Thread; Chapter 5 - Fantasyland
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There was a terribly familiar thump as Neil's head hit the ceiling above his bed. The same precariously rigged alarm clock on his loft bed was blaring, and the disorientation that came with it. Neil wanted to believe that what he had experienced was a dream, but he knew better by now. He was awake, for certain, but he had not truly been asleep.
The question now was how he made it back to his dorm room, though he feared the answer was obvious. Another day or so of him running on “autopilot”. Let alone what that must have been like for his family.
His family. God, he missed them so much right now. In the past week, his universe had expanded a thousand-fold, entirely against his will. All Neil wanted was the safe surroundings of his old family home. He wanted Travis's insufferable theatre music blasting at all hours of the night. He missed Dawn spending every hour of the night playing on the NES they had. Just as comforting were the random pop-ins from Kim, and the sight of his father hard at work, with papers sprawled all over the coffee table.
He wanted his mother. Just his mother being there. Her presence.
The hole in his heart was warmed by a bit of metal. It was then that Neil noticed that he was wearing an amulet of sorts. It was on a chain of silver and ended in a pendant made of some otherworldly metal. It shone as brightly as freshly pressed steel but had faint transparency to it. Etched into it with crystalline blue lines were several stars, connected by points: the Crossroads, of course. Roughly, they formed a constellation similar in appearance to the Southern Cross.
“Can you hear me?” Rem asked, directly into his mind.
As the Somni spoke, the blue lines glowed faintly.
“Yeah,” Neil replied, dazedly. “Are you going to explain this?”
“We simply moved this one to a more convenient position along this thread. But fear not, you are in your original world, as Nox promised,” Rem explained. “To this one's family, the transition was natural. That is to say, this one did not do anything untoward or unexpected in its absence.”
“If we're going to be communicating regularly,” Neil said, exasperated. “You could try being a little easier to understand.”
“What does this one mean?” Rem asked, as patiently as Neil had ever heard him.
“For starters, you could stop calling me 'this one.' You know, use 'you' and 'your',” Neil replied.
Rem waited for a moment to respond as if he were trying to wrap his head around the new mode of communication. “Very well. Neil. I will attempt to speak more plainly to... you.”
“I appreciate the effort,” Neil praised faintly.
“It is difficult for me,” Rem added. “Somni are not accustomed to dealing with other races. Your presence is honestly slightly confusing to me. It upsets our natural order.”
“Well, I can't exactly stop existing to make things convenient for you,” Neil retorted, thinking back to their first exchange where he had nearly been reduced to atoms by his soon-to-be mentor.
“Indeed not,” Rem agreed. “Now are we going to spend the rest of the day discussing our feelings on the matter, or shall we get down to business?”
Rem was consistent, Neil had to give him that.
“Alright, boss,” Neil said, leaning his head back against his pillow. “What's the game plan?”
“The Crossroad we are concerned with is a crucial event that will take place this evening at your friend Damian's house. Something will happen, we know not what, but you must be there to witness it occur,” Rem explained.
“Wait, that's it?” Neil asked. “You don't have any more information than that?”
“We observe only the surface level information about these changes. I may as well ask you about the inner workings of an ant colony. It is up to you to be at the right place at the right time. The event should be significant enough that you will not mistake it if that is any consolation,” Rem said, without any sign of sympathy.
“Cool,” Neil sighed. “And then what am I supposed to do?”
“Binders can read the movement of the Crossroads and correct their course. When you finally do enter the critical moment your perception of events will be rather metaphysical,” Rem began. Here, for the first time ever, his tone softened somewhat, though it retained every ounce of its original rigidity. “The experience can be quite frightening. Just know that I will be watching over you and you will not be in any personal danger. However, if you fail-”
“I get it,” Neil cut him off firmly. He didn't need to be told. Thousands of timelines erased in an instant. Trillions of lives cut short.
“Good,” Rem uttered. “Now what is your plan?”
“I just have to get to Damian's house, and I know the perfect way to get there.”
Angie stirred her coffee idly as she listened to Neil's proposal. The tiny booth at The Junction was not an ideal location for the chat, but it was her lunch break and the poor boy seemed so desperate. It was quiet enough for two in the afternoon, with a drizzle keeping most people off the streets.
“So you finally want to join my game?” Angie summarized.
“Yeah, I mean,” Neil rubbed the back of his neck. His own coffee was barely touched, but the aroma was satisfying and kept him alert. “Damian always talks about how great it is.”
“Normally I wouldn't let you just pop in last second. I mean our session starts in like four hours,” Angie began. “But honestly Jack and Violet can't make it tonight so it will probably be a good one for you to test out the waters a bit.”
Neil knew about Jack and Violet but was not familiar with them personally. Honestly the fewer unfamiliar faces the better for his purposes.
“Is this just about the game?” Angie asked, leaning into Neil slightly across the table. There was a peculiar expression on her face which Neil couldn't read.
“What do you mean?” Neil asked, somewhat defensively. He had made the decision to wear a blue sweater today and he felt like he was drowning in it under her gaze.
“I mean... a little birdie told me about Erica,” Angie replied, tilting her head slightly. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
In all that had happened over the past week, Neil had completely forgotten about Erica. The girl he loved for years, and who broke his heart completely out of nowhere. He guessed he should still be feeling sad about that, and yet when the fate of the multiverse was at stake, a young romance seemed pretty insignificant.
“Oh, well yeah,” Neil shrugged. “I mean, I'm okay and all. It was just so sudden.”
“Take it from me, breakups suck, but they also just kind of... happen, you know?” Angie said, leaning back in her seat. “It'll hit you every once in a while. You'll get reminded of them and what you had, and then, boom, you're crying into your pillow again for no good reason. But it gets easier, bud.”
Neil coughed uncomfortably. He wasn't sure how to process this new and unsolicited advice. Naturally, his brain defaulted to asking the worst possible question.
“You've had a breakup recently too, huh?”
Angie rolled her eyes at him. “Tactful.”
“Sorry, I'm just really bad at this,” Neil laughed.
“Utterly hopeless. Too bad I can't teach you how to talk to women since that requires a brain,” Angie teased.
The two chuckled nervously and there was a brief silence, during which a thousand possible conversations could have happened if either party knew what to say. Neil wondered for a moment how many different threads had just been created at this moment involving either of them being just a little bolder.
“So who all will be at Damian's place tonight?” Neil asked, as casually as he could manage.
“Trying to meet somebody?” Angie teased.
Neil blushed slightly. “I mean, I just wanna get a sense of the crowd, you know. Usually, when I'm at Damian's house it's just his folks and kid sister. And they have a pretty quiet household usually. It's-”
“Settle down, champ,” Angie said, knocking her fist on the table to get Neil's attention. “It's gonna be Damian, Ash, and Victoria. And now you, I guess. Which reminds me, do you already have a character created?”
“Oh, uh,” Neil's blush intensified. Perhaps this was a bad idea after all.
“Hang on, I always carry the Rules Cyclopedia with me in my backpack. Hope you don't have any plans for the next hour and a half,” Angie chuckled.
Damian's house, or more accurately his father's house, was practically a castle. The post-modern nightmare was rigid white walls with wide bay windows and a wrap-around patio. It looked more like the office space of some high-tech startup than it did a residential home. To complete the effect, the home was surrounded by twelve acres of dense woodlands with neatly lined cobblestone paths. If Damian's dad had the power, he would have evicted the animals too.
The main ground-floor living space was technically called the “sunroom” but all the shades had been drawn and track-lighting illuminated a rectangular mahogany table. Six comfortable leather desk chairs were arranged around the promising assortment of battle maps, books, bowls full of various flavors of chips, soda bottles, and even a tray of deviled eggs, courtesy of Damian's mother.
Angie sat at the head of the table, a beautifully illustrated dungeon master's screen creating a sense of distance between her and the players. She had dressed up for the occasion, with a grey wizard's robe draped over her shoulders and clip-on elf ears.
The players were more casual, the only one who really got into the spirit of the event was Damian himself, who was wearing a maroon vest and bracers to mirror his half-elf rogue character: Quem. He was sitting just to Angie's left and fidgeting with his dice.
Opposite Damian was Neil himself, who had, after considerable effort of grasping the rules of this strange new game, had settled on a gnomish wizard named Frobozz the Magnificent. This was definitely not his usual scene, and he much preferred games on a computer screen to those played with pen and paper.
At the end of the table were Angie's friends Ash and Victoria. Ash sat beside Damian, his chiseled features and slight stubble capturing the image of the rugged Marcus, the human fighter he played. He wore a black t-shirt bearing the album artwork from Metallica's “Master of Puppets”.
Victoria was dressed somewhat plainly in a grey v-neck and jeans but wore a black pick around her neck as a sort of talisman. Damian had mentioned that she was the guitarist of a local garage band, and the connection between these two and Angie started to make more sense. She was controlling Elwin, the halfling bard.
“Alright guys,” Angie said waving her arms in a grandiose bordering on the satiric gesture of welcome. “As you all know we are joined by a new face tonight. This is Neil.”
“Hey, man,” Ash nodded respectfully.
“Welcome, welcome,” Victoria greeted.
“Uh, hi everyone,” Neil replied nervously. “So yeah. First time.”
“It'll get under your skin,” Ash said.
“He's not wrong,” Damian chuckled. “I was just gonna play a session or two to see what I thought. Now I host the game.”
“Yeah, Damian, I gotta say, this doesn't seem like your scene,” Neil said, feeling slightly bolstered by the presence of his friend.
“Hey, I get to spend five hours a week pretending to be the world's greatest thief. What's not to like?” Damian shrugged.
“He only started playing because he was trying to sleep with my friend Liana,” Angie corrected.
“Lies and slander!” Damian chuckled a little too brazenly.
“I mean, fair enough, you stuck around after she moved, but you were not subtle about it,” Angie added, fiddling with a sheave of notes behind her screen.
“Get used to this,” Victoria said conspiratorially to Neil. “D&D is about 80% game to 20% trash talking.”
“Don't forget the snacks and beer,” Ash added.
When the game finally began properly, Neil had to admit the appeal. Gone were the five random strangers sitting around a table. In their place were a team of four heroes being led through a fantasy realm through Angie's skillful story-telling.
The heroes had been tasked with the recovery of an ancient artifact from the ruins of a long-abandoned castle. Elwin, Quem, and Marcus began the session already at the gates of the castle, where they had left off the previous week. Angie used this as an opportunity to introduce Neil's character. Frobozz was a former wizard of the fallen kingdom who had been magically sealed away in the castle dungeon for many years. Now Frobozz was helping the heroes while he decided what to do with the rest of his life. It was a simple story that allowed Neil an out in case this wasn't for him.
But it was hardly necessary. Within the first hour, he already knew he loved the world that Angie had created. The castle was filled with deadly traps and terribly clever puzzles to solve. And when they reached their first combat encounter and Angie broke out the battle map and clay miniatures it went to the next level.
“I don't have a gnome wizard mini yet, so you'll have to be a goblin for now,” Angie said apologetically as she placed the figurine on the map.
The battle was fierce, with the four of them facing off against four undead warriors, each one mirroring the players themselves. A hulking zombie still in plate mail led them, followed closely by two skeletons, one wielding a dagger and the other a bow. In the rear was a spell-slinging shade. And considering Neil did not know what he was doing, the battle was especially hectic.
It was about halfway into the melee when there was a knock on the sunroom door. Ash was explaining the finer points of the Magic Missile spell to Neil, while Victoria was desperately searching through her character sheet to see if she had any Potions of Healing left.
“Come on in!” Damian called.
The door slid open and his little sister Talia entered the room. She was wearing a set of lime green pajamas and holding a stuffed Babar the Elephant.
“Talia, what's up?” Damian asked, walking over to the young girl.
“Mama needs your help,” Talia said. “In the kitchen.”
The plan was for their family to have a traditional dinner around this time, but Damian would be excused to bring his plate back to the sunroom. As for the others, Mr. Levant had ordered them a couple of pizzas out of consideration for their palate.
“Hi, Talia,” Neil greeted politely.
Talia froze in place and gave the unmasked expression of shock that only kids can truly manage. She then covered both of her eyes with her hands, and meekly muttered, “Don't talk to strangers.”
“Stranger? That's Neil,” Damian laughed. “You're being silly, kiddo.”
“Sorry, I'm not trying to frighten you, little miss,” Neil apologized, scooting his chair back in.
Stranger... maybe I am a stranger. What if this isn't my thread after all?
“It's about dinner time, isn't it?” Ash asked.
“One-track mind,” Victoria teased.
Damian ignored both of them and took his little sister's hand. “Alright kiddo, take me to her. Angie, I'll just be a few minutes.”
Neil leaned back in his chair a bit as he tried to consider what he would do as soon as Damian got back. He was in a tough fight and had no idea how to get out of the mess they were in. As his brain whirred with the possibilities Ash and Victoria were debating, he felt a pulse from the amulet.
“You are near the Crossroad now,” Rem informed him. It was clear that nobody else in the room, except him, had heard the voice. “It's not in that room. Somewhere else in the house. We still don't have a clear picture.”
Neil was taken aback. For a moment he had almost forgotten why he was there. Now that he was reminded, he needed a way to excuse himself from the group.
“Uh, I'm gonna go see if Damian needs any help,” Neil explained.
“You can just say you're using the can, dude, we're grownups here,” Ash said.
“Allegedly,” Victoria smirked.
“I'm not the one who tried to seduce a dinosaur, okay?” Ash shot back, referencing some prior adventure of theirs.
“It's a valid strategy, I'm a bard. I'm sorry you don't understand our love,” Victoria laughed.
---
Neil slunk down the narrow T-shaped hallway from the sunroom in the southeast corner of the house into the open-layout public space. The western side of the house was an open space, with carpet for the living room half and tile for the dining room. Around the corner from this, facing the front door, was the stairwell leading up to the bedrooms. On the opposite side of this were the stairs leading down into the basement. The kitchen was off to the side of the dining room, on the opposite side of the house from the sunroom.
“So any bright ideas?” Neil whispered.
“It seems likely that it is in the floor below you,” Rem offered.
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Neil sighed, moving towards the basement door and placing a hand on the basement door.
“Talia!” shouted Damian's mother from the kitchen. “Don't touch the pan, it's still hot!”
Neil jumped at the sudden shout, and his fingers rattled the doorknob. Footsteps approached from the stairs above him and he quickly let go, attempting to act casual. He was temporarily frozen as Anders Levant rounded the corner.
Damian's step-father was an impressive-looking man; bald but with a neatly trimmed beard that lined features nicely. He was wearing a black collar shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and draped in grey suspenders that connected to his matching pants. The man looked constantly ready for action, and this was no exception.
“Evening, Neil,” he said with a smile, but with the grain of unflinching seriousness that coated everything the man said. “Break time from the grand adventures, eh?”
“Mr. Levant,” Neil nodded. In truth, Neil had only met him once or twice before. He was something of an enigma and wasn't one for large social gatherings. “Sorry, I was just going to see if I could help your wife set out dinner.”
“Were you?” Mr. Levant said, his voice raised slightly.“ I'm certain she would welcome that. You're going to make some woman very happy someday. My generation never got taught 'woman's work', you know.”
Mr. Levant let out a deep bellowing laugh and patted Neil on the shoulder. There was a slight, reflexive grip as he reached Neil's neck. A tight pinch, and then he let go. His touch felt like lightning at the moment, but it was over as soon as it began.
“Right,” Neil nodded. “I mean, I figured. I guess I'd better go into the kitchen then, right?”
“You know where it is, oh grand explorer,” Mr. Levant nodded. It was a statement, not a question, and it carried the subtext of dismissal.
“Yes sir,” Neil said, sliding past Mr. Levant and walking down the hallway towards the kitchen. He glanced briefly over his shoulder to see Mr. Levant sliding a key into the basement door and locking it shut.
Rem's message was unnecessary, as he felt a powerful burning in his chest at the sight. The pieces were falling into place right before him, and now he just had to do something about it. He had to get into that basement. Something horrible was going to happen down there. But what? And how? And how did it relate to Mr. Levant?
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
“Tiny one, that is for your brother's friends!” Mrs. Levant said. “You can have one slice after you finish your dinner.”
“I'll get it!” Neil said, opening the front door.
There was another way into the basement. A window on the lower level. It was narrow, but Neil was slim and he could probably squeeze his way through it. He just had to get outside and work his way around to it. This was going to require a distraction and the pizza man was perfectly timed. He opened the door to a haggard-looking college kid holding two large boxes and a couple of 2-liters.
“I'll grab the food from you,” Neil said, taking the pizza.
“You gonna pay for it too, Neil?” Damian asked, appearing from the kitchen and patting him on the shoulder.
“I'll get you back for it, I promise,” Neil laughed, trying to hide his nerves. As he turned around, Mr. Levant was still standing by the basement door.
Damian handed the guy $25. The window was closing, and he was being watched closely. He couldn't exactly bolt out the front door after the pizza guy. Holding the food and balancing the two-liters anxiously he moved towards the sunroom. Neil felt a knot forming in his stomach. His time was running out.
Then he considered another strategy. One born from desperation and recklessness.
“Rem,” Neil whispered, his lips hidden behind the two-liters. “It's Mr. Levant himself, right?”
“Correct. What does that have to do with-”
Before Rem could finish his thoughts, Neil acted. Feigning himself slipping on his shoelaces, he barreled into Mr. Levant, food first. Pizza and soda went everywhere and Mr. Levant was knocked back against the rear wall, his head making contact with the molding of the dining room door-frame.
“Son of a bitch!” Mr. Levant cursed, as he reached back to his head. His hand came back bloody.
Neil didn't look much better as he had hit the opposite frame, except his forehead took the brunt of it, leaving a nasty gash between his eyes.
“Oh! Daddy's bleeding!” Talia cried.
“Dad!” Damian cried out, rushing past Neil to help his father up.
“I'm sorry!” Neil blurted, doing his part to keep up the illusion. “I slipped, I'm so sorry!”
“Hey, is everyone alive?” Angie asked, poking her head out of the sunroom.
“We've got to get you both to a hospital,” Mrs. Levant said, emerging from the kitchen. She had been through far worse and was doing a wonderful job of maintaining her composure. “Talia grab some towels. Damian, you start the car. Are you alright, husband?”
“Looks like you got me,” Mr. Levant chuckled, calming down slightly as he sat up to stare Neil directly in the face. “Boy, you certainly do know how to throw a party, don't you?”
There was an understanding between the two of them at that moment. They were both going to play their part, certainly. But Neil felt it as sure as he felt the burning in his breast from the amulet, and the uncomfortable way the light glinted off of that phony smile of his. Anders Levant knew exactly what he had done, and – somehow – why he had done it. There was far more to this man than Neil could have ever possibly imagined.
