Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. It's mostly for fun and a sort of self-therapy.
Notes: So, heads up, this is a revised version. This is still pretty bare bones, as the whole story so far is, but the original version of this chapter included a series of logical errors, especially in the "break" scene. I don't know what was going on in my head, but this should fix things up.
Chapter Eight: A Modern Day Symposium
Chloe didn't particularly mind the beach. It was, all in all, kind of nice, especially if you were there with friends. This time though, as she stood looking down at her boots in the sand, she had to admit she was not having as much fun as hoped. The sun was high enough overhead that it should have been warm but Chloe felt cool, inside and out. Exaggerated ruts in the sand showed the path she had been taking back and forth for longer than she could place. Each time the water rolled away from the shoreline, she approached it, drawn by a force she could not name.
Then, each time it crashed in, a panic sent her back in retreat. Her legs were beginning to ache and there was no sign of anyone who was supposed to be there with her, anyone who might be able to understand her fear. Overhead, a few birds flew inland. The air was unnaturally still, as if there was no wind to speak of. Occasionally, instead of the unnameable passionate lure that drew her toward the sea each time it retreated from her, she rushed forward in rage, only to backpedal quickly seconds later. It was hard not to recognize the behavior as absurd, as wrong and pointless. At best, she was wasting energy. At worst, anyone watching her would be losing faith.
The water came rushing back toward shore and she turned, retreating with her eyes clenched shut, heart rate rising. Something bumped unceremoniously into her knees, forcing her to open her eyes and walk around it to escape the soft wave chasing after her. She felt wet sand beginning to cake her boots and the ends of her pants legs, making all movement feel unnatural and slightly hindered . Looking down not at that sand, but at the object she bumped into, Chloe felt disconcerted. She was standing next to the largest D20 she had ever seen in her life, sleek and purple-black with bright red numbers, which seemed to glow. Nearly to her waist in height, the blazing red 20 beamed its light into the strangely darkening sky.
Chloe looked around to see who had rolled with such luck. As if she had always been there, though, Steph was leaning against the die, pulling her beanie down over long, dark hair and raising an eyebrow at her. For some reason, Chloe felt like Steph was out of place. Her father should have been standing there instead, but that seemed like a really rude thing to say. Reacting to something on Chloe's face that Chloe could not quite imagine, Steph gave her a soft, almost apologetic smile, gesturing to the die.
"You critted," Chloe told her with a grimace as a bright red wall of light rose between them from the number facing the sky. "Bad news for some poor sap." Steph nodded, silent, though the apologetic smile did not fade away. "I'm that poor sap, aren't I?" Chloe sighed and turned back toward the water.
"Un-for-tu-nate," Steph emphasized, as if she were a fellow sufferer of the cruel GM hand of fate instead of the one rolling the dice. Chloe mimicked her, leaning against it. The water never seemed to reach the die, as if it provided some sort of natural force that kept it back.
"I'm guessing I failed my saving throw, to top it all off?" She was joking when she asked but Steph's response did feel a little like a jab in the ribs.
"Yeah, you did." The sound of a breeze through trees rose around Chloe as she turned back to the water even though there was neither wind nor trees.
"Every time the water comes in, I feel like it's going to crush me," she told Steph, feeling foolish at the confession. "Like, it feels like it's going to shatter every bone in my body." A raven sounded to her right, making Chloe's head turn. Instead of a bird, though, she saw Rachel and Mikey passing within reaching distance of the die, chatting animatedly to each other about whether he should roll an attack or just back away. Together, they passed the die, making Chloe's stomach knot up all over again. They were going to the water even though the wave was about to push back in. She reached out and just barely grabbed hold of Rachel's shoulder. With a confused expression, Rachel shrugged her off.
"Chloe, your fears are holding you back," Rachel told her, her voice calming and placative. She took time to pat Chloe's hand, an expression far more affection than patronization, but eventually she followed Mikey to the water, making some comment about his glasses being filthy.
"I guess," he told her, chuckling, too. "At least they're not rose colored, right?" Chloe turned her head to Steph.
"Hey," Steph said, standing up straight to raise both hands, as if in denial. "Don't look at me. I'm with you, fear is pretty natural. It keeps you alive. It stops you from doing stupid shit like running into a burning building or some dark cave swarming with Kobold."
"I guess," Chloe agreed, lifting herself up to sit on sleek, dark die between them. It felt safer than being on the ground. Steph seemed to mirror her. "But I really wish I could be like them." She gestured to Rachel and Mikey who had stopped talking long enough to kick their shoes off and allow the water to flow over their feet. "That seems like a lot more fun of a way to live." Steph nodded amiably enough and then sighed.
"You're afraid of being like her, though." Even as she spoke, movement over one of Steph's shoulders caught Chloe's eyes and she followed Max as she rushed for the ocean. She was dressed for a burning hot summer's day at the beach, unlike the rest of them. Even Mikey and Rachel weren't in bathing suits. It was way too cold for that. Chloe dropped to her feet as Max ran into the water with abandon. Her hair streamed behind her for a moment and then settled as Max stopped, up to her waist in the water, laughing as she tried to stay standing in the waves. Why couldn't she see, why couldn't the others see?
In the distance, a huge wave had formed and was approaching them at an unreasonable speed, a wall of water on the horizon. Chloe shook her head and when she pointed to it, Rachel and Mikey retreated toward the die, carrying their wet shoes, laughing. On the other hand, Max dove straight into the surf. Chloe took a step toward the water and then a hand came down, vicelike, on her shoulder. Turning back, Chloe was treated to the sight of Rachel, livid.
"Sometimes you roll the dice, sometimes you disengage and live to fight another day, crawl another dungeon, save another village." Chloe glanced back at Steph. "Other times, you stand between two burning villages and, well, then what do you do?"
"I don't know. Why does it have to be bullshit metaphors?" fear and irritation were rising. Chloe had to break free of Rachel's grasp and go drag Max out of the water before that monster wave hit her and pulled her out to sea. That would mean abandoning Rachel to that wave, though and if she were washed out of Arcadia Bay by anything, Chloe might as well just dive into the water and never climb out. Angrily, she turned back to Steph, but she and Mikey already had their backs to the ocean. Over her shoulder, Steph threw something back toward Chloe. She watched the smaller, normal D20 fly through the air and then roll unnaturally through the sand, past her and toward the water. If it reached the surf, she would never see what it landed on. As she reached down toward the die, the sound of wind was replaced by the familiar noise of a window opening, but there was no window to be seen around her. Chloe knew someone was leaving her.
"Hey, Chloe, you with us?" Chloe's head jerked up from the die in her hand, where she had been staring before she became lost in remembering that morning's dream. Glancing briefly around Steph's kitchen table, she smiled. "I knew you didn't get enough sleep." Rachel sounded a mix between concerned and exasperated.
"Someone keep you up all night?" Steph asked Chloe, looking up from behind her screen. "Don't worry about sparing us all the juicy details. I'm sure Mikey won't mind." To Chloe's left Mikey rolled his eyes behind his glasses. Feeling slightly embarrassed herself, she glanced at the boy who had grown both more broadly shouldered and taller over the summer and then back to Rachel. Beside Rachel, Max was looking rather pointedly down at her character sheet, though she wore a smile.
"Anyway," Chloe finally decided on saying, "Sorry about that. Spaced way out for a minute." Glancing up at Steph, she asked, "Is it my turn?" Steph nodded quickly, mercifully willing to give up on her earlier teasing. Shit, I think I spaced through Mikey introducing his character. "I decided to go back to a barbarian for this one, but-" she said, before Mikey could look too excited, "this is no puny elf! I am Dre'na, the savage Orc Barbarian from the northeastern hills. I am a deserter from my people's army because I got bored of smashing dwarfs over the head so someone else could make a killing off of their gold. Now, I'm out to get mine and I'm perfectly fine using this great club my father carved for me to get it done. I haven't decided what my subclass will be, but if we're caster heavy I'll probably go berserker. People won't really have time to worry about a mage melting their face off if a huge Orc woman is about to break those faces."
It was always kind of awesome to see how much Steph actually genuinely enjoyed game mastering, even though Chloe had been doing this just long enough to see that it could be really stressful from time to time, especially in non-combat situations. When CHloe finished her introduction and began going over her stat distribution, Steph was still grinning, though she looked relieved when Chloe remembered to produce a spare copy of her character sheet for her to reference. Chloe glanced over at Rachel, waiting for the big reveal. She's been laughing about this whenever I asked for like a week. Beside her, finishing a drink from a brown longneck bottle, Rachel pulled her sheet from the folder in front of her and Chloe closed her own on top of the paper containing the mechanical information for Dre'na the Orc Barbarian.
"I am going to be playing a Cleric named Che," Rachel said, turning to fix a look on Chloe who opened her mouth to object. "I agreed after someone made a big deal out of a simple TPK, to not play a mage this time. I didn't say anything about not playing a caster." Damn it, Chloe conceded, shutting her mouth. Beside Rachel, Max pumped her fist. "Che," Rachel continued, looking and sounding smug, "is a human Cleric of the great god Hephaestus, the lord of smithing, forging, invention and- "
"Fire," Mikey finished in time with Rachel. He sounded half miserable as he said it, but Rachel just fixed a beaming smile on him from across the table, one of pure innocence and good will. Steph fought not to look excited at the idea, but it did not work. Evil GM is plotting evil, Chloe noted of the look.
"Yep," Rachel said, as if Mikey had been asking her a question instead of lamenting the potential of another character dying in quite literal friendly fire. "She is from the northern mountains where a lot of mixed dwarven/human/halfling settlements are." Chloe made a mental note that her character might have wandered up that way at one point. "And she is definitely going to try to keep any unnecessary violence in check, but sometimes to craft a sword you need to crack a few eggs."
"That doesn't make any sense," Steph told her, matter-of-factly, and then happily accepted a spare character sheet from Rachel. "Last but not least, the newcomer. Hit us with it, Max." Max unfolded one of her sheets, sliding the other toward the GM screen before she started to read.
"Well," Max said, "I couldn't really decide on a class, so Steph told me what supplemental books she had access to and I picked one of those up a few weeks ago." Chloe nodded to herself, eager to see a bit of extra flavor added to the party. "So, I decided on playing a Chronomancer." Not sure I've heard of one of those, but sounds cool enough. "Early on that basically just means I'll be able to make people slow down or maybe even freeze for like a turn, maybe throw some pretty magic bolts at them but if I survive and level up, I think this thing is hella powerful."
"Absolutely, hella," Steph said, as if humoring the word. "I've also never GM'd for one, so we'll probably have to get a little experimental at first as we try to figure it out. Have patience with me?" Max nodded in agreement. "So tell us about your Chronomancer."
"Well, he's kind of a scrawny thing," she said, "born in the capital city but he moved off for a few years. He never really had to work for food and kind of lived really richly. But he spent most of his time reading and uh," Max paused, and Chloe could hear a lot of her own hesitation from when she first started playing. "Oh, his name is Jule. He's mostly just got his spellbooks and a staff to whack people with. If he loses that he has a couple of spells that can help up close and personal but he's going to get really hurt if he has to." Steph nodded.
"Awesome. Combat's going to be kind of different than before, now. We don't usually have so much crowd control. Between the Druid and the Chronomancer, you should be able to have some fun. Though, I can't wait to see Mikey's character and Chloe's interact." Chloe looked sheepishly back at Steph. "What?"
"When I was spacing earlier, I might have missed the Druid being introduced." Mikey shook his head, but it wasn't out of any actual irritation.
"Tl;dr," he started, in that way he had of using textspeak in actual conversation, "Dwarf Druid of the northern hills. A roaming band of Orcs destroyed his town." Of course, Chloe thought, nodding. Steph won't try to use her homebrewed Character Points to try to tease arguments out of us. Chloe actually enjoyed the idea of those Character Points. It was Steph's way of trying to make them play out their characters' motivations and personalities more deeply by offering a point that could be exchanged for a reroll on an important roll. Mikey thought they took away some of the risk, but preferred the roleplay element over the whole 'nearly dying a thousand times at level one' thing, as he put it. "I'm not sure how that will play out, but what's an adventure without a little drama."
"There's going to be plenty of drama," Steph said, leaning forward. Her 'GM's Voice' was in place and Chloe grinned sideways to Rachel. She wasn't sure when she started to get so into this again, but she had. The fact that Rachel and later Max agreed to come along with her was pretty awesome, she thought for not the first time. "Last but not least, now that we've heard about everyone's characters, does anyone have any thoughts about the party, before we get started?" Max, who had just pulled a face that suggested the contents of the bottle in her hand was not water, sat her drink down and spoke.
"I'm just glad there's no spunky bunnygirl mage." Chloe's head snapped up and she tried to promise the most horrendous, torturous death that she could imagine in the look she shot past Rachel, to Max. Looking like a small child viewing a mountain of presents beneath her Christmas tree, Steph gestured for Max to go on, excitedly. Rachel was, on the other hand, watching Chloe, her expression clearly announcing she was biding her time, waiting for this to mean what she thought it meant, to use it against Chloe. "Well, I mean, the only other campaign of any type of game like this I've ever played, there was this friend," Chloe groaned and lowered her head to the table. "And she demanded that we include a race that was basically bunny people. This friend loved Hip-Hoppy, her spunky bunnygirl mage."
"Just stop," she all but wailed at Max.
"Oh god," Rachel cut across her, excitedly. "Don't stop, go on."
"Please," Mikey started. "I know we don't know each other well, but Max, I implore you to continue." He continued to pose as if he was exaggeratedly begging.
"What was her catchphrase?" Max asked Chloe, who instead of responding began to shake her head emphatically. "Oh right, 'Did that hurt? I don't carrot all.'" A peal of laughter sounded from behind the GM screen, where Steph was now hiding her face. Mikey and Rachel were clearly in agreement with the game master and when Chloe raised her head, Max was smiling innocently down at her character sheet.
"Fuck this," Chloe said, emphatically. She crossed the kitchen in two or three steps and secured a beer from the refrigerator. There was something to be said for being basically left alone more often than not in your home, as Steph didn't seem to hesitate to keep the fridge stocked with beer. Though, how precisely she got it in a town small enough it was unlikely she could get away with a fake ID for long, Chloe never knew. She just enjoyed providing beer money. "Okay, okay, so weren't we going to play this game?" she asked, hearing the laughter beginning to die. When she sat down, Chloe's half-hearted annoyance was squashed beneath the hand which came to rest on her right knee.
"Alright," Steph said, pulling herself together. "No more of that," she said, "not until we break for the bathroom or dinner." Chloe groaned, resisting the urge to hide her face once more. Beside her, Mikey muttered something about 'carrot cake' for desert. "Now, my friends. We fade in on the acropolis of the capital city at dusk, where you've all been summoned as able bodied men and women capable of providing help to the city in a dark time. To the east, a great host of men approach, the light of their torches making dusk into morning. You have heard that the forces opposing the crown family were growing in number, but it seems that propaganda was trying to make it seem less scary than it really was, because an army is marching on the capital."
"Oh-ho, ominous," Mikey declared, pushing his glasses up and looking eagerly down at the back of the GM sheet as he sometimes did, like he thought if he stared hard enough then he could see through it somehow to Steph's stacks of notes. "So they're just rounding up everyone out in the streets who look capable of fighting?" Steph nodded.
"Yes, and that brings us to the obvious question. What were each of you doing when you were rounded up?" Steph looked first right at Mikey but then her eyes shifted down the line of them to Max. "What about Jule, where was he when the guards came?" Far from looking put on the spot and unable to guess, as Chloe sometimes felt when Steph turned those GM Eyes of hers on her character, Max contemplatively worked couple of fingers through her hair before she answered.
"I think what I was doing at that point was sitting outside of an inn in the city reading. I really didn't want to spend much money to get a room, but if I sat outside of it under a torch, it would look like I was a customer of the inn just looking for some fresh air." Steph nodded and Chloe had to admit it at least sounded like she was trying to establish a character. When, after a second Max had not continued Steph took the reigns.
"So, you're sitting out there reading, Jule and these two guards in like, leather armor basically come up to you, size you up and tell you to come to them, what did that look like? What happened then." Max again took the question in stride.
"I think Jule probably decided to come with them, but not without question. In fact, I think he sort of just kept asking them questions until they roughed him up anyway or something." Steph nodded and then looked at Rachel next.
"And what about you, Che?" Chloe turned toward her, watching with a crooked smile as Rachel's face contorted in concentration.
"I guess I was spending the evening touring the acropolis," she said, eager to move along and get the focus off of her, as she could sometimes be when sessions first started out.. "A couple of the stalls in the open air market have some really cool blacksmiths running them, so I'd probably be there looking at the hammers and spears and stuff. Most of those big weapons are more paladin territory but I am a priest of Hephaestus. I can't help but admire the craftsmanship." Steph looked a little impressed and amused by the tone Rachel was taking as she got into character. Better, Chloe thought, Though that's a hard act to follow.
"So, Che, as you were looking at this really cool iron warhammer, the atmosphere was starting to change, lots of people talking kind of excitedly and then kind of nervously, guards bringing civilians up onto the acropolis and people were starting to look east. When a guard approached you and told you that every able bodied person who looked capable or educated was going to have to stay in the acropolis, what did you do?" Rachel was a lot more confident this time, Chloe noticed. She got better and better about roleplaying like this each time they met. It was probably a side effect of the general 'being Rachel Amber' thing she did, where no matter what she put her mind to, she eventually did it really well and people had fun watching.
"Frankly?" Rachel started, affecting a sort of snooty tone. It had taken Chloe a while to get used to actually roleplaying but once Rachel got used to it she fell into it fairly easily. Probably because it's a lot like acting in some ways, Chloe realized. That makes sense. "Normally I wouldn't let them stand in my way, but if Hephaestus could deal with being brought home drunk on a donkey to his horrible family, I could sit up here and shop for a nice dagger for a while, right? Plus, it's getting really bright out that way and that makes no sense. The sun sets in the west so why would the east be getting brighter?" Steph laughed.
"Good shit on keeping up with your mythology," she added, to which Rachel bowed her head for a second. "Yeah, I think that makes sense." Chloe gulped, realizing that Steph was looking pointedly at her. "Well, then, Dre'na? What were you doing when things got kind of tense on the streets of the capital city?" Okay, well, fuck it. Play her like she was you if you weren't always scared. Chloe nodded to herself, grinned crookedly at Steph and answered.
Time passed fairly quickly after that. Things usually went quickly during sessions of their campaigns, especially before the first break. Max fit into the group like a cog in a machine, surprisingly and her character ended up playing off of Mikey's fairly well so that Chloe and Rachel spent a lot of time amusedly watching the two volley back and forth in-character jibes. However, almost three hours after they all sat down to start playing, none of the characters were amused or in a mood for banter even though, generally speaking, the players were in good spirits.
"Alright, Che, your healing spell last turn worked like a charm. Jule has not only gotten back up from being completely unconscious, but he's cast a spell on the undead soldier hurrying after you. They've frozen in their tracks, but you know from experience it will only last a few seconds." Rachel nodded, palming her D20. "Tell us, Che. Gor has clobbered his foe to death. One of the guards assigned to keep you prisoner is bearing down on Dre'na and the other is right in front of you. What do you do?" Chloe couldn't help but match the huge grin on Rachel's face. When she was genuinely amused and enjoying herself, how the hell did anyone not catch Rachel's mood?
"Dre'na could knock that other asshole's head off if she wants. So, instead, I'll cast sacred flame on the skeleton right in front of me." Steph nodded and that was all the signal Rachel seemed to need to roll. Chloe leaned forward, trying to catch sight of the D20 as it grew still. "Eighteen," Rachel declared, and Mikey pumped his fist.
"You've rolled more than high enough to hit so go ahead and roll a d8 for me." Several weeks ago, before Chloe agreed to start doing semi-regular sessions of this, she wouldn't have thought that the sound of dice rolling was especially pleasant. Now, though she associated it with the sessions, with fun moments in which the dice rolls and player intent worked together to create really fun story moments that usually left people laughing. As Rachel's d8 rolled across the table, landing on a six, Steph pulled a moderately impressed face. "It's just enough to do the job. The magic sinew holding the skeleton together burns away under your holy light. What does it look like?"
"FIre from the forge of Hephaestus pours of out of her holy symbol, a steel hammer and just consumes the bones whole." Steph nodded and Chloe had to admit she could appreciate the mental image of a skeleton being burned to ash by the holy fire of a god. Rachel looked to be enjoying herself. As Chloe considered what to do, Steph turned to look at her expectantly.
"There's a skeleton in tattered leather armor bearing down on you and unlike Che's, he can move. He's got a scimitar in his hand and it looks like he's ready to use it. What do you do?"
"Simple," Chloe answered, well into the groove of her character. "I'm already Raging so I'm going to be doing plenty of damage, I raise the great club in my hand and bring it down hard on his head. I'm going to attack recklessly too. This is the last guard we've got to deal with, I'm so done with being someone's prisoner." Steph nodded.
"Make your roll and I'll remember that Gor cast Guidance on you." Chloe did as she was bade and rolled the d20 twice and then a small four sided die. Looking down at her notes, Steph nodded briefly. "Your highest was a sixteen, plus two. It hits." Chloe dug into the little pile of dice in front of her to whip out an eight-sided die. "Go ahead," Steph instructed, and she rolled.
"Six," she told the girl.
"Excellent. Yeah, your club comes down on its head and its skull literally splinters." The amused air quieted slightly as the party waited to hear Steph's further description. She parted fairly distinct, shapely lips which Chloe felt a little guilty for noticing and then, with a grin, added. "It dies on impact and crumbles to the ground. The last skeleton in the prisoner section is dead. The camp is still swarming with them, but you are free for the moment."
"Time to run?" Rachel asked.
"Time to run," Mikey and Max responded in unison. Chloe certainly had no objection.
"We probably should tell the royal guard that these aren't opposition forces marching on the city," Max murmured, her voice taking on the nasally quality of her character's voice to suggest she was speaking as him. "Though, if they're less worried that an army of the undead are about to attack, then I'll be a little worried about our government."
"Yes," Chloe replied, doing her best to voice her character with short, quick and blunt words. . "Uh, I would rather we get out and tell them so we can uh, bring more soldiers and crack more skulls!" Steph nodded.
"Then if there are no objections we'll take a break right now and come back to the party trying to escape from this military camp." Max sat back, cracking her knuckles, in a way that mirrored Chloe's own habits. Where did that even come from? It must've been something we both saw. Amused at the mystery, Chloe got to her feet. No objection came and Steph lowered her GM's Screen so that it covered her notes and exposed her a little more fully. "Then we're breaking." Though it was fun as hell, there was a certain relief when they took a break. She was neither expected to come up with anything in character nor roll the dice when the difference between a good or bad roll was another character's life or death.
"Your guidance roll kicked ass," Chloe said, raising her hand and receiving a high five from the boy to her left.
"You kicked ass, but, we're going to have to pass some stealth checks if we want to get out of the camp," Mikey observed as he bagged his dice. "That might be difficult for our barbarian friend."
"You know," Max said, "If we have to fight it shouldn't be a big deal. I don't really carrot all." Chloe shook her head once as Mikey and Rachel burst into immediate laughter. After a second, Max dug into her bag pulled out her camera. I'm not pouting, Chloe told herself, glaring in Rachel's direction. A quick flash from the camera washed over the three of them and then Chloe turned away. The sound of Max waving the new photo about was just audible as Mikey and Rachel quieted down. Steph sat back in her seat, surveying things as if she was proud of what was happening.
"Nope," she said, "just nope." Chloe crossed from the kitchen table to the refrigerator and opened it. There wasn't a ton of food left in the fridge, leaving Chloe to hope that Steph had some sort of back up plan that didn't involve packages of Maruchan ramen. Then again, she could probably afford to eat out every day for a month. Some half formed innuendo in a corner of her mind rose up and fell flat and Chloe came up with a fresh beer before heading toward the glass sliding double door on the far kitchen wall. "I need a beer and a smoke," she announced before stepping through the doors. She doubted Max was going to actually try to embarrass her, that wasn't her style. Just in case, though, she was going to make a quick escape.
"I'd come with you," Rachel called at her retreating form, "but I have a story to hear first." Chloe actively ignored her this time, shutting the sliding door behind her. Judging by her phone it was only three in the afternoon when she leaned against the back wall of Steph's home. With a tall enough privacy fence of wood and "unfortunately" absent parents, Steph was typically on her own. This meant she could do more or less what she wanted, whether that was drinking well before she should have been legally able or hosting a tabletop session all day. Standing there, with the fence up as a guard against the prying eyes of the rest of Arcadia Bay, Chloe could appreciate the privacy.
She lit a cigarette and drew deeply from it. Whatever shenanigans were going on inside, as she leaned against the wall and enjoyed a smoke, Chloe was smiling. So far, the first session had been so fun. Whether it was combat or just the party sniping at each other in conversation, it felt like friends making jokes. It felt like laying in bed during childhood sleepovers with Max laughing about nothing. It usually does, Chloe admitted, taking a long pull from the bottle in her left hand. Still, everything's gone really well so far, but we've got hours still for Steph to really fuck us up. Chloe checked her messages.
Mom
How are things going?
Me
Everything's fine mom. We're just rolling dice and being slowly turned into bigger and bigger nerds. I think I might stay here tonight so I can hang out with Steph and Mikey. I don't know about everyone else though. Max probably has to go back to the dorms. She's okay. I think she and Mikey are going to be friends. They're both huge nerds.
Determined not to answer any further messages from her mother that night, Chloe took another long drink, half expecting to empty the bottle in her hand. It wasn't quite empty when she was done, but it was closing in on it. I probably ought to slow down a little, we've still got a long session ahead. Over her left shoulder, the back door to the house slid opened and closed shut. She turned briefly, expecting Rachel but instead it was Steph who stepped out. As far as Chloe knew, Steph didn't particularly go out of her way to smoke tobacco, so she didn't offer Steph a smoke. Chloe tried to offer a friendly enough smile and exhaled.
"So, how's it going?" Steph asked, when she was leaning against the back wall of the couch. "Ready for your big return to Blackwell?"
"Yeah," Chloe answered. "I'm also ready to have you in Ms. Grant's biology class." Steph grimaced.
"Biology's really not my strong suit," she confessed. Chloe turned and examined the brunette. For maybe the second time she couldn't help but think that if Rachel was going to fall for any girl at Blackwell it probably ought to be Steph. Not only was she generally more open about being attracted to girls, Steph was just, generally, in a classical sense, attractive. Chloe wasn't sure whether it was just the general confidence with which she conducted daily life or the dark, sharp eyes that usually plainly stated her moods but that's how it was. "Do me a favor and if you hear me fuck up in class, let me know."
"After class of course," Chloe bargained. Steph snorted and shook her head.
"You're a pain in my ass Chloe Price." Chloe nodded this time, as if that was both normal and expected.
"Really, though," Chloe admitted, though it felt weird to talk about this when she usually did not, "I really like physics and math better than biology. So, like, don't expect me not to fuck up," Steph nodded and crossed one ankle in front of the other as she leaned against the wall, looking up at the clouds very absentmindedly. Chloe would take it as the action of someone intoxicated if Steph wasn't the game master and very clearly had touched neither a blunt nor a beer the whole afternoon. She was half tempted to pull the small, inexpertly rolled blunt from the small tin in her pocket and offer it. Instead she offered Steph what little beer remained in the bottle in her hand. She laughed and took it.
"Enjoying things so far?" Steph asked her.
"Yeah, totally. This campaign's been fun so far. It's like we can't succeed an important roll unless it involves breaking a bone." Steph laughed, putting aside the beanie on her head as she sought to half-tame her hair. Chloe counted her blessings at not having enough hair to worry about that. "What about you?"
"Dude," Steph said, brushing the hair across her right ear back behind it, as a sort of surrender to the larger struggle. "No joke? I'm loving it." Chloe nodded a couple of times and then discarded the cigarette butt. "Max was a good addition to the party. I mean, I know you ended up going down twice but you probably would've been down like four times without Jule." Chloe had to admit that was true. When it came to healing someone who was already down, a Cleric was desperately needed. When it was a matter of slowing down the enemy when they might attack you while you were low, a Chronomancer had proven to be absolutely epic. For a moment Chloe almost felt the urge to confess the dream she had the night before to Steph. She kept quiet instead but the brunette's dark eyes were shooting knowing glances periodically. Chloe tried not to read into them too much.
"I figured you and Mikey would get along with Max pretty well." Steph seemed to nod and drew a long drink from the bottle. Chloe figured it was probably empty at that point.
"She's a good part of the party."
"I was hoping," Chloe said. "She's just getting started again and she doesn't have any friends around here. Like, no one I can think of at Blackwell was at our school when we were kids."
"Are you thinking you and Rachel might want to crash here tonight? Mikey's going to." Chloe nodded, embarrassed. It was no secret among their little friend group that things were absolute shit between Chloe and Rachel and their families. Then again, Steph spent most of her time in this house alone, with her own parents gone on business. "What about Max?" Chloe shrugged.
"Probably?" she answered, though she wasn't sure. "Or she might just go back to the dorms."
"Don't worry about it. We've got a guest room, two big couches and enough pillows and blankets to build the greatest fort ever if we so desired." For a moment, Chloe remembered being young, eight or nine and staring out of a huge blanket fort at Max, who was asking for 'permission to come aboard, Captain Bluebeard.' She grinned. Steph looked toward the door.
"Want another beer?" Chloe let her secure them both another bottle and in the meantime looked up at the sky. It was actually a gorgeous, bright kind of a day. "You know?" Chloe turned with the bottle in her hand halfway to her lips. Steph's dark eyes were not quite so wide as she turned her gaze on Chloe. "Max caught on pretty quick for dealing with people she didn't know." Chloe was going to agree but there was something in the look on Steph's face that gave away what she was going to say next before she even spoke. "She is pretty cute." Chloe instantly looked about for a change of subject. It wasn't about agreeing or disagreeing with Steph, it was mostly that there was no safe response. Still, out of the corner of her eye she watched the girl, spotting the distant cousin of lust in her's. That could be a total clusterfuck waiting to happen. Chloe took a long, long drink. Cheap beer, but it's cold. "Whatever happened to Hip-Hoppy?" Chloe turned her bottle upside down but nothing more came out. Without answering she opened the door.
"Nope," she told Steph, wondering how many times she was going to have to say it that day. The sound of a camera shutter announced that, as always used to be the case, another moment which seemed completely random to her had drawn Max's eye as the perfect photo opportunity. She and Steph received a grin from the photographer, who looked down at the new polaroid beginning to take shape in her hand before furrowing her brow in a momentary confusion that she instantly buried. Didn't come out so well, did it? Chloe thought. When Max went right back to talking with Mikey, Chloe took a second to be both impressed and relieved. Good, I get the feeling those two should hang out.
"Chloe?" she turned toward the short hall leading to, among other places, the bathroom. At seeing Rachel return to the kitchen, Steph brushed past Chloe eagerly making for the hall. Chloe followed a step or so behind, grabbed Rachel's hand without asking what she wanted and, earning herself a smile, lead her to out into the living room. Steph's house was not huge, but it was rather richly furnished. It was hard to draw any kind of comparison between Steph's place and Rachel's except to say that they looked like they belonged to families of two different class brackets. Steph's place looked a lot more like her own, except that most of the furniture was clean and new. "Having a good time?"
"Yep," Chloe answered, collapsing onto the large, extra comfy couch in front of the dark, silent television. She pulled insistently and Rachel dropped into the seat beside her. Not quite content to leave it at that, Rachel stretched out, her legs ending up across Chloe's lap. Chloe didn't mind. She found herself tracing a hand down the still relatively recent addition of the dragon tattoo on the outside of Rachel's calf. Eventually, though, she was forced to look up and hope that she was not about to be teased for kind of taking the initiative. Or for liking rabbits when I was ten.
Instead of speak right off the bat, Rachel simply stared. It was not a puzzled look or a searching one. It was the kind that Rachel gave her when Chloe did something that made her happy, or, as she put it, "amazed at you." It was the kind Rachel gave her when they were alone and allowed to be close without having to think about anyone or anything else. It could either make Chloe uncomfortable (in a good way, I think) or afflict her with the proverbial butterflies in her stomach. It often, she reflected, meant that something else was coming. She found herself waiting this time.
"Who wants to pitch in on a pizza?" Mikey called from the kitchen. Rachel turned her head, looking bemused, toward the hall between the rooms.
"We literally just ate lunch before we started!"
"Yeah but that was like three or four hours ago!" Chloe shook her head, smiling at the sudden break in tension.
"Are you having fun?" she asked Rachel, forced to conclude that their moment had passed.
"Uh, duh," Rachel answered. "I got to burn a mother fucking skeleton to death. How does it get better than that?" Chloe had to admit she was enjoying smashing things over the head instead of trying to play a charismatic character like, say, a bard again. "Plus, this girl I've been hanging out looks like she's getting assertive and I can dig that." Trying not to show the slight tinge of embarrassment, Chloe kept a straight face. Win the battle, win the war.
"Are you sure all you've been doing is hanging out?" she asked, grinning. Rachel shifted her legs from the couch to the floor and leaned in. For a moment Chloe's breath hitched and she licked lips that felt slightly chapped almost reflexively. Instead of what she thought was coming, Rachel pressed her forehead to Chloe's and for a moment Chloe allowed herself to look into the girl's hazel eyes. Sometimes they can look so bright. "Why are you so damn good to me?"
"Why shouldn't I be?" If Chloe thought for a full second, she might come up with a response to that. Instead the door to the bathroom opened and closed. She looked up to see Steph pausing, almost back in the kitchen. To her credit, the look of apology, of someone who had seen something they shouldn't have lasted only about a half second before she fixed a smirk on them both.
"Alright, lovebirds. Let's see if the party wants to set out." The clearly distinct sound of pretzels pouring from a bag into a large bowl sounded from the kitchen. "Before Mikey eats me out of house and home." It's no biggie, Chloe told herself, though she could not help but think, in the back of her mind, that Steph was probably still crushing on Rachel, which would explain the awkwardness when she saw them a moment ago. Rachel got up without a second thought, so Chloe rose to follow her.
When they got back to the kitchen, Max was on her laptop. For just a moment, Chloe got a look at a folder on her screen. Every filename visible was absolute gibberish, Max was scrolling through them as if actually searching for a specific one. After a quick second, Chloe was spotted from the corner of the photographer's eye, or maybe it was simply drawn by Steph and Rachel walking past her while Chloe did not. Max closed the file quickly and Chloe decided not to ask. Maybe I caught her looking through her porn folder, fuck if I know.
"Enjoying the game?" Chloe asked instead.
"Hell yeah," Max responded. "Way more fun than when we were kids."
"Also, we're actually following the rules of the game, so way more complicated." Instead of immediately acknowledging the statement, Max riffed off of it.
"Significantly less killing though, so far." Chloe had to agree. "What happened to Sandy, anyway?"
"Moved away like the next year remember?" Max shook her head. "Yeah, no one heard from her ever again." For one ugly moment, Chloe thought of Max's year or so of silence and had to remind herself, as she took her place between Rachel and Mikey, that that was all over and behind them. Without asking or even looking, she reached to her left and grabbed a handful of pretzels from the bowl between her and Mikey.
"See?" Mikey said, talking across her to Rachel. "Someone else is hungry."
"Someone else is also drinking a little," Rachel clarified. "This is how she always gets when she's drinking." Chloe just shrugged.
"When you're right you're right," she agreed. Chloe had to admit, her mood was pretty high at this point. The idea that she didn't have to go back to step-dick and leave Rachel out in the junkyard that night took the last real roadblock from having fun out of the way. There was another potential benefit that Chloe didn't like to think about too hard. It meant she and Rachel could probably wind up a lot like they had the night before. There was something to be said for practice and Chloe felt like the one thing she needed practice with the most was just not being so awkward about cuddling. Like, it's not supposed to feel so awkward, is it? Not bad or anything, just I feel like I'm doing it wrong. Okay, Chloe, you're overthinking shit. You need another beer.
"Alright, everyone," Steph said. "We all set?"
"One sec," Max called. "Finishing an e-mail." Chloe took the opportunity to get herself (and at Rachel's bidding, her too,) a beer. "Alright, done."
"Mom and dad?" Chloe asked as she sat back down. Beside her, Mikey was digging his dice out of the bag.
"Nah, a couple of people from Seattle." Steph was starting to look at her notes. Ah yeah, it's time to go.
"That girl you're always talking about?" she asked. "What was her name?"
"No, not her," Max answered, quickly as she closed her laptop. "Anyway, I'm good to go."
"Alright," Steph replied. "Then in that case, we come back to a sweeping, wide view of the camp. It's organized, even though these skeletons seem to be completely brainless." Chloe laughed. "Nice, neat rows of tattered tents, plenty of space between them, that kind of thing. What's weird is when you were brought in, you didn't see a single skeleton going in and out of them. Now, you're loose. Che and Jule are a little injured but everyone's gotten them both back on their feet. I think this is where we zoom in on the group. You're standing around, broken shackles hanging off you and there's just like, three or four piles of bones around you. One of them is charred, another looks like it's been gnawed on by a bear-"
"Mostly because it was gnawed on by a bear," Mikey said. Steph spoke past him.
"Then there's the one whose skull is split in half." Chloe grinned, as if to say, damn right it is.
"It's time to bounce," Rachel said.
"It's time to fuck up some skeletons," Chloe corrected her.
"That's my girl." Oh, shit. Chloe looked pointedly down at her dice.