Relena: DM/Dungeon Master (loves the group, but often wants to TPK them)
Heero: Drow Ranger (Quatre had to make his character for him)
Duo: Tiefling Bard (likes to play up "that bard" to Relena's annoyance)
Trowa: Vampire-Tiefling Rogue (dresses "like a bard/clown" to confuse enemies)
Quatre: Aasimar Cleric (lone healer of the group and all that prevents a TPK)
Wufei: Dragonborn Monk (extremely particular about his character)
Hilde: Tabaxi Barbarian (used to grapple the others as needed)

Three excerpts, a recap, and a paladin prepares to appear.

"Okay...so...Quatre, do you have any spellslots left to heal Duo and Hilde?"

"Yes." Quatre said with a soft sigh, though he did give a particularly withering look towards the long-haired pilot in question...who was currently trying to sport the most innocent, "butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth", "ain't I cute?" expression in his arsenal in a blind bid to keep the rest of the group from expressing their frustration over him botching the entire encounter with the NPC "frenemy" warlock...again. "However, I think I will just give him a few of my potions instead."

"Aww...come on, Quat'. It was an accident. You can't blame me for a bad roll." Duo whined, leaning over Hilde's lap and trying to plead with the blond...who just looked so very unimpressed right now. Actually...everyone looked unimpressed, even Trowa who was pulling off the expression with only one eye visible from his position of cuddling his boyfriend, and Hilde looked a mix of unimpressed and actually irritated, which could be a dangerous combination for his daily coffee intake, come to think of it.

Even more so if an irritated Trowa joined her in the coffee sabotage.

"Maxwell...you decided to 'poke' the beaker that the warlock told you not to 'poke' and triggered a fight with the warlock's "pet" golems." Wufei deadpanned from his seat, arms crossed over his chest as he gave Duo his own, specialized brand of the "I-am-displeased-with-your-life-choices" expression...which, in all honesty, wasn't that different from his usual displeased expression. "Accountability is a thing that you need to have."

"Yeah...well, me and Hil' could so take on three flesh golems if the dice gods hadn't decided to spit in my face."

"I didn't even want to fight the flesh golems." Hilde deadpanned as she pressed her hands down onto her boyfriend's back as if to hold him still in his near-laid-out position over her legs. "I don't even like flesh golems. My tabaxi doesn't even like flesh golems. They're creepy as hell."

"You could have left him to his own devices." Heero said with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders, nearly drowning out Duo's indignant cry of "Harsh 'Ro! Harsh!", as Quatre proceeded to heal the barbarian and practically force a healing potion down the bard's throat...or, at least, that was how the last part read to everyone else as, to be honest, no one would fault their cleric player being irritated with how danger-prone and trouble-seeking everyone, especially Duo and his bard, were in-game. Hilde just sighed and kneaded the muscles of her boyfriend's lower back and the space just between his shoulder blades. "Someone has to try to keep him alive."

"He's willing to throw all of our, and his own, characters' lives away at the drop of a hat." Heero deadpanned only for Duo to pop back up from his girlfriend's lap, not unlike a particularly demented jack-in-the-box, and move to lean over into his fellow pilot's face. "I do not! I just have a full belief that what I'm doing is right in the moment."

"You are usually wrong in the moment and, again, throwing all of our characters into unnecessary harm like someone handed you a self-destruct button." Heero said as he absentmindedly shoved the long-haired ex-pilot back into his usual seat, and returned his gaze to the map and miniatures laid out before them on the table. "It's incredibly stupid."

Had Heero bothered to look up, he would have seen everyone at the table, from Trowa all the way to Relena, staring at him with varying expressions of disbelieving awe. Cautiously, Quatre whispered to Hilde "Does he-"

Before the blond could even finish his question, Trowa covered his mouth with a hand and titled his head to whisper to him. "Quatre...no. Do not interrupt."

"He might be on the verge of a breakthrough." Duo all but hissed as he leaned in close to the blond, practically on top of Hilde who (despite her hopeful glee at the fact that Heero may, in fact, be on the verge of achieving full-self-awareness regarding the insanity that was his self-destructive tendencies) was tired of being her boyfriend's jungle gym and promptly pulled him into a headlock and began shoving him under the table...despite Duo's valiant struggles to free himself from his self-imposed predicament.

Wufei glanced at Relena, before leaning over to whisper in the most resigned of ways: "He...has no idea, does he?"

Relena looked at her boyfriend...then shook her head when Heero began eyeing the warlock's miniature in a way that meant that he was considering his odds regarding firing off a quick shot at their in-game "frenemy". "Baby steps."

= [hey! it's a scene cut!] =

"Okay...I have to ask: how did we survive? We were outnumbered twenty zombies to one." Quatre said, eyes wide as he tried to process what had just happened.

A group of necromancers had unleashed the horde on them and, a mix of numbers and bad dice rolls, had begun dropping the entire party to the point that the blond had been sure that Relena had been on the verge of giving them a "mercy-deus ex machina" to save them...and then Hilde, who had been down to a single hit point, had hit a Nat20 and, several similar rolls later, her tabaxi proceeded to turn the fight into a the barbarian-fueled equivalent of the climactic battle of a samurai movie.

Heero? Almost down for the dirt nap to the point that he'd been considering explosives as a viable option...only for his own Nat20 to lead to the half-drow not only fighting his way out of the zombies trying to converge on him, but opened the floodgates to his own divine dice luck that let the ranger pull off trick headshots to one-hit kill zombies like the character had turned into Robin Hood .

Trowa? His rogue had been on his last legs, ready to drop should the necromancer he'd been fighting pierce his defense...only for a Nat20 of his own to allow the vampiric tiefling to pull off giving into "vampire instinct", tearing the necromancer's throat out to save himself...and then his own series of similarly flawless rolls had the rogue gaining a stat boost from the necromancer's blood and proceeding to practically curb stomp his share of zombies and another necromancer.

Wufei? He'd been holding his own, but even a dragonborn could only take so much...then, boom. Nat20 and the monk may as well have ascended to his own personal godhood right then and beyond, especially with how he had turned the tide of his portion of the battle with his own roles that decimated the undead against them.

Duo? He'd had the sense to stay to the background with Quatre, his tiefling helping to buff the party as much as he could while Quatre tried to cover and heal...then Duo had hit a Nat20 all his own after everyone else's first ones and, in true fashion at getting a good role for his move, Duo shouted out "'Lena, please work in that, for my move, I belted out "Bohemian Rhapsody"?" to which Relena had just shrugged and said "Sure, I'll allow it." and the provided inspiration bonus had just...Quatre still couldn't believe it.

"I'm serious. How did we survive?"

"Because we are awesome!" Duo shouted from his position standing in his chair with his arms raised above his head like he was Rocky at the top of the stairs, while Hilde was on her feet and doing her own little Kuzco-inspired victory dance. Heero and Wufei were nodding to one another, pleased in their own ways with the party's hard won victory, while Trowa just tugged Quatre closer to his chest and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Best to just accept it."

"I agree wholeheartedly." Relena said with a small smile as she finished checking off her notes...before moving to take a sip of her tea. "Now...are any of you in the mood to loot the bodies? Or do your characters need to find a place to bathe and rest?"

"Looting." Wufei said with a quick nod. "Then bath and sleep."

= [hey! it's a scene cut!] =

"The... I, I need a minute." Relena said as she put her face down into her hand, her shoulders beginning to shake in laughter, while Hilde just grinned ear-to-ear and brought a hand up to her chin and began miming stroking a nonexistent beard...which caused Quatre to cover his mouth to smother his own giggling while Duo just threw his head back in a fit of hysteric laughter that almost caused him to lose his balance in his seat.

Heero shook his head, though the slight quirk to the corner of his lips betrayed his amusement over the situation, while Wufei rested his forehead on his fist and tried his hardest to pretend that he wasn't equally entertained by what their latest tavern adventure. Trowa, as was his way, just rested his head against the back of Quatre's own...though sharp eyes would swear that he had let out a quiet "ha" to signal his own feelings towards the chaos of the moment.

Relena took a deep breath, trying to reign in her laughter, but unable to avoid snickering through her narration. "The crowd of the tavern lets out a thunderous applause, bellowing cheers that can be heard by the wandering watch beyond the tavern walls, as your opponent gives a nod of his head to the barmaid, then lifts his tankard of ale to you and says "Never in all my life did I think one of ya Tabaxi could grow a beard to compete with us dwarves. Barkeep! 'Round-a ale for all! My treat! And get the house special for my new friend 'ere!""

= [hey! it's a scene cut!] =

"So, how has the game been going for all of you?" Sally asked when she dropped into the office of the five ex-pilots, all too aware that she was the only one aside from Noin (when she wasn't on 'Agent Wind' duty) who apparently had the courage to even open the office door at this point.

"Hil' won a 'best beard contest' against a reigning campion dwarf in a tavern last night." Duo chimed in excitedly from his position sitting on one side of Wufei's desk, though Quatre wisely intervened when he noticed that the gears might be turning in the doctor's head, but that they weren't actually producing connections right that second. "Hilde received a Belt of Dwarvenkind during a side quest a few sessions back and now, every once in a while, her Tabaxi has a beard that Hilde roleplays as her character braiding and decorating with beads and ribbons."

"Okay, that makes a little bit more sense." Sally said with a nod, as she rested a shoulder against one of the file cabinets in the room, crossing her arms over her chest as she studied the group. What could she say? She was curious about their game. "Did the rest of you get anything from that quest?"

"Quest for that was a few sessions back when we helped a blood mage save her dragon man, but yeah. 'Fei got a set of Gloves of Soul Catching, 'Ro got an Efficient Quiver-" Duo started only for Heero to intervene without looking up from the maintenance that he was doing on his favorite firearm. "I acquired the parts to craft myself a better bow, on the side quest that followed."

"Tro' scored a Cloak of Invisibility, I got a pair of Winged Boots, and Quat' picked up a Necklace of Prayer beads. It's all awesome." Duo finished...before turning his attention to trying to get Wufei's attention...to which the Chinese ex-pilot was dutifully ignoring him in favor of focusing on his computer work and, once again, wearing his noise cancelling headphones. A soft 'whap' followed when Wufei finally had enough of the whole "I'm not touching you" act and lightly, for him, smacked the long-haired pilot on the head with a rolled up newspaper. Sally wisely ignored that in favor of the rest of the group. "Anything else of interest?"

"My tiefling is a vampire now." Trowa said from where he was looking for something in one of the file cabinets; what he was searching for, she had no idea, but Sally had learned a long time ago that, when it came to Trowa Barton, it was better to not question things as ignorance was better for your sanity. "I've never heard of a vampire tiefling before. Sounds interesting...and probably too complicated for me to play."

"He is fun to play." Was all that the brunette said as he looked at the contents of a file, then put the file back and proceeded to pull out another one. Quatre nodded from where he was leaning back and sitting against the edge of what Sally was sure was Trowa's desk. "We do still have the cure for vampirism just in case Trowa ever changes is mind or one of our characters gets bitten. Oh, and a while back, we defeated an evil baroness who was pretending to be benevolent, and we reunited her tortured younger twin sister with the good sister's paladin lover and set those two up to rule the barony with the evil sister dead."

Sally nodded at that and had to admit, her curiosity about the campaign was growing. "That sounds like quite an excursion."

"We had to uncover the truth, escape death, save the good sister, defeat a group of golems, then defeat the evil baroness and her pet chimera. It was a very exciting quest." The blond said cheerfully as a murmur of agreement came up from the rest of the boys...outside of Wufei. "We have also had a quest where we uncovered the reason behind a cursed lake and defeated the corrupt elemental of the lake to free the trapped souls, became kind of friends with a vampire warlock who we're all certain will stab us in the back at the first minor convenience, oh! And last night we apparently performed a miracle and defeated a zombie horde and a group of zealot necromancers."

Sally blinked slowly as she processed all of this...only for Trowa to glance over. "If you want, we can ask Relena and Hilde if you could join us for a session."

"That would work so well." Quatre said with a grin. "Especially since you did say that you play a paladin and the quest hook that Relena gave us, implied that a paladin might be a useful party member to have."

"That...sure. I would be game." The doctor said as a part of her brain immediately questioned where exactly she had stored her dice...only for Heero to speak up, his phone in his hand. "I texted Relena. She said yes, just for you to call her so that the two of you can work together to set up an introduction and everything else for your character to join us."

"And I texted Hil'." Duo chimed in, his own phone in his hand as he rested an elbow just above Wufei's head because, as usual, he just had to keep poking the dragon with the pointy stick. "She said that she's looking forward to you joining and can't wait to take out whatever enemies we may face with you."

"Well then, I will just go find my dice and make that phone call then." Sally said just as Trowa handed her back her phone...wait, how did he get her phone out of her pock- no. No. It's Trowa Barton. Don't ask. "And now I can make that call I take it?"

"I put in Relena's number." Was all that Trowa said as he passed the files in his hands to Wufei...who, after elbowing a certain brunette in the ribs, removed his headphones. "What did I miss?"

"I am joining your game session...at least for one quest."

"Oh. Well, good to have you on. Feel free to hit the bard if he gets out of line."

"HEY!" Duo shouted and Sally wisely took that as her cue to make her exit from the office. First things first: dice.

Relena's campaign gets wild and, to be fair, wild can be fun.

Also, I do 3 + 1 things for other fics of mine (at least over of ao3), why not have one here for these scenes?