A/N: It's been a while…

….

'Ala Alba Plays Pathfinder' or 'Never Take A Physicist To See Star Trek, Never Let A Magister Play a Spellcaster Class'

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Disclaimer: The Pathfinder system is owned by Paizo. Akamatsu Ken owns Negima. I make no money of this. This is parody and protected speech.

….

"So, how do you play this game?" Negi asked as they sat around the table. It was a perfectly ordinary table, of the sort you could find anywhere, were it not for the incredibly detailed 3D landscape in the middle of it, with the whole thing sectored off into lots and lots of little one-inch squares. A few moderately thick books layaround the edge of he table, as did several sheets of photocopied paper, pencils, little chess figures and vending machine toys, some plastic containers, and a small plastic bucket filled with dice and other strangely-geometric plastic objects. Konoka had provided a huge pile of small cookies, but there was no tea. According to Yue, tea was against tradition in this game.

"Oh, it's easy Negi-sensei," Haruna said enthusiastically. Wonder of wonders, it was a perfectly socally acceptable amount of enthusiasm, with no evil gleams in her eye, smirk on her lips, villainous chin stroking or nigh-dehydrating amounts of salivating. One would have thought she was a normal girl happily expounding on a socially-acceptable hobby instead of , you know, Haruna. "First, you have to roll up a character–"

As Haruna happily and still not-creepily expounded on the basics of making up a character, Konoka and Setsuna came from the kitchen, both bearing more snacks. Lacking any space on the table proper– you were apparently not supposed to do that, since no one wanted to risk spills (crumbs were okay though), the trays of chips and soda were put on the floor, within easy reach and next to people who would compulsively make sure nothing happened to them– Setsuna and Negi in this case.

"Are you sure you don't want to play Setsuna?" Nodoka asked as Konoka and Negi leafed through the various books while Haruna expounded on the classes available and Yue set up the game.

"I'll just watch for now," the kendo-ka said politely. "I'm not very good with make-believe, so perhaps it's better if I see how it's done first."

"So, what classes do you want to try?" Haruna enthused in a perfectly normal way. It was really starting to creep Setsuna out.

"Wizard," Negi said instantly.

"Are you sure, Negi-sensei?" Yue ventured. "Playing a wizard is a bit hard, since you need to keep track of spells and– "

"Wizard," Negi reaffirmed. "It's my first game, so it's best I play something simple and true to life."

Yue, studying magic as she was, parsed that sentence, and reflected that Chisame would have all sorts of sarcastic observations to make.

"All right!" Haruna said, her enthusiasm still perfectly socially acceptable, if slightly increased in volume. It made Setsuna's skin crawl. "So, do you want to be a universalist or... "

"Um, I guess I'll be a Cleric," Konoka said. "After all, healing is important."

Ah, Ojou-sama was so kind, always thinking about the well-being of others!

The weirdness began when they started rolling dice.

Once the four dice had been rolled six times and the numbers had been added together, Konoka had a perfectly normal array of 15, 13, 12, 12, 9 and 18. Negi, however...

"Sensei," Yue asked severely as Negi rolled all sixes for the 6th time in a row, "you're not 'helping' the dice along, are you? Because I remember you telling us that spells to move small objects was very basic magic that everyone manages to master..."

"Of course not!" Negi said, sounding vaguely offended. "I suppose I'm just lucky, I guess. "

"Well, not that I don't believe you," Yue said as diplomancycally as possible, "but just to be sure you're not unconsciously affecting the roll, Haruna why don't you take the dice into the kitchen and roll for him?"

A minutes later, Haruna came back grinning. The grin was closer to Haruna-normal than she had been all night, relieving Setsuna immensely. She'd been starting to get worried about possession and imposters.

"Still all sixes," she said. "Negi, would you do me the great honor of rolling my d20 for me from now on?"

"Use your own luck Haruna," Yue said tiredly.

Negi, in keeping with his 'sticking with something simple and true to life' aesthtic, decided to go with a human character, with no frills, bells or whistles. Konoka, with much enthusiasm, went with an elf. From there, it was basic math and copying things down to character sheets, though they had to stop Nodoka once or twice from being over-enthusiastic in 'advising' Konoka. It was always so strange seeing the normally plain and simple girl being such a munchkin. Her rogue was tricked out up the wazoo.

"Why," Negi said midway though the character creation process, "is everything in feet?"

"The game was made by Americans," Yue said. "All measurements are in feet and pounds. It's normally not a problem."

Negi sighed. "It's things like this that hold the metric system back. Do I really need all this rope?"

"It's ALWAYS a good idea to have rope!" Haruna declared, once more shading a bit closer to her normal enthusiasm.

"Why are you starting at level 6?" Setsuna asked, glancing at the book they were refering to and Konoka's own sheet.

"So that they can join the campaign we've been doing," Yue said. "And it gives them more options."

"Hmm," Setsuna said. She was familliar enough with 'levels', even if only from cultural osmosis and seeing Evangeline play video games (not naked anymore, thank goodness. Chachamaru saw to that now). It seemed like a lot of work for a measly 5 levels of difference. But then Setsuna was thinking in terms of computer games, whose levels usually went up to a hundred, as opposed to this game's 20. "What are you playing as?"

"Well, our little munchkin Nodoka is playing a rogue," Haruna said. "And I'm playing a dsguised succubus who got into an accident with a cursed headband who's now Lawful Good and pretending to be homeless!"

Ah. ''There'' was the Haruna they all knew and occasionally wanted to strangle.

"I'm still not sure how you got me to agree to that," Yue said, checking some papers.

"Young creature template," Haruna said. "So I'm a loli succubus!"

Setsuna finally relaxed. It looked like Haruna was perfectly fine.

….

"All right," Yue began. "The game is set in the town of Beacon, and we're a bunch of adventurous locals of some reputation. Nodoka is a formerly-famous thief trying to mend her theiving ways, Haruna is..." She paused and everyone but Negi could clearly see her swiftly editing. "Haruna is succubus who's pretending to be and orphan who just wandered in to town whom Nodoka took in as a part of her reforming. No one knows she's a demon. She works as a seamstress, hem hem, for extra cash. I'm usually part of the group along with the sempai we usually play with, but since I'm the GM right now, my character is out of town on a business deal."

"I don't see why you can't play your character just because you're the GM," Negi said.

"I already have a lot on my plate. Maybe next time sensei, when someone else is GM," Yue promised. "Negi-sensei, Konoka, your characters are friends from out of town who have recently arrived and have joined with the group. Would you like to describe your characters?"

"Well, my character is a human mage with 18–" Negi began.

"No, not like that sensei," Haruna interupted. "You're supposed to describe who he is! What he looks like, what he does, his likes, dislikes, stuff like that. What's his personality? What's his name?"

"Oh!" Negi said. "Well, his name is Igan Fieldspring, and he's a heroic wizard traveling across the land doing good and saving the day!"

He smiled widely as everyone gave him bland looks.

"O-kay..." Yue said, deciding to let that go. "Uh, Konoka-chan?"

"I'm cleric of Sarenrae who travels the land healing people!" Konoka said. "I'm in search for my childhood friend, who just disappeared one day and never wrote back even though we promised to be friends forever and ever and–"

"Uh, that sounds like enough," Yue interuppted, taking pity on a wilting Setsuna. "Anyway, it's early in the morning and everyone has already prepared their spells and such. You have recently been hired by the mayor to perform one last check on the old manor on the hill to make sure it's safe for demolition, and allowed to take away anything you can carry."

Negi frowned. "Anything we can carry? Is that legal?"

"Yes, the building has no more owners and defaulted to the town," Yue said.

"What happened to the owners?" Konoka asked.

"There was a tragic daemon-summoning accident," Yue said. "Very sad. Also why we need to make sure it's safe to demolish."

"Wait, if you lived in the town, why didn't you do anything about it?" Setsuna asked.

"We were out of town that day," Yue said. "Fighting space aliens."

"Ah," Konoka said, nodding. "That makes sense."

This was Mahora, after all.

"All right! We head over to the mansion, which is on a hill overlooking the town–"

"What, without breakfast?" Konoka said, aghast.

"Sorry?" Yue said.

"I'm prettty sure that if we're going to be spending the day being ghostbuster-y in a daemon-infested mansion, we need to have a nice hearty breakfast," Konoka said. "You know how cranky you can get if you skip breakfast."

"She has a point," Haruna said, sounding much closer to normal. "We should all have breakfast first. Can't do anything without our one pound minimum of edible materials a day."

Yue rolled her eyes. "Fine. Before you headed over to the mansion, you had a big hearty breakfast– "

"Not that big and hearty," Negi said. "Otherwise we'd need to let it digest and might puke ourselves sick if we need to exert ourselves. A light but filing breakfast is best, two, maybe two and a half pancakes, but definitely not three unless you're Asuna."

"With syrup," Konoka added cheerfully. "And strawberry preserves."

"Sausage on the side maybe, for protein?" Haruna suggested. It sounded very bizarre; the phrase seemed to be completely free of any innuendo.

"Not a big sausage," Konoka said. "Steamed, maybe, not fried. Much healthier for you."

"And milk mixed with strawberry jam? Nodoka suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing.

Yue gave up getting started on the guest right away and shifted gears to what her players obviously wanted. "Right, a decent breakfast to start with. But who cooks?"

"I can do it," Konoka volunteered. "After I wake up and ready my spells I go downstairs and, wanting to thank my hosts, ready a nice breakfast."

"That's probably going to be a Craft check," Haruna said.

"I think we can let it be an untrained check," Yue said. "I wouldn't want Konoka-chan to waste skills points on Craft: Pancakes or anything. Here Konoka, roll this."

Konoka took the round, almost spherical die and gave it a flick. It rolled and settled down on a–

"9," Haruna read. "Did she make breakfast, Yuecchi?"

"She makes it with her Intelligence bonus," Yue said. "Okay, Konoka makes breakfast and everyone goes down and gets pleasantly filled up. Uh, does everyone feel ready to take on the haunted house now?"

"I thought it was a daemon-infested house?" Nodoka said. "Haunted house means ghosts, totally different thing."

"Right, my mistake. So, you all head on over to the mansion, which is na hill overlooking the house," Yue said. She referred to another sheet of paper. "It's a three-story Victorian-style dwelling with peeling paint and a bit of a fixer-upper. From the outside you judge it's approximately 500 square feet– "

"Yue, did you crib the floorplan of a house from a real estate site again?" Haruna said, sounding half-exasperated.

"I wasn't using the Bitter Manor floorplan, you already know that one," Yue said.

In the center of the table, the map drawn with Haruna's artifact began to take shape.

….

"Wait, what do you mean I'm out of spells?" Negi said incredulously.

It was about an hour later, which means only 15 minutes of in-game time had passed.

"You used up all your 3rd level spells throwing fireball around," Yue explained. "That's three fireballs, counting the one from your Int bonus."

"But you just said I still had nine spells left," Negi said.

"Nine that aren't 3rd level. Fireball is a 3rd level spell, so you can't use it anymore. Besides, strictly speaking you need to have prepared the spell first," Yue said. "But you're a beginner, so some slack to get you started works best."

"But… that's not how magic works," Negi said incredulously.

"Those are the rules," Yue said. In case there was need for clarification, she added, "of the game."

Was this how it started with moral watchdogs and their not being able to distinguish fantasy from reality? Thinking that the game book actually applied to reality?

"I told you that you should have gone with Sorcerer," Haruna said. "They pack more spells."

"Now that the fighting's stopped, can someone please get me out of the basement now?" Konoka said. "I've seen this movie a lot of times. Girl all alone in the basement with monsters on the loose? I'm the one with healing spells, remember!"

"What did you just write down?" Haruna said, giving Yue a suspicious look. "You saw her, right Nodoka? She wrote something down!"

"Maybe we should rescue Konoka now, just in case," Nodoka suggested.

"See Negi, I told you that rope would be useful!" Haruna said.

"I could just levitate her," Negi said. "See, I have the spell right here."

"You'll probably need those spell slots when we run into daemons again," Haruna said.

"This is just wrong," Negi groused. "That's not how magic works!"

"Just roll the dice Negi-sensei," Nodoka said. "You have the best strength score, so you need to be the one to pull Konoka out."

To no one's surprise, he rolled a 20 on that one too. Yue was quite frankly beginning to wonder if he was using one of Haruna's loaded dice by mistake.

"You know, if they're going to demolish the house anyway, can't we just set it on fire and stand outside to catch any monsters that run away?" he suggested as the map changed to show more of the house.

"See, this is why modules that happen in a house usually have a hostage involved," Haruna told Yue is a stage whisper.

"Duly noted," Yue said.

"You wrote something again! I saw you!" Haruna declared, pointing dramatically.

"Just a random thought," Yue said blandly.

….

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of the great goddess Sarenrae and one another to celebrate the memory of the late Igan Fieldspring, who died tragically in a house fire," Konoka intoned solemnly. "Even when taken hostage, he fought to the last, valiant trying to throw little blobs of acid at his enemies even though it did absolutely nothing, and unwittingly releasing daemonic forces upon an innocent town."

"I told you you needed to watch how many spells you had," Haruna told Negi.

"So… I'm dead?" Negi said.

"Yup," Haruna said. "Joined the great archonic choir in the Outer Plane. Passed through Pharasma's boneyard. Met the psychopomp. Reroll for new character. What class do you want to play now?"

"Wizard," Negi said instantly.

"I think you've just demonstrated you're a bit too trigger happy for that, sensei," Yue said.

"Wizard," Negi insisted.

"Fine," Yue relented. "But read the entry this time so you understand how 'spell slots' work, all right?"

"But magic doesn't work that way!" Negi protested.

"It's the game sensei," Haruna said. "Here, you can roll for your new stats."

Negi took the 4d6 and rolled.

"Okay," Yue declared as the 6th four sixes in a row came up, "You're going to have to use point-buy for your stats, the dice love you too much to be fair."

"Everyone!" Konoka chastised them, "we're in the middle of a funeral here! I thought Fieldspring-san was our friend! Let's show some respect!"

….

"So," Negi said as he finished his new character sheet, "the name of my new character is a human wizard name Gani Fingsprield… "

Finally familiarized with the particulars of spell slots and resigned to them no matter how unrealistic they were, Negi had managed to keep from rerolling another character.

"… so that means Negi-sensei wins the grapple," Nodoka finally finished.

There was a deep silence, underscoring the 15 minutes of non-stop rules-crunching that had gone on just before.

"Nodoka-san," Negi said slowly, eyes looking slightly haunted. "It was just a handshake. I don't think all those rules and math had to apply… "

"Better safe than sorry, Negi-sensei," Nodoka said. "You need every circumstance bonus you can get!"

"Nodoka," Yue said tiredly. "I'm fairly certain I've said this before. Grappling doesn't give you a circumstance bonus on diplomacy checks!"

"That's not you said last week, when– "

"That was an exception!" Yue said loudly. "I'm pretty sure Negi-sensei has no desire to do that in public!"

….

"No, Negi-sensei, you can't use your quarterstaff as a flying mount, even if you have an arcane bond with it," Yue said.

"But that's not how magic works!" Negi wailed.

….

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of the great goddess Sarenrae and one another to celebrate the memory of the late Gani Fingsprield, who died tragically in the hands of daemons," Konoka intoned solemnly. "He fought to the last, trying to punch their heads off with his bare hands, despite all common sense, because he claimed he'd seen it done once."

"So," Negi sighed as he finished rerolling his character, "my new character is a human wizard name Igna Dleifgnirps… "

"You're going to run out of anagrams of 'Nagi Springfield' eventually," Yue said.

"I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about," Negi said.

"You're all horrible! Horrible!" Konoka accused. "The second dear friend dead in the same week and you don't even pay attention during his funeral! You're all horrible people!"

….

"Tadaima!" Asuna greeted as she opened the door. "Sorry I'm late Konoka-chan, the art supply store was having a sale and this bitch tried to steal my brushes– "

" – look, that's just how magic works Negi-sensei!" Yue said, exasperated. "No T-rex familiar!"

"Horrible! Horrible!" Konoka was denouncing.

"So, 'grit' is actually coolness used to power special techniques?" Setsuna was saying to Nodoka. "Interesting. And given Rakan-san, it might actually be applicable."

"You sure you want to be an elf? They're not really optimized for– " Nodoka replied.

Haruna sighed. "You people are so noisy! Can't you all settle down and sit quietly so we can play? And inside-voices please!"

Asuna stared. It was that last that got to her. "What. The. Hell?"

"Oh, hey Asuna-chan," Haruna greeted. "Wanna play a game?"

Asuna turned and closed the door behind her. Obviously, Haruna had finally snapped and turned into an evil psychological serial killer and had trapped the others in some sort of weird mindgames. She might need backup for this...

….

- To be continued…

….

A/N: Whatever you do, NEVER let a player convince you to let them play a Monstrous PC Outsider. A lot of those have Greater Teleport at will, and either Charm, Hold or Dominate in come form.

Pathfinder is awesome. Archetypes beat new prestige classes any day. I just wish there were more Gunslinger Archetypes.

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.