Give the Bear a Donut

“Can you make me a donut?” Aubrey asked Stella as the brunette ate breakfast at the Trident. Luna ended up wanting more time, and so Aubrey talked Ava into waiting at their place for her.

“Sure. Powdered donuts shouldn’t take too long, maybe thirty minutes. Does that sound alright?” Stella offered.

“Can you make ones with the purple frosting like they have at Robertson’s?” Aubrey asked.

“I haven’t heard of that, but I can probably do it in maybe forty minutes. Is Robertson’s the name of your local bakery?”

“Kind of? It’s a gas station where Dad used to take me to in my hometown on payday.”

“Ok, let me just talk with Ava in the hall about how much time I’ll need.” Stella motioned Ava into the hallway. “I can’t let her frame of reference for food be a gas station. Will things be awkward if I leave for a while?”

“Not if we start prepping. I’ll try to work with her on making a character while you’re gone, the first time usually takes a while anyways. Could you check on Luna while you're gone? I know they said she’ll be back soon and that she’s just doing something for Aubrey, but it’s getting weird how long it’s been.”

“I’ll stop by on the way to the kitchen.” Stella had no intention of doing that. But she didn’t want to explain that Luna was busy badgering the witness. So she agreed, but went straight to the dining hall.

Ava went back to the bedroom. “So you wanted to learn how to play G&G?

“It felt less intimidating that the card game.”

“Ok. You don’t need to be nervous about this, we’ll guide you through everything. Do you want to do species, class, or background first?”

“I don’t know what any of those mean.” Aubrey answered.

“Well, a background is what you did before the adventure started. Your class is what you’re good at. Your species is what you are, like a goblin or a dwarf, or a wolfman. You can be anything you want to be!”

“Can I just be a human person?” The blonde replied weakly. She was already starting to get cold feet about this.

“That’s fine.” Ava shrugged. “Felicia’s the only one willing to get adventurous with species most of the time. Richard and the others usually play humans too.”

Oh good, I chose the right answer.

“So we’ve got human written here, now we just need background and class. What do you want your character’s background to be?”

“Princess?”

“Sure.” The taller woman agreed. “We’ll give you the bonuses for noble.” She added it to the sheet. She’d been playing long enough that she was able to format a character sheet of a piece of lined paper. “Now we just need your class. Did you have a princess you were thinking about?”

Aubrey thought about it. “Could we do Rapunzel or Merida? Maybe Snow White could be fun too.”

“I probably don’t know their stories as well as you, but maybe Rapunzel or Snow White could be bards? Merida could be a druid or a ranger. Do any of those sound interesting?”

“Bard could be nice, like a storyteller. Can you tell me about what they do in the game?”

“Yeah, hang on while I get the book.” Ava got out an orange book with a giant on it the size of a chemistry textbook. “Bards create magic through artistic performance. They’ve got a huge list of spells, third best in the game. We can look through the spell chapter together and choose a dozen spells together if you’d like.”

“No thank you.” Aubrey turned her down quickly.

“Don’t like it?”

“Could we look at something with fewer options?” Aubrey asked.

Ava flipped a few pages. “Both ranger and druid have less options. Rangers usually either have a longbow or shortswords, and have a couple nature spells to boost them. Druids can get a lot of spells, but like half of the druid mains I talk to online ignore all the spells and become a moon druid so they can turn into animals. Do either of those sound good?”

“I want to be the moon druid. Can I still get a bow? I don’t need to use it, I just want to feel like Merida”

“Cool, cosmetic stuff never hurts anything. I’ll grab some animals to show you. This’ll actually cover the tank role that Dick usually fills.”

Perfect

There was a knock on the door. “Would you mind getting it while I finish getting your character sheet set up?” Ava asked. Aubrey went past the faux coral lights and let Luna into the front entryway.

“Feeling better?” Aubrey asked with a small smirk. Luna’s hair was damp, and she’d changed from the yellow dress she’d been wearing this morning to a brown one.

“Yeah, thanks. Needless to say, the plan worked. Thanks for buying me time, I needed to clean up and take a shower before coming back.”

“It was surprisingly easy. Ava’s trying to finish the sheet for my character. She said everyone is going to be level three. Should I be worried that we’re skipping the beginning?”

“No, you can start at any level. Ava prefers three because that’s when everyone has at least a couple things to do.”

“So I’m not missing anything if we skip the tutorial?”

“No, the tutorial is happening anyways. She’s just going to introduce it to you at level three because your character will have more health to afford making mistakes.”

“Good, I’ll need it.”

Luna sighed. “The box says twelve and up. No matter how bad at math you think you are, you’re not too dumb for this. The worst this ever gets for us is just addition, Ava’s handling all the harder math.”

The two women left the Trident’s entryway and went back toward the bedroom, where Ava was getting the bed set up for the one-shot. She was snapping the clasps shut on her foldable dice tray when she saw Aubrey come back with Luna. “Glad to have you back man. I made de-leveled versions of you and Stella’s characters, once she’s back we can get started.”

“Where’d she go?” Luna asked.

“I was still hungry after breakfast, so I had asked if she’d be able to make me a donut.” Aubrey explained.

“And I’ve got some for everyone!” Stella shouted triumphantly as she slammed the front door. She came into the bedroom with a tray of donuts she put on one of their chairs, the purple and blue frosting still drying.

Aubrey was first over to try one. She pranced over and scooped one up, closing her eyes and blowing on it twice before taking a massive bite.

“So, what do you think?” Stella asked, puffed with pride and fishing for compliments.

“It’s perfect.” Aubrey gushed.

“Yeah?” Stella encouraged her to continue.

“It’s just like at Robertson’s.”

Stella visibly deflated. “Oh. I’m glad I could remind you of your favorite gas station then.” She said, with a wilting sarcasm only Luna noticed.

“Now that we’ve got some snacks, is everyone ready to get started?” Ava asked, trying to guide everyone back towards the bed. She was using it as a table and had spread out a few character sheets at the foot of the bed.

***

The three of you are in a quiet tavern, stopping to rest in between legs of your journey. Suddenly, a mustached man bursts in, shouting “Help! They took the crystal! A band of goblins ran off with it!”

“What crystal is he talking about?” Aubrey asked

“Roll history. You’ll want to roll the big die with twenty sides, then if you have anything in the box for your history modifier, you’ll add that to the roll.”

Aubrey rolled the die. “Twenty-one.”

Ava frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes?”

Ava tried to explain. “I gave your character an eleven in intelligence, which should mean you don’t have a modifier in either direction since I couldn’t give you a proficiency there. I’m just trying to clarify where the twenty-one came from on your twenty sided die.”

Aubrey thought about it. She heard buzzing in the air and her ears felt warm as she realized she had to be wrong. She looked down at the die again and tried to concentrate on the little numbers. She was wrong. They were going to get rid of her again. “Twelve” she murmured. “I should go” She said slightly louder.

She was getting up to leave before they kicked her out, but Ava spoke up. “Wait, we can make it work.”

“Are you sure?” Aubrey asked. "I can go, I know this is kind of your thing. I don't want to ruin it."

“Please, stay. We’ll just have you make decisions on what your character does and someone else can roll for you.”

Aubrey tentatively sat back down. “So a twelve.”

You remember hearing when you got into town that a crystal blessed by Jupiter protects the town from storms.

“You said goblins took it? We might be able to track them.” Luna’s character Ayara said.

The man takes the three of you to the shrine it was taken from.

“Do you see anything?” Ayara asked.

“Do I?” Aubrey asked as her character.

Roll Survival.

“She got a 16.” Stella said after comparing the die to Aubrey’s sheet.

Merida, you see a set of three tracks heading north.

“I think we’re supposed to go this way?”

***

The three adventurers had left the town and were following the trail through the nearby forest when something started to feel wrong. Roll perception.

“8” Stella’s character Alice got.

“11” came from Ayara.

“Merida got a 14”

Ayara, Merida, you hear the roar of a grizzly bear getting closer. What do you do?

Ayara got a crossbow out of her pack. “We shouldn’t have too much trouble taking it out. I’ll line up a sneak attack and draw it's attention. Can you guys back me up?”

Alice agreed, but Merida objected. “I want to try something first. I can shift into a bear, right?”

“Yeah”

“When it starts to get close, I want to turn into a bear like the one coming.”

After you shift, you start to understand what the bear is saying. “Get out!” “This land is mine.”

“Can I try to say something back?”

“Yeah, you’ve got the wild speech feat so that should work.” Ava said

“I want to tell the bear a story about my cub being stolen, and that these humans are trying to help me find her.”

“Hmm. I’m tempted to ask for animal handling, but roll deception with advantage?”

“What does that mean?” Aubrey asked the table.

“Stella’s just going to roll twice for you, and give us the higher result. Statistically, it’s better than rolling once on something with a slightly higher modifier.” Ava explained.

“That’s a 7 and a… 15”

The bear nods its head at you and retreats.

“Nice job” Stella said out of character. “Mind if we take a break for lunch?”

***

A few hours later, they’d had their lunch and had gotten back to the game. The adventurers had found the goblins’ hideout and taken out the guards outside, then Stella’s character Alice blew a hole in the front door with some dynamite she made during a “short rest” their characters had taken. After they’d had a second combat and taken out most of the gang of goblins, the boss still waited ahead.

The three adventurers look ahead at the hallway. You hear infernal chanting ahead from around the corner of the hall.

“Let’s go.” Merida said. “We can still get the drop on them if we go now.” She started to run into the hallway, only for Ayara to stop her.

“Wait, I want to check for traps.” Ayara said. She got a collapsible pole out of her bag and started poking at the tiles.

Roll Investigation

“21”

As you poke at the floor, a giant axe descends from the ceiling. It chops off a couple inches of your pole, but now the three of you should be able to pass by harmlessly.

“Now we can go.” Ayara said

You cross through the untrapped hallway and see a goblin shaman, cackling as she draw the spell circle around the levitating yellow crystal. “With this, I shall have the power to destroy the town! Then the world!” She happens to see you and sneers. “I guess I’ll have to destroy you three first. Roll Initiative.”

***

After the game, Ava was cleaning up her papers and dice off the bed. Luna had needed to leave almost seconds after the game finished. Stella was in the bathroom, so Aubrey took the opportunity to talk to Ava alone.

“Thanks for letting me stay.”

The asian woman looked up from the new stack of character sheets she was putting away in the closet. “Yeah, of course. I was wondering if something like that would happen, Luna said that you were nervous about coming.”

“Can I ask… I don’t know what I’m trying to ask. I just didn’t expect you to be so supportive.”

Ava was suddenly pulling her into a hug. Aubrey had never felt a hug so tight but Ava was just so strong. “I know what it’s like for people to not think you’re smart enough.” Aubrey was pulled in and stuck with her head buried in Ava’s crop top. Aubrey felt weird being one of the shortest people here, but next to Ava she looked as short as her dad.

Ava finally released her and Aubrey gasped for air. “What did you mean?”

“You know how I work at a gym?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t exactly my first choice. I’ve only really told Felicia this before, but I wanted to become a marine biologist.”

They both sat on the floor. “Why didn’t you?” Aubrey asked.

“Dad could only afford to send one of us to college and he thought my dream was silly, so my younger brother Ben got to go become an accountant. The fight was so bad when I found out that he kicked me out of the house. If Felicia hadn’t put out that wanted ad for a roommate, I don’t know what might’ve happened to me.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. My dad has always been so supportive, no matter what I did.”

“That sounds nice. With what I just told you, can I ask you not to tell the others?”

“Sure. But why do you not want them to know?”

“The four of them have all have these degrees and were able to do what they wanted. I don’t want them looking at me like they feel sorry for me."

"I get that. Your secret's safe with me. By the way, I was wondering earlier . Did you use Jupiter because we were talking about him at breakfast?"

"I don't remember him coming up. I just used one of the weather gods from the book. Did you talk about Jupiter before I got there?"

"No? Don't you remember when we talked about Zeus?"

"What does that have to do with Jupiter?"

"The romans called Zeus Jupiter? Was it really unintentional?"

"Yeah, I was just going by a profile from the book. It's cool that happened though."

As they were talking, Stella came in. "I'm getting hungry, you guys ready for dinner?