Chapter Two
Chapter
Two
Later that evening, I sit with my feet tucked under me on Mona’s plush couch while she waters the dozens of plants cluttered on her shelves, humming under her breath.
In our cozy house in New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood, Mona and I have perfected our living arrangement.
We’re both too independent and too picky to share an apartment—we’ve tried that—but as soon as she finished undergrad at Quinnipiac and the unit directly below mine opened up, she moved right in.
She’s close enough that I can borrow her clothes whenever I’m feeling particularly peppy or colorful, but far enough that we can both enjoy our space when we need it.
Now I pepper her with questions from the game’s character sheet and backstory questionnaire.
In the questionnaire’s intro, the DM provided information about the campaign and the world within it, painting a compelling, high-stakes picture of a shattered kingdom, a gothic setting, and a dark curse spreading throughout the realm.
It gives us lots of elements to incorporate into our characters’ stories.
“Character species?” I ask.
“Orc.”
“Ooh, a new one for you. Class?”
“Druid.”
I huff a laugh. “Druid? Again?” This would be her third druid, a class known for its love of nature and ability to shape-shift into various animals.
When Mona doesn’t answer, I look up from the sheet of paper.
She sits on a cushion next to her impressively tall monstera with her eyes closed and breath held, lit pipe in hand.
She finally releases a thin thread of smoke out the window, then turns to fix me with a half-lidded and slightly reddened deadpan stare. “Sue me, Reagan.”
It’s a fitting class, I’ll give her that.
“Name?” I ask.
“Moss.”
I laugh. “Cute. And we want our characters to be friends, right? We’re establishing that they’ve known each other for a long time?”
“They’re practically sisters,” Mona confirms.
“Of course,” I say warmly. Honestly, I’m kind of buzzing with excitement to actually play with my sister for the first time in years.
While I’m still a little worried that this “advanced players” game will just be a miserable, combat-heavy dungeon crawl, the fact that this character creation form is so detailed has me feeling tentatively optimistic.
When I see one particular note near the bottom of the page, I grunt a noise of surprise. Impressive.
“What is it?” Mona asks.
“Since we’re starting at a higher level and it’s supposed to be a difficult campaign, the DM is letting each player choose a powerful magic item from a list to start the game with. There are two left to choose from.”
“Huh! Nice.” Mona crawls onto the couch and peers over my shoulder. “Give me that one,” she says, pointing to the description of a vine-wrapped wooden staff that will help her character heal more effectively.
“Noted,” I say. “I’ll take the sword.”
Mona eyes me sidelong, her face creased with amusement. “You still haven’t picked a class. What will you be? Barbarian? Fighter? Ooh, a paladin?”
“…I’m working on it.”
I continue to pepper Mona with questions as I fill out her backstory form.
As she outlines her character’s motivations, personality, history, and goals, I can’t help but stitch together ideas for my own character—someone who would be the perfect adventuring companion for Moss.
As a spellcaster, Moss will need someone to protect her, so I choose a fighter.
My character will be brutally efficient, strong, and entirely capable of handling whatever monsters this Warlock cooks up.
As I finish building her out, I write her name at the top of the page: Sindra.
After I’m done, Mona starts to fidget restlessly with the tassels on a throw pillow, casting curious, searching glances at me every ten seconds or so. I smile, and without looking up, I ask, “What?”
She does a little shimmy of impatience, narrow shoulders twitching. “Well, are you finished? Are you finally going to show me?”
“Show you what?”
She makes an exasperated noise. “You know.”
Right. I forgot.
“Tomorrow?” I try.
“No. Tonight. You promised.”
I did. “Fine,” I say with a laugh. “Let’s go.”
Mona jumps up and scurries out the door, beating me up the flight of stairs leading to my unit. Although she has a key to get in—we both have each other’s keys, just in case—she waits for me on the landing. I laugh as I climb the last few steps and unlock the door.
When I walk in, I can’t fully hold back a sigh.
It’s been nearly a year, and I still haven’t gotten used to my apartment’s makeover.
It’s the same layout, of course, but after the Cataclysm, Mona helped me reshuffle my furniture and redecorate completely.
We replaced my old sofa with a dark gray sectional so that I wouldn’t always have to be reminded of where Owen once sprawled with a book propped in his lap, or see the indention in the cushion where his dog, Bowser, once slept.
While I of course kept my PlayStation and game collection, we thrifted a dark wood entertainment center and filled its shelves with books and trinkets alongside the games.
The once-sage-green walls are now a muted mauve, and there are bits of Mona all over the place—in the pink-potted spider plant on the windowsill, the poetry magnets on the fridge, the gluten-free pasta in my pantry.
For the most part, all evidence of Owen and our ex-friends Eddie and Lauren has been scrubbed away, the framed photos of our old D a photo of Mona in scorpion pose in her living room, the sun painting her plant collection orange behind her; an ad for a local convention in a couple weeks; fanart for a livestreamed D and a link to an article about the recent layoffs and collapse of a branch of Hurricane Studios.
I frown and open the link, skimming through the headline summarizing Hurricane’s cancellation of their game Lorekeeper, which had been intended to be a single-player offshoot of their hugely successful MMO Legends of Lore.
Case in point: layoffs, project cancellations, and team restructurings have become everyday occurrences in the video game industry.
Nearly everyone who works in games experiences a shake-up like this at some point in their careers—it’s something our professors and internship managers prepared us for.
Just last year, I was on the phone with Nali for hours, soothing her through her own terrible news before she landed safely at her current studio.
I continue reading, and my scowl deepens with each new line. Hurricane cut nearly 10 percent of its workforce…hundreds of employees left without jobs…CEO promises that this leaves the studio in a more agile position than ever, despite a few unfortunate tweaks to its team…