Calamity nodded at Liam, who gingerly sat the cleric up and drew back her cloak. She was wearing a loose-fitting tunic underneath, which he pulled to one side to expose her shoulder.
As they pulled back the fabric, they revealed one point, then three, then five, until they could see the tattoo in its entirety. Just as Yorick had known, it was a twelve-pointed star that perfectly matched the seal in his hand. And now that he looked at it more closely, the tattoo seemed to shimmer in the warm evening light.
Chapter2
Phil
“Itold you!” I crossed my arms and sat back in my seat so suddenly I nearly tipped backward, though I thought I played it off. Amy rolled her green eyes at me from where she sat across the table, mimicking my posture.
“It’s literally my first game,” she said. “How was I supposed to know?”
“I don’t know, maybe listen to the people who have been playing for longer than you?”
Amy waved one finger in the air in a circle to indicate the rest of the group. “I was! And every single one of us thought you were full of shit. So I did what felt right.”
“And you got someone killed in the process!”
“Well, if you’d waited five seconds before holding a knife to her throat, I would have used the spell on you instead, and everyone would still be alive.”
“And she would have gotten away, and we still wouldn’t have gotten any information.”
Amy narrowed her gaze, her jaw tensing. Then she turned to look down the table at the others, who all sat watching us with varying looks on their faces. Amy’s older brother Jack, also my best friend, was wincing. It was exactly what his D&D character would do in a conflict between friends, too, which was hilarious because he’d tried so hard to make his character different to himself. His girlfriend Morgan even drew his paladin character Ser Liam as an identical tall, blonde-haired man.
Speaking of whom, Morgan was pressing her mouth into a thin “none of my business” line as she watched the fallout from the game; this was similar to her fighter character’s approach, too.
Grey’s eyes were widened in interest, not unlike their half-orc barbarian.
Chloe’s smile was one I recognised instantly from two decades of friendship: pure glee. Just like her tiefling sorcerer Calamity, she was chaotic as hell, and I loved her for it.
Even Morgan’s dog Pablo, a little teddy bear of a thing, looked down the table at us with interest from where he sat cosied up in Grey’s lap.
I looked in the other direction to find Fatima, our game master, smirking.
“You,” I said, turning my ire to her. “You knew what you were doing having me roll that perception check in secret.”
“What does that mean?” Amy asked her brother, but I put a hand on the table between us and answered her myself.
“It means she was being underhanded. She wanted you all to doubt me. You didn’t know I rolled a natural twenty on my perception check, so you all thought I was seeing things.”
Jack’s mouth fell open as he turned to Fatima. “You created inter-party conflicton purpose?”
Fatima just shrugged.
“You messy bitch,” Chloe said, but she was smiling approvingly, twirling a strand of her long red hair around her finger. She lived for this kind of drama, in real life as much as in Dungeons & Dragons.
“But still,” I said, looking again at Amy, whose posture went instantly defensive. “That’s no excuse for PvP violence.”
She frowned. “PvP?”
“Player versus player. Friends don’t cast spells on friends without enthusiastic consent.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know that?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air. “Allow me to repeat, it’s literally my first game. Ever.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “Is it also your first day on Earth,ever?”
She scowled at me, then leaned forward and reached out for the tin I’d brought, which now sat almost empty in front of me. She grabbed the last lemon bar, the one I’d been saving to have on the way to the pub. By the time I realised what she was doing and went to swat her hand away, she’d already absconded with it, and my hand hit the side of the tin instead, smarting slightly. Amy stuck her tongue out at me, and I returned the favour. She took a comically large bite of the lemon bar, her eyes locked on mine the whole time as she chewed.
“You’re both so astoundingly mature,” Grey said, scooting back from the table. “Let’s continue this en route to the pub, shall we? I think we could all do with a drink.”
