Every Sunday Evening

The wind whistles through the trees

And passing branches claw at your sides

As you sprint through the underbrush

The familiar rush of blood through your ears

Running from ogres

Has been whittled down to an art.

Except when you roll a 4

The GM gives a Cheshire cat grin,

As you trip on a conveniently placed stump.

Looks like we’re ogre lunch.

You're level one.

You walk into a tavern

Your companions by your side,

The lights barely illuminating

The post rush hour bar.

The group cheers--

Causing heads to turn

A few tables down--

When you roll a 19

In persuading the freckled bartender

And he tells you

About any trouble that might be

Lurking around the corner

And you land a lucky gig

In goblin trapping.

The players moan,

For yet another quest

About those pesky creatures.

You're level five.

The cold clings and gnaws at your elbows

You're not sure you have toes anymore

The frozen walls pulse with an electric blue

Blanketing the cavern in light.

You can almost taste the frost in the air.

And on the ceiling

A dragon of ancients lies deep in slumber

Its body embedded in ice

Its chest heaving slowly

As tendrils of mist

Seep out of its nostrils

Settling like dust of the floor,

The stalagmites breaking through

Like islands on

An empty sea

The silence in the cave

Is screaming to be broken

The glass bells that hang from the ceiling

Laughing softly as they swing

Ever so slightly

In the gently blowing

Cavern air

You can almost see them

The miniature creatures

That clasp onto the bells

With piercing dark blue eyes

The little wings flickering in the shadows

And the snickers bounding off the walls

They smell like a winter storm

Right before the first

Flake falls

You're level eleven.

You would have never thought

That things would go this far

You giggle lightly,

At the friends and family around you

Around you

As you devise a battle strategy

To protect the NPCS

You have befriended

And the persons within

Your nomadic city

For yet another final battle

You're level seventeen.

And at the end of the night

With flickering table lamps

And dice strewn across the table

The floor cluttered with books

Of monsters and other-worlds

The clock chimes 10:00

And everyone packs up

Talking ecstatically about

The next Sunday night

At the old blue house

By the river

With the long rope swing

And what adventure might

Ensue next.