Session 2 Begins

The ladies wanted vengeance. For the town, but especially for Pretty the Tree - they really had made it almost too easy for me to set them up, naming a tree and letting me get away with giving it a cute child-like voice.

We still had a little bookkeeping to do, however.

“First things first,” I said. “Let’s talk about your level up. Rhia, what did you pick up?”

“Olivia got more health, obviously,” she said. “And I got access to my Paladin spells, and more importantly my Smite ability.”

“Cool,” I nodded. “I’m excited to see what you come up with for how it looks when you do that. I also need to know what you, Rhia, dream about doing with your degree when you graduate, and one long-term goal Olivia has if she survives her adventures in Tremulous Crook.”

“Oh,” Rhia said and blew out a breath. “Um, I want to be an actress. Probably TV, not movies, but I’m not sure. And Olivia wants to… She wants to build a temple to Revelry.”

“What would that look like?” Tori asked. “A medieval dance club?”

“Maybe,” Olivia laughed. “I’ll have to come up with something. Maybe it’s an entire fairground or a banquet hall. She’s from Parnassus, which is the biggest city in the world, so I’m sure there’s plenty of different kinds of things she could do.”

I knew that, if it were someone in my regular group, the likely answer would have been ‘a brothel, obviously.’ Thankfully, even if Rhia was hoping for some sexual shenanigans in the game, she wasn’t so single-minded in having a dirty mind. “That’s a good goal for Olivia, I think,” I said. “But now I’m a little concerned that I’m going to lose you to Holywood eventually.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Rhia said. “I’m more likely to go to New York than Holywood, but even that I’m not sure of. I’d way prefer to get onto a TV show that shoots somewhere that isn’t in the entertainment hubs.”

“Still,” I said, playing up my wistfulness. “The baby bird flies from the nest.”

Rhia stuck her tongue out at me, making the other two chuckle.

“What about you, Tori?” I asked, turning to the Indian girl. “What did you get levelling up, what’s your goal, and what’s Jade’s?”

“Well, I got access to my Ki,” Tori said. “So I can use that to do a flurry of blows and attack again on my turn, or to defend myself. And I also got more health. For my goal, I’ve always known I want to be an on-air news anchor. I’m doing a minor in Journalism, and I’m hoping I can get a job for a local station when we graduate - I’ll try and do freelance stringer work first if I can’t get in right away, maybe shooting a guerilla documentary or something. And doing local theatre on the side.”

I had been expecting Tori to be heading to Holywood, if not New York or overseas to London. With her looks and personality, unless she froze up under pressure or something, I couldn’t see her getting cast in something within a couple of years. The News was definitely a pivot from that, but I could also see it.

“Interesting path,” I nodded encouragingly. “And it sounds like a lot of fun to pursue while you’re young and full of the energy needed to make it work. What about Jade?”

“Jade doesn’t really have plans, I don’t think,” Tori said, thinking for a moment. “She doesn’t want to go back to her roving family on the Plains, so maybe she wants to rebel by settling down somewhere. Maybe she’ll be the bouncer for Olivia Bar-Temple.”

“You’re hired,” Olivia grinned. “The pay is shit, the hours are awful, but you can drink all you want and there aren’t any rules about not sleeping with the guests.”

“Hah!” Tori barked a laughed.

“How about you, Elyse?” I asked, turning to the blonde. “How was getting levelled up?”

“Easy, and hard,” Elyse said. “Tori helped, so I got more health too, and I got my Sorcery Points so I can get an extra spell per day right now. But it was hard to pick what spell I wanted!”

“That’s being a sorcerer,” I said, nodding. “On the one hand, you feel like every spell choice matters. On the other, you aren’t constantly overloaded with trying to decide which spells to prepare for any niche situation you might run into. Want to tell me which spell you picked?”

“Can I keep it a secret until it comes up?” she asked. She really did look exotic, with her pretty tomboy features plus the addition of the costume jewellery and elf ear prosthetics, and the hopeful look in her eyes was a killer.

“Sure,” I said. “I love surprises.”

“Cool,” she said with a grin.

“What about plans?” I asked.

“Um, well, I kind of want to get into the film industry too, but on the crew side. I’d probably start with either camera work or lighting work. Eventually, I’d want to be a DP or AD,” Elyse said. It was an interesting career choice - being a director of photography on a film or show was a big task since you were basically in charge of the look of everything, and an assistant director did a lot of managing. “As for Renee, I think she wants to eventually retire to a little magically hidden cottage in the woods to raise shadow-cats, but before she does that she wants to find out the secret of her sorcerous blood and the shadows that she controls.”

“Very cool,” I said. “And depending on what you ladies do, that could be very possible. Keep your ears out for when you might have a chance to talk to someone or do some research.”

“Cool,” Elyse said.

“Anything else you ladies want to go over before we start? Any questions?”

“What’s the most powerful magic item within five miles of the town?” Rhia asked with a smirk.

“Well, the most powerful magic you’re aware of is the more of friendship,” I replied with an equal smirk.

“Booo,” Tori laughed. “We want fat loot.”