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Noelle could not believe that she was convinced to play this game. She could be at home studying for her next math exam, but instead, she is sitting in Diya’s living room, huddled around a poorly-drawn map made by Min. She was sitting next to Akarsha, who was furiously scribbling something down on her character sheet that she must have forgotten. Diya was sitting across from the two of them, who couldn’t help but steal glances at Min, who was trying to organize their notes and die behind the screen. She looked down at her bare-bones sheet, with the literal minimum she could have put down for her character to be functioning. From what Noelle could see, Akarsha had at least ten times more detail for this campaign that was likely to go nowhere.
It all started at lunch on a Tuesday. Noelle just started on her meal when Akarsha made another one of her announcements. “Hear ye, hear ye! I hath gathered thee around thine round table to partake in a game with Dragons in the Dungeons!” she exclaims at the top of her lungs, getting up from her seat and putting her foot on the table, trying awkwardly to look like a knight with a sword raised. Other students at other tables snicker and glare at her, which only turns Noelle red with embarrassment. While her own hands cover her face, Diya claps, and Min high-fives Akarsha. “Sick, dude! Anything with dragons and shit, I’m cool with,” Min says.
“Ok, awesome! We start this Saturday, ‘cus I have something on Sunday,” Akarsha says with the fattest grin on her face, still with her knee on the table.
“Alright, I never said that I was going to be a part of this,” Noelle says, dropping her utensils. “I don’t even understand what this ‘game’ even entails, so I could not ‘partake’ in this… idiocracy.”
Akarsha’s smile dims a tiny bit, which makes Noelle pain slightly, but it was true. She had no idea how to play… Dragons and Dungeons? She couldn’t even get the name right, let alone play it. She would much rather organize a study session where everyone was quiet (meaning no Min or Akarsha), and she finished the rest of the semester that day. Diya looked at her dejected while Min just glared. “What the fucking fuck do you mean you won’t tarpake-!”
“It’s partake, imbecile-”
“Partake, tarpake, whatever. Why won’t you play with us? You could use a break from all the damn studying you do. One extra point on your next test isn’t gonna get you admitted into Harvard or Berkeley,” Min jabs. Akarsha finally gets down and nods in agreement. Noelle looks at Diya in hopes of getting some back-up, but it never comes. Diya just looked at her with those… those puppy eyes of hers.
“It has been a bit since we’ve all hung out,” Diya mentioned. “We could do my house. Safe. Familiar. Low stress. It’s just for fun, Noelle.”
No. Diya pulls this every time because she knows it works on her, but it will not this time. “I have an important test coming up, and I would rather not tank my grades, unlike some of the people here with us.” She looks at Min and Akarsha.
Akarsha gasps. “I do not know what you could ever mean by that, Frenchman! You understand that because you’re a Frenchman, which kinda sorta means you have to play D&D with us.”
Noelle focuses on Akarsha, bewildered. “How does that- why does- ugh. That genuinely has no correlation to whether or not I have to play this. Why do I even have to join this? Can this not be played with three people?” Noelle questions.
“Are you stupid? Of course not, that is wayyy too small,” Min says.
“Too small,” Diya chimes in.
Exasperated, Noelle says, “Try as you may, but you will not take away my studying time. I have to-” she gets silenced quickly by Akarsha, who puts her finger to Noelle’s mouth in a lame attempt to seduce her.
“Come on, Frenchie mannie man… You don’t want me to start doing even worse pranks, do you?” Akarsha said seductively, only to be ruined by some slight voice cracks.
Between Diya’s pouting, Min’s… cut-throat-gesture, and Akarsha being too close for comfort, she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. Some flip switched in her brain that she’ll probably have to explore at some point. She pushes Akarsha away and lets out a dramatic sigh, even for Akarsha. “Fine, fine, fine… I’ll make some time, somehow. But this is a one-time thing! Don’t get any funny ideas,” Noelle exclaims.
Akarsha fist pumps while the couple hug each other and look at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time. They back off, much to Noelle’s delight.
“Alright, so now who wants to be the Dungeon Master?”
—
Noelle looks back down at her sheet. She couldn’t come up with a good enough name, so she just stuck with Noelle. Akarsha tried adding “the Frenchest Man Ever,” but Noelle held her back, so now it just says “Noelle the Freche.” Diya finds it amusing and takes a liking to the name. Diya named her character Akita, after one of the many dog breeds she has categorized in her brain. A bit on the nose, she also made her character a doggirl once she found out she could be anything she wanted, thanks to Min’s homebrew rules. Noelle was fine with being a human. Akarsha was Ahsraka, which she thought was insanely creative because she reversed her name around. Noelle could’ve come up with a better name than that if she cared.
“Okay, so we have… a doggirl druid, a human paladin, and a tiefling bard. That should be a good balance, maybe.” Min clears their throat and tries to put on a narrator voice. Noelle thinks they sound like nails on a chalkboard, but Diya was swooning. Akarsha was on high alert, ready to scribble down any significant details that might help them on their journey. Noelle caught herself smiling slightly at Akarsha and turned back to Min. “Since this was kinda last-minute, thanks to this genius–” Min gestures to Akarsha– “this might be a little scuffed. But I totally fucking got this.”
Noelle really did not have a baseline as to what counted as being “good” at leading this game, but she figured that Min did their research for once, so she could give them some grace. She was struggling quite a bit with getting into her character, even though it was pretty much herself in a fantasy world. She found it strange how easily immersed the others were in this game. Akarsha constantly kept hitting on the NPCs that Min supplied, which resulted in at least a frown and at most a slap in the face to her character. Despite Min’s tendency towards violence, they managed to string along a decent storyline. The three of them were to venture into the depths of a cavern that was housing an evil snake guarding the king’s daughter. The king promised fame and fortune (and three puppies, for Diya) to those who were willing to brave the depths and save the princess. Noelle’s character simply thought they should decline the offer, because most of them were living decently anyway and had no use for the riches. The rest of the party begged to differ, managing to convince her that they should go on this mission.
After grueling and exhausting hours of fighting beast after beast, they managed to get to the end of the cavern. All three of them were running out of spell slots, while Noelle was at an immense loss of health points from having to tank all of the hits. Using her bardic inspiration, Akarsha convinced Min to heal Noelle through song for an extra boost, but she was still down half of her HP. Surprisingly, Noelle was getting into the game a lot more than she thought she would. The bar was at zero, but anything higher was an accomplishment. Noelle had to give it to Akarsha; she made sure that Noelle felt included playing with them. Diya and Min obviously did their best, but it was Akarsha interacting with Noelle’s character and asking a lot of questions that really helped her get adjusted. They get to the end and are greeted with a disfigured snake-pig creature. Min’s details sounded abysmal, so Noelle blocked most of their description out by covering her ears. Diya and Akarsha grimaced.
“Roll initiative. You have one shot at this, so don’t blow it,” Min said. Diya rolled a 19, Akarsha a 14, and Noelle a 9. Diya uses her last spell slot to cast Moonbeam on the creature. It writhes in pain, taking 25 damage. Noelle recognizes the spell from her list and recalls that it’s really not possible. She tries to alert Min of the miscalculation (or favoritism?), standing up before Akarsha gently pushes her back down onto her chair. She simply smiles and shakes her head, coughing abnormally. She is tempted to try again, but Akarsha is already trying to pull another one of her stunts.
“Can I use Dissonant Whispers on Mr. Ugly over here? I’m gonna whisper doge memes until he goes insane and starts crying,” Akarsha beams. Min finds it so hilarious that they make it an automatic fail for the pig-snake. It takes another 14 damage, but not nearly enough. The enemy takes its turn, coming after Diya’s character since the beam hurt more. He smashes down with a mace onto Diya, unfortunately doing almost twice the damage since Min rolled a nat 20. The sheer force is just enough for Diya to fall unconscious. Min celebrates a little before suddenly stopping when they see Diya upset over being knocked out first. Min tells Akarsha to think of her next move while they explain how Diya can get revived if she rolls successfully twice.
The battle seems to go on for a while, with a lot of back and forth. Min must have put a horribly high amount of health points on this character; even after 56 more damage, it still stands guarding the princess. Eventually, it lands on Akarsha’s turn, and she is deep in thought. It takes her a minute or two before she turns to Min. “Can we try something different?”
“Hit me.”
“What if Noelle does a help action and we combine our efforts into one single attack?” Akarsha questions. She almost gets on her knees with her hands clasped. “Please please please please please please–”
“Okay, okay, fuck!” Min laughs. “I was gonna say that that sounds sick as shit, and you definitely should do that. Just don’t spend ten more minutes thinking about it,” they groan.
Akarsha grins deviously and looks at Noelle. “Okay, so you have a sword, right? I’m gonna convince Min that I can cast real fire on it, which will make it do double damage. We both run in together and absolutely smash it up into a million bajillion pieces. Capiche?”
Noelle nods. “I don’t know how you’ll make it work, but I am alright with making an attempt.” Akarsha explains the plan to Min, and it makes their eyes glow with passion. They get the go almost immediately, with Diya cheering them on as she remains unconscious. Akarsha mimics lighting a fire onto Noelle’s sword, and Noelle begrudgingly holds it up to Akarsha’s hands. Akarsha rolls some dice, taking some from Diya and Noelle’s stash. Noelle does the math in her head, and it totals out to a whopping 54 damage. Surely, that would be enough. She waits for Akarsha to announce the damage, but Akarsha suddenly stands up and pulls Noelle to her feet as well. Noelle furrows her brows for a second or so before Akarsha pulls her close as Akarsha holds onto the imaginary sword Noelle had been holding. Noelle is unable to say anything; luckily, she doesn’t have to.
“Noelle, with thine sword we can… uh… diabolize this pig-snaketogether!” Akarsha yells a little too loudly.
“That is not how you…” Noelle stops. Akarsha just looks at her with extremely exaggerated eyes. “Fine.”
They pretend to charge into the pig-snake together, lunging at its chest and piercing its cold, cold heart. “This fiend is no match for us! We will reign victorious!” Akarsha says, beaming at Noelle. Noelle can’t help but look back. “Fifty. Four. Damage.” Akarsha acts like the sword is now a microphone and drops it. Diya claps, stars in her eyes.
“Wow… impressive,” Min scoffs. Noelle smiles a little more. Impulsively, Akarsha launches herself at Noelle and tackles her onto the couch behind them. They both can’t help themselves, laughing as they’ve never laughed before.
“That was impressive for a dolt like you,” Noelle smirks. She shakes her head and sits straight, straightening out her button-up. Noelle looks over at Min wincing.
“Uh, I hate to break it to you guys, but the dude isn’t dead.” Min makes some rolls of the die, and Noelle remembers that the creature gets to use its turn now, and they were both right in front of it. “He uses his snake venom and spits it all over both of your faces…” Min says slowly. “Does a 20 kill either of you?”
“I take what I said back. How could you let us run directly into it and die just like that?!” Noelle asks, bewildered.
Akarsha grimaces, “I thought for sure it would be enough… Sorrz, Frenchman.” Noelle just rolls her eyes. “You’re not alive?” Akarsha asks.
“What- no! I had minuscule health points going into this fight, you know this!”
“Wait! It’s my turn, right?” Diya questions.
“Uh… yeah. Make your death saving throw,” Min says.
Diya does her roll behind the screen with Min watching and then looks up, happy. “I’m alive now.”
Akarsha hurries over to her spot around the table, looking intently at Diya. Noelle clambers her way back as well.
Diya, with no spell slots left, decides to go for an unarmed attack while the snake-pig was busy in his glory of knocking Noelle and Akarsha unconscious. There wasn’t much else she could do, but the way in described him, he looked pretty beat up. Diya reenacts it; her character runs in with all her might and delivers a mean uppercut to the beast’s jaw. She rolls a D4 and gets a one.
“Aaaand that does it! The pig thing fucking collapses in on itself and withers away,” Min says, high-fiving Diya.
“Wha- that should’ve been our glory! Did you not hear us absolutely body the life outta that thing?” Akarsha groans.
“Rules are rules,” Min throws her hands up. “I didn’t make ‘em.”
“Damn,” Akarsha concedes. She turns to Noelle as Diya recovers the princess before healing them. She takes Noelle’s hands. “I really tried getting a badass kill with you, I thought that would’ve been it…” Akarsha trails. “I bet Min just wanted to give Diya the kill,” Akarsha whispers.
Noelle doesn’t have the heart to tell Akarsha that, in total, they really only did 149 damage, meaning they were likely one off that Diya managed to deal at the end. “That makes sense. It’s sickening,” Noelle laughs.
“I hope you still enjoyed, though. I really did want this to be a sick ass experience,” Akarsha pouts. “You were kinda killin’ it with the roleplay and stuffs. Pretty sick, Frenchman.”
Noelle shakes her head. “All you,” she says. They stare at each other for a bit before Noelle looks away, unsure about whatever she was doing just 10 seconds ago. For a sliver of time, she could have sworn she saw Akarsha redden a bit before she looked at her character sheet.
After agonizing silence, Min yells, “Well done, travelers! I guess you fucking beat my cavern, or whatever. Next time it won’t be as easy. Are we all down, still?”
Akarsha and Diya nod enthusiastically, then realize that Noelle is stonefaced. The three of them stare at her, basically begging her telepathically. She can’t look at Akarsha’s eyes for too long as she sighs. “When’s the next session?”