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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and y-Five - Buddy System

  Lunch was had!

  It was really good too. I don’t know when Momma had time to make sandwiches, but they were excellent. The bread were big oval slices that still tasted fresh, and there was some sauce, lettuce, and carrots that had been shredded. There were even tiny tomato-like veggies cut up into little wafers inside.

  All that served o a big, heaping sad and some tea which I made on the spot. Momma had brought a little tin with some herbs in it for the tea, mostly dried berries and some wild-flowers that I didn’t immediately reize. They were the sweet highlight of the meal.

  Still, it was a little strao be eatio a forest where we knew enemies were lurking. I felt pretty safe, what with the buns and all, but I couldn’t help but gnce over every so often, expeg a big ugly moo leap out and try to have us for lunch.

  Beien would have ruihe whole mood of a piic.

  “So,” Amaryllis asked as she poked at her sad. “There’s something that’s been b me.”

  “Oh?” Momma asked.

  “To opee to this floor, you need keys. Keys dropped by the zombies. Why did we try to sneak over if we would have had to kill them anyway?”

  I tinued mung as I looked over to the buns. It was Carrot that replied, while dipping her namesake in some sort of savoury sauce. “Oh, that’s an easy ohere are a couple of spots he wall that you bunker up in. Nid safe. Well, safe-ish.”

  “So you were trying to get us there?” I asked.

  “Yup! When you only have a couple of buns, it’s easy to be sneaky.”

  “You are very much the opposite of stealthy,” Peter said.

  “Hey now!” Carrot protested.

  I raised my hand up. I had a question too! “So, um, how do you fight a wight? Is there a trick to it? Oh! And what’s the puzzle on this floor?”

  Peter nodded. “Wights are best fought with fire. They tend to only attadividually, so there’s little strategy involved. As for the floor’s puzzle; there are five braziers, you o light them all, and then the fog lifts and the gate unlocks.”

  “So we just run to eae?” I asked.

  Carrot shook her head. “hey ge pces all the time. You o find them all ain.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll all stick together in roup, as is sensible?” Amaryllis asked.

  “There’s four of you, and four of us,” Momma said. “I think groups of two would make sense. We regroup at the gate ohe fog lifts.”

  I sat up a little. “So who’s going to go with who?” I asked.

  “Whom,” Amaryllis aer said at the same time.

  Carrot raised her arms in victory. “That’s one pair!” she cheered. “I call dibs on the human!”

  “Oh?” Momma asked. “Do you think you and the girl would make a good pair?”

  “Nope! I just think she’s quiet enough that she won’t stop me from prattling on,” Carrot said.

  I sidered that for a moment while Awen wiggled her arms, all flustered and cute. “Awen is a pretty great listener,” I said. “Try to get her to talk a little too. She be very iing once you get past all the cute shyness.”

  “That leaves myself and Broccoli, as well as Miss Momma and Buster,” Bastion said over the kettle-pitched squeaking that Awen was making. “Perhaps I should go with you, Buster. Leave the two team leaders to work together?”

  Buster nodded, and Momma smiled faintly. “That seems perfectly fair. Now, if everyone is quite done, let’s pack things up and prepare to head out.”

  “I everything up,” I said.

  “Thank you, but serve your mana for now, little bun, we’ll be needing it,” Momma said.

  That sounded quite reasonable, so I nodded and started to pack things away. There wasn’t much food left to store sihe lot of us had eaten our fill. Whehing ut away I took a moment to stretch--very important to do just before some physical activity--then took a g my stats.

  Health: 135/135Mana: 72/150Stamina: 74/135

  A bit more than half my mana and stamina were back. It had takeime than I expected. At some point along the way the ‘one point a minute’ rule of thumb had fallen behind. Maybe as one levelled up things were restored faster? That sounded fair.

  I held my ade to my side, then adjusted my hat and made sure my pack was nid snug. “This is going to be weird,” I said.

  “Why’s that?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I’ve been with you and Awen since... well, a while now. We’re not always together-together, but we’re rarely more than a few dozeers apart,” I said. I ran my thumb along the haft of my spade. “ I give you both goodbye hugs?”

  Awen was quick to raise her arms iimal hugging position, so she got to be squeezed first. When I let go of her and turo Amaryllis, it was to find her raising her wings with a roll of her eyes. “Fine, get it over with,” she said.

  I squeezed her extra tight before letting go.

  “Do you want a hug too, Bastion?” I asked.

  The sylph smiled and shook his head. “I think I’ll be fihout. Though I appreciate the offer.”

  “You ever have enough hugs,” I said.

  He still didn’t seem that ied, and I didn’t want to push him.

  “Okay then,” I said to Momma. “What should we talk about as we go find those braziers?”

  Momma chuckled. “Oh, this and that.”

  “Don’t get her started about her kids,” Carrot warned. “She’ll talk your entire ears off.”

  We set off into the forest. I could hear Carrot talking for a little bit, but her voice was soon muffled by the fog, and within a dozeers it was goirely. Momma and I walked more or less side-by-side. The problem was, the forest was the old sort, with bushes everywhere and walls of fallen branches making areas entirely unpassable.

  The fog didn’t help. It looked as if some parts of it were thicker than others, with tendrils that sat in the air and only moved with the gentle sway of bubbles in a va mp, only bigger, and not as colourful, and a lot creepier.

  “How long have you been friends with Amaryllis and Awen?” Momma asked.

  I grinned up at her. “A while! Well, actually it’s been about a month, I think.” Stra felt as if it had been a whole lot lohan that. Maybe it was because it had been busy, with kidnapping attempts, and... successful kidnappings—of Awen, at least—then long adventures and dungeon delves and a tour arc. Then the dragons and a bit of time off with Amaryllis’ family. “It hasn’t been super long, but I think we’ve been through a lot.”

  Momma smiled over at me. “You have been through a lot together,” she said as she pushed a branch up for me to pass.

  I folded my ears bad squeezed u. “Yeah,” I said. “They’ve both bee... well, the kind of friends that I always dreamed of having, I guess. We’re not as close as we could be yet, but give us another couple of months, and we’ll be inseparable!”

  “How cute!” Momma said. “I hope you cherish your friends while you . Life will sometimes drag people away from you, kig and screaming sometimes, but still.”

  I didn’t want to agree, but I khat she was right. “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But for this adventure, and the , and the , we’ll be together, and as long as I’m still able to, I’ll do everything I to be the best friend they ever had.”

  Momma chuckled and pat me atop my helmet, right between my ears.

  I usually found it really annoying when people patted me, but Momma felt like... well, she felt like a mom, and that made it okay.

  “Careful,” Momma said.

  My ears perked and I looked around us. We had entered a little clearing. Nothing too big, just a circle some dozeers wide at the tre, and surrounded by trees.

  “I think you should take this one,” Momma said. “It’ll be a good experience, and I hop in if you he help.”

  “Take on whie?” I asked as I looked around.

  A cackle from above had me looking up in time to see a blur leaping down at me.

  I squeaked and rolled to the side. It wasn’t the roll, what with my pack dragging behind me, but I mao find my feet and hop back a little.

  The thing was attag Momma, arms swinging wildly, and breath ing out in a hiss.

  Momma arrying every pund swing with one arm, pushing the blows away here, and weaving out of the way there. She was dang, almost, and all with the easy grace of someone running through some habitual motion. She could have been doing the dishes for all the effort she seemed to put into the fight.

  The mohe wight, I realized, seemed to notice, and it bounced back.

  “Hey!” I called out at it as I unched a ball of ing magic right towards the side of its head.

  The wight ducked bad out of the spell’s path, then with its back curved all the way around, it ps hands into the ground and cartwheeled bad out of the way of a sed spell.

  It pressed its feet into the dirt, bunched up its legs, and shot towards me.

  For just a moment I was surprised, but if there was ohing I was getti at, it was fighting in the air, and I khat once you took off, there wasn’t much you could do to ge dires.

  The wight’s eyes, two glowing blue orbs that didn’t have iris or pupil, widened a little as I spun around and brought my spade up like a baseball bat.

  The thunk of the spade meeting the monster’s face rattled my arms, but it still felt pretty great.

  The wight rolled on nding, then reached out an arm and raked at my side. My armour took the worst of it, but I still felt its long, cw-like fingers digging into my ribs through my gambeson. Instead of stepping back, I moved in and tried to khe monster.

  It stepped to the side and swung at me again.

  I parried with the haft of my spade, but that left my other side open and the wight was quick to take advantage of that.

  The shadows around us raced up, and like grasping tendrils from some sort of eldritch mohey grabbed at my legs and pinned me in pce as the wight punched me full-on in the chest.

  If it wasn’t for my breastpte, that would have been awful. As it was, it still knocked some of the wind out of me.

  I let loose a bust of ing magic, thehe tendrils grasping me loosened a bit, I hopped up on the spot and rammed a ko the wight’s face.

  It reeled back, which let me nd and spin around.

  Magic rushed to my foot just before my roundhouse crashed into the monster’s chest, a good dose of stamina p the blow.

  The wight went flying back.

  “You, are very rude,” I panted as I walked over to it with my spade.

  I brought the tool up, then swung it down as hard as I could.

  The wight turo dust beh me.

  Momma cpped behind me, while a very welessage dinged into being before me. “Well done, little bun,” Momma said. “I think with a feractice you could bee quite the warrior!”

  ***RavensDagger

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