You're laying in your ship, in a forrest, when a k-lunk lets you know that your ship has been reloaded with rockets.

You're not injured. In fact  your shirt is not even ripped.

PT

"Did I die?" I ask her this question. Sorry, I don't care how tough I think I am, or how much of a scrappy I fancy myself. The injuries I took would kill most men long before that final shot came along.

I move over the pilot's seat and sit down in it. Well, more of a slump, actually. The swing of sensations, from intense mindnumbing pain to a-okay is something that takes some getting used to. Maybe God has put me in some kind of cosmic video game machine. Oh, now that would be so stupid. I'm in a cross between the Matrix and Pac-Man.

Then again, this is all likely a vivid coma dream, so why not? I think...

I admit to myself I still haven't got the foggiest idea what's going on. Well, I look out through the front glass. I need to get my bearing and get ready for the next lesson. I'll just take this one step at a time. In time, I will understand this. I believe the conculsion of all of this is my death. But, if I'm going to die, I might as well go with as many lessons as insight can gleam.

Besides, it's not as if I'm walking it alone. I smile at this point.

Carmine pats you on the shoulder in response to your smile.

And then you hear a clunk again.

"Um, weird thing. We're here in a forrest, I look out. And then I hear our missiles being loaded. Except thats all of them. So what's that noise."

There's another klunk.

You look out the front window.

There's a fifteen foot tall, green-furred man-thing tapping on the front window glass with a finger as thick as a baseball bat.

PT

Looks like a troll. Shame I don't have any fire on me, otherwise I'd have an ace when it goes berserk on me. I figure, what the heck. Might as well go outside and see what it wants before it starts cracking open the metal case to see if there is candy inside. I check the pistol, and the two Spartha swords.

I open the back hatch and walk around, no weapons drawn, hands palm up. "Hello? Do you understand me?" If he does, I'm going to sound like an idiot, but I might as well think though any ideas.

Of course, if he comes for me, I am in serious trouble.

You open the belly door, and it opens down, and Carmine follows you with her knife ready in its sheathe as well.

"Oh, its a human, well two of them." The troll lumbers back to give you more space, and you see a dozen others, not all human, encased with you in a shimmering transluclent orange forcefield on some meadow grass.  A great forrest looms around you beyond the small meadow.

Across it is another similar filled enclosure. Next to each enclosure is a fabulously dressed person in a bamboo 'watchtower/viewing stand' with slaves to cool them with fronds.

"Welcome to the Game of Wizards, pal. It stinks." The troll grumbles.

PT
OOC: You know it, you love it...

"The Game of Wizards?" I have an odd feeling I should know what this is, but I don't. "What's going on? And who are those guys?"

The troll seems to be someone worth talking to, as it is my opinion that anyone being fanned by slaves is probably not someone I want to talk to unless I have to.

"Yeah, the Red Wizard over there is duelling the Blue Sorceress for the privilege of a night out. We're Reddies tokens in the game. We go over there and try to beat down the Blue Girl's tokens when he calls on one of us." The troll rumbles out, his voice at least contrabass.

"So, I say, no, I'm an American. No way." Dr. Carmine says with her hands on her hips.

"I like your spirit, for an Italian anyways." Drawls out a Germanic voice from across the forcefield enclosure. Its a man in a gray uniform with double lightning strokes on his shoulders. "Unfortunately, he has a very powerful pain spell along with several other protections."

He raises his right hand which ends in a hook.

"Caught a piece of burning magnesium once, and it was not nearly as bad as that illbred fop's Book of Runes."

PT