This Halloween, I got to play as a guest star in a magical girl Pathfinder campaign, hosted on RPG Maker Network's Discord server. In this alternate timeline scenario, the session revolved around the protagonists going to the snowy mountains on vacation instead of an island for a school trip. When disaster strikes and their gondola crashes, they set out to find missing survivors of their classmates and teachers.

Around this time, an alternate Raziya awakens in a cottage... surrounded by the long-dead bones of people. She calls upon the power of the Old Planes, changing into the magical girl known as Ardent Heart. However, her two magical girl companions are missing, and she winds up meeting with three other magical girls -- the main party. Exploring the abandoned village and finding massacres among the derelict buildings, the four come face-to-face with a wendigo at the end of it all. This cannibal specter not only captured and preyed upon some of the girls' classmates, but also backed away in terror once Ardent Heart unleashed her mystical weapon, an Amulet of Mighty Fists, to wreathe her fists in flame.

Once the wendigo perished, Raziya found she couldn't leave the building where the monster perished. By brilliant and tragic deduction by the group's Paladin, all four realized the truth: this Raziya was long dead, and so were the other two magical girls on her team. There are only ever three of those young heroines at any one time; once Pastel Barrier gave Ardent Heart the year, the young lioness was baffled to find it was long, long after the last year she remembered.

In truth, Raziya and her companions had gone up to the mountains in winter to save some goats. Being stranded in a blizzard and huddling in a cave, the gnome Amalee ventured out to find help. But Khari the elf, whose vivid green eyes reflected the wendigo's, was driven to fell hunger against the unconscious Raziya. Only hominid bones with tattered red cloth remained of Raziya's body, and only a beheaded wendigo's corpse was all that remained of Khari. Finally avenged and given the chance at new friendships with these new magical girls, Raziya gave up the ghost, dispossessing the last missing classmate of the modern trio. As she and Khari passed on to the hereafter, the modern girls' classmate resumed her normal form. Panacea would continue to carry the torch of being the magical girl of Fire, alongside her allies Cerulean Specter and Pastel Barrier.

Preparing for the session, the GM had told me the behind-the-scenes information and I played dumb effortlessly. At one point I was this close to asking in character, "What's a gondola?" but decided it would give too much away. It was a pleasure and a treat to have been featured in the game for this Halloween special, especially as I'd shown interest in the campaign before. To Locke, Piano, NeverSilent and Liberty: thank you all for the chance, and for the solemn story we wove together. Rest in peace, Ardent Heart.