LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 9 (Patreon)

She explained what she’d seen and everyone broke for a second to check their Attributes for similar hidden complications. It turned out that Will had a similar stat penalty because he was asthmatic, but the System had compensated him by ‘controlling’ his condition.

“I have been breathing really well since we got here,” Will allowed as he took deep, experimental breaths. “I wish I had a spirometer here to tell for sure. If this shit really cured or controlled my asthma, I could forgive an awful lot of what it's done to us so far.”

“It sounds like the Attributes have more to do with our physical condition than our Class, then,” Randall decided. He hopped out of his squat and started to pace as he thought out loud. “Will got the Endurance penalty for asthma, what’s affecting Mira?” He stopped and froze like he’d immediately thought better of having said that out loud.

He looked sloooowly sideways at her and added a fast, “Nevermind!” to the end of his statement, not in a passive-aggressive way but in the manner of someone who just realized there was a really obvious answer to his question and that maybe he shouldn’t have said the silent part out loud.

“What I’m hearing is; we put the spellcasters down for a nap before we try to go out. We should also turn our pockets out to see if we can manage a snack when they wake up,” Alan said as he clambered to his feet.

Mira thought of the groceries in her pack and started unloading it. “We don’t have to wait. I have some supplies. I was at Harvest + Co before I was grabbed for the Dungeon.”

To be clear, she didn’t give them everything. She’d played enough MMOs to know that you always keep back an emergency supply of consumables, even when you’re playing with a good team. She put out half the box of protein and granola bars, six of the fruit waters, the cut fruit and veggie tray, one box of crispbreads, a jar of peanut butter, hummus, and all the deli meat since that would probably go bad first.

Predictably, all the boys were hungry. Mira sat and watched as they took some food, but she wasn’t really paying attention to what they were doing until an open-faced sandwich appeared in front of her. It was one of the sourdough crispbreads with a pile of shaved turkey, radishes, microgreens, and thin-sliced apples on top of a generous spread of hummus. Bryn was holding out a protein bar in his other hand.

“These are for you,” he said, still kind of quiet, as he offered both to her.

“Oh!” Mira blushed. She kept forgetting what she looked like now even after Randall’s slip up. “Sorry, I never said anything, but I ate before we all met up. I probably just need to sleep now.”

“You can take your time with it,” Bryn insisted, still holding out the food. “There’s no rush.”

“I…”

Cece's hand covered Mira’s at her side, just out of sight, and the girl leaned over to whisper to her, “It’s okay. He’s right, you can take your time with it. We don’t know when we’ll be able to stop again once we leave here and no one’s watching.”

‘Your mother isn’t here’ was what she’d implied.

Mira accepted the food with her ears burning. “I promise, I really don’t have disordered eating,” she told Bryn, a little offended on her host’s behalf and pitching her voice low, “...but thank you.”

“You’ve still got a BMI of what? 14?” he asked, but still didn’t sound mean about it or judgemental. “You gotta treat it the same way. Eat what you can, when you can; whatever calories you can manage.”

Her BMI was fifteen, thank you, but even Mira knew that defense wasn’t going to fly. She’d have a long haul, getting her body back into a good state of health. At least this was better than the seizures. She couldn’t diet her way out of those and the spell inscription had only been able to do so much. She’d suffered from periodic episodes for the rest of her life as Violet Coventry. At least this was something she could fix, given time.

To make matters worse, the sandwich was really good. Mira had never thought to use hummus as a spread, but it worked well on the dry crispbread. Her appetite woke up about halfway through her sandwich and she ended up eating both the protein bar and some more fruit before her stomach started to give her warning signs. She’d hoped that the ‘stamina points’ thing might have reset her stomach’s hunger signals, but apparently not. She’d have to be careful about making sure she was eating enough. Maybe Bryn was onto something.

She inspected it, out of curiosity.

[Skillfully Prepared Sandwich: this one-handed meal meal, carefully prepared by a skilled Cook, is both nutritious and delicious. Eating this will restore additional stamina over a normal sandwich.]

Her SP was back up to 90 when she checked and so she went to refill her empty bottle of lemon water (which she’d kept in hopes of this exact opportunity) before she retired to lay down on one of the mattresses.

She did not expect to do more than cat nap and grumpily miss her husband/living hot water bottle, but it was like her body flipped the ‘off’ switch as soon as she laid down and she was out.

Mira woke slowly, by degrees. The first thing she noticed was that her feet and back were cold. There was something over her shoulders, but it wasn’t Adra in any shape or form. Rude. (Her separation anxiety had failed to fuck off.) Thirdly, she could smell juniper and ambergris from the thing covering her; two common elements in men’s cologne, but not one she recognized aside from ‘it’s not Axe.’

When she opened her eyes, she could see Cece’s sleeping face in front of her. She’d laid down so that she and Mira were facing each other with their hands tucked into the warm valley between their bodies. Cece was laying under Bran’s black hoodie jacket and Mira was under (she paused to check) Alan’s navy blue track jacket. That explained the cologne. She’d noticed his sneakers were Balenciagas, earlier. Will was asleep on his back on the second mattress, which had been pulled over closer to the one Mira was sharing with Cece. He had his hands tucked into his armpits, even in his sleep.

She hadn’t remembered it being that cold in the Safe Room when she laid down, but she found the culprit when she put a hand down on the concrete floor. The ambient air temperature wasn’t too bad, but the floor was cold to the touch and it looked like the mattresses weren’t enough insulation to keep the ground from leeching the heat out of their bodies.

It looked like these rooms were safe, but not meant to be comfortable. Mira was better rested, but her body was sore and her head hurt a little bit. Alan’s jacket flopped into her lap as she sat up and stretched. Cece and Will didn’t budge.

“I was right about nap time, huh?” Alan said as he came over to drop into a squat next to the puppy pile of magic users that Mira seemed to have collected in her sleep. “We have another three hours in the Safe Room and I’m gonna switch out with you to catch a few winks. The rest of us have been trading off naps so that everyone is rested when we go.”

When Mira checked, she saw that Andrei was asleep on the remaining mattress, while Bryn sat leaning against an interior wall keeping an eye on everyone else, but also on the only outside window that was in the wall opposite him. Randall was standing with him.

She wondered for a second why none of the boys had doubled up, but then realized that only she and Cece were petite enough to comfortably share. They’d both ended up on the small side in this life. She knew Cece was little so that the author could get weird about it in the character descriptions from the Magnates’ perspective, but she didn’t know what their excuse was for making Samira so short. Villainesses were supposed to be tall so they could look down on the heroine without having to stand on something!

When Alan laid down, he aimed for the space between Will and Cece where the mattresses touched and it was still looking pretty close. He laid down with his back to Cece and stuffed his hands into his pockets before closing his eyes.

Mira went over to check in on Bran. “Hey, Alan said we were taking shifts to sleep. Have you had a chance to nap?”

Bryn nodded. “I took the first shift after you and the others laid down. How is your SP now?”

“Back to full,” Mira reported. She glanced up at the tall, narrow window set in the wall opposite from where Bryn had been sitting, watching it. “Have you seen anything out there?”

“I saw some tall shapes moving past,” he said, not looking away. “They didn’t look like people. The window’s opaque so we can’t see out very well, but they shouldn’t be able to see in at all unless they get right up to the glass and so far nothing has gotten that close. We also heard some howling at a distance; like dogs, but also not like dogs.”

‘Like dogs’ was bad news. Mira hated pack hunters. They were always smart and strategic thinkers. She looked at Randall. “What about you, did you sleep?”

“For a little bit,’ Randall admitted. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his weight on one leg as he leaned back against the wall. “I couldn’t get down so I told Will he could have both my shift and his. He’s another spellcaster so he needs to be fresh until we know more about your class stamina regeneration limits.”

He paused for a second and ducked his head as he shot a remorseful look at Mira. “Uh, sorry about earlier. I was thinking out loud and my mouth ran off without my brain.”

Mira waved it off. “Don’t worry about that,” she told him. “Do you have any thoughts about what we want to do once we leave here?”

Randall thought about it. “Well, ideally, I’d like to hit up that Screamwood Grove you found and see if we can pack away some loot while we’re in here. The System made a big deal about us protecting our world, but it keeps on bringing up economic benefits for us. It’s talked about the rewards we could get way more than it mentioned the threat to our homes. Maybe it’s trying to incentivize us to do the smart thing, but just going by the way information gets doled out differently between us, I’m going to take that as a hint that we’re going to need money if we want to survive whatever the hell this is. Will already hit a nasty paywall when he was trying to find new spells for his grimoire in the Shop. I bet it’ll be the same for us if we want to add skills and equipment.”

“It’ll be the most dangerous when we open the door,” Mira guessed. If they were talking game logic, there was also a chance that they’d need the elemental resistances of the Screamwood for some encounter later. “Choke points and transitional areas aside, we don’t know if the things outside know about the Safe Room or if it’s in use. We’ve been keeping pretty quiet, but what if they also have ‘Identify’? There could be an ambush waiting for us outside.”

Randall cocked an eyebrow when she said the words ‘choke points and transitional areas’, but didn’t comment on that. “Assuming the Safe Room doesn’t boot us out into the yard as soon as we crack the door, I was thinking we could wait inside for a second to see if anything attacks. After that, Bryn will lead with his shield up. Andrei and I will follow to make a clear space for you casters and Alan will bring up the rear to stab anything that breaks through before you or Will can fry it. Then we head in the direction of the Screamwood Grove, so long as it’s not obviously crawling with enemies we can’t handle yet.”

There was only really one way to find out what kind of monsters they could handle. The good news was that this group probably wouldn’t have any issues. They had depths even they didn’t know about yet.

“I have a question for you, though,” Randall turned towards her. “Have you tried to summon your familiar?”