Andras checked the clock in the corner of Lena’s laptop screen for what was probably the hundredth time in the past half hour. Kiera had messaged him not too long ago saying that she had a few errands to run but would be over relatively soon with food. He wasn’t quite nervous, more restless than anything. It was his fifth day at the university inside Lena and finally time for him to start making some real mission progress that he can report to Idaslis.
While he sat at the desk pretending to study, Sarah laid on her bed brushing up on the Salt Marsh campaign book for the DnD session later on. This girl had been his biggest worry since arriving but she hadn’t questioned his behavior much lately thanks to him keeping a low profile, however this game would likely be the hardest challenge he had faced in his impersonation so far.
He was to try and pass himself off as Lena in the presence of all her friends and his target for what would likely be at least several long hours. Hopefully the girls wouldn’t make too many comments on the changes they have noticed in Lena, he’d have a hard enough job of gaining Kiera’s trust as it stood.
Sarah and the possessed girl both turned their head to the door as a knock emanated from it. Andras rose from his seat and casually opened the door, “Hey Kiera! I was beginning to think you were lost.” He joked. She was carrying the same backpack he had seen her with the day before but now she was also carrying a shopping bag that he couldn’t quite tell what was inside.
“Ahhh yeah sorry I got a little caught up buuuuuuuut.” She said fishing through the shopping bag before producing a clear plastic packet filled with layered cylinders, “I brought sushi!”
Andras had no clue what that was, it looked like food but it didn’t look like anything he’d seen on the island or at the Cafeteria. “Oh cool thanks, here you can chuck your stuff on my bed” He said, accepting the packet and moving aside so the girl could enter.
“Oh wow you have so many cool collectibles.” The young animator said as she set her bags down, admiring the shelves. “Oh hi! You must be Sarah.”
“Yeah that’s me, nice to meet you Kiera. So glad you’ll be joining us for DnD tonight, the party was a little on the small side so it will be great to have you round us out.” The blonde girl said, sitting up and addressing the arrival. “Could I see your character sheet?” she asked.
“Oh sure.”
Kiera rifled through her bags briefly before sliding out the signature character sheet and handing it over. “Thanks.” Sarah said as she started to look it over, the pair watched as the girl’s eyes moved across the sheet, seemingly liking what she was seeing.”Oh wow this is really neat! You must have been working on them for a while.” She said handing it back
“Aha thanks It’s been quite a while since I’ve played DnD so I’ve been holding onto her for quite a while, it will be good to finally play her.”
“Ok cool now that you guys have done that, should we get started?” The demon asked
“Of course, where should I set my stuff down?” His target asked him
“Oh you can take the desk, we only have one chair so I’ll sit on the bed.”
With that Sarah went back to reading up on the campaign while the pair set their gear up. The sitting position Andras settled in was a little awkward with the laptop on his legs but it was the best one he could come up with, “So did you have any ideas on what you wanted to do?” Kiera asked him.
“Ahh nothing specific but I was thinking of a short horror clip? I’ve got quite dramatic and tense audio files that would be perfect for a jumpscare if you’re ok with doing the animating.”
Kiera seemed to like that Idea, “Oh great I really wanted to do the animating so that works out well.” What followed was a relatively short discussion involving locations, characters, times and other details as the two worked on the script. They manage to settle on a lone girl being unknowingly stalked throughout her house before she realizes something is wrong and it attacks her.
“Eh It’s not exactly an original Idea but since we’re only supposed to incorporate a few lighting techniques and camera angles to pass, this should work.” Kiera said
Kiera then opened up the animation software on her computer and began work on the first part of the scene, it was a good thing Kiera hadn’t wanted to do the sound design. He had managed to learn a fair amount about the process and how to do it but having only been there for a handful of days he wasn’t able to put much of what he had learnt into practice. Sound design was quite a bit easier than animating but he had an idea for that. Kiera opened the packet containing the sushi and placed it in between them on the desk.
While the food did look incredibly strange when he popped a bit into his mouth he found he loved it! The wrapping was salty and chewy which went well with what he recognised as rice and fish. Kiera saw his face light up, “You really seem to like it! Is this your first time trying sushi?” Andras caught himself in his glee, “Oh of course I have tried it before but not this kind, this is really good.” He said with his practiced smile. “Well I’m glad you like it.” She replied before turning back to the laptop screen.
By the time that another knock came from the door Andras and Kiera had produced about twelve seconds of animation or rather Andras had watched Kiera produce 12 seconds of animation over the course of several hours while he watched and chimed in occasionally when he could to make it look like he knew at least a little about animation.
It was Sarah that had risen and opened the door this time. “Hey you guys! I can’t believe your two actually got here a little early for once instead of fashionably late as usual.” She teased while giving them a quick hug and ushering them in.
Bianca was the first to speak up, “Hey I feel like I’m really not as tardy as you guys always make me out to be.”
“You say that but the only reason you’re here right now is because I came and got you out of bed.” Amber retorted, “If I hadn’t you’d definitely have fallen asleep like you always do.”
Bianca went to defend herself as the pair were placing down their gear on Sarah’s bed but Andras interrupted them. “WELL lets just be glad we’re all here and are ready to jump into the game.” Which Bianca seemed to accept, she then turned to Kiera, “You must be Kiera! It’s so nice to meet you.” Kiera gave the extroverted girl an awkward wave, “Yeah, nice to meet you too.”
Amber shared a similarly awkward wave with the girl before Kiera and Andras closed their laptops to sit around the board Sarah was setting up in the middle of the floor. It ended up being Kiera and Andras on one side, Bianca and Amber opposite and Sarah sitting behind her DM cover at the ‘head’ of the board. With the group settled Sarah began describing the world of Greyhawk with its many continents and seas, “But where our story takes place is a sleepy fishing village nestled on the coast of the Azure sea, in a busy tavern where we meet-”
This was the part where Amber introduced her human paladin, initially a farm girl whose village had been destroyed by raiders. Only she had survived thanks to the efforts of a Paladin who had shown up and defeated her attackers. That paladin would go on to adopt her and train her in the ways of the paladin at her request.
Bianca introduced her Satyr druid who had grown up in the wilds but left in search of adventure and wonder. Kiera then told everyone about her half elf cleric who was taught the healing ways by her elven mother, the stories her mother had told her made her want to follow in her footsteps and become a great adventurer.
It was finally time for Andras to introduce his character as the four girls looked at him expectantly, “My character is a purple kobold named Gurn, he was exiled from his tribe due to his mutation at a young age and was forced to survive by stealing what food he could. Eventually he got pretty good at it.”
The girls looked at him quizzically before turning to each other and giggling, “Ahaha I guess every group does need its odd one out.” After the giggling had subsided Sarah narrated a man bursting into the tavern clearly distressed. The man exclaimed that his farm was about to be attacked by a goblin horde and he promised five gold pieces to any adventurer for each goblin slain. Four adventurers stepped forward to take the quest.
Brief introductions was all the group had time for before they hastily departed to the farm. “By the time you arrive at the farm you can see the goblin horde approaching from the north, what do you do?” Sarah asked the group.
The three girls had opted to meet them head on and engage the would-be raiders, Andras however decided to split up from the group and activate stealth. The trio clashed against the goblin horde and it was initially going extremely well as they slew the first few goblins with relative ease before the group was pummeled by a barrage of arcane missiles out of nowhere.
Recovering from the surprise the group attempted to push through the goblins to deal with the greatest threat only to be held where they were by the wall of goblins that had formed in between them and the spellcaster. Amber and Bianca were desperately trying to carve their way through with Kiera supporting them from behind but they were halted by the goblics and met with another barrage of missiles.
Kiera exhausted the last of her spell slots healing the damage from that attack but they weren’t going to be able to take another one. The trio hacked and slashed at the wall but only managed to thin the goblins out a bit by the time the wizard was charging up another spell. It was looking like the party might be in trouble until Andras said, “I strike the wizard with a sneak attack!”
Andras had managed to sneak around the goblin horde and had found himself right behind the distracted wizard. “Ok go ahead and roll.” Andras rolled a d20 hoping for a high number, when it stopped rolling he couldn’t believe his luck. A 20, which not only guarantees a hit but doubles all damage!
The girls cheered at the result, even Andras let out a holler. Now it was time to roll damage, he rolled a d4 and two d6’s. A 3, 5 and 6 was the result, totalling at an impressive 28 points of damage. Sarah looked at the dice then back at what was likely the wizard’s stats behind her DM cover.
She looked stunned and looked at the dice again just to make sure she had read that correctly. “With a swift and calculated strike you sink your dagger into the neck of the Goblin Wizard, the magic that was building in his hands instantly fizzles out as his hands whipped to the wound. He fell down to his knees, gurgling as he tried pointlessly swatting at his attacker before collapsing forward motionless.”
“YEAHHHH!” The group erupted into cellabration, “That was amazing!” Bianca exclaimed as Andras high fived each and every one of them, even Sarah. The rest of the fight was easy in comparison to what had come before because seeing their leader get cut down behind them and getting sandwiched in between the adventurers had shattered their morale. Some managed to flee but most were not so lucky.
By the time it was finished most of them were a little below half health and covered in a mixture of their own blood and goblin blood but it was finished and it was time to collect their reward. The farmer was extremely gracious to the adventurers and paid them what was promised plus another 100 gold between them as well as some bread, cheese and ale as extra thanks.
The remainder of the session was spent mostly celebrating their first quest together with a trip to the tavern, the four adventurers had decided to form a party off the back of their success. The three girls also got a laugh out of the drunken antics of Gurn roleplayed by the possessed girl. By the time Andras had thought to check his phone, it was 9pm and well past time for dinner. He had been having so much fun he hadn’t noticed how late it was.
When he told the rest of the group that they were shocked, “Really? We’ve been playing for four hours already? That went by so quickly.” Commented Amber. “Should we order some food? What’s still open at this time of night?” Bianca asked. “Oooh Pizza!” Andras excitedly suggested
Just ten minutes later Sarah hung up her phone with Dominos one the way. “So Kiera has Lena told you about the vacation she just came back from? Bianca asked the young animator, “No she hasn’t mentioned it, where did you go?” She said turning to the Neon haired girl.
“Oh I just came back from Spooky Island, I had a really good time.” He replied.
“I’ll say! She left saying she was going to unwind in the most secluded areas she could find with a book and came back with tales of dancing, surfing and snorkeling. It must be a magical place because she’s almost like a different person.” Commented Sarah
“Ahaha what can I say it was a great destination.” He laughed nervously
“Spooky Island huh?” Kiera said, “I got tickets to that a couple weeks ago but I threw them out because I thought it was a scam. Are you telling me I threw away free tickets to a FREE holiday!?” The animator exclaimed.
The group erupted into laughter at that, after the giggles had subsided Sarah chimed in, “Don’t feel too bad Kiera, I couldn’t go either since I had a test halfway through the trip.” That seemed to alleviate the girls suffering, if only slightly.
“Well you know I did meet the owner of the Island while I was there, I made pretty good friends with her too. I could probably ask her to send out some promotional tickets for the five of us.” Andras offered carefully, gauging their reactions.
“Seriously!?” Bianca asked, “How did you manage that?”
“Oh she greets all the arrivals herself and she seemed to take a special liking to me, we’ve kept in touch since.” The demon explained, “I’ll message her to send us some entry passes and flight coupons, that way we can go when it fits our schedule so none of us have to miss out.”
“Are we really talking about this?” Sarah asked.
“Of course we are, you guys have to go! I couldn’t possibly let you guys miss out while it’s free. Hey Kiera, you should come with us!” Andras said. “It will be so much fun.” The rest of the group seemed to agree as they all looked at Kiera.
“I don’t know guys, I have a lot of homework to catch up on.” She weakly protested
“Look, the tickets will probably take at least a week to get here so we have plenty of time to get everything in order, we’ll only be gone a week. What do you say?” The demon asked
Andras’ target hesitated before sighing, “Ok fiiiiiiiiiiiine I’ll come along!” the group cheered once again, “But only if I can get everything done in time, If I’m still tied up in work I’ll have to stay.”
“Of course! Let’s smash out our project together and then we can sort out the details!” Andras exclaimed gleefully. He was ecstatic, if everything went well from here he could be on his way back to his home Island with his target AND three bonuses in as little as two weeks.
As if on queue the third knock for that day came from the door, signaling the arrival of the food.
