Deedeequest or The Wonders of Mundus: Be Careful Who You Pretend To Be - A Genderous Isekai Quest

[Talia B]

When we were eating the dregs of the meal, I felt a tugging on one of my tails. Shifting an ear and my head, subtly, I could see that the younger of the Kosmas sons had grabbed near the tip, still in the cream color.

I flicked that tail and stage-whispered: "The floof is where the magic is stored."

"That's not true," he said, half-crawling over his own limbs, all slightly too long for his comfort. "Everyone knows you keep Breath in the lungs."

And then he reached out and pinched my nose.

It didn't hurt, but it was surprising enough that I instinctively blinked and rolled my head back on my neck. His fingers slid off, and he looked surprised at that.

He said something, but it was so nonsensical that I thought I'd misheard, blinked, and replied with "What?"

"That's your face!" he repeated, as if this came as a surprise.

"Yosef, come help me with the icebox," Elishiva snapped, a tinge of red on her cheeks and a deep furrow in her brow.

My eyes flicked to the incredulous expressions of Ace, Sekhmet, and Piper - and then to Mikhail with a hand over his mouth, and Sylphano restraining a grimace.

Yosef had clearly done something to embarrass his family but this wasn't the time to find out what.

---

We had our by-your-leave to return later in the week to the Kosmas household, so my people, Piper Maris and I left together for the inn and a siesta. While the streets were less crowded than this morning, they were far from empty, and the bleating of sheep, while less frequent, was still inescapable as they'd been led to paddocks and to the farmer's fallow fields to graze.

Sekhmet was in the middle of our column, matching pace with Piper, and they were having an enthusiastic conversation about cooking. Sekhmet brought up adapting her IRL recipe for lumpia to Mundane ingredients and tools. Deep frying was apparently universal, and thank the Gods - principally Flamma - for that.

"Okay," I asked. "What the hell was up with Yosef pulling my nose?"

"Man, I WISH I knew," Sekhmet says, frowning. "I can tell the kid doesn't like us, especially not you, but I don't know what he was trying to do."

"Us adventurers, or...?" Ace asked, her own ears sweeping backward.

"He wasn't any fonder of me, so I guess it's Adventurers in general," Maris said. "I'm used to the locals being scared of us by now, but I like them hating us even less."

"They had a lot less lip for Alesha when she was over there last time," Sekhmet said. "Could mean a lot of things - she comes off as a knight, a royal and we're definitely commoners, she's human, she actually has a diplomatic bone in her body..."

"You're working with an Alesha?" Maris said. "Huh. That might not be a coincidence."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Maris looked up and directly at me. "One of the jobs we've got on the side is finding and introducing someone to one Free Company in particular," she explained.

I felt a chill down my spine. "Really," I asked. "And one of them is an Alesha?"

Maris started checking her mental notes on her fingers. "Yeah. He's looking for an Alesha Jeffords, an Akira Tsukuda, a Juliette Coujuangco -"

Sekhmet - as played by my roommate Jules Coujuangco - glanced into my eyes with a single instance of pure fear.

"- and a Jacob Kim-Michaels," she finished.

I closed my eyes and suppressed a full body shudder. Strange how much even hearing the name hurt. Stranger still how scary it was, in the mouth of an anime potato girl.

"Never heard of them," Ace said, voice flat. "I'll let you know if we find them."

"Agreed," I say, rolling my neck and making a note to kiss this woman once we're in private.

"It was a longshot anyway," Piper says, waving her hand. "If you find them, let us know."

I look to Ace, then to Sekhmet, and all of us share an almost subconscious nod. Once we ditch Piper Maris, Alesha and Hikaru need to be in the loop.

---

Thanks to @FoxHana and @NekoIncardine for prereading and editing.

 

[Talia B]

The inn was not as full as it was this morning. Even if that was far from hard, the elbow-room and the speed with which we could get a table was welcome - and the additional clamor had some advantages.

We met up with the other half of the party and made our greetings, ordered sufficiently quenchy drinks - small ale, juices, tisanes; with this many sheep around, avoiding alcohol completely in favor of water was going to be a great way to get diarrhea or worse - then. took a moment to catch our breath.

Then, Alesha told me, "We'll need your help with the Quinyones, Deedee."

"Me specifically?" I asked.

"You're a better healer," she replied.

"Aw, fuck," Sekhmet said, more a sigh than an expletive.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"It's not clear," Siobhan said. "There's some injury - but some disease as well, and they don't want to talk about it. Maybe if you can heal one of them, they'll talk to you."

"Isn't this exactly what we thought the -" I lower my voice. "The enemy plan of action was? Make them too sick to work?"

"Assuming enemy action," Hikaru responded in a voce as sotto as mine. "But I think we can. There were more signs of monsters - and the Quinyones rely on pitchforks and torches, not wards against the fey."

"Fantastic. When it rains it pours," I sigh.

Sio perked her ears. "What other troubles? Were the Kosmas family fields attacked?"

I hesitated to answer, still a little surprised that my name back home was too bitter for me to speak. I looked to Sekhmet and to Ace, trying to find the words.

Ace snorted. "Anyone here know an Alesha Jeffords? How about an Akira Tsukuda?"

Hikaru's back stiffened before he straightened, his dragonfly wings twitching as he controlled a flight response.

"Thought as much," she said. "One of the adventurers we met was looking for your crew -" she indicated the four of us in Dungeon Crawling And Chill - "by deadname."

"No, not deliberately by deadname," Hikaru muttered, almost absently.

I blinked. Then nodded. Knowing what I did, I doubt his parents named him Akira.

"Probably our legal names on file before we woke up to the worst beach holiday ever," Sekhmet grumbled. "Man, I'm not sure that's much more comforting."

"Isn't it?" Alesha said. "Doesn't that mean it's outsiders looking for us?"

"Or hackers," Sekhmet fired back.

Siobhan shook her head. "I swear by the Fourteen, if you're brought up on charges of Personation..."

I took a deep breath and weighed our options.

---

Choose one vote from each option.

Regarding Piper Maris' patrons seeking us by legal name:
[] [SEEKERS] Do not respond.
[] [SEEKERS] Have Alesha, who made no effort to hide her identity, confirm her identity with Piper.
[] [SEEKERS] Have Alesha explain the situation to Piper.
[] [SEEKERS] Explain the situation to Piper as a party.
[] [SEEKERS] Explain the situation to Piper yourself.

Regarding the Quinyones:
[] [MEDICINE] Heal the sick and injured and have that be the end of it.
[] [MEDICINE] Explain your treatments and best practices in practical terms.
[] [MEDICINE] Explain your treatments and best practices in terms of clerical ritual and what pleases the Gods.
[] [MEDICINE] Impose your treatments and best practices as per your clerical and royal authority.

Voting will open at 8:00 Pacific.

 

[Talia B]

I steeple my fingers over my grimace and take a deep breath. "Leesh, I'm afraid you might have to draw some aggro from Piper's mysterious patron."

She sighs, but nods. "Because I call myself by my real name here, they'll probably find me anyway."

"You may need to run interference," Sekhmet says.

"At the very least, we need to determine their intentions," Hikaru replies, hand over his chin, finger stroking the beginning of wispy whiskers. "We know they have... call it Earthside information, but that's all we know."

"And Earth has as wide an assortment as Mundus?" Siobhan more states than asks, one side of her lip curling up in amusement despite herself.

Hikaru half-bows to her. "As I said. Not nearly enough info to speculate."

"And if, in my opinion, they mean us well?" Alesha asks.

"Then we would be very relieved to meet them," I say, tilting my head and ears at her.

Sekhmet snorted her agreement. "You get why we're paranoid."

"I do," Alesha says. "I'll talk to Piper tomorrow, play coy about the other names on the list. For now, let's take our siesta, and then finish up the job we started."

I raised my glass of the nearly soft drink I ordered called small beer; I could, apparently, drink to that.

---

Humberto Quinyone, their patriarch, has a hunched gait and close-shaved stubble, his mouth curled into a sneer at the stubborn barley he's trimming for the harvest with a sickle. He leads others, from 8 to his eighty, in tending to several patches of fields; here, barley; there, rye; here and there a bit of wheat, some turnips, whatever grows well in the small and scattered patches his clan has to work with.

And where Humberto leads his family works all the more efficiently to match his example; he works with the shocking speed born of experience, but the youngest of his family have no such excuse for nearly matching him, step for step.

"It seems you have Aurora's blessing, Senor Quinyone," I say. And it does; to inspire confidence and competence with leadership from the front is Her textbook Least Boon.

"Why are you bothering an old man at work, Adventurer?" he grumbles.

"What the Contessa demands I must obey," I said. "But also to see how a godbotherer might help your family, Senor."

He laughs, eyes narrowed, posture defensive. "We've plenty of preachers here. What have you got that can help that they haven't?"

"Time," Hikaru answers, shrugging.

He opens his mouth, then puts a hand over it, stroking his beard. Thinking.

"Why spend it on us, then?" he says, getting back to work. The other clan members, who had stopped to stare at us, don't all return to work, but most of them do.

I shrug. "Because if the problem we're chasing decides to be your problem, we want to solve them."

Alesha adds, sotto voce, "And because we can tell when someone is bearing their pain well, and don't think they deserve to be in pain."

She gestures, subtly, pointing the crossguard of her sword towards one of the stronger men with his thick mustache, muscular arms, and powerful - if large - belly. Who I can see after Alesha points him out is favoring his left foot, unable to exert all of his considerable strength.

Humberto turns on her, raising his scythe hand. "How dare you -"

"Ser, we are offering you my healing magic," I say very quickly - very softly. "I don't know what you think we are doing, ser, but I really do wish you a fine and profitable Jubilee year, and this might be how you get it. Ser."

He looks at me, then at him. At me, then at Alesha, then at him.

Then he sighs. "Baltasar, please show our - guests - to the house. We can finish without you if they keep you till sundown."

He glares at him - his grimace more afraid than enraged as he approaches him, tries to argue with him. "Papa, I can still -"

"Aurora's tits, boy, stop torturing yourself and get off that damn foot," he says - and there's no cruelty to it. "The vixen thinks she can help, let her try."

"Vixen?" I say, flattening my ears. "Why don't you just skip to - pulling my nose off if you're going to try that?"

The patriarch is so shocked by this that there's a moment of silence, before his son Baltasar laughs. "Gods. Some village idiot's disappointed there wasn't a muzzle under it, then?"

Hikaru blinks, then shrugs. "The youngest of the Kosmas children."

That gets more laughter. "Not so much higher than us after all!" he says. "Alright, vixen, lead on and tell me what else I'd call you."

"Given my nom de guerre, I'm not sure I have room to be offended," I mutter. Then, out loud, "Call me Deedee."

---

He makes a good show of hiding it, but Baltasar's limp was obvious every step of the way back to the Quinyone house to his settling in a chair at the kitchen table. It's larger and longer than the home of the Kosmas family, but not as much; it must be cramped, and cold, when all of them are sleeping - even with the second-floor beds for the married couples above.

"I'll need to touch the area to treat it," I say - I apologize for, in advance. "Let me know if there's pain, and what kind."

He nods, grunting as he takes off a work boot, dense woolen socks, finer linen socks. I take a swollen and discolored ankle in my hand as he takes off the other and his grunt - and hissed-in breath - is sharper, more painful.

"Bruising, swelling. No outer wound. Doesn't look like it needs to be drained. What's the quality of the pain?" I ask.

"Quality?" he mutters. "It's - like being stabbed and on fire at once."

I start my chanting, channeling cool Breath and wrapping healing wind around my arms and palms. When next I apply my fingertips to the wound, Baltasar sighs and slumps in his chair as if he'd just gotten a shot of morphine.

I may have given him the equivalent high just by taking the pain away. Curing the bruise and setting the sprained bone is the work of seconds for a warpriest like me. As I set the bone and the nitrogen in his ankle and heel pops, the thought occurs to me that I may be the only chiropractor from Earth who isn't a bullshit artist and I grin.

He rolls his heel, staring in disbelief. "Holy mother of the wheat, how -"

"Sir, I fight monsters for a living," I say. "And help my company recover from such adventures afterward. This kind of healing is nothing compared to closing a sword wound, or the frostbitten punctures of an ice spear."

"Or curing the poison and closing the wounds of a beast's fangs," Hikaru says, frowning, eyes snapping up from watching my technique to Balthasar's eyes. "Tell me, how did you get that injury?"

Balthasar leaned back and sighed. "Some beast digging at our beets and cabbages a few nights ago," he said. "I thought I brained it with a spade, but it lashed out with - something whiplike, and with longer reach than it had a right to."

"Something like a fox with a mane?" Alesha asked.

"Something like. Yes, foxlike until the tail stretched out," he said. Then, after a moment's pause, he added: "That's what you're after, isn't it? You're here after those beasts."

Hikaru's smile is thin-spread over his face, without much for the corners of his eyes. "Imagine more of your clan disabled by such things, during a Jubilee year, no less. Yes, we're here to stop more attacks like that."

Alesha folds her arms. "The Quinyone's aren't the only family being assailed by these things, but where they annoy the others, they could ruin yours. Imagine more of your brothers off their feet for the harvest -"

"-Or more of our sisters who cannot weave wool or press curds while the sheep eat our fodder, aye, you need not invite the serpents to dine with us." He sits up, testing his ankle.

"It wouldn't surprise me if you need a day to get back in practice with that foot," I say. "It's cured, but you need to re-adjust your balance."

"What's a day to the months it could have been?" Baltasar says. "How can I thank thee enough for this blessing, Priestess?"

I take a deep breath. "Keep us informed about the family's fortunes, and call us in to heal anyone too injured or sick to work. Especially let us know if there are more monsters running around in your fields. We were sent by the Contessa specifically to deal with them and their source."

"I doubt my old man will object to that," he says mildly. "Not after all the hours of toil you've saved him. But still, let us thank ye proper come Gratitide next week."

I blink. "Gratitide?" I ask.

"Aye," he says, puzzled. "I'm sure the heralds will come to announce Our Lord's generous contribution to it, but I'll see if we can welcome you to our table."

Alesha puts a hand on my shoulder. "We would gladly break bread with you - let us think on an appropriate contribution to the holiday."

"It is around that time, of course it is," Hikaru says - but he's frowning. "We may need to report to Lord Orlando - and that may involve an invitation to his table - but we will make what appearance we can."

He rolls his eyes. "Sneak us a pigeon or whatever fool trifles he spends our coin on, then."

"He may not even object to that," I say, pasting on a smile. "Now let's talk again to your dad - we all have a lot of work to do."

 

[Talia B]

CW: Deadnaming

"...hot tea or herb infusion, with citrus and honey if you can spare either," I said. "Definitely wear masks - even cloth bandannas will catch, or filter out, some of the miasma expelled by coughing and sneezing. And if you need to examine someone's wounds or diseases, scrub your hands in hot water with either soap or strong alcohol."

Humberto folded his arms and frowned, but any true hostility had melted after his son had rejoined the reaping team with gusto. "Even if my hands are clean?"

"I would tell Lord Orlando to take off his gloves and wash his hands for this work," I said, and that earned some laughter from these poorest men of the village. "Soap washes away dead skin, alcohol kills any contaminants you might not be able to see. So teach Bast and Flamma, the White Cat of the Jar and the Black of the Cauldron; why else do Their children wash so fastidiously?"

Baltasar grinned crooked teeth, hauling a bundle of chaff over his shoulder, ready to make hay of it. "And yet you'd cruelly forbid us from licking away the dirt."

I shrug at the laughter. "Only because Namers have better tools than tongues to clean with. Besides, I don't know where your tongues have been and would like to keep it that way."

Hikaru comes out of one of the storehouses, and uses his magic to hang oil lamps from the awnings, higher than he could reach without a Mage's Hand. "I hope," he says, "that this gives you some more stability. It's a precarious time, even without someone making things more so."

"Still don't know who in hell would want to make things worse for us that also wants it worse for everyone else," Humberto says, punctuating his statement by spitting something into the gutter.

"I'm not sure you want to hear our theories," Alesha says.

"Try me," Baltasar says, pressing his thumb against the fingers of his closed fist, cracking each knuckle, one by one.

I take a deep breath. "What happens to a family that can't take care of the land anymore on a Jubilee year? Do they need to sell it?"

"No," Baltasar says. "But you freelancers wouldn't know that, would they? Given you just asked."

I nod. "And I wish it weren't so, but some of us are unscrupulous enough - or don't care enough about the consequences to look at driving peasants from their land with plague and famine and say 'it's free real estate.'" Said in the stage whisper and all; my generation was raised by the Internet, after all.

Humberto raised an eyebrow at that, but clearly got the gist. "Fucking lordings who think it's clean as chess," he said. "How did your lot come to care, then?"

"The Contessa is paying us to care," I say. And then a little more honestly, with a sigh, I add: "And I lost my father to a plague."

Hikaru sighs. "An elder sister for me."

"My grandmother," Alesha says.

There's a longer silence than anyone likes, before Humberto bows his head.

"Ah," he says, and need say nothing else.

I bow my head. "I would hope no one who's been through that would wish it on anyone else. I - growing up I wished I was half the man my Dad was."

I realize it's a slip a second too late, but Alesha covers for it. "We learned early on that we need to care for other people from the pandemic," she says. "We're all too aware that some learned very different lessons. That's why we're here to stop them."

"Well, if we find the bastard, we'll hold him down for you," Balthasar offers, holding out a calloused hand.

I sigh and shake it. "Only if you're sure you can take him. They've likely got Adventurer bullshit on their side. But thank you."

"If not sooner, we meet again at Gratitide," Hikaru says, bowing low with his arm tucked under his chest.

"We'll save you cheese, quince, and perry," Humberto promises.

---

Alesha and Hikaru leave before I do; I stick around a little longer to see if I can spare some Breath healing minor wounds on sharecroppers and livestock alike - laying hands on the frogs of a lame horse's hoof was not on my bingo card for The Healer Experience in The Wonders of Mundus - and walk back when it's would be dark out, if not for the town guard lighting lamps along the main thoroughfare, snaking as it did to match the Juadipato River.

Which meant I was - not alone, but not with my friends, when I heard the hissed name.

"Jake," snarled a woman's voice. "It is you."

My heart plunged into a stomach full of ice water as I whipped my head around, and I - against my will - froze in place.

My ears found the culprit before my eyes did, and my eyes found that woman from the inn - the elfin warrior, waiting just off the road, in her brimmed and crested Conquistador helmet over blonde curls and colorful landsknecht slashed-sleeve drip, breastplate painted black and with heraldry I couldn't make out so it wouldn't betray her by gleaming in the half-light.

Most alarming of all, her hand rested on the pommel of the basket-hilted saber at her hip.

I willed myself to start breathing again, start walking again, to look away. "Never heard of him," I lied, trying to powerwalk away and hoping they couldn't - or wouldn't - use Duel mechanics in a town zone.

"Bullshit. I remember you from the other side of the screen, Jake," the Ljosalfar insisted, taking a step forward, into the well lit street. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I closed my eyes and let the shiver of fear roll over me. "No. I'm Deedee and I can't talk."

"Your character is Deedee, don't do this," she said, pointing a finger. "You don't recognize me?"

I whirl on her and raise my voice. "If you need to talk to my free company do it at the inn with all of us present. Otherwise call me Deedee, leave me alone, or I call the guard. Your choice, stranger."

She takes a step back, her face flickering from confusion to anger to something that I could have sworn was grief, before muting itself into a tightly controlled frown.

"Okay. You don't recognize me," she says, and it sounds exhausted and flat. "Fine. Sorry to bother you."

Later, I'd wonder what she was so tired of, but right now I was in fight or flight. I grunted understanding, turned my back, and headed for the safety of the inn.

When I got there, I slumped at our usual table between Sekhmet and Ace, and exhaled two inches of height.

"Holy shit, Deeds, whose ghost did you see?" Ace said, her voice lilting in concern, her hand already around mine.

"You look like terrified shit," Sekhmet said.

"Cider now, explanation after," I pleaded.

They gave it to me, and I took a good time getting my courage back.

---

With thanks to prereaders Teri Challenger and QV. Also thanks to @SeaSirocco for offering after this had been edited.

 

[Talia B]

After I told everyone about the stranger who ambushed me with my old name, Alesha clasped her hands together over her mouth, eyes closed. When she opened them, she could almost keep the anger out of her voice. Almost.

"So there's a second Earthsider who knows us, or at least you, by legal name. Outstanding. Can you think of anyone you knew from home, besides the rest of our Free Company who also played WoM?"

I take a long, nervous pull from my cider before I could answer her. "How do you know it's a second person?" I ask.

"Maris Piper's patron used full formal names," Hikaru said.

Alesha nodded. "Alesha, Akira, Juliette and Jacob, not Leesh, not Jules, not Jake."

"Huh," Sekhmet said, frowning. "As opposed to Lil Miss Can I Call You Jake, Bro."

"Could you not?" I said, sighing.

"Sorry," Sekh said, shaking her head. "I show nerves different than you."

"Could it be someone else from home?" Ace asked, hand still in mine.

I frown and shut my eyes and think, before shaking my head. "If it is, don't recognize the avatar," I say.

"That's a very interesting word for it," Sio opines. "Avatar."

"Just another example of player hubris?" Hikaru says, in as flat a tone as possible, hiding his smile behind a hand.

Sio snorted. "Quite. I still like talk of avatars far better than talk of piloting or wearing suits."

"Could we stay on subject?" I asked.

Alesha paused, a finger over her mouth. Then she took a deep breath.

"Can we do anything more about it tonight?" she asked.

I turned to answer her, then realized she was right. Even if one of the two was right here for us to interrogate, I don't think I could get up the nerve.

"We need rest," Alesha continued. "We need to recenter ourselves, and for that matter, to check in with Lord Orlando and start investigating the merchants here. Until I talk with Piper, until your..."

"Stalker?" Sekhmet suggested.

"I wish you were wrong," Alesha sighed. "Until she shows her face again, all we can do is steel ourselves for it. Eat up and rest up."

I roll my neck, rubbing behind it a little. "Uncoil some of the springs, yeah," I said, my voice glum.

"I'm willing to help with that," Alesha says softly, hands together over her mouth. "I'm not the healer you are, but Paladin. I can wring out tension."

She looks into my eyes, then over to Ace, who returns her look. Then back to me.

"If you wouldn't mind that," she asks Ace.

"If one or both of you could unscrungle my back while we're at it, sure, come on up," Ace mutters - nearly stammers, not quite able to look at her.

I take a deep breath, and not finding words, nod.

"Won't wait up for you, then," Sekhmet says. "I'm tired as hell, I'll just turn in."

"To the morning, and our secret shopping, then," Hikaru said.

---

There's a basin of hot water in Alesha's room when we get there, with towels, oils and powders arrayed alongside it. Alesha doesn't hesitate, stepping out of her shoes, wetting a towel, and wiping her face and hands with it. She grunts, in what could be relief or approval.

I follow suit - shoes off, washcloth wetted - acutely aware that I haven't had a proper bath since I got here. We'll have to deal with that sometime soon.

The water is wonderfully hot, just a shade below 'too much,' perfumed with lemon and rose; I can feel dry skin and dirt rub away from the sides of my nose, the sides and top of my wrists. I sit down on a bed and continue washing, looking on as Ace glances at us before trying it herself.

"Why does this work?" she asks, confused as she's grateful.

"Heating up a whole bath isn't something you can just do when the best you've got is charcoal," Alesha says. "Which doesn't mean you can't do washing up. This is how most of the locals keep clean."

"Because of course they do," I say, mostly to myself. "No one likes feeling gross."

Alesha shrugs. "It's a trick I've suggested to a few of my clients who struggled to bathe back home."

Ace half-laughs. "I'll have to remember it, my shower chair sucked."

After a moment's deliberation, I take off my prayer beads and my over-robe, and work on washing off my neck. Walk back to the basin, grab another cloth and wet it, sit back down, get the rest of my arms.

Alesha breathes onto her hands, rubs them together, then puts her palms on her breastplate and taps it twice.

There's a soft whump as the air pressure catches up to the situation - Alesha's armor, every rivet of it, teleports into a neat pile in the chest at the foot of her bed.

"Stupid inventory trick?" I ask.

"Just one of the gifts of the Gods," Alesha says, smiling. She starts to remove her arming jacket manually, popping buttons out of its frogging. "Still want help putting it back on, mind."

Ace looks up, then looks away, bright red. "Should we be undressing for this?"

"I assume Deedee wants me to have a clear look at her back for this," Alesha replies, definitely amused at Ace's reaction. "Up to her, of course, but she did come up here for a laying on of hands."

Spoiler: NSFW Spoiler Summary: The three of them go to Alesha and Ace's shared room in the inn, wash up with washcloths and a basin of hot water, and Alesha offers to work on Deedee's back. When she accepts, Ace takes it on herself to help Deeds relax too. Things rapidly escalate from there.

I close my eyes and steady my breathing and flip my underrobe off, fully aware that this will leave me topless.

"There's a girl," Alesha purrs, and I can damn near smell the smoke in her voice when I reflexively breathe in. "You first, then. I promise that we can work over your back before the end of the night too, Ace."

"Or you could sit in front of me and I could do it. Maybe even make a little circle, see how good your thumbs are at unknotting Leesh's neck," I say, only half-joking.

"I..." Ace blinks, and breathes. "I think I got a better idea."

I make some kind of noise of assent before I feel Alesha's palms press into my shoulders, feel her thumbs press into my neck, and suddenly can't do anything but enjoy that.

I close my eyes and let Alesha worry at the knots I've tied myself into, crushing the tension from me like oil from an olive press. But then I feel a nervous bundle of energy and breath sit at the foot of the bed - at my feet - and feel dainty hands take off one sock, then the other.

I open one eye and see Ace press the palms of her hands into the arches of my feet, looking down at them in a state of intense nervous concentration, biting her lower lip.

I hadn't realized my feet were this sore until I realized how incredible it felt to have my girlfriend attempt to attend to the pain and the noise I make is more vulpine than human.

"Oh, she really loves you," Alesha says - it felt like she was murmuring into my ear but Ace could clearly hear it, as her ears swivel and her face reddens deeper. "Don't want me to outdo you in pampering her, hmn?"

"Shut up," Ace says, unable to look at her or me. "Just wanted to help - it's not a competition."

"Course it's not," Alesha says, sliding her palms down my back, along my spine, and the pain and tension leaving my body makes another groan as it exits through my mouth. "I just think it's... let's say cute. I'm going with cute."

I manage to catch my breath a little as Ace slides her wrists up to my ankles, and I laugh. "Isn't Ace wonderful?" I manage to say, a little dreamier, a little more sing-song than I intended.

I feel Alesha's arms slip around me, feel her back and her tits press against me, feel her tighten her embrace until something out of alignment pops back into place, feel her lips almost touch my neck. "I do really enjoy watching her being affectionate."

Ace suppresses a word beginning with the letter 'f' and hauls herself bodily onto my lap, crushing my nipples with her thumbs and my mouth with her tongue and I try to gasp but it's Ace's air I take in, as I squirm and whimper underneath her.

"Don't let me interrupt you two lovebirds," Alesha says, something tight and heavy in her voice, not relinquishing her grip on my belly. "I just offered to help the both of you relax, remember?"
Any response I wanted to make turned into a moan, trapped between them. I stopped fighting for control of my mouth, letting Ace fill me with her tongue, but I did manage to raise my arm and fondle her right back, rolling her ample breast under my palm, rewarded with her chirpy little squeal.

Alesha shifted, and I felt my other arm pushed forward, brushing against Ace's hip.

Ace came up for air and I gasped for breath too, her forehead gently brushing mine, and I let my hand curl around her hip, then inside her soft thigh, paler than the rest of her deeply tanned skin.

"Love you so much Ace," I gasped. "Never leaving you, never ever."

"I know, I know, I just... she's so hot and it's not fair."

"Don't ever wanna come between you," Alesha said, her voice almost as strained as ours. "You're just so... smoking hot together."

I shudder, and rest my head on Ace's shoulder. "Wanna get you off," I say.

"Mmm. You wanna see that?" Ace asks.

"God, please," Leesh replied.

I slide my hand down, trace a path with my fingertips, until I find the right spot for me to rub Ace's clit with my thumb and her g-spot with my finger and press and am rewarded with her cry. I twist my back a little, grunt a little, get an arm around Leesh's arm, and press her head into Ace's.

"Kiss," I beg them.

They do, Alesha drinking up her tongue like she'd die without it, and I fucked my girlfriend while she made out with my best friend, felt Ace's hand press into my cunt but gritted my teeth to get her off first...

And was rewarded with one, long, muffled, high moan into Alesha's mouth as I felt her clench so tightly on my hand that I couldn't stop pressing into her if I wanted, she broke off the kiss and kept shuddering and moaned again, and I almost came from how much she enjoyed it, from how much Alesha enjoyed it.

"She's good to you, Ace," Alesha said, shuddering into Ace and me alike.

Ace could only nod and sigh agreement.

"Help me... finish wringing her out?" Alesha asked.

Ace glared at her, sliding off me so her head was between my knees in response.

"Take that as a yes," Leesh said, and chuckled.

"Nnn," I moaned, then - with great effort - slipped to the side.

Ace looked up at me, almost hurt.

"I'm… good," I say. "I - you were so good," and I reach out to her, scratch my pretty pet Ace under her chin. "I came too. But someone here hasn't and I don't think that's fair."

I slip behind Alesha, arms around her, pressing my front and my tits into her back, feel her press against me when she breathes.

Alesha swallows, and takes a breath, and gazes at Ace, eyes half-lidded. "If… you're offering," she says. "I know how good you are with your hands, Deeds. But I don't know how good you are with that mouth, Ace…"

Ace grins at her, sets her head in her lap, and kisses her navel. I snake one hand down between Leesh's legs and the other cups her bosom.

When Ace's upper lips touch Alesha's lower ones, Leesh gasps. When I join in on pressing her buttons, she moans. And when Ace starts to make out with her cunt, the only noise she can make at all is beautifully ragged breathing.

It doesn't take long at all for us to show Alesha exactly how she made us feel.

---

We don't bother going to separate beds after that. By unspoken consensus, Alesha - the tallest of us - got the center, while both of us drape ourselves over and around her. For a long while we just let ourselves breathe each other in, rest, stop our heads from spinning.

Alesha's the first to speak. "Glad I could help you two," she says. "I really am."

"It's a good thing for you she's a showoff," I say, taking Ace's hand.

"And that you're gorgeous," Ace allows.

Alesha closes her eyes, and I think I can see her redden slightly from the compliment. "We're going to have to work out more details."

Ace yawns. "Later," she insists.

"Later," I agree. "But we're glad you... we're glad to have you, too."

Alesha ruffles my hair, and I suddenly feel very young, and very underqualified.

"Later," she says. "Rest now. We have a lot of work to do."

We did. So we stopped talking, and just held each other and felt each other breathe, until we nodded off one by one.

---

Will put up a new chapter vote later. Until them, enjoy plots and porn.

Edited with assistance from @SeaSirocco

 

[Talia B]

"And what reason do you suspect one of the villagers to be aiding your supposed conspiracy?" Lord Orlando asks, not with outrage or skepticism but with a practiced lack of affect.

I accept a cup of spiced cocoa from Iustina and dip my cruller in it. "A local hedge mage disabled the wards," I say.

"Disabled, without destroying them," Hikaru clarified. "An Adventurer trained to fight mages and magic could simply unravel the wards, but this was subtler work that I believe required insider knowledge."

He nods, frowning, stroking his goatee. "Unfortunately, that narrows it down very little," he says. "Our fair village is near a conflux of mystic energies - higher in the mountains are abandoned auracite mines and, at the site where the lines of Water, Earth and Heaven meet, an ancient temple to Io. We are blessed with many minor breathworkers here."

"Imports: steel, mutton, cocoa; exports: wine, apprentice mages," Sekhmet mutters. "Yeah, that tracks."

"We don't have nearly enough information to say who, unfortunately," Alesha says. "Our investigation will have to continue; our next report - if not a likely target - will be the Gratitide celebrations unless we find dramatic evidence beforehand."

"I agree," says Lord Orlando, "that the foe may take liberties during the Gratitide celebration. Rest assured that Vinyedo will have her guard raised during them. I will, of course, expect you at my table for the evening."

"It will be our honor and privilege to dine with you," Siobhan assures him.

Orlando leans forward to his eggs and hash, as if he expected this to be the end of the conversation. I look around the table, then clear my throat. He looks up at me, and tilts his head. Go on, then.

"There's a complication," I say. "We believe there is at least one group and one individual who knew... us... prior to taking up our service who are seeking us out, and we can't tell why."

I can see the shudder down Iustina's spine, ending in a lash of her tail. Orlando's frown is subtle but no less worrying.

"How do you know they knew you as Unenthused?" he asks.

"You are probably aware that we adopt noms de guerre upon taking on our powers," Siobhan says. "This is one of the reasons why - if someone seeks us out by our former name we know they knew us beforehand."

Iustina refills her mug. "And do you think they mean to do you mischief?" she asks.

I try to answer, but can only grit my teeth and shake my head. Thankfully, Ace puts a hand on my shoulder and answers for me.

"We need to know that - yesterday, really, but we'll take soon," she says, and that's rewarded with a laugh from both Lord Orlando and Siobhan.

"I can tell you that some of us have nasty memories connected to our old names," Sekhmet agrees, folding their arms. "They've already, as you said, ' done us a mischief' by putting them in the mouths of strangers."

Lord Orlando shakes his head. "Talking of smoke where there's fire is more apt a metaphor by the day. I dislike so many vital facts being wreathed in the choking dark."

"Pray let us illuminate them," Alesha says, then finishes her cup of cocoa.

"Well spoken," he says. "Godspeed you, then."

We rise - but to my surprise, Alesha clears her throat. "I may have a favor to ask you, my Lord." She turns and tilts her head - bids us to leave.

I frown, and lock eyes with Ace and then with the others, but we do so.

---

I dissipate the fireball headed my way - not by blocking it with wind, but by withdrawing the air, choking it in a bubble of vacuum before it can reach me.

"Very good," Matriarch Jaatu Almez says, before spinning and throwing out three more explosive curveballs.

I swear, tumbling out of the blast radius of one as I swallow another in a conjured vacuum - and barely shield myself from the third. I can feel the heat of the near miss. Then I instinctively jump back and blindly ward my face, voiding the fourth fireball and, somehow, parrying the fifth.

"You're a dirty cheating bastard, you know that!?" I yell, laughing,

"Would that our enemies be as merciful, acolyte," she responds, offering me her arm; I pull myself up. "Besides, here you stand, unsinged by my assault."

"The breathing exercises helped," I admit, before taking a swig from my waterskin.

"Of course it did," she says. "The Breath is the beginning of all magic, the Word shaped by the Will. A warcry will do, but there is no power without Breath."

"Feel like if I wanted to, I could take your flames and make them - bigger. Hotter," I say. "Feed the flames with oxygen - uh, with the winds, Matriarch."

"I'm a potion-brewer," she says, chuckling. "It's known to me that, alchemically, air is an alloy of vapors. Oxygen, then? Fire's sire?"
"...Yeah," I say.

"We can drill with strengthening fire later, then," she says. "And see if you can learn to light your own sparks. For now?"

"Dodging and blocking?" I sigh.

"Dodging and blocking," she says, and then I hop over her sweep.

---

When I meet with my party again, it's at the town bakery. The only town bakery. It doesn't need a name; the tall chimney that vents its enormous oven is the only advertising it needs.

The head baker is a middle-aged woman, her dark hair tied back into a tight bun to avoid hair getting in her work, adding to the hawklike profile with the angled cheekbones, beaklike nose and piercing gray eyes; a mostly white apron is over a simple but beautiful blue dress. People in skullcaps (judging by appearance, clearly her adult son and teenage granddaughter) stoke the fire with charcoal and mind the front of the store, handing out breads and pastries baked minutes before.

The prebaked stuff goes fast; the store is bustling. To my surprise, I see Shadi here, giving a crockpot almost too big for her to the baker's son; he places it in the oven next to other pots, presumably owned by other villagers, just like it before closing the door tight and handing her two round loaves of bread and a small bag of what looked like donut holes.

"Hi there," I say to her, turning an impulse to ruffle her hair into a handwave. "Doing errands for the family?"

"Getting tomorrow's dinner and today's lunch," she says. "Can't talk long, oat harvest today."

"So getting extra snacks for the boys, huh?" Sekhmet says, approving.

"Exactly." She pushes out the door. "Goodbye, friends."

We wait in line like everyone else - our eclectic Adventuring attire attracting some attention. There's still the odd bit of hostility there, but I spot some smiles from a Quinyone grabbing baguettes and hand pies, a curtsey from one of the servers from the Barrel of White.

After a short eternity, we're at the front of the line, earning a scowl from the matriarch.

"Talk to my children if you don't have bespoke orders," she says.

"Of course," Alesha says. "Are you Agatha Robledas?"

"Agata," she corrects.

"My mistake, Agata, thank you," she says. Then, to the son, "A loaf of rye, half dozen spinach pies, and a marzipan tart?"

"Going to have to ask for coin," the son says, a note of apology in his voice as he glances at his mother. "5 rooks for the bread, 5 more for the pies, and a Crown for the tart is -"

Sekhmet places two Crowns, each no bigger than a modern dime, on the counter. "Can we pay now for some more stuff later?" they ask.

"That... should be alright," he says, frowning.

"Kickass," Sekhmet says, adding another three gold coins. "Heard from the inkeep that the tart's something special, so trying it for our post-victory party."

He doesn't take the bait, just pursing his lips, taking the coins, marking us for thirty silver in credit. The granddaughter is already there with our stuff on the counter, stealing the odd glance at our strange attire. Hikaru opens a bag and accepts our order.

"We're busy from now till at least Vespers," she says to him.

He blinks, surprised, but nods. "We'll be back after Vespers, then. To tell you how good the tart was."

The crush of people behind us compels us to keep moving, out the door, a little bewildered for our trouble.

"So," I say. "When the hell is Vespers?"

"Roughly sunset," he says. "I admit, I'm not sure what we were thinking, going to the village bakery during business hours."

"Lucky that you're apparently handsome," Siobhan scoffs.

"It's the facial hair," he replies, utterly deadpan, running a finger over what was now a pencil mustache. "Now if it were someone other than a damn human teenager that thought so."

I look up - and see the elven warrior who ambushed me heading for the bakery.

I tense up.

I exhale.

"Battle plans back at the base," I say, hoping it doesn't sound strained.

Fortunately, my friends don't argue.

 

[Talia B]

I finish my flagon - what the locals call a "small beer," less an alcoholic drink and more a method of disinfecting the water - and sigh before I look to Sekhmet.

"I'm tired of my stalker getting the drop on me. Sekhmet, I'm going to ask you for a favor - please hear me out."

Sekhmet frowns, ears twitching, but nods.

"I want you to stalk her right back," I say. "Find out where she's staying, who she's working for, if she's a threat or - or not," and my throat is suddenly dry. "This needs to stop."

"Is that wise?" Alesha asks. "The situation is already tense, and if Sekhmet is caught snooping..."

"She's not being asked to kick her ass," Ace points out. "She's being asked to keep tabs on someone who, uh, has already thrown around a name that could ID Deedee IR- that is, on the other side of the screen to any user who cares. If I were hiring a PI to figure out who doxed me you'd call it self defense; how is this different?"

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Alesha says, grimacing into her bread.

"Bitch maybe," Ace replies, without malice.

Sekhmet exhales a deep breath. "As a purely practical matter, if I'm caught, how deep in shit am I?" she asks.

"You're an inquisitorial agent of the Crown," Sio says. "Investigating someone interfering with our investigation, even. Unless you threaten her, injure her, or steal from her, you'll come out smelling of roses, not a tannery."

Sekhmet grimaces. "Man, when you say 'you'll be fine because you're a cop' THAT'S what gives me second thoughts."

"I could put a scrying spell on you. Summon Lesser Bodycam," Hikaru says, utterly deadpan.

Sekh snorts. "I think I trust myself between Deedee asking and my hot rogue class features. Hell, she might even talk to me without it becoming a thing. She could be having a really bad month. Real talk, I hope she's just having a really bad month."

"And that's why I need you to do this," I say. "I hope so too. But until we learn otherwise we have to assume the worst - so I'm not defenseless with the worst ganks me."

"Which we can't fuckin afford with the village at stake," Sekhmet says. She taps her sendjewel. "I'll give you an earring when I've got news."

Alesha slices herself a piece of cheese. "I'll meet you later as well," she says. "I have business I need to get done at the manor today, I can loop back in with you when you interview the baker's daughter."

Hikaru blanches. "Gnomon help me, I'm not used to having to turn teenagers down."

"Not used to being a mentor or having apprentices, then?" Sio murmurs.

"None so brazen, and I... usually look much older," he replies. "Make no mistake, I will break her heart if needed. I'd just like help making it painless for her."

Sio takes his hand and squeezes, then withdraws it just as quickly when Hikaru grunts his thanks. I look away and take a deep breath.

Ah, I find myself thinking - finding myself smiling at. I wonder if Sio realizes why she did that.

---

As usual, thanks to @FoxHana for Ace-wrangling and @NekoIncardine for prereading.

To be continued, probably with more rolls as needed.

 

[Talia B]

We spend some time getting better bags and bandoliers from the tanners, a short excursion - the place stinks of the bubbling toxins they use to treat the leather, some of which are taken straight from our privies; little wonder they're on the downriver edge of town by order of not only the lord or the Contessa but the Queen.

Sekhmet finds their opportunity and slips away, leaving Hikaru, Sio, Ace and I to approach the bakery and young Teresa Robledas. We don't even have to enter to know she's waiting for us - we see a faint glow outside before we see her; at first I think it's a candle, but when I approach, it's too thin for that. She sits at the outdoor table, bundled up in a cloak, expectantly.

Hikaru sighs as he approaches with a raised hand. "We're here, though depending on why, I might need to disappoint you."

Teresa averts her eyes. "I'm sorry, I knew I was presuming too much," she begins.

"You don't need to apologize," Hikaru murmurs quickly; Sio exchanges a look with him before sitting down, with Hikaru joining her a minute later.

"I just -" Teresa bites her lip and grasps for the right words. "- you're clearly learned and powerful, if you can fight monsters and scry for murderers with your powers, so I just thought -"

"Wait, what?" Ace says, eyebrows through the roof.

Hikaru blinks at me and then at Sio before turning to young Teresa.

"Abuela Agata says she can't risk teaching me because it's too dangerous but you know dangerous magic, you'd know how to make it safe," Teresa babbles, desperation and despair sneaking into her tone of voice.

Hikaru holds up his hand. "Teresa," he says. "I fear I may have misjudged - you, and the situation. What did you mean to ask me?"

She takes a deep breath and looks him in the eye.

"I - can call fire," she says, exhaling it like it was lodged in her throat. "And I want to learn how to do useful things with it."

Sio slumps a little in her bench seat, placing a hand to cover her rolled eyes and a faint smile. I'm pretty sure my hand is over my mouth too; my face is likely making an incredible journey.

Ace is not as circumspect and barks a single laugh. "Girls can't resist his magical staff, huh?" she says sotto voce; I almost don't catch it.

Apparently Hikaru also caught it: he responds, "Do not." And then, to Teresa, he asks: "Does the family have a history of unfortunate sorcery, or is your grandmother just being cautious?"

"Uncle Deet is a Koboldt, and lights his forge with his breath," she says, a little bitterness in his voice. "He never started fires he couldn't put out."

"This is very important," Hikaru says. "Did your grandmother forbid you to learn, or did she refuse to teach you? These are very different things; she may have wanted to teach you but felt she could not, not safely."

Teresa thinks very hard for a moment, before saying, "She... never said I couldn't, just that she wouldn't," she says, finally.

"Do you have a spare rushlight?" Hikaru asks.

She nods.

"Then I think I can teach you a little control," Hikaru says with a smile.

---

May I have two Mysticism rolls, TN 21. (One is for Deedee, the other for Hikaru.)

Poll closes this Sunday at 6:00 Pacific, hopefully along with another threadmarked post.

 

[Talia B]

Hikaru takes out a wand and, curiously, seems to be tracing something invisible with it rather than using it for spellcasting. Teresa watches, focusing intently on this lesson.

For that matter, Sio, Ace and I are also very curious about how this is going to go, what he's going to say. I'm not sure I know enough of the ingame lore about how magic works to be able to try what Hikaru's attempting.

"My texts on elementary evocation teaches that a spell is Breath given an Aura and Anima, if only for a second, shaped by the Psyche," he says. "That is, you exhale to burn spiritual energy which you then, through your will and ritual, shape into the effect you want. In your case, shaping it into a flame, for a moment."

I think I followed that explanation, mostly. But for a moment Teresa looks completely lost.

"For example," Hikaru says.

He flicks the wrist of his wand hand and says the word "Lux." The tiny red crystal at its end starts to glow with a soft, warm light; sunlight in miniature.

"Exhaling, saying the spell word, to power the spell with Breath," he explains. "A flick of the wrist, channeling through it and the wand, shaping where I cast the spell, and putting the power safely in the wand instead of my fingertip in case I miscast. And my choice of incantation, 'lux' - 'light' - to help me concentrate, to shape and limit the effect to mere light, rather than say a blinding searing ray of light."

Teresa blinks, then vigorously nods her understanding. "You're telling the magic it's just light you want with the spell words."

"The magic and myself," Hikaru confirms. "Now, take out your spare rushlight; tonight that's your wand."

Teresa hums an affirmative, drawing from a purse a thin braid not much thicker than just a candle's wick, made of a single river reed dipped in tallow.

Ace is flicking her eyes between mentor and student - taking notes herself? - while Sio has been watching like it will be on her test.

As have I, it seems.

"Use the spell word - the incantation - 'rushlight,'" Hikaru advises. "While you say it, flick your wrist, pouring the power you use to call flame to the tip of the light. You want that tip and only the tip to catch fire, and you want that fire to only be enough to light the rushlight. Do you understand?"

"Yes, magus," Teresa says.

"I will stand by to snuff the spell if it goes out of control," Hikaru says. "I'll count down from three; on zero, cast. Three - two - one -"

Teresa whipped her rushlight up like she was cracking a whip and shouted, "Rushlight!"

For an instant, a fist-sized fireball flashes into existence at the tip of her rushlight, but in less than a second it shrinks to a candleflame and stays that small, shedding soft light.

Teresa allows herself to exhale again. Sio is the first to sincerely applaud; soon we find we're following suit.

"Well done," Hikaru says, smiling. Then without skipping a beat, "what did you do wrong?"

Another breath, then: "I shouted when I could have spoken and my gesture was too forceful; both added more power."

"That's exactly right," Hikaru says. "If you are ever in a fight where you need that power you know where to get it, but Flamma willing, you'll only need to light reeds and ovens."

He licks his forefinger and thumb, and snuffs out the rushlight.

"Again," he commands.

---

We had just stepped into the courtyard of the Barrel of White Inn for a late supper, all in high spirits, when we heard Sekhmet's voice.

"Sup," they say. "Mission accomplished."

I'm not sure how they slipped into our formation unnoticed but am able to stop myself from jumping at the reveal.

"Christ, Sekhmet, a little warning?" I say, cheerfully.

"Speaking of a little warning," they say.

I stop. The others follow suit.

"I don't think Elf and Company are going to be a problem, but she... they wanted the chance to tell you why themselves and I think they deserve it," Sekhmet says. "They're at the Barrel. Probably want to buy you the first round."

I grimace. "If you're sure," I say, unable to stop my ears from flattening down over my hair.

"And how are you sure, exactly?" Ace says, jabbing a hand at my currently feline roommate.

"Trust me," they plead, with a thumbs up.

I look at my roommate of nine years on Earth and a month on Mundus, then I nod.

"Of course," I sigh, and steel myself as I enter.

This late, most of the other patrons of the inn are in bed, rather than at the tavern; if we were much later we'd have been locked out. Which means that the elf in conquistador's armor is not hard to find, though she averts her eyes from me when she sees me cast a glance her way.

What I did not expect is who else is with her, at a table long enough for her party and mine. The pixie rogue Piper Maris, for one thing, is blissing out at the flavor of the lamb and chickpea stew she's eating, while a great purple and green Koboldt says something that makes Alesha - already at the table - laugh. At the center of the table is a redheaded human in a dark grey Exorcist longcoat and a great scarlet scarf, the customary brace of pistols conspicuously absent from his belt (likely under the care of the innkeeper). A black and red tricorn hat conceals his expression; still, there is something distressingly familiar about his appearance that I can't quite place.

I take a deep breath and sit opposite the human stranger, with Sekhmet taking the seat to my left facing the elf and Ace close to my right glaring at her.

"Sekhmet tells me you have something you need to tell me," I say to the elf woman. "For now, let's address each other by username. I don't know who else is listening."

The elf grits her teeth, but the man in the tricorn nods. "That makes complete sense as a security thing," he says, and I've heard that voice, only just deep enough to be baritone and just a little nasal. "Not all of our handles suit us, of course, we'll have to figure something out later."

"If I knew I was gonna go by this name I wouldn't have rolled up this," Elfgirl mutters, rapping her breastplate with the knuckles of her gauntlet.

I feel as though something icy has just dropped down into the pit of my stomach.

"...Maybe I should have started by asking for your Earthside name," I say to the person piloting a female Elf warrior.

That person takes a deep breath, frowning, trying not to grimace at me with their answer.

"Maybe you should have," they echo. "It's Kevin. Kevin fucking Moon."

I hissed in my next breath. Sekhmet, for their part, sighs.

"Oh gods," I managed after a second. "Shit, Kev, I'm sorry."

"I fucking knew it was you," he snarls, slamming a mailed fist on the table, grimacing at the way it makes part of him bounce. "You really didn't recognize me?"

"In her defense, your hair's grown out a whole lot," Sekhmet drawls. "Ears, too. Singing contralto didn't help either."

"Don't fucking remind me," Kevin says, turning away so it's harder for me to see the actual fear on his face.

I drag my hand down my face. "His twisting tails, you've been going through it the other way round..." I mutter.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kevin says, trying to hold back the snarl.

The man in the exorcist coat clears his throat into a fist over his lips, and Kevin slumps back into his chair, rolling violet eyes.

"I take it that you'd prefer Deedee these days for reasons other than, uh, pure infosec?" he says.

"Please," I say, maybe too quickly.

He takes in a long, shuddery breath, eyes closed, nodding. "Ah," he says. "That... that makes more sense having met you again, and with - you can forgive Kevin, I hope?"

"If he'll forgive me," I say, flicking my eyes and ears at him for a second.

He looks more tired than anything when he nods and offers his hand. I can't say I blame him as I shake it.

"I uh," the exorcist says, and I realize he's grasping for the words. "I confess, I've been looking for you all, under the names I was given... and remember, from the other side of the screen. Which means I owe Piper, Talon and - and Kevin their Guild fee, and the hope they'll, uh, stick around."

"Please, I carried your pansy ass through your first post-Truckening dungeon, I'm not leaving till you've manned up enough," Kevin says, cracking the first genuine smile I've seen on the elfgirl chassis since I met its pilot.

"Yeah, you're a great teammate and you know where the best taverns are, I'm sticking around," Piper adds, as she peels an orange.

"From the sound of things, you and Leesh need to swap notes anyway," the Koboldt - Talon, apparently - says. "Maybe pick up a fifth and sixth if you can, though."

"Great. Great, thank you, I - I appreciate it," the exorcist says.

And then he raises the brim of his hat, and locks his eyes to mine.

"And J - and you -" he bites his lip. "Deedee, you do recognize me, don't you?"

I blink, and then realize that I do.

"...Ralph?" I ask.

His hand over his tears is confirmation enough. As his party turns to stare at him, I find myself taking Ralph's other hand in mine.

---

With thanks to @Fabricati and @FoxHana for prereading.

New vote tomorrow, once the old vote concludes.

Enjoy. Discuss.

It's good to be back.

 

[Talia B]

I meet Kevin after breakfast the next day, on the side of a road. Master Jatu, sensing 'learning opportunities,' decides to supervise, leaving us with the awkward question of how to introduce him in his current state.

"This is my friend from before we started Adventuring," is what I decided on, deferring that question to the one it affects the most.

"Kevin Moon," he insists, eyes flashing, daring her to say anything about it.

"Are you, now?" she asks. "And how have you trained?"

"No magic," he says, rolling a shoulder in a maille sleeve. "No frills. Just kicking ass."

"I see," she says, a hand over her mouth unable to conceal the smile in her eyes. "Show us, then, the purity of your art, as Deedee demonstrates the grace of hers."

Jatu drops a handkerchief.

When it touches the ground, Many things happen near faster than I can track them.

Kevin's main weapon is a pike - a spear at the end of a pole taller than he is, better for thrusting than slicing but capable of both. His pike sails right where I was a second ago as I pull up my knees after me in a leaping forward kick.

His eyes follow me as I flip forward into a dive-kick - the Gryphon Talon Kick - but my trajectory is wrong, he's already slipped past it, and I land and wheel to face him.

He's already throwing something at me, snatched from his back.

My attack and defense are one as I cup my hands together and scream the incantation: "Gale Blast!"

We both hit. His javelin cuts through the center of the Blast and slams into me, driving me to one knee with its weight; but my Gale Blast continues onward and lifts a very surprised Kevin off his feet and several meters away before he can control his fall with the butt of his pike.

I yank the javelin and my ruined outer coat off before foolishly leaping up for another Gryphon Talon Kick - a move he's seen before and is anticipating.

He casually swats me out of the sky with his pike, then is on top of me with its point at my heart.

There is a moment where all we can hear is our heavy breathing before the sounds of Vinyedo trickle back in - the river flowing, the sheep bleating, the birds singing.

Then Kevin, smirking, rocks his body back and offers me a gauntleted arm up. I take it.

"Well, what did you learn?" Jatu asks me.

"Don't fuck with me?" Kevin suggests.

"I underestimated him because he's a friend, and also not a caster," I said. "I needed to respect the superior range of the pike and find a less risky way inside it, and not waste time with theatrics."

Kevin nods. "Also, don't fuck with me. Though I gotta say the instant tornado caught me flatfooted. I shouldn't even be surprised this place got you magic cheat powers along with your boob job, huh?"

"And nerfed to first level," I reply, examining Kevin and his new, feminine elven body. Though on closer examination, it was a Rosie the Riveter frame, short and stocky as Alfar go and well toned, the major concessions to conventional beauty in large expressive eyes and wavy short-cropped hair with bangs forming a heart on his forehead. "But I bet you got the raw strength to bench-press a Volvo with yours."

He shoulder-checks my gaze, turning his eyes away from mine. "Wasn't worth it. Not worth getting ogled by knights and called 'lass' by condescending peasantry. How the hell do you cope? Fuck, how do actual women?"

I tighten a fist, reminding myself that he doesn't know.

"You thirsty?" I ask.

"Like a fish," he responds, laughing.

"Back in college the loser bought the first round, right?" I say, flipping a silver coin and catching it.

"Let me know if that gets too expensive for you," he says, grinning.

---

With thanks to my prereader @NekoIncardine. More coming soon.