Ajadea
2011-03-28, 08:40 PM
Joining Cogidubnus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189905), The Glyphstone (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192581), Swiftmongoose (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192262), Tychris1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192409), Herpestidae (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192799), and Zolkabro (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192267) as a PC when Life 2011 meets D&D 3.5.
All characters here are fictional, as are names and such. I'm not going to Dan Brown stuff here.
Chapter 1: What Sort of DM [Jess]
I am not a social person. I don't really watch the news. I do get the Oregonian though. It's enough to get me to understand what's going on within a few hours of it starting. That picture, that gesture...the person depicted is casting Mirror Image, apparently. A couple hard pinches verify that yes, I am awake. So that means...hopefully, I'll have a character sheet. Thankfully it's the weekend, I'll have time to stat myself up.
I get a sheet out and begin writing. My hand almost seems disconnected from the rest of me. When it is done, I can only wonder who's the DM here, so I can go punch their face out. The ruleset is Gestalt. But I am not gestalted. I am a Profoundly Gifted Human Child//. Seriously, it was written just like that. Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 12.
Apparently being able to take Calc classes at age 13 translates into an LA 0 template. Profoundly Gifted is a bit like that Unseelie Fey template I keep hearing about. I can use all mentally-keyed trained only skills untrained [explains how I made that Spellcraft check], I get couple untyped bonuses to some skill checks, and look. The fact I regularly have sensory overloads triggered by loud noises is there too, as one of the possible randomly rolled drawbacks [without drawbacks, the template appears to be a LA 1 template]. Anything I hear with a Listen DC of -5 or less provokes a Will Save (DC 10+|Listen DC|), which means a minimum DC of 15, or I am sickened. You know what the Listen DC on a battle is? -10. Seriously? I could have lived without the template.
There's also the fact that Child does not grant skill points. It's just my Intelligence modifier of +4 multipled by 4+the human bonus, for a grand total of 20. 2 ranks in 5 different skills: Craft (Sketching), Knowledge (mathematics), Knowledge (D&D 3.5), Knowledge (Greek Mythology), Profession (fiction writing), and 8 'uninvested'. So it's more like I have 12 skill points. That's nice. You know, I was expecting a little more out of my 18 Int.
I have the Inattentive and Tonguetied (-4 Diplomacy, Intimidate and -4 Perform) Flaws and the Nearsighted trait. But two of my feats, like 8 of my skill points, aren't doing ****. I have Able Learner and Skill Focus (Sense Motive). That is it.
I have a d3 hit die, no weapon proficiencies, no armor proficiencies, no weapons, no armor, and a single class (or rather, racial) feature from being a child: In Flux, which lets me train my stats up (which is good, cause they are crap), gradually releases my skills and feats, and also lets me assign and reassign the skill points and feats I have access to with a week of training (4 hours/day) until my 15th birthday. And I have -500 XP. At 0 XP, I will hopefully have some sort of actual level.
So...I'm screwed. Very, very, very screwed.
There are 4th level gestalt characters running around out there. I am a singleclassed 1st level PC with a homebrewed NPC class that is basically a crappy version of a chameleon.
Well, first things first; I text my gaming group. I have the sneaking suspicion that I am not the only one who got royally shafted in the class department.
Chapter 2: Get Creative [Jess]
Getting on Facebook reminds me of something; a lot of gifted kids play D&D, and the West Coast wakes up last in America. So that makes approximately...30 people with 18 Int spread all over the USA who I vaguely remember from summer camp who also have D&D classes and know what to do with them. Maybe a quarter of whom have not accumulated enough life experience or age to be anything other than a Child//. Most of them don't know what Gestalt is.
Suddenly I am struck with a horrible mental image of gifted casters creating some sort of Tippyverse. It's the sort of thing people say when they're half asleep, but when you have caster classes...yeah. This is NOT going to go well, given a few years. Most of them have likely never heard of the Tippyverse, but they'll figure it out. The economy is all kinds of screwed. Wall of Iron? Create Food and Water? Even Mending can run a carpenter out of a job pretty damn fast. What is the motivation to earn money if you have auto-reset traps to make food for everyone? Or to cook? What is the motivation to keep people doing things at all, other than simple trap maintenance? Second, no one is going to learn to protect the environment if a team of druids or clerics or whatever can drop Auto-reset Purify Water spell traps into the Gulf Coast and just cleanse the atmosphere a bit at a time with researched spells. I bet you could make cars run off magic if you tinkered with them long enough.
It is almost inevitable that these exploits will occur. On the plus side, homebrewed magic might actually let us go Faster than Light. We might visit Gliese 581 in my lifetime. Awesomeness.
My phone vibrates. I've been lost in thought for half an hour. I look at the name. It's Alexis. "Hey, Lex." One thing I've noticed about me and my age peers is that we have a tendency to shorten any name over two syllables down to just one or two. It might have something to do with the fact we speak too fast for anyone else to understand. I, Jessica, become Jess. Alexis is Lex. Marcus is Mark. Veronica is Nicky or Nica. "Jess, did you see the news?"
I roll my eyes, despite the fact he cannot see me. "I don't really watch TV, Lex. If you mean the Mirror Image guy, then yeah." I know he's about to say something, so I barrel onwards. "Template. Long story, but I can make Spellcraft, Knowledge Whatever, and UMD checks untrained, among other things, and I must have made the Spellcraft check. Don't tell me, you're a Child gestalted with Blank Space."
"Child doubleslash Monk actually is what the sheet I filled out says."
"I...wait, that makes sense, cause you take karate or something, right? And the terminology is gestalt child slash monk." A call waiting beep sounds and I frown into the phone. "We should conference call. I don't even know if I can carry out a multiple-person chat on phone."
"Works for me."
I hang up and answer the call waiting. Mark, natch. "Jess, did you hear-"
"Yes, stop talking, get on Skype a minute ago." I hang up again without waiting for a response and dial Veronica.
"Yes?"
"Nica, it's Jessica. Get on Skype, conference call about two minutes ago, about the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing."
"Got it." She hangs up on me.
I stuff my phone back into my pocket as I open up Skype. The boys are already in chat, and I join the call.
"Neutral Good Profoundly Gifted Child Nothing" is the first thing I say.
"TN PG Child Nothing, -650 XP" Mark says, frowning at the camera. "Isn't gestalt supposed to have a second class? And, like, not be at neg XP?"
"Yeah, but none of us are old enough to even be PCs by D&D standards."
Veronica enters the mix of conference call and group chat a second later. "Wait, you guys have classes too?" And then it mostly breaks down.
uh yeah
"What'd you get?"
"LG Profoundly Gifted Archivist doubleslash Child."
I groan. "Gestalt, not doubleslash, people." Type it like //, say gestalt
"Lucky!" Mark facepalms.
"Archivist? Um, can someone tell me what that is?"
a cleric that casts from a book like a wizard with abilities kinda like a bard keyed of knowldege
*knowledge
"Anyone have stats?" Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 12, Able Learner, three feats unspent, load of unspent crud,
"Yeah, hold on Jess." Alexis' head dips offscreen for a second. Str 13, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 12, Combat Expertise, Improved Unarmed Strike mb, Stunning fist mb, two unselected and a load of skill points to spend
"Where'd I put that sheet?" str 8, xex 14, con 10, int 18, wis 10, cha 11. skill focus escape artist, dodge, two unselected.
"Escape Artist? Really?""Skill Focus? Really?"
"I know, sucks, right?"
str 11, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 10, able learner, smatterings, one unselected
"Ooh, Smatterings. Nice, Nica."
"Wait, check the back of your sheets. I think there are decimal points there."
"That might be the In Flux thing we have."
"Makes sense."
"Where should we meet?"
"Hey, if this is a party, don't we need a leader?"
"Party of kids."
"None of whom have less than +3 to Int."
"And two of whom have no class features."
"Point."
"Still, a leader might be good. How do we decide?"
"Well, Jess and I have the most Charisma, so we could check the decimals."
"0.5."
"0.3."
"Well, crap."
"Congrats, Jess."
"Wait, it rose!"
"What?"
"Cha Decimal went to .65."
"So, us acknowledging your leadership ability raises your Charisma?"
"Um..I guess. We have to face facts though, there's no way we're getting anywhere without XP. Now, if any of you try this when I'm DMing, your character dies horribly. But we're going to milk the roleplaying XP mechanic, so that we can stand a chance against a world with the mean level being around 3 to 5. By raw, In Flux isn't going anywhere for the next year or so for any of us, you know, so there isn't a reason not to."
"Do we get roleplaying XP?"
"I'd assume so, or no one would learn things."
"Optimization time?"
"Hell yes. Which one of you has Dungeonscape?"
"You're going factotum?"
"I have one good stat."
"Point."
"Mark, you should go shadow-whatsit swordsage gestalt swashbuckler. Int and Dex to damage, Dex to attack."
"What synergizes with monk?"
"You'd make a good archivist too, actually."
"So, how are we going to earn roleplaying XP, o wondrous leader?"
"You'll see..."
Chapter 3: Who Mourns For The Catfolk? [Jess]
"What does chalk, a frisbee, water balloons, scissors, cardboard boxes, a gallon of water, a tape measure, duct tape, a stopwatch, a broomstick, and your calculus work have to do with XP, great leader?" Mark asks an hour later.
We are grouped at a picnic table in the park, the aforementioned things piled around it. The park is more or less equidistant from all our houses. Lex is the exception; he can walk, not bike, to it, and still arrive before any of us. Lex grins. "My friend, with enough duct tape, you can do anything."
"Does killing it with scissors give me XP?"
"No! And seriously, stop calling me that!" I snap at Mark, who smirks unrepentantly, though he does put down the scissors. "Look, we need to figure out how much of 3.5 is bleeding into our world, so we can figure out how to survive. This is especially important for you, Lex; if combat rounds do not exist, Deflect Arrows basically becomes Infinite Deflection, and an epic feat at second level is possibly one of the coolest thing I've ever heard of in D&D. Movement isn't broken into discrete five-foot blocks, which is a start. I think the d20 mechanic does apply in certain situations; there's no way I could have identified the Mirror Image guy so quickly otherwise. So I figured we should test a couple of the physics-defying exploits in 3.5; commoner railgun, splash weapons, and instantaneous directional changing."
Nica sighs and puts down her prayerbook. "And if any apply?"
"Well, the second isn't that big of a deal, but the other two mean physics is dead and the way the world works may officially become 'magic'. Or, you know, it just ends all together."
"Well that's not depressing at all," Lex says sarcastically, shaking his head and standing up. "I suppose we need to mark out five foot squares, then?"
"If you want to run the water-balloon test first, then yes. The cardboard's for a target. I figue we can just stack them. Unless someone wants to be drenched in water."
I get three blank stares in response. "Okay then. I'll fill the balloons up. Someone tape the boxes into a target, please?" Uncap the gallon jug, stretch water balloon over, and invert for a few seconds. Tie, repeat. Ten minutes later, we have a precarious cardboard tower target, nine water balloons, and a 15 by 15 area marked out in 5 foot squares on the basketball court.
"My aim is crap, so one of you should do the throwing. I'll draw a ten-by-ten target for the other test. Stand 10 feet away, so right about...there. We throw three times on the intersection, three times at the target, and three times at an empty 5 foot square. We're looking for improbably hit squares, wildly different diameter between ground-targeted splash weapons, anything like that."
"I'll throw," Nica says, grabbing a water balloon and lobbing it at the cardboard target. Direct hit, water splashes over the 5 squares in front as well as the target, which fell over.
"Hold on, lemme put that back up." Lex darts over and resets it as I sketch out the second set of squares a little ways away. I hear two more splashes in quick succession, then someone taps me on the shoulder. "Well, our water balloons don't seem to hit the squares behind the target unless we miss," Lex says. "Sometimes they barely hit another square at all."
"Gotcha. That's good. Makes sense. Can you resketch the 15-by-15? We need it for one of the ground-targeted tests."
The feeling of him leaving and the sound of footsteps are enough of an agreement. I get out of the way so Nica can test on the intersection.
"It's AC 5, you should be able to hit it fairly easily," I call out, heading back to the table and glancing at a few things. Good. "Let's see now...hold on, Mark, you can climb that tree right? About ten feet up, maybe?"
Mark glances over at the tree, sweeping his red hair out of his face. "Yeah, why?"
"I won't be able to see when the frisbee changes direction very well. If you're up there, you might be able to see when-or if-it slows down."
"Makes sense. Give me a minute to get up there."
I grab the frisbee and head over to the big tree. Lex and Nica follow a second later. "Balloons seem to be normal," Nica says from somewhere behind me. Mark gives me a thumbs up, so I throw the frisbee up and turn to address her.
"Great. Can you mark off 3 30-foot lengths on the sidewalk?" Nica nods and heads back to the table to get some chalk.
"Frisbee looks fine, slows down like it should!" Mark calls.
"Lex, can you and Mark run the test a couple more times? I'm gonna go help Nica."
"Sure, Jess."
I head over to the sidewalk and kneel down by Nica, holding the measuring tape for her. "Tape doesn't go much over 15 feet," I point out, scribbling a large blue mark on the pavement. "We'll have to measure out 6 half-lengths. So what do you think of this thing? You did check if you can cast spells, right?"
"Yeah, I can. Watch; Soldeiuan," she says, running her hand through her long brown hair. It begins to glow with yellow light. It looks warm, toasty, and cuddly. I don't think you can cuddle light, but the description fits nevertheless.
"Nice."
"I know!" she squeals as we mark the second half-length with another blue streak.
"Hey, do you think it'd be a good idea to arrange a sleep-over to figure out what to do after this?"
"At Lex's house, right?" Nica draws another mark, green this time. We meet at Lex's house for our games, though I'm the DM, due to the fact he's got the most books, a decent amount of minis, and enough lego figures for the rest.
"If he's OK with it. Dad should be. School won't get started for another two days at least. Maybe more if things go badly enough."
"I'll ask Mom and Dad if I can head over."
"Sounds like a plan. Can you go get the stopwatch?"
"Yeah-oh, nevermind, Lex and Mark are coming over now, and Mark's got it."
"Great, let's start!"
I stand up, and hear a rustling sound from the little grass-filled creek. I look, and red eyes look back at me. "On second thought...let's get out of here."
Chapter 4: Never Thought [Jess/Lex]
"What?"
"****! Don't you see the eyes?" My tone is more than a little panicked. I mean, there are red eyes, right in the reeds, and apparently only I saw them. Me, with the Wisdom penalty and the Inattentive flaw. My assumption is backed up when Nica shakes her head. "Aren't you the one with the-oh, never mind, just...back away. Slowly. I don't know what it is, but I don't want to take chances."
Nica looks at me like I'm crazy, but follows my lead. To be completely fair, I might be going crazy. But Nica's hair is still glowing, and I have a character sheet that self-adjusts. So, um, I'll go with the hypothesis that the eyes are really there, thanks. Not like today could get any weirder as is.
"Jess, what's wrong?" Lex says from right behind me. I'm not as shocked as I perhaps should be-I am fully aware that I tend to lose most of my pitiful spacial awareness when scared or overloading. The eyes close and seem to disappear.
"Jess thought she saw eyes in the creek."
"I don't see any eyes."
"Same," Mark says. "Come on, don't we have a test to run?"
"They were there, I saw them," I say, sounding more sure of myself than I feel.
"No offense Jess, but your Wisdom is crap, and your Spot is worse. I don't think there's anything there, let's just get this out of the way, OK?" Mark says, rolling the frisbee around in his hand.
"I thought I was the leader," I point out rather dryly as we head back the way we came.
"I thought you didn't like being leader," Nica says, honest curiousity in her tone.
"Well, no, but I don't like my position being spontaneously taken away from me either."
We're back at the sidewalk now, and I take my place in line, but I cannot shake the feeling of something watching me, threatening me. Lex stands at the side, stopwatch in hand. "Three. Two. One. G-holy crap what is that?!"
A scream of pain splits my mind, and I shake. Crap, must have failed my save. I whip around and see two kobolds attacking Mark. A small crossbow bolt sticks out of his right arm, and a second flies over my head. Somehting seems to click-or snap- in my mind. "Get out of here!" I yell, charging towards one of the kobolds. You can't AoO with a ranged weapon anyways. The click of crossbows being loaded barely registers in my mind as I grab at the little kobold's arm and slam into the ground, padding my impact with the kobold. I feel bone snapping under my weight, the screams of the kobold, but I guess the fear effect doesn't stack.
The terrible thing about being gifted is that you know how to prioritize, and my friends are more important than a kobold. I tune out everything. Almost as if I am dreaming, I shift my weight to better crush the kobold's ribcage, ignoring its strangled pleas for mercy. I actually smile slightly, though I do not notice at the time. No matter how much I might deny it, no matter how Good I am the rest of the time, I do like this sort of control. I've caught flies to rip the wings off them, drowned spiders and ladybugs just to watch them squirm. The momentary pleasure overrode the guilt I later felt.
Which still does not adequately explain why I unsheathed the dagger, holding the kobold down with my other hand as it wriggles underneath me. The pommel digs into my hand, it almost feels like a dream. I half expect to feel wax instead of flesh under the blade of the dagger when I shove it into the base of the kobold's throat.
0.2 seconds later, pain explodes in my back, driving deep. I see red for a moment, before slumping forward and falling into darkness and blissful unconsciousness.
---
[Lex]
When the kobolds leapt out at Mark, I wasn't sure how to react. Even worse was Jess charging one of the kobolds. Then I remembered I was one of two people in our pathetic little party with actual class levels.
And 1d6+1 damage against a kobold actually meant something.
What else was I supposed to do? I ran forward and kicked the kobold in the gut. Not very well, but I did. The kobold ignored me, somehow, firing it's crossbow straight into Jess's back. I took the opportunity to strike its muzzle, and it fell over, unconscious and dying. Naturally. Things only have 4 HP, and I did a minimum of 2 damage with each hit.
"JESS!" Nica shrieks. I look over and **** she's got a bolt in her back and is bleeding out Nica is kneeling by her, yanking the bolt out and **** that's a lot of blood and she's only got 4 HP and was that kobold a rogue if he is please don't be dead oh gods please don't be dead you're my friend and I never thought of this part I never thought that she could die like that.
I run over, footsteps sound behind me I am half collapsing half kneeling by Jess pulling her off the kobold and is that a dagger in it's throat? images flashing in my mind of Jess being repulsed by violent video games and always being there so kind and helpful and she must have done it and I never thought she could have done such a thing but the dagger is proof, damning proof that my best friend can kill, that she has killed
Mark must be behind me because he was still conscious when the bolt hit and why isn't Jess waking up! "Why isn't she waking up?" and I don't know who spoke- whispered really broken voice high like a small child's and Mark would probably be laughing right now if Jess wasn't possibly dead.
"Is she..." I can somehow recognize the voice as Mark's. "Can you..." I ask, and I realize the broken voice is mine.
"Poisoned, unconscious, and I'm out of healing spells. Made my Heal check."
"So will she..." Do I want the answer?
"I don't know."
Chapter 5: Luck [Lex]
"What the hell do you mean you don't know?! She's alive, isn't that good enough?!"
Nica looks at Jess's character sheet-Mark must have handed it to her. "She's at -4 HP still- I only prepped Cure Light wounds once, and Cure Minor Wounds three times, she must have been at -9 before I healed her, I used a CMW on Mark too, and I want to keep the last CMW in case she destabilizes. The poison is Black Adder Venom. Deals 1d6 Constitution damage, and I failed the check to know how to remove it...she's already taken some Con damage, and could destabilize if we move her. If she takes 4 or more Con damage, she has only 1 HP at full...." Nica looks and sounds absolutely crushed. The little rational part of me says that there was a 45% chance she would have failed that heal check, and that Jess destabilizing is highly unlikely anyways. The rest of me wants to smack her in the face for not being a cleric, not prepping more heal spells, not being able to be absolutely sure that Jess will survive.
"Let me try. I've got just as good Wisdom as you do." I'm not entirely sure what to do either, and I end up staring at my hands, almost hoping I'll spontaneously take levels in Pathfinder paladin.
"Three failed checks against DC 11? This is like the time I rolled 3 natural 1s on that Power Attack, critically fumbled, and then rolled nearly max damage against myself. I guess all we can do is hope Jess makes the Fortitude saving throws," Mark says, crouching down.
"Didn't she rule that you bashed your own brains in?" I dimly remember the description of Nargle the halfling barbarian's death being absolutely hilarious. It doesn't fit with the moment.
"Yeah. Good times, though." Mark's tone is clearly a very bad attempt at hiding his shock, and his eyes are still...well, I don't know. My brain feels frozen.
"We should probably take her up to your house, Lex...it doesn't feel safe here anymore."
I look back at the kobold who's probably bleeding out behind us, the stiff, smashed, kobold not three feet away with a dagger in the base of it's throat, and I have to agree. We've been coming here for years, really. It's always been somewhere we could run to when we were scared or bored or lonely. And I know I'll never be able to see it that way again.
"No, we shouldn't," Mark says suddenly. "We should wait a minute-here, you've got the stopwatch, right? If she takes Con damage, we should know it before we move her."
It makes sense, and I nod my agreement, but I want to get out of here now. 60 seconds tick by as we wait with bated breath, then Nica reads Jess's character sheet. "HP -7, Constitution 5."
"Dammit."
"Failed both her saves? What is it with us and luck?"
"I don't know. I don't know." I wish I knew. I wish I could do something. I head back to the table and gather up our stuff. I remember my character sheet and check it. "Hey, I'm at -217 XP, and you're at -183 XP, Nica. Mark, you're at -312."
"So kobolds are worth XP. Big fricking whoop. Right now, I don't really give a crap. Lex, can you carry our overconfident leader?"
"Yeah..." I head over and kneel down by Jess, trying to figure out the best way to carry her. At least she's small...
"You know," Nica says, "We're going to have to explain this to Jess's dad..."
I stop in the middle of working out how to pick Jess up without aggravating the still visible wound in her back. "Oh. Right."
"I'm beginning to understand why D&D has a minimum starting age," Mark comments, rubbing his arm.
"We'll have to make do. Who wants to call Jess's dad?" No hands go up. "Someone has to."
"You do it."
"I'm going to carry her."
"Can we do this after we get out of the park?"
"Yeah."
Nica and Mark run over to the picnic table and start gathering up our stuff. I hoist Jess over my shoulder, and silently thank the local DM for giving me a good enough Strength score to carry her as a Heavy load. Then I remember that if there is a DM for this, she-or he, but I've been associating DMing with Jess for a while now- didn't bother to give us decent classes, any equipment, and put Constitution poison on the kobold's crossbow bolts.
"Ready?" Nica's question shakes me out of my reverie. I take a last look at the park. Chalk marks and bits of water balloon on the basketball court. The cherry trees with their pale petals. Kobold corpses on the bright green grass, red blood drying to brown. Crossbow bolts sprinkled around them. I nod.
"Let's go."
Chapter 6: Above the Crowd [Sasha]
A knock sounds at the door and I groan, shoving the cat off of me and dusting off the bits of cat fur and chip crumbs on my shirt. "Coming, coming, hold on." A series of knocks follow. "I said coming!"
When I open the door, I freeze. My little brother's back and hands are bloody, and he carries one of his friends over his shoulder. She is pale, too pale, has a tear in her shirt, and a hole in her back that seems to be in the process of healing. His friends are not in much better condition; the other girl has glowing hair and blood down her front and the boy has streaks of blood drying on his left arm.
"What the hell happened to you?!" I exclaim, gaping at the sight, not even caring how utterly stupid I must look.
"Kobolds," the boy says, shoving past me and dodging into the bathroom.
"What's a-" I ask, as I step aside.
"Can't talk now sis, but you have to call Mom, the-"
Something clicks in my mind. I'm not a certified genius like Alexis, but I'm not an idiot either and it doesn't take long to put two and two together. "Oh. My. God. You got the powers, and creatures are attacking you."
"Exactly. Call Mom, call Jess's dad, and Nica's parents too, if you don't mind." Alexis and the girl who doesn't look like she's bleeding to death are heading to the guest bedroom when the boy tears by with dark towels, antiseptic, gauze, and dressing pads. I am incredibly confused, but I grab my cell phone and set in Mom's number.
And get the goddamn answering machine. I hold back a swear and speak as clearly as I can. "Mom, Alexis and his little group of friends are part of the people who have gained powers." I pause, remembering the unconscious girl's name. "Um, Jessica Li is kinda almost dead, so I have to go. Don't worry too much about it, you don't need to come home early. No offense, Mom, but I don't think your presence will make things easier." I hang up, and check on Alexis and his friends. Telling Jessica's rather legendarily overprotective father that his 'baby girl' could die if a stiff breeze hit her wasn't exactly appealing.
"Nica, d'you know how to use this stuff?" he asks, spreading towels out on the bed. Alexis sets the unconscious girl face down on them, brushing a strand of black hair out of the way as he turns her head so she can actually breathe.
The other girl-Nica-nods as she looks the rest of the stuff over, apparently oblivious or uncaring about the fact that her hair, which is normally light brown if I remember correctly, is glowing yellow. "I've got a rank in heal now, actually, so yeah, I know what I'm doing." A rank in what? My head is spinning, and I feel a migraine coming on.
"Why don't you call 911?" I ask, frowning at the scene unfolding before me. I wave my cell phone. "If you're too busy, I can-" Alexis holds his hand up as he interrupts me. "They'll be full of patients anyways, and Nica will be able to heal her to full HP tomorrow."
'Nica' strips off her bloody long sleeve shirt and dumps it on the floor, checks Jess's wounds, and then, apparently satisfied, curls up on the ground and closes her eyes. "Wait, what?" I ask, glancing at her. "Isn't she supposed to keep an eye on your friend?"
Alexis nods, closing his eyes and sitting down next to the bloody unconscious girl, slumping down and looking far too old. "She's more or less out of healing spells, and I don't think Jess is going to get worse for the next 8 hours. We don't have another spellcaster, much less another healer, and Jess has constitution damage, which is going to make her about as sturdy as a china doll or something for the next week. We can't do anything right now."
And I have been thinking, and watching, and now I see a nearly dead girl in our guest room, my baby brother looks like his dreams have been been completely crushed, and the world is socially imploding. I have an idea. "Can you give me these powers?"
He looks up at me, and I don't see a bit of the vitality and creativity I've come to expect in his eyes. "I don't know."
The boy, the one who got the towels, frowns. "No harm in trying. Lemme go print out a sheet for you, Sasha." He dashes into the office and I turn my head back to my phone. Someone has to tell Mr. Li about the fact that his child could die at any moment. No one wants to. Hell, I bet if Jessica was conscious, she wouldn't want me to call him. My conscious temporarily appeased, I turn my head to the sheets of paper the boy hands to me.
"What am I supposed to do with these?"
"Fill them out," he says slowly, as if I'm some sort of retard.
"With what?"
"Stats. Numbers, mostly. You'll know what feels right."
But nothing comes to mind, and I sit there for the next ten minutes feeling like an idiot. "Are you sure everyone can become a whatever you guys are?"
"Gestalt PCs? Not sure. I think so." And I hear his unvoiced words: I hope so. He probably wants me to be a healer like the sleeping girl next to my feet, so that I can keep his friend alive. But I am clueless, and that itself could be a sign.
"I don't," I say bluntly, sweeping away the papers. "As far as I can tell, it is a select minority who has gained these powers. And I am clearly in the majority of helpless civilians. You got lucky, and I didn't. As much as I hate to say it, you and I are on completely different levels, and it's not because I kicked your collective scrawny asses in everything."
"Hey!" Alexis says, but I ignore his outburst.
"It's because you have these powers and I don't. You are better than me now, and I guess I have to learn to live with it." I sigh and stand. "I need to call Mr. Li." The boys freeze as I take Jessica's phone out of her pocket-Mr. Li always responds to his little girl's calls- and dial his work number.
He picks up immediately. "Hi Jessica sweetie, what's going on?"
I grimace at the babyish endearment and form my sentences. The words catch in my throat, but I force them out. "Mr. Li, this is Sasha Kimball speaking. Your daughter is in critical condition at my house, due to the crazy things that have been happening today."
He hangs up immediately, and I can only dread what will happen next.
Chapter 7: Moment of Respite [Lex]
"You couldn't tell him he didn't need to show up?" I ask Sasha, groaning.
She shakes her head. "He hung up before I could."
Mark frowns, and I note that he must have washed the blood on his arm off in the bathroom when he went to get the towels. "I'll set the timer, seeing as we're going to want Nica to get up as soon as she has enough rest. Um, she'll need about 7.75 hours more of rest and quiet, and she's not going to get that with Mr. Li here, so can you do me a big favor and take Nica to your bedroom so she can sleep?"
"Yeah, sure nerd," Sasha says affectionately. She picks Nica up with ease-even though she's rather tall, Sasha is taller, and Nica is ridiculously thin for her height anyways. When she heads out, Mark and I glance back at Jess.
"Goddamnit," I say under my breath.
"Your eloquence is truly unmatched," Mark says sarcastically. "Anyways, I'm just glad Nica prepares spells like an arcane caster, rather than like a normal divine caster."
"Remind me to tell her to leave spell slots open for situations like this."
"No freaking kidding."
We sit in awkward silence for a few minutes. I think on the day. Mirror Image Guy in the paper, calling Jess, joking around on Skype, effectively playing like stupid toddlers in the park, and then there were kobolds, and everything went crazy. A realization, a terrible one, hits me like a ton of bricks to the face. CR 1 freaking half encounter, and we nearly lost someone-might still lose her. How many monsters are out there? And Sasha, as much as I hate to admit it, is right, most people don't seem to have any powers.
There are probably others out there, fighting similar battles. How many really died, like Jess almost did? How many people decided to murder others-cats, dogs, people-for simple XP? This can't be limited to the US. How many people out there...damnit. It's near impossible to think on that scale. So I shove the thoughts out of my mind. "We should probably go bury the kobolds or something. Don't need rotting bodies in the park." My voice sounds laughably hollow, but Mark either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"Works for me," he says, and we head out. He grabs a trash bag and I stop in the kitchen to set the oven timer and in the garage to get a shovel. We're probably not really going to bury the bodies, but there is no way I'm going to touch a mashed kobold with my bare hands. And the thoughts of the kobold crushed underfoot bring up more mental images I don't need, don't want, and I shove them back down, away into the corners of my mind.
The kobolds are beginning to go stiff, and their open eyes are glassy. Mark kneels down by one and picks up the light crossbow one was wielding. "We're proficient, or at least you and Nica are. No sense in letting weapons go to waste in a situation like this. Look, here are some more bolts, and the other kobold had a dagger too, and this gold piece here, and-"
I cut him off with a gesture. "You're looting them?"
"Well, duh!"
"I-" But he has a point. We need something to defend ourselves with. I sigh, and kneel down next to him in the bloodied grass, grimacing at the feeling of cold scaly flesh against my bare hands. I try to say something, but I cannot frame my thoughts in words, so I settle for "This is absolutely disgusting."
"Yeah, I know, but you have to admit this is useful stuff."
We end up with a furry haversack, three tiny gold coins, two Small heavy crossbows, three green-fletched bolts, 14 red-fletched bolts, and a Small dagger. Neither of us are willing to touch the dagger in the smaller kobold's throat, a necklace of teeth does not appeal, and the armor is useless in any case.
I scoop the kobolds into the trash bag, and Mark grabs the loot, putting it all in the leather bag except a single crossbow, loaded with a green bolt. We walk back in silence, except for the sound of corpse hitting sidewalk through the trash bag. "Do you think you're proficient with crossbows?" I ask, hefting the corpses into a neighbor's dumpster.
Mark shrugs. "Even if I'm not, I will be as soon as I get a real level in something. We can check my sheet for new classes after we get this kobold blood off everything."
The sound of a car motor draws our attention, and I look up. Then swear, loudly, in a language I dimly recognize as Spanish and no, I couldn't speak Spanish yesterday. It's Jess's dad. This is not going to be easy.
Chapter 8: Nowhere Safe [Jess]
Consciousness comes slowly. My back feels like a horse stepped on it, breathing feels like getting smacked, and I feel like crap in general. I glance at the clock. 10:00, same day. Clock? The last thing I remember is the field, and killing that kobold, and then a blast of pain to my back. I fell unconscious and...no, that explains it. I was dying, hit stable thanks to the aid of someone-probably Nica-and then rolled well on the ten percent chance to become disabled and conscious. I was...dying. Huh.
Well, there wasn't a tunnel. A lot of 'absence'. Absence of light, color, sound, life, texture...creepy place. I don't remember much, except for the feeling of 'undecided'. Due to the circumstances surrounding that experience, I find myself rather unwilling to see if a return to that state of absolute nothing is possible. I slowly push myself up onto my forearms and try to look at my surroundings. Lex's guest bedroom? I guess it makes sense.
My ears start working next, and I hear a loud conversation. ****. Seriously, people yelling at each other is DC -5? I slump forwards carefully and bury my head in pillows. Footsteps, hurried ones, enter the room. I really don't give a crap about who it is at the moment. "I'm calling an ambulance." Oh. Dad, seriously? Way more expensive, much less effective. Someone get that guy a Player's Handbook? Now I actually need to wake up and argue.
"Why the hell do I need an ambulance now?" I ask, flipping my head around to better see Dad. He looks tired, worried, and like someone grazed him with an acid splash on the way here-that's worrying. I make a note of it-there are other hostile casters in the city.
"Jessica, you have a hole in your back!"
Critted by the other kobold's crossbow, probably. That makes sense. "Yeah, but an ambulance takes me to the hospital, where I'll be hooked up to various crap for another three weeks or something. Nica-Veronica," I amend (Dad doesn't do nicknames), "is a healer, she'll be able to fix me up within 24 hours."
"7 hours," Sasha says from somewhere out of sight.
"Your friend is one of the people who can do things like throw fire?"
"Sorta. You know those gaming books I like for D&D? Those rules, specifically the character creation ones, are becoming reality. The-"
"I see. I suppose it is more logical for you to stay here so that she can heal you. But after that, we're leaving. I don't want you to get caught in this!" I know he means well, but he needs to think a little more.
"Everyone's going to get caught in this change. I got lucky, Dad, do you understand that?" He doesn't seem to, as by his expression, he is about to start guilt-tripping me again. I am not going to have any of that, so I continue talking. "Over the world, monsters are likely popping up. So are people like me, who actually have" or will have at any rate "the ability to fight them. As soon as I get healed, I'm going to be heading out again. I am going to fight, and I'm going to risk death again. Because there are things out there that very few can fight. And many of those few might turn to homicide in order to gain power. The fact that I have a chance to ever gain enough power to put myself on equal footing with the things that are showing up is enough for me."
"Unacceptable! I will not let you risk your life on these stupid heroics!" I hear more footsteps, but I really don't care who's there.
"People are going to die out there. If I can save any of them-"
"How? You said it yourself, there are others with magic or whatever it is from those books. I don't want you to risk your life to save two nameless strangers who will just die next week. You can't be everywhere at once, sweetie."
"Don't call me sweetie, and stop being condescending! Who do you think you are anyways, to decide that my life is worth so much? The way I see it, if everyone looked at things like that, with the way things are now, we're going to destroy humanity through lust for power and carelessness. I can't change what happened. But I'm damn well not going to ignore it, Dad, and you can't ask me to. I have a chance. That's more than others will get."
And he's still not buying it. Goddamnit I hate my family at times like this. "Dad, listen. There are spells that can kill people in an instant. Without L-Alexis, and Mark, and Veronica, I am not going to have a chance. With them, I'm stronger. A lot stronger, actually. We can support each other and afford to specialize."
"So what you're saying is that you're not leaving unless I kidnap you."
"Odd way to put it but highly accurate." More footsteps in the room. Presumably Lex and Mark. My hypothesis is confirmed when both of them speak in near unison.
"You're awake?!" "What the hell?"
"Stabilizing rules. 10% chance to wake up if tended to."
"This is why we make you DM."
And Dad is now completely confused. "DM?"
"Not the point, Dad. Just...go. I'll call you if anything happens. I'll be fine."
He looks torn, but he nods stiffly. "Please...be careful. Come home tomorrow."
"I will." I will be careful, anyways. Might not come home.
He leaves the room. Lex can stay quiet for about that long. "Says the girl who charged a kobold barehanded," he snaps.
"Shush."
"You did!"
"And killed him before the rest of you could deal with the other!"
Lex looks rather shocked. "I thought you didn't like violence."
"D&D is becoming real. It revolves around killing things and dressing up in their stuffs. I don't think I'll survive with a self-imposed Vow of Nonviolence."
Now all three of them look shocked. Oh well. It's not my job to keep them happy. I just want to keep them alive. I bury my face back in the pillows. "Going to sleep now. Wake me when Nica can actually heal me up."
Story Continues Here: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10756846#post10756846)
Chapter 9: Without Mercy
Chapter 10: Games We Play
Chapter 11: Adventure Time
Chapter 12: Why, Why
Chapter 13: Not Alone
All characters here are fictional, as are names and such. I'm not going to Dan Brown stuff here.
Chapter 1: What Sort of DM [Jess]
I am not a social person. I don't really watch the news. I do get the Oregonian though. It's enough to get me to understand what's going on within a few hours of it starting. That picture, that gesture...the person depicted is casting Mirror Image, apparently. A couple hard pinches verify that yes, I am awake. So that means...hopefully, I'll have a character sheet. Thankfully it's the weekend, I'll have time to stat myself up.
I get a sheet out and begin writing. My hand almost seems disconnected from the rest of me. When it is done, I can only wonder who's the DM here, so I can go punch their face out. The ruleset is Gestalt. But I am not gestalted. I am a Profoundly Gifted Human Child//. Seriously, it was written just like that. Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 12.
Apparently being able to take Calc classes at age 13 translates into an LA 0 template. Profoundly Gifted is a bit like that Unseelie Fey template I keep hearing about. I can use all mentally-keyed trained only skills untrained [explains how I made that Spellcraft check], I get couple untyped bonuses to some skill checks, and look. The fact I regularly have sensory overloads triggered by loud noises is there too, as one of the possible randomly rolled drawbacks [without drawbacks, the template appears to be a LA 1 template]. Anything I hear with a Listen DC of -5 or less provokes a Will Save (DC 10+|Listen DC|), which means a minimum DC of 15, or I am sickened. You know what the Listen DC on a battle is? -10. Seriously? I could have lived without the template.
There's also the fact that Child does not grant skill points. It's just my Intelligence modifier of +4 multipled by 4+the human bonus, for a grand total of 20. 2 ranks in 5 different skills: Craft (Sketching), Knowledge (mathematics), Knowledge (D&D 3.5), Knowledge (Greek Mythology), Profession (fiction writing), and 8 'uninvested'. So it's more like I have 12 skill points. That's nice. You know, I was expecting a little more out of my 18 Int.
I have the Inattentive and Tonguetied (-4 Diplomacy, Intimidate and -4 Perform) Flaws and the Nearsighted trait. But two of my feats, like 8 of my skill points, aren't doing ****. I have Able Learner and Skill Focus (Sense Motive). That is it.
I have a d3 hit die, no weapon proficiencies, no armor proficiencies, no weapons, no armor, and a single class (or rather, racial) feature from being a child: In Flux, which lets me train my stats up (which is good, cause they are crap), gradually releases my skills and feats, and also lets me assign and reassign the skill points and feats I have access to with a week of training (4 hours/day) until my 15th birthday. And I have -500 XP. At 0 XP, I will hopefully have some sort of actual level.
So...I'm screwed. Very, very, very screwed.
There are 4th level gestalt characters running around out there. I am a singleclassed 1st level PC with a homebrewed NPC class that is basically a crappy version of a chameleon.
Well, first things first; I text my gaming group. I have the sneaking suspicion that I am not the only one who got royally shafted in the class department.
Chapter 2: Get Creative [Jess]
Getting on Facebook reminds me of something; a lot of gifted kids play D&D, and the West Coast wakes up last in America. So that makes approximately...30 people with 18 Int spread all over the USA who I vaguely remember from summer camp who also have D&D classes and know what to do with them. Maybe a quarter of whom have not accumulated enough life experience or age to be anything other than a Child//. Most of them don't know what Gestalt is.
Suddenly I am struck with a horrible mental image of gifted casters creating some sort of Tippyverse. It's the sort of thing people say when they're half asleep, but when you have caster classes...yeah. This is NOT going to go well, given a few years. Most of them have likely never heard of the Tippyverse, but they'll figure it out. The economy is all kinds of screwed. Wall of Iron? Create Food and Water? Even Mending can run a carpenter out of a job pretty damn fast. What is the motivation to earn money if you have auto-reset traps to make food for everyone? Or to cook? What is the motivation to keep people doing things at all, other than simple trap maintenance? Second, no one is going to learn to protect the environment if a team of druids or clerics or whatever can drop Auto-reset Purify Water spell traps into the Gulf Coast and just cleanse the atmosphere a bit at a time with researched spells. I bet you could make cars run off magic if you tinkered with them long enough.
It is almost inevitable that these exploits will occur. On the plus side, homebrewed magic might actually let us go Faster than Light. We might visit Gliese 581 in my lifetime. Awesomeness.
My phone vibrates. I've been lost in thought for half an hour. I look at the name. It's Alexis. "Hey, Lex." One thing I've noticed about me and my age peers is that we have a tendency to shorten any name over two syllables down to just one or two. It might have something to do with the fact we speak too fast for anyone else to understand. I, Jessica, become Jess. Alexis is Lex. Marcus is Mark. Veronica is Nicky or Nica. "Jess, did you see the news?"
I roll my eyes, despite the fact he cannot see me. "I don't really watch TV, Lex. If you mean the Mirror Image guy, then yeah." I know he's about to say something, so I barrel onwards. "Template. Long story, but I can make Spellcraft, Knowledge Whatever, and UMD checks untrained, among other things, and I must have made the Spellcraft check. Don't tell me, you're a Child gestalted with Blank Space."
"Child doubleslash Monk actually is what the sheet I filled out says."
"I...wait, that makes sense, cause you take karate or something, right? And the terminology is gestalt child slash monk." A call waiting beep sounds and I frown into the phone. "We should conference call. I don't even know if I can carry out a multiple-person chat on phone."
"Works for me."
I hang up and answer the call waiting. Mark, natch. "Jess, did you hear-"
"Yes, stop talking, get on Skype a minute ago." I hang up again without waiting for a response and dial Veronica.
"Yes?"
"Nica, it's Jessica. Get on Skype, conference call about two minutes ago, about the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing."
"Got it." She hangs up on me.
I stuff my phone back into my pocket as I open up Skype. The boys are already in chat, and I join the call.
"Neutral Good Profoundly Gifted Child Nothing" is the first thing I say.
"TN PG Child Nothing, -650 XP" Mark says, frowning at the camera. "Isn't gestalt supposed to have a second class? And, like, not be at neg XP?"
"Yeah, but none of us are old enough to even be PCs by D&D standards."
Veronica enters the mix of conference call and group chat a second later. "Wait, you guys have classes too?" And then it mostly breaks down.
uh yeah
"What'd you get?"
"LG Profoundly Gifted Archivist doubleslash Child."
I groan. "Gestalt, not doubleslash, people." Type it like //, say gestalt
"Lucky!" Mark facepalms.
"Archivist? Um, can someone tell me what that is?"
a cleric that casts from a book like a wizard with abilities kinda like a bard keyed of knowldege
*knowledge
"Anyone have stats?" Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 12, Able Learner, three feats unspent, load of unspent crud,
"Yeah, hold on Jess." Alexis' head dips offscreen for a second. Str 13, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 12, Combat Expertise, Improved Unarmed Strike mb, Stunning fist mb, two unselected and a load of skill points to spend
"Where'd I put that sheet?" str 8, xex 14, con 10, int 18, wis 10, cha 11. skill focus escape artist, dodge, two unselected.
"Escape Artist? Really?""Skill Focus? Really?"
"I know, sucks, right?"
str 11, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 10, able learner, smatterings, one unselected
"Ooh, Smatterings. Nice, Nica."
"Wait, check the back of your sheets. I think there are decimal points there."
"That might be the In Flux thing we have."
"Makes sense."
"Where should we meet?"
"Hey, if this is a party, don't we need a leader?"
"Party of kids."
"None of whom have less than +3 to Int."
"And two of whom have no class features."
"Point."
"Still, a leader might be good. How do we decide?"
"Well, Jess and I have the most Charisma, so we could check the decimals."
"0.5."
"0.3."
"Well, crap."
"Congrats, Jess."
"Wait, it rose!"
"What?"
"Cha Decimal went to .65."
"So, us acknowledging your leadership ability raises your Charisma?"
"Um..I guess. We have to face facts though, there's no way we're getting anywhere without XP. Now, if any of you try this when I'm DMing, your character dies horribly. But we're going to milk the roleplaying XP mechanic, so that we can stand a chance against a world with the mean level being around 3 to 5. By raw, In Flux isn't going anywhere for the next year or so for any of us, you know, so there isn't a reason not to."
"Do we get roleplaying XP?"
"I'd assume so, or no one would learn things."
"Optimization time?"
"Hell yes. Which one of you has Dungeonscape?"
"You're going factotum?"
"I have one good stat."
"Point."
"Mark, you should go shadow-whatsit swordsage gestalt swashbuckler. Int and Dex to damage, Dex to attack."
"What synergizes with monk?"
"You'd make a good archivist too, actually."
"So, how are we going to earn roleplaying XP, o wondrous leader?"
"You'll see..."
Chapter 3: Who Mourns For The Catfolk? [Jess]
"What does chalk, a frisbee, water balloons, scissors, cardboard boxes, a gallon of water, a tape measure, duct tape, a stopwatch, a broomstick, and your calculus work have to do with XP, great leader?" Mark asks an hour later.
We are grouped at a picnic table in the park, the aforementioned things piled around it. The park is more or less equidistant from all our houses. Lex is the exception; he can walk, not bike, to it, and still arrive before any of us. Lex grins. "My friend, with enough duct tape, you can do anything."
"Does killing it with scissors give me XP?"
"No! And seriously, stop calling me that!" I snap at Mark, who smirks unrepentantly, though he does put down the scissors. "Look, we need to figure out how much of 3.5 is bleeding into our world, so we can figure out how to survive. This is especially important for you, Lex; if combat rounds do not exist, Deflect Arrows basically becomes Infinite Deflection, and an epic feat at second level is possibly one of the coolest thing I've ever heard of in D&D. Movement isn't broken into discrete five-foot blocks, which is a start. I think the d20 mechanic does apply in certain situations; there's no way I could have identified the Mirror Image guy so quickly otherwise. So I figured we should test a couple of the physics-defying exploits in 3.5; commoner railgun, splash weapons, and instantaneous directional changing."
Nica sighs and puts down her prayerbook. "And if any apply?"
"Well, the second isn't that big of a deal, but the other two mean physics is dead and the way the world works may officially become 'magic'. Or, you know, it just ends all together."
"Well that's not depressing at all," Lex says sarcastically, shaking his head and standing up. "I suppose we need to mark out five foot squares, then?"
"If you want to run the water-balloon test first, then yes. The cardboard's for a target. I figue we can just stack them. Unless someone wants to be drenched in water."
I get three blank stares in response. "Okay then. I'll fill the balloons up. Someone tape the boxes into a target, please?" Uncap the gallon jug, stretch water balloon over, and invert for a few seconds. Tie, repeat. Ten minutes later, we have a precarious cardboard tower target, nine water balloons, and a 15 by 15 area marked out in 5 foot squares on the basketball court.
"My aim is crap, so one of you should do the throwing. I'll draw a ten-by-ten target for the other test. Stand 10 feet away, so right about...there. We throw three times on the intersection, three times at the target, and three times at an empty 5 foot square. We're looking for improbably hit squares, wildly different diameter between ground-targeted splash weapons, anything like that."
"I'll throw," Nica says, grabbing a water balloon and lobbing it at the cardboard target. Direct hit, water splashes over the 5 squares in front as well as the target, which fell over.
"Hold on, lemme put that back up." Lex darts over and resets it as I sketch out the second set of squares a little ways away. I hear two more splashes in quick succession, then someone taps me on the shoulder. "Well, our water balloons don't seem to hit the squares behind the target unless we miss," Lex says. "Sometimes they barely hit another square at all."
"Gotcha. That's good. Makes sense. Can you resketch the 15-by-15? We need it for one of the ground-targeted tests."
The feeling of him leaving and the sound of footsteps are enough of an agreement. I get out of the way so Nica can test on the intersection.
"It's AC 5, you should be able to hit it fairly easily," I call out, heading back to the table and glancing at a few things. Good. "Let's see now...hold on, Mark, you can climb that tree right? About ten feet up, maybe?"
Mark glances over at the tree, sweeping his red hair out of his face. "Yeah, why?"
"I won't be able to see when the frisbee changes direction very well. If you're up there, you might be able to see when-or if-it slows down."
"Makes sense. Give me a minute to get up there."
I grab the frisbee and head over to the big tree. Lex and Nica follow a second later. "Balloons seem to be normal," Nica says from somewhere behind me. Mark gives me a thumbs up, so I throw the frisbee up and turn to address her.
"Great. Can you mark off 3 30-foot lengths on the sidewalk?" Nica nods and heads back to the table to get some chalk.
"Frisbee looks fine, slows down like it should!" Mark calls.
"Lex, can you and Mark run the test a couple more times? I'm gonna go help Nica."
"Sure, Jess."
I head over to the sidewalk and kneel down by Nica, holding the measuring tape for her. "Tape doesn't go much over 15 feet," I point out, scribbling a large blue mark on the pavement. "We'll have to measure out 6 half-lengths. So what do you think of this thing? You did check if you can cast spells, right?"
"Yeah, I can. Watch; Soldeiuan," she says, running her hand through her long brown hair. It begins to glow with yellow light. It looks warm, toasty, and cuddly. I don't think you can cuddle light, but the description fits nevertheless.
"Nice."
"I know!" she squeals as we mark the second half-length with another blue streak.
"Hey, do you think it'd be a good idea to arrange a sleep-over to figure out what to do after this?"
"At Lex's house, right?" Nica draws another mark, green this time. We meet at Lex's house for our games, though I'm the DM, due to the fact he's got the most books, a decent amount of minis, and enough lego figures for the rest.
"If he's OK with it. Dad should be. School won't get started for another two days at least. Maybe more if things go badly enough."
"I'll ask Mom and Dad if I can head over."
"Sounds like a plan. Can you go get the stopwatch?"
"Yeah-oh, nevermind, Lex and Mark are coming over now, and Mark's got it."
"Great, let's start!"
I stand up, and hear a rustling sound from the little grass-filled creek. I look, and red eyes look back at me. "On second thought...let's get out of here."
Chapter 4: Never Thought [Jess/Lex]
"What?"
"****! Don't you see the eyes?" My tone is more than a little panicked. I mean, there are red eyes, right in the reeds, and apparently only I saw them. Me, with the Wisdom penalty and the Inattentive flaw. My assumption is backed up when Nica shakes her head. "Aren't you the one with the-oh, never mind, just...back away. Slowly. I don't know what it is, but I don't want to take chances."
Nica looks at me like I'm crazy, but follows my lead. To be completely fair, I might be going crazy. But Nica's hair is still glowing, and I have a character sheet that self-adjusts. So, um, I'll go with the hypothesis that the eyes are really there, thanks. Not like today could get any weirder as is.
"Jess, what's wrong?" Lex says from right behind me. I'm not as shocked as I perhaps should be-I am fully aware that I tend to lose most of my pitiful spacial awareness when scared or overloading. The eyes close and seem to disappear.
"Jess thought she saw eyes in the creek."
"I don't see any eyes."
"Same," Mark says. "Come on, don't we have a test to run?"
"They were there, I saw them," I say, sounding more sure of myself than I feel.
"No offense Jess, but your Wisdom is crap, and your Spot is worse. I don't think there's anything there, let's just get this out of the way, OK?" Mark says, rolling the frisbee around in his hand.
"I thought I was the leader," I point out rather dryly as we head back the way we came.
"I thought you didn't like being leader," Nica says, honest curiousity in her tone.
"Well, no, but I don't like my position being spontaneously taken away from me either."
We're back at the sidewalk now, and I take my place in line, but I cannot shake the feeling of something watching me, threatening me. Lex stands at the side, stopwatch in hand. "Three. Two. One. G-holy crap what is that?!"
A scream of pain splits my mind, and I shake. Crap, must have failed my save. I whip around and see two kobolds attacking Mark. A small crossbow bolt sticks out of his right arm, and a second flies over my head. Somehting seems to click-or snap- in my mind. "Get out of here!" I yell, charging towards one of the kobolds. You can't AoO with a ranged weapon anyways. The click of crossbows being loaded barely registers in my mind as I grab at the little kobold's arm and slam into the ground, padding my impact with the kobold. I feel bone snapping under my weight, the screams of the kobold, but I guess the fear effect doesn't stack.
The terrible thing about being gifted is that you know how to prioritize, and my friends are more important than a kobold. I tune out everything. Almost as if I am dreaming, I shift my weight to better crush the kobold's ribcage, ignoring its strangled pleas for mercy. I actually smile slightly, though I do not notice at the time. No matter how much I might deny it, no matter how Good I am the rest of the time, I do like this sort of control. I've caught flies to rip the wings off them, drowned spiders and ladybugs just to watch them squirm. The momentary pleasure overrode the guilt I later felt.
Which still does not adequately explain why I unsheathed the dagger, holding the kobold down with my other hand as it wriggles underneath me. The pommel digs into my hand, it almost feels like a dream. I half expect to feel wax instead of flesh under the blade of the dagger when I shove it into the base of the kobold's throat.
0.2 seconds later, pain explodes in my back, driving deep. I see red for a moment, before slumping forward and falling into darkness and blissful unconsciousness.
---
[Lex]
When the kobolds leapt out at Mark, I wasn't sure how to react. Even worse was Jess charging one of the kobolds. Then I remembered I was one of two people in our pathetic little party with actual class levels.
And 1d6+1 damage against a kobold actually meant something.
What else was I supposed to do? I ran forward and kicked the kobold in the gut. Not very well, but I did. The kobold ignored me, somehow, firing it's crossbow straight into Jess's back. I took the opportunity to strike its muzzle, and it fell over, unconscious and dying. Naturally. Things only have 4 HP, and I did a minimum of 2 damage with each hit.
"JESS!" Nica shrieks. I look over and **** she's got a bolt in her back and is bleeding out Nica is kneeling by her, yanking the bolt out and **** that's a lot of blood and she's only got 4 HP and was that kobold a rogue if he is please don't be dead oh gods please don't be dead you're my friend and I never thought of this part I never thought that she could die like that.
I run over, footsteps sound behind me I am half collapsing half kneeling by Jess pulling her off the kobold and is that a dagger in it's throat? images flashing in my mind of Jess being repulsed by violent video games and always being there so kind and helpful and she must have done it and I never thought she could have done such a thing but the dagger is proof, damning proof that my best friend can kill, that she has killed
Mark must be behind me because he was still conscious when the bolt hit and why isn't Jess waking up! "Why isn't she waking up?" and I don't know who spoke- whispered really broken voice high like a small child's and Mark would probably be laughing right now if Jess wasn't possibly dead.
"Is she..." I can somehow recognize the voice as Mark's. "Can you..." I ask, and I realize the broken voice is mine.
"Poisoned, unconscious, and I'm out of healing spells. Made my Heal check."
"So will she..." Do I want the answer?
"I don't know."
Chapter 5: Luck [Lex]
"What the hell do you mean you don't know?! She's alive, isn't that good enough?!"
Nica looks at Jess's character sheet-Mark must have handed it to her. "She's at -4 HP still- I only prepped Cure Light wounds once, and Cure Minor Wounds three times, she must have been at -9 before I healed her, I used a CMW on Mark too, and I want to keep the last CMW in case she destabilizes. The poison is Black Adder Venom. Deals 1d6 Constitution damage, and I failed the check to know how to remove it...she's already taken some Con damage, and could destabilize if we move her. If she takes 4 or more Con damage, she has only 1 HP at full...." Nica looks and sounds absolutely crushed. The little rational part of me says that there was a 45% chance she would have failed that heal check, and that Jess destabilizing is highly unlikely anyways. The rest of me wants to smack her in the face for not being a cleric, not prepping more heal spells, not being able to be absolutely sure that Jess will survive.
"Let me try. I've got just as good Wisdom as you do." I'm not entirely sure what to do either, and I end up staring at my hands, almost hoping I'll spontaneously take levels in Pathfinder paladin.
"Three failed checks against DC 11? This is like the time I rolled 3 natural 1s on that Power Attack, critically fumbled, and then rolled nearly max damage against myself. I guess all we can do is hope Jess makes the Fortitude saving throws," Mark says, crouching down.
"Didn't she rule that you bashed your own brains in?" I dimly remember the description of Nargle the halfling barbarian's death being absolutely hilarious. It doesn't fit with the moment.
"Yeah. Good times, though." Mark's tone is clearly a very bad attempt at hiding his shock, and his eyes are still...well, I don't know. My brain feels frozen.
"We should probably take her up to your house, Lex...it doesn't feel safe here anymore."
I look back at the kobold who's probably bleeding out behind us, the stiff, smashed, kobold not three feet away with a dagger in the base of it's throat, and I have to agree. We've been coming here for years, really. It's always been somewhere we could run to when we were scared or bored or lonely. And I know I'll never be able to see it that way again.
"No, we shouldn't," Mark says suddenly. "We should wait a minute-here, you've got the stopwatch, right? If she takes Con damage, we should know it before we move her."
It makes sense, and I nod my agreement, but I want to get out of here now. 60 seconds tick by as we wait with bated breath, then Nica reads Jess's character sheet. "HP -7, Constitution 5."
"Dammit."
"Failed both her saves? What is it with us and luck?"
"I don't know. I don't know." I wish I knew. I wish I could do something. I head back to the table and gather up our stuff. I remember my character sheet and check it. "Hey, I'm at -217 XP, and you're at -183 XP, Nica. Mark, you're at -312."
"So kobolds are worth XP. Big fricking whoop. Right now, I don't really give a crap. Lex, can you carry our overconfident leader?"
"Yeah..." I head over and kneel down by Jess, trying to figure out the best way to carry her. At least she's small...
"You know," Nica says, "We're going to have to explain this to Jess's dad..."
I stop in the middle of working out how to pick Jess up without aggravating the still visible wound in her back. "Oh. Right."
"I'm beginning to understand why D&D has a minimum starting age," Mark comments, rubbing his arm.
"We'll have to make do. Who wants to call Jess's dad?" No hands go up. "Someone has to."
"You do it."
"I'm going to carry her."
"Can we do this after we get out of the park?"
"Yeah."
Nica and Mark run over to the picnic table and start gathering up our stuff. I hoist Jess over my shoulder, and silently thank the local DM for giving me a good enough Strength score to carry her as a Heavy load. Then I remember that if there is a DM for this, she-or he, but I've been associating DMing with Jess for a while now- didn't bother to give us decent classes, any equipment, and put Constitution poison on the kobold's crossbow bolts.
"Ready?" Nica's question shakes me out of my reverie. I take a last look at the park. Chalk marks and bits of water balloon on the basketball court. The cherry trees with their pale petals. Kobold corpses on the bright green grass, red blood drying to brown. Crossbow bolts sprinkled around them. I nod.
"Let's go."
Chapter 6: Above the Crowd [Sasha]
A knock sounds at the door and I groan, shoving the cat off of me and dusting off the bits of cat fur and chip crumbs on my shirt. "Coming, coming, hold on." A series of knocks follow. "I said coming!"
When I open the door, I freeze. My little brother's back and hands are bloody, and he carries one of his friends over his shoulder. She is pale, too pale, has a tear in her shirt, and a hole in her back that seems to be in the process of healing. His friends are not in much better condition; the other girl has glowing hair and blood down her front and the boy has streaks of blood drying on his left arm.
"What the hell happened to you?!" I exclaim, gaping at the sight, not even caring how utterly stupid I must look.
"Kobolds," the boy says, shoving past me and dodging into the bathroom.
"What's a-" I ask, as I step aside.
"Can't talk now sis, but you have to call Mom, the-"
Something clicks in my mind. I'm not a certified genius like Alexis, but I'm not an idiot either and it doesn't take long to put two and two together. "Oh. My. God. You got the powers, and creatures are attacking you."
"Exactly. Call Mom, call Jess's dad, and Nica's parents too, if you don't mind." Alexis and the girl who doesn't look like she's bleeding to death are heading to the guest bedroom when the boy tears by with dark towels, antiseptic, gauze, and dressing pads. I am incredibly confused, but I grab my cell phone and set in Mom's number.
And get the goddamn answering machine. I hold back a swear and speak as clearly as I can. "Mom, Alexis and his little group of friends are part of the people who have gained powers." I pause, remembering the unconscious girl's name. "Um, Jessica Li is kinda almost dead, so I have to go. Don't worry too much about it, you don't need to come home early. No offense, Mom, but I don't think your presence will make things easier." I hang up, and check on Alexis and his friends. Telling Jessica's rather legendarily overprotective father that his 'baby girl' could die if a stiff breeze hit her wasn't exactly appealing.
"Nica, d'you know how to use this stuff?" he asks, spreading towels out on the bed. Alexis sets the unconscious girl face down on them, brushing a strand of black hair out of the way as he turns her head so she can actually breathe.
The other girl-Nica-nods as she looks the rest of the stuff over, apparently oblivious or uncaring about the fact that her hair, which is normally light brown if I remember correctly, is glowing yellow. "I've got a rank in heal now, actually, so yeah, I know what I'm doing." A rank in what? My head is spinning, and I feel a migraine coming on.
"Why don't you call 911?" I ask, frowning at the scene unfolding before me. I wave my cell phone. "If you're too busy, I can-" Alexis holds his hand up as he interrupts me. "They'll be full of patients anyways, and Nica will be able to heal her to full HP tomorrow."
'Nica' strips off her bloody long sleeve shirt and dumps it on the floor, checks Jess's wounds, and then, apparently satisfied, curls up on the ground and closes her eyes. "Wait, what?" I ask, glancing at her. "Isn't she supposed to keep an eye on your friend?"
Alexis nods, closing his eyes and sitting down next to the bloody unconscious girl, slumping down and looking far too old. "She's more or less out of healing spells, and I don't think Jess is going to get worse for the next 8 hours. We don't have another spellcaster, much less another healer, and Jess has constitution damage, which is going to make her about as sturdy as a china doll or something for the next week. We can't do anything right now."
And I have been thinking, and watching, and now I see a nearly dead girl in our guest room, my baby brother looks like his dreams have been been completely crushed, and the world is socially imploding. I have an idea. "Can you give me these powers?"
He looks up at me, and I don't see a bit of the vitality and creativity I've come to expect in his eyes. "I don't know."
The boy, the one who got the towels, frowns. "No harm in trying. Lemme go print out a sheet for you, Sasha." He dashes into the office and I turn my head back to my phone. Someone has to tell Mr. Li about the fact that his child could die at any moment. No one wants to. Hell, I bet if Jessica was conscious, she wouldn't want me to call him. My conscious temporarily appeased, I turn my head to the sheets of paper the boy hands to me.
"What am I supposed to do with these?"
"Fill them out," he says slowly, as if I'm some sort of retard.
"With what?"
"Stats. Numbers, mostly. You'll know what feels right."
But nothing comes to mind, and I sit there for the next ten minutes feeling like an idiot. "Are you sure everyone can become a whatever you guys are?"
"Gestalt PCs? Not sure. I think so." And I hear his unvoiced words: I hope so. He probably wants me to be a healer like the sleeping girl next to my feet, so that I can keep his friend alive. But I am clueless, and that itself could be a sign.
"I don't," I say bluntly, sweeping away the papers. "As far as I can tell, it is a select minority who has gained these powers. And I am clearly in the majority of helpless civilians. You got lucky, and I didn't. As much as I hate to say it, you and I are on completely different levels, and it's not because I kicked your collective scrawny asses in everything."
"Hey!" Alexis says, but I ignore his outburst.
"It's because you have these powers and I don't. You are better than me now, and I guess I have to learn to live with it." I sigh and stand. "I need to call Mr. Li." The boys freeze as I take Jessica's phone out of her pocket-Mr. Li always responds to his little girl's calls- and dial his work number.
He picks up immediately. "Hi Jessica sweetie, what's going on?"
I grimace at the babyish endearment and form my sentences. The words catch in my throat, but I force them out. "Mr. Li, this is Sasha Kimball speaking. Your daughter is in critical condition at my house, due to the crazy things that have been happening today."
He hangs up immediately, and I can only dread what will happen next.
Chapter 7: Moment of Respite [Lex]
"You couldn't tell him he didn't need to show up?" I ask Sasha, groaning.
She shakes her head. "He hung up before I could."
Mark frowns, and I note that he must have washed the blood on his arm off in the bathroom when he went to get the towels. "I'll set the timer, seeing as we're going to want Nica to get up as soon as she has enough rest. Um, she'll need about 7.75 hours more of rest and quiet, and she's not going to get that with Mr. Li here, so can you do me a big favor and take Nica to your bedroom so she can sleep?"
"Yeah, sure nerd," Sasha says affectionately. She picks Nica up with ease-even though she's rather tall, Sasha is taller, and Nica is ridiculously thin for her height anyways. When she heads out, Mark and I glance back at Jess.
"Goddamnit," I say under my breath.
"Your eloquence is truly unmatched," Mark says sarcastically. "Anyways, I'm just glad Nica prepares spells like an arcane caster, rather than like a normal divine caster."
"Remind me to tell her to leave spell slots open for situations like this."
"No freaking kidding."
We sit in awkward silence for a few minutes. I think on the day. Mirror Image Guy in the paper, calling Jess, joking around on Skype, effectively playing like stupid toddlers in the park, and then there were kobolds, and everything went crazy. A realization, a terrible one, hits me like a ton of bricks to the face. CR 1 freaking half encounter, and we nearly lost someone-might still lose her. How many monsters are out there? And Sasha, as much as I hate to admit it, is right, most people don't seem to have any powers.
There are probably others out there, fighting similar battles. How many really died, like Jess almost did? How many people decided to murder others-cats, dogs, people-for simple XP? This can't be limited to the US. How many people out there...damnit. It's near impossible to think on that scale. So I shove the thoughts out of my mind. "We should probably go bury the kobolds or something. Don't need rotting bodies in the park." My voice sounds laughably hollow, but Mark either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"Works for me," he says, and we head out. He grabs a trash bag and I stop in the kitchen to set the oven timer and in the garage to get a shovel. We're probably not really going to bury the bodies, but there is no way I'm going to touch a mashed kobold with my bare hands. And the thoughts of the kobold crushed underfoot bring up more mental images I don't need, don't want, and I shove them back down, away into the corners of my mind.
The kobolds are beginning to go stiff, and their open eyes are glassy. Mark kneels down by one and picks up the light crossbow one was wielding. "We're proficient, or at least you and Nica are. No sense in letting weapons go to waste in a situation like this. Look, here are some more bolts, and the other kobold had a dagger too, and this gold piece here, and-"
I cut him off with a gesture. "You're looting them?"
"Well, duh!"
"I-" But he has a point. We need something to defend ourselves with. I sigh, and kneel down next to him in the bloodied grass, grimacing at the feeling of cold scaly flesh against my bare hands. I try to say something, but I cannot frame my thoughts in words, so I settle for "This is absolutely disgusting."
"Yeah, I know, but you have to admit this is useful stuff."
We end up with a furry haversack, three tiny gold coins, two Small heavy crossbows, three green-fletched bolts, 14 red-fletched bolts, and a Small dagger. Neither of us are willing to touch the dagger in the smaller kobold's throat, a necklace of teeth does not appeal, and the armor is useless in any case.
I scoop the kobolds into the trash bag, and Mark grabs the loot, putting it all in the leather bag except a single crossbow, loaded with a green bolt. We walk back in silence, except for the sound of corpse hitting sidewalk through the trash bag. "Do you think you're proficient with crossbows?" I ask, hefting the corpses into a neighbor's dumpster.
Mark shrugs. "Even if I'm not, I will be as soon as I get a real level in something. We can check my sheet for new classes after we get this kobold blood off everything."
The sound of a car motor draws our attention, and I look up. Then swear, loudly, in a language I dimly recognize as Spanish and no, I couldn't speak Spanish yesterday. It's Jess's dad. This is not going to be easy.
Chapter 8: Nowhere Safe [Jess]
Consciousness comes slowly. My back feels like a horse stepped on it, breathing feels like getting smacked, and I feel like crap in general. I glance at the clock. 10:00, same day. Clock? The last thing I remember is the field, and killing that kobold, and then a blast of pain to my back. I fell unconscious and...no, that explains it. I was dying, hit stable thanks to the aid of someone-probably Nica-and then rolled well on the ten percent chance to become disabled and conscious. I was...dying. Huh.
Well, there wasn't a tunnel. A lot of 'absence'. Absence of light, color, sound, life, texture...creepy place. I don't remember much, except for the feeling of 'undecided'. Due to the circumstances surrounding that experience, I find myself rather unwilling to see if a return to that state of absolute nothing is possible. I slowly push myself up onto my forearms and try to look at my surroundings. Lex's guest bedroom? I guess it makes sense.
My ears start working next, and I hear a loud conversation. ****. Seriously, people yelling at each other is DC -5? I slump forwards carefully and bury my head in pillows. Footsteps, hurried ones, enter the room. I really don't give a crap about who it is at the moment. "I'm calling an ambulance." Oh. Dad, seriously? Way more expensive, much less effective. Someone get that guy a Player's Handbook? Now I actually need to wake up and argue.
"Why the hell do I need an ambulance now?" I ask, flipping my head around to better see Dad. He looks tired, worried, and like someone grazed him with an acid splash on the way here-that's worrying. I make a note of it-there are other hostile casters in the city.
"Jessica, you have a hole in your back!"
Critted by the other kobold's crossbow, probably. That makes sense. "Yeah, but an ambulance takes me to the hospital, where I'll be hooked up to various crap for another three weeks or something. Nica-Veronica," I amend (Dad doesn't do nicknames), "is a healer, she'll be able to fix me up within 24 hours."
"7 hours," Sasha says from somewhere out of sight.
"Your friend is one of the people who can do things like throw fire?"
"Sorta. You know those gaming books I like for D&D? Those rules, specifically the character creation ones, are becoming reality. The-"
"I see. I suppose it is more logical for you to stay here so that she can heal you. But after that, we're leaving. I don't want you to get caught in this!" I know he means well, but he needs to think a little more.
"Everyone's going to get caught in this change. I got lucky, Dad, do you understand that?" He doesn't seem to, as by his expression, he is about to start guilt-tripping me again. I am not going to have any of that, so I continue talking. "Over the world, monsters are likely popping up. So are people like me, who actually have" or will have at any rate "the ability to fight them. As soon as I get healed, I'm going to be heading out again. I am going to fight, and I'm going to risk death again. Because there are things out there that very few can fight. And many of those few might turn to homicide in order to gain power. The fact that I have a chance to ever gain enough power to put myself on equal footing with the things that are showing up is enough for me."
"Unacceptable! I will not let you risk your life on these stupid heroics!" I hear more footsteps, but I really don't care who's there.
"People are going to die out there. If I can save any of them-"
"How? You said it yourself, there are others with magic or whatever it is from those books. I don't want you to risk your life to save two nameless strangers who will just die next week. You can't be everywhere at once, sweetie."
"Don't call me sweetie, and stop being condescending! Who do you think you are anyways, to decide that my life is worth so much? The way I see it, if everyone looked at things like that, with the way things are now, we're going to destroy humanity through lust for power and carelessness. I can't change what happened. But I'm damn well not going to ignore it, Dad, and you can't ask me to. I have a chance. That's more than others will get."
And he's still not buying it. Goddamnit I hate my family at times like this. "Dad, listen. There are spells that can kill people in an instant. Without L-Alexis, and Mark, and Veronica, I am not going to have a chance. With them, I'm stronger. A lot stronger, actually. We can support each other and afford to specialize."
"So what you're saying is that you're not leaving unless I kidnap you."
"Odd way to put it but highly accurate." More footsteps in the room. Presumably Lex and Mark. My hypothesis is confirmed when both of them speak in near unison.
"You're awake?!" "What the hell?"
"Stabilizing rules. 10% chance to wake up if tended to."
"This is why we make you DM."
And Dad is now completely confused. "DM?"
"Not the point, Dad. Just...go. I'll call you if anything happens. I'll be fine."
He looks torn, but he nods stiffly. "Please...be careful. Come home tomorrow."
"I will." I will be careful, anyways. Might not come home.
He leaves the room. Lex can stay quiet for about that long. "Says the girl who charged a kobold barehanded," he snaps.
"Shush."
"You did!"
"And killed him before the rest of you could deal with the other!"
Lex looks rather shocked. "I thought you didn't like violence."
"D&D is becoming real. It revolves around killing things and dressing up in their stuffs. I don't think I'll survive with a self-imposed Vow of Nonviolence."
Now all three of them look shocked. Oh well. It's not my job to keep them happy. I just want to keep them alive. I bury my face back in the pillows. "Going to sleep now. Wake me when Nica can actually heal me up."
Story Continues Here: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10756846#post10756846)
Chapter 9: Without Mercy
Chapter 10: Games We Play
Chapter 11: Adventure Time
Chapter 12: Why, Why
Chapter 13: Not Alone