fandomhigh | A New You, Tuesday, Period Two

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A New You, Tuesday, Period Two

Today, students, you would enter the danger shop to find yourself and your merry band of fellows sitting on the outskirts of that same seaside community, near a particularly large but depressingly sparse-looking farmer's field.

"Congratulations," Fjord said jovially once it looked as though everybody had arrived. "Warden cut you a deal... you all get to clear your name together, innocent or otherwise, if you do the town this one particular favor. You see, apparently, there have been some kobolds stirring up hell on the outskirts of town. They tend to show up around the same time every night, digging up farms, ruining crops. Now... we can't have that. Yes, this town does also have a fairly active fishing industry and the hunting on the outskirts isn't half bad. The locals aren't necessarily going to go hungry, but winters are long this far north, and people need the grains and other such things in their diet, and a good deal of the town's economy comes from trading their harvest."

He didn't figure most of the class necessarily cared. He was still going to share what the Warden had said. Important backstory, and all.

"So, to clear your names, you'll need to find out what the kobolds want and deal with it, or just kill the little fuckers and get it over with. Up to you. Warden doesn't care how the job gets done, just so long as this gets put to a stop." He lifted his chin and smiled pleasantly at his little adventuring party. "So... what do you do?"

[OOC: Open!]

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"That's unfortunate," Beau said, and she almost, almost sounded like she meant it. "Guess that'd be too much power in the hands of mere mortals or whatever. How are the kids doing so far with this, uh . . . farm scenario?"

"Well," Fjord mused, "one looks like he just wants to kill some kobolds. Another's asking questions, trying to figure out why there's a problem. Looking forward to seeing how they engage with the little guys once they show, honestly."

He kind of got a kick out of seeing their reactions to things here, so sue him.

"Is it super surly looking guy over there in the cloak, doing the major emo thing, who just wants to kick some ass?" Beau guessed, nodding over toward Prompto. "'cause I mean, I'm kind of on his side here. Damn. I should've brought some popcorn."

"Yeah, we've got surly and we've got shiny," Fjord confirmed, nodding over to Trevor, as well. "Not entirely sure what shiny's deal is yet. He's been, ah, sparse on details."

But had been a pretty easy sell on Wrathful Smite and Fjord had unwittingly named him after a car, so...

"I mean, he's not entitled to spill his whole life story or anything," said the girl who largely remained a canon backstory enigma herself. She squinted into the darkness — stupid human lack of darkvision. "Tell me they have a cleric or something."

"Not asking for a life story," Fjord chuckled, "but choosing a weapon before the third class would've been handy."

He was judging you, Trevor. Possibly because he suspected you were making this difficult for your classmates on purpose.

"We have one cleric. The dragonborn girl," he said. "We'll see how good she is at healing her crew when they finally get into a fight. I'm looking forward to it."

Was that wrong? Nah.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh, gotcha." Beau nodded. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with just using your fists, but yeah."

Judging you now too, Trevor. Sorry.

"Are they going to get in a fight? Do you want me to like flip off the roof and do some cool monk shit at them?"

Beau. No.

Fjord... kind of wanted to see that. He even looked briefly tempted, there.

"The plan is to have the field be invaded by kobolds," he explained easily. "What they do with that is up to them. They don't need to fight these ones, I made certain to leave it open for them, give them options, but, considering some of them..."

He had helped the Paladin figure out which smiting spell to prepare. So.

“But you left the option to fight on the table, so someone’s probably going to take it. Though . . . that one looks like way too much of a soft touch to be a fighter,” Beau said with a snort, nodding in the direction of the armed firbolg who didn’t look like she was comfortable carrying all that weaponry.

“Eh, one way or another, if it comes down to a fight I totally wanna watch.”

Naturally.

"Now, what kind of a person would I be if I were to deny you that?" Fjord turned a grin her way. "It'll be one hell of a show, I'm sure. Looks like we've got a good split between students who know what they're doing in a fight and ones who have genuinely stepped outside of their comfort zone for this class."

“Fair,” Beau agreed. Still side-eyeing that firbolg for some reason she couldn’t even figure out. “But there’s gonna be a fight at some point this term, right? Even if they get out of it today?”

Please, what low-level D&D party didn’t have at least a brief murder-hobo stint?

"Oh yeah," Fjord agreed amiably. "There'll definitely be a fight eventually, if I have to spend an entire morning describing dragons to this room in great detail."

Someday he'd be very cordially apologizing to a small dragon and he'd wonder if maybe that was karma for something he'd done here.

No, that was going to be karma for bleeding on the creepy ancient ritual table, Fjord.

"Okay, please tell me that's going to be the final."

Don't look so delighted at this idea, Beau.

"... Well, it is now."

Hey, it was even part of one of the students' backstories! That worked out nicely.

Almost every D&D party had to have at least one character with dragon-related trauma in their backstory, after all. It was practically in the core rules.

Beau pointed a finger at Fjord emphatically. “I want credit for this.”

Not really, but she had a certain obnoxiousness quota to meet.

"Sure," Fjord replied, grinning easily. "If you want, I can set you up as the guide that leads them to the dragon's lair or something."

Why the hell not, right? He wasn't certain this band of dumbasses could take out a dragon without some guidance, anyway.

So, enlist the baby monk, that'd do it.

The baby monk who was levels away from not being a whole lot of use against her first dragon anyway!

“Ha,” Beau said, rubbing her hands together with a slightly unsettling manic glee, “you’re on, dude, I’ll totally do that.”

O ye warlock of low wisdom.

He was doing his best!

Sometimes his best was just awful, though.

"There you go, then. Something to look forward to." They were all going to be eaten. "And that gives me plenty of time to get this dragon program thing just right."

This dragon was going to be jello and have gelatinous cube traits slapped on, too. Just watch.

Just . . . remember this in the Happy Fun Ball someday, Fjord, if your students got eaten by a dragon that looked weirdly adorable but could engulf them in its gelatinous acidic body.

Beau snickered. “Yeah, I bet they’re gonna appreciate that a lot.”

"Oh, come on," Fjord laughed, "you think they don't want to fight a dragon? Who doesn't want to fight a dragon?"

Fjord. Fjord very much did not want to fight a dragon. Not even a small one.

The Happy Fun Ball was definitely karma.

"Look," Beau said, spreading her hands and then making a show of stretching and tucking her hands behind her head, "I could totally take one but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to, right?"

Which in Beau-speak was a hard nope.

"Well, yeah," Fjord agreed, smirking. "Wouldn't want to rough up a dragon who doesn't really have it coming, right?"

"It stays in its lair and out of my business, doesn't fuck up my shit, then we don't have a problem." Beau shrugged, but a slow grin started to creep across her face again. "It'd be pretty badass though. Like what an adrenaline rush, right?"

"I have no doubt in my mind that adrenaline would be involved, yes," Fjord confirmed.

Also, possibly groveling.

"And hell, how many people actually get to meet a dragon in battle anyway? At least here we can have the experience even if we don't have a dragon handy for it."

Also, with danger shop safeties.

Not to mention running. It would be bad.

"I mean hell, most people don't go out looking for that shit," Beau said after a moment. "Normal people. Not like, y'know, us."

She got that already, that the two of them seemed to have that in common.

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