PICTURE STORY! 🎨📜🎪 [ TADC ] Fun Teambuilding Adventure! (non-preg) (Patreon)

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~4200 words / 16 pages / illustrated / color-coded quotes⚠️no pregnancy content!⚠️

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📢 Find Fun Team Building Adventure II: Tied Together here.🎪 You can find several more TADC stories here.

BEGINNING PREVIEW:

The inside of the small tent was so poorly rendered that this whole adventure felt like a poor excuse. For what, Jax didn’t know. Maybe because that coo-coo dental freak wanted to study them. Or maybe to even torture them for his own sick pleasure. Or—the worst possibility of them all—because he wanted the jester and him to get along again.

Having a third party involved in this, trying to force him into a certain emotional resolve, was worse than anything Jax could imagine.

But even if this was the case… Pomni wasn’t dumb. She understood things quicker than most of the menagerie. And even though it was disgustingly uncomfortable, she seemed to understand Jax. At least… somewhat. From her actions (or lack thereof), he could tell that she respected his unspoken plea for distance. And knowing her, she wouldn’t be thrilled about foreign involvement in their dispute, either.

So maybe things would be fine.

He looked at her, sitting on her sleeping bag next to him, her avatar skin now camping-themed; with her wearing a red-blue lumberjack shirt, big hiking boots, while still wearing her harlequin cap. She was bent forward, more towards the dim light of the storm lantern, with a hunter knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other, carving a spoon.

She looked cool like this. And cute.

S██t.

Maybe things would not be fine. 

He needed to get out of here.

Without thinking, he got up and opened the tent. 

Her eyes followed him, but she didn’t object. Good. Keeping her distance.

When he stepped out into the artificial night and outside the soft glowing boundary around the tent, he was harshly reminded of why he was stuck in that goddamn tent in the first place; the graphics around him distorted, an eerie grey noise rushed through his ears, and the poorly cut-out PNG graphic of a giant-headed monster clipped through the trees in front of him, approaching him at disgustingly uncanny speed.

Just before it could hit him, he stepped back into the glowing circle, which immediately stopped the auditive and optical noise, leaving the PNG pressed against the borders of the area, slowly drifting to the side. 

“F██k you,” he said, exhausted and mildly inconvenienced, as he looked at it. Despite its deep-fried graphics, it looked rather creepy. Due to the lack of any actual animations it just silently glided around the limit, facing him.

It looked a bit like one of the smaller titans from Attack on Titan. Maybe it was even one. 

“Man. I miss that show,” Jax said to himself while he was contemplating stepping into the monster to end this stupid adventure prematurely. 

But maybe it would not lead to a game over. Maybe it would lead to something worse.

He looked back at the shabby 3D tent that looked like somebody’s first attempt at Blender. Then back at the shabby enemy, who looked even worse. Then back at the tent.

He moaned and returned back inside.

Pomni didn’t even lift her head when he came in. She was focused on her spoon, which now looked rather impressive. It had more polygons than most assets around them by now.

“Why the hell are you doing this, anyway?” he asked.

She stopped carving.

“Oh, we’re talking again, are we?” She answered after a brief pause, still without looking at him. 

It sounded… strange. Not as cold as her words made it out to be. However, it also conveyed a sense of assertiveness. 

As if she didn't need to rely on his attention. More like a teacher scolding her student. 

It sent a cold shiver down his spine.

In an attempt to physically get rid of this sensation, he shook his entire body. What was wrong with him?

This was all a game. Not just the circus… not just the adventure. Their interaction, too. And he wouldn’t let her win. Or at least, he wouldn’t allow himself to feel as if he had lost.

“Owww, did I hit a nerve? Did wittle Pompom want to talk to Jaxy the whowe time but not get what she wanted?”

He knew he had gone too far when she turned her head towards him.

Initially, he had noticed the hurt—that’s what he always saw first. After all, that was his most valuable tool in interpersonal exchanges. His currency. It let him know whether someone really cared or whether he was successful in pushing others away, reminding him of his true nature and his worth. It was his need, too; For deep down he knew he had never deserved to be looked at any other way. Hurt was honest. Smiles were not.

But then he saw that there was more. And this ‘more’ was way bigger than the hurt.

Anger.

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