Alex: So, you’ve looked through the Players Handbook. What kind of character are you thinking of?
Mette: A cleric, I think. Kind. Supportive. Helpful for others.
Alex: Huh.
Mette: And a half-elf. Everyone loves half-elves.
Alex: And what if you weren’t trying to be who you are in life? What if you could choose –
Mette: Tiefling Rogue Assassin.
Alex: – and maybe I didn’t want to know that.
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Alex: So, you’ve looked through the Players Handbook. What kind of character are you –
Roddy: Monk multi-class with Rogue. Death on two feet, no gear needed, shock and awe, baby.
Alex: Maybe try and go a little bit against type?
Roddy: Gnome Wizard.
Alex: Okay –
Roddy: High Elvish Druid.
Alex: Or –
Roddy: Dwarvish Warlock.
Alex: Now you’re just –
Roddy: I’ve already figured out min-maxes for all races / sub-races / classes / sub-classes, in each combination. The only problem is that I’ll advance in experience at 37.5% faster a rate than –
Alex: I have a pre-gen. You’ll use it and like it.
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Alex: So, you’ve looked through the Players Handbook. What kind of character are you thinking of?
Kiln: I’ve been a fighter, a savage outlander, been an enforcer for Della of the Hard Chamber, served my turn as an acolyte of the Three Temples, and sworn my soul to the demon Vel’kat (though only so that I could destroy him). I’ve studied the scrolls of the Seven Sages, infiltrated the treasure houses of the Screaming Lions, done my duty in the sacred Groves of Samakee –
Alex: Multi-classing that many directions is going to be kind of weird.
Kiln: You don’t get it. I’m really not sure this game offers me any new experiences.
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Alex: So maybe the solution is to have someone else DM. I mean, I suppose I can roll up a character myself – Human, maybe a Sor–
Joey: Nope. You have to be DM.
Mette: You are capable of managing many scenarios.
Kiln: You are not bound to any preconceived notions of race, or gender, or any true path of proper behavior.
Roddy: You’re imaginative, and you have some awesome support tech to create a sweet full-surround simulation for the game.
Joey: Also, you’re sneaky and both arguably out to get us and also interested in our finding our potential, which makes you the perfect DM.
Alex: Okay … you’re not wrong.
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Alex: THIS DOESN’T MAKE ME TEAM LEADER THOUGH!
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Joey: We await your description of the scenario.
Mette: We trust to your wisdom.
Kiln: May the genius of the moment inspire you.
Roddy: Dude, action already!
Alex: Goddammit.
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Tahi: I think I have figured out the details of this ritual
Tahi: here’s what I have conjured
Alex: okay, you’ve almost got it. This is the right Evil Kermit meme, but you have the captions reversed
Tahi: I will restart the ritual and perform it properly this time
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Tahi: this magic is interesting
Kiln: do not use its power lightly
Tahi: oh? What are the risks?
Kiln: you might be downvoted
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Alex: okay, the location of the next temple has been found!
Joey: let’s go!
Kiln: its secrets await
Mette: finally some answers
Alex: it’s in Antarctica
Joey, Mette, Kiln: uh…
Roddy: cool!
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Joey: Wait, the temple is in Antarctica?
Alex: Yup. Found via deep-penetrating radar by special military satellites I, uh, borrowed.
Joey: Part of some vast, under-the-ice city complex?
Alex: Appears so.
Joey: (Glancing at Mette) Yyyeah, I think I’ve heard this story before. It always ends really weird and uncomfortable.
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Alex: undead stag monsters, stone guardians, swole butterflies. You guys?
AEGIS Agent #12: rampaging super-voles created by a mad scientist in a capybara’s body
AEGIS Agent #79: haunted bowling alley, the C-list villain Acid Reflux, demonic idol singers
Manager: fine fine I get it, I’ll expense lunch for you all
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Alex: Joey, I know you’re my friend, and that we are part of a team – even, in some ways, family.
Joey: Well, yeah.
Alex: And I realize social behaviors are instinctive for you, that you just do them casually, without giving them any thought.
Joey: Uh-oh.
Alex: Just trying to say … grooming behavior makes me very uncomfortable.
Joey: (Stops searching Alex’ hair for nits) Godammit.
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Alex: if you want to help me “de-bug” that badly, start reading up on Rust’s borrow checker and struct data types
Joey: I have no idea what that means
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Alex: huh, the monitoring on Mette has been broken for weeks. Shit, I should fix this
(Hours later)
Alex: jeez, just in time, she’s in a conversation with a flagged hostile
Jillian: (via monitoring) --so then I told her about this new beauty cream I saw on insta, but she said that girl was fake, so I said honey you’re fake, and then she got mad, so then her boyfriend came over, and I told him that she’d kissed–
Alex: (breaks the equipment)
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Alex: So how you feeling, big guy?
Joey: What?
Alex: About your whole existential crisis. You know, temples and gorilla bodies and dying and all that?
Joey: Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I’d kinda forgotten.
Alex: Forgotten? We haven’t even rejoined the others yet. It’s been, what, fifteen minutes?
Joey: Feels like it’s been weeks.
Alex: Feels like – wait, are you going all meta on me?
Joey: (Looks at reader) Weeks.
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Mette: Where did you get the idea to provoke the eldritch moose?
Roddy: I bull fight all the time!
Roddy, turning to Joey: Hey, ready for some more sparring?
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The rest of the team, asked to explain their understanding of technology:
Alex: please let me die
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Roddy: Did all the animals in your time look like that moose?
Kiln: Of course not. How ridiculous.
Roddy: Haha of course.
Kiln: Most of them shot out yellow beams of light, not red beams.
Roddy: …oh
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Roddy: Were they at least smaller? A bit less… dinosaur sized?
Kiln: Sure there were smaller creatures.
Roddy: Oh good
Kiln: The mosquitoes and other bugs are about the same size as us!
Roddy: …
Kiln: Trust me, you do not want to get bit by one of them.
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Tahi: My temple is gone. My home for millennia. My sole purpose in life. Reduced to dust.
Tahi: With this gone, I have no reason to go on.
Kiln: Don’t worry. I have an idea to give you purpose again.
The next day…
Tahi: Hello class, I am your new philosophy professor.
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