The character sheets floated into Toby's hands like reversed footage of papers being blown away. The candlelit background spun away as if a table turning away from the cast, and the medieval lakeside village materialized around them as foggy glowing clouds rolled in to form a white sky.
"Yes." Toby stated confidently, only for his expression to switch from fearful to neutral, and his gaze to lose focus.
"Let's begin." Toby continued much more flatly.
Gabriel chuckled. "Heheh...didn't say playing the game wouldn't mean joining them, but make your moves like a player for now."
"Yes master." Toby said, a bit of light and focus returning to his eyes as he glanced in Tyler's direction. "First, Tyler checks what that locket does."
The piece in question looked down at it emotionlessly, opening it to the contents.
Gabriel grinned smugly, saying. "Tyler's locket is a stripping vortex! It steals the shackles, beast hide, and stolen wallet."
Various held items detached, shrank down into spheres of light, and floated into the open locket's spinning teal-tinged black void. The locket closed itself emotionlessly, to which Tyler neutrally let it drop back to his neck area.
Toby rolled his eyes in the way of someone having expected a trick would. "Now that we've got that out of the way, Max brings the boys back to his dukedom. Skinny dipping in a lake is one thing, but these people have estates."
Gabriel made an annoyed face at Toby's backstory use and was about to say something, but thought better of it and after a short pause said something else with a handwave. "Oh, no they don't! The thieves were the townsfolk, who stormed the castle and started a revolution!"
The farmer's wife, a thick blonde woman in a layered olive-brown dress and milkmaid's bonnet, ran out of some thatched-roof stone hut waving about a pitchfork across the lakeside, pushed aside a blurry white fog to reveal the wooden front gate of some larger stone building, and kicked the door in without much mercy. A few generic villagers followed after, elders and children alike, wielding saws, hoes, shovels, sticks, the occasional torch, whatever was at hand.
"Then we'll go with the beasts." Toby parried, pushing aside another bit of fog with a glance. "The wildlings had to live off something somewhere nearby, right?"
"The villagers cut down the forest!" Gabriel hastily countered, causing a farmer to pop out from behind a rock and run off into the distance to cut down some trees with an anachronistic circular saw, followed by a few more villagers with implausible power tools such as chainsaws and a logging truck.
Toby facepalmed, meriting Gabriel incisively ordering "Okay, maybe a full player's too good for you mister. Just play along with the script."
Toby returned to a bland, default state and mechanically droned "Yes master. Please provide plot continuation."
Gabriel took that offensively. "The villagers arrest the party and throw 'em in the dungeon, for, uh...um, conspiracy to commit public nudity!"
The player characters were herded into the castle, down some stairs, and into a generic iron-barred prison cell in a simple dark dungeon. Toby and Gabriel watched from the sidelines, Toby placid and Gabriel miffed. The door was slammed shut and locked, with most of the villagers leaving to do other things and a few standing guard as jailers.
"Intervention requested." Toby recited robotically, staring straight ahead but with some sense of notification that made Gabriel startle and turn toward him. "Story integrity stalled. Player piece occupation requested. Suggest detail to continue tabletop roleplaying game deal or release piece to renegotiate."
Gabriel sighed. Guess putting 'em all in prison without details wasn't actually fair. "We're at a crossroads." he said. "Toby, wake up as a player and I'll give you a choice."
Toby blinked back to awareness, and glanced at the character sheets in his hands. "Huh? What kind of choice? You threw 'em all in prison with no equipment or escape skills, what're we supposed to do now."
"You fell for the trap locket and kept trying to claim things." Gabriel said as if that justified anything. "New blank check to get you outta this corner. Totally."
Reality itself seemed to make a soft subtle snark, expressed through the colors of the area briefly becoming dappled with dust and musical vividity before returning to normal.
"If you make a blank check I'll cash you out for all you're worth, but you'll bounce it and throw me in debtor's prison." Toby complained, crossing his arms and fanning the character sheets in front of his face as he turned to glare at Gabriel. "Gimme some real options, no backsies, real-choice suggestions. Choose your own adventure deal if you wanna railroad so hard, kay?"
Gabriel stuttered and shouted "Fine!", smashing the fourth wall open and deploying a series of choices. "But no spoilers for this part of the plan, I'm not gonna tell you anything more until you pick."