“My part in this,” Jason mused contentedly, “is at least nice and simple. Sorry about this, buddy.”
Rolling Attack (Warhammer) | 1d20+7 | 1d10+5
Result of 20 HITS | Avalanche (Bugbear) takes 8 Damage
“Aw, dad, you didn’t have to leave the last hit for me, you know.” Harriet pouted, scrambling away from the water and lining a shot on the bugbear as she moved. “Thirty five feet,” she muttered to herself, keeping a careful distance between herself and the nearest point of approach to the water. “I don’t suppose you could be convinced to surrender, Avalanche?”
“Halfling speaks to Avalanche? Avalanche think halfling not worth spitting blood at! Avalanche seeds shreds of halfling in shadows, harvests—”
Rolling Attack (Shortbow) | 1d20+7 | 1d6+5
“—bored now.” Harriet shook her head sadly, turning away from the bugbear. Looking straight at the giant otter in the water, she winked and released the arrow she’d nocked. “Huh. Did it just get a lot quieter here all of a sudden?”
Natural 20 CRITS
“Guess it did, didn’t it.” She stretched performatively, spinning her next arrow around her fingers. Slinging the bow around her shoulder, she bowed floridly and with every bit of her public school theatrical experience—which was very little.
17 Damage SPECTACULARLY OVERKILLS Avalanche (Bugbear)
Turning around, she strolled over and plucked the arrow from the mouth of the once-leader of the goblinoids that dwelt in the Short Drop Falls Mines Caverns. It was in perfect condition despite having gone through the bugbear’s soft palate as he was ranting, and she flicked off the single mote of blood that clung to the arrowhead and slotted it back into her quiver.
“Here, let me finish his rant,” she said brightly, stepping forward another five feet. “You dare, junior?! For your insolence, I will use your—ew, I’m thirteen, I’m not even going there. For your insolence, I will build a kingdom from your bones! Yours will be the first skull in my collection of undersized cups which I daintily drink hard spirits from, distinguished from the others by dint of yours being Small, and the others substantially larger!”
Stopping in front of the blazing wall of fire, she quirked an eyebrow at the remaining hobgoblin. “Hey. You gonna stand down, hobgoblin? Hobgoblin was cool, I dunno why we should have to kill you. This Avalanche dork was a piece of shit. But if not…”
Rolling Intimidation (Charisma) | 1d20+4, best of 2
The hobgoblin’s eyes tracked from the new arrow she was spinning in her fingers to the corpse at her feet, and then a snort of bitter laughter presaged the clattering of his weapons to the ground.
“Hobgoblin is dead,” the goblinoid sneered, “and I will be too. Come, little civilization, show me what standing down gets hobgoblin.”
“Oh. I thought that was obvious.”
And with that, she ostentatiously waved her arrow as though it were a fan, and the fire—
COMBAT ENDED
Short Drop Falls Mines Caverns Cleared
Experience Awarded: 275
LEVEL UP AVAILABLE
—went out like a snuffed spark.
The power flooded through her like a blaze, and she turned away from hobgoblin—combat was over, he wasn’t a threat anymore—to the otter that had barreled rapidly over to Cassandra, making chittering noises as though it wanted to play. Harriet’s parents had been rapidly backing up and trying to draw it away from her, but that wouldn’t do at all, so she barreled forwards herself, inasmuch as a self-admitted pipsqueak could barrel.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Ottteeeeeeeerrrrrrr!”
Cassandra turned as Harriet charged forwards as fast as her two short halfling legs could bring her. She had no idea what her daughter was doing, but she could only trust that she had some idea of what—
“Dad, alley-oop me! Mom, I have no idea how you can help, but try!”
—well, it was likely she had a plan, regardless of what it was. The Sorceress and Paladin dutifully turned, pushing off the sense of power surging through their bodies and minds with its promise of strength and progression, and attended to the demands of the moment.
“Hup,” Jason said cheerfully, hands plucking Harriet out of her absolutely inadequate leap upwards. He forbore setting himself up and tossing her like a basketball, though the thought did cross his mind; instead, he just snagged her by the waist and moved the arc of her flight upwards and forwards. It was carefully calculated to land her on the back of the giant otter, and he charged forwards with her, hands coming down with gentle steel-clad firmness on the otter’s shoulders and staring into its eyes.
“Load Fate’s Dice,” Cassandra murmured, and was astonished when it worked. “That was from the last Confluence,” she called. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it!”
“Come on, give me this,” Harriet yowled as she flew through the air, catching herself on the otter’s silken fur. “Give me this, give me this, please. Otter, otter, be my friend, be my pal, I’m a Ranger, let’s make this work. Come on, world!”
She pushed at the power flowing through her, shoving at it as it fought against her. It didn’t want to behave the way she wanted, didn’t want to empower her Animal Handling as a Skill or give her some kind of bond. It wanted to give her… spellcasting, she got the sense, and slightly better accuracy with her bow?
No, she told it. She didn’t need better bow accuracy. She needed this, she wanted this, what kind of Ranger didn’t have a pet and companion? What kind of astonishingly cool badass giant otter didn’t have a Ranger friend?
It didn’t want to take—
“We’re going to do this,” she growled into the otter’s fur as it stared her father down, as fate itself warped and twisted around them. “Come on, let’s do this. For me, for the otter, for the style of it. Do it because it’ll be cool, because it makes sense, because this has been some kinda mid shit so far, do it because it’ll be awesome. Do it [For The Memes!]!”
Her words hung in the air like they were a bolded, capitalized exclamation nested in square brackets straight out of a litRPG web serial. It slammed into the paper-thin fabric of the Daggered Shores Archipelago and the world it represented, and the weight of her expectations got behind her demand and pushed.
Her mother had her Query, a fundamental representation of what even Harriet understood as an unquenchable hunger for knowledge and understanding. Her father had his own thing going on, one that she struggled not to take for granted every day because it was there every day, he was there every day and had always been.
Harriet?
“I’d like to thank,” she memed triumphantly as she felt the bond snap into place and the shape of her level up twist and reshape itself as it flowed into her, “the Academy.”
Class Feature Unlocked: Spellcasting
Class Feature Unlocked: Animal Companion (Lifebond)
Class Feature Unlocked: Fighting Style
Option Selected: Sister From Another Litter
At 2nd Level, you have gained an animal companion who will follow you on your adventures and fight beside you. Your beast will add your proficiency bonuses to her appropriate rolls. She will heed your commands to some extent, though this is limited by her INT, but she may not obey your orders. Taking her turns on your initiative, she will act independently on her own cognizance. You have Advantage on all Animal Handling checks relating to her, and she grants you advantage on Intimidate checks and attacks on any enemies within her attack range. When you level up in the future, she will grow in power along with you.
The otter settled down, carefully shaking first her hindpaws and then her forelegs. Seeing how she was carefully keeping its core steady for her rider, Jason took a step back, beaming in joy. Harriet stood, looking around to make sure that everything was under control, and then started grinning like her face was going to split apart.
“Dab,” she dabbed, dropping her head into the crook of her left arm while lifting both arms up and to the right, and was promptly bucked into the pond.