"You know, in hindsight, I probably should've seen this coming at this point."
Izuku looked out at the group of people assembled at the common area's table as they smiled at him from their usual seating arrangements, with the notable addition of yet another pink haired individual who had made a space for herself where Koda usually sat and gave the group's resident polycule a convenient excuse to all sit closer together to compensate. Mina, as per usual, sat down next to Izuku's seat, eagerly awaiting the chance to greet him with a bright smile on her face.
"Surprise! Party of seven, ready to roll!" Mina cried out enthusiastically while Hatsume waved towards Izuku in the background.
"Greetings! I am delighted to have been invited to join this group's dungeon delving, dragon fighting escapades!" Hatsume remarked, holding up her character sheet and a set of metallic dice as Izuku chuckled at the two pink-haired girls' evident enthusiasm.
"Yeah, I can, uh, see that," he said. "And I gotta say, good job on the dice, Momo."
Momo chuckled in response. "Actually, I didn't make those," she clarified, causing Izuku to cock his head in confusion while Mina explained the situation.
"Yeah, turns out there's a guy in the Support class who's basically got the same quirk as Momoyao, except he can only use it in his right elbow, and he didn't want to get into the Heroics course anyway, so he mostly just uses it to make parts. Always elbows a hard surface when he makes stuff with it too, for some reason; I dunno if that's how the ability works or if he's just weird like that." Izuku simply nodded along, having wound up with more questions than he had started with, before taking a deep breath and making a decision on how to respond to his group's surprise.
"Well, screw it, y'all went to all this trouble, so we might as well just run Friday's session today," Izuku reasoned as he sat down at his seat and began setting up everything he would need, prompting the others to sit down as well.
"Or, hear me out: we do Friday's session anyway, for twice the shenanigans!" Kaminari suggested with a glint in his eyes which likewise shone in the eyes of Toru sitting next to him.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"Pirate adventure?" Kaminari asked right back, literally sparking with excitement.
"Pirate adventure!" Toru cried out excitedly, to which Izuku chuckled from behind the screen as he looked over the notes Jirou left him of what had occurred in the previous sessions.
"Oh, you two are gonna like what's in store for you, I can already tell," he remarked cryptically, turning to Hatsume in order to silence their attempts to get more information out of him. "So, Hatsume, could you go ahead and introduce your character so I can get an idea of what I'll be working with? Just basic things, you know: name, pronouns, class and race, the gist of your backstory, stuff like that. I dunno whether you've introduced them to the others, but just in case-"
"'Say no more, oh Mysterious Voice in the Sky!'" Hatsume interrupted, having already adopted a voice for her character that, at least to Izuku, seemed vaguely reminiscent of the quirky inventor lady villain turned somewhat morally ambiguous ally of the forces of good from the critically panned "All Might Adventures" cartoon from ten years ago. He hadn't even known that any of his classmates actually watched that show until now, much less that they also shared the same favorite character (after All Might, of course). It brought a slight smile to Izuku's face, almost totally unnoticed as the rest of the party focused intently on what Hatsume was saying.
"Okay, right off the bat, the voice is really endearing," Kaminari remarked off-handedly, to which Momo and Toru both nodded in agreement.
"'Why thank you, Guy I Haven't Met Yet!'" Hatsume chimed in yet again before settling into her proper introduction. "'In any event, greetings, everyone! You are now in the presence of the illustrious rock gnome inventor, Mynoa Swiftspan! I stand at a mere three feet in height and am most readily distinguished by my small breastplate armor, the dizzying array of gadgets and tools on my person, and my, surprisingly enough, entirely natural light pink hair. Gender is merely a construct of the social variety which, unlike constructs of the magical and mechanical varieties, I have no time for or interest in whatsoever! For this reason, any and all pronouns used to refer to me in the third person will be accepted without a second thought, although I tend to be most frequently perceived as female due to certain anatomical features which are as obvious as they are inconvenient!'" At this, although Hatsume continued without pause, the rest of the table shared a somewhat uncomfortable glance with each other before returning their attention to the new girl. "But enough about the frustrations of biology! Let us turn to a far more interesting subject: science! As could no doubt be easily surmised from my position as an inventor and my aforementioned love of magical and mechanical constructs, I am an artificer with training as a battle smith. Granted, this title is...admittedly rather misleading, considering the fact that I have not yet participated in a battle of any real significance. Indeed, I left my quaint village of rock gnomes in which I was raised and taught everything I know about mechanical engineering behind in pursuit of far grander designs, and I had hoped to make a name for myself in the bustling city of Maton, the city in which I was told that all things are possible. Instead, I have spent the last two months going from odd job to odd job, making sure that my lovely baby Gadget still remains functional while also trying desperately to maintain the shabby dwelling place I purchased in the city with all of the gold I had ever made in my entire life. Currently, I have accepted an open position as the technician for some place called the Fish in a Barrel Club, and start my first day of work there today. Perhaps through this, my luck will improve.'"
With that, Hatsume sat back down, giving the rest of the group a moment of silence to process the new girl's long winded introduction to her character before several players spoke up.
"Of course she has pink hair and pronouns," Kaminari quipped, earning him a high five from Toru and Mina while Jirou fondly rolled her eyes at his antics.
"Yeah, not sure how I feel about the last bit of the first half, but I liked the whole 'no time for gender' bit, so eh, you do you," Jirou remarked offhandedly, blushing slightly as she realized just what she had said while Hatsume simply nodded in response.
"Yes, I sense that may have been a bit too much information. Sorry about that," Hatsume replied, causing the group to brush the whole situation off before returning to the matter at hand.
"Well, with that out of the way, I think we can go ahead and get started," Izuku said, shifting into his typical narrator voice as he cleared his throat in preparation for the session's proper start. "When last we left our heroes, they had just saved the village of Fiddlesticks from an incursion of demons hailing from the Abyss, fighting their way through the demons that had already made it through to wreak havoc upon the village and sealing the portal leading to that plane with the help of their newest party member, the human cleric Yoko 'Yo-Yo' Yaominari." At this, Izuku paused to let the final sentence of his summary thus far sink in for the rest of the table, smirking from behind the safety of the DM screen as Jirou chuckled dryly with the rest of the party's eyes on her.
"Oh, you smug motherfucker, you're just loving this, aren't you?" Jirou remarked in a mock-offended tone of voice, making it clear that she wasn't actually all that upset. Kaminari and Momo, meanwhile, practically had hearts in their eyes after hearing her character's name.
"Aw, you made her last name both of our last names? That's so cute!" Kaminari said, sparking a bit as a result of his sheer happiness and enjoying Jirou's blush in response.
"And rather optimistic, depending on how you read it," Momo added on, teasingly pointing to her ring finger for Jirou in order to illustrate her point and only making Jirou more embarrassed. As Koda leaned over and whispered something to Hatsume, Izuku chuckled to himself.
"Alright, let me get back to the summary or they'll spend the whole session flirting with each other," Izuku joked while pointing towards the trio, Kaminari and Momo chuckling awkwardly as they couldn't exactly deny his claims. "Anyway, with the threat to Fiddlesticks vanquished, the group sets their sights upon the port city of Maton once more, now just over a day's travel away with the coming of dawn." With that, Izuku turned to the rest of the table. "So, you've got one more day of travel, and because I'm nice, I'm gonna just go ahead and say that you won't run into anything else in the woods; that whole Fiddlesticks thing was more of a detour than any d20 table random encounter possibly could be. So, with that in mind, what do y'all wanna do on the way to Maton?" The group went quiet for a moment before Mina came up with something.
"'So, listen, I'm a small town girl and I'm admittedly not quite sure how things work over in the big city, but I figure it's just common sense that if we're gonna try to get work there as an adventuring party, then we're gonna need a cool name,'" Mina remarked, seamlessly shifting into her Joy voice and causing the rest of the party to light up as they began brainstorming possibilities while Hatsume sat off to the side somewhat awkwardly before answering Izuku's unspoken question.
"I mean, I have some ideas, but since I'm technically not here yet, I don't know whether I can truly justify butting in on this group roleplaying moment at this point in time," Hatsume explained, causing Izuku to furrow his brow for a moment before coming up with a solution.
"Here's an idea: for this interaction, Hatsume will play the part of, let me just look here for a second..." Izuku began, pausing to take a look over at the notes Jirou left him before finishing his thought, "Ono, the Goddess of Fate that Yoko over there worships. You could, like, whisper suggestions to her in her mind or something." As Jirou shrugged in acceptance of this plan, Hatsume brightened up, eager to share her ideas.
"Well, in that case..." Hatsume began before shifting into a slightly more refined tone of voice. "'Yoko, dear, may I be so bold as to suggest that your group should be the Unlikely Heroes?'" Jirou chuckled before giving Yoko's response.
"'Great idea, ma'am, but I'll let the rest of the party offer up their suggestions first,' Yoko replies back in her head. She's kinda gotten used to Ono butting in every so often at this point." With that exchange momentarily done with, Kaminari spoke up next.
"'Well, we'd have to get a ship of our own to pull this one off, but maybe the Motley Crew could work. Eh? Because we'd have a ship?'" Momo had Rona scoff in response to the suggestion before clearing her throat and providing her own.
"'I personally would be more receptive to a name that marks out our group's achievements so far. You have to admit, the Demon Slayers has a nice ring to it.'" The rest of the group nodded, conceding the point before Toru decided to offer her two cents.
"'Maybe we could call ourselves the Hoods! I mean, I'm pretty sure we all have a hood, that's just common sense, plus that way we can carve out a whole niche for ourselves of stealing from people who actually deserve it and giving their wealth back to the poor...after subtracting a finder's fee, of course.'" Mina chuckled in response to Scratch's suggestion before responding.
"Main problem with that is that I don't think Robin Hood exists in D&D, Toru," Mina pointed out, causing Izuku to chuckle in turn.
"I mean, he could, but I don't think the group is quite as devoted to stealing as Scratch is," Izuku added on, giving Toru a sympathetic look as she purposefully exaggerated her displeasure.
"'Well, you started this; what's your idea, Joy?' Scratch asks, kinda darting back and forth between whether or not she should look straight at her," Toru said, causing Kaminari to smirk.
"I think we've already established that Scratch doesn't look 'straight' at her," he quipped, earning him a bemused sigh from Jirou and a high five from Mina before the pink girl responded.
"'Well, admittedly the main idea I had was to go the route of making it like a band name, so we can call ourselves Rona and the Renegades!'" Mina put forward, causing Jirou and Kaminari to nod along in agreement while Momo had Rona speak up in response.
"'Now hold on a moment, when was it decided that I would be the leader of our little band?' Rona asks, crossing her arms and looking at Joy with a bemused expression." In response to her question, both Jirou and Kaminari had their own character reply.
"'Well, you've certainly got a very commanding presence, and you're probably the strongest warrior among us,' Rai says in support of Joy's point, and you can barely hear him mutter under his breath, 'Being a head taller than all of us will do that to a lady.'" Momo chuckled as Jirou continued.
"'Not to mention you're very, um, assertive,' Yoko remarks, noticeably looking away from Rona as she says that," Jirou added on, earning her an amused chuckle from Kaminari.
"Are you ever gonna play as someone who doesn't have a crush on Rona?" he asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer yet delighting in seeing his girlfriend get flustered.
"When she stops being an eight foot tall badass with biceps as big as my head, certainly," Jirou retorted, causing Momo to chuckle at the two while Kaminari nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, that's fair," Kaminari conceded, prompting Mina to pile on purely for fun.
"'Plus, if no one else is gonna say it, I will; you're super pretty!' Joy calls out to Rona, not really blushing at all since to her it's just a simple fact. 'Having someone both attractive and tough as the leader and namesake of our team will be super helpful for brand recognition!'" As Mina took pleasure in watching Jirou get even more embarrassed while Kaminari tried to hold in his laughter, Momo simply had Rona chuckle in response to Joy's casual flirting.
"'I appreciate the compliment, and I suppose I can see all of your points regarding my ability to lead, but I'm still not entirely sold on the name, unfortunately.'" Mina was about to have Joy retort when Koda spoke up unexpectedly, offering his own suggestion.
"While everyone else is talking, Whisper is gonna be busy writing something down on, uh, a piece of parchment, then show it to, ah, the group once he's done. On the parchment are the words, 'The Alision Coalition,' written in the cursive lettering that Alision taught him to write Common in." The group fell silent in response to Koda's suggestion, most of them too stunned to say anything. The silence alone spoke volumes, and it was clear after a moment that their name had been decided.
After a quick five minute break to deal with the emotional bombshell that conversation turned into, Izuku saw fit to fast forward to the group's arrival in Maton, the bustling port city where, presumably, anything is possible with determination, hard work, and a healthy helping of coin. Although somewhat reluctant to do so considering its infamous reputation for always ending in disaster, the group elected to split the party: Joy would immediately beeline to the Fish in a Barrel Club in order to register for an open mic slot and provide a pretext for Hatsume to finally introduce Mynoa to the party; Rai would go off on his own to say hi to his family by the docks; Rona and Yoko would stop by the quest board at City Hall to see if there were any jobs available for their group; and Scratch and Whisper would spend their time sightseeing throughout the city, with Whisper tagging along on Scratch's journey solely to make sure that she didn't get herself into too much trouble trying to pickpocket a guard or something. With these destinations set, Izuku decided to have the players roll an "initiative" of sorts in order to determine the order in which their respective subplots would be focused on, giving everyone else a chance to have some snacks and watch the other party members' antics with varying degrees of amusement.
"Okay, so from the looks of it, we've got Rona and Yoko first, followed by Scratch and Whisper, then Rai after since Kaminari won the tiebreaker, and finally Mynoa and Joy," Izuku remarked while looking down at the dice rolls in front of them all, turning over to Jirou and Momo to begin their scene while Toru glanced over to Hatsume with a smirk hidden by her invisible face.
"You ready to watch those two be gay disasters for like thirty minutes?" Toru asked snidely, only to be answered with a noncommittal shrug from Hatsume as Izuku set the scene.
"Alright, so Rona, you and the newbie Yoko head on down to City Hall and check out the quest board to see what jobs are available, which I took the liberty of writing down...here," Izuku began, handing Momo a piece of paper that he'd written down all the relevant information onto while the party was busy getting Hatsume back up to speed. After letting Momo look it over for a moment, Izuku was about to continue his introduction when Momo interjected.
"Excuse me, DM, but if you don't mind, I'd appreciate the opportunity to practice my creation skills by, ah, sprucing this visual aid up a bit, as it were," Momo suggested, to which Izuku gave her a thumbs up as Jirou smirked by her side.
"Just had to get another chance to flex your cool Quirk at us, huh?" she asked jokingly, causing Momo to chuckle for a second before getting a mischievous look in her eye.
"Oh, of course not; that would be rather unseemly," Momo said in defense of herself before reaching for the long sleeves of her sweater and readying her coup de grace. "No, if I wanted to 'flex' my Quirk, as you put it, I would simply do...this." With that, she promptly rolled up both of her sleeves as far as they could go, then activated her Quirk as she flexed with both arms. The rest of the group watched as several sheets of paper that looked like they had been treated with coffee in order to make them look old appeared from her arms, with every word of the handout Izuku gave her replicated in a medieval-style cursive font. The majority of the players assembled took the liberty of grabbing a copy for themselves to look at and offer their input on to pass the time until their own subplots began. Jirou, meanwhile, found herself too transfixed by the engrossing visual reminder of her girlfriend's athletic physique to really do much of anything other than mutter incoherently and fight the blush that rendered her face the color of a ripe tomato. Kaminari, for his part, snickered to himself under his breath as he watched his girlfriend practically melt into a puddle.
"Man, if I knew getting buff was the ticket to getting this reaction from her, I would have started hitting the gym ages ago," Kaminari joked while Toru giggled next to him.
"I think it's specifically buff women that get her like this, but still, it's worth a shot," Toru quipped right back. "And I think I speak for everybody here when I say: damn, girl, work it!" She decided to go the extra mile by punctuating her last comment with an exaggerated wolf whistle, causing Momo to blush lightly while Jirou was snapped out of her muscle-induced stupor enough to jerk her head towards Toru's position with a slight frown on her face.
"Oh, thank you, Toru," Momo said bashfully as she rolled up her sleeves now that she had had her fun. "Truthfully, I try not to work out too strenuously, since I need all the fat I can get for my Quirk to function at its best, but after my handy defeat at the Sports Festival, I figured I could not solely rely on the items produced by my Quirk if I truly want to be the best hero I can be. Evidently my efforts have paid off." She glanced towards Jirou as she said this, shooting her a flirty wink that sent her girlfriend's brain into bi panic mode all over again before Momo chuckled to herself and turned back to the two remaining copies of the pages she just printed out. Handing one to Jirou while she recovered, Momo took the other and began to read them aloud in-character. "'Let's see here...mimic sighted somewhere in the docks, 70 gp...local fugitive wanted for murder of councilman, 140 gp to be brought alive to face justice...oh! Pirates reported assaulting fishermen and trade vessels off the coast of the Burning Isle, 20 gp per pirate brought alive to face justice for their crimes. Well...I know which one Rai will like the most, at least. Come, Yo-Yo, let us go inside.'" As intended, Momo's use of Jirou's ever-hated nickname was what ultimately snapped her out of her funk, and she was at last able to form words and focus on the game once more.
"'Ah, yup! Right behind you!' And I guess we just, ah, walk into City Hall."
"Alrighty then," Izuku remarked, a part of him eager to get back on track. "You walk in and there's an elven woman in a finely tailored suit and heels sitting behind the counter. She pushes up her glasses slightly as you walk in, Rona, and seems a tad nervous once you two make it to the desk and she clocks the ease with which you carry your longsword at your side." With that, Izuku cleared his throat, thankful for the fact that his voice was high enough to where playing as a woman came more naturally to him than it might have to a DM with a deeper voice. "'Well, hello there,' she says in, uh, a bit of a flirty tone, leaning over the counter a bit. 'And how can I help you today, miss...?'"
Momo was quiet for a moment, and Izuku worried that he had inadvertently made her uncomfortable, but it quickly became apparent that she was merely deciding how best to roleplay this interaction. "'...Rona,' she says, noticeably uncomfortable as she tries to steer the conversation back to business. 'I'm here on behalf of my adventuring party, the...the Alision Coalition.'"
"'Ah, I see,' she remarks, kinda taking the hint and straightening her posture a bit. 'Is that the name of the place that you all are from?'"
"'No, it is...was the name of our comrade. We only knew them for a short time before they passed during our first adventure, but all the same, they were...very special to us. ...To me,' Rona adds under her breath, softly enough that only Yoko would be able to hear it."
"...Yoko's just gonna, like, quietly hold her hand, if she's alright with that," Jirou remarked, to which Momo smiled gently at her girlfriend and nodded before getting back on track.
"'Apologies for going off on a tangent. The fact of the matter is that our group is looking for work, and while the Burning Isle job caught my attention, I do have one question that I would like answered before making the decision on whether or not to pursue it.'"
"The attendant, uh, quickly regains her composure once you mention the job on the quest board. 'Ah, yes, of course! We've been looking for someone to take care of them for quite some time now. But, um, what is your question, then?'"
"Rona just kind of smirks. 'Simple: may we keep the ship?'"
"'Ah, um...excuse me?'"
"'They're pirates, I assume they have a ship. If we apprehend them, may we keep it?'"
"...The attendant glances at something on her desk before looking back up at you. 'I, uh, I suppose there's nothing stopping you from taking the ship for yourselves, but based on eyewitness accounts of their ship and the numbers they have been known to field, you'll need a crew of at least several dozen to operate a ship of that size.'"
"Rona chuckles. 'Oh, I'm sure we'll manage somehow. And if not, I trust we could simply rent a portion of the dock out for it to be moored long-term?'"
"'I, uh, I imagine you could, yes.'"
"'Excellent,' Rona remarks as she turns to look at Yoko before glancing back at the attendant behind her desk. 'Speaking on behalf of my comrades...we'll take the job.'"
"And I think that's a good point to cut to the next group!" Izuku called out, to which Jirou and Momo nodded in agreement as Izuku turned to Koda and Toru. "Alright, Scratch, you find yourself standing as a lone kitten with a mission on the streets of Maton, with your good old pal Whisper trailing behind you to make sure you don't arrested as you stalk the cobblestone streets in search of suitable prey to relieve of their purses." As he spoke, he adopted a posture, voice, and hand motions which suggested that he was imitating a literal cat burglar, which Toru certainly appreciated as she set about her feline femme fatale's plan of attack.
"'Alrighty, Whisper, you wanna learn stuff? Then listen up; I'm gonna teach you how to be a cool cat like me and rob rich assholes blind!' With that, Scratch is gonna look around and see if she can spot any of those rich assholes presently; she's not about to steal from some poor sap who needs the money more than she wants it, after all. Her momma taught her better than that!" Izuku chuckled as he asked her to roll a Perception check, to which Toru did promptly before smirking at him invisibly as she immediately hid the die with her invisible hand, completely blocking it from view. "Guess," she said simply, with the tone of someone who had just triumphed over another. Izuku sighed and shook his head with amusement at Toru's luck.
"A natural twe-"
"Natural twenty, baby, whoo!" Toru interrupted, revealing the dice and wrapping up Koda in a quick side hug before letting go as she turned her attention back to the game. Koda, for his part, was more caught off guard by the gesture than anything else, causing Mina to groan internally as he presumably failed to connect the dots yet again. Izuku, meanwhile, cleared his throat as he began to describe the scene taking place before the unlikely pair.
"The two of you see a human man, perhaps in his early 50s or so, currently in the midst of a shouting match with a poorer halfling couple in one of the many apartments that line the streets of Maton, inhabited by groups of less-than-wealthy individuals like this couple who have to pay exorbitant rents in a timely manner or face the consequences. From what you can pick up, it would seem that this particular couple are merely a day late on their rent due to the unexpected medical costs which arose after the older of the two men was injured at sea, a minor offense for which this human man is now threatening eviction. What do you two choose to do about it?" With this question, a look of determination entered Toru's eyes as she turned to Koda.
"'Okay, here's the plan: on the count of three, we execute the Dashing Doggy!'" Toru remarked, pausing momentarily as Koda simulated Whisper cocking his head in confusion and making a little cooing sound. "'Ah, right, I haven't actually told you what that is. Okay, so, long story short: I've been coming up with cons I can run with everybody in the group.'" At this, Koda let out a hoot of surprise before narrowing his eyes as if to have Whisper challenge Scratch's claim. "'Yes, everybody!'" Toru had Scratch insist, at which point Koda discreetly glanced towards the others.
"'Joy?' Whisper asks in Joy's voice," Mina began, catching on quickly that talking through Whisper was Koda's way of including the rest of the players in the pair's shenanigans. Toru likewise caught on fast, having already prepared most of these cons in advance.
"Scratch kinda blushes a bit as she hears Joy's name come out of Whisper's mouth in her voice, then regains her composure purely to back up her claim. 'The Tipsy Sway: Joy pretends to be drunk and does a little improvised dance number for the mark to lowkey seduce them while I snag their purse from behind and she leaves them with a fake address that doesn't actually go anywhere!"
"'Rai?' Whisper asks in Rai's voice," Kaminari piled on, but Toru was ready for that too.
"'The Shocking Grasp: Rai does that magic thing where he shocks people for a second, but like, lowkey so he doesn't actually hurt the mark that bad, and we snag their stuff and run while they're quite literally too shocked to chase us!'"
"'Rona?' Whisper asks in Rona's voice," Momo added, admittedly stumping Toru for a bit before she eventually recovered as she shared her idea for what Rona could do.
"'The Disarming Strike: Rona 'accidentally' knocks stuff out of the mark's hands with that cool sword move she can do, and while she's busy helping them to pick everything up, I lift their purse and run off before they spot me!'"
Jirou sighed as Koda looked at her before giving in to the inevitable. "'Yo-Yo?' Whisper says in Yoko's voice, sounding a bit indignant since that's how Yoko said it at first."
"'The Divine Intervention: Yo-Yo distracts them by pretending to be one of those evangelical snobs who run people down on the street to hear about their god, and while she's trying to put some knockoff holy book in the mark's hands, I lift their purse and get away!'"
Finally, Koda paused for a moment before gesturing towards himself, giving Toru the signal to explain what Scratch's specific con with her and Whisper entailed.
"'Ah, right, the Dashing Doggy: basically, you do that thing you do where you turn into animals, transform into an adorable little puppy dog, then grab the mark's purse. After that, they give chase and then I help you lose them before anything bad happens! So, what do you think?'" In response to Toru's question, Koda simply had Whisper sigh deeply, as though he was going to regret the decision he was about to make almost as soon as he made it.
"'Very well,' Whisper says in Alision's voice," Jirou chimed in, causing Toru to nod eagerly.
"'Alright, on three: one, two, three!'" Toru cried in Scratch's voice, prompting Izuku to chuckle as he braced himself for the shenanigans that were about to ensue.
"Okay, to start with, both of you make a Stealth check as you turn into a dog and you get into position behind him," Izuku requested, prompting them both to roll.
"23!" Toru called out.
"Uh, that's a, uh, 15," Koda added as Izuku nodded.
"You both sneak up on this guy with no issue. Now, go ahead and make a Sleight of Hand check...not sure what a puppy's dexterity would be, so maybe just use yours in this case?"
"17," Koda said after rolling his dice once again.
"Yup, you sneak up on this guy and just snatch his purse right out from under him before running off into the city at full speed," Izuku remarked as Toru cheered slightly at the success of her and Whisper's impromptu heist. "The guy shouts in surprise and rushes after you, Whisper, but you're faster than him on foot, and I'm just gonna say that your small size as an adorable puppy running through the streets of Maton lets you lose him pretty easily in the crowd."
"Hm, just to be safe, can I, like, catch up to try and send him on a wild goose chase so that he won't eventually catch up to Whisper?" Toru asked, making Izuku chuckle a bit to himself.
"Yeah, alright, give me a Deception check," he replied, prompting her to roll again.
"Uh, 13?" Toru said hopefully as Izuku nodded again.
"That'll do it; what do you say to him?" he asked, leaving Toru to think for a bit.
"'I think he went that way, over towards the Fish in a Barrel Club!' Scratch says to this guy without missing a beat, and as soon as he gets out of earshot, I'm just gonna do something like," Toru remarked before whistling loudly with her invisible fingers placed over her lips, evidently a signal she had improvised for when she wanted Whisper to return, and which Koda picked up on rather quickly as he narrated how Whisper would respond.
"Hearing that, Whisper's gonna run to an alleyway and, uh, shift back to his normal form, purse in hand, as he follows the sound to where Scratch is." Izuku nodded as the pair reunited.
"When he gets there, Scratch is gonna give him a high five," Toru added, holding her invisible hand out for Koda to high five out of the game before continuing. "'Hell yeah, that was awesome, dude! Your first heist, and you pulled it off even better than I would've!'" At that in-game praise, Toru was privately pleased to note that Koda blushed slightly. "'So, how do you feel?' Scratch asks, kinda playfully elbowing Whisper's shoulder a bit." Koda thought for a moment before looking over to Jirou and giving her the signal to improvise something appropriate.
"'It was certainly an...interesting experience,' Whisper says in Alision's voice," Jirou remarked, prompting Toru to laugh both in and out of the game.
"'You can say that again! Alright, let's see what we got!'" With that, Izuku decided to roll some dice behind the screen before turning back to Toru and Koda.
"Okay, so, obviously this guy wouldn't have everything he owns on his person, but he does have a lot more in his purse than the average person would. You find a grand total of sixty platinum pieces and eight hundred gold pieces in this man's purse," Izuku remarked, leading to an array of shocked exclamations from the rest of the party.
"Holy shit!"
"Eight hundred?!"
"N-not to mention that each platinum piece is worth another ten gold, from my recollection, so with sixty of them added on, that's...my word!" As Momo supplied this last bit of D&D trivia, Toru, as everyone could easily guess even without being able to look at her face, grinned devilishly.
"'Ohohoho, nice! Alright, I think we can pause the pickpocketing for now; as much as I'd like to try my luck with some other sticks in the mud...I think I know just what to do with this,' Scratch says, kinda vaguely, before she turns her attention back towards that poor couple the guy was harassing. 'But before we do that, I figure I ought to teach you another lesson about ethical pickpocketing: observe!' And she's gonna take out fifteen of the platinum pieces and hand them to this couple, just kinda being like, 'Here. This should cover your rent for a while.'" The rest of the party looked across at each other in stunned amazement while Izuku simply smiled.
"Just for kicks, go ahead and make a Deception check; they did see their landlord just get coincidentally robbed by a puppy, like, five minutes ago," Izuku remarked, causing Toru to giggle a bit to herself as she attempted to pass off the coins as having been obtained legitimately.
"Oof, that's a 5," she remarked, wincing as Izuku chuckled in turn.
"Yeah, they absolutely know that you just stole this from him, but, well, he's a jerk anyway, so they're not exactly complaining. They thank you before closing the door and going about their business. So, with that done with, what are you two gonna do next?" Izuku asked, to which Toru giggled once again as she laid out her plan.
"Oh, that's simple enough. You see, I recently heard of a little something this game is famous for," Toru hinted mischievously, causing Izuku to grin a bit in anticipation.
"And that is?" he asked, halfway expecting her answer.
"The shopping episode!" she replied, prompting Mina and Kaminari to cheer along with her while the other party members simply smiled in response to their antics, Izuku included.
"Alright, I'm assuming you're heading to, like, a magic item shop or something?" he asked, to which the quick movement of Toru's shirt straps made it clear that she had nodded in confirmation. "Okay, you do indeed find one, a kinda hole-in-the-wall place with a sign that reads 'Tealeaf's Curious Curios' hanging above the door. Walking inside, you see that the shop is tended to by a purple tiefling man dressed in fabulously ornate robes, and Whisper, you can tell that this place is packed to the brim with all manner of magic items and other magical knick-knacks. Let me go ahead and find the list of items they sell here while you tell me what it is exactly that you're looking for." At that instruction, Toru playfully tsked and wagged her invisible finger back and forth.
"Oh, no no, you misunderstand, good sir. I'm not getting anything for myself here: this is for everybody else!" Toru corrected, causing Izuku to look up in surprise along with the rest of the party as she explained further. "It felt a tad unfair that I'm the only one with a magic item so far, so I figured, hey, I've got all this money, might as well give all my friends a little something-something!" The rest of the party wasted no time in expressing their appreciation for Toru's generosity.
"Aww, thank you, Toru!" Mina called out, giving her a little wink that caused the invisible girl to briefly glow a light shade of pink.
"Yeah, thanks a lot, Toru," Koda added at a slightly higher register than normal, looking at her with an earnest expression which was absolutely not helping Toru's composure.
"Yeah no problem anyway what have we got?" Toru asked quickly, her speech somewhat strangled as Izuku gave her a knowing look before handing another written sheet to Momo.
"Feel free to give this the good old 'flex' treatment," he remarked coyly, causing Jirou to scowl at him while Momo lightly chuckled in response.
"Oh, I've had my fun already, I assure you," Momo replied back, electing to simply hold out an arm and print out the newly treated copies of the shop's selections for each of the party members to read and offer their suggestions on what Scratch could buy for them. "Hm, a longsword simply called 'Boom?' That sounds interesting," Momo remarked off-handedly.
"Oh, yeah, tell me about that one!" Toru added, leaving Izuku to consult his notes before getting into character by adopting his best imitation of X-Ray's Boston accent.
"'Ah, that's a real beauty you found there, miss. It's a magic sword that surrounds its target with magical energy that explodes if they move away from your reach. It works similarly to that one spell, Booming Blade, hence the name. That'll be 250 gold.'"
"'Done,' Scratch says. That should bring me to, what, a thousand gold at this point?" Toru asked, to which Izuku simply nodded as Kaminari spoke up.
"Hm, what's the 'Sapphire of the Sea?'" he asked as Izuku once again glanced at his notes.
"'The Sapphire of the Sea, eh?' You got a good eye for quality there, miss. It's a sapphire gemstone that can be used as a spellcasting focus and lets its attuned user hit hard with lightning magic.' In terms of mechanics, that basically means that, once per day, when you cast a spell that deals lightning damage, you can forgo rolling for damage and just deal the maximum. 'That'll be 400 gold,'" Izuku finished, causing Toru to ponder the item's usefulness for a moment before nodding.
"'You got yourself a deal, Mister...Tealeaf, I presume?'"
"'You presume correctly. Lucien Tealeaf, at your service, miss...?'"
"'Scratch,' she says before turning to Whisper and introducing him too."
"'Wonderful! Always nice to see a couple high paying customers like you roll in,' he says as he takes out the stuff you've bought so far. 'Can I interest you in anything else?'" Izuku's question left Toru uncertain for a moment before Jirou spoke up.
"What's the 'Guardian Emblem?'" she asked, causing Izuku to glance at his notes again.
"'Ah, the Guardian Emblem. A cleric or paladin can snap it onto a suit of armor or a shield and use its magic to make sure their buddies don't get hit by grievous blows,' aka crits, 'a couple times a day. That'll be 150 gold, miss Scratch.'" This time, the decision was almost immediate.
"'You got it.' Got about 450 left and, as far as she knows, only two more people to shop for," Toru remarked, looking somewhat apologetically over at the still-unintroduced Hatsume while Mina decided to speak up, having found something that caught her eye.
"Ooh, what's the 'Bard's Bedlah?'" Mina asked eagerly, causing Izuku to blush slightly before clearing his throat and attempting to get back into character.
"'Got your eye on that lovely thing, have you? Well, that garment enhances the magical abilities of a bard who attunes to it,' which basically means a +1 bonus to the attack rolls and save DC of your bard spells. 'Aside from that, it can also magically change styles to fit the user's tastes. Should be an especially nice present if you happen to know a dancer,' he adds, giving Scratch a bit of a smirk before he lays out the price of the garment. 'That'll be 125 gold.'" As Izuku just managed to get through his explanation while Mina smirked in his direction, Toru decided to add even more fuel to the fire with Scratch's own response, purely to mess with him.
"'Oh, Joy would look so hot in this,'" Toru whispered just loud enough for Izuku to hear her as she caught him mid-drink, forcing him to arduously swallow it before responding.
"What?" he asked with a strangled gasp, both in and out of character.
"'I said I'll take it!' Scratch says, going just, absolutely crimson as she turns away," Toru laid on, her description of Scratch's predicament mirroring Izuku's own as the rest of the table burst into laughter with the sole exceptions of Koda, who politely refrained from doing anything more than snickering to himself, and Hatsume, who awkwardly chuckled along while not getting the joke.
"'Any-hgh-anything else?'" Izuku had the shopkeeper ask, still struggling to sort out the pain in his throat from his glass of water going down the wrong pipe, as it were. Seeking to help take the attention off of him for the moment, Koda spoke up.
"Uh, what's the, ah, Moon Sickle?" he asked, with Izuku breathing a silent thanks to him.
"'Ah, the Moon Sickle. Well, it's a magic weapon that doubles as a spellcasting focus for druids and rangers; you know, woodsy types. It enhances both the weapon's abilities and the spellcasting abilities of the user to varying degrees. That weaker version will cost you 325 gold.'"
"'Huh, alright, done. That's just about all of it,' Scratch says, grabbing everything that she'd just bought and handing the sickle to Whisper. 'Thanks for the magic stuff!' she says before leaving."
"Okay, that should...that seems like a good segue for Rai, yeah?" Izuku said, having just regained his composure, while Kaminari simply nodded. "Okay, thank God," he muttered to himself, causing Jirou to smirk as she overheard him before he set the new scene. "Rai, you easily navigate your way back to that quaint little apartment by the docks, hearing some commotion in the distance that you vaguely suspect is your good pal Scratch's doing before continuing onwards," Izuku began, causing Kaminari and a few of the other players to chuckle before he continued. "Seconds after you knock on the door, it opens to reveal your foster mom, Matilda, who greets you warmly and pulls you inside as your many, many brothers and sisters swarm around you asking all sorts of questions about where you've been and what you've been up to since you got your, to quote little Timmy, 'Cool zappy magic.' I'm assuming Rai answers all of them?" Izuku asked, to which Kaminari chuckled as he leaned back against the chair.
"Oh, yeah, he's gonna tell them everything, with maybe a bit of innocent exaggeration on his part regarding how important a role he personally played in all of those events," Kaminari remarked, earning him a snicker from both Jirou and Momo while Izuku simply nodded his head.
"Go ahead and make me a Deception check...with disadvantage," Izuku added, causing Kaminari to rear his head back slightly in surprise.
"Disadvantage, why?" he asked somewhat indignantly, to which Izuku chuckled.
"Your foster mom knows you better than anybody else; I feel like it's a fair assumption that if you want to lie to her, you're going to have to work for it," Izuku reasoned.
"Well, alright," Kaminari conceded as he rolled his check and winced. "Agh, 10."
"Your brothers and sisters buy it; they're mostly young kids and they think you're the coolest, of course they believe you were instrumental in slaying that Slasher Demon. Matilda, though, knows full well that Scratch did most of the work in that fight, recognizing that along with a handful of other slight distortions of the truth that you've sprinkled into that otherwise correct account of events. She smiles at you with a knowing look that you know says that she sees right through you, before her expression changes as she looks around at the kids. Trying not to clue them in on what's going through her mind, she bids them to go upstairs so that she can talk with you alone."
"'What's up, Ma?' Rai asks, getting a bit worried."
Izuku cleared his throat as he formulated just how to say this. "'I've tried to keep this from the kids as much as I can, but...times have been hard, Farai. These pirates by the Burning Isle aren't your everyday brigands. There have been reports of fishermen being abducted in the dead of night for rituals too dark to contemplate, and without those fishermen bringing their catches back to the docks, folks like us have had to turn to...less than amenable merchants for our food.'" At this, Kaminari paused as he pondered over how Rai would respond to this.
"'Rituals, huh? Do you think...do you think they're like me?' Rai asks, not really sure how he'd feel about it if it turned out that he was right."
"'I suppose it's possible, but nobody's certain. All that I know is that somebody oughta deal with them fast...and it's looking like you and your band may be the heroes we've been looking for.'"
"Rai kinda chuckles. 'Yeah, we're pretty awesome,' he says, kinda offhandedly as he gets up from the chair. 'Don't you worry, Ma; I'll get everybody together and we'll take care of them.''' With that, Izuku nodded along as he prepared to shift the scene yet again.
"She thanks you for your promise to help and asks you to be careful before you head out to get the others, which brings us to...you two!" Izuku remarked, turning to Mina and Hatsume. "Joy, you walk into the Fish in a Barrel comedy club over by the docks and are directed to an office backstage by one of the club's employees, who instructs you to wait outside to speak with the club's owner about reserving a slot in tonight's show. Meanwhile, I'll say that Mynoa is in the middle of building something rather unusual: a magical lamp similar in design to the Driftglobes used by many adventurers to see in the dark, yet modified such that it shine a brilliant beacon of light directly upon the stage in order to highlight the performers as they go about their business. As she works on this, what appears to be a small mechanical cat can be seen idly slapping a cockroach that had somehow managed to get into the building, much as a real cat would. Mynoa, you probably didn't notice Joy come in on account of being in the midst of a project, so Joy, would you like to say anything to this mysterious inventor and his adorable companion, or are you content to simply wait until the office door opens and you're let in to plead your case?" As Izuku finished his description, he looked over to find that Mina, Toru, and Koda had all apparently short-circuited themselves as soon as he brought up the fact that Mynoa's steel defender was a cat. Joy's next move was obvious.
"'Omigosh, look at you!'" Mina cried out, making it obvious that Joy had immediately rushed over to pet the cat as soon as she saw it. "'Showing that little bug who's boss, huh? Who's an adorable little kitty cat? Oh, you are! Yes, you are!'" As Mina continued to have Joy gush over the adorableness of her artificial pet, Hatsume decided that now was as good a time as any for Mynoa to finally take notice of what was going on around her.
"'Careful; if I say the right command word in Gnomish, she'll rip your throat out,' Mynoa says in a rather deadpan sort of way, the kind where you can't really tell whether or not they're joking.'" With that, Mina mimed herself rearing up in panic and scooching away from something along the ground before Hatsume saw fit to clarify her character's intentions. "'Forgive me; my attempt at a joke. It must be the atmosphere of this place; something in the air seems to induce whimsy upon anyone who enters the building.' With that, she holds her hand out for Joy to shake. 'Mynoa Swiftspan, at your service. I'm currently the technician for this establishment, although truthfully, I must confess that I'd prefer another line of work. Still, one must make do with what one can manage to acquire, I suppose.'"
"Joy takes it. 'Well, nice to meet you, Myn! Name's Joy!'" At this, Hatsume cocked her head.
"'Myn?' she asks, somewhat confused."
"'You know, for Mynoa! It's a nickname!'"
"'From what I understand, nicknames are generally intended to shorten names for convenience's sake when used in such a fashion. Mynoa is already a somewhat short name; ergo, I fail to see why one would bother shortening it even further. Seems rather inefficient.'"
"Joy just kinda chuckles in response to that. 'Eh, maybe, but it's more fun that way!'"
"'...I suppose.'"
"'Anyway, so you're the one responsible for, like, stage-lighting and all that, right?'"
"'Essentially. Seems to be all my designs are good for these days,' Mynoa says, a bit dejected."
"Joy kinda frowns a bit. 'Well, why do you say that?' she asks, looking concerned."
"Mynoa sighs. 'Well, I had hoped upon moving here from my home village that I would make a name for myself as an inventor, but so far, only a handful of my inventions have attracted the interests of any businesses in the area, and such interest tends to be somewhat...short-lived.' She winces as she reflects back on some of her previous jobs in the city. 'If I knew of a job that allowed me to broaden my creative horizons while also making me enough coin to maintain my dwelling and ensure that Gadget remains operational, I'd sign on in a proverbial heartbeat, but alas...'"
"...Yeah, Joy kinda thinks about it for a bit before saying, 'Well, I dunno if this would be up your alley, but I'm actually part of an adventuring party that just arrived in Maton today, the Alision Coalition. We mostly made a name for ourselves fighting moss monsters and demons, so I'm admittedly not sure how easily we'll be able to adapt to the kind of stuff that comes up in a city like this, but...it might be easier for us if we had another local on our team. Assuming, of course, that you've got the combat training necessary for something like that.'"
"Joy," Izuku cut in, having been content to let this play out for a few minutes before getting back to the matter at hand. "At this moment, the door to the office opens, revealing a rather stern looking man in a top hat and suit who walks with a cane. He gruffly gestures for you to come into his office, and he had been previously introduced by his employee as 'Mr. Witchlight.' Do you go with him?" In response, Mina nodded, only for Hatsume to abruptly raise her hand.
"'Mr. Witchlight, do you have a moment?' Mynoa asks, scooping up Gadget into her arms."
Izuku cleared his throat before answering the question in as no-nonsense a voice as he can possibly muster, sounding vaguely like a 20th century mob boss. "'Yeah, what you want?'"
"'I would like you to know that I am tendering my resignation from your service effective immediately. By my understanding, Maton's laws do not require me to submit a two weeks notice before doing so, but just in case, you may consider the right to duplicate and modify my design for the Witchlight Spotlight (patent pending) to be yours to do with as you see fit. Good day.' And with that, Mynoa walks away and leaves her former boss to his business as she awaits Joy's return."
"Boy, that was fast," Jirou remarked idly, to which Kaminari chuckled next to her.
"Right?! It was like that," he added as he snapped his fingers for emphasis while Izuku simply chuckled before letting out Mr. Witchlight's grumpy noise of dismissal before proceeding.
"'Couldn't help but overhear you gals talking about adventuring and all that; I take it she's planning on joining you and your folks now?' he asks."
"Joy shrugs. 'I guess? I only just met her, after all.'"
"'Well, that's besides the point,' he says as he loudly sits down on his chair. 'More pertinently...amuse me,' he commands as he looks at you sternly."
"Joy's a bit confused. 'I'm sorry?'"
"'This is a comedy club, ain't it? You want a shot, you gotta prove to me you got what it takes, and believe me: you'll never find a tougher audience in all the world.'"
"Joy just kinda chuckles awkwardly. 'Yeah, uh, I can see that,' she quips to hide her nervousness as she tries to prepare a routine on the spot."
Izuku smirked. "Go ahead and roll me a Performance check," he asked, to which she immediately tossed her pink d20 towards the table before pausing in shock. Toru, for her part, did the opposite of pausing, slamming her invisible hands on the table and shaking Mina's shoulder in excitement, which in turn caused Izuku to look over the screen. "Is that-?"
"NATURAL 20!" Toru cried jubilantly, leading to a chorus of cheers and celebration on the part of the other party members while Izuku simply chuckled to himself in that same gruff tone.
"'You're gonna go far in this business,' he says, flicking a platinum piece in your direction before writing your name down on the schedule he has set up in his office. 'You're on from 8 to 9 tonight. Knock 'em dead, kid.' With that, he ushers you out, and at this point, I'll say that y'all are free to head out and meet up with the others for a brief period before the show, at least." At this, Mina nodded before turning to Hatsume.
"'Alrighty, Myn, first order of business is getting you in front of my pals! After that, well, if they're alright with bringing you on, we can see what jobs our party leader managed to find! That all sound good?' She kinda has a little bit of a skip in her step after landing her first serious gig, and you notice she's, like, immediately very touchy-feely despite knowing you for all of five minutes." Hatsume regarded the pink girl for a moment before deciding on what to do.
"'Don't touch that,' she says in a very serious tone as she points to some gadget your hand brushed against when you held her by the arm as the two of us walked out."
"Joy kinda reaches back like, 'What? Why not?' She looks kinda concerned."
"'Because it's a thermal detonator!'"
"...Yeah, Joy immediately leaps backwards like ten feet. Does anything happen?" Mina asked, looking over at Hatsume quizzically in response to Izuku's shaking head. The girl in question promptly assumed an expression of grave seriousness at having made yet another horrible joke.
"'Get me out of here immediately.'"
From that point onward, the group decided to reconvene at a tavern near the Fish In A Barrel Club which was, appropriately enough, known as the Happy Hour. After introductions were out of the way and everyone had both updated the others on what they had been up to in the city and received their impromptu gifts from Scratch, it was decided that the group would pursue the job against the pirates of the Burning Isle in order to save the poorer residents of Maton and, hopefully, steal their ship for themselves. The group naturally dedicated the first half of their evening towards watching Joy's first big performance, with Rona surprising everyone by taking an active role in making sure that they all laughed as much as possible at her jokes so that the rest of the audience would find her corny puns even funnier than they already were. When questioned on it later by Joy, Rona simply responded that she was "settling into her role as elected party leader."
Regardless of how little the party believed her explanation, they nonetheless went along with her plan to request passage aboard a fishing boat belonging to one of Rai's family friends, in the hopes that they would attract the attention of the pirates and catch them by surprise. Although slightly disappointed that their strategy meant he had to skip the module's comedic chase sequence in which they hunted down a mimic through the docks after realizing it held a map to the pirates' lair in its mouth, Izuku had to applaud his party's ingenuity. Of course, just because the party managed to cleverly skip past several pages of the module didn't mean that Izuku had to hand them an easier encounter as a result, especially considering the magic items that the party now found themselves equipped with thanks to Toru's pickpocketing prowess. After all, if the pirates weren't going to be fought in broad daylight on the shores of their island lair...
"You all watch as the handful of pirates you could spot on the deck from a distance give way to dozens once they realize that a suitable target has sailed up onto their port bow. Everyone, go ahead and make me Stealth checks, if you don't mind." At this instruction, Toru snickered in that adorably menacing way she did while Koda prepared to speak up.
"Uh, so, would you say that we would have anticipated the need to hide from these guys?" Koda asked, prompting Izuku to consider the question for a moment.
"Yeah, I'd say so; you were planning on surprising them, after all," he reasoned, to which Koda simply nodded before taking a moment to think of what to say next.
"Well, then, uh, could I have Whisper cast Pass Without Trace on everybody before the pirates come within sight of the boat?" At this, Izuku's eyes widened as the rest of the party looked over at Koda, unsure what exactly he had planned yet reasonably sure that it was going to be good based on how Izuku had reacted as soon as he heard the name of the spell which Koda planned to cast in advance. With a surprised chuckle, he nodded.
"Go for it. Everyone, go ahead and make your Stealth checks with a +10 bonus, as a veil of shadow obscures you from view and softens the sounds you make to the level of a whisper." After a quick round of thank yous and congratulations to Koda for his clever thinking, the group rolled their respective checks, both Momo and Jirou in particular dreading the prospect of disadvantage even in spite of Koda's helpful bonus to their sneakiness.
"22!" Mina called out.
"30!" Toru added on, undoubtedly grinning like a madwoman behind her invisible visage.
"25," Koda remarked, somewhat flushed from all the praise, particularly from Toru.
"23!" Kaminari chimed in.
"Let's see, that would be a...21," Hatsume remarked after a moment.
"Oh, thank goodness; 20," Momo added, relief evident in her voice, while Jirou nodded alongside her to indicate that she had gotten the same result. Izuku paused for a moment.
"I...I'm not sure the pirates could spot most of you even if they wanted to. You successfully surprise them, so as soon as these guys show up alongside the boat in order to board it, you've got a whole round in which you can basically do whatever you want without much risk of opposition. A dozen pirates quickly storm the boat intent upon capturing the people aboard, with none of them aware of just how badly their raid is about to go sideways." Go ahead and roll initiative for me, everyone!" As Izuku quickly rolled four d20s behind the screen, the group rolled their respective dice and called out their results.
"18!" Mina called out, already planning on just how she was about to mess these pirates up.
"17!" Toru followed up, eager to carve her own path of destruction.
"16..." Momo remarked, beginning to notice a rather unusual pattern.
"That should be...15," Hatsume remarked, likewise noticing this pattern.
"Uh, 14?"
"13," Jirou said, picking up on the pattern herself.
"And 12," Kaminari finished, not aware of the pattern until Izuku looked at all the dice in bewilderment, himself having noticed a pattern behind his own screen.
"The pirates got 20," Izuku remarked, not mentioning how his other major players got initiatives of 25, 10, and 5, respectively. "Almost an unbroken line from 20 to 12, that is bizarre. I-I can't even begin to calculate the odds of that," he added with a chuckle. "Well, anyway, Joy's up first. What are you planning on doing, hon-Mina! What are you doing, Mina?!" He flushed bright red at his slip of the tongue while Mina continued completely nonplussed, only pausing for a brief moment to savor the look on Izuku's face. Flustered Izuku was without a doubt the cutest variety of Izuku.
"Alright, how close together are these guys?" Mina asked, waiting patiently for the apple of her eye to eventually reboot himself and get back into the game.
"Uh, they're pretty packed together along the, um, stern of the fishing boat," he stammered, only getting worse as Mina grinned in a devilish, yet strangely adorable way usually reserved for Toru whenever she was about to demolish something with a Sneak Attack.
"Alright, Joy's gonna strut along the deck towards where the pirates are, and just for funsies, I wanna see if I can get any of them with my Distracting Performance ability." At this, Momo perked up with interest, having never heard Mina mention this ability of Joy's before.
"Hm, interesting. What does that do, exactly?" she asked, causing Mina to perk up in turn.
"Oh, it's kind of a limited use thing I get from the College of Performance!" the pink girl explained as Izuku belatedly took to rolling a dozen saving throws behind the screen. "Basically, once per short rest, I can do this thing as a bonus action where any creatures of my choice within 30 feet of me have to make Charisma saves against my spell save DC or be enraptured by my performance," she said, delighting in watching Izuku's face redden once again at the somewhat sultry way she had said the word 'enraptured' before finishing her explanation. "Basically means they have disadvantage on the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw they make." Momo simply nodded along with slight amusement on her face from observing Izuku's reaction.
"I see," she said simply, while Jirou and Kaminari snickered alongside her.
"Seems to me like it's already worked," Kaminari quietly quipped to the two, leaving Jirou struggling to contain her laughter while even Momo found herself chuckling in spite of herself. Knowing that the teasing was only bound to continue the longer he stalled, Izuku pressed on.
"Okay, yeah, seven of them failed, the other five succeeded," Izuku remarked, causing Mina to smirk as she came up with yet another way of messing with her crush.
"'Huh, I think I could get used to wearing this sexy little number more often,' Joy says, getting a bit of a kick out of these guys being so caught up by her dancing before she lets the other shoe drop, literally: she's gonna stomp the ground and cast Thunderwave!" As much of the party chuckled at Izuku's reaction to his crush's continued teasing, he took his time rolling the many Constitution saves he was now required to roll, over half of which were made at disadvantage, before he tallied up all the results and paused at the common factor between them.
"...They all fail," he said, dumbfounded at how quickly his pirate boarders had just gotten steamrolled by the girl he had now maybe fallen in love with just a little bit. "Roll damage," he said, too stunned to think of much else as Mina eagerly grabbed a couple d8s.
"Aw hell yeah, time to wreck everything!" she cried out before rolling the dice and adding up the result. "Okay, six on one and three on the other for a total of nine damage!" Izuku nodded along on autopilot, quickly rolling a d6 behind the screen before announcing the outcome of Joy's spell.
"They take nine thunder damage and are blown back by the force of Joy's stomp and falling into the water, all clinging to life and left unable to really do much of anything as they struggle to stay afloat amidst the roaring waves." At this description, Toru couldn't help but snicker.
"Wait, are you telling me these pirates don't know how to swim?" she asked incredulously, to which Izuku considered the question for a moment before opting for the funniest answer.
"They are definitely doggy-paddling, yes, and it is now your turn, Scratch." The rest of the party snickered along with Toru as she decided on what to do.
"'WEAK!' Scratch calls out to the pathetic pirates before using a bonus action to Dash onto the deck they used to get onto our boat so that I can board theirs. How many bad guys am I dealing with?" Toru asked, prompting Izuku to glance at the module for a second before answering.
"About a dozen more pirates and three figures who seem to be made of much sterner stuff, one of which you recognize from some wanted posters you would've seen scattered around town as the fugitive known only by the moniker of 'Slash.'" At this, Toru had Scratch scoff.
"'Oh, ain't no way in heck I'm letting this poser steal my niche,' Scratch says before sneaking up on him and just laying into him with everything she's got. Do I have advantage on my attack?"
"Well, they haven't seen you yet, so you get unseen attacker advantage, yeah. Go ahead and roll your attack." With that, Toru rolled her dice before blinking at the first result for her shortsword attack. As soon as Izuku spotted the result himself, it was he who elected to slam the table in disbelief rather than Toru, while the rest of the table erupted into laughter.
"What are your rolls, holy shit!" Kaminari said, cackling all the while, while Mina was likewise laughing incredulously at the situation.
"Do you have some kind of secret luck-based Quirk we don't know about?" she asked, only half-joking, while Izuku threw up his hands in frustration.
"Probably! That's the only thing that makes sense at this point!" he declared, pausing as he considered a horrifying possibility before pointing a finger at Toru. "Promise me you will never DM a game of Dungeons & Dragons, purely for your players' sakes." Despite the seriousness of his tone, Izuku could easily tell that Toru was grinning evilly in spite of her invisible features.
"I will do no such thing," she replied before presenting the damage dice she had already rolled. "Twenty-two piercing damage from my demon-killing shortsword, how fucked is he?" she asked gleefully, to which he replied far more bluntly than expected.
"Fucked," he replied frankly, eliciting several gasps of shock from the party as Izuku realized what it was that he had said. "Ah, that is, he's fairly wounded, but still able to stay in the fight for a bit. Probably, uh, couldn't take another hit like that, though," he finished, somewhat embarrassed as the reactions across the table varied, with Kaminari and Jirou teasingly congratulating him while Mina notably remained silent as her cheeks burned lilac, opting instead to communicate over text.
Mina: Bad Boy Izuku has no right being that hot! ={
Toru: Oh, jeez, I thought you had fallen hard before. xD
Toru: Also, 'Bad Boy' lmao, he swore once.
Mina: Not the point!
Toru: If I'd known getting him to say one (1) curse word would net this reaction, I'd have done it weeks ago.
Mina: Stoppit!
Toru: Probably would've let all this flirting y'all are doing be, y'know, actual flirting instead of this weird "will they, won't they?" flirting thing y'all have actually been doing. ;)
Mina: Oh, like you're one to talk. =/
Toru: Hey, I resent that...entirely accurate accusation. xD
Toru: Okay, look, how about this: whoever asks their boy out before midnight gets bragging rights until the end of time and is the guaranteed pick for Maid of Honor at the other's wedding.
Mina: ...A little optimistic for high school romances, don'tcha think? ;)
Mina: But fine, you're on.
Toru: Well, you better start thinking of how to ask him out fast, because it just hit 10 PM.
Mina: ...Wait, huh?
Mina abruptly looked up to find that, indeed, while she had been having her "crisis," the rest of the surprise round had progressed in short order, until Rai was the last person who had made it onto the deck of the pirate ship, standing across from the man who appeared to be leading the operation. Kaminari assumed his best look of astonishment as Izuku spoke with the best imitation of a Scottish accent he could muster.
"'Thoughtcha got rid of me for good back there, didn't ya...Private?' he asks, looking at you with a devilish smirk that's all-too familiar to you from your brief period of service on the high seas," Izuku described, leaving Kaminari to sell his reaction as best he could.
"'...Captain?' Rai asks, in a strange mixture of horror and...relief." As Momo and Jirou in particular looked at him in surprise, Izuku brought his hands together.
"And that's where we'll leave it for tonight!" he declared, prompting several cries of mock outrage at leaving them on yet another cliffhanger. "Relax, we'll be back together in, like, four days! Y'all sprung this on me unexpectedly; I've got homework I should be doing right now!" Izuku jokingly protested, managing to sway the others to his side while Mina gulped in surprisingly nervous anticipation considering her typically brazen approach to romance. As the rest of the group said their goodbyes, Toru whispered something to Koda and accompanied him into the elevator leading up towards the boys' wing, leaving Izuku and Mina alone as he gathered up his things. Mina gulped once more as soon as he finished and bade her good night; it was now or never.
"Hey, Midori? Do you, uh, got a minute?" she asked, quite literally twiddling her thumbs as Izuku took notice of the lilac dusting her cheeks and her nervous posture, a blush beginning to show up on his cheeks as well as he began to get an idea of what this was about.
"Sure, Mina, what's...up?" he began, only to find himself at a loss for words as Mina abruptly placed her hands on his shoulders and whispered a question into his ear. Left unable to offer any verbal confirmation, he could only nod frantically before she steadied herself...and leaned in closer.
Finally, it begins! And it only took nine chapters! xD
Yeah, I realized I forgot to upload this at my usual time, so this author's note is gonna be rather brief; just let me know what you think about this massive brick wall of a chapter in the reviews below. As always, thank you all for reading, stay safe, wear a mask and get vaccinated if possible, have yourselves a fantastic night, and take care!