Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So this game is called FU?” Fletcher looked at the thin, home-printed booklet in his hand. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

They were sitting at the kitchen table at Fletcher’s place. Naota and him were both a bit flustered – this was the first time they were alone at one of them’s house since the dance – so talking about the game helped to ease the mood.

“Apparently it’s pronounced ‘foo’, like in ‘kung-fu’. At least that’s what the official website says.” Naota explained, fidgeting a handful of dice in her hands. “The creator later dropped the abbreviation and the second edition will be simply called ‘Freeform Universal RPG’ when it gets released. But that’s quite long, and people in the community still shorten it as ‘FU’ and there are also jokes about it online.”

She looked over the papers on the table, containing the information about her and Fletcher’s characters.

“So, are you sure you wanna do this? Sorry, I know I ask that a lot, but I never played any TTRPG before and I’m a bit afraid that it will be disappointing for you.”

“Don’t worry, it’s fine.” Fletcher gave her a reassuring smile. “I always wanted to try it too, just never got around to it. But after everything that happened… well, you know. It seems nice to take a break from Card Force. Not like I want to quit the game or anything, but guess some distraction can’t hurt, and it’s nice to try something new every now and then.”

“I hope you’ll have fun.” Naota smiled at him.

“So I know that RPG video games and trading card games both took a lot from classic tabletop RPGs like DnD. But you said it’s a much lighter system with not many stats to keep in mind, right?”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be closer to a shared writing experience. Normally we’d need another player, or one of us supposed to take the role of the game master who controls the world and the NPCs, while the rest play the heroes. But there’s only the two of us and I didn’t want us to play the opposite sides so to speak, so… I looked up something called solo or cooperative gaming. It lets us both play the good guys while the rules help us to decide together how the world reacts to our characters… kind of like playing a multiplayer game I guess, just without the computer.”

“Okay.” Fletcher mused. “I’m not sure that I get it fully, but it does sound fun. I’d love to write something together with you.”

The girl blushed.

“Sooo… guess let’s take another look at our characters. Then hopefully we can figure out the rest as we’re going… since that’s kind of the point.”

“Okay. I made some adjustments to Orion to make it easier to start the adventure. You said it would be about a place called Owl Castle, but you don’t have anything else about it?”

“Yes. I used an online generator that randomizes names for adventures and after a few tries it came up with ‘The Secret of Owl Castle’. I know you like birds and it has a nice sound to it, so I thought we could go with it. I didn’t come up with anything else beforehand, so we both can be surprised, but it sounds like a typical clear-the-dungeon kind of quest.”

“It sounds cool. I hope the owls won’t be our enemies though.”

“Actually we can make sure that won’t happen. FU uses closed questions to simulate the fictional world. You ask something, like ‘Is there any treasure in the room?’ then roll some dice to get an answer along the lines of ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Yes, but’ and such. So if we don’t ask if there are evil owls then there won’t be evil owls… it keeps things unpredictable, but within the frame of our expectations.”

“That’s pretty clever, like a built-in safety mechanic in the core system.”

“Yes. The funny thing is, there are some games tailored for solo roleplaying, like Ironsworn or Mythic RPG. Apparently FU wasn’t meant for this kind of playing, but the fans soon discovered that it works really well for it, and with one of the easiest rulesets to learn. That’s why I picked it.”

“Okay, so let me know if I shouldn’t make up stuff like that outside the game, but I specified a bit more about the place…”

“It should be good, it’s all about filling up the world with our ideas. What do you have in mind?”

“So as I said, Orion is a Holy Knight. What if Owl Castle belonged to his order but then got taken over by some dark forces? That would give him a good reason to go there and try to figure out what’s going on.”

“Good idea. Kaguya’s motivation is to help Orion since he saved her once and she wants to repay it, so it makes sense that their reason to go to the castle is something on Orion’s side.”

Fletcher smiled a bit, remembering his first meeting with Naota – the event he almost completely forgot before she told him about it. He caught Naota when she almost fell over and according to her, she has had a crush on him since that moment. The backstories of their characters accidentally ended up like it was the dramatized version of this story, with Orion saving Kaguya from a bunch of thugs at daytime, when the witch’s magic is the weakest.

“Honestly I was kind of surprised you didn’t make Orion a hunter or ranger with that name. But guess my character is only marginally connected to her mythological roots too. I’m still afraid she’s too much of a knock-off of the card, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s just for fun and nobody will judge me for not being original… And I really like Kaguya both in mythology and Card Force.”

“Well, I don’t want to reinforce this toxic culture about always being ‘original’, but I like your take on Kaguya. The idea that her magic depends on the time of the day and the moon phase is pretty clever.”

“Thank you. And don’t worry, complimenting my ideas is not the same as saying that I always supposed to be original when creating something… but I’m often worried that the stuff I say have unfortunate implications, so I get it why you wanted to make sure.”

“By the way I considered making my character a hunter, but I guessed if the adventure will take place in a Castle a knight might be a better fit. I want my descriptors to come into play… however I’m still trying to get the hang of them. Making being ‘Heroic’ my Flaw feels kinda pretentious.”

“You said it means that Orion always wants to help the weak and protect the people around him… so it’s something that can put him in danger and make the story more interesting. That’s why the characters are supposed to have Flaws too, so I think it works well.”

“Yeah, but it still feels a bit vague. Kaguya’s weakness is that she loses almost all of her magic in the daytime, mine feels a bit like cheating compared to that.”

“Hmm… I think I understand, but consider that Kaguya has magic to begin with. ‘Light Magic’ can be used for a lot of things, while Orion’s Edge is that he’s good with swords. It’s hard to create game balance when you’re allowed to put pretty much anything on your character sheet, but I think the rules are supposed to be flexible enough to handle problems on the fly. And it’s not like we’re competing or trying to overpower each other.”

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s no point in getting hung upon the little details while we’re trying to get the basics. So how do we start? I mean… obviously there’s no ‘Start Quest’ button or anything like that… Is there a dice roll or something?”

“Uhm, not really… it’s all like discussing ideas for a story. People in RPG podcasts usually act out their characters but everyone says online that stuff isn’t necessary for enjoying the game. You can do anything from ‘Guess my character attacks’ to ‘Blinded with rage, I throw myself into the craze of the battle as my clan’s battle cry is rolling down from my lips and I feel my sword, like a being of its own swinging through the lowly scum’… uh, whatever is comfortable for us. Guess we could start with Orion and Kaguya approaching the Castle?”

“Sounds good. ‘Owl Castle’ sounds like it could be some abandoned fortress in a big forest. I know it’s a pretty common trope, but we both agreed that it’s okay to use those.”

“Yes, that’s a good place to start. Do we want some kind of encounter there?”

“If we make a scene out of it then it feels like something supposed to happen there, or we could just skip ahead. But I’m not sure if jumping right into a fight is the best starting point… however it could work.”

“Actually it’s something we can ask the dice about.” Naota grabbed a single die.

“Sure!”

“Do we encounter any enemies in the forest?” she rolled.

“Four. That’s a simple ‘yes’” Fletcher said, taking a look at the chart in the rules. “Then a fight it is!”

🦉

As the sun quickly set over it, the forest surrounding Owl Castle was swallowed by dark shadows. Two adventurers, an armored knight and a witch in a light cloak tried to find their way among the trees. It was a dangerous time to go into the wild, but Orion and Kaguya had to make sure they made the most out of the hours when the latter's magic was the most powerful. They had no idea yet that they’re about to get ambushed.

“Can we notice the danger before they attack?” Fletcher asked.

“That sounds like something you’d make a ‘spot check’ for, or something like that in other games, so let’s roll I guess. Do you have any Descriptors that influence perception?”

“Uh, not really.”

“Same with Kaguya. Then it’s just a simple roll again with one die, we have a fifty percent chance of success.”

“Two. Even numbers always mean success, right?”

“They mean ‘Yes’ to the question we asked, so yes, since most of the time we ask stuff like ‘can I do X?’ that’s mostly true. Two means ‘Yes, but…’ so we do notice them, but there’s some twist or the result is downplayed in some way.”

“Hm…”

As they quietly crossed the forest, Orion stopped, noticing movement behind one of the trees. Without hesitation he reached out and grabbed the sneaking figure by their clothes. He pushed them against one of the trees and pointed his sword at them.

“Who are you?”

“Orion, watch out!”

Behind him two other enemies stepped out from the shadows, weapons in hand.

“So we have one of them, but the rest gets the drop on us.” Fletcher summed up. “But who are these guys? Guards of the Castle?”

“That works too” Naota scratched her chin. “But I kind of want to keep up the ‘secret’ part a little longer, you know? What if… Orion saved Kaguya from some thugs before, right? What if they got reinforcement and came after them for revenge?”

“And they don’t realize that Kaguya is much more dangerous now,” Fletcher grinned. “Yeah, I like that.”

“This game doesn’t have an initiative system or anything like that, but we determined that the two thugs surprised us, so guess it means that in the first round they attack and we’re forced to defend ourselves. One goes for Kaguya and one for you to help his trapped comrade?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The two bandits ran at the adventurers, sword-swinging. One of them targeted Kaguya.

“She has a cloak that lets her float for a short time, so I guess it would make sense for her to try to fly to one of the trees. From there she can use her magic from a safe distance.”

Naota rolled two dice, one of them representing the advantage Kaguya’s special Gear gave her. Every character had two iconic items of great importance and her Floating Cloak was one of these. She scored a two and a three.

“I’m allowed to keep the best result, so it’s a success, but only a ‘Yes, but’. So I suffer some kind of drawback.”

Kaguya jumped from the ground and gracefully raised into the air, avoiding the bandit’s sword slash. The thug didn’t give up easily though and reached after her, grabbing her arm. Kaguya struck his face with her Magic Staff, forcing him to let her go, but the staff fell on the ground in the struggle. Unable to pick it up, Kaguya flew into safety on the tree.

“Wait, shouldn’t he take some damage from that hit in the face?” Fletcher asked.

“I guess if I was the attacking party, or I rolled something better, I could inflict some Condition on him, like Dizzy or something. But the roll was indicating that I barely managed to escape and it’s me who should suffer the disadvantage. The rest is just flavor.”

“Makes sense.”

The other bandit jumped behind Orion, leaving barely enough time for him to turn around and raise his Holy Shield.

“Guess my Great Swordsman Edge doesn’t really apply here… but I’m Tough and my shield is a Gear so I get to roll three dice!”

He rolled a one, a four and a five.

“That’s a straight ‘Yes’.”

The bandit’s sword clanked loudly on the Holy Shield.

“There’s the third bandit, but since you held him tight so far, I think he doesn’t get to act on this turn.” Naota counted on her fingers. “Now that I think about it, we might have given these bandits some Descriptors of their own, because it’s a bit easy to overwhelm them. I forgot to use my Nimble Descriptor last time, with that I probably could dodge the attack without consequences.”

“I’m okay with that honestly. We both have to get used to these rules, and will make some mistakes, so we could use this as a kind of tutorial battle. You get those in most crpg-s too. And you lost your staff, that should be a disadvantage in the long run, since it would help you to cast magic.”

“Okay. Then it’s our turn now, and we finally can attack back.”

“Okay, then Orion draws his sword and swings at the ban… uhm.” Fletcher frowned.

“Are you okay?” Naota asked worriedly.

“Yeah, just… I know it’s just a game. And I usually don’t have a problem with killing enemies in video games. It’s just how you play the game, you don’t think much about it. But because of this all narrative thing… I don’t know, it feels more cruel than in video game combat where you often have only one way of proceeding. It reminds me…”

He didn’t finish.

“Of Kyle?” Naota asked quietly.

Fletcher nodded. His girlfriend gently touched his arm.

“We can stop any time. Or we can make a rule that nobody ever dies in this game. Defeated enemies just get knocked out, if we mess up, we just get captured, we can do that. Whatever makes you feel better.”

“I don’t think I wanna stop, it’s been really fun so far. The ‘nobody dies’ rule sounds good, would you really be okay with that?”

“Of course. I’m not a fan of bloody stories anyway, and after the Night of the Pink Sky lighthearted adventuring feels even more appealing for me too.”

“All right, then let’s see if Orion actually manages to hit this thug. He’s a Great Swordsman and his Sharp Sword also gives him a bonus die.”

Fletcher rolled three dice, but his best result was a three, a straight “No”.

“That’s not good.” Naota said. “On the thugs’ round they can both attack you, taking one of them out would have halved the danger… on the other hand, Kaguya is pretty safe on the tree, so guess she tries to cast a protective spell on Orion. I can’t get the bonus die from my Magic Staff right now, but I still have the Light Magic Edge.”

She rolled her two dice and…

“Are you serious?”

The best score was a five, a “No, but…”.

“So I can’t protect you, but I still can get something out of it. I have no idea what though.”

“On a success, you’d give me another protective Descriptor until the end of the scene, right? How about the flash of light from the spell temporarily blinding one of the thugs? So he alone would get a penalty on his attack for this turn only.”

“Yeah, that works. Then that was our turn, now it’s the thug’s time to attack again.”

“Okay. Huh, who will roll for them? Guess normally that would be the GM’s job.”

“Not in FU actually. One of the features of this game is that the enemies and NPCs don’t roll dice, you roll to defend or hinder their actions.

“Your two thugs are coming first and since the combat rules are pretty loose, it’s up to us how we want to simulate this. You can roll twice, separately for both of them, and add a bonus die against the one who’s blinded. Or we can handle this as Orion is defending simultaneously against both… you roll once, adding a penalty die for fighting two enemies… then adding a bonus since one of them is hindered.”

Fletcher tried to keep track of the different dice on her fingers.

“One dice roll sounds simpler, but having both bonus and penalty dice, remind me, how did that work? You either pick the best or worst result, right?”

“Yes. When you have both good and bad dice, they cancel each other out, like when you both add and subtract the same number.”

“Then I roll… a single die.”

“Wait, no. Don’t forget about your own Descriptors and Gear, you only factored in the situational modifiers so far.”

“Oh, right. So Orion is Though, he has a Holy Shield and guess he also can use his sword to parry… wow, that’s four dice in total.”

“Well, you’re a knight, it makes sense you’re tanky.” Naota smiled.

“… or not.” Fletcher looked at the two ones and two threes on his dice.

Orion swung his sword at the bandit, but he dodged it quickly.

“Orion, close your eyes!” Kaguya shouted, raising her hands.

A glowing white rune appeared in the air, then a white flash of light filled the forest, making it look like it was broad daylight. The bandit attacking Orion from behind grunted, trying to protect his eyes. Orion easily dodged his blind swings, but didn’t notice the other bandit he released a moment ago coming at him.

“Okay, so how does damage work? We don’t have HP but get Conditions instead?”

“Yeah. They’re like status ailments, basically negative Descriptors that give you penalties.”

“Guess the Injured condition fits this situation perfectly… it will make attacking and defending harder, not like it went so well so far.”

“I can try and heal you in the next round, but first let’s deal with my bandit. I think it would make sense for him if he tried to climb the tree and reach Kaguya. Do we roll something for that?”

“I don’t know… guess Kaguya went pretty high, since she can fly. It’s safe to say that it would take the whole turn for that baddie to reach her, so we don’t have to worry about him right now… however if you use your next turn to heal me, you’ll be defenseless when he gets there.”

“Not necessarily, I’ll still get to roll to defend, and if I roll something good, I might be able to strike back on his turn. And I think Kaguya would be too worried about Orion to worry about anything else before helping him. So let’s see, can she heal him?”

She rolled her two dice and scored a five and a six.

“Oh, the six is a ‘Yes, and’! Basically the equivalent of a critical hit in this system. So you’re rid of your injury, and there are some other benefits too…” she smiled. “And I already know what.”

Orion staggered back as the bandit’s blade cut into his flesh.

“Hold on!” the moon witch encouraged him and started to chant a healing spell.

Cloudy white runes glowed in the early night and Orion felt a nice chill washing over his body, erasing the pain completely. The winds of magic caught the other bandit climbing the tree off-guard, pushing him on the ground.

“So without HP how do we know when someone is out? Like okay, we know that bandit didn’t die from the fall, but was that enough to take him out of the fight?”

“I don’t know, honestly the rules are pretty vague about that.” Naota admitted. “In theory we could just ask ‘do we win the fight?’ and roll, but on a bad roll, we’d lose instantly. There’s not much guidelines about when to end an encounter… guess we could just make another roll to see if the bandit is unconscious or not. But since this is supposed to be a warm-up fight with some minions, I’d vote that he’s out.”

“Agree. Let’s see if Orion can deal with his opponents. Hopefully I can roll something good too finally.”

Fletcher shook the dice and managed to roll a four, a simple “Yes”.

Orion spun his sword and with a single hit, took out one of the bandits.

“Okay, two down, one left, and it’s his turn now…” Fletcher said. “But he just saw his companions being knocked out, one of them by magic. Guess there’s a decent chance that he won’t continue fighting against the odds, so why not check it first?”

“Sure!” Naota said, rolling a single die. “Is he too scared to fight?”

She rolled a five.

“Dammit. It would be a cool way to end the scene.” Fletcher said.

“Actually, if we both feel like this battle was dragging long enough, maybe it would be better to just end it without rolling… that’s a thing with these narrative games, you can just skip the boring parts. But doing it after rolling feels a bit like cheating… wait, I know.”

She took one of the glass pearls from beside her character sheet.

“We can spend these ‘FU Points’ to add more dice for rolls and to reroll dice, it’s completely within the rules. So I will spend one now.”

She rolled again, this time scoring a six.

“Yes!” they both cheered.

Orion turned to the remaining bandit, raising his sword. The thug quickly dropped his own.

“Hey, uh, I think we have mistaken you for someone else. Sorry for the trouble. If… you guys could calm down… you could just go on your way, I promise we’ll leave you alone, okay?”

“Should we take their gold or something?” Fletcher wondered. “I mean, they harassed us for no reason and you usually get something after winning a fight. But money doesn’t really matter in this game, as the characters are just assumed to have everything they need, and only a few pieces of Gear give actual bonuses.”

“We still could take their weapons, so they really won’t try to ambush us again.” Naota suggested. “I mean they wouldn’t anyway, but that’ll teach them a lesson about bullying others.”

With that, Kaguya and Orion continued their journey towards the Owl Castle.

Chapter Text

Darkness covered the forest completely and the moon glowed high in the sky by the time the two adventurers found a clearing, then a wide dirt path leading to their destination.

Owl Castle was really like a small fortress, a settlement more believable to be found in the wilderness than an actual castle. The fanciest thing about it were the stone statues of some kind of knights who’s shields and helmets were decorated with owl wings.

“That sounds like a really cool design, Fletcher,” Naota complained.

“Thanks,” the boy smiled. “However, I think I accidentally created a plot hole. I was thinking… if this castle once belonged to Orion’s order, it’s really weird if they sent him alone to take it back. We already established that he needs an ally, someone who’s good with magic, but why wouldn’t they give someone next to him to begin with?”

“There’s a number of ways we can resolve that,” Naota said thinking. “Maybe there are not many left from Orion’s order. He could be one of the last survivors and he wasn’t ‘sent’, more like he vowed to himself to take back this place… or maybe he has some kind of beef with the order and it’s an unauthorized action, as his superiors didn’t agree to it. Both of those would give some kind of twist to him though, and I’m not sure if that’s how you imagine him… the first version makes him a pretty tragic hero, and the second makes him more like a rebel. We also could just leave it ambiguous, it’s not sure we’ll need that information for the story.”

“Yeah, true, maybe that would be the best. It’s just kind of bugging me.”

“Maybe he did have companions on this quest, but he got separated from them before they got here?” Naota offered further ideas.

“That could work,” Fletcher’s face lightened up. “Yeah, maybe he was part of a team sent to check on the castle when the order didn’t get any more reports from there. Then the others were taken by some kind of dark magic… that’s how Orion knew, he’d need a magic user. He could just turn back for more help, but his companions are probably still captured in the Castle, so of course he wants to save them.”

“Then he ran into Kaguya,” Naota smiled. “Nice, that’s a cool piece of backstory.”

“Okay, it’s also dark now and the moon is up. Remind me, how is that affecting Kaguya’s magic?”

“Not that much, it’s more like the daytime that is problematic. Basically at daytime she gets a penalty die on all her magic from her Flaw. After sunset she can use her magic the fullest. Full moon and new moon also give her a bonus or a penalty die respectively, but that’s not the case now… I added it for lore, but didn’t actually want to clog down the game with it, as this quest probably won’t take longer than the night.”

“It still can come into play if we decide to use these characters more in the future. But now that means we’re ready for our next scene where Kaguya and Orion are actually approaching the Castle.”

“Probably there will be guards,” Naota reasoned. “But since we just finished a battle scene, we might wanna check if something else happens before that? Not like there’s anything wrong with combat, but it might worth a dice roll to see if anything interesting happens in between.”

“Sure!” Fletcher grabbed a die. “I’m not sure how to word this… asking if anything happens feels like a trap. If I roll a ‘no’ we just wasted the set-up, and if I roll a ‘yes’ we don’t get any closer to know what will happen.”

“Does Orion and Kaguya encounter anything interesting before their next battle?” Naota suggested.

Fletcher rolled a four.

“So yes, we do get a cutscene between fights,” Fletcher joked. “Guess we’ll need another roll to determine what kind… ‘Do they meet someone?’ If not, that means it’s not a person but something else they notice, we can work with that.”

Naota nodded in approval and this time she rolled a six.

“Okay, so guess that means we meet multiple people?” Fletcher wondered.

“It makes sense!” Naota said enthusiastically. “We just established that Orion’s companions were brought here… who says they just sat there so far and didn’t try to escape on their own?”

“Oh, so they managed to get out and we met them close to the gate? I like it… but that means whatever is in the castle it’s really bad. Bad enough for three Holy Knights to decide to run away instead of trying to take it down.”

“Well, they didn’t have any magical backup… but now they will have Kaguya on their side” the girl smirked. “And we’ll have some allies to take care of the weak minions more quickly… how detailed do you want them to be? Maybe you should write down a few of their characteristics before we work out the scene.”

“Well, they’re pretty important to Orion, so I guess they’re supposed to have at least a name and some distinctive trait for each of them, but I don’t want them to steal the spotlight from our characters… I know, I’ll just give them each a cool weapon.”

Fletcher grabbed some paper and made a note about their new NPCs.

Tobias (he/him): Bow

Matheus (she/her): Spear

Hayam(they/them): Ax

Getting closer to the building, they noticed three armored figures in the distance. They were coming toward Orion and Kaguye from the Castle’s direction.

“Wait, are they…” Orion squinted.

“Do you know them?” Kaguya asked.

“Orion! Is that really you?” shouted a large knight holding an ax.

“Hayan…? Oh my god, guys!”

Both groups took up some speed and soon met halfway through.

“Kaguya, they’re my friends I’ve talked about… Are you guys okay? You just suddenly vanished from the camp. I thought you might…”

“We’re fine,” Tobias assured him. “We were teleported into some kind of dungeon… it took some time for us to figure out that we were brought into Owl Castle, then some more to escape.”

“Are you all right?” Matheus asked. “We didn’t know what happened to you… how did you avoid being captured?”

“That’s a good question.” Naota pointed out. “Do you have any idea how this capturing thing went down?”

“I imagine that Orion and the others were making camp, when something attacked them… not like monsters or soldiers bust something more… spell-like, like black smoke I guess? Whoever it touched, they vanished. It took both speed and luck for Orion to avoid being taken.

“So, it will probably take some time until Orion tells that to the others, and also to introduce Kaguya to them and vica versa. I think we can skip that… which is more interesting is what the others know? They were in the Castle.”

“Hm, from our character’s viewpoint, it’s a great opportunity to gain some tactical advantage and information about what they are up against… from our viewpoint, that would mean sitting and figuring out a lot of things in advance just to not get surprised by them when we actually get there.”

“Sooo, if we wanna avoid that, we could say that Tobias, Matheus and Hayem were put in the dungeon and guarded through magic, they didn’t encounter anyone personally.”

“Actually that already tells us something interesting about the power who took over the Castle… they have powerful magic for sure, but also they might lack allies. Typical evil overlords love to show off their army of minions, but this thing or person only acted through magic so far. So they might be alone.”

“Oh, so they took over the whole castle alone? That’s a bit alarming but I like it. Also, they don’t sound like someone who would let the others run for too long… so…”

“… so time for our next battle, right?” Naota smiled. “Why do I feel like you already got an idea?”

“Well yeah, you could say that when I came up with the idea of those statues I had some ulterior moves.” Fletcher grabbed some paper and a pencil. “So what do you think, since we got some reinforcement should we make the enemies tougher as well?”

“Let’s give it a try,” Naota agreed. “Worse case scenario, we get knocked out and dragged to the Castle. Then we can break free and invade the Castle from inside.”

“Then I give them two Descriptors, Tough and Flying. Hopefully we don’t get ass-kicked, but there’s only one way to find out.”

“How many of them should attack?”

“Let’s see, there are the two of us heroes so to speak, then the other knights both have a Descriptor – their weapon – of their own, they should be able to put up a decent fight too… I’m kinda curious if we can handle six statues.”

“Okay!” Naota clapped her hands. “Kaguya takes her turn last, in case someone needs healing, and if not, she can do some serious destruction between the statues with her magic. Tobias has a ranged weapon, so why don’t we let our new allies act first? At least we can test them out.”

🦉

“Guys, it’s nice to get to chat with you, but we got company!” Matheus grabbed her spear.

They all turned towards the Castle and saw three flying figures approaching from the air quickly.

“Guess the self-proclaimed lord of Owl Castle isn’t happy that we refused their hospitality.”

Tobias readied his Bow and sent an arrow flying towards the enemy.

“Let’s see if he hits anything… he gets a bonus die for his Bow.”

Fletcher shook the two dice and rolled…

“Oh my god, finally!” he rolled a five and a six.

“Uhm…” Naota put a hand on her mouth.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just… you know what, nevermind.”

“Wait, if I mess up something please tell me. I want to learn this game together with you, I won’t get mad if you correct me.” he smiled at the girl.

“I just didn’t want to be a party-killer,” she blushed. “It’s just, you added the bonus die for Tobias’ descriptor, but you actually should remove it for the Tough descriptor we gave for the statues… but I don’t know how to handle it, as you already rolled.”

“Oh… well, guess I’ll just reroll it with one die, clean sheet.”

“Wait. I know it’s not by the word of the rules, but the point is having fun, right? And rolling high is part of the fun… so why don’t you just spend an FU point, like as a compensation for forgetting the penalty die? Then just keep the six you rolled.”

“Well, if you’re okay with it, me too.” Fletcher said, putting one of his pearls to the middle of the table. “So, what does ‘Yes, and’ mean in this situation? Does he hit two enemies?”

The arrow hit one of the statues and pushed it against another next to it, sending both of them crashing into the ground.

Hayam whistled.

“Remind me to stop stealing your mushrooms Tobias.”

“I knew it was you,” the archer grumbled with a wide grin.

“They’re here guys!” Matheus stroked her spear toward another stone-creature in the air. “These clods give new meaning to the Flying Brick trope.”

“Did she just reference TV Tropes?” Naota asked. “Is there a fantasy version of TV Tropes in this world?”

“Maybe TV Tropes is a trans-universal phenomenon.” Fletcher shrugged. “Anyway, let’s roll for Matheus… she actually rolls with a penalty die, because the enemy is Tough and she fights a Flying enemy from the ground.”

“Let’s hope she gets lucky.” Naota said, rolling two dice.

“Ouch. A five and a one… is that a critical miss?”

“Yeah, a ‘No, and…’ so she misses and something bad happens too, like when I dropped my staff. Guess that could mean that the statue pushes her on the ground. Until she takes a whole turn to get up, she can only act limited and she gets a penalty on her actions.”

“That sounds like a pain, but guess it’s better than an injury. Next is Hayan, they get a penalty die just like Matheus did. I kinda wanna boost their attack, but we already spent two of our points and it probably would be better to spare those for ourselves.”

Fletcher rolled a five.

“So they can’t take the statue out, but they get something… maybe break one of its wings, rendering it unable to fly.”

Fletcher decreased the number of Flying Statues to three, and added a Non-flying Statue with the simple Tough Descriptor in his notes.

“Okay, Orion’s turn. Great Swordsman and Sharp Sword versus Tough and Flying… I get to roll a single die. Let’s hope for the best… Hell yes!”

He air-pumped as he rolled a six.

Groaning, Matheus fell on the ground as one of the stone creatures crashed into her. Hayem swung their ax to another, cutting down one of its wings clean. The statue fell on the ground, but soon it jumped up, ready to keep fighting.

Orion stepped ahead, against the two statues targeting him and Kaguya. He jumped in the air, and with a spinning move, took both of their heads.

“Wow, nice technique!” Kaguya complimented.

“Honestly, I’m a bit surprised it worked,” Orion said, blushing. “Last time I tried this move I broke my left arm.”

“Guess it’s time for me to be a bit reckless too.” the witch smiled.

“Okay,” Naota said. “We have two statues left and it’s Kaguya’s turn right? Her spells work just as well on airborne enemies, so she only has to worry about the Tough Descriptor. With her Magic Staff back to her…”

She took a moment to calculate.

“She gets to roll a bonus die… but I also can give that up to cast a multi-target spell and try to knock both of them out… wait, no, it’s not worth it. It would be cool to end the whole battle in one round, but it’s better to make sure I take out the flying one. The other will be easy to overwhelm in the next round.”

“Sure, but I don’t mind taking some risk, so Kaguya can have a moment of cool of her own.” Fletcher assured her.

“I know. But the way I imagine Kaguya, she probably would want to make sure that everyone is safe, rather than risking for a chance to end the battle quickly. And I enjoy playing her that way.”

Kaguya pointed her Staff at the last statue left in the air, moonlight glowing around her in the air.

“Four! A simple ‘Yes’.” Naota looked at her result.

Moonlight enveloped the flying statue and when it vanished, the stone knight fell on the ground lifeless, like the magic moving it was drained from it completely.

“One left,” Fletcher said. “Guess as these are animated statues, they fight until they can… and Hayem is the closest to it who took its wing. It would make sense to attack them.”

“Hayem is pretty big, but their enemy is literally made of stone, so the Tough Descriptor will be painful to them.”

She rolled with a penalty die, scoring a six and a five.

“Oh, so they can’t avoid the attack, but they get some advantage.”

“What if Hayem actually manages to take it out, but gets Injured in the process? I know that’s not the most intuitive interpretation of ‘No, but…’ but that statue is already pretty worn down and it would be a cool scene.”

“Sure!”

As the statue jumped at them, instead of defending, the enby knight planted their ax deep in its shoulder. Two stone hands wrapped around their arms, squeezing them with inhuman strength.

“Heh, you wanna see, who can take it longer?” the warrior grinned, pushing the ax deeper in the stone.

A moment passed, then the statue broke in two. Hayem dropped their ax and fell on the ground.

“Don’t worry, I’m still kicking, just my arms hurt like hell.”

“Can you heal them?” Fletcher asked both in- and out of character.

“We’ll see in a moment.” Naota shook three dice. “Oh, that's six. I’m not sure how to make a full recovery even better, guess it means Kaguya can fix them up really quickly and easily.”

“Well, that was humiliating.” Matheus got up from the ground, using her spear to support herself. “But as I see, you got us a vital ally Orion, good job. Now, how about finally checking out that jackass in the Castle? I have some depth to repay them.”

Chapter Text

“That was awesome,” Fletcher said, clearing up his notes after the combat scene. “And I also got an idea… since we don’t have stuff like experience points, and treasure isn’t really important either, how about rewarding ourselves with an FU Point for both of us for the win? With that, both of us would be at three again.”

“Good idea, especially that apparently we’re about to run into our Big Bad soon… Talking of which, the next scene probably will be about our heroes finally entering the Castle. Guess it’s time to figure out more about what happened there.”

“Yeah, let’s see what we know so far… and what we can guess. Owl Castle belonged to Orion’s order and probably there were quite a lot of Holy Knights living here… maybe as a line of protection against monsters and other nasty things living deeper in the woods.”

“Yes, that would explain why they would put a fortress like this in the middle of the forest.” Naota nodded.

“So, one day someone shows up… a really OP magic user presumably, and takes it over in a blink. Like the reports from the Castle just stopped one day, and it doesn’t look like there was some big battle here. We know that the mysterious invader is probably alone or has only a few allies, so they probably didn’t take the Castle by sheer force.”

“With the way they kidnapped the other knights from Orion’s team… what if they just magically teleported everyone away?”

“Oh… like they just walked in and went ‘what a nice castle, do you mind if I have it?’ then snapped their fingers and boom, all the knights protecting the Castle were sent to the arctic?”

“Something like that. I know it’s a bit of a funny way to explain what happened, but if they can just teleport people around, it’s actually a pretty effective way to take a castle. And it goes well with our ‘nobody dies’ rule.”

“I like it actually. However it makes it a bit hard to save the knights as they can be anywhere in the world. Even if we beat the big bad, Orion is gonna have a lot of work until he can make sure that his fellow knights are safe. Which is not necessarily bad, we could even make another adventure out of it… hm.”

“We’re running really ahead,” Naota pointed out. “Of course we can just say that the teleportation theory is true and make it canon right away, but we could also ask the dice about clues as we explore the Castle, and see if the answers confirm it or not. I just thought it might be good to have it at hand as a potential solution.”

“Good idea. Then let’s go to the scene where they enter the Castle and ask some questions?”

“Yes,” Naota said, grabbing a die. “First, as they enter, do they see anyone around?”

She rolled a one.

“So the Castle is super-deserted I guess” Fletcher scratched his chin. “Like, maybe it means that not only there are no people around, maybe even the furniture and other stuff that is supposed to be there is missing or ruined.”

He rolled another die to check his idea and got a four.

The five companions looked around in the completely empty entry hall and instinctively stepped closer to each other.

“Kaguya, do you feel something?” Orion asked. “Magically I mean.”

“She has Arcane Knowledge, so that will help her in sensing magic,” Naota said, grabbing two dice.

“Wait, if you roll with bonus dice when trying to find danger then doesn’t the bonus die actually makes it more likely that something bad happens?” Fletcher asked, scratching his head.

“I think they’re already in danger… rolling well would mean they can proceed and act before trouble gets them, while a bad roll lets them in the dark, waiting for something bad to happen.”

She rolled a five and a two.

“Yes, but… so it’s kind of the same situation as with the bandits at the beginning. She can sense something, but they can’t prevent the danger completely from happening.”

“The big question is, is this our Big Bad? We could roll for that, but I think it’s something we should think through… we only have time for one or two more scenes. If we want to make an actual dungeon crawling out of this, then we have to end it on a cliffhanger soon.”

“Hm, both would be fun,” Naota said, thinking. “But I think it would be nice to have an actual resolution. That doesn’t mean we can’t play with these characters anymore… maybe we can even get some of the others to join next time. Guess everyone could use some light-hearted fun after everything.”

“I imagine Hikaru or Maxwell playing,” Fletcher said half-jokingly. “Who knows, maybe now that his brother is back, we could actually get him to waste his time on something so childish.”

Naota chuckled.

“Okay, then this is the showdown!” Fletcher pumped his fist. “Should I put in some kind of boss-music?”

“I’d prefer not… with video games it’s different, but it can be pretty hard to talk over music.”

“Fair enough. Oh, and we still don’t know who or what our enemy is. They have powerful magic and they have something against knights and furniture… that isn’t much. I think we should ask the dice to figure out more.”

“Are they human? Since it would be pretty weird for a human to get rid of all the furniture I roll for that with two penalty dice.”

“Should we even roll with those chances?”

“Probably not, but it would be pretty funny if they would be a human sorcerer with some weird beef against furniture. Rolling for almost-obvious things can create room for silly details.”

She rolled a six, a five and a three.

“Maybe next time.”

“Are they some kind of monster from the deep of the forest?” Fletcher asked, and rolled a straight yes.

“So it’s a forest monster who has strong magic, can teleport and prefers to be alone… Well, ‘monster’ feels a bit like a stretch, but my best idea would be some kind of fey.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with fighting a fairy? You said you like them.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we will kill them. Who knows, if we can figure out why they are doing this, we might be able to make an ally of them. Actually…” she seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment.

“Did you get an idea?”

“Yes. In many stories, fae are not completely malicious, they are just mischievous troublemakers. And as far as we know, this one didn’t do anything terrible so far. Hayem got a bit hurt, but it was partially because of they acted boldly, and it was easy to heal them. They took Orion’s friends, but then they just let them walk out of the Castle. Maybe they didn’t want to take over the castle, they just wanted to play with the humans. When the knights weren’t up to the game, they might displace them, then look for someone else.”

“And they found Orion’s team. Yes, it would make sense that way.”

“Let’s see if it’s true… if not then we can assume that there’s something more ominous in the background.”

She rolled a six.

“Oh, you have magic too!” someone said cheerfully in the dark. “Finally a good playmate. Those knights were awfully boring.”

Tiny lights formed a humanoid figure in the air. Everyone reached for their weapons, but Kaguya stretched her arm to stop them.

“Wait. Are you a fey, right?”

“I’m bored. Will you play with me?” the creature asked.

“Where are the knights who protected this place?” Orion demanded. “Did you ‘play’ with them too?”

“They were boring” the fairy complained. “I sent them to our realm so they can learn to have some fun sometimes. It will be like a dream for them.”

“The knights here have a really important job,” Kaguya explained patiently. “They protect the people of the villages from bad things… things that hurt people and ruin everyone’s fun. Because of that they might seem a bit morose, but if you could bring them back, we’ll make sure that someone will play with you every now and then.”

“Do you wanna convince them?” Fletcher asked.

“At least I want to try. I don’t have any Descriptors to help me though.”

“We’re full of FU Points. If you really want to make sure…”

“I don’t know. Bossfights are fun, but finding unexpected ways to solve problems are also fun. But I understand if you want Orion and the others to have something to do.”

“No, I mean we just had two battles. And it’s not like Orion can’t try to help to convince them.”

“Yeah, fighting those statues was pretty fun… since none of us died or got badly hurt. It was a bit rough, but if you could go easy you could even help the knights to train. It could benefit everyone… after explaining that you’re not a threat.” Orion added.

“Oh, good idea! With that, I think we could roll with a bonus die on convincing them.”

She rolled a two and a four.

“Yes!” they both cheered.

“That sounds fun. But will you sometimes visit me too?” the fairy asked Kaguya. “Most humans don’t have magic. It would be good to play with someone who does.”

“Of course.” the witch smiled. “I will, I promise.”

“Very well. I’ll bring back the others.”

The lights scattered and for a moment, they covered everything. As they vanished the hall was full of furnishing and very surprised-looking Holy Knights.

“What the hell just happened?” one of them asked, seemingly completely lost.

“That’s a long story.” Orion said. “But the danger is averted, and we even got you a new training partner. Could I talk to the captain of the Castle please?”

🦉

“That was really fun,” Fletcher leaned back. “Thanks for showing me the game.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” Naota smiled, collecting the papers from the table.

“We have beaten some bandits, met a bunch of cool knights, defeated some flying statues and made friends with a fey… it was a busy afternoon.” the boy grinned. “And it was all improvised from our idea-bits and dice roll… it’s kind of amazing.”

“Yeah, it surely eases the stress about creating stories… you can just throw random ideas at each other and it can still make a fun story. Oh well, maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal for a novel, but the way we experienced it and managed to make a coherent story on the fly surely made it special for us.”

“We still have some time,” Fletcher looked at the clock. “How about a quick match of Card Force?”

“Quick?” Naota smiled. “How can you make sure about that?”

“It’s always quick when you beat me,” Fletcher shrugged. “But I don’t mind. I haven't even touched my cards since my battle with Donovan and I start to miss the game.”

“Honestly, same. A friendly match would be nice” Naota said, shuffling her deck.

Naota: 25000

Fletcher: 25000

Fletcher drew eight cards and smiled, already measuring his options in his head.

“Let’s battle!”