As far as Isaac was concerned, the trouble had started a long, long time ago. Long before the great Dungeon-Master shuffle, long before the infamous game of let's-improvise-half-a-continent, long before he had even gotten it into his head that it would be a great idea to try picking up where they all left off three years ago in an old tabletop game. It had all begun the first time they played, and there was nothing that he could change about it. Their fates were set in stone.

They were actually going to finish this damn thing.

Five teens sat around the table. Felix, the dungeon master, slouched behind his screen and waited for someone to make a move. Battle music blared from the tinny speakers on his phone. Jenna and Garet both looked pretty impatient - ready to start - and Ivan was still fiddling around with his spellbook trying to work out what would be best to start off with. Isaac cleared his throat, picked up a die, and rolled.

"Aaaaand... that's a natural one."

The game had begun three years ago, back when it was just four of them. They were in middle school, and tabletop RPGs had been an oddly fascinating concept. Character creation was but means to an end, and they regularly lost track of which dice were which and what rolls were made when. However, that was not what led to their previous failure.

What had was letting Jenna play the Dungeon Master.

Jenna was imaginative, sure, and skilled at improvising new events and characters and occasionally even new rules, and was even willing to overlook said rules for the sake of a good story... but everyone in their group agreed that her work in that role had been a disaster all the same. While she could tell a good story, it wasn't always one that helped the players, and in the very first hour of the campaign she had managed to destroy half the heroes' hometown, kill off a player character (albeit Felix's character, who had been knocked downriver by a boulder after Felix left the table) and completely derailed the intended plot for the entire campaign.

After that one frustrating night of playing, they had tossed the whole set - notes and character sheets and everything - back into the original box, shoved it into a dusty corner of the hall closet, and forgotten about it. Isaac's family had moved away not long later, after his father died in a landslide. His mother, Dora, didn't want to live anywhere near where her husband had died, and so they left for Vault. But grief does not last forever.

About six months ago, Isaac and his mother had moved back to Vale. In the unpacking, an old game had been uncovered and hidden away in a young man's bedroom, where he pulled out notes and tried to remember what they'd been doing with it all that time ago. He'd called his old friends, hoping to arrange a reunion, and in a spur-of-the-moment decision, he'd suggested they give the game another try.

It had been so long since he'd had a chance to see his friends, and Isaac found himself unusually excited about getting together again. He wondered if Jenna and Garet were still so short of temper, or if Felix was still so quiet. Probably. Those things didn't seem like they would change much, even after this long.

The Vale High School Library was actually pretty impressive for a school library in such a small town, but it was still a familiar sight to Isaac, and he found it comforting. Even if Vale itself had changed a bit since he left, this place was still more or less the same. It still had the same maze of bookcases, and grimy half-lit windows at the ceiling, even the same wooden table pushed against one wall and rarely used. Hell, it might have even had the same librarian.

An elderly man with a birdlike crest of flyaway white hair and a pair of small, round glasses perched on his nose popped up from behind a low bookcase. His smile was unfamiliar, and just a bit too friendly.

"Hello there, young man!" The new librarian waved from amidst the sea of shelves, and began making his way over to Isaac. "You must be the new student I've been told about. Now, how might I help you?"

"I don't actually-" Isaac began, but the librarian kept going.

"I know that with such a small school, one might not expect such a grand and magnificent library like ours, but don't worry - I know my way around the dewey decimal system!" He grabbed Isaac's wrist and began to pull him toward the older corner of the reference section. The old man's grip was surprisingly strong.

"I know where-" Isaac began, before being cut off once again.

"It's all right, no need to even tell me! I can tell you must be looking for... hm..." He trailed off, peering closer at a particular dusty tome.

"Kraden," said a voice from behind. "Mind if we use the table for... oh, hey, Isaac. Ready to play?"

Isaac turned to see Felix nodding and greeting them both before dropping a heavy backpack onto one of the scattered folding chairs. "Kraden, that's Isaac. I think I mentioned him once or twice? He used to go here."

Kraden was silent for a moment. Then the stream of chatter resumed. "Er... sorry about that. Terribly sorry, in fact! I hadn't realized you used to go here, although I suppose going here in previous years is not the same as knowing one's way around the school library and it is still a bit of a labyrinth for those who do not regularly delve into the depths of knowledge within... nonetheless, there is still..."

Isaac tuned out the librarian's ramblings and returned his attention to Felix.

"Where's Jenna? Is she not coming after all?" he asked. The two of them had been nearly inseparable in the past, and that didn't appear to have changed in Isaac's years away.

Felix smiled slightly. "On her way."

"Meaning...?"

"On her way."

Isaac suspected that was all he would get out of his old friend for now.

Just then, Jenna burst into the library. Her excitable demeanor and vibrant auburn hair felt at odds with the quiet and tranquil splendor of the library, and her shoulder-bag clattered loudly as she dragged it along behind her. "Garet," she called behind her, "hurry up, you slowpoke! At this rate, we'll be done with the whole campaign before you get here!"

"Please keep your voice down in the library," Kraden told her, almost absentmindedly. "Students are trying to study."

Jenna looked around and shrugged. "I don't see anyone studying in here," she commented, but she lowered her voice all the same.

They all waited a few minutes for Garet to make his way down the stairs. Felix began setting up a paper screen and folding chairs, and Isaac carefully pulled the box containing the game documents out of his messenger bag. The cardboard box held all the parts they needed to really play the game - the old DM's notes from Jenna (or what little she had written down, anyway) interspersed with illegible old character sheets and the campaign's original guide, a slim paperback volume with nicked and battered pages and a faded cover bearing the image of a yellow stylized sun above the words "Psynergy and Proxians." Jenna hummed a cheerful tune as she cleared away research books and forgotten erasers, then grabbed a handful of dice and dumped them out onto the table. Kraden looked like he wanted to say something about the noise, but held his tongue.

Finally, Garet stumbled down the last few steps, lugging a massive backpack along behind him. He straightened up a bit and waved. "Hi, guys! Don't start without me, 'kay?"

"Don't worry, we won't," Jenna said with a laugh. "Not yet, anyway!"

"What do you even have in there?" Isaac asked. The backpack was almost bursting at the seams in places, and took a surprising amount of energy to move, even for someone Garet's size. Isaac had never known him to be the studious sort either, so he doubted it was full of books or three-ringed binders.

"Snacks," Garet grunted in response, hefting the bag over to the side of the table and unzipping the top to reveal a top layer of plastic packages of onion rings and crackers. "I've got funyuns, cheetos, regular potato chips, those weird spicy sesame things Jenna likes, a banana, jelly beans, tortilla chips, nine-layer dip, I dunno what else, and that's just the main pocket."

Felix rolled his eyes. Jenna squeaked in glee and began rummaging through the bag, standing up a moment later with a triumphant grin and a bag of something covered in colorful japanese characters and doe-eyed cartoon chili peppers.

Isaac picked out a smaller bag of potato chips and tore it open, relishing the salty smell for a moment before setting it to one side on the table. Garet and Jenna both took their places at the table.

"Right," Isaac began, passing the DM's notes and guide over to Felix. "I didn't look at the rulebook much at all, and I tried not to spoil anything. So..."

Felix opened the small book and stared at it for a moment, brow furrowed. "Isaac?"

"Yeah?"

"You do realize there's no character creation guide in here, right?"

"Wait... what?" Isaac got up and stepped around the corner of the table, trying to get a good look at the table of contents of Felix's shoulder. "You can't be serious."

Felix closed the book and elbowed Isaac away. "Nope. Nothing."

"Well, now what?" Garet folded his arms across his chest, grumbling.

Jenna knocked a few dice off of the table with a frustrated sweep of her hand. "All this way for nothing?! I can't believe it!"

Felix leaned down to retrieve the dice, muttering something about missing notes. The moment his focus left the table, Jenna's hand darted out and she snatched up the guidebook, holding it close to her chest. Felix tried to stand up to stop her, and everyone else heard the thud of a head meeting solid wood, followed by several creative and thankfully muffled curses.

"Let me see..." she began, flipping the book open. "Well, it's not that bad!"

"We're not using those!" Felix objected from under the table.

"I liked them!" Jenna shot back.

"What are you guys even arguing over?" Garet leaned over, trying to get a glimpse of the notes. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he popped open a bag of onion rings and began munching as he waited.

Jenna grinned. "There isn't a character creation guide, but we still have our old character sheets, and notes on what happens at new levels."

"Oh, cool," Garet mumbled around a mouthful of onion. Felix reclaimed his seat and deposited the handful of dice back onto the table, rubbing his head.

Jenna passed out the smudged, wrinkly papers bearing their characters and backstories. The pages were crumpled and a bit grubby, but that wasn't too bad. Isaac stared down at the faded, barely legible scrawl in pencil and groaned.

Of course he was the Lawful Good Paladin.