Page 20 of With a Little Luck

Pleased to accept.

Pleasedtoaccept.

No. Way.

I feel the pull of a tentative, disbelieving smile on my lips. Am I imagining this?

I take a screenshot and text it to Ari and Pru. Pru’s response comes back immediately.

Pru:NICE. What are they paying?

I roll my eyes.

Jude:Who cares??

When Pru doesn’t respond, I sigh and check theDungeon’s submission guidelines on their website.

Jude:$50

Pru:Not bad, but we’ll renegotiate for the next one. You’re free to accept.57

Jude:When did you become my manager?

Pru:Since the womb, Jude!

Pru:You, Quint, and Ari might be the talent, but you’d be lost without me.

Pru:Okay, maybe not lost. But definitely starving artists.

Jude:That’s artistes to you.

Pru replies with the artist emoji, beret and all.

Ari’s text comes in a few minutes later.

Ari:I told you so!!!

My heart lifts as it starts to sink in. This is real. I submitted a drawing to theDungeon, and they are actually going to publish it. I’m even getting paid. Fordrawingsomething!

Jude:Now you owe me a song.

Ari starts to type a response, the three little dots appearing next to her name.

But then the dots go away.

I wait.

After a long while, she starts to type again.

Ari:Araceli the Magnificent is on it!

My smile returns. I glance down at my sketchbook. Of the bard and the wizard—two characters who had no place in my new campaign yesterday, but now I sort of like where the story is heading. I wasn’t sure before how I was going to start the group off on this new quest, but I can use the bard as an NPC to tell them about the mysterious temple and the wizard and the curse. Maybe she’ll give them the Scarlet Diamond and—58

My whole body goes still.

The Scarlet Diamond was a piece of treasure from the one campaign I tried to run with Quint, Pru, and Ari—a campaign that never really got off the ground because, even though they all said they were having fun, it was never a priority for anyone to keep playing and the story kind of just fizzled away. I hadn’t thought much about it until now.

I pull the red dice out of my pocket and hold it up toward my drawing. I think about the story I’ve been concocting, the mythology of the temple that I was telling Ari about during open mic night.

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