Snake Boy

~ Chapter Seven ~

Note: From now on Dorrian's writing will be centered italics, his ASL will be left oriented italics.

{Possible trigger warnings: swearing, weapons mention (bow and knife)

If I miss something, I apologize and please let me know}

Over the next two weeks, Logan had each of his friends over to meet Dorrian in earnest. They'd all seen him in the car obviously, but he'd been terrified the whole time and didn't make any attempt to interact with them.

Of course it was inevitable that Roman would insist that he come along to DnD.

"It'll be awesome! We all know him, he doesn't have to do anything, and he'll get to see us being weird-ass nerds. Are you really going to leave him home all evening with your dads?"

"How about I ask him?" Logan finally countered, and Roman accepted that this would work.

Now he was standing outside of Roman's house, seeing lights on in the basement. Dorrian stood close to him, his shoulder nearly pressing against Logan's.

"If you don't want to do this I can drive you home." Logan told him softly.

Dorrian frowned and hesitantly replied. His grasp on ASL was incredible, he'd learned very quickly.

'As long as I can watch from the side, I'll be okay.'

"They won't throw you in, don't worry."

Logan made his way around the back of the house and knocked on the door that led straight to the basement.

"Welcome, weary traveler." A voice hissed as the door creaked open an inch. Logan rolled his eyes and pushed it the rest of the way.

"Hello Roman."

Roman huffed and threw a cloth at his head. Logan swatted it away.

"You never let me have any fun."

"You're the DM, Geek-Lord!" Virgil retaliated from the table. "You get to have all the fun, and torture us while doing it."

"Says the kid who rolls nat 20s half the game." Patton teased, across from him. "You do plenty of torturing."

"What's the point of being a tiefling rogue if you don't get to f*ck sh*t up?"

Logan took his seat at the table, bringing out his notebook and his dice. "It would seem that Virgil's class and race combination is one of the most chaotic at the table. Though I would say Remus as a character is more chaotic."

"Yeah well that's because it's Remus." Roman snorted, taking the spot at the head of the table. "Remus, who will not be joining us tonight."

"What?" Patton sat up. "Why?"

"He's sick."

"He lives here." Virgil made a face.

"Yes and every time he stands up, he passes out because his headache gets so bad." Roman huffed. "I've already got something figured out with him, don't worry."

"He's just a bard." Logan leaned forward on the table. "He sits back for the first half of every fight and heckles us anyway."

"And then he comes in with that overpowered club of his and beats everything senseless." Virgil rolled his eyes.

"Including us." Patton tried for a smile.

Roman shrugged when they all looked at him. "You guys wanted to play an anti-hero campaign, you probably should have realized Remus would go full batsh*t... Let's get started, don't want to be up too late tonight."

~~~ Two Hours Later ~~~

Logan was listening to the description of a glade Roman was giving them as their party entered it when Dorrian quietly picked up his pen. So far he hadn't made any comments about the whole thing.

'He keeps looking at me. And he smells nervous.'

Logan glanced up just in time to see Roman's gaze flick to Dorrian again. He narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Patton, before you do that." He said quickly as Patton began to say he was going to run forward. "I want to check to see if there's anything watching us."

Roman twitched slightly. "Perception check."

Logan rolled his eyes and picked up his d20. He had a crazy perception bonus, he doubted he would fail. He rarely did.

"Nat 20."

Roman nodded, taking a moment. "As you look around the clearing - ignoring Syltrix's excitement, as usual - you see sort of a flicker of gold on the other side of the clearing, in the forest. It's definitely moving at the height that it's humanoid."

Logan looked over the clearing map . "I take my crossbow out and aim at it. 'Show yourself.'"

"I look in the same general area and search for what he saw." Virgil added immediately. "And I grab a knife, just in case."

Roman blew out a breath. "You don't need to roll, a figure steps into the clearing, body language telling you it knows it's been caught. They're wearing a hood, so you can't see their face, but they stand about six feet tall. You see sort of talon-like claws on their fingertips, made of metal, but they keep their hands where you can see them and don't make any aggressive moves."

"I shoot its hood off."

Virgil rolled his eyes. "You've always got to be dramatic about this sh*t, huh?"

"Shut up and keep your knife out." Logan retorted. He was never 100% sure whether Virgil was speaking in game or over the table, but his quips in character were usually pretty much the same as his attitude out of character.

Roman glanced between them, allowing a moment for Virgil to retort if he wanted. When no comment passed the other's lips, he picked up something from behind his DM screen. "The hood is ripped back aggressively, and the figure reacts as one would when being shot at. They jerk away from the space the arrow passed and hiss loudly at you. It only takes a moment to take in the scaly forehead and fangs-"

"Roman!" Logan slapped his hands down on the table. "Come on!"

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" He dragged a hand over his face. "I've had this encounter planned out for months, and I forgot what I specifically had waiting for you. I was going to just let you go past without incident and forget about it, but of course you make a perception check every time you enter a room so I should have known better."

"I'm missing something." Virgil raised a hand lazily. "What are we looking at?"

"This figure appears to be a Yuan-ti Pureblood." Roman finished his description with a defeated sigh.

"A snake person." Logan provided angrily, glaring at their DM. Patton let out a quiet gasp.

{look if you follow my instagram (@sanders.mansion.au if you don't and you wanna) you know I've been getting REALLY into DnD, Critical Role specifically, so it was inevitable it showed up in a story

Do y'all wanna know their DnD characters? I do have characters made up for all four players}