Porcelain and Cupcakes

After Stella had finished her workout with Ava, she’d taken the bathroom for most of an hour before disappearing. Ava had heard the water running, but she’d hardly caught a glimpse of her roommate before or after her shower. Ava’s real roommate back home, Felicia, had stopped by the Trident cottage and asked if she had any plans to buy new transformations before running off too. A few minutes after Felicia left, a different blonde knocked on the door.

“Whatcha’ doin?”

Ava was confused to see her. She was supposed to come over later for their gaming session, but that was still a few hours away. “Aubrey? Why are you here?”

The blonde looked down at the ground, ashamed by the question. “I thought we could hang out this morning. I’m sorry to bother you, I’ll come back later”

“No, you’re fine. I’m not doing anything super interesting right now. As long as you’re alright sitting with me while I try to work on some encounter balancing, then you can come in.”

Aubrey’s momentary embarrassment vanished as suddenly as Ava’s other friends had earlier. She nodded and followed the gauntlet master into the closet. After she plopped down on the floor of the walk-in closet, she decided to look through some of the books that were open. “What does it mean to balance encounters?”

Ava held up the copy of the Fiend Folio to show. “So every person or monster that the party encounters, you guys could decide to fight, right?”

“I suppose?”

“So if you do decide to fight them, then they need to be as dangerous to your characters as I want them to feel to you. That bear that you befriended? Its stats make it tough for one person, manageable for two, or easy for three. If I’d wanted something that had required less teamwork to kill, I could’ve used a wolf or a boar instead. It didn’t really matter in the end, since you stopped the fight.”

“It didn’t deserve to be killed, just for running into us.” Aubrey pointed out. “It was doing what any animal would.”

“So if I Included more wild animals, you’d want to de-escalate those too?”

“Of course.”

“Good to know.” Ava made a mark in her planning journal. Making her a druid was definitely the right call.

“So how do you know if something is balanced?” Aubrey asked.

“I start by checking an idea I have into the formula the game designers made. Every monster has an assigned danger rating and a number of experience points based on that danger rating. The designers list an amount of experience points in a combat they think a character of a certain level can face. You measure out how many experience points are in the encounter, then apply the modifiers for the group size on both ends. For example, a troll is danger rating two which means it’s worth four hundred and fifty xp. Split that across four characters…”

Aubrey tried to keep up with Ava’s explanation, she really did. No matter how hard she tried, the numbers just kept swimming in her head. “I think I get it.” She lied. “That sounds like a lot.”

“I’m used to it. Half of it really just becomes vibes, especially once you know who you’re playing with and what characters they’re bringing. I’ve got a lot of experience by now, I started playing fourth edition with my little brother and his friends back in middle school.”

“You’re talking about Ben?” Aubrey asked. Seeing Ava nod, she asked. “Were you and Ben close before you got kicked out?”

“Super. He’d follow me everywhere growing up. I ended up learning how to be a gauntlet master because he wanted to play, and we shared everything with each other. We both knew that Ben was Dad’s favorite, but as we both got older he started using it to trick Dad into letting me do things.”

“It really wasn’t fair for him to play favorites like that.”

“Trust me, I know. I think the similarity between our dads might’ve been what made Felicia so quick to accept me when I needed her.”

“Felicia’s dad was strict too?”

“Kind of. Her thing was her parents trying to get her to act like this porcelain girly-girl while encouraging all seven of her brothers to be competitive with each other. She rebelled hard, and it took her parents until she was already halfway through med school to start to accept her for who she was.”

“I’m glad they did eventually. Do you mind if I…” Aubrey lightly leaned against Ava’s shoulder, giving the muscular woman a chance to turn her down.

“Go ahead.”

Aubrey shifted the rest of her weight. Ava paused, not reading or talking as she tried to decide how she felt.

It’s almost bittersweet, her sitting like that. I…I guess she can stay there.

Ava went back to planning after she felt settled with Aubrey’s presence, Aubrey occasionally pointing a finger at one of the books to ask a lore question until it was time for lunch.

***

By the time lunch rolled around, Felicia and Luna had come back. Felicia looked smug while Luna was…harder for Ava to read than usual. Nonetheless, after Genet made everyone lunch they all returned to the Trident Cottage’s bedroom for Aubrey’s second G&G game.

So your party approaches the tomb of Orestes, which you’ve been asked to investigate after local officials had been getting strange reports. As you approach, the heavy stone doors of the tomb are already open.

“Should we already know anything about Orestes?” Aubrey asked.

“Give me a religion roll.”

Aubrey rolled the die, but was hesitant about reading the number aloud after what had happened last time. Luna looked over and read it for her. “That’s a seven.”

Unfortunately, there’s not much your character remembers.

“Can I try checking to see if there’s anything about him in my patron’s journal?” Felicia asked.

“Sure, go ahead and try the roll yourself.”

Felicia rolled, and ended up succeeding with a sixteen.

As you skim through, you find mention of Orestes as a high priest of the **** god Osiris, a rival to your own patron. Orestes was accomplished in being able to traverse the boundaries of his god’s underworld, and came back to life three times before choosing to retire and be entombed here.

“Were we given any specifics about what we were supposed to investigate here?” Luna asked.

You were told that some visitors hadn’t returned, and others reported hearing strange noises before turning back.

“It sounds to me like someone might’ve taken over the tomb as their lair. Think we’re looking at a necromancer problem?”

“Sounds like it. Hopefully they’re the horde type.” Felicia agreed.

“Just to clarify,” Aubrey started. “When you say necromancer, you’re talking about like in King of The Rings, not Strabo?”

“Who’s Strabo?” Felicia asked.

“A historian who lived at the beginning of the Roman Empire. He wrote about nekromantia, which as it passed into English became the word necromancy. His original use of the term was about talking to spirits and the dead.”

“Then yeah, not that.” Felicia confirmed. “We’re probably looking at skeletons, zombies, maybe a ghost or mummy since we’re only level four.”

“Can I look for traps?” Luna asked.

“Sure, roll investigation.”

“Twelve?”

You find a tripwire, but not what it triggers. It seems like it’d be tough to disarm with incomplete information like this.

“Crap. I don’t know if it’s a pit trap or something, so I can’t just ask Aubrey to use one of Merida’s animal forms to tank it or something. Stella’s not here to help me investigate further, so would you mind taking care of it?” Luna addressed the last part to Felicia and her warlock.

“You’re sure?” Felicia double checked. She had a very specific style of “taking care of things” when at the G&G table.

“I don’t think it can make things worse.”

“What’re you guys talking about?” Aubrey asked uncertainly.

“You’ll see.” Turning to their gauntlet master, Felicia said “I’m going to cast Crackle at where Luna said the tripwire is.”

“Roll for damage”

Felicia rolled. “Six. God, low level play is so slow.”

Ava narrated the effect of the cantrip. As your warlock points at the floor with her wand, you three hear a popping sound, then a second explosion of the trap going off. Shrapnel flies from the mouth of the cave. “I need you guys to give me a dexterity saving throw.”

“Fourteen”

“I got a twenty-three, and Aubrey got a thirteen.”

You all manage to dodge the debris. After the dust settles, you see that the entry is clear.

“Let’s go, I’ll take the lead to see if there’s any more traps.” Luna said.

***

The group had gone through several more rooms, taking down a horde of zombies, a skeletal knight, and a mummified teleporting undead cat that had attacked Aubrey’s druid. Despite the fact that Felicia had been able to take out most of the horde with a single Fireball, they were beginning to run out of steam with both of their healers gone for the date. Aubrey had burned through most of her animal forms and spell slots by the time they’d made it over a chasm in the middle of the tomb. They all had questions about what that chasm was doing in a tomb people regularly visited until Ava had explained that the bridge was supposed to be cut out.

But despite being run ragged, they made it to the final resting place of Orestes to find that his spirit was not being allowed to rest. The coffin in the far end of the room was shoved open, and an old man had created a circle of candles ringing the open coffin. The man was arguing with a spectral head that was floating above the coffin. From the edge of the room, they could hear bits of the argument between the necromancer and the spirit.

“The method was always meant to die with me!” The spirit boomed out.

“I need it. I need to… to bring them back. I need to find them down there.”

“I guess he’s both kinds of necromancers.” Luna said. “I should be able to take him out, but mage bosses always have one bad trick if you approach head on. Can you two distract him while I sneak over to the coffin?”

“I can rile him up.” Felicia nodded. “What animal forms do you have left?” She asked Aubrey.

“I’ve got a bear, a beaver, and a rat.” The teacher answered after looking over her notes.

“Good enough. Shift into a bear if it looks like I’m in trouble.” Felicia moved her piece representing her warlock out of the hallway into the boss’s room. “I’m going to have her shout: ‘Hey, Geezer! I heard you needed help getting to the underworld?’ and use my Crackle spell to make my wand glow threateningly.”

Ava smirked before narrating the villain’s reaction. The argument stops as the necromancer looks around to see who could have gotten through his minions. Seeing your elf, he seethes ‘I am interrupted by children?’ before pulling a large crystal out of his pocket and smashing it against the ground. A cloud of bone dust reforms into a dinosaur skeleton, which finds you in its hollow gaze and roars a challenge from its long-dead mouth. “Roll initiative.”

Aubrey had her druid adopt the bear form and she charged the bone behemoth. The bear managed to take two hits that might’ve smeared Felicia’s warlock, Opal. Aubrey looked surprisingly confident at first after taking the damage, until Luna whispered to her after taking a look at the max health on her character sheet. “What’s the plan again?” She asked as she realized how risky the situation was.

“I’ve got one big spell left. I need an extra round to get it ready, but if you hold on I can take care of the monster while Luna gets the necromancer.”

“I’ll trust you guys.” Aubrey looked down at her character sheet, trying to decide what to do. “Could one of you help me roll two claw attacks?”

Luna nodded, and rolled a total of thirteen damage that Ava wrote down for the monster.

You and Opal watch as your claws create skeletal fractures in the monster’s frame. It’s still stable for now, and you get the sense that it may take seven or eight hits like those two to stop it. Ava narrated the damage Aubrey had managed to do.

Felicia took her turn quickly. “I’m going to use my action to use my Ring of Distant Memories, which makes me deal double damage on my next spell attack if I’m at least six squares away. Then I’ll use my bonus action for my subclass feature Fury of the Fallen, which doubles my next instance of fire damage.”

Luna moved her rogue’s piece along the side of the room, before popping out of her stealth two squares away from the wizened necromancer. “I’m going to use my Sneak Attack with a shot from my crossbow. Does fifteen hit?”

“Roll for damage.”

“I’ll need to borrow some D4s.” Ava handed her dice bag over, and Luna rooted through to get what she needed. The brunette rolled the handful of tetrahedral dice onto the board and counted. “That’s nine from the weapon and a total of… Wow, that’s almost max. Thirty-one more for the Sneak Attack.”

Ava described her shot. As the wizard watched his greatest creation fight your party members, he missed you skulking around the room. You step out of the shadows silently, your crossbow ready as you fire. He never even sees you before he slumps to the ground, dead. His body falls onto one of his candles, disturbing his spell circle and allowing Orestes’ spirit to rest once more. But the skeleton dino rages on, unperturbed by its master’s ****.

The beast bites down again, and deals enough damage to knock out the bear. Merida the druid tumbles out of the fossilized jaws, bruised but alive. “Aubrey, it’s your turn.”

“I don’t think a beaver or a rat would be helpful here, so I think I’ll just cast Stoneskin.”

“Great, I’m finally ready.” Felicia announced. “With my last spell slot I’ll cast Judgement of Alecto. Since I got a sixteen and Aubrey already hit it with a fourteen, I’ll go ahead and roll damage. That’s forty-four fire damage, which my ring doubles to eighty-eight, then Fury of the Fallen doubles that to a hundred and seventy-six.”

Everyone stared at her.

“Y’know, maybe I shouldn’t have let you keep the items from your level eleven version of the character.” Ava remarked. ”Either way, it’s dead now.”

The group wound down their session, collecting their reward from the bishop that had asked them to visit and leveling up to five. After Aubrey got some help choosing a new spell from Ava, she asked a question out loud. “Do you guys think we could get a snack again like last time?”

“Genet was fine with it before. What’d you have in mind?”

“Donuts?” Aubrey’s response was as much a question as an answer.

Luna tried to think about whether she knew how to do that. “I think only Stella could manage that, especially in time for dinner. I could try making…maybe cupcakes?”

“With purple frosting?” Aubrey pleaded.

“Sure, with purple frosting. Ava, did you have any interest in coming to help?”

“No, but thanks. Felicia and I haven’t had much time this week to catch up.”

“That’s fine, you’ll know where to find us if you change your mind. We might bring some over when we’re done.”

Luna left with Dick’s girlfriend for the dining hall. After they left, Ava just had one question.

“Dude, what’d you end up buying while you were gone?”