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“Twenty-two!” April shouted as she totaled her dice. “And it’s a critical, which with a scythe is times four, so 88 damage. Do I get him?”
Naomi marked a couple things behind her screen. “As your scythe tears through his wings, the fallen angel screams in agony. The wings drop to the ground and golden ichor spurts from the stumps and the sliced edges of the wings. You notice the fallen angel trying to step toward you to smite you, but he slips in the ichor, landing helplessly on the ground as his strength begins to fail. He reaches for his blade with the last of his strength, but before he can do anything with it, it gives out and the fallen angel lies dead at your feet.”
“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” April jumped up on her chair and did a little victory dance. “Suck it, everyone, I got the killing blow!”
“Was that in character?” Naomi asked with a disapproving lift of her eyebrow.
April nodded. “Sure. Why not?” It’s not like her character wasn’t the self-aggrandizing kind. It fit, and it would keep Naomi from glaring at her anymore.
“Roll a balance check for me,” Naomi said. Oh. That’s why. April picked up her d20 and rolled it, sighing as it came up 4. Not a critical fail, but unless Naomi was planning to be particularly generous with her target number, probably not a success either. Naomi rolled something behind the screen. “Okay, you start to do your little victory dance, but as soon as you’re done shouting you slip in the ichor spilling from the wings and land on your ass. No HP loss, since you didn’t fail too badly.”
Ava and Dumah burst into laughter, pointing at April. “Nice one, Grace,” Ava said. “You sure showed us how to celebrate a victory.”
“Since she’s down and probably smarting for a while, I’m going to go examine the body and see if there’s anything I can steal without being too obvious before we gather the loot for divvying,” Dumah said. She rolled her die. “32 on a search check. Do I find anything?”
“Roll a sleight of hand check,” Naomi said, readying a Post-It.
“39.” Dumah sounded somewhat disappointed in herself, causing April to roll her eyes. “So?”
Naomi quickly scribbled something on her note. “While Mei is down and Lily’s busy laughing, you examine the body and start piling anything that looks valuable away from the ichor.” She passed Dumah the note, and from the way Dumah’s face lit up, April was sure she’d managed to pocket something good while piling.
“Lily notices what Alex is doing and stops laughing to go help,” Ava said. “After all, everyone knows you can’t leave Alex unattended with loot.”
“I get up and start looking around the room for any hidden treasure that this bastard might have hidden around here somewhere. That’s a 32 on the search check,” April added.
Once all the loot had been found, gathered, and divvied, Ava pouted a little. “So… that’s it. We finished the adventure.”
“Don’t worry,” Dumah said, putting an arm around Ava. “We’ll go on a new adventure together! I’m sure Naomi can come up with a sequel, right?”
Naomi smirked. “You guys haven’t been paying attention, have you. You got the fallen angel, yes, but… what was his motivation? Why did he fall? Why was he the bad guy here? You got the angel, but you didn’t get the people behind the angel, or the thing the angel was protecting. There’s so much more to explore, and that’s where we’re going next session!”
“Yay!” April clapped. “Thanks, Naomi. You are the best sister-in-law ever.”
“You guys are fun to work with,” Naomi said with a smile. “Would you guys mind if I brought a friend along next time, since we’re in a good place to add a new party member? I know you three kind of like the group being just your polycule, but…”
“We can bring someone in, sure, if they’re someone important to you,” April said. “No problem. Who is it?”
“My partner Rachel. I’ll work with her to get a character together who’s about the same level as yours – by the way, don’t forget to level up and do some shopping before next session, because I’d like to jump right in. If there’s something specific you want that you’re not sure I’ll allow, you all have my phone number and social media, right? If not, I know for sure that Dumah does, so get what you need from her and send me a message. Rachel’s character will come primed with some backstory so we can skip the floundering around until you find a lead step of continuing the adventure, okay?”
“That’s great! We can still get some good roleplaying in while we meet her and swap stories, so it’s not like you’re cheating us out of some good character development,” Ava agreed. “Same time next week?”