Sometimes I write things

Back from commercial, direct to the pool. Enzo’s doing a little better. He’s sitting up, leaning against an outbuilding, still wrapped in the drenched owlbear costume. Dale and Cassie are crouching over him, and they likewise are dripping wet. Cassie is the only one in a swimsuit.

Immersion in chlorinated water has rendered Enzo irritable and accusatory. “You shouldn’t scare people like that. I thought you were drowning!”

“Well, I wasn’t! How do you even… were you spying on me?” Cassie’s promised maritime tryst with Dale has been taken from her, and so she likewise is irritable and accusatory.

“Huh? Cassie, do you know this bear guy?” Dale seems more confused than irate.

“Well… I used to. It’s complicated.” Cassie grimaces.

“Do you want me to…?” Dale trails off in a way designed to indicate that he doesn’t want to go, but will if she wants him to, but he doesn’t want her to want him to.

“Well… can I get a rain check on tonight? It’s complicated –”

“Sure sure, get outta here.” Enza waves off Dale. “You’re not needed, boy.”

Dale shuffles away, heart not broken but definitely bruised (this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened with Cassie, after all) and an irate Cassie turns angrily towards Enzo. We swap back and forth between Cassie’s POV and Enzo’s, slowly accelerating.

Q. You’ve been spying on me?
A. Sort of. He meant to blend in, keep a low profile.
Q. Then what’s up with the bear suit?
A. It’s not a bear suit. It’s an owlbear suit.
Q. What’s up with the owlbear suit?
A. The owlbear is Enzo’s totem: it is who he is, what he represents. The strength of the owl, the wisdom of the bear.
Q. Wait, what?
A. When Enzo first came to Muncie, he had a lot of rage. When he was playing Dungeon Majesty with Oliver, he learned of the owlbear and came to empathize strongly with its balance and center.
Q. You played Dungeon Majesty with Oliver?
A. I was the cunning filcher!
Q. Wait, wait… You played Dungeon Majesty with Oliver?
A. The girl from the gaming store, she was the cleric.
Q. What? You played Dungeon Majesty with Oliver?
A. Yes. But scheduling issues eventually led to the game’s collapse. I am no more the cunning filcher. I am owlbear. Owlbear is better anyway.
Q. So… you and Oliver are friends? He remembers you?
A. No, no, he was too little, he doesn’t remember Enzo from back in the day. But Enzo and Cassie’s parents used to all be friends.
Q. Does Mom know about this?
A. She would not approve, she wants to protect Oliver and Cassie from their old life.
Q. ???
A. But Enzo promised Jack that he would look out for Oliver and Cassie, and he means to.
Q. You gave him the ring?
A. I thought Oliver should have something.
Q. He thinks Dad’s alive!
A. Maybe it was a mistake.
Q. He keeps thinking Dad’s going to just, like, show up!
A. I didn’t tell him nothing.
Q. Get out of here, go away. Leave me alone.
A. Will you tell your mother?
Q. …No. But I’m going to tell her… I’m going to tell her to watch out for owlbears.
A. I’m only doing what Jack asked me to do.
Q. Hey! Listen up! You may have been a filcher — I’m a myrmidon. We don’t sneak around!

CUT to Wyrmidax’s Codex of the Slinking Rat, a Vaempyre supplement. Pull back and Andrew’s flipping through it. Pull back further and he’s sitting at a table at the Magic Beans.

Morgan Darkchylde (whose goth regalia is only slightly toned down and really looks more than a little out of place in the Magic Beans) enters the frame, holding two espressos, and sits down across from him. Andrew takes one of the espressos and says he’s been thinking. He’s not sure the live-action Vaempyre game is really for him.

Morgan’s visibly shaken. But he’s part of their triptych now! Surely he’s not going back to that kiddie Dungeon game? Hasn’t he graduated from roll-playing to role-playing?

Andrew says he feels like the third wheel, now that Luculus is out and it’s just Anjelina and Morgan. Plus there’s the whole vibe, he’s not totally into that. There’s such a thing as being too into a game.

Morgan scoffs.

Andrew insists. He read the Vaempyre main book, and there’s like twenty pages on Unrequited Love. It’s a big part of the system.

Morgan fails to see how this relates. While pointed at Morgan, the camera shifts focus, and we see (though Andrew hasn’t noticed him) Alvin sitting at a table nearby, sipping coffee and reading the paper and eavesdropping.

Andrew, see, Andrew is starting to suspect he’s in love. With someone he doesn’t really know. Like, all their conversations have been kind of… superficial. He doesn’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.

Alvin looks askance at Morgan, who is after all wearing a lot of makeup.

See, the thing is, Andrew continues, ignoring the increasingly perplexed-to-the-point-of-hostile expression on Morgan’s face, the thing is he wants to go up to a second-level emotional connection between them. And Morgan, he’s got this thing going with Anjelina, so…

“Andrew, life is more complicated than a twenty-sided die,” Alvin says, which makes Andrew go gah!

But Dungeon Majesterium issue number sixteen says that you should never show your true face at the gaming table!

Okay, okay, that’s it. The word “Majesterium” is too much for Morgan. Morgan leaves Andrew to his icosahedrons and miniatures, and Alvin takes his seat.

Alvin’s been hiding his true face for twenty years, look where it’s got him.

Andrew is reluctant to open up, but Alvin reminds him of the importance of the party bond, and…

FADE to Cassie coming home, in a reversal of her earlier sneaking-out. As she walks past the mantel, she glances at the goldfish bowl, and we and she see that it is empty.

“Mom! Mom? Mo-ooommy?”

Cassie finds Alice in the kitchen. Did Alice “clean” the fish?

Alice wants to know where Cassie got the fish.

A friend gave her the fish.
…
Yeah… no, Alice doesn’t know him.
…
No, it wasn’t a stranger. It was someone at work.
…
A customer.
…
Yes, he has a name.
…
Dale.
…
Dale gave her the fish.
…
He met her at work and he gave her fish. Dale is nice.
…
Yeah. He’s one of the boys she went to dinner with.
…
No. No, they’re not day-ting…

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? We shouldn’t have secrets. If there’s anything Cassie needs to tell Alice, she can. And should.

Cassie met a boy at work named Dale and he gave her fish. Where are those fish now?

Alice saw the fish and saw that their tank was too small. Fish need a certain volume of water to survive, otherwise there’s not enough dissolved oxygen and they suffocate.

Okay. Great. Bolstered by this rapport, Cassie prepares to take the big plunge. She’s got something, Mom, and no calling the police. Cassie met Enzo the other day.

“Enzo?” Alice feigns ignorance, but Cassie sees right through it. Alice gets all ruffled and aflutter, knowing that Cassie remembers Enzo, much less that she talked to him recently.

Think hard, Cassie: this is important. How long has Enzo been around? When did Cassie meet him?

Cassie wonders why Alice wants to know that — what does it matter?

Alice starts to pace. Enzo shouldn’t be here. When did Cassie meet Enzo? Was it here? Has Oliver met him?

Cassie was swimming.

Swimming? Enzo swimming? In the backyard? Enzo was in the backyard?

Yeah… no. In the Ball State pool.

What? Alice’s agitation level ratchets up from a fourteen to an eighteen. When?

…Saturday night. …With Dale. But why does it –

AWOOGA! AWOOGA! Cassie went to a university swimming pool with a strange boy and no lifeguard and no permission slip and AWOOGA! AWOOGA! AWOOGA! Cassie is triple-scoop grounded with extra punishment and a topping of protective custody and a cherry on top. A cherry made of not leaving your room! There’s to be no talk of Enzo or of the past, not when someone is grounded!

No fair! What about, what about work? Cassie has to work or she’ll get fired! And Millie can’t cover all her hours; they need her at the Magic Beans!

Well, Cassie should have thought of that before she went off recklessly endangering herself! No movies, no nights out, no dinner with boys, no Enzo explanations, no people over, no Dungeon Majesty…

“Mo-oooom!” Oliver, who had been hovering just inside earshot, runs into the kitchen and starts throwing a fit about how the game simply can’t survive without Cassie’s myrmidon and they couldn’t survive the Jade Pelican without her and yadda yadda and oh all right Alice accepts that Cassie can sit in her room with the door ajar and everyone else can be in the hallway. But that’s as far as her mercy extends!

FIRST COMMERICAL BREAK.