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The thud of a tablet hitting the cushions of the conversation pit drew Lady Sallivera's attention away from the dry reading she was doing. This was accompanied a moment later by her wife's venomous utterance. "May the cold and dark take them."

The noblevixen set her own tablet down. "Is something the matter, my love?"

The shorter vixen picked up the offending device. "Ned and Nav suffer from the belief that I am a good storyteller."

"I don't understand."

She sighed. "Recently, they were looking for new games to play. Somewhere on the hypernet, they found this." She extended her paw, gripping the tablet tightly.

Salli accepted the offering and looked at the screen. On it was the name 'Alexia, Youthful Bodyguard', and a list of attributes with names like 'Aim' and 'Close Combat' and associated numeric values. Her eyebrows furrowed. After a moment, she spoke. "It's a character sheet?"

Alinadar took a deep breath before explaining. "It's a book describing a game called They Came from a Far Away Galaxy. Apparently it's something called a role playing game."

"I know what RPGs are, but that name doesn't ring a bell."

"Basically, take every space opera you've ever watched, blend them together, and distill the resulting mixture down to its core essence. That's what this goddess damned tome describes."

"You're painting a picture, but I don't see why it has your hackles raised."

"It started out talking about the job of the director in one of these games. From there, it laid out all sorts of complicated rules, complete with example interactions. It then tries to bore you to sleep by describing dozens of random things, complete with numbers."

"Sounds normal enough so far."

The flustered vixen shrugged. "Once you get past that, the book lays out a story for the director to use when running a game. Alexia is the sidekick of the big bad of the game. Said big bad happens to be a pirate vixen going by the name Bloody Orange."

Salli's eyes widened fractionally. "Is this going where I think it is?"

"Probably. Take the worst parts of Bloody Margo and Mel in her Red Vixen persona, and that's Bloody Orange."

"They are called antagonists for a reason, my love. I'll admit the headlines is an odd place to source a char…"

Her musings were cut off as Ali shoved the tablet in her face and growled. "Take another look at this forsaken character!"

Taken aback, she grasped the device and lowered it to a more usable position. She then looked again at the text on screen. Slowly, a picture formed in her head. After a brief hesitation, she asked, "What's the measurement scale?"

"One to five, from mediocre to legendary."

She scanned the list of attributes again. "She seems like a worthy opponent."

"That's not the point!" She nearly screamed, "The point is that she is basically me! Every time someone runs this game, there's a group of players who burst in on Bloody Orange trying to take her out, and I get taken out in the process."

"Or, she might get rescued. And her name is Alexia, not Allinader."

"What am I supposed to do? The boys will be calling me up in a tenday, expecting that I will run this adventure for them. I can't do it. I just can't!"

Salli set the tablet down and wrapped her wife in a hug. As Ali cried onto her shoulder, she guided her to a seated position. It took a few minutes for the tears to subside. As she calmed down, Salli spoke. "You do know, you don't have to run the campaign as written. You can flip the script or even throw the story out and write your own."

"I can?"

"It's just Ned and Nav who are joining you for the game?"

She got a nod in response. Salli thought for a moment before commenting, "Typical party size for one of these games is something like four to six players, not including the GM. Unless each of the cubs are playing two characters or something, you'll probably want some more players to make for a fuller session. I think Philip has a cub or two in that age range who might be persuaded to join, and I can send out feelers among the staff to see if there are others."

Ali froze for a moment. "But more players means more cubs to disappoint when I fail."

"You shouldn't go into the game expecting it to go sideways. More players means more personalities to play off of each other, making your job easier. I'm not certain how this game does things, but what … faction do they want to play?" The word 'faction' had an inflection indicating uncertainty as to whether it was the correct term. She continued without waiting for a response. "The adventure for a group of Space Patrol characters would be quite different from one for a band of pirates."

The younger vixen thought for a moment before shrugging. "They do share the fascination of cubs their age with the sort of pirate portrayed in the cinema." She snorted, thinking of how accurate said portrayals were. "I think the draw may be the perception that pirates have the ability to do whatever they want, without anyone dictating their actions." She shrugged before continuing. "I suppose if they played as pirates, it'd be a chance to show how incorrect that is."

"Or you'd scare them off from the genre. Why don't you put the game aside for tonight dear? Tomorrow, you can let the boys know that you'll need to do a bit more planning before you can run the game. Also, tell them you're trying to find some more players to join in on the fun. I know there are programs out there that make this sort of long-distance game easier to run. Perhaps we can find one for you to use."