Chapter Text
MONDAY 23 MARCH 2020—DAY 10 OF LOCKDOWN
The first week it was fine.
Her supervisor Karen was very firm about abiding by the rules, as it was very necessary in their line of work to be extremely apparent law-followers. So while some people were out there ignoring the state guidelines, the law office of Martinez All Family was closed and locked. There was still paperwork to file, at least until the courts closed completely; and lockdown wasn't going to improve the divorce rate, so Annie wasn't entirely furloughed. The first week she worked from home and logged twenty-eight hours, which Karen had assured her was fine and more than enough and she shouldn't worry. Martinez All Family was prepared to pay everybody's full salary for up to six months with nothing coming in, and cases should still continue to come in.
She went out once to buy groceries and once to search the garbage of a guy that was a star witness, details didn't matter. She used hand sanitizer afterward and reported her (lack of) findings and got told by one of the attorneys not to go out like that regardless of what any of the other attorneys told her. Then there was a firm-wide email about the importance of staying home, which didn't technically contain the phrase, "and don't tell Annie to go out and risk her life for your client," but might as well have.
Annie's official job title was Assistant Office Manager. Some weeks all she did was courier paperwork to the court, some weeks were more eventful. She'd had the job for almost two years, ever since she left the DOJ.
That first week of quarantine, which was mostly just paperwork and not very much of it, was fine. She watched Netflix and did pushups and cleaned out her bedroom closet. She didn't start to feel like she was going stir-crazy until the start of the second week when she started searching online for some kind of information as to how much longer this lockdown was going to last. If this went on for a month, never mind two, she was going to run out of closets to clean out and Netflix to watch. And she wasn't going to run out of pushups, exactly, but pushups were boring to begin with.
Abed's email (and text directing her to check her email) thus fell on fertile soil. An online D&D game? Regular weekly check-ins with other human beings, until the craziness ended? Yes, please. The chance to reconnect with some of her friends she hadn't seen in years was icing on the cake, since Annie would have cheerfully signed up to play with strangers.
There was the possibility of some awkwardness. Her friend group from college had been high on drama, and when she'd left she'd fully intended to return ten weeks later so she hadn't even really said goodbye to everybody. But ten weeks became fifteen weeks became six months, and then she was texting Britta to go ahead and do whatever with her stuff, she'd be back to visit soon, and soon had never come.
Nobody had vanished from the face of the earth or anything. There was a group chat, for instance. The last messages in it were Craig wishing Jeff a happy new year and a general chorus of replies from everybody about how the new year couldn't possibly be worse than the old year. Sure, the new year in question was 2017, but so what? People moved on, people changed. Annie had changed states twice, dated seriously twice, moved in with a guy for one disastrous summer, and upended her career path as many as three times depending on how you counted. Everybody else had no doubt changed and grown and moved on, too.
Like, when Annie had told Britta to do whatever she needed with Annie's old stuff, Britta had said that she'd already gotten rid of some of it and that Frankie was willing to accept the rest of Annie's things into her home alongside all of Britta's things and Britta herself. Which Annie had interpreted as Britta saying she was moving in with Frankie, which Annie wouldn't have predicted, but that was fine. And anyway, now all these years later wherever Britta was sleeping, it wasn't Frankie's guest bedroom, that was something Annie would have bet cash money on.
Or Jeff. Jeff was fine. Wherever he was, whoever he was with, he was fine, probably. Her last text from him was in August of 2018, him telling her that she'd be proud of him, he was leaving Greendale and going to do real work again, and Annie could have sworn that she'd responded with a couple of supportive sentences but there was no record of that on her phone. It might not even be his current number anymore, she had no idea.
So: some possible awkwardness, but nothing she wasn't prepared to handle. She made sure to shower and dress in a nice top and apply a little makeup, but she would have done that for any Zoom meeting.
Annie felt a twinge of nerves as the app chimed, and then, boom, there everybody was. Basically everybody.
Abed looked exactly the same. He'd probably looked the same in 2000 as in 2010 as in 2020. He was wearing a green t-shirt that he might have worn to Spanish class, that's how exactly the same he looked. The headset was probably new but really, Annie wouldn't have been prepared to swear that Abed hadn't routinely worn a headset back in college. On a wall behind him was part of some kind of mural, mostly yellow and black, maybe part of a spaceship.
Troy looked older, with a headset of his own, plus a mustache and a tired expression. The same starscape mural was behind him, too, because they were quarantining together at their house in LA.
Britta had let her hair go back to its natural wet-sand color and her outfit looked surprisingly coordinated. Also wherever she was living now had a nice home office with a wide-angle webcam that really showed off how nice the home office was.
Shirley had lost some weight and looked exhausted but triumphant, the way you would if you had wrestled with two teenage sons and their nine-year-old brother and a wheelchair-bound second husband to successfully claim the family tablet and a quiet place for the evening.
The whole old gang, more or less. People who at one point had been the most important relationships in her life, a found family whose lives she'd orbited around. Now they were people she used to know, and remembered fondly, but…she didn't even know if Britta was in her own home or if she was at her parents', or if she'd broken into somebody's house and stolen their internet in the name of anarcho-communism.
"Hi guys!" Annie waved. "Am I late?"
"Hi, Annie," said Abed.
"Hey," said Troy.
"You're not late," Britta said, "we're all just ready to get started. We've been going stir-crazy over here."
"Oh, Lord, you don't know how much I've been looking forward to this all week," Shirley declared. "This is me time. I told them, I'm closing the door and I'm locking the door and I am not coming out unless the house is on fire!"
"Cool, cool," said Abed.
"Is this everybody, then?" Annie asked, super casually. Abed's email had been vague about who exactly 'the old gang' was. She wouldn't have been surprised to see the dean. Or Ben Chang. Or any of several other people.
"Yeah, Frankie opted out," Britta said.
"Sorry, who?" Troy turned to his right, addressing someone just off-camera. Abed, obviously.
Abed turned to his left. "You met Frankie. Francesca."
"Oh, right, Francesca." Troy nodded.
Britta shrugged. "Apparently she'd rather have some peace and quiet by herself at the other end of the house while I'm distracted, instead of socializing with all of you guys."
Well, that answered that, Annie thought.
"Oh, I've never met Frankie but I know how she must feel," Shirley muttered.
"Anyway, I apologize on her behalf. I can run and get her, if you want to say hi, Annie," Britta offered.
Annie wondered briefly what Britta's relationship with Frankie was—were they roommates? A couple? Had Frankie taken pity on Britta and let her hunker in the bunker, until the current crisis was over? There wasn't a good way to ask.
"No, we should get started," Abed said.
"Tell her I said hi," Annie told Britta. "She'll know what it means."
"First, everybody should introduce their characters. You're starting in a tavern, everybody's strangers, so, just describe what you look like and what you're doing. Troy, you go first."
Troy cleared his throat. "Okay, first off, now that everybody's here, I wanna say thanks for showing up for this," he said with a smile. "We've all got a lot on our minds, and Abed and I thought, hey, why not a little distraction? There's so much uncertainty, at home and abroad—"
Shirley cut him off with a harrumph. "Troy, did you not make a character?"
His smile tightened a bit. "Great to see you too, Shirls, and I'm thrilled to hear all y'all are doing well, or as well as you can in these troubling times—"
"Troy." Shirley sounded more tired than annoyed.
"I made a character," interjected Annie.
"Troy made a character," Abed assured the group. "He made it all by himself and had total creative control over the process and I wasn't even involved until afterwards when he submitted it for approval."
"Dude, I told you, when you say things like that it sounds like you're lying." Troy shifted his attention away from the webcam and did something with his computer. His face was replaced by an image called up from his hard drive: a surprisingly well-done charcoal sketch of Troy in plate armor, holding a long-handled axe and a round shield. "Sir Ector Beaucoup, paladin of the crown. I'm in Tarksas as an agent of the Empire, which everyone can see because I'm wearing my blue cloak of office. I have thirty-one hit points…uh, I guess you wouldn't be able to see that from looking at me. I look like a guy with about thirty-one hit points, you know, pretty good shape."
"Where'd you get the picture?" Britta had put her glasses on and Annie could see it reflected in her lenses.
"Oh, Ashley drew it." Troy didn't seem to think this was worth exploring further.
Britta pressed, though. "And Ashley is…?"
"Ashley is good at drawing, jeez Britta!"
"Where's Tarksas?" Annie asked. She was ninety percent sure there hadn't been any reading assignment she'd missed, but only ninety percent. You could be ninety percent sure about something and still be wrong.
"It's where we're starting out," Troy said. "I only know because Abed told me."
"Moving on," Abed said, "Britta, can you describe your character?"
"I…okay, sure. I'm playing a gnome. She has blue hair and, I don't know, she wears clothes." Britta fidgeted with her glasses while she spoke. "She's like the size of a kindergartener," she added.
"What's her name?" Troy asked.
"Crumples. She's a gnome named Crumples. She's a tumbling fool."
"What?" asked Annie, because she assumed she'd misheard.
"She's a tumbling fool," Britta repeated.
"Is that a kind of bard?" Annie doubted it could be anything else.
"Bard, yeah. I can juggle, and skywrite, and…" Britta checked something written down in front of her. "I—she can put out fires with her mind."
"Does she do magic?"
"Yeah, I mean, that's how she skywrites and puts fires out."
"Shirley," said Abed.
"I have twelve hit points," Britta said. "I mean, Crumples looks like she has twelve hit points."
"So kind of sickly." Troy nodded thoughtfully.
"I don't know, she's the size of a kindergartener…"
"Shirley," repeated Abed.
"Míriel Serindë glows with an inner light that marks her as a Calaquendë, one of those Eldar who bathed in the light of the holy trees Telperion and Laurelin before the darkening of the world," began Shirley.
"Hold on Shirley," said Abed.
"Is that Bible stuff?" Britta asked suspiciously.
"It's from the Silmarillion," Shirley said. Seeing Britta's uncomprehension, she added "By J.R.R. Tolkien? Lord of the Rings? Devout Christian fantasy author, witnessed to C.S. Lewis?"
"You read nerd books?" Britta asked, squinting in surprise.
Shirley nodded. "What, I can't have layers?"
"This game is not set in Middle-Earth," Abed said. "Also we talked about this and you have to start at third level same as everybody."
"Oh, Abed," Shirley said in an upbeat, gentle tone, "I was thinking that if I—"
She broke off as a fifth face suddenly appeared on Annie's screen, under the others.
"Hi, guys," said Jeff, "I'd say sorry I'm late and explain, but I'm sure it would just waste time. Did I miss anything?"
"Troy's a knight," Abed answered, "Britta's a fool, and Shirley wants to play Galadriel's badass grandma."
There was a general chorus of hellos for Jeff, which Annie joined in on, but that barely registered. She adjusted her screen to just show him. Just for a second. Jeff looked good. Nice button-down shirt, just enough of a beard, he still had all his hair and he was taking good care of himself and he looked good. He looked nice.
He was two time zones away and she'd gotten over him a long time ago, but she wasn't dead. She could think he was nice to look at and it could be fine.
"Annie, is your sound out?" Abed asked, and that was when Annie realized people had been talking for a few seconds and she hadn't heard a word of it and it had zero to with her sound being out. Probably it was only a few seconds. She switched her view back to the ensemble.
"Yeah, yes, sorry, there was a…technical difficulty, it's fine now," she said. "Did I miss anything?"
"Jeff is here now," Troy said.
"Hi, Annie," Jeff said.
"Hi, Jeff," Annie said, in an equally casual tone. "I got that, yeah."
Shirley nodded. "Míriel Serindë glows with an inner light that marks her as a Calaquendë, one of those Eldar who bathed in the light of the holy trees Telperion and Laurelin before the darkening of the world."
"What?" Jeff asked.
"My character, Míriel," Shirley said. "Don't worry, she's third level, same as all the rest of you. Míriel is an elven sorceress who glows with inner light. Actually she glows with the light cantrip, which she casts on herself every hour so she's always wreathed in starlight."
Abed nodded. "I'll allow it."
"Bathed in holy light, she walks in beauty wherever she goes, and she looks like Beyonce at the 2015 Met Gala. She wears that same dress…" Shirley did something, or tried to, and frowned. "Sorry, it should be…just google Beyonce's dress at the 2015 Met Gala."
Annie did so. "Oh, wow."
Britta gasped. Even through the wide-angle webcam, Annie could see Beyonce—Beyonce was extremely visible, reflected in Britta's glasses.
"Do they even have fabric that's sheer like that in D&D?" Troy asked Abed.
"I'll allow it."
"Míriel has seventeen hit points, I don't know why we're making a thing out of that, but there you go, seventeen," Shirley said.
"I should have found a picture for Crumples," Britta grumbled. "I'll have something for next time."
"Don't worry about it," Abed assured her. "Annie, Jeff, you guys are up."
"Okay sure," Annie said quickly. "I'm playing Carmen the barbarian. That seemed more clever before I said it out loud. She's a human woman in," Annie swallowed, "leather armor and boots and she has a two-handed sword."
"And how many hit points does she look like she has?" Troy asked.
"Thirty-four."
"Nice!"
"Troy the knight, Britta the fool, Shirley is Beyonce, Annie's a berserker, that just leaves Jeff. Jeff?"
There was a pause before Jeff responded. "My character, right. Half-elf, priest of Tyr, chain mail," Jeff said. "Name's Brother Fej and I've got twenty-one hit points. Despite spending hours today sitting in front of my computer searching for pictures of a half-elf cleric in chainmail who doesn't look like a dweeb, I'm afraid I do not have a picture either. I know you're all on the verge of tears, but we can get through this, together."
"Let's keep it moving, we've got a lot of ground to cover," Abed said. "The game begins in the bandit-ridden scum-hive of Tarksas, as Troy indicated. It's the last settlement at the edge of the Desert of Lop, technically it's part of the Empire but the locals don't pay their taxes. Caravans stop here on their way across the desert, bearing spices and oils and liquors and silks and valuable electronics to and from distant ports. Bandits also stop here on their way from robbing caravans out in the desert, which is a huge conflict of interest for the Tarksas chamber of commerce, as the locals try to support two wildly divergent populations of commercial travelers. It's the only place for many dozens of miles in every direction that can sell you a hot shower, a cold beer, or a new broadsword. And the worst cantina is the unnamed one at the edge of the town, by the caravansary, which is where the camels sleep. And that's where Sir Ector walks in."
There was a long pause. "Oh, right," said Troy. "Sir Ector, that's me. I walk into the cantina and look around, because I know I'm going to need to hire some help for my mission. Who else is here?"
"None of the other players are, yet," Abed said quickly before anyone else could respond. "There's two distinct knots of locals, at opposite ends of the taproom. A surly-looking barback is washing mugs. She eyes you as you enter but says nothing."
"She? Is she cute?"
"She's a wizened old desert halfling," said Abed. "Years in the dry heat have turned her skin leathery and prematurely wrinkled. What's left of her hair is stringy and unkempt, and her clothes are all stained with unwholesome colors."
"So not cute, okay." Troy seemed disappointed. "Or I don't know, none of that is a dealbreaker, necessarily. I pull the hood of my cloak down over my face and step up to the bar, order a seven-and-seven and see what I get."
"You get a seven-and-seven and a suspicious glare. Then, Carmen enters."
Annie perked up. "I do? Sure. I take in the scene. What can you tell me about the two groups at opposite ends of the bar?"
"They both look unfriendly. There are six dwarves on the left and seven tabaxi on the right, muttering among themselves and drinking heavily."
"Question," said Shirley. "What's a tabaxi?"
"Cat people," said Abed. "Carmen, what do you do?"
"I guess I step to the bar and order a drink," Annie answered. "I don't even know…can I get a margarita?"
" 'Margarita,' " repeated Abed in a derisive tone. " 'Look who's all hoity-toity, thinks we have margarita mix,' the barback snarls at you."
"Tequila sunrise, then?" It was the first thing that popped into Annie's head.
"The barback makes you a tequila sunrise. It's not very good."
"I have to say I'm rethinking my decision to drink here," Annie said.
There was a clattering sound as Abed rolled a die. "Okay, it's a good cocktail. Jeff, you can come in now."
Jeff grunted. "Brother Fej ignores the low-key hostility of the establishment. Are we arriving together, or just one after the other, or some third thing?"
"Everybody's arriving separately. You don't know anyone in town, remember."
Jeff nodded. "I see Carmen among the strangers and approach her."
Typical Jeff, thought Annie. Goes into a bar, zeroes in on the girl with the big leather boots alone among the dwarves and cat-people. "I've turned to the bartender and I'm asking her how she's doing."
"Roll Insight," said Abed.
Britta made a confused noise. "I know both those words but—oh, right, we're playing D&D."
"I don't actually have dice yet," Annie said. She'd ordered a set to be delivered to her house but it wouldn't arrive before Tuesday.
"You can use mine," offered Shirley. "That won't work. Never mind."
"I'll roll for you," Abed said. "Does anyone else not have dice?"
As Jeff and Britta raised their hands, there was another die-clatter. "Seventeen, plus your bonus of zero. The barback sighs and admits that she's under a lot of stress right now, what with the two warring factions of bandit-rowdies terrorizing the city. Her name is Monica Crumbhustle. Monica warns you that the cantina is a pretty rough place, lots of fights, she's seen too much violence and death for someone in a badly-paid service job. Then she sees Fej over your, Carmen's, shoulder. 'What'll it be?' "
" 'Whisky, and the lady's cocktail.' I slide over a couple of gold pieces."
"Carmen turns around and sees Fej for the first time. Her eyes narrow suspiciously," Annie said.
Jeff smiled. " 'How unexpected to see someone like you somewhere like this.' "
Annie was of two minds. On the one hand, it was kind of hilarious that the first thing Jeff did in the game was try to pick her up. On the other…" 'I think you've mistaken me for someone else,' Carmen says coldly. 'Thanks for the drink, though.' "
" 'Carmen, please. You're angry and you have every right to be, but at least let me buy you a drink.' "
" 'I did let you buy me a drink! I'm just not letting you use that as an excuse to keep talking to me.' Carmen turns away from Fej and back to Monica the bartender. 'I can handle myself, see?' "
"I'm sipping my drink and watching this unfold," Troy said.
Abed cleared his throat. " 'I'm confused,' says Monica Crumbhustle. 'Do you two know each other?' "
"Yes," said Jeff, at the same time that Annie said "no."
" 'Carmen, I'm trying to be civil—' "
Annie decided to just lean into it. " 'Civil? Is that what you call it, Fej? You're a cleric of Tyr! We didn't exactly part on the best of terms, and now you come waltzing into the same cantina as me—' "
"This is a public place. And apparently it's the only spot to get a drink for literally hundreds of miles. Speaking of, did Monica bring me the scotch? I down it in one shot, not breaking eye contact with Carmen."
"Does he need to make a Constitution check to do that without coughing and looking like a dweeb?" asked Troy.
"Now I'm confused," said Shirley. "I thought we all didn't know each other. Also, Lord knows I am patient, but when am I going to get to join the game?"
"And Britta!" said Britta.
"Wait, you said we don't know anyone in town, do we also not know each other?" Jeff asked. "I must have missed that part. I assumed we were all acquainted, so we could skip a bunch of tedious introductions. We can roll it back."
"It's fine, let's keep moving. Fej and Carmen know each other, everyone else are strangers, Miriel enters the bar now," said Abed. "And Britta."
"Míriel Serindë enters and all eyes are drawn to her," Shirley declared. "She scans the crowded bar and spots the best-looking man in the place, then keeps his attention as she approaches. Whose Charisma is higher, Troy's or Jeff's?"
"Troy, he's got a sixteen," Abed answered, which prompted a flurry of small motions from Jeff as he no doubt checked his character sheet and weighed options for boosting Charisma.
"So Míriel sidles up to Sir Ector and smiles beneficently. 'Buy me a drink?' she asks, because I spent literally all of her starting gold on the dress and she's penniless."
"Oh! I have a thing for that!" Britta waved her hands excitedly. "I step into the bar and blow my mellophone to get everybody's attention. 'Good lords and ladies, huzzah and well met, I come to you not as a beggar but as a merchant selling smiles!' And then, pies."
"What do you mean, pies?" Shirley asked.
"I start juggling pies! It's a Perform check, right? I got a…" Britta rolled a die, just off-screen. "Two."
"Two plus your skill of plus six makes eight. Crumples the fool makes an ass of herself," Abed said.
"Wait, no. That's not right. Twenty-two. I rolled a sixteen, plus six. Twenty-two."
"You said two and you meant sixteen?" Shirley sounded dubious.
Britta looked away from the camera, as if she couldn't meet their gazes. "Yeah."
"Wait, didn't you just say you don't have dice?" Jeff asked her.
"They're Frankie's nephew's dice that got left here."
"Does Frankie's nephew know you have his dice?"
"Crumples the fool does some remarkable juggling, like a cheetah but for juggling instead of sprinting," Abed said. "Everybody's extremely impressed. Roll initiative."
Annie leaned forward, confused. "Wait, what?"
"I can't even get a drink and meanwhile Britta's entrance is so impressive a fight breaks out?" Shirley asked incredulously.
"I'll buy Shirley a drink, I'm generous like that," Troy declared. "I'll even roll for Jeff and Annie."
"Does everybody need to roll, or just Britta?" Jeff asked. "I'm just standing at the bar having a quiet drink with an old friend."
" 'Oh, we're old friends, are we?' " Annie asked him, in character. " 'After what you said to me that night at the waterfall?' "
Jeff looked nonplussed and gave a little shrug. Annie would have liked to demand a fuller explanation for what Jeff thought Carmen's and Fej's backstory was, but the onset of a fight scene was hardly the time.
There were a few moments of discord as everybody rolled initiative (or told Troy their initiative modifiers). Annie was pleased her initiative bonus was higher than Jeff's, not that it mattered.
"As Ector buys Shirley's drink.." Abed began.
Shirley raised a hand. "Míriel would like a glass of white wine, for what it's worth."
"Monica Crumbhustle has to bend down and look under the bar for a wine glass," Abed said, and rolled a die. "And then a dagger flies through the bar, past the dwarves, past Fej, past Carmen, right into Ector, for…eleven damage. Carmen, you're first to react. Somebody's running from the corner of the bar where the dagger was thrown towards the exit."
"Is there a back exit?" Annie asked.
"Probably not, most buildings in Tarksas are terrible firetraps because there's no code enforcement," Abed answered.
"I move to intercept the runner. What do they look like? Can I attack them?"
"The runner is a slender human man in a red jacket. You don't immediately recognize him. He's got another dagger in his hand that matches the one that flew past your face. Are you tackling him, or drawing steel?"
"I'll slice him up. He threw a knife at my head."
"He threw a knife near your head." Abed rolled a die. "Unfortunately you roll a three, and miss. The pack of dwarves that the human ran through go next. They mobilize, throw down their mugs and pull out hammers, and start shouting about blood and thunder and how they're going to kill the Coyote's crew. One rushes Carmen, and…misses. Another engages with Fej and…hits, for five damage. The rest are sorting themselves into combat mode."
Troy shifted in his seat. "Are we the Coyote's crew?" he asked. "Am I the Coyote? Do I have a cool nickname I haven't even heard about?"
"As far as any of you know, none of you are the Coyote," said Abed. "Crumples, you're up."
"Oh! Okay. Okay." There was a long pause as Britta shuffled through papers. "I cast a spell," she decided.
There was another pause. "Which spell?" Abed eventually asked.
"Um. Charm person." Britta shook her head. "No, dissonant whispers… No, charm person. Charm person, final answer."
Abed rolled a die. "He makes his save, so nothing happens."
"Dammit," muttered Britta.
"The cat people on the other side of the bar go next. They basically do the same thing the dwarves did, in the opposite direction, and their shouts are all about how they'll heroically defend the honor of the Coyote. Miriel and Ector both get attacked…" Abed rolled several dice. "Shirley, you take six damage."
"Míriel was just standing there!" Shirley protested. Annie could sympathize; she'd just been standing there, too.
"Monica Crumbhustle did warn Carmen that a fight was going to break out any minute," Abed said.
"Míriel casts web," snapped Shirley.
"It's actually Ector's initiative. Troy?"
Troy looked pained. "I gotta go after the guy who tried to kill me," he said. "Sorry, Shirley."
"What, you're leaving me alone against a bunch of coyote-cat-people?"
"I'm only going, what, twenty feet?" Troy shifted his attention to Abed. "Can I close with the red-jacket-daggers guy?"
"The tabaxi who attacked you before will get a swing in, but yes."
"Yeah, I'll do that," Troy said.
"What are the cat-people armed with?" Annie asked.
"Knives. The tabaxi tries to stab you and…misses. Then you try to hit the human man."
Troy rolled dice. "Seventeen with my longsword, eleven damage if I connect."
"You do, he doesn't like that but he's still up. He looks panicky. Shirley, your turn."
"Míriel raises her hands and sings a song of magic." Shirley pantomimed a grandiose gesture. "The song is a spell of sleeping. Sleep. Míriel casts sleep, as a second-level spell." Shirley rolled some dice and added some numbers. "Twenty-two," she announced, which meant nothing to Annie. "I was really hoping for better."
"The two tabaxi closest to you, the one who attacked you and the one who attacked Troy, collapse to the ground. Jeff?"
"Hmm?" Jeff snapped to attention and out of some reverie. "My turn? I bless Carmen, Ector, and myself, and…Carmen, clearly we've had our differences, but you trust me, right?"
Annie sat up a little straighter. "I beg your pardon?"
"I'm a Tyrian cleric, and so I have this class feature," Jeff continued, leaning back in his chair and speaking with a practiced casualness. "Voice of Authority. You know me, so you know this about me."
"Okay," Annie said. It wasn't at all clear where he was going with this.
"Annie, do you make the attack?" Abed asked.
Jeff threw up his hands. "Abed, hold on."
Annie shook her head. "What's happening, here?"
"Voice of Authority says, when I cast a spell on you, an ally can make a free attack on a target I designate. Just one ally per spell and Carmen has the big two-hander so you're the obvious choice. Ergo Fej signals for Carmen to kill the red-jacket guy."
"But I already attacked this round," Annie protested.
"It's an extra attack. Free bonus hit. Potentially double your damage."
Annie considered. "I suppose under the circumstances I can set aside our disagreement and, what, admit how authoritative your voice is? Obey your command?"
"Suggestion," Jeff said. "Or however you feel comfortable framing it."
Abed rolled some dice. "Carmen swings. With the extra d4 from the Bless it's a hit, for…fifteen damage. The human male drops. He spends his action lying on the ground bleeding. That's the end of the first round of combat. At the start of the second round, the bar can be split into three zones: dwarf zone, middle zone, tabaxi zone. Carmen, Ector, and Fej are on the line between the dwarves and the middle, Miriel is on the line between the middle and the tabaxi, Crumples the jester is in the middle zone. A couple of the tabaxi are close enough to stab their knives at Miriel but they're on the ground unconscious, and a couple of the dwarves are close enough to swing their hammers at Fej and Carmen. Carmen, you're first in the order."
"This dwarf-tabaxi thing isn't really my fight," mused Annie. "Is Redjacket alive or did I kill him? If he's alive I'll bend over, scoop him up, throw him over my shoulder. A dwarf tried to hit me, so I'll hit them…If I'm using one hand to hold the body, then…can I kick the dwarf, knock them back?"
"You can try." Abed rolled a few dice. "Carmen wipes her boot off on the dwarf's face for five damage but the dwarf has too low a center of gravity to be knocked back."
"Then I make for the door," Annie said.
"You are out of actions. The dwarf you just kicked hammers at you…for six damage," Abed narrated, rolling dice. "One attacks Fej and…misses, and one attacks Ector and…hits for five more damage. The others are moving around you guys, towards the tabaxi. Britta, it's your turn."
"I cast…um, I throw a pie," Britta said.
"You throw a pie?" Troy repeated.
"Yeah. At the dwarf attacking Troy!" Britta rolled one of Frankie's nephew's dice. "Does a sixteen hit?"
Abed nodded.
She rolled again. "Two, no, three damage!"
"Crumples the jester throws a pie for three damage," Abed said flatly. "The tabaxi go next. They surge forward and wake up the two that Shirley put to sleep. One gets close enough to stab at Miriel, and one gets over to where the dwarves are charging up and they start to melee…She misses Miriel."
Britta perked up. "She?"
"All dwarves are boys, all cats are girls, Britta," Troy said as if this were common knowledge.
Abed said "Troy, you're up."
"I like Annie's leaving idea," Troy said. "Who's furthest from the door out?"
"While y'all are all hitting dwarves, Míriel has a half-dozen catgirls breathing down her neck," Shirley said.
"Shirley, yeah," said Abed.
"Okay. I'll move back over to Shirley and pound one of the tabaxi, to cover her."
"The dwarf will get another free swing—"
"I know, I know, man, maybe I didn't plan this out so great but it'll be okay, I have armor and a shield and fifteen of my thirty-one hit points."
Abed rolled a die. "Ouch," he said, and rolled some more. "The dwarf crits you for eight damage."
Troy grunted in annoyance. He rolled a die and grunted again. "And I miss the catgirl, great."
"I can see I'm going to have to solve this catgirl problem myself," Shirley declared. "Míriel spins the ravenous gloom of Ungoliant, hungry unlight, casting the catgirl end of the bar into magical constriction, such that the very air binds Míriel's foes…" Seeing blank looks, she sighed. "Míriel casts web ."
"Miriel casts web ," repeated Abed, plainly relieved by the clarification. "That whole end of the bar is engulfed in magical spiderwebs, ensnaring all the tabaxi."
Shirley made a self-satisfied little coo. "Then Míriel hikes up her skirt and runs for the door."
"You can make it most of the way to the door, but you were up at the bar, so you can't get all the way out this turn," said Abed. "Fej, your action."
"Bonus action to put a sanctuary on myself, then I move out with Carmen and Shirley," said Jeff.
Abed rolled a die. "The dwarf you were engaged with can't attack you, so you get away from him cleanly. He curses your foul magic. You still have your action left."
"Right, I cast cure wounds on Ector," Jeff said.
"Hey, thanks man," said Troy.
Abed shook his head no. "If you cast a spell as a bonus action you can't use your action to cast anything but a cantrip."
"I know I think of cure wounds as a cantrip," Jeff tried, but Abed wouldn't budge. "Fine, then… guidance on Carmen. I liked watching you kick a dwarf, do it again please."
"I do so," Annie said quickly.
Abed rolled. "Carmen kicks the dwarf in the throat and…he collapses to the ground. That closes out the second round. Carmen, Fej, Crumples, and Miriel are all by the exit, Ector is a little further back. There's a downed dwarf at Carmen's feet, the others are nearby and angry. Meanwhile, all the tabaxi are ensnared in spiderwebs. Round three, Carmen, you're up."
"We're leaving, right?" Annie asked. There were murmurs of assent. "I'll move to the door and cover everybody on the way out, since I haven't taken any damage. If there's a dwarf I can hit, I will, but otherwise I'll guard."
"The dwarves shove past, towards the tabaxi. One of them grabs a lamp off a table and tosses it at the spiderwebs. They go up in a sudden burst of flames," said Abed.
Shirley clucked her tongue. "The raw unlight of Ungoliant is flammable?"
"Extremely flammable. The tabaxi start burning up, the fire is going to spread to the rest of the building very soon. Britta, you're up."
Britta squinted at her screen. "I, uh…oh! I put the fire out. I cast Pyrotechnics and put the fire out! There's a dazzling fireworks display!" She made jazz hands. "Then I leave."
"Thanks to Crumples's quick action, the fire goes out and the cantina doesn't burn down," Abed said. "The catgirls writhe in their magical bondage—"
Annie winced. "Abed!" she said, in chorus with Shirley and Britta.
"The tabaxi that free themselves move to fight the dwarves," Abed concluded. "Troy?"
"Can I get out without getting hit by anybody?" Troy asked.
"Maybe," said Abed. "One of the tabaxi tries to knife you as you pass, but she's rolling with disadvantage because of the webs…that's a miss. Shirley?"
"Míriel books it."
"As do I," said Jeff. "Which just leaves Carmen, right behind me. You are right behind me, right?"
Annie nodded. "Yeah, no reason to stick around."
"Great," said Abed. "You guys flee from the bar as it does not burn down, letting the catgirls and the dwarves duke it out. Monica Crumbhustle hides under the bar and thinks about how it's just another typical Wednesday night at Chili's."