Chapter 10

On Thursday I followed what had become the new norm. After school Keith and I went over to his house and got his stuff, then drove over to my house to get mine. Then around the block to pick up Linda and Holly at Holly’s house. Shortly after we were at JD’s house, and everybody was doing the usual creating a new party shuffle, while trying to pump me for information.

I told them it was going to be starting in a city. And yes, only 1 character each, levels 5 through 7. Multi-class was fine, so long as the total levels do not add up to anything over 8. And that all religions are allowed there, but Tiny’s cleric that worships The Force was not allowed and he had to either pick another character or another religion. And that Linda, could bring Kilea, her Ranger. And to not worry about Holly, I had already approved of her character.

Finally everybody had decided what characters they were playing, all my books and notes were behind the foot and a half high wood screen JD had made and off we went. One thing I started doing was rolling the dice every few minutes. A kind of a mind-game on my part, but that way they wouldn’t know what rolls were important and what rolls were not.

They notice the pretty half-elf girl with what appeared to be leprosy begging on the side of the road. The cleric asked her if she needed help, and Keith said he wanted to use a cure disease. After they all made a roll, Tiny noticed that the leprosy is cosmetic and not real. Then they had to make another roll. The last part was for nothing, I had already scripted this part. But by having them roll and not even know what for half the time, I wanted them to guess what was random and what was scripted.

The girl smiled at Keith’s cleric and thanks him for caring about her, and says “Thanks, ya know, I was like just trying to score some food, ya know? Like, somebody stole my coins and I’m just like trying ta bag enough for dinner and a room, ya know? Like, that was totally bogus.” And that is how Kaos, the Valley Elf was introduced into the party. And as scripted, she said she was a mage, and was simply down on her luck. Of course they invite her to join them.

They walked down the main street, and a random encounter. They heard a commotion in an alley. Checking it out, they saw three thugs trying to mug a merchant. And when they said they wanted to join in the fight, I asked on which side. “No, I don’t know you want to help the merchant, maybe you want a share of the loot also? Ahh, good thinking, subdue the muggers.”

The thugs were knocked out, the city guard arrives, and a reward is given. The thankful merchant gives more reward.

They got to the inn, and Kaos shared a room with Kilea. Then having drinks in the bar, a bar fight broke out. Tiny is mad his Paladin got soaked in cheap beer but still blesses the guy after he was knocked out.

More rolls, and Kilea, overheard two guys talking about a big gold strike up North. Two dwarves came in with a large pouch of gold two days before and bought a large wagon and supplies, and said they and their brothers had hit it big. Up high in the mountains, must be piles of gold up there. They spent most of their money buying gold mining supplies at an inflated price, and headed out of town. As they were leaving, a dog walked up and took a piss on Keith’s leg. Kaos whispered to him that she usually charges extra for that.

Have you ever seen a cleric blush?

Heading north, Kilea saw many wagon tracks heading along the road. Then they were ambushed by bandits, several were wounded in the battle and some decent loot. They decided to heal and call it a night and recover spells. Next morning they saw a giant bear off in the distance, and decided to just avoid it. The track was now much less traveled and they saw the tracks of a wagon that has a two horse team in the dust.

At noon the next day they were ambushed by more highwaymen. They are outnumbered 3 to 1, after a few rolls on the special chart Kaos announced she has pulled out her wand and screaming “Bite me you bitches!” let’s go with a large fireball. Half of the raiders perish, the rest flee into the woods.

Everybody congratulated Kaos (which Holly has been pronouncing as “Kay-ohs”, like the Harry Belefonte song “Day-o” but with a K) and after splitting the loot and healing they continued. Just before sunset they ran into a curious sight. In the front are two dwarves on ponies, followed by a wagon. Kilea rolled, and it was the same wagon they have been following, and she noticed the front right wheel is off to the side a bit, bad alignment.

Behind the wagon is a red dragon that is chained to it. It was a young adult, and yes the wagon seemed to be heavily laden down. Taking a count, they saw that in total there are seven dwarves.

“No, they are not THOSE dwarves!”

They approached and I said they were cautious but friendly. They said they are also adventurers and are on their way to town to sell the dragon and buy gems with the gold they took for easier transport home. And no, they do not need any more guards, but the group were welcome to join their encampment for the night.

They all had a good time that night, even as they realized they have been suckered. There was no gold strike, there was only seven dwarves who found a big treasure and subdued a dragon.

They headed back to town, and on the second day came the real encounter. A war band of 30 orcs on their way home from a raid runs across them and charges. I nodded to Holly as she pretended to make several rolls then when they are 60 feet away she pulls out her wand and yells “Like, burn in hell you grody orcs!” and blasts them with another fireball. Ten were dead, and the rest faltered a moment then charged on. At 30 feet away Kaos let go again screaming “Die bitches!”

And a stream of butterflies poured out of the wand obscuring everybody’s view. The room breaks out in chaos!

They started to get hit by arrows fired by the orcs on the other side of the butterflies. It took two rounds for them to disperse and to engage in melee combat. Some bad hits were taken, and by the time they took down the remaining orcs, two of the party were unconscious (including Tiny’s Paladin and Kilea. They recovered a lot of loot, including two hand carts full of spoils from their earlier raiding.

Everybody limped into town the next day, quite a bit better off, with a lot more experience. Tiny’s Paladin insisted they turn over the spoils the orcs had been bringing back, as keeping it would be a sin. They had a bickering debate, then reluctantly agreed.

Now this I had not planned for, who tries to turn over loot fairly gained? Thinking fast I play ed along as they took the carts to the city watch and try to turn it in. They were aware of the raid, and are impressed that they are turning it in to be returned to the rightful owners. The Captain inventoried it, then turned over all the coins back to the party, saying it is a reward for taking out the orcs and a finders fee for returning everything else. “After all, there is no way we can ever know who the money belonged to. We will return the goods, I will have a guardsman take a report of everything they have reported stolen. And they are free to keep any armor or weapons, as any that were taken would be replaced by the King. Oh, and come back in a few days, I would like to hire them to go after the rest of the orc band.”

They checked the loot remaining from the actual kills, and nothing was evil. A few items very good. Tiny took a magical mace, Kilea picked a magical dagger, everybody got something nice.

Once they are all back at the inn we called it a night. I was given several pats on the back, and everybody said it had been a lot of fun, in between being called a son of a bitch. My first dungeon did not even have a dungeon in it. And one person asked Holly why she had two wands.

“Well, like, I had one of them first ya know, and it was like this totally tubular fireball wand. I like, fried some read bad jodies my first time and kept it cause it’s awesome! Then, like, I found this second wand. And like, I had some bodacious trolls heading at me so I used it, and I fireballed them too! So now I just keep, ya know, like both of them ready. But one of them is like so broken, it don’t always make fireballs. But I can never seem to remember which is broken, so I just grab one and let fly.”

Everybody was cracking up at the idea that Holly and I made a “Valley Elf”. And she let them look at the character sheet finally, and saw the incredibly high intelligence, and almost basement-dwelling wisdom.

JD came over and asked why I was rolling so much, then I showed him the books I had bought. “Dude, this is like totally radical! Can I borrow these?” Since I was only going to be running one game a month, I told him he could borrow them this week, but next week I would want them back. And yes, he could borrow them for games.

Before breaking up I asked if we could bring Mandy for the next game. Everybody thought it would be a great idea, JD even volunteering that she could roll for the monsters if she wanted.

So at just before 9 we were all in Scout, waiting for her to warm up. No need to ask what we should do with the two in the back, they were already exploring each other’s tonsils. So I pulled into a little park near Keith’s house and soon Linda and I were doing the same thing in the front.

We had just under an hour so nobody got real carried away. But some lovely breasts got rubbed, as did some engorged cocks. My pretty little pixie was snuggled deep in my lap, and I could see that Keith was getting to rub some nice legs through Holly’s leggings when my alarm went off and it was time to go.

Driving to Keith’s house we all decided that going rollerskating sounded great for Saturday. I had not been to the one in Northridge yet, so said that will be great. We all shared some kisses as I dropped Keith off, then Holy and I both walked Linda to her apartment and she let us in. Rosie was doing some paperwork at the desk and Mandy was watching some sitcom, and I called her over. I told her she was welcome to attend game nights, so long as her mother approved.

We all got big hugs, and Rosie said it was fine with her, but she had to make sure she did not fall behind in any of her school work since it was a school night. Holly and I got hugs and I got a nice kiss from Linda as I drove home. After walking Holly to her house, I went home.

Friday we had a half-day at school, so having some time to kill I headed on over to The Galleria. Looking through a stationery shop, I saw this cute little Navajo patterned backpack and thought it was the perfect size for Linda’s gifts. Then I went over to the notebooks and saw a Trapper Keeper with the same pattern and got that also.

Seeing it was almost time for Linda to get out of school I headed on over and was waiting in the same place as before. This time Linda was chatting with her friends, who I had taken to calling the “Three Musketeers” whenever they were together. She was actually so busy chatting with her friends she did not realize she had stopped at the corner right next to me. Until in a gruff stage whisper I huskily said “Want some candy little girl?”

A pissed off look appeared on all three of their faces, before Linda saw who I was and once again I had a five foot tall pixie hurtling into my arms. “Pete, what are you doing here!” she screamed. I told her I had gotten out of school early, and unless she or her mother had a problem we could go ahead and take off early. She looked at me and bit her lip, then said “Well, Kimmie and Julie and me have not been out together in ages, do ya think?”

Now I may be called stupid sometimes, but I am not a fool. “Tell ya what. Why don’t we make it a foursome tonight. We can all go get changed, then we can go to Skate!, how does that sound?”

The kiss for that was totally tubular, and they all thought that sounded great. So piling into Scout I took each one in turn to their houses. I waited in the car at both Kimmie and Julie’s house as all three had to go inside, put away books, and spend about a half-hour changing clothes, doing makeup, and putting on enough jewelry to make Mr. T jealous. Then we went to Linda’s and the same thing repeated itself. I saw the mopey look on Mandy’s face, and raising my eyebrow at Linda she saw my glance at Mandy, and nodded.

So now I was the chauffeur of three 14 year old girls, and a 13 year old girl. Rosie gave Linda $20 to cover her and Mandy, and after stopping at Del Taco we were pulling into the parking lot at the rink just as the line started to move.

Yeah, Skate! was still not my favorite rink to go to. In fact, while I now liked a lot of the New Wave stuff, Punk was not my style at all. But the girls liked it, and having a happy girlfriend was more important than having happy eardrums.

The first half was mostly Linda and I holding hands and skating, as the other three were alternating between goofing off, and flirting back with some of the guys that were always around pretty girls. Mandy was skating next to us when the second couples skate was announced, and for some reason I dropped Linda’s hand and skated around and took Mandy’s in mine. Linda gave me a huge grin as she skated off of the rink, and Mandy looked a bit startled and nervous as I pulled her back with me.

We held hands and skated. “Why are you skating with me, Pete?”

“Well, I skate with my girlfriend all the time. I wanted to skate with a different pretty girl this time. Besides, Linda told me she had to potty, and I saw no reason for both of us to sit this out.”

So we had a nice three song set, chatting and lightly flirting with her a bit. Mandy is a bit more rounded then her older sister, and has these killer dimples. She was also not as good of a skater, something I suspected would be improving in the coming months, since it was likely many of the outings we took her on would be rollerskating. At the end of the couples set I kissed her on the cheek. She skated off, and Linda rejoined me.

“Pete, that was awesome, thank you! I think you just made her night, although I hope I don’t have to tell her that you’re mine, and she needs to keep her hands off of you.”

“Naw, she’s a good kid. And I don’t think you have to worry too much about her. She’s more than a bit too young for me.”

Linda pulled me down, and whispered “I was about her age now when I started”. Then she nibbled my ear, then gave me a kiss. For some reason we had fallen into doing things a bit backwards this time. Linda and I held hands all during the open skate, which seemed to annoy some of those around. But also seemed to get her jealous looks from what seemed to be some of her classmates.

When the next couple skate was announced we were right behind Kimmy and Julie. I looked at Linda and smiled as I nodded at her. She nodded back. We parted and each skated up to the outside of her two friends, who looked to be about to leave the rink. “Kimmy, I think this is my turn” I said as I took her hand in mine, and Linda took Julie’s hand.

Kimmie looked surprised, but gave this cute smile and nodded. So hand in hand we fell back behind the other two. This is the first time I really talked with Kimmie, and was surprised like I always was how smart some of these Valley Girls were when you took them away from the clothes and way of talking.

She was near the top of her class, and was planning on going into Orthopedic Medicine when she went to college. “Hmm, so someday I will be calling you Doctor Kimmie?” I asked.

She then got this haughty look in her face, and said “I will have you know, that will be Doctor Kimberly Nguyen! Doctor Kimmie indeed!” Then she burst out into almost perfect airhead giggles.

Well, if anybody is entitled to giggle like an airhead, it’s a 14 year old Vietnamese Valley Girl. But she was cute, smart, and we both had a great time. As the final song ended I bent down and kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her. She actually squeezed my hand before letting go, thanking me and left to rejoin Julie.

Well, now there was no doubt who my next partner would be in the minds of anybody. The first was a surprise only to Mandy,. But I was her sister’s boyfriend, so that was not too unexpected. But I could tell Kimmie and Julie had been caught off-guard, as they were not Linda’s sisters. But you can only carry a good surprise so far.

We took a break to relieve ourselves and watch the skaters, and I saw something that caught my eye. Nudging my sweetie, when she looked up at me I nodded off to the side. It seems one of the other guys was interested in Kimmie, a boy about her age was standing almost in front of her, and they were chatting back and forth. And Kimmie did not seem to mind, even though she was almost pushed back against the wall and he was deep into her “personal space”. And her right knee was bent and only the toes of her right skate were on the floor, gave me she was at least a bit interested in him as well. So Linda and I smiled at each other and headed back towards the floor.

We knew that another couples skate was coming up soon, and we saw that Kimmie was skating next to the guy she had been chatting with already. Well, unless both of them blew it they had partners for the next couples skate. And we saw that Mandy and Julie were skating next to each other, so this time everybody would have a partner.

Sure enough the next song was announced as a couples, but Mandy was in front of me and Julie was in front of Linda. So dropping her hand I quickly skated behind her then forward to take Julie’s hand in mine. “Ma’am, I believe this is my dance” I said as I took her hand in mine. She giggled and we were then heading off to the other side of the rink, Linda and her sister hand in hand being left behind.