Whispers on the Line, a Campaign

There comes a point, after a painful reckoning, when there’s only one reasonable path onwards: journeying to a kingdom under the rule of a techno-cult of renegade gnomes.

Meredith knew how patiently Ayo had been waiting to get started on their tabletop roleplay campaign again. She always pitched it right - never bombarded with messages, pushy GIFs, emotional blackmail. When she’d said, ‘I think it’ll help you to get back into it,’ Merry knew she was genuine. But god, that woman was thirsty for a campaign.

How could such an insatiable Game Master be expected to take a hiatus from the thrills of marrying invention with the indifferent fate of a dice roll?

It wasn't as if Ayo needed to wait around for her old friends to get their stuff back together. She had a side hustle in virtual facilitating. Merry didn’t ask why she was so committed to them: players who’d never bothered with backstory (Holly excepted), leaned on the loudest one to do the talking, or let over-consumption of grape juice drown out their creative juice. Merry heard herself think it, and knew she was supposed to stop thoughts like that in its tracks - but she was really, really tired from the emotional heavy lifting.

Holly and Riggs had arrived. Merry had already offered them four more glasses of wine than was reasonable for the time they’d been there. She knew she was being weird. And drinking too much.

Her phone buzzed: the group Whispers on the Line.

Ayo: 5 mins away - rolled a 1 at work today!

The worst of all outcomes.

A second later: more like a 3. I’m overreacting.

As a group, they’d created far more than seven wonders in their magical world. Together they’d conjured up besieged kingdoms, enchanted waterfalls, abandoned palaces, chasms on faultlines. When Merry’s mind wandered, it went to these places. But the Whispers on the Line? They’d never made it. In fact, their not making it had become a running joke: the kind you name your WhatsApp after.

Ayo rocked up with a Shiraz, confidently adding it to the two Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignon already on the side. They could all see there were too many.

‘We always get through it,’ said Riggs.

Holly gave him a hard stare. Ayo managed a bit more tact.

‘You can always take them home,’ said Merry. ‘If it's not enough. I mean, too much,’ she said, chewing her nails.

‘Whispers, I’ve missed you all,’ Ayo said, pouring herself a glass and offering it up. ‘Here’s to wanderings new.’

Merry joined in with the toast, but unlike Holly and Riggs, could only mutter, ‘to wanderings new.’

They chatted while Ayo set up her Game Master screen: a card barrier behind which she secreted their years-long campaign. The routine was practiced: she arranged her dice tower, maps, papers, a tablet. Looking for a book to rest the tablet on, Merry saw her deliberately not choosing the finance handbook she’d always used - Merry noted it as another thing to return - instead landing on some graphic novels. She flicked her braids behind her, exhaled, and surveyed her party.

‘Before we begin,’ said Ayo, scrolling through her notes, ‘a recap.’

She looked up; smile so wide it zinged through Merry like a shot.

‘You’d made your way to Velleden - a city that used to be unremarkable. Known for wine, textiles, that sort of thing. But now it’s under the influence of a sect called Brass Tacks.’

‘They’re secretive, but influential. Technically just a nearby settlement, but in practice they’re an oligarchy. They’ve taken control in Velleden, and that influence is spreading.’

She held up her tablet, showing them an item which looked like a cross between goggles and clockwork.

‘Their power comes from a device called SpellSight. It lets users align their desires with magical outcomes. Glorious.’

‘Except that the info all goes through Brass Tacks,’ said Holly.

‘Exactly,’ said Ayo. ‘And now the wearers have started wanting things they never used to. Making choices they’d never normally make. Something’s amiss.’

‘In your last session, you carried out a ritual with Ovind Mire - a brutish oath-keeper - and gained his trust.’

‘Despite me rolling a one,’ said Holly.

‘You got through,’ said Ayo, knowingly. ‘And now he’s offered you a lead - a way to find the documents that explain how SpellSight is made.’

‘And - to acknowledge our excellent chronicler’s notes -’ Ayo nodded at Holly. ‘- during the break, we lost a party member. Bevyn Trask was caught cheating in a card den. She has as a consequence been exiled, and the party continues.’

Ayo looked up; went to meet Merry’s eye, which she avoided.

‘So,’ Ayo continued, ‘it’s the four of us now. Melisyn,’ she looked to Merry.

‘Rix,’ to Riggs.

‘And Hyssa,’ to Holly.

‘Where to next? Do you hear Ovind out? Or - something else completely?’

‘We did say we’d try and bring down Brass Tacks,’ said Holly.

‘We promised the mayor,’ said Riggs.

‘Bevyn did,’ said Merry quietly.

Riggs continued: ‘Shall we speak to Ovind?’

Holly nodded. Merry’s shrug said, ‘might as well’.

Ayo hunched, leaning into Ovind’s character and adding sixty years onto her twenty-eight.

‘There is a tree,’ she croaked. ‘It appears to be a beech, but it is a facsimile.’

She rounded on Riggs. He jumped. ‘Can you recognise a beech, druid?’

‘Yes,’ he stuttered.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘You will know it by the knot which bears the patterns of the brain.’ She motioned violently to her head - Ovind’s intensity levels seemed to have marinated during the break in play.

‘Will we recognise that?’ asked Riggs.

‘Do a knowledge check,’ said Ayo.

Seventeen, fourteen and three.

‘Rix, you’d recognise one anywhere,’ said Ayo. ‘Hyssa, you’re confident. Melisyn, no chance.’

She adopted Ovind’s hunch.

‘The tree must be misled. Cast this spell - the pattern will swirl, the whorls will shift. When they do, speak as though you are the engineer Quell, and say: 'Magic and brass give the world one purpose.' The knot will part, and the truths you seek will lie within. You did not hear this from me.’

There was quiet - none of them used to being the first one to pick back up at moments like this.

‘Thank you Ovind,’ said Merry, eventually. ‘We’ll guard this information, which you’ve risked so much to give us. Er -’

‘I look at the spell,’ said Holly, and Merry sat back, relieved. ‘It seems like it’s something aligned with an old gnomish god, maybe something of the forest…’

She rattled off a few forest deities Merry didn’t recognise. As much as she loved the game, her knowledge of the lore started and stopped at this table. Ayo built the world, Holly deepened it - and Merry? Whatever she did, now it was all the more visible.

‘Let’s just do it,’ said Riggs - always the one to pull Chekhov’s gun, in a world where every unsuspecting object, to him, was Chekhov’s gun. ‘We should go now, right?’

‘Down to you,’ said Ayo, opening her palms. ‘You’ve been mission focussed so far. But remember,’ she said, motioning to her secretive array. ‘We have a whole world. Let it take whatever shape you like.’

She handed them the map of Velleden over the screen.

This changed things. Merry’s foot began a tachycardic rapping. They all looked at the map; Merry couldn’t focus; fraught with possibility, her brain gave her nothing.

‘And we just … leave Brass Tacks to it for a bit?’ asked Riggs.

‘Down to you,’ said Ayo, looking - in Merry’s opinion - sanguine.

‘Whispers on the Line!’ said Holly, with a snort.

‘Hold up - don’t go mad,’ said Ayo. ‘You can choose to take an amoral stance on letting the world be overrun with gnome techno-magic, but finding the Whispers is something else.’

As the others grew animated by talk of new horizons, Merry reminded herself to relax her shoulders. She nibbled some snacks. For a moment her nerves gave way to something she hadn’t considered. Things might actually be better this way.

She was chasing that thought when a mad smile crossed Riggs’ face.

‘I want to ransack the city.’

Ayo sat back. Considered it.

‘As Rix?’ she asked.

‘I can shapeshift, right?’ said Riggs. ‘Into something chaotic?’

‘Bear?’ suggested Holly. ‘Clockwork bear, made out of brass?’

Riggs looked thoughtful.

‘Flock of ravens,’ said Holly. ‘Shadow creature. Manticore.’

‘Manticore,’ said Riggs, getting up and shaking Holly’s shoulders. ‘Ayo, please. It has to be.’

Any residents of Velleden might reasonably have wondered what they had done to deserve the sudden fury of a part-lion, part-scorpion, part-human. Buildings were flung to the ground, occupants eaten. A resistance movement against the manticore was born in an instant, and two bewildered but delighted party companions went along with the riotous chaos.

Riggs led them over roofs and down alleys, Ayo keeping up nimbly with her improvised narration. He’d eaten three people before he ran out of steam.

‘Time to make a swift exit. Probably shouldn’t have given the manticore my own face. Masking spell!’ called Riggs.

There was a pause.

‘That one was Bevyn’s,’ said Ayo. ‘Whether her gear got exiled along with her … well, that’s up to Melisyn…’

She turned to Merry.

‘Took me long enough to get rid of her real stuff,’ said Merry. ‘I’m not agonising over the pretend stuff. It’s all gone. Sorry folks.’

Holly, who had been poring over the Velleden map, said: ‘Rix, let’s get you into the catacombs.’

‘Mm,’ said Merry. ‘Maybe you could sick up those people you ate. Deliver their bones to the crypt.’

‘I’d make you roll for sacrilege,’ said Ayo, deadpan. ‘Anyway. The party slips into the catacombs while the city reels from its manticore problem.’

The descent should have brought with it calm, but somewhere between the crumbling arches and a failed stealth check that sent a stack of bones crashing across the stone, Merry found herself laughing - really laughing. Holly had to put the bones back one by one, while Ayo voiced them in a berating rasp, each vertebra protesting its misplacement.

They reached the chamber at the heart of the catacombs - Holly brushed dust from a dedication, Riggs swore at the locked door - and Ayo handed them some of the papers from behind the screen. A puzzle.

Riggs put his head in his hands. ‘This is one for you two,’ he groaned.

‘On it,’ said Holly.

Holly and Merry tackled the grid of cryptic symbols Ayo had laid out. It clicked into place only through some sideways thinking, half-logic, half-inspiration, and no help from the Shiraz.

‘You’ve got it,’ said Ayo. ‘Nice one, Melisyn and Hyssa. As the final symbol locks in, you hear the grind of metal: levers shift behind the wall, bones skitter into place on either side of the panel - two skeletons step forward. Bones creaking, they push open a door, and behind it, you see -’

All three leaned in.

‘You see a spinning gyroscope,’ said Ayo. ‘It’s radiating, making a soft hiss. On the base, coming in and out of focus - a sigil.’

Merry and Riggs exchanged a blank look.

‘It’s a sequence of runes,’ said Holly. ‘Like a phone number. To a place. If you know a place’s sigil, you can teleport there.’

She frowned, still watching. ‘There’s more to it, though. If we can figure out how to stop the gyroscope -’

‘I take a wand of arcane force and jam it into the gyroscope,’ interrupted Riggs.

Holly gasped. ‘But -’

‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘What happens, Ayo?’

She said nothing. She looked around, holding them all in anticipation.

‘The wand of arcane force catches in the gyroscope.’

She lets the silence stretch between them.

‘The gyroscope stops, but the light begins to radiate down the wand, and emanates further and further in a circle around you.’

She pauses.

‘Ayo, for the love of -’ said Riggs.

‘The teleportation spell envelops Rix before he can move. What do the rest of you do?’

‘I try and read the gyroscope,’ said Holly.

‘It’s read or run,’ said Ayo. ‘If you read, you’re in the spell. Still want to?’

Holly nods. Rolls a thirteen.

Ayo continued, voice rising: ‘Hyssa leans forward to see what it says on the gyroscope as the glow spills over her. The noise from the skeletons grows and now louder than the sound of bone on bone, you can clearly hear that it’s -’

Merry gasped.

‘A whisper,’ said Ayo.

‘The Whispers on the Line,’ she breathed. ‘Melisyn grabs Rix’s arm, to be teleported with him.’

Ayo nodded. ‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘You’re all transported.’

‘I can’t handle this,’ said Riggs.

‘Do we roll?’ asked Holly.

‘No need,’ said Ayo.

‘The catacombs vanish beneath your feet.

You’re suspended in a space that defies understanding - part room, part void. It feels as though you’re standing and suspended at once. Around you, you see the sweep of the galaxy, coursing through innumerable stars. Their light beams towards you in threads that drift and bend as you move. You’re at the centre of something vast. A place older than maps. The mythical heart of this land.’

The friends were hushed.

‘Can we hear the whispers?’ said Merry.

‘The whispers aren’t literal,’ said Ayo. ‘They’re just a way of describing what moves along the lines of light. When you tune into a line, you catch a sense of the future - but it’s faint, uncertain. It’s more a chorus of possibilities than prophecy - somewhere between suggestion and command. Things that might be. Like leaves in a breeze, they shift, scatter, reform. You’re not divining the stars here - you’re making constellations.’

‘I can't believe we're here,’ said Holly. ‘I thought you’d just made it up, Ayo.’

‘After all those terrible rolls,’ said Riggs.

‘And all the diversions from…’ Merry paused. She knew exactly where those diversions had come from.

‘Bex,’ she said.

Because it was Bex, and not the character she played, who had never wanted them to stray from the plot and to get to this place. It was Bex who had made a joke of how much Merry wanted it.

‘I tune into a line,’ said Merry. ‘What do I see?’

‘What does Melisyn want to see?’ asked Ayo.

‘Melisyn wants to see,’ said Merry slowly, ‘if this line is the right one. The one in front of me.’

‘Okay,’ said Ayo, not referring to anything behind her screen. ‘Melisyn reaches out her hand to tune into a line. The line glows. Melisyn thinks about the moments of hesitation it took to get here - now behind her.’

Merry, in her mind’s eye, saw a message from a stranger.

Bex has been messaging me. Thought you’d want to know.

I’m not the only one.

Just virtual betrayals. Not “real” ones.

Not enough to end a marriage, Bex had said. And she’d really believed her. How many months had it taken Merry to decide, at last, that it was over?

Bex was a force of personality. Bex was the one who made the decisions.

Except that one.

For the first time in many months, it seemed like it should have been obvious from the start.

‘Yes,’ said Merry, eyes shining. ‘This is the right line.’

‘I know so,’ said Ayo. ‘And maybe - next time, we can hear what the whispers say to Melisyn?’

‘Next time!’ yelled Riggs, clearly outraged. Between the manticore, catacombs and galaxies, none of them had seen the clock edging ever closer to the new day.

‘Next week?’ said Ayo.

‘Yes,’ said Riggs.

‘Definitely,’ said Holly.

‘I’m in,’ said Merry.

‘Good,’ said Ayo. ‘I already sent the invite.’