fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Saturday (6/25)

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The Magpie Emporium, Saturday (6/25)

Today was one of the greatest holidays of the year, if you asked Steph: Free RPG Day. She'd been prepping for this for months.

Spread out on tables throughout the store were stacks of free one-shot adventures for all kinds of game systems: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Overlight (which was one that Steph was personally eyeing, since she hadn't played it yet and it looked fascinating), Powered by the Apocalypse, Cypher, and a whole bunch of cool indie TTRPGs.

She had maybe given a particularly prominent position to a certain new one-page RPG about a bunch of wizard familiars on their own mission, because it had been written by Grant Howitt and Marisha Ray. Look, as a fan she had her own shameless biases, and this was her store, okay?

The point was, there was a lot of free stuff, plenty of games to try out -- or take home and then try out -- and all of it geared towards new players, though Steph wouldn't complain if people wanted to buy things either.

Plus there was a sign at the counter:
It's the anniversary of Stonewall this weekend.
ALL proceeds from dice sales for the rest of June go to the Transgender Law Center.

Your friendly local game store was open for business on this fine Free RPG Day! Come in and browse, learn to play a new game, or hang out. Just... mind the pine cones.

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If you just want to look around on your own time.

Ever since the TTRPGs managed to not only catch Graham's eye, but also his attention for almost an entire day (which was practically unheard of!), he was absolutely coming out to the store that day for a better look into it!

It had been quite a while since Guillermo had came by the store and he figured he should have a look and see if there were any new games he could pick up for him and Kurt, the fact that it was free RPG day was also a cool bonus.

"Hey! Guillermo, right?" Graham greeted, knowing they'd had some classes together, but never had the chance to talk much. So maybe this was the time to change all that! "Are you here for ~Free~ee~eee RPG Day?"

And, yes, he gave that title the wavey hands and wiggling fingers and respect it deserved!

Guillermo definitely appreciated the effort that went into that and smiled, “hey,” he said, giving a bit of an awkward wave, “and it’s Guillermo,” he nodded, “I am - I thought it’d be a chance to come in and see if there was anything new I could pick up for the room, I’ve been meaning to come back for ages just never got round to it,”

Also that would mean Guillermo would have had to leave his room for more than classes, “how about you…Graham?” it sounded a bit more of a question than it should have as he tried to recall his classmates name.

"It is Graham!" Graham confirmed, and no one should be that excited over someone just remembering their name, and yet there they were. "And I am! I work here, you know. On Fridays! So I gotta show my support! Plus all this stuff looks really interesting, I was reading all about it the other week in the books, and was hoping to find out more!"

“You work here?” Guillermo was definitely impressed, “that is so cool, I think between my roommate and I, most of the things in our room comes from here but I thought it’d be cool to come down and see what else I could find - maybe a new game - there’s so many cool things here!” Guillermo babbled excitedly, pushing his glasses back up his nose as they started to slide off.

Edited 2022-06-25 20:17 (UTC)

"Oh, yeah, there's all sorts of new stuff coming in here all the time!" Graham confirmed, with the confidence that came with being an employee, so he would know, and his own excitement only feeding off of Guillermo's to the point where anyone looking close might think he was probably vibrating with it, just a little. "I mean, it's all new stuff to me, really. We don't have a lot of stuff like this back where I'm from!"

Graham, that was because just walking a few feet from your doorstep was basically a role-play adventure.

"But it's sooooooo cool! I especially like the miniatures! Sometimes, I knit little capes and caps for them! Have you ever played before? Sometimes, there's so much stuff, I don't even know where to begin, and then I'm all, what if I just started them all at once? I haven't gotten to that point yet, but I might! Some day!"

“No I haven’t played but that sounds amazing!” Guillermo exclaimed, “and I know what you mean, I still have a bit of catching up to myself, I’m from 2004 so it’s not to bad but I still want to be able to check out all the cool games and things that come I’m as well as catch up on the old ones,”

There was a pause, “even though I do spend a lot of my time playing games,” he admitted sheepishly, “and watching movies,”

"Well," Graham said, with an encouraging sort of smile. "That's okay! The whole point of games is so that they get played, right? So if no one's playing them....then that's no good! We don't really have many back home, though, and definitely not anything like these here! My sisters all like games like Moral Quarrel, though, but I've always been more of a Duel of Wits! type! And I don't really know much about movies, we don't have them where I'm, I saw my first one here, in one of my classes! It was about a bunch of ladies trying to pull a heist, I've never seen anything like it, but it was great! Have you ever seen a movie like that? What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite game? Have you played Duel of Wits?"

There was....maybe three breaths taken through that whole thing, which, for Graham, was actually pretty good!

“My favourite movie is ~~meta for~~ Interview with the Vampire,” Guillermo told him with a grin, “I love vampire movies of all kinds even the really old ones but Interview with the Vampire was the the first one that I saw, it has one my favourite actors in it - Antonio Banderas!” who became his favourite actor after the movie but it was close enough, it was here that Guillermo remembered breathing was a thing and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he got caught up in the excitement as he started talking about his favourite things, “I think I was in that class, I remember that heist movie,” he added and paused as he tried to breathe again.

“I haven’t played Duel of Wits though, what’s that like - I love live action RPGs, I used to play all the time with my friend back home, I loved that we got to take a whole class here on it!”

Edited 2022-06-25 23:20 (UTC)

Well, if he'd taken an Aphra class pretty much ever, he'd have definitely have seen that movie.

"~~meta for~~Interview with a Vampire," Graham repeated in an awed, dreamy sort of voice. "Zounds! Sounds intense! I bet a vampire sure would have a lot to say in an interview, wouldn't they? With how long they'd've lived? All the damsels they'd distressed? What it's like to turn into a bat!" Graham's arms went up and slightly akimbo, as if imagining himself with at the very least bat wings at just that moment. "I'd love to have a Dialogue with a Dhampire ~~WHY NOT?~~ some day!

And, then, because he couldn't help himself, he grinned at Guillero and held out a cunning finger toward him. "Just so long as it wasn't over a....stake dinner!"

And, yes, he was definitely going to pause to let that one hang there for a good, long time.

Don’t mind Guillermo as he started hysterically laughing at that, “oh that was good,” he exclaimed after a while, “you know ever since I saw the movie I wanted to be a vampire for real,” he sighed as he imagined it, “I mean vampires aren’t real for me back home,” he really had no idea what was in store for him in a few years,“but it’s fun to imagine, I even got to have fangs for a while last month,” he added, “I wanted to be a vampire but I was too tired to think properly at that point,”

Why. Why do you people encourage him?

Graham was beaming at that laughter like witnessing a miracle, and once that initial moment of awe and gratitude, his head started to bob along eagerly in response to whatever was going go come out of Guillermo's mouth.

"Ohhhhhhhh," he said, "were you not sleeping well? Were you excited about something? I didn't sleep for my whole first week here!"

He didn't notice anything unusual about that week at all, actually. He just figured that was his normal levels of excitement at work.

"I did come out of it with a lot of jellybeans, though!

"Oh!" Like a frog on a lily-pad filled pond, Graham's mind had already leaped again, and the heel of his palm met his face. "Jelly beans! I haven't offered you any jelly beans yet! Would you like some? I have a ton!"

And to prove it, he went digging into his cloak to produce a big bag filled with a variety of flavors proudly.

"It was a bit of a weird week to be honest," Guillermo considered as he tried to think back to it, "my roommate had turned into a sugar glider and kept getting into all sorts of mischief, he turned back the day I finally got sleep though, I nearly passed out in front of him,"

Guillermo shook his head, his glasses nearly sliding off his nose again so he pushed them back up and grinned, "but a lot of a jellybeans sounds like a great trade off," he said, "if you're offering I wouldn't say no to any thank you,"

"Do you have a favorite?" Graham asked, holding the bag out proudly for Guillermo to take his pick from. "Popcorn's my favorite, and Triumph likes lime, Gray's favorite is purple, and Nell's never had them before so she doesn't know her favorite yet, but she seemed to like the red ones.

"I've always enjoyed black jelly beans," Guillermo said with a grin as he reached in to see if he could find some black ones first, "but I like a lot of different flavours, I enjoy eating food in general - I also enjoy cooking and baking as well," he added.

And Graham had another one to add to the list! And he was pleased that all his friends seemed to prefer different ones; that made sharing them much easier.

"I don't do much cooking," Graham admitted. "Around my house, it would definitely be a matter of too many cooks in the kitchen! But I do make a pretty mean choco-chip pancake!"

"Oh that does sound good," Guillermo grinned, "it's mostly my mama and I at home , so I help with the cooking and things like that, I've been meaning to do more cooking here but haven't yet ~~because the mun keeps forgetting to make a post~~ but I do enjoy making empanadas," he added.

"Oooooooh, empanadas!" said Graham, wide eyes with his head bobbing along in eager agreement with the clear excellence of that particular dish.

Followed very shortly by: "What are those?"

"empanadas are amazing," Guillermo told him enthusiastically, "they're pastries and you can make all kinds of filling with them, they're really easy to make as well,"

He paused, "you've never had empanadas before? I can make some for you to try?" he offered.

You had him at pastries, Guillermo.

"That would be amazing!" Graham said, and it was a miracle the enthusiastic nodding of his head hadn't cause the whole thing to just finally loosen from his neck or something. "I am a big fan of pastries with filling in them!"

He was convinced there'd never be a pie he wouldn't like!

Guillermo beamed at that response and went slightly red as well, “then you’ll love empanadas,” he declared and really hoped that was true or else he’d feel really bad about hyping up one of his favourite dishes, “I can make a whole range as well, I mean if you’d like to try different ones or if there’s a particular flavour you’d like me to make first,” he offered.

"For that," Graham decided, holding up a finger toward Guillermo with a grin, "I'll defer to the expert! If they're your favorite, I'm sure whatever you decide to put in them is going to be great!"

Guillermo grinned, “then you’re going to need to try a whole selection first,” he decided, “I mean - that way you can know what you’re favourite filling is right?”

She's here if you have questions or need help or just want to talk!

Where you hang out and, you know, play games.

The Free RPG Day website doesn't actually have any links as to what exactly is available this year, unfortunately, and their Twitter account gives some titles but no links. Feel free to just... make shit up.

Will be SP as I head off to my own friendly local game store (which has very directly inspired Magpie, ngl) to partake in Free RPG Day myself!

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The Magpie Emporium, Saturday (6/25)

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