text: The light had become too bright to ignore. He tried rolling away from the source, but there was no helping it; he was awake. He had hoped to sleep in on his day off. It was only 15 minutes after his usual wake-up time. He looked at the clock, rolled onto his back, and, unwilling to concede defeat, resolved to stare at the ceiling until he was ready to start the day. After an indeterminate amount of time, there was a knock on the door to his apartment. “Redge, you ready for skivvy”? It was his neighbor, Tinir, an elf who he played board games with. Redge had forgotten that he agreed to play a new game some days prior. Now he was debating on whether to honor the commitment or feign sleep a while longer. In the end, his conscience won out. “Yeah, yeah. Just need five minutes,” He sat up and let out a heavy sigh. He then clumsily threw on his clothes and went out to meet his neighbor in the hallway. It was obvious from his disheveled appearance and lethargy that he had just woken up. Tinir apologized. “No, no, I was just about to get up anyway. Besides, I did tell you 8 o’clock didn’t I? ...do you mind if we play in the dining hall? I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.” The two made their way down to the building's dining area. They made quite the pair. Tinir (7’6”) was tall even by Elven standards. He towered over Redge who was not quite 6’, closer to the average of his race. Tinir had dark skin, hair, and eyes. In contrast, Redge had fair features. Tinir set up the board while Redge got his food. Skivvy was a relatively new game. Its name came from the goblin word for “traitor”. Both players received an army of pieces with which to conquer the board. What made it unique was that each player would mark the bottom of two of their opponent’s pieces while the other looked away. At the start of each round, they would roll one die. If the dice matched, they could activate a marked piece, taking full control of it. A player might guess which pieces were traitors by their opponents' reluctance to attack them. One might even preemptively destroy their own piece if their suspicion were great enough. Redge sat down. After having the rules explained to him, he judged that Tinir was too straightforward to be good at this kind of game. And he was quickly vindicated when he won their first match handily. During the second, however, Redge had become distracted by the conversation of an adjacent table. Two women were discussing rumors of a murder that had occured the previous night. “They say it was an orc. Tore him clean in half. No sign of the girl.” “Rose, please! Spare me the details, I’m trying to eat here.” “I’m sorry, it’s just... I’m scared. The orcs seem to be really getting out of hand. This is what? The third incident this month? These things never happened back home.” “You’re overreacting. Look, there’s one over there,” her eyes gestured to a table across the room where an orc and human were conversing. Just then, the conversation turned to jovial laughter. “See. Completely harmless. And don’t you think they have enough trouble without all these rumors? After all, they lost their home and way of life when...” “hey Redge, Redge, REDGE,” Redge snapped back to the game in front of him. “It’s your turn.” “Ah, sorry.” He lost the match.