Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

A couple of hours into our discussion, Mrs. Dewey felt like she needed to give us a tour of their space just to see if we could recommend some improvements. Of course, what's passable in our eyes was totally subjective but that was one of the reasons developers, for example, do alpha and beta tests before releasing their product.

Besides, we've pretty much done around 70% of what I wanted to talk about but before we could even head for the door, we heard a knock from the other side.

Everyone thought that it'd be Sir Jacobs but the voice that entered our ears was completely different:

"Dear? Can I come in?"

I turned to Mrs. Dewey and mouthed, "Mr. Dewey?"

She nodded at me with a smile before she responded to her husband:

"It's your place, you can barge in any time you like!"

Yet the doorknob didn't even move:

"I know but… Wouldn't that be disrespectful? You have guests, right?"

Mrs. Dewey chuckled, "They're OUR guests. They came over here to talk to us."

"Really?"

'Pfft… This guy…'

"Oh my goodness, yes! Just come in! We're all waiting for you!"

"But I'm not decent! I'm covered in dirt and everything!"

Mrs. Dewey facepalmed as she tried to not laugh, "Alright, dear. Once you get cleaned up, we'll meet with you right here—"

But the door suddenly burst open and a woman covered in dirt, who I assumed to be Eden came in, rolling her eyes as she made her way to the table and poured herself a glass of water:

"I'm so sorry but I'm really parched! I don't have time to wait for Dad's silliness!"

Eden had short brown hair, a slender figure, and more Asian features than American despite the color of her skin. From the surface, she'd look like a pure Filipina but the moment she drank the glass of water with both hands, her midriff exposed pasty white skin that in comparison to the rest of her exposed tanned ones, meant that she tended to go out a lot, especially in the mornings.

At the same time, when I glanced at the doorway, all I could see was Sir Jacobs wearing a smile, looking behind the wall where Mr. Dewey was hiding because he didn't want to lose face from some dirt on his boots.

But his voice echoed with a bit of anger:

"Eden! How indecent! This is why you don't have anyone courting you!"

Eden snorted as she rolled her eyes, "I'm more surprised you managed to get Mom! Oh, wait~ She came to you, right?"

"Eden!"

Mrs. Dewey cut them off, "Alright, you two… All the work I put in to make us look intimidating and you just ruined it—"

Mr Dewey exclaimed from behind the wall but this time, his hand appeared, pointing angrily at his wife's words:

'That's a big hand…'

"Are you crazy?! Intimidation— Why?! Didn't you see what they came in with?! That was the Eisenhower! Oh my God, Edna! They could blow this place up if they wanted to!"

Eden piled on after glancing at her mother, "We can just take them hostage, right?"

Mr. Dewey exclaimed once again and this time, showing even his forearm, "PREPOSTEROUS! ABSOLUTELY— Dear guests… I deeply apologize for my wife and my daughter, everything that has happened the past year had rendered their mental capabilities akin to a 12-year-old, it's totally unacceptable and I'll gladly take the punishment for them…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Oh, come on, Dad! We're just playing around! Now you just ruined it! They're pretty much on it too!"

"Excuse me, what?" Mr. Dewey replied as he retracted his forearm from view.

"Dear… Why don't you come in here and introduce yourself properly? Isn't it more rude to just be a disembodied voice and pointing around like a madman? Trust me, they're pretty nice and you'd be glad to meet them."

"Ah… A-Alright, if you put it that way I was pretty rude… Give me a minute…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

To our surprise, the motherfucker actually took an exact minute to compose himself before coming in, looking even more terrifying than Sir Jacobs. Because if we hadn't seen his funny display earlier, I'd assume he was sent here to collect from his mob boss because an accurate description of this "Mr. Dewey" was as if a human was about to transform into a bear and stopped halfway.

I did see his big fucking hands and forearms earlier but I assumed he'd just be a carbon copy of Bartow's physical features, not that it was proportional to the rest of his body.

Mr. Jack Dewey was close to seven feet in height, had wide and broad shoulders, a huge torso, log-like legs, an awesome full beard, Prince Vegeta-like hairline, "dirty" boots, but most surprisingly, a gentle expression.

It was like he swapped bodies at some point in his life because his mannerism was totally contradictory to what he fucking looks like, but I guess this place had a lot of contradictory things in and of itself. And yeah, he was sporting a huge-ass splitting axe, a huge-ass bowie machete, and a double-barreled break-open shotgun which seemed to have pleased the old man sitting to my left.

"G-Greetings, J-Jack Dewey… Welcome to my humble abode… I-I believe you've already met my darling wife and my second-eldest, Eden— A-And let me just say that we don't have anything against you and we'll be glad to work out in any sort of agreement and change anything my wife had told you that's to our advantage… W-We don't want any trouble and—"

I just had to stop him:

"Mr. Dewey and Ms. Eden, I'm Sky, this is my wife, Kaley, and this is my uncle, Oscar. I think you might have mistaken our purpose for coming here—"

"W-Well once again, I apologize—"

"What for? You haven't done anything—"

"I apologize, we should've done something."

"Wut?"

Eden facepalmed, "Dad! Breathe!"

"Ah— Did I do something wrong again? I apologize…"

Mrs. Dewey glanced at her husband lovingly before she said, "Dear… We've done nothing wrong, alright? And they're actually here and brought some gifts and proposed wonderful arrangements for all of us! You'd be really glad to hear them!"

Mr. Dewey bowed deeply, "We aren't worthy but we accept them all with great thanks!"

Oscar chuckled, "That's a little…"

"I APOLOGIZE, SIR!"

"We're the same age, brother. Why don't you take a seat so we could refresh ya?"

"O-OF COURSE, SIR! EDEN! SIT DOWN AS WELL! Edna! Did you offer them a refreshing beverage!"

"Of course, dear… We're all set and been talking for a couple of hours—"

"I'M SORRY I WASN'T PRESENT!"

I waved him off with a smile, "Don't worry about it Mr. Dewey, you had a lot of work to be done— That reminds me, Mrs. Dewey mentioned you play D&D— Mr. Dewey?"

As soon as I mentioned the magic keyword, his downtrodden expression suddenly turned to shock, then to confusion, disbelief, and finally to suspicion as he put his huge hands under his chin and eyed me for a good minute:

"Curious… What edition?"

"Fifth Edition. You?"

"Look at me, punk. 1st Edition."

'Did he just call me punk?'

"That's hardcore—"

"Psh. You kids have it easy, you don't have any idea—"

"I run a homebrewed campaign though and depending on the players, it could be easygoing or hardcore—"

"Psh! You don't have any idea about hardcore!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Then prove it!"

"Five extra characters minimum."

"Hmm."

"I check components for spells."

"Eh."

"Realistic Weight System."

"So-so."

"Dismemberment System."

"Hmm. That's—"

"When you create a character, I employ curses especially if they're working with a deity, giving them the curse of the opposing god or gods."

"That's a given."

"Have you done it?"

"..."

"Also, this is something unbeknownst to ya, if you really wanna make it an experience, have them stick close to their phones and they could only hear the results of their own checks and it's up to them to decide whether to tell the party the truth or lies. It's the Paranoia system. Sounds very simple but it gets worse if you have more than six players and you have a traitor or traitors in the mix."

He rolled his eyes, "That's too complex to run in a pen-and-paper system."

"We're already using phones, right?"

"Then is that even D&D?" Enjoy more content from m-v l'e|-NovelBin.net

"I can hand them a note or whisper."

"Mmm. Better but not great."

"You're a fucking hard-ass, you know that?"

"Only when it comes to D&D, nothing else."

"It's really hard for you, huh?"

"Of course, you don't have a fucking idea—"

"One time I scheduled a game and no one came so I used four of my self-made characters to play with myself."

"You think that's hard? Scheduling problems—"

"For a year."

"..."

"I may have developed multiple personalities from that because two of me aren't on talking terms and one of me got replaced by another me because one of them just went out for milk and didn't come back."

"W-Wanna play sometime, Sonny?"