Erica Flynn pulled an arm over her eyes as she slowly came to consciousness. “Fuck my life.” She groaned, her head pounding from last night’s party. She really shouldn’t have gone to Nicky King’s graduation party, especially with that evening’s planned activities, but the guy was drool worthy, and the booze had been nothing to scoff at. She even managed to drink a glass of ten year old cognac or something with a lot of alcohol in it, she wasn’t too certain on the details, but it had apparently been old and thus it had been something to savor. At least the first couple of sips had been taken slow, but eventually she had thrown caution and propriety to the wind as she often did, and quaffed it down. The rest of the night from there, beyond snippets and very pleasant sensations, was largely one foggy blur if not a downright blank, but that was nothing new for Erica Flynn, heiress to a family name she wanted nothing to do with.

Remembering she had fallen into bed with the aforementioned Nicky, Erica mentally rolled her eyes when she felt a big, sweaty hand fall on her bare midriff underneath the sheets. “Hey baby, what’s the rush? Haven’t even done a line off your chest yet, you promised.” Nicky’s sleep muffled voice asked as he pulled her against his hard, muscular chest in an effort to keep her right where she was, between a rock and a particular hard place.

“Really?” Erica snapped in disgust and threw Nicky’s hand off her stomach before fighting her way free of the sheets. “I’m not against partying, but coke? And when the fuck did I promise anything like that?” She asked as she yanked her underwear off the ground and similarly grabbed her discarded bra. That gave her pause because she still had her black short sleeve shirt on that proudly displayed the members of the Runaways. The question on her mind was a bit more pressing however. How the hell she take off her bra without slipping out of her shirt? Deciding she was better off not knowing what she had done last night in regards to the parts she couldn’t remember, she started for the bathroom that was connected to Nicky’s bedroom. She made no effort to shut the door though, there was little point in preserving her modesty.

“You were a little wasted.” Nicky grinned widely as she shimmied into her panties. “Okay, a lot wasted.” He corrected himself when she shot him a dirty look.

“Fuck off. Maybe you should learn to give better head instead of just taking it.” Erica muttered as she finished getting dressed, pulling up her pair of black, baggy polyester shorts, before slamming the bathroom door shut on her way out.

“You didn’t complain last night.” Nicky shot after her as Erica left his room.

Which of course prompted the question. What the hell did I do last night? What happened? Erica for one hoped that he was exaggerating. Nicky was nice to look at, but aside from that he had few desirable qualities. Not that her standards were especially high or anything, but she still had standards….sort of. Whatever had occurred during last night’s revelries, she did her best to push the unanswered questions to the wayside for now. Her head still hurt too much to allow for much coherent, rational thought anyway, so she wasn’t about to waste more time and energy on the matter. Besides, she still had most of her clothes, so that was a positive sign, or at least she decided to see it that way.

Ignoring the half conscious or still passed out revelers from the night before as she made her way out of Nicky’s upscale apartment, but not without picking up one of the few untouched bottles of, what she hoped was the good stuff, Erica sighed and ran her free hand through her messy, multicolored hair and tried to shake the still pounding headache behind her gray eyes. Either way, no one had told her that that wasn’t allowed, so she was good to go, at least Erica told herself that with a smirk as she made off with a few bottles on her way out the door.

Checking her messages after tucking her ‘liberated’ bottles of booze under her left arm, Erica’s grey eyes widened as she looked at the time on her phone. “Oh shit! Laurie!” With that eloquent epitaph, she began to run the rest of the way out. She had to get home, avoid her dear control freak parents, get her Dungeon stuff, and her ass to Samantha’s in the next couple hours, on foot. The problem was that she hadn’t finished her character sheet, mostly because Laurie was the nerdy tech wizard among them, and the young woman in question was surprisingly active for not having the full use of her legs. Erica knew she had only herself to blame in the long run, but some of it could be blamed on Samantha and Laurie for being the responsible adults in their little group of friends.

But unlike her usual half hearted attempts at Dungeons and Dragons, she wanted to come up with something special on her own. She just hadn’t exactly put any work into it yet. Her plan, as it stood currently, had been to create someone she could relate to, which meant her avatar needed to be hot, talented, and far away from home. The rest of the stuff, her spells, skills, whatever… well to be perfectly honest she would have dumped that onto someone else. Like Laurie or Samuel, they were good with stuff like that after all, or at least had more patience than she did at least when it came to the more technical aspects. But one thing was for sure, she was going to rock a bard this time. It almost seemed suspicious, how Laurie and Sam had conveniently forgotten to tell her about the musically inclined class, like they were afraid of what she might be able to do if she were given free reign to rock their socks off, or rather sing them off as the class description had stated anyway.

Blinking her gray eyes rapidly when she yanked the front door open, Erica grimaced and jerked her head away from the bright, summer day that greeted her that afternoon. “Fuck my life.” She cursed for the second time in as many minutes, but she pushed through the discomfort as she made her way as quickly as she could to her family’s home. Unfortunately she was forced to live there, at least for a little while longer, but soon she would earn enough money to escape her parents’ clutches forever. That was the hope anyway, and with her little odd painting jobs and her admittedly sporadic performances with the local garage level band in the neighborhood, as well as a nine to five she worked pretty regularly, she had disposable income to keep herself at least a little comfortable as she got herself sorted out.

Keeping her ‘liberated’ booze tucked firmly under her right arm, she speed dialed the city cab service that she had been forced to use more than once in situations much like this. Again, it wasn’t entirely her fault she was running late, again, but she wasn’t about to be late if she could help it today. “Hi, City Cab, I will pay triple if you can get someone to me in five minutes.... hello, hello? Son of a bitch!” She growled, and sighed as she jammed her cell into her shorts once more. Today was just not her day, but when she saw a city bus heading down her street, Erica came up with a plan. No one would care….much, if she hitched a ride on the back. The only problem was that she didn’t see how she could hold onto her booze and keep herself from falling off the back of the bus as she let her gray eyes dart over the busy street, trying to time her run to the vehicle without getting plastered by another of the cars zipping by. That’d be about her luck.

“Better be fucking worth it....” She gave a deep sigh as she grudgingly set the bottles down, thought better of it, and took a deep swig from one, then tossed it before she began to run towards the bus just as it started to pass her. Concentrating on doing something truly stupid, Erica barely had time to suck in her gut when a Ferrari sped past right in front of her. Ignoring the blaring horns that resounded from the reckless driver, she continued her run, and managed to hop aboard the back fender of the bus, and grinned in triumph even as her heart thumped loudly in her ears from the near misses along the way. She was fairly sure that last vehicle that had zipped past had been so close that she could have sworn that she felt one of its side mirrors brush her back. “Ha, not even close.” She said with a relieved smile, despite her carefree nature she would have vastly preferred very much not to be run over today, or any day for that matter.

But it was only at that moment did she realize the bus she had busjacked, if that was even a thing, was headed in the wrong direction. “FUCK MY LIFE!” She yelled at the top of her lungs before thumping her head against the back of the bus in defeat. She didn’t bother to acknowledge the many disapproving glances and glares she received from the bus’s passengers for her outburst. Hopping off the fender when the bus came to a stop at a busy intersection, Erica muttered a string of curses as she decided to just run the rest of the way to her family’s house. It would be quicker than trying that again at this rate.

Twenty minutes later, with her head hung in humiliation, she stabbed at her cell, and a worried sounding George Kennly, her father’s driver, quickly ordered her to stay exactly where the hell she was, in a slightly more polite way, and that no he wouldn’t say a word about this. Provided she didn’t get him fired, again. Sighing heavily, Erica promised she’d not wander and that she owed him big time for the help. For someone who worked for her parents, she had to admit that he was surprisingly okay.

Just as punctual as George always proved to be when forced to endure her father instead of Erica herself, the older gentleman soon brought the car around and stopped next to a sweat covered Erica. The run in the heat, dressed in black as she was, had not been the best idea, and George found the young would be punk rocker on the side of the street, fanning herself futilely in one of the few shady spots she could find while keeping herself visible. Rolling down the window, George only shook his head in resigned exasperation. “You really should be more careful Miss. And even though I’m sure my words will have as much effect as the last fifty or so times, I still feel the need to remind you that I am at your service. Lecture over, where we are off to this fine afternoon?”

“Home George, the back way if you don’t mind.” Erica droned as she stood to her feet, ripped open the passenger side door, and plopped herself down limplessly. She breathed a great sigh of relief when the cold, mercifully cold, breeze from the car’s AC hit her square in the face.

“I’d be shocked if you wanted nothing less.” Wasting little time, both because there was no point in dragging out the conversation further, and because they were both taking a big risk given how Erica’s parents were, George popped the gearshift and had them on their way down the busy Chicago street. Being caught assisting the black sheep of the Flynn family would likely cost him his job, for the second time, and Erica would be forced to endure yet another heated, loud lecture from both of the elder Flynns. It was something he had seen enough of to know he sincerely felt sorry for Erica for being the only child.

“So, how’s.... stuff?” Erica asked in an effort to fill the silence that had fallen between them.

“If by stuff you mean mine and the miss’s well being, we couldn’t be happier. Dorothy signed us up for a dancing class. Tango lessons, supposed to be quite the stimulating experience.”

“You know you don’t have to tell me everything. There is after all such a thing as too much information.”

“Really now Miss Flynn? With the way you young people brag about every little thing you do on social media, I find that hard to believe.” George shot back smoothly, and with what she guessed was hidden amusement in his voice.

“Touche.” Erica replied and nodded her head in acquiescence of the older British man’s verbal riposte.

“Ah, that reminds me, your father has fencing at three sharp. Mind if I take a shortcut? I don’t have to remind you that being caught assisting you will likely land us both in severely hot water, again.”

“I’ve always liked you George, just don’t scratch the paint. Or enter this thing in a demolition derby, but you might actually have fun if you did.”

“Hmph….it is a tempting thought though isn’t it?” George asked, but Erica knew there was no way he’d actually do anything of the sort. As hard and unforgiving as her folks were, he had a strange, almost fatherly concern for her she knew, and try as she might, Erica couldn’t deny that she didn’t like the warm feelings she got while she was in his presence. “Tell you what, you stay out of trouble for a while, and we’ll buy a couple junkers. Have a good old time bashing them up, provided you wear the safety gear of course.”

“Hah, well look at you old man. But if that’s the only caveat, I guess I can entertain the idea.” Erica chuckled and gave George a smirk from her side of the car.

“But only if you stay out of trouble Miss Flynn. Something which you seem to find exceedingly hard to do.” Her driver reminded her dryly and lifted one eyebrow at the rear mirror, as if issuing a silent if well meaning challenge that Erica had no desire to meet because he was right.

As such, the tired, resigned sigh that escaped her was of no surprise to either of them. “Yeah….I know. I have been trying though….more than usual I mean.”

“You have at that, despite the rumors of you hanging around that Nicky King bloke. I’m surprised he had enough brain cells to rub together to put together a party in the first place.”

“He’s got a guy for that. The fact you know he had a party at all worries me.” She said, and couldn’t help but wonder if someone had posted something on one of the few social media sites she knew George and his wife frequented.

“Oh, I do believe the entire city knew about his little get together. You may want to look at the local papers.”

“Fu-” When she caught George’s disapproving frown, Erica decided not to finish her usual go to phrase and simply let out a heavy sigh. “Great.” She said instead, to which George nodded his head before turning his faded green eyes back to the road ahead of them.

“This isn’t my place Miss, but it’s, once again, something I feel I must tell you. You deserve better than that arrogant little sod. And if he were to injure or dishonor you, well let’s say I’ve got a guy who...handles such unpleasantries.”

“Relax George, it’s not like I’m interested in that, little sod, as you called him.” Erica was quick to point out and shook her head. “And really? Are you part of the mafia or something?”

“Only the next in line to rule over the family business.” He shot back with a smirk and chuckled wryly.

She couldn’t help but smile and shake her head at that. “The only thing you’re gonna be doing is being happily retired with your lovely wife, George.”

“Oh, don’t worry Miss, that’s my day job, this is more of a fun hobby. Keeps me on my toes, being concerned with your welfare, and your family’s of course.” George replied in his uniquely dry tone only he could pull off. “However, you should take note that we have arrived Miss. You would do well to disappear.”

“I will, and thank you George, again.” Erica said, leaned over, and left a chaste kiss on the old man’s cheek before slipping out of her seat. He was right, and as much as she wanted to keep talking to him, to keep basking in their familiar, friendly, almost familial rapport for hours on end, she needed to hurry before her parents caught her.

She had barely started towards the fence that ran the length of her family’s home that she heard George shout out a curse that had her spinning on her heel to look towards the car. “Oh bloody hell, run, I’ve got a distraction in mind.” George told her with a wince as her angry looking father stalked towards the towncar. Before she could say another word, George drove up to the man, conveniently blocking his way as he got out to open the rear door for the fuming Eric Flynn. “Hello sir, terribly sorry for my tardiness, we should make your lesson right on schedule if we leave now.”

Not sticking around to wait for him to catch up or to wait to see if he’d seen her or not, Erica hopped the fence at a run, tumbled gracefully across the perfectly manicured lawn on the other side, and made a running leap to the white wood trellis that went up to the third floor of the Flynn estate. She wasn’t about to linger longer than she needed to as her feet soon touched solid ground once she had rolled over her balcony railing, before she was opening the double glass doors to her rarely used bedroom that looked like it belonged to a princess rather than who she actually was. “Too damned close.” She muttered to herself as she ignored the brightly colored walls of varying shades of pink. God she hated this place, and the few times she had actually worked up the nerve to paint the walls and plaster posters of her favorite bands and artists across the rock and roll spectrum, her parents had hired interior decorators to tear it all down and restore things to the way they’d been.

Without looking around she went to her desk where she had left her admittedly meager notes for her character. Why linger in a room that was not truly hers? Nothing here was her own, it was what her parents had deemed appropriate and nothing more. If only they would at least try to understand then maybe they could finally become a real family. She shook her head impatiently at her childish thinking. Wishful thinking, nothing more. They will never change and you know it. She told herself moodily.

With those dark thoughts she turned to go, wondering which way she could take to escape without getting caught. The front door was out of the question, and the danger of running into someone in the back was still too high for her liking after her close shave with George there just now. She could still go down into the kitchen, as if her parents would ever bother to cook for themselves, and climb out the window there. That didn’t mean one of the servants they kept on hand wouldn’t see her, but most of them were of like mind as George, although there were a few that didn’t like her for their own reasons, although she believed it was simply because they were paid to rather than having an opinion of their own.

Aside from that, she honestly didn’t care the least about their opinions, so long as they kept their damn mouths shut. If all went well, she would never see any of them again anyway. With that in mind, Erica made it a point to gather a few last minute items she hadn’t taken with her the last time she’d been here, threw the lot haphazardly into a duffel bag, and slung the heavy duty gray and red bag over her left shoulder. It was then she froze for a moment as her eyes fell on the glass door, and the reflection she caught within its shiny, recently polished surface.

Like her parents, Erica Flynn had tanned, bronzed skin from their Hawaiian descent. Unlike them, her tanned skin was natural, and not a fake, spray on tan since she actually made it a point to stay outside of her own volition most days. She also chose to use her hard earned money for better things…..most of the time. She was tall and lanky, but she was a beautiful woman, even with her short, darker brown locks that had pink and blue highlights streaking through them. But what she saw in the glass in front of her was most definitely not the Erica Flynn she was so intimately familiar with.

Lively, ravishing emerald eyes stared back at her, from a face with unnervingly glowing light pale skin, that were framed by a head full of platinum, flowing hair that fell to the center of her back. While she was far from unattractive, with curves in all the right places, the woman staring back at her was far more….well proportioned than she would ever be without surgical assistance, which she wouldn’t have wasted her time or money on even if she had used her family’s substantial resources for just that very thing as so many idiot girls did. But that wasn’t even the most striking feature that caught her attention, as she hesitantly, fearfully reached up to touch her ears, and immediately felt relieved to find normal, smooth curves instead of the knife sharp points she saw before her, which she found oddly unadorned. Her own ears still bore the metal stud piercings she had had done when she had turned eighteen years old, but the sharp, elven ears in the glass were completely bare.

Not only that, but her Runaways adorned black short sleeve shirt was nowhere to be found, nor were her short, black polyester shorts she distinctly remembered pulling up earlier that afternoon. Her illusionary doppelganger was adorned in red and gold trimmed vestments, which tapered into elegantly cut coattails that stopped around her ankles. The front of her outfit was low cut, and held together by a series of knots, done in gold colored thread. Well worn, brown leather traveling boots covered her feet, and long, dark blue heavy duty linen pants covered her long, slender legs which were tucked into her boots. The only similarity between them was the expressions on their respective faces, which was a mixture of surprise, mild terror, and old, deep seated emotional pain that she felt rather than saw in her emerald eyed counterpart.

A rapid eyeblink dispelled the momentary hallucination, but Erica knew she had seen what she’d seen, and she had been perfectly, painfully, sober. She’d have understood if she had had more than the one swig from that bottle before making her daring run to the bus, but that had hardly tickled her stomach. Instead of wasting anymore time on whatever that’d been, Erica pushed her way through the glass doors, and decided to simply run for Laurie’s house by going across the neighbors’ yard. They could file a complaint for all she cared. While she was slowed down by the heavy duffel bag on her shoulder, Erica hardly noticed the weight as she made her swift way out of the Flynn family yard, and into a new chapter of her life since she had no intention of coming back here ever again.

So she chose to do the same thing she always did ever since she was old enough to understand what her parents had planned for her. She ran, ran as fast as she could. Through one garden after another, then over one street that couldn’t be avoided or around a garden with guard dogs, she ran until her lungs burned and her muscles hurt. But when she saw the cab on the side of the road just outside her ridiculous gated community, she couldn’t stop the smile that appeared on her otherwise jaded face.

“George.” She murmured, having a feeling it’d been his foresight that had the cab waiting for her, a suspicion that soon became rooted in fact when she went to pay the driver, only to be told that her fare had been taken care of. “Thanks.” She said simply as she tossed her duffel into the seat beside her before sliding in next to it.

“You planning on going to Disneyland or something? This fare is more than I get in a week.”

“Just get me outta this Suburbia hellhole.” Erica snapped impatiently, in no mood to be chatty with some random cab driver that looked about as intelligent as Nicky had been the night before with a few shots of jager going through him.

“Alright… where to?” Giving him the address for Samuel’s, the driver promptly shut up and drove off without another word, much to Erica’s silent, immense relief. Her little hallucination had scared her more than a little, and as such, she neither had the patience nor the time to deal with more things today. Still, despite the possible, serious health related implications such a hallucination might herald, Erica couldn’t help but imagine herself traipsing about as that rather ravishing, sharp eared, and sexy as hell elven woman she’d seen in her glass door. Hell, she wouldn’t have minded seeing the rest of her, truth be told.

Taking advantage of the crosstown cab ride, she quickly started filling in her character sheet, first the image she had seen while it was still fresh in her mind, while kinda creepy to see something like that she couldn’t deny that that chick had been hot as hell, then a flowing history and description as fast as she could jot it down. Besides, she was a painter, capturing the finite details of a person or the world around her was the easy part, coming up with an appropriately fantasy esque backstory? That wasn’t so easy, but by the time they pulled up in front of Samuel’s doorstep, Erica felt moderately happy with what she’d been able to put together as she collected her crap and hopped out of the cab without a backwards glance. She altered her course slightly though when she saw Martha’s car in the front driveway, and made it a point to toss her duffel bag over the fence before she followed suit right behind the bag, albeit with a little less grace than the last time she’d hopped the fence back at her home.

“Time to kick and lick some ass in fantasy nerd porn.” With a confident nod, Erica made her way through the Harrisons’ far more modestly sized yard, down the small hill that led to the walk-in basement’s glass door, and found Samantha and Wei already getting set up.

Which led to where she was now, sitting in front of the de facto head of Critical Role himself, preparing herself to deliver her admittedly lackluster backstory compared to Samantha’s. Although she calmed herself with the thought that this wasn’t about her, not really, that they were doing this for Laurie. Still, not to be outdone, and having come to an agreement beforehand that she and Samantha’s girls would know each other, to an extent anyway, Erica pulled her right leg up onto the couch and tucked it underneath her before going into her elf’s history. “En’hana So’lia was a wild child, especially by elven standards, and made no efforts whatsoever to bend to the otherwise rigid, controlled upbringing of her parents’ people or their way of life. She preferred to be free, to pursue her own path, to fight, fondle and... screw her way to glory. So much so, she might have been a little too overzealous in her pursuit of making herself as different from her people as possible, and found that one day, her parents had had enough of her wild, unruly ways, and decided having another child was far easier than trying to reign in the one they had. Finding her way out of the Feywild shortly after she found out the truth, En’hana was devastated that she was being replaced, and what had once brought her some measure of joy quickly turned to ash as she left her old life behind for one of uncertainty and worse. If not for the intervention of a certain human noblewoman,” she gave Samantha a sidelong grin before she continued, “En’hana would have wound up dead in a ditch somewhere. Katarina straightened her out as best she could, and they’ve traveled together ever since, one to find her cursed parents, and the other to find some purpose and meaning to her life.” It even sounded like she hadn’t just pulled that out of her ass on her way to the house, so Erica felt pretty proud when her friends gave her approving, grinning nods in response.

“Heh, your dear En’hana certainly sounds like a piece of work.” The Dungeon Master told her with a small smile. “Should certainly make things more interesting than they already are. And just to let you guys know, your ‘opponents’ have started as well. Gotta stay, their leader is a hard one. And your friend Laurie? Yeesh, scary stuff those two have come up with. I am almost afraid to hear what the other two have to say.”

“That’s… good?” Samantha asked from Erica’s side and gave her team a nervous glance. She could understand why, after all, most of their opponents were far more experienced than they were. If they had made their characters super scary… well it probably wouldn’t take them long to get murdered.

Once more, their DM was on top of things as he cleared his throat to get their attention. “Just so you’re aware or need the reminder, everyone, that means the other team too, is starting at the bottom of the barrel. Which means, backstories aside, while they might have the experience advantage, you’ll still have an equal opportunity to level the playing field in your favor.”

“Ah, so if we die at least it’ll be fair.” Wei quipped, which had a small snort escaping the DM and Nate from their respective chat windows.

“I highly doubt it with this bunch. Just being honest.” Their grinning DM admitted with a look of pure innocence.

“Great.” Nathan droned, and rolled his shoulders about so that he felt a couple of pops in his back before settling in his seat. “At least you’re an honest, equal opportunist murderer.”

“I try.”

“Okay, so we have a sexy cleric with a bite equal to her bark, and a very sexy bard with family issues, guess that leaves me and Nate to fill in the gaps.” Wei said, a half grin tugging at his lips as he let his gaze fall on Samantha and Erica in equal measure.

“You’re up lover boy.” Their smiling DM told him with a knowing wink, instantly deflating the young man’s growing ego.

“Crap.” A blushing Wei muttered, his grin disappearing in a flash as he was called on to talk about his own addition to the party of heroes that were surprisingly clever in his opinion. The shared look he had seen pass from Erica and Samantha had clued him into the fact they had planned somewhat ahead of time, but he didn’t mind that, it just left him feeling like a bit of a third wheel was all. Still, Wei had been in far worse situations than this, and he was able to get a grip on his rising fear, bordering on terror, as he swallowed the lump in his throat and cracked his knuckles before picking up his binder. Balancing the brown, ancient looking binder on his knee, he looked up at the twin computer screens and cracked his trademark, lopsided grin. “Well, as the certifiable oddball of the group, and since I have a bit of a one sided love affair with the woman of the hour that my so called friends have blabbed about since we’ve gotten to meet tonight, I might as well get this out in the open now. The name for my goliath monk is Lokta, and she, yes, I said she, is the nice one of our growing band of misfits and outcasts.”

“Really? Do tell.” With an invitation like that, and having spilled the beans on his little insanity inducing goodie two shoes of the group, Wei did just as he jumped in with both feet. He didn’t know how else to live though, truth be told.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3:  The Goliath Monk