A/N: More RPG fun with Ala Alba!

….

'Ala Alba Plays Pathfinder' or 'Never Call A Wizard A Warlock'

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Disclaimer: The Pathfinder system is owned by Paizo. Akamatsu Ken owns Negima. I make no money of this. This is parody and protected speech.

….

After all the running, screaming, and various shenanigans had finished, the glass had been cleaned up, the wood replaced, and innocent bystanders had remarked on how realistic Asuna's 'amateur CGI' had been, Asuna had finally gotten to begging forgiveness from Haruna, who was a bit offended that Asuna had assumed she'd descended into slasher horror torture-porn villainy when she'd only been doing a perfectly normal everyday activity. She was mollified Asuna was sincerely regretful though. Asuna, for her part, was mortified at the error. Sure, the possibility always existed that Haruna would go full-on supervillain on them someday, but she didn't want to accelerate that moment by making the other girl resentful and broody. She'd seen this origin story a lot, given it was usually the plot of most superhero movies.

Haruna, extending, if not an olive branch, then at least a friendly invitation, asked Asuna to come to the next game so she can see what all the fuss was about.

Asuna, rightfully paranoid at any activity that made Haruna act weird, and not sure she could rely on Konoka for backup since the mangaka had apparently gotten to her already, dragged along Ayaka for backup, who was NOT her friend, nope, not at all, honest, she's just there because she's class rep and should know about mind-altering substances and activities Haruna might be pressing on poor, innocent, unsuspecting students and teachers, yeah, that's what it is, tsun!

An explanation on character creation later, Ayaka, browsing through the Core Book, said, "Oh, Haruna-chan. You didn't mention this! This Aristocrat' class would be perfect for me!"

"It doesn't give you any more money," Yue said, not looking up from her own notes. "Or land. Or titles. Or income, really."

Ayaka looked shock. "Well, then they really shouldn't call it an aristocrat," said, sounding vaguely offended.

Setsuna, who had nothing against Ayaka personally and thought she was a nice person, decided to throw her a bone. "Negi-sensei's been playing nothing but wizards," she said.

And thus did Ayaka end up playing Lady Schnee the Lavender.

Asuna, trying to buy herself some time, turned towards Setsuna. "What are you playing as?" she asked.

"I'm an eld gunslinger who hears voices in my head," Setsuna said.

"Really? I'd have thought you'd be, I don't know, more sword-y" Asuna said.

"It's a make-believe game, Asuna-san," Setsuna said. "I don't want to end up doing the same thing I do in real life, or else I might as well not play."

"Some people think it's fun play as someone who's the complete opposite of who they are in real life," Nodoka suggested.

"Ooh, who's this hottie?" Asuna said. "I'd play him!"

"That's Ezren," Yue said, "he's basically one of the go-to characters for artwork in the books."

"Nice!" Asuna said approvingly. The guy had a neat beard, she decided. "What class is he?"

And thus did Asuna end up as… Asuna the wizard.

"You named your character after yourself?" Haruna said.

"Baka ranger," Asuna said shamelessly. "Otherwise I'd forget who I was playing."

Nodoka looked a little mournfully at all the characters. "I'm going to end up being the meatshield, aren't I?" she bemoaned.

Haruna patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. "Yes," she said succinctly.

….

As it turned out, the two weren't half-bad at being wizards. While Ayaka threw money around like it came out of a Monopoly set, she had been raised and ingrained with intelligent business acumen, and an appreciation for the intelligent allocation of resources, Negi-painted jets not withstanding. Asuna, a classical nigh-Dickensian orphan, knew the value of making things last, taking hits now to save later, and being stingy. They'd also gotten an approving munchkin's nod from Nodoka by looking at the spellbook rules as written, exchanging a single glance, asked Negi if they could see his spell list, picked out different spells, then promptly exchanged spells in-game, ensuring they had a wide variety of spells in the levels that they had. Negi could have learned much from their example. He really could have.

"Dearly beloved," Konoka began as Negi set about making yet another new character. Yue had the morbid thought that given how Negi-sensei tried to play the game exactly the same way he lived life, it was a wonder he wasn't dead a dozen times over by now. She wondered where the disconnect between the game and real life was. "We are gathered here in the sight of the goddess Sarenrae and one another to commemorate the life of Igna Dleifgnirp, who died tragically in a dramatically heroic last stand against daemonic forces, despite the fact he had no armor, no Mage Armor spell on, no boosts to either attack or damage rolls, and the enemy was 2 CR above him, after using up all his spells on small fry and making Dexterity his dump stat… "

Next to her, Ayaka wailed. "I never got a chance to tell him I loved him!"

"I knew he'd die like that somehow," Asuna said, nodding as if it was totally expected. Given she knew her magister, it was.

"At least I wasn't the meat shield," Nodoka said. "And all these dead wizards are leaving a lot of loot to resell… "

"Those really should go to next of kin," Yue said pointedly, giving Negi a meaningful look.

"Well yes, but since all the wizards so far have had completely different family names, and no claimants, we'll just use these to defray expenses," Nodoka said brightly.

"Horrible! You're horrible Nodoka-chan!" Konoka denounced.

"Do you need help with your new item inventory Negi-sensei?" Nodoka asked innocently, gold coins in her eyes.

Yue gave it up. As things went, players having a lot of money wasn't the worst thing, and she knew Nodoka was too attached to her overly optimized characters to consider essentially bumping them off for the insurance money.

Though the minute someone got a Crafting Feat, she would, however, suddenly make the world a poorer place.

"So," Negi said, finishing, "my new character is a wizard named Agni Flingspried… "

"Aren't you running out of anagrams yet sensei?" Setsuna asked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about.

….

Setsuna, for her part, was enjoying herself immensely. Not being Mana and having watched a healthy amount of action movies in the recent past (always Asuna's choice during movie night), she messing around with her gunslinger with poise and restraint.

"No, you can't hit three targets with one bullet," Yue said. "It doesn't matter that they're lined up on consecutive squares, it doesn't work like that! The bullet would get lodged into the first target!"

"But I'm deliberately shooing for the fleshy part on the side of their necks where the arteries are," Setsuna argued. "Nothing to get lodged there. And since there's someone in front of them blocking their line of sight to me, that means they don't see me aiming for them, which should either make them flatfooted or at least give them a circumstance penalty to their AC."

"Why would you do that?" Yue asked, exasperated at the overly-complicated attack.

"So that they bleed to death," Setsuna said matter-of-factly. "That's arterial blood straight from the heart. They'll be dead from bloodloss in five rounds."

Everyone was watching the negotiating like it was a tennis match, eyes going back and forth between the two. Nodoka was frantically taking notes, muttering how she needed to remember this for the future.

"Set-chan!" Konoka exclaimed. "That's so violent! What happened to the nice, sweet elf girl I knew 105 years ago?"

"The world is a dark and occasionally cruel place, Ojou-sama," said Setsuna with nigh-emo proportions of portentous drama. "My innocence is battered and scarred, stained with the blood of those I was forced to kill to survive. Truly, Golarion is a dark and terrible place… "

There was a beat.

"Fine," Yue said. "For that little bit of role-playing, I'll let you pull it off. But you need to make 3 attack rolls in a row on your lowest base attack bonus to hit them. Deal?"

"Deal," Setsuna said, though she looked slightly confused. "But what role playing?"

There was another beat.

"Just roll the dice."

Setsuna nodded. "Sensei, would you please do me the great favor of– "

"AND USE YOUR OWN LUCK!"

Most definitely not smirking, Setsuna rolled.

(roll)

(roll)

(roll)

"So, what does three 20's get me Yue-san?" Setsuna asked. "Do their heads explode?"

Yue gave the offending polyhedron a disgruntled look. "The first one's head explodes. The other two have to bleed themselves to death."

….

"Okay, that's the last of them," Haruna said as she Energy Drained the last monster to death. "Victory! Tan-ta-ta-tan-tan-tun-tan-tanan! What's the exp and loot count?"

"Well, besides the burned-down house, which was being demolished anyway, you actually managed to keep the property damage down this time, so the mayor isn't going to be sticking you with a reconstruction bill," Yue said. "Oh, and make a Bluff and Disguise check to see if you managed to maintain your cover."

Haruna rolled the dice, not even bothering to look. Yue did however, and looked a bit disgruntled.

"Damn your +11 modifier," she said. "Fine, you once more manage to make it look like you killed the daemon by means of something other than energy drain, and everyone still thinks you're merely the town's orphan loli prostitute who just happens to get caught in the local ex-con's adventures."

"You really take this secret identity thing seriously, Haruna-san," Setsuna commented.

"Orphan loli prostitute?" Asuna said, as if just remembering she was playing with Haruna. "How the heck is that allowed?"

Yue coughed. "Well, it has historical precedent and even today, in many unfortunate places, they start that young… "

"I'm the town bicycle," Haruna explained proudly.

"Do I know this in-character?" Konoka asked. "Because I'm pretty sure Sarenrae wouldn't approve of such a thing."

"If you're going to start a religious rumble, you should know the town's primary religion is the goddess Calistria, whose temple runs the local Prostitutes Guild," Yue said. "Of which Haruna is a paid-up member."

"Exclusive contract!" Haruna said with a thumbs up. "There used to be a halfling and a gnome, but I drove them out of business!"

"Huh?"

Everyone ground to a halt as they remembered that Negi was in the room.

"What's a prostitute?" Negi asked, struggling with the new and hitherto unknown Japanese word

There was a slight mental blink as they tried to figure out how to answer his question without defiling his childly innocence.

"It's a worshipper of Calistria," Haruna said glibly "I'm pretending to be one to preserve my cover, so that people don't figure out I'm a devil."

"Too late," Yue muttered.

"Oh…" Negi said in comprehension. "Wow, this game was a lot of interesting details, doesn't it?"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I think we can call this session done," Yue said hastily. "Next time again?"

Later, it would trouble Asuna greatly that Haruna was the one who'd fed Negi that line of BS…

….

It was another day, another game session.

"So, it looks like the sempai are dropping out of the group for a while," Yue said. "Something about a project. Which means for the foreseeable future I'll be GM'ing."

"You don't have to," Haruna said. "I know you don't like it as much as playing. I could sub you, if you want… ?"

"NO!" Nodoka, Yue, Asuna, Ayaka and Setsuna all cried.

"Sheesh, a girl tries to be nice," Haruna said, looking offended.

"And it was very nice gesture," Yue conceded. "Unfortunately, the very thought fills us with fear and terror. But it's the thought that counts, so thank you."

"You're welcome…?" Haruna said, running though the logic and coming to the conclusion it was mostly complimentary.

"Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come back," Yue said to Ayaka.

"Well, I had so much fun last time," Ayaka said graciously, the back of one hand raised ojou-ly to one cheek. "I'm so glad I'm not being presumptuous in asking if I may make the game a part of my regular schedule."

"I figure if you're going to be in our room while you do it, I could play along too," Asuna said casually. Only a highly experienced observer would have identified the small 'tsun' that followed this statement.

"May I just beg you for one little thing?" Nodoka asked. "Please always have summon spells prepared so I never have to be the meat shield?"

"Uh, sure?"

"Or animate dead, animate dead is good too."

"That's the zombie spell, right?" Asuna said. "I don't have that yet, but maybe I can get a wand?"

"Zombie and skeletons," Nodoka confirmed. "Skeletons are better though. Yue?"

"I'll allow a wand," Yue agreed.

"I'm not sure the Lady Schnee would use such a thing," Ayaka said.

"Skeletons it is!" Asuna said. "At least they won't disappear on you like summon monsters."

….

"What the hell!" Asuna raged. "Priests can hack my zombies? Don't they at least have a firewall to keep out that sort of thing?"

Asuna, meet necromancer clerics.

"See, this is what you get for making Charisma your dump stat," Haruna said. "Everyone knows you use Charisma for a lot more things than Intelligence."

Yue resisted the urge to evil laugh. She really had to switch out as GM soon, she was starting to act Haruna-esque.

So far, the game had been progressing smoothly. Negi hadn't died yet, and had been convinced that if he was going to keep charging forward like an idiot, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon and False Life were spells he needed to keep on hand at all times. Ayaka seemed to have put herself in the role of Negi-support, and so between the two of them Negi was finally not spending half his time making up new anagrams of 'Nagi Springfield'.

Yue had taken the daemon plot and run with it, setting up the mystery of who had summoned them. Haruna's disguise was getting a little thin on the ground, but so far everyone in-game still thought she was just the world's most badass orphan loli prostitute. Between Asuna's skeletons, and Ayaka's summons, Nodoka was getting her wish to not be a meatshield, and Konoka hadn't needed to officiate any funerals.

Her players had been too happy. Time to screw them over a little.

Hence, necromancer cleric. It was the usual, a townsperson was kidnapped and dragged off to the woods as a human sacrifice for daemons and future zombie material, but it was something for them to do while Yue finished wraping up her plot and looking for a replacment.

Asuna had grabbed the Core Book. "Is there a reset button for these things? An anti-virus spell?"

"Asuna, you're still in control of your zombies," Nodoka said. "It's just that you have shared control. On your turn, you still control them."

"But they attacked me!" Asuna said

"And that's why you shouldn't make Charisma your dump stat," Haruna advised sagely. "Don't worry everyone, I have a plan."

Everyone froze in terror.

"Don't worry, it's just a game. It's unlikely for even Haruna's plans to cause havoc through the fourth wall," Yue reassured them. And herself, while she was at it.

"Ha ha," Haruna said sarcastically. "Negi-sensei, Asuna, Ayaka, you still have fire spells…? Right. Set the woods on fire."

"You've been reading the Dresden Files again, haven't you?" Yue said flatly.

"Bolshevik muppet solution!" Haruna declared happily.

….

"Dearly beloved," Konoka intoned, "we are gathered here in the sight of the great goddess Sarenrae and one another to celebrate the memory of the late NPC Kidnap Victim, who died in a tragic forest fire caused by negligent rescuers. Taken hostage by an evil monster who is a disgrace to the religious vestments and holy symbol, he was absolutely helpless as he was tortured for several hours and used in unspeakable ways. He died thinking he would he rescued, and burned to death, likely to come back as some kind of daemon if I understand the cosmology correctly. NPC Kidnap Victim leaves behind his orc wife and three half-orc children, who will now likely be run out of town by the small-minded racists of Beacon… "

"Okay," Negi said. "My new character is a wizard named– "

"Negi-sensei, this funeral isn't for you," Yue said as she noted down that she should bring back the NPC as some sort of daemon.

"Oh, right!" Negi said sheepishly. "Sorry, force of habit."

"You're not even sorry!" Konoka said. "Aren't you afraid that one day, this poor man's sons are going to find you for revenge?"

Yue made a big show of jotting down 'half-orc children seeking revenge' on her notes.

"Will you people stop giving Yue ideas?" Haruna begged. "Why do you all not understand that you should never give the GM ideas?-!"

"Rookies," Yue said,a little smile on her face. "Gotta love 'em. So, what do you want to do next?"

….

As they played on, and Negi somehow managed to not get himself killed again, the rumor mill churned.

After all, someone was always watching Negi-sensei's room, lest lustful young women take advantage on an innocent boy's naivete (before the watcher could). Usually it was the Narutaki girls, who, despite being older than many of their peers, were, shall we say, vertically challenged, and thus easily overlooked due to being out of the usual line of site. Oh, and ninja training, but since they weren't very good at that yet (with the exception of pulling off the outfit, literally and figuratively), it was likely just a coincidence.

They'd also gotten the scoop on Asakura regarding goings on in Asuna, Konoka and Negi's dorm many times before, and now was another such time.

"This is huge," Fuuka said.

"Huge," Fumika agreed. "Who knew that Asuna and Ayaka were learning to be wizards too!"

They also regularly misheard their scoop. This was another such time.

"And Asuna's learning to make zombies," Fuuka said, shuddering. "I've seen this movie! That's not good! She's a bakaranger, she's going to end up messing up and causing a zombie apocalypse on campus!"

No one named Sayoko on campus sneezed. There is no such thing as Sayoko. Or anything related to such a non-existent thing.

"We have to warn everyone and keep Asuna from making a terrible mistake!" Fumika agreed.

They ran to look for backup, someone bite proof who wouldn't become a zombie when things went wrong…

….

- To be continued…

….

A/N: When all else fails, drop zombies or ninja on your players. Or zombie ninja. You can always make up the plot reason for why that happened later.

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.