The Rewards of Levelling Up

I got to spend some extra time with Brianna today when I managed to take off work early to pick her up from the Girl Scout day camp she's attending. We got back to the city and finished with dinner early enough that we could make a run down to Game HQ. Way back when I introduced her to gaming, I told her that when she got her character up to level two, and showed that she was a committed player, I would buy her a miniature for that character. Chad, who gave me the idea, took his nephews down for their rewards after our session on Saturday, but I wanted to make sure Brianna and I had plenty of time for the search. After all, it took me well over an hour to find the right Randall. Fortunately, Chad had told me that I should look in the miniatures catalog Game HQ kept at the desk, choose from there, then go to the wall to find it. That would greatly speed things up, since they had them more or less in numerical order. So Brianna and I headed for the counter immediately, but paused there for more pressing concerns. My d20 is cursed, you see. This became appallingly apparent last Saturday as I flubbed roll after roll on hides, trap detection and disarming, and the like. It wasn't me, because I was able to roll quite well indeed with Chris's d20. So I explained to Brianna that my die is cursed and I need a new one. Not that I'm giving up entirely on the old one, mind you. It's currently in the freezer, being punished. If it repents of its wicked ways, I'll return it to the dice bag. Otherwise, it's off to isolation (can't have it spread the curse to the rest of my dice) until I decide if I am really going to make an example of it by executing it in the microwave while forcing the rest of the dice to watch. I'm not ordinarily a superstitious man, except when it comes to dice. Fortunately, Brianna seems to understand. Or she's gotten very good at humoring her old man. Either way, she helped me select a couple of d20s to try out, and put up with me rolling them repeatedly to find the right ones. I also found a nifty d4 replacement: it's a d12 that has the roman numerals I through IV repeated 3 times each on it's sides. I've never liked how the d4s rolled, so this was a must-have item. Next we got out the catalog. Brianna found a couple possibles, which the guy at the counter (I'm embarrassed to say I can't for the life of me remember his name) helped us locate on the wall. Then, while he was fielding a phone call, she found the perfect one. Once again Reaper Miniatures came through, and Brianna found exactly the representation of Angel Moonwhisper she was looking for. It's relatively close to the miniature she'd been borrowing from Chad all this time, which she'd fallen in love with. Sadly, it wasn't on the wall, but the guy immediately offered to see if he could order it. When he confirmed it was available (it was a toss-up, being an older model), he took my information and promised to call when it came in. Possibly as early as Friday. Brianna and I browsed a bit more. I discovered Zombie Town, from Twilight Creations. It looks like an awesome zombie board game, and I must own it someday. Sadly, it was too pricey to grab tonight. Brianna again enjoyed browsing the various chess-like games, and asked, as always, for one of the awesome plushes they sell. We also snagged a familiar pack so Angel can have her cat Princess with her on the board. Happy with our acquisitions, we took our leave of the wonder and joy that is Game HQ. But we'll be back. Oh, yes, we will be back.