“Well, you’ve definitely stepped in a mess this time,” Katie said to herself, putting her hands on her hips, looking around the strangely real and strangely fake world in which she now inhabited. While she had some mobility, her clawed feet were stuck fast to the black base, making her officially a miniature.

“You spend all those years wanting to play this game, reading the rules, creating characters, buying dice, and what happens on your very first role? You use the weird die you picked up at an odds and ends shop in flea market. Never mind that it was obviously cursed, that it called to you, that it wouldn’t let you put it down. Maybe if you had paid attention and noticed the illegal numbering, you might still be a player.”

“Well, I guess I am still a player. I’m just…more immersed than everyone else.” She sighed and looked up, the sky of the world a smoldering orange to mimic a burning forest ambiance. If she paid attention, she could see the silhouettes of giants – her fellow players and the GM – moving high above her. But the spell, the curse, the enchantment, whatever it was, kept her grounded in the fiction of the game world. Here, she was Katya the Wyrmling, stuck in this burning wood, trying to escape the fires and the persistent Dragon Keepers who wanted to recapture her.

As she considered again why she had put the dragon tamers in her character backstory, the GMs voice boomed across the landscape. “Katie, just letting you know that the guys are leaving for the night and we’ll pick this up at the next session.”

“Oh…ok!” Katie said, shouting up, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “It’s not like I’m in a hurry or anything.”

“They’re all really sorry they couldn’t get you to a narrative milestone and break the curse, and we’ll make sure we get you out next time.”

“And when will that be?”

The GM went quiet for a long second, and Katie got the feeling it wasn’t because he was talking with others about scheduling. “We, uh, haven’t set a date yet. Hopefully next month.”

“Hopefully next month? Hopefully?! Does everyone realize I’m stuck as a game piece until they can help me out of here?”

“It’s not that simple. Mark and Miranda are about to go on vacation, Jimmy has a newborn, and I regularly work 60 hour weeks. It’s tough to get everyone together. You’re actually the easiest to schedule now. Look, tell you what, we can try to do a story or something from your backstory, just you and me. It’ll be tougher, but it might trigger the end of the curse.”

Katie’s mouth went dry. Her backstory, which involved being captured by the Dragon Keepers, a mercenary group who captured wyrmlings to make into tameable pets, companions, or mounts. Katie was unsure if she wanted to experience that directly, though not because she didn’t want it. No, she was unsure because maybe she wanted to be tamed a little too much.

She realized she had fallen silent, and quickly spoke up. “Actually, let’s—”

The GM cut her off, not by speaking, but by reaching his giant hand into her world, plucking Katie from the board, and hauling her up. As soon as she was touched, her body froze, her mind quieted. She fell perfectly into being a dragon miniature, barely understanding what her GM was saying.

“Thinking about it now, this is probably going to be the easiest solution. We’ll start on your backstory tomorrow.”