Location: Fisher Library, University of Sydney
Located at the University of Sydney, one of the most prestigious universities in Australia, the Fisher Library is both the first and the largest of the University of Sydney Libraries (with seven other faculties spread across both the University's campus and greater Sydney).
Despite having four floors and and a maximum capacity of close to 2000 people, it was almost as deathly silent as you would typically expect a library to be, with many students leaning over their desks as they were either compiling notes for research purposes, working on their assignments or just simply reading an interesting book.
On such uni student was seated separately from the vast majority of the students, and she was an interesting one to say the least.
Two words you could use to describe her attire would be "punk" and "tomboyish", as she was wearing dark coloured jeans, a leather jacket, thick leather boots and a beanie.
Another term that can be applicable to both her appearance and identity is "soft butch", due to not only her purple shirt with an inverted black triangle with a superimposed white labrys in the centre, but also the various pins stuck onto her beanie that each make a reference to the LGBT+ community.
At that moment, her navy blue eyes were almost laser focused on the document she was writing up on her her laptop and was quietly muttering to herself.
Due to the selection of books on psychology and Greek mythology laying open on her desk and the intense level of concentration the 20 year old woman was displaying, it would be reasonable to assume that she was writing a complex thesis on psychology of figures from Greek mythology.
Alas, the hypothetical people who would've assumed this would cough up at least a pint of blood if they knew…
"Although the vast majority of Clerics gain their power through worship of either a specific god or a pantheon of them, there have been some Cleric characters that don't worship any form of divinity at all, so this Domain should work players of the class who either want their characters to have acquired their powers from an established form of divinity or from worshiping an abstract concept.", the woman muttered herself, "So should users of this Domain have some sort of reflective object in their bag of holding to cement their belief? Oh, and would Doug accept that users of this Domain having a retaliatory skill or spell that activates automatically if they are physically damaged in any way as reasonable?"
…that she was using the literary resources of one of Australia's finest universities to create a homebrew Dungeons and Dragons character class!
Due to her single minded focus on writing a paper for a hobby that isn't practiced in the university's curriculum, she wasn't aware of her surroundings enough to notice three other similarly age women sneaking up behind her.
One of them took advantage of the seated woman's distracted state to come directly behind her and cover her eyes with her hands.
"Guess who?", the woman asked while slightly altering her voice to make it slightly more difficult for the seated woman to guess straight away.
Despite being surprised by having someone disturbing her (important?) work, she simply let out a light and slightly husky chuckle over her ambusher's actions.
Since the lady was terrible at masking her voice, she naturally knew exactly who initiated this little game of "Peek a Boo", but decided to play along a little.
Getting a little revenge for being surprised like this wouldn't hurt either…
Tapping her her chin as if she was seriously contemplating who her playful assailant was, she playfully hummed, "Hmmm, it's a bit difficult for me to know without my sense of sight, but I might make up for it with my sense of "touch," as she started lifting up her hands.
Quirking a pierced eyebrow slightly at the woman's method of identification, the lady smirked before closing her eyes, lest they get poked whilst having her face kneaded…
"…Ahh?!!".
…Only to instead suddenly feel her "second pair of eyes" being kneaded and poked in an overly lecherous manner!!
"Uh..uh…um Gab, what're you doing?!", the sexually harassed woman asked shakily, despite it being bleedingly obvious.
"Shh," Gab shushed in a seemingly serious tone of voice, which starkly contradicts her shameless groping, "I need absolute concentration in order to accurately ascertain your true identity!".
She then punctuated that statement by suddenly digging her fingers deeper into the abundant mounds of flesh on her ambusher's chest, forcing her to bite down hard on her lower lip to prevent any moans from escaping.
This little bastard is doing this on purpose, she thought, you know exactly how sensitive my tits are after last weekend!!
"Hmmm, succulent Double D's, carried in what feels like a particularly racy bra underneath a rough t-shirt,", Gab mused, acting as if she were performing a serious observation, "that narrows it down to a few girlfriends I know.".
The ambusher almost coughed up blood over the insinuation that Gab's merciless groping of her recently sensitive breasts wasn't quite finished yet. Her two friends behind her let out a few quiet chuckles over how badly the surprise backfired on her.
"Although…", the molested woman's ears perked up, "there is one way I can confirm who you are. And that's by doing…THIS!".
Pinch
"Grk!!!".
"AHA! Two barbell piercings! Then that can only mean the you're…Maria!".
As soon as both her identity was confirmed and her tits were released from Gab's merciless grip, Maria's hands instantly went from Gab's face to the back of the wheelie chair she was currently seated on, sharply turning the molester around so she can get an eyeful of the pained expression on Maria's face!
"Why. Did. You. Do. That. You. Fucking. Bastard?!", Maria angrily intoned, punctuating each word for emphasis, tears welling from the overstimulation, "I. Almost. Came!!".
Despite the fact that Maria was wearing the expression of someone who's been bullied (which is pretty much true), Gab simply laughed whilst thinking that Maria looked uncharacteristically adorable right now.
"Oh please," Gab lightly smirked, "don't act as if you hadn't done similar things to us when we tried to sneak up on you.". This callback to similar "incidents where Maria herself was the intended "victim"brought a slight frown to her face before Gab continued, "As for the matter of your "identifiers", you agreed to the bet and lost, so you can only blame yourself for getting into your current predicament in the first place.".
After a few seconds of debating on how to respond to that statement, Maria sighed in defeat.
"Yeah, you've got to admit that Gab has a point,", a tanned, blond haired woman wearing a simple blue sundress said as she leaned her chin on the sulking woman's left shoulder, "I can still clearly remember the times where you fondled my arse after I jumped you in a corridor one time.".
"Besides,", a bespectacled brunette with straight shoulder-length hair wearing a collared white shirt and black pants continued as she came up on Maria's right, "we didn't force you to agree to our conditions should you not succeed in picking up that North Shore girl you wanted to, and I quote, "root all the way to high heaven and back to you".".
"Yeah, yeah, I know Amalia,", Maria begrudgingly agreed with the blonde on her left as she ran her hand through her black and wavy hip-length hair, "don't engage in behaviour that'll bite me on the arse,", she then paused so that she could turn to the brunette on her right, "and yes, Elina, especially DON'T make a bet that I'll regret paying the price for.".
"Ok,", Gab interjected, "now that Maria paid the appropriate price for interrupting me…".
"Appropriate…", Maria muttered as her lips twitched violently.
…why're you lovely ladies here before our meet up time?", Gab finally asking the question that's been on her mind since this debacle started.
"Wellll," Maria drawled with a quirked eyebrow, "we were going to take you out to lunch at the Lansdowne since you don't have anymore classes for the rest of the arvo, but since you're too preoccupied…".
"Ok, ok, I'll take you up on that," Gab laughed whilst putting her notes in her back and piling up the books she going to borrow from the library, "Besides, I'm already up to date with my assignments, so I can afford to grab a beer you guys.".
Elina tilted her head in confusion at Gab's penultimate statement, as did Maria and Amalia.
"You're already up to date on your assignments…".
"You were essentially free before we saw you…".
"And yet you were still working on something?".
As soon as they each spoke their respective thoughts out loud, a metaphorical lightbulb burst to life over the trio's hears, as they had a pretty good idea as to what their friend was working on.
By the time Gab noticed Elina, Maria and Amalia giving quick nods to each other, she was too little, too late in closing her laptop before they rushed over to her desk.
By the time she got her act together, the faces of all three of her friends were frozen as they read the title of her recent document.
"Homebrew Cleric Domain: Narcissism Domain".
…
After a beat, the three nosy ladies heaved big sighs and shock their heads knowingly, as Gab's facial expression heavily dropped, knowing exactly what what her friends were thinking…
"""Of course our RPG-Class otaku was using her free time Class Crafting!!!""".
Now facing the otaku in question, Maria gave Gab an understanding smile before saying, "You KNOW we'll be bagging you about this on our way to the pub.", before leading on to the library's exit.
"You know just as well as our DM that I always play as a Cleric, so I'll be fascinated to know who or what exactly inspired that particular Domain.", Amalia lightly stated as she followed Maria.
"We'll be waiting outside, so you better get a move on.", Elina informed Gab as she too followed suit.
"Yes, yes and yes,", Gab said, agreeing to all three of them, " just hold your horses, I'll be finished in a sec."
As soon as she said that, Gab rushed over to the self-checkout machine to borrow the books she needed, taking out her library card to do so.
Student ID: Gabriella Wander