Chapter 14: Site of Confrontation
Perspective: Fire
It was just before nightfall when they gathered in the command room. Lucy had spent the previous hours looking through the inventory list to find things that could be used as snacks. It had been a few years, but she remembered from when she had played her version of the game with her family: snacks were a requirement. In the end the snacks mostly consisted of a variety of small fruits and nuts the gatherers had collected over the last days. However Lucy had also found some actual sweets, which turned out to have been part of what Fire and Shadow had brought to Nexus from their world.
Everyone who wanted to participate had arrived approximately on-time. Steve, as the owner of the rulebooks, took it upon himself to game master the session, he was currently speaking to Shadow who was very insistently asking if he was sure he wouldn't need any projected ancient dragon miniatures. Warnado and Amanda were also here, currently chatting with Urist. Fristad played wallflower to the conversation, only contributing an occasional snoot of laughter. Jennifer had decided to take parts of the preparation into her own hands and was in the process of turning several pieces of paper into blank character sheets.
After the initial setup was complete, Steve gave everyone a rundown of the basic rules and the setting he was going to use. From what Lucy could tell, the game was mostly identical to what she was familiar with, though probably some of the mechanical details were different - couldn't expect all numbers to be the same across universes. It also seemed that Shadow had come to similar conclusions, apparently having played the version of her world.
Steve announced: "Since we have the same amount of experienced and new players, each of us will help one of you with your character creation."
Steve helped Urist, Jennifer helped Warnado, Shadow helped Amanda and Lucy would help Fristad.
After explaining the basics of what a character sheet was to Fristad they needed to talk about what he was going to play.
Lucy asked: "So, it's best if you just think of a character without thinking about the game too much. Once you have it I'll try to help you make it fit into the system."
Fristad chewed his upper lip thoughtfully and leaned back. Then, he leaned forward again, a smile laughing its way into existence on his face.
"So, what's the difference between enderborn and enderman?"
Lucy said: "Enderborn is sort of an umbrella term for anything that's either an enderman or descended from one, but it's mostly used for the hybrids. They don't enjoy the best status due to some people finding them weird or even abhorrent but it's not on a witch-hunt level."
"Oh, so it's like home. I have a friend like that: Jonas. Lovely guy," said Fristad.
Lucy smiled. "Actually, the character I'll be using is enderborn as well, I used her on the occasional games my family would run on our travels. Lots of memories connected to her."
"Cool," nodded Fristad. "I'm drawing on personal experience too. I'm pretty sure I'll play an enderman, for old times' sake."
He promptly started giggling a little stupidly, then stopped himself and raised his hands.
"Just in case you didn't hear, the Book turned me into an enderman one time. It was a whole thing. That's the - hah- that's the joke."
Lucy had only heard about Fristad's time when he still had the Book, so it took her a few seconds to realize what he meant, she nodded. "It's a common thing to play out aspects of yourself."
After writing down "enderman" in the corresponding field Lucy asked: "So, I suppose we'll roll your stats next and from there you can decide your class."
A few dice rolls later Fristad's character had his stats, none of the rolls were too far outside of the ordinary. After giving Fristad a quick overview of his class options Lucy gave him a bit more time to think. He sat for about ten seconds, hunched over the sheet. He kept tapping his neck with the pen.
"Druid looks good. Nice support role and I'm really starting to love the forest, so it should suit me perfectly."
He scribbled it in, went through the remaining details and handed the pencil over to Lucy.
"Thanks Lucy, nature be your healer," he said with a chuckle.
"Great, just a few more things to finalize your character, among those being a backstory."
After a bit, more time everyone was done with their characters. They sat down together at the map table.
Steve began: "Alright, since this is the first time playing for four of you, we'll begin with the least complicated start: You all meet in a tavern. Introduce yourselves, in-character if possible."
Lucy decided to start: "Hello, my name is Ella. I'm a travelling scholar seeking to expand my horizons. Nice to meet you!"
Shadow had supplied everyone with miniatures of their characters, Lucy placed hers at the table of the tavern.
Jennifer introduced herself in a husky voice, "Simeon Longshanks, paladin of the Order of the Stone. I'm young, looking to prove myself. So, I shall go out and heal those who have need of it and make war on those who would do them harm!"
Warnado was next, greatly exaggerating any hissing noises in his words. "Hhhhhello. I am Sssssspider Bard."
Lucy first thought there was going to be more after that but no, Warnado had already placed his miniature on the table, which turned out to be a spider with maracas bound to its legs. This elicited laughs from the group and a sigh from Steve. He wore an expression that said, "Great, now I have to come up with plot hooks for a sentient spider… bard… thing."
Amanda followed suit with a wry smile. "Greetings, I am Wertma Wutko, disciple of the Way of the Falling Tree. My masters sent me into the world to prove my skill."
Judging by her miniature, Amanda was playing a villager monk, she was evidently not terribly keen on combat effectiveness.
Urist was next, entering the fray with the most terrifying accent Lucy was pretty certain any of them had heard in some time:
"Allo, I em Ooriste ze elf. Deprived of my honeur yearz in ze past, I shearch a way to restore eet."
Fristad allowed this to settle, scrunching his eyebrows in bemusement before placing down his enderman.
"I am Kaine," he began with a clapping together of his hand. "I'm an enderman druid. I am chaotic good. Just here to have fun and help folks out. Don't… Don't look at the face, though."
Shadow went last. "The name is Laurence, master of cards and magic. Would you like to see a trick?"
She flung her miniature with a flick of her hand, having it land precisely between Lucy's own and Jennifer's.
"Alright." Said Steve. "Now that everyone has arrived, let us begin!"
After the introductions were over, Steve gave them their first encounter by having the tavern keeper ask them to rid him of his huge rat problem. What surprised the new players but was quite obvious to the seasoned ones was that it was actually a Huge Rat problem. Their first combat went down without much hassle, they had enough healing in the group that the few hits they took had no lasting consequences.
Once they had collected their reward they set off into the woods towards the nearest town. After a few days of travel, they came across a damaged wagon. Lucy immediately wanted to help but was cautious, Fristad had no such worries. It turned out that Lucy had been right since the wagon was bait for a bandit ambush. In this first real fight, it quickly became clear who would be keeping the party alive. Jennifer's paladin proved incredibly useful in drawing attention from the more ill-suited party members. Despite his terrible accent, Urist was still an elf with a bow, which was not to be underestimated.
The fight ended with both Lucy and Amanda's characters getting quite beat up by the end of it and Shadow's character was near death. They abandoned their plans of going to the city and instead looked for shelter nearby, finding a cave to rest in.
The cave had turned out to be a lot bigger than they had expected, on Warnado's suggestion they went to explore it after spending a day healing their wounded. Within the cave they soon found brick walls and a sealed door. What would otherwise have been a challenging puzzle was immediately nullified by Fristad teleporting to the other side and opening the door from there, Steve grumbled but accepted his oversight.
The stone structure inside the mountain was a maze-like dungeon. They slowly advanced, taking breaks when someone was struck by bolts shot from the walls triggered by pressure plates. Not having a rogue in this situation was starting to become increasingly dangerous when the traps turned from darts to boulders.
Eventually they reached an open hall, this was where the combat part of the dungeon would take place. That was when Lucy realized what kind of character Shadow was playing, she had gone all-out on relying on random effects. One combat she'd destroy skeleton after skeleton with lucky dice rolls and chaining spells, in others she almost blew up the party with a randomly targeted fireball.
At the end of the hall, they found the owner of the dungeon, a necromancer. Before he could launch into a monologue, Warnado had interrupted him with an attempt to challenge him to a solo battle, as in musical solo, not one-on-one combat. To everyone's surprise his roll went through and the necromancer accepted. Unfortunately, however, it turned out that the necromancer's second talent was playing the lute, Warnado consequently got himself thrashed by him and his skeletal backup dancers. Having emerged victorious, the necromancer made his exit before anyone could do much about it. Warnado swore bloody revenge, which sounded quite funny in his spider voice.
At that point Steve said: "Alright everyone. I think this wraps up our first session, it's getting quite late, and I think this is a good stopping point." He winked at Warnado. "If we continue this… If we continue this, I'm sure you'll have plenty of motivation to keep this flowing."
They spent half an hour cleaning up, then everyone went to their respective bedroom. The others would have a battle to fight tomorrow, Lucy wouldn't be going with them, but she was still quite nervous, combat was always a risk. She was the last to leave, wondering who would come back as they filtered out of her sight.
