"Ah, finally! It's been ages since we last sat down like this!"

Angie sounded positively ecstatic from behind her fancy DM shield, grinning like a kid who was just given free rein over the candy shop. Then the sound of triumphant trumpets sounded from the speakers in the back, courtesy of the sound board in front of her.

"It hasn't been that long," I noted while checking my character sheet. She doubled down.

"It's been over a month! A month!"

"Feels like it's been even longer than that," Josh commented on the side, earning him an approving glance from his girlfriend.

"See? I'm not the only one who feels like that!"

"I don't," Penny raised her voice, but when the Celestial girl pouted at her, she hastily muttered, "B-But on second thought, I have my own Technopunk campaign in Haven, so maybe that's why…"

I had nothing to add to that, so I glanced around the table instead. It was a lazy afternoon, and we all gathered in the hobby room my in-laws made for us as a collective Christmas present. On the left, Josh and my girlfriends were sitting on their fancy baroque gaming chairs, with the life-sized diorama of the interior of a medieval tavern behind them. Sitting at the opposite end was Angie, behind her shield and with all of her books, notes, and the sound board. Finally, on the right were my sisters, plus one.

"Like, this is so wicked," Sahi spoke with sparkling eyes, a couple of terrain mats and minis laid out in front of her and with a large bottle of cola in hand.

Due to certain circumstances that I won't go into right now, Ammy couldn't join us for today's session, and since the incognito ex-arch-mage was already with us as part of our study group for the upcoming exam season, she would take over her the class rep's character for the occasion. Or… well, it was a bit more complicated than that.

"I'm still not sure this is going to work," the voice of the class rep called out, sounding a bit staticky, and Sahi hastily raised my phone so that she could be seen on the screen. She must've been laying on her bed or something, because only an extreme closeup of her face was visible.

"It'll be fine," I responded, and when the brown girl turned the phone my way, I also flashed a reassuring smile. "You can hear us properly, right?"

"Yes."

"We can hear you too, and Sahi will roll for you. It'll work out."

"I've never done anything like this before." Sahi propped my phone up against a stack of books we borrowed from the Dracis library so that the camera could see most of the table, and then she turned to me. "So? Are we going to summon demons now?"

"No, why would we…" Angie started, but then she narrowed her eyes. "Wait. Do you mean in the game, or in real life? Because demons aren't real."

"I can't believe we have to specify that," Josh muttered on the side.

"Unless you count Abyssals," Penny chimed in, pretty much on autopilot while arranging her snacks, but then her eyes opened wide and she turned to my other sister.

Snowy was one step faster though, and predicting what she was about to say, she beamed a sweet smile at my knightly sister.

"Don't worry about it, I understand. Some people really do think that."

"Yes, some people! Not me! I mean, not us! Right, guys?" Nobody responded, so she was growing oddly desperate. "Right?!"

Since this was one of those teachable moments, and since we still had some time till we would get started, I felt like it was my brotherly duty to say something.

"Listen, kiddo," I began, trying to sound as mature and solemn as possible. "Sometimes, when you put your foot in your mouth, you should just accept that it happened and move on instead of trying to draw everyone's attention to it."

"Chief, not in public." I lurched to a stop when Judy interjected and turned a critical eye to her. She took it in stride, and flatly stated, "It's a fetish thing that's not discussed in polite company."

"No, it's not. It's an idiom," I insisted, but she remained adamant, making me second-guess myself. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," she insisted.

"Someone putting their foot in their mouth."

"Yes," she repeated, making it sound like I was the weird one for not knowing.

"And how would you even know something like that, young lady?"

"The internet."

She sounded so dry and matter-of-factly that I was seriously starting to doubt which one of us was the weird one here. No, wait. False alarm. It was definitely her.

"Okay, I bite. Why were you looking up… um… feet on the internet?"

"Research." She waited for a beat, and then finally explained, "Since maids are no longer a safe fetish due to recent developments, I've been looking into alternatives. Speaking of which, what is your opinion on cheerleaders, from one to ten?"

We locked eyes for a good couple of seconds, and no matter how long I was waiting for it, no 'Gotcha!' left her lips. At last, I exhaled a soft groan and rubbed my face.

"That's it. Princess, I think we need to stage an intervention."

"Hm?" My other girlfriend was startled after being called out and sent a confounded look my way. "Sorry, I was paying attention elsewhere. What were we talking about?"

"We need to stage an intervention on Judy, before the internet fully corrupts her," I proclaimed dramatically, and swept my hand over the table. "I'm cutting it down, you hear me?"

"You can't," Judy argued back, deadpan as ever. "I need the internet for the Hub. Especially now, since I need to prepare extra anti-harem counter-measures. On that topic, what about nuns?"

"Huh? Are we dressing up again?" Elly asked, sounding oddly excited.

"Oh no. Both of my girlfriends are corrupted by the internet!" I exclaimed in entirely genuine, home grown, one hundred percent free-range and cruelty-free despair. Then a beat later I added, "Zero on nuns. As for cheerleaders… eh, let's go with a weak seven."

My dear assistant responded in her Judy-bot voice.

"Thank you for replying to the survey. Your answers have been logged. Have a nice day."

"Wow! You guys are, like, totally kinky, aren't you?" Sahi spoke up on my other side, with a shit-eating grin plastered on her face, but I just shrugged.

In the meantime, Angie finished her preparations and drew our attention by pressing the fanfare button on her sound board again.

"Ready, everyone?"

"I'm good," I responded automatically, and the rest followed suit. All except one.

"So, like, are there really no satanic rituals here?"

"No," Ammy spoke from the phone. "This is just a perfectly normal role-playing game."

"I dunno about 'normal', but yeah, nothing like that," Josh backed her up, and Sahi looked honest-to-goodness disappointed.

"Really? Back in my… I mean, like, in grandma's day, people said it was all devilry and demon worship and stuff."

"No, that was just baseless rumours and mass hysteria in action," I told her, and she squinted with visible incredulity all over her face.

"Right. And next you'll tell me that, like, reverse voice masking is also totally bogus, right?"

I once again waited in silence, hoping for that 'Gotcha!' in vain.

"Sahi," I began, this time not even having to pretend to be stern. "After this session, we're going to sit down and we'll clear up some of these outdated misunderstandings of yours."

"Outdated?" Now she was looking at me like I just hurled the most vicious insult she'd ever heard at her. "I'm a fresh gal, you know? Are you calling me a poser? Gag me with a spoon!"

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Ignoring her fuming, I turned to Angie and gestured for her to get started. She got my message and raised her voice over the ex-arch-mage's.

"Let's recap where we left off last time!" She theatrically raised a scribbled page of her notes over her head and then let it down and started reading. "After defeating the Krampus…"

Sahi cut in with a baffled, "The what?", as if her previous outburst was just a joke, so I quickly explained things to her in a low voice, without interrupting our DM.

"We had a Christmas-themed adventure, and it bled over to the last session, where the team had to beat the Krampus to proceed with the quest. It makes sense in context."

In the meantime, Angie also continued her recap.

"… Leo's character was uncursed and healed up at the closest temple in the town of Baldurscape, while the other half of the party returned to unpronounceable whatshisface Santa guy's workshop and negotiated for the Eye of Askaman. However, the cult of the Legendary Sunrise thought the first group had the artifact, and so they manipulated an orc tribe into attacking the town before our heroes could reunite and return to Icewindgate."

"In other words," Josh cut in to clarify, "We left off with Andronicus, Grognar, Judith, and Florence being stuck in the besieged town…" Meaning my, his, Judy's, and the princess's characters. "… while Milfeulle, Elriam, and Joan are on the road towards Baldurscape." Meaning Ammy's, Snowy's, and Penny's characters.

"Uuu… I told you it was a bad idea to break up the party," Penny moaned. "It's the prime rule of roleplaying for a reason! It's on the first page of the book! Never split the party, it says, but we did it anyway."

"We didn't exactly have lots of options," Josh argued back just a touch petulantly. "We needed the artifact to complete the quest, but we couldn't just have Grognar keep haunting Andronicus."

"Haunting?" Sahi chimed in again, but this time Snowy was quicker on the uptake and explained it before I could.

"Um… Leo's character was incapacitated and technically dead, but then there was a curse…"

"Prank," I corrected her.

"Yes, that. He received a magical prank from opening a chest, and so the spirit of Leo's character was haunting him."

"With terrible puns," Ammy commented on the side, and while normally I would've argued back, for once I decided to be the bigger man and let it slide.

"That's for the recap," Angie concluded the side-track with a rumbling sound from the speakers. Probably to build ambience. "Now, let us begin!"

"All right. Where are we," Josh asked right away. "In town, I mean."

"Andronicus and Grognar are on the walls of the town, overlooking the gathering orc tribe poised to attack at any moment." She cleared her throat and adopted her deeper narrator-voice. "The two of you behold the mustering army in the light of the morning sun. Thousands of orcs, dressed in dirty, primitive armor and wielding crude weapons fill the field just outside the town gates. The defenders, numbering only in the low hundreds, rush back and forth around you, and while the captain of the town guards is trying his best to raise morale, there's a sense of despair hanging in the air. A taste of fear, foreboding, and—"

"Grognar lets out a hearty laugh using Voice of the Dragon to encourage everyone in earshot," I cut in, and roll my dice. "Sixteen. Sweet." I didn't even wait for Angie to roll her dice and slipped into my character at once. "Gahahaha! What a glorious day to be alive again, eh, Andronicus!" I paused for a dramatic beat, and added, "Also, I pat him hard on the back."

Josh gave me a sideways glance and shook his head before rolling his own dice.

"Nay, good friend! This is a day of desperation, but we shall not falter! Together, we shall prevail!" A beat later, he turned to his girlfriend. "I used Aura of Inspiring Presence, with a ten on the dice. It should be enough."

"Yep." She rolled some more behind the shield and hummed with satisfaction. "You two have raised the morale of the local garrison by four points."

"That's not a lot, but better than nothing," Judy said sagely and also turned to Angie. "What about our characters?"

"Yeah!" Elly, as if just waking up, raised a fist into the air. "Florence can inspire too! She can add all kinds of numbers!"

"You two are still in Baldurscape's temple," our DM responded and pointed at her notes. "Last time, you said you'll help the sick and the elderly to safety, and it's the safest place in town."

"Makes sense," Judy noted with mild disinterest, apparently already thinking of something else.

Meanwhile, the class rep raised her voice through the screen.

"What about the rest of us? How far are we?"

"You are…" Angie consulted her notes once again, and then placed a terrain mat in the middle, followed by a few minis representing the town, the orcish forces, as well as the second half of our party on the road. "Here."

"So, the orc army is between us and the town." Penny gazed at the map like it's a real battlefield and clenched her fist. "Let's catch them in a pincer manoeuvre!"

"T-There are thousands of them, right?" Snowy cut in a touch awkwardly. "And… aren't we supposed to keep the Eye of Askaman away from the cultists? Shouldn't we head to Icewindgate while they still think that it's in Baldurscape?"

"And leave the citizens to their death? That's not very Lawful Good of you," Josh spoke critically, and so I hastily interjected before Penny could predictably snap again.

"Josh, get out of character for a moment and consider our options realistically."

"That reminds me," Ammy chimed in, addressing Angie. "You said the Legendary Sunrise manipulated the orc tribes, right?"

"Yes," she nodded a touch hesitantly, bracing for either some rules lawyering or a crazy scheme to follow. The mark of a seasoned dungeon master. She had come so far, hadn't she?

"But we already established that, unlike the orcs living down south, these ones are nomadic. Does that mean that their entire tribe is here?"

"Logically speaking, they should be," Judy supported her while also sneakily passing a note to Angie. She quickly read it, and while she tried to keep her expression neutral, it still told me that whatever my dear assistant wrote couldn't have been that outrageous, because she nodded in her direction.

"If so, Milfeulle can use Multi-Cast Empowered Hasted Fireballs to set their camp on fire. Then the orcs would have to divide their forces to defend their women and children."

"Wait! Like, seriously, wait!" Sahi interjected all of a sudden, sounding oddly aghast. "Are you, like, really planning to set babies on fire?"

"Orc babies, to be exact," I jested, but she just looked even more disturbed. "What?"

"Like, are you listening to yourselves? Didn't she say that these orc people were, like, totally tricked into attacking this town?"

"Yes. By the evil cultists the campaign is about," Elly told her, and the brown girl was now more confused than anything else.

"But, like… If you know they're totally deceived by some bogus cult, then shouldn't you try to save them?"

"Um… No?" Penny muttered, matching's Sahi's complexion by turning more befuddled by the second. "They're orcs."

Since she still didn't get it, I took it upon myself to clarify things for her.

"Okay, listen up. There's this thing called the 'alignment system' in this game. Everyone has an alignment; most on the individual level, some collectively. For example, paladins are always Lawful Good. Josh's character is a paladin, which means he's a good guy, but he's also inflexible and sticks to the rules. Conversely, most monsters are Chaotic Evil, meaning they want to kill, pillage, and backstab everything and everyone by nature, and orcs belong in this category."

"But… even the children?"

"Especially the children," I insisted. "I mean, kids are amoral dicks, so imagine how evil an orc child would be. Like, Chaotic Chaotic Evil, or something."

"The Chief says that, but children are his weakness, so he's just overcompensating to hide his embarrassing secret."

Judy only looked up for long enough to say that before she returned to a hushed discussion with the princess. It involved dice and passing notes to Angie, so they were clearly up to something. More importantly.

"I resent such accusations, Dormouse! How could you? Everyone who knows me is aware that I absolutely can't stand children, right?"

I was looking for someone to back me up, but I've got none. Instead, Sahi let out a baffled noise.

"So, like, in this game, you can just kill babies, there are no repercussions, and it's considered to be a good deed? Are you sure this isn't an evil satanic game after all?"

"No, it's just a game convention, because we can't interrogate every single monster attacking us in an encounter to see what socio-economic factors led them to the point where they would try to shank us. Can we move past this discussion, please?"

For once, my pleas fell on receptive ears, because Josh picked up his dice and said, in character, "Come, Grognar! Let us gather the men and get ready to sally out!"

"Wait, why would you want to do that?" Penny blurted out, and Angie capitalized on it.

"Right! Andronicus doesn't know that Milfeulle's party is planning to hit the orc camps! Out-of-character knowledge alert!"

"Let's fix that, shall we," I raised my voice to keep the conversation rolling, lest we would get entangled with the moral quandaries of totally ethical arson, and sent a signal to the class rep.

Of course, since she was viewing the session through my phone's wide-angle lens, it took her a while to notice my winking, but then she hastily cleared her throat.

"Milfeulle is going to launch a fire arrow directly into the sky."

"I roll for Perception," I exclaimed and threw the dice. "Yes! The first natural twenty of the day!" A moment later, I deepened my voice and shifted into Grognar without waiting for Angie to respond. "Hark, my good friend Andronicus! Can your eyes see what mine do? It's a sign! Us mighty Fist Casters understand our less-mighty Non-Fist Casting brethren, and it's telling me that our good friend Milfeulle is about to set the camps of the vile monster folk alight! Come! Let us lead the defenders, and scatter these beasts with the invincible power of the Adamantine Fist and the Clown Foot!"

"Oh, don't you get it started with the clown crap again," Josh fumed, but also quickly slipped into character. "Let us go! May the light guide us!"

For the next twenty or so minutes, we listened to the class rep's group play out their attack on the orc camps, with Penny and Snowy serving as distractions while she set the whole thing on fire. Much to Sahi's chagrin, but we just ignored her.

"This is totally lame," she grumbled, but I just grinned at her.

"Must be a generational problem," I jested and got glared at in return. Then…

"All right! Now it's our turn!"

Elly practically jumped out of her seat, shaking her dice in her hand, while Judy calmly explained, "Judith and Florence climbed to the top of the temple's tower, and with the help of the clerics, we set up a sound amplification spell."

"I'm now going to give numbers to everyone!" Elly declared proudly, threw her dice, and… "That's… a six. Is that enough?"

"Hmm…" Angie rolled her own dice behind the shield, and after some more humming, she shook her head. "No. There are a lot of negative modifiers, because of the stress and the sound amplification, so…"

"Wait! Hold your horses!" I raised both my palms to stop Angie, and when I was sure she was listening, I pointed at Elly. "Princess, sing!"

"Yes, that's what I'm trying to…"

"No, I mean literally!"

"Right!" Penny of all people came to back me up, and she opened up her copy of the rule book. "The dungeon master can give circumstantial bonuses to rolls for good roleplaying!"

"O-Okay! What do I sing?"

"Something that fits the situation," Judy said, and then glanced at me and added, "Preferably not a song by Rick Astley."

I ignored the subtle jab, since I was paying full attention to the princess. She had her phone out and, after a bunch of tapping and scrolling, she put it down onto the table.

"Found it! An instrumental cover of 'Across Burning Fire and Schorching Flame' by Nidhogg! It's perfect!"

There was a melodic, if slightly tinny guitar riff coming from her phone, no doubt thanks to the small speakers and it was vaguely familiar to my ears. In fact…

"Wait, isn't Nidhogg a…?"

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The princess's sudden, guttural growl made Sahi jump in her seat, nearly knocking over the stack of books and my phone leaning against them in the process.

"Yep. That's death metal all right…"

"You're totally doing a terrible job at beating the allegations!" Sahi fumed on the side, but nobody cared, because we were now going to have an epic battle of epic proportions with live background music.

Also, yes, she did get that circumstantial modifier to her roll. And it was absolutely glorious.