Fandom Island and Town

Graham was a little bit late for work that day, due to clothing reasons. He wanted to head back to his room to see if his cloak and cap had been somehow magically transferred over there when he turned into a bandicoot in the first place, and was very relieved to find out that they had, indeed. He would have felt terrible if his mother needed to make him a whole new cloak and cap! But everything was back to normal, and he figured, since he was already at the dorms, he'd bring Triumph along with him to the store, since he didn't get to spend as much quality time with him while bandicooted, and this was a good way to make up for it.

And, surprising no one, especially after hearing about it from Summer during their broadcast, he was thrilled to check out the gelatinous cube plush, and he and Triumph spent a good deal of time between customers camped out in front of the counter with it, speculating on what would make for other good things to put in there.

A conversation that was mostly centered around just one, simple, innocent question: "What kind of jelly bean do you think a gelatinous cube would like the most?"

You'd be surprised, how many different branches of philosophical ponderings a question like that could inspire! And it was especially nice when Graham did, in fact, have a bag of jelly beans that had been waiting for him in his cloak all week, pretty much!

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It might have been a little ambitious of him, but Graham had decided, rather than having to choose between what sounded like four impossible-to-choose-from stories, he would try to read all four of the epics that Mr. Kyōraku had assigned for their writing class, and, in a bid for his unbreaking optimism, had actually brought all four of them with him to work. Clearly, he wasn't expecting it to be a very busy day and had thought maybe, just maybe, he could manage to breeze through them all.

To his credit, he did love reading exciting tales and stories, which was promised in the name of epic poetry, and it wasn't so much the volume of the reading that was going to be his issue, but rather, the subject matter.

Because he could barely go a few pages into any of them without suddenly remarking to himself, "Oh! That's a good idea! I could use that for the campaign!" and detouring as he paused to write down that idea and try to extrapolate and ponder and plot on it in relation to the game, before realizing, several pages of notes later, that he was supposed to be reading.

(Well, technically, he was supposed to be working, buuuuut....)

Yeah, somehow, it seemed that he was not going to get to reading all four stories after all.

He'd be lucky if he managed to make it through just one.

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It had been so long since the group had been able to get together for a session, but now that things were back to normal and back on track for a new semester and hopefully not too many weird weekends or holidays mucking things up with his game, Graham was so ready to get into work, sit down with all his notes and books, and really crank out some good pre-planning for tonight. He was not only going to do that, but he was also going to make sure to work really hard at the store in a determination to be a good employee and really start this new year off on the right foot!

That had been the plan, anyway.

But someone had decided to make a nice new and captivating display of a whole bunch of new and shiny dice that had come in to greet Graham practically as soon as he walked through the door, and, well...

...let's just say that it was a damn good thing that there wasn't a lot of work to do in the store that day, and Graham had actually preplanned and storyboarded and mapped out most of his campaign for at least a good few weeks ahead already.

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Graham, Guillermo, and Triumph had all set a date to go exploring in the preserve that afternoon, but first, they had to get there, so Triumph continued to prove his status as Mighty Steed by carrying the burden of transporting them both deep into the familiar woods, so they they could better appreciate the scenery as Triumph dutifully avoided all the cats. If he was entirely honest, all these black cats suddenly showing up did make Graham a little bit nervous, but he wasn't about to admit that in front of Guillermo. Instead, he tried to turn it into a little bit of a game, to see who could count the most by the time they got to their destination, but it did not bode especially well that the number Graham was left with at the end of their journey was thirteen.

He almost considered nudging Triumph to walk around a little more until they saw a fourteenth cat, but once he caught sight of what they were aiming for, there was no stopping him, as his gait got a little quicker and he squeaked excitedly, and Graham held on a little tighter as Triumph picked up speed until he brought them to a rock.

It didn't seem to be a particularly special rock. It was big, sure, and its dappling of moss was rather nice, and there were a few porgs curled up sleeping on it who complained at being disturbed by their approach as they waddled away, disgruntled, but it was hard to deny, especially with the afternoon sun breaking through the trees onto it, it did hold a certain charm.

"And behold!" Graham announced with a wave of his hand toward the rock and a grin back at Guillermo, "Triumph's favorite rock!"

And their starting point for adventure now reached, he swung his long leg over Triumph's head to better slide of the side of him and dismount, and then offered out a hand to Guillermo to help him with doing the same.

[[ adventuring buddy modded with permission! Graham and Guillermo are here for their ~exploring date~, but open preserve is most certainly open for all your preserve-related needed! ]]

Well, one of his players (the tabaxi, in fact, which made this very funny, if you asked him) had turned into a cat, and they were about to go on a weeklong school trip, so Graham was busy working that day not on anything directly related to the store (there wasn't a whole lot else to do anyway! But if there was, he'd do it, quickly, just to get it out of the way to get back to his other work), but on maybe some lighter, fluff ideas and interactions to throw at the group today before they really got started with the next leg of the campaign.

Considering the long list that was compiling throughout the day, he was not going to have any trouble coming up with something.

Even with the slight distraction of Saffron occasionally yowling at him accusatorily because he was clearly not the small pink kitten she could prefer to be there right now, and why was he here instead, and why wasn't he doing anything to change that fact, huh?

Graham mostly just tossed her treats in the meantime, hoping that would, if not entirely win her over, at least give her something else to focus on.

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Graham didn't have any guests coming this weekend--his mother couldn't make the journey, his sisters were all too busy, and his best friend was already here with him!--but he figured some of his players probably did (if not all of them!), so he figured he'd call off tonight's game so they could have more time with their friends and family. In the spirit of the weekend, though, he definitely brought Triumph with him to the shop that day, so they could hang out in the meantime, and he tried to get Saffron involved by sharing some stories with Triumph about all their various shop-related exploits, but she only seemed interested in Triumph when he was laying still on the floor enough that she could climb up on him and curl up and take a nap.

Triumph, of course, didn't mind, and Graham was tempted to join them by leaning on Triumph, which was one of his most favorite, most comfortable positions ever, but he was here to work, and so the Triumph-cushion would just have to wait. He was glad Saffron could get good use out of it in the meantime, though!

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[[ and no game = no ocd! ]]

Graham had arrived at the bakery quite a bit early; he'd discovered that, when there was pie (and probably a great deal of it) in your near future, it was very difficult to focus on much else. But it turned out it was a good thing that he'd have some time before Guillermo came to join him, because it looked like their pie game was on point here at J,GoB, and so this just meant he could really try to work out the most efficient strategy for the ultimate pie experience.

"Because," Graham reasoned, out loud, to himself, as he considered the pies while he waited, "if we each did, say, a quarter of a pie, that's at least eight different pies we could try, and that's only assuming we do just one pie each....which we clearly won't be, but there's definitely not enough pie for sixteen different pies, so maybe the second pie could be half, but then what if we wind up with half of a pie that we don't like as much as another pie, and---ooooh, chocolate cream!"

Look, proper pie planning was a very serious....and easily distracted...business!

[[ Graham's here for Guillermo, but the post is most certainly open for all your baked good needs! ]]

Even though Graham was hoping that giving himself his own shout-out about the roleplaying sessions he wanted to put together on the radio would bring a few interested people to him, he knew he couldn't bank solely on that, which was why, today, when he wasn't taking care of one task or the other or helping the occasional vague customer drifting in, he had some paper and some markers out in front of him and was pursuing things in the good old fashioned way of making flyers to post about town and the dorms to let people know. That was, after all, a proven method of advertisement back home. If there was one thing his universe loved, it was a good flyer!

Granted, Graham wasn't the best artist when it came to drawing, but he made sure his lettering and penmanship was even and legible, and the little figures of various adventurers going about their quest weren't exactly the type of thing you'd see framed in a museum somewhere, but they were actually kind of adorable.

And since Graham didn't know about photocopying, each one was going to be lovingly and happily made by hand, and he was having an additional good time of it by changing up some of the tiny details from one poster to another. Not that he imagined anyone would notice, but he was mostly doing it for his own amusement, anyway.

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After having spent some time pouring through as many of the TTRPG books as he could, supplemented by some of the things he'd picked up last weekend for Free RPG Day, Graham's little nugget of an idea had grown into a full-fledged determination that he really did want to try something like this. He was still a little uncertain about the details and how it really worked, though, so, today, in his downtime at the shop, he was going to try and run a practice game, with Triumph and Little Bot and Saffron.

To anyone else, the whole thing could categorically be called a disaster, but Graham seemed to be thinking it was going surprisingly well. A little slow going, sure, on account of the fact that one player kept drifting off to clean things, another player was far more invested in sunspots (they just had to keep moving the set-up to correspond with the light coming into the store), and the other kept having to be reminded that dice were for rolling, not eating.

But Graham was determined, and Graham was patient. Far more patient than Triumph, however, who kept squeaking out protests as they waited to see what their rogue would do during her turn against the goblin encounter they'd managed to wander into.

"Now, now," said Graham, holding out a hand to placate Triumph, "give her time. I'm sure she'll know exactly what to do after she finishes with her nap."

Spoiler alert: she would not.

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