038 – The Laughing Queen

Day 2

I was just shoveling down delicious Chili Sin Carne, when Lucy manifested across from me, behind Ash and Liz.

“Ahem,” they overdramatically cleared their throat. “Day 2: Today I could have used my cheat to make you waste two of your precious ATP to transform into the Might of the Meek version of your kobold shape.”

I blinked at them. “And what good would that have done you?”

They put their hands on Ash’s shoulders, who froze at their touch, gently kneading. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I could have satisfied scientific curiosity? At what point does it transition from ‘adorable’ to ‘kind of hot’? 5’6″? What do you think, Ash?”

Ash took a couple of attempts before he could reply. “I do not wish to be part of this discussion.”

“Lucy,” I said. “You have the humor of a teenager. Also, bullying is beneath you.”

“Sue me. I would have thought you’d have a better understanding of how upsetting the sudden transition to an entirely different biological reality can be.” They leaned in closer to Ash. “At least there you can agree that it is upsetting, can you?”

“A bit,” Ash answered.

“There you go. Day 2, I could have made things even more awkward. Outpacing even your own capability for social self-sabotage. Ta-ta.” They vanished again.

I shook my head and continued with my food. Awkward silence hung over the group.

After refreshing the food buff, there was one more step of preparation left.

I was walking away from the fire station, responding to every [“Ping 1.”] Jamie wrote in party chat, with a [“Pong 2.”] of my own. Counting up. At roughly 17, or 200 yards, my replies no longer reached Jamie. That was my chat range. It would make our plan a bit more risky.

#

The others returned a bit earlier than planned. They’d all risen by around one level each. But by their looks, it had cost them more trouble than us. Roslyn and Jason were covered in blood. Everyone’s clothes were covered in soot, and some were torn pretty badly.

Only Luke was relatively untouched. He wouldn’t have participated in any of the fighting and just stayed back. Which was still pretty fucked up, but better than to leave him behind on his own.

Judging by their health bars, Annika’s mana had eventually run out. I pulled a mana potion out of my inventory and walked up to her. Everyone stopped at my sight.

It was Anthony who understood first. “Eve? Is that you?”

“Yup, I’m expanding my repertoire.”

I held out the potion for Annika.

“What’s that?”

“Replenishes your mana.”

She took it cautiously. “Thanks.”

The group slowly gathered at the table, while Stephen served them more of his chili.

“What did you fight?”

They exchanged glances. It was Jason who replied.

“Orc pigs.”

That made a faint smile appear on Roslyn’s face. “Not wrong. Found a profane police station that had Orc Created in it. We kept luring them out.”

“But they had guns,” Constance said. “Not modern ones. But, like, comic versions of old ones. Blunderbusses and such.”

“But we showed them. Bastards,” Jason said.

For a teenager, he had the right attitude.

“Do you all still feel up for the main course of today?”

Anthony looked around. “Give us an hour or two to recover and we’ll be ready.”

“I’ve got some more potions to help with mana and health recovery,” Jamie said.

Constance was the only one who’d reached level 10 so far besides me and Jamie. Judging by her unfocused eyes, she was weighing options right now.

I knew barely anything about her class. I knew about two spells, the Holy Bolt and Holy Armor, and that it was called a Thaumaturge. And that was it.

She nodded as she made her decision. “I can make my spells affect an area now. So I can give everyone in our party buffs.”

Straightforward and incredibly valuable.

“What about your attack spells?” I asked.

A fierce smile crept across her lips. “Those too.”

“Awesome.”

I got up to give them space to recover.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Wait,” Anthony said. He pulled something out of his inventory, a plastic bag. “Who carried the tank?”

“Me,” Roslyn said. A gas bottle manifested out of her inventory as she put it on the ground.

Anthony tossed me the bag. It contained balloons. “I don’t know what you need them for, but we found it: balloons and a helium tank.”

I picked the tank up and put it into my inventory. “Thanks, guys.”

I didn’t want to tell them that it was for flight practice, and thus, that I didn’t need it anymore.

But then it occurred to me how this would solve the communication issue. At least somewhat. I went off to prepare the signals.