Boyfriends and Other Minor Annoyances

  Princesses of the Pizza Parlor

  Episode 5: Boyfriends and Other Minor Annoyances

  There were worse places to spend part of a weekend than Max's Pizza, a block or two off Main Street. The bricky outside was nice and sturdy, while the sign over the front windows welcomed all customers. It even had a decent parking lot, shared with the shops across the way, that had crab-apple trees planted in rows around it. On the inside, the decor was as warm as the ovens, with walls covered in pictures and shelves full of knick-nacks, like a favorite grandmother's house. Max was a great deal younger than the average grandma, but she'd gotten the atmosphere just right.

  Uncle liked to watch the other customers come and go from his regular table in the back, the one by the windows with the red-checked table cloth. The Sunday lunch rush was always busy, everyone coming in hungry and leaving with big smiles on their faces. What with the tantalizing sizzle of cheese and pepperoni wafting in from the kitchen, it hardly took any effort to get someone through the front door.

  The young man currently shuffling his feet on the welcome mat was the major exception. Uncle watched him waver back and forth, in a perfect state of social uncertainty, for a few minutes before he had pity on the poor kid.

  "Are you Tim?" he asked, sticking his head out the front door. Uncle was pretty sure that was right, given the description he'd got from Shelby earlier in the week. Middling height for his age, which made him a little shorter than the girl who called him her boyfriend, and a bit out of shape. Sandy brown hair was swept across his forehead in a failed attempt to make it look presentable, and a cowlick was already trying to force its way back into place. Green eyes stared blankly as the brain behind them scrambled to come up with a response.

  "Er, um..."

  "Gotcha," said Uncle. "Come on in and sit a spell." He walked the kid over to the red-checked table and popped open the jar of dice. "Have you played any games like this before?" he asked. The boy nodded. "Well then, help me out here. We need a d20 -- a twenty-sided one -- for each player, as well as a d12, three or four d10s and d8s, plus some regular six-siders. Orange and yellow, green, blue, red, purple, and you can take the white or clear ones. Sound good?"

  "Y-yeah..."

  "Thanks. So, did Shelby fill you in properly?" When the girl had expressed an interest in inviting her so-called boyfriend to the next game, he'd given her a list of things to explain, but there was no telling how much was actually communicated or retained. The two of them were still only twelve, though barely in Shelby's case.

  "Um, she said that you're doing a fantasy game, and that everyone was enjoying it and that you could use a sixth person on the team," the young man replied.

  "Well, that's most of it," said Uncle. "You're not the first person we tried to bring in, and unfortunately that one ended pretty badly. Shelby's vouching for you, but the other girls are feeling spooked. So... they set a list of conditions. Ring any bells?"

  "Like how you get to design my character?" Tim asked.

  "Exactly. Which is why I asked you to come half an hour earlier than anyone else, so we could go over stuff like this." Uncle drew three sheets from his folder. "We have a choice of a martial artist, a regular fighter, or a roguish thief. Any preferences?"

  Tim thought about it for a moment. "The thief," he said. "Can we make them extra sneaky?"

  "That we can!" Uncle opened a document on his laptop and scanned it for a moment as his memory worked. "There's a lot of special archetypes we can apply, swapping or changing bits to specialize further. Here..." he said, coming to one in particular. "This gives you a better chance to pick locks with whatever's handy, lets you squeeze through tighter spaces, and later on gives you a bonus for fighting in dungeons or urban areas. Sound good?"

  "Yeah..."

  "Okay, on to condition two," Uncle said. "We've got a theme going on here, and the girls are insisting on this. All the party members right now are princesses, and so is yours, somehow." He paused to see how the boy reacted.

  Tim sighed and nodded. "Shelby said that might happen."

  "Also, they picked out a name for you. It's, er... Priscilla."

  "...seriously?" Green eyes were blank with surprise.

  "I think it was the girliest thing they could come up with. Um, anyhoo, here's the character sheet for one halfling rogue, with adjustments made. Feel free to add more to the name, and we can go over some possibilities for back story..."

  They took advantage of what time they had before the real party started, filling in details and particulars to give Tim a better idea of what sort of personality his character might have. They managed to get a lot done before a loud banging on the window glass alerted them to a new arrival. Shelby was standing outside with her curly hair up in pom-poms and a huge grin plastered on her face. Right behind her was her dad, a massive man with the build and the beard of some Norse deity, who didn't so much walk to the pizzeria's entrance as advance like a force of nature.

  In his seat, Tim gulped and turned almost as green as his own eyes.

  Uncle snickered. "He's not that bad, kid. Just putting on a show."

  Meeting the father and daughter duo at the front, Uncle had to wonder at how easy it was to get Shelby through the door now. For their first game session, the dark-haired girl had to be carried in over her dad's shoulder. Now she skipped in happily, her pom-pom hair bouncing above her head. In her hands she had a plate full of peanut butter fudge.

  "Nice to see you again, sir," Uncle said as the girl ran over to greet Tim.

  "Always a pleasure," said Shelby's dad. "Good to see my little girl getting into something creative." The words rumbled through the beard, but the eyes above them stayed locked on the table.

  "I'll keep an eye on them," Uncle promised. "Though to be honest, I don't think they'll get in much trouble. Not at this age."

  "Yeah, I know..." Now the man looked at him, and even managed a grin as sheepish as a steel-wool mountain ram. "And I trust her to take care of herself, but the look on the kid's face is priceless when I pull out the ogre dad schtick. Well, be seeing you. Her mom's doing the pickup."

  "Later." Uncle watched him go and then ambled back to the table, where Tim and Shelby together had finished up the task of sorting the dice by colors, placing them at the appropriate spots at the table. There was a clear space in the middle where Uncle unrolled Ye Olde City Map #5, currently known as the Old Quarter of the Rose City of Bargoczy. It was a professional-looking print, and had cost him a fair chunk of change at a convention a few years back, but it was worth every penny, nickel, and dime. He certainly didn't want to draw a new city from scratch every single time! The whole thing was laminated, so he could add in details in thin marker: the Stoneflower Inn, the college of bards, a knightly chapterhouse, the Rose Palace, and a few other landmarks for flavor.

  Katelyn and Cynthia arrived together, as usual, though today their hairstyles were reversed. The quiet girl with the bangs across her eyes now sported a ponytail, while her not-so-quiet best friend had the doggy ears. They both still had enough freckles between them to spot a leopard.

  "Hey, Mr. Dude!" shouted Cynthia, whipping the doggy ears back and forth as she surveilled the table. "Wow, nice map!"

  "Thanks."

  A little black kitten stuffie had appeared at Katelyn's place at the table, and the girl was quietly rearranging her dice according to some order that made more sense to her than to anyone else. She managed to say a muted "...hello..." to Tim and Shelby.

  "He really exists?" Cynthia gave Shelby's boyfriend a very close once-over. She pondered for a moment, then pinched his nose and tugged.

  "Ow!"

  "Sorry, dude," she said. "Ju
st had to be sure."

  Uncle sighed. "Cynthia..."

  "Hey, it coulda been a fake!" The doggy-eared girl looked up towards the front and waved her hand. "Woo-hoo! Claire! Lookee who we have here!"

  The fourth regular member of their little cabal had just waddled in. Claire was the shortest of them by far, but today she was wearing a pair of neon-pink sneaker boots that went halfway up to her knees, with soles so thick that they raised her height by more than an inch. Garish as they were, the boots were a perfect complement to her skirt, blouse, and light jacket, all of which had apparently come from a Magical Girls collection online. Her hairband even looked like a tiara.

  She must have gotten the shoes recently, because she wobbled and stumbled her way across the pizzeria floor. It was with a smug grin of satisfaction that she overcame dangerous obstacles, like rolls in the carpet, and reached her chair unscathed. Then the little superfan had the chance to ogle the new kid as well.

  "This is Shelby's friend, huh?" Tim blushed as Claire pressed in close enough for his face to reflect in her telescope-lens glasses. "Funny, he doesn't look Canadian."

  "Um, what?" Tim's face was as blank as a color portrait of the Great White North.

  Uncle sighed. "Claire, that's not what the joke meant..."

  "So!" yelled Shelby as she pounded the table. "We gonna get started, or what?"

  "Helen's not here yet," Uncle reminded. He paused thoughtfully, then dug his phone out of his bag. Sure enough, it was blinking with a mail notification. "Never mind, she's running late. Now, before we begin, anyone want to fill Tim in on what's happened so far?"

  "Ooh! Ooh!" Claire's hand shot up. "At first our princesses were stuck at school for the summer, but they didn't like it so they found a way to escape, and then their stuff got stolen by mean bugs so they had to fight to get it all back, and --"

  "Then we all got lost in a magic forest," Cynthia broke in. "And the princess of the forest was a vampire rosebush thing that almost ate us!"

  "...Natalie visited one week, and her character messed things up," said Katelyn, in what was for her a remarkably long, unbroken sentence.

  "Yeah," Shelby said. Her face was screwed up in annoyance. "Her paladin kidnapped Claire's princess, and we had to fight through ghosts and skeletons and zombies to get her back."

  Uncle clapped. "Good job, ladies. And that leads us to last week, which featured a haunted house and its spooky mistress. But that's all behind us!" he announced, "for we have actually arrived at a new city! It may not be the one we were originally intending to go to, but that's how the dice roll sometimes. All of you, minus Tim's character, have spent the past couple of days at the Stoneflower Inn, right here." He tapped the proper spot on the city plan. "Now, some of you emailed me with ideas about what your princess would be up to, so let's get to that. Cynthia?" He nodded to the big, buck-toothed grin that was attached to a waving hand.

  "So, Flora..."

  Princess Flora Fidella DelMonica was feeling pretty good that morning. For the third day straight, her magical Staff of Plenty had produced more fruit than five young ladies could eat: first, some sweet pink lemons, then those weird purple things the size of her fist with the thick rinds and translucent innards the next day, and for this morning two bushels of large oranges, each with a knob like an outie belly button on the top. With the blessing of Madame Liraselle the innkeeper, she'd set up a small fruit stand on the street in front, and there'd been a steady trickle of customers intrigued by the exotic produce. Several of the lemons had gone to make a sort of sweet tea, and that too was selling well.

  When business was slow, Flora sat on her stool and practiced her lute skills, her squirrelly friend Mr. Chitters resting happily on her shoulder. She'd been getting steadily better since she'd made the decision to take up bardic training, and now she was putting the events of the last two weeks into verse. It wouldn't be the first time she'd written a song, but she was determined to have this one be the best so far. There was a college of music in this town, an actual guild for bards where people could come and learn new skills and lyrics, and she wanted her audition there to be perfect.

  "... a rose was her name, and so she became the centerpiece of the garden..." She felt a little guilty about stealing the words of Rosalind, the late princess-turned-rosebush, but their encounter still echoed in her head. For all that she'd intended to kill or enslave them, Flora could only see poor Princess Rosalind as a tragic figure. Hopefully this story would get the idea across.

  On the balcony above, Princess Bianca of the Western Winkwoods hummed along to the musical druid's tune. Her cauldron bubbled in time with the beat as it sat on a stack of bricks. The round metal pot was small by the standards of most, but it was still a challenge for Bianca to use. A mishap with a magical artifact, the Rod of Random gifted to her by her grandmother, had left the little witch even shorter than before, and her familiar was much amused.

  Even now, Jinkies was watching her witch-handle a wooden spoon as long as she was tall, and snickering in that way which only sneaky black felines could. She ignored him, paying attention instead to how the potion in the cauldron sloshed. When it began to turn thick, its color deepening to purple, she nodded. With a quiet word, she commanded her witch's cauldron to cool down, and soon she was ladling big spoonfuls of restorative potion into vials.

  After their adventure in the old haunted house, the other princesses had asked her to look into brews and medicines that could help a lady recover after an attack of the phantom vapors. Selvi in particular had been more than willing to help pay for some of the more expensive ingredients, once Bianca had found a suitable recipe in the notebook her mentor, Mim the bug-eating beastwoman, had gifted her after their first big battle.

  There was a library in this city, she knew. As an aspiring alchemist, if a witchy one, she owed it to herself to at least check out a few books while they were in town. Perhaps that afternoon, she thought. It was a nice, sunny day.

  Jinkies agreed on that last point, rolling over and stretching in his pool of warm radiance. Even his purrs bubbled happily.

  Out back, in the cozy yard behind the Stoneflower Inn, the ears of Selvi Khan's-daughter pricked as Flora's lute insinuated itself through the open air. Her scimitar, named Whistler in the tongue of her mother's people, flashed as it slipped in and around that musical accompaniment. The half-orc barbarian hadn't ever much appreciated the fine arts, but she knew what she liked. Only a few nights back, Flora had played on while Selvi duelled the warrior phantom of a princess slain by treachery in battle, and if the barbarian were to be honest with herself, the music had definitely been a factor in that victory.

  As she slashed and spun through her practice routines, she couldn't stop thinking about that fight. It wasn't that she'd come within a hair of being skewered -- that only added to the excitement -- but the look on Princess Rosina's face when Selvi took her head off in one clean chop... Despite the ghost princess's ferocity in combat, the redheaded phantom had looked so happy and relieved in defeat.

  Her memories continued to play out as the dance of her blade continued, and in the heat of the morning, still her skin went chill. Caught in the basement of a haunted house, Selvi had faced opponents untouchable by steel or force of muscle, and her body ached at the thought of those cold fingers grasping at her. She'd been saved then, rescued by the very phantom she had defeated the night before, and she did not understand how that could be. Rosina was twice-dead now, so why reappear?

  Leaning against her pack was the rose banner, a torn, mud-stained, and otherwise rubbishy length of old cloth that had once been the standard for Rosina's army division. Selvi wasn't sure why she'd held on to it, but now a decision had to be made concerning the memento mori. The main chapterhouse of the Order of the Rose was in this city, she'd heard. Maybe it was time to bring the old cloth home.

  Princess Cassandrella, next High Priestess of Selunika, was walking through an open market and enjoying every moment of it. For the day, she'd traded in
her usual moonsilk robes for some of Flora's homespun cotton, and while it was a little itchy on her skin, it afforded her a bit of welcome anonymity.

  Don't do this, can't do that -- those were words that had haunted her childhood, and it wasn't until she'd started adventuring with the others that she'd realized how sheltered, how fenced in she really was. So even little things, like going out in public without the proper attire, provided a thrill that ran from the nape of her neck all the way down to her bunny tail.

  That was the other reason her outfit had been swapped out for the day. Three mornings before, after they'd all gotten a well-deserved sleep at the Stoneflower Inn, Cassie had woken to find she had a little powderpuff of fur affixed to her spine, right above the buttocks. Sure, she'd dreamt of having a bunny tail before, but the real thing was proving to be annoying. It just stuck out in ways that her regular undergarments couldn't accommodate well, which made her all the more grateful for Flora's skill with bone needle and silk thread.

  Her feet hadn't changed any, but she felt like bunny-hopping through the crowded market as she searched for lunch ingredients. A half-wheel of cheese ended up in her basket, followed by some rose-petal pastries and a hunk of freshly cured ham. Their picnic basket from school still had plenty inside it -- a fact that had Bianca guessing at what magic may be in play -- but Cassie had wanted to go shopping for its own sake.

  It wasn't just her new tail or her happy feet, though; every part of her body seemed a bit sharper, a bit stronger, a bit more... something. Her nose could pick out individual scents as they wafted from the spice merchant stalls, while her ears caught snippets of conversation both near and far. Right now, what she heard was lots of yelling.

  Over on the far side of the plaza, and approaching steadily, a band of dark-robed men with cowled faces were in pursuit of someone. Cassie craned her head and hopped in place to see over the crowd of fellow bystanders, and even though she could jump a lot higher than she was used to, it wasn't obvious what or who was the object of the chase.