The rumbling engine noise filled the gas station parking lot as the Harley Road King glided up to the line of pumps, its engine going silent as two nimble elves leaped off. The driver, Aerandir, removed his helmet, ebony hair swishing from one side to the other with the motion. Samanthia, his passenger, watched the gesture, chortled, and removed her own helmet with a greatly exaggerated version of the hair flip. Her long auburn hair fanned through the air, a sight that caused everyone at the station to gasp.
"Ta daaaa!" the bard's trained contralto voice rang.
Aerandir answered with his own sarcastic nasal "ta daaa!"
A symphony of rumbles and buzzes followed the elves into the gas station as the remainder of the party caught up. Tarn pulled in to the gas pump just behind them, stepping off of his Yamaha scooter while unclipping his White Helm of Safety +2, Charisma -4.
The priest nearly let the scooter fall, focused as he was on Samanthia's antics and figure.
Aerandir's eyes followed Tarn's, noting that he was examining every inch of the lovely elf's leather-clad bottom. "Tarn," he said. "C'mon, man. We've been over this before. Hot, she may be, but she's played by a dude."
Samanthia's racially-enhanced hearing caught the comment, which prompted her to wiggle her bottom and then turn and smirk at the pair before sauntering into the gas station.
.
Aerandir finished filling his gas tank as the remainder of the party lined their motorcycles up around other pumps. He bounced in to the station to find a snack and discovered Samanthia laying her best charm on the diminutive young man behind the counter. Shaking his head, he joined them.
"Dude," Aerandir said to the young man. "Dude," he continued, indicating Samanthia with his eyes. The clerk didn't catch on at first, shaking his head instead, and then as the meaning of Aerandir's words solidified in his mind his expression changed from infatuated to horrified.
"She's--you mean she--she's played by--by a dude?" the young man asked. Aerandir responded by winking and clicking his tongue twice. "But--but she looks so...."
"Impossibly voluptuous? Yes, indeed," Sephiline said, the elf ranger's voice dry as she set a bottle of chocolate milk down on the counter a bit louder than normal.
"And--you--so you're not--not--" the young man turned his head toward Sephiline and continued to push his proverbial foot into his wide-open proverbial mouth.
"Careful how you phrase what you're about to ask, my little human friend," Aerandir warned with a smirk and a glance down to the floor where Sephiline's companion, a wolverine, crouched and snarled. Sephiline grinned, the curl of her mouth mirroring that of the wolverine, and her right hand rattled her saber in its sheath.
"Right. Sorry, all. Elves are all beautiful people, I've always said. And--oh, is she--well, um, a she?" the cashier asked, nodding toward Yslea as the mage's blonde curls bounced around a cabinet and into view followed by the rest of her shapely figure.
Aerandir looked back and forth between the mage and the cashier several times before finally pursing his lips in humor and uttering a single, sharp "Nah. Sorry."
"Not many women in role playing, I suppose, are there?"
"Well, there's her," Aerandir pointed back toward Sephiline as he continued, "hence the lack of consideration toward breast size and corresponding bad-assedness of her character. Not that you're not--well, I guess we shouldn't talk about your ass, Samanthia. Annnywayyyy, there is an occasional guest DM who's a woman, but--," he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "but we hate to see her because one or more of us usually dies when she comes around."
"I know what you mean there," the cashier said with a wink. "I'm Dram, an unlucky human rogue who's fallen prey to the female Dungeon Master before."
"You look too alive to be an unlucky rogue."
"Oh, I'm the only one left, I think. At first I thought I'd gotten lucky by joining on with a party that was going to escort a prince--a real prince!--on a mission. The only problem was that in the seconds before I got there, the bad guys came through and killed off the entire king's guard, the assembled royalty including His Highness the prince, and the rest of what was to be my party. It was--well, it made for kind of an awkward entrance."
"Oh, I bet."
"You think it's funny."
"I do not," Aerandir argued, and then lost control of his smirk and burst out into giggles. "Okay, maybe I do. Just a little, though."
"So where are you all headed?" Dram asked with a glare toward Aerandir.
"Nowhere we'd want an unlucky human rogue following us, little man."
Dram's expression of dismay was interrupted by Tarn sauntering up to the counter carrying a paper tray with two corn dogs. "Hey Yslea," he asked across the store, "Could I get you to use one of those catnips to make the bathroom smell a little better? I'm afraid I ate a little too much hot sauce with breakfast."
Yslea leveled a piercing glare at Tarn and then pointedly began ignoring the priest.
- TOSK
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