Fitting In

Dice clattered against the table. Emma craned her neck, a victorious grin on her face as she read the numbers. Calculating the damage, she had an air of smugness as she announced how much damage she did to the lead mercenary who had been chasing the group. Rubbing my chin, I glanced down at the character sheet. The guy was dead. Super dead. I’d underestimated her. I balanced the encounter to be a challenge for the old group, not expecting her to pull her weight. That had been a mistake. She had an innate sense of how to best place her character and maximize her skills to sow chaos among the enemy soldiers.

More than anything, she had such bullshit luck with her rolls. Her opening attack had nuked the enemy wizard I’d based most of my strategy around. What was supposed to be an epic struggle turned into a lackluster slaughter as the four vets easily handled what amounted to little more than cannon fodder.

Any concern my friends had about Emma had faded halfway through the session. Each had reacted more or less like Mike had when they first found her sitting at the table. Only Trent took it in stride, which was odd because of how shy he was. My guess was he didn’t want to rock the boat any more than her appearing did. He never talked much anyway. I did catch him shooting some glances over at her like he was afraid she was going to leap at him like some starved vampire whenever she started talking. Ben was quieter than usual too, and I could tell he was trying hard not to stare.

Owen was Owen. He had no shame, his character immediately trying to charm the half-elf character in a poorly disguised attempt to woo the one controlling the character. If Emma was offended or disgusted by some of the things he said, she never showed it. She handled everything in character, even getting some zingers in there to knock him down a peg. A few of those and he backed off. Knowing him, he wasn’t giving up but changing strategy.

Things wrapped up in the tavern where it all started. Even though the fights hadn’t gone as I’d planned, it seemed that no one cared how easy it had been. They had fun, so I suppose it was a win. Next time wouldn’t be so easy. I’d make sure of that.

Glancing over at Emma, she was laughing at something Mike said as she finished off her root beer. Here at the end, I felt like an idiot. This entire time, I’d been worried about nothing. It seemed like she was winning the guys over and it had only been a single session. The real question was if she was going to come back again. It seemed like she had fun, but this was a Saturday and I guessed she had other things more exciting than hanging around with us in a basement rolling dice and pretending we were actually important.

“Man, I could only imagine that wizard's face when you crit back-stabbed him,” Ben said a little too loudly. He twisted his face to exaggerate a look of surprise.

“What can I say? Eliona is a badass.”

“You got lucky. If you missed, no way would you have made it out alive,” Owen said as he crossed his arms. No idea if he was sour at Emma stealing his thunder or if he was still stinging from her retort about him using daggers because he was only used to working with short things. A dig at his height or dick size didn't matter. Both were equally effective against him.

There was a challenging glint in Emma’s eyes. “Oh, don’t pout because you got shown up by a real rogue.”

He grunted. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Does this mean we start back with the main campaign next week?” Trent asked, voice so soft I barely heard him.

Mike, Owen, and Ben looked towards me. “Trent’s got a point. We’ve been doing side quests the past month,” Mike said.

“Eh,” Ben said. “Technically that cult we took out was connected to the Black Rose.”

“So glad those fuckers are dead,” Owen muttered angrily.

Emma looked lost, so Mike took a moment to explain. “We’ve been chasing down a small group of wizards trying to bring back a dead demon god. Owen here embarrassed himself with the worst display of rouge gameplay ever. He failed his stealth checks, missed his backstabs, was almost eviscerated by traps, and broke three of the locks he was trying to pick. It wasn’t a good night for him.”

“Shut it. Not my fault that the dice were being fucking retarded.”

“Well, you have a competent rouge with you now, so no need to worry.”

The five of us shared a look. Did that mean she was going to come back? It was everyone’s mind, but none of us were brave enough to come out and ask. Their eyes moved to me. Apparently, the role fell on the DM to ask.

“So, uh, should I start designing the fights with you in mind?”

“Well, if you want them to be any sort of challenge, I would assume so,” she said teasingly.

Holy shit. It sounded a lot like she was going to be coming back. I don’t think they were as enthusiastic as I was when I heard that, but the guys seemed to accept her as one of the group.