I returned to the classroom and Spider’s fake-ass scowling at me, and sent him a quick text after I sat down again.
Me: What you said earlier was wrong, you know. About Gemma being the ringleader. She’s not, she’s the beta. Adriana is the alpha.
Aragog: What??
Me: I stared Gemma down in about two seconds flat. Adriana didn’t even *blink* after I said all that to her. She’s the alpha.
Aragog: Huh. Interesting.
Me: Guess you aren’t often looking at their eyes, eh?
Aragog: I try not to look at them at all, tbh.
Me: We finally have something in common.
Aragog: You mean besides liking that your hair smells good? Seems we do.
Me: I’m done with you.
Aragog: No you’re not. See you in detention.
Me: Got plans. I’ll go tomorrow.
Aragog: Detention is supposed to be punitive, not on your schedule.
Me: The detention was for the girl with blood cancer missing STUDY HALL because she wasn’t feeling well. Try to sell that one to the principal.
Aragog: Going to play the cancer card, eh?
Me: It’s gotta be good for something.
Aragog: Alright, go do your thing, but tomorrow you’re serving detention.
Me: Hair smelling creeper.
Aragog: Neck licking weirdo.
Me: See you tomorrow in comp sci. Try not to watch me the whole hour, you freak.
Aragog: Next time I’m going to make you read the conversation out loud to the class.
Me: Then the whole class will hear how I think Sev has a giant ego and my contempt apparently turns him on. Oh, golly, how cruel. Whatever shall I do?!
Aragog: Seriously? What a fucking perv.
Me: You’re one to talk, scalp sniffer.
Aragog: Umm, it’s racist to talk about scalps to a Native American.
Aragog: OH MY GOD YOUR FACE! THAT’S THE BEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN.
Me: You’re such a dick.
Aragog: I really, really am.
Chapter Twelve
Sev
The game store was in a prime location a block away from the square: close enough for foot traffic but far enough away from the “downtown” area that parking was plentiful. This was something that store owners used to have to worry about, the whole concept of “location” whereas these days, in other places, things were different.
It could still be a factor here, I didn’t know.
I dropped Luka and Sasha off at the grocery store on the way, and they were going to walk home afterwards. They weren’t going for anything in particular, we all just like walking around in the store looking at the full shelves and buying stupid shit like nutty bars and canned cranberry sauce, it’s mind-fucking-boggling how things in this town haven’t changed in the past four years. They made sure to give me all kinds of shit about being a “nerd” per usual, and I wasn’t terribly sad to leave them. I needed a break from everything, and gaming had always been my escape.
We were given a map during orientation and I’d noticed the store listed immediately, like a homing beacon calling out to me. I stopped in as soon as I could, and discovered nirvana. The store was bigger than I expected, but everything about this entire town felt like bizarro world so why wouldn’t the gaming store be giant, fully stocked, and popular? Then again, even before the world ended, tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons were popular among soldiers.
But it wasn’t just D&D. There were walls of board games, racks of hobby supplies, bins of collectible card games, shelves of miniatures, and an extensive selection of tabletop RPGs and supplements. And not just 5th edition D&D but 3.5 and 4e too, and Pathfinder, and Shadowrun, Legend of the Five Rings, Gamma World, Deadlands, Tephra, GURPS, FATE… I’d never even heard of some of the others. A freaking display case full of dice. Warhammer Fantasy and 40k armies. The back half was nothing but tables, and even during the day they were filled with people playing games.
One wall was a giant mural of the Caves of Chaos from one of the original D&D modules, “Keep on the Borderlands.” Or more like an ode to the iconic map because it looked a little different than I remembered, and there was a piece of plexiglass mounted over it with a map of the town we were in, and some things lined up in ways that were way too convenient to be legit. Which was hilarious, because the high school lined up with the area of the caves marked “Trolls” and the hospital is apparently populated with hobgoblins.
I’d never expected to find a place like this again. I’m not going to lie, I got a little misty.
The staff was friendly but distant, which was pretty common amongst my people: you have to establish your nerd cred before they accept you. I had a good talk with one of the guys sorting through a shoebox of loose Magic cards, gave him a bit of my history and what I wanted to play. It felt almost like a job interview for a position I wanted really badly but didn’t feel qualified for, and any other place or situation, I would’ve been embarrassed by how eager I was.
He must have empathized with my excitement though, because he told me about the afternoons and nights that all the tables were reserved for D&D campaigns exclusively, and that there were some long-running 5e games with openings, the edition I was most familiar with.
“There are a couple really popular DMs, you’ll figure out who once you start playing. You probably won’t get into one of their campaigns to start, but people move between games all the time and no one takes it personally. You gotta find a group you mesh with, we all get it. But if you get here before 4, you might just win the lottery,” he said cryptically and a woman sifting through the individual dice trays snorted.
“Good luck!” It was oozing sarcasm, and when I made a face, the guy rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“You’re just bitter, Kate. She told you twice to take some fucking notes and you still didn’t. It’s disruptive for a DM to have to keep explaining the same things over and over because you can’t remember shit between sessions, it interrupts their flow. You fucked up. Deal with it.”
“Whatever,” she spat out and walked away, leaving a pile of dice behind. Just to be an ass, I sorted through her picks, replaced a couple, and slid them across the counter towards the register.
“Nice,” the guy said, laughing. “Word of advice?” I nodded. “Bring a couple characters of different levels, maybe a variety of roles. I’d say a third, fourth, and sixth should cover the ones I know have openings. If you need to look at a Player’s Handbook, we’ve got a couple store copies around, blank character sheets in that cabinet over there. Store policy is 2d6+6 seven times for ability scores, drop the lowest, and an employee has to witness your rolls if your DM isn’t around. Let me know when you’re ready.” I grinned and thanked him, and as I headed to a table with my brand-spanking-new dice in hand, he called out, “Nobody ever turns healing down. Just sayin’,” and I gave him a thumbs up. That was excellent advice.
I had all afternoon free — we weren’t starting school until the next day — so I rolled up six different characters, two for each level he recommended, all standard PHB races and classes without any fancy multi-classing or variants.
As I was leaving, he stopped me again. “I saw you checking out the mural earlier,” he said, nodding at the city-map-slash-dungeon mural. “If you’re going to play here, you need to take a picture of it. House rule.”
I was reasonably confused.
He sighed. “One of our owners painted it. I think the plan was to use it for a giant LARP at some point, but the big event hasn’t happened yet.” He made air quotes around the big event, and looked embarrassed but still insistent. “But rules are rules, and everyone that plays here is supposed to have a picture of it, like a secret handshake kinda thing. Look, stop making that face at me, I know it sounds like bullshit but house-fucking-rule.”
I smirked and took the picture.
When I walked back through the door on Tuesday afternoon, there were already a few games in session. T
hat’s the thing with being on a military base, people’s schedules varied wildly.
I didn’t see the guy from the other day, but I did see one of the teachers from the high school setting out his gaming stuff at a table with a tiny blonde woman in a unicorn onesie who was talking really fast and flipping through papers. I didn’t know him, but he looked up, saw me, and called out.
“Sasha? Hey! What are you doing here? I didn’t know you played,” he said, looking at the books and Crown Royal bag I was carrying then peering at me with more focus as I got closer. “Oh, hey… you’re not Sasha.”
“Sev,” I said, stopping about six feet from the table. Other people were staring, and I was weirdly uncomfortable, like I was the ugly chick at the prom hoping I get asked to dance by someone.
“Right! I have Sasha and Luka in my Geography class,” he said gesturing me over. “Mr. Kalkunen in school, but I’m Ben here.” We shook hands, and he pointed at a chair. “Have a seat.”
“Game’s full,” the woman said flatly as I set my stuff down, and I hesitated. Her eyes were narrowed and she was sitting back in her chair strumming her fingers on the tabletop. “So you’re one of the fucking triplets, eh?”
Mr. Kalkunen — Ben — looked back and forth between us. “Oh, uh… huh,” he said, looking a little embarrassed now. “I guess I shouldn’t be so presumptuous… umm, sorry, but it isn’t really my call whether you join us.”
“You’re right, Ben,” a familiar voice said over my shoulder, and I turned around to find Azzie standing there with her arms crossed, two bags hanging off her shoulders. I instinctively reached over to take them from her, and she rolled her eyes, fighting back a smile. “I got it, Sev.” She moved to the head of the table and set her stuff down, eyeing me when I didn’t move. “The game is full, but it’s good to see you. I didn’t know you played.”
“Yeah—”
“Do I have time to get food?” The woman interrupted me, bouncing in her seat, and Azzie grinned at her.
“Of course. But don’t get anything that I’m going to have to smell for the rest of the game or I’ll make you eat it outside.” She set up her DM screen and sat down, stacking books off to the side and then assembling a fancy dice tray while talking to Ben and another guy who showed up, a giant of a man ripped with muscles under his fatigues.
I guess I was dismissed.
I checked a few other tables, finally found a group that said I could sit in this week if I played for someone who was missing and didn’t get the character killed. It was kind of awkward, and the people didn’t even seem to like each other let alone me, so I spent four hours barely participating and watching Azzie.
I knew, without having to hear a thing, that her game was the lottery win that the employee had mentioned. Besides the manic unicorn and the teacher, there were four guys who were obviously military, of various ages but all at least a decade older than me, and every player was focused and prepared.
They hung on every word she said, took notes, looked things up on their own while they waited their turn — dice were rolling, people were laughing and sometimes cheering. At one point, everyone at the table fell silent, leaning in, knees bouncing and fingers tapping, tension so thick that I felt it as one of them jumped up and paced around with his hands on his hips as Azzie spun her web, then they all huddled up while she sat behind her screen, watching with a tiny smile curling up one side of her mouth.
I wanted to know what they were planning.
I wanted to know what mystery they were trying to solve, or the heist they were trying to pull off, or the battle that required such elaborate tactics.
I wanted to be in that game, the one that I always knew could be played but never got to experience myself.
They had painted minis — characters, monsters, and NPCs.
They had terrain, swapped out in sections as the scene changed: a village with buildings able to be split into layers as needed; drooping trees, wagons pulled by horses with their heads hanging down, stacks of empty, broken barrels outside a tavern, piles of refuse dotted with rats. A church with a large, fenced-in graveyard.
There were fucking props: letters — the elaborate calligraphy visible from here — on parchment rolled up and sealed with wax.
I watched Azzie, wondering who this girl was that I now felt nervous about talking to. She was a Dungeon Master, obviously a good one, and I was intimidated in a way I’d never experienced around a woman before.
People approached her like serfs delivering fealty to a queen, seeking out her advice 0r her approval, sometimes I think just wanting her attention. Men twice her age asked her questions and waited to hear the answer. One guy was so nervous he could barely speak, and she waited patiently while he told her his story then leapt up and cheered, laughing as she congratulated him. She slapped hands and bumped fists. She gave thumbs up.
As far as we can tell, Azzie only spoke to people at school when she was forced to, and it was grudging at best. She was distant and aloof, as uninterested in anyone around her as they were in her, but here… here she was a queen.
And her players, they fucking loved her. It was so obvious the sun fucking rose and set behind her screen—
“She’s out of your league,” the dickbag next to me said, nodding his head at her.
“I go to school with her,” I explained, like that gave me some kind of advantage.
“So do I, dumbass,” he said. “I’m in your Statistics class. I fucking sit next to her most days. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t talk to anyone at school and there’s practically a waiting list for one of her games.”
“She’s that good?”
“You haven’t taken your eyes off her all night, what do you think?”
“She’s that good.”
“She’s a goddamn magical unicorn. And twice as elusive.”
We fell silent, watching her game progress while ours stalled out as the DM argued with one of the players. Her players huddled up again, strategizing, and I zoned out. My phone buzzed.
Azzie: I had to text Spider to get your number to text you to tell you to stop staring at me, stalker.
Me: I feel like I don’t know you at all.
Azzie: You don’t.
Me: Fair enough.
Azzie: How’s your game?
Me: You know how it is. It’s terrible. You’re fucking smirking!
Azzie: Yeah. Ray is a shit DM. I’m sorry.
Me: He might not be so bad if this dude would quit fucking arguing with him.
Azzie: Andy? Yeah, he’s a douche. He was in one of my games for a bit but he couldn’t get along with anyone and kept insisting that I repeat things like my answer was going to change. I think I intimidated him.
Me: You intimidate *me*.
Azzie: Good. Maybe you’ll show me some fucking respect then.
Me: If you were my DM, I’d respect the fuck out of you.
Azzie: So you’ve played before? You didn’t just happen to wander past and decided to check out the nerds in their natural habitat?
Me: I’ve been playing for years, but the campaigns never lasted super long. I’ve even DM’d a bit when no one else wanted to, so I know how hard it is.
Azzie: That’s cool. Yeah, we switch off too. We play twice a week so campaigns tend to go pretty quickly. Mostly Mouse and I trade off DM duties, the others prefer to play, so she preps her next campaign while we play through mine then vice-versa. We just started this one last week. Strahd.
Me: Oh wow. I’ve been wanting to play that one for YEARS. I’m so fucking jealous right now, Azzie.
Azzie: If you put a card up on the board saying you wanted to run a Strahd campaign, I’m sure you could put a group together in a few days.
Me: No, I don’t want to run it. I want to play in it, in *your* game.
Azzie: Oh.
Me: It’s okay, I know your game is full.
Azzie: Yeah. Wow, I think I’m blushing. I’ve never had anyone be like “I want nothing more than to be in a
campaign you’re running, it is the pinnacle of my existence. There’s nothing that would top this, and it’s sad my life would peak at 18 but I can’t imagine anything past that.” That’s kinda cool.
Me: I’m not sure I said all that…
Azzie: I was picking up on the subtext. I’m an active reader.
Me: Clearly.
Azzie: Gotta go, my players finally made a decision…
Me: Okay
My game wrapped up a little before eight. Nothing was said on either side about me joining the campaign permanently, and I was almost relieved when the DM didn’t offer even though I really wanted to find a group.
I waited around a bit, sitting closer to Azzie’s table, and when she gave me a raised eyebrow, I told her I was waiting to see if she needed a ride home. That got me some nasty looks from the guys at her table — and a lot of other people too, I realized when I looked around, including dickbag from our Stats class. I still didn’t know his name.
She shook her head but smiled, and I eventually left. Reluctantly. But after four hours of mostly staring at her, I was feeling like the stalker she accused me of being, so I really did need to go. Really.
FUCK.
I wanted to keep watching her game.
I sat in the truck at the end of the block, and waited for her to leave. It took about a half hour before she walked out with a few other people, then she and the unicorn climbed into the most ridiculous vehicle I’d ever seen: a military humvee painted white, with the eyes, nose, and whiskers of Hello Kitty on the hood, and a big red bow wrapping over onto the driver’s side door. There were HK decals all over the rest of the vehicle, including the cartoon cat peeking out from door cracks and over the rear gate. I couldn’t even imagine how the woman got away with having that on a goddamn military base, but the thing was in pristine condition, not a single scratch or defacement on it. That was something to think about.
They rolled past without even noticing me, the unicorn in the driver’s seat and Azzie talking animatedly, her hands fluttering. Seeing her like that, how different she was outside school… I felt like a peeping tom, like I violated her privacy somehow by watching her when she didn’t know I was. I started up my vehicle as my phone pinged.
Book of the Dead: AESLI-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 1) Page 11
