I have always been the curious type. My mom said I had a penchant for getting to the bottom of things once I got invested, even inconsequential things. If there was a mystery, I’d take it upon myself to solve it. My main interest and hobby were people. People had always had my rapt attention in their own right - it was hard not to be intrigued by what made them tick. I’ve studied biology, psychology, and everything I could to get a better understanding of what made people around me do the things they did.
As you can imagine, this only succeeded in further isolating me from my peers. I could understand why - I myself did not wish to be studied, to be gaped at and looked over like a particularly interesting insect. I didn’t wish to have people write notes about my words, or ask if they could record conversations. Nevertheless, how could I stop myself from taking in any information presented to me?
As I grew up, and my friend group grew smaller and smaller, I sometimes pretended to be an alien gathering data for the mothership. It made me feel safer, protected even, that there was a group - a race, even, of people just like me, imaginary or not. My note-taking went from merely nondescript notes to entire journals, bizarrely diligent. They were almost sacred to me. I may have been living a life of solitude, but I rarely felt it with all the information I’d gathered. The journals became friends enough for me. One day, people would be able to read my journals and see a perfect picture of civilization and of humanity at this time. I told myself this not to overstate my self-importance, but to feel as though I was working towards something tangible rather than arbitrary note-taking.
That was around the time that I got into Dungeons and Dragons. The fantasy of it didn’t appeal to me much, but writing compelling stories, interacting with intricately made characters, and taking dutiful notes on the worlds, the people we’d created - the hobby fit like a glove, and soon enough I was joining after school clubs and online chat rooms. My parents couldn’t have been more thrilled. I had finally found my people. I finally felt like my organization and my attention to detail in my character study of everyone around me would be appreciated.
The after-school club was wary of me at first, as they had every right to be, but as I listened with perfect attention to each and every character each member had written, they began to relax. One boy in particular even helped me create my own character. Once I learned how to do it, I could write stories with the best of them and even looked into becoming a Dungeon Master - being in charge of writing and operating games. Being able to create a whole world with just my words. A world filled with people who were predictable and rational and my own.
It was around this time that I found the podcast “Four Non-Bards”. A link from one of many chatrooms led to a very poorly made website with no information about any players or campaigns, simply four videos. The videos themselves had no actual video to them, just audio over a picture of a twenty-sided die. There was nowhere to comment or interact at all with the videos. It was genuinely bizarre, but I found myself compelled to watch the first one.
It was two hours long. I only put it on as background noise at first, but I found myself not only engaged with the story, but feeling real fear at the first signs of combat, and real empathy with each backstory. Eventually, it wasn’t background noise at all. I closed my eyes and simply listened, imagining the detailed world they described. There was no background music to distract me, just pure, blissful words from a group of friends that I could pretend were my own.
There were five of them in total, four players and the Dungeon Master. None of the players ever broke character, so I began to refer to them as their character names. The Dungeon Master also never gave a name, and I began to refer to him as “Frog” in my mind, due to the vocal fry at the end of each sentence that sounded nearly like a croak. The more I heard from Frog, the more I was fascinated by him. From the detailed storylines that I knew he must’ve written to the meticulous, sprawling settings that he created with his descriptions, I felt an odd kinship with the man I knew absolutely nothing about, not even a real name. I knew that he not only looked, but saw just like I did.
Before I knew it, I finished all four episodes and desperately craved more. It hit me all at once that there was no way to know if the website would be updated any time soon, or if the videos had even been uploaded recently. When I went back to the message board to ask the person who’d posted the link, the comment had been deleted. Thankfully I still had the website up, I’d never have remembered the random string of letters and numbers that led me to it.
In school the next day, I showed a few other members of the D&D club the first video. They seemed to enjoy it, certainly, but none of them felt the same attachment I did, I could see it in their eyes. None of them were immediately hooked into this fantasy world that Frog had created, the way I had been. In all honesty, that made it feel all the more special, personalized almost. Like I had a wonderful secret no one else even began to understand. When I got home from school, I realized a new episode had been uploaded.
I listened to it immediately. It was witty, daring, and most of all just a fantastic character study on every individual player. I became almost desperate to talk to someone about the final battle of the episode, and asked around a few chat rooms. No one replied. There’s something so isolating about being part of a niche subculture and still finding yourself on the fringes, surrounded by people like you and yet still alone. Not alone, though, in a way - I still had Four Non-Bards. Every episode felt so personal, so in tune with my own taste, that I couldn’t have designed it better myself.
It continued for months, the cycle of finding this beautiful, rare, fascinating corner of the internet that none else seemed to understand and feeling so very alone, before surrounding myself with the noise of my fake friends. When episodes didn’t come out quickly enough for my liking, which was often, I would re-listen to old episodes, taking notes on the lore and characters. It still felt strange that everyone I showed it to enjoyed the podcast, could see its obvious artistic merit, maybe even wanted to keep listening, but did not find the comfort in it that sustained me.
And then, one day, came the talkback. There was no announcement, just a video entitled “behind the scenes”. It still had no real video, just audio, but everyone had finally broken character. It was jarring to hear their real voices, talking and laughing. Most of the campaign had been relatively serious, so it was a very odd juxtaposition. I even heard someone call Frog “Waylen”, and I instantly felt nauseous. They’d broken the barrier between fiction and real life. It was almost too much to stomach - almost.
Then, near the end, came the announcement. That this campaign would be ending, as they began a new campaign. I’ll be honest, it sounded riveting, but…I knew their characters. I knew they couldn’t get the ending they deserved, not over the course of a mere two hours. I knew that even Frog, or Waylen was not talented enough to tie every loose end that quickly. Just before it ended, they thanked their “viewers - or, rather, viewer” and said that due to Frog moving to attend Columbia in the fall semester, the uploads would now be made monthly, rather than weekly.
I worked quickly. I don’t know why the urgency felt necessary, but it felt genuinely like I was losing my friends. From my parents’ house in Philadelphia, Columbia University was a two-hour train ride. From there, I could take a taxi to the University. Waylen was a peculiar name, I could ask around campus, hell, I could pretend to be a lost literature student and ask for the specific area of campus. It was far, far too easy to track down Waylen Grey, as if he had wanted me to find him.
He was lanky and wore an ill-fitting T-shirt with long, coiled hair. He wasn’t at all the intellectual adult I’d planned to deal with - he was barely older than me. From meeting him on campus, to asking him about his hobbies until he brought up the podcast, to getting him to invite me back to his dorm, Waylen was easy to trick and easier still to drug. It was almost a disappointment in the end - I thought I’d finally found someone who understood the complexity behind the human condition as I did, and instead I found a sniveling teenager, begging for his life with that low, throaty voice, the second he awoke strapped to his bed. As if he hadn’t understood anything he’d been saying, anything at all he’d created.
I didn’t want to kill Waylen Grey, honestly. I didn’t have the predator and prey instinct, didn’t have the swell of victory seeing him beg for his life. But Waylen, he screamed and wailed, fighting me every which way I tried to talk to him. All I’d wanted was to study him, to get inside his beautiful brain and surprisingly loud mouth. Maybe to talk him into continuing with the current campaign. But when he fought so hard against the leather belts tying him to his own bed that they nearly snapped, I knew action had to be taken. All in all, I still got to study him, just not as I had hoped.
You’d think someone so incredibly rare, someone so gifted would look different inside. He didn’t, I checked. I slit his throat first, of course, I didn’t want to torture the poor boy. And yet there was something so satisfying, something so incredibly fitting about dissecting Frog, as if a final puzzle piece were finally put into place. In a guilty moment, I even licked a splatter of blood off the scalpel to see if his genius was stored somewhere other than his brain. Aside from the usual rust flavor, all I received was disappointment.
After cleaning the mess I’d made, I went home to my parent’s house. “Four Non-Bards” was still pulled up on my laptop, and I hungrily awaited the next video, the one in which the members of the party announced that they would, at last, have a cause to rally behind. Waylen Grey’s death would not be in vain, I knew they would say. There was something so delicious about awaiting good news you knew would come, something tantalizing about being one step ahead of the group. I knew the party of heroes would band together to avenge Waylen’s death, and I knew, or at least hoped, they would make a good story out of it. I knew I was already enjoying the newest chapter.
It’s sad of course, that their efforts to avenge him will be in vain. Although I know this guide was meant for beginners, surely through context you’ll understand the gravity when I say that in the end, I am expecting a total party kill.