“No one plays Whispering Vault any longer. It has become a ghost town. Last time I visited it, it was empty. Completely empty. It was actually rather scary. Everywhere we went, we could feel the silence.”
Those were the words, that had led her to study the roleplaying game Whispering Vault in order to find out, what it was, that had happened. Now she is sitting in front of him, and on the table between them lies a recorder.
“That was the last time, Charlotte played with us. She has never been able since”. He stops. Stays a bit with the words, and then continues:
“I have never tried anything like it before. We created our characters and immersed into them, and when we started playing, we could that the setting was just empty landscapes. You could hear the echo of emptiness reverberate between the buildings, where ever we went. The silence wasn’t the worst thing, though. Our game master could still bring the setting fairly well to live, even if there was cobwebs and dust in most of the scenes we played. What was worse, was the Hunter or the Shadow which we at first called him … or it. At first we thought it was one of GM’s NPCs, some deadly villain following us from scene to scene, until the final confrontation at the end, but it always just hiding in the shadows. No matter what scene, we were playing, if you just paused a little, you could sense it. What was worse was, when Charlotte decided, that she would confront it. She starred out towards it in all the scenes, we had, and I could sense her character growing ever colder and more distant. Even our GM sensed it, and it was then, that I realized, that it wasn’t one of GM’s NPCs!
The Shadow was also present, when we were playing interparty scenes, for instance at one time we were sitting and planning out next move in the game and studying our clues. Our game master said, he would go brew some more coffee, while we were talking. That was when I saw it for the first time. Saw it for real. Just on the outskirts of the scene, between the shadows, was there something moving about. It was a living darkness with two empty spaces, where the eyes ought to be, and when I starred in its direction, it felt as if my character was being pulled into the abyss, down through its eyes. They drew everything towards them.”
He stops. His voice has become heavy with emotion, and tears are forming around his eyes.
“That wasn’t even the worst. That came later. It was, when our party had split up. Our GM had decided to split us into two different rooms, so we couldn’t hear what was happening with the others. Lars and Charlotte was in the living room, and the rest of us was in the kitchen, and GM was gamemastering for us, when Lars comes by. He is just going for the loo, he explained, and then went there. Shortly after came the scream. Cold and empty.”
She can see, that he is shivering, while recalling the events. His body trembles involuntarily, as if the scream is still echoing in his mind. She notices that, he has to stop himself from instinctively covering his ears. “She sat in the room screaming, just screaming. We went in there all of us. There was nothing to see. We search the room, but it was first afterwards, that she managed to explain, that she had been immersed into her character even after Lars left the room – and then it had come up of the shadows. It had sucked her character into itself just leaving an empty shell. The rest of the night her character wasn’t present in any of the scenes. It was just an empty shell every time she tried to play her character.”
She is about to stop the recording, when he continues:
“That is why I never play alone. I can feel, that it has followed me. Every time we play, no matter the RPG, I can feel its empty eyes staring at me from the dark. My greatest fear is that, we at one time will split up the party, and when that happens, it will come for my character. I not certain, that even the GM can hold it back.”
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These stories are chosen and translated from a Danish Advent Calender (“julekalender”) for roleplayers. They are small, independent stories from the major Advent Calender story arc. In Denmark there is a long running tradition for Advent Calender stories (in the shape of radio plays, tv-series, written stories, candles – but also as blogs with 24 daily blog posts counting down to Christmas) in 24 episodes running from the 1st of December til Christmas on the 24th of December (yes, Danes celebrates Christmas on the 24th).
Roles, Dice and Fun 