THE TOWER ━ stranger things

29.

chapter twenty-nine — i hear the secrets that you keep

March 23, 1986

This stream of light breaks through the blinds, casting a halo over Eddie who's sitting criss-cross on Irene's bed.It's ironic, she concludes, that someone like Eddie Munson could ever be considered a murderer. It's not fair. Of all the people she's come across in this town, he is by far the most misunderstood and overlooked and...It's. Not. Fair.

The sun is starting to make its slow descendance, casting a warm glow over the town. The others haven't said much to the two and Irene doesn't know whether to be relieved that there isn't feedback or terrified because they might have found trouble along the way. Last she heard, Nancy was given a lead by Wayne and Max was headed to interrogate Ms. Kelley – but that was hours ago.

"Okay," She breathed as she plopped a bunch of books and papers in front of him. "I don't know when the others are gonna radio or come back so I figured we could do some data gathering ourselves."

Eddie furrowed his brows at the Advanced DND Manual that sat at the top of the pile. He picked it up and glanced over at Irene who's back was turned to him, looking for something in the depths of her closet. Quickly flipping through the glossy pages, he couldn't help but smile at the sticky notes plastered on some of the things he figured were important, child-like scribbles could be seen in the margins, spells for certain characters, and a bunch of fantasy jargon. 

When she finally turned and placed something else on top of the stack, two composition notebooks, he reached for both. His smile only grew at the names scrawled on the front. It was clear that he was in possession of the Vasquez siblings' campaign notebooks and it was also clear that there was still much he didn't know about the girl standing in front of him. He wishes she would've told him sooner; he would've made it his mission to reel her into Hellfire.

"What I know for sure about Vecna is that he's analytical. There is a motive and we just need to find it. If we're lucky we might be able to get ahead of him or close enough to figure out what game he's playing." She sat down across from him and grabbed the notepad by his leg, watching as he flipped through her brother's notes.

"Holy shit, your brother was working on a campaign with Vecna too..." Eddie marveled, nose so deep in the composition book that Irene would have laughed if she hadn't felt so uneasy about the revelation.

Apparently, Mateo had been working rigorously on a comeback/redemption campaign centered around defeating Vecna – who'd returned from the last campaign they'd played all those years ago when they were kids and hung out with their cousins in their basement.

 In that campaign, created by their oldest cousin, their characters had been called to save a village from the death grip of the dark wizard. Sir-Smells-Alot was the only one that had made it out (and by the skin of his teeth too), but the battle had been lost.

Mateo figured, after watching the frost melt over between him and his sister, they could come back for one last hurrah – the be all and end all of their time as characters from another realm. He had been trying to figure out ways (logistically, even though in the world of DND you make the rules) to bring back Rena the Righteous to help him finally defeat the villain that tore the inevitable rift between them.

Clearly, he never finished – never got to properly show his sister.

"I can't believe you used to play." He shook his head, now skimming through her notebook.

"When I was younger...back when it first came out; pretty sure I was eight. My cousins got my brother into it and they realized they needed one more person for their alliance and asked me...I know what we're dealing with isn't some game but considering the fact that whoever we're up against is using the same tactics, I think our best bet is figuring out where the two overlap." Irene shrugged, tugging at a loose string on her pants.