"I'm back!" Mercury said. "And I grabbed an ice cream bar from the freezer." Neo looked at Mercury, attempting to make puppy dog eyes. She mostly looked surprised, perhaps with a dose of pollen allergy. He sat down. "It'll be delicious." He unwrapped the bar and took a big bite out of it. Neo immediately resumed kicking him under the table. "Hey, the freezer isn't that high. You could have gotten it yourself."

"Children," Roman said. "I believe Emerald's ready to give out experience and loot?"

"My two favorite things," Mercury said. "Ice cream's a close third, though. Mm."

"That was a CR 1 monster—"

"CR?" Adam asked.

"Challenge Rating. And you're a level 1 party, so sixty XP each."

"Sixty?" Cinder said. "I nearly died!"

"It says, right here, that you don't get more XP for rolling badly or making poor decisions," Emerald said.

"Like your saving throw, or your choice to dump Constitution."

"Where would you have put the eight? Dexterity? Wisdom?"

"Before Constitution, yeah. Wisdom, definitely. Besides—"

"Don't you dare imply Cinder has a low Wisdom score," Emerald warned. "I don't want a murder at my table."

"Your table?" Cinder asked.

"It's mine while I'm DMing. Feel free to murder Mercury here after all the books and whatnot that I bought are off it, and after the game I'm running is over."

Roman cleared his throat. "Let's loot the body, then."

"Loot the body?"

"You know, check it for loot."

"It's a snake, not a hobo. It doesn't even have a purse. Maybe you could make a pair of snakeskin boots from it or something, but—"

Adam spoke up. "Soverliss has Craft (leatherworking). Would I roll that?"

"...Yeah, probably. What're you trying to make?"

"Boots, I suppose."

"The snake's probably something like...ten square feet, maybe. Yeah, that's a nice, thick pair of boots. You can roll once y'all make camp. Anyone else want to do stuff before then?"

"I need to rest," Cinder said. "I nearly died, remember?"

"Set up camp?" Mercury asked.

Roman shrugged. "Fine with me. Bullhead and Neo have any opinion?"

Adam glared; Neo scooped some guacamole onto her potato chip.

"I hear no complaints," Roman said, "so let's get started."

"Right. First, Adam's skinning the snake and turning it into nice boots. Roll a Survival check to not screw up the snake."

Clatter. "Ten total."

"Hits the DC I assigned. Next...hm." Emerald flipped through the Player's Handbook, looking at the Craft rules and equipment section. "Let's say...DC 12, like leather armor would be, and assign an effective value of...half a gold piece. Roll."

"Ten plus two, twelve."

"On the mark. That's a hundred forty-four silvers for a week's work, or about two gold pieces in a day, plenty to finish the boots. Anyone else doing stuff?"

"I need to make arrows," Roman said. "Plus five, so I can take 10 for 15. If arrows qualify as a simple weapon, due to being closer in complexity to a spear than a sword or bow, the DC is twelve, correct? That means I'd get eighteen gold of arrows, which is three hundred and sixty, done each week if I worked eight hours per day, or six and a half per hour of work."

"Do you have proper tools? And what're you planning to use for raw materials?"

"You can make arrows out of sharpened rocks and sticks. As for tools...ah..."

"Minus two, so...thirty-one-ish, more like five and a half. Still, pretty well-thought-out, and I appreciate you learning the crafting rules. Twenty-five bonus XP for you."

"Hey!" Cinder growled.

"You do something impressive, you get bonus XP."

"I nearly—"

"Any idiot can do that."

"In fact," Mercury said, "idiots do it better!"

"Anyways, Adam's—"

"Soverliss."

"—making boots, Roman's making arrows, what're the rest of y'all doing?"

"I'll hunt," Mercury said.

"I'm resting," said Cinder.

Neo grabbed a handful of cheese puffs.

"...Right. I think hunting's Survival?"

"Si—Nineteen!"

"Merc tosses a shuriken in the eye of a passing doe. Between that and the snake, you have enough food for a couple of days. I suppose Neo can help Cinder heal?"

"Yes."

"Neo, your voice's changed! It sounds almost exactly like Cinder's!"

Neo tossed a crumpled-up candy bar wrapper at Emerald.

"Right, that should cover the evening. Camp arrangements? First off, who has a tent?"

Cinder and Neo stared blankly at each other.

"Swords are expensive," Adam muttered.

Mercury smiled. "Good thing I have a tent. It sleeps two, oh no. Who's sleeping with Hermes?"

Emerald shuddered. "Way to word it."

"Word what? I said exactly what I mean."

"It sounded like—"

"Exactly. What. I. Mean."

"That tent is mine," Cinder said.

"Oh, did you pay for it?"

"Well...no, I—"

"Let me settle this here," Emerald said. "Let's just trade in spare coin and gear for extra tents. Cinder...you bought alchemist's fire, seriously?"

"What?"

"Before a tent?"

"Well...it seemed like—"

"I'm sure. Change it or you're sleeping with Mercury."

"Wait, in the game or—"

"Finish that sentence and die," Cinder snarled.

Mercury shoved his chair backwards. "Whoa. Uncalled for."

"Shut up," Emerald said. "You'll live longer."

Mercury grumbled something about periods before going to the kitchen.

"Anyways...that's four people in tents. Anyone else have ten gold lying around?"

Mercury pointed at Neo. Neo glared back.

"Hm...yup, twenty-eight gold pieces unspent. Care to spend—no?"

"If she doesn't want a tent," Roman said, "she can sleep outside." Neo looked at Roman. "In the game. You can still sleep in your bed in the real world." Neo kept looking at him. "The tents sleep two. You want your character to squeeze in with Ros or something?" Neo nodded. "...Em?"

"Lemme see your characters...Ros is pretty small, Neo's cleric probably is too, and between Sovvie—"

"Soverliss."

"—Hermes, and Lilith, the elf's the smallest. So you three can cram in one tent uncomfortably—"

"No," said Cinder. "Not after the cracks Mercury made about sleeping with me."

"You'd rather sleep with Roman and Neo?" Emerald asked.

"Kinky," Mercury said, coming in. "Grabbed some of that pumpkin pie, Cinder." He handed a plate to her, with one piece of the promised pumpkin pie on it.

"...Thank you, Mercury."

"Kissass," Emerald grumbled. "So, we've almost finished preparations for the night. We just need to figure out who's sleeping with who and who's on watch when."

"I'm injured, and spellcasters need time to prepare spells," Cinder said.

"Elves don't need to sleep," Adam said. "They trance. Soverliss can keep watch half the night. The others can keep an hour each. That's eight hours."

"Tent problem," Emerald said. "Incidentally, Neo, how big is your character?"

Neo considered the question, then scrawled some numbers in the margins of her character sheet.

"Humans literally cannot be that small. I'm willing to be flexible, but that's breaking size category rules."

Neo reconsidered the question, then crossed out what she just wrote and replaced the numbers.

"That's better. Everyone else already wrote stuff in, so we know who's tall and who isn't. Cinder and Mercury own the tents, and the former doesn't want to sleep with the latter anyways. Roman and Neo are the smallest, and apparently attached at the hip, so they're in one tent; which one?"

"I'm willing to sleep with the Mystralian twins," Mercury said. "Especially since I just noticed Roman's playing a girl."

"Wait, what?" Cinder said.

"Girl. You know..." Mercury suppressed a description that would get him in trouble. "...the opposite of a man?"

"I know what a girl is, fool, but why is Roman playing one?"

"I have my reasons," Roman said. "Carefully-calculated reasons."

"With that aside," Emerald said, "do either of you two have a problem sleeping with each other?"

Mercury grinned.

"Shut up."

"Hey, I didn't even say anything!"

"Yet. This time."

"Let's get this over with," Cinder said.

"Right. Night passes, day comes. Cinder, you heal a point of Constitution damage and a hit point."

"We're resting today," Cinder said.

"...Alright, any objections?"

"We shouldn't delay," Adam said. "The Baron expects an expedient job."

"I'm nearly dead, you idiot! We're resting."

"How about we vote? All in favor of resting another day, raise your hand. Keep in mind that there's another full day to travel, so another full day to rest." Cinder and Mercury raised their hands. "All fine with going on immediately, raise your hand." Adam and Roman raised their hands. "Neo?" The girl ignored Emerald, and appeared to be grinding up a cheese puff into her soda. "Neopolitan?" She continued to ignore Emerald. "Polly!" Neo threw an unopened can at Emerald's face. "Why, you—"

"Calm down," Mercury said. "I'll switch my vote, happy?"

"No," said Cinder.

"I don't care. Roman, control your creature!" Another can of soda flew at Emerald; she caught this one.

"Neo, come on, calm down..." Neo splashed a little soda on Roman. "Alright, if you don't calm down, you aren't getting ice cream for a week. Understand?" Neo frowned, but nodded. "And stop kicking Mercury, too. You're an adult, not an infant."

"...Right. The infant's character is presumably providing long-term care to Cinder's?"

"Of course."

"Still not your call."

Neo nodded.

"Great, you'll heal two more points of Constitution today. The day after that, you reach the crypt. If you don't make camp—"

"We're resting another day, so I can get my damn Constitution back."

"We might be able to get some scouting done," Mercury pointed out. "Who's got decent stealth?"

"Stealth? Is that a skill?" Cinder asked.

Emerald said, "It's two, in this edition."

"I've got fives," Roman said.

"Same," said Adam.

"Four, so we could all go if we trusted our luck, but ranger-and-bard would be a better team," Mercury concluded.

"Did you remember armor penalties?" Emerald asked.

Roman facepalmed. "Right, fours then."

"I have leather armor," Adam said. "No penalty."

"Right. So, who's going?"

"I'm not," said Cinder, "and neither is my caretaker. I'm not interested in Mercury staying around, either."

Mercury shrugged. "Those two'd get into trouble without me. Never gamed a day in your lives?"

"It's not exactly complicated," Roman argued. "Numbers, mostly."

"So, to confirm, Mercury, Roman, and Adam—"

"Soverliss."

"—are scouting the crypt that afternoon?"

"Yup."

"Yes."

Adam nodded.

"Great. Its entrance is a small shrine built into the edge of a crumbling cliff. What god it was dedicated to is impossible to determine; it's been eroded by the centuries, and in any case all the holy symbols and idols have been defaced or removed. Someone smeared green plant matter in spirals anywhere flat and clean enough. A tunnel leads deeper."

"Should we enter?" Roman asked.

"Don't you know, you never split the party/Clerics in the back keep those—"

"What are you doing?" Emerald asked.

"Your favorite band, Emerald Rose."

"What?"

"Not what, who. Brown Sullivan, Larry Moors, Arthur Winds, and Glade Gilbert."

"Are you sure those are real people?"

"Could they write an awesome song and probably some other ones if they weren't?"

"...Right. Vote?"

"In," Roman said. "It's where the treasure is."

"In," Adam said. "It's our duty."

"Out," Mercury said. "Not that it matters much."

"Hold on," Cinder said. "Are you seriously saying they'll be getting combat and XP without me?"

"Oh, I'm sure I can arrange something for you, too."

Cinder paled.

To anyone curious if I knew the members of Emerald Rose off the top of my head: Hahaha no.