Warren had died the week before, and it wasn't even a good death. Kich felt a surge of annoyance whenever he thought of it. Warren had been a level-seventeen accountant, Kich's favorite and best character for almost a year, and he'd died in a freak bus accident during his morning commute. Kich had failed the saving throw so badly that the ambulance didn't just get stuck in a traffic jam, it was hit by another bus and never even made it to the hospital.

Now, the next Wednesday, for the first time he could remember, Kich really didn't want to play Office Politics. He pulled his gaming rulebook out of his locker and looked at it without his usual pleasure.

Lockers slammed up and down the hallway, and then the hall emptied a little as the trolls left. After that came a stream of elves from around the corner, where they had their own brightly lit corridor. Kich stuffed the rulebook back in his locker and slung his leather book bag over one shoulder.

"Hey! I saw that. Leaving without me?" Araway grabbed Kich's arm. "You're not giving up just because Warren got killed, are you?"

"I'm not feeling too good today, that's all." Kich looked down at Araway, who was nearly a foot shorter than he was. The elf's golden hair and pale skin seemed to glow in the dimly lit corridor, as if Araway had been absorbing light all day and it was escaping again.

"If you don't show up, everyone will know you're being a baby about Warren."

"I just don't feel like playing Ant's NPCs tonight," Kich said, trying hard to keep a whiny edge out of his voice. "And I have a lot of homework."

"Ant will let you back in the game—you'll just have to start at the bottom again. Anyway, it's about having fun with friends, not winning. Just like life." Araway smiled.

"I wish life was more like Office Politics," Kich muttered, but he took the rulebook out of his locker again.

"Without killer buses," Araway said.

The hallway had emptied and Kich and Araway strolled to the door without anyone bothering them. It had been years since anyone made fun of Kich for hanging out with an elf—ever since Kich grew a foot taller and bulked out; and no one ever said anything about Araway hanging with a troll.

The security guard, a dwarf, stopped them at the door. "Young man, where is your weapon?"

Araway slapped a hand on his sword hilt as though to make sure it was still there. Kich mumbled, "Sorry. I forgot it in my locker."

"As usual," the dwarf snapped. He was half Kich's height but just as wide, and his mail gleamed in the afternoon sunlight slanting through the door. "Go get it. There are a lot of goblins out today."

"Big deal—goblins," Kich said. "I could just step on them. Sorry," he added, noticing the dwarf's furious expression behind his massive red beard. "You know what I mean. Goblins are little, not like dwarfs. I mean dwarfs aren't as little, or at least you're a whole lot heavier—"

Araway said sharply, "Kich, shut up. Go get your poleax."

Kich hurried back to his locker, feeling like an idiot.

They stopped on the way to Ant's parents' cave to grab something to eat. Araway liked troll food, but the spices made his face turn red and his eyes water. Kich usually teased him about it, but he didn't feel like it today.

They ate roasted cockatrice wrapped in crisp broadleaves, and walked down the narrow path that led to Ant's. Despite Kich's bravado earlier, he kept a sharp lookout for goblins.

"If this was High Rise City, we'd be eating turkey sandwiches on white bread, with mayo," Kich said.

"Sounds disgusting to me."

"It sounds exiting." Kich sighed. "I really miss Warren. I know it's stupid, but he felt real to me—not crazy real, I mean, just like I knew what he would think and do no matter what happened." He popped the last bite in his mouth. "Try and get his Power Tie, if you can. It gives you plus-two on saving throws against rival attacks, and a plus-one boost to charisma."

"To be honest, I'm getting bored with Office Politics," Araway said, but Kich wasn't listening. Three goblins had appeared on the path, their dark green skins and shaggy black hair camouflaging them so that Kich wasn't completely certain there were only three. He stopped and grabbed Araway's shoulder.

Araway said impatiently, "Kich, they're not going to hurt you. There's only three of them."

"There might be more." He gripped his poleax tightly, but the goblins were already edging off the path. "They swarm, you know."

"Three goblins aren't a swarm, and that's all dragoncrap anyway. Dude, you outweigh them by about two hundred pounds. Come on."

Araway shrugged away from Kich and strode ahead, giving the goblins a nod as he passed them. Kich bared his fangs and hurried after the elf. Goblins freaked him out, although he wouldn't admit it to anyone. They looked a little like miniature trolls, as if they were evil children.

He caught up to Araway and they reached Ant's cave at last. Kich hammered on the door, a little more forcefully than he needed to. He wanted to get inside.

Ant's family lived under the Baggersley Bridge, which stretched from the top of a ten-foot cliff to the hillside opposite Baggersley River. The bridge's shadow, and the river nearby, made Ant's yard dim and cool. Ferns and moss grew all over the cliff wall, and Ant's mom had a little garden of toadstools under the window.

Ant opened the door. He was slender for a troll, and wore his hair in a long braid. "You're late. Hurry up—I got us a new game to start today."

Kich grinned with relief. He wouldn't have to spend the afternoon wishing Warren hadn't died; instead, he and the others could start a new module from scratch. He glanced at Araway as they followed Ant inside; the elf whispered, "See?"

Ant's cave wasn't a natural cave—it was dwarf-built—but it had all the comfortable touches trolls liked. Water trickled down one wall into a little pool where white blindfish swam, and fake stalactites decorated the ceiling. The cave was a lot bigger than Kich's family's cave even though Ant didn't have any brothers or sisters.

Helmunt and Grudge had already spread their books and papers across the big stone table in the dining room. Helmunt was a dwarf, and a girl, too; she always looked tiny sitting in a troll-sized chair with her legs swinging. Today she had on a new helm—silver, with a row of pink gemstones around the rim.

"Hi, Helmunt. You look nice," Kich said. He always felt awkward complimenting her. He thought she was pretty, sure, but it wasn't like he was into dwarfs or anything.

"Thanks," she said. She had tied a pink ribbon in her beard too. "Ant, can I get—"

Grudge interrupted her with a guffaw. "Nice helmet, Helmunt. Get it?"

Helmunt ignored him. "Can I still get some experience for heading the Memorial Committee, Ant? We didn't have time to finish last week, but it was Susan's first chairmanship and she's really close to making a level."

While Helmunt and Ant discussed experience points, Kich went through the little sheaf of character sheets he kept folded in his rulebook. He flipped through them and pulled out his former favorite, a level-eight bank manager. "Hey, while we're talking XP, Douglas never got anything for taking a bullet in that bank robbery last spring."

"He can't have XP for getting hurt," Ant said in his patient-OM voice. He sat down and opened his book bag. "He got a plaque from the district manager, remember?"

"Yeah, but his respectability ought to go up a little, at least," Kich said, although he vaguely remembered having the same argument with Ant before, and losing. "Anyway, what level's our new module? Can I start with a level eight character?"

"Actually, I got a whole new game. I ran into Darkbow at the shop and he said it's just out, and supposed to be really good. Really different, he said."

Kich put Douglas's character sheet away reluctantly. He liked Office Politics. Then again, he'd thought he would never find a game better than Election last year, and now it just seemed boring. Maybe he'd like the new game even better.

Next to him, Araway cast a light spell and shielded the resulting glowball with the lamp Ant kept in the room just for the elf. "Has anyone noticed that we quit playing a module whenever someone dies? It's not very realistic."

Helmunt said, "It's not fun unless we all get to play."

"But in real life, if someone dies, everyone else has to go on." Araway set out a new sheet of paper and two pencils, as if he was about to take a test.

"That's why we play games," Kich said. "Because they're not real life. Real life is boring."

"And sad, a lot of the time," Helmunt said. Kich remembered that she had lost her dad in a mining accident two years before. She never talked about it, but Kich sometimes wondered what it felt like to be half an orphan.

Ant held the box up. "Well, the new game is called Real Life. I read the directions last night. I don't think you'll find it boring at all."

Everyone groaned. Helmunt said, "Is this like that time you had us make character sheets for ourselves? Because that was really awful."

Kich nodded, although he was a little embarrassed that he always seemed to agree with Helmunt. "My character had the worst scores of anyone. He wasn't even all that high in accounting, and I'm good at math."

"I liked my character," Grudge said. He had painted his claws red, Kich noticed resentfully; Kich's parents wouldn't let him. But the red looked horrible against Grudge's pale green skin, at least. Grudge was athletic and handsome and everyone liked him—that counted for a lot no matter what game you played. If Grudge hadn't been friends with all of them since they were all practically babies, Kich suspected he wouldn't be caught dead in their company now.

"It's not like that," Ant said, and Kich had to think a moment to remember what they'd been talking about. Ant held up the box so they could see its cover, where a troll and a dwarf seemed to be fighting a demon. "It's all about learning to work as a group and seeing things from a new perspective."

Helmunt interrupted him with a shrill groan. "Adult-sanctioned fun. I don't want to have life lessons beating me over the helm when I'm playing a game."

"This is different, trust me. Anyway, frankly, the lot of you could use some practice working together. And I spent ten gold on it; at least give it a try."

He passed out blank character sheets and Kich looked at his suspiciously. It wasn't too different from the preprinted ones Grudge liked to use, except that there was a space to fill in species. "Can my guy be human?" he asked without much hope.

"Troll, elf, dwarf, or goblin," Ant said.

"Goblin?" Grudge and Kich both said.

"Goblin." Ant opened a rule booklet to one of several bookmarks. "You're supposed to play a character not of your species."

"I'm not human," Kich said.

"A real species, not made up. And you're encouraged to play a character of the opposite sex."

"Oh, come on," Grudge said. "That's just stupid. I'm not playing a goblin girl." He waved his hands in the air in a la-di-dah gesture. "Look at me, I'm a little goblin girl and here's a demon. I'll pull out my cute widdle dagger and stick it in its toe. Oops, it ate me!"

Everyone laughed, but Araway said, "I'll play a goblin girl."

"I'm playing a dwarf, then," Grudge said, "but not a girl."

Kich glanced at Helmunt, but she only said, "I don't see the point in playing a boy character. It's no different, is it?"

"Girls are weaker than boys," Grudge said.

Helmunt thumped her broad, blunt-fingered hand on the table. "Armwrestle?"

"You're on." Grudge folded his much bigger hand over hers.

Kich grinned. He hoped Helmunt would win, but after a couple of minutes the two were still struggling, evenly matched. Helmunt's face was flushed and Grudge was sweating. The muscles stood out in both their arms.

Ant ignored them. "Helmunt's right in a way," he said. "We don't roll out characters differently if they're male or female. It's all about attitude."

Kich said, "Grudge has the wrong attitude."

"I actually meant troll girls are weaker, not dwarfs," Grudge said. He and Helmunt were still straining against each other.

"Cut it out," Ant said. "I'd like to get started tonight and you know how long it always takes to roll out new characters. What species do you want to be, Kich?"

"I don't know," Kich said without interest. "Elf, I guess." He shot Grudge a glance, which the other troll didn't notice. "Girl."

Ant reached out and pushed the clasped hands down onto the table. "Helmunt won. What species?"

"Troll," Helmunt said. "Male, so I can experience what it's like to be stupid and ugly." She glared at Grudge, but Kich felt himself flinch a little inside. If Helmunt really thought Grudge was ugly, she probably thought Kich was too hideous to look at.

Grudge started to reply, with his face bunched up angrily and his upper lip pulled back to show his fangs, but Ant interrupted. "Okay, no insults. Get started on your attributes."

Kich rooted around in his book bag until he found his dice. The others all did the same, and for a moment the only sound was the clatter of dice on the table. Kich's dice were wooden—he couldn't afford anything nicer, like Helmunt's polished stone ones and Araway's matching brass and steel set. Even Grudge's dice were bone with different-colored pips.

The character attributes were different from Office Politics. Intelligence and charisma were the same, but there was no common-sense attribute, no respectability, no appearance. Grudge said, "What do we need wisdom for? We're just killing demons, right?" He pointed at the box lid, which Ant had set in the middle of the table.

Araway said, "You'd have to know the best way to attack a demon. That's wisdom."

"How hard can it be?" Grudge said, but immediately added, "Sorry, Kich. I didn't mean it that way."

"How did you mean it, then? That my dad doesn't have any wisdom or that killing demons is easy? I'm sure he'd be glad to let you try it out." To his surprise, Kich heard a purring undertone to his voice. He'd never managed a trollgrowl before.

Everyone looked alarmed, even Grudge. "Hey—really, man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your dad. Hell, my dad's a janitor. The only demon he fights is the demon of bad personal hygiene."

Kich laughed with everyone else, but he didn't feel very amused. Grudge was a jerk.

Then again, Grudge's dad wasn't exactly a janitor—he owned a janitorial company. But Grudge hadn't mentioned that.

Helmunt cleared her throat. "What career paths can we choose from, Ant? I just rolled an eighteen and I don't know where to put it."

"No careers," Ant said. He flipped to another bookmark. "You can pick four skills, anything you like. I get final say, though, so don't get too excited." He turned a few pages and pretended to be reading, but Kich knew him well enough to recognize what his blank expression meant. Ant was enjoying himself.

Helmunt said, "What kind of skills will we need? What's the game's setting?"

"Yeah, give us a hint here," Kich said.

Ant set the book down and leaned back in his chair. "I decide where we start and what we do based on the skills you all choose. So start choosing."

"So this is basically a game for OMs," Araway said. He raised one eyebrow and looked at Ant, who stifled a grin.

"Can we even call it OMing?" Helmunt picked up the box lid and examined the picture. "It's not exactly a situation that cries out for an Office Manager."

"Whatever," Grudge said. "I'm taking my first skill in the poleax."

"No," Ant said.

Everyone stared at him. Then Helmunt said, "Your character's a dwarf. He's four feet tall. A poleax is way too big for him."

"Oh. Uh, ax skill, then," Grudge said. Ant nodded.

"And I'll take poleax," Helmunt said, writing it down.

"Sword for me," Kich said. That was easy—everyone knew elves preferred swords or bows. He looked at Araway.

Araway smiled. "My character will have skill with the irwani—that's the traditional double-tipped serrated goblin sword. And her name is Ergibili."

"You named your character's sword?" Grudge said.

Kich snorted. Helmunt said, "He named his character."

"Well, it sounded like—anyway, I'll name my guy, uh, Baggach."

"That's a troll name. Dwarf, remember?"

Grudge looked both embarrassed and panicked. Kich felt a little sorry for him. He was glad when the troll said, a little cautiously, "What's a good dwarf name?"

While Helmunt and Grudge discussed dwarf names, Kich tried to think of elf names. The only elf girl he knew was Araway's sister. He dredged through his memory and remembered an elf from his geometry class last year. "Is Ille a good name?" he asked Araway.

"Yeah. Did you know Ille is our primary goddess of wisdom?"

"You name people after your gods?" Kich said, a little shocked.

"Sure. Don't trolls?"

"Of course not." Kich wrote the name Ille down on his character sheet, a little reluctantly. "I don't think we've even got a god of wisdom," he added.

He stared at the paper. What other skills could an elf have? He'd known Araway his whole life, but he wasn't sure what elves did, except that Araway's dad taught at the university. He didn't even know what subject.

"What else do we need?" Helmunt said. "Kich, what does your dad do to fight demons?"

"He takes his poleax, but he knows a lot of anti-demon spells too." Kich was proud of his father, even though demon-hunting was only part of his job as security guard in the local copper mines. "He says the most important thing is to get the demon to the nearest bridge. Demons are clumsy—they're easy to get off-balance, and then they just fall to their death."

Helmunt said, "That's why we build bridges into the designs. So at least one of us needs some magic skill. I'll take that."

"So will I," Kich said. He didn't mean to copy her, but that was one less skill he had to come up with.

"Grudge, your character should take mining, just in case we get lost underground," Helmunt said.

Grudge glanced at Ant, who nodded impassively.

Araway said, "What if we don't end up fighting demons in a mine? We need to be prepared for anything. What if we're stuck in the middle of the wilderness with no food?"

"I'll take hunting skill," Kich said.

"Good idea. I'll take cooking."

Grudge wrinkled his nose. "I'm not eating goblin food, not even in a game."

"Then I guess you'll have to starve," Araway said.

"What do goblins eat, anyway?" Kich asked.

"Bugs, I heard," Helmunt said, but she didn't sound convinced.

Araway put his pencil down and said, a little sharply, "Goblins eat the same kinds of food the rest of us do. And you'd like their food, Grudge—it's even spicier than troll food. There's this one dish called gilig made with rabbit and rice that'll take the top of your head off."

"How do you know?" Grudge said.

He sounded so belligerent that Kich wasn't surprised to see Araway's pale cheeks flush bright pink. "I know because I help out down in the goblin village every weekend. We're building a school."

"A school? Why?" Grudge said, looking startled. Kich silently agreed with him.

"Because goblins aren't allowed to go to our school. They're not stupid," Araway said.

"They're goblins."

Araway slammed his fist on the table. Kich jumped. "Would you listen to yourself for one second? Less than two hundred years ago, the only way an elf would end up in a troll's dining room was as the main course. And eighty years ago, Helmunt and I would have attacked each other on sight. Instead, here we all are, hanging out together, playing a stupid game." Araway's voice was shaking. Kich had never seen him so mad—Araway hardly ever got mad. "But somehow the goblins got left out of all this progress."

"They're vicious, that's why," Grudge said, with the trollgrowl buzzing in his voice. "They're not civilized—they're like, like ants."

Kich had heard of goblins swarming lone trolls, biting all over with their sharp little teeth, until the troll was eaten alive. The thought had given him nightmares when he was little. He couldn't imagine why Araway wanted to go anywhere near goblins.

Araway said, "They're not like that, any more than trolls are stupid monsters clubbing elves to death."

He and Grudge glared at each other. Grudge looked as though he'd happily club Araway. Kich glanced at Helmunt, who was staring at them wide-eyed.

Ant was watching the argument with an expression Kich couldn't read. He almost looked pleased.

Kich cleared his throat. Everyone turned to look at him and he stared down at his character sheet. "I think maybe Araway's right. Goblins have never done anything worse than throw acorns at me, and that was back when me and Grudge used to chase them."

"They threw rocks at least once," Grudge muttered, but the trollgrowl had faded from his voice.

"I think we started throwing rocks first. Anyway, I'm willing to look at it from their point of view, if Araway says they're okay. It must be pretty scary, to be that small and know trolls hate you." He picked up his pencil and bent over his character sheet, and added in a rush, "If this game's going to keep making everyone mad, I'm going to put accounting down as my guy's fourth skill. You know where you are with compound interest, or debt-to-income ratios. Numbers don't lie and they don't argue."

He wrote "accounting" on the sheet, the pencil lead digging into the paper.

The others were all silent, but Kich could feel the tension in the room. Then the door opened. Kich looked up to see Ant's mother, her hair twisted up into a knot on the top of her head and a tray in her hands. "Hello, everyone," she said cheerfully. "I brought you something to eat."

The tension eased a little as everyone tried to act normal. Kich muttered, "Thanks, Miz Gutter," and took one of the meat pastries from the tray. They were still hot.

Mrs. Gutter set the tray in the middle of the table and noticed the Real Life box lid. "This is new."

Araway said, "Ant got it for us to try."

"I'm so glad," Mrs. Gutter said. "I sometimes worry about you all, spending so much time in a fantasy world." She smiled around the table at everyone.

"Mrs. Gutter," Helmunt said abruptly, "can I ask you a stupid question?"

"Of course, dear."

"I've always wondered why you gave Ant an elfish name."

Kich glanced at Ant, wondering if he'd be mad now too, but Ant just rolled his eyes. Mrs. Gutter said, "Oh, his midwife was an elf. I thought everyone knew that story." She laughed.

Helmunt said, "You named Ant after the midwife?"

"No—but of course, you don't know our naming customs. The midwife gives a troll his formal name. But I had such a difficult time with my pregnancy, and it was such a hot, bright summer that year, that I went into labor early. I was working the tollgate, and fortunately someone came along and helped me, an elf woman, or I might have lost little Ant. I asked her to name him."

Araway looked a little uncomfortable. "Er, you do know Anteballa is a girl's name?"

Mrs. Gutter laughed again. "Well, the poor woman had never midwifed for a troll before, and she didn't know that troll boys are born with their, er, parts tucked up in a little pouch. I suppose she looked and didn't see anything dangling, and thought I'd had a daughter."

"Mom," Ant said. He looked and sounded so embarrassed that Kich grinned, partly with embarrassment himself. He didn't look at Helmunt.

"I'm very happy with your name, though, Anteballa," Mrs. Gutter said. "It's unique, just like you are."

She left the room and Ant groaned. Helmunt said, "So are your parts still in a pouch, Ant?"

"No, they're not. I'm all grown up now, if you hadn't noticed."

Kich snickered. "Leave Ant's parts alone, Helmunt."

Grudge could usually be counted on to appreciate that kind of remark, but he was silent, twiddling his claws together and frowning. Everyone else fell silent too.

Grudge and Araway spoke at the same time. "I'm sorry," they said in unison, and then both laughed a little.

"I shouldn't have jumped on you like that," Araway said.

"No, I was being a jerk. I never really thought about goblins."

"They're just people," Araway said.

"I wouldn't want to marry one or anything," Grudge added hastily, as though afraid he was being too soft. He reached for one of the pastries. "But I won't bother them anymore."

Kich said, "I won't either."

"Thanks," Araway said. "That means a lot to me, guys."

Helmunt said, "Hey—I'm sorry about what I said earlier, about ugly trolls. I didn't mean it and it was a really nasty thing to say." Her voice sounded high-pitched, and her cheeks were bright pink behind her beard.

She looked so close to tears that Kich, Grudge, and Ant all reassured her together. Grudge finished by saying, "I started it by saying girls were weak. Sorry about that, too."

"It hasn't been your night, has it, Grudge?" Helmunt said, sounding more herself. Grudge smiled and shrugged.

Ant beamed at them. "Congratulations," he said. "You've all made a level and we haven't even started playing."

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