Eventually, I rejoined the party -- well, it joined me, actually, as people began wandering down to the beach itself. Dracuoatlax flew off at that point, admonishing us to be wary of the phoenix that the Guardians' leader could apparently summon to her side. Ariana and I danced for a while as some of the players pulled out instruments to play a set, and by the time it was high-noon in Panarena the party was dispersing. We retired to Queen's Haven with Myanihia to idle around and catch up on sleep for the rest of our in-game time, and then woke up on Saturday morning to head back into reality.

***

“Still not awake?” Rachel poked me as Thomas drove us and Andrea to the meet-up place in the city. Ellie was bringing the other two members of our club, and Christina was going to show up as well, while Mandy would join us later for lunch.

“What about you?” I returned, noticing the sleepy tone of her voice.

“Hmm.” she sighed, leaning against me.

“After all the sleeping we did in Panarena, too,” Andrea grinned back at us.

“Right?” I managed to laugh back.

“It'll be worth it, though.” Thomas said. “I was reading the forums for once today; we literally burned out their resolve for at least a good week, so we can focus on other things for a while. Like honest merchant-work!”

“Don't be surprised when they keep up their raiding activities on land despite that,” I said with a stifled yawn.

“Of course not,” he agreed. “But on the whole they're probably going to focus on finding a new 'in' for the competition to maintain a respectable ranking.”

“I know we're going to visit the actual headquarters, but we should probably start thinking about it more practically today, at least until our tour's over.” Andrea then remarked with a grin.

“You say that now,” I returned, “But wait until we get to the promotional and merchandising spots; you'll be psyched out with the rest of us about it in no time.”

“Probably!” the red-haired girl admitted with a wink.

“I wonder who our tour guide is going to be,” Rachel then wondered.

“Hmm,” I pondered as the words clicked in my head. “Think it'll be a GM, or just someone knowledgeable about the game?”

“Dunno,” Thomas mused thoughtfully.

“I doubt it'll be Chrissy, though.” Andrea said. “Oh, it's left up here.”

“By the bank?”

“Past the bank, by the cornerstore.”

“Oh right, gotcha.” Thomas nodded, and we turned left between the two buildings.

“And then it's a straight-shot to the parking garage.” Andrea noted.

A car next to us then beeped. Rachel, Andrea, and I turned to look; it was Ellie, Mary, and Anhe. Ellie stuck her tongue out at us, while Mary and Anhe waved, the older girl putting “bunny-ears” over Ellie's head. Like lightning I grabbed my imager and took a shot of it. Ellie gave me a funny look, but quickly returned her attention to the road.

“Pfft!” Rachel said as we looked over the image.

“Right?” I grinned back.

“I'm not sure who she'll be mad at more, you or Mary.”

“Oh-ho, you want to race, huh?” Thomas grinned as he heard Ellie rev-up her car as we drove along.

“Oh Gawd,” Andrea sighed as he put his car in gear.

“Uh-oh.” Rachel said.

“Ahh...” I started, but at that moment we took off.

Fortunately, the road had been mostly empty, which was surprising for a Saturday. Or maybe not. It wasn't often I was in this area of the city. Anyhow; Ellie pulled a tie on us as we entered the garage, but Thomas got parked first so maybe he won? Kind of? They bickered about it like grade-schoolers until we got to the door, where we found Christina waiting for us.

“It's not going anywhere, sweethearts, sheesh,” she said to us with an amused smile. “Come on; we're meeting your tour guide in the cafeteria.”

“Okay!” Andrea replied, and we headed on in with her. “Is Mandy even awake?”

“She is. Laser-focused on studying for a sociology test she got promised this past week, and reviewing some of our literature assignments too.” the older girl said.

“Lit classes, huh?” Mary remarked.

“Yup.” the other nodded back. We found ourselves heading down a hallway with all sorts of promos and merchandise displays, but the actual stores were in another part of the building according to the signs. Eventually we got to the cafeteria, settling ourselves in at a table near the door.

“I guess you don't know who the guide is,” I said, and Christina shook her head.

“Nope. But I think it is a GM, a senior one, too.” she told us.

“Cool!” Ellie exclaimed.

“Though there's probably going to be an assistant with them,” the dark-haired girl added.

“That's me!” a teenage voice called out.

There at the door was a girl younger than Anhe; her wavy hair was dyed pink, and she had a frilly dress on with platform shoes to make her seem a bit taller. The taller figure of a bespectacled man in a plaid sweater-vest over a cream formal shirt with matching slacks joined her shortly after, catching his breath.

“Jenn! For goodness sakes, slow down!” he said to her.

“Sorry, Rabbs! Ah--! I mean, Mister Green!” the girl named Jenn replied.

“I told you, it's fine to call me George,” he returned as he straightened up, and the young girl deferred to him as he approached us. “All right--hello, all! I'm George Green, your tour guide for the day, and this is Genevieve or Jenny Bastien, our resident child-genius, assisting for the day. Any questions before we start off on our little expedition?” he said to us.

“Andrea Summers, club president,” Andrea said as she stood up to shake hands with the man, and with Jenny. “What else do you do when you're not showing people around?”

“Ah-hah, we're Game Masters, so we help keep order in our virtual world!” he replied.

“Ah! I hope we haven't caused too much trouble for the two of you,” Andrea returned with a shy smile.

“All part of the game; so you're players as well, eh?” the man noted.

“True.” our club president nodded.

“Well then, welcome to the other side of Panarena!” he said with a grand smile, and with that we began our tour.

Our first stop was a large room they called the “Think Tank”. There were a lot of tables, desks, notebooks, sketchbooks, easels, and computers that were used to help create the fundamentals of the game-world and to generate functional or practical models and designs for the game itself. It was pretty amazing, and I had a passing though that maybe I'd enjoy this sort of thing--but, math. Of course, I perked up a bit when I learned that this was also where the lore and most of the quests where crafted as well. Now that would be fun to do.

The game itself can auto-generate its own quests based upon certain parameters and within certain contexts, but most of the more strenuous or involved quests are still designed and written by actual people. I wonder if the guy who wrote that Xuanpu quest we did is here today... I wondered to myself as we looked around at story-boards and models for in-game cities and such. One in particular caught my eye, and I subtly beckoned Rachel over. She took one look, and lit up with a radiant smile.

“That's Cloverbell! Oh how cute!” she said as her eyes fell upon the model.

“Right?” I agreed with a soft grin.

“What's up, kiddos? Oh, I see,” Christina said as she joined us, smiling.

“Okay, no more questions, then?” Mr. Green's voice called out. “Well, we've a lot more to get through, so let's allow these fine people to get back to work!”

“All right, guys and girls, come on,” Christina said, and we followed our guides to the next location.

“That was like, fifty people there; fifty people get paid to just sketch out stories or drawings and stuff for a video game company,” Ellie remarked with awe.

“Actually, our Creative Development Department employs one-hundred and twenty-three people,” Mr. Green told her.

“Whoa.”

“There's actually another 'Think Tank' on an upper floor,” Jenny added, “But that's for like, more focused ideas while this one down here is for general concepts.”

“That makes sense,” Thomas nodded.

“Where are we off to now?” Andrea asked them.

“To the programming and scripting centers,” the bespectacled man replied. “Once the ideas get approval for implementation, these people have the tedious task of actualizing them into the virtual reality space.” he said as we entered another room, this one wall-to-wall with computers of all different kinds. “We'll be visiting another department in a few moments that also provides them with certain data for the game, but everything you see and feel in Panarena is the result of the hard work in this very room.” he said with a proud nod as he gestured to his coworkers.

“Neat-o,” Ellie grinned as we fanned out to (respectfully) examine the goings-on.

I found myself near a monitor displaying a very familiar sight; it had Dracuoatlax as a background. As I blinked in astonishment, the technician or programmer manning the station turned to me with a grin.

“That's Draco, as we like to shorten it here,” he told me.

“Draco, huh?” I replied.

Draco, Dracky... I wonder which he'd be more annoyed by, I couldn't help but wonder.

“Yep! We were all taking bets on who'd manage to persuade him to be their ally first. Heh, Sophie over there won that bet, a two-week's allowance of vacation.” he said with a wry grin.

“And I'm gonna use them this summer for sure.” the woman a few desks away returned with a sly smile. “Any of you play this game?” she asked.

“Some,” Andrea quickly said. “It's amazing to see all the hard work that goes on to give it life! Thank you for what you do here,” she also said, and the employees gave her gratified looks in reply.

“No no, thank you; you're the reason we do this!” one of them beamed back.

“Ever run into this guy?” the man near me asked, gesturing towards his background.

“Oh, once or twice,” Rachel smiled back.

“Nice!” he clapped his hands.

“What's the hardest thing you've had to put into this game?” I suddenly wondered.

“Ooh, nice question,” Ellie said, coming over to lean on me with her elbow like the older sister I never had.

“The hardest, you say,” the man returned, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “I mean, a lot of work went into this guy here,” he again pointed to the dragon, “And also the many others like him we've implemented into the game. But the hardest... hey Sophie, what was that one Jackie was griping about all during the alpha testing?”

“The heck are you asking me for, Johnny boy? Tim's the one who had to listen to all that.” she said.

“Oh right!”

“Yo, Tim!” Sophie then called over to another man, who looked up from his desk. “What was that thing you got an earful about from Jax?”

“Ah? Jackie's grumbling?” he said with a laugh. “She was fussing about that script for the King of Harmonia and the Emperor of Onyxus, something about their attack patterns not conforming or going haywire. I think Devlin finally fixed it, though... or was it that wash-out has-been Bill?”

“Ahh, right, that thing.” Johnny sighed. “It was Bill. Say what you will about his mistake, but he was a genius programmer and code-master.”

“Heh,” Tim shrugged.

Mistake, huh? Wait... programmer... code-master... huh... I mused inwardly on hearing the exchange, almost oblivious to the fact that Ellie was still using me as a lean-post.

“So even this game had some rough spots for alpha,” I said with a grin.

“Oh heck yeah.” Johnny nodded.

“Don't even ask how many times it took us to get all of the horse-type creatures walking properly,” the woman named Sophie said with a sigh, and a few laughs were heard.

After our visit to this room, our guides led us to an observatory where we could see another room below us. This room, they told us, was a laboratory where some of their top-level engineers, scientists, and programmers worked, experimenting in various ways so that they could faithfully replicate real-world sensations in the virtual world.

“The Dream Machine itself plays a crucial role here; its original design was as a sensory tool meant to explore the nervous system and most importantly the brain. Later we learned how to emulate the data we observed from its scans and to implement them as actual sensations into the virtual world; the feeling of sunlight, a breeze, physical contact, pain receptors, the sensation of being wet or of being in the air, fatigue, taste, smells -- all of that and more is extracted from the data we collect here in this lab.” Mr. Green said as we observed the room below.

S-so, like, even the things that... that Jannie was implying...? I wondered with a bemused look on my face. Still, that's, what can I say? It's amazing.

“This sort of thing makes it useful in the realm of medical research too, right?” Christina asked.

“Exactly!” Jenny nodded enthusiastically. “As a matter of fact, our company is working on a joint effort with some of the regional hospitals to have that more basic Dream Machine implemented as a medical scanner, and hopefully they'll be able to expand its capabilities so that it can run diagnoses on other systems of the human body!” she told us.

“Wow! That'd be a huge step,” Mary exclaimed.

“You're telling me!” the young girl agreed.

“She's being modest,” Mr. Green said as he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, “But Jenny is one of the people working on that joint effort.”

“Ehh? You didn't have to tell them that!” his coworker blushed.

“Good for you, though -- you must be really good,” Rachel smiled to her.

“Heh-heh, some days more than others,” the other grinned back.

Anyhow. We toured quite a lot of the place in the three or so hours that we had to do so, and every second of it made me appreciate that much more just how intricate these things called video games really are--especially this one. I wasn't quite sure if it was totally up my alley, but I definitely had it on radar, just in case.

So long as I don't have to deal with math, I subtly grimaced.

At the end of the tour, our guides thanked us for joining them and we thanked them in turn for their enthusiastic and informative tour, after which we spent a few minutes in one of the promo and merchandise shops as a small treat to ourselves.

“Ooh, look at this, a special card to activate a second skill set; and another for an appearance change, neat!” Ellie said as she examined the items.

“I think I would rather have one of those stuffed dragons; they are so cute!” Anhe remarked.

“Oh defs!” the older girl nodded. “What color?”

“Hmm! I think the yellow one.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Yellow, huh?”

“Mm, to go with my room!” Anhe beamed.

“Cute!” Ellie smiled back.

“Thinking about it?” Rachel said as I looked at the game-cards Ellie had been browsing a moment ago.

“Kind of, yeah,” I nodded.

“What would you be instead of a shadow warrior?”

“Ehh, not sure... but with this price on it, it'd be nice to get it now just to have it on down the road.”

“Definite agree. That's not bad.” Rachel said with a nod. It had a seventy-five percent discount right now, as did the other game-card; that meant it would only be eight in total to buy them both. “Hmm... I'll definitely get this one, at least,” she said as she picked up one from the skill set rack.

“Oh for sure,” I agreed, taking one myself and slyly taking an appearance card as well. I wasn't sure why I did so. But, again, since it was only priced at four, why not?

“Whew! We have everything?” Andrea said when we had finished our shopping. “Good! They also gave us these cards for free; we put them into the Dream Machine's tower later and claim their reward in-game!” she said, handing out the items in question. It was a card-disc that we could use to claim one item from a variety of others, mostly resource-stacks but there were some choices of rare equipment as well. Oh, and mounts. “And... three!” she said to Christina with a wink.

“Three? Oh, okay,” the older girl smiled, winking back.

“Gotta take care of our missing club members,” the red-haired girl remarked innocently. “All right! On to lunch!” she then smiled, and we made our way back to the cars, Christina joining Ellie and the others for our ride to the restaurant.

“How'd she get here, anyway?” Andrea wondered.

“I guess she walked,” Thomas said as we pulled out after Ellie. “We know Mandy drives; she'll probably meet us at the restaurant.”

“And then we get to talk about our summer!” Andrea said in a sing-song voice.

“Whee!” Rachel cheered in delight.

“Can't we get through spring, first?” I sighed, despite the smile on my face.

“That'd be nice.” Thomas agreed.

“Ugghh.” Andrea groaned, lightly smacking his shoulder. “I say we take twenty points from both of them.” she said to Rachel.

“Agree.” Rachel nodded.

“Gyeck!?”

“Hah?!” the two of us exclaimed at once.

***

We found Mandy waiting for us at the out-of-the-way diner situated at the edge of the Food District near the downtown and park area where we had agreed to meet up at for lunch. She waved as we all got out of the cars, and we headed inside to claim a booth.

“So how did it go?” the girl with platinum-blonde hair asked us as we settled in.

“Good!” Andrea replied.

“Oh for sure,” Ellie nodded.

“Great!” the older girl smiled back. A waiter came by to grab our drink orders, and then Christina laid her head on Mandy's shoulder.

“How's studying?” she asked.

“Bleck.” Mandy returned. “I think I can get through the quiz or whatever, though.”

“Good.” Christina smiled. “Oh, Sean, Rachel, we're taking you to the park later.” she said to us with a grin.

“Okay!” Rachel smiled back.

“Sure,” I nodded in reply.

“That's a help, since I don't really need to be there -- no stage to work on at the park!” Thomas said.

“I'm sure Larry could fix that for you,” I quipped back, and we laughed. Larry Gordons was our school's tech-ed or shop teacher and in charge of the props and scenery manufacturing, and one of the more informal adults there, hence his allowing the students to call him by name.

“D-don't give him ideas, please,” Thomas said with a wry smile.

“Ooh, I know! Tell me about some of your teachers!” Mandy exclaimed.

“Oh sure! Since you're gonna be working at our school this fall!” Andrea smiled at once.

“Exactly!” the other nodded as our waiter came back with our drinks. We decided to get a couple of pizzas for lunch, and when he had gone to put our orders in we spent the time telling Mandy and Christina about the teachers at our school. She listened with rapt attention, prodding us when we would speak somewhat negatively about a teacher and trying to get us to say at least one positive thing about them.

Already on the clock, huh? I quietly thought to myself as she insisted I say one nice thing about math class.

“It's a lost cause, Mandy.” Rachel said, patting my head. “I'm sure he'll be nicer one he manages to actually pass the class.”

“Oy.” I sighed.

“Oh, we'll see,” the older girl grinned. “And how about your philosophy teacher, Mary?”

“I'm pretty sure he wouldn't much care about our opinions of him, and would instead posit some sort of mental quandary about whether or not his lectures and instruction benefited or did not benefit us on the whole to answer that sort of question,” Mary said with a hesitant laugh. Christina nearly choked on her drink in amusement at the words.

“Solid philosopher, huh?” Mandy returned, patting her girlfriend on the back as she recovered herself.

“Definitely.” Mary nodded. Rachel and I looked at each other with wry grins.

Let's not do philosophy.

N-not even gonna suggest it, or so we might have been saying out loud to each other.

“You're aiming for AILE, right?” Christina asked her.

“I am, yes,” Mary smiled.

“And Anhe's going overseas, probably,” Mandy sighed.

“Sorry!” the younger girl smiled bashfully.

“Don't apologize! It's your decision, be proud of it!” Mandy told her.

“I will! If I decide in the end to do that, at least.” Anhe nodded back.

“Well someone's gonna have to keep me company when this one goes off to the Space Program,” Mandy remarked, poking Christina again, who poked her back.

“Sabrina already said she'd be more than happy to visit you; you might even end up as coworkers,” the reply came.

“It's not the same, you know.” the other pouted.

“It won't be with them either, you know.” Christina smiled back playfully.

“Meh, guess not,” Mandy admitted.

“I see you and your sister worked things out a bit more,” I remarked.

“Not perfectly, but we're getting there.” Christina smiled at me.

“Speaking of which, summer vacation.” Andrea then rejoined the conversation.

“Ooh, defs! Where are we going?” Mandy perked up again.

“So we know you're going to be at the play... would she come with us for a vacation, maybe?” Rachel asked them.

“Hmm...” the eldest among us leaned back in her chair a bit, while the second-oldest casually sipped from her drink.

“She might.” Christina said. “Depending on her reaction to the play, that is... Lana.” she added with a wink.

“Gyeck!” I low-key tensed up.

“Though the more I think about it, she'd probably find it just as hilarious as I do.”

“You're not a twin for nothing, huh?” Ellie nodded.

“Just a half-twin, but yeah.” the other shrugged. “So, where would we be going?”

“It's definitely got to be a beach of some kind.” Mary remarked.

“Defs.” Ellie agreed. “Hahh, but where...” she sighed.

“Of some kind, huh?” Mandy said with an amused grin. “You all have your IIDPs, right?” she asked us in a more serious tone.

“I definitely did, and Andi and Tom did as well.” Ellie nodded.

“I have mine, since about half of my family lives overseas,” Anhe said.

“Just got it this past February.” Mary smiled.

“Chrissy and Sabrina have theirs for their jobs, obviously, and I got mine for my driving certificates,” Mandy said as she kept track with her fingers. “That leaves... oh, it leaves our little lovebirds -- well, our littlest ones, that is!” she beamed.

“Hahh...”

“You should have yours, though,” Rachel said to me. “You did go to Canada after all.”

“As a young child dependent on an adult IIDP, yes.” I reminded her.

“Ohhh, right!” Rachel snapped her fingers. “And I have to update mine... we'll go together next week sometime!”

“Heh? Ah, sure!” I nodded.

“Pffft!” Christina snickered. She made a twirling motion with her right hand around her left pinkie-finger, and the others laughed.

“Well, we could go on an overseas vacation if we all have them...” Mandy then said.

“Yes!” Ellie thumped the table at once. “Heck yes.”

“That would be fun!” Anhe smiled in agreement.

“That still leaves us with the pertinent question of where, though.” Thomas said.

“If it's an overseas summer vacation it's gotta be the South Pacific.” Ellie nodded confidently.

“Or the Caribbean,” Andrea countered.

“Everyone's going there, though... remember? From our third-period class. I don't wanna see those losers while I'm having fun. Except you and Tommy that is.” the other retorted at once.

“Oh right!” Andrea grinned, quietly chuckling.

“Ah-hah,” Thomas smiled uncertainly.

“So where in the South Pacific?” Mandy grinned.

“Maldives, the Philippines, Hawai'i, something like that.” Ellie said.

“Three on the table, then.” Christina remarked.

“Hawai'i feels like such a stereotype answer, though it'd be fun!” Rachel smiled.

“That'd be the simplest answer, at least.” Mary nodded.

“Southern France or Spain would be lovely, too... or maybe somewhere else on the Mediterranean,” Andrea said wistfully.

“Ugh. So true.” Ellie agreed.

“They're fixed on the beaches, I see,” Christina said to Mandy.

“I can't blame them. We are at least a thousand and a half miles from any sort of coast in all directions, after all.” the other grinned back. “But it'd be nice to see something besides a beach at times.”

“Hrrghh... there's gotta be something that's good for all of us...” Ellie sighed.

“There are at least a couple places we might all agree on; they are not far from beaches, and they would have plenty of other things to do as well, and lots of other places to explore...” Anhe then remarked, taking a drink before continuing with a smile. “What would you say to going somewhere in either China or Japan, perhaps at one of my extended family's homes?” she asked us.

***

“We definitely went for that one, didn't we?” Christina remarked later as Mandy drove us to the Park.

“It's hard to resist what might be nearly a free vacation, minus air-fare!” Mandy grinned back.

“We wanted to go eventually, too; I think Mrs. Liang herself was going to do a trip with some of her classes?” Rachel said, directing the last bit to me.

“I think so?” I replied. “Maybe for our final year,” I added, trying to remember.

“Oh definitely.” my girlfriend nodded.

“Ooh, that'd be nice,” Christina said.

“Yes!” Rachel smiled back.

“So you're doing a full rehearsal in the Park today, huh?” Mandy then asked.

“As much as we can, I suppose,” I said in reply.

“We're definitely going through all of it from what Allie messaged me the other night.” Rachel said. “We'll just have to pull out our scripts for the--”

“Hyeck!!” I suddenly realized, and then quietly sighed in exasperation.

“Sean?” Rachel wondered, and then affected a wry grin. “Ahh... you forgot your script,” she said with an awkward laugh.

“Hahh...”

“Oh dear,” Mandy remarked. “Hmm... you said three, and it's only around two...”

“We can make that.” Christina nodded.

“Huh? Oh,” I suddenly realized. “Ahh... thanks, really,” I then said, a relieved look on my face.

“No problem, kiddo!” Mandy beamed.

“We'll just have you pay us back in-game sometime,” Christina winked.

“Ah-heh...” I returned uncertainly, and Rachel grinned like a Cheshire cat.

After we had retrieved my script that I had unwittingly left behind earlier this morning, we made our way to the Park for certain this time, finding that most of the others had gathered for our afternoon activity. The older pair went to go and sit on a nearby bench while the two of us joined up with our fellow cast-mates and school friends. I saw Joanna off to the side, looking lost in thought.

“Everyone's in normal clothes... that almost feels weird...” I remarked.

“Right??” Rachel agreed with me. “Joanna almost looks like she's in a biker gang or something,” she added.

“Pfft!” I quietly chortled. “She kinda does!” I softly nodded.

“'Ey! It's our stars!” Matthew called out. “Now we just have to wait for Jeff, Lacey, Lucille... someone else... another someone...”

“Come on, Matt, you know their names!” Herby jabbed him.

“Ehh...” the other frowned, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Billy and Stephen! Yeesh,” the stocky boy shook his head.

“Ah-ha! That's right!”

“What a doofus.”

“Oop! There they are; what the heck? Henry was with 'em, too!” Matthew remarked as he saw a car pull up.

“I thought he came with Allie and Malcolm? Oh wait, no, that was John,” Maggie said as we looked over towards the newly-arrived vehicle.

“Well finally,” Brian Donovan, who was playing the knight Sir Richard, remarked as the others joined us. “Oh, you have your lute! Well let's get started, then!”

“Ehh, it's early... but we can start anyway. The Park Authority knows we're here.” Malcolm said with a nod.

“Oh, that was a thing,” I softly remarked to myself as I recalled the organization in question. Henry pulled out his lute, carefully tuning it up. I heard one of the older two girls whistle from the bench as he did so.

“All right, guys and girls!” Malcolm clapped his hands, and we all turned to him. “Miss Andrews isn't here and neither is Holly... so as club president of the Drama and Theater Club I'm taking charge for the afternoon. We're gonna go as far as we can without scripts, and then we'll do the rest with 'em; any questions?”

“Are we going through everything? Dances, fight scenes, that sort of thing?” a girl named Cara, one of the townsfolk and tournament extras, asked him.

“Ehh... dances, yeah; fight scenes? It'll be hard to do without the actual props... we'll figure that out when we get to it.” he answered her.

“Got it!” the other replied.

“Right, anything else for the good of the order?”

“What time do we break for our keg-party afterwards?” a certain cheeky co-star asked.

“Shut up, Matt!” we chorused back.

“Ho there! Stand back now, and let a better man cross this span!” I called out to Matt, now in character as Little John.

“A better man, you say? But there is none better than I, John Little -- stand aside yourself, my pretty fool; here come I!” he replied to me.

“Here, now; I'll take that not, as surely as my name is Robin Hood!”

“Ho-ho, a Hood, say you? And what of you, my pretty bird perched beside him?” the line came.

“Allan A'Dale, at your service, sirrah!” Henry grinned back broadly. “And I do implore you, give way! For there was never so crafty a fighter and yeoman as that which you see before you now!”

“And I shall put those words to the test, as my name is John Little! Come, my little rascal, cut yourself a stout stick--or perhaps twig, in your case!--and face me, if ye dare!” he said in answer.

“Regret not those words when you go a'swimming with the current, my fine fellow!” I said to him, miming the act of crafting a hasty staff.

“Right!” Malcolm then said, interrupting for the first time. “O-kay... staff fight, staff fight, staff fight; Little John strikes Robin on the head, then swings at his feet; Robin lands in the water--go!” he said, and we got ourselves into position.

“Ha-ha! How now, my little man?” Matt said in character, offering a hand to pull me up our of the “water”.

“I say your staff hits as hard as iron!”

“And now shall you give way to me!”

“Not so fast!” I returned. “You've a mighty hand, friend! What say you to joining my band of friends in these forests?”

“Ho-ho! Join your band? Mayhaps, my little man, I should be the leader -- unless there is aught else you would contest me with! For never have I met a man who could beat me at aught I set my hand to,” he said in reply.

“Robin, Robin!” the other outlaws called as they joined the scene.

“Here now! Why is our brave leader drenched like a rat from the sea?” Joey called.

“Fie on you, stranger!” Leslie booed.

“Come now, come now!” I called to them. “Be not so hard on our friend; I was merely seeking the company of yonder trout when I lost my footing!”

“Oh-ho, a brave face you put on, my little man!” Matt grinned.

“What say you, Master Little? Will you contest me with the bow? Surely a man as strong as you can pull a good length of yew-wood!”

“Aye, I can -- and I shall, if you are so determined to humiliate yourself!” the answer came. The archery contest was then mimed out, and after that the outlaw gang, one member now added, sat down to merriment.

“Good shot, Robin!” Maggie clapped her hands.

“I must say, little man, you've a mighty keen eye to split another man's arrow!” Matt said.

“Little man, little man! Since you're so keen on that name, we'll give it back to you for a christening!” Henry said, miming the act of dunking an ale over Matt's head. “I dub thee, 'Little John'! Welcome to the Greenwood, Little John!” he crowed, and the rest of us laughed on cue, with Matt joining in moments later, returning the favor to his christener.

***

“And so ends the tale of England's best outlaws, Robin of the Greenwood and his merry Merry Men!” Henry proclaimed in-character a couple hours later, when we had finished our run-through of the entire musical. It was almost six now. There was an applause, and when it was over we began dissipating.

“Phew! Now we definitely gotta work on that scene, Herbs!” Matt remarked as the two of them set off from the park.

“For sure; we'll have to get Sean and Henry and the others, too,” the other replied.

“Of course we'll have to get them! It's the rescue scene, after all! Oop! We'll have to get the other side's group as well...”

“And Rachel, I think...”

“Yep! She's in it.” Matt nodded.

“I think we're gonna be roped again,” I remarked to Rachel, who smiled back.

“Ya think?” she replied. Joanna came up to us, smiling mischievously.

“Careful in-game tonight, Rachel. Oop, but I suppose it's already begun.” she said softly.

“What has?” Rachel asked her cautiously.

“Hmm... I'll give you a hint... it's blue and round, and under the waves, my guild has gone to get it first. They should have it, by now.” she said, winking to us as she headed to where Malcolm and Allie were waiting.

“Blue and round...?” Rachel wondered as Mandy and Christina came up to us.

“What was that about?” Christina asked.

“Oh snap, she means the Sea Orb!” I suddenly realized.

“Ohh!” the three girls chorused at once.

“Let's get our fearless leader home, quick!” Mandy said.

“You got it, boss!” Christina replied.

We scurried off to Mandy's car, and she drove us home -- not, however, before stopping to get us a quick dinner at a drive-thru first. By the time we got to my house we had mostly finished this, and I took what I had left in with me as I got out of the car with a kiss from Rachel and quick hugs from the other two. I then headed inside, finding dad asleep next to mom on the couch, and made my way upstairs.

That... was different... I thought to myself as I did so, But, also... kind of nice, to see them like that, I smiled, suddenly wondering if that was how Rachel and I looked sometimes. It probably was.