4 - Prepping

I sat with my new book from the System, sipping on a second glass of wine. I ultimately decided after discussing it with Mara for nearly half an hour and completely ignoring her recommendation. I had decided on Beginner Essence Intro as my book. Mara had suggested the Dungeons 101 book. I was hopeful that my book would tell me how to find more essences out in the world without having to trade or buy them from people. Maybe some information on what they actually were and how they formed wouldn’t go amiss either.

I cracked the book open and let myself get lost in the world of the System. Apparently essences usually weren’t just given to people by the System, but our situation wasn’t so unique that it didn’t get a special mention in the opening chapters. Essences were most often harvested from monsters. Not all monsters contained an essence, and usually only stronger monsters did with any sense of reliability. A safer way to manifest essence was to meditate in a location soaked in that type of mana and condensing the mana in the area into an essence. But locations that saturated in mana weren’t very common. I flipped to the back of the book where it went over how to actually do that kind of meditation. It didn’t sound like something you could learn in your average yoga class. Not that I’d ever taken one.

For the rest of the night I went over everything in that book. It wasn’t very big, so the second time I went through it I started making some notes. There was a lot about our new reality that I was going to have to get used to.

I stayed the night at Mara’s. I’d had a few too many glasses of wine to drive home, and wouldn’t you know it…there were no uber drivers running around anywhere. Not that there had ever been that many in our little town.

I slept on her couch and woke up to her brewing some coffee. I’d never really liked the flavor without having to really doctor it up, but I still liked it better than alternative ways of getting caffeine. And wow did I ever need it in the mornings to get going. I was not at all a morning person.

I shuffled into the kitchen and Mara greeted me, “I think we should go out and hunt down some portals for people. I already found two posts online about portals in our county, but I also found what looks like five more troll posts about portals.”

“Wait, people are actually posting fake portals?” Mara nodded her head as she poured me a mug of coffee. “What the actual fuck?”

I shook off my general disappointment in people, “Ok, so where are the portals?”

Mara finished fixing up her own coffee beside me. “The first one anyone posted about is right in front of the library downtown. It looks like ten or so people can fit on it at a time. There is already a line around the block for it.” I nodded along. “The second is on a little farm outside of Belford. It’s bigger and can take fifty or so people at a time, and tons of people are flocking there as well. The family that owns the farm are charging people to use it though.

“I figure if there’s one here, and one near Belford, there has to be another near or in Sapphire Lake. I say the two of us go and help find it. Maybe we can find some monsters to kill along the way.”

I made a face at the idea of people taking advantage of a portal popping up on their property like they did anything to earn it. “Do you think there are more portals?”

“There has to be. Even with the big portal near Belford it would take way too long to teleport everyone out in time. I’m hoping there are at least a few more out there. And I think we should help find them.”

“Do we have to?” I whined pathetically.

“Yes,” Mara deadpanned. Apparently my whining wasn’t pathetic enough.

“Why us? There has to be better qualified people out there.”

“Because we’re decent people? Because it’s the right thing to do? Because we already absorbed essence which is kind of agreeing to do shit like this in my opinion? Take your pick.”

Fuck, I hated when she was right. Stupid ethics and empathy. Life would be so much easier if we were assholes. “Fine.”

Mara let out a big whoop and danced around the tiny kitchen, spilling coffee all over the floor. “Alright, go home, get whatever you think will help. Change clothes, and meet back here in an hour?” I nodded agreement before draining the last of my coffee.

It took me ten minutes to get back home. I took a quick shower and put on some fresh clothes. I decided on some jeans, hiking boots, and a silly shirt with dancing skeletons. Considering my [Bone Spear] skill I found it ironically funny. Mara would probably get a laugh from it as well. We had the same stupid sense of humor. Before leaving the house, possibly for the last time, I grabbed an old leather jacket that I hadn’t worn since my more edgy days in high school. Thankfully it still fit pretty well. Despite the heat, I was hoping it would provide me with a little extra protection. It only hit me as I walked out the front door and into the sun that I had picked an entirely black ensemble. Apparently I planned on melting. Whatever.

I drove back to Mara’s and walked through her door after a cursory knock ten minutes early. She called out from the back of the house and I followed her voice into the kitchen.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Just wanted to bring some supplies with us. Did you bring any water or anything back with you?” Mara asked, head still buried in the fridge.

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I blushed in my embarrassment. It really did seem like a simple but smart move. So, of course I didn’t think of it. When did Mara go from nerdy excitement to determined pragmatist?

Mara looked up from the fridge at me and laughed. “Ok Morticia. Nice shirt by the way. Water? Food?” Her eyebrow rose. The red crawling up my neck was all the answer she needed. She laughed at me again, “Go back home, grab what water and food you can carry. Put them in a bag and come back. Hurry now, we don’t have all day.” She ushered me out of the kitchen.

Thirty minutes later I came slinking back into Mara’s house. I had an old backpack filled with bottled water, granola bars, Little Debbie, and Hostess. Admittedly more heavy on the snack cakes than the granola bars. I was a woman of taste after all.

Mara was not alone this time though. I heard more than one voice coming from the kitchen and I froze. I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone sounded friendly enough. I placed my backpack on the floor and crept back toward her kitchen.

Just to be on the right side of caution, I concentrated on my [Bone Spear] skill which allowed me to summon a large spear of polished bone into my hand. It was about half a foot or more taller than I was, so close to six feet tall. It was a single piece of bone, so I couldn’t even imagine what kind of animal it could have come from. There was a rounded head on the bottom of the spear similar to what you’d find at a joint for any normal bone. The other end had been smoothly ground down, shaped, and sharpened into a delicate leaf shaped spear tip. It started out wider than the spear shaft, probably as wide as my palm before narrowing down to a sharp point. I knew there was a more scientific name for the ends of bone from my anatomy classes I’d had to take…but that wasn’t really important to my spear was it?

I readied myself and stepped into the kitchen door with my spear first, ready for anything. Well, ready for almost anything. I was definitely not ready for what I actually found. Some of Mara’s newer party members from her D&D group she played with were lounging around against the counters sharing some coffee.

I felt my face heat up as all three people in the kitchen turned to look at me. Mara had a giant smirk on her face. She was never going to let me live this down. I just knew it.

“And this is my friend Grace coming to threaten us with her spear and dressed like an old goth, that I was talking about.” The two men leaning on the counter next to her waved like this wasn’t the strangest thing to happen to them today. “Grace, this is John and his husband Oliver. You might remember them from D&D night. Maybe not, they’re pretty new to the table.”

John was tall, but rail thin. He had a short, neat beard and an easy smile. There was an obvious twinkle in his eyes as he tried not to laugh at me. He had on a pair of short jean shorts that seemed even shorter because of how long his extremely hairy legs were.

Oliver was nearly his complete opposite. He wasn’t short per say, but he looked it next to his husband. I’m sure he had to be on tiptoes to reach his husband. He was twice as wide as John though. And it was all muscle. His bulging arms barely fit through the sleeves of his dark blue scrubs.

I waved back while I smiled embarrassedly, “Hi.”

“Great. Now we almost have a complete party,” Mara bounced in place, spilling coffee over the rim.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Our party. So we can go search for more portals for the county.” She looked at me like the ‘duh’ was implied.

“No, I agreed to go out with you to look for portals. I didn’t agree to joining a party. I don’t even know these dudes.” I turned to them, “No offense, I’m sure y’all are great.”

“They are!” Mara insisted. “John has a skill that really ups his defense so he can take a hit, and return it. And Oliver. Oliver has a healing ability!”

For the life of me I would not have pegged Oliver as the healer and John as the tank. But considering the scrubs it began to make a little more sense. I assumed Oliver had some kind of job in the healthcare field to get a healing ability out of the gate. Not sure what John did, not that it mattered much.

John stepped forward to demonstrate his ability without being asked. I watched as a thin sheet of liquid metal poured out from beneath his clothes and coated his entire body. Including his eyes.

“Can he still see?” I asked.

“Yeah,” John answered. “I don’t know how, but it’s pretty cool. It’s called [Metal Skin]. Take a swing at me.” He sounded almost giddy.

“Ummm. Ok…” I gently poked him with my spear tip. There was a light tinging sound.

John laughed and gestured to himself, “Really hit me. I promise I can take it. And if I can’t, Ollie can heal me up.”

I sighed and resigned myself to it. But I didn’t want to really hurt him…or my spear. So I swung the butt of the spear into his side like a baseball bat instead of using the thinner blade. There was a loud ringing sound and my spear practically vibrated out of my hands it had rebounded so hard. For his part, John had stumbled a little to the side from the force of the blow, but seemed none the worse for wear as he smiled down at me.

“That’s more like it! See, nothing to it. I am a certified tank.” He whooped and went to high-five Oliver. Oliver just shook his head and refused until John absorbed the metal off his hand sheepishly. It looked like he might have already had an unpleasant experience with that before.

“We’re just waiting on one more person,” Mara said as she drew closer.

“What? Come on. I just wanted to do this because you pressured me into being a good person. Now you’re making me do things with…” I bent down to her ear to whisper, “People.” I shuddered.

Mara just laughed and clapped me on the back. “Listen, I should probably warn you before she gets here–”

“Before who gets here? Mara?” I demanded.

“Well–” Mara started to hedge.

She was interrupted again by the most beautiful, happiest voice I had ever heard in my life calling out a greeting. I turned angry, shocked eyes to Mara. “No.” I shook my head wildly like it would change who was about to come through that door.

“Sorry,” Mara whispered.

“Oh! There you guys are. Hi Mara. Hi John and Oliver.” Her voice dipped down, “Hi Grace.”

I turned around to see the bright, smiling face of one of the most annoying people I had ever known in my life. She was blonde, because of course. And it was natural too. She had a tight, toned body with just enough curves to be feminine. Her crop top exposed her hard abs, because of course she worked out and taught yoga. She might have even come from one of her classes because she was wearing yoga pants that almost certainly flaunted her tight ass.

Not that I cared about any of that. She was just so upbeat, and sunny, and happy all the time. It was weird and it made me uncomfortable.

Not that I would ever admit it to anyone, but she was another reason I stopped playing games with Mara. She’d been Mara’s gaming friend before I ever met her, so she was always around. And she always just had to sit next to me. And talk to me. And couldn’t a girl just brood in peace away from all the sunshine and unicorns?

My eyes finally lifted up and up to meet her eyes, she was several inches taller than me. I hoped she hadn’t caught me staring at her stomach. She was smiling so brightly at me so I couldn’t tell. “Hi, Ashley,” I huffed.