Emily smiles as the last member of their group rushes inside. "Hey. Did you get them?" She asks Lucas excitedly. He smiles widely at them as he nods and shakes his backpack. "Yeah, and it cost me a small fortune so it better be worth it." Mona pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Of course it will be worth it… and stop complaining, you were the one that insisted on them in the first place." Emily nods. "Yeah we told you we were fine without them." Lucas drops his shoulders and rolls his eyes. "Fine. You're right. I'm sorry." He rummages through his backpack and pulls out a box. Mona takes this as her cue to start setting up the table with their supplies. Emily walks over to the mini fridge and gets them each a soda while Lucas starts ripping the box open. "All right ladies. Ready for the big reveal?" He says. They both turn to him and jump up and down in excitement. "Oh my god Lucas, you were right!" Emily says as she rushes to him, carefully cradling the custom made figurine that corresponded to her character. "Wow Emily, you look totally hot." Mona says, also taking her miniature in. Emily blushes. "Thanks Mona. You don't look so bad yourself." She says, bumping her shoulder against her friend's. "And Lucas, you look like a total badass." Emily tells him. He agrees and they all walk towards the center of the room, where their table is set up.
Before they start their game, Emily sighs and begrudgingly admits that Lucas was right. "I'm sorry what did you say?" He asks her, pretending that he didn't hear her. "I said that you were right? Okay? Happy?" She tells him. Hating that he was right because she had fought him over spending the money on the custom made miniature figurines. She kept pointing out that they were arguably the brightest students at their high school. If they had managed to build their own computers, and to run a very successful chapter of Rosewood Dungeons & Dragons, them making and painting their own D&D figurines would be a piece of cake. Mona had been on the fence regarding the whole figurine thing. Lucas got her to agree when he said that he would convince his parents to get them the mini fridge they had been drooling over because they hated having to run upstairs to get their sugar fix, it ruined their gameplay.
Their parents had been wary of them hanging out together constantly. Not because they thought their children were bad kids, but simply because Lucas was a boy and they held the belief that encouraging their raging hormones by allowing them to play without adult supervision for the whole weekend, sleeping over in Mona's room and being on the internet or whatever a LAN party was, would lead to unprotected sex. Even after Emily reassured them that she was gay, they monitored them until they realized that their virginity was more safeguarded by their kid's awkwardness and lack of social skills rather than their mere presence as parents. They realized that their teens were more interested in playing computer games or dressing up as wizards than having a wild orgy. Slowly their parents stopped being in the room, then the same floor of the house, until finally they surprised them by outfitting the Vanderwaal's basement with everything they would need in order to have a space of their own. It allowed them to keep a close eye on them if necessary, but mostly it was a way to ensure that the adults could have nice dinner parties without the awkward interruptions of a heated argument over why someone's dark elf couldn't have that sort of power when they rolled a three.
"So, you two were sent on a quest by a goblin merchant named Salvatore to retrieve some stolen property of his. A box stolen by dwarf marauders. You tracked the dwarves to their cave, slaughtered them all and when you were exploring the cave you encounter a necromancer, you fight him and emerge victorious. Curious to see what the goblin merchant wanted back you peek inside the box only to find a human skull with weird necromantic symbols. You take as much loot as you can fit on yourselves and then you decide to return the box to its rightful owner. This is where the adventure begins."
They're in the middle of their campaign when they hear a noise outside. They all jump up, they were too engrossed in their game to realize that it was so dark outside and suddenly they feel a bit uneasy because they have spent the last couple of hours fighting dwarf and orc skeletons and ghosts. Adding to the eerie atmosphere that they were envisioning. The noise repeats itself and they all jump up while looking at each other to make sure that it's not just in their head. By the third time they heard the noise Mona grabs Emily's arm and hides behind her as they stare at the windows that are overlooking her backyard. The noise gets louder and Lucas stands in front of his friends. Suddenly feeling more protective than scared. They hear footsteps and then the lights flicker as a loud thumping noise comes directly from above them. They scream as they run towards the stairs, not really thinking about the fact that they were headed towards the source of the noise instead of away from it.
Emily is about to run into the kitchen when she comes face to face with Paige McCullers. Her face is full of blood, just like her knuckles. Mike Montgomery is on the floor with an even bloodier looking face, he's breathing hard and because Paige is distracted and he hasn't seen Emily he uses this to his advantage to get back up, barrel through his friend and run out the open back door. Paige falls back, hits her head against a counter and lands hard on her ass. "P-P-Paige." Emily stutters through her name before rushing to help her. "Are you okay? I mean of course you're not okay, you're obviously injured but I mean… in the general sense of the word okay?" Emily starts rambling, her glasses sliding down her nose. Paige groans and touches the back of her head, coming up with blood. "I'm fine dweeb. But I would have been better off without you showing up when you did." She says spitefully and Emily doesn't know what to say because this is the longest conversation she's had with Paige, ever. They've taken a couple of classes together and even then they had managed to avoid each other because Paige wore army pants, black shirts and combat boots while circumventing the rules regarding facial piercings because she was still in honor roll. Emily attended comic-con with her friends during the summer and ran the school newspaper along with Mona and Lucas. They didn't really have a lot of opportunities to become bffs.
Mona gasped when she walked into her kitchen. It was full of mud and blood and a very angry looking Paige. "What… what did you do to her Emily?!" Paige laughed. "If you think this nerd did this to me you're stupider than I thought." Mona scoffed at the sullen girl. "I'll have you know that Emily is a high level destroyer." Paige stared at the meek looking girl in front of her with a new sense of wonder. It made Emily blush and look away from her. "What kind of destroyer? Are you like a black belt in something?" Mona laughs like Paige said something stupid. "No. Even better than that." Paige nods. "All right and what are you then? Her sidekick?" Mona frowns and clenches her fists at her sides. "No. I'm a warlock." Paige takes a second to process this information before she begins laughing. "Man you guys really are nerds. I thought you were totally serious for a second! I was about to haul ass out of here because I thought you'd legit beat me up." Lucas coughs and interrupts Mona from saying something else. "Not to say you aren't welcome but what are you doing in here? Aren't you supposed to be smoking behind the bleachers and perpetuating other stereotypes so we know what a rebel you are?" Paige laughs and nods. "I was actually breaking and entering with Mike and we disagreed on some things, so he decided to leave." All three teens in front of her gasp and Paige laughs. It makes Emily nervous, to hear her laugh but she doesn't know why when they have crossed paths about three times their entire lives. "What did you guys disagree on?" She asks because she knows that her friends want to ask the same question she does but they're just as intimidated as she is when it comes to Paige McCullers and her small gang of misfits and troublemakers. Paige shrugs. She looks more threatening than she does at school because her eyebrow won't stop bleeding. Emily looks up at her friends and they stare back at her, wide eyed. "Umm… should we get her to a hospital?" Paige tries to stand up quickly to leave but the blood rushing to her head combined with the mud on the floor makes her lose her balance. Emily and Mona catch her while Lucas jumps back. "No… I… I'll be fine. Mike just ripped my stupid piercing out." Emily bites her lip, unsure of what to do. "But… you also suffered a mild concussion and it's bleeding, isn't that reason enough for concern?"
"Look, I'm fine." Paige shots back angrily as she takes her arms out of their grip. "I… I think Emily might be right." Mona mumbles before cringing, expecting Paige to retaliate. "Whatever. Can't you fix it? I mean, you just have to give me like a band aid or something, right?" Emily looks at her friends for guidance but they seem equally lost. "Well, in theory yes, but you'd also have to be under observation if it's serious enough… maybe even not sleep so you won't die?" She asks, she doesn't actually have any medical training but she does watch enough House to understand that sometimes you can't let a patient sleep after a head injury. "Okay. I promise I won't go to sleep." Mona shakes her head. "I… I would love for nothing more than for you to leave my house but I can't let you do that… I'd feel responsible if something did happen to you… seeing how my parents left me in charge." Paige laughs. "So what are you queen of the dweebs now?" Lucas and Emily stop nodding in agreement to what their friend say and Lucas speaks up. "Listen, you might not like us but it's either you let us take care of you or you can explain to the police why you and Mike were breaking and entering. And thought you might live by the code of the street or whatever, we have no problem turning him in too. Especially because the cops have been trying to solve a string of mysterious break-ins garages for months now." Paige grit her teeth and raised her fist, making them all flinch back and close their eyes. When Emily didn't feel a punch breaking her glasses she opened one eye and then the other, letting her body relax because Paige had put her fist down and was looking at them dejectedly.
"Fine. Whatever. Thanks." Lucas and Mona run into the kitchen, and Emily wants to curse them out because they ditched her to take care of Paige. Jerks. She smiles up at Paige and leads her to the guest bathroom where the Vanderwaal's keep their first aid kit and has Paige sit down on the toilet while she gets everything set up. "So umm… Mona has a nice house, huh?" Paige says uncomfortably, trying to break the silence as Emily starts cleaning her hands up with alcohol wipes. "Yeah. But you must have known that already, seeing as you targeted her house along with others…" Paige has the decency to blush and look embarrassed at this. "Right." Emily shakes her head before speaking up again. "I want my light saber back." Paige laughs. "Sure. Whatever." Emily uses more force than she needs to as she applies the gauze on Paige's hands and the other girl winces. "Ughh, fine. You can drop me off at my place, I have it in my bedroom…" Emily shakes her head and grabs more alcohol wipes to clean up Paige's face. "If we're the nerds why did you break into my house to steal my nerdy stuff?" Paige laughs. "Well you're a dweeb. I'm cool. If I like Star Wars then it's okay. When you like it, it's kinda lame." Emily smiles fakely and applies enough pressure at the wound to make Paige cry out in pain. "Sorry. My hand must have slipped." She says without meaning it. "This is what I get for being a good guy. Next time I'm letting Mike have free reign in this place." Paige mutters under her breath because that really stung. Emily stops what she's doing to stare at her. "What do you mean being a good guy? Because from my understanding this whole thing is on the felonious side of the law. Not the other way around." Paige rolls her eyes. "Not that I owe you an explanation but I wanted Mike to stop, okay? He's a good kid but ever since the divorce things kind of escalated and he wanted to keep doing more and more. That's when he took your dorky toy. It was supposed to be a onetime thing. We don't steal, we just test our skills at picking locks and shit. But then he found out some shit about his dad and Mona's parents happened to be going out of town so he changed the plan tonight and wanted to do something bigger. I told him he should fuck off and that's when you walked in."
Emily's head is reeling, she heard about the divorce, the whole town did, but she hadn't really paid close attention to Mike because he wasn't in their grade, she didn't know that he was acting out as a way to deal with the pain over his parents splitting up. Suddenly she felt selfish for worrying about her light saber instead of him. "So why now?" She asks, curious as to why Paige suddenly developed a conscience over the whole ordeal. Paige sighs. "I don't know. I mean… I feel guilty enough as it is looking at your lame toy every day because I couldn't find a way to give it back to you without giving myself away… and then he wants to do the same with Mona and sure she's a giant nerd but she's never actually done anything to deserve it… none of you have." Emily nods slowly because tears are making their way down her face. She's never had anyone other than their parents stand up for them this way and it feels like she needs to cry from happiness because it's the sweetest thing she's heard. Paige looks into her eyes and she winces, painfully aware of how much she wants to comfort the other girl but not understanding how when she's the one that made her cry. "No, come on Em." Paige whispers as she wipes the tears from her cheeks and starts leaning in. Emily's heart is beating harder and she can feel blood rush to her head as she closes her eyes. The kiss is light enough where Emily almost doesn't feel it at first, so she leans in more, taking Paige by surprise because she always assumed that Emily wasn't like that… that she wasn't like her. She smiles into the kiss and is about to deepen it when they hear someone gasp by the doorway. They break away and Emily blushes as she looks down at the floor. "Sorry… I thought you might need to be rescued but I can see you already found you knight in shining armor." Mona says teasingly. "We'll be downstairs watching some Battlestar… you two can join us if you'd like… or don't." Mona winks at them and walks away.
Author's Note: If you want to see what happens when they play, read "The Necromancer's Curse"