by H. C. Mills
Anyway, we’re not in any hurry to go back, as this is also our break from training, so we decide to take a stroll by the stream and pick some birberries from the underwater plants they grow on.
Or ‘under-Hydrum,’ I guess. Sounds weird though.
We’ve been chatting the whole time, about anything and everything—I commented on the scent of Kaitlynn’s hair, and she offered to wash mine later—and this is the first time a real silence falls. Thankfully, it’s a comfortable one.
“Tell me something,” Kaitlynn demands eventually.
I raise a brow at her. “What do you wanna know?”
“Okay, ehm...” She uses her free hand to gesture at my uniform. “Why sell hotdogs?”
I purse my lips thoughtfully. “I could tell you, but you’d have to promise to keep it a secret.”
Her eyes go wide, and she mimes locking her mouth and flicking the key over her shoulder.
I glance around and lower my voice. “To tell you the truth, I’ve always dreamt of winning an eating contest.”
She blinks, before cracking a smile and slapping my shoulder. “Shut up.”
“No, really,” I continue with a straight face. “Whenever the boss-man went for a bathroom break or something, I’d stuff myself. Just wet buns and cold sausages, straight down the hatch, no chewing, not a single topping on them.”
“Shut up!” she laughs, slapping me again. “Tell me the truth.”
“Well, which is it?” I ask, rubbing my shoulder. “I can hardly do both.”
She narrows her eyes and raises her stick at me. “Tell me.”
“Hmm. Fine.” I shrug. “Why do people ever work? I needed the money. The free dogs were just a nice bonus.”
She rolls her eyes, “Well duh, but what’d you need it for?” A teasing glint appears in her eyes. “Saving up for your own comedy bar so you could perform your stand-up routine without getting dragged off the stage by your poor audience?”
I smile wryly. “Well, I don’t know about my audience, but I was certainly poor. I worked weekends, saving up till I could get started on my master’s.”
A look of sadness floats onto Kaitlynn’s face before she quickly masks it. “What did you study?”
“Electrical engineering. Figured I’d get a good job, break the cycle, you know? What about you?”
“Oh. Ehm...” She blushes, kinda like an actual anime schoolgirl. “I was in art school. Which sounds kinda lame now, by comparison.”
“No, that’s cool! Were you passionate about it?”
A smile lights up her face. “Very. I always doodled, always loved to draw, I really want—wanted—to become a cartoonist. I even started my own little webcomic. Guess my readers will be disappointed.” The sadness comes back.
“And your parents, they supported you?” I quickly ask.
Great job, Emma, bring up the parents she might never see again. That’ll cheer her up.
“Yeah, they’re great. Well, I mean.” she rolls her eyes, “they’re parents, but, other than that, I have no complaints. What about yours?”
Right, now I get to share too. Joy.
“Mine aren’t so bad either,” I admit. “To be honest, Mom’s my rock. She’s worked two jobs most of her life, just to put me and my little brother and sister through school.”
“I had you pegged as an eldest child,” Kaitlynn says with a smile. “How old are your siblings?”
I smile crookedly. “They’re twelve. Twins. They’re little shits but I love ’em.”
“That’s a pretty big age gap,” Kaitlynn states, her voice neutral in a way that sounds deliberate.
I nod. “Yeah... I was a ‘happy accident.’ Kind of forced my parents to change their plans.”
Understatement.
“What’s your dad like?” she asks. “I mean, you haven’t said anything about him specifically yet...”
“My dad’s an alcoholic. Though it’s not his fault, really... his back was injured in a factory incident, so he had to file for disability, and now he spends most of his time on the couch. He likes to yell at the TV.”
Kaitlynn hums, and a lull falls in our conversation. I see her glancing at me from the corner of my eye, patiently waiting for me to elaborate.
Eventually, I give in with a sigh. “My, ehm, my mom got kicked out by her parents when they found out, and my dad’s parents had already died, so they had to pretty much fend for themselves.”
Kaitlynn frowns. “What happened to your father’s parents?”
I shrug. “They died of AIDS, back in the days that many of the people in power felt that HIV wasn’t so much a problem in need of solving, as much as god’s way of punishing homosexuals for their sodomy. I always found that the most amazing bit of hypocrisy; you’d think suspecting your god of bioterrorism would be enough reason to stop worshipping him.”
Try as I might, I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I thought I was done feeling angry at the world, thought I had successfully channelled it all towards motivation.
Then again, that was before the universe said ‘screw you,’ and literally kicked me out, essentially making all of my hard work meaningless.
Kaitlynn touches my wrist, her big blue eye full of pity. “Emma...”
I squeeze her hand for a moment. “Look, it’s fine; they’ll be fine. Let’s talk about something more fun, yeah?”
Kaitlynn hesitantly retracts her hand. “Okay. Ooh! How about your love life?”
I groan and Kaitlynn laughs in response.
“Why do you want to know so much about me?” I complain.
“I don’t know, I’m just trying to understand you, I guess. So, are you going to tell me?”
I sigh. “Look, the guys I grew up around weren’t exactly boyfriend material. They were great if you needed help stealing a bike or selling some drugs, but that was about it.”
“No cute guys in college?”
“Let’s just say there wasn’t anyone I was interested in. At least I got a lot of good game recommendations out of them, so that’s something.”
“Really?” Kaitlynn narrows her eyes at me. “None of them caught your eye?”
“All right, there was one guy,” I admit.
I try to leave it at that, but Kaitlynn stares me down insistently.
I roll my eyes. “His name was Maxwell,” I start reluctantly. “Don’t laugh, but yes—as you can tell from his name, we were from different worlds. His parents were so stiff. Oh man, they hated me, just straight up wished I were dead, no joke. I think they assumed I was dating him for their money or something; joke’s on them, I never accepted a cent from him. We even went Dutch on all of our dates. Still, it didn’t last. He was kind of a spoiled prick. Though that devil-may-care attitude was what I liked about him in the first place, it started to grate on me after a while. Either way, dating wasn’t high on my list of priorities.”
And in the end, there was Josh. Sort of. I’d rather not dwell on what might have been.
Finished with my tale of woe, I look over at Kaitlynn expectantly. “How about you, break many hearts?”
She smiles sadly, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “Well, I did dump my boyfriend after high school, but I doubt I broke his heart. More the other way around. He, ehm, kept pressuring me to—well, you get it. I wasn’t ready. Art school was a breath of fresh air, but the female to male ratio was skewed rather heavily towards female, and a lot of the guys were gay, so my dating pool was kinda limited—at least at first.”
I nod. I feel like I should say something comforting, but I’m kinda drawing a blank. Sorry guys can be jerks?
Kaitlynn rubs her arm. “Anyway, I guess it’s better to be single when you wind up here. Give thanks for small blessings, right? Poor Dave. I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I start absentmindedly, then I frown. “Wait, what did you mean, at first?”
She blushes. “Well—”
Suddenly, a large blue blur pas
ses over our heads and lands on the other side of the stream. It turns to stare at us for a split-second, revealing its lizard-like head with and the small, green gem snugly centred between the three horns on its forehead.
I feel a hot glow on my face and turn to see Kaitlynn charging up her Focus Crystal to full power. However, when she’s about to unleash her attack, a lanky figure in a tattered Sherlock costume stumbles out of the underbrush and clumsily swings his club at the trigot.
The creature deftly evades the swing by jumping onto a nearby tree trunk, leaving Sherlock right in the path of Kaitlynn’s beam.
Cursing, Kaitlynn wrenches aside her hand at the last second. The orange beam of super-heated Aether goes wide, streaking just over the head of Emo-kid as he bursts through the bushes after Sherlock. He freezes on the spot, looking like he just saw his life flash before his eyes.
Two more guys run down the tree trunk on our right, and I recognise them as Weasel and my favourite douche-canoe, Lego-ass.
They jump into the stream and wade to the other side, barely even sparing us a glance.
If the gang is all here, where’s Meathead?
As if summoned by the mere thought of his bulging biceps, Meathead comes running down the trunk the trigot jumped onto and forces it to drop back to the ground with a wild swing of his club.
It lands halfway on its back, and while it scrambles to get back up, Lego-ass and the lackeys move to surround it and proceed to beat it to death.
Watching it happen leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know we have to hunt these creatures, but can’t these asshats at least use some more effective weapons than clubs?
After they finish, Meathead steps up to the edge of the stream, breathing hard and stained in a yellow goop I assume is a kind of blood. “I guess it’s a small world after all.”
I shake my head. “Disney, Bruce? I hate to say it, but that really doesn’t fit your image.”
He laughs. “It’s always sarcasm with you, isn’t it... Emma.”
Guess he’s been asking around. Yikes.
His smile drops as he points a finger at Kaitlynn. “And you owe me a Lavi Crystal, little girl.”
“I owe you nothing!” she seethes. “You slimy son of a—”
I put my hand on her shoulder and she snaps her mouth shut.
I clear my throat. “She doesn’t owe you a thing, and you know it. Now how about you move on, and no-one has to get hurt.”
There, let’s see if can’t resolve this peaceably, and without name-calling.
“You, hurt us?” Lego-ass barks out a laugh as he draws up beside Meathead. “You know, we found out something interesting the other day. Turns out you’re not an enforcer at all.” He glares at me with thinly veiled hatred. “You really do nothing but lie, don’t you, Nonya?
I roll my eye. “Seriously, I told you my name was Nonya as a joke. Get over it.”
“Oh, I’m over it all right,” he sneers. “That doesn’t mean I appreciate being made a fool of. Hey Bruce, how about we teach her a lesson?” He throws a meaningful glance at the lackeys, who take the hint and come swaggering over.
All right, screw you. Mockery and threats of violence it is.
I pull a conspicuously glowing bottle out of my front hip pocket and shake it at them. “That’s a great idea. You boys come on over here, and I’ll teach you all a lesson about respecting women.”
Lego-ass’s face darkens and the lackeys stop in their tracks.
Meathead spits on the ground. “This ain’t over. Let's go, boys.”
Lego-ass follows the rest as they saunter off, but doesn’t partake in the hooting and laughing about their successful hunt, choosing instead to shoot back some hateful glances. The mangled corpse of the trigot stays behind, sans crystal.
“Ugh, what a bunch of dickheads!” Kaitlynn exclaims. “Wish I’d saved some Qi to blast the smug grins off their faces.”
“Yeah, I hear ya,” I say. “It’d probably be best not to escalate this conflict any further, though. So far, it’s only about a single Minor Lavi Crystal and some bruised pride. This place is bad enough without survivors trying to kill each other.”
She sighs and looks down, kicking at something. “I know, I know. They just piss me off.”
I smile and brush back a strand of her hair, getting her to look up again. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned at my many odd jobs, it’s that you can’t let assholes get to you. You’re just giving them power.”
She stares at me for a second, then her shoulders seem to lose some tension and she smiles back.
“Besides,” I say, stepping back with a smirk. “Meathead and company may have taken the prize, but they left us something pretty sweet.”
She cocks her head at me in confusion.
“I mean, they even tenderised it for us,” I say, indicating the battered trigot. “Do you think that’s white meat or red?”
CHAPTER 32
It takes a lot, to make a stew
I HAVE TO SAY, the trigot looked a lot more appetizing down at the stream than it does now, slowly oozing a yellow liquid onto the floor of our little hut.
Kaitlynn and Dave hurry about, stuffing leaves underneath the carcass so we’ll have less cleaning to do later, while Alec and I study it. Apparently, cooking was one of his hobbies. I gather he had a lot of those. No wonder he never got anything done for school.
I scratch my head. “So, do you think it’s edible?”
Alec shrugs. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”
Right. “Appraise.”
“Or two ways, I suppose,” Alec mutters, as a window pops up in front of me.
Up to thirty feet long? This must be a young one, then. I shudder to think of meeting one that’s fully grown.
I glance over at Alec. “Well, appraise classifies it as an animal, not a consumable, but it does have a Lavi supplement value.”
Alec perks up. “Then it should be edible, right?”
I suck in a breath. “Yeah... though it also has Toughness similar to a tree.”
“Oh.” Alec deflates again. “Maybe we should just try—”
“Rose, could you tell me if and how we can cook and eat this creature?” Dave asks.
“Three ways,” Alec mutters.
I smirk at him. “Six, if you count all of our guides separately.”
Alec glares at me. Oh well, at least Kaitlynn is laughing.
Dave is silent for a while, then he nods. “Rose says we can eat it, it just needs to be well-heated for about six to eight hours, until it’s soft enough for our ‘widdle teeth.’ ”
I mouth ‘What?’ at Kaitlynn, which sets her off again. “Your Rose sounds like quite a character, Dave.”
[Oh, believe me, she is,] Suri chimes in my head. Dave just smiles sheepishly.
“All right,” Alec says. “I’m thinking stew. Kaitlynn, got any spices in that herb collection of yours?”
“Well, yes, but they’re different from the ones on earth, so, I wouldn’t know what goes well with this.”
Alec impatiently gestures at her to hand over the goods.
“Oh, I have a bag of salt,” Dave says, moving to rummage through his backpack.
“Really?” I ask in surprise.
“Yeah,” he says, pulling out and presenting his prize. “I bought it from the consumables window for the Third Trial. I figured that if it was going to be dry and hot, bringing only water might be a bad idea. You need to replenish your electrolytes if you’re sweating a lot.”
I blink. “Huh, I hadn’t thought of that. On the other hand, there’s no guarantee electrolytes are even a thing in this dimension.”
“True,” Dave says. “Though I did try tasting my sweat during Trial 3, and it was salty, so I think it might be. In hindsight, Trial 3 wasn’t really long enough to warrant purchasing a bag of salt, but it was only one Trial Point anyway. Here you go, Alec.”
Alec accepts the bag without even looking, as he’s too busy sniffing Kaitlynn’s herbs and mu
ttering to himself. “This one. Oof, not this. This is a maybe.”
Sounds like he knows what he’s doing. I’ll leave him to it.
I turn back to the carcass and consider the next challenge. “How are we going to skin it? I do have a blade of knifegrass, but...”
Kaitlynn scrunches up her nose. “You mean Bluesteel Grass? I’m afraid a plant with a Toughness of 19 isn’t going to cut it. Heh, get it? ‘Cut’ it.”
I stifle a smirk. “Yes, I got it, sweetie. Very clever, well done.”
Alec and Dave laugh. Kaitlynn pouts at me. Awww, so cute.
Dave clears his throat. “She’s right though; it wouldn’t work. But we have something better.”
He rummages through his backpack again, this time producing a sharp shard of rock.
“A while ago, I experimented with dropping rocks from high up in the tree, to see if I could make something useful,” he explains. “It took some doing to get it right. Seems like you can only break rocks by dropping them on rocks with an even higher Toughness, otherwise you only damage whatever you dropped it on.”
Interesting. Is the Toughness stat really that absolute? Or is that only the case because the rocks lack flexibility?
“Anyway, this shard has a Toughness of 56,” he concludes.
I let out a low whistle. “That ought to do it.”
Alec finishes selecting herbs, jumps up, and starts bossing us around. For some reason, I feel annoyed at him telling me what to do, but I shake it off. As they say, too many cooks will spoil the broth.
Alec is going to carve up the meat, Dave is sent to fetch water with some empty waterskins and bottles, and Kaitlynn and I are on fire detail.
I follow her as she skips down the tree trunk, off to search for twigs and branches on the forest floor.
It’s only a little while later, when I’ve already collected quite a pile of firewood, that it hits me. “Wait, we’re making a fire? Is that even possible in this Realm?”
Kaitlynn looks up at me in surprise. “Oh, that’s right, you weren’t here yet. It’s so weird, it feels like I’ve known you forever.”
