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Today, today was the day. Today was the day that Cid would tell Barnabas he was leaving.
They’d had almost eight years together. That was epic, practically unheard of by modern standards, but Cid just wasn’t getting what he needed anymore and it was time to move on. Barney could replace him easily enough and Cid could find someone else, probably multiple people.
Yes. Today was the day Cid would finally tell Barnabas he was leaving their D&D game.
And then he actually walked into the room, the table all set up with handbooks at every station and everyone's drink already made and...
And fuck, Barney had invited someone new. And hot.
Aside from the other regulars there was a younger man, currently looking very bemused at a character sheet and trying to cross reference with his handbook. Shaggy black hair, loose fitting clothes that did nothing to hide the fine form he must spend hours at the gym maintaining, and that cute little catch at the corner of his mouth while he was reading...
Bad. Bad old man, don't perv on the newbie. Don't be that guy. You’re not staying anyways, right? Right?
He glanced over to where Barney sat behind his DM screen like a king on this throne, just the tiniest curve of his lips revealing the bastard knew exactly what he was doing. "Cidolfus, glad you could join us. As I was saying to the others, I've invited young Clive here after seeing him wandering lost in the local game store."
The crimson blush dusting the lad's cheeks was not adorable. It absolutely was not. Fuck. Cid gave in, taking his usual seat at the table conveniently next to the newbie and glanced at his watch. Barely ten minutes late, that was still in the realm of polite. Which reminded him he should probably do the usual social niceties. "Nice to meet you, Clive. I'm Cid, also known as Ramuh Levinstrike, bard extraordinaire."
The lad graced him with a broad smile, "Nice to meet you too, Ramuh Levinstrike. I'm.... um..." He leafed through his character sheet and even peered at his dice as if those would hold the answer. "Oh, right. I'm Ifrit, err, not sure I have a last name."
'Telamon' his brain supplied. No, bad Cid. Down boy.
He glanced down at the lad's character sheet. Oh goodie, Barney had replaced their newly absent healer, it seemed. Fire Cleric? Sure, whatever. Their table was oddball enough already, what's one more homebrew? Ifrit Definitely-no-last-name was to his left, Windsong Rush, aka Benna's elf fighter sat to his right. Across from them sat Hugo, Benna's current boytoy who had a beast of a barbarian who was smarter than his player even with an intelligence of 5, and Sleipnir with his little shit of a sorcerer Shin Gungnirson. A table of insanity who'd only recently run off their healer, and now Barney had replaced them easy as breathing with this youngblood. If Ifrit stayed, it'd be a miracle.
Thankfully someone, probably Benna, had put a beer out for him already and he took a long swig while he waited for the standard pre-game chatter to ebb. As usual, it didn't until Barney cleared his throat and steeped his hands from behind the screen. "I have caught Ifrit up but let me recap last session."
Barney's recap sounded a lot saner than Cid's recollection. He wasn't sure which incident had been the final straw for their previous healer: "Shin" declaring that all loot was his because they were magical items, Hugo almost knocking over the table when he pulled Benna onto his lap mid-"climatic" battle, or it could have just been Barney declaring that their quarry, a kobold named Stix, escaped despite all the effort they'd put into capturing him.
Cid glanced to his left to see what Ifrit was making of it. The lad's lip was clenched in his teeth and a page of neat notes were already covering his notebook. It was a willpower saving throw that Cid was on the cusp of failing not to jump the lad.
"Well," Cid said once Barney had concluded, "Pretty sure we didn't get a long rest after that last fight. How about we go back to town and figure out if any of the townsfolk have a clue where Stix could have run off to?"
"Exactly my thought," Sleipnir said, "I'll meet you there. Shin casts teleport and takes himself back to the town's bookstore."
Cid stifled his sigh, Sleipnir never did think about others. And he was pretty sure that was his fifth 4th level spell since his last rest. He'd check his list when he had a moment, Sleipnir also never tracked his spell usage. "Well then,” he said with forced cheeriness, “shall the rest of us go for a nice walk?"
"Uh, sure," Ifrit replied, but Barney spoke up immediately. "You're not with them yet, Clive. You'll see them when they get back to town."
Cid glanced to where Hugo was attempting to handfeed Benna some crisps and rolled his eyes, "Can we just presume we make it back to town alright?"
"Roll for survival."
Cid rolled his eyes. "Seriously? We only went a couple of hours out of the town." He surveyed over his dice. They'd all been traitors recently but the dark blue one was calling to him, purely a coincidence that it matched the eyes of their new cleric. He rattled the d20 in his hand then rolled, "That's a 14, plus 4 for a total of 18."
Barnabas peered down at his notes, "You get a bit lost on the way back but you manage to get back to the town before sunset." Cid hid another eye roll with a swig of beer. "As you enter the regular tavern, you notice a stranger sat at your regular table. There is no sign of Shin anywhere."
"I roll investigation," Benna said, tossing out one of her dice at random. "7, plus 2 for 9."
"You see a stranger sitting at your table," Barney repeated evenly, "with a hood pulled up to obscure their face. Their back is to you."
"I throw my axe at them," Hugo laughed, to which Benna joined in.
"No, you don't," Barney rolled his eyes, but the two lovebirds at the end of the table didn't really listen to him.
"Dumbfuck sits down, like a sane person in public," Cid supplied instead, "and asks the stranger why they're in our seats."
"I throw my hood back and--"
"No, you don't," Barney cut across what Clive was saying. "The stranger looks at you all and asks what makes these your seats?"
Clive forlornly poked at one of the frankly rather pretty and fancy-looking dice in front of him and then leaned back in his chair. He remained quiet through the inevitable reveal that it was just Sleipnir trolling them with Disguise Self, he sipped his beer while they interviewed a random drunk about a nest of kobolds that killed his previous party, he started to fidget by the time they went for a shopping montage.
It's about the time that they are about to leave the town that Cid interjected, "Are we going to introduce Clive's character at any point?" He tried to ignore the warm glow in his chest when Clive shot him a thankful look.
Barney just looked at him over his DM screen, that little twitch in his lips the only hint that he found what he was saying funny. "I had expected, as seasoned adventurers who'd just lost a member of their party, for you to go looking for someone to fill the role. None of you have healing spells, correct?"
Fuckin.... damnit. Barney did like his RP. "Yes, you're right," he said, turning to the others. "We should maybe go looking for someone who actually knows how to keep us alive, since Boohoo- sorry, Bahamut left us?"
"Clerics live at the temples, right? We can hit one up, see if any are free to join?" Benna turned to Barney. "Any large temples in town?"
"One," Barney replied with a satisfied smile, and off the group went to finally, finally meet Clive.
Barney spent long enough describing the temple that Cid was starting to nod off before he finally mentioned a cleric approaching the group. Clive was clearly holding his breath before Barney turned to him with a "Go on, describe yourself."
Clive's face lit up with the kind of enthusiasm that reminded Cid why he loved D&D so much. It felt like the shine was off the apple ever since Barney took over as DM... and Cid loved apples. Clive fidgeted with one of his dice as he spoke, "Okay. So he's a tiefling which gets him some odd looks at first, bright red skin and with curling black horns that erupt out of unruly black hair. He's wearing pure white robes that kinda stand out given his demonic appearance." He glanced briefly over to Barney in case the DM would stop him and then flashed a shining smile at Cid, "Hello travellers, how may the temple help you?"
'We could see about besmirching those white robes' Cid thought to himself and then pinched his leg to try and calm the thoughts. He glanced around the other players but none of them jumped in, Sleipnir had his phone out again, probably texting Barney that he was quietly ransacking the temple while this went on. Cid cleared his throat, "Greetings and let me pose you a question: Are you tired of a boring life locked away in a temple?"
"Depends who's asking," Clive replied in a tone one could easily mistake for sultry, before a shocked little blush spread over his cheeks. Fuckin' adorable, damnit all.
"Name's Ramuh Levinstrike, Ram to my friends."
"You don't let me call you Ram," Sleipnir whined, looking up from his phone.
"You're not my friend," Cid replied with a smirk, turning back to Clive/Ifrit. "See, we're a team, we all support each other. But one of our team, our friend specialized in the healing arts, has sadly departed this world."
"He just moved to Ohio," Hugo said, and Benna giggled again.
"Another plane, another world," Cid mused, giving Clive a small wink as he continued. "Do you know spells like that? Because we could surely use your talents out in the field."
"Ifrit's tail lashes the air as he considers your offer," Clive said while he scrolled down his own sheet, a finger tracing the path of what he was looking at. "Ah, right. Erm, Ifrit cups your chin..." Clive's hand reached out abortively towards Cid before his fingers curled into his palm and he withdrew it, "Sorry and he casts Cure Wounds."
Barney rolled his eyes in a way that set Cid's hackles up, "Sure. Roll a d8 and add your spellcasting modifier."
The bemusement on Clive's face as he surveyed his array of very pretty dice made Cid's dick twitch gently until he commanded it to behave. Cid reached forward, plucking up one out of the jeweled spiky garden, "One like this."
Clive gingerly the dice from his hand, his fingers grazing against the skin as he did and then rolled the dice. "Right. That's 6. Plus my... erm... spellcasting modifier which is..."
Cid leaned over, pressing perhaps a little too close as he pointed to the relevant part of the sheet, "There. Plus 4."
"You feel a wave of healing energy wash through you," Barney said, looking over at Cid with an icy expression. Someone didn't approve of him getting close to the newbie, did he? "Add 10 points to whatever you're at."
Cid smiled at Clive, shifting back to his seat without trying to look guilty. "Well, I'll take that as a yes. You got the skills, wanna come? We don't bite, promise."
"Speak for yourself," Benna said, gnashing her teeth at Clive in an exaggerated fashion.
"I'd love to," Clive said-
"You need to ask permission from the prior, young acolyte," Barney interrupted, putting on a voice for the NPC. "An older man stands behind Ifrit, dressed in robes of black ringed with red, fitting his station. 'We had such plans for you, young man, why would you want to leave us so soon?' "
Cid spotted the flicker of a frown on Clive's face before the lad bent down and flicked through his notebook. Cid tried not to pry but the writing is right there: he can see what looked like an extensive background on the character. Finally Clive folded the pages away and sighed, "Sure. Erm, my mother is dying and her last wish was for me to live more than she had, so I'm just trying to fulfill her last wish." The excuse was delivered in a flat tone. Cid was impressed: it usually took people much longer to be done with Barney.
Barney scowled, "Roll a deception check."
Clive surveyed the dice and Cid's heart squeezed a bit when he picked a rich green one. Surely it was just coincidence. He rattled the dice in his hand and rolled. The little dice hopped across the table and landed with a beautiful 20 face up. "20 so plus my deception, that's a 30."
The look on Barney's face was so thunderous that Cid almost felt like the shadows around the room were closing in. His jaw was so tightly clenched that the words could barely eke their way out. "Sorry to hear, young man, but you will still need to talk to the Prior."
"Remember what I said about being locked away?" Cid whispered soto vocce, side eyeing Clive before turning his attention to Hugo. "Hey Grog, what do we say to people who tell us no?"
Hugo blinked at him, slowly catching on to the sparkle in Cid's eyes. "We say.. no.. back?"
"Damn right. Care to repeat yourself, but louder?"
Hugo glanced over at Benna, and Cid's grin grew infectious, spreading around the entire end of the table. The lovebirds could be counted on for one thing and one thing alone. If you could get Hugo moving, Benna would support no questions asked.
"No!" Hugo roared. "I rage and smash the pew with my axe!"
"And that's our cue to move it," Cid said, turning to Clive. "Time to run."
Clive glanced around the chaos at the table and an adorable little grin lit up his face, "I leave with Ci.... Ramuh but before leaving, I use Thaumaturgy cantrip to make ominous whispers echo from every corner of the temple and have the candles on the altar flare up."
It might be early but Cid was pretty sure that he could be in love with this man. Especially as Barney looked like he was igniting a fire of his own, the man's calm face turning a blistering shade of red. "You feel the disapproval of your Goddess as the divine light starts to leak from you."
Cid had just about had enough before this and he reached under the table, tangling his fingers with Clive's, "How do you fancy getting out of here for real? I have a much better idea of how to spend our evening."
"I thought you'd never ask."