"Girls, girls, please calm down!" Audrey said to no avail.
"She snuck into my stash!" Regain exclaimed, fighting with her twin.
"I said I was sorry!" Phoebe said, "but they were so good!"
"Honestly, Reagan, if you're spending the shopping budget on these things they're not only yours, they belong to the whole house."
Her Durant cousins could be a loud bunch whenever they argued, one downside to living in the townhouse together. Ixchel could hear their shouting before she opened her door, and getting the full volume echoing up from the living room set her nerves on edge after an extended week of coding.
Sighing, Ixchel returned to her room that doubled as her office and gaming center. So much for suggesting a friendly game on the Playstation or going out to see a movie. Uma was off on a jog and bouts between the Durant sisters could take up an inordinate amount of time.
Ixchel stooped down to open her mini fridge to see what she had to eat, not wanting to risk getting dragged into the argument on a trip to the kitchen. The small fridge didn't have much, a few bottles of kombucha and energy drink, hummus, cheese snacks and other dip. Luckily, Ixchel had some crackers up in her closet.
"Whoa, forgot about these," Ixchel noticed that also in her closet was a partially opened bag of chocolate truffles, the cheap kind easily picked up on sale over the holidays. Holding her bounty to her bosom, Ixchel began arranging snacks by her workstation as she brought up her Steam account, not feeling in the mood to stream but wanting to distract her mind with some games she hadn't played in awhile.
The next few hours were lost in a haze of Ixchel's impromptu gaming marathon, with dragons beaten, traps dodged, hospitals infiltrated, coasters designed and haunted asylums explored. All the while Ixchel continuously grazed on her snacks and drinks, forgetting how much she had eaten and nearly emptying her limited foods in her room.
"Wait, that was my last kombucha?" Ixchel said, some time later, having paused her game to realize her fridge was empty. The break in sounds from her battle royale streak was enough to draw her attention to pinging alerts on her social chat platform.
Obsidian54: Yo Chel, open up!
Obsidian54: The guys are here, did you %#$&-ing forget you're hosting this week?
Noticing the friend tag and time, Ixchel's eyes grew wide. "Oh no!" It was her gaming group, and she had complete forgot to set up for D&D.
Having a weight in her stomach she didn't expect, having mindlessly cleaned out her snacks, Ixchel stumbled a bit extracting herself from her computer to go downstairs to let in her friends.
"Hey, Chel," Audrey said as Ixchel crossed to the front door. "I could really use your help with dinner."
"Sorry, um," Ixchel replied, flustered. "I've already got a previous commitment. It's game group."
"Those nerds" Reagan said, aghast.
Audrey elbowed her. "Be nice, you and Uma have some odd friends yourselves." Catching herself, Audrey tried to backpedal. "I didn't mean your friends are weird, Ixchel, they're just...different..."
Starting to feel her face flush, Ixchel opened the front door where her gaming group was waiting. "Hey Obie! Wong! Jenson. Sorry I forgot about the game tonight. Let's set up in the den."
"Tch, typical." Obie, short for Obsidian, and shorter than most everyone else, thrust a case of craft soda into Ixchel's hands. With dark hair, eyes and freckles on her pale skin, Obsidian had quite the different look compared to Ixchel. And that went without highlighting her most noticeable feature, a pair of large breasts stretching the logo of her metal band shirt. "The guyz brought pizza, it'll get cold thoon tho hurry it up." Obie's distinctive raspy voice was due to oversized front teeth, as she talked with a lisp.
"Hey Ixchel!" Wong said, two pizza boxes in his hand. Wong was something of a chubby guy himself, with glasses almost as thick as Ixchel's and wearing a loud Hiwaiian shirt and khaki shorts, owing to his Asian-Pacific heritage. He greeted the other residents of the townhouse clustered in the kitchen. "Ladies, excuse us, we've got a raid on a heavily fortified fortress!"
"Ok, sounds fun," Audrey said, trying to be polite but not really getting the point of their meet-ups. "Have fun then."
Rounding out the gaming group was ironically it's thinest member, owing to Ixchel and Wong's doughy physiques and Obie's stocky voluptuous build. Jenson was a tall, rail of a man with nebbish looks and a large nose, carrying source books, a case of miniatures, and several rolled up maps. He muttered a dry hello before following the others downstairs.
"Pfft, nerds," Reagan said when they were out of earshot.
"Be nice," Audrey hissed. "Ixchel can have friends other than us."
Down in the den, Ixchel and crew heard the grunts of Uma working on a set of sit-ups. "Hey, Uma, sorry to interrupt," Ixchel said needily, "but we need to set up here, it's the most space in the townhouse."
"*phew!*" Uma stood to her full height, glistening with sweat and workout clothes leaving her toned, fit body on display. "K, ok, I can see where I'm not wanted," she rolled her eyes, grabbing a towel as she needed to shower anyways. "You guys do what you do." She sashayed her way out, catching the eye of the men and giving them a knowing look.
"Pigth," Obsidian said.
"Hey now," Wong said, mock taken aback, "there's beauty within the female form that can be appreciated by all, and many have it different ways. You and Ixchel got your own brand of hot."
"Oh pleaze," Obsidian said, knocking onto Wong's shoulder with a fist.
"Um, how about we just get ready and play," Ixchel said, growing more embarrassed although that soon diminished with her gaming friends gearing up for another adventure. They'd met early on in college and had been playing tabletop and video games since.
"Zides, pizza'th getting cold," Obsidian said, chomping into a slice.
"Special six and BBQ chicken," Wong said, passing out slices on paper plates.
"Um, maybe I shouldn't," Ixchel started, already feeling full from the snacks she had grazed on all afternoon.
"Nonsense, Jenson's got us up against the Prince of the 13 Pits of Hell," Wong said excitedly, pushing a plate Ixchel's direction, "so I also brought the chips and onion dip. We need fuel for such a fight!"
Grinning despite herself, Ixchel took the plate as everyone settled into character for the game. She put on her cat ears for her Tabaxi rogue, Obie belched after a soda just like her Amazonia barbarian after ale, and Wong's Elven warlock shared his giddy outlook, in contrast to his horrifying eldritch master. Jenson, not one to talk much in other areas of life, oddly was a good fit for Dungeon Master as he came up with elaborate plots detailed in short, sometimes dry but straight to the point descriptions.
"Gosh, this is fun!" Ixchel said an hour into the adventure, on her third slice of pizza. "We're trying to destroy a demonic monolith empowering a legion of devils and hold back the flow of molten steel from the armories! I don't know why I can't get any of the girls into this, I think they'd have so much fun. They were arguing a lot today."
"Zave it for meatzphere, not the game," Obsidian said, drinking out the last of craft soda.
"What do they do for fun?" Wong asked.
"Well, Uma's always working out but she's jobless, the twins have college and Audrey works the most next to me," Ixchel said, chewing. "And if they aren't watching TV or vapid programming they tend to get on each other's nerves a lot. I dunno. I miss when me and my cousins were younger and would play the N64 and board games. I wish they would try something new."
"Meanwhile," Jenson cut in dryly. "The two-headed ogre bursts its way through the locked door, a swarm of imps behind him."
"Damnit!" Ixchel cried, "I thought I tied him up back in the gatehouse!"
"I'm gonna chop itz headth off!" Obsidian yelled, rolling for the axe attack.
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