Ken sniffs his mug cautiously, then blows over the liquid, then takes a sip. An eyebrow raises and he nods, ever so minutely, and sets the mug down. “So, you all wake up after an uneventful night, except for Lotan–”

“I stood the last watch,” Dave puts in.

“Lotan is sitting at the cave mouth apparently toying with his weapon.”

Dave blows a raspberry at him.

“Roll for observation. Minus two.”

“Everyone?” Lee asks.

“Just Lotan.”

“Why minus two?”

“Because you’ve been sitting there half the night instead of sleeping after a hard day yesterday, and the tide’s coming in and waves are crashing against the cliffs and there’s seagulls calling and–”

“All right, all right.” Dave rolls.

“I think I’m being generous. It’s really hard to hear what might be going on inside the cave unless you’re really paying attention.”

“Failed it,” Dave declares, clearly feeling hard done by with that minus two.

“He seems to be so engrossed in what he’s doing he hasn’t noticed that you’re awake.”

“Oh!” Simon says, picking up the cue instantly. “Try to sneak up on him, of course!” He grins. He has a slow, evil grin that seems to almost wrap itself halfway around his face.

“You bastard,” Dave says.

“Have you got Move Silently?”

“Ye-e-eah.”

“Okay, you can do that without too much trouble. What are the rest of you doing?”

“Oh, I’m watching this,” I say.

“Yeah, I’m watching too,” Lee says.

“I’m probably not really awake yet anyway,” James adds. He’s rolling a spliff on his Magic User’s reference manual. All I can see is green stuff going into it.

“What do you want to do?” Ken asks Simon.

“Oh, I just want to come up behind him and cover his eyes.” Grin. It’s quite alarming.

Dave doesn’t look happy about it.

“All right, you can roll for surprise.”

Dave rolls. “Yess.” He glares at Simon. “I’m swinging my sword at whoever it is I can hear coming up behind me.”

“Ooh!” Simon exclaims.

“Barak, you roll surprise.”

Roll. “No, I’m not surprised.” He doesn’t sound it either.

“Are you really trying to hit him?” Ken asks Dave.

“Yeah!”

“At the last minute Lotan hears Barak creeping up behind him and swings his sword at him. You’re not wearing armour are you?” Ken asks Simon.

“I don’t own any armour.” Grin. Simon seems to relish the possibility of an imminent demise for his character.

“Okay, roll it.”

Dave rolls. “Fifteen.”

“I just manage to zip back out of the way,” Simon says.

“Don’t ever come up behind me like that,” Dave says, in character and trying to sound hard. It doesn’t work, because he really is angry, and his face is a little red.

“Oi, you catch anything for breakfast?” Simon asks Dave insolently, in character.

“No. Bugger off.”

“What you been doin’ all night ’part from strokin’ your sword?” Simon switches back into his normal voice. “I come back into the cave. Oi, Samila,” he resumes the annoying goblin voice, “make breakfast.”

“What?” Lee protests, not making much effort at the voice, beyond making it sound a little spoilt and petulant. “Why does it have to be me? Why don’t you ask her?” he concludes, pointing at me.

“We don’t have any food anyway,” I point out, lightening my own voice. Not too much. Not as much as when I’m practicing alone. “We should be moving. We’ve got to find a boat and get off this island.”

“Glad someone’s remembered,” Ken mutters, a little meta.

James lights his spliff. This is the one occasion I actually don’t mind passively smoking, a little. He doesn’t use any tobacco, or hardly any because I can’t smell it, just the green stuff — I’m so ignorant of the terminology — so it doesn’t smell horrible like cigarettes. I know it’ll make me heady and a tiny bit disinhibited, which is okay, as long as it’s in character.

“I go outside the cave,” I say to Ken. “I get my pack together and go down to the water’s edge and pay my observances to the Goddess.”

“Oh, that’s what you call it,” Lee says.

He’s sitting next to me, so I pick up a player’s reference and bat him lightly over the head with it.

“Ow, that hurt!”

“You deserve it.”

“Bitch!”

“Tart.”

“Hey, you know, a girl’s gotta make a living,” Lee says, shrugging. I can hardly keep a grin off my face.

“Now now, girls, there’s no need to fight over me,” Dave cuts in.

Lee and I both give him a withering look, in unison. It’s perfect.

“I’m going down to the water,” I say again, firmly.

“Do the rest of you stay in the cave?” Ken asks.

“No, I want some air,” Lee says.

“Yeah, I’ll wander out as well, have a piss behind a rock somewhere,” James supplies laconically.

“What’s wrong with this cave?” Simon asks. “It’s nice in here! All damp and drippy.”

“We all ignore the gnome and go outside,” Lee says.

“I’m not a gnome!”

“It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. What do you do? Well, apart from Taniel, she’s down at the water’s edge already doing something, I don’t know, some elvish prancing about or something.”

“I’m not prancing!” I object.

“But, eventually, you all get your shit together and you’re ready to move on.”

“I’m being very serene,” I point out.

“I still haven’t had breakfast!” Simon observes.

“(You can prance serenely can’t you?)” Lee asks me, whispering. “(You are an elf after all–)”

“Which way do you go?” Ken asks pointedly.

“(I’m not prancing!)”

“I’ll have you know I have a very high metabolism. If I don’t eat something soon I’ll starve to death!”

“Good,” Dave mutters. But he’s got over himself now and chases it with a quick smile.

“I guess we carry on along the coast, if there’s a path,” I say.

“Are you looking for a path?”

“Okay,” I say, catching on.

He rolls a die behind his screen. “Yeah, you can see a really narrow path climbing up away from the beach to the south. It wasn’t obvious, so you think it might be a smuggler’s trail.”

“I think we should go that way,” I say in character. “I start heading that way.”

“Why are we going that way?” Lotan wants to know.

“It’s the way we need to go,” I answer enigmatically.

“You don’t want to go back the way we came do you?” Samila backs me up. “I speed up so I can catch up to Taniel,” Lee narrates. “Come on boys, keep up. You don’t want to miss all the fun.”