Even when things get out of hand from time to time, life has a way to reel itself back in line. No matter how big the upheaval, no matter how close the world would get to unravelling, skip forward a couple of days, and all of those things will give way to much more… how should I put it…? More mundane concerns. Exhibit A: my sisters, eagerly preparing for the next session of their long-awaited Technopunk game.

"Do we have everything ready?"

In response to Penny's question, Snowy showed off the paper bags in her hands, full of snacks, soft drinks, and other traditional tabletop gaming paraphernalia. She let out a thoughtful hum and walked over to the front window.

"Duncan's late."

"Not really," my Abyssal sister raised an objection, her eyes pointing at the clock on the wall. "It's still early."

"Then he should've come earlier! The sooner we start, the better!"

After fuming a bit longer, Penny turned away from the window and sat down on the couch, mildly pouting. She was really looking forward to the game, it seemed. Snowy followed her example and took a seat next to her, leading to a short spell of silence.

"Ah, I almost forgot!" Penny suddenly exclaimed and turned to my other sister. "Did you print out the character illustrations?"

"Yes. I already packed them away."

"Good. Good! I can't wait to see everyone's reactions!"

Snowy's lips bent upwards at the sight of the eager girl and she let out a soft giggle.

"You're more excited about it than I am, even though I was the one who made them."

"I-It was a team effort!" Penny frantically waved her hands and sputtered, "I-I'm not trying to steal your credit, I just really want to see them praise you! I mean, us! Because it was a team effort!"

Before I could wonder just how much she contributed to those illustrations, the door past the stairs opened, and a pair of familiar faces entered the living room. Despite not being particularly large in terms of raw square-meterage, my house had four bedrooms in total. The upper floor had two 'standard size' ones, occupied by me and my sisters, respectively, while the ground floor had a larger bedroom and a smaller guest room.

The latter was currently used by Tajana, for who knew how much longer, while the former was… well…

"Aren't you two excited today?" Dame Morgana noted with smiling eyes as she walked over to the couch.

She was wearing a white knit dress that hugged her mature figure, and for once, her hair was flowing freely instead of the usual bun. Behind her, Sir Arnwald was also dressed casually in black sweatpants and a matching loose polo shirt. Ever since the CPS incident, they had more or less moved in with us, and they settled down in the big ground-floor bedroom. The one with the single queen-size bed. Yep. They made a whole lot of noise about only doing this for 'the mission' of acting as the parents of the household, but they weren't fooling anyone.

But let's put these two's open-and-shut-case of UST aside for the moment and focus on the conversation, shall we?

"It's our game night today!" Penny explained with sparkling eyes, and the man in the back curiously cocked his head to the side at once.

"Game? What kind of game?"

"It's… roleplaying," Snowy tried to explain, but it only led to more confusion. She gave it another attempt anyway. "It's like… we sit around a table, and we play different characters. Then Penny gives us situations that our characters have to solve with their skills."

"I'm the game master!" Panny proclaimed with a proud grin, and while Arnwald still didn't seem to get it, Morgana's eyes lit up with a hint of recognition.

"Is it the game with the dice?" When Snowy nodded, her lips parted in a soft smile. Compared to her constant glaring and no-nonsense attitude during combat, I was still routinely surprised by how different the vibes she gave off were in private. "Agrawain used to play those in Berlin. He said it was to collect rumors, but I was sure he just enjoyed the game."

"Yes! He's also part of our group!"

"Duncan too," Snowy added, and this time, Arnwald cocked his head in the other direction.

"Truly? I didn't think he would be interested in frivolous things like that."

"Dear. Don't demean the children's hobbies," Morgana scolded him, and the man hurriedly cleared his throat and absent-mindedly patted his side burns, pointedly avoiding her gaze.

Ignoring his reaction, Penny glanced at the window, and let out an impatient huff.

"He's supposed to pick us up and drive us to Haven," Snowy explained in her stead, and the word at the end caused Arnwald's expression to turn on the dime and he sent a sideways glance at my sisters.

"Don't you mean New Camelot?"

"Please, don't start arguing about this again," Morgana whispered and sent a disparaging glance at the alleged father-figure of the household, but he decided this was a hill worth dying for.

"We're not arguing, I'm just correcting her."

"The official name hasn't been decided yet," Snowy pointed out, but he remained unfazed.

"Whatever the name is going to be, Duncan is late getting us there," Penny sulked, which tore my other sister's attention away from Arnwald at last.

"He isn't late. Look at the time." Seeing that reiterating her previous point had no effect, I could practically see the gears in my Abyssal sister's nogging turning while thinking of something to distract my other, poutier sister. At last, her eyes lit up and she lightly tapped her shoulders. "Penny? While we wait, why don't you do the thing we talked about?"

"What thing?"

"You know? The thing you read in the book?"

After a long pause, Penny's face lit up and she dove into the paper bag by her side. She soon retrieved a ballpoint pen and a small yellow notebook and turned a pair of eager eyes at Morgana and Arnwald.

"Can I ask you for advice?"

Her question startled the senior knights, though not for long.

"I have never engaged in such hobbies, so I doubt I could be of much help," Arnwald tried to excuse himself, but Penny stopped him from leaving by patting the free space on the couch next to her.

"No, no! It's not about the game! I mean, it is, but it's not like that!"

Seeing that her explanation was only leading to more confusion, Snowy came to the rescue by showing off the printed-out version of the freeware Technopunk rulebook from the same paper bag.

"Penny is the gamemaster, and the section on making an enjoyable game sessions says that sometimes, if a situation calls for it, it's a good idea to ask for the opinion of experts. It's to make things more realistic and believable for the players, and that helps with immersion."

Oh, I've actually read something similar on the net. When I was prepping to fill in for Angie during our holiday session. For example, if the GM knew that one of the players was into geology, and that an encounter would take place in a cave system, it was better to ask them to work together. That way, the player would not only feel like they contributed to the campaign, but it would stop them from going 'Well, actually…' whenever the GM made a mistake about stalactite formations, or something equally benign.

Of course, this made me all the more curious about what kind of expertise they wanted to glean from these two. Arnwald was… good at logistics, I'd guess. He also liked motorcycles, but I doubted he was deeply involved in biker culture. As for Morgana, I was drawing a blank. I knew that she sometimes helped out Roland and Arnwald with paperwork, and she trained the Squires alongside Duncan from time to time, but outside of that, I couldn't recall anything else.

There was no need to overthink it though, as Penny soon answered my doubts with a lengthy explanation.

"You see, this is a game called Technopunk, except it's not the real Technopunk 20XX, but close enough. It's set in this futuristic future, where mega-corporations took over the world and the players control these mercenaries who do jobs for the corporations and criminals and just people in general to earn EuroJens for weapons and upgrades. Their operations are called 'gigs', and the party is about to start one of these gigs and I have this plan but I want to see if it sounds all right to you."

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Oh, right. They used to be part of a superhuman, dragon-assassinating clandestine brotherhood until just a few months ago. Just like me and… wait. Why would Penny need to ask about this, if she was also in the same shoe?

I wasn't alone with that question, as Morgana sat down and voiced my confusion almost verbatim.

"Don't you already know more than most about how such operations are carried out? I doubt we can tell you anything new."

"But you can!" She insisted and gestured for Arnwald to also sit down. "I never did any of the planning! When I was with Uncle Roland, he did all the smarty-pants stuff, and I was just there to fight! I'm sure you have way more experience with this!"

"We most likely do, but…" Hesitant as he might've sounded, Arnwald settled down next to Morgana at last. "Let's see what your plan is for this 'gig' operation."

Eyes sparkling, Penny was about to get started, but then Snowy hurriedly stood up and covered her ears.

"Um… S-spoilers. I'll go to the kitchen."

Once my Abyssal sister removed herself from the conversation, the three of them could fit a bit more comfortably on the couch, and once they did, Penny raised her tiny notebook again.

"Okay, so, here's the long and short of it. The players don't know this yet, but they are hired by Bellicorp, a really big evil corporation, and they took the job because they need the money to upgrade their Sawbones Table to be able to install Tier 3 technoware implants. Erm, they don't know about the employer yet though, because they were hired through an intermediary, and they have to break into a museum."

"Why a museum?" Arnwald interjected as if that was the weirdest part of the description.

"Because… um… It was part of an official module, and the plot is that there was a super-dangerous AI smuggled into the country by hiding a microchip in an old Sumerian artifact, and it's not important! I just want to know if the heist makes sense to you."

Over the following five minutes, Penny explained the broad strokes of the idea she had. The PCs would break into an underfunded municipal museum, find the ancient box on exhibit, open it without triggering the alarms, and then get away, with the real difficult part being the corporate employer's sudden yet inevitable betrayal at the end. The senior Knights listened to her attentively, humming and thoughtfully nodding along until she reached her conclusion.

"This seems like a fairly easy operation," Arnwald noted, and Morgana silently agreed. "In my experience, the average museum has many alarms, but the guards are nothing to write home about. If the team has sufficient strength and a way to get away fast…"

"Don't say 'Just ram a car into the main entrance, and grab the item'," Morgana interjected, already sending a sideways glance at the man.

"It's the most efficient way to go about it," Arnwald argued back, sounding just a tad defensive in the process. "If they know the location of the item they want, it's the simplest way to get it."

"Just like when you tried to retrieve Ascalon from the Dracis steward?"

That was an armour-piercing question if I'd even heard one, and Sir Eagle's expression turned complicated.

"It… would've worked, if not for Bel of the Abyss."

Morgana's lips bent in a 'What am I going to do about you?' kind of smile and she turned back to Penny.

"You said Agrawain will play with you, right?" When she nodded, Morgana crossed her arms and pinched her chin, probably just to signify she was thinking really hard. "Knowing him, he would probably advocate for a more covert approach, and Duncan would support him."

"P-Probably?" Penny granted to her a bit hesitantly.

"As Arnwald just said, if it's a museum, there should be lots of security. Agrawain is good at dealing with those, so if you want to make things difficult, add more guards."

"More guards. Got it," my sister whispered, her pen etching line after line into her notepad.

"Also, I trust Agrawain and Duncan are still clear on the protocols, but remind them to either hide their faces or leave no witnesses." The sudden whiplash of that comment made me pause, but Penny took it in stride.

"Leave no witnesses," she wrote and then glanced up at Morgana. "Isn't that against the Oath of Integrity? I thought we didn't take hostages or hurt bystanders."

"That's only been a case for the last few generations, but I doubt such considerations apply to these characters of yours," our Dame Gorgon explained as matter-of-factly as if she was discussing the weather. "The Brotherhood used to be a lot more pragmatic when it came to silencing eyewitnesses and bystanders, but when the media started lumping us together with terrorists, our seniors back in the day came together and agreed to be stricter with both the letter and the spirit of the Oaths." She smiled, as it if was an amusing anecdote, and added, "Funny how it became the least broken Oath in just one generation, after being the most often broken one for centuries."

"To be fair, with our falling numbers, we couldn't afford to lose the power of the Oaths anymore," Arnwald rejoined the conversation. If grudgingly. "More importantly, if Agrawain and Duncan will use Brotherhood tactics, and opt to refrain from a frontal assault, I think you should consider how you should react to diversionary tactics."

"Oh? Can you give me an example?" Penny inquired with mounting excitement, and Morgana let out a low chuckle next to her.

"An example? Like the distraction tactics we employed back in Prague?"

She sounded suspiciously innocent, and seeing how the man's face immediately slackened, it probably wasn't as simple as it sounded.

"Ah… Erm… Yes…"

"Hm? What was that about Prague?" Penny inquired, and Morgana let out a strangely dignified laugh.

"Oh, this happened before your time, dear. It was an operation we participated in when we were both apprenticing over Dame Cilla, the previous Gorgon Knight. Ironically, it was precisely an exhibit; something about the oriental wonders of the world, I believe."

"Sister… I mean, Morgana? I don't think she needs to hear all the details."

Despite his words, Penny was visibly eager to hear more, so she disregarded the man's protests and continued with a smile just on the verge of laughter.

"You see, Penelope, the goal was to acquire incriminating evidence. The patriarchs of the Balaur and the Kulshedra families donated some of their collection to the exhibit, but in truth, it was just a front for their money-laundering operation. The plan was to get our hands on their paper trail, and then send it to the authorities to disrupt their business and open them up for an assault later down the line. We couldn't let them realize what happened, lest they would've buried the lead, so we had to get creative."

"How creative?"

Penny's question made Morgana chuckle, and she said, "I had to put on a belly-dancer outfit, and distract the guards at the exhibit while Arnwald and his fellow Squires stealthily broke into the offices in the back and found the documents."

Wow. I'm not going to lie, that… sounded exactly like a tabletop RPG kind of plan. I didn't know Morgana was dual-classed as a Bard either. I was learning so many new things today.

"R-Really? You mean, one of those… uuu… those outfits with the ornaments that… barely cover anything?"

"Indeed," Morgana answered coyly, her eyes periodically taking sneak peeks at the awkwardly fidgeting man next to her. "Believe it or not, it was Arnwald's plan."

"It wasn't!" he suddenly objected. "I wasn't planning for it. It was simply an opportunity that presented itself at the time, and it was the one that provided the highest chance of success under the circumstances."

"You said the same thing back then, but you still haven't told me where you got the outfit." That comment made Arnwald hastily avert his gaze, but Morgana only smiled at him affectionately. "You just wanted to see me wearing that, didn't you?"

"I most definitely did not!" he continued to doggedly deny the accusation, though the fact that his ears were getting red told me she was probably right. By the way, what even was this situation? When did the tone shift?

Ignoring all of those pressing questions, Morgana casually stretched and coyly asked, "It was a memorable experience, so I never held it against you. However, I wonder if I could still manage something like that today."

"Of course you can," the grown man responded in a low, almost sulky huff. "You're still in great shape."

"Oh? Was that a compliment?"

"No. I mean, yes, but…" Seeing that he wasn't going to climb out of that hole this way, Arnwald's eyes locked onto Penny. "We are getting into a meaningless tangent. Listen, Penny. During these operations, distractions are vital. They are the best way to delay and confuse our pursuers."

"Like with… belly dancing?"

"N-No. Not always. For example…" Desperately searching for a way to change the direction of the conversation, Arnwald's eyes lit up. "For example, there was this one time in Paris, when we tried to assassinate the head of the Guivre family."

"Oh, I remember that one," Morgana spoke up wistfully as if recalling a pleasant memory. "You convinced Dame Cilla to let you set explosives all over the theatre of operations, and used them to create cover for us."

"And it worked. We didn't manage to kill the target, but we didn't suffer any casualties either."

Morgana didn't seem to be listening but was reminiscing about the past instead.

"Afterwards, we were chased all across Paris, and we ended up spending the night on top of the Eiffel Tower."

Wait, what?

"I told you it was the last place anyone would look for us, and I was right," Arnwald followed her up, suddenly sounding much more confident.

"You did set explosives there as well, didn't you?"

… Once again; wait, WHAT?

"It was just to be sure, and I removed them before we left," the man excused himself, no longer half as self-assured, but then even his expression mellowed out when he saw the wistful look on Morgana's face. "It was our last mission together, as Squires."

"Yes. It was a long night."

"I… still have some regrets from those days," he stated, unable to look her in the eye. "I wish I had the courage to go all the way back then. If so, maybe we could have… things could have been different."

"I'm not sure what you mean. I remember going all the way up there. Combined with the view, it was… quite memorable."

"I-I didn't mean it…!" Arnwald glanced at Penny, then back at the smiling woman, and hissed, "Morgana! Not in front of the kids!"

Luckily for them, Penny was too busy jotting down her thoughts, and then Snowy poked her out of the kitchen to announce that Duncan's car just arrived. The big guy was driving one of the Constable Inc. minivans like it was his own, and he was already in our driveway.

Hearing that, Penny excitedly jumped to her feet and pocketed her notebook.

"Thank you! I've learned a lot and you've given me a whole lot of new ideas!"

For what? Romance fanfiction?

"We're glad we could help. Right, dear?"

Following Morgana's words, Arnwald awkwardly cleared his throat in something resembling agreement. Also, for the record, I just noticed that the two of them were holding hands. Penny didn't seem to care though, and after picking up her paper bags, my sisters hurried over to the entrance.

As for me, I've learned some new things as well. Such as that the UST between these two wasn't as PG-13 as I initially thought, that I should look into the rules of the Ordo Draconis regarding witnesses and collateral damage, and most importantly, that I should never, ever give Arnwald free access to high explosives.

I swear to god, it was always like this. Just when I thought someone was sane and upstanding, I learned that they nearly blew up the bloody Eiffel Tower of all things. Did I even want to know what the others did in the past? Or was this one of those 'ignorance is bliss' kind of situations?

P.S.: Also, the whole discussion here ended up pointless, because Fred came up with a harebrained plan, and somehow managed to roll enough critical successes to steal the entire museum. As in, the building. But that's a story for another time.