Chapter Text
“You finally tear away the last piece of stone, a cloud of dust is hanging in the atmosphere, clouding your vision as you all climb through the hole one by one. Once you all make it through you see that you have broken into a mausoleum. The walls of the room are absolutely cluttered with various knickknacks. As you approach closer to the center of the room you see that the majority of the space is taken up by statues of various deities and heroes of legend from all different cultures. There’s a granite statue of Hercules brandishing his sword over the hydra, a terra-cotta bust of the virgin Mary, a limestone one of Horus, and so on. The very center of the room, however, is almost entirely cleared except for a cloaked figure standing with their back towards you. Suddenly you hear a deep chortle that seems to shake the room, the statues almost look like they are all dancing from the vibrations this lone figure is creating with his laughs.”
The hallway echoed with the sound of Gretchen tapping her foot against the linoleum, her hand resting on her chin as she anxiously bit her fingernails.
“They’re already ten minutes late.” She whispers to you, glancing down at the zebra print Swatch watch on her other hand as she had done every 10 seconds since she’d arrived 15 minutes ago.
You shush her, straining to hear the muffled voice through the door as it continued to describe the mausoleum.
“Seriously guys, if I miss curfew again tonight my dad’s gonna have a cow. He’s convinced himself that the only reason I could be out late is to go sneaking off with some boy and you know how he feels about dating.” Ellen whined, pushing her glasses up far enough on her nose that her lashes smushed against her eyelids.
“Shhhhh” you snap around, “I’m trying to focus here.”
“Focus? Focus on what?” Cried out Iris from the back of the pack.
You turn back, craning your head to peek inside the room through the pane of frosted glass adorning the door before you.
“My cue.” You say, over your shoulder.
While you couldn’t make out distinct figures, you could perfectly imagine the scene within. A group of sweaty, bespectacled boys huddled around one end of the table, the other side occupied by their DM, lounging upon his throne like a fourteenth-century monarch posed for a portrait, his arms emphatically gesticulating as he orated the battle scene before them.
You sigh, slowly placing your hand on the doorknob. You don’t dare turn it yet and announce your presence to the group inside, you were simply preparing yourself to pounce at the perfect moment, a part of you knowing that they were building up to something revolutionary in there, and waiting with bated breath to ruin it.
“Finally, the figure straightens up, seemingly growing five feet in mere seconds. He reaches up to his hood, pulling it down slowly, a hush falls over the room, as you wait in anticipation. The figure stops, the fabric slipping from his fingers, and there before you you see Vecna.”
You hear the room erupt into chaos, a cacophony of gasps and cries of “I thought he was dead!” And “Didn’t we kill him?”
You smile to yourself, basking in the emotional turmoil before throwing the door open and strutting inside.
“Time’s up, nerds.” You announce, all seven heads snapping in your direction. You smile at them The Dames and Dragons all filing into the room behind you clutching their spiral notebooks and bags of dice, crowding the doorway of the room.
“No, no, no, no, c’mon, that’s not fair, Eddie, tell her that’s not fair!”
You lock eyes with their leader, the tall, dark, and annoyingly handsome Eddie Munson. He straightened up in his seat, no longer lounging around and squinted at you, his dark eyes trailing over your crew.
“You.” He glared.
“Eddie.” You deadpanned back.
“Let’s be reasonable here, as you can probably tell, we’re kind of in the middle of a really big battle so if you would just allow us-“
“Actually it sounded like the battle hadn’t even started yet. You were setting up, which is actually the perfect time to end on a cliffhanger. Sooo, I guess you’re welcome.” You smile sweetly at him.
Eddie huffed, “Yeah, I really appreciate that sweetie, but you know, we had kind of planned to continue onto the battle tonight, it’ll really screw up my planning for the next couple of weeks if we end here.” He said, his hands steepled together, almost in prayer.
“And I am terribly sorry, you know that,” you say, hand on your heart, voice dripping in sarcasm, “But you see, you’re kind of now bleeding over into our time now, and have already ruined my plans for tonight.”
“I know time is up but-“
“Actually time was up 12 minutes ago, but we were trying to be polite and let you wrap up.” Ellen piped up, pressing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
Eddie sighed, looking to his other players for help. When no one offered a word of advice he finally stood, plastering on a smile.
“Here, how about this? How about we make an… an arrangement,” his leather jacket made swishing noises as he wildly gestured “You let us finish tonight, and we’ll let you guys start 30 minutes early next week.”
“That’s nothing,” Gretchen muttered under her breath.
“That’s a quarter of our allotted time,” whined one of the other Hellfire boys.
Eddie’s eyes remained on yours, ignoring the disruptions from both groups, both of you now stuck in a staring match. His eyes narrowed, daring for you to break away, but you straighten your spine, meeting his gaze head-on with a bright smile. Slowly, you cocked an eyebrow, wordlessly communicating to him your lack of interest in his offer.
He broke, nervously looking towards his crew, then back to you.
“45 Minutes?” A whimper was heard from the table, “An hour?” This time a groan of indignation.
“I have an idea, a trade, I think you will find most agreeable,” you say, your smile widening as you realize you have Eddie’s undivided attention, his eyebrows raised as he hears you out.
“I’m listening.”
“How about you guys pack up now, go home and leave us be and I, in turn, won’t report you to Mrs. Cunningham. Although, I think she’d be pretty interested to hear that you participated in Hellfire today despite playing hooky again, Edward.” You sang, your voice sickly saccharine.
You knew it was a low blow to threaten to snitch on him to the school’s attendance officer– Hellfire would be suspended for two weeks if the school had found out that Eddie had disobeyed their club participation policy– but it was now 15 minutes past their start time and while Hellfire was always guaranteed 2 hours to meet, Dames and Dragons were relegated to an hour and a half. An hour and a half were quickly being consumed by Eddie and his gang.
He blinked at you, seeming to mull over his options in a silent fume before slamming shut his Dungeon Master divider and silently collecting his things, motioning for the boys to do the same.
“Finally,” Gretchen huffed, already strutting into the center of the room, slamming her bag on the table over the notebook of one of the Hellfire goons, forcing them to pull it out from underneath her things and scurry to pack faster.
You sauntered up towards the head of the table, feeling a sense of righteousness as you placed your backpack next to the throne. Eddie was kneeling on the ground, stuffing an ornate silver box that rattled from all of his dice into his bag before zipping it up, glaring up at you from under his curly bangs.
“Oh, Eddie?”
You squatted down just enough that you were still above him, but now your face was less than a foot away from his. You could hear his furious breath and see his jaw clench as you neared, the muscles growing taut beneath his skin. You had never been this close to him and became suddenly aware of the stubble lightly shadowing his chin, the dark purple crescents beneath his eyes, the way his nose hooked right, having never been set right after he broke it in a brawl with one of the jocks last year. You could feel his gaze on your face but couldn’t bring yourself to make eye contact, instead, focusing on the smell of his cologne, a leathery scent mixed with orange and a hint of something sugary. It was heavenly.
You snap out of your trance when you hear him clear his throat.
“Oh, uh you dropped this.” You held up a shimmery purple D20 between your fingers.
He slowly took the dice from you, the tips of his finger brushing against yours, the cold of his silver rings touching your skin sending shivers down your spine.
You stood up swiftly, your head suddenly dizzy.
He rose much slower, his body even closer to yours now, except now he stood a foot taller than you, staring down at you with those intense dark brown eyes.
A moment passed. Then two. Then Eddie dramatically bowed, motioning for you to take your seat at the throne.
You looked away, wordlessly taking your seat, happy to put distance between yourself and him, your head immediately clearing now that you're out of his orbit.
“Right well, you ladies enjoy yourselves,” Eddie murmured, rapping his fingers against the table, his gaze still fixated on your face, making you squirm in your seat.
Eventually, he turned around and walked towards the rest of his group who were all crowded in the doorway, silent spectators to whatever had just happened between the two of you.
“Have a lovely night boys!” Mary Helen smiled, genuinely waving at them as they disappeared into the corridor.
“Bitch.” you heard one of the boys mumble. Your head whipped up and you witnessed Eddie flick one of the boys in the back of their head before shoving them out of the room. Just as he was about to disappear into the hallway he spun around and squinted at you one last time before bowing once again, letting the door slam shut on the image of him elegantly bent in the doorway, his eyes still locked on yours.
“Two bows are a bit much, even for him,” Gretchen muttered.
You took a second to collect yourself, taking a long gulp of water before setting up camp as quickly as you could, trying to pump yourself up for what was sure to be a marathon of a night if you were to even hope to get through any plot lines tonight.
You rose from the throne and clapped your hands once to get the girls’ attention, all of them immediately falling into a hush as you towered over the table, ready to set the scene.
“Alright, players,” you announce to the room as the girls anxiously fidgeted with their notes, “I need you all to focus here, we have to make up for some lost time alright? So to recap, you have just awoken to find yourselves in the lair of Medusa…”