"Common..." Avalon grumbled as she gathered up her arcane sources to cast her spell upon her foe, but the Night elf Mohawk was relentless as he through balls of Acid at her. She needed to gather the energy to defeat her foe, or else she would fail, and pay the ultimate price...her life.
"NOOOOOOOO!" Avalon cried as she saw the green glow of the acid orb fly into her direction before she could cast her spell. Arcanaea bravely met her end trying to save a travelling companion that was held hostage by the Night Elf Mohawk and his cohorts.
"Damn it!" Avalon shut her laptop angrily and huffed in her frustration. She used to be so good, WoW was something Arcanaea knew the ins and outs of, she kicked ass. It was only a manner of months she went from n00b to a high level character. Fantasy and fandom was Arcanaea's claim to knowledge...kinda pathetic.
At least she had a D&D game to look forward to later in the night. That was the first RPG she had ever played, and had taken to it almost religiously. Her character had more of a history than she did. Seeing over thirty separate campaigns of adventure and slaying many fantastic and terrible beasts, saving entire countries and even dying once.
Avalon Mryn'vir was a strong independent Elf vast magical powers and was a decent short as well as swordswoman. She had long red hair nearly reaching her knees, bright emerald eyes and fair milky skin. She was not only the most beautiful, but the smartest elf in all of Rivendel (even though Derek, the DM, said Rivendel was someone else's place in a world not cannon with his),
Mary-Sue on the other hand was a smart but colourless personality with little to no experience with anything. She was a high school senior and a social outcast who seemed to have trouble finding things she could excel at. Probably because she spent her time playing RPGs and writing fanfics.
Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Canterbury tales and Buffy along with other tokens of dorkness were her calling. She sighed as she laid her head down on her overstuffed pillow. I've lost my touch...maybe I should start that assignment before the guys come over.
She opened her laptop and opened her typing program. She stared at the blank, white screen for a moment as she prayed the blinking crusor would magically turn to 5000 words.
The clock's ticking began to grow louder and louder with each minute that passed, and the screen in front of her remained letter-free and her brain had froze. Her inner-February was a plain grey sky and frozen reservoirs where she once retrieved poetry ideas. Avalon hoped to have been done her assignment before the game, it was due on Monday and she hadn't even begun.
Placing her chocolate waist length braids behind her shoulders, she straightened her kilt and looked out her window taking in the mid-autumn scenery, the maple over the flower garden looked as if its branches were set aflame as the sunset, cast a golden-red glow across the sky.
It was such a beautiful site that she forgot about her plans and her assignment.
"Mary-Sue!" her mother's voice rang up the stairs, snapping her out of her stupor "The guys are here!"
Shit! Avalon gave an exasperated sigh and looked back to the plain screen. I'll just have to do it all later.
The outcast teens sat around a long table in the basement rec room. The beams of the walls were still visible and steel piping trailed along the walls and the ceiling. It had been six months since her father said he'd finish the basement. Her current room was to be a nursery, and they were to make a bigger room for her. Turns out her parents are procrastinators.
"Alright," Derek called the attention of his party. The five players set down their Mountain Dew cans and turned their eyes to the DM. "You are traveling along a high way to the town of Winsbury on your way to see the king, who has sent request to see you in the capital, but your horses grow weary and the sun is beginning to set. It becomes quite apparent you must stop here for the night."
"Choo Choo!" Rogar laughed as he scarfed down a handful of Cheetos. "Sounds pretty railroaded, Derek."
"As DM I can ex-communicate you from the Band of Thieves if you continue this behaviour, it's disruptive and annoying." Derek shot daggers at their rogue.
"Let the guy make his jokes," stated Osric, who normally jumped to the other players' defence. "It's not like a break from roleplaying or two will hurt us...or you."
"I agree with Osric," nodded Avalon as she double-checked to make sure her dice were all there. "I mean, where not just our characters, so we can talk out of character."
"Alright," Derek sighed in reluctant agreeance. "But if it gets out of hand I'll stop the game immediately, the Band of Thieves is a party with honour."
"Dude," said Boremyr "We're called the Band of Thieves, Osric had to change his class to join us. We kick down doors, kill dragons and take treasure. Not much honour there."
"I wanted you to be a good party!" Derek groaned for the hundredth time rolling his deep brown eyes to the piped ceiling. "Do you five know how hard it is to keep a party of thieves from destroying my world?"
"Derek," Avalon caught his attention. "It's a game. Relax."
"Can we start now?" Rogar snapped not taking his eyes off his mini.
Derek once again rolled his eyes. The party decided to stay at the Winsbury Inn, an old, filthy tavern with splintering walls and filled with rowdy drunks. They were greeted by an old gnomish man, (well, really he approached Osric because he was dressed as a knight) with word of a great red dragon that lived in the mountains outside of town. This dragon is rumoured to guard riches beyond their wildest dreams, and it could all be theirs if they rescue his daughter from the beast.
Brutanica, their ranger, had lead them to the mountain he figured the dragon to most likely be in with his amazing tracking skills, after a long trek the party had made their way to a dark mountain that reached to the heavens, and a cloud of thick black smoke swirling above it, orange light escaped from a small opening at the top of the cave. Brutanica drew both his scimitars and looked back to his party.
"We'll have to ambush him in there, we have no chance if we take him in an open area."
"We could take that pansy dragon anywhere," Rogar scoffed flourishing his saidaggers with a cocky expression.
"I think Brutanica has a point, good friend," Osric pointed his long sword to the swirling black mass. "Those could easily be our ashes."
"Boremyr can heal us though. We'll be fine."
"You forget, Rogar," Boremyr looked at the cloud solemnly. "I only have so many heals per day. And the dragon can attack quicker than I can heal you."
"I can try to charm him, or put him to sleep..." Avalon suggested but was cut off.
"Perception checks people!" Derek yelled with an enthusiastic clap.
The dice rolling began, Avalon began to shake her trusty sparkly, the d20 that had saved her life multiple times. She rolled a fifteen. She hoped it wasn't a high DC.
"You all hear a slight rustling in the bushes, what do you do?"
"I shoot an arrow at the noise," Avalon yelled.
"Roll 'em."
She rolled the die, and was rather impressed with her roll. "Nineteen AC?" she smiled smugly.
A goblin screamed from the bushes as six others leapt from their cover. The gnarled brown skinned creatures were carrying spears and others had bows with demented arrows, the points of them serrated.
Rogar threw a shuriken and hit one of the archers, drawing black blood above its viscous orange eye. The creature shrieked in pain, dropping his bow and charging at him! The goblin snarled as he leapt to him, but as he was passing Osric swung his mighty sword cleaving the creature in two. The black of his blood creating a puddle on the ground.
"No, you don't!" Derek cried. "You had no ranged weapon, nor did you ready an attack. You don't hit him."
"Yes I do!" Osric growled pointing at the goblins miniature and his and Rogar's on the battlemap. "As you'll see here, the goblin has to pass me before he gets to Rogar, because he's in a square adjacent to me, I can hit him."
"Fine," Derek gave an exasperated sigh. "The goblin drops dead. Roll for initiative."