The start-up for this game was proceeding apace.  Craig’s antics and slovenly conduct were consistent with prior experience, although he was putting a great deal of effort into trying to be dramatic.  Well, a great deal of effort relative to his standard mode of conduct.  The other players were gathering with the usual banter and disrespect for the GM.  He was… deserving of such opinions.  Still, preparedness helped.  The notebook that John had used for his character was only the physical copy.  There was a digital one as well.

He felt a little pang of sympathy for Rosemarie.  Cheese powder left terribly persistent marks on paper.  Though he was glad to see her pleasure at the sushi.  He had done well in paying her back.  He took another brownie, woefully neglecting his own sushi in favor of the treat as he felt a tremble.  It wasn’t from his body but it didn’t feel like an earthquake either.  He paused a moment but took a bite before letting himself begin quietly brooding about the odds of structural instability in a house where Craig lived.  It was not a reassuring line of thought.

Then the tremble returned as a great rumbling disruption that broke many of the things that Craig had often abused and tipped over John’s chair, leaving him briefly on the floor.  He did manage to regain a crouching position as he focused on the glowing book.

John was an educated man.  He knew instantly that this kind of behavior was unnatural.  Scientists would have twitching fits if they saw this kind of display and weren’t able to immediately discredit either it or their own eyes.

“Craig!” He yelled into the din. “What kind of gypsy-kissed-broken-mirror-store did you buy this book from!?”

Then Craig was gone.  The room was gone.  It was quiet but for the soft murmur of the conversation of strangers.  He was sitting again but on a simpler chair.  And… he looked around to find that they were clearly in the common room of a tavern.  He was also wearing decidedly unfashionable and heavy robes.  And, he felt… weak… irritatingly weak.  The others looked… vaguely like themselves but they were clearly not… not anymore.  They had been… forced to don the identity of their characters.

He looked to his left and saw what could only have been Rosemarie… or rather her character.  She was looking him up and down at the time and their eyes met.  In that unguarded moment, he saw surprise and worry in her eyes as she covered her mouth in shock.  She was rapidly diverted from her appraisal of him to her shock and embarrassment at being suddenly as scantily clad as her character.  John was momentarily grateful that he was not easily embarrassed, otherwise he would have been blushing at what she was wearing.  But, another impression was demanding his attention without mercy or patience.  

That reaction would probably not be the first time he would be pitied in this wretched and weak body.  Still, some part of him felt a surge of unreasonable anger, subtle and primal, at being so disrespected.  He controlled it, with some little difficulty, and was suddenly and chillingly aware of the reality of their situation.  He also felt a subtle warmth from where his hands rested on the table, one still holding a half-eaten brownie.  There was a slight darkening of the wood around his empty hand, as though a fire had burned there for just a couple moments before being put out.

“It’s not a dream and we’re not hallucinating.  That wretchedsonofarabidlemurtoadspawnedhermaphroditehooker managed to make us part of his game.”  His voice was cold and hard and the exceptionally elaborate and creative curse he used was spoken so quickly that only a very attentive ear would have been able to break it down and fully comprehend it.  Such insults were a bad habit of his that only came up when he was close to losing his composure, a thing that none of his current company had seen as yet.  His certainty came from that brief moment of foreign rage.  It had been an unwritten aspect of the changes made to his character in his backstory, a side-effect, in a sense.