Chapter 3
Aida Mahmoud, Jo’s best friend since the seventh grade, couldn’t seem to stop laughing. Jo had already turned down her phone’s volume once, and she bumped it down another couple of notches.
“Are you done?” she asked, giving Aida a blank look over the video call.
“No!” Aida wailed and cackled again. Her sleek, jet-black ponytail swung forward as she doubled over. When she sat up, she wiped a knuckle under her hazel eyes. Was she actually crying from laughter? “It’s just so fucking you, Jo. You’re spending your Friday night at the library! Doing MnM stuff!”
“Only for an hour!” Jo tried to sound incensed, but she was touched how Aida knew that, all things considered, her ideal Friday night would include some combination of books and MnM.
“And then what? Go home and watch that one episode of Bridgerton for the zillionth time and then jack off and fall asleep by nine?”
Jo was no longer touched that Aida knew her so well. “I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly happy with my vib—”
“I don’t actually want to know that level of detail, babe.”
“I was going to say ‘my life choices,’” Jo fibbed.
“Sure you were.”
“Hold on, did you say ‘jack off’ at work just now?”
“My office door is closed, it’s fine.” Aida waved an amber-brown hand set off by square green nails and a gold engagement ring. “I can’t chat long, though, so any other updates besides ‘I’m sitting in my car in my scrubs on a Friday night, waiting to go into the library’? How’s the Goober settling in?”
Jo smiled. The only other person in the world who had a nickname for Jo’s cat was Aida. “He’s okay. He… misses Jeremy.”
“You better not be projecting right now, or I will get on a plane tonight.”
“I’m not, I promise,” Jo said, holding up her pinky in sight of the camera. Aida held up her pinky too. It was as good as their middle-school pinky promises, a system they’d developed in college when they were thousands of miles apart for the first time in their friendship. “I’m not projecting. I don’t miss him. Merry, however, stands on the empty side of the bed and screams for an hour every night when I turn off the lights.”
“Aww, Goober,” Aida pouted. “I bet he misses Pippin, though. Not the asshole.”
“He is an asshole, isn’t he?”
“Who splits up pair-bonded cats?” Aida cried, as if that was the most blasphemous sin of them all.
On the list of Jeremy’s shortcomings, it was certainly up there. He and Jo had adopted the littermates as kittens. When they broke up, Jeremy had insisted they each take one, and Jo hadn’t known how to say no. Aida had been livid. She still hadn’t forgiven him.
“Assholes, that’s who,” Jo declared.
“Damn right.”
“Hey. I love you.”
Aida smiled softly. “I love you too, babe. Let me know how tonight goes, okay?”
“Always. Good luck with your meeting.”
Her best friend rolled her eyes. “Ten bucks says it could have been an email.”
“You don’t get to complain. You have an office.”
“And you have a hot librarian to go meet.” She made a shooing motion with her hand.
Jo blushed. “I never said he was hot.”
“Come on, Jo. I could hear it in your voice. Now go. I have to run too.” The camera jostled as she stood up and started walking. “I’ll see you in three weeks.”
Jo’s entire face brightened in the thumbnail of her own camera view. “Oh my God, you’re right. Only three more weeks until Indi--Con!”
Aida gave a soft cry of joy. “Aah! OkayIreallygottagoloveyoubye.”
The call disconnected. Jo’s phone declared it one minute after six. She checked her teeth in the rearview mirror, then grabbed her purse and the empty takeout bag from the mediocre carnitas burrito she’d scarfed down before calling Aida. She tossed the bag into the trash and headed toward the library door on the corner. Luckily, the afternoon’s rain had let up, so she didn’t have to walk through a drizzle. The air smelled pleasantly of wet concrete and soil, and Jo took a deep inhale. That fresh, clean smell was rare in southern California, but here in Ashville, she got to enjoy it almost every day. Maybe those Midwestern storms weren’t so bad… though she still hadn’t gotten an umbrella.
Felix was waiting for her on the corner. His dress shirt today was pale gray, and he stood facing away from her with one hip out to the side and his hands in the pockets of his navy slacks. In the slanted evening light, the shadows emphasized how well the fabric hugged his ass. Jo forced herself to look at the back of his head, where his loose, dark waves fell slightly past his ears.
“Hey there!” she called.
Felix turned around and offered her a small, polite smile.
“Sorry I’m a couple minutes late. I was on the phone.”
“No need to apologize,” he said. “I haven’t been outside since lunch, so I thought I’d get some air after the last patrons left.”
“Oh,” Jo said, strangely disappointed that he was not, in fact, waiting for her. She brushed it off and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Want me to go around the block a few times so you can smell the petrichor a bit longer?”
Felix’s grin was genuine this time, and Jo’s heart went all aflutter. “Kind of you to offer, and excellent word choice, but we can head inside. I don’t want to keep you longer than an hour.”
He held the door open for her. Inside, she waited at the top of the stairs for him. Except he didn’t follow her. He stayed by the door and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket.
Her pulse once again beat a little faster, for an entirely different reason. She shifted her weight onto her back foot, her hands clutching her purse strap. “You’re locking the door?”
“Yes, the library’s clo—” Felix stopped short, his eyes glancing over her body language. His face paled. “Oh fuck, I’m an idiot. This was a terrible idea. Do you want to leave? You can leave.”
He moved behind the front desk to clear her path to the door. The desk was waist-high on the customer side and chair-height on the employee side, effectively putting a barrier between them. Felix dropped the keys on the desk. He started to tuck his hands into his pockets, then stopped and slowly pulled them out where she could see them. “I’m so sorry, Jo. We can reschedule for when there are other people around.”
His horrified reaction went a long way in reassuring her that Felix meant her no harm. His face was still pale, and she doubted even the best actor could pull that off without makeup. “I’m okay,” she said slowly. “Maybe you could leave the door unlocked, though?”
Felix winced. “I’m sorry, but Warren would have my head. He knows I’m working with a volunteer after hours, but it’s still protocol to lock up on time. It has to do with insurance liability. I can give you the keys, though. Would that help?”
Jo pressed her lips together. She wanted to trust Felix, but she reminded herself she didn’t really know him. They’d only spoken once before tonight, and not even for a full twenty minutes.
“There are cameras,” Felix added when Jo didn’t say anything. He pointed to the devices mounted on the ceiling, one pointed toward the front door and one toward the desk. “We can sit here at the desk, and we’ll be filmed the whole time.”
Jo furrowed her brows. “Oh, right. I guess I forgot that we could sit up here. I was feeling weird about being alone in that meeting room downstairs.”
“We were alone in that room on Tuesday,” Felix pointed out, relaxing enough to slide his hands into his pockets. One thing, at least, Jo was certain of. He didn’t have a weapon in either pocket. She would have seen the outline of it against his thick thighs.
She lifted her eyes away from where his knuckles created ripples in the navy fabric. “But if I’d screamed on Tuesday, someone would have rushed downstairs, even if it was just to tell me to be quiet in the library.”
Felix laughed, a high-pitched chuckle that didn’t really match his tall, broad stature and his baritone voice. The tension between them eased. “Surely you don’t think so little of our librarians that you believe that would be their priority if someone screamed?”
“No, of course not,” Jo said with a smile, “and don’t call me Shirley.”
Felix cocked his head. “What?”
“Never mind. Movie reference.”
“Ah,” he said. “Are you saying you want to stay? I meant it when I said we could reschedule.”
“I’ll stay,” Jo said, approaching the desk and resting her hands on it. “I’ve actually been looking forward to this all week. Sorry I freaked out a little.”
“Truly, do not apologize,” Felix took one hand out of his pocket, showing her his palm in a placating gesture. “I owe you an apology. I should have asked someone else to stay late with me.”
“It’s all good,” Jo said. She came around one side of the desk while Felix went around the other, scooping up the keys on his way to lock up. Jo sat in the chair closest to the door and slipped her phone from the pocket of her scrub top.
Jo
Sorry, I know you’re in a meeting but I’m alone in the library with this guy and he has to lock the door or his boss will be pissed. I don’t feel unsafe, but also maybe if I don’t text or call by 7:15 my time, call the Ashville sheriff?
No wait, call me first. If I don’t pick up after three tries, then call the sheriff.
Aida
WTF???
Fine, I trust you.
7:15 EXACTLY, though.
Make good choices.
Felix cleared his throat behind her, and Jo hurriedly turned off her screen. He was holding a small ring of keys out to her.
“The front door is this one, with the tiny G stamped on it. I don’t know why it’s a G.”
How had he known she was just wondering that? Their fingers brushed as she took the keys from him, and he quickly withdrew his hand. Jo bit her cheek to keep from smiling and set the keys on the desk next to her.
“Did you text someone that we’re here?” he asked as he went the long way around the desk to the other chair.
“Yeah, my best friend Aida.” Jo left out the part about Aida being fifteen hundred miles away.
Felix nodded. “Good, I’m glad. Shall we get started?”
She cracked her knuckles, wiggled her fingers, and rolled out her neck. The familiar excitement of teaching someone to play MnM filled her to the brim, dissolving the last of her worries. “Let’s do it.”
Still feeling like an idiot, Felix dragged the two rulebooks over, and Jo opened Core Rules. He sat up straighter, a librarian working with a volunteer. Professional. Helpful. Polite, but not overly familiar.
“Did you have a chance to read any of this?” she asked.
“Yes, the first two chapters. I skimmed chapter three, but I ran out of time to read it closely. I’m sorry I’m not fully prepared; I didn’t realize that chapter was seventy-eight pages long.”
Jo looked at him through round, tortoiseshell glasses, which she hadn’t been wearing the other night. They brought out darker flecks in her pale brown eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. Her short hair was uncurled and pulled back into a ponytail, and Felix realized for the first time how round her cheeks were. Like apples. Or, with her pinkish complexion, maybe peaches were a more apt comparison.
“You counted the exact number of pages?” she asked with a smile.
“It was simple subtraction,” Felix replied.
“Basic math. A good skill for a GM.”
Felix had the distinct feeling that a joke had gone over his head, but she didn’t give him time to dwell on it. She gestured to the book in front of her and got to the matter at hand.
“I thought tonight I would walk you through building a character, since that’s how any new player who comes in would start,” she said. “Making your own character is one of the best ways to learn the setup and fundamentals of the game.”
“All right,” Felix said, trying not to look pained as he ran a hand through his hair. Playing make-believe wasn’t his ideal way to spend an evening, but he’d survived worse work assignments.
“Before we jump in, did you have any questions about what you read? You seemed confused by the world building before.” Jo rummaged in her purse and pulled out the same things she’d had on Tuesday: a mechanical pencil, a drawstring bag that rattled with dice, and a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it to reveal a blank version of the paper she’d tried to hand him the other night, a template with nothing handwritten on it yet. She smoothed it on the desk, and Felix was briefly transfixed by her hands, her thin fingers tipped with short, neat fingernails.
“I understood it better on a second pass,” he said. “I prefer things that are grounded in reality, so I tried relating the fantasy concepts to the real world. The pantheon of gods, for example, isn’t too far off from Greek and Roman ones.”
“It’s almost like ‘mythology’ is in the title of the game, huh?” Jo said with a teasing grin, which Felix couldn’t help but return. Make-believe or not, at least he could count on Jo to keep the evening interesting.
She handed him her pencil. He took it, careful not to brush her hand again. She turned to chapter three in Core Rules, titled “Archetypes.”
This is for my job, he reminded himself. For me and for Tito.
“It’s good to have a party—a group of characters adventuring together—with a diverse set of skills and abilities,” she began. “For example, my warlock has a high score in charisma. She’s good at talking to people, bewitching enemies into thinking they are friends, that kind of thing. But warlocks don’t wear armor, so in combat they’re easy to hit and easy to kill. Squishy.”
As she spoke, she flipped back and forth through the pages with an expert hand, pausing to point out different pictures and rules. She showed him an illustration of a robed warlock and the words “Armor: None” from a long list of “Archetype Features.” This was already so much easier than attempting to figure everything out on his own.
“I’m following you so far,” he said.
“So if you were going to make a character to complement my warlock, they should be able to take a lot of hits and do a lot of damage.” She turned to the beginning of chapter three, where there was a list of the archetypes and a one-sentence description of each. “Your best options for that are going to be a fighter, a paladin, or a barbarian.”
She angled the book toward him to let him read over the -descriptions. He nodded as he recalled some of what he’d skimmed over his lunch break today.
“A fighter sounds the simplest,” he said, thinking about the boxing gym in his basement.
“Sure, that’s a really good starter archetype.” She reached across the book and tapped a blank line at the top of his paper labeled “Archetype.”
As he wrote down “Fighter,” he asked, “Is there an option to be a boxer?”
Jo’s face lit up as she turned a few pages. “Actually, yeah. The fighter has a pugilist subtype. You’d do more damage unarmed than with a weapon.”
How the hell did she know where every single page she needed was? As he stared down at an illustration of a shirtless, pointy-eared man with incorrect hand wraps, Felix’s first thought was that Jo was like magic. Clearly, he’d already been at this fantasy stuff too long.
Hand wraps aside, though, the pugilist was pretty well grounded in his reality. “Where do I write that down?”
“You don’t, not yet,” Jo replied. “You pick a subtype at level three, after you earn experience points by playing the game. We’re only doing level one today.”
“Ah,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. He wasn’t actually going to be playing with this character, was he?
Jo proceeded to walk him through the “Fighter” section of the chapter and showed him where to write everything down on his character sheet. Then they rolled some dice to determine scores for his abilities: strength, intelligence, and so on.
“All right, so your race is next before we can finalize those scores,” Jo said, turning to chapter two. “You’ve got your Tolkien standards: elf, dwarf, halfling, orc. And then—”
“Could I just be a person?” he cut in.
Jo broke into a grin. “Felix, in this world, they’re all people.”
He suppressed the urge to groan. He liked pedantry as much as the next librarian, but even he had his limits. “A human, I mean.”
“You want to play a human fighter?” she asked with barely concealed laughter. It was so infectious that Felix couldn’t help smiling.
“Is that bad?”
“It’s only the most basic option you could choose.”
“Well, like I said, I prefer things grounded in reality.”
She pulled her shoulders all the way up to her earlobes in the biggest, cutest shrug Felix had even seen. “Felix, the whole point of this is to give you an idea of the options in MnM so you can help other newbies.”
“Fine, I take your point,” Felix said with an exaggerated sigh. He ignored Jo’s smug smile. “What should I pick, then?”
She flipped pages again before stopping abruptly. “How about a dragonkin? You’ll get a boost to your strength, which is good for a fighter. And you also get the ability to breathe fire and ice so you can attack more than one enemy at a time.”
Felix had seen this illustration of a red-scaled reptilian creature, fully clothed and on two legs, when he’d paged through the book earlier. But this time, something new clicked into place. “A dragon is a person in this game?”
“It’s not a full-blooded dragon, it’s a dragonkin,” Jo explained. “The actual dragons are in the Monster Compendia. This is a humanoid descended from a dragon way back in their ancestry.”
Felix narrowed his eyes, unsure whether he should be amused or concerned by that concept. “I don’t really want to know how that happened.”
“Welcome to Monsters and Mythology, dude,” Jo laughed. “People will try to fuck anything that can consent.”
Well, that settled it. Felix was by no means a prude, but this was his workplace. His family-friendly workplace, at that. He pushed his chair back from the desk and looked at Jo with all serious-ness. “Jo, please don’t tell me this game is about people playing out their sex fantasies.”
The smile fell from her face. “It’s not meant to be, no. Sometimes people get weird about trying too hard to seduce a barmaid, or even a dragon or a vampire. Especially newbies who don’t know the boundaries of roleplaying games yet. It’s your job as the GM to decide whether or not you allow that at your table.”
“Absolutely not,” he said without hesitation.
“For a public event, that’s a good call,” Jo said with a nod. “People will often flirt with or charm the NPCs—non-player characters. That’s okay within reason. Interacting with the world and the people in it is part of the game. But you can, and should, shut it down if it goes too far.”
It was bad enough that Felix had to learn this entire fantasy world and all its rules. Now he had to chaperone people from being overtly horny at a public library? This was getting ridiculous. There must be something about this game that he was missing, something that drew people to it that he couldn’t see.
He set his pencil down and raked his hands through his hair. “I think I need some help here, Jo. Can you explain to me why people do this? I don’t get it.”
Jo leaned away from him and averted her gaze.
“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”
She didn’t reply. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at nothing.
“Jo?”