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regina is the dragon | cadina

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Cady: Janis is going to run Dungeons & Dragons for us. Who wants to join?

Janis: um i said i’d teach you how to play?

Gretchen: Oh! I’ve always wanted to try that game but never had anyone to play with! When and where and do we have to bring snacks? Do we have to know the rules beforehand? I can go and buy the book right now

Damian: can i play a singer

Janis: there is a bard class

Damian: im that

Karen: 🧝🏽‍♀️🧙🏽‍♂️🐉

Cady: Yay!! This is so exciting!!

Gretchen: I went on the website to order the Player’s Handbook but there are two versions and I’m confused. Which one should I buy? @Janis

Janis: don’t buy anything i have the phb and u really don’t need it for your first session

Gretchen: But then how will I know what to do?

Janis: i guess i’ll teach u

Janis: but if you really want to get the 2014 version idc abt the new one

Gretchen: That’s so thoughtful!

Cady: @Regina are you also joining us?

Damian: regina is the dragon in the dungeon

Cady: DAMIAN!

Damian: lmao chill

Gretchen: Janis are you sure there is no prep work I can do?

Janis: yes im sure. i’ll make your characters and everything

Cady: i want something with animals :)

Janis: i know this about you caddy

Cady: :)

/

Janis hums along to a song on her D&D tavern playlist as she finishes setting up the table with drinks, snacks, dice, and character sheets for everybody. She has a few maps waiting in the other room, complete with 3D-printed miniatures and everything.

Painting miniatures and creating terrain are among her favorite things to do when she doesn’t feel up to create something from scratch but still wants to get those creative juices flowing. It’s why she got into DM-ing in the first place, rather than just playing. Then she got far too deep into handcrafting immersive handouts and she’s even in the process of drawing a world map for her homebrew setting, though she doesn’t think she’ll need that tonight.

It's her first time teaching new players how to play D&D, despite having played for years already, after she got her start as an angry 12-year old kid.at art camp. Turns out pretending to be an elf and fighting imaginary dragons was a good, healthy outlet for her rage.

She’s just about done when the doorbell rings. Even before she opens the door she knows it’s Cady, who is always notoriously early to everything, but what she doesn’t expect is to also see Shane Oman standing next to her, wearing a backpack.

“Hi,” Cady says, grinning almost just as wide as Shane. “I hope it’s okay that I brought Shane. Well, he brought me because he drove us in his car, but I invited him.”

Janis stares at Shane, who at least has the decency to look a little sheepish. “Why?”

“He wants to play!” Cady pushes past her into the living room and gasps. “You did all this?” She excitedly points at the strings of fairy lights in the shape of candles that Janis strung up to mimic a medieval tavern. It’s not as extravagant as the setup she uses in her garage, but that’s barely big enough for a group of four players and tonight was supposed to be five—if Regina bothers to show up.

Janis squints at Shane. “You don’t seem like the type to play D&D.”

“Fake news, actually. I just finished a two-year campaign with my brother and my moms, where we fought, like, a whole lich empire. It was sick.”

Well. The night is just full of surprises. Maybe it’ll be nice to have an experienced player at the table.

“You can join if you want, but I only made five characters.”

“No worries.” Shane pulls a folded stack of paper from his back pocket, despite the aforementioned backpack. “I brought my character from our old campaign. If you have a spare empty sheet I can level him down. We used point buy for the stats.”

Janis glances over his sheet, which has a few pages with printed backstory and scribbled notes behind it. Shane, for all his defying of stereotypes, brought a dwarf champion fighter. She already made a fighter—battle master, though—but she can make that character a barbarian instead so that Shane can play his fighter. “Okay, let me print off a new sheet. We play at level 3 tonight.”

“Dope,” Shane grins, before following Cady inside the house.

It’s a strange combination of people to have in her living room—the ex-boyfriend of the girl that bullied her relentlessly in middle school and her friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend again—and she hopes that Damian won’t be too fashionably late.

She points at the druid sheet laid out on the table. “Caddy, this one’s for you. I gave you a wolf statblock reskinned into a lion for your wildshape, but if you want something else just let me know.”

Cady stares at her blankly.

“Right,” Janis says. “It’ll make sense when we start playing. At least you’re good at math.”

Cady’s eyes light up. “There is math in this?”

“Oh, yeah, tons,” Shane adds. “It’s totally your jam.” He sits down at the table and pulls out a bag of sour worms, and a handful of dice that he apparently has loose in his bag. “Here, I’ll explain the dice to you.”

Janis watches them for a second. She theoretically knew that they were friends, despite Shane and Regina breaking up barely a month into senior year, but it’s different to witness their dynamic firsthand.

She goes to print off a new empty sheet and when she comes back Damian has arrived and settled into a seat at the other end of the table, and Karen and Gretchen are ringing the doorbell.

With everyone, sans Regina, in her living room Janis starts to wonder if she made a mistake in letting Cady talk her into this. Five players, four of which have never played or even touched a d20, is a lot, and especially this group of people is what her therapist called a high-energy hangout.

But no, this is fun. These are her friends, somehow, and she appreciates that they are open to trying her hobby with so much excitement.

She hands Shane his new character sheet and spends a few minutes reworking the premade fighter into a berserker barbarian, which really just means copying down the abilities and leaving the stats mostly as is. Thank the pantheon for melee classes.

When she’s done, everyone has settled at the table and is looking at her expectantly.

She glances at her phone and whispers to Cady, “Do you know if Regina is coming?”

Cady’s eyes go wide in what seems like alarm for a second, which is definitely something Janis files away in the back of her brain to bring up later, before she relaxes and nods. “She said she’d be here. Maybe she got lost on the way to your house.”

Janis swallows a snide remark about how Regina spent basically half her childhood inside this house, but she’s over all that and she knows Cady doesn’t like to be reminded of everything that happened last year.

“Okay, well, she can play whatever character is left at the end, then.” Janis grabs the sheets she prepared. “So, basically, D&D is a collaborative storytelling game where you all play one character. I play every other character in the world, and also the world itself, which sounds like we’re playing against each other but we’re not. The goal is to tell a story, not to win. That’s very important to remember. Does that make sense so far?”

Everyone nods along, the excitement palpable in the air.

“Your character can do pretty much anything you want them to do, within reason. That’s where the dice come in. Each character has specific skills and abilities, which are laid out on your sheet. When you want to do something that has a reasonable chance at failure, I will ask you to roll a d20, that’s this twenty-sided dice,” she holds one up, “and you add the result to the modifiers on your character sheet. If that doesn’t make sense yet, I promise it will once we start playing. Any questions so far?”

Cady raises her hand. “What are these other dice for?”

“Damage, mostly,” Janis says. “There might be times where violence is the solution to your problems—which makes D&D infinitely better than the real world. When we start combat, there will be additional rules that I’ll explain when that time comes, because otherwise it’s too overwhelming.”

“Why are you hiding behind cardboard?” Karen asks.

Janis laughs and raises the DM-screen in front of her, temporarily revealing her organized mess of prep notes, dice sets, and scrap paper. “Here is where I keep my secrets, so that you can’t see what I’m doing.”

She takes the bard character sheet from the top and hands it to Damian, who accepts it like it’s a sacred document. “Okay, so Caddy already has her sheet because she specifically requested to play a druid, and Damian is a bard, but everyone else still has to pick a character to play. I made these with extra explanations of what each ability and spell can do, but if you’re unsure about something feel free to ask me for clarifications.”

“Or me,” Gretchen chips in, pulling the PHB from where she was holding it in her lap. “I’ve gone ahead and bought and read the Player’s Handbook twice, just to be sure I understand what’s going on.”

“Or me,” Shane says, making two thumbs up at Janis. “I’ve never played a spellcaster, but my mom was a badass wizard who could bend time and space itself.”

“Can we do that?” Damian asks, peering at where on his sheet as if he’s hoping it’ll say ‘bending time and space’ somewhere among the abilities.

“Not at level three, but if you play for years until you reach level twenty then yes, absolutely.” Janis rolls her eyes at the disappointed sound Damian makes. “So the characters that I have left are a barbarian, which is a class that gets angry and swings big weapons to solve problems; a wizard, which I think you all know what that means; and a cleric, which is a class that worships a deity that grants it magical abilities. Shane will be playing his fighter that he ported over from his home game. At the top of your character sheet you can find some customizable information about your character’s name, gender, and appearance.”

Gretchen looks at Karen. “Do you mind if I play the wizard? It spoke the most to me when I was reading the rules.”

“Sure,” Karen shrugs, frowning a little. “Is magic hard?”

Janis thinks for a moment. Clerics are notably one of the easiest spellcasting classes, but Karen struggles with basic reading comprehension and spells do involve a lot of reading. “It is a bit complex. You can play the barbarian if you prefer.”

Karen nods and accepts her character sheet, immediately looking confused at the amount of information on the page. She’s not alone in that, though, and everyone except Shane spends some time reading their sheets and asking questions like, “What is the difference between wisdom and intelligence?” and “Why do we only have ten gold?”

Janis catches Cady nervously staring at the front door more than once, and then doing something on her phone, and then staring at the door again. She’s about to tell Cady to give up hope and accept that Regina isn’t coming when the doorbell rings. Cady immediately jumps up to open the door, even though it’s Janis’s house. It’s good, though, because Janis is in the middle of explaining bardic inspiration to Damian.

Janis swears the candle-shaped fairy lights flicker when Regina steps through the doorway, dragged to the table by Cady. If Regina is bothered by being at Janis’s house again for the first time in years, she doesn’t show it as Gretchen abandons her seat next to Cady in favor of sitting next to Shane so that Regina can take that seat instead, taking off her massive shades and placing them on the table next to a set of dice.

It’s such a ridiculous sight that Janis has to laugh, and Regina quirks her eyebrows at her. “Something funny?”

“Welcome to the session, Regina,” Janis says, handing her the cleric’s character sheet. “Nice of you to show up.”

“I’m only here because Cady and Shane made me,” Regina replies—and oh, there is the downturn of her mouth that Janis knows to be a sign of hidden nerves. Seems like the dragon has a conscience after all. Regina reaches down into her bag and pulls out two six-packs of white claws. “Also, I brought booze in case this is boring.”

Janis decides to let this one slide in favor of getting to drink Regina’s alcohol later. “You should’ve led with that.”

Regina heads into the kitchen to put the drinks in the fridge. When she comes back, she gives Janis a tight-lipped smile and that’s that. They still aren’t friends, and Janis knows they’ll never be, but they’ve repeatedly agreed to leave the past behind them—both implicitly and explicitly. Janis is not about to let all that hard work in therapy go to waste just because Cady wants her to be in the same room as Regina all the time for some reason.

As Regina slides into her seat, Cady starts wrongly explaining how spellcasting works in D&D, and to her credit Regina does seem more than zero percent interested in what she has to say.

Huh.

Janis moves on before she can give that too much thought. “Okay, so is everyone ready to start?”

“Not in the slightest,” Damian says dramatically. “But let’s go anyway if you say it’s easier to understand once you get going, like most things in life.”

Karen and Shane laugh much louder than the joke deserves, but it brings a much needed relief to the tension. She quickly goes over the basics again for Regina’s sake, though she’s not sure Regina cares enough to absorb any of it, and then starts her narration.

“Alright, so you’re all a group of adventurers, which is a fancy word for mercenaries, between jobs. You’re traveling to a town called Highpost, and you’ve been on the road for a couple of days. Back in the city, you managed to secure a cart and an ox to pull it, so at least you don’t have to walk. If someone were to look down at the cart from a bird’s eye view, who would they be seeing sitting in the cart? Shane, maybe it’s easiest if you begin?”

Shane nods excitedly, pulling out a printed picture from his stack of loose papers. It shows a typical dwarf with a large, red bushy beard, a metal helmet with horns to the sides, and armor. He’s holding a warhammer. “This is Oznok Steelfoot. He has been on a lot of adventures already, but right before he was able to accomplish his final goal of defeating the lich empire he got cursed by a magical deck of cards. A lich is, like, an undead wizard, right? So we were almost done doing that but then he got his hands on this deck of cards and when he pulled from the deck he found himself back in time, with just his level three gear and abilities. He decided to join up with you all while he’s looking for his old crew, to kick some ass and have fun.”

Everyone stares at him, then slowly turns to Janis—except Damian and Gretchen, who seem delighted at the amount of backstory.

“Do we have to also have such an elaborate story about our characters?” Cady asks carefully.

Janis shakes her head. “No, though you can make up whatever you want since it’s just a one-shot.”

“Yeah, I just came up with this on the spot,” Shane shrugs.

“My character sheet says my bard is a gnome, so he’s, like, super short, but he’s really famous all around the world,” Damian says, standing up for dramatic effect. “His name is Alvyn with a Y and he talks like this.” Damian does an Alvin and the Chipmunks voice. “He wears a lot of bright colors and likes to sing in French.”

“My druid is called Rania and she’s an elf of the wood elf variety, and she grew up in a village of tree huts,” Cady says, somewhat hesitantly but getting more confident as she continues to speak. “Her favorite activity is hanging out with all her animal friends and she can talk to them because it says here she can cast spells called Animal Friendship and Speak With Animals.”

From next to Cady, Regina kind of rolls her eyes, but Janis ignores it. “Okay, and what does Rania look like?”

“Uhm, like me but taller? And her dress is made of leaves.”

“Cute,” Regina says, and Cady smiles at her.

“I’m an orc and I get angry really fast,” Karen chips in. She swings her arms like she’s hitting something with a weapon, narrowly missing the back of Gretchen’s head. “My character is also named Karen, otherwise I’ll get super confused.”

Janis nods and writes down ‘Karen’ next to Karen’s name. “That’s fair.”

Gretchen looks from where she has the Player’s Handbook open on the tiefling page—one also frequented by Janis herself since she likes playing tieflings. “I’d like for my character to be called Hope, because she always strives to be hopeful no matter how dire the situation. Her horns curl upwards and her eyes are gold, which can be the case for tieflings, and her hair is long and flowy and really pretty.”

Everyone turns to look at Regina expectantly, who already looks bored. She waves her hand. “I don’t know. It says here she’s a cleric. What does that even mean?”

“Like a holy person,” Gretchen says at the same time Shane says, “God’s favorite princess.”

Regina wrinkles her nose. “Do I have to be that?” She looks at her sheet. “Why are all my things healing-related? If I have to be part of this game I want to kill people.”

“Not everything is healing-related,” Cady says, leaning in to read Regina’s character sheet. “This Guiding Bolt spell does damage.”

“How the fuck did you figure that out so quickly?” Regina asks.

Cady points at the attacks & spellcasting section on the sheet. “It says 4d6 +3 under this part.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “Oh. Well, whatever. I guess I do that?”

Janis sighs. “We haven’t started yet. You can do that later, but first you need to tell us what your character looks like and what they’re called. Otherwise we’ll have to assume she looks like you and is named Regina.”

“No, that’s dumb,” Regina says, holding out a hand to Karen. “No offense.”

Karen looks up from where she was scrolling on her phone. “What?”

“Nothing. My character will be named Suzan, named after the best character in Narnia, and that’s also what she looks like. Even if she believes in a god or whatever.”

Janis does her best to suppress any surprise at the fact that Regina knows anything about Narnia, let alone the name of a character. “Okay, great. Now we have a party. So, like I said, all of you are on a cart that’s being pulled by an ox, on the way to Highpost. Who is driving the cart?”

“Rania is petting a squirrel,” Cady says.

“I’ll drive the cart,” Shane says.

Janis suddenly really appreciates him and she makes a mental note to be nicer to him in the future, even when he says stupid shit like he does pretty much all the time. “Oznok is driving the cart, and Rania is petting a squirrel—”

“Alvyn is playing his lute and singing a song,” Damian says, unfortunately seeming really committed to the squeaky voice. He sings a few bars of a song in the same voice, then coughs and reaches out to the bottle of Sprite on the table to fill his glass and take a sip.

“Anyone else doing anything of note?”

Karen shakes her head, and Gretchen adds that Hope is practicing her spellcasting in the back of the cart. Regina simply says nothing.

“Oznok, since you’re in front, you’re the first to notice the two dead horses on the road about fifty feet ahead of you. They each have multiple feathered arrows sticking out of them, and they’re blocking the road.”

Everyone looks at Shane in anticipation. He clears his throat and then, in the worst Scottish accent imaginable, says, “Aye, looks like there was a wee skirmish here. Let’s get closer to investigate.”

Regina shoves her chair back and starts heading towards the kitchen. “Alright, I’m not gonna get through this sober. Anyone else want a white claw?”

All hands go up, and Janis sighs, even though she also has her hand up. “Just make sure to take any evidence we were drinking alcohol with you when you leave after the session.”

Once everyone has an opened can in front of them, the story continues.

“Rania is going to jump off the cart and heal the horses with Healing Word,” Cady says, looking somewhat horrified at the thought of dead horses.

“Unfortunately you cannot heal dead creatures with that spell.”

“Then Rania is going to throw herself at the dead horses and cry.”

Janis nods. “Does anyone else want to do something?”

“Alvyn is going to sing a funeral song about the horses, in French,” Damian adds, then immediately bursts into song while mimicking player the ukulele.

“Can we investigate the cause of death?” Gretchen asks, scouring her character sheet for a spell that lets her do exactly that.

Regina huffs. “The arrows, clearly.”

“You can roll a medicine check,” Janis tells Gretchen, ignoring Regina. “So you take your d20, yes that’s the one, and you roll it. Then on your character sheet you look under skills and add or subtract the number it says next to the medicine skill from the result on your dice.”

“So fourteen on the dice and I have plus zero in the medicine skill,” Gretchen says.

“That’s fourteen,” Karen supplies helpfully.

“With a fourteen you can determine that the cause of death is indeed from the arrows,” Janis says.

“Like I said.”

Cady puts her hand up. “Why did Gretchen need to roll for that if Regina already knew?”

“Because Regina made an out-of-character guess, and now Gretchen’s character, Hope, knows for sure,” Janis explains. “As a rule of thumb, your characters don’t know everything you as the player knows.” She looks directly at Regina when she says that. “That’s why it’s a roleplaying game.”

Regina rolls her eyes and reaches for Cady’s drink. “Whatever.”

“Anything else noteworthy? Saddle bags or identifying information or anything like that?” Shane asks.

Janis gives him a thankful smile. “Give me an investigation check.”

“Can it be perception? Oznok is kinda stupid.”

“Sure.”

Shane rolls his dice, which has the colors of Oznok’s character art in it, and whoops. “Natural 20, baby.”

“So Shane just rolled the highest result on the dice. Some DMs have different rules about this, but for tonight’s session let’s say that a Natural 20, or a Nat 20, is an automatic critical success. So Oznok, you easily spot the emptied saddlebags on these horses—whatever was inside has been looted.” Janis pauses for dramatic effect, then continues, “Because you got a Nat 20, you also spot some rustling of the leaves in a nearby brush, and you’re able to give a head’s up to the rest of the party as a handful of goblins jump out from the bushes on either side of the road. They are small, about hip-height for most of your characters except for Alvyn, and have yellow skin and angry red eyes. Three of them are waving scimitars around, and two are carrying shortbows. If you wait a moment, I’ll give you a visual.”

She goes to the living room, where she has the appropriate map with the five goblin miniature carefully placed on it already waiting on the coffee table, and carefully carries it into the dining room. With some flourish she removes the protective sheet that was draped over it and everyone—except Regina—gasps in delight.

“I also have your minis right here,” she says, handing everyone but Shane their personalized mini. “I didn’t know exactly how you wanted your characters to look like, so it’s not a perfect fit, but it’s close enough I think.” She looks to Shane. “You didn’t happen to bring Oznok’s mini, did you?”

Shane shakes his head. “We played theater of the mind most of the time.”

Janis pictures her collection of miniatures that she has upstairs. “I think I have a dwarf upstairs in my room, if you want. It’s unpainted, though.”

“That’d be awesome,” Shane grins.

“Can I come with?” Cady asks, already getting up from her seat, leaving behind a very grumpy looking Regina who immediately pulls out her phone to emphasize her disinterest in the current company.

Janis shrugs. “Sure.”

Cady smiles and trails up the stairs behind her, barely waiting until they’ve entered Janis’s bedroom before bursting out, “Are you having fun?”

“Yes?”

Cady sits down on Janis’s bed. “Regina was worried about coming here today.”

Oh Jesus.

Janis looks up from where she’s digging into a box that contains multiple smaller boxes with unpainted minis. “Caddy, I really don’t want to talk about Regina right now.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” Cady says, very unconvincingly.

One of the boxes has a bunch of animal minis. Janis tosses it at Cady. “For your wildshapes. I forgot to grab them earlier.” A lie. There is a fully painted custom lion mini sitting downstairs behind the DM screen.

Cady studies the box with a frown, not nearly as delighted nor distracted as Janis hoped she would be.

“What?”

“She’s doing her best, you know?”

Janis crosses her arms over her chest. “She’s either on her phone or making rude comments about the game. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be here.”

“She doesn’t,” Cady admits. “But that’s exactly what I mean. She is uncomfortable being here, yet she did show up. Isn’t that something?”

“What do you want me to say, Cady? You invited her and now she’s here. For you, clearly, not for me. And that’s fine. We both have other friends. We don’t need to braid each other’s hair at sleepovers.”

Cady’s shoulders sag at that. “I want you to be, though.”

“Which is why I haven’t kicked her out of my house yet,” Janis says, slowly, considering every word before saying it. “It would be nice if you could see that I’m also making an effort.”

“I do! And I appreciate it! Regina does, too. It’s—” Cady gestures wildly in the air. “Complicated.”

“I am aware.”

Cady pouts, which does nothing to Janis. She’s trying out this new thing where she doesn’t let other people’s actions affect her as much. It’s going great so far.

“Can we go back to the game now? I prepped for a three hour session with a pizza break and if we stay up here to psychoanalyze my relationship with Regina I painted all these minis for nothing.”

“Fine,” Cady relents. Then she softens. “I really am having fun. Thank you for setting it all up.”

Janis gives her a smile. “You’re welcome. Maybe killing Regina’s character will be therapeutic.”

“Janis.”

Janis laughs. “You’re so easily fooled, Caddy.” She pulls a serious face and places her hand over her heart. “I promise I won’t kill her on purpose.”

When they come back downstairs, Regina glares at the two of them and only stops when Cady shows her the animal minis with a big grin on her face.

Something strange is going on and Janis can’t quite put her finger on what, but she is determined to find out.

She hands Shane his dwarf mini, and he places it on the map near one of the dead horses. “Now it is time to roll initiative and get the first combat started. What you’ll want to do is to roll your d20 and add your initiative modifier to that number, then let me know what your total result is.”

Everybody spends a second trying to figure out which dice is the d20, then rolling it and shouting their results all at once.

Janis sighs. “Okay, let’s go around the table and everyone say what their initiative is. Caddy?”

One by one, she adds everybody on the appropriate place in the initiative order, using a standardized method to add the goblins in to make the combat easier on herself. Normally she prefers to roll for each monster manually, but this combat is plenty of work already without the added stress of having to keep such a strict eye on the initiative as well.

“Okay, so that is Rania, Karen, Oznok, Hope, and finally Suzan.”

Regina almost looks pissed at being the one last in the initiative order, but that would mean she cares about the game in any capacity, so clearly it just looks that way.

“Rania, it is your turn first. A bunch of goblins are storming your way. What would you like to do about it?” Janis continues, standing up out of her seat to point at the goblin minis a couple of squares on the map away from Rania.

Cady glances down at her character sheet. “What are my options?”

“Typically on your turn you can do three things: one big thing called your Action, a smaller thing called your Bonus Action, and you can move up to your maximum walking speed. In your case that is thirty feet, and each square is five by five.” Janis points at the spell list on the second sheet Cady has in front of her. “Here it says 1A or 1BA to indicate Action and Bonus Action for each of your spells. And here is the amount of spell slots you have left. Each time you cast a spell you mark one of your spell slots, except for cantrips.”

Cady studies her spell list for a moment, then looks at the map, clearly counting the squares. “I want to cast Entangle in this square,” she points at it on the map, “so that all the goblins attacking us get stuck.”

Shane whoops and holds his fist out for a fist bump, which Cady returns with a grin.

“That’s a good use of that spell,” Janis smiles, marking the area that is now Entangled on the map with a clear piece of plastic that measures out a twenty by twenty feet square. “As Rania says the words to her spell and performs her somatic component, plants sprout magically all over the place, making the area difficult terrain for everyone within a twenty feet square.”

“What does that mean?” Cady asks.

“Movement inside this square is reduced by half. So to move one square costs ten feet of movement instead of five.”

“Does that also count for Oznok?” Cady points at where Oznok is standing amidst the goblins.

“Yes, if he fails his saving throw,” Janis confirms. She rolls some dice to check if any of the goblins make their saves—which none of them do because they have a Strength of 8.

“Which I did,” Shane informs her. “Unless your save DC is a 6.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Janis doesn’t need to look at Cady’s sheet to know this. “It’s not.”

Cady’s face falls. “Oh. So he’s stuck with the goblins?”

“No biggie,” Shane grins. “I’m just going to hit them with my hammer anyway and I need to be next to them for that.”

Cady doesn’t look convinced, but what’s done is done. “Okay, well, I don’t have any spells that say Bonus Action, so I guess I’ll just walk closer to the others so I can heal them if they get hurt.” She points at the cluster of minis where Hope, Suzan, and Alvyn are standing.

Janis moves her mini, then turns to Karen, who looks like she never had a thought in her entire life. “Your options are a bit less complicated. Basically you can use a feature called Rage, which makes it easier for you to hurt others and harder for you to get hurt, and you can try to hit one of the goblins with your greatsword.”

“I think I do that?” Karen says, sounding extremely confused and unconvinced of the words coming out of her mouth.

But Janis can’t make her explanation more straight forward than this, and she learned that with Karen it’s usually best to just move along. At some point it will either click for her or it won’t, and there is not really a consistency in how her brain chooses to retain certain information.

“Alright, so you want your character to get in a square next to one of the goblins.” Janis counts out the best path and when Karen the Barbarian steps into the area that is Entangled she says, “Can you roll your d20 for me and tell me what the number is?”

Shane picks up Karen’s d20 and hands it to her. “This one, mate,” he says in his annoyingly bad Scottish accent.

Regina rolls her eyes and finishes Cady’s drink.

“That’s an eighteen,” Karen says.

Janis nods and continues to move Karen the Barbarian closer to the goblins until she’s right next to one. “Now roll it again.”

“Fifteen.”

“Plus six,” Shane adds.

Janis gives him a thankful smile. If somebody had told her a year ago that she would be running a game of D&D where Shane Oman of all people was the one to help Karen Shetty figure out how to play, she would’ve told them to go fuck themselves. Hell, if someone had told her this yesterday she would’ve laughed in their face. “Okay, so that hits. Can you roll 2d6? That’s the normal shaped ones.”

“A three and a two,” Karen says, looking like she’s having the time of her life despite rolling badly on the damage dice.

Janis marks down one of the goblins as mortally wounded in her notes. “Cool, so let’s say that Karen the Barbarian runs forward while drawing her greatsword, yelling out a battle cry as she becomes enraged with these goblins that dare attack her friends. She swings her sword at one of them, gravely injuring them. Blood spurts everywhere and Karen the Barbarian looks super cool as this defensive force to be reckoned with.”

Karen looks delighted at this description. “Is he dead?”

“Not yet, but almost.”

“Can I hit him again?”

Janis shakes her head. “You Raged, which is your Bonus Action, then you ran forward with all your movement, and attacked with your Action. That is all you can do in this turn, so now it is the goblins’ turn.”

She quickly describes how the goblins seem to be angered by their friend getting cut down by Karen the Barbarian, each of them turning to one of the party members to attack them. She rolls her attacks and has all the players mark down the hit points they lose—one slightly beefed up goblin per player character. It leaves Hope, with her low wizard HP, balancing on the thread of life, which has Gretchen looking like she’s both going to be sick and like she never felt more alive.

After the goblins’ turn it’s Shane’s turn, who cuts down the goblin that Karen the Barbarian almost killed. Gretchen casts Mage Armor on herself and then ends her turn because she doesn’t have any cantrips that are a Bonus Action. Janis is actually impressed by the level of knowledge she has about a game she never actually played, but it makes sense within the context of her whole… state of existence. Damian casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on one of the goblins with the worst joke imaginable, [insert joke here], which has everybody trying—and failing—to one-up it.

And then it’s Regina’s turn. Regina, who only maybe half-paid attention during Cady’s turn and then started scrolling TikTok during everyone else’s, and who has not even glanced at her character sheet once. If this is her doing her best, Janis would hate to see what Regina’s worst looks like.

“Suzan, it is your turn next,” Janis says.

Regina doesn’t reply.

“Regina.” Janis’s voice sounds sharper than she intended, but it does get Regina to snap up from looking at her phone. “What does Suzan want to do?”

For one second, Regina looks annoyed. Then she smooths her face back into indifference and shrugs. “Kill someone I guess?”

“You’re a cleric,” Janis says. “Half your party is wounded.”

“Isn’t this game all about doing whatever the fuck you want?”

“Remember you can cast Guiding Bolt,” Cady says. “Then you stay at a safe distance from the goblins and still kill someone.”

Regina shrugs. “Sure.”

“There is an enemy within five feet of you, so you would have disadvantage if you did that,” Janis says, gesturing at the goblin right next to Suzan.

Regina stares at her with icy blue eyes. “Funny how this rule only came up when I tried to do something.”

“It’s a real rule,” Janis shrugs. “You can look it up in the PHB if you don’t trust me.”

Gretchen hands Regina the book and Regina starts thumbing through it. While she does so, Janis gives Cady a look that makes Cady shrink in her seat, but she doesn’t interfere any more.

With a sigh, Janis takes her own copy of the PHB and easily locates the rule under the Ranged Attacks section. “It’s on page 195.”

At least Regina is a fast reader and a quick thinker. “It says here I also have a mace? Can I just kill this goblin with that?”

Gretchen, who apparently fruitlessly hoped that Regina would heal her, lets out a soft squeak that nobody reacts to.

“Sure,” Janis shrugs. “Go ahead and roll your attack.”

Regina rolls a Nat 20.

Shane jumps out of his seat with an excited shout, Cady gives Regina a hug, and Damian snaps his fingers at her like he has any idea what just happened.

So Regina kills the goblin with her mace in one fell swoop, even though he was at full health and she is playing a full spellcaster.

Janis really doesn’t know why she is still surprised.

At least Regina has the decency to look somewhat excited about this turn of events. She smiles back at Cady beaming at her, looking uncharacteristically shy under her excited gaze, and rolls her eyes when Shane goes in for a fist bump but doesn’t leave him hanging. She even copies his exploding gesture.

After that, combat continues. Properly balancing D&D combat is notoriously difficult, but Janis refuses to fudge any dice, even if it is just to make things more exciting. That does mean her combat turns out a little more dangerous than she anticipated—partly because Regina refuses to use any of her healing spells.

Then Hope, a typical glass cannon, goes down and has to start rolling death saves. Gretchen looks so pale when it gets to her turn and her d20 lands on a six that Janis actually reconsiders her stance on dice fudging for a moment.

Gretchen desperately looks at Regina to save her, but she’s busy reading Cady’s entire character sheet like it’s the newspaper. Janis regrets giving only the cleric and the druid healing spells, going for a more utility focused build for Damian’s bard.

Regina, however, uses her turn to cast Guiding Bolt, blasting another goblin to pieces with a wide grin that betrays that she might actually be having fun with this stupid nerd game as long as she gets to kill something.

“That brings us back to the top of the initiative order. Rania, what is your next move?”

“I want to cast Healing Word on Hope,” Cady says, already marking her spell slot for it. “I can do that, right? Even though I’m not a cleric.”

On Janis’s right, Gretchen lets out what must be the biggest breath of relief anyone has ever sighed over a one-shot character. She looks like she’s about to fall to her knees and kiss Cady’s feet, so Janis quickly nods. “Of course. If it’s on your character sheet, you can do it.”

“I want grass to shoot up from the ground and wrap itself around Hope, magically glowing as it heals all her wounds,” Cady narrates.

“Obviously not all her wounds if it only heals her for a d4,” Regina comments..

Cady ignores her. “The grass looks like a woven bandaid on Hope’s skin.”

“Thank you, Cady,” Gretchen says. “You literally just saved my life.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “Does anybody want another white claw?”

Shane, Damian, Karen, and, frankly, Janis, stick up their hands.

“Don’t stop on my account, it’s not my turn for ages.” Regina gets up and goes into the kitchen. Normally Janis wouldn’t trust her by herself in the same space that also holds a small collection of various knives, but all Regina has done so far is being rude.

Combat continues, and after Karen’s turn it’s back to the goblins. Janis has two goblins left standing and she has to think strategically. They might not be smart, but anyone can figure out that to stop the hurt people from being healed is by taking down the healer… which in this case happens to be Cady.

And unfortunately for her, both goblins hit—hard.

Janis is just narrating how Rania goes unconscious from an arrow piercing her armor when Regina comes back with the white claws.

She looks at Cady, who is sitting back in her chair with a defeated look on her face. “What? What did I miss?”

“I’m dead,” Cady says dramatically.

“Rania went down,” Shane clarifies. “Arrow to the chest like—” He acts out being shot and goes limp in his chair.

Regina’s eyes widen. “What the fuck, Janis?”

Janis puts up her hands. “I don’t control the dice.”

“You’re literally running the game,” Regina exclaims. “You could’ve attacked anyone and you attack the girl that spends her spare time running around like a literal squirrel?”

Janis shrugs. “I’m just being fair.”

“Gi, it’s fine,” Cady says, putting her hand on Regina’s arm. “You can just heal me when it’s your turn.”

The moment Cady touches her, Regina relaxes. They look at each other for a moment, and then Regina nods.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

Across the table, Gretchen looks like her head is about to pop off, Shane is grinning like an idiot at them, and Damian makes eye-contact with Janis mouthing what the fuck?!

Janis looks from him to Cady and Regina. Cady’s hand is still on Regina’s arm, her thumb rubbing small circles on her skin.

Well.

Shit.

Suddenly it all makes sense.

Janis knew Regina had a soft spot for Cady (and vice versa, obviously) and that they spent a lot of time together over the summer while Regina was pretty much bed bound, but she didn’t know they the time they spent together was like that.

Oh god. That’s disgusting.

Janis has a sudden urge to pour bleach into her eyes to rid herself of the mental image that train of thought conjured.

Damian has pulled out his phone, his thumbs flying over the screen, undoubtedly texting Janis in the least subtle way possible.

But Janis doesn’t yet know how to feel about this situation (other than disgust), so she ignores him when her phone lights up with his texts.

Her savior, once again, is Shane. He clears his throat and shouts, “For Rania!” in that stupid fake accent of his, and rolls his attack against the goblin that just shot Rania with the shortbow. It hits and the goblin dies instantly.

Then he Action Surges to kill the final goblin, rolling unnecessarily high damage on his dice.

“Oznok, how do you want to do this?” Janis asks, grateful that the combat is finally over. It only took a real life hour, but she feels like all four hours she carved out for this session have passed.

“I take my hammer and throw it across the map to the final goblin that’s looming over Rania, hitting him right in the back of his head, and his brains spill everywhere,” Shane narrates, unfortunately using his accent the whole time. If they play another session together sometime, Janis really needs to talk to him about that. She’s pretty sure some Scottish people would be offended if they heard him.

“That’s a cool visual,” she says instead, even though Shane technically moved his character and didn’t actually throw his hammer like he narrated. It’s not like it really matters at this point. “And with that, the combat is over. There are five dead goblins scattered all around the battlefield, and Rania’s unconscious form is sprawled out in the grass. Suzan, you said you were going to heal her?”

“Yes,” Regina nods. “I want to cast Cure Wounds at third level. That heals her more hit points, right?”

“It could get her back to full health.”

“Then I do that.” Regina marks off her spell slot and Cady acts out being revived from the dead, complete with gasping for air and everything. She presses her hand to her forehead and pretends to swoon at Regina. “You are my hero.”

Regina pokes her with her finger. “You’re insane.”

Cady grins, and Regina smiles back.

Shane clears his throat. “So, is there anything to loot off of these dead guys?”

/

After the session, Cady stays to help Janis clean up, and Janis is proud to say that she doesn’t crack until they’ve finished packing away all the terrain pieces she used to make the maps.

“So when were you going to tell me that you and Regina are fucking?”

Cady freezes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lies in the most unconvincing way possible, her face going fully red.

“Don’t lie to me, Caddy.”

Cady looks down her hands, suddenly very interested in her chipped nailpolish. “We’re not… doing that,” followed by the quietest “yet” Janis has barely heard in her entire life.

Janis snorts. “Okay, well, you’re doing something.”

Cady is quiet for a moment, sinking down on Janis’s bed. “Are you mad?”

Is she mad? This whole situation is so complicated.

“I don’t know,” Janis admits. “It’s not like I thought Regina was straight or anything, and I guess it makes sense that she’s being gay with you, but it’s not… great? She did ruin my life over basically this exact thing.”

“We ruined hers, too.”

“I know that.”

Cady shrugs. “I didn’t intend for anything to happen.” She takes a deep breath. “She doesn’t want anyone to know yet. She only told me and Shane.”

Janis sits down next to Cady, trying to sound like she’s happy for her. “Are you happy? Is she treating you well?”

“Yes,” Cady says immediately. Her eyes twinkle for a moment, then she hunches her shoulders again. “Sorry.”

“Whatever. It’s not like I can stop you from wanting to kiss Regina. At least she has the decency to want to kiss you, too, I guess.”

Cady blushes again at that.

It’s cute, kind of.

Ugh.

“Damian knows, too,” Janis says. “We figured it out at the same time just now.”

“That explains why he said he would take me for a manipedi soon, I guess.” Cady sounds flustered, but also a little too excited at the prospect of—

“Well,” Janis says, too tired to have this conversation now. It’s not like her opinion is going to change anything anyway. “I guess that’s that. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Cady smiles and wraps her arms around Janis. “Thank you.”

“I did almost kill you today.” Janis pats Cady’s arm. “Gotta repent for that, otherwise your dragon will come to abduct me and lock me in a tower until a brave knight comes to save me.”

“Stop calling my girlfriend a dragon.”

“I will, as soon as she stops acting like one.”

Cady shoves Janis’s shoulder. “I’m excited for the next session, though.”

“I wasn’t aware there would be a next session?”

“We still need to find out what the goblins were hiding in their cave!”

Janis laughs. “You already explored the whole place.”

“Oh,” Cady sighs forlornly. “I was hoping there’d be some kind of hidden trap door or something like that.”

Janis thinks back to the map of the cave she drew. There could be a trap door in one of the rooms, probably. She just has to figure out where it would lead, and if there is a bigger overarching plot it could all tie back to…

She sighs. “I’ll think about it.”

/

Cady: I finally got my American driver’s license! Who wants to carpool to Janis’s house for D&D tonight?

Regina: i have PT shane can u pls pick her up so I don’t end up widowed

Shane: you got it babe

Janis: dont forget your dice this time shane!!

Shane: yes ma’am dm ma’am 🫡

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