I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I’d forgotten how obsessively visual he was due to his autism. It’s what contributed to his amazing artistic abilities, but sometimes, in cases like these, it was an annoying trait. “Why don’t you draw the room out on the battle map? I’ll give you the dimensions.”

Liam stood, grabbed an erasable marker and began drawing on the washable surface of the blank grid that served as a battle map. I gave him some details that I made up off the cuff and he drew them on the map like a floor plan. The players then arranged the pewter figurines that represented their characters in different places in the room. Heath shoved his wizard in the corner.

“Heath? What is your character doing?”

He sat with his chin in his hand, still moping. “Drinking watered-down ale,” he droned and then tossed a die.

I suppressed a sigh of frustration, suddenly remembering why I wasn’t ever excited to act as Dungeon Master for these sorts of role-playing games. The players never did what you wanted them to do.

“So isn’t anyone curious about the loudly crying woman in the middle of the room?”

Alex perked up. “Does she look like she has money? Maybe a pouch of gold dangling from her belt?”

“She’s wearing black mourning attire. Are you going to try to rob her?” I replied, exasperated.

Alex rolled her eyes again and hunched over her group of dice, attempting to build a tower by stacking one on top of the other.

I hunched over, mimed like I was wiping my eyes and talked in a ridiculously high pitch. “Won’t anyone hear my tale of woe?”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Jenna said. “I’ll walk up to the old woman and offer her my seat.”

“Thank you. Thank you, dear child,” I said again in my falsetto voice.

“What seems to be the problem, old woman?”

“She’s not old. She’s middle-aged,” I corrected.

“In medieval times, if you lived to middle age, you were considered old,” Jenna replied.

“Fair enough.” I resisted debating the useless point. “The woman turns to you, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m so afraid,’ she says. ‘So afraid that I’ll never see her again.’”

“Who?”

“My precious daughter, Emma.”

“Where did she go?”

“She’s been ensorcelled by the famed alchemist Baridus. He’s going to spirit her away to a far-off land to study with him. I doubt she’ll ever come back.”

Liam looked over at Jenna. “You know,” he said, jerking his eyes downward when she looked at him. “You should use your skill to detect motive and see if she is lying.”

Jenna drew back. “Um. Okay. And my eyes are up here by the way,” she said curtly.

Liam blinked at her. “Of course they are,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on her chest. Oh shit, Jenna was getting pissed thinking Liam was checking out her tits.

“Anyway—” I interrupted before sparks started to fly. Jenna was glaring at Liam, who still hadn’t looked away from Jenna’s chest. “Liam,” I said and finally he turned his head. Thank God.

“What?”

“Is your character doing anything while Althea and the woman are talking?” I said referring to Jenna by her character’s name.

“I’ll wait and watch,” said Liam, throwing a glance at Jenna out of the corner of his eye. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t start staring at her chest again.

Jenna glared at him and then turned back to me. “Maybe, uh, yeah maybe I’ll try to sense her motive.”

“Roll a d20 based on your skill level.”

Jenna checked her character sheet with all of her character’s statistics, then picked up a twenty-sided die and rolled it. “I made my roll. Do I detect anything?”

“You sense that she is honest in her motives. She seems to be telling the truth.”

“Okay. I’ll put my hand on her shoulder, to console her. ‘There, there, good wife. Might we be able to help you? What happened to…uh…what was her name again?”

“Emma?” I said, answering as the character. “My dear girl had been acting strangely for a while now. She had declared the wish to push away her friends and her beau and even me, her dear mother. She’s following the wish of this Baridus, wanting to become a famed alchemist like him. I think he means to steal her away forever. I’m looking for some brave adventurers to go out into the land, gather her closest, beloved friends and break the spell to convince her to stay here.”