My D&D party had five members—all guys, all horny giga-nerds who survived on a steady diet of Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew. Tom was our warrior, Dan the Druid. Andrew played sorcerer and I rolled cleric. Rick DMd.

Although I loved them like brothers, sometimes it became painfully clear they needed to get laid. None of them could even talk to a girl without getting sweaty—or, you know, sweatier—so they’d have our characters get laid instead. Meanwhile, my asexual self would just stare at the ceiling until we finally returned to the main campaign.

One day, Andrew made a proposal. He worked for a holding company that quietly acquired real estate all over the country. As a property inspector, he had the keys to all sorts of weird and wonderful places, and he suggested conducting our campaign in an abandoned mental hospital.

It was like an actual dungeon in there, dark and mysterious. According to him, it would ramp up the atmosphere.

Do you remember the ‘80s, when parents thought their kids playing D&D would lead to satanism? Turns out they were half correct—all that talk of monsters and spells almost acts like a catalyst for otherworldly entities. It’s just missing one vital component: negative energy.

Our campaign began in what was once a restraining room. With every spell or mention of a fantasy creature, a steady draught picked up, or walls rattled.

We foolishly ignored these signs until our characters stumbled across a troop of eleven princesses. Then things got graphic as our DM launched into an—unnecessarily graphic—romantic encounter.

All light seeped out of the room, then plaster cracked off the walls.

Suddenly, a humanoid creature was standing in the center of our table. From the neck down her body was covered with translucent skin stretched tautly. Huge bat-like wings extended from her upper back.

Within seconds she had Rick flat against the floor, thrusting up and down while the rest of us scrambled away, terrified.

Ten seconds later, light crept back into the room. Already Rick was dead, his jeans tangled around his ankles, his pelvis crushed completely flat. Tears of joy leaked from the corner of his eyes. His smile was so wide you could count the individual teeth.

It turned out that, in the 60s, that mental hospital got shut down because of the horrible way patients got treated. And guess what that pain and suffering left behind?

Residual negative energy…

Collectively, the group came to the realization: Rick unintentionally summoned a succubus. We looked down at the grinning corpse. Then, before I could react, Tom grabbed the DM screen and repeated the final passage Rick had uttered.

Once again, the walls quaked and light evaporated. Then Tom was beside rick, pelvis flat, grinning from ear to ear.

Dan went next, quickly followed by Andrew.

And then I was standing there, alone, and in need of a replacement group…