#47

Jacob was en route to Lex's house with the satisfaction of having just forgotten the whole affair. What was that all about again? He couldn't remember.

Lex Vecchio lived in a Castle in the Swamp, with his brother, Marcel. It was an old manor estate, made so by artificial beefing-up by their rich parents. Which is to say, it was a totally ordinary house with a lot of expensive expansions added to it, to make it look as if it were some sort of enormous Gothic mansion. Jacob knew the Vecchios had had issues in the past with Minnesotan building codes, but were rich enough to get past such things. Why they didn't just buy a larger house, Jacob never knew, but maybe it was Lex's desire to stay close to Jacob, and Marcel's to stay close to Amos, that had some say in it.

They had agreed to continue an old campaign of theirs which they hadn't done in sometime. Jacob's character, AdamAntium, was on the verge of raiding a giant tower controlled by an evil wizard. The tower was full of undead and Eldritch Spawn, indicating he was some sort of necromancer. The tower itself was made out of adamantium, so he was an adamantium necromancer to boot. Jacob had a hatred of wizards, being instead inclined towards obscure and occasionally fan-generated sub-classes of monks and fighters. He had presently punched over three hundred skeletons in the face, and at his level that was automatically fatal to all but the privileged few. Said few had the privilege to live. Skeletons do not frequently have such privilege.

The idea of a giant undead-filled tower, however, reminded Jacob of something. The wizard/skeleton aspect had nothing to do with it, even if his brother had a dangerous love-hate fascination with wizards and skeletons. It was just the idea of a huge haunted edifice. Probably nothing, though.

The Vecchio estate wasn't haunted. It was just huge. So it wasn't that.

Probably nothing.

He pulled up in the driveway, which was stacked, as always, with a freakish amount of cars. There was always a tiny spot for “ordinary” cars to park, though. Marcel normally parked there. But he wasn't there anymore; he had gone off and joined the Army. His desire to stay close to Jacob's bro was strong but not strong enough to keep him from shipping off. Amos in turn was frequently in Maurice.

Lex restrained the dog when Jacob came in. “I've already got everything set up,” he said. “So sit down.” Lex often restrained his own theatrics just as he held back his dog. He was really much more like Amos, or much more like how Marcel used to be.

Jacob sat down silently. It was just the two of them. A lonely game of wizards.

Jacob was the one who had to carry the theatrics now, but he felt off, as he tried to work up a shitty joke to pass the time as Lex sat down. Lex moved somewhat slowly and allowed himself to do that even more, now that Marcel wasn't there to yell at him. But Jacob couldn't come up with this joke, because his mind was too dead-set on other things. Like looking at the model of AdamAntium. They had just used a simple black-garbed human figurine, something with some name they had forgotten, but its appearance itself seemed familiar—though like the name, Jacob had forgotten what it was.

For awhile, it seems like nothing happened. Lex seemed to take forever to reach his chair.

Lex was just in the process of sitting down the house shook slightly. Jacob cried out as he fell over, and the figurines toppled off the table as well. Behind Lex, a bottle of root beer fell over, cracking the plastic neck-ring and spraying the drink everywhere. Some paintings fell down, their frames splintering.

But it only lasted for a split second.

“What was that?” Lex asked, in his minimalist manner.

“An earthquake?”

“Well, yes, of course. But.”

With that “but”, the matter seemed settled. Not for Jacob, of course, but his brain was confused. He stood up long before Lex did and started mopping up the spilled root beer.

The game started up once again, but next that sudden jar, everything seemed boring. Everything was boring. Including the way in which the earthquake was handled. Why was Lex so muted now? Why was everything muted now, when it clearly wasn't before...

It was as if something was being drained, elsewhere. As if there was a tap flowing out, as Lex slowly rolled the dice behind his hand, pretending he was excited about these NPCs getting crits. The game had commenced, but Jacob hadn't really noticed.

He was looking outside.

Maybe this house was haunted. It certainly had enough additions to have trapped a worker or two at some point. But everything was bland, and unchanging. He was only now just noticing this, suddenly, that he was becoming upset with his life...

This house couldn't be haunted. It was too real. In order for it to be haunted, it needed to be a Soft Place...

“You can't punch through the wall of the tower, Jacob. It's made out of adamantium.”

“How long would I have to wait to get a crit on my strength check?”

“Um. By House rules, twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

“That's two hundred rounds.”

“Your point being?”

“Your party is under attack by a Mindflayer. He's already killed your bard.”

“Fine. I attack the Mindflayer...”

DM Rails. Well, not really. But it felt like it.

Jacob was getting edgy now. That is, he felt on edge. Seeing DM Rails in real life, for some weird and stupid reason, felt like a weird freedom violation. He started feeling, with some completely stupid gloom, like life was always just “attacking the Mindflayer”. And because he was feeling this way in the most ridiculous manner possible, now whimsy was getting into it. Tempering things. Making them seem less real...

And everything just felt so ineffably slurred and wrong and these-aren't-real-feelings-Jacob that he just suddenly stood up and screamed.

He made something happen, and in that utter chaos and unreality McGee Manor broke through, its anti-grav thrusters keep it humming above the house.