#caelytrix

“Mhm.” Akane’s hand hovers over her tray of dice, hidden behind the DM screen. “With your hands?”

“Yeah, with my – how else am I gonna open a door?” He pantomimes turning a doorknob in midair. “You just open it.”

“Junpei, no,” Clover groans, pausing in the middle of stacking up her own dice tower. “You’re gonna get so cursed.”

“It’s a door,” Junpei argues. “Kanny’s just trying to fake us out. There’s nothing cursed about it.”

“You did say that the last time,” Light points out, voice airy. “About the treasure chest?”

“And the escape hatch lever, and the rabbit monster, and the haunted supercomputer,” Aoi lists off. “You don’t have the best history of outsmarting Akane.”

Junpei flushes red. “That’s not – she does this every time! And it’s not always cursed!”

“It just usually is,” Clover adds helpfully.

With a groan, Junpei looks at Akane. “Can I make a perception check before?”

“Sure,” she says, smiling. It’s not going to help him at all.

He leans over to his left, snatching one of Light’s D20s and tossing it towards the center of the table. It rolls across the wood, spinning and spinning until it finally comes to a stop on top of Aoi’s character sheet: 14.

A decent perception roll, if only Akane hadn’t decided that the DC would be twenty-five. “What’s your modifier?” she asks.

“Um, plus two. So that’s sixteen.”

“Okay,” she says. “It seems like a normal, average door.”

“Not suspicious at all,” Aoi drawls. She raises an eyebrow at him; he grins back at her.

“Okay,” Junpei says, frowning down at his character sheet. “Sixteen is a good roll, yeah? So… normal door. I can just open it normally.”

“She said it only seemed like a normal door, though,” Clover says. “Right? So, maybe it’s too hidden, and you need better perception.”

“Ugh,” Junpei mutters. “Light, you have good perception, right? Can you roll for it?”

“I believe that’s called metagaming, Junpei,” Light says. “Why would my character be looking at the door in the first place?”

“Okay, fine,” Junpei says. “I’m gonna go up to Light – I mean, Snake – and ask him to take a look at the door.”

“Hmm,” Light says, dropping into Snake’s character voice immediately. “I suppose I can take a look, if you trust my judgement that much.”

“I really don’t,” Junpei says. “Because you almost got me killed last session.”

“All of my actions were completely justified in character,” Light reminds him. “And it’s not my fault that you were in the way of my Fireball.”

“Chaotic neutral bastard,” Aoi mutters. Clover giggles.

“It’s absolutely your fault for casting Fireball! But you have the highest perception, and I would rather not be killed by a door,” Junpei finishes. “So, sure.”

“Very well.” Light tilts his head, thinking. “Akane, upon hearing Jumpy’s request, Snake would like to examine the door.”

“Sure,” Akane says. “Anything specific about it?”

Light actually takes his time to mull over the question, which Akane appreciates. “Perhaps the locking mechanism,” he says. “And if there’s any traps embedded within.”

“All right,” she says. “So you can roll a perception check for both of those.”

Light holds out his hand, and Clover drops a die into his waiting palm. One quick roll later, it bumps into Akane’s screen; she leans over the top of it to read the number. “Sixteen,” she says. “Modifier?”

“Plus four.”

“Twenty, okay.” She pauses, mulling over her options. “You notice a keyhole in the doorknob,” she says. “The lock is a fairly standard one, any competent rogue should be able to get through it, but the door is already unlocked. As for traps…”

She shuffles her papers around, pretending to be looking for some detailed notes. The look on Junpei’s face is priceless.

“You don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” she says eventually, after pretending to read an NPC’s character sheet.

“Okay,” Junpei says, turning paler with every second. “Definitely trapped, then.”

“Definitely trapped,” Clover agrees.

“So, Junpei,” Akane says, smiling at him. “Are you opening the door?”

Junpei stares back at her with nothing but suspicion. “I am,” he says eventually. “But. Not normally.”

“Okay,” she says. “How are you opening it?”

He flips his character sheet open, looking over his spell list. “I’m gonna… stand out of the way, and use Mage Hand to open it.”

“Okay, sure.” Akane leans over the DM screen again, moving Junpei’s mini over to the right and double-checking the position of everyone else on the map. “And you’re doing this right now, yeah? So then Santa…” And she traces a straight line from the door to Aoi’s mini.

“Oh, hell no,” Aoi barks, snatching up his mini and moving it out of the way. “I see what he’s doing and I get the hell out of dodge.”

“I’m so glad you all trust my perception skills this much,” Light drawls.

“Your perception is fine,” Aoi says. “It’s Akane that’s gonna kill us.”

“Point taken.”

“All right,” Akane says. “Any other changes to the plan, Junpei?”

Junpei’s starting to sweat. He flips his character sheet around, alternating between scanning his inventory and studying the little figures on the map. “… No,” he says. “I stand in that corner, and I use Mage Hand on the door once Aoi – I mean, Santa’s out of the way.”

“And that’s it?”

“We’re gonna die,” Clover mumbles.

“Yeah,” Junpei says, not confident at all. “That’s it.”

“Okay,” Akane says. “You open the door.”

And she pauses.

“I knew it!” Junpei shouts, slamming his hand on the table. “I knew it was a normal door!”

Clover lets out the breath she was holding, her head thunking down on the table in time with Junpei’s hand. Light laughs, quiet and pleased.

Aoi looks at her. She looks at him.

“And?” he prompts.

“And,” she says cheerfully, and the entire table groans. “In the distance, you can hear some kind of robotic voice. It says, ‘Intruders have entered the western gate,’ and repeats that over and over.”

“Alas,” Light says, shaking his head. “Celebrated too soon.”

“Akane, don’t do this,” Junpei begs. “Please.”

“Over the voice,” Akane continues, “you hear a set of footsteps pounding against stone, quickly getting louder as they approach you. Within seconds – “

“I shut the door!” Clover tries.

“You can try,” Akane says. “But it seems that the intruder alert has frozen the door in place. Within seconds, the footsteps turn a corner, and you see four large figures barreling towards you.”

She takes one last moment to look around the table, at Aoi’s resignation, Light’s amusement, Clover’s despondence. She smiles brightly at Junpei, who looks back at her with nothing short of fear, and reaches for her dice.