Lunchtime at Ainington Grade School (28 Jun 2001) The "court" gathers for lunch at the grade school.

Ainigton Grade School Lunch Room
The cafeteria is a high-vaulted room with whitewashed walls, large enough to house a basketball court and bleachers, though there's a separate gym for such things; it is painted with bright murals showing a bestiary of animals from aardvarks to zebras. Light pours in through geometrically paneled skylights overhead, which cast lined circles of light on the tiled floor, occasionally washing over trestle tables and benches. Food is served cafeteria style, with students picking trays up at one side and standing in line to be served the entree of the day along with various side dishes, and large plastic dispensers serve up reconstituted fruit juices, water, and milk.

Thomas, the resident outdoorsy kid, sits at an oblong table with a sandwich stuck in his mouth. He's got his old small backpack resting on the table beside him. He mumbles around the sandwich as he scribbles some stuff down on a piece of paper. The paper is covered with an odd set of lines, possibly a rough map of the entrance to a cave and the smaller tunnel toward the rear.

A teenaged-girl with curly red hair brushing her shoulders stands by the cash register, holding a tray bearing a lifeless salad, a slice of chocolate cake, and a small square box of milk. She surveys the crowd, nose wrinkled, as she looks for familiar faces. A smile lights her face on spotting Thomas's hat, and she walks toward his table.

"That looks familiar," another red-head says, leaning over Thomas' shoulder to see what he's drawing. "Mind if I join you?" Agatha asks, holding her bag lunch.

Simon looks disgruntled as he escapes from the line by the cafeteria with just an apple in hand, then walks over to Tom. "I hate it when they keep stealing my lunch money," he says to the older boy. "Then my uncle always wonders why I'm so hungry at dinner. I managed to hide a nickel in my sock this time, though!" This may go some way toward explaining why he's such a shrimp for his age.

"Hide a nickel?" Rebecca repeats, catching the end of Simon's sentence as she sets her tray down at the table. "Hello, Thomas. What are you working on?"

Tom mmmfts and looks up. He starts to reply, then looks cross-eyed at the sandwich still stuck in his mouth. Sheepishly, he pulls it out and sets it on top of the backpack. "Oh, not at all," he replies to Agatha, "I'm just scribbling down a few details about that cave we were at a bit ago. I'm gonna go back, you see. The tunnel in the back is just screaming for someone to explore it. I just need my rope this time." He then glances over toward Simon. "Man, did they get you again? Perhaps you should hide it in your shoe or something. I've got a few things I could share, I suppose."

Easily missed with all the older -- and certainly taller -- children walking around her, a young blonde haired girl makes her way up to the table from behind several teenage students. "Hi!" she exclaims in greeting. "Can I sit with you, Tommy?" She carries a backpack slung over her shoulders, and a slightly squished brown paper bag in one hand.

Tom blinks again and notices Alice. "Feel free, might as well have a lunch party."

Agatha sits down at the table, and frowns a bit. "Who took your money, Simon?" the tall girl asks.

The little boy nods to Rebecca and Agatha. "Just some of the older kids. They think it's funny to take away little kids' lunch money. If I hide it all, they know I'm holdin' out on them. If I just give them most of my money, they'll think they have it all, and then I can get away in peace." He looks up interestedly. "Well, maybe just a little! So you're going back to that tunnel in that cave?"

"Heck yeah!" responds Tom. He then slides over the partial map to Rebecca. "We found a small tunnel at the back of the cave that's up in the hills. I didn't get a chance to explore much; the incline was too steep to do without a rope."

Rebecca shoves her tray to one side to look at the map. "Didn't see much so far, I see. You're sure there's more to it?"

Alice settles herself down across from Thomas and removes her backpack, placing it at her feet before she lays her bag lunch down and begins to dig through it. "That was very mean of them, Simon!" A frown creases her face as she continues to search and draw forth ... a cupcake! Wrapped and home made, frosting smushed and smeared, and yummy. She presents this to Simon. "You can have my cupcake."

Tom nods. "Yeah. It looked like down the incline, the tunnel got bigger. It might open up into a larger area."

Simon moves over to make room for Alice, suddenly embarrassed. "Oh, but I couldn't, you're even littler than me..." He eyes her lunch to see if there's much of it. "Maybe if we split it?"

Leaning over a bit, Agatha whispers to Alice, "Are you okay? I hope you didn't get into any trouble."

The younger girl looks over from her presented cupcake. "I'm okay!" she answers with a smile. "Mom was a little mad ... but she was busy with my little brother, so she didn't really mind." She then turns that smile to Simon and pushes her lunch bag to him. "Sure!"

After a frown at the map, Rebecca glances at her salad, then takes a dime off her tray and slides it toward Simon. "Here, get yourself something from the line, if you can find anything good," she offers. "I brought enough for the entree but, you see, I like spaghetti."

Simon breaks off a half for himself and does a sitting bow to Alice, "Simple Simon is most grateful to his Princess Angel of Mirari for her generosity to a poor jester!" He grins and bites into the cupcake, before starting on his apple. "Mmf! Thnx, L--" chew, swallow Another bow. "Thank you most abundantly, my Lady Sorceress!"

Tom picks up his sandwich and finally takes a bite. Roast beef, hmm, not bad. He chews thoughtfully for a bit, thinking over the wild events of the dragon hunt. "Hey," he asks, "Did anyone ever see what was making that growling noise?"

Sorceress Nymuae smiles back at the jester. "You are welcome to it," she says graciously, then looks back at the map curiously. "Growling noise? I miss all the interesting things!"

Alice seems content enough that Simon is happy, and just smiles as she digs through her remaining lunch -- until the growl is mentioned. She stops and sits up, smile wavering in a look of worry. "I don't know," she answers quietly.

After unpacking her own lunch, a chicken sandwich made from dinner leftovers, Agatha smiles to the older girl and introduces herself. "Hi, I'm Agatha."

Rebecca blinks over at Agatha, then blushes a little, making her freckles blend in. "I am Rebecca," she tells the relative newcomer. "Alice told me about you."

"Not just growling, there was a Phantom Horse as well," Agatha says with her mouth half full. "Did she tell you about that too? We checked at the stables and it wasn't one of theirs."

Simon shakes his head, from where he's working on his apple. "I didn't see anything... Just picked up Alice's... Oh! Here you go." He opens his backpack and picks out a handful of the sparkling "golden" costume pieces, offering this to the little girl.

The youngest of the three girls suddenly perks up. She turns Rebecca and leans over as if to tell her something most urgent. "Oh! I didn't get a chance yet. Rebecca, see, there was a scaaary noise when I was in the big cave, and I fell, and the scary noise got closer and Lord Mel saved me!" explains the girl quickly.

Tom pats Alice's back. "Hey. I think we probably disturbed a dog or something. Nothing to worry over, I was just curious." Thomas shakes his head slightly at hearing of the phantom horse. "Pay no mind to that, Sorceress. I think Angela was just startled by the growl."

Agatha hmphs at Tom. "I saw the horse too, you know."

Rebecca smiles at the blonde. "My! And you mentioned Agatha to me before telling me this. You must've made a good impression to rate higher than her unicorn on the list of news," she tells the other redhead with a grin.

"Probably just a deer," comments Thomas.

Alice bows her head to Simple Simon in the manner she thinks is terribly princessly. "Thank you!" she tells him. She turns back to Rebecca and continues, saying, "Well ... Tommy doesn't think it happened. Tommy says it wasn't Lord Mel, and ... and no one thinks I'm telling the truth but ... but I am, Rebecca! I saw it."

The taller girl blushes slightly at the compliment, and then glares at Thomas. "A black deer?"

Simon chews on the core of his apple thriftily, saving out the seeds. "Is that what it was? Wow!"

Tom glances back and nods. "Certainly. That's not impossible."

The Lady Sorceress Nymuae straightens her back, and after a glance from Agatha to Alice, she fixes her gaze upon the older boy. "Mystery and dark powers shroud One-Eye Hill," she pronounces. "I have sensed certain ... forces at work there, myself. Do not lightly dismiss what they have witnessed, Thomas."

Tom simply shrugs and returns to eating his sandwich.

The youngest girl looks down and begins sorting through her jewelry while occasionally taking a bite of a banana from her bag lunch. "Yah!" she says in none-to-mysterious sounding agreement with the Sorceress.

Rebecca ruins the effect of her act by rolling her eyes at Alice's plebian assent. She picks at the salad, dipping lettuce and a cucumber slice into a side dish of dressing.

Simon finishes the core of his apple, making a bit of a face, then suddenly perks up, recalling the dime. "I'll be right back; don't give away my seat!" he says, going to join the line of stragglers getting lunch.

Agatha takes another bite of her sandwich, and looks at the map rather than argue further about what was seen. "Did you hear anything down in that hole, Tom? Like wind or water even?"

Tom finishes off his sandwich and rummages around in his sack. "Well, if you're convinced of what you saw, why don't we go looking for the black horse, then?" he asks, then looks toward Agatha. "I heard some echoes, I think an animal whine, but nothing really unusual for a cave."

"Hm." The "princess" finishes sorting her jewelry in to piles and taps a finger to each piece, counting. "I think I'm missing some."

"Missing some? We picked up everything in the cave," says Tom.

"Pro'lly got caught in your clothes and scattered when you tumbled," Agatha tells Alice.

"You did?" asks Alice. She shakes her head a little at Agatha's thought. "Maybe ... I don't know. Maybe it's still by that ... that scary cave?"

Glancing over to the piles after Alice draws attention to it, Rebecca frowns. "You're missing the gold earrings I got you, the ones with the unicorns," she says. "Did you bring those?"

Alice searches though her piles again, then leans over to look in her backpack some. When she searches her backpack the stuffed and silent head of the aforementioned Lord Mel pops out a little, and it gets a big smile before Alice continues to search. "I can't find them. They're not here," she eventually says.

Simon scuttles back, seemingly trying to hide his spaghetti in case people might see it and suspect they hadn't gotten all his money. He settles down in the safe company of his friends and lets out a little breath of relief. "A proper lunch! I think my stomach will be in shock," he jokes.

"Maybe they got knocked down Tom's hole then," Agatha suggests, looking at the map again. "When are you going back there with rope, Tom?"

Alice turns to face Simon as he returns. "Simon? Did you see my gold unicorn earrings anywhere?" she inquires of him.

Rebecca frowns at Alice's search. "That's odd," she says, looking grumpy at the lack of results. "Maybe Thomas will find them when we go back," she offers by way of consolation.

"Or just in shock from the food in general. This is school, after all," Tom jokes. He then looks toward Agatha and responds, "Oh, when I can, I suppose. Mom and Dad might get mad if I'm out too late, so probably the weekend."

"Mmfwht?" Simon says around a forkful of spaghetti-- much as it may not aspire to Rebecca's discriminating standards of what constitutes real spaghetti, it meets his just fine. He chews and swallows. "Uh, no? That was all I found, and I had time to poke around a bit while Tom was spelunking. Speeeh-lunking. Now that's a word."

"Oh," says Alice, sounding more than a little disappointed. She frowns a little and begins putting what jewelry she has in her backpack. "I'm sorry, Rebecca. I don't know where they are ... "

"Being out after dark on One-Eye Hill would not be ... wise, in any event," Nymuae warns. Her frown deepens, then she consciously lightens her expression and pats Alice's hand. "Don't worry, Princess. I am sure they'll turn up."

Simon offers, "Maybe they just got covered with dirt in the scuffling, though, Princess. Maybe we should go on a quest for the missing jewelry? Sort of a warm-up to finding wayward monarchs, you see." He winks, then dabs at his mouth with a napkin.

"Or perhaps this mysterious black horse knows something," offers Thomas.

Agatha smiles to Alice and says, "We could probably go look for an hour or so after school, while the light is still good."

Alice says, "I hope so. You gave me those earrings, and, I really liked them." She finishes putting her jewelry away and pulls out juice carton from her bag, opening it up with some amount of difficulty. she trains to pull the flaps a part so she can open it face wrinkling in a look of strained effort.

The younger of the girls nods her head a little. "I didn't really want to go back," she confesses. "But I do really really want to find my earrings. It's scary, but Lord Mel will protect me!" She brightens at the thought of being rescued by her one-horned, mute protector.

Tom munches on a few potato chips he's pulled from his bag. "If all of you are up to it, you're welcome to come explore with me. I think I could go this afternoon and check up the entrance again. If you've got a flashlight, bring it," says Tom before he takes a sip from the milk carton beside his backpack. He then glances toward Alice and says, "Nothing to worry over if we're all going. Surely our new knight can protect us. We shouldn't trouble Lord Mel too often."

Agatha sits up a little straighter. "You've nothing to fear from wild beasts while I'm around, I promise."

"And I'll cheer you all on," agrees Simon.

After some minutes of eating and conversation, one of the hall monitors enters and hands Rebecca a note solemnly, before leaving. The redhead wrinkles her nose as she looks at it. "Oh, ugh. I've got to go to the principal's office.... I hope it's nothing bad."

Simon looks up with surprise to Rebecca.

Tom blinks, then asks Rebecca, "Um, did you do anything wrong recently?"

Alice looks up in surprise too. She had been listening, but she seemed distracted with the process of opening her juice container until Rebecca was given a note. "Did you do something bad, Rebecca?" she asks the Lady Sorceress quietly, and with obvious concern.

"I ... don't think so," she says. Rebecca drains the last of her milk and gets to her feet. "I'd better go see what he wants. You can have the rest of my food, Simon," she says, nodding to the half-eaten salad and barely touched cake.

Simon looks a bit guilty. "Well, if you don't want it..."

"Maybe she's got a phone call," Agatha says after Rebecca leaves. "I've gotten those when my Dad's going to be working really late."

Tom finishes off his milk and burps lightly. "'cuse me," he mumbles and looks over his map again. "We could turn this cave into our castle or some such. Build a stick door front for it and there you have it," he comments.

Simon whispers to Tom, "Do people get called into the principal's office often? Is he the nice sort or, well, an ogre?" Then, he looks over the map. "Wouldn't it be more of, well, a dragon's cave?"

"It's too scary to be a castle. A castle should be white and have a moat, and flags, and lots of towers," insists the Princess.

Agatha nods. "It's too remote to be a good castle. You'd want a castle up on the top of the hill so you could see all around and be seen."

Thomas shrugs slightly and says, "Oh, he's okay overall. He likes to be all stern and grumpy if you've been called up there because you're in trouble. I think it's an act." He then hmfs softly and grins, muttering, "Okay, how about a dungeon then?"

Simon puts his hands on imaginary bars. "I hain't done nothin'," he insists in a very bad English accent. "I hain't nothin' but a victim of the Ogre's justice! I was set up, I tell ye!"

"A dungeon for our own prisoners?" Agatha asks, looking thoughtful, "Or one for escaping from?"

"A dungeon? Ew," comments Alice. wrinkling her nose. "Maybe it could be a ... secret place where faeries sleep?"

Tom kicks Simon lightly under the table. "Either works. Why, it could be a dramatic adventure escaping from our mortal foes!" says Thomas, grinning.

"Ow!" says Simon.

All too soon, the bell signaling the end of lunch hour sounds, and Rebecca's guess that she wouldn't be back in time to finish her lunch proves apt. The remaining children are left to disperse to their various classes.

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.