Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike & Ilya Rozanov, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais & Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Wyatt Hayes & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Wyatt Hayes, Jackie Pike, Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Lisa Hayes (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, D&D, Nerdiness, POV Wyatt Hayes, Wyatt Hayes is a Massive Nerd, BAMF Jackie Pike, Jackie Pike is a Menace, Chaos, Dinner Party, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros (Game Changers), Ottawa Centaurs Player Ilya Rozanov, Established Relationship, No Homophobia, just go with it, we're all happy here, Ilya Rozanov is Having the Time of His Life, Scheming

Language:

English

Series:

Part 6 of Teammate Shenanigans

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-04 Words: 11,143 Chapters: 1/1

When Wyatt and Jackie Team Up It's All Over (The D&D Fic)

Summary

Wyatt Hayes has wanted to get his hockey friends to play D&D forever. He's SO SURE they'll enjoy it. But no matter how hard he's tried, they haven't been willing to play.

Enter Jackie Pike, friend extraordinaire to the Hayes family. She's not a D&D player, but she'll help Wyatt make it happen for just for fun. And when Jackie sets her mind to something, it WILL happen, and it WILL go well.

Notes

I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t have any excuse for this. The last fic I wrote had three D&D jokes in it for no reason and someone commented that someone should write a fic where Wyatt runs a D&D game and I was like you know what? Bet.

(*I’m a millennial, I don’t know how to use that word my bad if it’s wrong.)

Okay so we’re writing this for FUN. This is not meant to be realistic. (Seriously if you were looking for realistic what were you thinking, picking THIS fic?) There are NO SPOILERS other than the fact that a guy named Wyatt Hayes is the Centaurs goalie (gasp!) because that’s the only thing I kept. Shane and Ilya’s relationship is known by Hayden, J.J., and Wyatt, because we’re not in this one for stress or homophobia or secrets or anxiety, we’re here for Wyatt and D&D.

This is a hodge podge of canon and made up but here’s what you should know. I generally operate in show canon rather than book canon. This is set in the winter of 2019-2020, Ilya’s second year with the Centaurs. Hayden, J.J., and Shane all still play for the Metros. Ilya and Wyatt play for the Centaurs. Wyatt is a veteran and very well liked throughout the league. He is also a massive nerd, canonically. He is exactly the kind of nerd who would be dying to get his friends to play D&D.

*They start playing a D&D game in this fic that may feel like a game you’ve heard of before. If you see something you are worried about spoilers for, there are NO SPOILERS for that game. I put details in the end notes. I used the set up of that game from the first couple of chapters but not the characters. Again see the end notes if you need clarification.

“I could call Jackie,” Lisa Hayes offered her husband. She was staring into the wine glass that she was spinning idly with her fingers.

She and Wyatt were sitting on their back deck eating burgers and drinking red wine. Wyatt had made the burgers, and he’d done a great job, if he did say so himself. He’d also roasted root veggies in an herby rosemary sauce. He didn’t know much about wine, but Lisa had pulled this bottle out of the wine fridge in the basement rather than the regular fridge, so it was probably the good stuff. The label said “Saint Helena, California,” so she’d probably picked it up on her girls’ trip to California last year. It was a nice meal to be eating outside, and the weather had mostly held up for them. They were in sweaters rather than parkas.

The girls on that trip had been mostly the wives of Centaurs or Metros players. Because Ottawa and Montreal were so close, the wives and girlfriends network expanded a bit larger than in most other cities. Jackie Pike had been one of the girls on that trip.

“What?” Wyatt asked at the subject change. “Yeah, you should. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. She’ll probably miss you when we’re in Montreal next week.”

Lisa shook her head and her eyes focused on Wyatt.

“No, I wasn’t changing the subject,” she said, “I meant about D&D.”

“You…” Wyatt tried to remember everything about the conversation from the last several minutes, but he couldn’t get the pieces to fit together. He’d been complaining that he couldn’t find enough Centaurs players willing to play Dungeons and Dragons, the role playing game he liked to play with his non-hockey friends. Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, was one of his favorite hobbies. Unfortunately with his erratic schedule, he’d had a hard time keeping up games with non-hockey friends. He’d always thought that if he could play with people who were on his same schedule, it would be the perfect set up. He just hadn’t been able to convince them yet. He’d tried to explain to them that they didn’t need to know anything to start, he could help them every step of the way. He’d been the Dungeon Master-the person in charge of running the game that the rest of the group would play-may times before. Sometimes he liked that even better than being a player himself. He got to play God. He got to be the only person in the room who would know what would happen in advance (or what was supposed to, anyway). That was always fun, and he was happy to step into that role if he could just find the right group of players.

Ilya Rozanov had agreed to play if he could get a group of hockey players together, but Wyatt hadn’t been able to find a single other person who was willing. Even Luca Haas, the rookie who had a hard time saying no, had said no. But now Lisa suggested calling Jackie Pike…in case she was interested in playing?

“You want to play D&D with Jackie?” he asked. She just looked at him expectantly. She was a doctor, and she didn’t suffer dumb responses.

“I don’t play D&D, my love,” she said.

Wyatt blinked for a moment.

“You think I should play with-” and then it hit him. “You think Hayden would say yes to playing with me and Ilya! And J.J. and Shane too!”

Lisa smiled indulgently. He loved her so much. And it was a great idea.

“Do you think they’d be interested?” he asked.

He and J.J. went way back, they’d been friends for a long time, and J.J. had never mentioned an interest in D&D before. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be open to it, though, if it seemed exciting enough. He liked other games, Wyatt thought he remembered. Maybe not anything this nerdy, but it was worth a shot.

Wyatt didn’t know Hayden or Shane very well. Because their wives were friends, Wyatt had been around Hayden a few times, but usually in larger groups. He had no idea what they had in common. Maybe D&D could be one of those things.

Ilya kept his relationship with Shane tightly under wraps, so Wyatt barely knew him. But Wyatt had always wanted to know him. This could be a great way to get to know each other.

“Jacks,” Lisa read aloud as she typed, “I have a favor to ask you.” She looked up at Wyatt and grinned wickedly. Wyatt loved her so much.

-

Wyatt hadn’t said anything about the plan to anyone other than his wife or Jackie Pike for eight whole days, and he was going to die from the excitement. He’d thought of nothing else the entire time, even during games, and he had found himself randomly bursting out laughing from eagerness at inopportune times, like while in the grocery store checkout line or in the shower with Ilya Rozanov.

Luckily, Lisa had picked the right person. Jackie had had a plan in place in minutes, and it wasn’t just a pie in the sky idea. There were plots and plans and homework assignments.

Wyatt looooooved his homework assignment. He’d DM’d before, but never for a group of beginners, so he’d reworked an old D&D game he’d run before into a one shot that newbies could play. Instead of the game lasting for weeks or months, it would be designed to be played over the course of a few hours. Then he’d designed five characters for them to play. He created printed character sheets for them, but he made the characters online so that he could modify them if anyone wanted to personalize anything about them. Jackie had already confirmed that she had a color printer.

He’d even asked Luca, the rookie who liked drawing, to do sketches of his five characters, and he’d paid him in alcohol. (Don’t tell Coach!)

-

The evening before the game, Wyatt got a text right on schedule.

“Hey Hazy, this is Hayden. My wife and I are having some people over for dinner after the game tomorrow, you should come! Rozanov will be there.”

Wyatt smiled into his phone.

Hayden had no idea the invitation he’d just sent out.

-

The hockey game was so unimportant to Wyatt’s day that by the time he arrived at the Pikes’ house he’d already forgotten who’d won.

“Hazy, you made it!” Hayden said loudly when he opened the door. Wyatt could see Ilya and Shane right away, and he could hear Jackie’s laughter somewhere further back in the house. Wyatt wondered who else was here. He hoped it wasn’t too many, he’d only planned for five players.

Wyatt grinned and waved as he walked in. He had a bag over his left arm and a bottle of wine in his right, so the wave was a little awkward.

“What’s all this?” Ilya asked, looking at his stuff.

Wyatt tried to appear nonchalant as he shrugged. He had no idea if he was pulling it off.

“Bottle of wine for the party,” he said, “And this is just mine,” he added, shaking the bag. Ilya gave him a weird look, but let it go.

Wyatt made excruciating casual conversation for about five minutes - during which he had to appear like he wasn’t on fire with excitement - until Jackie found him.

“J.J., I’ll leave you in here for a few. Wyatt, come with me to finish up the salads,” Jackie directed.

“Oh, I’ll help-” Hayden began, but Jackie cut him off.

“Nope! No, need,” she said, “Wyatt wants to help, right?”

“Wyatt definitely wants to help!” Wyatt said too quickly, before registering what he’d said, “I mean I want to help.”

Hayden looked like he was trying to have a telepathic conversation with his wife to figure out what was going on, but she had no interest in engaging and turned around and walked back towards the kitchen.

“Nice place,” Wyatt said as they walked down the hall.

“Thanks!” Jackie said, “I wasn’t sure about moving to Montreal at first, but once we found the perfect home, it suddenly felt like a place I could-” she shut the door as soon as they’d cleared the threshold. “Great, you’ve got everything ready?”

Wyatt unzipped the bag, showing everything he had on hand for them.

“And I can do magic, right?” she asked.

Wyatt nodded eagerly.

“You said you liked magic so I picked the perfect character for you. She’s a druid and she’s got the coolest spells.”

“And Hayden got a character who can punch things right? I think he’ll like that.”

“And I’m sure you’ll like watching him overpower other characters,” Wyatt quipped.

“An added bonus,” Jackie agreed.

“Now can I help with that salad?” Wyatt asked, looking around for a place to set his bag down.

Jackie waved a hand in the air.

“No need, it’s already done. I just needed to make sure we had the plan in place.”

“All set on my end,” Wyatt said with a grin.

“Then let the games begin,” Jackie said, and Wyatt knew that “the games” meant more than just D&D. There were games upon games to be played.

-

“What do you want to do after dinner?” Jackie asked Wyatt.

They were standing with Shane. Wyatt and Jackie had beers in hand (the wine was nowhere to be seen) and Shane had a ginger ale. Jackie hadn’t even offered him alcohol, and he hadn’t seemed miffed about that. Maybe he didn’t drink? He seemed like kind of a health nut. Lisa would probably love that about him. Wyatt would have to figure out a reason to introduce them someday.

“It’s still so early,” Wyatt said, “Since we’re going to start eating at 5.”

Jackie nodded. Shane sipped his soda.

“You know,” Wyatt said, shooting for idle chat, “Ilya and I were just talking yesterday about the fact that we wanted to play D&D with other hockey players, but we haven’t found anyone else yet.”

Shane frowned.

“I don’t know if I’d be into that,” he said.

“Oh, but Ilya really wanted to,” Wyatt said. “And he’s never gotten a chance to. It’s such a shame, because we’ve talked about it like three times, and he’s never gotten to play.”

Wyatt had brought it up, all three times. Ilya’s response had been indulgent at best (“I’ll play, but only with other hockey players. I’m not playing with your nerd friends.” And later “I told you I would play, but no one wants to, such a shame.”) but Wyatt was pretty sure he would stick to his word. And there was a plan. Wyatt might not have had faith in his own plans, but this one was the brainchild of Dr. Lisa and Queen Jackie (Lisa’s name for her) and Wyatt had full faith in them to come up with a plan that would work.

Jackie looked sympathetic.

“He’s such a good friend to you.”

Wyatt nodded.

“He is, but no one else would help us out. I know he was looking forward to it.”

Shane hadn’t said much, but his frown had changed tenor.

“He really wanted to?” he asked. He sounded more uncertain than anything. It no longer sounded like a refusal.

“Definitely,” Wyatt replied.

“We’ve got to help him play!” Jackie said to Shane, nudging him in the side. “I’ve never played before either, but it sounds fun.” Shane didn’t reply, so she continued, “What’s it like, Wyatt?”

“You can work as a team to fight monsters,” Wyatt said. “Punch them or hit them with weapons or cast spells on them. And you get to roleplay as your character which is always fun.”

Shane was frowning a little.

“Roleplay?” he asked.

“Oh, Ilya would love to cast spells to kill things, I think,” Jackie said, “And I bet he’s never gotten to do that before. Plus he loves acting in character. He’d probably be so funny.”

“He’d be hilarious!” Wyatt agreed, “We’d all be dying. He loves that sort of thing.”

“I need to see that,” Jackie said, “Especially if it was something he wanted to do.”

“He definitely wants to?” Shane asked. He hadn’t spoken up much, but his tone had gone from uncertain to resigned, which seemed like progress. Jackie had nailed her prediction in their planning meeting with her analysis about how far he’d go to make Ilya happy, far past his own comfort zone. But Wyatt would make it worth it for him and everyone who played.

“Yes!” Jackie said, even though Wyatt knew based on the game they were playing that she wasn’t supposed to know anything about how Ilya felt. “I just know he does.”

But Shane didn’t catch it.

“If it’s what Ilya wants to do, I guess I can play.”

SCORE.

“Find out if J.J. will,” Jackie said.

Shane’s eyes went to Ilya, who was talking to J.J. and Hayden. But there was a plan, and it required that Shane did NOT get the chance to talk to Ilya until Wyatt and Jackie were ready to get the group back together. The plan couldn’t fall apart when they were so close.

“You go find him,” Jackie said, “I had to ask Shane a question about the wine he brought before we start.”

Just how many bottles of wine had been brought to this beer-only party? But it didn’t matter, Wyatt had a job to do.

“J.J.!” Wyatt called out, “Come here for a sec.”

Wyatt made it halfway across the room and stopped, leaving Hayden and Ilya on one side of the room and Jackie and Shane on the other. He and J.J. would be a physical barrier between them, and block any sight lines for nonverbal communication. Shane had to be kept away from Ilya and Hayden had to be kept in the dark until the last possible second, when everyone else was on board.

J.J. made his way over and sipped his not-wine in a very beer shaped glass.

“Hazy, what is up?” J.J. asked.

“It’s been a while,” Wyatt said.

“I know,” J.J. agreed. “I miss playing together in Toronto.”

“Totally,” Wyatt agreed. Normally he could wax poetic with his old teammate, but he was on about a one minute timer, per Jackie’s recommendation.

“Shane and I had the best idea,” Wyatt said, “We’re going to play a game. Ilya’s already in.”

“I love it, I’m in! What kind of game?” J.J. asked. He sounded intrigued and not at all suspicious.

“It’s a fighting game,” Wyatt replied.

“A video game?”

“No, a game at the table. It’s called D&D.”

J.J. laughed.

“Dungeons and Dragons? Really? I think you are a nerd, Hazy.”

“I know I am. But Shane and Ilya are in, and I figure it could be fun since they want to.”

“I do not know how to play,” J.J. said, sounding genuinely sorry.

“It’s okay, I can explain it,” Wyatt replied. “I know it well enough. I have the instructions in my bag, anyway.”

The bag was across the room, and Wyatt resisted pointing to it. He was supposed to suggest that he always had this bag on him, that it wasn’t for any particular reason that he’d brought it.

“Rozanov is in?” J.J. asked, “Really?”

Apparently Shane was believable enough, which was a good sign, since he was the one that J.J. was friends with. J.J. would probably follow his cues.

“Yep,” Wyatt replied. “We’ve talked about it so many times but never gotten to play.”

“Okay, I will play if you can explain it,” J.J. said.

SCORE PART II.

“Oh yeah, totally,” Wyatt said. “And you can pick your character. Like fight with swords or bows and arrows or ninja stars or punching and kicking or magic or-”

But J.J. was engaged enough to interrupt him.

“I like swords,” J.J. said, “I will fight with a long one.”

Wyatt would have to change the character, but that was the easy part. That’s why they had planned so thoroughly ahead of time.

“Yeah totally, a sword is such a badass weapon,” Wyatt said with a smile. “And there are huge ones.”

J.J. mimed swinging a sword a few times. This was even easier than Wyatt had expected.

Jackie sensed the success from J.J.’s little impromptu weapon demonstration.

“Hey Hayden!” she called across the room, “We’re going to play D&D over dinner!”

The whole room went silent while they listened to her. Wyatt and J.J. moved slightly to the side so that everyone could see each other.

Jackie went on with a speech that did not sound rehearsed at all. She must have been in theater in high school.

“Ilya and Wyatt agreed to play if they found people, and Shane, J.J., and I are in. It sounds fun.”

Ilya and Shane were staring at each other across the room.

“You want to play?” Ilya asked him, attention only on Shane. This was the first he was hearing of this plan, and his surprise was evident.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Shane answered.

“Fine?” Ilya asked, gauging his response. “Only fine?”

“No, it’s great,” Shane amended. “I want to.”

“Okay, we will play,” Ilya said with a nod.

They were having two different conversations, and Wyatt tried not to laugh.

Ilya had said “do YOU want to play?” and Shane had heard “are you willing to play for MY sake?” Shane had tried to emphasize that he was okay with doing the thing that would make ILYA happy. Which was not the question Ilya had thought Shane was answering. It was actually very sweet that they were both carefully trying to take care of the other, willing to play if and only if it was what the other wanted. It was just that they hadn’t realized that there were some missing pieces to the puzzle here. But Jackie diverted the conversation so smoothly neither of them realized what had happened.

“J.J. already picked that he wants to fight with a sword.” She looked at J.J. expectantly, and he predictably nodded and swung his imaginary sword against an imaginary opponent again. “I want to use magic!” Jackie said, as though this was a brand new idea. “I can use spells like Harry Potter, right?”

It was on the tip of Wyatt’s tongue to say that it wasn’t quite like Harry Potter, but he resisted in order to stay on message.

“Yep, you can fight with magic like he does.”

She used a pretend wand.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Okay, they were getting too far off track.

“Ilya, do you want to use a weapon? Or magic? Or punch things?” Wyatt asked.

Unfortunately, Ilya wasn’t the one to respond, but Hayden.

“You seriously want to play Dungeons and Dragons like a bunch of nerds?” he asked the room.

Wyatt looked at Shane specifically. Shane was Hayden’s closest friend here. Or maybe J.J. But before Wyatt could try J.J. instead, Shane spoke up.

“Yes, we are,” he said. He was once again saying “I will do this thing that will make Ilya happy,” but his voice was convincing enough that Ilya nodded.

“Yes,” Ilya said. “I did tell Hazy that I will play with him.”

“You can use a bow and arrow,” J.J. told him. “Hazy had a whole list of weapons.”

“You should punch and fight with your hands,” Jackie said to Hayden. “Seeing you fight is always so hot.”

Hayden blinked at her.

“But you wouldn’t really be-” he began, but slowly enough that Jackie cut him off.

“Oh, but I can imagine it just fine.”

Wyatt got the sense that there was more to this conversation, but he did not want to ask.

Sensing that he was outnumbered, Hayden said, “Okay, I guess I’m going to punch stuff.”

SCORE PART III AND THAT’S THE GAME

“Like monsters and shit, yeah!” Wyatt said.

“Hayden, Ilya, help me bring out the food,” Jackie said, directing the troops. “J.J., Wyatt, set up the game. Shane, bring out the whole case of beer. I think we’ll be out here a while.”

“We’re not eating first?” Hayden asked.

“We can play while we eat,” Jackie said, “And there will be plenty of beer.” She looked towards the kitchen. “And three bottles of wine. Two reds and a white, I think, if anyone likes that.” No one spoke up.

Wyatt wanted to poll the room to make sure his character choices were okay, that everyone was happy with their weapons and spells and potions and abilities, but he’d been instructed not to.

“Don’t give them a chance to question it,” had been Lisa’s exact words.

He updated J.J.’s weapon in his inventory quickly and printed it out on Jackie’s printer, which no one else had noticed had mysteriously made its way into the living room.

“One of each of these boxes of dice for each person,” Wyatt said to J.J. as he handed the cloth bag of dice to him. “You can pick whichever color you want.”

“We need so many?” J.J. asked, staring at the bag of six boxes of D&D dice, each of which contained a matching set of 7 dice of different shapes. One set was rainbow, one was yellow, one was green and had sparkly bits floating inside, one would light up when you rolled it. Wyatt had another few sets at home, but he’d picked the ones he thought people would think were cool.

“Yeah, and pick the color you want. You get first dibs.”

“Don’t give them a chance to question it” echoed in Wyatt’s head. But it worked, and J.J. set the dice down without question. He took the blue and gold for himself.

Wyatt set the map in the center of the table.

“Here are some rules for each person to reference,” Wyatt said, handing out the D&D cheat sheet he’d made.

He was going to assign the characters himself, but he had to know where everyone was sitting first.

It took about ten more minutes, but once everyone had a plate full of food and plenty to drink, the seats were filled and Wyatt could begin the game.

EPIC.

Queen Jackie had NOT been an understatement. She had accomplished what no mere mortal could ever have dreamed of: she’d made four hockey players sit down to play D&D without any of them realizing what had happened. Wyatt had been hoping for this for eleven long years of MLH hockey but had never accomplished it himself. And Jackie had pulled it off in one single night. All fucking hail.

It was fair to say all hail Lisa too, of course, but her work schedule had meant that she couldn’t make it. That and the fact that she didn’t have any interest in D&D. But Wyatt would still hail her as co-Queen for making this happen.

It took a few more minutes of wrangling to get the characters assigned, but when the dust settled, the players and their characters were as follows:

Shane Hollander was playing Kestheth the Dragonborn Sorcerer. (Ilya: “No, Shane should be one with the bow and arrows!” Shane: “…okay, I can be the one with the bow and arrows.”)

Ilya Rozanov was playing as Yaka the Halfling Bard. (Ilya: “I’m not going to sing to you, Hazy.” But he’d laughed so hard he’d cried when Wyatt explained the spell “Vicious Mockery” to him and decided he liked his role.)

Hayden Pike was playing Grion the Human Barbarian. (Hayden: “Thank God, I’m a human.” Ilya: “Booooring.” Jackie: “Maybe being a dragon would have been sexier.” Hayden: “…!!!” Ilya: winks at Shane “Dragon is definitely sexier.”)

Jackie Pike was playing Soliana the Elven Druid. (Jackie: “So that means I can turn into animals AND talk to plants?!” Hayden, sounding a little jealous: “Her character can do BOTH?” (He was getting into it, despite his best attempts not to.)

J.J. Boiziau was playing Dular the Orc Fighter: (J.J.: “How big is this sword?” Wyatt held out his arms as far as he could stretch them. J.J.: “Nice.” Ilya: “You should get one of those for real.” J.J.: “I should!” Hayden and Shane at the same time: “No you shouldn’t!”)

They each had a character sheet and a cheat sheet next to them. Those with spells and weapons had the details written out for them to follow. There were also keys for the dice.

“If I say D8, that means you look for a die with 8 sides. The highest number is 8. If I say you need the D20, that means you need the die with 20 sides.”

“20 is a lot,” Jackie said, but she’d found it and was examining it.

“It’s almost round,” Shane said as he spotted his.

Ilya rolled his own, farther than he’d probably intended, and it landed among J.J.’s pile of dice across the table. It landed on 3. It also knocked J.J.’s own D20 to now show a 20.

“But it lands, it is not round,” Ilya said, satisfied. Once he’d gotten it back and Wyatt was satisfied that they all understood the dice, Wyatt went on.

Wyatt gave them each their character art too.

“Where’s my badass sword?! Why do I have these two little tiny knives?” J.J. asked, when he saw his.

Wyatt looked over at it. The character was a young green skinned Orc in a badass fighting pose, one arm out and one arm forward, each holding a dagger.

“I didn’t know what you wanted!” Wyatt said, looking around for a pen quickly. “You can draw on it if you want.”

“I’m not drawing on it, it’s too nice,” J.J. said immediately. He frowned at Wyatt as though offended by the thought. The drawing had been done with what Wyatt could only imagine was a set of very nice drawing pencils, with fine line work and shading and thought given to every detail. It would have been defacing it to draw on it with a ballpoint pen.

Ilya seemed to look between the pictures in front of each player. His own should a smallish halfling with white hair sticking up at all angles. He was holding one arm straight up with a golden colored lute held high in his grasp. His mouth was open like he was yelling, or possibly singing. (Bards, you know.)

“Wait a minute. Hazy, did Haas draw these?” he asked.

“Your rookie is an artist?” Shane asked before Wyatt could respond.

“He’s not a rookie anymore, it’s his second season!” Wyatt pointed out. “But yes, he drew them.”

“Then why isn’t he playing?” Hayden asked.

“I’ve been asking him that once a week for two years!” Wyatt said.

“Yes, actually, he has,” Ilya told them, nodding.

“Here,” Jackie said. She drew a sword on a napkin and they stuck it on J.J.’s character art, which seemed to satisfy him.

“Okay, let me set the scene,” Wyatt said with a grin. Mercifully, the room fell silent. “It’s late at night. You’re all outside of your homes.” He didn’t even try to ask them to roleplay why they were outside late at night, even though with any other group he would have. But they were getting into it, they’d get there. “Kestheth-that’s Shane, the Dragonborn-is outside in his garden looking up at the moon. Yaka-that’s Ilya-is walking down the sidewalk-”

“By my house?” Ilya asked. He didn’t seem to realize what Wyatt was trying to do, so Wyatt backtracked.

“No,” he said, “This is an imaginary world. You’re all in the same town in this imaginary world, but you don’t know each other yet. You may need to get to know each other, but right now you’re strangers.”

“Okay,” Ilya said.

“Anyway, Yaka is on the street, Grion-that’s Hayden, the human-just left the store and is holding a bag of groceries. Soliana-”

“That’s me!” Jackie said.

“Yup, that’s Jackie. She’s outside talking to the animals in her garden.”

“I love it!” Jackie said. “That’s because I’m a druid. I can talk to animals.”

Wyatt smiled indulgently, but he could see that both J.J. and Shane were nodding along like they were learning something from her.

“And Dular-”

“Me!” J.J. said, following Jackie’s lead.

“Yup, you are an orc, you’re outside practicing with your sword.”

Wyatt was ready for the peanut gallery to pop in with questions about why they were all outside, but everyone appeared to be listening with rapt attention.

“BAM!” he yelled out, slamming a hand down onto the table. Hayden jumped up so hard his thigh hit the underside of the table. Jackie made a muted scream and then slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles. J.J. was grinning wildly.

“Hazy!” Ilya cried out, beer all over his hand. It was his own fault he’d gotten so scared he couldn’t hold his beer together.

Hayden and J.J. noticed him at the same time and both pointed and laughed.

“Oh, just you wait,” Ilya said.

“Not yet!” Wyatt said, trying not to focus on the beer that was staining his beautiful character sheet. Fortunately, it hadn’t made it unreadable, and most of the beer had landed on Ilya’s napkin. It was cleaned up in a couple of minutes.

“But what happened?” Shane asked when the chaos settled down. Everyone took their cues from him and turned to Wyatt.

This was the dream. Wyatt put his hands up like he was telling a ghost story at a campfire.

“All of a sudden, every building as far as you can see, every building in the whole world, flattened to the ground in an instant. Everything in them was immediately crushed. Everyone who was inside died. Only the people who were outside are left.”

“Everyone died?” Shane asked.

“Yes, everyone,” Wyatt said. “Now you’re outside, in silence, and all of the buildings that were around you are just gone. Flattened to the ground. You can still see trees and bushes and plants, but all of the manmade structures are just gone.”

Everyone was listening so well they could have heard a pin drop.

“Are there like…monsters and dragons now?” Ilya asked nervously.

“No monsters, not yet,” Wyatt explained. “Right now, you’re pretty far apart. You can’t see much of anyone yet.” The players looked at each other like they didn’t know what to make of this. “All of a sudden, there’s a giant white spotlight that each of you can see in the sky. Like a Bat Signal-”

“Batman’s in this too?” Hayden asked.

Before he could go off about that, Wyatt cut it off quickly.

“No, bad metaphor. Just like a spotlight is waving through the air.”

“Okaayyy…” Ilya prompted. He clearly wanted what was next.

“All of a sudden, you hear a voice speaking to you from inside your mind.”

“Inside my mind?!” Hayden asked.

“That’s fucked up,” J.J. said.

“Yeah, creepy,” Jackie said, “What’s it say?”

And the room went quiet waiting for Wyatt to tell them. This was his favorite part of D&D. The storytelling.

“Surviving humans, take note,” he said in the creepiest voice he could, “An alien race has taken over your planet. The only way to take control is to successfully complete the 18-Level World Dungeon-”

“There’s the dungeon,” Hayden quipped, but he didn’t go on, he went back to listening.

“If you can successfully complete the 18 levels of the World Dungeon, you can have your planet back.”

Wyatt wasn’t following the prompt exactly as he’d originally written it for a more D&D oriented crowd, but he thought his modifications would work for this crowd.

“The first level of the 18-Level World Dungeon will open approximately 18 seconds after the end of this announcement. The entrances will be open for only one hour, and then they will close forever. If you do not enter, you can’t save your planet. If you do enter, you can’t leave until you’ve completed all 18 levels. Thank you and have a great day.”

“Thank you and have a great day,” Hayden echoed in the same voice. Everyone laughed.

“I guess we have to go in to save the planet,” Shane said valiantly. Wyatt wouldn’t have guessed he would have said it first.

“We go in!” Ilya said, “Where the Batman lights are, yes?”

Wyatt gave up.

“Yes, where the Batman lights are.”

Despite the fact that the characters were not together, the players decided together to all head for an entrance.

For convenience’s sake, they all mysteriously arrived at the same entrance at the same time.

“Now you’re looking at a staircase,” Wyatt began. He looked around before realizing he needed to prompt them. “What are you going to do?”

“Okay, let’s go down the staircase,” J.J. said, nodding to his fellow players.

Oh, you sweet summer child who has never played D&D before.

But he was not alone in that.

“Okay, let’s go!” Jackie said.

“I wish there was a picture,” Hayden said. “Or like a movie.”

Wyatt was ready to say “Use your imagination,” but Jackie beat him to it and said the exact same words.

Jackie for President, when her term as Queen was up.

“You can’t imagine someone walking down a staircase?” Ilya asked Hayden dryly. “You go walk up and down the stairs over there until you can remember what it looks like and we’ll play without you.”

“Fine,” Hayden grumbled, “We’ll go down the staircase.”

He held up the little human figurine that Wyatt had given him.

Wyatt pointed to the staircase on his beautiful hand-drawn map (okay, “beautiful” was a stretch, since he’d drawn this one rather than asking Luca to do it, but he’d put a lot of work into it and was very proud of it) and Hayden put his pawn there.

Without prompting, Jackie and Ilya did too. After a moment, Shane and J.J. followed suit. This was getting easier and easier.

“Okay, you go down the stairs,” Wyatt said. Ilya leaned forward in his chair. “At the bottom of the stairs is a big metal door.”

He waited, just to see what they would say.

“What the hell?” J.J. asked, just as Shane said, “Well, open the door.”

Wyatt used the creepy voice again to greet them.

“Welcome to the first floor of the dungeon.”

Jackie giggled.

“For making it into the dungeon, you’ve each been awarded a prize.”

Wyatt grinned and held up a stack of cards.

“There are 100 possible prizes. It could be a potion or a weapon or a magical item or an article of clothing or an animal-”

“An animal?” Jackie asked, horrified.

“Like a pet,” Wyatt said, “Could be fun or could be good for attacks. You’re going to roll a D100-”

“There’s a 100 sided die?” J.J. asked, frantically looking through his dice for one that had 100 sides.

“I think I’m missing that one,” Shane said.

“If you add them all up, is it 100?” Hayden asked, looking prepared to start doing math.

“Guys, if you would listen,” Wyatt chastised. They looked up at him sheepishly, all with big eyes, like they were ready to learn. “So you have two dice that have ten sides.” Five pairs of eyes started to sort through the dice in front of them. “One is numbered 1-10 and the other is numbed 00-90. Do you see that?” It took a moment, and then they did. “You’re going to roll both of them at the same time. You have a tens digit and a ones digit-”

“17,” Ilya said, just as Hayden said “32,” and Shane said “96.”

Wyatt laughed.

“Okay, you get it.” He held up the deck. “Each number corresponds to a prize. Tell me the numbers again and I’ll find your prize for you.”

Ilya’s 17 got him Wings of Flying.

“Hell yes, I can fly. I’ve always wanted to do be able to do that.”

Hayden’s 32 got him two Daggers of Venom.

“That sounds legit,” Hayden said, pleased with that.

Shane’s 96 got him Armor of Resistance.

“You’re very well protected with that, so that will help you stay safer during fights,” Wyatt told him.

“Okay,” Shane said, just as Jackie said, “Oh my God I need armor too.”

Jackie rolled a 50 and got a Necklace of Fireballs.

“Read that card carefully, there’s a spell in that necklace and it’s really powerful,” Wyatt told her.

Jackie took the card and read the spell to herself silently, nodding as she read.

“Okay, I think I like that,” she said.

J.J.’s 4 got him a Potion of Firebreathing.

“Nice,” J.J. said, nodding.

Everyone else quickly replied that they wished they’d gotten that one.

“Shane, you literally already have lightning breath!” Wyatt said, eyebrows raised.

“HE HAS LIGHTNING BREATH?” Ilya and Hayden said at the exact same time in the exact same tone.

“I just said that like five minutes ago, weren’t you listening?!”

J.J. shook his head wryly.

“No but we are now!”

“Okay, so those are in your inventory now. You can use them whenever you want.”

“We get them just for walking in there?” Shane asked, “How do we get more?”

“Well, you have gold, so you can buy stuff-” Wyatt began, preparing to explain the game mechanics, but he got interrupted.

“How much gold?” Shane asked.

“What’s gold worth in Canadian dollars?” Jackie tacked on.

“How about US dollars?” Ilya asked.

“You don’t even live in the US anymore,” Hayden pointed out.

“Yes, but I need to know what the exchange rate is,” Ilya told him.

“How much is this potion?” J.J. asked, “Can I buy another?”

“Can I sell one of my daggers and buy a potion like his?” Hayden asked, pointing a thumb at J.J.

Wyatt really should have just planned on five potions of fire breathing, shouldn’t he?

“Okay, slow down,” Wyatt said, calming the room. “Hayden, your daggers are really good, you’ll want to keep those. You can buy and sell things only at shops. You aren’t at one yet and won’t be for a while, so don’t worry about it. You can earn more free things by completing various tasks.” He could practically see “what tasks?” forming on Hayden’s lips, so he added “killing monsters and shit.”

Shane nodded.

“Okay, how do we do that?”

Wyatt grinned.

“So you’re at this big metal door…”

“Let’s go through the door,” Shane said.

“I’m ready to slash some monsters with my giant sword!” J.J. said.

Wyatt resisted the urge to change the story so that there was a monster waiting for them since they hadn’t been careful, but he stuck to the plan.

“Okay, you open the door and you’re looking at a long hallway. You walk down the hallway.” Then he paused before adding, “You walk down the hallway, right?” The room nodded mutely. “You walk down the hallway. The hallway is so long you can’t see the end. There are doors down the hallway. You can’t see any creatures. What do you do?”

They all stared at each other.

“We go in a door, I guess,” Shane eventually said.

“Which one?” Wyatt asked, pointing at the map. There were three on the first stretch of the hallway.

“That one,” Ilya said, pointing to the closest door. On the map, nothing past the door was labeled.

“Okay, you enter the door,” Wyatt said. “Do you knock or just open it or kick it down?”

“We can knock,” Shane said at the exact same moment J.J. said “kick it down.”

Jackie laughed, though the atmosphere was otherwise tense with anticipation.

“I think we’ll just open it,” Jackie said as a compromise. Everyone nodded.

Wyatt moved their figurines into the room off the hallway.

“The door shuts behind you!” he said. A litany of curses followed.

“Damn,” “Fuck,” “Shit,” and “Oh my fucking God,” followed in quick succession.

“BAM!” Wyatt said again, though this time no beer was harmed in the making of this surprise. (Pity.)

“Bright lights turn on facing you and you’re blinded! You can’t see anything in the lights. You hear something mechanical.”

“Mechanical?” J.J. asked, “Like a robot?”

“I thought it would be a dragon,” Shane said.

“No, you’re a dragon, so I think dragons are good actually,” Ilya said rather reasonably, “I think it’s monsters that are bad.”

“Okay then I thought it would be a monster,” Shane allowed.

“You hear laughter and high pitched squealing. It’s menacing,” Wyatt told them. All of a sudden you hear what sounds like an engine rev. And now it’s coming towards you!”

The same litany of curses followed, but in a different order.

“Shit,” “Fuck,” “Motherfucker,” and “Dammit” this time.

“What do you do?” Wyatt asked.

“Get out of the way?” Shane asked.

“How?” Wyatt asked. “Do you go left or right, do you walk leisurely or run?”

“I’m running out of the fucking way!” Shane told him.

Wyatt put the machine on the map.

“Put your character where you are,” Wyatt told him.

“Which one’s me again?” Shane asked, but in a minute they’d sorted it. J.J. and Shane ran to the left, everyone else ran to the right. The room was huge, and there was room to run in both directions.

“Good idea to split up,” Ilya said, “It will not know which way to go.”

“It races forward towards where you all were so fast it almost crashes into the wall, but you all got out of the way in time. Once the lights aren’t facing you, you can see it better. It’s a machine the size of a tractor with treads like a tank. There’s a spinning spike covered wheel at the front. It’s called a Murder Dozer.”

“A Murder Dozer?” Hayden asked, incredulous.

“Like a-” Wyatt began his explanation, but Jackie got there first.

“Like a bulldozer but for murder!”

“Exactly!” Wyatt said. That was the first time in all of the times he’d run this game that anyone had ever gotten that, at least out loud.

“That’s a good one, Hazy,” Ilya said.

“On top are three green-skinned humanoid monsters screaming and pointing at you. They’re about four feet tall and dressed in leathery rags.”

“Gross,” J.J. said.

“They’re goblins!” Wyatt told them eagerly. He didn’t get a reaction, which he should have expected, but he was excited to explain nonetheless. “The Murder Dozer is stuck by the wall and needs to get back the right way, but two of the goblins jump off! One goes towards Shane and J.J., the other one goes towards Ilya, Hayden, and Jackie. Shane and J.J., you’re first. What do you do? The goblin is running towards you and has a big stick that he’s going to hit you with.”

“MY SWORD!” J.J. cried out, now fully invested. “I have a sword!”

“You swing your sword at the goblin!” Wyatt said. “Okay roll your D20, that’s your 20 sided die, to see if you hit him with it.”

“I can not hit him with it?” J.J. asked. “It’s a sword, how do I miss?”

“He’s fast,” Wyatt said, “But roll to find out if you do. Add 3 to whatever the number is.”

He pointed out the die to J.J., who rolled it.

“16,” he read out.

“That’s a hit!” Wyatt said. “Now roll the D8 (he held one up) and add 5 to it and that’s how much damage you do.”

J.J. rolled an 8.

“8+5 is 13, nice!” Wyatt said.

“And I killed him?” J.J. asked.

“Nope,” Wyatt replied, “You’re going to have to do more damage than that to kill him. Okay Shane, what do you do?”

Shane looked down at his list of spells, thinking.

“You don’t have a sword,” J.J. lamented.

“Wyatt told me to use Magic Missile to attack monsters.”

“Alright, Magic Missile!” J.J. said, “Let’s go!”

“Nice, magic missiles always hit!” Wyatt said. He pointed out a D4. “Now you’re going shoot three missiles at the goblin really quickly. Roll that 3 times add +1 to each roll. I’ll help you do the math.”

Shane looked a little beleaguered having to roll so much, but he seemed pretty pleased with his 10 damage, especially when Wyatt said, “The goblin is swaying a little on his feet now. He’s still standing, but he looks woozy and maybe a little weak now.”

“Awesome,” Shane said.

“Now he’s going to try to attack you,” Wyatt told them. “He tries to hit J.J. with his stick.”

“A stick is not as good as a sword,” J.J. said.

“Definitely not,” Ilya replied, “He should get a sword.”

“No he shouldn’t, he’s attacking us!” Shane said, sounding exasperated.

“Yes, but it is a better weapon,” J.J. said, ignoring the rational thoughts in the room.

“You want the goblin to have a better weapon to hit you with?” Hayden asked, in agreement with Shane.

“He hits you for 4 damage,” Wyatt said after he did his own rolls quickly, ignoring the peanut gallery. “You can fill that in on your chart.”

J.J. got a little help from Jackie to figure out where to write it, but he did.

“Now we’ll go across the room to-” Wyatt began, but J.J. interrupted.

“But he is not dead! The fight is not finished!”

Wyatt shook his head.

“I know, but we’ll go in a circle since this is all happening at the same time. I’ll come back to you.” J.J. was pouting, but he nodded.

“Jackie, you’re next.”

“You said Poison Spray is good, right?” she asked.

“Sure,” Wyatt said. “And that’s good for a lot of damage.”

After she’d rolled, Wyatt said “That’s good for 23 damage!”

“23!” J.J. and Shane both said.

“That’s better than my sword!” J.J. complained.

“The goblin is already shaking in his boots,” Wyatt said. “Now Hayden!”

Hayden looked at Jackie.

“I’m going to punch him,” he said.

He rolled to see if he hit, and he missed.

“You go to punch him and he dodges out of the way too quickly!” Wyatt said.

Hayden’s eyes widened.

“I fucking missed?!”

“Yes, but you get one more chance because you get two actions per turn. Roll again?”

“I fucking missed again!” Hayden said, completely aghast, when he rolled even worse this time. He looked mortally offended that he hadn’t been able to make a hit in a game he claimed not to care about.

“Ilya?” Wyatt asked.

“That’s it?” Hayden asked.

“You’ll get another turn next round!” Wyatt told him. “Now it’s Ilya’s turn.”

“I’m going to fly up above him and cast Vicious Mockery from above him!” Ilya replied. Wyatt had designed this character just for him. Bards didn’t have a lot of attack-y spells (though Ilya’s character did have a weapon) but the spells that he did have were useful in other ways. He had healing spells, defensive spells, non-combative spells, and then Vicious Mockery. Vicious Mockery was a spell that a Bard could use to insult someone so badly they took damage just hearing the words. Wyatt had known in advance that Ilya would like this spell.

“Awesome!” Wyatt said, “I figured you’d use that. Okay, roll to see if you hit.”

After he’d rolled to hit and for damage, Wyatt grinned and slapped the table.

“You killed him! Now tell us how you viciously mock him to death. Tell us what you say.”

“To mock him? What I say to him?” Ilya asked. When Wyatt nodded, Ilya stood up so that he could point his finger down at an imaginary monster that was below him and made a mocking face. He put on a voice and said, “Haha! You are pathetic, Jackie almost killed you in one hit you are so weak and stupid, a very bad monster not even good enough to last one round haha and you didn’t even manage to hurt us. You’re pathetic.”

Ilya looked triumphant. Shane was shaking his head, but he looked very happy with how happy Ilya was. Jackie cheered and clapped her hands.

“You killed him so badly he falls to the ground dead!” Wyatt said.

“Is he crying?” Ilya asked.

Wyatt laughed, delighted.

“He is!” he told them. “He was crying and screaming as he died.”

“Excellent,” Ilya said, pleased.

“There’s another goblin, on top of the Murder Dozer. He gets it to turn around, and now it’s facing Ilya, Jackie, and Hayden. It races towards you and you have to try to get away from it!”

Wyatt explained to them how to do a Dexterity check to see if they could get away in time to avoid being smushed.

“Ilya and Hayden you get away pretty easily, but Jackie on a 9 you’re running away but you can’t quite get out of the way fast enough!”

“Did she get smushed?” Hayden asked, sounding about ready to jump in front of the imaginary Murder Dozer to defend her.

“Her leg got cut by one of the spikes and stabbed and now she’s bleeding.” Wyatt rolled for damage. “You take 10 piercing damage,” Wyatt told her.

Jackie winced.

“That’s minus 10 to health?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, pointing to where her hit points were.

“Okay, but I had 60 to start, so 50 isn’t really that bad yet.”

“Should we use a healing potion?” Hayden asked, “Do we have one of those? They’re in games like this, right?”

“You could have gotten one as a prize, but you haven’t yet,” Wyatt said. “Maybe the next prize. Or you could buy one.”

“Even if we get one, I am going to save it for when someone’s actually dying, Hayd,” Shane said. “Not when someone has 50 hit points left.”

Hayden looked at Wyatt with big eyes.

“You’re not actually going to kill us, are you man?”

Wyatt grinned.

“We’ll see.”

Hayden turned back to Shane.

“You’re right. We should save any healing potions we get.”

Jackie laughed.

“I definitely don’t need one yet.”

“Okay,” Wyatt said, “Back to J.J. You’re still facing the first goblin. He’s a little woozy but he’s still standing. What are you going to do?”

“I am going to hit him with my sword again!”

“Okay, roll the D20,” Wyatt instructed.

“I rolled a 1,” J.J. said, wincing even though he didn’t understand just how bad his roll was.

“OUCH,” Wyatt said. Some worried faces looked back at him. “A Nat 1, or Natural 1, is when you roll a 1 on the die and very very bad things happen.”

“Shit,” J.J. said.

“You swing the sword and not only do you miss, but the sword goes flying out of your hands and lands across the room!” Wyatt pointed to a spot several spaces away on the map. He very helpfully added, “This is how far you can move per turn.” He pointed out the spots on the grid. “So it would take you two turns to even reach it, if you don’t get distracted and have to react to something else that’s happening.”

“Fuck!” J.J. said.

“Damn,” “Oh man,” and “Ouch” were the peanut gallery’s additions this time.

“We’re so fucked,” Hayden said.

“We already killed one,” Shane said, “And this one was shaky. We can do it.”

“Right!” Wyatt said, “And you’re up.”

“Go Shane!” Ilya said, “Use the lightning breath!”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Shane said. He checked his chart carefully. “It says I have to roll a 15?”

“No,” Wyatt corrected, “the goblin has to roll a 15 in order to be safe. If he rolls less you hit him. Let me check.” He rolled his D20 so hard it landed closer to Shane than to him.

“13!” Shane read out, “So I hit him!”

“You did!” Wyatt said cheerfully, “Now roll the D6 twice. That’s the one that looks like a regular die.”

“Regular- oh, yeah, I see it,” Shane said. “4 and…3,” he said.

“7!” Wyatt said, “That was exactly what you needed. Tell me how you kill him with your lightning breath.”

“Tell you how- like I breath on him?” Shane asked.

“Tell me what it looks like. It’s a bolt of lightning. How big? How bright? One bolt? Many? What color?”

Ilya looked more excited by this premise than Shane did, but his excitement bolstered Shane just enough.

“Uhhh….it’s white, really bright, a whole bunch of lightning bolts all at once right at him, and they all hit him at the same time.”

“They all hit him at the same time and he falls over dead!” Wyatt said. Jackie cheered and J.J. and Ilya applauded.

“Nice!” Ilya said, reaching out towards Shane to give him a high five. The rest of the table followed suit, and soon Shane was grinning as everyone was cheering him on.

“So he can’t attack you because he’s dead,” Wyatt said cheerfully. “On the other side of the room, the Murder Dozer just rammed into the wall trying to attack you. What do you do? The last goblin is on top controlling it. He’s the leader and he’s stronger than the other goblins and has more hit points. Plus he has the Murder Dozer. He’s at least ten feet high on top of the machine. You can’t reach him from where you’re standing.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I can’t punch him from here,” Hayden said.

“I can try Poison Spray again,” Jackie said.

Wyatt nodded.

“Go ahead.”

She rolled her D20 and rolled an 11, which hit the goblin, but only rolled a 2 and a 1 for damage, totaling 3.

“Well that wasn’t great,” Jackie said.

“It was a first hit,” Wyatt told her, “Good start. Hayden?”

Hayden shrugged.

“I don’t have spells. I wish I had Shane’s bow and arrows.”

Shane nodded.

“I’ll give them to you if I can.”

“You can’t,” Wyatt told him, “You’re across the room.” He turned back to Hayden. “You have the two Daggers of Venom. You could try throwing them.”

“Throwing daggers!” Hayden asked with a startled laugh. “Okay, I’ll try that.”

“D20,” Wyatt directed.

With a little help from Jackie, Hayden figured out what to roll.

“That’s a 20!” he read off the die excitedly.

“Whelp!” Wyatt said. “I’ll let you throw both of them on the Nat 20. You throw both daggers at him and both hit him, and then they come back to you like boomerangs. They were perfect throws. He’s up on the Murder Dozer and he didn’t even see them coming. They just cut him and came right back to you.”

“BOOMERANG DAGGERS?” J.J. asked, “That might be cooler than my sword!”

“That’s fucking awesome,” Ilya said, clapping Hayden on the back.

“Now he’s poisoned for one minute. Okay, roll for how much damage you did,” Wyatt told him, giving him instructions. “You get to roll two D10’s for each dagger. So 4 total.”

He ended up doing 21 damage to the goblin.

“That was pretty sweet,” Hayden said. “I like that.”

“Yeah that was totally sweet,” Jackie agreed, “I like the boomerang daggers.”

“Well I like your poison spray,” Hayden said back to her.

“Gross, get a room,” Ilya said.

“Okay, Mr. dragons are sexy now,” Hayden said, gesturing to Ilya and Shane.

Ilya laughed at him.

“They are though. He has lightning breath.”

“J.J. has fire breath,” Hayden said bitterly.

“Only in one potion,” Ilya pointed out, “Shane has it all the time. Right Hazy? Or only once?”

“Nope, he has it all the time,” Wyatt told him. “It’s his trait as a dragonborn.”

“What traits do I have as an elf?” Jackie asked.

“You can see in the dark!” Wyatt said, “Which is good because the dungeon has a lot of dark places.”

“That is creepy,” J.J. said.

“Yes,” Ilya replied, “It is good to see in the dark.” He smiled at Jackie. “But now we have to kill the goblin. It is my turn.”

“Yes!” Wyatt said. “Okay, he’s still kicking up there, working on gearing the Murder Dozer up to attack you again. What are you going to do?”

“Should I do Vicious Mockery again?” he asked hopefully.

“You can,” Wyatt told him, or you could use another spell or a weapon. Whatever you want to do.”

Ilya paused a moment as he read his options.

“Or I can use my weapon?”

“You have a club and the goblin is on top of the Murder Dozer, so you probably can’t reach him.”

“Is not a boomerang club then,” Ilya said with a smile.

“Not unless you roll a Nat 20,” Wyatt told him, “You could try.”

Ilya shook his head.

“I will leave that to Hayden. I could try Hold Person?” he asked, reading the cheat sheet in front of him. “Is a goblin a person?”

“Yes, you can use Hold Person on a goblin. That’s a good idea!” Wyatt told him. “You won’t do any damage, but you could make it easier for the rest of the team to do damage, and then he can’t attack you until he gets out of it.”

“Okay, what do I do?”

Wyatt gave him instructions. The goblin rolled a 2, and he was restrained.

“Alright!” He told them, “He can’t attack you until he gets out of this condition.”

“Jackie?”

“I WANT TO CAST FIREBALL!” she declared eagerly, “It’s a HUGE amount of damage! Everything we’ve been doing is like 3-20 and that’s way higher. I’m going to throw the whole necklace and do all the damage! It’ll be awesome!”

“It is, but uhhh….you’re inside in a dungeon,” Wyatt told her, “Are you sure you want to cast a fireball inside? It means you throw a HUGE ball of fire towards him. HUGE.”

Everyone seemed to consider this.

“Will it kill us?” Jackie asked, just as Ilya said, “but shooting a fireball would be very cool,” Hayden said, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” and Shane said, “Maybe if we all back up very far away.”

“Definitely back up, all on this side of the room,” Wyatt said, moving their pawns to safety for them. “ You can just all walk over there since he’s poisoned and held. It’s a pretty big room, but it’s still inside. Jackie, you’re at the front of the group, so no one’s in your range. He’s paralyzed by Hold Person so he automatically fails his saving throw. Plus it’s a fucking huge ball of fire. You can’t possibly miss.”

There was a twitter of excitement around the table.

“Let’s find out what that damage is. Now you’re going to do 12d6 of damage. You have to roll a D6 12 times.”

“TWELVE times?” Hayden asked. “That’s crazy.”

“I want that spell,” J.J. said.

“Me too. Make a fireball!” Ilya said.

“Here, take my D6,” Shane said, “You should roll six of them at once twice to speed it up.”

Everyone passed her their D6s. With the variety of colors, it would be easy enough to return them to the right person.

They read them out when she rolled them.

“1, 2, 5, 6, 5, and 3” and “6, 6, 2, 3, 4, 1”

“He only had 50 hit points to begin with,” Wyatt said with a laugh, “You’re way over. You’re going to incinerate him. Tell us how you do it.”

“Do I shoot the fireball out of my hand?” Jackie asked, “How does the spell work?”

“Sure, if you want to,” Wyatt said, “However you want, you tell me. It’s a 20 foot radius sphere, so it’s huge.”

“20 foot!” Hayden asked.

“Yeah, like 40 feet across,” Wyatt said, in case Hayden didn’t know the difference between radius and diameter.

“AWESOME,” Ilya said, having the time of his life.

“I hold out my hand like Iron Man,” Jackie said, gesturing. “Wait no.” She stood up and took a stance, hand out like the superhero. “I am in front of everyone like I’m protecting them-” she paused like she thought there would be objections, but there were none. The crowd was too intently listening. “And then I shoot a fireball out of my hand and it hits the goblin!”

“Okay, so a fireball is huge, so you’re going to hit the goblin and also everything else in front of you.” Wyatt pointed to the other goblins markers. “You incinerate not only that goblin, but the corpses of the other two goblins, and then the Murder Dozer explodes.”

There was a wave of cheers and excitement. Everyone high fived Jackie.

“You could have stolen the loot they had in their pockets, but you incinerated them,” Wyatt told them, “You burned everything else in the room, there’s literally nothing left standing except for the exploded burning Dozer. Good job.”

“Next time I want Fireball,” Ilya told Wyatt.

“That was so fucking cool,” Hayden said to Jackie.

Wyatt had never smiled bigger in his life. This was the most fun he’d had in…maybe forever. And Ilya seemed to enjoy it enough that maybe, just maybe, he would make a real effort to convince the Centaurs to play.

“Did we win?” Shane asked when the dust settled.

“You won that battle!” Wyatt said happily. “You can all get another reward.”

“Fireball!” They all immediately said, even J.J. who already had fire breathing and Shane who had lightning breath.

“Wait, there’s more than one battle?” Hayden asked, “How long is this game exactly?”

Wyatt was about to speak up when Shane spoke.

“You said at the beginning that there were 18 levels…” he said, trailing off.

“Just how long is this game?” Hayden asked, eyes narrowing.

“Well normally you play it more than once!” Wyatt said, “You don’t play it all in one day, you would get together another time to play some more.”

“But we played everything, right?” J.J. asked. “I used my sword, and Jackie used Fireball and Shane used Lightning Breath.”

“I didn’t get to use my bow and arrows,” Shane said.

“And none of us used the fire breathing potion,” Jackie pointed out.

“I didn’t get to turn invisible,” Ilya added. Wyatt didn’t even know where that came from, since he didn’t have anything that could make him invisible, but he made a note for next time that Ilya wanted that.

“I didn’t get to do anything,” Hayden lamented.

“You had boomerang daggers,” Ilya retorted immediately.

“Oh yeah, that was pretty awesome,” Hayden said. “And they were Venom Daggers.”

“Definitely awesome,” J.J. replied.

“I did want to see you TKO a monster,” Jackie said.

“Yeah, I didn’t get to do that,” Hayden said.

“So do you want to play again?” Wyatt asked.

The players looked around, all waiting for someone else to go first.

“We don’t play each other very often…” J.J. pointed out.

“Montreal’s not really that far from Ottawa,” Ilya replied. “It is easy driving distance…”

“And you make that drive all the time anyway,” Shane said. “Wyatt’s the only one who would have to go out of his way.”

“I would!” Wyatt said immediately, in case that wasn’t already abundantly clear.

“We could drive together,” Ilya told him, “But I get to pick the music.”

“Of course,” Wyatt said. He’d heard Ilya complain about his music tastes enough times that he wasn’t going to do anything that would make Ilya reconsider this plan. “You can be DJ.”

“This was fun, Wyatt,” Shane said with a smile.

“Yes, it was,” Ilya agreed.

“I am glad we played today!” J.J. said, “And next time I will breath fire.”

“And swing an even bigger sword,” Ilya suggested.

“A bigger sword!” J.J. echoed. “No, TWO swords!”

“How would that work?” Jackie asked with a laugh.

J.J. jumped up out of his chair and started demonstrating, making wooshing sounds as he made pretend hits with swords in both his left and right hands.

“It’s going to be so awesome,” J.J. said.

“I want a better weapon too,” Hayden said. “The boomerang daggers were pretty cool, but I want Ninja Stars or a Mace or something epic.”

“I can text you a list of all of the weapons,” Wyatt said excitedly, “And list of spells so that you can pick your own. Actually, you know if you wanted to make your own all new characters-”

“You are getting ahead of yourself, Hazy,” Ilya said, though he said it gently.

“Maybe start with a list of spells and weapons,” Shane suggested, “And we can pick them.”

“Okay,” Wyatt agreed. “We can start a group chat.”

“A group chat is always the answer!” Jackie said, “I’m excited for it!”

“And our campaign needs a name,” Wyatt said. “There should be a name for when this group of people all get together to play this game.”

The room began shouting out options.

Hayden’s suggestion was “I Was Forced Into It But You Know What, I Liked It Anyway.”

Shane wanted “It Will Always End with Fireball.”

J.J. liked “Hazy’s Team.”

Ilya Liked “Dungeons and Dragons Who Breathe Lightning.”

Jackie suggested “Wyatt’s Dungeon Crawlers.”

“We’ll put a pin in it and decide next time,” Wyatt said, “But we should try to make sure everyone can make it when we play. If anyone can’t, I’ll make Lisa play as you and she’ll do her best to kill your character.”

“She’ll kill my character!” Ilya repeated, offended.

“So don’t miss the game!” Wyatt ordered.

“We won’t!” They all agreed.

The team efforts of Lisa and Jackie had given Wyatt one of the most triumphant nights of his life. He was vindicated. After years of trying to get hockey players to play D&D, he’d finally gotten his wish and it had gone well. It had been a blast and everyone had been so invested that they had a list of things that they wanted to do next time.

There would be a next time!

Wyatt would have to think of a sufficient gift for Jackie (that wasn’t a bottle of wine) as a thanks for helping make this happen.

As for Lisa, Wyatt could give her a killer massage, and if he got her wine, she would love it. She would probably also love the threat that Lisa could potentially kill off their characters, which was the only time she ever loved D&D.

This was going to be exciting for everyone.