Dungeons & Disappointment

Chapter One: Humble Beginnings

"NAT 20 BABY!!!!" I yelled in triumph, punching my hands straight up into the air.

All my friends cheered as our DM laughed to himself, and I looked to him for the result of the amazing roll.

"Alright Henry, what's your master plan?" I asked. "Tell me about the Nat 20!!!"

Henry, our DM, sighed and sat up, his face bright pink from laughter. He set his hands on the desk, and his eyes fell on the miniature statue of the ogre that we were fighting.

"That Ogre is fucking dead." He muttered. "Alright, roll two D12 of damage."

I rolled my twelve-sided die twice, and I came up with a seven and a ten, plus three for my weapon.

"20 slashing damage!!" I said. "What about now? Is that ogre still there?"

"Nope, you drive your axe STRAIGHT across the ogre's neck, and he falls over, dead at your feet. Thanks for killing my level one ogre in two shots."

"Well, shouldn't have given me that axe!" I said. "Did WAY too much damage."

I looked around at all of my friends, and truthfully, I was really happy to see them again. It had been a long while since we played D&D, but finally, after a long, and I do mean long, day of school, we finally got the time to get together and continued our campaign. Our DM Henry was the leader of the friend group, followed by Ron, our Sorcerer, James the cleric, Hannah the rogue, and me, Trevon, the fighter. I would always take the hits like a tank and let the rest of the party pile on the damage. However, now, it was completely different as I had single handily taken down the ogre with a critical hit. All of us cheered yet again as Henry took the statue of the ogre off the table, and rubbed his eyes yet again.

"Alright guys, we've been playing for about three hours now. Wanna have a break tonight and pick it up tomorrow?"

"Sure thing, Henry," I said as the rest of the group started to nod their heads in unison. "I guess I beat that ogre."

He gave me a small laugh, and we all began to pack up, putting our notebooks and pencils in our bags and putting our dice away as Henry packed away the board and figurines.

"Ya know, I would have shot the ogre to distract him, but I guess you had that handled, huh?" Ron said.

"Yeah, nothing like a little bit of good ol swords in the throat," I replied.

All of us got up from the table, then, everyone except for Henry began to make our way through the house and into the foyer, where his mother and father were sitting on the couch and watching TV.

"Hey, kids." They said. "How's it going?"

"It going great! We just gotta go 'cause we got school tomorrow." Ron said.

"Yeah, and it's already late, " Hannah added. "But thanks for letting us come over today!"

"Oh, not a problem!!" Henry's mother said. "You guys are welcome over here anytime!"

"Thanks! We'll probably be back tomorrow!" I said.

"Alright then! Have a safe night kids!"

"You too!" I replied, then opened the front door and held it open for the rest of my friends.

Everyone slowly left Henry's house, and when they did, I shut and locked the door behind me, and I turned back to my friends, enjoying the crisp, nighttime breeze that was blowing through the air. It was deep in the dead of night, and all of us were tired, but thankfully, our houses were just around the corner. Not a super long walk, and I knew that we were all hungry when I spotted a Mcdonald's down the street, and I got a good idea.

"Hey guys, how about we stop through Mcdonald's quick? Grab a burger or something?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!!" Hannah said. "I got a bit of money on me!"

"Oh good!" I said. "If you and Ron want something, James, I can get you something."

"Wait, how about we all get nuggets?" James suggested. "Just one of those big boxes of nuggets, and we can split the thing?"

"Sure!" I said.

We all slowly made our way over to the Mcdonald's, the large Golden Arches glowing against the nighttime sky. The lights flickered a little bit, and as I was watching, rather entranced by the flickering neon lights, I didn't notice when Hannah came up to me, matching my stride.

"Sooooo, how's it going at school, Trev?"

"Huh? Oh, it's alright." I said, wiping my hand through my short hair. "I mean, calculus was alright yesterday, but it was pretty fun in science."

"I know right?!?" She exclaimed. "Dude, that egg race was awesome!"

"Yeah, it was, but my egg busted, and that wasn't that good."

"Well, what was your grade on it?"

"Probably gonna be a C or so," I said. "But that's fine for now."

"Not gonna affect your overall grade that much?"

"Probably not. I have a B in that class, and A's in the rest of them. I'll be fine, trust me."

"Well, that's good." She said as we walked into the McDonald's parking lot. "As long as it doesn't destroy your grade, that's what matters."