Oneshot Session

"Just to be clear here, what we're going to play right now is a new story. A oneshot, if you will!"

Lucia's head immediately turns towards me and I pretty much already know what she's going to ask so...

"It's a campaign that ends in the same night. Quite literally a oneshot."

Once she satisfies her curiosity, her gaze returns towards Mitch.

Mitch suddenly pulls out a deck of cards from her bag and shuffles it. It's fast and skillful, I'm not gonna lie.

After the shuffle, she picks one card from the middle of the pack and then...

"We're going to play this!"

She flashes us the single card that she drew so both Lucia and I lean forward to see it clearly.

"The Golden Goosechase."

Homebrew, huh...

"How about it, wanna try it out?"

"If we don't, are you gonna reshuffle?"

"Nope!"

Why did you even ask then?

Mitch slides the card to her chest pocket and sets up her screen. She clears her throat and...

"Imagine yourself in a tavern..."

How original.

"The smell of brewing alcohol, the loud roaring of drunkards but most importantly, people that want information. Taverns are the most popular repertoire of useful info, after all!"

I didn't notice it earlier but Lucia seems to be taking notes. She's been writing in a pocket book.

"But there was one man, who's looking for something that doesn't exist... A golden goose! Capable of laying golden eggs! Pure gold, unfiltered by any kind of metal or mineral, imagine that!"

Mitch raises both of her arms and shapes her hands as circles while lowering her tone even more.

"But there was one hunter... A lonely hunter! He took down a lot of beasts and monsters! But the glory of slaying the golden goose... has not been blessed to him! He enters the bar and just his mere presence... is enough to make a grown man shake in his boots! Vegeta... has arrived!"

She forms a fist directed at Lucia... while Lucia in return just blinks multiple times in front of her.

"It's your turn, Lucia."

Mitch gives in and just opens her palm as if to give directions. Lucia only blinks faster while she turns her head towards me again, but this time she's going back and forth between me and Mitch.

"Lucia, this is like well, the part where we play DnD. We made a character, remember? We're basically going to act like that. We're going to imagine ourselves as that person."

I try to explain it as simply as I can but I can only hope that she gets what I'm trying to say.

"I see."

She mutters in reply while jotting down some notes. After that, she takes a slow breath, exhales it and...

"Everyone's power level... is over 9000."

...

Mitch's eyes flicker for a bit but she immediately grins widely after that.

"That's right! Every single person here at the bar was nine times stronger than Vegeta! An absolute behemoth of a place! Where the strong truly gather!"

You literally just said that their boots shook in fear. Whatever, we're just gonna wing it.

Mitch continues on her narration.

"A man approached Vegeta, staring at him, eyes twitching and knuckles ready to pop! He said with a groan... 'So does the Hunter Association finally lost their marbles? Hiring someone as ugly as you!' and then all the people at the tavern laughed their hearts out!"

She stops her narration and points her fingers to Lucia again but this time, it seems like she already knows what to do.

"Heh... dirty fireworks."

How is she saying all of this with a straight face?

Mitch doesn't immediately switch to narration, she just smiles and says:

"So... are you threatening them?"

"What do you... I guess... I guess, I am."

Mitch points towards the dice at Lucia's left and continues:

"Please roll for Intimidation. Take the one that has twenty sides."

Without any words, Lucia complies and takes a D20, clutches it for a while and then releases it, resulting in a 1 appearing.

Is beginner's luck just a myth?

Lucia still hasn't processed what's happening but Mitch already continues on her narration.

"At Vegeta's threat, the entire tavern only bursts into laughter more than ever. Some even smack him on the back and spit on his shoes!"

Lucia stiffly turns toward me again. I'm not going to lie, it makes me laugh a little.

"Well, basically anything you do that can fail... You need to roll a dice and depending on the result, you could get a good or bad outcome. Is that clear?"

A mild "Ooh" comes out of Lucia's mouth and she starts diving into her pocket notebook again. It does bring a smile to my face that she's this enthusiastic.

Mitch nods twice towards both of us and continues.

"But amidst the chaos, someone is trying to slip past the crowd. With knife in hand, he's trying to stab Vegeta in the sides. But... good thing, Hashwalt is in the scene, a knight of the order!"

Well, that's my cue.

Mitch stops narrating and just looks at me, making even Lucia do the same. For some reason, I'm embarrassed now. I have to show Lucia what it's like to actually play DnD but seeing her being enthusiastic... I can't help but feel a little guilty that I'm not exactly like that.

"I'll walk towards the assassin aiming for Vegeta. Can I use Stealth so he doesn't notice me?"

"Sure, roll for Stealth!"

With that, I take the dice from the table and throw it with almost no build up. The dice rolls for a few seconds before landing on... 13. Adding my proficiency bonus on the skill Stealth as a Rogue... That makes the total a good 15. Pretty good, if you ask me.

"Then Hashwalt intercepted the assassin about to stab Vegeta and slammed him to the floor. The attack was so unexpected that he didn't even have time to react! Now, standing before the assassin are two men with a grudge against an attempted murder!"

Lucia seems to have understood already as she attempts to speak when Mitch stops her narration.

"Well... Uhh, nice weather we're having..."

At least, she understood half.

Well, she's talking to my character, gotta respond.

I clear my throat and speak with a broken voice.

"Yes, it's warm and bright. Compared to starving to death in the winter cold, this is heaven on earth."

For some reason, Lucia stops writing in her notebook and gazes at me for a bit. Her nose scrunches and she looks at me as if I were a lost puppy drenched in the rain.

"How cruel... Did you really experience that..."

"What?! No! We're playing a character remember?! This is what my character will say!"

"Oh... I see..."

Goodness, are all beginners like this?

Meanwhile, the witch we call the DM is laughing maniacally, completely forgetting her role.

"Sorry, sorry, my bad. It's just... Lucia is so funny. Let's continue."

To be fair, I'd probably laugh too if I watched this scene from a third party perspective.

"The assassin got up from his feet and declared 'You'll never be able to reach the golden goose! Never!' and then he bit his tongue and died."

How dark.

I can't rely on Lucia to follow the story so I'll ask her to come with me.

"Luc... Vegeta, this assassin... he just said something about a golden goose, I've actually heard rumors about it. Mind if we both team up and search together? The more hands, the better."

This is a bit forced but it's fine. As long as we can get the story going, we'll be on track towards the end. Lucia seems to have understood my intent, I sure do hope so.

"Okay... Let's go."

Is it just me or is Lucia not acting in character anymore?

"With that, Vegeta and Hashwalt left the tavern and are now set on a journey to find the golden goose!"

+++++

Why... I did everything right. I follow all the intents of the DM. I don't know what she's trying to do but if there's somewhere she's trying to lead us, I always follow that without much interruption. I'm not hardheaded about anything and most certainly not a player that actively opposes the campaign. I'm an obedient player... but...

"Lucia... that was your third death save and you failed. Vegeta's dead, teehee!"

Lucia just sits at her chair with pupils that almost leave her irises.

In front of such despair, a wry smile is the only thing my lips can muster.

What a horrible DM, suddenly bursting us with multiple enemies and against a newbie too. I don't die because I have quite a lot of skills, items, and spells on my sheet that I know how to use but that isn't the case for Lucia at all. Even with my guidance, she doesn't have much knowledge about the game plus her sheet is rushed, we even skipped giving her items and spells altogether.

My eyes naturally glare towards Mitch and our eyes meet. She only puts her tongue out and smiles like a child that has made a mistake.

"Oops, I got carried away."

"Carried away, my ass! How the heck can a newbie even survive that?!"

"I didn't do it on purpose, I swear!"

"Shut up, shut up! You sad excuse of a DM!"

Pulling on Mitch's ponytail repeatedly makes my anger subside for a bit. But now the session has ended abruptly. No way in hell I'll be playing this thing anymore.

Also, just look at Lucia, she's just staring at her sheet and the notebook for almost five minutes now. She thinks it's her fault she died.

"Don't blame yourself, Lucia. This DM we have just got carried away, sending us a bunch of opponents like they're Pikmin."

After hearing that, Mitch raises her head from the table and seems to have recovered.

"On the bright side, now we can make a new character... Oh, look at the time. It's already late."

The mention of time makes Lucia's neck rise and she looks at her wristwatch. She stands up from her seat and looks at both me and Mitch.

"Michelle... and Forza... thank you for inviting me to join. I have to go now."

Mitch gives Lucia the widest smile I've seen her do all night.

"Yes, I'll make sure to properly help create your character. Along with Forza, yes?"

Eek, why me...

But she just stares at me as if expecting some kind of response so I just scratch my head and accept my fate.

"Yeah, I guess I could help."

Satisfied by my answer, Mitch claps her hands and announces the end of tonight's session. We didn't manage to continue the main campaign tonight, but there's always a next time.

"By the way guys, all three of us would be leaving the party. All things come to an end, as they say."

"Last session, yes."

"We've been busy with our exams these days. Especially because we're graduating students."

Yeah... There's no next time, after all.

The sudden bombshell of our three guys quitting makes Mitch's fists slam the table. Even Lucia jerks for a bit.

"What the hell?! This is your last session and you didn't even play! You're just going to say this now?! Don't you have any sense of punctuality?!"

Mitch is usually a happy-go-lucky kind of person so when she's pissed, it's kind of scary. It's like looking at a different side of a coin.

"Look, we're sorry alright. But even monkeys forget, as the saying goes."

"Apologies."

"For now, this is goodbye. We had fun playing with you guys."

And then... they left. Six months of playing DnD together, gone just like that. Well, I don't exactly blame them. This is just a game and it's not important enough to juggle with their life.

Mitch goes back to her seat, arms still crossed and grumbling.

"They didn't even tell us in advance. They just suddenly said that and left. What, do they not have the guts to say they'll leave? It's like we didn't just spend six months in a campaign! It pisses me off!"

I do understand where she's coming from though, especially since she's the DM. Nonetheless, the cold hard truth is... our party just got spliced in half so now the main campaign will be discontinued.

While Mitch is still grumbling, I tidy the table, setting it back to its normal position. The mini figures, screens and all that are Mitch's property so I can't do anything to them yet, not while she's like that. All I can do is wipe the table for now.

While I'm doing so, a familiar sensation surprises me, someone grabs my shirt again. This is getting normal to her, huh...

"I'm going home now... Good night to you, Forza..."

With that, she turns her back from me and walks towards the door. But it's already late into the night, does she intend to go home alone? If so...

"Hey, Lucia..."

Her head turns towards me, expression not changing.

"I'll walk you home."

END OF CHAPTER 3