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.

RWBYRWBYRWBY

Chapter 36: Session 4 Part 3 – Bad Wolf

It was not the best initiative line-up the group could have rolled. That much was evident because Nora was in mock tears, crying out to the heavens.

"Why have you forsaken us, Random Number God?! Not only are the monsters going first but the bard is the first of us to go? And I'm last!?" She started bawling again and buried her face against Ren's shoulder, immediately soaking his shirt sleeve.

"I'm starting to think you still don't have full faith in me here," Jaune groused.

Nora sniffed, looking at him reproachfully past Ren's arm. "It's not you, it's your support class. You and Ren going first ahead of the heavy hitters—it's a disaster!"

Meanwhile, Penny was drawing out the battlemap and it in and of itself was a thing to behold.

Ruby put a lot of work into her overlays and transparencies, laying them out days in advance with stencils and a straight edge as well as using commercial dungeon tiles and others she printed off the internet. Penny on the other hand was drawing gridline by gridline freehand with such exacting precision such that it looked like the blueprint-like results were being produced by a dot-matrix printer.

It was done in minutes, good enough to be in an actual adventure book.

"There," she declared, capping her dry erase marker. Digging into the tackle box at her side, she came up with two all-black werewolf minis and placed them in the second floor of the inn. "If everyone can place their minis, we can begin. The Duck is here, so Lynn and Everlee can start here and here respectively, and here's the alley where Darian, Gao and the two Seriphieds are."

Everyone arranged themselves as asked (with Ren having to place Nora's while she recovered from the tragedy.

Once that was done, Penny moved the wolves around, leaving one in the room where they started while the other entered the room across the hall. Then she looked at Jaune expectantly. It took him several frankly embarrassing seconds to notice.

"Oh. Sorry. Um... is the door Seri the original came out of locked?" Penny shook her head, so he started counting squares going from the door to the stairs from the inn's back rooms up to the werewolf-infested upper hall. "I'm going to stop right here and try to peek and see what's up here."

"Very good. What you see is no ordinary werewolf. It's pitch black and its body looks like a skin-tight suit of shadows clinging to a humanoid body, flaring out where it forms clawed hands and a lupine head. Its red eyes seem to leave crimson after-images as it moves purposefully to tear at the door in front of it."

"That's... not a normal werewolf," Ren observed.

Jaune nodded, looking mildly freaked out. "You can say that again. I just used two moves; can I roll a Knowledge to identify this thing, Penny?"

The substitute DM nodded emphatically. "Knowledge Arcana will do just fine."

"Arcana," Jaune held up a blue d20. "And Bardic Lore." He held up his yellow one, then rolled both. His Bardic Lore was higher, a natural 18 plus one for intelligence and five for his level for a total of 24.

Penny ducked her head and smiled in a way that reminded him of an old kindergarten teacher of his used to when he remembered to put his toys away. "Very good. You recall from your readings back at the Bardic College a mystical disease called The Grimm. While the last reported outbreak was seventy years ago, there is very good documentation: it's spread through bites and scratches and rapidly incubates with the fear and pain of the victim, transforming them into a ravening monster under the sway of the disease.

"What you see now is one of the more common strained called a Beowulf. They're relatively weak when not encountered in packs—which is why they're working so hard to make a pack."

Jaune gave her a blank look. "So they're like innocent people turned into monsters? That's messed up. Is there a cure?"

"You don't know that," Penny said with a shrug, then immediately looked to Ren. "And it's Gao's turn now."

The man in question nodded. "Okay, so I'll move up onto the stairs with Jaune, leaving enough space for Pyrrha to move past us on her turn. Then as a minor action, I'll drop a Blessing of Protection of Jaune." He spoke with totally efficiency, having planned his turn while Penny was expositing. "And the brings us to Blake's turn."

Blake spent her turn to use a full run to hop down from the window and move to the Duck of Luck. She stopped just outside the inn in front of the window to the room where the attack had started.

Then it was Pyrrha's turn, but before she could announce her action, Penny interrupted by handing her one of her own D20s; a green chrome one with florescent pink numbers alongside a generic female miniature and small stack of index cards. "Here you go. I think Nora's idea was actually really nifty, so how about you play the real Seriphied this combat?"

"Um... okay?" Pyrrha replied dumbly, accepting the cards. She looked them over and her confusion melted into one of amusement. Arching one eyebrow she gave Penny a look that asked 'really?'.

The substitute DM smiled back. "Don't blame me. Ruby had her statted out when I got here."

That elicited a squeal of glee from the television, followed by coughing. As Yang tried desperately to get her to sit back, Ruby just started babbling happily. "I've been waiting so long for this! You have no idea. Ever since I saw the Unusual Weapon Wielder feat, I had to make this character."

Ruby's enthusiasm was infectious and even knowing the extra work running another character entailed, Pyrrha took a seconds to consider the possibilities and smiled. "Okay. So do I roll her into initiative or..."

"Just do their actions back-to-back," Penny waved her off. "It's easier that way on you and it keep you from monopolizing too much time per round."

Pyrrha nodded and got to her mission. "Alright then. Seripheid—I'll call the new character I'm playing Seriphied and the original one I've been playing Seri—so Seripheid will go to..." she placed the generic mini in the inn's kitchen, "... and grab her weapon."

A snort escaped Yang as she looked to her little sister. "You didn't."

"I so did," Ruby said, proudly puffing out her chest. "I've wanted to build this character since I saw Tangled and I finally got my half an excuse. My only regret is that I didn't get to play her."

Having finally grokked to what was going on, Jaune cracked a grin and caught Pyrrha's eye. "Weapon Proficiency: Frying Pan?"

"Advanced Weapon Proficiency Frying Pan."Pyrrha grinned. "It's basically a one-handed mace and she's a full on Combatant with the feats to match. Needless to say, this will be a fun fight." Returning to her turns, she then used the rest of Seriphied's movement to get to the bottom of the stairs. "And then Seri is going to come up the stairs and stand at the top next to Darian. As my minor, I'll draw my pistol. Now it's-"

"My turn!" Nora burst out with a cheer. She pointed dramatically at the map. "Penny, I'm jumping to this roof across from my window." Before Penny could reply, her cotton-candy pink d20 was in motion, giving her a total of 24 on her jump check. "That's enough right?" Penny could only nod as Nora counted out her jump movement to pace herself on the roof of the adjacent building.

"Good. Now I'm running across to here and jumping again—I can do that when using the run action, right?"

Penny cocked her head, thinking a moment. "Jumping is a move action, and Running is two... I suppose I'll allow It though because it's cinematic—Rule 3 of the DM's section of the game."

"Sweet!" Nora pumped her fist.

"However, Penny cut her off, "If your aim is to jump to this roof, it might be difficult for you to get down into the rooms."

An angelic smile came to Nora's lips and everyone was instantly on full alert. "That's fine. Because I'm going to jump through the window here. How much damage do I take?"

Without stopping to think, Penny rolled a d6. "Four damage, and you land in a room already already ravaged by the attack. The bed is torn up, items are knocked over, but you see no blood. You do however see one of the beowolves just about to leave—at least it was before you crashed through the window."

Jaune sighed. "So you just got yourself injured, stuck in a room with a contagious monster and separated from the party?"

In response, Nora rubbed her hands together deviously. "I've got him right where I want him. Go ahead and take your turn."

"Just so you all know: once we TPK, my next character's gonna be a mage with nothing but the psychic powers to prevent just this situation."

"No worries!" Penny replied brightly, "I'm under strict orders from Ruby not to try for a total party kill."

There was a burst of coughing from the TV followed by Ruby shushing her loudly. "They're not supposed to know that! They're meant to live in fear!"

"I promise we're always going to live in fear while Nora's on the job," Jaune assure her, receiving a cheerful thumbs up from the lady in question. "Anyway, it's not my turn yet, it's the monsters."

Nora gave him a thoroughly annoyed look. "Why did you have to go and tell her? I was helping you! Also me because I'm so getting attacked in a second."

"That you are!" Penny sounded far too happy as she let the dice fly. "The shadowy lupine beast lunges for you, but its jaw gnash on air as a fifteen won't hit you. Meanwhile, the one in the hall..." She rolled another die behind her DM's screen. "It realizes the door it's trying to open is locked, fails to break it down in one hit, then breaks it with the second. You hear a man and a woman screaming inside. Now it's your turn, Jaune."

"Oh that's no fair putting innocents in danger when Jaune is involved," Ren said, shaking his head.

Ruby puffed out her chest. "Which is why I told her to do it."

Beside her, Yang smirked. "Why am I not surprised you have a hero complex?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that like it's a bad thing?" Jaune groused.

"Well I for one think it's a very noble quality," Pyrrha said, patting him on the shoulder. Then she smirked playfully, "When it isn't putting us at a massive disadvantage like that time you broke our ambush just because you had to free the slaves in the enemy wagons first."

Jaune huffed with mock betrayal before getting on with it. "I think this calls for me actually using some real magic for once instead of tripping. Casting figment distraction. The wolves get a Will save and a shining knight in full plate wielding sword and shield appears at the other end of the hallway."

After two quick die rolls, Penny announced, "They both fail. The one in the hall turns toward the figment, ears laid back and snarling."

"Perfect. That's the standard. As my move, I'm going to try to sneak behind him and into the room he just broke into so I can interpose between him and those people. You're up Ren."

Ren gave the board a critical eye. "And... are no point did you tell me or the female Humanoid Typhoon on the stairs with me that these are innocent people infected by something?"

"I..." Jaune's face fell. "Oh crap. And I'm sneaking so I can't tell you now."

"Let's just hope we don't end up doing something we regret before you have a chance. In the meantime, I'm going to take a swig from my magic gourd to activate Drink Like a Fish, Fight Like a Demon. Then I'll step into the hall, step back here to make room for others to come in, then cast Way of Binding. Will save DC is 15."

Penny rolled behind her screen and nodded. "It's caught in your burning chains. It doesn't know the spell came from you though, so it's still focused on the figment. Blake?"

Leaning over the table, Blake examined the map. "Time to un-split the party, I guess. I'm going to use one of my adhesive ropes to climb up to the window Nora crashed through and once I'm up there on the windowsill, I'm going to shoot the wolf in the room with her using one of my timed charge bullets. Does a 21 hit?"

"Yes it does. Please roll your damage."

"9 damage, but in three turns, if it doesn't get a heal check to dig the round out, it will explode, dealing automatic critical fire and slashing damage. And just as a note, I'm still on the windowsill, not in the room because if that thing tries to attack me? I'm not staying around."

Now it came to Pyrrha and her two characters. She took her time, especially as she pondered the new character sheet. At length, she finally spoke. "Okay, so Seriphied is going to come up the stairs, see the deadly wolf monsters and go to protect her guests because she doesn't know that engaging them is a terrible idea."

This earned her a pair of narrowed eyes from across the table from Nora. "Hey! You're not trying to kill her off are you? That's not fair, Pyrrha—you can't just go off and suicide your character. That goes double in battle when we could really use the extra muscle to make up for that awful initiative."

Making a placating gesture, Pyrrha just smiled at Nora. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to get her killed. Penny, I'm using Flurry of Blows." She rolled twice. One totaled 15 and the other 21 for one hit. "So the feat makes it so the frying pan counts as a heavy mace, so that's 1d8...5, plus 4 for strength plus my level, which is 5. So 14 damage. Now I'm using an action point and then using Knockabout on him too."

She threw the dice and it came up...

"20!" Nora was on her feet instantly. "Way to go Good Twin!" Then, as per tradition, she and Jaune celebrated with their critical hit song and high five.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha rolled her damage. "That's sixteen, times two for the crit. That's 32 damage and then Knockabout pushes him one square and I'll then back up beside Gao."

Penny's eyes glittered as the moved the monster's mini. "So what everyone else sees is Seriphied charging up the stairs. She swings once with her frying pan, misses, then connects with a second strike, then lets loose with a crashing blow that sends ti stumbling back five feet before she falls back in a defensive stance. The wolf went from full health to totally reeling."

"Nicely done," Jaune grinned, patting her on the shoulder.

"Oh, don't thank me yet," she replied with a devious little smile. "Seri doesn't know... and probably wouldn't care... that they're innocent people. So all she really sees is a danger that needs to be removed. Therefore... I'm casting Suffocate."

Jaune gave her an exaggerated glare. "Really?"

"Would you rather I Mighty Shout him into a wall and crush him to death? It's only 1d6 + 4 damage. Plus Blake shot the other one with a grenade that's going to explode inside them."

The glare dissolved into a dorky snort. "Point. On the up side? I'll get the guilt the crap out of all of you once Darian finds a cure."

"Aww," Pyrrha have him a side hug, going so far as to rest her head on his shoulder so they were cheek to cheek. "It's cute you think Seri's capable of guilt."

He returned the hug and pressed a quick kiss to her temple. "Oh don't worry. Next level I'll take Baleful Pathos and I can make everyone guilty."

"Well it's a moot point because the Grimm passed its Fortitude save. Do you have anything else you can do with Seri's turn, Pyrrha?"

"I could spend an action point and try again," Pyrrha thought aloud, looking over her character sheet. "But no, I think I might have a better use for them. I'm done."

No one else dared speak because Nora was practically vibrating in her seat in anticipation almost before the words were out of Pyrrha's mouth, Nora was in motion. She leapt from her chair to rise to her full (if diminutive height). "Finally! It's time for Lynn to save the day once again!"

Ren raised an eyebrow. "I'm still trying to figure out how you're going to get sneak attack in this situation."

That earned him a huge grin that, were he anyone else but himself—who had spent years with Nora—would have struck true terror into his heart. "Silly Ren; I can't get sneak attack right now. That wasn't the plan." She raise her pink d20 like Boromir scrutinizing the One Ring. After a moment in which everyone else started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable, she pointed to the substitute DM. "Penny! I'm going to seduce this beowulf!"

Once again, her timing was impeccable.

Pyrrha did a double take, ending up clonking her head into Jaune's in the process. The pair yelped and rubbed their temples. Meanwhile, Yang had been on the process of trying to force Ruby to eat some soup by spoon-feeding it to her, ending up getting distracted to the point that the spoon found her sister's nose instead of her mouth.

"What?!" Everyone chorused.

Managing to speak of the others, a horrified-looking Penny stuttered. "T-that does not computer. Not at all!"

Folding her arms, Nora met them all with a smirk of pride. "Bet you guys didn't think I even remembered to take an expertise, huh?" After a beat, she shrugged. "Well I didn't. I totally forgot until we reached level five and saw that I was supposed to either get another one or upgrade; so I took one and now Lynn's a Master at Seduction."

On the TV, Ruby blew her nose to clear it of noodles. "I know I'm going to regret this... but why seduction?"

Nora's eyes drift from Pyrrha and Jaune to Ren, then to the dice on the table in front of her. "Um... because I thought it'd be funny? Anyway, I've got a +12 to the roll, so let's see if I can bring back Team Jacob!"

RWBYRWBYRWBY

AN: So I got sick at the start of this month, then got put on a shitty schedule at work that made recovering in a reasonable amount of time nearly impossible. I've missed a whole month of writing both fan and professional to it and I am not happy.

In any even, I'm back and trying to get things on track again starting here.

Everyone was so keen on making Pyrrha play two characters that I had to do it and love the idea that Ruby would have planned for this eventuality. The frying pan thing is because... well hasn't everyone wanted to beat their enemies with cookware from time to time? Especially since it shows up in so many videogames and, of course, Tangled.

I feel like I made a real mistake splitting the party earlier because it separated Blake and Nora for a turn and I'm still playing catchup in getting Blake into the plot.

Still with Jaune and Pyrrha, I really wanted to show that even with the relationship upgrade, they're still best friends and can comfortable give each other crap on occasion. And now we see Nora is taking a cue from Pyrrha. I'm sure this will end well.

As I said before, we're going to tick with this game longer than usual to have fun with Penny and Blake, but also remember we're going to go back to slice of life eventually, so please don't complain when we do. We're getting 6-8 chapters of game here.

Finally, when suffering through sickness and corporate incompetence, I've come up with a lot of new ideas for All the Myriad Ways stories. Here's a few pitches (and hey, feel free to take these as prompts if you want. We can always use more Arkos):

Escaflowne-style story where Jaune is the secret pilot of the old techno-magical mecha Crocea Mors protecting the refugees of a fallen kingdom with Pyrrha and the newly minted Queen-in-Exile with RWBY as pilots for modern mass-produced mechs and Nora and Ren playing the Allen Sezar role.

Failing magic student Jaune tries to cast a familiar summoning spell for extra credit—and ends up contracting with Hell General Pyrrha. Now he's stuck dealing not only with the consequences at school, but the convoluted bureaucracy and politics of a Hell that wants one of its Five Great Generals back.

Mortal-maker. Jaune's Semblance is revealed and it comes in the form of being able to temporarily disable Aura, Dust and even Magic powers—at the cost of doing the same to himself.

Just something to chew on until next time with Not Your Saint George.