Our First DND Session

Tavern Scene Part 1: AKA Our DM trying to corral us into quickly picking up the poster and deciding to work together on this job; Us sabotaging her every effort by getting distracted by tavern stuff for one hour of game time and three hours of our actual lives. And then I wrote it because we had a blast.

Author’s Dice

Characters:

Jeni Perfrith, Dwarf, 48. Cleric (She/Her)

Eggren Shestendeliath, Human, 28. Barbarian (She/They)

Kerkad the Fabulous (idk why he’s fabulous his player hasn’t told me), Dragonborn, 27. Rogue (He/Him)

The tavern they’d stumbled into seemed to be the only open place in this town, which was so small Eggren figured that if they found it on a map, the land mass would’ve been smaller than the mole on their left elbow. But it was out of the storm, and it had lanterns that weren’t swaying wildly and setting fire to the ship mast (that had been a disaster), so she had to give it a little credit. She hadn’t caught the name on the way in — too busy squinting against the torrential downpour to read the dimly lit wooden sign above the door — but now they noticed the logo, carefully etched around the edge of the mead tankards lined up behind the bartender. Bitch’s Bosom.

If those tankards weren’t calling their name before, they sure were now. Eggren claimed a corner booth with the heavy thunk of her rain-soaked pack on the table and slumped into the open seat. Their two companions followed warily.

Well. “Companions” might be stretching it. More like stragglers who’d all been caught at the port at the worst possible time.

Eggren pictured the scorched, broken mast of the ship she’d left behind and grimaced. If she’d only made it to port a half hour sooner, she might’ve been able to avoid the worst of the storm. As it was, she had a broken mast and ragged sails and a shit-ton of charred wood to replace. It was going to cost a fortune. A fortune which she did not have and very much did not want to think about right now.

“Well, good morning there folks, what can I get for you today?”

The barmaid had made it to their table. She was pretty, brunette, a small silver stud in the lobe of one ear. Eggren made an effort to sit a little straighter.

“Ah, good morning — do you have any pastries?” This was from Jeni, the dwarf Eggren had picked up on their way into town. Her sand-coloured robe was just as drenched as Eggren’s vest. There was a sun-shaped amulet that looked like some kind of religious symbol pinned to the front, which Jeni made no effort to hide.

“Sure do, ma’am.” The pretty barmaid made a note on the parchment in hand and turned to their other companion. Kurtis, Kraig… something. It was a K name, Eggren was pretty sure of that. “And how about you, honey — you look like you could use some protein! How about some eggs and bacon?”

Eggren wondered if the comment was a reference to this K-person being dragonborn. The rough, charcoal-black scales and sharp teeth certainly cast an intimidating figure, maybe one that suggested “I revel in meats and bones, let me feast on the flesh of my enemies!”

But honestly Eggren thought he looked malnourished, more than anything else. A little bit shrunken, more on the wyrm side of the dragon scale. If there was such a thing. He looked like he’d be more suited to hiding in dark, shadowed places than charging onto the battlefield.

“Uh. Do you have anything that’s not… not eggs.” Eggren noted that this K-person was not very good at making eye contact.

“Not, not eggs?” the barmaid repeated, confused.

“I don’t like eggs.”

The barmaid seemed unsure of what to do and an uncomfortable silence descended with her brittle smile. K-person sighed heavily.

“You know what, fine, that would be nice, I’ll… I’ll order the eggs.”

“Okay, sure thing, hun,” the barmaid said, clearly relieved. “And how about you over here?”

Eggren shifted in her seat as the warm glow of the barmaid’s attention settled on her.

“Three meads, please.”

The barmaid made another note, but didn’t say anything else to Eggren. She tried not to be disappointed.

“Alright then, folks, those will be out soon,” and she left with a cheery smile. Eggren went back to their slump once her back was turned. It wasn’t long before she became aware of a very different kind of gaze drilling into her.

The dragonborn was glaring daggers at her, as if he’d encountered a worm in his porridge. Eggren was pretty sure they knew that look. Sober, and pissed about it.

She shrugged. “What? I didn’t say they were for you.”

This did not make a difference to K-person. He narrowed his eyes moodily at the slats in the wooden table in complete silence. Eggren felt a very different shift in her mood — the kind that tugged at her, saying oh, you can mess with this person.

Pretty barmaid, meads on the way, a new person to irritate the shit out of — things were looking up. They weren’t sure how much of this registered on their face, but Jeni was giving them a suspicious look, so they tried to not look quite so pleased.

Ten minutes later, the barmaid returned with a circular wooden tray. She deposited some sort of flat, pancake-y thing that was technically a pastry in front of Jeni, slid a heaping plate of bacon and bright yellow scrambled eggs over to K-person, and finally, finally, set three blessed tankards of mead on the table before Eggren with a loud plunk. She immediately scooped all of them closer to her edge, making sure to let them scrape loudly on the way. She grabbed the first one with an exaggerated sigh of approval and made intense eye contact with the disgruntled dragonborn as she drained the entire tankard. He found this even more disgusting than the eggs.

“Fuck you,” he said.

Aha. There was that thrill of satisfaction they were looking for. Eggren raised the second tankard at him in cheers and drained that as well.

Jeni made a very religious-looking triangle hand gesture and started whispering something under her breath that sounded like the plea to suffer fools. Eggren caught the sound of their own name and one with a K — “Kerkad,” was that the sober pisspot’s name? Must be.

The barmaid was slowly backing away.

“You folks enjoy!” she said quickly and made to leave — though not before Eggren was able to shoot a wink in her direction. The barmaid hid a giggle behind her palm and then scurried away.

Soaked to the bone and full of warm mead and the promise of flirting, Eggren no longer gave a singular shit about anything, least of all Kerkad’s sour face. It was time to turn their attention to what really mattered.

Getting drunk enough to forget this night ever happened.

She slid the third tankard toward her and settled in comfortably under Kerkad’s uselessly disgusted gaze.

It was going to be a long night.