“Totally not the same thing.” Cassie looked horrified.
Tim topped off his coffee again and speared a sausage with his fork. “Why? Because you ogle them in a less-sexual way?”
“Please, that girl wants to lick champagne off their abs and take a ride on the farm boy express.” ShadowLily winked at her friend. “I’m just saying that there might be a small double standard we take advantage of.”
Cassie looked shocked. “I’d never sleep with someone who called sex ‘riding the farm boy express.’ Nothing wrong with admiring the hardware though.”
“Or daydreaming about it,” JaKobi prodded.
“Fine! Just try not to drool all over yourself.” Cassie looked down at her plate of food.
JaKobi reached out and gently turned her head so she was looking at him. “Baby, I only drool when I’m looking at you.”
“Sappy,” ShadowLily quipped.
“But delivered at the right time with the right inflection.” Tim was grinning from ear to ear.
JaKobi looked into Cassie's eyes, then his robes disappeared, and some rough-spun hemp pants and a flannel shirt that was open down the middle replaced them. A shovel rested on one shoulder. “Wanna ride the farm boy express?”
The tank’s eyes rested somewhere between excited amusement and exasperation. She stood, and her outfit changed into a tied-off crop top and short shorts. “I do declare that I think there is a field ready for plowing.”
Cassie ran for the stairs with JaKobi chasing after her at full speed.
“For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to pretend that didn’t just happen.” Tim blinked once and sipped his coffee.
ShadowLily smirked at him. “You didn’t think it was so silly when you had the same idea last night.”
Tim coughed into his fist. “Or when I lent him the shovel this morning.”
“You sly dog.” ShadowLily was beaming from ear to ear. “I’ll have to keep my eye on you.”
He pushed his plate away, stood, and stretched. “All I’m saying is that the appropriate time to break out said shovel isn’t at breakfast.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You never know when it’s a good time for shoveling.” ShadowLily sipped her coffee as they moved out to the porch and sat on the swing.
Tim sat next to her, wondering if this wasn’t the best view in all of The Etheric Coast. It was so easy to relax in this game. It was as if all his worries disappeared. He was surrounded by great people that liked to have fun and didn’t mind poking a little harmless fun at each other along the way.
He reached out and took ShadowLily’s hand in his, and they rocked on the swing together while watching the morning idle past.
Lorelei showed up with the horses about an hour later.
The ranger wore an ear-to-ear grin. Last night and this morning had done her a world of good. It was nice to see her happy. She walked toward the farmhouse almost as if she were floating on air with the horses trailing behind her.
Tim saw Sadie and rushed down the stairs to say hello. He rubbed her nose the way the horse liked it and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “I have a little snack for you when we get back to Tristholm. Don’t tell the others.”
Sadie whinnied and stomped her front hooves.
“All right.” Tim reached inside his robes and pulled out one of the two apples he’d taken from inside and fed it to the horse. “You got me.”
Sadie almost seemed to be laughing. If the horse could talk, she clearly would have been telling him that horses were smarter than people.
It seemed kind of rude to jump on someone's back when they were trying to enjoy a snack, so Tim waited for Sadie to finish before he mounted.
“Back in the saddle again.” Tim hoped that wasn’t too corny.
Lorelei laughed. “Keep the nineties where they belong.”
“It’s the music of a generation,” JaKobi casually replied as he and Cassie walked out in time to hear their comments. “Be happy he’s not into the eighties or spandex.”
“You got me there.” Lorelei looked at Tim, clearly imagining him wearing a skin-tight spandex suit and trying not to giggle. “Everyone ready to go?”
When four yesses came back, Lorelei led them onto the path. They would be back in Tristholm in a few hours. Then it was through the portal and into the desert beyond. Tim was so excited he wanted to gallop back, but it would be nice to take their time so they had the energy to fight on the other side if they had to. Once they went through the portal, Tim didn’t expect they’d be getting a whole lot of rest.
The trip back to Tristholm was a lazy affair.
It almost felt odd not being accosted by someone with another task the second they set out to fulfill their quest. Not that Tim was complaining. Without Jessi’s little side quest, they would have missed out on a couple of levels and a whole lot of loot. When it came down to the feast or famine equation, Tim knew he wanted to land on the feast side of the fence.
Sure he could have been worried that he only had one active quest left, but why sweat it? One thing he knew about games was that whenever a player went to a new zone, they were overloaded with new quests. Then the feasting would begin anew. He wouldn’t be surprised if all of them hit level twenty soon.
Probably right before getting hit with the whammy.
There tended to be a big jump in difficulty when a player crossed certain level thresholds. The bosses either hit harder or had new mechanics. Sometimes it was getting used to new skills that took a while. One thing he knew for sure was that his class would change, and with those changes, he’d have to be flexible. It never paid to get too comfortable while leveling. Today's top skill could be in tomorrow's forgotten bin.
Normally he’d take a useless skill off his action bar, but inside The Etheric Coast, there weren’t action bars to put your skills on. So in this case, he’d have to avoid using a skill if he didn’t think it pulled its weight anymore. Everything he’d learned so far was pretty useful in the right situations but not always applicable. He doubted the developers tried to make useless skills, but for every player that thought their ability was great there was a player on the other end screaming for a nerf.
Fuck nerfs.
Tim always felt that a better solution would be to create a new baseline for the other classes with a few tiny increases than to wipe out a group of players that were happy with how things were. If players started destroying bosses, it was equally simple to fix—tweak the bosses' resistances or health to make the fights challenging again. Of course, it all sounded simple when he wasn’t the one doing the work.
Or paying the bills.
When it came right down to it, whoever paid the bills called the shots. They wanted nerfs because it was more cost-effective than tweaking other classes? Then by God, there would be nerfs all around. So far he hadn’t run into the heavy-handed approach in The Etheric Coast, and it was nice not to have to worry about what rotation would be viable from week to week.
Tristholm came into view, and he was as relieved to see the walls as he was on their first trip to the city. Not having werewolves chasing them was a bonus, but his excitement was no smaller today. It was merely a different kind.
When they reached the stables, Tim slid off his horse and made sure that Sadie didn’t have a bit in her mouth before retrieving the last apple from his inventory. He rubbed her nose gently as she feasted on the tasty treat. White foam burst from the horse's mouth as she crushed the apple in her jaws like a press. It was amazing how strong a horse's jaws were—damn crocodiles of the plains.
“Next time we're back in the city, I’ll bring you an apple even if I don’t have to go anywhere.” Tim grinned as she nudged him in the chest with her head. “Okay, okay, two apples.”
Sadie whinnied in response and turned to head inside the barn.
“You made a friend there.” Lorelei turned away from her horse and checked her gear to make sure it was ready for the journey ahead.
Tim didn’t know if
he had to check his gear. After equipping everything, he assumed it was always fine. “My parents weren’t into pets. There was no chance in the world I was getting a horse, but I would have loved to have a dog.”
“Maybe we can find you one, and we can take it on adventures with us,” ShadowLily replied as she strolled past him.
Cassie pushed Tim toward the portal. “Worry about Fido and the horse later. Let’s go do desert things.”
“I’m with her.” JaKobi grinned.
Tim mouthed “Traitor” at him, then reached out and touched Cassie’s earlobe. “Is that honey?”
He’d never seen Cassie blush before. It looked a lot like her angry face but with a hint of embarrassment instead of the usual rage.
“Fuck off. That’s not where the honey goes.” She walked faster.
JaKobi looked as though he wanted to tell Tim exactly where the honey went but decided not to at the last second. With Cassie’s penchant for hitting him, it was probably a good idea. Not to mention the fact that Tim didn’t need to know. It wasn’t that hard to make an educated guess. Anything else put images in his head he could do without ever seeing.
Tim almost started laughing again but stopped himself.
The last thing he needed was to give anyone any crap about what they did in the bedroom. If she wanted to, ShadowLily could tell some tales that he might never hear the end of once they made it out into the public. So he buttoned his lip and tried not to think about exactly where the honey went.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Khalid knew that Neema was still bristling from their conversation.
It was a warrior's pride that made them want to take on every challenge themselves. Trying to fix the world's problems on one's own was as pure folly as waiting for snow in the desert. Even with an army of like-minded individuals, creating real change in the world was hard.
Who knew that more than him?
There was a time when he had a wife and a daughter. While he had never remarried, Khalid still had a daughter in a way. Neema might not have been his flesh and blood, but she was his daughter in every way that mattered, and she was also his partner in the resistance. Not to mention the fact she was their best warrior, devoted much of her time to others, and never backed down from a fight when the cause was righteous.
Even when the cause wasn’t quite noble, Neema would rather settle a dispute with her fists than with her words. Not everyone was cut out for flashy wordsmithing. Some people led their lives by doing and showing others through their actions. No one cared as much about the resistance as she did. Neema just showed it differently.
Despite his constant teachings, her fighting style remained wild and erratic. It gave her an edge in combat, but it also made her vulnerable. There was no way to know if the arrow he’d fired at Dracon would have killed him since the giant bastard cut the thing in half.
How was that even possible?
It seemed unfair that one man could be so strong and fast at the same time, with reflexes that seemed so near god-like they couldn’t be matched. Khalid had spent a summer trying to knock padded arrows out of the air like the storybook heroes, and all he ended up with was bruises. The fact Dracon had stopped one while wounded made him a formidable foe and one that probably shouldn’t be faced alone.
As with problems, some fights couldn’t be won alone. What they needed was a group of champions. People to take on the hardest battles so they could deploy their resources more efficiently. Of course, Neema wanted to be the one to bring those targets to their knees.
Hence the tense set of her shoulders as she rode in front of him.
It wasn’t his place to tell her not to fret, that she wouldn’t be stuck counting grains of wheat with the old maids at the oasis. Khalid knew her value, and it was tenfold with a sword in her hand rather than an abacus. Her talents wouldn’t be wasted with a useless death, not if Eternia was right.
After the fight with Dracon, Khalid had prayed to the goddess. They had a base, they had the numbers, but outside of Neema and himself, they lacked seasoned warriors. Yes, they could train them, but that would take years, and securing supplies for their growing numbers was becoming harder with each passing sunrise. So instead of asking the goddess for more help when she had already given so much, Khalid simply asked her what she wanted him to do next.
The vision came to him in a dream.
Eternia pointed the way across the sands to a cavern. He’d heard rumors of such a place being the gateway between realms, but no one who entered the caverns was ever heard from again. It was one of those places only the foolish would enter, and yet that was where the goddess was sending them.
Eternia wasn’t exactly one to explain herself, but she had also never tricked him or led him astray in any way. She either helped or didn’t answer his call. Oftentimes she appeared to him when she wanted something done. So when the goddess told him to go somewhere, he went. He did it without question or hesitation. Why worry about problems that might come to pass when he already had enough worries to fill a hundred lifetimes?
They would find an answer to their immediate problems in the caverns.
“Neema, what do you see?” Khalid called to the young warrior.
As much as it pained him to say it, he was older now, and his eyesight was starting to fade. There was no shame in it. At least he didn’t let his pride overwhelm his good sense when there was a resource riding in front of him with eyes sharper than any falcon.
“There is a cave up ahead.” Neema sat straighter in her saddle as she went on alert. “I don’t see anything else yet.”
Khalid watched her as she scanned the sands around them for trouble. He on the other hand gave his horse a good rub on the neck before kicking him into a trot. There wasn’t any trouble for them waiting ahead, only answers, and he was desperate to seek them.
“Race you there,” he called as his horse took off past her at a gallop.
Neema urged her horse to run faster. “Cheater.”
“Winners never cheat,” Khalid cried as his horse tore through the desert sands like a fish through water.
Five minutes later they were standing outside of the cavern opening, grinning at each other like idiots as their horses drank from a hidden trough built into the cavern’s wall. He was pretty sure Neema had won the race, but it had been a matter of inches and the best he’d done in years.
He was old and deserved a bigger head start.
Neema dunked her head in the trough right next to the horse to cool off. “By the gods, it’s hot today.”
“The oasis has made us soft.” Khalid smiled as he dunked his head in the water. “That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t take what is given.”
“Like these warriors of yours,” Neema spat.
Khalid held his hands palm outward. “We need an edge to shift the tide. Eternia has provided it for us.”
Neema turned to look at the portal. “That remains to be seen.”
Blue energy filled the empty space, and a moment later the portal was active. They both pulled their bows free and waited to see what was going to come out. Khalid might have believed in the goddess with his entire heart, but he also believed in prudence. All it took was one of the other gods to take offense, and their boon could turn into a pile of camel shit in an instant.
A man in a bright red robe flew through the portal and landed on his stomach. “I said I wanted to fly, not get tossed through the portal like a piece of luggage.”
“Hey, you could have flown. The only way to be sure it wouldn’t work was to try it,” a short woman with a bō staff across her back replied as she emerged from the portal.
Next came a woman garbed from head to toe in black leather with fearsome daggers strapped to her hips. She looked light on her feet. Not the kind of person Khalid would want to get in a tangle with unless he had help. Behind her came a man in solid black robes. The robes were an odd color choice since he was clearly a healer. The last person to step out of the electric blue light
was a woman with a bow.
The bow user was the only one who spotted them. She pulled her weapon free as Khalid put his away. These weren’t the kind of warriors he’d expected, but if they were good enough for Eternia, who was he to judge them differently?
“Neema, put your bow down.” Khalid motioned for her to aim the weapon at the sands as he slowly walked forward.
The excitement at finding something and right when they arrived had him almost tingling with anticipation. This was what he’d been waiting for since the resistance started, the next big thing to shift the tide. If they could remove Jabari’s generals, they might finally be able to take the fight to the man himself.
“Guys, we’ve got company.” The bow user kept her weapon ready but lowered it as she assessed their threat level.
The man in the black robes glanced up, looking slightly sick. His fingers twitched through a spell, and his complexion cleared up almost instantly. “One of these days, I’m going to get through the portals without wanting to puke.”
“The price you pay for fast travel.” The man in the bright red snickered as he turned to watch them approach.
Khalid held up a hand in greeting. “Eternia promised that I would find the answer to my problems in this very spot, and who should appear as we approached but five brave adventurers.”
There was no reason to start on the wrong foot. Khalid wouldn’t force anyone to help him. That was what Jabari did. He was all about letting people make their own choices and dealing with the consequences of them. With all his heart, he hoped they agreed to work for the resistance.
Neema didn’t look very impressed with their five visitors. “I’m not so sure these are the ones we're waiting for.”
The one in the black robes extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Tim. This is ShadowLily, Lorelei, Cassie, and JaKobi.” He pointed at each of his companions in turn.
Khalid grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Khalid, and Neema.”
Deserts Of Naroosh Page 23
