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Lousie was having second thoughts. She wasn’t typically nervous by social things like this but the fact that Mark and Ridel were the only ones that she really knew made her slightly worried about the type of people that would be in attendance but there was something else that worried.
She rang the doorbell and soon after Mark came to answer “Oh hey prez”
She responds “Mark please, this isn’t class, the formalities are not required”
“Who’s at the door?” A voice chimed in from deeper into the house. Mark shouts back “Just our one and only class president!”
With perfect timing a female voice shouts “Oh no Ridel! Hide the drugs! All of them!”
“Cathy! Shut up! my parents are still in their room!” Ridel bites back. Cathy giggles as she responds “Oh common I bet they can't even hear us from the front door”
Mark makes a face at Louise and invites her in.
Inside everyone was seated at a table with Ridel at the head with some sort of stand covering multiple knick knacks that Louise didn’t understand. “Welcome prez!” Ridel says excitedly “So glad you agreed to join our game of Wizards and Witchcraft, I know it’s not a conventional way to celebrate finishing that book report but we thought-“
A loud voice jolts the room with celebration “Hell yeah! We finally have a fourth!”
“Jeez Ryan where ya been? That bathroom trip lasted ages” Cathy asks.
Mark giggles before his words even leave his mouth “Dude no way you took a shit in Ridel’s bathroom!”
Ridel stares in shock and Ryan shrugs “wouldn’t be the first time”
Ridel blurts out in shock “Wha- last time you said you were shaving!” Ryan defensively puts hands up “Yeah, I did that too!”
Cathy playfully interrupts “boys boys boys we have a guest! We need to be on our best behavior.. Plus I’ve been dying to find out what happened to my beloved Tombskeeper!”
With that everyone relented and they took their spots at the table. “Yo Louise, you made your character right?”
She responds “Of course. I looked over the book you lended me and was able to create a character sheet, I am a monk”
“Perfect! Wait level three right?” Ridel asks and Louise responds “Of course” She passes the paper to Ridel
Ridel claps his hands together “Great! Glad to hear. It took me forever to help Mark and Cathy with theirs and don’t even get me started on Ryan’s”
“We can still hear you ya know” Cathy says.
Ridel clears his throat “Ahem so last we left off it turned out Lord Drickus was behind the disappearances of the corpses at the cemetery. He destroyed the floor below you leaving you trapped in a pit.”
Cathy quickly asks “First thing’s first! How is the Tombskeeper?” Ridel rolls his eyes “You look around and see her body buried under rubble”
Cathy lets out a long “Nooooooooooooooooooooooo” to a character who had originally been a male until Cathy forced Ridel’s hand. She was not even important enough to give a name and yet the party had decided she should be involved in all the group’s adventuring intricacies. “You will be missed Tombskeeper”
“She wasn’t even supposed to get this far,” Ridel says deadpan.
“Yo Mark” Ryans says “How about I do a hugeee jump and you explode the floor beneath me so I can get out of this pit!”
“Heh sure”
Ridel’s shoulder tense at the idea, he knows damn well that explosion spell will in fact kill all three of them but before he can say anything Cathy raises a skeptical eyebrow “Isn’t that a little dangerous?” With that Ridel’s shoulders slouch.
“Nah dude I’ve done this in a video game it should be fine” Ryan says to which Cathy concedes to the flawless logic, and because she wants to see how Ridel would react.
“Wait!” Ridel says with once again tense shoulders “Before you guys have the chance you hear footsteps just above you coming from the edges of the pit” he quickly gestures to Louise.
In full honesty, this was the reason Louise was nervous to join. She knew how this game worked from Ridel’s book but this part she could never quite get over. “Um is anyone down there”
“Woahh nice way to include Louise Ridel” Cathy clears her throat getting ready to impress Louise with her stunning voice performance “Hello~ is anybody up there?- Wait Ridel does anything about-”
“No Cathy” Ridel cut quickly “You cannot tell from the footsteps that they are coming from a girl, and yes that would be meta gaming” Cathy crosses her arms and puffs “You’re no fun Ridel”
Louise continues “Uh… I can help you guys up with.. er” she checks her inventory “This rope” she then mimes dropping the rope down the pit “You don’t have to do that ya know” Ridel says, being the only one of them willing to correct a pretty girl. Louise pauses before quickly putting her hands behind her back and regaining her professional posture.
Ridel describes the party climbing the rope. Mark introduces himself “Helloooo I am Markus, a bard who’s too cool for school” Cathy snorts “And apparently too cool for nat 20s. Anyways I’m Kathy with a K and I’m a dashing rogue who steals hearts~” Ryan says in response “Ha lemme show you two what a real WNW character looks like. I’m Reynolds a barbarian who is hellaaaa strong like crazy strong”
“Where was that strength when we needed to break down that door?” Mark says sarcastically. Ryan responds “Dude I swear that door was haunted”
Louise looks down at her sheet then back to the group “Hm I may have overestimated how elaborate the naming schemes would be. I’m Triss Pasawa, a holy monk on a journey to clear the lands of those who choose to spread misfortune. " The group took a pause. It was odd hearing such fantastical terms come out of the same mouth that announced to them the school mandated drivel that the principal decided.
“So Ridel… what do we do now?” Mark asks, as Ridel processes what Mark said he can feel the frown develop on his face “Did none of you take notes…”
“I did!” Cathy whines, she hastily looks at the quickly written words and the hilarious at the time doodles “The Tombskeeper’s favorite color is yellow…” Cathy’s checking inspired Ryan to do his own observation “Dude I took, like, all the damage” Ridel face palms and sighs out “Lord Drickus is on his way to kill the mayor with his zombie army!”
Cathy hesitantly asks “Wouldn’t knowing that be meta gaming-”
“I told you last session!” Ridel interrupts. “To the mayor’s office gang!” Mark calls out as if anyone has even thought to assign him as leader.
“You all rush yourselves to the mayor’s office only to find the two floor building to be riddled with zombies, most of them are congregated by the outside of the first floor but you can distinctly hear Lord Drickus mocking the mayor from his second floor window”
A smug smile forms on Cathy’s face “Don’t worry guys I got the perfect plan! So I barge in knives blazing” She mimes throwing daggers in a way no one should ever throw a serrated object “Pew pew pew right? I take out probably like twenty guys. Louise’s character will be to my right protecting my side and on my other side will be Ryan’s and they'll be covering me as I heroically make it to the mayor’s office!”
“Wowwwwww just like a Doco Martinez moiveeee” Mark mocks “And oh powerful leader! How may I be of service to this grand display of your brilliance?”
“Simple Mark, you’ll be playing my victory song as the town’s people adore me with their greatest treasures!” Cathy says leaning to Mark forcing him to push back.
Ryan says with a huge smile “Wait what if one of you guys throw me, boom straight through the window like a three pointer? I'm short it would probably work”
“Dude, aren’t you like hella heavy?” Mark says.
Louise looks down to her character sheet “I believe I can make a acrobatics check to get to the window and confront Lord Drickus”
“Awesome! Just gotta roll a d20” Louise does as Ridel suggests and just like that. “A natural twenty! On your first roll??” Cathy blurts but Ryan dismissively says “Beginner’s luck, wait till she runs into a haunted door” Mark helpfully adds “Congrats prez, you can add this to your college app”
“Triss you make a huge leap, with your talents you manage to hop on each zombie’s head then onto the side of the building where you reach the window, you flawlessly slide it open and flip into the room”
The description leads to a round of applause from the group, it honestly surprises Louise just how good it feels. “Oh damn how are the rest of us gonna make it up!” Ryan says hands on head. Ridel helpfully adds “Since Triss is in the combat zone of Lord Drickus we are now moving in initiatives and, Louise you are in combat”
Those last words were in an air of campy horror to elicit the stakes of the situation. Louise rubs her chin as she reads through her stats, she quickly analyses the distance between her and Lord Drickus, and decides the best course of action. Ridel was salivating seeing a player actually taking time to think. She rolls a die.
“I will give a piercing nail arrow punch directly to Lord Drickus to negate his armor, I then enter monk madness mode which I can do because of my addition action that is replenished through long slumber, since I am now in monk madness it grants me another attack which I will use to attack the zombie next to him causing my momentum to double, as specified in the player’s guide now that I have thirty four plus momentum I can use my titular touch on Lord Drickus”
The room was stunned.
“Um.. yeah” Ridel lets out as he searches through his manual “That… works. He's dead and the zombies all fall back to lifeless corspes”
Mark starts clapping “Damnnnn congrats prez that was something else!” Ryan patted Louise on the back, clearly much harder than he intended because the impact got a visceral reaction out of Louise “Atta going Louise!” Cathy adds “Damn you’re a natural” The energy from the room was almost double the celebration from Louise's twenty
From the shower of compliments Louise couldn’t stop herself from having the dorkiest smile any of the group had seen her with “Thank you thank you, it’s all just simple math really”
“Dangg so what’s next for our big adventure” Mark says and looks towards Ridel for guidance “Mr GM sir…” Ridel rolls his eyes “You guys came here because Lord Drickus has access to a scroll key that you can use on the magical barrier casted on the gates of Tavishic that hold Prince Tormus the missing royal of Tormus legacy who is the only one who could possible solve the internal dispute at the kingdom!”
Cathy slouches low to the table, points a finger to Ridel “See you act like all that is easy to remember” The group laughs at Ridel’s over-convoluted plotting and soon after Ridel joins with his own laughing.
-
The night goes on, the session continues, and they promise to all meet again some time in at least this month.
“Yo see you guys next time” Ryan says with a bag slung around one shoulder “Next time you guys should join me for some ball!” Ridel chuckles “Dude I don’t think anyone got cannon arms like yours” Ryan laughs and shrugs as he walks out.
“Another successful session if I do say so myself, so glad Kathy with a K was able to show off her amazing acrobatics to her lovely audience! I’ll see you dorks next time” Cathy says before turning to see Louise behind her “Oh uh, you too ms prez… You’re not a dork at all!” then she sprinted out of view.
“Sheesh, that was smooth” Mark jokes “But for real, thanks for agreeing to coming along prez”
Louise smiles, which is an odd contrast to her usual scowl or face of neutrality “Yes, I will admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect.. Hell I was nervous, but this was really a lot of fun. I hope we do this a lot more in the future. I do have this friend who I know would love this kind of thing, could we invite her to play?”
“Oh yeah, if you want you can invite her,” Ridel says. Louise responds “Wonderful, oh and since we’re on the topic of visitors I was wondering if you all were okay with spectators? I think it’d be nice to have my boyfriend visit for a session”
Mark stares in shock as Ridel tries his hardest to keep a straight face “Of course, sure, whenever you’d like!”
"Great to hear, I’ll be seeing you two” She then walks out and right when the door shuts Ridel bursts into a laughing fit that leads him to the floor.
[In The MCR Group Chat]
Ridel: You guys really need to take notes
Cathy: dude if mark aint gonna take down notes why should I?
Ridel: Bro he doesn’t even take notes during class
Mark: Notice how I haven’t messaged anything and yet I’m still the life of the party?
Ridel: Same thing with clowns
Cathy: You’ll always be our fav clown mark!! <3
Ridel: Lol
Mark: You’re acting like I was the one who had a face full of make up cause there was finally another girl in the room
Cathy: i was only kidding about the makeup !!!! god you guys always make fun of me when I show off my beauty and gorgeousness
Ridel: Probably because you only seem to do so when there’s a pretty girl around
Mark: OR WHEN ITS JAGGY
Ridel: J BOYYYYYYY
Cathy: Graaahhhahhhhahhjhjjjhhhhhhj I hate you guys so much
Ridel: Seriously though you guys gotta be chill with Louise, she’s part of the party now! Can’t have crush gossip between your fellow party members
Mark: Hey at least I can hide it
Cathy: i think that’s loser for “im too scawed”
Ridel: Speaking of Louise guess what Cath
Mark: Oh god no…
Cathy: wat
Ridel: Ms prez is actually mrs prez
Cathy: NO WAY
Ridel: LMAFO I wish I could see your face! Mark went white when he heard
Cathy: NOOOOOOOOO MY FUTURE WIFE!!!!
Mark: Well luckily for you Cathy she has a friend who is a, get this, girl!
Cathy: ohoho mark get ready cause this time i wont be holding back!!
Mark: Ah you can have her, I dunno if I really wanna get entangled in the thralls of loveeeee
Ridel: Who are you and what did you do to mark
Mark: Nah for realz I’m just kinda over it. I’m too macho and mature or whatever
Cathy: sure mark whatever you say
Ridel: Just don’t come to us when you have your next heartbreak
Cathy: or do! so we can take photos and laugh!!