“Miracle of miracles, we’ve made it without further incident,” Trick commented dryly.

He took in the whole beach, with its surprisingly few visitors, and the sparkling, beautiful ocean. The waves crashed musically not too far off. And the sun did not feel too hot. Though he thought Naomi might feel different with her armor and padding on.

Sure enough, she said, “Let’s get this over with so I can get out of this skin and into something more comfortable, like my own.”

“Your skin?”

She nodded. “Yes. Orc blood is much hotter than I would have thought, and though I am half elf, my skin is thicker and tougher, too. Even if I shed all of this armor I would still be hot. Orcs were not made to spend a day at the beach.”

“Then where do you suppose we start,” Trick asked, clapping his hands together.

“Follow, the music, I should think,” Naomi said simply.

Swinging his arms stupidly, Trick tried to pick up any hint of music above the pleasant din of the waves. The moment his friend started moving to the right of where they ha come, Trick picked up the faint notes. He quickly felt in beside her and thanked his lucky stars that his boots were high enough to prevent sand from getting in.

“They had a bard,” Naomi said. “And bards can never help but play some kind of music. They can’t stand it when things get too quiet or dull.”

“Wasn’t she also an orc,” Trick asked.

Naomi grunted and said, “Layzlie. Yes, she is an orc.”

“I’m impressed you remember her name! Ru-lah rolls off the tongue. But Layzlie? Not so much,” Trick said.

They continued down the beach until they saw a pair of colorful tents with the flaps floating gently on the ocean breeze. Before them was an assortment of various fantasy characters, all dressed in bright right swimsuits. The obvious orc was playing a pan pipe while the others played sand volleyball.

“I thought you said orcs were not made for the beach,” Trick said.

Naomi slugged his arm.

“Careful! I might need that arm later!”

“You only need one hand to foolish cram magical candy into your mouth,” she snorted.

“Yeah, I should probably double check to make sure exactly what those do,” Trick admitted with a chuckle. “But let’s first check these guys out. Yup, even from here they look just like themselves in that picture. We should probably book their painted or something.”

Before they could hai the Motley Lot, one of them pointed and cried out. Layzlie stopped piping and they all rushed Naomi and Trick. For a bizarre second, Trick felt like he was seeing the D&D version of Baywatch play out in front of him. He was happy that the orc was wearing a one piece.

“Woah, who are you guys,” a rugged looking man asked.

“I perceive that they are lost, though maybe not as bad as us,” a half elf woman said.

Trick noticed that she unabashedly wore a very revealed two piece swimsuit. He lowered his hood over his eyes to cover any blushing he might be doing.

“Careful,” the towering dragonborn cautioned. “These two look they could handle themselves in a fight. And I smell fresh blood on them.”

This got the attention of everyone in the group and they took a collective two steps backwards.

“It’s not really a problem,” Trick explained. “We just killed an assassin that was sent to take me out for betraying one of the five largest crime syndicates in the entire empire. No biggie.”

“We’ve had to fight a lot of people to make it this far,” Naomi added. “We believe that we were supposed to find you. We found a painting of you all hanging up in bar after we found this.”

She quickly rummaged through a bag and pulled out the necklace. The half elf gasped and bounded forward.

“That’s my necklace! Akerbaza gave it to me! Erm, I mean…” She struggled for a moment and then gasped, “R-Richie! He was the one who gave it to me!”

“Dammit, we’re still having trouble remembering our own names,” the dwarf at the dragonborn’s thigh grumbled. “We know who we are. We can picture it clearly in our own minds! But it is so hard to fully recall who we were before… Before all of this.”

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“We know what you mean,” Naomi said. “The same was true for us. We only not even an hour ago finally got everything sorted out. And even then it was only with the help of a dragon who is trying to stop what is going on here.”

“A dragon, you say,” the half elf said skeptically. “You always have to be careful when speaking with dragons. They are capable of great deceit and manipulation.”

“I will happily be decieved any day to get out of a magical furry convention,” Trick said.

“A magical what,” the man asked, confused.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Trick assured him.

“You look to be a rogue, somewhat similar to our own ranger, Swordalot here,” Layzlie observed.

That’s right. They all have super weird names, Trick remember with an inward sigh.

“And a human too, by the smell of it,” the bard continued. “And you. You are definitely a mix of orc and something else. Elf perhaps? Very nice.”

The way she said it and how she was looking Naomi up and down, Trick knew instantly which team Layzlie was batting for. Naomi looked down on her and snorted.

“Don’t get any funny ideas. We’re here to figure out what happened to you guys and put a stop to this craziness. An entire convention of misguided fools are trapped as animals. Some former friends of mine are eternally trapped in a video game, and the gods know who else is trapped in some nightmare or another out there!”

The half elf gestured graciously to the tents. “Then let us sit down and talk things over. We might be able to puzzle everything out together.”

“And we have some pretty good lemonade, if I do say so myself,” the dwarf added, proudly.

The Motley Lot led Naomi and Trick into the shade and offered them some tall glasses of lemonade, wet with condensation. The drinks were perfectly sweetened, and Trick happily took two large gulps. Naomi didn’t bother with hers until she had asked her questions.

“So how did you guys get here? And where is Akerbaza, or Richie I should say? And how did you lose this necklace?”

Before they answered, the group asked for a quick exchange of names. Trick and Naomi introduced themselves. Izmerelda introduced herself as the half-elf priestess, Garfunkle the dwarf, Dragorick the dragonborn, and of course Layzlie and Swordalot. With the introductions finally complete, they explained that they had come to Miami on vacation from upstate Pennsylvania. And of course, they were all in the same D&D group.

Akerbaza had been there Dungeon master and also their drow wizard. He had not accompanied them to Miami, so they were confused if he was even really caught up in the whole mess. The necklace was gone from the instant they had been transformed into their game avatars. And for the entire day they had been stuck on the beach. They had tried leaving, but whenever they tried to go through the city, all of the streets inevitably led back to the beach.

“Just like the convention center,” Trick muttered. “Whoever made this place must like labyrinths.”

“That is a good movie,” Garfunkle quipped. “Maybe something like that is happening to us?”

“I couldn’t bear to be chased down by a man with such tight pants,” Layzlie groaned.

“That’s not really what is going on here,” Naomi informed them. “The dragon we met, World Eater, said that what we are experiencing is an overlapping of worlds. Someone has forced this on us. Trick and I have dealt with this before.”

“In real life,” Izmerelda asked. “That’s kind of spooky.”

“You have no idea,” Trick said. “This is delicious lemonade by the way, thanks.”

“You’re very welcome,” Garfunkle said. “Made it meself.”

“This small one loves his drinks,” Dragorick rumbled with a grin.

“In any case,” Naomi said sourly, glaring at Trick for the interruption. “We learned through our journeys that what is happening to us right now is very real. We’ve experienced it before. But this time, we are much more involved with these other worlds than ever before. This is called a Grey Bubble, and we can burst it and set everything back to normal if we finish the Story.

“Which means, if we are going to do that, we are going to need to know your campaign story. We need to know what happened to Akerbaza.”

As the Motley Lot all took their turns to describe the adventure of fighting lich troll king and his massive armies of the undead, Trick took some time to inspect the candies World Eater had given them. In the bag he found a note that explained that blue wrapped candies contained mints that would allow the eater to blow a steady stream of cie. The red candies were obvious fire breathing candies. Then there were the jaw-breakers, which made the one sucking on them to become impervious to damage. There was taffy that made your skin become elastic. Candy that heightened the senses, and green wrapped ones that for a short time improved luck.

He smiled to himself as he read the note and contemplated what he could do with them. He finally caught the end of the campaign, but the players went on to describe how they came to Miami and Richie, or Akerbaza as they kept calling their friend, stayed behind to work. He had been sour that he couldn’t come and had begged that they stayed with him.

“You know,” Izmerelda finally said. “It make total sense if this was all some kind of punishment for leaving him alone.”

“Why do you say that,” Naomi asked.

“Akerbaza doesn’t have many friends,” Dragorick said with sigh. “In fact, we might be his only friends! And he can get pretty possessive of us.”

“But there’s no way he could be able to do all of this,” Swordalot insisted. “And why would he do this anyway, even if he could? He would rather be here with us, I can tell you that! Even if he would be stuck in the tent the whole time.”

“And not just because he’s a drow, either,” Layzlie put in.

“What’s the significance of this,” Naomi asked, finally handing the necklace over to Izemerelda.

The priestess explained, “It is a symbol of his home clan. Where he comes from, as a drow. It allows one to tap into darker magics. He said i should have it because it would help balance me out as a spell caster.”

“Or because he likes you,” Trick said.

“Look who is finally contributing,” Garfunkle jibed.

Trick ignored the comment and plowed on. “It only makes sense. It is a practical item to have, which is meant to cover his intentions. When Naomi and I were coming up with these characters you see before you, and explained the roles of the different classes, a priest or priestess is a healer and buffer. Why would you really need darker magic when you have a drow to already compliment you?

“Also, have you seen yourself lately? You’re gorgeous. Richie sounds like a total nerd. He would be drooling all over that. The cliche is so strong with this one, Darth vader would sense it across the galaxy!”

The players finally shared their own uncomfortable looks, and Swordalot said, “Well, Izmerelda and I are kind of a thing.”

“And I got that, because this is a cliche we are talking about here,” Trick said.

“The Lord of the Rings is strong with this one,” Naomi added.

This got a weak laugh from the gang, but Izemerelda said, “Akerbaza knows that, though, and he is fine with it.”

“How long as he known,” Naomi asked.

“Since just before the break,” Swordalot said.

Trick did an epic facepalm. “You guys are morons.”

There was a very awkward silence for a moment and then Layzelie cried out, “Well, I think we have a lot to mull over. Let’s give all this information some time to be properly processed and get our feet wet? What do you say, Naomi?”

“No thanks!”

Naomi and Trick watched the Motley Lot play in the ocean, splashing each other. They stewed over the group they had found. It was not what they had been expecting.

“These are the best warriors on the entire continent,” Trick asked, dumbfounded.

“They are a bunch of idiots,” Naomi agreed in exasperation.

“How many times did they even try to escape this place? While we’ve been roaming around, killing people left and right and doing all manner of insane things just to find these bimbos! How did they even survive the lich troll king?”

“Because then they had purpose. They had their entire team. And they had a good Dungeon Master,” a low voice said behind.

Jumping and whirling about, their weapons at the ready, Trick and Naomi faced a drow in sweeping robes with ancient book tucked under one arm. He had sunscreen plastered on his nose, and a straw hat shading his head. There were slits cut for his ears to poke through.

They hadn’t found the drow. The drow wizard had found them.