Dice.
Collectible cards.
A desire to escape –not just escape, but to create, create a separate reality from the one that caused ulcers, nervous tics, insomnia.
The small group who adopted the game soon shed their birth names in favor of the names they had chosen in their alternate realm.
Though there was tension-all games of chance have tension-there was an underlying peace.
Zallyrika stood at the gate remembering the day they had moved past the existing module, past the cards with adventures and weapons and charms.
Can we do this? Someone asked, and her answer was as quick as the strike of a mythical serpent on one of the cards.
“We will,” she had answered. They forged their own rules, and quests and terrain.
The gate she stood at had a mythical name: The Duntermyall Barrier. It was part of their world.
But it was part of the real world, too. Wrought iron, manufactured in the very real state of Pennsylvania.
Zallyrika knew that.
She was not delusional, though she invested her life, deeply, in illusion.
Was there a religious element to what they did?
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