This is a work of fan fiction, created for entertainment purposes only and with no claim to the characters depicted. Ownership of RWBY characters and concepts belongs to Rooster Teeth. Dungeons and Dragons and the d20 System belong to Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. The World of Ere setting belongs to Landon Porter and Paradox-Omni Entertainment.

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Chapter 35: Session 4 Part 2 – Hard Choices

It wasn't as if Pyrrha trusted Penny's genial smile. The only role-players who trusted a smiling DM were the ones who hadn't finished their first game after all. On the other hand though, she'd already declared her attentions and couldn't think of an in-character reason to back out. That left with one direction: forward.

"Okay, so I'm going to try to sneak out as quietly as I can. Stealth check?"

Penny nodded. "Please."

"Eighteen." It wasn't hard to notice Ren and Jaune were texting something, but again, she had nothing to act on.

"Okay, so you make it out of your room and out of the Third Law without seeming to wake anyone. Perception check, please?" The result was only twelve and made Penny smile more. "Are you going straight to the Lucky Duck then?"

Hesitating a bit, Pyrrha nodded. "Sure, but I'm going around to the back door."

Penny didn't make any attempt to hide it as she texted furiously back to Ren and Jaune.

Nodding with satisfaction after a rapid-fire back and forth, Ren cleared his throat with enough drama to make Nora proud. "As you approach the back door of the Lucky Duck, Gao steps out of the shadows, blocking the way back up the alley. 'I thought you didn't want to spend the night here?'"

Pyrrha took a long moment to think on how to respond to that. "Perhaps I wanted to see what kind of trap our new 'friend' had waiting for us."

"Gao takes a sip from his flask and says 'I might have believed that if you didn't suddenly come up with the idea that Everlee couldn't be trusted after looking in the window here and getting shaken up. So what has you so bothered about this place? I'm not passing judgment; I had a vision of this place and your worries might be part of it."

Taking time to look over at Jaune, Pyrrha found him still texting with Penny, looking annoyed and frustrated as he cross-referenced something on his character sheet. Though she wondered what was going on there, she was in the middle of a scene, so she left him to his devices.

"'This is a personal matter. Go back to the inn and leave me alone before you mysteriously go missing.' at this point, she's going to gesture like she's about to cast subtle knife."

"Is this really how you want to do things?" Ren said that part with a smirk, but then shot her an apologetic look. "Sometimes I wonder how Darian's managed traveling with you this long."

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. Ren didn't usually play his characters this confrontational. Then again, he didn't play them this drunk, so maybe she was over-analyzing. "Darian knows to keep out of things that have nothing to do with him. And as for how I do things; this is how I have to do things. Now leave me alone."

"How would you explain my 'mysterious disappearance'?" "Ren asked, "At this, he gets really serious and thoughtful—then takes another swig."

"Why are you disappearing?" Jaune had finally managed to arrive on the scene, putting his phone aside. "Darian shows up at the mouth of the alley. 'Seri, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

Pyrrha couldn't help but marvel at the innocent puppy-about-to-be-kicked expression he'd put on. "And that's pretty much the last straw for Seri. Penny, I'm banging on the door to the inn, then leaving. Is there any other end to the alley?"

"Yes there is, but before you get very far away, the door opens because someone was just about to take the garbage out. A woman a few inches shorter than Seri with the same red hair and a very similar face is standing there holding a big wooden bucket of kitchen slops."

While Jaune seemed to take a moment to gather himself, Ren took the lead in the situation. "Is this what you were hiding then? That you had a good twin?"

"Hiding?" Jaune asked as Darian. "Seri, what's going on here? Who is this?"

With a bright smile, Penny dug in. "The woman with the slop bucket pauses and squints into the darkness. 'How did you know... Darian? Is that you? Gods above it's been ten years!' Then she looks at the woman walking away from her. 'And who is this?'"

"No one." Pyrrha said vehemently.

"Oh, this is getting good!" Nora had managed to produce a bag of popcorn from somewhere and offered it to Ruby and Yang on the screen. When they didn't (and couldn't) take any, she shrugged and tipped about a quarter of the bag into her mouth at once, chewing with vigor.

Realizing that now he had to do something, Jaune looked to Ren for help and received only a helpless shrug. "You know, I'm not too happy about ending up put on a spot like this. And that's out of character."

Pyrrha winced and ducked her head. "I'm sorry. Like I said, I wasn't thinking."

"Oh you can do better than that," Yang piped up, "Way better."

"Yang, it's just a game," Ruby pointed out.

"Right, but you know, still mad a little mad about getting blindsided," said Jaune. He frowned a little at Pyrrha's expression when he said that and hastily added, "But not like seething. We—ya know what? We'll talk. But not like a 'we've got to talk' kind of talk. Oh jeez, I'm bad at this. I think I'm just going to opt for the nice, safe levels of awkward between my imaginary guy's childhood friend and psychotic kind-of-girlfriend."

Pyrrha looked ashamed and gave him a tiny wave. "Promise I'll make it up to you?"

"Wooooo!" Yang cat-called.

Ignoring her, Jaune sat up and took a deep breath before saying, "Okay, so Darius is frozen to the spot for a second. The fact that there's another woman who looks like Seripheid all grown up, answers to her name, and also recognizes him? Yeah, he's not stupid, he can put two and two together." Another deep breath. "But he knows what the right thing to do here is so he gives a quick bow to the real Seripheid and says, 'We have... well a lot of catching up to do, but I have something I need to do'. Can I catch up to Seri?"

Instead of replying, Penny looked to Pyrrha. "That depends: are you you moving your full speed?"

"Probably not; Seripheid is too proud to let people see her run." Penny then just nodded to Jaune.

"Okay then, so Darian jogs up behind—uh-fake Seri—and puts his hand on her shoulder. 'Wait.'"

"Leave me alone. You have what you want now. For real this time."

"I think you're misunderstanding something. When I met you, I was just happy to see a familiar face from home. Seri was a good friend... but I didn't 'want' her. Whatever this is we've got... that's new. It's between us, okay?"

While Pyrrha visibly relaxed at the fact that he was playing along, her voice was hard as she spoke for Seri. "Why are you even pretending to care? I'm not the person you've been traveling with these past months-at least not the parts you actually liked. I'm exactly what everyone says: a murderous psychopath with no morals and no emotion. You can just forget about me and try to have what it looked like we had with her."

Blake nodded appreciatively. "You know, I got the impression that you guys were mostly just a hack and slash group from Ruby's stories, but there's some real pathos going on here."

"Hey! They hacked and slashed my character apart!" Yang bawled.

"Speaking of," Ren said, "Penny, I'm going to go up to the... well the real Seripheid. 'Sorry to just drop in and disrupt your night, miss, but I'm a friend if Darian's. I'm called Gao, a dice priest. Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too!" Penny replied cheerfully. "She takes the slops to one of the gutters and starts emptying it. 'Can you tell me what you and Darian are doing here? And ho that woman was? She looked upset...and quite a bit like me.'"

"Gao takes a sip from his drink and nods toward where those two got off to. "That would be... the sorceress in our group. She's been traveling with Darian since before our group came together. I honestly can't tell you why she chose to knock on the door here, but I know that I was drawn here by a bit of divine providence. Do you happen to know anything about a bandit warlord they call the Queen of Thorns?"

If Penny's grin could get bigger, her face wouldn't have been able to contain it. "Actually, she's sort of the reason I ended up her. I was traveling with a caravan that was at a township that ended up being attacked by some of her bandits. The place was mostly wiped out; only a few of us managed to survive and get here. From what I heard, they made a camp there for a few months before moving on."

Ren stroked his chin. "So what you're saying is that there's a good chance that there might be things they left behind there."

"I suppose you could say that, but a place that's seen that much death? I'd put gold against silver it's full of undead and restless spirits by now."

Jaune glance over at them. "Did Ren just steal my plot hook?"

"Had to go somewhere," Ruby said with a shrug. "I didn't slave over a hot zombie encounter for nothing."

"Hot zombies?" Nora asked, "Is it gonna be like Twilight only with more brain eating then? Oh! Or maybe they're fire zombies that's be cool."

Ruby's eyes practically sparked as she sat up in bed. "That would be cool. Yang! My binder! Quickly!" In the throes of her excitement, she broke down in a coughing fit.

Yang was at her side at once, rubbing her back and offering a glass. "No binder. Just orange juice."

Once he finished laughing, Jaune rubbed the back of his head and focused his attention back on Pyrrha. "So uh... as Darian was going to say... 'Look, you're not perfect. Maybe you're a little scary at times, and utterly terrifying at others. But a complete monster wouldn't be acting like this now. They wouldn't recognize what they've done is wrong, they wouldn't just let 'what they wanted' go, and they wouldn't have went off on that dragon lady just for knocking me around like you did if there wasn't some kind of genuine care. And if you can care about some bumbling bard, I think there's definite potential for goodness there.

"And that potential for goodness plus your bravery, your beauty, your intelligence, your lust for adventure, your absolute ferocity when you really care... those all add up to someone I definitely want to get to know. Y'know, if you'll let me."

Blake was resting her chin on her fists. "You know, if everyone knew he was such a sweet talker, Pyrrha, I think you would have had some seriously stiff competition."

"Yeah, it only works when I'm playing a role: gaming, drama class, writing stuff. Outside of that, my feet are so far in my mouth I've got toenails in my stomach. Hell, I've been mulling over how I justify Darian picking Seri—or fake Seri—all game at this point." Jaune shrugged helplessly.

"Maybe you guys should 'roleplay' away from the table then. Wink." Yang looked absurdly proud at the fact that she's just said 'wink' out loud. This only got worse when the couple at the table turned bright red.

Jaune cleared his throat nervously. "Um so... maybe we can at least start with what I should call you now?"

Pyrrha thought for a long moment. It seemed to her—and she might be wrong—that Jaune was willing to play along with her whole dark secret now that it was revealed. The least she could do was make the whole debacle worth it by adding to the narrative. "I've spent a very long time not being the person I was born as. So maybe for now you could still call me Seri? I've sort of started to enjoy it when you call me that."

"It might be a little awkward having a conversation with Seri my childhood friend, but sure. I can do that."

"Penny, can I excuse myself from the real Seripheid for now?" Ren asked. Penny nodded and he turned his attention to the couple across from him. "At the risk of making a scene here: what's going on here? This whole scenario is an uncharacteristic shade of madness than I'm used to from you."

Jaune exchange looks with Pyrrha before saying, "Let's just say it's a personal matter between us. I swear on my reputation as a bard that it isn't something that will effect us taking this fight to the Queen of Thorns. We'll deal with it together; on our own; without interfering with you or Lynn or even Everlee."

"I'm going to hold you to that. There is a reason, after all, why Lynn and I haven't teamed up with anyone before despite there being strength in numbers. In the meantime, Darian, your old friend back there has some interesting stories to tell about her run-in with the Queen of Thorns' forces. I got the basics, but no one draws the stories out of people like a bard."

"Right. Let's get back to that. As soon as I come up with an explanation to this that won't make us sound like lunatics." said Jaune. He rubbed his face and gave a pleading look to the table at large. "Someone help me out here; I'm totally tapped out on improv right now."

That was the half an excuse Nora needed to raise her hand. "Ooo! Ooo! Tell her our Seri is her long lost twin and you brought her here so the could reunite and then Pyrrha can have two characters and the other Seri could be a Combatant because we don't have one of those yet. And there could be a crazy complex love triangle where evil Seri would be all tsundere, but the good one would be a total moe-blob even though she's wields an awesome hammer in combat!"

She gave the TV puppy dog eyes. "Please Ruby can we do that? Please please please?"

"I'm going to plead against on the grounds that moe is terrible," Blake said, also raising her hand.

Ruby looked scandalized. "For shame Blake. Moe is life!"

"Is this one of those things I feel like I should google but I'll seriously regret it when—and I do mean when—I do?" asked Yang.

"Yes!" "No!" came the respective replied from Blake and Ruby.

"Does anyone have any suggestions that don't involve me playing two characters at once?" pleaded Pyrrha.

All the while Penny had been watching the discussion with an air of dissonant serenity. At last, she finally spoke. "Actually, you won't have to make anything up just yet because a scream tears through the night air, coming from the upper floor of the Lucky Duck. That scream is cut off in a strangled gurgle and moments later, it's followed by a piercing animal howl."

"That ain't good," said Jaune.

"Certainly seems like it," Ren agreed.

Pyrrha threw a quick smile to Blake. "I told you it would haven been a bad idea to sleep her tonight."

"Penny, exactly how far away is the Third Law from here? It doesn't seem like a good idea—or very fun for Blake and Nora—to have this encounter without them."

"I certainly agree!" Penny nodded. "Can I get Perception checks for Lynn and Everlee?"

Nora had started looking a little put out at her twin Seris idea not being used, but the prospect of combat perked her right up. "You said howl, right? Is it a werewolf?"

"I'm not going to reveal what the encounter is until it's been encountered." Penny said politely but firmly.

"Aww," whined Nora. "But I wanna fight a werewolf so maybe I can get bitten and turn into a werewolf. Then I can bite everyone else and we could all be werewolves."

"Don't you lose feats if you become an afflicted werewolf?" asked Ren, careful to let Nora get the the conclusion he wanted her to reach on her own.

After a quick look at her character sheet, Nora went into a mild panic. "Oh no! I'd lose my thing where I can run while balancing like a magical girl—or my precious bastard sword proficiency! Penny, please we can't fight a werewolf!"

"I got a non-natural twenty by the way." Blake interjected blandly.

This was more than enough the invoke Nora's swingshift attention span. "Oh. Right. Eighteen!"

"Then you are both awakened by the scream in time to hear the howl." said Penny. "The Lucky Duck is twenty squares from you if you go out your windows. Everyone: initiative please!"

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AN: I knew ahead of time that if I was going to have Penny out Seri, one whole chapter of this arc would have to be dedicated to the fallout of that choice.

Some people, I suspect, expected Jaune to go off about this. Realistically though, it is just a game and it's clear no malice was involved. So it's more an issue of Pyrrha just put him on the spot than any kind of betrayal. There's going to be consequences for this, but nothing too harsh. Even if they're teens, they're not children or characters being written like ultra moody children.

Knowing that probably seven out of ten writers both amateur and professional would have turned this into a major argument is how I'm able to surprise you if you were in fact surprised by this turn.

That said, seeing as how this chapter by necessity had to be Jaune and Pyrrha heavy, I had to do more than a little work getting the other characters in on the action. I had a long conversation with another writer about how I'm relatively weak in writing Ren, so I focused a little more on him here.

Nora's two-character plan is one I played with having actually happen sort of as a 'punishment' for Pyrrha here.

Speaking of things I pondered way too long on: Jaune's reasoning for why he would pick Pyrrha's character over the real Seri has been in my head for-freaking-ever, trying to make it believable. That's part of why I had Jaune actually distracted from the game trying to think up a reason of its own. My salvation came in the fact that I never said Darian's previous relationship with Seri was anything romantic. The idea that Pyrrha's character's differences from Seri and that she initiated the relationship became the core of the reasoning.

Since no one noticed last time: the inn the group stayed at is called the Third Law for the Three Laws of Robotics coined by Issac Asimov, one of the architects of modern science fiction. Another nod to the idea that Penny is somehow still a robot in this AU.

An update on the playtest game: Our heroes have defeated the first antagonist of the adventure path and are slowly gathering information that the book they've been protecting might be linked to a god that no longer seems to exist in the world.

They've also befriended a spirit beast silk worm who spits silk that bursts into flames. It proved to be useful as they and the young thieves' guild leader they've taken under their wing assaulted a formerly abandoned town to take the goods there from the bandits that set up shop there. Currently they're considering helping rebuild the town with the help of a former resident (and trash ogre) who had teamed up with the bandits for survival.

It's a fun campaign so far and we're really whipping the system into shape. The first podcast of it should be available in a few days.

Finally, the next piece I'll be writing will once again be Shattered Stars thanks to the generosity of Galven.

Until then, stay awesome folks!