granted only two pretty redheads, but your intellect is what made you stand out.”
“Three pretty redheads if you count Carrie Langstrom, after she dyed her hair over Christmas break,” Audrey added with a quick grin.
“Ah, Carrie. Almost forgot about her. Man was she stacked. Oh er, ah, sorry, I ah…” It was his turn to blush.
“...Am a guy?” she finished for him, then added: “And I admit I was a very te bloomer.”
“Late or not, you bloomed very nicely.”
She opened her mouth to comment, then closed it and flushed slightly, murmured a faint “thank you” and then she remembered: “So what exactly was it about Kim that led to her decapitation?
He seemed both disappointed and relieved at the change of subject. “According to Sandra - Sandra being David’s girlfriend - she had become something called a ‘strigoi'. According to some research I did back in college, when Bram Stoker wrote ‘Dracu,’ one of the legends he based his vampire Count on was the Romanian strigoi.”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “Do these creatures have a mouth full of sharp teeth with excessively pronounced canines?”
“I did not look too closely but I think so,” he replied.
“Okay, then I am not saying I believe you, at least not completely, not yet, but that would expin the difference between her teeth and the damage to the mp in her mouth,” she mused.
“About that mp: David did that. It was just a cheap ceramic one from one of the warehouse stores until he turned it into metal.”
Audrey almost spit out a mouthful of food, took a quick drink, and asked: “He what?”
An odd look crossed Malcolm's face, and then he said: “Okay, now, please try to stay calm. David is some kind of a wizard. And this I can offer some proof of, as, and please, again, try not to freak out, his Astral Projection is standing right behind you.”
Her face went through a wide array of emotions before she steeled herself and turned around.
The silvery outline of David West stood there and waved at her.
Gncing from one to the other, Audrey said: “Okay, you guys are tech nerds so this may be some kind of scientific thing and not magic, but either way I am impressed. Not quite convinced, but very impressed.”
David’s voice seemed hollow and distant as he spoke up: “I take it you are Detective Ross?”
She turned to his projection. “Yes, Mister West, I am. Where exactly are you right now?”
“My body is in my assigned room at the Temple of Earth’s Bounty in Rhyvven on Pyrroth. My consciousness stands before you “
“Umm. Yeah,” Audrey began, “and did you and your girlfriend kill a, well, a vampire yesterday?’
David nodded: “It was in self-defense, but yes.”
She turned to Malcolm. “Do you have anything stronger than a beer? I think I am going to need it.”
As Malcolm poured her a gss of Scotch, David filled her in as quickly as he could as to what had transpired over the past few days before he became too tired to keep the Astral Projection going. He told her how a wizard named Elgarin betrayed Thellissandra’s father and then fled to their world, how she followed him, how David met Thellissandra and took to calling her Sandra, and about the two types of monsters they had met. “Well, there is more but I have to go. Casting spells like this is exhausting. There are a few more details Mal knows that I just don't have the energy to get into.”
“This is a bit much,” she replied, “but would expin a lot of inconsistencies at the crime scenes, except, of course, that it is all impossible. Or would be impossible, except that I am talking to you right now.”
David smiled at this: “It is a lot. Thanks for listening. Oh, one more thing - Malcolm, do you remember the module Carol tried to run after our st GM left?”
Malcolm thought for a moment. “Uhm, yeah, I think it was ‘Horns of a Dilemma’ or something like that.”
“I need to know if there was a secret room we missed or something. That pce is supposed to have a very important book in it, and I may wind up having to go there.”
Surprised, Malcolm said: “It's a real pce? That's insane. I'll see if she still has it.”
“Good. It may be a few days before I can do this again, so good luck to you both.” And with that he was gone.
There was a moment of silence in the apartment, and then Detective Ross drained her gss, turned to Malcolm and asked: “why tell me all of this now?”
“Well two, sort of three reasons. First, I wanted either to have someone other than Carol that I could talk to about it - or someone who would have me locked up as a lunatic so I would not have to worry about it, either way. Second, I do know how intelligent you are, and how persistent. I know you would keep poking into all of this until you found something - probably something more pusible than the truth, but maybe something dangerously wrong, and felt you should know as much as I do. And the kind of third reason, I kind of just wanted a chance to spend some time with you again. It has been a while since that science project we worked on together. I really enjoyed that."
She ughed. “I can understand that. Do you remember what I said after our project won first pce?”
He grinned: “As if it happened today. You kissed me on the cheek and said:”
She finished the statement in unison with him: “'You are a weirdo, but a sweet weirdo. A girl could really fall for a guy like you.’”
Their eyes met for a few seconds and then they both burst out ughing. “Of course, you were talking in the abstract and not thinking of any specific girl,” he suggested.
She smiled brightly and replied: “of course.” And they both started ughing again.
Malcolm moved to a chair closer to her and she started to lean in towards him, but suddenly stopped. “No, I can't do this tonight. I need to go, digest what all I heard and decide how much, if any, of it I believe. Perhaps more importantly, I need to figure out if there is anything I can do about it, assuming I do come to believe it all. Can not exactly go spping cuffs on a myth, right?”
He ughed, a little less happily and replied: “I completely understand. You know, this is only the third weirdest conversation I have had this week. May I walk you to your car?”
”Just to the elevator, please,” she replied. He nodded, helped her pack up some of the leftovers to take home and walked her to the elevator. Before she got on, she leaned over and gave him a very quick kiss on the cheek. The move startled him, and he was trying to think of a response when she stepped inside the elevator and said, “maybe in a few days that kiss will mean more but for tonight it means ‘good night my friend’” and she was gone.
He sighed, though he realized he also felt happier than he had since coming home from his parent’s pce out of state and went back to his apartment to watch an hour or two of television and then get some sleep.
