The Lantern That Looked Back

Priya and her partner, Camille, had joined the university tabletop club on a whim, looking for something more exciting than lectures and late-night takeout. Camille had fallen in love with the hobby after a fantasy video game, and Priya had followed her into the strange, thrilling world of dice, spell slots, and whispered plans around a cluttered table.

Their group was small: the Dungeon Master, Adrian; the cleric, Idris; and the barbarian, Fletcher. Priya already knew Idris from campus, which made the first few sessions feel easy. Adrian seemed friendly enough. He even praised Priya’s wizard, especially once she took a magical detection talent that made her useful in every dungeon they entered.

It was a role she grew proud of.

When the party explored a palace full of hidden wards, Priya’s character became the one everyone listened to. She would pause, squint into the dark, and announce where the traps were hidden. The others would trigger them safely from a distance, and the group would move on. That pattern worked until Adrian began turning every danger toward her. Enemies that had no reason to be clever somehow always found the wizard in the back line, while Idris, the cleric who could patch people up, was left untouched.

Priya noticed. She said nothing.

Later, when the party hunted a rumored witch in a crooked hut deep in the woods, Priya asked whether any items in the place radiated magic. Her investigation was poor, and Adrian told her there was nothing but healing salves. Then the rest of the table rolled their own checks and each of them found something enchanted, neatly suited to their characters.

Priya frowned. Her search had apparently missed everything.

Adrian said her roll had been too low. Priya gave a thin, careful "All right," though the edge in her voice was obvious.

The trouble came at the witch’s altar.

Priya asked if there was anything unusual about a glowing relic tucked among the clutter. Adrian told her to roll a Constitution save instead. She failed. Her wizard went blind.

Not figuratively. Adrian described the light as so intense, so holy and ancient, that it burned her sight away. Priya blinked in disbelief and asked where that rule came from. The spell she had used did not mention anything like it. She knew the books well enough to know that.

Adrian said it was his ruling.

There had been no warning before the campaign began. No discussion of house rules. No indication that a standard spell could suddenly become a hazard. Priya tried to argue in the moment, but the scene moved on without her. Her character, unable to see, could barely contribute. When the witch’s servants attacked, Priya’s wizard was dropped three times. The cleric spent nearly all his healing on her just to keep her standing.

Even then, Adrian’s answer never changed.

Priya was told that if she wanted to keep playing, she could multiclass into something martial and take a special fighting style to compensate. Or she could bind herself to a familiar and see through its eyes, losing power in the bargain. Or she could simply create a new character.

After the session, Priya said what she had been trying not to say all night: it had not been fun.

Adrian’s response was a shrug and a cutting remark. Maybe she should stop poking her nose into everything.

For a while, that seemed to be the end of it.

Then, days later, Idris and Fletcher confronted Adrian privately over a call. What they learned was uglier than any cursed artifact.

Adrian had not merely been annoyed by Priya’s questions. He had been carrying a grudge for weeks, making cruel comments about her height, her Filipino background, and her relationship with Camille, who was white and Australian. He had talked about her as if she were beneath her partner, and had muttered ugliness about people from South Asia as well, apparently unable to tell one kind of brown skin from another and unwilling to care.

Worse, he admitted he had been planning a "joke" about their relationship from the very first session. He had only decided against it because Camille wore a pride pin, and he feared being reported for going too far. He had also made degrading remarks about Camille herself, her body, and what he imagined her "genes" ought to be.

And the thing that had finally tipped him from snide resentment into open punishment?

It was seeing Priya and Camille share their dinner one night.

Not in any dramatic, intimate way. They had simply split their takeout so they could both taste each dish: her katsu chicken with no rice, his fried rice. That was all. A small, ordinary kindness between two people who liked each other.

Adrian had apparently found it unbearable.

Idris and Fletcher did not bother arguing with him. They called him what he deserved, hung up, and reported him to the club. By the next day, he was gone from the group and barred from the community.

Priya sat with the news in silence for a long time. Her wizard was still blind in the story she had been forced to leave behind, but the real damage had already been done elsewhere, in the uglier corners of the table she had trusted.

Camille took her hand and squeezed it.

Later, they would find another group, one that understood that a game could be challenging without being cruel. One where the rules were spoken before they were enforced. One where sharing food was just sharing food.

For now, that was enough.