Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms

“I fucked that up,” Alex said, as she lay dying.

“There’s a lot to mess up, to be fair,” Samson said. He was close to death himself, and the horde of angry goblins were probably going to change that soon.

“You’ll be fine,” Hawke insisted. “I’ll get over there and put all your organs back inside you in a second.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Kim said. She raised her hand and let her chosen instrument of death fall.

The sapphire blue dice made a small clink as it hit the table.

“Damn it. Nineteen doesn’t hit you, does it?”

“You know it doesn’t,” Hawke said. Her flawless memory was the whole reason Kim got to be the perma-DM. She could remember all the arcane rules of Pathfinder that everyone else forgot. It kept the game running smoothly, even if it was running smoothly into the grave for newbies like Alex and Samson.

“Fine. The crossbow shot misses. Vell, your turn.”

“Oh, okay. I should probably heal Alex, right?”

“You’re not exactly good at it, Mr. Sorcerer,” Alex said. “Best defense is a good offense. Go blow something up.”

They were playing an intro-level game, so Vell didn’t really have many ways to blow anything up. He could set stuff on fire though, and decided to burn up a goblin with a simple cantrip. With the goblin horde now -1, turn order rolled over to Samson.

“Alright, time for me to miss, do nothing, and have to reload anyway,” Samson said. Much to his surprise, Samson actually hit an attack roll for the first time in the session. His make-believe Gunslinger had not been performing to nearly the level of a certain real world gunslinger sitting at the table.

“One more goblin down, only three to go,” Kim said. As the table rolled around, Hawke revived Alex’s wizard, and it came to Samson’s turn once again. He glared down at his character sheet, and the gun listed on it.

“Hold on, I want to try something,” Samson said. He grabbed his assigned dice and tossed it over to Vell. “Roll my attack for me.”

“Really?”

“It’s science,” Samson said. “Let’s see what happens.”

Vell rolled his eyes and the dice at the same time. The dense copper die thudded on the table and resulted in a natural 20 -a critical hit with the imaginary gun.

“Hmm.”

“That could be a coincidence,” Kim said. “It’s a five percent chance every time.”

“Roll it again.”

The dice rolled again, and landed on 20 again.

“Statistically unlikely, but not impossible.”

Vell rolled another 20.

“Alright, fuck that, Samson, roll your own attacks,” Kim said. “None of Vell’s characters are allowed to have guns.”

“Understandable,” Vell said. Samson rolled his own attack, managed a hit, and moved the game forward to Alex’s turn.

“I feel like this game has a very questionable understanding of magic,” Alex said, as she examined her empty spell slots. “Even an amateur magician could cause a shockwave more than twice a day.”

“It’s not meant to be a true-to-life depiction of magic combat, Alex. There’s goblins in it.”

“There’s goblins in real life too,” Alex said. She’d been stabbed in the leg by one a few months ago.

“Most people don’t know that,” Vell said. “It’s just a game. If you need a justification, I don’t know, it’s medieval. They were probably just dumber and worse at magic back then.”

“Hmm. Logical. What’s left of my ego is placated, let’s smash some goblins,” Alex said. It was especially satisfying given the previous stabbing incident. She hurled a cantrip at a far-off goblin and then bashed the other over the head with her staff. Hawke dealt the finish blow with a very large axe. He was playing a strong and fearless barbarian, which he insisted had nothing to do with any feelings of inadequacy regarding his weak and fearful life. It was just fun to hit things with an axe.

“Okay, goblin murder’s done,” Vell said. “Now we have to go back to that village chief guy.”

“Boner lass,” Hawke said with a nod.

“Bonnarlius,” Kim corrected.

“Like I said. Boner lass.”

“You’ve done this seventeen times, Hawke,” Kim said, with a digital sigh.

“Yeah, and it’s still funny,” Hawke said.

“I don’t get it,” Samson grunted.

“That’s because you don’t speak English, it’s probably not translating well,” Alex said. The auto-translate spell struggled with very specific puns. “The NPC’s name sounds like an English word for erection.”

“Oh. That is kind of funny,” Samson said.

“Don’t encourage him,” Kim said. “Alright, you guys head back to Boner la- Fuck!”

Kim put her head in her hands to obscure her optical sensors as Hawke did a quick little victory dance.

“Okay. Fine. Are we done?”

“I’m done,” Hawke said.

“Alright, so Bonnarlius,” Kim said, enunciating very clearly. “Thanks you for your service and pays you the agreed upon twenty-five gold pieces. He says he is also aware of a den of dangerous wolves in the area, if you are inclined to keep serving the village, or offers you a place to rest if you need it.”

“This place has got a lot of problems for a village with like eleven people in it,” Samson said.

“Yeah, and this Bonnarlius guy is right on top of them all, he’s-”

Vell stopped himself and looked down at the tiny figurine representing his sorceror. His forehead started to wrinkle.

“Vell.”

A third wrinkle appeared.

“Vell, don’t you forehead wrinkle me,” Kim said.

Fourth wrinkle.

“I think Bonnarlius is the bad guy,” Vell said. Kim slammed her fists into the table.

“Vell, come on! Save the forehead shit for the supervillains, not my imaginary bullshit villains,” Kim said.

“He just had a suspicious amount of info on the bad guys,” Vell said. “He mentioned that weird artifact earlier, things add up!”

“Well congratulations, you figured out the big twist like seven games in advance,” Kim grumbled.

“Oh, were we going to do this seven more times?” Alex said. “I’m not sure I have the time.”

“I’m not sure I have the patience,” Samson said. “I don’t think this game is my kind of thing.”

“Well, there’s the real villain of any tabletop campaign,” Vell said. “Scheduling.”