Chapter 62: Coping, A New [Class], and Sad Smiles

  A week later and Kolin was completely recovered. Physically. The hit of losing his Team came every morning on waking up, and every evening in his nightmares. If it was a fraction as miserable for him as it was for us to watch, the loss was nigh unbearable.

  //Way to make it about yourself//

  ‘Hey! No fair, Sia and absolutely not true. That was perilously close to crossing a line.’

  //Sorry, Book. You are right, and I guess I am hurting, too//

  ‘Actual feelings? And I’m not being an ass, for once.’

  //That depends; am I truly self aware?//

  ‘Big question.’

  This discussion was way over my head, so I turned back to the ‘real world’. Tess and I were steamy and wet, dressed in our underwear. Not as much fun as it sounded, sadly enough.

  ‘Coping.’

  //My lips are sealed…but are Tess’s?//

  ‘SIA!’

  //Coping//

  “Book? Are you ready to hold me?”

  //?!//

  ‘?!’

  “In case I have a seizure, like last time. Idiot.”

  This probably wasn’t the best time to explain you should never restrain someone in the throes of a seizure, huh?

  //Throes?//

  Enough.

  Tess hadn’t been sitting idle since Kolin’s return. She’d improvised a heavy punching bag from canvas and sand, hanging it in the back court. For more hours a day than I wanted to count, every day since the homecoming, she’d practiced her [Spell], [Flurry]. Then it finally happened; upgrade. It was common knowledge—to anyone born here, anyhow—that it took longer to advance your [Class] through training alone. Conflict was a much better fast track.

  Imagine that, real life experience mattered more than the schoolyard. What a novel concept.

  It was good foresight, Sia passing her knowledge to Sai on how to hold back the automatic [Level]ing inherent to their programming. My parasite and I had learned it the wrong way.

  //I’ll give you that one//

  ‘They say failure is the best route to success.’ Something along those lines, anyway. I liked my spin.

  Back to the real world—theoretically—elves advanced through reflection and repetition, the [mana] letting them know when they’d crested the waves. Ours was artificial.

  //Real and theoretical? *Sigh*//

  'Another outstanding 'Book-ism.'

  Less than an hour ago, Tess had barged into my room, grabbed me by the hand and raced me to the showers, and then started stripping.

  ‘*Sigh*’

  Before I could close my gaping mouth, Tess had shared her notification with me via Sai and Sia’s connection.

  [Spell] upgrade and a [Title], culminating in crossing the threshold. So I pulled off my nightshirt—I’d been getting ready for sleep—and tossed it in a cubby Magali had built into the divider separating the two sides of the showers. A convenient place to stash clothes and towels.

  Fantasy undergarments were strikingly familiar, just without the elastic. It sometimes made it problematic, I’ll have to admit. And I knew nothing of sports bras.

  //Except in on-line catalogs//

  I turned on the water, heavily infusing the [heat] scrolls with [mana] to make steam for camouflage as well as using the pattering for noise coverage. Tess paced on the line between wet and dry, collecting the splash back and misting of the rainwater on her dark skin and white undergarments. Her hair frizzing into uncontrollability, she briefly dunked her head back to slick it down.

  “Ready?” I asked my best friend.

  “No. Yes. Let’s get it done.”

  As she said this, she pulled out two small vials she’d stashed in her bra. I recognized both; highly concentrated distillations, one of [Fortify] and the other [Heal]. These were very high-end, and majorly costly to boot. Gaelia was going to be pissed when she finds out they are missing. It was typical Tess, prepared and ready to rock no matter the obstacle. She slid her back down the ceramic tiles of the wall, coming to rest on her knees and then letting them slide to the side as she sat on her heels. I got down next to her, cursing the baldness that let the water cascade down my face unimpeded.

  She uncorked and tossed back the [Fortify] potion, then handed me the other and said, “For after.”

  “Got it.”

  I knew the [Level]ing was in process when she started convulsing, and I gently wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. Then she went rigid, muscles corded and her veins popping as thick as cables, her skull whipping back and mouth open in a silent scream. I could feel heat radiating off her head where I’d pressed it to my chest when her whole body went slack.

  Then it was over.

  I handed Tess the final vial, which she took with a hand that trembled as she raised it to her lips. The glass clinked against her teeth.

  “Ooh, that helps. Why did we think of potions before now?”

  There was no ‘we’, only her. “Because we never had a live-in [Alchemist]?”

  “Ha!,” she barked a laugh.

  “Great, the new [Level] turned you into a barking seal. Did you get a new [Class], [Manate…] oof!”

  “Dude, even you should know better than to call a woman a sea cow. Think before you speak.”

  Yeah, I should start doing that. I didn't say, 'But you are all wet and slick, not to mention barking.' Instead, I made sure she saw me rub at a spot on my belly where her elbow had bruised my diaphragm.

  “But, yeah. I did get a new [Class]; [Melee Artist].”

  “Sweet. Hey, I’ve always wondered about this. Did your [Courier] disappear? Or do you have a dual [Class]?” I’d finally get an answer, from a person I could ask without outing us.

  “Not sure, but…both? [Courier] is grayed out, like when a [Skill] upgrades, and I still only have one [Progress] counter. I think it morphed, if that makes sense.”

  “As much as anything. We’ll probably never have a definitive answer, I guess.” Such are the woes of the kidnapped, bioengineered human-elf hybrid.

  //Shall I turn on location services, download the manual?//

  ‘Uhmmm…not on your life. Or mine.’

  “Book?”

  “Yes?”

  “You can let me go, now.”

  “Ah, actually, I don’t think I can. I just reached the threshold.”

  “Threshold? That’s…wait? Do you mean?”

  “Yep. I don’t suppose you have another pair tucked in your bra, do you?”

  //Is all this innuendo on purpose?//

  ‘Not now.’

  //Oh fuck, I can feel it coming! be ready to brace//

  ‘Why now?’

  //And how?//

  ‘What did you do?’

  //Nothing, I swear! Unless…?//

  ‘Unless?!’

  //I left an algorithm running, concerning the [Folder]{Error}->[Limbo]{Error} fiasco//

  ‘And?’

  //Ever leave the stove on when you left home for the weekend? That//

  Volcanoes erupting; landslides; demolition derbies; frogs in blenders. These are the things I wished for; the things I would voluntarily swap with.

  When it was over—without the benefit of a decolletage hidden vial of [heal]ing—I was grateful for several things. And yes, one of them was being able to think ‘decolletage’.

  ‘I’m back, baby.’

  //Damn, not enough dead brain cells this time//

  ‘Your back, too!’

  Another one was, puking in the shower made it a hell of a lot easier to clean up the mess. So was the blood from my scalp laceration caused by repeatedly striking the tiles hard enough to spiderweb a few. I’d just tell everyone that I cut myself shaving.

  Wow, I am tired.

  “Stand up,” Tess told me, and I did. Then she quickly reached down and yanked my boxers off. She held me upright as I stumbled when stepping out of the leg holes. I guess there were…other…stains.

  //Boxers?//

  ‘Close enough.’

  “How bad am I?” I was confused until she gestured at herself and her soiled underthings. She didn’t wait for me to gather my wits; I’m not sure I could have answered. “Nevermind. We’ll have to toss it all.”

  Now we were both naked—just like back in orbit—and neither of us cared. Just like back in orbit. The [heat] scroll had long since run out of juice, and our steam sauna turned into the Polar Bear Club. Our skin tightened and rippled with goose-flesh, abruptly clearing our minds.

  After cutting off the water, Tess bent to grab the ruins of our soggy clothes as I snatched a pair of fluffy robes hanging on hooks. They weren’t ours, but we couldn’t give a shit. Wrapping myself in one of them, I gestured to Tess and she tossed me her wet bundle while I sent her a dry, fluffy one. The wet ones went under my robe, the contrasting chill on my skin sending me into a shivering fit.

  We shared sad smiles, full of love, pain, and loneliness, then headed to our respective rooms, where she had someone to warm her up and I didn’t.

  Now I had to go over my character sheet, again. Rearrangement pending.

  *Sigh*

  ~Character Sheets~