Dungeons and Dragons

Chapter 1-A New Quest

I opened the front door quickly, a broad smile spread on my face.  Outside of the screen door stood my shivering friend, Rose Vincent, wrapped up in a winter coat and snow lightly dusting her short hair.  

"Come in!"  I exclaimed, nearly bouncing with excitement.  Waving to her mom in the car on my driveway, Rose opened the screen door without hesitaton, and I heard my dog Charlie come racing down the hall to meet her.  The english setter nearly ran her over into the wall, and Rose laughed as she took off her boots and coat, leaving them next to the door.

"Sorry we couldn't have the meeting last Saturday, I had softball practice,"  She apologized as she closed the front door.  I shook my head.

"No, it's fine.  Ashley wouldn't have been able to come either, and I wouldn't have been able to prepare such awesome snacks,"  I laughed as we walked across my living room and into the dining room, where my older brother was sitting across the old oak table.  Bags of chips and two-liter soda bottles littered the table, along with a tray of carrots, radishes, and broccoli.  The bamboo placemats had been set up to sheild anyone from seeing  Silas's papers, and the open books in front of him.  Four seats were neatly sat on the other side of the table, one chair had to be pushed over from the other side to seat four people.  Rose, Ashley, Holly, and I.

Charlie set his white and brown-spotted head in Rose's lap as soon as she sat down, and the doorbell rang again.  

"Silas, can you hand out the character sheet to Rose?"  I asked my sibling, as he was the dungeon master, the one who created the quest and lead us through it.  Not waiting for a reply, I slid to the front door in my polka dotted socks.  Looking out the glass panel, I smiled. Normally my friends arrived at different times with a few minutes in between, but apparently Ashley and Holly had gotten here at the same time.  

"Omagush thesh chips are amashing,"  Holly mumbled over a huge mouthful of potato chips, nearly choking at the end of her sentence.

"Food is for the weak,"  I growl in my aptly named 'batman voice', which is when I basically sound like I'm gargling marbles.  I break out laughing, and Rose smiles, reaching for her red solo cup of Sprite.  

"Okay young Padawans, settle down,"  Silas crowed, brown eyes flickering to each of us in turn.  He was only 18, but sometimes seemed much older.  "Let's start creating your characters,"  Dungeons and Dragons was a role playing game where one person, the dungeon master, creates adventures for the players.  The players collect gold, level up from defeating things, and gain all sorts of skills.  The outcome of your move is decided by a dice roll, it's a game of both luck, and strategy.

Silas spread a book out in front of us with a smirk.  "First, decide on your class and race,"  The page he flipped to listed all the classes, my eyes skimmed the page, looking at words like 'rogue', 'barbarian', and 'mage'  there were so many things to choose from, so many possibilities. 

For the next hour the four of us were all creating characters, deciding who they were, with a few tips from Silas of course.  A well rounded team needs a healer, so I took the class of the bard, someone who plays music and can use simple healing spells.  Ashley chose to be a fighter, which matched her playful and athletic spirit.  Holly was a rogue, she wanted to sneak around and kill people, and be able to hide.  Lastly, Rose became a monk because while they can't wear armor or use most weapons, they have lots of good points.

Not only the class, we also had to choose our backrounds, our weapons, our races, our supplies, and our names.

My friends shift in their seats as I finish the last characteristic of my individual.  

"And then you should have fifteen dexterity,"  Silas finished, telling me my last stat.  Strength, charisma, constitution, wisdon, intelligence, and dexterity all needed to be decided, with the highest one stat could go being 18.

I sat back in my chair with a relieved sigh, it took a while to finish everyone's character, since each one was so in depth.  

"Soooo, how do we play this game exactly?  I know we're going to go around beating up monsters using dice and stuff, but what else?"  Holly spoke up, grabbing a chip from the party-sized bag that sat in the middle of the table.  

"You just go on adventures, you have to make decisions, decide who to trust, talk to people, you can get drunk too.  The possibilities are endless,"  Silas exclaimed, spreading his hands out for effect.  I nodded.

"Yeah, Silas and his friends strapped dynamite to a horse and used it to blow up an army of kobolds,"  I laughed, thinking of the tale of the 'Kamikaze horse' that he told everytime we played the game.  "It takes imagination,"

"Can I collect the teeth of my victims?"  Holly blinked her hazel eyes in pretend innocence, making Rose and Ashley crack up.

"Sure!"  My brother smirked.

I brushed a curl of sandy blond hair out of my face, tucking the short tendril behind me ear.  My hair was nearly shoulder length since I'd gotten it cut a few summers ago, but not quite there.

"And actually, I've been collecting dungeons and dragons books since I was ten, and last week I found one at a garage sale in town,"Silas continued, holding up an old book proudly.  It looked ancient, pages yellow and the spine nearly falling off.

"How can you even read that?  The letters are all faded,"  Rose pointed out with a smile.

"It's more just a collectible, but the owner told me it's one of the originals or something fancy like that, and I can manage to make out half the pages just fine,"  Opening the book, he blew a bit of dust off the pages.  "Besides, I have plenty of other books to use too."

"So let's get started!"  Ashley cheered as she clapped her hands together once in excitement.

Then a glow surrounded the book, intensifying until it blinded me and filled the room with a searing white light.

-------------------------------

A bit of a cliffhanger, I know! 

This story is actually based off the game my friends and I played, except nothing magical happens in ours except offensive jokes and getting sidetracked with funny stories.

By the way, D&D is a really complicated game, I'd advise looking it up or watching a video if you don't understand it by my horrible desription 😄