Intermission 2

Charlotte

Charlotte felt anxiety knotting in her gut as she looked out at the table. Aurora had acquired a long wooden table with enough room to fit the five of them that was set up in an upstairs room, the other furniture having been moved out. The view out the window over the snowy slopes just added to the atmosphere of the room.

Double checking she had all the books, dice and papers she needed, Charlotte let out a squeak of fear and quickly re-wrote the enemies everyone would be fighting that day, she had a feeling that stitched together corpse monsters might not endear her to Aurora…Vampires though…vampires would work…

The door of the room opened and Rose came in cuddled up to Delilah, their sporty friends big boobs resting on Rose’s shoulders whilst the two grinned at each other. Rose was wearing her favourite gaming t-shirt, a picture of a twenty sided twice crashing down amongst a group of adventurers with the ‘1’ as the top most face. Of course now this shirt was stretched over Rose’s new breasts and Charlotte could see just how happy Rose was feeling in this moment. Delilah sat down next to Rose, letting her hand linger on Rose’s arm as the two put down their character sheets and started chatting quietly about their options.

Aurora entered the room next, her glamour having dropped completely to reveal the stitched together body she normally hid. Dressed in a long black gown that was quite modest, not displaying lots of cleavage but left her arms and shoulder bare. The Host was holding a character sheet in her hands and seemed…nervous. Unnerved in a way she’d never been before in front of them as a group, hints of vulnerability poking through. As Aurora took her seat, Charlotte cleared her throat and nodded to the empty chair next to her.

“Aurora…you said we…we had a fourth player coming from elsewhere?”

Rose and Delilah looked interested, eyes flicking between Aurora and the empty chair as the Unliving woman smiled and waved her hand, twisting her wrist almost all the way around as a line of amethyst flame appeared in the air and then seemed to split the air into the shape of a portal, the fourth player stepping through.

Tracy

Out of the portal stepped a short but rather busty woman dressed only in a black Lycra sports bra and shorts. Half her hair had been dyed blue and put in long braids while the other side was shaved short and dyed green, odder still she had a blue and a green cat ear atop her head and a blonde cat tail behind her. Also her entire right arm seemed to be made of polished chrome. "Sup bitches! Lets do this!" She greeted those assembled and opened the lap top computer she was holding to show Charlotte the Rogue she'd done up. "Oh right, I'm Tracy. You must be Charlotte." She then pointed to the couple. "Rose and muscles here must be Delilah." Then she grinned up at Aurora who was still taller sitting than Tracy while standing. "And you must be Aurora. I'm told to be on my best behaviour, so I guess I'll be sitting next to you." Tracy looked the stitched woman up and down with a leer. "Where I'm close enough to put your hands on me if needed." She practically purred the last bit.

“Oh, also could I get Wi-Fi? Y’know…in case I need to look something up?”

Aurora slammed the heavy tome of the main Rulebook down in front of Tracy and gave her a thin smile. “I don’t think I’ll be giving you access to this seasons network Miss Black, Shar made me aware of your…curiosity. If you need something, find it in the book.”

Tracy pretended to grumble for all of three seconds before she laughed and went back to paying attention to Charlotte.

Charlotte

Charlotte cleared her throat and smiled at the four women gathered around the table, picking up a map that had been under her chair, one of a selection that Aurora’s dolls that retrieved from…somewhere…for her.

“Ok…hi everyone. Um, I understand you all know how to play…play the game? Aurora…”

Aurora nodded and glanced down at the character sheet in front of her.

“I dilated time whilst in my office to study and memorise all the rules of the game as well as the lore of your homebrew world Charlotte. Don’t worry, I know what’s going on.” Aurora smiled at Charlotte, eager to show how much effort she’d put into being ready for the game.

Charlotte nodded slowly and licked her lips, the game master hadn’t been expecting that, now she’d have to up her game and keep inconsistencies to a minimum.

Clapping her hands, Charlotte slipped fully into her GMing mindset and started speaking…

Neassa raised her shield to block the great axe that would have cut any one of her allies in half, a great chunk of wood being ripped out of the oak bastion. The seven foot Dhampir retaliating with a crude but powerful blow from her battleaxe. The human mercenary, hired by the Necromancer known as Feora the Black, gurgled as his throat was torn away by the cold steel. The other figure in the melee was Cait Sith, Neassa’s polar opposite, a slight cat-folk rogue duel wielding short swords as she practically danced through the melee, blades flicking left and right, using the bulk of the Fighters shield to hide from the occasional spell or arrow that came her way.

Behind her, Tempest and Prosit were each engaged in a long range duel with an archer and an enemy sorcerer respectively. The night sky was lit up by the waves of magic and projectiles unleashed to try to put their foe down as quickly as possible. The spellcasters and ranged attackers knew that whoever won their duel would be able to influence the melee in the courtyard.

Cold cruel laughter rose from inside the ruined castle’s courtyard as icy blue light shot up into the night sky, a sure sign that the ritual of apotheosis was near completion…

Rose glanced up and celebrated as Aurora rolled a critical hit against the mercenary she’d been fighting and the whole table cheered her on as she gathered the dice to roll her damage. Tracy leaned over and kissed the dice she’d gathered in her hand, blowing another kiss to the host with a grin.

“Cats luck girlfriend!”

Charlotte grinned from behind the GM screen, getting ready to mark off the entire stat blocks health in one go, conveniently reducing the enemy warriors health by a few points so Aurora could take him out in one hit.

Delilah bit her lip as she scoured her spell sheet, figuring out how to beat the enemy archer she’d been getting shot by for the last couple of turns. As Aurora’s turn came to an end and she felt a smile forcing itself onto her face at the well of positive feeling she got from helping in this game, Delilah nodded to herself and asked Charlotte a question.

Neassa let out a bellow of exertion, holding onto the clawed feet of Feora the Black, the evil Vampire Necromancer had tired to take flight when her ritual had been interrupted. The last line of defence slaughtered as Rose’s Gunslinger had finally shot the enemy sorcerer through the throat whilst Delilah’s Wizard had used control water to make water tentacles to knock the enemy archer off his feet. That had given the opportunity for Cait Sith to make her sneak attack and finish the archer off. Cait blew a kiss to the Wizard and winked suggestively, calling over the sound of battle “Tentacle time, you’ll have to show me back at camp!”

Now as the Vampire screamed and thrashed, trying to escape into the night sky the rest of the party went to work, spending a whole round putting as much damage at the enemy big bad as they could.

And then, it was over.

Charlotte marked off the last few hit boxes of the Vampire and grinned at the four ladies around the table. She raised her eyebrows at Tracey put down her fourth can of soda she’d drained in celebration.

“Well done everyone, you’ve completed the second campaign arc Blood in the Snow. If you’re interested, we can always keep going next time..”

Charlotte looked hopeful, Rose and Delilah had given an immediate and vigorous nods, Aurora was stroking her skin and then shyly nodded. “If…if you’re willing to have me at that point. I…I enjoyed today Charlotte, Delilah and Rose…and our special guest of course.”

Aurora reached out and plucked the fifth can of soda from Tracy’s hand, holding it up out of reach. “No more, Shar said I could borrow you but no sugar rushes..”

Aurora looked a bit more pensive. “Just…I am aware I the host and thus I will have to keep running the show. Which means challenges, transformations and everything. So…when you do it again, don’t feel you have to invite me if you don’t want to.”

Charlotte nodded, her face a bit more serious before she reached out to hold Aurora’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Hey, we don’t leave anyone in our pathfinder group behind. You’re part of us now and are always welcome to my table.” Charlotte started doing a fake whisper, easily loud enough for everyone else to hear. “Besides…you’re the only one here who know all the rules…”

The table fell to general laughter and Aurora felt her smile widen a fraction.

“Thank you girls…now. Let’s get you home…and Rose you have your date with Rebecca tonight…”

Aurora once more opened up the portal that linked this room of the Lodge to Shar’s Haunted Castle and firmly escorted Tracy through it as the other three girls started cleaning up the empty cans, bags of snacks, dice and battle maps.