“Ohhhh, it won’t fit!” Jeff growled.
Charlie and Greg chuckled to themselves as they watched the fat bearman struggle with his suddenly-too-small clothes.
“What are you all laughing for? We have no money! We can’t even afford an Inn to stay at!” Jeff snarled.
“Hey, at least Greg isn’t cursed.” Charlie said.
“Yeah. That black goo was gross! I can’t believe that was actually inside of me!” Greg spoke up.
Jeff gave up and just waddled aside them, gut wobbling with every step. His disheveled appearance was earning him looks form the local populace. The bearman was clearly uncomfortable with it. Greg wondered why he would even care in the poorly-disguised fetish world he’d helped create.
“So what’s our next move?” Greg asked.
“Caravan.” Jeff sighed.
“Yup, guarding the caravan is the only thing left.” Charlie said thoughtfully.
The muscular wolf was really the only one of the three that appeared to be prepared for combat. Greg was currently a twinkish catboy with barbarian class levels but without the stats to use them. Jeff was a fat bear wizard… he should be fine, he just didn’t appear to be a professional with his gut hanging out and his pants straining around his fat ass. It might be a quest, but would they really get hired looking as they did?
Which is where Jeff’s point came in. They lacked money to even look presentable. Charlie could secure the job, but when they showed up looking like shit, what would their employers think? More importantly, Greg realized, he was fucked. It would essentially be a quest done with two people.
“Hey, we’re down a man.” Greg spoke aloud. “What am I supposed to do as a Barbarian without any stats? This isn’t fun.”
“It’s not?” Charlie asked.
“Fuck no! I wanted to be useful. What the fuck can I even do now? I wanna quit.” Greg said.
“Look, man, don’t quit.” Jeff said. “We can get you back to normal.”
“With only two people versus a night hag?” Greg scoffed.
“Well, wouldn’t you-” Jeff asked.
“With what power? My attacks do no damage without strength and my constitution is average. No bonuses. No rages. Not that it matters, since rage uses my strength score…which is a sum total of zero. Doubled is still zero.”
“Fuck!” Charlie groaned.
“I have some dexterity, but you have to build for a dex build and my feat was for a strength-based build.” Greg powered on. “The next feat isn’t for three levels, meaning we’d have to win….30 more quests in order for me to level up high enough. That’s 30 fucking quests I won’t be useful on, but you’d have to drag me through them anyways for experiencee. Furthermore, aside from not being interested in that, even if I DID make it to level four, dual wielding barbs still need strength for….drum roll please… extra damage.”
“So yeah, I can understand your position.” Jeff swallowed. “But…uh…I don’t think Finn cares.”
“Alright. See ya.” Greg shrugged and walked away.
“Hey, stop!’ Charlie rushed after him, grabbing his shoulder.
“Get off me!” Greg shrugged the hand away. “This is stupid! Who the fuck puts a night hag in the first quest anyways?! I’m supposed to have fun, and I’m not. I’m going to find the hag.”
“And kill her like you are now-”
“Now, I’m going to get my soul taken.” Greg spat.
“What?!” Charlie shouted.
“I’m re-rolling. Finn can go fuck himself.” Greg snarled and tried walking away.
“Wait…shit!” Jeff waddled forward. “You can’t-”
“I fucking can! And if he won’t let me re-roll, he’s a murderer, right?” Greg snapped. “Good luck playing with two people, dickhead!”
“Calm down! He won’t let this go on too long!” Jeff roared. “Don’t throw your character away!”
“Can you gaurantee it?” Greg placed his paws on his slim hips.
“The night hag will be reduced in power. He wouldn’t throw a 9 CR monster at us at level 1. Finn is a veteran DM, just trust him a bit, okay?” Jeff panted. “It was clearly a trap set for you. I’m sure Charlie and I will have quests that function as traps for us too. But with some smart decisions, we won’t have to re-roll your character. Think about it. You’re at a huge disadvantage, right?”
Greg nodded.
“So obviously, if you keep playing, you’ll be rewarded somehow? I don’t wanna metagame too hard here, but Finn is fair.” Jeff said.
“But we still have the issue that I’m useless in the meantime.” Greg replied. “I don’t even have that curse, which was a bad thing, but it was SOMETHING, you know?”
Everyone fell silent.
“I don’t know enough about D&D to help you.” Charlie said apologetically.
“I do, but I’m… yeah, there’s nothing in the mechanics that could actually help.” Jeff added. “If I were Dming, I’d have the party get a bodyguard and let you play him, but we can’t afford a guard. You’ll have to do the guard quest in your current state and hope for the best.”
“Shit.”
“Okay, but even if that happens, what do we do about gear? I’m fine, but you two aren’t.” Charlie gestured to some clothing and armor boutiques in the square. “Can we, uh, ‘find’ some clothes, so to speak?”
“Steal them?” Jeff shook his head. “Yeah, we aren’t strong enough to loot a shop. And if we did…they’d better not see us wearing around their stolen goods in town.”
“I mean, magic shops, sure. What about normal armor shops? All Jeff needs are robes that fit him, and he can do normal shoplifter shenanigans to get them.”
“What about me?” Greg asked.
“You just need some hide armor. That stuff is pretty cheap too and likely not guarded well either.”
“Do you know what they do if they catch you?”
“Nothing, because I’m a rogue and they won’t.” Charlie smirked.
“I should also tell you that Granny is watching us.” Greg spoke up. “She turned a door in the temple into a door to her lair.”
“It’s not safe to leave you alone and you won’t be able to go inside a shop.” Jeff nodded to himself. “Okay! We steal some clothes and armor and meet up with the caravan before the sun sets.”
“You weren’t on board before.” Charlie said. “What changed?”
“We need a win.” Jeff replied. “And I’m not sure what Finn expects us to do about this. Worse thing is that our characters get captured and we restart the game.”
“I don’t want to do this bullshit over again.” Greg said firmly. “It’s not fun being in this position. And you don’t know he’ll restart the game. What if we have to languish in a fucking dungeon for a month?”
“Oh, don’t worry! The worst thing they’d do is give you the halo treatment.” Jeff smiled.
“Halo treatment?”
“Helm of opposite alignment. If they think your evil, they plop the helm on you. But they detect alignment first. None of us are evil, we’re just desperate.”
“So if they don’t use that on us, wouldn’t they just put us in jail?”
“No. This is a fantasy fetish game. They’d put you to work somewhere to pay off the debt you owe to the shopkeeper.” Jeff smiled and clapped his paws together. “Alright! So we want a shop that’s not too garbage and not too rich. Minimum security. Charlie steals them, I pocket dimension the goods, we get to the caravan and put them on.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Charlie grinned.
“Fine.” Greg sighed.