Chapter 4 of The Paramedic’s Witch belongs entirely to Sam — an ordinary Elk City resident, enthusiastic Dungeon Master, and completely oblivious vessel for what is about to go very wrong. It is a chapter the series has been building toward without the reader quite realizing it, and it pays off the jade idol subplot with perfect deadpan horror-comedy timing.

The “ordinary person accidentally activates a supernatural threat” trope readers love

Sam has no idea the jade figurines on his dinner table are real cursed artifacts from a demon hunter clan’s archive. He found them through some arrangement not yet fully explained to the reader, and he put them on his game table because they “would add a nice supernatural touch to the Lich’s lair.” He Googled “ancient transformation curses” for his Dungeon Master script, let random chance pick one, and printed the results. Readers who enjoy urban fantasy that finds genuine horror in the mundane — the everyday human who wanders into supernatural danger through pure innocent obliviousness — will find Sam an immediately recognizable and sympathetic character.

The best use of dramatic irony in the series so far

The reader has spent three chapters watching Dean, Jaz, and Jo scramble to find the missing idols before something goes wrong. Chapter 4 reveals that something already has — and that “something” is a D&D night. The chapter cuts between Sam’s game-master enjoyment (his players are having a string of terrible dice rolls that he is loving) and the growing green glow from the jade figurines on the table that nobody in the room notices. When Sam picks up his printed incantation and begins to read the “weird, alien words” aloud, the reader’s dread is absolute while Sam’s mood is pure delight. The gap between those two registers is where the chapter lives, and Jamie Davis works it expertly.

Gaming community representation done with warmth

Sam’s D&D group — his wife Jill, longtime friends Eddie and Steve, and work colleague Sandra — are sketched in just enough detail to feel like real people rather than props. The easy camaraderie of a long-running tabletop group is captured with genuine warmth. For readers who love urban fantasy that finds its stakes in ordinary people’s ordinary lives being disrupted by supernatural events they did not ask for, this chapter is a miniature model of why the genre works at its best.

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CHAPTER TEXT

The Paramedic’s Witch — Chapter 4

Sam continued his search for the perfect, creepy magic words to use in the weekly Dungeon Masters game with his friends. They had been participating in this role-playing game campaign with him as the Dungeon Leader for the last five years. He, his wife, and a few of his old high-school buds had been playing off and on for years, but this was the longest running game any of them had been involved with.

They had each invested a lot into their characters, and Sam worked hard to make each week’s adventure special in some way. This week, he had them invading the lair of a Lich, a supernatural being of the undead variety. This particular Lich he had designed was a real bastard and he was going to enjoy playing his part in the upcoming gaming encounter.

The Google search had turned up several options for old incantations and it was hard to choose from them. He wanted something that was not English and would lend a dark tone to the pretend spell-casting he had planned. In the end, he let random choice make the decision for him, closing his eyes and stabbing at the screen with a finger to pick one of the search engine’s choices.

Sam opened his eyes and saw a link to ancient transformation curses. Perfect, he thought. Sam clicked the link and hit the print icon on his computer screen to print out the strange and alien words that came up. He got up to start setting up the dinner table for the game in the small apartment he and his wife leased. A black table cloth went on the table first, followed by the three electric candles from the bookshelf. On a whim, Sam brought the two jade idols over, too. They would add a nice supernatural touch to the Lich’s lair.

His friends would be arriving soon, and he went back into the bedroom to see what was keeping his wife from coming out to help set up for so long. He didn’t see the faint glow in the eyes of the two green figurines on the dinner table, or the shifting text on the printed paper nearby.

*   *   *

A groan went up from around the table as Eddie exhibited another of his horrible rolls on the pair of twenty-sided dice. The low result on both dice meant the team would fail to find any traps as they entered the passage that led to the Lich’s lair. Sam just smiled and gave a mock laugh “mwa-ha-ha-ha.” He was enjoying this night’s game a lot. Every one of the four players had shown horrible luck when rolling their dice for the game and several characters had come close to dying. Everyone was tense and the mood in the room was both excited and a little annoyed at the string of bad luck.

Sam asked them what they wanted to do next. He knew that there was no real choice. They had come here to play the game and the game led them down into the underground lair of the undead creature waiting for them. The trap had been laid.

“Man, Sam, you’ve outdone yourself this time,” Sandra said. “The whole scenario tonight is super-creepy. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up.”

“Thanks, Sandra. Jill and I like it when you guys come over and play. I thought we could go the extra mile for tonight’s session. So what do you all want to do next? Eddie detected no traps ahead.”

The players all looked at each other around the table. Eddie and Steve had both gone to high school with Sam and even though they had gone off to college, they both had kept in touch with their old friend, rejoining his weekly games when they graduated and returned to Elk City to settle into their adult lives. Sandra was a work friend of Sam’s wife, Jill. She was a divorcee and the newest member of their group. He suspected she was using this as a way to get out of her house once a week now that her ex-husband had moved out. She added a lot to the group, though, and she was easy on the eyes, too.

“We will go down the passage to the door at the far end,” Steve announced. “It’s what we’re here for. Let’s kill this Lich and steal his treasure.”

There were nods of approval and Sam smiled. Now it was time for the fun to begin. Eddie had failed his attempt to find traps and the party of adventurers was about to walk right into the Lich’s first defensive trap, laid out just for invaders like them.

“You step forward and hear a ‘click’ from down the hallway,” Sam announced.

“Run away!” Sandra shouted.

“I duck to the floor,” Eddie proclaimed.

“I draw my sword,” Steve said standing up.

“Me, too,” Jill added.

“Too late,” Sam said. “You are all transported by magic to a large room. There is a pentagram drawn on the floor and you find yourselves within it. None of you can move so much as a muscle. You hear a weird deep voice begin to speak nearby and you can’t understand what the words are saying. It is in a language you have never heard before.”

Sam picked up the sheet of paper and began to read the words printed there. He was really in the groove and was surprised that he didn’t stumble over the unfamiliar word structure he encountered. There was a strange, green glow from the center of the table as the last word of the first line left his lips — and the eyes of both jade idols opened wide.

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