"So," said the GM, handing the sheet of paper across the tabletop, "do you have any questions?"
Sam took the character sheet with a thin smile. "I'm good," she said. "Simon gave me the basics. I'm the front line, right? Heavy armour, self-healing, drawing aggro, that sort of shit?"
The round table resounded with polite, surprised laughter.
Sam was aware that her
vibe
didn't tie naturally to the table-top roleplaying hobby, unlike her little brother. Simon had held tight to his most beloved dice-based pastime from middle school all the way up to University, and to this day dressed in nerd-typical baggy blacks with a thick pair of glasses.
Whereas Sam, two years his senior, had followed her flatmates out one night during Fresher's Week to the West End's bar and club scene and never looked back. Her idea of a good time these days was drinking too many happy hour cocktails, making a scene on the dancefloor and then following some boy home to suck his dick and sleep in his bed. The world of dice and wyrms and oubliettes was now little more than a hazy, summer memory, running her brother's classmates through orc-infested gauntlets and up into the tower abodes of mad wizards. A time long gone, now almost forgotten.
So it had been a surprise when Simon had called her up two nights ago with a proposition. He was taking the train out to see a friend on the coast who needed some one-to-one support, and that meant missing his regular game night. And since their campaign had left off on a cliffhanger last session and they couldn't run the game with just two players, and since Sam surely still knew the rules, she could fill in for him and keep the momentum running. It was a free night for her, and Sam's weak spot had ever been her little brother's beaming smile. So, rolling her eyes and insisting on payback to come, she had agreed.
"
Just remember,
" the little twat had said, "
try not to kill my character! He's very special!
"
Sam had done her best to temper her usual provocative, nightclub wardrobe tonight to not unduly frighten the nerds. Her cotton t-shirt only barely revealed the contours of her bra beneath and the cheeky peek of her midriff, which was modest by her standards. But the heat of the summer still necessitated a little skin, and her athletic shorts came up the plump flesh of her thighs and left her legs and feet bare. She'd tied her blonde-dyed hair up into a sensible tail with a black band of elastic, and she'd forgone all but a touch-up of cosmetics on her lips and around her eyes.
Sitting beside her at the round game table was Kat, a girl Simon's age and the party's Conjurer. She wore black-rimmed glasses and a large, black t-shirt with a heavy metal logo, classic nerd. But the way the brunette wore her big shirt off one shoulder was a dynamic look that suited her. Sam wondered whether that choice was due to the heat, or whether it was for someone else's benefit.
Then there was Chris, a slim lad in a navy-blue polo shirt who played the group's Pyromancer. His neat, dark hair and cleanly shaven face suggested he'd taken some time on his appearance tonight, and Sam scanned his lithe limbs and graceful gait and decided he must have been a personal trainer at the local gym, or something like that.
And then there was the Game Master. Luke was older than the rest of the table, having graduated from Uni about two years back. He apparently worked for some accounting firm in the city, which was where he'd just come from judging by his white dress shirt and loose necktie. He was tall, his shape soft with the early-onset fat that beset so many boys moving into their late twenties. But his silver glasses and blond hair decorated a pleasant, welcoming smile. A good smile for a GM.
Luke's flat was the setting for their game, and rightly so, since he had everything a good roleplaying session needed. Plenty of dice stored in a hefty jar, a big map cut into hexagons that covered the table, and a well-stocked kitchen pantry. He stood from his seat as he set up the coming battle on the blank arena, scattering foreign-looking silver coins on his side of the map to represent the monstrous horde coming to slay them.
"Hey," said Sam, leaning towards Kat and running her eyes down the girl's neatly labelled character sheet. "What Companion Spirits did you pick at level four?"
"Oh, um, skeletons," replied Kat with a shy smile. "I thought, since you get a lot of them..."
"Good shout." Sam winked. "Good for the action economy."
"You really
have
played this game before," chuckled Chris.
"Bitch, I've
run
this game before! S-Sorry," Sam amended. "Sorry about my language. I'm a lot worse than my brother, aren't I? I don't mean it. I'll be good."
"It's important that everyone at the table feels free to be themselves," said Luke, sitting back in his chair with a magnanimous smile. "If that means swearing like a sailor, Sam, then you go for it. It just means we're seeing a side of Henrick the Paladin that doesn't normally come out."
"Respect," said Sam. Another point for Luke - that was a good attitude for a GM to have.
"Now, do you remember where we all left off?"
"The doors to the feasting hall had opened," recited Chris with a wide, actor's smile that showed off his teeth. "Beyond, a mass of goblin-looking warriors in... I think you said plated armour? And they had swords and those poles with the hooks on, and shields too. They were taller than the goblins we'd fought before."
Sam folded her arms on the tabletop. "You've not seen hobgoblins before?"
"We've seen, um, those hairier ones?" said Kat, touching at her glasses. "I think they're called... b-buggaboos?"
Sam covered a snigger with one hand. 'Buggaboos.' That was cute.
"Well, the key thing with hobs is to not let them form ranks," she told her party members. "They get a buff on their damage when they fight next to a friend. Better we find ways to cut them off from each other, take them out one by one."
"Henrick is fucking smart tonight!" laughed Chris. "This doesn't sound like that meathead's idea of a strategy at all!"
"Maybe there's a good reason for that," said Luke. "Maybe Henrick gets serious around hobgoblins specifically."
"Yeah, I'm making this my brother's canon!" Sam grinned. "When Henrick was a kid, his childhood sweetheart got dragged off by hobgoblins and thrown in a cookpot. And though he's..." She read from Simon's sheet directly. "Though he's 'kindly and compassionate to all forms of life,' that doesn't mean fucking hobs. No mercy for those green twats."
"Perfect," said Luke. "That's fantastic."
Sam looked up from her sheet and met his gaze. Luke's eyes were glittering with pride behind the lenses of his glasses, and his smile was warm. Interesting. Sam reflected the smile with one of her own and then curved her spine a little more on her chair so that her boobs were resting on her arms. The GM's appreciation for her hot body would pay dividends in the battle to come, she could tell.
"Alright," he said, tearing his eyes off her with difficulty, "let's begin. The horde's first turn will be rushing into the antechamber. They're in ranks, just like Henrick warned. Then it's your go, Sam."
Sam nodded, then cracked her knuckles. "It's obvious, right? I rush the vanguard with my maul at the ready." She leant forward and grabbed Simon's unpainted figurine, a buff man in plate mail with a massive hammer held over his head, and planted it down in front of the closest coin-markers. "Any of these fuckers look different to the rest?"
"The one in the middle holds a yew staff instead of a sword," said Luke.
"He's dead," said Sam. "I attack him."
Grabbing the big die from the centre of the table, she rolled. Sam clicked her teeth as she counted up the scores on her sheet. She already knew the answer.
"Eight plus... five, plus two for Expert Warrior makes fifteen. And that won't hit."
"That won't... hit. Wow." Luke's head tilted when she answered for him. "How did you know that?"
