The tiny maid on the table leaned down to the keyhole and pulled two thin metal rods from a thigh garter she hiked her dress up to reveal. She made quick work of the lock, then froze eerily still while Syron waited for the actual maid controlling her actions to decide what to do next. The actual clicking noise was exaggeratedly loud when the illusion swept the room. After that, a muffled bumping noise like someone falling off a bed in an adjacent room was heard.

“You succeeded in picking the lock, but your keen senses noticed that the lock clicked quite loudly, as well as a muffled movement from the other side of the door following the click.” Syron said to the group of four maids seated at the table around him, emphasis going to the one in control of the maid thief.

“I’ll… um…” The maid delayed, not sure what to do next.

“I’ll kick the door down and charge in with my axe!” The woman controlling the barbarian maid claimed.

Whoops. Made a mistake just now. The barbarian might not have heard the noise…

Down on the board, a maid wielding an axe too large to fit through a normal door stomped up to it and changed to a spartan kick stance with one leg in the air, then she froze in place.

“Roll a strength check against the durability of the door hinge.” Syron intoned calmly, his face trying to remain impassive but unfortunately, he found his own antics too humorous.

The maid in question rolled and easily dealt enough damage to succeed. It was an old, unmaintained wooden door with cast iron hinges that only ‘comical’ failures would have failed in breaking. The barbarian maid cried out in English, “This is Sparta!” before kicking the door and blowing it inward and off its hinges. The room appeared before the door was kicked in, the unfortunate goblin listening at the door getting blown away and into a table. Three more goblins kneeled on the other side of a few tables and chairs with roughshod spears or hatchets out. The barbarian stepped through the doorway, her axe phasing through the door frame hopefully fast enough that the maids couldn’t see the illusion fail.

“Yes! Combat!” A third maid cried. She was controlling an innate-magic caster maid, and had come up with roleplaying as a pyromaniac all on her own. The fourth maid just smiled at the barbarian and said to herself, “The way they talk nonsense is just adorable, isn’t it? What even are those words, anyway?”

“The door was successfully kicked down, knocking a goblin listening on the other side into a confused and bloodied state against a nearby table. Behind said table, three more goblins howl in anger and threaten you with their already brandished weapons.”

“My maid says… um… “I’ll barbeque those (omitted)!” and then I’ll dump half my spells into a fireball!” The pyromaidiac’s controller exclaims as she leans closer to the table to watch it unfold.

“Come on Brandilia! I just charged into that room! You’re going to roast me again!” The barbarian maid’s controller complained.

“Yeah… but my maid loves burning things. It’s her hobby, Dera.” Brandilia explained matter-of-factly.

“Well, the encounter just started, so everyone roll for priority. The goblins were made aware of you before the door was kicked down, so they don’t have any surprised penalties.”

The maids all rolled and the barbarian maid’s controller whooped when she saw her roll was higher than Brandilia’s. The pyromaidiac’s controller, however, just looked smug.

“Don’t forget, Trivexta the Burninator is always rearing to burn stuff, and as such gets a bonus of plus two to any encounter where she uses fire in her first turn. She has higher priority.” Brandilia claimed to a chagrined Dera.

I can’t tell if she’s actually invested, or just trolling.

After the turn order was set, the pieces on the board took turns becoming life-like and moving with the actions their controllers determined. The dual wielding ranger maid pulled out her shortbow and fired around the barbarian maid, hitting a goblin in the sternum. A veritable geyser erupted from the arrow wound into a comically huge amount of blood.

“Haha, that’s so gross Young Master!” The ranger maid’s controller said mirthfully.

When Trivexta the Burninator’s turn came around, she filled the whole room with fire, easily killing the goblins and putting the barbarian into critical condition, even after the barbarian successfully rolled an agility check to diminish the damage. Half a spell pool was still half a spell pool, after all, even if they started at level four for the test game. Syron made an effort, for the maid of course, to make the goblins look as pathetic as possible while the fire consumed them. The barbarian dove backwards to avoid the flames but still ended up tanking the heat instead of her party mates behind her. Her uniform was on fire so the thief maid started vigorously patting it out.

Ah, I should have just let her be on fire to see if they said anything about it. Give it a few seconds before declaring she took more damage… ah well, food for thought.

“I want to give her my healing potion!” The maid controlling the ranger exclaimed, clearly more panicked than the imaginary game situation would have implied.

“You find she is unconscious and unable to drink the potion.” Syron says while making the ranger maid kneel down and pull a small cylindrical potion out of another thigh garter.

“I’ve got to get me one of those…” Dera said, gesturing to the garter on the kneeling ranger with her hiked up dress.

“They aren’t terribly practical. The Young Master makes it look way easier than it actually is to pull up a frilly dress like that. Also, what would you even keep there?” The ranger maid’s controller asked, smiling.

“I dunno, Millie, eating utensils?” Dera responded to the laughter of the rest of the maids.

“Alright, Young Master, she can’t drink the potion, what do I do?” Millie asked, tilting her head and putting her finger to her chin like she was pondering life’s mysteries.

“Whatever you want, Millie.” Syron repeated for the umpteenth time. He didn’t get frustrated at them, since it was literally his job to help them make their own story, but new players could get a little grating with their repeated questions sometimes.

“Ah, well, I guess I’ll give it to her mouth to mouth. You okay with that Dera?” Millie asked as she turned to Dera, winking suggestively.

“Ha! Tell me the time and place and I’m all yours, Muffin.” Dera responded, jokingly putting her hand on Millie’s thigh.

“Perhaps we should give the Young Master a show so he knows how to represent it in his images?” Millie purred playfully.

Syron laughed.

“That’s true. I have no idea how to make it look. Please, do show me. I’m dying to know.” He made the ranger go through a series of actions representing what Syron ‘thought’ mouth to mouth would look like. The first was the ranger pulling out the stopper, drinking the potion, then smashing the empty bottle against the barbarian’s head. Time seemed to reverse for the mini maids as the ranger once again found herself pondering how to administer the potion. She drank it herself, slowly moved her head closer to the barbarian, and then headbutt her face, cracking the stone floor beneath her. The third attempt was fairly normal, with the ranger actually drinking the potion and then going down to spit the potion into the barbarian’s mouth. Syron made it weird by having the ranger then feel up the barbarian’s breasts.

“Young Master!” The maids giggled joyfully.

“He’s not even blushing! Apparently, we can’t tease him like this anymore.” Jenette, the thief maid’s controller said, laughing.

“Oh, you won’t tease me, will you? I’m a young, healthy boy. Please continue!” Syron laughed some more.

It’s good that they are finally relaxing around me. Everyone has seemed so tense in the keep since I first came to this world. It’s really nice to be treated as normal. I never thought I’d live to see the day where I felt that way… but I guess living for a few months as a ‘Young Master’ can be pretty lonely. Ugh, so long, shut-in days.

Laughing again, Syron looked down at the board and remembered he had a job to do.

“Well, Dera, go ahead and roll an endurance check to see how much damage you take for the first turn while we wait for the potion to kick into effect.”

The results were not satisfactory.

“Yep, she’s dead. Sorry Dera, Mohawk the Slayer Maid has perished due to severe burn wounds.”

“Come on! That was way too much damage, Young Master!”

“You would have survived it, but Trivexta the Burninator chose an ability that increases persistent damage of her flames during character creation. Since she loves to watch things burn, it’s got to burn longer and hotter is what Brandilia said, I believe?” Syron responded as he made Trivexta cackle maniacally at the fires still burning in the room.

“Do I get a chance for any last words?” Dera asked, suddenly serious.

“I suppose. Your face is pretty burnt though. Also, you were unconscious. Well, I suppose you can wake up for that.” Syron responded, another smile starting to form on his face.

“I want Mohawk’s last words to be “avenge me!” before croaking all dramatic like, can you do that Young Master?” Dera said.

All four maids looked down at the table as the dying Mohawk the Slayer Maid woke with a start, coughing reaching towards the sky with both hands. Turning her head slowly, she looked at Trivexta the Burninator and croaked out “Avenge me!” in English. Then her arms fell like their strings were cut. Her head continued turning as her eyes closed and her tongue came out of her mouth.

“I want to initiate backstab on Trivexta. She murdered my companion.” Jenette said firmly, looking down at Trivexta and flicking the illusions head. The illusion faded temporarily while Syron pushed a little to bring it back.

“Well, Jenette, Siri the Sneaky Sneaky Sneak Thief Maid did have priority next, so… I guess roll for attack. Trivexta is currently enamored with her work and is considered flat footed. Go ahead and add two to your roll.” Syron responded, adding the two to attack arbitrarily.

“Young Master, I only have four armor and seven health. Unless they somehow miss, I’m probably going to die too.” Brandilia said to Syron, though she didn’t seem concerned. She was just pointing out the facts.

“Yeah, most likely. Being an adventurer is dangerous work. Well, next time you’ll consider wearing two ply toilet paper for armor instead of single ply. Using single ply is like… wiping your butt with spider webs.”

“I don’t get the metaphor…” Jenette said as she rolled the first critical hit in the history of the game.

“It’s not a metaphor. Anyway… Siri the Sneaky Sneaky Sneak Thief Maid’s attack is successful. Roll for damage… and yes, Trivexta… well, just watch.”

Syron then made Siri vanish into a shadowy wireframe and stalk behind a still cackling Trivexta before pulling out a dagger. With her off hand, Siri grabbed Trivexta’s mouth from behind and pulled her back, simultaneously plunging the dagger into her back. Leaving the dagger in her back, Siri then kicked her knee from behind and forced Trivexta to kneel before brutally cutting her neck with a second dagger. The image depicted blood pooling out and slowly putting out the spreading fires.

“I loot the bodies and get out of there. We’ll just have to tell the adventurer’s guild that we successfully completed the mission, but unfortunately lost two members. Maybe they’ll give us a mortality bonus for the deaths of our comrades?” Jenette said the first part to Syron, but turned to Millie and asked the ending question seriously.

“Dunno. Young Master, do we get mortality bonuses?” Millie asked sweetly.