Brenda slithers in. "Hi guys! - why the long faces?"

"I have to quit the game sometime this summer." She explains the situation with her grandmother again.

"- oh, that sucks -" Brenda hugs her.

Hug! Hugs are nice. "I'd like to keep buying jewelry off you but I guess we'll have to see how the shipping time works out. I'm going to miss you either way."

"You can probably just pass the shipping cost to the customer - it'd delay things though -" Squeeze.

"Yeah. I'll look at what shipping speeds cost how much." Squeeze, eventual unhugging. "I have at least the few weeks until school lets out, then it depends on how long moving ends up taking."

"I can do some overtime and load you up on some basics to tide you over even if it turns out we can't do commissions any more."

"That would be pretty awesome, thanks. I don't know how long it might take to find a new supplier; ideally I want one who's in the know so I can give them access to the site and stuff."

"Yeah, makes sense. I guess if nothing else if someone likes my style better they can wait for the extra shipping step."

"Sounds good to me. In the meantime, we should game!"

"You sure you want to be in for just a few sessions? I mean I can just kill you off," says Xavier, "no problem, but I'd understand if you'd rather just not start a campaign now."

"I think I'd rather go for it, and then once we know when my last week will be my character can get killed off and I'll at least have gotten to try them out? We can make sure to avoid starting any plot threads depending on my backstory."

"You got it." And he drops them into the campaign. They are on a boat for assorted reasons - two characters are crew members, including hers, wizardry being useful on a ship, and one is a merchant traveling with his goods and one is a prisoner being transported in the hold and one is an itinerant traveling to point B, and they spring the prisoner to help them fight a sea monster when one suddenly attacks!

Starting at level 6 means her character is actually useful vs. a sea monster! Sea monster: get wrecked! Ship: do not get wrecked! Combat is fun.

Now they have to recapture Brenda's character! She explains that she's innocent!

They probably should not all just believe her immediately because she's a PC. Does anybody in this party have a decent Sense Motive? Because Margaret's character's Wisdom is, shall we say, not her best stat.

Alec's character does. He thinks she's telling the truth but agrees it would be responsible to keep her restrained until they can check the exonerating evidence she expects to exist in port when they arrive.

This is a reasonable policy! Onward towards port?

Y- no! There is a storm in the middle of the night and they are blown off course and shipwrecked; the party are the only survivors. Here they are in this jungle they were not intending to visit! The merchant character starts trying to collect washed-up cargo while his player giggles at the fidelity of his own roleplaying.

That is in fact pretty funny, good for that player. She suggests that they follow the coastline in the hopes of finding civilization.

This is a pretty good plan. They aren't sure whether to keep Brenda's character tied up or not and arguing that out takes most of the rest of their time and eventually they agree to let her walk but keep her hands tied.

"Your backstory choices are making for an interesting story for the rest of us," Margaret remarks to Brenda. "I hope they aren't making things boring for you."

"Nah, it's cool," says Brenda. "Eventually I'll prove my innocence, you'll all see."

They find a tribe of lizardfolk, fishing, and don't share a language with them, and get to communicate in charades, which Xavier is clearly having a lot of fun with.

Ooh, charades! This is one of those amusing cases where the skills of the characters are completely irrelevant and the skills of the players are all that matter. In Margaret's case those skills amount to "pretty decent for someone who has never tried to do this before, which she hasn't". If they stay here overnight she can prepare Comprehend Languages in the morning but for now she's having fun being a mime.

They manage to secure shelter for the night in exchange for some of the merchant's rescued trade goods, via charades, and the session concludes.