That's what I'm Counting On

Dungeons and Decisions-AU

Some of the best stories start with murder, but Kai hoped this one wouldn't.

Not again.

Kai sat at the table, setting up his character for the game of Dungeons and Dragons that they routinely played on Friday nights. Classed as a cleric, he was playing as a lawful good wood elf. To his left, Thorne—who was so obviously new to the game—played as a chaotic good Dragonborn knight. Across the table from him sat Cress the dungeon master, who had managed to stay sane throughout the whole process, and to his right was his girlfriend, Cinder. She had thrown away all her morals and chose the path of a chaotic evil tiefling necromancer, yet somehow stayed as a member of their team despite her questionable ideas.

          Tonight, they had all decided to keep the game at a PG-13 level to avoid the gory and highly uncomfortable events of last week that all began with a faulty roll. It had not been an overall good experience for the four of them, getting to the point where each of them agreed to swear an oath that no word of what had happened in the game would leave the room.

          Cress cleared her throat to begin. "Ok, to continue the slightly altered events of what we left off on last week, you guys have entered a town full of perfectly healthy villagers who are alive, with no corpses to loot." She looked directly at Cinder as she said this.

          "Can you guys stop overreacting? It was only a murder." Cinder retorted, turning around in her chair. Kai had never seen her dark side before they had played this game, but it had in fact caused him to question a few things about her past.

          Grimacing, Thorne decided to further comment on the brewing argument despite Cress politely asking them to stop. "You slaughtered the townspeople, looted their bodies, and enslaved the survivors so you could cut their hair and weave them into whips, creating an endless supply of weapons!"

          "I'm allowed to! My character is chaotic evil."

          Thorne pressed both his hands down on the table, knocking over a plastic spruce tree. "I'm a knight, so it's my job to protect people. That's not even the bad part compared t—"

          "Guys!" Kai interrupted, "We already settled this. Listen to Cress."

          Apologizing, they sat back down.

          Cress cleared her throat once again. " The name of the town is greenbrier, but because of the after dark curfew, the gate is locked until sunrise. You cannot tell what is inside."

          "It wasn't locked last time." Cinder said.

          "Well it is this time." Cress answered.

           Thorne's hand shot up. "I say we criticize the lock until it breaks of stress."

           Cress made a face of disappointment. "You cannot criticize the lock because it's not alive."

          Now it was up to Kai to make the final decision for the first move. Cinder wasn't allowed to make any moves for the first turn as a result of the incidents of last Friday night. "Can we climb over it?"

          "Yes, actually... Thank you for actually being the first person to have a normal idea."

           The three of them rolled, and Cress counted up the numbers. "Kai and Cinder swiftly climb over the gate and into the town, but Thorne fails to make it over due to his heavy armour."

           "Hey!" Thorne shouted, "Use our character names."

          Cress sighed. "Faramir and Dread swiftly climb over the gate and into the town, but The FitnessGram Pacer Test fails to make it over due to his heavy armour." Cress sighed, and Thorne wheezed from laughter. "Seven Kobolds emerge from the shadows, surrounding The FitnessGram Pacer Test."