59. End Game #2
Micah can get through the broken section if he makes the check.
Dex can still do something useful from range after spectacularly fucking up the ward.
He says exactly that.
“Spectacularly fucking up was phase one. Phase two is redemption.”
“Good,” I tell him. “You need it.”
He flips me off.
They do it.
Griffin plants himself between the Hollow King and the rest of them, and his paladin absorbs a hit that would have dropped Dex instantly. Cami heals him without wasting her highest slot. Micah disappears through the broken stone.
Dex finally gets his moment.
Not a huge one.
Not the killing blow.
Something better for him.
The Hollow King starts another incantation while Micah is still climbing toward the anchor, and Dex recognizes it. His bard starts to sing.
Not a joke.
Not flirtation.
A melody he has used in this campaign for years, one he wrote for the character early enough that I remember him humming pieces of it around the house before Cami lived here.
The spell stutters.
The King’s magic falters.
One round.
That is all Micah needs.
His rogue reaches the anchor.
His blade flashes.
The third tether breaks.
The Hollow King screams, armor beginning to tear apart from the inside as centuries of stolen magic suddenly realize there is nowhere left to go.
The party closes in.
Griffin smites.
Micah strikes.
Dex attacks again and rolls an eighteen, which he celebrates like a natural twenty because he has no shame.
Then the King’s attention locks onto Cami.
She has been keeping everyone standing.
The Hollow King raises one hand toward her.
Griffin says, “I intercept.”
“You already used your reaction.”
“Fuck.”
Micah is too far away.
Dex has nothing left that will stop it.
Cami looks down at her sheet and then at the board.
“What do I have?”
I know what she has.
I also know what the Hollow King has left.
Not much.
She looks up at me.
“Guiding Bolt.”
Dex leans back. “Oh shit.”
It is one of the first spells she learned to use at this table.
One of the first spells she ever rolled.
I nod. “Roll to hit.”
She reaches for a die.
Not one of the expensive sets Dex bought her later.
Not the metal ones.
The simple first set.
She shakes the d20 once in her palm and lets it go.
It rolls across the table, clips the edge of the tray, and stops.
Nobody speaks.
Cami stares down.
So do I.
Nineteen.
The number hits me before anything else does because this isn’t only the tattoo.
Before Micah ever put a d20 on her hip, before she explained why nineteen was more honest than twenty, she sat at this table for the first time and rolled initiative with us.
Nineteen.
Her first initiative roll as part of this party.
I remembered it when she asked for the tattoo. Micah remembered too.
Now, hours of fictional history later, the number sits in front of her again at the end of the campaign she joined after it had already begun.
Nineteen.
Not perfection.
Enough.
Her eyes come to mine.
Something moves through my chest so quickly that I have no chance to categorize it before it hurts.
Dex makes a quiet sound.
Micah covers his mouth with one hand.
Griffin sits completely still.
Cami’s eyes shine.
I don’t need to check the armor class. I know it.
I know exactly how many hit points remain.
I look at her.
“Cameron.”
Her mouth trembles.
She looks up.
I let the pause stretch, not because I’m performing for them, but because I need a second too.
Then I ask her the question. “How do you want to do this?”
Her face crumples immediately. “Oh, fuck you.”
Dex laughs, but the sound breaks halfway out.
Micah looks down.
Griffin reaches for Cami’s hand.
She takes it.
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
She shakes her head, tears already spilling. “I fucking hate you.”
“I know.”
She wipes one cheek angrily and looks at the battle map, at her cleric, then at the other three minis surrounding her.
When she speaks again, her voice is quieter.
“She doesn’t do it alone.”
Of course she doesn’t.
Cami swallows.
“My cleric looks at them.”
Griffin’s thumb moves over her knuckles.
“At the paladin first,” she says. “Because he’s right there.”
Griffin exhales through a wet laugh.
“Then the rogue.”
Micah closes his eyes briefly.
“And the bard.”
Dex presses both hands over his heart. “I’m emotional support.”
“You are so much fucking work.”
“Also true.”
Cami laughs through her tears before looking back at me.
“She knows they’re hurt. She knows she’s hurt. She knows this whole thing has been impossible for like… fucking forever.”
Her voice breaks.
I wait.
“She reaches for the holy symbol at her neck.”
I nod.
“And she doesn’t ask her god for something huge.”
Another tear slips down her cheek.
“She doesn’t ask for a miracle.”
Fuck.
My throat closes.
“She just asks for enough.”
Nobody moves.
Cami’s voice steadies.
“Enough light.”
Her gaze drops toward the die.
Nineteen.
“Enough strength.”
Her fingers tighten around Griffin’s.
“Enough to finish what they started.”
I breathe in slowly.
Then I give her the ending.
“The cleric lifts her holy symbol, and light gathers around her hand. It isn’t blinding or perfect. Nothing descends from the heavens to save you.”
Dex wipes beneath one eye.
“The light comes from every place you have carried it through this campaign—the glow of the Whispering Fair, the Embervault, the lantern on the old trade road, the Reliquary. Every spell cast in rooms where you were certain the darkness was bigger than you.”
Cami presses her free hand over her mouth.
“It gathers.”
I have to pause.
Micah looks at me.
He knows.
I breathe again.
“And when you release the Guiding Bolt, it crosses the chamber like a line drawn through every place you survived.”
Griffin’s eyes lower.
“It hits the Hollow King through the open space where the armor used to protect his heart.”
The room in my head is clearer than the one around me.
“The light passes through him, and the crown falls first.”
Cami is openly crying now.
“Then the armor. Piece by piece, the Hollow King comes apart.”
Dex sniffles.
“The darkness leaves the room, and the catacombs go completely still.”
I look at all four of them.
“Above you, for the first time in centuries, sunlight reaches the floor of Miralen’s Keep.”
I close my notes.
“He’s gone.”
Nobody cheers.
I expected that.
Dex looks down at his character sheet, then back at me.
“That’s it?”
He knows.
He has known all night.
That is not really what he is asking.
I set both hands flat on the table.
“That’s the campaign.”
Cami makes a broken sound and covers her face.
Griffin pulls her sideways against him. She goes without hesitation, crying into his shoulder.
Dex stares very hard at his character sheet.
Micah wipes beneath one eye.
I look down at my notes because apparently none of us are going to maintain any dignity tonight.
For several minutes, very little is said.
Cami apologizes for crying, and four people immediately tell her to shut up.
Dex claims he isn’t crying while visibly crying.
Micah reminds him that nobody accused him of it.
Griffin keeps one arm around Cami and lets her stay there as long as she wants.
Eventually, she sits up.
Her mascara is smudged, and she looks across the worn character sheets spread over the table.
“How long were you guys playing this before I moved in?”
I consider the answer.
“A long time.”
Griffin nods. “Yeah.”
“Like… this campaign?”
“This campaign,” I confirm.
Her eyes move over the papers.
“You guys were doing all this before me.”
Dex gives her a small smile. “We had lives before you, Dollface.”
“Rude.”
“They were significantly less entertaining.”
Micah leans back. “He’s not wrong.”
Cami traces the edge of her character sheet with one finger.
“I remember standing right there.”
She points toward the side of the room.
“You guys had minis all over the table.”
Griffin smiles. “You called us super nerds.”
“You are super nerds.”
“You joined.”
“I contain multitudes.”
That makes me laugh.
She smiles too, but her expression softens again a few seconds later.
“This was the first thing you guys let me be part of.”