Dani - Dani Phantom to her friends - looked nervously around as she climbed down the wide, dimly-lit stairs to Sam Manson's basement. At the bottom lay a hallway bigger than some apartments; through a doorway was her goal.

Clutching her filled-out character sheet, Dani stepped into the room. The others were already there; Sam, sitting at the head of a long mahogany table, rulebooks by her side. Valerie, at the other end of the table, talking across it to Sam. Danny Fenton, chatting to Tucker Foley. Tucker had a big grin on his face, while Danny sipped his soda.

"...anyway," Val said to Sam, "I can't make it next week, so Leo'll be subbing for me."
Sam nodded. "Got it." She made a note on a pad and turned to look at Tucker, who was still talking loudly with Danny.

"...all I'm saying is," Tucker said, "the bag can hold all of this stuff, right? So what you do is, you put the stuff in the bag, you build a room, stock it with really nice furniture and rugs and soda and stuff—"
Jazz Fenton, who had her nose in a sourcebook a few seats downstream from Danny, spoke up.
"This isn't DnD Modern, so soda hasn't been invented yet."

"Whatever they drink in medieval times, then," Tucker countered. "Anyway. So you do all that, and then you have..." He spread his arms wide for emphasis. "...the perfect bachelor pad."
Valerie Gray, at the end of the table, looked across it at Sam. Their eyes met. Both girls did their best to keep a straight face. A quiet snort echoed through the room.

Dani chose this moment to make her entrance. "Hi Danny!" she said, waving with her free hand. "Ready for some dungeoning and dragoning?"
Danny rose from his chair with the speed of a dozen hornets and beelined over to Dani, whispering to her while she was still by the door.

"Are you nuts?" Danny hissed, eyeballing the rest of the table to check no one was suspicious of them.
"Sam said I could come. It'll be fun!" Dani whispered back.
"What about Val? She doesn't know about the ghost thing, but she's already suspicious of me! And she hunts ghosts! What if she—"
"So then if you're so worried, why are we all playing DnD with her?" Dani interrupted.
"Well, uh..."
Danny trailed off, flushing a little, and sighed. Turning back to the group, he announced, "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Danielle: my third cousin once removed."

There was a chorus of "Hey"s. Sam, in her role as DM, cleared her throat.
"Dani'll be joining us today, so... how about, we all tell her about our characters? So she can get up to speed."

Tucker cleared his throat. "I'm... Shades Eddie, the patron of disco music, spreading a beat around the world, even as..." He grinned. "I'm on a quest to seek out the most beautiful lady in the world."
Valerie sighed.
"He's a bard," Jazz added helpfully.

When no one said anything else, Jazz spoke. "I'll go next," she said, picking up her character sheet. "My character is named Florina Lightseeker; she..." Jazz turned the sheet over, looking closely at it. "She's... here we go. From a holy order of clerics, sent to travel the world and recover the Lightwell Staff, a stolen holy artifact."

Jazz Fenton put the sheet down— and then she began speaking faster. "I was able to give Florina an amulet which gives her a bonus to her attack when she's using her mace against Evil characters or the undead, or when she's channeled divine energy at least once in the scene— and she gets an extra channel opportunity after each long rest where..."

Sam cleared her throat, sharply. "Sooo, Danny! What's your character?"

Danny set his soda down, and grinned. "My character's Danny Ph..."
Dani's eyes widened.

"...izzle, the Wizard," Danny finished.
Dani blinked. Wait, what? She shot a look at Danny's character sheet— "DANNY FIZZLE" was written there at the top.
Danny looked innocently at Dani. "What?" he said. "He's pretty neat, for a Wizard! There's some more backstory, but we can bring that up later."

Dani tried, and failed, to not shoot a glance over at Valerie, sitting at the end of the table with a bowl of nacho chips nearby. When she noticed Dani looking at her, Val realized she was next. As she shuffled her character sheet, getting ready, Dani looked at Danny and blatantly rolled her eyes.

"Okay," said Valerie, as Danny picked his soda back up and leaned in his chair. "My character's Gh'anne, last of the Empyrean Monks. See, originally, the Empyrean Monks lived in their element-rich homeland, coexisting with their nearby orders, the Pelagic Monks, the Loaman Monks, and the Igneon Monks."
Val wasn't looking at her character sheet, Dani noticed.
"But one day," Valerie continued, "the Igneon Monks became crazed with fiery power, invading the ancestral lands of the other Monks. Gh'anne escaped— she wanders the world in search of power and allies, as she knows one day she must defeat the leader of the Igneon Monks, Pyroz!"

Dani shot a look at Sam. Sam shrugged. Seeing that everyone had finished, she turned to Dani.
"And you?" she asked. "Who's your character?"

Dani looked around at the group. Her gaze stopped on Danny, with "DANNY FIZZLE" just below him. After a moment, Dani's eyes narrowed, and she grinned.
"My character," she said, holding her character sheet behind her back so no one could see it, "is Cassandra Shadowstalker! She's the daughter of a sorceror and a ghostly stage magician's assistant, and she roams the world looking for ADVENTURE!"

Dani looked straight at Danny, her expression never changing.
"And she's half-ghost."
Danny choked on his soda.

Ignoring Danny's spluttered protests, Dani turned to Jazz. "There is a type like that in the rulebook, right?"
Jazz began flipping through books, then nodded. "Mm-hm!" she said, pointing to a page reading, 'Half-Ætherling'. "It's a good race for a Rogue, because you get a lot of bonuses to hiding and moving silently, and that sort of thing. The only real drawback is ethereal beings have to be careful around magical—"

Dani cut Jazz off, pulling out her character sheet and grabbing a pencil of the table. "That sounds perfect. What stats do I change?"
A few seconds later, Cassie Shadowstalker was ready.

"Now then," said Sam, pressing a switch by her seat. The room lights dimmed; a set of lights built into the table came on, illuminating her face from below.
"When we left off last week, you had been ambushed by Deep Stalkers in the hall outside the Lightless Lair of the Great Darkness Wyrm. I want everyone to start by rolling for initiative."

The sound of dice on hard wood.

Sam waited for the rolls, then turned to Tucker. "You're first, Tucker. What do you do?"
Tucker grinned, flipping open his laptop. "I use Bardic Inspiration, on Florina," he said, clicking a play button. A cheesy disco tune filled the air.
He took a deep breath, ready to sing along— and glares from Sam and Jazz stopped him short. Danny quietly shook his head.

Tucker sighed, then finished, "And I attack with my lutebow." He rolled a die, his good mood returning when Sam confirmed a hit.

Sam shifted focus. "Danny Fizzle?"
Danny tossed his drained soda can into a recycle bin. "Danny shouts... uh... 'It's time for you to make like fruit and stop stalking!' And then he casts Conjure Barrage."

Dani snickered, turning to Val as dice clattered on the table. "Does he do the witty banter thing a lot?"
Val nodded. "Mm-hm. It's pretty good sometimes, though."

Sam, after a lot of scribbling, looked at Valerie. "Val! Several Deep Stalkers are in disarray after getting peppered with flying daggers. What do you do?"

Val grinned, pushing the chips aside and taking out a custom-made set of dice that had a reddish sheen. "Gh'anne plants her staff next to the nearest two Deep Stalkers, pushing the button to turn on its Immovable Rod. She spins around, using the staff as a fulcrum, kicks one stalker in the head—"

"Deep Stalkers don't have heads, they have gaping appendages," Jazz helpfully pointed out.

"—the gaping appendage, then. Whatever. And springs from that one to punch a second in the noodle arms! She pulls back with her staff, loosing it from the ground, and spins to smash a third in the appendage, too."
Val rolled her dice, her grin never wavering. Sam winced once or twice under her breath, then said, "All right, that's two of them down, and a third gravely wounded..." She turned to Jazz.
"Jazz! You're up."

Jazz looked at Tucker, still playing disco. "So with Tucker's Bardic Inspiration as a secondary bonus, I channel divine energy. My mace begins to glow with holy light, as I shout a battle cry—"

"What is it?" asked Sam.
"Huh?" said Jazz.
"What do you shout?"

"Uhhh..." Jazz hadn't prepared for this. "Okay. I shout, 'Stand back! I'm trained in this thing!' And I swing." She tossed her die onto the table.

Sam looked at it, doing some calculations. "Okay, with your strength bonus... proficiency bonus... bardic inspiration... divine energy... amulet bonus..." She stared Jazz right in the eye. "The Deep Stalker hears you, and stands well back. You miss."
"But—"

"Dani!" Sam said, cutting Jazz off, "You come upon the party as the battle is going on. You've approached while using your invisibility power, so no one is going to try and attack you. What do you do first?"

Dani looked at Sam. "Who am I nearest?"
Sam checked some notes behind her screen. "Val's character. Gh'anne."
Dani nodded. "In that case, I move close to Gh'anne, as she battles her Deep Stalkers..." Unexpectedly, she grinned. "...and then I pick her pocket."

Tucker, who had been looking at his laptop, blinked. Danny choked on his soda again. And Val shot a steely glare at Dani.
"Watch it, ghost girl," she said.
Dani couldn't help keeping her grin as she looked back at Val. "This game is gonna be fun!"

"After the perils of the Lightless Lair and the portal to the Rainbow Tunnels, and getting tossed on underground seas, you now know the Gnome-Man spoke true. This is the legendary Gnome War Hammer, the weapon that will save their people. It sparkles with silver and precious, eerily glowing stones."
"Nice!" said Tucker, grinning at Sam. "Gimme gimme."
"Unfortunately," Sam replied, with the smirk she'd been hiding for the past 30 minutes, "the hammer is gnome-sized. You could about hammer nails with it... maybe."

"Well..." Tucker said, "I take it anyway! We can probably give it back to the gnomes, or something."
"That's what we were planning to do, Tucker," Val pointed out.
"The hammer is yours. Are you getting out of there?" Sam asked. Everyone nodded.

"All right!" Sam clapped her hands. "When you return to the gnomish village, you find out that the Gnome-Man is on an Errand Quest and will be back in a day or two. The party has some free time. What do you do?"

"Does the village have a library?" asked Jazz.
"It does," said Sam. "Do you want to look for books on any particular topic?"
Jazz thought for a moment, then answered, "Magical psychiatry, mind reading, better healing, works that showcase gnome culture—"
"OK, stop, stop. I'll handle your stuff in a moment," said Sam. "Val! What are you doing?"

"Gh'anne spends her time praying for the spirits of her lost Empyrean Monks, as she remembers the first invasion of the Igneon Monks..."
Dani realized Valerie was staring at her as the girl kept talking. "It was only a few years ago. But she will recall it forever. Gh'anne was—"

One Flashback Later

"...and that is why Gh'anne KNOWS she must not fail," Val finished.
Tucker looked up from his computer games; Jazz from her sourcebook. Danny took his head off the table, yawning a little more theatrically than necessary.

Sam simply waited, her demeanor polite yet forbidding.
"Great," she said. "So you're praying." She made a note behind her DM screen. "Tucker?"

Tucker put his computer on sleep and grinned. "Can I hire carpenters here?"
Sam blinked. "Carpenters?"
"Yeah, builders," Tucker said. "I hire a bunch of gnome carpenters and have them start constructing my Bachelor Pad of Holding with the diamondwood and beams I stuffed in there earlier."

Dani, who had missed Tucker's remarks at the start of the game, suppressed a snicker as Tucker and Sam (playing the carpenters' foregnome) started haggling. When it was over, Sam sighed.

"OK, fine. You only pay ten gold. The carpenters head into the bag and get to work."
Sam sipped some water from a nearby glass, then looked at Danny.
"Danny Fizzle! What are you doing during this period of rest?"

Danny put down the dice he'd been stacking, and started thinking. "Well... I prepared my spells, right?"
Sam nodded. "You did."
"In that case..." Danny said, "I examine the Gnome Warhammer. I'm not sure the three merkids were telling the truth when they said all the corrupting enchantments had been stripped off it."

Sam smiled, sweetly. "Roll Arcana, then."
A die hit the table. Sam studied it. "All right. I'll tell you the results of your examination once everyone's said what they're doing." She counted down the table, stopping at Dani. "OK, Dani, this is basically stuff your characters do over time - they can follow up on their own ideas and quests and things like that. What do you want Cassie to do now that you're with the party?"

Dani looked around. "Can I delay my downtime actions until the rest of the party is asleep?"
Sam thought for a second, writing something even as she looked at Dani. "That'll work. You don't do anything until it's night and everyone is resting. Let me resolve everyone else's downtimes first, then."

She finished her writing, passing the completed note to Jazz. "Jazz! You found these books in the library, with this information in them." Sam took a breath, then— "Danny! Your magical investigation proves... the hammer's clean. The magical traces prove that the original villain to curse it was the Great Darkness Wyrm, however." She shifted focus. "Tucker! The carpenters construct things quickly, collect their fee, and leave. It's coming along pretty nicely." Sam shot a sidelong look at Val. "Val! You were praying. Which you did. You didn't recover any more memories, though." Val groaned.

With the others at ease and Jazz reading, Sam looked back at Dani. "Now, Dani. It's all you. The party is in your room at the inn. Everyone is asleep. What are you going to do?"

Dani's gaze focused on Tucker. "Carefully, making sure I don't disturb Shades Eddie over there, I sneak by his bed, open his Bag of Holding, turn invisible, and sneak inside. I want to see this 'Bachelor Pad of Holding' for myself."
"Dani," Sam said, looking at her carefully. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

There was a hush. Everyone else at the table had stopped moving, reading, dice-stacking, and was staring at her.
Jazz mimed a faint 'no' shake with her head.

"Of course I do!" said Dani. "There's nothing Cassie Shadowstalker is afraid of from a bag."

"Now then," said Sam, clasping her hands. "When you look in the room, you see Tucker's vision. The room is half-finished, luxuriously upholstered, with a big bed at one corner of the room. The other side is half-finished, with sketches and blueprints tacked on the walls, showing what will go there. It looks like it will be quite cozy."
Sam grinned. "And. As you enter the bag, something feels wrong. There's a shimmer in the fabric of space around you; the bed and fine furnishings - even the construction debris - appear to be... wavering."
"Wait, what's going on?" Dani asked.

Jazz interrupted, nervously. "I tried to tell you earlier, when you were making her," she said. "You see, when a half-ætherling enters a dimensionally enhanced space like a Bag of Holding—"

"Jazz," Sam reminded her. "Not now." She cleared her throat, and continued. "The feeling only lasts for a few seconds. Then, the bag implodes, and space turns inside out. In its place, you have opened a portal to the Astral Plane, which sucks in you, the Bachelor Pad's goods, the sleeping forms of your companions, your gear, the inn's furniture, and a gnome carpenter who took an ill-advised nap.
As the portal fades away behind you, you are now trapped on the Astral Plane, with no way back."
Sam shut a rulebook with a snap. "Aaaaand that's where we'll end it this week."

Dead silence. Jazz, Valerie, Tucker, and Danny all stared at Dani, faces in various states of anger, shock, and consternation.

In the quiet, Dani raised her hand.
"Sooo... does my character gain experience?" she said.

~fin~