"It all started about a week ago, the day after one of our game nights. I got the paper that morning, and right there, on the front page, I saw that one of our group members, Sandy, had hanged herself that night."

"That's certainly troubling. I'm sorry."

"It gets worse. Two days later, one of the guys, Melvin, put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The next day, another girl, Melissa, sat in her garage with the car running. Her dad found her and dragged her out, but she's in a coma and they don't expect her to come out of it." He swallowed. "Then, day before yesterday, another one of the guys, Bill, jumped off the balcony of his tenth-story apartment. Then, yesterday…" his voice trailedabout two hundred people involved in the LARP, and players were coming in from as far away as Sioux City and Cincinnati."

"So this was where you ran into Castles and Cauldrons?"

"Yes. It was at last year's con in Chicago. The scheduled Gamemaster for the LARP had to cancel at the last minute—the conrunners all said that he got really sick last minute. But he recommended this guy named Niall Hepburn to substitute for him."

"And then what happened?"

"It was amazing. He was a real storyteller, you know? You almost felt like you were there when you listened to his voice. He took somebody else's story and took it in the direction they would have wanted, but made it his. It was the best campaign any of us had ever