Knight Moves

"Alright, I'm never time traveling on internal reserves again!" Jake was staring at themselves in the mirror. The last time Jake had travelled back in time was five years ago after the murder of their brother Devlin. The price for that had been 15 years off of their life.

Around that time Jake had been going through a transition process in an attempt to make themselves more androgynous. Unfortunately, for them, the mana in their system had been accelerating the testosterone causing Jake to take on a more masculine look than they were aiming for. They had gotten a ritual found at the Old Modorsburg Library, a lawful neutral demi-reality connected to several other realities, which had given Jake what they wanted by completely rewriting their DNA to be intersex. A good outcome in Jake's opinion, it also happened to take about three inches off their height as well; they'd been 5'4". It took Jake a few months to make peace with being shorter than they use to be.

Jake was convinced that the two major magical events happening so close together influenced the spell towards this price, as nothing in the notes hinted to this as an outcome. Normally most mages will include possible outcomes along with observations on their spell work, at least those mages that survive.

Jake had vowed at that point to not travel back more than around a week and to not do any other major spell work at the same time. Though they would love to say they would never muck about with time again at this point it was looking like they'd been doing this once every 5 years. Adding internal reserves as a qualifier to that vow was going to make any sort of temporal hi-jinks that much harder. Using external mana sources was dicey under the best of circumstances, which is why most mages tended to use them as a last resort.

This time using the time travel ritual had turned Jake part Elven/Draconic. Their guess was quarter-elven and half-dragon combined as their elvish and draconic features weren't nearly as prominent as the half-elves or dragonborn they knew. Still, having golden horns edged in silver and pointed ears was going to take some mental adjustment.

Right, time to go set up the game session with their bandmates. Even though everyone had been expecting to have to skip due to spending Christmas with family and friends they were cool with gaming the day after since it was a Saturday. Jake felt bad about not being able to warn them of the upcoming magical hi-jinks. If they had known obviously they'd have done differently.

Jake had chosen the setting of The Sundering between Elsewhere and Mundus for the game because to most living in the reality of Mundus it is a fairytale of the fey folk sealing the way to Annwn, a spawn of the primordial chaos was threatening to tear both apart, so several mages of different species sacrificed themselves to stop this menace. What they don't realize is that it's a true story. Though the Sidhe and Ban Sidhe didn't seal all the ways to travel as make it harder to travel between realities using only a handful of places.

(Those who live in, or are from, the reality of Elsewhere call the reality that Earth is in Mundus. They wear some kind of glamour, even those who look human, to blend in with the Mundanes.)

This was Jake's first time running a game and they wanted this to be memorable and enjoyable for their friends. They also wanted to be able to share this part of their life and this was a 'loophole' that allowed them to do that. Jake spent most of the next week, after the game, researching the history they based their game on.

One of the interesting things that Jake figured out is the characters the players made would be very solid background support. The group were playing 2^nd level characters and all of them had thought it would be fun to play as a traveling entertainment troop of half-elves, so all first levels were bard. Though each had chosen a different second class to add some color and conflict. The flavor of the campaign had been less Heroes-To-Save-The-Day and more Tales of those caught up in events beyond their control trying to stay alive, get to the next gig and get paid.

This meant, to Jake at least, that the Summon Heroes spell had failed on some level. So it was easy to surmise that one of the mages in the ritual was either incompetent or an agent of chaos. As most mages don't survive to high levels by being incompetent Jake was leaning towards the latter.

A week later Jake walked into the hospital room to see the gobsmacked look of Detective Langridge as their younger self had gone back in time only moments before. "I believe I owe you an explanation Detective." Jake said "Care to join me for lunch, Chez Rollins makes pretty decent vegetarian huaraches?." Jake looked at the ceiling for a few moments lost in thoughts "Right got to call Erica," they say fishing their cellphone out of a coat pocket and flipping it open.

"Heyla, Jake.” Erica sounds a little frantic and out of breath “Heyla, listen, would you mind if I bring a friend? I’m running this by you first since I know you’re kind of short on space. If you’re cool with it I’ll run it by the others… Also, are you alright? Jake's mild amusement turns to concern when the silence goes on a little longer than normal "Hello, Erica?" They can almost feel the jolt of back-to-reality that goes through Erica over the phone “Yeah, sure, the more the merrier. I’m fine, getting everything ready for tonight. So, of course, every inanimate object in my house must fight me. Thanks for asking though.” Jake laughs relieved “I hear ya. Anyhoo, gots ta run. Later, gator.” One day soon they were going to tell Erica how they felt about her. "Okay, bye."

A couple of hours later at Jake's apartment... "Let me see if I've got this right" Merrith said "A few months ago someone released a madman from prison and set them after you and your frenemy Lucas, attempting to implicate him in the murder of three women and yourself before Lucas conveniently kills himself. Now two weeks after you've saved both Lucas' and your lives and caught the crazed killer another nutbag has emerged to finish off Lucas and to top it off the Power-that-Be in Elsewhere have targeted your gaming group with the Summon Heroes spell?" Jake nodded "Yup, that about sums it up. Now we have to go round up my band mates as the Powers didn't seem to realize that the spell means literally anywhere, including other realities. Which is probably why it's not been used in at least a couple of millennia."

Pausing for a moment to let that sink in Jake continued "Ludwig, the keyboardist, will probably be the easiest to get; he only lives a couple of blocks from here. Kris and Julia, the bassist and lead singer respectively, both live out towards the northeast just shy of the suburbs. So snagging them both won't take as long. Erica lives the exact opposite direction in the King's Woods suburbs but as I told me to grab her last we'll have to go with that. I already grabbed a van and prepared it to travel through the portal. So unless you've got some other pressing matter let be about this, shall we?." Merrith readily agreed.

As they got to them each band mate was in various stages of transformation to their half-elven characters, with Erica being the most advanced by the time they got to her.

Jake knocked on her door as Merrith rang the doorbell "Geez calm the heck down. Must fight inner imp to mosey or ramble, perhaps even... sashay to the door. Get thee behind me bad William Shatner impression. Ah, the sacrifices I make for others that they'll never know; Should never know?. Note to self, make an appointment with a therapist for soonest possible time; or take a nap.

'Oh thank goodness Jake and friend are the first ones here. Why are they so fuzzy around the edges. I really should have taken that nap. Okay, what the heck is it with Jake and hanging out with hot guys? First Lucas, now blondie here. For someone who may not be into guys they sure seem to attract the hot ones. Why the heck is Jake blushing? Gosh, wow, Hottie McHotness can smirk sexily. That's not fai... hey was he wearing elf ears and I jus' didn' no tiss...hmmm "Hey Jaay Iz thinin sumthins ron hey 'm tie *yawn* rrd nap now... cash."

Jake was already in motion to catch Erica as she passed out thanking themselves for the heads up in the note. She obviously was unaware that her internal monologue was on speaker. While being slightly embarrassed for their friend and themselves Jake was more concerned for the amount of wild magic that Erica was emanating. If they attempted to take her through the portal the consequences could be deadly. There was a way but like the spell the Powers had used it hadn't been attempted in a couple of millennia. Jake told Merrith what they were going to do. He summed it up for Jake nicely "Well, shit."