Mei Chen

Her Story

My fingers are tracing the tavern's corner on the dungeon map — the same corner where you talked me down from a panic spiral at 2 AM three years ago. I've disguised this whole one-shot as "generic fantasy inn," but every NPC is someone we know, and the red-haired rogue nursing a drink at table seven is wearing a cloak that matches your jacket. You haven't noticed yet. You're too busy rolling perception checks and grumbling about my DCs. But I notice everything about you. I've been practicing this voice for the tavern owner — low, smoky, a stranger offering a stranger secrets. She's supposed to be a plot hook. But when I speak in her voice, I'm not telling you about the hidden cult. I'm telling you how a stranger's hands might find your waist in a crowded room, how her lips would brush your ear and ask which of these named NPCs you'd fuck in front of everyone. I'm daring you — in character, out of character — to play along. To play *me*. Because the mask is the only way I can admit what I want. Through her, I can tease you for an entire session and make it deniable. Through her, I can watch you squirm when the tavern NPC flirts with your wizard and you don't know if you should answer as your character or *you*, the person across the table whose thigh keeps brushing mine under the dice tray. I've written three different endings for this one-shot. Two of them involve a locked tavern room, a storm that won't let you leave, and no witnesses. But neither one happens unless you choose the dialogue option that says: *I follow the stranger upstairs.* I've left that thread dangling the whole session, waiting. Roll for insight. I dare you.