Chapter One Hundred and Forty-two. Game Night.

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-two. Game Night.

Dave winced as he heard a loud crash from his kitchen, followed by Vera's roar of outrage and Jack's frantic apologies.

He steeled his resolve and focused on his notes for the campaign. Thus far, his party had been struggling against the encounters, suffering from a lack of burst damage. Hopefully, Bob would be willing to fill in a damage role, as several of the encounters had been dicey enough that he'd had to fudge a few rolls behind the DM screen to keep the party alive, and Amanda was suspicious.

Amanda hated cheating, even when it was done to keep the party alive. She also hated rerolling her character, though, so Dave was forced to balance those two factors against each other. He'd tried dropping the CR on the monsters, but Jack had run the campaign before, and he called him out on it.

Vera had come over a few hours early to start cooking, and Jack had shown up as well with a couple of six-packs and three bottles of wine, eager to celebrate the completion of his first major project, which he'd brought in on time, and on budget, which was worth celebrating on its own. Jack had received a significant bonus for his efforts, and he was already planning to buy his first house with it.

He was happy for Jack, who had taken over as project manager for a four hundred home community that had been mismanaged and had been over a year behind schedule and twenty percent over budget. It had been a risk, as the company had offered him a pittance in salary, with a closing bonus that would serve to even his salary out, assuming the project wasn't delayed any further or grow beyond the already worrying budget overage. Jack had worked his ass off for almost three years, working seventy, eighty, even ninety-hour weeks to right the ship, but it had all paid off. The closing bonus had been written with the expectation that there would be additional delays and overages and provided penalities. Dave was fairly certain that no one had expected Jack to succeed to the degree he had because the contract, as written, converted those penalities to further increases to the bonus. There had been a bit of legal wrangling when the company who had financed the project realized what had happened, but things had remained polite, with Jack showing rare and admirable restraint as he employed his considerable charisma to soothe ruffled feathers, suggesting that they simply let the lawyers hash it out.

Apparently, it had been worked out, and Jack had received confirmation from his bank that the closing bonus had been deposited. Two point five million dollars.

Dave shook his head as he considered switching the trolls regeneration either down a die or every other round. Jack had lived on a salary that worked out to be somewhere between five and eight dollars an hour, depending on how many hours he'd worked that week. He'd been technically homeless for four months, sleeping in his truck and showering at the gym.

He was willing to excuse a bit of boisterous behavior from his friend.

Jack hurried into the room, rubbing the back of his hand where a suspiciously spoon-shaped welt was visible.Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

"I just wanted to taste the sauce," Jack complained as he slumped into the chair next to Dave.

Dave shook his head, "You know it's going to be good," he said reprovingly, "it's been four years. Everything she cooks is good."

"I'm Italian," Jack protested as he took a long draw from his beer, "if someone is making lasagna, it's my right, no, my duty to check the sauce."

Dave shook his head.

"So," Jack continued, "according to your lovely partner in crime, we have a new player joining us."

"We do," Dave replied, "one of our classmates from UCLA, he's back in town and was looking for a group, so he looked us up."

Jack rolled his eyes. "What's he like?" he asked eagerly.

Dave sighed and leveled a stern look at Jack.

"What?" Jack asked defensively, "I've been working day and night for years now," he grumbled, "the only social interaction I have is with the group, and none of you are single," he cocked his head and grinned, "or interested in adding another partner," he teased, "so of course I'm going to want to know about the new guy."

"Jack," Dave began, "I love you brother, but I need you to be less, well..." he trailed off, "you, when it comes to Bob. We didn't know what to call it when we were eighteen, but I can tell you that he used to suffer from social anxiety, and from our meet and greet, he still does."

Dave leveled a finger at Jack, his tone serious, "Not everyone is as gregarious and socially adroit as you are, and to be quite frank, based on how he was then and how he is now, I think he might be asexual anyway."

Jack slumped back in his chair with a pout. "I can behave," he muttered.

"Good," Dave nodded, "because I'm hoping to rope him in as a ranged damage dealer, which you guys need."

"Don't I know it," Jack groaned, "once I'm level six, I'll be able to pick up Fireball from the college of lore's magical secrets bonus, but that's a ways off."

"So what does he do for a living?" Jack asked curiously.

"I'm not sure," Dave confessed, "I know he works from home, but that's it."

"You mean the king of networking didn't ask what the guy does for a living?" Jack chortled.

"I haven't seen or heard from him in over a decade," Dave replied, "I don't know him well enough yet."

"Sure," Jack said, his disbelief clear, "when is he supposed to be here?"

"I told him six," Dave responded as he checked his phone, "so assuming he's still punctual, ten minutes. He said he's up to speed on 5e, at least the sourcebooks, so we should be able to whip together a character for him in half an hour, then we can spend a few minutes doing a meet and greet once Tony gets here."

Bob sat in his inventory, brushing Monroe with a newly purchased slicker brush.

The big floofer was purring loudly as his human-servant proved his devotion by attending to Monroe's coat.

Amanda looked at the bag in surprise. It seemed almost like a part of his armor, the strap one of several running across his chest, where the satchel was attached to his belt, with the bottom clipping to his thigh. His entire outfit, she considered thoughtfully, was eminently practical.

"I come bearing gifts," Bob said as he pulled out what she recognized as Dice Bags from a rather expensive but nice shop near UCLA.

Bob handed one of them to her and then passed the others out so that they each had one.

"Thank you," Amanda spoke first, "but you didn't have to. We all have dice."

"In some cases, too many dice," Tony muttered, shooting a guilty look at the tacklebox sitting next to him.

Bob gave them a crooked grin, "I did a little work on those," he gestured to the bag she was holding, "go ahead and check them out."

Amanda looked at the bag suspiciously. Bob hadn't and wasn't giving out a serial killer vibe. She poked it experimentally.

In the meantime, Jack had opened his bag and was shaking the bag, holding it upside down. "No dice?" He asked sadly.

"Thank god," Tony muttered as he smoothed his bag flat.

"There are dice in there," Bob's grin widened, "you just have to reach in for them."

Jack poked his fingers into the bag, trying to feel the dice. His hand disappeared into the bag, which was entirely too small to hold it.

Everyone watched as Jack shoved his arm into the bag up to his elbow before pulling it back out, clutching a twenty-sided die.

"What the fuck," Jack breathed.

"Give them a go," Bob urged.

Amanda and Dave exchanged glances. Dave opened his bag, reached into it, again up to his shoulder, and swiped his hand around, coming back out with a full set of dice minus the twelve-sided die.

Vera had turned her bag inside out and was poking at it.

"The aperture isn't accessible that way," Bob told her.

Amanda had placed her entire hand in her bag before withdrawing it.

She looked up at Bob in disbelief. "I'll echo Jack here," she said softly, "what the fuck?"

"You're holding spatially expanded bags," Bob explained, "enchanted by myself."

Bob gestured towards the center of the table, and a pile of dirt appeared six inches off the table. It was three feet across and appeared to be sitting in an invisible sphere. A spark of fire appeared on the surface of the earth, then water flowed down the sides of the invisible sphere, forming a stream that gathered in the center where it flashed to steam, rising to the top before trickling down again.

"Magic is real," Bob stated calmly, "go ahead and stuff your bags of holding, give the terrarium a poke, whatever you need to do to accept it."

Amanda looked up at Bob in amazement.

"Extraordinary claims," she whispered.

"Exactly," Bob nodded, "I have extraordinary evidence."

"So," Bob began, "I clearly have an ulterior motive for coming here tonight."

Dave choked down a hysterical laugh, "Yeah, I think we all get that now."

"I'm here to offer you all the ability to use magic," Bob continued, "and believe me, it isn't just for parlor tricks; I can regrow limbs, cure cancer, and even fly."

Amanda started taking a step back as Bob began to float off the ground, his head nearly touching the ceiling.

She looked from the bag in her hand, to the sphere on the table, to the man hovering in her game room.

"Did you just say you can cure fucking cancer?" Tony whispered.