It’s no secret that I really really like fantasy books, movies, games and those kinds of things so I decided to collect Warhammer miniatures as I felt I’d enjoy them. After a few months I thought quite the opposite as the task of collecting over dozens of miniatures and then painting them was quite daunting to say the least, not to mention that there didn’t seem to be anyone to play with, and even my dad and his friends who all enjoyed tabletop games, seemed to be more interested in playing Blood Bowl, which is like American football but with teams of different fantasy races.
I decided to try it out, and get my own team. I didn’t have much money and didn’t want to use ebay or have my parents to spend alot of money on me, so I spent hours looking for a website with affordable prices. After a while of searching I finally found one that seemed good. I clicked on the team list and all manner of different teams came up. I scrolled down until I found the undead team. The price was about 30€ which was very cheap compared to other websites, but the strangest thing was the way the team was built.
Usually there’d be two separate teams for the different types, ie. zombies, ghouls, werewolves and wraiths in one team, with vampires and thralls in the second team. However, this team seemed to combine the two, with four pairs of skeletons, and one pair of wraiths, thralls, and vampires. I was confused about the decision to combine both teams but decided to buy it anyway. The ‘put into cart’ button was all the way down, and as I was scrolling past the description of the team something caught my eye. Where the material of the models was listed it said: “remnant plastic”, but I assumed it just meant recycled plastic.
I found the ‘put into cart’ button and was about to click it when I noticed an ad below for varnish you put on the miniatures after painting them. It read as follows: “Here at [redacted website] we make sure that our customers always get the best products, so make sure you don’t miss out on this special gloss varnish offer, that will make your team look realistic! Click here to buy now!” I decided to buy the varnish as well, since it wouldn’t hurt to spend a few more bucks.
After a week, the package arrived in the mail. I was so excited,that after I opened it, I immediately rushed to my room and began to assemble the miniatures. After I finished, I decided to paint them, but before that I logged onto tourplay and put my team in the league where my dad’s friends had their teams. Of course, it is recommended that you name your players so I started with the two vampires and named them Alastor and Nyx. After that I painted them, which took about two hours, because I was doing my best to not mess up. The paint dried soon, so I put on the varnish and went to bed since it was late.
I woke up in the middle of the night as I usually do, and glanced at my desk. In front of it were two dark figures with yellow eyes, staring right at me. I don’t know if I couldn’t move due to sleep paralysis or sheer terror. After a couple minutes I calmed down, slowly managed to regain control of my body and fell back to sleep.
In the morning I woke up and decided to go the living room with the Saturday morning goal of making some tea and watching Investigaton Discovery until my parents woke up. I walked into the living room and all the blinds were down, so I wasn’t able to see very much. I went to the panel on the wall to click the buttons that open the blinds, but that’s when a voice called out to me.
“No coach, don’t, we like it dark”.
I turned my head towards the voice, and jumped when I saw who it was. The speaker was Nyx. She was sitting on the couch, legs crossed. Her yellow eyes stared at me and her long white hair was quite a contrast to the black armor she was wearing. Alastor stood next to her, looking almost identical in the dark, except that his hair was short.
“H-how did you-?”, I started to ask, before I remembered what the add for the varnish said. I thought of reversing the process, however I’d have to scrub off/ paint over the varnish and it was too late now.
“There’s a suprise for you downstairs, coach Emma” , Alastor said, smiling wickedly.
I panicked, what if both my parents were dead? If that fear would turn out to be true, I’d have to deal with the suspicions of the police, not to mention the two bloodsuckers in my living room. I calmed down and went down to my room. I entered it and saw the rest of my team, exactly how I wanted them to be painted, with the difference that they were all alive (well,technically undead), and standing in front of my desk.
“Great, now they’re all alive”, I said to myself. I had no clue how to deal with all of this, but then I got a genius idea. If Nyx and Alastor both thought of me as their coach, then I can give my team orders. I decided to test my theory out.
“Hey, you over there, turn your head to the left, coaches orders” I told one of the skeletons, while looking at it. Amazingly, it complied.
With proof that the theory works, I decided to carry out the rest of my plan. I ordered the team to go upstairs to the living room and wait for me to give them new orders. After that, I opened up the metal trapdoor on the celling and got a ladder.
“Alright team, go up into the attic, stay there until I call you back and don’t make any noise while there. Alastor,Nyx you can open the window if you need to go hunt, but be sure to close it after you come back, these are orders from your coach”.
After saying that I smiled. The problem has been dealt with and I won’t need to worry about it. Or so I thought. About five days later, one of our neighbors reported seeing a orange-eyed bat flying around at night, and yesterday I saw it too. Flying outside my window, watching, waiting…