Chapter 226: Book 4 Chapter 6.3: A Symphony of Friendship and Frogs

“Alright, it’s been twenty-seven minutes,” Kim said. “We need to check in on Vell.”

“Why is the limit for that twenty-seven minutes?”

“Because that’s how long it takes him to make his favorite french fries,” Kim explained. Alex glared at her.

“And why is that relevant?”

“It’s a long story,” Kim said. “Now shut up and let me call.”

Kim didn’t actually need to do anything to call Vell, since the phone mechanism was entirely in her head, but she put a hand on the side of her head anyway. Vell answered, which was a good sign in and of itself, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

“Hey Kim,” Vell said. “I’m alive.”

“I assumed,” Kim said. “Is everything going alright?”

“Just fine, yeah,” Vell said. “I’m here with Raine, he’s great, he knows everything about frogs. Literally everything. All of the things.”

A fact that Raine continually demonstrated, whether he was asked to or not. Even while Vell was talking on the phone, Raine was still listing various frog factoids.

“So are things good? Bad? Do you need help?”

“I wouldn’t say things are good,” Vell said, as he listened to Raine list off the average dietary intake of an Appenine yellow-bellied toad. “But I think they’re under control. I’ll just stick things out solo for a while. No point wasting even more people’s time on this.”

“Sounds about right,” Kim said. “Give me a call if you decide you’re done throwing yourself on the sword, Vell.”

“You and I both know I’ll never be done,” Vell said. “Just let me handle this. I am, no offense, way better at putting up with this kind of stuff than any of you guys.”

“Vell, that ‘no offense’ should be aimed at you,” Kim said. “You’re the doormat here.”

“Gee, thanks,” Vell said. “Look, I can handle it. No sense wasting everyone else’s day.”

“Ugh, cut it out you self-sacrificial bitch. Look, I’ll come tag you out later in the day, alright? We can take turns.”

“If you say so,” Vell said. “But really, I got this.”

He hung up before Kim could argue any further. Raine had been waiting patiently for the duration of the call, and seemed to be fixated on Vell’s phone. Vell had entirely forgotten he was dealing with a ghost, one that had very likely never seen a modern cell phone. He held the phone in Raine’s direction, hoping with all his heart that it could serve as a conversation topic other than frogs.

“You seen a cell phone before, Raine?”

“Yes, I have, as a matter of fact,” Raine said. “Though last time I saw one they still folded in half.”

Raine poked at the phone with an immaterial finger, attempting to mimic the way Vell had used the touch screen. As expected, his finger passed right through.

“Sorry. Let me handle it,” Vell said. “Here, phones nowadays can do all kinds of things. There’s apps, games, you can browse the web.”

“You can access the internet through your phone?”

“Yeah, I can-”

Vell stopped in his tracks. Raine’s already wide eyes were getting wider.

“Yes, it can look up pictures of frogs,” Vell sighed, as he began to do so.

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Kim pulled another book off the shelves and examined it. Even with a functionally perfect memory, she still found it difficult to keep track of what books Vell wanted to read. He was so damn good at rune bullshit that all his academic texts were titled things like “Applied Kinetic Physics on Automated Sigil Structuring: The Horatian Perspective”. Kim knew a fair bit about runes, but she was still working off basic texts like Runecrafting 301.

“I don’t know how Vell does this shit,” Kim said. “Being nice is hard.”

To make up for his having to babysit the frog ghost, and all the other trials and tribulations of his life, Kim had opted to do something nice for Vell. Something to help with his studies was the first and most practical step. Up next, she wanted to get him some snacks. She popped on the phone in her head and got in touch with Skye.

“Kim, what’s up?”

“Hey Skye. You know what Vell’s favorite snacks are? I’m trying to get him a gift.”

“Is this a ‘gift’ gift or an apology gift?”

“Is there a diff-”

Kim stopped in her tracks, and made eyes appear on her face screen just to narrow them.

“Skye, why did you need to get an apology gift?”

“I got him pinched by a mutant crab,” Skye mumbled.

“Oh, so that’s where that cut on his arm came from,” Kim said. Vell had refused to elaborate on the incident last year. “Anyway, it’s just a gift gift. Trying to do something nice for the poor guy.”

“He likes those little fudge and cream cheese bites they sell in the campus commissary,” Skye said. Kim made a mental note and started heading for the commissary. “Is there a special occasion I should be aware of?”

“Nah, Vell’s just doing his usual routine of throwing himself on the sword for our sake,” Kim said. “Distracting a frog ghost for hours on end.”

“Is that why he hasn’t been answering my texts lately?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say the ghost pressured him into using his phone for frog pics,” Kim said, correctly. “He’ll be a little busy. Trying to help ghosts move on to the afterlife is usually a long process.”

“So what, he’s just going to be at it all night?”

“Don’t worry, if he’s not done soon, I’ll swap him out in a couple hours,” Kim said. “You’ll get your boyfriend back, don’t worry.”

Kim said her goodbyes and returned to her shopping, leaving Skye to put her phone down and get back to the people she’d been talking to before. Cane and Hanifa had been patiently waiting for the entire call.

“So it looks like me and my boyfriend showing up is entirely dependent on whether or not he can convince a frog ghost to move on to the afterlife,” Skye said.

“Mm, yeah, he was asking about that kind of thing earlier,” Cane said. “Is he not done yet?”

“Apparently not,” Skye said. “And Kim thinks it might still be a while.”

“One of these days I’ll get to talk to Vell for more than a minute,” Hanifa said. She’d been dating Cane for nearly two years now and had barely spoken to one of his best friends.

“You can talk to him soon,” Cane said. “Come on. I’ll get Luke and the rest of the guys, Skye, you call Kim back and find out where Vell is.”

“Wait, are we getting involved?” Hanifa asked. “I thought Vell was the expert in saving the day.”

“He is,” Cane said. “But now and then somebody needs to save Vell.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

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“Okay, you have now seen a picture of every species of frog in existence,” Vell said. He swapped his phone between hands to spare his aching thumb and displayed the last photo of a frog to Raine. “You feel ready to move on? Claim your eternal reward? Et cetera?”

“Just seeing them? Are you kidding,” Raine scoffed. Vell restrained a groan of frustration. “There’s so much more to study, so much to understand, not to mention those were only photos of the known species. Who knows how many undiscovered frog species are out there?”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Vell said. “That’s something, I could work with that. What if...I found a new species of frog, and named it after you? Would that satisfy you?”

Raine contemplated the prospect for a moment.

“Only one frog?”

“God,” Vell snapped. Even his patience was wearing thin. “What will it take to get you to stop?”

“Sometimes I could ask you the same question.”

Vell turned around just in time to catch the beer Cane shoved into his hands. He also got a pat on the back and a firm but gentle shove away from Raine as Cane stepped up to the ghost.

“So you’re the frog ghost I’ve heard some much about.”

“Hi, I’m Raine.”

“Oh, Raine, I’m Cane,” he said, with a friendly smile. “Our names rhyme. How about that?”

“Oh, they do,” Raine said. “Just like Callobatrachus and Ascaphus Montanus.”

Cane’s friendly smile froze in place.

“Really is all about frogs with you, huh?”

“What else is there?”

“A lot more,” Cane said. “As our friends will be happy to tell you.”

He gestured to the door, which Luke was busy walking through, followed shortly thereafter by Hanifa, Skye, Freddy, Samson, Kim, and many of Vell’s other friends. They brought chairs, food, drinks, and everything else one could need to sit and relax for a long time. Vell was briefly confused, and then delighted when Kim shoved a bag of fudge bites into his hands alongside the beer.

“Hi, great to see you guys, why is, uh, everyone here?”

As Luke stepped up to Raine and tried to display some physics trivia that immediately got derailed by questions about frog jumps, Cane walked up and put an arm around his friend’s shoulder.

“You want to help the frog guy, I want to hang out with my friends,” Cane said. “This way we just do both at once.”

“Makes sense. I guess,” Vell said. He popped open the beer and took a much needed-swig, enjoying the cold drink almost as much as the respite from frog trivia. “You sure you’re up for this?”

“Well, a basement is not the ideal hangout spot,” Cane said. The floor was uncomfortably damp. “But it’s all my best friends and one guy with endless frog facts. How bad can it be?”

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The light in Cane’s eyes had completely gone out by the time he wandered back to Hanifa. She made room for him in the chair and beckoned him to sit, and he all but collapsed onto her shoulder.

“There’s too many frogs,” Cane whimpered.

“I know baby, I know,” Hanifa said. “You’re safe now, don’t think about them.”

The lively atmosphere of the group had been gradually sapped away by Raine’s endless fixation on frogs. They had taken it in shifts to deal with his obsession, as any one person could only endure it so long.

“Did you find out anything useful?”

After hours of swapping in an out, the gathered friends were seemingly no closer to their goal of finding out what tethered Raine to this mortal coil.

“No, I didn’t,” Cane snapped. “It’s just frogs. All frogs. If I had to guess, I’d say his grand purpose is frogs, and the problem with that is, as I have recently learned, there are always more frogs!”

“I think we might need to cut our losses on this one, Vell,” Kim said. “Raine doesn’t exactly seem like he’s tormented by his ties to our mortal coil.”

“You’ve got a point,” Vell admitted. As long as there were frogs, Raine would be happy. “We have to stick it out a little while longer, at least.”

“Why?”

Kim, Vell, and the other loopers knew they had to be on hand all day, to avoid any risk of Raine repeating the frog-summoning incident, but their guests were not privy to such knowledge.

“Uh, well, you see-”

The sound of a door being slammed open provided a welcome interruption to a sentence Vell wasn’t sure how to finish. His relief turned right back into apprehension when Alex stepped through the open door.

“Oh, hey Alex,” Vell mumbled. “Good to see you. Sorry for not inviting y-”

Kim elbowed him to shut Vell up. They had quite deliberately not invited Alex or Helena to the gathering.

“No need for apologies, I’m not interested in your parties,” Alex said. She looked to the side, at a bit of water dripping down a wall. “Especially not in a moldy basement. I just need to consult with Freddy on a project and I’ll be on my way.”

“Oh, well, he’s right over there, go ahead,” Vell said.

“Actually,” Cane interjected. He stood up, put an arm around Alex’s shoulder, and started walking her in a very non-Freddy direction. “Since you’re here, why don’t you pull your weight and talk to our new buddy Raine for a bit?”

“The amphibian obsessed undead? I thought you all were here to handle that.”

“Look, just talk to the guy for twenty minutes or something, give us a break,” Cane said. “We’ve all been doing this for hours.”

“On a purely voluntary basis. Don’t drag me into this.”

“Too late, I have literally already dragged you into it,” Cane said. He gave Alex one final shove to push her within talking distance of Raine. His wide eyes locked on her as Cane snatched his previous conversation partner away and left Alex and Raine alone in the designated frog-conversation corner.

“Hi. I’m Raine.”

“I’ve heard,” Alex grunted. “You like frogs.”

“Yes! I especially like the kind that-”

“Shut up,” Alex said. “If I turn you into a frog, will you leave me alone?”

“You can do that?”

“I’m a mage, of course I can-”

“Do it!”

Raine tried to lunge forward and grab Alex by the shoulders, but his immaterial hands passed right through her. He kept shouting at her anyway.

“Do it do it do it do it,” Raine screamed. “I want to be a frog!”

Alex rolled her eyes, snapped her fingers, and called upon the ambient mana in the basement, to put a little extra power into her spell.

While turning someone into a frog was fairly standard magic, Alex didn’t like frogs, so she rarely cast it. The spell also, importantly, was designed to transform flesh and blood humans, not ghosts, so some modifications would be necessary. She made the needed changes, and then cast the transformation spell on Raine.

The makeshift spell created a loud buzz like a generator being turned on, and all eyes in the room turned to the source of the noise. They got to watch as Raine’s ghostly form was swallowed up by blinding light, entirely consumed in a tide of magic that washed over him and through him. When the tide of light finally settled, Raine’s ghostly form was gone, replaced by a three inch long spectral frog.

“Oh, a European common frog,” Vell said. He’d learned enough about frogs in the past few hours to identify it on sight.

The frog Raine had become started ribbiting fervently, and hopped around the room on ghostly legs. Alex stepped back to avoid any contact with the ghost frog, despite knowing that it could not actually touch her. After exactly thirteen seconds of manic hopping and ribbiting, Frog Raine started to float in the air.

“Alex, is he supposed to be floating?”

“I’m not sure,” Alex admitted. “No one’s ever successfully transmogrified a ghost before.”

“Wait,” Vell said. “What happens when you unsuccessfully transmogrify a ghost?”

“Oh, their soul is obliterated,” Alex said.

“And you did it anyway?”

“He asked,” Alex said. Her disdain for frogs extended to those who studied them, so she had little concern for Raine’s existence.

A brilliant ray of light exploded from Raine’s ghostly body, followed by another, and another, as if he was hiding a sun somewhere inside him that was starting to break free. A final crack formed in the ghostly shell, and blinding light forced them all to look away. When the light finally faded, nothing was left of Raine but a few sparks of shimmering light. Cane took a worried step closer to the few sparkles.

“So, is that, you know, the soul obliteration, or…”

“No, we’re good, that’s the good outcome,” Vell said. He’d seen a few ghosts ascend in his time. “It appears Raine’s big regret in life is that he wasn’t a frog.”

“Hmm, yeah, that tracks,” Cane said. “We should’ve tried that hours ago.”

“With maybe a few precautions taken,” Vell said, glaring at Alex. “To avoid soul obliteration.”

“He was already dead,” Alex said.

“He was only mostly dead,” Cane protested. Alex shrugged and headed for Freddy to ask for his input on mana oscillation while Cane stuck a hand through the sparkles. “See you on the other side, Raine. Hope they have frogs in heaven.”

“At least one, now,” Hanifa added. “Can we leave this basement now?”

“Yeah let’s get the fuck out of here,” Cane said. “And let’s also never talk about frogs again.”

“Good idea on both counts.”

Cane led the charge back into the light, and the makeshift party followed, though it just as quickly dissolved once everyone got back to the surface. Several hours trapped in a basement listening to frog trivia had a way of sucking the camaraderie out of people. Vell said goodbye to his friends as they went their separate ways, until it was just him and Cane.

“Thanks again for showing up, Cane,” Vell said.

“Don’t thank me too much. Full disclosure: if there weren’t like twenty other people to split frog duty with, I probably would’ve bailed,” Cane said. “Also, I would’ve looked like a real asshole in front of Hanifa.”

“Oh. Well, uh, thanks for sticking it out,” Vell said.

“No problem. Somebody’s got to watch your back while you’re watching everyone else’s,” Cane said.

“Uh, sure.”

“I’m serious, Vell. I love you, but you got to start putting yourself first sometimes,” Cane said. “You’re about to graduate, then go run a company, and you just about wasted your whole day listening to some dude explain the differences between frogs and toads.”

“One spends more time in the wa-”

“Stop! Never again,” Cane commanded. He’d had enough frog facts for ten lifetimes. “Vell, you’ve spent the past three years helping everyone with everything. Try to help yourself with something now and then.”

“I- I guess,” Vell said. “I’ll try.”

“Motherfucker I have watched Star Wars with you, you know the saying,” Cane said. “There is no try. Go do something to help Vell, Vell.”

“Huh. I guess there was something with Professor Nguyen-”

“I don’t give a shit! This ain’t about me,” Cane said. “It’s about you, and only you! Go do your thing.”

“Okay, I will,” Vell said. “Thanks, I-”

“Again, not about me,” Cane said. “Just go!”

Vell was inspired and confused in equal measure, and headed out for Professor Nguyen’s office. The interview ended up being profoundly boring and not particularly useful, but it was better than sitting in a basement talking about frogs. Slightly.