Reroll

We split up and go do various things for a few hours: In my case, getting to know Rover and working up service animal harnesses to cover his armor and those of my companions (which doesn't take too long with the equipment in the art building, although I do have to pony up for the supplies). It's handy that he doesn't seem to have the same hangups I inherited with this body, and the ‘Defend’ command has him keeping close and eyeing anyone who eyes me… which means I get largely left alone.  Admittedly, I liked my big cat Cutter better - he was more of a combat monster due to more attacks and eventual Pounce, plus I'll be able to replace him later with a flying mount.  Still… a big dog will do for now, and eventually buffs can handle the rest.

More eyes are on me than on my pet as I walk to the admin building at the end of the day, but nobody gets too close, which suits me fine. And of course, a dog with a service animal harness bately raises an eyebrow walking through the halls in the admin building… I do get one challenge as I enter, though.

“You're obviously not blind,” a redhead receptionist who's small C's I now envy, having carried my monsters around all day, “how exactly is that beast a service animal?”

I don't have a Charisma focus, but I do have Bluff as a class skill, and did select it… something believable and true response to a slightly different question should be okay… “I… am not required to answer…” I feign reluctance.

She gives a solid line, “I'm also not strictly required to let just anyone in the building.”

I sigh, “Well… if you MUST know, I'm a survivor a very recent sexual assault,” true, although it wasn't a successful assault, which is what's implied, “and it makes me feel safer to have a strong, loyal companion I can trust,” also true… but while this could be an answer to her question, it isn't, as Rover isn't really a service animal.  So it should be an easy Bluff check.

“Oh don't worry, this is…” I know where she's going with that well enough.

“It happened in the library, right here on campus. That's supposed to be safe too,” I go for a tone that brooks now argument, “He stays with me.”

“Right, umm…” she pauses, “don't mind me, go on in and… I'm sorry...” she's speaking quite weakly now.

I retort as I pass her into the building, “Yeah well… life sucks sometimes,” dying hurts more, though, but obviously I'm not saying that.

I get to the designated restroom easily enough, go in, lock myself in a stall, and tool around on my phone for a while. I listen as Betty and Ed come in and pick their own stalls… huh, they left their dogs behind, I wonder where… at the scheduled time, we all exit…

And Betty comments, “You brought Rover? And… what kind of service animal are you claiming?”

“I don't want to talk about it. I made multiples though, here…” I pass out the fraudulent service animal harnesses, “these should help us keep the dogs with us.  Just… have a good idea what bluff you want to use on the rather off chance anyone challenges it.”

“Thanks,” Ed answers, “well, it's time, so….”

We head to the office, disabling the alarm sensors as we go (Perception for Search to find them and Disable Device to disable them; alarm traps have a very low Challenge Rating (CR), so we can just take ten… and hey, each is worth a few experience points (XP), so it's not a waste of time). I use my master key for this building (no, they shouldn't have let me hold them overnight, but I did need them for my job at the time), and we're in.

Betty gets right to work, turning on the lights (a necessary risk), taking photos on the expected background, and printing us new IDs…

Admittedly, while I'm happy to have a workable id… “Chocolate D. Light, really?”

“Beats mine,” Ed adds, “Emila Z. Lay… E. Z. Lay.”

“Oh relax,” Betty seems dismissive of the concerns, “Look, I went with Betty Boop, it doesn't matter, it's fine.  The important thing is that it's in the school systems and is tied to an effectively unlimited account until the next annual audit in eight months.”

I pause rather than just killing her for the name, “‘Effectively unlimited’?”

“It's only good on campus,” she explains, “but the cards have the number of the school's general account rather than a student account for the backing finances when you swipe them.”

Ed thinks, “And all the store accounts feed into that, so when we buy something, it checks that the account can cover it, transfers the funds from the general account to the general account, confirms the transaction went through, and the register says everything looks good, so we walk off with whatever.  Isn't that theft?”

“It absolutely is,” Betty ‘reassures’ Ed, “but how many choices do we have right now? We can’t show up at our jobs looking like we do, we don't have ID to GET jobs, we don't match our student IDs if anyone glances at them, and we still gotta eat in the meantime. I know I'm hungry. You?  Got any better ideas?”

If looks could kill, Betty would be in a world of hurt… but we're only third level right now, so the magic that can make that happen isn't available… lucky Betty.

Ed eventually sees… well, not reason, exactly; necessity, maybe? “Fine. But that does bring up another question: Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

Betty giggles, looks straight at me, and gives a line from a very old movie, keeping the voice as breathy as Sigourney Weaver did, “Are you the Keymaster?”

I give Bill Murray's second answer to that question first, and make it as deadpan as I can, “Yes.”

Ed sighs, “Right. Fine. But can you at least get me a better name?”

Betty giggles again, “Yeah, sure, what do you want?”

My current character is Wisdom-based. That's the key ability score for a very important skill: Perception. It does just what the name implies: Allows you to notice subtle things, usually before they become a problem.

And it's giving me a red alert.

I interrupt in a whisper, “Boogie fever.”

We've gamed together a lot. They both recognize that tone, and that code phrase, as I head straight for the window at a dead run…

…which is how I find out that modern picture windows are a LOT more durable than the movies would have me believe. OW. I bounce, minus a few hit points… and I think my nose is broken?

Rover sails on through, though. He's a good two hundred pounds of solid muscle, and dogs are pretty good at reading their owners.  He also looks about as cool doing it as I wanted to look: Sailing through, barely losing any speed as his head breaks it down, light glinting off the fragments of glass that scatter and spin into the night outside. So that's what a natural twenty looks like in real life, I guess.

Betty and Ed take the hint and jump out the new egress… yes, we are on the third floor. That's just a twenty foot fall; 2d6 damage, and we're deliberately jumping, so half of that is nonlethal even if we botch the Acrobatics check to reduce it by a die… and we're not landing on concrete, but a flower garden, so the other half should also just be painful.

Unfortunately for me, I'm the last out of the room, so I ‘get’ to participate in a different action movie move: Jumping out of an explosion.  See, I knew it was time to go because I heard the grenade pin and the boots in the hallways, while smelling gun oil and gunpowder.  The window was simply the best route.

Movies lie, by the way. Grenades don't make pretty, slow fires that blossom like flowers. The one behind me is a bright flash of light that paints the darkened campus in stark relief, a crazy-loud bang, and a pressure wave that knocks me much further than I intended to go… I hear a sickening crack and feel a blinding flash of pain just before my body goes numb when I hit the sidewalk head-first.  

As the world fades out, I hear Betty scream, “Oh Pelor! They killed Kenny!”

The world fades in quite quickly… this time, I'm not in the dorm room; I'm outside the admin building, sitting at a desk on the sidewalk with a character sheet, quill, inkwell, blotter, and a bookshelf. It's the same smell of sulfur, the same red glow, the same uncomfortably warm environment… and I'm me again. Naked, but I'm me.

I take a moment to look around… anything past about ten feet from the desk is a sheet of roaring flames. No getting away that way, clearly.

Hmm. Let's see… I have all the time in the world now, but as soon as I finish up my character I'll be in a fight.  I don't generally start equipped… ah, any d20 compatible source, huh? Okay, so I need a build that doesn't care about equipment particularly much. Jim can handle healing… and I'll want to be able to have my own face at some point… I think I know what I'll do… I crack the books and get to work building an Oracle-3//Battle Dancer-1/Paladin of Freedom-2 character, using Kitsune as the base race and applying the Necropolitan template (Libris Mortis: A zero LA template… well, sort of… that makes a person undead and ageless). With a Pathfinder base, all undead get Charisma to hit points and fort saves instead of the missing constitution score, and the Realistic Likeness kitsune feat will let me borrow people's forms. Battle Dancer gets Charisma to AC, Paladin of Freedom grants Charisma to saves, and Oracle is a charisma-based caster.  The Lunar Mystery gets both Primal Companion (an animal companion, I go with a tiger) and Prophetic Armor (Charisma instead of dex to AC and reflex saves).  I max disguise out when picking my skills (including skill focus, of course), and commit my changes to paper with my signature….