“One for each person who’s having a cup, and one for the pot.”

“Yeah, I know. I remember that bit.”

This is so embarrassing. Simon is standing over me while I make the tea. And I do mean over me. I feel like a slow-witted child.

“Now, get the mugs–”

“I know! Jesus.”

“Just remember to pour the water into the teapot while it’s actually boiling this time.”

I’ve got half an ear on proceedings out in the main part of the hall. Dave is boring everyone including the DM (which is always a bad idea) by trying out everything he knows as a gamer to see if the big shiny sword he picked up in the battle last session is magical or not. Things his typical combat-monster character could never know. I can tell from Ken’s expression that this is not a good way to get XP, but he’s probably only letting it go on because he’s waiting for the tea before actually starting, and probably finds it mildly amusing to lead Dave around a bit with little hints and instructions to roll D20, that he might be on to something. I don’t know why Dave never gets this. There are two possibilities: the sword is magical, and Ken made a secret detect magic roll on Dave’s behalf that failed, or it’s not magic and the secret roll was actually fake. Either way, he’s not going to find out anything useful going at it like this.

Or he might trigger an evil curse that’ll blight the rest of that character’s brief but event-filled life. That’s entirely possible, when Ken’s DMing. And things like that are always happening to Dave’s characters. Roll-play doesn’t get well rewarded here.

“Kettle’s boiling,” Simon points out.

“Right.” I pick it up off the stand and, as instructed, pour straight into the teapot. “How much?”

Simon is looming over it. He glides around the church hall’s small kitchen like a ghost. “Keep going… That much.”

I put the lid on the pot. “How long do we wait?”