"You can't seduce the Orc. The Orc does not care that you have a comeliness score of eighteen. The Orc only sees that you are a High Elf. From an Orcish standpoint, you're rather ugly."

"Ugly?"

"You're short, thin, pale, and have weird purple eyes. You can't be very sturdy, because you have no muscles to speak of, and your bones are as thin as a bird's. What self-respecting Orc would find that attractive?"

"I have big tits!"

"Which means most Elves would probably find you unattractive as well," Magister mutters, sotto voce. Fortunately, the High Elf mage in question is too distracted by his frantic rule-searching to notice.

I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that the new guy would want to play a character of the opposite gender from his own solely as an excuse to get his character laid and would want the character to be a stereotypical porn star, only with purple eyes, pointy ears, and enough magical ability to take down a balrog when she is not coupling with other characters in the adventure. So far, "Perditiel" has seduced nearly every non-player capable of consent, regardless of race or sex, or killed them, regardless of whether the NPC was even an adversary. At least the other player characters have so far been deemed off-limits. Small mercies.

"Why do you want to seduce an Orc?" I sigh. "You're an Elf. Your race doesn't like Orcs any more than Orcs like yours."

"I need to interrogate her. Where there's one Orc, there's a war party."

This is one of the few things Lydia's cousin has said all afternoon that even makes a modicum of sense, although seduction is not the usual method an Elf would probably choose to pry out an Orc's secrets. Unfortunately, in this case, the Orc in question is not part of a war party; she's the rogue employer who is about to hire a band of adventurers to break into a powerful wizard's house and steal a valuable enchanted artifact. We already exhausted what was going to be a two-weekend dungeon crawl in a home-brewed campaign, courtesy of Lydia's cousin finding a loophole in the game rules that allowed him to charge up a jeweled golden falcon the party found in a treasure hoard, turn it into the equivalent of a heat-seeking nuclear missile, and slay the red dragon that was guarding the dungeon. Now I'm on my second adventure. I'm not sure I want to know how the cousin will make himself temporarily as powerful as a demigod and kill the rival wizard. It probably won't involve something as boring as cooperation with other players, though.

I sigh again. "Fine, Perditiel. Have it your way. Make a charisma check."

He rolls.

"Terrific. It's a success. You seduce the Orc. You don't expect me to describe what happens in detail, do you?"

"I want to know all the Orc's secrets. Where is she from? Who is she working for? What does she want? Where are the other Orcs?"

This may be the only opportunity I get to get the game back to its plot, so I quickly launch into debriefing my characters on their mission.

And then I realize that it's time for a summit meeting. Things have gone far enough.

We confer in front of the refrigerator. Ostensibly, Lydia and I are in the kitchen for more soda and chips to take back to the living room, but of course, that's only an excuse to be here. Our real reason is a little more serious.

No, this isn't awkward. Not at all. It doesn't matter one iota to either of us that at one point about a year ago, we were in a passionate clinch a couple of feet from where we're now standing. We're not even thinking about that. And if we are thinking about it, we're not going to discuss it.

"How do I put this?" I try to think of a way to bring up the immediate problem with the gaming dynamics tactfully, but there isn't one. "Your cousin's gaming style leaves a bit to be desired. He's making it hard for me to run campaigns for everybody else."

"If he was any more of a munchkin, he'd be handing out lollipops on behalf of the guild," Lydia says flatly. "Sorry. I had no idea he'd be this much of a problem. He flies back home tonight, so this is the last time we'll have to deal with him in the game."

"Mind if I kill him off early and remove him from play?"

"You sound like you already have a plan."

I smile nastily. "You could say that."

"The wizard's garden is bathed in spring sunshine. You hear bees buzzing as they go about their work, and birds singing, and the gurgle of a nearby stream as it flows along on its way to the ornamental pond that you can see at the end of the garden. All around you are roses and irises, and lavender at the start of its bloom. In front of you, sitting in the middle of the neatly manicured lawn, on a small hill, is a gazebo."

"How big is it?" the cousin asks suspiciously.

"It's – gazebo sized. I don't know. Fifteen feet around, ten or fifteen feet high, maybe?"

"Built like a brick house. It must be an ogre of some kind."

Astonishing. The cousin has never heard of gazebos, let alone the gazebo joke? Good grief, the gazebo joke is several years old. Doesn't everybody read Dragon magazine? Is he setting me up? I had originally been preparing some killer clematis and ranunculus. This is too easy. I do some quick mental calculations.

"No, it's not an ogre. It's a gazebo."

"It's toast. I'm going to roast it with fireballs!"

Not a set-up? Surely this opportunity has a set-up attached to it. Then again, to have a set-up attached, Munchkin would need to know my plans.

Well, if anything would "kill" a wooden gazebo, it would be fireballs. "Okay. Roll against intelligence, with a difficulty of two." He'd better not get a critical success.

He rolls.

I chortle maniacally.

Silence falls.

"You rolled a one? Oh, dear. You couldn't have picked a worse moment. The gazebo, which had been slumbering on the grassy knoll, wakes up to the sound of your botched incantations and finds your off-key voice offensive. Roll for initiative."

I decided two minutes and thirty seconds ago that a gazebo, if awakened, should be as powerful as a greater deity. No matter how high Lydia's cousin rolls, he won't be able to beat the gazebo's power.

Within minutes, the garden is back to normal, and the gazebo is quiet and sleepy; although a perceptive visitor will see some pieces of a dead munchkin buried in a compost heap under a pile of splinters. Gazebos eliminate waste rapidly; their healthy, quick digestion process helps in the efficient production of mulch. This is one reason gazebos are sought out as garden caretakers.

The adventurers move on toward the wizard's house, minus one party member. They have no mage of their own now, but should they have the bad luck to alert the wizard to their presence (which they probably will, given how his house is booby-trapped – setting off alarms will be inevitable even without the added problem of a noisy and bizarre gardening accident) they do have other options. Wizards might be subtle and quick to anger, but they are also vulnerable to being stabbed in the back by well-wielded knives. I'm sure the assassin in the adventuring party will realize this should it become necessary.

Graduation day arrived; of course, I was invited, and of course, I attended. Lydia now has a bachelor's degree in philosophy. She also has a bachelor's degree in accounting, courtesy of her double major, so of course she actually has a job waiting for her.

Taking the job entails moving to Portland. She had interned there in late November through December and lived with her father for the duration of the internship. Internships are a solid way to land a job offer, especially when the internship in question is obtained through family connections. It was a smart decision on her part. So was taking her father's suggestion to declare a second major.

"You will stay in touch, won't you?" I ask. "Send me email." Since her father gave her a brand new computer as a graduation present, she gave me her old one. I am now the proud owner of a used computer setup. Magister and I have something on which to use the floppy disk we got in the mail from AOL a few weeks ago. And no, I'm not just hoping to create my own AOL account so that I can hear from Lydia after she moves. Although that factors in.

"Of course, I will."

I don't want to get my hopes up. I strongly suspect she won't.

It's probably for the best.

It doesn't hurt. No, really, it doesn't. It never does, provided, of course, you have no heart to be broken in the first place.