No Dice

Context: Our group is playing through the Curse of Strahd Death House adventure. This particular session was gold from start to finish. Especially for me. Last session, two of our players couldn’t make it and a player that couldn’t make it for the first two sessions was finally introduced in the basement of the Death House. This session, we had a player leave the group, so we invited two more to join us. One of the players that was missing last time couldn’t make it again, so their character is still missing. The dwarven monk, the barbarian, and the high elf rogue (me) were about half-way through the first level of the basement when we resumed. We play on Roll20.

DM: You enter a large room. To your right, you see the room extend and along the sides divide into little alcoves, in which are set moldy straw pallets once used for beds. To your left and ahead of you there’s a simple scrubbed wood table, not unlike what you would see in a tavern, and on the far side of it you see a strapping muscley paladin-

Paladin’s player: I thought I was by the entrance?

Cleric’s (male) player : That’s actually my [female] cleric. She’s standing there in the corner.

DM: Oh, oops. Your tokens look the same to me for some reason. Anyways, you see a fierce-looking woman in chainmail with a glowing symbol carved into her forehead. It seems to glow not by some Prestidigitation but rather something internal.

Cleric: *holds up her halberd and points it at us* Halt! Who goes there?

Barbarian (who sounds EXACTLY like Kronk from Emperor’s New Groove): Is it an undead? Should we kill it?

Me (rogue): *lowering his swords* Nah, it talked. Who are you?

Cleric: I am [cleric’s name], a cleric of the god Helm. *some purpley-prose speech later* And who are you?

Me: Ah, new person. The dwarf can handle this. *goes off and investigates the alcoves*

I’m searching the lower parts of the room while the monk and the cleric talk. There’s nothing there, so I return as the cleric mentions she’s from such-and-such order from some-name-or-other temple (I was roleplaying my rogue pretty hard by not paying strict attention to this person).

Me: I’ve never heard of such a place, or order. Where are you from?

Cleric: It’s nestled in the northern mountains of Barovia.

Me: Aah, so you’re from here. That explains it.

Barbarian: We’re tourists.

Me: We’re from the Forgotten Realms. No wonder I’ve never heard of your organization.

I then start tapping the walls on the upper part of the room, trying to find any secret doors. The monk, cleric, and barbarian, on the other hand, start exploring the alcoves that I already went over.

Me: I’m tellin’ you, there’s nothing down there.

Monk:*with terrible Irish/Scottish/Something-up-that-way accent* Aye, but there’s more yet to search.

All subsequent rolls made by them reveal… nothing.

Me: What did I say? *strolls ahead through the next doorway, going down the hall*

The monk’s player moves his token next to mine down the hallway. We’re moving our tokens in the same space in tandem, trying to get ahead of each other.

Me OoC: So, the dwarf and I are jostling each other down the hallway trying to be first…

DM: Heheh, well, as you round the corner, the two of you run into, for real this time!, a strapping, muscley, balding paladin, as the hallway brings you around back to the basement entrance.

Me: Oh, another person.

Paladin: Is everyone all right? I heard the sounds of battle and a scream of pain come from inside the house. I immediately came in searching for whoever may need help.

Me: Yeeaahh, that would’ve been our ranger, who is currently missing. *turning to the dwarf and the barbarian* You know, we never did go down those halls where the zombies popped up out of the ground, down by the cafeteria. *Runs off to where we fought the zombies the previous session**Never introduced myself to the paladin, once again relying on the dwarf to do it*

I make it all the way to the “cafeteria” (read, old dining hall strewn with bones with evidence of human cannibalism) when the barbarian joins me. We cross it, stopping at the four way crossing on the other side. We already went down one of the ways, so that left the 2 directions where the zombies had come from. While determining which way to go (via flipping a coin), the paladin and the cleric check each other out, since they both serve the same god. They check each other out pretty hard.

DM: It’s like fifth grade in here. I noticed you noticing me noticing you etc.

Monk, who stayed with the new people: *hurrying them along* Okay you two lovebirds, quit making eyes at each other and let’s go catch up with [rogue] and [barbarian].

Sephiroth

"One date ought to do it"

Harshaw!

My take and tribute to Harshaw from The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo.