Chapter Text
"The moment to raid the fallen is over, as you all hear the distance rumble of an army of headed your way. The gate to the exit is just beyond you. What do you do?" Lila announced.
"Same formation as when we got our stuff back?" Ivan asks Marinette. Marinette looks at the scribbled piece of paper from the combat previous.
"I think that should be fine? We'll probably have to be on the look out for guards shooting at us from above though." Marinette assesses, moving her and everyone else's chips on the map. "Okay I think we're good!"
"You head toward the exit, a large stone bridge that's high above a mote before you. Each one of you is bracing themselves to be stuck down by an arrow. However, as begin to run across, there isn't a single sound of an arrow whistling through the air."
"Can I make a Perception check?" Alya asks immediately, picking up a dice and rolling it as Lila nodded. "That's a 15?"
"Aileas, you spin around to glance up, only to see nothing along the outer walls jail. It seems that nobody was every expected to escape so no sentries were placed there." Lila puts forth.
Alya crosses her arms. "I don't buy that at all but okay."
"As a group you cross the bridge into an immense dirt road, following along for a bit. On the right is a massive forest while on the ride side of the road is a river. Do you follow the road, cross the river into the unknown, or head deep into the forest?"
"Forests are my, uh, favorite terrain?" Kim says, looking at his tablet, "That means we can't get lost, move pretty quickly, and I'm always alert to danger even if you need me to find food or track something."
"Forest it is then?" Max confirms. Everyone gave a voice of agreement and so Max cleared the current map of the exit hall, swiping up the tokens and replacing them on a forest map.
"You are a large group, so on the one hand it's easy to stick together but it is harder to travel. Two hours have passed and the moon is on the rise as you climb over fallen tree trunks and through bushes. Finally you come to a stop to an opening. What do you do?"
"I think I need some sleep," Rose suggests. Nathaneal raises his hand in agreement.
"Then we camp here for the night? There's....thirteen of us," Chloé assesses in character, "We can do watch shifts in pairs of four."
"I can stay up for two shifts? Elves have this thing called Trance, so I only gotta mediate for four hours." Alix said.
"Any volunteers for the first go?" Chloé ask. Marinette, Ivan, Juleka, and Nino took up the task.
"The night passes by quickly, " Lila says, rolling a few dice behind her dungeon master's partition as she speaks, "Going through the forest worked in your favor, as the guards of Glarestreak aren't familiar with the area. The next morning comes without incident."
"I've already started breakfast," Myléne opens up, "It's not much but I did the best I could."
"It's simple but compared to what you were eating before? It's divine." Lila smiles.
"So, we've got a couple of choices here. We're a pretty big group and I for one think we work well together but I also think that paints an easier target on us."
"Are you suggesting we split up?" Juleka asks when no one says anything after a few moments.
"It seems like the safer choice, in my opinion. Then again there's safety in numbers." Marinette nods. What followed was a vote and ultimately they had decided to stick together for now. After about a day's travel northwest, they came to a small village nestled neatly between a lake and a mountain.
With some investigation (and a bar fight on account of Kim and Alix), they found that village was been plagued on two fronts. First, the island in the middle of the lake was being overrun by monsters known as Sahuagin which was depleting their food and income source of fishing. The second were hunters in the village being attacked by kobolds when getting near the mountains.
"You planned to have us split up!" Chloé accused. Max adjusted his glasses on his nose with a finger, giving a knowing smile.
"The choice is still up to you. You can take on each threat together as a large group with a higher percentage of victory both times or divide and conquer them quickly. For now let's stop here."
A lunch break was had, when suddenly Chloé and the usually meek Myléne got into an argument over what the party should do.
"It'll be easier to tackle them both separately!" Chloé barked to which Myléne scoffed, uncharacteristically.
"We were able to take down 3 opponents well above our level together. We'd wipe them out practically instantly if we went as a larger force." Myléne argued, waving a croissant at the Chloé as if that enforced her point. "Splitting the part only makes us weaker."
The vote was down the middle, with half the team wanting to stay together while the other half wanting to cover more ground. It fell to Marinette, who had become the group's unofficial leader both in and outside the game at this point. Marinette, while they had been eating and discussing, had asked everyone what new abilities they had gotten after leveling up. With her list reworked and organized, she looked up once the vote had come to her.
"It's better that we split. Rose, Alya, Nino, Nathaneal, Alix, Juleka, you'll make one group with Chloé as the leader. I'll go with Kim, Myléne, Ivan, Adrien, and Sabrina."
Those that had voted to stay together---Myléne, Ivan, Rose, Juleka, Adrien, and Nino--both raised their voices in discontentment but relented. Max was pretty impressed by the line up she had made: both teams had a magic user, a fighter, a support class, a ranged fighter, and a healer with an extra member or two to cover any missed bases.
"I think we'll call it here," Lila said, clapping her hands as she began cleaning up her station, "We'll figure how to divide the sessions up and I think, Chloé, we can have you're group at your place? That way we can keep the stories separate a bit!"
Chloé was already on her phone getting a space set up for for her session, despite not having a day or date to play. Lila shook her head at the eager girl and looked around the table. Despite not being too happy with splitting up, everyone looked pretty happy and excited for what was to come.
***
YesMyCatsNameIsSalem: hey lila can I add someone my party? She's pretty interested once I brought it up to her during our date!
Your Friend, Your DM, And Your God: Sure! I'll let Max and Chloé know! Need any help setting her up for when we play next week? Or will you make that a date as well? >:3
YesMyCatsNameIsSalem: K thanks see you Saturday.
Your Friend, Your Dm, And Your God: Sabrina? Hello? I was just teasing!
YesMyCatsNameIsSalem has left
***
Sabrina blushed as she placed her phone down. She had, actually, suggested they make a date out of creating her character. And now that someone had called her out on it, she was pretty embarrassed at how nerdy it sounded. Still, her girlfriend had simply smiled and was happy to spend time doing something that they could work on together. Sabrina smiled to herself as she gazed at her lockscreen, her girlfriend kissing her cheek while they took a selfie.