'everyone lived' au!
MAX HAD BEEN SPOT-ON when she compared the Wheeler basement to an armpit. Val had barely even stepped foot in the room before she was gagging and retching at the stench of fourteen-year-old boy that had accumulated for so long in the basement.
"God, why do we have to play here?" she asked, pinching her nose. "This place smells worse than when Eddie takes off his shoes."
"Hey." Eddie scrunched up his face. "You told me they didn't smell."
"Girlfriends lie," Eleven said, nodding very seriously. "That is what Max says."
"No, I said boyfriends lie," Max corrected. She looked to Val and squinted her eyes suspiciously, then nodded. "But yeah, I guess some girlfriends lie."
"Mason wouldn't know," Val said, sticking her tongue out at her brother.
He mirrored the action, scrunching his nose up. "Can we just start the game now? The faster we start, the faster we finish, the faster we get out of this basement."
"Do you know how long D&D campaigns take?" Dustin asked. "We could be here for ten hours. Maybe more. Hope you brought snacks."
Lucas looked to Mason, smiling. "Still want to tag along?"
Mason shifted between his feet and shrugged, a smirk on his face. "Val's kinda paying me to be here, so..."
"Can we just get started?" Will asked, a rare outburst Val had never seen from the boy. Everybody looked to him, shocked, and he shrugged sheepishly. "I mean, if you guys.. want.. to...."
Even after Eddie's extensive lessons and classes on how to play D&D, Val still wasn't sure exactly what she was doing as she sat around a table and stared at a bundle of dice. At first, when she saw the dice, she was sure hers had been misprinted or was a faulty piece, so she tried to turn it in to the 'Dungeon Master' (stupid way of referring to Eddie), but he just scoffed at her and asked if she had even been paying attention at all during his lessons. (She hadn't.)
After around an hour, Val was almost dumb enough to think maybe she was starting to catch on. But every time she thought she understood what was going on, Eddie would throw out some sort of action figure from behind his privacy folder, and everybody else would groan in defeat. When this kind of thing happened, Val just looked at Mason, and they shared a blank stare.
Val wasn't even sure what they were trying to defeat, honestly. But once the big monster that they had been teaming up against had his minions pointing their swords at both Mason's character and Max's character's throats, Val's character was forced to either save just one of them, or sacrifice herself and save both of them. At least, that was what she was told by Eddie, out-of-character, when she asked what was going on.
"It's a tough decision," he told her. "Feel free to take your time. Or don't, since your friends could die."
"Jesus, that's a lot of pressure," Dustin said, leaning forward in his seat. "Seems like you're pretty tied up there, Val. Sorry 'bout that."
"Don't be sorry," Eddie said. "She likes it more than you'd think."
"Okay!" Val shouted, drowning out the rest of Eddie's sentence and ignoring the looks of surprise from the others. "I'm going to.. sacrifice myself. Actually, wait—can I cast blood curses yet, Eddie?"
"Let's see.." Eddie checked his notepad—of which was filled with pointless doodles and unintelligible scribbles that nobody could read except him—then looked up and offered her a cheeky smile. "Signs point to yes. But..."
Val leaned forward, raising her eyebrows. "But what?"
"You could miss," Mike explained. He sounded like a know-it-all. Val hid a glare as he continued. "And that would mean all three of you would die. But if you hit him with enough power, all of you can live."
"So it's just based on what she rolls?" Mason scrunched up his face. "That's so stupid."
"You have a sword to your throat," Eddie told him. "I wouldn't be speaking right now, Sir Tighty-Whitey."
Mason groaned and dropped his head on the table as everybody began to laugh at his name once again. He didn't even have it in him to defend himself anymore. All he could do was blame it on Erica, who had filled out his character sheet without his supervision. Sir Tighty-Whitey was a level two goblin with vomit-green skin and pointy ears that lit themselves on fire when he got excited.
"Lady Goth Chick," Eddie said, turning back to Val, "it is your choice if you want to roll for a blood curse or not. You could just sacrifice yourself, and Tighty-Whitey and Red would live."
"We have a Mage," Dustin pointed out. "Couldn't she help?"
"I do not want to help," El said.
"Oh, great," Val said. "Thanks, Supergirl."
"You're welcome," El said, smiling, oblivious to the sarcasm in Val's tone. She nodded on Val encouragingly. "I want to see the blood curse."
"Yeah, I do too," Lucas agreed, leaning forward challengingly. "I wanna know if she can even cast one."
"Well, let her roll and we'll find out," Max said, sticking her tongue out at Lucas. She turned to Val, raising her eyebrows. "That's your cue, Lady Goth Chick."
Val bit the inside of her cheeks, eyes downcast in thought as she compared her options. Luck had not been on her side when it came to previous rolls; ones and twos were were staple rolls in her past turns. Nevertheless, she picked up one of her dice and looked to Eddie for confirmation.
"I'd like to cast a blood curse of the fallen puppet. On the dead hobgoblin."
Eddie broke into a grin.
"Master of Puppets style blood curse," he said appraisingly, nodding his head. "Pretty badass for you, Val, but go ahead and roll for ability."
She shook the die around in her palm, exhaling a huff of air. Her brows were furrowed in concentration as she threw the die out in front of her. It wobbled around precariously, then slowed to a stop on the side labeled with eighteen. She laughed out of pure disbelief, looking back to Eddie.
"Again, signs point to yes," Eddie said, grinning. "Congratulations on your first acceptable roll."
"Thank you, thank you," Val said, nodding in acknowledgment as the others began to clap haughtily for her. "So, I hit him?"
"Roll again," Eddie intstructer. He watched intently as her die rolled to a stop at a sixteen, and clapped once, pointing to her. "Great roll. You cast a blood curse of the fallen puppet on the dead hobgoblin, using it as a deadly projectile to pummel the firbolgs holding your friends into the ground. Sir Tighty-Whitey and Red are free!"
"Oh, and hallelujah for that," Mason muttered to himself.
"So.. we won?" Val asked, turning back to Eddie.
Eddie scoffed like it should've been obvious. "Come on, Val. We're nowhere near winning yet. That wasn't even the boss—it was his first rank of protection. There's six more to defeat."
"Okay, yeah, no." Mason stood from his chair suddenly, shaking his head. "Nope, no. I'm leaving. Bye."
After he had gone all the way up the stairs and the front door could be faintly heard slamming shut behind him, everybody sat in silence, sharing bemused glances amongst them. Val just let out a soft groan and dropped her head into her hand.
Finally, Eleven broke the silence. "Max told me about him. He is the one that has a crush on Nancy."
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, then nodded as if of approval. "They are good for each other."
hoping you guys are enjoying the oneshots so far !!! i have a few lined up that i have seen many requests of, but if you have any more ideas, don't be afraid to comment!!
