I stared in amazement. She was blatantly female, but her face bore such an uncanny amazement to Trevor Blake. Trevor was one of my oldest friends; we'd known each other since we were babies and our parents were good friends. We'd been good friends when we were little but over our teens had drifted apart slightly and of late he'd become better friends with my younger sister Zoe, both being goths, and they'd even been on a couple of dates, but it hadn't developed into a full blown relationship as far as I was aware. While Trevor was a goth, he wasn't hard core and was still quite pleasant and amiable to be around; he simply liked the clothing style and enjoyed the less intense music and was of opinion those goths who were all rage against the world were posers trying too hard.
The girl who looked like Trevor looked at each of us in turn, mouthing each of our names as she looked at each of our faces. Once more, on seeing the wizard's face for the first time the response was to connect it with the name grandfather. Gasping, she fell to her knees, locking eyes with him. He smiled warmly and bent down, taking her elbow gently and helping her to her feet.
"Up you come Young Lady," he smiled, "We can't have you spending all day on your knees, we need to be getting along."
"But...but...you're," she began.
"In a hurry," he cut her off. I had no basis for it, but I had a hunch the next words from 'Trevor''s mouth was going to be 'dead' before she'd been cut off. The wizard turned on his heel and set off again calling back to us, "we must be getting a move on, we're behind schedule. Introductions on the move this time I think."
"Elutian," I nodded.
"Naziim," squeaked the tiefling.
"Barûmnâzil," grunted the dwarf, his façade cracking further; he was definitely putting on a tough guy act. I was certain now we were all people from the real world that had been brought here somehow; my wish couldn't have done all this could it?
"Trev-umm, Treyzah," replied the sorcerous hurrying alongside us.
We were all several paces behind the wizard but with my keen Elven hearing I could just about overhear him muttering "Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue, yes, Sorceress, ah-hmm, Paladin next? Yes I think so, and then...Cleric? No...no, not Cleric...hrnn...Druid, that's it, Druid...but I'm getting ahead of myself...Paladin first." I dared not impart this information on my fellow adventurers, even via whisper, fearing the wizard would overhear somehow and chastise me.
We turned onto a main street and headed towards the end. I glanced up and saw we were heading towards a temple. Casting a glance either side at the others I noticed they too were surprised and confused by this. As we neared the temple, the wizard veered to one side and I began to think he was about to take another side street, but he continued along the side of the temple and lead us around the back.
At the sound of a door opening, I glanced up and saw a tall man slipping out of a back door of the temple. He was clad in plate armour, emblazoned with a dragon's head on the breastplate and had a longsword sheathed at his hip. He stepped out of the shadow of the temple and I froze, recognising another person from school...
