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The League was stuck. The COVID-19 outbreak had brought the country to a standstill. Even villains were taking the quarantine order seriously. Now, Tomura thought this was an excellent time to go out and wreak some havoc but APPARENTLY people like Dabi were immunocompromised. And APPARENTLY, it could be dangerous for young people like Toga. And APPARENTLY, people who had just undergone severe trauma needed to take a break. So the League was stuck in the MLA mansion until further notice.
They certainly weren't going to interact with the rest of the MLA so they had sealed themselves off in the wing that was dedicated to the former League of Villains citing the "10 people and under" dictate.
It was hell, to put it mildly, everyone was bored and cranky and even though they had all kinds of amenities at their fingertips they were people who had known freedom and now being cooped up in a set space with each other was wearing on their patience.
About 3 days of this had gone by before Tomura had enough of just about everything everyone had to say and complain about. So he killed about three forests of paper printing PDFs and walked into the common room on day 4 and slammed the stack of paper down on the coffee table.
"Alright, assholes, we're playing a game. Who knows how to play Dungeons and Dragons?"
Spinner knew how to play D&D but that was about it and it took some convincing on him and Tomura's parts to get the rest of the League on board but eventually, everyone agreed that playing the game was better than sitting around doing nothing.
"So, it's a role-playing game." Tomura was explaining while people read the PDFs he'd printed out of the player's handbook. "Someone, probably me or Spinner, will be the Dungeon Master and guide the game, the rest of us will be players and we'll create characters and form an adventuring party and go off on quests and the like."
"I'll DM." Spinner volunteered. "I always did it for my group so I don't think I'm too bad at it."
"Great." Tomura said, pushing him a thicker packet that said "Dungeon Master's Guide" on the front of it. "I'll help these noobs with character creation and you can start planning the campaign."
This took a long time but at least everyone was entertained and not screaming at one another. Some people were more into it than others. Dabi was surprisingly very into his, no doubt tragic, backstory. Sako needed a little bit of help, every so often saying that there were far too many rules, but Tomura got him on board when he explained what a Bard was to him.
Dungeons and Dragons was a complicated game but eventually, everyone got the gist and felt comfortable to work on their own to make their characters while Spinner wracked his brains to come up with an encounter for them.
Tomura had only ever played online before so playing with a live group was going to be new for him but he was glad Spinner had volunteered to be the DM, he liked playing a lot more than he liked storytelling.
Finally, everyone had a completed level 1 character sheet with whatever they had created and Spinner, who had talked with each of them, had a small stack of paper and a bunch of sticky notes placed in his Dungeon Master's Guide. They didn't have any maps to play on so Dabi burned a grid into their coffee table. It wasn't like the MLA couldn't replace it anyway.
"Alright," Spinner said. "Before we get into things let's go around and introduce yourselves. You can reveal as much information about your past as you prefer, feel free to keep secrets, I'll try and work them into the game."
"I will go first!" Compress said with a flourish. "Hello, all, my name is Arda Pent and she is a bard and an Elf. Her instrument is a lyre and she was famous in the king's court but found playing for the same audience tiresome so she set out on an adventure."
"You didn't have to just make yourself, Mr. C." Tomura groaned.
"I didn't, Arda is a woman." Compress pushed. Tomura decided to just let it go.
"I'll go!" Toga said excitedly. She cleared her throat and put on a scratchy voice. "I am called Nur the Strong! I am a dwarf fighter and I wield a mighty ax! My foes cower before me for I am out to best any challenger in single combat!"
They came around to Jin, who had some trouble with his and needed a lot of help from Spinner so he seemed a little nervous.
"My character's name is Tithe Halfmoon, he's a halfling and um, a cleric." He stopped. "Is it ok to pick a cleric? No, you idiot, pick something cool."
"Clerics are cool," Tomura assured him. "Parties without a healer are always fucked so it's a very important role."
"Healers aren't cool! No, I'm going with it." Jin stuttered. "So Tithe is a cleric and was sent on a mission by his god to guard anyone who needed help."
Jin still clearly wasn't over Overhaul and Magne but if he wanted to let it out with his cleric that was probably fine, Tomura figured.
"I'm called Tazmin." Tomura said, changing his voice just a little so Toga wasn't the only one doing a voice. "I am a Dragonborn Warlock beholden to the Fiend. In return for his fiery power, I do his bidding and he has sent me on a quest for a rare treasure."
"You're one to talk about making yourself." Dabi drawled from the other side of the table. "A mass destruction beholden to a lord and master looking for a treasure? That's literally you, boss."
"Let's hear yours then if it's so great asshole." Tomura snarked.
"My person is Osha, she's a human monk, and she's here to kick ass and take names. She just wants to earn money from adventuring to send back to her temple which is in terrible debt." Dabi read from his sheet. Tomura snorted. Ok so maybe they all had made their characters a little bit of themselves. Except for maybe Toga who probably just wanted to smash things.
"Anyway..." Spinner launched into the story and they began their campaign. Tomura listened as Spinner described them all being hired by the same mysterious benefactor to go rescue his wife who had been kidnapped by barbarian raiders who were plaguing the kingdom.
Tomura allowed himself to be swept up in the game. In Spinner's storytelling, in the mad rush to download free dice-rolling apps when everyone realized they didn't have physical dice to roll and that was kind of important, allowed himself to fall into hysterics with the rest of the group when Mr. C literally brought out a lyre from a marble and played it for them surprisingly well. Spinner gave them all Bardic Inspiration for that one.
It was just fun. Tomura didn't really remember the last time he'd had fun that didn't involve fighting or murder. And they'd been so strung out for so long after Sensei got captured and fighting Machia and then the MLA and now they were all stuck together in the same set of rooms until further notice. But right now, no one was stressed. Not even Dabi who had been about to burn the place down when he was told he couldn't leave as he was used too. He was deep in conversation with Toga about some kind of team-up.
Tomura realized his comrades weren't really comrades at all. They were his friends and he liked that they were happy. Which was confusing for him since he claimed to not like anything. He shouldn't like them at all nor care about their happiness. But he did. Tomura had gotten better about not denying his emotions ever since his amnesia broke.
D&D was good for teambuilding. It forced everyone to work together in creative ways to meet a common goal. Which was partially the reason Tomura has suggested it. The League had always worked well together, well, usually. But he had been concerned that endless days of quarantine might possibly leave someone dead, and not from the stupid virus. Everyone in the League was somewhat of a loose cannon when left to their own devices so he'd thought he'd apply something they could all do together.
He really hadn't expected to be having as much fun as he did when he cast Burning Hands on some raider and then turning to Dabi and asking him if it was that much fun in real life.
This lead to Dabi actually talking to them about himself. About how much he liked his quirk even if it was killing him. Which lead to them all talking about their quirks, what they liked and didn't like about them. Getting them sidetracked from the game for a while but they talked to each other like they hadn't before. Tomura learned about his friends and found he didn't mind sharing a bit about himself either.
Eventually, they got back to the game and saved the wife of the man who hired them and brought her back for their payment. It had been hours between actually playing and just chatting like normal people.
"Wait, it's over?" Toga asked forlornly. "We were having fun."
"Well the session has to end sometime, I only got so much time to come up with something." Spinner said in return.
"Did you all like it?" Tomura asked. Everyone answered in affirmative. He looked over at Spinner. "If you had more time could you come up with something else and we can play tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sure. I miss playing this anyway, I could think up something." Spinner shrugged.
"Well, then why don't we all level up and we'll play again tomorrow," Tomura said to the group.
"We level up?" Jin asked.
"Yeah there are 20 levels you can play and you get more powerful and more stuff at each one. It'll say in the handbook how to go to level 2. So we'll be more powerful when we play tomorrow."
"Dope." Dabi said already looking through his handbook.
"I can't believe you actually play the lyre Mr. C!" Toga squealed to the older man.
"I can play many instruments, Toga-chan, I think I have more in here if you want to hear."
So everyone quietly worked on leveling up while Compress produced a Spanish guitar from yet another marble and strummed it softly. It was so unlike the past 3 days it was almost haunting. To Tomura, who always had noise and static going on in his head, the peace and quiet were like a weighted blanket making him feel safe. Safe like he hadn't since Sensei was around.
He knew D&D wouldn't keep everyone occupied forever. He wasn't an idiot and he knew everyone's attention span. But maybe everyone would have decompressed enough so that they could continue to talk about his plans, their plans, for the future.
It's possible being stuck in a house that was full of top tier villains wouldn't be a nightmare after all.