#still trying to decide on the third level spell bc the one shot turned into a two shot and we didn’t combat

[vaguelyhauntedcornfield]

I just played a barbarian janitor named larry who looks like a weird edit of Robert Pattinson as a janitor that came up when I googled ‘hot janitor’ and he rages when people make messes and has all his attacks reflavored as cleaning supplies and despite being planned with the dm in the 10 minutes before the one shot, he might be my favorite character ever

[narraboths]

you know that catco employees are already groaning whenever Kara walks into the office with a new hairstyle or a new outfit bc they know they're going have to put up with their boss staring like she's never seen a woman before

Kara Danvers is, objectively speaking, an incredibly worthy object of one’s workplace crush.

Most of CatCo’s employees will readily admit that they’ve all been there: Kara Danvers is lovely and kind, she has the nicest laugh, she’s practically sunshine personified. She remembers people’s birthdays, brings them coffee unasked, and attempts to temper Cat Grant’s wrath whenever it threatens to strike. Even when she gets bumped to junior reporter, she’s still the same charming goofball, only she now rushes in and out of the building chasing stories  with a vengeance instead of lattes. Who could ever resist a crush on her?

Most of CatCo’s employees, however, will also hasten to point out that they could at least keep their infatuation to a reasonable level.

When Lena Luthor first walks into the CatCo bullpen, heading towards Kara without sparing a look for anyone else, the bullpen falls so deadly silent for a second, the clicking of her Louboutins is the only sound that can be heard. Then they all go back to acting totally, extremely normal, as if the most notorious new citizen of National City (a billionaire tech genius at that) isn’t flirting up a storm with a cub reporter right before their very eyes. They only snicker about the gala invitation in a very restrained way, with the appropriate amount of concern and jealousy, Luthor sure knows what connections she needs, Danvers better look out and You’d be trying to make that connection too if you were in her position.

Then the visits become a regular occurrence. 

Lena Luthor, CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a staple of 30 under 30 lists, shows up every week, and patiently waits around till Kara, who earnestly says golly and has to be reminded that exclusive is spelled without a ‘k’, stumbles across her. She beams at Kara’s rambling, laughs delightedly at her bad puns, calls her darling in a tone of voice that makes eavesdroppers blush, and bites her lip like she knows exactly what it is that she’d like to devour, and it’s certainly not the vegan bar that she’s dragging Kara away to for lunch. (CatCo refuses to publish the paparazzi shots that surface every third day of the week, but other outlets are not so squeamish.) And Kara meets her every step of the way, face lighting up whenever she sees Lena (even on TV, some note), hugging her tightly with every hello and goodbye even longer than necessary. She gushes about Lena’s projects and meets Lena’s own compliments to her writing with bashful smiles and fidgeting hands. Properly and utterly enamored.

The office settles into the new status quo, young love and all, though it seems to be incredibly slow-burning, with the entirety of CatCo (and likely half of L-Corp) getting front-row tickets to its process. Snapper mumbles about professional boundaries. People start a betting pool, and stare at Kara with a bit more hopeless yearning when she storms past them to greet Lena with a wide smile.

But then, there’s something else that changes with their courtship: Kara starts to get dapper.

She’s already looked unreasonably dashing in thin cardigans and pastel button-ups before, drawing dreamy sighs from the interns she’d stroll past. Now, it’s starting to verge on it’s a public menace to look that hot. The shirts get tighter, more crisp, and with it, her biceps and powerful shoulders considerably more accentuated. Well-tailored jackets start to make an appearance in her wardrobe, along with slim ties (their quirky patterns a testament to Kara’s nature), and elegantly knit jumpers come winter. And Kara starts to stand a little taller, too, shoulders squared and chin held high, her steps ever so slightly wider and more confident every time she has to chase after Snapper in one of their daily bouts.

The effect of it in the office is most profound. A rolled-up shirtsleeve and a hint of tensing muscles, and Jen at the art department almost scraps a magazine cover in her stupor. An unbuttoned collar and loosened tie at a late night editorial meeting, and Mackenzie nearly pours her coffee into her lap. 

And the very cause of this upheaval is certainly not immune to Kara’s newfound charms, either. There’s already been plenty of physical affection between the pair, as most of the office and a whole wealth of pap photos would attest, but now, it’s bordering on handsiness. Lena takes any opportunity to squeeze Kara’s arm, run a hand over her shoulder, or rest a hand on her forearm as they talk, and the bullpen grows green with jealousy.

When Cat Grant departs for the White House and L-Corp swoops in for the acquisition, the mood turns explosive.

Any illusions about the lovebirds keeping things more strictly professional with the change of management are shattered when Kara strides into the boss’ office with a gift-wrapped planner, all giddy, only to be greeted with their usual hug. Someone lets out a groan.

It only gets expectably worse.

It’s no fault of Lena Luthor’s overall management style – she’s a decent boss, a shockingly good one, even, if one considers the family name and all its implications, and infinitely milder than Miss Grant had been. But there’s only so many times one can witness their chief blushing in the middle of a meeting, or get lost in impure thought staring through the glass walls of the boardroom, out into the bullpen where the office heartthrob is currently stretching, providing an ample view of her entire upper body musculature. There’s only so many times they can watch Lena lean against Kara’s desk and reach down to gently smooth out her shirt’s collar or fiddle with the lapels of her jacket as they talk. At some point, Lena helping Kara tie the bespoke silk tie that she’s recently gifted her after a trip to Italy, batting away her “Lena, you really shouldn’t have” with “Nonsense, darling” and then stopping to fiddle with the damn thing, staring up at Kara with that unmistakably smitten expression becomes just another Tuesday morning at CatCo.

To say that there is a sigh of relief once news of CatCo once again changing hands start to spread is no understatement.

Andrea Rojas seems like a hardass and people start to feel a sense of comfort. She’s a businesswoman through and through, one whose ideas about running the place might be battled, but one who certainly won’t be head over heels for a pair of pretty blue eyes and jacked arms.

Antsiness and relief thus both settle over the first office-wide meeting Ms Rojas calls, preparing to address the entire staff. The first couple of sentences are delivered smoothly, with none of the longing looks cast into the crowd towards a certain blonde that they’ve had to get used to before, and people are starting to feel safe.

Then, getting to the meat of her speech, Andrea Rojas takes a breath and turns towards where the cream of CatCo’s crop is gathered, with Kara Danvers standing at the very front, arms crossed, navy suit hugging her imposing figure tightly, forehead crinkled in annoyed concentration.

Andrea Rojas looks, then looks again, and skids to a halt, lips parting as she takes in the view. Twelve seconds go by, an agonizing eternity, before she’d continue her speech, her gaze returning to Kara again and again.

“If you have any questions about the future of CatCo, I’d be happy to hear them now,” she finishes. “Or in my office, if you’d prefer to sound your concerns in private.”

She looks around, almost haughty before she’d turn her gaze to Kara again, biting her lip as they lock eyes, and someone in the back finally decides to give voice to what they’re all feeling:

"Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

[solitaria-fantasma]

((Session #9 highlights a day late bc I had technology troubles.))

My everything decided to crash two minutes in and I had to reboot my entire laptop.

We all got distracted with cat pictures and didn't start for another hour and a half.

When we finally DID get started, we leapt right into combat with the final Big Bad of this arc, and I rolled my highest initiative yet. Oh boy.

"I'm beginning to regret my lack of long-range weaponry."

I picked 'Suggestion' as my level up spell last time, and I tried to lure the human enemies closer to the edge of the cliffs they were on so that my party members with actual long-range weapons could shoot them (or so they could trip and fall 50ft).

It worked! But it wasn't as effective as I wanted...all the guy did was step a bit closer to the cliff before shooting at me.

"[Matthias] didn't read the player handbook and doesn't know how to be a rogue!"

The bandit I charmed at the top of the round eventually did slip off the cliff and die. His friend was sad, and now I feel bad.

The cliffs are 50ft high, and my max flying speed is only 40, if I use my whole turn. BUT if I move 40ft in one turn, then I can clear the cliff and still attack on the next turn, right?

"Don't 'oof'! You're the one who charmed him!"

The bandit captain crit-failed while trying to attack Colette, and shattered his scimitar on the rocks instead.

The friend of the bandit who fell off the cliff and died ALSO fell off the cliff, but he did not die. He just sort of lay there, "regretting all of his life choices".

I tried to cast "Cure Wounds" on myself because I was very much in pain, and I nat 1'ed.

My DM may not believe in harsh punishments for nat 1's, but my technology sure does: Discord promptly crashed, and Roll20 kicked me. I had to restart both.

My DM still let me keep the 10 points healed tho, bc a TPK is not her end-goal (for now).

The third bandit on the cliff is now shooting at our rogue to try to avenge his two fallen brethren, both of whom were either tripped/shot by said rogue.

Astrid (one of the DM's party NPCs) shot "Lord Hassan" (I know our DM gave him an actual name but I didn't write it down and now don't know it), CRIT-SUCCEEDED, and the Big Bad crUMPLED OVER THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF, FELL 50FT, AND DIED FROM FALL DAMAGE. WHOOPS.

"Yellow is going to approach Udaji and roll for 'Stab'. That's-....hm. You know what? Udaji chooses not to take damage."

Colette (also one of the DM's party NPCs) blasted the bandit captain off of the same bridge she was thrown off of. We're all assuming he's dead, now.

Matthias crit-failed trying to shoot the same bandit that I'm engaged with, and sHOT MY UDAJI INSTEAD HOW  D A R E-

It will take me three turns to fly across the gorge to the other cliff with the remaining two bandits. I am regretting my choice to build a melee bard.

Astrid crit-failed another shot and hit Matthias, but IC-wise, she's not too upset about it.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? No! Because a summer's day isn't a bITCH!" I killed a man with two points of psychic damage from 60ft up in the air.

"I'm gonna flip-flap my way back down to the ground now. Boop."

Among all the swords and daggers and crossbows, we found a signet ring on "Lord Hassan"’s body.

Mountain and Matthias have no idea what a signet ring is.

We suspect that the ring is a forgery of the actual Lord Hassan's signet ring, but we can't tell for sure.

Also, according to the map, we haven't reached the actual lair yet, so onward we go!

We follow the map through a crack in the rock, and find a MASSIVE treasure pile at the bottom of a hidden pond inside the mountain.

I tried to roll Perception to see if that magical lockbox made for the Rose family is in the pile, but Udaji's Perception is notoriously poor, and the DM had me roll with disadvantage. Neither roll worked.  

"Honestly, both of those rolls are WAY better than what I expected from Udaji."

Colette - being the only one among us who can breathe underwater - jumps in with vigor when we tell her that we get to keep the gold.

All in all, we each received 242 gold pieces, and one magical item (TBD by the DM at a later date, when it's not midnight and we're not all exhausted).

We also found the Rose family lockbox from way back in Session ??!!!

....but we only ever found one of the magical keys to open it.

Bummer.

We suspect that the other key may be kept close to home...another bandit leader, perhaps? Or maybe that creepy advisor guy that we left for dead in the woods a few days ago has it under his mattress... 

[dracannia]

so yall remember my PvP friend right? I have another story in which she avenges me

As a joke we created ourselves in the game. Legitimately, we made ourselves in the game. I made myself a human despite the fact I find humans boring, she’s a priest because for some reason a priest is usually my first pick when joining an MMO, and the RP profile honestly has my name on it. (If you find me on Wrymrest Accord, hollaback.)

Now, I think the Loremaster achievement is something everyone should work on at some point, whether you’re new or old to the game, so you can actually enjoy it (which is why Draenor and Legion flight is locked behind their respective Loremaster segments but boy howdy you’ll never catch me doing WoD again). I originally wanted my draenei to get Outland Loremaster for obvious reasons, but.... he out-leveled it. Even though I really wanted to try tanking in the Cataclysm dungeons (80-85), he was too high level for those “weaken the mob and then use this item” types of quests (70). I even stripped him naked and he was too strong. My boy Jaelkanaaz is ripped, son.

Instead, I decided that my human priest was going to do Loremaster now. She has four or five moves that do any sort of damage and I will also level lock her when she reaches the max level of the expansion she’s working on. Perfect for the aforementioned types of quests. So she’s going to be in Outland for quite some time. Vanilla/BC purists, listen now, I’m sure The Burning Crusade expansion was good at its time, but the realm of Outland is so fricking boring and monotonous that I cry knowing that the extension of myself has to go through it again for an achievement.

Non-WoWers, at level 58-60, you start in Hellfire Peninsula, the lowest level zone of Outland. Look up images. Everything is spread so far out and there’s no foliage; it’s just red sand, fucked up beasts, the remnants of buildings, and a path of draenei bones leading up from a broken fortress to the portal you jumped through. People usually just dungeon their way from 60 to 70, although there are some people who actually do the quests because they enjoy zone leveling. Or they’re like me and they’re getting achievements.

As I’m flying to my next god-awfully boring location, I accidentally fly over a Horde encampment. An NPC shoots me and this flags me for PvP. I just think, y’know, no one’s really around here anyway and this flag will disappear in five minutes, I’ll be okay.

Not what happened.

There was a blood elf paladin. I still remember his name. I remember he was in the low 60s like me. He was in that camp doing quests. He had seen me fly over and get flagged. He knew I was an easy target. He flew after me and waited for me to land and proceeded to stun and whup my ass like a true pro. In panic I hit him back but I tried to type things like /wait and /no and kept spelling it wrong in my adrenaline rush from getting caught off-guard and those never made it into the chat. Not that it would’ve mattered anyway, I’m sure he just wanted an easy kill. I tried to run, knew that would never work, then tried to stand my ground. The dude’s got his shields on. Again, I’ve got five moves that might do something if I was actually into PvP, otherwise I’m healing myself throughout the fight. Knowing it’s futile, I quickly accept death and end up at the graveyard about a good half-minute’s run away and go back to my body hoping he’s not camping me.

During this auto-run back to what I assumed is my freshly tea-bagged body, I hop into the group chat and say “Deco, avenge me, this belf kicked my ass lol” not thinking she’d actually hop on and try to find him. I know now that no one is allowed to annihilate me, even if it had been a fair fight. She gets on her most powerful character, her huntress, and I show her where I got my ass beat. I hear her tell her husband, “Hey honey, someone killed Drac, you wanna go kill them?”

I tell her that I had flown over the Horde camp nearby and I go over to check... The paladin is still there, doing his quests. I honestly did not think he’d still be there, I was sure that he’d run off somewhere else to claim himself undefeated. I saw him turn, and he most likely sees the flapping wing of my dragon so obviously there behind a rock. Silly priest, too chicken to fight again amongst these higher level NPCs who will one-shot her. As soon as Deco spots him, his flag wears off and he flies away to do his quest. Deco stalks him there and uses Shadowmeld, her racial move that allows her to become untraceable and blend in.

She gives me instructions to act like I’m doing the same quest that he’s doing and to keep my flag on. I’m basically the bait. I’m turned about 90 degrees from this guy, killing mobs with my PvP on, and he runs up to me to immediately turn his flag on....

Fthwp!

Deco kills him in one shot. I do /cry and /sorry but he’s probably already astral walking back to his body from wherever the Horde’s grave is. I run around still killing mobs. Deco wants to camp him. He spawns in. Fthwp! Downs him again. The third time, he tries to mount up and take off. Fthwp! 

By this point it’s just funny but I also feel so bad that he was outmatched and we baited him like this. She tries to make me feel better by going off saying that you don’t attack a priest unless they attack first. I mean, sure, I fought back, and none of my pleas of mercy made it through chat, but she was still mad that someone just waltzed on up and killed her friend without honorable permission.

“He’s going to learn his lesson! He’ll have to get Respawn Sickness if he wants to escape me!” (Translation: He’ll have to choose to spawn at the graveyard instead of near his body, but he’ll spend the next ten minutes at half stats and half broken armor.)

Deco’s husband arrives. He’s a Demon Hunter who looks like he just farmed the Nargacuga from Monster Hunter several hundred times and finally got the full tier set. I’ve got the PvP Couple™ on their level 110 night elves protecting my tiny human priest who has to suffer through Outland for about the third time in her gaming life. 

The paladin had followed me to my quest location a few “miles” away when I thought that enough had been enough. Clearly he still wanted some more, or he just wanted to try and talk. (Logically it would be the latter since he came up on his mount about five feet from the three of us.) Now, I don’t know who hit him first. He targeted Deco, probably to do a /rude gesture to her, and I saw both a shot and a glaive fly at him and he died again. I do /sorry and /cry again and threw in a /mourn for good measure. I know it looks sarcastic to most people, but I had mixed feelings. I don’t like to PvP and this was just plain unfair that two 110s ganged up on him, but it was also unfair that he was using his full hotbar to take me out when I literally have five moves that do minimal damage which only exist to get me through quests. 

Deco notices which guild he’s from and insults them because she knows them as a bunch of jerks and scrubs who think they’re hot shit. I forget who they are but it’s not important to me. Sounds like a PvP guild. The paladin’s body then turns to bones. That’s the sign that he had chosen to spawn at the grave with the Sickness. I move on with my life and Deco and her hubby take me to Blackwing for a mog run.

Dear Paraliser from whichever realm, probably WrA; I’m sorry it turned out like that, but I’m not a PvPer and we found it plain rude that you’d go for an easy kill like that. Lok’tar is not worth it if it was dishonorable. But I still wish you luck and fun on your adventures because, hell, it’s only a video game! With apologies and prayer, Dracannia.

P.S. Maybe I’ll catch you on my main and you can kick my ass fair and square.