Alejandra clutched her bag to her chest as she stared out the window. It was quieter now that it was just her, Tyler, and Derek. The two guys were striking up a conversation about the best heist movies of all time, and she zoned out, watching the scenery pass. Feeling her bag next to her.
Hraktar made it to level three. She was worried he was outpacing the others. She didn’t want them to get imbalanced with what they did. Ezekiel, still at level one, caused her enough anxiety. She’d have to get Rafael to do some battles with minions. Somehow. They spent an entire weekend before finding the drakes. Finding those monsters. Slaughtering them.
Her eyes grew warm as she blinked. She wasn’t going to cry again. If she did, she might start sobbing. They got distracted by Grizzizzik’s disappearance, which was for the best. Alejandra needed the time to keep herself from getting too frightened.
Derek pulled into his driveway as Alejandra readied to leave. She got out, thanking Derek and Tyler as she kept her bag close, heading for her car. Hraktar followed behind her.
“Alejandra?” Tyler called out.
Despite not wanting to, every muscle in her body tightened. She turned around, forcing her face to look innocent. “Yes?”
He jogged up to her, smiling. “Hey, I wanted to check on you. I know… I know things can be a bit hard, and the battle today—”
“It’s fine,” she said, mainly because she wanted Tyler to stop talking. She was incredibly nervous about him talking too much about the battle.
“You were crying. I don’t want you to think we were skipping over what happened because Grizzizzik caught us all off guard. If there’s anything you want to talk about, you know my number. I’m happy to listen,” Tyler said.
Alejandra paused, touched by Tyler’s thoughtfulness. She glanced at Hraktar, who looked at her and sensed she wanted a moment alone. He walked over to her car.
“It’s just…” She rubbed her head, feeling tears threatening to betray her. “It’s been a month since they’ve arrived, and I’m still not used to it.”
Tyler nodded. “We can all understand that.”
Alejandra looked back down at her bag. “I understand they were drakes. That they’re like the little cousins of dragons. That they’re dangerous. But… but they were protecting their unborn child. Protecting each other. Before when it was a game, I didn’t mind so much because even though we were slaughtering them, they weren’t real, but now…” Alejandra trailed off, glancing behind her at Hraktar waiting by the car. “They are real. All of them. I made up his backstory. It’s so… tragic. Running away from his tribe. From his birth mother. Getting all that abuse because he’s a half orc. Am I… am I responsible for that, too?”
“No,” Tyler said.
It surprised her how quickly he said it. “No?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know what strange multiverse is at play here, but I do know you can’t blame yourself for that.” Tyler lifted a hand to emphasize his words, but no other words came out. Instead, he sighed and used his hand to rub the back of his head. “Don’t be too harsh on yourself. It’s not your fault.”
“This game is coming alive around us.” Alejandra’s knuckles turned white around the edges of her bag. “How can I not blame myself for the pain I’ve caused?”
Tyler gave her another look, one sparked with compassion. “You didn’t know, Alejandra.”
“I do now.”
He sighed. “Yeah. I get that. None of us knew. But we’ve got to keep doing the best we can. At this point, it’s all we can do.” Alejandra nodded, tucking some of her hair behind her ears. “And the offer is still there. You have my number if you need to call, even though I suck at giving words of encouragement.” A smile flickered across Alejandra’s lips. “I feel really good about seeing Neal at the end of the month. We might not need to do this much longer.”
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She forgot about the others going to con at the end of the month. That at least would give them some sort of focus on what they should do.
“Thanks, Tyler. You really are a great GM,” Alejandra said.
“It’s actually a lot more improvisation than I realized, but it keeps me on my toes.”
Alejandra smiled as she headed toward her car, waving at Derek and Milo as she did. “Come on, Hraktar. We’ve got to get home. Then we’ll get you properly leveled up.”
Hraktar nodded as she unlocked the car. A wave of heat hit her as she opened the door, and she gave it a moment before climbing inside. She turned on the air conditioning as Hraktar buckled his seat belt, smoother this time.
“You’re learning,” Alejandra said. Hraktar smiled a bit at that. She pulled out and headed toward her home. “So, you’re at level three now. I’m not sure if you noticed while you were in the Shrouded Domain, but this means you can choose a more specific type of fighter.”
Hraktar looked out the car window, much like Alejandra did in Derek’s minivan. “Right. Um… what kind of fighter was I before?”
“You chose the battle master. There are some options here we can look through when I get back, but the battle master is still a superb choice,” Alejandra said.
“Yeah. We can talk more about it.”
The ride home wasn’t too long. Rafael was nowhere in sight, which was better. Ezekiel was still on the couch, a book open on his chest, as he took a nap.
They went into Alejandra’s room and discussed the options. Level three was always a fun, yet intimidating one to get to as a fighter. There were the usual choices: Champion, Battle Master, and Eldrich Knight. Hraktar had no interest in learning magic, so Eldrich Knight was out of the question. After going through the options, he was happy to stick with Battle Master. Even after choosing that, there were still a lot more choices. He could choose three maneuvers, which he was confused about, not realizing he hadn’t known them before. He remembered them back in the Shrouded Domain, but it was like he’d forgotten them now.
There was a long list of maneuvers. Alejandra was tempted to choose them fast, but she wanted Hraktar’s input. She didn’t realize how many maneuvers there were to learn. Adding an extra die to the attack would always be helpful, though she could only use one maneuver per attack. Still, extra dice was extra dice. And as he leveled up, he could add more maneuvers. Each maneuver had a die that accompanied it. She could only use one maneuver per attack, and only four maneuver dice total before Hraktar needed to get them back with an hour-long rest.
She mentally scrolled through the list of maneuvers before she found two that piqued her interest.
Sweeping Attack
When you attack a creature with a melee weapon, use an extra d8 to attempt to damage another creature with the same attack. Creature must be within five feet of the original target and within your reach. If the original attack roll would hit the second creature, it takes damage equal to the number you roll on your maneuver die.
Tactical Advantage
When you make an Investigation, History, or Wisdom check, you can use a maneuver die to add to the ability check.
Alejandra told these to Hraktar, and he agreed, almost excited. This was definitely more Hraktar’s personality. She added those, then scrolled through the other maneuvers. She asked about one called a menacing attack, but Hraktar didn’t sound interested. Alejandra understood the hesitancy of acting like an orc. Hraktar didn’t like the idea of trying to look threatening. She went through the others, saying them out loud to Hraktar, gauging his reaction. It was taking her a lot longer than she thought, and she tried to pretend she wasn’t as anxious as she felt.
They finally settled on parry, and Alejandra glanced through it.
Parry
When another creature damages you with a melee attack, you can use a reaction and use one maneuver die to reduce the damage by the number you roll on your die + your Dexterity modifier.
They were some good choices. She rolled for hit points. It landed on a six, and with the +4 with Hraktar’s constitution, it was ten total. She watched Hraktar’s hit points go from twenty-four to thirty-four, and she tried to feel a bit more relief at that. In truth, she was nervous her fighter was a level ahead of everyone. It wouldn’t be so bad if Hraktar was with them, but if they went without their fighter tank, the rest of the group might be in trouble.
The final thing was to decide what kind of artisan tools he would become familiar with. After deliberation, he decided on carpenter tools, which sounded about like what he chose last time. It meant he’d have an extra bonus on rolls dealing with structures. It was a nice bonus for checking traps, though Grizzizzik would always be the one who was excellent at things like that.
Hraktar mentioned needing some rest, and Alejandra was happy he was the one who suggested it. The fighter left to sleep on the couch. Alejandra waited until she heard the settling of the house before she got up and grabbed her bag. With a deep breath, she unzipped it to see the sandy drake egg inside. She lifted it, brushing some of the dirt that still clung to the edges. It was quite warm, but she had no idea what to do with it. There was a good possibility she would kill this egg. She didn’t know how to take care of a drake egg, but if there was even the slightest chance it would survive, she had to try.