Ivan Wight looked at his players. He pulled the first five cards off the top of the deck of quests to one side of his notes. He frowned at the situations they gave him. Maybe he could make them work for his group.

He had planned a supernatural adventure. This might be what he needed to get things started. He needed win conditions for each quest before he could start. He looked at his fellow game masters working on their cards.

Stan adjusted his sunglasses while he talked with his players with a smile. Gary sat in his black sweater, light gleaming off his old hornrims and mostly bald pate. Gen had his porkpie pushed back, thin mustache quivering as he set the scene for his players. Jimmy sat at the table farthest away from Ivan's table, old bomber jacket draped over his chair. His hand showed the motion of whatever threat he was presenting to his players.

Ivan wrote down the win conditions for the cards on a pad so the table could know when he was ready to discard one of his cards.

Quest one: The characters are trapped in a location with a group of villains who want to abscond with a treasure. They must defeat the villain, or escape with the treasure themselves.

Quest two: The players must navigate the insides of an organism and fix whatever problem it has.

Quest three: The characters are forced into a remote location and are being hunted. They must escape the location before they are killed.

Quest four: The characters are marooned on some unknown piece of land. They must escape and travel back to civilization.

Quest five: The characters are hired to defend a location from an overwhelming force. They must either drive off the threat for good.

Ivan rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt. His players smiled at him. They had talked about the kind of game they wanted to run for the convention. They had decided on being a group of experts on paranormal events.

“Everyone ready?,” asked Ivan.

“You know it,” said Howie Phillips. He was thin, pale as a vampire, and dressed in a dark suit with matching tie. “Let's do this.”

The others made noises of affirmation. Wade Wellman rolled his dice out of habit. Clark Smith looked dour but relaxed in his t-shirt proclaiming blood for the blood god. Quin Graves smiled with purple lips to match her purple pixie cut.

Ivan nodded as he drew in breath to start the first scene of their adventure.

Askashic University contains eight brick and concrete buildings, a track, and a football field. The grounds are kept neat and green by a crew of gardeners who move from one end of the campus to the other. Twelve to fifteen hundred students are overseen by an administration and faculty of twenty.

Four members of the faculty have been asked to meet with the Dean. They are from different departments so they have no idea why they have been asked to the conference room down the hall from the Dean's office.

The table is designed to seat twenty, heavy wood with metal legs. Office chairs are there for any participants.

“Let me have a picture of what your characters are doing,” said Ivan.

Peter Dunwich paced the room. He wore business casual with sneakers. He tried to keep his shaggy hair pushed back from his face, but the effort didn't succeed.

John Ashe sat at the table. He had a book from the library open in front of him. An old scar from a bird talon marked his right hand. He wore a suit that had been in fashion years earlier.

Joe Jirel also sat at the table. He played a video game on his phone. He wore a long sleeved shirt and khakis.

Naomi Harris stood by the window. Her long brown hair had been braided and fell down her back. She gazed out at the nearest trees and wished for a cigarette. She had just quit smoking, and she still felt some withdrawl.

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“Does anybody know what this is about?,” asked Dunwich. He didn't stop pacing as he looked at his fellow captives.

“Not really,” said Jirel. “I just got a note to say to meet with the Dean. I didn't know all of you were invited. I'm Joe Jirel. I work in the history department.”

“It's probably something to do with budget cuts, or something,” said Harris. “My name is Harris. I work in the engineering department as an assistant.”

Dunwich looked at the silent final member of their group. The man kept reading his book, instead of talking.

“I'm Dunwich,” said Dunwich. “I work in the physics department.”

The fourth man kept reading, marking his place with a finger. He didn't look up to talk to the others.

The door opened. Dean Neville Boote stepped inside. He smiled at the four members of his faculty. None of them smiled back.

The reader put his book aside after marking his place.

“Hello, everybody,” said Boote. He went to the head of the table. He straightened his red tie as he walked. He nodded at the group again. “Thanks for coming on such short notice. Let me get right to it so you can plan out what you want to do next.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Dunwich. He balled up his fists.

“Calm down,” said Boote. He held up a hand. “I'll explain everything to you. Please sit down.”

Harris picked a spot to sit at the table. She tried not to interject. They were getting fired. That was the only explanation for them to be gathered.

She had liked the job too. She supposed going back to serving coffee wouldn't be that bad.

“The reason I called you here is because the University has been asked to send four people to look over an old place out in the country,” said Boote. “The picks were completely at random from the list we used. We want you to look at the property, tell us what you think.”

“The four of us are being sent on a gopher trip?,” asked Dunwich. “Why have four at all? Why not just one?”

He used his thumb to indicate Silent Sam and his book.

“Because I said so,” said the Dean. He smiled. “Don't be a pill, Pete. This is a simple job. You should be done with your look by tonight, and then you can let me know what you found tomorrow. It's simple and easy. There's nothing for you to be upset about.”

“My experiments,” said Dunwich. He raised his hands.

“They're done, Pete,” said Boote. “The University won't be funding them any more. The board is still mad about the thing last month.”

“I did nothing wrong,” said Dunwich. He looked around at the group.

“He totally did something wrong,” said Quin.

“I'm going to say he blew up one of the labs,” said Clark.

“Never,” said Howie. He smiled, long face stretching over his skull. “Maybe.”

“He doesn't get to touch nothing unless we plan to blow it up,” said Wade.

The group looked at Dunwich with bland expressions. Everyone had heard rumors. The man looked like he didn't want to get into how he had wrecked part of the University's property.

“So we're all considered misfits?,” asked Harris. She wondered when she had been saddled with that assessment.

“No,” said Boote. “The rest of you are considered valuable and worthwhile. As soon as this assessment is over, we might be able to get promotions or raises for the rest of you.”

“Okay,” said Harris. Her tone said she didn't believe that better than any words she might say. “Where is this property?”

“It is fifteen eighty Old Rockville Road,” said Boote. “It's up across the county line into Moravian County.”

“We'll find it,” said Harris. “Come on, guys. The quicker we do this, the faster the promotions.”

“For you,” said Dunwich. He glared at the Dean.

“We can take my car,” said Jirel. “It has plenty of room for the four of us.”

Ashe made sure to move to keep Dunwich out of reach of the Dean, holding his book under one arm. He indicated the physics professor should keep moving with a wave of his hand.

“It's just a look around,” said Jirel. “We can eat on the way back, work on papers and any report we have to do.”

“Do you think we can eat on the way there?,” said Harris. “I'm hungry now.”

“I don't see why not,” said Jirel. “That okay with you two?”

“Sure,” said Dunwich. He never stopped glaring at the Dean as they left the conference room.

Ashe nodded. He made sure that Dunwich left in front of him so the man couldn't take a swing at his boss.

The four faculty left the administration building, piled into Jirel's (yellow) Jeep and drove off the campus grounds. A stop at a Bucky's on the way out of Grail City gave them their choices of food baskets to eat before they left the city limits. Once they were in the suburbs, the houses started spreading out so they weren't bunched together as much. Signs for future development dotted the landscape which grew more empty and more like a small wilderness until they crossed into Moravian County and human civilization seemed to restrict itself to small places tucked into stands of trees blocking the view from the two lane road.

Fifteen Eighty Old Rockville Road fitted in with its neighbors in that way. Jirel drove by it before seeing a sign post with the number on the next driveway. He pulled in and turned around in that driveway. He drove back the way they had come before finding the right driveway and turning on the gravel road and driving in the shade provided by trees growing wild on either side of the drive.

He pulled to a stop in front of a ramshackle house with peeling white paint on its walls, grimy windows, and cracked concrete steps.

“Doesn't look like much,” he said. He got out of the jeep and looked around.