Page 26 of Level Up for Love

His skin has the pallor of undeath, but its smoothness reminds her of the marble busts she’s seen displayed in noble halls. His hair, too, is white. It’s tied back in a shining tail, except where it’s shorn close to the skin from his temples down to the underside of his skull, revealing a tattoo inked into his scalp. She can’t see the runic lines in detail, but the brutal strokes of dark ink cut from temple to temple, wrapping in an arc around the back of his head.

The tattoo reminds her of an approximation of a crown.

In this moment of stillness, she sees through a small part of Vadrien’s act. Though he stands in a ready crouch, the dark fabric of his cloak swirling around his legs, she notes the way he favors his left side. Finally, she sees evidence of the gashes and blows she and Antoni delivered as his dark blood runs sluggishly from each cut. Like her, he sways ever so slightly on his feet.

Perhaps I stand a chance.

Sindra bares her teeth in a snarl. “If you’re going to do it, then get it over with. Fight me.”

Vadrien shifts onto his back foot, leaning slightly to the side as he regards the defeated party. His wrist twists in slow, lazy circles, as if swirling an invisible glass of wine. “You know, I don’t think I will. This was too much fun, and I’m curious to see if you all will try again. There are few left with the ability to catch me off guard.”

Coward, she wants to say. Liar. This is a retreat, and they both know it. But her desire to survive wins out. She’s willing to let him walk away if it means she gets to do the same.

If it means she’ll get another chance to end this one day.

His voice is a whisper on the wind. “Had I wanted to,” Vadrien purrs, “I could have done much worse. But I’m interested to see what you do next.”

“Is this how you greet guests to your kingdom?” Sindra asks.

His answering laugh is harsh and high-pitched, like nails tracing from the base of her tail up her spine. “Always.”

Without warning, his form suddenly shifts—and a small white bat takes his place, screeching as it flaps upward. The absurdity stuns her, the reality of all the scary stories of her childhood made real. Surrounded by the bodies of her companions, Sindra can’t help but let out her own humorless laugh, tracking the bat’s tiny shadow as it disappears into the sky.

Moss would have liked to see that.

Even as the session ends, my vision of how the story played out doesn’t immediately fade.

Not when Wesley still wears Vadrien’s arrogant, self-assured smirk. Not when he’s lounging against his seat, head tilted casually to the side, regarding the game board and our downed miniatures with half-lidded eyes.

The first session was all about combat. Wesley immediately threw us into the fray, and we rolled dozens of dice as each of our characters chipped away at the horde of skeletons. It was a tough fight—too brutal for a first session, I still believe—but I’d grudgingly respected the way Wesley had designed the encounter. He’s always had a head for crafting compelling gameplay.

But I didn’t know he could act.

Every Dungeon Master has a different style of running their games. Some DMs rely on pre-written storylines published with ready-to-use plotlines, combat encounters, and a predetermined cast of non-player characters (or NPCs). Others, like me—and Wesley, clearly—prefer to create what’s called a homebrew campaign, where they build their own worlds and stories from scratch and construct the entirety of the adventure on their own, using only the game’s base rules to provide structure and stakes. Some insanely talented—or just insane—DMs will make everything up as they go, improvising session by session. But regardless of how they create their campaign, what distinguishes some DMs from the rest is how they engage with their world.

In my games, I tried to strike a tonal balance between fun, humorous, and emotionally engaging. The first step to that, of course, was being willing to roleplay. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty shit at accents, but despite that shortcoming, I embodied every NPC with as much personality and emotion as I could. My players got comfortable over the years with meeting me in that improvisational space. I’d even made Mona cry once when I delivered a confession of love from her character’s in-game paramour. Regardless of the game you’re playing, I believe the best stories are told only when you connect with the characters in them.

It’s immediately clear to me that Wesley brings the same earnest energy to his own games.

But he’s got more than that—he’s got skill.

I should’ve realized that he’d be good at this; he could command our whole classroom’s attention with a charismatic presentation or a boisterous joke mid-lecture. I remember the way people were drawn into his orbit.

But here, at this table, his effect is different. He slipped into Vadrien’s sneering, seductive character with ease. His low Eastern European accent was flawless, spoken with a threatening touch of condescension. There had been a dark, husky quality to it when Vadrien knelt at Sindra’s side, compelling her not to worry, just to close her eyes. I can almost feel the same heat crawling up the side of my neck. I can almost imagine the way those teeth must have felt when—

Wesley’s eyelids flutter for a moment, as if he’s waking up, coming back to himself after embodying Vadrien. His eyes rise and then snap to me.

I’m horrified to realize that I’m flustered—and then immediately angry. How dare I let him fluster me.

This is getting out of hand.

I tear my gaze away from Wesley and focus my attention on where Mortimer’s miniature figurine lies toppled over on the map.

“What the hell, Wesley?” I snap. “A player death in session two?”

Mona looks shocked, and I’m frustrated for more reasons than one, but everyone else appears remarkably calm. Even Colin just shrugs apologetically and says, “I told you it was a tough game.”

“There’s a difference between challenging and unwinnable,” I say, seething. “What was the purpose of that?”