The Notepad

Part 6: A Metaphorical Pile-Up -- Full Chapters

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Chapter 1: Karma

In which the world falls apart … and pulls back together

There were places where the pages of reality pressed together and it was possible – at least in theory – to walk between them. With the correct amount of skill and knowledge. And never on Sundays. Calima liked the Unseen University – arguably the whole campus fit this definition – and the library in general, because of this.
Ah, the good old days of never knowing where I was …
Having the thought, he stopped himself. “Why were those days good?” He asked aloud.
Because you were free. The library seemed to answer in a ‘voice’ louder than anything Calima could muster on his own.
Oops. Never speak aloud in a library. The walls have ears and the books have tongues.
He continued walking towards a section marked on his map as ‘Here Be Dragons’. Maybe this would help Hannibur with his lecture.
The books moved in response to him as he passed. They liked to feel involved, too. Sometimes it was as simple as letting them know what you were up to. Sometimes you wanted to give them an active role. And sometimes they themselves wanted an active role, and what you specifically wanted was irrelevant. In Calima’s experience, you were better not to show up to work on those days. You couldn’t just open a book and expect it to be nice to you. So what would you expect if you were mean to a book? Short answer – retaliation.

Here we go. Hannibur always felt nervous at the beginning of a new term. You never quite knew what you were going to get – well-behaved students, or badly-behaved books.
I could be on the third floor having lunch now. Hannibur made it standard practice to always be double booked. That way all appointments were optional. Big brain, for a big man.
The class had begun filing in.
Pull yourself together. No way around it now, just got to get started.
He flipped his notepad a few times. Open, shut. Open … shut. Rythmic. Calming. When the class had settled, he began.
“This class is about reality. Or the absolute lack of it. The first question is normally how …”

So the Cult of the Dragon punched a hole – wait, they what now?
Calima attempted put down the book he had opened, which snapped itself on to his body, refusing to let go.
Abandonment issues. But if they’re trying to bring a God back from the void, then …
Carrying his new best friend, a medium-sized volume called ‘The Life of Nezznar’, Calima continued along the shelves. Eventually, the darkly lit, almost ‘too-adult-for-libraries’ vibe of the Dragon section gave way to a perplexing … purple (so, purple…exing, probably) décor in the ‘interdimensional travel’ section.
Because if they made a hole, something else probably got through as well.
He carried on in this manner, collecting books with attachment issues – some figurative, some literal, until he, his spectral mage hand, his other spectral mage hand, and his Bag of Holding could carry no more books.
I don’t even know where I am anymore.
He'd been in this situation before – you just had to keep walking like you knew what was going on. The books could sense if you didn’t, and they always … he looked up at the piles of books in his four hands … wanted what they wanted.
After several hours – or was it days? – wandering along corridors, looking for a place to sit, he gave up and knelt down on the floor. He wasn’t in anyone’s way, this deep in the library, he was barely in a place.
He started to read.
A disease cultivated by an imprisoned God … Sometimes these books had such interesting premises. Almost like they weren’t real. But everything was real. Especially once it was written down.
Calima read the story of three unlikely and unlucky individuals – then another, then two more, then an additional one – being drafted into a war between vampires, werewolves and Eldritch threats in a hope of containing the damage.
Joke’s on you. Once the eldritch threats actually break through, there’s nothing you can do. Hiding’s not even an option, they see through it. But – yeah, there it is. The disease spread through a hole. Well, damn it.

“Sometimes it’s a ‘how do you escape?’, sometimes it’s ‘how’d you get in?’”. All eyes on Hannibur, as he continued to speak. Nobody had started taking notes yet – they presumably hadn’t decided whether he was worth it or not.
At least as far as that sort of thing mattered – he thought he was. That was the whole point. He thought he had knowledge that was worth sharing – knowledge that other people had died for. And it could be proved that nobody else knew it yet.
As far as he was concerned, that was the priority. Know what you’re doing before the lesson even starts.

YOU NEED TO REMEMBER, Death intoned, in a one-on-one lecture with Mort, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE THIS POWER, YOU MUST LEARN CONTROL.
Mort replied as a joke, at least he thought it was a joke; “Control of other people?”
NO. The force of this intonation shocked Mort. YOU WILL ALREADY CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE. YOU MUST LEARN WHEN THAT CONTROL IS NEEDED, AND WHEN IT CAN BE LEFT TO SETTLE
“You’re no fun.” Mort huffed.
NEITHER IS RULING THE WORLD. THEN YOU’RE EXPECTED TO DO EVERYTHING. EVEN THE DISHES.
Mort sighed. He had to go and do the dishes.
While drying, he ruminated on the last few lectures.
There’s a void between worlds called L-Space. You can use any book to get there, if you know how … That was yesterday’s.
Mort was never entirely sure what Death’s ‘plan’ was – did he want Mort to know these things for his own purposes, or was he being taught all this stuff so that he could take over.
This is how he seems to be everywhere at once.
Mort looked over at the library of Books of Life. Every day he needed to fix up a shelf – they were still recovering from ‘The Incident’.
He picked up his own book. It seemed to be locked to his touch. Death had illustrated this once. Other people could open your book, but you couldn’t. Not unless you were prepared to jump right in. No idle reading. Mort stuck the back cover of his Book under a door and found the biggest lever he could manage. If he was lucky, the book would yank itself open to the last page. Then he’d be able to wander through L-Space.
Stomping on the lever, his book opened with a strained ripping sound. But it opened. Mort looked down on the blank page before him. Exactly what he’d planned. He could see a type-cursor poised at the top, now, ready to start writing.
Wasting no more time, he jumped in. He’d find a space and make it his own.

Tiamat’s summoning circle had been quiet in the months following her botched ritual. A lone cultist still monitored it, just to make sure nothing happened. Point of fact, the ritual room became something of a break room for the cultists, so in actuality they all took turns not doing other tasks in the ritual room. But it was monitored, and the partnership of Hwep and Ku were not good enough managers to know the difference between micromanagement and leaving bad staff to their own devices.
The circle glowed, and nobody noticed.
The circle hummed, and no-one cared.
Some kind of a distress signal. Someone had jumped into the void and latched on to any portal they could find.
Ku allowed the void-walker to be brought into the castle, and after meeting with man, let him talk to some senior cult members.
By the following afternoon, the cult middle management had ousted Hwep and Ku on pain of death.
They had assembled a retaliatory army by the following evening, and it had been decimated by midnight.
As a final act, Mort took it upon himself to, personally, and while looking Hwep and Ku in the eyes, stab both men with a sword that glowed octarine. The colour of magic.
Cast into the void themselves, Ku and Hwep flailed around for any purchase on any doorway, any dimension, any … thing.
Hwep, as a wizard, must have had a distress signal louder than Ku’s – he was snatched from the nothingness, disappearing from Ku’s view.
Ku struggled for longer – wondering if he might die like this – but saw a door.
Pushing it open, he found himself in the hallways of a large library.
“Hello?”
No response. He reached at the spine of a nearby book. ‘Hubris’, it called itself.
Hello. The book purred in Hwep’s brain. How ironic we find each other this way.

“The answer to all of these is…. It depends. It depends on which reality you’re in. It depends what the rules might be.” Met with endless fascination, and the kind of silence that you had no choice but to talk over, Hannibur continued.
This is gonna be a good semester. His nerves had faded.
Still no note-taking yet – normally you had to reach some kind of ‘point’ before anyone decided to keep what it was you were saying.
A knock at the door. Unusual for five minutes into lecture one. Normally the latecomers just let themselves in.
Oh, nevermind, they did. The door was quietly opened and a robed figure slipped in the back. Sitting down, cowl obscuring the face. Almost like she didn’t want to be any trouble …
Stephone had made it to the lecture hall ahead of the disaster. For normal students that could be anything from ‘what they’d done last night’ to ‘what other people said they’d done last night’.
“I have a question,” the new arrival. Hannibur knew that voice.
“Not guilty.” Hannibur replied automatically.
Stephone continued. “There’s a disaster coming – what are we to do?”
Hannibur considered this for a moment. “I think … it depends. If you mean that you want my help, then we will need to discuss this after the lecture. But if you mean in general, then you prepare the best you can, and follow instructions of the people who know better.
“Hmm.” Stephone sat down. They wouldn’t make it to the end of the lecture. But at least she’d tried.

Mort stayed in the summoning chambers for weeks. Everything needed to be perfect. The cult had been promised their God back. And they would have her, but on his terms.
So, to create a plane … He’d found a book in the void, there were all sorts in there if you knew how to look. Or fish blindly, while trying not to die. Sometimes the void was kind.
You have to visualise a plate. Blank and devoid of all life, but a plate that is able to be used for putting things on. Okay, he might be paraphrasing the book. He’d think of his mother’s old dishware. It had been years since he’d thought of her. Maybe he’d see her again at some point …
After a day of unsuccessful casting, and the number of curious and concerned cultists (they called themselves the CCC) at the door increasing steadily, Mort found the missing link in the spell, and the summoning portal was opened. But not for a creature – he was summoning a whole plane into existence.
After a further week of work, he jumped into the void and grabbed onto the plate-shaped world. Only big enough to fit him, for now. But it would be so much larger.
He continued casting his spells, each one making the world larger and more bearable. Still empty, but that would be fixed in a later step. Once he had enough space for a house, he put one in. Then a study.
He retreated top his freshly-formed study and continued building his perfect world.
But now he needed security.
And he knew exactly where to find it.

“And sometimes, it might depend on who your friends are. This class will go through what it means to exist, and how one might change the world.”
Hannibur’s lecturing echoed through the multiverse. Anything written down created ripples. And when documents could be stacked next to each other, the bleed between realities was a very real possibility. This was the underlying principle of the Unseen University library, and why Calima liked it so much. But lately, even from his spot on the floor, he had started to notice holes. And it was always worth investigating a hole in reality. You never knew where you’d end up, sure, but you also most likely guaranteed someone else wouldn’t end up there later.
The hole Calima had just noticed near his eye level shone bright white, like a door from a dark room into a summer day. He just needed to widen the gap – just a little bit more.
He pushed himself through – at which point it should be stressed that Calima was a tall man, but not large, so the squeezing had more to do with the gap in reality not expecting any visitors.
Calima found himself on the floor of a temple.
“She dies, or she comes with me.” Always a good start to an exchange. Being careful to stay hidden, Calima moved around, to see down the main aisle in the church he’d materialised in. A gnomish man wass stood in front of a smaller gnomish girl and a dragon. Yes, that was a dragon in human form. They were speaking to a halfling with, seemingly, all the confidence in the world.
“Counter-offer.”
“Dwyfol, no.” The dragon pleaded, to no avail.
The gnome seemed defeated. “I go with you and you leave my family alone.”
The halfling seemed to accept this, backing off. Then he lunged forward with a blade that glowed in octarine.
But that’s not possible.
The gnome seemed to fold in on himself, leaving a rift behind him. The halfling stepped through it with ease.
To hell with decency. Calima bolted up from the bench he was hiding behind, clattering through the church with no regard for the mess being made, and through the closing rift. The halfling looked back in surprise as the rift closed behind him.

“Any questions?”
In response, an enormous thud from the entire lecture theatre as they slumped forward. Only this was enough to pull Hannibur from his lecturing fugue state.
He moved towards a student in the front row. There seemed to be black tentacles protruding from his mouth, but the student himself was clearly dead. Whatever it was that had happened, had taken him so quickly that the student hadn’t noticed. He’d been in the middle of writing ‘the meaning of life’ on his note pad.
Ah, so they do take notes. Hannibur had a persistent thought in the back of his mind that his students didn’t write notes at all. Certainly he never saw them do it. Maybe he needed to pay more attention.
He moved on to another student – same problem. And a third.
Well, I don’t know what the hell this all is. Need to find Calima. He knows how to use the library.
And then, reflecting on that thought.
Well, we all know how to read books – it’s just that he know how to not die afterwards.
Stephone negotiated her way through the pile of corpses. “Told you. Whatever it is that you need, it’s too late.”
“But we need to find Calima!”
“He’s one of the leading librarians, he’ll know about this already.”
“What is this?” Hannibur was confused by the sudden appearance of a thousand corpses.
“A hole in the fabric of reality.”
“Like a torn sock?”
“Sort of. Someone seems to have made a new plane – even I felt that one – and things just got worse from there.”
“So where will we go?”
“If we travel through L-Space, we should find the breach.”
“And hope that Calima’s already found it?”
“Seems like that’s the plan. So come on!” Desperate times, and so on – Hannibur grabbed one of the students’ notebooks. He always hated this bit. He set the book down on the floor and jumped into it feet first.
He next touched the floor of a corridor in the library.
Keeling over with a sudden pain to the head, he motioned to Stephone. “Come on! Hopefully we can stop this before it spreads!”

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Chapter 2: Bend And Break

In which the scales refuse to tip

Dwyfol arrived on a blank, white landscape. If he focussed hard enough, the landscape gave way after … he guessed maybe two hundred feet. Every time he looked it seemed to be further. Mort arrived behind him – holding his arm like there was something Dwyfol could have done to escape.
And then the elf. Oh, right.
No words were ever spoken, that was the slightly odd thing. Dwyfol could have sworn the elven man materialised at the same time Mort did.
But that makes no sense … For the elven man to be a part of what they were building, then who … was he? And why was Mort so surprised?
The questions swirled around in his mind, and Dwyfol barely noticed that Mort’s hand had moved up his arm, until crimson blood dripped on to the pristine white surface of the newly-formed plane.
Ow. Mort hissed something in Dwyfol’s ear – but Dwyfol didn’t understand it. He did hear a loud pop. Then, looking around, and ascertaining that, yes, he probably did need some kind of bandage for the claw marks that snaked their way up his arm – he noticed that the elven man wasn’t there any more.
Mort, after his frenzied and panicked activity was standing off to the side, staring confusedly at his own fingers.
“Oh. Sorry about that …” Almost dreamlike. Then; “that’s a problem. But, for later.”

Calima sprawled on the floor of the library.
“Damn it!” He screamed into the void.
Damn it … damn it … damn it … damn it … the books seemed to agree.
“Calima? Ow!” A voice Calima recognised called out from the distance somewhere – Calima knew Hannibur could have been half a dimension away.
“Over here!” He called out, then, as a mutter; “wherever here is.”
Hannibur crashed his way through the shelves, complaining about cheap interplanetary travel.
His headache had mostly subsided by the time Calima met Hannibur and Stephone.
The party sat on the floor of the shelves, and filled each other in.
“So you’re saying there’s a virus that just insta-killed your whole lecture theatre?”
“And that guy we met a few times has gone full psychopath and made himself his own reality?”
“And I’m also here.” Stephone perhaps had more information than both of the other two – but when the joke was available, you went for it.
As they continued to talk, they stopped paying attention to where they were. Mistake number one. In the library of Unseen University, if you didn’t know where you were, neither did anyone else – and the books wouldn’t help you.
In fact, they murmured and rustled around the three – trying in their own weird way to listen. To move them in the right direction, whatever that even means. The books guided the listless travellers through endless halls of the unknown. Almost like they already knew the answer. Almost like the books wanted this particular group of people to win.
“So, we need to search for the hole in reality.” Stephone summed up the discussion one final time.
“Easier said than …” Calima looked over his shoulder, seeing a pinprick of light. Not much, but it was there. In one of the shelves …
That’s not supposed to happen.
He stood up to investigate. “Guys, I think we just found it.”
We found it, we found it, we found it … The chorus from the books was almost unbearable.
“Thanks …” Calima offered the books weakly. His head still hurt from Mort’s banishment.
“How’d you get here, by the way?” Hannibur thought to ask.
“Mort sent me into the void – but – I don’t know if you remember – we travelled by the void before, but that’ll kill you if you’re not careful. So I learnt how to – here, really – always end up in the library when travelling. If you know what you’re doing, that’s a far safer way to do it.”
“So he didn’t want you on his plane?”
“I wonder why.” Calima remarked drily.
Calima stuck a finger up to the breach in reality.
“It’s only small.” He remarked. Looking around, he’d moved. He was now in a bustling city square selling wares off a cart – nobody seemed very interested. Then, IN THE Oblong Office as Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. He’d wanted to do that when he was younger. But the paperwork … he saw himself as a character in a book, literally a cartoon illustration of himself, being held by a child … the … younger version of himself?
Oh no. I’m getting lost now. He thought, pulling himself back towards where he thought the breach was.
“Well.” He asked the others. “What did you guys just see?”
“We thought you’d died,” replied Hannibur.

Death pulled a book off his shelf.
INNISTRAD. I THINK THAT WAS THIS ONE. WONDER WHAT THEY GOT UP TO.
He sat in one of the chairs in his personal lounge, and opened to a chapter towards the end. Where he’d gotten to.
I WONDER IF THEY BEAT THE DISEASE. AND WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
After a while, Death stood up.
OH. IT’S STILL ONGOING. I HATE IT WHEN THEY DO THAT. THEN YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT BIT.
Thinking for a moment.
BUT NO MORT, HMM. I WONDER WHERE HE WENT.
He moved back over to the bookshelf, looking for his apprentice’s book. He couldn’t find it.
A PROBLEM WITH THE LIBRARY … OR HE TOOK IT WITH HIM … HMM.
Searching for another book that seemed active, he opened it to the page that was writing itself.
KU ECCA. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT FOR ME?
A brief disturbance in the air, followed by a ‘pop’, and Death was gone. The book fell to the floor with a bang, staying open on the page Death had been reading.

Ku wandered along the shelves of a library. He wasn’t sure how he’d got there.
Hwep and him had been in Phandalin, in their castle – but the cultists had turned on them.
Not a surprise, really. Some betrayal, but Ku supposed that wasn’t fair. Cultists are like sunflowers; they point at the biggest personality.
He looked around himself. Books, and that seemed to be about it. Basically to the horizon … how was that even possible?
He moved towards t5he area in his visiuon he would ordinarily have called the horizon – where the bookshelves that were at least even vaguely defined became an all-encompassing void in the distance.
“So we’ve found the breach,” he heard a voice explaining. He moved carefully towards it.
“What did you find? Were you transported somewhere?” A different voice – deeper. Ku couldn’t see them yet, but they were getting louder.
“Hello?” He called out – and the conversation abruptly stopped.
“Who are you?” The second voice called out, Ku could also hear shushing noises.
“My name’s Ku,” Ku replied as though that would make a difference.
“Never heard of you.” A third voice, female. Slightly rude, if Ku was honest.
“How’d you get here?” The first voice, more kindly.
“Well …” Ku ran through the next sentence in his mind. It didn’t make him look good. “So, I ran a cult …”
He continued explaining the betrayal of his underlings, with the full attention of the three people, who had since come into view. They were seated around a pile of papers in the middle of the floor, but he stayed standing. “And they got hold of a special sword that was magical.”
“At a guess, it caused you to travel here.” The first voice had introduced itself as ‘Calima’.
“Would you know where my brother is, or how to find him?”
“What does he look like? We might be able to track his movement based on the hole he left.”
“Could we?”

Dwyfol and Mort lived in close proximity – not like there was much choice. Mort was currently working on the – for want of a better term – eastern wing of Existence, so hopefully soon Dwyfol wou8ld have his own space.
He was slightly confused about how a young man of no more than thirty had managed to make and power a whole plane of existence.
In fact, he’d tried to ask about it.
Mort would happily explain what his brave new world was going to look like, but any direct questions about the actual … life force of the plane, Mort would dodge, or just plain ignore.
After a week of this dance, and on Dwyfol’s last shred of patience, Mort snapped. So, his last shred of patience also.
“You want to know how it’s powered?” Mort snapped. “Come.”
He led Dwyfol into a small hut, where the majority of the construction work took place from. To Dwyfol’s surprise, a staircase led down.
Dwyfol hadn’t been aware there was a ‘down’.
Reaching the end of a passage, Mort opened a door, and led Dwyfol into a cavern, that, much like Dwyfol had theorised, was very tall, but narrow, only underneath a fraction of the plane.
A being seemed to be wired into the surface of the plane itself, with white cables connectionmg spindly arms into the white ceiling of the chamber.
Dwyfol heard the being speak before he could even see their features
OW. HOLDING UP THE WORLD, EH? IS THIS WHAT IT’S COME TO.
“Quick question,” Dwyfol asked Mort, staring in amazement at the creature. “Is that Death?”

“Ow”. Hwep looked down at the glowing sword that had caused his brother to disappear only moments before.
He held his breath, not that he needed to, as the world went black.
Well, that’s it then. He could recall himself thinking as he slipped away.
A beat of quiet in the darkness.
Then light. Many robed figures moving around him, chanting. Adding items to his forehead, then removing them again. He heard one of the men mention that ‘we pulled it in, whatever it is’.
He lurched upright. “Stay back!”
The chanting abruptly stopped. The room of robed – they looked like mages rather than cultists, now that Hwep had succeeded in taking the room by surprise, he realised it wasn’t necessary – men looked at him expectantly.
A portal in the centre of the room started to pulsate.
“It’s not supposed to do that!” One of the wizards moved towards the portal and began an incantation to shut it down.
Calima, Hannibur, Stephone and Ku tumbled through the portal before it closed with a snap.
Calima bolted upright, similar to Hwep. “We’re friends!”
“That’s one way to do it.” Hwep inspected the new arrivals and helped his brother up off the floor. “So, they got us both.”
“Yes, but why? We were good to them.” Ku seemed confused.
“Someone else must have been better.”
Leaving the family reconciliation to the side for a moment, Calima addressed the remaining wizards. “We noticed breaches in the fabric of reality – we need your help.”
“Inter-planar travel, yes?” One of the wizards seemed wizened, and good at administration tasks, like he’d been there before.
“Yeah, we’re from Ankh-Morpork. Where are we?”
“This is the Mage’s tower in Stormwind City. Don’t think I’ve heard of an ‘Ankh-Morpork’ before.”
“On the Discworld.”
“Oh.” The wizard’s tone carried a certain level of judgement.
“We don’t have time. Help us find a way to fix the hole in reality. The boundaries between worlds are falling apart.”
Stephone spoke up. “I have an idea. Do we have a portal to the realm of Death?”
The wizards indicated a portal that was barred by magic. “Yes, but we stopped ourselves from going there. It’s not right.”
“Just this once?” Stephone flashed her ‘Necromancers’ Anonymous’ card, and the wizards nodded.
“I see.”
Calima didn’t even wait for the portal to be unlocked before starting the incantation.
“Is there anything you need us to do?”
“Just try not to get us all killed.” Ku replied for Calima, who was still chanting.
The portal opened, and Calima swept through, taking the rest of the adventurers with him.
“What an odd group of people.” One of the wizards straightened his hat. “Lunch?”

Dwyfol was left alone in his room to watch the world materialise around him. At least he had a room now. In the last few days, Mort had become more concerned with the operation of his plane and how it would be run – so he’d created a swarm of undead minions that were content to follow every one of Mort’s orders.
He didn’t see or hear much, but the ghouls seemed to whisper about disobedience, and that they would be terminated.
They set up a daily prayer ritual, which seemed to speed up the construction of the plane – and helped Mort ferry materials and components from the portal back to reality into the construction hut. The white surface of the plane was starting to become dirty with tracks of footprints.
Dwyfol didn’t question it initially – but after a further week of watching chores be done by ghouls and hearing their tales of potential ramifications – he snuck into the chamber under the world.
YOU CAME BACK. Even in pain, Death had time for snark.
“It’s not right.”
NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS RIGHT
“So why do you put up with it?”
I HAVE TO TEACH HIM SOMEHOW
“And this is your best idea?”
HE WANTED TO CONTROL. HE NEEDS TO LEARN WHY THAT DOESN’T WORK.
“But there are lives at stake!”
LOOK AT YOU, CARING ABOUT OTHERS.
Dwyfol thought back to his army of bugbears. “Oh.”
OH, INDEED. SO THE QUESTION IS, MR MORALS, WHAT YOU WANT TO DO ABOUT IT.
“I can’t bring the bears back …”
NOT ABOUT YOUR DUMB BEARS. THIS IS ABOUT SAVING MORT FROM HIMSELF.
“But what do I do?”

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Chapter 3: Burn The House Down

In which the bad gets worse

Ku’s life story lay on the ground, untouched from Death’s reading. A gentle breeze had blown through, shifting the page the book was open to, the page just turning as Calima materialised.
“Why are you not on the shelf?” He asked the book absentmindedly.
“I can’t be sure, but I think Death was reading that one.” Stephone showed up behind Calima.
Calima hadn’t noticed. “Huh, that’s an interesting voice for a book to have – almost sounds like Stephone – oh, hi.”
“I was summoned here and the place seemed to have been left in a mess.”
“That might explain why – if Death was pulled away in the middle of something, then we might really be in trouble.”
Hannibur had frozen, staring out the window. “Hey, guys … those sand men weren’t there before, were they?”
“Sand? Could be a hold-over from the problem with the hourglasses that we stopped.”
“Oh, right,” Stephone browsed along the shelves for a moment, finding a normal shaped timer marked ‘Calima’. “At least your timer is back to normal.”
“How do you know so much about all this?”
“I got promoted by Death after our last thing, Serian and I barely even made it to the village we were heading for and he offered me a position. Then all this …” She glazed over for a moment, as though struggling to focus. “Sorry, I’m trying to be in two planes at once. Need to keep this whole … situation together.”
Calima’s interest was piqued. “Two planes? Here and where?”
Stephone answered after another fraught pause. “The plane of Ixalan. It was the last thing he said.”
Hundreds of sand men milling around outside had gathered around the main door, and the mosh-pit effect had taken hold. The door began to creak, pulling the party out of their explanations.
“They’ll breach the door soon. Do we know where we’re going?”

A day after the conversation between Death and Dwyfol had taken place, and Dwyfol knew what he had to do.
Mort had managed to build himself and Dwyfol a large house.
“You keep saying you needed security … but, without putting too fine a point on it – how?”
“I just do, okay?” Mort snapped. Toi be fair to Mort, Dwyfol had interrupted his working. To be fair to Dwyfol, there was no alternative.
The number of ghouls had increased along with the size of the house, with the gossip and rumour intensifying. Dwyfol was beginning to get the idea, and this was why he had asked, that he wasn’t there to keep other people out of the realm – he was keeping the subordinates in it.
“My family …”
“Will stay alive as long as you do what I say.” No room for argument, even though Dwyfol barely knew what the purpose of his stay was.
Mort didn’t provide any answers – moving back to the problem he was debugging.
“Have you tried resetting it?” Dwyfol didn’t even know what ‘it’ was. But that often worked.
Mort replied sarcastically. “Oh, yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Tried it already.” He quickly unplugged a device that connected to several cables leading into the floor. Dwyfol hoped Death was, at least, comfortable.
A small buzzing sound, and Mort straightened up, satisfied.
“Hmm. Seems to have fixed it.”

As Hannibur reinforced the door against thee incoming horde, Stephone continued her story.
“Death handed over his responsibilities to me, at pain of the collapse of reality.”
Calima could see the detail in the faces of some of the closest sandmen -- they looked, to Calima’s experienced and well-travelled eye to be corpses from the Agatean empire. He looked at the remains of clothing that had been imprinted on to the sand structure of the men’s bodies. A war in the Agatean Empire.
But there hasn’t been one of those in …
Hannibur cut the thought off. “They’re breaching through. I don’t think I can hold them.”
“These are soldiers …” Calima said out loud.
“From Klatch?” Hannibur grunted with effort, but still had enough breath to reply.
“No, a different war.”
“Are they cultists?” Ku piped up
“Look like soldiers – we don’t have time for this; we need out of here – now!” Hannibur’s homemade door reinforcements started to crack.
Calima yelled the incantation, sending the five adventurers back into L-Space.
Once they had recovered, he explained. “This looks like it was arranged by someone that didn’t really know what they were doing.”
“And the sand men?”
“They’re just sand, they’re not a threat to the structure of reality, not like –” Calima looked at Stephone, “if you weren’t heling as Death right now.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘thank you very much.”
The discussion was interrupted again, this time by a loud clatter as a structure that seemed to be a pile pf pans materialised.
“Thanks for the escape. I thought for sure I’d get crushed by the sand.” The pans straightened out to become … Calima had learned from a book that the term for these was … automaton.
“You were dead?”
“Yeah, Gitrogg minions got me once a while back. Didn’t want to die twice. Name’s Goblin, which is funny ‘cos I’m not one.”
“Hah.”
“Died once as a ritual sacrifice, then again to the Gitrogg, technically. So it would be third time lucky for me.”
“Yes, lucky. That’s what I’d call that.” Hannibur stated sarcastically.
Calima had noticed that Goblin seemed … different to everything else around him, on a magical level. “What plane were you from?”
“Innistrad.”
Stephone looked at Goblin in surprise at the mention of Innistrad. “That’s where the biggest breach is. I was following it, learning more …”
“Yeah, we probably need to talk to them.”
“Already working on it, we can check in.”
“Can I come – see if my friends are still involved like they were? I’m rooting for a guy called Balliuus.”

Mort could almost keep it straight in his head. Not quite, but pretty close. He needed to keep Death happy, Dwyfol in the dark and the rest of the idiots he’d created to run the place … in line. Easy, right? But then a system would fail. An alarm would go off. Something would be wrong. And he’d have to fix it, all while still juggling all of the previous things like they were easy.
This time, the line to Death’s heating unit had become non-existent – he’d over-extended himself on creating the plane’s surface, and lost some of the internal workings of the thing.
Ironically, Mort mused to himself, the sandmen were asking if he needed help. Which he did, and they were providing, by keeping the world maintained. But not by keeping it running.
He let a sandman take over holding the cable he was working on, and watched as the man crumbled to dust.
No, they could not help him. Not like this.
Dwyfol observed from the staircase leading into the Chamber of Life (apparently that was its Sandman-Gossip name).
He wasn’t sure what Mort’s goal was. But the plan itself, from what he’d seen so far, looked like a mess.
This can’t be right. He stopped himself. I did this …
Then, after a moment, headed back to his room.
If he got back to his family, he had a series of apology letters to write. And … no. He thought of brainwashing the bugbears, but in reverse. But no, that wasn’t the way.

On Ixalan, Calima and the assembled company of pots, angels, birds, orcs and elves stood on a beach. Not much else to report, there was sand, and the ocean, a boat, and some people. Okay, myaybe there was a few things to report.
“I recognise the one on the boat. Who’s he with?” Goblin was the first to speak.
“My competition,” Stephone had clocked the masked woman on the deck of the boat – but didn’t know who the others were.
“Can you make out what they’re saying?” Goblin tightened a makeshift eyeglass around one of his … makeshift eyes. Not wait9ing for a reply, “Well …” Goblin concentrated – and repeated to the party what he could reads off the lips of the Matron of Ravens and Balliuus.
“It seems like they’re also concerned with … the planes … breaking, yes, breaking … down, and the spread of the, wait what’s that last one – oh, disease.”
Stephone looked crestfallen. “Death’s been taking advantage of us.”
Hannibur saw her downcast expression. “At least we can leave them to it? This plan seems to be okay.”
“Wait a moment,” Goblin manufactured a tin ear out of nowhere. “I can hear them now.”
“Emrakul – or Emeria, or whatever -- and her release from the Helvault ripped a hole in reality.”
“Oh, so we need to fix it.”
“There are a few teams, but this one is the best.”
“So what do we do?”
“Come with me.” The four standing on the shoreline got on the boat. The smallest, a kobold, was patted on the shoulder in a seemingly reassuring manner by the tall one that looked like a changeling.
“They seem to be going. Should we?” Calima was already casting the portal.
Stephone sniffed. “I guess. But if I ever see that idiot bone man again …”
“You mean bonehead.” Hannibur got the last word in before the group of five returned to L-Space.

↑

Chapter 4: Adventure Is Out There

In which the journey reaches its destination

Mort was startled awake by an alarm going off. He hadn’t noticed it for the first few weeks of his construction, but they’d become more frequent. This specific one meant something had been dislodged in his cellar. That was the polite phrase for the place he’d put Death.
YOU KNOW, YOU COULD JUST ADMIT YOU DON’T KNOW. Death was always so judgemental. And he seemed more so these days.
To be fair, Death’s view was that if you didn’t know what you were doing, someone would be happy to show you.
“I know what’s gone wrong.”
BUT DO YOU KNOW HOW NOT TO MAKE SILLY MISTAKES
“Quiet, old man.”
AGE DOES NOT APPLY TO ME.
Mort tutted, unplugged a wire that had gotten into the wrong place and re-plugged it in. One of the devices in the roof beeped at him.
“Now it’s asking for a name …” he muttered.
FOR ALL THE BEINGS THAT DON’T HAVE NAMES WHEN THE WORLD RESETS
“I know what it’s for. The world won’t reset – look,” he removed the device from its storage position and typed a name in theatrically, as though he was proving a point. He wasn’t.
Death read the name before the device was placed back on its shelf. John Cena.

Calima steadied himself against a bookshelf. He always needed a moment after these to get his energy back. The others fared worse – Goblin needed to reattach a pan that had come loose, Hwep and Ku landed on top of each other in a heap and rolled several feet, enough to slam with some force into another shelf.
Ow. The books didn’t actually feel pain, Calima thought – but maybe they did.
Hannibur and Stephone both tried to pretend they hadn’t just broken all of the rules of reality at the same time. Unfortunately, the only thing anyone was convinced of was that walking on legs that weren’t ready for the weight left you in a heap on the ground.
“So, what do we know …” Calima mused, after catching his breath and helping everyone else back upright or to be sure that they had the correct number of limbs.
“Well, half of these people shouldn’t be here,” Hannibur added.
“Hey!” Ku and Hwep took the same outrage at the same time.
“Not like that – but the planes need to be closed so that nobody can travel through.” Stephone tried to mediate – not necessarily succeeding.
“And a guy we met a couple of times has constructed his own world.” Calima continued, almost like he hadn’t noticed. “As for closing the planes … I’m not sure how that would work.”
“But at least we’re agreed on the next step?” Stephone asked without confirming what the next step ought to be.
“We need to give that guy a piece of our minds.”
“So you’d all want to go there? It could be dangerous.”
“Here’s dangerous, just start the spell already.” Ku stepped forward.
“Okay, sure. If we’re all in. Let’s go.”

Mort felt the disturbance again. He could have sworn they were getting closer together, not least because he’d felt one only this morning.
YOUR RECKONING IS COMING, YOU KNOW.
“Shut up, old man.” That seemed to be Mort’s standard response. If he were the thinking sort, he would have known Death was right – but he never bothered to sit and think anywhere near enough.
Dwyfol had heard this, too. He’d taken to keeping a close eye on Death, if only to see what Mort’s plans were. Nobody else had any real idea, and all Dwyfol had gotten so far was that Death was stabilising the plane and stopping it from disintegrating.
Rookie plan at best, he thought as he leaned back into the shadows as Mort charged back up the stairs. After a safe amount of time, he made his own way down the stairs.
“Is it time?”
NOT YET. YOU’LL KNOW IT WHEN YOU SEE IT.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
A FUN HAT? HONK, HONK.
“Sure, sounds good. I’ll see what I can find.”
Dwyfol headed back up the stairs, and accepted a proffered hat at the top of the staircase. Without thinking that it would have been offered by somebody, he headed back down and gave it to Death. On his way back up the stairs again, Mort blocked his path.
“Traitor.”

There seemed to be only two shades of existence. The white of the ground met the endless black of the sky – nothing in between. Calima was impressed, in a way. Mort had built all of this in only a few weeks. In the distance, he could still see the edge – but far off, and getting further by the minute. Looking the other way, he noted the arrivals of everyone else in the assembled group – with Goblin Ramsay managing to keep himself together this time, as well as an imposing house in the distance. That must be the base of operations.
“So, how do we get in?”
A gnomish man ran across the flat surface of the plane. “Get away – you don’t want to be here – oh, it’s you.” He noticed Hwep and Ku, and stopped running.
“Dwyfol?”
“Hi. Got here by accident, no time, he’ll make me kill you – go now …”
Calima added thoughtfully, “what if that’s the point?”
Dwyfol seemed confused for a second. “You want to be kidnapped – oh.” He knew it when he saw it. Now it was time.

Mort saw the guests’ arrival, noticing that the alarm that had gone off intermittently. “Huh, so it is to do with planar travel.”
He made his way down to Death’s chamber to reset the alarm, with Dwyfol showing up there too; his band of captives spilling all the way up the staircase.
“Boss, I found some people trying to get in.”
“Why aren’t they dead?”
Stephone had shouldered her way to the front. “You!”
Mort seemed scared for a fraction of a second, then realised the anger was not aimed at him, but instead past him, at Death.
“How many of us were there?”
Death seemed almost to wilt under her tone – which might have been impressive but for the fact that he had already been sapped of energy for the last few weeks.
BIG JOBS NEED MANY --
“But I thought I was special!”
ONLY A FEW PEOPLE IN THE –
“No! You’re just like the others. Promise exclusivity, deliver mediocrity. Let’s go – leave this … thing … to whatever this is.” She’d said the words already before realising what they meant. Calima leapt forward. “That would destabilise reality.”
“So will freeing him.” Mort spoke, as though he hadn’t thought of the plan.
“So what do you recommend doing, genius. And why did you put us in this mess?”
Mort looked at his shoes. “I didn’t think …”
THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.
“I just thought that since we could travel between planes that we should …”
“But you never stopped to think about whether you should.” Hannibur put on his best teacher voice.
“I think I have a plan,” Calima stated, and got everyone in the room’s attention.
“Oh?”
“We let the world die. And hope like hell you’re good enough at travelling to jump between dimensions. Then after we pick where we’re going – I can close the portals.”
“But I won’t be able to travel any more.”
“Well, yes. Because you’ve been really good at it so far.”
“But the world is crap …”
“You think I don’t know that? The answer is to fix the one you had. Not make a new one.”
Mort looked Calima in the eye for the first time. Not least because he was craning his neck to do so. “
So, then …” he moved across to Death’s prison, and unplugged several wires. “Be free!”
“No!” Calima and Hannibur both tried to stop Mort – both failing as the smaller man fished about in cables.
The world went … wrong. Stopped existing might be a stronger word, but only for a fraction of a second, then it was back – with a far smaller house and grey ground.
YOU’VE REALLY MADE A MESS NOW. The voice of Death came from behind Mort, who turned to notice that he’d been freed.
Mort seemed actively terrified now. “Wh- What do I do?” He realised he was holding the glowing sword. “Would – would this … work?”
WHAT YOU DO NOW IS YOUR BEST. JUST DO YOUR BEST.
Mort sighed. “Unhelpful.”
Death looked down at the sword that seemed to be protruding from his torso.
AH.
He disappeared leaving Mort and Calima’s group of misfits stranded on a shrinking plane in the middle of the void.

↑

Chapter 5: Everybody's Changing

In which a mess is made

Hannibur didn’t panic until the ground disappeared from beneath his feet. He could have sworn his feet never left the ground, though. He could see Calima would, for a moment, float in space at the same times as he was – but the grou7nd returned soon enough.
Calima sighed. “Of course you just did that. Come on.” He grabbed Mort by the scruff of his neck and pulled him through the void.
The others held on for dear life. Or lives, whichever seems more appropriate.
Oh no, Calima thought as he felt his concentration slipping, I can’t keep this lot together.
He saw visions in the fog. Himself as he knew he had grown up – small child in a large family, barely enough money to feed the household, so every penny of it that had been spent on him had to be used well. He was never an untidy child, but his clothes were not new; his studies miles ahead of everyone else his age because he felt it his responsibility to provide in any way he could. But he always wanted to be somewhere else. The fog shifted around Calima as he travelled, showing him a potential future as a Patrician of Ankh-Morpork or head of the Unseen University, as well as the many places he’d visited in the past – either by will or because of the magic he studied.
Hwep and Ku saw similar visions – themselves as family men (with their parents around the childhood nest, and then with their own partners in their own nests (less well-kept than their parents).
Stephone saw her son in the void, playing with his childhood toys as a toddler, and while he waited in their new home, for her to come back from … this … adventure. She barely had time to register that she was seeing Serian’s present before it was snatched from her.
Dwyfol saw his family too – his wife and daughter in the castle awaiting his return and keeping themselves occupied trying to stem the influence of the Cult of the Dragon – and his sons, all the Lasairs, in their present situations, where possible, and some hypothetical futures. Although he saw his dragonborn son, Lasair in a new world or black and white, covered in sand as he lay, just resting. That couldn’t be real.
Goblin had always wondered where he’d come from, and the Universe felt compelled to oblige. He saw a fight in a kitchen of a castle – a few tieflings and a dwarf were there, but the main … work, if you like … was done by … a gnome. He knew that gnome … the gnome cut down a whole family of goblins as they cooked and ate; then seemed to move on with his day, despite the shock and horror from everyone else in his group. So he was descended from a line of chefs. The view changed, and Goblin was on a bench of some kind, with a guy leaning over him. There were other half-human-half-robot creations on the desk as well, or at least pieces. From what Goblin could tell, this guy was called ‘Master’. One of the other creations seemed to be called ‘Clayton’ – but Goblin couldn’t really make it out.
Goblin’s view cleared once more, and he pushed onwards through the fog.

Calima hated how used to the method of travelling he’d gotten. Mostly because he’d also gotten used to his previous, slightly cursed, method – which involved passing out and ending up somewhere totally random by complete chance. He’d preferred that until only recently – you didn’t have any responsibility over the destination when nobody ion the world knew what you were up to.
But, alas. Time to get a new routine.
He barely even skipped a step as the travel dropped the group, now including Mort, back in the library.
“I have a question,” Mort gasped in between retches. “I think I made a mistake.”
“That’s not a question.” Calima looked down at the clearly incompetent man.
“I thought I could do it …”
“And?”
“There was a … name. It seemed to be needed.”
“What did you make it?” Calima knew about Displacement Names – some planes had names like ‘Jane Doe’ to identify the … he always hated putting it this way … people who slipped through the cracks.
“I chose John Cena.”
“After the wrestler?” Calima wasn’t sure how he knew that.
“Sure.” Mort had never even interrogated how he knew it either and wasn’t about to start. “Thing is though …”
“Everyone seems to have made holes in the universe by poking at it – first the Cult of the Dragon, then that disease that got through from Innistrad, then …”
“I still need to figure out what to tell all the parents …” Hannibur managed to get himself upright, was propping Stephone up with one meaty hand, and Goblin with the other. Ku and Hwep seemed involved in some kind of bizarre three legged race that involved four legs behaving totally independently of each other.
“I would say the disease didn’t spread if they all died.” Calima was just guessing.
“Yeah, but why did they all die? Was that something those people on the plane of Ixalan had done?” Hwep asked the question that would have been on everyone’s minds, if anyone had possession of them.
“We’ll never know.”
“Why?”
“Because this has to stop. The travelling is getting worse, I don’t know about you guys …” Calima surveyed the damage as the group of six clustered around him. It almost seemed that the books were leaning towards him. “I was getting visions of alternate lives. And that’s never happened before. The tears in the void are too big now. We need to close them.”
Mort seemed distraught, which was ironic. “How?”
“Pick a reality, we’re surrounded by a lot.”
“Yeah, now you mention it, this is kind of like the portal room in that city, where …” Hannibur nudged Hwep – or thought he did – and sent the winged man back to the ground, “we met -- Oops.”
Stephone didn’t seem convinced. “So, just pick a world and jump through? Would that mean I was the only assistant to Death in this world?”
“What do you have against the other woman – she seemed nice.” Goblin thought hiding your face with a mask was a sign of good character.
“Well, I got visions too, if you must know. In some universes I got the promotion and in some the … Matron did.”
“Right, and you want to win.”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Calima found a book at random, “no time like the present. Start studying.”
Without even opening the book, he lobbed it at Mort.
The entire library, books included, seemed to stop and Hwep could swear he heard an audible ‘oooooooooh’ noise from the books.

Mort’s view changed abruptly when Calima picked a book of a shelf and threw it at him.
WELCOME BACK. That voice. Mort wasn’t sure whether he hated or loathed it. After some thought, he decided it was fine.
“How’d I get here?”
DON’T WORRY – NOW YOU KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO. Death started a new lecture, secure in the knowledge that his pupil was actually listening this time. They always listened after the first incursion.
“So what now? Do they still need help?”
YES. THEY ALWAYS WILL.
“So what can I do?”
DECIDE. The force and finality of this sentence stopped Mort cold.
“Decide?”
WHAT YOU WANT TO BE. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WERE, HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU MIGHT BE. NOW YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE.
“But what if I’m wrong?”
I DIDN’T SAY IT WAS FAST. YOU’LL NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FIRST.
“And then, let me guess, years of research?”
“PRETTY MUCH. YOU COULD GET IT DOWN TO A FEW MILENNIA, THOUGH.
“When do I start?”
NOW.
“How do I start?”
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY.

Calima looked at the book as it thumped on to the floor of the library.
Wait a minute … He hadn’t expected Mort to disappear completely.
He picked up the book, heavier than it had seemed when he threw it.
We could all fit in these …
The books on the shelves around him seemed to agree.
Yesssssssss.
“I have a plan to close the holes in reality. But we have to pick a side.” Calima explained his plan, carefully, ensuring that everyone understood. The band of six separated slightly, going to the shelves to find the books they would use. By sheer force of will, they reassembled at the main lounge of the library.
“So you have the right books?”
“Our life ones, yeah.”
“Nice.” The Unseen University library had a copy of every book – written or not – even the copy of the book was technically located somewhere else.
Ku and Hwep jumped into the same book, which looked at first like it might have hurt. But they seemed to have fun – and weren’t around afterwards, so someone else’s problem presumably.
Goblin asked for Hannibur’s help to be thrown full speed at his book – he wasn’t convinced he could jump at all, let alone high enough. Luckily for him – Hannibur had launched him face first – the first attempt was successful.
Dwyfol seemed sad. “Can I guarantee my family will be there when I get where I’m going?”
“You picked your book, yeah?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t always …” The quiet part left unsaid.
“Ah. Then you just have to hope that they found you anyway.”
“Right. Suppose I’ve got to do this, then.” Dwyfol jumped into the book and disappeared.
“Right lads.” Calima looked at the two remaining party members. “Who’s next?”
“Do we have to? We’re all from here.”
“But,” Calima gestured at the library, “where is here? We belong in liminal spaces. I’ve never had a home, ever.”
“So you want to jump?”
“As opposed to stay – certainly.”
“Then you take it away.”
Calima jumped. Call it a leap of faith. He had to assume the others followed suit.

↑

Chapter 6: Somewhere Only We Know

In which the past gaslights the future

Calima and Hannibur could have sworn their feet were sore. But why? They were just falling through nothingness. They would reach where they needed to be eventually.

Callum liked his apartment in the centre of town. Being woken up by four competing clock towers all ringing at the same time was a slight downside. To add a fifth noise to the cacophony, his phone was also ringing. He really should set that thing to silent. Or throw it in the river, or something.
“Yes, Harrison?”
“Did you have the dream?” Callum’s co-worker Harrison was a teacher at the University in town. At the current time, Callum was a library assistant, freshly back from his OE – but that would change over time.
“You mean the dragons and cults and disease and the world’s falling apart one?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Do you want to talk about it?” A shot in the dark – Callum didn’t normally talk about his dreams. But there was something in Harrison’s voice.
They walked around the University halls musing on whether any of the dream meant anything.
“I reckon we leave it for now.”
“Until we get it again or whatever. Like, normally dreams are just your brain spitting out half-baked nonsense.”
“Yeah, absolutely, no need to panic about it.”
They had ended up at the library, and Callum realised he had some shelving to do.
As he worked through this, their discussion continued, until Calima noticed a book with an ornate multicoloured dagger on the front. The whole book was glowing -- couldn’t be missed.
“Huh …”
Harrison looked at the cover. “That looks like the dagger that sent people to different …”
“Yeah …”
“Maybe we need to worry after all.”

Balliuus and Dhanytt were having a conversation with the Matron of Ravens. Then the whole world disappeared – dissolving into blackness one element at a time.

Dane woke up with a jump. That had been scary. At least his brother Barry had been there. He scrambled out of bed and raced to the next room, only partially colliding with his bedroom door in his rush to open it.
“Barry! Barry!” Dane jumped on his older brother’s bed. “Wake up! Wake up!”
The older boy rubbed his eyes. “Don’t tell me, it’s Christmas morning, like it was yesterday and the day before.” He looked at the much smaller, younger boy – who seemed concerned.
“What’s the matter?”
“You were in the dream … did you have it too?”
Barry managed to calm his four-year-old brother down, they sat and discussed the dream. After a few minutes of realising they had in fact shared a dream and repeating each other’s talking points, Barry suggested they write it down.
“Let’s go to the computer … we’ll have a better record that way.”
“You’ll have to switch it on. I never know what the password is.”
The turned the machine on, and Barry noticed the username. “Goblin Ramsay? Did you change this?”
“Yeah,” Dane grinned cheekily.
Barry laughed and filled in the details, which hadn’t changed.
“So, let’s start again from the beginning …”
They continued to narrate the story – as a voice cut through their concentration. “What are you boys doing?”
“Don’t worry Matron – we’re just writing about our dreams.” Barry felt a little stupid saying that, but the Matron had told him that he needed to make space for Dane. They were all each other had – which is why the Matron had taken them both in.
“Breakfast’s nearly ready. Then time for learning.” She home-schooled the two kids, then worked during the night.
The kids hadn’t yet noticed the amount of effort that required. “Okay, mum.”
The Matron (named Raven, for anyone who was interested) was always a little taken aback when the kids referred to her as Mum. But she supposed she’d earnt it. Sometimes she wondered.
The boys had moved on. “This computer’s never let me down.”
“Goblin.” Dane corrected.
“Goblin Ramsay’s never let me down. Trusty metal man.” Only half joking – this computer was old.
The boys continued to write until the whole dream was down on paper. Barry wondered for just a moment whether it would be important.

The last thing Mort remembered was a wizard throwing a book at him. Then he fell through nothing, and out the other side …

Martin awoke to a text message – a delivery at the mortuary he worked at. His bosses, Raven and Peter would have wanted to know something like that – so he’d tell them when he woke up. But, just five more minutes.
His boss was very good at letting him learn things – but quite sharp with the lessons. He wouldn’t appreciate being asked to repeat anything. It was always better to ask an unnecessary question than leave out a necessary one, though.
He texted Peter; ‘Sorry for this, could you recap everything we learnt so far? Not now, obviously, but later. Oh, and the package arrived.’
Then he put his phone down and went back to sleep. He never checked to see if the text had been sent; he knew what Peter would say anyway – he’d scowl and warn him to listen properly, then do the lesson anyway.
A shame he didn’t check, really. The message failed to send.

Dwyfol felt true despair as he jumped into his book. Then true helplessness as he fell forever.

Dwight woke as the sun rose. He lived in a small chamber off the side of his church. Held modest sermons every week. A small audience that wasn’t leaving was a good investment – he knew that, but always wanted it to be bigger. He liked to think he was doing good. But the dream … he wasn’t sure any more. His son came around with breakfast every day. This was part of the thing about being … smaller than the average person – sometimes you needed a little (pardon the pun) extra help.
His son, Lawrence, showed up an hour later with the shopping. Lawrence … did his best with what he’d been given. He wasn’t a dwarf, but he had a bizarre way of looking at things (oversimplistic, some might call it), that had always worried Dwyfol. He’d never seen the point in the church, for one – and seemed to be living his best life that way.
Dwight missed the boy’s mother terribly. She’d been killed in a fire some years back. He had a shrine to her in the back of the church, leaving offerings there every day.
Maybe someday she’ll forgive me. Dwight thought to himself.
He sat with his son and ate some of the food.
“Dad, did you have a dream last night?” Dwight might normally have been confused by this, but Lawrence’s tone suggested that yes, he had in fact.
“My friends were all talking about it in the group chat – we’re meeting up later if you wanted to come?”
“I don’t really need to talk about my dreams – which friends?”
“The new kids – there’s Klaus and a girl that goes by Crow, but that’s not her name – and a guy that’s like you that goes by K.”
“Like me?”
“Little,” Lawrence said innocently.
“What are they all saying about the dream?”
“Be fucked up if it were real, mostly. Then they were talking about how the Government is a mess, and how Crow just dyed her hair. Klaus is my favourite though. He makes time for me.”
“They sound like a good group,” Dwight said absentmindedly. He opened a book on the table without reading the cover, and flicked to a page at the end. Somehow, the book was still writing itself. Dwyfol and Lasair sit down to breakfast, then talk about Klagen, Crow and K’Churlat.
He decided not to mention that to his son. No need to give the boy ideas.
As for his own ideas – maybe he owed his congregation some apologies.

Stephone wanted to see her son as she jumped through the book. This wasn’t her normal mode of travel – but she got used to it easily enough. Falling through the void …

Stephanie woke up tangled up in the sheets of her bed - like she’d been moving around a lot in her sleep.
“Serian?”
“Yes, Mum?” A small voice from the next room.
“I thought you might be out, that’s all.”
She left the boy to his own devices, as she grabbed a book off her bedside table. She’d probably have to remember what it was the dream had said … wait … there, it was all there already. No need to write anything down.
Every last detail.
She scrutinised the page. Not made of special paper. Not going to cause a problem. Surely.
She laid the book down.
A small scratching noise, somewhere in the room. Silence. Another scratch. She picked up the book. A page had been added.
Bizarre. But who needs to know?

Ku and Hwep grabbed on to each other as they fell through the void. Unluckily for Hwep, he’d ended up the wrong way around, so Ku found himself grabbing a knee and hoping for the best.

Kaleb and Hugh shared a room. They lived well, they swore. But they absolutely needed to get out of their parents’ basement. Go travelling or something.
After discussing the nightmare that – after a quick check of their phones – it seemed like everyone in the world had also shared, they moved on to other administrative business.
“Did you hear back from the application you submitted?”
“To the weird job that has its office in that castle – not yet. I’m focussing on getting my pilot’s licence at the moment.”
Kaleb sometimes forgot that Hugh wanted to fly. “Oh, right – have you flown at all recently?”
“Did a bit last week, but it’s all finding the time. What with mum and dad needing us to make the money, it’s hard, you know …”
Kaleb had tried to prioritise this side of the family upkeep so that Hugh didn’t have to – but increasingly it seemed that he had failed and working was one of Hugh’s problems too.
“There were parts of that dream that were nice, though.”
“The coach was all right. But they seemed like they wanted us dead. So, also scary.”
“I meant the parts we were together for, dumbass.”
“Oh yeah, and those.”
“We should check on Clayton.”
“Yeah, but he’ll be fine, you know. He has a prosthetic arm, not a faulty brain.”
“Even so. What kind of world would you rather? One where we checked and he was fine – or one where we didn’t, whether he was fine or not?”
“True.” Hugh pulled out his phone. “Oh, there’s already a message here.”
‘Dante and I down at the pub, come hang out.’
“Oh, I got the same message from Clayton – we should head out. Sounds like they’re there already.”

Dochas and William watched the world freeze. For a fraction of a second, they looked at each other – wondering where Balliuus had gone. Then the rest of the world disappeared for the, and they found themselves falling through space.

Dominic and William were the last to arrive at the bar.
“Ayyy, there they are,” a large man called Chad call out from the shared table. They didn’t know a heap about him – but any friend of a friend was good enough.
Everyone at the table turned to look, midway through their catchup. Dwight looked slightly out of place, but Klaus was keeping an eye on him. At the very least, the group of fifteen seemed to amicably occupy the space, even though there were clearly sub-groups.
After the obligatory catchups and everyone had found their places, Callum spoke up.
“That dream, huh?”
The whole table groaned, with a chorus of people asking what it meant.
“I think it means there’s a problem, and we need to be ready when it comes.” Callum’s response didn’t really set the table at ease.
“But what will we do?” William asked, and Barry made his way around the table to where William sat – restarting the separate groups having their own discussions, changing every so often – moving more freely.
At least there would be a plan if there was a problem. Fifteen people will have worked on it.
But, for this exact moment, the assembled group only really seemed concerned about getting the story straight and talking to everyone at the table.
This seemed, at least for the moment, to be a tomorrow problem.

DnD Campaign 6 Notes - A Metaphorical Pile-Up

Contents

Trailer

Outlines

Chapter 1: Karma

Chapter 2: Bend and Break

Chapter 3: Burn The House Down

Chapter 4: Adventure Is Out There

Chapter 5: Everybody's Changing

Chapter 6: Bend and Break

Part 6: A Metaphorical Pile-Up -- Full Chapters

Chapter 1: Karma

Chapter 2: Bend And Break

Chapter 3: Burn The House Down

Chapter 4: Adventure Is Out There

Chapter 5: Everybody's Changing

Chapter 6: Somewhere Only We Know