Jo’s face lit up as she turned a few pages. “Actually, yeah. The fighter has a pugilist subtype. You’d do more damage unarmed than with a weapon.”
How the hell did she know where every single page she needed was? As he stared down at an illustration of a shirtless, pointy-eared man with incorrect hand wraps, Felix’s first thought was that Jo was like magic. Clearly, he’d already been at this fantasy stuff too long.
Hand wraps aside, though, the pugilist was pretty well grounded in his reality. “Where do I write that down?”
“You don’t, not yet,” Jo replied. “You pick a subtype at level three, after you earn experience points by playing the game. We’re only doing level one today.”
“Ah,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. He wasn’t actually going to be playing with this character, was he?
Jo proceeded to walk him through the “Fighter” section of the chapter and showed him where to write everything down on his character sheet. Then they rolled some dice to determine scores for his abilities: strength, intelligence, and so on.
“All right, so your race is next before we can finalize those scores,” Jo said, turning to chapter two. “You’ve got your Tolkien standards: elf, dwarf, halfling, orc. And then—”
“Could I just be a person?” he cut in.
Jo broke into a grin. “Felix, in this world, they’re all people.”
He suppressed the urge to groan. He liked pedantry as much as the next librarian, but even he had his limits. “A human, I mean.”
“You want to play a human fighter?” she asked with barely concealed laughter. It was so infectious that Felix couldn’t help smiling.
“Is that bad?”
“It’s only the most basic option you could choose.”
“Well, like I said, I prefer things grounded in reality.”
She pulled her shoulders all the way up to her earlobes in the biggest, cutest shrug Felix had even seen. “Felix, the whole point of this is to give you an idea of the options in MnM so you can help other newbies.”
“Fine, I take your point,” Felix said with an exaggerated sigh. He ignored Jo’s smug smile. “What should I pick, then?”
She flipped pages again before stopping abruptly. “How about a dragonkin? You’ll get a boost to your strength, which is good for a fighter. And you also get the ability to breathe fire and ice so you can attack more than one enemy at a time.”
Felix had seen this illustration of a red-scaled reptilian creature, fully clothed and on two legs, when he’d paged through the book earlier. But this time, something new clicked into place. “A dragon is a person in this game?”
“It’s not a full-blooded dragon, it’s a dragonkin,” Jo explained. “The actual dragons are in the Monster Compendia. This is a humanoid descended from a dragon way back in their ancestry.”
Felix narrowed his eyes, unsure whether he should be amused or concerned by that concept. “I don’t really want to know how that happened.”
“Welcome to Monsters and Mythology, dude,” Jo laughed. “People will try to fuck anything that can consent.”
Well, that settled it. Felix was by no means a prude, but this was his workplace. His family-friendly workplace, at that. He pushed his chair back from the desk and looked at Jo with all seriousness. “Jo, please don’t tell me this game is about people playing out their sex fantasies.”
The smile fell from her face. “It’s not meant to be, no. Sometimes people get weird about trying too hard to seduce a barmaid, or even a dragon or a vampire. Especially newbies who don’t know the boundaries of roleplaying games yet. It’s your job as the GM to decide whether or not you allow that at your table.”
“Absolutely not,” he said without hesitation.
“For a public event, that’s a good call,” Jo said with a nod. “People will often flirt with or charm the NPCs—non-player characters. That’s okay within reason. Interacting with the world and the people in it is part of the game. But you can, and should, shut it down if it goes too far.”
It was bad enough that Felix had to learn this entire fantasy world and all its rules. Now he had to chaperone people from being overtly horny at a public library? This was getting ridiculous. There must be something about this game that he was missing, something that drew people to it that he couldn’t see.
He set his pencil down and raked his hands through his hair. “I think I need some help here, Jo. Can you explain to me why people do this? I don’t get it.”
Jo leaned away from him and averted her gaze.
“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”
She didn’t reply. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at nothing.
“Jo?”
4
I don’t get it.
The words rang in Jo’s ears, echoing back through months, through years.
A memory from over a year ago surfaced. In her mind, Jeremy’s voice was as clear as day. Damn it, Jo. I already told my friends we’d be at their barbecue this weekend. You signed up for another fucking convention? I don’t get it. Why are you so obsessed with this damn game?
Another memory, another time—maybe three or four years ago. His voice was low and sultry now, as if he were whispering in Jo’s ear. I don’t get it, baby… but, fuck, I love it when you play an elf for me. What’s your name tonight?
Then, she and Jeremy were younger, both of them still in their mid-twenties. Things between them were new and fresh and fun. They were willing to try things for each other. At least, Jo had thought they were. I tried your monster game once, okay? His tone teetered on a knife’s edge between exasperated and callous. Please get off my back about it. I don’t get it, and I never will. Have fun with your friends, just leave me the hell out of it.
“Hey. Jo?”
A gentle voice pierced through the haze of memory. She blinked and cleared her vision. Felix’s dark eyes, wide with worry, were the first things she saw. He was leaning forward in his chair, his hand suspended in midair, as if he’d reached out to touch her but had thought better of it. What with the whole being-alone-behind-a-locked-door thing.
