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Beau took the stairs two at a time, well aware that she was holding up the rest of the group. She didn’t bother to knock and just threw the door open, also well aware that the door would have been left open just for her.
“Sorry! Sorry! I got caught up talking with my advisor, and then traffic was a bitch!”
She threw her book bag down on the floor after she had fished her character sheet and dice up, too engrossed in her task to realize only one other person was there.
“Oh, hey Yash, where is everyone?” Yasha’s apartment was the biggest and had therefore become the place where they played D&D, especially as they had a habit of getting a little loud and Yasha’s neighbors didn’t care about that.
“Caleb forgot something at home and rushed back to get it. He wouldn’t say much, so I’m assuming that it’s something he’s gonna use to torture us with. The rest are all carpooling here and are also stuck in traffic.”
“Makes sense, I’m not exactly sure what the hell has happened, but it turned a 15-minute drive into a 40-minute one.”
Yasha nodded and continued to bring more and more snacks out. “That’s why I like hosting it here, can’t really be late or stuck in traffic when it’s at my place.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You need any help with that?” She and Yasha were rarely alone, mostly because Beau’s crush was absolutely pathetic and she constantly fell over her own words when they didn’t have a buffer.
“That’d be great. So, we ended on a cliffhanger last time, how do you think tonight is gonna go?”
“I mean, it was kinda a mess last time? You and I are separated from the rest of the group and I’m basically in single digits. And you only have like, one spell slot left?” She and Yasha sat beside each other when they played, so that meant that they had a fairly good idea of each other’s character sheets.
“Yeah, but you’re pretty good on spells, right? I remember you played it really smart last time.”
Beau snorted and blushed “If by smart you mean that I almost got taken down in one hit in the first round of combat and then turned invisible and took the dodge action on all of my turns, then yeah.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t our fault that we both rolled nat 1’s on our perception checks. But we were left with only one guy with us, so it shouldn’t be too bad. I still have both of my wild shapes, so I’ll do that immediately and you stay invisible, then we can figure out how to join up with the rest.”
It was a sound plan.’“Yeah, and to think, we thought our characters would be going on a date last session.” She and Yasha’s characters had been flirting since the start of the campaign and it only made Beau’s crush worse.
“I know! How did we go from that to being in the middle of a dungeon crawl?” Yasha moved the heavy box full of drinks out on the coffee table so that it was in easy reach of everyone. Beau couldn’t help swallowing hard at the way her biceps strained against the arms of her t-shirt.
Beau shrugged in response. “Hey, you know Caleb. This is undoubtedly leading to some huge lore dump at the end of this, so I’m pretty excited about that.”
“I am too, still, I’m not very happy that he ruined our date.” Yasha’s voice dropped a bit at the end and…. Was Beau imagining things or was Yasha blushing a little?
“Yeah! I mean, me too! Really disappointed I mean! It-” The sound of the front door opening mercifully cut off her upcoming ramble and she and Yasha both turned to look as Caleb came in, struggling to carry a huge box of what was undoubtedly some cool battle map.
*
“Alright, Beauregard, what is your character doing?”
“Okay, I’m still invisible, right?” She knew she was, but it was just to try and calm her racing heart. She did not want to have to make a backup character for this campaign.
“You are, and you are standing right…here.” Caleb pointed to her character with a little ring on it standing beside the bad guy. “What would you like to do?”
“That’s a great question.” She mumbled, riffling through her spells. “I can’t cast a spell without dropping my invisibility, and I’m at 9 HP.” She did not like it, not at all. She had plenty of spells for healing but she couldn’t do anything with them right now. “Okay, so, I guess I will try and sneak away, still invisible!”
Caleb’s face did a little twitch that Beau had learned by now meant something bad and by the sounds of “oh no” around the table, everyone else knew too.
Caleb cleared his throat, “Right, so, you start to sneak away, feeling pretty confident since you’re invisible, but the second you move your foot, the creature turns towards you and makes an attack with its hammer.” Caleb rolled a dice behind his screen. “Does a 19 hit?”
“We’re level 4! Of course 19 hits!” Beau generally didn’t meta-play, but she wrecked her brain to remember what might have allowed the creature to know her position.
“Okay, that is,” Caleb’s face dropped as he saw the dice roll, “11 points of damage.”
“Fuck!” She and Yasha said in unison as the rest of the group hid their heads in their hands or started scrolling through spells desperately to try and find something that might be able to help.
Caleb moved to the next person in initiative and as Beau desperately looked through her magic items for anything that might help her, she could see Yasha doing the same thing beside her.
After 5 minutes Caleb was back to her and Yasha, still stuck inside the room, but this time it was Yasha’s turn. “Alright, Yasha, you’re up, what are you doing?”
Yasha stood up beside her to better be able to see the entire battle map. “So, whatever this thing is, it took its reaction by hitting Beau, right?”
“Ja, it has used its reaction, and it is up after you finish this turn.”
“And how does it look? Like, how hurt is it?”
“It doesn’t look to be struggling at all. It’s taken a few hits but nothing major.”
“Okay, okay, okay, so, tell me if this is too much.” Everyone at the table leaned forward at that. That was a well-known phrase at their table and had led to some of the most memorable moments.
“Let me hear your idea and I will let you know.”
“Okay, so, I’m still a direwolf. Could I very gently pick Beau up with my teeth and move her my full 50 feet to the other side of the room? Where the wall that collapsed is separating us from the others?”
Murmurs erupted around the table. It was a good idea, whatever they were fighting was not speedy, so distance was a great idea.
Caleb made a thoughtful face. “Give me a… give me an athletics check, just to see if you’re able to navigate with Beau in your mouth without her hitting anything.”
“C’mon, c’mon…Yes! Natural 20!” Yasha shot up out of her chair and the entire group erupted into cheers.
“Okay, yeah, you can definitely do that. You very carefully pick Beau up and you move your full speed to the other side of the room. Is that your turn?”
“No, I’m going to drop my wildshape, which is a free action, and then I will cast healing word at 2nd level, and that is,” Yasha rolled her dice “14 hp, you get 14 hp back.” Beau hugged Yasha, before immediately letting go, trying not to blush. “And I’ll say to Beau’s character, ‘Don’t leave me, please, don’t leave me.’”
The rest of the group erupted into a collective “awww”, and Beau was happy that she could play off her blush as a result of that.
“Okay, that is my turn.”
Things luckily turned around after that. The creature had to use both its movement and action to get to them and on Jester’s turn immediately after, she finally managed to roll high enough to break through the wall.
It took the rest of the session, but when Caleb called the session for the week, everyone was alive and talking about what might happen next time.
As the rest of the group started to leave, Yasha gently stopped her. “Hey, would you mind helping me out?”
“Yeah, not a problem, what do you need?”
“Just need an extra pair of hands to help me get all the bowls and glasses to the kitchen.”
Beau was more than happy to delay leaving by any amount of time, so she went with Yasha, chatting about the session. “That was a good idea, getting my character away. If I had gotten hit again, I would have been done for.”
Yasha shrugged “Couldn’t very well let my almost girlfriend be killed.”
“Yeah, that would make it a little more difficult.” They both laughed before they fell back into a comfortable silence.’’
Too soon for Beau’s taste, there was nothing left for her to do, and after she had used up all of her excuses to stay she turned to leave. “Hey, Beau, I wanted to ask you something?” Yasha sounded almost…scared? But Beau couldn’t really figure out why.
“Yeah, of course, what’s up?”
“Um, I hope I’m not overstepping, but I was wondering if you might like to go on a date with me? It’s totally okay if you don’t! It’s just, I’ve liked you for a while and I just…I wanted to ask.”
Yasha opens her mouth to continue but Beau cuts her off. “YES! Yes, I would love to go out with you.”
Yasha looks almost confused, but with a small, hopeful smile “Yeah? Um, Would Saturday work for you?”
“Saturday would be great!” Beau should probably feel bad for how eager she sounded, but she had been crushing on Yasha for months at this point.
“Great! Um, there’s that place that sells handmade dice? Should we check that out? And then I could take you out to dinner afterward?”
*
The date goes amazing and by the next D&D night, she and Yasha are officially together. And when their characters admit their feelings, Beau can’t help but steal a kiss.