The Simulacrum - Chapter 81~ Part 6

Egathentale

Hello, Dear Readers!

I hope all of you can enjoy a few cozy, peaceful days to spend in the company of your family, friends, and way too many calories. Cheers, and have a happy [insert syncretized winter-solstice related religious celebration here]!

Childhood friends were often similar. It’s one of those inevitable things, where they constantly influence each other as they grow up until they end up settling into an equilibrium. Similar temperament, similar interests, a similar sense of humor, and so on. However, this was the first time I’ve heard this phenomenon extending to interior decoration as well. Either that, or I was overthinking this, and the Simulacrum was just lazy as usual.

As for what prompted this observation, it was obviously the living room in Angie’s house. It was, without exaggeration, a carbon copy of Josh’s place, down to the placement of the furniture and even the picture frames. At least the photos inside were different; the alternative would’ve been just plain creepy.

“Is everyone ready?” the Celestial girl asked the rest of us around the table, and we all responded with various levels of enthusiasm. “Great! Get your character sheets, and let’s get started!”

It was our fourth session, and Angie was in especially high spirits, as with today’s math test in the morning, the mid-term exam period was officially over. Needless to say, now that the proverbial blade of Damocles was finally gone from over her head, she was back to her usual self (dark circles under the eyes notwithstanding), and she set up the gaming table on her own even before we arrived.

As for why we were in her home, the explanation was really prosaic: the last session had a big, epic battle of mythic proportions against a lawn (don’t ask, it’s a long story), and a few die were lost in the process. One of them was found by Josh’s elusive father, who was unfortunate enough to step on a wayward d4 during the night when he was going to the toilet, after which dice were banned in the Bernstein household for the foreseeable future.

The thing is, Elly and I already put a plan into motion to make a dedicated gaming room in the Dracis mansion, but then my in-laws got a whiff of it, and then decided to ‘help’. Because of this, the room was currently undergoing ‘renovations’, so we had to settle on Angie’s place, which hopefully explained why we were all clustered around their kitchen table.

The game has evolved a lot since the first session. For a start, the board was gradually demoted into something of a loose guideline to our adventure, with Angie’s DM-ing filling in the details. Speaking of which, her DM shield grew larger and more elaborate by some homemade additions, mostly so it could cover up all the extra books and notes she had.

On our end, we replaced the simplified character sheets that originally came with the board game with proper ones I downloaded from the net. In fact, we more or less ditched the original system in the process, and adopted a homebrew version of the Dungeonfinder ruleset, third edition. I figured that if things kept going like this, we’d soon completely do away with the original board game, and this will become a proper tabletop roleplaying game. We weren’t quite there yet though, so we had to set up our pieces on the board.

“Before we start, we have an announcement to make!” Elly spoke up just as we all got comfortable in our seats.

“We?” my friend muttered beside her, though the word was a little muffled due to the can of energy drink over his mouth. He apparently spent the entire last night cramming with Angie, so he’s already drunk about four of those today just to function.

“I mean sister-in-law and me,” the princess clarified and sent a thumbs up to my sister.

“Y-Yes,” Snowy sputtered as she searched her bag.

“What is it?” asked Judy as she stretched her neck to try and peek, but then Snowy took out a thick paper folder and placed it in front of her, making her efforts moot.

This moment was calling for a dramatic beat, but my Draconic girlfriend wasn’t the patient type, so she immediately exclaimed, “I commissioned some artwork!”

“Oh?” Now it was my turn to raise a brow and silently urge my sister to show us her work.

“I’m still learning how to do shading in the editor software, so…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but instead she opened the folder and began handing out the A4 pages inside.

“Wow! These are awesome!” Josh uttered as he held his picture out at arm’s length. “My character looks really cool!”

“Why does his paladin have nunchucks?” Ammy inquired with a baffled frown. Unlike Josh and Angie, she weathered the exam period much better than the childhood friend duo, thought that was more or less expected.

“Oh, right. You missed the last session,” I said between two glances at Judy’s unexpectedly busty thief character. I couldn’t help but wonder if she subtly influenced Snowy without any of us being the wiser. More importantly, I explained, “Josh leveled up last time, and he took ‘Exotic Weapon Proficiency’ as his new perk, and by complete coincidence, he immediately found a pair of holy nunchuks. By complete coincidence.”

“Why are you saying it like that?” Angie asked in the company of an annoyed squint, so I quickly dodged the topic.

“No reason. None at all. I’m not insinuating any DM bias whatsoever.” In the meantime, I received my own character portrait, and I couldn’t help but let out a whistle. “Wow, sis. You outdid yourself this time.”

“Thank you.”

She sounded a little embarrassed, so I gave her my best big-brotherly smile. In the meantime, even though Judy already received her own picture, she looked way more interested in mine.

“Chief, your character doesn’t look like a monk at all.”

“Of course he doesn’t. He’s a fist-caster,” I explained.

“He looks more like a barbarian.”

“Nah, that’s just the wild charm that all certified fist-casters have shining through his design. Snowy captured it perfectly.”

My dear assistant didn’t seem to buy it, but decided to leave it at that. However, it was at this point that Angie called out to us.

“Hey! I don’t have any?”

“You don’t have a character,” Josh pointed out, and she let out a disappointed ‘Boo!’ in return.

“I don’t like being left out,” she grumbled, but bounced back quickly and said, “Maybe I’ll commission something awesome for myself next time, and make you all jealous!”

“How are you going to do that? You already blew all your allowance on those rulebooks,” Josh noted and pointed at the stack of books by her side.

“I’ll just borrow some money from Leo,” she answered with a shrug before she grabbed hold of her notes and said, “A-ny-how! Time’s a-wasting, people! Let’s get started!”

“Let’s,” I agreed, and the guys all calmed down and grabbed hold of their dice. “So, where did we leave off last time?”

“We destroyed the orc war-camp, and we got a request from the rescued soldiers to report the situation to the commander of the Frostspite fortress,” Judy answered, mostly for the benefit of Ammy.

“The boss dropped a plus two nunchuks,” Josh added without actually adding anything of value to the conversation.

“I also got a new bow, and two hundred and seventy-eight gold,” Elly continued in his footsteps. “We could’ve also taken all the materials from the fort for an addition one hundred and sixty gold pieces, plus or minus twenty depending on market value, but Leo refused to get on the merchant boat we liberated.”

“Rule number seven of adventuring: Never get on the boat,” I stated in my Grognar Nounverber voice.

“But why?” my girlfriend argued back, and I resolved myself for an explanation.

“It’s because it’s guaranteed to end up with some weird and possibly unwinnable encounters. Think about it: there are a bunch of these interesting aquatic monsters that the DM never gets to use, so when you get on a boat, they throw all of them at you, and you’ll have to face them on a small, rickety boat, with unsteady footing, and if you fall into the water, it’s game over.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Angie objected, so I sent her a skeptical look and pointed next to her.

“Don’t even get started. Do you really think I wouldn’t notice the way you were browsing the aquatic section of the monster compendium last time?”

“Innocent until proven guilty!” she pleaded, but when I remained staunch, she sent a glance at her childhood pal. “Josh! I need backup!”

“Sorry, but I agree with Leo.” His comment made her reel back like she was hit on the nose, so he sheepishly added, “I mean, my character wears heavy armor, right? If I fell off the ship while fighting, I’d sink like a stone.”

“Boo! You’re the worst! Booo!” the Celestial game master griped, but it didn’t slip my notice that she discreetly hid the monster compendium, with a couple of bookmarks sticking out of it, under the guise of making a commotion.

“We should really get started,” Ammy said while she organized her character sheets and portrait. “Are we still in the orc camp?”

“No. We decided to follow the river south,” Snowy noted, and the class rep gave her an appreciative nod.

“Is my character with you?”

“Yes. Judy played her in your absence,” I told her, and my dear assistant continued from there.

“I tried to play her as you would.”

“By that, she means she set the whole fort on fire,” Josh grumbled, and the princess also let out a sigh.

“We lost so much profit on the burned materials.”

“You also got a new amulet,” Judy noted, completely ignoring the previous comments, and pointed at her inventory. “It’s a +3 Amulet of Wisdom.”

“Oh?” Ammy perked up at once and she added that to her equipment list, and then she let out a sinister chuckle. “Empowered quickened fireballs are in arm’s reach now.”

I ignored our resident fantasy pyromaniac and turned to Angie, who was still sulking behind her DM shield.

“I think we ended the last session by making camp. Let’s continue from the morning.”

“Fine, let’s do—” All of a sudden, she bit back her words and raised a finger. “Not so fast! Let’s check the encounter table first!”

“Why did that sound foreboding,” Josh muttered, only to be completely ignored.

“Did you guys have a lookout? Have you fortified your perimeter? What about noise traps?” our suddenly nefarious DM asked in quick succession, taking all of us aback for a moment.

“I was on lookout duty,” Judy volunteered at once, though I was fairly sure we didn’t talk about this during the last session. I sent her a look that said ‘Good thinking’, and she flashed me a tiny smile in return.

“Good. Roll 2d20 for fatigue and awareness checks.”

My dear assistant reached for her die and cast them at once without much thought put into it, but all of our eyes opened wide at the result.

“Wow. Snake eyes on the first roll of the day,” Josh noted with a grimace before he took another sip from his drink.

“Things don’t bode well for this session,” Snowy also commented in a reserved tone.

“Ohoho!” Angie chuckled with the kind of smile you’d expect from an evil mastermind, and she retreated behind her shield to roll her die. Once she was done, she emerged with a shit-eating grin and started narrating. “After a long trek on foot, while carrying your bags full of spoils after your raid on the orc fort, you’ve all been exhausted. Judith Shadowwalker was on watch duty, but exhaustion soon got the better of her, and she dozed off by the fireplace. When you awaken the next morning, you find that someone sneaked into your camp and absconded with some of your items!”

“We’ve been robbed?” Josh exclaimed in alarm, and his neighbor confirmed it with a huge nod.

“Yep! All of you, roll a d100 to see what got stolen.”

“This is bullcrap,” he grumbled, yet rolled all the same. “47.”

“Lemme see… Oh, that means your boots got stolen.”

“Wait, what? I mean, like, off my feet?”

“Double-yep!” our DM declared with a grin that threatened to split her face. “Come on guys, now it’s your turn.” We shared an annoyed glance, but the DM’s word is the law, so we all did our rolls. The results were… odd, to say the least. “So Josh, Leo, Neige, and Ammy lost their boots, Judy lost one of her daggers, and Elly lost her lute.”

“Who the heck comes into a campsite to steal the boots off people’s feet?” I protested, mostly on principle.

“Let’s find out. I roll for a Tracking check,” Judy called out, and Elly joined her soon after.

“I’ll also help! I use my Lore of Nature to look for tracks!”

After barely meeting their checks, Angie also made a few rolls and told us, “You find a series of small, barefoot prints in the soft mud near your campsite. They are leading into the forest.”

“So it’s not orcs, and since they left footprints, I guess it isn’t some fairy prank either,” I mused as I absently shook my d20s in my hand. “My money’s on either goblins or kobolds.”

“We follow the tracks and recover our boots!” Josh exclaimed, and for once I had to be the voice of reason.

“Ay, I say we ignore them wee troublemakers,” I said in my in-character voice. “Our boots were cheap, and Florence wanted to buy a new tunemaker once we reached civilization anyway. To damnation with them, I say. Let’s continue on our way.”

“I agree with Grognar,” Snowy joined me with a soft voice. “If the thieves wanted to hurt us, they could’ve ambushed us while we slept. We should be happy we only lost a few common items and continue our quest.”

“No way!” Josh called out with a stubborn frown. “We can’t let them get away with this!”

“That’s right,” Ammy, of all people, agreed with him immediately. “They took our boots! They’re wearing our boots even as we speak!”

“I don’t think so,” Judy noted. “Aren’t they twice their size?”

“They are wearing our boots!” Josh echoed the class rep’s sentiment with extra vehemence. “No one does that and gets away with it!”

“So, do you want to track them or not?” Angie asked, and after some back-and-forth, we settled on at least giving a token effort, and the girls rolled their die. “You follow the footprints deep into the forest, and soon you find a cave entrance in a hillside. Its yawning opening is covered by a door made of rotting planks and rusty nails. It has a crude lock, but despite its haphazard construction, it looks sturdy.”

“So this is the base of the thieves,” Elly commented and rolled. “Are there any lookouts?”

“There’s nobody in sight,” Angie responded, and so we went into planning mode.

“I don’t want to fight in a cave. There’s not enough space for fireballs,” Ammy pondered and glanced at Judy. “Can Judith sneak in and find our items?”

“Sorry, but I’m not that kind of rogue,” my assistant answered, and she wasn’t kidding. For some reason, she put almost all of her skill points into pickpocketing and tumbling, while she had almost nothing in the more generally useful skills, like sneaking or trap detection.

“It’s just goblins,” Josh pointed out with a scoff. “Let’s just break down the door and rush them.”

“Last time we did that, half the party got wiped, and Leo had to carry our unconscious bodies out of the dungeon,” Elly pointed out, but he dismissed her.

“Those were prison guards. These are goblins. It’s not the same situation at all.”

“I… also don’t think we should rush in head-on,” Snowy offered her five cents, and before long the guy backed down.

“Fine. What do we do then? Judy, can you pick the lock?”

“Sorry, but I’m not that kind of rogue either,” she told him, much to his annoyance.

“Then what?”

“I have a Knock spell that can unlock doors, but I don’t have it memorized,” Elly said as she shuffled her character sheets. “What about you, Ammy?”

“I don’t have any utility spells. I need all the space for empowered firebolts.”

“So we have to break the door after all?”

“Not so fast, my good fellows,” I raised my voice, followed by a burst of boisterous laughter. “Worry not, for I shall use my own knock spell!”

“Chief, monks don’t have the Knock spell,” my dear assistant pointed out, quite insistently, but I dismissed her with a haughty scoff. In character, I mean.

“True, and it’s a jolly great thing that I’m no monk, but Grognar Nounverber, the one and only certified fist-caster! Now, follow after me, true companions!” After saying so, I turned to Angie and continued in my normal voice. “Grognar walks up to the door.”

“Then I guess we follow,” Ammy said, curious about what I was up to.

“Okay, so you’re now in front of the cave entrance,” our DM told us in an ominous tone. “The air feels damp and heavy, and the door in front of you is much bigger and more rugged from up close. It’s not something that could be easily broken down.”

I nodded along and said, “Grognar walks up to the door, and knocks.”

“He does what?” Angie sat up straight in surprise, so I repeated myself.

“I said he walk up to the door, raises a hand, a firmly knocks on it three times.”

“Erm… Okay?” the Celestial girl stumbled and shuffled some papers behind her shield. “I guess a goblin opens the door to see what that commotion is about?”

“I roll for a bluff check,” I declared and threw my dice. “Oh, neat. Nineteen!” I cleared my throat, and exclaimed, “Hello, fellow goblin! We are also goblins, and want to join you!”

Angie gave me a withering look, and after a long beat, she told me, “Listen, Leo. Goblins are pretty dumb, but nobody with an ounce of common sense would buy that.”

“But I rolled nineteen,” I pointed out, but she remained steadfast. “Fine. Judy, you have a lot of points in pickpocketing, right? Can you try stealing the goblin’s common sense?”

“You can’t—” our DM tried to object, but got interrupted by the sound of dice landing on the table.

“Nat twenty!” Josh exclaimed with an astonished grin.

“Roll for confirmation,” Angie said, and Judy wordlessly did so, resulting in an eighteen. At last, she let out a defeated sigh and said, “Fine. Even I’m curious where you’re going with this, so I allow this. You somehow, against all the laws of the universe, managed to steal the goblin’s common sense.”

“Nice one, Dormouse! High five!”

While we did that, Angie cleared her throat. “The goblin’s eyes go out of focus and looks over your party, then says, {You goblins. Come in.}” She paused here to roll the dice, and then added, “However, once the door opens wide, you see another goblin in the back. The moment he notices Grognar in the doorway, he bolts for the tunnel in the back, no doubt to warn the rest of the group about your arrival.”

“That might be bad,” Snowy noted nervously. “We don’t know how many are there. We might end up overrun if they all attack us at once.”

“I try to shoot the fleeing goblin with my bow,” Elly declared and rolled, but missed.

“The goblin screams as the arrow flies past its head. He disappears into the—”

“Hold on! This is now technically already a combat encounter, right?” I interrupted, and Angie hesitantly nodded. “In that case, I should be able to take action before the goblin’s next turn starts! Snowy, give me a dexterity buff!”

“Are you going to run after the goblin? That’s dangerous,” she protested.

“Nah, I’m going to try and throw something at him.” Saying so, I turned back to our DM and declared, “I’ll try to grab the goblin in front of me.”

“Make a roll.”

I did just that, and the result was more than disappointing.

“That’s a critical fumble, so you stumbled in the dark and completely missed the goblin in front of you.”

“I want to make a second roll to make a blind grab at anything in arm’s reach,” I said and rolled again, and this time my result was much better. Angie did a couple of rolls on her side, and then looked me in the eye with a kind of expression that said she couldn’t believe the sentence she was about to speak.

“You reach out and snatch an item out of the hands of the player character closest to you. That’s Judy at the moment, and the item is…”

She trailed off, but I didn’t care and exclaimed, “I use the common sense in Judith’s hand and throw it at the fleeing goblin! Aaaand… nat twenty, baby!”

The Celestial girl gave me a flat look, but soon let out a resigned sigh and simply said, “Roll for critical.”

“Aaaaaaaand that’s another twenty,” I told her in mild, yet pleasant, surprise. “The dice loves me tonight.”

Angie took a deep breath, rubbed her eyes, and calmly stated, “You, somehow, took the abstract concept of common sense and flung it at an opponent so hard it, somehow, decapitated them.” She paused, and another sigh later she told me, “You know, when we started this game, I never would’ve imagined I’d have to say a sentence like that.”

“That’s just the wonder of the dice,” I answered with a smile.

“So? Do we enter the cave now?” Ammy asked, and Angie sent her an annoyed glance.

“After all this, you better.”

“In that case, I’ll be the vanguard,” Josh declared. “Let’s take the usual formation and head into the goblin thieves’ den to recover our boots!”

“Before that, what do we do with the goblin by the entrance?” Elly asked, and that was a good question.

“What is it doing?” Judy followed it up, and after some thinking, our DM shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, it doesn’t have any common sense, so I guess it just stands around all slack-jawed and confused.”

“Then I think we should leave it be,” Snowy proposed.

“More importantly, and speaking of common sense, Grognar goes deeper into the tunnel and picks it up.”

“Chief. Please don’t tell me you’re going to carry that around.”

“Why? It’s a proven, effective weapon. I wonder if I could take weapon proficiency in common sense on next level up…?”

“I’m not letting you do that,” Angie told me with stern finality, and I couldn’t help but argue back.

“Why? If you let Josh’s paladin take proficiency in nunchucks, then why can’t I take one in common sense?”

“Because he’s Josh, and you’re Leo,” she told me like that made any sense.

“Well, I’m still taking it with me,” I told her, and with that, our little adventurer party entered the goblin hideout on our epic quest for boots. It was an adventure full of hairy moments, odd traps, a squad of hobgoblin legionnaires, and an oddly specific +3 Nunchuck of Holy Might, but that’s a story for another time.