The Collaring of Chloe

Chapter 32: To the Rescue

"I feel this is coming out of nowhere. I mean there wasn't any sort of build-up to you having this whole break-up thing with her."

"It should just be implied that there was a lot of stuff that just happened 'out of scene'. I mean, I've had a few occasions where my character has expressed concerns with things before now, they just didn't really get elaborated on."

"I just think something like this should have better build up; which shouldn't happen 'out of scene'."

"Well, if you ask me, I'm pretty sure this whole sudden break-up is due to a certain new female character that's been introduced. Not that she seems to be listening..."

"..."

"...snort"

It took a moment for Chloe to notice that no one was saying anything and look up from where she was struggling to make sense of the rulebook she was reading. When she did, she found everyone around the table staring at her with an amused expression. Everyone except for Evan, at least, who seemed to be putting far more focus than necessary into editing something on the sheet for his character, a faint blush of scarlet spreading across his cheeks.

"Did I miss something?" She asked, trying to mentally 'rewind' the last few moments of what people were saying. When the question produced considerable laughter from the others, even a chuckle from Evan, she felt pretty sure she definitely had. She'd been trying so hard to follow some of the stuff in this manual, which read like one of her college algebra books in places, that she hadn't really been listening.

"Evan's removing his DNPC." Xander explained, tilting his head towards Evan, who appeared done with making his change, but was now exaggeratedly reading over his character sheet for anything else that needed attention, pointedly not looking at anyone.

"Oh. Uh, okay." Chloe said foggily before asking. "What was that again?" She flipped through a few pages confusedly, trying to find that power in the descriptions section.

"It's basically his character's 'Lois Lane'." Holly explained. "DNPC stands for Dependent Non-Player Character. He's wanting to say that they had some huge fight and realized that they needed to move on from each other. But doesn't want to actually play out the event." She gave a playful roll of her eyes. "He's wanting to replace it with a 'mystery disadvantage'. In other words: To Be Decided Later."

"More 'For the DM to spring on you later'." Zane said with a somewhat evil-sounding laugh. He was the one running the game, so she, at least, understood that the 'DM' was him.

Chloe nodded slowly, not fully understanding, but enough to not be completely lost. "And he's not allowed to? Or is that just problematic?"

"He can do it, if he wants." Zane answered, giving a shrug. "The truth is, she didn't really add a lot to the campaign and was hard to work into plots as an 'international supermodel'. Even harder to constantly come up with reasons why she would even be in the campaign city." He gave a dismissive gesture. "Ultimately, it's not that big of a change for the character. She was never that much of a disadvantage for him or too significant in the campaign as a whole."

"Buts, I likeded Nicoletta St. Angelica." Mittens pouted. "Who's Wonderfluff gonna accidently insult now?"

Holly gave a little giggle. "I suppose that could play into why they broke up. Thunderstrike never did really do much to help that."

"I would have him try to smooth things over." Evan countered, oddly seeming a little wounded by the accusation.

"No, you had him always defending Wonderfluff as 'just not understanding'." Holly countered back. "If she was a real girl, she would have gotten even more upset that you were taking the side of an alien fuzzball over your own girlfriend."