Work Text:
Elias Bouchard sighed. He knew this was probably not a good idea.
He looked to Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Melanie King, and Georgie Barker, who were all seated around his kitchen table. On the walls of his apartment, he had hung not ominous or plot relevant portraits of eyeballs everywhere. No one seemed to care. "I'm glad to see you all got my email. Does everyone have a good idea of what we're doing?"
His coworkers nodded in agreement as he pulled out blank character sheets and a five gallon bucket of dice that was still somehow not enough for an upcast fireball. "Lets get to it then. As I said in my email, this campaign will take place in space and we're all starting at level 3. It's morally grey so don't be worried to make characters with flaws. Jon, do you want to go first?"
Jonathan Sims smiled. "I was thinking of playing a human rogue named Jonny d'Ville. He-"
Melanie cut him off. "Your character is named after yourself?"
"Well it's what the person who wrote me originally was named so it's Jons all the way down"
"What?"
"What?"
Elias stepped in before Melanie stabbed her girlfriend's ex-boyfriend with a comically oversized knife because he was annoying. "We can work with that. What kind of guy is Jonny d'Ville?"
Jon had a devilish grin. "He's a serial killer with no sense of justice who does what he finds fun. He had to kill his own father, then -"
Elias looked to the others with an "Are we sure about this?" look on his face. They looked back at him with a "How are we communicating telepathically?" kind of stare. Suddenly, a small spider skittered across the table from under a die and Jon jumped, paled, and squeezed Martin's hand, shaking slightly. The others looked at Elias with a "Poor guy needs it" vibe, and Elias forced a smile and handed Jon a character sheet. "Sounds great ! : ) How about you, Martin?"
Martin thought for a moment, scratched his head, then said "How about someone who can just help out the crew and know what to do. Maybe a wizard. I think her name is Ivy Alexandria and she grew up around books, the same way I grew up around archival statements because I lied about my age on my job application."
Elias blinked. "Okay so we're going to pretend that you never just admitted to something that could get you fired or worse and say okay. That sounds good. Here's your sheet."
Melanie and Georgie looked at each other, then Melanie hesitantly said "We were thinking about having two characters in a previous relationship. Is that okay?" Elias nodded and she fist pumped, then said "I'll be playing as Anastasia Nikolaevna Rasputina, a human artificer who comes from a noble background."
Elias inwardly sighed at somebody being a normal fucking human being for once.
Then Georgie opened her mouth. "And I'll be playing the ship."
"The... ship?"
"Yup! Race: Moon Class: Ship!"
"Oooookayyyyyyyyyyy,,,,,,,,, and you're in a creator/creation relationship?"
"Nope! Sexual!"
Elias outwardly did whatever the opposite of a sigh was because apparently he can't have good things. "Okay..... We can maybe make it work?"
After character sheets were filled in, everyone used the bathroom five times in a row, got distracted by a video of Mario eating a small child, and Elias realizing that he should take some really quick prep work because he's too busy at his actual work cleaning up after these idiots, everyone was finally quiet and Elias started reading from his notes. "The sun has set upon peace within the galaxies. Capitalism, greed, and wars have engulfed all that is good, and leave destruction in their wake. Too many one percenters to count hold the majorities firmly under their control. But we don't start that big. Each one of you has received an invitation for a heist. Even the spaceship got one somehow. And now you've all met, along with the one who sent the mysterious missives - one Doctor Carmilla!" He paused for dramatic effect and also because Gertrude Robinson was now in his apartment.
"That's my character, Elias. Also she's a vampire."
"What the fuck how did you know we were playing tonight? I specifically didn't invite you for a lot of reasons but mostly because you were dead?"
"L + Ratio + Beholding + I was bored + I lived bitch."
"Okay, I- Give me a moment to figure this out, but you can play with us."
Jon yelled "I try to push her out of the airlock!", then rolled a natural one.
At that moment, the apartment door opened and a man with windswept grey hair and a beard to match walked inside carrying a brown paper bag with groceries in it. "Oh, dear, did you remember to invite your work friends to the wedding?" Peter Lukas asked.
"WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED?????" Jon asked.
"Congrats" Martin said as he patted Elias on the shoulder.
"woah hes bisexual i didnt know that" said Melanie in a perfect impression of a bad impression of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Elias Bouchard sighed. He knew this was definitely not a good idea.