Evelyn sprinted into the garage, breathing heavily. "Sorry I'm late," she sputtered, before breaking into a cough. Ugh, running had never been her strong suit. It was part of why she hated gym class.

  "Kept us waiting," Alex said, a bored look on their face. There were times when Evelyn didn't understand why they bothered to hang out with the group, given how often they grumbled about rather going biking or something else. Evelyn wondered why they never actually did, though.

  "Just as long as you've got your character ready," Daniel added, pushy as always. He'd been trying to get them to play this game for over half a year before they finally gave in.

  "I need to a pick out another couple of traits, but otherwise it's done." Evelyn had spent the past two nights up later figuring this out. Her parents would've been annoyed if they knew - Dad always wanted her in bed by midnight, and got a little cranky whenever he caught her up. Of course, him having insomnia didn't exactly help his case. She was sixteen already, for God's sake.

  "Need some help with them?" Ian offered, speaking through a mouth half-full of chips. Evelyn resisted the urge to sigh, having long given up trying to tell him how gross that was. Some people just never learned manners.

  "My character will be fine," Evelyn insisted. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the folded sheets of notebook paper that she'd spent so much time on.

  A large hand reached around her and yanked the papers away. Gasping, Evelyn spun to see Tyrell standing there. She hadn't even seen him when she walked into the room, despite that he towered over them all. How someone so big could be so quiet, she had no clue.

  Surprise gave way to indignation. "Give those back!" Evelyn said, trying to grab her character sheets back. Tyrell just turned sideways, putting the papers out of her reach.

  "You really named her after yourself?" he said, casually looking them over.

  "I did not!" Evelyn's face flushed.

  "Edeline. Evelyn. It's the same thing. And then there's..." Tyrell kept reading, continuing to half-ignore Evelyn's attempts to take the character sheets back. "Hold the hell up. You made her the daughter of the local lord?"

  "Yeah. And?" Taking advantage of his distraction, Evelyn finally was able to reclaim the papers. She stepped away from him, making certain he didn't have a chance to do it again.

  "Crap. I made mine his son too!" Tyrell turned to glare at Ian. "Man, you told me no one else was gonna do that."

  "Uh...my bad," Ian said sheepishly.

  "Guess they're siblings now," Alex said, "See, that's what you get for trying to keep your character secret from the rest of us."

  Evelyn let out a groan of frustration. She'd thought that was the whole point, keeping it under wraps until they got together to play. That way, everyone would have a unique character idea without stealing anything from the others. So much for that.

  Daniel sighed. "Going to have to agree with Alex. Unless one of you is okay with scrapping yours, that's the best option. It'll also be the easiest for me to work into the story."

  "Fine," Evelyn conceded, not wanting to start over.

  "Do we really have to make them brother and sister?" Tyrell asked, scowling. "They could be like cousins or something. Or maybe one of them could be adopted."

  "Are you trying to make this harder for me?" Daniel crossed his arms. Tyrell shook his head, but didn't raise any other objections.

  "Look on the bright side. You two now have a new story hook to work with." Ian took another bite of his chips.

  "Story book?" Tyrell asked, clearly mishearing what Ian had said.

  "Story hook," Daniel corrected, "And yeah, I've got some new ideas already. Anyway, let's all get seated, and then you can describe your characters for everyone."

  Evelyn went over and plopped herself down in one of the folding chairs set up. Ugh, hard metal with no padding. Why they couldn't just go inside and do it around a real table, with real chairs, she didn't know. Instead they were stuck out in the garage, like they were a teenage rock band or something. At least the weather was cool enough.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Meanwhile, Daniel had turned around, and was pulling up a cardboard screen. Evelyn's squinted as she saw the messy writing on the side face them. "What's that say?" she asked.

  "It's-"

  "Snarch." Alex cut Daniel off.

  "-Tales of Hyarch." Daniel finished.

  "Come on, that clearly says Snarch. Welcome to the kingdom of Snarch, everyone." Alex looked quite smug.

  "What's the population?" Tyrell asked.

  "Excuse me?" Daniel asked.

  "Like a sign that says welcome to a place. Don't those have the population?" Evelyn shot Tyrell a confused look. What was he even talking about?

  She wasn't the only one who was lost. "Thousands of...uh...look, I'll figure it out later." Daniel stared over at Evelyn. "Anyway, characters. You can go first."

  "Right," Evelyn said, "My character is Edeline Hallowscroft, daughter of Lord Hallowscroft. She's trained in swords and spells, although she had to hide the latter from her father."

  "Man, it really is just you, isn't it?" Tyrell said.

  "Shut up," Evelyn snapped back, "I gave her strong mental attributes, but not so great physical ones. But she's got enchantment spells to help make up for that."

  "Going for a versatile build, I see." Ian nodded approvingly. "Not great, but it could work." Evelyn decided not to mention that all her spells other than the enchantments were damage spells.

  "I'm not going to try and kill off all your characters in the first hour," Daniel said, "I've read the horror stories online. I know better."

  "So you're waiting until the third hour, got it." Alex snorted.

  Daniel let out a frustrated sigh. "Anyway, Tyrell?"

  "Right. My character's named Myron." Alex snorted at this, but said nothing. "He's been training under his father, the lord, to be a swordsman and leader of men."

  "Hold on, this is a game about sorcerers," Daniel said, "You do have magic spells, right?"

  "Why would I?" Tyrell answered, crossing his arms with a scowl.

  "Dude, I told you to pick a couple of spells out." Ian gave Tyrell an incredulous look. "Your character's going to be useless like that."

  "Not completely useless," Daniel said, "But definitely at a disadvantage. You need to-"

  "Look, if he wants to do it, let him do it," Alex interrupted, "It's his choice. I don't think we've got time for arguing about it anyway."

  Daniel gave both of them exasperated looks. "You're really going to have make me work my butt off, aren't you? This game isn't really made for characters without spells, you know. I guess I can adjust encounters in the future to fit..."

  "You can't have fights planned that far in advance," Ian noted.

  "Want to bet?" Daniel said, grinning back.

  "Whatever," Ian said, "Anyway, I suppose Myron would work, as long as you made those changes to your attribute distribution I suggested."

  The flat look Tyrell gave Ian made Evelyn giggle in spite of herself.

  "Oh, come on!" Ian buried his face in his hands. "You're going to fail so many resistance rolls with a low willpower like that. Calling it now, your character's going to get bodied in the first fight."

  "He's got really good endurance," Tyrell stated.

  "Let's just move on," Daniel said, "Ian, your character?"

  "Right, my character is named Hamond. He's a fugitive sorcerer who's a former student of that famous powerful sorcerer you talked about, the Spellking."

  "Wait, is he actually called the Spellking?" Alex looked dumbfounded, "It just sounds like he won a spelling bee or something."

  Evelyn burst into laughter at that one. "A spelling bee," she repeated between the laughs, holding her sides. God, that was funny.

  "I, uh...okay," Alex said, sounding confused.

  "Anyway, my character got disgusted with the Spellking, and came here instead. But he's in hiding, because if most people found out who his teacher was, well...it wouldn't be pretty."

  "About as pretty as roadkill," Alex said.

  "Shouldn't you have a cover story?" Tyrell asked.

  "Uh, let me think." Clearly he hadn't yet. "Uh...I guess...healer?"

  "No, because that's my character, chucklehead," Alex told him, "I told you that."

  "Oh, right, sorry. Maybe a cook." Ian paused a moment. "Yeah, cooking works. I can just swap a couple of skills over. It'll be good."

  "I guess me now," Alex said, "My character is Nela. She's a healer and an elf."

  "The game doesn't have elves," Daniel objected, "I told you that."

  "It does now," Alex said, "Besides, it's a fantasy game. It should have elves and dwarves and stuff like that."

  "Not all fantasy does," Daniel said with a sigh, "But I'll think of something. What's your character's story?"

  "Her grandfather was the main healer for the elves living here, and she was going to be his successor, but dealing with it got to her. So she went on a journey for a couple of years, and only just now is coming back home."

  Evelyn had to admit she wouldn't have expected Alex to put that much thought into it. Guess they were more eager to roll the dice and play the game than they'd like to admit. Then again, she'd always wondered if the biking thing was all talk. Maybe it was after all.

  "Alright, that's good." Daniel shuffled through some papers on the other side of the screen. "So now we can-"

  Tyrell's phone rang out an alert from his pocket. He pulled it out, thumbing at the screen. "Are you serious? What the hell?"

  "Problem?" Alex asked.

  "My dad decided tonight was going to be going out for dinner with my uncle. And after I told her we had this all planned out. Man, this sucks." Edelyn felt a pang of sympathy. She knew all too well what that was like.

  Daniel groaned. "Do you have to go now?"

  "Got to be back home by four." By Evelyn's estimate, it was about a quarter past two, maybe a little later. The problem being Tyrell had almost certainly driven over with Alex, so when he left, they would have to go too.

  "Should've known scheduling this every week would be a problem," Daniel said, "Alright, we have enough time to do the roleplay to set up the group's first meeting. Maybe even do a quick fight to get us into it."

  "Sounds good to me." Evelyn had no objections.

  "Let's do it," Ian said in turn.

  "Right, sit down." Daniel cleared his throat. "In the kingdom of Hyarch-"

  "Snarch," Alex repeated.

  Daniel ignored her, and continued, "-in the town of Hallowscroft, sinister forces are moving. It is a gray and cloudy day..."